Showcase: DC Comics Presents

It's old home week at What Are You Reading today, as our special guest is none other than Graeme McMillan, who,  before he became a writer and editor for the sci-fi blog io9, used to pal around with us back when we were at that other blog that shall not be named for fear of ... something, I dunno.

Anyway, to see what Graeme and everyone else is reading this week just click on the link below ...

JLA: Strength in Numbers

Tom Bondurant: This week I read a couple of stories from the JLA: Strength In Numbers paperback: an Adam Strange guest-shot written by Mark Waid and pencilled by Arnie Jorgensen, and the Starro/Sandman mash-up "It" from the regular team of writer Grant Morrison, penciller Howard Porter and inker John Dell. Plot-wise, the Adam Strange story hinges on (surprise!) a novel way of using Zeta-Beam teleportation; but it may be more notable for Jorgensen's expressionistic take on the World's Greatest Super-Heroes. His Orion literally froths at the mouth, and at one point he zeros in on Adam's half-crazed expression like Steve Ditko on crystal meth. I could (and might) do a whole post on the religious overtones in "It," but for now I'll just say it's a scary, suspenseful, and ultimately sweet two issues.

Big week for Batman in the regular books. I read Scott Shaw!'s "Oddball Comics" entry on Brother Power last week, so I knew a little about him going into Brave and the Bold #29, and I also liked the story right up until the end. With his lament about "what have we lost since the '60s," JMS's heart was in the right place, but in story terms it felt redundant and preachy. I'm with Tim overall, though -- this was a definite improvement over last issue.

I hadn't been particularly impressed by Christopher Yost's work on Red Robin, so I only bought the first issue. However, I did like the conclusion of his Huntress/Man-Bat two-parter in this week's Batman: Streets Of Gotham #6 (drawn by the regular art team of Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs). In fact, the issue worked pretty well on its own: Black Mask gives a goon an invisibility suit and doesn't care who he kills, so he tricks a priest into thinking he's the Voice of God and Huntress and Man-Bat are beasts from the Pit. Not a bad setup for the anyone-can-die-at-any-time atmosphere which must permeate Gotham City, and the twist ending also makes good sense in that context. I'm not sure how well the twist works in terms of story logic, but on the whole, it was a well-told tale.

Flash Rebirth #5

Big week too for Geoff Johns. Flash: Rebirth #5 didn't quite live up to its "this changes everything!" hype, mostly because its shocking reveal wasn't particularly unexpected, considering Johns' affection for continuity. The rah-rah moments made up for it, though; and I liked seeing the assembled speedsters. (Too bad XS couldn't join 'em, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time ... uh, so to speak.) I don't have any big complaints about Ethan Van Sciver's work either, except for that one forced-perspective splash page.

Meanwhile, I bought Adventure Comics #4 dreading the return of Superboy-Prime, since I thought Legion Of Three Worlds had given him such a perfect ending. Nevertheless, this was a very fun coda. Superboy himself is none too happy himself about being part of Blackest Night, and to make matters worse he's being chased by Black Lantern Alex Luthor. The result, co-written by Sterling Gates and ably drawn by Jerry Ordway and Bob Wiacek, isn't that subtle (Luthor calls the Internet "a conduit for ... rage, and you continue to evoke quite a bit of rage"), but that's part of its charm. I mean, it's not like I love the little punk now, but this issue was a good bit of rehab.

I also bought the first issue of Ian Edgington and Davide Fabbri's Victorian Undead, ostensibly a Sherlock Holmes story but more a steampunk horror tale with some Holmes in it. For one thing, Watson isn't the narrator. That's not a dealbreaker, but it's not what I was expecting. Still, it might have avoided some problems with execution, like with the doctor whose speaking style and general demeanor initially led me to believe he was Holmes. When our heroes finally do show up, Holmes looks and acts rather like Reed Richards, which is to say a little younger and more action hero-y than I might have thought. Fabbri's art is like a cross between Mike Wieringo and Chriscross, so it's bright and energetic, and that's not bad but it too is at odds with the darker elements of the story. I will say this, though: it
didn't remind me constantly of Blackest Night.

Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer

JK Parkin: As Sean and Kevin pointed out this week, SLG is having a sale over on their site through Monday. So I thought it might be a good time to talk about two books I recently read from them that would be worth your time and money, should you decide to take advantage of the 40 percent discount.

First up is Pinocchio Vampire Slayer by Dustin Higgins and Van Jensen ... just in time for New Moon! Well, not really. This is a book that received a lot of press and praise before it even came out because of the simplicity-yet-brilliance of the concept -- the wooden kid whose nose grows when he lies, taking on creatures who die when you impale them with a wooden stake. Sometimes high concepts can fall flat in the execution, and I was happy to see that wasn't the case with PVS, which I liked a whole lot. There are some fun twists and a lot of heart in the book, and I'm looking forward to the second one.

Second is Weird Fishes by Jamaica Dyer, which collects her webcomic. It's good stuff, but don't take my word for it ... go check it out for yourself.

(Sean pointed out that Buenaventura is also having a sale, and you couldn't go wrong with picking up Fight or Run, or The Aviatrix, or any of their other comics as well).

Underground #3, by Steve Lieber

Tim O'Shea: Steve Lieber continues to cram an amazing amount of action into the caves of Underground 3 (. I don't know how long it took for Jeff Parker and Lieber to do this five-issue miniseries, but if they can spare the time (and their family budgets can take the hit) I would love to see these two collaborate again. As much drama as they have in the caves, the creators have built a great parallel tale outside the caves. And the shift outside the caves to the vibrant colors of the outside (colored by Ron Chan) is quite distinctive (but Chan is to be credited equally for inking the dark cave interior scenes as well).

The cover to Flash Rebirth 5 (please god let there never be a Flash Afterbirth) is a twisted reworking of Flash 123's (1961) cover. And fortunately that's the only sour note in this issue's read. I think there's three schools of superhero comic fanthought: 1) Toss out the status quo--explore new ideas with the corporate property; 2) Keep the hero the same age, the character/story dynamics-give me what pulled me in, in the first place; 3) Toss out some of the status quo, keep the stuff I like.

OK, maybe there's more than three schools of fanthought. But the bottom line, I missed Max Mercury and am glad to have him back in the Flash Family. After the wringer that Bart Allen has been run through by DC editorial in recent years, it was nice to see Bart reunited with Max. I wonder if Max will be put back on the DC universe shelf after this miniseries has run its course or if they have a gameplan to utilize him going forward. I'll just have to wait and see, but in the meantime this miniseries has become immensely more enjoyable.

Paul Azaceta drawing Spider-Man (Amazing Spider-Man 612) reminds me of when Bill Sienkiewicz did a mid-1980s stint on Fantastic Four. It's jarring, but it works for me. In an effort to keep the book on its intense (three issues a month) schedule, editor Steve Wacker is taking some inspired risks--namely this issue's use of the I Kill Giants (Image) team of Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Niimura on the second tale. Back to the first tale in the issue, however, did Mark Waid really sneak in a Jimmy Webb/Glen Campbell reference into his representation of Electro's origin? ("I was a lineman for the county." Nice, Waid, nice).

After my worship of Waid in last week's column, no one will be surrprised that I got a huge kick out of the beatdown that Plutonian received at the hands of Charybdis in Irredeemable 8 (BOOM). Waid is good at surprises and the character path with Charybdis has taken a great turn in recent issues.

Last month I fairly well tore down J. Michael Straczynski's Brave and Bold 28, so I was heistant to pick up B&B 29 which features a team-up between Batman and Brother Power, the Geek. I do not know a thing about BP, but as dated
a character he clearly is -- JMS set up a modern day setting for his return that runs the risk of being one-note but fortunately does not. Crazy as this may read, I think JMS could build a great BP the Geek ongoing. Stop laughing. It could work. Saiz does a great job shifting from the 1960s to present day with his art. JMS' examination of Batman's history played off his reaction to BP is a quirky, but effective way to go--and I'm glad I bought the issue. It's a nice recovery after the last issue.

O'Shea: Next Generation (aka my 10-year-old son) continues to enjoy Chris Giarrusso 's G-Man: Cape Crisis, which saw the release of issue 4 (out of 5) this week

X-Men Legacy: Salvage

Michael May: I just finished X-Men Legacy: Salvage and my main reaction is that it's about frickin time. Rogue's always been my favorite X-Man, but the tragedy of her inability to control her powers has gone on far too long. She was in danger of Wolverine-syndrome for me, by which I mean that Marvel kept Wolverine's true background a mystery for so long that I lost interest in whether or not they ever revealed it. By the time they finally did, I'd stopped caring. Fortunately, they got to Rogue in time and I'm thrilled that the woe-is-me part of her life is behind her. (Not that I expect her to be completely done with all drama, but you know what I mean...)

I also appreciate what Carey's done with Charles Xavier. I actually like Professor X again. I've been away from the X-Men a while, but I'm kind of excited about keeping up with their adventures again, if only in the collected versions.

Chris Mautner: Short and sweet this week cause I'm tired. I spent a good part of the week reading Goats: The Corndog Imperative, the second collected volume of Jonathan Rosenberg's Webcomic from Del Rey. I'm of two minds about the strip. On the one hand, I admire the attempt at world-building and extended storytelling Rosenberg is attempting here, even if it is more than a tad silly, and it's interesting to see him try to move beyond the traditional joke-a-day concept he began with. On the other hand, while he can be funny, I tire of the constant punchline/rimshot/punchline repartee that plauges the dialogue. No one can make any comment without someone offering a bit of surreal smartassery. It gets a little weary and it makes it hard to develop any attachment to anyone in the large cast. Still, he's trying something. God love him for that.

The Learners

Graeme McMillan: It's completely unintentional, but I've just gone through a few "real" books that've impacted how I'm reading comics these days. Two of them are kind of process books - John Ortved's "The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History" and Russell T Davies' "The Writer's Tale" - and the third is Chip Kidd's second novel, "The Learners," which is - like his first, "The Cheese Monkeys" - as much about graphic design as anything else. They've all got me thinking about how comics, especially mainstream superhero comics, are assembled, and
what their purposes are these days.

That train of thought has been helped by speeding through this week's "Showcase Presents: DC Comics Presents: The Superman Team-Ups Vol. 1," which was a really strange experience; I hadn't realized how many of the stories I'd read in reprints when I was growing up, so half the book had this unexpected nostalgia to it. It doesn't hurt that the book is full of the old school "Hello, chum!" quasi-professional, quasi-friends relationships between the characters that, were I somehow Geoff Johns for a day, I'd selfishly try and get back into the current line as quickly as possible. Also, that Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez art! Man, he's such a great artist.

What else have I enjoyed this week? The new issue of Phonogram, even though I think I read a different story from the one Kieron Gillen wrote, judging from his talk of villains in the backmatter.

The new Underground, which isn't just enjoyable on its own merits (Again, the book just looks wonderful, with Steve Lieber and Ron Chan doing some great work together; I love the limited palette in the cavern), but makes me feel like Jeff Parker is one of those Most Underrated Writers In Comics guys: Between this, Mysterius The Unfathomable and his Marvel work, he's put out some really, really good, and really varied, work this year, I think.

Superherowise, I was kind of disappointed by Flash: Rebirth #5, which seemed much lighter and stretched out compared with earlier issues, and Adventure Comics #4, which started like Ambush Bug and ended like... well, like a kind of generic superhero comic, really. That said, I'd still think about picking up DC Comics Presents: The Superboy Prime Team-Ups just for the cheap metatextual jokes, if someone wanted to make it happen.

Cat Burglar Black

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is scholar and critic par excellance Craig Fischer, whose musings on comics can be regularly read on Thought Balloonists, the blog he shares with  Charles Hatfield.

To see what Craig and everyone else is currently reading, click on the link. And don't forget to let us know what you're reading this week as well.

Stumptown #1

Michael May: I enjoyed Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth's Stumptown #1 this week. It feels familiar in a couple of ways, but familiar can be good. Rucka is obviously fond of strong, but broken, women detectives and Dex certainly fits that description here. But I'm also fond of reading about that kind of character. It's one of the reasons I like Rucka's stuff.

But he hasn't exactly just renamed Renee Montoya or Carrie Stetko for this story. Stumptown doesn't feel as weighty and serious as those comics do. It's got a fun, Rockford Files/Magnum PI vibe to it that I didn't realize I'd been missing. Even down to Dex's relative whom she obviously loves, but is also exasperated by.

Reading it, I also realized that a well-drawn comic is my preferred way to take in a mystery story. Unlike books, where only the important details are described, or movies, where pictures move too fast for me to look for my own clues, comics allow me to explore the crime scene with the detective, pausing to stare at whatever I want; finding all sorts of things that may or may not be vital to the solution. I haven't had this much fun with a mystery story since the first arc of Fables.

Omega the Unknown

Matt Maxwell: OMEGA THE UNKNOWN: CLASSIC
Yes, I started reading this after buying it at SDCC. No, I didn't finish it. Got sidetracked. Picked it up again and marveled at how this book actually got published. 'Cause even for Bronze Age Marvel, this stuff is pretty out there. Gerber/Skyrene's caped superhero lives in Hell's Kitchen (long before Daredevil found it fashionable to do so) in a tenement storefront, occasionally crossing paths with villains like Electro (who's defused by a handicapped child) and El Gato (witch-man of the barrio), fighting for no reason other than to fight and generally questioning a lot of the assumptions that you have about superheroes. Oh, and there's a kid that Omega may or may not be. A kid raised by robots. The story here doesn't end so much as it concludes, written in another book by another writer altogether (though Steven Grant might've been working from notes/conversations with Steve Gerber, not sure on that) in an unsatisfactory manner, given the time that things had taken to get started. Still, for fans of Steve Gerber (and those who might want to get an inside glimpse into Gerber's HARD TIME, which had some relation to OMEGA, if not only obliquely), worth a read, though perhaps not the twenty five dollar cover price.

Also read BOB DYLAN REVISITED for the purposes of review. I'll just say there's a lot of very pretty and engaging art and leave it at that here. Finishing my re-reading of the remastered REBEL by Pepe Moreno. Some of the script revisions jump right out (but that's always the case when an older work is 'updated'), and I'm not in love with the remastered color, as part of the original's charm for me was the hyper-garish coloring, making the look unique (at least in comparison.)

Moyasimon

Brigid Alverson: Sometimes, it is good to be a comics journalist.

For instance, this week I am holding in my hot little hands an advance copy of the first volume of Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture, which will be released later this month. The premise is at once familiar and original: A young man has the power to see bacteria and other microorganisms. Happily, he has decided to go to agricultural school with his friend, who is the son of a brewer. The two of them quickly hook up with an eccentric professor who is probably up to no good, his hard-edged female assistant, and a pair of sophomores who start a rogue sake brewery that ends badly early into the story. Sawaki, the main character, uses his powers to figure out all kinds of things, and there’s a lot of talk of fermentation and rot in this book, which is educational in an icky-science sort of way. Also, it’s a little more hyperactive than most manga because the editors left in creator Masayuki Ishakawa’s marginalia and doodles.

I’m also reading Garen Ewing’s The Rainbow Orchid, a Tintinesque adventure comic drawn in the ligne claire style. This one is set in the 1920s and has the lead character, an adventurous young man named Julius Chancer, heading off to find a rare orchid in the company of a movie star, in order to preserve her family estate. It’s cheerily old-fashioned stuff, and the story moves along nicely with lots of complications. Ewing’s style is a touch more realistic than Herge’s and appears stiff in places, but his palette is spot-on, and he really creates a sense of place. You can read a large chunk of the comic online, but it’s only being published in the UK; happily, when I expressed interest, Ewing sent me a copy. The book is beautifully produced, with rich color tones, and worth seeking out if you’re a fan of period adventures.

Stuffed arrived with a set of almost random review copies, and I read it in one sitting. It’s like Driving Mr. Albert meets Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. The main character, Tim, is an ordinary suburban guy who has put an unhappy childhood behind him, until his father dies and leaves him a homemade museum of curiosities. One of the objects on display is a stuffed African warrior, and Tim has to figure out how to deal with that, both physically and mentally. It’s an interesting exploration of family dynamics and racial attitudes on both sides of the color line, as Tim negotiates his situation with both his aging-hippie brother and an African-American anthropologist. Happily, the outlandishness of the story keeps it from being too heavy, and the characters all ring true.

Captain America Reborn #4

Tim O'Shea: First off, I'll start with Paul Cornell's Black Widow. Why? Because I wished I had read it this week, but forgot to pick it up at the store. Saw it on the shelf, got distracted, did not snag it. I would love to hear if anyone read it among our readers? Should I be running out to get my copy?

There is a panel toward the end of Captain America Reborn 4 that I could have sworn Gene Colan stepped in do to a Cap facial reaction shot. I never notice that about Bryan Hitch or Butch Guice before. Maybe a little bit in Guice -- either way the art is the real asset to this story. I grow tire of Brubaker usig Sharon Carter merely as a prop to be bandied about in this story. Given how critical she is to the story's outcome, her perpetual victimhood undermines the appeal of the character and the strength of the story for me.

John Ostrander writing an issue of Secret Six? Interested. Story set in Gotham? More interested. The return of a great Ostrander character -- Father/Reverend (read the story it makes sense) Richard Craemer? Sold.

Assault on New Olympus One-shot with Hercules and Spider-Man is a fun story to me. I enjoy Van Lente's use of Spider-Man here -- and most notably the comedic homage to the Ditko/Spidey heavy machinery lifting scene of years ago.

Stumptown had me damn curious when I heard the Rockford Files comparison. And it is an apt one. I love reading Greg Rucka when he's unrestricted from corporate continuity. Dex lives in a rougher world than Rockford did, though--and fortunately she's smart enough to survive. Comics can always use more strong female leads and I'm grateful to Rucka for creating the character.

Secret Six

Tom Bondurant: One of my not-so-secret shames as a DC fan is that I'm woefully unfamiliar with the details of John Ostrander's Suicide Squad. I read a few issues here and there, but it was never a mainstay for me, and I didn't read his Deadshot miniseries from several years back. Therefore, I liked Secret Six #15 (drawn by Jim Calafiiore) for its standalone value: Deadshot's an antihero who used to be a Batman villain, and while he might not seem to care whether he murders everyone in a room, on the inside it's a constant struggle not to. (That reminds me -- I always think of Catman as the Secret Sixer who wants to be "good," but as this issue shows, Deadshot's actually had a taste of superherodom.) Given the people in his life, spotlighted herein, I can understand why he has these control issues. The Secret Sixers are each pretty fascinating on their own, and this issue shows why. Calafiore's art isn't a perfect match -- his faces and figures are sometimes a bit too stylized -- but it's helped mightily by Gregory Wright's colors. Still, if I weren't already reading the book, this issue would hook me pretty effectively.

Justiniano comes in as guest penciller of Doom Patrol #4, the Blackest Night tie-in (written by Keith Giffen and inked by Livesay), and I think he does a decent job. The book doesn't look terribly different, so I'd say Livesay and colorist Guy Major have a lot to do with that. The story is clever too: in what I thought was a darkly funny inversion of the DP's history, the "New Doom Patrol" of the '70s and '80s are all dead, and the formerly-martyred original DPers have to fight the new Black Lanterns. There's also a very clever Black Lantern who I really didn't see coming, so nicely done, Mr. Giffen. (When did Val Vostok die, though? I thought she was part of Checkmate.) It has a good capsule history of both teams, and the stars of the book react to Blackest Night with their by-now-
familiar jaded attitude. As always, the "Metal Men" co-feature is a joy, and I hope Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire hold those Old Navy mannequins in the same amount of contempt I do.

As with the Thanagarian "menace" of the past couple of issues, Superman: World Of New Krypton #9 (written by Greg Rucka and James Robinson, drawn by Pete Woods and Ron Randall) seems to promise a huge throwdown between the Kryptonians and the Saturnians -- including a couple of Faceless Hunters From Saturn (TM) -- but then Superman has to step in and be all diplomatic. However, there's more intrigue on Krypton and a locked-room mystery to boot, so it's not like the issue is dull. I can't tell, though, what the division of labor is with regard to the art. There didn't seem to be too many solo-Randall pages ... or maybe my eye's just not that discriminating. ("You got Woods in my Randall!" "You got Randall in my Woods!")

Finally, I've been enjoying the Let's Be Friends Again collection, which is basically fifty-odd pages of annotated strips and over a dozen pages of sketches, bonus material, and tributes from other cartoonists. Buy it just so you can have a print version of Kim Jong-Il in a Luthor battlesuit.

Zero Zero #2

Chris Mautner: Working on that big Collect This Now column on Al Columbia the other week had me rummaging through my back issues of Fantagraphics' late, lamented Zero Zero anthology. That in turn had me running to the company's Web site, where, lo and behold, the entire series was on sale for .99 cents an issue! I snatched up as many issues I was missing as I could and am only just now starting to delve into them. Re-reading this stuff, it really startles me just how good and how ignored this series was and continues to be. I mean, the level of talent in these pages is staggering. Kim Deitch's Search for Smilin' Ed! Dave Cooper's Crumple! Richard Sala's The Chuckling Whatsit! Joe Sacco's Christmas with Karadsic! Not to mention Max Andersson, Skip Williamson, Mack White, Sam Henderson, Michael Kupperman, David Mazzuchelli and so many more. This really was the best anthology of the 90s, bar none.

Children's author Michael Rosen pretty much gets a pass from me no matter what he does, having writing one of the most agonizing, astonishing and bittersweet picture books, Michael Rosen's Sad Book. His latest, Red Ted and the Lost Things, is nowhere near as impressive, but that doesn't mean it isn't amusing. Illustrated by Joel Stewart, it's a cute tale of a lost teddy bear who tries to find his owner again and succeeds, thanks to the help of a cat and a stuffed alligator. It's an amusing kids' comic; one I think small children will like. It's no Sad Book, but then I'm not sure any writer is capable of something like that twice in a lifetime.

The Summit of the Gods

Craig Fischer: So what am I reading?

Last night I finished Richard Sala's Cat Burglar Black (First Second). For the past week, I'd been limiting myself to only a few pages of Cat at bedtime, trying to stretch it out into serial-like installments. Which is only appropriate: Sala's story -- his signature mélange of creepy houses, suspicious characters, narrative double-crosses and cute girls (a cadre dressed in black, the cat burglars of the title) -- reads like it should've been produced as a zero-budget serial by a Poverty Row studio like Republic or PRC in the mid-'40s. Great fun, and Sala's art looks lurid and purple in the paperback-sized, full-color First Second format.

As soon as I polished off Cat Burglar Black, I started the first volume of Yumemakura Baku and Jiro Taniguchi’s The Summit of the Gods (Fanfare/Ponent Mon). I’m still in the early pages of the book (Fukamachi just bought the camera), and again I’m forcing myself to read slowly; I want to properly savor Taniguchi’s flabbergastingly detailed depictions of mountain vistas and Kathmandu streets.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve also read and enjoyed a few floppies: Astro City Astra Special #2 (Homage/Image), Citizen Rex #4 (Dark Horse), The Eternal Conflicts of the Cosmic Warrior (Image) and Strange Tales #3 (Marvel). And I’m not even counting the comics I bought for my kids, Simpsons Comics #158 (Bongo) and Archie #602 (Archie, duh). Did you know that Archie and Veronica have twins named Lil Archie and Lil Veronica?

The funniest book I've read recently is Alan Aldridge’s The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes (Abrams). Aldridge is an artist and graphic designer who began his career with book covers for Penguin UK -- I own a copy of J.G. Ballard’s The Wind from Nowhere (1961) with an Aldridge cover illustration of psychedelically undulating ocean waves and bending buildings. Then Aldridge helmed several landmark hippie-era projects: he snapped the picture of the band in silver suits for Cream’s Goodbye record sleeve (1968), he drew album covers for The Who (A Quick One, 1966) and Elton John (Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, 1975), and (maybe of greatest interest to Robot 6 readers) co-edited The Penguin Book of Comics (1967) with George Perry. Kaleidoscope Eyes is primarily a showcase for Aldridge’s art, but it also features Aldridge’s rambling, episodic, eccentric autobiography in prose between the pictures. He knew everyone, and has hilarious tales to tell. Maybe someday I’ll meet Aldridge in a dive pub in Wales, where I’ll ply him with Jameson and persuade him to give me more details about his inadvertently embarrassing interview with Paul McCartney and his drawing duel with Dalí.

Heeding the recommendations of Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke, I've been plowing through Donald Westlake's novels, most recently Cops and Robbers (1972, though I read the Mysterious Press paperback from 1993). The blurb on the cover of Cops hypes Westlake as the king of “comic mystery novelists,” but I didn't find the book funny at all. Rather, it's a satisfyingly dour study of two NYC police detectives who turn to crime because they're fed up with their boring domestic lives and the carnage they see in their jobs. Here's a representative passage, told from the first-person POV of one of the detectives, Joe:

For a long time, it seemed as though there was always something else to take up the slack, keep me interested in life even when the job was dull. Getting married, for instance. Having kids. Moving out of the apartment out to Long Island. Those are like the mountains, and the valley is your dull everyday life.

It had been a long time between mountains.

Holy cow, is this a book for guys in mid-life crises ... which explains why I enjoyed it so much.

Finally, like everybody else, I have batters-up in a stack by my bedside table. Prose on deck includes Lucas Powe Jr.'s The Supreme Court and the American Elite and Stephen Prince's Firestorm: American Film in the Age of Terrorism. The new book on graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister (Made You Look by Peter Hall) looks insanely lavish. And my forthcoming GNs? The Brendan Burford-edited Syncopated collection, and Hannah Berry's Britten and Brülighty. Of the making of books there is no end...

Blood's A Rover

Welcome to What Are You Reading. I hope everyone had a nice Halloween and spent at least part of it reading comics.

Our guest this week is Chip Mosher, Marketing Director at Boom! Studios, publisher of such fine books as Irredeemable and The Muppet Show. As the image above hints, Chip's been reading some rather interesting (and gritty) material, so click on the link below to discover what he and the rest of Robot 6 have been reading recently. Oh, and don't forget to let us know what you have been reading in the comments section.

Brave and the Bold #10

Tim O'Shea: My son really enjoyed the reversal of Atom's usual power in Batman: The Brave and the Bold 10. Meanwhile, I just loved the sheer infectious nature of the story. Landry Walker makes me yearn for more Johnny DC titles written by him. And Eric Jones' two-page spread (as Atom and a Mutant Giant Batman fight) is a sweet tribute to the old Godzilla films (nicely timed for Halloween).

Astra #2 (of the issue Astro City two-part special event) was more entertaining than the cumulative dragging sensation of Busiek's Astro City/The Dark Age work. Let me clarify, while reading certain issues of The Dark Age, I've been engaged and entertained--but seeing how much more ground that Busiek's been able to cover in two issues makes me partial to this quicker pacing. In terms of scope, I agree it's an apples and oranges comparison, but I still find myself craving more Astra-scale tales.

As Greg Rucka's Batwoman origin starts to play out in Detective Comics I'm slowly starting to appreciate why Rucka was so interested in developing Kate Kane. The final pages of this issue are some of the strongest I've seen from J.H. Williams III's already impressive run. Rucka's dialogue, mixed with Willams' use of darkness and panel layout, is elevated by Todd Klein's lettering particularly on the third to last page of the story. Did I mention Dave Stewart's colors? Because I really should. I'll be curious to see if and how DC collects Rucka and Cully Hamner's Question back-up feature down the road. As this particular arc wraps, I'm left wishing the Question pacing was different. The final installment opens with a great foot chase scene that I wished had more space to play out. And the story's conclusion carries an emotional closure that connects to the opening installment four issues ago. I think it would pack more emotional punch if I could read it in one sitting -- a situation that admittedly would still occur even if the story had the lead position and page number volume of the main Detetctive story.

Speaking of Hamner, I just reread Warren Ellis/Hamner's 2003 three-issue miniseries RED -- in preparation for an interview with Hamner. This is likely my favorite Ellis-written tale, mainly because of Hamner's exquisite work.

Finally, previous WAYR installments have sported me struggling with Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four. I struggle no more. Hickman's conclusion, while a smidge rushed, strikes a convincing and winning tone with me. (Though I must admit, it cracked me up in the heat of battle on the world of Reeds, when one Reed would say address one of them as "Reed" and the others failed to all turn around in unison, and ask "which one?"...). I could have done without the Val and Franklin subplot, but you have to give readers something to come back for next issue I guess.

Cat Paradise

Brigid Alverson: It’s Halloween as I’m writing this, so it’s appropriate that I’m reading Beyond Temptation, a horror story told from a teen point of view. It’s horror lite—there’s a hawt demon and some vaguely drawn histrionics, but mostly it’s that more surreal kind of horror — a girl saves a demon’s life, and he must repay her somehow. When he hears she needs money, he makes money magically appear in her pockets. It’s sort of a modern version of the magic porridge-pot, with a bit of Twilight-esque forbidden romance. The drawing is rather rudimentary, and the script has some spelling errors and odd usage—the story is set in Europe and I think this is translated from another language. Usually these two things send me running from a webcomic, but this has an unusually good story, so I’ sticking with it.

Back on the printed page, I’m enjoying the first volume of Yuji Iwahara’s Cat Paradise. I absolutely adored Iwahara’s three-volume Chikyu Misaki, a gorgeously drawn manga that has a lot in common with classic kids’ films. Cat Paradise is more straightforward — you don’t stop to admire the art as much—but it’s still mighty pretty. The story is a schoolgirl’s delight—our heroine goes to a school where students are allowed to keep a pet cat, and it turns out that the students and the cats must unite to battle monsters that are attacking the school. Everything is imaginatively drawn, and all the cats have distinct personalities of their own—in fact, they are more interesting than the students. This is more than a cat manga, though. I am not particularly fond of cats, but I like a good story, and this one delivers.

Detective Comics #858

Tom Bondurant: The LCS had a sale today -- 20% off without costumes, 25% off with -- so most of us donned our costumes for a family outing. The "Let's Be Friends Again" guys were signing copies of their new collection, but the line was a little long and we still had to buy Halloween candy.

As for what I've been reading, I think I'll just stop counting the number of styles JH Williams III uses in Detective Comics. What a great series that is.

Amy Reeder Hadley returned to Madame Xanadu for this week's issue #16, in which Betty Draper is the victim of some very disturbing magical pranks. I really liked her work this issue, because I think it is an excellent fit for the clean lines of the late-1950s setting. Matt Wagner's script was tight and suspenseful too, in part because I wasn't sure exactly who was working behind the scenes.

This week also saw the American-comics debut of Congolese artist Pat Masioni, drawing the first of a two-part Unknown Soldier story (in issue #13). I found his work very similar to regular series artist Alberto Ponticelli, but that's hardly a criticism: it's expressive and efficient, and it kept writer Joshua Dysart's script moving. LIke Madame Xanadu #16, the story begins with a
peripheral character and takes its time to get to Moses. That helped draw me into the story, and I'm looking forward to the next issue.

Finally, appropriately enough, I worked my way through Showcase Presents Ambush Bug. I hadn't read his early appearances in the Superman books, and as it turns out I hadn't read the Nothing Special, so some of it was actually new to me, but all of it was entertaining. I think I appreciate Keith Giffen's sense of humor better today than I did when these books first appeared. Back then I was probably looking for the kind of gags which are many bloggers' bread and butter -- not that there's anything wrong with that -- so it was good to realize Giffen (and scripter Robert Loren Fleming) were in fact going for something a little deeper. Now, thanks to my LCS trip, I can read the final issue of Year None with an informed eye.

JK Parkin: The third edition of Matthew Loux's Salt Water Taffy series is, like the others, a lot of fun. In this one, Jack and Benny solve a century's old mystery and help out an old ghost tied to the town's history.

And since I've been loving Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four, I picked up the Dark Reign: Fantastic Four trade. It's a good intro to his work on the regular title, esp. the way he characterizes Reed. And the bits with Franklin and Valerie were worth the price of admission alone. Actually, there are lots of cool little touches in this, as Ben, Sue and Johnny are jumping through alternate universes where the FF are pirates, or cowboys or space rangers. Fun stuff.

Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows

Chris Mautner: Halloween seems like the perfect time to be reading Bernie Wrightson comics, so I'm glad IDW sent me an advance copy of the first issue of The Ghoul, his latest work with writer Steve Niles that I believe comes out in stores this week. Sadly, this issue feels a bit overly familiar. It's basically Hellboy with a little bit of Goon mixed in -- a trenchcoated police detective needs help solving a mysterious kidnapping, so he enlists the aid of The Ghoul, who works for a special supernatural, federal police force. Of course, it turns out the Ghoul is an actual monster, though quite the sardonic, kick ass tough guy as well.

It all has the feeling of walking down a well-traveled road. Certainly it's nice to see Wrightson doing comics again, and Niles' script is certainly breezy and competent enough. But unless there's some major plot twists or change in tone in the next issue, there's nothing here that isn't in a hundred other supernatural detective stories that seem to be flooding the market these days.

IDW also sent me the first issue of the new Locke and Key series, written by Stephen King's son, Joe Hill, and drawn by Gabriel Rodriguez. I'm not terribly familiar with the series, but if I'm reading it right, it's basically a haunted house story with some fantasy elements thrown in. The first issue is basically a fight between the ghost of a dead killer and the astral projection of an apparently even worse bad guy. Rodriguez frames the sequence rather well. I like his characters' burly, expressive faces. He throws in a lot of detail during the fight, but I never had a problem figuring out what was going on. The comic is a little too plot-heavy for me to start reading here, but I might go back and look at some of the previous trade collections.

American Tabloid

Chip Mosher: When I am not completely immersed in comics, I like to read crime and hard boiled mystery novels. Ross MacDonald, Jim Thompson, Carter Brown, Charles Willeford, Donald Goines just to name a few. And if you are familiar with those guys, well you know that all those authors have passed away. So... I like to read stuff by a bunch of dead guys about people getting dead, but, hey, when I want a change of pace and read books by someone who is living, I turn to James Ellroy. Ellroy is called the "Demon Dog" of crime fiction and he's damn good. Right now I am making my way through his latest "BLOOD'S A ROVER." I love Ellroy's muscular, clipped, staccato prose style and his labyrinthine plots. Reading his later work is like reading Kerouac poems, but about crime instead "the road", and cool instead of pretentious! Speaking, Ellroy's latest book's title is taken from a poem titled "Reveille" by A.E. Housman:

Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad; when the journey's over
There'll be time enough for sleep.

Which I thought was cool. (And, hey, might also be pretentious! Oh, well.) In any case, before I moved out to Los Angeles, Ellroy was fast becoming one of my favorite living writers, and since I have lived here I have had the opportunity to meet him several times; once doing a bus tour given by Ellroy himself! On that tour, we went around to the neighborhoods where he used to be do B&Es (that's breaking and entering to the uninitiated), scenes of infamous murders that he works into his novels, and ending right at the spot where fifty year previous his mother's body was dumped after she was brutally murdered (See Ellroy's memoir MY DARK PLACES). The Ellroy bus tour was probably the best Christmas present my wife has ever given me. But I am weird that way. In any case, I am crime freak, a book freak, a conspiracy freak, and a history freak. If you're freaky in the same way, I would highly recommend BLOOD'S A ROVER and the whole Underworld USA Trilogy, which includes AMERICAN TABLOID and THE COLD SIX-THOUSAND. It tracks the years from 1960-1972 and takes all the craziness of who killed JFK, RFK, MLK (but, hey, not MJK) and mixes it up in one blender of a bitchin' series. And if you get the hardcover you can dig on those deckle edges. I love me some deckle edges. Did I mention I was a book freak? I think I did!

Preventative Maintenance

Welcome to What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is none other than the highly esteemed Eddie Campbell, author of the autobiographical Alec series, as well as the mythological Bacchus and co-conspirator with Alan Moore on the acclaimed From Hell.

I had originally interviewed Mr. Campbell about a month ago in anticipation of the release of his whopping big Alec omnibus collection, The Years Have Pants, so this is more of a What Were You Reading than a What Are You Reading, but I nevertheless think you'll be intrigued by his selection. Look for the rest of my interview with Campbell to show up here at Robot 6 either later this week or next.

Click on the link below to continue reading.

Brave and Bold #28

Tom Bondurant: After what seems like months of Essential Avengers (and assorted color reprints), I have reached a stopping point, having finished the Serpent Crown paperback last night. The next Essential volume was just solicited for January, so I'm glad for the break. "Serpent Crown" is probably as good a title as any for George Perez's introductory arc, although it doesn't much feature the Serpent Crown itself except as a plot device pitting the Avengers against the Squadron Supreme. In hindsight, of course, it's hard not to chuckle at Perez starting his Avengers run with an arc featuring more than one Earth and a good bit of time-travel. Really, though, I think he grew as an artist with each issue. After reading "Celestial Madonna" last weekend (also written by Steve Englehart, of course), I appreciated "Serpent Crown's" relative lack of complexity, not to mention its lack of reliance on arcane Marvel history. Speaking of which, while "Serpent Crown" does seem a little too proud of its many DC references, Englehart does a good job incorporating other books' characters into the Avengers. Moondragon, the Beast, Two-Gun Kid, and Hellcat play off the regular Assemblers quite well.

Another thing about the Avengers: having read both "Celestial Madonna" and "Serpent Crown" apart from their respective places in Avengers history (and out of order to boot), I think these big Avengers arcs work much better in context. Avengers -- at least in the late '60s to mid-'70s -- seems so invested in its various subplots (the Hawkeye/Thor/Moondragon subplot in "SC" comes out of left field if you haven't been following along) that the big-event arcs exist almost as an afterthought. Quite different from the Justice League story formula, so naturally one of the Squadron Supreme makes a comment about it.

According to writer J. Michael Straczynski, this week's The Brave and the Bold #28 (as opposed to that other B&B #28) apparently commemorates December's 65th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. That's fine, but I don't quite see much else justifying this story's existence. It's not a bad standalone issue -- the Flash is thrown back to wartime Belgium, but he breaks his leg in the process and spends several weeks fighting Nazis alongside the Blackhawks. The main point of the story is that while "the Flash" can't kill or carry a gun, Barry Allen can, and does, when he sees what's at stake. That's fine too. However, it takes away the main characters' signature moves. (At no point within the story do the Blackhawks ever fly their planes, because they too have chosen to help the infantry.) JMS could have substituted Sgt. Rock and Easy Company, the Losers, or the Boy Commandos for the Blackhawks without missing a beat, and honestly that might have been an improvement. Likewise, Barry didn't have to be thrown back in time -- it could have been any number of DC characters. I know it's only two issues into JMS's run, but he seems to be deliberately avoiding ostensibly "wacky" match-ups (like Batman using the H-Dial) in favor of examining serious issues. I like serious stuff as much as the next guy, but if I get a Blackhawk comic, I'd like a "Hawkaaa!" or at least see some planes. Anyway, Jesus Saiz is turning out to be a good fit for this title, since his unassuming style works well for a variety of characters and situations.

Finally, James Robinson, Mark Bagley, and Rob Hunter take over as the new Justice League of America creative team with this week's #38, and I have to say, I hope Blue Jay isn't dead. (And if he is, I hope it doesn't stick.) I'd like to think DC is finally turning a corner on the whole "kill off a nobody just to show we're hardcore" thing. Also, I'm not particularly attached to Plastic Man, but he too suffers mightily for the sake of gritty realism. Other than that, I thought Robinson, Bagley, and Hunter turned in a decent issue, equal parts talk and action, which set up appropriate questions about the future of the JLA (which, of course, we know) without just marking time until Blackest Night and Cry For Justice had ended. The characters sound more natural here than they do in CFJ, and Bagley's work also seems more lively here than it did in Trinity. His Despero in particular looks more dangerous, especially with Rob Hunter's scratchier inks. I remain cautiously optimistic about this book, and this issue did nothing to change that.

Dread & Superficiality

Brigid Alverson: I’m all over the place this week with a couple of really offbeat comics. Dread & Superficiality is a collection of the comic strip of that name that ran from 1976 to 1984 in newspapers all over the country. It’s about Woody Allen. Somehow I managed to live through that entire era and never notice this comic. The book is a real labor of love, with an essay by the creator of the strips, Stuart Hample, an introduction in comics and text by R. Buckminster Fuller, and the strips themselves, many shot from the original art, complete with yellowed paper, blue-pencil marks, bits of tape in the margins, and scribbled notes. This makes the book seem more like a history book than a comic book; it’s as close as you can get to a primary source. Hample’s account of dreaming up the strip, pitching it to Allen, and mediating questions of taste and tone makes for interesting reading, and the strips hold up pretty well.

Speaking of history, Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel is a very convincing imitation of one of those pictorial-history books you can pick up on the bargain racks at Borders or Barnes & Noble. Only this history is fake: Guinan and Bennett have inserted their own creation, a robot named Boilerplate, into the great events of history, Forrest-Gump style. Everything in the book is either completely accurate or completely false, and they make no distinction between the two, which makes it an interesting and puzzling read. Boilerplate himself is a bit of a tragic figure, a robot designed to replace human soldiers and thus end the violence of war. Instead of achieving this noble aim, he and his creator, Archibald Campion, fell into obscurity until they were “discovered” by Guinan and Bennett. Boilerplate first appeared in one of their graphic novels and is the star of his own Web site, which is apparently convincing enough that a third of the visitors don’t realize it is a hoax.

And now for something completely ridiculous: Largo Winch in The Hour of the Tiger. This book was first published in France in the 1990s, but it has a super 70s vibe: globetrotting playboy millionaire, scantily clad women, big hair, bright colors. It’s a rescue adventure tale: Largo’s best friend, a dissolute Swiss photographer, is arrested in Burma on trumped-up charges and sentenced to hang. Largo has to get him out, which he does, using a combination of skill, quick thinking, helicopters, guerilla freedom fighters, and killer monks. This is the
fourth volume, but it stands pretty well on its own. Excellent escapist entertainment.

Beasts of Burden #2

Tim O'Shea: I was more disappointed in Brave and Bold 28 than Tom. The cover has the Blackhawks in planes. I genuinely bought the book based on the dynamic nature of the cover ... not knowing that they never flew a plane in the entire story. So much of the book made next to no sense. How exactly did Flash break his leg -- getting it caught in a snow drift? Um, OK. Dialogue has the Blackhawks acknowledging they had dealt with Golden Age heroes, who last I checked weren't really gung-ho on killing people. And yet, they expect this Flash from the future to become a killing machine. And how about that rift that just sits around in the forest, that only Flash can enter at superspeed ... once his leg heals ... but fortunately it's a rift that can patiently wait. I admire JMS's desire to observe the 65th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, but the story he structured around the event seems really forced and clunky.

Underground 2 takes some interesting turns with the bad guys playing against the expectations that Jeff Parker tricked me into assuming (damn he's tricky...) Steve Lieber's use of silhouette on the story's last page (And on the cover for that matter) is quite effective.

Beasts of Burden 2 has some hilarious dialogue (it is Evan Dorkin) counter-balanced with some damn creepy horror (perfect for late October).

Nick Bertozzi's "To Catch a WATCHER!!" (imagine a Uatu as a stalker...) opens the latest issue of Strange Tales 2 (of 3) and is the quite possibly my favorite Watcher story ever. Perverse and goofy? Sure. But still enjoyable. But the highlight of the issue for me is diagram happy Matt Kindt's Black Widow tale. Sweet Jesus, I can't wait to see Kindt do more Marvel work. Just a snippet of the Black Widow's narration while on a mission: "Every mission is a learning experience. Every scar is a mental note...Mental notes saying: 'do not do that again.'"

Batman Confidential 35 is the final installment in The Bat and the Beast storyline. I don't know if Peter Milligan has any ideas to explore the Beast character further, but I get the impression he might.

In non-comics reading, something I recently ran across (wish I could remember where) motivated me to track down a copy of Roger Kahn's 2006 memoir Into My Own: The Remarkable People and Events That Shaped a Life. Kahn has written many great books, which he discusses in the book. But the most effective part of the memoir for me was when Kahn wrote about his late son, Roger, who committed suicide at the age of 23. Kahn noted in the intro that a friend advised him "such personal matters would be difficult to write; it turned out also to be joyous. For when I wrote about Roger throwing passes, scoring hockey goals, or just being a kid, he was alive again and at my side."

Music Box #1

Chris Mautner: In this week's Can't Wait for Wednesday, I talked about the new one-shot Angel comic from John Byrne and how, even though it's not really my cuppa tea, it shows an understanding of basic storytelling and downright readability that most comic book tie-ins can't seem to muster.

A number of similar titles from IDW serve to underscore that point. G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes, for example, is a dull, tepid affair, that speeds along so quickly to it's cliffhanger ending that it doesn't stop to question the plausibility of it's characters, or whether we know or care to know the characters at all. It doesn't help that the artist's "Japanese village" looks about as Asian as southcentral Pennsylvania. If this comic were any more nondescript, you could use it as wallpaper.

That Snake Eyes comic was at least partly written by actor Ray Park, one of the latest in the ongoing "celebrity who deigns to dabble in comics" type of nonsense we've been prey to lately. Another example of that is Jennifer Love Hewitt's Music Box, which while not so awful as to work me into a rage, it nevertheless fails to engage on any sort of level, even as a dumb, "fun" read. Its creators (and I doubt Hewitt did more than OK her name stamp on this) are seemingly more interested in its premise than is characters. And considering its premise is a reheated Twilight Zone plot, that's not a good thing.

And please, no dirty jokes about the comic's title.

Even worse is Clive Barker's Seduth, which is kind of surprising since Barker has written comics before and you think he'd know better. The thing is basically an excuse to throw a lot of trippy 3-D images at the reader, and yeah, the 3-D stuff looks nice, but I kind of was expecting some sort of story and serviceable art to go along with my red and blue glasses, not this incomprehensible, ill-thought-out Lovecraftian gibberish. This thing is a complete mess.

Grandville

Matt Maxwell: GRANDVILLE by Brian Talbot
A most curious book indeed. Minus the anthropomorphic characters and the steampunk setting, it'd be a fairly typical revenge/thriller with the lone detective Doing It His Way as he takes down the aristocratic villains who are manipulating politics and even history itself to enrich and empower themselves. Played out against a familiar backdrop (airships crashing into buildings, being blamed on terrorists/anarchists in an effort to foment war and fear) everything else is intriguing. There's some sharp observations by Mr. Talbot, but to my reading, there's a lot of somewhat obvious plotting (unless of course by transplanting 9/11 conspiracy theories into an utterly alien setting, Mr. Talbot is making a point about the universality of conspiracies themselves). After the astonishing ALICE IN SUNDERLAND, GRANDVILLE comes off as a lesser work. Mind you, it's still plenty entertaining and might earn him some new fans in the steampunk cognoscenti, but it's not the heart-stopping, inventive and engaging ALICE. However, that's a pretty unfair comparison, given that ALICE is really in a class by itself. I'll note that the packaging itself is beautiful and certainly attractive for the price point.

Working through the JH Williams/Greg Rucka DETECTIVE issues as well. Mr. Williams makes every script he draws look so very smart. The way he attacks a page is an absolute joy to read. Can't comment on the story itself, as I haven't quite gotten through it yet, but man, are these some beautiful pages to look at.

Preventative Maintenance

Eddie Campbell: The thing I'm reading right at this minute is Will Eisner's PS The Preventive Maintenance Monthly, which was the army technical magazine he published for 20 years. It's just been put online in its entirety by Somebody at Virginia University Libraries.

I'm even reading all the technical articles about firing pins and how to keep your jeep's engine heads from freezing in winter. I'm still working out why exactly it is taking over my brain. The feeling has always been that Eisner abandoned creative work to drop out of the public view and do this "commercial" and client work, but I think PS mag contributed something useful and practical to the daily life of the soldier, and I'm surprised at how it is transporting me to another time and place. It's made me seriously think about my own career. Have I wasted my life creating comic book stories? Is any of it of any use to the world? I feel a serious crisis of the soul descending upon me. Obviously if everybody loves Pants I will conclude that it does all amount to something after all.

Talking Lines

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading, where we can't stop talking about the comics (and other things) we love. I'm pleased as punch to write that our guest this week is R. Sikoryak, whose wonderful book, Masterpiece Comics, is out right now from Drawn and Quarterly.

Click on the link below to find out what Mr. Sikoryak and the rest of the Robot 6 crew are reading this week. And don't forget to let us know what comics or books you're currently enjoying in the comments section.

Abstract Comics Anthology

Sean T. Collins: I just polished off a re-read of Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, by Kevin Passmore -- part of Oxford University Press's "Very Short Introduction" series of primers on various philosophical and political topics. The last time I read it, it came in handy in deflecting accusations that superhero comics are fascist. (Believe it or not, Spider-Man isn't a violently antisocialist, ultranationalist racist! Who knew?) This time around...well, I suppose you can imagine what it's useful in deflecting.

Now I'm a few chapters into The Family, Jeff Sharlet's gorgeously written expose of a network of fundamentalist Christians that includes several sitting Senators, Representatives, and governors, working behind the scenes to advance their theocratic utopian ideals around the world. It's like the Illuminati, only I'm guessing they really COULD have stopped Secret Wars 2 had they put their minds to it.

Comics-wise, I'm poised between a read of Abstract Comics, the big fat hardcover collection of nonnarrative sequential art edited by Andrei Molotiu, and Driven by Lemons, Josh Cotter's new sketchbook-derived book that's kind of an "applied abstract comics" demonstration.

Essential Iron Man Vol. 3

Tim O'Shea: I decided to re-read Essential Iron Man Volume 3, with the news of George Tuska's passing making the rounds (go read Bob Greenberger's take on Tuska and make sure to read Bob Rozakis' response in the comments section). The book features a nearly 12-issue run (Iron Man 12-23, Tuska inked Johnny Craig on issue 24) with Archie Goodwin as writer. What really amazes me about the art in some of these issues (in addition to Tuska's great villain faces) is the layouts he did with them. Rather than static square panels, they panels are randomly odd sizes and angles that lend further intensity to the action on the pages. Goodwin and Tuska made a great combo for storytelling. I really should track down a copy of 2005's The Art of George Tuska by Dewey Cassell, come to think of it.

Brief cameo from my son, weighing in with his opinion on G-Man: Cape Crisis 3 -- he really enjoyed the flight band radar detector that Glendolf developed. He was bummed out by the ending of this issue, but is curious to see how things turn out next issue. For me, my favorite part was the Fred Hembeck cameo.

Last week I was smacking the X-Men around due to their sheer numbers. But I decided to give Matt Fraction's Uncanny X-Men 516 a try. There's a zillion issues that feature a meeting between Magneto, Cyclops and Professor X, but this one was different in a way that pleasantly surprised me. Sure the issue is still burdened by a slew of characters I have no knowledge of, but I enjoyed it enough to consider buying the next issue.

Congrats to Dan Jurgens for reaching Booster Gold 25 again -- and this time it not being the series last issue. I don't know what the Bat books have planned in terms of writers, but if any of thm every need a breather -- I really appreciated Jurgens' take on Dick Grayson.

R.E.B.E.L.S. 9 adds Adam Strange to the cast--and Tony Bedard gets the chance to write him in a slightly witty way, a take on the character that is refreshing.

Red Herring 3 features a great congressional hearing scene that includes the line (and title of this issue) "I'm too old for an anal probe."

I'm three issues into The Marvels Project and the pacing of the story is just moving too slow for my taste. And seeing Nick Fury express his dedication to serving the country as an opportunity for "stikin' a thumb in Uncle Adolf's eye" is lame foreshadowing of Nick's own eye's fate. But damn if Steve Epting and Dave Stewart's art is not pretty to look at, no matter how sluggish the pacing.

Adventure Comics 506 is a sweet payoff for all the crappy things that have been done to Tim Drake and Conner Kent. In a just a few panels, Conner and Drake reconnect in a manner that reminds readers what makes this friendship (and the legacy they both carry, good and bad) an interesting tale. There's a great deal of Geoff Johns' writing in recent years that I can do without, but this comic reminds me why I first enjoyed him 10 years ago on Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E.

A Distant Neighborhood

Chris Mautner: A Distant Neighborhood Vol. 1 and 2 by Jiro Taniguchi. A few years ago, Matthias Wivel decried what he regarded as a certain tendency in French comics to stick to a middlebrow, bourgeois banality that "affirms the status quo." He might as well have been talking about this manga. Taniguchi is an amazing artist, one of the most detailed and expressive craftsman working in manga today (at least that I know of) and yet this story of a middle-aged man who (gasp!) finds himself transported back to his teen-age years is strictly by the numbers. It's better than Alex Robinson's similar effort, Too Cool to Be Forgotten, but only because it doesn't have that annoying non-surprise ending. It's not bad by any means -- like I said, Taniguchi is a fabulous artist and he manages to generate some tension by having the man/son try to come up with a way to prevent his father from abandoning his family as he's supposed to do -- but it feels awfully bland.

The Complete Peanuts 1971-72 and 1973-74 by Charles M. Schulz. Reading these volumes in one fell swoop, I've kind of come to the conclusion that this period is really the apex of Schulz's career. The "classic" 60s material is great, of course, and Schulz would go on to do high-quality material in the 80s and 90s, regardless of what some haters think, but he was never as consistently hilarious or as poignant as he was in the early to mid-70s. If you're only buying two volumes of this series, it should be these two.

Grandville by Bryan Talbot. OK, so this is a funny animal comic, set in a steampunk-styled Europe. Oh, and it's one of those alternate-history type doo-dads too, where France won the Napoleonic Wars. Oh, and it's also a detective/conspiracy tale. With gobs of blood and violence. And did I mention the whole thing is a very up-front metaphor for 9/11 and the excesses of the Bush Administration? And that it ends with our badger/detective hero facing off against a Donald Rumsfeld-styled rhinoceros in a blimp? Did I also mention that I thought this book was about twelve different kinds of awesome? Cause it totally is.

Agents of Atlas vs. The X-Men

Matt Maxwell: AGENTS OF ATLAS/X-MEN #1 Two great tastes that taste great together! Well, I'm not so sure about the X-MEN, who I stopped following just after Grant Morrison stopped writing it.  But more ATLAS is a good thing in my book (and how could you not love the Atlantean cavalry riding in to the rescue on gigantic crabs while the two dragons watched their proxies bash each others' heads in?)  The zaniness seemed a bit subdued this time around, maybe to break in X-MEN readers gently, but it was nice to see an early ATLAS story paid off with Wolverine continuing his vendetta against M-11.  The backup feature with the 60s ATLAS squaring off against the Original X-Men (which Jeff Parker knows very well from his stint on FIRST CLASS) was a good read, though I'd have preferred that each story be told completely in a month (on the other hand, I understand why it was presented in this way, because one X-Men team certainly has more selling power than the other.)  Hopefully this will get some people to try ATLAS, assuming it's going to be brought back in a new series.

KING CITY #1
Bought this from Brandon Graham himself at APE today, and have been looking forward to it for a long time, since I was never able to find the Tokyopop edition of the first volume of this book.  It's back, being printed by Image in their new, slightly oversized format.  KING CITY itself is a wonderfully charming science fiction/crime story featuring intelligent cats that are weapons, spy hotels run by sasquatches, and medicine by vending machine.  The best part of all this is that it feels like a consistent fictional world, not just cobbled together from favorite movies and generically bland.  Instead, KING CITY is vibrant and wonderful, informed by Mr. Graham's own organic design sense and love of strange, quirky details.  Can't wait to read the rest of this.

Grabbed a big stack of books from a trip to the Isotope, including the new volume of AIR, GRANDVILLE by Bryan Talbot and THE COMPLEAT CANNON by Wally Wood.  I better hide that last one from the kids...

Tales Designed to Thrizzle, Vol. 1

R. Sikoryak: I just got back from SPX, so I have a big stack of comics that I haven't gotten through yet. I did just finish the new R.O. Blechman book, Talking Lines, if it's not too creass to plug another book from my publisher. I thought that was great. It's great to see him making these strips over so many years and finally geet them into a book. I know how that feels. I love how organic and humane his work is. It looks so unassuming but he gets to deal with a lot of different issues and a lot of different themes in what seems like a very casual style. it really adds up to something greater if you read more and more of him.

I also just finished the Tales Designed to Thrizzle collection, which I've been meaning to read for awhile. I'm a friend of Michael Kupperman's and a big fan of his. I thought it was great to see it all in color.

I'm also reading the Kate Beaton book, Never Learn Anything From History, which I just bought. I wasn't aware of her work before. We did a panel at SPX and as you can imagine I'm excited by the combination of comics and historical stories. I understand now she's a big star.

Map of My Heart

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Pull up a chair and sit down, won't you? Our guest this week is Bill Kartalopoulos, who teaches classes about comics and illustration at Parsons, is a contributing editor for Print Magazine, and a comics reviewer for Publishers Weekly. But he's probably best known as the Programming Coordinator for the SPX convention in Bethesda, MD.

Bill and everyone else has quite a number of books by their bedside table this week, so we'll get right to it. Be a dear and click on the link below, won't you?

Warlord #7

Tom Bondurant: Not really comics, but through the magic of Netflix I have been watching the "Middleman" TV show. After four episodes, it's pretty charming, although it feels like a very Kevin Smith-y kind of show. Since creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach was involved with this adaptation, I imagine it's fairly faithful to the comics, but I'm still tracking those down, so I can't compare.

A little further from comics (Howard Chaykin, Roy Thomas, and Marvel are mentioned briefly), I finally found time to read J.W. Rinzler's The Making Of Star Wars (2007). It's an exhaustive coffee-table-sized tome (with dictionary-sized print) which dug deep into the Lucasfilm archives to describe, in nerdgasmic detail, the origins of George Lucas's 1977 classic. The book is also thick with illustrations and other graphics, including periodic charts showing how each draft of the script crept closer to the final film. By the end I felt like I had been sleeping on a cot at ILM along with the other harried effects artists.

The book stops at December '77, and seems to draw largely from period interviews, so it doesn't get into the other movies or Lucas' subsequent revisions to this one. However -- and I don't think was intended specifically, but I'm sure no one at Lucasfilm minds -- it did give me a greater appreciation for Lucas wanting to revisit this movie. He put so much of himself into it, and was frustrated both by Fox and logistical limitations, that I can see where technological advances would make him want to "fix" things. Still doesn't explain wanting Greedo to shoot first, though.

At last with the comics, I was pleasantly surprised by The Warlord #7, written and drawn by creator Mike Grell. After the initial six-issue arc which reintroduced the residents of Skartaris and brought in a new group of 21st-century explorers, this issue finds Travis Morgan with amnesia (as "The Middleman" noted, the kind which only happens in comic books) and the new best friend of an unfamiliar damsel-in-distress. There's not much more to the story than that, but Grell tells it well, using double-page spreads both as spectacle and as an exposition substitute. Because there aren't half-a-dozen characters to manage, the issue has more breathing room, and Grell paces the fights and the conversations effectively. This is also the
best I've seen of Grell's artwork in a while -- usually I think his figures are a little off, but not so much here. I don't think he'll be on story and art for an extended period, but like Dave Gibbons writing and drawing Green Lantern Corps a few years back, it's nice to see him in familiar territory.

I've also started reading my TOTALLY FREE REVIEW COPY of Joe Daly's Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, which arrived on my doorstep in a little wicker basket with a note saying "Please give this book a good rev-- I mean, home," but which for whatever reason I had been neglecting. So far I've gotten through the relatively-short first story, "The Leaky Cello Case," and found it to be nice and laid-back, if a little talky. Our slacker hero Dave must deal not only with various personal crises -- creativity stifled at work, a flooded
apartment, a sudden breakup -- but with a mysterious and unfriendly new neighbor whose handlebar mustache reminded me of a SpongeBob villain. Naturally the guy's up to no good, so Dave and his opposable big toes must solve the mystery before Mustache takes him out. It's an amiable story, meandering through the details of Dave's life so that the eventual plot feels like an afterthought. However, Daly's
style is quite appealing, and his use of color really brings his panels to life. The establishing shots of Dave's Cape Town environs are especially beautiful, and since the second story looks like a road trip I'm eager to see more of Daly's vistas. Daly observes the nine-panel grid pretty strictly, but he gets a lot out of it -- not like Watchmen, mind you, but still good.

I liked Strange Tales #2 well enough, but the story which still sticks with me (with Jacob Chabot's Chia-Stache a close second) is Jhonen Vasquez's bittersweet tale of little Donnie and his MODOK costume. Oh, Donnie -- if only you knew how much MODOK loved you....

Finally, I thought Justice League: Cry For Justice #4 (written by James Robinson, drawn by Mauro Cascioli) was the least objectionable issue to date. This was mostly due to Green Arrow saying what many readers have been thinking for the past three months -- namely, "Why The Face?" -- and Shazam backing it up with, of all things, the Wisdom of Solomon. Oh, and having the Shade show up at the end didn't hurt either. Generally speaking, this is where I thought the story was headed, so (for now, at least) I am happy. Or, you know, less upset.

Flash Gordon

Michael May: I'm not too far into Al Williamson's Flash Gordon, but already I'm pleasantly surprised. Not only is it all of Williamson's Flash stuff, but there are some nicely researched text chapters that deal with his life and how important Alex Raymond's character became to it. And when they say that it's all of Williamson's Flash stuff, they're not kidding. There are even pictures of some Flash-themed wood carvings he made in summer camp. Oh, and the dimensions of the book are huge so that you can make out all the details in the art. It's a really beautiful book.

I'm also re-reading the original Agents of Atlas mini-series. It's the first time I've read it in its collected form with the original Golden Age stories in the back. I read the Golden Age stuff before digging back into the modern story and I'm glad I did. I understand why Marvel ordered the material like they did, but I wish that they'd put it all in chronological order. The old stuff informs Parker and Kirk's story a lot more than I thought it would. So much so, that even though Parker and Kirk fixed it so you don't have to have read them, I'm now curious about the Marvel Boy stories in Fantastic Four and Marvel: The Lost Generation. And I was pretty sure that nothing could make me interested in Marvel: The Lost Generation.

The Doonesbury Chronicles

Tim O'Shea: Tom Spurgeon's post, On The Subject Of Return Reading, made me track down the collected 1970s editions of Doonesbury. At present I'm enjoying The Doonesbury Chronicles and totally agree with Tom's statement "I'm struck by how fantastic a character Joanie Caucus is." Looking at the abundance of characters that Trudeau created back then, I would love to see Trudeau revisit certain character dynamics. (For instance, you rarely see scenes between Joanie and her daughter JJ any more...)

In terms of comics, for juxtaposition I bought Planetary 27 and Astonishing X-Men 31 both written by Warren Ellis. The end of this series (or getting there) was clearly a struggle for Ellis, and no wonder. By his own admission, his own illness as well as the illness and death of his father (among many other factors) are wrapped up in his writing of the series' end. I wish I could compare Ellis' writing of two+ years ago with this new issue of X-Men, but it would be an oranges to apples comparison. Just by its nature, I loved getting the closure of Planetary 27. In terms of Astonishing X-Men, I'll be honest and admit I would not have bought it were it not for Phil Jimenez being the artist on the issue. That being said, Ellis' ability to juggle the banter of an old familar team in the midtst of chaos and adventure is what makes the issue (in combination with Jimenez's absolutely intoxicating pencils) a pleasure to read.

My Pal Carla(tm) has already thoroughly examined Doctor Voodoo's first issue. In comparison, my reaction is more simplistic. Even though I never read any of Bendis' Avengers, I'm curious to see someone other than Stephen Strange (admittedly drawn badly in this issue) try his hand at being the Sorcerer Supreme. Jefte Palo's art is a nice fit for the series -- and Rick Remender's hit-the-ground-running approach with the first issue ensures that I'll be back for issue 2.

Sweet Tooth 2 has some great fight scenes. I never thought I would write a sentence like that involving a Vertigo book or Jeff Lemire. Keep surprising me, Lemire. I like it.

Dark Reign -- The List: Secret Warriors one shot sports two fun things, Ed McGuinness' splash page homage to Steranko (the book also reprints Steranko's Today Earth Died! story) and the reveal of Nick Fury's personal list of "Save the world; Punch Norman (Osborn) in the face; and Have a beer". Jonathan Hickman is fast becoming one of my favorite Marvel writers. I see no reason why this was a standalone issue (other than the reprint) as this could have been included in the ongoing series (and when released in TPB, I'm sure that's how it will be handled). I understand that Marvel is in the business of making money,
but the frequency of one-shot offshoots from ongoing series is both annoying and nonsensical.

Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin is an interesting read for the sheer reason of seeing the character development he's pulling off with Robin. The more that Damian spends time away from his mother and grandfather, the more he's acting like a human being. It's nice to see the character evolve from the one-note "you annoy me and I want to kill you because I'm a psycho" demeanor he frequently sported.

I'm a huge fan of Jeff Parker's Agents of ATLAS (AoA), so I'm of two minds about this team-up with the X-Men. Hopefully it will get the legion of X-fans into wanting more AoA; but the other part of me gets overwhelmed by the sheer number of characters involved in the ever-growing X-family (Namor is an X-Men now?!? It just seems ridiculous that both Cloak and Namor apparently have to sport X's on their costumes, apparently so the other X-Men won't accidentally shoot them.) Also, I was slightly befuddled by the drastic shift in Jason Paz's inking style (it was like going from Byrne to Colan) with the two-page Venus kidnapped scene. That being said, Parker gives Ken more funny lines, so I'm happy. No really, it's the talking gorilla that's always sold me on this series. The back-up tale, Atomic Age Heroes (with the Silver Age incarnation of the teams), is the real delight for me, however. Chris Samnee's art style is the closest to a modern day Ditko (compliment)--yet more fluid in style than him--that I've ever seen.

BOOM's Irredeemable continues to pleasantly surprise me through the reveals that writer Mark Waid has built into the overall tale. And speaking of Waid, he convinced me to buy Power Girl 5 with his recent post about one page in particular.

For my day job, I do rudimentary graphic design. In an effort to boost my skill set, I picked up from the libary a copy of Debbie Millman's 2007 collection of interviews, How to Think Like A Great Graphic
Designer. It includes the following exchange with Chip Kidd:

"Do you regret anything?

"I regret not making the effort to meet Charles Schulz in his lifetime. I tried to make up for it by putting together a book that pays proper homage to his work (Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz). I think I was only partially successful."

Hero Tales

Brigid Alverson: The Yen Press review copies arrived this week, and one that caught my eye right away was Hero Tales, a new series by Hiromu Arakawa, the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist. Actually, it’s by a bunch of people but Arakawa apparently did the art, and it’s very smooth. The story is your basic shonen martial arts tale of a young man with extraordinary powers who must prove himself; nothing new here, really. If you like lots and lots of fighting, with a few supernatural elements thrown in, then this is a good choice. (Actually, it’s wuxia, Chinese martial arts.) Arakawa has a clean, easy to read style, which makes this a pleasant book even for someone like me who is not a huge shonen fan.

I’m too friendly with the creators of Nightschool to do an objective review of it — I chat with Svet occasionally and the toner, Dee DuPuy, is a good friend of mine—but I’ll mention it here anyway. The story is still complicated, with several strands that haven’t quite come together yet, but it’s more fleshed-out than the first volume. Alex, the main character, seems to have a stronger voice in this volume. I love Svet’s art—like Arakawa’s, it’s clean and deceptively simple. She uses a few simple lines to sketch each character, but she chooses those lines well so that each character has a distinct personality.

One thing Yen Press does a lot of, and seems to do very well, is manhwa (Korean comics). They picked up Ice Kunion’s catalogue and have been publishing the books on beautiful paper with gorgeous covers. I wasn’t impressed with the first chapter of Sarasah when it ran in Yen Press — it’s about a girl who has a stalkerish obsession with a classmate, and at the end of the first chapter, she falls down a staircase and dies. When I picked it up again, though, I was charmed by the fact that she wound up in a heaven where the gods wear traditional robes but talk on cell phones. The story veers off into a past-life romance, which I think I can handle. Yen’s manhwa all has a similar look — it’s very stylized in the big-eyes-small-chin kind of way — and the drawings all seem rather hard-edged and flat. I’m not crazy about it, but if the story is good enough I can get past it. We’ll see.

Finder: Dream Sequence

Matt Maxwell: FINDER: DREAM SEQUENCE by Carla Speed McNeil
FINDER is a treasure in comics, and a rare one at that. In a medium that generally doesn't serve up science fiction (much less *good* science fiction), FINDER wholeheartedly embraces the best of what makes good science fiction good. There's both extrapolation and commentary on the current, but at the heart of it is how the technology affects (and even effects) the characters. But FINDER isn't fetishist in either hardcore cyberpunk tropes or galaxy-spanning storylines that are simply high fantasy in drag. It presents honest and tangibly real stories that could only (as the saying goes) be told within comics. I won't say that every page is exemplary of formalist wonder, but there are many pages that make you pause and consider what the medium can actually do, and how it can actually tell stories.

The story in DREAM SEQUENCE centers around Magri White, singularly gifted savant whose brain literally contains the most popular fiction/shared world in the world of FINDER. And that world is falling apart because Magri is falling apart. Weaving together a personal story as well as threads of the nature of creativity and the danger of self-loathing (particularly with regards to creative types, which is more destructive more often than you'd think), DREAM SEQUENCE is an outstanding example of why FINDER is among my very favorite comics. Sometimes it's a daunting read, because McNeil walks her characters and her own voice right out to the edge, but that's where the good stuff goes.

Sadly, I'll be all caught up on FINDER books soon. But that doesn't preclude re-reading (which is a rare thing amongst my comics reading these days.)

There's other stuff I read this week, but not much of it compares.

Complete Jack Survives

Bill Kartalopoulos: Here are some short takes on some (but by no means all) of the books I picked up at SPX, with a few others thrown in for good measure.

Map of My Heart by John Porcellino
I’m only just now dipping into this. I’ve read bits and pieces of John Porcellino’s King-Cat over the years, and am thrilled to have this nearly complete chunk of ten consecutive issues – covers, text pages, letter columns, and all – to read together as a partial record of this remarkable and hugely influential cartoonist’s life and art. John was an eloquent and inspiring guest at SPX, and I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time with this book.

The Complete Jack Survives by Jerry Moriarty
Another book I’ve only sampled so far, but the two-or-three-pages-at-a-time approach is appropriate here. Moriarty blots out the line between painting and cartooning – he calls himself a “paintoonist” – and Buenaventura Press’s definitive collection appropriately functions both as a lavish art book and as a readable collection of these profound and masterful painted comics and comics paintings.

Inkweed by Chris Wright
This has been out for a little while, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Chris Wright at SPX this year, and grateful when he gave me a copy of his book. This nicely designed short story collection makes a sustained case for Wright as a comics storyteller with a consistent point of view and a distinctive (and still mutating) visual style. His work has its own texture, and his stories resonate.

The Golden Age of Marvel Comics vols. 1 and 2
Among other recent influences, Paul Karasik’s Fletcher Hanks books and Greg Sadowski’s Supermen! have got me looking at – if not necessarily always reading – some early “Golden Age” comics, including early superhero comics. Lots of these are available online, but I prefer reading historical comics on paper when I can, and preferably in color. This kind of material has most often been reprinted in expensive hardcover editions for collectors (though DC has published several titles in its affordable, full-color, paperback Chronicles series). Marvel has just collected several issues of the publisher’s first title, Marvel Mystery Comics, as a $125 hardcover which I will never buy. Fortunately, I stumbled across these two portable, full color paperback anthologies from the late-90s. The first volume, edited by Roy Thomas, offers a court historian’s take on the company’s pre-Code period. The second volume is more specifically focused on the initial heyday of the superhero genre, and features many unknown characters alongside Carl Burgos’s pulpy, primary Human Torch, Bill Everett’s peculiarly misanthropic Sub-Mariner, and Simon and Kirby’s blockbuster Captain America. These books are out of print, but still findable at prices much lower than any currently in-print, deluxe collections of work from this period. FYI.

1-800-Mice #3 by Matthew Thurber
Matthew Thurber’s funny and inventive eco-social picaresque continues in this third, self-published issue (available for order via his website). With each issue, Thurber pursues his preposterous premises toward their illogical conclusions while drawing his expansive and expanding narrative ever more tightly together.

Ganges #3 by Kevin Huizenga
Huizenga uses cartoon language to diagram the fuzzy chaos of mental insomnia with absolute clarity and precision. He’s also really made the Ignatz format his own, with stunning use of limited color.

Pines #2 by Jason T. Miles
I was very excited to get a copy of Jason T. Miles’ latest, hot-off-the-press mini-comic at SPX. My quick browse raises expectations that the new one will be as innovative, mysterious and meaningful as the series’ first issue.

Windy Corner Magazine #3 by Austin English, ed.
This has been out for a few months, but I must put a plug in for my friend (and roommate) Austin English’s strong (yet somehow under the radar) magazine/anthology series. In addition to serving as a vehicle for Austin’s own current stories, Windy Corner features a variety of comics and drawings by other artists alongside thoughtful essays and interviews (this issue features Carol Tyler in conversation with Vanessa Davis; issue #2 boasts the definitive-for-now John Hankiewicz interview). As in the best anthology projects, the range of work suggests a distinct – but not constrained – aesthetic approach to visual narrative and picture making. These digest-sized, full-color, staple-bound issues convey a tactile intimacy consistent with the lush and graceful work on display.

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe

Well bust my buttons, if it isn't time for another round of What Are You Reading, where we talk about all the comics, books and other reading matter we're currently engrossed in. Our guest this week is High Moon co-creator and writer David Gallaher, who's been blogging with us at Robot 6 all this past week.

David has quite a list of titles to pour over, so let's get to it. Click on the link below to get started.

Spider-Man 2099

Tom Bondurant: I've been re-reading Spider-Man 2099, but now I have a strange compulsion to pick up "Hush"....

So far I've gotten through the first twelve issues of Spider-Man 2099, all of which which were written by Peter David, pencilled by Rick Leonardi, and inked by Al Williamson. For a book designed to launch an entire imprint, build a new Marvel future, and piggyback on the considerable goodwill of Marvel's best-known character, it stands on its own quite well. That doesn't mean it doesn't feel like Spider-Man, because there's enough humor and swashbuckling to make Miguel O'Hara a credible Spider-successor. It's a handsome package too, with Williamson's inks complementing Leonardi's pencils nicely. David also juggles a growing cast efficiently, for example using villains like Venture and the 2099 Vulture for world-building. He's just introduced the Net Prophet on the last issue of #12, and I know the NP is supposed to be a familiar Marvel character, but I can't remember who -- and don't tell me, I want to see if I can figure it out!

Man, I'm writing about Donna Troy a lot these days! I even watched bits of "Cougar Town" (during "Glee's" commercial breaks) to test my theory about her and Courteney Cox. Anyway, Blackest Night: Titans #2 is probably the most tasteless superhero comic I've read in a while, as well as one of the more ridiculous. Written by J.T. Krul and drawn by Ed Benes (with some inks from Scott Williams), its centerpiece is Donna's confrontation with the Black Lantern versions of her late husband and infant son (who were killed off-panel over ten years ago). What's tasteless is having baby Robbie half-decomposed. What's ridiculously over-the-top is having baby Robbie fly around attacking Donna. Sure it's horrific, and sure that's the point, but baby Robbie didn't have to look so ... dead. (In fact, Black Lantern Jade looked pretty healthy.) Blackest Night can get along fine without a dead baby, so it could have either made Robbie look more presentable, or hidden him in the shadows with his condition implied. It's too bad, because as it happens, Benes' work here is some of his best. It's moody and scary when it needs to be, and dynamic where appropriate. Terra's hinder still gets some undue attention, but at this point that's to be expected.

Finally, I did like this week's Justice League of America 80-Page Giant, a clever riff on the venerable JLA format which finds our heroes paired up and cast randomly through time. It's by a veritable horde of writers and artists, so some chapters come off better than others. Basically, each pair of Leaguers teams up with a classic DC character from the particular time period. I liked Green Arrow and Firestorm teaming up with the Bride to fight Ra's Al Ghul in World War II, as well as Steel and Wonder Woman as pirates fighting Starro. Sadly, I get the feeling that these kinds of stories only get done in these special-format issues because they're too "retro" and throwbacky for the cool kids who read the regular JLA book. That's a
shame, because (as I get tired of saying) the regular JLA book could use a little structure, retro though it may be.

Batman and the Outsiders

Tim O'Shea: I bought/read/own the original Batman and the Outsiders when they were published back in the early 1980s. But I still could not resist the urge to snag a used Showcase edition that collects the first 19 issues of the series (plus a few crossovers here and there). Why? Because it's nice to see Jim Aparo's art in pure black and white. For me, I think Aparo will always be my favorite Batman artist. Also, this was an era in Batman comics where the tragic bastard actually smiled once and a rare while.

Chris Mautner: WW Norton was kind enough to send me a copy of Crumb's Genesis adaptation. I only got it in the mail yesterday, so I haven't had much of a chance to delve into it yet. It looks beautiful though. I hope to have a proper review of the book up soon.

I spent most of the past week or so reading an advance copy of I Will Not Write an Uncensored, Unauthorized History of the Simpsons by John Ortved. As the title so coyly suggests, it's a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the popular animated show, and apparently there was a lot more bad blood amongst the creators and writers than one would initially imagine. The book is especially harsh towards producer James L. Brooks, who comes off as selfish and cruel at times, and Matt Groening, whose contribution to the show seems to have started and stopped with those initial Tracy Ullman shorts. It's one of those "oral history" type books, and Groening and a few significant others don't really contribute directly to Ortved's history (apart from the occasional old magazine interview). Still, for Simpsons fans, those of us that still have fond memories of the show anyway, it's probably a must read. It should be out in stores in a week or so.

Matt Maxwell: FANTASTIC FOUR VISIONARIES: JOHN BYRNE v.1
Someone reminded me of these in a twitter conversation recently and I was inspired to revisit these.  While they're not written in a fashion that we're used to today, they're as good as I remembered them.  And it's pretty amazing to know that John Byrne not only pencilled these stories, but wrote them and inked them, all on a monthly schedule like clockwork.  The stories themselves don't show it, either.  They're all engaging, and remarkably solid and dense.  Most of them are actually one-shots, where everything is wrapped up in 22 pages, which makes for a satisfying read.  Sure, by our standards, they're overwritten, but they're filled with imagination as well.  It may not be the Lee/Kirby FF, but it is an entertaining read nonetheless.

BLOOM COUNTY ARCHIVES v.1
I couldn't resist, as this was one of three comics I was able to follow from beginning to end.  And as Berkeley Breathed was right there signing them at the IDW booth, I took the opportunity and ran with it.  Though i suppose this is cheating, as it's "What I'm About to Read", not really what I'm reading.  Just yet anyways.

Domo

Brigid Alverson: I had pretty low expectations for Domo: The Manga. I never found the character very appealing — he’s one-dimensional and lacks the quirkiness of a lot of Japanese cartoon mascots. But Tokyopop played this one pretty well. Domo is the mascot for Japan’s NHK network and stars in a series of 30-second animated shorts there. Writer Clint Bickham chose a similar format for the book, with a series of very short stories, every one of which could be summed up as: Domo finds something cool and gets carried away, to the annoyance of his friends. The storytelling is almost wordless, which means the art has to be very good, and it is; Tokyopop picked some veteran global manga artists to illustrate the book. There’s not much depth to it, but it’s simple, bright, and funny, very good for what it is—a kids’ book.

I wish I could find Meg Cabot and Jinky Coronado’s Avalon High manga trilogy as likable. The problem with this set, the latest volume of which just came out, is that the manga are based on a set of prose novels with a fairly complicated back story (American teenagers are reincarnations of King Arthur and his court), so the whole first volume is recap. Coronado’s drawing style is a bit heavy-handed — her figures all seem very solid and fleshy—which also weighs the books down a bit.

Red Plains, on the other hand, is a comic for grownups. It’s a western, something I don't see a lot of, and the first story arc is about ranchers vs. settlers, a classic theme. I really enjoy Noel Tuazon’s loose, brushy inking style in the first arc, Range War, and I like Larry Watts’s tighter work in the later arcs as well. I’m still getting a feel for the story, and Tuazon’s art is so loose that it’s hard to tell the characters apart, but Caryn Tate’s solid, spare writing is keeping me hooked.

New Warriors Classic, Vol. 1

David Gallaher: On the print side of things, I've spent most of the last three weeks reading all of the back issues from The Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe: Deluxe Edition. I've always been a Marvel handbook junkie and I love having the opportunity to go back and re-visit all of these characters. Among my favorites, of course, are the old BOOK OF THE DEAD volumes. As much as I like reading the newer Marvel handbooks, for my money, these are still the best

Besides refreshing my old Marvel Lore, I've been really enjoying the trade of NEW WARRIORS CLASSIC Vol 1 - and I can't wait for VOL 2! Almost twenty years later, Fabian Nicieza's writing is still crisp as ever and Mark Bagley's pencils are dynamic, interesting, and engaging.

Speaking of the New Warriors, NOVA always tops my reading list. Several folks have often cited that Nova is a rip-off of GREEN LANTERN, but that's not a connection I tend to make [as I see far more of Doc Smith's LENSMAN in NOVA]. Richard Rider is simply one guy trying to do his best with the situation life has handed him. Over the course of the last ten years, Nova has gone from being a a bit of a joke - to being one of Marvel's stellar heroes. Abnett and Lanning are doing amazing things with this book. Pick up a copy of the series - and I think you'll agree. [Also, as a totally geeky aside, if my calculations are correct, NOVA will be approaching his 100th cumulative issue in about 17 more issues - which is around the time of his 35th anniversary as a character!]

Webcomics-wise, I've found myself really enjoying Cameron Stewart's award-winning series Sin Titulo. It's a moody, semi-autobiographical thriller -- and Cameron's storytelling is really at its peak here. And if you aren't familiar with any of the other comics on Transmission X, you are really missing out on some extremely well-crafted comics!

Also, I following the work of my peers on Zuda. This week, in particular, I've found myself reading or re-reading Ilias Kyriazis' MELODY, Andy Belanger's BOTTLE OF AWESOME, and Kevin Colden's I RULE THE NIGHT.

And, finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how Brad Guigar's EVIL INC. series always manages to keep me entertained.

Labor Days Vol. 2

Welcome once again to What are you reading?, the weekly column where the Robot 6 team runs through what comics and other stuff they've been checking out lately. As Chris is in Bethesda this weekend, I'm filling in for him as your host.

Our special guests this time are Philip Gelatt and Rick Lacy, creators of the Labor Days graphic novels published by Oni Press. Volume two, Just Another Damn Day, is now available in finer retail establishments everywhere. (You can check out a preview here).

See what they've been reading, as well as the rest of the Robot 6 crew, after the jump ...

*****

Underground

Tim O'Shea: The first issue of Underground by Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber hit the shelves this week. There's so much to like about this first installment of a five-part miniseries. But I find myself focusing one element of Parker's writing--his ear for dialogue. The core of the story has people of opposing views conflicting quite frequently and I love how the storytellers allow the word balloons to overlap and interrupt characters in mid-sentence.

I rarely read Bongo Comics, despite the fact I enjoy the show and typically respect the writers that work on the comics. But with the release this week of The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror 15 (edited by Sammy "Damn Wasn't the Last Book He Edited Huge?" Harkham) features an amazing collection of indy creators (including Jeffrey Brown, Jordan Crane, C.F., Tim Hensley, Ben Jones, John Kerschbaum, Ted May, Will Sweeney, Matthew Thurber, and John Vermilyea). Each creator takes a unique take on the characters, but for me the strongest off-the-grid comedic horror vibe is captured (not surprisingly) by Kerschbaum in a straightforward two-pager "Three Little Kids."

I'm struggling to fully enjoy Hickman and Eaglesham's Fantastic Four. In the positive column is getting to see a world of many Reed Richards (even one that's fully bald/half doom and half ZZ Top; another that looks like he's 1980s Atari logo Reed; and Reed as Morrison's Seaguy) and Eaglesham's ability to convey emotion in Ben Grimm's rocky face. In the negative column, the tagline on the front cover: "...This morning, I helped kill a Galactus on Earth 2012." Has the status quo of Reed Richards been made so "modern" he takes pleasure, or at least seeming indifference, in killing villains?

I've really appreciated Matt Fraction's take on many of Marvel's characters, and he's really seemed to hit his stride with Dark Reign:The List--X-Men (Lord that title is a mouthful though). There's three or four pages of the team in battle that is the closest to recapturing the finest rhythm and kineticism of Claremont and Byrne's definitive X-run (the kineticism is thanks to the never-disappointing art of Alan Davis [inked by Mark Farmer]). That being said, as great as Fraction is with the X-team, his Namor is cracking snide lines in the midst of a fight. A few WAYRs back I spoke highly of Jeff Parker's approach toward Namor. So, if anybody at Marvel is reading this, you're seemingly leading toward giving Namor his own book again, please consider Parker and Davis teaming up for it.

Wednesday Comics #1

With Wednesday Comics having finished this week, I have to go back and read them again. And that's not going to be easy, as my son took a liking to the Metal Men arc. And when I say take a liking, I mean he took the issues apart, as he read and reread them (leaving the pages he did not like behind) --leaving me with a disorganized mess. It was only when I started trying to reconnect the issues that I realized, after the cover pages--there are no page numbers or issue number identifications on the interior pages. But I have a newfound desire to reread Paul Pope's pages in particular after finding out through CBR's interview that he was aiming for something Ditko-esque--rooted in Jungian influence and inspired by McCay’s Little Nemo pages.

In terms of music, I've got Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers' Levitate in heavy rotation on my CD player, along with Death Cab for Cutie's The Open Door EP.

Dark Reign: Ms. Marvel

Carla Hoffman: Believe it or not, I'm reading things. I bought the Dark Reign: Ms. Marvel HC on a dare from a customer who wasn't sure if it was going to be good and I honestly couldn't give him an answer. But seeing how hard Mr. Reed has been working on the character, I thought I'd give the book that switched main 'heroine' thanks to the new status quo. First part of the book, we're thrown into a Alias-esque super spy style story in which we lose Carol Danvers due to the theme of Brian Reed's run of 'I can't control my wacky powers'. The middle of the book is Karla Soften dealing with her new role within the Avengers and actually gets to be kind of entertaining, watching her deal with the public, her crazy boss and the fact she might have the psychological edge on them all.

And then we get reality-altering MODOK babies.

Any sort of seriousness I had given the book was lost. The rather deux-ex-mutant of 'Storyteller' (seen in the Ms. Marvel annuals) was fused with MODOK's giant brain DNA and now 25 or so babies in jars can warp reality to AIM's will.Everything had been so personal until then, a really good read and clever character development for Karla that her sudden need to 'save the babies' just lost me. The New Avengers show up, hell, Deadpool shows up, everyone fights for the babies and in the end, Carol Danvers can't be kept dead for too long. Yeah, I'd say skip this aside from a couple issues in the middle, or at least don't buy it in hardcover like I did

Fantastic Four 571

Unlike My Pal Tim(tm), I adored the horizonless Reed Richards consortium of geniuses ( I swear one of them was in Starfleet) and could have easily read this issue spread out better into a couple more installments of the weird cross-time-caper Reeds and all their kooky high science plans plus some more with the family who almost always get wasted in the face of the super sci-fi. I hope this high adventure grounds Reed once and for all on this whole 'fix everything' kick he's been on since Civil War because I'm tired of him lording his big ol' brain around and Hickman might just blow the lid of this thing once and for all.

Dark X-Men: the Confession as the weirdest Gift of the Magi as guilt trip seen yet. Or ever. Yes, Scott now knows that Emma worked with the Cabal! Yes, Emma now knows that Scott has a kill-death squad led by Wolverine and has generally been unsavory. "I ruied the Dream!" "No, I ruined the Dream!" "Oh, kiss me you fool!" The end. Playing fair, this is actually a pretty good intro comic for anyone wanting to jump into the main X-Men storyline right now as they recap a lot of the past year. So... there's that for $3.99.

Superman: Secret Origins

Tom Bondurant: Some prominent commentators (including Chris Sims and our own Chris Mautner) have called Superman: Secret Origin #1 "unnecessary," or something similar. That was also my reaction at first. However, it got me thinking: so far this is the third, or perhaps fourth, account of Superman's post-Crisis origin, and that's getting into Gospel territory. (Think of the slipcased-hardcover possibilities!) I mean, we started with the Book of John (Byrne), and a while back we had the Book of Mark (Waid). If you count Superman For All Seasons, I suppose there's a Book of Jeph too. Now, though, here's the Book of Geoff, which apparently aims to be definitive.

And so far, it's executed well. I've always liked Gary Frank's Christopher Reeve-inspired Clark/Superman, both because it's a fitting tribute to another "definitive" interpretation and because it's a good mix of the character's power and humanity. In fact, this issue is a very pleasant contrast to Frank (and inker Jon Sibal)'s work on Supreme Power's Dark Smallville. I found that book sterile and calculating, but here Frank and Sibal are warm and pastoral. For his part, Geoff Johns obviously intends to show how Clark overcomes this issue's discomfort with his powers, especially those heat-vision "eyejaculations" (tm Television Without Pity). That was a nice lift from the "Smallville" series, and I also liked how Johns handled Clark's nascent football ability. Still, that tornado was awfully convenient.

Secret Origin's larger story remains somewhat unclear, though, and that I think is where the true measure of necessity lies. I tend to prefer Waid (and artist Leinil Yu)'s Superman: Birthright to Byrne's Man of Steel because the former actually tells its own story while the latter is more a collection of vignettes. Ironically, Secret Origin's purpose may vary inversely with its necessity. If it's meant to stand alone on the bookshelf, it must tell us something about Superman we don't already know. However, if it's just another part of the great Superman plot-puzzle (as the "Secret Origin" arc in Green Lantern was), then I'll wonder why this needed to be its own miniseries.

Planetary

Earlier last week, I stayed up for about two hours Sunday night reading all of Planetary. I don't have anything insightful to say about the series as a whole, mostly because I'm waiting for Ellis and Cassaday's final issue. However, I stayed up for those two hours because each issue practically dared me to read the next one. Now I can't imagine waiting months or years between issues, because the thing moves so quickly.

On a completely different note, I finished Essential Spider-Woman Volume 2 a few hours before picking up Planetary. ESW Vol. 1 started off on very shaky ground, thanks to the character's scattershot background: she's a freak of evolution! She's a HYDRA agent! She's got a Camelot connection! To his credit, once writer Chris Claremont came aboard for most of the series' last quarter, he tried to pull these threads together; and those issues (drawn with quirky charm by Steve Leialoha) are probably the series' high point. Writer Ann Nocenti then wrote the series' final few issues, including a fourth-wall-breaking goodbye to the reader. Those issues weren't bad, but I've read enough middle-of-the-road superhero books to know when a writer is just wrapping things up. I don't dislike Spider-Woman, although the series (thanks to its eventual SoCal private-eye premise) seems firmly rooted in the 1970s, and I'm content to leave it there.

Matt Maxwell:

Elric of Melniboné

Elric of Melniboné
Roy Thomas, P. Craig Russell and Michael Gilbert, Tom Orzechowski
Based on the books by Michael Moorcock

I'll admit to not having read the original books, which I should rectify, if they're half as good as this adaptation. The real star is the artwork, by both P. Craig Russell and Michael Gilbert. It's perfectly stylized, yet not sacrificing style for expression. There's a lot of fear and uncertainty, gloating and triumph on these pages, and the linework doesn't miss a step in relaying it to the reader. You could easily skip the text altogether and still follow the story clearly, perhaps leaving out only a few subtleties.

Before this, I hadn't realized exactly how influential Moorcock's take on fantasy had become. Certainly, Tolkien reigns supreme as high lord of fantasy. But Moorcock, with his blend of treachery and addiction, of magic that takes more than it gives, of graceful empires that are doomed by their very design, his dark vision has its fingers deep in modern fantasy (particularly influential in what is debatably the most popular fantasy today, that being World of Warcraft, though not strictly a book, but has a subscriber base that most books would kill for).

Elric presents a compelling story, last in the line of fabled sorcerer kings, ruling over a civilization slipping into slow decline, never brighter than the day that Elric takes the throne. Fighting off the schemes of his ruthless cousin Yrrkoon and becoming a pawn of the Lords of Chaos, Elric only barely begins to understand the powers at play in Melniboné, and will not fully grasp them in time.

Recommended, though I'm not sure of its status in print now, the graphic novel that is. I read it in the edition published by First Comics in the middle eighties (making it one of the first collected graphic novels, well before The Sandman and the like). Someone may have picked up the reprint rights to this, but it might require some sifting through the used bins as well.

Other reads this week, Batman and Robin #3 (I await the return of Pyg), Agents of Atlas #10 and #11 (M-11 is THE GREATEST) and the first issue of the new Dominic Fortune miniseries (Howard Chaykin is a very bad man.)

Far Arden

JK Parkin: Far Arden by Kevin Cannon starts off as a zany fun adventure comic, and at some point morphs into something a bit more serious. And somehow, it works really well, I've decided, after contemplating it for a couple of weeks. It's actually kind of shocking how well it works, too, and how much emotional investment you realize you have in the characters when, well, stuff happens. I should probably read it again.

I mentioned a few weeks back that I was reading Peter & Max, the Fables novel by Bill Willingham. Despite the ending being a little bit telegraphed (at least if you're paying attention), I thought this was an excellent outing for Willingham and the Fables characters into the world of prose. I recommend it for anyone who is a fan of the comic or just likes new twists on old fairy tales, and I hope to see more of these in the future. I've also started re-reading the first couple of Fables arcs, which are being issued as a hardcover, and it's interesting to see how far the book has come, both in terms of the plot and how the characters have developed. And the first Farm story, which was the second story arc, is still one of the book's best.

And finally, the second Guardians of the Galaxy trade was every bit as fun as the first. Although it's billed as being part of War of Kings, there were no appearances by Inhumans or Shi'ar ... just more zany fun cosmic adventures.

On Stranger Tides

Philip Gelatt: I made a promise to myself that I was going to read butt-loads of science-fiction and fantasy novels during 2009. Sadly, with the year wrapping up, "butt-loads" has kind of turned into the far less impressive "half-butt loads." But this quest of mine has introduced me to an author named Tim Powers and he is swiftly becoming a personal favorite. He specializes in well-researched historical action-fantasy-sci-fi pieces, that include a big dosages of both the surreal and the mad cap.

Yeah, that's right: his books use every cool genre ever, mixed into one. And somehow he makes it all work.

Currently, I'm reading his On Stranger Tides. It is a pirate tale filled with Caribbean magic, large-scale ship-to-ship combat and so much swashbuckling. It focuses on a young pirate named Jack Shandy as he is caught between the plots of three powerful pirate captains, each possessing strong voodoo magic and nefarious intentions.

The Secret of Monkey Island and Pirates of the Caribbean (the movie) are both said to be loosely inspired by its heady mix of adventure, fantasy and high seas chicanery. Plus I'm getting an actual overview of the end of the pirate era in the Caribbean.

Oh and it has Blackbeard in it. And at one point he says "More blood salt than sea salt in the water tonight." And that alone, my friends, is worth the price of admission.

King City #1

On the comic book front, I just took my sweet time savoring every last panel of Brandon Graham's first issue of King City. I didn't read this title in its previous previous printing, so this is my first exposure to this strange sci-fi world. The larger format really suits Graham's artwork and he's made excellent usage of every square inch of this book, filling it with amusing extras and add-ons.

I've been a fan of Graham's work for awhile (via Multiple Warheads and his amazing blog), and the first issue of King City is not disappointing me in the slightest. It is, to my mind, exactly what science-fiction should be: bizarre, charming, visually stunning and chock full of wild ideas that need not be fully explained. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Also I want a cat like that, god damn it.

Rick Lacy:

Mouse Guard #1

Mouse Guard: This is the book that's currently on my nightstand. I fell for this book like a hot girl on Facebook I never met. It 's exactly the type of book I want to create… only with more Conan's and Madmartigan's. Not that mice aren't dauntless and bold, it's just not where my mind dwells. That being said, David Peterson has really created some interesting and compelling characters that are only a few inches high. My favorite parts of these books are the world building elements he uses. Everything from the mouse city of Lockhaven to the myth of the black axe to the "Moria" like caverns of Darkheather are all fully realized places. Places that I believe actually lurked under the roots of the woods in my old backyard. The supplemental work in this book is also very fascinating. It outlines the different roles of mice in the kingdom. The apothecaries! The medicines and armories! The working mouse elevators and the hierarchy. All well put together and creative. WITH MICE!

The City and The City: This is the latest novel from one of my favorite authors, China Mieville, It's a departure (somewhat) from his normal genre of "new weird" and focuses on crime drama. Though it is mixed with a good hearty amount of fantastic creativity, by building a realm in a modern time that's dotted with an alternate world of mystery. By that I mean, the crosshatched existence of two symbiotic cities Beszel and Ul Qoma that live side by side, but hold a very prejudice but checked border. To describe the elements within would take pages on pages! In my opinion, The City and the City is a fairly exhausting read, but Mieville proves yet again that he's a master of word-smithing by dictating a slew of different dialects, personas and interspersed societal agendas. For more of his work I highly suggest his Bas Lag series. Start with The Scar!

Joan

Joan: I picked up this manga series for wicked cheap at my local comic shop on a whim. It's gorgeously illustrated by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko in pen ink and watercolor, which was the initial reason I bought it. The story is a retelling of the Joan of Arc saga only with a different woman in the lead role reliving the same experience. I don’t entirely understand why the author didn’t just retell Joan of Arc, herself. Perhaps he wanted to have his own voice. The story is a variation on standard faire with uman rights, religion and loyalty to country taking the main stage. The huge draw, as I mentioned, is the art. The vistas and use of water coloring are beautiful. E very page is a masterpiece. I'll definitely seek out more of Yasuhiko's art.

Labor Days Volume 2: Just Another Damn Day: Yes, I know this is my own book! BUT! we just released this edition this weekend and I haven't seen a copy until now. So this one just got bumped up to the top of the list. I hope it holds up! We definitely pushed the boundaries on our own title in the pages of Volume Two and it's become closer, I believe, to what we wanted in our initial design. Volume three should be the coup de gras!

Brave and the Bold #27

Sunday's here and that means it's time once more for What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is the incredibly talented cartoonist Rick Geary. Geary has two books out this fall, his latest entry in his ongoing XXth Century Murder series, Famous Players, and a biography of Leon Trotsky that should be coming out from Hill and Wang any day now.

Look for an interview with Mr. Geary appearing on this blog in the coming weeks. For now though, let's just see what he's currently reading ...

Drifting Classroom

Chris Mautner: I'm finally, finally, finally getting around to finishing Kazuo Umezu's seminal horror classic The Drifting Classroom. One of the things I like about the manga is how it's just one damned thing after another. No sooner are the hapless elementary school kids attacked by horrible mutants than they somehow disappear and make way for a toxic gas. The best part is the mutants are barely mentioned again. Whatever terror has passed is nowhere near as horrible as the one in front of them.

I also just, just got in the mail the new book from Sunday Press Books, The Upside Down World of Gustave Verbeek. Verbeek was an early 20th century comic strip artist whose claim to fame was that his strip relied on optical illusion. If you turned it 180 degrees the whole picture changed and you could keep reading the story. I haven't gotten far enough in it yet to make any comments, but I look forward to diving into it this week.

I also finally saw the first Fantastic Four move, courtesy of the FX channel and Comcast's free movie selections. Boy am I glad I didn't pay any reasonable amount of money to see that on the big screen. A really dumb, loud, incoherent movie, with little in the way to recommend it beyond Michael Chiklis' performance as Ben Grimm. The guy playing Dr. Doom was especially horrible. I can't imagine the sequel being any improvement.

American Born Chinese

Michael May: I'm reading Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith's Dark Days again. Partly because Halloween is coming; partly because news about the direct-to-DVD movie adaptation is getting me excited about revisiting the story. It's my favorite of the 30 Days of Night stories and I keep finding new stuff to like every time I read it. Dane's emotional journey is what keeps drawing me to the book, but this time around I'm also especially curious about his partner Yuki. There's an untold story there.

I'm also revisiting American Born Chinese and it's even better the second time around. My first reading was great, but you have to spend some energy trying to figure out what the three plot threads have to do with each other. Since I already know that this time, I'm able to concentrate better on how he tells the overall story and - more importantly - how beautifully and powerfully he communicates his message. I'm really sorry that I'm almost done with it. I already want to read it yet again.

Marvel Monsters

Tom Bondurant: The Marvel Monsters hardcover was half-off, but a bargain at any price. It's got a lot of great stuff, blending classic Kirby monster reprints (and one from Don Heck) with the stories from the "Marvel Monsters" event from a few years back. The highlight for me was Scott Gray and Roger Langridge's original "Fin Fang Four" story, just a gem of a thing which has the robot Elektro finding love and Fin Fang Foom working as a chef in a Baxter Building restaurant. I especially liked Langridge's page of the Thing as romance-coach. The book opens with a fun Devil Dinosaur/Hulk battle (orchestrated by a couple of middle-management Celestials) from Tom Sniegoski and Eric Powell. The new stuff is all in the same good-natured vein, like Keith Giffen and Mike Allred checking back in with Bombu and Peter David and Arnold Pander revisiting Monstrollo. The book also reprints a text-oriented special cataloging the various Marvel monsters, which is nice as reference, but I would have liked more classic reprints (like the original Tim Boo Ba story, for instance). Still, though, overall quite a nice package.

I thought JMS's first issue of The Brave and the Bold was something of a missed opportunity. From the "Death of a Hero" title I could see where the story was going. Admittedly, I wasn't expecting the twist JMS put on it, and I suppose Batman's closing speech was meant to make it all work out, but I can't help but think what a Waid, Morrison, or Busiek could have done with Batman dialing the H-Dial. At the very least I was expecting the H-Dial's heroes to be credited to readers....

Beasts of Burden #1

Tim O'Shea: Evan Dorkin's and Jill Thompson's Beasts of Burden is even greater than I expected it to be. When I interviewed Dorkin about the series a few months back, he definitely got me enthused for the series, but he and Thompson far exceeded my raised expectations. It may seem like a simple compliment, but I love Thomspon's layout sense for how it heightens the drama and action in the book. Also the facial expressions she gives the animals are amazing. Dorkin's gift of dialogue reaches it's pinnacle for me with Pugs' line "A mother-humpin', big-ass, giant frog." It was only on my second reading that I really grew to appreciate how much Jason Arthur's lettering (particularly with the dialogue of the aforementioned mother-humpin' frog) adds to the tale.

When I was a kid, what appealed to me about Captain America was his secret identity. I distinctly remember one issue where Cap was vacuuming his apartment, cleaning up the mess after the Constrictor had driven a car through it. OK, so as a 41-year-old man, I realize my critical mind was dormant in the 1970s. He'd have to do a hell of a lot more than vacuuming to fix that apartment. Heck it's been 30 years since I read the comic, I might be misremembering the scene. As I'm older now, I realize what actually appealed to me about Cap was his relationships with folks like Sam (Falcon) Wilson, Nick Fury and Sharon Carter. During Mark Waid's run on Cap, he emphasized the friendship with Clint (Hawkeye) Barton. Captain America Reborn 3 reveals a few things to me. Ed Brubaker would write one extremely good Avengers book. Brubaker clearly loves romping through Cap's history (best part in this issue is either Cap reliving the hell of his frozen man period; or the all-out action of the Kree-Skull War). But best of all, Brubaker shares my love of Cap's relationships, as exemplified by his outstanding use of Cap's supporting cast.

Speaking of Nick Fury, another book with a great supporting cast is Jonathan Hickman's Secret Warriors. (But boy when does Black Widow sleep, what with her role in Reborn and Secret Warriors). When Norman
Osborn ultimately gets taken down (please tell me that's coming soon, Marvel), I'll be curious to see if Nick gets the pleasure of dethroning Normie. As an aside, does anyone else wish that Bendis and Marvel editorial had picked someone other than Osborn to be the ringleader behind this Dark Reign malarkey? I prefer Norman Osborn as the traditional crazy myopic "must ruin Peter Parker" character. Sure it's a one-note character, but it's a damn good note. The present day Osborn just smacks of a heavily medicated Lex Luthor with a hate-on for every superhero. Sorry, went off the rails there ... really enjoying Secret Warriors.

I enjoyed the latest issue of Batgirl, mostly because a good chunk of it was devoted to Oracle. I was absolutely flummoxed, however, that they devoted so much storytime to having Oracle's servers crap out
(the woman that plans everything does not have a back-up server?) so she had to drive over to the Batcave (that's right, Oracle could not just hack into the Batcave, she had to drive over there) just so Stephanie could look at the shrine of costumes (hey where's Bruce's, Dick?) and a discussion that will either please or annoy DC/"Stephanie should have had a shrine" critics.

J. Michael Straczynski finally begins his run on The Brave and The Bold with issue 27. It's not a traditional team-up with Dial H for Hero and that's actually what makes this issue work. Even better, the issue is that rare endangered comic book species--the one-and-done issue.

This past week at my pop culture blog, Talking with Tim, I interviewed Mike Sacks about his book (that I am still enjoying), And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on their Craft. Unfortunately Sacks was not able to include all the interviews he wanted to feature. So instead he's offering those four interviews for free on the book's website . Those interviews include Daniel Clowes and Roz Chast.

Both interviews are great (as is the whole book, Sacks offers snippets from each interview at the book's site, Chast talks about a variety of topics from Charles Addams to Diane Arbus. But, here's my favorite snippet from the Clowes interview, talking about his 2007-08 New York Times experience:

As far as subject matter, they never said a word, but as I said they were very touchy about language — their little “stylebook” is very important to them. Aside from “Jesus,” for instance, I wasn’t allowed to use the word “schmuck.” Mad’s been using the word for fifty years! It’s not as if I were using it in the Yiddish sense: “Wow, that guy has a huge cock!” I even found an old William Safire column from the NY Times magazine about “schmuck.” He wrote something like, “The original meaning of the word has long ago been forgotten, and it’s commonly accepted for general use.”

I showed this to the editors, but they told me, “No. We can’t run the word.” I could have acted like an asshole and told them I was going to end the strip halfway through, but this was a really good assignmentfor cartoonists. I didn’t want to be the guy who killed it for everyone else.

Stone Rabbit: Deep Space Disco

Brigid Alverson: I haven’t had a lot of time for reading this week, but I got a review copy of Stone Rabbit: Deep Space Disco, and that was about right for a quick read during a busy week. It’s a kids’ comic in a handy digest size, and although Craddock puts a lot of imaginative detail into his panels, including giant robots and all sorts of bizarre aliens, the pages never get too crowded or chaotic. I think that’s because he limits himself to one or two panels per page and manages to create a hierarchy, keeping the main characters in the foreground and letting everything drop back a bit. That seems simple and obvious, but a surprising number of artists can’t do that and instead let foreground and background blend into one confusing web. The story is pretty straightforward — an evil alien switches places with Stone Rabbit and
wreaks havoc on earth, while Stone Rabbit is prosecuted for his crimes on his home planet. There’s more action than talk, and lots of giant robots, so it really is a great kids’ comic — it has a real Saturday morning cartoon feel to it.

On a completely different note, I also got review copies of Eric Heuvel’s  A Family Secret and The Search, two comics about the Holocaust, sponsored by the Anne Frank House and originally published in the Netherlands. At first glance, they look uncannily like Tintin — not only does Heuvel work in the ligne Claire style that Herge pioneered, but the design of the book, the page layouts, and even the lettering are similar to Tintin. However, the stories are obviously more serious. A Family Secret is told in flashbacks, and because the creator has to give a history lesson to set the scene, the dialogue is a bit stilted. Still, the characters are three-dimensional, and it’s interesting to watch them struggle with the difficulties of living
under German occupation (without the hindsignt of history to sort things out for them). It’s also interesting that it’s written from the Dutch point of view; the main character is a Dutch girl who befriends a Jewish refugee from Germany. I am only about 20 pages in, but it looks very promising.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Rick Geary: I'm currently immersed in research on the Sacco & Vanzetti case for my next 20th Century Murder graphic novel. I've finished two books about it and now I'm in the midst of a third, entitled simply Sacco & Vanzetti by Bruce Watson. The other two books were rather dry accounts of the legal issues involved and the international uproar following the sentencing. This one, though, is a full-bodied rendering of the entire story, featuring dramatic details, and rich characterizations.

Next up is The Quaker City, or The Monks of Monk Hall, A Romance of Philadelphia Life, Mystery and Crime by George Lippard.

The Photographer

We have a very special edition of What Are You Reading this week, as our guests are none other than the legendary Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly. Spiegelman, you know, no doubt, as the author of such acclaimed books as Maus, Breakdowns and In the Shadow of No Towers, while his wife Mouly was co-creator and editor of Raw Magazine, art editor at the New Yorker and is spearheading the new Toon Books line of children's comics.

To see what's currently in their reading stack, just click on the link below ...

The Rack: Year One

Matthew Maxwell: THE RACK: YEAR ONE (MOSTLY)
Kevin Church and Benjamin Birdie
I follow THE RACK on a semi-daily basis, mostly when my will is weak at those moments that Church and Birdie spam on their Twitter streams. I used to just read it for the occasional funny; the strip cut out of the paper and put on the fridge at the office, where you nod sagely and understand the person who was actually motivated to put it there a little better because of it. But there's more than just the funny in THE RACK. Partly because it's about stuff that I'm immersed in on a daily basis (though I only get into actual comic stores once a month or so), but my experience in stores combined with the storytelling in the strip complement each other, giving the characters life beyond the pages. That's a fairly rare thing in comics, at least the daily comic strip. These characters actually read like they have internal lives and aren't just doing things for the funny ('cept maybe Aaron, stupid like a fox on a good day). Having all the strips together in one volume makes for a pretty satisfying read, maybe even surprisingly so. Makes me want a second collection, it does.

MACHINE MAN (1984)
Tom De Falco, Herb Trimpe and Barry Windsor-Smith
I won't lie. I got this for the art. I paid all of three dollars for it at a booth at SDCC this year, and it took me a good two hours to read. Not because the story was enthralling and deep and full of surprises. It wasn't. The story itself was pretty straightforward, not particularly inspired and unintentionally funny (the view of 2020 from 1984 is pretty sedate, specially when you consider that something as mind-warping as NEUROMANCER had come out a year or so before). But the artwork, good god, man. The artwork is nothing short of stunning, and lifts this otherwise bland Marvel mini-series into the realm of must-have. The (now) vintage advertising made for an interesting side-dish. Well worth comparing ad buys from 80s comics to those we have today, and not just for camp humor value, but for seeing the change in demographics and audience expectation. But really, just look at the artwork. Smith's fine linework sings out for attention and earns every second of it.

Avengers: Kree-Skull War

Tom Bondurant: I read the Kree-Skrull War paperback, and it seemed to me to be a crossover which didn't actually cross over into any other titles. Much of it apparently picks up from the recently-cancelled Captain Marvel title, with Mar-Vell, Rick Jones, and even a pre-Ms. Marvel Carol Danvers playing significant roles. Both the Kree and the Skrulls first appeared in Fantastic Four, so it helped further that I had read the Lee/Kirby FF not too long ago. Avengers writer Roy Thomas also mentioned a connection between the Kree and the Inhumans (again, more FF alumnae), which not only lets him incorporate the latter, but also check up on a little boy Black Bolt has befriended.

All of this tends to delay the Avengers actually getting into space to fight the Skrulls. Indeed, it tends to obscure the storyline's central conceit, namely that the Earth is situated strategically (and, but for the Avengers, helplessly) between intergalactic powers. Revealing that the Kree's Supreme Intelligence was behind much of it (and endowed Rick Jones with the wish-fulfilling ability to stop it) doesn't help either.

To be sure, it's never dull, especially under the guiding pencils of the Buscema brothers and Neal Adams and Tom Palmer's always-reliable inks. At nine issues (one double-sized), the Kree-Skrull War probably
enchanted its original readers as the months went by and the stakes increased. Heck, it encouraged me to pick up the next Essential Avengers volume.

Doom Patrol #2

Tim O'Shea: First, another son cameo. He is reading the latest Marvel Adventures Team-Up (Hulk and Tigra) and is impressed with the classic ads they are running to celebrate 70 years. Upon seeing the ad where one could buy a Darling Pet Monkey for $18.95, prompting him to say: "That's a pretty cheap monkey!"

It seems that the jury is still out on if Wednesday Comics is regarded to be a success or not. For me, it is a success. I enjoy the small moments of these tales. For instance, the lines of dialogue (mostly ignored asides) that Gaiman gives Java are hilarious. But for this issue my favorite small moment is Kyle Baker's Hawkman distracting a T-Rex (who admittedly does not understand a word he's saying) by taunting him with the boast of "Bet you wish you could touch your nose." and then proceeding to touch his nose. Some people might find that lame, but the sight of Hawkman touching his nose (right before getting whammed with the T-Rex's tail) just cracks me up. I'm easy like that.

In issue 2 of Giffen's Doom Patrol, I'm quickly realizing that Giffen may be attempting to tap into Grant Morrison's style of absurdist Doom Patrol tales (as opposed to Arnold Drake's equally, yet different definitive approach). As much as I'm entertained by the lead story, I'm enjoying the Metal Men tale immensely more-mostly because of the new more piss-and-vinegar upgrade that has occurred to Tina in the current incarnation. I'm fearful that I will quickly tire of the bickering aspect of the Metal Men stories (the frequent backbone of the J.M. Matteis incarnantion of the Justice League), but maybe I should stop predicting negatives when they're not even there.

Another effective small moment occurred in Ed Brubaker's The Marvels Project (set in 1939), where Dr. Thomas (The Angel) Halloway observes (unseen) the police at the murder scene of the costumed adventurer, The Phantom Bullet. Halloway overhears one cop, looking at the dead hero, say: "Almost feel sorry for him runnin' around in that outfit was bad enough..but dyin' in it? That's just plain embarrassin'..." With that, Halloway's narration/internal monologue/whatever observes: "The police didn't appreciate us. Any of us. At best we were an insult to them...At worst, we were like The Torch...A hazard." It's interesting to see Brubaker inject a modicum of realism (the cops' attitude/reaction) in this Golden Age tale. Admittedly in a tale of superheroes, realism is not a common feature, but it is feasible. And I appreciate Brubaker's nuanced approach in this story.

Chris Mautner: This week I started reading Prison Pit Vol. 1 and ... I ... it ... um ... the thing is ... it's .... wow.

Kitty Hawk

Brigid Alverson: I have been reading Kitty Hawk off and on since it started, but lately I drifted off into other things. I picked it up again this week and read through from the beginning. The premise of the strip is what got me interested—it’s about a female aviator in the 1930s who is at home with a socket wrench and capable of taking out the bad guys in a second, but also has family issues and a sort-of boyfriend. Each chapter is a story in itself but is also building toward a larger story, and lately, as the ensemble goes hunting for some mysterious buried artifact, it’s taking a turn toward Indiana Jones territory. The art is pleasant but not slick; Kitty’s head sometimes seems too large for her body, but the figures are generally well drawn, as are the airplanes, and I like the single-color palette. The archives are still fairly short, so this is a good time to start reading—you can be up to speed in half an hour.

Sarah Ellerton’s Phoenix Requiem is just the opposite of Kitty Hawk — it’s slow-moving but beautifully drawn. It’s set in Victorian times in some fictional but vaguely European land. The story revolves around
Anya, an independent young woman who is assitant to the local doctor, and Jonas, the mysterious young man who is found lying in the snow near her village. With the doctor away, Anya treats Jonas and of course gets drawn into the mystery. There are supernatural overtones and some sort of horrid disease — I haven’t gotten far enough into it yet for any big reveals. The comic is rated PG-13 for horror elements, but so far it seems like a kids’ comic, partly because the characters all look young. Ellerton’s art is full-color and very slick, almost like animation art, and one of the things I like about this comic is that it is very atmospheric—I really get drawn in to her created world — so it’s good, not very demanding, escapist reading.

Upside Down World of Gustave Verbeek

Art Spiegelman: When I was at the Strand last night I picked up a book that had come highly recommended by Charles Burns called The Photographer. It's here, my jury is out yet. I'm not recommending it yet, but it's definitely what I'm reading.

I also got and can't wait to dive into Pete Maresca's Gustave Verbeek book, it's so beautiful and wonderful. It's the Upside Down World of Gustave Verbeek published by Sunday Press. I just got it in the mail yesterday. It's beautiful. It has information about somebody I've never been able to find much out about. He's a mysteriously obscure artist.

I'm still working my way happily through the Little Orphan Annie volumes. I think they're amazing. There's relatively little from the younger end of the spectrum. Francoise put a book called Aya under my pile because she liked it. I'm looking forward to reading the Blechman book that just came out, Talking Lines. I have that on the pile here but I haven't opened it yet.

The current stack in my studio also includes Bob Sikoryak's Masterpiece Comics, Trina Robbins Brinkley Girls and A Molotu's Abstract Comics.

Prose at the top of my stack: David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster.

And on my iphone (Stanza app ) Charles Willeford's Wild Wives and Turgenev's Fathers and Sons

Francoise Mouly: I'm actually re-reading Chris Ware. Specifically the latest three or four volumes of Acme Novelty Library, just because I'm going to work with him. We're working on something he's going to be doing for the New Yorker. It's a treat to be able to go back in that world.