Go to: Deep Dark Fears by Fran Krause (via Lauren Davis)
1/25/2014
1/24/2014
1/23/2014
Webcomic: Chief O'Brien at Work
Go to: City Cyclops, by Jon Adams (via Lauren Davis)
If you can teleport from anywhere on the ship, why even have a transporter room?
1/20/2014
Video: Every Major's Terrible
Go to: SFU Choir (via Robert Gonzalez)
Inspired by Randall Munroe's xkcd strip: Every Major's Terrible
"I'll just put you down for Liberal Arts." Ha ha! Actually, that hits a little too close to the mark. DAMMIT!
1/18/2014
More NonSense: Creation and Reproduction
Pádraig Ó Méalóid's interview with Alan Moore has unsurprisingly produced some backlash. Here's commentary by Marc Singer, Marc-Oliver Frisch.
Julia Wertz on how her alcoholism informed her autobiographical webcomic The Fart Party.
Orion Martin racebends the X-Men, and links to one of my posts.
Chris Sims weighs in on the controversial legacy of Stan Lee.
Bully takes a look at the fantastical technology drawn by Jack Kirby.
Dave Girard on the rise and fall of QuarkXPress. Will Adobe make the same mistakes with InDesign?
Joe Mullin remembers the history of the Sony Betamax on the 30th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Sony Corp. v. Universal Studios, which dramatically expanded the right to fair use.
1/13/2014
1/10/2014
2013 Comic Reviews
Index of all 2013 comic reviews:
Bikini Cowboy Vol. 1
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Vol. 5
Avatar The Last Airbender: The Search Parts 2 & 3
March: Book 1
Mind MGMT #8-12
Give My Regards to Black Jack Vol. 1-3
K-On! College
Avatar The Last Airbender: The Search Part 1
Julio's Day
Honey and Clover Vol. 10
Honey and Clover Vol. 9
Honey and Clover Vol. 8
Mara #2 and America's Got Powers #5
Mind MGMT #7
Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake #1
Superior Spider-Man #1
The Massive #7 and Mara #1
47 Ronin #1-2
Bikini Cowboy Vol. 1
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Vol. 5
Avatar The Last Airbender: The Search Parts 2 & 3
March: Book 1
Mind MGMT #8-12
Give My Regards to Black Jack Vol. 1-3
K-On! College
Avatar The Last Airbender: The Search Part 1
Julio's Day
Honey and Clover Vol. 10
Honey and Clover Vol. 9
Honey and Clover Vol. 8
Mara #2 and America's Got Powers #5
Mind MGMT #7
Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake #1
Superior Spider-Man #1
The Massive #7 and Mara #1
47 Ronin #1-2
Social Critique: What Kind of Princess Do I Want My Daughter to Be?
Go to: Slate, by Mike Dawson (via Heidi MacDonald)
1/08/2014
Blog: The Silmarillion Project
Go to: The Silmarillion Project by Aaron Diaz (via Lauren Davis)
While Tolkien made more than a few missteps regarding race and gender, the “everyone is white” trend in adaptations is a symptom of other people ignoring what’s in the texts. Additionally, all of Tolkien’s writings are presented as if they’re written from a limited and flawed historical perspective (LoTR and The Hobbit were “written” by Hobbits, etc). The position of my adaptation is to present what “actually” happened- the events upon which the flawed or biased history is based. Just like with real historians, the presence of women and people of color, and their achievements, are frequently ignored.
I’m never going to contradict what’s written, but I’m definitely going to use all of the tools at my disposal to emphasize the importance of those who don’t always get their rightful share of historical credit.
- Aaron Diaz
1/07/2014
1/05/2014
Bikini Cowboy
Originally released in webcomic form, what anyone needs to know about Bikini Cowboy is encapsulated within the title. It’s about a woman who wanders the wild west wearing a yellow string bikini, along with the requisite cowboy hat and boots, while carrying a surfboard. It wouldn’t surprise me if the whole comic was originally conceived around that image. The getup by itself isn’t all that remarkable, but the protagonist morphs into a truly baffling presence just by being placed in the American frontier of 1812, more than 130 years before the term “bikini” (which is mentioned in-story at one point) entered the popular lexicon. The comic has a lot of fun playing off the premise without actually bothering to explain anything. The reader just has to go with the flow.
Like the more established Jeff Smith and Ben Caldwell, creator Luke Weber draws in that classic big-eyed cartooning style often employed in Western animation and children’s book illustration. His individual character designs aren’t as idiosyncratic or as varied, but they all posses that graceful elasticity of form, movement and expression essential to the style. And like his more famous colleagues, he’s really good at transitions and wordless panels that track a person’s body language and other nonverbal cues. Much of the comic is devoted to this kind of filmic pacing and goes a long way to enliven this 377-page graphic novel. Atypically, Weber forgoes applying a more finished look by drawing everything with rough pencils which are then overlaid with gray washes. It imbues everything with grit and dirt. While I’m not sure if I wouldn’t have preferred to look at colour pages, the approach doesn’t clash with the setting’s arid environment. The book’s one glaring weakness is its numerous typos and misspellings accompanied by some slapdash lettering, something that might have been avoided with more judicious editing.
Weber’s art doesn’t objectify the titular character, “Whisky” Jill McKay, but exploits the shock value of her anachronistic appearance to hook the reader. She’s first shown as a shadowy figure emerging from the desert and walking into a frontier town. It’s only when Jill enters a saloon and sidles up to the bar that her bikini-clad fashion is revealed. As if to further confuse the reader, Jill then orders an energy drink from a completely befuddled bartender like that’s supposed to be a thing in 1812. The story really gets going when she rescues an orphan boy named Rod McCloud from his abusive guardians. And then things take an even odder turn when Jill claims to be a witch, while Rod admits to possessing psychic powers.
Nothing overtly supernatural happens, at least not until the end, but the narrative contains numerous magical realist elements. Jill’s bikini identifies her as belonging to a certain coven of eccentric witches. She takes Rod under her wing because she thinks he might be some kind of messiah, and somehow useful to her nebulous quest. An ominous cloud starts following the two wherever they go. Rod is bedevilled by terrifying dreams. There are constant Biblical references being cited, particularly from the Book of Revelations. But what primarily propels the plot forward are Jill’s attempts to stay ahead of a ruthless marshall hunting her down not just for numerous alleged crimes, but because he’s also an ex-clergyman who's seriously offended by Jill’s ultra-modern behaviour.
Towards the end, Bikini Cowboy elects to preserve the sense of the mysterious. Jill remains very much an enigmatic figure, and the issue of Rod’s strange abilities has been quietly set aside. The comic prefers to ground the story using the personal relationship between Jill and Rod. Neither are particularly complex characters on the surface. Jill has a lot of gumption while Rod is a cheeky kid. They start out as an awkward hero-sidekick pairing. But they have an easy and amusing camaraderie that comes from a place of developing affection and trust.
The story’s pacing also betrays its serialized web-based format. The book’s biggest fight actually occurs at the midway point, and the conclusion is kind of abrupt, which leads me to suspect that Bikini Cowboy was published after Weber decided he had enough material for a graphic novel. So while he has Jill McKay proverbially riding off into the sunset, there's just enough ambiguity to allow for her return in a sequel, if she proves popular enough.
Spirit on the Martian Plains
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| Frtom xkcd by Randall Munroe |
Go to: Universe Today, by Ken Kremer
... Jan. 3, marks the 10th anniversary since the safe landing of NASA’s renowned Spirit rover on the plains of Mars on Jan. 3, 2004....
Spirit survived three harsh Martian winters and only succumbed to the Antarctic-like temperatures when she unexpectedly became mired in an unseen sand trap driving beside an ancient volcanic feature named ‘Home Plate’ that prevented the solar arrays from generating life giving power to safeguard critical electronic and computer components. - Ken Kremer
12/31/2013
12/27/2013
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Vol. 5
At the end of Sailor Moon Vol. 4, most of the Sailor Senshi, including Sailor Moon herself, were kidnapped by the evil Black Moon clan and imprisoned on Planet Nemesis. The impulsive Chibi-Usa had a run-in with arch-villain Wiseman. Things were looking pretty dim for our heroes. The first half of Vol. 5 continues this downward spiral to global annihilation. Actually, it races to its climax with the manga's typical breakneck speed. And this usually means that things can get rather chaotic before they finally settle down.
Naoko Takeuchi is not the most thorough draftsperson, and that’s a disadvantage here because this story arc could have benefited from some more fully realized backgrounds. We go from 20th century Tokyo to the 30th century Crystal Palace, to the interior of Nemesis. But the figures never seem to walk through any kind of stable environment, which can be a little disorienting. Her incessantly rushed pacing also means that the story never gets much of a breather despite a lull in the action created when the senshi return to the 20th century to recuperate. But after what feels like one short conversation, they’re pulled back to the future for their showdown with Black Moon.
This is where the Sailor Moon's art dissolves into a series of highly abstract battle scenes filled with tremendous explosions of cosmic energy and glittery screentone. The panels are as pretty to look at as they are hard to follow. Amorphous energy-based attacks aren’t the easiest thing to illustrate convincingly, and clarity was never Takeuchi’s strong suit. Some physical weight is imparted to the encounters when Nemesis suddenly materialises out of nowhere and hurls giant shards of itself onto the Earths surface. Sailor Moon fights can be a lot like Dragonball fights in that the supporting characters end up becoming hapless witnesses while the hero singlehandedly takes on the Big Bad, the former only achieving victory through attaining a higher power level. In this case it’s Sailor Moon pitting her “Legendary Silver Crystal” against Wiseman’s “Malefic Black Crystal.” Caught between the unleashing of two near-infinite power sources, the senshi can do little more than get out of the way. But it isn’t just the senshi that suffer from a lack of strong character moments. Like the Dark Kingdom from the first arc, Black Moon is casually discarded by Wiseman when victory becomes imminent. Prince Demande has a smidgen more personality than Queen Beryl. At one point he even seems to question Wiseman’s orders. But when he descends into madness after comprehending Wiseman’s truly evil nature, he becomes virtually irredeemable. And it doesn’t exactly help that the members of the Black Moon clan are thematically and visually very similar with those of the Dark Kingdom.
What keeps the Black Moon arc (The “R” arc to followers of the animated version) from becoming a boring retread of the first arc is the complicating presence of Chibi-Usa. She started out as incredibly annoying, but the creepy Freudian subtext from the last volume is made obvious here when Wiseman suffuses Chibi-Usa with his dark energies, endowing her with a sexy adult body. Chibi-Usa looks like a fetishized version of her own mother Neo-Queen Serenity (Sailor Moon’s future adult form), and the first thing she does with her newfound powers and “Black Lady” appearance is to hypnotize, capture, and seduce her eventual father Tuxedo Mask. Eeek! Thanks to her cooperation, Wiseman comes close to destroying the Earth. If Sailor Moon is to have any hope of defeating him, she has to quickly reach out to this estranged daughter from the 30th century whom she barely knows, and who also happens to be almost nine hundred years older than her despite looking and acting like a bratty kid. That’s got to be perplexing!
Even then, the tide only turns after one of the good guys commits the ultimate act of self-sacrifice by violating a most sacred taboo. This arc mentions several laws forbidding the manipulation of time but never gets around to explaining how or why those laws have been put in place. It’s best to just go with it since bending or breaking them moves the plot forward, and that last one sets up a final clash between good and evil. This action-packed volume isn't about nuance or careful world-building, but about hitting as many emotional high points as possible.
Besides, what's a time-travel story if no one in it breaks any of the rules?
12/25/2013
12/24/2013
12/23/2013
12/19/2013
12/14/2013
Invictus
Go to: Zen Pencils by Gavin Aung Than (via Tom Spurgeon)
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.- Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)
12/11/2013
Sketchblog: Ben Caldwell
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| Die Todten Reiten schnell |
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| Finn & company |
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| Black Canary |
Go to: RTCMF by Ben Caldwell (via Mark Kardwell)
12/10/2013
12/07/2013
12/05/2013
Black Friday
Go to: Sairobee Tumblr (via Chris Arrant)
As one of the vast majority of humanity who doesn't celebrate this most perplexing of American holidays (Thank you Ruben Bolling), I admit that we are united by our burning hatred/acquiescent participation in the orgy of mind-numbing consumerism that runs the world. U.S.A! U.S.A! Now who wants to buy me a new iPad Air?
Mmmmmmm.... pie...
11/25/2013
Avatar The Last Airbender: The Search Part 2 & 3
Artist: Gurihiru
Letterer: Michael Heisler
Avatar: The Last Airbender created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko
In my review of The Search Part One I mentioned how Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko were so effective in drumming up interest in the fate of Zuko’s mother Ursa. Now that they’ve supplied a definitive answer to one of Avatar fandom’s most nagging questions, I’m less sure I needed an answer to begin with. Ursa was not a major onscreen presence within the actual series, and The Search confirms that the reason for her absence is because she chose for it to be that way.
What made such a minor character so interesting has a lot to do with the way women are portrayed within Avatar The Last Airbender. While ATLA is rightfully loved by fans for its youthful, proactive, female characters, the same can’t be said of their adult counterparts. Most of them are either absentee or passive mother figures lacking any real agency. The few who stand out are unattached and/or are villains (Hama). By contrast, the adult men are actively engaged father figures within the series, whether for good (Chief Hakoda, Iroh), bad (Fire Lord Ozai), or somewhere in between (The Mechanist).* This lopsided family dynamic seems to be temporarily subverted in the one episode were Ursa appears in flashback sequences. It’s not just her sudden disappearance that’s intriguing but the character herself. What kind of person would marry a young prince Ozai, raise two kids with him, and go so far as to help her husband usurp the throne? There was an element of moral ambiguity, personal complexity and perhaps even cunning and worldly ambition suggested by her brief appearance quite unlike that of the other women in the series.
The actual Ursa in The Search doesn't quite measure up because her backstory recycles so many soap opera tropes that she morphs into a tragic cypher: Star-crossed lovers, forced into a loveless arranged marriage, the long-suffering wife and mother. It’s fairly retrograde and the creative team of Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru studios mostly sticks to coloring between the lines. When the plot twist at the end of Part One is predictably revealed to be a red herring initiated by Ursa to fluster Ozai, it completely backfires and heaps more abuse on an innocent Zuko. This quickly crushes her one anaemic act of defiance and provides another unnecessary excuse for Ozai to mistreat his son. Ursa's difficult decision to aid Ozai and leave her children behind is meant to evoke sympathy, but the divine intervention that magically removes her from the narrative also keeps her from having to live with the consequences of her actions. So the twist also comes across as a contrived way to preserve the ATLA status quo.
Another recurring ATLA motif that plays a role in The Search is sibling relationships. This is seen in the affection demonstrated between Katara and Sokka contrasted with the fratricidal actions Azula directs toward Zuko. The book gets rather heavy-handed when it introduces a pair composed of an elderly woman who has spent most of her life searching for a way to reverse a debilitating curse affecting her older brother, the duo’s other member. That's one more self-sacrificing female archetype, just in in case Ursa alone wasn't enough. Such familial devotion is a given for Katara and Sokka while the lesson goes over the head of Azula, who proceeds to betray the pair at the first opportunity. Unlike Zuko, Azula was a unique character in ATLA for being unrepentantly evil, though her emotional isolation turns her into a lower-level Lady Macbeth towards the end. Azula then suffers from some villain decay in The Search. Her behaviour has turned so incredibly erratic (Gurihiru’s portrayal makes her suitably madcap) that she’s treated more as a nuisance than as a credible threat by the cast. Zuko has become so competent in neutralising Azula's deadliest weapon, her lightning bending, that the fight scenes between them, which should be the coolest part of the comic, have dropped off in intensity. That’s a bit unfortunate given that The Search reveals enough of Azula's background to show that she’s as much a victim of Ozai’s upbringing as Zuko was. Probably more in some ways given her position as favored child. The book doesn’t quite make that connection, missing out on turning Azula into a more nuanced character, though it does manage to bring out the cray-zee.
While I’ve dinged The Search for some of its storytelling choices and its old-fashioned gender roles, those choices do fit into the carefully constructed box designed by Bryan and Mike. Ursa may not be as potent a force as I've hoped for, but she is still one of a few flawed figures who have made morally dubious decisions that place her in a gray area between good and evil. And if the plan is for Azula to get a better handle on her fragile mental state, this could reposition her to claim the label of conflicted teenager formerly monopolised by Zuko. Comparing The Search to their work in The Promise, Gene and Gurihiru have become more efficient manipulating the numerous moving parts of the ATLA universe. This arc comes closer to duplicating an episode of the series, and this makes for a more manageable narrative. The cast is now limited to a few important characters, and the plot focuses on one problem at a time. Even its unresolved ending is structured to be a jumping-off point for future entries. Now that Ursa and Azula are both re-entering the game, the comic version of ATLA has become a tad less settled.
___
* This pattern still persists in The Legend of Korra despite this series being set seventy years after the events in ATLA.
11/20/2013
11/14/2013
11/12/2013
11/09/2013
March: Book One
One of the more unique tactics of the incipient Civil Rights Movement was the publication of the 1958 comic book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. Narrating the now historic actions of Rosa Parks and the subsequent boycott of the Montgomery bus service under the guidance of Martin Luther King Jr, its stated purpose was to spread the message of passive resistance and nonviolent action. The comic book would inspire a young John Lewis to become an activist himself. So it’s not surprising that he would call on the medium with the publication of his recent three-part autobiography March. The congressman has written before about his time as one of the Movement’s most important figures, but this is a story worth retelling. John Lewis is a true-life hero and an adherent of nonviolence. As in 1958, the choice of employing the graphic novel format to spread the same message seems calculated to reach a younger generation, especially those who may not be all too familiar with these events. If nothing else, it serves as a timely reminder that the battles of the Movement are only over half a century old.
March begins dramatically with the brutal 1965 showdown known as “Bloody Sunday” at Edmund Pettus Bridge. Just as the police are about to overpower John and his companions, the scene suddenly shifts to Washington DC on the morning of the 2009 Presidential inauguration. Much of Book One is about the Congressman recalling his life story from early childhood in rural Alabama to his successful efforts combating racial segregation at the lunch counters of Nashville. Most of the text is John’s first-hand account (assisted by co-author Andrew Aydin) of those events. Reading this book, I’m struck at how harrowing it must have been to be raised as a second-class citizen. But at no point is John beaten down by his circumstances. Nor does he ever express any self-doubt or self-pity. Rather, he questions the status quo at every turn: Whether protesting the inhumane treatment of the chickens at his parents’ farm, choosing to sneak out to school over his father’s demands that he work the fields during harvest season, or noticing the material disparity between institutions catering to “White” and “Colored". During a formative summer trip to Buffalo, New York, he’s exposed for the first time to black and white people living and working side-by-side. By the time John becomes aware of the work of King, he’s already primed to take on segregation as a personal cause. The overall impression taken from John's own testimony is that of a quiet young idealist possessing enormous reservoirs of determination.
The book initially tries to frame the autobiographical elements using an impromptu conversation between the congressman and an unexpected woman visitor accompanied by her two children. But this generates some clunky expository dialogue and the transitions between the different settings feel forced. This device is dropped at the hallway point, though John continues to tell his story to no one in particular. While he is credited as the primary author of March, much of the book’s effectiveness as an actual comic has to go to artist Nate Powell. Nate has to take John’s words, organise them, and translate them into visuals. This often results in text-heavy panels with long horizontal captions. The text itself becomes occasionally redundant when combined with the imagery. Thankfully, Nate has a solid grasp of page composition. The images never feel crowded, and judicious use of negative space and wordless panels helps improve the pace and balance the art.
Much of the visceral impact of March comes from the visuals themselves. Some, like Edmund Pettus Bridge or the Nashville sit-ins are already iconic. Nate doesn’t forget to do the same with some of John’s more personal moments: His panic at having possibly killed a baby chick, seeing the bright lights of Buffalo for the first time, or on first reading King’s philosophy of nonviolence. But for the most part, his meticulous black and white washes and slightly cartoonish figures give the whole book the feel of looking at musty archival photographs or viewing stills from old news footage. This use of BW imagery to capture the past feels appropriately nostalgic, that is until someone starts yelling out the word “nigger” and the ugliness of the era comes out.
Perhaps that’s because the past that March recalls isn’t actually so remote.
11/06/2013
11/02/2013
Toy: UM-1 Ultimetal Optimus Prime
Go to: Artstorm (via Caleb Goellner)
Just in time for the 30th anniversary of the Transformers early next year. I was raised on 80s animation, so this tickles my nostalgic fanboy yearnings. "You got the touch, you got the power!"
11/01/2013
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