May 2010
29 posts
4 tags
Living in the Past: Inhumans # 1-12 (1998-1999)
Boy, it’s been a while since I participated here at TWC, hasn’t it? I will offer no excuses, but I do have a plan of action. Once in a while, I dig into the Vast Bacardi Archives (sekrit location: my old bedroom closet at my Mom’s) and pull out a run of something I haven’t read in a long time. I thought to myself “Self, you could write about these rereadings on TWC,...
May 25th
4 tags
Daily Breakdowns 090 - Hey Princess
Hey Princess Writer/Artist - Mats Johnsson. Publisher - Top Shelf Comix $14.95 USD I like a fat little book with a couple making out on fallen leaves. That’s a good start right there. It’s not like I can read SuperF*ckers in a waiting room or Starbucks.  I think for many writers and artists, there’s a relation between sex and productivity. For some, the lack of sex, and the...
May 25th
5 tags
Daily Breakdowns 089 - Legacies
DC Universe Legacies #1 (of 10) Writer - Len Wein. Pencilers - Andy Kubert, Scott Kolins, J.G. Jones. Inkers - Joe Kubert, J. G. Jones. DC Comics. I suppose one could write a couple thousand worlds about the appeal of writing Golden Age heroes. Let’s just skip that and say they’re colorful but uncomplicated, and so they’re very suitable for a stand-alone story like this one....
May 24th
5 tags
Daily Breakdowns 088 - 1s for the Team
Quick looks at a few first issues of team books from this week and last. Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #1 Writer - Warren Ellis. Artist - Kaare Andrews. Marvel Comics. There are a couple nice things going on in this miniseries. First, Ellis does a good job grounding the X-Men in our heartbreaking world, in this case dropping some depressing African recent history. At the same time, he brings...
May 21st
Bright and Shiny?
I got suckered in to buying a copy of Avengers #1, I’m not entirely certain how, but a few pages into the thing I was already taken out of the book.  Steve Rogers is putting together his new team of heroes and he’s telling them all of the qualities and virtues that they exhibit; “…nobility and strength”, “cunning and bravery”, “power and...
May 20th
2 tags
ADD Reviews Wilson by Dan Clowes
As Dan Clowes has matured as a cartoonist, his storytelling has undergone a fascinating inversion. In his earlier serialized works such as Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron and Ghost World, the reader could take the events presented for exactly what they were. As baroque or surreal as Clowes might present the events in the lives of his characters, the reader could be reasonably certain, within the...
May 18th
3 notes
5 tags
Daily Breakdowns 087 - Siege/Avengers Wrap
Siege #4, Avengers: The Initiative #35, Dark Avengers #16, The New Avengers Finale #1. Writers - Brian Michael Bendis, Christos Gage Artists - Bryan Hitch, Stuart Immonen, Mike Deodato, Olivier Coipel, Jorge Molina, Others. After basically ignoring most Marvel series the past few years (getting a few in collections such as Captain America and, more recently, Agents of Atlas), Siege was a way...
May 18th
2 tags
The Invincible Iron Man -- from the big screen to...
I confess to having a large zone of ignorance when it comes to some superhero comic books.  I have, if you will, a Phantom Zone of knowledge but a Negative Zone of ignorance. Oh I know who Jason Blood, Kent Nelson and Chuck Taine are (they are The Demon, Doctor Fate and Bouncing Boy). But like a Democrat (or Republican) who only looks at one party and does not care what the other side has to say,...
May 18th
3 tags
Daily Breakdowns 086 - Wilson
Wilson Writer/Artist - Daniel Clowes Publisher - Drawn & Quarterly. $21.95 USD Hi, brother, how’s it hanging? You like the internet, huh? Ha ha. Maybe it really can bring humanity together, a world community, our bonds intangible and yet as strong and real as the wireless signals used to create them. Jesus, your skin is ghastly. Do you ever fucking go outside? ...
May 17th
2 tags
Sticking the Widow with You
Others have taken their shots at Pat Lee and NRama interviewer Troy Brownfield’s softball question about his “bit controversial” past (as a guy who didn’t pay his talent). But I think it’s more fun to just substitute “pay” for “prove” in this part of the interview: Nrama: At this stage of your career, does Pat Lee have something to pay?  ...
May 13th
3 tags
Daily Breakdowns 085 - The Invincible Gene Colan
The Invincible Gene Colan Edited by Clifford Meth Published by Marvel Comics. $19.99 USD Tom Spurgeon puts it well in his essay in this book where he points out that Gene Colan was almost alone in not trying to emulate Jack Kirby’s style in the ’60s, following his own moody, atmospheric path, and how his contrasting style (as well as those of Steve Ditko and Wally Wood) gave Marvel...
May 13th
3 tags
Guest Reviewer Month: Tucker Stone on Blue Spring
I’m late to the party, but I’ve really been enjoying the criticism of Tucker Stone this year. He’s usually funny, often scathingly insightful, and I always respect someone who will intentionally “throw” a review by writing about something not at all related to the work in question, just because it’s more fun to do a little short story, piece of dialect, or...
May 12th
11 notes
4 tags
Daily Breakdowns 084 - Area 10
Area 10 Written by Christos N. Gage Art by Chris Samnee Published by Vertigo Comics. $19.99 USD It’s hard to figure out the publishing strategy for this Vertigo Crime imprint, but the common elements seem to be to avoid straight crime fiction and instead introduce a fantastic element. I kind of like the smaller-than-comics size, though. Gage is a prolific comics writer, and it seems that...
May 11th
May 11th
May 11th
3 tags
Daily Breakdowns 083 - Rip Kirby 1946-1948
Rip Kirby Complete Comic Strips 1946-1948 By Alex Raymond and Ward Greene Published by IDW Publishing. $49.99 USD IDW has done remarkable work the past few years with their imprint The Library of American Comics collecting so many of the great newspaper strips like Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Terry and the Pirates and so on. Rip Kirby is one with which I had no familiarity before reading...
May 11th
5 notes
3 tags
Giffen vs. Janson
Diversions of the Groovy Kind has a nice group of splash pages from Keith Giffen’s 1977 run as penciler of Marvel’s The Defenders. It makes me kinda want to read them, which I think I have somewhere, but what struck me first is not so much what Giffen brings to these pages but what you get from Klaus Janson. Giffen and Janson are credited as the “artists,” which can cover a...
May 10th
3 tags
Fever Fervor
I think it was appropriate for Brandon Soderberg at ComicsForSerious to call out Brendan McCarthy’s Spider-Man: Fever #1 for a scene that he finds to be “insanely racist.” I’ll be honest, I didn’t think anything of it at first, and even as I started to post this I was disagreeing with Brandon. I mean, “thass” is a stereotypical pronunciation of...
May 10th
May 9th
3 tags
I saw Iron Man, Too
Damn you, Kevin Pasquino and your well-written review! I agree with all of it. Not as good as the first but well-done and pretty character-driven. More than ever, you equate bad boy Tony Stark with bad boy Downey but his momentary fall from grace is justified in the film. That was an uncomfortable scene, drunk Tony in his suit, especially as I think it featured the late DJ AM. Wasted potential...
May 9th
2 notes
2 tags
It's not the suit, it's the man in the suit: Kevin...
It’s an interesting experience, watching a movie based on a comic book when the only thing you know about the comic book is what you’ve learned from the movie. It was surprising for me to realize that given all my years of comic book collecting that the only “Iron Man” comic book I had read before seeing the first movie was the classic Demon in a Bottle storyline. And even that storyline I knew...
May 8th
2 tags
Daily Breakdowns 082 - Abbrev.
I hope you’ve been enjoying Guest Reviewer Month, which has obviously extended on into May due to some delays on our part here and there, plus our general no-post-on-the-weekend rule. We actually have a few guest reviews still to go, so check those next week and then we’ll be well and truly done. Working on some bigger books for next time, so just a few short takes this time out. ...
May 7th
3 notes
Guest Reviewer Month - Steve Hockensmith on I...
If someone tries to tell you Fletcher Hanks was a genius, don’t believe them. If someone tries to tell you Fletcher Hanks was an important figure in the development of superhero comics, don’t believe them. But if someone tries to tell you Fletcher Hanks was one strange, f-ed up bastard who created some of the weirdest, creepiest, and (entirely by accident) most revealing comics of the Golden Era,...
May 6th
2 tags
ADD Reviews Drawn Together: The Movie: The Movie!
I’m a fan of the first season of this Comedy Central series, but never got around to watching the second or third seasons. The network pulled the plug after the third season, which prompts the events of Drawn Together: The Movie: The Movie! If you’re not familiar with Drawn Together, the premise is that a group of cartoon icons are living in a house making a reality TV series. As the...
May 5th
Guest Reviewer Month - Bob Temuka on Alice in...
Alice In Sunderland By Bryan Talbot A truly great story is like pure energy: it can’t be destroyed, only transferred into new and strange forms. Using this dubious analogy, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland are nothing but energy. Lewis Carroll’s clever, witty and imaginative tales have shown up in all sorts of versions, always all-new, always all-different, but still the same. The latest movie...
May 5th
2 tags
ADD Reviews My Life in Scribbles
For more information visit mylifeinscribbles.com. A copy of the book was provided for the purpose of review.
May 4th
3 tags
Guest Reviewer Month - Chris Mautner on Bringing...
Bringing Up Father: From Sea to Shining Sea, the Cross-Country Tour of 1939-40 By George McManus  IDW Publishing $49.99 George McManus’ Bringing Up Father is a wonderland of Art Deco goodness. The venerable comic strip, as sampled in this hefty new book from IDW, is all clean, sleek, thin lines meeting at perpendicular angles. You could put your eye out on the lapel of Jiggs’ coat. The colors...
May 4th
5 tags
Daily Breakdowns 081 - The Shield
The Shield #1-8 Writers - Eric Trautmann, Brandon Jerwa Artists - Marco Rudy, Greg Scott, Cliff Richards, Michael Avon Oeming Publisher - DC Comics Something I’ve been meaning to do is just take a contemporary series and run through the first year, give or take. I must admit, I do have a soft spot for the second tier superhero books, the ones about B-and-C-listers who will likely never...
May 4th
3 tags
Guest Reviewer Month - Rob Vollmar on Oishinbo
Vol. 1- Japanese Cuisine ISBN 1421521393 Vol. 2- Sake ISBN 1421521407 Vol. 3- Ramen and Gyoza ISBN 1421521415 Vol. 4- Fish, Sushi and Sashimi ISBN 1421521423 Vol. 5- Vegetables ISBN 1421521431 Vol. 6- The Joy of Rice ISBN 142152144X Vol. 7- Izakaya: Pub Food ISBN 1421521458 There are as many reasons for reading manga as there are manga to be read. I have lots of different ones and could go...
May 3rd
3 notes