Read Comics Every Day

IN DEPTH review of Spider-Man and his Amazing friends episode

2011-12-12T18:54:00.000-08:00

"The Fantastic Mr. Frump" over at my Tumblr.

Check it out!

Some sample pics....

Mr.Frump and Mable

Doom on his hands and knees

Our Heroes

2011-11-19T13:36:00.001-08:00

Hey Gang,

I have recently been watching some awesome cartoons, based on comic books, on Netflix Streaming, and my next post will expand on some of these, but this one is a little more involved than the other posts I have done, please bear with me while I put this post together, and enjoy the above sneek peek!

Also, if you want to read some awesome new comics this week, I would strongly urge you to check out Mudman number one by Paul Grist. Grist has wowed me with his Jack Staff series and Kane, he mixes superhero fun with classic style cartooning, below is a link to a preview:

http://ifanboy.com/articles/preview-mudman-1-by-paul-grist/

The Avengers number 19 was another one I really enjoyed this week. Daniel Acuna turns out a fantastic looking book, and I really enjoy the camaraderie that Bendis writes so well between these characters. I also really like the flirty banter that is happening with Hawkeye and Spider-Woman. Also the new line up of the Avengers is revealed! Below is a link to a preview:

http://comicbookrealm.com/previews/3663/marvel-the-avengers-issue-19

There you have it, more coming soon!

-Eamon

Secret Avengers #18 Mixes Superheroes, Inception and Kung Fu!

2011-11-09T22:47:00.000-08:00

Cue the Scooby Doo sneaking music!

On a whim I decided to pick up issue number 18 of Secret Avengers (written by Warren Ellis, with art by David Aja and Raul Allen) and my friend prompted me to pick up the variant cover, which is an amazing image! (Thanks Brian!That is good customer service!) The explosive action continues into the pages past the cover.

So the basic concept of Secret Avengers as I gather, is that there is a group of Avengers that take on deadly missions that no one can know about, foiling plots too terrible to imagine (kind of like Uncanny X-Force?). The mission in number 18 involves Steve Rogers (formerly Captain America) Sharon Carter, and Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung Fu, invading an enemy base in the Multiverse, to prevent them from bringing a chemical from the Multiverse to Earth that will transform it into a sun.

Our Heroes

The entire mission takes place inside of an enemy base in another dimension, that has it's own physics. For one thing, the station floating in the Multiverse has a hull too thin for gun use, and has the dimensions of an M.C. Escher drawing. Think Inception, but with ninja bad guys and superheroes. Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter bring Shang-Chi in to 'Incapacitate all comers', and incapacitate he does. The action here is paced amazingly, is clear, and uses every possible angle you could to show just how unstoppable these three are when it comes to a bear knuckle brawl. Action depicted this cleanly, clearly and pulse-poundingly is more rare than it should be in superhero books, Aja uses the crazy physics of the setting for all it is worth.

I love the use of color and space here.

Ellis writes a done-in-one story here, he introduces about a dozen awesome concepts, and writes likable, capable characters and fun dialogue.One of my favorite bits was Beast's explanation of the Multiverse, more specifically 'Bad Continuum' which are broken offshoots of the Multiverse:

" They are notable for flaws in the laws of physics. A bad continuum might have gravity, for instance, but water will boil there at ten degrees, or frozen water will turn into music instead of ice."

If that ain't an awesome piece of science fiction style goodness, I don't know what is. The enemy the three come up against is Arnim Zola 4.2.3., who is a man who can broadcast his mind into robot bodies, but apparently 4.2.3. is a broken copy trapped inside a robot body...who plans to kill Steve Rogers and become Arnim Zola OS X!

If you don't like villains like this comics are not for you.

All in all, this single issue of Secret Avengers has everything I look for in a superhero comic. Cool action, interesting/far out settings and concepts, kooky bad guys, fun banter and awesome artwork. I am going to be checking out issues in the future, thanks a lot Marvel....yeesh (my poor wallet). Oh and I thought that the page below was aweeesome.

-Eamon

Drawing the line at 2.99? How 'bout a buck?

2011-11-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

In the past two weeks I've picked up two great comics, not for $3.99, or even $2.99...but one dollar. A buck!

The first I will write about here is my first ever digital comics purchase, which I bought yesterday on Halloween, entitled Dracula The Unconquered, number one! Written by Chris Sims, with art by Steve Downer and letters by Josh Krach, Dracula is a fun for everyone adventure romp. The first thing you will notice, or at least the first thing I noticed, was that this comic is absolutely gorgeous. Goodness knows how long it took Downer to to draw AND color all of this awesomeness, but he does a stellar job. The action is clear and energetic, the characters are lively and fun, I love the design of Dracula (and the entire cast) but I think one of my favorite things in particular here is how he integrates the sound effects into the panels. Too often have mainstream comics been resorting to digital fonts for their sound effects, plopped all hurly burly over the artwork. In Drac, the sound effects are etched in stone, engulfed in flames, and sliced through the air. It is something only comics do, and it is outstanding. The backgrounds, colors, lettering, everything here in fact, is top notch.

Sims writes a confident and ready-for-anything Dracula, who isn't quite at his peak right now, but will not let momentary weakness stand in his way. The story opens with Dracula emerging from a coffin, a young woman standing over him with a stake, booming "WHO DARES RAISE DRACULA FROM THE DEAD?" An old acquaintance and rival it seems, who seeks to use Dracula as a tool to unite the world of the vampire. Dracula of course will have no part in this, but it seems those that resurrected him will not take 'no' for an answer. But why was Dracula locked away? What lead to his downfall? I really can't wait to find out. For a first issue, this baby moves, too! We have Dracula using spells, swinging chains, and battling giant magic spirits. This is well worth my one dollar payment! Sims, Downer and Krach should be very pleased with this first issue, and I will most definitely be back for issue number two.

Here is a six page preview! http://www.draculatheunconquered.com/news/ The website also has a lot of great process stuff!

The second book for a buck I got was Spaceman, by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. I have not read their most famous work, 100 Bullets, but I really enjoyed their mini series Batman: Knight of Vengeance in the Flashpoint crossover event...in fact it was the ONLY Flashpoint tie in book I really liked! Keeping that in mind I decided to try out Spaceman, and there is something very interesting cooking here.

Our hero in Spaceman is an ape-like creature named Orson who was created in a lab to explore Mars, but seems to have never gotten there...or perhaps he was there and is back? Orson is experiencing a nightmare at the opening of the story, on a dangerous mission to fix a breach in the Greenhouse at the base on Mars. He awakens, on Earth, in a seemingly post-apocalyptic landscape. This comic reminds me a bit of the book Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, which also takes place in a less than ideal future where everyone speaks a strange hodgepodge of English. An example from Spaceman:

"This Batch,..I came across some primo CHEM--

tweaked the playlist. Strong like bull, so go eez.

LITTLE tastes, or your HEAD'LL come off"

The whole comic is filled with dialogue like this, and makes for a more attentive read. The plot has some hints of the film Children of Men mixed in, it seems like this is a future that got away from humanity a little bit, and is just trying to catch up with the train-wreck it has become.

I am a big fan of Eduaro Risso's artwork, to me he is a modern day practitioner of Herge's Ligne claire style, with a dash of Frank Quitely, especially in his use of negative space on the page. This is a Vertigo book, and as such is basically the exact opposite of Dracula the Unconquered, which is more of an all ages book. Spaceman features, among other things, weird future phone/skype sex (with diodes and suction cups) drug use, cursing and murder...but that is to be expected with a Vertigo book. I am very interested to see more of the world that Azzarello and Risso are building here.

So there ya have it chumps, two great comics for a dollar each (Spaceman has sales tax in PA though so it is a little more that that) what could be better?!

-Eamon

Spooky Halloween DragonBall post! (NSFW)

2011-10-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

Just in time for Halloween! I wanted to do a ghoulish post before the Holiday passes us by completely, and a few options rooooose from the grave...or..my brain, when I was deciding. I was considering covering the recent Xombi series, or the Phantom of the Opera-esque arc in Jack Kirby's original The Demon series, or even the issue of Jimmy Olsen (also by Jack Kirby) where he runs into the universal monsters. One manga (Japanese comic for those who do not know) came to mind immediately though, and I decided to go with it...a particularly spooky arc from the classic manga by Akira Toriyama, DRAGONBALL!

Our heroes, ladies and gents.

The basic plot of Dragonball centers around Son Goku, a young boy who lives alone in the woods, who has a monkey tail, and is as strong as an ox. He goes on a quest around the world for 7 magic balls, the Dragon balls, which when gathered together summon the mighty dragon Shenlong who can grant any wish. While the most popular form of Dragonball (at least in the United States) is Dragonball Z, an animated fighting series adapted from the latter half of the Dragonball manga, it may come as a surprise for some the Dragonball started out as a really jokey, raunchy and silly martial arts comic.

The chillllling arc in question sees our heroes Son Goku, with his friends Kruririn (the monk) Yamucha (the tall young desert bandit) Upa (the little Native American boy) and Puar (the floating cat) entering a tournament held by a fortune telling witch who will tell them the location of the last Dragonball they need. Their opponents: SPOOKY MONSTERS!

First up is this Dracula with boxing gloves (I like calling vampires Draculas, sue me) who does battle with Kuririn. He keeps on turning into a bat and fluttering around, which is pretty cheap, and Kuririn can't catch him. He eventually re-dracs and chomps, or glomps, Kuririn's enormous bald head.

The results of this are hilarious, but the action is still lively and satisfying. The brilliant thing about the early Dragonball comics is that Toriyama perfectly blends exciting and intense action with humor. It seems effortless, and perfectly illustrates why Toriyama is a master of comics. Oh and the hilarious results of Kuririn's wound:

Kuririn loses his match, and 'Count Dracula' is dispatched by Upa and Puar with some fast thinking...Yamucha takes up the next battle and his opponent:

The Invisible man! Yamucha can't see his opponent, obviously, and is getting the tar beaten out of him...that is, until Kuririn has a brilliant idea from the sidelines! A brief aside here, Dragonball is a very raunchy comic, which frequently features pretty low brow jokes and nudity that American audiences would be surprised by. Many of those instances of raunch are perpetrated by Master Muten Roshi, Son Goku's martial arts teacher.Very often when Master Roshi sees a pretty girl his nose bleeds, Kuririn knows this and fetches Roshi and their friend Bulma, for this eyebrow raising strategy for exposing the Invisible Man (possibly NSFW):

Yamcha attacks and makes short work of his opponent, thanks to Roshi's nosebleed, which brings the tournament to the next level. This is possibly the best setting I have ever seen in a comic:

Yep, there is a toilet paper dispenser.

Why yes, that IS an arena made from two giant statues of demons on toilets touching tongues. Here, Yamucha must do battle with his next spooky foe,

a Mu-Mu-Mu Mummy! The battles from here on out become a little more serious, Yamucha is dispensed with fairly brutally and quickly, leaving the challenge up to Son Goku. Son takes out the Mummy, to everyone's surprise, with ease, as well as his next opponent, the Devil!

What an awesome panel.

The panel above is the Devil using his evil beam, which brings the evil in his opponent's heart out and kills them...too bad for him that Son Goku has no evil in his heart!

The tournament goes on for one more match but that section, but that section is not as SPOOKY as the ones I decided to share. Dragonball gets a bad rap in America, I think, because of the cartoon show Dragonball Z (which I personally still love). If you have an opportunity, check out the volumes out by Viz comics!

Oh and on a digital comics aside, for more spooky comics fun check out Dracula the Unconquered, by Chris Sims, Josh Krach and Steve Downer. The story is really fun, the art is spectacular, and it is ONE DOLLAR. Check it out:

http://www.draculatheunconquered.com/

-Eamon

Last Week Of October in Superhero Comics

2011-10-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

This week I picked up some pretty awesome books, why don't we share them together? EH?

Bachalo really takes his spreads to the next level.

So the only new 'X' book I have been reading lately is the awesomely epic, always purty to look at Uncanny X-Force, written by Rick Remender (I especially like the ones where Jerome Opena does the art). The recent Schism story by Jason Aaron got a lot of praise, and there was a LOT of hype on the ol web for this title, as well as good word of mouth from a few trusted friends, so I decided to give it a try. The basic premise, is that Wolverine, after his falling out with Cyclops, reopens Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters as The Jean Grey School For Higher Learning. Wolverine is the headmaster, and Kitty Pride is the headmistress, with Professors including Beast, Gambit, Rogue and Iceman (Toad is the janitor!). Wolverine's school is in utter chaos on it's first day, and will probably remain chaotic for some time. Jason Aaron is mixing X-Men with Hogwarts here, and I think its an amazing idea (and fun!Fun is good for comics!). The art by Chris Bachalo is just perfect for the book, fun, chaotic and full of energy and busy cartooning. I also really like the fact that he colors his own pencils. It looks like I will have 2 X books on my plate from here on out. Also,a selection of some funny classes offered at The Jean Grey School :

World History (1880-1950): An Eyewitness Account, with Headmaster Logan

Sex Ed, with Professor Remy LeBeau (funny cuz it's Gambit)

Ethics 101: Forgetting Everything You Ever Learned From Emma Frost, with Headmistress Pryde

You can REALLY feel that punch.

I mentioned Rick Remender above, who in addition to Uncanny X-Force is also writing Venom. I never in a million years thought I would buy a Venom comic, but Rick Remender and Tony Moore made me do it! Remender is still on writing duties come issue number 8, Tom Fowler does the art now, and he has a meaty inking cartooning style that has really grown on me (see above panel). I really like Fowler's art, and Remender makes venom a compelling and tragic figure, much like Spider-Man, but this Venom has a much less rosy personality than ol' Pete Parker. He is forced to rely on the venom symbiote, he lost his legs while in the military, and he is a recovering alcoholic...AND his Dad just died. This issue is a tie in with the Spider Island event, and Venom is facing off against the Spider Queen.

I really like her posture and facial expressions.

I love how Fowler draws this character...definitely has a Bettie Page thing going on, sexy but not...trashy. I really enjoy this book.

(This is a dream sequence) Look at Buck's face! Outstanding.

As I have blogged before, Captain America and Bucky is an amazing looking book (and the story ain't half bad, neither!) that I personally don't think is getting enough praise on the ol' internet. Chris Samnee and Bettie Breitweiser are a comics one-two punch, like Cap and Bucky socking the Red Skull in the face! This issue has Bucky and the sidekick to the original Human Torch, Toro, rescuing a spy from an enemy Nazi camp. The problem is that he is being held in a concentration camp, and the horrors Bucky sees there drives him into a frenzy. I really like the characterization going on here for Buck, it is really evident that while he has just as high a moral code as Cap, he is a lot more bloodthirsty. I am no Captain America expert, but I do not really remember the Holocaust subject being tackled much in the comics, so I find this path an interesting one.

I DO think the cover is a little tasteless though...it features Bucky is featured behind some barbed wire with other concentration camp captives all beat up and haggard as if he was a prisoner there. That definitely does not happen in the issue! The cover is on the internet, go find it I don't want to post it here. To be honest I found the covers to be the only weak point of Cap and Buck so far.

Onward for the Marvel books this week! We have Daredevil number 5 from Mark Waid and Marcos Martin, who I have gushed about in previous posts. This book delivers AGAIN. Waid writes some really compelling and ENJOYABLE comics, that can switch from fun to solemn or poignant at the turn of a page. I think it is very impressive. Read some of the word bubbles in the panel below, hilarious stuff:

Marcos Martin is one of he saviors of superhero comic art, I imagine he and Waid are like two smooth jazz guys who have mastered their craft and are just mad experimenting now, taking the rules and bending them to their whims, like the below panel...

Only comics. Only comics. BUY DAREDEVIL if you like good superhero comics and want to support them at their best.

That about does it for the Marvel books this week, let's check in with DC comics, shall we? This week I picked up two DC comics, both #2s, The Flash and Aquaman. Lets take the Flash first...

In this issue the Flash learns to think as fast as he can run by tapping his brain into the 'Speed Force'. Above he is seeing all the possible solutions he could take to foil some robbers and save some innocent bystanders. This sequence is a really interesting few pages. Like Mark Waid and Marcos Martin, I think Franics Manapul and Brian Buccellato are furthering the greatness of superhero comics, keeping what makes them great safe and furthering the form. I also can't help but think Manapul read Daredevil number one by Waid and Rivera and thought 'Hey I can do that too dammit! (which I think is a great thing for comics). He has a lot of fun with the logos and mastheads as well, which is always fun:

I also bought Aquaman number 2...not much to say about this one. The art but Ivan Reis is outstanding, and the story and characters aren't too bad...but nothing really compels me to share in this space...not sure if I am going to keep up with that one.

-Eamon

To Drop or Not to Drop...

2011-10-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

I pick up a lot of comics every month. Currently, just from Marvel and DC, I am reading Animal Man, Action Comics, Batman, Batman and Robin, Batwing, O.M.A.C, Punisher Max, Punisher, Moon Knight, Uncanny X-Force, Venom, Batwoman, Swamp Thing, Captain America and Bucky, Daredevil...and probably a few more. I am also reading the Avengers every month, written by Brian Michael Bendis, with art usually by John Romita Junior. I really enjoyed the book initially, although lately the Fear itself ties ins were losing me, as I don't usually read crossovers. At times the lack of central characters bothered me. I was beginning to feel like the book was too unfocused, and that too many characters were sharing the spotlight in every issue, almost like 20-some pages of cameos every month. I was prepared to drop the book this month.

Then, I saw the cover, which I think is just a great image. I think it captures,visually, what Bendis has been doing with the scripts on The Avengers. Bendis is fleshing out the personalities of the Avengers, with small conversational sections and text interview style pieces, with the team members talking about each other, what was currently happening in the book, and what it meant to each character to be an Avenger. I think these sections are really interesting, and do give the readers a bit more of a connection with some of the characters. Seeing Cap's hands rummaging through a pile of potential Avenger's pictures with his cup of coffee immediately (for me anyway) brings him down to earth and also still conveys him as the leader of The Avengers. I also love the selection of characters on the table (how awesome would it be to have Ghost Rider on the Avengers?!).

The artwork, by Daniel Acuna, sealed the deal for me. This is one awesome/beautiful looking super hero book. I loved every page of this comic, but the page above stood out to me. For the past few issues a romance has been budding between Hawkeye and Spider-Woman, and ex wife of Hawkeye Mockingbird has noticed...

Those three panels of Hawkeye giving Spider-Woman that rouge's smile, then getting caught, is just outstanding. It made me laugh out loud. The issue also sets up a pretty interesting future plot point, utilizing many of the major events that have taken place the last few years in the Marvel universe. This issue has made me decide to keep up with Avengers...I hope it stays this good.

-Eamon

Awesome Art from Recent Comics I Bought

2011-10-17T20:15:00.000-07:00

So every now and then I like to share some art I think is awesome from the comics I am buying, this past week there is a lot of New 52 stuff, with some Marvel and a non big two entry. I have a Tumblr mostly for this purpose also, her e. Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E, written by Jeff Lemire with art by Alberto Ponticelli, is a title I was not 100% sure about, but I couldn't NOT not buy the above cover, I think that image is superbly done and really funny. The below splash page was also very appealing. I very much enjoy the wonky way Frankenstein's face is drawn in the book.

Animal Man, also written by Jeff Lemire with art by Travel Foreman, is a superbly written book, but the artwork seems a little hit or miss to me. The below spread is definitely not a miss, and will have me back at the shop for issue number three next month...

Batwoman by J.H.Williams III and W. Haden Blackman is another beautiful book, and the art is always top notch and probably the best super hero comics has to offer, but I particularly enjoy the below spread because it takes the viewer through a crime scene in a way only a comic book could do. Bravo.

Speaking of the Bat-verse, the new Batman and Robin book is, in my humblest of opinions, extremely under rated. Pairing Bruce and Damian together makes for compelling comics. Bruce has a long way to go as a father, and this story does not shy away from that. He is cold to Damian sometimes, but you really can tell Batman is trying to be a good Father. Damian is at once sympathetic and chilling, a child torn between the expectations of his Father and his savage upbringing as a killer. There is a gut-wrenching spread I don't want to spoil with Damian in the Bat-cave that was at once very sad and frightening. I am really looking forward to the next issue. Also check out how Patrick Gleason draws Damian...perfect!

I love how intense Damian's face is in the above page...

...perfect. I also picked up the new Shade by James Robinson and Cully Hamner, which was a great book, but none of the panels jumped out at me as ones I needed to share, same with the new Swamp Thing by Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette.

I still wish I enjoyed Grant Morrison and Rags Morales on Action comics a little more, but I trust Morrison so I'll keep with it, I really liked the below panel, especially the thin ink lines.

Also the cape panel is outstanding. Really fun/hilarious stuff here.

As for Marvel I picked up Uncanny X-Force number 16, Venom number 7, and the Newest Punisher Max by Jason Aaron and Steve Dillion. I LOVE Punisher Max, but this week's issue had so many surprises and twists, that it is risky posting a pic here...so I will make due with this over the top scene of carnage:

I also had the chance to pick up The Death Ray by Dan Clowes, and boy is it a sharp looking book...too big to scan though...

And that is that!

-Eamon

Manapul and Martin: Keepin' it Real in Superhero comics

2011-10-10T17:52:00.000-07:00

Of the glut of DC new fiddy twos, another book I really enjoyed was the new Flash, with art by Francis Manapul (full credits above). I've never read a Flash comic before, and what Manapul is doing with the page layouts here is spectacular. I love this title page spread, using the letter shapes to introduce us to The Flash, and continues telling the story!

I love that page, it is probably my favorite opening spread I've seen in the New 52. Also for superhero comics I think that the blurb in the upper right corner explaining the Flash's origin is just perfect, and wish more comics and comic book movies would skip the lengthy origin and just jump right into the story! The artwork and page layouts are definitely the best part of this new issue of Flash, the story is enjoyable to read and develops some interesting starting conflicts, but these layouts are what is going to get me back to the comic shop to get the next issue. Pages like these are exhibiting storytelling techniques that only comics can do, and I love it. The below page is also a pretty sweet one,

and reminded me of another similar page in the recently collected 'The Amazing Spider Man Spidey Sunday Spectacular' by Marcos Martin and Stan Lee, which was one of my favorite comics purchases in quite some time. The 1st story is comprised of 2 page chapters that use the format extremely well.

Marcos Martin is a powerhouse, his is a world of classic superheroes transported to the here and now. There is a lightness and joy to how he draws superheroes and their world, his is a perfect blend of illustration and cartooning, and the story by Stan Lee here is really snappy and funny, I had a blast reading these. Lee is doing what he does best, that wiseacre banter, corny humor, and interesting, perfect word choice (Stan Lee's thesaurus must be pretty damn dog eared, if he even needs it anymore). There are so many funny moments and details in these Spidey stories, and the number of Marvel characters that appear is staggering, and it all works! One of my favorite examples is when Spidey visits Reed Richards (or Mr. Fantastic) for advice on a project. This could have been just a few panels of talking heads, but look what Martin puts in the background to spice up the story (also this could have been a direction in Lee's script):

I love little touches like these. Artists like Manapul and Martin are Pushing the envelope, and using actual cartooning to help their comics move, and keep lively, not be too bogged down by photo reference, filters and too many word bubbles. The recent Daredevil also yields a spectacular spread. Enjoy:

We need artists like these to continue to push the envelope, mixing old with new, to create some dope comics.

-Eamon

Obligatory New 52 post: Office Management Amidst Chaos!!!

2011-10-09T19:46:00.000-07:00

So DC comics did this line wide re-launch, 52 new issue number ones...if you are even a casual comics fan you know about this, and I don't really feel I need to go into THAT whole thing in this space. Now, I don't have the kind of money to actually buy 52 new comics so I have not read them all, but amongst my favorite titles are the new Batman, Animal Man (which seems to be everyone's fave), Batwoman (which I don't think should really count as a NEW #1) and The Flash. I like a few others, like Action comics (which I wish I liked it a little more) Batwing, Frankenstein and Aquaman, but head and shoulders above all of these, the title I cannot help but enjoy the most happens to be...

O.M.A.C! Created by Jack Kirby, with story and art by Dan Didio and Keith Giffen, inks by Scott Koblish, colors by Hi-Fi, letters by Travis Lanham and edited by Harvey Richards. As I understand it, O.M.A.C was Jack Kirby's update of Captain America for the future, where a scrawny loser named Buddy Blank (the new Steve Rogers) with a strong will gets transformed into an unstoppable super soldier. The original Omac stood for One Man Army Corps, he took orders from a giant eye shaped satellite in the sky known as Brother Eye. This new Omac (which now stands for One Machine Attack Construct) is Kevin Kho, who is transformed into Omac through his smart phone by the omniscient Brother Eye. What Kevin's ties to Brother Eye are at this point still remain mysterious, other than the fact that he works in an office building above a secret base Brother Eye needs to infiltrate. The plotlines of issue number one the new O.M.A.C and the old are relatively similar, Omac busts into an office, and Omac destroys it. I must segue, for a moment, to the original Omac for some inspired Jack Kirby predictions of office work in the future, however...

Buddy Blank is being picked on by people in his office, and his Supervisor (note the SUPER-V name tag, which is amazing) blames Buddy for having a persecution complex after his coworker literally PUNCHES HIM IN THE FACE. I mean look at him! Buddy is sent to the psychology section of the office to lose his frustration. The psychology section is a room with a few different doors, labeled 'silent room' and 'destruct room' and 'crying room'. Buddy picks the 'Destruct Room', where he sees this:

If modern day offices had rooms like this, I think everyone would be a lot less wound up. I like that one office worker is STABBING some UNSEEN dummy or piece of office technology. I also love the word bubble

"AAAAARRRR! DESTROYING THIS BOOK IS JUST WHAT I NEED!"

...another example of Jack Kirby's prophetic storytelling, just look at all of the recent bookstore closings. How could Kirby have foreseen this in 1974? The 'psuedo people' are my favorite feature about Kirby's vision of the future rat race. They are lifelike dummies that are bent over ass backwards so you can kick them down a rail into a granite wall. Absolutely spectacular. The thing about the original Omac series is that in every issue Jack Kirby included at least half a dozen awesome ideas that literally had me saying "wow!" or grinning ear to ear. The new Omac isn't as inventive, and that might be a little unfair because I am comparing the new creators to The King of comics himself. The toned down insanity also could be attributed to this O.M.A.C being a part of the shared DC universe, co-existing with characters like Animal Man and Batman. Nevertheless it is still a really fun read, and has scenes like this:

I really like that the new Omac's Mohawk is like an electric eel fin, that sparkles with raw energy. I think the book looks spectacular, and really appreciate all of the silliness. I think all of the issues are going to be titled with some variation on O.M.A.C (like issue number one's Office Management Amidst Chaos or issue number two's Odd Meals Assure Confrontation). I like how Brother Eye always replaces 'I' with 'eye' (for example 'Eye brought you here for a reason') and one of my favorite pieces of writing in the issue...

OMACTIVATE!

... is priceless. They inject a lot of Kirby and DC universe nods in here, and I love every second of it. This book doesn't take itself too seriously, it isn't grim n gritty, it doesn't offend any of my sensibilities. So far it is just good clean comics fun, and that is in startlingly low supply in superhero comics these days. I have no idea if anyone is reading this book, but I hope you are, dear reader, and that it continues for a good long run.

-Eamon

Captain America and Bucky is the best looking superhero comic on the shelf.

2011-10-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

Dc New 52 blah blah blahs aside, the one comic I think EVERYONE should be talking about (and it is a Marvel book) is Captain America and Bucky, with Ed Brubaker and Marc Andreyko on writing, Chris Samnee on art, Bettie Breitweiser on colors and Joe Caramagna on letters. Most of the buzz I have been reading on a Marvel book has been for Daredevil, by Mark Waid, Marcos Martin and Paolo Rivera, and don't get me wrong, that praise is extremely well deserved. The new Daredevil is one of the best comics out there now, and certainly a cut above most superhero books being released.

...But hot DAMN Chris Samnee is on fire, as is colorist Bettie Breitweiser. I'm not sure whose work on this book I like more, Samnee's or Breitweiser's. Samnee's art is the PERFECT combination of superhero style comics illustration, mixed with pure cartooning and a splash of Norman Rockwell. His inks are milky pools of black, they are like dessert, so satisfying and thick.
It's obvious he uses a lot of reference, but he draws every last bit of it, he doesn't just scan a photo and use posteredges to make it look like a drawing. Almost every panel has a background, and if it doesn't, there is a visual reason or excellent coloring choices that make it ok. Everything looks right, nothing is confusing, and it all looks damn good. If there are characters in the background, they are all individuals, and they are interesting to look at. Every panel tells a story. Some specific examples of what I'm talking about below...look at those clowns! Look at that train!

The action is exciting, and it's pure WWII pulp style storytelling, played a little less over the top than the Simon and Kirby Cap stuff, but the art is just spot on. I enjoy the story so far, which mainly focuses on the exploits of Cap and Bucky from Bucky's perspective, but the artwork is just so astounding that it is all I want to talk about. To be honest, the two mesh together perfectly, I can't really separate one from the other, which is PERFECT AND WHAT ALL COMICS SHOULD DO. Sometimes you might read a comic, and go "Hey, that was a great story, but the art just wasn't doing it for me" or vice-versa (I think a perfect example of the vice versa would be Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Catwoman: When in Rome story, fan-freaking-tastic visuals, but definitely one of the worst written comics I own).

It is interesting to see the transformation of Bucky from a troubled but well meaning kid into a killer. It is also a little bizarre that the younger Bucky seems almost more bloodthirsty than the older Captain America, but he is still a kid, the three panels below show ways that the artists convey those sides of Bucky... the cold blooded killer and the young soldier looking to impress, still unsure of himself.

The colors are digital, but they don't advertise it. The textures almost make the colors look painted, and they don't just serve the inked artwork, they enhance them, they make them look even better. I'm convinced that if this book was colored by someone else it would not look nearly as good. This book is a feast of comics storytelling, I feel like I get my $2.99 value with each and every issue. My only real qualm with this book is why Samnee isn't doing the covers. This is a perfect example of "don't judge a book by it's cover" because I think as cover images these issues have pretty unremarkable ones.

I would expect this book to be all over the web, pages and panels being tumbled, 5 star reviews on comics websites...maybe I'm just not looking in the right spots, but if you see this book BUY IT NOW. Let's not have another Thor The Mighty Avenger here people.

-Eamon

The World's Greatest Detectives

2011-09-27T17:46:00.000-07:00

I recently picked up a comic that featured The Batman and Sherlock Holmes, arguably the two most famous fictional detectives of all time. The story is an extra long Anniversary issue (Detective's fiftieth!) which was written by Mike W. Barr, with Art by Alan Davis, Terry Beatty and Dick Giordano, Carmine Infantino and Al Vey, E.D.Cruz (and a Pinup by Dick Sprang!). Colors by Adrienne Roy and Carl Gafford, and letters by John Workman, Romeo Francisco and Todd Klein. It was a team up that was too good to pass up, and this cover is definitely what prompted me to buy it, without looking at the interiors.

Aside from Holmes and The Dynamic Duo, we also get other DC detectives Slam Bradly and the ductile detective himself The Elongated man.

The story opens Philip Marlowe style, (or more appropriately Sam Spade style?) with Slam Bradley mourning his recently deceased partner in his lonely office, whereupon two sets of visitors, one a dapper Londoner looking for his missing fiancee, the other a set of gun wielding crooks, find their way into Slam's office. Slam and his new client escape into the alleyway, and are cornered, but are rescued by the dynamic duo Batman and Robin!

Batman does something here that immediately made me freeze in my tracks, however. A crook fires an automatic weapon at The Dark Knight, who quickly shields himself with the body of a thug he was walloping in the face. That crook HAS to be dead and as we all know, The Batman does not kill! (The panel of Batman just cold-cocking the thug over and over is amazing though.)

The other thing I noticed, not surprisingly, is what an amazing artist Alan Davis is. I am particularly taken with the way he draws the boy wonder himself, Robin! His expressions fit the character, and his grace and fluid movement in disabling crooks is amazingly depicted by Davis. Look at the joy as he effortlessly takes down all those thugs. These drawings of Robin might be my favorite iteration of the character in how he is depicted visually, at the very least it is one of my favorite aspects of this comic.

The comic is book-ended by the Alan Davis drawn sections with Batman and Robin, in the middle we get stories featuring Slam Bradley, The Elongated Man, and Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Slam Bradley section opens with another direct reference to The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (the first being Slam's dead partner in the beginning).

Slam does some fairly action-movie/comic booky detective stuff, including throwing a gasoline can at some approaching armed crooks and shooting it from afar to make it explode, distracting the thugs so he can run up and punch them out (if he was that good of a shot couldn't he have just shot them all? He shoots someone at the start of the comic...). Slam also discovers that his client is a descendant of the evil Dr. Moriarty, and the kidnapped fiancee was actually a descendant of Dr. Watson! This leads to a story with The Elongated Man, who just happens to be in London. He is walking by 221b Baker street, when Sherlock Holmes' former lodgings are assaulted by Moriarty's other descendant, this one following the family tradition more closely, who is looking for a lost manuscript of one of Sherlock Holmes' unpublished cases that could ruin his CURRENT plan to blow up the Queen and launch some missiles. I wish I enjoyed the middle section as much as the Batman start and finish, and there are plenty of references to the classic Conan-Doyle Holmes stories to clue the reader in that Barr knows his Holmes, but for me the Holmes story in this just falls flat and makes me see how great Sir Arthur C0nan Doyle's original stories really are.

An insane SPOILER ALERT to a comic published in 1986, the final baddie is apprehended by none other than the ORIGINAL Sherlock Holmes with some Baritsu (this is a reference to the martial art Holmes used to defeat Moriarty when they were locked in mortal combat over Reichenbach Falls in the original stories). Holmes sustained his long life "thanks to a proper diet, a certain distillation of Royal Jelly developed, in my beekeeping days, and the rarefied atmosphere of Tibet,where I keep my primary residence". This is pretty nuts, but in a way, totally appropriate. as Batman has said "Batman and Robin will never die" the same can be said for Sherlock Holmes, a multi media phenomenon of a character who is still having movies and television series made depicting his adventures today. It reminded me of the ending to Paul Pope's Batman Year 100 (MORE SPOILERS), where it is heavily implied that the Batman featured in Pope's story is still Bruce Wayne, even though he would be unbelievably ancient or dead in the time period that tale takes place.

The sense of fun, the art work and bevvy of classic Sherlock Holmes references are all here, I just wish I liked the comic a little more, and that the mystery made a little more sense. Anytime I get to see Sherlock Holmes and Batman depicted by Alan Davis, however, is an opportunity I would never want to miss.

-Eamon

The Best Page in The Avengers Marvel Masterworks edition

2011-08-04T18:13:00.000-07:00

I was flipping through my edition of the Avengers Marvel Masterworks edition recently and came across what may be my favorite page of avengers comics ever. Captain America is moping after working out with a bunch of big bruiser type wrasslers,

"all my training--all my skill--and STILL I was unable to save Bucky years ago!"

...and in walks the Avengers intern Rick Jones DRESSED LIKE CAP'S DEAD PARTNER. The expression on Cap's face is spectacular.

An aside...This page is just as fun and exciting as any action sequence, a testament to Mr. Jack Kirby... Seeing Rick Jones as Bucky makes Cap FLIP THE FUCK OUT, and screams at Rick to take off the costume, and snatches the domino mask off of Rick's face. I like to imagine, after that, Cap begins sobbing while pointing at Rick-Bucky to get out of his room, but he probably just has his head buried in his hands. Please read these three panels...they are amazing.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did folks! Or else...

-Eamon

The Deaths of Mys-Tech Wars

2011-07-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

Back in my comics-buying youth, one could buy comics in more places than just your local comic shop. Department stores, drug stores and dollar stores used to have discounted packs of assorted comics, organized in no way I could discern, in packs of three, four, and sometimes even 5 or ten! On one such occasion I found issue number three of a limited series called Mys-Tech Wars ( written by Dan Abnett with art by Bryan Hitch, with Caroline Steeden on Letters and Helen Nally and Helen Stone on colors), a Marvel Comics 'UK' series in one of these assorted packs, and what I saw inside immediately appalled me, and appealed to me ALL AT ONCE! (Huzzah!)

The opening double page spread (Bryan Hitch is pretty damn great at drawing a double page orgy of death) features a grouping of X-Men, Avengers and other Marvel characters battling it out with an army of Psycho-Warriors, who were unleashed by the evil Mys-Tech board to destroy earth or something. The Psycho-Warriors look like a cross between the borg and the gimp from Pulp fiction, and have the power to kill a whole boatload of Marvel super-heroes. OH, also in this two page spread: Cyclops getting a giant hole blasted through his chest and dying. No one is safe in Mys-Tech wars. This was back in 1993, the X-men cartoon was still going strong on TV, and the younger me was just getting into super hero comics full steam. To see one of my favorite characters die right there on the page was...kinda effed up.

The other thing about Mys-Tech wars are the reactions to the character's deaths. They are fairly realistic, or at the least how I imagine a reaction to a loved one's death would be. Upon seeing Cyclops gunned down in front of her, Jean becomes irrational and becomes hysterical, begging Jubilee to help her drag Cyclops' laser-hole ridden corpse to safety, further risking her own life and that of a fellow X-Man. This is the first instance of my repulsion/attraction to this series. I do not think that Jean would react in that fashion to Cyclops being killed, she has plenty of training in battle, and was the wielder of the Phoenix force for goodness sake, one of the mightiest powers in the entire universe, capable of destroying suns and flying clear across the galaxy. Here, she is reduced to nothing, a blubbering inconsolable wreck, who ends up killing herself when the world, and her mentor and friend Professor X need her the most...it just does not ring true to the character for me, which basically encapsulates my general feeling on Mys-Tech Wars as a whole. At the same time however, it is kind of cool to see a book where no character is safe..but there aren't enough hero moments, the good guys can never seem to catch a break.

The whole thing begins with Nick Fury, who invades the secret lair of the Mys-Tech board, some group of evil old people including an enemy of Nick's during his Howling Commando days. Here's what happens to Nick :

Mys-Tech then unleashes a hoard of Monster Lizard things which swarm the earth, killing many notable heroes. Spider Man and super-team Excalibur die on the same page, followed by a whole bunch more...

As it turns out, the baddies are altering reality, and the heroes that are dying were never meant to die in this fashion, and one of the main characters in the series, I think an original Marvel 'UK' character, Dark Angel, leads the fight to set things right. I think it seems like an excuse to shock and kill off a bunch of popular super hero characters...but there isn't anything really wrong with it...although sometimes things get a little too dark for my tastes in this type of super hero book, for example:

Pretty brutal, right?

The series also features a bunch of Marvel UK characters, like Dark Angel and Death's Head II. Outside of Death's Head II, I have never seen any of these characters used anywhere else, and in additon, none of them die in this series, only the established Marvel characters bite the dust.

At the end of the day, a select few living heroes alter reality and erase the damage done, and sabotage Mys-Tech's operation. Captain America and Logan stop Nick Fury from infiltrating the enemy base to get a beer instead, which is my favorite moment of the whole comic.

All in all Mys-Tech Wars was an interesting journey, that filled me with conflicting nerd feelings about the nature of superhero comics as a young fan. I had to seek out the back issues at local Philly comic shop Fat Jacks, and all of the intense battle sequences by Bryan Hitch are impressive to behold. An intense oddity if nothing else.

-Eamon

Mys-Tech Wars

2011-07-25T20:08:00.001-07:00

An insane cover by Bryan Hitch, to the Marvel UK (never heard of it!) 4 part miniseries Mys-Tech Wars. It's basically a story in which almost all of the marvel characters are killed by some weird Orc/Borg soldiers and lizard monsters, with some new and most-likely-never-seen again-after-this-series Marvel UK characters. There will be more on this later, but I had to share this cover.

-Eamon

The Punisher Holiday Special!

2011-07-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

I was gifted the Punisher holiday special #1 by a friend at a recent gathering, and it is another grand example of the insanity that is 90's Punisher comics.

The tale begins in the ritzy dining room of 'Little' Tony Caruso, who is demanding his henchmen bring him the head of Frank Castle, The Punisher, because the Punisher killed his father 'Big' Tony Caruso, and Little Tony doesn't get what he wants for Christmas anymore.

Little Tony explains this while holding a Bust of the Punisher. Little Tony had a bust of the Punisher made (or perhaps he is a sculptor in his spare time?) and proceeds to destroy it while getting worked up about not getting presents at Christmas.

So Little Tony's people spread a rumor that they are going to hit a mall on Christmas Eve, bait that the Punisher is all but guaranteed to take...and their plan works! The Punisher is fed the rumor by a hippie drug dealer who is being thrown off a roof by some ne'er do-wells.

The Punisher goes to the mall and hides under a car until the mall closes, then realizes it was all a trap! He punctures the gas tank he is laying directly under for no reason (he later blows the car up) and proceeds to go up against the mall cops, who are also gangsters and have real guns?

As it turns out, Frank isn't alone in the mall. A young girl is hiding there, because of something her dad did...

but then she turns around and says her dad "bought it" in Vietnam, which pretty much means her dad died in Vietnam, unless my understanding of slang is grossly outdated or misinformed. I suppose her step dad is the threat to her returning home, but things like this ain't important or the reason anyone reads a Punisher comic. Also the Punisher lets her know that her current lifestyle would probably lead her to further crimes, and he would hate to have to have to kill her. Classic Frank.

The bad guys have The Punisher's weapons, so Frank uses the only items at his disposal, mall Christmas ornaments! He showers one enemy with Christmas balls, and impales another with a model of Santa and his sleigh (slay?) complete with spear-like reindeer antlers. He also pole vaults off of the top of a Christmas tree!

The Punisher ends up killing the bad guys and saving the girl, who ends up going home for Christmas, and for some reason that Dad she was worried about gets arrested ( I can only assume it was for child abuse, but it would have been nice if this story angle was a little more clear) and the Punisher lets us know that he is so focused on his mission that he forgot who jesus is...

There is a backup story in this volume as well, but I really wanted to just comment on the main story in this special.

-Eamon

The Punisher: G Force

2011-07-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

Upon reading an article on the Comics Alliance blog, I came across a recommendation from writer Chris Sims of a Punisher one-shot, titled The Punisher : G Force. I count myself a Punisher fan, mostly of the Garth Ennis Marvel Knights/Max material, and the current Punisher Max Jason Aaron run, but I have been looking to expand my Punisher palette. Upon finding a copy of that very same volume Mr. Sims recommended at Fat Jack's Comic Crypt in Philadelphia, I had to buy it...I mean look at this cover!

In true comic book fashion the scene pictured on the cover (painted by a man known only as NELSON) never actually happens in the book itself, but what DOES happen in this volume is a lot more...well, insane. I would also like to say I really miss traditionally painted covers for comic books/graphic novels and one shots, most especially when they are of this caliber. Including the fancy cover, this volume also has some pretty awesome endpapers, I genuinely miss this format from Marvel ( the Wolverine/Punisher/Ghost Rider team up with a great John Romita Junior fold out cover and Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure with art by Mike Mignola are both prime examples of classy one shots put out by Marvel.)

So our story begins atop a high rise building, where a scuzzy french astronaut offers a woman he fancies some coke, and they scuttle off to make whoppee...meanwhile below, the Punisher is trying to kill 'Uncle Snake' who is luring a hooker into his car with Wontons.

The Punisher is already in Uncle Snake's car somehow, and tries to slit Uncle Snake's throat, but Uncle is wearing too many gold chains, so the Punisher's blade cannot find it's purchase on that sweet sweet neck. This enables Uncle to draw a gun on the Punisher, who is having some trouble with his prey. Fortunately, the woman on the high rise building that was with the French astronaut plummets to her death right onto Uncle Snake's car, crushing Uncle Snake in the process, and saving the Punisher's life. It turns out she has drugs in her system, although it is never explained why she was thrown off the high rise or if she just fell. It gets the Punisher looking into the affairs of this French spaceman , and it turns out he is using his diplomatic standing to smuggle drugs...in addition to using a giant space laser to destroy rival Colombian drug factories...from space.

The Punisher goes undercover, is forced to shoot coke, and makes lots of funny faces...

To track down the evil French astronaut, the Punisher even space-suits up, and travels to outer space, with no astronaut training, and blows up the space station that has a laser that blows up drug labs from space (wouldn't the Punisher love that space station...or commandeer it for himself?!) then hijacks a space shuttle back to earth and lands it in the desert.

Obviously this comic is ridiculous, the coloring is not my favorite...and some of the figure work I could take or leave. This was the era where the Punisher wore a Rambo-nian headband somewhat frequently. I must say that the drawings of all of the space machinery and vehicles is fairly impressive, and looks convincing. The most ridiculous aspect is the dialogue, and the introspective panels of Frank Castle, the Punisher. Some examples:

Also this interaction...WHO IS THIS JULIUS?!

He is bathed in shadow, and I do not trust him one bit...

-Eamon

Batman's Night Business: Prey

2011-04-18T19:51:00.000-07:00

Recently I got cut loose from work a few hours early, and was able to take up my usual role when I'm not on the clock as a comics vagabond/hobo. Upon visiting the comics shop at the King Of Prussia Mall and grabbing the new titles I was seeking that week, I decided to tempt fate and possibly deplete my wallet even more by browsing the back issue bin. I came across two items of interest, issue numbers 11 and 15 of Batman Legends of the Dark Knight: Prey parts 1 and 5 by Doug Moench Paul Gulacy and Terry Austin . Prey is of interest, because lately it has been getting some press. It was rumored that the newest and final Chris Nolan Batman film would be based heavily on this storyline. Upon hearing the news I took a mosey on over to amazon, where copies of the trade are currently selling for $140.00 used!!! So it goes with out saying that I would pick up these issues for a measly $6.

Upon opening the pages and leafing through, I could not help but get a sense of art deja vu...like perhaps I had seen something similar before. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks! For some reason Prey reminded me a lot of Night Business by Benjamin Marra! I don't know why, but the style used by Gulacy and Marra are very similar. The colors used on Marra's covers also are very similar to the interior colors of Prey.

Marra's drawings are certainly a bit more crude than Gulacy's, but there is a similarity in the approach of the figures and handling of the subject matter that I cannot help but notice. Prey was produced in the early nineties, when the 80's still had a heavy presense in pop culture. Batman: Prey seems to be a product of the time it was created. Perhaps that's why Prey does not have a greater presence today like Batman:Year One or The Dark Knight Returns does, it lacks that timeless quality. Night Business is set in 1983, and I can only assume is intended to emulate the type of comic Prey is (sans the superheroes).

I would argue that Marra's action sequences are a little more fluid, more kinetic than Gulacy's which seem a little stuff at times. Marra recently drew a short in Marvel's Strange Tales II. Perhaps this could lead to more mainstream comics work? I would love to see his take on the caped crusader.

-Eamon

The Many Gravestones of the Waynes

2011-04-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

Batman's appearance, and his world around him, changes drastically depending on what artist draws him. With characters like Batman or Superman I think the feel is generally more important than continuity, but it is interesting how different artists depict the gravestone/stones of the Wayne parents. Sometimes there are two, sometimes the stone is one shared monolithic memorial.

The above panel appears in Batman year one, and is very powerful, especially in the context of the page/issue. Art By David Mazzucchelli and colors by Richmond Lewis.

Here we have a panel from the final issue of Batgirl year two, Batman finally and formally welcomes Batgirl to the fold, and she finds the reason for the crusade. These tombstones definitely reference the ones in Batman: Year One I'd suspect. Art: Marcos Martin on pencils, Alvaro Lopez on inks and Javier Ridriguez on colors.

In the seemingly completely forgotten Batman: Year Two (written by Mike W.Barr with art by Alan Davis and Todd McFarlane) the Wayne family plot undergoes a transformation, both sharing one marker. Certainly easier for Bruce to drape himself over. Above art: Todd Mcfarlane on pencils, Alfredo Alcala on inks and Steve Oliff/Gloria Vasquez on colors.

Here we have the Wayne plot as seen in the Tim Sale-illustrated, Jeph Loeb written Batman : The Long Halloween. Martha seems to have gotten a much more impressive tomb than Thomas, perhaps an indication of which parent Bruce loved more? Gregory Wright on colors here. (in the context of the comic, Bruce is under the influence of the Scarecrow's fear toxin, and being chased by the police for suspicion of the holiday murders.)

Below is an image from Gotham by Gaslight, once again the Waynes share a tombstone. Pencils by Mike Mignola, inks by P. Craig Russell, David Horning on colors and John Workan doing the letters.

And there we have it! Not an all encompassing collection, but a smattering of examples from my collection. Hope it was interesting!

-Eamon

Comics I bought on 3.23.2011

2011-03-24T18:34:00.000-07:00

This Wednesday I purchased my wares at Brave New Worlds in Old city! Let's Begin shall we?

First on the list is Batman Inc. number 4, by bat-scribe extraordinaire Grant Morrison on writing duties and Chris Burnham on art chores. The issues opens with the new Batwoman (of Batwoman Elegy fame) tracking a crook named Johnny Valentine through the original Batwoman's (Kathy Kane) circus (apparently the original Batwoman ran a circus!). We get a flashback to Kathy Kane's first exposure to Batman and Robin. In the present, Batman and El Gaucho, the Argentinian superhero, are forced to duel with electric brass-knuckles... to the death, or three orphans will drown at the hands of villains El Sombrero and Scorpiana. The issue is filled with flashbacks of the dynamic duo coming into contact with the original Batwoman, and Batman's love affair with the Batwoman, and the forming of a 'bat-family'. Ace the Bat-Hound and Batgirl even make an appearance! But there is more than meets the eye behind Batwoman, and why she is getting so close to the Batman.

The interesting thing about this issue, or at the very least the most interesting thing to me, are the flashbacks to days of the original dynamic duo and the Bat family. I find it thrilling that Morrison is continuing his trend started in the Black Glove and Batman R.I.P of including all aspects of the character's history. The flashback scenes have a very animated and fun quality to them, and we see some expressions of happiness on The Batman's face, something you don't see very often with the modern version of the character. I also love love love how he draws Robin. Chris Burnham does amazing work in this issue, the characters all have distinct and fun facial features, and the action is conveyed extremely dynamically, no static panels or figures that look as if they have been frozen in their poses by some kind of freeze ray. The introduction of the new Batwoman did seem a tad abrupt to me, and I am wondering how she will fit into the current storyline, and at a certain point it feels like Batman turns on El Gaucho fairly quickly on the word of the villains currently making them punch each other to death...with electric brass knuckles. But nonetheless this was an exciting issue that will once again have me return to Batman Inc. Next issue.

I also Picked up FF #1, The Uncanny X-Force #6 and an interesting Captain America one Shot, Captain America and Batroc the Leaper. As an added bonus this one shot has a classic Lee/Kirby Cap story in the back, I found this page to be especially awesome:

I really like how Cap is crouched and circling his enemy in that last panel.

-Eamon

Jademan Kung Fu Special # 1

2011-01-17T19:50:00.000-08:00

So this past Sunday I went to the Showcase comics in Bryn Mawr and picked up two trade paperbacks, Knightfall part one: Broken Bat (with an awesome cover by Kelley Jones) and a hardcover collection of the Black Panther series by Reginald Hudlin and John Romita Jr. I got these both for 50% off which was awesome, but I also got a 50 cent comic, from Jademan comics, called Kung Fu Special #1. I did not read this comic yet, but found some totally unexpected material inside. They show the process of making the comics, which I always think is awesome. We are also introduced to Tony Wong, the "Master Archited" of Jademan Holdings...or at least the comics. Mr. Wong appears several times throughout, and he is one hip dude.
Pretty Handsome spread right? I really feel cheap laughing at improper English in foreign works brought to America, but for a comic book that was once on American comic shop shelves, it is a little unforgivable...so here is a great snippet:

Mr. Wong is also a dashing playboy, as evident by this double paged spread in the middle of the comic:
Here is a pretty decent albeit somewhat tacky portrait (perhaps a self portrait?) you could probably expect to see in your Aunt Vikki's favorite hair salon.
The amount of Wong in this comic is almost baffling. Maybe they thought he could be like Jademan's very own Stan Lee? Here is a picture of him showing his wares. Who wouldn't want the entire Jademan lineup of comics?!

These were a complete surprise gem of hilarity, but back to comics, I really love this page of faces.

Until next time!

-Eamon

Challengers of (Omega) the Unknown

2011-01-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

While Christmas shopping at a local mall comic shop, I came across a collected edition of Omega the Unknown, a recent adaptation of a short lived 70s series called Omega the Unknown, by Steve Gerber, Mary Skrenes and Jim Mooney. The updated version is by novelist Jonathan Lethem and Karl Rusnak on writing duties, illustrator Farel Dalrymple is both penciller/inker and letterer, with Paul Hornschemeier on color duties (and some short sequences) with an additional few pages by Gary Panter. The book definitely has an "independent" comics look to it, all of the characters, even the superheroes, look like they could be real people on the street as opposed the the uber muscled attractive hero types in any regular marvel comic. Omega the Unknown takes place in New York City, and really plays up the location, something I think more Marvel comics should do (seeing as how New York City in the Marvel Universe is home to almost all of their heroes). Our hero, Titus Alexander Island, is a young man who was raised and home schooled by a very proper couple, who want their son to come more accustomed to the world as he gets older. On their way to take Alexander to a new school, the family has a car accident, and Alex wakes finds his mother's severed head next to him, with wires coming from the neck. Alexander was raised by robots (thus his analytical, cold behavior). From there, Alex is beset upon by a growing cult of attacking robots, protected by a mysterious man in blue tights and a red cape, stalked by a local superhero, The Mink, and forced to adapt to the real world he had been shielded from for all 14 years of his young life.

Lethem does a great job of balancing super heroics, science fiction, and the feeling of city living. The book is laugh out loud funny at times, most especially because of the characterization of the local hero The Mink, who appears frequently on local news programs and game shows, has his own comic book series, and is rather sinister when all is said and done . The Mink has a loyal army of followers, politicians in his pocket, and has his base of operations on a personal island on top of a Daedalean labyrinth in which he throws his enemies. The Mink is possibly my favorite character in this story. He is most assuredly a villain, not to be trusted, but at the same time is unraveling and trying to expose a plague of robots that is slowly taking over the city, through tiny nanobots being fed to the city through a chain of fast food joints and packages infested with the bugs delivered by a fed ex type organization. Our other hero, the blue clad and seemingly mute (perhaps just a man of very very few words) Omega, has crash landed on earth, and is also one step behind Alex for much of the story. He has the Greek symbol Omega on both of his palms, something which also happens to Alex, and gives him strange powers. Omega is one man against two fronts, possibly three. He is utterly alone in the world, battling a secret army of alien robots, and is also relentlessly pursued by The Mink. He has some connection to Alex, but what could it be?

The Art in Omega the Unknown is simply breathtaking (as are all the covers and overall design of the hardcover collection). It does not really look like any other book Marvel has ever put out, and would be just as at home with more independent publishers like Top Shelf. The panel borders are uneven, the entire book is somewhat sketchy and inky, with beautiful hand done lettering. Dalrymple is excellent at conveying the quirky mood of the story, and really helps sell Lethem's story. The big laughs and the chilling moments are only as strong as the partnership of artist and writer, and this combination definitely meshes well. There is an attention to detail here that really sells everything, and is integral to conveying the urban feeling that I think Lethem is trying for. This detail also makes the robots and monsters that much more creepy and impressive.

With Omega the unknown Marvel has put forth a charming and utterly endearing, original series, which ends almost as abruptly as the original Omega: The Unknown ( I think this was likely planned, as Omega the Unknown was cancelled after ten issues). With this, and the recent Strange Tales and Strange Tales II Marvel is covering some ground that is inspiring, and I hope that they continue this trend of unexpected use of their army of characters.

How Keanu Reeves made me a fan of the Punisher.

2010-06-30T18:53:00.000-07:00

I had never really been a big Punisher fan before. As a younger kid I thought he was too gritty and scary, too adult for me to pick up and read. I stuck to reading Batman, X-Men, and any other comic book that had a Saturday morning cartoon equivalent on at the same time. As I got a little older, I was no longer intimidated by the Punisher, rather, I was unimpressed. "Big deal, he's an angry looking dude with guns and a skull on his shirt! If I want that I'll just watch an action movie!" Those were my feelings in a nutshell regarding the Punisher, and I still kept up with my X-titles and moved into the soon to become phenomenon Manga fandom. Then, it happened, a movie came out that started this whole change of events. That movie, was the Matrix. I'm not going to go into the Matrix too much here, (it was awesome of course) and it also made me a Keanu Reeves fan (snicker if you will, but he has some good flicks under his belt, dammit!). What does this have to do with Frank Castle(That's the Punisher's real name)you ask? Well, Keanu Reeves soon was in another action movie, Constantine, based on the seminal Vertigo series, John Constantine: Hellblazer. The movie was somewhat removed from it's original source material , as I later found out, but I checked it out as a Reeves fan, and I liked what I saw. So, like Batman the Animated Series and the X-Men animated series before it, the film Constantine prompted me to pick up some John Constantine: Hellblazer trades, and I found another series that I would become a life-long fan of. Amongst these trades, the work that stood out the most to me, and kept me coming back to those somewhat pricey Hellblazer trades, was the work of writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon.

When I think of Hellblazer, Ennis and Dillon's version is the clearest in my mind, the definitive version, like Warner brother's animated version of Batman from the animated series is my quintessential Batman. After I read all of the Ennis and Dillon Hellblazer I could get my hands on, I wanted more. That is when a friend of mine, in college, loaned me the first, and subsequent volumes, of Preacher. I was in heaven! Preacher had extreme violence, dark humor, and was just plain odd, and I love every single page of it. Ennis and Dillon are the perfect story telling combo, and I read through those 9 trades very quickly. This, my friends, is where Frank Castle comes back into the picture. After all that Preacher, my taste for Ennis and Dillon was not quite yet satiated, and that is when my Preacher connect got me my Ennis and Dillon re-up, in the form of The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank trade paperback.

Welcome Back, Frank is written, as you can probably guess, by Garth Ennis. Pencils are by Steve Dillon, inks by Jimmy Palmiotti, with colors by Chris Sotomayor (As well as iconic covers by Tim Bradstreet). The Punisher finds himself back in New York City (after some weird storyline where he hunts demons for heaven or something) to renew his war on the crime that plagues the good people of NYC. The Punisher's war mainly focuses on the crime families, and in these issues specifically on the Gnucci family. The Punisher kills one Gnucci brother in a warehouse during a drug buy, and kills another in the city morgue, featuring a shoot out with corpses being used as human shields (The Punsher chooses a nice fat corpse, bullets don't pass through those as easily it seems). The next Gnucci brother is hogtied and gagged, and the Punisher hoists him up completely over his head, and throws him off of the top of the Empire State building. These actions start an all out war with the leader of the Gnucci gang, Ma. Throughout the trade the Punisher crosses paths with Daredevil (who he ties up and humiliates), some odd neighbors (an Obese man, a shut-in mousey woman who bakes extra cookies and pies for Frank, and a pierced punk "Spacker Dave") and has him being tracked by the two detectives with the worst luck in the police dept, a Russian monster of a hit man, and a fan club of violent vigilantes.

The thing that makes Welcome Back, Frank so good is that...well it is just damn funny, and damn entertaining. It fills the violence quotient you would expect from a Punisher comic, but it isn't the type of violence that makes you squirm. It had loads of dark humor (making an amputee funny? Who'da thunk it?!) and doesn't take itself too seriously, but isn't a complete write-off either. It is a nearly perfect piece of entertainment, it satisfies on every level I expect to be satisfied with while reading a comic. Dillon's drawing here is very strong, an interesting middle ground in between his slightly more detailed work he did in Hellblazer and Preacher, and his somewhat more simplified work he does in lets say, Punisher Max: Kingping. His comedic timing (if such a thing is possible in a comic, I just can't think of another way to describe it) is right on money. I cannot praise this book enough.

After Welcome Back, Frank I moved on in my reading. The Punisher came back into my life when a little movie came out called Punisher: War Zone. Ignore anything you hear from the critics, this is an extremely well crafted movie, completely over the top and violent. This re-ignited my interest in The Punisher, and I went to the stores and picked up some issues of a Marvel Knights series, Punisher versus Bullseye. This series was written by Daniel Way, with art duties taken up by Punisher familiar Steve Dillon. Dillon is the reason I bought these issues, at the time I hadn't read anything by Daniel Way, and I did not particularly like the cover. The issues I have read of this series, I love. Much like the Ennis Punisher issues, it is hysterically funny. A mobster who once had to cross dress to disguise himself and escape from the Punisher (inexplicably he still cross dresses to the current day, and is in hiding) and his dim witted nephew hire on Bullseye to take out Frank Castle. Whether or not this was a good plan remains to be seen, I have only 3 of the 5 issues, I missed out on the last two and have yet to find them.

Following these, I took another break from Punisher books, until I came across yet another Steve Dillon-pencilled Punisher run, Punisher Max #1. I believe it's a relaunch of the Punisher Max series, previously written by Garth Ennis. This run is penned by Jason Aaron, with pencils/inks by Steve Dillon, and colors by Matt Hollingsworth. Collected in the trade paperback Punisher Max: Kingpin, Aaron tells the tale of how the Kingpin came to be. It is like a modern revamp, the Punisher is already well established, and getting on in years. The Kingpin is merely a heavy,but has plans in motion to become the Kingpin of Crime in NYC.

This series is dark. Still funny, but much more gritty. Frank Castle is practically a monster, he tortures his prey before killing them with pincers and hack saws, and literally pours salt into their open wounds. The Punisher is at his height of ruthlessness here, at least compared to what else I have read of the character. He is headed down a dark, dark path, as is the future Kingpin of Crime, Wilson Fisk. Fisk has a family, and works to become the top crime boss to ensure his son does not have to endure the same hard life he had to live through. The Kingpin is also strong as an ox. He runs through walls as if they were made of paper and cardboard, and by squeezing both sides of one mug's head,he pops his eyes out of his sockets. The Unfortunate mobster wanders around with his eyes dangling out of his sockets, until he finally shoves them back in...only to be killed by the Punisher. Humor is still around though maybe a bit harder edged than Ennis's previous Punisher work. (The work Ennis does in his current series, The Boys, definitely has a much harder edge than anything I've read from him before. Perhaps this series is trying to emulate?) Did I mention there is also a Mennonite hit-man? Yeah you heard me.

Needless to say, the Kingpin ascends to the highest level of crime, and the Punisher remains a thorn in his side. He turns to the hit man Bullseye to try his hand at destroying Frank Castle, and these issues, in my humble opinion, is where this new MAX series gets going. Bullseye is, in a word FUCKING INSANE. Jason Aaron paints Bullseye as a ritualistic hit man, who must learn as much as he can about his target in order to eliminate them. This is a little more complicated than going to the library and looking at old newspapers, or using google. Bullseye tortures information out of known contacts. He visits sites in which castle has been know to live, and kill. He sleeps in mattresses the Punisher has slept in...naked. The Lengths Bullseye goes to familiarize himself with his target have to be seen to be believed. I cannot wait to see where Aaron goes from here. As for the artwork, Steve Dillon's style is a tad simplified here, I find the work he did in Welcome Back, Frank to be a bit more polished and appealing, but I still think this is exactly the kind of book he should be working on.

Film Strips: Fist of The North Star

2010-04-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of the anime/manga franchise, Hokuto No Ken created by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara, known on American shores as Fist of the North Star, a martial arts acion series set in a post apocalyptic landscape. The animated film, directed by Toyoo Ashida, ranks amongst one of my favorite anime films. The mix of extreme violence, Mad Max style villains and tidbits of melodrama makes for some great entertainment. I had known for some time that a live action adaptation had been made, in America, which seemed to be a direct to dvd release. I did not recognize the vast majority of the cast, (save for Malcolm Macdowell and Chris Penn) and the movie looked low budget at best. This movie was undoubtedly bad...but I have Netflix so I took the plunge and watched it!

The "star" of the film is Kenshiro, the heir to Hokuto Shin Ken, a deadly martial art that strikes pressure points in the body and explodes from within. (this aspect is never explained in the film, I wonder if people who have no clue what Fist of the North Star is all about even know why people are exploding and such) Kenshiro is played by Gary Daniels, who has the physicality needed for the role, Daniels is one jacked mo-fo...but he has the acting range of a cinder block, his eyes constantly bulged in an expression of surprise. The Kenshiro in this film is a pained character, running from his fate to inherit the title of "Fist of the North Star". This differs from his portrayal in the comics, that Kenshiro is a man who has accepted his role as heir to Hokuto Shin Ken, and travels the barren wasteland that is now earth in search of Shin, the man who gave him seven wounds on his chest, in the shape of the big dipper, as well as kidnapping the woman he loves, Julia.

Shin, portrayed by Costas Mandylor, is the master of Nanto Seiken, a brother school to Hokuto Shin Ken. The schools are supposed to exist in balance, and never clash, but Shin crosses the line and kills the previous Fist of the North Star, Ryuken, played by Malcolm Macdowell. Madylor is not too notable as Shin, his best moment is the flashback scene in which he gives Kenshiro his scars. He is relegated in the rest of the film to trying to win the love of Julia, the woman he kidnapped from Kenshiro, and trying to create a new world order. It seems like the character with the most screen time is Chris Penn, who plays a character that is a Pastiche of two characters from the original, Jackal. (His appearance is that of Jagi, his name was taken from Jackal, a scheming enemy of Kenshiro in the comics) Chris Penn might just be the best actor in the film...but he is wasted with awful awful dialogue, and speech after silly speech about killing, without ever actually doing much besides beating a woman. Ken's long lost love is played by a japanese actress, Isako Washio. She does not have a great grasp of the english language, and I find it odd that in a film full of white men playing characters with names like Ryuken and Kenshiro, the one character named JULIA is played by a japanese woman. There are also a bunch of cowering innocents, most notable Ken's child companions from the comics, Bat (played by Ruffio from Hook) and Lin, who was mute in the comics, but in this version is blind instead...ok.

For a movie based off of a martial arts manga, there are not too many good fights. Gary Daniels is a martial artist first and foremost, an actor second....well maybe an actor third or fourth. The fights are shot too close, the action is hard to catch. The way Gary Daniels emulates Ken's Hundred crack fist of the North star is laughable, and he fails to utter the "A-Ta Ta Ta Ta!!!"s that Kenshiro shouts while he pokes the various pressure points on his enemies. When his enemies explode, which happens far too little, it's off screen. That is not what one expects in a Fist of the North Star film. The best parts of the movie are the costumes and the miniatures. The costuming is very faithful to the source material for the most part, Ken's costume is dead on, and in the flashback scenes Shin's boots match the kind he wore in the comics. Little touches like that redeem the film to a slight extent. Certain touches with the miniatures ring true as well, like the iconic shot of a skyscraper impaled with a battleship. Sadly, it is a bad indication when the most positive aspect of the movie are the miniatures and costumes...not that they aren't important!

The ultimate downfall of this film, besides the poor acting, writing, score, direction and fight choreography, is director Tony Randel's lack of understanding the overall story and characters of the original, and what viewers are expecting from a Fist of the North Star film. Instead of making a movie about a guy that can make other guys explode, and paying that forward as much as possible, he gives us a movie with lots of strange speeches, a lead character running from his destiny, as well as what the audience wants to see. The best way to watch this movie is to listen to the audio commentary track, featuring Gary Daniels and director Tony Randel. Gary Daniels comes across as a pretty nice guy, who has a great appreciation for the source material, and considerable knowledge on the subject as well. Tony Randel, on the other hand, comes across as more than a little embittered, seemingly making excuses for some of the short comings of the movie, and making outrageous comparisons to all sorts of art movements and films that have influenced him in the making of this picture...which only underline how bad this film is. He seems to want to prove that he actually made a great film...or if it did turn out poorly it is the fault of the source material or time constraints. In any event, this is a bad movie that could be fun to watch if you're a fan of the comic...but don't expect anything good!

Manga Monday: Golgo 13: Gravestone in Sicily

2010-02-01T17:50:00.000-08:00

I have been picking up viz's somewhat recent volumes of Golgo 13, the decades old manga originated by Takao Saito. For those of you who don't know, Golgo 13 (also known as Duke Togo) is a world class hit man, with a perpetually expressionless face. He has big eyebrows and sideburns, and uses a sniper rifle to fulfill his contracts. He never misses his target, and charges top dollar for his "hits". Men fear him, women want him, and all he ever really has to say is "...".

Volume 8 in viz's 13 volume in total run entitled "Gravestone in Sicily" really appealed to me. The first story, titled merely Telepath features an event that happens once in a lifetime, like a first kiss or finding that one Bruce Willis who doesn't die in a catastrophic train crash...GOLGO 13 misses! It seems he was assigned a target that is the one man who can't be killed. Two elite hit men already attempted hits on this target, and died in the process. Duke comes out ahead in this respect at least, and survives his attempt, but is momentarily shaken by his failure. A woman is with the target, and looked directly at Golgo 13 before he pulled the trigger...as if she knew he was there! Golgo suspects her as the reason for his missed shot, and begins to uncover a world of psychic spies. The woman has psychic powers, and was responsible for the dead hit men and Golgo's misfire. What depths of the human mind must Duke Togo trudge to overcome the powers of a telepath? Or does he already have the skills necessary?

Golgo 13 visits yoga masters and scientists specializing in brainwaves to try and train his mind to become undetectable, and both are shocked at Golgo's already considerable mastery of the mind...it's another common "MY GOD...WHO ARE YOU?" moment which happens in almost every Golgo 13 story...where someone realizes Golgo 13 is the ultimate warrior/ man. Despite Duke missing his shot at first, this story really illustrates the equation Golgo 13=Badass well.

The title story, Gravestone in Sicily, is a more godfather esque, traditional hit man story, involving Italian mobsters, priests and doves. I really dig the Chester-Gould esque criminals in this story, all of the character designs in this story are extremely appealing. There is a pretty fun twist at the close of this story as well. I would recommend picking up these volumes if you like James Bond or spy stories, and over the top manga. Part of my immense like of Golgo 13 is the over the top quality of the character, and this volume I think illustrates how over the top Golgo 13 can be, without a shred of irony.

Prison Pit

2010-01-26T17:03:00.000-08:00

So it has been some time has it not? But here I go writing about them comics again...this time about Johnny Ryan's recent Prison Pit volume 1. I know next to nothing about Ryan's body of work, but this comic is at once compelling, disgusting, hilarious and strange. I think Ryan is calling forth some classic manga influence here, the opening page definitely reminds me of classic Osamu Tezuka, and the leisurely pace and quiet stretches definitely remind me of the manga works of a Tezuka or Ishinomori, or even Go Nagai. The extreme violence and sheer grossness definitely reminds me of Go Nagai in fact. There might be some more direct horror manga influences here, but I know next to nothing about horror manga so I won't comment.

The violence here is extreme, but I wouldn't call it gratuitous. The violence is necessary, this book IS the violence. Prison Pit is 120 pages of muscled monster men killing one another, and puking, and bleeding, and ejaculating. To go back to manga, and maybe more so anime, this book reminds me of what everyone THOUGHT anime was back in the 90's. Everyone thought all anime was back then was people killing one another in the most terrible ways possible. This comic is indeed that...but the way it is paced, drawn, inked....just by virtue of what Ryan has done here, at least to this reader makes it infinitely appealing. The ink work is deft, the scratchy clouds and looming dark mountains are just as interesting to look at as our underwear clad monster man ripping a prison guard's body in half and eating his organs.

I think the real star here is Ryan's storytelling...not that the "story" is anything too complicated. The way he paces each chapter, how he moves from scene to scene, is nothing short of compelling. I think this artful execution is what keeps me coming back to this volume, not being a fan of "gross out" type humor. (though I concede a love for ultra violent comics) This is definitely worth checking out. My SOLE qualm is that the binding on my copy seems a little iffy, but I treat my books with respect. Prison Pit is published by Fantagraphics, and is $12.99. Buy it.

Comic Movie showdown: The Spirit, Punisher War Zone

2009-09-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

I'm going to take a little detour and talk about two comic book movies I saw recently, those being The Spirit, based on the character created by comics legend Will Eisner, and The Punisher: War Zone, based on Marvel Comic's the Punisher...duh!

I am not very familiar with the Spirit strip. I followed the character in DC's recent revamp by Darwyn Cooke, but I have not read very much of Eisner's Original at all. The film, directed by Frank Miller, who I believe was friends with Eisner, marks his first solo directorial effort. The look of the film is very close to the look of Sin City (Frank Miller's comic series, and film he co-directed), lots of black, white and red going on. Sometimes characters will be shot in silhouette, sometimes a background will flash in an eye piercing graphic red. Visually, the movie is very pleasing. Miller's graphic sensibilities really shine here. There are also many great shots of the city that give it a beauty, and capture the feeling of a sprawling metropolis well. One of my favorite shots of the film is during The Spirit's closing monologue, of the side of an apartment building or tenement house, hundreds of windows and air conditioners. The camera lingers there for a minute, probably less, and it was just a great shot. The photography of "central city" in this film is another feather in Miller's cap.

The sad thing is, in my humble opinion, the fine visuals of this film are all the film has to offer really. The story is thin at best, the characters mostly forgettable and uninteresting. The dialogue is rambling, strange, and just kind of boring. The Octopus, the main villain, portrayed by Samuel L Jackson, has many monologues during the film...too many. They are all fairly boring, and the character continually talks about eggs, how he doesn't like egg on his face, rotten eggs, etc. I didn't understand the egg reference, or what they had to do with the Octopus, it was confusing, and not very funny. The Spirit himself is kind of bland too, and has one too many bits of dialogue talking about his city, personifying it, how it provides for him, how he loves it, and it him. It gets old.

The other focus of the film are all the femme fatales the Spirit has to tangle with. The ad campaign for the film focused heavily on the ladies, all portrayed by beautiful Hollywood actresses, like Scarlett Johansonn and Eva Mendes. They play their roles well, and they aren't as fetishized like the women in Sin City, but I still feel they should have been fleshed out a little more, considering how heavily the ad campaign focused on these characters. No one really stands out in this movie, the most memorable thing about this movie is the visuals, and considering Miller's background as a comic artist that makes perfect sense. Miller also tries to inject humor into the film, and lots of comic book type logic. The Spirit hops on telephone wires and runs across them on two feet like it was nothing, nimbly as a squirrel. I can appreciate this. While I like movies like Watchmen and the Dark Knight, they are very serious type movies. The don't have that comic bookish humor present in lots of classic comic books, that type of off the walls humor is almost frowned upon these days in comics, and I, for one, think that is a little sad. Miller's effort to inject humor into the overly serious comic movie genre is a definite failure, the Spirit being such a colossal flop. If anything check it out for the good visuals.

Punisher:War Zone is another critical and box office flop, but I think this is undeservedly so. Directed by Lexi Alexander, the Punisher War Zone pits the Punisher (played by Ray Stevenson) against his longtime villain Jigsaw (Portrayed by the Wire's great Dominic West). I have not seen the other Punisher films, but Stevenson LOOKS the part of the Punisher more than any other actor that was cast in the part. Stevenson looks very similar to the Punisher covers, and even how he was depicted in the Welcome Back Frank storyline. This movie has an extremely high body count, and the Punisher does most of the killin'. He uses all sorts of guns, knives, and his bare hands. He pushes a chair leg through a man's head, and even goes so far as to punch a hole through one thug's head. This movie is definitely campy, and has a bit of that comic book humor that is missing in many comic book movies made today. The two main villains are pretty hammy, and definitely seem like they are having fun playing these ridiculous characters.

The film looks great, all the sets are beautiful, all the on scene locations feel right. It's a very colorful film, each scene has a deliberate color palette. The Punisher's costume looks really authentic, like he could really go into battle and survive it. Stevenson has obviously had weapons training, he handles all of the weapons like an expert, and looks the part of the Punisher the whole movie through. The movie is stolen by Jigsaw and his brother and confederate in crime, Loony Bin Jim. They play the roles like true comic villains, over the top, flamboyant, and silly. The whole movie is pretty silly, a lot of the acting might not be considered the very best, and the writing can be less that brilliant, but the finished product is greater than the sum of it's parts. The action sequences were all excellent, the sets, props and weapons were great. This is an incredibly well made film, and strives with all it's might to stay true to the source material. This is a fun movie, and I think it should have been received more favorably than it was. I feel this film succeeds where The Spirit failed in bringing that comic book feeling to the screen.

Manga Monday: Detroit Metal City

2009-08-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

Detroit Metal City is a comedy manga, published by viz comics, by author/artist Kiminori Wakasugi. Detroit Metal City is an Indie Death Metal band growing in popularity, comprised of three members, Bassist Masayuki Wada (Jagi), Drummer Terumichi Nishida (Camus) and lead guitarist/vocalist Soichi Negishi also known as JOHANNES KRAUSER II!!! Negishi, is really a hipster type, who enjoys Swedish pop, tea, trendy T-shirt shops and singing his cute little songs about love and cheese tarts. To pay the bills however, he dons face make up, a cape and shoulder pads and transforms himself into a metal god. Negishi hates DMC more than anything, and hides the fact that he is Krauser II from his friends and family, but his outrageous alter ego creeps into his life time and time again, making for some sticky situations for Negishi. For example, one evening Negishi meets up with his crush at a CD store, where it is revealed that she hates DMC more than any other band. Negishi quickly agrees, and begins to loudly criticize the band, and is overheard by three confrontational DMC fans. To avoid getting beat up, Negishi quickly backtracks, and says he respects Krauser for his guitar playing, and emulates some on Air Guitar. Eventually he starts geting into it a little too much, and lets out a string of obscenities at Aikawa, much to Aikawa's surprise.

Another "character" in Detroit Metal City are the fans of the band, who follow Kauser II and the others like a religion, and are all morons. They believe all the stories about Krauser (like he killed his parents when he was born, and was in prison but broke out to form a band) and follow them blindly. They make for many of the funniest moments in the manga.

DMC is a hilarious Manga. The art is a tad crude, but makes up for it for being so outrageous. The Songs DMC perform are lewd to the extreme, and also very silly. Songs range from such diverse topics as killing your parents, raping everyone you see, and other objectionable subject matter of the type. Now that may not sound funny, but the subject matter is played so tongue in cheek that nothing really comes off as offensive, mostly just ridiculous. I do, however have one criticism with this release, and that is the English typography. It just isn't there. In Japanese Manga, the sound effects are an integral part of the story telling, and often done by the artist (or an assistant) with a brush. The translated, digital Font sound effects throughout Detroit Metal city look tacked on, to me, and definitely don't compare to the hand done effects found in manga. A lot of the type in the backgrounds looks pretty poor to me as well, with boring font choices that don't really seem to match. For example, the Death Records headquarters sign. The font doesn't look like a real sign, and just comes off as lazy to me. Usually I wouldn't comment on something like this, but I think it is an important aspect, and noticed the font while reading, so i think it was worth commenting over. All in all though, this is an offbeat Manga that I urge you to check out!

Manga Monday: To Terra...

2009-07-27T18:52:00.000-07:00

(Usually I have lots of scanned images to accompany my review, that I scan myself, but Manga releases are smaller than bigger American comics, and it gets harder to scan them without horribly damaging the binding, and since all the comics I review are ones I have spent money on...I don't want them damaged! Sorry guys! Check out the free preview on the To Terra page linked below!)

This Manga Monday is going to cover To Terra..., a Shonen Sci Fi Manga from Shoujo Manga Master Keiko Takemiya. To Terra... is a three volume release from Vertical Inc. Which for my money is one of the best Manga Publishers to date. Each Manga volume they release is handsomely designed, faithfully translated and printed on beautiful paper. They have been releasing a lot of work by Osamu Tezuka, the God of Manga, and Takemiya's work can stand proud next to any volume of Tezuka's work. She was a pioneer of Manga drawn by women, and was among the first women to actually draw Shoujo comics as we know them.

To Terra... is set in a future world far in space. The human race has surrendered the management of their lives to all powerful telepathic computers, since they had depleted their natural resources and damaged their home planet. Most humans went to space, while the machines and computers stayed on Terra to clean up. Children are created artificially and raised by foster parents on other planets. Around age 14 all children are subjected to a maturity check, where the computers deem them acceptable to move onward to adulthood and make the journey to the mother planet, Terra. If they are not deemed acceptable they are killed. Unacceptable children may have emotional problems, have disabilities, or even have ESP. Children with ESP are eliminated, as they are not human, but MU, a race of physically weak beings who have powerful psychic powers. Humans and the computers try their best to eliminate the MU, but the MU fight on and rescue as many children as they can from the maturity checks, in the hopes that one day they will be strong enough to return to Terra and live there side by side with humans, without the will of the computers. Enter Jomy Marcus Shin, a Human who is rescued by the MU, and is heralded as the new leader of the MU, who possessed strong Psychic abilities and a strong body, unlike most MU. Jomy has to lead the MU against the Humans in his quest to return to Terra, and suffers many hardships along the way.

I don't want to give anything away, so I will keep the description at that, but these volumes are gripping, and are fine examples of how good Manga can be. This is great science fiction. There are robots, other worlds, aliens, space ships battles, cities in space, questions about humanity, technology and all those great things that make a good sci fi story. There are a lot of tense moments here, and characters live and die in terrible battles all the time. It is a gut wrenching work at times, but there are moments of humor throughout, much like how Tezuka would throw in a little joke here and there to relieve tension. The art is nothing short of spectacular, the heavy ink lines, appealing characters and amazingly designed space ships make these volumes a feast for the eyes. My only complaint is that at times the word bubbles are hard to follow, but its nothing too egregious. Being Manga, these volumes are read from right to left, keeping the artwork unflipped. Most of the sound effects go untranslated, but that doesn't really detract from what is going on. Looking at these volumes you can see where Clamp got a lot of their influence, but I feel Takemiya is still the master.

You can find these in comic shops and book stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble, and if you do, I would say pick them up! If you like science fiction, buy these! If you like shonen manga, buy these! If you like shoujo Manga...Definitely buy these!!!! If you like comics buy these!!! Vertical Inc. is a great company that needs our support, their manga releases are of a high quality, and the average manga reader doesn't give 2 craps about old manga like this, but it is amazing stuff! The stuff Vertical Inc. puts out is a little more expensive than the usual manga fare, but you get it unflipped, you get titles other companies don't have the balls to release, you get beautiful covers and excellent print quality and paper quality. Check these out!!!!!

Verticals Website

To Terra Page

Check out the free Preview on the To Terra page!
-Eamon

Radioactive Man

2009-07-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

Today I will review two issues of Bongo comic's Radioactive Man series. Radioactive man is a fictional comic book character from the Simpsons, and I will assume everyone knows what the Simpsons is. The issues I will be reviewing are issues number 412(Steve Vance Script-Layouts Bill Morrison finished art, Tim Bavington Additional Inks, Cindy Vance, Colors and Matt Groening as "spin doctor"), and issue number 88(Steve Vance, script/pencils, Bill Morrison co-plot/finished art, Cindy Vance co-plot/colors). Now, the comic hasn't really been released for 412 issues mind you, the limited series was released "out of order", I guess to poke fun at Super hero books that run for hundred upon hundreds of issues. The whole series is a loving swipe at superhero comics, and it is very enjoyable, to my surprise.
Radioactive Man is really Claude Kane, who somehow had a lightning bolt stuck in his head. In his secret identity form he must always wear a hat to hide the lightning bolt. His partner, Fallout Boy (Rod Runtledge) is a Peter Parker/Robin type character, who has an Aunt and is a bit of a wiener. They also are teamed with the Superior Squad, a Justice League-esque super team of heroes.
Each issue is Packed with little tidbits of comic bookish humor, poking fun at the corny style of old comics, but lovingly so. I think everyone involved has a great love of old superhero comics, but also realizes how inherently funny a lot of them are today.
For one thing, they always explain what they are doing, despite the fact that it is a comic book, and we can plainly see what they are doing, just like old Stan Lee comics and the like. Also, many of Radioactive Man's heroic exploits result in big problems, like in the two images above. There is a section in issue number 88 that covers the origin of Fallout boy, which is similar to Peter Parker's.
There is also a section similar to a classic Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Spidey tale, in which he is trapped under a giant piece of machinery. I never read the issue of spider man, but I saw some art and remembered the plot, I thought it was a cool tribute.
The series art is in the Simpson's style, with a little bit of Jack Kirby thrown in, and I think looks pretty sharp overall. I really like the limited color palette, and I think they capture the look of Silver age comics very well. These comics are really funny, and I am sad I don't have the remaining issues. For a comic based off an existing property, I would say these issues are very impressive. In fact these two issues are just good comics! Great, funny stories and writing, great cartoony/comic style art, no ads to speak of really, except for ads for other Bongo books, as well as Hilarious fake comic ads like this one:
So if you like the Simpsons or old super-hero comics or even both, then pick these up! They aren't exactly new, these issues are from 1994, but they are great stuff!

Manga Monday: Eat Man

2009-07-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

For the first manga Monday I will review a title released by Viz in June of 1998, Eat Man, by Akihito Yoshitomi. According to wikipedia the manga ran for 19 volumes in japan, but in the US of A we only got what I believe are the first two volumes. I have had these two collections on my shelf since their 1998 initial release, and they have been favorites of mine ever since.

Eat-Man centers around an explorer named Bolt Crank. The world he inhabits is a little hard to describe, like many manga worlds, it is a combination of multiple genres. I would say it is equal parts fantasy, sci-fi, and western. There are air ships, monsters, giant laser weapons, six shooters, mermaids, wizard kings, and robots. Explorers are basically jack of all trades for hire. They take any type of job, from delivery to protection. Usually the jobs taken by explorers are very dangerous, but it doesn't seem to trouble Bolt one bit. The thing about Bolt is he doesn't carry a gun or a sword...but he does carry screws and pieces of metal and machinery around. Not only does he carry this stuff, he also eats it. He is more often than not seen with a screw between his lips. He has chomped the barrel of a gun and caught bullets in his teeth, and has also been know to drink industrial alcohol. All of the items he ingests have a purpose later in the story. For example, the industrial alcohol. after drinking it all up, a monster confronts him and his traveling companions. Bolt takes a match and shoots the alcohol he drank from the tips of his fingers while holding the match, creating an inferno from his finger tips. Any object Bolt dismantles and eats piece by piece, can be re-formed and used as a weapon, and reappears in his hands.

Each tale in these first two volumes of EAT-MAN generally have a similar premise. Bolt is hired to do something, is accompanied by a pretty young woman, who has a secret. During the story the secret is revealed, Bolt uses whatever weapon he has been eating throughout the tale and saves the girl, and we all find out that there is more heart to Bolt than meets the eye, as well as how terrible an opponent Bolt would be if you ever got on his bad side. Bolt seems to be ageless, and the trusted friend of famous explorers and sword smiths. He also shows a degree of clairvoyance it seems, because he always knows exactly what weapon he will need at the end of each tale to defeat the bad guy or solve the conflict. For example, in one tale, Bolt eats a radio at the opening. He is sent by a prince to retrieve a special flower that he must present to his beloved as a marriage proposal. The woman the prince loves accompanies Bolt to retrieve the flower, she does not know that the prince has in fact chosen her to be his bride, and wants to get the flower for him in the hopes that the gesture will change his mind. At the close Bolt gets the flower and saves her from the monster guarding it (the monster actually IS the flower, its a strange story) and pops the radio from his hand, revealing a transmission from the prince that the woman he loves has gone missing, and for anyone having seen her to report to the palace. Did Bolt know that he would need this radio at the end of his adventure, to show the woman that the prince really loves her? Probably not, but in each tale Bolt has a similar gift of foresight.

Interestingly enough, the gimmick doesn't really get old. Bolt is a charming character, and the stories are exciting and creative. How bolt uses his unusual gift in each story is a sight to behold, and brings a smile to my face even today.

The artwork in EAT-MAN is pretty fantastic, the backgrounds and technology all look genuine and convincing, the world building is great here. The character's faces can be a bit cookie cutter, but that is to be expected sometimes in manga. The Author's sense of pacing and action storytelling is really effective, it is an exhilarating joy to read these pages. The stories here are generally light hearted, but get intense when they need to be. It is never too melodramatic, and definitely does not take itself too seriously. It is a cryin' shame that the rest of the series wasn't picked up. I know there is an anime of this that was brought over here, but I haven't seen it. Volume one is up on Amazon dot com...FOR ONE CENT USED!!!! That is more than worth it for this under appreciated gem of manga over here. Volume 2 is also available used one amazon starting at $1.27, still a great deal, although featuring a cover (that i do not like in the least) by American comics legend Jim Lee. CHECK THESE OUT!!!!

Long Hiatus/Batman;The collected Adventures volumes 1 and 2

2009-07-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

It has been a while, but it is time to get back on the horse. The titles I am going to review today have been on my shelves for quite some time, two trade paperback collections of the DC comics series THE BATMAN ADVENTURES, based on the holiest of comic book animated properties, BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES, the cartoon that represents the ultimate version of batman to many fans, including myself. When I think of Batman, the image that is conjured in my head first and foremost is the animated series version, over all of his comic renditions, over Adam West, Micheal Keaton, even Christian Bale. It might be silly to hold the cartoon version in even higher esteem than his comic counter part, but I think that speaks to the quality of the show. Batman the animated series had a great setting, great mood, stellar character designs and actors, a fully orchestrated score, (for the most part) amazing animation, and fairly intelligent scripts for a Children's cartoon.A comic series based on the cartoon show was started, that would use the character designs and general style of the show as inspiration.Volume 1, written by Kelley Puckett, Martin Pasko, pencilled by Ty Templeton and Brad Rader, inked by Rick Burchett, colored by Rick Taylor and lettered by Tim Harkins, is a great start to a series that many probably thought would be a throw away comic based on a cartoon. All of the art is great, crisp and clean line work in an easily accessible cartoony style, with lots of rich black shapes and exciting compositions. The writing is great, just as snappy as the cartoon, reminiscent of the older comics and movies. There is a good mix of bumbling henchmen, menacing main villains, and wry wit from Bruce Wayne/Batman. This Batman is still dark, but also has a bit of charm to him, some times shown with a slight smirk. I think I like this Batman a bit more than the thin mouthed growler that seems to be popular today.
The stories here feature (in order) The Penguin, Catwoman, and the Joker, followed by the Scarecrow, as well as a Hitchcockian style murder story. The first three issues involve a sweeping plot devised by the Joker, who uses Catwoman and the Penguin to steal some important objects for him, in order to set into motion a master plan to rid himself of Harvey Dent, Commissioner Gordon and Batman himself. These stories are pretty standard Batman fare, but with good writing, and brilliant panel layout and staging, are carried to the next level of comic story telling.
Following these is a 2 part Scarecrow story, where the citizens of Gotham begin losing the ability to read. The pencils in this 2 parter are done by Brad Rader, and I really like the use of dark shapes and lighting. Rader has a great understanding of anatomy and noir Lighting, and really makes these issues epic in scope. Rader also pencils the last issue in the trade, THE THIRD DOOR, which doesn't involve any of Batman's rouge's gallery, which I find slightly refreshing. The staging and lighting in this issue is nothing short of amazing, and really gives the reader a cinematic vibe while reading.
Volume 2 is written solely by Kelley Puckett, pencilled by Mike Parobeck, inked by Rick Burchett, colored by Rick Taylor and lettered by Tim Harkins. Mike Parobeck is one of my favorite pencillers of all time, and has a very cartoony style to his art. Some of the characters have an almost rubber hose quality to them, he uses his dark shapes well and has an amazing knack for composing action scenes. The stories in volume 2 are much more stand alone, and involve (in order) Killer Croc, Clayface, Rupert Thorne, the Riddler, Manbat, and a tale involving Batgirl, Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.
Much like the show, the stories in volume 2 each play like little epics or films, telling a complete, compact story, packed with tons of action, humor and fun. I think this volume better captures the essence of what the cartoon was going for.
Overall I think these two volumes are a great addition to Batman the animated series, and a good addition to your comics library. They are a good read for kids and adults alike, not too violent or gritty, but not dumb either. The two trades are available used on amazon for about 25 dollars apiece before shipping.

Fist Of The North Star Follow Up

2009-04-30T19:46:00.000-07:00

I posted some more Fist of the North Star goodness here, at the Autumn Society 2 blog. Check it!
E-money

Fist of the North Star

2008-11-24T12:24:00.001-08:00

Back in high school, I picked up a dozen or so issues of Fist Of The North Star, aka Hokuto No Ken in Japan. It's fairly big in Japan I think, with several anime tv shows, OVA's and video games. They are published by Viz comics, with the writing being done by Buronson and art by Tetsuo Hara. The initial storyline involves our protagonist, Kenshiro, master of Hokuto Shin Ken, searching for his lost love Julia. In the past, she was taken by Kenshiro's friend, Shin, after a nuclear catastrophe devastated the world. Shin wanted to rule this harsh new landscape, with Julia as his bride, and met Kenshiro in battle, wounding him terribly and giving him 7 scars on his chest, in the shape of the big dipper. Left for dead, Kenshiro is fueled by rage to get back and save Julia, and seek revenge against Shin, along the way trying to bring order to a ruthless world.
The series seems to run the same each issue, Kenshiro is traveling, runs into a gang of bandits, uses his Mastery of Hokuto Shin Ken to make some heads explode, and then save the surviving villagers. It is a cartoonishly violent manga, but it's only the bad guys that get it, so you don't get that dirty feeling like after watching a SAW movie or something. I only read a dozen or so Issues,
so I don't really know how the story continues, but I am a big fan of what I have read and seen so far, the art is a little more realistic that most manga i see. If you are a film fan, the major influence would have to be MAD MAX and the Road Warrior, Kenshiro's design is even similar to that of the Road Warrior's. If you enjoy those movies, with a touch of Bruce Lee, maybe this comic is a good one to try and dig up.

Robotech:Vermilion

2008-11-22T19:49:00.000-08:00

When I was a younger buck than I am now, I was big into Antarctic Press comics, specifically their Robotech line, as well as a three issue series called Silver Cross and some Warrior Nun stuff. This four issue Robotech series,published in 1997, written and illustrated by Duc Tran, has always been a favorite of mine. The issues are well worn, because I leafed through them so damn much. I don't really know much of anything about Duc Tran. I assume he isn't a Japanese Manga-ka, but in these days of a lot of gaijins trying to do a manga style, I think he gets it the closest I've seen in an American comic. All of the grays he's applied appear just like in genuine manga. I'm not even too sure how these shades are applied, I think its with some sort of paper they press onto the piece of paper they are working on, but really I am ignorant of the process. I also really dig robotech, specifically the Macross saga. (Robotech is really three different Japanese shows combined, I should say I'm a big fan of Macross.) This series is about Rick Hunter's investigation into the disappearance of one of his trainees. It also involves defectors, stealth robots and aliens. All good stuff, no? As much as i love the art, some of it can be spotty, and sometimes the dialogue is crammed up against the edge of the bubbles, almost as if he drew the bubble first, and then tried to cram the words in there. These are minor quibbles for me however, because these four issues will be in my collection for a long time to come, i still look at them all the time. His use of values is great to look at, a fun read all around.

The Elongated Man: Europe '92

2008-11-19T09:18:00.000-08:00

The Elongated Man is a character I first came into contact with while watching the Justice League Unlimited animated series. He was funny on the show, but seemed like just another stretchy guy, like Mr. Fantastic or Plastic Man. But then i soon discovered two things about that character that piqued my interest. One, he was a detective. I love detective fiction, and detective characters, be it Sherlock Holmes, Phillip Marlowe, or Nick and Nora Charles. And in fact, the Elongated Man has a partner in solving mysteries, just like Nick Charles has his wife, Nora, to help him in the Thin Man novel or Film series, one Sue Dibny (the Elongated man's real name being Ralph Dibny.) The series is in 4 issues, written by Gerard Jones, and Penciled by Mike Parobeck,(now deceased, sadly) and inked by Ty Templeton. Mike Parobeck has been one of my favorite artists for years, his work on the Batman Adventures comics is great, cartoony and well thought out. Ty Templeton is a great artist as well, and i believe has drawn and inked Batman Adventure comics, among alot of other work. Gerard Jones has written many comics and novels.
The series concerns The Elongated man and Sue investigating attacks on peace conferences in europe, perpetrated by men in silly costumes. Copperhead makes an appearance, he was a favorite of mine from the Justice League tv show. There are also squid men, and a team of men dressed as sausages. If this sounds silly it is, and thats half the fun of the series. The relationship between Ralph and Sue gets tried a little, but they're fun characters to read about, and this series was well worth it. I don't think it's collected in trade form, i ordered the issues from amazon.com, but if you like your superhero books on the light side, try this out.

Jack Kirby's OMAC: The one man Army

2008-11-01T13:09:00.000-07:00

I was first exposed to OMAC in a Paul Pope short in his issue of the no defunct(but awesome) DC series SOLO. Its basically a retelling of the first issue of OMAC, which according to the new collection's intro by Mark Evanier, was an idea Mr. Kirby originally had for a Captain America set in the future.
OMAC's origin bears some similarity to Cap's. OMAC started out as Buddy Blank, a scrawny man who was picked by the mysterious Global Peace Agency to become their new One man army, who must prevent catastrophes of violence in a future world that cant afford it. Buddy is linked with Brother Eye, a seemingly all powerful giant robotic eye shaped satellite in space that transforms Buddy into the super strong OMAC, whose first target is the Build a friend factory, who is making robotic women to become friends with important world leaders and the like. Once they meet, Kaboom! the woman explodes and takes the target with them. Buddy is horrified to discover that his friend, Lila, has been one of these robots all along, but as OMAC, the crooks are torn asunder, and OMAC realizes, that "OMAC LIVES...SO THAT MAN MAY LIVE..."

Each chapter features awesome robotics designs, monsters and weapons that are all Kirby staples, and the art is pretty outstanding throughout.Issue one and issue eight stand out i think, because inker and letterer Mike Royer contributed to them, and I think he may have had a bit more of an understanding of Mr. Kirby's pencils or something, they look a bit better than the inks provided by D.Bruce Berry. Each issue has a few incredible splash pages I would love to have framed and hung upon my wall. The book is fun to read above all else, something i cant say about alot of Mainstream superhero books out today. Maybe OMAC should become required superhero comics reading from now on...

Cowa!

2008-10-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

Akira Toriyama has always been one of my favorite artists, and Viz recently put this book, Cowa! out, one of Toriyama's short manga.
Cowa is about a vampire boy, Paifu, who lives in a monster village. His best friend is Jose, a ghost. The book opens with some full color adventures, involving watermelons and mummies. Next Paifu and Jose met a scary human, named Mr. Maruyama, (who the monster boys are afraid of,'i hear he's a murderer!'). It is also revealed, that Paifu is a were-koala, he turns into a wild super-strong rabid koala whenever he sees a cross. A curious illness overtakes the town, with Paifu, Jose and their friend Arpon the only ones not afflicted. They enlist the help of Mr. Maruyama, and go to find a cure, and get assaulted by ruffians, monsters, swordsmen and witches along the way.
Cowa! is a playful book, drawn in a "children's book" style by Toriyama. There is a lot of playful humor and funny character moments, in the Toriyama style. The color additions are a nice boon to this collection, and at a 7.99 price tag its a good deal.

Bourbon Island 1730

2008-10-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

For today's review, i chose another Baltimore comic con purchase, Bourbon Island 1730, by Appollo and Lewis Trondheim. This is my first foray into French comics, and I must say it was a good experience.
I initially picked up the book, because i liked the cover. I think it is beautifully painted and drawn, the back cover is also very nice, with good color choice. When i opened the book, i saw that the art, while still appealing to me, was not nearly as sharp as the art on the front/back covers. That isn't to say it isn't good, but sometimes i feel it might walk the fine line between intentional sloppiness, and sloppiness. Lewis Trondheim's storytelling and characters are fun and engrossing, so I cant be too negative about the art.
The story revolves around one Raphael and one Mr. Despentes. Despentes is looking for a DoDo on Bourbon Island, to capture and examine. Raphael wants to join up with pirates. Raphael seems naive and a little dim-witted about pirates and life in general at first. Meanwhile, the Bourbon Island authorities have captured Buzzard, a famous pirate, and are holding him captive to get at some treasure he's hidden. A group of "Maroons" (escaped slaves) contemplate whether to break Buzzard free or not, while the plantation owners blame the Maroons for the capturing of one of their member's daughters, who ran off into the forest of her own accord.
The book paints a somewhat gloomy picture, and shows the terrible treatment of slaves by the inhabitants of Bourbon island. The Runaway girl, Virginia, tells Raphael about the slave's lives, how they are murdered, and raped and tortured. She shows him a tree, after he sees a hung escaped slave, that has the hands of escaped slaves nailed to it. She tells him there will be a white hand among them one day, hers. The lives of those people was "the price of his European coffee" she tells him. On his return voyage home Raphael is offered some coffee. He turns it down, perhaps he is a little less naive then he was at the onset.
Overall I would say this is an excellent read, with a lot more plot and interesting characters than i had patience to write about. I was expecting a story about pirates and treasure when i picked it up, and got something a lot more interesting and thought provoking. A welcome surprise.

Astro Boy, Volume 3

2008-10-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

This volume of Astro Boy collects two stories, The Greatest Robot on Eart, and Mad Machine.
This is another book i picked up at the baltimore comic convention, I get loads of Astro Boy books for dirt cheap at conventions, I almost have all 18!

The Greatest robot on earth centers on the killing of the World's 7 greatest robots, who are

Mont Blanc, the "mountain guide robot, pride of Switzerland, with 100,000 horsepower"

North #2, the six armed Robot from Scotland,

Brando, "the top robot wrestler in all of Turkey",

Gerhardt, A robot inspector from Germany, made of a nigh indestructible metal called "Zeronium",

Hercules, the honor bound robot from Greece,

Epsilon, a powerful Australian Robot fueled by Photon energy,

and last but not least Japan's own Astro(who is the only one not killed).

The robot responsible is Pluto, a horned robot built by an evil man to become the best robot and rule the world. All of the seven robots are fairly interesting characters, but most of the fights with Pluto seem to be in Pluto's favor for the most part. Pluto is an interesting character, for even though he is certainly doing terrible things, depriving the world of these great robots, and essentially "murdering" them, he has no choice for that was why he was created. He shows signs of honor and even develops a friendship with Astro and his sister, Uran. Dr. Tenma, Astro's mysterious creator returns and gives Astro 1,000,000 horsepower to confront Pluto, but circumstances intervene and a mysterious new robot enters the fray...

This story was very entertaining, kind of a classic action manga scenario. A good way to introduce lots of cool robots, with interesting powers, and have nice action scenes. This story is also the basis of a spinoff manga, by the excellent Manga-Ka, Naoki Urasawa, called PLUTO. That centers around Gerhardt, investigating the murders of the robots by the until then unknown Pluto. I hope it gets released here.
The second story is called "Mad Machine" in which a crazy doctor makes a machine that drives all robots mad, jumping around causing a general ruckus. It is fairly short, and a little more light hearted than the Pluto story. I think the Mad Machine was used as a basis for some of the plot in the Tezuka based animated film Metropolis.
If you like Tezuka, and Astro Boy, this is an excellent Volume to pick up.

So Many Comics

2008-10-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Eamon, and I've started this blog to attempt to review every comic/trade paperback/graphic novel I own or have read. These are all my opinions, and I can be fickle, so try not to take everything TOO seriously.

I recently Attended the Baltimore Comic con, and bought a lot of comics there, so I thought i would start with that bunch. For my first review, i chose the Batman trade "Batman:Anarky"
I first discovered the Anarky character way back when, during the knightfall epic. He tries to stop batman and the scarecrow at once, and fails, not the greatest arc for him, but i thought he looked awesome. Lots of time went by, and then i saw this here trade at the Baltimore Con and grabbed it up. Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle are the most prevalent writer/penciller team in the book. In fact Alan Grant wrote the whole book. John Paul Leon did the pencils for a nice two parter, and Stewart Johnson did a nice short. I've always been a big fan of Norm Breyfogle since a german friend of mine gave me a German copy of The Last Arkham. I can't read German, so I would have to focus on the art, and the way Mr. Breyfogle handled the his pages and figures were really effective and stunning to me. John Paul Leon had me drooling over his work ever since i got a copy of the new adventures of cyclops and phoenix. Great stuff. So this is a great looking book, from start to finish.
As for the stories herein, I was impressed. It kept me reading, i never really got bored. Some things were a little silly, like Anarky's machine that enables him to become a genius just by wearing it 8 hours a day, merging the two hemispheres of his brain. But this is a superhero book, so that's ok. My favorite section has to be the final chapters, which brings some of my favorite characters besides Batman into confrontation with Anarky. Namely, Etrigan the Demon(and his human counterpart Jason Blood), and Darkseid ( go Kirby characters!). There is also a little cameo by Scarface. It's cool to see Anarky outwit The Demon, and even Darkseid himself.
So if you like the duo of Grant and Breyfogle, and superhero stories that aren't the norm, but have that familiar flavor, pick this one up. It's great!