The Stop Button

blogging by Andrew Wickliffe

recent posts

Category: Johnny Red

  • Johnny Red (2015) #8

    Johnny Red (2015) #8

    Garth Ennis has made me cry before, I’m sure of it. Definitely wet eyes at some tragic war story. Not what I was expecting from Johnny Red, especially the way he brings in the present day stuff, which I’ve never liked in the book. But Ennis has this licensed property and he goes very big…

  • Johnny Red 8 (August 2016)

    Garth Ennis has made me cry before, I’m sure of it. Definitely wet eyes at some tragic war story. Not what I was expecting from Johnny Red, especially the way he brings in the present day stuff, which I’ve never liked in the book. But Ennis has this licensed property and he goes very big…

  • Johnny Red (2015) #7

    Johnny Red (2015) #7

    It’s an action issue and not much of one. Lots of exposition, lots of scenes, lots of flying and getting nowhere. Ennis doesn’t lose the series’s momentum, but it’s the first Johnny Red in a while to not leave me stunned. The achievement is probably not losing their momentum. Because there’s nothing to this comic.…

  • Johnny Red 7 (June 2016)

    It’s an action issue and not much of one. Lots of exposition, lots of scenes, lots of flying and getting nowhere. Ennis doesn’t lose the series’s momentum, but it’s the first Johnny Red in a while to not leave me stunned. The achievement is probably not losing their momentum. Because there’s nothing to this comic.…

  • Johnny Red (2015) #6

    Johnny Red (2015) #6

    How long is Ennis going to keep Johnny Red going? I assumed it was six issues, but it seems much more like eight at this point. There’s no moss on this one, no wasted panels. Ennis and Burns have a lot to do. They have a sensational cliffhanger to resolve and then explain. The explanation…

  • Johnny Red 6 (May 2016)

    How long is Ennis going to keep Johnny Red going? I assumed it was six issues, but it seems much more like eight at this point. There’s no moss on this one, no wasted panels. Ennis and Burns have a lot to do. They have a sensational cliffhanger to resolve and then explain. The explanation…

  • Johnny Red (2015) #5

    Johnny Red (2015) #5

    Burns might have just done one of the best comic book action sequences. The way he and Ennis pace out the issue’s second half, with Johnny infiltrating a German compound to rescue his men, is unbelievable. They get so much done. They identify the compound, they land a plane, they get Johnny to the compound,…

  • Johnny Red 5 (March 2016)

    Burns might have just done one of the best comic book action sequences. The way he and Ennis pace out the issue’s second half, with Johnny infiltrating a German compound to rescue his men, is unbelievable. They get so much done. They identify the compound, they land a plane, they get Johnny to the compound,…

  • Johnny Red (2015) #4

    Johnny Red (2015) #4

    It’s a bridging issue of Johnny Red, which is sort of fine, sort of not. Ennis concentrates on writing really good scenes–he has them for his leads, he even has one leading up to the cliffhanger (so a good setup scene with some German pilots)–but he lets the plot get very, very loose. Ennis doesn’t…

  • Johnny Red 4 (February 2016)

    It’s a bridging issue of Johnny Red, which is sort of fine, sort of not. Ennis concentrates on writing really good scenes–he has them for his leads, he even has one leading up to the cliffhanger (so a good setup scene with some German pilots)–but he lets the plot get very, very loose. Ennis doesn’t…

  • Johnny Red (2015) #3

    Johnny Red (2015) #3

    Johnny Red has a strange organization to its messy narrative. The issue opens with a history lesson–in present-day monologue–about the Night Witches and how they figure into the series’s ground situation. It goes on for pages. It goes on for so long I forgot the book was about Johnny Red and instead thought Ennis was…

  • Johnny Red 3 (January 2016)

    Johnny Red has a strange organization to its messy narrative. The issue opens with a history lesson–in present-day monologue–about the Night Witches and how they figure into the series’s ground situation. It goes on for pages. It goes on for so long I forgot the book was about Johnny Red and instead thought Ennis was…

  • Johnny Red (2015) #2

    Johnny Red (2015) #2

    The issue’s a little too slight. Not in the middle, but once Ennis wraps it up. He finds Johnny Red’s momentum–the stuff with the Russian fliers, not when it’s narrated, but when it’s the action, is excellent. Like, some of Ennis’s better war writing in a while. It’s real good. But then the soft cliffhanger…

  • Johnny Red 2 (December 2015)

    The issue’s a little too slight. Not in the middle, but once Ennis wraps it up. He finds Johnny Red’s momentum–the stuff with the Russian fliers, not when it’s narrated, but when it’s the action, is excellent. Like, some of Ennis’s better war writing in a while. It’s real good. But then the soft cliffhanger…

  • Johnny Red (2015) #1

    Johnny Red (2015) #1

    I wonder how long Johnny Red is going to go. Unlike writer Garth Ennis’s usual war comics, he gives this one a modern-day frame and an American protagonist (in the modern day). I think Ennis used to give his historical series some kind of frame, but I haven’t seen one lately (or ever in War…

  • Johnny Red 1 (November 2015)

    I wonder how long Johnny Red is going to go. Unlike writer Garth Ennis’s usual war comics, he gives this one a modern-day frame and an American protagonist (in the modern day). I think Ennis used to give his historical series some kind of frame, but I haven’t seen one lately (or ever in War…