Liberty Annual 2010

Here’s one of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s periodic fundraiser comics, designed to both raise some money for the organization and educate readers about the continuing need to support the CBLDF and oppose censorship of comics.

We get a big variety of comics by a whole lot of creators — a Conan story from Darick Robertson, a story from Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, a Milk and Cheese comic from Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer, a Megaton Man story from Don Simpson, and other stories from Garth Ennis, Scott Morse, Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Gail Simone, Larry Marder, and a ton of pinups from Jill Thompson, Frank Miller, Terry Moore, Jeff Smith, Skottie Young, Colleen Doran, Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, and more.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Anything to support the CBLDF, man. It’s five dollars, but it goes to a worthy cause. Pick it up.

Strange Science Fantasy #4

Scott Morse’s pulp-inspired series continues with a look at the life of Private Charlie Gantic, who gets thrust from the Pacific Theater to a global war against invading aliens. A scientific experiment gives him the ability to grow to immense size, and he takes the fight to the aliens as G.I. Gantic — but is he prepared for the mind-blowing secret the aliens have been hiding?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Beautifully illustrated and a great story that effortlessly jumps from one genre to the next. This entire series has been a ton of fun — we’re lucky to be getting the chance to read it.

American Vampire #7

Chief McCogan and his two fed sidekicks, Agents Straw and Book, confront Mr. Smoke — better known to us as Skinner Sweet — but they get booted out of his HQ when Book can’t control her dislike for the vampire crime lord. We learn that Book and Straw both belong to a vampire-hunting organization that’s promised not to touch Sweet, and McCogan’s investigation into the grisly murder of a Vegas businessman leads to the grisly death of another Vegas businessman.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great storytelling, great characters, and lots of great stuff with rotten, loveable Skinner Sweet.

iZombie #6

Most of this story is Spot’s origin — how he lost his parents, lived with his retired-voice-actor grandfather, became a were-terrier, and met up with Gwen and Ellie. His grandfather finally dies after he and Spot (barely) reconcile — and Spot meets a new old friend at the zoo.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a good story, excellent art, but what I think I enjoyed most was Spot’s pop-culture daydreams where he imagines himself as a superhero, in the “Scooby-Doo” cartoon, and in “Star Wars.” It says a lot about what kind of guy Spot is, underneath all that hair.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Back in Quack

Yay! Howard the Duck!

Spider-Man runs across Mayor J. Jonah Jameson holding a press conference to promote some group called S.O.O.Ph.I., which is a very obvious evil brainwashing organization that makes all its members wear oversized smiley-face masks. And they’ve kidnapped and brainwashed Howard the Duck and his kinda-sorta-maybe girlfriend Beverly Switzer! Can Spidey break them free of the mind control? And can he use reverse psychology to stop S.O.O.Ph.I.?

Verdict: Thumbs up. What I love about this is writer Stuart Moore is almost channeling Howard’s creator, Steve Gerber, with this goofy, byzantine, gonzo plot. It’s a fun story with a lot of personality.

Avengers Academy #5

Our focus is on Striker, the electrically-powered glory how. His mom was a fame hound and has done everything she can to train him to believe that he’s nothing if he’s not famous. After he gets his powers, he falls into Norman Osborn’s clutches — but unlike his classmates, he gets coddled by Osborn. In the present day, while the Academy members are on a night on the town with Hank Pym, they all get attacked by Whirlwind. Can they stop the supervillain? And can Striker use all this to get himself some much-needed attention?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good story, excellent characterization, fairly good artwork.

Chaos War #1

The Japanese god of chaos and darkness, Amatsu-Mikaboshi, now calling himself the Chaos King, has already killed plenty of gods on Earth and on alien worlds, but now he’s decided to wipe out all reality so he can be the only thing left in existence. He starts out by attacking Nightmare and tearing him to pieces. Meanwhile, Hercules returns to life and returns to Earth, with enough new power to make him the most powerful being on the planet — and that’s a bit more power than even he can handle, so Amadeus Cho shows up (just before the Avengers start pounding on him) and talks Herc down. After that, uses his new power to summon all of Marvel’s heroes to Central Park, rallies them, despite their doubts about Herc’s stability, to join the fight against the Chaos King, grants them all a fraction of his power so they can follow him, and leads them into Nightmare’s realm. But is the Chaos King stronger than all of them?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Greg Pak and Fred van Lente writing Hercules is guaranteed gold, every time.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Gavok has a good look at “Franken-Castle,” a series I missed almost entirely…
• Okay, fine, just a commercial, but this is still pretty awesome.
• Smell like a monster, man.
• Allie Brosh from Hyperbole and a Half shows you how to put on a coat.

Friends and neighbors, it’s been one heck of a week. We’re all worn to a frazzle, and what we’re all looking for right now is a little weekend time to unwind, relax, and reconnect with our own overworked humanity. And the best way to do that is always… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

This evening’s battle comes from October 2008’s Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #27, by Paul Tobin, Jacopo Camagni, Troy Hobbs, and Norman Lee, as Captain America and Iron Man meet up with Fancy Dan and Ox of the Enforcers. Fancy Dan? Yeah, that’s what I thought. What do you think of that, Cap?

Ox takes the harder punch here, but I’ll have to declare Fancy Dan the big loser in this battle. ‘Cause when your name is Fancy Dan, you’re always going to be a loser…

Batman: Hidden Treasures #1

What’s this? Basically, DC found an unpublished Batman story in their archives. They’re not entirely sure why it wasn’t published, because it featured beautiful artwork by impossibly freakin’ brilliant artist Bernie Wrightson! The full story, probably created in the late 1980s or early ’90s, is told in splash pages, alongside text by Ron Marz, as Batman tracks Solomon Grundy, who has abducted a man off the street. The second story is from Swamp Thing #7 from 1973 — written by Len Wein and illustrated by Wrightson, it spotlights a confrontation between Batman and Swamp Thing as the muck monster tries to sneak through Gotham City to rescue Matt Cable and Abigail Arcane.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yes, it’s five dollars, but it’s worth it for this beautiful, crisp, clear artwork by Wrightson. And it’s not even like that’s all you’re getting — the classic Swamp Thing story is a fantastic bonus. If you love Wrightson’s art, or if you want to see why you should love his art, this is definitely worth picking up.

Dethklok #1

Huzzah! An ongoing series for the world’s most insanely popular death metal band! Dethklok is starting their own line of frozen vegetables. The Tribunal is wary, fearing that the world will come to rely on Dethklok for all their food. While awaiting the official unveiling of the frozen food, we get treated to Dethklok playing golf, Murderface’s complete ignorance of evolution and his rotten school life, Toki’s angst over killing his father, and Dr. Rockzo the Rock and Roll Clown (He does cocaine!) and his horrible flashbacks about bananas. Can the band assure that frozen food can be properly metal? Will their concert and the frozen food line go off without a hitch? Or with a whole lot of hitches?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The only way this could be more perfectly Metalocalypsian would be if they included actual heavy metal tracks for the concert at the end of the comic.

Secret Six #26

There are two Secret Sixes invading the underground fantasy kingdom of Skartaris — Bane’s group includes Jeannette, Giganta, King Shark, Lady Vic, and Dwarfstar, while Scandal’s team includes Deadshot, Ragdoll, Black Alice, Catman, and a government operative named Tremor. Catman tangles with an ugly water monster, Black Alice loses her powers, Spymaster lays a surprise on Amanda Waller, and Scandal and Bane’s fight comes to an unexpected conclusion.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wow, that monster in the lake is really creepy! Tremor is starting out as a fairly interesting character, and Black Alice gets some great moments.

Madame Xanadu #27

Our story opens in 1964 with a supermodel named Neon Blue. Impossibly wealthy, beautiful, and aloof, she’s acclaimed worldwide, dislikes everyone, and prefers not to be touched. And when she does touch someone, they tend to die horribly. But eventually, she runs across a fortune-teller who can see what she really is.

Verdict: Thumbs down. The story wasn’t all that great, and I thought Celia Calle’s art was distracting in all the wrong ways. Sorry — can’t all be winners.

Today’s Cool Links:

• DC Comics preparing to lower prices! Only downside: slightly fewer pages and no more backup features. Marvel’s response: Not lowering prices, but their new titles won’t cost as much. Advantage: DC.
• Project Rooftop reveals the winners of their Captain America redesign contest.
• xkcd’s map of online communities is pretty awesome.
• You know what you need in your life? You need some Parliament Funkadelic.

This isn’t exactly about comics, but it is about art. I was thinking a while back about when I was a kid. In school, they’d make us work on art projects, and I just wasn’t that good at it. I wasn’t a bad artist for my age, but it was pretty clear I was never going to be anything more than a simple cartoonist or doodler, at best.

But what I remember was several times when the school brought in an art teacher to show us drawing techniques, and she showed us how to draw a cup. That’s all — just a cup. And I could draw a very nice cup — in charcoal, no less — and did the shading the way I was supposed to. And in fact, I can still draw a pretty good cup. But she never showed us how to draw anything but that cup.

We didn’t have anything cool in town to help us learn art techniques, like the Lubbock Sketch Club. Instead, my parents got me and my sister and brother these drawing books by a guy named Ed Emberley. They’re pretty simple books — not “Here’s how to paint like Rembrandt” but “Here’s how to draw a man running.” But they are designed for kids, and when it comes to art, it’s better to learn how to draw a man running before you learn how to paint “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.”

Most of his books focus on drawing with colored pens, and all of them use simple diagrams with easy-to-draw shapes. There are a lot of stick figures in these books — which makes perfect sense, really. You learn how to draw a competent stick figure, and you’re on the road to being able to draw more advanced figures. You learn how to draw a simple giraffe, and you can start learning how to draw a real one. Learn how to draw a race car made of triangles and circles, and you’re learning the tools you need to draw a more realistic car.

Emberley does several different kinds of books, and we had a decent collection of them. He has some books about how to draw faces — which I enjoyed because I always liked drawing good facial expressions. He also has one about thumbprint drawings — using a thumbprint as your base image for drawing a picture. We didn’t use that one as much because we would’ve gotten ink-stained fingerprints all over the house.

Probably the most impressive book is his “Make a World” book, which packs instructions on how to draw a vast amount of people, animals, and items into a fairly thin book. It’s got everything from people of all kinds, to dogs and cats, lions and alligators, knights and dragons, cruise ships and jet planes, trains and skeletons and fire trucks and windmills and dinosaurs and igloos and skunks and on and on and on and on.

Emberley’s books are great for kids both artistic and non-artistic. It’ll give kids who are good at drawing an extra boost in learning how to draw things, and it’ll give the less arty kids some fun exercises to improve the artistic skills they need to expand.

Go pick ’em up.

Detective Comics #869

Well, Gotham City just had one heck of an awful night, thanks to the twin rampages of the Imposter Joker (and his Jokerz gang of chemically-enhanced loons) and the Imposter Batman (and his Guardian Bats gang of vigilante dorks). And a bunch of Gotham cops caught the blue flu so they could go rampage with the Guardian Bats. Things quiet down for a while, but Batman knows it’s just the calm before the storm. He meets up with Winslow Heath, a guy who caught a lungful of Joker Venom a few years back — he didn’t die, but he was disfigured with the Joker’s grin and spent years in a waking coma. Now a wealthy man, thanks to the settlement from the hospital, he’s sponsoring something called the Bartholomew Fair — and by coincidence, both the Jokerz and the Guardian Bats have been told to be ready for a party there. Can Batman prevent it?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The story has been plenty of fun so far, though I wish it could be a bit shorter — aren’t there any two- or three-issue storyarcs anymore?

Justice Society of America #43

This is the epilogue for the convoluted and ridiculous JSA/JLA crossover, and as expected, a lot of this makes very little sense. Green Lantern‘s Starheart is now a giant green city on the dark side of the moon, populated with thousands of magical creatures. And only GL’s concentration keeps it from falling apart. He’s hanging out with his son Obsidian and explaining how things are going to go now — specifically, he can never see his sister Jade again, or even come within a half-mile of her. If they get too close, they’ll merge into a composite being and cause the Starheart to wreck things up. GL and Dr. Fate have been trying to figure out a way they could meet, and ever scenario ends with terrific disaster. And… that’s pretty much the extent of the story.

Verdict: Thumbs down. I did enjoy some of the dialogue between Green Lantern and Obsidian, but on the whole, it was a great big bucket of yak puke.

Today’s Cool Links:

• You’re rapidly running out of time to help out Lubbock artist Dustin Wallace on his Kickstarter project — the deadline is this Wednesday! Dustin creates awesome metal sculptures of robot/insect/dinosaurs, and you can help him buy new equipment that’ll let him make even more great art. Deadline looming — GO GO GO!
• Here’s a fun article about comic creators like Mike Mignola and Steve Niles talking about how horror legend H.P. Lovecraft influenced their work.

Well now, jadies and lentlemen, I note upon the calendar that today is the first day and the first Friday of the month, meaning it’s time for all y’all Lubbockites to get ready for the latest First Friday Art Trail. But you do know that there’s other kinds of art, right? Specifically, there’s the violent and lurid art that we like to call… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight’s battle comes from March 1996’s Marvel vs. DC #2. This really was a deeply flawed series — sloppy plotting, a much-despised vote-for-the-winner scheme that had scrappy bone-clawed mutant Wolverine defeating Superman-level psychotic Lobo, and many, many, many missed opportunities. But it brought about the very awesome Amalgam Comics, and it had a few other points in its favor. For example, in this sequence by Peter David, Ron Marz, Claudio Castellini, and Paul Neary, we get Marvel’s Captain America taking on DC’s Bane.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen any character get hit harder by Cap’s shield. I almost feel sorry for poor Baney…

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #21

Our teaser story features Batman up against King Rex and his Dinosaur Gang. Things look grim for the Dark Knight until the Lady Blackhawks show up. Yes, a whole squad of characters based on Lady Blackhawk from “Birds of Prey” — but with jet-packs and bazookas! This, unexpectedly, is the most awesome thing in the past 10 million years.

The main story focuses on Batman and Green Lantern taking on some kind of glowing meteorite calling himself “Robert, Supreme Shaper of Worlds.” Wait, Robert? Seriously? Well, Robert has the heroes on the ropes, thanks to the army of yellow carnivorous plants he’s created. But Batman has a plan (Batman always has a plan) and decides to take Robert into a black hole. Which leaves Green Lantern all alone against a bunch of yellow monster plants that his ring can’t touch.

And finally, a reprint from a “Tiny Titans” comic. Kinda lame, but at least it’s not the two-month-old reprint from the last issue.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The reprint from “Tiny Titans” is a bit pants — come on, guys, don’t just swipe stuff from other comics! But the Dinosaur Gang, the Lady Blackhawks, and Robert’s mad rants more than make up for that.

Wonder Woman #603

Wonder Woman is still leading the Amazon refugees toward a safe haven when they come across some slaughtered Turkish soldiers, and Wondy discovers that she’s able to see the Keres, a group of demonic women harvesting the dead men’s souls. The Keres quickly overpower Wondy and drag her off to Tartarus, the Greek Underworld. Hades, the god of the dead, vanished 20 years ago, and Charon, Hell’s ferryman, now refuses to ferry any of the dead to the Underworld, which is now ruled by a multitude of demons. Wondy wants to return home — Charon warns her that she’ll have to avoid or defeat the Keres and get past Cerberus, the monstrous guardian dog of Hell. Once she makes it back to Earth, she ends up making a deal with the soldiers pursuing her to let the Amazons go in exchange for her meeting with the mastermind behind the schemes against her.

Verdict: Thumbs down. We’ve got this new status quo for Wonder Woman, no one knows what the heck’s going on with her, and so we waste a whole issue with a completely pointless trip to the Underworld. DC really needs some strong editors who’ll crack the whip on the pampered superstars like Straczynski.

Today’s Cool Links:

• How to teach about panel transitions using Craig Thompson’s “Blankets” graphic novel.
• Man, I’d really love it if DC would go ahead and release “Flex Mentallo” in a complete collection.
• Bohemian Rhapsody on slide whistles and kazoos

Avengers Academy #4

After getting treated to Mettle’s stomach-churning origin (Hawaiian surfer-dude gets his face demolished in a surfing accident — but wherever he loses skin or cartilage, there’s just shiny red metal behind it. And then Norman Osborn gets hold of him and makes it worse.), we get into the meat of the story. The kids from Avengers Academy — selected not because they’re going to be great heroes, but because they have the potential to become great villains — are visiting the Raft, a maximum security supervillain prison. Mettle, Hazmat, and Veil have taken advantage of a blackout to go looking for Norman Osborn to get revenge on him for the way he screwed up their lives. But Osborn talks them down, saying that he’s made them great and promising that he can “fix” them.

Soon enough, the other supervillains start breaking out of their cells and giving the Academy kids and the Thunderbolts trouble. Mettle gets into a fistfight with the Juggernaut and has a little too much enthusiasm for it. Man-Thing shows up and scares the heck out of everyone. Hazmat threatens to give a convict cancer. And eventually, everyone gets the prison back under control, and the kids get kicked out of the prison.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A huge amount of fun. This is a great concept for a series — teen heroes who might turn out to be teen villains — and I love how it’s all progressing. Christos Gage and Mike McKone are both doing great work on this series. And I also like how this crossover between “Avengers Academy” and “Thunderbolts” was handled — they’re telling the same story in both comics, but with different points-of-view. If you don’t read one series, you don’t miss out on half the plot.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #20

It’s the final showdown between the Marvels and Black Adam — and everyone gets their first big surprise when Mary says her magic word and transforms — not into the pint-sized superhero we’re accustomed to — but into a grown-up Mary Marvel! In the confusion, Black Adam escapes from the Rock of Eternity and unleashes all of Captain Marvel’s greatest foes on Fawcett City. Cap ends up taking down all the bad guys almost single-handedly, but Black Adam has one more nasty little trick hiding up his sleeve.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s the next-to-the-last issue of this series, and it’s wrapping up quite well. Art Baltazar and Franco are doing some of the best writing they’ve done on this comic, and Mike Norton is producing some really charismatic, fun art. It’s kinda weird to see a grown-up Mary Marvel — we’ve had a lot of time to get used to Mary as the super-speedy super-kid. Clearly, the creators planned to do this eventually, and the cancellation of the series just pushed it (and the introduction of Captain Marvel Jr. last issue) forward much sooner than planned. Still, great story, great art — let’s hope they can keep it going for the finale.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Harlan Ellison is dying?
• Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. LeGuin get together to talk about science fiction and literary matters.
• Laundry Day

Well, now, here’s the thing.

A couple weeks back, I came home from work and had a great idea for a story I wanted to write — not something for the blog, but something I could potentially send in to publishers and get money for. But before I worked on that, I had to write up the next day’s blog post. And by the time I spent the usual hour or two cooking it together, I was sick of sitting in front of the computer and not much feeling like doing anymore writing anyway.

Then the same thing happened the day after that. And the day after that.

Many a week goes by where I don’t have time to write because I’ve got to work on the blog. Heck, it’s even hard to find time for gaming or reading or lots of other fun things.

Of course, I could still find time to write, I’m sure, but the blog is becoming a too-convenient excuse, and so I’m seeing it less as something I enjoy doing, and more as something that’s an unpaid, low-readership, somewhat odious, and mostly unshirkable responsibility.

And that way leads burnout.

I’m not interested in quitting the blog — it has its own intangible rewards. But I’m also not real happy that it seems to control so much of my free time.

So this is what we’re gonna try: I’m going to cut my blogging back from five days a week to three. You can expect blog posts here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I might still post something on Tuesdays or Thursdays, if there’s something particularly interesting I want to talk about. But for the most part, posts will appear on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays only.

Let’s see how this works out, ‘kay?