DAN SPIEGLE: A LIFE IN COMIC ART by Coates

DAN SPIEGLE: A LIFE IN COMIC ART is a recent book by John Coates about the now 93-year-old artist whose career stretches back to a long stint on the Hopalong Cassidy comic strip from 1949-1955, followed by a long stretch as one of the main adventure artists for Western Publishing until the 1980s, working on many film adaptations, Tarzan stories and his co-creation SPACE FAMILY ROBINSON. I'm mostly familiar with his work from the 1980s, where he drew long runs on BLACKHAWK and CROSSFIRE (both with Mark Evanier) and the "Nemesis" backup feature in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD (with Cary Burkett). While he hasn't been as active in mainstream comics since the early 1990s, he has stayed busy with several projects (a lot of which I didn't know about until I read this book), as well as doing commissions for fans (his art agent's site is here).

The bulk of the text of this book is a recent long interview of Spiegle by Coates (plus a reprint of an earlier short 1972 interview by Dan Gheno), which provides a timeline for the illustrations.  There are some great recent drawings in the beginning where he provides the layout for the chicken farm his family owned in 1930 and the pharmacy his father opened in 1934. Those show a great flair for realism and establishing an accurate sense of place that served him well in the type of comics he'd draw. There's nothing too deep in the interview, a few amusing anecdotes but mostly just Spiegle doing a professional job, sometimes on scripts he wasn't that enthusiastic about.

It was good to see a lot of examples of his pre-1980s work, which I'm only slightly familiar with. It would be great to see some sort of reprint of some of the best of those (as far as I know the only real reprint has been some over-priced books of SPACE FAMILY ROBINSON stories, which I hope Spiegle is getting something for, although he didn't even know they existed until Coates mentioned them). I'll definitely need to get a few more samples of that stuff. It was also interesting to see bits of his more recent work, including a TERRRY AND THE PIRATES strip and a western story published in a 2011 book that I didn't know about.

In addition to the interview, the book also has a few short essays by Spiegle, his wife Marie and their children, which gives a nice peek as the part of his life off the page, pieces by Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragones about how they went from fans of his work, without knowing his name, to friends and colleagues.

There's also a good selection of his recent work on commissions for fans, featuring samples from all the big highlights of his career. I especially like a few of the Blackhawk pieces.

Overall a very enjoyable book, although unfortunately far too short to really give more than an overview of a career as vast as Spiegle's. I know it's given me a few books I have to dig up.

RAGEMOOR by Strnad & Corben

RAGEMOOR collects a four issue 2012 series by Richard Corben and Jan Strnad. It's Loveraftian horror, and sometimes I'm kind of tired of comics going to the Lovecraft well too often, but few do it as effectively as Corben. There wasn't that much new in the writing, but it was an effective vehicle for some creepy Corben images. I'm not quite sold on the grey toning on the artwork, which seems to be an attempt to replicate on a computer what Corben used to do with an airbrush. I think I'd have preferred pure black and white.

SAGA v1 & v2 by Staples & Vaughan

SAGA VOLUME ONE and SAGA VOLUME TWO collectively reprint the first dozen issues of the currently on-gong series by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan.  I read the first issue when it came out and thought it was okay and figured I might check it out later, but was a bit surprised at how enthusiastic fans of the book seemed to be. Vaughan's usual trend always seemed to be that his books didn't live up to the promise of his first issues. Anyway, these two books are a nice and pleasant quick read. Staples artwork is definitely the highlight, with a lot of imaginative and distinctive designs and crystal clear storytelling. For the most part Vaughan holds up his bit, with a few stumbles (I especially don't like his tendency to do the big cliffhanger ending, often with a much less satisfying resolution, which probably works better reading the book serialized with a month between cliffhanger and resolution). The biggest problem is that his writing seems vast and expansive on the surface, but so far seems to be a mile wide but about an inch deep. It's quite possible that he's thought through a lot of his concepts and will reveal those things in time, but a dozen issues in and there's not much evidence of that, and given his history (including my regrettable and I'll admit somewhat inexplicable decision to watch every episode of UNDER THE DOME this past summer) I'm not sure I have faith in that. At this point the Staples art still makes it worth reading, and if I can get future volumes from the library or buy them for $5 digitally (both of which I ended up doing for these two) than I'll stick around.

MIND MGMT v1 - THE MANAGER by Kindt

MIND MGMT v1 - THE MANAGER collects the first 7 issues (1-6 & 0) of the currently on-going series by Matt Kindt. I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I'd read the first issue back when it came out, and wasn't really that taken with it. I liked the artwork, and the whole package was very well designed and stylish, but I don't think I got enough of the story. Fortunately the "#0" issue (made up of three short stories) was available free digitally, so I tried that and it made the series look much deeper and more interesting than I thought, so I figured I'd try it again with a bigger chunk. It still starts off a bit slow, but slightly more satisfying knowing the bits of backstory presented in the short stories, but by the third chapter it really picks up, once all the concepts are in place, and it's suddenly a fast moving and intriguing adventure.

The basic story here is that a writer named Meru is investigating a flight from several years ago where all the passengers and crew lost their memories. The trail leads her to similar occurrences, and eventually into a massive secret world of paranormal activity and conspiracies that she may have been involved in all along. I look forward to reading the future issues and seeing if any of this resolves in a satisfactory way (and sprawling stories of conspiracies and secret organizations do have a history of not paying off, which having LOST co-creator Damon Lindelof writing the introduction kind of underscores). I'll also have to try some of Kindt's other comics.

It's also one of the best designed books I've seen in a while, which is very nice compared to the cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all school that applies to most modern comic book collections. You get the feeling that every aspect here was carefully considered, and it doesn't look like any other book.

THE ROCKETEER: HOLLYWOOD HORROR by Langridge & Bone

THE ROCKETEER: HOLLYWOOD HORROR is a collection of a recent 4-issue series by Roger Langridge and J. Bone, continuing the adventures of the Dave Stevens created character. I thought Langridge did a decent enough job on the story, adding a few more pop culture references to the mix that Stevens started, but I'm really not sold on Bone's cartoony art style for the series. I don't expect or even want an artist on the series to slavishly copy Stevens' art style, but I think I'd prefer someone to at least be on the same side of McCloud's pyramid. Overall pretty unsatisfying, but to be fair I'm not sure I'm the market for non-Stevens Rocketeer stories. I did think the Walter Simonson covers were terrific, though.

CONAN - QUEEN OF THE BLACK COAST by Wood/Cloonan/Herren

CONAN - QUEEN OF THE BLACK COAST. [VOLUME 13] collects some of the recent comic book adventures of the Robert E. Howard barbarian, these ones by writer Brian Wood, with Becky Cloonan drawing the first half and James Harren drawing the rest. I'm a dabbler in the whole Conan thing, getting the urge to read something every few years, and this one looked interesting. Generally I like my Conan in the "John Buscema inked by Ernie Chan" school, so this artwork definitely took some getting used to. Cloonan was just growing on me by the time her story was over.  Still not sure it works completely, but I'd like to see her style on a more traditional Conan story (one not set mostly on boats, that is). Harren had more typical Conan stuff to illustrate, and did fine with it. I didn't care for Wood's writing as much. As I understand it, the first half is a pretty direct adaptation of the first part of the Howard story of the title, while the second half is an original story filling in the period before the end of the story, which will be adapted later (and which I'm pretty sure I've read in the Buscema/Chan version in a previous dabble into Conan, in Marvel's CONAN #100). That first half is okay, but unclear at points. The original half, that didn't really read like any Conan I'm familiar with. There's some weird and infeasible robbery and escape plan, and then some generally implausible plot twists. Not very satisfying at all. Hopefully my next foray into Conan (which will probably be the long-delayed, still unscheduled GROO/CONAN crossover) is more enjoyable.

SPUMCO COMIC BOOK by Various

SPUMCO COMIC BOOK collects some stories created for a 1990s anthology from animator John Kricfalusi and his studio. Kricfalusi is best known for the cartoon REN & STIMPY. I don't think I've ever sat through a complete one of those cartoons, so obviously I'm not the target market (so obviously this is a library one). For the most part I thought the stories were over-long for their simplistic plots, had too many gags that would have worked better animated (and even there would have been pretty cliché at this point) and just weirdly gross, but not in a good way. I think I might have genuinely laughed twice while reading the book, which is a pretty low success rate.  If you love REN & STIMPY or think characters like George Liquor and Jimmy The Idiot Boy are inherently funny than it'll probably work for you.

AUGUSTA WIND by DeMatteis & Gogtzilas

THE ADVENTURES OF AUGUSTA WIND collects a 5-issue series by J. M. DeMatteis and Vassilis Gogtzilas, the first storyline in what's planned to be a longer story about the title character. Dematteis has had a few go-rounds with the all-ages fantasy genre before, including ABADAZAD and IMAGINALIS, and if you liked those (and I did) you'll probably like this (which I also did). It's hard to describe quickly, so maybe it'll get a longer post later. Gogtzilas is a pretty interesting artist. I guess the quick shorthand way to describe his work in American comics terms would be Sam Kieth as inked by Bill Sienkiewicz, but there's a whole lot more going on. Not the easiest book to read, both the art and story require you to slow down and pay attention, but there's a lot there to reward you if you do.

MARCH - BOOK ONE by Lewis, Aydin & Powell

MARCH - BOOK ONE is the first part of a three-part autobiography of John Lewis, written with Andrew Aydin and drawn by Nate Powell. Lewis is a long-time member of the US congress, but long before that he was a leader in the civil rights movement. In this first book he lays the foundation for his future life with stories about growing up in Alabama and how he became aware of the wider world, the changes that were coming and the role he could play in them. This first book only brings his story up to 1960 and the desegregation of lunch counters in Nashville, with the iconic "march" of the title still years away and just shown briefly in the prologue. A great story so far, and effectively told, it seems to be doing well that I hope the later volumes follow quickly. Until then, I guess I could read Lewis' older, more traditional memoirs. And Nate Powell's other books look pretty interesting.

SUPERMAN VOLUME 1 - WHAT PRICE TOMORROW? by Perez&Co.

SUPERMAN VOLUME 1 - WHAT PRICE TOMORROW? collects the first six issues of the current SUPERMAN series, part of the publisher's "New 52" branded reboot of 2011.  This was the only one of the launch books I was really interested in, since it was written by George Perez who I'll always have a soft spot for. Mostly for his art, of course, which isn't seen much in here (just the covers and some breakdowns), but also some of his writing. It starts off pretty good, one of the more readable of the "New 52" things I've tried (my library's gotten a lot of them, most didn't leave much of an impression, a lot of them I stopped halfway through). Nothing spectacular, but solid single issue stories which build up a menace and also try to establish some of the new backstory. It all falls apart a bit in the second half, but you can't really blame that on Perez.  I didn't really follow all the behind-the-scenes stuff, but I gather he didn't feel he was getting to tell his story the way he wanted, and left the series after these issues to just draw. There's also some mild chaos with the art, with first-issue artist Jesus Merino only drawing three chapters, the other three drawn by Nicola Scott. Both are okay, I actually preferred Scott's work. She seems to come closest to making the ill-advised current version of the costume for Siegel and Shuster's creation work. I'll have to keep an eye out for her work on something else interesting in the future.

GODDAMN THIS WAR by Tardi

GODDAMN THIS WAR (PUTAIN DE GUERRE) is the latest translation of Jacques Tardi's work into English, this time a six chapter chronicle of World War I, one for each year from 1914 to 1919, from the perspective of a French foot soldier. It starts off a bit slow, but picks up quickly as all of the insanity and stupidity of war being to wear on the already cynical narrator. That's also seen in the art, which starts off with a lot of bright colours with the shiny new uniforms and green fields, but quickly shifts to more muted tones, with occasional use of brighter colours. Definitely worth reading, especially the last chapter, which breaks format and mostly just tells single panel stories about people caught in the war. A few bits of the script seemed off, like the comparison of backed up ambulances to "cabs in a New York traffic jam", which I'm not sure is a metaphor a French soldier in 1918 would make, but I might be wrong, and those are minor issues. Probably my favourite of the Tardi books I've read.  This edition also includes a long year-by-year chronology of the war by Jean-Pierre Verney, heavily illustrated with photographs, which I haven't read, but a quick glance at the photos is an interesting look at the research material Tardi would have had for his story, and I'm sure supply some welcome material for those interested in the background of the battles shown from the foot soldier's point of view in the comics.

ETHEL & ERNEST by Briggs

ETHEL & ERNEST: A TRUE STORY is a 1998 book by Raymond Briggs, telling the story of the life his parents shared from their meeting in 1928 to their deaths in 1971, most of that time spent in the same house they bought shortly after their marriage. This was a great book, one of the best I've read in years, I'm sorry it somehow took me fifteen years to get around to reading it. I've read some of Briggs' children's books before (and in fact found this one while looking to get a copy of one of his Christmas books as a gift), but not his handful of adult books. I'll be sure to remedy that soon. He does a great job weaving the history of England in the mid-20th Century with the lives of his parents, with a lot of interesting observations about the social and technological changes they faced, bits that are amusing when you know where history will lead, lots of unexpected callbacks, some of them very subtle. The story is told in a lot of short anecdotes, sometimes only a few panels long, but each building on the last to make a complex portrait that'll break your heart as it leads to the inevitable end. And the art is just gorgeous, evoking the period perfectly.

Been a while...

Hm, lots of virtual dust.  It's been a while.  Maybe I'll see if I still have any desire to post here, or should scrap the whole thing. Well, I guess I'll leave it up because there might be a handful of links out there to some posts, and it would be rude to leave them hanging...

Here are a few of the things I've read in the past month or so, mostly sitting in a pile waiting for me to either stick on a bookshelf or return to the library, that I might write about soon (a few of the posts are already written, actually, but I figure I post so infrequently I might as well spread them out). If anyone is still reading, feel free to let me know if there's anything below you'd like me to weigh in on with a quick ten minute review:

JOE KUBERT PRESENTS
SUPERMAN VOLUME 1 - WHAT PRICE TOMORROW?
NORTH 40
SUPERIOR
SAGA VOLUME 1 and SAGA VOLUME 2
EC creator-based anthologies (Kurtzman, Williamson, Wood)
ETHEL & ERNEST: A TRUE STORY
ALIENS - INHUMAN CONDITION
AMERICAN VAMPIRE VOLUME 1
MIND MGMT - THE MANAGER
THE ADVENTURES OF AUGUSTA WIND
BRODY'S GHOST VOLUME 4
SO LONG, SILVER SCREEN
THE BEST OF MILLIGAN & MCCARTHY
CASTLE WAITING VOLUME 2
GOOD DOG
BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR
THE FIRST X-MEN
DAN SPIEGLE - A LIFE IN COMICS
AVENGERS : SEASON ONE
CONAN - QUEEN OF THE BLACK COAST [VOLUME 13]
RAGEMOOR
FREAKS' AMOUR
STAR TREK/LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES
HOW TO FAKE A MOON LANDING
GODDAMN THIS WAR
PREACHER VOLUME 1
NEMESIS
JULIO'S DAY
MARCH - BOOK ONE
HAWKEYE - MY LIFE AS A WEAPON
SPUMCO COMIC BOOK
A MATTER OF LIFE
WE ARE ON OUR OWN : A MEMOIR
THE ROCKETEER: HOLLYWOOD HORROR
SAINTS
DAY OF JUDGMENT
MARBLE SEASON
THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERHERO GIRL
A.D.D. ADOLESCENT DEMO DIVISION

THE LIVES OF SACCO AND VANZETTI by Rick Geary

Rick Geary has carved out an interesting niche for himself in comics, building up a library of true crime books, starting in 1987 with A TREASURY OF VICTORIAN MURDER (looking at three cases), continuing with the Victorian era in 1995 with JACK THE RIPPER and then seven more books focusing on individual cases until 2007, and then moving on to the next century with THE LINDBERGH CHILD in 2008 and subsequent books.  The 2011 release THE LIVES OF SACCO AND VANZETTI is thus the 13th overall book in the overall series, and the fourth with the "A Treasury of XXth Century Murder" banner.

For this installment, Geary looks at a 1920 armed robbery in Massachusetts that left two men dead,  and the subsequent arrest, conviction and 1927 execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for the crimes. The case was very famous at the time, with quite a few people convinced the decision was a miscarriage of justice. I'm mostly familiar with it from the Woody Guthrie album BALLADS OF SACCO AND VANZETTI, which as you might expect falls squarely on the "miscarriage of justice" side.

Geary, as is his wont, takes a much more clinical look at the case, first presenting the armed robbery and subsequent police search that led to the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti, then detailing the backgrounds of the two men from their births in Italy through their immigration to the US and involvement in radical anarchist politics before moving on to the trial, the long appeals process (and the questions about the trial process in Massachusetts that were raised there), the eventual execution and aftermath.

This was a very entertaining book, maybe my favourite of the series. It does a great job of evoking the era, outlining the issues involved and keeping it all a good read as well, and Geary's art has been consistently excellent for decades.

More Library Comics

Some more stuff recently read from the library. Exhausted the currently available 20th CENTURY BOYS, not that eager to finish it up. Took a look at the new edition of ADOLF to see if it'll be worth an upgrade. Kind of liked Alan Moore & Co.'s TOP TEN, less so the related books. And not as impressed with the second FATALE book.

Sitting around waiting to be read, THE HEART OF THOMAS, THE UNDERWATER WELDER, THE NEW DEADWARDIANS and some more DC "New 52" books.

20th CENTURY BOYS Vol. 9-19
That finishes up the volumes of Naoki Urasawa's series that the library has so far. It looks like they've been getting volumes about a year after they come out for some reason, so there's a chance they'll get the rest. After the last few books, though, I'm not sure I care. It was really great stuff for a few books in the middle there, but some of the convoluted twists and drawn out storytelling in the last few books just make me tired. A shame, for a while there I was seriously considering buying at least the books the library was missing, maybe even a full set. Now, I'll probably finish if the library eventually gets the rest, but I'm in no real hurry.

Or, alternatively, I noticed that they also have all three volumes of the film adaptation of the series, so maybe I'll take a look at those some day. Not sure how faithful the films are to the plot of the series, but I assume the general idea is the same, and this is a case where compressing the story would be a good thing, eliminating some of the redundancies and red herrings.


MESSAGE TO ADOLF. PART 1

This is the first of two volumes of a new translation of the Osamu Tezuka series ADORUFU NI TSUGU, previously published in English in five volumes as ADOLF. That was the first Tezuka I'd ever read, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I was glad to see it in the library, since I wasn't sure if I wanted to get the new version (one of the reasons I've been reading so much from the library recently is that I'm trying to avoid accumulating stuff I already have in another form and stuff I'll only read once). I still need to compare the two versions. The reproduction of the linework seems a bit better in the new one, while the translation seems to be roughly of the same quality. It is a much nicer looking book. The publisher, Vertical, usually has a table at TCAF, if they have the two books at a decent price it'll be hard for me to say no.

TOP 10. BOOK 1

TOP 10. BOOK 2

TOP 10. THE FORTY-NINERS

SMAX

The four Alan Moore written books of the series he co-created with Gene Ha, about the police force in the city of Neopolis where everyone has super-powers, with Ha providing the art on the first three, and Zander Cannon doing layouts on the first two and pencils on the last one. I liked the main series quite a bit more than I was expecting to, though it was far from perfect. On the top of the list of problems, I thought the (spoiler alert) "Justice League analogues are frauds and child molesters" reveal of one of the long-running subplots was a bit trite. Ha's art was pretty effective, although sometimes I found the level of "chicken fat" (to use the old MAD expression) on the pages was overwhelming, where I would recognize the reference in just enough background elements for it to be a distraction from reading the actual stories, and sometimes distracting from actual story elements I should have been picking up from the art. Didn't like the two spin-offs as much.  THE FORTY-NINERS goes back to a story about the early days of Neopolis, and it's solid but hardly an essential story. SMAX takes two of the characters out of the city and into the homeworld of one of them, where there's a similar level of reference to fictional fantasy characters, and really wasn't too satisfying in the end. I'm slightly tempted by the upcoming oversized reprint combining the four books, which would probably make some of the more obscure background bits clearer, but I'm not sure I liked it quite enough for that.

FATALE. BOOK 2, THE DEVIL'S BUSINESS

Didn't really care for this second book of this on-going Brubaker/Phillips crime/horror comic, after a mildly intriguing first book. The bulk of the action moves on to 1970s Hollywood from the 1950s setting of the first book (with the continuing modern day plot showing up in "Interlude" chapters), and I just didn't find any of the new characters as interesting or worth reading about, and Phillips art just seemed a lot looser, less detailed. Don't think I'll be back for a third helping.

ON THE ROPES by Vance & Burr

ON THE ROPES is the new book by James Vance and Dan Burr, a continuation of the story of Fred Bloch  from their earlier book KINGS IN DISGUISE.

KINGS was serialized in six parts from Kitchen Sink in 1988-1989, and collected, along with a short story from DARK HORSE PRESENTS #42, in a single volume in 1990. In that 1990 book, Vance outlines the genesis of the book in a stage play he wrote in 1979:

The result was a bizarre pastiche of Depression-era leftist melodrama called On the Ropes. Set in 1937, it was crammed with characters drawn from the icons of that period:  WPA artists and performers, labor agitators, messianic Communists, sociopathic strikebreakers, and the inevitable tough-but-tender-hearted female journalist. To make things more frenetic, I threw in an escape artist with a death wish, and more onstage violence than any two Jacobean tragedies.

Fred Bloch was a secondary character in that play, and Vance's desire to expand the character led him to write KINGS IN DISGUISE, first as a play, and later as a comic, featuring the character in 1932, a poor boy from California who winds up on a journey across the early Depression-era America with a hobo named Sam who claims to be the King Of Spain in disguise.

KINGS was a great book, so I was glad to hear that Vance had decided to go full circle and return to the ON THE ROPES story for a sequel, presumably greatly modified since Bloch is definitely the main character now (but all the elements described above are present), along with Burr on the artwork. Maybe slightly wary in addition to glad, since the track record of creators returning to a beloved world after decades away isn't great, but maybe somewhat surprisingly I always lean towards the optimistic side.

This might be one of the few times that such a return results in a superior book to the original. I'm not prepared to say that definitively yet, since I've only read it once, but it definitely stands with the original. The writing is sharp, capturing the various "icons of that period" in a complex story involving real events of the labour movement of that era, not sugar-coating some of the harsh realities of that time.

Burr's artwork is definitely much improved from the already high quality he showed back in the 1980s. His characters are a lot more natural and less stiff than in the earlier book, and the facial expressions get a lot of emotion across in more subtle ways than they did before.

Definitely worth taking a look at, whether you've read KINGS IN DISGUISE or not (it was republished a few years ago in an inexpensive updated edition with an introduction by Alan Moore. I didn't pick it up before, but seeing how nice a package W.W. Norton puts together I'm tempted to upgrade). Vance mentioned in his introduction to KINGS that the evolution of the story included a brief attempt to write a story of Fred Bloch fifteen years after these events, so maybe someday we'll see another book. Hopefully in less than a quarter century.

Carmine Infantino, R.I.P.

I'll add some more on my appreciation of Carmine Infantino's work later, but for now here's an issue of THE FLASH that he signed for me at a convention a few years ago.  It was nice to have a chance to tell him how much I liked his work.

Newly acquired books 2013.04.04

Minimal number of additions to the vast Four Realities Archives, aka the stacks of printed paper which will one day bury me, since the last post three months ago. I'm really  hoping to minimize the effects of that burying, so there are also a few digital acquisitions below.

   

      

CAME THE DAWN AND OTHER STORIES ILLUSTRATED BY WALLACE WOOD [2012]
The second of the new series of creator themed EC collections, this features Wood's 26 crime and horror stories published from 1950 to 1954. Some great stuff, like "Confession", I've read about half this stuff before, and I'm looking forward to the rest. Really looking forward to the Al Williamson volume, which is running a few months late.


CELLULOID [2011]
Dave McKean's wordless "erotic graphic novel" from a few years ago, I never picked it up before because I wasn't sure I'd like it. I loved CAGES, but what I loved most in it was the dialogue. My plan was to wait for a softcover or for the library to get a copy, neither of which has happened, so I finally broke down and picked up the hardcover. Seems pretty enigmatic from a quick leaf through, have to see how it actually reads.


THE COMICS JOURNAL #302 [2013]
The latest issue of the long-running magazine, now apparently coming out once every year or two with a very thick package.  I usually just leaf through my brother's copy of TCJ, but I got a copy of this one since I'm quoted a bit in an article about the Mouly/Spiegelman edited TOON TREASURY, specifically about one of my five favourite topics, Sheldon Mayer comics.  Interesting selection of features, with interviews with Maruice Sendak and Jacques Tardi, comics by Joe Sacco and Lewis Trondheim and articles on a variety of comics. I really don't like the distracting formatting used for the text on some of the articles (an article on Robert Crumb is made to look like a set of old typewritten and photocopied sheets, an article about the 1950s public backlash against horror and crime comics is made to look like old newspaper articles taped in a scrapbook), which only makes them harder to read without adding any real content. It'll take a while to get through everything interesting in here, but then it'll probably be a longer while before the next issue.


THE COMICS V23 #9 [2012]
THE COMICS V23 #10 [2012]
The two most recent issues of Robin Snyder's long-running newsletter, the most recent issues feature Ron Goulart's on-going biography of Artie Saaf, whose work I'm not too familiar with. I mostly know him from some of his 1970s work for DC, but he had an extensive career Golden Age career for publishers like Standard. I don't know if much of that stuff has been reprinted in modern times. #9 also included the first installment of Steve Ditko's THE FOUR-PAGE SERIES, with five essays on a variety of topics, which continues in...



THE FOUR-PAGE SERIES #2 [2013]
Five more essays by Steve Ditko, co-published by him and Robin Snyder. “Honoring Or Dishonoring” has some interesting bits about some

DITKOMANIA #90 [2013]
The latest issue of the magazine devoted to... um, what's it devoted to, again? The answer's on the tip of my tongue. If only the title made it obvious... Anyway, this issue is mostly taken up by an in-depth article by Ron Frantz on his publishing experiences, including several books by Ditko, some published and some planned but unrealized. Fascinating stuff, including some previously unseen images of Ditko character designs for a project with Jerry Siegel.


THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #59 [2012]
THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #60 [2013]
Got caught up on the two latest issues of the magazine devoted to... oh, I did that joke already. Anyway, content is back to normal after the break in format with #58, and back in the regular sized magazine format after a few years as a tabloid. A few good Kirby tribute panel discussions in these issues, lots of great artwork, #59 has an unpublished 1970s SOUL LOVE story and a lot of Kirby collages in full colour, #60 has a 1950s JIM BOWIE story


ON THE ROPES [2013]
James Vance and Dan Burr's brand new follow-up to KINGS IN DISGUISE, coming about 25 years after that series was published, but moving the story of Fred Bloch up just five years to 1937. Just read this yesterday, after re-reading KINGS IN DISGUISE last week, and it's definitely a worthwhile follow-up to the original, and might even be better than the first book. I'll try to write a longer post about it soon.

And new digital, from Bob Burden Comics I picked up digital copies of the first two FLAMING CARROT books. I already had the first one in print, but never had any luck finding the second one at a reasonable price, so $15 for the pair was a pretty good deal. Especially since the second book contains most of the Carrot stories I was missing. And I can't deny that I'm tempted by hardcover editions of both books Burden has available right now.

Other than that the new digital stuff I've gotten has been the usual free stuff.  Marvel had a somewhat botched free digital comics offer, I managed to get a few things from that I haven't had a chance to read yet, most notably FF ANNUAL #1 by Kirby and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1 by Ditko.

Continuing library adventures

Continuing some comic book reading from the library, more 20th CENTURY BOYS (pretty good), a six-volume adaptation of THE STAND (tiring, some good bits, don't get the ending), the memoir MY FRIEND DAHMER (very interesting if disturbing) and the second volume of HEREVILLE (a good read, but not really written for me).

20th CENTURY BOYS Vol. 4-8
I've gotten to the 1/3 mark of Naoki Urasawa's 24-book series since last I wrote. Apparently the last volume just came out in English. Unfortunately, just checking now, it looks like my library hasn't gotten more since Vol. 19.  I guess when I get there, if the library hasn't picked up more by then, I'll have to decide if I'm still enjoying it enough to buy the last five books. Doesn't seem to be available digitally, unfortunately, which I'd be more likely to get.

As it stands at the 1/3 mark, I'd probably be inclined to buy the last few books. Urasawa is doing a pretty good job of adding to the complexity of the storyline and bringing in new characters. There are frustratingly slow bits, and I think he's gone to the "Here comes the big reveal! Oops, misdirection!" well on the identity of Friend a few times too many already. I've been avoiding spoilers, but from what I've been unable to avoid it sounds like there's more of that coming and that's what soured some readers on the series by the end.


THE STAND Vol. 1-6
An adaptation of the Stephen King novel by Mike Perkins and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, originally published in 31 parts. I've never really been a Stephen King reader, the only prose stories of his I can recall finishing were the short stories adapted in film as STAND BY ME and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, and both of those I read only after I'd seen the movies. And in addition to being shorter than most King stories, they also lacked any horror/fantasy elements. But this post-apocalyptic story seemed interesting enough, so I thought I'd give it a try. There were a few good bits, but overall it was a bit of a slog to get through, maybe twice as long as it needed to be. Perkins does a decent enough job on the art, but there are long patches where there's not very much interesting for him to draw. I guess overall I just missed the point of the story, since I kept thinking a post-apocalyptic story would be more interesting if it were about real people, instead of people being manipulated at every turn by the forces of good and evil, where the climax could have happened just as easily without the actions of the protagonists. Not sorry I read it, but really glad I didn't pay for it.


MY FRIEND DAHMER
This is a memoir/biography by Derf Backderf, who went to high school with Jeffrey Dahmer in the 1970s, partly drawn from Backderf's own memories and partly from interviews with Dahmer and accounts from others on the teen years of the notorious serial killer. This was a really compelling read, even with the disturbing subject matter. I never really followed the Dahmer case, so I only knew the broad strokes about his background and crimes, so most of that was new to me, and Backderf goes a good job of mixing his personal experiences and thoughts at the time with what he's learned in retrospect.


HEREVILLE - HOW MIRKA MET A METEORITE
And for something completely different...

This is the second volume of Barry Deutsch's series of humourous fantasy adventure comics about Mirka, an 11-year-old orthodox Jewish girl, following HEREVILLE - HOW MIRKA GOT HER SWORD. It's an enjoyable read, mixing in some imaginative fantasy with a look at some the real-world but almost as odd to me culture of orthodox Jewish life. I'm way outside the target audience for this (and lately I find for some reason I'm more in tune with stuff written for very young readers or for adults than stuff in the middle), so I'm sure readers in that audience would like it even more than I did.


On deck to read, more 20th CENTURY BOYS, the various Alan Moore written TOP TEN books, the second FATALE book and maybe, because I never learn, J. Michael Stracynski's run on THOR.

--Link-- Ditko reprint Kickstarter

As I write this, the Kickstarter for the new edition of THE DITKO PUBLIC SERVICE PACKAGE is about six average backers from reaching its goal, with three weeks to spare. So now is the time to act if you want to be able to say you helped put it over the top, instead of being a bandwagon jumper.

Stompin' Tom Connors, R.I.P.

Possibly the best possible music to listen to while driving on a Canadian highway. Farewell, Stompin' Tom.

Around the web

Bob Rozakis has some great details about the 1978 Superman Movie Contest that DC Comics ran, and some related anecdotes.  The comics with those contest questions are among the earliest comics I have clear memories of (I was 8 at the time), so it's interesting to read more about it.  Great Christopher Reeve visit to DC story in there, too.

James Vance has the first in-store sighting of ON THE ROPES, his new sequel to KINGS IN DISGUISE reuniting with original artist Dan Burr, officially on sale next month.

Pat Mills presents the new Kevin O'Neill cover to the upcoming MARSHAL LAW book being published by... DC? Is that right? DC?

Steve Ditko has some new essays. Keep an eye over here over the next few days for more details.

Eddie Campbell presents some of his "Rules of Comprehension" for comics.

Todd Klein looks at the history of the THOR logo, three parts, starting here.

Steve Bissette on the original comic swamp monster, The Heap, including some cover roughs from his brief history with the character on an unlikely comic. That cover isn't as bad as Bissette makes it out to be, but it's definitely one of the weaker covers from an artist who's done some classics.

Top 1000 single issues and Top 1000 trades in the direct market, 2012, courtesy of John Jackson Miller.

Comic sales reported through Bookscan, 2012, courtesy of Brian Hibbs.

Yet more courtesy of the library...

Continuing some reads from the library. This time, 20th CENTURY BOYS, intriguing so far, LOCKE & KEY pretty decent, better art than story, "New 52" SUPERGIRL some good bits but weak overall and SUPERMAN: GROUNDED, holy hell, I didn't know comics could be this bad.

20th CENTURY BOYS Vol. 1 - 3
The latest Naoki Urasawa comic to see translation from Japanese to English, created between 1999 and 2007 and published in English by Viz since 2009, with the last of 24 volumes set to come out soon as 21st CENTURY BOYS Vol. 1 and 2.

I thought Urasawa's MONSTER was, on balance, a very good comic. Uneven and definitely overlong, and not really a satisfying ending but with a couple of really brilliant bits and generally good storytelling and artwork. On the other hand, I gave up on his PLUTO a few chapters into the second book. So I'm definitely open to giving a well-regarded series by him a chance, without getting my hopes up too high. I've avoided reading too much about the book until now, but I'm getting the impression that some people don't think it holds up across the 24 books.

It doesn't start off great, and if I were paying to read it, or if I didn't have the next two books sitting here, or if I hadn't loved some bits of MONSTER, I'm not sure I would have continued past the first book. I'm glad I did, it picks up a lot as the second volume ties a few things together, and by the end of the third I was pretty much fully on-board. I've got the next three on the way already. I still have my doubts that it'll end up being a story that needed anywhere near its 5000 pages to tell, but that's the case with almost every Japanese comic I've read.

About the actual comic, it's a science fiction tale about some so far unspecified crisis at the end of the 20th Century, and how a group of long-time friends helped to avert it. Flashing back and forth through time, we see these friends making up fanciful stories as pre-teens in 1969, which end up forming the basis of plans for world domination by the leader of a cult in 1997 who may be one of those friends. It gets pretty convoluted, and I can't say I'm going in with a great deal of faith that Urasawa can pull off a satisfying reveal at the end, but I'm fairly confident that there'll be a few pleasant surprises on the road.

LOCKE & KEY Vol. 1 - 5
The soon-to-be-concluded series created by Gabriel Rodriguez and Joe Hill, published since 2008 by IDW as a series of mini-series and one-shots that have been collected into five volumes, with the contents of the final volume currently being serialized as LOCKE & KEY: OMEGA. I actually read the first two books a few years ago, and thought they were okay, but wasn't impressed enough to rush out to read the subsequent books as soon as they came out.

That's pretty much still where I am. I'll definitely read OMEGA if and when the library gets a copy, but I can wait. The story is pretty decent, for the most part, although the middle drags quite a bit. Hill can be a pretty frustrating writer at times, clearly in control of the story and with a lot of stuff planned out, but sometimes a bit clumsy in the execution, with things feeling like writing tricks to achieve an end. I do like that he structured the book for serialization, and think it's a shame that it took IDW until Volume 4 to realize that they should present each issue as distinct chapter, with the cover art as a chapter break, instead of running the comics seamlessly and sticking the covers in the back. It was really jarring in the earlier books to go from one chapter to another without that visual cue. I wonder if they'll revise the earlier books to fit the structure of the later ones?

Rodriguez is definitely the more interesting of the two creators, and I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes after this series wraps up. His art is nice and clear, easy to follow, fairly open but with a lot of detail in the right places, very expressive faces and body language, imaginative designs.  His prior work seems to be mostly some comics based on the TV show CSI, which don't seem to look as interesting, but that could be the need to do actor likenesses.

Basic pitch of this one is that the Locke kids and their mother move into the family home, the Key House in Lovecraft, Massachusetts, following the murder of their father and find themselves drawn into a world of family secrets, magic and horror involving various keys with special properties. The exact nature of the horror is sort of tipped by the name of the town (is it just me, or do comics seem to lean pretty heavy on the Lovecraft influence for horror?).

SUPERGIRL Vol. 1: LAST DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON
Another of DC's "New 52" reboots launched in 2011, this collects the first seven issues of the latest iteration of the character derived from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's creation Superman. Supergirl is probably a poster child for why DC needed a reboot, as I'm really not sure when looking at a "Supergirl" in a DC comic book published between 1987 and 2011 if she's supposed to be Superman's cousin, or a shapeshifter of some sort, or his cousin from another dimension, or his daughter from a possible future, or his clone or something else.

Anyway, for now they seem to have decided to go with the "Superman's cousin" in this continuity. We'll see if that sticks. The comic is written by Michael Green and Mike Johnson, and mostly drawn by Mahmud Asrar. They all seem competent enough, and Asrar at least draws a more tasteful Supergirl than many of the more recent artists, though the costume he's been handed isn't one of her best (but far from the worst in the character's history). The big problem I have with the story is that we're supposed to accept that Superman finds another survivor from Krypton, one who claims to be his cousin, and after a brief fight appears to just leave her to her own devices, unable to speak the language or properly handle her powers, even as she gets captured by a low rent Lex Luthor stand-in and then fights some other apparent survivors of Krypton. That's not a Superman that makes much sense to me, and this initial storyline doesn't establish a Supergirl worth following, or any supporting cast.

I liked Asrar's art enough to consider reading the second book someday, but that's about it.

SUPERMAN: GROUNDED Vol. 1 - 2
Another poster child for DC's need for a reboot is this, the storyline serialized in SUPERMAN #700-711, 713-714, the last year-plus of the previous continuity of Siegel and Shuster's creation.

Now, to be fair, I expected not to like this, and you're perfectly right to ask why I would read it, even for free, when there are stacks of books I own that I know I'd like better waiting for me to read, a huge selection of more promising books available from the library and boxes and shelves full of comics I'd enjoy re-reading. I sometimes mock other people for continuing to read stuff they seem to get no joy from, including a regular column on a major website that seems to be based on the notion of "people reading comics they know they won't like". What can I say, sometimes you have to rubberneck the crash as the side of the road...

And yeah, this is even worse than I was expecting. It took three writers and over a dozen artists to get these comics out. Some of the artists seem decent enough, but often appear to be rushed,  others really weren't ready for prime time. My understanding is that this was initially going to be one of those "bold new directions" for Superman that they need every few years after the last direction left them wandering aimlessly, this time led by the somewhat popular and occasionally entertaining writer J. Michael Straczynski. The storyline was presented with the very easy to mock concept of "Superman decides to walk across America".  For whatever reason, the story first saw "interlude" issues written by G. Willow Wilson, and then Chris Roberson brought in as the credited scripter for the second half. I don't know what was said officially, but it's hard not to assume that as plans were finalized to reboot the whole line the luster really fades on the "new direction" that's suddenly a "last nail in the coffin".

It's hard to know who to blame for this mess.  Based on his solo issues, Straczynski didn't really seem to have a firm grasp on any Superman I'd want to read, but I suppose there could have been a planned third act twist that would justified the set-up. Still, on their merits those are some weak Superman stories. I have no idea how much liberty Roberson had in his issues, once it was clear he was wrapping up the last 25 years on continuity rather than setting up a future direction for the character. His issues were slightly less dire than the preceding ones, with a few hints of a writer who might be able to write a Superman comic I'd want to read (which obviously isn't going to happen), but still far from good.

Ah well, there's no point in going point-by-point on what's wrong with this thing, and looking through it now just makes me more sad than anything else. If you ever ask yourself "Must there be a monthly SUPERMAN comic?", read these and see that there are worse things than DC not publishing Superman at all.

More From The Library

Some other recent readings.  CARTER FAMILY very good, FATALE pretty solid, DEMON KNIGHTS less so and recent Charles Burns inexplicable but intriguing 2/3 of the way through.


THE CARTER FAMILY: DON'T FORGET THIS SONG
Frank M. Young and David Lasky create this 192-page comic book biography of the Carter Family, one of the earliest successful country music acts starting with their first recordings in 1927. This is one of those "I'll try pretty much anything that's comics" reads, I can't imagine that I'd read a prose biography of the family, or watch a documentary about them. I'm not a huge country music fan, although there is some stuff I like directly influenced by this specific early branch of the genre.

Anyway, it's a really good book. It took me a while to get started on it, since it's "written in the Southern dialect of the time", which means a lot of phonetic spellings of odd pronunciations of common words. You get used to that after a few pages, and you get an interesting story of young A. P. Carter growing up in rural Virginia, and how his love of music led to his marriage and a successful family singing career during the Great Depression. The characters are very engaging and the stories are well selected.

Also a very good looking book, with great art by Lasky, an appropriately flat slightly muted colour palate and a nice design that even uses the endpapers to good effect. The book also includes a CD with a 1939 radio recording of several songs by the Carter Family.

One bit of advice if you're going to read it and don't know much about the history of the group, don't read the two-page text preface before reading the full comic. It gives away a few later events which would have been more effective if they came by surprise.


FATALE BOOK 1: DEATH CHASES ME
This collects the first five issues of the on-going comic by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. It starts off with a hardboiled crime feel, but slowly develops into a horror comic with a hardboiled veneer. They kind of give away the nature of the horror early on, with octopus tentacles on the cover and a full page even more explicitly Lovecraftian image before the story, so that doesn't really get a chance to be as surprising a revelation as it might have been. I haven't been a huge fan of the previous Phillips/Brubaker collaborations I've tried, only mildly liking CRIMINAL, but this was a decent quick read, with some interesting stuff in the structure and surprising twists in the plot. I might check out later volumes someday.


DEMON KNIGHTS VOL. 1: SEVEN AGAINST THE DARK
This is one of DC's "New 52" books from their recent re-launch, collecting the first seven issues of the series by Paul Cornell, Diogenes Neves, Oclair Albert and others (noticed Albert is mentioned on the cover, but not in the interior credits, so I had to look up that he's the primary inker on the series. Another quality proofreading job there). It's middle ages sword & sorcery starring Jack Kirby's creation Etrigan the Demon and his alter ego Jason Blood, plus some other DC characters, some pre-existing (Vandal Savage, Madame Xanadu) and I believe some original.

It's pretty readable but mediocre.  The artwork is a little too busy for my taste, but I can tell what's going on most of the time, which is sadly not the case too frequently. The only characters I came in with any fondness for, Etrigan and Blood, don't really resemble any prior version I've read, certainly not the Kirby originals. The plot could use some tightening up, it didn't really feel like seven issues of story, with a lot of set up for future stuff, and the ending really needed to be set up better. The scripting is a lot better than the plotting, but even that seems a bit off at times. I don't think I'll be back for more.

X'ED OUT and THE HIVE

These are the first two books in a trilogy by Charles Burns, published in 2010 and 2012, with the third volume, SUGAR SKULL, still to be come. I'm pretty much completely clueless about what's actually going on in these books, whether we're seeing our lead character Doug at different points in his life, or seeing his memories, or seeing his dreams, or something else.. Maybe it'll all make sense in the end. In the meantime, it's all as gorgeous as you'd expect from Burns, and the writing is intriguing even if it's not explaining anything.

Four From The Library

Been picking up a bunch of things from the library lately.  Sitting here unread right now are multiple volumes of LOCKE & KEY, THE STAND and 20th CENTURY BOYS (hopefully the last issue of that will be out by the time I catch up), plus THE CARTER FAMILY,  FATALE, several of DC's "New 52" volumes and some recent Charles Burns books.

Some things I have read, or finished with, below the jump.  Summary, LEO GEO and STONE FROG good, LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS gorgeous yet awful, CREATIVITY OF DITKO, good comics, many available in better forms, one decent feature, borrow a copy if you can.

LEO GEO AND HIS MIRACULOUS JOURNEY THROUGH THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

This is a clever little book by Jon Chad, featuring a character taking an unlikely but entertaining trip, as you can guess from the title, through the world. The format is pretty innovative, and I think it's better if it takes you by surprise, as it did for me, so I can't talk about it too much.  The script is pretty funny, and probably more so for the smart 8-12 year old that it's directed at, and the art is a nice open but detailed black and white, kind of reminiscent of Geof Darrow's work. 

THE SECRET OF THE STONE FROG

I've enjoyed reading the beginning reader comics of the Toon Book line edited by Françoise Mouly over the last few years, but as someone just slightly older than the target audience, the books always felt a bit slight, taking only a few minutes to read. I understand that for the kids learning to read with the books that's all a feature not a flaw (and I'll happily read them with my niece when she's old enough), but I'm glad to see them expanding to a few more complex books, like this 80-page book by David Nytra, the first branded as a "Toon Graphic Novel". The easiest way to describe the artwork is to compare it to Charles Vess, or possibly to the earlier generation of book illustrators who influenced Vess (Arthur Rackham, Heath Robinson, etc.). There definitely seems to be more than a hint of Winsor McCay in there, as well. The story is the old Lewis Carroll bit, with two children trying to find their way home through an increasingly bizarre and frantic realm of dream-logic.  Fun stuff with some nicely bizarre creatures and intricate art you can read in seconds and then just got lost in for minutes if you want.

LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS: THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN COMICS

A collection of short two to six page profiles of various comic book creators, both classic and modern, written by Christopher Irving, plus full page photographs of most of them by Seth Kushner, and samples of their work (a mix of published work, finished original artwork and production artwork), plus shorter profiles of a bunch of younger artists as part of "The Digital Generation" at the end. This is a very attractive book, but I don't think I can read any more of it. In just a few minutes of reading after admiring the art for a while I saw Mazzucchelli spelled wrong (one "c") in Frank Miller's profile, a profile of Stan Lee that claims Ditko left SPIDER-MAN over a dispute about the identity of "supervillian [sic] Green Goblin" (why am I still reading that in a book published in 2012?) and saying his last issue was #33, a caption for a page which has a Dick Ayers inking credit right on the page saying Steve Ditko inked that page, some wrong information about Jerry Siegel's 1960s scripting on Superman  (and an odd inconclusive statement at the end of the one-page Siegel and Shuster article) and Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN cited as lasting 81 issues. And that's without even trying to look for errors. Anyway, some great photos and art samples to look at, so that's something.

(by the way, one of the Laws of the Internet says that since I spent so much space criticizing someone else's proofreading, there's a huge typo somewhere in this post that I've missed. So let me just say in advance, "Yeah, but I'm not charging $35 for this weblog".)

THE CREATIVITY OF DITKO

A sequel to THE ART OF DITKO book I reviewed over here years ago. Most of the same things I said stand, although at least this volume is missing some of the most egregious errors of the first one (no missing pages as far as I could tell, and no inexplicable void in the artwork every 8 pages). All stories from Charlton, a few from the 1950s, all available on-line, and the bulk from the 1960s and 1970s, four of those available in sharper black&white form in Ditko's own co-published STEVE DITKO'S 160-PAGE PACKAGE FROM CHARLTON PRESS [1999]. Most of the stuff isn't the best Ditko work of the material available, but it's solid stuff, with a few great stories, and at least one clever visual in every story. There's a bunch of original art, most of it stuff that was publicly auctioned so you've probably seen high quality scans if that's something you care about. In one inexplicable decision, they show the artwork to OUT OF THIS WORLD #4, but don't show the published cover, which seems pretty shortsighted to me. The published cover is the payoff, really showing Ditko's skills.

Other than the Ditko stories and original art, the most worthwhile contribution is by frequent Ditko collaborator Jack C. Harris, who shares a few stories about their work together, and several pages of one of their many unpublished works, "The Fantasy Master", some sort of choose-your-own-adventure comic. Hopefully Harris and Ditko will publish more of those things at some point (modern digital distribution would make a multipath comic much more practical). Of the other articles, Mike Gold writes a fairly entertaining account of some of his encounters with Ditko, Paul Levitz writes an introduction almost admirably devoid of actual content, and the rest were largely pointless at best. I was going to say it needed another pass through by a proofreader, but after the previous book the mistakes seem pretty minor. Don't really recommend anyone buy this, but if your library or bookstore has a copy take a look at the JCH pages and any of the stories you don't have access to better copies of.

Movies - THE BIG YEAR (2011)

I don't know if it was just having seen a great Wes Anderson movie less than a day earlier or what, but I couldn't help but think while watching THE BIG YEAR (2011) that it felt like what would happen if a Wes Anderson style screenplay were somehow handed to a completely average, non-adventurous mainstream director.

I didn't know too much about the movie going in, just that it was about bird watching enthusiasts and it starred  Owen Wilson, Jack Black and Steve Martin, three actors who have done some great movies in the past, but also put out a lot of fluff between the good ones. And I think Kevin Pollak mentioned it once or twice on his talk show, so I knew he was in it, and is usually entertaining.

I think I would have to say that I liked it overall, but the script really seemed to be fighting against the direction throughout. Everything in the script was quirky, from the premise to the plot to the characters to the settings. I couldn't help but to picture how someone like Wes Anderson would interpret all of it, the exact opposite of what the actual director (David Frankel, for the record, who I'm only familiar with from THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA) chose to do. The film makes all the safe, mainstream choices in how to tell the story, how to handle the music cues. That ended up turning it into a good film that was nothing special, and I was left with the feeling that if it was bolder it could have been a great film. Or possibly a spectacular failure, but either way something memorable. I mean, the script has a remote Alaskan cabin where birders go to spot a few rare birds at a particular time of year. In a Wes Anderson movie, that cabin would just look like nothing you'd seen before, but if he succeeded look exactly right. In this movie, it's just a cabin in Alaska.

So I'm not sorry I watched it, and it was pleasant to see Wilson, Black and Martin all doing better work than a lot of their choices, but I'm not sure I'd ever watch it again.

A few recent things... (mostly movies)

Just wanted to throw up a few things I posted on Facebook for some reason, just to have them in a place where I can find them in the future. Just a few movie/tv thoughts (THE HOBBIT, MOONRISE KINGDOM and a few Sherlocks) and some images I wanted to save.

A few quick links.

A colour Milk&Cheese image by Evan Dorkin.

James Vance announces two long-awaited books coming from him in 2013, ON THE ROPES, the sequel to KINGS IN DISGUISE with artist Dan Burr and the final OMAHA THE CAT DANCER book with Reed Waller and the late Kate Worley.

Steve Bissette's been posting some Swamp Thing head sketches he did recently.  Here's a good one, along with an article on some vintage movies and related comics.

A couple of good histories of the now defunct COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE from some people who were there, Maggie Thompson and John Jackson Miller. I quickly went over my relatively brief time as an occasional reader of the publication over here.

More than you probably thought you needed to know about Charlton artists, courtesy of Nick Caputo, over here and over here.

Newly acquired books 2013.01.15

Figured I'd start posting briefly about books as I get them, even though I won't finish reading some of them for a few months or even years. Or in rare cases, I never will. First some print stuff, and then some free digital stuff below.

   

COMPLETE NEMESIS THE WARLOCK #3 [2007] is the third and final volume of the adventures of the Pat Mills / Kevin O'Neill creation published in the pages of 2000 A.D. from 1980 to 1999, featuring the last three books:
8 - Purity's Story (art by David Roach)
9 - Deathbringer (art by John Hicklenton)
10 - The Final Conflict (art by Henry Flint, final chapter by Kevin O`Neill)
Plus an assortment of painted stories by various artists.

Other than the various works by Alan Moore, Nemesis The Warlock is the only 2000 A.D. feature I have more than a passing interest in.  The few dozen Dredd stories I've read have been enough for me to get the idea, and nothing else has really captured my imagination. But Nemesis always seemed intriguing, and after reading all the Mills/O'Neill MARSHAL LAW I could find, I picked up the first book a few years ago, got the second soon after, but had trouble finding the third for some reason. That's resolved now, but I'll probably go back and re-read the whole thing from the beginning before I get to this one.


POGO - THE COMPLETE SYNDICATED COMIC STRIPS #2 [2012] continues Walt Kelly's comic strips, with both daily and full colour Sunday pages from 1951 and 1952.  I'll have to try to ration this out, since they only seem to be publishing a book a year, and with every two volumes coming in a slipcase, I'm tempted to wait until two more come out to get #3 and #4 in a set. Oh, I'm kidding myself that I have that kind of self control...


ESSENTIAL BLACK PANTHER #1 [2012], I'm always somewhat reluctant to pick up anything from Marvel for various reasons, but I figured waiting until almost a year after the book comes out works out nicely. I've always been curious about Don McGregor's 1970s run on Jack Kirby's creation, the "Panther's Rage" storyline, highly praised by some people whose opinions I respect, and this seemed like my best bet to get it. It helps that this also reprints most of the Kirby/Royer run on the series. Kind of wish they squeezed in those last two issues, but then I wish the colour reprints didn't continue beyond Kirby's last issue. Just leafing through, Billy Graham's art seems pretty sharp, Gil Kane's single issue looks great, even Rich Buckler as inked by Klaus Janson looks better than most of the his work I've seen.

By the way, I've joked before that I can count on finding at least one typo or production error in any Marvel book within five minutes of picking it up.  The table on contents for this one lists "P. Craig Russel [sic]" as the inker on one issue. Hopefully that's it for this book...


SHOWCASE PRESENTS WEIRD WAR TALES [2012], the latest of DC's big black&white reprint books, with the first 21 issues of the series launched in 1971, I've got a backlog of these I want to buy, and a backlog of those to read among those I've bought, but this one I had to get right away. Launched by editor Joe Kubert as primarily a reprint title for the 1950s DC war books, he also included some new framing sequences and a few new stories by Sam Glanzman (including a USS Stevens story), Russ Heath and others. Then Joe Orlando takes over with #8, and it becomes more of a war book in DC's mystery line (as opposed to a mystery book in the war line under Kubert), including a lot of work from the Filipino artists then becoming regulars in Orlando's other anthology books, such as Tony DeZuniga, Alex Nino and Alfredo Alcala. Their work always looks especially good in black and white. Sheldon Mayer also contributes a few great stories, one drawn by Alex Toth, and there's a memorable early Walter Simonson story in there. I have about half these issues, so I'm glad to have this book so I no longer have to look around for reading copies of the others.


And on the digital side...

Comixology gave me a copy of Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover's BANDETTE #1 for free after I filled out a survey. It's a cute enough thing, mostly thanks to the art, and the other two issues so far are only $1 each, so maybe I'll check them out.

Marvel generally makes three or four comics a week temporarily available for free on Comixology, mostly first issues or first chapters of storylines. I justify downloading them since I figure free to me must cost them some amount of money, however minuscule. They generally remind me modern Marvel comics aren't written for me. Most interesting thing this week is a Hulk issue drawn by Steve Dillon. Haven't read it yet.

As I've mentioned before, I find the iVerse interface inferior enough that I'd only buy something there if there wasn't a choice. That hasn't happened yet, but the closest they've come is with some of Rick Veitch's work. BRAT PACK (the revised version) is available in five chapters, with the first free and the others $1, so if I didn't have the collection and the original issues, $4 for the series would be a bargain. Check it out if you've ever been curious. Veitch also has an anthology called BONG, the first free issue includes the Peanuts parody "Nutpeas", "The Tell-Tale Fart" (with Steve Bissette, scanned from the original art), a new Subtleman story continuing from the last RARE BIT FIENDS (previously seen as a webcomic) and the first chapter of ABRAXAS AND THE EARTHMAN, the classic story seen in EPIC ILLUSTRATED. If I didn't already have the ABRAXAS book published in 2006 that alone would be worth buying #2 for $1, though I'd prefer to buy just an ABRAXAS digital book for $5 or so.

[and to update, there are a few presentation problems with BONG which I asked Veitch about, and you might want to wait to see if those are fixed before getting anything but the free issue]

The British children's comic THE PHOENIX launched a digital edition. I wasn't that interested in the contents, but the app is done by Panel Nine, and I'm always interested in what they do in terms of format, so I checked out the sample issue. Pretty well done, and some of the content made it tempting to subscribe, while most of it was professional but obviously not for me. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I missed the bargain price subscription offer. It was worth checking out to see how they handled double page spreads, which hasn't been an issue in the previous Panel Nine books. They came up with the first really elegant solution to the problem I've ever seen. Maybe not quite perfect, but definitely a path forward.

MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY by Howe

Just some quick thoughts as a placeholder on a book I might want to do a full review of later.

I was kind of disappointed by Sean Howe's recent MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY. I guess my expectations were a bit high, since it was pretty heavily praised by quite a few people whose opinions I respect. I guess overall it's okay for what it is, a breezy pop history of the publisher, with a special emphasis on a few items of special interest to the writer. I guess I've read too much about the stuff I'm interested in, since there wasn't that much I learned about comics I liked, and just some trivia I've already started to forget about the comics I don't care for.  Howe seems to like 1970s Marvel a lot, whereas my history of Marvel in the 1970s is "Jack Kirby left, Steve Gerber and Gene Colan did some interesting work both together and separately, Jack Kirby came back for a little while and soon after Gerber and Colan were gone. And Steve Ditko came back towards the end of the decade, drawing characters he didn't create". Howe seems to like Gerber, so it was cool that his work got a significant amount of attention. In comparison to their importance, I thought the 1960s got way too little room, there's a lot more you can get into there that I've read about in interviews with and articles by the people who were there, and the later eras got too much, and a lot of the wrong stuff was emphasized from those eras (the entire Epic line just seems to get a few passing references). And overall I think the book was too kind to a few individuals, presenting their stories in a "their side, everyone else's side, you figure out the truth" manner. I will say I took a certain joy in Tom DeFalco's telling of Jim Shooter's final days in charge.

Where I actually did learn a lot was the material on the various executives in charge of Marvel. Mostly that there seems to be a parade of incompetence, malfeasance and dishonesty in those positions, with no clear idea of what they had and how to properly exploit it until they happened to stumble into the success in the movie business more in spite of their actions than because of them.

The book did need at least one more run-through by a comics knowledgeable fact checker. Roy Thomas has some corrections specific to his areas of expertise (the Golden Age and his own career) here and here, and I noticed a number of things that seemed off, some of them easy to verify. Jerry Siegel is referred to as a "sixty-three year old proof-reader" circa 1968, when simple math would show that meant he co-created Superman in his late-20s and sold it to DC in his mid-30s, so definitely off by ten years. And there's a reference to George Perez's 1998 return to AVENGERS being his first work for Marvel in over 20 years, which is wrong twice, since he left for DC only 18 years earlier, and had worked on Marvel books like INFINITY GAUNTLET and HULK: FUTURE IMPERFECT earlier in the 1990s.

So, y'know, read it, don't take any of it as gospel (which isn't an expression I should use, since I don't take the Gospels as gospel...), pick up a bunch of ALTER EGOs, KIRBY COLLECTORs and Ditko essays for more details on the important stuff.

Movies - LES MISÉRABLES (2012)

On a whim I went to go see LES MISÉRABLES today (am I the only one who always wants to translate that and call it THE MISERABLES).

I'm not really big on musicals. I think the only ones on my list of favourite movies would be THE WIZARD OF OZ, WEST SIDE STORY (the bits without Tony and Maria whining) and WILLY WONKA. And I suppose THE MUPPET MOVIE would qualify. Other than those, I would re-watch stuff like BRIGADOON, THE MUSIC MAN, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, MARY POPPINS or SWEENEY TODD if they were on. That's actually more musicals I like than I was expecting, especially considering I haven't actually tried to watch most of the others considered classics... But still, not a whole lot of heavy dramatic stuff there.

Anyway, I'm trying to watch more movies in the theatre, especially things that look like they'd benefit from the experience, and the trailer for LES MISÉRABLES looked pretty good. And I missed the start time of DJANGO UNCHAINED. My relative lack of experience with musicals and not overly great hearing means I sometimes have trouble picking up all the words in musicals, which is why I prefer to watch them at home, where subtitles and rewinding are an option, but I figured I'd take a chance. If I ever read the original Victor Hugo novel it was long ago that I forgot, but I know enough of the story from cultural osmosis that I was sure I could follow it even if I missed some words.

I liked it quite a bit more than I was expecting to. I don't know if I'll ever watch the whole 2 1/2 hour thing again, since it did drag in bits, but I'll definitely take a look when I can watch it at home and revisit some of the good bits. It took some getting used to just how much singing there was, compared to most of the musicals I like, but by about half-way through it began to seem odd when there were brief bits of spoken dialogue, like, "why didn't he sing that bit?" or something. And I did end up missing a fair bit of the dialogue, but it was worth it to see some of those visuals on the big screen. And a lot of the performers did a great job, with Anne Hathaway on the top of that list, and Hugh Jackman not that far behind, and those aren't two actors I've been that impressed with before. Not as convinced by Russell Crowe, but its kind of a complex role and I'd have to see it again before being too critical.

So that was a Sunday afternoon well spent.