From the January 8th edition of Warren Ellis’ Orbital Operations newsletter a frank assessment of a book that has been as fascinating to read as it has been difficult to publish.
I think he underestimates how dynamic his take on Karnak has been, taking a somewhat obscure and under used supporting character and distilling him into a troubled, deadly incarnation that other writers are already using with drooling delight.
The Flaw. In All Things.
Not a bad week, really. A good selection of pulp adventure, modern superhero and the odd bit of offbeat comedy.
Best of the Week – Batman # 14 by Tom King and Mitch Gerads.
Yes, it was super serious, a bit melodramatic and gushing a sort of noir romance that I don’t often go for but, jesus, was it beautiful. I haven’t followed up on my promise to sit down and get fully caught up on Sheriff of Babylon and this might be the inspiration to do so. Not so much Tom King’s script, I’m reading his run regularly but entirely absorbed by it to be honest, but the artwork here is completely beautiful. From the starry skied splash page to the haunting Batman silhouettes to the sublime curves of Catwoman rendered as well as anyone has done in recent memory. It’s simply gorgeous to look at.
I wonder if the story isn’t a deliberate reaction to the more blatantly exploitive love scene we saw in the New 52 between these characters. Is this Tom King showing us how it should be done, in a sensuously mature manner, rather than a raunchy grab for sensationalism that, let’s face it, was in no shortage in the New 52. If so, I applaud. If DC is saying it’s time to put that mess behind us and move on, I am utterly onboard and delighted.
Recommended this week:
U.S.Avengers # 1 – Albeit a somewhat by the numbers introductory team-book issue, I loved the message that was being sent – inclusion, an America undaunted my messages of hate, unified in it’s diversity and willing to fight for those freedoms and principles in the face of growing discrimination and fear. So very appropriate to our current times and I’m impressed that the folks at Marvel were willing to make such a bold, unsubtle statement. Good for them. Worth reading for that fact alone but also intriguing, well drawn, with new characters who show potential. Though, the one-hour Hulk does seem a bit annoying.
Flintstones # 7 – The book that continues to sit atop the monthly must read list. I was disappointed to see Steve Pugh missing but, wow, Rick Leonardi? Incredible fill in job from a name from the distant past who, frankly, I didn’t expect much from. I almost felt guilty at then end when I saw how well he had handled to art chores on the issue.
Moon Knight # 10 – No fucking clue what’s going on but, again, so gorgeous to look at. Some of the bast art in any monthly series on display in this book issue after issue.
Midnighter and Appollo # 4 – Time to admit, Steve Orlando’s Midnighter is the most delightfully deadly character in comics at the moment. Wolverine, Batman, all of them. Sit down and take ass-kicking lessons from this guy asap and stop boring the shit out of us. Yes, he head-butted a bullet through and enemy’s skull. This is what I’m talking about. Let’s go.
Crap of the Week:
Champions # 4 – I wanted to like this book. I like Mark Waid. I’m all for a young team book. I loved the original Champions (tenuous reason at best I know). But it’s awful. I cannot overstate how much I despise the lazy, absurd style Humberto Ramos has cultivated. But it’s more than that. What the fuck was this story even about? Entangled with random Atlanteans in the middle of the ocean, contrived drama and action with little point and no satisfying conclusion. Just lazy, hack comics. Sorry.
In no particular order:
Bracken – High Passes
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree
Christian Fitness – This Taco Is Not Correct
Piano Magic – Closure*
Carla Dal Forno – You Know What It’s Like
Box and the Twins – Everywhere I Go Is Silence
Frightened Rabbit – Painting of a Panic Attack
*official release in January, 2017 – received in December
Excited to add this one to my subscriptions. Features Ron Richards and Tom Merritt rewatching Twin Peaks from the start and leading towards the new shows appearing on Showtime in 2017. Ron has been part of two of my all time favorite podcasts, the weekly iFanboy show and the singularly most addictive show I’ve ever listened to Goodfellas Minute. Tom Merritt is a veteran podcaster as well and the show is smoothly done, full of insight and juicy tidbits, a far superior listen to those others of similar subject matter.
More here.
Meeting and listening to Warren Ellis last night at Brookline Booksmiths, interviewed in entertaining, spirited and humorous fashion by Joe Hill, was a singular delight. The man’s wit, both intellectual and comedic, is fierce and deadly, the perfect medicine for such troubled times as these.
On seeing the faces of Americans distressed by recent events, “You all look as if I offered each of you a shot of bleach, you’d ask for the bottle…”
That, a hundred other quotable one liners and some dangerous talk about Alan Moore’s dress sense made for a memorable, fascinating and hilarious evening.
Normal is “a locked door murder mystery set in an underground asylum for broken futurists” and comes highly, insidiously recommended.
On translucent seafoam blue/green vinyl. Delightful in a mellow, bliss out sense, in that it’s mostly instrumental recreations of songs you’d easily recognize from their catalog but recorded with such brilliant, relaxed dexterity that it’s just a joy to hear whilst sitting back and sipping something brown, casually letting it flow over you and drifting on the current.
Marvel’s “Civil War II”, currently being shoved down our throats by Marvel Comics, an unnecessary, tedious and painful exercise with little rationale other than an editorial decision to cash in on the popularity of the Captain America: Civil War film. It’s helping destroy an already fragile Marvel Comics Universe by disrupting and derailing otherwise decent and successful work across their entire comic line in recent months.
This is inarguable. It’s been, to use the term, a disaster. I feel bad for hard working creators forced to alter or abandon quality storylines they were working on (Dennis Hopeless in Spider-Woman, James Robinson in Scarlet Witch, the team on Captain Marvel or Power Man and Iron Fist, or Ultimates to name a few) to force their books into the senseless, idiotic continuity of Civil War II. It’s been disruptive, thematically inconsistent and entirely pointless. Brian Michael Bendis is the driving force but, in deference to his previous quality work as a writer, is hopefully not the absolute decision maker on this endless, tedious crossover event. Hopefully we can let him off the hook as a writer trying to do his best and put the blame on Editorial Decision.
Regardless, this along with the miasma that is the X-Universe, the incomprehensible slog of our forced examination of the Inhuman Universe, the stagnation of the Avengers books and this endless Captain America/Hydra nonsense…
Marvel Comics are stumbling, staggering, faltering. Under the weight of brutally poor editorial decisions and an unfocused managerial direction without any clear, cohesive notion of what has made Marvel Comics great in the past and could do so in the future.
More on this sore subject soon.
If there’s a better novel published in 2016, you tell me about it and we’ll meet with rapiers drawn and a gentlemen’s agreement to fight to the death at sunset the day after tomorrow on that high hill by the ancient city’s oldest graveyard.
Alastair Reynolds. “Revenger”
Best Novel of 2016. In any Genre. Period.
.
Paul Cornell is writing some Third Doctor adventures for Titan Comics. It’s actually quite well done. I tend to be leery and skeptical with most licensed books these days. A lot of absent minded hack work and pure rubbish being published with the hopes that the Title and the Name will sell it.
Not the case, here. Cornell has written a nice little tale that does justice to Pertwee’s time as The Doctor and given us satisfying tastes of Jo Grant, The Master and even my beloved favorite, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart himself. Excellent stuff, well worth a look.
These astonishing covers don’t hurt, that’s for sure.
Modern English at the Middle East Downstairs, Cambridge, MA. Recorded June 7th, 2016.
Performing the songs that Liz Fraser and This Mortal Coil helped immortalize. A dreamy trip back to the gloriously dark and innocent days of early 4AD.
My Mongrel Soul 