Friday, April 11, 2008

Comics Out April 9, 2008

Serenity: Better Days 2. The art is OK, but having to draw the faces to match the actors looks like it is often more trouble than it is worth -- Kaylee on page 2, for example. Check out Kaylee's face during the sex scene -- isolate her face on the page and tell me she does not look somewhere between ill and bored. There is a cute exchange about showering, but the thing is pretty lackluster, especially the ending bump, which would be sub-par even for a commercial break -- the end of an issue is not the same as the end of a television show, but the month long hiatus requires more than a random rifle butt to the head.

The Amazing Spiderman 556. This is hard to review without images. I will have to learn to work the scanner. In short, I love the art enough to ignore the story and dialogue. Zeb Wells needs to read some Morrison -- I would recommend JLA Classified 1 -- to learn how to write both techno-babble, and an intimidating weird speech from an other worldly god.

In Comics News the current team on Iron Fist leaves at issue 16. It seems disappointing, but these guys are not dead and will surely go on to do other amazing work. The book will forever live in my heart because of Dog Brother #1, and learning who David Aja is.

Also, you have to love this: a proper All Star crossover I can get into, even if it is just a cover.


I am sure I will never get my real dream team -- A Batman/Superman story with Morrison and Miller co-writing, and Miller on art, with covers by Quitely. Someone should lock these guys in a room knowing Miller and Morrison would not get along, and just see what they come up with. I bet it would be coo-coo bananas.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What the fuck is going on with Robin's eyes? LOL!

Your dream collaboration seems oddly like Miller's thoughts about Superman/Batman would be like when he wrote TDKR: "These two people wold NOT like each other"

(yes, my encyclopedic knowledge of Miller's Batman frightens me too)

Anonymous said...

It's Robin of the Damned!

(sorry, I love Quitely too... I just can't get over the eyes!)

nicholas reed said...

What's to get over? The way he drew it is how the mask is represented everywhere else. It's also 80000000 times better than any of the other ASB&RtBW covers have been.

Anonymous said...

Quitely is so good. In the line and posture he manages to capture an important aspect of the dynamic between the duo, with his usual skill and humour. Miller's Robin is meant to provide some sort of youthful healthy insolence, a galvanising force on too-serious Batman, preventing him from altogether becoming (crypto-)fascist father figure. (Reminds me, weirdly, of Jack Frost's role in The Invisibles - to rebel even against the ultimate rebels). Miller's Robin even makes fun of Batman, but he'd equally make fun of you as soon as look at you (and kick your ass). And it's right there in Quitely's drawing.

Speaking of humour, Bachalo's work on Amazing Spider-Man this week was just perfect. I loved opening the issue at random and being greeted by a full-page image of Fat Spidey. Ridiculous, funny, in keeping with the bad luck soap opera and fundamentally a part of the plot/narrative. This is what I want from my Spider-Man comics. The reboot has been equal parts good, shaky and dire, but this was a great issue.