Friday, November 20, 2009

Odds and Sods: What's On My Mind

A collection of (at least tenuously) comics-related thoughts on my mind today:

- Gene Ha, in addition to being a very talented artist, is a genuinely nice and patient guy. I met up with him and a whole group of other comics fans last night to discuss Top 10, and he answered all our questions on the project, and even brought along some original art and mind-bogglingly dense and detailed scripts for a couple of issues. (Seriously, the script for page one of issue one was five single-spaced type-written pages long). If you happen to read this, thanks for showing up, Gene.

- Quote of the week, possibly the month, maybe the year. From Gillen's short essay at the back of Phonogram # 5: "[T]he second you create a person who perfectly embodies a philosophy, they cease to be human - they become a cipher. . . . [W]hen dealing with human beings, turning someone into an embodiment of a philosophy. . . well, you might as well be Ayn fucking Rand. It's propping up straw men and bashing the living shit out of them." Just one of the many reasons why people who love Ayn Rand's books are annoying - they think they are intellectual conservatives, but really they just have extremely poor taste.

- I'm currently reading Chuck Klosterman's essay collection, Eating the Dinosaur. The first essay makes a point that, while you might expect famous people to be more guarded or intentionally uninteresting in interviews, the opposite is often true, because the interview session provides one of the only interactions a truly famous person gets to have that approximates the type of every-day personal interactions normal people have all the time. Other interactions tend to place the famous person on an unequal playing field. I'd never thought of this, but it makes some sense - its impossible for Brad Pitt or Bono to really have a normal conversation with a random person at a bar or something. Which is why I think the best kind of famous to be would be something like comic book famous. You'd be recognized, admired (or possibly reviled) by a certain small sub-culture, but you'd still retain a level of anonymity and normalcy with respect to the world at large. I mean, the paparazzi isn't exactly following around even the most "famous" of comic writers or artists.

- You know you are a comic book nerd when the mere mention of the Pixies automatically makes you think of Transmetropolitan. In fact, I first found out about the Pixies through Transmetropolitan, as I hadn't really gotten into the independent or alternative or whatever the heck it was called back then music scene at the time the Pixies were popular. So when Transmet would name its issues/arcs after Pixies songs, I decided to check out the source material (on Napster! Ah, the late '90s) and soon discovered it was awesome.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Big Stack o' Comics: Unabashed Theft and Books from 11/11/09

Good writers borrow. Great ones steal. That's my justification for unabashedly stealing from fellow Chicagoan Brandon Thomas' "Stackology" series over at the Fiction House. For a while here, I've been looking for a good way to convey my weekly comics take in a manageable way. Writing a small blurb about each and every book was unmanageable, and the truth is, I don't always have anything remotely worth saying about even a very good random issue of a comic I'm reading.

When I stumbled upon Stackology, though, I knew Brandon was onto something. He organizes his comics exactly the way I do, and have been doing since I can remember - from worst to best. He throws a few more rules in there that I don't subscribe to, such as staying away from back-to-back's by certain creators, but overall its a similar thing. So from now on, I'll be posting a full list of books I took home, in reading order, and picking a "winner of the week" from that crop. I may also make some other comments, like soliciting opinions on books I'm thinking about dropping, as I've noticed my pull list has grown a bit large lately.

So without further ado, here is the Stack from last week, with the champion of the week in bold:*

Batman/Doc Savage Special # 1
JSA vs. Kobra # 6
SWORD #1
The Amazing Spiderman # 611
Red Herring # 4
Dark X-Men # 1
BPRD 1947 # 5
The Unwritten # 7
PunisherMAX # 1
The Authority: The Lost Year Reader # 1
Batman & Robin # 6
Phonogram: The Singles Club # 5

Amazingly, in a week where I bought two books by Grant Morrison (the God Of All Comics, hallowed be his name), neither of them took home the grand prize. The Authority book was technically a reprint, so though I had never read it and it was new to me, I took it out of the running for best of the week. Had it been new material, it probably would have won. Batman & Robin was sabotaged by some really hard-to-look-at art by Phillip Tan, whose work isn't great to begin with, and really did not fit the tone of the book established by Frank Quitely in the first three issues. I was tempted to pick it anyway based solely on the sheer meta-textual deliciousness of Jason Todd conducting a dial-in phone poll to determine the fate of Batman, but after slogging through a poorly rendered fight scene where I could hardly tell what the hell was happening, I couldn't in conscious crown it the winner.

That thought was only reinforced by the brilliance that is Phonogram: The Single Clubs # 5. Each of the seven issues shows the same night out from a different character's perspective, making each issue a self-contained reading experience in and of itself, but one that gains new resonance when taken in context with the others. Issue # 5 focuses on "Laura Heaven," a phonomancer (music magician, basically) obsessed with the British indie group The Long Blondes. Its a real testament to writer Kieron Gillen and artist Jamie McKelvie that my complete lack of familiarity with that band did not detract from my enjoyment one bit. Instead, I was able to relate to Laura's obsession with the band and her use of their music, lyrics and image as things she can both recognize as aspects of herself and aspire to. While her constant quoting of lyrics is something that the other characters, and the reader, may find annoying, its a pretty accurate portrayal of someone using pop culture to craft an identity when she finds her sense of self in flux. The back-up material in this issue is also great, including a quick essay about the main strip by McKelvie, a critical piece about the Long Blonde's music, and a short strip about ska, of all things. At $3.50, all these quality features give you bang for your buck that is rivaled only by Brubaker's Criminal and Incognito packages.


* I'm only including the Top 12 this time around, as I didn't decide to do this until the rest of my stack from last week had already been dismantled and is now out of order. Plus, I plan to do a separate post on the Blackest Night "ring" books sometime in the near future anyway....

Fabled Prose: Peter & Max


I have to admit, I was skeptical when I first heard about Peter & Max, the new novel set in the Fables universe and written by long-time Fables scribe and creator, Bill Willingham. I've never really been a fan of re-purposing content from a more visual medium, be it comics or television or film, into prose. It seems far too easy an excuse for lazy writing, allowing the author to rely on our pre-formed visual perceptions of the universe and characters in the book. While there have been some good books written in series based on Star Trek, Star Wars, etc., there have also been plenty of books that wouldn't stand up under their own weight if the built-in audience for those properties weren't already along for the ride and eager to snap up anything within a particular brand (of course, the same could be said for most mainstream super-hero comics by the Big Two, but that's a digression best left for further discussion elsewhere).

Willingham avoids the tendency to coast on the built-in audience for Fables, though, by producing a book that is engaging and engrossing in its own right, with no prior knowledge of the Fables comics required. Maybe Willingham is aided by the fact that the Fables comics series is itself a re-purposing of characters with prose origins (or at least origins in oral storytelling traditions that have long been recorded and transmitted in prose form).* Or maybe Willingham is just a good storyteller whose gifts at weaving this kind of tale transcends the medium in which he normally works. **

The book focuses on two storied characters, Peter Piper and Max Piper (better known as the "Pied Piper of Hamelin"), and splits its time a bit unevenly -- both in quality and page-count -- between the present day and the storied past. In the present day tale, Peter receives news that his brother Max has returned to the mundane world, leaves his crippled wife Bo Peep to fend for herself and sets out to find him. Along the way, we see Peter interact with a number of Fables mainstays like Rose Red, Bigby Wolf, Frau Totenkinder, and the Beast, before tracking Max down to our world's version of Hamelin, Germany. I found the present-day story to be a bit tedious, for the most part, but that was partly because the history of Peter, Max, and Bo Peep was so well-told that I couldn't wait to get back to it. The present-day parts of the story are by no means bad, and contain an intriguing comment on modernity and its tendency to reduce the past to a sanitized amusement park that could have been fleshed out a bit more, but they just don't stack up to the back-story.

Moving on to the meat of the tale, the history of the Piper and Peep families and what happens when their land is invaded by a conquering empire is nothing less than brilliant. Willingham's story of sibling rivalry between Max and younger brother Peter, which is only deepened when Peter's father passes down the magical flute Frost to Peter rather than Max, is intercut with a sweeping story of true love between Peter and the youngest of the Peep family, Bo, their separation and reunion, and their eventual conflict with Max. The tale of the Pipers and Peeps stands on par with the old tales and lore evoked, and specifically referenced, by Willingham, which is high praise indeed.

If the back-story consisted only of references to fairy tales and nursery rhymes, Peter & Max might still be an entertaining read. We learn what the deal was with Peter Piper and the pickled peppers, how Bo Peep lost her sheep, the true tale of the meeting between Peter and the Wolf, and the reason why Peter put his wife in a pumpkin shell. We also see how Max became the "pied piper," and how he came to lead away both rats and children from Hamelin in his single-minded quest to find and destroy his brother Peter. Like all good fables, this one also has a moral, one involving the dangers of envy and covetousness, and the arrogance and evil of those who believe they are owed something by the world simply by reason of their mere existence.

As I read through Peter & Max, though, I was struck more at Willingham's ability to create fully form characters we grow to care about, whether we love or hate them, and not merely to put a clever spin on some musty old stories. And while I felt the book was good throughout, it became great at the end, with a final confrontation between Peter & Max that was satisfying in every way -- it flowed logically from what came before while still bearing a real element of surprise, and it provided a real level of emotional closure and climax that a great number of books of this kind lack.

In short, Peter & Max is highly recommended for both fans of Fables and non-fans alike. In fact, if you are looking for a gift for someone who may not be into comics at all, but enjoys books like Wicked or other modern twists on traditional stories, Peter & Max would make an excellent addition to their library.

* For purposes of this review, I'll assume that most everyone reading this is generally familiar with the premise of Fables - characters from various fairy tales, nursery rhymes and other folklore have been driven from their original worlds and have found refuge in a tightly knit community situated in our mundane world.

** Cue comparisons to Neil Gaiman, which I have always resisted when it comes to Willingham, but which are not entirely undeserved. For what its worth, I think Gaiman is a better writer than Willingham, but Willingham is proving himself to be more adept at telling an engaging story than Gaiman.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Slim Pickins

Just finished my monthly trip through the wonderful world of Previews (for any non-comics folks out there who might read this, Previews is the monthly catalog that details what's being released in the comics world a couple of months out) and ended up with a VERY short pre-order list this time out. I don't know if there just isn't that much good new product hitting stores or if I am somehow getting a teensy bit more discerning/jaded, but the only things I ordered this time out were the Hitman Vol. 2, Planetary Vol. 4 and No Hero trade collections, the Joe the Barbarian mini-series, and Marvel's Siege event miniseries.

Am I missing anything mind-numbingly awesome in my Previews perusal?

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Smells Like... Comics!!!

Its been a couple of really busy months, with real life and work taking over in a major way, so I have sadly neglected to write on this blog for quite some time. That changes today, with a pledge to do more regular updates. I want to try to post something, even if its not much, at least three times per week. Rather than trying to do a big aggregate post reflecting on the comics I've read that week or month, I think it makes more sense to focus on one issue or collection at a time. So more posts, but shorter, at least until I find the time or the inclination to put down some of the longer, more involved essays I have percolating in my head.

So without further ado, some thoughts on a couple of comics I've really enjoyed recently. Spoilers Ahoy.

Both comics on the list are part of "the List," a series of one-shots released recently by Marvel focusing on current uber-villain Norman Osborn's efforts to deal with a few thorns in his side. The first book I'll talk about is the Punisher one-shot by regular Punisher writer Rick Remender and artist John Romita, Jr. I've been really enjoying Remender's take on the Punisher from day one - he's integrated the gritty, hard-boiled Punisher mastered by Ennis into the regular Marvel Universe in a more seamless and enjoyable way than I, and I'm sure many others, thought would ever be possible. The book has been slipping a little in my estimation recently, though, as I just haven't felt that Tan Eng Huat was a good fit for the book.

Romita, Jr.'s art in the "List" one-shot is gorgeous, as usual -- I mean, really, is there a better Punisher artist than Romita, Jr.? Ennis die-hards might make a case for Dillon, but Romita, Jr. does the definitive Frank Castle, in my book. Its particular fitting in this case, because Remender really ups the ante' here and writes a story that could very go down in history as one of the definitive Punisher issues in history - the death of Frank Castle at the hands of faux-Wolverine, and the son of the real Wolverine, Daken, who, at the behest of Osborn, literally slices him into little pieces. Of course we know from the "Franken-castle" promos, as well as the back-up preview of the upcoming arc in the regular Punisher title (featuring some great work by Tony Moore), that he'll somehow be put back together again and reanimated (because this is comics, after all, and that sort of insane, over-the-top thing is what happens when you die in comics), but Remender and Romita, Jr. still manage to imbue Frank's "final" moments with a level of brutality and emotional impact far beyond what I expected.

The second book on the list is Dark Reign: The List: Wolverine, written by Jason Aaron with art by Esaad Ribic. Jason Aaron is a writer whose acclaim just seems to grow and grow with each month, and based on this book, its not hard to see why. Aaron has a reputation for extremely hard-edged, down and dirty crime stories based on his Vertigo book Scalped. I'm not as familiar with his other Marvel work, but this book really shows that is a big mistake to pigeon-hole him into that category. Aaron writes a relatively light, extremely enjoyable romp through some of the concepts introduced by Grant Morrison in his brief tenure at Marvel, including Kree brat Noh-varr, mutant thief Fantomex, the Weapon Plus program and their fringe-science experimental playground known as The World. Aaron's deft handling of these concepts is particularly impressive given that Marvel has notoriously either shied away from exploring concepts and characters introduced by Morrison, or horribly botched said exploration when undertaken.

Aaron, however, fits these characters in seamlessly with Norman Osborn's attempt to capture The World for himself, and Wolverine's attempt to shut him down. The whole thing is complicated by a mutated religion that affects and controls the part of the human brain that processes faith -- a concept to which Fantomex and Noh-varr are luckily immune. Anyone who knows me knows that a rip-roaring sci-fi yarn that also gets its shots in at organized religion is right in my wheel-house, but that's not the only reason I enjoyed this book. Aaron's plot is filled with Morrisonisms and other wild ideas that stay true to the characters and concepts involved, but are tightly plotted in a way that is extremely satisfying, especially given the fact that this book could have easily bogged down under the weight of the characters and occurrences therein. Ribic's art carries just the right mix of cartoony posturing and realism for the story, making the book very easy to follow visually. I'd love to see Aaron do more with both Fantomex and Noh-varr in the future, but for now I guess I'll just have to settle for his work on Scalped and Wolverine: Weapon X ongoing.

OK, that's it for comics for now. I'll leave you with my top five Nirvana songs (I've been sifting through their back catalogue recently in anticipation of picking up the Live at Reading release and Bleach reissue).

5. "In Bloom" - Smells Like Teen Spirit was the big, over-played and over-hyped hit, but this band didn't really hit home for me until I saw the video for In Bloom, with Kurt Cohbain and company in their dresses on the mock Sullivan show set. People forget that Nirvana were pro-gay rights before being pro-gay rights was fashionable.

4. "Sliver" - pure lo-fi adrenaline from before the hype.

3. "Scentless Apprentice" - Something about that opening drum lick and the total, unapologetic misanthropy of the lyrics makes this my favorite cut from In Utero, the best studio album the band ever did.

2. "Lithium" - I love you, I'm not gonna crack. Sure, Kurt, whatever you say.

1. "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" - This track unplugs both the guitars and the usual ironic veneer of Nirvana to reveal the true heart of both Cohbain and the band as a whole. The delivery of the last lines still gives me chills over a decade later.