Category: comics

I just started reading Warren Ellis’ comic Transmetropolitan. I bought the whole series (60 issues plus a couple of specials) on Comixology a few years ago, when they had it on sale. I’ve been wanting to read it, but I kept putting it off. Starting into it seemed like a daunting task, given its reputation.

I’ve gotten through the first nine issues this weekend, and I’m really enjoying it. In some ways, it’s a bit dated, but in others it’s quite topical and relevant. The Guardian ran an article recently, in fact, on how relevant it is to the current presidential election here in the US. (And here’s another recent article, from Comics Alliance.)

I’ve also been reading Ellis’ current blog, at morning.computer (yeah, that’s a weird address, but it works). Lately, he’s been posting a lot of random stuff there, nothing earth-shattering, but often interesting or insightful. And he often links to good books and good ambient music. (Though I think some of the music links only get posted to his tumblr page.)

Spider Jerusalem is based somewhat loosely on Hunter S. Thompson. I’ve always liked his work too. I just read about how Thompson’s widow recently returned a stolen set of antlers to Ernest Hemingway’s family. Fun stuff.

Once in a while, I get nostalgic for the heyday of comics journalism, when magazines like The Comics Journal, Comics Interview, and Amazing Heroes were being published regularly. There’s not much left in the way of (print) comic book journalism, though TwoMorrows publishes some interesting stuff.

Some good interviews show up on the web now and then, though. For instance, I recently came across good interviews with Trevor Von Eeden and Christopher Priest. Von Eeden and Priest are both black, and they were both working in mainstream comics at a time when comics writers, artists, and editors were almost exclusively white men. So their perspective on the culture at Marvel and DC in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s is interesting.

I was a big fan of Von Eeden’s work at DC in the 80s, particularly Thriller and his Green Arrow mini-series. (In fact, I own a page of original art from that Green Arrow series.) At the time, I didn’t really know much about the creators working on the comics I read, so I didn’t even know that Von Eeden was black. I just knew he was good. And I really didn’t know what happened to him after he stopped working for DC. I just assumed that he (like many comics creators) moved into another field, like animation or commercial art or something.

I never read the original Black Lightning run by Tony Isabella and Von Eeden. I’ve followed Isabella for years (mostly via his writing for CBG and his blog), so I knew about Black Lightning from Isabella’s perspective. That whole situation seems to be a mess, and I don’t really have any particular opinion on it, but I’m curious about the series. I see that it’s now been reprinted in a trade paperback (see here and here for some info from Tony). So it’s great that there’s a collection out, and that Isabella and Von Eeden will both get some money out of it. (I should probably buy a copy.)

I’ve been aware of Christopher Priest’s work on and off, without ever really following him closely. I was aware of his name change from Jim Owsley to Christopher Priest, but had no idea why he’d changed his name. (And I guess I still don’t, though it doesn’t particularly bother me.) I knew that his work on Black Panther was popular and held in high regard, but I’ve never gotten around to reading it myself.

His observations on the Marvel bullpen in the 80s, under Jim Shooter, are interesting. Most of the stuff I’ve read about Shooter’s editorial tenure at Marvel is pretty negative, but Priest casts him in a different light. And his anecdote about being the first guy at Marvel with an answering machine and a PC, and how he paid for that PC, is entertaining. I guess he was ahead of his time on that (and/or Marvel was really behind the times).

So now I’m thinking about maybe picking up some of his Black Panther run. I need to be careful reading all these interviews, or I’m going to wind up with an empty wallet and a huge stack of trade paperbacks that I’m never going to have time to read!

Quite an interesting essay from J. Michael Straczynski, about why he won’t be doing any more comics work. This was interesting to me on several levels. I too have some vision problems which may get worse, though hopefully not to the level he experienced. And I too make my living by staring at computer screens and typing on a keyboard. So that’s a bit scary.

And his compulsion to shake things up whenever he gets too comfortable is admirable. That’s something I really don’t have, at least not to the extent that he has. If I get comfortable at something, or in some place, I usually just try to hang on. Though I do try to learn new things often, and my last job change was largely motivated by a desire to shake things up a bit. So I guess I’m not a total “stick in the mud.”

I’ll miss his comic book work. I enjoyed a lot of his stuff, including Rising Stars and Midnight Nation.

Then one day, that same voice, the voice that keeps challenging me and kicking over the apple cart and forcing me to start over, said “You’re done, move on, find something else to do, stretch yourself as a writer, take chances, risk failure.”

Source: Why J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI Is Leaving Comic Books, In His Own Words

I just finished reading Grant Morrison’s Action Comics run. (He wrote the first eighteen issues of the New 52 Action Comics relaunch, starting in 2011.) As with a lot of his work, it’s a bit overwhelming. There’s a good review of the run here, and an “exit interview” with Grant Morrison about his run here.

I really liked the Rags Morales art, especially in the early issues. The simple design of his costume (t-shirt, jeans, and work boots) works better than I thought it would. And Morales and Morrison made a conscious choice to reference the look of the earliest Superman stories from the 30s, in terms of the way the character moves and interacts with his environment.

The narrative goes a little crazy, fairly early. It almost seems like Morrison just had a short attention span or something. But pretty much everything ties together in the end. The “fifth dimensional” aspect of the story explains the time jumps and the seeming lack of connection between some of the stories.

This series makes a good counterpoint to his All-Star Superman series. That one featured a more mature Superman, influenced by the Silver Age Superman comics. This series is more about the Golden Age Superman.

If you wanted to pick up the series, it’s completely contained in the first three of these Action Comics trade paperbacks. It’s definitely not a story for everyone. You need to be able to appreciate Morrison’s oddball approach, and be OK with a somewhat non-linear narrative. And it helps to have a good sense of humor about some of the more ridiculous aspects of Superman’s history.

I just finished reading the last of the stack of Legion of Super-Heroes comics that I started reading a few weeks ago. The last issue I read was Legion 63, the final issue in Paul Levitz’s long run, and the final issue of the Baxter series. I really enjoyed reading these, though things got a little dicey near the end.

When Keith Giffen came back on the title, with issue 50, a lot of stuff about it started to change. The final storyline, The Magic Wars, was fun to read, but is obviously starting to set up stuff for the new “Five Years Later” post-Levitz series. So a lot of the charm of the earlier Levitz/LaRoque run was gone by then, with several characters departing or getting killed off, new uniforms, and other late 80s / early 90s stuff creeping in. I find Keith Giffen’s art to be interesting, but often frustrating, and likewise I’m also often frustrated with books that he’s plotted or co-written.

I really admire Paul Levitz’s long run on this book. He wrote the book for about ten years straight, pretty much all through the 80s. I don’t remember exactly when I started buying the Legion book, but it was fairly early in his run, just before the Great Darkness Saga started. So, a very good time for an impressionable teenage superhero and science fiction fan to start reading that book. Levitz was great at juggling the large cast of characters in the Legion, bringing different characters in and out of the spotlight, matching them up with each other in different and interesting ways, and just generally keeping the whole gigantic space opera of it running for so long.

I recently discovered a podcast about the Legion, that is currently talking about some of the books I’ve just finished with. It’s called the Legion of Substitute Podcasters. It’s pretty geeky and a bit rambling, but it’s fun to listen to, if you have the time and the interest. I’ve also found an episode of another podcast that talks about Levitz’s run. I haven’t listened to it yet, but I’ve got it bookmarked. It’s kind of cool that people are still talking about these books.

Well, that was a fun trip into some old comics nostalgia. I feel like I need to read something contemporary and/or high-brow next, though I’m not sure I’m ready for high-brow. So maybe just the first few issues of Civil War II or some of the DC Rebirth stuff that I’ve been picking up at the comic shop.