Four! (And a flood)

4.) Fatale (Image) 2012 – present — by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

STORY TIME, KIDS. Everyone gather ’round.

Just this last September, in the town of Boulder where my coffee shop is located, there was a little ol’ something called the 100-year flood. This doesn’t mean that the flood happens every 100 years, but, rather, there is a 1/100 chance that any given year, such a deluge will fall and cause massive flooding.

It started raining, and raining, and then it rained some more. This is somewhat unusual for sunny Colorado in that, after one day of cloudy skies and rainy weather, people start to grumble that they haven’t seen the sun in 36 hours. It started on a Monday, nothing more than the beginning of an early fall shower and then by Wednesday afternoon, there were flood sirens going off so that I could hear them from my shop. We watched out of our window as the rain pounded down on every available surface, already seeing streams of water washing down the storm drains and carrying along sticks, plastic bags, debris from off the streets and rising at a fairly alarming rate. We heard reports from people who lived up the canyon that there was a seven-foot wall of water washing down the roads and that it was on its way.

The shop is only a few hundred yards from the Boulder Creek, which had risen to levels not seen in 70 years. Parking lots and apartment complexes next to it — like The Millennium Hotel, just a mere block away — already had several foot-deep puddles congregating in low areas from the overflow. The Creek — which, usually is what it is — had turned into a dingy brown raging river with rapids, white frothy waves that you could hear whooshing through underneath the bridges.

My shop is located in a floodplain; there are signs everywhere around it saying: “THIS AREA IS SUBJECT TO FREQUENT FLOODING.” I had flood insurance, it was something that was necessary for me to secure an SBA loan to buy the shop, but that still didn’t calm any fears that, when I left the store early on Wednesday, driven by the sirens and the texts from family members and the Flash Flood Warnings constantly popping up on my phone saying to evacuate immediately if I feared for my life, it wouldn’t be there whenever I would be able to get back.

I made sure all the girls who worked at the shop — and still lived in Boulder — were okay and sent everyone home while I made the twenty minute drive back to my house in Northglenn. It took forty-five minutes because the highway had started to flood. Other spots were already shutting down as the river raged past Boulder, into surrounding Louisville, Longmont, Lyons, washing away US 36 to Estes Park and cutting a swath miles wide in some areas. Lyons and Longmont were virtually cut in half by the water. People’s homes were damaged, basements were flooded, people started to die, and by midnight that Wednesday night, it felt like the entire state would soon be covered in water.

What does this have to do with comic books? Not much, other than the fact that when I woke up early Thursday morning, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I fervently checked my phone and found that US 36 was closed at Louisville, several offramps before Boulder because it had flooded. There was no way for me to get to work, so I didn’t go in and decided to shut down for the day. Unable to go to sleep at 5:30 AM, I picked up Fatale, thinking it would soothe me back out of the incredibly worried state I had been in for a day and a half.

It did and it didn’t.

It’s a fantastic comic, filled with disturbing Lovecraftian plotting and even worse nightmare-inducing imagery about Jo, a femme fatale, who makes any man who comes into too much contact with her fall irrevocably in love. So much so that they will do whatever she wants them to — and some things she doesn’t. This extends past torture, past murder, into strange cult happenings with flesh-eating cannibals and squid-headed demons. The heavy mood of dread only builds with every turn of the page as man after man falls in love and then is killed in gruesome ways because of the mysterious power surrounding the deadly Jo.

The plot weaves from the 1930s to the present, intermixing stories from different decades in-between. The main story that shapes the rest of the vignettes is about Nicolas Lash, the godson of a writer who became entranced with Jo in the 50s, and Lash’s pursual of Jo and the unfolding of events previously unknown in his godfather’s early life. The most confounding question — and one which has yet to be revealed — is why this woman seems not to have aged in the last 50 years and how she got the powers that seem more of a burden to her than a blessing.

Which is where the interesting emotion comes into play. It’s clear that Jo has had some run-ins with a particularly nasty cult that sacrifices people and seems to worship Lovecraftian horrors, but did she get her powers from them? Why are they still pursuing her? Instead of reveling in her power and beauty (as she did when she was younger), Jo, at one point, tries to cut herself off from all contact with men so as to spare herself yet another skeleton in her already-full closet.

It’s a tragic story. No happy endings or warm fuzzies from this one. The art is messy and brutal when it wants to be, and classy and wonderful at other times. It’s a stark contrast from a dismembered group of cultists to a rising, hazy sunset in the 1970s in California, but it just leads to the creeping defamiliarization of the world around us and the horrible lurking chaotic mess just underneath. I’ve never been so unnerved by a comic before — well, maybe not since The Walking Dead — and maybe that was partly due to my state of mind at the time and partly due to the excellent compounding dread, but Fatale is so compelling, I had to get the next volume immediately after reading the first, but yet, I felt a rising nausea in my stomach even thinking about continuing.

So, I was soothed by the intricate story-crafting and unnerved by the sheer creepiness of the comic. Told you I like to read horror novels in order to fall asleep.

Fatale is equal parts horror, detective story, and savage look at what happens when love becomes obsession and beauty becomes gnarled. I was worried about this raising my feminist hackles, but I find Jo a well-rounded character, if not always of the cleanest conscience. She is the most consistent character and develops interestingly throughout time, but never in a way that I think is disingenuous, given the context. She manages to walk the line of the Madonna/whore contrast without falling whole-heartedly into either category.

I’ve heard that Brubaker and Phillips’ other series Incognito, Criminal, and Sleeper are also good, but I have yet to read them. Fodder for the next emotionally disturbing nights, I guess.

To end my other story, once the roads opened back at 10 AM, I drove to Boulder, just to see if the shop was still around. Miraculously, it had survived. There was one drop of water from the ceiling and everything else was perfect. I realize that I was incredibly lucky. Just eight stores down, the Tokyo Joe’s next to us had their backroom flooded. A block away the Sprouts grocery store had water up to chest-level and all of their produce had been ruined. Another nearby business had their ceiling cave in from the weight of the water. I opened the store, thinking that no one would come in and I would leave in a few hours only to have a line out the door until I could call for backup. Everything had turned out.

0 Comments Leave a comment

Five! (And a brief intermission)

Now we come to the halfway point of my Comics! list. Adam surreptitiously got me to think about why THESE particular comics, making me rethink the reasoning behind this list. Simply put, it’s the comics I’m reading now, those I currently enjoy, those that may not necessarily get as much exposure as others (but, of course, neither Thor nor Hawkeye fit into this category), and those that are a good introduction into comics for those uninitiated (with the exception of Angel & Faith).

I first got into comics because of Guillermo del Toro’s magnificent Hellboy movie starring the incomparable Ron Perlman. (Who is in EVERYTHING.) Before that, I, classicist that I was, thought anything written before 1950 was not any good and that contemporary literature was passe and uninteresting, lacking any sort of relevance or power that novels before that had. Comics didn’t even enter into the equation, me thinking that they were just picture books for those too unaware of the greatness of Dostoevsky or Dickens. Then I saw Hellboy and realized that if a movie that awesome was based on a comic, well, then it was time for me to see what all these comics were about. Mike Mignola’s interesting blend of dark and stark panels, the magnificence of the statues and corpses he draws and the beauty therein in ruination and dilapidation made me realize that comics could be just as interesting and worthy as the dustiest piece of Russian Literature. I hope to inspire others to take the same chance, to read something new in a way they’ve never read anything else.

With the outpouring of superhero movies in the last twenty or so years — yes, twenty, as I count Blade to kind of be the start of a ‘serious’ comic movie instead of a very comic-y movie like Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman or the Dick Tracy with Warren Beatty — it’s easier than ever to pick up a comic and not be intimidated by the last 60 years of history behind it. These are stories that are just, simply put, good storytelling, just with pictures and speech bubbles.

So I guess I’m attracted to a certain type of story, which isn’t necessarily what most comic book lovers are looking for. I like the complete universe stories with definite endings. Though the DC and Marvel universes are escapist and so richly detailed, they’re not as alluring to me as something like Sweet Tooth or four out of the top five left on the list.

Number five is the last of the superhero comics. Remember when I said that JMS was one of two movie guys to make the list? The other is the exceptional Joss Whedon.

5.) Astonishing X-Men (Marvel) 2004-2007 — by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday.

Now, before you start dissing on Whedon for his somewhat loud-mouthed fans, or for disliking his series, know that yes, I understand that Joss Whedon can be rather…difficult to work with and that his legions of rabid fans can be somewhat off-putting, but that doesn’t dissolve any of his talent or ability to make a good story. The dude is dang-talented and sometimes that lends itself to a big ego. Is that a bad thing? When interacting with people, maybe. When making fantastic TV shows and comics? Not necessarily.

This was my first (legit) superhero comic of the Marvel variety, not even to say of the X-Men variety. I was told that it would ruin other X-Men comics for me and while nothing can come close to its brilliance, I find myself still being able to read, say, Wolverine: Weapon X; Insane in the Brain and still enjoy it, even though it’s not nearly as well-thought out and detailed as Astonishing X-Men.

In case you haven’t gotten the memo, Buffy is just Joss Whedon’s take on Kitty Pryde, his favorite X-Men and she is featured prominently in this series and does she ever become much more than just the shadowy (ha!) figure. Sometimes writers don’t know how to handle superpowers well. Someone, like Kitty Pryde, may not necessarily seem useful, until given the right platform from which to evolve her powers and showcase just exactly how awesome they can be. Whedon does this perfectly, bringing a somewhat minor character to the shining forefront.

Like other Marvel stories, there is a whole lot of background for these characters and it can be daunting and somewhat difficult to jump in the middle. This being my first X-Men comic, I only had the knowledge base from the 1990s animated series to inform me who was who and sort of what had happened to them before this adventure. But, a few issues into the run, I found myself not caring whether or not I knew how Colossus had ‘died’ earlier, caring only that now he was back and that complicated things for Kitty Pryde. I didn’t mind that Professor X was off somewhere doing something with someone I didn’t know, only that his absence caused a disruption in Scott Summer’s leadership abilities. It was inconsequential how Emma Frost changed from being a member of the Hellfire Club to co-leader of the X-Men with Cyclops, only the ramifications that presented. Whedon’s story is so good that, even though I was missing huge chunks of X-Men history, I only became concerned with what was happening to these characters NOW.

It follows a few major story arcs, some being about the Danger Room becoming sentient and attacking the X-Men — as a friend of mine succinctly put it: “Was Star Trek mad?” — to everyone becoming victims of their own personal fears, leading to some of the most brilliant comedic scenes I’ve ever read in any comic, ever. Whedon has a biting sarcasm that mixes well with witty dialogue and truly heart-wrenching character development. To go from laughing to shock in a short time is one of his fortes in Buffy and, given how things change so quickly in comics anyway, Astonishing X-Men is no exception. Just like his other works, too, his X-Men run has a fairly complicated plot (for comics) and is best over a long-range, rather than issue-to-issue.

It was also very refreshing to have him take a step back from the (somewhat) ridiculous Wolverine obsession. I too, like a good short, hairy, clawed berserker, but, especially with the X-Men movies, Wolverine has become something more than he was ever intended to be. At his core, he’s a warrior, one who loses his temper, gets brain-washed entirely too much, and, at the end of the day, likes a cold beer more than he likes brooding about the things from his past he may or may not remember. The film version is a little bit more romanticized (not that there’s anything wrong with different interpretations of characters, especially from comics to the big screen) but I find I like the simplistic brawl-y, bub-talking Wolverine, than the Hugh Jackman version. Whedon utilizes Wolverine rather effectively, even parodying some of his toughness, while not alienating those who want a little more emotional depth.

Overall, this is a comic not to be missed. Yes, it’s hard to get into, especially at the beginning with so much background being needed for contextualization, but by the end of it, you won’t mind. There’s a big omnibus of Whedon’s run, which I recommend, because you won’t like the wait in-between trades if you start reading it.

0 Comments Leave a comment

Six

6.) Hawkeye (Marvel) 2012 – present — by Matt Fraction and David Aja with a few guest artists here and there.

Now, I’m not going to let my infatuation with Jeremy Renner and his guest appearance in the episode “Somnambulist” of Angel and subsequent Hurt Locker and Avengers awesomness affect my disposition here…BUT I TOTALLY AM.

Like many people, I didn’t give the character Hawkeye much thought until he was played by the extremely charismatic Jeremy Renner in one of my favorite movies, which is probably why I picked up Hawekeye: My Life as a Weapon when I saw it at the comic store.

Boy, howdy, is this a fantastic comic. It’s part of the Marvel Now! series (sort of like the new 52 a la DC, but instead of revamping everyone’s plot, it’s more of just a modern take on some classic heroes with new artists and some reconning and what have you.) It follows the everyday life of Clint Barton aka Hawkeye, and his partner/sidekick/non-‘love’ interest Kate Bishop aka Hawkeye and Pizza Dog when Clint is not part of the Avengers and is just hanging out, fighin’ hurricanes, rescuing his neighbors and getting in trouble with the local Russian mob.

Hawkeye is at his normal-dude best as he struggles with his new-found popularity as an Avenger, like needing Tony’s Stark’s help to set up his DVD player. He’s not too bright, not too strong, is a dead-shot for archery sure, but is a highly relatable normal guy who wants to do the right thing, but sometimes does wrong and that’s okay too.

The artwork is probably one of my favorites, next to Mignola’s Hellboy. The color scheme is muted, very 60s mod (as are the fashions and feel of the entire series), and so minimalist, it’s amazing that such emotion can be conveyed through just a simple small frame of Barton’s unimpressed face.

The comic is self-aware, in that Barton is narrating and, instead of having someone speak Spanish in a speech bubble, it says, “Something Spanish?” Or, my favorite: when a naked Clint Barton (the stories always start with him saying how he didn’t mean to get himself into a bad situation, it just happens) flies out of a bed, it’s censored by the old-timey Hawkeye face that they would put on the front of the comics to let you know who was in them. This sort of brilliance and post-modernism is a rare treat in a medium that sometimes doesn’t realize its own ridiculousness. It’s refreshing to have a comic that understands what is it and what it isn’t. No, this isn’t highfalutin modern art, but that’s not what it’s trying to be. (But I would still pay money to see some of those panels in a museum, that’s how much I’m in love with this art.)

It’s alternatingly hilarious and heart-breaking. Very rarely does a comic have so much character building with so few words or panels, but did I ever get attached to Hawkeye’s neighbor “Grills.” Or, even, his dog, who has an entire issue from his perspective. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME A COMIC ALLOWED ITSELF TO BE NARRATED BY A DOG? And still have a dang good issue, in spite of (or perhaps because of) that?

Simply put: Hawkeye is masterful at storytelling in its many altering perspectives and is a great comic for those who know and love the archer well, and for those looking to break into comics.

Of course, there’s backstory between Barton and Bishop, but it isn’t necessary to have read any Hawkeye comics before this, since most of the past can be understood through their current interactions. And there aren’t any other Avengers, not really, though cameos do pop up (like Spider-man and Wolverine), and that could distance some, but this comic isn’t called Avengers, it’s called Hawkeye.

0 Comments Leave a comment

Se7en

7.) Angel & Faith (Dark Horse) 2011 – 2013 — by Christos Gage and Rebekah Isaacs. Holy smokes, where do I begin? First off, this series just ended, as it was only meant to be 25 issues, but as I trade-wait, I have yet to read the finale, so I’m going to go all River Song and say NO SPOILERS.

The awesomeness that is Angel & Faith is that it carries on the great tradition of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in comic form. This series, Buffy Season Nine, the Willow five-issue Wonderland and Spike’s five-issue A Dark Place (and also a Drusilla series!) all fall under the banner of Season 9. This is also the frustrating thing about this series IN THAT THERE IS SO MUCH TO READ AND I HAVE TO HAVE SOME MONEY LEFT OVER TO EAT. I’ve prioritized Angel & Faith because Angel has always been my favorite (his series too), so that means I’m a bit behind on the rest.

After the shows went off the air after seasons 7 and 5 respectively for Buffy and Angel, the series both went into comics to continue the stories. Buffy went to Dark Horse (my favorite comic distributor) and Angel went to IDW due to the split between UPN and WB at that time for the television rights. Now, under Season 9, all of Angel and Friends was bought by Dark Horse so that the two could make cameos and stuff without a bunch of legal hoo-haa. Buffy Season Eight had some…issues. And so did Angel: After the Fall and the rest of the Angel IDW run. Confused yet? So were we, the audience. The writers of the various comics for Season Eight of Buffy and Season Six of Angel went big-budget — oh my god, Dawn’s a giant and Angel and Los Angeles have been sucked into hell and Spike is on a spaceship with giant cockroaches and there are giant Hindu gods smashing out of the ground and eating everything — so that by the time Buffy finished it’s Season Eight run, I was a little distanced by what made the show so great: character driven plots that adhere to everyday life with some awesome supernatural sidelines thrown in to make it interesting. Buffy and Angel were so great because of how people reacted to the things happening to them, not because of robo-battles and helicarriers and special effects.

But, after listening to much fan feedback about the flamboyance (caution, that link has S8 spoilers) of Season Eight, they hunkered down and created the masterpiece that is Angel & Faith.

I always liked how Faith and Angel had their similarities espoused in the series and the comic is a continuation of their strange relationship in which each of them strive to make the other better, regardless of whether the other wants to change or not. In a new world created by the events of Season Eight, Angel and Faith find themselves living in Giles’s apartment in England where SPOILER ALERT Angel is trying to bring Giles back from the dead after he became possessed by an alternate dimension that he and Buffy created by skrawnking and killed Giles. (Yeah, Season Eight…let’s just move on.) Faith is also dealing with a magic-free world and what that means for those left who depended upon magic to survive. Faith, not thinking that bringing back Giles is a good idea — because when is resurrection a good idea in any TV show? — is trying to dissuade Angel by getting him to concentrate on the here-and-now. The interplay between the two is as great as ever and I, for one, am excited to have a series where the two main characters have little to no sexual tension driving events. Angel’s a little shell-shocked and Faith has more responsibility than ever and the two desperately need life-savers in order to cope with their new lives. Which is why they were teamed up in the first place: they have a little Master-Yoda-Luke-Skywalker feel, a bit of veteran-camaraderie, and a smidgen of healthy disregard for stereotypical relationships. Yay for interesting storytelling!

The best part is the intrusion of Giles’s aunts and how they liven up the broodiness that has been known to seep into both Angel’s and Faith’s lives. It’s much needed comedic relief and, once again, the story is driven by how the two eponymous characters react, not to big-budget effects and extravagance.

Also: LADY ARTISTS.

If you’re only going to read one series from the Buffy comics, read this one. You might be a bit confused, as there’s about nine years of backstory, but what comic series isn’t loaded down with lots of history? It’s nothing more than jumping into the middle of Superman comics, or, even better (worse?) X-Men comics. You won’t be disappointed by its excellence.

0 Comments Leave a comment

EIGHT

8.) Chew (Image) 2009-present — by John Layman and Rob Guillory. What’s exciting about Chew is that, like Sweet Tooth, anything (and sometimes everything) can happen in the crazy creative and zany world presented through the character of Tony Chu, cibopath and FDA agent extraordinaire.

A cibopath — and the only reason why I knew this beforehand is because I like the band Cibo Matto, and only then, because of Buffy of course — is someone who gets a psychic impression of whatever food he is consuming. Like when a psychic touches someone’s hand and gets a glimpse into their unknown, a cibopath knows where his food comes from and what has happened to it in the recent past. Understandably enough, Tony is a vegetarian in a world where chicken is illegal and a black market has sprung up to deliver the illicit poultry.

Tony gets drawn into many food and murder-related adventures, finds many other people — those who can describe a meal so well that others feel full when reading about the encounter, those who can cook memories into their food (similar to Like Water for Chocolate, I guess) — both allies and villains, embroiled in the cases he’s investigating. Which is maybe the best premise for a cop-type of comic drama I’ve ever heard of. When an idea can be stretched and pulled to cover so much territory that the possibilities will never became stale, you know the idea is rock-solid.

Chew also has an interesting story technique: each issue starts out with a seemingly random first page that somehow relates, either as a flash back or a flash forward, or sometimes just an amusing side story, to the larger plot. So, not only is the slightly-satirical story out-of-sync, it also oftentimes begins in media res, my favorite kind of res. Nonlinear narratives for the win!

The art is pretty amazing — being just realistic enough so as to make the squigier scenes pretty squigy and just enough comic to give depth to the more flamboyant emotions with a cartoon-like flair, the witty dialogue is on par with any Joss Whedon show, and of course, the wacktastic happenings are enough to keep even the most out-there minds entertained. When I have a hard time continuing to read a comic or a novel because of my jealousy, I know I’ve found something good and Chew is no exception. It has just enough humor to keep it lighthearted, just enough gore to keep it comic-y enough for the hardcore fans, and just enough creativity to outlast most all other comic writers, which is saying something.

It’s an ongoing series, so who knows what’s still left to happen. I’m still pretty early on, since my comic book fund was severely depleted by my buy-a-house, buy-a-business, and then get-married fund, but Chew is in the top contenders always for my money. Also, having the main character be of Chinese descent is a nice twist in the white-dominated main character arena. What’s even more refreshing is that the creators wished for Chu to be “a totally unstereotypical Asian-American.”¹ Many of my friends find the concentration of a fictional character’s entire essence into one personality aspect (i.e. being gay, being a woman, being of a different ethnicity) will be pleased to note that Chu is not defined by his nationality, but instead just…is.

I don’t even really have any qualms with the series, either. It’s solid, interesting, and still has lots to explore, even a few years in. Do yourself a favor and (requisite pun) give this one a nibble.

0 Comments Leave a comment

Number 9 on the Comics! List

9.) J Michael Straczynski’s Thor (Marvel) 2007-2009 — Now, JMS I HAVE heard of. And maybe you have too. Babylon 5 is his most famous piece of work and he’s also the second television-writer-turned-comic-book-aficionado on this list as well. Which speaks well for the guy, actually. Adam has a theory that all movie stars want to be rock stars and all rock stars want to be movie stars. The same holds true for television guys wanting to be novelists and novelists wanting to be movie directors and so on. Which is why some things are fantastic books (Queen of the Damned) but absolutely horrendous movies (e.g. Queen of the Damned); they are simply different formats and it’s hard to make what works for one work for the other. By succeeding in multiple ways, it shows that the creator truly knows what makes a story tick and conveys that to an audience well.

Which is why JMS’s Thor is spectacular. Guy knows how to tell a story and tell it well. Captain American has just died, the Avengers are disassembled, Asgard has been destroyed — don’t worry ’bout it, ’cause with comics, sometimes you just dive right in — and Thor, sharing a human body with Dr. Donald Blake (eh?) — has to undo the events of Ragnarok. But, oh noes! Loki is back too — and HE’S A GIRL. Promising not to betray Thor (have we heard this before?), Loki offers his help in restoring the Asgardians to a new home: Oklahoma. From there, it’s all about the interactions and how a small dustbowl town deals with an influx of gods and their enemies.

It’s a nice intro into the Thor mythos, if you’ve never read a Thor comic, and is just a darn good plot. Time travel, Dr. Doom, love triangles, Iron Man getting pwned…It has everything! Oftentimes comics fall short in the emotions category and, looking through my choices, the ones that have a good ability to express and make the readers feel tragedy, loss, and longing are what make this list. A superhero like Thor — really, just Marvel’s version of Superman — can be hard to identify with and even harder to make interesting, but JMS has done it and I feel he really breathed new life into a character that can be, at times, stagnant.

Oliver Coipel’s art — especially the looks that Lady Loki gives — will stop you cold. I have never personally been afraid of a panel of ink drawings, but holy guacamole, does Coipel know how to draw a woman that Thor hath scorned. I got goosebumps — GOOSE FLESH — all up and down my arms with some of the panels and the sprawling Oklahoman landscapes almost don’t do justice for the wide-open vastness that Coipel achieves. Usually I’m not a big fan of realistic comics — I want artwork, not Renaissance Faire fantasy drawings — but Coipel makes it work for me with his little touches of elegance. Having Heimdall’s cloak turn into the vastness of space, even to the lack of eyebrows on Lady Loki all are such little details that others wouldn’t have necessarily put thought into.

A drawback is the somewhat slow pacing of it all. Loki’s eventual betrayal (believe me, that’s not a spoiler) takes some time to build in which everything almost seems as if it’s just a day in the life of. Which, I mean, if that life is Thor’s and the day is when he decides to rebuild Asgard in Oklahoma, that’s interesting, but it’s still comics and explosions are still demanded at least every twenty pages. Once the plot does get going and Dr. Doom’s presence ramps up, it’s hard to find any fault at all.

However, I was less than impressed with his Midnight Nation, so don’t lose any sleep over that one, m’kay?

0 Comments Leave a comment

Comics!

After the fiasco of the first comic store I went to (recap: here), I found one in Boulder called Time Warp that is both a.) huge with a great selection of comics and trades, b.) very professional, and c.) the place where Adam and I got little figurines of Deadpool and Black Widow to be our cake toppers.

Everyone there is extremely knowledgeable, helpful, and not antagonistic toward those of a different gender / role-playing schtick.

Adam and I go there about once a week to peruse the selections. Neither of us are hard core comic nerds; mostly we just like to trade-wait for our favorites.

WHICH IS WHAT THIS POST IS ALL ABOUT.

Given the popularity of top ten lists, I’m going to count down over the next few days my favorite comics. Some are done with their storylines, others are still running. Some are new, well, all of them are new, so let’s not worry about the fact that none are older than ten years and just skip on ahead.

I mean, we all know that Sandman, The Watchmen, Fables, Hellboy and Y: The Last Man are fantastic and they need to be read. (I have yet to come to a consensus about Preacher being in this list, but that’s another bloggy post.) I think this Top Ten list can do without that which goes without saying. Most of these are a little indie, in that they’re not DC and Marvel, but every good list needs some recognizable heroes, eh? Awards go to those with outstanding writing, great art, and interesting plot lines. (Listen up, Hollywood. WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT IS ~~LADY LOKI~~ well-written superheroes. The two need not be mutually exclusive.)

10.) Sweet Tooth (Vertigo) 2009-2013 — by Jeff Lemire. I have never heard of Jeff Lemire, but the synopsis of this one is just too good to pass up. It’s post-apocalyptic Nebraska and there are animal-human hybrids. Young Gus is just such a one, a boy with deer antlers and ears (and, surprisingly, not the only comic on this list dealing with people with horns!) and after the death of his father, he does the forbidden: he leaves his compound to explore the rather messed-up world where those like him are ostracized and hunted.

Where the fun comes in is with the wackiness. I hate statements that start with “it’s part…” and then go on to say, “…and part…” but it’s part The Road and part Homeward Bound, equal parts horrific depression and cutesy uplifting and all of it is fantastic. The great thing about a comic that is so unlike anything else is that it’s hard to predict what will happen. Not knowing how the universe works yet and why things are the way they are makes adds tension and suspense and is a favorite plot device of mine. The creativity to make something like this is borderline creepy, but it works so well given the meager dialogue and heart-breaking plot.

Also, comics are some of the most emotive forms of entertainment and this one hits me right in the feels, bro. The art is evocative, being fleshed-out enough to give a sense of world-building and letting the known — farms and crops, trees and the sparseness of that climate — but is just a little off-putting to dish out a big ol’ heaping of defamiliarization so as to continue to exude a sense of wrongness about the world. You begin to care so much for odd little Gus so that when bad things happen to him — I mean, it IS post-apocalyptic, so it can’t be too happy — you almost dare not read ahead.

My only dislike is it seems to meander, as if the author didn’t quite know where he was going, which is not uncommon for serialized comics. But, given that I’ve read only the first volume Out of the Woods (#1-5), and at a 40 issue run, there’s still plenty of time to pull the many strands together and create a phantasmagoric coming-of-age story. This one was recommended to me by serious comic nerds, so I don’t take their words lightly.

Also, Lemire does both the writing AND the drawing. That’s a talented dude, bro.

STAY TUNED FOR THE REST, BAT FOLK.

0 Comments Leave a comment

The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma

TL:DR version: If you like actual sci-fi, you’re a woman, or you dislike meta books, avoid this.

I was super excited to read this book. The back promised me time travel and Dracula and genre-bending madness!

Well, two out of three were wrong. And two outta three…ain’t…bad?

I blame my dislike of this book on three reasons:

1.) Marketing

It was marketed to make it more exciting. So is everything else. I understand this. What I don’t understand, however, is how a nice novel like The Map of Time ends up with a completely misleading and trashy false blurb in a place like the back of the book. I’ve come to expect this from movie trailers, and I always take the back of a book with a grain of salt, but if they had just marketed it as it was: a Victorian thriller true to the time in both style and plot, I would have enjoyed it so much more. But instead they made it seem steeped in science fiction and fantasy and that doesn’t really come into play for more than two thirds of the novel.

But, because they wanted to add some spice, they lost me. I kept on expecting things to jump out at me and wave their wordy fingers and say, “Ooh, look, I’m Dracula popping into a book otherwise about H. G. Wells and look how much I bend genres!” like the wonderful Jasper Fforde Thursday Next novels. Instead, I got a bogged down, “Oh, hey. Yeah, I’m Bram Stoker, the dude who wrote Dracula . I barely fit into this novel at all. All I can bend are my fingers. To type things. Because I’m Mr. Stoker. NOT MY FICTIONAL CHARACTER WHICH DOESN’T EVEN MAKE AN APPEARANCE AND WAS ONLY TALKED ABOUT ON THE BACK OF THE NOVEL TO SPECIFICALLY INTEREST MELISSA.”

Because I like vampires, okay?

It was like expecting to drink some water and getting a mouthful of vodka instead. They’re as different as an elephant and an elephant seal, m’kay?

And I’m totally fine with the Victorianess of it and the lengthy wordiness of it and even the unreliable narrator-y-ness of it too. I love those things. I write those things. But don’t tell me it’s going to be something completely different — DOCTOR WHO MIXED WITH DICKENS is what the back basically said to me — because then I won’t like those things. Those things will just piss me off. Give me the truth. The truth sets everyone free. Just not Tom Cruise ~~in real life~~ A Few Good Men.

2.) Feminist hackles.

Look. I understand that most novels are written by dudes and for dudes — wait, what? That’s comic books? The majority of readers are women? Well, THEN YOU HAVE NO EXCUSES.

The only main lady character (not that I need all of my characters to be ladies) tells me how non-matronly she is. How she doesn’t want to get married and have children solely because that is what she is supposed to do and that she feels as confined and restricted as the very corset wrapped around her body (ooh, symbolism!). Cool! I like this! Defying stereotypes and being more than just what others expect of her. I respect this!

But oh, a man from the future! Wow! She hasn’t even seen his face and she falls in love with him. Because he must — he simply must! — be different than the cads around her. And *spoiler alert* HE MANIPULATES HER INTO SLEEPING WITH HIM. And, another alert, he continues to manipulate her because otherwise, she will commit suicide because of his brutish actions.

I just…I can’t…

NO ONE ACTS LIKE THIS. Yes, it’s a Victorian setting, and I have a different viewpoint about women and their roles in society than say, H. G. Wells and Stoker do, but that doesn’t mean that Palma has to continue this legacy either. I’ve read plenty of Victorian novels involving women and NONE OF THEM ACT LIKE THIS EITHER. Even Lucy in Dracula is stronger than her husband in many ways and when she stops getting his letters (because he’s skrawnking some vampire chicks and stuff) she doesn’t just off herself because she can’t survive without a man. This is unrealistic and insulting.

I don’t demand that things appeal to my sense of how women should act. There is no right way to portray women because all women are different. JUST DO NOT ACTIVELY OFFEND ME AND WE’LL BE OKAY.

The idea that a woman would commit suicide simply because someone she’s barely met doesn’t reply to her letters is outlandish at best and rather offensive to those with any sense of self-respect. It’s not just plot holes and bad (or lack of) editing at this point, it’s just plain lazy writing. A lack of talent in the field of character development is no excuse for a poorly conceived and executed second half and cannot be made up for by Palma’s otherwise intricate and well-designed plots and graceful way with words. Write your women the same way you do your men — with a well-rounded psyches, with realistic expectations and desires, with a sense of independence that doesn’t rely upon a man — and leave your stereotypes at the door.

3.) Meta-ness.

I enjoy a bit of the ol’ genre-savviness meself. I really do. But there is a point when it becomes too much.

The next paragraph will spoil the ending, so don’t read it if you want to keep the surprise, but do know that the ending is so self-referential, I almost stopped to check if it was written by the same guys who write Supernatural.

H.G. Wells gets a letter from his future self saying that if he gives his unpublished manuscript of The Invisible Man to a time-traveler who wants purportedly to help him, the (actually) evil time-traveler will attempt to kill him and the stress of almost being killed will reveal his previously unknown powers of mind time travel. (The only way people can ACTUALLY time travel in the novel is with their minds, a la The Time Traveler’s Wife. In fact, that’s not the only thing that is lifted directly from the Niffenegger [spell that five times fast] novel, but that’s another quip for later.) The letter goes on to explain that he has a choice: go through events and become the very man writing him that letter (meaning he will disappear from history only after his second novel) or change history and make things different (or what we known to be true in this timeline, i.e. he goes on to write many more novels like The War of the Worlds and so forth.)

Blah, blah, blah, he chooses to make his own path, as scary and unknown it is and bam! H.G. Wells is saved and history as we known it is kept sacrosanct and the world is all right. But, if he could write a novel about his experiences, it would be a lot like a novel that I just read and it would start the same way that the very one I was reading would and oh, my, fracking God, are you serious? You are referencing the very novel you are writing!

That’s not clever, that’s egoism. And unacceptable. Any suspension of disbelief on my part was then puked upon and put back onto a shelf never to be read again and kind of to be looked at in pity as a couple of dollars wasted. Which no book should ever make me feel like I wasted money on it, and yet, the previous good yet feminist-hackle-raising 600 pages almost doesn’t make up for the last mind bogglingly vainglorious two.

Three stars out of five. Infuriating, but I couldn’t help but sense that with a better editor (and a real-life knowledge about women and how they act) it could have been spectacular.

0 Comments Leave a comment

The Jade Skull

Speaking of my car, Sir Blimey, not only is he the inspiration for a great many character quirks, but he has even inspired my own superhero comic. Prepare yourself for:

THE GREEN SKULL!

What, I can’t use that? That’s already a Captain America villain?

Yeah, but he’s kind of a crossover special. Surely no one will mind if I use it?

They will? But…but*…Cap can’t have a monopoly on all colored skull villains, can he?

Fine. Fine! Prepare yourself for:

THE ~~GREEN~~ JADE SKULL!

I switched out the gear shifter in my Jeep for a green skull and then got to thinking that my car had an alter ego and went out and became a vigilante at night, all Christine style. Then, BAM. Inspiration.

Story goes that a witch lady who used to possess people a while ago got tricked into possessing a ~~green~~ jade skull figurine and couldn’t get out until she redeemed herself by doing deeds of good. She takes this to mean kill evil doers and proceeds to possess whatever the ~~green~~ jade skull is attached to. Sometimes it’s a necklace, sometimes it’s a 1986 Jeep Wrangler YJ.

Backstory!**

The ~~Green~~ Jade Skull, back in the 70s, was attached to a walking cane of one Sir Reginald Blahblahblah (official surname in the delicate planning process) and she took care of business. This, of course, attracted the notice of the local law enforcement, who couldn’t find a link between all of the victims, other than the fact that their bodies were charred, LEAVING ONLY THEIR SKULLS, WHICH HAVE BEEN TURNED THE COLOR ~~GREEN~~ JADE.

Sir Reginald Blahblahblah dies and his beloved walking cane is put into a safe with the rest of his items until…

Actual story!

…it’s sold in an estate sale to one, LUCY SWEETFACE. (All I know about her is that she’s just gotten out of a divorce and is sweet. Kind of like Diane Wiest’s character in the greatest movie known to mankind, The Lost Boys.)

She takes the ~~green~~ jade skull off of the walking cane and puts it on her 1986 Jeep Wrangler YJ because it looks cool and the ~~Green~~ Jade Skull comes back to life to accomplish her mission of justice! (Or maybe vengeance!)

Lucy has no idea that her car is going out at night and killing people, but again, the local law enforcement starts a-sniffing’. Enter one SGT. STEWART. (Only so named because I think of the Green Lantern Jon Stewart when picturing my cop character.) He links Lucy to the crimes and is about to arrest her, but feels there’s something missing.

What we don’t know — until we do know — is that Stewart had a run-in with the paranormal when he was a child! Oooh. Which makes him want to understand that world, which brings him to the case files of the 70s and to the shocking conclusion that it’s not a WHO, but, rather, a WHAT that has been cleaning the streets of San Francisco for him!

I mean, it’s still kinda in it’s early stages, and I really need someone to draw because my skills stopped progressing somewhere around age six, but the story is there, waiting.

*…but WE used to use soap!

**My friends and I play the Settlers of Catan card game and there’s a destiny card that gets flipped over when certain actions happen. It’s a house rule that when you flip the destiny card, you whisper the word, “dessssssstiny,” in a suitable, movie-trailer voice, way.

1 Comment Leave a comment