A big haul this week, though I couldn't get a copy of Power Girl #10, sadly.
glamourpuss #12: Er... haven't read this one yet, but I'm guessing it's a typical issue and, therefore, good. I don't think I'd have much to say about it anyway.
Marvels Project #7: A good-looking comic, but the overall story still seems so random and thrown together. I'm curious to see how this will read as a whole. But, still, Steve Epting and Dave Stewart are fucking rocking this title hard. [***]
New Avengers #63: Ah, I love how this issue and Avengers: The Initiative #34 both show two different fight scenes after Captain America says he doesn't remember who Taskmaster is. I'm not sure why, but this issue is rated 'A'... is that all ages or adult? But, no, a good looking comic with some of the usual great character work from Bendis. Exactly what I want from a Siege tie-in issue. [****]
Scalped #36: "Shunka" part 1... a good issue. I like Davide Furno's art and that they keep going to the same people to do fill-in issues and arcs for the most part. The fourth page was a genuine shocker, because I did not see that coming. Not really buying the over-the-top 'Shunka is no mere man, he's a fucking mythic mystery' narration, but a typically good issue of Scalped. [****]
Secret Warriors #14: A good follow-up to last issue as the series continues to build and build while giving some payoffs as we go, like Madame Hydra/Contessa's true motives. The reaction of Daisy to Sebastian being kicked off the team was good. And, man, if ever a book was improved by a change in colourist, it's this one. (Captain America, too, because Tim was right.) [***1/2]
Superman/Batman #70: Wow, a good issue of this story! Some nice action, Batman taking on a wrestling-themed villain and getting all spaced out. This could turn out to be a nice, slower-burner of a story. Too bad the art is severely lacking. [***]
Thor #608: "Wait, was Heimdall freed last issue?" was what I thought when I began reading this issue. Tyr's subplot was a good one and actually had me and the character both going "Of course!" at the same time with the Ares reveal. Really, a big fight issue that ends where everything else tying into Siege #3 ended this week. Nothing too impressive, but some good moments. [**1/2]
Next week, I won't be hitting the shop since I only have two books to buy, so expect a big week the following Wednesday. Later.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Five Years Blogging: A Life Well Wasted 04
[David Brothers and I continue our discussion about five years of comics blogging. Part three is up on 4thletter.]
David Brothers: It's interesting that you say that the Splash Page's popularity is both gratifying and frustrating. I enjoy it in part because it's a team-up between two people who I enjoy reading, kind of a special event, but I can definitely see where you're coming from. It's probably a similar feeling to writing a really great bit of analysis and watching a short post where you call someone a jerk get all the attention, yeah?
I think the draw of the Fourcast! for me is just sitting around talking about comics. I don't even remember why we began it, and gmail is telling me I probably asked her in person rather than sorting it out over email. I think it was just an idea I had and decided to make work. "Hey, I wonder if I can do this? Might as well find out!" kinda thing. I listen to a few podcasts, and I'm friends with Ron Richards from iFanboy, so I figured I should take a stab at it. It's definitely a different way of talking about comics. Shop talk is informal, a "can you top this" sort of thing, writing is detailed and needs structure, but podcasting is pretty much, "Okay, Batgirl. Go!"
Text-based content is fun and lets you be very detailed and all, but doing a show is more off the cuff and raw to me. It's way more personal, in part because you're on the spot. We prep before the show, picking subjects during the week and doing a quick recap before recording on Saturday, but the prep is usually, at most, just short notes. "We're gonna talk about Batgirl, then Wednesday Comics, and then do a brief bit about Alfred." It's all freestyled, which means we get some stuff wrong occasionally, but you'd be surprised at how easy it is to do.
I laugh a lot more when doing a show. It's a chance to back down from treating comics seriously for a while and just have some fun. I realized late last year that we pretty much do a Batman-focused show once a month. I'm not very fond of the Batbooks at the moment, reading basically just Batman & Robin (when the art is good), but it's always a trip. It helps that we record in person. I've done a couple of Skype shows with the Funnybook Babylon gang and, while they were good, you end up talking over each other. Since Esther sits on my couch when we record, she has the benefit of facial cues, raised hands, or thrown books to tell me when to stop talking about how dreamy Grant Morrison is.
On the subject of sounding worse... editing is a lifesaver. If you do something like, say, talk about '80s comics for 10 minutes straight in your 2009 Year in Review show... you can delete those. I'm fairly soft-spoken, but deeper voiced, which means that a certain amount of volume adjustment is necessary, anyway.
I like that story of how you and Tim connected. It's also funny how parallel our paths have been-- I bought Tim's book at my first New York Comic-con in '07 (though I think he wasn't at the table), and I'd interacted with Geoff Klock a bit online. We had a shared love of All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder (his piece on ASBAR and the grotesque is one of my favorite posts ever) and ended up meeting by accident at NYCC 07 and spent most of what I kinda vaguely remember as being a DC Universe panel talking about Dark Knight Strikes Again.
At NYCC '08, I met the Funnybook Babylon guys for the first time after terrorizing the internet together for a couple years. NYCC '09 introduced me to Tim (briefly, at least) and led to me, Sean Witzke, and Tucker Stone standing outside in the New York cold talking about Garth Ennis and accidentally founding the Joe Casey Fanclub. Meeting all these people who I dig is fun and (so far) always cool. Have you managed to make it out to any cons?
I love being able to talk about comics online, but talking about them with intelligent people (not like-minded people) is the biggest draw for me, especially with the advent of Twitter. Has Twitter changed your approach to blogging or how you read comics?
Chad Nevett: I have been to two cons in my life. I went to Chicago in 2003 and met up with a lot of people from Millarworld. In fact, I slept on the couch of someone from the forum while in Chicago and that was a great time. It also taught me that the only thing I really like about cons is meeting people from the internet. The con itself I could do without since I hate crowds, find the panels boring PR sessions, have absolutely no ambition in meeting creators/getting autographs, and, well, can buy books any time (though some deals are wonderful). But, the meeting people was great. Though, at the time, I was 20 and our big 'drink up' meeting was in the hotel bar, which started carding after I was in, so I was good. Except that the bathrooms were outside of the bar and I would have to leave should I want to relieve myself. That meant the lone coke I ordered with my food became my only drink of the night. I'm not a big alcohol drinker, though, so that didn't bother me at all, I was just very thirsty after a while.
The other con was the Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon in 2005 with a couple of friends where I got in for free since I managed to convince them that being an editor of the UWO Gazette was good enough to warrant a press pass. I did do a couple of interviews while I was there, which was cool. I interviewed Chip Zdarsky and B. Clay Moore, both of whom were very nice and accomodating of me and my frantic note-taking. That was also one of the rare cons Warren Ellis attended, so my buddy and I got to see him do one of his famous Q&A panels which is basically Warren telling funny stories until he doesn't feel like it anymore, which, in this case, was when the con organisers told him he had to go sign things. My buddy wanted something signed and I had brought my copy of Come in Alone since it's probably my favourite piece of work Ellis has done. When we got up to the front, Ellis takes a look at my press pass and goes "I recognise that name..." (or something like that) and that was weird. I don't think it was a good thing.
I have been meaning to get to another con -- Tim keeps telling me to come to the New York one -- but money has been issue. The New York one sounds great since a lot of people I'd like to meet and annoy would probably be there. Mostly the people I annoy on Twitter like Tim, Tucker, Sean...
Talking comics on Twitter is good and bad, I find. It's great for brief little tangental discussions where you just throw quick ideas out there, but for anything actually resembling an intelligent discussion, it can be difficult because of the limitations of the site. 140 characters is rather small to have a good conversation. Don't get me wrong, I've had some, like debating Batman killing with Uzumeri, but it doesn't happen that much. Plus, because of the way it works, conversations will become splintered and fractured as other interested people jump in -- which is a cool element, but does hinder conversations, too. Like most things, it's good and bad. It's great for reactions to news items or books when you don't have much to say beyond your initial thought of 'I like' or 'I hate.'
As such, I don't think it's changed how I blog or read comics except for people mentioning books that I should check out. I think it decreases the 'need' to blog, that feeling of wanting to share with people because I'm doing so there, but, otherwise, it hasn't altered much that I'm aware of. How about you?
Read part five on 4thletter!
David Brothers: It's interesting that you say that the Splash Page's popularity is both gratifying and frustrating. I enjoy it in part because it's a team-up between two people who I enjoy reading, kind of a special event, but I can definitely see where you're coming from. It's probably a similar feeling to writing a really great bit of analysis and watching a short post where you call someone a jerk get all the attention, yeah?
I think the draw of the Fourcast! for me is just sitting around talking about comics. I don't even remember why we began it, and gmail is telling me I probably asked her in person rather than sorting it out over email. I think it was just an idea I had and decided to make work. "Hey, I wonder if I can do this? Might as well find out!" kinda thing. I listen to a few podcasts, and I'm friends with Ron Richards from iFanboy, so I figured I should take a stab at it. It's definitely a different way of talking about comics. Shop talk is informal, a "can you top this" sort of thing, writing is detailed and needs structure, but podcasting is pretty much, "Okay, Batgirl. Go!"
Text-based content is fun and lets you be very detailed and all, but doing a show is more off the cuff and raw to me. It's way more personal, in part because you're on the spot. We prep before the show, picking subjects during the week and doing a quick recap before recording on Saturday, but the prep is usually, at most, just short notes. "We're gonna talk about Batgirl, then Wednesday Comics, and then do a brief bit about Alfred." It's all freestyled, which means we get some stuff wrong occasionally, but you'd be surprised at how easy it is to do.
I laugh a lot more when doing a show. It's a chance to back down from treating comics seriously for a while and just have some fun. I realized late last year that we pretty much do a Batman-focused show once a month. I'm not very fond of the Batbooks at the moment, reading basically just Batman & Robin (when the art is good), but it's always a trip. It helps that we record in person. I've done a couple of Skype shows with the Funnybook Babylon gang and, while they were good, you end up talking over each other. Since Esther sits on my couch when we record, she has the benefit of facial cues, raised hands, or thrown books to tell me when to stop talking about how dreamy Grant Morrison is.
On the subject of sounding worse... editing is a lifesaver. If you do something like, say, talk about '80s comics for 10 minutes straight in your 2009 Year in Review show... you can delete those. I'm fairly soft-spoken, but deeper voiced, which means that a certain amount of volume adjustment is necessary, anyway.
I like that story of how you and Tim connected. It's also funny how parallel our paths have been-- I bought Tim's book at my first New York Comic-con in '07 (though I think he wasn't at the table), and I'd interacted with Geoff Klock a bit online. We had a shared love of All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder (his piece on ASBAR and the grotesque is one of my favorite posts ever) and ended up meeting by accident at NYCC 07 and spent most of what I kinda vaguely remember as being a DC Universe panel talking about Dark Knight Strikes Again.
At NYCC '08, I met the Funnybook Babylon guys for the first time after terrorizing the internet together for a couple years. NYCC '09 introduced me to Tim (briefly, at least) and led to me, Sean Witzke, and Tucker Stone standing outside in the New York cold talking about Garth Ennis and accidentally founding the Joe Casey Fanclub. Meeting all these people who I dig is fun and (so far) always cool. Have you managed to make it out to any cons?
I love being able to talk about comics online, but talking about them with intelligent people (not like-minded people) is the biggest draw for me, especially with the advent of Twitter. Has Twitter changed your approach to blogging or how you read comics?
Chad Nevett: I have been to two cons in my life. I went to Chicago in 2003 and met up with a lot of people from Millarworld. In fact, I slept on the couch of someone from the forum while in Chicago and that was a great time. It also taught me that the only thing I really like about cons is meeting people from the internet. The con itself I could do without since I hate crowds, find the panels boring PR sessions, have absolutely no ambition in meeting creators/getting autographs, and, well, can buy books any time (though some deals are wonderful). But, the meeting people was great. Though, at the time, I was 20 and our big 'drink up' meeting was in the hotel bar, which started carding after I was in, so I was good. Except that the bathrooms were outside of the bar and I would have to leave should I want to relieve myself. That meant the lone coke I ordered with my food became my only drink of the night. I'm not a big alcohol drinker, though, so that didn't bother me at all, I was just very thirsty after a while.
The other con was the Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon in 2005 with a couple of friends where I got in for free since I managed to convince them that being an editor of the UWO Gazette was good enough to warrant a press pass. I did do a couple of interviews while I was there, which was cool. I interviewed Chip Zdarsky and B. Clay Moore, both of whom were very nice and accomodating of me and my frantic note-taking. That was also one of the rare cons Warren Ellis attended, so my buddy and I got to see him do one of his famous Q&A panels which is basically Warren telling funny stories until he doesn't feel like it anymore, which, in this case, was when the con organisers told him he had to go sign things. My buddy wanted something signed and I had brought my copy of Come in Alone since it's probably my favourite piece of work Ellis has done. When we got up to the front, Ellis takes a look at my press pass and goes "I recognise that name..." (or something like that) and that was weird. I don't think it was a good thing.
I have been meaning to get to another con -- Tim keeps telling me to come to the New York one -- but money has been issue. The New York one sounds great since a lot of people I'd like to meet and annoy would probably be there. Mostly the people I annoy on Twitter like Tim, Tucker, Sean...
Talking comics on Twitter is good and bad, I find. It's great for brief little tangental discussions where you just throw quick ideas out there, but for anything actually resembling an intelligent discussion, it can be difficult because of the limitations of the site. 140 characters is rather small to have a good conversation. Don't get me wrong, I've had some, like debating Batman killing with Uzumeri, but it doesn't happen that much. Plus, because of the way it works, conversations will become splintered and fractured as other interested people jump in -- which is a cool element, but does hinder conversations, too. Like most things, it's good and bad. It's great for reactions to news items or books when you don't have much to say beyond your initial thought of 'I like' or 'I hate.'
As such, I don't think it's changed how I blog or read comics except for people mentioning books that I should check out. I think it decreases the 'need' to blog, that feeling of wanting to share with people because I'm doing so there, but, otherwise, it hasn't altered much that I'm aware of. How about you?
Read part five on 4thletter!
CBR Review: Avengers: The Initiative #34
I recently reviewed Avengers: The Initiative #34 for CBR and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "One of the most interesting things about Avengers: The Initiative #34 is seeing how Jorge Molina depicts scenes already drawn by Olivier Coipel in Siege #3, including the stunning fall of Asgard. Now, obviously, matching the detailed, gorgeous art of Coipel is a tall order for any artist and Molina struggles a little bit, but does an able job, especially at keeping a coherent look to what Coipel established, an underrated quality that tends to get noticed only when an artist fails to do it."You can read the rest HERE!
CBR Review: Uncanny X-Men #522
I recently reviewed Uncanny X-Men #522 and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "In Uncanny X-Men #522, Matt Fraction has two goals: conclude the plot involving Kitty Pryde’s return to Earth, and get the book ready for the 'Second Coming' crossover beginning next month. He accomplishes both, but in a somewhat mechanical and not entirely convincing manner. However, there are some very nice character moments and the end offers a somewhat cruel surprise. Throw in an interesting back-up story and it’s a solid issue of Uncanny X-Men."You can read the rest HERE!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
CBR Review: The Incredibles #7
I recently reviewed The Incredibles #7 for CBR and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "In the conclusion to the Dash-centric story arc, the true nature of the threat to him and his family is revealed in the form of Mesmerella and it’s up to Dash to break her spell before his sister dies in a fall from the top of a skyscraper. It’s a strong, simple, straight forward story of heroism that’s very effective and continues to tie into the struggle of the Incredibles as they balance their ‘normal’ lives and their superhero lives."You can read the rest HERE!
Art Discussion Month 2010: Reload #1-3 by Paul Gulacy
[Continuing Art Discussion Month 2010. 31 days, 31 artists, a whole lot of discussion. The explanation behind my choice of comics and the archive can be found here.]
Reload #1-3. Written by Warren Ellis. Pencilled by Paul Gulacy. Inked by Jimmy Palmiotti. Coloured by Guy Major.
Funny how Black Summer got all sorts of notice for killing the President when this series begins the same way. Sure, it's not Bush and it's a not a superhero doing it, but still. Another high concept book: Chris Royal is Secret Service and the President was just killed by a mystery assailant. In investigating what happened, he notices inconsistencies in what the official story will be and is kidnapped by the assassin, a woman named Kiva, and she tells him why she did it. Turns out, a while back, the mob began worming its way into politics, figuring that was a good way to run business and, now, they had complete control of the White House without anyone knowing. She was trained to be a government assassin and hates who she's been taking orders from, so she killed the President and now wants to kill his Chief of Staff along with the rest of the Presidential team. Royal goes along with it. Mob takes over government, so government assassin kills them all. Lovely.
Gulacy's art isn't really like anyone's who I've looked at so far this month. He's very good at showing movement in a dynamic, interesting manner. He doesn't use any standard page layouts, changing it up to suit his needs at the time. His faces have a unique look to them, but I'm not sure how I would describe them other than 'they look like Paul Gulacy faces.' He uses a lot of shadows. He doesn't always use panel borders, having two pictures take place within what we think of as the same panel, but still look separated.
The sequence where the President is assassinated is stunning. Over two pages:
Page 1. Divided into three tiers. Top and bottom tiers are roughly 1/3 the height of the middle tier. The middle tier has one picture that takes up the space with two narrow, long panels laid at the top left and bottom right corners. So, five panels. The first two panels are shots of the President delivering his speech, first from a head-on view from way in the back of the crowd, then from just to the President's right, maybe five feet away. Third panel is the big one with the second and fourth panels overlaid -- it shows the bullet flying through the air, coming at an angle towards us. The fourth panel shows it about three inches from the President's forehead. The fifth has it about to hit him, seemingly between the eyes. We're right behind the bullet and the President has almost a cross-eyed look as if he sees the bullet coming and is thinking "Ah fuck..."
Page 2. Three panel, same proportions of the tiers, but the first and third panels go all the way to the edge of the page. First panel, heavy blacks, a little sketchy, a behind view of the President's brains being blown out. Second panel has those brains literally hitting the American flag behind him (which is hung on its side, so the stripes go vertically) with some of the brains and blood dripping down to the third panel, covering the President's head as he lays dead, SS agents all around. Go breaking of the panel border for a kind of shocking and graphic visual.
Chris Royal is drawn in an interesting fashion. He's got this look of a bit of a fuckaround about him. In the first issue, in one panel, I just get the sense from how he looks that he'd rather be somewhere else. He looks like the sort of guy that joined the SS because he believed in something, but that's deteriorated as he's had to deal with the bullshit that goes along with the job -- and who exactly he's tasked to protect. That doesn't mean he slacks on the job, it just means he doesn't look happy with his lot in life.
His action scenes use a lot of different layouts and perspectives. In those scenes more than any others, though, he seems to stick to panel borders. He's more inclined to have panels overlap slightly or have a larger image in the background with panels overlaid than have figures break the borders -- though the second issue is very confined compared to the first and third. In some cases, he does break the borders, often to give it a chaotic effect, like having a bunch of panels with two random shots of Kiva or Royal's guns firing laid on top a little without any panel borders.
I don't know if it's in Ellis's script, but he's not afraid to use a lot of panels in his art, especially in action sequences to show the more minute moments and movements, giving them a quicker pacing as a result.
He generally uses a thin line, but that breaks up in places. I don't know if it's too thin and doesn't print well, but, sometimes, characters aren't fully drawn in spots because the line just disappears. But, usually, when he works with heavier shadows, the lines are thicker and more lush, avoiding that trap.
Guy Major's colours are pretty similar to David Baron's, but a little darker. Since a lot of the comic takes place at night, there's a general level of shadow and lack of light in the colour tones. Even in the daytime, nothing gets too bright or shiny.
Tomorrow: Tokyo Storm Warning #1-3 by James Raiz.
Reload #1-3. Written by Warren Ellis. Pencilled by Paul Gulacy. Inked by Jimmy Palmiotti. Coloured by Guy Major.
Funny how Black Summer got all sorts of notice for killing the President when this series begins the same way. Sure, it's not Bush and it's a not a superhero doing it, but still. Another high concept book: Chris Royal is Secret Service and the President was just killed by a mystery assailant. In investigating what happened, he notices inconsistencies in what the official story will be and is kidnapped by the assassin, a woman named Kiva, and she tells him why she did it. Turns out, a while back, the mob began worming its way into politics, figuring that was a good way to run business and, now, they had complete control of the White House without anyone knowing. She was trained to be a government assassin and hates who she's been taking orders from, so she killed the President and now wants to kill his Chief of Staff along with the rest of the Presidential team. Royal goes along with it. Mob takes over government, so government assassin kills them all. Lovely.
Gulacy's art isn't really like anyone's who I've looked at so far this month. He's very good at showing movement in a dynamic, interesting manner. He doesn't use any standard page layouts, changing it up to suit his needs at the time. His faces have a unique look to them, but I'm not sure how I would describe them other than 'they look like Paul Gulacy faces.' He uses a lot of shadows. He doesn't always use panel borders, having two pictures take place within what we think of as the same panel, but still look separated.
The sequence where the President is assassinated is stunning. Over two pages:
Page 1. Divided into three tiers. Top and bottom tiers are roughly 1/3 the height of the middle tier. The middle tier has one picture that takes up the space with two narrow, long panels laid at the top left and bottom right corners. So, five panels. The first two panels are shots of the President delivering his speech, first from a head-on view from way in the back of the crowd, then from just to the President's right, maybe five feet away. Third panel is the big one with the second and fourth panels overlaid -- it shows the bullet flying through the air, coming at an angle towards us. The fourth panel shows it about three inches from the President's forehead. The fifth has it about to hit him, seemingly between the eyes. We're right behind the bullet and the President has almost a cross-eyed look as if he sees the bullet coming and is thinking "Ah fuck..."
Page 2. Three panel, same proportions of the tiers, but the first and third panels go all the way to the edge of the page. First panel, heavy blacks, a little sketchy, a behind view of the President's brains being blown out. Second panel has those brains literally hitting the American flag behind him (which is hung on its side, so the stripes go vertically) with some of the brains and blood dripping down to the third panel, covering the President's head as he lays dead, SS agents all around. Go breaking of the panel border for a kind of shocking and graphic visual.
Chris Royal is drawn in an interesting fashion. He's got this look of a bit of a fuckaround about him. In the first issue, in one panel, I just get the sense from how he looks that he'd rather be somewhere else. He looks like the sort of guy that joined the SS because he believed in something, but that's deteriorated as he's had to deal with the bullshit that goes along with the job -- and who exactly he's tasked to protect. That doesn't mean he slacks on the job, it just means he doesn't look happy with his lot in life.
His action scenes use a lot of different layouts and perspectives. In those scenes more than any others, though, he seems to stick to panel borders. He's more inclined to have panels overlap slightly or have a larger image in the background with panels overlaid than have figures break the borders -- though the second issue is very confined compared to the first and third. In some cases, he does break the borders, often to give it a chaotic effect, like having a bunch of panels with two random shots of Kiva or Royal's guns firing laid on top a little without any panel borders.
I don't know if it's in Ellis's script, but he's not afraid to use a lot of panels in his art, especially in action sequences to show the more minute moments and movements, giving them a quicker pacing as a result.
He generally uses a thin line, but that breaks up in places. I don't know if it's too thin and doesn't print well, but, sometimes, characters aren't fully drawn in spots because the line just disappears. But, usually, when he works with heavier shadows, the lines are thicker and more lush, avoiding that trap.
Guy Major's colours are pretty similar to David Baron's, but a little darker. Since a lot of the comic takes place at night, there's a general level of shadow and lack of light in the colour tones. Even in the daytime, nothing gets too bright or shiny.
Tomorrow: Tokyo Storm Warning #1-3 by James Raiz.
Five Years Blogging: A Life Well Wasted 02
[To celebrate the fifth anniversary of both GraphiContent and 4thletter, David Brothers and I started chatting on Google Docs a couple of months ago and, well, we've finally finished with 11 chunks of discussion. The first part is up on 4thletter with each of us posting a new piece each day. So, enjoy the next five days as David and I talk blogging, comics, and, hopefully, make some sense along the way.]
David Brothers: I think I asked Gav and Wilde because they were my main comics friends online at the time. In fact, I'm like 99% certain that Wilde was the one who put me onto 100 Bullets. I thought it'd be fun to have something a little more open than a message board, and I wasn't quite arrogant enough to think that I could do it on my own. I wanted the kind of comics site I wanted to read, where reviews and oddball pieces and litcrit all walked around hand in hand. If it were just me on 4l!, I wouldn't be bored to tears, but I wouldn't be half as interested (and dedicated) as I am now. It's nice to talk these things out long-form sometimes, like when me and Esther did the point/counterpoint on the "superheroes don't kill" thing a few months back. It's comic shop talk taken to a more formal level, I guess?
Before Esther joined up, we had a couple roster changes. Wilde faded away after a while, so we asked a guy we knew named Paul, code-named Hoatzin, into the circle. He was a really funny guy, did some great reviews and had some quality cartooning chops, too. He eventually faded, too, leaving just me and Gavin. We hustled along for six months or so in 2008 before I badgered Esther, who I know from living in San Francisco, into writing for 4l!. We'd get together and talk comics every once and a while, and it was always fun, in part because we don't see things the same way.
Gav and I have specific tastes, including a shared love of Power Man & Iron Fist. I thought Esther would add an interesting point-of-view to the site, got her to do a couple guest posts, and then sent her a login like "Hey, try this if you want to go all out." This would've been late August, early September '08. Now, between all three of us, we've got almost every base covered as far as interests in comics go. Gav does Marvel and funny stuff (he is genuinely my favorite comedy writer online, has been for years), Esther loves DC and isn't afraid to flex her fangirl feminist muscles, and I'm, uh, everything else.
How much thought do you put into Graphicontent as a site/endeavor? I have rules that I write under (no cursing, no unreasonable personal attacks, list the creators involved every time, provide context whenever possible, etc) in an attempt to present a certain image of "David Brothers, comics blogger." I don't know how successful it is, but I've been doing it so long now that it's second-nature. How do you approach blogging? What're your qualifications for doing it? (Do you need qualifications to blog?)
Chad Nevett: I don't know if I ever thought about that explicitly. Obviously, I don't adhere by the no swearing rule, but I've always made a conscious effort to avoid personal attacks as well. I think my approach has always been just present my thoughts as honestly and directly as possible. I've always tried for a conversational tone, because that's what I find easiest to write and read, especially when discussing subtext and other facets of the work beyond superficial readings. Of course, it's more of a spectrum than a fixed point with short reviews usually very informal and casual, while longer pieces are more formal in tone.
My approach to blogging has changed over time, especially since I got the CBR reviewing gig. I think that made my blog posting a little less formal most of the time since I had to be more formal and professional all of the time there. Blogging became an outlet, partly, for that casual approach to discussing comics where you can tell exactly what I think in as direct a way possible. Meaning, if I think it's shit, I say it's shit. I can understand others not wanting to present that image, but it's never concerned me.
I think the internet has proven you don't need to be qualified other than wanting to say something. I think my education certainly gives me a perspective that's different from many. I'd hope I'm able to look beneath the surface a bit more, see the subtext a bit easier at times, pick up on literary techniques... That was partly my goal, I guess, when Steve and I began the blog. Two English lit guys talking comics. Do bloggers need qualifications? What do you think you bring? Do you ever find yourself falling back on being a 'black blogger' (or, feeling pressure to present that image) since that's an area not necessarily filled by comics bloggers in general?
Read part three over at 4thletter!
David Brothers: I think I asked Gav and Wilde because they were my main comics friends online at the time. In fact, I'm like 99% certain that Wilde was the one who put me onto 100 Bullets. I thought it'd be fun to have something a little more open than a message board, and I wasn't quite arrogant enough to think that I could do it on my own. I wanted the kind of comics site I wanted to read, where reviews and oddball pieces and litcrit all walked around hand in hand. If it were just me on 4l!, I wouldn't be bored to tears, but I wouldn't be half as interested (and dedicated) as I am now. It's nice to talk these things out long-form sometimes, like when me and Esther did the point/counterpoint on the "superheroes don't kill" thing a few months back. It's comic shop talk taken to a more formal level, I guess?
Before Esther joined up, we had a couple roster changes. Wilde faded away after a while, so we asked a guy we knew named Paul, code-named Hoatzin, into the circle. He was a really funny guy, did some great reviews and had some quality cartooning chops, too. He eventually faded, too, leaving just me and Gavin. We hustled along for six months or so in 2008 before I badgered Esther, who I know from living in San Francisco, into writing for 4l!. We'd get together and talk comics every once and a while, and it was always fun, in part because we don't see things the same way.
Gav and I have specific tastes, including a shared love of Power Man & Iron Fist. I thought Esther would add an interesting point-of-view to the site, got her to do a couple guest posts, and then sent her a login like "Hey, try this if you want to go all out." This would've been late August, early September '08. Now, between all three of us, we've got almost every base covered as far as interests in comics go. Gav does Marvel and funny stuff (he is genuinely my favorite comedy writer online, has been for years), Esther loves DC and isn't afraid to flex her fangirl feminist muscles, and I'm, uh, everything else.
How much thought do you put into Graphicontent as a site/endeavor? I have rules that I write under (no cursing, no unreasonable personal attacks, list the creators involved every time, provide context whenever possible, etc) in an attempt to present a certain image of "David Brothers, comics blogger." I don't know how successful it is, but I've been doing it so long now that it's second-nature. How do you approach blogging? What're your qualifications for doing it? (Do you need qualifications to blog?)
Chad Nevett: I don't know if I ever thought about that explicitly. Obviously, I don't adhere by the no swearing rule, but I've always made a conscious effort to avoid personal attacks as well. I think my approach has always been just present my thoughts as honestly and directly as possible. I've always tried for a conversational tone, because that's what I find easiest to write and read, especially when discussing subtext and other facets of the work beyond superficial readings. Of course, it's more of a spectrum than a fixed point with short reviews usually very informal and casual, while longer pieces are more formal in tone.
My approach to blogging has changed over time, especially since I got the CBR reviewing gig. I think that made my blog posting a little less formal most of the time since I had to be more formal and professional all of the time there. Blogging became an outlet, partly, for that casual approach to discussing comics where you can tell exactly what I think in as direct a way possible. Meaning, if I think it's shit, I say it's shit. I can understand others not wanting to present that image, but it's never concerned me.
I think the internet has proven you don't need to be qualified other than wanting to say something. I think my education certainly gives me a perspective that's different from many. I'd hope I'm able to look beneath the surface a bit more, see the subtext a bit easier at times, pick up on literary techniques... That was partly my goal, I guess, when Steve and I began the blog. Two English lit guys talking comics. Do bloggers need qualifications? What do you think you bring? Do you ever find yourself falling back on being a 'black blogger' (or, feeling pressure to present that image) since that's an area not necessarily filled by comics bloggers in general?
Read part three over at 4thletter!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
CBR Review: Breaking into Comics the Marvel Way #2
I recently reviewed Breaking into Comics the Marvel Way #2 for CBR and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "I liked the first issue of Breaking into Comics the Marvel Way. Now the second issue contains six more eight-page stories written by mainstay Marvel writers and drawn by newly-discovered talent by C.B. Cebulski, some novice and some quite experienced in Europe or South America. The preview pages offer a good look at each artist’s work, but this collection is solid and interesting.You can read the rest HERE!
Art Discussion Month 2010: Mek #1-3 by Steve Rolston
[Continuing Art Discussion Month 2010. 31 days, 31 artists, a whole lot of discussion. The explanation behind my choice of comics and the archive can be found here.]
Mek #1-3. Written by Warren Ellis. Pencilled by Steve Rolston. Inked by Al Gordon. Coloured by David Baron.
The first of five three-issue minis written by Ellis whose art I'll be examining. Apparently, Eric Canete was originally meant to drawn this, but that fell through somehow. Going from Canete's angular, intricate art, which I've described as looking like math (Canete draws like math being the line I like to use, because it sounds cool), to Steve Rolston's simpler, more cartoony style seems like a big jump, but I think that that's what required. Anyone working in a similar style to Canete would be seen as Canete Lite, but Rolston is such a big jump and brings such different skills to the project that he can escape Canete's shadow with ease. (Ironically, over the years, Canete's art has moved toward a more cartoony style...)
Mek is about a technological subculture, people who install 'mek' in themselves. Often sex-related or just stuff like artificial eyes or communication devices. Sarissa Leon was one of the people at the forefront of the movement and has since 'sold out' by going to Washington and being an advocate for the movement, something that some think puts her out of touch. She's returned to Sky Road to figure out how her ex-boyfriend died at the hands of 'bad mek' (weaponised mek). Pretty simple.
One of the biggest strengths Rolston brings to the project is his ability to draw human expressions. There's a softness to his characters because of his style that contrasts well with the technology of the book. People look soft and human, the technology looking unnatural and foreign in them to a degree. There's a larger contrast between the flesh and the metal/plastic with Rolston on art.
However, his technology doesn't look as cold or sterile as you'd want either. It's also softer, simpler, more attractive. There's a positive there since you get a better idea as to why people would want to adorn themselves with mek since it doesn't look too offputting. It's an odd contradiction: it looks wrong, but not so wrong that it isn't attractive.
That said, I'm still not sure that Rolston is a good fit for the story. His art has never turned me off really, but it also distances the reader from the world a little too much. He doesn't convey the grime and grit of Sky Road as effectively as you'd want. That cartoony style adds another barrier to the world depicted, which is meant to be like ours only a decade or two down the road at most. Because of that, I think you need a more realistic style that reflects the real world stronger. I don't want you to take that as 'cartoony art is worse than realistic art,' because that's not my intention. I merely think that a more realistic art style would suit the material better. One sequence where a man uses his mek to turn into a dog basically wouldn't have been more effective with a realistic art style.
I'm not sure I've seen Ellis work with an artist with such a cartoony style before, which could be what throws me or makes me back off a little. But, there are moments that seem cribbed from other Ellis comics. A police officer that Sarissa consults with, in one panel, reminds me of the way John Higgins drew Watfod in Hellblazer, smarmy look, rubbing his hand with the other... Sarissa has the strong, elegant look of an Ellis heroine, not entirely dissimilar to Jakita Wagner of Planetary. It's obvious that Rolston examined other Ellis comics to get a feel for the visual style of his books.
As I said, he's fantastic at facial expressions. He uses so few lines to get across exactly what a character is thinking. Sarissa is the main focus of the story, so Rolston spends the most time showing her and a lot of how we understand her is through his visuals. In any given scene, we know what she's feeling because of Rolston's art. She is a little guarded with her emotions, but they still come through because of small, subtle things.
The page layouts are very basic and simple, presenting the story in an easy to read, direct fashion. He's good at panel-to-panel movement and establishing the environment/setting of scenes. In that respect, I don't see many (if any) flaws. David Baron's colours are straight forward and done in solid blocks for the most part with a little bit of progressive shading. Bright colours often, even when it's dark... he definitely adapts to Rolston's cartoony art.
What makes this book stand out is Rolston's art, which is strong, but doesn't necessarily match up tonally. Ellis isn't a cartoony writer often and Mek is a bit more straight forward in its connections to reality, so Rolston is automatically at a disadvantage/place where he needs to prove himself. But, I like his art. His Sarissa is strong and connects with the reader. There's a real softness and humanity in his art that brings out the same quality in Ellis's writing -- something that's usually there, but isn't necessarily highlighted by artists. I can understand people who aren't a fan or think Rolston is a bad fit, but I definitely disagree.
Mek #1-3. Written by Warren Ellis. Pencilled by Steve Rolston. Inked by Al Gordon. Coloured by David Baron.
The first of five three-issue minis written by Ellis whose art I'll be examining. Apparently, Eric Canete was originally meant to drawn this, but that fell through somehow. Going from Canete's angular, intricate art, which I've described as looking like math (Canete draws like math being the line I like to use, because it sounds cool), to Steve Rolston's simpler, more cartoony style seems like a big jump, but I think that that's what required. Anyone working in a similar style to Canete would be seen as Canete Lite, but Rolston is such a big jump and brings such different skills to the project that he can escape Canete's shadow with ease. (Ironically, over the years, Canete's art has moved toward a more cartoony style...)
Mek is about a technological subculture, people who install 'mek' in themselves. Often sex-related or just stuff like artificial eyes or communication devices. Sarissa Leon was one of the people at the forefront of the movement and has since 'sold out' by going to Washington and being an advocate for the movement, something that some think puts her out of touch. She's returned to Sky Road to figure out how her ex-boyfriend died at the hands of 'bad mek' (weaponised mek). Pretty simple.
One of the biggest strengths Rolston brings to the project is his ability to draw human expressions. There's a softness to his characters because of his style that contrasts well with the technology of the book. People look soft and human, the technology looking unnatural and foreign in them to a degree. There's a larger contrast between the flesh and the metal/plastic with Rolston on art.
However, his technology doesn't look as cold or sterile as you'd want either. It's also softer, simpler, more attractive. There's a positive there since you get a better idea as to why people would want to adorn themselves with mek since it doesn't look too offputting. It's an odd contradiction: it looks wrong, but not so wrong that it isn't attractive.
That said, I'm still not sure that Rolston is a good fit for the story. His art has never turned me off really, but it also distances the reader from the world a little too much. He doesn't convey the grime and grit of Sky Road as effectively as you'd want. That cartoony style adds another barrier to the world depicted, which is meant to be like ours only a decade or two down the road at most. Because of that, I think you need a more realistic style that reflects the real world stronger. I don't want you to take that as 'cartoony art is worse than realistic art,' because that's not my intention. I merely think that a more realistic art style would suit the material better. One sequence where a man uses his mek to turn into a dog basically wouldn't have been more effective with a realistic art style.
I'm not sure I've seen Ellis work with an artist with such a cartoony style before, which could be what throws me or makes me back off a little. But, there are moments that seem cribbed from other Ellis comics. A police officer that Sarissa consults with, in one panel, reminds me of the way John Higgins drew Watfod in Hellblazer, smarmy look, rubbing his hand with the other... Sarissa has the strong, elegant look of an Ellis heroine, not entirely dissimilar to Jakita Wagner of Planetary. It's obvious that Rolston examined other Ellis comics to get a feel for the visual style of his books.
As I said, he's fantastic at facial expressions. He uses so few lines to get across exactly what a character is thinking. Sarissa is the main focus of the story, so Rolston spends the most time showing her and a lot of how we understand her is through his visuals. In any given scene, we know what she's feeling because of Rolston's art. She is a little guarded with her emotions, but they still come through because of small, subtle things.
The page layouts are very basic and simple, presenting the story in an easy to read, direct fashion. He's good at panel-to-panel movement and establishing the environment/setting of scenes. In that respect, I don't see many (if any) flaws. David Baron's colours are straight forward and done in solid blocks for the most part with a little bit of progressive shading. Bright colours often, even when it's dark... he definitely adapts to Rolston's cartoony art.
What makes this book stand out is Rolston's art, which is strong, but doesn't necessarily match up tonally. Ellis isn't a cartoony writer often and Mek is a bit more straight forward in its connections to reality, so Rolston is automatically at a disadvantage/place where he needs to prove himself. But, I like his art. His Sarissa is strong and connects with the reader. There's a real softness and humanity in his art that brings out the same quality in Ellis's writing -- something that's usually there, but isn't necessarily highlighted by artists. I can understand people who aren't a fan or think Rolston is a bad fit, but I definitely disagree.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Art Discussion Month 2010: Global Frequency #12 by Gene Ha
[Continuing Art Discussion Month 2010. 31 days, 31 artists, a whole lot of discussion. The explanation behind my choice of comics and the archive can be found here.]
Global Frequency #12 ("Harpoon"). Written by Warren Ellis. Drawn by Gene Ha. Coloured by Art Lyon.
And, so, we conclude the Global Frequency artists before getting into the three-issue-minis artists. For the final issue of GF, Gene Ha came on board with his realistic style and colourist Art Lyon and delayed the hell out of the book if I recall properly (though, really, it could have been any number of things that delayed it, so it may not have been Ha). Visually, this issue is quite distinct, partly because of Ha's style, partly because David Baron didn't colour it.
As a final issue, it works. Ellis creates a big enough threat: a space harpoon on a setellite has malfunctioned and will fire on Chicago. The computer tech is shit, there won't be a communications window to the ground team for three weeks, and the harpoon is a super-heavy, dense chunk of something that just falls -- no tech involved there. So the plan is to send two teams: one to knock out the ground team, one to fucking space to stop it. In the end, the ground team all killed themselves and trashed the computers, because they went batshit insane or something. The spacelaunch is a success (an independent group did it) and the astronaut has to just blow the whole thing up (including himself) to save Chicago. In the process, we see some characters from previous issues, giving it a bigger, get the whole cast together grand finale feel.
And that feeling is carried over to the art. The layouts for this issue are unique as, on every page, the panels are laid atop a background that may or may not be an extention of a panel on the page. If Aleph shows up, one of her panels forms the background image of the page -- if not, it's still her room and monitors that are used as background art. It's an effective technique to show that for all of this to happen, for all of these people to work together and be connected, you need Aleph in her communications womb. She is the backbone (background) of the book and story.
Not only that, but the image of monitors, text, computer data, often shown on an angle of some sort, warping it... well, shit, son, that just looks cool. Ideally, that's what you want art to do: convey meaning and look cool. Do those two things and you're golden. (Though probably not as I'm no doubt oversimplifying the whole thing.)
Beyond that, Ha's layouts differ from those of previous artists. I don't see too many that look like 'Warren Ellis layouts.' Ellis's style of writing, of using between four and six panels usually lends itself to a certain type of layout, usually a basic grid-like one. And it's not that Ha doesn't do layouts similar, it's just that he shifts things around and deviates. He's more likely to take a five-panel page and shove four of the panels to the corners, leaving the centre of the page with Aleph as the focal point. Very interesting.
It could be Ellis changing it up for Ha, but the panel layouts are different enough that I don't think so. Part of it is also leaving space for the background to come through. That makes a page with six panels (three on each tier) look different from the layouts of other artists where they use the exact same grid. By making them all smaller with more gutter space for the background to come through, it changes the visual impression more than you'd think it would just hearing about it. The pages looking fuller.
The actual art has Art Lyon using a similar technique to David Baron by colouring certain location and scenes with an overriding colour. A lot of the art is in black/grey and white despite this. It's a very toned down method of colouring, somewhere between Baron's work on issue 9 and his work on issue 10. Not as moody as the former, but better than the latter. Lyon's colouring is a bit more nuanced, done in a style that looks like watercolours instead of computer colouring. It has a way of adding a little bit of mood while heightening the focus on Ha's line work. He also deviates from Aleph being bathed in green light.
Ha's art is realistic, but not as detailed as guys like Bradstreet and Bermejo. He doesn't use a lot of lines to get across that look of realism. He gives each character a unique and distinct face and bone structure for one thing. That alone makes everyone look a little more real. He uses shadows and shading to get across that extra level of detail in the same way that a guy like Bradstreet uses a lot of lines. There's a subtle look to Ha's realism that's hard to pinpoint exactly.
However, in places, Ha's art looks too simplistic. Sometimes, when he gets too close to a face, it looks less real, more like a drawing done by a child. I can't explain it. Maybe the subtle shading loses its effectiveness if you get too close. There are a couple of panels of Aleph that just look bad.
He also creates strong background and environments for his characters. They look real because the world around them looks real -- and is drawn in, not layered in with Photoshop, converted from a picture or something.
Ha's characters have an odd contradiction: they look highly posed and stiff, but also naturalistic. I guess the way I'd explain it is they look posed, but that doesn't bother you or take away from the reality of the situation he's depicting. The amount of jumpcutting he does helps, no doubt, since we very rarely see characters move from one panel to the next. Standing alone for one shot, it's hard not to look posed and stiff.
A strong way to end the series. Tomorrow, we just to Steve Rolston and Mek.
Global Frequency #12 ("Harpoon"). Written by Warren Ellis. Drawn by Gene Ha. Coloured by Art Lyon.
And, so, we conclude the Global Frequency artists before getting into the three-issue-minis artists. For the final issue of GF, Gene Ha came on board with his realistic style and colourist Art Lyon and delayed the hell out of the book if I recall properly (though, really, it could have been any number of things that delayed it, so it may not have been Ha). Visually, this issue is quite distinct, partly because of Ha's style, partly because David Baron didn't colour it.
As a final issue, it works. Ellis creates a big enough threat: a space harpoon on a setellite has malfunctioned and will fire on Chicago. The computer tech is shit, there won't be a communications window to the ground team for three weeks, and the harpoon is a super-heavy, dense chunk of something that just falls -- no tech involved there. So the plan is to send two teams: one to knock out the ground team, one to fucking space to stop it. In the end, the ground team all killed themselves and trashed the computers, because they went batshit insane or something. The spacelaunch is a success (an independent group did it) and the astronaut has to just blow the whole thing up (including himself) to save Chicago. In the process, we see some characters from previous issues, giving it a bigger, get the whole cast together grand finale feel.
And that feeling is carried over to the art. The layouts for this issue are unique as, on every page, the panels are laid atop a background that may or may not be an extention of a panel on the page. If Aleph shows up, one of her panels forms the background image of the page -- if not, it's still her room and monitors that are used as background art. It's an effective technique to show that for all of this to happen, for all of these people to work together and be connected, you need Aleph in her communications womb. She is the backbone (background) of the book and story.
Not only that, but the image of monitors, text, computer data, often shown on an angle of some sort, warping it... well, shit, son, that just looks cool. Ideally, that's what you want art to do: convey meaning and look cool. Do those two things and you're golden. (Though probably not as I'm no doubt oversimplifying the whole thing.)
Beyond that, Ha's layouts differ from those of previous artists. I don't see too many that look like 'Warren Ellis layouts.' Ellis's style of writing, of using between four and six panels usually lends itself to a certain type of layout, usually a basic grid-like one. And it's not that Ha doesn't do layouts similar, it's just that he shifts things around and deviates. He's more likely to take a five-panel page and shove four of the panels to the corners, leaving the centre of the page with Aleph as the focal point. Very interesting.
It could be Ellis changing it up for Ha, but the panel layouts are different enough that I don't think so. Part of it is also leaving space for the background to come through. That makes a page with six panels (three on each tier) look different from the layouts of other artists where they use the exact same grid. By making them all smaller with more gutter space for the background to come through, it changes the visual impression more than you'd think it would just hearing about it. The pages looking fuller.
The actual art has Art Lyon using a similar technique to David Baron by colouring certain location and scenes with an overriding colour. A lot of the art is in black/grey and white despite this. It's a very toned down method of colouring, somewhere between Baron's work on issue 9 and his work on issue 10. Not as moody as the former, but better than the latter. Lyon's colouring is a bit more nuanced, done in a style that looks like watercolours instead of computer colouring. It has a way of adding a little bit of mood while heightening the focus on Ha's line work. He also deviates from Aleph being bathed in green light.
Ha's art is realistic, but not as detailed as guys like Bradstreet and Bermejo. He doesn't use a lot of lines to get across that look of realism. He gives each character a unique and distinct face and bone structure for one thing. That alone makes everyone look a little more real. He uses shadows and shading to get across that extra level of detail in the same way that a guy like Bradstreet uses a lot of lines. There's a subtle look to Ha's realism that's hard to pinpoint exactly.
However, in places, Ha's art looks too simplistic. Sometimes, when he gets too close to a face, it looks less real, more like a drawing done by a child. I can't explain it. Maybe the subtle shading loses its effectiveness if you get too close. There are a couple of panels of Aleph that just look bad.
He also creates strong background and environments for his characters. They look real because the world around them looks real -- and is drawn in, not layered in with Photoshop, converted from a picture or something.
Ha's characters have an odd contradiction: they look highly posed and stiff, but also naturalistic. I guess the way I'd explain it is they look posed, but that doesn't bother you or take away from the reality of the situation he's depicting. The amount of jumpcutting he does helps, no doubt, since we very rarely see characters move from one panel to the next. Standing alone for one shot, it's hard not to look posed and stiff.
A strong way to end the series. Tomorrow, we just to Steve Rolston and Mek.
The Splash Page Podcast Episode 9.2
It's Monday, so that means another podcast from Tim and I. In the second part of our discussion, we go through a bunch of recent books, including the likes of Spider-Woman #7 and Joe the Barbarian #3. Somewhere in there, Tim says something incredibly racist, because, well, Tim is incredibly racist. The truth is out there now. We conclude the week by discussing the idea of overanalysing works, academia, theory-based criticism versus textual analysis, and how you can't assume a creator or critic's intentions behind what they produce. This week's recording literally ended with us not having anything else to say. Even the post-show chat was brief.
You can download and listen to the Splash Page Podcast episode 9.2 HERE!
You can download and listen to the Splash Page Podcast episode 9.2 HERE!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Art Discussion Month 2010: Global Frequency #11 by Jason Pearson
[Continuing Art Discussion Month 2010. 31 days, 31 artists, a whole lot of discussion. The explanation behind my choice of comics and the archive can be found here.]
Global Frequency #11 ("Aleph"). Written by Warren Ellis. Drawn by Jason Pearson. Coloured by David Baron.
Visually, this is my least favourite issue of Global Frequency. Jason Pearson's style here turns me off, as does David Baron's colouring. I'd go so far as to say that it's the only issue of the series that I just don't like. Even from a writing standpoint, it doesn't thrill me. Is that a function of the art, though? The story here isn't all that different from any other issue of the series: a group of bad people have discovered where Global Frequency Central is and, now, Aleph has to eavacuate/secure the HQ. After ten issues of her being in her room of monitors, she's put in action. If anything, it should be a better issue since we're more inclined to feel a sense of connection to Aleph than we did to any other characters previously. But, yeah, I could just never get into this issue.
Looking at Pearson's art closely, I don't know why I don't like it. It does things that I generally want from art. There are expressive faces, dynamic layouts (both page layouts and the interior of panels), and it's easy to tell what's going on by just looking at the page. But there's something so generic about it. Something mediocre, something broad... something unaccomplished. Yes, I can tell what's going on and what characters are thinking, but it doesn't look good. The art is ugly.
It's sharp corners and misshapen head, awkward poses, and perspectives that try to be too fancy. There's an anime influence in the art that I'm not sure helps. It reminds me a bit of the unpolished art you see online on fan sites that people praise because everyone is friendly, but no one really thinks matches up against what's on the stands that week. That sounds harsh, but that's what I'm seeing. There's just something missing, because there's nothing immediately wrong with the art -- I just don't like it.
I run into that problem doing reviews sometimes, those artists that don't really do anything wrong, but their style turns you off. Do you praise them or slam them when it's beyond an objective examination, it's just direct subjective personal preference? You can recognise that something is objectively good, but, for whatever reason, it just doesn't appeal to you personally. Now, maybe that means it isn't really objectively good, but it is possible that the sensibilities of the art and yourself just don't click.
There are parts of the art I like. One panel where Aleph dives, covering her head, trying to avoid gunshots in the sewers... it's a great panel. The angle on it (her diving to us, we're looking up slightly) is great. But that's about it.
David Baron's colours just look sloppy, possibly reflecting what I see as sloppiness in the art. Neither the line work nor the colours look polished, just thrown down on the page. Pages bathed in red light lack the subtle look of previous issues where the same thing happened. It's too bright, too grating, too much in your face.
Tomorrow: Global Frequency #12 by Gene Ha with Art Lyon along to do colours. (But I do believe David Baron shows up again in some other comics this month, so don't say goodbye just yet...)
Global Frequency #11 ("Aleph"). Written by Warren Ellis. Drawn by Jason Pearson. Coloured by David Baron.
Visually, this is my least favourite issue of Global Frequency. Jason Pearson's style here turns me off, as does David Baron's colouring. I'd go so far as to say that it's the only issue of the series that I just don't like. Even from a writing standpoint, it doesn't thrill me. Is that a function of the art, though? The story here isn't all that different from any other issue of the series: a group of bad people have discovered where Global Frequency Central is and, now, Aleph has to eavacuate/secure the HQ. After ten issues of her being in her room of monitors, she's put in action. If anything, it should be a better issue since we're more inclined to feel a sense of connection to Aleph than we did to any other characters previously. But, yeah, I could just never get into this issue.
Looking at Pearson's art closely, I don't know why I don't like it. It does things that I generally want from art. There are expressive faces, dynamic layouts (both page layouts and the interior of panels), and it's easy to tell what's going on by just looking at the page. But there's something so generic about it. Something mediocre, something broad... something unaccomplished. Yes, I can tell what's going on and what characters are thinking, but it doesn't look good. The art is ugly.
It's sharp corners and misshapen head, awkward poses, and perspectives that try to be too fancy. There's an anime influence in the art that I'm not sure helps. It reminds me a bit of the unpolished art you see online on fan sites that people praise because everyone is friendly, but no one really thinks matches up against what's on the stands that week. That sounds harsh, but that's what I'm seeing. There's just something missing, because there's nothing immediately wrong with the art -- I just don't like it.
I run into that problem doing reviews sometimes, those artists that don't really do anything wrong, but their style turns you off. Do you praise them or slam them when it's beyond an objective examination, it's just direct subjective personal preference? You can recognise that something is objectively good, but, for whatever reason, it just doesn't appeal to you personally. Now, maybe that means it isn't really objectively good, but it is possible that the sensibilities of the art and yourself just don't click.
There are parts of the art I like. One panel where Aleph dives, covering her head, trying to avoid gunshots in the sewers... it's a great panel. The angle on it (her diving to us, we're looking up slightly) is great. But that's about it.
David Baron's colours just look sloppy, possibly reflecting what I see as sloppiness in the art. Neither the line work nor the colours look polished, just thrown down on the page. Pages bathed in red light lack the subtle look of previous issues where the same thing happened. It's too bright, too grating, too much in your face.
Tomorrow: Global Frequency #12 by Gene Ha with Art Lyon along to do colours. (But I do believe David Baron shows up again in some other comics this month, so don't say goodbye just yet...)
The Splash Page Podcast Episode 9.1
You can download and listen to the first of this week's podcast episodes. We discuss stuff like Siege #3 and Dark Avengers #15, give a little window in the behind the scenes of reviewing comics for CBR (or, more, how I annoy Augie, our editor), talk about some online 'fan' reactions to what we write, and conclude things with a long talk about WWE Heroes #1. It's good stuff.
You can download and listen to the Splash Page Podcast episode 9.1 HERE!
You can download and listen to the Splash Page Podcast episode 9.1 HERE!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Art Discussion Month 2010: Global Frequency #10 by Tomm Coker
[Continuing Art Discussion Month 2010. 31 days, 31 artists, a whole lot of discussion. The explanation behind my choice of comics and the archive can be found here.]
Global Frequency #10 ("Superviolence"). Written by Warren Ellis. Drawn by Tomm Coker. Coloured by David Baron.
This post will be a bit different, because, unlike previous comics discussed, I have read the script to this issue, which you can download off of Warren Ellis's site (he pointed me in that direction in the comments to yesterday's post) and it makes a difference when looking at the art. The script and comic could be different in previous issues, but since I didn't have the scripts, I don't know.
Here, though, Coker's art definitely deviates from the script consistently throughout the issue. That's not meant to suggest that that's good or bad. Ellis has always been the sort of writer who acknowledges that, sometimes, what the writer calls for isn't what will look best -- something that's definitely true with action where the artist can do layouts and thumbnails and see that what looked good in the script doesn't work as effectively on a comics page. So, there is merit to the idea of the artist going off script a little at times, but Coker does it very consistently throughout the issue, using the script as a guide of the general action and character beats, adding and subtracting panels on pretty much every page. So, I want to look at where it works and where it doesn't. (Note, I don't mean to be on one side or the other, but being a writer myself, I'm naturally inclined to side with the writer's wishes. So bear that in mind. I want to show what works and what doesn't, so if I ever seem to cross that line into decrying Coker for daring to change what Ellis wrote, that's unintentional and a side-effect of my own personal bias.)
This issue has, probably, the simplest plot: Lionel Wellfare is a fucked up guy whose presence somewhere means that people will die. So, the Global Frequency sends the Frenchman to kill him. Both men use biofeedback to supress the pain of injuries and keep going -- basically, mind over body. It's one big, long fight sequence. Minimal dialogue, just two guys beating the shit out of one another.
First, the colouring. In issue eight, David Baron used the colours to heighten the mood, bathing secenes and locations in one colour as a cue to the reader. He does something similar here, but it doesn't work as effectively. The entire fight between Wellfare and the Frenchman is coloured with a pale, bright green. Aleph's room is a pale blue. Miranda Zero's location is yellow/orange. The exterior on one page is purple. Now, obviously, this isn't meant to be real, but I question the choice only because it goes against what we've seen in previous issues, particularly in Aleph's room. There have been some variations, but, for the most part, when we've see Aleph, if there is a colour of the light that dominates the space, it's green. We've seen instances where there is no dominant lighting and she's coloured in a straight-forward, realistic manner, but, if there is a dominant light, it's green. Switching to blue here seems odd. Why was that choice made? Is it because of the heavy use of green elsewhere? If so, why was green chosen? Green is the colour of life, so it relates to biofeedback possibly...? I don't know. The steady colour kind of levels the entire thing out, makes you focus on the movements of the characters more and blood is played off against green stronger than any other colour, so maybe that's it. The only problem then is that Baron doesn't go all of the way with the colouring: he still uses realistic skin tones and a darker red for the blood, so it doesn't contrast strongly. Is this meant to be the lighting inside the facility where they're fighting? I'm not a fan of the colouring of this issue.
For Coker's art, there are some choices he makes that I understand and think are effective, but others that I don't. One interesting choice is that, once the fight begins, every page has one panel that has a completely white background (one page has two). This panel is the main focal point of violence on the page usually. Almost like if you were to skim the book, all you need to do is pay attention to these panels. Having just quickly gone through the issue looking just at those panels, there is a progression. While most of the panels show a violent action, some just show a character getting up, struggling to stand, or something a little quieter to showcase the effects of the violence. It's probably the most effective and interesting thing Coker does in the issue, distilling each page down to one focal point. It's almost necessary in a book like this.
I mentioned that Coker deviates from the script quite a bit and I'd like to get into that... On the first page, there are some deviations, two that I want to highlight.
From the script:
In the actual panel, we see Aleph in the foreground, looking to the left of the panel, Miranda Zero on a series of screens in the background, just her face, sunglasses on, not showing the 'tired irritation' that Ellis calls for. Looking at the space allotted for the panel, I'm not sure if there's room to do what Ellis asks for -- but Coker also did the layout, so whose fault is that? I can understand the change, because Coker, when depicting Miranda Zero, seems to want to show her as cold and detached somewhat. In that regard, it's consistent with the rest of the issue. Later in the issue, on page thirteen, instead of giving us one panel of, "CUT TO: MIRANDA speaking into her phone, apparently at dinner with Ernst Blofeld," Coker extends it to three side views of Miranda in a car, the three speech balloons listed in the script separated to one per panel. I don't think this is an effective approach for the character since, while somewhat cold when there's a problem that needs solving, Miranda Zero is a caring, compassionate person deeply invested in protecting people. Here, she comes across as a businessperson. While there are elements of that coldness in Ellis's script (her sitting at an outdoor cafe, sipping champagne), there's also the idea that she was enjoying her day until this guy fucked it up, that the champagne was what she just happened to be drinking at the time. By eliminating that 'tired irritation,' Coker dehumanises Miranda, a choice that I don't think works.
One that does on that opening page is deviating from the script where Ellis calls for:
Here, instead, Coker shows an above view of the cafe, umbrellas obsctructing our view of people. However, he slowly comes down to Miranda, revealing the details that Ellis called for in this panel in those ones (changing the menu card to a coffee cup). That's a clever instance of using details given on one panel to provide visuals for later panels well. He makes other small changes, but none that detract or devaite radically from Ellis's script.
In the fight, Coker makes a lot of changes, but keeps the general thrust of the fight, except in a few places. I like Coker's art here. It's sketchy and heavily shadowed, which obscures some of the visuals and, in one or two spots, I literally didn't understand what he was trying to communicate, but it's effective. His style lends itself to the brutality of the fight. By the end, both men look run down and you're surprised they can stand.
One thing that Ellis calls for in his script that doesn't show up in the comic is the use of x-ray panels to show how the damage we're seeing inflicted on the outside is mirrored on the inside. He calls for it twice:
Coker doesn't depict these panels. On page eight, he shows the Frenchman punching Wellfare in the back, but without the x-ray effect. On page 18, he cuts those panels altogether, cutting the page down to two panels and changing the effect of the scene. Since Ellis doesn't call for the effect extensively, I can understand dropping it. It shows up twice and isn't essential to the understanding of what's going on. It's a cool visual trick. I'm not convinced that losing it on page 18 is the best choice since it does mean he reworks the scene with the chair quite a bit, streamlining it. In the script, the idea that Wellfare takes the first chair shot and laughs it off, while we see that, no, it did a lot of damage and the Frenchman exploits the wounded chest with a heavy kick is more interesting than Wellfare being taken down by the first chairshot. It loses an interesting bit of business.
In other places, Coker adds panels to show movement in more detail. When Wellfare initially encounters the Frenchman, Coker extends things where the Frenchman tosses a chair (I do like the callback later in the issue) and knocks Wellfare down. Ellis asks for:
Coker draws Wellfare falling, gun out of his hand. The gun on the ground. Wellfare's hand picking up the gun with the same view as the second panel. Frenchman kicking Wellfare in the face, knocking him back, and the gun loose. The added panels make the scene a little more complex and a little more realistic. Those are the majority of changes he makes: adding or losing panels. Sometimes, it works, like here.
Sometimes, it doesn't. During the fight, the Frechman rips out Wellfare's right eye. Later, the Frenchman is shot and removes the bullet (a sequence which isn't exactly clear in the art). Ellis calls for:
Coker loses that second panel and it's not entirely clear in the issue what happened. He doesn't use the most effective perspective on the Frenchman inserting the bullet, opting for a side view on Wellfare's left side despite the empty eye socket being the right. Also, since the bullet is crumpled from being fired into the Frenchman, it just looks like a small piece of metal, no indication that it's the bullet from earlier, partly because the way that he drew the extraction wasn't 100% clear -- it's hard to see the extracted bullet. By losing the shot of the bullet in the socket, it loses some clarity. I suppose this is similar to the x-ray panels as Coker avoided going beyond the surface of the action.
I could continue to point out changes he made, calling some effective, some not. Overall, I think Coker's art is effective since it conveys the action strongly, only becoming confusing in a couple of places. I do think he made some questionable choices in the art that hurt it when you look at the script. If you've got the issue, give the script a look and see for yourself how the artist can interpret what the writer calls for.
Tomorrow: Jason Pearson and Global Frequency #11.
Global Frequency #10 ("Superviolence"). Written by Warren Ellis. Drawn by Tomm Coker. Coloured by David Baron.
This post will be a bit different, because, unlike previous comics discussed, I have read the script to this issue, which you can download off of Warren Ellis's site (he pointed me in that direction in the comments to yesterday's post) and it makes a difference when looking at the art. The script and comic could be different in previous issues, but since I didn't have the scripts, I don't know.
Here, though, Coker's art definitely deviates from the script consistently throughout the issue. That's not meant to suggest that that's good or bad. Ellis has always been the sort of writer who acknowledges that, sometimes, what the writer calls for isn't what will look best -- something that's definitely true with action where the artist can do layouts and thumbnails and see that what looked good in the script doesn't work as effectively on a comics page. So, there is merit to the idea of the artist going off script a little at times, but Coker does it very consistently throughout the issue, using the script as a guide of the general action and character beats, adding and subtracting panels on pretty much every page. So, I want to look at where it works and where it doesn't. (Note, I don't mean to be on one side or the other, but being a writer myself, I'm naturally inclined to side with the writer's wishes. So bear that in mind. I want to show what works and what doesn't, so if I ever seem to cross that line into decrying Coker for daring to change what Ellis wrote, that's unintentional and a side-effect of my own personal bias.)
This issue has, probably, the simplest plot: Lionel Wellfare is a fucked up guy whose presence somewhere means that people will die. So, the Global Frequency sends the Frenchman to kill him. Both men use biofeedback to supress the pain of injuries and keep going -- basically, mind over body. It's one big, long fight sequence. Minimal dialogue, just two guys beating the shit out of one another.
First, the colouring. In issue eight, David Baron used the colours to heighten the mood, bathing secenes and locations in one colour as a cue to the reader. He does something similar here, but it doesn't work as effectively. The entire fight between Wellfare and the Frenchman is coloured with a pale, bright green. Aleph's room is a pale blue. Miranda Zero's location is yellow/orange. The exterior on one page is purple. Now, obviously, this isn't meant to be real, but I question the choice only because it goes against what we've seen in previous issues, particularly in Aleph's room. There have been some variations, but, for the most part, when we've see Aleph, if there is a colour of the light that dominates the space, it's green. We've seen instances where there is no dominant lighting and she's coloured in a straight-forward, realistic manner, but, if there is a dominant light, it's green. Switching to blue here seems odd. Why was that choice made? Is it because of the heavy use of green elsewhere? If so, why was green chosen? Green is the colour of life, so it relates to biofeedback possibly...? I don't know. The steady colour kind of levels the entire thing out, makes you focus on the movements of the characters more and blood is played off against green stronger than any other colour, so maybe that's it. The only problem then is that Baron doesn't go all of the way with the colouring: he still uses realistic skin tones and a darker red for the blood, so it doesn't contrast strongly. Is this meant to be the lighting inside the facility where they're fighting? I'm not a fan of the colouring of this issue.
For Coker's art, there are some choices he makes that I understand and think are effective, but others that I don't. One interesting choice is that, once the fight begins, every page has one panel that has a completely white background (one page has two). This panel is the main focal point of violence on the page usually. Almost like if you were to skim the book, all you need to do is pay attention to these panels. Having just quickly gone through the issue looking just at those panels, there is a progression. While most of the panels show a violent action, some just show a character getting up, struggling to stand, or something a little quieter to showcase the effects of the violence. It's probably the most effective and interesting thing Coker does in the issue, distilling each page down to one focal point. It's almost necessary in a book like this.
I mentioned that Coker deviates from the script quite a bit and I'd like to get into that... On the first page, there are some deviations, two that I want to highlight.
From the script:
Pic 1;
OPEN ON; ALEPH, in GF Central, looking at a screen that shows MIRANDA ZERO on videophone. Miranda is closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead in tired irritation.
ALEPH; LIONEL WELLFARE IS WORKING AGAIN, MS ZERO.
MIRANDA (ON SCREEN; WHY WON’T THAT BASTARD JUST DIE?
TITLES; “SUPERVIOLENCE”
In the actual panel, we see Aleph in the foreground, looking to the left of the panel, Miranda Zero on a series of screens in the background, just her face, sunglasses on, not showing the 'tired irritation' that Ellis calls for. Looking at the space allotted for the panel, I'm not sure if there's room to do what Ellis asks for -- but Coker also did the layout, so whose fault is that? I can understand the change, because Coker, when depicting Miranda Zero, seems to want to show her as cold and detached somewhat. In that regard, it's consistent with the rest of the issue. Later in the issue, on page thirteen, instead of giving us one panel of, "CUT TO: MIRANDA speaking into her phone, apparently at dinner with Ernst Blofeld," Coker extends it to three side views of Miranda in a car, the three speech balloons listed in the script separated to one per panel. I don't think this is an effective approach for the character since, while somewhat cold when there's a problem that needs solving, Miranda Zero is a caring, compassionate person deeply invested in protecting people. Here, she comes across as a businessperson. While there are elements of that coldness in Ellis's script (her sitting at an outdoor cafe, sipping champagne), there's also the idea that she was enjoying her day until this guy fucked it up, that the champagne was what she just happened to be drinking at the time. By eliminating that 'tired irritation,' Coker dehumanises Miranda, a choice that I don't think works.
One that does on that opening page is deviating from the script where Ellis calls for:
CUT TO; Miranda Zero, sitting at a street café table somewhere, in the sunshine, her GF phone propped up against the menu card – it’s this she’s speaking to Aleph on, videophone-mode. A waiter lowers a flute of champagne to her table.
Here, instead, Coker shows an above view of the cafe, umbrellas obsctructing our view of people. However, he slowly comes down to Miranda, revealing the details that Ellis called for in this panel in those ones (changing the menu card to a coffee cup). That's a clever instance of using details given on one panel to provide visuals for later panels well. He makes other small changes, but none that detract or devaite radically from Ellis's script.
In the fight, Coker makes a lot of changes, but keeps the general thrust of the fight, except in a few places. I like Coker's art here. It's sketchy and heavily shadowed, which obscures some of the visuals and, in one or two spots, I literally didn't understand what he was trying to communicate, but it's effective. His style lends itself to the brutality of the fight. By the end, both men look run down and you're surprised they can stand.
One thing that Ellis calls for in his script that doesn't show up in the comic is the use of x-ray panels to show how the damage we're seeing inflicted on the outside is mirrored on the inside. He calls for it twice:
[Page 8] Pic 3;
X-RAY SHOT: of the Frenchman’s hand coming down on the spine – in X-Ray, side-on view, we see Wellfare’s spine twisting into a kind of w-shape under the blow. It’s really not supposed to look like that.
[...]
[Page 18] Pic 4;
X-RAY SHOT; Of Wellfare’s torso. Intact, relatively.
Pic 5;
REPEAT PIC – except that suddenly all his ribs have snapped in two and his breastbone looks like a barcode it’s got so many cracks in it.
Coker doesn't depict these panels. On page eight, he shows the Frenchman punching Wellfare in the back, but without the x-ray effect. On page 18, he cuts those panels altogether, cutting the page down to two panels and changing the effect of the scene. Since Ellis doesn't call for the effect extensively, I can understand dropping it. It shows up twice and isn't essential to the understanding of what's going on. It's a cool visual trick. I'm not convinced that losing it on page 18 is the best choice since it does mean he reworks the scene with the chair quite a bit, streamlining it. In the script, the idea that Wellfare takes the first chair shot and laughs it off, while we see that, no, it did a lot of damage and the Frenchman exploits the wounded chest with a heavy kick is more interesting than Wellfare being taken down by the first chairshot. It loses an interesting bit of business.
In other places, Coker adds panels to show movement in more detail. When Wellfare initially encounters the Frenchman, Coker extends things where the Frenchman tosses a chair (I do like the callback later in the issue) and knocks Wellfare down. Ellis asks for:
Pic 1;
Wellfare staggers back, stunned, gun loose in his hand.
Pic 2;
Frenchman kicks the gun out of Wellfare’s hand, splintering his trigger finger as it snaps in the jerked-away trigger guard.
Coker draws Wellfare falling, gun out of his hand. The gun on the ground. Wellfare's hand picking up the gun with the same view as the second panel. Frenchman kicking Wellfare in the face, knocking him back, and the gun loose. The added panels make the scene a little more complex and a little more realistic. Those are the majority of changes he makes: adding or losing panels. Sometimes, it works, like here.
Sometimes, it doesn't. During the fight, the Frechman rips out Wellfare's right eye. Later, the Frenchman is shot and removes the bullet (a sequence which isn't exactly clear in the art). Ellis calls for:
Pic 5;
The Frenchman comes down on Wellfare and shoves the bullet into Wellfare’s blasted eyesocket.
FRENCHMAN; MY GIFT
PAGE SIXTEEN
Pic 1;
CLOSE-UP SHOT: Jagged bullet rubbing against dangling nerve fibers and ripped arteries…
Coker loses that second panel and it's not entirely clear in the issue what happened. He doesn't use the most effective perspective on the Frenchman inserting the bullet, opting for a side view on Wellfare's left side despite the empty eye socket being the right. Also, since the bullet is crumpled from being fired into the Frenchman, it just looks like a small piece of metal, no indication that it's the bullet from earlier, partly because the way that he drew the extraction wasn't 100% clear -- it's hard to see the extracted bullet. By losing the shot of the bullet in the socket, it loses some clarity. I suppose this is similar to the x-ray panels as Coker avoided going beyond the surface of the action.
I could continue to point out changes he made, calling some effective, some not. Overall, I think Coker's art is effective since it conveys the action strongly, only becoming confusing in a couple of places. I do think he made some questionable choices in the art that hurt it when you look at the script. If you've got the issue, give the script a look and see for yourself how the artist can interpret what the writer calls for.
Tomorrow: Jason Pearson and Global Frequency #11.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Art Discussion Month 2010: Global Frequency #9 by Lee Bermejo
[Continuing Art Discussion Month 2010. 31 days, 31 artists, a whole lot of discussion. The explanation behind my choice of comics and the archive can be found here.]
Global Frequency #9. Written by Warren Ellis. Drawn by Lee Bermejo. Coloured by David Baron.
Another untitled issue. It begins with a wonderful page. Four panels. One large one where a man sits up on a bed while stretched out. It looks like a shitty bed since it has no sheets or blankets. He has pants and a shirt on. On the bed next to him is a Global Frequency phone. A fan is in the foreground, so we can assume it's hot. The lighting is a sickly orange colour. On the upper right part of his chest is a Global Frequency symbol tattoo that's been crossed out. The second page is a long, thin panel where the phone goes off. The symbol on it lights up with the same orange. The background of that panel is entirely white. In the third panel, he answers the phone, the focus on his chest so we get another shot of the crossed out tatto. He's told he's on the Global Frequency. In the final panel, we move in closer and up to his face and he tells Aleph that, no, he's not.
This issue is a mood piece, a horror comic, where Lee Bermejo works in extreme lights and darks, lots of shadows, etc. and David Baron works in extreme colours. Scenes and locations are coloured with a single colour. It produces an interesting effect, particularly the contrast between Aleph and Takashi's locations. Aleph is always shown with two colours: she's bathed in a neon green light, while the room and monitors around her are purple. Those two colours are often paired together, existing on either side of blue, and complement each other well.
Takashi is sent to a hospital where something has gone wrong. Cops sent in go crazy. Turns out experiments have been done, a biohazard released, it drives people crazy, including the doctors who have experimented on the patients and began worshipping some. Takashi progressively ingests more of the toxin and becomes crazier... he never fully loses it or anything, but, by the end, he's still aware enough to know that he can't rejoin the world (or, maybe, he doesn't want to).
It's a horror story, basically. Hence the mood lighting. He's going into a haunted house. It's not that different a story from "Locked" except Takashi never comes out since the building is bombed. Same general idea.
Here's a progression of colours:
In his room: orange
Outside: dark blue
Just inside the hospital: reddish orange
Further in: light blue
Through a set of doors: pale green
Through another set of doors: pale, sickly yellow
The transition from the orange of his own private torture to the outside dark blue is jarring. Blue is normal, while orange and red are violent. In his room, he sits and stews over his anger at Miranda Zero and the Global Frequency for the things that he's seen and done. The intial violence in the hospital is the same, but it's more shocking, hence the brighter red colour. Same idea, just amplified.
The light blue beyond that room is there because it seems like a normal room, but, when it's not, when there's a freakish merged monster of various patients, Takashi responds with violence, which is depicted as bright red. Moving beyond that room, things get worse, get more disturbed, hence the pale green, which transitions into the pale yellow, the colour of sickness... Cues to tell you how you should feel about what's happening.
Bermejo's style is a somewhat photorealist/referenced style, but done with a lot of heavy, angular inks. It's not far off from Tim Bradstreet's work, but there's more distance between it and the real world. It's a lot darker and creepier. It doesn't look right. It kind of looks like how reality should look in a horror flick. The look in Takashi's eyes at the end... he is crazy, he is a monster... with his inner violence and tortured history, he would kill and kill and kill... the ending is about stopping the spread of this, protecting the world from him, and indulging in his desire to kill people. He kills himself with his gun first.
Probably my favourite issue of David Baron's colours since I think they play a larger role here than anywhere else. He does something similar in the next issue, but it's not as effective. But, that's tomorrow with Tomm Coker and Global Frequency #10.
Global Frequency #9. Written by Warren Ellis. Drawn by Lee Bermejo. Coloured by David Baron.
Another untitled issue. It begins with a wonderful page. Four panels. One large one where a man sits up on a bed while stretched out. It looks like a shitty bed since it has no sheets or blankets. He has pants and a shirt on. On the bed next to him is a Global Frequency phone. A fan is in the foreground, so we can assume it's hot. The lighting is a sickly orange colour. On the upper right part of his chest is a Global Frequency symbol tattoo that's been crossed out. The second page is a long, thin panel where the phone goes off. The symbol on it lights up with the same orange. The background of that panel is entirely white. In the third panel, he answers the phone, the focus on his chest so we get another shot of the crossed out tatto. He's told he's on the Global Frequency. In the final panel, we move in closer and up to his face and he tells Aleph that, no, he's not.
This issue is a mood piece, a horror comic, where Lee Bermejo works in extreme lights and darks, lots of shadows, etc. and David Baron works in extreme colours. Scenes and locations are coloured with a single colour. It produces an interesting effect, particularly the contrast between Aleph and Takashi's locations. Aleph is always shown with two colours: she's bathed in a neon green light, while the room and monitors around her are purple. Those two colours are often paired together, existing on either side of blue, and complement each other well.
Takashi is sent to a hospital where something has gone wrong. Cops sent in go crazy. Turns out experiments have been done, a biohazard released, it drives people crazy, including the doctors who have experimented on the patients and began worshipping some. Takashi progressively ingests more of the toxin and becomes crazier... he never fully loses it or anything, but, by the end, he's still aware enough to know that he can't rejoin the world (or, maybe, he doesn't want to).
It's a horror story, basically. Hence the mood lighting. He's going into a haunted house. It's not that different a story from "Locked" except Takashi never comes out since the building is bombed. Same general idea.
Here's a progression of colours:
In his room: orange
Outside: dark blue
Just inside the hospital: reddish orange
Further in: light blue
Through a set of doors: pale green
Through another set of doors: pale, sickly yellow
The transition from the orange of his own private torture to the outside dark blue is jarring. Blue is normal, while orange and red are violent. In his room, he sits and stews over his anger at Miranda Zero and the Global Frequency for the things that he's seen and done. The intial violence in the hospital is the same, but it's more shocking, hence the brighter red colour. Same idea, just amplified.
The light blue beyond that room is there because it seems like a normal room, but, when it's not, when there's a freakish merged monster of various patients, Takashi responds with violence, which is depicted as bright red. Moving beyond that room, things get worse, get more disturbed, hence the pale green, which transitions into the pale yellow, the colour of sickness... Cues to tell you how you should feel about what's happening.
Bermejo's style is a somewhat photorealist/referenced style, but done with a lot of heavy, angular inks. It's not far off from Tim Bradstreet's work, but there's more distance between it and the real world. It's a lot darker and creepier. It doesn't look right. It kind of looks like how reality should look in a horror flick. The look in Takashi's eyes at the end... he is crazy, he is a monster... with his inner violence and tortured history, he would kill and kill and kill... the ending is about stopping the spread of this, protecting the world from him, and indulging in his desire to kill people. He kills himself with his gun first.
Probably my favourite issue of David Baron's colours since I think they play a larger role here than anywhere else. He does something similar in the next issue, but it's not as effective. But, that's tomorrow with Tomm Coker and Global Frequency #10.
CBR Review: Battlefields: The Firefly and His Majesty #4
I recently reviewed Battlefields: The Firefly and His Majesty #4 for CBR and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "For this round of Battlefields minis, Dynamite is trying something different by publishing three three-issue mini-series as one nine-issue series. So, for all intents and purposes, this fourth issue is like the first issue of a The Firefly and his Majesty mini. This story acts a sequel of sorts to The Tankies, once again focusing on the tank warfare of World War II, this time with a new British tank and even more advanced Germans tanks belonging to a unit low on supplies, including fuel."You can read the rest HERE!
CBR Review: Dark Avengers #15
I recently reviewed Dark Avengers #15 for CBR and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "With the third issue of its tie-in to Siege, the role of Dark Avengers becomes more clear, particularly in light of the events in Siege #3. This issue continues to develop the Sentry’s characters and reveals him fully as Norman Osborn’s ‘secret weapon,’ showing what happened in Siege: The Cabal #1 in more detail. We get to see how the secret weapon could be the Sentry and elicit such strong reactions of shock from the Cabal members. However, the focus of the issue is really on Bullseye and the Sentry’s wife Lindy, as the killer gets his chance to follow through on the mission Osborn gave him last issue."You can read the rest HERE!
CBR Review: Nova #35
I recently reviewed Nova #35 for CBR and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "If you want a solid, average cosmic superhero book, Nova is for you. The recent story arc, wherein the Sphinx went to war against himself from another point in history, pitting two groups of time-displaced superhumans against one another, has been a decent, good read that never rose too high or dipped too low in quality. The concluding issue is no exception."You can read the rest HERE!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
CBR Review: Realm of Kings: Imperial Guard #5
I recently reviewed Realm of Kings: Imperial Guard #5 for CBR and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "The structure of the Marvel cosmic books right now is a smart one: two ongoings (Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy) that focus on specific characters, and rotating mini-series to develop the alien races and concepts that may get overlooked otherwise. That structure does make the mini-series seem less important and lacking in conclusiveness since their job is merely to shed light on side characters and enhance the main thrust of the line, like tie-in books during an event. Non-essential and somewhat inconsequential. That quality is what limits Imperial Guard #5 as it wraps up its story, but in a manner where small plot points are accomplished and the real story will continue elsewhere."You can read the rest HERE!
Art Discussion Month 2010: Global Frequency #8 by Chris Sprouse
[Continuing Art Discussion Month 2010. 31 days, 31 artists, a whole lot of discussion. The explanation behind my choice of comics and the archive can be found here.]
Global Frequency #8. Written by Warren Ellis. Pencilled by Chris Sprouse. Inked by Karl Story. Coloured by David Baron.
This issue doesn't have a title. I've seen it possibly having a variation on the final numbers on the cover: "00:00:00.001" most often ".001" but I can't say for sure.
The art in this issue is very realistic. Sprouse and Story (the second time we've had someone not inking themselves this month... that seems weird almost) operate in a style that is very straight forward and clean. The world they draw looks real, the people they draw look weird. While the man interrogating the kidnapped Miranda Zero doesn't look like any actor I can think of, he seems like the sort of man you'd see in a movie or TV show where this situation happens.
The plot, by the way, is: Miranda Zero has been kidnapped. She will be killed in one hour unless she tells him all of the information she has on the Global Frequency so he and his organisation can kill every agent and dismantle the GF. Why an hour? That's how long they figure it will take the GF to find her.
So, there are basically two things that Sprouse and Story (though I'm going to just say Sprouse for the rest of this... Story is implied and included in everything I say because I honestly have no idea what Sprouse's art looks like without Story inking him...) draw are: Miranda in the room with man in black; and GF agents trying to find her by examining the place where she was abducted.
Of all of the book's issues, this is the one I can imagine being an episode of a TV show, in a big part because of Sprouse's art. It's so simple and straight forward, capturing the look and feel of real life. It's a little sterile and stiff in places, but that works. There are a lot of jump cuts in this issue, going from one person/place to another. The only time he ever really stays with anything is with Miranda and the man. A tall, lanky, skinny, balding man. The sort of man you think of when you want to picture a cool, professional interrogator/killer. Of course, he isn't a professional, he's just a sad little man, but still. That's an interesting subversion, because, when the issue starts, from the look of the man, you think there's a chance that Miranda will be killed. He looks good enough.
There are a lot of panels showing people from the shoulder's up, often at computers. I'm trying to think through how this is made visually interesting by Sprouse -- because it is. How the fuck did he make people sitting at computers look so good?
Is it the perspective changes? He rarely jumps from person to person and maintains the same perspective in the panel. He'll go from a side view to a back view, from looking down on them to looking up at them slightly. He keeps the camera moving, making sure we don't see the same composition twice. He'll give them little pieces of business, like being handed a mug of coffee or yelling at someone... the people aren't static necessarily. This is a big emergency and even people at computers are a little jumpy. Aleph is the only one that seems able to stay calm and still, but that's because it's her job to run things like this and she has the look of worry on her.
More so than Garry Leach in the first issue, this issue is so clearly told. It's easy to understand visually, but Sprouse still dresses it up a bit with the changing angles in panels. Very good.
David Baron's colours are done in an equally straight forward manner. No overtones or anything, except in Aleph's room, which is lit with green lights. The colours are crisp and fall between the lines extremely well. This issue also takes place during the day, so things are brighter than in other issues. Baron definitely shows the ability to adapt to his artists in this series. I'm slowly picking up on how, but it's there.
Tomorrow: Lee Bermejo draws Global Frequency #9.
Global Frequency #8. Written by Warren Ellis. Pencilled by Chris Sprouse. Inked by Karl Story. Coloured by David Baron.
This issue doesn't have a title. I've seen it possibly having a variation on the final numbers on the cover: "00:00:00.001" most often ".001" but I can't say for sure.
The art in this issue is very realistic. Sprouse and Story (the second time we've had someone not inking themselves this month... that seems weird almost) operate in a style that is very straight forward and clean. The world they draw looks real, the people they draw look weird. While the man interrogating the kidnapped Miranda Zero doesn't look like any actor I can think of, he seems like the sort of man you'd see in a movie or TV show where this situation happens.
The plot, by the way, is: Miranda Zero has been kidnapped. She will be killed in one hour unless she tells him all of the information she has on the Global Frequency so he and his organisation can kill every agent and dismantle the GF. Why an hour? That's how long they figure it will take the GF to find her.
So, there are basically two things that Sprouse and Story (though I'm going to just say Sprouse for the rest of this... Story is implied and included in everything I say because I honestly have no idea what Sprouse's art looks like without Story inking him...) draw are: Miranda in the room with man in black; and GF agents trying to find her by examining the place where she was abducted.
Of all of the book's issues, this is the one I can imagine being an episode of a TV show, in a big part because of Sprouse's art. It's so simple and straight forward, capturing the look and feel of real life. It's a little sterile and stiff in places, but that works. There are a lot of jump cuts in this issue, going from one person/place to another. The only time he ever really stays with anything is with Miranda and the man. A tall, lanky, skinny, balding man. The sort of man you think of when you want to picture a cool, professional interrogator/killer. Of course, he isn't a professional, he's just a sad little man, but still. That's an interesting subversion, because, when the issue starts, from the look of the man, you think there's a chance that Miranda will be killed. He looks good enough.
There are a lot of panels showing people from the shoulder's up, often at computers. I'm trying to think through how this is made visually interesting by Sprouse -- because it is. How the fuck did he make people sitting at computers look so good?
Is it the perspective changes? He rarely jumps from person to person and maintains the same perspective in the panel. He'll go from a side view to a back view, from looking down on them to looking up at them slightly. He keeps the camera moving, making sure we don't see the same composition twice. He'll give them little pieces of business, like being handed a mug of coffee or yelling at someone... the people aren't static necessarily. This is a big emergency and even people at computers are a little jumpy. Aleph is the only one that seems able to stay calm and still, but that's because it's her job to run things like this and she has the look of worry on her.
More so than Garry Leach in the first issue, this issue is so clearly told. It's easy to understand visually, but Sprouse still dresses it up a bit with the changing angles in panels. Very good.
David Baron's colours are done in an equally straight forward manner. No overtones or anything, except in Aleph's room, which is lit with green lights. The colours are crisp and fall between the lines extremely well. This issue also takes place during the day, so things are brighter than in other issues. Baron definitely shows the ability to adapt to his artists in this series. I'm slowly picking up on how, but it's there.
Tomorrow: Lee Bermejo draws Global Frequency #9.
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