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Marvel Graphic Novel 17: Revenge of the Living Monolith (1985)
I’m not even sure where to start. About half the comic deals with the Living Pharaoh’s origin and his escape from prison. It’s a strange origin; he seems a lot like an Egyptian Peter Parker for a bunch of it (you know, if Peter weren’t a college dropout or whatever). Michelinie does everything he can,… 📖
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Battlefields (2010) #2
Ennis continues with the mellow. This story arc continues to be calm and genial. It’s nice–the new captain flirts with the barmaid, the command decides to let the socially graceless Masher continue with his behaviors unhindered (he farts when he gets excited). I still don’t know how to talk about the issue because so little… 📖
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Bad Boys (1995, Michael Bay)
Here’s an idea… take a script from the guy who wrote Midnight Run–I imagine that film had some rewrites from Martin Brest, but George Gallo did come up with it–and turn it into a complete mess. What’s interesting about Bad Boys is what isn’t wrong with it… what nearly works in it…. Michael Bay doesn’t… 📖
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Battlefields 3 (February 2010)
Well, Ennis gets to the rough stuff here. But he still handles it calmly and affably for the beginning, then once the event occurs, it’s rather touching. To this point, Battlefields has been pretty extraordinary and different, whether in plot details or characters. This arc is the first one where Ennis just sits down and… 📖
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Battlefields 2 (January 2010)
Ennis continues with the mellow. This story arc continues to be calm and genial. It’s nice–the new captain flirts with the barmaid, the command decides to let the socially graceless Masher continue with his behaviors unhindered (he farts when he gets excited). I still don’t know how to talk about the issue because so little… 📖
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Battlefields (2010) #1
Ennis is off to a fine start with the second round of Battlefields, this time covering Australian fliers during World War II. All Battlefields are WWII, aren’t they? Anyway, it’s a fine start, with some nice humor at the end. It’s a pretty straightforward story, which might be why he’s opening with it–a solid war… 📖
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Battlefields 1 (January 2010)
Ennis is off to a fine start with the second round of Battlefields, this time covering Australian fliers during World War II. All Battlefields are WWII, aren’t they? Anyway, it’s a fine start, with some nice humor at the end. It’s a pretty straightforward story, which might be why he’s opening with it–a solid war… 📖
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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) #95
I guess this issue is better than the last one. Milgrom’s directly continuing it, which will probably wreck havoc in the monthly Spider-Man continuity over in Amazing, and he keeps his recap of the previous issue brief. The writing is still bad–in the case of Cloak and Dagger and the Black Cat, very, very bad–and… 📖
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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) #94
What would I do without Al Milgrom? I’d never have been able to understand this issue, like when Cloak and Dagger talk to each other about their origin. Or when Peter thinks all about the problems he’s been having with the Black Cat and then explains their last adventure together. But Milgrom is dealing with… 📖
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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man 95 (October 1984)
I guess this issue is better than the last one. Milgrom’s directly continuing it, which will probably wreck havoc in the monthly Spider-Man continuity over in Amazing, and he keeps his recap of the previous issue brief. The writing is still bad–in the case of Cloak and Dagger and the Black Cat, very, very bad–and… 📖
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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man 94 (September 1984)
What would I do without Al Milgrom? I’d never have been able to understand this issue, like when Cloak and Dagger talk to each other about their origin. Or when Peter thinks all about the problems he’s been having with the Black Cat and then explains their last adventure together. But Milgrom is dealing with… 📖
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Daytripper (2010) #10
Issue ten invalidates most of, if not all of, issue nine. Daytripper ends exactly the way I figured it would… Brás is a happy old man. Because Moon and Bá spend the second half of the series goofing around, they miss out on the most interesting parts of the story. Like, where’d the sister go… 📖
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Daytripper (2010) #9
And there they go. Be nice, now, wave to Moon and Bá as they set Daytripper out to sea, absolving themselves of any narrative responsibility. This issue sums it all up. The issues have been dreams of Brás on his death bed. When he’s dying isn’t sure, maybe it’s a coma. It’s not important. There’s… 📖
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Daytripper (2010) #8
Yeah, it’s clear Moon and Bá are now in the “trying new things” phase of Daytripper. Brás is away on business and dies while away on business. We read his notes, emails and letters and hear the other ends of conversations… he leaves an answering machine message. It’s a bit of a narrative experiment and… 📖
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Daytripper (2010) #7
Here’s a… well, I don’t know what this issue is or does yet. Moon and Bá bring sensationalism to Daytripper with this issue like I never would have expected. It’s a sequel to the previous issue, instead of a standalone and it ends with Jorge (the protagonist’s best friend) going insane and killing him, then… 📖
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Daytripper (2010) #6
Moon and Bá continue changing things up, as Daytripper has passed the halfway point. This issue is set after the first, but before the oldest–Brás is thirty-three and he’s not the focus of the first third of the comic. Instead, Moon and Bá do some brief setup of what’ll be his death, then flashback a… 📖
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Daytripper 10 (November 2010)
Issue ten invalidates most of, if not all of, issue nine. Daytripper ends exactly the way I figured it would… Brás is a happy old man. Because Moon and Bá spend the second half of the series goofing around, they miss out on the most interesting parts of the story. Like, where’d the sister go… 📖
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Daytripper 9 (October 2010)
And there they go. Be nice, now, wave to Moon and Bá as they set Daytripper out to sea, absolving themselves of any narrative responsibility. This issue sums it all up. The issues have been dreams of Brás on his death bed. When he’s dying isn’t sure, maybe it’s a coma. It’s not important. There’s… 📖
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Daytripper 8 (September 2010)
Yeah, it’s clear Moon and Bá are now in the “trying new things” phase of Daytripper. Brás is away on business and dies while away on business. We read his notes, emails and letters and hear the other ends of conversations… he leaves an answering machine message. It’s a bit of a narrative experiment and… 📖
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Daytripper 7 (August 2010)
Here’s a… well, I don’t know what this issue is or does yet. Moon and Bá bring sensationalism to Daytripper with this issue like I never would have expected. It’s a sequel to the previous issue, instead of a standalone and it ends with Jorge (the protagonist’s best friend) going insane and killing him, then… 📖
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Daytripper (2010) #5
Since we’ve gotten through unsympathetic Brás, we now get very sympathetic Brás, set when he’s eleven. Moon and Bá do two new things here. First they introduce a character who we should have heard about already–Brás’s older sister. She appears here, even gets an important scene to herself; she’s never been in the comic before,… 📖
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Daytripper 6 (July 2010)
Moon and Bá continue changing things up, as Daytripper has passed the halfway point. This issue is set after the first, but before the oldest–Brás is thirty-three and he’s not the focus of the first third of the comic. Instead, Moon and Bá do some brief setup of what’ll be his death, then flashback a… 📖
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A Shriek in the Night (1933, Albert Ray)
For the first twenty minutes or so–it runs just over an hour–A Shriek in the Night seems like it might be a decent, b mystery. Ginger Rogers is appealing as the reporter undercover as a murder victim’s secretary and Purnell Pratt is great as the police inspector on the case. Unfortunately, it isn’t about the… 📖
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Daytripper 5 (June 2010)
Since we’ve gotten through unsympathetic Brás, we now get very sympathetic Brás, set when he’s eleven. Moon and Bá do two new things here. First they introduce a character who we should have heard about already–Brás’s older sister. She appears here, even gets an important scene to herself; she’s never been in the comic before,… 📖
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Daytripper (2010) #4
This issue should have been the second. Each issue ends with the protagonist’s death. It’s not clear yet whether Brás (the protagonist) is just writing himself obituaries on momental days–he was an obituary writer in his twenties and thirties–or if he’s actually dying at the end of every issue. If he’s writing the obituaries… it’s… 📖
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Daytripper (2010) #3
Daytripper, specifically this issue, raises a big question–is the story universal? Does it work if the protagonist isn’t some soulful, devastatingly handsome Brazilian guy. The first issue does, the second issue doesn’t… and I don’t think this issue would work if the protagonist looked like George Costanza. This issue cuts back on the mystical realism,… 📖
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Daytripper (2010) #2
I’m totally confused. Not with the mystical realism aspect–it’s nice to see it in a comic. Movies can’t do it, so it’s traditionally only in fiction. Bá and Moon do a nice job bringing it to the comic medium. No, I’m confused by the ending. Either something happens or it doesn’t and I’ll need to… 📖
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Daytripper 4 (May 2010)
This issue should have been the second. Each issue ends with the protagonist’s death. It’s not clear yet whether Brás (the protagonist) is just writing himself obituaries on momental days–he was an obituary writer in his twenties and thirties–or if he’s actually dying at the end of every issue. If he’s writing the obituaries… it’s… 📖
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Daytripper 3 (April 2010)
Daytripper, specifically this issue, raises a big question–is the story universal? Does it work if the protagonist isn’t some soulful, devastatingly handsome Brazilian guy. The first issue does, the second issue doesn’t… and I don’t think this issue would work if the protagonist looked like George Costanza. This issue cuts back on the mystical realism,… 📖
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Daytripper 2 (March 2010)
I’m totally confused. Not with the mystical realism aspect–it’s nice to see it in a comic. Movies can’t do it, so it’s traditionally only in fiction. Bá and Moon do a nice job bringing it to the comic medium. No, I’m confused by the ending. Either something happens or it doesn’t and I’ll need to… 📖
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Daytripper (2010) #1
Could this comic be more depressing? I’m going to use a word here and I don’t want anything thinking it’s pejorative or in some way dismissive. Daytripper is precious. It’s deliberate and it’s precious. I can’t believe Vertigo put it out; it’s a personal piece from Moon and Bá and they’re not discreet about it.… 📖
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Marvel Team-Up (1972) #144
What a lame issue. I mean, I wasn’t expecting much when I saw Cary Burkett’s name on it, but it’s a lot worse than I thought. Pretty sure Peter gives away his identity–or at least risks giving it away–at the end of the issue too. There’s a lot bad about it–Burkett’s expository dialogue is terrible,… 📖
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Aliens vs. Predator (1990) #4
It’s a weak close, partially because Stradley probably needed another issue to fully develop the relationship between the protagonist and the friendly Predator (he also needed space to give it a proper ending), but mostly because Chris Warner is no replacement for Norwood. Warner kills that beautiful design sense Norwood brings to the book. Instead… 📖
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Aliens vs. Predator (1990) #3
The change in inkers makes Aliens vs. Predator look exactly as drab and boring as I’d expected the first few issues to look. Campanella can’t do much to Stradley’s figures, but he rounds out the faces–not all the time, which makes the art disjointed–but definitely in close ups. Everyone looks like they’ve had the definition… 📖
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Aliens vs. Predator (1990) #2
The issue opens with some weak dream exposition. It doesn’t fit the narrator’s voice–Stradley never establishes why he’s using it (I think it’s a callback to the Aliens series where people have nightmares around the aliens)–and it’s a weak opening. But then Stradley recovers beautifully. Until the end of this issue, Aliens vs. Predator is… 📖
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Aliens vs. Predator (1990) #1
Norwood’s very design-oriented–he’s a Hollywood storyboard guy–and the art suffers for it. The setting, the designs of the human settlement on an alien planet, is great. The panel composition is stunning. The figures are awkward and bad. Everyone’s proportions are off a little bit. They’re too stout for their height. Stradley’s writing here is really… 📖
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Daytripper 1 (February 2010)
Could this comic be more depressing? I’m going to use a word here and I don’t want anything thinking it’s pejorative or in some way dismissive. Daytripper is precious. It’s deliberate and it’s precious. I can’t believe Vertigo put it out; it’s a personal piece from Moon and Bá and they’re not discreet about it.… 📖
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Aliens vs. Predator (1990) #0
Stradley’s issue is two bored cargo spaceship having a conversation while Norwood’s art shows us all about the Predators getting ready for the Aliens vs. Predator series. First it’s showing the alien eggs, then it’s a bunch of fighting for dominance. The off panel dialogue back and forth constantly relates to the dialogue-less action going… 📖
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Marvel Team-Up 144 (August 1984)
What a lame issue. I mean, I wasn’t expecting much when I saw Cary Burkett’s name on it, but it’s a lot worse than I thought. Pretty sure Peter gives away his identity–or at least risks giving it away–at the end of the issue too. There’s a lot bad about it–Burkett’s expository dialogue is terrible,… 📖
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Aliens vs. Predator 4 (December 1990)
It’s a weak close, partially because Stradley probably needed another issue to fully develop the relationship between the protagonist and the friendly Predator (he also needed space to give it a proper ending), but mostly because Chris Warner is no replacement for Norwood. Warner kills that beautiful design sense Norwood brings to the book. Instead… 📖
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Aliens vs. Predator 3 (October 1990)
The change in inkers makes Aliens vs. Predator look exactly as drab and boring as I’d expected the first few issues to look. Campanella can’t do much to Stradley’s figures, but he rounds out the faces–not all the time, which makes the art disjointed–but definitely in close ups. Everyone looks like they’ve had the definition… 📖
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Aliens vs. Predator 2 (August 1990)
The issue opens with some weak dream exposition. It doesn’t fit the narrator’s voice–Stradley never establishes why he’s using it (I think it’s a callback to the Aliens series where people have nightmares around the aliens)–and it’s a weak opening. But then Stradley recovers beautifully. Until the end of this issue, Aliens vs. Predator is… 📖