Category: 2009
-
Not sure I like Fraction’s pacing here. There’s something deceptive about it to convince the reader there’s more content. A lot of montages. Not bad montages–Larroca doesn’t have to stay consistent if he’s drawing different people around the globe–but montages. It’s also pretty convenient. If Pepper didn’t throw a temper tantrum and throw stuff around…
-
Technically speaking, it’s a decent comic book. Larroca is no worse than last issue, maybe even a little better since he’s drawing less faces. Fraction’s writing is strong as usual. Except the majority of what he’s writing is expository dialogue from Tony. Lots and lots of it. He’s got Tony talking for pages recapping current…
-
I do love Matt Fraction. I started this issue ready to pounce because I’m just a negative kind of guy, but also because he opens with three separate narrators–Tony, Maria Hill and Pepper. None of them narrator for very long and Fraction’s omniscient third person narrator doesn’t stick around the whole issue. It’s just setup…
-
Perker’s full page of Amelia Earhart alive and well in the pages of Air might be the ugliest piece of artwork in the issue. And the issue is full of ugly artwork. It’s also full of swearing. I don’t think the comic was PG before, but Wilson’s apparently gotten tired of writing dialogue so every…
-
Two things this issue really rile me. First, the ending–there’s this hostage situation with the protagonist, Blythe. She gets taken up to the roof where the villain throws her off and she lands safely on some steampunk thing. Steampunk thing not the issue–we don’t get to see her taken up to the roof. There’s not…
-
This issue promises nothing will be the same in Chew again. I think it means we’ve know got the situation established–the government covered up a hundred million people dying as a bird flu thing. But Tony’s partner, the fat guy, knows it’s not true. So he’s going to do whatever he can to find out…
-
Well. I wanted subplots. I certainly got subplots. The issue opens with a subplot–the hit out on protagonist Tony–then Layman does a layered narrative (which always sounds good, but sometimes it’s just so you can force interest in a story by showing something interesting)–then we get another subplot (Tony’s brother is in trouble). Then the…
-
So I think I’m starting to understand how Layman’s using the bird flu. It’s his subplot. Instead of an actual subplot, he’s got this big political situation going on. In some ways, serialized television has ruined comic books. It’s funny since it’s been around since the eighties at least (“Hill Street”) but only got “popular”…
-
I like how Layman uses his letters page to crap mouth DC. It really defines the audience for the book. He wastes half an issue on the incredibly stupid office politics–turns out the FDA has violent bullies running the place (think Gene Hunt but without caring about justice)–and then makes a crack about DC ruining…
-
I imagine creator Layman will be able to get Hollywood to option Chew, but turning it into a movie or TV show will be somewhat problematic. I’d heard the concept–protagonist Tony Chu (get it, Chu? The book’s full of those) gets a psychic read off things he chews, including people–but, so far, the selling point…
-
Hey, why is Darwyn Cooke doing the adaptation for that Mel Gibson movie Payback ten years late? Oh, right, just the same source material. But who was really clamoring for an adaptation of the Hunter? Cooke excels with the art and creating an unglamorous feel for early sixties New York, but there’s something missing with…
-
I think I was unprepared for Unknown Soldier after the lighter fare I’ve been reading lately. Dysart’s doing a two-parter following up on the kid Moses brought to the school. Now, I’m assuming Dysart researched it, so when the school sets the kids loose on each other in a war game–which really messes some of…
-
Well, I figured out one major problem–besides the contrived plotting–Brubaker doesn’t have a protagonist this series. He did the first issue, because he hadn’t introduced his teen killers for God (an ex-Army Catholic priest is getting kids to kill criminals), but now he’s got nothing. The narration is awful this issue. It’s probably the worst…
-
Brubaker opens the issue with some terrible adjective use, so I started out ready to nitpick. Of course, he didn’t have to prove me right… but he went ahead and did so anyway. I really loathe these types of reviews, because I really do love Brubaker’s work. It’s just… fallen off since he’s gotten to…
-
I guess Brubaker thought Criminal was out of control too, because for the Sinners, he returns to his most solid protagonist–Tracy Lawless (from the second arc of the first series). For a while it works. We catch up with Tracy. In the year since the last story took place, he’s become a hitman with a…
-
In the Loop is a spin-off of a British show… I didn’t know about that connection when I watched it. I guess it doesn’t matter, since In the Loop is–apparently–something of a prequel. The show’s called “The Thick of It,” for those interested. Now, where to start. In the Loop is, without being specific with…
-
The final issue of Tankies is even better than I remembered and maybe even imagined. I’m really glad I forgot the ending–Ennis gives it two finishes, one for the tank company, one for the colonel at command–and it’s just perfect. What the colonel’s ending does is a little different–Tankies is not just a standalone story,…
-
Oh, it’s lovely. Ennis has something of a narrative tree going here–he has his main story with the tankies, but then he’s got command’s story. Command’s story has a little to do with the tankies, but not much. It has it’s own subplot. I think maybe half the issue has nothing to do, immediately, with…
-
I’ve always claimed The Tankies as Ennis’s best of the Battlefields (first series, anyway). I didn’t really remember why. Then I read the first issue again. Ennis sets up the story as a mission story. Maybe not even a mission, maybe just a part of a mission story. The present action is continuous. He opens…
-
I don’t write a lot of responses to documentaries on The Stop Button. There are many reasons for it, with the primary one being I’m not sure what constitutes a documentary film. But Good Hair is definitely the kind of documentary I respond to here on The Stop Button. I first heard about it on…
-
It’s a tad… Victorian, isn’t it? I mean, it’s an excellent issue and a decent close to Dear Billy, but it’s just too confined. With the whole letter to Billy thing–Ennis either has to use it as a letter to the guy or a narrative device. So he uses it as a narrative device. A…
-
I can’t remember how Dear Billy ends. Even reading another issue, I can’t remember. I spent a while, in the back of my head, anticipating Ennis’s cliffhanger. Three issue limited, he’d have to cliffhang… but he doesn’t. In fact, for a comic featuring a nurse killing three–wait, four–Japanese POWs, the most sensational thing in the…
-
I’ve forgotten most of the details to Battlefields, which is nice as it turns out. I then can remember things, anticipate them as I read, makes the experience seem richer. It’s a rather rich experience to begin with–Ennis’s writing here, from a first person female narrator, puts his contemporaries to shame. As usual. But I…
-
The Hole is, I believe, intended to be a family-friendly (I can’t believe PG-13 movies are now supposed to be family-friendly) horror film directed by Joe Dante. As opposed to Dante directing a family-friendly horror film. It’s Joe Dante doing work for hire, something I’m not really familiar with him doing often. Dante’s direction here…
-
The second issue, featuring the return of the Superboy and the Legion (at least in an origin retelling) to continuity, works a lot better. There’s still some stupid stuff. Instead of coming up with something interesting to do with Lana, Johns just has her get mad at Clark and storm off. And then the Lex…
-
Geoff Johns’s point seems to be to do another Superman origin retelling, this time integrating parts of Superman (Johns used to work for director Richard Donner), the “Smallville” TV show (Johns occasionally writes episodes for the show) and some of the stuff John Byrne left out of his Man of Steel origin retelling back in…
-
Finishing this series–I’m somewhat convinced Guevara used the whole thing as an audition piece to Marvel, in case they ever relaunch Monster of Frankenstein–I can’t figure out, first, why I wanted to read the sequel or, second, how I could forget how awful the series ends. I mean, if the fourth issue was the high…
-
Allie does an all action issue and it’s easily the best Solomon Kane so far. He actually manages to surprise with the big revelation–the bad guy might be a were-bear devil worshipper, but there are four more demons flying around and, presumably, Kane will fight them. But Allie also makes everyone but Kane, his sidekick…
-
I’m mildly tempted to use this space to discuss innovative private investigator storytelling, specifically The Big Lebowski and “Eyes.” If you hadn’t guessed, Stumptown–as a detective story–has failed to make an impression. Right now, with Stumptown, I’m concerned with two things. First, is Dex gay? Second, does she know the guy her brother works with–I…
-
Hmm. It reads well. Stumptown definitely reads well. Rucka doesn’t go cheap on content either, it’s a solid length read for a modern comic book. He introduces a lot of characters, some backstory… he gets a lot done here. I like this Matthew Southworth art too. They’re clearly going for a gritty, realistic feel and…
The Stop Button 