The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: 2017
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Nitz dumps information here. Just piles it on the reader, page after page. Fu isn’t just heart-broken over Rachel, his ex-girlfriend, she’s an android he created who fell in love with him and then out of it. She can shape shift (basically–it’s holographic something or another). They bicker as they try to save the world.…
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Coyotes is a little much. Caitlin Yarsky’s art is fantastic, but static. There’s no flow between panels. Great illustration and design chops, but it doesn’t move. Everything is still, which could actually work for Coyotes because it’s never still. Writer Sean Lewis yaps. If he goes a page without the poorly written narration, he makes…
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The Villainess manages to be technically superior without ever being technically impressive. Despite editor Heo Sum-mi and cinematographer Park Jung-hun cutting together extravgent action sequences–the finale is protagonist Kim Ok-bin chasing down a bus, jumping onto it, attacking the bad guys within, getting inside, and going through multiple different fistfights. The camera is fluid–with director…
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The panel composition. David Rubín sometimes spirals the panels in double-page spreads, sometimes just moves action horizontal, always guiding the reader’s eye. It’s a visual treat, which is particularly awesome given it’s a talking heads issue. Set before Lucy Weber joins Black Hammer, Sherlock Frankenstein and Legion of Evil has her investigating arch-villain Sherlock Frankenstein…
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Despite graphic violence and very high stakes (the end of the world), Fu Jitsu is a delight. The comic opens with Fu in an isolation tank in Antarctica. He’s the world’s oldest boy, clocking in at a hundred and twenty or so years, and he’s trying to get over a girl. Writer Jai Nitz opens…
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Copperhead is back after a little longer than expected, particularly since last issue had a big cliffhanger. The issue’s good–with Faerber comfortably moving from character to character, hinting at reveals, doing reveals. This new arc has Sheriff Bronson in trouble and everyone banding together to help her. For one reason or another. She’s not in…
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Turns out all Angelic needed was some teched-out manatees to turn the book around. Young hero Qora is alone on the beach, waiting to be married off to an icky priest monkey. She just wants to keep her wings (she loses them at marriage). The manatees show up and offer her a deal–help them save…
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I think three times this issue there are full page panels with the credit “Ennis/Parlov.” I’m not sure if they’ve got their first names on it. They’re heavy panels. Ennis is doing a Vietnam story. He’s got the vets, he’s got the author, he’s got Frank. The vets get most of the time, whether telling…
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The Damned finishes off its first arc, full of sadness and demons and misery. And beautiful Hurtt art. Achingly beautiful Hurtt art. It’s a wonderful Eddie issue, following him around, everything else–the flashbacks, the subplots–happening in this completely different world. One with possibility. Eddie’s world, as usual, doesn’t have any. Even when he thinks it…
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If Season Three had gotten off to a good start, Cannon might have some leeway for this issue. He’s ambitious and absurdly overindulgent; it’s the perfect example of creative lane changing. The issue has a framing device. The Kaijumax Musical Theater group is putting on a shoe. Their performance cuts to various other activities going…
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The Ruff & Reddy Show is off to a dark start. It’s a solid, strong dark start, but it’s a dark one. Writer Howard Chaykin lays out the backstory in this issue. There’s some modern day at the end, but the rest is a history lesson. Ruff and Reddy, a cat and dog, respectively, who…
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“You know, I’m sorry but, I didn’t mention it earlier but actually I preferred to be called Maestro.” How can you not think of “The Maestro” just a little in Maestros, which is about an obnoxious wizard king who rules fantasyland. Earth is just a magic-less world created to amuse those who have magic. And…
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Spy Seal continues to be a precious, precise delight. Spy Seal and Kes continue their mission with Seal’s crush just getting more and more intense. It doesn’t help their mission has he and Kes’s cover a married couple, leading not just to mission essential necking, but also figuring out the sleeping arrangements. Tommaso does his…
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Kill the Minotaur has run out of narrative momentum. Writers Pasetto and Cantamessa throw in at least three surprise reveals for the Athenians stuck in the Labyrinth and a few more for those outside it. The reveals spin up interest for a panel or two, page at most, before they become inert. The momentum is…
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Cypress’s art almost makes Retcon worth it. Almost. I’m not entirely sure if I’m done or not, but if I come back, it’s going to be for Cypress. Without him, it’s just this jumbled narrative with the guy from the last issue in trouble with NYPD–they’re going to kill him (they think he’s a terrorist)…
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Well. I’m not sure what to think of Jimmy’s Bastards right now. Ennis goes broad with the humor, giving Braun what becomes a litany of sight gags involving the villains’ mass disaster plan. And the usually careful dialogue gives way to a bunch of inferences and interrupted thoughts. Ennis returns to his undercooked (still bleeding)…
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Punisher: The Platoon is Garth Ennis doing a Vietnam war comic with Frank Castle. Young Frank Castle. Green Frank Castle. An author has tracked down Castle’s first platoon to interview them for a book; the author is never seen. Is it Ennis? Peter Parker? Maybe we’ll find out by issue six. The Vietnam stuff is…
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The world is coming to an end and only this ragtag team of Marvel supernatural characters can stop it. Johnny Blaze, Ghost Rider. Blade the Vampire Hunter. Damian Hellstrom the Hellstrom. Satana Hellstrom the scantily clad. Sadly, Spirits of Vengeance does not read like a tawdry seventies comic (and looks less like one). Instead, it’s…
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Retcon is about these secret paranormal military guys going out and killing secret paranormal ex-military guys. There’s a lot more back story on it and a fair amount of details–nothing really on the characters, just events and magical stuff–but the main story is pretty fast. Two agents are tracking a former agent in an AA…
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Batman: White Night is ambitious. Writer-artist Sean Murphy, after years of drawing excellent Batman in middling Batman comics for high profile writers, is trying both hats. And he’s not going to do anything small. He’s going to do the Joker, because Murphy’s not going big and new, he’s going big and old. A deconstruction of…
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I am now on board with Dastardly and Muttley but with one caveat. As the world descends into an ultra-violent, wacky cartoon mania–so, of course, Ennis should write it–Ennis needs to keep the “President of the United States” gags in check. The President of the United States killing someone with a giant cartoon mallet during…
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Moore and O’Neil open the issue with a story about stunt men. It’s set to It’s a Wonderful Life–like the plot beats–only it’s about how George Bailey’s guardian angel is really a stuntman. It’s rushed, without much content–though some real nice art from O’Neil–and Moore concentrates more on the mysteries of the movie theater. It…
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Godshaper comes to its finish. There’s some good art from Goonface, but he literally doesn’t have room again. The concert hall is too small for the giant gods and the pages are too small for all Ennay is supposed to be doing. But there’s some good art and some nice feels to the issue. Those…
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Redneck finishes its first arc with a whole lot of exposition. Cates basically uses the final third of the comic to do a pitch for the next arc, without revealing anything about it except who’s going to be in it. Estherren does get a nice action scene to do, but not even all of it.…
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Angelic is simultaneously new and familiar. It’s post-apocalyptic, no people, just genetically altered animals. The villains are flying dolphins who hunt the winged monkeys. The winged monkeys live in a patriarchal society with a cult-like religion controlling everything. They look like Wizard of Oz winged monkeys, talk like Planet of the Apes. Well, writer Simon…
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Writers Pasetto and Cantamessa have a lot of words this issue. Lots of exposition, lots of talking back and forth, blah, blah, blah. It’s not a talking issue, it’s an action issue. It’s a leading up to action issue. It’s pages and pages of good Ketner art before they get to the fight with the…
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This issue wraps up the second arc. I haven’t decided if I’m going to wait for the trade or just read the second arc again in one sitting, because Black Hammer has arrived. Lemire and Ormston do New Gods, they do Darkseid (sort of), they do a big climatic finish, and it all works. Even…
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The Prison takes place in 1995. Is it because smartphones would ruin the execution of the premise? Or maybe something has changed in the South Korean prison system to no longer make the premise plausable? I don’t know. It’s a pointless and somewhat distracting detail. The premise pretends to be high concept. Han Suk-kyu is…
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Sacred Creatures is real long this issue. And nothing happens. Oh, wait, turns out the Seven Deadly Sins have somehow Rosemary’s Babied ne’er-do-well lead Josh’s baby. It’s all part of some ancient plan. Regardless, nothing happens. Lots of talking heads saying nothing and Raimondi and Janson don’t have the writing chops to make it pass.…
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Electrogor returns to Kaijumax–figuratively and literally–but as a supporting player. The goat monster and the human doctor split this issue; his story is a tad more amusing than hers. There are hints of intriguing revelations for him, while she’s just doing more of the same with her kaiju lover. Cannon doesn’t recapture the magic–this issue…
The Stop Button 