2014 – a Reckoning … of comic collections read

This year I decided to start tracking my reading a bit more closely.  I wanted to be able to look at trends in my reading, and possibly identify deficiencies in my habits that I could work on.  For the year, I read 100 collections-slash-graphic novels.  Not a bad number.  But what did I read?

I finally got my hands on Bendis’s Alias, which was a great series.  It tapered off a bit at the end, but still, some really great writing, and I appreciated Andreyko’s art, which helped make this book stand out even more.  This led to me re-reading Bendis’s Daredevil run with Alex Maleev.  Not as great as I remember, from my first reading, but still a strong series of issues, made all the more impressive by the fact that, with rare instances and one fill-in storyline that I can remember, this creative team was on the book for a serious run.  Now I’m halfway through the Brubaker/Lark run, and though I’m not enjoying it as much, it’s still a solid read. 

I also dipped into the Geoff Johns Green Lantern mythos this year - and wrote about it here, here, and here.  I stopped after the Sinestro Corps War, relatively underwhelmed.  There was some nice art (when it was Ethan Van Sciver), and the stories were well done, but I think the facts that Hal Jordan is now a firm fixture in the DCU and that I knew some of the twists and turns coming is what killed it for me.  I may return to see how things lead up to Blackest Night, one of my favorite Flash stories of recent years, but probably not.

I also finished up Bakuman this year, reading the last 11 volumes over the entire course of 2014.  Great stuff.  As long as you can buy into the distinct tropes of manga, then you should enjoy this.  Great drama, great characters, some really funs scenarios, and beautiful art, all revolving around two school friends who decide they want to become the biggest manga creators on Weekly Shonen Jump.  The way the creators manage to imbue their stories with drama and tension, when it revolves around creating comics, is impressive.  Worth checking out. 

I also read the full Locke & Key this year, by Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez.  One of the best comic stories in years.  Amazing.  If you haven’t read this series yet, and you call yourself a comic fan, get on it.  You will not regret it. 

Some other standouts from the past year also include:

• Ant Colony by Michael DeForge – one of the most distinct and enjoyable artists currently working in comics
• Family Ties by Eric Hobbs & Noel Tuazon – one of my favorite artists, who does not have enough work out there, but what Tuazon does have is all stellar
• Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez – on my Rushmore of comic artists.
• Nemo: Roses of Berlin by Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill – Alan Moore, writing god, ‘nuff said.
• The Red Diary by Steven Seagle & Teddy Kristiansen – an incredible creative team with yet another phenomenal book.  Check out anything from them.
• NOAH by Darren Aronofsky & Niko Henrichon – gorgeous art, great story, and not what you expect.  Get it.
• Hip Hop Family Tree v.1 by Ed Piskor – check this out, a history of hip hop told through comics by a guy who is a signature talent.

And there were a lot more.  Going into 2015, I’m going to read through all of Gotham Central, finally, and I also plan on doing a near-complete Frank Miller re-read – I don’t know if I can take Holy Terror! but I am excited to re-read DK2 and possibly writing about it.  And whatever other great titles come across my various social feeds.  If you’ve got something to recommend, let me know.  And thanks.

-chris

What It Is – week ending 28 December [2014]

With apologies to Dave the Thune (as well as Mike Baron & Steve Rude).

WRITING:

Every day.  1000 words.  That’s the goal.

Christmas week.  That meant the writing got a backburner again – though I only missed one day of writing this week, but the amounts were all below 1000 – as I worked on wrapping gifts and writing out my boy’s letters from Santa.  Yes.  From Santa.  I stole this idea from Tolkien, who would craft these wonderful, illustrated letters to his own children from St. Nick.  This year they learned of Santa’s discovery of a group of ice dwarves who had been living in the North Pole for far longer than Santa has been there. When the North Polar Bear stumbled into their secret homes, they came out, finally, and offered their assistance to Santa.  It was a fun little story to conceive, and though the dip pen can be frustrating, I am always happy with the results.  And, overall, this was a great Christmas.  Our youngest is seven, at just the right age to enjoy Christmas and the magic of Santa, and he played Santa on Christmas morning, making sure others had gifts before he opened one of his.  That was pretty special.

READING:

Bakuman by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata, published by Viz comics.

I finished reading this series.  20 volumes about two young creators – one a writer, one an artist – who come together in middle school and decide they want to pursue the dream of becoming famous manga artists in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine.  This was such a blast.  The art is wonderful, and the way these creators manage to continually infuse the narrative with tension and drama is a testament to their creativity.  Highly recommended.

Brain Movies III by Harlan Ellison

This collects a number of Ellison’s teleplays, in their original script form.  Ellison has never been one to leave things up to the directors and actors who envisioned his scripts for television.  These scripts are fully realized, with visual details that allow one to picture these stories quite easily, in one’s mind.  Plus, we get a few anecdotes from Ellison, at the beginning of each script, which are always entertaining.  This third volume is centered around Ellison’ full-length story “Cutter’s World.”  We get two iterations of this script – first, the TV-movie version, followed by the revised film version.  It was interesting to see how some things changed.  The first 100 pages were roughly the same, but then Ellison enhanced the story immensely, with stronger connections between the aliens and Cutter, the protagonist, that not only upped the emotional engagement for the audience, but also tied the entire narrative together far better, without it feeling forced.  Great stuff, and interesting from a process standpoint.

DD by Brubaker/Lark

Started reading this run, and it’s good (duh).  Not as engaging as the Bendis/Maleev run, but still some fantastic Daredevil stories.  I think one of the things that places this run beneath the Bendis run is the fact that Brubaker seems to stretch his narratives out more.  Where the Bendis stories seemed to run 5 issues, on average, Brubaker’s storylines all run to about 10 issues.  Not that it feels padded, but the emotional charge isn’t as immediate with the longer arcs, and it doesn’t impact me in as visceral a manner as those quicker, sharper Bendis narratives.  Which isn’t to say these aren’t some pretty great stories.  Just different.  And I can appreciate that.

WATCHING:

Miracle on 34^th Street

My favorite Christmas movie, hands down.  It evokes everything I love about this holiday, the lush decorations, the ideal of it being a season of giving, and the magic that surrounds it all, for me, embodied by the main character of Kris Kringle, the man hired to be a Santa at Macy’s department store who claims to be the one, actual Santa Claus (AGE: ‘As old as my tongue and slightly older than my teeth.’).  I haven’t watched this in a few years, and I decided to subject my seven-year-old to it, even though it was the black and white version (his lament, not mine).  Overly idealized with just the right amount of cynicism from Maureen O’Hara’s and HER NAME’s characters to make it too saccharine, in my opinion, I had forgotten how smartly written the script was.  The way it goes about “proving” Kris Kringle is the one and true Santa Claus in the court proceedings is worth the price of admission alone – especially the scene with the prosecutor’s son coming to the stand as a witness, which leads to the state of New York conceding that Santa Claus is a real person.  I loved rewatching this, and my son also enjoyed it, sitting for the entire movie without any complaints.  Win, win. 

Bladerunner – The Final Cut

Ridley Scott’s science fiction masterpiece (I view Alien as a horror masterpiece) has long been a favorite movie of mine, and when the “Final Cut” was released a few years back, I picked it up.  But I discovered, while watching it this past week, that I had never watched it; I’d only watched the “making of” documentary, apparently.  Man, is this final cut great!  It elevates the film so much, and it was great before.  Without the dopey voice-over, you really get to appreciate the musical score composed by Vangelis and better understand how much it adds to the overall film, evoking emotion without being soon the nose as some composers, aided quite a bit with the “electronica” approach he took.  Just brilliant.  The other major fix is that Scott excised the more upbeat ending by cutting the film at a point prior to that – a point that is more ambiguous while also being more bleak, matching more closely the overall thematic approach to the film.  I was surprised how much more I enjoyed this cut, and I look forward to watching it again. 

MISCELLANY:

New Year’s Eve will see the release of the Winter issue of Needle: a magazine of noir.  And my story, “Silence,” will be included in there, along with some great crime fiction – having enjoyed previous issues, I believe I can say that without reservation.  I will have a link here when it goes live and also plan on writing a bit on how I managed to achieve this goal.  But that’s another post. 

SIGN OFF:

And, as always, check out my friends – Brad & Matt and Don McMillan for their own weekly recaps on things comic-y and geeky, and we'll see what's what in seven.  

-chris

What It Is - week ending 9 November [2014]

With apologies to Dave the Thune.

WRITING:

Every day.  1000 words.  That’s the goal.

Got back on track with the novel this week, which was nice.  I was afraid, after being away for a week, that it might be difficult to get into the swing of it (so many of the issues I have with writing stem from a need for routine and repetition, and putting aside a narrative for a few days can seriously hamper me, at least during that initial return to the work), but I was pleasantly surprised.  As with most scenes, I had a set idea of where things were going, but – though the overall story remained on course – the characters veered off-track just enough to surprise me and infuse the scene with a bit more drama and engagement for readers, I hope.  Regardless, it’s always fun to be writing, having the words move along the way I’d anticipated, and then, all of a sudden, have one character respond in a manner I had not considered – but it works, within the story and for the character.  Those moments are exhilarating.  Of course, then the question becomes, will it hold up when I start revisions.  Who knows?  But, for now, I’m really enjoying the story – so, that’s a big plus.  And I know, for sure, that this idea has legs and will fill out a novel nicely. 

Got a nice response to something I wrote a week back.  In the “What It Is” for the week ending 2November, I wrote a quick review of “Daddy” by Josh Simmons & James Romberger (published by Oily Comics).  Without warning, I received a pdf preview of Romberger’s next project, THE LATE CHILDAND OTHER ANIMALS, a graphic memoir written and colored by Marguerite Van Cook (Romberger’s partner), adapted and drawn by Romberger, and published by Fantagraphics the end of this month.  I haven’t found the time to read it yet, but I’m really looking forward to it.  Judging by his earlier work, including the aforementioned “Daddy” along with “Post York” and “7 Miles a Second,” I expect to enjoy the experience.  And, if you’re a fan of intelligent and engaging comics, seek out Romberger’s work and check out his site.  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. 

READING:

Finished GONE GIRL this week.  I appreciated how well Gillian Flynn was able to examine her characters and convey this through her prose.  It was impressive.  And the plot twists were well played, putting her main characters into binds that seemed hopeless.  Then she would pull another rabbit out of her hat, up the tension while releasing them from one prison, only to push them into another, more devastating one.  Gone Girl was a totally engaging book, especially the first 85% of it.  With the final twists, I found the character motivations wanting – just a bit.  One might be able to explain it away as these outsized characters going “all in,” and be satisfied with that explanation, but there was something about the final motivations driving the two main characters toward the end of the book that didn’t sit right with me, as far as them being genuine human responses to what had gone before.  That said, it was a good thriller but not a book that will stay with me like Stoner or Age of Innocence. 

Read NIJIGAHARA HOLOGRAPH, by Inio Asano and published by Fantagraphics.  This was an amazing manga.  Similar in tone and structure to David Lynch’s films, I was blown away by it, so much so that I had to write about it.  Check that review out here.  

Continuing through Bakuman – I’m on volume 15 right now – and still loving it.  I also started reading the collection Batman: Strange Apparitions, which reprints the noteworthy Detective Comics run of Steven Englehart, Marshall Rogers, and Terry Austin (with the first two issues, before Rogers jumps in, from penciler Walt Simonson and inker Al Milgrom, who muddies Simonson’s beautifully delicate linework).  It’s some crazy, overwritten, but eminently enjoyable fun, with beautiful art from the Rogers/Austin team.  And, to be frank, looking at the image of the Joker on the back cover – though I don’t remember where I would have seen it (possibly in one of those “Greatest Stories” collections) the Rogers/Austin rendition is a seminal Joker for me.  Great work. 

MISCELLANY:

I’m a member of the Comics Experience Creators’ Workshop, an online resource for aspiring comic writers and artists to work on their stories and art, get feedback from professionals and other members, and to discuss craft in a safe environment.  Created by Andy Schmidt, it really is a great place, and there are a lot of books coming out from members – especially now that Comics Experience and IDW have initiated a publishing agreement.

But another member whom I’ve gotten to know fairly well on the boards, Don McMillan, has a new e-book out.  KIBBLES ‘N’ BOTS is about a Boston terrier puppy who believes she can become a superhero, after finding her owner’s comic books, and must battle bank robbing robots in this adventure.  But what of the true plans of the robots’ leader, Bad Boss?  It’s available for the Kindle, and at only $2.99, a bargain.  Can’t wait to check it out. 

SIGN OFF:

Another week down.  Thanksgiving is fast approaching, which means Christmas is right around the corner.  And that means I need to start thinking about letters from Santa – which is obviously a topic for another time.  As always, check out my friends - Brad & Matt and Don McMillan (see above) for their own weekly recaps on things comic-y and geeky, and we'll see what's what in seven.  

Ciao.