Usually I post panels here that strike me as funny however I just wanted to post this panel which demonstrates what makes comics fun: you can do ANYTHING and the audience buys it. There was not a moment when I saw this panel where I thought, "WTF?!?" This sense of the impossible being possible is something I think the most recent incarnation of the Superman movie franchise lost. This is not to say I did not like the film, to the contrary I REALLY like Singer's Superman, however I think the movie could have used a bit more of this and a bit less of the Dark Knight-esque angst.
From "Star Struck" in the 29th issue of the latest incarnation of Justice League of America. Len Wein, writer Chris Cross (makes me want to jump jump), pencils Rob Stull with Chris Cross (who still makes me want to jump jump), inks
From the ALWAYS excellent and highly recommended Fables, in this case issue #30, "The Book of Restoration" Matthew Sturges & Bill Willingham, writers Russ Braun, pencils Jose Marzan, inks
"Hey! You got your Batman in my Star Trek!" "No, YOU got YOUR Star Trek in my Batman!" Oh, who really cares. A red shirt reference is ALWAYS appreciated by this geek.
From Nightwing #150, "The Great Leap: Conclusion" part of the Batman R.I.P. story arc. Peter J. Tomasi, Writer Don Kramer, Penciller Jay Leisten & Rodney Ramos, Inkers
Initially I had something else picked out for this edition of Random Panels, however as I was catching up on my comics reading this week I stumbled across this bit of brilliance from Wonder Woman #27. While I am not as big a fan of sound effects as some, I absolutely LOVE it when they are incorporated into the art in interesting or innovative ways and this certainly qualifies.
I also thought this would be an excellent opportunity to point out just how much I like Donna Troy's costume:
There is something about the stars being incorporated into the fabric that I really like.
This installment is brought to you by: Gail Simone, writer Aaron Lopresti, penciler Matt Ryan, inker
Looks like I am in for a busy week both at the office and at the casa so here are some links to keep you occupied until I can get back to writing something of substance:
Now I have heard of mash-ups in the music scene (speaking of which the Best of Bootie 2008 CD is available for download here) and with movie trailers and the like, however I have NEVER heard of taking, oh, for example, a classic video game and a classic rock band, throwing them in the proverbial blender and seeing what comes out the other side but that is EXACTLY what the kids over at Shitbagz.com did. Taking the awesome that is Asteroids, a video game which I can still spend hours sucking at, and the awesome that is Van Halen, and I mean Dave "I'm Just a Gigolo" Lee Roth Van Halen and not the crap fest that was Sammy Hagar Van Halen, they have come up with Assteroidz - The Diamond Dave edition. There is really nothing else to say except go forth and play before, as Wil says, some asshat with no sense of humor serves the creators with a cease and desist.
While we are on the comics tip, check out this promotional clip for the soon to be taking over the world Watchmen:
I will cop to being far more excited about this movie than I should be considering I only JUST got around to reading the comics last year. So far everything I have seen and heard coming from the production crew on this movie does nothing but make me more excited to see this movie. As for it being THE unfilmable comic book? Well personally I do not buy the idea of a work being unfilmable since the very act of adapting a novel/comic/doodle in to a movie transforms the work in to something completely different. Of course there are going to be people who think Zack Snyder has failed or has done something wrong, however I am looking forward to seeing this movie and my desire to see it is divorced from whether I like the comic or not.
This installment of Random Panels comes from Birds of Prey issue #124 "Smile for the Birdie." Written by Tony Bedard Pencilled by Claude St. Aubin Inked by John Floyd
So I have spent most of the evening catching up on my watching of the television, knocking out episodes of Chuck, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Smallville while doing some LONG overdue maintenance on my inline skates. (ABEC-9s BITCHES!) I wanted to jot down a quick note on a moment from the 11th episode of the season, "Legion" which I believe may be a contender for F*@% YEAH status. (For more on what may constitute a F*@% YEAH moment, please consult this link and this link.) The moment starts at about the 4:15 minute mark of this clip:
Now I have to admit that I am enough of a fanboy to think that there have been a lot of cool moments in the Smallville series. I think my two favorites are the line in 5th episode of season 4, "Run," where Bart Allen says, "See if there is anyone else out there like us, maybe start, like, a club or a league or something," and the moment in the 17th episode of the 2nd season, "Rosetta," when they introduced Christopher Reeve as Dr. Virgil Swann.
For those of you who are not familiar with DC comics, Bart Allen is a kid from the 30th century who was sent back in time to Wally West who, at the time, was The Flash. Bart eventually became The Flash after Wally West disappeared with his family during the events of Infinite Crisis and is then killed by the Rogues in the final issue of The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive miniseries. Now that I have over explained that, the reason Bart, or in this case the person who we can assume one day becomes the Flash, saying something about forming a club or a league to Clark is because both Superman and The Flash are founding members of the Justice League of America. (The other original members were Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter.)
Now if I really have to explain why the introduction of Christopher Reeve was a F*@% YEAH moment, then you are clearly an idiot. I feel it is safe to say that for my generation Christopher Reeve IS Superman. In addition to Christopher Reeve's mere presence, the music in the scene starts to incorporate the theme penned by John Williams for the Superman movie. Through the scene the theme appears in the background, mostly on woodwinds if I am not mistaken, and then, just before the commercial break, it builds to a trumpet fanfare of that theme. Again I feel safe in saying that John Williams' theme for the movie helped define Superman for my generation.
Now I have a much harder time explaining, even to myself, why I think the reveal of the members of the Legion of Superheroes in "Legion" was so cool. I have never read a lot of the Legion books, although I am trying to complete my run of the Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning run which began with the Legion Lost miniseries in 2000. The Legion is something I have always thought was an EXCELLENT concept however the execution often lacked the cool factor one would want from a legion of superheroes. Originally introduced in 1958's Adventure Comics #247 when Legion memebers Saturn Girl, Lightning Boy, and Cosmic Boy travelled back in time to recruit Superboy, who was the initial inspiration for the Legion. The Legion proved to be so popular that rather than just being a one-off encounter, they started to appear in more and more stories. They became a regular feature in Adventure Comics #300 sharing space with solo Superboy stories until they displaced him entirely some years later. Of course in time the Legion was replaced, relegated to the D-list for some time until 1973 when they started receiving front cover billing once again when Superboy became Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes and then, in 1980, Superboy was dropped from the title and theLegion finally had their own, self-titled book.
As I said, I really can not point to one reason why I like the reveal so much. Part of it is because I am a HUGE geek and I appreciate that the first three Legionnaires we get to meet are the original three from Adventure Comics #247. Another part of it is that as much as I will complain about how interconnected comics have become, something which can make it challenging for new readers to jump in to the mix, I do like that these things take place in a larger universe. One final reason is that for some inexplicable reason I really like the Legion's flight ring and totally want one of my own.
You can currently watch the entire "Legion" episode here on the CW's website, however since this is the only full episode they have up for Smallville, I expect that it may not be up for long.
And one final note, which is apropos of nothing, Kristen Kreuk as Lana Lang is H-O-T in this episode. As much as I love Allison Mack, I might have cheated on her a little in my mind during this episode. Sorry Allison!
I find myself at an intersection of a couple of different issues and I am not 100% sure where I am going to comedown on this so I thought I would ponder “out loud” to the crowd and see what comes of said pondering.
I have recently found an online ordering service for the comic books and various other items advertised in the monthlyDiamond Previews catalog. This service offers discounts on comics ordered through them that range from 30% to 75% withthe majority of what I would order on a regular basis being around 40%. There are also discounts on the othermerchandise listed which varies greatly.
It will come as no surprise to you guys that I read comics but I think you might be shocked at the amount of money Idrop each time I visit the comic book shop. While Nan’s offers me a 10% discount on comics and supplies the additionalsavings I can see from this online service is a huge incentive to go with them. To illustrate how much of an incentivelets look at the order I put together for October:
$389.15 is what my order would cost if I pay full retail price however this includes several things which I would notnormally buy so lets cut it down to just the comic books and trade paperbacks I would purchase. Removing themiscellaneous items brings the full retail total down to $226.83. At Nan’s I would get a 10% discount against thistotal (22.68) so I would be paying $204.15 before tax. Tax on this total is $16.84 which brings me to $220.99 by thetime I am walking out of the door.
Compare that to my total of $254.46 for the entire order (including the $162.32 of merchandise and supplies I removedfrom the calculation above) with shipping.
In a purely economic sense there is no question that I should be using the online service however there are otherconsiderations which have me feeling a bit guilty for my decision to use this service.
As a general rule I prefer to support local merchants rather than big chains or internet vendors even if I end up payinga bit more at said local merchant. I value the relationships one can build by becoming a regular. If the people aregood at what they do then they will learn your tastes and be able to recommend other authors/artists/movies/cigars/scotchthat might interest you and just not be on your radar. You loose some of this when dealing with people via the internetbut the bigger picture is that I think local businesses are valuable to the community and if I do not support them thenthey will go away only to be supplanted by the Walmarts and Borders of the world.
This decision is made a little easier because Nan’s is not actually my first choice for comic stores in the Houston area. If they had better hours or a more convenient location I would prefer to shop at Bedrock City Comics. The storesthemselves are brighter, more pleasant places and the personnel have always been very friendly and helpful even thoughI am not a regular. By contrast the customer service at Nan’s is about what one would expect from a bunch of insularcomic nerds. I like the guys well enough and can chat with them now, but I had to earn that right with my, lets behonest here, not terribly hard earned cash. (On the flip side of that, I do share an office with Brian so…)
Oh well I think I have wandered off-point here pretty well however I have pretty much done away with any guilt I hadover dropping Nan’s like a bad habit and embracing the internet. I hear it is the way of the future. And in COMPLETELYunrelated news which is probably only of interest to Rob and Lapp the most recent issue of Blue Beetle features a weaponwhich bears the warning : POSSIBLE THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS.
I picked this up purely on the information that it was a comic book that involved WWII planes and the cover art was nice. This method of selecting comics leads to the purchase of some real crap and I should try to stop however from time to time you find a real gem like Hugault's "The Final Flight". In this rather slim volume are the stories of four combat pilots and the brief moments when their lives intersect.
Hugault starts in April, 1945 with "Cherry Blossom," the tale of kamikaze pilot Terou and the letter he writes his father before leaving on his mission. We then move to June of 1944 where in "Reprieve" we share Tom's, an American pilot, experiences as he is shot down behind enemy lines. The next story, "Iron Cross" moves us only one month further back, to March, where German ace Gunther leads a cadre of young men against a formation of American bombers. "Angel Drop", the final tale takes us to the Eastern front in November of 1943 where we meet Alain a young Frenchman who is flying for the Russians. Finally the epilogue brings us back to Tom and early in 1945 as he is deployed to an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, bringing us full circle.
The common theme which links the four pilots is the futility of war and the desperate actions one will take in service of not their countries but their comrades and while Haugult beats the reader around the head with his moral, I did not find it distracting. Over all Hugault manages to pack a lot of story in to these 55 pages along with a TON of beautifully rendered airplanes. From Zeroes and Corsairs in the Pacific, to the Thunderbolts, Lightnings, Mustangs, Yaks, Focke Wulfs, and Messerschmitts which controlled the skies over Europe each plane is incredibly detailed and accurate. About the only complaint I have about Hugault's art is that at times his faces are not right and that can be distracting.
All in all I felt the $10 price of admission was well worth it and I am very much looking forward to seeing more of Hugault's work, either in English or his native French.
So an entire graphic novel based on a character the artist designed specifically as a commission for parties unknown who like girls bound and in very little clothing; what could possibly go wrong here? Of course since it is by Adam Warren, the OG of the OEL, I had to pick it up and see what the fuss was all about. In a nutshell the book is pretty much what you would expect from what I described, except that while the bondage situations and lack of clothes are clearly exploitive, they never cross the line into pornography.
This book chronicles the life and times of Empowered, the central character's admittedly lame nom de hero. She gets her powers from a supersuit which is SKIN tight and for some reason, not very resilient. As the suit gets torn up her powers diminish until she is a mere mortal...and bound and gagged. While the first few stories in this volume seem little more than excuses to put the heroine in such situations, Warren's affection for the character and desire to do something more with the book shows through. This is particularly evident in his characterization of Empowered, who has very low self-esteem and only starts to get a little better when she builds a support structure around her.
As the stories get a little longer Warren introduces a couple of new characters which help pull the stories away from their bound and gagged origin and flesh out Empowered's world. First there is Thugboy who goes from being a generic henchman to Empowered's live-in boy friend, and then Ninjette, a female ninja, comes along and, after tying Empowered up, decided to go ahead and move in with the couple. My favorite addition to the cast is He Whose Name is Too Scary to Be Spoken, a demon lord who ends up trapped in some alien bondage gear. In typically ludicrous Warren fashion Empowered has to hang on to the caged demon lord because of zoning restriction on the Super Homeys' HQ. His dialogue is over the top enough to compete with the likes of Dr. Doom and Darkseid*, however he comes with a voyeuristic streak about a mile wide.
All in all I really enjoyed the book however it is only going to appeal to those who like their super-heroing with a liberal dose of absurdism and bondage.
* As I was reading the book I found myself reading this character's dialogue out loud and cracking myself up. I am not sure if this speaks to how funny the dialogue actually is or how sad my life is, take your pick.
