First -- the second installment of Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88 is up today on itsallinyourhands.com. The link is on the right. Check it out, and VOTE. I will be blogging about the episode tomorrow.
Astonishing X-Men 16, Morrison's second Batman issue, Brad Meltzer's first JLA issue, Wonder Woman 2, and the second Ultimates annual all out today. Plus -- the absolute edition of Frank Miller's Dark Knight work ($99).
On Newsarama an interview with Matt Fraction, the genius behind Casanova -- the best comic book I have read in AGES -- and all the fallout about Civil War being late (which became a debate about whether books should have fill-in artists to stay on schedule or not -- everyone here knows I stand for late books with aesthetic unity rather than fill-in rush jobs, but feel free to argue the other side). Also the Previews for Marvel and DC are out this week.
Recommend. Discuss.
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13 comments:
I'm in a unique position this week. At the end of June, I placed an order through a mail order comics company, DCBservice.com, for all the books I wanted this month. It was great.. I got two new trades and EVERYTHING was 30% off.
Unfortunately, that means three of the books that I am dying for, Astonishing X-Men, Justice League and Morrison's Batman will be mailed to me next week, along with everything else from this month.
This is excruciating, because it means that in an hour, when my lunch break comes, I'll have to walk to Midtown Comics and stare at these three books and NOT BUY THEM.
God bless you for recommending Cassanova, Ping and Geoff. Otherwise my Wednesday would be shot!
I'm in a unique position this week. At the end of June, I placed an order through a mail order comics company, DCBservice.com, for all the books I wanted this month. It was great.. I got two new trades and EVERYTHING was 30% off.
Unfortunately, that means three of the books that I am dying for, Astonishing X-Men, Justice League and Morrison's Batman will be mailed to me next week, along with everything else from this month.
This is excruciating, because it means that in an hour, when my lunch break comes, I'll have to walk to Midtown Comics and stare at these three books and NOT BUY THEM.
God bless you for recommending Cassanova, Ping and Geoff. Otherwise my Wednesday would be shot!
Nothing too exciting this week.
Elephantman Vs Morrison's Bat-Ninjas sounds like a nice double feature though.
Sorry for the double (now triple) post. I'm sure everyone's seen it, but there's a brilliant Grant Morrison Batman interview at Newsarama, where he directly addresses Miller and Miller's Batman.
The funniest is the parody Morrison provides of Miller's Batman captions:
'MY BACK SPLINTERS INTO A THOUSAND SHARDS OF AGONIZED BONE. HE'S GOOD. HE'S YOUNG. HE'S TOUGHER AND YOUNGER THAN ME. AND TOUGHER. DID I MENTION TOUGHER ? MUSN'T BLACK OUT...'
haha.
I think Morrison is unfair to Miller in that interview (just as I guessed he would be). Miller's DKSA Batman is a lot of fun, and the Batman versus Terrorists plot -- the revival of propaganda comics -- is an even more outragous idea than Morrison's Seven Soldiers. And as much as Morrison claims not to be nostalgic, it's Miller's Batman work -- all of it -- that makes the strongest break from the past, into freshnes, that I have ever seen.
I think Morrison v Miller on Batman is the prize fight of the year. This is going to be fun.
I NEVER do this so please excuse me... the following is a straight cut/paste of my intro post in the Batman 656 thread I made at CGS, I want to hear what y'all think about this... it is spoiler filled and not worth reading unless you've read the issue:
If you're living in or near London England and find yourself at Forbidden Planet, they are selling a TPB called Strange Apparitions on sale for £4.99. It contains the entire Englehart/Rogers/Austin run on detective comics. It's great, far greater than this warmed over POS Batman 656. First off, I read somewhere that Morrison is "writing down" and trying to minimize his Morrisoness for the masses, if this is the product such a method yields than I am not interested. This issue comes off as almost a straight rip of Detective Comics #470 where Bruce first meets Silver St. Cloud at a society party. Except in Morrison's issue it's infused with the hokeyness of the stupid paintings which I guess are supposed to be clever but come off as tired. I liked following Batman's thought process while he was taking down the Man-Bat Ninjas, but overall it felt like a subversion of those great 70's issues with a lot of the TV series thrown in. I find this strange since those 70's issues were such a strong reaction against the camp of the TV program but here it all is, back again. I see nothing clever here, in fact it reminds me of the kind of story you'd see in a bad late 80's fill-in issue. I had been looking forward to the Talia/Bruce meeting but it came off as an after thought as if they'd run out of pages after introducing Ebony St Black or whatever the hell her name was and then the (over) extended (and pointless) fight scene. I found nothing clever in this issue, it was so-ham-fisted and heavy-handed that I feel a little sore after reading it. I sure hope to god that this is going somewhere because I am really not feeling it. I know I have argued for multiple interpretations of characters and I believe in that. What I don't believe in is ripping off and pissing on better stories without adding ANYTHING new to the mix.
Tell me why I'm wrong...
Ping: I wish I could tell you you were 100% wrong but today you are 100% right. Morrison has fallen into the trap that caught Alan Moore: his Batman is a study of the nostalgias. All Star Superman is in danger of falling into the same trap but something -- Quitely? Magic? -- is keeping it afloat on a sea of nostalgia. Say what you want about Frank Miller's All Star Batman, but the guy is not thinking of the past. Morrison has also fallen into the Bendis trap: a great writer on too many books.
(For now. Morrison has done such good work in the past, however, that I will get at least a dozen issues, so we can still talk about it. I hold out some hope for the future).
And by the way, Ping, feel free to cut and paste in the future. It's my page and I don't have a problem with it.
it's not too often when I want to cut and paste pages, but I really thought I nailed most of my feelings in that post.
It's funny (Strange even) that I had JUST read that Silver St. Cloud story 2 days before reading 656 so it couldn't be fresher in my mind. That Detective Run is SO good, it has like 3 of the all-time best Batman stories. I agree with Morrison that that whole era is underutilized and am glad to see it coming back into vogue. In Fact, I agree with most of the stuff Morrison is SAYING about his Batman run, just not what's in the issue itself. The only things I liked about 656 were the art (which I liked, not loved) and the fact that I'll be getting to say Ebony St. Black an awful lot in the next year. Or maybe it should be Midnight St. Ebony... what do you think?
I have to disagree with you both on this I'm afraid. For me this was a great Batman issue, all too often we're treated to over-long boring fight scenes in many comics, but here I felt Morrison did a fantastic job.
The chief of the issue was taken up by the manbat ninja fight and I enjoyed every page, the pop art commentary was a really nice device (the panel where Batman descends on the Manbat's from a city skyline was brilliant), and getting to have the wow/ouch/blam!'s was a nice retro experience.
The denouement worked quite nicely too, although I'll concede the two exposition-heavy panels ("what are you doing here? We slept together secretly whilst I was drugged and still masked but then I escaped and you ran away with our love child in order to raise him as a force of evil before returning to capture me again") were not great, but I did like the revelation of Bruce's son and the you'll have to look after him now sign off.
Whilst this isn't my favourite Batman or Morrison book, I am enjoying it and I'll be continuing to buy it over the whole run I'd wager. True its no Morrison X-men, but its no Austen X-men either.
I figured out, in part, why Morrison's retro-Superman works but his retro Batman (and the new film's retro-Superman) does not. If I want 70s "love god" Batman, I can read the Neal Adams run. If I want an 80s Superman, I can see the first few Superman films. But the Silver Age Superman is hard to get into, and needs to be re-invented a bit for me to get why it is great (before Morrison, I would have ignored a lot of early Superman as just silly). I just want something that feels fresh, and Morrison's Batman does not feel fresh. Casanova does, and that is why I cannot stop thinking about it.
I read the third issue of Cassanova, they actually didn't have the first two at Midtown. Regardless, I was instantly into it and had no problem mentally filling in what I had missed. I really like that they borrow the "Out of Gas" structure from Firefly.
I keep hearing wonderful things about Cassanova but sadly it is sold out at every comic book store in Austin. Is Cassanova like Fell in that each issue self contained or would I lose a lot of the context and should just wait for the trade?
just jump into the madness.
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