| RANT: Dave's Capsules for March 2012 [message #96857] |
Thu, 22 March 2012 16:42 |
Dave Van Domelen
Messages: 38
Registered: January 2011
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Dave's Unspoilt Capsules and Awards
Intermittent Picks and Pans, plus Awards of Dubious Merit
Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups. Recommendation does
not factor in price. Not all books will have arrived in your area this week.
An archive can be found on my homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants
I managed to fall so that I smacked both elbows and both knees. Ow.
By the time I post this, Patch & Crow's Nest (the store I shopped at
while in Kansas) will have closed its doors. A combination of factors led to
its demise, Diamond's antics not least among them.
Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): Atomic Robo:
the Ghost of Station X #5 (of 5), The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath & Other
Stories
"Other Media" Capsules:
Things that are comics-related but not necessarily comics (i.e.
comics-based movies like Iron Man or Hulk), or that aren't going to be
available via comic shops (like comic pack-ins with DVDs) will go in this
section when I have any to mention. They may not be as timely as comic
reviews, especially if I decide to review novels that take me a week or two
(or ten) to get around to.
Justice League: Doom: DC/Warner Brothers - The final McDuffie-helmed
project, set in more or less the same sub-universe as the Wonder Woman movie,
the Fillion-voiced Green Lantern and the Earth-2 movie. It adapts Waid's
"Tower of Babel" arc, or so I'm told...I never read that arc. It runs
reasonably well, but while the basic premises are decent, the execution tends
to be weak. Part of this is no doubt a flaw in the source material (you do
NOT keep complete copies of "take down my teammates" plans anywhere but in
your head, but I know that was Waid's fault), some of it probably comes from
this adaptation. Far be it from me to quibble with the type of doomsday
device used here, for instance, but the way it was actually treated was,
well, Mon-El Brings A White Dwarf To Earth levels of stupid. The voice
actors and animators do a pretty good job with what they were handed, at
least, and I rather like Claudia Black as Cheetah. Mildly recommended.
Oh, and I got the regular version, without the McDuffie memorial
feature.
Digital Content:
Unless I find a really compelling reason to do so, I won't be turning
this into a webcomic review column. Rather, stuff in this section will be
full books available for reading online or for download, usually for pay. I
will often be reading these things on my iPod if it's at all possible.
Justice League Beyond #3: DC - "Several wars that time forgot have taken
place here." Yep, it's off to Dinosaur Island. This one definitely feels
like it's not 22 pages...extended establishing shot, very short action
sequence, and done. Batman gets some good bon mots in, but I'm definitely
starting to feel like I'm not getting my money's worth, even for a 99 cent
comic. Mildly recommended.
Justice League Beyond #4: DC - Giving it one last shot to impress me.
And it did not. More actually happens, granted. But the visual storytelling
falls down in several places, even if I were reading this on paper I'd have
needed to go back and forth in a couple of places to figure out what just
happened. And on a panel-by-panel format, it's a much bigger problem. Might
be more readable on an iPad, or wait for the hardcopy version (some number of
installments will be published monthly on paper in an "oversized" edition).
But as a digital-first, neither the pacing nor the visual storytelling work
well. It's written for the trade, and served up in smaller than single issue
bites. 99 cents per installment.
Atomic Robo: the Ghost of Station X #5 (of 5): Red5 Comics - A fairly
talky and exposition-heavy final issue, but given that the mood Clevinger and
Wegener are going for is that of tragic waste, it fits. The general thrust
of the climax has been done plenty of times (Superman being one of the first
comics to really explore it), but it still works very well when handled
properly, and they handle it properly here. Sometimes the highest ideals
lead to the depths of evil. Strongly recommended. $1.99 digital comic,
$3.50 hardcopy.
The Last Man On Earth Club: Therapy for Apocalypse Survivors:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/61144 (Also available directly on the
Amazon Kindle store, but Smashwords has multiple formats). This isn't a
comic, it's a novel (170,000 words of novel), but I have a good reason for
reviewing it here unlike all the other novels I read. Specifically, it's
written by Paul R. Hardy, formerly of the Legion of Net.Heroes writing group
on rec.arts.comics.creative. He's since gone off and gotten work in Real
Writing, but he's still remembered fondly as one of the best writers on RACC,
and one of the most successful at writing deadly serious stories in a
fundamentally silly universe.
While there's no mention of the LNH in this novel or in his bio, in some
ways this is a thematic continuation of the Legion of Occult Heroes series.
As the title suggests, it's about the last survivors of worlds. The setting
is one in which space travel is still out of reach, but interdimensional
travel has been figured out by countless races. And not all of them end
well. So, in a world dedicated to helping evacuate survivors of dying
Earths, a special therapy group has been set up for six individuals believed
to be the sole survivors of their versions of humanity. Numerous mysteries
intertwine with their stories, and the therapist who starts off as a neutral
observer finds herself quickly drawn into events herself. The premise lets
Hardy play with numerous genres...one character is from a Victorian Horror
setting, another from a War Against The Machines setting, one is a sort of
X-Files agent, one is from a superhero world, and so forth. I'm sure Hardy
was tempted to bring some LNH into the superhero world, but he resisted the
temptation. :)
The story does start somewhat slowly and dryly, there's a lot of
exposition needed to just make sense of the concept and place the characters
where they need to be. But by about the quarter mark, the mysteries start to
poke their heads above water and the action gets moving. And despite the
presence of eight main characters (and several important supporting
characters), Hardy manages to keep the spotlight moving around with deft
ease. As one might expect from someone with experience in superhero team
writing. ;) Recommended. $2.99 at Smashwords.
Young Justice #13: DC - Yeah, I normally have this under floppies, but
apparently I was beaten to the one copy at Hastings this time, or they've
simply stopped ordering it (the lack of #14 on the shelf too tends to support
the latter). So I waited for it to drop to $1.99 before buying digital.
This wraps up the Clayface origin story, and helps drive home why Aqualad
isn't leading the team anymore. It also provides some background for the
Belle Reve breakout episodes in season 1. Decent stories in general.
Recommended. $1.99 at ComiXology.
Rocketeer Adventures #4 (of 4): IDW - This was sort of the lone dangler
on my old pull list at the now-defunct Patch & Crow's Nest, the last hardcopy
I didn't simply write off and bugged them about for a few months before it
became clear Diamond would never be shipping it. So, with Rocketeer
Adventures 2 coming out this week, I was reminded to check for a digital
copy, and naturally it had dropped to $1.99 by this point.
"A Day At The Beach" by Gibbons and Hampton is a pretty good complete
story that lets Rocketeer interface with surf culture without being
anachronistic. "Waterlogged" Pruett and Harris continues the seaside theme,
although boardwalk rather than beach. As I've mentioned before, reading on
the iPod brings into sharp relief any weaknesses in visual storytelling, and
this story feels like it's missing several key panels. "The Flight of the
Aeronaut" by Arcudi and McCarthy is decent, although it's more of a prelude
than a story in its own right. And, of course, there's some nice pinups.
Recommended. $1.99 at ComiXology.
Trades:
Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, pocket manga, whatever.
If it's bigger than a "floppy" it goes here.
Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot: Dark Horse - This is an oversized-page
collection of the two-issue miniseries from the mid-90s by Frank Miller and
Geoff Darrow. My first exposure to the characters was the late 90s cartoon,
and while the basic looks and premise are the same (although the cartoon had
Big Guy a lot taller), that's about it. This comic reads a lot like the
various Kirby homages of recent years, in which the bombast is turned up to
11 and the story tries oh so hard to be campy. A cover gallery of "classic"
issues ties in with the idea that this is a Silver Age comic that never was.
But...not. The story is set in what was the present day at the time, and
reads like a relaunch that.... Meh. Let's just say that it's like Frank
Miller learned all the wrong lessons from Astro City and decided to do his
own version. It's like trying to retell a Kirby monster comic with flashy
new art (and Darrow's art is pretty good) and a modern setting but keeping
the actual storytelling at what the writer's inner child remembers the
writing to have been. And it just doesn't work. The cartoon did a FAR
better job of keeping the retro homage feel while actually updating it for
the 90s. If you like the cartoon, buying the comic does not make an
acceptable substitute for the lack of a DVD release. This is the Frank
Miller of The Dark Knight Returns, if not as foul in details. $14.95
Mastering Manga with Mark Crilley: Impact - Normally, I avoid
broad-based "how to draw" books, because they're so broad and shallow that
they're not really helpful to anyone. Too few of the basics to help newbies,
too few advanced techniques for the more accomplished artists, and yet trying
to cover all topics at all levels. However, this is Mark Crilley, so I
decided to give it a shot.
It does have most of the stereotypical problems of a How To Draw, but
there's a number of points that make it a little more useful. Crilley spends
a fair amount of time on body types not presented very often in introductory
books (heavyset people, older people), and his occasional double-page spread
of elements (a couple pages of just eyes, for instance) make for good
reference files for the intermediate artist.
Nerdy aside: while pondering this review, I realized that the typical
How To Draw book has at its core something that physics education research
has been pushing for a while now. We seek to get students to explicitly see
and use the underlying structure, rather than just copying equations and
plugging in numbers. That's analogous to HTDs' insistence on guidelines and
perspective points, etc. I haven't found any pedagogical research supporting
this approach for art, but most art education research focuses on the
cognitive and affective benefits of having art education, rather than the
details of teaching technique. And just to get some use out of my
professional jargon, most HTD books devote about a quarter of their pages to
material clearly outside the Zone of Proximal Development of the intended
audience. Or, less jargon-ly, either trivial wastes of pages or stuff that's
too advanced.
Like all Impact books, it's a slick production in full color, although
most of the actual lessons are just line art, with some spot colors to add
contrast. Oh, and Mark narrates the book in the form of occasional six-panel
strips...his author photo in the back looks more cartoony than the drawn
version. ;) Recommended. $22.99 cover price, $15.63 at Amazon.
The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath & Other Stories: Mock Man Press - A
few months ago (http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants/122411.html to be
specific) I reviewed the new short stories created for this volume, and I
enjoyed the original miniseries when I got it at a convention, although I
can't find my review of it anywhere. This book is a case of Kickstarter
working better than expected, and creator Jason Bradley Thompson was able to
create a much nicer package than he'd originally hoped. I supported at the
$40 level, enough to get one of the first copies and some nice digital
extras, although not enough to get the poster-sized map of the Dreamlands
that makes up the endpieces.
The contents are definitely worthy of the support. In addition to the
original 4 issue adaptation of Lovecraft's biggest "Dreamlands" story blown
up to A4 (ish) page size, there's three more Dreamlands short stories drawn
for this volume and presented as prequels (Celephais, in fact, is something
of a direct prequel to Kadath), plus design sketches, production notes and
some early pre-comic pieces on the subject. It has a new wraparound cover,
and the aforementioned detailed map of the Dreamlands. Excellent visual
storytelling wrapped in beautiful (if sanity-endangering) production value,
well worth the money I spent. And definitely worth your money, especially if
you haven't read this adapatation yet. Strongly recommended. $24.99.
Floppies:
If I actually pick up some monthly issues, they'll go here. Given my
reluctance to put money in Diamond's hands, though, these would likely only
be review copies or stuff found in oddball places. And no, I don't have any
particular disdain for the monthlies, but they *are* floppy, yes? And like
floppy disks they may be a doomed format.
Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #24: Marvel - FINAL ISSUE. After limping
along for a while, the Marvel Adventures imprint is no more after this month.
Instead, next month there will be two Marvel Universe titles based on the two
Disney XD shows (Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes)
taking over the All Ages slot.
The plot of this issue involves the old Silver Age premise of "guy
becomes supervillain because he's obsessed with Janet Van Dyne," although
this time it's not Whirlwind. It's certainly a valid way to get that
particular villain into the setting without needing a bunch of other baggage,
not that this setting seems to be continuing. Sumerak probably didn't know
he was writing the final story for the MASH-Avengers setting at the time, but
it's a decent story to go out on. Recommended. $2.99
Dave Van Domelen, "I would like for ONE THING about this case to stop
being weird. Just ONE." "Couldn't agree more." - Atomic Robo: the Ghost of
Station X #5 (of 5).
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