Episodes
Friday Jun 26, 2020
DC Solicitations Sneaks: September 2020
Friday Jun 26, 2020
Friday Jun 26, 2020
Well, I can’t call these “Previews Picks” anymore…
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen?
I think Matt Fraction is a very uneven writer. His runs on “Invincible Iron Man,” “Uncanny X-Men,” and “Sex Criminals” were marked by parts that were really good, and parts that were really terrible. The one series of his that I, and pretty much everyone else, acknowledge as being pretty great from beginning to end was “Hawkeye.” There, Fraction, artist David Aja (and guests) took the B-lister and gave him a solo series which was so good that Marvel has been trying to recapture the magic it worked for that character ever since.
“Jimmy Olsen” looks to be Fraction’s attempt to get lightning to strike twice, this time with artist Steve Lieber. Working in the series’ favor is that the title character’s history (especially in the Silver Age) has always trended towards “weird” and the fact that no one really cares too much about him these days. That kind of status is essentially a green light for Fraction and Lieber to let their freak flags fly as far as they can on a mainstream superhero comic. The early word is that they succeeded, but I’m very much interested in seeing it for myself. Also, kudos to DC for collecting the entire 12-issue maxiseries in one volume.
Read the rest of this entry »Wednesday Jun 24, 2020
Comic Picks #318: Barakamon
Wednesday Jun 24, 2020
Wednesday Jun 24, 2020
Wouldn't we all want to go live in a rural island community right about now?
Monday Jun 22, 2020
To Your Eternity vol. 1
Monday Jun 22, 2020
Monday Jun 22, 2020
Yoshitoki Oima showed with “A Silent Voice” that she could mix serious social issues with heartfelt melodrama and interesting characters to tell an interesting story in the present day. Even if the first volume and its illustration of bullying was a full notch above the six that followed. Her follow-up series is miles away from that. It’s a sci-fi fantasy story that’s set in a world that resembles the one from our past that seeks to tackle the big question of what it means to be human. This first volume shows that Oima’s skills with characterization and melodrama are still intact, even if she’s got some work to do with her worldbuilding.
Read the rest of this entry »Sunday Jun 21, 2020
Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns, and Moonage Daydreams
Sunday Jun 21, 2020
Sunday Jun 21, 2020
David Bowie was a one-of-a-kind artist with an unmistakable style. So it’s fitting that this biography of his life up through his time as Ziggy Stardust is illustrated and co-written by another one-of-a-kind artist with an unmistakable style: Mike Allred. I’ve made no secret of how much I love his work, and he really knocks it out of the park in this graphic novel. Even though he’s drawing real people in real situations, Allred still finds plenty of ways to incorporate his off-kilter sensibilities. From early scenes where we see the madness that grips Bowie’s brother, to his communion with and eventual disassociation from Ziggy, the artist’s imagination is on full display as he gives us a version of the artist’s story that clearly didn’t happen this way, but rather a myth that is incredibly easy to buy into. “Bowie” is a full-on artistic tour-de-force from the artist working at the top of his game and fully invested in the story he’s telling.
If only that story were told in a more interesting way! Co-written by Steve Horton, the story of Bowie’s life is effectively boiled down into showing us a series of events that actually happened. There are times, particularly once Bowie hits on the idea for Ziggy, where it feels that the story is going to break into an actual narrative, but it never quite manages to. I do wonder if this format is the trade-off for Allred having the freedom to craft these amazing images around specific events. If it is, then this is probably the best version of that format we’re willing to get. “Bowie” may not offer a deep or revelatory look at the title character, but it’s still a visual stunner that showcases his genius, and that of its artist, in a compelling light.
While I’d certainly be interested in seeing Allred tackle Bowie’s leaner and less iconic years, his depiction of an encounter between the singer and Monty Python is a memorable highlighting of that great comedy troupe. If I could own a page of any art from this graphic novel, this one would be it.
Saturday Jun 20, 2020
The Banks
Saturday Jun 20, 2020
Saturday Jun 20, 2020
The Banks family has a long criminal history in the city of Chicago. From Clara and her husband Melvin in the 70’s & 80’s, to her daughter Cora in the 90’s and 00’s, and her daughter Celia in the present day, they’ve all made money by being smart about who they steal from and never getting greedy. The thing is that Clara and Cora were actual thieves specializing in the art of breaking and entering while Celia practices the legitimate kind of thievery: Working as an investment banker. However, when Celia is passed over for the position of partner at her firm, after busting her ass off for over a year, she finds herself ready to enter the family business proper after learning about the firm’s richest client. Dirk Johnson is a secretive eccentric sitting on a fortune in gold bullion and bitcoin and three generations of African American women are about to take him for all he’s worth.
If it doesn’t sound like Mr. Johnson deserves that fate, don’t worry. He’s a certified asshole who has ties to the man responsible for the death of Melvin Banks. The addition of a personal element to this heist story should make it all that more compelling, but “The Banks” never comes off as more than a good idea for a story. While the characters have interesting histories, they simply walk through the story hitting their expected plot points and making familiar arguments with each other. The storytelling from writer Roxanne Gay and Ming Doyle is certainly functional, but it’s completely lacking in style and energy. A book about three generations of African American women sticking it to a terrible white guy shouldn’t be this dull or predictable. There’s a great story to be told with this setup, but “The Banks” certainly isn’t it.
Friday Jun 19, 2020
"Negan Lives!" ...to Save Comic Book Stores
Friday Jun 19, 2020
Friday Jun 19, 2020
When I saw Robert Kirkman at his solo panel during Comic-Con last year, he talked about the very slight chance that he’d return to the world of “The Walking Dead.” He was quick to mention that it would be after everything else in his professional life had gone wrong, leaving him desperate for a comeback as a result. If he did, however, that return would involve showing us what happened to his favorite character in the series: The charismatically sweary and psychopathic (former) leader of the Saviors, Negan. So when I came across a headline today stating that there would be a new “The Walking Dead” comic featuring the character, my first thought was, “Boy, that was quick!”
As it turns out, this is just going to be a one-time return for Kirkman and regular artist Charlie Adlard. “Negan Lives!” is their way of helping out comic stores as they reopen and try to regain business after closing during the ongoing pandemic. Not only are the creators waiving shipping fees for the comic, but they’re only making it available in comic stores. No digital release (yet) for this comic. So if you want it, then you’re going to have to get up and go into a comic shop to get it. Which is something that I can see myself doing, since I honestly thought we’d seen the last of this series until now, and I’d really like to know what Negan got up to after Maggie let him live.
Why stop here, though? What about having other creative teams get back together to deliver new issues of series that have concluded, or are just on permanent hiatus? Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie could show us what would’ve happened if Lucifer had run away with the end of “The Wicked + The Divine.” Tim Seely and Mike Norton would be able to fill us in on what the Amish special forces woman and her daughter were up to before they showed up in “Revival.” Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra will give us just one. more. issue. of “The Manhattan Projects.” Rick Remender and Matteo Scalera deliver an extra final issue of “Black Science” with a real mega-happy ending -- Okay, I’ll stop now…
Wednesday Jun 17, 2020
Sara [by Ennis & Epting]
Wednesday Jun 17, 2020
Wednesday Jun 17, 2020
Garth Ennis has been writing war comics for a couple decades now. Most of them are very good, with a few ranking right up there with “Preacher” and “Punisher MAX” as some of the best stuff that he’s ever written. Even with that being the case, there are certain tropes that creep into the majority of the writer’ war comics. The focus on the rank-and-file soldiers. General disdain if not outright contempt for the chain-of-command that orders said soldiers around. Characters pontificating very seriously about the state of the war and world around them. Gallows humor. Lots, and lots of gallows humor. The presence of these tropes isn’t inherently bad in Ennis’ comics, it’s just that they lend the proceedings a greater sense of familiarity than you’d expect them to have.
Such is the case with “Sara,” which sees Ennis and artist Steve Epting focusing on an all-female squad of snipers in the time of the Siege of Leningrad in 1942. All of the above has been recalibrated for Soviet standards, which balance the expected and the intriguing. In the case of the former, there’s the title character and her bare. As for the latter, there are little things like Vera, the soldier who loves torturing prisoners just a little too much, or the political officer who comes off like a joke until it’s revealed that she’s very good at listening. Splitting the difference between the two extremes are the examples of how Russia enforces loyalty at the cost of everything -- including logic -- which are central to Sara’s story and no less frightening because of how familiar they are.
While Ennis’ war comics usually have good art, Epting provides great art for “Sara.” After years of toiling in, and sometimes being an ill fit for, the superhero trenches, the artist delivered some career-best work on “Velvet,” and this is a great follow-up to that particular title. Epting delivers a thoroughly detailed world that feels lived-in by its characters, with their weariness, concern, or fear expertly captured on their faces. He also captures the rush of war as combat can break out in a second as a result of an ill-timed bathroom break, or roll over the defending side with an implacable singlemindedness. It’s art that elevates the series as a whole and results in the rare (probably only) Ennis-written war comic where the art outshines the writing.
Monday Jun 15, 2020
The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Omnibus vol. 5: WHERE IS IT?!
Monday Jun 15, 2020
Monday Jun 15, 2020
...a thought pierced my thick fanboy skull a few days after I originally wrote this. That now may not be the best time to start a movement towards buying a particular comic series. Not when there are other, more worthy, causes you can put your money towards. So if you can give to them, please do. If you’ve still got something left to give after doing that, then read on...
If there were two comics that I was looking forward to reading this year, they were the fifth and sixth omnibi of “The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.” I couldn’t believe it when Dark Horse announced that they were bringing this series back after it went on hiatus years ago. The fact that I’d effectively be re-buying volumes 13 and 14 of the series to get the all-new vol. 15 with the fifth omnibus was fine. That’s how much I wanted to read new “Kurosagi” after all these years. The publisher had mentioned that publishing future omnibi would depend on how these sold, and I figured that would be the biggest hurdle facing the series going forward.
Then the Coronavirus pandemic hit and now it’s like that announcement never happened.
Really, I mean. There’s no listing for it at The Right Stuf and I had to use a search engine to find a page for it on Amazon where it was listed with an estimated publication date of December 28, 2021, and no way to pre-order it. I do think that date is being overly optimistic, however. Manga titles like “Elfen Lied” and “Mob Psycho 100” have already found their way back onto Dark Horse’s publication schedule after being delayed. The assumption there is that since these titles sell, the publisher wants to get them out into our hands as soon as possible.
With the fifth “Kurosagi” omnibus, sales success was always going to be something of a “Hail Mary” for the series. As I’ve heard from its editor/adapter Carl Horn himself, the omnibus format got the series out of the red and into a position where they could try publishing it again. As for now… well, with there being no good way to pre-order the fifth omnibus, my recommendation is that anyone reading this start filling out their collections of the previous omnibi. Or, if you’ve already bought all four, buy some copies for your friends -- who wouldn’t want a series about unemployable college students who get jobs from dead people? Sales speak volumes to publishers, and if they were able to get “Kurosagi” out of the hole once, they can definitely do it again. We just need more of them.