Thursday, March 28, 2013

Meanwhile, at Robot 6...

Today at Robot 6, I have a piece about Dark Horse's recent Neon Genesis Evangelion: Comic Tribute book, which is...not for everyone, to put it lightly, but I really like the idea of it, and I really liked seeing different artists draw such familiar character. For example, check out all those Rei Ayanamis above.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Review: Hawkgirl: The Maw

It was so odd, so unusual and so brief that it seems a little like a dream: Did DC Comics really have Walter Simonson writing and Howard Chaykin drawing a Hawkgirl monthly series? The answer is, of course, yes; but only briefly.

It began in May of 2006, during a one-month, line-wide gimmick/promotion that, in retrospect, looks like one of several earlier attempts at a reboot that current co-publisher Dan DiDio had made on the road to fall of 2011's "New 52" reboot. This one was dubbed "One Year Later," and the idea was that after the multiverse-shaking events of Infinite Crisis, all of DC's books would jump one year ahead in time, giving creators an opportunity to do something fresh and new (and not dependent on the fallout of the just-completed crossover storyline) and readers the opportunity to jump on to any book in the line without worrying about joining a story already in progress.

For the most part, this meant new creative teams, new costumes, new team line-ups, new status quos, and so on. The Hawkman monthly received one of the most dramatic overhauls: It's title would be changed to Hawkgirl (although the numbering would start with #50, the month after Hawkman #49), it would now star Hawkgirl, the aforementioned creative team of Simonson and Chaykin would take over for the departing Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti and Chris Batista, and as Hawkman's exact whereabouts would be a mystery; he was simply MIA after the events of Infinite Crisis).I read the first issue, maybe first two issues, and then abandoned it.
I remembered liking it okay, but I was trying a lot of DC comics that month, and it didn't strike me as one of the better ones. But given the rather quick cancellation of the latest Hawkman title, the New 52's The Savage Hawkman, which lasted only 20 issues, I thought I might revisit the series in trade paperback, given that it was almost as successful as the last Hawkman series, despite not starring Hawkman an not having the unprecedented PR push that The New 52 received (Hawkgirl lasted 17 issues).

What is immediately apparent about Hawkgirl, what differentiates it from Hawkman comics before and after, and from most of what one could find on the stands in terms of super-comics in 2006 was, of course, the presence of Chaykin's artwork. His big, expressive, cartoony faces, his blocky figures often half-frozen in hulking, Kirby-like poses, his obvious delight in rendering textures to the point of rarely letting a scene go by without including black lace in it somewhere...Hawkgirl had it's own, distinct visual look and hook.
Chaykin also drew his title character with clearly visible, apparently hard nipples straining against the fabric of whatever top she was wearing almost constantly, which seems like it must have been been pretty daring in DC's pre-rating system, 2006 line—hell, it's rare one see the outline of a nipple or the shapely bulge of a superhero's crotch through a costume in the T+ or M-rated books of 2012 or '13, this despite the fact that so many panels of so many comics seem composed around a female character's mostly-exposed, clothed only in spandex or silk breasts (I'm thinking specifically of New Guardians, at the moment).

Chaykin draws Hawkgirl Kendra Saunders as a cheesecakey heroine, and it works. Simonson's narrative is as pulpy as any involving the Hawks I can recall—she battles cultists, mummies and Lovecraftian space-gods, she explores hidden temples and shares panels with Egyptian deities. She sleeps in tiny, black lace nightgowns...
...takes showers...
...sometimes has her top torn off in battle...
...and wears a uniform so form-fitting it reveals her nipples. The sexual nature of Chaykin's artwork compliments rather than conflicts with Simonson's scripts.

One could argue if that's the best direction to go in with Hawkgirl, who as a star of Justice League Unlimited was, like Green Lantern John Stewart, a better known hero than the one she was technically a derivation from, and also a potential gateway hero for young would-be DC readers, but it's not a wrong direction, either and, unlike, say, Ed Benes' run on Justice League of America around the same time, he wasn't violating the spirit of the script with cheesecake.

That script finds Kendra Saunders working at the Stonechat Museum in St. Roch, Louisiana (which is to New Orleans as Gotham City once was to New York City), which she protects by night as Hawkgirl. In both identities, she has dealings with handsome men, like a museum co-worker (the son of the institution's director) and a police detective.
Some particularly brutal killings are afflicting the city, committed by a huge warrior woman covered in ritual tattoos and wearing only brass breast petals and whatever the crotch equivalent, something weird is going on in the basement of the museum and Kendra's not getting much sleep, which makes it difficult to determine what's real and what's not.

Meanwhile, Hawkman is still lost in space somewhere, and she's torn between holding a candle for him—something that makes her uncomfortable, because they were lover's in past lives, which he remembers more clearly than she does—and the attention of that handsome detective.

The immortal bad guy who is always hounding the Hawks is hanging around, and there's a e thingee in the basement that wants to devour her.

It's pure, unambitous genre stuff, but it's successful, and it all looks really great. Without Chaykin, this could easily prove tedious—as later volumes, collecting issues from after Chaykin's short run, will demonstrate—but for this volume at least, Hawkgirl is effective pulp heroine as old school superhero. Good writing, good art, good comic.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Among his many other achievements, Superman also apparently discovered the word "blog."

The above panel, drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger, first appeared in 1959's Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #9, and was reprinted in Showcase Presents: Superman Family Vol. 3.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Some picture books of note:

































































Saturday, March 23, 2013


The six-page house ad for Andy Diggle and Tony S. Daniel's upcoming "era" of Action Comics that ran in many of DC's books this week is three-tenths the length of Diggle's one-issue run on the book, and one-tenth the length of Daniel's three-issue run on it.

Friday, March 22, 2013

I call bull@#$%.



The Friends come up with a plan to stop him though.


How was Superman resisting...?





Thursday, March 21, 2013


Today at Robot 6 I have a review of Kodoja: Terror Mountain Showdown #1, a really rather good self-published comic about a giant monster.

Elsewhere on the Internet, I wrote about Capstone's hardcover reprints of DC's Super Friends comics for Good Comics For Kids and I offered a few suggestions in GC4K's list of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Vol. 1 readalikes.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Comic shop comics: March 13-20

Daredevil #24 (Marvel Entertainment) I don't generally like meeting comics creators in person, for the same reason I don't like meeting anyone in person—I don't really like...oh, what's the word...people? Yeah, people. I don't like 'em.

I'd kinda like to meet Chris Samnee, though, just so I could give him a nice firm handshake and say, "Good job on Daredevil, Chris Samnee. That's some damn fine comic book drawing." Like, as soon as I finished reading this issue, I wanted to just set it down, stand up and shake Chris Samnee's hand.

There's a fine cover image (although the logo and the red strip at the bottom kind of clutter it up), a wonderful sequence with Hank Pym changing size while working in his lab and talking on his cell phone, another one where Matt Murdock shows off his leaping-about facility on a gym's rock climbing wall and the regular masterful illustrations of people, like, having conversations or fighting rabid, mutated dogs and what not.

Damn fine comic book drawing...

Saga #11 (Image Comics) The good news is that Lying Cat does not die, so thank God for that. Someone else does die though, and props to Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples for making me care enough about this cast of characters, even the relatively new additions to it, that I actually worried about the fate of Lying Cat and felt kind of bummed when the character who died dies.

This issue opens with a NSFEDILW sex scene, which demonstrates the evolutionary purpose of Marko's people's horns (In a word? Handles.)

It was kind of weird—a good kind of weird—reading an issue of this on the same Wednesday evening as an issue of Star Wars.

Saucer Country #13 (DC Comics) That last-page cliffhanger? I did not see that coming, nor could I have ever imagined that was a possibility for a cliffhanger. So bravo to writer Paul Cornell for that. (Say, can people with jowls use the term "cray-cray"...?)

Star Wars #3 (Dark Horse Comics) There's some heavy flirting between Luke and a female X-Wing pilot in this issue, which kinda messes with my life-long understanding that these characters are all a bunch of virgins, and Leia seems jealous of the girl making time with her brother who is totally in love with her. I know they don't know it yet, but we know it and, Shakespearean or not, it can be a bit icky.

I've been reading the old Marvel Star Wars comics that are set between the movies in the first trilogy, the same time period these comics are set in, and it's striking how the Marvel comics pretty much drop any romantic sub-plotting, with Leia, Luke and Han all thinking of one another as friends, and only once in a while getting kind of confused about their feelings. If writer Brian Wood is playing up the conflict, well, that's an interesting choice.

Another thing I thought too much about while reading this issue is Chewbacca's laser crossbow. What's the bow part of it for, really? I'm sure there's a Wikipedia article on it somewhere. Basically it's just a laser blaster in the shape of a crossbow though, right?

Wonder Woman #18 (DC) Wonder Woman and the Olympians are still fighting over that goddam baby, as they have been for the last year and a half. In this issue, it's War vs. Harvest, Poseidon vs. The First Born and Wonder Woman vs. Hermes, with a an assist from Orion, who explains why he slapped her ass in that issue (it was apparently to get DNA from her...? Which doesn't sound right, unless there was a pretty invasive groping attached to that ass-slap).

The comic remains a pretty good one, but it does feel like I read the same issue once a month. Maybe it reads better in trade?

The Cliff Chiang and Tony Akins art relay team takes on new hands with this issue, with Chiang drawing three pages, Akins and Dan Green seven pages and Goran Sudzuka drawing ten pages. Remarkably, it all holds together pretty well and I think it's worth noting that even with this obviously rather fucked-up and parceled-out method of making a monthly comic book, Wonder Woman is still head and shoulders above the vast bulk of the New 52 books in terms of visual quality.

I laughed when I turned the last page to find a five-page house ad for the "new creative team coming this April!" to Action Comics: Andy Diggle, Tony S. Daniel, Matt Banning and Tomeu Morey. That new creative team apparently lasts exactly one issue, before writer Andy Diggle's run ends (due to creative differences) and artist Daniel becomes a last-minute replacement, serving as the new writer/artist for Action Comics as he's done on various Batman comics in the past (His first Batman comic as writer and artist was Battle for the Cowl, which Judd Winick was writing for a while until the editors decided they wanted it to go in a different direction, and Daniels stepped up to fill-in).

Between the time I first heard that Andy Diggle's run on Action Comics was ending a month after it began this afternoon and the time I saw that five-page advertisement later this same afternoon, it also came out that Joshua Fialkov was off of the two Green Lantern books he was announced as the new writer for...before his run even started.

It's weird that DC is a comics publisher whose behind-the-scenes personnel decisions are infinitely more exciting to read about then the comic books featuring superheroes and supervillains they publish are, isn't it?

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Review: Stormwatch Vol. 1: The Dark Side















Oh, and Sepulveda's Jenny Quantam?
She's a hobbit.




Martian Manhunter, I don't even know where to start with him.


