blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Well, if anything, this issue of Time Bomb does feature Gulacy’s best two panels in the last… five years? I’m trying to remember the last time anything he did wowed me. It’s been a long time, but there are a couple close-ups here… it’s just beautiful art. It got me looking at the rest of […]
MorePugh has some pacing issues but I think the big problem is… three issues isn’t enough Hotwire. He’s moving the series toward a close–and he’s doing an admirable job fitting a lot in (whether it’s Alice being well-liked or the stuff between the ghost soldier and the zombie)–but it’s clear he knows the end is […]
MoreUnfortunately for the reader, Palmiotti and Gray do something incredibly strange here–they make the issue nearly unapproachable to someone who hasn’t just read the previous issue. I guess there are a couple paragraphs recapping the first issue, but who reads those? I certainly can’t be expecting to hunt it down on the back of the […]
MoreThe art is a wreck. I can’t believe anyone looked at the pages for the first issue and the ones for this issue and thought they were acceptable. On the plus, Remender is less awful. He’s still writing a movie pitch for Mickey Rourke, right down to an intricate heist sequence, but at least he’s […]
MoreWow. Tocchini’s art takes a major dive this issue. Most of it looks like he had some sketches and they colored them and called them good. It’s so bad I forgot the beginning of the issue actually looked good. I don’t think I’ve read Remender before. Going to take a lot to convince me to […]
MoreSince I already knew I’d like the Greg Tocchini artwork–I hope the future issues have some more color; this issue is mostly set in dark streets and the brighter stuff is just so lush, I want more of it–The Last Days of American Crime otherwise mostly just showcased the benefits to the sixty-four page format. […]
MoreWesley Snipes helped create After Dark. There’s no mention of if he did it before or after debtor’s prison. I imagine if the comic had a tax evader as a character, it might be a lot more interesting. The story, if I can figure it out, is about an atmosphere destroyed earth with no real […]
MoreHoly cow, what a fun comic book. I think I might like this one more than any other Gray and Palmiotti book I’ve ever read. It plays like a big budget TV miniseries from the eighties or something–time travel to stop the Nazis from destroying the world in the present (a rough description, but accurate). […]
MoreHmm… I don’t like Pugh’s cliffhanger. I get the need for it, to establish the bad guys of this series as the mercenaries–not just incompetent but evil (did Pugh write this issue before or after Obama renewed Blackwater’s contract?)–but it’s not a solid ending. The issue opens with this amazing one-page retelling of the previous […]
MoreAnd I’m not so much on board for the conclusion. Here’s an action-packed issue. Pugh has his villain revealed, who’s really just an aggrieved party and aggrieved parties make terrible villains to demonize, since their plight makes sense. But worst is how he takes the series away from Hotwire at the end and gives it […]
MoreThis issue is Pugh’s version of an all-action issue. He fails, somewhat, because he’s still got a narrative going. It’s not just one huge action sequence, he takes the time to introduce characters and ideas, not to mention revealing the entire conspiracy (well, most of it) behind the comic book. It’s a fun issue. Not […]
MoreOk, some of Pugh’s dialogue panels are a little static here, but otherwise, the art’s excellent. This issue moves the story… well, not quite along, but it reveals more of it. It certainly does do a good job expanding the supporting cast, which is an interesting move for the second issue of a four issue […]
MoreA friend of mine recommended Hotwire to me and, while I trust his opinion, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. It’s a very stylized, painted-like (is there a term for it yet, Photoshop-painted maybe) comic and he doesn’t like photoshopping or painted comics. But Hotwire‘s not really that genre at all–if […]
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