Category: 2009
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It’s a… no pun intended… bridge issue (the final scene takes place on a bridge, I love how Ennis doesn’t spend time doing cliffhangers on Crossed, he always takes it a page or two beyond the cliffhanger). He uses this issue to pause and expand on a few things. First, the woman responds to the…
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I can’t believe Zombieland got made. I mean, I understand it’s a reasonable financial success and all, but who greenlighted this film? It’s from a couple no name writers and a no name director and the best known cast member is Woody Harrelson. Don’t get me wrong, I love Woody Harrelson and have been an…
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I don’t think I’ve seen zombie kids. Ennis doesn’t do zombie kids. Ennis does something else entirely. I was a little apprehensive about reading the third Crossed because the first two had been such uppers, but I think I’m numbed. He kills a bunch of kids here. There’s where he’s going with Crossed apparently; there’s…
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So glad I was just kidding about skipping this issue and going on to the conclusion, since it’s the best one so far. There’s just an endless amount of fantastic Lieber panels here. It’s mostly black and white in those parts, so the art comes through beautifully The coloring really hasn’t been helpful in Underground…
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It takes three minutes to read. Maybe four. There’s like a fifteen page fight scene. It’s effective and all–the villains are complete scumbags and Parker does get a lot of concern going for the protagonists–but three minutes? Fifteen pages? It’s even worse than I’d worried. I can’t even imagine waiting for these issues to come…
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The second issue’s an all-action issue, probably has a present action of twenty-five, thirty minutes. Stuff happens in it, but really nothing. The bad guys show up and there’s a stand-off. That description sums up the issue. Oh, and the park ranger guy lives. I am, I have to say, distressed. Lieber always ends up…
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I really liked this comic, but I’m almost worried I’m too jaded to properly appreciate it. This first issue sets up the characters–the guy and the girl park rangers who wake up the morning after to what turns into a really bad day–and there’s also the situational setup, where Parker’s got something relatively unique in…
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There’s a wonderful moment here, where being a Muppet comic really allows Randolph to do something neat, and she turns a battle scene into a segment for the Muppet sports’ show. It’s just a lovely way to do a comedic battle scene. As a last issue, it’s really successful. My only problem is the lack…
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And now things are back on track. Randolph says, in a promotional interview where the letters page should be, Janice is one of her favorites to write and it really shows here. Janice sort of becomes the main character in this issue, opening it (but not closing it), and all of her stuff, whether funny…
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While solid, this second issue isn’t as strong as the first. Some of that weakness has to do with the content. Here we get introduced to Gonzo as Captain Hook. There are some very funny lines–especially with Rizzo the Rat as Gonzo’s first mate–but there’s definitely something off. Kermit (as Peter Pan) is barely in…
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Reading Muppet Peter Pan, I’m confused why Boom! didn’t open with this series, at least as far as their themed Muppet comics go. I also want to mention I had a chance to get an Amy Mebberson sketch cover at C2E2 and did not because I hadn’t read Peter Pan yet and now greatly regret…
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No, Nury doesn’t pull it off or even right the course. Instead, he uses the lovely plot device of possession to utterly confound and get a visually effective conclusion. It’s never clear, not once, how the vampires work in this story–or why they have to be the Dracula brothers, other than for effect and it’s…
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Well, that turn of events is a little disappointing. I probably missed it earlier, but it’s not about the two Dracula brothers and a little sister, it’s about the two Dracula brothers, one of them inhabiting a little girl. The whole thing is a lot less compelling now… I’m not sure why. Nury races through…
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I guess it hadn’t occurred to me the best way to clear up all the multitude of characters in I Am Legion was to kill most of them, which is what Nury does in this issue. The story’s in a higher gear now, racing toward, presumably, a cliffhanger in the fifth issue and some kind…
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One thing I refuse to do when reading fiction–whether it’s Michael Crichton or William Faulkner–is keep a list of characters. I’m not going to take notes when I’m reading fiction, not to help me along reading it. I Am Legion, especially this issue, seems to require it. This issue is a war espionage issue (for…
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Now, I have to admit, I’m a little wary–if it turns out the little vampire girl is Dracula’s sister, I’m going to be upset. Why does Dracula always have to be a candidate for a secret villain? Otherwise, the second issue of I Am Legion has got me completely onboard. It’s a war espionage thriller…
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I have almost no idea what this comic book is about. I mean, it’s about World War II, I can gather that much, but the eventual content… the story? No idea. It’s a mystery, a supernatural thing, a war thing with Nazis. A war thing with the French resistance… I don’t know. It’s got John…
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Carey starts something new here, in Unwritten‘s second arc, which I didn’t expect before. Well, he actually introduces a couple things I didn’t expect. First, Lizzie Hexam, is working with someone in her quest to… do whatever… with Tom. Second, Tom can apparently bring characters forth from written works–this issue ends with Tom discovering Frankenstein’s…
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Okay, so Busiek doesn’t pull it off, not saving the whole series, not even saving the whole issue, but when he has the chance to be a right cheap bastard and have the mutant girl be a hallucination of a dying cancer patient… he doesn’t do it. He doesn’t do the M. Night Shyamalan ending.…
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If Marvels II is really all about the protagonist dying, shouldn’t they have made the issues match the Kübler-Ross model–the five stages of grief–you know, from that “Simpsons” episode with the blowfish. Just an idea. I’m not sure when this issue takes place. Sometime in the late 1980s at least. The protagonist has been dying…
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Ok, so Secret Wars took place in the seventies? I mean, based on the style of the protagonist’s new boss, at least. She’s wearing clothes straight out of “Mary Tyler Moore.” It’s fine, of course, if it does take place in the seventies in Marvels, but maybe mention it, guys. Maybe mention the year. Maybe…
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Does Busiek have a point this time? This entire series seems pointless. It’s Anacleto, finally, drawing superheroes–not a lot of them, but some of them–and they look good and the comic looks good overall, but Busiek isn’t doing anything here. There’s nothing… pressing about this comic book. It’s completely by the numbers. It’s so unspectacular,…
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The second issue is better than the first… but it’s still got a bunch of problems. It’s more of a sequel to the original series than the first issue, which makes the first issue even more questionable, but it also… it’s a…. So, the protagonist has this book about all the heroes and it’s called…
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I’m a little confused. Marvels is, itself, somewhat out of continuity–the Fantastic Four didn’t really get their start in the sixties in current Marvel continuity. So, Marvels: Eye of the Camera is–or should be–out of continuity too, right? Because Busiek wastes the entire first issue ret-conning Marvels. It’s not even clear until the last five…
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I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting from 1974 but I didn’t get it. I think I thought it was a serial killer investigation, based on a real case. Instead, it’s this melodramatic crusading reporter thing, with the serial killings taking a back seat to that emphasis. Except then the crusading reporter thing takes…
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With Worley returning to the art, The Complete Dracula stands as three-fifths of the best telling or retelling of Stoker’s Dracula… far better than the novel itself, even with the occasional adaptation quibbles. The book immediately returns to the multimedia presentation, the artwork again becoming a mix of painted landscapes and domestics and half-static, half-moving…
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In the notes for this issue, Moore and Reppion discuss the novel’s sexism. I think the less guarded description would be Stoker’s misogyny. It’s somewhat curbed here, in the adaptation, as the writers are aware of its presence, whereas Stoker would not have been. Lots happens in the issue and I could only wonder how…
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Unfortunately, Worley’s gone this issue (he’s credited with layouts). Verma is … Verma’s painted comic art looks like all the lame painted comic art I’ve seen before, the stuff to make me dread a painted comic. His figures are fine, his faces are awful. The texture and depth of the book is now gone. It’s…
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So, I guess I hadn’t realized how important Aaron Campbell’s layout contributions are to this series. There’s an example in the back of the comic and it’s clear he’s significant. The Dracula novel, with the diary entries, the letters, the clippings, is sort of a multimedia (for the late nineteenth century) piece, and this adaptation…
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No one told me Dracula was going to be a digitally painted comic. I usually avoid those. But I probably still would have picked this one and a good thing, because it’s not bad. As a novel, Dracula, is complete garbage. It’s such garbage, it’s almost impossible to find a good adaptation of it, illustrated,…
The Stop Button 