Crazy 88 time. Looks like my intentions to do a post a day petered out last week, but that’s what happens when you spend only minutes at a time at home/conscious. I did get to see Avenue Q for the first time, though, which was pretty great. It taught me an awful lot about the internet and its uses.
I saw Kung Fu Panda 2 tonight. It was totally sweet. Very, very little Dustin Hoffman, but it’s offset by how goddamn amazing Gary Oldman is as Peacock Hitler.
This week we got stuff from David Brothers, Was Taters and Space Jawa. I’ll give you ten guesses on which comic the guy with Jawa in his name supplied.
Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine #6
Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert
Captain America #618
Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice and Chris Samnee
Excluding Gargoyles, Darkwing Duck was always my favorite part of the Disney Afternoon. I always felt that although Disney is great at showcasing their many properties, Darkwing got the shaft. Sure, it got an NES game, but when the cartoon ended, so did the franchise. Darkwing fell into obscurity, only to become a piece of nostalgia years later.
But what a show it was. Funny and filled with adventure, it acted as the way lighter comedy counterpart to Batman: The Animated Series. It had plenty of character to go around. Not only with our egomaniac mostly-competent hero, but they stole the best character from Duck Tales for the sidekick role and the youthful ward seems to have more gusto than the title character himself. If a superhero is defined by his villains, then you can see the reason the show was so great through the likes of Darkwing’s rogues gallery. Except for that one walrus guy. He kind of sucked.
I never expected to ever see Darkwing again. Whenever a new Kingdom Hearts game came out, I’d half-heartedly hope that maybe we’d get some kind of return appearance, but no. He doesn’t rank with the feature film big shots. Alas, he’d only live on in Toon Disney reruns.
That is, until BOOM! Studios announced a Darkwing Duck miniseries. I was jazzed! Eventually, the idea became so popular among the masses that the company turned it into an ongoing. I was more jazzed! Then I read the first issue. That made my jazz flux levels go even higher! I even got to do an interview with writer Ian Brill one time! My jazziness… it… I… I was pleased, okay?
Darkwing Duck has finished up its first year via twelve issues (three story arcs) and an annual that featured a short story by the series creator Tad Stones. The main series is written by Ian Brill with James Silvani killing it on art. In a time when my favorite characters like Venom, Deadpool, Juggernaut, Booster Gold and Luke Cage have their own fantastic comics going on (by “Deadpool” I mean Uncanny X-Force. Sorry, Daniel Way), I can still tell people with a straight face that my favorite comic series being released today is Darkwing Duck. I get a lot of skeptical looks, but I stand by my claim. With those twelve issues plus one released, I’ve found myself blown away thirteen times in the past year.
I messed around and got bored, so this is closed for business. In the meantime, here’s something from Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira 2:
These aren’t good comics. They’re best comics. Visit Otomblr for more. I’m starting to think that people should be making comics that are at least trying to be as good or better than Akira. It’s cool if you don’t make that mark (it’s a high, but worthy mark) but if you’re just taking paychecks… nah son. Feed your family first, but holler at me when you make something worth reading.
You should cop that album. There’s four or five serious bangers, and the worst it gets is “pretty okay.” And even “pretty okay” gets an upgrade to “good” thanks to a Big Boi assist on the remix.
Here’s some comics some people are probably buying this week: David:Xombi 3, Power Man and Iron Fist 5 Esther: Yes: Xombi 3 Maybe: Action Comics 901, Detective Comics 877, Green Arrow 12 Gavin:Green Lantern Corps 60, Green Lantern Emerald Warriors 10, Green Lantern 66, Incorruptible 18, Astonishing Spider-Man Wolverine 6, Captain America 618, Deadpool 37, FF 4, Incredible Hulks 629, Iron Man 2.0 5, Namor The First Mutant 10, Power Man And Iron Fist 5, Secret Avengers 13, Secret Warriors 27, Venom 3
Okay, this bullshit has gone on long enough. I’ve been slacking and it’s inexcusable. This week I’m making up for it. Seven days in a week. Seven posts by me. I need this and I’m going to make sure that I get it don–zzzzzz
Huh?! Oh, right. ThWiP update. While I’m joined by the usual batch of helpers in David Brothers, Was Taters and Space Jawa, I also get first-timer Ryan Donovan joining in. He’s got a blog, too!
Alpha Flight #0.1
Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente and Ben Oliver
Avengers #13
Brian Michael Bendis and Chris Bachalo
-I wanted to keep with my new format of discussing two works or bits of art I liked, but I’m on the run eating today, in addition to flirting with burnout and depression simultaneously!
-Brief bites, like the old school ciphers of two or three weeks ago. New format returns next week. Fewer complaints, too, I hope.
-The promised album reviews will have to wait, too, ugh
-One bit of art I liked from Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira:
-That coach is the greatest.
-Sometimes I go through phases of really believing that cape comics have a chance of evolving and sticking around, rather than navel-gazing their way into oblivion. And then I see the sales charts and find out that John Rozum and Frazer Irving’s Xombi shipped 12k and get depressed and bitter. Twelve thousand is pretty bad, particularly in today’s crappy comics market.
-I keep forgetting that the echo chamber that is the people I correspond with isn’t made of the traditional direct market consumer.
-Cape comics fans don’t want new, or diverse, or fresh, or even really interesting. They want what they have always had, but maybe slightly different from the last time. Maybe a new face, but not too new, in some old clothes, or an old face back from the dead and a little sexier.
-David Finch’s incredibly ugly, boring, and awful The Dark Knight came in at #4, and a couple books saw sales spikes for Reign of Doomsday.
-This is the comics industry we’ve built, and it’s gross.
-Mainstream comics: I’m currently regularly buying Hellblazer, Heroes for Hire, Hulk, Power Man and Iron Fist, and Xombi.
-That’s my “pull list.”
-They’re consistently good, fairly free of stupid event-based shenanigans, and just tell good stories, month-in, mouth-out. Those are the most basic things that’ll get me to buy a comic.
-(The art on Heroes for Hire is frustratingly shaky, though.)
-I buy a lot of trades and digital books, too, but these are the only ones I buy on any sort of schedule beyond “Oh, is that out?”
-I realize that my Xombi complaint is pretty much “Why don’t people like the things I like” *throws teddy bear against the wall*, don’t get me wrong. But, that doesn’t make the fact that new books do not, and apparently will never, sell any less depressing.
-My policy is generally “Like what you like, because who cares,” but sometimes I slip.
-But it’s whatever. I’ll read something good this week (probably Hellblazer, which sells less than Xombi but has the benefit of being a Name comic in some way), forget about the fact that most comics fans don’t share my taste, and go back to gushing about how great whatever the last comic I read was.
-That comic’ll probably be Charles Schulz’s Peanuts.
comics
David:Hellblazer 279, Heroes For Hire 7, Hulk 33, Thunderbolts 157 Esther: Yes: Tiny Titans 40, Batman and Robin 23, Superman/Batman 84 Possibly: Power Girl 24 Gavin:Batman And Robin 23, Booster Gold 44, Darkwing Duck 12, Avengers Academy 14, Avengers 13, Deadpool MAX 8, Herc 3, Heroes For Hire 7, Hulk 33, Skaar King Of The Savage Land 3, Thunderbolts 157, Ultimate Comics Avengers vs New Ultimates 4, Uncanny X-Force 10
It’s the Free Comic Book Day edition of ThWiP! Which is good, since I didn’t really get too many books on Wednesday and need some padding. I did end up picking up Journey Into Mystery, which I’m enjoying the hell out of. The adventures of a now-young Loki will always trump the adventures of a now-young Tony Stark. Goddamn 90’s comics.
I’m joined by my usual folks, David Brothers, Was Taters and Space Jawa. As mentioned, last week’s FCBD stuff is being used here. At least, the stuff I got around to reading through. The Inspector Gadget one didn’t do much to wow (wowsers?) me and it suffers from one hell of a editing mistake on the second page. In a big two-page spread, what should be the dialogue between Gadget and Penny in the middle of the spread is instead being said by a stack of luggage on the far right of the image. How did nobody prevent this?
New Avengers is the first panel in a while that I’ve posted where it’s more about, “Look how bad this is.” The modern plot is interesting enough for the five pages we get an issue, but the Chaykin-drawn “Bendis decides to make his own Agents of Atlas lineup” segments are the worst. I’d drop this book if I thought this was going to be a new status quo for the series.
Atomic Robo FCBD
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener and others
-Been thinking a lot about what comics can’t do lately. There are some things that require something more than comics can give–silence, for example.
-Silence is the absence of sound. It’s tough to portray silence in comics. It’s not the same as wordlessness, not really. If you’ve ever seen a scene in a movie where the music drops out and every word hits like a hammer to the skull–that’s so powerful thanks to silence. It dials your attention down to a single point. It turns “It tastes like you but sweeter!” from a mean diss into a gunshot.
-Car chases, too. You can do them in comics, sure, but I don’t think you can top what you’d see in Bullitt or Dirty Harry. Car chases need motion, the blur of scenery, and jockeying for position. They need squeals. It never feels right in comics. Kenichi Sonoda’s Gunsmith Cats had some good car chase bits, but the most memorable one took place on an empty highway.
-Foot chases in comics, though? Those are great. Frank Miller on Daredevil, for example. Comics made rooftops magical. I got mad when I grew up and found out how hard it was to get to the roof of buildings.
-Slow walks toward the camera always look corny in comics, too. You can do the slow stroll, but you can’t do it head-on.
-What am I forgetting? Have there been good chases in comics?
-Speaking of Gunsmith Cats, here’s a bit I like from the first volume, which involves something like a car chase:
-One thing Sonoda seems to understand is how limited comics are when it comes to car chases. He always adds some sauce, whether it’s a three-way race, gun battles, or civilians getting in the way. In a later volume, Rally and Bean are faced with the choice of pasting a dude on the highway or wrecking. Instead, they share a glance, jerk their wheels toward each other, and lock their tires, causing their cars to set up on two wheels each in an arc over the dude.
-This bit, though, is really good, underage panties aside. This is how you put a proper chase scene in comics. Sonoda binged on making the cars real and showing progressive damage. The big impact panel features the side mirror on the Lotus breaking off and flying across their windshield. The Mercedes grille is flawless.
-Slipping the girl through the car’s doors is clever, too. It’s the sort of thing Spider-Man should be doing all the time. I’ve seen a couple similar things in movies, like this bit from the otherwise aight Red:
-You have a limitation: motion is limited in comics and sound is portrayed differently. Your goal: how do you surpass the limitations?
-Comics/cartoons crossover: I’ve been watching old episodes of Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball. I’ve only seen a little of the show, though I own the whole manga. I’d forgotten how Dr. Slump-y it got. Poop jokes, dick jokes, boob jokes… it’s got everything I love. I knew there was a reason I liked it more than DBZ.
-Anyway, the cartoon does something I thought was interesting. Whenever something explodes, the cloud of dust has a “BOM!” sound effect over it. There are a couple others that are used, some in Japanese, some in English, but it’s so interesting to see comics transplanted directly to film like that.
-It makes the show feel very kiddy, if I can say that without having to get all “pow! zoom!” It’s the font they use and the way it appears. It’s very fun, very friendly.
-Another bit from GSC that I liked, though not for any formal reasons.
-I like how much attention Sonoda pays to Rally loading the gun in that first tier of panels. It’s quietly menacing. 2.1 is great, too, with those speed lines Sonoda just throws onto Rally’s arms. The pose and the motion are all good. You can instantly recognize what she just did, and he flips it again for 3.3.
-I really, really enjoy seeing how comics artists solve things like this. How do you show someone spinning a cylinder? Show the thumb and then a blur? Focus on the cylinder? Cheat and draw it all static? Afterimages?
-This pic is insanely good. I found it on a tumblr that is wild nsfw, but has some really great pictures, including what I thought was a really classy ’70s nude girl but turned out to be from the ’90s. It came from FreshJive.
-Smoking is one of my favorite things in media. It looks unbelievably cool, and in the hands of a proper actor and director, can really enhance a scene. Ladies with cigarette holders breathing clouds into the air while dismissing would-be suitors, thugs lurking in alleys with just the tip of their noses lit by the cigarette, or dudes in an apartment, making murder plans in clouds of smoke… yeah, I love all that.
-Smoking is great for pacing a conversation, too, and it works just as well, if not better, in comics.
-I got like four or five new albums yesterday, but those’ll have to wait. I haven’t had a chance to dig into them just yet, beyond Tyler, the Creator’s Goblin. Expect a big music post, maybe? I like buying music, so probably, yes.
-Oh yeah, I mentioned a Frank Miller piece I couldn’t find last week. Quote:
-There’s this piece Miller did of Miho for some magazine or another. It’s in The Art of Sin City, at any rate. It’s sparse, hardly any details but Miho’s face and pubic hair. It sounds perverted, but it really doesn’t come off like that way. It’s sexy, but not like… gross.
-Turns out I had it sitting on my computer the entire time in my big folder full of Frank Miller Stuff. Click here to see it, but keep in mind that it’s probably nsfw, depending on how your job feels about negative space boobs. It’s from Tripwire apparently. No idea which issue.
comics
David: hates comics this week Esther: Mais oui! Batgirl 21/ Oui: Birds of Prey 12. Est Possible: Doc Savage 14 (I like the crocodile on the cover.) Gavin:Batman Incorporated 6, FF 3, Incredible Hulks 628, New Avengers 12, Punisher MAX 12
I had seen the movie Thor recently and I enjoyed the hell out of it (Iron Man > Thor > Incredible Hulk > Iron Man 2). For longtime readers of this site, you usually know what that leads to. Ever since Spider-Man 3, I’ve had a tendency to pick up the novelizations of Marvel movie properties before the movies come out. When I see the movie, I then go home and write up all the stuff that was in the book, yet never made the on-screen transition. These always lead to interesting differences between early versions of the draft and later ones. Like how Iron Man 2 was going to be a total piece of shit rather than just being simply the lowest rung of the Avengers Saga movies.
Here’s the problem, though. The Thor and Captain America movies don’t have novelizations and won’t be getting any. Oh, sure, there’s the junior novel, but those things are always too cleaned up and they overly abridge chunks of the story. I guess I’ll just have to kiss my bread and butter goodbye.
But then, I figured, what’s stopping me? Sure, I haven’t read the original script for Thor. Sure, I don’t know how earlier drafts of the story went. But YOU don’t know that!
…shit, wait. You do. Pretend those above three paragraphs never happened. I want to tell you about all the scenes from Thor that never came to be. The ones that were left on the cutting room floor, for better or for worse. Let’s go.
– In the opening scene, when Jane and friends are driving through the desert, they briefly spurn a hitchhiker and drive past him. Bruce Banner puts his hands back into his pockets and continues down the road, accompanied by sad piano music.
– The real reason those frost giants snuck into Asgard isn’t because of any magic or trickery, but because Heimdall was too distracted from doing that thing where you point your index fingers at each other and cross your eyes and see a little floating hotdog finger in-between.
Hey there, folks. Since it’s been a while since I’ve explained the concept of this weekly series, here’s the gist for new people: Every week, me, some readers and occasionally Mr. David Brothers put together a collection of panels from each comic that we’ve read collectively. The idea is to sum up the comic in one panel. If you were trying to sell someone on the issue while giving them an idea of what the comic is about without overly spoiling them, what would that panel be?
I have stuff from David, Was Taters and Space Jawa. Jawa also sent me an image from Free Comic Book Day, but I’m going to save all of those for next week.
Also, apologies for the lack of content from me in the past couple weeks. Been playing a lot of Mortal Kombat while catching up on the rest of season one of the Avengers cartoon off YouTube. There are like seven episodes aired in Australia that they held off on in America because there’s a lot of Asgard stuff going on and they wanted to save it for after the Thor movie was released.
You know what’s kind of fucked about that cartoon? Chemistro got to make his animated debut before Luke Cage and Iron Fist.
Annihilators #3
Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Tan Eng Huat
Annihilators #3 (backup)
Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Timothy Green II
-Two things about Frank Miller’s work on Sin City: Family Values.
-This page is pretty nuts. A lot of what I read are mainstream comics, superhero or otherwise, which means that they’re colored, sometimes garishly (in both good and bad ways). Spotting blacks is something that feels pretty rare. I can’t remember the last time I looked at a page like, “Wow, look at all that black.”
-Miller’s pretty good at making black and white play well together, though, isn’t he? I love how he minimizes certain things (the barstools), suggests other things (Peggy’s legs), and then throws a bunch of detail onto the man’s pants and Peggy’s sweater. What’s really striking is how that big drop of black that’s Dwight’s chest really sets off his figure.
-I like the feathery fur on Peggy’s jacket, and the fuzz on Dwight’s coat. What material is that supposed to be? Like a light fur? Dwight’s really into his role. Shame about him sitting on his coat, though.
-There’s this piece Miller did of Miho for some magazine or another. It’s in The Art of Sin City, at any rate. It’s sparse, hardly any details but Miho’s face and pubic hair. It sounds perverted, but it really doesn’t come off like that way. It’s sexy, but not like… gross.
-I couldn’t find the image online. Found a whole bunch of other stuff, though. Here’s a slightly dirty Sergio Aragones Sin City illo, instead:
-Miho is probably my favorite character out of Sin City‘s cast. She’s sorta the height of Miller’s Elektric woman worshipping. She’s an invincible killing machine, stronger than everyone around her, and only subordinate to a man when she wants to be, which isn’t really submission at all, is it?
-Miller writes and draws her as a sort of ethereal, angelic figure. Her thoughts are closed to us, barring commentary from other characters, so we can only judge her actions.
-She’s entirely free of shadows in this tale. She’s the only pure character in the entire book. It’s an effective visual choice, because she either fades into the background, like a ghost, or really pops off the page.
-Miho spends all of her time in Family Values killing and maiming some thugs. It’s great.
-It’s great because Miller’s actually pretty good at action scenes. I like how casual this whole sequence is, how Miho’s just an efficient killing machine that catches everyone by surprise.
-The best bit, though, is that last page. Perfect picture of one moment in time, in that moment right before confusion turns into surprise.
-Has anyone ever looked at how Miller portrays people in mid-air? There’s this sublime bit in Elektra Lives Again where Matt Murdock just steps off a balcony and falls, before hitting a wire. Miller & Lynn Varley left the snow on the wire in place while the wire fell. There’s something about the way Miller shows people leaping and falling that’s different. I’d have to reread a whole lot more of his stuff specifically looking at that, though.
-Copped two new albums this week, both of which are actually old: Misnomer(S)’s American I(s) and Hard Nips second EP, I Shit U Not. One’s this sorta… punk-y thing, lots of heavy guitars. The other’s violin-inflected hip-hop.
-I really like the idea of violins and rap. There’s no real reason why one doesn’t belong with the other, and I’ve liked that mix since the intro on Hip Hop Respect (scroll down, hit listen). Misnomer(S) is two sisters, Knewdles and Sos. Knewdles kicks raps that feel sorta Native Tongues-y in terms of flow (I hear a lot of Queen Latifah in her voice, but she’s got De La’s playfulness) and Sos is the violinist half.
–American I(s) is a pretty fun record, but that type of fun that flips between rapping about rapping to rapping about real life issues, like racism or broken relationships. I like the way it sounds, though I’ve only listened to it a couple of times thus far.
–I Shit U Not… I like how this sounds. I don’t really know much about whatever microgenre this is probably supposed to be, but it’s good music to bike to. That mix of higher-pitched vocals and deep guitars (what’s the word for this type of guitar sound? somebody help me out) makes for an aural mix that’s new to me. The songs feel almost… abstracted, with the music and vocals playing basically the same role to my ears.
-Is that weird?
-I’m pleased with both albums, though. Hard Nips goes onto the workout mix, Misnomer(S) into boom-bap-rap.
-Vidyas:
comics
David:Heroes for Hire 6 Esther: Yes: Superboy 7 Maybe: Secret Six 33 Gavin:Axe Cop Bad Guy Earth 3, Secret Six 33, Irredeemable 25, Avengers Academy 13, Deadpool Annual 1, Fear Itself 2, Herc 2, Heroes For Hire 6, Marvel Zombies Supreme 4, Ozma Of Oz 6, Uncanny X-Force 9
:
:
had some good car chase bits, but the most memorable one took place on an empty highway.
. Expect a big music post, maybe? I like buying music, so probably, yes.
and Hard Nips second EP, 
. One’s this sorta… punk-y thing, lots of heavy guitars. The other’s violin-inflected hip-hop.
(scroll down, hit listen). Misnomer(S) is two sisters, Knewdles and Sos. Knewdles kicks raps that feel sorta Native Tongues-y in terms of flow (I hear a lot of Queen Latifah in her voice, but she’s got De La’s playfulness) and Sos is the violinist half.
