Posts Tagged ‘superheroes’

Diversion


by Frank Santoro

Thursday, April 24, 2008


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I found the comic pictured above for 25 cents today. Am I the only one out there who didn’t know that Steve Ditko drew an FF Annual? And inked himself? In 1981? I haven’t read it yet but it looks amazing and, well, I’m that much of a comics fan that this was a big find. For a quarter!!

Marshall Rogers is a better artist than you. I also found this today. For a dollar. And I printed this upside down on purpose. No-Prize to whomever can guess what comic this is…

message to all auto-bio comics / art comics lovers out there, this post is for you: Read more old school super-hero comics.

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Some Recent Reading


by Dan Nadel

Thursday, March 20, 2008


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I’ve been a little bad about writing (as usual), but there’s a lot going on in PictureBox land and man oh man it’s hard to think. Anyhow, I’ve recently gotten into the fun habit of stopping off at my local comics shop, Rocketship, and buying some comics on my way home from the office. Oh man it’s enjoyable to do that. Lately, co-proprietor Alex Cox has been egging me on to buy various pamphlets and, since I can’t resist, here’s what I’ve been reading lately:

Punisher War Journal: Matt Fraction writes it and Howard Chaykin draws it. I have to say, I really like this title. Fraction is firmly in the Morrison/Milligan self aware tradition, but he has a sarcastic, easy style — somehow more casual than the the Brits. I like his work here, which so far concerns washed up super villains going about their daily lives. Basically these are noir slice of life stories, like a riff on Eisner’s Spirit, where The Punisher only appears at the end to, well, make it a Punisher comic. Chaykin’s art is awfully fun. He’s never been the most subtle of artists, but he’s using photoshop is some very curious/possibly retarded ways and I like it. In any case, can you believe Howard Chaykin is drawing the Punisher? Remember American Flagg? Or Cody Starbuck?

Nexus
99 and 100: Well, whenever I read Nexus I think of Frank’s smiling face, so how can I resist. This is totally fun space-opera stuff. Rude is in good form and he looks more like Russ Manning than ever. This is just delightful stuff written and drawn with utter conviction. It’s nice to see a comic book that’s not snarky or “meta”, and yet still contemporary enough to hold my attention.

Powr Mastrs 2: I read the first fifty pages last week. They’re being scanned now. Let’s just say that CF might’ve learned a thing or two from Russ Manning as well. It’s his best, most exciting work to date.

The Last Defenders #1: This comic was more or less incomprehensible to me.

Omega the Unknown #6: Another great issue, as the plot deepens and some very odd formal tropes come into play. I love this series and I think the more intricate it gets (now there’s a “Watcher” stand-in) the better.

Rasl #1: This is Jeff Smith’s new comic. I was never much of a Bone fan, but I like this. Did anyone else notice the similarities between it and Sammy Harkham’s Crickets? Or Frank’s Incanto? Lone man wandering in a hostile landscape? Well, not the most unique idea, I know, but funny to see it pop up three times in recent months. Jeff Smith’s rendering can irk me a bit sometimes — it feels overdone, too knotty and muscled. But this story, which sets us in the midst of a somewhat ambiguous scenario, moves swiftly and is perfectly paced for the pamphlet format. It’s a complete story but leaves enough questions to make me want to get the next one. That’s good serialization.

By the way, I re-read Miracleman 1-6. Oh boy, it’s awesome — it’s funny to read it now and realize it’s still so much better than the million imitators still going.

That’s all for now. Back to work.

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Cage Match #1: Omega the Unknown (2007)


by T. Hodler

Wednesday, December 19, 2007


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It may not seem like it, but the three of us here at Comics Comics are hardly monolithic in our tastes. In order to prove it, we’ve decided to introduce something which may or may not become a recurring feature here: a way to present no-holds-barred arguments about comics and comics-related issues about which we don’t quite see eye to eye. First up: The new version of Omega the Unknown, written by Jonathan Lethem and Karl Rusnak, and drawn by Farel Dalrymple. Rules: I’ll put up some thoughts, and sometime in the near future, Frank will add his. We’ll keep going until it feels like we’re done. Oh, and Dan, feel free to jump in at any point if you want to, whether you want to take a side, egg us on, act as an impartial referee, or sucker-bash one of us on the back of the head with a metal folding chair. Readers are welcome to throw tomatoes at us through the bars in the comments. (Oh, and if you haven’t read the series yet and don’t like spoilers, you may want to skip this one.)

LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!

TIM: I’ll start by saying that I like this series a lot more here at the issue 3 mark than I did when I’d only read the first issue. As I wrote at the time, I was initially unsure whether or not Dalrymple’s art was really appropriate for the story, and compared it unfavorably to the surreal effect achieved in the original through the juxtaposition of Steve Gerber & Mary Skrenes’s bizarre plot with Jim Mooney‘s almost generic superhero pencils. Since that time, Dalrymple’s style has really grown on me, and as Lethem & Rusnak’s script has started to diverge from the 1970s original (the first issue, aside from the Mink storyline, was nearly a beat-by-beat remake) and the story’s themes have become more clear, it’s started to seem like an inspired choice to me. Don’t get me wrong, despite a lot of beautiful pages, I still think you find the occasional sloppy or half-assed composition, but overall, I’m really liking it. And the series has begun to achieve its own kind of surreal tone, different from the original, but nearly as effective: I like the quiet atmosphere of it all, the way a horrific image like a severed-finger-topped fast-food burger almost reads subliminally, without being turned into some overblown two-page spread. But I know you have some problems with the art, Frank, so before I go on, why don’t I give you a chance to pile in?

FRANK: I actually really like this comic, too, but I have one big problem with it, so my comments are kind of “tough love.” Here goes: The everyday scenes are impeccable. Everything about the staging and narrative flow, in each issue so far, is excellent until the action begins. Take this page from #2 as an example. It is, essentially, the only action sequence in the issue. The sequence begins from the POV of the main character, who sees the action unfolding on the street below from his window. The everyday scenes of daily life have been interrupted by the FANTASTIC. There is a moment of tension; the view of Omega doing away with two robots seems “correct” in tone. Here is this fantastic event unfolding in front of the character’s deadpan gaze, but it’s still completely “everyday” in tone. Then, when the POV switches back to the action outside, there seems to be little or no tension between the FANTASTIC and the EVERYDAY.

The page is all too flat. I don’t expect it to look like a normal Marvel comic with extreme camera angles and speed lines, but I do expect it to convey a sense of something bigger than life. And in the context of this issue, the two pages of action pale in comparison to the attention to detail and nuance in the EVERYDAY scenes. This may be a strategic move on Lethem and Dalrymple’s part to downplay the action and weave it tighter to the everyday, I don’t know. If the way that action and “the fantastic” are meant to be portrayed in a muted fashion is intentional, then they’ve succeeded. But my guess is that it isn’t intentional. I’m sorry, it just comes off like, like … a Vertigo comic.

DAN: Well, thanks for letting me know, you guys! Jeez, what does a guy have to do around here to feel included? Well, I’ll fight through the emotional pain and attempt a brief response now followed by a lengthier one tomorrow after I’ve re-read the comics. Overall, I’ve found the series compelling and very well executed. The quiet, static fight scenes work for me because they help maintain the focus on characters. That is, it’s almost like the fights are surreally incidental to the main person-to-person action. I’m waiting for Lethem to reveal that they’re not really happening at all. Though that would be too easy. Seems to me that Farel has come up with some rather remarkable here — using Frank Miller-style comic book drawing to delineate place and character in a way that, well, Miller hasn’t done in 20-plus years. And the characters are wonderful. Unlike so many comics that substitute tough talk and snappy dialogue for real characterization, Omega is giving us fully formed, sympathetic protagonists that I find myself invested in. Plus, it’s genuinely suspenseful in the “I don’t know what is going to happen next” kinda way. Lethem is writing discreet comic book units that have their own narrative arcs while building in, I suspect, devices that will become important in later issues. That’s my take on it for now. Who’s next?

TIM: Huh. I could’ve sworn both of you guys disliked this book, but I guess I misunderstood. Our first cage match may not end up being a particularly vicious one. Anyway, there’s still some stuff I disagree with you both about, but I think I’m going to need access to a scanner for my response, so I’m out until later tonight.

DAN: It’s a cage love fest! Tim, stop trying to get us in trouble.

FRANK: The action scenes “help maintain the focus on character”? What does that mean? For me, they’re too much in line with how everything else is delineated. There’s no TENSION, despite its focus on character, as you put it Dan. What I mean by tension is that Omega himself, the title character, is easily the least defined (which of course may be on purpose). However, the character “The Mink” has a much larger “larger than life” appearance, regardless of whether or not it’s supposed to be his media shtick. Anyone following me? Omega, to me, should have a PRESENCE, and the way he’s drawn doesn’t give me that feeling.

TIM: Well, maybe I won’t wait until I have access to a scanner before replying after all. I’ll just hope I’m remembering the comic correctly, and post the images later if I am. [UPDATE: I wasn't, at least not exactly, and the following is slightly revised.]

First, I think what you’re talking about is exactly right, Frank. There is little to no effort made in the art to draw a distinction between the fantastic and the mundane. Where I disagree with you is that I think that effect is entirely intentional, and ironically, I had originally planned on using exactly the sequence you point out to say so. The way we are introduced to the fight makes this pretty clear, I think. A few pages earlier than the one you uploaded earlier, we see Alex, the kid protagonist, having a discussion with his roommate while he looks out the window. He sees something, but we don’t know what…


…until we get to the next tier on the page, which looks exactly like a normal New York apartment scene, if you don’t notice the small figures battling down on the street outside.


You’d think the reaction to seeing this pretty crazy fight between a superhero and a bunch of robots in the middle of the street would provoke a strong reaction in Alex, but it doesn’t. Instead, he seems almost annoyed.


On the next page, he still doesn’t seem anxious, and doesn’t even bother mentioning the fight to his roommate, but simply walks to a different room to continue his conversation. To me, it seems like this sequence of panels is intended not only to draw attention to Alex’s lack of reaction, but also to highlight exactly the lack of tension you sense — which paradoxically, creates an entirely different kind of narrative tension: why isn’t he reacting the way we’d expect him to? And it’s not just Alex, either. The fight continues outside, and the Mink ends up getting into the action, but the streets don’t erupt into panic. The authorities and a news van arrive, but everyone behaves basically like this is business as usual, just another day in Marvel Manhattan. This approach is more or less the direct opposite of the one used in the well-known scene from Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s Daredevil: Born Again where the Avengers make a very memorable brief appearance, appearing almost like gods, and striking awe and fear in all who behold them. In fact, Miller’s text explicitly draws attention to their god-like natures. In Lethem’s Omega version of the Marvel universe, however, a fight between super-powered beings and robots is itself an everyday experience, no more impressive than any other story you might see any weekday on the local evening news.

I also take your point about the character of Omega himself — he’s a total blank, with almost no dramatic presence at all. Some of this comes from the original, where Omega was also more or less a mute cypher, but in Mooney’s original drawings, Omega was still an impressive physical force. Dalrymple draws him so that he looks like nothing more than an ordinary, beefy guy in tights. Again, I think this is intentional.

At this point, I start getting into conjecture, but one of the main themes of the book seems to be the relationship between children and superheroes. Obviously we have the Alex (Alpha?)/Omega relationship, but I think there’s also something going on here with the Mink. As I pointed out before, the Mink’s civilian name, Mr. Kansur, is Omega co-writer Karl Rusnak’s surname spelled backwards. We know that Rusnak and Lethem were childhood best friends, and shared a passion for talking and arguing about Marvel comics. (Lethem in a 2003 interview: “[Karl] and I shared a lot of these fascinations. Particularly Marvel Comics. He and I read them together very avidly.”) Now here’s where the speculation starts: doesn’t the Mink seem a lot like the kind of superhero a kid would come up with as a comic-book-obsessed child growing up in New York? You’ve got the weird, sort-of-lame animal-related alter ego, the connection with your own name (Kansur/Rusnak), unlimited financial resources, the secret hideout complete with labyrinth on a small, deserted island off of Manhattan — I don’t know, it all seems to fit to me. In any case, my point is that mirroring the Alex/Omega child/superhero relationship, we get the Rusnak/Kansur child/superhero relationship. The “good” superhero is basically an unimpressive blank canvas, and the “bad” superhero is a media-savvy, greedy, manipulative guy with only his own interests at heart: the cynical version of what a childish ideal might really be like in the adult world. It’s too soon to say where it’s all going, but if I’m right, I think the comparison is telling.

Anyway, you’re still right, Frank: the action sequences are quiet and lack tension. It will be interesting to see if at any point in the series, they go for one of those god-like Frank Miller Avengers moments — I’m betting that if it happens at all, it won’t be until closer to the end of the series. I also think it will be interesting to see how they end up integrating Gary Panter‘s guest art in upcoming issues — I don’t know if he could draw an undynamic fight scene if he tried.

FRANK: It’s not fair to compare a remake with the original but what can I do? I’m familiar enough with the original series that I can’t help but look at the new Omega and compare. The TENSION between the everyday and the fantastic that I wrote of earlier is there in the original but not so much in the new series. I wish that I could accept the way Omega is depicted in the current series, but I’m having a hard time with it.

You may be right, Tim, that Lethem and Dalrymple are intentionally “grounding” Omega and making him more of a blank slate for the reader (and Alex) to project upon. It’s working apparently. But my difficulty with it is that in the original series Gerber and Mooney played off of the conventions of the Marvel universe. The school scenes in the original seem so different from the battles Omega is fighting — in tone and in execution. For a Marvel comic in the ’70s, this was a pretty forward-thinking take on the way the public interacted with heroes. The current series levels the playing field and Omega’s presence is diminished, both literally and figuratively. In the original series, by issue three Omega had already fought the Hulk and Electro. (God, I can’t believe I’m writing this…) The current series may be just as refreshing a take as the original, but, man I just wish Lethem and co. would take advantage of this narrative device, this tension.

And as far as Miller’s depiction of the Avengers in Daredevil: Born Again — that’s a perfect illustration of what I expected. I expected Omega to be depicted as a “god” and for his PRESENCE to be felt, not ignored. Maybe in Lethem’s New York, a guy in a costume like that goes unnoticed, but I don’t buy it really. It feels off-type. But again, maybe it is intentional. I just don’t like it. And it’s the only thing keeping me from really loving this comic book.

Who knows? Once Omega and Alex “unite” all the pieces may come together.

DAN: I think Tim has provided the most insightful commentary here. His speculation, whether it pans out or not, gives a really fascinating grounding for the whole saga, and makes me really eager to read and decipher more. One last thing: Re-reading the issues last night I tripped over an odd subplot that I’m quite excited about: objects attaching themselves to human flesh. Happens with the book in issue 2 and then again with the gold chain in issue 3. Hmmm. These are rich, rewarding comic books.

FRANK: I’m “tapping out” on the submission hold.

TIM: Okay. I guess it looks like we’re winding down here. Obviously, being only three issues into a ten-issue miniseries makes it difficult to say anything for certain. It could be all downhill from here, and what look like promising developments could turn out to be red herrings, false leads, or massive mistakes. And I also want to say that your last point is an important one, Frank: just because an artist intends a certain effect doesn’t necessarily mean we have to like it. It could still be a bad decision, whether or not it’s an intentional one.

This was fun. We’ll have to do it again. Only one rule infraction that I’m aware of, when Frank briefly fled the cage for the safety of the comments pit. If anyone has any ideas for future Cage Match topics, please e-mail us or leave a suggestion in the comments if you’d like.

I don’t think there’s any obvious decision that can be called here, but clearly we are all losers.

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Marker


by T. Hodler

Thursday, October 11, 2007


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I’m probably not going to write anything extensive about Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple‘s new Omega the Unknown miniseries until the whole thing gets published, but here’s a post just to note that the first issue is out. (For those who want a more thorough review, Jog has written a good one.)

I’ll limit my remarks to these:

1) It’s nice enough, but I’m not sure if Dalrymple’s art really works for this story. Jim Mooney‘s fairly generic ’70s superhero art in the original series really effectively set the tone, and pumped up the creepy “what’s happened to the Marvel editors?” factor a great deal. Dalrymple’s drawings, on the other hand, are too weird on their own to create that clash of expectations. Still, it’s way too soon to say anything definitive, and I’m not sure exactly where this story’s going yet. It may work in the end. And it’s nice to see Marvel experimenting art-wise in any case.

2) I think it’s funny how many of the online reviews of this comic have mentioned the literary tone of the dialogue, and attributed it to Lethem’s background as a novelist. It’s funny because that aspect of the new comic comes pretty much directly from the Steve Gerber & Mary Skrenes original.

3) So far, the new Omega is following the original plot very closely. Only a subplot featuring a mysterious superhero called the Mink (civilian name: Mr. Kansur) is new. His part in all this remains to be seen, but considering that the comic credits the script to Lethem and “Karl Rusnak” (hey, that’s “Kansur” backwards!) I imagine that’s where a lot of the action will be.

UPDATE: Using my crack journalistic skills, I’ve learned that Rusnak is a real person (and Lethem’s best friend from childhood). Still, my Sherlock sense is still telling me that that name’s a clue!

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A Possibly Tedious Clarification


by T. Hodler

Sunday, September 16, 2007


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Sorry if this post is boring, but I want to highlight one recent comment from Jon Hastings, partly because it makes a really good point, and partly because it gives me an opportunity to make clear something that I haven’t been trying to say over the past few days. Hastings writes:

I find myself agreeing to all of your points, but can’t help being, emotionally at least, on Noah [Berlatsky]‘s “side”. For me at least, there’s so much baggage from old internet arguments over the merits of super-hero comics vs. alt/art comics that I find it is really easy to make the kinds of mostly baseless, sweeping judgments that Noah is making here. My beef was never really with alt/art cartoonists, but rather with those comics critics (self-appointed or otherwise) who I saw as using the work of those alt/art cartoonists to attack my beloved super-hero books.

I’m not at all unsympathetic to this view, and couldn’t be less interested in using “serious” comics as a cudgel against other kinds of comic book stories. I think it’s understandable for long-time comics readers to occasionally get a bit defensive when it sometimes seems like only relatively straight, self-evidently serious works approaching “proper” subject matter (Maus, Persepolis, Fun Home, etc.) are seen as respectable in the wider world. (I don’t think this is actually altogether true, mind you, but it can feel that way.) Maus, at least, I think fully deserves its high reputation (I haven’t read the other two, which I guess should be my next homework assignment), but really, this is one more reason to say God bless Robert Crumb, the one artist to have broken through who can’t by any means be separated from the comic book’s anarchic and fantastic roots.

Over on the Fantagraphics blog, the great designer Jacob Covey also commented on this sort-of-stupid blog fight, and his take is really pretty smart, though I’ll admit I had to read it a couple times before I got some of it. Covey writes, “The subject is ‘art comics’ versus superhero comics– a distinction I already find vague and silly seeing how the two ideas rely on a black and white separation though I see a vast overlap. Not to mention that this [precludes] the one genre from ever being considered art, which is a bit presumptuous.” I agree with that comment entirely, except to say that I wasn’t trying to argue that “art” comics are inherently better than superheroes.

Covey also very kindly describes Comics Comics as “the definitive fringe art-comics periodical”, while admitting that with PictureBox as a whole, he can’t help but feel “there’s a bit of validity-through-outsiderness going on at times.” I can’t speak for PictureBox (though I imagine Dan might take some issue with that), but at least in terms of Comics Comics, that couldn’t be further from our intention. That’s why we’ve covered so many “mainstream” subjects in the first place, from Dick Ayers and Steve Gerber to Alex Raymond and the Masters of American Comics show. Whether or not we’re successfully realizing our goals is of course for others to judge.

In his second post, Berlatsky made at least one point that I really agree with: “The cultural space within which a work is produced, and the way it is received, has a lot to do with a medium’s health.” If critics are capable of doing anything at all (and they may not be), they can help shape that cultural space. There are many great traditions in comics, from the Harvey Kurtzman legacies of comic satire and unglamorous war and historical stories, to superhero tales (which at their best can be wonderfully surreal and pregnant with political subtext and sometimes just silly fun), to less easily classifiable work like that of Fort Thunder and Jim Woodring, and a whole lot more besides. All the various contributions of Japan and Europe and elsewhere should be included, and yes, I think that comics that deal with real life in an at least somewhat realistic and serious manner should be, too. Few readers will, or should, find all kinds of comics equally to their taste, but the cultural space I would like to encourage has a place for all of them, and will judge each work on its own individual merits, not on arbitrary generic guidelines.

Again, I apologize for this kind of boring stuff, but I don’t want to be misunderstood, and thought it might be good to have this on the record.

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Recent Comics Reading


by T. Hodler

Wednesday, July 18, 2007


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We haven’t done this in a while.

Jack Kirby‘s Fourth World Omnibus, Volume 1
Everything went right with this book, which collects the early issues of Kirby’s “Fourth World” comics for DC (Jimmy Olsen, Forever People, New Gods, and Mister Miracle), with the stories printed in order of their original publication. Some have complained about the paper stock, which is superficially reminiscent of newsprint (I’ve heard this “choice” came down to a production mistake, though that may just be rumor), but it works very well, in my opinion. The coloring is as good as it gets for this kind of archival treatment. In terms of story, this is pretty close to the deep end for pure Kirby weirdness, and those who haven’t read much by him might be better off starting with his ’60s Marvel work. Or maybe not. The ’70s period finds Kirby’s art and bizarre ideas as close to “art comics” as he would ever get.

This has been one of the most widely reviewed comics collections of the year (deservedly so), so I won’t go on too much longer, but I do want to say that I really enjoy how Kirby throws in subplots and imagery with incredibly disturbing implications (the underground government cloning facility, the fact that the very first person they decided to clone was Superman (an incredibly incautious choice, I’d think)) in an almost offhand manner, barely commented upon by the characters. There are a lot more levels to these stories than might seem initially apparent.

Richard Sala‘s Delphine #1-2
I’m also really enjoying this new series from Sala, which is part of Fantagraphics’s Ignatz line. I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t really get Sala’s work in time to follow The Chuckling Whatsit and Mad Night in their original serialized form, so it’s great to get another chance with this new series, which seems to be loosely based on the Snow White story. Sala’s done some great work with short pieces, but these Judex-like serials are where he really excels. One panel in the first issue actually made me jump (well, not really jump—I was sitting down—but the sedentary equivalent of jumping, anyway). Good stuff.

Rick Geary‘s Treasury of Victorian Murder: The Borden Tragedy
For some reason, Rick Geary’s drawing style has never really appealed to me—it seems too twee or something, I guess—but enough people whose taste I trust have recommended him to me over the years that I finally decided to give him a try. I’m glad I did. This narrative reconstruction of the infamous Lizzie Borden trial and the murders that led up to it is masterfully done, and a pretty obvious riposte to my ignorant lament that not enough comics were taking advantage of the form’s natural strengths for exploring historical topics. Geary uses a tremendous amount of innovative layouts and formal techniques (pretty much everything I imagined earlier, as well as others I hadn’t anticipated) to great effect, and this is a compelling true crime tale. In the end, it may seem like not much more than a well-executed genre piece, but when considered with the other titles in this series (which I definitely plan on sampling), that judgment may prove too harsh. And there’s certainly a place for good genre work, anyway. I’m still not the biggest fan of Geary’s drawings, but they do what he wants them to, which is what counts. (I’m sometimes repelled by Steve Ditko‘s art, for that matter, and he’s one of my favorites.)

Josh Simmons‘s House
I’ve enjoyed a few of Josh Simmons’s mini-comics over the years, but this is a real step up, and a very promising book-length debut. This short, atmospheric horror story follows three young people exploring a strange, abandoned house, and the first half of the book is filled with surprising and even exhilarating moments. I don’t want to give the plot away, but after being so pleased by the beginning of the book, I was a little disappointed by the ending, which felt too protracted and schematic for my taste. The author pretty clearly intended that effect, though, so maybe I’ll be more receptive after a few re-readings. In any case, Simmons displays an original voice, and this is inexpensive and impressive enough for me to recommend it to anyone interested in horror or wordless comics. I am excited to see what Simmons comes up with next.

Minetaro Mochizuki’s Dragon Head, Vols. 1-4
What is wrong with me? Everyone else in the world, from Dan to seemingly every comics reviewer on the Internet, is raving about this manga, but four volumes in, I’m still indifferent. So far, the story follows two high-school students trapped in a train tunnel after some kind of apocalyptic incident, and their struggle to survive and escape. It’s all put together extremely well, but follows the J-horror/apocayptic fiction formulas so closely that I’ve never once felt surprised. I’ve been assured by others that the series gets better as it goes, but I’m about ready to give up. This feels a lot like any number of “good” television shows (Lost, Heroes) that I don’t feel like I have the time to follow, and I don’t think the fact that these characters are drawn is going to keep me going. I am probably wrong about this series.

Finally, in the so far, so good files:

Osamu Tezuka‘s Apollo’s Song
I haven’t finished this yet, but I’m loving it, and I’m really glad that Vertical is putting out these relatively obscure Tezuka titles. When the Phoenix volumes came out, I wasn’t really ready for them. The bizarre and wonderful storytelling in this, Ode to Kirohito, and Buddha has given me new eyes.

Gardner Fox and Howard Sherman‘s Golden Age Doctor Fate Archives
This book is too expensive if you can’t find a deal somewhere, but so far, this is nothing but great, brainless, golden-age fun. I can’t read too many of these stories at once, but it’s terrific in small portions.

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PShaw Speaks Out


by T. Hodler

Tuesday, May 15, 2007


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He‘s also sent a nice recent strip to New Bodega.

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