Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Jarly and Grarg, the comic strip characters created by Dave Bezzina and yours truly. My poem's rubbish but Dave's picture makes up for it:


The world shrugs on a frosty coat of snow,
And a cold wind whispered and cried,
It’s not just nippy, it’s thirty below.
Fortunately it’s warm inside.

Despite the late hour Jarly chooses to study;
The room’s cosy snugness makes it less of a chore.
The glowing fire makes his cheeks warm and ruddy,
He can concentrate so long as Grarg doesn’t snore.

Like any sensible creature at this time of night,
The sleepy little dragon lies all tucked up in bed.
Yet even lightly dozing he has an appetite,
His tail a makeshift toasting fork for a slice of bread.

Jarly ponders the worn ancient, arcane pages,
He seeks to gain the book’s hidden knowledge,
Become as wise as wizards, warlocks and sages,
Even though he never went to college.

In his pursuit to be powerful and bold
He ponders rune and sigil and glyph.
The hot fire prevents him feeling the cold,
His nose doesn’t run, nor does it sniff.

He could use these spells to confound his foes,
But as the candlelight elegantly flickers,
He feels content; no need to tread on toes.
This doesn’t feel the time for taunts, sneers or snickers.

Any old idiot can be a thug, hooligan or bully,
He should try to soothe and try to help.
Roll away people’s troubles with a magic lever and pulley,
Not try to hurt them or make them yelp.

As he arrives at his big decision
Emotions, desires and thoughts all align,
Concepts more complex than long division.
Magic grows within him and begins to shine.

The Fall (and Rise) of the Mutants

I've been rereading some of my old X-Men comics written by Chris Claremont. Nostalgia heavily tints my reaction to his writing, I can easily overlook some of the clunkier dialogue and the way plot strands are started in X-Men but resolved in completely different comics or sometimes even forgotten altogether. But being as objective as possible I would say that for me a lot of his best work on the mutant superheroes is in the issues I've just reread: Uncanny X-Men #212-227. He still has the verbose dialogue and captions for which he's famous but here they're stripped down to their dramatic and poetic essence. The two-page description of a crashing jumbo jet that opens #215 is astounding, as is the tense, hallucinatory chase sequence that follows. And Claremont has a knack for nailing the heart and atmosphere of a new locale in a few well-chosen sentences, be it a New York nightclub, a Scottish pub or a New Mexico desert.

"Darlin', how can anyone be an X-Man and not be a romantic?" Wolverine
Emotion is what drives Claremont's writing, an unabashed romanticism. He makes us care about the characters, putting us inside their heads, letting us know them as well as we know ourselves before destroying their lives and breaking our hearts.

Some wounds are physical. Others spiritual. No less cruel. No less mortal.
Tragedy overwhelms the X-Men during this set of stories: Colossus spends most of the run paralysed, Nightcrawler lies in a coma and Kitty Pryde is being slowly killed by her own misfiring superpowers. Even those who escape physically unscathed have other problems to deal with: Wolverine has a breakdown, his rational side collapsing, leaving his animal instincts in ascendance. Dazzler frets that her former life as a pop star has left her pampered and weak, traits that could get herself and her teammates killed. Plus, there's the small matter of humanity hating mutants and wanting them dead.

"Every path, every option seems to end in blood." Storm
Storm has a particularly bad time of it. Stripped of her powers in an earlier storyline she continues to lead the X-Men against foes who could kill her with a flick of a finger. Grief-stricken over the injuries sustained by those under her command. Conflicted over her oath never to take a human life versus the increasing need for lethal force in order for the X-Men to survive. Shocked by the revelation that the only way to save the world from a mystical apocalypse is to kill the man she loves. Forget Halle Berry's anaemic portrayal in the X-Men films, here is Storm as she should be: a woman of great honour, dignity and passion.

"You ever wonder sometimes whether we even deserve to be saved?" Crimson Commando
Moral ambiguity lurks behind the drama and the pulse-pounding action scenes. A trio of superpowered vigilantes hunt criminals for kicks while rationalising it with talk of honour and Storm fears the only way she can stop them is to resorting to murder herself. Former criminals become government sponsored superheroes while the altruistic X-Men are branded outlaws. The X-Man Rogue is herself a former supervillain seeking redemption for past crimes including the attempted murder of her teammate Dazzler. Meanwhile many of the humans the X-Men save want them dead, baying for blood no matter what sacrifices the mutants make to save them.

"If we gotta go either way might as well make it mean something." Wolverine
But there is hope too, an idealism that may be battered and tarnished but never vanquished. The X-Men keep fighting, striving for equality and acceptance no matter what. Moral victiores are achieved -- Collosus and Kitty Pryde prevent a rampaging mob from killing an injured Nightcrawler not by blasting them with superpowers but by making them confront the immorality of their actions. On occasion humans even stand up for the X-Men, judging them by their actions not by the fact that they're mutants. Speeches abound, a Claremont speciality, imploring everyone to live in harmony.

"I beg your pardon. But don't you know it's impolite to shoot people?" Longshot
But it's not all moralising and speechifying. There's fun to be had as SF and fantasy blend together with the odd bit of horror thrown in for good measure. Humour and quirkiness sneaks in too with Dirty Harry and the Brigadier from Doctor Who making sly cameos. And when Dazzler tackles the unstoppable powerhouse Juggernaut he turns out to be a fan of her records and is more interested in getting her autograph than engaging in an epic super-battle.

So, classic superhero action. Superbly handled romance and drama. A plea for tolerance and an end to prejudice. Not to mention fantastic artwork from John Romita, Jr, Rick Leonardi, Barry Windsor-Smith, Alan Davis, Jackson Guice and Marc Silvestri.

No wonder I love Claremont's X-Men.

No Comic Book Role Shall Escape My Sight

Okay, so Ryan Reynolds is going to play Hal Jordan in the upcoming Green Lantern film. This after already playing Hannibal King and Deadpool. Meanwhile his missus Scarlett Johannson is due to play the Black Widow after already playing Silken Floss in The Spirit and Rebecca in Ghost World. Are they in a tie for the actor who's played the most comic book characters on the big screen or has someone else got them beat?

Tales of Mild Uneasiness

Recently read Eduardo Risso's Tales of Terror. Collection of black and white comic strips from the Argentinian artist. Nice artwork (even if I think the visuals don't always flow that well from panel to panel) but the scripts by Carlos Trillos fall pretty flat. There's a couple of okay stories but nothing special and definitely nothing scary. Probably doesn't help that originally they weren't written in English.

Anyway, samples of Risso's artwork and a more positive review of the book over at http://warren-peace.blogspot.com/2007/10/eduardo-rissos-tales-of-terror-i-didnt.html

Who Just Watched the Watchmen?

Attended the press screening of Watchmen last night. I've been waiting twenty years for this film so I deliberately kept my expectations low in order to prevent myself going beserk with an automatic weapon if the film turned out to be rubbish.

Good news. I didn't kill anyone.

The film's pretty faithful to the comic. Yeah, they've had to ditch subplots and secondary characters which in turn means they've had to tinker with the main plot slightly to accomodate these changes but it's still Watchmen. A streamlined, or diluted if one were being unkind, version of Moore's story to be sure but at least Hollywood didn't turn it into Batman and Robin.

Of course it's also very obviously a Zack Snyder film. There's lots of slo-mo and both the action and the gore have been amped up just to remind people that he directed 300 and The Dawn of the Dead remake. The fight scenes are full of wire-fu and at one point become so OTT they make The Matrix look like cinema verite. Whilst the graphic nature of the many maimings and killings had the audience alternating between wincing and applauding. And my friend who blagged me my ticket for the screening was practically traumatised by a gruesome setpiece during the prison scenes.

There's about a million other points I could make about the film but the short version is that while the film isn't perfect it's about as good a Hollywood adap as we could expect. And as such it's well worth a look.

It's Clobberin' Time!

Been reading Mark Waid's run on Fantastic Four, generally considered to be the third best run EVER, coming behind the stints by Lee/Kirby and John Byrne. Jolly good fun especially as I got the first two storylines in the hardcover edition which includes Waid's initial proposal and character notes from when he took over the series. Offers interesting insights into his creative process and allows me to appreciate the choices he made while writing the series. Even the ones I didn't agree with.

The Spirit

Trailer for Frank Miller's adap of The Spirit at http://www.mycityscreams.com/ Not sure about this one. I'm not a huge fan of the Eisner comic (although I appreciate its seminal status) but judging by the trailer Miller seems to have totally ignored the er, spirit of The Spirit and just done a Sin City retread.

Dave Stevens RIP

Just heard that artist Dave Stevens passed away last week.

Stevens wrote and drew The Rocketeer comic that got made into a film back in '91 starring Jennifer Connelly and Timothy Dalton.

Stevens had a love for the old pulps and his illustation style reflected that. He also had a soft spot for Bettie Page, basing The Rocketeer's girlfriend on her.

Here's a gallery of his artwork. There's a fair amount of cheesecake stuff here which may be NSFW.

John Buscema

Just stumbled across a website devoted to the artwork of John Buscema (1927-2002). He is one of my favourite comic book artists and is genereally regarded as one of the greatest of all time. Buscema combined the dynamism of Jack Kirby with lovingly rendered anatomy. This led to him being referred to as a comic book Michelangelo.

Buscema worked on superheroes (which he loathed) as well as romance comics and olde worlde adventure strips full of knights and wizards. But one of his favourite assignments was working on the Conan comics where he did some of his best work.

There's some great examples of his work on the site including paintings and sketches Buscema did for fun which reveal another dimension to his artwork.

And just for Simon here's some of Buscema's breakdowns for The Punisher.

Also just found a video of Buscema drawing Captain America. I've got this video as an extra on a DVD about superheroes and I love to watch it, gazing in awe as Buscema's pencil glides over the paper. Unfortunately Buscema died not long after the DVD was made. Although I never met him I was saddened to hear of his passing. The man was a true comic book master.

More Moore

Just stumbled across a press release for The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic. It goes into much more detail than my previous post on this mystical tome.

The book sounds crazy as hell but I'm looking forward to it. (Of course now it'll turn out to be hideously expensive and I won't be able to afford it.)

Lost Girls

To continue the Alan Moore theme of my previous post here's a review I did for a public interview he did back in 2006. The review originally appared in Machenalia, the newsletter for the Friends of Arthur Machen.

LOST GIRLS INTERVIEW REVIEW

The girls were indeed lost. Or at least incredibly late.

Due to copyright complications Dorothy, Alice and Wendy – the heroines of Lost Girls – will be unable to regale the great British public for some time yet. “So,” chuckled Stewart Lee as he settled down to interview writer Alan Moore and artist Melinda Gebbie, “we’re going to spend the next hour and a half discussing a book that won’t be published until 2008.” No one minded in the least.

The interview got underway with comedian Lee serving up witty, intelligent questions. Perhaps the most pertinent of which was how the idea of a pornographic graphic novel featuring Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, Wendy from Peter Pan and Alice from Alice in Wonderland first came about. Moore replied that sex had been creeping into his stories as far back as Swamp Thing and he had wondered if maybe, just maybe, he could write about sex without using swamp monsters. Gebbie added that when they had first been kicking around ideas she mentioned that she had previously had great success writing about trios of women. The idea of utilising Dorothy, Alice and Wendy soon followed.

Moore and Gebbie also discussed the visual motifs for the three heroines – silver shoes, shadows and a looking glass. And the many pastiches of 19th century pornographic art and literature they used throughout the book, including not only homages to that most prolific of creators Anonymous but also artists such as Alphonse Mucha whose work might not be seen as pornographic but which still carried an erotic charge. Moore also put forth a theory that war is a symptom of sexuality gone awry, explaining why the first rumblings of WWI serve as a backdrop to the book’s sexual shenanigans.

Lee suggested that the lesbian scenes were infused with tenderness whilst the scenes of male homosexuality were played for uneasy laughs. Moore responded that this was because Dorothy’s husband was so unbearably uptight that he remained a parody of British reserve even at the moment of orgasm. “And the fact that he looks like Sean Connery,” said Lee, “was that an act of revenge for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film?” “No, not at all,” said Moore. “Speak for yourself,” giggled Gebbie.

During the course of the interview illustrations from the book were projected onto the wall at the back of the stage. Gebbie had great fun persuading the onstage computer to show the slides in the correct order. When the correct images finally appeared Gebbie pointed out the different colour schemes she had created for the individual heroines – Dorothy for example was shaded with earthy colours to represent her midwestern farmland roots. Gebbie also lamented Moore’s request for certain pictures to be repeated over and over again. Moore apologised, saying that he thought she would simply Xerox the pictures rather than painstakingly recreating each one by hand!

Given that Lost Girls is a self-proclaimed piece of pornography several of the slides were of a sexual nature such as Wendy snuggling up with the Lost Boys or Alice fornicating with the cowardly lion. Stewart Lee moved over these quickly as the audience issued schoolboy sniggers. “I’m only skipping over these because we’re short of time,” protested Lee. “I’m not scared of them.”

After the interview there followed a Q&A session with the audience. How did Moore think Carroll, Barrie and Baum would respond to his handling of their characters? Did Moore and Gebbie view Lost Girls as feminist pornography? Was the book influenced by the texts used to school Indian princes in the art of lovemaking?

With the Q&A over the signing commenced. The queue seemed to stretch halfway across London with fanboys clutching copies of Watchmen, V for Vendetta and Snakes and Ladders. Moore and Gebbie chatted cheerfully with everyone. Even people like myself who initially stood frozen in dumbstruck awe before overcompensating by erupting into a torrent of babbling gibberish. I eventually pulled myself together enough to ask Machen aficionado Moore if he was aware of FOAM. He replied that he was in fact a member. That seemed a pretty good way to end the evening.

Dumb Luck

Okay, so yesterday I'm meeting a friend up London and I happen to pop into GOSH Comics on the way.

Scooping up a copy of Alan Moore's The Black Dossier I head down to the basement to check out their back issues. To my annoyance I find the staff milling around, unloading boxes of stock right next to the comics I want to peruse. Silently cursing I squeeze past them and start rifling through the comics. At that moment someone speaks somewhere off to my left in tones which sound familar but which I can't quite place. Glancing in his direction I do a double-take.

It's Alan Moore.

I can't believe it. One of my favourite writers in the whole world is in the same room as me, is less than a metre away, sitting at a table with Melinda Gebbie, both of them signing copies of Lost Girls.

Stunned, I turn to the member of staff standing beside me. "Is there a signing today?"

"The signing was yesterday. Today they're just signing stock."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But wait. There's still a chance. Maybe if I catch him at the right moment Mr Moore will deign to sign my book even though I had arrived a day too late.

Okay, first go back upstairs and buy the book. The storeowners won't be too happy if I get Moore to put a personal inscription in a book I haven't actually bought. On the other hand his autograph might actually increase the price of the book when I finally do go to pay for it. ("Black Dossier? That'll be £250 please." "That's not what it says on the sticker." "That was before it was signed." "But it's signed to me." "I'm sure we can find other customers called Stuart if we wait long enough.")

So, now the proud owner of a copy of The Black Dossier I rush back down to the basement and nervously ask Mr Moore if he would mind taking a break from signing the vast stacks of books surrounding him and sign my book instead. He generously agrees to do so and we chat briefly and he laughs at one of my jokes. (The laugh is probably more from pity than anything else but I'll take what I can get.)

Then I head off to meet my friend and fellow comics fan to see just how green he turns when I tell him of my good fortune.

Mutants, Supermen, Aces and Crooks

Here's some quick thoughts on some of the comics I've been reading recently.

Astonishing X-Men: Torn by Joss Whedon. Third volume of the Buffy-man's X-book. Plenty of action and humour along with some nice character moments. Whedon's a big Chris Claremont fan so the book has a classic feel but with a modern sheen. One problem with the book might be X-continuity, if you haven't read enough of Claremont or Grant Morrison's runs you might not quite get who some of the villains and supporting characters are supposed to be. But if you're an X-expert I'm told that some of the plot twists are a little predictable as they're new takes on old ideas. Fortunately I seem to have just the right amount of continuity knowledge for neither of these problems to bother me.

All Star Superman by Grant Morrison. An attempt to squeeze all the essential elements of Superman lore into one book. So sarky Lois Lane doesn't realise that klutzy, awkward Clark Kent is really Superman. Jimmy Olsen is a master of disguise. Lex Luthor is a hissably evil megalomaniac. Superman's powers can be distilled into a poition. Supermen of the future drop by at a moment's notice. It's all very Silver Age with a large splash of Christopher Reeve's take on Clark Kent but Morrison seems to be trying too hard. For all the book's brightly coloured sense of wonder Morrison has never been great at writing characters I can warm to, the archness of his style creating distance. He does try to generate emotion but he always seems more interested in moving on to the next piece of crazy super-powered sci-fi.

Battler Britton by Garth Ennis. North Africa WWII. Wing Commander Robert Britton and his squadron are assigned a bunch of US pilots and are told to show them the ropes. Cue much bickering between the war weary Brits and the trigger-happy Yanks. Ennis does his best to make this interesting, with a mixture of idiots and sympathetic characters in both camps but this still feels like storytelling by numbers. The cast is too large for anyone to develop a real personality and having everyone in uniform sometimes makes it a little difficult to distinguish between characters. Still, Ennis obviously has fun writing the exploits of one of his childhood comic book heroes. And he drops in lots of authentic details about WWII aerial tactics.

Criminal: Coward by Ed Brubaker. Picked this one up on a reccomendation from Simon. Leo is a planner, and a cautious one at that. The first sign that one of his criminal schemes might go awry and he's out of there. He never takes risks. But of course that makes for a very boring story so he ends up being coerced into a job where he has to take risks. Lots of them. Gritty characters spout gritty dialogue as they doublecross each other. Much more subdued take on crime than say Sin City, with the emphasis on character interaction over mindless violence. Even so, you know it's just a matter of time before the bullets start flying.

Kane

I've got way behind with Paul Grist's excellent crime comic Kane so the other day I read The Untouchable Rico Costas and Other Short Stories. Great fun. Continues the story of disgraced cop Kane as he attempts to bring down crime boss Oscar Daarke. The dramatic main story is nicely balanced out with some silly jokes and parodies of wellknown comics characters and Grist's B&W artwork is as delightful as ever. At first glance the cartoony art looks pretty crude, as though the Wallace and Gromit team have tried aping Sin City, but that just helps bridge the gap between the gags and the drama. One minute you're laughing but the next minute you really care whether Kane and his partners are going to get screwed over by an Internal Affairs investigation.

Well worth a look.

Zombie King

I'm a bit late with this but I just discovered Frank Cho's Zombie King #0 is available online.

WARNING FOR ELIZABETH: You won't like this link.

Fanboy stuff

Simon Strantzas has written an interesting post on The Punisher over at his blog, comparing Steven Grant's take on the character with that of Garth Ennis. He's also drawn a nice little sketch of old Frankie boy.

Pity he didn't mention Mike Baron's run on the Punisher. Admittedly Baron lost his way pretty quickly but personally I thought the first year or so of his run was pretty damn good. But I seem to remember Simon mentioning that he's not a fan of the Baron stories.

And just to clarify, Simon's discussing Ennis's MAXX stories not his Marvel Knights take on the Punisher. The Marvel Knights version was played for laughs and didn't really appeal to me that much whereas the MAXX version is deadly serious.

Finally, I'll take Simon's quote of the last line from Grant's Return to Big Nothing and raise him the last line to Ennis's The Tyger: "And I show them a face not made by God."

Alan Moore's Exit Interview

Recently read Alan Moore's Exit interview. In it he discusses his misgivings about the comics industry and the way he thinks he has been mistreated. This isn't the most fun reading in the world as it tends to read a bit like, "And then DC screwed me over. And then Warner Bros. screwed me over. Then DC screwed me over again." But it's interesting to get his take on the events that led to him withdrawing from mainstrream comics.

Plus there's talk about the progress of his new novel Jersualem, his thoughts on reincarnation and eternal recurrence and news on the latest installment of The League of Extraordianry Gentlemen, an excerpt of which can be found here.

X-Men

Read the X-Men Marvel pocketbooks in the leadup to Christmas. The Chris Claremont/Dave Cockrum/John Byrne stuff.

Looking at the plot twists, emotional angst, relationship entanglements and groundbreaking storylines such as the Dark Phoenix epic and Days of Future Past it became really clear that Joss Whedon really learned a hell of a lot from Chris Claremont.

And he put it to good use in Buffy. Not quite convinced by his work on Astonishing X-Men but he might still win me over.

Preacher

Just heard that there's plans for a Preacher TV series from HBO. For those of you who don't know Preacher is a comic book by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon featuring Jesse Custer (a disillusioned preacher possessed by a demon/angel hybrid), Tulip O'Hare (Jesse's girlfriend and a crack shot with a pistol) and Cassidy (an Irish vampire who likes to drink and shag. And drink. Then shag. Then drink some more). Together this trio of friends are out to track down God and give Him a good telling off for making such a hash of Creation.

Along the way they encounter serial killers, psychotic rednecks, wannabe vampires, a global conspiracy and The Saint of Killers. Cue blasphemy, graphic violence and toilet humour. And swearing. Lots and lots of swearing.

If the TV series does get off the ground I'm curious to see how it turns out. In my opinion the comic started off great then lost its way, still offering up the occasional wonderful moment but never quite recapturing the promise of the early issues.

But being a sad little fanboy I'm still excited about the prospect of a TV series.

Little ray of sunshine

Read The Punisher: The Slavers the other day. 'Nam vet and full-time vigilante Frank Castle takes on a group of East European slave traders. Shootouts and graphic torture ensue. Not to mention rape, racism, homophobia, murdered babies, police corruption, as well as the failure of either liberalism or hardcore vigilantism to solve the problem of the sex trade. Bleakest thing I've read in a long time.

Worryingly, it actually cheered me up. Goes to show how much I'm enjoying Christmas this year.