John Buys Comics and Writes About Them

American Vampire No. 2

I picked up the first issue of this after Dave’s review, and I’m surprised that I needed that much incentive. I mean, flapper vampires and cowboy vampires in the same book? There is only so much strength in my feeble human form, my friends.

Of course, it takes more than a simple genre mashup to keep my interest, but Snyder and Albuquerque have that covered, the latter with some appropriately terrific art and the former by spinning out some very cool ideas about vampirism.

Every week, it seems, I reveal yet another facet of the already priceless gem that is my nerdliness (he wrote on his comics blog). This week: I know an awful lot about vampires! And as anyone who knows an awful lot about vampires knows, every damn country and people in the world seem to have their own distinct iteration of the bloodsucking fiend, ranging from Dracula-style goth dudes to flying heads to crazy cow skin-looking things that live in Peruvian lakes. Any story that does a halfway decent job of explaining why the above is the case gets bonus points, even if they aren’t as well told as [American Vampire] actually is.

Snyder’s explanation - that a vampire made from someone in a new place, living in a new way sometimes just turns out differently than the vampire that made them - isn’t precisely unique, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the concept expressed so simply before, and that counts for a lot. There’s no grand mystical hogwash surrounding it, just “different land, different vampires” and that’s very refreshing.

Meanwhile, Stephen King’s backup story is very fun in a couple of different ways, but I find myself focusing on the fact that having the story of Skinner Sweet set in front of us from the beginning does a very interesting thing. We now know the depths of Sweet’s evil, so though he can play out the trope of the mysterious, roguish benefactor whose dark past is gradually revealed in his dealings with Pearl, we are already in the know. Very very satisfying reading, with people biting each other to boot.

The Brave and the Bold No. 33 - That’s two issues in a row of this that I’ve really enjoyed, after a bit of a spotty patch. Cliff Chiang drew some fantastic stuff here, and his facial expressions were in the best possible way reminiscent of Amanda Conner's. HOWEVER: J. Michael Straczynski basically finished his lovely little story with THE END with five underlines - I’d recommend stopping at the Flash ad for a slightly more satisfying reading experience, or the JLA ad if you didn’t catch the point of the story by the Flash ad.

R.E.B.E.L.S. No. 15 - I think I’ll wait a bit to weigh in on the new status quo in this book. I’m really only writing this because i want to point out that Despero’s people all have really well-groomed facial hair and it’s a look that I like in a moderately sinister alien race.

Green Lantern No. 53 - See, this is why I was so pissy about Blackest Night. I have no idea how Brightest Day is going to turn out, but a comic like this, where Johns can play and be all portentous and not have to place each distinct plot point in a new issue, this actually reads well. It might not be the Police Procedural in Space that I want, but I’ll take Rainbow Space Opera, I reckon. 

The Tick New Series No. 3 - There is nothing bad about this series. Nothing. Read it. Benito Cereno and Les McClaine have done a fantastic job with this and I will praise them much more thoroughly when No. 4 comes out and I presumably will not be so sleepy.

Good night everyone!

Various Stuff n' Such

So here I was, all set to write a cranky post about how much I disliked a certain high-profile comic book movie that opened this weekend. But honestly, folks, life’s too short, and I’d rather spend the time gabbing about stuff I enjoy. So with that in mind, here are a few random tidbits of comic booky goodness from last week’s offerings:

 

Other Lives, by Peter Bagge: The Hate-meister returns to cranky form with this original Vertigo graphic novel about four interconnected losers—a writer who despises his racial identity and is haunted by a past act of plagiarism, his fiancée, whose vicarious internet life begins to blur into her real relationships, an online gambling addict desperate to cover up his crumbling domestic life, and a would-be government agent/national hero who lives in his mother’s garage. Fans of Bagge ‘s most famous creation, Buddy Bradley, can draw a straight line to Vlad (Vader) Ryderbeck, the self-loathing, slow-burning, expletive-spewing, booze-swigging antihero at the heart of Other Lives, who discovers that the self-created false identities people hide behind—both online and in real life--are not just a product of the internet era, but in his case at least, a generational affair. Bagge’s rubbery, cross-hatched caricatures may not be for everybody, but there’s truly nothing else in comics like them, and they are perfectly suited to the grotesque lives, both real and imagined, that they depict. The surprisingly violent conclusion is strangely unsatisfying, but the repeated jabs at the characters’ cartoonishly sad-sack lifestyles and the equally ridiculous internet fantasies they retreat into are what stays with you after you’ve finished reading.

 

The Flash #1, by Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul: DC has taken a lot of flack for bringing back Silver Age mainstay Barry Allen—fair enough, considering that most of their current readership grew up reading the adventures of his protégé, Wally West—but here’s the thing; having Allen as the Flash in a new number one issue makes sense because he’s the easiest version of the character to explain to new readers. Hit by lightning, showered by chemicals, Fastest Man Alive. There you go. Sure, he’s got tons of baggage if you start factoring in his death and rebirth, his stint as a married father in the distant future, and all that other crap, but this first issue wisely sidesteps all that, focusing instead on what I hope will set this series apart from the previous run (see what I did there?): the fact that Barry Allen is a police scientist, so he is actually going to be solving mysteries instead of just running around fighting bad guys. Manapul’s art is just as lovely here as it was in his short-lived stint on Adventure Comics, and I hope he’s in it for the long haul. This is a fun, accessible, great-looking debut, with one of those cool two-page teaser ads at the end (like the ones Johns did for Legion of Three Worlds and Sinestro Corps) for an upcoming event called Flashpoint. I have no idea what it could be about, but it looks cool. Let’s hope DC doesn’t water it down with a kajillion crossovers, but who am I kidding? Of course they will.

 

Kill Shakespeare #1, by Conor McCreery, Anthony Del Col, and Andy Belanger: I know Johnathan already covered this IDW book and its fascinating shared universe, where the Bard’s most famous creations join forces to destroy him, a few days ago, but I wanted to throw in my two cents as well. This is a very cool, original concept, executed with terrific skill and style. There are a lot of comparisons to be made to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen being thrown around in regards to this series, and that’s a pretty big compliment in my book. The premise may be a bit intimidating to anyone not well versed in Shakespeare, but it’s a lot more accessible than you might think at first. For instance, I haven’t read Richard III, but I recognized the hunchbacked, shriveled-armed monarch as soon as he appeared. You could just look at Kill Shakespeare as a simple adventure story framed by a larger literary backdrop if you like, one with witches and pirates and ghosts, and you’d enjoy it just as much. Belanger’s art is detailed and stylish as well, just as impressive in moments of quiet dread (like Hamlet’s father’s ghost appearing from the mists) as it is in action scenes (such as the first issue’s big set piece, a pirate attack on the boat carrying Hamlet to England). And the creators are Canadian! Really, you have no excuse to miss this. 

John, That Loveable Scamp, Buys Comics

Daytripper No. 5 (of 10)

It's kind of hard to give a recap of this comic, given the way that it's being told, but here's an approximation: Daytripper is kind of the story of the life of a man named Brás. Kind of because the story is being told out of sequence, and also because (and here's where you want to stop reading if you're planning on approaching the trade completely without knowledge) he dies at the end of each issue. There's a lot more that I could lay out for you - about his job and family and the circumstances of his birth and so on - but I think that the thing that I really want to convey is that each issue is a perfect tale of the last day of this particular man's life, with Moon and Bá providing their signature astonishing art (and my fave Dave Stewart on colours). With a bit of rewriting this could be a series about a collection of unrelated men and it would be a delight, but at the halfway mark I can tell that something excellent is going to come of all of this.

There is no question that I am missing things here. I don't even know how to locate my copies of the first four issues, so there's no question of me going back and rereading for comparison, but I have a hunch that there are slight changes occurring in Brás' life story, that it's not merely being cut off at different points along the way but that we are seeing different iterations of him, like his life has been split with a prism. As a result of this, as fantastic as this book is in monthly doses, I reckon that it's going to be incredibly rewarding to read in trade. It's definitely going to enter into my stable of books to be lent to people who get a bit sniffy about super-heroes.

Brightest Day No. 0

I have determined that my biggest mistake with Blackest Night was that I was thinking about it too much.  I guess it was kind of natural that I would ponder it from time to time, since it went on for, like, ever. I just shouldn't have tried to analyze a continuity-heavy event comic, as there is no way to come out ahead in that game. I just have to go with the flow.

And hey, I like this event better than the last one already! It looks like at least half of the characters involved are going to have interesting story arcs and Boston Brand makes a decent narrator, even as Aliveman. And this is, after all, the final act of the whole years-long Lantern story - this is the part of the thing where Geoff Johns historically shines, especially for me. I can't tell you how many times he has won me over with a good ending after making me hate a story's middle.

So I hereby resolve not to overexamine or nitpick this thing until I go crazy with nerdrage. Mr Read and Appreciate For What it is, that's me.

I will however be keeping track of the number of times that characters in [Brightest Day] say "Brightest day." So far: 2.

Doc Savage No. 1

I heard a review of First Wave No. 1 when it came out - I do believe that it was on the Awesomed by Comics podcast - that had as its main negative point the fact that upon reading the comic you had absolutely no clue who anybody involved was. And of course I was ready to scoff, because how could anyone not know Doc Savage or Renny or Monk Mayfair? But then I remembered that Doc Savage hadn't been in anything more prominent than a miniseries or D-movie for longer than my parents have been alive and that I am in fact a giant nerd, especially about this kind of thing.

So it's a good thing that Paul Malmont does such a terrific job of writing backstory and character details into the plot of this comic without breaking the flow - stuff like introducing characters as they practice their specialties or having Doc make smalltalk with two children to keep them calm while rescuing them from a burning building. It's a nice bit of writing, hampered only a little by the somewhat inconsistent art and gigantic manga eyes that everyone has. They... they make me uncomfortable.

As for the backup, well, I know a lot less about the Avenger than Doc, so I'll hold off on shooting my mouth off for a couple of issues. Dude sure does look mean though.

Kill Shakespeare No. 1

Ha ha, I'm a fool. I could have gotten a review copy of this, like two weeks ago and I didn't get around to doing anything long enough for it to slip my mind entirely. Of course, usually when I do that it's a terrible WWE comic or something and I don't care. This time, I straight-up suck.

Fool or no, I recognize a fun comic when I see (and pay cash for, damn it) one, and this is exactly that. I'm about to compare it to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but not in a damning way - there is no imitation here, no squad of the Bard's best and brightest assembled by Falstaff in order to combat the nigh-unstoppable Bowdlerization Army. Rather, this book lives in the same joyful part of the Adventure/Black Humour/Reference Spotting Venn Diagram that League or, say, Fables (and The Unwritten, more and more) does. In other words, it's the kind of book that you appreciate both for its plot and for the skill with which aspects of other stories are being incorporated into this one.

Thus far,  Hamlet has been banished from Denmark, fought pirates and met Richard III, the legendary horseless bastard and possibly my favourite character from Shakespeare. Plus: ghosts, witches, dogs and divers alarums! Conor McCreery, Anthony Del Col and Andy Belanger: excellent book. I deeply regret having to pay you for it. Wait...

Turf No. 1 (of 5) - This came out last week and I missed it - so foolish. I bought a lot of damn books this week, though, so I'll wait until issue 2 to gush about it. Tiny review: vampires and aliens and gangsters in Prohibition-era New York. Looks fantastic. The kind of book that takes a long time to read and makes you wish it took longer.

Adventure Comics No. 10 - Did I accidently buy two copies of this? Damn it, I did. CURSE YOU, VARIANT COVERS! CURSE YOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

Action Comics No. 888 - I know I complain about the Project 7734 stuff in the Superman books a lot (note: this is because it is an INSANELY BORING comic book trope), but it's just one aspect of what's been going on for the last year or so, and I've really been enjoying the rest - particularly the stuff with Nightwing and Flamebird. And hey look: this comic is all about those two crazy kids and their crazy bird spirits!

Secret Six No. 20 - When I finished issue 19 of this book, I was pretty sure that the next issue would not feature Catman killing all or some of his team-mates, but I had to admit that the possibility was there. I am so happy about this! Gail Simone, how did you get me to think that maybe you would kill off a portion of your cast like that? Why are you so good at this? 

John Buys Comics: Stone Age Edition

Okay, not quite Stone Age, but my Internet connection has become something akin to dialup. So: no fancy images on this post, kiddies, as I kind of want to go to bed tonight.  

Batman and Robin No. 11 

There’s an incredibly high chance that Oberon “Gravedigger” Sexton is a red herring, right? He’s just such an obvious candidate that he simply can’t be Bruce Wayne, back from caveman days and living in disguise. Or has Grant Morrison double-guessed me and brought him back in the most obvious way possible, just to fake me out for a month? Oh, this game of cat and mouse that we have, what chaos it leaves in its wake. Frankly, I kind of hope that he’s not – the DC Universe could use more guys who dress like Victorian hearse drivers and hit people with shovels, and Sexton does so with aplomb.

 

It’s probably not to be, though. If Oberon Sexton isn’t Bruce Wayne then he’s likely either some tertiary character extracted from the Bat-past for new duty (the head of the Batmaniacs, one of the Gotham Mystery Analysts, Batman Jones) or a brand-new character written as though he were of ancient provenance. Either way, I’ll put my money on him being motivated by some sort of instructions or clues that time-traveling Batman has left behind. I’ll also bank on the next few issues of this comic being totally awesome.

 

Man, I really hope it’s Batman Jones.

 

Re: the cover:  that’s a really nice shovel.

 

Red Robin No. 11

 

I’m really enjoying both Red Robin and Batman and Robin, but it’s getting pretty weird to read them both in the same week. Two stories in which two different members of the al Ghul family use what are presumably two different branches of the League of Assassins to try to kill Batman and Robin? It’s not like they’re at all alike in any but the superficial ways that I just pointed out, but it’s still enough to give one déjà vu. I wonder which of these is happening first, official continuity-wise? Which Batman should be rolling his eyes and going “Oh nertz, not again.” before socking some noggin? I guess it’s all contingent on whether “the Return of Bruce Wayne” means the end of Dick Grayson as Batman, doesn’t it?

 

Superman: Secret Origin No 5 (of 6)

 

I’ve been enjoying this series. It might not be strictly necessary, but I understand the need to realign the origin of a character as integral to the DCU as Superman is once in a while, as the Legion of Super-Heroes or Final Crisis or what have you alter how things have happened in general, so too do they alter how things have happened in Superman’s past. Heck, just the fact that Superman was Superboy again works well enough for me.

 

And this series has done a lot of things that I really liked: young Clark Kent finding his first peer group in the Legion worked just as well here as in the LSH cartoon, for example. Or the fact that Metropolis was a hellhole before Superman appeared, say. Plus, this is the best depiction of mild-mannered Clark Kent as a distinct, not-exactly-like-Superman person since All-Star Superman.

 

That said, have I mentioned how bored I am with the current General Sam Lane v. Superman plotline that has now evidently been incorporated into this origin story? I have? Well, let me reiterate: Mistrustful Secret Government or Military Group Targets Super-humans And Tries to Turn the Public Against Them is so damn played out that reading a comic book in which that is the main story element is like… it’s like when you were a kid and some terrible show is on television but there’s something that you really want to see on afterward and you have no concept of time being precious yet, so you just sit and watch the terrible show that you’ve already seen before at least twice. The world goes gray around the edges and you are so bored that it’s palpable. THAT IS WHAT THIS TYPE OF STORY FEELS LIKE TO ME.

 

At least the next issue is going to have the bit where everything looks really bad but then Metropolis embraces Superman and there’s an inspirational splash page.

 

Sparta USA No. 2

 

I think that I can safely bump up the RECAP on this book without violating my personal values and spoiling anything.

 

Sparta is a small town that believes itself to be a part of the United States. All Spartans are a) obsessed with football, b) dedicated to their family and its public image and c) capable of doing anything up to and including murdering one another in order to advance their agendas regarding a) and b).

 

The people of Sparta answer to the Maestro, a blue man visits town sporadically and who claims to speak for the President and dictates who gets married to who, who is allowed to have children – children that he brings with him from somewhere outside of town. No Spartan, by the way, is allowed to leave Sparta, and believes the outside world to be virtually uninhabitable.

 

Enter Godfrey McLaine, legendary former quarterback and the only person to have ever left town. He’s come back huge and red and looking to free the people of Sparta from the influence of the Maestro. Based on what he’s said and what we’ve seen through his eyes, Sparta is nowhere in the US, but rather in the midst of some sort of fantastical wonderland full of yeti and hags and fairy-types and the like. I am intensely interested in finding out what the deal is with this town.

 

Invincible Returns No. 1 – Okay, wait. The story picks up directly from Invincible No. 69 and the letters page text treats this like No. 70 but the cover and indicia disagree. I’m so confused, not least by why I’m spending this much mental energy on trying to figure things out (yet not, say, looking it up on Images website). Eh. What’s certain is that the yellow costume is much more visibly interesting than the all-blue was and it’s good to have it back.

 

King City No. 7 – I tell you what: I’m glad that I got into King City the second time around. This marks the first all-new issue of the book since early 2007 and I reckon that I’d have spent the past three years pining away if I’d been reading it back then. For all of you poor fools who’ve been doing just that, this issue features brain-theft, a look at the farm that Joe learned cat mastery at and a backup by James “Orc Stain” Stokoe! Hot damn!

 

Sweet Tooth No. 8 – Good gravy. It is almost physically hard to read parts of this book. Jeppard’s collapse is so complete in this issue that it’s painful. RECAP next issue.

 

Doom Patrol No. 9 – I have a good feeling about this thing where Giffen brings back Doom Patrol characters that I never thought I’d see again in a million years. Granted, Crazy Jane and Danny the Street Brick haven’t really had the facetime necessary for a full nerdnalysis, but my Cautious Optimism Sense is tingling. Of course, one must then wonder: who’s next? Coagula? Imaginary Robotman? Beard Hunter? Beard Hunter, please.

 

Speaking of characters that haven’t been around in a while, is Oberon’s bi-coloured hair freaking anyone else out? 

John Buys Comics, the Epic Continuation

We rejoin our hero on the Plains of Narzboneskinsavleur, on the eve of the fourth and most awe-inspiring Battle of Seven Voughs. Once again, and ever more improbably, he has managed to acquire Earth-style comic books. An excerpt from his war-diary:

Joe the Barbarian No. 3 (of 8)

This is a fantastic comic, and it just keeps getting better. If you’re not already reading this series, well, I think that you should be. Here are the basics:

Joe is a kid with a sort-of-rough life: tough time at school, single parent household with money troubles, etc. Joe has diabetes and, distracted by rough-life issues, has mismanaged his blood sugar and is in big, life-threatening danger. Joe the Barbarian is about his epic journey from attic bedroom to the kitchen to get a soda.

Thrillsville, right? Ah, but Joe’s essentially dying on his feet - traveling two floors downward might be more than he is physically capable of. Plus, he’s hallucinating pretty hard, so that stopping in the bathroom to splash water on his face becomes an issue-long sojourn among the sewer pirates.

Grant Morrison and Sean Murphy are doing a terrific job of interweaving Joe’s two quests: Morrison’s trademark super-insanity works so much better for me as a contrast to the stark reality of the house than in the undiluted form of something like Seaguy, and Murphy’s art - and especially his attention to detail in bringing real-world elements into the hallucination - is a wonderful fit for the fantasy-world-gone-wrong feel of the whole thing.

PLUS! Morrison is introducing hints that the hallucination world might me more than just the fantasy of a dying boy.

PLUS PLUS! I’m kind of half worried that Joe might die - no free ride happy ending guarantee here.

I am going to buy the trade and force everyone I care about to read it, I hereby swear.

Superman 80-Page Giant No. 1 - You know what I like? Anthology comics that don’t have any stinkers in them. And this didn’t! Everything looked nice, all of the stories featured Superman being a really cool, really human guy and there were a fair number of fun ideas, like the story that was just a bunch of bank robbers talking about the relative downsides of being apprehended by various super-heroes, or the idea that a bored Superman might toss a piano out the window just for the fun of swooping in and rescuing it from destruction. And it lasted me through the bulk of my lunch break!

The Brave and the Bold No. 32 - Okay: Aquaman and the Demon is a pretty great teamup. It’s almost like this book and the cartoon of the same name got their casting mixed up. Maybe the sailor was originally Batman? More importantly, though, the plot concerns an evil extra-dimensional entity that invades our world and forms an army from the bodies of the dead, and it resolves in one issue. Did DC just kick its own ass?

Green Lantern Corps No. 46 - And speaking of the event du jour, do Guy Gardner and his ragtag band of misfits in this book seem way more competent than the all-star team over in Blackest Night? There just seems to be a lot less flailing around and screwing up and a lot more... good plans that actually work, especially as this comic seems to be happening in a much longer period of time (by which I mean that Hal Jordan and co. eff things up about seventy times in a half hour or so, from what I can tell). Also: fridgeform Black Lantern!

Here the document ends, the final pages ruined by a great quantity of fuath ichor. History does not record what became of the author.

John Buys Comics and it Feels So Good

Crogan’s March

If you’re not in the know about this series (The Crogan Adventures by Chris Schweizer), it’s about a guy telling his two sons stories about their ancestors, who were evidently all incredibly cool guys - the family tree at the front of the book includes a smuggler, a lion tamer and a WWI pilot, for example (and speaking of the family tree, Schweizer does and incredible job of making a pretty diverse bunch of guys look like they’re related. I’ve been staring at them for a while now and I think that it’s all in the eyebrows). Crogan’s Vengeance, the first in the series, came outlast year and was a very fun story about “Catfoot” Crogan, pirate, the first of the line. Crogan’s Vengeance was a fine comic, heck, a great comic, but Crogan’s March is MAGNIFICENT. I decided to pick up some Turkish food on the way back from the comic shoppe last night and cracked open Crogan’s March while I waited, and I have never in my life cared less about how long my food was going to take to get ready.

Peter Crogan is a Corporal in the French Foreign Legion, with two months left on his five-year tour. He’s a crack shot (when he’s standing still) a former boxer and an all-around good guy who just happens to be smack in the middle of one of the more violent spots in the days of the European Empires. He’s the kind of character that you like from panel one onward and he has a magnificent mustache.

Oh, and every other character in the book is immensely likeable as well. Schweizer makes each character distinct in both look and personality, to the extent that one of my favourite characters had maybe two lines and then died - I could just tell that he was terrific. Some of the characters from Crogan’s Vengeance get Blackadder-esque cameos as background and minor characters as well, which is great, particularly as Peter Crogan gets to lay a haymaker on a guy who is a double of his ancestor’s arch-enemy. Time-spanning family rivalry, woo!

And there’s a very thoughtful exploration of colonialism going on here too, and not the COLONIALISM IS ALL BAD ALL THE TIME blanket statement that I encountered with dreary regularity in my days as an English major - not that it wasn’t pretty damn terrible in most respects, don’t get me wrong. It’s just nice to read a work that sets that aside and instead looks at the differing motivations that the people who were involved in the process had. The differing opinions that Crogan’s superiors hold on this topic inform a lot of the book’s conflict.

Oh, man. I can look forward to a new Crogan Adventure every year so hard.

World of New Krypton No 12 - It was a mystery all along! Well, I guess I knew that, but it was a proper mystery, with clues and everything! And now Superman’s solved it! Hooray! You know, if New Krypton is still around in a year or so a series about trying to be a detective on a planet of supermans could be a pretty fun time.

Casper and the Spectrals No. 1 - This actually came out a while ago but I didn’t see it until yesterday and I just had to see what they’d done to the old Harvey crew. Have to say: not too bad. The character designs aren’t aggressively weird (and it was high time that Hot Stuff stopped wearing a diaper, let me tell you) although Wendy’s eyes, even by the standards of manga-influenced comic characters, are unnervingly gigantic. I’m pretty certain that she has at least a 270 degree field of vision. So, I'm not going to keep buying it, but I guess that it's a pretty decent modernization of the junk I read as a kid.

Doom Patrol No. 7 - Crazy Jane is back! Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Man is back! The Metal Men defeat Giganta in an unusual manner! Fun!

Red Robin No. 9 - I just keep enjoying this series more and more. Tim’s dropped a lot of his angst since he found the Bat-cave painting, he’s owning up to the fact that he looks like Dr Mid-Nite and he’s starting to react to some of the things that he’s been up to in other peoples’ comics (like being a bit of a dick to Superboy, say). It was a bit of a breather issue, a between story arcs kind of thing, but those are the kinds of issues where you really get a chance to enjoy a character sans drama, so hurrah.

Sweet Tooth No. 6 - Sorry Tiina. He didn’t get adopted by a nice family and get to play with a dog all day. Maybe next issue?