5/24/12

This week’s installment of Gonzo’s Dressing Room has the theme of surprising reactions. I’d like to think I know myself, at least as well as most others do, but did I ever find my responses to these comics unexpected. (There is also a truly shocking tidbit in here. You’ll know it when you read it.)

Dan the Unharmable #1

: David Lapham’s crude, violent, and slightly perverted tale of an invulnerable border-line street person named...wait for it...“Dan” is your typical “edgy”  offering from “Crossed” and “Lady Death” imprint Avatar (It’s the kind of drivel that forces me to write run-on sentences). Raphael Ortiz’s art is solid but nothing to get excited about. If he’s getting payed more than Digikore Studios who handle the coloring duties, then there is no justice in the world. 

Dan is awakened from a dream in which he is in bed with six women in time to retrieve an adult film from its college girl star. Her dubious innocence in all of this goes right out the window when she “pays” Dan with “special favors”. (Thankfully “off-screen”.) Dan later comes across a mysterious would-be client with ties to both himself and a grizzly homicide.

Between the disemboweling and references to fish in certain orifices there is some kind of warm hearted charm in this mess. Dan is no simpleton but lives simply. He is a quasi-philosophic beach bum at heart; the reader ends up liking him despite himself. This comic has earned my perusal of issue #2 but, be warned Avatar, don’t push it.

Batgirl #9: 

Oh, Gail, Gail, Gail. Miss Simone does her best in this, part question mark in the hopefully very limited crossover “Night of the Owls”. Apparently, the Waynes family and there favorite son Batman aren’t the only power brokers with a long history in Gotham city. So these owl guys try and overthrow everything Bats and the Waynes have built. Or something. I’m not shelling out the bucks needed to properly understand what the heck is going on. 

Gail Simone, of course, writes beautifully and this comic is a visceral thrill-ride. She just can’t seem to shine as brilliantly as if she weren’t unchained by somebody else’s money making scheme of a story-line. I tweeted her basically just that. To which she REPLIED “Really? I love the Owls!” I guess when your a big shot comic author you don’t need to worry about a weekly comics budget.

Ardian Syaf’s pencils provide a highly cinematic experience but this guy can only manage to draw Commissioner Gordon with consistent flair. His style is fond of the kind of heavy lines that do wonders on a trench-coat but look odd when he has to drop them completely for Batgirl’s face.

Let’s hope the sun rises on the Night of the Owls soon. Because honestly, it’s putting me to sleep.

Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms #1:

Two small time criminals and adventurers whose names I can’t recall and won’t look up (this book has a problem with too many names that sound like they came out of a random syllable generator) stumble upon the kidnapping of a princess who initially doesn’t really mind being kidnapped. Things turn ugly (though we aren’t told exactly WHY) and the duo is cursed to save the girl or suffer a grizzly fate. 

Ed Greenwood, yes ED GREENWOOD, handles the script and boy... I somehow wish he doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong, Greenwood is a master novelist. But this isn’t a novel. In fact, it wouldn’t even make half a chapter. When word struggles against image the intent of the comic medium falls flat on its face. This doesn’t quite happen, but it gets close. I can’t help feeling that I’d like the illustration to go away completely. (Len Ferguson’s shoddy line work doesn’t exactly help.)

I look ahead to the next issue with wary optimism that I’m half-convinced is entirely misplaced.

So, in summation; good comics are now bad and bad comics are now good. Gail Simone TWEETS ME and it’s to disagree with me. Apparently we’re living in Bizarro World. 

Join us next time when hopefully Earth will still be spinning on its axis and squirrels haven’t become our overlords.

First Bi-annual Golden Chicken Awards

Hello everyone out there in internet land. Due to my inability to get to my local comic shop this week I’ve decided to delight you all with a mid-year awards edition of Gonzo’s Dressing Room. 

We have four catagories this time. (Readers, feel free to suggest more for the December edition.)  Each winner will receive a golden chicken, found at http://www.stress-balls.co.uk/farm-animal-stress-balls/stress-golden-chicken/ (If the winners some how find out about this I will be glad to buy them a physical version of their award picture.)

Best Writer Nominees:

James Robinson

Gail Simone

Geoff Johns

Kaitlyn R. Keirnan

And the winner is... 

James Robinson!

Best Artist  Nominees:

Rob Liefeld

Cliff Chiang

Fiona Staples

Nicola Scott

And the winner is...

Fiona Staples!

Best Character Nominees:

Sinestro

John Stewart

Hope Summers

Alana from Saga

And winner is...

John Stewart!

Best Single Issue Nominees: 

Avengers Vs. X-Men #0

Lenore #6

Earth 2 #1

Saga #1

And the winner is...

Saga #1!

(Dear readers, I know you want to argue with my picks. Please do, the “reply” button DOES have a function.) For those of you who come to this site solely for the occasional “hot chick” picture, this call for comments doesn’t involve you! :)

5/9/12

Well here we are again, another week and another set of comics to review. Wait a minute... it’s still the same week as my last post? Either I’ve become extraordinarily productive or I must be behind again. I think we all know which one it is. So as not to overwhelm my readers with too much of my brilliant blogging masterwork, (Read semi-coherent ramblings.) I have decided to be brief. Considering I just said that I should get right to it and not write this very sentence that you are hopefully reading now. Now... onward!

Courtney Crumrin #1: 

I love the idea of this book: A little goth girl moves into a new town  and meets a tween witch who shows her the ways of magic and friendship. If only writer/artist Ted Naifeh didn’t make it all seem too awkward. Naifeh is no rookie and particularly well versed in this type of material so it’s a wonder that this stuff isn’t spectacular. His world-building and plotting is top-notch but it all comes off a bit clunky. His inability to draw fingers that look like anything besides knife-like claws mirrors his jerky narration and clumsy pacing. If I may borrow a line from Shakespeare, “He plays his prologue like a child on a recorder. In sound but not in government.

I hope it’s not too late to relive you of the impression that this isn’t a good comic. (And I don’t just say that in case the forty-year-old virile looking Ted reads this and decides to to me in.) Courtney Crumrin is an adorable, highly relatable character (Even if she doesn’t seem to have a nose.) I’m sure a younger audience would be more forgiving, I’m just jaded. If I see a comic with a raven haired bespectacled girl in pigtails on the cover I expect a comic at least as good a Roman Dirge’s Lenore. So anyway, pick this series up. I’ll be doing so as well.

 Earth 2 #1:

Wow, wow, wow! How do I even discuss this triumph of sequential storytelling without giving huge plot points away? Well here goes. Remember when the DC Universe had 52 parallel Earths? Well apparently the new re-launched universe has at least 2. Here on the second world Parademons from Apokolips have nearly destroyed earth. Many heroes are dead and Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman devise a plan to take the fight to the front lines and put an end to the threat. 

Writer James Robinson shows you don’t need to be named Geoff Johns or have twelve issues to write a powerfully visceral epic. I can only compare the experience of reading this comic to reading KIngdom Come in one easy to swallow issue. I only fear that with so much done in the premiere issue and so much of the world changed there’s no way to follow it.

I particularly recommend this title to casual fans of the DCU. The story’s presentation doesn’t demand you know much at all about what’s going on elsewhere. As long as you have developed a relationship with Supes, Bats and Wondie you’ll get a lot out of Earth 2.

I would be horribly remiss if I didn’t laud the artwork of Nicola Scott. This woman is a magician with a pencil. From big moments to small, she carries the script into your eyes smoothly, demanding your attention but never to the detriment of the writing. Her version of Wonder Woman is simply the best I’ve ever seen. I’m counting the seconds until she collaborates with Gail Simone again. These two lovely ladies are at the top of their industry and compliment each other perfectly. (Perhaps they share a brain.) 

Dear Time Warner, keep churning out masterpieces like this with geniuses like Robinson and Scott and forget about lining your pockets with dirty marketing tricks. Allowing books like this to be produced will get you even more obscenely rich much faster.

So much traffic!

On the occasion of 300 hits most bloggers would post a sexy picture of a luscious female superhero stolen from someone else's blog or else commissioned from Deviantart or other art site. I have opted to express my sincere thanks to Berlinda, Ravenhaired, Ken, and Katie for helping to make this blog a larger success than I though possible. And for those of you who NEED a female hero pic here's one I drew myself...

300 Hits!

Rich Johnston’s Iron Muslim #1

Are you looking for a comic that will gravely insult all Muslims, all Americans and Robert Downey Jr.? Are you also looking for that book to be genuinely funny? Then Boom has the comic for you.

With the Avengers film in the wings, the entire property is ripe for parody. Al Quaeda supporter, Al Stark, invents a suit of weaponized armor and is forced to don it during an American attack. Al sets forth on a terrorist attack, destroying the Statue of Liberty with as LITTLE lose of life as possible. We only have one page that is really political. 

Not Batman soliloquies “I’m on the first ferry of the morning and I don’t know anything about Islam. I don’t need to. I only know about Al Quaeda. Okay, I don’t know why they do what they do. I don’t need to.” It’s only fair after making fun of Muslims and depicting them as terrorists that Johnston takes a few swipes at knee-jerk American aggression.

Al travels to meet his agent and proposes a blockbuster film showing how Al really SAVED America from an alien invasion and that the destruction of the Statue of Liberty was an unavoidable side-effect. 

At the premiere’s “After-After-After party” ,  Al is recruited into an organization know as the Avengefuls by a NIck Fury-esque David Hasselhoff. 

The art by Bryan Turner is fairly poor and caricatury but for a parody comic of this length it is better than I expected. The one shot adventures of other Avengefuls are forth coming.

 Avengers Assemble #2

This issue is a vast improvement to the first installment. We begin with the villain, Cancer of the Zodiac conferring with a mysterious cosmic force that gave the group its powers. The forces “evil” aims seem perfectly reasonable to me. “...I want cosmic, controlled balance. For once and for all time, I want there to be order to the chaos... For millennia, your world was USED as a genetic petri-dish by ALIEN RACES who say they are your FRIENDS...but treat you as test animals...The human race will NEVER evolve to its purest glory because it is DAMAGED.”

Putting the human genome back on track is surely a pursuit that would make your average superhero shutter. (But why ARE so many superheroes and villains from or based on Earth? I suppose it has something to do with the fact that most comic writers are from here.) 

Taurus of the Zodiac single handedly takes out most of the Avengers which he finds thrilling. When he knocks Thor into next Tuesday, he shouts out in half amazed psyched glee.

The Avengers regroup with an item stolen from the Zodiac. I won’t spoil the surprise but let’s say it’s a doozy. 

On the concluding page, six members of the Zodiac (Libra, Virgo, Aquarius, Gemini, Pisces, and Leo) crash Avengers’ HQ to steal back their treasure. 

Penciler Mark Bagley is a little inconsistent but fairly solid. Showing off major chops with Cancer’s insectoid armor. Brian Michael Bendis is really winning me over here. I’ve heard great things about this writer from friends, critics and certain pro-wrestlers’ Twitter accounts but haven’t seen it for myself until now. 

My advise, pick up this series and pretend that they treat Black Widow with the dignity she deserves.

 Alabaster Wolves #1

I have recently been told when a writer wishes to convey awe and majesty, he or she, should use a minimalist approach. If this is true, this review should end now. Caitlin R. Kiernan writes literary atmospheric horror like Leonardo De Vinci draws circles. (For those of you who may not have gotten the reference, good Ole Leonardo was said to be able to draw perfect circles freehand.)

The book stars fan favorite novel character, Dancy Flammarion. The character is subtle, complex, utterly alien, yet completely relatable. 

The actual content of the story sees Dancy approached by a mysterious stranger who engages her in a riddle contest for her life. Artist, Steve Lieber, is unknown to me due to my own negligence. This guy is definitely someone to watch. For those of you in the Northeast of America, Kiernan will be at Readercon, near Boston, this July. (You may see me there. I’ll be the one telling her she writes like Lovecraft if he were female and better.) For the rest of you, go out and buy all her books. Her run on the Dreaming comic, though brilliant, didn’t scratch the surface of her talent.  

4/24/12

Here in Gonzo’s Dressing Room we try to walk a fine line between giving the mainstream comic fan reviews of titles that they will enjoy as well as eschewing popularity for popularity’s sake. (Here in the Dressing Room we delight in the off-beat, the small-press and the over-looked. We also love using the word “eschewing”.)

In this review we’ve given ourselves over to equal time for some commercially successful books. (Perhaps against our better judgement...) 

 Avengers vs. X-Men #0

In our prologue, appropriately titled “Prologue”, we have two separate stories highlighting the two characters who in all probability will be central in the upcoming massive crossover event.

We begin on the streets of Washington D.C. where M.O.D.O.K. and a handful of other bizarre villains are running amok. I didn’t expect M.O.D.O.K. to be rocking the bald look but it somehow comes off less silly than his original do. Who comes to the rescue? The Scarlet Witch. If you’ve been following the X-Men and the Avengers for the past few years, you realize what a giant can of worms this is. If not, I have no where enough space to put you up to speed here. You could shell out hundreds of dollars for back issues trying to understand the full impact. (I suppose there is always Wikipedia).

Spider Woman and Ms. Marvel fly in for the assist. Scarlet Witch is very uncomfortable seeing her ex team-mates whom she has wronged so many times. The women insist that she return to the Avengers’ mansion as a lost friend and equal.

Most of the boys seem to be warily happy to see her. Except her husband the android, Vision. He summarily throws her out, turns his back on her and begins to cry. 

Next we have Hope Summers at the X-Men’s home of Utopia feeling restless. Cyclops plays the overbearing father and tries to badger her for her own protection. Of course, this fails and she flies off in a jet pack to foil a bank robbery. She more than holds her own against the entire Serpent Society. Cyclops and Emma Frost arrive just in time to keep Hope from beating one of the villains, Cottonmouth, to death.

We are reminded of Hope’s huge potential to be either the savior or destroyer of mutant-kind. From off in space, the Phoenix Force is coming for Hope. 

Frank Cho is the artist for both stories. His usual stunning work comes off very patchy. We have extremely low points, such as Hope mimicking Puff Adder’s powers to ridiculous highs such as the close-up of the Scarlet Witch about to cast a spell.

I need to make two more notes about the art work. One, why does Thor have to look EXACTLY like movie Thor? Two, yes a woman with gills for sideburns can be attractive.

The Scarlet Witch story is written by Brian Michael Bendis. His writing is very strong as well as is his cinematic scripting. Unfortunately, the two merge a little roughly. 

Jason Aaron has writing duty for the Hope story. Again, the quiet moments and the action don’t flow together as well as they could. There has been a tendency since the latest death of Jean Grey to portray Cyclops as a jerk. Aaron does a good job of maintaining the status quo.

A major comic crossover centered on two women? Somehow I don’t think this fact will do anything to lessen the testosterone fueled slug-fest this “event” will likely be. We could probably at least cut the issue count in half with a little superhero group therapy. (I wonder if Night Nurse knows any social workers?) 

Batman the Dark Knight #7

This issue is the stunning conclusion of this title’s premier story arc. The baleful Bane seeks to finish the job he started by breaking Batman’s back so many years ago. While Bane brandishes a boulder, Batman slips off into a bunker where Poison Ivy is being held in a tank to produce a new brand of the super villain steroid Venom. How a comic depicting White Rabbit manages to tastefully deal with the fact that Ivy is nude in the tank is beyond me. 

Ivy informs Bats that Bane must swallow a conveniently present antidote in order to be stopped. 

Eight pages of pommeling ensue, broken only by an odd interchange between Superman and the Flash. I may be missing something but isn’t Superman’s advise the exact opposite of what Batman told him? And it somehow works? Flash wants to get back to help Batman but Supes demands he goes to a hospital. (It’s as if he’s trying to foil Batman.) 

Just when all seems lost, and that Bane has battered Batman to his breaking point, the Flash arrives and tosses the antidote to Batman who throws it down Bane’s gullet. Bane is temporarily dispatched and is washed out with the tide. 

We learn of the mysterious connection between Bruce Wayne’s would-be-girlfriend from the first issue and the mysterious White Rabbit. The last two pages of this comic are about as anti-feminist as you can get. We are promised (perhaps warned)that the next story arc will be all about the buxom bunny. God have mercy on our souls.(Please excuse the frequent alliteration. I couldn’t help myself.)

Will we be witness to another tiresome tale of Batman’s “edgy” exploits here in Gonzo’s dressing room? The brevity of this review seems to say “no” but then again I haven’t the time to catch up on any of the other thirteen thousand Bat-titles out there so you’ll just have to wait and see.

4/13/12

Yes, I have been egregiously recalcitrant in my blogging duties. I have been busy to the gills lately and suffered from a stomach virus that would have put Galactus out of commission. With a little luck I will be catching up by posting once a day for a few days.

Here is today’s post with an opener I crafted back in March.

Dear readers, gentle readers, you’ve heard me complain about crappy comics and you’ve heard me complain about comics that treat woman in a not-so-positive light. What better way to shut me up for a week than to review two GOOD comics with strong female leads? (Oh, and to my as-of-yet single subscribed follower: MrScrappyDoo, if you were looking for a shout-out any earlier you should have named yourself “VelmaFan”.

Wonder Woman #7

In “Wondie’s” current iteration, most of the old rules are out the window. The series has a considerable Vertigo feel. Wonder Woman has been thrust into a power vacuum between the Greek gods. Zeus is missing and his child with a mortal threatens to be the new heir (Did I mention Wonder Woman herself is now a child of Zeus? ).

In this issue, Wonder Woman and her companions are preparing to entire Hades to rescue Diana’s soon-to-be aunt. They detour to Mt. Etna and Hephaestus’ forge.

We learn that all amazon boys are disposed of at birth but that Hephaestus has been trading weapons for them and putting them to work. Wonder Woman sees her brothers as slaves and attempts to rescue them. In the process, learning that even for the mighty Wonder Woman morals are not always black and white.

This title has the potential of turning off many classic Wonder Woman fans. Yet, the heart of the character stays true. Seeing how brilliantly, originally and appropriate to myth the various gods are depicted is alone worth the price of admission.

Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child #1

For the sake of variation, let’s being with the art. At little more mainstream than typical Vertigo and a tad awkward but ultimately gorgeous. The multitude of often straight lines brings home the gravitas and mystery of the story and New Orleans itself. The way John Floyd’s inks lay atop Denys Cowan’s pencils is a truly symbiotic relationship. (And no, I am not discussing Venom.)

Selwyn Seyfu Hinds weaves a voodoo spell of his own with some truly superior writing. We meet Dominique on the first page, panicked and running. Helpless, but by no means fragile. Her Tulane University hoodie nearly being enough to show us her inner strength.

There is a werewolf on the loose and a strange cowboy-like figure who may be even more dangerous.

Later, a mysterious old man named Chancellor Malenfant, sums up the story’s world. “One hundred years of hard won peace. The days of blood between Loa, Loup Garou, Vampire, Witch Hunter and Houngan long behind us. And now...the bonds have torn. The balance is upset. Order MUST be restored.”

At the tomb of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau, Dominique has a vision of the past where the Voodoo Queen was killed and is somehow noticed and attacked by what is certainly the same cow-boyish man that is stalking her now. (Do I see romance in the future?)

Dominique arrives home to the Garden district to find her aunt Giselle who raised her having been fatally attacked and spouting mysterious gibberish. It should take no stretch of the imagination to realize that Dominique is daughter and heir of Marie Laveau.

The story goes down as dark and smooth as Louisiana bourbon (which I’ve never tried, so of course I am assuming here.) and is a sophisticated, respectful take on that particularly New Orleans vibe.

After reading it, I feel like I have actually been there and know what is true and what is false in other stereotypical renderings of that most magic of cities.