Over the course of the last week I went to a wedding, helped my dad move house, had a couple of nice meals out with the missus and saw The Manic Street Preachers in concert. All of which took up a lot of time, involved drinking large amounts and left me behind on my reading. That means that I'm writing about last week's comics just a day or two before this week's haul starts clogging up my house. Not ideal, but I don't want to skip last week because ALL the books I bought were top drawer.
If I had to pick a favourite I'd probably go for Captain America #26. I don't read all of Marvel's titles, but I'm guessing that very few are catching the bleak post civil war vibe as well as this one. The Marvel Universe is a dark place at the moment and let's face it, mainstream comics don't come much darker than the one in which the title character is dead.
Ironically all the signs suggest that this book is just going to get even stronger now that Steve Rogers is on the slab. Why? Because Ed Brubaker writes the supporting cast so well. Sharon Carter, Bucky and The Falcon have taken centre stage and the dynamic between them and their varied reactions to Cap's death make for a cracking comic.
The Red Skull is of course my all-time favourite Marvel super-villain so it's been a treat to see him stalking the pages of Cap again, but his psychopathic daughter Sin, the hulking Doctor Faustus and the magnificently weird Arnim Zola are a fine supporting cast. All mad as a box of frogs. You get the sense that Brubaker is having a lot of fun writing them.
He's doing a top notch job on Criminal as well. Issue #6 marks the start of a new story "Lawless" which promises to be as gritty as the first arc "Coward". Those five issues come out as a collected trade this week. Definitely worth picking up if you missed the floppies, although personally I'd recommend tracking down the back issues because the superb text pieces which were included in those original issues won't be reprinted in the trade. For me those discussions of noir and neo-noir films are an essential part of what makes this book one of the best on the shelves.
There isn't a text piece in Issue #6, but there is an excellent letters page which is well worth reading for a nice reader review of "The Death of a Chinese Bookie" a film which I'll definitely be looking up. I like a good letters page, the best I ever read was in the back of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. On occasion it was better than the comic itself.
So anyway, Brubaker gets the number 1 and 2 slots in my best of the week. But on any other week I'd have put both Irredeemable Ant-Man#8 or New Universal #6 right up there. Both brilliant books, both doing something different and, for my money anyway, both succeeding because of the fresh approach they take to the super hero genre. A+ to both books, but A++ to Criminal and A+++ to Cap.
And while I'm handing out marks I give Back Issue #22 a B+. I really like the idea of this magazine and love the fact that as slick and glossy as it looks it still maintains the raw feel of a fanzine. My only real gripe with it is the themed format which each issue takes. I'm not saying that I don't want to read about the history of team-ups in bronze age comics, it's just that I think Back Issue could be even better if it didn't limit each issue to articles on a single theme.
It's still a fascinating read though. Hard to go wrong with an issue which features an article titled "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out: Robin's journey through the counterculture and into self-awareness"
I nabbed yesterday's panel of Cap spying on the Falcon from Back Issue by the way.
Showing posts with label New Universal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Universal. Show all posts
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Friday, 13 April 2007
The Weekly Shop #6
I've recently discovered Back Issue, a bimonthly magazine for nostalgiaholics from TwoMorrows Publishing. It's a cracking read jammed full of features on the comic creators of the silver and bronze age. I was reading an interview with Sal Buscema and Steve Englehart from issue #20 yesterday in which they reminisce about their classic run on Captain America.
It's clear that these boys had it a lot tougher than their modern day counterparts, as Englehart says: The famous thing Roy Thomas said to me when he hired me was, "If you can turn this in on time and make it sell, you can keep doing it. And if you can't, we'll fire you and get somebody else."
Englehart admits that he had no idea where he was going from one issue to the next, but he was never late. Ditto Buscema who worked on several titles at once: "I may have been doing two or three issues a month at that time, maybe even more" he says.
Now I don't want to imply that old comic creators are good and new comic creators are bad, because its clear that some very fine comic creators are plying their trade today, but there must be a lesson to learn from the old school - particularly the artists - who met their deadlines.
I mean does anyone out there remember what's happening in the Ultimates? A book which has been rendered unreadable by its ridiculous delays. Or Astonishing X-Men? Another one which I still buy but have given up reading until the run is done. Or All Star Batman, when the hell did the last issue of that come out?
At least All Star Superman, which turned up this week after a three month hiatus, is built on stand alone stories. That makes it more palatable, but it would still be better if the darn thing shipped on time!
Anyway, ranting aside, it is good to see All Star Supes again. Despite being notoriously slow Frank Quietly is one of my favourite artists and his work with inker Jamie Grant makes this comic one of the nicest looking books out there.
Enough has been said elsewhere about Grant Morrison's homage to the weird world of silver age superman, so I won't burble on too much about his scripts. Suffice to say it's good to see Superman going back to his wacked out roots in a book which should delight kids as much as it does adults dosed up on class A's.
Even with a guest appearance from Bizarro, All Star Superman isn't my book of the week though. That's because my two favourite mainstream Warren Ellis comics also hit the shops.
Thunderbolts #113 is another knockout issue. Ellis's take on Norman Osborn is superb, a man so utterly, utterly mad that even the psychos in the team he oversees are worried about his state of mind.
Not for the first time, the latest issue features Green Goblin on the cover.
Bit of a cheat since Osborn hasn't gone goblin yet, but hopefully it's only a matter of time.
The other Ellis book is of course New Universal #5. I heard somewhere that despite a leap in reader numbers over the first couple of issues that sales figures were declining on this one now. I know this happens with the majority of new titles, but I had hoped this book would continue to pick up readers because its an honest to goodness piece of comic excellence.
The latest issue introduces Emmet Proudhawk, a native Indian shaman who also works for the CIA. As with all the other main players he appeared in the original New Universe.
Like all Warren Ellis's work, New Universal crackles with intelligence. Even if you don't like Salvador Larocca's celebrity smattered art (and I do by the way) then you should be picking up this book.
I Also picked up Tales of the Unexpected #7. As per usual I made a vague attempt at reading the Spectre story, but it really was too horrible and I soon found myself heading for the the DR 13 backup which rivals All Star Superman in the weird and wacky stakes.
This months highlight: an awesome panel in which a flying pirate ship stops to ask directions from a bunch of skyscrapers...
Surreal comic brilliance.
2000AD is getting more enjoyable as I pick up the plot of the various ongoing story lines. This week's issue featured a decent little Future Shock story and some nice Ezquerra work on Judge Dredd
Sass is the word mutie!
I understand that the mammoth Dredd origins story which is currently running has fallen prey to delays because Ezquerra has had trouble meeting deadlines. That contradicts what I was saying earlier and shows that even old school greats miss deadlines. To be fair to Ezquerra though he is pushing 60, so I think he has more excuse than some of the young guns at Marvel and DC.
2000AD Extreme features a bunch of Dredd stories culled in the main from the 1980's annuals. Again there's some terrific Ezquerra art on display here in a story from the 1983 annual in which Dredd confronts a gallery of his most notorious villains. Notorious Dredd villains drawn by Ezquerra = Thrill power overload...
The only disappointment of another otherwise excellent edition is the cover which isn't one of Brian Bolland's better efforts. Considering that 99.9% of Bolland's artwork is godlike in its genius, the powers that be should be showered with rigelian hotshots for coming up with a rare dud from the master.
It's clear that these boys had it a lot tougher than their modern day counterparts, as Englehart says: The famous thing Roy Thomas said to me when he hired me was, "If you can turn this in on time and make it sell, you can keep doing it. And if you can't, we'll fire you and get somebody else."
Englehart admits that he had no idea where he was going from one issue to the next, but he was never late. Ditto Buscema who worked on several titles at once: "I may have been doing two or three issues a month at that time, maybe even more" he says.
Now I don't want to imply that old comic creators are good and new comic creators are bad, because its clear that some very fine comic creators are plying their trade today, but there must be a lesson to learn from the old school - particularly the artists - who met their deadlines.
I mean does anyone out there remember what's happening in the Ultimates? A book which has been rendered unreadable by its ridiculous delays. Or Astonishing X-Men? Another one which I still buy but have given up reading until the run is done. Or All Star Batman, when the hell did the last issue of that come out?
At least All Star Superman, which turned up this week after a three month hiatus, is built on stand alone stories. That makes it more palatable, but it would still be better if the darn thing shipped on time!
Anyway, ranting aside, it is good to see All Star Supes again. Despite being notoriously slow Frank Quietly is one of my favourite artists and his work with inker Jamie Grant makes this comic one of the nicest looking books out there.
Enough has been said elsewhere about Grant Morrison's homage to the weird world of silver age superman, so I won't burble on too much about his scripts. Suffice to say it's good to see Superman going back to his wacked out roots in a book which should delight kids as much as it does adults dosed up on class A's.
Even with a guest appearance from Bizarro, All Star Superman isn't my book of the week though. That's because my two favourite mainstream Warren Ellis comics also hit the shops.
Thunderbolts #113 is another knockout issue. Ellis's take on Norman Osborn is superb, a man so utterly, utterly mad that even the psychos in the team he oversees are worried about his state of mind.
Not for the first time, the latest issue features Green Goblin on the cover.
Bit of a cheat since Osborn hasn't gone goblin yet, but hopefully it's only a matter of time.
The other Ellis book is of course New Universal #5. I heard somewhere that despite a leap in reader numbers over the first couple of issues that sales figures were declining on this one now. I know this happens with the majority of new titles, but I had hoped this book would continue to pick up readers because its an honest to goodness piece of comic excellence.
The latest issue introduces Emmet Proudhawk, a native Indian shaman who also works for the CIA. As with all the other main players he appeared in the original New Universe.
Like all Warren Ellis's work, New Universal crackles with intelligence. Even if you don't like Salvador Larocca's celebrity smattered art (and I do by the way) then you should be picking up this book.
I Also picked up Tales of the Unexpected #7. As per usual I made a vague attempt at reading the Spectre story, but it really was too horrible and I soon found myself heading for the the DR 13 backup which rivals All Star Superman in the weird and wacky stakes.
This months highlight: an awesome panel in which a flying pirate ship stops to ask directions from a bunch of skyscrapers...
Surreal comic brilliance.2000AD is getting more enjoyable as I pick up the plot of the various ongoing story lines. This week's issue featured a decent little Future Shock story and some nice Ezquerra work on Judge Dredd
Sass is the word mutie!I understand that the mammoth Dredd origins story which is currently running has fallen prey to delays because Ezquerra has had trouble meeting deadlines. That contradicts what I was saying earlier and shows that even old school greats miss deadlines. To be fair to Ezquerra though he is pushing 60, so I think he has more excuse than some of the young guns at Marvel and DC.
2000AD Extreme features a bunch of Dredd stories culled in the main from the 1980's annuals. Again there's some terrific Ezquerra art on display here in a story from the 1983 annual in which Dredd confronts a gallery of his most notorious villains. Notorious Dredd villains drawn by Ezquerra = Thrill power overload...
The only disappointment of another otherwise excellent edition is the cover which isn't one of Brian Bolland's better efforts. Considering that 99.9% of Bolland's artwork is godlike in its genius, the powers that be should be showered with rigelian hotshots for coming up with a rare dud from the master.
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