A Little bit of Genius

Had a nostalgic moment today, remembering Bugs Bunny on Broadway and telling a colleague. This was a show with a full orchestra playing an original version of a piece of classical music, then a cinema screen showed the Chuck Jones cartoon inspired by it with the full orchestra playing the music for it (think 'Kill The Wabbit, KILL THE WABBIT')
I can think of few experiences in my life as hugely fullfilling than hearing the Looney Tunes opening theme played live.
Below is a short called High Note

Leonardi Request

Following an article I read on Brian Conlin's comics should be good, here
about who designed the Spider-Man black costume, someone posted whether they could find Zeck or Leonardi's designs online anywhere. While I get the impression that Zeck's sketch was just that, Leonardi's fairly complete designs were published in Wizard's Spider-Man 2009 1/2 and are scanned below for your pleasure.

Time Out and Happy New Year

Been a long time as always between posts. I got into a slump between my wedding and my honeymoon, which I'm now on.
I write this from sunny Bogota,Colombia, in the house of my family here accompanied by my wife and my mum's here for a bit of it too.
2009 holds a move of house which I'm very much not looking forward to. A flathunt ahead and literally tonnes of books to move makes it all seem a bit daunting. I've not thought of work stuff for two weeks and that's marvellous.
My chosen reading for the holiday, last minute, the evening before flying out, was Dylan On Dylan (the collection of interviews), Catch 22 (which I've not had any significant time to sink my teeth into) and a bunch of comic rereads.
As I invariably write about comics I'll focus on them.
The comics are:
Batman Year One. I brought the new version of the softcover with me (not the old hardcover or the original issues which sit at home). Yes, it's an obvious choice but a book that never bores me, that I read cover to cover every time I pick it up and casually read the first page "I should have taken the train...". Can't help it. The new version contains a new Miller text piece "22 year old paralegal Stacy Lynch withdrew charges of gang rape..." (thanks Frank) and waaaaay more impressive Loads of supplemental Mazzuchelli bits and 4 pages of new comic by the great man on the subject of...Batman. I'm aware that I'll dig out the issues when I get back too...
Trinity by Matt Wagner. I like Matt Wagner a lot. My old mate and boss at the comic shop agrued that he gets worse all the time. While I agree on both his main points (he's never done anything, visually better than the original Batman/Grendel and that his cover paintings for DC over the years have been really poor) I can't help but feel, as with Miller (artwise) that the choices he makes are based on choices, rather than arthritis or failing eyesight. Trinity suffered from the start for me by pitting the three DC bigguns against three respective villains, a little contrived. The book is full of nice moments for each of the characters showing that Wagner does have a strong opinion on how each of the characters should be handled. The art is solid, the storytelling as strong as one would expect and the art is elevated by Dave Stewart (one of the best elevators in comics). The book is strong enough that I manage to enjoy it while only caring about two thirds of the cast.
JLA Earth 2 by Morrison & Quietly. Not a great deal to say about thebook apart from it breaks my heart that Howard Porter got to draw all those great Morrison JLA stories when Quietly so perfectly nails each of the characters and so succinctly tells a great story full of great moments. "Their hearts are on the right side of their bodies". We get the Earth 2 Crime Sindicate so brilliantly realised that Owlman comes across as cool as Batman. Love to see more of it.
Lastly Metal Men by Duncan Rouleau. This was a second reading of this odd, dense but compelling book. The story is based on Morrison concepts (and I'd like to know quite what that means) and so is fairly mental. Rouleau's art has come a long way since Alpha Flight and Superman, largely thanks to a strong design sense and able use of, I assume, Photoshop to create digital collages of cityscapes and techno. His storytelling is ambitious, and some could argue at times overly so, but the end result comes across like a mix between Chris Bachalo and a modern Steranko. Storywise the book flows out 52 which I didn't read but explains the events of Oolong Island that act as a catalyst for everything in a way that makes me feel to read 52 but not that I have to. The colours are amazing in a Dave McCaig vain and contribute greatly to the feel of the book. Well worth look. Ambitious and inventive.
Next up, the last book of the holiday, a well overdue reread of Elektra: Assassin.

Joker

To avoid banging on about how great Morrison is, how inappropriate Tony Daniel is and how much everybody should be reading Criminal, Scalped and Jonah Hex, I'm gonna take the opportunity to review one of the books I was very much looking forward to and mentioned in my last post.
Azzarello and Lee Bermejo are undoubtedly a good fit for one and other. Azzarello's dark, jerky script goes great with Bermejo's dark, jerky art. They're obviously coming to the material from the same place.
Their first collaboration on Batman/Deathblow way back in 2002 was excellent. He was inked by Tim Bradstreet (who's also obviously coming from the same place) for most of the book and various inkers stepped in for the last part. The story was a great mystery/spy story jumping backwards and forwards in time (as Deathblow's dead) and coming together to a satisfying conclusion. Recommended!
Their second series/book was Lex Luthor, Man Of Steel. This series was announced at the same time as Azzarello's odd Superman run with Jim Lee and the great Question mini series by Rick Vietch and Tommy Lee Edwards. Lex Luthor actually appeared quite a bit later, coloured by the always impressive Dave Stewart. The series featured a couple of great Lex/Batman/Bruce Wayne moments and was a good look at Lex Luthor from his own point of view, with Superman very much a supporting role. This series debuted Lee Bermejo's new trick of some panels being shot from very finished pencils and the rest inked. More on this in a minute. A good book but a little disappointing after Batman/Deathblow.Around the same time we got Azzarello's run on Batman, with 100 Bullets buddy, Eduardo Risso. This book when serialised, was disjointed and Azzarello's generally lauded, jive talking, noir dialogue was weird stuck on a Gotham City backdrop. When collected, the whole thing reads better but it was definitely a very different Batman to any previous version of the character. Azzarello definitely had a very strong take on Batman, his connection with the city and the tragedy and obsession that drives him. It serves as the best reference point to the Joker HC released a couple of weeks back, more so than the previous work done by the Azzarello and Bermejo.
The Joker, similar to Batman Broken City, stands completely apart from any continuity which is a good thing. Azzarello gets to write his own version of everything, based on core concepts, from Killer Croc being a hard man with a funny diet and bad skin to the Joker being a unpredictable psychotic. We get a gimpy, tatooed Riddler, a genuinely jarring take on Harley Quinn that would likely come as a surprise to Paul Dini and a great Penguin (though inexplicably called Abner. An aside; I looked around thinking I might be missing some hip slang, political reference or old DC continuity but no-one online seems any the wiser...answers on a postcard).
The whole story is told from the point of view of a Joker goon who's trying to make a name for himself but very quickly realises he's out of his depth with no concept of where the Joker will lead him next.
Far and away the strongest point of the book is the depiction of the Joker (fair enough, condidering...). His mood swings, he breaks into tears, he's confident in everything, ambitious and at moments appears suicidal. As such we never no where the story will takes us either, apart from a sense of impending doom for our narrator.
Bermejo's contribution to the book can't be understated and I struggle to imagine the thing drawn by anyone else. His take on the Joker is excellent (also fair enough...) and bears such a striking resemblance to Heath Ledger's vituoso performance in Dark Knight that its difficult to believe no crossover behind the scenes. I think a lot of it comes from the sliced up cheeks that Joker's had in Morrison's Batman, the movie and here. No way that there wasn't some corporate involvement on that element at least. There are also elements of Cesar Romero, sans moustache, but Jack Nicholson is nowhere to be found.
Bermejo's Gotham City is as strong here as it's been in the past, feeling like a real place and not a mish mash of photo ref of New York and Chicago. The downfall for the book, artwise, is the choice to switch, a lot more awkwardly than on the Lex Luthor book, between digitally painted pencils and subtle, borderline flat colours over inked art by the very capable Mick Gray, long time art partner of JH Williams III. The change in style appears to happen with no rhyme or reason, with some whole sequences in digital wash and otherwise random money shot panels in the middle of the inked work. I'd be curious to know the motivation behind the changes, if anyone out there has any insight.
Its a strongly written piece with everything you expect from Azzarello, both good and bad, and solid artwork, despite the above mentioned changes in finish. Definitely a keeper, largely because of a really great Joker, and a really good Gotham. Once again an Azzarello book that underwhelms at first but grows on you as it sits in your head.

State of the Nation

Time just keeps flying by. I was recently asked what comics I'm enjoying and was stuck for an answer. Then as I began to think, the names started to come like pregant rain drops, slowly but surely. The problem I have living in Barcelona is that I kind of forget that the books which I buy in collections do still come out as comics and the comics I buy monthly I wouldn't buy as books, for the most part.
On a monthly basis I'm picking up Morrison comics, Action Comics, The Spirit, more often than not Jonah Hex, depending who's drawing it and less frequently, Amazing Spider-Man, depending who it's by.

On a less than monthly basis I'm only picking up All Star Batman, Rasl and Acme Novelty Library, now that the outstanding All Star Superman has finished. That's it!
The latest issue of All Star Bats was the best to date, despite the mess around the swear words etc. Everything kind of comes together on story front and Jim Lee's art is the best of his career.
(On a related note, a LOT of fuss was made about the swearing, blacked out or otherwise, in the latest issue. While I don't particularly feel it's appropriate or necessary in a Batman comic, it rings slightly truer than Miller's bogus slang of the two Dark Knight books. Plus it would seem that Bastard is no longer a swearword at all, turning up all over the place in mainstream comics. Coming soon: C#nt)
Rasl has been really nice but it's only loyalty which has me getting the issues rather than waiting on no doubt one of the several formats it'll be collected in.
Back to the monthlies...
Morrison's Batman only began to speak to me after explaining to a friend what he's been missing. Can the villain of the piece really be Thomas Wayne? In a comics world where people talk about the death of Gwen Stacy and Bucky as sacrosanct, I don't think they'd ever considered that someone might try to bring back Batman's dad. Or is Alfred Batman's dad..? You've gotta keep coming back really.
I still don't know what the R.I.P in the current story holds for the future of Batman but I'm still very interested to find out; a testament to the strength of Morrison's writing in the face of unforgivably poor art and colours.
The main Final Crisis series has been a great, breakneck Morrison superhero story, full of, but not bogged down in, everyone and everything DC. It's hard to care about continuity when a company with Obsessive Continuity Disorder can publish the Death Of The New Gods eight part series before Final Crisis which hinges on a different death of the New Gods. So you have to take it on it's own terms, or certainly I do, as I couldn't care less about the rest of the 'Universe'.
Unfortunately, JG Jones who was described as the only person for the job has now bowed out. Initially he was going to share art duties, from half way through, with Carlos Pacheco but we now know Doug Mahnke will finish the book. This would be fine but he'll be inked by Cristian Alamy who he worked with on the dreadful Final Crisis: Requiem. I like Cristian Alamy a lot as an artist and an inker but he cleans up Mahnke which is quite unecessary. Morrison once more scuppered by the art of comics. An interesting note is that JG Jones has been quoted as saying Mahnke should have drawn it in the first place. I can't help but think that a reined in JH Willliams or Adam Kubert would have been better choices for the book from the get go.

Action Comics has been consistently great as mentioned in several previous posts. Geoff Johns is breathing so much life into the stories and characters and Gary Frank has nailed every design, page and deadline making it the best all round monthly. In a turn for the worse, DC have decided to tie it to James Robinson's Superman (which hasn't been great) and even Supergirl.
While the foundations which Johns has laid full of potential, with the whole of Kandor made full size (squashing who knows how many polar bears) in antartica , I'm simply not going to buy three Superman books of varying quality. A great jumping off point and really bloody irritating.
The Spirit has suffered from rotating artists but as the stories are done in one it's not too bad. New regular artist Mike Ploog did one issue. Paul Smith's done several but seems to have disappeared to be replaced by Chad Hardin and Aluir Amancio. The stories are still fun (and funny) thanks to Aragonés and Evanier though I really hope they'll still do the occasional special with good, big name artists. DC haven't released the sollicitation details correctly in months so you never know who'll turn up. We'll see.
Last up is Jonah Hex which is great fun. A labour of love, heavily researched, dense and pared down to fit most every story in one issue. I recently picked up a couple of stray back issues ,having started buying when Jordi Bernet began as frequent contributor. There was a great Pual Gulacy issue, though I'm not the biggest fan, and one by a guy, who's new to me, called Rafa Garres. His art is meaty and visceral, cartoony and realistic and coloured by himself to great effect. He's now done two issues (including the latest) and I believe is slated to be the artist on the series' first big six part story coming next year featuring Hex and pretty much every other DC western character.
While the above are the regular monthlies I keep an eye on/pick up I still scan Previews for fill-ins or minis by people who are worth following. This is how I know to look out for Vigilante by Marv Wolfman and Rick Leonardi (no word on the inker)in December. This'll be an ongoing though time will tell how long he'll keep it up for, we're looking at some good street level Leonardi for at least a few months.
While the above list doesn't look too positive as a representation of the thousands of comics published a month the list of regular and up coming collections just keeps getting bigger;Hellboy, BPRD, Umbrella Academy, Casanova (number one online here), Jason Aaron's Ghost Rider, 100 Bullets, Scalped, Fear Agent, Kyle Baker's Special Forces, Criminal, Dave Lapham's Young Liars, Joker by Azzarello and Lee Bermejo, Conan, Joe Kelly's I Kill Giants, Joe Casey's Godland (number one here)and Charlatan's Ball, new Top Ten (sans Alan Moore).
Collections bought over the last several months and enjoyed include Silver Surfer: In thy Name by Simon Spurrier and Tan Eng Huat, Metal Men by Duncan Rouleau (at left) , ClanDestine by Alan Davis, the Coraline adaptation by P Craig Russell, Local by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly, Berlin by Jason Lutes, Superman: Kryptonite by Cooke and Sale (at bottom), Omega the Unknown by Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple and Fantastic Four: The End by Davis and Farmer.
I appreciate the the above is all a bit dense but I feel the need to justify why despite the fact that the Previews catalogue is a daunting and depressing monthly browse, I feel there're still enough good solid books being made to make it worthwhile coming back. We have the likes of Mignola, Pearson, Fegredo, Sean Phillips, RM Guera, Alan Davis, Jeff Smith, Grant Morrison (more Seaguy coming!!!!), John Romita JR, Gabriel Ba, Risso...the list goes on, of great comics creators who are still producing great comics with varying degrees of regularity. We just need to invest the effort in filtering through all the tat. We'll see if I still feel this way this time next year.

Walt Simonson

I'm having a bit of a Walt Simonson moment after reading the great Modern Masters book about him and went and picked up bits I didn't have; all his Star Wars issues with Tom Palmer inks, Orion for DC, his Star Slammers series for Malibu (finished at Dark Horse) and an old DC trade called The Art of Walt Simonson. It's a funny mix of stuff and really interesting to watch his growth. It's important to note, he's always been great.
I believe that beyond the the visual power and the solid storytelling that there's a certain conviction behind everything he does that makes it real. You never feel like he's phoning it in or taking the piss. He managed to write and draw three issues of Thor with Thor turned into a frog and keep it real. The Frank Miller written Robocop Versus Terminator had no reason to be as entertaining as it was but they pulled it off and while a lot of it is due to Miller's straight faced telling of the absurd (ref Miller's out put of this century) Simonson's ability in telling a story carries it all through and makes it a good comic as opposed to a marketing man's wet dream.
I kick myself upon hindsight for not picking up Orion when it was coming out. I remember thinking, working in a comic shop, that I could read it anyway and was jaded enough to believe that it couldn't last and we'd get so-so fill-ins and what not. He put out 25 issues of inventive storytelling with every issue demonstrating some new trick or page design or lettering element to keep you hooked. To the point of it being very difficult to highlight one page as exceptional as they were pretty much all exceptional.
His next big project (skipping past Just Imagine Stan Lee creating Sandman...brrrr) was Elric The Making of a Sorcerer with Elric creator Michael Moorcock. Though I've never read the Moorcock novels, I enjoyed the Roy Thomas, P Craig Russell, Michael T Gibert and George Freeman adaptations of the past. The concepts are nuts but well constructed and Simonson was once again an ideal choice to bring it to life. Simonson had long been a fan of Moorcock's writing (evidenced in his nutty Fantastic Four run of the late 80's) and had collaborated with him previously on the Michael Moorcock's Multiverse series for DC in the mid to late 90's. I found that series a bit of a mixed bag but loved this four issue mini, now collected in trade paperback. As if Simonson's art wasn't already incredibly intricate, he worked on particularly huge art boards to get everything in. (nice latter-day Steve Oliff colour job too!).
While Simonson is often likened to Kirby, his style doen't really show Kirby as much it shows Phillipe Druillet, Bernie Krigstein, Sergio Toppi. I'm certain, however that his influences go on and on but the end product is something completely unique.
I did look for a definitive checklist to link to but all I got was Wookiepedia (for his Star Wars work). In brief, as well as all the books mentioned above, look out for his Lawnmower Man (the novel) adaptation in Bizarre Adventures #29, Temple of the Spider, a samurai story with Archie Goodwin from Thrilling Adventure Stories #2 (nice bit of Toth in there too!). Also with Goodwin, Manhunter (of course) and the Alien movie adaptation. X-Men/Teen Titans is a great looking book too, though a little of it's time (Chris Claremont!).
One final mention to letterer John Workman who always manages to compliment the power, intestity and insanity of Simonson's work with the perfect effects.
Check out the Batman below from the Art Of Simonson book. I thought "Flicking hell! It's Miller's Batman!" Simonson says "The only change I had to make on the job was to alter the Expression on Batman's face...I had originally given Bats a grin, feeling (as I still do) that a grin in the wrong place is more fightening than a snarl".
Sounds like Miller's Batman too!

I'm not gonna call swipe but look at the two images below.

Miller's Absolute Dark Knight cover
and...

Simonson's Batman in action from Detective Comics #450
I'll finish by saying only that Simonson's influence is felt far and wide and is always worth revisiting.

In brief

A hectic summer has kept me away from the blog but hasn't stopped me visiting the local shops (Freaks and Gigamesh).
I'll post some reviews over the next few days but first up I thought I'd share an illustration that my mate Guera gave me.
Guera's the artist on the fantastic Scalped, written by Jason Aaron. If you're not reading it your missing out on one of the best monthly books being published at the moment. It's a brutal crime story set on a reservation and has the feel of all the best collaborations, that of one voice, one vision.
Enough. The drawing...: