...well, sorta. There are plenty of good year-in-reviews all over the comicsweblogosphere (I enjoyed
pal Tom's various lists), and I wasn't sure if I'd really have the time nor the inclination to add to the year-end fray. I did come up with a couple smart-alecky awards (the
Tempest in a Teapot award to
Identity Crisis, the
Don't Get Your Hopes Up award to the
Sin City movie trailer), but that was about it. (Be sure to catch
pal Dorian's awards as well.)
(Speaking of awards...the newest issue of
Wizard includes the ballot for their fan awards, and, as I do every year, I fill it out with write-in nominees since, oddly enough, I generally don't care for any of their predetermined choices. I think one year I voted for Chris Ware as "Best Letterer." Don't look at me like that - he
is a good letterer! I wonder if whoever is presumably counting the votes even bothers with my ballot, or just tosses it out.)
Anyway, lemme see what I can do here with my own year-end review:
Favorite comics: Well, I'm going to take the unpopular position (nothing new) and include
Identity Crisis in this list, if only because of the discussion it's engendered. Granted, a good portion of the discussion was along the lines of "how dare DC publish such perversion," but there was some rational discussion out there as well.
Other favorites include Phil Foglio's beautiful
Girl Genius, Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart's nuttily wonderful
Seaguy, Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan's
Demo, Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca's
Street Angel, the Hernandez Brothers'
Love and Rockets,
Stuff of Dreams #2 by Kim Deitch,
Plastic Man by Kyle Baker (and occasionally Scott Morse),
Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris,
Scurvy Dogs by Andrew Boyd and Ryan Yount,
Promethea by Alan Moore and J.H. Williams III, and others I'm sure I'm forgetting.
Oh, and
Swamp Thing, of course. You can probably just include
Swamp Thing as a given in any appropriate category.
Most surprising comic: I'll probably have to go with
Adam Strange. I've always liked the character, so I was looking forward to the series...and I had no idea it was going to be such a wonderfully-illustrated comic. Artist Pascal Ferry really made this a comic to treasure...and the movie-serial style writing by Andy Diggle ain't all that bad, either.
Biggest disappointment: Not getting Crossgen's
American Power for Free Comic Book Day. I really wanted to see this, and for all the wrong reasons. You just knew this was going to be fantastic.
Favorite graphic novel: I'm gonna go with
Mister O by Lewis Trondheim. I just reread it a couple days ago, and it still cracks me up. It's just page after page of a little guy trying to get across a chasm, told in tiny panels, and it's really very funny.
Best reprint: Thank you, Dark Horse Comics, for bringing us
Little Lulu in convenient trade paperback format. And thank you, Fantagraphics, for
The Complete Peanuts.
Favorite manga: The absolutely terrifying
Gyo. I mean, honestly,
what's wrong with this guy? (And yeah, I probably shouldn't seperate "manga" out from "comics," but I'm old and set in my ways.)
Best comics-related thingie in another medium: I wanted to say
American Splendor, but even though I didn't see it until this year, it
is from 2003, so I guess it's out of the running. I did enjoy
Spider-Man 2, but mostly for the fact that 1) they actually gave us a live action Doctor Octopus that worked* (thanks to actor Alfred Molina) and 2) they gave the people what they wanted - more J. Jonah Jameson. It certainly wasn't for the least charismatic superhero/girlfriend couple of all time. And no, I haven't seen
The Incredibles yet...until I find a way to destroy cell phones that ring during the film with the sheer force of my mind, I have no real desire to return to a movie theatre.
So, I think I'll go with Cartoon Network's
Justice League Unlimited. It's fun, it's generally well-written, it's giving us superheroes that I'm sure none of us ever expected to see in a cartoon (Nemesis?
Aztek???), and it's probably the only way most of today's kids are going to know any of these characters.
The gift that keeps on giving: Hey, I have a way to mention the
American Splendor movie anyway, thanks to something
pal Dorian said the other day. Of all the comic-related movies that have come out over the last few years, the one that is
still driving sales of books to this day is
American Splendor. Even the
Ghost World TPB finally has petered out to normal sales levels. But boy, we still get plenty of people who want the comic that the movie was based on. Thankfully there are a couple trades still in print.
Favorite comics weblog: I don't want to leave anyone out, so I'm just going to say that I appreciate
all your weblogs and the work that you put into them. (Well, okay, there's that one guy, but I like all the rest of you.) I haven't brought them up much lately, but some of you who've been reading this site for a while know that I love old fanzines...and the comicsweblogosphere is like having a bunch of brand new fanzines every single day! I think it's swell.
* Aside from that scene where he falls to the ground and shouts "NOOOOOOOOO!" My cliche-sense is tingling!
The
Swamp Thing Bad Seed contest ends tomorrow night at midnight...um, in whatever time zone you happen to be in. I won't be picky. Anyway, 25 words or less, telling me why you want one of the three copies of this book I'm giving away, sent to
contest (at) progressiveruin.com
So enter already, gosh dang it. I won't bite, it doesn't cost anything to enter, and you might get a free book out of it. What, would it kill you?
I swear to you, the
character's name is "Spunky the Monkey:"
Anyway, SPOILERS ahead, maybe. I ain't sayin' for sure.
Concrete: The Human Dilemma #1 - I've been a Concrete fan almost since the very beginning, having started with his second appearance in
Dark Horse Presents all those years ago. It's been too long since the character has been on our shelves, so I'm very glad to see it again. That said, my first glance through the book made me fear that the preachiness factor of Concrete may have finally overwhelmed the story (this mini-series' topic: overpopulation), but now that I've actually read it, it's no more preachy than previous series have been. The back-up is an old abandoned fantasy project Chadwick was working on...pretty, but I think I would rather have had more
World Below stories.
What If...General Ross Had Become The Hulk? - this bodes well for Peter David's coming run on the regular
Hulk title (starting next week!), since David presents in this title yet another spin on the Hulk formula that I don't think we've seen before. I'm not referring to Ross becoming the Hulk, but rather the
kind of Hulk Ross becomes. Well done, and Pat Olliffe's art (assisted by Sal Buscema) is nicely done as well...his work has really grown on me over the years.
Adam Strange #4 - hey, the Omega Men! I like the Omega Men...don't look at me like that, I like 'em and I don't care who knows it. Anyway, I've run out of ways to say that the art is spectacular in this comic, so just refer to previous reviews. Plus, I've seen mentions here and there that this mini-series is supposed to tie in to some big hoohah coming from DC in 2005. Aside from a reference in a gossip column and talk among my fellow webloggers, I'm not sure where this idea is coming from. Do any of you know any more about this? There may be a slight nod in that direction in this issue, unless I'm reading something into the story that's not really there.
Superman #212 - I give up. I'll just wait 'til this story is finished and read it all at once...maybe it'll flow better. (I did this with Joe Kelly's run on
JLA -- and that turned out to be pretty good when you took it in all at once.)
Superman/Batman #16 - whew, new readers need not apply...this one's for the fanboys, and it's not ashamed of it. Superman and Batman bounce from one version of the DC Universe to the next, and we see a lot of old favorites along the way (that's Kamandi on the cover, and I won't spoil the other surprises inside. Oh, okay, Jonah Hex is there, too).
Legion of Super-Heroes #1 - the newest reboot of DC's long-running franchise is here, hoping against hope that someone other that what must be a diminishing number of longtime Legion fans will start reading the book. The newest aspect of this new reboot is that we're not starting with the origin of the team, as they're already clearly established by the time the story begins. Hopefully, this reboot will stick.
Dorothy #1 - I'm not big on the whole fumetti thing, but
Dorothy, with its modern take on the Oz mythos, is quite fun. A teen gal, complete with piercing and dyed hair, seeks an escape from her drab Kansas life, and finds it in the form of a tornado that whisks her away to a mysterious land...but you knew that, I bet. It's all set up so far, just getting Dorothy into Oz, but it's all beautifully designed, photographed, and colored...see more at
the official web site, where you can even order the not-distributed-yet-through-Diamond #2.
Other releases:
Comic Book Artist Vol. 2 #5 - I stopped reading this series when it changed publishers...still looks like a good magazine, but I can only read so many comic mags, you know? But this issue has a nice full-color ad on the back cover for the long-delayed
Swamp Men book, featuring interviews and features focusing around Swamp Thing, Man-Thing, the Heap, and other swamp critters (but probably not
Pogo). Oh, and there's a nice Howard Chaykin interview in this issue as well.
The Incredibles #2 - the first issue sold okay for us, but I really wonder if anyone's still going to care about this series once #4 shows up on our shelves? Maybe if the DVD is out by then....
Quit City is the newest Avatar book by Warren Ellis, and I completely forgot to take a look at it. Hey, new comics day is busy, I can't remember
everything. I did want to note that it's out, at least.
Girl Genius Vol. 3 - I'm thankful that Phil Foglio's latest project is being supported with consistent trade paperback reprinting...this makes it a very easy sell for us.
Inu Yasha Vol. 20 - I haven't the faintest idea what this series is about - with a few exceptions, I'm not a manga maven (I let
pal Dorian handle that), but I do try to keep track of what's selling. This series has always done very well for us, and this $8.95 format really encourages people to give it a try.
Daisy Kutter #4 - I gave up my copy of the first issue to one of our customers, as I wasn't able to get any reorders in, and I haven't been following the rest of the series as a result. I will, however, get the trade paperback collection. The art in this series is astounding...loose and cartoony, and very attractive.
Star Wars: Empire #28 - okay, so you have a character that looks like Peter Cushing's character of Tarkin from the first
Star Wars movie, he's apparently a "Grand Moff" like Tarkin, and he's even drawn in some of the same poses as Tarkin from that film...and yet, it's not Tarkin. That threw me off a bit, there.
Elric: Making of A Sorcerer #2 - I
love Walt Simonson's work. I just have no interest whatsoever in Elric. Sorry. Looks nice, though.
I have a couple items here that were sent to me for my reviewing pleasure, and I've been sitting on them a little longer than I planned...so let's take a look, shall we?
Sidekicks Vol. 4: The Candy Man Cometh is the latest volume in Dan Danko and Tom Mason's ongoing series of kids' books featuring Speedy, the newest member of the sidekicks to the League of Big Justice. I reviewed the first two volumes
here (you may need to scroll down a bit), and I'm pleased to say that this book continues the fun from the previous volumes. Speedy finds himself alone against the semi-menace of the Candy Man (whose dialogue of jingles from candy commercials of the past may very well go over the heads of the book's target audience), while Speedy's patron super-hero, Pumpkin Pete, proves as useless as ever.
If there were one thing about this series that affects me the most, it's how alone Speedy seems to be. There is a little bit of palling around with the other sidekicks at the beginning and end of the story, but the character is distanced from his parents, all the superheroes are either a bit insensitive (like King Justice) or outright incompetent and mean (like Pumpkin Pete), and even his schoolmates (including Charisma Kid, who attends Speedy's school in his secret identity) aren't terribly nice to him. It's a relief, then, when a mysterious superhero arrives during the course of the story to give Speedy a pep talk...and it's fairly clear from the clues in the story just who this superhero really is.
Aside from the villain, the book also focuses on a Legion of Super-Heroes-esque membership drive, seeking out new sidekicks, most of which have, of course, completely ridiculous "super powers." One amusing gag is the arrival of Super Vision Lad (who
doesn't have extra-normal sight...he actually requires supervision, as in babysitting) who gets passed off from person to person during the course of the story.
It's a funny, and very silly, book, and a fast read for an adult in his 30s, though I imagine it would be a relatively quick read for the actual target audience as well. Now that kids may be more familiar with the concept of superheroes following the success of
The Incredibles, they'll probably have even more of a connection to the elements being parodied within this series.
Atomeka's
Hero Squared X-Tra Sized Special is Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis' latest funny super hero comic, ably drawn by Joe Abraham. It's very much of a kind with their work on
Justice League all those years ago, mixing a few serious elements with their over-the-top situations and wacky character humor.
The premise of the story revolves around Earth's last surviving superhero, Captain Valor, who manages to evade his destruction at the hands of the invading alien forces by escaping to the Earth of a parallel universe. There, he seeks out who should be the parallel universe version of himself, hoping to team up with another Captain Valor...only to find this Earth's version of himself, Milo, is powerless, and something of a slacker.
As you might imagine, a lot of the humor comes from the contrast between Valor's superheroic ideals and his counterpart Milo's slightly more cyncial take on things. Abraham is well suited to illustrating both the superhero action and the more human elements of the story. Giffen and DeMatteis' ear (ears?) for humorous dialogue is (are?) as dead-on as ever, from the down-to-earth conversation between Milo and his friend on the subway, to the earnest superheroic exclamations, to the just plain nutty rantings of the alien leader's lackey Sloat...it all goes down easy, and it's a pleasant, and just slightly nostalgic, reminder of when people didn't take their superheroes so gosh darn seriously.
