Tuesday 7 April 2009

Two more from the stack

The missus and nipper have gone to see the mother-in-law for a few days, leaving me in London on my Jack. Marv. Obviously I have all sorts of grand plans to hack my way through the vast swathes of unread comics that clog up my life, but to date have managed to a) sleep in 'til 1pm b) listen to a bit of Velvet Underground on Spotify and c) realise that it's really about time I thought about going to work. Oh well, perhaps tomorrow, eh?
 
Actually I did read a couple of comics last night - Mark Waid's Irredeemable, which was fun, but at $3.99 one of those comics which is frankly too expensive for the 15 minutes it takes to read. Still, I enjoyed it enough to return for more. Basically, you've got a superhero who's gone bad and is killing everyone. Yay! I'm sure it'll end up being more complicated than that, but yeah, that's what it is at its most basic level, and basic levels are OK by me. I'm seeing Miracleman and Authority influences in issue #1, which is nice.

Also read Flash Rebirth #1, which was perfectly enjoyable fare. As ever, it's going to make absolutely no sense to anyone new to the DC Universe, but hey that's Geoff Johns for you isn't it? The man's an unashamed DCU slut who revels in dredging up stuff that gives fanboys the horn but leaves the casual reader scratching their heads. 

The Ethan Van Sciver art is ridiculously detailed. He must be a very focused man (for focused, read obsessional). There's a nice interview with him on Word Balloon at the mo. It's warts and all stuff from a fellah who isn't altogether likable, but who I do find compelling. He does have an arrogance about him, but it's been a long time since I laughed as hard as I did when he launched into a rant about what a ridiculous concept the Flash museum is: "I know, lets build a museum and fill it with waxworks of infamous mass murderers!" Brilliant. 

He still wants to think harder about what he calls his next sketchbook though.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

About twice a year I buy a DC book in the hope that I'll discover something I like. I picked up Flash Rebirth last week. Oops. I didn't get past about 8 pages.

Dom Sutton said...

To be honest though mate, Flash Rebirth is a REALLY bad choice of comic for a man who doesn't like DC! It's not going to make any sense to anyone who isn't already familiar with the history of The Flash or interested enough to do a bit of research to get up to speed (no pun intended).

In general (although not always) DC books do demand a bit more effort than Marvel books. I can understand why folks can't be bothered with that. Whatever floats your boat.

Anonymous said...

My friend got chatting to Ethan at the MCM Expo last October. He is a die hard Republican, and said he'd prefer Hilary to Obama getting in.

Was a good wake up call to me as I naively thought all comics people were cuddly, anti-authoritarian libertines. WRONG.