Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Don't make wishes; make memories.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
GLEEVOMIT! JOYGASM! YAYSNEEZE!
NO ONE TOLD ME THERE WAS A NEW COMIC SERIES OUT, OR THAT IT HAD BEEN OUT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION TO BE RELEASED.
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is a reboot of the original series, and I have to say, it is ace. The origins of the turtles and Splinter has knit together several antagonists from various, shall we call them, parallel universes that the many many licensed franchises the turtles have evolved in over the years. A good blend of both the original Mirage comic and the 80s cartoon, even featuring "General Krang". Curious to see if Krang remains a gooby brain (I never did like the story arc given to the gooby brain Krang/Shredder character in the new TMNT cartoon series). Art work by Dan Duncan is gorgeous, once again blending the multitude of styles in which the turtles have been depicted in the past. A good balance for the kids new to turtledom, and the kids grew up but never let it go.
NEED NEXT COLLECTION. NOW.
(Funnily enough, I was only this week missing my TMNT comics and DVDs. We all have our comfort stories. Thank you, universe. Don't think I don't appreciate it.)
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Red Star & Ponderin' Pimpin'
One of the perils of blogging about ‘stuff wot I like’ is that, occasionally, the person who made the ‘stuff wot I like’ sees said blog and responds to it. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a mildly unsettling thing. There’s a mental block involved; I, consumer, over here. Them, creator, way way way over there. And very rarely shall they meet. Except the intrawebz makes that distance non-existent, and google is the Great Eye That Sees All.
In this instance, someone over at Archangel Studios happened across this post, which resulted in Christian Gossett saying thanks, sending me a bunch of pages from the upcoming #3 of Sword of Lies (insert OMGWAAAH!!!!!! here), and giving me permission to post them here, should I wish to.
I ummed and aahed over this. I’m not a PR machine, and this isn’t a PR blog. I don’t generally like to buy into hype, I prefer to go hyper after I’ve devoured a product and have decided that it is indeed worth going hyper about. That lack of distance between consumer and creator, and the way in which intrawebz makes tapping a stranger on the shoulder an easy and effortless thing, I’m not sure these are comfortable things. For better or worse, I put the creators of ‘stuff wot I like’ on pedestals. Being tapped on the shoulder out of the blue by one is not so different from Cthulhu tapping me on the shoulder.
Except I’m less likely to go all breathless fangirl and more likely to run screaming from Cthulhu.
Not that I’m comparing any of you fine creator types with giant angry butt-ugly walking squids.
Not that I’m dissing Cthulhu either, you know, never a finer giant angry butt-ugly walking squid.
That said, this is a blog of ‘stuff wot I like’, and hot damn, these pictures are mighty fine.
Is that not just totally hot fucking sex right there? I’m guessing that last one is a flashback, which hopefully means more of Imbohl’s story unfolding. Fingers crossed this issue has something less than a one year waiting period, ‘cause my impatience level just went through the roof. Augh. I had plans for tonight, you know, I was going to put my insomnia to good use. Yet, premonition has struck me! I see the future! Tonight will be spent reading all my Red Star books! Shitfuck. OH WHAT A TORTUROUS ARDUOUS LIFE.
In this instance, someone over at Archangel Studios happened across this post, which resulted in Christian Gossett saying thanks, sending me a bunch of pages from the upcoming #3 of Sword of Lies (insert OMGWAAAH!!!!!! here), and giving me permission to post them here, should I wish to.
I ummed and aahed over this. I’m not a PR machine, and this isn’t a PR blog. I don’t generally like to buy into hype, I prefer to go hyper after I’ve devoured a product and have decided that it is indeed worth going hyper about. That lack of distance between consumer and creator, and the way in which intrawebz makes tapping a stranger on the shoulder an easy and effortless thing, I’m not sure these are comfortable things. For better or worse, I put the creators of ‘stuff wot I like’ on pedestals. Being tapped on the shoulder out of the blue by one is not so different from Cthulhu tapping me on the shoulder.
Except I’m less likely to go all breathless fangirl and more likely to run screaming from Cthulhu.
Not that I’m comparing any of you fine creator types with giant angry butt-ugly walking squids.
Not that I’m dissing Cthulhu either, you know, never a finer giant angry butt-ugly walking squid.
That said, this is a blog of ‘stuff wot I like’, and hot damn, these pictures are mighty fine.
Is that not just totally hot fucking sex right there? I’m guessing that last one is a flashback, which hopefully means more of Imbohl’s story unfolding. Fingers crossed this issue has something less than a one year waiting period, ‘cause my impatience level just went through the roof. Augh. I had plans for tonight, you know, I was going to put my insomnia to good use. Yet, premonition has struck me! I see the future! Tonight will be spent reading all my Red Star books! Shitfuck. OH WHAT A TORTUROUS ARDUOUS LIFE.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened – Jason Rodriguez (ed)
I first bumped into this while poking around for a birthday present. It had a pretty grumpy looking elephant on the front cover, and who can’t not pick up a book with a grumpy elephant glaring at them? The premise sounded interesting, so I bought it, wrapped it, and sent it away.
Later, the shop had restocked the book, and I still liked the elephant, so I bought it myself. (No, I did not read the birthday present. Shame on you for thinking so!)
(Kinda wanted to know if I’d given someone a lame gift, too.)
(You know, just in case.)
(My honour was at stake.)
(And there was an elephant on the cover.)
It is a collection of shorts by various and sundry, each one based on a single postcard, each postcard found and bought for pittance in an antique store. As the subtitle says, none of these stories ever happened, but pieces of them are true.
It’s a very mixed bag. Some of the stories are weak, or too simple to stand out next to their more textured neighbours, but then they themselves possess beautifully striking art. ‘A Joyous Eastertide’ by Phillip Heaster and ‘Tic-Tac-Bang-Bang’ by Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos were particularly gorgeous.
Quite a few made me sniffle, as loss is a prevalent theme throughout the collection. Not surprising I suppose; sending mail is an act of reaching out to someone far away. Their company isn’t to be had. Two stories stood out, my favourite two, the best of the lot, dealt with different forms of grief. ‘Homesick’ by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Micah Farritor is based from a postcard written by an American in France, during the Great Depression. It is a sharp, crisp, miserable little story, containing nothing but sparse and precise dialogue between Marjorie, homesick and adrift in a foreign land, and “François” so eager to leave his troubles behind he would change into someone else. The art is gorgeous, and possibly my favourite of the lot.
‘Best Side Out’ by Antony Johnston and Noel Tuazon is-
-hopeless-
-hopeful.
Hopelessly hopeful? Hopefully hopeless? Stunningly awful? Awfully amazing? Brilliant? Horrible? All those. A little piece of genius. The postcard, the true postcard written by a real person, is the voice of someone tired, so tired, with all the fight gone out of them. The story takes that voice, and makes it rebellion all of its own. Just reading it again, now, had made my throat go tight. (You’re right, Lydia, I don’t understand, but then again, I do.) It only takes one story to make a book worth buying, and for me, this was that story.
It’s an addictive idea. The stories never end. It will always be a mixed bag, and no one will have the same stories call out to them, and that’s why I want to see more. The postcards are real. Maybe forgotten, but real. They meant something to someone, once. We’ll never know what, or who. These stories recognise that once-held importance, in pencil smudged with handling and handwriting with the curls and joints of another era.
I’d like to see more, many more, postcard books.
Verdict: How can you not love the idea? But methinks, with this lot, you’ll have to decide for yourselves.
I first bumped into this while poking around for a birthday present. It had a pretty grumpy looking elephant on the front cover, and who can’t not pick up a book with a grumpy elephant glaring at them? The premise sounded interesting, so I bought it, wrapped it, and sent it away.
Later, the shop had restocked the book, and I still liked the elephant, so I bought it myself. (No, I did not read the birthday present. Shame on you for thinking so!)
(Kinda wanted to know if I’d given someone a lame gift, too.)
(You know, just in case.)
(My honour was at stake.)
(And there was an elephant on the cover.)
It is a collection of shorts by various and sundry, each one based on a single postcard, each postcard found and bought for pittance in an antique store. As the subtitle says, none of these stories ever happened, but pieces of them are true.
It’s a very mixed bag. Some of the stories are weak, or too simple to stand out next to their more textured neighbours, but then they themselves possess beautifully striking art. ‘A Joyous Eastertide’ by Phillip Heaster and ‘Tic-Tac-Bang-Bang’ by Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos were particularly gorgeous.
Quite a few made me sniffle, as loss is a prevalent theme throughout the collection. Not surprising I suppose; sending mail is an act of reaching out to someone far away. Their company isn’t to be had. Two stories stood out, my favourite two, the best of the lot, dealt with different forms of grief. ‘Homesick’ by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Micah Farritor is based from a postcard written by an American in France, during the Great Depression. It is a sharp, crisp, miserable little story, containing nothing but sparse and precise dialogue between Marjorie, homesick and adrift in a foreign land, and “François” so eager to leave his troubles behind he would change into someone else. The art is gorgeous, and possibly my favourite of the lot.
‘Best Side Out’ by Antony Johnston and Noel Tuazon is-
-hopeless-
-hopeful.
Hopelessly hopeful? Hopefully hopeless? Stunningly awful? Awfully amazing? Brilliant? Horrible? All those. A little piece of genius. The postcard, the true postcard written by a real person, is the voice of someone tired, so tired, with all the fight gone out of them. The story takes that voice, and makes it rebellion all of its own. Just reading it again, now, had made my throat go tight. (You’re right, Lydia, I don’t understand, but then again, I do.) It only takes one story to make a book worth buying, and for me, this was that story.
It’s an addictive idea. The stories never end. It will always be a mixed bag, and no one will have the same stories call out to them, and that’s why I want to see more. The postcards are real. Maybe forgotten, but real. They meant something to someone, once. We’ll never know what, or who. These stories recognise that once-held importance, in pencil smudged with handling and handwriting with the curls and joints of another era.
I’d like to see more, many more, postcard books.
Verdict: How can you not love the idea? But methinks, with this lot, you’ll have to decide for yourselves.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Alice In Sunderland - Bryan Talbot
I finished reading this before I went to Japan. Yah. Back in August. I’m a bad bad person.
Normally I don’t write up the comics I read, simply because I go through that many, that quickly, I’d end up writing about nothing else. Alice In Sunderland is an exception to that, as it followed prose reading patterns.
You’ll notice that it’s a fucking enormous book. Wrist-snapping, ribcage-cracking enormous. I have coffee table books that are less dangerous to pick up. Thus, it was only read in bed, or at the dinner table – anywhere that I didn’t have to support it.
It’s also dense. It’s a the singularity of graphic novels. Every page is a riot of colour, text and information thick and fast. This isn’t a comic you can rip through in an afternoon, toss back on the shelf and move on. It demands your attention and concentration, as the rabbit/pilgrim/Talbot takes you on a grand tumble through history, legend and the little lives of Sunderland.
While this exegesis, of sorts, is framed as being an exploration of the origins of Carroll’s Alice, I was more interested in reading it as a general history of a very small area. Under Talbot’s brush and research, Sunderland becomes an incredible town saturated in fascinating tales and details and a long history. It is tempting to, when the rabbit/pilgrim/Talbot reveals something new on every page, believe that Sunderland is the source of the whole damn world, let alone Alice.
Do you remember that chapter in From Hell, in which Gull has his poor, poor driver take him about town on a seemingly rambling tour of the various temples and buildings and religious sites? The information is a giant plate of spaghetti, and you work your way through it, enjoying the jumble and trusting that at the end, all will be revealed.
Alice In Sunderland is 318 pages of information spaghetti. It’s lush and rich and overwhelming, and a fabulous ride. However, the final climax didn’t satisfy me.
The weight of all the preceding pages rather outweighs that.
Verdict: Huge! Lush! Overwhelmingly decadently colourfully fantastic! Would make a great blunt weapon!
I finished reading this before I went to Japan. Yah. Back in August. I’m a bad bad person.
Normally I don’t write up the comics I read, simply because I go through that many, that quickly, I’d end up writing about nothing else. Alice In Sunderland is an exception to that, as it followed prose reading patterns.
You’ll notice that it’s a fucking enormous book. Wrist-snapping, ribcage-cracking enormous. I have coffee table books that are less dangerous to pick up. Thus, it was only read in bed, or at the dinner table – anywhere that I didn’t have to support it.
It’s also dense. It’s a the singularity of graphic novels. Every page is a riot of colour, text and information thick and fast. This isn’t a comic you can rip through in an afternoon, toss back on the shelf and move on. It demands your attention and concentration, as the rabbit/pilgrim/Talbot takes you on a grand tumble through history, legend and the little lives of Sunderland.
While this exegesis, of sorts, is framed as being an exploration of the origins of Carroll’s Alice, I was more interested in reading it as a general history of a very small area. Under Talbot’s brush and research, Sunderland becomes an incredible town saturated in fascinating tales and details and a long history. It is tempting to, when the rabbit/pilgrim/Talbot reveals something new on every page, believe that Sunderland is the source of the whole damn world, let alone Alice.
Do you remember that chapter in From Hell, in which Gull has his poor, poor driver take him about town on a seemingly rambling tour of the various temples and buildings and religious sites? The information is a giant plate of spaghetti, and you work your way through it, enjoying the jumble and trusting that at the end, all will be revealed.
Alice In Sunderland is 318 pages of information spaghetti. It’s lush and rich and overwhelming, and a fabulous ride. However, the final climax didn’t satisfy me.
The weight of all the preceding pages rather outweighs that.
Verdict: Huge! Lush! Overwhelmingly decadently colourfully fantastic! Would make a great blunt weapon!
Saturday, November 03, 2007
here's to another year getting accustomed here
Around the age of 10, I realised I would never get to go to the moon.
It was one of those 'oh,' moments full of heart-break, not unlike being dumped, not that I had any idea what it felt like to be dumped when I was 10, but I did have a crush on this boy, who in turn had a crush on my best friend, which is probably a better analogy, because the moon is all about unrequitedness.
It still upsets me, because I'm the broody type.
At least once a week I paw through the gallery at The Deep, looking at the same photos over and over. I love these beasties, I really do. Knowing that they exist gives me that giddy delight that causes me to grin for no obvious reason.
But this act of looking at the photos is really a creepy stalker thing, because I know they're another moon, and I have even less chance of seeing these little fellas in the deep ocean than I do of playing leap-frog on the lunar surface, and looking at these photos is like timing yourself to stand on that certain street corner at a certain time hoping to catch a glimpse of someone who doesn't know you exist, which isn't healthy behaviour at all, but you carry on doing so anyway, and you never see them.
The world needs more ghostly octopuseseses.
Disclaimer: Nightshift, okay? I absolve all responsibility for any peculiar character traits I may be exhibiting. If you mock me, I will cry at you. It will be snotty. Nightshift does that, you know. I cry at the thought of being faced by dinner. Dinner, I can't handle dinner, why would you ask dinner of me? I CAN'T DO THIS.
You have no idea.
Have a not-so-peculiar chaser;
Around 2am I discovered kawaii not, a little webcomic of cute every day items being unsavoury. The following strip made me cackle.
Actually, the whole archive made me cackle. The poor banana dipped in chocolate.
Around the age of 10, I realised I would never get to go to the moon.
It was one of those 'oh,' moments full of heart-break, not unlike being dumped, not that I had any idea what it felt like to be dumped when I was 10, but I did have a crush on this boy, who in turn had a crush on my best friend, which is probably a better analogy, because the moon is all about unrequitedness.
It still upsets me, because I'm the broody type.
At least once a week I paw through the gallery at The Deep, looking at the same photos over and over. I love these beasties, I really do. Knowing that they exist gives me that giddy delight that causes me to grin for no obvious reason.
But this act of looking at the photos is really a creepy stalker thing, because I know they're another moon, and I have even less chance of seeing these little fellas in the deep ocean than I do of playing leap-frog on the lunar surface, and looking at these photos is like timing yourself to stand on that certain street corner at a certain time hoping to catch a glimpse of someone who doesn't know you exist, which isn't healthy behaviour at all, but you carry on doing so anyway, and you never see them.
The world needs more ghostly octopuseseses.
Disclaimer: Nightshift, okay? I absolve all responsibility for any peculiar character traits I may be exhibiting. If you mock me, I will cry at you. It will be snotty. Nightshift does that, you know. I cry at the thought of being faced by dinner. Dinner, I can't handle dinner, why would you ask dinner of me? I CAN'T DO THIS.
You have no idea.
Have a not-so-peculiar chaser;
Around 2am I discovered kawaii not, a little webcomic of cute every day items being unsavoury. The following strip made me cackle.
Actually, the whole archive made me cackle. The poor banana dipped in chocolate.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Is that issue #2 of Sword of Lies, the latest installment of The Red Star? Why, I believe it is!
When did issue #1 come out? Oh, October last year.
This comic series, it tests my patience. I vow, each time I remember to check up on it and discover that NO the next issue isn't out yet, to forget about it, and just buy the collected book when it comes out. Which, at this pace, will be when I'm wrinkled and shriveled and too blind to read it.
But I'm weak, and when I saw this on the shelf, I snatched up and clutched it, yes preciouses, it is ours now, preciouses.
The Red Star is a retro-futuristic industry-punk story about ghost possees and pseudo-Soviet Russian states tearing themselves apart in a revolution full of enormous clunky machines and cyber-sorcery. I've said before that it is a body of work that isn't derivative, but will be derived from, and I still stand by that.
The last few issues, however, haven't been great. The plot has been bogged down by action. The artwork for said action is amazing, but enough already! Get on with the siege of soul cages and sky furnaces and end of the world!
Sword of Lies #2 leaves all that behind. That was great. The balance has been restored between art, action and story, and I popped out the last page feeling satisfied and excited, as opposed to incredibly fucking frustrated.
It also has the potential to stand alone, so anyone of you who have considered sticking your nose in this series, Sword of Lies #2 is a good litmus test.
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