Go to: Vimeo, by Christoph Gelep (via Casey Chan)
4/27/2016
4/25/2016
More NonSense: Purple Rain
Heidi MacDonald and Rich Johnston on the sexual harassment allegations against Superman editor Eddie Berganza, brought up after the firing of longtime Vertigo editor Shelly Bond.
Prince, one of the great pop musical icons of the Eighties, died at his Minnesota estate, Paisley Park. He was 57.
Keith Knight offers a comic tribute to Prince’s “1999” album.
Prince as a comic book character by Dwayne McDuffie.
Star Wars and the martial arts in America.
4/17/2016
Star Wars: Poe Dameron #1 & C-3P0 #1
Story: Charles Soule, Chris Eliopoulos
Art: Phil Noto, Chris Eliopoulos
Colors: Jordie Bellaire
Letters: Joe Caramagna
Star Wars created by George Lucas.
(Spoiler Warning for Star Wars: The Force Awakens)
Depending on a fan’s perspective, one of the coolest or most annoying things about Star Wars: The Force Awakens is how much world-building was left to ancillary materials. There was a lot left unsaid about how the collapse of the Galactic Empire and the establishment of a New Republic led to a covert war being waged between the First Order and the Resistance. This was a stylistic choice aimed to recreate the in media res storytelling of the 1977 film. The audience is thrown into the middle of the action with little explanation. The big difference however is the massive publicity push that accompanied TFA, which included a neverending stream of media tie-ins from Disney and Marvel to answer every single question and explore every topic raised by the film.
One of the more intriguing characters of TFA, X-Wing pilot Poe Dameron, has already had some of his backstory revealed in novel form and in the comic Shattered Empire. Played on screen with tremendous charisma by Oscar Isaac, his limited interactions with the equally engaging John Boyega were enough to launch a thousand Finn/Poe shipper fanfics. Poe has quickly become the 2nd greatest X-Wing pilot of all time (Sorry folks, the top honor still belongs to the venerable Wedge Antilles). He’s certainly the sexiest X-Wing pilot around. So is it any surprise that he now has his own comic book series?
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| via Uproxx |
Plot-wise, the comic is set shortly before the events of TFA. Poe and Black Squadron have been assigned by General Leia Organa the mission of finding the enigmatic Lor San Tekka, the person played by Max Von Sydow seen at the beginning of the film handing the map to Luke Skywalker to Poe. Writer Charles Soule tells a simple adventure story that sticks closely to the contours of the TFA universe. There’s a bit of daredevil flying that hints at Poe’s later heroism on Starkiller Base, and Poe meets a strange cult who seem to be one possible source for the Force-based religion observed by Lor and the massacred villagers on Jakku. Future installments promise to delve deeper into this mystery. Fans who enjoyed TFA will be interested to follow this comic.
If that’s a little too boring and conventional, there’s alo a cute backup story about BB-8 playing matchmaker drawn in a more humorous vein by Chris Eliopoulos.
Story: James Robinson
Art: Tony Harris
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Did anyone care when C-3PO started brandishing a red left arm in TFA? It looked weird, but the only odd thing about it was the mismatched color. Otherwise, what’s so unusual when a droid has to have a body part replaced, especially an older droid? And The Phantom Menace did establish that Threepio would have been a very old droid who saw three generations come and go by the time Poe joined the Resistance. The rest of the cast didn’t seem to care, occupied at the time by the recent actions of the First Order. And Threepio is known to drone on about the smallest matters. But in this case, the droid hinted that the arm was more than just a run-of-the-mill replacement. It was kind of a big deal to Threepio and now the reader knows why.
The story in itself isn’t necessarily all that remarkable. Basically, Threepio loses the old arm during a dangerous mission which wipes out the human crew and strands a miscellaneous collection of Resistance droids and one First Order protocol droid named Omri on a hostile alien world. Threepio assumes leadership of the ragtag group and succeeds in completing the mission, but not before suffering heavy casualties and the loss of an arm. The red arm is a kind of personal tribute to those fallen comrades.
But James Robinson and Tony Harris color slightly outside the lines of the Star Wars cinematic universe. Harris draws in a dark, inky style that seems more suited to horror-fantasy than futuristic sci-fi, but this works to heighten Robinson’s tale of existential dread. The heart of the story is an ongoing conversation between Threepio and Omri. Despite being a captive enemy combatant, Omri isn’t really on anyone’s side. The droid questions the nature of droid programming, and the war between the two factions, which inevitably leads to uncomfortable questions about the concept of good and evil, not to mention free will.
Then there’s the usually glossed-over reality that droids in the Star Wars universe are often treated as second-class citizens. Omri notes that protocol droids are granted a level of self-awareness not accorded other models. But when the discussion gets around to the way people have no problem repeatably wiping a droid’s memory in order to reprogram them, the implications of this behavior are horrifying, not to mention inhumane. As older droids, both Threepio and Omri have already experienced several lives, only to have those experiences torn away from them by repeated memory wipes. This reframes every droid death that takes place in the comic as brutal, needless, and even heartbreakingly tragic in their sacrifice.
As unexpectedly poignant this happens to be for a Star Wars comic starring Threepio, it’s still a Star Wars comic. In the end, there’s no droid uprising in sight. And anyway, The final shot of Threepio in TFA has his golden arm restored. So there’s a slight disconnect between the comic and the film. Or did the droid have the arm repainted?
4/10/2016
Black Panther #1
Art: Brian Stelfreeze
Colors: Laura Martin
Letters: Joe Sabino
Design: Manny Mederos
Logo: Ryan Hughes
Variant Covers: Olivier Coipel, Felipe Smith, Alex Ross, Skottie Young, Sanford Greene, Ryan Sook
Black Panther created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby.
For a whole host of reasons, this latest Black Panther relaunch is one of the most hotly anticipated comic book series to come out of the current Marvel era. Ta-Nehisi Coates is the kind of respected literary figure that no one in their right mind would ever expect to write for hollowed-out corporate properties, let alone a superhero comic. Coates is a black writer widely known and lauded for his commentary about cultural, socio-economic and political issues, particularly those regarding the African-American community. His comics debut comes at a time when the medium is experiencing increased scrutiny for its representation of women, LGBTQ characters, and people of color, both on and of the page. This makes pairing Coates with African-American artist Brian Stelfreeze on a title starring Marvel’s most important black superhero particularly significant, especially given the comic’s release is timed ahead of the character’s cinematic debut in Captain America: Civil War. And then there’s Black Panther himself, a problematic blend of exotized Africanist elements that both idealizes and sidesteps the historic African experience. To say that people were curious to see how Coates would deal with the character is a bit of an understatement. The comic arrived with a lot of goodwill, and the reviews have been generally positive. I too want Coates to succeed. And I was left a little underwhelmed.
Obviously, high expectations could have played a part in my initial response. But let's first tackle the parts of the comic that worked. Coates has gone down the route of deconstructing the Black Panther character, who has been portrayed in the past as an astute political leader, fierce warrior, scientific genius, and crafty manipulator. In short, a superhero. In contrast, Coates T’Challa has lost his way. He’s recently returned to a Wakanda being torn apart by political strife after the death of its last ruler and Black Panther for a short time, his younger sister Shuri. His initial attempts to quell the restless population produce disastrous results. This only causes him to question his own leadership. While armed insurrection is imminent, even members of his elite bodyguard the Dora Milaje are poised to rebel against the government. Coates has created an intriguing setup with a diverse cast of characters to explore the bizarre trope of a technologically advanced society still governed by ancient tribal custom, and more particularly a caste of divinely ordained rulers. What happens when the people stop believing in them?
The drawback, as always, is that the reader still has to consider the wider Marvel Universe. Coates has revealed in interviews that he's a genuine Marvel comics fan. The result of that obsession is that the comic’s beginning is weighed down with the usual continuity porn. There’s the Infinity series to consider, a war with Atlantis during Avengers VS. X-Men, and the events leading up to Secret Wars. All of this is necessary to explain the chaos engulfing Wakanda and T’Challa’s precarious hold on power. But even the rest of the comic is bogged down by a lot of exposition-heavy narration that gets quickly tedious to have to read.
Which brings up Coates thoughtful, articulate, sharply observant, deliberately paced, writing style. Great for prose, but still trying to settle into a proper groove with comic books. If other readers found it powerful and expressive, I just found it ponderous. Coates has carefully assembled his cast to raise certain arguments and consider certain points of view. This does lend a bit of thematic depth to the story. Though it’s one thing when it turns T’Challa into a brooding hero, but does everyone else have to speak with the same gloomy cadence?
As for the other main contributor, Stelfreeze is as good an artist as any working in Marvel today, I’m curious to see how he’ll proceed in fleshing out the nation of Wakanda. But his monolithic style with its stiff heavy lines, strong chiaroscuro, figures held in rigid upright postures while wearing stoic facial expressions, tends to underline Coates own limitations as a comic book writer. In a story filled with so many serious looking talking heads, the brief action sequences don't land with the intended emotional impact.
This is still a good comic that promises to get better as Coates develops his ideas and improves his abilities as a scripter. It’s just a fairly conventional introduction for a superhero comic, and not as inventive or as fun as some of the other relaunches I’ve covered before.
4/03/2016
Zodiac Starforce
Art/Letters: Paulina Ganucheau
Covers: Marguerite Sauvage, Kevin Wada, Jacob Wyatt, Babs Tarr
Color Assists: Savanna Ganucheau, Kristen Acampora, Tabby Freeman
The four issue miniseries Zodiac Starforce is a love letter to the magical girl genre and more specifically to one of the most influential manga series on American fandom, Sailor Moon. And it answers the question as to what an Americanized take on the venerable shojo manga would look like. Would the core concept of a group of teenage girls attending high school by day, while battling the forces of evil as astrology-powered, sailor-suited, super soldiers at night, successfully translate when removed from the exotic locale of Tokyo, Japan? Creators Kevin Panetta and Paulina Ganucheau certainly think so, and the story they craft will definitely feel familiar to anyone who has read Sailor Moon or watched the anime adaptation. To everyone else, this is an adorable looking comic that might not quite stick the landing.
Naturally, the comic’s main draw is Ganucheau’s slick reimagining of the Sailor Moon aesthetic. The saccharine color scheme of her Zodiac Starforce costumes immediately recalls the designs of the iconic Sailor Senshi fuku, but replaces their fetishistic elements with more utilitarian fashions in order to hew closer to the sensibilities of the American audience. This informs the warm tones used throughout the comic. Another way that Ganucheau updates the manga's art is in how she foregoes the earlier work’s heavy reliance on black and white zip tones for digital color gradients, making every page mimic the glossier appearance of modern Western animation.
Ganucheau's most overt alteration calculated to appeal to Americans is adding a lot more diversity to the cast, which can also be seen as a reaction to women’s generally problematic portrayal within mainstream superhero comics. The Starforce members exhibit more varied body types, faces, hairstyles, fashions, and ethnic markers. And their respective costumes/powers/weapons are visually reflective of their own differing personalities.
Where the comic stumbles slightly is in the story’s pacing. Panetta avoids having to narrate an origin tale by setting the comic at a point in time when the Starforce members have already retired after having actively served for an unspecified period. But it still takes awhile to establish the cast and reassemble the team. This puts the story on a slow burn which doesn’t pick up until the latter half. Most of the cast falls into recognizable archetypes: the reluctant leader, the muscle, the hothead, the meet-cute couple, the mean girl. Compared to their visual portrayals, their personalities still feel a little undercooked, in part due to page count limitations. The same could be said of its generic scholastic setting, which doesn’t distinguish itself enough from other fictional school settings seen in countless teen stories. And despite the greater effort put into fashioning the team’s leader into a more complex, conflicted individual, she still ends up getting upstaged by the villain's backstory during the climactic showdown.
In short, this visually sumptuous comic is interesting mainly for its unrealized potential. While constructed as a self-contained story, it's also the setup to a much more substantial arc. But for now, it doesn’t quite transcend being a homage to its Japanese inspiration.
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