REVIEW: Dinopopolous

One of the great things about comics is that their only limitation is the imagination of the creator(s) and, to a slightly lesser extent, the reader. Comics can be anything and do anything any time they want—and they don’t even need a reason for doing it. Cartoonist Nick Edwards proves that point with relative ease in his latest work, Dinopopolous. Creating a world filled with adventure, dinosaurs, evil lizard armies, ancient artifacts, laser knives, and sprinkled with a bit of heavy metal, Edwards taps into an innate sense of wonder and excitement that turned many readers on to comics in their youth. It’s that same sense of wonderment that has made Jesse Moynihan’s Adventure Time so brilliant and that burned movies like The Goonies and Monster Squad into the collective psyche of a generation; it’s what made Kamandi so amazing; it’s what fuels the cult following of bands like The Aquabats. I would even go so far as to say that, at its core, what drives this comic is the same sort of felling that makes people love Tom Sawyer. It’s adventure, it’s imagination, it’s boyhood.

It’s hyperbolic to compare Dinopopolous to something like Jack Kirby’s Kamandi, but the spirit of Kamandi certainly fuels Edwards’ work and gives it a certain quality that makes it much more than just another off-the-wall indie comic.

Bias & Fanboyism in Comic Reviews

As most of you know, I review new comics over at Weeklycomicbookreview.com.  It's an interesting avocation because there is no established source for comics journalism.  Even the "big boys" of Comic Book Resources, Newsarama and iFanboy probably aren't making much money on this stuff and if you go down a notch further down to sites like WCBR, you're talking about folks who are creating content just for fun.  Yet, there are fans and readers who want objective reviews.  

One's life as a comic reviewer is interesting.  You start out just flinging reviews into the ether.  You can see the traffic stats for your reviews and see that you're getting a whopping 15 page views per day and that most of those are search engines.  Then something interesting happens: You get an email from a real, live comic book creator who is thanking you for saying something nice about their comic book.  

You get an epiphany at this point, "Creators read this stuff!"  And, many of those creators are friendly guys.  Lots of them doing creator-owned comics at places like Image aren't getting paid anything and have dreamed of doing comics their whole life and suddenly they've got people critiquing their work in public.  

I don't know about you, but I don't love it when my professional work get's critiqued in public.  

Eventually you get friendly with some of these guys.  You become friends on twitter, learn that you have things in common with a few of them, see them at conventions, have them as sources to ask insider questions, etc.  Yet, along the way....you are still having to review their work.  At some point, it becomes like being asked to critique a friend in public.  It's also good to remember that it is a one-sided relationship in that way......Ryan Stegman probably isn't going to start blogging about my skills at writing patent licenses.

REVIEW: Death Ray

Rare is the time that I feel intimidated before I open my big fat mouth; however, every now and then I question whether or not I am actually worthy to critique a book. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. Dan Clowes’ Death Ray led me to one of those instances of anxiety. A lot of my anxiety came not just from Clowes’ standing in the comics/cartooning community, but rather a combination of that standing and my embarrassing lack of direct familiarity with his comics work. Fortunately, it didn’t take me long to get over that initial embarrassment, so I threw caution to the wind and decided to tackle Death Ray.

I have a general familiarity with the visual aspect of Clowes’ work and greatly enjoyed the film adaptation of Ghost World (I haven’t read the book yet…sorry), so I kind of had a good idea of how the book would feel visually and figured that I could guess the kind of complex, often odd, characters I would encounter. Additionally, I own several of Clowes’ earlier works, this just happens to be the first I have actually read. Having taken all of that into consideration, I had received the solace that I convinced myself that I needed before taking on such a giant of a cartoonist. The fact (that’s right, fact) that Death Ray is an incredible story, naturally, put my mind further at ease, and made it very easy for me to feel comfortable commenting on it.

Getting the Expected from Vertigo's "The Unexpected"

I love comics anthologies. I've bought a fair number of them over the years: everything from fairly obscure regional comics collective efforts to classic, long running mainstays like Dark Horse Presents to the enormous, dazzling modern tomes like Flight and Popgun. I love them because of the often bewildering variety of styles of display. I love them because they are treasure troves of newly discovered talent. I love them because you can sample them like an exotic box of sweets, never knowing quite what you'll find, but never having to linger long to find out.

DC's Vertigo imprint has published a fair number of anthologies in the past, usually revolving around broad yet specific topics like horror or crime. There's an unofficial adage in comics publishing...anthologies don't sell...which probably goes some way toward explaining why Vertigo doesn't publish as many of them as they used to. In a recent trip to a comic shop, however, a brand new one-shot anthology, apparently published "just because", caught my eye.

Since you're looking at the cover of The Unexpected right now, you can probably see why. Rafael Grampa (with an accent on the second "a"; not sure how to add that) drew the cover. His art immediately calls Geof Darrow's hyper-detailed linework to mind, but closer inspection reveals that Grampa is a true original.

That cannot be said for much of the content between the covers. That's mostly okay; a lot of these Vertigo anthologies are like modern day versions of the old Warren and EC comics. Twist in the tail stuff. Nothing wrong with that. Done well, I enjoy those stories as much as the next guy. And most of the stuff in here is pretty well done. There are a few stories that transcend the formula and offer work as original and daring as Grampa's cover, and those are the ones I'd like to highlight here.

Indie Comics Corner - Women With Crab Hands and Other Strangeness

So far my posts have been, in some way or another, very focused on the mainstream. Time to dip into the deeper, weirder end of the pool.

Hopefully this will be a semi-regular "feature" in which I'll give brief introductions and reviews for an assortment of eclectic comics fare from truly Indie publishers; there not only won't be any DC or Marvel stuff here, but no Boom!, no IDW, no Adhouse or Top Shelf. These publishers are usually going to be one man or woman with a dream and the will to create, and the results can be interesting and memorable, if not always polished.

I've had the first two issues of Reich for quite a while now. They are among the only comics published by Sparkplug that I own, and with the recent, untimely passing of publisher Dylan Williams, I thought it was time that I finally checked them out.
Reich is the biography of Wilhelm Reich, an eccentric psychoanalyst who studied, among other things, "orgastic potency." Writer/artist Elijah Brubaker has researched his life and work, attempting to separate fact from the considerable rumor and fiction such a divisive and unusual figure has bred, and successfully writes a captivating story about a largely unlikable man. His large headed and expressive figures convey personality and emotion well, further drawing us into Reich and his world.

There appear to be eight issues of this series completed so far; I recommend them to fans of biographical fiction, raconteurs, orgastic potency, and Chester Brown's Louis Riel. All eight issues of Reich and a LOT more are available at: Sparkplug Comics.

REVIEW: Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010

Michael Kupperman just may be the one of the funniest people planet. At least that’s what Conan O’Brian thinks, he wrote it as an endorsement for Kupperman’s latest book, Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010.

It just so happens that I agree with Conan. Kupperman is a comedic genius. Filled with deliberately odd syntax, wizards, snarky dialog, vampires, outer space adventures, car chasing UFOs, and nearly every significant event of the past one hundred years Mark Twain’s Autobiography is easily the funniest thing that I have read in a very, very long time. Come to think of it, I don’t think I have ever read anything funnier. Nearly every page had me rolling. It wasn’t just a chuckle or even a hearty guffaw, either. It was maniacal,  hysterical, snorting, crying, temporarily not breathing, and contorting my body into uncomfortable shapes type of laughing. It’s that goddamn funny. So funny, in fact, that I would be entirely satisfied if Kupperman went ahead and decided to write the biographies of everyone else, ever.

Iceman vol. 1 - Back Issue Review

Originally published: December 1984 - June 1985

Length: 4 issues

Writer: J.M. DeMatteis

Pencils: Alan Kupperberg

Inks: Mike Gustovich

Colors: Bob Sharen

Letters: Janice Chiang

Editor: Bob Budiansky

The Review: This series sprang out of the mid-1980's Marvel miniseries initiative.  There were some real jewels in that era, some real crap and some that are just kinda so-so.  Iceman is one of the so-so ones.

The basic theme of this mini is that of relations with one's parents as we see Bobby Drake doing his darnedest to please his demanding parents while also becoming an adult man.  In this way, it is an interesting window into the times.  In the 1980's, comic books were targeted at young boys, so it makes a lot of sense to portray the parent/child relationship through the eyes of the child.  Everything is through Bobby Drake's eyes and has a very, "Why can't they just understand me and let me be my own person?!?!" vibe to it.  In 2011, when comics are more targeted at middle-aged men who are more likely to be parents themselves, so we're more likely to see the parent/child relationship explored by seeing Wolverine taking a young mutant under his wing and being exasperated by her childish behavior.  Times change...

It Came From (someone else's) Long Box! -- Captain America #445-448 Operation Rebirth

I think it’s fair to say that nearly all comics fans have had an experience where a good friend—whose taste in comics they trust—lends them a book or stack of comics, they read it, and the story falls completely flat for them. Not everybody likes everything. Not every story or style is appreciated by every fan and it’s not even about what’s good versus what’s bad. There’s just no accounting for taste. One person’s Watchmen is another’s Ravage 2099. I had recently had one such experience with Mark Waid and Ron Garney’s Captain America: Operation Rebirth.

A few weeks back, at our regular Summit City Ink drink ‘n draw, my friend, Andy, lent me his issues of Operation Rebirth. Andy’s a longtime Captain America fan (he’s very fond of this story) and we usually have pretty similar tastes when it comes to comics. Given his enthusiasm, and our history, I agreed to borrow and read the issues. While I would not say that the Watchmen versus Ravage 2099 comparison that I used above is in any way an accurate description of my reaction, Operation Rebirth just did not work for me.

Gotham Central is Good Police

Cop shows are as thick as thieves on the landscape of our television screens. If a show doesn't feature attention starved ex-celebrities kicking each other out of houses or people humiliating themselves for recording contracts, there's a good chance it features police officers, doctors, lawyers, or some combination thereof. Because of their ubiquity, I'm kind of burned out on them; when done well, however, shows about criminals and the people who dedicate their lives (sometimes literally) to catching them can neatly encapsulate many of the themes that make for compelling drama: social inequity, physical danger, families strained and cracking and surrogate families being built.

In comic books, there are plenty of criminals. Many of them are of the gaudy, insane variety that we do not see as reflections of ourselves and society's ills. They are pursued and defeated by beings that similarly live above and outside of society, with some notable exceptions (The Punisher, for example, in most of his incarnations.) There are not a lot of cops. Well, they're there, but they aren't cast as the heroes in these dramas. They're cannon fodder, or annoyances, or people to kidnap or kill.

While not existing outside of the world in which these gaudy, insane villains exist, Gotham Central re-casts these police officers in the role we're accustomed to seeing them in on television. They are the ones who catch the bad guys. Sometimes they are the bad guys, because they're as flawed as we are, and sometimes as flawed as those they chase.

REVIEW: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1

A-hal-right! After a brief hiatus to get my teaching bearings set straight, I am back in the saddle. Damn it feels good to be talking about comics again.

Even more important than my triumphant return to the blog is that last week marked the return of one of my all-time favorite comics series. It’s a series and group of characters that colored a very large part of my childhood, and as college student reminded me of the amazing spirit of independent comics. It’s a series that is one of, if not the, most import comics of the past forty years. Last week Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Casey Jones, and, the greatest of them all, Raphael returned to the comic book page in a brand new ongoing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series from IDW. “Journalistic” (HA!) objectivity aside, I have not been this excited for a new comics series in a long time… this is particularly true because of the involvement of Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman.