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.

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!

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...)

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!

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:

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.

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.

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!

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.

CBR Review: Guardians of the Galaxy #24

I recently reviewed Guardians of the Galaxy #24 for CBR and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "As the Marvel cosmic line builds to 'The Thanos Imperative,' the main push is in Guardians of the Galaxy, but this issue seems somewhat limited by the upcoming story. With the entire issue leading to the final page, there’s only about half an issue’s worth of content while Abnett and Lanning stall for time somewhat. The issue is still a fun, entertaining read, but it’s lacking compared to previous issues of the title."

You can read the rest HERE!

Art Discussion Month 2010: Global Frequency #7 by Simon Bisley

[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 #7 ("Detonation"). Written by Warren Ellis. Drawn by Simon Bisley. Coloured by David Baron.

Some group is going to kill some spy-type folk. The Global Frequency needs to stop that from happening. So, they fake some cars and catch some of the would-be killers. But, the top guy has a phone that will send a signal to a plane that has a nuclear device on it. He's bleeding from a gut wound and the GF agent on the other side of the room is bleeding from a shoulder wound. He's got a pistol; she's got a shotgun.

Simon Bisley draws this in such an over-the-top manner that it comes off as a mad caper romp. Sure, there's death and pain, but it's kind of fun. Was that the intent? Other issues of Global Frequency have some playful moments, but this one is so out there visually that it's hard to take it seriously.

All of the characters look like weirdos, for one thing. He plays with the contrast of the two main GF agents, a small Chinese woman and a large, scary-looking Russian who looks like he's been cut out of white wood. They're a humorous-looking duo. But, most of the other characters display odd looks or mannerisms. A bodyguard holsters his gun, while giving this cockeyed snooty look to Miranda Zero. A bald, fat cop with a squiggle of hair on the very top of his head. Miranda Zero even dresses a little bit fancier/stranger with an odd fur-lined coat. The Chinese woman wears a pin-stripe suit.

The violence is insane in it's kinetic movements. A shot of rockets being launched from rocket launchers (yes, I know, that sentence is fucked) over three panels conveys the uneasy movement of the rocket through the air as it joins with two others and they hit their target. The Chinese GF agent shoots the top half of one of the terrorist's head off. Lower jar and up? Gone. In three straight panels, she isn't touching the ground. She runs up the stairs, hunched over, shotgun in one hand, phone in the other, feet well above the steps. Next panel, she kicks the door down with a jump kick. Next panel, she shoots the head off while diving toward the terrorist. All movement, all insane.

The Russian, a hulking monster with pale skin and white hair, odd scars, looks like wood. Wears these glasses with small, rectangular frames. His weapon of choice is an axe. He's nothing but over-the-top scary violence. So, yeah, perhaps that was the point of this issue.

Crazed action that is told in extremes is the visual style and Bisley nails it. With him on the art, it almost reads as a parody of an issue of Global Frequency, exactly the sort of you need at this point to break the tension of these big life-or-death stories. Plus, things get very fucked up in a few issues.

David Baron's colours come across wonderfully in this trade. The paper is glossier, higher grade, and it displays the colours especially well. He uses some of his usual tricks, but also embraces the over-the-top nature of the story. The Russian is an unearthly white, including his hair. Lots of bright red blood. Too bright and contrasted with pale greyish blue or black backgrounds often. He makes the kinetic violent nature of the art stand out.

(Minor critique: the end of this issue is very similar to that of issue four's end. Except for an added scene. Involving an axe. Ha ha ha.)

Tomorrow, we go in the opposite direction almost with Chris Sprouse and Global Frequency #8.

Quickie Reviews (Mar 17 2010)

A small week for me with only four books... and one of those I'm reviewing for CBR. I'm also going to be super-quick.

Joe the Barbarian #3: My favourite issue yet. Lots of fun character bits. Morrison playing with the fantasy quest characters and types is really entertaining. Sean Murphy's art looks a little less polished here, but I could be seeing things. A little bit. Not much. [****]

Siege #3: This shit is craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy. Gorgeous art and not at all what I thought this issue would be. Better than that, honestly. [****]

Spider-Woman #7: The series that's actually a mini-series. I'm okay with that since this book never really blew me away. It's been good, but something just didn't click. Maybe it will read better as a whole. A good conclusion to the story that would set up the ongoing. I'm curious where Bendis and Maleev wanted to go with the character. Good finish. [***1/2]

Now, on to other writing... Later.

Art Discussion Month 2010: Global Frequency #6 by David Lloyd

[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 #6 ("The Run"). Written by Warren Ellis. Drawn by David Lloyd. Coloured by David Baron.

Global Frequency 6 is all laid out in my head: should have the script out to David Lloyd in a week or so. It's a chase story, in London. A hungover 22-year-old Pakistani girl in Soho is the only Global Frequency agent close enough to stop a particularly nasty bomb going off on the Embankment. And she can't drive, and she's unarmed. All she can do is run. And half the city's closed off due to a Royal appearance. It's fun. And I've been going through David's earlier work to look for the tricks he uses to denote speed. There's a wonderful little thing he does in V for Vendetta. The batard Almond has a gun on V. He fires, but the gun's defective. And V goes at him with a knife. And in that panel, David tips the angle, so that V is at the top of the panel on the right, and Almond is in the lower left, so that V absolutely surges towards him, sudden vertiginous motion. It's simple and subtle, but it works amazingly.

That's from Warren Ellis's August 10, 2002 Bad Signal. It serves two purposes: tells you the plot and introduces a bit about David Lloyd's art here. What Ellis doesn't mention is that Sita, the Pakistani girl, practices parkour, which is how she runs through London: through and over buildings, using the environment to push her forward. This issue relies on the art quite a bit.

One way that Lloyd communicates motion and speed is through the shadows on buildings and surfaces surrounding Sita. They're not solid shadows, they're done with thin lines, sometimes meeting in a solid spot, but mostly just parallel thin lines. Not quite motion lines, but not far off either. They work as shadows and as speed lines. Nice little trick.

Lloyd's line work is thicker than you'd expect for a speed-heavy issue, but there it is. Sita, often depicted at a bit of a distance, so we can see her in her environment, is drawn in heavy blacks. Thick lines, giving her a sense of force and weight, communicating how hard this is. While she's thin and in shape, what she's doing is leaping off buildings and over cars and running like hell, and, fuck, that's almost certainly one of the most physically taxing things you could do. By depicting her and her environment with thicker lines, that sense of the physicality of it comes through. She's not floating through the air like a light nothing.

Wisely, most of the time, Sita is running left to right. She's running with the direction we read, but she's also running from page to page, throughout the comic. If she were going the other way, it wouldn't work. We need to go with her as she takes us with her.

Near the end of the issue, Sita arrives the Eye of London where the person with the bomb is and has to climb the fucking thing. Lovely moment where there's a little girl with her family, of Indian or Pakistani descent, and she says "DADDY, LOOK. / SPIDERMAN'S A GIRL. AND SHE'S JUST LIKE US. / COOL." Lloyd does this scene very well, aided ably by David Baron, with five panels laid atop a backdrop of the Eye. In the first panel, Sita is on her way up and, in the background, we see the girl in the crowded pod, standing out because of her red clothes. In the second panel, we get a full-body shot of the girl where she speaks the above dialogue. Then, we switch perspective so we're behind the girl and just at the top of the panel, over her shoulder, we barely see Sita. In the fourth panel, we close in on Sita as she winks at the little girl. Lovely little moment.

The final scene where she breaks into the pod with the bomber is a flurry of action as she breaks the window with this little glass-breaking hammer, hitting it over and over again. Eventually, she breaks the glass, is forced to kill the guy, drenches the biological bomb with some liquid and has to dive into the fucking Thames to put enough pressure on the case to keep the biological agent from escaping. Lloyd stays pretty close to Sita throughout this, except when she dives off the Eye and, then, he pulls back, showing us how crazy this is.

What makes the art work so well in this issue is how Lloyd moves us forward while also doing everything he can to show how insane and tiring this is for Sita. Capturing both of those things is quite difficult and, honestly, is not something most artists would do.

Tomorrow, it's Global Frequency #7 and Simon Bisley.

CBR Review: Breaking into Comics the Marvel Way #1

I recently reviewed Breaking into Comics the Marvel Way #1 for CBR and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "This two issue series is a showcase of young, new artists that C.B. Cebulski has encountered in his travels around the world, scouting talent for Marvel. Each issue provides six short stories, partnering these artists with some of Marvel’s most established writers. This first issue has a pretty good showing. The preview pages give two or three pages from each story, showing what these artists can do."

You can read the rest HERE!

CBR Review: Daytripper #4

I recently reviewed Daytripper #4 for CBR and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "Daytripper #4 shouldn’t be as good as it is. Beginning with a cliché, the issue should fall apart. Brás de Oliva Domingos is 41 and his wife is about to give birth to their first child and, just as they’re on the way to the hospital, there’s a phone call. Leaving it for voice mail, Brás doesn’t hear the message left by his mother that something has happened to his father. At the hospital, Brás goes for a cigarette and finds his mother downstairs, smoking, where she tells him that his father has died. Died in the hospital where his first child, a son, is about to be born. It shouldn’t work, it should induce groans and rolling eyes, but, instead, this comic is poetic and touching, executed with such careful skill, so steeped in the humanity of Brás, that even a cliché can rise above itself."

You can read the rest HERE!

Art Discussion Month 2010: Global Frequency #5 by Jon J Muth

[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 #5 ("Big Sky"). Written by Warren Ellis. Drawn by Jon J Muth. Coloured by David Baron.

Does Jon J Muth even pencil his stuff? I remember reading somewhere (I don't remember where exactly) that he just goes straight to inks and that's what it looks like here. Drawn with brushes. Maybe pens. Thin brushes along with thick ones? Christ, I'm over my head with this. I'm going to stick with brushes of varying sizes and a whole lot of ink.

In this issue, a small Norwegian town's populace has all gone a little crazy after everyone saw an angel when the town's church burnt down. Miranda Zero and a team of three go there and try to figure out what happened. There's a parapsychologist and a magician in the group. It's a smaller, quieter story.

Muth's art is somewhat ambient, somewhat mythic. This is a story of science and magic and religion and the human mind. You don't need someone who's tied to realism too much, though Muth does operate within a semi-realist style. People look like people, etc. etc. etc.

Because Muth is using such heavy inks, there's an automatic feeling of darkness, of the world being a little bit darker, a little bit not right. That's not to say that the art is dark, because it isn't (aside from the scenes that take place at night), there's just an extra amount of black ink with Muth's thicker lines.

Panels don't flow in the same way, standing alone a bit more. In some spots, he tries to overcome that by overlapping panels slightly, having them lead to the next more directly, but there's a very cinematic look to the way his panels don't flow. In one case, a page of three panels where Miranda Zero walks through the snow, some trees about, eventually winding up in the remains of the burnt church. It looks like three series of shots rather than three panels. In each panel, you can picture her walking before the camera changes to a different shot. Odd.

That painterly quality of his heavy brushstrokes conveys the environment, that barrenness... the page where we see the angel is stunning because it doesn't look right. It doesn't look great and holy, it looks unnatural.

He really excels in the two pages showing the aftermath of seeing the 'angel' on people as they look... broken. There's a certain despair in their body language and faces. A certain feeling of unease.

David Baron uses a lot more solid colours here, working in blocks a bit more. Drab colours often, even ones that could be bright are muted and dark. He gets the colour of snow right, too. Lots of texture and subtle differences in his work on the snow. Great looking.

Muth... his figures are almost like sketches. His people look distinct and individual. The magician, Alan Crowe, is lean and somewhat spooky... his people don't always look the exact same. There's some shifting of their features and hair a bit. They're stiff, too... but, this sounds weird, it works. Sometimes, what's normally a 'bad' thing works. Just the way it is.

Tomorrow: David Lloyd and Global Frequency #6.

The Splash Page Podcast Episode 8.2

The second episode of the week is up. It's a longer one, but it's full of Tim and I... talking. I guess these episodes are always full of that, aren't they? In this one, we answer the cliffhanger question, discuss some new comics, prose novels by comics writers, Tim's baldness, and I swear this time to match Tim's swearing from the first episode.

You can download and listen to the Splash Page Podcast Episode 8.2 HERE!

CBR Review: Punishermax #5

I recently reviewed Punishermax #5 for CBR and, in the process, wrote the following sentences: "With the first story arc in Punishermax concluded, Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon have definitely proven the ideas that no one could follow Garth Ennis on a Punisher book aimed at mature readers and that it was a mistake to introduce a character like Wilson Fisk to be wrong. I’ll admit, I definitely thought both of those to be the case, but Aaron and Dillon have crafted five issues is tense, exciting action to show the rise of Fisk from bodyguard to Kingpin that it’s hard to deny them their due. Not that I would want to, of course."

You can read the rest HERE!