Convivial Parlays

New Comics Content!

2008-01-01T16:05:00.001-08:00

I thought that me not writing about Metal Gear Solid might raise a couple eyebrows: Devil Dinosaur's on the chopping block, and it fares about as well as you'd expect. Link Here

I got impatient

2007-12-19T19:02:00.000-08:00

Here's the link. It's called Psychopomp & Circumstance: I hope you like it!

One Year

2007-12-19T00:19:00.000-08:00

And I already feel the need for change. I've been a little hard at work on some different type of pieces. I feel somewhat restricted to reviewing mostly new comics, but I haven't really felt inspired from those recently. And its not just the new, but the comics that aren't forcing me to write reviews.

A change in format is in order. Around New Year's, I should have something new up along with a bunch of pieces ready for consumption. They've also shifted a lot stylistically. When the new blog is up, I'll be sure to update here, but I'm likely done here, at this address.

Wooh! 102nd Post! Oh Wait. Wooh! 100th Post!

2007-11-29T11:53:00.000-08:00

Yea! Title says all!

I'm hard at work diverting my energies elsewhere. I'm almost done with a Moomin review, which will replace this hopefully before three in the A.M.

Update (Friday Night): I know, I know: I'm bad. This will be my stigma.

Update (Monday Afternoon): So, apparently, finals and papers take time. Who knew? Hopefully I can yield a couple reviews from my free time next week, but even then deadlines loom. Coincidentally enough, this was my 100th post, an occasion I thought gone. Two drafts are clogging up my blogger account, and their inclusion escaped my notice. It's also almost my one-year anniversary of doing this (Well, December 18th, but my last exam is the 12th, so this site may be defunct until then). I've had a great time articulating my thoughts on comics and don't plan on stopping anytime soon, although I feel that I've changed a lot since I started writing and might deserve a change of locale. Regardless from where, Thanks for All the Hits* and Attention!

*Which I still don't know how to check. That might be such a bad thing, but I'm still curious as to how those cool people find out that Bondage Batman Wonder Rock Latitudarian google searches turn up their site? I wanna join the club...

I’m The Type Who Reads Introductions, Afterwords, Prefaces, and Post-Scripts Before the Actual Letters Themselves.

2007-11-24T23:15:00.001-08:00

Storeyville

Some stories need a little context, a little accessibility before jumping headlong into them. This might be one of them.

Frank Santoro began drawing comics in a small, self-published 'zine called Sirk. In these pages, he would conjure a "sincere statement" from "B-level, low culture symbols." Unfortunately, we're only given a teaser of such splendor: the reproduced pages of Sirk are no more than thumbnails of pages. They convey his wildly shifting style, his ingenious sense of design (One page has a girly seductively tempting the reader while her boyfriend is arguing with her in the foreground, as if he's fighting to keep something different than an emotional attachment to her), but these are only teases of different flavors, samples of long since published, impossibly cached art. The book we're given, Storeyville, is not the totality of Santoro's output, although it may very well be his entire output available on amazon.com, a fact of which this book's publishers are keenly aware.

There's some more context needed, some that the rest of the book provides in spades. The introduction by Chris Ware reveals the techniques, trickery and magic of Santoro in the huge volume (literally one and a half times the size of a regular pamphlet), and this is before he gives his readers a spoiler warning, but I can't imagine anyone feeling cheated by learning of the three sentences comprising its narrative breadth. More revealing are Ware's elucidations of Santoro's shifting drawing style, of his page construction. The details of the plot, although important to the story if one is to gain a full understanding of its contents, did not apotheosize the work. The joy in reading it is not derived from reaching the ending, but in reaching how the ending is told, how Santoro conveys the emotions of the ending to the reader.

There's also the context of how other artists have interpreted the work. Seth calls it"the work closest to duplicating that same passionate and intoxicating quality that was found in the woodcut novels of Frans Massereel", and Chris Ware wastes no time proclaiming the book the revelation it is. All of these words enshrine the book before its contents can begin to proselytize themselves.

With all of this care put into archiving the book's importance in the field of comics, I can't shake the feeling that this may not be how Santoro would want the book to be published. He has enough of an online presence that my ramblings here might attract his attention, and I welcome his opinion. Santoro and his then-girlfriend Kate Glicksberg produced 10,000 of these beauties and sold 1,000 of them in six months. The comics were then left around town in "newspaper boxes, bookstores, and movie theatres," and enjoyed by the populace at large. The afterword, called The Road to Storeyville, reveals this. The book, an incredibly personal journey, was seen being read by plenty of people all over town by all sorts of people in all sorts of locales, connecting, it seems, with anyone open enough to open it. One almost feels obliged to enjoy the volume, with the copious circumstantial and professional testimony given about the book's greatness, the commensurate of Ulysses in Greek Epic and English Literature in Comics after reading the statements on the back. This is a work to be studied, mind you, one whose techniques will astound and amaze you. And, wrapped between this apology (I feel inclined to mention the work's positive qualities when people open the book and see an incredibly jarring, amateurish page at first as I envision others do, and the tremendous introduction (complete with Chris Ware's similar story of slight miscomprehension at first) is difficult to read as anything but an apology), we're finally given our book, and what a book it is!

At first glance, its art is less than optimal when compared with other more lavishly delightful artists. The lines are sketchy in terms of quality and linework, but this only the commencement of a style for the volume, a necessary concession to the book's needs, and a jump that introduces the world of Storeyville with immediacy and grace. Although a couple pages reveal the book's stylistic shifts unequivocally when a landscape flits from pencil sketching to inky expressionism in between panels, a closer look at the beginning of the book reveals a similar diligence from the beginning: we've just suddenly become conscious of the world around us, of the world that was more simply viewed before.

This sudden realization fits the book exquisitely. Allow me a spoiler warning, although I've already ruined a major facet of the book for virgin eyes. The main character spends the entirety of the book searching for his mentor, a mysterious character called the reverend, finding him in both memory and person. The book begins with the main character, Rudy, becoming conscious, and the reader's journey follows his (assuming an observant reader. I always get a little agitated when a critic or someone talks about a reader as if the reader is the critic themselves, and aware of everything the critic does, but I digress, and concede the importance of the synecdoche "reader," or, even worse for a book or comic, "audience"). The book then follows his quest for his father, but this is not as important as the portraits Santoro gives us of his character in between. A city's denizens swarm the pencil sketched narrator in heavy, starkly black coats, panels focus on the scenery of a city for panels at a time after a conversation sends the narrator into introspection. Although Santoro only gives us scant, oblique glances into his character form rare narration (and very simply written narration at that, much different than his brilliant, natural dialogue), he brilliantly conveys his mood at all times throughout the story. I could go on, but the book's artistic intricacies are fertile enough that I would miss astounding moments and ruin their beauty by interpreting them.

Earlier, when I mentioned this as the commensurate to Ulysses, the comparison was accurate in more ways than one. Similar to Joyce's usage* of free indirect discourse, the artistic styles shift with the emotions of the narrator, but, whereas the stylistic shifts of prose might only surprise, here the sudden shift between panels of gray, sketched landscapes to thick inks and startle. I don't mean to explain the style only through a simile, though. The style, while it has subtleties, is not subtle compared the less frank style libre: when translating mediums, very little more than stage direction remained intact.

*Yes, yes, this was much more utilized in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners than Ulysses. And Joyce was not its progenitor, just its most egregious implementer. To careful eyes, my statement might not deceive, but you'll probably need bifocals for that.

The comparison to Ulysses also applies to its plot. The Odyssey follows Telemachus and Odysseus as they reintegrate themselves into society after the Trojan War and time has changed both greatly, culminating in the assumption of identity and, consequently, security both physical and mental. Rudy finds himself missing something, needing his spiritual father, and leaves to search for him at the beginning of the story. He finds his father in recollection, just as Telemachus finds Odysseus in Menelaus' stories of the Trojan War, and how Odysseus finds himself by telling the Trojan Horse story. The moment of recollection in Storeyville fulfills a very similar role: when Will, the name of the protagonist, feels at his lowest, drunk in a bar, the moment of their separation overtakes him. Telemachus hears the exploits of his father as a guest at a Spartan wedding, and the two characters share a liminal zone during the recollection as well as feelings of despair. When he last narrated (and a section detailing Rudy's activities separates these two parts), Rudy tells us he was "lost" and "no longer sure in which direction [his] future lay." He then explains his closely guarded identity (Telemachus was greeted as a random guest in the house of Menelaus deserving hospitality), further establishing Montreal as a liminal zone. Rudy suffers a similar loss of identity, and he attempts to hide his past from his crewmates, but for him Montreal is not a liminal zone, but his newly found home. The three years described in the book could no doubt describe his change, but this is not a tale about Rudy, who rebuilt his life after being left wounded by Will on the run, this is a story about Will, the lost individual searching for meaning.

The book makes no references to The Odyssey outside of its plot skeleton. The story is even told from the perspective of the searcher and the object, but the only appropriate comparison is between Telemachus and Will, and not Odysseus and Rudy. Rudy has found his way when he is introduced into the story, and his identity is not shown as a shifting object like Odysseus', but something to be taken for granted. He has already claimed his place in Montreal's society, and does not need to appear a beggar in order to find his place, because he has already done so. There's also no suspicious ten year segments of unexplained absences that normally permeate more allusive works. It follows a similar rite of passage to the Odyssey, but should not be construed as a replicator, just a simile. An incredibly powerful, impressive simile that, unlike Joyce's, retains its rectilinear focus throughout, even moreso than Homer himself, on the time in our lives when change occurs, and how that time feels. This is a powerful work of internal revelation, one that can grip a reader and pull it into its world, its emotive state, and lead us to a beautiful conclusion of self-recognition.

Despite my misgivings about the book's presentation, it really is a classic and deserves an attentive read through by anybody who claims to have more than a passing interest in the medium of comics, but the book may be too big for a shelf. I recommend folding the newsprint copy and stowing it in the pocket closest to your heart, because that's where it really belongs, because this edition evangelizes when a discussion might prove more amenable to its contents.

***

And, just so I'm not completely serious in this post, my brother picked up a couple of cheap Philip K. Dick paperbacks at a library sale (they just don't feel right in teh vintage editions. Probably because they cost more than a quarter, that way), and this is what greeted his opening of VALIS:

We laughed a little.

New Mario Games Always Take Up Time. Always.

2007-11-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

Well, it took some work, but I think I've finally found a list worse than Amazon's Top 10 Comics. This one even has toys on it! And The Ressurrection of Ra's Al Ghul even gets a spot, in a rare break from tradition by including single issues on it! Because it's that good! And unfinished (along with X-Men: Messiah Complex, which just pushes ahead of a World of Warcraft statue)!

***

Last Week's Reviews:

All-Star Superman #9 It's kinda cool.

The Invisibles: Say You Want a Revolution Which is Really Good, especially if hormones dictate your actions more than past experiences.

Nightwing #138 Which is really awful.

***

There aren't many new comics series for me coming out this week (and I say that with the reservation that I'm not too interested in Jack Cole's Betsy and Me, I haven't started reading Love and Rockets yet, and the wide but shallow sampling of superhero titles are not purchased by me currently. This should be a good week for many, but, alas, I am not one of those people. And there's a new Mario game out) and the turkey's gotten to me, so that'll be it for now. Enjoy your holiday! and I should have a couple reviews up this weekend.

Sometimes, Comics Are Just Bad

2007-11-19T22:57:00.000-08:00

Moomin is so cool! Moomim Moomim Moomim! (Review forthcoming)

Nightwing #138

I should have known it wasn’t for me by the cover. (What, did you expect me to paste it on this site? I have some standards, at least).

Funnily enough, those costumes aren’t even those worn by the three chickadees either in the comic itself or in the Batman comic. I think it’s all a clever part by Morrison to show the transient nature these types of women have in the superhero funnybooks, to show how unimportant their actual identity is, but it’s done only through actually stripping them of their identity without winking, and that is not a fun time (well, maybe for some, I admit. Fun can be subjective sometimes).

The rest of the issue isn’t much better. Remember the overwrought captioning of M. Milligan? Nicieza has mastered the art of laconic emoting as well, but doesn’t even offer up an exciting tussle with ninjas to tide us over, just panels of Nightwing being smart and all that while billy clubs clash with swords and occasionally the shoulder of a Robin. I shouldn’t be reading this.

***

There was an interesting discussion stirred up by two individuals three weeks ago, all because of an allusion comparing Joyce and Stan Lee, touching (one might say hinging) on criteria for quality, always an elusive beast. The issue dissipates by the end of the discussion as both parties are complicit in slight miscomprehension of the other (as arguments usually go), but it does touch on the issue of quality and classification in art, two germane topics when I’ve finished lampooning a Batman comic for being a Batman comic (and, no, I will not paint them as concinnities of poor craftsmanship for M. Morrison as I am wont to do)).

Innovation (which might be seen as a criterion for my appreciation of art, given my recurring appreciations of “innovative page usage”) is really illusory and deceptive. It hides the actuality of a beast under a mirage of something new and wonderful. Regarding the flights of enigmatic auteurs, who’s to say that new techniques of portraiture really elevate the quality of art? Surely, one can claim the lines of prose as penned by Joyce inspire and allude to more than the verbiage of Lee, but that only speaks of how people react to a work. And even then, what if an unseen artist scripted a similar event prior to the exhibition of some art? What if Frank Miller’s panel layouts were actually inspired by Japanese Manga, and were actually very derivative of current Japanese comics at the time?

This is all separating innovation from its functions within a piece of art, though. Innovation works best when it isn’t offered as an element to be studied, but as a problem solved, of communicating a complex idea more elegantly than previous methods could muster. It is for this reason that innovation itself should not be counted as a criterion for quality, but a work lacking innovation will not measure up to those blazing trails with wondrous reinventions, now will it?

What is more important than naked innovation is how a work functions in its culture, in its environment (and, as those proclaiming quality to be entirely subjective, of the person reading the work in question, but I feel that groups can be made). Is a work innovative? Compared to those? Does it present a unique vision? Because these are (somewhat) the tenets of what I understand to be quality, but I can honestly say, with finality, that the biggest criterion for quality in a work is its quality, as will be determined by pontification. As dubious as that sounds, as much of an abdication it is, that is how I honestly feel about the issue. Innovation must sometimes be tempered by moderation, and moderation must be tempered by innovation, but it all depends: let’s talk specifics if we’re gonna talk quality.

All of which leads me to how I view Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four and Lee/Ditko Spiderman. If these comics could be read without the following decades of adoration, one might be able to conclude that they are the finest comics published by Marvel and DC, bar none, including Watchmen, Doom Patrol, Animal Man, Seven Soldiers, and all that modernist fluff. The books ingeniously combined the tropes of disparate, stratified comics at the time (romance, adventure, superhero, and big monster) and told wonderfully unique stories within a brilliant new framework. Unfortunately, those comics cannot be read as the revolutions they are except by the most studious of comics readers, devouring DC’s attempts at superheroes and Marvel’s attempts at Big Monster before plunging into the Fantastic Four. And, in some areas, they’ve aged frightfully. While searching for good, even great works, might be a worthy goal, trying to pinpoint two different, disparate work’s abstract quality leads to the rhetoric of subjective quality, and, really, who wants that? Let’s just say that both are in the category of great, and leave the numbered reviews to the unenlightened.

All that’s left is the reaction to the work, devoid of quality. Some critics chase the “best” in fiction and hew a visceral, personal reaction to a demarcation of a work’s quality above others, but, really, such taxonomy is useless. Work is only relative to other works: apposite comments on quality are only culled from comparisons: The Nightwing issue I talked about above really is dreck.

***

Kinda redundant to say now (oh how I condescend!), but, my blog requires

And is rated

All because of these words

death (10x)
kill (4x)
steal (3x)
dick (2x)
crappy (1x)

I hope I didn't use those words creepily...

Some People Find Sprawling, Incomprehensible Works Like Yes’ Tales of the Topographic Oceans Indulgent. I Find Beauty in the Earnest,

2007-11-16T23:50:00.001-08:00

and am banking on similar tastes from you, as well.

***

I’m sure you’ll be able to spot the newly inserted idea. It’s the one with no textual evidence and plenty of rhetorical aggrandizement. Enjoy!

***

Some individual issues impact people a lot. Jim Roeg is a master at documenting the impact something so miniscule as Daredevil #253 had on his development as a child (I have a heart spot for that one. I randomly bought that same issue in a bargain bin when a wee young’un). For me, pretense gripped my tender heart at a young age, and the only instruments able to affect my tender sensibilities were works whose presentation demanded attention and appreciation. I still naively called them graphic novels in those days, and I’m revisiting the monuments of yore. This comic blew my pubertal, puerile mind, and I want to know if it still can rend my mental infrastructure asunder as it could during my youth.

The Invisibles: Say You Want a Revolution

In my mind, Grant Morrison could not be anything other than a comic writer paired with an earnest but insufficient artist attempting to fulfill his vision. So much of his bibliography (particularly Bible John and The Invisibles, but there are some clunkers in Doom Patrol and Seven Soldiers, too) is written with the tremendous weight of experience guiding his pen that anything produced is a translation of a long dead language. His comics are gateways into his mental corridors at the time of construction much more than actual comics, and if I or any reader should fail to find them, the artists can’t quite measure up to Hermes as a psychopomp. I say this to disclaim my unencumbered adoration of the author. I can understand that the artist is not always at fault, but the reissue of Arkham Asylum only reinforced this flattery of Morrison. Forgive my worship, now, and, please, join me on this anabasis.

Before I get into anything else, I feel obliged to mention that Grant Morrison did not write this comic as ably as his other superhero work. Of the first three cliffhangers, the second two are completely awful, random insertions into the plot, eventually resolved at the expense of the first few pages of the next comic. While the act of dominating Dane by the Invisibles (#3’s cliffhanger) is an integral part of the male initiation ritual which Dane undergoes, Morrison presents the act as the start to a chase at the end of the second issue, and then any tension is relieved by the ensuing pages of talking heads. Oh, and Dane gets punched once or twice before they leave. I only mention this to admit deficiencies within the work before I enthrone it as capturing the male initiation ritual and elucidating its consequences. It’s not always a perfect comic, but rarely falters as a concept.

Speaking of concepts, I love the second and third page dearly. The credit page shows us Dane ready to throw a Molotov cocktail into a school, and the third page focuses on the cocktail’s journey through the library, leading to its eventual explosion. Showing the library destroyed isn’t enough for readers of this comic, we must watch the cocktail on its incendiary path; we must revel with Dane as the school blows up. The following sixteen pages, less two for the invocation of John Lennon, delineate the hoodlum’s activities with a similar lingering eye, but aren’t quite as beautiful in their rectilinearality. Also, and this is really important but approaches uninteresting, they portray Dane as the epitome of youthful rebellion, and establishes a conflict between youthful intelligence and authority, which will be recurred throughout the work in different situations. They also establish Dane as a liminal male, and set the stage for plenty of subtle mythic allusions.

Morrison establishes a mythic undertone to the series very early, the first page in fact! Morrison alludes to the Egyptian God Khepri or, as the book spells it, Kheprah, by presenting King Mob with a Kheper, a mummified beetle. In ancient Egypt, beetles would lay their eggs in animal feces and dead scarabs, and the ancient Egyptians felt that the growth of these insects from detritus was a miracle. Kheprah, the god associated with the beetles, became the god of rebirth, and, after the cult of Ra became incredibly prominent, the idea of rebirth and the god Kheprah was subsumed into the youth of Ra (this information is taken from Wikipedia). Dane is the kheper of the story, having begun his life in social filth, and this comic itself can be a kheper, having begun in the poor conditions and public perception and grown into a mature, living thing (which is how Morrison wishes we’d view the Invisibles, as a living text, a hypersigil, but I’ll remark on that subject a little later)

Morrison also trades in Buddhist parables, too. Before Siddhartha Gautama’s enlightenment, he takes on the consciousness of a pigeon and flies around in the mind of the other. This separates Siddhartha from his ego, his sense of self, by learning an extreme form of empathy. Dane undergoes the same ritual as Siddhartha through Tom O’Bedlam, and eventually his identity is completely stripped from himself by dying, by jumping off from a skyscraper. Which is later revealed as less than a complete ego destruction, but the importance here is the ritual he undergoes, as well as the alien abduction experience similar to that from Morrison’s youth. There’s a conflict here between Dane’s old self, the poof-hating hoodlum, and the Buddha O’Bedlam is making him out to be. There’s no possible way the old self can win when the Invisibles have such an institution set for emotional transformations (Another cell makes that their vocation, as seen in volume 5 when Boy’s vengeful motives are extirpated).

There’s another conflict Morrison presents in the story. In order to make the comic more interesting, the jars filled with the brains of aggressive and rebellious boys make the conflict explicitly external, too, necessitating Dane’s future training in martial arts. If the forces of order (and Morrison very carefully lets the reader make all the associations of the opposition. Characters simply shrug when pressed to identify the enemy as “The forces that want to control people’s lives and keep us asleep forever,” Boy states in #5. This is a conflict of ideals, first and foremost, in which King Mob and Gelt are only fashionable marionettes) can strip Dane of his originality and rebellious ideals simply by surgery, He must learn to fire a gun if he’s to survive in this world.

Unfortunately, Dane never quite learns how to fire a gun in the first couple pages (and his first and only subsequent murder at the end of the start of the first volume reinforces his status as a Buddha: the one dying man caused Siddhartha to attain enlightenment, just as the one murder of Dane around the murderous lot of Invisibles instigated his path), and suffers at the hands of Tom O’Bedlam, the Invisibles dressed as Sir Miles’ hobo hunting troupe, and the teachers at Harmony House: although the Invisibles are painted in a sympathetic light, here they resort to base psychological tactics when recruiting Dane. Clearly, some of the evil order must be imposed by the Heresiarch when fighting the Hierarch.

So far, the comic itself has struggled to convey its meaning with the heavy handed fists of ham. While I might give Morrison credit for the authorial foresight to increase articulation of the comic’s message as the pages progress, I can only comment on its effect: Morrison the comic scripter is growing up with Dane, and by the end of the comic’s first arc, Morrison is ready to elevate the comic past the concerns of the individual Dane/Jack Frost and bring more characters into the story’s folds. The author gained the perspective of the pigeon as well as the protagonist. The next four issues composing the story Arcadia are very different from the preceding four, in style and intent.

It’s worth noting that Morrison writes these next four comics much better than the prior four. Each issue ends not with an attention grabbing cliffhanger but the conclusion of the single issue’s story, or a much more fair moment of tension. The fifth issue ends when the Invisibles reach France at the time of the Revolution. There’s no attempt at shocks like the sudden appearance of the Invisibles going to kill Jack, or Tom suggesting suicide and then offering it as a means of shedding the adolescent self. Morrison plays fair by introducing the assassin Xipe Totec, although, admittedly, the sudden quest of Ragged Robin to find the treasure of the Teutonic Knights is an odd insertion (Not that it sounds that much worse than Xipe Totec in this context, I humbly admit).

This isn’t to say that the comics are perfect, though. Morrison or (Jill) Thompson doesn’t portray the scene involving the horrific abuse of children as part of the dream which King Mob, Boy, and the Marquis De Sade experience, and often switches scenes with no indication except the turning of a page between the actions of the four leaders shown in the dream and the conversations between Byron and Shelley. Even then, King Mob and his companions are shown as being a part of the dream only twice. Also, the interludes of Byron and Shelley, while integral to the story’s exploration of rebellion, tonally shift the book whenever they occur, from the blood thirst of the revolution to the quiet exploration of the self when rebelling, and vanishes after a couple pages.

However, Morrison does interweave different visions of rebellion into the comic, something with which he couldn’t be bothered during the first four. Shelley and Byron attempt an internal rebellion against the unnamed forces of order (Morrison has yet to deify the opposition yet), choosing to rebel with their quills on parchment. The French Revolution shows that rebellion (of which there’s only one, says King Mob) writ large upon a society, where the oppressed become oppressors, and institute their world order with as much self-righteousness and recklessness as the former monarchs. This anticipates the second volume’s mental breakdown of King Mob, who becomes distraught over his many murders, and he starts to question his conformity to the other side, to the shifted allegiance from the Hierarch to Heresiarch. Already, revolution is shown as far from the answer to dissatisfaction.

III

This could not have been anything other than a comic for one simple reason; Lord Fanny. No textual medium could convey how feminine she is as simply as a panel can, and, were this a movie, she would be given a distinct voice, whether of a male in drag or an actual woman, but part of the charm of comics is its relation to novels, to the audience’s imagination. She can portray herself as having completely mastered the societal role of female without submitting to clichés, and can just as easily remove her silicon breasts and attack Orlando while the gender associations of her voice are a construct of the reader’s mind (Note: I will refer to Lord Fanny in the feminine, although I don’t mean to deny the masculine traits).

Lord Fanny would seem to be at ease in the world the Marquis De Sade, but she’s partly defined by her separation from a fantastical Garden of pleasure. Although Dane slings his insults at her, she reacts not with melodrama, but continued existence as a transvestite. Which is to say, her identity is well established and does not need the approval of peers. She has integrated herself into the actual world and spends her only time in a place like Marquis De Sade’s mansion, in the Velvet Underground sick and awaiting release (she prefers dance halls and clubs). She is subculture subsumed into mainstream culture.

It then makes sense that Fanny is the one to destroy Xipe Totec. In Aztec society, Xipe Totec was the mysterious god of agriculture, and, as the Greeks innovated with Demeter, the cult deity of rebirth and fertility, who offered an escape from death to cult initiates by rebirth. Victims would be sacrificed and their skin would be worn by priests every Spring in a ritual affirming rebirth (I’m not trying to justify those atrocities, just explicate them). Our modern discovery of Xipe Totec in The Invisibles even shows the God of rebirth undergoing rebirth as a tool of the Archons of order, and Xipe Totec has persisted at living under constant rebirths himself when we find him. The notion of cycles is an important integrand of the Archons of Orders attempt at world domination.

Fanny, by contrast, is separate from the cycle of rebirth. As a homosexual and transvestite, genetic rebirth will always prove elusive. She is naturally at odds with Xipe Totec, but when Xipe Totec attempts to kill her, she succeeds because of her deception, because he sliced her breast and expected her to bleed to death and turned his attentions towards Dane. So she killed the deity by stabbing it with her heel, with a weapon gained from her transvestitism. She literally could not have defeated Xipe Totec had she not been in drag: liberation battles rebirth: nirvana conquers karma. That fact that Fanny, as revealed in Apocalypstick, comes from a separate cult which deliberately changed the natural course of succession, adds even more delicious subtext to the comic, and establishes her as almost diametrically opposed to Xipe Totec by religious affiliation as well as personal. Her cult does not escape death but visits its land, it revels in the limen which Xipe Totec’s cult curtails, just as Fanny does by existing outside any of society’s norms.

The Invisibles was released in a very liminal position itself, apart from the fantastical elements of superhero comics but still indebted to them, apart from the literary splendors of The Sandman and Swamp Thing but still indebted to their progress. Grant Morrison hoped that the comic would become a hypersigil, an “extended work of art with magical meaning and willpower,” and its ease of access to the readers who might veer towards rebellion, who want something meaningful at the fringes of art, might have enshrined the work as a hypersigil. I can tell you without exaggeration that it affected me powerfully, and stopped whatever bathetic youthful rebellion or little epiphanies I might have undergone at my age of liminality, and I sincerely hope that it can do the same for others. Its exterior exudes all the qualities to which adolescent boys might find themselves attracted; conspiracies, spy gun fights, an insouciant disregard for anything resembling mainstream presentation, and a dark undercurrent of sex and gender distinguishing it from more mild-mannered explorations of self. It’s a concinnity of presentation, where people trapped within the conflict of society and self can find enlightenment in a comic seemingly encouraging youthful rebellion while ultimately showing its pitfalls. After embracing Dionysus, Morrison and his audience arrive at Athena, a journey for any with open eyes and hearts. Still, for those not ready to evolve yet, one does not have to reach the temple of Athena, and can simply enjoy the sights of a comic liberating the Marquis de Sade and blowing up schools. Le Mirroir Fastique, as is found within Jim Crow and Dane McGowan, two characters representing rebellion the most ably of any characters in the volume, indeed, where one can see one’s own progress in how the work is enjoyed.

It must be said here that this comic is, as Morrison has stated before, an attempt at a hypersigil, of presenting concepts and ideas, not of telling a complete story. As such, some of the deeds committed by members of the Invisible army are questionable morally, and Morrison is attempting to present ideas, not a story as The Invisibles begins. The comic flits from conspiracy theories to time travel philosophizing after this volume frenetically. As the comic progresses, we’re given a mad rush of ideas and concepts as puissant as King Mob’s mental breakdown after having murdered as many people during the fourth through sixth volumes (second by the single issues). The comic then begins to reconcile its past with its intended future, and becomes more responsible about its message and status as an incomplete comic. Suddenly, during the third volume of floppies, the characters start progressing and becoming balanced individuals. It mirrors Van Gennep’s three stages of a rite of passage beautifully; separation, liminality, and reintegration. We, as readers (and most likely disaffected teenagers. Who else would read this?), follow Dane’s path as he is separated from society in the book, as we start to view the world more in the terms of The Invisibles. We then become intimate in The Invisibles’ actions and folklore, reading their experiences as they fight not the inner demons created by rebelling against society, but as they go about their business, destroying society without the reconciliation of internal conflict. We are then reintegrated into society as the series ends, seeing the follies of being permanently invisible, of being permanently rebellious, and as Dane McGowan and the rest of humanity evolves. So, too, does Morrison wish evolution on his readership as they close the book and have undergone a personal transformation.

I can’t imagine how reading or how impossible it would be to read this book over the course of adolescence with this gravitas. The book is indeed a hypersigil, a rite of passage, more than a story. Whether Morrison succeeds is up to the reader, but the attempt is clearly made.

It would have been unthinkable for a comic to exist outside the Mainstream/Underground divide at this time. Underground comics at the time (indeed, since their inception) were diametrically opposed to mainstream publishing outlets. They were defined as much by their contrasts to modern newspaper and superhero stories as they were by their own qualities. More recent publishers such as Picturebox, as much as they can present a completely foreign world, do so without the anxiety of breaking away from the motherland, and offer the promises of Marquis De Sade at the end of the first volume, of a world where girls become boys who do boys like they’re girls, without the conflict of the Invisible Army and the Archons, the Forces of Order. This comic has the force of publishing history behind it, driving its interior. The same could not be said of a comic produced in a vacuum without the pressures of publication and editors contorting it, and just manages to combine a rite of passage within for the reader.

New Review! And it’s Morrison Related Again!

2007-11-14T21:46:00.001-08:00

Rawr! I'm excited about David Mazzuchelli's new book and the secret history of Batman in Japan! This doesn't extend to the stigma-inducing autobiographical comics down the list.

All-Star Superman #9

I don't think that anyone has really mentioned an important factor of why this series rocks so much: Quitely's art is absolutely fantastic, yes, and presented amazingly. The art for the last Invisibles issue is, hmmm, how can I say this, not quite deserving of mountains of praise, but here the characters aren't always riddled by linework. Jamie Grant is an amazing partner for Quitely, giving his smaller, less important lines less ink, and coloring landscape as a textured expanse (just look at the first couple pages of this issue. That grass looks fantastic!) and Metropolis as a vibrant area of color. Another factor is the huge white space in between panels. It really feels a lot more comfortable than Quitely's other comics, where panels just have a black line as separation.

Let's speak in particulars now: this is the issue where shit goes down. Panel borders break and interact with each other for the first time in the series (unlike the recently mentioned Fantastic Four: 1234, which made a shifting reality a part of its aesthetic) in an awesome battle between Kryptonians. I actually fell to the floor* when Superman was thrown from Earth onto the moon, and then cracked its surface! And then Superman looks up, all confuddled, and asks in shock "What have you done? You've broken the moon." That bit gets me every time. If only Dragonball Z was this well written (or written at all) outside of battles, and this issue might have some competition**...

*I was levitating five inches above the carpet, so no injury occurred thankfully.

** I kid,I kid.

The bit where Superman approaches Metropolis and says "Everything in Metropolis has been repaired… But better…" gets me almost as much as the two Kryptonians lovingly embracing while a volcano erupts lava all over them. There are lots of little moments to like here, but no big moment like Kent's Katabasis with Luthor, Superman's battle with Lois Lane by his side, or the death of Jonathan Kent.

A battle is pretty much all this issue has to offer, insanely cool scrap it is. And the scrap even comes to a lame, logically demanded conclusion of the two elitist Kryptonians being unable to survive on Earth's atmosphere because they were exposed to radiation making their bodies Kryptonite. Because Superman wasn't beating this guys in twenty two pages if we're gonna have Steve's toupee burning (notice the ever-so-slight redness in his eyes the panel before)* and Superman thrown on the moon and sufficient explanation that these Kryptonites are another different self of Superman and the character transformation of the two Kryptonians. This time, Morrison and company are much more honest about the visceral and superficial pleasures of the series, denying the heart beating underneath for twenty two pages.

*Well, this is important because Superman is shown as being vengeful and self-indulgent like those other Kryptons, but it doesn't really go anywhere in the issue.

Last Week’s Reviews Are Down There, I Swear

2007-11-13T10:32:00.001-08:00

Man, The Invisibles gets wonky at the end of the second volume of single issues, volume 6 by the thick books. But it's a different kind of wonky than the preceding issues. Those had a linear story told by more conventional means. Not necessarily a conventional story and one littered with allusive digressions, but it's told with the linear march of a plot occasionally halted by ventures into the past. At around the point where Ragged Robin starts coaxing Quimper into her mind, the storytelling takes a decided turn from all that has occurred before. There's the issue telling the Invisibles story through the narration of Ragged Robin in the writing tank from the future (King Mob is certainly drawn to the dilettante memoirist, isn't he? Who else would appreciate, record, and share in his exploits?), and there's odd captions asking who is telling this information. "Think!" The younger (well, the Ragged Robin prior to jumping back into time) Ragged Robin is revealed as the narrator, instead of the implied Morrison. Those captions are only found in one issue, and disappear, and most of my confusion stems from Morrison having his characters hide their mental processes from Quimper, and, by necessity, the audience.

This moment happens at the same time that Lord Fanny is being inculcated with Ragged Robin's past in an attempt to trick Quimper, as Ragged Robin remains hidden behind a mask during the issue. Part of me wants to claim this as another moment of Morrison inserting a metaphoric author into his story, like Chief from Doom Patrol or the leader of the U-Men from New X-Men*, but that might be pressing allegorical tendencies too harshly on a series often rejecting simple symbols. Still, Quimper as a being who seeks the complete knowledge and control of a character, and just when he feels the most control over her, she is revealed as someone else. Maybe Morrison is voicing some authorial anxieties about creating a character and forcing the character into a role, and can't reveal them candidly to his audience/fictional characters as he did in Animal Man.

Or maybe Quimper is the audience, contorting the fictional characters to his own needs and desires, and is defeated after the fictional characters prove to have a life beyond what Quimper sees in them. Regardless, the reveal at the end still makes for good comics, if confusing information is told at times.

*The Wikipedia page for New X-Men is pretty hilarious. It brushes over a plot synopsis of the run (where can I find my cliff notes for this part of Morrison's oeuvre?), and says that some fans were perturbed by the "pointless violence and cruelty he introduced in the book." Although the article's been cleansed by the Wikipedia Style Police, they couldn't change that line to some fans found the copious violence and cruelty in the book pointless? Really? And then there's this huge exegesis on the twists and turns of the New X-Men following younger mutants in an academy style setting. Also, the book introduced "questionable" concepts, and not "controversial."

The third volume is pretty wonky, too, but mostly because the entire event is an epic wrenched from context. King Mob is blond, we're reintroduced en media res to Division X who hasn't been seen since the end of Volume 1, twenty two issues ago, and Philip Bond, lovely Philip Bond, draws the traditionally tall characters as short, chunky figures approaching a cartoon. I was freaked out at seeing Lord Fanny as a short, skirted Bryan Lee O'Malley (not a fair comparison, I know) character. (S)He's become so much more than that. Then Sean Phillips begins drawing the series in what would be a return to the taller characters and thinner linework of practically the entire series beforehand, but Jay Stephens inks it, submerging Phillips normally thin linework with a thick outline. The colors are different in the volume, too, less shadows and light, but there is less background to color.

And still the story chugs towards its conclusion, invoking even more unreality and contextual jaunts before Quitely's twenty two pages of clarity heralding evolution.

I have a much longer piece almost ready on the first Invisibles trade paperback, a verifiable event during my pubescence. I would be lying if I didn't say that this is the most indulgent, thoroughly researched post I've contemplated (it isn't up yet!) doing for this blog, but I'd also be lying if that wasn't the faintest praise I've ever written. Hopefully I'll have it in a comfortably published form by Friday, but no promises.

***

Last Week's Reviews!

Man, I really slowed down the pace from this week to last week, huh?

Fantastic Four: 1234 Morrison and Lee combine to form an occasionally spectacular failure. If only a comic was attempted instead of a portrait…

Omega the Unknown #2 Lethem and Darymple can make a good comic! Yargles!

Robin #168 Milligan is no Morrison, and while that's normally a good thing, here it's bad.

***

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier is finally coming out! How the march of time effaces the brightest of stars! I've kept my eyes glued to my theodolite in order to combat this, so we're good!

Scott Pilgrim vol. 4 comes out! I think it's been long enough that it can rekindle a little magic! Excitement!

All-Star Superman #9 comes out, too! What is this? Christmas!?!

Okay, it isn't really Christmas. That was two weeks ago (and Santa has yet to slink down my chimney), with four Picturebox releases and MW, but, still. Those are three pretty auspicious comics with plenty of delays behind them.

Sigh

2007-11-12T12:50:00.001-08:00

C'est moi. Now that a manifesto unites us, maybe we can consciously move away the nerd aesthetic, but even that's from searching within a game for its defining rules and exploiting them (and occasionally forcing the appearance of an other on a nerd to society), so it's unlikely the stigma of looking beneath/above will ever part from the world. If only those tube-floating down the rivers of time could accept and understand those who wade…

Sometimes the Sky is Painted by Amateurs Wielding Knives and Rain is Razor Blades

2007-11-10T12:45:00.001-08:00

I waited too long. Powr Mastrs vol. 1 and Storeyville are no longer offered as signed first editions. I didn't want them anyway, I've decided, so everything is peachy!

Robin #168

If there's one thing Milligan gets across that Morrison didn't get to in the first part, it's the emotions running through the characters as they all experience successive anxiety. Unfortunately, it isn't simply gotten across, but beaten by repetitive panels and captions. Tim Drake stares out the window as Bruce has on so many occasions, and then reflects on five murders that he hasn't had the ability to prevent. "Five murders. Someone's loved ones. Maybe someone's father. Or son."Then Tim experiences suspicion over the person usurping his position, and insecurity after letting Damian escape. There is no subtlety in this comic: emotions are painted with frank narration.

Even Batman doesn't escape the sinkhole of frank discussion, and suffers Talia's invective: "Why is facing psychopathic super-villains so much easier than facing your emotions?" To which batman responds by raising his shoulders, lowering his head, and turning his back to Talia, who has assumed a morally righteous pose, hands on hip, staring at the morally inferior being before her.

Damian doesn't fare much better, but he stays in the background for most of the issue. After capturing Alfred's heart with sympathy, he declares, after smashing Robin with a no-doubt priceless painting, he responds to Alfred's pleas of peace with "So what? It'll be all mine one day, anyway!" And they fight, shouting death threats at each other. Thankfully, ninjas come and end the issue on a cliffhanger, with the promise of the next issue in the crossover being dedicated solely to a fight (Fabian Nicieza is writing that one, after all).

The entire issue feels like Peter Milligan is taking stage directions from Morrison. Have the two Robins fight. They feel this way. Batman feels this way about his son (which is important because Damian is the one most changing himself in order to gain acceptance), and Alfred is starting to feel this way about Damian. Milligan is jaunted by purpose at every turn, as if nothing here lacks the prescription of Morrison. Which is fitting for a story about the attempted mental and physical possession of a younger successor, about taking control of another when the limitations of self prevent the desired action, despite the fact that the comic produced isn't all that great.

Admitting False Interpretations is The Mark of a True Man. I’m Thinking of Changing This Blog’s Title to “Where Manly Men Act Like Manly Men”

2007-11-09T21:26:00.001-08:00

I even have four chest hairs too!

***

Omega The Unknown #2

I really don't know what to tell you about this issue's cover:

No way could Alex dress that normally, and even adopt a matching hairstyle to his outfit. I refuse to believe that he's an indypopper as Darymple wants me to believe.

Lethem continues his novelistic parade within a comic book framework (by which I mean the comic continues to convey information much more often by means of scripted action instead of artistic imagery or a graphic language*), and warps the storytelling a little to include urban life. This is done with jarring sequences, like two thirds of a page's buildup to The Mink's truism "This city'll kill you," and a group of ethnic minorities pounding on a taxi cab window. Other important messages are expressed within these hallowed pages, like how stretched from altruism the Mink has become, but Lethem doesn't denigrate his own message by constructing The Mink as a stand-in for modern superheroes, just someone who's abusing the superhero aesthetic to succeed admirably. Lethem does not = Geoff Johns, thankfully.

*I'm generalizing a little too much: There's this one really cool scene where Alex, the kid to whom Omega is connected, is asked what he's looking forward to studying. He replies Robotics, and then the camera view shifts to a slanted bird's eye view in a panel twice as large as anything else on the page, but having half as much dialogue. "No, it's a comparatively new interest," he says, and the character's awkwardness and stifled emotions is conveyed with a sweeping perspective shift. The next two panels are just as economical, with Alex staring out the window at Omega fighting robots, and responding to Edie's questions adroitly, he prevents her from seeing yet another superhero tussle.

The superhero action is better here, though. The battle between the Mink and Omega achieves much more than the opening sequence of the first book. Although a far cry from the invasion of the robots into the hospitable, it tries to do different things. It begins with a well conceived splash page. There are cameramen, amused spectators, bewildered cops (some have their guns drawn, some are observing awkwardly, and some are trying to prevent people from rushing the scene), and a couple reporters. After that, the Mink stumbles onto the scene (on stilts, compared to the more natural fighter of Omega, of course), and proceeds to kick Omega, who just has to not be expecting a battle. He just stands there until he's kicked, and then summarily smashes his opponent, being hurt only by technological superiority. There's a definite maladroitness to the battle: the two just stand there, waiting for the other to do something.

The book also has a much more assured style, visual and authorial. As I mentioned earlier, Lethem implements some thematic statements into the work (although thankfully the Mink rejects simple allegory), and establishes the Mink as a foil to Omega. Darymple and Hornscheimer begin to form a distinctive style instead of differentiate the work from a simple Marvel superhero story. The book has huge swaths of black ink, and the urban setting has this rubbery feel to it, like the buildings aren't entirely perfect and anything can bounce off of each other (just look at the carnage of the battle between Omega and the robots. This is a city that feels its damage, but can still function around it). The book has taken its setting, and promises much better things in issues to come, having established its own identity.

I was perhaps a little overzealous in describing the first issue's shortcomings by calling its stifled expression intentional. This comic is much more of a comic than the first instead of an illustrated script, and I couldn't be happier with the upgrade in quality. Here's to ten issues that will hopefully ship in ten months reifying Gerber's vision of Omega the Unknown.

This One’s for the Archives

2007-11-07T11:02:00.001-08:00

How did I miss this? I need to get out more.

***

I think we're gonna have to start defining terms if we're gonna throw around claims like this. Comic's writing (and this is the actual script, not dialogue or captions) can be more stage direction than actual writing like New York Times Bestseller's List Book #1. But this is a misleading distinction, anyways: books create and populate stages in the minds of readers. Comics have an extra interpreter conveying information from author to audience, so, in a sense, some comics can be seen as a reading of a script. So then comic's writing is a conversation or idea, and not a finished product like a book. This is only if the comic lacks captions and dialogue.

I don't think that Katie wants to explore the distinctions between textual and visual narratives, though (which can be done in so many different ways, and I'm sure that my words here exclude valid techniques). Just a thought.

***

Now, I don't mean to get too pornographic, but my love for Morrison comes in squirts. Here's another one.

Fantastic Four: 1234

(I'm sure you all have read this first paragraph about how cool Jemas Marvel was compared to Quesada Marvel. Sorrys!)

Marvel used to be an interesting, latitudinarian place when Jemas ruled its creative output. Milligan and Allred were on X-Force, Morrison and Quitely were on X-Men, and Morrison was given the Fantastic Four and Jae Lee (Oh, and something about the Ultimate Universe, too. *Yawn*). They produced a four issue miniseries through Marvel Knights (The imprint where superheroes keep it real) to deafening silence. This is Morrison's only mature work for Marvel besides his run on X-Men and Marvel Boy (well, that's debatable), and probably his only work deliberately using superheroes as symbols instead of characters. It reads a lot differently than his copious mini-series and extended runs.

Morrison always reads as constrained when working with a more painterly artist than pencillerly. His trio of works illustrated by painters, Kid Eternity, The Mystery Play, and Batman: Arkham Asylum, flout the stench of pretention, impeding an otherwise intriguing read. While the dilettante in me would propose a theory of finer art propelling Morrison to a different mindset when creating, but it's just as likely that the artist was sought after the conception of the project. Some of the Seven Soldier's miniseries are littered with symbols and visual allusions without the pedigree of paint. This comic only has the veneer of paint. Lee provided inked pages on which Villarrubia worked his magic. It's somewhat fitting that the work itself is stuck between the two extremes of Morrison's work visually and thematically, between the spastic creativity of Doom Patrol and The Invisibles and the hallowed halls in Batman: Arkham Asylum.

The painted coloring has two striking effects on the comic. First, we must talk of the world Lee and Villarubia create. Lee's grimy linework needs to be mentioned. Characters meld into the surrounding darkness, bodies are outlined thinly, juxtaposed with pools of shadows. Villarrubia lathers the seediest colors on top of Lee's figures, and the ugliest, most sterile colors on anything inorganic. Some of the pages are muddy, ugly messes of people and buildings and shadows, but therein lies the beauty of the art. Some pages, enjoyed without the context of the story, are beautiful. Secondly, and it must be said, this kind of art undermines the fantasticality of our heroes and their adventures.

The book is structured around a plot by Doom to vanquish his foes, accomplished by giving the three Not Reed Richards their deepest desires. Ben Grimm gets the event of being shunted into space jettisoned from memory and regains his human appearance. The Human Torch gets the beautiful girl and gets a monster to fight, and Invisible Woman gets the heart of Namor when Reed Richards isolates himself from his family.

Morrison begins by showing the central conflicts in the fantastic family; Sue feels distanced from Reed when he engages in intellectual pursuits, Ben Grimm wants to be normal, and Johnny is fed up with everyone's problems and their moping. Characters often mention how fighting against exterior forces pushes their problems aside and this ennui disappears when the Mole Man rears his face. Lee and Villarrubia's art is perfect for the first couple issue's restless and depressed mood.

There are also really cool bits of art where the panels break apart from their formerly rigid structure and appear as angled, flat planes in a three dimensional world competing with each other for space. Sometimes they illustrate Ben Grimm's fractured memory as a series of conflicting images, sometimes they herald the coming of a huge monster (because Dr. Doom is inflexible biê/strength and Mr. Fantastic is malleable mêtis/intelligence and emotions, which will always ensure him victory against Doom), and its stomping feet affect Namor and Sue. Sometimes they present exposition. They're all cool scenes, and innovative uses of the page. Other cool usages of the page include the use of well defined panels (an elusive beast in most of the work. Most pages are panels on top of an entire illustrated page) when Sue begins to talk to Alicia. The relationship between Alicia and Sue, and later Johnny and the random chick, are much better defined than the other characters, and their exchanges are the only ones in the book deserving clearly defined storytelling techniques.

After the second issue, the art in the book starts to flail a little bit. Johnny fights a monster and there's no action. Doom sics a huge robot on the Fantastic Four and the characters continue talking amidst all the destruction. The conclusion of the work is even reached by a similar feat of underrepresentation when Richards talks very sparsely on Doctor Doom's machine rearranging the lives of people. The Invisibles' sense of a person's self as remaining unchanged and only reacting to circumstance is recalled, but not conveyed with the profundity of Lord Fanny's story arc. Richard's stretching of consciousness is similarly dismissed in a paragraph, but central to the conflict between Dr. Doom's offensive and Richard's defensive roles, of the inflexible metal man seeking one thing and failing, of the flexible defender succeeding because he has not the rectilinear purpose of the aggressor. The only relationship given any kind of depth is between Namor and Sue, of the housewife finding a new beginning with a new lover but rejecting it because of its implications, of proving that "we're more than just slaves to our unconscious instincts," but even that develops along the sideline of the plotline, and is only elucidated when Namor kisses Sue before they leave each other, and the quote above is uttered.

The characters of the Fantastic Four are icons, and Morrison treats them as such. All the characters are shown doing what they normally do, Ben Grimm being mocked by society, Johnny reveling in it, Sue being distanced from her husband (because she's invisible!), and Reed occupying himself intellectually. None of these appear as compliments, and Marvel slapped a reassuring quote on the back, "A Heartfelt tribute to a heroic legacy," because after reading the first couple issues, Morrison does not paint a flattering picture of the four. Perhaps if an affirmation of every character's traits as alternating between conflicting and complimenting each other was not the sole purpose, Morrison could have achieved more than a heartfelt tribute and told one of his characteristically humane stories, but we're just left with a portrait of the Fantastic Four and their traits, without any movement of using the legacy of the World's Greatest Magazine.

Heh, It’s Been More Than a Week, but We’ll Just Pretend I Was Super Productive!

2007-11-06T18:25:00.001-08:00

Reviews!

Beirut: The Flying Club Cup Beirut goes West!

Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew's Spirit If…
You have to slog through detritus from Heidi's argument. And then you have to slog through my review to get an actual description of the band's sound, which isn't that descriptive. I'll try harder next time.

JLA/Hitman #1 I liked it a little, but not for the reasons you'd expect.

Dr 13: Architecture & Morality I liked it a little, but for the reasons you'd expect.

The Past Is a Grotesque Animal A Song by of Montreal. Probably the best twelve minute opus that sounds like a four minute song stretched to its limits. I like it a lot, and now I have the word grotesque in two consecutive review round-ups.

Void Indigo Gerber writes a "Crime against Humanity." I would say he writes an innocuous aition. They are sometimes the same.

Batman #670 Morrison's Not-J.H.-Williams-III Batman loses its damning wanderlust. For an issue, which might not actually imply a change.

***

Comics Deserving Purchases!

A lust for Powr Mastrs vol. 1 and Storeyville (Deluxe HC) populates my dreams. I'm waiting a little while to buy these, because my lust is very particular; two signed first editions from Picturebox's website. I get Santoro's two other comics, Chimera and Incanto, with free shipping if I do it this way! Deal! Now I only have to procure a large sum of funds. New Engineering and Maggots look very cool, too, but I should warn you: Maggots is incredibly tiny. Like, a couple inches bigger and wider than a small, personal notebook.

Peter Milligan writes Robin #167, so the next part of the Ra's Al Ghul Resurrection story (oh how banal that sounds! Isn't that every Ra's Al Ghul story?) might not suck. I've heard that his other comic, Infinity Inc., which has its third issue released this week, straddles the line between sucking and not sucking, too, as well as The Programme. Let's hope it's not chronic to all of his recent work, although the Batman Annual he did a little while ago doesn't fill me with hope.

Superman #670 comes out, and wraps up a three part storyline inserted into the middle of the 2 part finale of Camelot Falls. The next issue, #671 starts another 3 part story. Irony doesn't begin to define the travails of Busiek's run on Superman, but Carlos Pacheco draws slowly hits closer.

Omega The Unknown #2 comes out, and we'll see if the interesting threshold between textual and pictorial information is maintained, or if I'm painting the work in the veneer of abstract art too eagerly. Or maybe we'll remain suspended in doubt. Who knows where Omega goes?

***

You should start by reading this thing here. I, umm, used to read Comics Should be Good. Read might not be the correct word, but I would sometimes venture towards its pages in search of online comic's criticism. I think the last couple pieces that I really liked were before the jump, when Burgas presented his alembic of modern superhero publishing history in the terms of innovative works. They were divided into two parts, one about the early rumblings of authorial control in superhero titles, and the other about the Self Publishing Revolution of the Eighties and the British Invasion securing a measure of esteem for literate authors. It was bogged down a little by Cronin's overuse of self-made argot, but these are forgivable things in a nascent medium like American comics criticism.

After those two posts, I flitted away from the audience that Comics Should Be Good started amassing, but I still kind of hope for the same broad, sweeping post like those where the entirety of some arc of history is summated in paragraphs, especially with a focus on great comics. I still occasionally read the Comics You Should Own Column, but I have moved far away from their audience. I still have the same compulsive need to console myself after reading a great work by reassuring myself that plenty more exist, and part of what I'm trying to do with my blogging aesthetic is to transmit a similar enthusiasm, to spread the naked energy for good comics that those guys have (had? I don't read too often now). I'm as omnivorous and ravenous as most of those reviewers, but I apply my well carved teeth on much different flora and fauna than those cats.

It's disheartening to see such a well publicized writing collective dismiss a work by Tezuka so superficially, is all I'm saying. Surely the esteem of the God of Manga solicits more attention than what is given here, and the first three commenters agree.

I wish I had the keys to the car. Then we might travel to vistas unexplored by quotidian philosophers.

I Feel Like My Paragraphs Would Read Better If I Could Insert Load Times Inbetween Them.

2007-11-05T10:13:00.001-08:00

I hate it when bloggers drop off their pages without notice or warning. It's a betrayal of a pristine, laminated social contract: I give you my attention, and you give me punctuality, Gosh Darnit! It's a good thing I never signed that one, though. Otherwise I might be experiencing introspection spurred by what some amateur high school and collegiate rhetoricians would call hypocrisy, and the white flames of prejudices impugn even the most eloquent of auteurs.

Batman #670

I don't think it's too much of a secret to say that Grant Morrison is the biggest draw for almost anyone here, and he rewards by presenting his most Morrison Batman yet. Unlike his prior issues with Not J.H. Williams III (Andy Kubert and John Van Fleet, but the most important facet is the attention diverted away from the design of the page and more towards the design of the page-turn), we're given a quest over an occult object, intrigue over the conquering of death, and, and this should be familiar to those who were fans before All-Star Superman made Grant Morrison cool, a generational conflict between the rebellious youth and the domineering adults. It almost feels like Tony Daniel drew an extra script for an early issues of the Invisibles, where Morrison substituted King Mob for Batman, Dane for Damian, and Ra's Al Ghul for the King of All Tears (and Talia for Gelt, but even going this far breaks the allusions somewhat).

He begins the issue by talking about a magical object, The Book of Changes. It's an occult object, and it can be heard everywhere, predicting the future. So Morrison writes a cool little scene which could surround itself with Lord Fanny, Boy, and Ragged Robin without being awkward. The other idea, of someone taking a body for a ride, has a lot in common with the possession of many other characters in Morrison's oeuvre, and even alludes to how Ra's Al Ghul is returning from the dead. Perhaps we aren't even seeing Ra's Al Ghul return from the dead, but merely the idea of him, the idea of well-intended megalomania, hijacking a lifeless corpse (Those who point out that this is indeed what happened will get stared at blankly. I'm trying to make the point of ideological as well as physical succession). And as a gift of the ride, we get to turn Batman into the hairy chested love god from Neal Adams, a transformation of which Morrison spoke previously in interviews.

To tie together the idea of destiny conveyed in the book of changes, we see Damian in a position very similar to that of Dane McGown from the early issues of The Invisibles. He's being recklessly disobedient against his father, a very powerful man, and is drawn towards the rebellious Batman (hey, he's seen at gunpoint from policemen in this issue! What a change disregarding continuity! It's actually really important, and I'm glad that Morrison's clout supersedes consistent characterization!). It's almost as important that Damian dresses up in the Robin outfit, showing the shift of allegiance away from his father. Morrison is aiming at including the anxieties of succession in the conflict this time, aware that most rebellious teenagers end up just like their parents.

This can be compared with the central conflict between Dane, King Mob, and the Archons in The Invisibles. Except here, we're given a much more intimate view of the Archons and their prerogative, instead of some nebulous impulse to control, is directed towards their actions. Here they still want to control, but they need to force the conformity of their successor in order to maintain control, and Batman will, of course, come into conflict with Ra's Al Ghul over control of his (which could mean either Batman or Ra's Al Ghul's) son. Also, here, the Archons have lost control, which can be expected when the comic confines itself to the mind of the successor. It's also worth noting the presence of Sensei here, of conflict between multiple Archons over who gets to do the controlling.

Morrison is setting up a conflict between the young and the old, the rebellious and atavistic, nature and nurture here, and there's a surprising amount of drive in the issue, absent in his Batman run thus far. Maybe the detour of J.H. Williams III did more than provide us with three beautiful superhero comics.

When talking about Morrison turning out a script that's like an early issue of The Invisibles, I said almost up there, right? Because Morrison doesn't quite manage to pack the comic as full of mad ideas as he could under the Vertigo and Invisibles banner. He stoops low enough to insert three buxom babes into the story, something Tony Daniel has no problem drawing and augmenting. Sure, the staunch defender could argue that Morrison is trussing up fights between good and evil as a game by portraying the future robbers getting their makeup when preparing themselves for the crime, an echo which could be felt in every modern Morrison work, but the scene still feels like fanboy pandering only slightly justified by artistic intent. Daniel's pencils featuring the women stooping low to the floor when magicking and the full page spread of the Tiger Moth's skimpy costume framed by the black woman's ass and the green woman's tits do little to dissuade.

I'm being a little too harsh on Daniel, though. He can tell a story a little better than the Kubert brother, and all of his depictions of Batman have his as this larger than life menace covered in shadows. As long as Morrison doesn't force (or is allow the right word?) Daniel to draw too many scenes like the aforementioned trio of crime, the comic might turn out alright.

As much as the earlier issues dealt with Batman and his identity conflicts between Bruce Wayne and Batman (seriously, we're never gonna see the end of the cliffhanger of the issue right before Williams III came onboard resolved, are we? Where Bruce is kissing the supermodel after skiing?), this issue plays out the same schism of identities in Grant Morrison the writer, between what is done to satisfy moral obligations and what is done to satisfy superficial impulses, but it doesn't come out that intentionally, and I sincerely doubt that the team of guest writers can extend the comic's themes and central conflicts much further than Morrison has here. If only this run wasn't so strewn with impediments, we might see some beautiful comics. Here's to hoping the cavalcade of guests can maintain this story's integrity. If so, we can even grin and giggle a little at how Morrison's disembodied consciousness has managed to possess the bodies of Milligan, Dini, and Nicieza. At least I would.

The Void of the Indigo

2007-10-29T13:04:00.001-07:00

Or something

Void Indigo

What we have here is a comic penned by Steve Gerber, published as a large format graphic novel in the same series as X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, The Death of Captain Marvel, and, my personal favorite of the ones I've read, Daredevil: Love and War. It is painted by Val Mayerick, and lettered by Andy Kubert. I have no idea about that. It later spawned a six issue mini-series cut drastically to two issues after a tremendously negative critical reaction and incredible drop of orders for the second issue. One went so far as to call it a "crime against humanity." I will only discuss the graphic novel, because the comic really is batshit insane.

Mayerick and Gerber worked together very often prior to this comic's publication. The two had collaborated on Man-Thing when he was only a back-up character in Fear, and would only draw the first issue of the actual Man-Thing comic. This means that the two co-created Howard the Duck, but the success of that character would elude him, too. Frank Brunner and, later, Gene Colan would popularize the character's style. Mayerick began work at Marvel comics drawing Conan starting by penciling over Windsor-Smith's layouts with P. Craig Russell in issue #21 after graduating from college with two degrees in Art and Philosophy. Marvel wouldn't treat the artist too well, and eventually he took his fantastical style to Heavy Metal and the underground publications of the Eighties.

Gerber's history is, of course, legendary, and this comic is an important moment in his relationship with Marvel, almost directly causing the schism between him and Shooter. This particular artifact was released in 1984, and is a farewell of sorts for both. Mayerick would continue to become a commercial artist for publications such as Dungeons and Dragons. Gerber would only script occasional issues of Avengers Spotlight, She-Hulk, Cloak & Dagger, and Toxic Crusaders. A long run on any title would elude him until Hard Time in more than twenty year's time. I guess I should start explaining the actual comic instead of context, huh? It's all necessary, I swear.

The comic looks like the painted fantasy comics from the eighties. You would know what I'm talking about if you know what I'm talking about, those comics where previously unthought-of flashes of color and light attempt to cover derivative body poses and designs. As if Charles Vess required all of his models to start taking Creatine and working out five days a week, and the artist started taking the testosterone to match. This is not meant as a pejorative for the comic, though. It delights in the mythic qualities inherent in the fantasy milieu of fantasy comics of the time, manipulating and rearranging them.

The comic begins, as all fantasies should, at a time before time, in the era between the civilization of Atlantis and the founding of Jericho, when four dark sorcerers ruled the Earth with their mighty spells. We're thrown into the middle of a conflict between these four sorcerers and a horde of barbarians, all with remarkable similarities to Conan (even the timeframe is the reworded description of the Hyborian Age). In order to beat the barbaric hordes, the sorcerers gather all of their subjects, and kill every single one in order to steal their life force. This is likely where the critics found the crime against humanity, because Gerber and Mayerick do not contend themselves with describing the slaughterhouse, but show the slaughter of a female in gruesome detail, as the sorcerers idly chat around her mangled corpse! It's a horrific sight, but Gerber manages to one-up himself a mere dozen pages later, showing a spike being driven into the skull of our hero, and then having his hand chopped off, bone visible and all. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The hero, Ath'Agaar, shown in the book isn't nearly as horrific as the sorcerers, and, although headstrong, he's the victim of the sorcerer's machinations. The evil quartet decides that the life force of someone stronger is needed, and they proceed to steal the hero and his wife, hoping to steal their life force. The passion of the two feeds the sorcerers well, and, possessed with the life force of those able to carry out heroic deeds, the four can easily subdue the opposition of the hero, but make a critical error. After a horrific torture scene (and horrific does not do the full page of maiming justice. I felt incredibly queasy and found visual solace in the copious text while reading), the hero stands up, conquering the forces of death with one final volley against the sorcerers, and he destroys the source of their magic after one of the warlocks accidentally chops off his hand and the spike which it holds sinks deep into the Living Orb (the destruction of which causes a calamity, for some reason. What's important is that the power is externalized, whereas Ath'Agaar will always have his strength). Gerber wasn't too fond of Marvel at the time, apparently.

I should take a moment to explain a feature common in many myths from the world. Many heroes possess either biê, incredible physical strength, or mêtis, incredible mental fortitude. Zeus, the supreme ruler of the entire world in Grecian Myth, possesses both, and secures his reign eternally by encompassing both methods to problem solving. Our hero, Ath'Agaar, has an enormous amount of biê, and his enemies, the four dark sorcerers, could not survive without their mêtis. Gerber is giving us an aition, an origin, for the struggle between these two concepts, so prevalent in mythic structures. This is a self-conscious myth outlining an underlying structure of other myths, an impossible jump for those outside academia, and I couldn't fathom anyone without prior knowledge of myths being interested in this horrific pageant.

The mythic allusions do not end there. Heroes, at least in the Hellenic tradition, are defined by their pain, by how much they receive and give. Ath-Agaar is described as one "who suffers—As no living being has suffered before!" Soon after, Gerber even puts a Katabasis into the myth after he sends Ath-Agaar to the preeminent place of death in the work, the lair of the sorcerers, and has him conquer snakes, a symbol of autochthony in Grecian mythology and the only monster not imported from the Near East. Every hero myth in Greece has a hero undergo a similar journey to a place of death and conquer a snake (or dragon: the Greek word is the same for both). Ath'Agaar is the quintessential Greek hero by the time his astral body is launched into space to find another body to control in the eternal conflict.

After the Aition is finished, the book shifts gears completely and transports us to the present, where the latest incarnation of the hero finds himself alone at Earth, and Gerber assumes his own authorial mantle, and has the hero, Jhager, observe the world as an outsider. TVs are ridiculed (they only recount the adventures of the hero, after all) and a manipulative womanizer is crushed (who has a position of authority in society like the wizards as the corrupt sheriff of a little town) before our hero finds a mediator between him and the outside world, and begins his conquest anew.

The back half of the book, after the aition of biê and mêtis, becomes really uninteresting. Mayerick continues the gratuitous style of the former part, but without the subtle manipulations of Gerber. We only get the traditional tropes of the author in the use of an outsider narration, numerous pop culture references, and the horrors of daily life. We still have the first half of the book, though, which paints Ath'Agaar and Jhager as the artists abused by Marvel, and the four sorcerers as the evil corporation, opportunistically exploiting the life force of young subjects, all encoded in the language of myths. Marvel was a very interesting place in the early Eighties.

I’ve Long Ago Conceded to Occasional Indulgences. Expect Nothing Relevant, and You Might Be Mildly Surprised.

2007-10-28T23:12:00.001-07:00

There's an incredibly beautiful song on Of Montreal's album Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?. Naturally, it's the longest by far, clocking in at just under twelve minutes, called The Past is a Grotesque Animal. Of course, being more than three times the length of most other songs, it's not available for singular download on iTunes, but reviewable content seems kinda light (I'm pretty sure that Pnin or Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 2 would destroy me completely if I actually attempted to catalogue something resembling my reaction), and the shame of negligence haunts all but the most callous of beasts.

Kevin Barnes (The lead singer and songwriter of Of Montreal. The group used to be composed of actual members, but after two band members left the occupation of songwriters and he got married, Barnes recorded an album almost entirely by himself, creating more personal music with the aid of electronic musicscapes. Now he has a touring group, but the music is produced almost singularly by him. Except for basslines. End lesson) grasps the lost time of Proust enviably well. The lyrics start "The Past is a grotesque animal, and in its eyes you'll see/how completely wrong you can be," and then the grotesque animal is viewed in its different forms. Barnes shifts from clunky metaphors ("the sun is out, it melts the snow that fell yesterday. Makes you wonder why it bothered") to beautiful phrasings of when the past becomes a fantasy, something idyllic ("Sometimes I wonder if you're mythologizing me like I do you, apologizing me like I do you. We want our film to be beautiful, not realistic"), but the focus here is not on how life ravages the self (and here I am, assuming that this alembic of Proust is fair! Go with me, for a little bit, at least), but how life ravages a love.

I should note that I don't want to give the impression that the song's only pleasures involve homage to a century old French writer, though. Barnes conveys the same feeling of distancing himself from something precious, but does so in a much more self-conscious manner, explicitly aware of the imprecision of reminiscing, lamenting the loss of credulity in remembrance as much as the loss of a beautiful relationship. It may be terrible to forget the occasional harsh edges in a relationship, but it's even more terrible to deny yourself an idyllic relationship when faced with an acerbic present.

This is only focusing on the lyrical aspects, though. Barnes has fashioned a simple beat for the song at the beginning, and throughout the entire twelve minutes, it never changes, but becomes heavier, more momentous by the introduction of sundry electronic elements. But this doesn't describe the actual music, just its feeling. Electronic bass drums and a loud snare punctuate ambient synthesizer effects, what sounds like a distant howl, until guitar chords are introduced. These remain in the song through a rubbery synthesizer solo, but the beat isn't that important, just as the particulars of the relationship Barnes described are unimportant. What's important is the merging of the musical cadences with Barnes' frenetic singing, the haunting harmonies which concede importance to the march of electronic drums, as much a metaphor for the march of time as the sometimes long pauses between stanzas, but the actual music isn't that important or integral to the song. Simply the repetition of a simple melody, chord progression, and drum pattern buttress the march of time. This twelve minute opus is not a product of compositional virtuosity, but sheer emotion.

Throughout the song, the singer quietly undergoes a transformation while singing. The first couple stanzas are lightly accompanied by quiet, minor harmonies, resonating the end of phrases with a haunting tone, but, halfway through the song, after the singer has admitted his own need for his lover, and subsequently "flunked out," he relates to a scene in a play, or art, and screams "Violence, Violence." There is no longer the subtle embellishment of a minor harmony, and Barnes sings the rest of the song always reaching a fever pitch of screaming in each stanza. This occurs at the climax of the song, when the singer sees his own relationship in art, and subsequently begins to view the past and interpret it instead of narrate his actions in the present. He enshrines his love for her, extols the potential they could've had together, and tangles himself in knots trying to cope with the loss. He "searches for old selves while speeding forward through the plate glass of maturing cells," trying to find how he can be a part of her "goodness" which makes him "feel so criminal."

At the end of the song, the singer finally allows himself the warmth of an incomplete recollection, stating that he's "explored [her] with the detachment of an analyst," and finally allows himself, whether from actual events or the whims of justifications and mythologizations, to connect with her mentally, stating "we've raided the same kingdoms," while "always touching by underground wires" (I've already admonished him for the occasional clunky metaphor guys, let up). The song ends with the bittersweet conclusion that "none of [their] secrets are physical," connecting the two's admiration for the same art (they met at a Swedish festival, discussing Story of the Eye), but ignoring the girl's shameful righteousness or incompatible passions ("Let's tear this shit apart," but she's prevented the reckless fun, having "red-rovered the Gestapo circling [his] heart," the singer intimates). The song's bitter ending, realistic but not beautiful, attains beauty by sincerely expressing the labyrinth of a mind crestfallen by loss.

Other people might find the winding lyrical passages in the song the product of poor lyricism, but the fits and starts which the singer undergo reconstruct the frantic tone of coping with loss beautifully. But I'm the kind of guy who like Davis' Bitches Brew and Rick Wakeman's (the Yes pianist) The Six Lives of Henry the 8^th, so I would be deliberately misleading if I didn't give you that grain of salt by which to take my admiration.

***

Tomorrow: Gerber gets mythic, Void Indigo Style! It's been called a "crime against humanity by some," (quote from the wiki-Archons, of course) but I'd merely label good comics the victim. Hi-Oh!

Note (11/9/07): I updated a couple misnomers, like that Barnes wrote and recorded the album before his stay in Norway almost by his lonesome, and that I equated Barnes directly with the singer.

A Short One Today

2007-10-25T13:02:00.001-07:00

Drat! While I was all prepared to throw myself at reviewing comics, I sadly came to the conclusion that most of the ones I’ve read inspire any interesting reaction. Hopefully a shorter, uninterested reaction is better than me stilting my non-opinion into an entire review:

Dr. Thirteen: Architecture & Morality

I love a lot of things in this world, and Cliff Chiang’s artwork has the fortune to be far above most, like frolicking in a meadow when it isn’t too sunny or hot outside, and petting a cute kitten (I have allergies. It’s a double edged sword). So I went into reading this with the knowledge that, no matter how didactic an approach Azzarello takes towards the grim and gritty trends of superhero comics (for which the series became notorious shortly after its conclusion. And 100 Bullets scripter who ends every story arc with death is the one saying this!), I would at least have a more pleasurable experience than frolicking in a meadow during perfect weather and petting a kitten. And I did, but Azzarello tried his darnedest to ruin the effort until the story’s denouement.

I get to enjoy imaginative character designs and villains during the story, but Azzarello cannot stray from the skepticism of Dr. Thirteen or the myopia of current industry artists enough to present an astounding comic free from those sensibilities. A lot of the enjoyment will come from Azzarello and Chiang’s unself-conscious treatment of forgotten characters, but, at the same time, he’s just treading on the last three or four issues of Grant Morrison’s Animal Man while lacking the connection between author and character that made the finale so poignant. I also get the feeling that Azzarello doesn’t really love the characters which he’s presenting to us, and just found some off the beaten path so that his story would work. Also, and I hate to sound like a Marvel fanboy here, but the small kid from the dream just suddenly appears on the scene with no explanation. The caveman and him aren’t even targets of the Architects, so I can’t even understand the reason for them appearing. At least the other characters are driven to the scene by the authors. Unless, of course, Azzarello is making a slight jab at DC for having to provide reasons for the appearance of people in comic books, and for showing cavemen, but that whole angle falls apart under any significant scrutiny.

Basically, the comic attempts artistic depth, but fails at providing it. It doesn’t sacrifice good old fashioned superheroics, just sweeps them under the rug, so the last battle against the clothes of the JLA lacks dramatic tension (of course the characters won’t conform to the ideals of others. Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns (and Morrison does not deny the history of characters when revamping them. His inclusion as a villain threw me off a little. Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, and Mark Waid as villains? Totally plausible) have already told them that they just won’t cut it in the future world, so why would they conform after being sent to limbo? Fortunately, we still have the first six parts with the attack of Nazi gorillas and the introduction of Infectious Lass to make the comic a pleasant, if unsatisfying in that I thought this health bar would make me healthier but it’s actually junk food way (I’m sure you can relate).

I Never Claimed to Be Punctual. Only Stylish.

2007-10-23T17:38:00.001-07:00

But I even fail at that, too. What's a blogger to do?

JLA/HItman #1

I like John McCrea drawing a JLA comic a lot, especially one where the marble statues of the heroes contrast with Tommy Monaghan. McCrea portrays his characters in Hitman as slumped, depressed, slouching, always ready to sit down in a nice chair and enjoy a beer in the company of others. His heroes are much different than that. They all stand completely straight, marvelous body posture, and, this is where it gets kinda cool, it looks like there's something a little off about them, as if they can't quite adequately embody their ideals. Wonder Woman's hair, legs, and breasts are a little too big*, Superman's a little too muscular, The Flash is always seen with his hands on his hips and face turned away from the direction of his body, and Batman is always facing away from the rest of the group. The staging of the heroes is fantastic, and instantly conveys their most salient characteristics with ease. That said, he does Tommy Monaghan a little better.

*Yes, I'm aware that I'm reducing Wonder Woman to her more prurient body parts, but it's all McCrea's fault, honest!

When Monaghan first bursts onto the scene with the rest of the superheroes, all of their idiosyncrasies are on full display, and the man has his arms open, mouth open, and he's casually striding. It's a beautiful melding of personalities embodied in a single page. To further make fun of how artists and people have reduced Wonder Woman (at least, that's what I hope McCrea is doing. All the characters here are caricatures, but I can't help disclaiming the chauvinist attitude which the comic has, but the reviewer lacks) to tits, legs, and the maternal instinct which manifests itself in Wonder Woman bringing coffee to the team (There are three cups and four people in the scene. It looks like she's even denying herself the beverage).

Unfortunately, there aren't that many more scenes as beautiful as that full page spread in the comic. The rest of the panels are staged well, with a clear handle on how to tell a story effectively, but we all knew that McCrea could handle such an unimportant task anyways. Ennis' scripting disappoints a little, too. There's an almost unbelievable scene beginning the comic where Superman admits to having a very intimate relationship with Superman to a man searching for a story simply because he stalled a little after hearing the name Tommy Monaghan. And then Ennis has to jump through the hoops of justifying Monaghan's conflicting character ("Jeez, he's an assassin. That's awful! But he truly embodies the American spirit! He's kinda okay, I guess. I'm Superman, by the way!"*) to the audience when his likable smile could suffice for drawing the audience over to his side, especially when Wonder Woman is a mindless warrior, The Flash is a condescending prick bag, and Batman is a callous invader of privacy. The rest of the (oversized!) comic recounts cool scenes in the Hitman series, and sets up the conflict of the following issues.

*I had to paraphrase the dialogue a little to make it fit into one parenthetical section easily.

I don't know if I can quite recommend the package. A lot of the elliptical discussion of Hitman issues don't really add anything to the plot or convey any information. The characters literally say, "Hey, remember that time? That was cool."* And that's it. The coloring of the comic also places it into a much more traditional superhero milieu, from which it's striving to break. And there's an abrupt break halfway through where the story would have ended if DC allowed the story to run serially in JLA Classified. It feels much more like an advertisement for fans to pick up the Hitman trades, and a plea to DC for republishing the entire run (some stories mentioned haven't made it into print, after all!), and much less than a complete adventure. Perhaps things'll pick up next issue when all of our heroes assemble and attack aliens, but, for right now, it's a pretty mediocre example of why Hitman is appealing to so many people. There's next to no characterization of Monaghan, the most interesting character in the forty-eight pages, just a lot of discussion between the superheroes of what is about to come.

2007-10-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

I must apologize for the flights which my life is forcing me to take. Back on Monday, maybe even with a review of, *gasp* comics!

Why Must I Keep Doing Things I Know I Shouldn’t? I Must’ve Picked So Many Scabs As a Kid

2007-10-17T14:53:00.001-07:00

Heidi fortified her argument. Like almost anyone, I could take apart the argument more closely, but I’ll simply quote her reaction to Stephen Hirsch’s response:

Then there’s Stephen Hirsch, who represents the “I’m in grad school and must be rigorous” approach. He has some decent points in there, but in one post writes:

“Heidi’s complaints are all based upon some normative idea of story that not only goes undefined, but is absolutely obscured by her citation of disparate, contradictory works and techniques as examples of good story.”

…then says….

“By reacting to the book the way she does, Heidi implies that it’s canonical and gives it some authority that it doesn’t and shouldn’t have. I see comics as an art form refreshingly free of any rigid canon, and would like to see it remain that way.”

Hm, an art form refreshingly free of rigid canon that…oh, might include disparate, contradictory works and techniques, maybe? Make up your mind.

Hirsch talks about the art championed by MacDonald (“early-modern picaresque, Dostoevsky’s 19th century psychological realism, high Modernism, and Krazy & Ignatz”) as “disparate and contradictory” and does not formulate an argument against “disparate and contradictory” work.

She also lovingly mentions Nilsen. I’m guessing she hasn’t read The End or Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow yet. Dogs & Water is a beautiful book, though I would suggest that its beauty is in how it uses the comic page to convey the loneliness of a completely cipher main character. It still reads much more like a formal work than one focused more on storytelling matters. Big Questions, on the other hand, lives and dies much more by its page turns than page construction.

After seeing what she does with a normal blog post, I can’t wait for her supposed “next post” on the “next generation of cartoonists.” After remarking time and time again how the post shouldn’t be compared with what would have been thought out, well composed entry given more time, she mentions a “further essay” on “economic concerns.” That’s going to instantly cause penguin pregnancies in Antarctica if a normal post blew minds.

Also, I just hope that Chris Butcher does not stoop low enough to answer MacDonald’s comment on her post:

Huh! I’ll leave it to someone else to say “Busiek wins”, but Chris, if you actually read my responses to the responses, as opposed to backtracking, I state that I “DID* say what I said. I clarified a few points but you might have noticed this:

>>>It definitely could have used some tightening up, but I do stand by what I said.

And I stand by that, too!

If this whole thing has taught me anything it’s not to write anything on a blog that is longer than 1000 words! No one can concentrate that long.

Tom Spurgeon, alas, already has. I’ve yet to engage in interaction, so I’m fine, but I worry about the others (Special notice: Kurt Busiek, Kyle Baker, and Dan Nadel guest star in the post!).

***

Did you know that Daft Punk sampled almost all of Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger from Edwin Birdsong’s Cola Bottle Baby? God doesn’t exist.

You Can Skip This One. I Prolly Should’ve

2007-10-16T15:49:00.001-07:00

Before I begin, I promise that I'm not just suddenly realizing that I'm in college. It just hasn't been relevant before. Promise. And, as always, this isn't the real event but a reasonable facsimile thereof. I apologize in advance for writing something that hews too close to a college entrance exam.

So, I'm in a beginning drawer's class this semester, and we just started drawing figures, as in live humans. The entire class is circled around the model, and we're beginning by drawing gesture sketches, which are quick sketches of the model in an action pose, which is only help for a couple minutes at most. The pose is incredibly dynamic, and we're drawing in ink for the first time, so as to not think about erasing and proportion, but only on the movements of the body. So, naturally, secluded around silent classmates for a couple hours, I begin to think of an artist's body, and how that relates to the body I'm drawing in front of me.

After a couple sketches, the professor gets around to me, and tells me that it's not so important to convey the details of the body, but the position and motion of the pose. A couple lopsided circles for a head are added at the end to notate where the head is looking, and the most prominent part about the drawing is the curved line denoting the left side of the body, from foot to outstretched hand. The muscles, she tells me, are forces which cause the arm to reach skyward, but I'm not concerned with you guys accurately portraying these muscles. I just want for you to get a general sense of the movement, of how the internal forces force the body into different positions. So, after handing me my handmade bamboo pen, the paper on which she's drawn to show me how to convey movement has only three discernible lines, that of the left and right sides of the body, as well as the length between the model's two hands.

We do not remain drawing quick sketches. Soon, we begin to examine the body in more detail as the class progresses. The model takes a pose for fifteen minutes, and we, still using permanent ink than the perfectionist's pencil, draw the body's pose, while paying more attention to proportion, detail, and light, if possible. The different poses of the model revealed the entire body through this process, and eventually, as the teacher intended, we would be ready to draw a much more detailed piece on the model within a bigger time frame. Now that we understand this body, she announces to us at the end of class, we can actually attempt to replicate it visually.

When creating art, one should not hope to produce a motionless object. Any oeuvre is an example of an idea put through a different position, of an artist's body of work straining to reach another position. Let's take Grant Morrison as an example because we're all aware of his work. The man started out interested in how loss affected people, with a keen eye on the role of the author in his second major work, Animal Man (I don't have Zenith. Hrmm. Another example might've been better). In his work started soon after, Doom Patrol, the role of the author, of the architect, became more emphasized by the end of the run. Moreso than Animal Man, a work about the power random life has over other people, Doom Patrol was a work concerned with how other people can affect each other's lives, how Cliff can aid Crazy Jane and how the Chief can ruin everyone's lives. By the time of Seven Soldiers, Invisibles and The Filth had covered how society affects the individual, and Morrison had more clearly established the current thread throughout his work, how people are forced to change. So, he examined how exactly different people change under different circumstances much more clearly, and with a more methodical approach.

The same body of work, Morrison being interested in what affects people to change, is put through different poses, in different positions and situations, and different pieces of art are created based on the contortions. Now, with such a broad topic as how people react to things, the body is naturally hazy, but it still has tendencies to find some information useful, some irrelevant, and to focus on some topics more than others (can I BE any more hazy, but, seriously, Morrison has one of the most versatile canons of work, at least in comics if not in the larger field of literature). The metaphor, of course, falls apart when smaller works such as The Authority, his Batman run, Vimamarama, and any others I haven't considered. Please don't mention such minor transgressions.

In Michael Wood's general commentary on Nabokov, The Magician's Doubts, Wood discusses the notion that the entirety of a person could be exhumed through a well developed oeuvre, that a person could be found through their work. He did not clarify the statement by conflating the person found in life and the person found in art. Literature (and here I go, divesting my metaphor from generalities) is by no means a similar plane of communication to daily life, and the tendencies of a person as they approach a novel continuously throughout life begin to manifest themselves as character traits. The body is found after examining its poses, after examining surface elements and how they relate to each other, and, eventually, the internal forces which cause the poses, the muscles, are discovered in an author's body of work. Literally, a stack of similarly authored books can be examined to find a person within, the author's character.

Oh, and my drawings didn't turn out too well. I was a little distracted.

Short Post Now, Long Post Later

2007-10-15T07:56:00.001-07:00

So, today's the first time that I skipped class. While sleeping, in between fitful awakenings and sneezes, I dream of faking sickness to my mom. The thing is, in the dream and my former life, she would always give in to my feigned disease, letting me stay home when the worst I had was a sneeze or nosebleed. So, I'm having this dream and I suddenly wake up, after dreaming that I just woke up on my couch, and realize that I haven't done the reading for French class. I look at this impossible to read clock, and discern an eight for the hour and maybe a two for the minute. I think to myself, I'll just get up and do that right now, it'll be fine. So I fall back asleep, and my mom is sitting right by me, "If you don't want to go to school today, you don't have to." I respond with an "okay," maybe a smile at the mother who loves me, and, in my dream fall back asleep. So, naturally I wake up and it's 8:47 (yes I do remember the time exactly). Well, fudge I says. I don't have nearly enough time to get breakfast, do the reading, and get ready for class at 9:30. After eating a large breakfast, I fall back into the covers on my bed, close my eyes and await the comfort of a caring mother.

I have another class at 10:30. Drat!

***

Update: Drat, I'm bad at these things. I forgot that I switched the time of each post off, and tis post, published right after 10 AM, lost its punchline. This is why I don't do stand-up.

An Addendum and Articulation

2007-10-14T18:49:00.001-07:00

Heidi MacDonald's condemnation of comics which strive to communicate feelings unequivocally without the trappings of a narrative (or she may have been deriding cartoonists without storytelling chops, or those who misapply their storytelling chops to uninteresting stories) can be distinguished from stories forcing those autobiographical experiences into a story can be see most clearly in Anders Nilsen (a contributor in The Best American Comics 2007, by the way), specifically his Ignatz book The End and his not-Ignatz book Don't Go Where I Can't Follow.

Now, as I wrote in my review of the former, the tremendous loss Nilsen experienced was expressed beautifully in a form eschewing anything but the moment and consequences of the loss. I also used the metaphor of Nilsen not processing the meat of his experience into anything other than the well prepared entre of his piece of meat. Let me just leave the issue of MacDonald's post by saying that in the abstract I would prefer almost any meat to sausage, although sausage can be damn good sometimes, especially if it was prepared while thinking mostly about how the sausage would taste after it was a sausage and disregarding most of the original meat which would be used to make the sausage. I'll let you find out where the metaphor breaks. And now for a review unpeppered with the double edged sword (I just can't stop myself sometimes) of figurative language:

Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew's Spirit If…

I love long names like the one above plastered atop regular releases. It makes the albums seem like so much more in conversation. You Forgot It in People sounds like a regular album, but a presentation has mystique in it. Big Boi and Andre 3000 Present… Outkast is another favorite of mine, especially because Big Boi and Andre 3000 are the only members of Outkast. I should've seen the split between the two for Speakerboxxx/Love Below coming. This is an album featuring most of the artists forming the Canadian music collective Broken Social Scene, but are all directed under Kevin Drew's authorial vision, which is to say that the man does more than facilitate the project's pop style by applying a consistent singing voice to each track. It was released almost a month ago, on September 18^th.

Generic Distinctions in modern Indie Rock are almost useless. Terms like Baroque Pop, Post Rock, Grunge Rock, etc arose after artists had developed their particular style after accumulating influences and forging a unique sound of out the various components. Then, like minded musicians who share a similar set of influences and share instrumentation and arrangement tendencies are lumped together, under the umbrella (guarding against the torrential downpour of an apathetic audience unable to appreciate innovation without a frame of reference, of course) of a distinct genre. Generic distinctions in other areas, such as, to pick a particularly apposite example, comics, relate storied traditions and tropes within the breadth of "superhero," "western," or "romance" comics. Baroque Pop has no such mores attached, and designates a movement, or simply a modern tendency of multiple artists rather than an emergent genre. The album I'm reviewing today fits under the Baroque Pop banner, with violins and pianos arranged as compliments to guitar strumming and singing.

For those wondering, any musician who often works with guitars and drums atop a song with a notable focus on instrumentation and composition and who has produced or is producing music within the last fifteen years earns the label "Indie Rock" in my iTunes library*. Any working more in the confines of electronic music or with a similar flair towards composition instead of performance generally is placed under the group "Art Music," unless of course they're members of Fort Thunder. I have my eye on those cross media cats, although I haven't expended that much money on their art yet.

*Not all of whom are on independent record labels. I despise the fluidity of language sometimes, but hope that the usage of a term while being aware of its deficiencies can alleviate concerns of the occasional loss of an important designating term. The term Indie Rock is almost as volatile to me as Graphic Novel to Eddie Campbell.

This is all to say that I enjoyed Kevin Drew/Broken Social Scene's new album. A major distinguishing feature between it and the Broken Social Scene albums prior are longer songs. Almost every full length song exceeds four minutes, and most are six, and most songs need all the time they have. Instrumental melodies flit in at the end of verses, and choruses repeated gradually build up into loud, involving climaxes, and even in songs whose structures repeat, like Lucky Ones, the parts are already exciting enough to bear repetition, and after a couple repetitions the drums get louder, and the song gains more voices.

I like the idea of Broken Social Scene. The group is twenty three members strong on this album, and has no qualms over importing a musician's talent on trombone for a song, and then neglecting them for the rest of the record. Their entire body of work has a casual feel to an entire orchestrating affair, a smile formed by the efforts of twenty three (Well, fifteen for the first two albums, nineteen for their most recent group effort, and twenty three for this one) musicians. Fortunately for most of the musicians here, the sprawling, music-making entity of Broken Social Scene is not the totality of their musical excursions. It's a place for relaxing musical standards a little, for playing around instead of innovating. Kevin Drew once described the band as a meeting of indie superstars to create a pop album, when no members had taken the time to create pop songs before. The entire album is a compositional freedom from every member's established musical identities.

I'm taking all this time to describe what Broken Social Scene is to describe how Kevin Drew's solo album relates to it. I promise I'm not trying to summate all of their works with the most recent subsumed into the themes of the oeuvre. The album has no instrumental tracks unlike every other Broken Social Scene release before it, and all the songs have a lyrical drive instead of instrumental. There are very few extended musical interludes, and the lyrics only fade into the prominence of another instrument in more subdued tracks. Some songs only sport a simple guitar chord progression with percussion and lyrics, unimaginable as tracks on You Forgot It in People, and some are fully orchestrated six minute magnum opuses/opera* with violins interrupting piano chords leading into a loud electronic guitar melody. The instrumental arrangements on all tracks vary a lot, but what remains constant is the vocal presence of Kevin Drew. His delicate voice endures copious effects on Aging Faces/Losing Places, and is belted on Backed Out on the…, but is almost a central fixture of every song. Unlike their debut album, completely instrumental, and their follow-up, You Forgot, which might take two or three minutes to introduce Drew's vocals.

*Using opera just felt weird there, but that is how one would pluralize Magnum Opus.

I feel almost obliged to compare Broken Social Scene to the other large metropolis of a band that I reviewed earlier, Beirut. Kevin Drew's album incorporates the contributions of others while making a less distinct authorial voice, and has a much more improvised feel for the introduction of guest instrumentalists, whereas those guest instrumentalists would play the melody for an entire song written by Condon. This isn't intended to swipe on Condon, just to illustrate that Drew utilizes the appearance of guest artists as guest musicians rather than instrumentalists, composers rather than players. The casual inclusion of guest artists extends to the musical feel of the album, and it never loses the slow swagger of a Broken Social Scene release, where tension and intensity are only reached by playing instruments louder and hitting percussion harder, never by sacrificing a simple rhythm.

There has been very little description of the sound of the band so far. The lo-fi acoustic sound of Broken Social Scene isn't destroyed here, and their earlier masterpiece (now regarded as the fourth best Canadian album), You Forgot it in People, might be a better starting place for someone who hasn't yet been integrated into the Broken Social Scene. This still feels like a BSS release, but with Drew overtaking every song with lyrics when before an instrument may play for a verse, which shouldn't be a surprise, as Drew was one of the formative and ubiquitous musical voices on every album since. This is simply another release in the band's oeuvre, one with many more songs demanding to be sung along to.