lonemagpie

16) FOUR DOCTORS by Paul Cornell, Neil Edwards, & Ivan Nunes.
This trade paperback collection of the five-issue mini is the first of the Titan Comics Nu Who lines that I've read. The Doctors mostly feel like themselves, Clara does too, but I'm unfamiliar with the other two (comics-only) companions. The story was fun, hit the right notes all through – and I like the Voords being basically the suits rather than the wearers (a bit like Venom in the Spiderman comics). The art was generally decent, especially the colours by Nunes, but I did find the actor likenesses by Edwards.... variable, with Capaldi tending to fare worst. (Though I also first thought Wilf was the War Doctor, and didn't recognise River at all...). The timelines made sense, and did indeed feel “the timiest-wimiest of all” in a Moffat-era way. There's at least one repeated gag which is amusing the first time, but feels like an editorial slip the second.
There's also a one-page backup strip for each issue, which do tie in with the main story at the end (Which is just as well as they were otherwise pointless, not playing to the writer's strangths), and which have surprisingly likeable cute art. There's a cover gallery for issues 2-5, but oddly not for #1.... Dunno why that isn't there.
So, yeah, a fun bit of Nu Who that hit the spot, and would have made a fine episode or two on TV. I shall certainly keep an eye out for other Titan DW collections.

by Stan Nicholls and Fangorn.

A nice graphic novel adaptation (from 1993) of Gemmell's first book – and it's so long since I read it when it first came out that I'd forgotten mine was a signed copy. It's a bit overly carried by narration captions, as comics go, but captures the essence of the book really well, and brings Druss to life nicely. Some of the descriptions are pulp gold, but the dialogue is good and it all works well.

The obviousness of the source material for the different factions is from the novel, so not the GN's responsibility, but I did nearly fall out of bed when I saw what was clearly Glamis Castle as the Temple of The Thirty....

Still, I was looking for a bit of nostalgic sword and sorcery action, and this did the trick as well as any actual Gemmell novel, with the great art being a wonderful bonus!

#11 – FASHION BEAST by Alan Moore & Facundo Percio
This is a comics version of an unmade script that Moore wrote from a story by Malcolm McLaren in 1985, basically their take on Beauty And The Beast. It's set in a city where the fashion houses rule the impoverished populace, there's a mysterious designer, a girl needing a job, a pair of Ugly Sisters of sorts.... I know bugger all about the fashion biz, but it definitely strikes a chord with the way people follow designer labels and the cult of celebrity. It's definitely good, and the art by Percio is great. I suspect that, if made as a movie in 1985, it would have been really, really shit, and if made as a movie now it would probably be pretty damn good (albeit condemned by Moore as propaganda of the evil Military/Entertainment Complex.) Definitely worth seeking out this graphic novel collection from Avatar Press (collecting the 10-issue series).

On Wednesday I pondered "how do you express hatred for one lot of psychos without thereby showing solidarity with the opposing lot of psychos?"

Of course the answer is:




So, yeah, I wanted something suitable to reflect the Charlie Hebdo attack, but also all the other shit in the world. So I wanted a point that had been drawn in comic form - and here’s my favourite.

The Fall Of Cthulhu: The Fugue, by Michael Nelson & JJ Dzialowski- Again, plenty of promise, but ultimately unsatisfying. I don't mind updating the Mythos to the modern day, but the characters (except for Mr Arkham) were unengaging, the domestics between the lead character and his girlfriend were just cliched, and the plot developments were very obvious, but the biggest problem was with the art. At first it looked like it'd be good, with subtle colour tones providing depth- but it turned out that wasn't the case, and the panels tended to be just muddy.

While it's true that the Mythos tends to drive its characters mad, I doubt the confusing jumps and odd discordancies between script and art (e.g. references to a face on a knife handle, which don't seem to be there in the art) were deliberate for that purpose.

So, showed, promise at first, but ultimately disappointing.

Belated due to a change of artist, this finally comes out this week.

I'm not sure if they reissued #1 as a lead in, but there'll be a trade edition after #4 comes out, no doubt.

Of the comics I wrote, this miniseries adaptation is the one I'm happiest and most proud of.

Iron Man: Extremis by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov is the best of the three Marvel collections I'd read over the last few days. It really is a great jumping on point and intro to Iron Man, which relaunches the character for the modern age (so well that its flashback origin for him is used as the basis for the first Iron Man movie's origin act.)

The art is lovely, and the story very grounded in the real world - in sometimes uncomfortable ways. It's also very much a solid self-contained story. All in all, a fantastic entry for us casual readers or newbies, and I'd like to think longtime fans love it too.

So, in this day and age when DC are douchebags who mess things up with New 52, and don't believe audiences could accept a female superhero movie, while Marvel have hit a stride that pleases fans and casual folks alike, it's sometimes hard to remember how one came to be more a DC fan and not like Marvel.

And then something like Spiderman: Birth of Venom reminds you of exactly why. Because, back in the 80s when you started getting into proper comics, DC were reinventing the medium with mature writing, and Marvel were producing tales where both the dialogue, the thought bubbles, and the descriptive captions were all repetitively telling you what you were supposed to be seeing in the inferior art.

Yeah, you can tell I just read this collection, right?

Mostly written by Tom DeFalco, I guess I have to blame him for the crap telling us what the panels should be showing us, and the repetition. It might be the Marvel house style of the time, really - though I have some Essential Wolverine and X Men books that don't do this - but even if it were, the last two chapters, by other writers, avoid it.

The penultimate chapter, by Louise Simonson, comes over a bit better, though still has some of that style, and doesn't have as awful dialogue and phrasing as DeFalco's issues.

The last chapter, Amazing Spiderman #300, is by David Micheline, and avoids that style entirely, reading as a decent regular comic. The art by Todd MacFarlane is a bit weird, mind you - MJ suddenly is a Victoria's Secret icon in every panel, and while the story emphasises that Eddie Brock is way more the bodybuilder type than the lean Peter Parker, MacFarlane draws Petey as hugely bulked up as well.

So, a big "meh" for this 80s Spidey collection.

Thankfully there have been great Marvel titles since- Ultimates, 1602, etc. Basically from the end of the 90s they seem to have got their shit together...

The cover for an upcoming book from Sequart Press - and, why, yes, I *have* written one of the chapters, actually…

Went through Conan: The Blood-Stained Crown And Other Stories, by Kurt Busiek and various artists, yesterday. It was good fun - the first story in the collection was actually pretty moving, all of them are good, and the art is very nice throughout.