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This Week in Panels: Week 60

November 14th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

It’s ThWiP time. This week I’m joined by regular contributors Was Taters and Space Jawa. Jawa sent in something for Thanos Imperative, but I didn’t use it since it went against my “full page spreads are not a panel” rule. Also, David handed me a couple panels, but skipped on Amazing Spider-Man because it “became unreadable overnight.” Yikes.

Ant-Man & The Wasp #1
Tim Seeley

Assassin’s Creed: The Fall #1
Cameron Stewart and Karl Kerschl

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This Week in Panels: Week 59

November 7th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

Welcome to another great week of ThWiP! Lot of fun comic stuff this week. Bruce Wayne made a major announcement that’s going to shake up the DC status quo. Frank Castle met up with a woman whose unmasking is likely to piss off SO MANY hardcore Punisher fans, more so than the Frankenstein fiasco. And panel contributor Was Taters believes the Red Hood image shows that it’s only a matter of time before some crap writer tries to retcon Damian Wayne’s heritage even further.

Amazing Spider-Man #647
Fred Van Lente, Max Fiumara and Various

Avengers Academy #6
Christos Gage and Mike McKone

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This Week in Panels: Week 56

October 17th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

Whew! Big week this time around, thanks mostly to TEAMWORK! I got a bunch of panels in, David threw in a couple, as did readers Was Taters and Space Jawa. Even David Uzumeri made me use a damned Superman panel here.

In other news, our very own Esther now has her own Twitter. Start following and she might start Tweeting stuff!

Amazing Spider-Man #645
Mark Waid, Paul Azaceta, Matthew Southworth, Stan Lee and Marcos Martin

B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth: New World #3
Mike Mignola, John Arcudi and Guy Davis

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This Week in Panels: Week 55

October 10th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

Back from Comic Con. I’d tell you all about it, but I’m tired as hell. Still better off than David, who’s probably completely unconscious as I type this and will remain so for the next 36 hours. Or he might be dead of a heart attack, considering he ate 5 Guys Burgers and Fries no less than three times in two days. Unlike me, he did NOT go there because Norman Osborn told him to.

While David is out, Was Taters is in. She included a Wonder Woman panel, even though that was last week. I won’t tell her if you won’t.

Avengers Academy #5
Christos Gage and Jorge Molina

Chaos War #1
Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, Khoi Pham and Reilly Brown

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I Bought Thor 615 For John Workman

September 27th, 2010 Posted by david brothers

Not a joke! Not a snarky dismissal! I’m buying the Matt Fraction/Pasqual Ferry Thor because John Workman is lettering it.

That’s the pithy summary, anyway, but it’s no less true. Fraction is an okay writer who has done a few things I like (Casanova, Immortal Iron Fist) and a few things I don’t (Invincible Iron Man, Punisher War Journal) and Pasqual Ferry is a tremendous artist as far as I’m concerned, with great work done on everything from Superboy to Adam Strange to Ultimate Fantastic Four. Together, though, they aren’t quite enough to get me to read about Thor. I was going to give it a miss until I heard that Workman was lettering the book.

As far as I can tell, the only Thor you really have to read is Walt Simonson’s run on The Mighty Thor from the ’80s. The Kirby stuff never really clicked with me beyond the art, and the ’90s-era Thor was a tangled, knotted mess of a bunch of things I couldn’t have possibly cared about, no matter how hard I tried. Dan Jurgens and John Romita, Jr gave it a worthy try and told some good stories, but it never felt essential. J Michael Straczynski’s run on Thor had pretty pictures from Olivier Coipel and the same brand of overwrought moralizing that has infected JMS’s amazingly awful DC Comics work. Michael Avon Oeming and Andrea DiVito came closest to making great Thor comics with Avengers Disassembled: Thor, which wore its Simonson influence on both of its sleeves and down the seam of its pants.

No, if you want Thor, you gotta go to Walter Simonson. With the aid of letterer Workman and colorists Christie Scheele (who I think also colored the Miller/Romita Man Without Fear, maybe?) and George Roussos, Simonson crafted a genuinely epic story. He took Thor high and low, introduced new members of the cast, took the traditional cast in new directions, and turned Thor into his book the way Miller did with Daredevil.

I only had a few random issues of his run as a kid, being focused mainly on Spider and X-related titles. I liked what I had, though, and I remembered my uncle being a big fan of his work, so I sought out the trades once I grew up. One thing I learned from them is that lettering matters. It is undeniably an integral part of the art. If you’ve ever read a comic where word balloons overlap and crowd out the art, you know exactly what I mean. Placement, type, and yes, even spelling, matter. Marvel’s flirted with lettering experimentation lately, probably most notably in Incredible Herc, but the majority of their books are more or less lettered identically. You never look at an issue of Avengers and go, “Whoa, that lettering looks great!”, you know?

Workman is the guy who gives your book personality. His style is distinct and instantly recognizable. Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon’s Winter Men benefitted greatly from his work. He lettered Paul Pope’s Batman Year 100 (in concert with Pope and Jared K Fletcher) and 100%. His balloons have tons of white space, more than they probably need, and long, crooked tails. His sound effects fill entire panels, and are as much a part of the art as Simonson’s pencils or Scheele/Roussos’s colors. The style of Simonson’s Thor is inextricably linked to Workman’s letters.

I mean, seriously. The foreshadowing of Surtur wouldn’t have been half as awesome without Workman’s letters, and the bit where Surtur cuts a “DOOM!” in half with Twilight? Fantastic. Pencils, inks, colors, and letters all working in concert to tell one story. That’s how comics should be.

Everyone who comes onto Thor is sitting in Simonson’s shadow. He’s the guy to beat. Most people who end up working with Thor are honest about it in interviews (JMS, Fraction, Ferry, Simone Bianchi, for example) or it reflects in the work (Oeming). Fraction and Ferry have been very open about loving Simonson’s run, which is cool, but plenty of people have said that and then produced crap. How many people have talked about Grant Morrison when taking over one of his characters, ideas, or former series and then delivered nothing worth reading? Talk is cheap.

The presence of Workman on the book, though, is the difference. I hadn’t realized it, but Workman’s letters are how Thor is supposed to talk. The sound effects, the balloons, the letters, all of that is undeniably Thor to me. Similar to how Spawn needs Tom Orzechowski or seeing a realistically rendered Patsy “Hellcat” Walker looks wrong, Thor without Workman just isn’t Thor. Going off and getting Workman speaks to the kind of story that they’re trying to tell. It’s an effort that I can respect, and moved me enough to grab the first issue of the Fraction/Ferry run.

Verdict? Four dollars for a 22-page comic is entirely too high, but Ferry’s art is off the meter, Hollingsworth’s colors are real good, and Fraction’s got a great handle on everyone involved. The plot is looking good, just that sublime mix of sci-fi and magic that makes Marvel’s Thor what he is, and the enemies are appropriately fearsome. Workman absolutely kills on the lettering, particularly on the last balloon in the book, “I think I tasted blood,” the creepy black balloons, and Heimdall’s scream. The fact that there are ten double page spreads, all dedicated to non-Earth locales, is interesting. I think it’s too soon to call, but my best guess is that Fraction and Ferry are doing that to show the larger than life nature of the gods and the other of the nine worlds. There are three pages set in Asgard that aren’t spreads, and all the Earth pages are singles. I’m definitely going to be watching to see how that develops.

You should be reading it.

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This Week in Panels: Week 51

September 12th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

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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Fourcast! 60: Tales Designed to Thorzzle

September 6th, 2010 Posted by david brothers

-You Made Me Read This!
Thor: Ages of Thunder vs Tales Designed to Thrizzle (Vol. 1)
-Big ups to Chris Eckert for introducing me to Thrizzle
-Big ups to Carla Hoffman for putting Esther on to BLOOD COLOSSUS
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music.
-See you, space cowboy!

Subscribe to the Fourcast! via:
Podcast Alley feed!
RSS feed via Feedburner
iTunes Store

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This Week in Panels: Week 47

August 15th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

This week we have a special collaborator Was Taters who didn’t want me to credit her, but I am anyway. So there.

I personally love the pick for Batgirl #13, because I’m imagining that Meatwad is nearby, off-panel.

B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth New World #1
Mike Mignola, John Arcudi and Guy Davis

Batgirl #13
Bryan Q. Miller and Pere Perez

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New Ultimate Edit Week 3: Day Seven

July 31st, 2010 Posted by Gavok

Time to finish off yet another week. Yesterday’s antics saw the Ultimates overwhelm the enemy with their explosive badassitude. Then Hawkeye took Enchantress out of the game with an arrow to the heart. Considering she got shot in the heart and I’m from New Jersey, consider yourself damn lucky that I chose to give this scene a Motley Crue soundtrack instead of Bon Jovi.

After finishing all that up, I instantly got another idea for that death scene, so here’s an alternate take on page 22 for any Morrison fans out there.

As always, thanks to ManiacClown for his assistance. See you again after about three more release delays. Unless you’re the kind of guy who checks out this site normally, which is even sweeter.

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New Ultimate Edit Week 3: Day Four

July 28th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

Yesterday had the lesser Ultimates rescue the marquee Ultimates and give Hell to Loki’s mindless minions. Now we move to the realm of the undead and get an overdue dose of Thor.

Oh no she didn’t! We’ll pick up on that tomorrow.

Thanks to ManiacClown, who I imagine has some semblance of a clue of what Thor and Hela are talking about. He also thinks that the above headshot of Thor has a Nathan Explosion quality to it.

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

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