30 in 30: ALIEN the Illustrated Story

#4: ALIEN the Illustrated Story
Storytellers: Archie Goodwin & Walt Simonson
Publisher: Titan Books
Year Of Publication: 2012
Page Count (can be approximate or in # of issues format): 64 pages

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT WRITING / STORYTELLING:

Jargon doesn’t need to be defined within the dialogue.  Particularly in the beginning, characters will talk in a shorthand, discussing aspects of the ship.  It’s not necessary to the plot, so Goodwin doesn’t have the characters define what they’re discussing and that works well.  It imbues the characters with a genuineness and competence that helps ground this science-fiction/horror story.

 
WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT ART / STORYTELLING:

A double-page spread, when used well, can really enhance the story and provide a big moment.  The one in ALIEN, drawn by Simonson, really stopped me in my tracks.  It really provides the unimaginable scale of the alien ship, as the figures of Dallas, Kane, and Lambert can be seen in the lower left corner in red (colored so that they wouldn’t get lost in the hugeness of the overall image)

 
RECOMMENDATION: B

NOTES / REVIEW / SYNOPSIS:

I’m a big fan of the film ALIEN and so enjoyed this very much.  Goodwin and Simonson did an admirable job of compressing that 2-hour movie into a 64-page comic.  They utilize the medium well in service of the story, but it obviously suffers from the truncated space and some moments are glossed over.  I think a reader coming to this without having seen the film might have some trouble with it, but overall, it’s a well done book.

CGS Super Show 2011: Apr. 30/May 1

The best podcast on comics, for me, and one of my favorite podcasts is the Comic Geek Speak one - with new shows Monday through Friday on wide-ranging topics in the comics medium with a group of friends sitting around sharing their opinions and their wealth of knowledge from reading comics for years, it's like those conversations you used to have at the comic shop, back when you hit the shop every Wednesday, predicated on the fact that there was a "good" comic shop in your area.

Coming this spring - on April 30 and May 1, 2010 - will be the third, if I remember correctly, CGS Super Show, their own little comic convention. Dan and I hit it up last year, in Reading, PA, and it was a great little show. It had some good shopping (10 comics for a buck!) and for a small show - one room and easy to make your way around - it had some big-name creators like Jamal Igle, Freddie Williams II, Mike Norton, Lee Weeks, and Walt and Louise Simonson, to name just a few. They also had some independent creators like Andy Jewett, Julian Lytle, Dave Wachter, and Shawn Pryor from PKD Media. It was a great show, and this year Dan and I will be heading down in an official capacity, bringing copies of the new collected and colored Warrior27.

As a way to raise money in anticipation of the show, and a way for the creators to thank the CGS crew for all they do, Comic Geek Speak holds a series of raffles for early ticket buyers, which includes prizes such as original comic pages, original sketches, book bundles, and whatever else the creators can come up with. On the Fly will be offering 2 prize packs for early ticket buyers, which will include one of everything we have currently published (including anything we might get done between now and the end of April). This will include individual issues, chapbooks, mini comics, and promotional items that we might have laying around. The list, at this point, includes the following:

- Warrior27: the Collection (254 pages of comics and prose, many stories newly-colored for this book)
- Warrior27: the Collection, digital copy

- Issues 1-3 (the original b/w issues, which includes a very few pieces not included in the collection, including Dan's hilarious "I Hate Brian Michael Bendis" rants)



- Issue 4 (the multimedia extravaganza, which has a traditional comic, a prose chapbook, a mini-comic that folds out to a game, a CD of a webcomic, and an oversized preview of a proposed comic series)
- In Search Of . . . part 1 - nearly 12,000 words of prose collecting the first half of my serialized novella, which had its start on the burst culture site, 50 years from now

- Life is Funny & A Stone Wall Between Us - a chapbook of my first professional comic story and first prose sale

- Passage - a mini-comic written and drawn by me

- postcards, magnets, and any other promotional items we may still have, including, possibly, copies of the Andy Lee print of our first issue's cover.

For information on the Super Show check this LINK, and to buy your tickets GO HERE. And don't forget to listen to the show.

chris