A shifting of gears
I've been so pressed by deadlines and extra demands on the work front, on top of dealing with all the things that come with family life, that I've had nearly no time to do anything on this site in the past few weeks. When I've had the time - in ragged patches - I've lacked anything resembling focus.
When I started doing this back at the start of February it was purely on impulse, and entirely lacking in any mission statement. I've taken the route of topicality - which isn't a bad thing to do with a website - but along the way I've seen how easy it can be to just make it a string of attempts at blog-level scoops, or trying to give proper nods where due to those whose posts or emails may have tipped me off to something, or had something interesting to say about a topic. Again, none of those are bad things to do on a website.
With so much of my recent time and energy tied up in... detailed details and overlong days that left me wrung out, I haven't been up to any of that. It isn't as if there's any lack of topical material out there to address - if anything there's a surfeit even if one restricts himself to the national and international political scene.
However, I have not been up to it. Casual conversations over lunch, etc., or even in some emails, sure, but not sitting down to make focused comments with links to various citations. Not in the past couple weeks. I'll get back to it, but I realized I was avoiding doing anything with the site simply because I wasn't in that particular groove, and realized I was foolishly limiting myself.
Saturday night, while bouncing between Ben Folds Five's Whatever and Ever, Amen, and Fountains of Wayne's Welcome, Interstate Managers, I caught up on much of my email, did some work on my next zine for Legends, and now I'm on to this.
During such off time as I've had, when I haven't been simply unconscious or - far less usefully - staring at something on tv, I've found my comfort and comfort level in catching up on some of the huge stack of trade collections of comics (and the few single issues) I've picked up over the past year and not previously found the time for.
Among the ones I've gotten to in the past two weeks -- I'm not up to giving some numerical rating, but I'll at least go for a thumbs up or down:
Fray Dark Horse Books. Collects the first 8 issues of the comics series. Written by Joss Whedon (the creative force behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly), Fray, focusing on Melaka Fray, is set hundreds of years in the future. It builds on the same legacy as Buffy, while not requiring the reader to be in the least bit familiar with any of that backstory. If you happen to be a fan of the late tv series, as I am, there are nice perks worked in smoothly that shouldn't cause a ripple in the story flow for the uninitiated. The artwork, by Karl Moline and Andy Owens, suits the work.
A smooth effort with generally solid characters (as solid as each needs to be), good pacing, a layered story, and a resolution to let you know that the writer hasn't written himself into a corner or forgotten details -- it's essentially what we've come to expect from Whedon when he's focused on a project. It made me feel all the more hopeful for the year's worth of Astonishing X-Men he'll soon be sending to comics shops. A solid thumbs up if you're interested in vampires, a sort of run-down post-apocalyptic future setting, and/or a heroic coming of age story focusing on a morally-conflicted heroine, then this merits a reading. Like a Siskel, risen from the grave, I'll give it stiff thumbs up.
John Constantine: Hellblazer: Son of Man. Collecting a 5-issue arc from 1998-99, it's written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by John Higgins. For an Ennis project it's a fairly tight affair. Ennis has never struck me as being as good as his fan press, sometimes digging himself into material he doesn't have the talent or insight properly resolve. However, his strengths lie in presenting us with amusing rogues, over the top violence, and amusingly grotesque situations. While this particular effort isn't the best example of it, I've found that Ennis' characters are often interesting enough to pull me back even when I can see that the story won't resolve itself on an intellectually satisfying level -- something his much-lauded (and genuinely entertaining) Preacher series epitomized.
John Constantine is one of the creative children of Alan Moore's romp in U.S. comics of the 1980s. A chain-smoking, trenchcoat-wearing rogue with a thin, murky heroic streak running through him, he's intimately familiar with both con games and magic. If someone's in trouble he could be their last, best chance, but it's never pretty.
This arc sees an old friend of John's stumbling into a situation that forces John to deal with a cowardly mistake John had made years ago, when a local mob boss wanted something. It's difficult to say more without giving it all away.
If you're familiar with the character this is a passably good recommendation. If you're not, well, you don't need to know anything going in, but I don't know that you'll come away from this wanting more. This is volume 7 of a series of Hellblazer trades that's at least up to 11. You'd be better off starting back with the first volume, Original Sins.
Supreme Power: Contact. (Hmm. Couldn't find a listing for that at Amazon, even with the ISBN.) Written by Baylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Gary Frank and Jon Sibal. This collects the first 6 issues of the series, as the Superman and Batman myths, among others, are reworked in a more modern and realistic context. (Actually, since this is a Marvel comic, Straczynski is reaching for an alternate Earth version of Marvel's JLA knock-off, the Squadron Supreme.) Still, as it opens with an alien infant crashing to Earth and being found by a childless couple, and later in the volume we see a boy see his parents gunned down by a street criminal and eventually use his fortune to become a creature of the night stalking criminals, it becomes silly to insist these aren't more directly based on the DC comics prototypes -- unless you're working for Marvel, I suppose.
This new spin sees the government step in to be sure the alien infant grows up to be a stalwart U.S. citizen, and the young heir whose parents were murdered is African-American who obsesses on how it was a White criminal who killed his parents... it soon takes us in dark, new directions. Unless the above subject matter is unpalatable to you, I recommend this highly. I'm interested enough in the series now that I'm even toying with picking up the subsequent loose issues, rather than wait for volume 2 and beyond.
H-E-R-O: Powers and Abilities: Starting in 1965, one of the fun little ideas that came out of DC comics was a mysterious little device that looked like part of a telephone, on which, if the user spelled out "HERO" he would be transformed into a new, random hero, with one or more special abilities. A charming little bit of wish-fulfillment that was a dumping ground for costume and name ideas that were too shallow to likely succeed as individual, ongoing concerns, it floated as a back-up feature for a while, then disappeared until the 80's, when new characters found the dial, then disappeared once more until we were well into the new millennium and another creative team decided to take a crack at it.
In these stories writer Will Pfeiffer and artist Kano take us through the lives of three people who, in turn, luck into this incredible device and find their lives changed by it. Fairly effective stories, and a nice turn on superhero comics themes, I repeatedly found it a shade too irritating as people who didn't properly appreciate what they'd found fumbled their way through the experience. Certainly, the core message of the series (well, at least as embodied in the 6 issues collected here) is that lucking into fantastic powers won't guarantee happiness. Much like those who've won major lotteries and allowed it to destroy their lives, super-powers can simply lead to larger, quicker missteps. Still, it's a laudable attempt, and makes for a nice counterpart to most of what else is out there more or less in this genre.
Kano's art works reasonably well here, offering detail in places but sacrificing it where mood is more important. Somewhat cartoonish in its more hyperbolic facial extremes of emotion, the work reminds me of Kyle Baker's, if that means anything to you. (I might come back and run more links through this piece later, but it's late and I don't have the patience; if I get bogged down in that now I'll end up stopping here.)
Formerly Known As the Justice League collects the 6-issue comedy superhero treatment, reuniting the 80's team (there's a thick wave of 80's nostalgia still playing itself out in comics, by the way) of writers Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMattais and artist Kevin Maguire. Lots of self-deprecating humor about sexual impulses, motives, image, etc., where men generally end up being dopey and women, while sometimes caught up in their own cattiness, tend to be smarter and more in control of themselves. I leave it to you to determine the bouyancy of your own boat in such waters.
An amusing enough shot of nostalgia, were it not for Maguire's pleasant, expressive artwork I'd probably have been disappointed in this. Even at that, it left me with no longing for a revival of the core concept -- a mis-matched, squabbling group of second-string heroes being pulled together by a millionaire who sees them as a business opportunity. Still, it was entertaining enough affair and makes for a fun, self-contained arc for almost anyone to pick up and read.
Those are the recent reads that were still handy.
Next up in my comics reading pile (I have other "real" books in play, but I'm not getting into those in this entry) appears to be Zander Cannon's The Replacement God. I'll eventually let you know how that works out.
Time to get up from the keyboard for a while.
I've been so pressed by deadlines and extra demands on the work front, on top of dealing with all the things that come with family life, that I've had nearly no time to do anything on this site in the past few weeks. When I've had the time - in ragged patches - I've lacked anything resembling focus.
When I started doing this back at the start of February it was purely on impulse, and entirely lacking in any mission statement. I've taken the route of topicality - which isn't a bad thing to do with a website - but along the way I've seen how easy it can be to just make it a string of attempts at blog-level scoops, or trying to give proper nods where due to those whose posts or emails may have tipped me off to something, or had something interesting to say about a topic. Again, none of those are bad things to do on a website.
With so much of my recent time and energy tied up in... detailed details and overlong days that left me wrung out, I haven't been up to any of that. It isn't as if there's any lack of topical material out there to address - if anything there's a surfeit even if one restricts himself to the national and international political scene.
However, I have not been up to it. Casual conversations over lunch, etc., or even in some emails, sure, but not sitting down to make focused comments with links to various citations. Not in the past couple weeks. I'll get back to it, but I realized I was avoiding doing anything with the site simply because I wasn't in that particular groove, and realized I was foolishly limiting myself.
Saturday night, while bouncing between Ben Folds Five's Whatever and Ever, Amen, and Fountains of Wayne's Welcome, Interstate Managers, I caught up on much of my email, did some work on my next zine for Legends, and now I'm on to this.
During such off time as I've had, when I haven't been simply unconscious or - far less usefully - staring at something on tv, I've found my comfort and comfort level in catching up on some of the huge stack of trade collections of comics (and the few single issues) I've picked up over the past year and not previously found the time for.
Among the ones I've gotten to in the past two weeks -- I'm not up to giving some numerical rating, but I'll at least go for a thumbs up or down:
Fray Dark Horse Books. Collects the first 8 issues of the comics series. Written by Joss Whedon (the creative force behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly), Fray, focusing on Melaka Fray, is set hundreds of years in the future. It builds on the same legacy as Buffy, while not requiring the reader to be in the least bit familiar with any of that backstory. If you happen to be a fan of the late tv series, as I am, there are nice perks worked in smoothly that shouldn't cause a ripple in the story flow for the uninitiated. The artwork, by Karl Moline and Andy Owens, suits the work.
A smooth effort with generally solid characters (as solid as each needs to be), good pacing, a layered story, and a resolution to let you know that the writer hasn't written himself into a corner or forgotten details -- it's essentially what we've come to expect from Whedon when he's focused on a project. It made me feel all the more hopeful for the year's worth of Astonishing X-Men he'll soon be sending to comics shops. A solid thumbs up if you're interested in vampires, a sort of run-down post-apocalyptic future setting, and/or a heroic coming of age story focusing on a morally-conflicted heroine, then this merits a reading. Like a Siskel, risen from the grave, I'll give it stiff thumbs up.
John Constantine: Hellblazer: Son of Man. Collecting a 5-issue arc from 1998-99, it's written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by John Higgins. For an Ennis project it's a fairly tight affair. Ennis has never struck me as being as good as his fan press, sometimes digging himself into material he doesn't have the talent or insight properly resolve. However, his strengths lie in presenting us with amusing rogues, over the top violence, and amusingly grotesque situations. While this particular effort isn't the best example of it, I've found that Ennis' characters are often interesting enough to pull me back even when I can see that the story won't resolve itself on an intellectually satisfying level -- something his much-lauded (and genuinely entertaining) Preacher series epitomized.
John Constantine is one of the creative children of Alan Moore's romp in U.S. comics of the 1980s. A chain-smoking, trenchcoat-wearing rogue with a thin, murky heroic streak running through him, he's intimately familiar with both con games and magic. If someone's in trouble he could be their last, best chance, but it's never pretty.
This arc sees an old friend of John's stumbling into a situation that forces John to deal with a cowardly mistake John had made years ago, when a local mob boss wanted something. It's difficult to say more without giving it all away.
If you're familiar with the character this is a passably good recommendation. If you're not, well, you don't need to know anything going in, but I don't know that you'll come away from this wanting more. This is volume 7 of a series of Hellblazer trades that's at least up to 11. You'd be better off starting back with the first volume, Original Sins.
Supreme Power: Contact. (Hmm. Couldn't find a listing for that at Amazon, even with the ISBN.) Written by Baylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Gary Frank and Jon Sibal. This collects the first 6 issues of the series, as the Superman and Batman myths, among others, are reworked in a more modern and realistic context. (Actually, since this is a Marvel comic, Straczynski is reaching for an alternate Earth version of Marvel's JLA knock-off, the Squadron Supreme.) Still, as it opens with an alien infant crashing to Earth and being found by a childless couple, and later in the volume we see a boy see his parents gunned down by a street criminal and eventually use his fortune to become a creature of the night stalking criminals, it becomes silly to insist these aren't more directly based on the DC comics prototypes -- unless you're working for Marvel, I suppose.
This new spin sees the government step in to be sure the alien infant grows up to be a stalwart U.S. citizen, and the young heir whose parents were murdered is African-American who obsesses on how it was a White criminal who killed his parents... it soon takes us in dark, new directions. Unless the above subject matter is unpalatable to you, I recommend this highly. I'm interested enough in the series now that I'm even toying with picking up the subsequent loose issues, rather than wait for volume 2 and beyond.
H-E-R-O: Powers and Abilities: Starting in 1965, one of the fun little ideas that came out of DC comics was a mysterious little device that looked like part of a telephone, on which, if the user spelled out "HERO" he would be transformed into a new, random hero, with one or more special abilities. A charming little bit of wish-fulfillment that was a dumping ground for costume and name ideas that were too shallow to likely succeed as individual, ongoing concerns, it floated as a back-up feature for a while, then disappeared until the 80's, when new characters found the dial, then disappeared once more until we were well into the new millennium and another creative team decided to take a crack at it.
In these stories writer Will Pfeiffer and artist Kano take us through the lives of three people who, in turn, luck into this incredible device and find their lives changed by it. Fairly effective stories, and a nice turn on superhero comics themes, I repeatedly found it a shade too irritating as people who didn't properly appreciate what they'd found fumbled their way through the experience. Certainly, the core message of the series (well, at least as embodied in the 6 issues collected here) is that lucking into fantastic powers won't guarantee happiness. Much like those who've won major lotteries and allowed it to destroy their lives, super-powers can simply lead to larger, quicker missteps. Still, it's a laudable attempt, and makes for a nice counterpart to most of what else is out there more or less in this genre.
Kano's art works reasonably well here, offering detail in places but sacrificing it where mood is more important. Somewhat cartoonish in its more hyperbolic facial extremes of emotion, the work reminds me of Kyle Baker's, if that means anything to you. (I might come back and run more links through this piece later, but it's late and I don't have the patience; if I get bogged down in that now I'll end up stopping here.)
Formerly Known As the Justice League collects the 6-issue comedy superhero treatment, reuniting the 80's team (there's a thick wave of 80's nostalgia still playing itself out in comics, by the way) of writers Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMattais and artist Kevin Maguire. Lots of self-deprecating humor about sexual impulses, motives, image, etc., where men generally end up being dopey and women, while sometimes caught up in their own cattiness, tend to be smarter and more in control of themselves. I leave it to you to determine the bouyancy of your own boat in such waters.
An amusing enough shot of nostalgia, were it not for Maguire's pleasant, expressive artwork I'd probably have been disappointed in this. Even at that, it left me with no longing for a revival of the core concept -- a mis-matched, squabbling group of second-string heroes being pulled together by a millionaire who sees them as a business opportunity. Still, it was entertaining enough affair and makes for a fun, self-contained arc for almost anyone to pick up and read.
Those are the recent reads that were still handy.
Next up in my comics reading pile (I have other "real" books in play, but I'm not getting into those in this entry) appears to be Zander Cannon's The Replacement God. I'll eventually let you know how that works out.
Time to get up from the keyboard for a while.
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