The Flash is going to have to fight Captain Cold (and his ladyfriends)
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Your daily reminder, Justice League: New Frontier
The Flash is going to have to fight Captain Cold (and his ladyfriends)
Two Comic Writers I find Annoying
The League is not a very discerning comic book reader. We pick up lots and lots of stuff, and often it takes quite a bit before we admit something is not to our taste.
Sometimes its because the core concept just isn't our thing. Sometimes its because the writing is off, or the art is just so wearisome that we just don't want to look at it anymore.
However, most often, its that something about the writing throws me off. Its tough to nail down what bothers me about some writers. For example, I am very hit-or-miss with Bill Willingham. I feel Jim Starlin, of late, has long periods of being dull interspersed with "oh, wow. That was great."
But two writers who just bother me are: Brian Wood and Warren Ellis.
Brian Wood:
I read Channel Zero a few years ago, and I've tried, in earnest, to read DMZ, and I can't do it.
More recently, I decided to give his new Northlanders series a try, figuring that he'd drop some of that in order to tell the stories of vikings. Instead, he brought his modern, post-post-punk sensibilities straight into the Viking world. Rather than giving us a protagonist (and Wood seems intent on protagonist rather than "hero", which is fine in my book) who comes off as just not very clever. Instead, he seems to be going for a level of "bad-ass" that ensures the reader their protagonist will prevail, no matter how thoughtless his protagonists behave. It's an odd pact to make with the audience.
In short, a character who doesn't come off as very bright runs a risk of becoming irritating reading. At least with Miller's Marv in Sin City, you were curious to see how Marv would make things shake out. Here, we get a fairly standard tale of usurpation of the throne by a mean-spirited uncle. Sound familiar? I can't believe Wood ripped off The Lion King, either.
The vikings drop the f-bomb some, and say "shit", which is totally awesome, I guess. It's all just not very convincing, and after two issues I didn't see why I should care.
Warren Ellis:
Ellis's level of annoying traits extend well beyond the page. He spills a lot of ink complaining about superhero comics even as he continues to line his wallet by writing tales of folks in spandex. He maintains an amazingly self-congratulatory web-presence in which he pats himself on the back for drinking and buying gadgets, and cultivates a following via chat group interaction with fanboys hoping to sponge up a little of the coolness Ellis tells them he brings to the table.
Ellis's 90's era book, Authority, was groundbreaking, big-screen superhero madness. The characters were a new breed of no-holds-barred, let's-kill-the-villians superhero, or, rather, enforcer of the status quo. It made for exhilarating reading for the breed of comic reader who always wondered why Batman didn't just kill the Joker, or Superman didn't just fry Lex up like a sausage with his heat vision. Cities were leveled, body counts of civilian collateral damage were enormous, and the world was just a playground for the Authority.
The characters were tougher than normal superheroes, seemingly laughing in the face of death and mayhem and taking civilian casualties in stride. Everyone had ice in their veins, a quick quip for their victims, and was always harder than whomever they were up against.
And then Ellis did it again. And again. In Planetary, and other Ellis comics, the problems would be of epic scale, all the heroes always cool beyond words in the face of interplanetary disaster, and the dames would be tougher than the dudes. And they'd often tell people exactly how bad-ass they were, and how they were going to kill them, and then they'd do it. Which is cool, like, the first fifteen times, but then... well.
Ellis reads the modern equivalents of Omni, so he was throwing around words like Nanotechnology before they'd made it into most comics, but after anyone who watched Nova already knew exactly what Nanotechnology was.
After a while, you sort of got the feeling, well... Ellis began to feel kind of like the guy you met when you start at college who is the third year, still living in the dorms who seems really cool, who knows where to buy beer, etc... But then, sometime after Christmas, he's still telling you how it is, and how to be cool and... hey, is he really planning on staying in the dorms again next year?
I try to pick up Ellis's stuff, because, like Wood, the concepts always sound fairly interesting. But you sort of get the feeling that all of his protagonists are really just 1-degree of separation from Ellis, as they all sort of speak and act the same way. Actually, let me clarify... I suspect they're all sort of 1-degree away from how Warren Ellis believes himself to be when he's alone at night, looking in the mirror and wondering what tough guys say before they beat the tar out of someone.
I dunno. Sometimes I just don't get writers. Or I do and I don't care.
Ellis certainly turns out a lot of work. I wish he's do a bit more to put his money where his mouth is and quit writing superhero comics or superhero comics lightly disguised as dystopian futures, lifted sci-fi premises, etc... The man is probably immensely talented, so I'm kind of lest wondering what sort of story he'd be able to tell if he weren't leaning on existing tropes of genre fiction.
Anyway, that's just my opinion.
Sometimes its because the core concept just isn't our thing. Sometimes its because the writing is off, or the art is just so wearisome that we just don't want to look at it anymore.
However, most often, its that something about the writing throws me off. Its tough to nail down what bothers me about some writers. For example, I am very hit-or-miss with Bill Willingham. I feel Jim Starlin, of late, has long periods of being dull interspersed with "oh, wow. That was great."
But two writers who just bother me are: Brian Wood and Warren Ellis.
Brian Wood:
I read Channel Zero a few years ago, and I've tried, in earnest, to read DMZ, and I can't do it.
More recently, I decided to give his new Northlanders series a try, figuring that he'd drop some of that in order to tell the stories of vikings. Instead, he brought his modern, post-post-punk sensibilities straight into the Viking world. Rather than giving us a protagonist (and Wood seems intent on protagonist rather than "hero", which is fine in my book) who comes off as just not very clever. Instead, he seems to be going for a level of "bad-ass" that ensures the reader their protagonist will prevail, no matter how thoughtless his protagonists behave. It's an odd pact to make with the audience.
In short, a character who doesn't come off as very bright runs a risk of becoming irritating reading. At least with Miller's Marv in Sin City, you were curious to see how Marv would make things shake out. Here, we get a fairly standard tale of usurpation of the throne by a mean-spirited uncle. Sound familiar? I can't believe Wood ripped off The Lion King, either.
The vikings drop the f-bomb some, and say "shit", which is totally awesome, I guess. It's all just not very convincing, and after two issues I didn't see why I should care.
Warren Ellis:
Ellis's level of annoying traits extend well beyond the page. He spills a lot of ink complaining about superhero comics even as he continues to line his wallet by writing tales of folks in spandex. He maintains an amazingly self-congratulatory web-presence in which he pats himself on the back for drinking and buying gadgets, and cultivates a following via chat group interaction with fanboys hoping to sponge up a little of the coolness Ellis tells them he brings to the table.
Ellis's 90's era book, Authority, was groundbreaking, big-screen superhero madness. The characters were a new breed of no-holds-barred, let's-kill-the-villians superhero, or, rather, enforcer of the status quo. It made for exhilarating reading for the breed of comic reader who always wondered why Batman didn't just kill the Joker, or Superman didn't just fry Lex up like a sausage with his heat vision. Cities were leveled, body counts of civilian collateral damage were enormous, and the world was just a playground for the Authority.
The characters were tougher than normal superheroes, seemingly laughing in the face of death and mayhem and taking civilian casualties in stride. Everyone had ice in their veins, a quick quip for their victims, and was always harder than whomever they were up against.
And then Ellis did it again. And again. In Planetary, and other Ellis comics, the problems would be of epic scale, all the heroes always cool beyond words in the face of interplanetary disaster, and the dames would be tougher than the dudes. And they'd often tell people exactly how bad-ass they were, and how they were going to kill them, and then they'd do it. Which is cool, like, the first fifteen times, but then... well.
Ellis reads the modern equivalents of Omni, so he was throwing around words like Nanotechnology before they'd made it into most comics, but after anyone who watched Nova already knew exactly what Nanotechnology was.
After a while, you sort of got the feeling, well... Ellis began to feel kind of like the guy you met when you start at college who is the third year, still living in the dorms who seems really cool, who knows where to buy beer, etc... But then, sometime after Christmas, he's still telling you how it is, and how to be cool and... hey, is he really planning on staying in the dorms again next year?
I try to pick up Ellis's stuff, because, like Wood, the concepts always sound fairly interesting. But you sort of get the feeling that all of his protagonists are really just 1-degree of separation from Ellis, as they all sort of speak and act the same way. Actually, let me clarify... I suspect they're all sort of 1-degree away from how Warren Ellis believes himself to be when he's alone at night, looking in the mirror and wondering what tough guys say before they beat the tar out of someone.
I dunno. Sometimes I just don't get writers. Or I do and I don't care.
Ellis certainly turns out a lot of work. I wish he's do a bit more to put his money where his mouth is and quit writing superhero comics or superhero comics lightly disguised as dystopian futures, lifted sci-fi premises, etc... The man is probably immensely talented, so I'm kind of lest wondering what sort of story he'd be able to tell if he weren't leaning on existing tropes of genre fiction.
Anyway, that's just my opinion.
shooting down the satellite
Am I the only one totally wanting to read more about the military shooting down their broken satellite?
It's like a giant episode of Mythbusters.
KABLAMMO!
It's like a giant episode of Mythbusters.
KABLAMMO!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Hey, Leaguers. Not too much to report.
Jamie was off to Houston today to see a cardiologist. It's all part of the work towards Jamie's transplant.
I had to come home a bit early today to let out the dogs, as Jamie was playing the jet-setter. The new job is coming at an odd time as I am actually wrapping up several projects at the same time. It doesn't mean there's no work, but it does mean I am not having to do as much to transfer projects as I thought. But, I do want to buckle down over the next few days and get things wrapped up and handed off.
I understand that my decision to shill for TimeWarner's release of Justice League: New Frontier is a bit odd. I'm hoping that things will shake out and this will mean good things for all Leaguers.
I am, in fact, fairly excited about the new movie. I don't know if you guys remember me talking about the comics or not, but its been one of my favorite DC projects of the past seven years or so. For some reason it hasn't taken off in huge numbers even amongst many comic fans. DC knows, however, that it has a good story on its hands. And with Cooke writing and drawing the story, it has the unique vision of a single creator bringing words and pictures together in the best way possible.
On the other hand, I don't know how anyone can be surprised that I'm playing carnival barker for a Justice league movie. I mean, really?
Anyhoo, that's it for tonight.
I'm going to go read some comics.
Jamie was off to Houston today to see a cardiologist. It's all part of the work towards Jamie's transplant.
I had to come home a bit early today to let out the dogs, as Jamie was playing the jet-setter. The new job is coming at an odd time as I am actually wrapping up several projects at the same time. It doesn't mean there's no work, but it does mean I am not having to do as much to transfer projects as I thought. But, I do want to buckle down over the next few days and get things wrapped up and handed off.
I understand that my decision to shill for TimeWarner's release of Justice League: New Frontier is a bit odd. I'm hoping that things will shake out and this will mean good things for all Leaguers.
I am, in fact, fairly excited about the new movie. I don't know if you guys remember me talking about the comics or not, but its been one of my favorite DC projects of the past seven years or so. For some reason it hasn't taken off in huge numbers even amongst many comic fans. DC knows, however, that it has a good story on its hands. And with Cooke writing and drawing the story, it has the unique vision of a single creator bringing words and pictures together in the best way possible.
On the other hand, I don't know how anyone can be surprised that I'm playing carnival barker for a Justice league movie. I mean, really?
Anyhoo, that's it for tonight.
I'm going to go read some comics.
New Frontier Shilling Continues!
My controversial selling out to Warner Bros. Home Video continues! Here's an image readers of the comic, New Frontier, will remember.
Here Wonder Woman celebrates throwing off the shackles of male oppression with some formerly oppressed ladies. The scene is a favorite from the comic, and I'm glad to see its made the cut.
Here Wonder Woman celebrates throwing off the shackles of male oppression with some formerly oppressed ladies. The scene is a favorite from the comic, and I'm glad to see its made the cut.
Justice League: New Frontier Week
Hey all...
Someone from a marketing company representing Time Warner was interested in seeing if I would shill for their upcoming movie, Justice League: New Frontier. The answer is a resounding "Yessir".
Here's the first of what is sure to be many more posts trying to convince you, the consumer, to purchase a copy of the upcoming "Justice League: New Frontier" on DVD February 26th.
Let's all take in a preview, shall we?
I'm looking forward to this film, and so should you. I loved the comic, and own the original issues and the Absolute Edition. I'm still thrilled this was the second feature DCU movie from DC's new animation partnership with WB.
I'm trying to partner with this marketing guy so I can do a give away this week. Let's see what happens.
Someone from a marketing company representing Time Warner was interested in seeing if I would shill for their upcoming movie, Justice League: New Frontier. The answer is a resounding "Yessir".
Here's the first of what is sure to be many more posts trying to convince you, the consumer, to purchase a copy of the upcoming "Justice League: New Frontier" on DVD February 26th.
Let's all take in a preview, shall we?
I'm looking forward to this film, and so should you. I loved the comic, and own the original issues and the Absolute Edition. I'm still thrilled this was the second feature DCU movie from DC's new animation partnership with WB.
I'm trying to partner with this marketing guy so I can do a give away this week. Let's see what happens.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Gone With The Wind
I've been watching the second half of "Gone With the Wind" on TCM.
For a Hollywood classic, these people have some seriously weird ideas about love and romance. I am also baffled by the adoration of the character of Scarlett O'Hara. She's a horrible, horrible person.
Really, Mammy is the only likable character in the whole thing.
For a Hollywood classic, these people have some seriously weird ideas about love and romance. I am also baffled by the adoration of the character of Scarlett O'Hara. She's a horrible, horrible person.
Really, Mammy is the only likable character in the whole thing.
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