21Six.net

There is, of course, a huge market of the comic industry I’ve been ignoring in this blog, and I apologize for that, however, I just haven’t really found the means to proper express some of the things that I enjoy about it. And that aspect is, of course, the webcomic industry. A lot of people might look to me and say to me “Well, you know, they are a kind of separate thing” or tell me in various terms that they feel webcomics aren’t “real” comics, because apparently a digital re-imagining of the newspaper strips everyone grew up with is something that is no longer relevant. But since I’ve just strawman’d myself, I think I should actually talk about what I’m going to talk about.

I love webcomics. I have a section in my Google Reader that has at least ten webcomics that I follow regularly, and I constantly look for more to read. I have no preference for what I read, so long as it keeps me interested. The idea of taking ones thoughts and putting them, no matter how irrelevant, or offensive, into a form is always intriguing to me, which is part of the reason why, prior to this being a blog, I had actually set this up to have many bad webcomics on here. In time I might repost them, in a separate section, as they were popular among my friends. But I think they’re rather unfunny, for the most part. Enough about me, let’s talk actual ones.

There are plenty of them out there, each with their own ideas, from xkcd and its general decision to veer away from being an intelligent, albeit sarcastic and sometimes interestingly viewed comic on math and romance and language (as it so claims to be) and generally just be a Geek Culture (whatever you consider that to be) comic, that focuses on very simple math and trying to garner more views and income from referencing obvious internet memes and things of that sort. I actually have every intention to, soon, write an article on them as I am doing with this comic. There’s also Questionable Content and Something Positive which feature a sometimes surreal viewpoint on the reality in which they live. It’s a moment in their lives, no matter how odd their lives happen to be.

There’s also Least I Could Do written by Ryan Sohmer, and has gone through a few different artists, and general visions, and is part of the reason I’m even talking about webcomics. LICD is one of those comics that didn’t immediately appeal to me. I’m not a fan of mindless sex jokes, or anything like that, and it wasn’t until the second artist, into the third, that I realized that it’s not a bad comic. It’s actually pretty interesting. The manipulation of Rayne Summer from just a whore into an extremely nerdy, satirical whore was was something that I enjoyed watching. Sohmer’s writing is something that I deeply enjoy, and that’s why I decided to follow, after seeing him mention it, Gutters a webcomic written by him, and drawn by basically everyone.

Gutters can easily be described as a sort of editorial comic of the Comic Book Industry© itself. The very first strip using LICD artist Lar Desouza to poke fun at the oddity of Steve Rogers and Bucky in a post Captain America: Reborn universe. From there, a number of other artists (from webcomic cartoonist Scott Kurtz to a number of other artists of both The Industry and other things such as Tommy Patterson) have taken the reigns and they’ve delivered quite a number of really interesting things to show. Sohmer enjoys what he does, you can tell. And that comes out amazingly.

Perhaps one of the more amusing, and more biting, strips in the obviously short (this strip only started about five weeks ago as of this writing) was one done as a dig at writer Garth Ennis, who I take some issue to at times, but still enjoy. What was surprising to me, once I read this strip (this one being the first I actually read of the the series) is how surprisingly accurate it was. Sohmer’s take on the sometimes cardboard-copy setup of his stories (I managed to successfully refer to his “Avatar Press” series Crossed as “An Ennis story” that was met with complete understanding. I’m vaguely depressed whenever a writer gets so pigeonholed, but I believe Ennis doesn’t entirely mind.) was something that made me think this is going to be a series that I certainly view as worth watching. Each subsequent post, and follow-up newspost about the story and artist, just really makes it worth reading. From the way he digs on Ennis, to the as-of-now current strip poking fun at Green Lantern and the two events of Blackest Night and Brightest Day.

If Sohmer didn’t love comics so much, this would come off less like playfulness and chiding and more like an angry nerd telling you why everything going on in comics nowadays is wrong, and the only way to fix it is to follow the steps that he has listed accordingly. Given the option between the two, I’ll take Kyle Rayner happily cheering “It’s here! The Brightest Day!” then it gets dark and he goes “Oh no! Blackest Night!” It’s playful, like his other work, and that’s something that really helps this. It’s definitely the kind of comic I don’t mind following, or even looking forward to, just because I know it’s gonna be something good, and the art is going to be great.

That’s the other part I need to mention, while I’m thinking of it. The art of this comic is great. Since there is a rotating selection, each comic is drawn differently, feels differently, and seems to express just what it wants to express in a different way. Lar’s Captain America is completely different from Kurtz’s DC Comics staff, who are all completely from the superheroes and everything else that is going on in these comics. You need to read this one if you’re a fan of comics, really. It’ll make you feel better, and then you can check out his other stuff, and realize that Sohmer seems like a pretty cool guy. Like a lot of people who work in Webcomics and it’s more than MegaMan sprites thrown on ComicGenesis or DrunkDunk templates.

In case you missed it, Gutters. Check it out.

This is one of those comics that, every time I try to figure out the words to start out how I’m going to talk about it, I get flustered, lose my place, and then realize the next issue is already out. It’s a fantastic story, and I worry that no matter what I do I can’t even begin to do it justice in the long-run of things. After all, this is a story about life, about death, the brief aspect of existence that takes place in between those two concepts. We’re just seeing a glimpse, a small moment in time, that shows the fragility of it all.

Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon are brilliant storytellers are artists, crafting for us something that I couldn’t have even imagined reading even a year ago, in terms of the nature of the story. This ten issue mini-series published by Vertigo isn’t the sort of story that tells you everything outright. Not entirely. We’re told a story, a simple story, but we’re told it in different ways, at different times. It’s all part of it.

The two of them, at the end of the first issue, decide to give us a bit of a rundown as to what they came up with whenever they started the idea of “Daytripper”

The first time were asked what DAYTRIPPER was, we simply said, “It’s about life.” To which we heard a blunt “That’s it?”– followed by mutual silence. “You’re gonna need a much better answer than that,” the other person concluded.

[…]

Have you ever realized how our lives can change at any given moment? How you noticed how we can plan ahead all we want, but we’re always surprised by the unexpected? And that, afterwards, we end up with a sum of moments, both good and bad, that really define who we are, what we want, and what we love? Well, such roller coasters of ordinary life happen every day, and that’s what DAYTRIPPER is about.

Cut to one year later, and here we are. Time to stop telling and start showing. Let us all now meet Brás de Oliva Domingos, wannabe writer, and follow him around as he tries to figure out his life. Let’s put ourselves in his shoes and see where they take us.

[…]

Read the rest…

So let’s get the really offensive stuff out of the way of this, before I actually bother giving my opinion on the movie. A little, 11-year-old girl, says the word “cunt”, is generally vulgar, and kills people almost with a sense of pleasure. If this concept bothers you on any level, despite the fact that it’s placed in a clearly fictional universe and she exhibits skills that 11 year old girls cannot naturally accrue in the short amount of time she’s supposed to be involved in her training, then you should not see this movie or even, really, continue reading this review because nothing good will come of it. Your opinion will not change based on what I’m saying and, as a comic book fan (and someone who read the mini series this is based on) my opinion may actually cause yours to worsen. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. The more I talk about it with people, the more critical I become of various aspects of it, but I still consider this one of the best adaptations of a mini series I’ve come across. It’s certainly better, in its transition than something like V for Vendetta although it’s not as good as Watchmen or The Dark Knight which isn’t actually based on a mini series.

If you’re curious about this movie, you should know that the previews are a little misleading. This is not, entirely, a fun happy action comic book movie that will make you feel good. For one thing, Mark Millar (who wrote the eight-issue series this is based on) does not write feel-good material. Looking at his past work, we have The Ultimates (1 and 2), Superman: Red Son, and a number of other books that generally leave you feeling bothered on some level. The Ultimate incarnation of Captain America, as presented by Millar, is an angry soldier who is the epitome of manly manhood, and that’s exactly what he wants it to be. Millar exists in a kind of universe where this violence is casual, almost, and it’s presented in a way that makes it enjoyable. The comics, as well as this movie (for the most part) don’t take themselves that seriously, and it’s something that seems to get lost in the observations and the reviews of materials from people not familiar. I understand I may come off as a little elitist, but I’ve been reading various reviews by people who are acting like a little girl swearing and killing people in an action movie is easily the worst thing to happen to modern media since Hitler. But it really isn’t. Comic books, as a whole, haven’t been for children since the 1970s, and it’s time people start remembering this fact.

But with all of that out, let’s talk about this movie.
Read the rest…

I’ve decided to stop talking about Ultimate Marvel and Batman long enough to bring you a few new bits of stuff for your reading pleasure. One of them comes to me from a little booth in Anime Boston 2010, a five-issue series called “Sky Pirates of Valendor” published by a Connecticut group going by the name of “Free Lunch Comics”. I purchased the trade paperback of this series, which was apparently published in 2009. It was also signed by one of the creators, who seemed genuinely to enjoy his stuff and seemed like a pretty nice guy. I flipped through it a little at the convention, unsure if I wanted to actually purchase it, but some of the splash pages and the general concept intrigued me enough to give a chance, despite being a collection of things I typically disregard.

So, the book itself is something like a steampunk pirate adventure/fantasy story with various anthropomorphic animals. If you were to tell me that alone, I wouldn’t consider this book. Generally speaking, these aren’t the sorts of books I look at, mostly because I tend not to like anthropomorphic animals. Talking animals by themselves are fine, or talking animals that are animals are also fine. However, I’ve never really enjoyed seeing what amounts to buff dudes with fox faces and tails. It’s part of why I never play the Argonian or the Khajit in The Elder Scrolls games, the races, being animal with human builds, make it slightly more difficult to directly relate than an elf or some other archetype of fantasy stories. There were a lot of anthropomorphic animal things in Anime Boston, now that I think about it.

I’m also not particularly fond of Steampunk, just because it’s become trendy, and a lot of people don’t tend to do it right. Pirates are okay.

Clearly this is not the sort of book I should like, but what I found rather interesting was that I kept reading. The story, while not immediately engaging, was something that I felt like I should keep reading. I wasn’t swept up in the battles and things of that sort, but I was still curious, and interested in the characters that existed. They seemed fleshed out, though still hovering close to just being the typical characters that might exist in a story of this level (or just general pirate-fantasy stories). But I read the book, and after I finished it I found myself surprised that I was wanting more of these people. I wanted to know more of their past, and I wanted to know the future. I, simply, wanted to know what was going to happen next. And, best I can tell, I’m not actually going to get to know that.
Read the rest…

With “Ultimate Comics” now in full swing– new books are being added, and some have finished– I think it’s time for all of us to look back on the things that have happened in this series of comics, and see how it compares to its legacy, Ultimate Marvel. Granted, I’m still a little annoyed by the events of Ultimatum, and Ultimates 3. You may not be. You may have enjoyed the things that happened, and the upcoming books. Or you may hate it. The point here is that there are some interesting new stories– some– that I’m going to take a bit of time to talk about the ones I’ve bothered to read and my thoughts on them. If you happen to disagree with them, well, I have a comments section.

“Ultimate Comics” as I mentioned in my discussion of Ultimatum some 300 years ago, starts about six months or so after the events of that mini-series. Things have changed, we don’t entirely know why, and some things are starting to be uncovered in a way that makes it understanding. Sometimes we don’t really understand.

I’m going to talk about these in a few paragraphs, because they’re all very early books, so I can’t really talk about them at length.
Read the rest…

[Images and quotes taken from Marvel.com]

Okay, so, I haven’t really been keeping up with Marvel comics. I’ve been busy trying to read the Civil War, while they’re already three events ahead of me: Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, and the newest one called “Siege.” From what I can gather, Dark Reign has been about Norman Osborne fucking shit up, and Siege is about further shit being fucked up. If you’ll excuse the incredible crude, and base, description of it all. At some point during this, Tony Stark fell victim to something, and has been out of commission. Which seems kind of odd, but they always have plans for this.

So, to celebrate Tony coming back from the brink of whatever, they’ve decided to give him some new armor, which looks roughly like this

That’s not a particularly bad design. One of the designers, who happens to be involved with both the upcoming Thor and Iron Man movies, Matt Fraction, had this to say:

“The inspiration for the new design came from thinking about a sleeker, leaner, tougher Iron Man,” revealed Fraction. “If technology is increasingly getting smaller and lighter it seems like the Iron Man should do the same: ergonomic and aerodynamic. We were looking for something that felt as sleek and glossy as a sports car Tony Stark would covet. I love what we’ve come up with. It feels like the next evolutionary step in the Iron Man’s design.”

Which is a good idea, really, and shows that they aren’t complete idiots whenever it comes to character determination for things like this– costumes and so forth– it’s an interesting design, I’ll say that much. However, I’m not entirely sure how to react to it as a whole. I feel like the drawing itself that’s been given to people isn’t entire complete in its idea. There’s something about it that’s missing. While it may be true that technology, as it advances, compresses so to speak (look at the evolution of the television from the large rotary ones to the fact that you may very well be reading this on a phone about the size of your hand and thinner than a checkbook) there is still the issue of the armor. Of course, given the fact that Marvel exists in a universe where a fictional, indestructible metal called “Adamantium” exists, this isn’t really an issue so much as it is an inconvenience and an excuse for people to complain. Some of these lights look a little superfluous, but this is comic books and superfluousness is something that exists in large heaping masses.

Of course, there is still Ultimate Comics: Iron Man: Armor Wars and the, what I believe was called “iMan” if you want absurdly streamlined technology for your comic books.

For now, I’ll support the costume change, though I think Ultimate Iron Man probably has the best Iron Man suit.

Perhaps out of some sense of masochism, I’ve decided to keep following this series. It wasn’t something I intended to do, not immediately. I was curious, but also rather annoyed by the series. Especially considering just how poorly thought out a lot of it was, by comparison to some of the other things in the universe. I am a fan, on the whole of the 1602 universe, however there are quickly becoming more and more issues within the continuity of it all that are difficult to both grasp, and figure out they could be made. It’s almost as though people simply aren’t keeping the original idea of it all. In New World the prequel to this book and the follow-up to the original, we’re greeted with a new instance that is something not entirely the same book, but attempts to keep the spirit alive. People involved are strictly Silver Age and so forth. I didn’t agree with some of the changes to the characters, or the inclusions of various characters (such as Tony Stark as “Lord Irons”, a kind of Steampunk’d man in a big metal suit charged by lightening). However, they made an attempt.

I am fairly certain, from reading #3, that the person involved with this storyline has never actually read Marvel 1602, and has no idea what he’s doing. I mean that with respect, of course. I say this because Henri Le Pym, the Hank Pym analogue for this story who works for “Baron Octavius” the obvious Doc Ock analogue (who seems to have tentacles, or at least his hands bear suction cups similar in nature to an octopus) has a man in his captivity named “McCoy” who looks not unlike some kind of feral, beast like animal. McCoy describes himself as one of the greatest minds of the era, and a number of other things. However, there’s an issue here.

There was already a Beast analogue– Hal McCoy of the Witchbreeds led by Carlos Javier– and this man was not any kind of philosopher or anything of the sort. He was also Beast without any kind of major mutations. Simply the original form. This new McCoy lacks the large hands and feet and stature, and instead just looks like a rather hairy individual. So, either we’re to believe that Hal was kidnapped and believes himself to be something else entirely, or this is an instance of someone wanting to bring in a character, and couldn’t find some way to shoehorn the guy in there. It’s disappointing, really, that the person couldn’t be bothered to remember that McCoy already existed, and wanted to bring in Wasp, Ant Man and a bunch of other people who weren’t entirely Spider-Man oriented.

They’ve also brought in the Watsons– here “Watsonnes”– with Marion Jane as an actress. I understand that sometimes names need to be changed for the sake of the literature, however, “Marion”? The name “Mary” existed then, and if anything, why not call her “Miriam” or something like that? Are we channeling Maid Marion here? And furthermore, why bring in any kind of analogue to Mary Jane, but not bring in Gwen Stacey? Who was, really, a much more significant character in Parker’s life. Unless Virginia Dare, in this instance, was taking her place.

Perhaps the only thing worth looking at in this comic is the use of Kingpin and Bullseye. Specifically, these two are now pirates– The King’s Pin (I am not entirely sure what that means. I would have simply used his real name.), and Bull’s Eye– and they are probably the best translated to the new universe. Specifically Bullseye. This new incarnation is a tattooed pirate, with a white bullseye on his forehead. He keeps his knife throwings and everything, and seems to be rather focused on killing Peter Parker. Which is interesting, because he’s a Daredevil villain and Murdoch doesn’t exist in this book (though he could easily fit).

I don’t know what’s going on with this story to be perfectly honest. I’ve tried, several times, to read through these first three issues in an attempt to make sure I follow it, and I can’t. It’s just not good. There’s too many things that don’t fit the universe, and too many instances of the writer simply leading me to believe that he doesn’t care about the story. I won’t keep reading this so don’t expect anything more detailed than this in the future.

It’s just disappointing that 1602 has been reduced to this. It was rather promising.

The Justice League of America is one of the top organizations in the DC Universe. It’s contained members such as Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern as well as minor people that you may not care about. Each incarnation of the team has always had strengths and weaknesses that tend to be exacerbated by a particular author, and sometimes these work out for everyone for the best. Other times, it may not be so nice. This current run, is one of those instances where it’s not so nice.

I’ve been following the Justice League since I first got into comics in 2005. The first JLA books I read were “Year One” and the “Tower of Babel” arc from the actual series “JLA”. It was a piece of art, to say the least. The wonders that Batman had come up with in an effort to take down his teammates, and the fallout in “Divided We Fall” were all wonderful to read and I was completely engrossed with every incredibly epic (used here in the sense of “dealing with this on an epic scale” not in the sense of “EPIC WIN!”) page and story. I followed it up until the Crisis of Conscience, and the Infinite Crisis connections. The last issues of the book were disappointing to say the least, and the not the kind of thing that even really FELT like the Justice League.
Read the rest…

Good afternoon, readers of 21six (all… three or four of you). I am Mr. Black, the drug-addled and possibly homicidal excuse for a music blogger and the newest member of the 21six Team (it’s like Team Rocket, only without the Meowth). My time here is mostly going to be spent on album reviews, but I’ll probably make posts on a bunch of other mostly-music-related subjects…

…but all in good time. Let’s get down to business, shall we?

THE RESISTANCE
The first album up for review is the newest offering from Teignmouth, UK’s number one collection of prog/gloom rockers Muse. The long-awaited follow-up to 2006′s iconic Black Holes & Revelations, Muse’s The Resistance has arrived to a storm of hype, a viral internet game, a tour with U2, and a gnashing of teeth by those nice people at Pitchfork waiting desperately to chew Matthew Bellamy to pieces. But aside from all of that, how does The Resistance stack up as an album? Well.

The short answer is stupid, overblown and pretentious and most importantly, stupid. But if you’re a fanboy, you probably want the long answer.
Read the rest…

A few years ago, Neil Gaiman got together with the people in Marvel, and retold the Silver Age that Lee, Kirby, and Ditko turned into the immortal mythology that is modern comic books. What made Neil’s incarnation special was that this wasn’t a modernization of the story, that’s what the Ultimate Universe was for. Instead, this was a historical retelling of the universe.

To use the Marvel phrase “What if the heroes all first came about in 1602?” And it was a marvelous little piece of work, if you were into it. I loved seeing just how everyone had been manipulated, forced into a situation that was wholly unnatural, even for Marvel. Nick Fury as military man under Queen Elizabeth, and so on. It was a fantastic little thing that made the universe seem very real.

As it’s been known to happen, following Neil’s work, a number of spin-offs came about. One of which was like “1602: New World” and the other was “1602: Fantastick Four”. Each of them introduced a few new characters such as Namor, and Iron Man (though the 1602 incarnation of Iron Man seemed significantly more implausible than his mainstream counterpart, simply because of Marvel’s tendency to develop absurdly advanced science even in the 1960s.) as well as others that I’ve likely forgotten because the stories themselves were wholly forgettable.

However, this year, someone apparently decided to revive the franchise of 1602 by creating a Spider-Man mini series in the universe. So, the first issue is out, and I’m curious as to if it’s got any promise in this issue. I have my doubts, but it’s mostly because New World and Fantastick Four were, essentially cash-in books (I mean that as nicely as that kind of thing can be said).

And, truth be told, with the first issue down, so far that’s really all it feels like. There seems to be something lost in the transition between the writers. The writers of New World and Fantastick Four lacked the kind of whimsy that made Gaiman’s 1602 so appealing. Everything now seems to be a cross between attempting to shoehorn in various people from the Marvel universe, sometimes in unsavory ways, while other instances just seem to not make sense.

The biggest issue I’ve found so far is with costumes. Parker wears basically his regular clothes and a Spider-Man mask. There’s no attempt to make it even appear to be fitting into the era, it’s simply the same Spider-Man mask that he always wears. The covers to the comics give the impression that he has an outfit that vaguely resembles the Spider-Man costume were it placed in 1602, but he doesn’t wear that.

Ultimately, I feel like this comic is gearing up to be a disappointment. 1602 is really awkward kind of setting, since if you don’t do it right, you’re going to end up annoying everyone because you just have established something in an already decent continuity, but it’s somewhere so far removed from the original vision that you might as well make something else entirely.

However, a few of the interesting things established in this are the introduction of who I believe to be Doctor Octopus, as well as The Wasp. The Wasp being a victim of an experiment gone wrong, and in a jar. I’m curious enough about these characters, and if Spider-Man actually gets a new costume, to keep reading this series. Once it’s finished I’ll give a full write up, but at the moment it’s not something I’m really looking forward to finishing.