§ February 19th, 2007§ Filed under sir-links-a-lotComments Off on Catching up.
Geez, this flu is still lingering, but when a man’s gotta blog, a man’s gotta blog, so let me at least address a few items here before I go wrap the drapery of my couch about myself again:
Best wishes, buddy. Don’t forget the little people you’ve left behind!
One thing about being sick is that you watch a whole lot of TV that normally you wouldn’t watch…I’d mentioned that I finally inflicted the Spawn movie on myself last week. Well, I also saw the Hulk movie again, for the first time since experiencing it in the theatre, and…you know, that’s not a bad movie. I’m not saying it’s perfect, not saying it’s the pinnacle of the genre…but this movie at least had the sense to have the Hulk fighting the army in the desert, which is like every ’70s Hulk comic I remember. There are moments of simple beauty, with the Hulk leaping through said desert, finding peace in the quiet of his own solitude. I like the relationships between the characters, I like the multiple-image inset-picture etc. (you know what I’m talking about, even if I can’t describe it properly) direction that resembles comic book pages, I like those two moments in the film when the Hulk speaks. Even the much-maligned climatic battle between the Hulk and Banner’s father didn’t bother me so much this time around.
That said, I could happily watch a two hour movie of the Hulk just fighting things and tearing up cities, without all that “character development” and “dramatic structure” you kids are into. Lowest common denominator? Yeah, probably.
Okay, I just discovered via Chris’ podcast that Kevin Church has some unsettling domestic fantasies involving yours truly.
For the three of you who missed the news: Fantagraphics to release the complete Walt Kelly’s Pogo. Another classic strip, given the complete, chronological reissuing, which is great news for classic strip fans. (One step closer to the complete U.S. Acres…keep your fingers crossed!)
Pal Dorian got this close to Dolly Parton, and this time security didn’t have to drag him away. No, I’m not jealous, why do you ask?
Whenever a superhero movie opens, the one thing we can depend on at the shop is repeated iterations of this question: “Have you seen it yet?” No need to identify what it is, of course…there’s a new superhero movie, we’re in a comic book store, what else could it possibly be? Sometimes when I’m asked this, if I feel like being a jerk, I’ll feign ignorance. “Why, whatever do you mean, good sir? Please, speak plainly!” I’ll retort, as I polish my monocle, glaring at the person over my bushy handlebar mustache.
This time around, though, when I was asked “did you see it,” I’d totally forgotten, in the fevered delirium of my illness, that the Ghost Rider film had opened. And that this was apparently, after conferring with Employees Aaron and Jeff, one of the two times this was asked of us since the film debuted. It’s not like we weren’t busy…we had a store full of people all weekend…but there was nearly no discussion of the film instigated by the clientele, unlike every other superhero movie opening weekend ever. Obviously, somebody saw the film, since it was the top moneymaker this weekend, but I guess our customers weren’t among those crowds. Either that, or the customers for once decided not to bring it up.
I did have one fellow looking for Ghost Rider comics for his four and five-year-old niece and nephew. The niece wanted Krypto, which I tried to sell the uncle on, but nope, Ghost Riders for everybody!
Speaking of Ghost Rider, star Nicolas Cage ain’t happy about a crack made about his new film in Entertainment Weekly.
So we have these comments from an interview with Fantastic Four star Ioan Gruffud:
AICN: I’m just going to ask: does Galactus play a role in this film?
Ioan Gruffud: Um…his presence is felt in the movie. He doesn’t physically appear, no. Galactus does have a form, doesn’t he, in the comic books?
AICN: Actually he has a really beautifully designed costume that Jack Kirby created. It’s a fairly elaborate costume actually with all sorts of machinations. When I first heard that the Silver Surfer would be in this second film and people were being a bit evasive about whether Galactus appeared, I’d assumed that the second film would set up the coming of Galactus, and that the actual confrontation with him would occur in the third film.
Ioan Gruffud: It’s more of a finite movie than the first one. It’s not open-ended in that sense. But Galactus doesn’t actually appear, so it does leave room for that possibility.
“IESB: Is [Galactus] going to look like anything like we’ve seen him in the comic books?
TR: Yes, I think that Galactus, look, I don’t want to give away too much, right, but I will say this, Galactus will appear and fans will not be disappointed.”
WHY MUST HOLLYWOOD TOY WITH MY EMOTIONS? Just give me my planet-eating Galactus, you bastards!
§ February 16th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on Still a tad under the weather.
For those of you keeping up with STERLNG HEALTHWATCH 2007, I’m feeling marginally better at the moment…at least now I’m able to sit upright, and I no longer have a blinding headache, so I think I’m through the worst of it.
Close personal friend Kevin Church has also been sick, and it looks like he did the same thing Wednesday night that I did…inflicted the Spawn movie on himself, as it was airing on some basic cable channel or another. Boy, that’s not a very good movie. I wonder if Martin Sheen thought “What did I get myself into?” after seeing John Leguizamo in the Clown makeup for the first time.
Anyway, a couple notes about the new comics from this week:
Nexus Archives Vol. 5 – I already have all the Nexii, so I only poked through this new book out of curiosity about its reproduction value…and, as it turned out, though most of the book presents the material very clearly and cleanly, there’s one story (a Clonezone backup) which looks like it was shot from the original comic’s printed pages. It’s very blurry and washed out to the point of distraction, which is too bad. Some other pages appear to be shot from printed comics as well, but they’re not nearly as bad as that Clonezone story. But still, this is fun stuff, though I wish these reprints could be made available for a little less than 50 bucks a volume (which may not be economically feasible, I realize).
Batman #663 – Ah, the “illustrated prose” issue, which I’m imagining is probably being ravaged by fans online because it’s “not comics” (which I haven’t checked on, since I’ve been sick an’ all). I can see why they went with the text-heavy telling of this story…the explicit detailing of the Joker’s self-reinvention comes across as a lot more sick and creepy in prose. There’s a lot of internal stuff going on in this story, so even had this been told in the traditional comic format, we would have ended up with a lot more captions and it probably wouldn’t have been nearly as effective. Normally, I’m not a big fan of the “who got the prose in my funnybooks” storytelling technique either, but when it’s done well, like in this comic, it’s hard to complain. And for those of you keeping track: references to The Killing Joke abound in this issue.
Nextwave #12 – To talk about why I loved this issue so much would give away the surprise, so just trust me on this: it’s great. And, of course, it’s cancelled. Bastards.
Little Lulu #14 – I can’t believe we’re up to 14 volumes of this already. This volume includes the story “Red Faces,” where the punchline of the story is completely lost in black and white (and why it was printed in the Little Lulu color volume a few months back). However, Little Lulu remains one of the peaks of the comics form, and the occasional storytelling glitch caused by its b&w reproduction is easily forgiven in the face of getting these stories back out into circulation.
§ February 14th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on Another 100 Things I Love About Comics.
It’s that time of year again, when love is all around, delighting most of us and sickening the rest…which means it’s also time for another 100 things I love about comics! (Previous installments: 1 & 2)
47. Justice League of America #123 (1975), in which comic writers Elliot S! Maggin and Cary Bates travel from Earth-Prime into the DC superhero multiverse…Bates becomes a villain, Maggin must warn the heroes…it’s a real “what the heck” kind of comic.
79. The all-too infrequent times on Smallville when it actually kinda/sorta feels like a superhero comic (Clark is particularly superhero-y, Lex is in full-on villain mode, etc.)
§ February 13th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on This is Glory #0…
…the special Dynamic Forces “limited edition,” complete with Certificate of Authenticity and (this may not be apparent in the scan) a variant shiny “chrome” cover.
But it’s not just chrome, however:
It’s “BIKINICHROME.”
“BIKINICHROME.”
Well, honestly, what else could you call it (“he said, setting up all you wiseacres”)?
§ February 13th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on "…Get professional help if you enjoy it yourself."
In the wake of the announcement of a director for the film adaptation of Frank Miller’s Ronin, I thought I’d pop over to Amazon.com to check out some reader reviews for this graphic novel. Alas, I only found one really good one:
“dangerous to kids, May 14, 2001 Reviewer: A reader Miller’s works might not be deliberately designed to inspire boys to go on a vigilante killing spree, but since they have no other themes than making such things look cool to teenagers one wonders what else they could be for. In Ronin, his worst offense, he somehow manages to mix his usual themes with ethnic tokenism and other absurd forms of political correctness. Don’t show this stuff to your children, and get professional help if you enjoy it yourself.”
If I’m remembering correctly, it got some mixed reviews in the fan press at the time. I don’t have the quote right in front of me, but I believe it was Gary Groth who said that Ronin was better than 90% of the comics on the market…but it was still crap. I thought it was pretty good, myself, which means I’d getter get some of that professional help that Amazon reviewer recommended. (Though some of you probably already think that I should get help, given my continuing defense of Miller’s All-Star Batman. You all may laugh at me now…but you’ll be sorry someday! You’ll see!)
Anyway, in other news:
Former Swamp Thing artist Steve Bissette is featured in a DVD extra for the film Head Trauma (reviewed here)…he and his son provided artwork for a Jack Chick-style religious tract used in the film. Also, Bissette has announced (in the middle of this lengthy post) that he has some new comic book work coming out this year.
GlyphJockey has Sparkler #91 up for your enjoyment, as well as a selection of random panels from that issue (some repurposed into computer wallpaper) for your delight and edification.
§ February 12th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on Just another miscellaneous Monday.
Speaking with a longtime customer of ours yesterday, one who is an avid collector of original comic book art and also a big Stephen King fan, I discovered that he purchased some pieces from Dark Tower: The Gunslinger #1. He owns the two-page spread featuring young Roland and his friends, and he owns the piece used for the 1:75 variant cover (and presumably used for the interior page showing the same scene). WOW. No, I didn’t ask him how much they cost…but I imagine they didn’t go cheap.
That reminded me of another customer who, in the ’60s, sent a letter of comment to Green Lantern, and, because he was either chosen randomly or he had the best letter that month (I forget), he was given the complete original art for one chapter (five or six pages or so) of a then-recent Flash/Green Lantern team-up. Ah, the days when they just gave this stuff away. This was classic Gil Kane stuff, too…”good letter, kid, here you go.”
When I last spoke to him about it, he said he had people still tracking him down through that long-ago letter (as he still lived in the same general area), offering to buy that art from him. And yes, the pieces remain in his possession.
I don’t own a lot of original art myself…as a result of doing this site, a couple cartoonists I’ve long admired have given me pieces of art, which was incredibly nice of them: Fred Hembeck gave me the drawing you can see here, and Scott Saavedra gave me this piece, which is no longer on his site, so I’ll just have put it right here:
I also have a page from some anonymous ’80s Archie comic that had been given to me, featuring nice shots of Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Reggie, Ethyl, and Ms. Grundy, as well as a pencil drawing of Captain Jack I bought from Mike Kazaleh. And I guess there’s those drawings of Groo ‘n’ company in those issues of Groo the Wanderer that Sergio Aragones would include with his signature. And somewhere around here I have a small Hellboy sketch on a signature card that a friend got for me at the San Diego Con.
But that’s pretty much it. I’d entertained the idea of trying to buy a Curt Swan Superman page…you know, one of the approximately one kazillion he drew during the ’80s, not any classic Silver Age stuff or any of the work he did with Murphy Anderson during the ’70s. But even that stuff, common as you’d think it was, is getting up there (though this page didn’t go for too much, considering it features Supes, Lois and Jimmy).
The holy grail for me, though, is getting one of Curt Swan’s pages from this issue of Swamp Thing. Curt Swan drawing Swamp Thing…it’s as if God came down to Earth and published a comic book. Plus, it features Mark Millar’s greatest, nuttiest script for the series, even though, as he says here, “I have a horrible feeling that it killed Curt Swan.”
In other news:
Well, okay, this isn’t news, but pal Dorian and I had this conversation at the store Saturday, while I was processing some comic supplies:
Me: “Hey, Dor, what was the color code we were using for regular-sized backing boards?”
Dor: “I HAVEN’T WORKED HERE IN A YEAR AND A HALF.”
Er, yeah, I guess there’s that. (But damned if he didn’t eventually rattle off all the color codes we use for the supplies, which I can’t remember for the life of me.)
Okay, here’s some actual news (“actual” and “news” used loosely):
“Comic books are often associated with spotty little boys curled up in their bedrooms wishing they had a girlfriend” is how this story begins, detailing an exhibit of Spanish comics.
And now…a motivational speech from unshaven Batman:
Um, I don’t know what to say. There are Supergirl, Batgirl, and Catwoman anime-style figures pictured at the link as well.
Anyway, go check out Chris’s post for more toy links.
Speaking of Shazam!, I read the Shazam! Monster Society of Evil #1 by Jeff Smith, and was surprised to see a return to the old “relationship” between Captain Marvel and his alter ego, Billy Batson. Specifically, treating them as two distinct entities, who refer to each other as different people, and not the “Captain Marvel is Billy in an adult’s body” thing that had been the more popular method of dealing with the character(s) over the last couple of decades. True, Smith takes it a little further, by establishing the Captain as a preexisting being that’s using Billy as a host, but I enjoyed this take and look forward to the rest of the series.
I also like the online Shazam! decoder, for use with the “secret messages” in the issue. And you can create your own coded messages, like this one: PVERM XSFIXS RH Z DRVMVI
“Nicolas Cage jokingly stated that he wants to see Eva Mendez Play She Hulk. That has suddently turned into SHE IS playing She Hulk.
Nicolas Cage made it very clear to us that their is no She Hulk Project. After he made the humorous comments, he was asked specifically what the status of a She-Hulk project is and his response, quote:
‘No, no it’s just something I came up with.'”
You people know you’d totally go see a She-Hulk movie. You can’t lie to me.
