Books I read: Action Comics, Animal Man, Huntress, Swamp Thing

Yes, I do plan on spending some time this month reviewing some of the non-DC/Marvel comics on my pull list. But that doesn't mean I stop covering the New 52. Here are some quick thoughts on the new issues I read this week.

Action Comics #2
Written by Grant Morrison; pencils by Rags Morales and Brent Anderson; inks by Rick Bryant and Brent Anderson; colours by Brad Anderson; DC 

One of my biggest concerns with DC's relaunch is that their commitment to shipping all the books on time will lead to more unsolicited fill-in artists. I hate unsolicited fill-in artists with the passion of a thousand suns. I understand that artists need a break from time to time. But I think how much work an artist can handle should be planned into the schedule. Either alternate between two art teams, or plan for guest artists between story arcs. It's simply not acceptable to announce a book with one creative team and then ship it with a different (and most of the time inferior) creative team.

Consistency of art is really important to me. I have a feeling that I'm in the minority, but whatever. As a consumer, I'm just not willing to keep supporting books that constantly disappoint me in that department. I've learned my lesson from DC in recent months, and one of the conditions I set for myself when I decided to try out some of these New 52 issues was that the moment an unsolicited fill-in artist would appear in a book, that book would get dropped from my pull list.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, Action Comics made it through one-and-a-half issue before Rags Morales needed some help. The art in the second issue is wildly inconsistent. I'm assuming that the pages not drawn by Morales are the ones that feature Lois Lane. That would certainly explain why she looks like a completely different character in every panel she appears in.

The patch-up art job is already enough for me to stop buying this book. But there's another reason. This book costs $3.99. If I remember correctly, the justification for the extra dollar on some of the New 52 books (despite DC's much publicized "holding the line" campaign pre-September and their promises to stick to $2.99 till the end of the year) was that it's a longer than the standard 20 pages we get in other books. Well, I counted the story pages in this issue and there are 20. The rest are bonus material, ads and a preview for some Batman graphic novel. So where's my extra dollar going? Hint: It's not "bonus" material if I have to pay extra for it.

All this ranting and I haven't even talked about the content yet. Is this a terrible comic? No. It's an average comic book that I already wasn't that stoked on after the first issue, but I figured I would give it a chance. I did. And now it's over. I will not be buying issue #3.

Animal Man #2
Written by Jeff Lemire; art by Travel Foreman; colours by Lovern Kindzierski; DC

I didn't enjoy this issue quite as much as I enjoyed the first one. I think it's because of the way Maxine feels more like a plot device than a character. I find it a little bit of a cop out that Buddy doesn't really have to do any work to figure out what is going on. All he has to do is listen to his daughter explain everything to him and guide him to this magical world nobody knew existed just 24 hours earlier. It's just awfully convenient that Maxine has all the answers.

In spite of that, I did enjoy the issue. I still think the art is visually striking and original. I think those who weren't sold on the art in the first issue will probably have even more problems with it in this one, but I actually find it refreshing to have a comic that is so stylistically different from anything else that DC puts out each month. It's about as far away from a conventional "house style" as you can get.

Still a strong title and in no real danger of getting bumped off my pull list for the foreseeable future.

Huntress #1
Written by Paul Levitz; pencils by Marcus To; inks by John Dell; colours by Andrew Dalhouse; DC

This is the first of a six-issue mini-series. The first thing that struck me about it is how unfortunate it is that DC hired Guillem March to do the covers instead of letting Marcus To handle them. The difference between the tacky mess of a cover and the gorgeous, classy art inside is almost shocking as you open the book. Marcus To was fantastic on Red Robin and here he continues to impress me with his clean lines and layouts. The only criticism I have of the art is that there isn't much to differentiate the women's faces from one another, but that's a very common problem in comics. In any case, it's not really a big enough deal to take anything away from my enjoyment of this first issue.

Paul Levitz has a good handle on the character. This was a good, introduction to what seems like it's going to be a pretty straightforward (but potentially very satisfying) story. Helena's character doesn't seem to be affected by the relaunch at all (from what I can tell), so if you're a fan of the character you won't be disappointed.

Solid first issue. I'm onboard.

Swamp Thing #2
Written by Scott Snyder; art by Yanick Paquette; colours by Nathan Fairbairn; DC

The first issue was good, but this second issue is even better. Paquette's art (helped by Fairbairn's detailed colours) is blowing my mind.

A large part of this issue is mostly just an info dump, as (one version of) Swamp Thing explains to Alec Holland what the deal is with the Green, the Parliament of Trees, and his connection to Swamp Thing. I was a little bit worried when I found out a few months ago that Swamp Thing was coming back to the DCU and that Alec Holland would be resurrected. I don't worship Alan Moore's work, but I think some of the concepts he established in in run on Swamp Thing are really rich and fascinating, and I didn't want to see that get wiped out of continuity.

What's amazing is that Scott Snyder somehow manages to honour Moore's run while establishing a new status quo for the character. Instead of just retconning Moore's run, he adds new elements that force us to reinterpret it. I don't know how interesting it is to new readers, but I thought all the back story in this issue was great. And now I'm really excited to see where it's all going to lead.

Scott Snyder is simply amazing. There's no doubt in my mind now that he's the best writer working for DC. I am so completely sold on what he's doing here and in Batman (and in his creator-owned work) that I'm basically just going to buy anything and everything he writes from now on. You want good comics? I suggest you do the same.

Reviews: DC New 52, week 1

(no spoilers)

Action Comics #1
Written by Grant Morrison; art by Rags Morales and Rick Bryant

I wonder if this title is going to outsell Justice League #1. We've all been told last week's crap-fest by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee was the big launch of the New 52, the one that would set everything up for the rest of the line, but I have a feeling the book most people were really excited about was this one. I showed up at my LCS at noon today and they had sold out, whereas last week they still had dozens of Justice League issues lining up the walls. (Though I didn't ask how many they had ordered.)

In any case, this a much better first issue than Justice League #1. It's fast-paced, full of action and information. You get a good sense of how this world and these characters are different from the old DCU, dropping in on important supporting characters like Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and General Lane. There are references to Clark Kent's work as a reporter and how Jimmy and Lois fit into that. It establishes that Superman has started helping people around Metropolis, that the citizens are starting to notice and to appreciate it, and while the authorities are treating him as a threat, you get a good sense of their motivations and understand why they'd be freaked out by this powerful alien among them who seems to be getting stronger every day.

The art is always way better. Rags Morales' art is clean and elegant, two terms I would never use to describe Jim Lee's scratchy mess of over-detailed and cluttered panels. Maybe some of it has to do with inker Rick Bryant or colourist Brad Anderson, but this looks just how you would expect DC's flagship title to look - professional, dynamic, clear, but also very "house-style-ish," meaning it doesn't really take any risks the way some of the other books reviewed below do. And certainly if you think about the amazing work that Frank Quitely did on All-Star Superman, this seems a bit bland in comparison.

I'm not really convinced that this is a book I'm all that excited to keep reading. I'm just happy that it's not awful, I guess. It's a good start and unless there's a significant drop in quality ahead, fans are probably going to get a good Superman story over the next few months. Oddly, in spite of some of the continuity changes, this feels more true to the spirit of the original Superman than some of the garbage we've gotten lately from JMS's "Grounded" debacle.

But will I, personally, keep reading? I haven't quite decided yet. It will probably depend on the quality of the other New 52 books I sample this month. If I end up adding a lot of them to my pull list, for budgetary reasons, I might drop this one. Especially considering the extra dollar on the price tag.

Verdict: Good, but somewhat underwhelming.

Animal Man #1
Written by Jeff Lemire; art by Travel Foreman and Dan Green

Prepare to have your mind blown.

Jeff Lemire's mainstream super-hero work at DC has been a little hit-and-miss for me. There were a lot of good ideas in his Superman run (and it looked like he was building up to something that could have really paid off with the subplot involving Psionic Lad, which was unfortunately cut short by the arrival of the New 52), but the execution never quite gelled. The pacing was awkward (in part because of the Doomsday crossover hijack, maybe) and I kind of got the impression that he was phoning it in.

With this first issue of Animal Man, I feel like I finally recognize the work of the man responsible for what is currently my favourite ongoing series, Vertigo's Sweet Tooth. The writing on this issue flows perfectly. There's not an awkward beat. The dialogue feels natural. The characters immediately come across as real people. It's obvious that Lemire not only has a good grasp of the characters but also is excited about the story he's going to tell.

And the art. Holy shit, where the hell did this Travel Foreman dude come from? I love his style and it's exactly the kind of visually stunning work that Jeff Lemire's storytelling requires. These two are a match made in heaven and I hope the book continues with this creative team for a while.

Verdict: The best New 52 book so far. Add it to your pull list right now!

Batgirl #1
Written by Gail Simone; art by Ardian Syaf and Vincente Cifuentes

If you read this blog on a semi-regular basis or follow my rants on Twitter, you know that I've been a very vocal critic of what DC decided to do with this book. As a fan of both Bryan Q. Miller's excellent take on Stephanie-Brown-as-Batgirl AND the well-established status quo of Barbara-Gordon-as-Oracle, this felt like getting stabbed in the heart... twice!

I've said what I had to say about all that. I've said it loud and I've repeated it a million times. And all those issues I've brought up before are still valid. To the point where I had made up my mind that no matter how great Gail Simone's new series turned out to be, I would not buy it and I would not read it. I felt bad about it, because I love Gail Simone's writing and I know how excited she is about this book. But I just didn't think I could do it. I didn't want to send the message to DC that I was supporting this move with my money.

As it turns out, I ended up throwing all those convictions out the window when someone asked me to participate in a podcast to review this book (among others) (and more on that later, by the way). I was happy to use that as an excuse to justify my purchase. And I'm glad that I did, because as it turns out, this is a fantastic first issue. Gail Simone's writing is pitch-perfect and I'm convinced that there is not another person alive on this planet that could have pulled this off and done the impossible: get me onboard with this move. I'm serious.

I don't want to say anything more because I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But this is a good book and I'm looking forward to the next issue. Ardian Syaf's art is very nice, too, and I have my fingers crossed that he will stay on the book at least for a full story arc. (I will not put up with unsolicited fill-in artists in DC books anymore. I've had enough.)

Verdict: Shed a tear for Oracle, then give this a try. You won't regret it.

Stormwatch #1
Written by Paul Cornell; art by Miguel Sepulveda

This was strangely disappointing. I read through the whole thing not really caring about any of it, up to the very last moment when Midnighter shows up and I got a bit of a chill at the thought of the lover story that was about to begin between him and Apollo.

In a way, I'm kind of annoyed, because that just might be enough to get me to continue buying this book, even if I'm not all that excited by any of the other characters or the premise. I can't say I'm a huge fan of Miguel Sepulveda's art either.

I don't know. Will this gay love story even pay off ultimately? I think it's worth sticking around for a few more issues to find out. Plus, Paul Cornell is usually a pretty funny writer and there were little hints of his trademark style in the dialogue. ("--and certainly the horniest!") That's an added plus.

Verdict: Meh. But I'll keep reading I want Midnighter and Apollo to have sex.

Swamp Thing #1
Written by Scott Snyder; art by Yanick Paquette

Yeah, this was pretty much everything I expected (and wanted) it to be: creepy, well written and beautifully drawn. I believe this is the best work I've ever seen by Yanick Paquette. (Although I noticed how ugly Superman's padded costume is when I saw his rendition of it. What an awful, awful design. Please do not let Jim Lee design any more costumes, ever again. Urgh!)

When I found out that Alec Holland was coming back to life at the end of Brightest Day (which I wasn't reading - I found out on the internet), I was extremely skeptical of this new direction. It just seemed like such a departure from some of the coolest aspects of Alan Moore's run (Swampy's struggle with whether or not he was once human, etc.). It wasn't until I heard Scott Snyder talk about this in an interview, about how it was his idea to begin with and how it was specifically a set-up for what he was planning to do in this series, that I got onboard with it.

With this first issue, I still don't know exactly where it's going to go, but I'm definitely intrigued and excited to find out.

Verdict: Excellent. Along with Animal Man, this is the other must-buy of the week.

Books I read: 'Tec, Gates of Gotham, Mystic, Rachel Rising, Severed, Sweet Tooth

Hey, everyone. I'm back.

Detective Comics #880
Written by Scott Snyder; art by Jock; colours by Dave Baron; DC.

I like Jock's art a lot, but for some reason Francisco Francavilla's issues always pack a bigger punch. I don't know if he just happens to get the best scripts from Scott Snyder or if it's about the choices he makes as an artist. Jock's Joker looks terrifying, but the horror pales in comparison to the creepy pacing of the last couple of issues. Maybe what it comes down to is simply that Jock has been handling the issues featuring Batman whereas Francavilla focused more on the Gordon family. I almost wish Batman wasn't even in this story at all. Not that this is a bad issue. It's a great issue, and it moves the story along nicely, setting things up for what is sure to be a shocking finale later this month. Still the best Batman book currently on the stands.

VERY GOOD

...

Gates of Gotham #4
Story by Scott Snyder and Kyle Higgins; written by Kyle Higgins and Ryan Parrott; art by Dustin Nguyen and Derec Donovan; layouts by Graham Nolan; colours by Guy Major; DC.

That's a long list of credits. Three writers on a single issue? Two artists plus a layout artist? Sounds like a rush job to me. I find that I care less and less about this mini-series with each issue. Good thing there's only one issue left. I imagine I will stop caring completely after that one. For a big mystery about the secret origin of the city of Gotham, there isn't really a whole lot that grabs my interest in this. Cass Cain's inclusion in the cast seems kind of pointless. She's just running around with all the other bat kids, not really doing anything that is specific to her character. There was some nice interaction with Damian a couple of issues ago, but nothing much since then.

OKAY

...

Mystic #1
Written by G. Willow Wilson; pencils by David Lopez; inks by Alvaro Lopez; colours by Nathan Fairbairn; Marvel.

Holy shit, this was awesome. This is definitely the best thing I've read from G. Willow Wilson so far. And that art! Those colours! Everything about this comic book is fantastic. Very cool premise, great characters with unique voices, dialogue that flows naturally, beautiful art with expressive faces and body language, gorgeous colours, engaging female characters. Seriously, get on this while you can. Pick up this baby. It's the best comic I've read in months.

BRILLIANT!

...

Rachel Rising #1
Story and art by Terry Moore; b&w; Abstract Studio.

A girl wakes up and pulls herself out of a shallow grave in the woods. She was apparently strangled to death earlier and doesn't remember exactly how she ended up there. Not a whole lot happens in this issue, but it's a nice introduction to the character and premise. Nice black and white art. Looking forward to more of this.

GOOD

...

Severed #1
Story by Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft; art by Attila Futaki; Image.

Creepy, slow-paced horror story with beautiful art. I don't really want to say anything more than that. Just read it.

VERY GOOD

...

Sweet Tooth #24
Story and art by Jeff Lemire; colours by Jose Villarrubia and Jeff Lemire; Vertigo.

Those who complain that "not much happens" in this series will hate this issue. Because, well, not much happens in it. That is, if you define "stuff happening" as actions moving the plot forward. At the end of the last issue, Gus was shot by an unknown shooter. He spends most of this issue slowly bleeding to death and dreaming. At the end, we still don't know who shot him or whether he will live. (The caption "Continued?" at the end made my heart skip and caused me to glance at the September solicits to confirm that this wasn't cancelled! Which of course it isn't.) The thing is, what I get out of this book isn't just a story. I feel like Lemire has developed his own comic book syntax with this series and it speaks to me on a different level than most monthly comics I read. It's possible that this reads better in collections than in single issues, but I don't care. I love reading it in single issue. And even if I zipped through this issue in a few minutes, I know that I will keep going back to it and rereading it and taking in the beautiful art and symbolism.

BRILLIANT!

One-paragraph reviews: Flashpoint, Flashpoint tie-in, Superboy and Sweet Tooth

(Reviews are spoilery.)

Flashpoint #2
Written by Geoff Johns; art by Andy Kubert and Sandra Hope; DC

Four things happen in this issue: 1. Deathstroke sails into Atlantean territory and meets a very pissed off Aquaman. 2. A very pissed off Batman beats up Barry Allen until Barry manages to convince him that he's telling the truth. 3. Steve Trevor, who's a member of the resistance, gets ambushed by a group of Amazons led by a very pissed off Wonder Woman. And 4. Barry Allen tries to recreate the accident that initially gave him his powers and apparently gets fried in the process. None of this is very exciting or interesting or pleasant to read, though some of the art's nice. I'm getting really sick of seeing characters with clenched teeth, though. I kind of wish all these people would just lighten the fuck up. The variant cover for this issue shows Wonder Woman holding the decapitated head of Mera. Since this doesn't happen in this issue and, in fact, Mera does not even appear in it, I can only assume that the cover was produced for the specific purpose of pissing people off. Basically, that's the theme here. All the characters are angry and clenching their teeth, and DC seems to expect fans to do the same. Pissed off fans vent on the internet and apparently that gets people to buy more comics. I don't understand how any of this works.

WEAK SAUCE

--


Flashpoint: Batman: Knight of Vengeance #1
Written by Brian Azzarello; art by Eduardo Risso; DC

There's Batman with his clenched teeth on the cover. But otherwise, I have to say this was a lot better than the main series. Maybe these mini-series are where all the good stuff is going to happen in this crossover event after all. Still, this feels a bit empty. Solid script and nice art, but I'm not sure yet where it's going.

OKAY

--

Superboy #8
Written by Jeff Lemire; art by Pier Gallo; DC

It really pains me to admit this, but I don't think Jeff Lemire writes very good super-hero comics. I've been very lenient on this title since it started, because I like Lemire's work so much that I managed to convince myself that this would get good. But I think I have to finally accept that it's not good and it's probably not going to get any better before it ends in a couple of months. Every story beat feels artificial and calculated. The exposition is incredibly clumsy and all of the dialogue sounds awkward. I don't get it. There's no sign of the grace and seemingly effortless storytelling and quiet, reflective beauty found in Lemire's work outside of the super-hero genre. There are two possibilities: either he's not feeling comfortable in this format or he's phoning it in. There are only two issues left, and I'm not even sure I'm going to bother picking them up.

DISAPPOINTING

--

Sweet Tooth #22
Written and drawn by Jeff Lemire; Vertigo

See? This is what I'm talking about.

AWESOME

One-paragraph reviews: Superboy, Sweet Tooth, Astonishing Thor, Godzilla

Superboy #7
Written by Jeff Lemire; art by Marco Rudy and Daniel HDR; DC.

I saw someone on Twitter describe this as "absolutely perfect. I couldn't read it fast enough. Perfect art. Best single issue of 2011 so far." And I seriously have to ask myself whether they read the same comic book I read. Not that this was terrible, but with the exception of last issue (the pointless Doomsday crossover issue), this was probably the weakest in the series so far. So this is not even the best issue of Superboy in 2011, let alone of all comics. As for the art, "perfect" is the last word I would use to describe it, no matter how talented I think Marco Rudy is. The problem is we have two artists whose styles are constantly at war with one another, and even though the different looks are sometimes use to separate what's real and what's not, it still makes for a very inconsistent visual narrative. I'm just sick of having multiple art styles in a 20 page book, which these days is almost becoming the norm on DC books. In addition, I thought a lot of the layouts were ugly, and a few pages were so confusing that I wasn't even sure what order I was supposed to read the panels in. I know that Lemire likes to experiment with layouts, and when he draws his own books, the results are wonderful (see my review of Sweet Tooth, below), and with regular artist Pier Gallo, who seems particularly good at following his instructions, it can still work. But in this issue, I thought it ended up looking like a mess. Gallo is back next month, just in time for the four-story arc that's going to conclude the Hollow Men plot. I'm looking forward to it.

OKAY

---

Sweet Tooth #21
Written and drawn by Jeff Lemire; Vertigo

As much fun as Lemire's superhero comics can get when they're on, for me they'll never compare to Sweet Tooth. When he's in full control of the writing, art and direction of the story, we see just how strong he is as a storyteller and artist. This issue reuses a technique that Lemire first experimented with in #12, where we had a narrated story in a continuous strip at the bottom of each page, while a separate world-less story was shown in the rest of the page. In that issue, the technique doubled as a kind of homage to Crisis on Infinite Earths #10, whereas in this one he seems to have developed it into a unique style all his own. I almost wonder if he took a cue from Frank Santoro's fascinating Layout Workbook column at TCJ.com, as he divides each page in such a way that the top narrative occupies a near-perfect square, which gives the book a particularly harmonious feel. I loved issue #12, but I think this one is even better. What's truly remarkable is that in spite of this fairly rigid grid being followed throughout the book, Lemire still finds additional ways to experiment and play with this form. There's something cool and different happening with the layout on literally every page, and it's always in the service of the story and never feels gratuitous or gimmicky. It's just brilliant. Plus there's a panel where Gus and Jepperd hug that is so sweet and moving that it almost made me cry.

EXCELLENT

---

Astonishing Thor #4
Written by Rob Rodi; art by Mike Choi; Marvel

Thor is fighting against a living planet. It's pretty cool.

GOOD

---

Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #2
Written by Eric Powell and Tracy Marsh; art by Phil Hester and Bruce McCorkindale; IDW

I thought this issue was better than the first one. I was so happy to see the fisherman who was looking for his kids in the first issue return, as one of my biggest concerns was whether the story would follow up on any of the characters who only appeared in a few panels last time. I still think some of Phil Hester's layouts are a little bit...messy?, but less so than in the first issue. I think it's mostly just a personal preference anyway. More and more I realize that I don't favour comic book art that constantly spills out of the panels. I like gutters. I like things neatly contained within grids. So that on the rare occasion that this neat order is broken it has a big impact on the narrative. On the other hand, I suppose you could argue that this is a comic book about giant dinosaur-like monsters fucking shit up all over the world, and subtlety is not exactly what it's going for. So perhaps it's fitting that the art refuses to be contained into those neat borders that I crave. Maybe the chaotic layouts are part of the chaos of the story.

GOOD

Another follow-up on the Essex County/Canada Reads mini-controversy

You may remember my post about Jeff Lemire's Essex County getting voted off the Canada Reads competition on the first round a little over a month ago. Well, Nymeth at Things Mean a Lot used it as a "point of departure for an analysis of common attitudes towards reading", a great post which itself generated quite a lot of discussion in the comments.

Here's an excerpt from Nymeth's post:

The thing that made these judges who are supposedly trying to encourage literacy so uncomfortable was the fact that the book was quick and easy to read. To me, this is the most interesting thing about the whole situation: the fact that the judges’ arguments rely on the idea that reading should be hard, that it should take work, that it should be a somewhat arduous process. And if isn’t, it can’t have Meaning or Relevance. It doesn’t make you think of “things other than things”.

Of course, I also don’t buy the opposite argument, which is that anything that isn’t easy must be worthless or pretentious. Dense texts are fine; I love many of them. But what they have to say, what about them encourages people to “think about things other than things”, is not necessarily determined by the difficulty of prose in itself. If you take an author of moderate difficulty – someone like, say, Virginia Woolf – you can argue that their experimentation with form can’t be separated from their content, and it’s a crucial part of what makes them so extraordinary. This is a fair enough point, but at the same time, I have trouble seeing form as a thing to be revered in itself, quite separately from any sort of meaning. What bothers me about the assumptions behind the Canada Reads judges’ arguments is the idea that complex ideas are defined by a complex form of delivery: that you cannot possibly communicate anything worthwhile or convey nuanced emotions using accessible language (or even - horror of horrors - pictures).

 Read the rest of it here.

One-paragraph reviews: Axe Cop, Sweet Tooth, Astonishing Thor, Captain America and the Falcon

Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #1
Written by Malachai Nicolle; art by Ethan Nicolle; Dark Horse

The story here is pretty much what you might expect from a comic written by a six-year-old: the plot is disjointed, occasionally surreal, every character is either a "bad guy" or a "good guy," and there are lots of dinosaurs involved. All of which is both part of this book's appeal, but also part of its limitation. The randomness of the ideas doesn't bother me at all, and it's always a pleasure to witness the unrestrained imagination that could only come from a child's mind. I do wish, however, that Ethan wouldn't feel the need to stick to his six-year-old brother's narration style. Often, it feels like the captions are basically telling the story, and the drawings merely illustrate the information that has already been conveyed in words. For example, the caption says: "Axe Cop then pushed the rocket button," and the panel shows a close-up of Axe Cop pushing a big butter with a rocket on it. This kind of redundancy between words and images is usually considered a sign of a bad comic book, but here I guess we're supposed to forgive it because it adds to the six-year-old narrative voice which is part of the book's gimmick. It doesn't quite work for me. Not only is it a little bit condescending to the reader ("I'm telling you what happens and I'm showing you at the same time, just to make sure you understand..."), but it also does the writer a disservice. It's not necessary to draw attention to the fact that it's a kid writing the book. We already know and accept this, because it's mentioned right at the top of the cover above the title. I think the book would benefit from having less narration and from letting the images tell the story. Nevertheless, this is a very enjoyable book. Some of the scenes are very funny, the art is always fantastic, and the colours (by Dirk Erik Schulz) are absolutely gorgeous.

GOOD

Sweet Tooth #19
Written and drawn by Jeff Lemire, Nate Powell, Emi Lenox and Matt Kindt; Vertigo

This is a special issue of Sweet Tooth (but then again, they're all special, aren't they?) featuring short stories from three guest writers/artists. Jeff Lemire handles the framing narrative and allows each guest to tell a flashback or mini-origin story for one of of the supporting characters. It's handled quite nicely, giving us a lot of new insight into the characters, while also setting up the stage for the next big story arc. The different styles used by all the artist work well together, since they all represent a different point of view. Of the three guest artists, I was only familiar with Matt Kindt's work, but all three of them are quite good. Emi Lenox was the one who surprised me the most, as based on what little I'd seen of her work online, I wasn't sure how well her more "cartoony" style would mesh with Lemire's bleak post-apocalyptic world. But it was perfect for her short story. Her layouts were great and Jose Villarubia's vibrant colours really helped to establish the tone of that section as well. Another excellent issue.

AWESOME

Astonishing Thor #3
Written by Robert Rodi; art by Mike Choi; Marvel

For whatever reason, I'm not really into this book as much as I was when it started. The art in the first couple of issues really impressed me, but now I'm growing weary of it. And the story... I don't know. It's just not doing much for me. I'm sorry, this is the lamest review I've ever written. I can't pinpoint anything wrong with this book. I'm just kind of indifferent toward it. In any case, there's only one issue left, so I'll stick with it. I am kind of curious to find out what happens when these two living planets finally meet each other.

OKAY

Captain America and the Falcon (one-shot)
Written by Rob Williams; art by Rebekah Isaacs; Marvel

This is one of those stories about a character returning to his roots (i.e., poor neighbourhood), which he'd previously turned his back on and lost touch with. The character then realizes that this is still an important part of who he is and that he should do everything he can to help the people he left behind. In this case, that character is Falcon. To be honest, that's not terribly original or even very interesting. Maybe it would be if this was the start of an ongoing series which would then explore that further. I would read a story about Falcon protecting and helping the people of his old neighbourhood, while also dealing with "bigger" or "more important" missions with the Avengers or Captain America. Especially if Rebekah Isaacs was the regular artist on it, because she's fantastic. But as a one-shot, I can't help but wonder what's the point? Not because this is a bad comic, but because I feel like it's not going to go anywhere. This whole idea of Falcon returning to his roots is just going to be abandoned, unless someone is working on an ongoing title for him in the near future. Which doesn't seem all that likely to happen. Then again... there's a "Fear Itself" logo on the cover of this book, so maybe this is setting up something that's going to tie into that event.

OKAY

Canada Reads / Essex County: Follow up

Over at The National Post, Christopher Butcher, Darwyn Cooke and Jeet Heer offer some perspective on the Canada Reads panelists' rejection of Essex County. All three of them bring up some excellent points, some similar to my own (though expressed more eloquently).

Here's a quote from Darwyn Cooke:

The most devastating take away left me kind of stupefied and unable to imagine the sort of dusty mind that thinks this way. As several jurors spoke, it was clear that their number one criteria for disqualifying Essex County was… the number of words. They actually said the book didn’t have enough words to qualify as a book. Travis remarked on the word count and I was blind-sided by the fact that these people seemed unaware that every panel of that book is supported by a script filled with words-the words necessary to create and execute entire panels or scenes without any visible writing. The very process by which such a book is created was unknown to them. Particularly disappointing was Ali Velshi. Considering this cat spends his entire life reading American news off a teleprompter in Atlanta, he might have noticed that Time magazine’s book of the year was a graphic novel…FOUR YEARS AGO.

 Read the rest of the discussion here.

 

Jeff Lemire's Essex County should have won the Canada Reads competition

Earlier this week, I tried to write a post about Jeff Lemire's Essex County getting voted off the Canada Reads competition. But as I listened to the debate and took notes, I just grew so frustrated with some of the comments being made - not just about the book but about the form of graphic novels or comic books in general - that I decided to put it aside and wait a day or two. In my haste to distance myself from the whole thing, I neglected to save my notes, and now I have to start over from scratch.

For those of you reading this from outside of Canada and who are not familiar with the competition or what it represents for the Canadian literary scene, rather than try to summarize it for you I will simply point you in the direction of Jeet Heer's Walrus article on the subject. Or, if that's too long and you just want a quick summary, check out his brief post at Comics Comics.

Essex County was the first graphic novel to make it all the way to the five finalists that are debated on the air each year. While this was a significant milestone and it gave it an edge in the competition, it was also ultimately its downfall. Every interview or discussion or critique of the book started with broad comments about the form, and what it means for a graphic novel to be part of the competition, whether it can even be considered a novel, let alone one that can be compared in terms of value or merit or impact or significance to more traditional literature. As a result, there was hardly any discussion of Jeff Lemire's work and what is unique about it, because so much attention was spent talking about the form. The book being part of the competition became less about this particular work of fiction by this specific artist with a unique voice in Canadian (and worldwide) literature, and more about the entire medium's struggle to be taken seriously and accepted as art. In other words, the same tired old debate people have been having since the term "graphic novel" was invented. A debate that I'd like to think most of us who read comics are over.

Nevertheless, seeing Jeff Lemire get so much attention from mainstream media - and seeing the significant boost in sales that Essex County got as a result (it's currently #8 on Amazon.ca's bestsellers list)  - made me really happy. And I really thought the book had a good chance to make it all the way to the end and win the top spot in the competition. So I was surprised when it was eliminated on the very first day.

Jeff Lemire is taking it pretty well. After admitting that "it stings a bit more than [he] thought it would," he spends the bulk of his post focusing on the positive. And rightly so. He deserves be proud of his accomplishment.

Still, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm very disappointed. It's not so much the fact that the book didn't win, but more the way that the debate took shape in that one-hour broadcast earlier this week. Not only was Essex County the first book to get dumped, but it was a near unanimous decision, with all four panelists except Sara Quin (who was championing the graphic novel) voting against it.

Some of the comments made by the other panelists were outrageous and infuriating. Here are some of the arguments they made against the book.

Ali Velshi brought up that part of Canada Reads' mandate is to promote literacy, and he didn't think that Essex County would be of any help in that regard:

I didn't want to read Essex County, because I didn't understand why it's on [the panel]. And I read it and I found it very moving. [But] it can't be the primary book that we call the most essential novel, because that's not how we are going inspire people to read. That's like the new iPod. It may be really neat, it may be the future...

At this point he was interrupted, but he came back to that idea later and added:

I am coming into this competition with the very committed idea (...) that I need this to end up as a competitiont that causes people to read more, and I'm not sure [Essex County] is that solution. (...) I don't think that's gonna solve our problems of low literacy levels. I don't think that's gonna solve our problem of creative and interpretive thinking.

Well, I think that's a pretty stupid criterion to be basing the literary or artistic merit of a book on, and I'm not sure it should be what the panelists are basing their votes on at all. But even if it were, his argument doesn't hold for two reasons: First, there's absolutely no evidence that graphic novels don't encourage people to read more. In fact, I would be inclined to believe that exactly the opposite is true. And second, the ability to read and understand comics is also a kind of literacy, and one might argue that it is just as important as knowing how to read prose. Interpreting images, being conscious of how they convey meaning, learning how to read - yes, read! - them is just as vitally important in developing "creative and interpretive thinking" as reading prose is. 

Lorne Cardinal's arguments made even less sense:

Essex County is a gateway to reading. I love the book, I love the form, but in my view it is not a novel. (...) Then we have the other end of the spectrum, a Pulitzer-prize winning novelist whose whole life is words, making words and stories, and making you think. It's what literature should be. It should be a way to get people to think of things that they don't normally... Think of things instead of things, you know, like iPods.

Think of things instead of things? And because Jeff Lemire is not a Pulitzer-winning novelist, his story doesn't make you think of things? Whatever. The most bewildering thing about Cardinal's vote against Essex County was that when asked which characters he found most memorable, from the four books other than the one he was defending, he picked the characters from Lemire's book. But I guess they didn't make him think of "things," or maybe they made him think of the wrong kinds of things, so he had to vote against it?

Georges Laraque didn't really have a lot of say about the book, so I'll skip over his remarks.

And last, but certainly not least, here's what Debbie Travis said:

I think it's a nice book. It really is a good book. But as the essential novel? It's like saying tweeting with 140 character gets you writing. No, it doesn't get you writing. It actually takes it in the other direction. So the danger of that book... I think this is a shortcut. I read this in an hour and a half.

Apparently, she's doesn't realize how insulting it is to compare someone's work - all the years of developing their craft and style and storytelling talent - to a 140-character posts on fucking Twitter! And when host Jian Ghomeshi pointed out that even though she read it in an hour an a half, you could spend more time with the book, she simply responded, "No, you can't."

On the one hand, Debbie Travis' comments are the most infuriating, but on the other hand we shouldn't get too worked up about them because they hold the less weight. She dismisses the book as fluff and is unwilling to engage with the work on a deeper level, so that pretty much disqualifies her from really saying anything meaningful about it. At least Ali Velshi admitted to being moved by the book and was surprised by how much depth it had, even though he was originally skeptical of the form. He voted against it for ideological reasons, but there's nothing to suggest that he didn't treat it seriously.

Debbie Travis didn't even take the competition itself too seriously. Right from the start, she said she didn't care about any of the books except the one she was defending. So why bother reading them carefully? In fact, why bother reading them at all? In the second round of debate (after Essex County had been eliminated) she admitted that she never bothered to finish one of the novels because it was too boring to hold her interest. Mind-bogglingly, the book she couldn't finish was Best Laid Plans, which ultimately won the competition and which she never once voted against! How does that make any sense?

When the votes were counted after the first round, Sara Quin was visibly disappointed, and (without using those words) she more or less told the other panelists that they were a bunch of old-fashioned elitists too afraid to take risks:

I'm disappointed but not surprised. I do think you represent the demographic that isn't gonna read this book, and I think it's a shame because it's a retro sort of idea. These types of books are accepted as novels. And I do think that this is the type of book that's gonna grab a younger viewership. And these books are all great, but they are more more traditional and safe, and I totally understand why this book would scare people, especially with the tight upper neck... 

It got a laugh from the audience and scoffs from the other panelists.

To end this on a positive note, I'll mention that Essex County won in the People's Choice poll, getting over 50% of the votes. To me, that really shows the mass appeal that Lemire's work truly has. I sincerely believe that Essex County should have won, and that a lot of Canadians would have enjoyed reading it and would have been surprised by what it had to offer. Of course, the ones that really want to read it can still do so - nobody's stopping them just because it was voted off the competition. But it would have been nice for it to have that symbolic victory.

Anyway. Congratulations, Jeff Lemire. Still a remarkable achievement.

(Related post: Jeff Lemire at Drawn and Quarterly)

One-paragraph reviews: Superboy, Hellboy, Dr. Strange

Superboy #4
Written by Jeff Lemire; art by Pier Gallo; DC

Another entertaining issue by Lemire and Gallo, moving the various plots forward with a good mix of action, mystery and character development. Lots of really cool layouts, including a few pages where Lemire's mark can clearly be felt (widescreen close-up of character's eyes!), but credit is due to Gallo for pulling them off in style. The plot thickens with a not-completely-unexpected twist on the last page, which I won't spoil here. My only complaint is that the regular cover is kind of ugly, and the variant by Stanley Lau is only slightly better, since Superboy looks like he's about 30 years old on it. I don't usually care that much about covers, but the first three issues were so nice that it would've have been nice to see the series continue in that direction. Also, when are we going to get a Jeff Lemire variant? -- GOOD.

Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead #2
Written by Mike Mignola; art by Scott Hampton; Dark Horse

There's nothing really earth-shattering about the conclusion of this two-part mini-series, but it's a good horror story with a classic feel and some really nice art from Scott Hampton. I guess I don't have much to say about it, except that it delivers what you expect from a Hellboy story about vampires, without any big surprises or revelations. -- GOOD.

Doctor Strange: From the Marvel Vault #1
Written by Roger Stern; art by Neil Vokes; Marvel

Since I'm not a big reader of Marvel comics, I don't have a lot of context for this early adventure in Dr. Strange's career. It includes some flashbacks to his origin story, which was all new to me, but mostly deals with his first night in his NYC mansion and his battle with some creepy entities that dwell within it. I don't really understand why his cape is red on the cover, but blue inside the comic. Nevertheless, it's a good story and the art is nice. As a rare $2.99 one-shot from Marvel, this is worth picking up if you're a fan of the character. -- GOOD.

(new rating scale)
 

Review: Sweet Tooth #18

Sweet Tooth #18 
"The Further Adventures of the Boy and the Big Man"
Written and drawn by Jeff Lemire; Vertigo

(This review contains spoilers.)

There's a fine line between experimentation and gimmick, and with this unusual horizontal issue, Jeff Lemire is stepping dangerously close to that line. I was initially a little worried when I read the first few pages, which are told in a "picture book" style, with big chunks of text and illustrations. I was immediately reminded of Grant Morrison's awful Joker story, "The Clown at Midnight," in Batman #663. That story was pretty much unreadable, and although I am not trying to suggest that Lemire's prose is even remotely close to that level of cheesiness, illustrated prose and comic books are completely different art forms, and I'm not usually very fond of finding the former when go out looking for the latter.

Somehow, though, Lemire pulls it off. He doesn't adhere strictly to this format for the whole issue. Although he keeps the orientation of the comic horizontal (you have to read it on its side, flipping the pages up like a calendar), the prose narration is relegated mostly to the front and back of the book. The bulk of the issue is told in a more traditional comic book format, with sequential panels and speech bubbles. This not only helps with the pacing of the issue, but it also gives the picture book passages a unique quality or "specialness," by virtue of their contrast with the rest of the book (and the rest of the series). The comic book passages are fairly objective, whereas the narration in the picture book passage is much more subjective. Although written in the third person, the narration reflects Gus's inner thought process. The simple, naive tone evoking children's literature works well, because Gus is himself still a very child-like character. But as we find out in this issue, he's a lot more grown-up than he seems.

The story deals with the aftermath of the violent rescue of the hybrid kids from the militia camp that concluded the previous story arc. The kids, Jepperd, Lucy, the "pretty girl" (as Gus calls her) whose name I can't remember, Johnny and Singh are on their way to Alaska, where they hope to learn more about Gus's origins. They stop at an abandoned shopping mall to get some supplies, where they spend the night.

Way back in the first story arc of the series, Gus found a Disney-like picture book called Dandy, an obvious non-copyright-infringing substitute for Bambi. This book resonated deeply with him. The only book he had previously ever been exposed to was the Bible. The story of Dandy was also symbolically charged. In an earlier scene, Gus had witnessed the death of deer at the hands of some hunters who were actually aiming at him! After finding the book, Gus had a dream in which Dandy told him that Jepperd was a bad man and that he should run away from him, a prophecy Gus ignored but which turned out to be true. More recently, in issue #15, Gus had another dream about Dandy, but this time Jepperd (who had the same dream) was the hunter and he killed Dandy and cute little bunny companion.

The Dandy book appears again in this issue. After a tense scene during which Gus convinces Lucy and Jepperd not to kill Singh, Jepperd tells Gus that he has some things that belong to him and hands him a slingshot and the book. Gus takes the slingshot, but leaves the book behind. "That's kids' stuff," he says. "And don't call me Sweet Tooth." Gus has come a long way since Jepperd last saw him, and this point is illustrated here very poignantly. But the scene also gives us a clue as to how the picture book passages in this issue should be interpreted.

Something Lemire said during the Q&A at Drawn and Quarterly last week kept coming back to me while I was reading this issue. Someone in the audience asked him how he chooses what elements of the story to tell with pictures and what elements to tell with words. Lemire's answer was (and here I'm paraphrasing from memory) that he always tries to tell as much of the story visually as possible. If he can get away with not adding any words to the page, then he doesn't. He only uses text when it is absolutely necessary.

So is he breaking his own rule in this issue? I felt that a lot of the words were unnecessary. For instance, when Gus figures out that Jepperd's grief for his son probably accounts for some of his bad behaviour, the narration goes: "And The Boy figured that was why he had betrayed him in the first place. He was just trying to make the hurt stop. This confused The Boy more than ever. He didn't know if he still hated The Big Man or not. Either way, he wasn't ready to talk to him. Not yet, anyway." Even though none of this had been spelled out for us up to this point, it should have been pretty obvious to any reader who's been paying attention since the beginning.

This isn't a criticism of this issue so much as it is a testament to Lemire's strength as a visual storyteller in the issues leading up to it. The emotional payoff of being told how Gus feels about Jepperd in that narration pales in comparison to the thrill that I felt when they shared that dream back in issue # 15, or how excited I was when Gus saw Jepperd approaching the militia camp on the monitor in issue #16, or the chills that went down my spine later when he tells the men, "I seen him out there. Mr. Jepperd's here. Yer all gonna die." I apologize for gushing all over the pages like this, but the reason this reunion between these two fully fleshed out characters was so emotionally charged was that the series had been building up to it for about 12 issues. That narration I quoted above doesn't really do justice to all that, because I'd already felt all those emotions along with Gus when he first experienced them.

The most revealing and powerful moment in this issue is the confrontation I mentioned earlier. When Gus convinced Lucy and Jeppard not to kill Singh, he argued that just because he's done some bad things doesn't mean he's a bad man. "You of all people should know that," he tells Jeppard. True, that punch is delivered in the dialogue (i.e., words not images), but it can't really be separated from the scene it's part of, a scene that is told in sequential art and where much of the tension comes from the images and how they interact with the text.

It was important, I think, that this scene be told in traditional comic form, rather than in the picture book style. It has an immediacy and a visceral quality that would have been lost had it been simply narrated to us. Because we are shown, not told, we're more inclined to believe it, more willing to experience it and to take part in it, whereas there's something phony about the picture book narration. Like Dandy, it's just make-believe, kids' stuff. And in the same way that Gus's own innocent looks conceal a more mature personality, the picture book narrative conceals (or glosses over) the darker reality that the characters inhabit.

In the last few pages of the issue, the storytelling switches back to picture book mode. Gus lies awake at night wondering if he will ever feel happy again. The story concludes with a rare and unexpected moment of pure joy in this otherwise pretty consistently bleak series. The kids and adults wake up the morning to find snow outside. "It had come while they slept, and it was as deep as their shins and soft and bright and clean! They ran around and humped in it and at it and laughed." Gus allows himself to feel happy and wonders if perhaps he was wrong to worry earlier. Even Jepperd might be smiling, although Gus isn't sure because the light is so bright. But what darkness lies beneath the deceptively innocent surface of the picture book narrative? The last time we saw snow, it was in Gus and Jepperd's shared dream, and Dandy got shot in the head. I think Lemire is very much aware of the artifice of this storytelling technique, and he's using it deliberately. And I have a feeling Sweet Tooth is about to take a turn into some even darker territory than what we've seen so far.

EXCELLENT (new rating scale)
 

Jeff Lemire at Drawn and Quarterly Bookstore

Last week I went to Drawn and Quarterly to catch an interview and panel discussion with Jeff Lemire to promote his book Essex County, which is currently on the shortlist of CBC's Canada Read contest. This is the first graphic novel to make it this far in the competition, so in order to celebrate this landmark, they recorded a portion of the Homerun radio show at the D+Q bookstore. Lemire was first interviewed by host Sue Smith, then there was a brief Q&Q from the audience. Finally, there was a panel discussion with Montreal comics creators Sherwin Sullivan Tjia and Matt Forsythe, and Drawn and Quarterly head publisher Chris Oliveros.

You can listen to the interview and discussion that followed on the Canada Reads website.

About 12 minutes into the first audio clip, you'll hear me very awkwardly asking the first question in the Q&A. If I could go back in time, I would definitely rephrase that question and get to the point much quicker, but I think it was a good question. Lemire had mentioned during the interview that he'd gone to film school, so I asked him how much that background informed his storytelling. I was thinking mostly of the pacing of his stories, which (to me at least) often has a very cinematic feel, with brief scenes or "shots" dedicated more to establishing mood than advancing the plot. I was thinking in particular of this page from Sweet Tooth #13, where all you see is a helicopter blade moving in and out of the frame:

Lemire replied that while cinema probably does have a big influence on his style, more and more he's looking for ways to tell stories in a way that is specific to the medium, for example by experimenting with layout to do things that you just couldn't do in film. He brought up these two pages from issue #16 as an example:

I also got a chance to talk to him briefly during the break and to ask him about something else that I was very curious about. Ever since the first issue of Superboy, I've been wondering how detailed his scripts are and whether he provides any specific layout instructions to artist Pier Gallo, because I'd noticed some striking similarities with Lemire's own style in books like Sweet Tooth. Lemire confirmed my suspicions and said that he is very specific in the scripts and that he even provides layouts for the artist in some cases. "You can probably tell which parts," he said. I asked if Gallo ever surprises him with the art in those cases where Lemire hasn't asked for something super-specific, and he said no. One of the things he specifically looked for when they chose an artist for the book was someone with a very straightforward storytelling style, but with the skill to get more experimental when the script called for it.

My only regret is that I didn't ask Lemire for a sketch. Somehow it didn't feel like the right context, this being a "literary" event more than a "comic book" one, and I didn't want to come across as an annoying fanboy. Maybe next time.

TONIGHT IN MONTREAL: Jeff Lemire panel discussion at D+Q

I will be attending this event tonight at the Drawn & Quarterly library. I'll report back this weekend.

Details:

Homerun host Sue Smith and arts reporter Jeanette Kelly will be hosting and joining them on stage will be D+Q chief Chris Oliveros, as well as Montreal’s own graphic novelist Sherwin Sullivan Tjia, author of The Hipless Boy, and Matt Forsythe, the award-winning illustrator and comic book artist whose book Ojingogo won the 2009 Doug Wright Award for Canadian cartooning.
The discussion will be recorded and segments will air on Homerun. Authors will sign their books respectively.

Refreshments provided.

DC Comics in April 2011 - Too many crossovers!

Looking at DC Comics' April 2011 solicitations, I'm seeing an awful lot of crossovers: the three Green Lantern books are interlocked in the awful-sounding "War of the Green Lanterns"; Superboy, the Superman/Batman annual and Action Comics are part of the "Reign of Doomsday" event; Red Robin, Gotham City Sirens and Batman together form an unnamed three-part crossover; and Flash is setting up this summer's big event "Flashpoint," which sounds like it's going to affect DC's entire line of books.

War of the Green Lanterns

Green Lantern #65

This one is easy enough to ignore for me, since I'm not following any of the Green Lantern titles. It's unclear to me whether this story line concludes in April or if it's going to continue in May. But I did notice that they're apparently planning to release the books out of reading order. The solicitation for Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #9, which comes out April 20, says it deals with the consequences of Green Lantern Corps #59, which comes out the following week on April 27.

Great job, DC editors! I can't think of a worse way to promote your upcoming big blockbuster movie than with a confusing crossover event that you can't even be bothered to release in the proper reading order.

If I was a Green Lantern editor, I would want to keep these books accessible for new readers who might be excited about the upcoming movie and who'd want to check out the comic. But right now there is no easy jumping on point into the franchise for new readers.

Reign of Doomsday

Superman/Batman Annual #5

The "Reign of Doomsday" crossover has just started and already there are signs that it'll be a prime example of how damaging a editorially mandated events can be for ongoing series that get sucked into them. The Steel one-shot that came out earlier this month wasn't very good, but it's hard to blame writer Steve Lyons for it. Not only had he pitched a completely different story featuring a different villain (Metallo), but he had actually finished the script, which was already in the process of being drawn by penciller Sean Chen, when DC editorial decided to trash it all and repurpose the issue to launch the crossover event. Metallo was discarded as the villain, and Ed Benes replaced Sean Chen as the penciller.

The result was a 22-page fight scene, with virtually no context, ending with a very unsatisfying cliffhanger as Doomsday drags Steel's limp body away into space. That the one-shot was weak on story is a massive understatement. Lyons said in an interview with Newsarama: "As for why Doomsday is coming after Steel now... well, actually, even I don't know the full answer to that!" What can you expect when the writer admits that he doesn't even know his characters' motivations?

In February and March, the crossover continues in issues of Outsiders and Justice League of America, neither of which I currently follow. Considering how uninspired the first part of the story was, I wasn't planning on picking those up, but in April "Act 1" of the story continues in the Superman/Batman annual and then concludes in Superboy #6. Since I'm currently following (and enjoying!) Jeff Lemire's Superboy, now I have to decide whether all this additional material is worth buying in order to get the full story.

Surprisingly, the solicitation for Action Comics #900 doesn't mention "Reign of Doomsday," although a post on DC's blog yesterday claims that it continues the story line. Why they wouldn't include this crucial information in the solicitations is beyond me! What it does say is that "this story will lay the ground for an insanely epic story coming out this summer in the pages of Action." So presumably, this insanely epic story will be "Act 2" of "Reign of Doomsday"?

Part of the reason these crossovers are so frustrating is that readers are only given little tidbits of information at a time, all of which is constantly subject to change, so it's very difficult for us to make informed decisions about what books to order. I'm lucky enough to have access to a comic book store that orders multiple copies of everything DC and Marvel publish, so even if I don't put something on my pull list, it's pretty much guaranteed that I'll be able to pick up a copy once it hits the stands. But those who only have access to smaller comics stores don't have that luxury.

As for how this crossover will affect my buying habits, I've decided to just keep getting the books I usually get (Action and Superboy) and hope for the best. I don't really mind that this story is set to continue in the pages of Action Comics after the Lex Luthor arc concludes. If Paul Cornell stays onboard, I'll continue reading it. (But that's another thing DC has been very tight-lipped about. Who's going to be writing Action from May onward?) I'm a little bit more upset about Superboy being sucked into it, because as a newer book, I think it would have been good to let it establish itself at its own pace. But whatever. At worse, it'll be one shitty issue, then hopefully it gets back on track with #7.

Red Robin/Gotham City Sirens/Batman

Gotham City Sirens #22

I was worried when I first saw that Marcus To wasn't listed as the artist for Red Robin #22, but he has since confirmed (via Twitter) that his editors wanted to give him some breathing room and that he will be back on the book with #23. That's good news, as he's pretty much the only only reason I haven't dropped the book after a series of recent weak scripts from Fabian Nicieza.

It's great that they're giving Marcus To some time to rest in between story arc. He's been doing consistently fantastic work on the book for over a year now, without any delays, which is a remarkable achievement when you compare it to almost every other book that DC publishes. It sounds like a well-deserved break. But why couldn't they just do a stand-alone issue in between instead of tying it with two other Bat books? Wouldn't that have been a better way to attract new readers? Promote the issue as a good jumping-on point, a no-strings-attached, commitment-free issue with a done-in-one story introducing you to the character. Maybe a team-up with another popular character to attract more fans. Instead, picking up this issue forces you to pick up two other books. Sounds like a terrible way to get new readers.

I guess the point of this crossover is that people already following either one of these three series are going to feel compelled to buy the other two issues in order to get the full story. So DC's making three times as much money as they normally would. That's the theory, but is that actually what people do? Not me. I'm going to skip this book instead. I'd rather have a hole in my collection than be forced to buy extra books I don't want.

It's a pity, though, because the cover by Guillem March is beautiful.

Flashpoint

The Flash #12

This last one is a bit different from the other events discussed above, since it's not going to start until this summer. April brings us the end of the prologue and so far the story will have been entirely contained in the pages of a single book, The Flash. And since I  happen to be buying this book already, this will be a good way for me to evaluate whether or not I want to jump onboard for the mega event that will follow.

So far, I'm intrigued by the premise. It's really too early for me to have an opinion at this point, although I'm a little bit worried by the suggestion that "everything Barry Allen knows and cares about is lost" in April's issue #12. Since it looks like the event is going to be about alternate timelines, I'm assuming part of Barry Allen's motivations will be to go back and fix the timeline to save his wife. Which is something Geoff Johns has been hinting at since early in the series. I'm only worried because I'm bracing myself for another grueling "death of a loved one" scene, which seems to have become DC's trademark. But we'll see how that goes.

Review: Superboy #3

Superboy #3
"The New Adventures of Psionic Lad, Part One"
Written by Jeff Lemire; art by Pier Gallo; colours by Jamie Grant; cover by Phil Noto; DC

I like that Jeff Lemire seems to be focusing on short story arcs, while gradually setting up clues to a larger story. I know that this is how most ongoing series work, but I think Lemire is doing a particularly good job of interweaving the immediate story with long-term concerns. In this issue, Superboy is dealing with the aftermath of the conflict from the first two-issue story arc. His proposed solution - a race between Superboy and Kid Flash to raise money for the farmers who lost their crops - sets up the story that's been solicited for issue #5 in March. Meanwhile, Conner's personal drama with classmates Lori and Simon continues to unfold, all of which is wrapped around the main plot of this issue, which is the arrival of Psionic Lad.

Psionic Lad is a kid from the future who shows up through a time portal in Smallville High. As far as I know, he's a completely new character. We only get a few pages of dialogue with him before the issue ends on a cliffhanger, so I'm not sure what his deal is yet. He seems like a pretty likable character, though, so I look forward to finding out more about him next month. I was also glad to see a new non-white face in the DCU. His real name is Sajan Mehra and he I'm guessing he is of Indian descent. I wonder how old he is, as he looks much younger and smaller than any of the high school kids.

A couple of criticisms about the script: First, I'm not sure how well the back and forth between "then" and "now" works in the issue. Lemire (or the editor?) probably decided to structure the story that way for pacing, as otherwise all the action and excitement would be stacked at the end of the book. Personally, I think I might have kept the first page as foreshadowing, but then told the rest of the story in chronological order leading up to the fight at the end. I don't know, maybe that says more about my own tastes than what's best for the story. I don't need to be "entertained" with a little bit of action in between each dialogue-driven scene in order to maintain my interest in a comic. 

Second, I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that only three issues into the series, two of Connor's classmates have already figured out his secret identity. It's already asking a lot of readers to stretch suspension of disbelief and ignore how obvious it is that Connor is Superboy. I mean, Superboy doesn't even wear a costume! I'm pretty sure that wearing a different T-shirt doesn't affect people's ability to recognize you. But, whatever, that's just part of the deal and readers have learned to accept it. The problem is that having two characters figure it out just draws attention to the implausibility of the conceit. Not to mention that having Connor change into his costume in plain view at the school just moments after bitching at Simon for not being discreet enough makes him seem like a bit of an ass.

These are two fairly minor points, though, easily ignored when the story is good enough, which it is.

The art in this series seems to be the biggest point of contention among fans. At least, that's the impression I get from the comments and reviews that I've read so far online. Personally, I like Pier Gallo's art. His layouts are neat and used to great effect in the service of the story. For example, at the end of the scene where Connor tells Simon they can't be friends at school if they're going to be seen together when he is Superboy, Gallo draws a huge panel of Simon taking this in, alone in the empty washroom. Since Lemire is a great artist himself with a very distinct style and a great sense of layout, I always find myself wondering how much of visual elements are present in the script and how much of it is left to Gallo to come up with.

My only real complaint with the art is that Gallo has a tendency to draw Connor/Superboy sort of on the chubby side. He often looks like he has a lot of baby fat, reminding me a bit of Brian Wilson. A more likely influence is of course Frank Quitely's All Star Superman (also coloured by Jamie Grant). But in ASS, this look worked because it added humour and pathos to the character, especially as Clark Kent. I'm not sure this gentle roundness works as well on Connor. It doesn't seem to match his personality as well, not to mention that he's supposed to be a hot young athletic teenager (see Phil Noto's gorgeous cover for comparison).

Speaking of the Jamie Grant's colouring, I noticed that everyone's teeth are yellow in this book! It was very noticeable on that first page of this issue, so I flipped through the rest of book and even looked at the first two issues, and it seems this is a consistent artistic choice throughout. Weird.

Quick Reviews: Superboy, Starborn, Northlanders, Hellblazer, Flash, Red Robin

Superboy #2

So apparently a lot of people don't like this art. I think it’s all right. The colouring’s really awesome, though. As for the story, I’m enjoying it also. I’m surprised that the purple mind-controlled frogs showed up so quickly, though. I thought Lemire was going to save those for later. Anyway, the point is, I think this is a good book and I really want people to give it a chance. Jeff Lemire is a brilliant storyteller and I’m fascinated by the way some visual motifs are already starting to find their way in the book, despite the fact that he’s not drawing it himself. I really wish I could read his script and find out how much direction he gives the artist. Those last few pages with the teaser for what’s coming up are creepy.

Starborn #1

I appear the be the only person I know who is reading these new Stan Lee books. It’s kind of astonishing. You’d think that a bunch of new characters by arguably the most important comic book creator of our generation would attract a bit more attention.

Anyway, the other two (Soldier Zero and The Traveler) both had interesting elements but didn’t really click with me. I think this is the best of the three so far. It certainly has the best art (by Khary Randolph, whom I’d never heard of before). Or, maybe not necessarily the best, but just the one that appeals to me the most, stylistically. The story is intriguing, based on interesting concepts, and not as confusing as the first issue of The Traveler was. Chris Roberson wrote the script and did a pretty good job. If I only end up following one of the three new series, this might be the one I decide to stick around with.

Northlanders #35

The first issue of a two-part story called “The Girl in the Ice” is beautifully drawn by Becky Cloonan. And Brian Wood is a really amazing writer. I need to check out more of his work. (I want to read DMZ, I think.) If super-hero comics are like big Hollywoood action blockbusters, then this series is like a really good European art film. Quiet, subtle, beautiful, restrained, a little stark. But not pretentious. I love it.

John Constantine: Hellblazer: City of Demons #5 (of 5)

Oh, my God. This issue, which is the last of the mini-series, has two climaxes. And while they’re both pretty good, it’s the first one that really blew my mind, with all its tentacular goodness. Constantine is such a badass! I absolutely loved this series. Writing and art both fantastic. Now I want to read more Hellblazer, but I’m almost afraid it’s not gonna be as good as this. Anyway, I hope somebody else out there read this. If you did, let me know what you thought of it.

The Flash #7

Okay, I usually don’t like it when books get fill-in artists, but when it’s Scott Kolins, I don’t mind! Francis Manapul’s art is so beautiful, I’d forgotten that Kolins’ was almost equally formidable. (I can’t believe I just used that word.)

I think the Rogues are incredibly silly, but I’m sort of learning to just accept that as part of their charm. This issue is all about Captain Boomerang, a character I actually don’t know that much about, so it was interesting to get his back story. And it looks like the next issue (coming out in just two weeks) is gonna be pretty good, too. Reverse Flash is kind of scary.

The only thing I didn’t really about this is the same thing I don’t really like about all the other Brightest Day books - i.e., the tie-in elements to Brightest Day. I just don’t care, and none of it really makes any sense to me. I wish this could just be a book about The Flash and his rogues and tell its own story instead of plugging that annoying crossover event that’s never going to end.

Red Robin #18

I was kind of avoiding this one, because I said this would be a rant-free evening and I knew this book was going to make me want to rant, but I read it anyway. And, really, I don’t have much to say about it, except that it nearly bored me to tears. I don’t even have anything to complain about anymore. I’m just bored by this story. And Tim Drake’s incessant internal monologue is annoying. I think I’m starting to dislike his character, which is a pretty good sign that I should stop reading this series before I completely forget what I used to love about him.

Sorry, Marcus To. I love your art and you’re an awesome dude and I wish you a lot of success. But I don’t think I’m going to be reading this book anymore. I guess I’m just not a fan of FabNic. I wish Chris Yost had never left.

Five images x2

by Scott Hampton, from Batman Masterpieces: Portrait of the Dark Knight and His World.

"Icons" by Marc Laming.

"Catwoman - Cat Got Your Keys" by Eric Goff.

Invincible vs. Power Girl, by Ryan Ottley.

Superboy and Krypto, by Jeff Lemire and Jose Villarubia.

"Lil' Matches" by lebzpel on Deviant Art. (This is Damian Wayne in his Halloween costume, based on Superman/Batman #77)

Atom (from Pluto) with a snail, by orb01 on Deviant Art.

Superboy sketch by Mike Wieringo.

Supergirl sketch by Yildiray Cinar.

Man-Thing by Art Adams.

Found on the following tumblrs: fuckyeahttk, spoonr, discowing, kandidkandor, fuckyeahcomicrelationships, korovamilk, awyeahcomics and yours truly.