G. To read Alan Moore’s work, it’s so beautiful and architectural and everything about it is great, but for me, that fire of creativity isn’t there in it, and I’m not fooled by it. I read Promethea last night, and I thought, “This is Doom Patrol, I don’t care, there’s nothing new for there for me here, but it’s so beautifully constructed, I wish I could do this kind of thing…
S. …immaculate objects…
G. …yes. It lacks the transcendental, it lacks the soul. And even last night, I was talking to Warren, The Authority’s like Justice League, but to me, what I find in that is this voice coming out, that to me, Warren’s got this voice of this new whatever generation it is that’s coming up where there’s all this violence and black humour, and that’s why I love it, because it is a thing with fire coming out of it. I don’t get that with Moore’s stuff, I just get this brilliance.
–from an interview with Grant Morrison conducted by Spiros Xenos in 1999

My secret shame as a comics fan is that I’m not an Alan Moore fan.

I’ve spent a couple days trying to write this post, actually. It veered a little too close to being a Moore vs Morrison whinefest. I’ll try to hit you with the bullet points.

Let’s discuss.

I’ve read a few Moore books that I liked. Watchmen (I own the Absolute!), V for Vendetta, Top Ten, and LXG are all good stuff. They’re technically impressive and Moore has an incredible grasp on the craft of comics-making. He may be the best technical writer ever, and he’s been gifted to work with some stellar artists at the same time. Dave Gibbons, Kevin O’Neill, JH Williams III, Gene Ha and Zander Cannon, all of these guys are ridiculously good.

However, I just can’t get into the majority of Moore’s work. Promethea leaves me flat, Lost Girls turns me off, and the majority of his America’s Best Comics were really sort of boring.

I think my issue with it is, as Morrison kind of describes above, it’s lacking in heart. It feels empty. Top Ten is the best superhero pastiche/homage since Planetary, but it all feels very by the numbers. Here’s the Fantastic Four analogues, here’s the DC characters, and so on. There’s no sense of the “Gee whiz, this is cool!” that I get from other comics writers.

I think that this is because Moore’s work is so perfectly constructed. You can tell the care that goes into his pages. You can tell that he’s thought a lot about it. However, because of that construction, all of his work feels very calculated. It doesn’t feel fun at all. Not to say that he hasn’t done some fun comics, as a handful of issues of Tom Strong were really very fun, along with that issue of Mr. Majestic he did years ago with the Dyson Spheres, I believe. But, my overall impression of Moore’s work is that it is all very serious and important and literary, capital letters optional.

I feel like I can see the man behind the curtain in too much of his work. It’s lacking in spontaneity. It’s too perfect. It’s there to be held up and admired, like art, rather than devoured, like pop culture.

(I’m an English major, honest. I’m not a literiluddite, I swear!)

Have you guys seen the proposal for Alan Moore’s Twilight of the Superheroes? It’s a DKR-style tale of superheroes gone wrong and fascist and their grisly end. Check the internet. It’s hailed as being an incredible tale, full of vim, vigor, and clever plot twists.

I read this proposal and was completely repulsed. Billy Batson as a leather sex midget? J’onn J’onnz as a murderer? John Constantine being so stubborn that he’d doom himself to a life of loneliness out of spite? Again, technically and craft-wise, it’s wonderfully constructed. It’s just lacking that heart and charm that I like from my comics.

Reading Moore is kind of like reading the classics. It’s very, very good, but it isn’t really very fun. I love Albert Camus, Voltaire, and Faulkner. I’m okay with Hemmingway, but you’ll rarely catch me reading them just because. Alan Moore’s work is a lot like that for me.

On the other side is Grant Morrison, relentless optimist and imperfect creator. His work has a snap and just earnestness about it that I don’t get from Moore. Even when he screws up or falls short of his goal, most especially in Batman 663, you just get this sense that he’s trying to give you that same feeling of “Gee whiz!” with his work. All-Star Superman illustrates this really well. He loves the Silver Age Superman and, when combined with a talent on the level of Quitely, you can tell.

His reach can easily exceed his grasp and he sometimes falls victim to scripting anticlimaxes, but he’s really very earnest about it and that comes through in the work. JLA Classified, New X-Men, The Invisibles, Vimanarama, and half a dozen of his other books all show this. They’re cool scenes, one-liners, and dialogue that sit on top of one mad idea after another. Flying jet apes, Barbelith, secondary mutations, Flex Mentallo, and Xorn. Shoot, Fantomex. He isn’t perfect, but he’s going to take you on a wild ride.

Alan Moore is literary comics. He writes comics as if there is a comics canon out there. His comics are smart, technically impressive, and wonderfully crafted. He’s rightfully hailed as one of the greatest ever, but like a lot of literary canon, his books can be boring and not very fun to read.

Grant Morrison is glam comics. It’s focused on fun, but with a point, and isn’t really aspiring to be anything other than fun. It’s shiny without being empty, and stylish without being substanceless.

I kind of prefer Morrison’s approach. I want that cool shot, I want that one-liner, and I don’t mind when my comics fall short of their goal. I want my comics to wow me and be awesome because it’s cool. I like pulpy stories.

Am I making sense or do I need to be put out to pasture? I’m not pitching this as either/or, just as an exploration on how I’m feeling about these two creators.

It’s a tale as old as time. (Pardon the slight Beauty & The Beast reference.)

There is a child, sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl, with a hidden talent and a good heart. They may not recognize this talent at the beginning of the story, but others see this potential in them and attempt to nuture it. Outside forces discover this talent and attempt to either take it away or control it. Eventually, the child realizes his or her worth and takes control of that power.

There are a lot of reasons why this story is so old. It speaks to the idea that we’re all special, and if only we can find that special thing inside of us, we’ll be happy forever. It’s a cautionary tale from parents to children, warning them to stay on the straight and narrow. It’s a fun adventure romp about a relatable person doing great things. It’s a morality play, will you or won’t you abuse that power? There are dozens of interpretations.

This is a classic story. It’s straight out of Campbell. It’s Spider-Man, Superman, Star Wars, Snow White, and a thousand other stories. It’s a story we all know and can appreciate, and a story we’ll likely be telling for hundreds of years to come.

This is also the story of Blokhedz.

First, some info and errata. (I’m trying out these new Amazon links and info formatting. Good idea, bad idea? They seem a little large, which could make formatting a pain.)

Title: Blokhedz #1: Genesis
Creators: Brandon Schultz and Mike and Mark Davis
Homepage: Blokhedz.tv
Publisher: Street Legends Ink/Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books
ISBN: 1416540733
Book Info: Blokhedz #1: Genesis collects Blokhedz #1-4, originally published in 2004 by Street Legends Ink. It is going to be released on March 20, 2007, and will be followed up by a straight to graphic novel volume 2 in Fall 2007.
Misc. Info: Interview with Format Magazine. Publishers Weekly article on the move to Pocket Books.

Extra special thanks to Ed Schlesinger at Pocket Books for getting me one of the last comp copies at New York Comic-con last weekend!

Blokhedz is the first offering from Pocket Books’s graphic novel line to my knowledge, and it’s a good start.

The hero of the book is Blak, a young black kid in Empire City. He’s extraordinarily skilled at rapping, both from written rhymes and freestyling. The book opens on him telling the story of a tragic shootout. From the first scene onward, it’s clear that he’s torn between two things. Is he going to be a smart rapper and speak the truth, or is he going to play dumb and rap about things he was never involved in? Is he going to be true to himself or is he going to “keep it real?”

The person he was rapping about is his older brother Konzaquence, who cautions him to stay true. He doesn’t want to see his little brother fall down the same path he did and gives him his lion medallion as a kind of contract between the two of them.

The hook in the book is that the words in rhymes can alter reality. It’s a little bit Dr. Strange, a little bit Biblical, and, to me at least, a little bit Invisibles. The first time this power is shown is when Vulture, a rival rapper and gangster, has his crew attack Blak. This causes Blak to lose his medallion and pride, but gain new abilities. His words become reality.

Blokhedz #1: Genesis is an engaging read. The story is familiar, but tilted to a new angle. Blak has to dodge the allure of gangs, thug rap, and life in the city in order to survive. His older brother has been there, done that, and did the time for the crime, literally. One of his brother’s old running buddies has gone from drug-dealing to running a rap label, bringing to mind Prince Paul’s A Prince Among Thieves, wherein Mr. Large, the guy who runs all the crime in the city, also dabbles in rap management. He courts Blak and, unbeknownst to him, uses his rhymes to create Crypt, a drug that hits the streets hard.

It’s about choices. Blak is torn between good or evil, God or the Devil, and vengeance or justice, but he must choose one side or the other. Both sides are tempting, but Blokhedz presents one side as being right. Good and evil are clearly delineated in the book, even down to the bad guys looking sinister. Vulture, for example, looks more than a little like his namesake and behaves worse than that. It’s simplistic, but it works. It’s also kind of refreshing in today’s comics landscape to see this kind of black-and-white viewpoint, particularly when pulled off without being either preachy or overly adult.

This is a good read, and a pretty good book for kids, despite a little bit of salty, but censored, language. There are a few gaffes, such as a handful of main characters appearing on-screen and having speaking roles without actually being introduced. I didn’t know the name of Essence, the spoken word poet and inner city crusader, until a chapter and three scenes after she was introduced, if memory serves. The focus of the book is on Blak, of course, but it would be nice if his supporting cast didn’t feel quite so not-there. A brief introductory bit of dialogue, or even a caption presented with the same flair and style found in the rest of the book would be great and enhance the read. We get that Blak has friends, but they’re a group of friends, rather being distinct individuals.

Still, this is a great start. It’s easy to read and the art is quite attractive. It’s a blend of American and anime-inspired art and it works really well. The characters can convey emotion easily. The book looks a lot like a cartoon, but in a good way. I’ve got to give them props for the backgrounds, too. Even in Marvel or DC produced comics, the “Big Two,” the backgrounds tend to be pretty bland, nondescript, and sometimes even nonexistent. These backgrounds are busy. They’re cluttered. They’re almost completely covered in tags. They have character. You really get the feeling that Empire City is a genuine city thanks to this attention to detail.

Blokhedz #1 is a good showing, and it’s cheap, too. It’s well worth a read.

Slight interruption of service, here. My laptop blew up yesterday and I spent hours getting it back in working order.

The quickest way to learn to hate computers is to learn how to fix them.

Anyway, I dip out to work in about ten minutes, and I don’t want to leave you lovelies hanging out there, so have one of those out of context panels that the internet seems to love so much. I don’t know the context at all, either. I got this off a funny panels thread on a forum.

Now, ask yourself a few questions.

1) Why is Superman kissing that dude’s wife?
2) Why is Supergirl so happy about it?
3) Kissing her twice? Superman is a jerk!
4) Is that guy pointing to his mouth to say, “Hey, my turn! Plant one right here, Big Blue! She got two, I get two! Rowr!”? I like to think so.

Superman: Wrecking marriages for nearly 70 years!

Look for Blokhedz: Keeping It (Magical) Real(ism) late tonight/early tomorrow morning!

Punisher War Journal #4 was a fun issue, with the goings on at Stiltman’s funeral. Looking at it a second time, I notice Matt Fraction tossed in one very subtle joke.

At first glance, it looks like they’re laughing about some time the Shocker got bested by Spider-Man.

Now, then…

Look at the hand gesture on the right.

“Aw, come on. I didn’t know what that name meant when I picked it. Can we just move on, already?”

Matt Fraction’s keen.

Yeah, so I accidentally overslept this morning, which means that I need to be out the door post-haste.

In the meantime, though, I got a lovely email from Lene Taylor of I Read Comics. She found my essay on Patriot via Kalinara and found it worth reading! It touched her enough that she talked about it on her podcast, which you may find here.

Give it a listen, and then go on to listen to her back catalog. Very good stuff!

Thanks again to Lene for featuring the post.

I did a lot of purchasing at the NYCC. Oh man, did I. Curious? Here’s the list of what I came home with that was new, not counting magazines (Wizard with Claire and Nikki from Heroes on the cover, UVC Magazine) and sketches.

40 oz Collection – Jim Mahfood
Ares: God of War – Mike Oeming/Travel Foreman
Batgirl: Destruction’s Daughter
Blokhedz
The Blvd Sketchbook volume 2.0 – John Paul Leon/Trevor Goring/Tommy Lee Edwards/Sean Chen/Bernard Chang
Diesel Sweeties: Pocket Sweeties Volume One – R Stevens
Diesel Sweeties: How I Blew My Thursday Night – R Stevens
DMZ v2: Body of a Journalist – Brian Wood/Riccardo Burchielli
Firestorm: The Nuclear Man: Reborn – Stuart Moore/Jamal Igle
The Five Fists of Science – Matt Fraction/Steven Sanders
Freddie E Williams II Sketchbook
Ghost Rider – Howard Mackie/Javier Saltares/Mark Texeira
Goats – Contains One Space Battle – Jonathan Rosenberg
Goats – A Tale of Two Comics – Jonathan Rosenberg
Grant Morrison: The Early Years – Timothy Callahan
JLA/Avengers – Kurt Busiek/George Perez
Justice League: A New Beginning – Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire
Kabuki Metamorphosis HC – David Mack
Khary Randolph Sketchbook
Modern Masters v3: Bruce Timm
Modern Masters v6: Arthur Adams
Modern Masters v8: Walter Simonson
Modern Masters v9: Mike Wieringo
Modern Masters v10: Kevin Maguire
Naoki Urasawa’s Monster v7
Nat Turner Encore Edition – Kyle Baker
One Page Filler Man – Jim Mahfood
Project Romantic – Various
Puttin’ the Backbone Back – Jim Mahfood
Runaways HC v2 – Brian K Vaughan/Adrian Alphona/Takeshi Miyazawa
Wigu: The Bravest Boy in the World – Jeffrey Rowland

Ouch, my wallet. Cons are bloody expensive.

I’ve already read Blokhedz, and a review on that is forthcoming. That Ghost Rider trade is the first seven or eight issues of the series that introduced Danny Ketch, and I bought it because I either have bad taste in comics or am a complete and utter masochist. Or maybe it’s good, I dunno. Kabuki: Metamorphosis rounds out my Kabuki collection, which is a good thing.

The Grant Morrison volume is a lit-crit look at Zenith, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and Arkham Asylum. Yes! It also includes an interview with The God of All Comics in the back about the book and his work.

I got a little more superheroic stuff than I really wanted to. I’m not only a superhero reader. At least two fifths, and sometimes even three fifths, of my top five are non-supers. (100 Bullets, Kabuki, Stray Bullets.) (I also like bullets, I guess). Still, seven out of thirty-one ain’t bad, though the Modern Masters volumes technically aren’t comics. I also haven’t read a lot of this stuff, or haven’t read it in years at the very least. It’s probably 85-90% new content to me.

Here’s the kicker: I’m planning on reviewing all these books. Yeah, that’s right. It may be a grouped review, it may be a single review, but I want to put my thoughts out there about all of them, excepting only the Modern Masters because those are awesome by default, and the sketchbooks, because they aren’t exactly reviewable, save for the one by The Blvd.

I’ve also got the PC demo of the Marvel Trading Card game to look at, as well as a free copy of the Marvel Comic Book Creator software. Should be an interesting few weeks!

New York Comic Con has come and gone. Fuuuuun shit.

First, let me just go over last year’s show. I only showed up for Saturday. It was the first year of NYCC in the Jacob Javits Center, so they had no idea what they were doing. Me and my friend got there at about noon and already the place was pretty packed. You could barely move through the aisles and if you could, you couldn’t stop. We were packed like sardines.

Eventually, the fire marshal made a stink about the maximum occupancy on the floor. He was threatening to close the place down. Instead, they made a line into the convention floor that wouldn’t allow anyone – not even those with tickets – onto the convention floor unless someone in there exited first. For a few hours, this made things unbearable. Towards the latter hours, many of the people on line just plain left and things were a bit better.

The people behind the Comic Con insisted that they would fix the whole overpopulation problem. For one, they would limit the tickets. For two, they’d allow more room. Since I had a good time last year, I decided to go all three days. This time, I brought hermanos and Riskbreaker with me.

This is our story.

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