yjsoon

Favourite graphic novels from the year.

• Wanted, Mark Millar and JG Jones
• We3, Alan Moore and Frank Quitely
• Scott Pilgrim: Precious Little Life, Bryan Lee O’Malley
• DC: The New Frontier, Darwyn Cooke
• Planetary: Leaving the 20th Century, Warren Ellis and John Cassaday
• Fables: The Mean Seasons, Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leiahola
• Smax (no review yet), Alan Moore and Zander Cannon
• Chosen (no review yet), Mark Millar and Peter Gross

I’ve been catching up on my readings a little lately, but now I have a lot of reviews to catch up with. Here we go, thematically: this week, Robots.

“Halo And Sprocket: Welcome To Humanity” (Kerry Callen)
Thoroughly charming and utterly hilarious. I don’t remember the last time I laughed out loud so often reading something (wait, I do — probably when I read the Get Fuzzy collection over a year ago). Writer/artist Callen takes the simple (and wonderfully inexplicable) premise of “an extremely powerful angel, a socially inexperienced robot and a young, simple woman sharing a house”, and spins genuinely funny tales of human insight. Highly, highly recommended, and for all ages too.

Too bad it’s the only collection out now, but the Halo and Sprocket home page has a bit more material and some sample strips.

“Clockwork Thugs, Yo (Livewires, Vol. 1)” (Adam Warren, Rick Mays)
Adam Warren brings his frenetic style to Marvel’s newest digest-format sci-fi action drama title, Livewires. Warren handles writing and does layouts for penciller Rick Mays — a fact that escaped my notice until now, because the art just looked tremendously Warren-esque, with a generous helping of speed-lines and anime-style puffy-eyed characters. Nonetheless, the art’s great to look at, and the colouring (even on the lower-quality digest format paper) gives the book a vibrant and exciting feel.

The Livewires are a group of “nanobuilt humanform combat mecha” (basically, kick-ass cyborgs) designed by a secret government agency to seek out and destroy other secret government agencies. The plot’s pretty generic (basic tale from the eyes of the newbie joining the supergroup), save for the ending, but the action’s fast-paced and little plot elements are smart and original, making for quite a page-turner with what I felt was quite a refreshing ending. Good stuff.

“NYC Mech Volume 1: Let’s Electrify” (Ivan Brandon, Miles Gunter, Andy MacDonaldn)
Unfortunately, this little piece of pointlessness ruins an otherwise perfect record of robot comics this week. I picked this up during one of Kinokuniya’s 20% sale weekends based on all the strong recommendations on the back cover from the likes of J.G. Jones, John Cassaday, Brian Azzarello, David Mack and Robert Kirkman, all thoroughly respectable and talented comicbook creators. “Intense and stylish”, they said. “Hip, inventive, and utterly charming”, piling on with the praise they go, “Pure robot genius.” “NYC MECH is at the top of my pull list”, apparently.

What. The fuck. Were you guys. Smoking?

The book follows the lives of robots in some alternate reality of New York City, where everyone is a robot. Wait, no — where everybody looks like a robot. That is all. They eat regular human food, have regular human jobs, and get physically injured the same way humans do, just that they look like robots, and that’s the entire premise to this comicbook. I’m not sure I see the point of even making this a robot comic at all, save for how NYC Humanflesh would have been a poor title.

Alright, fine, useless premise. Not that big a deal. However, writers Brandon and Gunter saw fit to torture us with their version of cyberpunk poetry overlaid on the (admittedly capable) art. Here, judge for yourself:

Am I inside or out?
Shapes move about and I remember where I used to be / I remember being anywhere but here
Ice cubes melt on my tongue and it feels like a thousand tiny drops of sound fill my head / This moment here… every second is on hold… / …it’s like forever all over again. / Everyone this [sic] tiny little vortex… / …swirling away until I can’t really see them in any way that counts. / Now there’s only the light and the sound of the bass
Every… / …single… / …note / Explodes inside my head. / Faster… / Maybe more than I can handle.

Those lines, from the first four pages of the book, are juxtaposed with images of robots having sex in an alley, someone at a concert, two robots smoking up (or something), and two robots beating another up in a toilet. None of the images make sense, nothing is resolved, the words could easily have been “oogly-boogly-oogly-boogly-oogly” and would have been equally (if not more) poetic. What the fuck?! Thankfully, the “poetry” stops after a few more pages, and the first of two story arcs begins. Unfortunately, it looks like the reader gets stuck with the same rambling narrator from the “poem”, who poses many questions of blinding insight, such as “Am I outside or in?” (ooh!), “Am I lost inside my head?” (ahh!) and “When’s enough, if nothing ever stops?” (PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP), while hanging out with his deadbeat armed robber friends.

Gritting my teeth and ignoring the narration, I struggled to the end of the first chapter, hoping to see some plot. Uh… no luck there. The first chapter ends on a cliffhanger where the group of friends are faced with… get this… a pack of snarling dogs (and ends with another brilliantly insightful metaphysically nonsensical question from our dear narrator!). Aargh! Thankfully, everyone dies in the first story arc, including the narrator. The second story arc was slightly better (not saying much), but also pointless.

Overall, a complete waste of time and a gut-wrenching exercise in frustrated reading. Damn you, Image Comics, for publishing this shit and getting your friends to say good things about it. I want my $18 back. Aaaargh.

Tags: comics, reviews

I’m supposed to be doing homework that’s due in the morning. Logically, this means I will write more for these reviews to avoid doing work.

“A History of Violence” (John Wagner, Vince Locke)
Note to publisher: Printing critical acclaim about the movie that’s based on the book you’re selling probably helps sales-wise. Printing critical acclaim about the lead actor on the back cover, however, reeks of desperation. This is the book that David Cronenberg’s new movie of the same name is based upon (IMDB details here). The movie opened to critical acclaim at Cannes, and Mark Kermode was drooling all over it in one of his more recent BBC review podcasts, so it can’t be all that bad. Cronenberg has, however, mentioned that the movie deviated quite a bit from the comic, so take that for what it’s worth.

That said, the conveniently-abbreviatable AHOV is really quite good. I’m probably not giving anything away by summarising the plot from the first few pages: two nasty characters, intent on robbing and murdering small-town coffee shop owner and family man Tom McKenna, instead get a brutal taste of their own medicine when he retaliates, killing one and injuring the other. McKenna becomes a local celebrity, attracting the unwanted attention of some shady people, possibly from a past life. Hilarity ensues.

Vince Locke’s art is very, very loose and a little hard to get used to — I ended up forcing myself to read faster so I wouldn’t get too disoriented from it — but it serves its purpose well here, especially in depicting some of the more graphic scenes. Despite the loose, sketchy look of Locke’s art (somewhat like a woodcut), characters are easily recognisable, and that’s no small achievement in a comic without distinguishing capes and costumes. Wagner’s story unfolds at a comfortable pace, so it’s certainly no page-turning thriller, but the brutality and twistedness of the violence depicted here makes the graphic novel a page-turner nonetheless. I really didn’t expect to like this one, but I really did.

“Ex Machina: Tag (Volume 2)” (Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris)
Amazon kindly provided the entire wrap-around cover when I searched for this book’s cover. Isn’t it pretty?

I mentioned volume 1 briefly here, but didn’t say very much about it beyond the point that it was really quite good. Um, well, this one’s good too.

The story continues describing ex-superhero Mayor-of-NYC Hundred’s term in office while providing a bit more information about his power to speak to machines, apparently derived from some shard being investigated by his old NSA security handler. Mysterious grotesque killings involving the shard and its symbol occur, and before long, the mayor is drawn into the whole situation against his will. The mayor also makes a controversial decision. See, how was that any more informative than “it’s really quite good”? I keep calling him “Hundred” or “the mayor” because I can’t remember what the hell his name was — I read the first volume back in January, fergoodnesssake.

Anyway, yeah, it’s really quite good. Top-notch stuff from Brian Vaughan and Tony Harris (though the latter’s “realistic art” takes some getting used to, I much preferred his work on Starman and Obergeist).

Tags: comics, reviews

I have so many comics to catch up on. It’s only appropriate that this NIE mid-term break is called a “reading week”, I guess.

“The Ultimates 2 Vol. 1: Gods And Monsters” (Mark Millar, Bryan Hitch)
Millar and Hitch finally return with their widescreen no-holds-barred rendition of the Ultimate Universe’s Avengers. The first series felt a bit like the creators were still doing The Authority — especially the second volume with the alien invasion — but this volume is definitely all-Avengers fun. From the trial of the Incredible Hulk (he ate 800 innocent human beings in the first volume, after all), to Thor being exposed for a fraud (or is he merely a victim of Loki’s machinations? A clever nod to the origin of the original Avengers), to Hank Pym’s attempt at joining the sad-sack Defenders. Nothing ground-shatteringly brilliant, but still rather good fun, I thought.

“Deer Park (Buddha, Vol. 5)” (Osamu Tezuka)
Volume 5 of 8, continuing Osamu Tezuka’s work of ground-shattering brilliance. It’s great, and I wish it weren’t $50 a volume. I don’t have that much more to say about it.

Technorati Tags: comics, reviews

When writing these mini-reviews, I’m beginning to have more and more trouble remembering what the hell I actually read the past week. These are actually from two weeks ago.

“Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 13: Hobgoblin” (Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley)

More of the usual Bendis/Bagley fare. Not as silly as the previous volume with the Wolverine body-switch, but not as horribly grim as the one before that with Carnage. Short summary: disturbed son of Norman Osborn (the Green Goblin), Harry Osborn, returns to Peter Parker’s life — huge fight ensues. Not particularly outstanding and quite easy to breeze through in one reading.

“Wanted” (Mark Millar, J.G. Jones)

The lead character’s father, part of a secret super-villain cabal that runs the world, dies and leaves him a place high in the villain pecking order. The lead character then transforms from sad ordinary 8-to-5er into The Killer, in a fantasy life where actions have no consequences and where self-gratification is the order of the day.

There’s a lot more to the story, but there’s no point ruining it — suffice to say, it’s deeper than the usual Millar power-trip story that my description might have evoked an impression of. My only quibble was that there was a ton of extra material in the book that made the story look like it’d end much later than it actually did, so the ending was a bit of an anticlimax. This also happened with the 50th anniversary edition of Fahrenheit 451, and in both cases, I found the respective endings unpleasantly sudden, though sensibly concluded after some thought. A good read, nonetheless — it’s not often that I feel like I want to finish reading a graphic novel in one sitting (unlike the case above), and this was just page-turning fun.

“The Pulse Volume 2: Secret War” (Brian Michael Bendis, Brent Anderson)

Bendis again, this time with Brent Anderson of Astro City fame. I’d forgotten how much I appreciated his art — functional and nicely embellished at the same time. In this volume, lead character Jessica Jones gets caught right in the middle of super-spy leader Nick Fury’s Secret War, losing boyfriend Luke Cage to inexplicable attack, injury and kidnapping. Having never read Bendis’ Secret War series, I was just as befuddled as Jones was about what the hell was going on. That’s when I realised — what an effective crossover! Bendis gets to play the man-on-the-street angle very nicely (last done effectively by Kurt Busiek in Marvels) with Jones’ lack of inside knowledge on the War, writing her into various investigative and reactive situations very effectively. Pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable this was, and now I’m really curious about what the hell Secret War was all about. Where’s the graphic novel?!

Oh, and a manic-depressive Wolverine cameos for a few pages. That certainly justifies his cover appearance.

Technorati Tags: comics, reviews

“Space Ghost” (Joe Kelly, Ariel Olivetti)
I don’t know what I expected from a comicbook promising “the true origin of the animated star!”, but I stupidly went ahead and plonked down $20 for it anyway. Well. Umm. The painted covers by Alex Ross are kinda nice. Ariel Olivetti’s art is stiff but… umm… colourful? And the story… the story, umm. The story has giant insects? And… uh… the closing line is, charmingly enough, “a very big rock”? This comic really doesn’t have that many redeeming values — it’s meaningless, predictable, soulless, repetitive and just takes itself way too seriously. Guhh. What a waste of money.

“Y: The Last Man Vol. 5: Ring of Truth” (Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra)
The big reveal on why all the men died and Yorick didn’t! Solid instalment in this critically-acclaimed series. I liked it, just like I did the last four volumes.

Technorati Tags: comics, reviews

I’ve been working (somewhat), so the reading pile’s grown quite a bit. Slowly, slowly.

“Sharknife Volume 1” (Corey Lewis)
Manga-inspired madness about the mystical protector of “The Guandong Factory”, a restaurant infested with giant monsters in its walls. Sharknife seems to activate his powers by eating fortune cookies — “seems to”, because the art is so cluttered, I can barely tell what’s going on half the time. Lewis’ art has the same problem as Chris Bachalo’s recent work: too much going on, too little focus. On the other hand, the entire book’s very lively and rather amusing to watch (intentional choice of verb over “read”). Kinda bizarre and not taking itself very seriously at all. I guess I liked it.

“Batman & Superman: World’s Finest” (Karl Kesel, Dave Taylor)
It was fun reading the progression of the characters throughout the years (I especially enjoyed the bit where the four fake Supermen and Bat-Azrael showed up — I’m a sucker for replacement icons and even enjoyed the Spider-Clone saga), I guess. Otherwise, the story was a bit of a chore to get through, what with Kesel’s formulaic stories and disappointing ending, as well as Taylor’s inconsistent art (the front and back covers are amazing, but his work in the rest of the book looked jarringly ugly at times). I hope Trinity, Matt Wagner’s Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman graphic novel that I bought last week, is better than this.

Technorati Tags: comics, reviews

“Seaguy” (Grant Morrison, Cameron Stewart)
Grant Morrison gives us a tale of… umm… a superhero without any point for existence, and one of his adventures, loosely defined. Not much of it made sense to me, really. I mean, sure, some of the less-subtle themes stood out (the widespread Disney-ification depicted in Seaguy’s world wa particularly chilling), but the rest of it felt like Morrison throwing in random ideas all over the place just to inflict unbearable pain upon readers’ minds. As character Chubby Da Choona, the giant flying talking tuna who’s afraid of water, would say: “Da Fug?!”

“The Losers, Vol. 3: Trifecta” (Andy Diggle, Jock/Nick Dragotta/Ale Garza)
Not sure why I keep buying this series, it’s all very formulaic blowing-shit-up spy-intrigue government-conspiracy stuff. Not poorly written or anything — in fact, the Losers’ origin tale was quite well-paced and featured quite the payoff at the end — but I’m just not very into this series. Maybe I’ll change my mind when I re-read all three volumes, but I doubt it.

Technorati Tags: comics, reviews

Missed another week again. Oops.

“Batman: Broken City” (Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso)
First, a tangential review: Batman Begins was quite rather fuckin’ awesome, and Sir Michael Caine deserves his own movie as Alfred (Alfred Begins?). However, one thing annoyed me a little: Batman — too much focus, not enough crazy. The man dresses as a bat! He shouldn’t be halfway reasonable about the things he does! Ah well. Quite enjoyable, nonetheless.

Anyway, back to the comic. I don’t normally pick up Batman comics, but this one’s by the same creative team that brings us the Vertigo series 100 Bullets, which is some very hard-hitting crime noir, and totally suitable to the Bat-franchise. However, I was ultimately disappointed — I felt Broken City was a little underwhelming. Sure, it cut straight through Gotham’s seedy crime underbelly, but for what? The whole story seemed like an episode in pointlessness, and Batman came across as really rather silly for doing everything he did. Batman’s rambling monologues didn’t help either. Perhaps if I read the whole thing in one sitting, it’d make sense (100 Bullets felt pretty disjointed until I read every volume in sequence), or maybe I’m just not a fan of this crazy-introspective-Batman that Azzarello has written.

“Blue Monday Volume 3: Inbetween Days (Blue Monday)” (Chynna Clugston-Major) and “Blue Monday, Vol. 4: Painted Moon” (Chynna Clugston)
I don’t know why Amazon gives me different-sized images for each volume… Anyway, Blue Monday is one of my favourite guilty pleasures of comics. American teen drama with a large dollop of hilarious senselessness thrown in, riddled with innumerable 80s Britpop (mostly) references and even a suggested soundtrack to listen along to (the likes of The Cure, They Might Be Giants, New Order, The Smiths, The Who, Stone Roses are common. Also, I’m convinced I’ve used up my italics quota for the month in that one sentence). More of the same happyfun stuff in these two volumes.

“WE3” (Grant Morrison)
The story’s about three cybernetically-enhanced household pets engineered to become killing machines. Result? Escape, subsequent ultraviolence, and one of the most touching stories involving cyborg animals in recent memory. Well, fine, ever. Brilliant idea, well-executed story, and the art by Quitely is to die for (look at that cover! Aren’t they adorable? In a deadly/homicidal kind of way, that is). I don’t often buy graphic novels that I borrow to read, but I absolutely must have a copy (or five) of this.

“Ministry Of Space” (Warren Ellis)
Warren Ellis’ infectious obsession with space travel science fiction shines through in this graphic novel, essentially a “What if the British had gotten to space first?”. Mr Ellis is, of course, British (and hence, like most British comics writers who aren’t Neil Gaiman, not completely sane), though he claims the story isn’t about nationalistic fervour but about all that shining potential lost and reduced to the real-world NASA, a helpless shade of a once-great space program. And you know what? He’s so damn convincing it hurts. Great read.

Technorati Tags: comics, reviews

Finished a couple more. Soon enough I’ll get around to tackling the 10lb Love and Rockets monsters, Palomar and Locas by the Hernandez brothers. Sure, they’re 30% of the price on Amazon compared to here, but carrying them back in my luggage: ouch.

“The Authority: Kev” (Garth Ennis)
Garth Ennis and Glenn Fabry of Preacher fame take on everyone’s favourite ridiculously over-the-top authoritarian (sorry) superheroes in this compilation of the two miniseries. Ennis fails to shock anyone who’s read his other work, and some of his jokes feel just a little recycled (the cabinet minister with odd bondage fetishes even looks like the meat dude from Preacher)… but he still made me laugh even with the most predictable jokes (British dude to over-sensitive Midnighter: “fag?” Midnighter: “WHAT?!” British dude: “Do ye want a cigarette or not?”; caption: “The Carrier. Flub-flub-flubbity flub-flub.”). Good enough for me.

“Daredevil Vol. 11: Golden Age” (Brian Michael Bendis)
Yet another volume from the prolific Bendis/Maleev team. The art’s spectacular as always, especially the flashback bits, but Bendis’ magic seems to be wearing off. The story was very well set-up for an exciting climax that never materialised, instead resolving all too suddenly and conveniently. Unfortunate. Pretty pretty art, though.

“Lost At Sea” (Bryan Lee O’Malley)
Yet another Bryan Lee O’Malley graphic novel, this time less light-hearted than the previous one I mentioned (but then, it’s not too hard to be less light-hearted than the combo-dancing-fighting-mania that was Scott Pilgrim). A simple tale about a girl who’s taking a road trip with some newfound friends, only she doesn’t have her soul. She thinks a cat stole it. A little Murakami-esque, no? With the cats and all. Suitably surreal, too.