Comics Out July 5, 2007

[Sorry: this is being posted 55 minutes later than I would have liked. Usually I keep on top of this.]

Geoff Johns, Richard Donner and Adam Kubert's Action Comics 851. You know I actually liked the 3-D glasses, I thought they were really fun. I was surprised at my own enjoyment. I would have liked to see Morrison do this for All Star -- it would have been right in the spirit of things. In Action Comics a nice decision was made to keep the 3-D effects for the phantom zone, which makes a lot of sense, since the phantom zone is a floating 2-D plane. Also it makes sense for the colors to be off in the phantom zone; the colors have to be off if you are looking at something through red and green glasses. But the story here is not good. Many publishing months went by since the cliffhanger of last issue. Superman sent into the phantom zone seemed like a big deal. It did not take him a heck of a long time, or too much trouble, to get out. I guess it is because they did not want to do too much 3-D stuff, but if you want to have a gimmick, do not let it ruin your story.

Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting's Captain America #25 The Director's Cut. I did not get this issue when it first came out, because I felt burned by Civil War. Also I read Sleeper, and X-Men: Deadly Genesis and felt that while they were serviceable stories, they lacked a spark necessary for me to follow a writer. With the hype, Brubaker's connection to the flawless Iron Fist, and the fact everyone keeps telling me how great he is, I picked this up. My judgement remains the same. Brubaker seems solid -- he knows how to tell a story -- but I feel a little cold. I don't hate him, I just fail to see what all the excitement is about. His work seems to me to be like Law and Order -- always watchable, but never rising to the genius of Lost, or West Wing, or something like it. Could also just be my mood, and I can try again later.

Jeph Loeb and John Cassaday's Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America: Iron Man. Like the other Fallen Son books I got this only for the art. I have not read it yet, but I think the Thing looks unintentionally silly in a suit and tie. Otherwise, at first glance, it seems to be what I wanted.

Joss Whedon and Michael Ryan's Runaways #27. Joss Whedon does what Joss Whedon does, and he is great at it, if you like that kind of thing. Jokes are sharp, dialogue is crisp, plotting is solid as a rock. And you need great plotting for a time travel story. An example of Whedon 's smarts: You know when they try to blend in to the 19 th century, they will break out soon, and Whedon knows you know this, so they blow their cover one page after they establish it. People declaim his smart stuff as pretentious -- and I can see what they mean though I think he sells it -- but this is a great unpretentious example of why he is great. The art on this book, however, is dowdy. A particular example: Karolina says "We also can't hide in an alley and do nothing" and Xavin replies "You're not even pretending to contain your excitement." Go back and look at Karolina's face when she speaks -- try to imagine that is the face of an excited person. I dare you.

Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely and Jamie Grant's All Star Superman #8. The last issue was not my favorite, in part because I find the Bizarros a little more annoying that I am supposed to. The first half of this issue left me a little bored for the same reason. Also: Morrison does a very stilted "I already explained..." followed by "And I already explained..."; this kind of clunky exposition drives me nuts. Morrison may be doing it to honor his aim to make these like old comics, as self contained as can be, but I still think it is annoying. But by the end of this issue I was back to remembering why I love this book so much. Zibarro's face when he says "There only seems to be room for one on your rocket ship" has that indefinable something that makes me look at it again and again. The issue closes with a wonderful apotheosis of this mad planet, the danger and horror Superman is in, a great Bizarro version of The Star Spangled Banner, and several perfect ending beats.

Also 52 the novelization came out today. I obviously did not get it, but I burn with a single question. Who, you know, on earth, is the target audience of this book? Are there people out there going "I wish there was a way to read 52 again, but with someone describing the panels rather than me having to look at them"? It boggles the mind.

Plus in comics news, one amazing super-exciting thing: Samurai Jack will continue as a movie. Words cannot express. Though it is sad that the voice of Aku died.

Review, recommend, and discuss this week's comics and comics news.

Maybe the epigraph from Chip Kidd's Batman photograph book (Commonplace Book)

[I do not know where I read this, but I did, and I am trying to post every day: here is the commonplace book entry for this week. It may not be an exact quote. But it is July 4th, and I am busy.]

Superman is the American Dream. Batman is the American Truth.

Ratatouille (Spoilers)

[The Commonplace Book entry will go up tomorrow. I wanted to put this out now, because something similar appeared on theonionavclub blog, and regretted not putting it up when I wrote it Sunday night.]

I can think of only a handful of children's entertainment on a level better than Ratatouille: Chicken Run, Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Nightmare before Christmas, The Emperor's New Groove, The Triplets of Bellville, Iron Giant (from Ratatouille director Brad Bird), Muppets. If we think it is fair to compare TV shows to film in this regard, I would add Charlie and Lola and Pocoyo (though Pocoyo is for little-littles). If we can expand to teen fare I will include Samurai Jack and Avatar, and a few episodes of Batman Animated and Teen Titans.

The film is simply beautiful -- literally every hair is perfectly rendered, as is Paris. Correspondence, rain, and building fronts are so fully created they look like live action. The action scenes are swift and exciting and the story is paced and structured excellently -- enough action to keep things exciting, but enough time spend on happy stuff as well. Brad Bird knows how to tell a story. It is engrossing, from beginning to end. The jokes are great but they tend to rely on a visual, or the delivery. Chicken Run really wins on verbal humor, which I do not think a perfect kids movie can be without. (I think I will post soon on why Chicken Run is one of my favorite films of all time).

Special mention should go to every scene starring Anton Ego, voiced perfectly by Peter O'Toole (even Ian McKellen could not have done a better job with the character). With a type-writer that looks like a skull, in a coffin shaped room, looking like the apotheosis of the Adams Family, he bring a very good movie a notch up every time he is on screen. When he tastes the food I laughed and cried at the same time, no exaggeration. If you do not you have no heart. Further special mention should go to the opening short, my favorite of the Pixar shorts.

But here a complaint (though not an aesthetic one): women have nothing to do in Pixar movies, as wonderful as they are, and Ratatouille is especially egregious in this regard. Jeanne Garafalo's Collette simply has nothing to do. As in the Incredibles, Bird sets forth his thesis, not entirely wrong and kind of daring in a kid's film, that some people are just born special. The rest of the population, in Bird's view, just needs to accept their low status, or risk turning into villains like the bad guy in the Incredibles (Batman has no place in Bird's superhero world; this half of Bird's thesis seems off). In the end it turns out our useless human "chef" Linguini has a talent, though a lesser one than our genius; Collette was never a good chef and will never be anything but the girlfriend. Besides the old woman in the opening sequence, she is the only female character in the movie, including EVERY rat. The next Pixar movie will be about a robot. Seriously guys -- get some female characters that are not hangers on. It will make your movies more interesting. They will not give your movie cooties.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men 2

[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run. For more posts click the Astonishing X-Men label.]

Cassaday does a really knockout job here, especially rendering the monster the little girl gives life to, and all the X-Men attacking in separate panels. Also the cover is just stunning, especially Laura Martin's colors. Ord is a little weird looking, with that metal thing across his nose. I wonder if Whedon thought up the design, because it seems like something from Buffy, something from a medium where you have to think about practical issues with monster design.

We begin here to see one of Cassaday's worst habits, that will become more prominent in future issues -- though he is incredibly talented, he can be lazy. Give him a chance to use the same drawing twice, and he will take it. Case in point in this issue -- the cop's face is copied exactly from on panel to the next, there are three panels in a row of one of Ord's henchman that are again nearly exact copies, and a group shot of the X-Men talking is almost exactly recopied a panel later. So is a panel of Kitty and Emma talking. This is used for dramatic effect, and it is not awful, but it does not make it any less lazy. It does not seem too bad until you see how many times Cassaday resorts to this device -- stay tuned and I will grab all the ones I see.

Whedon's trademark serious-silly combination -- his main device that for some reason I simply never tire of -- is used to great effect here in the battle with Ord. His serious, violent, and nearly successful battle with the X-Men is ended by Kitty Pride's pet dragon, who appears for the first time simply breathing fire on Ord and saving everyone. "You are the best X-Dragon ever" says Kitty. "I think we should make him team leader," says Wolverine. You just don't get this kind of scene in Morrison, or anywhere else, and I am a sucker for it. I can, in all fairness, understand someone who thought it was lame. The press asks Kitty "Do you have a license for that bat? What is your relationship with the bat" and she replies "I don't even know what that means." Whedon, you had me at hello. My critical powers fail me, and I just swoon.

We have a great scene between Emma and Kitty, where it becomes clear Emma wanted Kitty on the team to keep an eye on her, which is interesting. She wants to be good, but it not sure she will. The team debates the virtues of the mutant "cure" in a well written and mercifully brief conversation -- Whedon provides a good mix of action and talking, though many people found this first arc too talky. Finally, Whedon, ever the master, finds that perfect ending beat as the Beast confronts Dr. Rao and wants to know if the cure really works -- presumably for him.

Imaginary Biography Book Stats

Amazon.com seems to have scanned in all of my new book Imaginary Biographies, so that when you search for stuff on the site it searches into books to give you results. For example, putting my name into Amazon gives you not only the books I wrote, but a few books in which I was quoted.

They have a new feature now called Text Stats, which has produced some probably true but odd statistics about Imaginary Biographies.

Cannot, death, fact, figure, god, lost, spirit, time, tradition, and tv are among the top 100 most used words.

The Flesch-Kincade index for readability (whatever that is) says that only 18% of books are harder to read than mine. Ok. Now is that all books throughout time in all languages? English books Amazon has scanned? Is this something I am choosing to care about today?

16% of the words I used are considered "complex" words, but, since only 44% of books have more that seems normal.

Only 13% of books have more words per sentence than Imaginary Biographies. Long sentences are a bad habit. I need to write shorter sentences.

The book has 613, 114 characters, and gives you 1147 words for every dollar you spend on it.

Weird.