Quick hits!

–Shadow of the DAMNED trailer is heat rocks. Suda51 is dope, Shinji Mikami is pretty straight, and Akira Yamaoka is cool, so I’m basically on-board day one, and I don’t even really care about video games any more.

-Did anybody else look at that Shadowland: Blood on the Streets book the other week? I flipped through it, got to like page four and was like “nope.” Why?

Yeah, naw, I’m good man. You go on and take that somewhere else.

–Shadowland: Daughters of the Dragon is similarly wack. Look at the soft batch of an action scene in this preview. Everything about it is a turn-off–the way they just hop off the motorcycles, the stiff art, the absurd fight in a truck that is also a shapechanging warehouse, whatever whatever. Gross.

-I’ve been paying more and more attention to fight choreo in comics. It’s such a basic thing, and I’m growing increasingly certain that getting it wrong is absolutely ridiculous. It’s one-two-three-four–first this, then this, then this, and then this. A lot of superhero artists tend to do it the other way, pinup-pinup-pose-pinup, instead, and it looks like crap every time. It’s sequential art, right? Then it follows that the images we see should be in sequence, rather than a loose collection of images where people are maybe kinda sorta fighting/dancing. This is like drawing cross-eyed people or one leg noticeably longer than the other. C’mon, son. Do better.

-That new John Legend & The Roots? Wake Up!? It’s a cover album and it’s fantastic. That eleven minute version of “I Can’t Write Left Handed”, one of my favorite Vietnam songs, goes hard. Legend divas it up some, but I’m digging it. It’s basically a tribute to the ’70s, and Legend does really well.

-Grant Morrison wrote the superhero comic Bible when he wrote Flex Mentallo. I can’t even imagine why someone wouldn’t like it or what it says about cape comics and superheroes themselves.

-My launch PS2 still works and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 is still basically the illest game on the system. I’m playing it again after a break of a year and some change. I’m in Rise’s striptease dungeon, but I think that Kanji’s gay bath house takes the prize for greatest stage of all time.

Stuff I Read, Stuff You Should Buy
-I got a big box of books from Vertical, and I’ve made it through 7 Billion Needles (review coming here soon), and Chi’s Sweet Home 1, 2, and 3. I’m currently reading The Crimson Labyrinth and I finished Parasite Eve late last week. They’re all good to great, which is astounding. I know I read a lot of Viz, and for good reason, but Vertical, Inc is pumping out some great stuff while nobody’s looking. Parasite Eve was deeply weird and I never thought I’d say this, but I definitely read a scene where mitochondria masturbated.

–Empowered 6, huh? How good was that book? Sistah Spooky is killing me over here.

-Guess what’s on sale? Scott Pilgrim is on sale! The entire series! For fire sale prices! Links: Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World (v. 2), Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness (v. 3), Scott Pilgrim, Vol 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Scott Pilgrim Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe, Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour

-Comics Alliance: we beat up on a crappy interview from The Atlantic, I review Empowered, Wildstorm is dead, and here’s some Marvel comics you should read.

I read your comic, now I break weed up on it
“The Immortal” David Brothers, brother!: This week, there’s nathan, but penetra-er, I’ve got no comics this week, but I might buy Matt Fraction and Pasqual Ferry’s Thor because John Workman lettered it.
Miss Esthlizabeth: I tried to find a title that Esther’d never read, like maybe Prison Pit or Preacher, but eh… effort.
“Macho Man” Gavin Jasper: Green Lantern Corps, Justice League Generation Lost, Avengers Academy 04, Avengers 05, Deadpool Team-Up 889, Hit-Monkey 03, Hulk 25, Secret Avengers 05, Darkwing Duck 04

Anything worth reading this week?

A year ago I talked to David Brothers about an idea I had for the site. I had tried writing reviews of weekly releases before, but I never got into it. There were a couple reasons and they’re both about redundancies. I can tell you about how great the latest issue of Captain America is, but so will every other site. There are so many other comic sites that will give better reviews of new stuff that I don’t know why anyone would give a damn what I have to say among all that. Then there’s the fact that comic quality doesn’t change so often within the series’ run. If I tell you that Captain America is great one month, chances are it’s going to be just as good the next. Why waste my breath? If I want to give you my opinions, I want it to at least be interesting and hopefully unique.

I thought back to the first issue of the Agents of Atlas miniseries from several years back. The general response of people who read it and tried to push it was to point out that there’s a scene where a 1950’s robot runs down a hallway while carrying a talking gorilla and that gorilla is firing four uzis with his hands and feet. I figured that maybe that could be the unique way to cover the comics of the week. I’d settle on one panel that really pushes what the comic is about, more than often more than the cover does. It’s no longer so much a review as it is giving you a gist on what we all read. At the same time, I would make sure not to have any major spoilers. If the comic has Wolverine beat up Daken in the climax, then I won’t show it. I will, on the other hand, show them about to fight it out.

If anything, it was also an excuse to keep me from straying from doing anything for the site too long at a time. I’d have a deadline of some point every Sunday and I’ve been pretty good on that. I’ve only delayed two weeks and those were because of a lengthy power outage and the loss of my computer.

I didn’t know if it would work, but David said to go for it. Now it’s been a year and I thought it would be fun to do an extra installment in a retrospective form. The idea was to pick one of my favorite panels from the previous 52 weeks, but with the challenge of not double-dipping from the same title at any point. Here we go!

Adventure Comics #4
Geoff Johns, Sterling Gates and Jerry Ordway

Amazing Spider-Man #617
Joe Kelly, Max Fiumara and Javier Pulido

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Goddamn. It’s been an entire year of this. I hope you folks have been actually enjoying these. I mean, I do it regardless because it’s fun, but if you’re digging it too, sweet.

It’s just me and Was Taters this time around. Shockingly, we’ve BOTH read Azrael this week, making me wonder if we’re in fact the only two who are keeping up with the series. And yet Azrael is still going to last at least 14 issues. I’m not complaining, but it is rather strange to me. Maybe Didio really likes the guy.

Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #3
Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert

Avengers & The Infinity Gauntlet #2
Brian Clevinger, Lee Black and Brian Churilla

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miscellany
-You know what’s weird? I’m actually kinda curious about X-23 this week. I like Marjorie Liu, so, y’know, maybe? But four bucks… ehhhh.

–Prison Pit: Book Two is this week. It opens with a dude pooping. The cover is blood-soaked. There’s a strap-on at some point in the book. I’m new to Johnny Ryan, but this book is repulsive and attractive and awful and fascinating all at once. It’s vile, man, and I’m ready to read some more.

-This week in Brightest Day, we find out what the deal is with Aqualad. I kind of feel like everyone who popped up with “Oh, so the black character can’t swim, huh? Way to be racist, DC Comics!” is feeling pretty dumb right about now, yeah? The presence of a stereotype is not necessarily an indicator of racism or stereotyping. It’s cool to throw a jaundiced eye at cape comics, but c’mon. Context and understanding is just as important as playing watchdog. I mean, his name is Aqualad, he lives in one of the driest places in the country, and has a mysterious past. C’mon, son. Y’all got to do better, this is basic.

-I bought Black Milk’s Album Of The Year and Rah Digga’s Classic today. Digga is one of my favorite rappers (Dirty Harriet is dope, miss me if you disagree) and This Ain’t No Lil Kid Rap is dope. The remix with Redman is hard, too. Black Milk is a dope producer out of Detroit, and his last joint was heat rocks, so Album of the Year was definitely getting purchased.

-The cover to Classic instantly shot up to my top five favorite album covers, too. It’s on par with Illmatic.

-I love how iTunes likes to just wipe my iPod without even asking me. I had it on manually manage for a couple weeks (which sucks) and flicked it back over to auto since iTunes 10 is New and Improved. Mistake, ’cause the first thing the all-new iTunes did was wipe my whole iPod right before I left for work. Thanks for that.

–Machete was dope.

elsewhere
–I talk about how much of a piece of crap OMIT was and some crazies come calling, post a sneak preview of Darwyn Cooke’s The Outfit, and talk about Butch Guice paying homage to Kirby and Steranko in Captain America.

-Over Moviefone way, I talk Marvel and Pixar.
comics are for children
Black King David: Amazing Spider-Man 643, Hellblazer 271, Joe the Barbarian 7, New Mutants 17, Thunderbolts 148
Esther Waller: Tiny Titans 32, Birds of Prey 5
White King Gavin: Azrael 12, Joe The Barbarian 7, Astonishing Spider-Man Wolverine 3, Avengers And The Infinity Gauntlet 2, Deadpool 27, Incredible Hulks 613, Marvel Universe vs The Punisher 4, Shadowland Power Man 2, Steve Rogers Super-Soldier 3, Thunderbolts 148

It’s a nice mix this week from me, David and regular/guest contributor Was Taters. Almost an equal amount of panels all around. Naturally, I had to choose a New Avengers panel with Iron Fist’s flashy new duds on it. Note to Marvel: keep this a thing. Relaunch his book and make that his new status quo costume. Or just relaunch his book.

Taters and I disagreed on which Batgirl panel to go with, but I went with her idea. Can’t believe someone turns down the image of Bela Lugosi riding a segway.

Amazing Spider-Man #641
Joe Quesada, Paolo Rivera, Stan Lee and Marcos Martin

Amazing Spider-Man #642
Mark Waid, Paul Azaceta, Stan Lee and Marcos Martin

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Khari Evans: I guess my man prefers to let his art speak for itself, because I can’t even find so much as a Deviant Art. If Evans happens to read this, though, email me, I want to interview you.
Books: Thor: Ages of Thunder, Daughters of the Dragon: Samurai Bullets, Shanna, the She-Devil: Survival of the Fittest, Immortal Iron Fist Vol. 3: The Book of Iron Fist
Why? Hmm… three reasons, no particular order.

1. He can draw believable black people. Not just default people colored brown, but like real deal, proper facial structure having, broad nosed, thick lipped colored folks. Some of the best artists in the industry can’t get that right, but Evans does it like it’s nothing.

2. There’s this word I heard used in various ways growing up. “Stank.” Sometimes it was “Put some stank on it,” like jazz it up. Sometimes it was my cousin calling some girl I like “stank.” (I eventually quit asking her opinion on girls I liked.) It’s one of those words with several uses that all derive from the same origin. “Stank” is, more or less, “attitude.” Not like a cheery attitude, or a negative attitude, but a “How about you stop giving me lip and having an attitude” attitude. Evans can draw some stank girls and he puts some stank on it when he draws them. My granddad might say that “He draws some mean girls, boy!”

Nobody in comics draws a sneer like Khari Evans, man. Nobody even comes close. That top panel in ke-theorder01.jpg is killer. Misty’s face in ke-daughters04.jpg and ke-daughters06.jpg is probably the meanest ice grill you’ll see. Evans gets the lip curl, the eyebrows, he gets the whole thing right.

But that just betrays a deeper understanding of facial expressions, doesn’t it? ’cause Colleen’s dumb “Ha ha I got a surprise for you girrrrrrrrl” face in ke-daughters02.jpg is dead on, too. Or the mix of giddiness and determination in the two in ke-daughters03.jpg. Body language, too. How often do you see crossed ankles in comics? And yet, in ke-daughters01.jpg, they’re right there. That slump into the couch–let me stop.

3. You can’t really see it here because I chose scenes from one book I really like a lot, but Evans is on point with fashion, too.

(4. Thighs.)

I picked up Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge yesterweek. It’s Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins following up on the run that got me into the Flash.

Here’s something I liked from it:

Bastard cape comics are weird. On the one hand, you can watch Captain Cold in cartoons on TV. On the other, he murders people as needed. There’s such a weird disconnect there, but I think I’m done trying to reconcile it. Who cares anymore, right? Love it or leave it alone.

Amazon stuff: Not much this week. I messed around and ordered Gotham Central one and two on a whim. Went back an hour later to cancel them since I already have the trades and whoops too late, son. I ordered them because I don’t have all of the trades, so I figured the HCs would be a good pickup. Then I realized that I could just buy the trades I’m missing, which is a functional, if less handsome, solution, but c’est la guerre. The end result is that my mom’s getting more books by Greg Rucka free of charge. She likes Queen & Country, and she likes mystery/cop novels, so maybe these will float her boat. (I should start charging her for all the books I give up, this is just absurd.) But yeah: uncharacteristically light Amazon week for me.

Me: A bit of talky-talk on DC Comics, a preview of the new Charlie Huston/Shawn Martinbrough Punisher joint, and an exclusive (clue clue clue) ten-page preview of the next volume of Adam Warren’s Empowered. I’ve read it already, and I need it to come out and all of you to buy it, please. I want to talk about it with somebody. It’s great. The comments section on that post is great, too, Empowered fans rule. If your shop doesn’t carry it or you forgot to order it, check Amazon.

Not me: Kalinara reacts to something I wrote with some points I can’t really deny, Cheryl Lynn talks out her buying habits (I like seeing people talk about why they buy what they buy/don’t buy, have you noticed?), and Tucker Stone delivers the reviewing equivalent of a blunt laced with bubble kush and PCP. Go on. Get wet.

@hermanos: Amazing Spider-Man 641, Amazing Spider-Man 642, Punisher Max: Hot Rods of Death 1, Weird War Tales
@estherschmester: Definitely: Batgirl 14 Maybe: Batman #703, Batman and Robin 14, Doc Savage 6, Red Robin 16
@Gavin4l: Batman And Robin 14, Booster Gold 36, Green Lantern 57, Justice League Generation Lost 9, Welcome To Tranquility One Foot In The Grave 3, Daken Dark Wolverine 1, Deadpool Corps 6, New Avengers 4, Ultimate Comics Avengers 3 2, Irredeemable 17

Anybody reading Shadowland? You want to do me a favor and quit that? You’re only hurting yourself.

Wow, it’s Week 50 already? I should do something special for it. Like… Uh… I could…

Anyway, Week 52 is coming and that’s a bigger deal, so we’ll wait on that.

Deadpool Pulp #1
Adam Glass, Mike Benson and Laurence Campbell

Franken-Castle #20
Rick Remender, Tony Moore, Paco Diaz and John Lucas

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–Links! There’s this thing going on that’s kind of a big deal I guess, have you read it? Of course you have. I have more thoughts, specifically on the point of legacy heroes, but I am at work, starving, and trying to bang this post out in ten minutes so I can go and grab some lunch. Hopefully my fellow 4liens aren’t buying several dozen comic books for me to format…

-Comics Alliance: I wrote some stuff. Stuff about Rafael Grampa being dope, One Piece selling 20 milli, Matt Bors going to Afghanistan, the death of Satoshi Kon, Deviant Art beefing with inkers, what it’s like in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that is the manga industry (slight exaggeration), rappercomics, the ten best Marvel books for November, and influential manga pioneer Moto Hagio. I also talked a little about how the comics industry just needs to get it over with and cheat on retailers with digital comics already. There’s nothing wrong with creeping, and really, digital comics are all about it. Just, y’know, go back behind the bleachers or into the janitor’s closet or something.

–Reading: A lot. I’m getting ready to start banging out reviews of all the books I’ve been reading, so look forward to that. Maybe I’ll group that under a series of posts or something, I dunno. Anyway, I haven’t hit a comic shop since the last time I did one of these, so I barely even know what’s new.

-The Only Amazon I Care About Is .com: I had to order another set of the best pair of headphones I’ve ever used because I messed around and lost an earbud on my bike ride home yesterday and didn’t realize it until I’d gotten home, done some laundry, and then went to plug in my iPod. I read Takehiko Inoue’s Real 7, Kenichi Sonoda’s Gunsmith Cats Revised Edition, Volume 1 over the past couple weeks (among others) and the UPS guy just brought Peyo’s The Smurfs #1: The Purple Smurfs over. I’m pretty excited about The Purple Smurfs, even if they should be black and crass racism turned them purple because what a smurf can’t be black i’ll smurf you up you smurfing–

–Buy Stuff To Keep Us In Hookers and Coke: Pardon my capitalism, and also tell me if this stuff bugs you, but Janelle Monae’s The ArchAndroid (one of the top three albums this year, How I Got Over and Sir Lucious Left Foot…The Son Of Chico Dusty are the other two), UGK’s final record UGK 4 Life, Freddie Gibbs’s Str8 Killa EP, and The Gorillaz’s Demon Days are five bucks this month on AmazonMP3.

Janelle you should know by now, but she’s exactly the kind of Black Future… what, icon? Person? Personality? That I pimped here back in February. Her album is smooth as silk, and I absolutely love the way it’s been mixed. UGK 4 Life is the final UGK album, and I dunno if you’re from the south or not, but UGK is an institution. It can be pretty racist/sexist/violent/etc, but I mean… I grew up on these guys. Gangsta Gibbs is a lot like UGK in a way, but he’s from Gary, Indiana, and one of the few emcees I’ve ever heard that’s clearly profoundly influenced by Tupac without being a wack copycat. But yeah, he can be pretty questionable in terms of content, too. I’m still praying that him and Pill drop an EP stat, though. That would be the gangsterest thing since Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday” to JFK. (“Girl, my wife is right here…”)

David Yesterday: King City 11, Unknown Soldier number whatever it was last week
Estherella: Definitely: Secret Six #25, Maybe: Superman: The Last Family of Krypton #2, Batman Confidential #48 Almost no chance, but perhaps: Red Hood: The Lost Days #4
Super Vok (the best one of the three!): Secret Six #25, Deadpool Pulp, Franken-Castle, Gorilla Man, Hawkeye & Mockingbird, Incredible Hulks, MU vs. Punisher, Taskmaster, Young Allies, Incorruptible, WWE Heroes

Why can’t I work with comics snobs like me who secretly hate all comics? This took forever. And if King City 11 didn’t actually ship this week I am going to cut my own throat and pull my head off on live tv. :negativeman:

Due to extenuating circumstances, I wasn’t able to do ThWiP last week, so it’s been accumulated into this week’s update. For last week’s picks, I’m disappointed in David for choosing that specific Avengers Academy panel when the true honors should have gone to Reptil asking a disgruntled Cain Marko if he can say, “Nothing can stop the Juggernaut!” for his amusement. Was Taters rejoins the show once again, unable to choose between panels for Superman/Batman, so we went with both.

Warning: there is something really fucked up going on with Hal Jordan’s hands in the Legacies image and you won’t be able to stop yourself from staring at it.

Action Comics #892
Paul Cornell, Pete Woods, Pere Perez, Jeff Lemire and Pier Gallo

Age of Heroes #4
Elliott Kalan, Brendan McCarthy and others

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