Oh, what a frigging week.
Working… who invented that.
Hey guys the “Good Guys” post, a followup to my last rant, is still under construction… should have it in a couple installments.
But for now just some brief, non-ranty goodness:
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First, much hate to COMIC BOOK SAVANT, for recommending much great stuff that I’m going to hunt up. Among the titles he put on my radar is:
John Ostrander’s STAR WARS LEGACY — and I’m not a star wars fans, but James of CBS raved about it, plus Ostrander is a good writer
COMIC BOOK SAVANT recommended DYNAMO 5, as a great read and he was right. So going to trust his recommendation on STAR WARS LEGACY.
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Moving on to other books
… Looking to complete my FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS Collection, as well as my EC ARCHIVES collection. And Harris publications will be releasing (Finally) CREEPY and ERRIE collections (downside being the price is outrageous!). Also Bernie Wrightson’ s FRANKENSTEIN is FINALLY being re-released!!! Woah!
For those of you who don’t know… The original Wrightson FRANKENSTEIN printing goes for a couple hundred when you can find it. So a new printing (due this summer, I believe) is definitely going to be on my buy list.
Wrightson’s MARY SHELLY’S FRANKENSTEIN is one of the greatest artists of the medium, at the height of his abilities, helping to transcend the medium.
Pick it up.
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Also much love to RETURN OF THE SUPER PIMPS. If you are not picking up this book, you really should be. It’s everything I look for in a comic: fun, endearing, positive, engaging. It’s about 70s type heroes with a SHAFT and SUPERFLY vibe, who come out of retirement to deal with a modern age of drive-bys and drugs and crime.
I’ve tried the first two issues and loved them, it’s the kind of book that you would want on the new stand, so inner city kids, and all kids, could find it and pick it up. It’s the kind of book that if there were still newstand distribution… it would be selling 100,000 copies easily.
And it’s not just a kids’ book, take it from a thirty something, it appeals to all ages. A solid B+ ! Strongly Recommended!
I think the writer Richard Hamilton is doing good work, crafting positive characters of color (and better yet a team where all the characters are of color, rather than the standard of the all White team, or White team with one token Black character), something unfortunately you see too little of. So now we just have to get the books into the hands of readers of all colors.
I really believe in this book, to see why… check the following link:
www.dialcforcomics.com
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Also some quick reviews:
SCALPED TPB- Covers the first five issues of the series, and is by Jason Aaron of THE OTHER SIDE fame. I loved Aaron’s THE OTHER SIDE, a solid B+. And I heard much praise for this new series by him, but I have to say the first trade… didn’t love it. It was okay, good…. but never went much beyond that. Not really that interested in the story up to this point. Much like DMZ, I found the read… underwhelming. And I still hate the Vertigo paper stock. The art just looks muddy and soaked up in their cheap paper. C.
SAVAGE TALES #5- From DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT is an anthology series sporting a simply gorgeous Arthur Suydam cover. I love wrap-around comics, have ever since Bill Sienkiewicz’s phenomenal wraparound cover on MOON KNIGHT #18 from the first FANTASTIC 1980 series, with him and the amazing Doug Moench.
However a cover is not enough for me to try a book, the preview blurb is… and it mentioned Don Lomax of VIETNAM JOURNAL fame, would do the writing on one of the stories. And that spurred me to give SAVAGE TALES #5 a try.
Verdict?
The interior art was simply atrocious. Very reminiscent of very bad 90s style art, And the stories were just wooden and uninteresting. Best thing about this book, only good thing really, was the cover… however I don’t buy a comic for the cover.
Grade: D-.
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And brief aside… Doug Moench, early 80s… best frigging writer in comics. People completely forget him, when talking about the comics renaissance, or the sophistication of comics.
People tend to think ONLY Alan Moore, and Frank Miller, when discussing creators who helped the medium grow up, and be seen as valid entertainment for adults. But there’s a definite progression, you don’t go from Stan Lee to Alan Moore. There’s a generational progression From Stan Lee in the 60s who created the Marvel blueprint, which was really the first line that really appealed to college kids… and hence the first step as comics as more than just kids stuff… to Roy Thomas who followed and maintained and expanded that blueprint in the 70s.
And primarily Roy Thomas did this by bringing aboard new hungry, amazing writers, from Steve Englehart (the flagship writer of the early 70s, who everyone else took their que from, his work on CAPTAIN AMERICA and AVENGERS being defining work) and Steve Gerber and Gerry Conway (the Pitch Hitter of comics, he came in when other people dropped the ball, and always did a brilliant job), to David Kraft, Keith Giffen, Jim Shooter and Chris Claremont(the flagship writer of the late 70s, early 80s).
So the late 70s, early 80s Chris Claremont was clearly THE writer of the age, making the larger than life grand superhero comics far more emotionally involving, and arguably the first superhero series to appeal to female readers. But Doug Moench, at the same time, relatively unheralded… was making involving, gritty comics, that didn’t involve people who could shoot bolts out of their eyes or read minds. His were espionage tinged tales, MASTER OF KUNG FU, MOON KNIGHT, SIX FROM SIRIUS, and some of his BATMAN work, (the stand-alone issues drawn by Pat Broderick— are frigging phenomenal!) that defined what was best in comics. And his work and Denny O’Neils and Don Lomax and Doug Murphy and Marv Wolfman’s and JM DeMatteis and Larry Hama and Steven Grant and Jim Owsley/Christopher Priest and Peter David work in the early 80s is another growth spurt in terms of quality and sophistication, that sets the stage for the writers of the mid and late 80s. The Frank Millers, and the Alan Moores and the Grant Morrisons. Who, after a slight stagnant period, then led into the Warren Ellises and Brian Bendises and David Macks and Alex Rosses (Ross is far more than an artist, is coplotter and creator on everything he’s done).
And these creators in turn lead into the Christos Gages and Brian K Vaughans and Johnathan Hickmans and Joss Whedons.
So when you say great or significant creators, just be aware of the chain of creators that came before, tilling the soil, without whom you don’t get a WATCHMEN or RONIN or DARK KNIGHT or PUNISHER. So the next time you’re at a con, don’t just search out the hot writer of the moment, but search out some of the creators that influenced him.
Here Endeth the Lesson.
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