Sonny Sumo is a noble warrior!

I don't think I'll be able to keep up a daily schedule at this time, but here's another astounding Fourth World panel, from Forever People #5:



I was going to go with a different one, since I included something similar in the last post, but this was truly my favorite panel in the issue, in which Kirby shows Desaad absorbing the fear and pain of his Happyland captives. The way the faces are recognizably human, but distorted in agony and melted together is like something out of Dante. Wow. But while I'm at it, here's another panel I liked:



I love their slogans, like they've been at a pep rally beforehand.

Also notable this issue: the introduction of Sonny Sumo, a wrestler who fights a giant robot named Sagutai, another super-cool Kirbytech creation, in an audition for a fight promoter. Sonny is a pretty cool character, and Kirby does a great job of throwing him into the story and making him fit, even though he's a human dealing with gods. I also love the introductory caption:

"Sonny Sumo is the mystic type of a vanishing breed--the noble warrior! In medieval Japan, he'd have been an honored samurai! In ancient Rome, a gladiatorial Spartacus! At the mercy of today's world, when nobility is a twisted credo and the warrior is a commercial enterprise, Sonny Sumo struggles to hold fast to an enigma which seems to make his life meaningful!!"

The part that gets me is the bit about the modern world. I think part of what Kirby was doing with the Fourth World saga was working out some feelings about the state of the world in the late 60s and early 70s. It was the Vietnam era, and there had to have been a fresh mistrust of the government, the military, and those in positions of power (I hope I don't misinterpret anything about the times, but it was a good decade before I was even born). In the comics, this is expanded to a cosmic level, in which literal gods are fighting battles and using helpless humans as pawns. And that bit about twisted nobility and commercial warriors seems to reflect a mistrust of anybody whom we might look up to, and a longing for a pure hero. Hey, that's what superhero comics are all about, right? And nobody did them better than Kirby.

Finally, I want to share a great bit of hyperbole in the issue-ending caption/teaser:

"What happens next will astound you! By George, it astounded even me! And I, Jack Kirby, am much closer to this saga than you are, reader! There's been nothing in comics that's equalled its like!! I've seen it--and I'm still shaking! Now you see it! Here it comes!--In the next issue!! THE OMEGA EFFECT!"

I love it. I'm resisting the urge to flip forward to that issue and read it right away. Kirby! He's awesome!
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In personal news, I'm pretty busy with baby stuff (thanks for all the well-wishes, by the way; seeing that from so many people that I've never even met in person really meant a lot), so blogging will probably be pretty sporadic. But I'll probably get back to something of a regular schedule once life resumes its semi-normal flow. I know I have to write something about the first volume of Phoenix, which I just finished reading today. I burned through the second half of that book in no time; it was a "can't-put-down-er". So watch for that. Soon!

Oh yeah: thanks to Martin Kretschmer for the new, baby-themed blog logo! It's pink, so it matches both my daughter's sex and my manga-reading tendencies!

This week, I'm too busy to worry about comics

And here's the reason why:



That's right, call me Matthew Brady, proud papa! My wife and I delivered our daughter, Magnolia Rose Brady, at 12:04 on March 3rd (my wife did most of the work though). She came a bit early, but she's very healthy, and although I'm biased, I think she's the most beautiful baby ever. I mean, come on, look at her:



You better not disagree with me!

So that's why I haven't been posting the last few days. I'll go ahead and do the look at the week's comics, but it'll be a quick one, so don't expect much in the way of insight or anything. Also: I did a collaborative review of Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 #3 with Martijn Form at Comics Bulletin, so there's something to read if you've been missing me.

New comics this week (Wednesday, 3/5/08):

Dark Tower Long Road Home #1

Stephen King mini #2. I'll wait for trade.

Logan #1

Brian K. Vaughan! Eduardo Risso! More Wolverine? Don't let me down!

Justice League New Frontier Special

Darwyn Cooke DVD tie-in. Maybe?

Northlanders #4

Emo vikings (amusing term).

Young Liars #1

David Lapham (meh). Maybe try if good?

Boys #16

Ennis. Superhero debauchery. Usually good.

Casanova #12

Awesomeness.

Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales #6

"After the Seige". Hope it's good.

Dead Space #1

Ben Templesmith. Antony Johnston. Video game tie-in. Hope it's good?

Pax Romana #2

Time travel shenanigans. Jonathan Hickman! I dig it.

Zombies vs. Robots. Vs. Amazons #3

Ashley Wood! Otherwise, so-so. Get better!

Fables 1001 Nights of Snowfall SC

Beautiful art. Good stories. Cheaper format!

Goon Fancy Pants HC vol. 2

Dr. Alloy! Nice (expensive) volume.

Hazed

Sorority girls. Bulimia comedy. Robbi Rodriguez! Might be good.

Kirby King of the Comics HC

Biography of awesomeness! Mark Evanier. I should read it.

MPD Psycho vol. 4

Murder! Gore! Pretty good, so far.
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That's it, for now. I'll have more content soon, I hope. We'll see.

"The dialogue is terrible! But they mean every word of it!"

Today's Fourth World panel, from Mister Miracle #4, is from one of Big Barda's first fight scenes:



Awesome. It's like that guy's face is exploding. This continuation of the story from the previous issue sees Barda helping Scott escape from Doctor Bedlam's trap, in which an entire 50-story building full of people were dosed with the "Paranoid Pill", which turned them into crazed murderers. Hey, why not? In an amusing bit, some guys are shooting a movie featuring a medieval torture scene, and Kirby indulges in what seems to be some self-critique:



I don't know if it was a criticism back then, but these days I often hear people say Kirby's dialogue was awful. I don't agree, but this is a great way to look at it. It's sincere; these characters fit right into his crazy world, and they believe every word they are saying.

Finally, I want to spotlight this awesome panel, full of the same type monstrous visions from the previous issue:



Yikes! It really seems like Kirby was just coming up with a lot of this stuff of the top of his head, and panels like this seem to confirm it. When he needed an image of horrific nightmare monsters, I wouldn't be surprised if he just put his pencil down and let the pictures flow right onto the page. At the risk of sounding monotonous, I have to say this is awesome.

"Hernia!" "Go sit on the Chicago Bears!"

Today's Fourth World panel(s), from Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #141, are all about the comedy. What else do you expect, with Don Rickles as the guest star:



Really, the comedy sidelines the rest of the action and plot here. Sure, we get to see Clark Kent do a flyby of Apokolips, and the Guardian slugs it out with some Intergang punks (I was tempted to scan an awesome double face-kick with a cool "SPOW!" sound effect), but the best parts are the funny stuff. I love Kirby's dialogue, and he comes up with some great lines for Rickles. Here's another one:



I don't know what Rickles' fans at the time (or Rickles himself, for that matter) thought of this, but I find it hilarious. Okay, more awesomeness tomorrow.
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Oh, and I've also got a review of a book called Kate Lawson and the Ship of Lost Souls up over at Comics Bulletin, so there's something else to read if you can't get enough of my yammering.

Monster: Don't trust the blond kid

Hey, another review! In the midst of Kirby celebrations! Just call me Mr. Prolific!

Monster, volume 6
By Naoki Urasawa



Lots of goodness in this volume of the series. It concludes the cliffhanger at the end of volume 5, adding to the ongoing contest between Dr. Tenma and Inspector Lunge, and ending with a nicely chilling picture of Lunge's intense drive to capture Tenma:



Then we get a few chapters following Tenma's ex-fiancee, Eva, who has fallen into drunkenness, finally hitting rock bottom when she passes out on the street, gets robbed, and is thrown in jail for the night. The last time we saw her, she had barged into Lunge's office and offered to help capture Tenma. We never saw what happened after that (at least not yet), but he must have turned her down, letting her spiral down into despair and self-pity. It's a pretty pathetic picture, as we see her do things like steal alcohol from a homeless guy or smoke a cigarette butt that she finds on the ground:



Things seem to look up when a seemingly nice guy helps her out, but we know he's going to be trouble when we don't get to see his face for the first few pages after he appears. Sure enough, he turns out to be the creepy thug from volume 5 who is somehow connected to Johan, tailing her to find out what she knows. This leads to a confrontation with Tenma; a tense scene involving Eva, Tenma's ward Deiter, and the creepy guy; and more confused emotions about her relationship with Tenma including a firmer resolve to take him down. It's masterfully done and perfectly paced. Just check out this page for an example:



I also love Urasawa's depictions of Eva; she's always so bitter and hardened, it's especially effective to see the facade crack when she remembers Tenma:



There's also a flashback sequence in which she tells about seeing Johan (in a different view of Tenma's first encounter with Johan as an adult, the climax of volume 1), and it's heartbreaking to see her fall apart soon after losing Tenma. She hadn't become quite as hardened at that point, so we still see more actual emotion show through:



That's some nice, subtle character development, done almost entirely through facial expressions.

And that's just the first half of the book! The second half jumps to a new location (I love the way Urasawa abruptly plops readers into stories in a new location, featuring previously-unseen characters, and then lets us get caught up as the story plays out), a university in Munich, where some students investigate an old man who is rumored to control Germany's financial markets. One of the students is the man's illegitimate son, and he just wants to find out about his father, but they end up caught up in some intrigue involving Johan, who actually makes some extended on-panel appearances. Urasawa has built up the legend of Johan for so many volumes, it's a real event when he finally shows up to play a part in the story. And he's creepy as hell, especially since (and I know this isn't exactly a blazing innovation or anything) he seems like a nice, friendly guy. In one memorable chapter-opening image, he is even seen surrounded by children:



All our prior knowledge about his actions just makes the blood run cold when you see a seen like that.

The whole plot about the old man and his son doesn't finish in this volume, making for another cliffhanger that will certainly draw me right to the bookstore for the next volume. Urasawa can really put together an intriguing story; I can't wait to see how it plays out.

But he's also amazing with the visuals, like always. One technique of his that I noticed in this volume is a bit of an extension of something I talked about in the last volume: the way he extends page-ending panels to the edges of the page, as if to make the scene seem to continue right off the page. I noticed that he also extends other panels to the edges, sometimes at the top or bottom of the page. He often does this in panels that contain a lot of background detail, as if to make the scene seem to continue past the edges of the page:



He also extends some panels containing exciting or emotional moments in this way, which makes them seem "bigger":



But he's not showy or overly flashy with these techniques. He's just a solid storyteller, putting together an exciting tale for us. It's amazing to watch, and incredibly enthralling. I can't wait to find out what happens next.

"Ride the tempest, Seagrin! Enter the cosmic fire!"

Oh, man, I'm hooked on Kirby again already. Here's today's Fourth World panel, from New Gods #4:



I love the way the vision rushes through the characters' faces here, and even though it's a terrestrial cityscape, the plunging perspective makes it look bizarre and alien. Also in this issue: Kirbytech!



Idiosyncratic dialogue!



I love that stuff. "My wife makes me carry an umbrella in case it rains!" "Things that would scare John Wayne!" And Kirby has so many different flavors of his crazy talking, like this issue's gangsters with their Jimmy Cagney-like lines: "Yer gettin' it, country boy! In another second, that dum dum'll get paid off for thinkin' too hard!" Then there's Darkseid, who pops up to look menacing and say things like, "Oh, how heroes love to flaunt their nobility in the face of death! Yet they know better than most that war is but the cold game of the butcher!" And finally, there's Orion's sendoff to his fallen New God:



Beautiful. It's another excellent issue, from Metron's tour of a young, prehistoric world, to a Black Racer flyby, to a crazy underwater cliffhanger. My only complaint would be the habit Orion's sidekicks have of restating their full names once an issue, as if they're trying to make us remember that they're still in the story alongside the cool, colorful characters. I hope Kirby doesn't keep that up for much longer. But he can keep up the explosions, cool sound effects (PWOW! BAROOM! RRRRSSSKK!), and cosmic ideas forever. He will in my head, anyway.

Darkseid has the "common touch"!

Since I'm reading the second volume of the super-awesome Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, it's time for another round of daily Fourth World panels! I did this last year when I read the first volume, taking one panel (or occasionally more) to highlight from each issue in the book. Here's a good example, and you can click the "Fourth World panels" link at the bottom of this post to see all of them.

So, to start off this volume, here's today's panel, from Forever People #4, chosen because I love the awesomely wacky artwork:



That's not even the highlight of the issue for me. The story sees the team captured and imprisoned by Desaad in his "Happyland" theme park. It's a genius idea by Kirby, with the heroes trapped in some form of torture in full view of the parkgoers, but "scrambled" to look like part of the attractions. Here's a favorite, featuring Beautiful Dreamer:



That's some pretty horrific stuff. And then there's an incredible scene, in which Darkseid visits to check up on Desaad and then goes out for a walk among the humans. They think he's just a guy in a costume, except for a little girl, who finds him scary. She gets shushed by her father, and here's Darkseid's response:



Damn, that's an awesome, freaky scene. Darkseid's maniacal laugh is enough to make anybody's blood run cold.
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Okay, more tomorrow! And maybe even a review of some sort!

Kirby: King of page layouts

In preparation for another month-long look at Jack Kirby's awesomeness (I just started reading the second volume of the Fourth World Omnibus, so watch for more about that tonight), here's a quick thing I noticed while reading Charles Hatfield's entry about Fantastic Four: The Lost Adventure on the Thought Balloonists. He offered a sample page from the comic (Kirby's version of FF #102) in comparison to a page of Brian Hitch art from FF #554:



Just looking at that page, I noticed the simple techniques Kirby uses to guide the eye across the page as it's being read. Here's a diagram I threw together to demonstrate (I apologize for my rough mouse-based artistic skills):



I love how perfectly natural it becomes to follow these elements across the page, and using these subtle indicators to point out the important parts of the artwork, like Janus's expression in panel four or the gun in the the final panel. And this was Kirby working at his most "tepid [and] unadventurous", as Hatfield describes it. That sort of artistic skill was instinctual to him; he was a true master.
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Okay, that's a quick bit for now. Hopefully, I'll get to more Kirby stuff tonight. In the meantime, feel free to check out my contribution to Comics Bulletin's "slugfest" of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.'s Kick-Ass #1, which comes out today. Also, I did a review of the Fablewood anthology from Ape Entertainment. Later!