tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86998196337476302492024-03-12T22:05:52.250-04:00The Comic PusherReviews on more than just comics by Jeffrey O. Gustafson, professional comic pusher. Brooklyn, NYC. http://facebook.com/ComicPusher http://twitter.com/B5JeffJeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.comBlogger151125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-16672459380960256372014-01-20T16:20:00.000-05:002014-01-20T16:20:00.568-05:00Opinion: Looking at the New Marvel Knights<a href="http://comicsbeat.com/marvelknights/"><i>This article was originally published Sunday at The Beat.</i></a><br />
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The on-again off-again imprint <b>Marvel Knights</b> played a very important role in the current Marvel Entertainment empire. Started in the late 1990s as an outlet for telling edgier, more creator-focused stories within the larger Marvel Universe, the line proved to be the high-water mark of innovation and creativity in an otherwise terrible decade. Featuring cutting edge work by the likes of Garth Ennis on <i>Punisher</i> and Brian Michael Bendis on <i>Daredevil</i> (plus a dozen mini-series and parts of larger runs), the imprint was produced with a great deal of editorial independence by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti with Quesada quickly rising to Editor in Chief of Marvel in 2000. It was the Marvel Knights crew that initiated the Nu-Marvel of the 2000s that saw the company reach the creative heights and sales success that would redefine the company and even mainstream superhero comics. It's very difficult to imagine where mainstream comics and Marvel in particular would be today without Marvel Knights and the creators and executives who worked their way up through the line.<br />
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But Marvel just doesn't handle their imprints very well. They seem to exist entirely as good ideas that are put out as perfunctory exercises in publishing diversity. After Marvel Knights lifted up the rest of the company, Marvel initiated several bold if slightly redundant imprints that used to fill the role Epic Comics once had (see below). The mature readers imprint MAX Comics and the creator-owned boutique line Icon were started around the same time as vehicles for Marvel Knight's (and by this time Marvel proper's) biggest star, Brian Michael Bendis. In the 2000s MAX and Icon would give us some of Marvel's finest work of that decade, but today stand as pale shells of their prior glories: Most of Icon's best titles (including works by Matt Fraction, J. Michael Straczynski and Ed Brubaker) are shifting over to Image thanks largely to the end of the Creator Exclusivity Wars that initiated the line in the first place, and MAX Comics sees only sporadic and middling releases of perplexing, low-quality, low-selling mini-series. Marvel has long since doubled down on focusing on mainstream material to feed Disney's Intellectual Property Mill, although that material - so much of it creator-driven - is pretty damned entertaining and the most consistent in terms of quality that the company has produced since Jack Kirby made pretty much everything. But that leaves Icon and MAX as the forgotten step-children. With Image leading the vanguard of the creator-owned renaissance there is no real reason for Marvel to put any effort behind Icon, and MAX continues to be distressingly mishandled by Marvel since the end of the line's Ennis/Parlov and Aaron/Dillon Punisher series.<br />
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Superhero limited series can be a tough sell in the Direct Market. Marvel's top editors Axel Alonso and Tom Brevoort are usually quick to point out that mini-series have verifiably smaller audiences largely driven by the perception by much of fandom that limited series aren't as "important" continuity-wise as the ongoings. The only (superhero) limited series that seem to do well in the current market are those centered around the Big Two's nigh-annual Event Things. To what point the mini-series, then? If any expectation of fitting into the larger puzzle of overall continuity is tossed aside, as often seems to be the case, then a good mini-series will allow unique creators to tell engaging stories. But there doesn't seem to be much clamoring for these types of series by fandom, which is a shame as some of these can be truly superb. I'd love to see more works like <i>Omega the Unknown</i> by Jonathan Lethem & Farel Dalrymple or (especially) <i>Unstable Molecules</i> by James Sturm & Guy Davis, stunning mini-series that represent some of the finest comics the company has yet produced. (Hell, I'd like to see both actually back in print, but that's a whole 'nuther issue.) Sadly, whenever Marvel does try to experiment with distinct creative voices in limited series, the books tend to flop. Is this because of a lack of desire of creative diversity within the direct market customer base or a failure of promotion on Marvel's part? Perhaps it's a mix of the two. <br />
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Against this backdrop of tepid reception and mediocre execution of limited series comes the revival of Marvel Knights with three limited series and an apparent promise for more. Ostensibly the very vehicle of distinct creative voices working in the Marvel Universe that I want, the actual execution of the new line is a solid dud. Outside the nifty trade dress, there is no unifying aesthetic like the one the brief Marvel Noir line had. It feels like Marvel opened up the Drawer Of Unpublished Minis, slapped the Marvel Knights logo on them and dumped them onto the market with little promotion.<br />
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<b><i>Marvel Knights: Spider-Man</i></b> was written by <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/search/label/matt%20kindt">Matt Kindt</a>, whose full-cartooning creator-owned work I adore. Sadly I cannot say the same thing about any of Kindt's work-for-hire material, and whatever benefit having Kindt on the book is made meaningless by Marco Rudy's incomprehensible art. Rudy's work here feels too disjointed and ramshackle, a bizarre mix of J. H. Williams shattered-layout flare with none of his nuance and mechanics, thrown in a blender with Brendan McCarthy. It's pretty to look at at first but nearly impossible to actually read. (In contrast, Brendan McCarthy's fucking weird <i>Spider-Man: Fever</i> worked not because it was a Spider-Man series but because it was actually a Doctor Strange series that also had Spidey in it.) Marvel was going for something very different with <i>Marvel Knights: Spider-Man</i>, which is to be applauded. It just isn't any good.<br />
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<b><i>Marvel Knights: Hulk</i></b> and <b><i>Marvel Knights: X-Men</i></b> both do simple back-to-basics tales and are entertaining enough, if not really daring. In <i>Hulk</i>, writer Joe Keatinge puts an amnesiac Bruce Banner in Paris as illustrated by Piotr Kowalski. I'm really digging Kowalski on the compelling <i>Sex</i> with Joe Casey, so it comes as no surprise that he turns in solid work in the two issues released so far. And in <i>X-Men</i>, cartoonist Brahm Revel competently tells a fairly standard X-tale - find the new mutant, deal with bigotry, rinse, lather, repeat. I like Revel's style, but it almost seems wasted on such standard fare. (That said, if you are looking for the quintessential X-Men story, this covers it.) Both <i>Marvel Knights Hulk</i> and <i>X-Men</i> are as rote as <i>Spider-Man</i> is not, none of the three any special. <br />
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Marvel's seeming inability to handle their imprints with any consistency hasn't always been the case: it is impossible to overstate the influence and importance of Marvel's Epic line from the 1980s. Epic, which started off as a cutting edge anthology, became one of the most important mainstream outlets for publishing remarkable creator-owned work, international reprints, and mature-audience Marvel Universe material. But the promise of Epic would only be fully realized by the Distinguished Competition with Vertigo at the end of the decade. The tides of the two companies would switch at this point (for this and scores of other reasons): Marvel falling into a decade of creative stagnation and bankruptcy, DC and Vertigo thriving. (It seems those fortunes have since flipped again, with a now-thriving Marvel and moribund DC and Vertigo.) Looking at what became of Marvel and DC, it's frankly hard to imagine that Marvel was an early innovator of original graphic novels, reprints from the European and Japanese masters, mature-audience superhero work, and creator owned comics. But the House of Ideas nearly crumbled into ash in the 1990s taking it's diversity of publishing and nearly the entire Direct Market with it. <br />
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The new Marvel Knights may be a dud, MAX Comics may never live up to the immense promise of its premise and earlier works, and Icon will never be more than what it is right now, but the Nu Nu Marvel of the 2010s certainly shines. As I write this, I seem to find myself making the argument against using self-contained limited series as a vehicle for distinct creative voices to play in the larger sandbox of the shared superhero universe. Perhaps the better approach would be to let these same creators loose on the universe-proper rather than under the seemingly limiting label of the limited series. To Marvel's credit, they have recently signed up creators who have made a name for themselves in indie comics like Ales Kot (<i>Zero</i>), Nathan Edmonson & Mitch Gerards (<i>The Activity</i>), and Michel Fiffe (<i>Copra</i>), all to produce material within larger, more "accepted" ongoings. And I'd love to see more of Revel cartooning pretty much anything at Marvel. Of course, that's if creators even necessarily want to. In the golden age of creator ownership, with the added risk comes the added potential reward and the guarantee of complete creative freedom. But Marvel - in stark contrast to DC of late - continues to show themselves to be a publisher willing to take creative risks, supportive of creatorial versus editorial mandate. It just seems unlikely that such material will come from any of their imprints any time soon. <br />
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For my analysis of Marvel's collected editions, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/02/marvels-irrational-and-schizophrenic.html">click here</a>.<br />
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For my review of the first of the new line of Marvel Original Graphic Novels, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/09/AvengersEndlessWartime.html">click here</a>.Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-50142853214292667732014-01-07T13:02:00.000-05:002014-01-08T20:32:57.131-05:00The Best Comics of 2013<u><b>The <i>Comic Pusher</i> Best Comics of 2013</b></u><br />
<b>by Jeffrey O. Gustafson </b><br />
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2013 was a year without a single marquis work that represents both the critical and commercial consensus in the way that certain monumental works seemed to overshadow previous years. This year had no <i>Building Stories</i> or <i>Asterios Polyp</i>, but that does not mean it wasn't a good year for comics. It was actually pretty great. <br />
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Obviously this was the year of Gilbert Hernandez, but other creators had pretty prolific high-quality outputs as well. Matt Fraction - Comic Pusher's 2008 Creator of the Year - was working in a different stratosphere in 2013, and his <i>Sex Criminals</i> with Chip Zdarsky and <i>Satellite Sam</i> with equally prolific Howard Chaykin would have been enough for him to net the top spot if not for Hernandez. Mainstream superhero comics are always a mess, but Hickman's big-picture <i>Avengers/Infinity</i> work was especially entertaining, and his creator-owned work continued to be cutting edge. Despite no new material from the likes of Chris Ware we did get killer new indie anthologies from Los Bros Hernandez, Adrian Tomine, Michael Deforge, and Seth, and new graphic novels from Darwyn Cooke, Jason, and Fred Chao. The proliferation of high-quality archival reprint material continues to astound, and in yet another year that sees increasing in-roads into the mainstream with digital releases, 2013 saw an unexpected sea-change in how comics can be made and digitally distributed with Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin's <i>Private Eye</i>. <br />
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My choices for Best Comics of 2013 reflects the growing importance of web and digital comics (three entries), the Creator Owned Renaissance (over ten), and the availability of quality translated European works (including my still-surprising-to-me choice of Best Graphic Novel). Without further ado (and about damned time, too) here are the 13 Best Comics of 2013.<br />
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<b><u>Best Graphic Novel of 2013</u></b><br />
<b><i>The Initiates</i> by Etienne Davodeau (NBM)</b><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z0WLW92_9NA/Uf8o3w0qC2I/AAAAAAAABoU/ABDMi2R69Eo/s1600/Display.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z0WLW92_9NA/Uf8o3w0qC2I/AAAAAAAABoU/ABDMi2R69Eo/s1600/Display.jpg" height="320" width="235" /></a>In 2010, French cartoonist Etienne Davodeau proposed a unique venture to his friend, the notable vintner Richard Leroy - he would spend the year assisting the winemaker in every aspect of production, from trimming in the winter to shipping in the fall, and the cartoonist would open up and introduce him to his world of comics. What transpires is told in the surprisingly wonderful non-fiction docu-comic and the Best Overall Graphic Novel of 2013, <i>The Initiates</i> from Futuropolis and NBM Comics Lit.<br />
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Davodeau chronicles Leroy, a dedicated artist of extraordinary commitment, his art wine. Leroy's obsessive devotion to his particular style of production - he has a relationship to the plants and the soil that borders on mystical - and the proven quality of his output year after year has won him a legion of fans across the globe. Embedded in Leroy's production, Davodeau does a remarkable job of translating, both visually, and descriptively, the entire universe of wine making and consuming that Leroy inhabits. Interwoven is the fascinating window into the world of French comic making. Davodeau introduces Leroy to Gibrat & Mathieu & Guibert and many more who appear in-person. When Leroy questions Lewis Trondheim's style, Trondheim shows up in the form of a brilliant one-page cartoon. Davodeau takes Leroy to comic conventions, Leroy sits in at editorial meetings, he reviews submissions, takes in art shows, and more.<br />
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In <i>The Initiates</i>, Davodeau has crafted a captivating, comprehensive, absorbing, delightful and incredibly entertaining documentary that certainly deserves to take its place in the growing nonfiction graphic canon. When you finish <i>The Initiates</i>, you get the sense of having spent the day with good friends, good food, good wine, and good conversation, falling under the spell of camaraderie capped off by the euphoria you can only get from a few drinks at the end of a day well spent.<br />
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<a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/08/Initiates.html">Read my full review of <i>The Intitiates</i> Here.</a> <br />
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<u><b>Best Comic of 2014</b></u><b><i> </i></b><br />
<b><i>Time, </i>from <i>xkcd 1190</i> by Randall Monroe</b><br />
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In March, Randall Munroe, the cartoonist behind the webcomic <i>xkcd</i>, published <a href="http://xkcd.com/1190/"><i>xkcd</i> #1190, <i>Time</i></a>. The comic started as a single image that began to change, incrementally every hour. Some panels would feature a small change, others contained dialog and events and changes in scenery indicative of minutes or hours passing. Munroe published a new panel every hour for four months, a comic in 3099 panels, with each panel published every hour for 123 days in what is, all told, the Best Overall Comic of 2013.<br />
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The story is as unique and engaging as the format. Munroe, in his signature poetic stick figure style, weaves an elaborate, suspenseful sci-fi mystery, with two unnamed figures exploring an abandoned and troubling landscape. What transpires is akin to First Contact and a race against time to save a people from annihilation. The extreme and varied details of the comic's setting reveal Munroe to be a creator of extraordinary multidisciplinary intelligence, an innovative storyteller whose works show humanity and thirst for discovery. His art, so deceptively simple, continues to be detailed and above all else shockingly expressive for featureless stick figures, the format ambitious. The end result is breathtaking and dramatic.<br />
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The title of the piece refers to the unknowable future the characters inhabit, a future where recognizable human society has collapsed. It refers to the experience the travelers share, the time they spend together discovering things about the world and themselves they never could before guess. It refers to the unexpected deadline the travelers fall under to save their people. And it refers to the experience of reading the comic - separate from the unique temporal experience of its initial publication - the way the reader can manipulate the time of experiencing the work, one of modern comics truly monumental achievements.<br />
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Experience <i>Time </i>at the Munroe-approved resource <a href="http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/">geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190</a>. <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/08/xkcdTime.html">Read my full commentary and analysis of <i>xkcd: Time</i> here. </a><i><br />
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<u><b>Best Ongoing Series of 2013 - Creative Team</b></u><br />
<b><u></u><i>Saga</i> by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples (Image)</b><br />
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The <i>Comic Pusher</i> Best Ongoing Series of the Year <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-best-comics-of-2012.html">for the second year running</a>, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' <i>Saga</i> continues to be an exhilarating, utterly absorbing, completely original sci-fi/fantasy drama. The story of two moon-crossed lovers from different worlds on the run with a price on their head, the narrative slowed down to build the world and expand the cast of key players. <br />
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Vaughan's masterful pacing keeps the cliffhangers and shocks coming<i>.</i> Staples' fine illustration a perfect visual voice for the story. <i>Saga</i> uses its unique setting and extraordinary characters to explore fundamental questions about family and love while telling an absolutely riveting, unpredictable, richly layered, often funny, and always humanistic story. There are a lot of good comics leading the creator-owned renaissance at Image, but nothing that creates and fills the niches that <i>Saga</i> does, let along with its continued level of success.<br />
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<u><b>Best Ongoing Series of 2013 - Single Creator</b></u><br />
<b><i>MIND MGMT</i> by Matt Kindt (Dark Horse)</b><br />
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<a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/search/label/matt%20kindt">Matt Kindt</a> has been making graphic novels for a while, but his ongoing <i>MIND MGMT</i> has announced Kindt as one of the best overall creators and most distinct voices in mainstream comics. <i>MIND MGMT</i> - a bracingly original work that is also the Best Single-Creator Series of the year - is an enthralling journey into a world of superspies and secret histories, unique powers and the unknown forces of global manipulation. As a storyteller in his creator-owned works, Kindt is deeply invested in the effect spying has on societies and the individuals who wage the never-ending shadow wars that steer the course of history. The unique metaphysical powers and technologies used in spying in <i>MIND MGMT</i> and the winding pathways of interpersonal and intergovernmental treachery share equal focus with stories of human beings giving everything of themselves for an ideal or profit, often caught up in waves of human events beyond their control, sometimes controlling those waves themselves. Kindt masterfully utilizes espionage and everything it entails to explore unique facets of human interaction and global history. The issues released this year saw Kindt take his art and storytelling to completely new levels. The story constantly one-ups itself, in ingenuity, in twists, in character, in sheer style, and weaves a deeply labyrinthine mystery whose secrets unravel like seeds blossoming into massive trees, roots like an iceberg, branches dovetailing into everything you think you know. <i>MIND MGMT</i> is represents some of Kindt's finest work to date.<br />
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(See also my review of Kindt's original graphic novel released in 2013 <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/05/RedHanded.html"><i>Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes</i> here</a>)<br />
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<u><b>Best New Series of 2013</b></u><br />
<b><i>East of West</i> by Jonathan Hickman & Nick Dragotta (Image) </b><br />
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Throughout the expansive, high-concept ongoing <i>East of West</i>, writer/designer Jonathan Hickman and artist Nick Dragotta redefine the science fiction western (if it was ever defined at all). Hickman and Dragotta's high-concept series is, at its core, a treatise on our increasingly fractured society. But more than that it is an astounding work of arresting science fiction and high-tech fantasy, Hickman's inside-out epic love story in an unrecognizable America, Dragotta creating stunning artwork deeply influenced by European and Japanese sensibilities as much as whatever the hell comes from his head to his pen to the page. Hickman and Dragotta create and then hit the mark like few others in comics, <i>East of West</i> the best trippy, sweeping wonder you didn't know you craved. <br />
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<u><b>Best Comic Strip of 2013</b></u><br />
<b><i>A Softer World</i> by Emily Horne & Joey Comeau</b><br />
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The web photocomic <a href="http://asofterworld.com/"><i>A Softer World</i></a> by Emily Horne & Joey Comeau is a unique and beautiful exploitation of the comics form that manages to transcend what is possible with photo comics. In each three-panel strip we get a perfect melding of Comeau's verbal poetry and Horne's visual poetry, executing works of narrative art that are concise, moving and powerful, often very funny, thought provoking, beautiful, or sad, and always an astonishing combination of images and words. Horne's photography and design is intimate, her panelization and editing emotive and dynamic. Comeau's narratives always translate pure accessible emotion in expansive narratives packed in a short space with a stunning economy of words. Both are poets of extraordinary skill who have forged a visual and narrative partnership of uncanny felicity. Strips in <i>A Softer World</i> often poetically explore themes of loss, sex, love, and depression in short narratives that can involve zombies and relationships and science fiction and divine absurdity, all the while elegantly commenting on the human condition. Even the slightest strips execute a timeless, efficient humor and depth. Throughout this year's best strips from the duo, Horne manages imagery both straightforward and elegiac, Comeau's prose the perfect counterpoint or illustration. Their strips continue to be vibrant and original masterpieces that transcend the comic form, narrative art in its truest sense.<br />
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<a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/07/ASofterWorld.html">For my essay celebrating <i>A Softer World</i> at Ten Years and 1000 Strips, click here.</a> <br />
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<u><b>Best Webcomic of 2013</b></u><b><i> </i></b><br />
<b><i>The Private Eye</i> by Brian K. Vaughan & Marcos Martin (Panel Syndicate)</b><br />
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A discussion of Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin's periodical webcomic and publishing experiment <i>The Private Eye</i> must begin with the creators' innovative pricing, distribution and promotion of the project. A 10-issue series published by Martin on his and Vaughan's Panel Syndicate website, <i>The Private Eye</i> can be downloaded DRM-free, pay-what-you-want, in five languages. The series - a bold step away from every usual delivery method available in mainstream comics from two of the medium's premier talents - came out of nowhere and has proven to be a game-changer. All that, and a damn fine comic, too. <br />
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Vaughan excels at high-concept ideas, and <i>The Private Eye</i> is no different. In 2076, decades after The Cloud burst revealing the hidden secrets of everyone on Earth, the internet is gone, the press is law, and privacy is guarded by physical disguise. Against this backdrop is a hard-boiled murder mystery, told with humor and suspense. (The timeliness of the issues presented and the unique counterpoints with its release format are just icing.) But then there's the brilliance of the art by Martin with colorist Muntsa Vicente. Martin & Vicente present a slender, densely packed futurescape in widescreen retrofutureshock hypercolor. Martin's first creator-owned work, his art in <i>The Private Eye</i> is also some of his best. Now at the halfway point, Vaughan & Martin have packed a wallop in every chapter, and the series may prove to be a turning point for the medium and the creators involved.<br />
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<a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/07/PrivateEye.html">For my essay on the importance of Panel Syndicates internationalization in The Private Eye, click here.</a> <br />
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<u><b>Best Limited Series of 2013</b></u><br />
<b><i>Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake</i> by Natasha Allegri (Boom!)</b><br />
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This year's Best Limited Series and all-ages book was the fabulous <i>Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake</i> written and illustrated by Fionna creator Natasha Allegri. Much like Meredith Gran's superb <i>Marceline and the Scream Queens</i> - <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-best-comics-of-2012.html">2012's Best Limited Series</a> - the auteur-driven side stories continue to be better than the ongoing <i>Adventure Time</i> book. Which isn't to say that <i>Adventure Time</i> proper is bad, indeed it is quite good. It's clever and fun and zany but it just doesn't click the same way <i>Fionna</i> and <i>Marceline</i> do. Part of the appeal of <i>Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake</i> is that this isn't just some all-ages perfunctory hackwork thing for Allegri: she created these characters for the <i>Adventure Time</i> television show, and they are clearly near and dear to her heart. The gender-swapped universe of Fionna and Cake is far more than just a Rule 63 version of the <i>Adventure Time</i> universe, these are fully fleshed out characters with their own unique perspective on the world of Ooo. Allegri's Fionna is a fierce, independent teenage girl who likes to punch stuff and she's pretty awesome. But wrapped in this gleeful energy and silly misadventure is a series of simple beauty, Allegri's cartooning inspired and full of love and life. <i>Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake</i> is a wonderful comic in every aspect, delightful, whimsical, funny, and elegant.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/search/label/adventure%20time">For more <i>Adventure Time</i> reviews, click here.</a><br />
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<u><b>Best Non-Fiction Graphic Novel of 2013</b></u><br />
<b><i>March Book 1</i> by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin & Nate Powell (Top Shelf)</b><br />
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Congressman John Lewis has had a unique perspective on American history. He was on the front lines of the non-violent Civil Rights movement in the deep south. He was there at the sit-ins and the student demonstrations, even directly working with Martin Luther King. He and his compatriots received verbal and physical abuse, facing down the very weight of history and the ingrained racist culture of oppression. <i>March</i> is John Lewis's autobiography of his time and experience on the forefront of the Civil Rights movement, co-written by Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell. Far from rote hagiography, Aydin and Powell mold Lewis's revelatory narrative into a compelling and uplifting warts-and-all chronicle, a celebration of the indomitably of the human spirit, an exploration at once deeply personal and broadly sociohistorical. The arc of Lewis's life story extends all the way through Barack Obama's historic inauguration, which acts as the framing device of the book. Wonderfully structured, engaging, and beautifully produced, <i>March</i> is a vital documentary of the Civil Rights era, told by one of the most important figures of that time. <br />
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<u><b>Best One-Shot of 2013</b></u><br />
<b><i>Godland Finale</i> by Joe Casey & Tom Scioli (Image)</b><br />
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I know it's a bit of a cheat to call the <i>Godland Finale</i> a one-shot, but <i>Godland</i> is a series that simply <i>defies</i>, and as much as the Finale was the 37th issue of Joe Casey and Tom Scioli's unparalleled work, it is also a kind of a self-contained graphic novella that masterfully condenses all the epic sci-fi weirdness Casey & Scioli had been producing for nearly a decade. At this point, trying to describe the plot of <i>Godland</i> is like trying to collect a cup of dark matter. Imagine Kirby-Jadorowsky-Moebius cosmology siphoned through a massive temporal LSD trip and you might scratch the surface. Or not. In any event, <i>Godland</i> is one of those singular creative accomplishments from a creative team working at the height of their collaborative powers, a cosmic comic-comic that shatters whatever reductive labels you try to apply and becomes simply The Casey-Scioli Experience. <i>Godland</i> is an explosion of art and uninhibited creativity, the kind you can only get from comics, a grand visual narrative experience and experiment so unlike anything else you've ever read.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Best Single Issue of 2013</b></u><br />
<b><i>Hawkeye 11</i> by Matt Fraction & David Aja (Marvel)</b><br />
<b> </b> <br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZQymh9kSWFo/UsxQLyVr5HI/AAAAAAAACZU/rJBxyDqf3Yc/s1600/HAWKEYE2012011-int-LR-3-594ef.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZQymh9kSWFo/UsxQLyVr5HI/AAAAAAAACZU/rJBxyDqf3Yc/s1600/HAWKEYE2012011-int-LR-3-594ef.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a><i>Hawkeye</i> from the team of Matt Fraction, David Aja & Matt Hollingsworth (with stunning assists from a murderer's row of Javier Pulido, Fransesco Francavilla, and comics' most promising new talent Annie Wu) was once again the best superhero comic of the year. Superhero in air quotes, if you will, because <i>Hawkeye</i> is floating along in its own post-non-post-superhero genre landscape. No costumes, no epic superhero battles, "just" the complicated civilian lives of both Hawkeyes, Clint Barton and Kate Bishop, both lost in their own individual ways, trying to find direction, to find themselves against a backdrop of the far-from-easy Life Superheroic. Clint, always beat up and never quite healing, has an open wound he is filling with violence and alcohol and isolation. Kate, just barely an adult, trying to forge her own identity despite the increasing pressures of adulthood and quasi-superherodom. And all set against the backdrop of the pressures of Life in the Big City, be it Brooklyn or Los Angeles. But especially Brooklyn.<br />
<br />
By the time issue 11 came out, Barton's life has come crashing violently down around his civilian identity. An innocent man is dead, and issue 11 deals with that revelation. What follows is a hard-boiled private detective story, complete with a detailed investigation and a femme fatale - except that it is told from the perspective of a side character, the mutt known affectionately as Pizza Dog. Fraction and Aja explore Pizza Dog's world through his senses, brilliantly using the natural pictographic language of comics in wholly inventive ways. Imagine of Chris Ware made a mainstream comic tangentially featuring superheroes, and that is <i>Hawkeye 11</i>. Not just a bold storytelling experiment, the creators utilize the issue to expand their established story and plumb the universal depth of the heart, a reflection on loss, a quest for truth. Aja and colorist Hollingsworth's work here is nothing short of revolutionary and a perfect encapsulation of the formula that makes <i>Hawkeye</i> the remarkable ongoing work that it is.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Best Short Story of 2013</b></u><br />
<b>"Translated from the Japanese" by Adrian Tomine, from <i>Optic Nerve 13</i> (Drawn & Quarterly)</b><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1_vHtN8PsK0/UftDSUa45uI/AAAAAAAABoA/b00j-0-Ur28/s1600/DSC00010.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1_vHtN8PsK0/UftDSUa45uI/AAAAAAAABoA/b00j-0-Ur28/s1600/DSC00010.JPG" height="230" width="320" /></a>The second story from the latest issue of Adrian Tomine's anthology <i>Optic Nerve</i> is the beautiful, evocative, mysterious, heartbreaking and frankly flawless visual tone poem "Translated from the Japanese." The first page is a letter written in Japanese, and what follows over the next eight story pages is that letter from a mother to her infant son, translated and illustrated by Tomine. Tomine doesn't literally illustrate the letter's contents but shows still-lifes from the visual perspective of the letter's author: a sign at a terminal, baggage on a conveyor, a run-down apartment complex; a cityscape, towers lost in the haze. The letter opens, describing vague details of family discord, an iceberg tip of a mountain of pain hidden beneath the waves. Tomine's descriptions (through the letter's author) are straight forward, yet vivid, powerfully accompanied by his consistently remarkable illustrations. Tomine's ability to build an expansive, detailed life and give us just hints at the depths involved in such a short space showcases a remarkable gift as a storyteller. This is not a translation of a real letter, but Tomine's translation of the terror of parenthood and the indescribably difficult paths family life can take. Tomine inhabits the mother's character, and we, as readers, inhabit her, too. Here, in just a few pages, Tomine gives us a snapshot of a whole human life, one we are intimately connected to. In "Translated," Tomine takes his place with the masters of contemporary literary cartooning.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/08/OpticNerve.html">Read my full review of <i>Optic Nerve 13</i> here.</a><br />
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<u><b>Creator of the Year: Gilbert Hernandez</b></u><br />
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The Creator of the Year is without exception, and indeed without peer, Gilbert Hernandez. Beto released two new OGNs this year: the latest entry in the Palomar/Movie line in <i>Maria M</i>, and his wonderful roman a clef and celebration of childhood, <i>Marble Season</i>. These two works alone would be sufficient to cement his place at the top, but Hernandez is one of the planet's most prolific cartoonists, and 2013 saw a treasure trove of material from the <i>Love and Rockets</i> cartoonist, including hardcovers of his previously serialized <i>Julio's Day</i> and <i>Children of Palomar</i>, a new issue of <i>Love and Rockets</i> with brother Jaime, and two great Fantagraphics books about <i>Love and Rockets</i> including the indispensable Companion. 2013 marks yet a new high-water mark for one of the planet's finest cartoonists and literary voices. Gilbert filled the void of singular marquis comics with no less than five stunning works, collectively casting its own literary shadow for subsequent generations to wonder at. Someday you can tell your grandchildren that you were alive when the Hernandez Brothers were creating comics, and when Gilbert owned 2013.<br />
<br />
Read my full reviews of <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/05/MarbleSeason.html"><i>Marble Season</i> here</a>, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/04/JuliosDay.html"><i>Julio's Day</i> here</a>, and <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/LoveAndRockets6.html"><i>Love and Rockets New Stories 6</i> here</a>, as well as <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/02/reading-love-and-rockets-definitive.html">my comprehensive <i>Love and Rockets</i> guide here</a>.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Twenty Honorable Mentions for 2013</b></u><br />
<br />
<b><i>Adventure Time</i></b> by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline & Braden Lamb (Boom!), <b><i>Best of EC Artist Edition</i></b> (IDW), <b><i>Chew</i></b> by John Layman & Rob Guillory (Image), <b><i>The End of the Fucking World</i></b> by Charles Forsman (Oily/Fantagraphics), <b><i>FF</i></b> by Matt Fraction and Allred, Allred & Allred (Marvel), <b><i>Fury</i></b> by Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov (Marvel MAX),<b> <i>Hellboy in Hell</i></b> by Mike Mignola (Dark Horse), <b><i>Infinity</i></b> by Jonathan Hickman et al (Marvel), <b><i>Johnny Hiro: Skills to Pay the Bills</i></b> by Fred Chao (St. Martin's Press), <b><i>Multiple Warheads</i></b> by Brandon Graham (Image), <b><i>Nemo: Heart of Ice</i></b> (<i>League of Extraordinary Gentleman</i>) by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill (Knockabout/Top Shelf), The Complete <b><i>RASL</i></b> by Jeff Smith (Cartoon Books), <b><i>Resident Alien: Suicide Blonde</i></b> by Peter Hogan & Steve Parkhouse (Dark Horse), <b><i>Richard Stark's Parker: Slayground</i></b> by Darwyn Cooke (IDW), <b><i>Satellite Sam</i></b> by Matt Fraction & Howard Chaykin, <b><i>Sex Criminals</i></b> by Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky, <b><i>Trillium</i></b> by Jeff Lemire (Vertigo), <i><b>Ultimate Comics Spider-Man</b></i> by Brian Michael Bendis, Sarah Pichelli & David Marquez (Marvel), <b><i>Wake Up, Percy Gloom!</i></b> by Cathy Malkasian (Fantagraphics), and <b><i>Young Avengers</i></b> by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie (Marvel).<br />
<br />
<a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/p/index.html"><b>For the Full Index of All Reviews, Click Here.</b></a><br />
<br />
<b>Previous Best Of Lists: <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-best-comics-of-2008.html">2008</a>, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-best-comics-of-2009.html">2009</a>, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-best-comics-of-2012.html">2012</a></b><br />
<br />
As always, follow me on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/B5Jeff">@B5Jeff</a>.
Like <i>The Comic Pusher</i> on Facebook at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/ComicPusher">facebook.com/ComicPusher</a> and on Tumblr at <a href="http://comicpusher.tumblr.com/">ComicPusher.tumblr.com</a>. Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-10658269925477016672013-12-31T14:51:00.000-05:002014-01-01T14:54:04.802-05:00Index: The Comic Pusher Review of Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris's Ex Machina<b>The Run: <i>Ex Machina</i> by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris</b><br />
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In my column, <i>The Run</i>, I review long-form serialized works over multiple parts. Last month I wrapped up my series on <i>Ex Machina</i> by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris. Certainly the long-form highlight of both creators' illustrious careers, <i>Ex Machina</i> is an expansive sci-fi post-superhero political thriller, a chronicle of a city, and the terrible cost of Power. Serialized over 54 issues between 2004 and 2010 by WildStorm and published as ten Volumes (or five double-sized Books) by Vertigo, <i>Ex Machina</i> is engaging and rewarding, and a work that changes radically on reexamination.<br />
<br />
Below are my reviews of every story in the series, in order.<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/09/ExMachinaPart1.html">"The Pilot"</a> </li>
<li><i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/09/ExMachinaPart2.html">State of Emergency </a></i></li>
<i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/09/ExMachinaPart2.html"> </a></i>
<li><i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/09/ExMachinaPart2.html">Tag</a></i></li>
<a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/09/ExMachinaPart2.html"> </a>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/09/ExMachinaPart2.html">"Fortune Favors"</a></li>
<li><i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina3.html">Fact v. Fiction </a></i></li>
<i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina3.html"> </a></i>
<li><i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina3.html">Off The Grid</a></i></li>
<i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina3.html"> </a></i>
<li><i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina3.html">March to War</a> </i></li>
<i> </i>
<li><i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina4.html">Life and Death </a></i></li>
<i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina4.html"> </a></i>
<li><i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina4.html">Smoke Smoke</a></i></li>
<a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina4.html"> </a>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina4.html">"Stand Alone"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina5.html"><i>Power Down </i></a></li>
<a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina5.html"><i> </i></a>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina5.html"><i>Ex Cathedra</i></a></li>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina6.html">"Masquerade" </a></li>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina6.html">"World's Finest"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina6.html">"The Race"</a></li>
<li><i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina6.html">Dirty Tricks</a></i></li>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina6.html">"Ruthless"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina6.html">"Green"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/11/ExMachina7.html"><i>Ring Out the Old</i></a></li>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/11/ExMachina7.html"><i>Pro-Life</i></a></li>
<li><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/11/ExMachina8.html">"Vice" </a></li>
</ul>
For my series of reviews of Naoki Urasawa's <i>Pluto</i>, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/06/Pluto.html">click here</a>. For all installments of <i>The Run</i>, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/search/label/the%20run">click here</a>. For the full index of all reviews, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/p/index.html">click here</a>.Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-70113880079040595252013-12-23T01:00:00.000-05:002013-12-23T01:00:12.502-05:00Interview: J. Michael Straczynski Talks About Coming Home to the Twilight Zone [The Beat]<i>This interview was originally published November 3 on <a href="http://comicsbeat.com/straczynskizone/">The Beat</a>. </i><br />
<br />
This summer, <b>Dynamite</b> announced that they had the rights to do comics based on Rod Serling's legendary anthology <i><b>The Twilight Zone</b></i>, and that <b>J. Michael Straczynski</b> will be writing the series. (That's part of the very busy 2014 Straczynski is slated to have, between six titles for his Joe's Comics imprint with Image, a television series with The Wachowskis for Netflix, and more comic and film work.) Joining Straczynski on the first issue, which will be released next week, is artist <b>Guiu Vilanova</b>, and cover artist <b>Francesco Francavilla</b>. <br />
<br />
Straczynski is a natural choice for the series. After meeting Serling as a youth, Straczynski would go on to Hollywood, with his well-regarded work on 1980s <i>The Twilight Zone</i> revival being his big break into live-action television. For Straczynski, working on <i>The Twilight Zone</i> is a kind of homecoming.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://comicsbeat.com/straczynskizone/">In October I interviewed Straczynski</a> about his plans for the series, and how Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone changed his life - reposted below. I also talked to Vilanova and Dynamite publisher <b>Nick Barrucci</b> about the genesis of the project and their personal favorite <i>Twilight Zone</i> stories. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YmYwhCc1Sbg/UnRCgfncEkI/AAAAAAAACOE/c8gCpkHNjBk/s1600/tz1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YmYwhCc1Sbg/UnRCgfncEkI/AAAAAAAACOE/c8gCpkHNjBk/s1600/tz1.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fransesco Francavilla's cover to <i>Twilight Zone 1</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>First, how did the project develop and how did each of you get involved? </b><br />
<br />
<b>NB:</b> I’ve always been a fan of the <i>Twilight Zone</i>
TV show and it’s a license we’ve wanted to tackle for years. We had
talked to CBS about it off and on. What we wanted to do was ensure when
we got the license we could to it justice. So we kept in touch,
followed up diligently, ensuring that we didn’t miss out on the
opportunity to throw our hat in the ring, but we were quite clear that
we only wanted to do it if we could do it right. <br />
<br />
<b>GV:</b> I worked with my
friends of Dynamite on the <i>Dark Shadows</i> series and <i>Dark Shadows: Year
One </i>miniseries, and I really wanted to do something big. When Joe and
Nick offered me this amazing project, I couldn't refuse. <br />
<br />
<b>JMS:</b> Nick and I had been talking about other projects, and he mentioned that he might go for the <i>Twilight Zone</i> title if I had an interest in writing it. Leaving aside that this is an extraordinary compliment, I've always had a strong tie to the <i>Twilight Zone</i>, having worked on the '88 version and growing up a tremendous fan of Rod Serling's work. I even co-wrote a guide to his <i>Night Gallery</i> series for <i>Twilight Zone Magazine</i>.<br />
<br />
<b>And in addition to all the <i>Twilight Zone</i> television work, one of the first few comics you ever wrote was a <i>Twilight Zone</i> comic for defunct Now Comics way back in 1991...</b><br />
<br />
<b>JMS:</b> The
book was actually an adaptation of the spec script I wrote for the <i>New
Twilight Zone</i> that got me in the door to write the script for "What Are
Friends For?"<br />
<br />
<b>Nick, you approached Joe about working on the book from the very beginning - what made him the ideal candidate?</b><br />
<br />
<b>NB:</b> I've
known Joe for years, and I've always wanted to work with him on this
level, but there didn't seem to be the right property for us to work
together on. Over the years, we've kept in touch, and I've always
hoped to work with him. One day I was in the office looking over ideas
from one of our editorial meetings for potential licenses, and I was
looking at <i>Twilight Zone</i>, and thought, why not ask Joe. He'd worked on
it. I knew he was a huge fan of Rod Serling, but wasn't sure if he'd
feel like he'd said all that he had to say or if he would like to jump
in. Worst case he would say no, right? ... I asked him if he was interested and he
enthusiastically said “yes.” What made him the ideal candidate? He
brings so much passion and reverence to the property yet at the same
time comes in with a distinct voice and I can’t over emphasize how much
his knowledge of the property, yet his ability to come up with a crisp
story is important. I can honestly say that Joe is the only person we
approached, and he is the right person. <br />
<br />
<b>Joe, <i>Twilight Zone</i> stories could be everything from expansive science fiction to grounded suspense thrillers. What kind of stories will you be telling in your run?</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kckLJJLTO0A/UnRD5l9qxFI/AAAAAAAACOQ/La-bIM_7Gm0/s1600/tz4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kckLJJLTO0A/UnRD5l9qxFI/AAAAAAAACOQ/La-bIM_7Gm0/s1600/tz4.jpg" width="262" /></a><b>JMS:</b> I kind of blended them all together into this one story. It's actually three separate stories told from three points of view that slowly begin to merge together into one larger, meta-story. One is a very grounded thriller, the other is a much bigger, apocalyptic story, and the other deals with time travel. Some folks online have said that the issues should be stand-alone stories, but that misses a very key point: if you extract the amount of script from the average comic book, it's equal to maybe ten or twelve TV script pages. So if you put 3-4 issues together, you have the equivalent of one half-hour TV episode. You can't do a <i>Twilight Zone</i> story in ten pages, or one twenty-two page comic book; you need to be able to establish and develop the character, and that takes time. You could never do a single comic book with the depth of storytelling you'd get in, say, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," or "The Obsolete Man." So by doing our stories in 4 issue arcs we're doing just what would've been done in one episode. <br />
<br />
The other thing about the <i>Zone</i> that sometimes folks tend to forget in the cloud of nostalgia that surrounds the title was that it was a proving ground for all kinds of storytelling, from the prosaic ("Mr. Denton on Doomsday") to the more experimental ("Five Characters In Search of an Exit"). The structure wasn't there in network television to do three seemingly independent episodes that suddenly turn out to have connections to one another, and sew together into a larger narrative. The syndication market at that time aired episodes in any order they liked; it wouldn't have worked. Had this sort of technique been available at the time, who knows whether or not it would've been used, but knowing Serling's tendency toward experimentation, I'd bet good money he'd give it a shot. <i>The Twilight Zone</i> was about looking forward, to the future, to trying new storytelling approaches, not about nostalgia for a long-ago form (except as a subject of stories, natch).<br />
<br />
<b>Obviously <i>Twilight Zone</i> is known for its twist endings-- </b><br />
<br />
<b>JMS:</b> That's kind of the perception, but if you look at the show as a whole, twist endings ("To Serve Man," "Time Enough at Last") were generally about a third of what was actually produced. They have a lot of impact in retrospect, but there were far more non-twists than twist endings. If anything, Serling seemed to lean away from those later on in the<i> Zone</i>'s run, because in time the twist can become predictable. Some of the non-twist episodes include "Night Calls," "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and "Steel," among many others. So we're not specifically going for a twist ending to the stories, though there are a number of twists and turns that should surprise readers.<br />
<br />
<b>What will be the structure of the series and how long is your initial run? </b><br />
<br />
<b>JMS:</b> I'm doing twelve issues in three four-issue arcs, as noted above. Each is built around a protagonist in one specific area, who know or are associated with each other. The stories are told in sequence, each starting from a common point, around that character. In the background of each story, however, we get glimpses of what's happening in the other two stories. (Meaning: in the background of a scene with a Wall Street banker in arc one, we see an investigator from the second arc following a lead.) So in essence, all three stories are happening simultaneously. (It's like telling a story about character A from Monday-Saturday; you finish that story, then rewind the clock to Monday and show what happened to character B during that same period.)<br />
<br />
You can print the stories as three individual arcs or, and here's the fun of it, you could conceivably interleave the three stories like shuffling a deck of cards and turn the whole thing into one larger narrative that turns the whole thing around in the end. It's not a structure we've seen a lot before, so it's fun to do, though keeping track of all three stories so that the time-frame is consistent throughout is a bit of a headache. <br />
<br />
<b>Nick, are there plans to continue the series after Joe and Guiu's run?</b><br />
<br />
<b>NB:</b> I'm
pretty sure we will, especially since Joe will create so much awareness
for the series. But time will tell. Right now the focus is on putting
out a great series. Let's me put it this way. When Joe and I first
started talking about this he was thinking this would be a four issue
story arc, and we were elated. Joe writing four issues, that’s great,
it helps rebrand the property for the comic and the market, creates
great awareness, then the hard part is finding someone to fill Joe’s
shoes. Not the worst problem to have, but it’s still a challenge to
work with someone who wants to follow Joe up and do as good of a job.
It would be tough, but again, not a bad problem to have. Then Joe was
so excited he suggested writing the first four issues, we bring another
writer on board to script the next four, then he would write 4 more as
he had another story. Of course I said yes, there’s no doubt about
that. Then he came back and said that he has a story for all twelve
issues, "how about I write the first 12 issues." That says it all.
That’s what made him the ideal candidate. He kept coming up with more
and more ideas that kept growing, adding to the story and he just knocks
it out of the park. What can I say? <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rTYsH9KImRY/UnREOem7zBI/AAAAAAAACOY/b5C5tN96314/s1600/TZ-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rTYsH9KImRY/UnREOem7zBI/AAAAAAAACOY/b5C5tN96314/s1600/TZ-5.jpg" width="262" /></a><b>Joe, what are some of the challenges in bringing the concept to comics?</b><br />
<br />
<b>JMS:</b> As we discovered when I worked on the <i>Zone</i> in '88, people have certain fixed notions about what constitutes a <i>Twilight Zone</i> story, because we've had it in our lexicon for decades... a perception that actually didn't exist at the time because the fun of watching the <i>Zone</i> in its original broadcast was that viewers never knew what to expect next. So we have to address that here as well.<br />
<br />
The other challenge is that at its heart, the <i>Twilight Zone</i> was about - as Faulkner said - the human heart in conflict with itself. It wasn't generally about big explosions or action set-pieces. A lot of it was two people in a room talking about really important stuff. So the challenge becomes keeping that dialogue-rich narrative without it becoming dull in comic form. <br />
<br />
<b>How has Rod Serling's work and <i>The Twilight Zone</i> specifically impacted your life and career?</b><br />
<br />
<b>JMS:</b> Jesus, how hasn't it? Growing up I watched every episode of the original <i>Zone</i> scores of times; there are some episodes, like "Little Girl Lost," or "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" that I've probably seen close to a hundred times. I studied them as a kid, and when I was in high school at a career day held at a local college, the same day that Rod was scheduled to talk, he wandered in and read a couple of my stories, giving me my first validation as a writer. Later, selling a <i>Twilight Zone</i> script became my first live-action sale, and paved the way for me to get the job on <i>Captain Power</i> (which required a minimum of one live-action produced script, which is what that gave me), and positioned me to come on as story editor a year later, where I wrote a new <i>Zone</i> episode based on an unproduced Serling outline. It was the <i>Zone</i> gig that opened up other doors for me in my career. There are more ways even beyond all that in which the <i>Zone</i> has played an important part in my life and my career, but it would take several more screens to tell it all.<br />
<br />
<b>So this is far from your first foray into <i>The Twilight Zone</i>. How is your previous work with the franchise coloring your work on the project today?</b><br />
<br />
<b>JMS:</b> I'm trying to let it do so, because I'm not the same writer today that I was in '88. I learned a lot from that experience about what the <i>Zone</i> was and wasn't, and those lessons have had a chance to take root and mature, so my understanding of that now is quite a bit different from what it was then. Also, having run shows gives me a better understanding of what kinds of stories you can do in television, and the constraints under which Rod had to work, so that also informs the storytelling.<br />
<br />
<b>I know it's difficult to appraise one's early work, but what are some of your favorite <i>Twilight Zone</i> stories that you have worked on? </b><br />
<br />
<b>JMS:</b> My
favorite three would be: "Dream Me a Life" with Eddie Albert playing a
man in a retirement home who begins to share dreams with the comatose
woman next door, because of how the writing worked out but also because
of what Eddie brought to that role... "The Mind of Simon Foster," about a
desperate man who begins selling his memories at a special kind of pawn
shop and begins to realize the cost of what he's doing... and "Our Selena
is Dying," about an elderly woman who begins to draw the life and
vitality out of a younger woman, which I wrote based on an outline by
Rod Serling. Seeing my name on the same screen as Rod's was a
once-in-a-lifetime thrill.<br />
<br />
<b>Guiu and Nick, what does <i>The Twilight Zone</i> mean for you? What are some of your favorite episodes?</b><br />
<br />
<b>GV: </b><i>Twilight
Zone</i> was one of the series that marked my childhood. I saw the first
five seasons, long time after the airing of the last episode in the
USA. I think in 90's. The first episode I saw was "Time Enough at Last"
from the first season, and I really liked the episode "A Hundred Yards
over the Rim.”<br />
<br />
<b>NB:</b> <i>Twilight Zone</i> means endless imagination for creating new stories,
having the right twist from start to finish, being smart with the
stories you tell. That’s really what it means to me. "Where is
Everybody" is a great one for me, I would say "Time Enough at Last,"
"Walking Distance," "The Afterhours," "The Eye of the Beholder" and "The
Invaders."<br />
<br />
<b>The incomparable Francesco Francavilla is doing a cover-- </b><br />
<br />
<b>NB:</b> Francesco
is doing all the covers and you’re right, he is incomparable. He’s a
genius and draws some of the best covers on the market today and we are
very luck to have him. <br />
<br />
<b>Joe, what does Guiu bring to the table as an artist?</b><br />
<br />
<b>JMS:</b> He brings a very grounded art style that works well with the stories we're doing, especially the first one, as that's the most character-oriented. You can feel the weight of the characters in his art and that's very important for the stories to work.<br />
<br />
Bottom line: for me as a writer, but also as a fan of Serling's work, and the <i>Zone</i>, there are few things more exciting than to be able to return to that universe, to that title, and tell another story that pushes the boundaries and delves deep into the important questions that we all have to deal with every day. In a very weird way, writing <i>The Twilight Zone</i> is a lot like coming home....<br />
<br />
<b>--</b> <br />
<i>Twilight Zone #1 (NOV130938) is written by J. Michael Straczynski, illustrated by Guiu Vilanova, and published by Dynamite Comics. It is currently available for order from Diamond Comics and your local comic shop, for a January scheduled release. </i> Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-29471090377703578802013-12-09T17:40:00.000-05:002014-01-01T15:28:48.592-05:00Ordinary Superheroics: Dean Haspiel's The Fox<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--KXmAOkrkdo/UqZFoqnOULI/AAAAAAAACXk/t2yRGQ3Xiy4/s1600/The+Fox+2-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--KXmAOkrkdo/UqZFoqnOULI/AAAAAAAACXk/t2yRGQ3Xiy4/s1600/The+Fox+2-1.jpg" height="400" width="272" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Fox 2</i> by Dean Haspiel and Mark Waid<br />
Red Circle/Archie, 2013</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Red Circle characters (the Archie superheroes) have been around intermittently since the Golden Age. The only really unique thing about Red Circle is that there have been many attempts to relaunch the characters over the last 70 years, attempts that have usually had the impact of a feather landing on snow. DC - as part of their long and recently unsuccessful history of gobbling up dangling superheroes to integrate into their own shared universe (because the existing DCU characters can't cut it, I guess) - were the most recent publishers of the line. But the DC Red Circle, which started out strong with a J. Michael Straczynski-helmed launch, simply fizzled out for the simple reason that the characters - indistinct enough in a crowded superhero landscape, certainly moreso in the densely-packed pre-New 52 DCU - weren't that interesting and no-one really cared.<br />
<br />
Step back in Archie the publisher. Archie has distinguished itself in recent years by upping the company profile with well-produced, entertaining stories with significant crossover media attention, and by taking storytelling and marketing risks that they've never previously taken. It's only natural that they would retake the helm of The Red Circle, beginning with last year's <i>Mighty Crusaders</i>. But despite the line's age, for all intents and purposes these are new superheroes. And at this point in the genre's existence, it goes without saying that new superheroes always have an uphill climb in impacting the neutron-star-dense market of brightly-costumed muckity-mucks. At the very least you can only hope to make good comics and let potential market penetration come later.<br />
<br />
Sadly, there's nothing terribly new or fresh or distinct about <b><i>The Fox</i></b>, issue two of which came out last Wednesday. The series is written and illustrated by <b>Dean Haspiel</b> with dialogue by <b>Mark Waid</b>, old-school hand-in-hand Marvel-style. Rather than going into origins, the story in issue one dives in with Paul Patton, ace photojournalist, getting into quick trouble thanks to his work as a photog and as his superhero alter-ego, The Fox. Patton is not superpowered but gets dressed up to draw out the story, and much to his chagrin constantly finds himself hip-deep in it. His wife, Mae, and oldest daughter are also superheroes, though Mae seems to be frustrated with Paul's costumed activities. Issue one is a little more straightforward, with Patton put up against a couple of meat-head thugs and a costumed interlude of The Fox against some kind of demon seductress with a new social media website. He easily wins both battles, but finds himself in the cliffhanger kidnapped to some diamond dimension, where we find ourselves in issue two. Issue 2 has a lot of Patton/Fox trying to figure out what exactly is happening, there's a battle with a changeling who he thinks is his wife in her superhero guise as She-Fox, and an exposition-heavy sequence where the power that shanghaied him explaining the whys and hows of the world he now finds himself in.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vNseVSf19wg/UqZF8NTfehI/AAAAAAAACXs/4Y7KQEtuksM/s1600/The+Fox+2-17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vNseVSf19wg/UqZF8NTfehI/AAAAAAAACXs/4Y7KQEtuksM/s1600/The+Fox+2-17.jpg" height="400" width="272" /></a></div>
Patton found himself back in Impact City at series' start to reconnect with his adult daughter and to reignite his journalism career, and finds himself way over his head dealing with superpowered sci-fi magic weirdness. I guess that's the vibe Haspiel is going for: Patton completely out of his league and finding a way to win. He just wins very handily with little suspense or thought of genuine threat. Patton/Fox isn't terribly engaging or entertaining on his own, and the situation he finds himself in, forced to intercede in some alien realm's political drama - and despite the inspired weirdness of the Diamond Queen's disjointed dialogue - doesn't quite gel into an interesting story. <br />
<br />
It's hard to peg down the series' intended audience. One the one hand, <i>The Fox</i> is competently produced, straight-forward superhero fare, with an accessible high-impact art style. The storytelling is simple enough with plenty of allusions and references to Red Circle heroes past and present. But the character, a married reporter in his forties with a superhero wife and an adult superhero daughter, just doesn't seem that compelling to your potential preteen audience. If you are an adult who is a fan of the creators' respective accomplishments, then <i>The Fox</i> (so far) is a competent cape comic of little other distinction, one of a hundred out now. But if you are new to the characters and creators, or a kid looking to dive into a superpowered funny book, there is sadly nothing about the book worth picking up. Haspiel's winning Kirbytastic art is a highlight, but simply insufficient to make the book worth it.<br />
<br />
All-ages superhero comics have been a hard-sell in recent years. It's unfair to expect The Fox to compete on the same level as a Spider-Man or Batman with little eyeballs staring at a comic rack, a rack that apparently cannot support even popular superheroes in all-ages books. But it's also competing with dozens of other genres having greater effect in all-ages comics. Something needs to pretty special to stand out in any genre and format, and <i>The Fox</i> is distinguished only by its ordinariness.Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY 11215, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-41910988156445203362013-12-08T17:48:00.000-05:002013-12-09T17:53:33.667-05:00(A) Top Ten Holiday Gift Guide for Black Friday and Beyond [The Beat]Black Friday weekend over at <i>The Beat</i>, I wrote <a href="http://comicsbeat.com/a-top-ten-holiday-gift-guide-for-black-friday-and-beyond/">(A) Top Ten Holiday Gift Guide for Black Friday and Beyond</a>. For a pretty good list of some random comic giftables, including <i>Sandman, Pluto, Scalped, Johnny Hiro, Adventure Time, Love and Rockets</i> and more, <a href="http://comicsbeat.com/a-top-ten-holiday-gift-guide-for-black-friday-and-beyond/">click here</a>!<br />
<br />
As always, follow me on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/B5Jeff">@B5Jeff</a>.
Like <i>The Comic Pusher</i> on Facebook at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/ComicPusher">www.facebook.com/ComicPusher</a> and on Tumblr at <a href="http://comicpusher.tumblr.com/">ComicPusher.tumblr.com</a>. And see the <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/p/index.html">Full Index of All Reviews here.</a>Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-32164788580316159662013-12-04T19:52:00.000-05:002013-12-04T19:52:32.725-05:00Change of Art: Looking at CP Smith in Ten Grand<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rqioSwVU9uY/Up_GD3n7OAI/AAAAAAAACXI/EDoDEBgmaEI/s1600/Ten+Grand+005-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rqioSwVU9uY/Up_GD3n7OAI/AAAAAAAACXI/EDoDEBgmaEI/s1600/Ten+Grand+005-1.jpg" height="320" width="218" /></a></div>
J. Michael Straczynski's <i><b>Ten Grand</b></i> had a bit of a road bump in its projected 12-issue first season when artist Ben Templesmith fell off the map a few months ago. Templesmith owned up to it and C.P. Smith came aboard to illustrate starting with last month's issue 5. Templesmith's stuff on the title was some of the best of his career, and I was sad to see him go. The essential feel of the comic was rooted in Templesmith's gritty, dark, twisted grotesqueries, Straczynski's scripting a perfect match for Templesmith's distinct brand of noir supernaturalism. The story - about a dead hit-man who made a deal with some shady aspect of the afterlife to do their bidding in order to see his lost love for a short period of time - had a perfect executor in Templesmith's particular and unique visual voice, a spot-on vision of memorable demons and street thugs, back-allies and demented afterlife. Templesmith, especially on <i>Ten Grand</i>, revels in shadows, not chiaroscuro but the darkness that exists underneath things hidden from the cleansing light of the sun, crawling and worming and indistinct, at the edge of your periphery, scratchy lines in deep reds and browns and highlights of un-light. <br />
<br />
Needless to say, in art, C.P. Smith is nothing at all like Ben Templesmith. But, then again, few are. I was skeptical that the title could survive such a drastic midway change. Shuffling art teams happen far too often in mainstream comics, and always as a disservice to the larger story (where there is one). The distinctness of Straczynski's narrative, so rooted in such Templesmithian thematic territory, couldn't really be served by anyone else. So, perhaps a happy structural coincidence, the narrative feel shifts on its axis a bit in issue 5 and C.P. Smith just nails it. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fJtXk69MQmg/Up_JvHMzlTI/AAAAAAAACXU/0ar3BWpH5gQ/s1600/Ten+Grand+005-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fJtXk69MQmg/Up_JvHMzlTI/AAAAAAAACXU/0ar3BWpH5gQ/s1600/Ten+Grand+005-12.jpg" height="320" width="218" /></a>Now, Straczynski isn't exactly breaking new thematic ground here. The horror-magic-noir setting, wedged between heaven and hell, both unreliable and untrustworthy, supernatural forces skittering around a wise and hard-boiled interlocutor (and so on) is far from unique. I don't think the genre has a name, but it exists in many forms. And some of the emotional thematic ground Straczynski touches upon here is also covered in his superb <i>Midnight Nation</i> with Gary Frank. But the overall flavor and execution of <i>Ten Grand</i>'s story just works. A frequent (and innacurate) comparison I've seen to <i>Ten Grand</i> is the John Constantine character. But the goals of each book is different, the characters are different. Same genre, certainly. <br />
<br />
C.P. Smith doesn't bother with constraining himself to the same stylistic visual territory as Templesmith, instead being true to his own freaky self. His art is a little odd - but the setting of Limbo is appropriately odd. The people caught there are presented as the negatives of weird 3D constructs. Smith uses a lot of these constructs in his art, but it's at least consistent. The story and the art really sinc up about halfway through. After Joe runs into the time-displaced Limbo-trapped version of himself ("I hate quantum existentialism," he says) he comes to a big ole metaphorical river he must cross on Death's canoe.<br />
<br />
Death - it's probably Death, though never specified as such - with visible skull and skeleton hands and feet, is sitting at the edge of the river, in full cloak and hood, wearing an almost glowing yellow reflective life vest over the cloak. He's wearing sandals, but they look like flip-flops on the skully surfer dude wearing a life vest and a hoodie. Death isn't presented as surfer dude, but certainly as disenfranchised, and jaded in his task. He's tired of encountering pathetic people who took the easy road in life, tried to make few mistakes, took no risks. Joe Fitzgerald has a double advantage: he's alive, and he's made so many mistakes, enough to make the trip very, very bumpy. Death relishes the opportunity, and takes Joe on a rough, surf-battered journey across, to the fork in the road between heaven and hell. The art reflects and absorbs and re-presents the potential silliness of the visuals in clever and straightforward ways. And Straczynski, in a very tight space, essentially has Death distill Straczynski's own personal philosophy and a returning theme and leitmotif in his work, that of choice and trying and never accepting and defying convention and authority. All the while foreshadowing a ton of unpleasant stuff to come. The issue ends on a nice twist, though we're certain Joe will find a way out of the predicament. (That said, Straczynski has surprised me by diving right into the all-out big story, unusual compared to his super-delicate pacing style.)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-abM_7dIbvWM/Up_Et5isiGI/AAAAAAAACW8/HrV_C9t6tXQ/s1600/Ten+Grand+005-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-abM_7dIbvWM/Up_Et5isiGI/AAAAAAAACW8/HrV_C9t6tXQ/s1600/Ten+Grand+005-15.jpg" height="320" width="218" /></a>I can easily imagine Templesmith illustrating these sequences, but I can't quite imagine it working as well as it does in C.P. Smith's hands. Another artist altogether could have done better, but it seems unlikely that they could have done it as quickly or as efficiently as Smith does here. His art in these sequences reflect the very cool, slightly off-feeling, casual epicness of the story. <br />
<br />
<i>Ten Grand</i> solidly survives the art change and speeds forward in its story. Issue six is scheduled to come out next week and the trade paperback of the first six issues shortly thereafter.<br />
<br />
As an aside, <i>Walking Dead</i> has also recently had the most profound art change in 110 issues with the beginning of the "All Out War" storyline. Joining the usually slapdash Charlie Adlard on pencils is the superb inker Stefano Guadiano. Guadiano gives a weight and detail to the work seen at no point in Adlard's run on the book. Cliff Rathburn's coloring (it is credited as gray tones, but it is coloring) is the unknown all-star of the series and meshes Adlard's defining take of the characters with Guadiano's powerful inking in the best looking story of the series.<br />
<br />
[As yet another aside (a postscript!), I completely wrote this review and then somehow it got entirely deleted. Perhaps I angered the writing gods. Anyway, what you read above is a half-assed second go based on my own shifty recollections of my own dodgy writing. Your mileage may vary, especially if you are on the metric system.]Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY , USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-83962264901498116922013-11-29T23:51:00.000-05:002013-11-30T14:53:16.001-05:00Two New Reviews from The Beat: Uncanny Avengers 14 and Infinity 6Wednesday over at The Beat I reviewed two new Avengers Event-type books, <i>Uncanny Avengers 14 </i>and<i> Infinity 6</i>, both new this week from Marvel Comics. Those reviews are reprinted below.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://comicsbeat.com/uncannyavengers14/"><b>Uncanny Avengers 14 by Rick Remender and Steve McNiven</b></a><br />
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I guess I'll start off by admitting I haven't really been reading writer Rick Remender's <i>Uncanny Avengers</i>. I read the first arc largely because of John Cassaday's presence on art, but Remender's story - involving the Red Skull stealing the recently deceased Charles Xavier's brain - left me a little cold. Indeed, most of Remender's writing at Marvel has left me unimpressed if not outright turned off. Many point to his long Frankencastle arc on <i>Punisher</i> as a wonderful exploration of unhinged superguy funnybook creativity, but I found the whole exercise - a story where Frank Castle is killed by Daken (Wolverine's wayward son, who appears in Uncanny Avengers) and comes back as a stitched-up Frankenstein battling/saving/something-ing various C-list Marvel monsters - patently ridiculous (to be generous). Maybe I've been spoiled by Ennis, Aaron and Rucka, but a silly sci-fi monster mag is just not what I want from a Punisher comic. (That said, I'm pretty excited about Nathan Edmondson and Mitch Gerards' upcoming run with the character.) The same general feeling applies to his most recent turn with <i>Captain America</i>. Following up Ed Brubaker's exceptional if too-long run with Cap is an unenviable task, but his Dimension-Z story was just too stupid for me. I can appreciate that Marvel gives their creators so much room to explore, to try weird things, to throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Sometimes you hit a pretty killer if unexpected formula, like Dan Slott's <i>Superior Spider-Man</i> or Fraction, Aja & crew's <i>Hawkeye</i>, and sometimes the spaghetti just bounces right off, leaving an unintelligible mess on the walls for someone else to clean up later. And <i>Uncanny Avengers 14</i> certainly leaves a little bit of a mess that someone will reverse at some point.<br />
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It's unfair to expect creators to bend to my unknowable creative expectations, which is actually a common and slightly inappropriate long-term problem in fandom. Elements of superhero fandom seem to think that they have personal ownership of the characters, that they understand what makes characters work better than the skilled professionals whose job it is to create stories; they take personally the creative changes and outre storytelling risks with which they disagree. I find this attitude frankly repulsive. I'm a big believer in choosing one's own Continuity - oh, that dirtiest of c-words! - and if I don't like a story, or how it fits into my own idea of its place in the larger puzzle of the shared universe, I just ignore it. And anyway, I approach stories based more on who's making it than who's in it, and I also try a lot of new stuff if I don't know the creators in question. A creator's track record makes a difference, and I just don't like Remender's track record.<br />
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So: <i>Uncanny Avengers</i>. Launched in the wake of the <i>AvX</i> silliness of last summer is Marvel's go at integrating the X-Men and Avengers franchises. The X-Men, while solidly enmeshed in the larger Marvel Universe, has largely existed in its own corner with its own separate weight of continuity. <i>Uncanny Avengers</i> features a team of various X-Men and Avengers as a public face of human-mutant relations within the Marvel Universe, and also deals with the legacies of both organizations. Remender's first story is an example of that, featuring Captain America's nemesis dicking around with X-affairs. His follow-up stories, to the best of my tangential knowledge, features Apacolypse, then timey wimey Kang, with various rotating (and quite good) art teams. As we dive into the story at hand in issue 14, all of these elements seem to be coming together, and it's somewhat entertaining.<br />
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Maybe my experience has benefited by not having to go through the intervening 8-ish issues since I jumped off, cutting to the chase, and it's one hell of a chase. The issue opens with the somewhat clunky sequence of Kang going through all the previously established alternate-future Marvel Universes and picking up various superheroes for some task or another. There's <i>Iron Man 2020</i>, <i>Earth-X</i> Spider-Girl, <i>2099</i> Doom, and a few others. These opening pages are not addressed again as there are other pressing concerns the height of which conflict we're thrown into full-on. Something about the Apocalypse twins forcing Wanda Maximoff, The Scarlet Witch, to "rapture" the entire mutant race to their own homeworld, and Wanda's own efforts to subvert those plans. (Or something. I'm going off the recap page, here, and thank goodness for Marvel's useful recap pages.) But while Wanda's spinning her own wheels-within-wheels with the help of C-lister Wonder Man, Rogue and C-lister Sunfire have their own scheme to stop the Scarlett Witch.<br />
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And part of Rogue and Sunfire's plan is revenge. If <i>Uncanny Avengers</i> is dealing with the dueling legacies of the Avengers and the X-Men, the one point where they inextricably came together was <i>House of M</i>. Wanda Maximoff was responsible for the depowering of nearly the entirety of Mutant-kind, and there are many that understandably hold a pretty big grudge. (Mind you, Magneto the Terrorist is free to run around willy nilly instead of rotting in a cell or just plain cold-dead, but chalk my frustration with that up to my general problem with rogue's galleries - there's a relevant connection, but that's a whole other conversation entirely.) Rogue - and I'm going to ignore Sunfire here, though Remender does a decent job of upping her profile in this story - is seeking to stop Wanda from whatever it is she's doing and to make her pay for M-day in one swell foop, sugah. Remender tries to tie the events of M-day and Wanda's culpability in that into the fresh wound of Xavier's death, but I don't quite buy it. Nevertheless, it gives Rogue a chance to pull out some nifty, visceral tricks in her quest to make Wanda pay. Cue some cool superhero fighting, et cetera and whatnot. Oh, and death. Folks die. Well, superhero-die, which as we all know is meaningless and temporary.<br />
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It certainly helps that Steve McNiven (with John Dell and Laura Martin) is on the art. McNiven is a consistently entertaining practitioner of high-quality superhero art, and his stuff expectedly shines here. The combination of McNiven and the epic trans-time scale of the story gives the book an Event feel. I'm defining Event by scale of storytelling, not necessarily in the terms of over-hyped mini-series with countless pointless tie-ins. By my definition, the current "All Out War" story in <i>Walking Dead</i> applies, and so does the story presented here in <i>Uncanny Avengers 14</i>. Big Things Happen Here That Will Change The Marvel Universe Forever!(tm) including deaths and status quo changes that are bound to be reversed by another writer eventually, but nonetheless will have some lasting impact. I think. It's still all middle right now. It's a little refreshing to see such high-impact story in a single unheralded title, but it still has that Eventy tinge of Yet Another Superhero Death. I'm still not a fan of the Apocalypse/Skull/Kang stuff (which is largely minimized here anyway), but what is presented here is straightforward and entertaining enough. That is, if you are a dedicated Marvel fan. Even a Marvel Zombie may find it a stretch to really enjoy this whole thing and it will be completely incomprehensible to the uninitiated.<br />
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McNiven's art carries the story but even McNiven may not be able to save the whole thing when all is said and done. I'm not terribly inclined to keep reading after this nor to catch up on the stuff leading up, and it doesn't change my view on the quality of Remender's stuff. Nor am I inclined to really recommend it over, say, any random creator-owned book. But as a standard-fare Marvel superhero book, it's quite pretty, and if you have an affinity for the characters starring here it will either make you very happy or very, very mad.<br />
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And if it upsets you, just ignore it and pick up a better comic.<br />
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Like Infinity! Segue!<br />
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<a href="http://comicsbeat.com/infinity6/"><b><i>Infinity 6</i> by Jonathan Hickman, Jimmy Cheung and Dustin Weaver</b></a><br />
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Damn Events. Maybe it’s just a marketing term, but as I noted above,
it’s a matter of scale. I’m sick of the term, and a little tired of the
Events themselves, but <i>Infinity</i> is an Event by marketing and by
definition. Going back to the cycle events that started in the age of
Nu-Marvel, most have just been vehicles for launching other things, or
killing characters. But <i>Infinity</i> is different. Sure, it’s the
same in some things, but the quality is different, the structure is
different, and the finished product is completely unalike any event.
It’s Marvel’s differentest Event, and it’s Marvel’s best.
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Strong words in a cycle that gave us <i>Civil War</i>, but the goal posts were/are different. <i>Civil War</i>
was very much a vehicle for other things, and while flawed, was quite
good. It also set a standard of sales and expectations that following
events haven’t quite met. So I’m not really applying the same kind of
standards, and looking at <i>Infinity</i> as its own unique order of
Event storytelling. And unique is a great way to describe it. Writer
Jonathan Hickman is a rare talent. His creator-owned books of the past
year have been some of the best mainstream comics being published. And
indeed, <i>Infinity</i> – the whole rigamarole that includes <i>Avengers</i> and <i>New Avengers</i> – might be the year’s best Superhero comic.<br />
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Let’s start with the art. Infused with Hickman’s distinct visual
design aesthetic, Infinity features the prodigious talents of
(alphabetically) Jimmy Cheung, Mike Deodato, Jerome Opena, Dustin
Weaver, Lenil Francis Yu, and more. I can get frustrated with
inconsistent art. But different is not always inconsistent and the art
teams were consistent with the different stories Hickman was naturally
telling. And damned good at it, too. Yu’s stuff suffers a little in the
end, but otherwise the entire team is flawless, even Deodato (who I
usually don’t really get, I guess) who changed up his style. Any series
with 100 pages of Jimmy Cheung is a graphic-novel’s worth of content,
more than worth the trip. <i>Infinity 6</i> stars Cheung with an assist
from Weaver, who give the work detail and care, the flash and energy
they bring to the proceedings, the scope and execution of the grand
space-operatic Epic and superpowered battling. Hickman and Marvel give
them a ton of space to play and they tackle the proceedings with glee.
If you haven’t been reading <i>Infinity</i> to this point, then picking
up issue six might seem like a pointless exercise if not for the visual
astonishments, and there are plenty.<br />
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The story in issue six is all action and it’s big big BIG. By this
point, Hickman’s already pulled out all the stops. The twist of
Inhumanity came a couple of issues ago, the juicy space opera elements
have come and gone, the incursion has been averted. But Hickman keeps
creating more stops to pull. This is all in the genius of the series’
structure. Secret Invasion, another invasion story as a point of
comparison, was all decompressed middle and a silly twist to set up some
other nonsense. But <i>Infinity</i> is so much more and then some.
There’s been so many amazing visuals from the falls of Wakanda and
Attilan, to the glorious space battles, to the Illuminati’s
machinations, to every single thing involving Black Bolt. There sheer
amount of story that is going on, has gone on, so masterfully juggled
and interwoven by Hickman, complex yet accessible, all funnels into this
finale issue.<br />
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<i>Infinity</i> is dense, thrilling, beautiful, intense piece of
superhero sci-fi comic storytelling. The final main chapter is the
capstone to this grand epic. Hickman’s vision with this story was clear
and the execution flawless. And this is a fun, visually stunning (in
story and art and Ideas) mainstream productions, written by one of the
comic medium’s best talents.Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-81859736113225045182013-11-18T23:26:00.000-05:002013-11-20T01:32:36.882-05:00Why Shaolin Cowboy 2 is A Terrible Comic <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4yQp41JnObs/UorkXljyy0I/AAAAAAAACVw/alMuoGMgHQI/s1600/A+COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4yQp41JnObs/UorkXljyy0I/AAAAAAAACVw/alMuoGMgHQI/s1600/A+COVER.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Shaolin Cowboy 2</i> by Geof Darrow<br />
Dark Horse Comics</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Geof Darrow's <i>Shaolin Cowboy</i></b> has always been one of those legends told in comic book circles, described with reverence and awe, the truth getting lost in the legend enhanced by its unavailability. The first series was published as seven issues intermittently between 2004 and 2007 by long-since-shuttered Burlyman Entertainment and has been subsequently out of print since. When Darrow started doing spot-illustrations for the revived <i>Dark Horse Present</i>s and was subsequently announced as reviving the title, there was a great deal of buzz and anticipation. I haven't read the originals as, perplexingly, neither Dark Horse nor Darrow saw fit to reprint the first series as a lead-in to the current one (maybe the reprint rights are all weird, as can happen with creator-owned books pulled from limbo). But I was aware of the legend, and eagerly anticipated the first new issue which came out <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/NYCCWednesday.html">in October</a>. And needless to say, I was suitably impressed. Darrow's hyper-detailed art style and unhinged story involving slackers and zombies and pop culture and all kinds of crazy shit with the badass eponymous character were unique and delightful. Darrow's exhilarating work in <i>Shaolin Cowboy 1</i> was quite stunning, and the detailed, manic nature of the work invited continual reappraisal. <br />
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Now knowing what to expect, I was very happy to see issue 2 drop without delay, and was floored for a completely different reason: <i>Shaolin Cowboy 1</i> is one of the best comics of the year. <i>Shaolin Cowboy 2</i> is one of the worst.<br />
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First, <i>Shaolin Cowboy 2</i> isn't really a "comic." Sure, it quacks like a comic and looks like a comic, but when you open it up all you get are 33 images of a dude attacking a horde of zombies by swinging a large stick with a chainsaw at each end. And that's it. For 33 pages, Geof Darrow presents the Cowboy swinging his contraption and bifurcating many, many zombies. <br />
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I know more than a few people who would make the argument that 33 uninterrupted splashy pages of Geof Darrow-illustrated widescreen zombie annihilation is worth the price of admission. The level of gruesome detail Darrow lavishes on his undead horde and the physicality of the Shaolin Cowboy are all without par. Individually, each panel is a frankly masterful display of deliciously delineated violence. But there is no variation to the ceaseless butchery. None.<br />
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Every single panel is staged from the same angle. There is no sense of setting or threat, just repeated image after image: <i>Panel: The Cowboy swings the contraption, kills some zombies. Panel: The Cowboy swings the contraption, kills some zombies. Panel: The Cowboy swings the contraption, kills some zombies...</i> One panel of Darrow illustrating this is like fine caviar. 33 pages of this is like having fish eggs shoved down your throat for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a month. <br />
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The structure, the staging and the storytelling are all atrocious. Every single panel, with the exception of the first, can be interchanged with any other, making them all pointless. Look at all the images I've included with this review. They include the second panel, the final panel, and a random selection of others, all completely out of the order from the published thing. Could you tell? Could you put them in order without reading the comic? Could you do it after reading it? There is zero sense of progression. Comic books are sequential storytelling, but there is nothing sequential about <i>Shaolin Cowboy 2</i>. Of course many comics and many cartoonists can manipulate the language and mechanics of comics in daring ways to tell different kinds of comic stories. But that is not what is happening here. <br />
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Within the context of the larger eventual graphic novel, one could see these pages as simply an elaborate illustrative sequence, and within that context it is a forgivable excess that is quickly breezed by on the way to (presumably) actual plot and storytelling. But the appropriate context for this piece is as it was released, as a comic book - and as a comic book it is an abysmal failure and a waste of money. Whatever wow-factor we get from the first issue turns into an again?-factor. Like Darrow had one idea and stretched it about twenty times longer than it should go. <br />
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If the scene was the same -<i> The Cowboy swings the contraption, kills some zombies - </i>throughout the issue, but presented with some actual visual dynamism, from varying angles or panel constructions, (maybe, I dunno, sequentially!), then maybe it would be tolerable. But reading this, I'm struck by two things: that Darrow spent a great deal of time drawing all of this, and that he essentially chose to draw the same thing, over and over. If you are going through the trouble, when you have proven skills as a visual storyteller, why do this? It would be wrong for me to try to divine the artist's intent without knowing his true feelings, but this feels like simple, hollow artistic masturbation in four colors, stapled with a barcode for the suckers to lose three fifty on.<br />
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Ad nauseating ad nauseum ad infinitum.Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com5Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-6357563979732643802013-11-14T14:04:00.001-05:002013-11-14T14:04:02.758-05:00Thoughts on the Lack of Comics Critic-PractitionersOver on <a href="http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/"><i>The Hooded Utilitarian</i></a>, Ng Suat Tong (whose work I rather enjoy if not always agree with) <a href="http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/11/comics-criticism-even-comics-critics-dont-care-about-it/">had a post</a> about the state of comics criticism, and Caroline Small had <a href="http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/11/caroline-small-on-critic-practitioners/">a fascinating follow-up</a> questioning the lack of critic-practitioners in comics. My own thoughts (on what is a very, very interesting issue in the comics art form) are copied below. <br />
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The lack of comic criticism from comic professionals is something that struck me when I read Jonathan Lethem’s review of Thomas Pynchon’s <i>Bleeding Edge</i> in <i>The New York Times</i> a couple of months ago. I read reviews of well-known authors by well-known authors all the time, but it was the first time I seriously considered an equivalent concept for comics. (Perhaps that lack of consideration is a failure of imagination on my part, or maybe Lethem’s own association with comics tickled that nerve just enough for me to notice it.)<br />
<br />
I think the biggest problem in establishing such a culture of criticism in mainstream comics of mainstream comics professionals by mainstream comics professionals, is that mainstream comics in the larger Anglosphere is very much a closed shop (or at least a small town where everyone knows, or at least knows of, everyone else). To make your way to the big boys, you have to play ball, and part of that game seems to include general congeniality amongst mainstream creators. Aside from the usual barbs thrown across publishers’ bows and the occasional twitter tiff, creators don’t want to rock the boat because there are only so many boats. But then again, I don’t think there is an expectation of practitioner-criticism in other mainstream arts, either. It’s not like Aaron Sorkin is writing about Vince Gilligan and vice versa. It’s more likely we’ll see current comics pros dissecting some classic work before we see them bringing a detailed critical eye to some current work.<br />
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But this being [<i>Hooded Utilitarian</i>], I reckon the mainstream isn’t even in consideration for this discussion, which is fine. (Though, establishing a culture of critic-practitioners in the mainstream can’t hurt its chances elsewhere.) But another major limiting factor that equally effects non-mainstream work and mainstream work alike is the availability of viable venues for comic critic-practitioners. It’s one thing when <i>The New York Times</i> calls Lethem to review Pynchon, because they can pay him for the effort, and well, too. (And he gets to plug his own new book in the process.) But to expect (or hope) for a rise in critic-practitioners in comics may be a stretch because, outside a handful, most comic creators and associated professionals are bloody broke. And most current venues of comic criticism simply cannot afford to pay.<br />
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To create a culture of critic-practitioners in comics, we need more coverage of comics in mainstream publications that cover other arts. Of course that coverage has been increasing exponentially year by year, but (to be consistent in my example) <i>The New York Times</i> seems to cover, say, opera more than comics. And by any measure – mainstream cultural penetration, variety and accessibility of contemporary works, sheer number of people consuming it – comics far outrank the so-called fine arts that mainstream cultural publications like to get off on. When outlets like <i>The Times</i> (New York or Washington or London) or <i>Slate</i> or <i>The New Yorker</i> start having daily, comprehensive, meaningful and intelligent coverage of our art and medium is when the rise in critic-practitioners in comics will come.<br />
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Our other hope in establishing a culture of critic-practitioners may lie, for the time being, in the small handful of comic news media that now exist that actually can pay for content, like <i>CBR</i> or <i>Comics Alliance</i>. Organizations like those, which already have connections to so much of the industry must start pushing for such content. (Yes, there is a frustrating lack of non-mainstream coverage in such places, but we have to start somewhere.) That isn’t to discount the outlets that exist now for comic criticism. Venues like <i>HU</i> or <i>The Comics Grid</i> are doing astounding things for moving the cultures of comics forward. But until Noah can afford to hire Spiegelman to write about Urasawa or Ware to write about Hickman or all four to write about Moebius (for random disparate examples), we have to wait for mainstream outlets to do it.<br />
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And I have frankly discounted <i>The Comics Journal</i> in all of this, because it is so easy to.</blockquote>
Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-75922590471040945402013-11-09T23:00:00.000-05:002014-01-01T15:00:59.579-05:00The Run: Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris: The Finale<b>The Comic Pusher Presents The Run: </b><b>Ex Machina</b><b> Part Eight</b><br />
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<i>In </i>The Run<i>, I review long-form comic works across multiple parts. In Part Eight of my series on </i>Ex Machina<i> by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris, I look at the finale, "Vice."</i><i></i><i> <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/12/ExMachina.html">For the other reviews in this series, click here</a>.</i><br />
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As I finish this piece on Election Day 2013, results are in and New York has elected its first new mayor since 2001. In the weeks leading up to today's election, I have been covering the entirety of Vaughan and Harris's masterpiece - a visionary post-superhero, science fiction, New York City political character drama. <i>Ex Machina</i> is one of the finest long-form mainstream comics ever produced, and the finale, "Vice," is its crowning achievement. As with last week's entry, there will be significant discussion about plot details and the ramifications of what happens in the story. We have reached the end of our journey; be warned, this is not a review, but commentary and interpretation, and all significant plot points will be revealed. <br />
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<b>"Vice"</b><br />
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In the space of a few days, Mitchell Hundred lost his mother to unspeakable violence and found out that he is enmeshed in an interdimensional war. He fought what he thought would be the only battle in that conflict, destroying The Voice and the means of invasion. But the war is not over, and there are consequences for his actions. By suiting up to defeat the menace facing the City, he put his freedom in jeopardy. And there is still the business of the city, and a future political run, and the future itself.<br />
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The cliffhanger from <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/11/ExMachina7.html"><i>Pro-Life</i></a> is resolved by a bait-and-switch. Bradbury and Hundred switched places at the last second after Hundred killed Padilla. Angotti doesn't get her man, and Bradbury gets the punishment meant for Hundred. From there, the story leaps forward...<br />
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The framing sequence is Hundred, sitting alone in the dark, talking to his old jetpack, the exact scene from issue one where he warns of the tragedies to come. But the tragedies he spoke of in <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/11/ExMachina1.html">"The Pilot"</a> were not the battle, or the Horrors that Padilla unleashed, or the terrorist attack that took Journal, not even the death of his mother. The real tragedies are about to unfold before us.<br />
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In the days following the Horrors, Wylie and Hundred talk about what happened. Hundred is still a lame duck, and Wylie is still set up to take over Gracie Mansion. And Hundred, as he leaves the position from which he changed the face of the city forever, has one final plan. We skip forward a year and a half....<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5fgtMzP5zaQ/Un8FnzD3ncI/AAAAAAAACS4/8JpXRW0_fEs/s1600/5-Everybody+loses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5fgtMzP5zaQ/Un8FnzD3ncI/AAAAAAAACS4/8JpXRW0_fEs/s320/5-Everybody+loses.jpg" height="320" width="209" /></a>It's September 2006, and Hundred is speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, as United States Ambassador to the U.N. He has an idea for the future, one that honors the City and the victims of all the attacks that have occurred over the last five years: a new World Trade Center, rebuilt exactly as it was before. And we skip forward to March 2007...<br />
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To a nightmare. Hundred is standing in the burning ruins of what was once New York, behind him the shuttered United Nations hovering in the shadows of demons and monsters. "No. I stopped you!" Hundred screams. And another Hundred, perhaps the one that gave Mitchell his powers, answers him: "Did you really think you wouldn't get hit again?" He tells the Hundred we know (or think we know) the truth, that he's always been an ambassador for the Invaders. That it's only a matter of time. And Hundred wakes up, at night, with an intruder in his room...<br />
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"Easy, Boss. Just came to give you this back." It's Bradbury, with The Great Machine's rocket, Bradbury, broken, drunk, unrecognizable. After the Horrors, Bradbury took the fall. He lost his job, lost his family, lost his friends, and was reduced to signing autographs at conventions. The night he shows up in Hundred's room, he hit his wife. "I hit her, just like I hit Suzanne. I remember things now. I remember everything we did to her. To Pherson. To us." He needs help. Hundred responds: "Bradbury, you have to get away from me... Don't tell anyone you came here. This is a very delicate time for me. I'm about to announce my candidacy for--"<br />
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"But I love you" Bradbury says. He professes his love for Hundred. He takes Hundred in his arms, looks him in the eye. Hundred almost gives in, but he can't. There is too much to lose. It can all fall apart. He rejects Bradbury, tosses him out at the time of his greatest need. Bradbury strikes Hundred and leaves. And we skip to October 2007...<br />
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Hundred and Candy are standing in a field in the middle of Iowa, on the campaign trail. As Hundred grinds out the small indignities of a Presidential run, he finds himself abandoned by old allies, Wylie and Angotti. He gets a message from Kremlin, saying it was time to talk. Three months later, Hundred meets Kremlin in his workshop on Coney Island.<br />
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Kremlin has the file that proves (or at least strongly alleges) that Hundred stole the election in 2001. Hundred pleads with Kremlin; in Hundred's eyes, the very fate of the world is at stake. But Kremlin only cares about The Great Machine. He irrationally believes he can blackmail Hundred into returning. Hundred goes for the file, and Kremlin pulls out his gun. Hundred refuses to give in, and Kremlin, despondent, puts the gun to his own head. Hundred tries to calm Kremlin down, and then he asks him if he showed the file to anyone else. Kremlin said no, and at that moment Hundred used his power to set off the gun killing Kremlin.<br />
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And back to the present, the middle of 2010, Hundred reminiscing, talking to The Great Machine's machines. He gets a phone call, and on the other end is the man working on health care reform, his boss, the president. <br />
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Vice President Hundred puts down the phone, and picks up a picture of the three men that made The Great Machine. He smiles, there, in the dark, at his old friends. The only men who ever knew him if they knew him at all, rewarded for their loyalty with death and destruction.<br />
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And then, fade to black. An end.<br />
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--<br />
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"Vice" is an emotional roller coaster of undiluted heartbreak and despair. It is a tragedy of the highest order, where no-one really wins. Hundred, who dreamed he would be president, who did everything he could to get in power to protect the world, finds himself both a heartbeat away from absolute power and mired in absolute powerlessness. The jolt of those last pages is one of the series' wonders. <i>Ex Machina</i> is about worlds: our own, the fictional one the characters inhabit, the worlds waiting at the edge of reality, bracing to invade. The alternate history, the alternate now of the series reaches it's stunning apotheosis, Hundred's impact in the universe reflected in the series' dark mirror of our own world. <br />
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But the tragedy does not really lie in Hundred, though it's undeniably tragic. The tragedy is in the lives ruined on Hundred's path to nowhere. He justifies every sin he commits at every turn as necessary to protect the people of the City and the Earth. But there is an ambiguity - has all his sacrifices been for naught? He came so far, only to end up short. It could all have been meaningless. He stole an election and changed history. He killed his friend and mentor. And he rejected his greatest ally at his time of need. <br />
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In these final pages, Vaughan and Harris rip out your heart and stomp on it. Because that is what you get by believing in something, let alone something as dirty and inhuman as a politician.<br />
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Harris's final art here is astonishing. All the strengths he showed throughout <i>Ex Machina</i> shines in "Vice." Eschewing an inker, Harris completes the full art (with Mettler's expectedly superb colors), turning in page after page of stunning line work. It is an issue largely filled with emotionally laden dialog, and Harris kills it scene after scene. Vaughan's scripting and storytelling is without peer, but it wouldn't have been worth a damn if Harris couldn't execute.<br />
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<span id="goog_1921137440"></span><span id="goog_1921137441"></span>The emotional moments in this issue are masterfully executed. The issue's (and the series') two most heartbreaking sequences are just stunning. Look at the emotionally wrenching, difficult scene where Bradbury professes his love for Hundred. The pain in both of their faces breaking through the the rush of emotions and thoughts the scene evokes.<br />
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And of course there is Kremlin's death. The look on Hundred's face when he commits the act. Even subtler, Harris's presentation of the moment the gun goes off, Hundred's face, carefully framed in a shop mirror, the shock coursing through the reader's mind at the suddenness, the unforgivability, the finality, the intent. The reader coming to terms with the act at the same time as the one who committed it. The trauma of the event and Harris's unparalleled realization of it.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harris's original art to Volume 10</td></tr>
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And for a series with a pretty impressive run of consistently brilliant covers, the final two collected edition covers are some of Harris's finest work. <i>Volume 10: Term Limits</i> is uncharacteristically minimalist, featuring a lone Mitchell Hundred with piercing eyes, the ghosts of past blending into the background. For a character whose powers are machine based, where technology plays an important role, Harris flips that dynamic and has Hundred sitting in quiet thought, with a book and quill pen in stately surroundings, in muted colors, only the slightest hint of a gear in sight, the suggestion of regality betrayed by what Hundred really achieves. <br />
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The fifth Deluxe edition cover is even more reserved and minimalist. Absent are Harris's highly designed, lushly crafted, stylistic cover designs, and what remains are understated, elegant, and exceed the high bar Harris set for himself, and defy the very expectations of the genre.<br />
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They are striking images. Images that take on a new meaning after reading the story. What you think of Hundred, his actions, and his role in the story gives new meaning to how you approach the art.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The cover to <i>Ex Machina: The Deluxe Edition 5</i> Hardcover</td></tr>
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I especially love the Deluxe cover art and the weight of meaning it now holds, all storytelling hands and expressionless face, the coloring and otherworldly lighting adding dimension throughout. The meaning of that face, as cold and ambiguous as Hundred himself. The hands hiding his true face like a mask, the hands holding up the weight of the head, swollen with pride, heavy with the responsibility of his position and his crimes, the hands, containing the dark power hidden within. Harris's blacks and Mettler's greens, at the highest level individually, combine into a massive visual punch.<br />
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--<br />
What Vaughan accomplishes here is his masterwork. The wonders of his story structure up to this point have been jaw-dropping, and Vaughan takes it even further with his audacious time jumps as he bounds forward towards the alternate present of the story's publication. He does a similar thing in the finale of <i>Y: The Last Man</i>, but where that finale was a coda to a journey's end, <i>Ex Machina</i> is a radically different thing entirely.<br />
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Again, the series plays with its relationship with superhero fiction early on in "Vice." Hundred opens with a monologue, contrasting the unreality of fiction with the stark, dark reality of life, always ending in pain, regret and loss. "Happy endings are bullshit. There are only happy pauses... That's why I like superhero books." In superhero comics, there is stasis, where every wrong has a chance to be righted. "Those stories never get to become tragedies." <i>Ex Machina</i> is the anti-superhero superhero comic, specifically rooted in a version of reality that mirrors our own, that changes and develops quickly. "Vice" is the antithesis of the what is presented in most superhero fiction, specifically and explicitly showing change and death and loss in a heightened shot, leaping forward years at a time, shattering our perceptions and the status quo with every jump.<br />
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Vaughan, through Hundred, also makes clear that what was chronicled in <i>Ex Machina</i> is but a small window into the darkness, the leap forward through time just a heightened version of what we've already been through. But it also has the remarkable effect of distilling who Hundred is, revealing that everything we thought we knew was wrong. This isn't a cheap soap-opera twist where it's revealed that Hundred is the villain, but a revelation born through complex characterization, a revelation that forces us to reexamine and reinterpret everything that came before. Vaughan reveals the truth about what's been happening in front of your face the entire time and his and Harris's accomplishment with this is nothing short of monumental. <br />
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There are two distinct ways to reinterpret the events of <i>Ex Machina </i>in light of these revelations. The first is Mitchell Hundred, the political beast; the second is Mitchell Hundred, the potential enemy agent of another world. That both of these interpretations are inextricably intertwined is one of the book's remarkable achievements.<br />
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--<br />
The first reinterpretation: Every single action Mitchell Hundred has taken since throwing his hat into the ring has been with the sole goal of attaining and maintaining political power.<br />
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As originally presented, Hundred is shown to be apparently honorable, seeking power to serve the people of the City he loves. Despite his popularity, he abdicates power by giving up a second term, to ostensibly focus on the business of City Government. He supports no political party and his actions as Mayor cover all ends of the political spectrum. <br />
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But despite the narrative's omniscient point of view, we the readers never really get a clear idea of just who Mitchell Hundred really is. As the series moves forward, we get the sense that Hundred engages in a great deal of political maneuvering. That every decision he makes, every facet of his being down to his very sexuality, is tied to achieving and maintaining power. That, like all politicians, despite whatever front of public service he may provide, he is a politician and thus a right bastard. <br />
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The moment, the very panel Hundred sends out Bradbury to cover up the White Box affair in <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/11/ExMachina7.html"><i>Ring Out The Old</i></a> is the moment that the series really changes. When Bradbury reveals that Padilla might uncover its secret, his reaction, a simple, all lower-caps "what?" speaks volumes. He panics and sends Bradbury out right away, leading Padilla right to its location, and to her and the city's fate. Why would he care about the White Box? Certainly there is the perception that it may have played a role in stealing the election in 2001. But Bradbury believes Hundred when he says it was necessary for the safety of the city, indeed, he believes in Hundred. But does Hundred believe himself? He does the knee-jerk, guilty thing. He seeks to destroy the object that made it look like he stole the election, in the process making it look like he stole the election...<br />
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Because he did steal the election. There is just the matter of degree to which he lied to Bradbury and to himself, and the context of that lie. Throughout <i>Ex Machina</i> we are never given reason to assume that Hundred is anything but a straight-laced, honest man. But when he kills Padilla, sending her through the gateway to the malevolent realities beyond, he tells her the most important piece of truth uttered in the series: "I'm a politician. I lie."<br />
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Those last two words put everything that has occurred into a completely different light. "I lie." What are you lying about, what have you been lying about, 100? This revelation is not all that surprising, of course. Everyone lies, all the time. But there is an important qualifier to Hundred's statement, and that was tying his lies to Politics and Power.<br />
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What happens in "Vice" is a heart-shattering extension of Hundred as soulless politician. Rick Bradbury's life has been shattered by his association with The Great Machine and with Hundred. The last we see of him, his is a completely broken man, with no family, no job, and no future. He dedicated his life to Hundred after 1999. He sacrificed as much of himself as Hundred at any point over the preceding eight years. He was unquestioningly loyal throughout, even taking the fall for his friend and boss. And he is repaid with destitution and abandonment. At his lowest, he comes to Hundred for help, and Hundred discards him like so much trash. Once an honored friend and associate, now a liability. He used Bradbury as a stepping stool and then as a patsy on his rise to power, and now he has no use for him. Mobsters and gangbangers have more honor and loyalty.<br />
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The emotionally destructive sequence of Bradbury's fall is amplified by the even greater tragedy of what Hundred does to Kremlin. Hundred confronts him, perhaps to only talk him down from whatever thoughts of blackmail he may harbor, perhaps to shut him up for good. Either way, he kills Kremlin at the first chance he has, once he knows Kremlin's death and Hundred's election-theft can't be traced to him. Kremlin, the man who largely raised him, his oldest friend, one-third of The Great Machine. Kremlin held the gun, but Hundred pulled the trigger, and no matter what his intentions were going in, that was the outcome.<br />
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The message in this is pretty clear: politicians lie. They cheat, they steal, they even kill to gain and keep power. They are simply a different class of criminal. Some politicians are corrupt and serve others' bidding in exchange for power. Others will crawl over whomever they can on their way to the top. But all put on airs of honor, and all honorless. <br />
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It's a cynical view of the universe, certainly. There probably are elected officials who wish only to serve, who attain power honorably. But Mitchell Hundred is not that man. Despite whatever protestations he may make about protecting the city or the country or humanity, the ultimate ends for all of his horrible means is political. It was always about Power.<br />
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And in the end, the only superhero in the world, who used his powers to gain ultimate political power, who sacrificed everything including his friends and himself, ends up Powerless. <br />
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-- <br />
The second reinterpretation: Every single action Mitchell Hundred has taken since becoming The Great Machine has been at potential service to the hidden programming from his unknown masters.<br />
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His power over machines was created by an alternate universe version of himself, with the intention of taking over this universe. There are many, many versions of Hundred who have willingly paved the way for their universes to be overtaken by these forces.<br />
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Hundred-prime, the great designer at the center of all Great Machines, makes it crystal bloody clear that Hundred is meant for one thing, and one thing only, even if he doesn't realize it. "You've always been an ambassador for us... For every Parallel that had you trying to stop me, there were two where you were first in line to help... I'm not your reflection, Mitchell. I am he, as you are he, as you are me, and we are all together." And a money shot:<br />
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There is a certain indomitability of character Hundred evinces throughout the series. At every turn, it appears Hundred is rejecting the expectations of his benefactors. He was given superpowers with the sole purpose of paving the way for an interdimensional takeover. But every time someone tries to tell him what his powers mean, he usually rejects it outright. He simply doesn't seem to care. It's not unreasonable to believe that he doesn't care, that he is immune to the programming which effects Pherson and Padilla and nearly every other alternate-universe version of himself, that he wants to stop the invasion and save his world. That certainly plays into Hundred's role as the hero throughout the series - he intervenes in 9/11, stops Padilla's takeover of humanity, and everything in between.<br />
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Indeed, when Padilla gives him the option of ruling humanity on behalf of the invaders who gave them their powers, Hundred says "no." But it's not a definitive, action-hero go-fuck-yourself, it is a contemplative, shaky no. Hundred clearly considers Padilla's offer, and he rejects it knowing it may mean his death. But he considers it. Perhaps that is illustrative of Hundred's heroism, that he has the same human weakness, and when tested rejects that power and what it means.<br />
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But any thought of Hundred's inviolability seems to be banished by what occurs in "Vice." He seeks ultimate political power under the self-justification of stopping the interdimensional invasion. Perhaps he sees his actions as ends justifying means. He rejects Bradbury and kills Kremlin - were these political acts or elements of his programming? His heartbreaking "What did I do to you" while standing over Kremlin's body mirrors Padilla's own questioning of her actions after she kills Hundred's mom - "I'm doing the right thing. Right?"<br />
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Everything Hundred does comes with the possibility that he is acting through the hidden programming of his makers, the alternate-himselves. Multiple times in the series he notes the role that dreams play in his ascension. The designs of everything from The Great Machine to the raygun that opened the door to the other universe to the White Box that stole the election came to him as an echo of the programming that came with his powers. Far from absolving him of the responsibility for his actions, it simply adds layers to the potential malevolence at work. That this isn't just your typical scheming politician and all the associated evils of that, but an enemy agent in deep cover, fighting against his programming, perhaps an ultimate slave to it when he doesn't even realize it.<br />
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When he kills Kremlin, it's almost like an automatic response from some element of him deep within. He looks at Kremlin's body in disbelief at what he did. But this isn't to absolve Hundred of his crime. Even if it was some buried element within him that pulled the trigger, Hundred commits the act only when he knows he's in the clear. And he leaves his fallen friend to rot, ignominiously, forgotten, alone. Be it some deep cover programming or basic survival at all costs, Hundred is utterly complicit in this act. In all of his acts as The Great Machine and beyond.<br />
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His murder of Kremlin is one of the hardest things to reconcile - Hundred has repeatedly shown himself to be rejecting the influences of his makers. But both interpretations I propose above have profoundly negative consequences for the future. If it was just an element of his programming that caused him to steal the election and murder Kremlin, what else is going on, what else could happen? But if it was just a larger symptom of Hundred's true nature as political beast willing to do anything in his quest for power, no matter his motivation, then what else is going on, what else could happen?<br />
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Who else is going to die because of Hundred? Who else is he going to kill? Will he even succeed at his Quixotic task of protecting the Earth from invasion? Will he be the cause it? <br />
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--<br />
Beyond these interpretations, "Vice" forces a full reconsideration of all the events that came before. I have never quite encountered a piece of fiction that creates this effect so stunningly. The twist at the end of <i>Sixth Sense</i> and the revelations of the Shadows and Vorlon's true intentions (not to mention Garabaldi's betrayal) in <i>Babylon 5</i> come to mind. But they don't come close to the impact "Vice" has on the reader, both emotional and intellectual and downright visceral.<br />
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<i>Ex Machina</i> is commentary on Power. It examines the consequences of superpowers through a logical and reconstructive lens. It explores the role of power in our lives, especially political power. It asks fundamental questions about the type of person that would seek that power, and the effect that quest has on those around them.<br />
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<i>Ex Machina</i> is vital and important work, effective as a superhero story, a political story, a science fiction work, all beautifully executed throughout. Certainly uneven in some parts, in the end it comes together in the pièce de résistance of "Vice." <br />
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Thank you for reading this far. This is the end of my story-by-story examinations of <i>Ex Machina</i>, but I'm not quite done yet. In the coming weeks I will have two more pieces on <i>Ex Machina</i> - one on the book's unique role as reconstructive post-superhero fiction, and finally a look at sexuality in <i>Ex Machina</i>. <br />
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<i>Ex Machina 50</i>, "Vice" is collected in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401228364/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401228364&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina Volume 10: Term Limits</i></a> (November 2010) and in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401229999/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401229999&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20">Ex Machina Book 5</a> </i>(Hardcover, April 2011) from DC/WildStorm.Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-12654291845857012892013-11-07T18:01:00.000-05:002013-11-07T18:01:38.376-05:00Nice Art: Twenty Years of Conan Bumps by Kevin Frank<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conan O'Brien, by Conan O'Brien</td></tr>
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For about two weeks now <b>Conan O'Brien</b> has been celebrating twenty years on the air, showing best-of clips from all three iterations of Conan's long-running late night franchise. Through next week on TeamCoco.com they are also hosting a slew of classic Conan clips, including a significant amount of material from his many years at NBC. As a huge Conan fan from almost the beginning, watching these clips again has been a genuine thrill; so many memories, so many feels, as the kids say.<br />
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One of the niftier things currently up is a full gallery of bumps (title cards) from the entire history of the show by artist and designer <b>Kevin Frank</b>. Over the course of the series, Frank designed hundreds of clever, funny, and even striking images that weave the peculiar Conan iconography into well-known pieces of art, historical images and pop culture memes before meme was a word.<br />
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Some of the best, of course, were Frank's use of popular and obscure comic imagery. Here are four of his killer comic inspired Conan designs:<br />
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I love the more obscure Chris Ware references, especially in the final image. If you weren't familiar with Ware's work, it would be just a cute little sequential drawing of Conan and guests; knowing Ware's work and styles adds a distinct punch to the image.<br />
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Frank created hundreds of these images, showing a chameleon like ability to seamlessly absorb and subvert dozens of different artists', photographers' and designers' styles. Many, many more Frank-designed bumps are online at <a href="http://teamcoco.com/Conan20">TeamCoco.com/Conan20</a> through November 15. For more on Kevin Frank, visit <a href="http://kevinfrankpaintings.com/">http://kevinfrankpaintings.com</a>Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com1Brooklyn, NY 11215, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-50494472556758834362013-11-06T02:36:00.000-05:002013-11-13T13:08:40.439-05:00Opening Night at the Jack Kirby Pop-Up Museum [The Beat]<i><b>This article was originally published Monday on <a href="http://comicsbeat.com/kirbymuseum/">The Beat</a>.</b></i><br />
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As Rand Hoppe, founder and Director of the Jack Kirby Museum told me tonight, "Jack Kirby hated the Lower East Side." Kirby would tell World War II stories and talk about the creation of his art all day, but when it came to the L.E.S., all he wanted to do was get the hell out. The Lower East Side of Manhattan was a very different place in Kirby's youth, and the neighborhood has had more than its share of ups and downs in the nigh-Century since the King was born. However, it is not irony, but Kirby-cosmic kismet that as part of the neighborhood's recent resurgence, her greatest son found a spotlight here. As part of the Kickstarter-funded Made In The Lower East Side's Storefront Transformer Project, the Jack Kirby Museum has been given a storefront "pop-up" gallery for this week only, dubbed Prototype: Alpha, the opening of which was Monday Night.<br />
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A pretty decent crowd of supporters, NYC comic professionals, and a few curious onlookers, braved the chilly autumn evening to attend the opening-night festivities at the gallery tucked into a storefront at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge. It's a tiny space, put together quickly but efficiently by the Kirby Museum's small band of organizers, specifically Hoppe and Museum secretary and digital guru Tom Kraft. As Kraft told me, everything Hoppe and Kraft and the other museum supporters do is entirely voluntary and largely out-of-pocket, a true labor of love.<br />
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To date, the non-profit Kirby Museum, which has been in constant development since 2005, has not had a physical space to exhibit. This temporary "pop-up" space is the Museum's chance to show what it can do, raise awareness for Kirby and the Museum, and to raise funds to someday find a permanent home. That is still some ways off, though. There are few permanent comic museums in the United States, and the costs of finding and setting up a permanent space are enormous. But if there is any significant American artist who deserves it, Kirby's the one. And it is evident that Hoppe, Kraft and crew are the ones to someday achieve this.<br />
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Funding is not the only hurdle to overcome, of course. The biggest is the availability of original art to display. It's no secret that one of the great tragedies of Kirby's career was the scattering and destruction of so many of his original pieces. What remains is in the hands of collectors spread across the world. But the folks at the Kirby Museum, at least in this pop-up exhibition, have come up with a pretty decent compromise. While the amount of physical art in the Museum's possession is small, their digital holdings are enormous - to date, they have full-color, full-page high definition scans of over three thousand Kirby pages, plus five thousand more scans of copies. For this exhibit, the museum has produced high quality prints of some key pieces in their archive.<br />
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If anyone might be disappointed in the concept of looking at a "copy," they need only look at the quality of work produced in IDW's extraordinary Artist Editions as an example of the work displayed this week. By going to prints, it allows the Museum to display important pieces at full-size with no loss in visual quality. Looking at the pieces on display this week, including some Fantastic Four pin-ups, about a dozen pages from Silver Age Marvel and a handful of DC material, if you didn't know they were prints you'd think they were the real thing. And as it is massively unlikely that you will ever be in the same room as original Kirby art, seeing these full-size prints, with the white-out and corrections and Kirby's extensive marginalia, is still pretty thrilling.<br />
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There is just a small handful of pieces on display, but there is also a pretty killer oversized print of trippy Kirby painting, some copies of pencils of the one story he did about his youth, and a small piece connecting Kirby to the Lower East Side, replete with census records and classic photos. The big windows to the street feature a glorious, massive Silver Surfer drawing, enticing you to come in. <br />
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Far from being a staid, dry exhibit, the Museum actually encourages hands-on exploration of Kirby's art. You can get as close as you want to the prints, and even flip some of them between the finished comic image, Kirby's full page art, and copies of his pencils. There are iPads presented to explore just a small fraction of the Museum's digital holdings. The potential for interactivity with this technology as we can see right now in museums across the world is immense.<br />
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Hoppe, who has very clearly made it his life's mission to spread the Gospel of Kirby, was very pleased by the success of Monday Night's inaugural turnout. There will also be a couple of fascinating talks given at the site later this week. A highlight looks to be "Ya’akov Kurtzberg – King of Comics," a lecture from Arlen Schumer. Schumer is known for his engaging and entertaining lectures, and if his enthusiasm Monday night was any indication, it looks like it will be a lot of fun. Also available are a small selection of Kirby books and t-shirts donated to the Museum for this event by Two Morrows, Fantagraphics, Arlen Schumer, and local NYC retailers Forbidden Planet and JHU Comic Books. (Perfunctory conflict notice, I worked for JHU for about six years until last week.)<br />
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As kind-of a full-scale mock-up of the possible, the exhibit is very effective. But tiny. Very tiny. Even taking your time, which you should do, it will take less than ten minutes to peruse the offerings. But that is all part of this exhibit's importance. This isn't the Museum but what the Museum could be. This is a What If in its purest form. What If there was a museum dedicated to one of American art's most important figures? What If we could celebrate his achievements and his seismic cultural contributions in an accessible, interactive way? What If The King had a Throne? This exhibit isn't a dream given form, but a dream given the notice it deserves. This is the first baby step in the mountain that will need to be climbed, but an important step nonetheless. And it is a good example of the work being done diligently by the Museum to archive Kirby's artistic legacy, and to spread the word on Kirby.<br />
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<i>The Jack Kirby Museum's Prototype Alpha pop-up installation is at 178 Delancey Street in Manhattan through November 10th. Admission is free with a suggested donation of $2. For more on the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center, visit <a href="http://kirbymuseum.org/">http://kirbymuseum.org/</a> </i>Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-51099223264272745712013-11-03T22:44:00.000-05:002013-11-03T22:44:27.329-05:00New, J. Michael Straczynski Interviewed, Protectors Inc #1 Reviewed<b><a href="http://comicsbeat.com/straczynskizone/">New! Now online at The Beat</a>, I interview J. Michael Straczynski about his new <i>Twilight Zone</i> Comic, out this January from Dynamite.<i> </i></b><br />
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<b>And<i> Protectors Inc. #1</i> by J. Michael Straczynski is out this Wednesday from Joe's Comics. <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ProtectorsInc.html">Click here for my original review</a>.</b>Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-81175969489152974122013-11-02T23:00:00.000-04:002014-01-01T15:03:44.183-05:00The Run: Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris: Term Limits<b>The Comic Pusher Presents The Run: </b><b>Ex Machina</b><b> Part Seven</b><br />
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<i>In </i>The Run<i>, I review long-form comic works across multiple parts. In Part Seven of my series on </i>Ex Machina<i> by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris, I look at the next two stories, </i>Ring Out The Old<i> and </i>Pro-Life<i>.</i><i> <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/12/ExMachina.html">For the other reviews in this series, click here</a>.</i> <br />
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<i>Ex Machina</i>, as I have noted, works on many levels. It's layered and nuanced, and there are so many things going on that, once revealed, put the entire series in a whole new light. In my writings about it here for <i>The Run</i>, I've been trying to find the right balance of reviewing the story without giving away the layered meanings that become evident on reexamination. There is no way to put what happens in context without giving away quite a bit; the series raises many questions, and explodes many of our perceptions of what is happening to the characters, indeed who the characters even are. These are all elements that warrant further discussion that I have been largely holding off, until now. Fair warning, in my final two installments in this series, the first of which is presented here, the unavoidable spoiler-factor increases with every paragraph. <br />
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<i><b>Ring Out The Old </b></i><br />
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It's New Years Eve. 2005 is about to start, and Mitchell Hundred has just called a press conference to announce that he would not be seeking a second term. He tells the press he can better serve the city by focusing on being mayor, not trying to scramble together a second campaign. He endorses David Wylie to be the next mayor, and exits to get about the business of running the city. But there's more going on.<br />
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Hundred knows he is meant for more. The President offered him the U.N. ambassadorship after the Trouble trouble in <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina6.html"><i>Dirty Tricks</i></a>. In <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina5.html"><i>Ex Cathedra</i></a>, he had a vision (of sorts) from God (or something) telling him he would be President. And now, even the Governor's cronies are sucking up to him. Despite the evidence they have, or at least claim to have, evidence Hundred had locked away in his safe. A safe January Moore broke into on behalf of Kremlin. January wants to take down the Mayor for what happened to her sister. Kremlin still harbors an almost deranged fantasy of destroying Hundred politically while somehow turning Hundred into the Great Machine again. What Kremlin and January found, they turned over to Suzanne Padilla, one-time confidant and almost/maybe lover to the Mayor, and more importantly a reporter sitting on a big story. The information in that file could take down Hundred, and when Hundred gets wind of Padilla's investigation, he sends Bradbury to cover things up.<br />
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Meanwhile, and there's always a meanwhile, something bloody weird is going on. Amidst flashbacks to The Great Machine's encounters with the animal-controlling arch-enemy Pherson, hordes of rats begin to attack people. The attacks present a security and public relations nightmare for Hundred's administration as the clock quickly counts down to New Year's. And Hundred knows that there is a connection, somehow to Pherson. And there is, just not in any way he could have imagined.<br />
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With little other apparent recourse, he suits up and heads into the sewers that make the center of the animal activity, and he comes across someone... something that defies the natural order of things, that shouldn't exist. (This will be happening to Hundred a lot over the next few months.) The... person/thing controlling the animal attacks appears before Hundred, and Hundred shoots it, revealing its true nature, a pink box on a humanoid body. "Hello, demon," it says. "I was sent here to tell you that God is very disappointed. You were forsaken the tongues of fire with which you were blessed."<br />
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The bubbling undercurrent of trippy sci-fi becomes a raging torrent of interdimensional horror in <i>Ring Out The Old</i>. Vaughan still frames it with some mystery, but not in any obstructive way - dialog with something from another reality is bound to be a little obtuse. Now we have a clearer idea of just who the hell <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina5.html">Zeller</a> was and what he was talking about in <i>Power Down</i>. And if there was any ambiguity about the how and why of Hundred's powers, it is shattered by the revelations from the machine-man to the man who can talk to machines, down below in the guts of the city. <br />
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What Vaughan achieves in these few, tense pages are astonishing. He reveals the truth he has been telling you all along, and it lands like a tidal wave. The way he has structured the entire superstory comes into sharp focus, and it is beautiful and horrifying. Vaughan's master-class in story structure is amplified by Harris's own unique storytelling. Harris is equally comfortable at illustrating long talking-heads sequences with politicians in suits and intense bursts of superhero daring, and now, as we can see, interdimensional monsters. Harris, with inker Jim Clark and colorist JD Mettler, sets a mood of perfectly realized menace and suspense.<br />
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The revelations of the how of Hundred happen at the same time that the Kremlin conspiracy meets its first sudden, tragic end. Bradbury tracks down the White Box, the object revealed in the stolen file. During the election in 2001, Hundred had Bradbury go to certain polling places with the White Box. Polling places Hundred would surprisingly win. Hundred assured Bradbury that there was nothing untoward about the White Box, that it was to protect the people of the City. That it came to him in a dream, like The Great Machine. So Bradbury gets to the box, and Padilla gets to Bradbury, and something snaps. Bradbury lashes out - perhaps it was just a simple mistake during an emotionally wrenching time, perhaps it was violent reaction to his own role in what the box represents, about Hundred, about himself. He strikes Padilla with it. Just as the monster reveals to Hundred the spectrum of evil that should have taken over when Hundred received his powers... Violet for the beasts, Red for the crops, Green for the machines, and white, for the soldiers. <br />
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At that moment, Suzanne Padilla, reporter for The Voice, gains the ability to control human beings, and with it the programming to destroy the world. As he presses the button that drops the ball on 2004, the threats facing Hundred in 2005 are now clear: He was meant to be a weapon for an interdimensional invasion. And that invasion hasn't been thwarted yet.<br />
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<i><b>Pro-Life</b></i><br />
<i><b> </b></i> <br />
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<i>Ring Out The Old</i> transitions into the penultimate storyline, <i>Pro-Life</i>. Well, obviously it looks like we are going to tackle abortion. A little bit, anyway. Like all the political issues in <i>Ex Machina</i>, it takes a back seat to something else. Which is fine, really, considering all the crazy shit that's about to go down.<br />
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Like with anything to do with choice and anti-choice (or pro-choice and pro-life, sure), it's not about the actual issue but about political maneuvering. And that's what is happening here. Wylie, a liberal who put in his lot with a pure independent political wild-card in Hundred, ramping up his nascent mayoral campaign, finds himself somewhat lost in the political wilderness. As the Hundred administration winds down, Wylie wants to use millions to get more Morning-After pills into women's hands. Hundred doesn't want to touch this with a ten foot pole, mostly because he has a larger political future than city politics. And largely because he doesn't quite know what to think about it, or so he claims. Ultimately, Wylie (doing what Candy suggested to Hundred) leaked the plan to the press, forcing Hundred to come out against it, pushing him to the middle for any future national race, and propping up Wylie for the Mayoral election. Good old fashioned politics. <br />
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But, oh, yeah, there's a secret war on. Suzanne Padilla, now imbued with the power of The Voice, able to control human actions, has a plan. She kidnaps January and forces her to do her bidding. Certainly Padilla isn't pure villain, but frankly overcome by the programming that came with her powers. Programming that Hundred has managed to avoid, or so it seems. She confronts Hundred, offering him rule over humanity, which he refuses. She throws him into the East River, and then tracks down Hundred's mom. But this isn't about petty revenge, Hundred's mom just happens to have the second raygun Hundred had from his Great Machine days. This gun, however, is the portal to the universe with the invasion force meant to take over this world. And Padilla gets the gun. And she kills Hundred's mom.<br />
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The story's relationship with superpowers takes a fascinating turn in this story. Obviously Hundred and Pherson had some kind of supranatural control over objects and living things, but the way Vaughan presents powers in <i>Ex Machina</i> makes it isolated, and still somewhat believable even within the context of its realistic, reconstructive approach. But I love, love, love the reactions to Padilla's super-strength and flying abilities. The first page where she floats, goddess-like in January's kitchen is arresting. Hundred can barely comprehend what is happening to him when she shows up. The revulsion of seeing the physically impossible seems to exceed even that of the window into the hell awaiting Earth on the other side of the universal divide. <br />
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Padilla seeks to execute the plans deep within her programming, to open the door to the other universe and let in her masters and set humanity against itself. She gets on the air and tells New York to "Raise Hell," and the City obliges, compelled by the power of The Voice to destroy one another. As the city erupts into violence and chaos, Hundred works out a plan to reverse the effect (same way he defeated Pherson) and he suits up one last time to confront Padilla. He manages to defeat her - the nullifier Hundred supposedly created - now in Padilla's possession - is bullshit, it never worked. It was all part and parcel of Hundred's manipulations to gain political power. The series's most revelatory moment occurs here: Padilla is hurled to her death in the other dimension, and Hundred tells the complete truth, a truth that shatters the perception of Hundred up to this point: "I'm a politician, Suzanne. I lie."<br />
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<a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/11/ExMachina7.html">There's more - This review continues after the jump!</a><br />
<a name='more'></a>I'll have quite a bit more on the ramifications of this specific turn in my final installment. We still need the final context of the tragedies to come in the finale, because we're not close to done yet. We've seen the horrors of 2005 that Hundred tells us about in <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/09/ExMachinaPart1.html">the first scene of the first issue</a>, but the ultimate tragedy, and the ultimate meaning of the series is still to be revealed. <br />
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-- <br />
Of note in <i>Pro-Life</i> is the way Harris's art changes in the story. In the collected editions of the series, there is a significant amount of juicy backmatter detailing Harris's processes. We see his own influences on the story (including changing the nature of Hundred's powers and his very look) and his extensive and remarkably effective use of photo referencing. We also get a look at some of his visual experimentation earlier on in the series, but it is in <i>Pro-Life</i> that Harris modifies his art style, completely changing the look and tone of sequences, reflecting the emotional toll effecting the characters.<br />
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I marvel at his ability to make long, talky sequences engaging. Just as expressive as Harris's faces are his hands. In <i>Ring Out The Old</i>, a sequence between Tripp and Hundred is entirely framed by the characters' hands. In <i>Pro-Life</i>, a conversation between Angotti and Hundred is stunningly presented in gorgeously laid-out whole-page constructions of elegant, curved panels with a focus on Angotti's smooth, effortless handling of a gun. It's sequences like these that mirror Harris's ceaselessly astounding cover work on the series. <br />
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As <i>Pro-Life</i> plows forward into Padilla's assault, the emotional consequences are reflected in the art changes. The flashback, nightmare, and rescue sequences after Padilla throws Hundred into the East River are rendered with Harris's finest line yet produced in the series. There's more cross-hatching and fine detail, culminating in the murder of Hundred's mother. (Vaughan and murdering mothers: he killed off Yorick's mom in <i>Y: The Last Man</i>, too.) When Hundred is told of his mother's death, the art breaks down into flats, an all-white panel of complete loss, a lone cigarette falling from Kremlin's trembling hands above.<br />
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Hundred, overwhelmed by grief, breaks down. The break down in the detail of the art in the page before that, flat, blurry, monotonous, reflects the collapse in Hundred's world. A universal fuzziness to mirror the cloud of grief engulfing him now. <br />
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And within the same issue is Padilla's hijacking of the airwaves and forcing the City into chaos. Padilla, especially Padilla as The Voice, is Harris's most vividly rendered character in the series. The ultimate villain, she is lushly presented throughout, especially in the sequences where she uses her powers. But on the page where she sends New York into the Horrors, she is presented in shadow, a chiaroscuro rendition seen nowhere else in the series. And just look at the way January, enslaved to Padilla, melts into the background of the top panel. If she wasn't pleading for our lives, we wouldn't even know she's there.<br />
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This is followed by a splash-page that looks almost painted, as if by another artist. The image manages to be just as affecting as the prior splash page where she murders Hundred's mother. <br />
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Though his role is minimized in these sequences, the inker, Jim Clark, deserves no small amount of credit. Clark's inks become somewhat secondary in the sequences I show above, and Harris actually inks himself in the wogboggling final chapter. But the real artistic co-star of this series is colorist JD Mettler. Mettler's dynamic and bold coloring throughout is one of the wonders of this series. His thoughtful and engaging color choices highlight Harris's art. Coloring is easy to do badly and hard to do well, and Mettler's cinematographic contributions are one of the key components of <i>Ex Machina</i>'s artistic success. <br />
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--<br />
I cannot praise enough the intensity, the drama, the action, the heights achieved by Vaughan and Harris in these two stories. It is only surpassed by the story to follow, the finale, "Vice."<br />
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There is a laundry-list of things Vaughan and Harris deftly pull off in <i>Ex Machina</i>, the most impressive is the superhero aspect of the series. There are certain kinds of superhero stories often done and redone to death. One of them is the "real" superhero, the exploration of superhero tropes through the lens of real-world logic. <i>Ex Machina</i> is that type of series, repeatedly delving into the unique futility of the very idea of costumed superpowered vigilantism. Another disparate type of commonly executed superhero story is one where the hero is pitted up against massive odds, usually exemplified by an invasion from another world or dimension.<i> Ex Machina</i> reveals itself to be both of these. <br />
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But <i>Ex Machina </i>is also a fiercely political book - not necessarily politics in ideas put forth, but a story about politics and power. It is a remarkably straightforward exploration of realpolitik and the mechanics of municipality, wrapped in a cultural history of a city and her people.<i> Ex Machina</i> uses a conflict against monsters from another dimension and associated stories about the nature of vigilante justice as a launchpad into commentary on the costs of political power. <br />
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And the story of political power is often written in the conquered, be it the blood of the losers or what you lose and who you are willing to ruin on your way to the top. <i>Ex Machina</i> is a superhero story, it is a sci-fi story, it is an alternate history story, and it is - most of all - a political story, and there is no politician who is innocent.<br />
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Least of all Mitchel Hundred. The Great Machine. The Harbinger. The Voice. The Demon. And I'll cover that, and the repainting effect it has on the entire story, in my final installment. <br />
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--<br />
<a href="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=thcobopuma-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=1401226949"><i>Ex Machina Volume 9: Ring Out The Old</i></a> (May 2010) was originally serialized by DC/WildStorm in <i>Ex Machina 41-44</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>Pro-Life</i> was serialized in <i>Ex Machina 45-49</i> and is collected in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401228364/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401228364&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina Volume 10: Term Limits</i></a> (November 2010).<br />
<br />
Both stories are also collected in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401229999/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401229999&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20">Ex Machina Book 5</a> </i>(Hardcover, April 2011).<br />
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Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-90078716244303112912013-10-31T22:13:00.000-04:002013-11-10T17:32:10.752-05:00Sibling Rivalry in Los Bros Hernandez's Love and Rockets New Stories 6<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1606996797/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1606996797&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Love and Rockets: New Stories 6</i></a> by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez</b> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1606996797/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1606996797&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_KkYQxVDuLE/UnMErX6JtBI/AAAAAAAACNk/Oo5C0lCB6Iw/s1600/LR6.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1606996797/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1606996797&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><b><i>Love and Rockets: New Stories #6</i></b></a><br />
By Jaime Hernandez and Gilbert Hernandez<br />
Fantagraphics, 2013</td></tr>
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Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez have been producing their venerated anthology <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/02/reading-love-and-rockets-definitive.html"><i>Love and Rockets</i> for 32 years now</a>. As is usually the case, Jaime's stories focus on the one, long epic work of love, life, family and friendship that he has been weaving for over three decades, the <i>Locas</i> cycle of graphic novels. Gilbert alternates between his own Palomar/Luba epic and many self-contained works. Each brother has a unique voice and unique visual style, and one could make the argument for either brother being this country's finest cartoonist. That both put out their work through this one, remarkable anthology makes each <i>Love and Rockets</i> installment a seismic literary event. <br />
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2013 has absolutely the year of Gilbert - between two <i>Love and Rockets</i> reprint collections,<i> <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/04/JuliosDay.html">Julio's Day</a></i> and <i>Children of Palomar</i>, and two new original graphic novels, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/05/MarbleSeason.html"><i>Marble Season</i></a> and the latest of his Lubaverse movie "adaptations" <i>Maria M</i>, Gilbert continues to cement his reputation as one of the most prolific and important voices in comics. No-one holds a candle to what he is able to accomplish year-in, year-out. Except for maybe Jaime, whose quantity of output doesn't come close to Gilbert's, but whose quality is nearly unmatched in comics.<br />
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Yeah, if someone put a gun to my head and told me to choose, I'm a Jaime guy, always have been. That isn't to discount Gilbert, but something about Jaime's stuff has always connected with me in a way that Gilbert's hasn't. But that's almost like being given two identical bars of platinum and being told to choose between the two. Or maybe ripping the baby in half with the bathwater (or something). Anyway, <i>New Stories 6</i> is a great example of the strengths and differences in each creator's works. <br />
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<i>Love and Rockets New Stories 6</i> is about family. With each brother always doing their own unconnected thing, it is rare to see a thematic commonality between their individual works, The obvious through-line in this year's volume between both creators' work is the unique relationship that adult siblings share. Your brother or sister will be the original and best frenemy you will ever have, and both Jaime and Gilbert play with that to different degrees in <i>New Stories 6</i>. I don't think the thematic overlap was a conscious decision between Los Bros, but a happy coincidence, and a natural extension of the stories each has been telling.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ajt_TnR44kw/UnMFaFklfiI/AAAAAAAACNs/d2bX6HQlJTI/s1600/Beto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ajt_TnR44kw/UnMFaFklfiI/AAAAAAAACNs/d2bX6HQlJTI/s1600/Beto.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some Gilbert</td></tr>
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Gilbert continues his long, winding soap opera of Luba's descendants, popping between Palomar and Hollywood. The trials and tribulations of the Luba clan take center stage, with focus jumping around between various generations of sisters as they deal with the small dramas of life and celebrity. We get to visit current-day Palomar, with all of its associated phantoms, and we get movies-within-flashbacks as Gilbert traverses the labyrinth he has constructed for thirty years. But even longtime readers may have difficulty keeping track of what's going on and who's who without consulting the infinitely valuable resource of this year's <i>Love and Rockets</i> companion. I know these stories will work better when all is collected in some future hardcover, it just gets a little hard to follow at points. Gilbert's Lubaverse stuff is sadly impenetrable for the uninitiated. <br />
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Far more accessible are Jaime's stories. Despite never really veering from the established narrative he has set up in his decades-running Locas cycle, Jaime still manages to produce superb, almost stand-alone narratives that are vital architectural components to a very large building. The focus this time around is away from Maggie and Ray, but considering the emotional wreckage that occurs in <i>New Stories 4</i>, this is not surprising. With <i>New Stories 5</i>, Jaime turned the focus over to the new character Tonta, sister to recurring character Vivian (frogmouth!). Angel, from <i>God and Science</i>, also plays a minor role, but the main characters are Tonta and her four mostly adult half-sisters and brother. <br />
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The first thing that jumps out about <i>New Stories 6</i> is the sheer amount of short stories packed into the volume. Jaime alone uses 17 short chapters to tell his story (largely though variously titled <i>Crimen</i>, Spanish for Crime). But far from being interruptive, the vignettes that make up <i>Crimen</i> work to build an easily accessible larger narrative in intense bursts. As Jaime's story effortlessly glides forward, we are introduced and reintroduced to Tonta's extended clan of sisters from different misters (and a half-brother she never realized she had). Throughout <i>Crimen</i>, the siblings must come to a difficult decision to go after their own mother for the possible murder of their respective fathers, a decision that ignites a media firestorm and threatens to splinter each of their lives. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qaw240iVNAM/UnMFq8PrSOI/AAAAAAAACN0/NZogipRaIpk/s1600/xaimeh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qaw240iVNAM/UnMFq8PrSOI/AAAAAAAACN0/NZogipRaIpk/s1600/xaimeh.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some Jaime</td></tr>
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Despite the potential headiness of the subject matter, Jaime still tells the story with humor and a fiery visual joie de vivre. His mastery of the physical form he consistently shows in his work is breathtaking. The way he effectively mixes almost cartoony emotional sight-gags of character reactions with the visual, kinesiological poetry of the human form in movement in his wrestling sequences is stunning. Effortless is a such good word for Jaime's stuff. That isn't to say Jaime put no work into it or that it's sloppy, far from it. Jaime's stuff in <i>New Stories 6</i> is so perfectly constructed, so beautifully and simply illustrated, that it is a pleasure, a joy, an ease to read. There are so few long-form works that are so consistently amazing as Jaime's, certainly nothing with <i>Locas</i>' length and depth. <br />
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In <i>Crimen</i>, Jaime delivers a nearly stand-alone, accessible graphic novel about crime and brothers and sisters and the perils of memory and family, a beautiful, funny, fantastic work on par with everything else he has done. It's accessibility, especially compared to most of the intricately interconnected <i>Locas</i> run, is a happy accident.<br />
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But while Gilbert's stories are slightly more obtuse, he still manages to deliver one of the best short stories of the year. "Untitled" on page 59 is a stunning, visual feast of profanity and weirdness. No-one can do weird quite like Gilbert Hernandez, and sometimes you just need an injection of the bizarre into your life. Certainly Gilbert's weirdness can be overwhelming and is best served in small doses. "Untitled" presents just the right level of brevity and bizarreness.<br />
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<i>Love and Rockets New Stories 6</i> is another great installment of the venerable anthology from Los Bros Hernandez. <i>Love and Rockets</i> continues to be a vital and important ongoing document of two creators at the absolute height of their powers, and the only venue to read new material from Jaime. The brothers' respective works, their respective worlds, stand alone - but in <i>Love and Rockets</i> we get the privilege of experiencing jolts of both, alternating between brother and brother, between greatness and greatness.<br />
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--<br />
For my definitive guide on all things <i>Love and Rockets</i>, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/02/reading-love-and-rockets-definitive.html"><b>click here</b></a>. Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-31604981249256915052013-10-30T01:45:00.000-04:002013-11-03T01:42:35.623-05:00NYCC 2013 Panel Report: John Layman and Rob Guillory on Chew [The Beat]<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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During <b>New York Comic Con</b>, I reported from the <b><i>Chew </i>Panel with John Layman and Rob Guillory</b>. <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/11/NYCCChew.html">After the jump</a> is a repost of my original panel report from the Con <a href="http://comicsbeat.com/nycc-13-the-chew-panel/">for The Beat</a>. <br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
<a href="http://comicsbeat.com/nycc-13-the-chew-panel/">This article originally appeared on Comics Beat, October 12, 2013</a>. <br />
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Friday at New York Comic Con, creators John Layman and Rob Guillory talked to several hundred fans of their hugely entertaining, humorous, action-drama series <i>Chew</i>.<br />
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They talked about upcoming issues in the current stoyline. Next month’s Issue 38 will be Colby/Savoy focused and set in the FDA prison. Additionally, writer Layman revealed that a background character on the cover is the villain from the flash-forward from issue 17.<br />
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Artist Guillory is chiefly responsible for the visual easter-eggs that are one of the series’ hall-marks. Layman never sees the gags until the very end of the production process. Guillory, on the strengths of his art: “I think there are a lot of artists that are better than me, technically, but I think my strength is that you can read <i>Chew</i> without any words and probably get it.”<br />
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When asked about the amount of research he puts into the various unique powers, Layman said “I don’t do any research, everything is B.S. Except [with the names] I look into linguistic things, Latin and Greek root words, which technically are not supposed to mix. It takes me a while to find the right rhythm, what sounds right.”<br />
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“The next arc is called <i>Chicken Tenders</i> and it is completely Poyo-centric,” said Layman, featuring the hugely popular assassin rooster. It will be five issues plus another Poyo special one-shot. (Guillory wants a chromium cover for the story at some point.) The popularity and importance of Poyo in the story wasn’t planned but grew organically from the craziness of the eventual execution of the character. Issue 42 is a murder mystery Poyo must solve.<br />
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The series will end at issue 60, which has long been the plan. On why 60, Layman said “Because <i>Preacher</i> is 60, because <i>Transmet</i>[<i>ropolitan</i>] is 60, because<i> Y </i>[<i>The Last Man</i>] is 60.” There are four story arcs left after the current one is complete. As noted, the next arc is centered around Poyo, the arc after that will be about the vampire, the penultimate arc will be about Savoy, and the final story will be back to being centered on Tony Chu. About the wacky presentations of federal agencies, “The EPA will probably show up at some point.”<br />
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There is an Absolute-like slipcased hardcover coming out, called the Smorgasbord edition. (It is currently available at the Convention and will be available in stores next month.) It is the first of three such collections, each having 20 issues. “We’ll never have a compendium with all sixty issues,” said Layman, contrasting the experience of reading the much denser <i>Chew</i> to something like quicker <i>Walking Dead</i> which is available in compendiums.<br />
<br />
When someone asked about the book’s racial diversity, Layman said “It wasn’t really conscious. Comics are too white.” (There was a big round of applause to this.) “Rob designs the characters as he sees fit, and makes things more diverse.” He noted that there has never been any push-back from Image.<br />
<br />
About planning ahead, Layman said “I know where I have to be at the end of every arc and where the characters have to be. And who lives and who dies. I was kind of bummed when Glenn died in <i>The</i> <i>Walking Dead</i>, so I decided that someone else would survive as pushback for Kirkman.” Guillory noted that the day the first met, Layman drunkenly told him the plot of the whole story.<br />
<br />
About the long-in-development television adaptation, “The Showtime thing went away.” They are with new “Hollywood people” who they feel will better represent their wants and needs from an adaptation. If an adaptation goes forward, they wouldn’t do animation if it wasn’t visually like Guillory’s distinct, highly stylized art. About live action, Guillory would want to be intimately involved with the production: “I would like to be involved, especially [with decisions about] the acting, if that would even be possible. I have very specific things in my brain about how the characters act, and how they react. It’s a humor thing. And I would like to be involved in design things, like character design.”<br />
<br />
About their favorite issue of the series, Layman says that usually it’s the most recent issue. “I’ll have an issue that is my favorite until the next favorite comes along. Thirty was really a high-point, for both of us.” Added Guillory, about the issue’s shocking turn of events, “And a low point.” Layman continued: “I really loved 36, [which is] weird because 37 was a better comic.” (I agree.) Guillory’s favorite was the Secret Agent Poyo one-shot. Just because its so out there. I’m a big fan of cheesy ’80s action flicks. [The one-shot] is in the mode of really ridiculous action movie.”<br />
<br />
Layman and Guillory answered questions from fans and talked for several more minutes. I’m personally a big fan of this series. Each successive issue gets stronger and stronger. The creators continue to mix inventive, high-concept, high-energy weirdness with fantastic character drama and genuine hilarity in story & art. Layman and Guillory are working a pretty special voodoo with this book, and I look forward to the final stories as they are published over the next two years.Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-84528593309590959502013-10-29T20:58:00.001-04:002013-11-03T01:53:20.853-05:00DC Unapproves New York.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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New York City is the cultural and historical capital of the American mainstream comics industry. The vast majority of golden age creators were New York kids or creators who came to New York from around the world. And DC has been at the center of that since 1934. But in recent years, their corporate parents have been consolidating operations on the West Coast, and as of 2015, DC will have <a href="http://comicsbeat.com/the-end-of-the-big-two-era-confirmed-as-diane-nelson-confirms-dc-entertainment-relocation-to-west-coast/">left New York City</a>.<br />
<br />
I know a couple of DC staffers, and I know their lives are going to be effected by this. My best wishes to all the staffers who have got to make some hard decisions. In terms of how this will really effect mainstream comics, it's frankly negligible. Corporate comics are created by all kinds of folks in all kinds different places. Geographical proximity is no longer necessary to make safe factory-line WFH comics. And it's a smart business strategy from LA-based TimeWarnerBrosDCEntertainment. All that said,<br />
<br />
Their loss. New York is by far one of the best cities in the world and far better than Los Angeles in every conceivable category (and I originally typed them all out; there are many). By leaving New York you loose the energy and life and hyperdense overlapping of cultures and genre and languages and lifestyles and media. By going to Los Angeles, you gain nothing.<br />
<br />
No matter, it's too late for DC. Elements of their editorial structure are widely reported to have shown themselves to be creatively bankrupt and managerially incompetent. They make some pretty awful comics. NYC-based Marvel is not immune to this condition, but is far better by any measure.<br />
<br />
Yes, when it comes to my preferred flavor of Superhero comics, I make mine Marvel. But DC keeps giving me reasons that validate that predilection. And if you want out of the greatest city in the world to go to that cultural dump, go ahead.<br />
<br />
I am clearly biased towards New York, too. But this is a natural consequence of the city being as amazing as it is. Don't hate the player, hare the game.<br />
<br />
I'm going to go write about <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/02/reading-love-and-rockets-definitive.html">Love and Rockets</a> now. Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-15388468790193446342013-10-27T23:38:00.000-04:002014-01-01T15:04:35.327-05:00The Run: Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris: World's Finest<b>The Comic Pusher Presents The Run: </b><i><b>Ex Machina</b></i><b> Part Six</b><i><b> </b></i><br />
<br />
<i>In </i>The Run<i>, I review long-form comic works across multiple parts. In Part Six of my series on </i>Ex Machina<i> by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris, I look at the next six stories, "Masquerade," "World's Finest," "The Race,"</i> Dirty Tricks<i>, "Ruthless," and "Green" <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/12/ExMachina.html">For the other reviews in this series, click here</a>.</i> <br />
<br />
[A bit of a lightning round of <i>Ex Machina</i> reviews this week, covering five short stories and a small arc. Next week's penultimate examination of the series covers <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/11/ExMachina7.html">the last two arcs</a>, followed by <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/11/ExMachina8.html">my final review</a> on election day covering the series finale.] <br />
<br />
<b>"Masquerade"</b><br />
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We'll book-end this week's review with the third and fourth Special issues, this time illustrated by the great Jean Paul Leon. The first of these, "Masquerade," opens in October 2003 with Hundred reviewing a petition from the KKK to hold a rally in Central Park. That political hot-button (which also touches upon Hundred's role as a masked vigilante in contrast to the Klan's use of masks) frames the flashback to Hundred's first unintentional go at vigilantism precisely four years earlier. <br />
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Hundred, fresh from the hospital and all bandaged up like the Invisible Man (or perhaps the Unknown Soldier) from the explosion that took half his face, is at a pharmacy to get his prescription filled when a small crew of thieves enter in full Halloween costume to rob the joint. Before slipping out into the costumed night, they steal Hundred's watch, a family heirloom, and Hundred accidentally uses his powers to stop their gun from firing. Hundred clearly still has no inkling of the powers at his disposal, though he admits to hearing the watch calling out for him. He crashes at Bradbury's and has his first dream of The Great Machine. He goes to get his watch and stops one of the robbers who has gone completely insane.<br />
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"Masquerade" is overall a fairly straightforward <i>Year One</i>-esque pre-Great Machine superhero story, a nice, stylistic piece of filler. I love Leon's art, and what he produces in "Masquerade" (and later in "Green") is superb. But stylistically, it's just too far from Harris's grounded pop-superhero photo-reffed sci-fi. Leon's atmospheric, flat, noir style just doesn't jive with the rest of the series in the way that Sprouse's stuff does from the first two Specials that make up <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina4.html"><i>Life and Death</i></a>. And unlike most of the short stories throughout <i>Ex Machina</i>, it is also largely inessential, providing nothing terribly new in terms of character development and understanding. "Masquerade" is a small window into a brief encounter with The Great Machine, and an even briefer non-issue with the politics of dealing with hate groups.<br />
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<b>"World's Finest" </b><br />
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"World's Finest" - another Vaughnian play on words, referencing both the DC superhero team-up book and the common term for the NYPD, New York's Finest - is a short little biographical look at NYPD Commissioner and gadfly of The Great Machine, Amy Angotti. "World's Finest" is structured much in the same way as "Stand Alone" (which looked at Rick Bradbury's life), quickly focusing on a small life event and then leaping forward several years. The framing sequence is Angotti on the roof of One Police Plaza, talking on the phone with Hundred, and the flashbacks look at Angotti's meteoric rise to the top of the NYPD along with her relationship with her husband and contentious relationship with The Great Machine.<br />
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Vaughan and Harris really do translate the why and how of Angotti in the short vignettes of "World's Finest." We see the moments that made her the cop she would become, and her own kind of obsession with The Great Machine. There are some high-impact moments that Harris captures beautifully, plus a couple of nice little plays with the illogic of superheroism. <br />
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<b>"The Race"</b><br />
<br />
"The Race" involves Race and like the hamfisted title, handles the concept with the subtlety of a wrecking ball. Naturally the center of the story is David Wylie, Hundred's right-hand man at City Hall, who Hundred believes can be the next Mayor. While Hundred is on the phone with Wylie, he sees a ghost of a slave (or possibly some kind of manifestation of the City-Machine's guilt... or something). Hundred thinks it's connected to any number of times City building projects have disturbed nigh-ancient slave burial sites. Vaughan uses it as an excuse to talk about New York's complicated history with slavery and the general inequity that still exists, and to look at the first time The Great Machine and Wylie met. But overall, it's all too transparent and just doesn't work.<br />
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<i><b>Dirty Tricks</b></i><br />
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A common theme in superhero fiction is the ripple effect a notorious costumed vigilante leaves in their wake. Vaughan and Harris have explored facets of this before, with Leto and his copycat Machine, and the villain Pherson's origin stemming from the Voice of Hundred. Then there is the individual who gets fixated and obsessed with the hero, usually with a psychosexual component. In <i>Dirty Tricks</i>, a young woman who was saved by The Great Machine and became dangerously obsessed begins to cause trouble for Hundred and his administration (they even dub her Trouble). Her high-profile stunts and vandalism would not be a major issue if not for the Republican National Convention.<br />
<br />
The RNC is the point of Dirty Tricks - the GOP isn't just hosting their convention in NYC, they want Hundred to be speak at it. Throughout <i>Ex Machina,</i> Hundred has straddled all sides of the political fence, but his willingness to talk at the RNC raises eyebrows within his left-leaning administration. He sees this as an opportunity for himself, and at the very least his City. But before anything can happen, the Trouble trouble needs fixing, and the ultimate solution is a little silly. Nonetheless, the ramifications of Hundred's acceptance of the RNC will have a far-reaching impact. I just wish <i>Dirty Tricks</i> wasn't so dull and had more dirty tricks in it.<br />
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<b>"Ruthless"</b><br />
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"Ruthless" opens in October, 2004, with comic writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Tony Harris meeting in a park in Manhattan. They are on their way to meeting with Hundred's administration about making a biographical comic about him for DC. Vaughan meets Hundred (who confuses him for Brian Michael Bendis) and they talk about the City, September 11, love, and life. Hundred convinces Vaughan to follow his heart and he picks two creators to make the graphic novel of his life. The End. <br />
<br />
But there's much more to it. By featuring Vaughan and Harris as themselves, it would be easy to look at "Ruthless" as mindless self-indulgence. But it is important to view this within the context of the established relationship the series has with superhero comics. Hundred, Bradbury and Kremlin became The Great Machine not from any logical approach but from the distinct illogic of superhero fiction. When you get powers, you get dressed up and fight crime because that's what heroes did in the comics Hundred read growing up. Because of Hundred's love of comics and the specific way he rose to political power, it's not a stretch to imagine that someone may want to make a comic about him. That Vaughan and Harris are trying out for the gig is appropriate. More than anything, though, "Ruthless" is not an excuse to do the "Grant Morrison meta thing" as Vaughan says himself, but as an elegiac love letter to New York City.<br />
<br />
Outside of Morrison's well-worn trademark of writing himself into nearly everything he makes, creators showing up in their own work has a surprisingly long history in superhero comics. The way it happens in <i>Ex Machina</i> is less contrived due to the book's identity of being so solidly grounded in (at first) a recognizable mirror of our own reality. It also allows Vaughan to poke fun at himself, with Hundred professing to not like Vaughan's <i>Y: The Last Man</i> and Harris complaining about Vaughan's tendency to drop useless factoids all over the place. But "Ruthless" isn't about comics, it's about New York. Putting himself and Harris into the title allows Vaughan to come to terms with his own relationship with the City and his eventual decision to leave it to be with the woman he loves. And it allows him to tell a beautiful, moving story unique to the personality of New York.<br />
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"Ruthless," like every other chapter title in <i>Ex Machina</i>, has many
meanings and layers, but the simplest is that Vaughan's wife is the
playwright Ruth McKee. At the time this story takes place, Vaughan,
exactly like the version of him presented here, is contemplating a move
out of New York to be with his then-girlfriend, Ruth. "Ruthless" is
Vaughan's Dear John letter to New York, and it's sad and uplifting and
beautiful. The stunning, surprising final two pages, the comic within
the comic about The Great Machine, drives this home. (The final pages form a break from Morrisonian Metafiction: "Ruthless" doesn't
see Vaughan and Harris making the comic that features Vaughan and Harris
making the comic because Vaughan and Harris in the comic <i>don't get to make the comic</i>.)<br />
<br />
Despite it's inside baseball references to comics culture, "Ruthless" works for the same reason everything else about Ex Machina works, logic, humanity, and a love for New York. Having an understanding of comics culture and who the creators are enhances the reading experience, but outside all the referentiality, "Ruthless" stands on its own as a celebration of New York, her people, and her indomitable spirit, and the small moments of profound beauty that pop up in this glorious town, if you know how to look. <br />
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<br />
<b>"Green"</b><br />
<br />
"Green" is filler by every definition, published as fluffing to pad out shipping delays in the series' original run. The story, about a nutcase who offs one of Hundred's opponents in the press, is almost pointless. There's also the standard hint of a possible link to Hundred's powers (that may just be spurious bullshit). There's not much in <i>Ex Machina</i> that can be called bad (except for maybe <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina5.html"><i>Ex Cathedra</i></a>), and even the worst stories have some value. But Green is clunky, provides zero character development, and provides nothing to the mythos of The Great Machine. This is just skippable filler, no more, no less.<br />
<br />
<b>--</b><br />
Overall the six stories reviewed above are collectively the weakest run in the series. "Ruthless" makes the slight slog worth it, though to be fair it is one of the more divisive issues in the run and your mileage admittedly may vary. We're now in the home stretch our extensive look at Ex Machina - the next three epic, tragic stories feature Vaughan's best writing and Harris's best art. If "Green" is at a one on a scale of ten, everything else in this series is about to get ramped up to eleven.<br />
<br />
--<br />
<i>Ex Machina Special 3,</i> "Masquerade" is collected by DC/WildStorm in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401225195/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401225195&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20">Ex Machina Volume 8: Dirty Tricks</a></i> (December 2009) and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401228003/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401228003&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina Book 3</i></a> (Hardcover, May 2010; in softcover Fall 2014).<br />
<br />
<i>Ex Machina 34</i>, "World's Finest" is collected in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401218598/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401218598&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina Volume 7: Ex Cathedra</i></a> (October 2008) and <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401228453/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401228453&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina Book 4</i></a> (Hardcover, January 2011).<br />
<br />
"The Race" was published in <i>Ex Machina 35</i>; and <i>Dirty Tricks</i> was serialized in <i>Ex Machina 36-39</i>. Both are collected in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401225195/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401225195&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina Volume 8: Dirty Tricks</i></a> and <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401228453/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401228453&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina Book 4</i></a>.<br />
<br />
<i>Ex Machina 40</i>, "Ruthless" is collected in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401226949/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401226949&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina Volume 9: Ring Out the Old</i></a> (May 2010) and Ex Machina Book 4.<br />
<br />
<i>Ex Machina Special 4</i>, "Green" is collected in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401226949/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401226949&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20">Ex Machina Volume 9: Ring Out the Old</a> </i>and<i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401229999/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401229999&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20">Ex Machina Book </a>5 </i>(Hardcover, April 2011)<br />
<br />
<i>Nota bene</i>: The reviews in this series have heretofore followed the order from the five 'Book' collections, which slightly diverge from the order of the "Volume" collections. For the final installments of these reviews, I follow the story-chronological order after "Masquerade" (which actually takes place before the previously reviewed <i>Ex Cathedra</i>). "Green" is the most out of place, undated in the story, collected before '"Ruthless" in the 'Volume' collections and oddly after <i>Ring Out the Old</i> in the 'Book' collections. For the purposes of this review and for the best reading order, "Green" should follow "Ruthless."<br />
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Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-82254217703773473122013-10-24T16:49:00.000-04:002013-10-25T21:19:48.341-04:00Movin' On UpToday, I leave <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/05/JMSandJHU.html">JHU Comic Books</a>, my employer of the last six years. It has been an enlightening, educational, and wildly entertaining experience. I don't know what the future holds, but know I'm going to be in comics for the rest of my life and JHU was one hell of a launching pad. That store and the people there have made me the man I am today. It's where I found my calling, and found my family. JHU was the first
place I could call Home, where it ever felt OK to be me. Exactly one year ago, JHU as a company and as a group of people
supported me through a very crazy time, and I'll be forever grateful for that. <br />
<br />
I want to keep working in comics, plus my writing here at <i>The Comic Pusher</i> continues unabated. And stay tuned because I'll have more stuff coming from <a href="http://comicsbeat.com/"><i>The Beat</i></a> as well! Follow me on twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/B5Jeff">@B5Jeff</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ComicPusher">Like The Comic Pusher on Facebook</a>, and <a href="http://comicpusher.tumblr.com/">follow CP on Tumblr</a>, and of course stay tuned to <i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/">The Comic Pusher</a></i>, home to <i><a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/search/label/the%20run">The Run</a>, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/search/label/Wednesday%20review">The Wednesday Review</a></i>, and a some pretty swell reviews and criticism.Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-29163785250608891002013-10-23T08:27:00.000-04:002013-10-23T15:29:18.968-04:00The Wednesday Review: Pretty Pretty Deadly <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><b>Pretty Deadly 1</b></i> is the debut creator-owned comic from Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios, and it's pretty awesome. The story doesn't quite hook you from the start as the issue is clearly set-up, but what is there is, yes, pretty, and also dirty and bloody and violent, too. A western, it opens with a stunning page two a little girl blowing the head off a bunny and some dialog we don't yet know the context for. The scene shifts to a town, one of those late 1800 American old west towns, full of saloons and whorehouses and horses and dust and folks carrying guns . An (apparently) blind old man and a little girl cloaked in black feathers have rolled in with their snake-oil cart ready to push their wares. Except their wares are stories, and she gleefully tells a pretty dark story about the daughter of Death. After they leave town, they are set upon by shady ill-doers while back in town the daughter of Death shows up, scares the bejeezus out of everybody, and then picks up the trail of the old man and the girl. For some reason. It's not quite clear who the players are and what their motivations may be. Despite the hint of fantasy, everything else about <i>Pretty Deadly</i> is down and dirty western, and the final page is wonderful. Rios's fine, high-energy, high-style line and Jordie Bellaire's colors just nail the visuals. The story still needs developing but is still solid enough; I'll stick around to see where this goes. <br />
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<i><b>Velvet 1</b></i> is Ed Brubaker's latest noir-ish book, this time with the superb art of his long-time Marvel collaborator Steve Epting. A grounded spy thriller, Velvet is about the British spy agency's secretary who is also a badass spy herself. One of their best agents gets killed in the field, another agent is set-up for the crime, and Velvet gets caught somewhere in between. Brubaker and Epting work well together, so the two doing espionage stuff feels natural. And while its nice to see them doing spycraft outside a sci-fi superhero universe, the book doesn't really crackle. Epting kills it on the art, but the story, featuring every comfortable spy-fiction convention including an eye-rolling frame-up at the end, is just flat.<br />
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<i><b>The Massive 16</b></i> sees <i>Kapital</i> and crew going up against old-timey sailboat whalers (because its not like there's anything else going on). This series is still so maddeningly uneven. <i><b>Mind MGMT 16</b></i>, on the other hand, is still so consistently superb, with issue exploring with a stunning science fiction novel counterpoint. And Kindt's art manages to get more and more assured. This is some of mainstream's finest stuff. <i><b>Sex Criminals 2</b></i> focuses on John this issue, and the exploration of his sexual identity and sexual superpowers is just as heartfelt and entertaining as the first issue's look at Suzie. <br />
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<i><b>Young Avengers 11</b></i> takes a twist (and a big cast expansion for next issue), <i><b>FF 13</b></i> has some Allred-cubed Watcher-action, and <i><b>Ultimate Spider-Man 28</b></i> has Miles accepting the burden of his future while Roxxon drops some knowledge. Plus there's a sweet new <i><b>Hellboy</b></i> graphic novel with Fegredo, <i><b>Midnight Circus</b></i> out today. Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-68292174677583994372013-10-22T15:14:00.000-04:002013-10-23T15:15:04.676-04:00Repost: A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi<b>Over four years ago I reviewed Yoshihiro Tatsumi's astonishing memoir, <i>A Drifting Life</i>. Check it out again for the first time <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-drifting-life-by-yoshihiro-tatsumi.html">at this link</a>.</b><br />
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<b>For the full index of all <i>Comic Pusher</i> reviews, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/p/index.html">Click Here</a>!</b>Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-29638675447225397072013-10-20T23:55:00.000-04:002014-01-01T15:02:37.596-05:00The Run: Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris: Power Down<b>The Comic Pusher Presents The Run: </b><i><b>Ex Machina</b></i><b> Part Five </b><br />
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<i>In </i>The Run<i>, I review long-form comic works across multiple parts. In Part Five of my series on </i>Ex Machina<i> by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris, I look at the next two stories, </i>Power Down<i> and </i>Ex Cathedra<i>.</i><i> <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/12/ExMachina.html">For the other reviews in this series, click here</a>.</i><br />
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<i><b>Power Down</b></i><br />
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<i>Ex Machina</i> is so many things, and one of its most important elements - wonderful, trippy science fiction - is not even all that apparent on the first read-through. Sure you see the superhero stuff, as radically grounded as it is, but the thrumming current of outre sci-fi that actually makes up so much of the story is cloaked in a business suit, hidden behind the day-to-day grind of city government. Vaughan's ability to present such expansive storytelling without you even realizing it at first is one of the unique talents he shows so brightly in this series. When you read something like his <i>Saga</i>, the fact that it's a grand space opera is almost secondary. <i>Ex Machina</i>, with such a focus on New York City history and politics, as well as the more front-and-center post-superhero stuff, almost surprises you in the end by how important the sci-fi element is. Really, that aspect of the series is there right in front of you the entire time, and <i>Power Down </i>is one of the centerpieces of that.<br />
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<i>Power Down</i> is also another remarkable example of Vaughan's extraordinary skills as a structural storyteller. He possesses a rare ability to draw out and reveal details in a way that is ceaselessly suspenseful, and always pitch-perfect. One example lies in the specifics of what exactly happened with The Great Machine on 9/11. We know Hundred went rogue and stopped the second plane (and we've seen evocative, terrifying flashes of the events), but we are never really shown the whole thing. And when Vaughan and Harris do show us what happened, despite knowing what is to occur it still has a sense of mystery and suspense, and it is always as a counterpoint to some other events going on in the story. And where the events of September 11 are known but only incrementally shown, the mystery of hundred's powers are repeatedly shown yet somehow unknown. This is flawless, bold storytelling. <br />
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The present story opens in August 2003 with Hundred and team reviewing plans for Ground Zero. Hundred: "What absolute horseshit. It's been two years, and all we have to show the world is a hole in the ground and a cheap model that looks like a rejected <i>Blade Runner</i> backdrop." (That frustration was just as applicable during the story's initial publication in March 2007, too.) The foot dragging of what the hell to do with Ground Zero was always one of the biggest frustrations of the post-9/11 era in New York, at least for this New Yorker. Garth Ennis, a writer with, on the surface, not a hell of a lot in common with Vaughan, actually touches on a lot of the same thematic bases in his work, especially the other definitive long-form work of the previous decade, <i>Punisher Max</i>. Both Ennis's <i>Punisher</i> and Vaughan's <i>Ex Machina</i> examine the role of power in our lives within the very specific post-9/11 landscape. More to the point, Ennis's post-superhero epic <i>The Boys</i> also deals with the aftermath of very different September 11, at one point very specifically commenting on the lack of progress at rebuilding Ground Zero.<br />
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But the opening of 9/11 frustrations is just the doorway into the historical touchstone at <i>Power Down</i>'s center, which is the 2003 Northeast Blackout which saw 55 million people loose power, including all of New York City. Vaughan mines the Blackout, the most significant event to strike the city since 9/11 and to strike the city until Sandy nine years hence, for plenty of storytelling. Naturally the Blackout is a big deal for the Mayor, but the stakes are raised when his mother and Kremlin are put at risk from a mysterious figure with mysterious connections to Hundred and Hundred must tackle the problem himself. This seems like another bit of gimmickry from Vaughan, but his reasons for getting directly involved in this conflict while the City endures potential catastrophe are far better than other hard-sell interventions in the past. <br />
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But first I will criticize Vaughan's portrayal of the City in the Blackout; he simply doesn't give New York or New Yorkers enough credit. He shows looting, panic and assaults. While the portrayal is not of widespread social upheaval, it is still not reflective of what actually happened that night. To be fair, <i>Ex Machina</i> is an alternate history, and even the minor quibble that depicted weather does not match the historical record is excused when January casually mentions that weather has been out of whack for four years (or since Hundred received his powers). It's all part and parcel of the impact of The Great Machine. That still doesn't make the portrayal feel any less off. This summer actually marked the tenth anniversary of the Blackout, and I remember the experience vividly: the seas of people flowing down Second Avenue to the bridges, good samaritans helping perfect strangers evacuate the subways or volunteers spontaneously directing traffic, the palpable sense of calm acceptance and coming through for your fellow New Yorker. Sure, there were fears that things could get ugly, but they were quickly allayed by the overwhelming brotherhood and good faith that actually rose up in those hours and days. This was New York City's first real test since September 11. There was no way to know what was really happening. Verifiable news was hard to come by and the scope of the outage that we were starting to hear about, stretching from Detroit to Baltimore and into Canada, was startling. But New Yorkers had been through an incomprehensibly difficult time just two years prior and we would be damned if things were going to get out of control. Where so much of the series captures the heart and soul and essence of New York, <i>Power Down</i> drops the ball slightly. (I write a bit more about my own blackout experience in the postscript below, <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/ExMachina5.html">after the jump</a>.)<br />
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But back to the story and the mysterious person Hundred must confront. It's made clear by Vaughan that this individual, brilliantly depicted by Harris with Tom Feister's deep inks and JD Mettler's atmospheric colors, is the one indirectly responsible for the Blackout. It wasn't intentional, but there is something really, really damned weird going on. This man who calls himself Zeller is polite if a little disjointed in his speech, and in his own words, "dressed like a blasted martian." He is in contact with someone or something unseen, and is trying to hook into databases of some kind to figure out what is happening. When he arrives, he is shocked by the sight of the one-tower World Trade Center. He speaks of a radically different history than Hundred's altered timeline or even our own. He knows who Hundred is and professes to know the source of Hundred's powers. He holds Kremlin and Mitchell's mother hostage to draw out Hundred and it naturally works. Mitchell's mother thinks Zeller is from the future because she thinks Mitchell's powers came from the future. Kremlin calls Zeller a demon because he believes Mitchell's powers were gifted by God. But Zeller tells them simply that he is from another world, though he is far from an extra-terrestrial.<br />
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But just like with Pherson who professed some deeper knowledge of what's been really happening with Hundred, Hundred doesn't really care about the answers. He wants to eliminate the threat to his family and get back to the business of disaster management. But even if Hundred doesn't want the answers, Zeller is giving them. Zeller's statements aren't told in riddle, there are no lies or obfuscation, but it may be hard to parse exactly what he's trying to say. The thing of it is, he knows what he's saying and it makes perfect sense to him even if it doesn't make sense to us until the reread.<br />
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Reading <i>Power Down</i> is a shockingly different experience on the first read than it is on the second. The way Vaughan writes Zeller, as apparently decent and truthful despite his somewhat misguided hostage attempt, knowledgeable of pop-culture and presenting a sense of humor, is really off-putting. It would be easy to dismiss his ramblings as that of a madman, except that Zeller isn't mad, and he may have weird powers of his own if not at least access to some pretty weird technology. Zeller escapes, but not before telling Hundred exactly what is happening. But the way Vaughan is telling this story, these truths are not evident though they are presented directly before us. There is enough wiggle-room in the interpretation that when the final hammer drops after the final story, reading <i>Power Down</i> again becomes an eye-opening revelation. Yeah, <i>Ex Machina</i> is a huge sci-fi epic, and this is the first real explicit indication of what kind.<br />
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Zeller warns Hundred of the coming threat of "immigration." Each <i>Ex Machina</i> story has a sociopolitical theme it touches upon, and to call out immigration in this way is a pretty funny moment on the first read, but again has a completely different light on the second pass. After being told by the feds in the aftermath of the Zeller incident that no-one expects him to save the day, we see in all its double-page splash glory that one time he did. This is about different worlds. The world presented in <i>Ex Machina</i> is different from ours because of Hundred's presence in it as The Great Machine, and the impact The Great Machine had on one particular day. But that's just one world, or two if you want to count our non-fictional lives. And just what if... there were more? <br />
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<i><b>Ex Cathedra</b></i><br />
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Oof, I never liked <i>Ex Cathedra</i>, despite a couple of really cool moments. The simple pitch: the Pope wants to see Hundred. Except, (and there is naturally an except) someone wants to take out Hundred and the Pope at the same time. Conflict ensues. Putting Hundred in the Vatican allows Vaughan to raise some issues of religion, both in government and in Hundred himself, and to talky talk about the Catholic Church in all its contradictions.<br />
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Hundred agrees to see the Pope (it was still John Paul II in December 2013) despite not being Catholic. Indeed he's not much of anything. But many New Yorkers are Catholic, so it's a good P.R. and political move. He gets to the Vatican and meets the chief astronomer, a priest who seriously considers Hundred to be a possible manifestation of the Antichrist. Meanwhile, a shady eyepatch-wearing double-crossing secret agent has stolen some technology that controls rats with electrodes, intending to use it remotely on Hundred to have him Kill The Pope. (The agent, just the latest foreign entity to target Hundred isn't really presented with any degree of subtlety... If he had a mustache, he'd be twirling it.)<br />
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It's a silly set-up, but one that allows for two really cool visuals. First, as Hundred is fighting the influence of the radio signals trying to hijack his head, he tears away at his face, and it's bloody and visceral. Second, Hundred has a vision (far from his first as we've seen him have many hint-dropping visions while meditating in the past) that drops a story-bomb about Hundred's political future that Vaughan has been pointing towards for some time. Both are illustrated with manic, schizophrenic glee by Harris.<br />
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<i>Ex Machina</i> likes to use the pulpit of City Hall and superhero vigilantism to comment on various issues, and <i>Ex Cathedra</i> was the One Where They Talked About Religion and Stuff. It's all just a little hamfisted and a seemingly long way to travel to deliver an interpretive bit of previously acknowledged foreshadowing.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401214983/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401214983&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina Volume 6: Power Down</i></a> (November 2007) was serialized in <i>Ex Machina</i> 26-29 and is also collected in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401228003/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401228003&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina: Book Three</i></a> (Hardcover, May 2010; in softcover Fall 2014). <br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401218598/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401218598&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina Volume 7: Ex Cathedra</i></a> (October 2008) was serialized in <i>Ex Machina</i> 30-33 and is also collected in <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401228453/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401228453&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Ex Machina: Book Four</i></a> (Hardcover, January 2011). <br />
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<b>Postscript: And now, a blackout story</b><br />
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Speaking of the Blackout from <i>Power Down</i>... Everyone in New York has a Blackout Story. Here's just one.<br />
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I had been homeless for just over three months by this point. Many times during this period of my weird fucking journey in this City, I would stay at this horrid slum in the Village (when I could afford it). It was a simple enough task to walk from my job at 32nd St and 2nd Avenue to Jane St. At about 4pm on Thursday, August 14 2003, I was at a Borders bookstore next to my work reading a magazine when the lights began to flicker. I immediately felt something wrong about the way the lights went out, something unusual in the flicker and slow drain into darkness. I went to work and helped evacuate the place, and waited in the lobby with co-workers, watching thousands of people calmly walk down Second.<br />
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As I noted above, the spirit of acceptance and just plain getting-on-with-it was in the air. We could see people directing traffic. The news coming in, what little we could actually get, was contradictory at times and increasingly worrying, as the scope and spread of the blackout became evident. There was a constant though that at any moment power would come back. It didn't. Eventually, as the sun set, I started towards my abode for the week. I found myself in Union Square, and I was far from the only one. There was a fantastic, hard to describe energy about the place. There was a sense of something about to happen, but no-one knew what. There was no tension, no danger, no worry, just expectation, but damned if anyone knew what to expect. And there was also positivity, a sense that no-one knew what was going on or what was going to happen, but the City had just been through it's darkest hour and knocked-out lights would not dim our spirit.<br />
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I lingered in Union Square. I don't know why, it just seemed like a good idea. The darkness was complete. There was no building lights anywhere, no light pollution, and just a decreasing amount of traffic as the city emptied out. You could shine a small flashlight to the tops of the tallest buildings ringing the square, it was so dark. This being New York City, this being Union Square, music started. Drums, lots of them, all improvised, no plan, just people started showing up with drums and started playing. Fires were started, not a "lets burn shit down" fires but "let us see" fires. The music flowed and the drums were passed around and everyone played and everyone danced. Uninhibited, joyful, ecstatic dancing. 2013 Me would slip 2003 Me some Molly or Acid for the kicks, but as this was going down I was stone cold sober, feeding off the energy of the City, getting high off the music and the joy wrapping around me. I danced for hours.<br />
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At some point (time really was meaningless) I took a break and found myself sitting with some other folks listening to a very striking woman talk. At first it wasn't clear what she was talking about or why, but details began to clarify... it was a sustained narrative, indeed a one-woman play, and the woman was portraying Sylvia Plath. This is long before I read <i>The Bell Jar</i> and was I was only tangentially familiar with Plath, but once it became evident I was watching a performance, indeed, a remarkable one-woman off-Broadway play. Just several feet away as I sat on the ground, was the actress Angelica Torn performing Paul Alexander's stunning play <i>Edge</i>. <br />
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The play wrapped up and I continued to meander around the park and time passed imperceptibly. Then I became vividly aware of a short story by Isaac Asimov, his groundbreaking and transformative work "Nightfall" from 1941. In it, a world at the heart of the Galaxy, surrounded by six stars, that has not known darkness, goes dark. A scientist - who had predicted this once in an eon occurrence (to everyone's disbelief) - was standing at the observatory where he made his prediction, and a light began to rise on the horizon. But it wasn't one of the six suns, but the population of his world, driven mad by the dark, coming, coming, pitchfork in hand. As the nightfall of New York drew to a close, I too saw the glow on the horizon and thought of "Nightfall," of my own city teetering on the edge of forever, of the possibility, so remote, that the City had erupted. But the glow was just the sun. New York made it through its long night. And I had had a quintessentially New York experience. <br />
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The Blackout is where I experienced New York's character for the first time. Where I recognized the kind heart at the center of our gruff exterior. Certainly most of the time New York has a certain attitude and way of doing things that many may not understand. But never once think that we don't care for one another and that when the chips are down, we won't stand up for each other and defend each other. We are New Yorkers, and New York comes first.<br />
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It would be nine years before I saw my beautiful city tested in such a way again. But the story of the effect of Hurricane Sandy on this City, and of its effect on me and the twists and turns of what happened to me exactly one year ago this week, is, like <i>Ex Machina</i>, one that doesn't necessarily have a happy ending. But that is a much, much longer story for another time and another place. <br />
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Enough. Go read comics.Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-3193785434026028582013-10-19T23:47:00.000-04:002013-11-10T17:34:35.574-05:00Interview: Jamal Igle on Molly Danger [The Beat]<a href="http://comicsbeat.com/interview-jamal-igle-on-molly-danger/"><b>This interview was originally published on <i>The Beat</i>.</b></a> <br />
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Jamal Igle is having a good week. His new Kickstarter-funded creator-owned graphic novel <i>Molly Danger</i> was released, with a huge release party at JHU Comic Books Saturday Night in Manhattan. <i>Molly Danger</i>, about an apparently ten year old superhero, is that rare gem of a comic, steeped in genre yet remixing it in fresh ways, energetically written and beautifully illustrated, and a true all-ages book that can be enjoyed by adults and children alike. Hardly an overnight success, in <i>Molly Danger</i> Igle has announced himself as one of mainstream comics' new superstars, riding the new wave of the creator-owned renaissance and one of Kickstarter's many remarkable success stories. After the break, my conversation with Igle for <i>The Beat</i> from the floor of New York Comic Con about <i>Molly Danger</i>, turning rejection into success, and making a comic his daughter can read.<br />
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JOG: Can you tell us about the genesis of the project?<br />
JI: From idea to publishing, it took about a decade. Me and a friend of mine came up with the idea originally as an animation pitch. We were going to pitch it around to Nickelodeon, what have you, this was about the tail end of 2002. Being old comic book guys, we decided, hey, we should do this as a comic book. We were going to do it as a comic book, then I got busy. And I kept getting busier, and busier, and busier with other work and I ended up putting <i>Molly</i> to the side. <br />
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Then around 2009, I had been approached by Abrams to pitch them an all-ages superhero property. I dusted off <i>Molly</i>. I looked up what we had originally written, it was a much different premise, much looser, more along the lines of <i>Amethyst Princess of Gemworld</i>, where we didn't know which reality was the real reality, it was way too complicated. So I pared it down to the base idea which was she was Molly Danger and had always been Molly Danger. Once I started from that point, it was a matter of rewriting and firming things up. I rewrote the pitch, pitched it to Abrams, never heard anything back. Pitched it to Tor, Random House, never heard anything back. Tried to get a literary agent involved, she said "Looks great, it's a great comic book property, I don't know where to take it." <br />
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So I left it on the shelf for a couple of more years until my contract ran out with DC. Another writer approached me about doing a webcomic project with funding from Kickstarter. I had never heard of Kickstarter. I investigated Kickstarter and I said, you know what, I can do this, I've got plenty of ideas, I've got something I would love to do. And <i>Molly</i> kept just screaming at me, pick me, pick me. So I spent six months putting a campaign together, getting as much advice as I could from everybody I knew had done successful Kickstarters, checking out why some succeeded and why some failed. We launched a 30 day campaign, I asked for $45,000 and we raised $50,000.<br />
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JOG: The presentation of <i>Molly Danger</i> is gorgeous. Why release the story as a hardcover album instead of as a mini-series or traditional OGN?<br />
JI: I did some work for Humanoids a few years back on a series called <i>Army of Angels</i>, and I've always been a friend of that format. I wanted to do something that-- not only would comic fans gravitate to, but because of the size and the format I could get non-comic readers to come and pick up something that they felt they could put on their bookshelf or coffee tables and be proud to own. I feel that if you give somebody a beautiful package, something that they think is worth their money and time to invest in, then that is going to be your repeat customer. [Self-publishing] gave me the excuse to do the work the way that I wanted to do it and have it be seen in the format that I wanted it to be seen. I could not do <i>Molly</i> the same way as a standard comic book. Honestly, there's probably about four issues of content in that one album alone, at nine by twelve. And I wanted to do something that would stand out on the stands. It's not my job to try and compete with the Marvels and the DCs of the world, my job is to create the best product that I can possibly create.<br />
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JOG: After working in the trenches at DC for so long, what is it like to have something that you own completely, that is entirely your baby?<br />
JI: It's extremely gratifying. There's nothing against working for Marvel or DC. I'm a big boy and I know the realities of working for larger companies, I'm still working for larger companies. But the only longevity you have as a creator is putting your own stamp on things. There's very few characters that you could create for a major company that would ever have the kind of longevity of a Superman or Spider-Man or Fantastic Four. These are characters that have been around at least fifty years. <br />
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This is the thing I want to leave behind for my daughter. One of the things that really pushed me to do <i>Molly Danger</i> was the idea that there wasn't really anything that my daughter, at her age [she's five], that I felt comfortable enough to let her read-- <br />
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JOG: I would give <i>Molly Danger</i> to my nine year old niece and five year old niece. There's not a lot out there that I could do that with. It felt good to read something that I could enjoy and that they could enjoy. <br />
JI: That was always the goal. It's funny, I was talking to Joe Kelly about this, there is no female <i>Ben Ten</i>. [There are female superheroes with the major companies], but the way they are being handled right now is not something you can give to children. And we need more characters, younger characters, characters of color, of different sexualities, presented in a way that parents feel comfortable sharing. It's a beautiful thing when we can do that.<br />
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JOG: The book is kind-of open-ended, do you want to do more of these? Same format?<br />
JI: Absolutely, it'll all be the same format. <br />
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JOG: Do you want to Kickstart the other volumes?<br />
JI: It's looking more like that, we'll see. I have other projects that I'm working on in-between. I'm going to look at things probably in the early spring, see where we're going and make a decision.<br />
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JOG: As <i>Molly Danger</i> started as an animation pitch, would you be interested in doing an adaptation of it?<br />
JI: I would be, it depends on the company, if they saw the same vision that I saw. I'm not in a rush to sell any rights. I want to put the books out first, and get <i>Molly</i> out in the world. <br />
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JOG: Finally, that was one hell of a party last night. Did you expect that response?<br />
JI: [Laughter] That was a swinging shindig! I pray for that kind of response. I was overwhelmed and frankly exhausted afterwards. <br />
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JOG: Thanks and congratulations!<br />
JI: Thanks.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1939352401/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1939352401&linkCode=as2&tag=thcobopuma-20"><i>Support The Comic Pusher and get Molly Danger from Amazon here!</i></a> Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8699819633747630249.post-83183412587958166502013-10-16T04:20:00.001-04:002013-10-16T04:20:33.461-04:00The Wednesday Review: NYCC Hangover Edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Happy Wednesday! New comics are out. I don't know about you, but I'm still recovering from New York Comic Con. A metric ton of stuff came out last week, this week's relatively slim pickens, but thems the con-month breaks. <br />
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There was some biggish news from the Con: Dan Slott and Allred & Allred are doing <i>Silver Surfer</i>, and it sounds pretty boss. Marvel is putting <i>Miracleman</i> back in print, all the way through Gaiman and Buckingham continuing their unfinished story, and it's about time. And I'm really keen on reading all this, finally. Finally, finally. Anyway, I was reporting from the Con, typing up panel reports for The Beat with my mad qwerty skillz - <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/10/NYCC.html">see them here</a>. Onto the comics.<br />
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First up, <i><b>Dogs of War</b></i> by Sheila Keenan and Nathan Fox is out today. <a href="http://comicpusher.blogspot.com/2013/08/DogsOfWar.html">Read my original advance review here</a>. (I liked it.)<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HK819Q2yv-I/Ul5JLOgADGI/AAAAAAAACJg/rFPxMFfSc1U/s1600/Display.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HK819Q2yv-I/Ul5JLOgADGI/AAAAAAAACJg/rFPxMFfSc1U/s1600/Display.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a>It's been a while since we've gotten our <i><b>Hawkeye</b></i> fix but Fraction, Aja and Hollingsworth make the wait worth it. Issue 13 is all nine-panel grids, no real action but after-action. The point of <i>Hawkeye</i> isn't the punch-em-ups, but the recovery, the time in between, the quiet dark, the hangover, and issue 13 inhabits this space. Taking place around the same time as the Annual, Clint is falling deeper and deeper into malaise if not depression, falling into a bunch of bottles if not the bottle, always on the mend and never quite mending, his life spinning slowly if not spiraling out of control. This is superb visual storytelling, delicate, sublime. More Hawkguy and Lady Hawkeye, please. <br />
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Hoo, dilly, I've been digging <i><b>Infinity</b></i>, but <i>Avengers 21</i> and <i>New Avengers 11</i> were kind of messy, visually. Deodato's incursion and Yu's annihilation were muddy, and neither seemed up to the meatiness of Hickman's slightly over-dense scripting. But the cover to <i>Avengers 21</i> is pretty awesome, so props to Yu. <br />
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<i><b>Fables 134</b></i> is one of the best issues of the series in years. Bill Willingham and the aforementioned Mark Buckingham deliver an emotional gut-punch. It's hard to pull off twenty pages of just two characters talking (half in front of a blank background, no less), but Willingham's scripting of two old friends (of the readers if not each other) and Buckingham's expressive, beautiful art pulls it off.<br />
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<i><b>Zero 2</b></i> was quite good. Writer Ales Kot is joined by Tradd Moore in this issue (it has rotating art teams, <a href="https://twitter.com/ales_kot/status/389470112035508226">thanks for the heads up</a>, Ales). Kot takes Zero's story to the beginning, a child soldier forged in a cauldron of pain and hate. Moore's stuff takes some warming up to, but the last three panels are astonishing.<br />
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<i><b>Invincible 106</b></i> was fun, <i><b>Adventure Time 21</b></i> played some Watchmen 11 trickery-doo, and <i><b>Fantastic Four 13</b></i> shows me again why I just can't stand Mark Bagley's art. Jeffrey O. Gustafsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592771408641186294noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.6681669 -73.98006450000002640.644078900000004 -74.020405000000025 40.6922549 -73.939724000000027