new comic

For my last blog post of the year, I'd like to thank those of you who actually read the crap I post here. Cheers. May 2011 be the stuff dreams are made of.

TV is will rot your brain, and these are the ten shows in 2010 that made brain rot awesome.

The Daily Show
Bored to Death
Modern Family
No Ordinary Family
Dexter
Fringe
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
Community
Stan Lee's Superhumans
Sons of Anarchy

I also really like a bunch of British shows, like Misfits, Being Human, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and No Heroics but it takes some work to get them here in the US. Well, HBO shows old Call Girl episodes a year later, SyFy is about to ruin Being Human, and ABC botched a remake of No Heroics so bad it will never air...

2010 was a year in which formerly pretty good shows started to suck pretty bad. I'm sorry, but even sacred cow 30 Rock wasn't as good this year. Weeds? Why in the hell did I keep watching? It was like doing homework. Same with Entourage. I used to really like Chuck, but I think even the writers are out of ideas. I loved the first season of The Big Bang Theory. They should have stopped there.

I think there's better writing going on in television than in feature film. At least in TV shows that get made versus movies that get made. Of course, I like full length films better than short films. So possibly I just prefer long form story telling. Still, most of the movies I've seen in the last few years kind of sucked. For the purpose of these year end lists, here are 10 that actually didn't suck. In no particular order.

The Runaways
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Greenberg
Cyrus
Red
Wall Street 2
Easy A
The American
True Grit
Howl

Friends tell me that Inception, Black Swan and the Social Network need to be on this list, and I say, "Get your own freakin' list!" But seriously... Inception was alright, but it wasn't the mind-f*ck that everyone said it was. The special effects were cool. But really, the story wasn't that deep, people. Read a book every once in a while. Whoa. Blow your mind. And the Social Network? I'll go to a nightclub if I want to hang around douche bags for 2 hours. Boring. Black Swan? Totally hot. Yeah, Black Swan should have been on this list. But it's going to win a bunch of awards, and I'm afraid of it getting so popular that I won't want to watch it again. And I totally want to watch it again. Alone. With candle light and massage oils.

I like web comics almost as much as I like full form comic books. I RSS over 20. These five delivered in 2010 more than the others.

1. The Adventures of Superhero Girl
I just adore this simple, sweet, evolving story about a young superhero encountering the world. Thank you, artist Faith Erin Hicks.

2. Indexed
Simple. Funny. True. Jessica Hagy's doodles make me happy.

3. Amazing Super Powers
This web comic has nothing to do with superheroes, despite it's name. It's one of those really popular web comics, like the Oatmeal or xkcd that I should be too cool to tell you about. But I like it enough to tell you about it anyhow. Wes and Tony seem alright, for hipsters who never tell us their last names.

4. Channel Ate
Ryan Hudson's irreverent web comic is pretty popular & awesome, dudes.

5. Journey to Mt. Moriah
Scott Startling makes weird and artful, illustrative web comics. I like them.

In this November 1953 nurse romance story, an attempted suicide is brought into the hospital. From his ramblings the attending nurse deduces that he'd been ditched by his girl and subsequently not felt life was worth living. At first to help him, but then also because she has fallen in love with him, she pretends to be his girl. She finds the girl, and gets her to come into the hospital to help, but he's just not that sort of person. She really is no longer interested in him since he gave their money to a friend in need. I'll let you read the rest to find out how it ends!

I drew this comic at the dawn of 2010. Here's how the somewhat autobiographical resolutions in the first panel turned out: I've failed miserably at getting organized. I still floss every night, as any non-hypocritical dental student should. I've written poetry, but it's been mostly goofy light verse. I've enjoyed ethnic food, smiled, practiced yoga, worked out, and volunteered, but only sporadically. I've enjoyed literary fiction (as pretentious as that sounds), especially the novels of Haruki Murakami. I can't bike to work - I'm not employed. And finally, I never actually quote bad movies - I only quote great movies that other people think are bad. My resolution for 2011: to keep going back and coloring old comics so I can repost them on my blog and make them available as posters.

Recently I was fortunate enough to be lent a disc containing the entire '80s run of Alan Moore's Miracleman.  I don't usually like to read pirated digital copies.  After all, no matter how much you dress it up, it's stealing. But for years the rights to this character have been famously wrapped up in a gigantic legal mess involving Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane.  The original comics and trade paperbacks are out of print and incredibly rare and valuable.  I had to grab the chance to read it.  I hope you'll forgive me.

Art by Garry Leach

Miracleman was originally Marvelman, a 1950s British knock-off of Captain Marvel.  Captain Marvel's comics had been cancelled in the States but the British reprints were selling really well.  As a result a writer/artist named Mick Anglo was hired to create a character who was close enough to Captain Marvel to retain his readership in Britain.  Cap became Marvelman, Captain Marvel Jr. became Young Marvelman and Mary Marvel became Kid Marvelman.  Their adventures continued until 1963, but in 1981 Alan Moore brought them back.  It wasn't long before Marvel Comics objected to the rather familiar sounding name, and so Marvelman became Miracleman and the rest is history.

The series is truly ground-breaking.  Before Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Dark Knight Returns and Squadron Supreme were to deconstruct the superhero myth, Moore had done it first with Miracleman.    As with Watchmen, Moore places a superhero with god-like powers in a 'real world' context and over the course of 16 issues, follows that scenario to a logical, and terrifying, conclusion.   And it's brilliant. Really, really brilliant.  The series has been hyped so much over the years and it's themes duplicated and expanded upon so much that you'd be forgiven for thinking that it's lost it's impact.  Not a chance.  It really is one of the most powerful and affecting series I've ever read.  I hate reading comics on a computer screen but I could not tear my eyes away from the screen.   I read it a few days ago and scenes and dialogue from the series are still clinging to me.  I'm not going to go into detail on any of these scenes, partly because they've been discussed in so many other places on the internet but mainly because if you haven't read it you deserve the chance to go in as fresh as possible.  All I'll say is, issue #15 is the most expensive individual issue of the series on Ebay and is probably the most discussed issue of the series too.  This is not without good reason.  It's probably one of the most disturbing, affecting and powerful comics I've ever read.

After #16 Neil Gaiman took over until issue #24 when the series was cancelled half way through his story arc.  Gaiman's issues are a very interesting read.  There's plenty of evidence of the amazing imagination that made Sandman so great and they're undoubtedly very well written stories.  But they're ultimately a bit pointless.  Moore gave the series such a definite ending with issue #16 that there's nothing else to really say and Gaiman's just sort of playing around in Moore's sandbox, albeit in an intriguing way.

Marvel Comics have recently won the rights to the character and have been reprinting the old Mick Anglo strips.  As for the status of the Moore/Gaiman stuff, I have no idea.  All I know is, the second this series is reprinted in a new form that won't require hours of Ebay hunting and hundreds of pounds of my much needed cash, then I'll be there to buy it.  And I urge you to buy it as soon as it's possible to do so.  It really is as good as you've heard!

Dylan asked me to make a top ten list of comics for the year. I'm not an expert or anything, and have mostly been too broke to buy books, but these are my favorite things I've read in 2010. Not all are strictly comics - some are zines that include comics. Also they aren't in any order!

-Flesh and Bone, by Julia Gfrorer (Sparkplug). This one is kind of a duh, it's gotten tons of good reviews. Beautiful and disturbing.

-Make Me a Woman, by Vanessa Davis (Drawn and Quarterly). Vanessa is so talented. That is all.

-Calico Jack, by Patrick Devine (self-published). A pirate-y space opera from a friend of mine. Very entertaining.

-The Fifth Quadrant, by various (self-published). A collaborative art zine that includes work by a former student of mine, so you know I'm a little biased. Really great art.

-The Accidental Cat Lady, by Breanne Boland (self-published). I'm a sucker for cat-related things. This one is equal parts writing and comics, and totally hilarious. I love her drawing style as well.

-Dangerous Aromas, by the Soft Sciences (self-published). A coffee-themed adventure story!

-everything Nicole Georges put out this year. She was super-productive. I love all her work.

-The Month in Comics, by Geminica (self-published). My favorite diary comics I read this year. I wish she did them all the time.

-Batcave Beach Chapter One, by Aron Whitaker and Melinda Tracy Boyce (self-published). Melinda and Aron are so awesome. The art in this is breathtaking. I'm looking forward to the next chapter!

-I Cut My Hair #3, by Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg (self-published). This one's about the author's trip to China. I love Lisa's clean, crisp style.

Non-comics zines that I liked this year:
Take a Picture, It Lasts Longer, by Annmarie O'Malley
Various issues of Culture Slut, by Amber Forrester
Railroad Semantics, by Aaron Dactyl

That's all I can think of right now!

Yaaah! is like Aaagh! except it's the sound you make when you're stickin' it to the other guy.




What a great bit of ink work! I love it!! There's so much going on in this one panel.



I don't understand. All the good guys are heroes aren't they?




I've had it so tough that getting shot at by Nazis and shouted at by NCO's is a paradise.


What work!



Never has a destroyed Grant (or should that be a Lee) been so lovingly drawn.
















This is desperate stuff.


Bloody Australians and their disregard for class.



Time to man up Frank and drink that cup of cement.





Never too late to sing "I did it my way..."

Justin Giampaoli reviews Julia Gfrörer's Flesh and Bone at Poopsheet. Insightful as always!
http://poopsheetfoundation.com/forums/reviews/731-flesh-and-bone-by-julia-gfrorer 

We need a little break from media and list something nobody else will over the next few days, and so I give you the very dark list of...

my top 10 favorite people who died in 2010.

10. J.D. Salinger

9. Greg Giraldo

8. Dino De Laurentiis

7. Captain Beefheart

6. Malcolm McLauren

5. Lynn Redgrave

4. Dennis Hopper

3. Gary Coleman

2. Teddy Pendergrass

1. Leslie Nielsen

This comic book was so bad, that after I read it, I wrote an entire blog about it. Superman appears only once in the issue, to basically offer to kill someone for Perry White, who the issue is based around, because Perry apparently likes young hipster boys in skinny jeans.



The only thing worse than Perry White crushing on hipster boys is the entire year that Geoff Johns made us spend on New Krypton, before undoing the whole thing anyhow. All of Superman's character was stripped away as he became one of Zod's soldiers and YAWN. OMG, I'm so grateful it's over. Way to ruin DC's signature character for an entire year.



Yeah Marvel, we know that you know that we all love Deadpool. So, now that you're owned by Disney, why don't you beat him into our skulls with a new series where Deadpool teams up with every version of himself from every other alternate universe. Whereas one wise-cracking assassin adds comic relief to most stories, 5 of them makes you want to burn the very comic book you're reading.



I'm very good at blocking out painful memories, and so I can't even remember what they called the whole Return of Bruce Wayne storyline, where Batman was trapped in time. This COULD have been a cool story, exploring Gotham's history. Instead it was a weird, convoluted story that dragged on and on with no reward. It was Quantum Leap starring Batman. For real.



Grant Morrison is currently taking a giant dump on the beloved character of Batman. Not even in a Chris Nolan, create your own Batman, sort of way. Morrison is doing it with the REAL Batman, in the real DC Universe. Bruce Wayne tells the world he's been funding Batman, and now will hire other Batmen around the world. The only way he can finish this steaming pile of crap story is if the Joker kills Bruce Wayne, after every government in the world sues Wayne for vigilantism. A broke then dead Bruce Wayne. Way to ruin Batman forever, douche.

I've had a great Christmas involving much comic book goodness.  I've received all eight volumes of Essential Fantastic Four from various loved ones and I'm currently engaged in the extremely enjoyable task of reading almost twenty years of Fantastic Four comics back to back.  So far I've been struck by how much of an arsehole Ben Grimm is in these early stories.  He's generally portrayed as a loveable grouch these days but in those early Stan Lee/Jack Kirby tales the rest of the FF are treading around on eggshells for fear of setting him off on a super-powered temper tantrum.  It's also amusing to see how much Stan and Jack seemed to enjoy putting Grimm through the emotional wringer.  Every issue Grimm will randomly regain human form, only to turn back to the Thing after a few seconds, much to his crushing disappointment.  Lee and Kirby really were little stinkers!

Fantastic Four #8 by Jack Kirby

Still, it's all great stuff, and it's really got me interested in all things FF related.  I've been debating whether to get the ongoing for a while since I've been hearing great things about Jonathan Hickman's writing.  I'm already a fan of Steve Epting, thanks to his brilliant and much underrated  Aquaman run with Dan Jurgens.  I've been a bit put off by this 3 storyline they're currently engaged in, which is supposedly going to involve the death of a Fantastic Four member.  To be fair, the story may be brilliant for all I know, but FF members have been 'dead' before and it seems to me this story just means a character I really like will be absent for a while until they eventually get resurrected. Having said that both Batman and Captain America's recent 'deaths' resulted in some really interesting stories so I may be wrong.   I think I'll end up waiting it out and maybe get the trades.  After all, it's not as if I'm short of FF stories to read at the moment.

On a bit of a side note, while Googling for Fantastic Four stuff recently I came across the cover of Fantastic Four #375 (1993).



This cover embodies everything that was ridiculous about '90s superhero comics, to the point where I wonder if it was a deliberate parody on Marvel's part.  Sadly I don't think it was.  Note the presence of absurdly large guns, a skimpy uniform for the Invisible Woman, pointless jackets with multiple Rob Liefeld style pouches (even for the Human Torch ?!?!) and a hideous hologram foil background.  Note also the hilarious "This is not your parents' comic magazine" tagline, which makes Marvel come across like an embarrassing Dad trying to look 'hip' in front of his kid's friends.  I was going to let Thing's weird helmet pass, because believe it or not it was actually part of his original costume from Fantastic Four #3.  But it was abandoned in that very issue and he's only wearing it here 'cos Wolverine slashed his face up.  Why does the Thing care that his face is scarred, it's not as if he was winning beauty contests before Wolverine injured him?  

Fantastic Four #3 by Jack Kirby

On the other hand, I own Nobody Gets Out Alive a trade paperback of a story from Fantastic Four #387-392 which occurs not long after the above cover saw print.  It's actually one of my favourite FF stories.  It includes a team in disarray having to battle  a mysterious opponent who's travelling through alternate dimensions murdering different versions of Reed Richards.  It's really entertaining stuff, it features an alternate take on the FF's first battle with Galactus, the hatching of Johnny Storm's Skrull egg and a character called Raphael Suarez who gains the power of the 'Lazerfist' and then is never, ever mentioned again.  It's also worth mentioning that the artist on Nobody Gets Out Alive and FF #375 is Paul Ryan, who's really good and not your typical '90s artist at all.

So, despite the cover, FF #375 might not be that bad for all I know, but it's still an amusing example of '90s comic book excess, and almost certainly not a patch on the wonderful Lee and Kirby stuff that I'm currently having the pleasure of immersing myself in. 

Justin Giampaoli has created a pretty awesome best of 2010 list (including work by Patrick Keck whom I like a lot). Heavy Hand by Chris Cilla and Lemon Styles by David King both got flattering praise as well as Sparkplug in general.  http://www.poopsheetfoundation.com/forums/reviews/732-best-mini-comics-a-small-press-titles-of-2010-by-justin-giampaoli

One of my favorite blogs just reviewed Philip Barrett's Matter Summer Special. 365 Zines a Year is a really cool combination of review and personal blog. Take a look:
http://365zines.blogspot.com/2010/12/matter-summer-special.html

Hellen Jo just got a bunch of love from Bust Magazine:

Make sure to read about the amazingness.

This post revisits School Friend, this time sampling the 1960 annual. Examples of finely drawn realistic art abound, starting with this charming ballerina tale, "The Roses That Brought Romance". What reader could resist the allure of this celebrity world of European royalty, splendorous ballet performances, and intrigue in which the young girl saves the day!?


The next story is interesting from multiple points of view. There's a clandestine group of do-gooder girls operating at this private girls' school. These middle class agents of freedom assist a working class girl in achieving justice. In a world away from the oversight of the patriarchs, females can express their full potential, even be heroines. I have no idea whether or not the Silent Three was an ongoing series in the weekly comic, but it seems it would have made a good one:


In this next somewhat unlikely scenario, Tuckshop Trudy is a young female working at a private school for teenage boys with uncanny control over their hormones!


"Peril for Her Royal Pupil" exemplifies the tendency for these middle class girls' comics to locate their universe within the British Empire, even though by this time it was already a thing of the past. A kind of reprise to former days of glory. Simultaneously, however, a strong feminist message can be read from this tale of a teenage girl's ability to thwart adult male evildoers.


"The Riddle of the Four Bells" is a fairly lame mystery tale featuring detective Terry Brent and his assistant, Irish girl Paddy MacNaught. As with many of this type of girls' story, there's a stash of jewels as the prize.


Young British ladies on holiday in Spain. It's interesting here how the British girls on holiday aren't looking forward to going back home - the Spanish people seem so happy - and yet at the end there's the hint that maybe the Spanish dancer might be fortunate enough to go to Britain to dance. I suppose everyone thinks it is a treat to be able to travel outside their own country.