The Secret of the Wednesday’s Haul

From Brian Hibbs newest Tilting At Windmills column on CBR:

Personally, in the last year or so I’ve been sourcing most of my [FANTGRAPHICS] reorders either through FBI, or through B&T when I just needed spot-reorders. The fact is that as a publisher with an “F”-code discount at Diamond, it cost me the same price to buy from Diamond or “bookstore,” so why not buy from the “bookstore” channel?

(Of course, I can still buy from “bookstore” going forward - this deal is only impacting Direct Market sales; but, as a DM retailer I don’t have to buy from the DM. For me, the difference is I’ll no longer be allowed to buy directly from FBI. WW Norton is still carrying FBI’s books for the book channel.)

The emphasis is mine.

Hibbs, a direct market comic retailer with his Comix Experience shop in San Francisco, doesn’t have to order Fantagraphic books from FBI’s exclusive direct market distributor? That seems like a very messed up system to me. I know that there’s a lot of shops that probably don’t have Hibbs’ savvy and don’t spread the wealth using book distributors to supply their stores but it seems like this deal between Fantagraphics and Diamond is getting to be a lot of talk about nothing. If Fantagraphics books were only available to direct market retailers through Diamond, that would be one thing. But it’s not even that. Heck, for the time being, Diamond isn’t the exclusive direct market distributor since I think two other smaller distributors (Last Gasp and Bud Plant?) were grand-fathered into the deal.

Who cares who distributes Fantagraphics? I mean really? Who?  And that’s where Hibb’s heads toward as well in his column.  He points out the pluses and minuses and they appear to counter-balance themselves out for the comic retailer.

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I’ve got as many problems with Mark Millar’s hyper-active ego and Bryan Hitch’s obsessive need to put every realistic little detail down in a book but how can you hate mecha-Fantastic Four?

Click on the image to see a full-size version of it.

There’s just something mightily goofy and (dare I say it?) fun about that image I think.

found via Marvel Noise

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I don’t want good comics anymore.  I want great comics.

Examples:

Casanova= Great!                    Invincible Iron Man = good

Powers= Great!                        New Avengers = good

Criminal= Great!                     Daredevil = good

Draw your own conclusion about what I’m trying to get at here.  I know where the creators make their money but I think I can also tell where their heart is.

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I just figured out this morning that there’s something wrong with the podcast feed and how it pushes content into iTunes. I figured out what the problem is and applied a bandaid solution to the newest episode that I uploaded last night but I don’t know exactly what the root cause of the problem is. If you look at the WH page on iTunes, you’ll see only two episodes, this week’s and one from November.

Hopefully regular service of the podcast will return shortly.

Thanks,

the management

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• Observations on film art and FILM ART : In critical condition
  more on the role of the critic.
  (tags: film criticism)

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It’s a mish-mash episode as I review the first issue of Alex Ross, Jim Kreuger and Steve Sadowski’s Avengers/Invaders (all I’ll say here is that this book is in desperate need of an inker,) talk about about the robbery/shooting of David Pirkola and what kind of a great shop Apparition comics is in Kentwood, MI and finally, I wrap up the episode talking about Just Bill’s Comic Drawer Box episode 69a: Critiquing Comics Without Thinking.

To listen to the show, click here.

Links:

 

 A little bit of this, a little bit of that [38:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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As Iron Man,
All jets ablaze,
He fights and smite’n
With repulsor rays!

So how do you celebrate opening a movie that makes over $100,000,000 domestically in it’s first weekend? Well, if you’re a comic publisher, the answer seems easy; you publish a second series with a new #1 issue. This time around, Iron Man gets the obligatory second title, The Invincible Iron Man, harnessing the talents of Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca.

The book opens in an African nation where technology like cell phones with built-in camera are still new and exotic. Adimu Chiume and her friends share the thrill of a brand new phone just as three boys exit a car and blow up, taking the girls and a large chuck of the street with them. Welcome to 21st century terrorism. Meanwhile, Tony Stark is helping repair a space shuttle and trying to bed a more-than-willing supermodel before SHIELD can track him down and report the suicide bombing. Thinking that the bombing was caused by an armor like his, Stark takes it personally and wants to lead the team that tracks down the bomber’s bosses.

Fraction has an interesting take on Stark in this book– he is a man who lives in constant fear of a great many things. Yet unlike most of us, Tony Stark has the money, ingenuity and heroism to take on his fears and overcome them. That doesn’t mean that those fears are gone; they’re just dealt with. Whether it’s taking a drink or having his technology falling into the wrong hand, Stark is a man who is constantly reminded of his own failures and fears. These are the things that he has to live with and try to overcome. Often writers will focus on one failure or another of Stark’s but Fraction tackles them all head on at once. Through the narration where Stark recounts his fears, Fraction also shows how Stark’s brain works. It’s constantly in motion and never stops. This book is full of Stark’s thoughts, continually moving and calculating what he needs to do. It’s almost dizzying how much text is in this issue. Fraction is not writing in any stripped down style here.

The problem with this issue is that after the movie successfully portrays the humor and wit of Tony Stark, Fraction’s script comes off as very dry and emotionless. Even where Fraction manages to get some humor into the book (watch out for Pepper Potts and her frugal fashion sense and keen spelling abilities,) it comes off as forced and artificial, rather than natural. It’s not that it’s bad; it’s just that it’s not as much fun as the movie that’s out right now. And that’s probably not a fair comparison to either Fraction or Larroca but let’s face it, if it wasn’t for the movie, would Marvel really be gambling on putting out another new title right now?

With that, Marvel is probably missing a big opportunity right now by not making this more like the movie. Understandably they have to tie this book into current continuity so that means that Tony Stark is the head of SHIELD, gets little time to be a millionaire playboy, to tinker around on cars and cool tech and doesn’t get to have a drink in his hand most of the time and be cleverer and glibber than most of us get to be. Tony has real responsibilities that you didn’t have to see in the movie. If someone who’s seen the movie wants to go out and get an Iron Man comic, they’ll find a #1 here that features a character that has more responsibilities and little of the joy or fun.

Invincible Iron Man #1
“The Five Nightmares Part 1: Armageddon Days”
Written by: Matt Fraction
Penciled by: Salvador Larroca
Colored by: Frank D’Armata & Stephan Peru
Lettered by: Chris Eliopoulos

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Offered this week quickly and without much comment:

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 Vol 2 No Future For You TP
• Nexus Archives Vol 7 HC
• Checkmate Vol 3 The Fall Of The Wall TP
• Final Crisis Sketchbook
• Casanova #14
• Transhuman #2
• Captain Britain And MI 13 #1
• Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 #1
• newuniversal shockfront #1
• Sky Doll #1

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After the first time I read Secret Invasion #2, I put it down thinking I had nothing to say about it.

After I read Secret Invasion #2 again, I put it back down unable to figure out anything to write for a review of the book.

So I read it a third time. I am, after all, a comic reviewer. And anyway, it bugged me that I couldn’t find anything about the book to write about. It’s not that I didn’t love or hate the book; it’s just that the issue was simply there. And than I figured out, that’s what I could write about.

The first issue of Secret Invasion, while not War and Peace, was a solid and entertaining popcorn comic. It had enough twists and turns to keep me enthralled and wanting to see what Brian Bendis and Leinil Yu could pull off on the next page. Hank Pym a skrull? Jarvis a skrull? The Baxter Building imploded into space? A Skrull space ship with either the real or Skrully fake heroes on board? And what did that mean for the assembled Avengers, many of whom were facing a doppelganger of themselves coming off of that ship? For a Marvel super-hero fan, issue #1 had a lot to offer up.

Then Bendis followed up on Secret Invasion #1 with a couple of issues of New Avengers and Mighty Avengers that feature almost next to none of the Avengers. I’ll admit that those tie-in books quickly killed any excitement about this event that I had after reading the first issue. The fact that the second issue of Secret Invasion doesn’t advance the plot a lot also doesn’t help. This issue is one big battle in the Savage Land between the Avengers and the heroes (or are they Skrulls?) who cam out of the ship. New York and the rest of the world isn’t seen until the end. The focus on the battle wouldn’t have been bad if Bendis had provided some big pay off or revelation about who is and who isn’t a Skrull but the reveals in this issue are either for minor characters or quite obvious. The story barely moves forward at all this issue.

The series is now a quarter of the way over and what has really happened? The first issue established a quick pace and “anything can happen” feeling to the series. It’s too bad that Bendis had to let up on the second issue and give up page after page of hero fighting hero. Wasn’t that the same thing we saw in the last couple of Marvel crossovers?

Secret Invasion #2
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
Penciled by: Leinil Francis Yu
Inked by: Mark Morales
Colored by: Laura Martin
Lettered by: Chris Eliopoulos

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Welcome to the 21st century cartoon. Only know it’s a semi-live action/adventure movie.

Let’s set up why this may be the perfect movie for me.

Whenever I talk about the Wachowski brothers (or siblings or whatever they are now,) I always feel the need to throw up the preface that I actually like all three Matrix movies. The sequels aren’t great but there are good things happening there even if the concepts tend to get out of hand from time to time. But I do like them and that’s that.

Another caveat I’ve got to throw out there is that, as a kid, I loved Speed Racer. As probably my first exposure to anime as a child of the seventies, the Mach 5 probably tied with the 60’s Batman television show’s Batmobile as the greatest car created by god or man or Pops Racer. I don’t know if I can really express or even remember what I enjoyed about the show but it had an energy and excitement to it that really captured a seven year old’s imagination. Every car I’ve ever had has, in the back of my mind, been some iteration of the Mach 5, even the trucks I’ve owned.

And finally, I loved Hot Wheel and Matchbox cars as a kid. I still have almost every car I ever had in big cases out in the garage. I tell myself that I’m going to give them to my son some day but honestly, they are there for me. While I never had many of the tracks, I had a lot of friends who did and I remember going over to their houses and creating jumps, loops and turns for the small cars to speed their way through. Many afternoons were spent trying to create elaborate schemes of track down fairly straight and normal stairways.

Speed Racer fuels all three loves and brings them together into an explosion of technicolor that bend and break the laws of physics and reality. The Wachowski’s have created something that’s pure and unadulterated eye candy through color and motion and some hammy but appropriate acting. And my fear is that the audience almost surely doesn’t exist for this film. And if the opening weekend numbers so far are correct, they’re not flocking to see this movie. Even if it didn’t open up between Iron Man and Indiana Jones (with some Narnia thrown in there to cover the family fare,) I’ve been left wondering just exactly who is this movie for other than me and those like me. Oh, and those of us with small kids to drag along.

For those of us who do see it, it’s a bit of a chore to get past a pedantic storyline– a hotshot racer trying to avoid corporate sponsorship. Yes, it’s another corporate America is bad storyline. I really wish they could have gone another way because when you see the storytelling and the races, it’s easy to get lost in the multi-colored and multi-layered narrative that the Wachowski’s are trying to put together. This isn’t a movie you go to for the story but to see how that story is actually told through technology and experiment. The plot only gets in the way of the three or four big race scenes. Those race scenes are full of ideas and images that make you wonder what they could have done with a better developed plot underneath it all.

The races are like the old Hot Wheel sets brought to life. Imagine the craziest Hot Wheel track set up you thought of as a kid and multiply that by 100. And throw in a couple of extra loop-de-loops and that’s exactly what the races are like. Heck, even the races are more like an elaborate set up of bumper cars, as the cars hit and careen off each other as part of the big game that they’re all playing. It’s not so much a race as it’s survival of the fittest to see who can outlast who. It’s Speed Racer and Racer X vs. the world and all that counts are the wild races.

As the Wachowski’s fifth film (Bound and the three Matrix films,) I think that now no one can call them great directors or filmmakers. They’re interesting storytellers that I think are creating new paths for more competent storytellers. Now that they’ve created a film like this and taken the CG environment to a new level, I’d like to see what someone else could do with this. Imagine if a filmmaker like Todd Haynes or Wes Anderson created a whole new world with CGI. Imagine Charlie Kaupfman or Spike Jonze at play in the field of the Wachowski’s. It may not be the future of movie-making but it would sure be interesting.

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• If You Do It and You’re Still Unhappy, Then You Know That the Problem Is You - Tuned In - TV Blog - Television Reviews - James Poniewozik - TIME
  “And who do you think of when you think of Gen X and sad sex? Liz Phair, that’s who!” That’s almost enough to get me to watch this show.
  (tags: television)

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Originally uploaded by scottced

I’m getting back into the habit of keeping a notebook for reviews. I had one from 2006 into sometime in 2007 I think but somewhere along the way, I stopped using it. Actually, I would stop using it from time to time but never very long, except for this last time when I stopped using it for at least the last 6 months.

About 2 weeks ago, I figured I needed to begin taking notes for reviews. I don’t think anything I had done for most of this year was that strong and I remembered why I liked the notebook. It helps me focus my thoughts before committing them to this site. I can put down anything and everything I can think up either while reading or anytime after. Sometimes those thoughts make it to the final review or blog post. Sometimes they don’t. But none of the writing is done while thinking on my feet, usually very late at night. Sometimes by taking notes, the entire review is written before I sit down at the computer and all I have to do is organize and punch up some thoughts.

I feel good about using a notebook again except that I couldn’t find my old one and had to get a new one. Eventually I figured out where the old one was. The notebooks are just small Mead Five Star notebooks, flipped upside down so the spiral wire isn’t in my way (damned thing is designed for a right-handed person.)

Flipping through the old book, here’s some notes for a review that I never really got around to writing.

ATOMICA: GOD IS READ TPB by Sal Abbinanti

mythology from the god’s POV

more aural than narrative

spiritual history of USSR?

odd development of cast– no supporting?

Owes a lot to A. Moore

God made man who made their own god

Energetic artwork

Need for gods? 12 issue mini

Atomica= Uncle Sam

god building– Atomica only has the power that we give him

Atomica= Communism= Ideology

Art- sculpted out of the page

rough/textured

Heavy Plodding, Heady

Filled w/ideas

Power of ideas. Power in ideas

Ideas exist apart from humanity

subjugate humanity

Only a child when he becomes a god. Does he ever grow beyond that?

One of the side effects of the notebook is that, in cases like this, it helps remind me of books that I’ve read in the past but never got a chance to review. I think I got and read this book almost two years ago and haven’t picked it up since but reading these notes for a potential review remind me of the questions and thoughts I had about Abbinanti’s story and I’d probably still like to explore those if I ever had the opportunity.

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From the Grand Rapids Press website:

KENTWOOD - Police have arrested two suspects in the shooting of comic book store owner David Pirkola last month, but did not disclose the information for more than a week.

James Muriel-Neal Thompson, 18, and Marvin Michael-Marquis Jones, 19, both of Grand Rapids, have been charged with armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and assault with intent to murder.

Court documents show the pair was arrested the next day after a traffic stop by Grand Rapids police.

More info can be found on the above website.

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• First Look: DC’s ‘Final Crisis’ | EW.COM Exclusive
  (tags: comics FinalCrisis)

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Try not to pay too much attention to the idiotic and silly cover to Glamourpuss #1. I half think Dave Sim put up a cover that’s trying to emulate a fashion magazine so he’d keep out those comic fans who are too “cool” and “hip” to read a silly comic about women’s fashion. I know that’s an odd thing to think of, especially if Sim wants this book to be successful enough but it takes a bit not to judge this book by the cover. Heck, even the artwork on the cover isn’t that good. The cover and the fashion content are a road block to the book, a way to keep out the riff-raff while Sim prepares to tell us why he really brought us all together under the cover of Glamourpuss.

You see, it is all about fashion and beautiful women. Well, that and the men who were perfectly able to capture them in ink during the fifties and sixties. Dave Sim’s first major published work since Cerebus isn’t about politics, religion or the sexes but about Alex Raymond, All Williamson, Neal Adams and John Prentice, the photo-realist comic strip artists who are Sim’s idols and inspiration. One part history lesson and one part art lesson, Glamourpuss is Dave Sim’s very public attempt to define elements of these artists’ work and to learn how to become on of them. And what better way to do that than by trying to draw beautiful, fashionable and glamorous women in their photo-realistic style.

Dave Sim has always put himself out there. Cerebus eventually became as much about Sim as it was about the earth aardvark as his own thoughts on religion and the sexes explicitly crept into the the latter half of the series. Those elements had always been there and had been what made Cerebus a truly fascinating read, learning about Sim through the letter pages but when the Dave Sim persona (complete with its charges of sexism and misogyny) became increasingly the focus of the actual Cerebus narrative, the book became more and more uncomfortable and Sim himself became more and more difficult to reconcile.

In Glamourpuss Sim remains as much up and center, hijacking the narrative by the second page to turn the book to be about himself and about his artistic heroes. Dave Sim ruminating on his favorite artists is a lot easier to accept and digest than his ruminating on gender roles ever was. And as he’s writing about these artists, he’s recreating panels of theirs. The book is filled with Sim’s attempts to recreate and learn from some great artwork of the photo realists. Sim admits that they’re tracings of Prentice’s or Williamson’s work but he’s trying to pull them apart and put them back together. He’s attempting to learn from them. He then applies those lessons to his own artwork through recreating photographs out of fashion magazines in pen, brush and ink.

It’s early in Sim’s attempt at self-education in the photo-realist process so it is easy to understand his tracing and taking images from photos even if that’s what we accuse artists like Greg Land of. When Land does it, it’s a crime. So how can we accept it when Sim does it and denounce it when Land does it? Sim explains it perfectly toward the beginning of this issue and explains how and when photo-realism is just more than tracing or copying photographs: “And I move across a spectrum of photo-realism styles… depending on the look of the pencil tracing once I’ve tranferred it [from the original picture] to the art board, ‘translating’it into comics form… and it is really a process of ‘translation’: simplifying facial features and clothing details while retaining as many of them as possible.” Art is about choices and Glamourpuss is about what choices artists make and how they make them. Sim is learning how his heroes made those choices and learning how to make those choices on his own.

Glamourpuss #1
Written and Drawn by: Dave Sim

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How many collections can Marvel put out in one week? This looks like it’s the week to go broke.

• JLA Presents Aztek The Ultimate Man TP– Grant Morrison and Mark Millar’s third-rate DC hero gets a collected treatment years and years after his series was DOA. Of all the trades this week, this may be the one I actually pick up in the comic shop because I missed most of this series when it was coming out and only picked up the JLA try-out issue but am kind of interested to see what they were trying to do with a brand new character.
• Suburban Glamour Vol 1 TP– I’m looking forward to finally reading this series but I think I’ve got to rethink my strategy towards what books I support on a monthly basis. I got the individual issues of both this and Wasteland (see below) but I’ve barely read the issues, instead waiting until I get the trade to read the whole thing. Is it good to support the regular issues of smaller-press books like this if I’m not reading them?
• Avengers Invaders #1–The Ross/Krueger team has turned out some good but nothing exceptional stories over the past 10 years but this is one of those books that reach into my fanboy heart and I hope it ends up being better than I think it will be. Their Justice was a pleasant enough story but easily forgettable. The high-point of this book for me starts out being Steve Sadowski on the art. I enjoyed his run on JSA and think that he’s a good artist to combine an old fashioned feel with modern storytelling sensibilities.
• Invincible Iron Man #1 – After this weekend, I’m very, very excited to get this book. I’ll admit, I’m one of those who let The Order die. It may be a good story but Barry Kitson has become one of the most straightfoward and terribly unexciting storytellers around. There’s just a quality to his work that has become lifeless to me. I felt that way on The Legion and it carried over to The Order. I have the first trade and have tried to read it a number of times but I can’t get past the art. Technically it’s good but there’s no life or real emotion to his characters. I feel like it’s all stiff acting. With that said, I want to see what the team of Fraction and Larocca do on this title. I had no problem with Larocca’s artwork on newuniversal. And I hope this book allows Fraction to be Fraction. Let’s see some of that manic energy that’s in his solo, independent work come through here.
  
• Mighty Avengers #13 – This isn’t a good sign but I’m already tired of these crossover issues. I want to see the Avengers but I bought 2 Avenger books in the last couple of weeks and barely saw a real Avenger. Bendis’s Avengers run has been a series of starts and stops and it feels like both titles have been on pause already for a couple of months waiting to have something to really do with the Secret Invasion. I felt the same way during Civil War– that the book was on hold while the actual story happened elsewhere.
  
• Secret Invasion #2– So, with my apathy toward the Avenger titles, I hope this issue maintains my excitement for the main story. I liked the first issue and thought it was a good set-up. I hope Bendis continues to play up the popcorn summer blockbuster aspect of this book and make it a rollercoaster ride that House of M and Civil War weren’t but World War Hulk was close to being.
  
• Captain America Death Of Captain America Vol 2 HC –Honestly, I don’t know if I can say I’m as enamored of this title as a lot of other people are. It’s a solid read, don’t get me wrong, but I think Brubaker lost some steam with the Civil War crossover and nothing in the first volume of this story made me think that he regained all of it. The story of the Winter Soldier that Brubaker started in the first issue of the series carries into the next logical step with this volume. I think my biggest problem with Brubaker’s mainstream Marvel work is that it’s technically well plotted and paced but I have trouble connecting his hard-line writing with bright, colorful superheroes. The same problem is present in Daredevil where it’s a solid story but I can’t find an emotional core to it.
  
• Hulk World War Hulk TP– $24.99 for a five issue miniseries? Can’t wait to get a 40% Border’s coupon to actually buy this book. Marvel’s collection pricing is all over the board, isn’t it?
  
• Iron Man Enter The Mandarin TP– Eric Canete’s artwork on this series was excellent, bringing a design sense to Iron Man that often isn’t there.
  
• George RR Martins Wild Cards Hard Call #2–I think my teenage/early 20’s enjoyment of this series may have ended there. I haven’t been able to get into any of the novels since the original run (partly thanks to the wonderful Tim Truman covers) and the first issue left me underwhelmed. I’ll see how this issue does but it better wow me to get me to buy the rest of the series.
  
• Wasteland (Oni Press) #17– See the thoughts on Suburban Glamour. Someday I’ll get caught up on this series.
  

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