Hey! Massive installment for you guys, since I’m including last week’s Free Comic Book Day stuff. At least, the stuff that I got around to reading. With me are Was Taters, Space Jawa and Jody.
Have at it.
Adventure Time with Finn and Jake FCBD
Ryan North, Mike Holmes, Lucy Knisley and Michael DeForge
Atomic Robo FCBD
Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener
Avengers FCBD
Brian Michael Bendis and Bryan Hitch
Howdy. Strong week with many thanks to Jody, Gaijin Dan and Was Taters for helping out. While Space Jawa has nothing for me in terms of this week, he did stock me up on some Free Comic Book Day panels for next week’s update. I’ve been busy the past couple days, so I haven’t been able to read too much, but I did have to chuckle at the free Avengers comic Marvel gave out.
It’s a rerelease of the .1 issue they did a year ago, which has yet to have any bearing on Marvel. Some jumping-on point. Anyway, the book featured a subplot of Spider-Woman being kidnapped by some mad scientist types and finding herself in a cell with her wrists cuffed together and her clothes missing. I mean, I guess Bendis has done that before with the full team, but having just a woman tossed into this role is asking for trouble. I don’t go around looking for fan outrage, but considering so many considered it way over-the-line when Bendis had Dr. Doom — the evil mass murderer and dictator — refer to Ms. Marvel as a cow during a rant, I can only imagine the Spider-Woman thing didn’t go over so well. In the Free Comic Book Day release, they alter all the panels from these scenes. Not only is she recolored so that she’s wearing her outfit, but they changed her dialogue so that she’s no longer yelling at the Wizard to give her back her clothes.
I imagine this is either because A) the misogyny outcry backlash, B) more kids are going to be getting these comics, so they should calm down on the cheesecake and/or C) if you want to see Jessica Drew’s skin, you’re going to pay for it, mister!
Like I said, I find the whole thing rather funny. Especially when you look closer at the panels. The Mad Thinker must have decided that Spider-Woman’s costume wings were a major danger and had them removed before putting her in her prison. And also, while her costume was always tight enough to be painted on, that doesn’t stop her feet from looking very non-bootlike. Seeing her curled, yellow toes just looks weird.
Enough about Spider-Woman’s obscured lady bits. Here are some panels.
Action Comics #9
Grant Morrison, Gene Ha, Sholly Fisch and Cully Hamner
Age of Apocalypse #3
David Lapham and Roberto de la Torre
Amazing Spider-Man #685
Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos
Hey there, my Letterites. It was a pretty good week, giving us a fantastic Flash issue (I’m really loving the designs of these new rogues), Eric Powell alternating between funny and whiny as well as FF giving us the best final page in a long time.
The last page of Goon really had me scratching my head. The whole thing, like the issue, was Powell being annoyed at the hold of Marvel/DC superhero comics have over the industry. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just that his main point was how the comic industry needs its own Harry Potter.
If Harry Potter were a Dark Horse comic instead of a novel, it would be struggling to sell ten thousand, just because it’s not in a Marvel or DC superhero universe. Where’s our Harry Potter? Where’s our megahit that comes out of nowhere and draws people into comic shops? Why are we denying ourselves the possibility of that?
When reading this, I felt like meekly holding my hand up while saying, “…Walking Dead?”
Speaking of superhero tripe, I’m not going to be reading Avengers vs. X-Men, but I am reading Avengers vs. X-Men Versus. Why? Because I’m weird and I want to experience the Polly-O String Cheese of comic event tie-ins without any context for the sake of seeing how it comes off.
This week, Jody and Space Jawa have my back. Remember, you can help out too. If there’s a series you’re reading that you want represented, you can always toss me a couple panels. Email link’s on the right.
All-Star Western #8
Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Moritat and Patrick Scherberger
Aquaman #8
Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis
Avengers vs. X-Men Versus #1 (Gavin’s pick)
Jason Aaron, Adam Kubert, Kathryn Immonen and Stuart Immonen
What a day! Today is when I got to take part in my Improv 101 graduation performance, which apparently came off pretty well. I can’t speak for myself too well, since that was my first time performing on stage and being up there was just a gigantic blur. Had a strong turnout, though, including a visit by Chris Eckert.
I’m in there somewhere. I might possibly be the black woman, but I can’t say for sure. I’ll talk more about my experiences at UCB in the coming days, as well as hopefully have something from YouTube to show for it.
Lot of contributors this week. David has my back, apparent from all the manga, but I also have Was Taters, Space Jawa, Jody (also nice enough to check out the show) and luis. With all the comics read by all of us, the most gripping question asked is, “Why does Scarlet Witch write ‘DREAM JOURNAL’ in the middle of her dream journal?”
Amazing Spider-Man #684
Dan Slott and Humberto
Avengers Prelude: Fury’s Big Week #4
Christopher Yost, Eric Pearson, Agustin Padilla, Don Ho and Wellinton Alves
Avengers vs. X-Men #2
Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Jonathan Hickman, Matt Fraction and John Romita Jr.
Late update and I’m honestly kind of slumping over as I write this up. Today I took a trip to NYC and watched the Upright Citizens Brigade show ASSSSCAT, which had special appearances by Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers and Bobby Moynihan. Awesome time.
This week I’m helped out by Space Jawa, Jody and my old friend Gaijin Dan Mastriani. Nothing from David, but on the subject of my boss who hates it when I call him boss, he has a really fantastic Comics Alliance post that should be up any day now. I got to read it ahead of time and I suggest you check it out once it’s published. It takes his JMS post from the other day and turns it into the tip of the iceberg.
Avenging Spider-Man #6
Greg Rucka, Mark Waid and Marco Checchetto
Batman and Robin #8
Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason
Carnage USA #5
Zeb Wells and Clayton Crain
The whole 4 Elements article concept is David’s baby. The four ties into the four in 4thletter and 4thletter comes from David’s name because he’s an egomaniac, an Eggo maniac and possibly a Lego maniac. You can also say that the four comes from there literally being four elements, but I’m pretty sure there are like a hundred of those things, so that’s definitely wrong.
This is David’s site and all, but Carnage USA is my comic. It’s a comic specifically made for ME. Me. Gavin Jasper. And since I’m Gavin, which starts with the seventh letter of the alphabet, that means I need to talk about the 7 Elements.
Carnage USA is the sequel to last year’s Carnage, both by Zeb Wells and Clayton Crain. Carnage was the story that returned Carnage from his grizzly death of being torn in half in space by the Sentry back in 2005. It acts as a loose sequel to the character’s most mainstream adventure Maximum Carnage while introducing yet another symbiote anti-hero in Scorn. By the end of the story, not only is Cletus Kasady alive and reunited with his blood-red costume, but he’s also on the loose and nobody knows where he’ll end up next. All we know is that he has something bad on the horizon.
The plot of Carnage USA has Cletus venture to Doverton, Colorado, where he goes to a slaughterhouse and kills the entire stock of cows. The symbiote grows off the meat and expands to the point that he’s able to infect and assimilate the entire town through plumbing. A handful of the Avengers (Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Hawkeye and Thing) are sent to go deal with it and find a town of frightened human puppets before Carnage takes them too. Spider-Man gets away and the government goes to plan B… while trying real hard not to move to the dire plan C, which is to blow the county to kingdom come.
This miniseries helps support the idea that in comics, there are no bad characters, but bad writers. For such a mainstream villain who got his own popular videogame back in the day, Carnage’s death was met with little backlash. For years he’s been seen as nothing more than 50% shallow Venom mixed with 50% shallow Joker. Nobody’s ever really tried to write something decent with him and whenever he got the spotlight with his own one-shot, it was usually a bunch of gory dreck that didn’t do anything for me.
So I didn’t write anything between the last ThWiP installment and this one. I’ll try not to do that again. Sorry.
I’m helped out this week by David Brothers, Space Jawa and Jody. Jody offers the Avengers vs. X-Men and Avengers vs. X-Men: Infinite panels, something I find myself staying away from. I’m rather shocked by how little I care about this event. I think part of it comes from the bluntness of the concept. The events from the past few years haven’t been perfect, but they’re all based on really solid ideas. It just so happens that all of these ideas lead to heroes vs. heroes. And I was cool with that. It’s just that when nearly every single major story is heroes vs. heroes, doing a story that is literally heroes vs. heroes in the title makes it hard for me to care. It’s self-parody and it has me rolling my eyes.
Maybe if it gets some good word of mouth I’ll check it out, but after Fear Itself burned me with its terrible pacing, I need to sit this one out.
Now to the panels.
Action Comics #8
Grant Morrison, Rags Morales and Brad Walker
Age of Apocalypse #2
David Lapham and Roberto de la Torre
Animal Man #8 (Jody’s pick)
Jeff Lemire, Steve Pugh and Travel Foreman
Now that my tomfoolery is out of the way, it’s time for the actual ThWiP update. With me are Space Jawa and Was Taters, who as it turns out, are NOT figments of my beautiful mind.
Deadpool MAX ended this week. I should be sad, but honestly, it was time. Same with Captain America and Bucky.
All Star Western #7
Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, Moritat and Patrick Scherberger
Aquaman #7
Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis
Atomic Robo: Real Science Adventures #1 (The Revenge of Dr. Dinosaur)
Brian Clevinger & Yuko Oda
It’s Sunday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Panels! Lot of good stuff came out this week.
Usually, I’d be accompanied by my usual crew of contributors like David Brothers, Was Taters, Space Jawa, Jody, luis and the others, but recently it’s been brought to my attention that none of them are real. They’re all figments of my imagination, linked to my amazing ability to make mathematical connections. Lately, I’ve been taking pills to help me with this problem, so I should be okay.
And go!
Amazing Spider-Man #544
J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada
Billy Ray Cyrus #2
Paul S. Newman and Dan Barry
Doom
Steve “Body Bag” Behling, Michael “Splatter” Stewart and Tom “Gallows’ Grindberg
I was heavy into Warren Ellis in 2005. I was on the Bad Signal mailing list, even, and I remember him hyping a lot of comics. I feel like there were three comics that were Big Deals in 2005. One was Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim. The other was Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg’s Street Angel. And the third was Corey Lewis’s Sharknife. All of these comics were examples of what I think was being called the New Mainstream at the time. The New Mainstream was an alternative to the old mainstream, which was corporate cape comics. The New Mainstream was mostly creator-owned adventure comics, some of them with goofy high concepts, but these three were pretty much golden. I’m sure you’ve seen the Scott Pilgrim flick by this point, which is about as good of an adaptation of that comic as you’ll ever see. If you haven’t read Street Angel, you should. (I’m still waiting for a chance to see that Street Angel indie film that those Australians did years ago.) It’s very good. Lewis’s Sharknife was good, too.
In fact, Sharknife is a pleasantly weird comic. It feels like one of those comics where the creator just empties out his brain on the page. Whatever he’s into, from music to video games to tv to whatever, ends up there in black and white. I don’t know Sharknife‘s secret recipe. I catch a lot of what Lewis is throwing — Street Fighter, kung fu, Power Rangers, manga (my guess is Akira Toriyama) — and that’s always cool. We’re probably around the same age, judging by the stuff he’s into.
But all of that stuff is secondary to what makes Sharknife so good. Sharknife works because Lewis gets that style is substance. How you say something is as important as what you’re saying. Something like a Lil Jon single isn’t gonna be that complicated. But Jon knows how to say things in a way that’ll get you hyped up and throwing elbows. It’s a combination of lyrics and music in the case of rap, but for comics, it’s a combination of ideas and art. The words matter, sure, but “He headlocked a bear” is .0001 as effective as a drawing showing the same thing.
Sharknife has style. You can see it in the logo and lettering, for one thing. Lewis’s sfx, with its filled-in letters and irregular forms, are idiosyncratic and perfect for the series. They look like they should bounce over the page rather than just sit on top of the art. Have you seen what happens when lettering shows up in a cartoon? His sound effects are like that. His art sits comfortably in that “manga-inspired” lane, for lack of a better descriptor. He does super deformed characters, he does super detailed characters, and his sense of design leans toward videogame flourishes. Everybody gets a cool touch to their wardrobe or costume. People have names like Ombra Ravenga and Caesar Hallelujah.
The feel of Sharknife is kinda like how people describe action or kung fu movies to their friends. The Killer is a deadly serious movie, but nobody is dour when explaining it. They’re psyched, they’re excited to even be talking about it. Words spill out of their mouths and they get ahead of themselves, but it’s always fun. That’s what Sharknife is like. There’s this bit where Sharknife is fighting in his restaurant and a table full of patrons freaks out and worries that they’re gonna die. Sharknife turns, says, “It’s cool!!!!”, and then slams the table through a wall while the patrons scream “Thanks Sharkniiiife!”
Sharknife is full of stuff like that. Those little flourishes and embellishments make the comic. The story is goofy, but simple. Busboy by day, superhero by slightly later in the day, Sharknife fights evil and protects the chinese food restaurant The Guangdong Factory! But the cast is filled with Megaman-style villains (i.e., ones with real specific gimmicks) and weirdos.
All of this takes place in a heightened version of reality, or maybe just a Saturday morning cartoon. Or a Saturday morning cartoon version of a really good video game. Something like that, but anyway, the point is, physics and realism don’t matter. Sharknife is go with the flow comics. It’s id comics. You just want to let it seep into your brain and see what switches it flips. And Sharknife is a good comic, too. That’s what’s most important. All of the style and video game-y stuff coalesce into a really solid form and make for a supremely entertaining comic.
I haven’t read Sharknife ZZ yet. I expect to like it as much as I like the first one. There’s a lengthy preview below, and you can and should buy both Sharknifes on Amazon (Volume 1
