People look for answers, or escape, wherever they can. And, no surprise, the problem of suffering and vengeance has been tackled by literature and the arts since antiquity. Jump back to the Biblical Job who loses everything and tries to make sense of it in a fierce philosophical debate that culminates in a confrontation with God. Aeneas, in Virgil’s Aeneid, ruthlessly shreds his enemy to pieces in vengeance for his friend’s death (the violence of the language in the final chapter still haunts me thousands of years later). In the Chinese epic, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Emperor Liu Bei nearly loses his empire trying to gain revenge for his brother, Guan Yu. The Count of Monte Cristo is probably the most satisfying of the bunch with an elegance that puts it pat in the cliché of a Hollywood formula, though it’s still a damn good read. 100 Bullets drips a uniquely ‘America solution’ through its canvas of 13 graphic novels.

The link

Thanks Chris and htmlgiant!

Okay, so why the heck am I bothering writing about some comics that came out 2-4 months ago? Because A) They’re really good, and B) You can probably still find them in comics shops. I’ll do my best to make this worth your while, because the 3-issue Flashpoint: Project Superman is well worth reading!

There is absolutely nothing phallic about this cover.

So before the New 52, there was this big DC event called Flashpoint. I didn’t care for the first issue of the main miniseries, so I didn’t bother reading the rest. All we need to know is that this is a reimagining of the big players in the DC Universe. It’s a pretty convoluted, “Elseworlds”-style alternate timeline, but whatever: the typical DC bogged-down event continuity barely touches Project Superman, and that makes it that much stronger as a standalone story.

Most of the story is an extended flashback, taking place over a 30-year period in which the U.S. military performs crazy science experiments on human test subjects to make them into patriotic supermen. The main character isn’t even the Flashpoint version of Superman; it’s his predecessor, referred to as Subject Zero. He becomes increasingly powerful, then increasingly frustrated with his isolation from – and lack of – humanity. By the time “Kal” shows up from Krypton, Subject Zero is planning his escape – and things get decidedly crazy (and gory) from there.

The main reason I originally bought this series was for Gene Ha‘s always-stunning artwork. Ha’s finely detailed work is a welcome antidote to the unnecessarily scratchy art styles used by too many superhero artists, and his facial expressions and body language convey just the right moments for the story’s broken and scarred characters. The story by Scott Snyder and Lowell Francis sets the characters at a somewhat removed and detached point, much like how the main superhumans are viewed by their imprisoners.

For just pennies a day, you can help feed a starving alien.

Flashpoint: Project Superman is a small story, focusing on just a handful of characters within a much bigger (and unimportant) storyline, but it works on its own just fine. It reminds me of Alan Moore‘s climactic moments of Miracleman, with the main super-characters battling over one’s selfish cruelty and the other’s selfishness, and of Warren Ellis’s Supergod, in which too-powerful superhumans are depicted as weapons of mass destruction gone out of control. Project Superman doesn’t quite reach those lofty heights, but it succeeds in finding a new and interesting take on Superman that’s actually published by DC Comics. I don’t know what other Flashpoint miniseries it will be teamed with for the upcoming $18 collection of 9-10 comics, but it’s worth the $9.00 on its own (and I don’t say that often; I’m a cheap bastard).

P.S. I did read a couple of other Flashpoint miniseries: Batman: Knight of Vengeance was pretty solid, showing Bruce Wayne’s parents in a very different light. Eduardo Risso‘s artwork, clearly influenced by Frank Miller’s style (if not his layouts or storytelling), gets a workout doing an older Batman very much like the grim one seen in Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Brian Azzarello’s story starts out slow, but builds quickly to what becomes the Flashpoint Batman’s ultimate battle. Azzarello makes the most of what few pages he has to detail the key dramatic moments in this Batman’s final adventure (other than the boring team-up in the main Flashpoint miniseries).

What exactly is Lois going to do with that gun?

But Flashpoint: Secret Seven didn’t do much for me. I’m a big fan of writer Peter Milligan‘s 6-year run on Shade the Changing Man, but this new take on Shade and friends gave me too many characters and questions and not enough answers. George Perez’s artwork on most of issue #1 is fantastic; unfortunately, he had to drop out of the series (I presume to stay on top of his work on Superman and Green Arrow for the New 52, both of which he’s leaving soon as well) – I hope he isn’t having more health problems. Hopefully, Milligan’s work on the new Justice League Dark (also featuring Shade) is better; I’ll find out in the next few hours…

Related articles

• DC Digital Comics On Sale Now! (graphicpolicy.com)
• Flashpoint: Project Superman #1 Review, by Marc Alan Fishman – Snarky Synopses #12 (mdwp.malibulist.com)
• Zatannurday: Justice League Dark Review from The Other Side blog (timbrannan.blogspot.com)
• Comic Book Weekly Reviews – 7/27/11 Part 1 (graphicpolicy.com)
• New Releases – 8/24/11 (graphicpolicy.com)
• A Dead Horse Autopsy on Flashpoint #4 (wegotcomicissues.wordpress.com)
• Comic Review: JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 (geektyrant.com)
• Thoughts on the New 52 (allthatiswrong.wordpress.com)
• Comic Reviews for late August (skoce.wordpress.com)
• ‘Batman’: Scott Snyder on Bruce Wayne’s new nemesis (herocomplex.latimes.com)
• Comic Book Weekly Reviews – 8/24/11 (graphicpolicy.com)

I started the blog back in October 2007, and almost four years later here I am with the 2000th post. Since it’s a landmark, for me anyway, I figured why not mark the occasion with something a bit special?

So here’s a transcript of a talk that superstar artist Frank Quitely gave in his home city of Glasgow on July 2, 2011, at Plan B Books, the finest purveyor pf graphic novels in Scotland. I know I’m a few months late in posting this. I’d love to say it’s because of my windswept and interesting life but I just never got round to it.

It was a lovely afternoon, Frank was incredibly gracious with his time and pretty entertaining as he did a Q&A followed by a signing. Plan B were taking orders for the We3 Deluxe Edition, and Frank went back and signed everyone’s copies when it was released. If you missed out, Plan B are doing a similar thing when the Flex Mentallo hardcover finally comes out next year, so check their website and put an order in if you want a signed copy.

So, I won’t gibber on too much throughout the transcript, just give a few pointers on what questions were being asked. Sorry the pictures I took are so rotten.

And before I forget, many thanks to everyone who drops by the blog.

The first question was about how Frank started in the industry…

“Because I was going to comic marts and comic conventions I would hire a table and sell the comics at it. People just kept saying to me that I should send off submissions of my work. So, because I wasn’t a writer, I made up a four-page fight and chase sequence of Batman. I actually only sent off four pages because the rest weren’t finished, which was an incredibly stupid thing to do when you think about it.

“Back then there were millions of comic book companies, well there was a lot more than there are now. Eventually I got work with the Judge Dredd Megazine. What happened was first of all they sent me a script and said do a few pages of this. So I did them in black and white and they said they really liked them, so they sent me another script, saying can you do a few pages of this in colour, still not getting paid.

“So I did that, then they said they would send me a script (for Missionary Man) by a Scottish writer Gordon Rennie, who works in the games industry now, and the editor David Bishop asked me how long it would take to do three pages and I said it would take me a week and a half, but that was literally working round the clock. So he said if I kept up the standard he would send me another one after it , and that was it. I’ve never been out of work since.”

Next up, someone chinned him about his creator-owned comedy The Greens, which is from early in his career in underground classic Electric Soup and spoofs Scottish institution The Broons…

“There’s bits and pieces of them online, and I don’t think I’ve ever gone to a comic con where someone hasn’t asked me about them. I gathered up all the stuff I did with Electric Soup and I thought it would be a good idea to reprint it. And then I started looking at it and it’s just woeful. There’s bits and pieces that are okay but most of it is rubbish.

“I did these stupid movie spoofs. I was really into Mad Magazine. And I would go and buy an issue of Starburst I think it was called, it was a movie magazine, much cheaper than Empire, and whatever movies they were reviewing, the one that had the most pictures of the cast that would be the movie spoof I’d do, even if I hadn’t seen the movie. It was just awful.

“There’s one called Batman Retorts and it’s about a dyslexic Batman. The commissioner keeps sending him cables and I would keep making up these stupid things just so I could jumble up all the words. Everything I wrote was about a punchline and I would strive to make up something to get to the punchline.

“I’ve got a dummy put together, and what we’re probably going to do is do a small print run, see how it goes and maybe print more after that. Hopefully this year. I’m embarrassed thinking about it because just so much of it is rubbish. I’ll have a big disclaimer on it saying ‘This is rubbish, buy it at your own risk.’”

Someone then asked about what it’s like working with his long-time collaborator (Flex Mentallo, We3, All-Star Superman, Batman and Robin) Grant Morrison…

“Occasionally he asks me to draw things that are difficult to draw. One example is in All-Star Superman. There’s a scene with the bottle city of Kandor, and quite unusually for Grant, he always writes a very concise script, and if it’s something really complicated he’ll say ‘I’ll phone you about this’ but other than that he often says ‘This is kind of what I want, do your own thing’, or he’ll describe it in as few words as possible but giving me as much detail to cover the things I need to put in, he knows I’ll build stuff around that.

“But unusually for Grant, this bottle city of Kandor description was, I think, eight pages of script for one whole page of artwork that I had to draw, and five of those pages were for panel one, which was describing the layout of the bottle city, about how it had hills around the edge and it all went in concentric circles so you had ther hills and then the agricultural land and then you had parks and leisure, and then you go into suburban residential and eventually in the centre you had all the tall buildings , the arts and mathematics, and he had suggestions on how all the buildings should look . It was just mammoth, and it took me about a week to sort out that page.

“But at the other end of the spectrum, when we were doing Flex Mentallo there were these characters Nano Man and Mini Miss  and they could shrink, and one of the panels was him describing them shrinking down into the micro-infinite, and he said ‘They’re both clinging to each other because they’re both terrified’ and when he described the background it was ‘primordial chaos manifesting itself around unseen proton cores’. And I kept re-reading it thinking ‘How do you draw that?’ And then I was stuck because obviously I didn’t know what that looked like.”

What about the cartoon adaptation of All-Star Superman…

“I’ve seen the first 15 minutes. I started watching it and I was really enjoying it. Obviously I had seen the trailer and knew what to expect of it, but my mum turned up. The doorbell went and I went to answer the door. I paused it at the time and didn’t want to say I’m watching a cartoon, and it’s actually a cartoon of a comic that I drew.’

“But I was enjoying it. And I was kind of chuffed, I saw even in the first 15 minutes certain scene and set-ups that were really, really close to the way I did it in the comic. It’s just quite nice that they liked the source material. The only real complaint I heard other people making about it was the fact they had to chop out the Bizarro issues and they missed out a lot of the death of Pa Kent, I really liked that.”

And what of DC 52, the re-booting of the DC Universe and re-numbering all the titles from number one in a short space of time…

“I tend not to keep up to date with what’s going on, I’m not one for keeping my finger on the pulse of comics in general, but obviously everyone has been talking about it. I don’t know. Somebody was making the point the other day that Action Comics is up to 900-and-something, so they’re not that far away from 1000. I mean, I can understand why you would put things back to number one. People like a number one issue. It’s kind of difficult to jump on most titles because they’ve been going for ages so you kind of feel you ought to start at the beginning.

“But at the same time, doing so many number one issues in such a short space of time, I think it’s a bit of a stretch. I think comic sales are really low just now. The number one selling comic just now is something like 75,000. Two years ago it was twice that. So I don’t know if we’re at an all-time low just now  but things are really bad, and I suspect part of it is because money is really tright just now.

“I heard a statistic the other day from the National Statistics Office or whatever. It was on the radio and it said food had gone up 100 per cent in two years. But food, electricity and petrol, everything is much, much dearer thns it was a few years ago so that I would imagine probably means people are buying fewer comics.

“And the idea that, fair enough, you bring out number one issues and relaunch comics, I understand that but for a company as big as DC to do all their titles back to number one in a short space of time, it’s a huge stretch for most comic fans and it’s a huge stretch for most retailers, because the comics aren’t sale or return.

“So the retailers are in the position where they have to put out a lot of money in the hope  that the customers are going to have an unusually expensive two months. Or they buy in cautiously and sell out and half the customers are disappointed.

“I suppose it sounds to me, and I haven’t read up about it, but it doesn’t sound to me like it’s been very well thought out. There must be a better way of doing it.

“Most comic fans aren’t going to want a new number one for every DC book. Most fans are either into the Batman stuff, or the Vertigo stuff or Green Lantern. A lot of people have a spectrum that they like from that particular company. I would have thought maybe one a week would have been a pretty good idea. A new number one every week, that’s four a month.”

Someone then asked if he would ever consider drawing Oor Wullie, given that the cover for the recent Glasgow Comic-Con brochure featured a Frank Quitely homage to the character sitting on his trademark bucket…

“I don’t have a list of other artists I feel would be ideal for it. I was a huge Dudley D Watkins fan for as long as I can remember. He was maybe my biggest influence in comics, definitely my biggest early influence.  And Ken Harrison and some other person, of all the people who have drawn it since he died are the only two who have been allowed to sign it. The thing is, both of them are really, really good, but they’re not Dudley D Watkins. I suppose it’s like hand-writing, there was just something about his style.

“There was something about his style that I really loved and although they other guys who have done it since then have been really good, to me it’s not the same, it doesn’t have the same charm. I’d rather go out and buy the old books, because they do loads of really affordable collections now.

“If you have happy memories of something that you enjoyed when you were younger, like for me it was Scooby Doo before Scrappy came along, those old, dull colours in the backgrounds. My kids watch Scooby Doo now and they’re made in Japanese animation places. I mean, they’re really good cartoons but they don’t have that same charm about them, that look about them from the Seventies.

“But at the same time, something like Oor Wullie or The Broons, I suppose they were very contemporary when they started out and over the years, because they stayed the way they were, they’ve kind of become more and more old fashioned; so there’s a really good argument for updating them. Just speaking from my own point of view I’m happy to go back and read the old stuff because I really love the artwork but I don’t think it would be sacriligous to update them all.

“To do Oor Wullie, I have considered it before, but to follow Dudley D Watkins, I don’t think I could do it.”

What about reading comics on an iPad or tablet…

“I’ve been working on some of my own stuff recently, a lot of the pages are actually worked out to be seen as a whole page at one time, so you can actually see  the progression of the character across the page, like walking down a flight of stairs or whatever.

“But there’s a number of online comics I dip in and out of every now and again. And looking at artwork on a good quality monitor, I still do prefer to have a paper version, but I don’t need to keep a paper copy of everything that I’ve read, or everything that I like. There are certain things I’d prefer to have a paper copy of.

“There’s probably a quite good argument for not bringing out indiviudal monthly comics on paper, because a lot of people, myself included, actually wait for them to come out in trade anyway. Maybe the best idea is you buy the comic much cheaper as a download and then if you like it you go and buy the trade paperback. You should definitely get it cheaper. If they’re not having to cut down trees, and use inks and ship solid objects around the globe then it shouldn’t cost the same amount of money.

“I haven’t seen any motion comics that I particularly like. I remember seeing one issue of a Watchmen motion comic. I love Dave Gibbons’ artwork and it’s a brilliant story  and it’s one of my favourite comics but as a motion comic it just looked like a really cheap cartoon.

“I saw something, on I think it was Deviantart, and it was a wee motion comic, a digitial comic so that every time you clicked. something else happened. It wasn’t like slow pans and zooms, that kind of thing you usually get with a motion comic. You just keep clicking and a new picture would come up, or you would have a picture of two people and you click it and a speech bubble comes up and then you click again and there’s a reaction on someone’s face with another speech bubble., so it was much more like just a new frame each time.

“I think it was just a wee exercise in the different things that this person could think up that you could do  with digital comics that you can’t do with comics on paper . It’s a nice idea that you could sit on the bus with your tablet and read a comic that was actually designed to be read that way . It’s alright having a whole page there and clicking in and sliding around, moving the page around to read the whole thing on your screen but I don’t find it that satisfying. There must be a way of doing tio for a table or a phone that wouldn’t work in a comic.”

Would he ever consider doing a 24-hour comic…

“Funnily enough when I was at Kapow they had two Guinness World Record attempts for the most people working on a comic and the fastest comic ever. And there was people there from Guinness and they picked me and John Romita Jr to go out and there was two plaques; framed certtificates, one was for the most people involved in a comic and one was for the fastest comic.

“I can draw fast, it’s just I can’t do comics the way I want do them, fast, because about half the time is spent on the planning. I’ll read the script and then I’ll do thumbnail sketches in the margins of the script and then I’ll take those thumbnail sketches and arrange them into a page layout.  And then depending on how it’s flowing will depend on what changes I make, and that process for me takes the same amount of time for when once it’s actually decided and I draw the page.

“There are things in comics that you can’t do in film or you can’t do in prose and similarly there are things you can do in other  media that you can’t do in comics, but there are certain things you can do in comcs that are best done in comics. Having a picture that reads from left to right, depicting a moment in time, or a slice of time, playing with that. I had already been drawing comics for a while before I ralised that was the way it was working.

“In the simplest form it’s the person who speaks first is on the left or nearer the top of the panel and it works best that way, it flows easiest that way, at least on our side of the world where we read left to right and top to bottom,  and if you’re willing to overthink it you can really take that to extremes and I find that really interesting.

“And if I can do that and still make the comic read easily so that people who just want to sit and read it on the bus and it takes them six minutes or whatever it takes, they can read it and they get the story and that’s it. But when you read it and look into the way it’s actually put together there is actually stuff there. Because I like doing that to other people’s comics, where I can see the thought that’s gone into it.

“It would be interesting to do a 24-hour comic but I think it wold be pretty ropey because for me it would be going on gut instinct  on every decision that I made, which isn’t something that I ever do.”

Tell us about this new We3 release then…

“It’s a deluxe hardcover so it’s very slightly larger and it’s got ten extra pages. Six of those pages have expanded two scenes  and four of those pages are new scenes. Grant actually asked for them. When he originally wrote it, I’m not sure if he wrote it as a screenplay or a comic first. They didn’t want it as a four-issue thing, they wanted it three issues, and the way it worked out for them, because printing is worked out by blocks of certain numbers of pages, so it was 96 pages but it’s now 106 pages. And six of those pages are expanding trwo scenes, and four of those pages are a new scene.”

What about the We3 movie…

“There’s always been a director attached to it and for the last couple of years it’s been John Stevenson the Kung Fu Panda guy and there’s often been a special effects mob attached, and at the moment I think it’s some mob from New Zealand.

“I’ve learned to stop asking. How many years is that now and still nothing has happened? As far as I’m aware the problem with it is you either make it as violent as the comic and most people aren’t going to go along and see it or you change it quite a lot and make it for kids. Maybe that’s over-simplifying it but I don’t think the studios know what to do with it.”

Tell us more about working with Morrison on We3…

“The sequence with the CCTV cameras, there’s like six pages with 18 panels what I did with that was I started thumbnailing it the way I always do but it was just endlessly complicated becaue there was no script. Grant just sat and told me there was going to be six pages and he suggested 18 panels, because the way it breaks down on the page it roughly looks like TV dimesnions,  and the guy with the white beard he’s meant to be gathering a posse and he’s going to tell Roseanne that they’re terminating the animals and she’s obviously going about her business and she already knows this is going to happen and she’s deciding what to do, and then we’re zooming in on the locks on the animal restraints . So he just said can you work all that out as if it’s being told from CCTV cameras, and I thought ‘Yeah no problem’  and I started doing it and it was just really difficult.

“What I ended up doing was I drew them out on pieces of paper, and for each of the different cameras, like this is the camera at the crossroads, I would put a colour frame round it, and then I’d put them all out the way I thought they should be and then it was quite easy to change them and then Grant came over to see how it was going, and we ended up, well you can lie them out in lines for each camera, or you can put them out like chronological order or you can make them cross over, there are certain intersections like a crossword puzzle or Scrabble or something. So we ended up sitting for hours playing with these things. I was looking about for them one day and I couldn’t find them and my wife had actually thrown them in the bin, they were in a box, but I got them back. I was like ‘This is two weeks work!’ but she just asked why I couldn’t work like everyone else.”

Hasn’t your style changed since you orginally drew We3, did you not notice a difference when you did the extra scenes…

“No, not really. The way I draw is kind of like hand writing. The way I do the under-drawing, for We3 for instance I would do the under-drawing in blue pencil and then I would use a graphite pencil to basically ink it. The blue under-drawing is the same for We3 as it is for All-Star Superman, as it is for Batman and Robin. It’s just with We3 I was doing kind of like  straight lines, a nod to manga; All-Star Superman was more simple lines; Batman and Robin a lot more solid blacks, more of a noirish feel, but the basic under-drawing is the same. And similarly when I’m actually painting on water colour or colouring the work on photoshop the under-drawing is basically the same so it was a case of me drawing it the way I normally out and then looking at pages to check it was in the same style.”

Have you ever wanted to be one of those artists who both write and draw…

“Once I started working from other people’s scripts there was no more sitting around thinking ‘What will I write this time?’ It was just like someone would send you a script and it would even say page one, five panels, panel one and sometimes they would say this is a wide panel or a narrow panel  or a bird’s eye view. They’d be as well drawing the comic!

“Probably a bit over a year ago, Martin (Conaghan) up the back who was asking about the style change in We3, he works with the BBC and he got in touch with me about a couple of guys from the BBC who were looking to develop properties with a view to do pilots and try and get stuff commissioned. And they were interested in The Greens. They said there would be no money in it, we would need to submit something in the hope that they would gives us money to male a pilot.

“So they said they were going to try and make a script from your Greens characters, do you fancy having a crack at is as well because obviously you used to write them. I thought why not? So I wrote a 15-minute TV script, obviously I knew nothng about how to actually format it and make it look like a TV script. And then eventually I typed it up. I really enjoyed it. All the writing was basically dialogue and I really enjoyed it. Since then I’ve been writing  short stories that I tend to draw.

“I’ve noticed there is a bit of a fashion right now for getting established superhero artists to write the comics that they’re drawing. You’ve got David Finch writing one of the Batman titles and Tony Daniels is another Batman artist who is writing one.

“I’ve read a couple and they’re alright.  I think it’s a gimmick more than anything else. People who do naturally write their own stuff, like Frank Miller for instance, that’s come out the same mind  if you’re good then it will work out. I don’t have a Batman story to tell  and despite the fact I’ve worked with so many scripts over the years I wouldn’t actually know how to plot out a  a story arc and break it down into issues. I’ve just written a bunch of short stories for myself and want to draw some of them.”

What comics are you reading…

“Over the last year or so, Asterios Polyp, the David Mazzuchelli book, that’s pretty much the best thing I’ve read, particularly in terms of the way the artwork works, it’s pretty much the best thing I’ve seen and don’t expect anything to come close to it.

“I’m about two-thirds through Essex County. It suffered from the same thing as Wilson, the Dan Clowes book, where somebody said it was amazing and will totaly blow you away. It’s that way it’s the ET factor. I was told it was the best film ever made, but no it was really good but it wasn’t the best. So Essex County when I started reading it I thought  ‘This is good.’ It’s a collection of three books, the first book was good, the second book I was much more hooked on that, so I’m enjoying that.

“Eddie Campbell’s Alec: The Year’s Have  Pants I finished that a couple of months ago and really liked that. I’ve read a lot stuff recently, I should have made a list. I read Black Hole, the Charles Burns book and that was really brilliant.”

What about online comics…

“I’ve been following Cameron Stewart’s Sin Titulo and Dan Goldman does one called Red Light Properties, which is quite interesting. Dean Haspiel has one called Billy Dogma, I enjoyed that.

“What I like about digital stuff is what I like about a lot of small press stuff, it’s that you feel you’re getting something that is absolutely uncompromised. I don’t care if people think this is too simple or whatever, this is the way I want to do it.

“The site Cameron Stewart is on there’s a bunch of Canadian artists , there’s a few of them have interesting stuff. Ramon Perez is one of them, he’s got somer lovely looking stuff.”

Scheduled to appear at this summer’s Glasgow Comic-Con, Frank had to pull out because he was stranded in Argentina because of an ash cloud over Chile. This prompted Mark Millar to take to the stage at the event and say: “Has anyone actually heard of this ash cloud. It’s more likely to be a hash cloud.” Anyway, how was Argentina, Frank…

“Eduardo Risso organises a convention in his home city which looked like half an hour away from Buenos Aires on the map and took five hours on the bus. No need for a country to be that big.

“I was there for a week and it was brilliant and I met loads of Argentinian artists who were all really friendly and then I weet back to Buenos Aries for one overnight before flying home and the Chilean ashcloud had scuppered my plans.

“Apparently the week I spent there, the airport was shut more than it was open and they had a huge backlog of people stranded  and I ended up staying six extra days . It was a real disappointment when I found out because I was thinking I was going to get back . You know that way you get to the last couple of days and you know you’ll be going home soon  and you start getting into the mindset that you’ll be back home soon, and my youngest daughter is seven and she was really missing me and to get told you’re getting put back six or seven days, Air France are apparently notoriously inflexible so I had half a day of trying to get other flights but the problem was no-one could guarantee if I bought a flight for a couple of days away they wouldnt give it to someone else because all the airlines were working on a queueing  system so I thought I might as well make the most of it so it was an act of God and the airlines weren’t paying for it but fortunately Argentina is cheaper than here.

“I could have done without the expense but it wasn’t as much of a diasaster had I been stranded in France or  New York. And half the artists in met live in Buenos Aires so they were like ‘Come up to our studio, don’t eat on your own’ they were a really nice crowd and not drinkers, the society doesn’t drink much at all so I wasn’t your stereotypical drunken Scotsman. I actually had two weeks of not being drunk at all. It was great, the food was amazing and the people were super-friendly.”

And 100 years from now, what work do you hope people remember you for…

“Of stuff that I’ve already done, storywise probably All-Star Superman, maybe story-telling wise We3, for the finish of the artwork maybe the Sandman short that I did, the Destiny  story in The Endless Nights book, but hopefully it will be the stuff I do myself in the next few years.”

March 9, 2004

Quick Rating: Good
Title: In Stinked Conclusion

A band of poachers meet their fate.

Writer: Brian Azzarello
Art: Eduardo Risso
Colors: Patricia Mulvihill
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Dave Johnson
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

People who read my reviews regularly know that I haven’t been a big fan of Azzarello and Risso’s run on Batman. This book proves that it’s not their style that I don’t like, it’s their style applied to that specific title, because with 100 Bullets they provide a smart crime drama that works on levels that their work on Batman just doesn’t.

This issue concludes the “In Stinked” storyline, about particularly cruel group of poachers having fun with some big jungle cats in their supposed care. Azzarello wisely avoids the temptation to turn the story into any sort of political statement and instead serves up a simple story of betrayal and revenge. While this is the last issue of a story arc, it’s fairly simple to jump in and understand who the players are, who wants to kill who, and who we’re supposed to be rooting for in the end.

Eduardo Risso’s artwork is perfect for this book. If you put an issue of 100 Bullets next to an issue of his Batman, it’s clear that he uses a different style for each title – not drastically different, mind you, but noticeably different. It’s good that an artist is capable of stretching themselves, but Risso is far stronger doing his own thing than he is when he tries to emulate classic Batman artists. Along with good colors by Patricia Mulvihill, they put together a great visual package that compliments the hardcore, angry world that Azzarello has created for this title.

Not being a regular reader of this book, it’s hard to say whether this story arc has advanced the overall plot of the title – looking at the elements I have seen, it doesn’t really appear as though it has. This is not a criticism, mind you, merely a statement of fact – every book deserves the chance to take a little time off from the main storyline and tell sidebars now and then. Next month will be the 50th issue of 100 Bullets – I don’t know if anything big is planned, but this issue has got me interested enough that I may just look into that anniversary issue as well, and any comic book that makes you want to read the next one in the series is a comic book that has done its job.

Rating: 7/10

With most of the Flashpoint tie in series only being 3 issues, the 2nd ones so far have been a bit of a drag. Not in the case of Batman, which is largely thanks to Azzarello and Risso. I don’t want to give away too much, because it’ll spoil the read. In this twisted version of Gotham where Bruce died and Thomas became Batman, we begin to see the torn relationships between familiar characters. We are introduced to the Oracle who is actually Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman), she helps Jim Gordon find a lead on the whereabouts of Dents’ kids. It turns out that they are being held in a place that should be familiar to any fan of Batman. It what takes after place in the next few pages that was shocking and surprising in a good way.

Verdict = 4 out of 5

With how this one ended, I’m looking forward to the 3rd issue of this series more than Flashpoint (not sure if that is a good thing or not).

When in all reality there exists a more than sufficient amount of review material on the weekly paper chase of the direct market, I in this instance lack concern and will contribute. Mark me up with the majority of comic book bloggery! I shall write quick hit segments that few will read and fewer will remember beyond this day of “publishing.”

This past week consisted of my mission to catch up on the monthly fodder, and I feel I should produce at least something with the probably lack luster thoughts and opinions I now possess.

So, yeah, here’s some bullshit I spent a night typing …

The Amazing Spider-man #666 – Spider-Island Prologue
Writer: Dan “the excited” Slott, Artists: Stefano Caselli, Marte Gracia, Joe Caramagna

I’m a huge (not literally) Spider-man fan, in case you didn’t know. This particular fictional figure really was my first point of interest in comics. As we all begin, we’re in it for the 2-D gladiators and their excursions.  Spider-man was and still remains my dude, and there’s been plenty of, I hate to say “discussion” but I guess, discussion on the character lately – there’s a film reboot on the way and Glenn Beck suddenly gives a fuck what color the kid from Queens is. My own personal spider-sense tingles from all this talk and a new found enthusiasm for the web head boils inside me. The time is now. Let’s see what Peter Parker’s up to these days in his pulpy home of  ‘The Amazing Spider-man.’

Dan Slott writes the exact kind of comics I yearn to stay away from. Stupid recesses on why such fictional things are cool, along with useless plot updates, seem to be this scribes money making characteristic. Every time I’ve read his Spider-man, the book devolves into some mess of, “hey, let’s see what The Thing is up to! You know why? Cause Spider-man KNOWS The Thing!”.  Just stupid shit like that. He’s the type of writer who invests a little too much in the fictional world he’s left to curate a.k.a. the purest example of a fan writer. This results in a constant parade of subplot catch up.

I’m sure the dude really is nice and all sorts of fun to drink with and I totally understand the need to incorporate the supporting cast in a title such as ‘The Amazing Spider-man,’ but Jesus, God I don’t give a fuck what the reason is for Peter’s costume change between his time with the new found Future Foundation and The Avengers. I’m sure that was a run on sentence, but it’s how I going to express the point.

OK, now that I’m finished with my poor attempt at sounding like Tucker Stone, who’s a great writer by the way, let me break down and review the issue how I normally would.

The first few pages satisfy me, surprisingly. One of my biggest beefs  as a “fan” of the Spider-man character lays in Marvel’s inability to allow Peter Parker to grow up. His story, along with the core of the Spider-concept, stands most potent in the years of youth. Ditko and Lee engineered this hormonal mess of hero as a Shakespearean observation, and his saga works throughout all time as well as in the culture change and teenage uprising of the 1960s. Youth is important to the character, but I guess the fanboy connection I possess wants me to witness a changing or aging Peter Parker. I carry this urge to watch a fictional being learn and grow as if he were real rather than living a trap of repetition. Peter’s always fucking up, losing his job, not getting laid, or letting someone die. He so lacks efficiency. Again, the core, I know, but you can only read so many stories about a fuck up. You know why? Because at some point you learn this dude is always going to fuck up, and that grows so old so fast. I’d rather not read.

Slott progresses Peter Parker for a few pages, though. Right in this issue.  Peter’s recent deal is that he’s sitting comfortably with a new, fancy science research job, the gig he’s always wanted since implied way back when in 1963. Along with the gig, Parker keeps the company of a new lady friend, acts as a member of two super-teams, and kicks ass as a solo crime fighter.  This Peter Parker represents the efficient, responsible character that Marvel has potential to publish. Granted, the conflict of fucking up is lost, but maybe a responsible, non-fuck up Spider-man would encourage a little more creativity in the House of Ideas? It could pull Peter Parker in a new, interesting direction. And, for a few pages, that direction wafts hopefully before my beady, spider-loving eyes until Dan Slott progresses to suddenly make me not want such a thing.

We the readers understand perfectly well that Spider-man jams efficient, but Slott feels the need to shove it down our throats. The expected subplot, continuity parade storms on by with Slott leading the damn thing as King Same-and-Stuck. The pages flip on by. J. Jonah Jameson shouts his concern and damns the arachnid. Norah Winters, cast member and friend of Peter’s, has a douche bag boyfriend who’s secretly a villain with a goblin persuasion. Aunt May still lives. Flash “the venom” Thomspon stops by because he lives in New York. Betty Brant uses a cell phone. The Avengers play cards only after the Future Foundation hit the wardrobe. Spider-man fights in a dojo for his daily workout.

Slott literally shows us every fucking thing Peter Parker now does as well as showing us everything his cast does. And he doesn’t just show us, he takes an entire issue to show us these bland explanations continuity nerds eat up. God help me.

The issue eventually finds an end where it manages to introduce this “event” known as Spider-Island. The idea? The Jackal, spider-villain known for the infamous “Clone Saga,” desires to clone once more but this time create an entire “island of spiders!” Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about this concept. Part of me says, “repetitive” and “why care,” but I hate to blow off a concept before it’s really used. I believe there’s potential in an “island of spiders.” We will see, I suppose.

The artwork is wonderful, though. Caselli captures a great sense of motion in this issue. Images feel kinetic, and Spider-man appears truly super as he swings across the landscape. The line work appears clean and distinct, and the figures drawn convey a real sense of acting. Along with the fresh colors provided by Gracia, I found the visual aspect of this issue quite satisfying.

Will I continue with Spider-Island? I must enjoy torture, because I might. Might. I’m still interested in how this concept finds use by the creative team, and I am experiencing a new found interest in Spider-man. So, yeah, I’ll go hang out with the only dude crying over the demise of Wizard, and we’ll discuss how much we hate these hero comics and how they ignore what want even though we continue to purchase them.

Spider-Island Part 2 will, most likely, be mine.

Batman: Knight of Vengeance #2
Writer: Brian Azzarello, Artists: Eduardo Risso, Patricia Mulvihill, and some dude named Robbins

Now I can type with a positive tap.

Azzarello and Risso impressed me with 100 Bullets by not only its striking narrative but its master craft. That comic book, ladies and gentlemen, hits every fucking note, and it exemplifies a collaboration where both sides truly contribute to the world building. Azzarello brought the language and tone while Risso defined the style and flow. The case remains the same on this Batman comic that, I have to keep telling myself, is an event tie-in.

Most artists portray some sort of style, and that style usually manages to label that artist’s drawings. Like, you know, John Romita Jr’s New York City stands clearly distinct from Alex Maleev’s New York City. Each artist, by way of style, possesses their own and belongs to their own artistic sphere. Risso really pulls that idea to another level where his style not just stands for “Eduardo Risso” but rather a “Risso Universe.” I get the feeling that Risso’s drawings all exist on the same plane. Not many artists communicate this idea to me. Plenty of artists have distinct styles and define looks of certain objects or figures, but only Risso strings his depictions across one common field of existence. How he does this, I could honestly make no case. Maybe it has something to do with his attention to style, whether it be people’s dress or the styling of his settings, but digging into art that far lays beyond me. Simply said, I can’t help but wander into this comic and feel right back at home in the world of 100 Bullets.

Call me stupid, but that’s how I connect to this comic. It makes sense to me, though. 100 Bullets encourages you to wonder what lies beyond its gutters, and in my wondering I stumble upon an alternate version of Gotham City.

I love how Azzarello, when on his game, tells his stories. While most comic scribes today worry about sufficient word count, Azzarello comes off as a minimalist. I mean, flipping through this issue, I guess there are the standard number of word balloons, but the content of said word balloons express far from standard.  His dialogue acts the opposite of most comic dialogue. It’s not slow or exposition influenced but rather comes off as self-existent. What the fuck does that mean? OK, most dialogue feels like its meant to be read, like somehow the dialogue itself is self-aware and knows its part of a story. Azzarello’s dialogue makes the reader feel like he or she is a true fly on the wall. The characters know what’s what, and that’s all that matters as they act out their parts. As a reader, you truly watch and piece the story together by what you see and “hear” rather than being fed everything.

A grand example of such writing resides in Azzarello’s characterization of one Thomas Wayne. Not once have we witnessed a flash back nor has Wayne directly addressed us, but from observing character interactions and the simple fact of a Bat costume we understand Thomas Wayne as an angry old man with family issues and strong memories of failure. And it’s all we need.

For its premise of alternate Earth Batman, Azzarello and Risso knock it out the park. It remains unfinished and could lose steam, but the team has gone above and beyond. Their Gotham sits clearly distinct along with it inhabitants. The comic feels more like a goddamn Elseworlds than some event tie-in. Oh, and with the addition of this issue’s cliffhanger, I can safely say I actually feel the fear and conflict of this story. Something feels at stake, and it’s refreshing for a DC cape comic.

…

Next: Another Batman comic and a character everyone loathes. 

By: Brian Azzarello (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Patricia Mulvihill (colorist)

The Story: I would’ve staged an intervention for you, Martha, but they weren’t invented yet.

The Review: While the bulk of DC’s alter-reality stories come under the Elseworlds imprint, Flashpoint and most of its tie-ins follow more of Marvel’s What If…? tradition, positing new continuities on the face of specific divergent events.  Knight of Vengeance has really risen to the top of the heap, however, because not only does it use a slight change in circumstance to create a whole, new, complete reality, it does so with a wonderful reflection to the one we all know.

The whole premise of the Batman mythos relies on convincing you that a man, in reeling with the pain from a traumatic event, can choose to focus his pain in a way that would otherwise seem insane.  But while Bruce had the adaptability of his youth to keep him in (relative) control, the death of their son drives Thomas and Martha against the wall of life, which adults of course see so much more acutely.  The madness of their current lifestyles is the result of each taking a different path to manage their anguish, but on parallel lines.

Like his son of another lifetime, Thomas’ work as Batman comes less from nobility and more from a desire for revenge, one that in the senior Wayne’s case is much less contained, as his bloody, unarmed assault on Joe Chill shows.  While her husband’s violence targets perpetrators of crime like the one that shattered their lives, Martha’s comes from a more complicated source: the unfairness of losing her own child for no reason while other children get to live.

That’s what makes her depraved acts against the Dent children at once horrifying, but also desperately sad and futile.  When she loses all veneer of levity in a fit of rage against Thomas for managing to revive the daughter Dent (a feat he failed with his own son), we can see Martha’s madness is only an act, a twisted kind of therapy to distract her from her pain.  But once forced to confront the undeniable facts of her child’s death, craziness gives way to unfathomable grief.

There’s a twistedly beautiful symmetry in these later scenes between this truly estranged couple, in that their macabre intimacy channels the one that has always existed between the Batman and Joker of any continuity.  Their motivations have always been obscure, to the characters closest to them and even to us, their audience.  Yet both come closest to having the full measure of the other, and in some ways, they are in total sympathy as only the truest lovers can be.

How very appropriate then that Thomas and Martha share a moment of tenderness on the promise that he will do all he can to restore the world to what it once was.  But all Batman stories, even out-of-continuity ones, eventually flow towards tragedy; hope rears its head only to make the tragedy even keener.  And as a chance to change the past doesn’t equate to a chance to make things right, we experience with Martha the despair of a story that can have no happy end.

No amount of artistic realism can possibly capture the complexity of emotion and meaning in this issue.  Risso creates a collage effect within the pages by using panels of almost abstract imagery that link and build upon each other, generating a powerful impact on your senses.  What you get out of Risso’s art is a series of impressions so indescribable they’re almost subconscious, yet they let you feel exactly what you should be feeling.  Kudos also to Mulvihill’s low-key colors, making everything look as if they’ve been washed out, either by rain or tears.

Conclusion: Whether Azzarello intended to or not, he’s turned out a multilayered story that works and can be dissected on many levels, and is completely reader-friendly and approachable at the same time.  For that it deserves the highest praise possible.

Grade: A+

- Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: - Man, I sure hope those Dent kids pull through okay, as they basically get forgotten about halfway through.

By: Brian Azzarello (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Patricia Mulvihill (colorist)

The Story: There’s only one way to hurt Batman’s feelings: keep him out of the loop.

The Review: When DC announced plans to relaunch their entire line in September, I wrote that it didn’t really matter how much continuity they keep or discard, so long as they simply produce good stories.  Batman – Knight of Vengeance is a perfect example.  Even though it turns the entire Batman universe upside-down, leaving virtually no character or element unchanged, the story still works—in many ways even better than some of the Batman titles we have now.

Part of this series’ success has been Azzarello’s ability to create a completely realized world and draw you deep into it without reservations.  He doesn’t waste time explaining who’s who and why some things are the way they are.  He just lets the characters interact with each other and their environment as naturally as possible, trusting you to deduce some of the continuity details for yourself.  In other words, he assumes you’re smart enough to catch on without explicit help.

This may explain the brevity he applies to his script, which features no narration to speak of and very sparing dialogue.  As in life, a lot of the most significant information you get out of the issue comes from what’s left unsaid than anything in particular the characters say.  Oracle doesn’t have to explain why she reacts, “…No.  Jim, no,” upon the discovery Commissioner Gordon didn’t deliver her intel to Batman; she and you both know what he plans to do with it.

The near speechlessness of the characters effectively accentuates the increasingly sick sense of fear you feel as the story proceeds closer and closer to the antagonist at the heart of this issue.  It’s easy to presume the Joker will be one demented soul, and seeing how sweaty and panicked everyone becomes at the mere mention of the name encourages you take the villain seriously.  But the fact Joker specifically has it out for kids really tells you this is no run-of-the-mill jester.

The worst part is you have no choice but to witness the clown’s atrocities firsthand, even as the nauseous feeling in your gut grows more acute with every page.  Azzarello times the whole sequence in Wayne Manor with psychological precision, the horrific details of what’s happening dawning on you split-seconds before they’re revealed, but never losing impact as you almost subconsciously resist that something so awful could happen—which they inevitably do.

The final panel of the issue bears a revelation so dreadfully perfect that you can’t help admiring Azzarello’s ingenuity even as you gasp.  It’s a twist both totally unexpected, making your brain go through mental calisthenics to process it, and also completely predictable, especially when you reread some of the earlier monologues.  Suddenly certain words take on whole new life, and you’ll be slapping yourself in the face for not having realized it earlier.

Risso’s uses series of panels, not only to drive the suspense through the roof as he draws out each grisly moment until every ounce of emotional impact has been milked, but also to enhance the impact by constantly adding one new, burdening detail after another.  There’s nothing beautiful about his art’s look, but with his impeccable taste in storytelling choices, he can make anything look good.

Conclusion: Call it an Elsewords, alternate universe, or out-of-continuity story, but regardless, it’s a great one.

Grade: A

- Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: - I have to wonder how many times Oracle screws up her intel delivery to Batman because one of her cats decides to sleep/walk across one of her many keyboards.  Considering what I know about cats, I’d say it’s probably all the time.

So after finding out in Flashpoint that Thomas Wayne was Batman, it helped my decision to pick up this title. We start of this issue with Thomas Wayne in his casino getting a psych evaluation. From here we meet familiar faces in Oswald Cobblepot, Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent. We find that the Joker has kidnapped Dent’s kids and is threatening Wayne to find them. Then we’re treated to a battle between Batman and the Croc, only to find out that Thomas Wayne makes a very different Batman. It’s this scene that is the highlight of the issue and it’s done with very little text, but you don’t really notice it due to Risso’s work.

Verdict = 3 out of 5

There isn’t much to it, but if you’re a fan of Batman, you’ll still find it enjoyable. With two more issues go it’ll be interesting to see what other familiar faces we’ll see.

Patrick Stewart, Bruce Campbell, Christopher Lloyd, Morena Baccarin, Felicia Day, James Marsters Among Headliners At Wizard World Chicago Comic Con, August 11-12-13-14 At Donald E. Stephens Convention Center

Ray Park, Julie Benz, Charisma Carpenter, Colin Ferguson, Lou Gossett Jr., Vivica A. Fox, Mimi Rogers, Among 500+ Celebrity Guests, Leading Comics Artists & Creators Scheduled To Appear

NEW YORK and ROSEMONT, Ill., June 22, 2011 – North America’s largest pop-culture tour continues as Wizard World Chicago Comic Con returns to the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, August 11-14, with superstar guests Patrick Stewart, Bruce Campbell, Christopher Lloyd, Morena Baccarin, Felicia Day, Academy Award Winner® Lou Gossett Jr. and James Marsters headlining the list of celebrity attendees.  The event will bring together thousands of fans of all ages and dozens of celebrities and industry professionals to celebrate the best in pop-fi, pop culture, movies, graphic novels, comics, toys, video gaming, television, sci-fi, gaming, original art, collectibles, contests and more.

Stewart (X-MEN, “Star Trek: The Next Generation”) will attend on Friday and Saturday only.  Campbell (“Burn Notice,” ARMY OF DARKNESS) and Day (“The Guild,” “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”) are scheduled to appear on Saturday and Sunday.  The three-time Emmy Award winner Lloyd (BACK TO THE FUTURE, “Taxi”) and Baccarin (“V,” “Stargate SG-1”) will be available on Saturday only.  Marsters (“Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Caprica”) is scheduled for Friday through Sunday.

“Wizard World Chicago Comic Con is our longest running event, and we are excited to be bringing our most star-studded field of celebrities and artists ever to the Stephens Convention Center,” said Gareb Shamus, Wizard World CEO.  “The show has huge stars like Patrick Stewart and Christopher Lloyd who are known all over the world, and, as always, features guests from some of the most popular film, TV and comics franchises like Star Wars, Buffy and Spider-Man.  This is by far the largest pop-culture event in the region, and the fans, vendors, guests and other attendees have rewarded us by coming in more record numbers every year.”

Wizard World Chicago is also an incredible place to meet and get sketches and autographs from some of the top international creators, many of whom rarely, if ever, appear in the U.S. This includes Mike Deodato Jr. (Brazil), Eduardo Risso (Argentina), Humberto Ramos (Mexico), Mico Suayan (Phillipines), Will Conrad (Brazil), Ariel Olivetti (Argentina), Pia Guerra (Canada) and more.

Wizard World also has a massive number of top comics creators scheduled for Artist Alley, such as Jim Cheung (“Avengers,” “Uncanny X-Men”), Brian Azzarello (writer, “Flashpoint: Batman – Knight of Vengeance,” “100 Bullets”), Dave Johnson (“Flashpoint: Batman – Knight of Vengeance, 100 Bullets”), Patrick Gleason (“Batman and Robin”), Michael Golden (“Spider-Man,” “Hulk”), William Stout (Paleontological Artist), Larry Elmore (“Magic: The Gathering”), Ben Templesmith (“30 Days of Night”), Greg Horn (“Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark,” “Hero For Hire”), Freddie Williams II (“JSA All-Stars”), Arthur Suydam (“Marvel Zombies,” “Army of Darkness”) and hundreds of others.

In addition to Gossett Jr., the Chicago Comic Con celebrity roster includes a bevy of major award winners and nominees, including Emmy Award Winners LeVar Burton (“Star Trek: The Next Generation,” ROOTS), Peter Tork (“The Monkees”) and Phil Ortiz (“The Simpsons”), Emmy Award Nominees Mimi Rogers (AUSTIN POWERS, “The X-Files,”) and Pam Grier (“Smallville,” “The L Word”), Grammy Award Winner Tia Carrere (WAYNE’S WORLD, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”) and Tony Award Honoree Dan Fogler (BALLS OF FURY, GOOD LUCK CHUCK).

Other popular celebrity guests scheduled to be on hand at the event include Julie Benz (“Buffy: The Vampire Slayer,” “Desperate Housewives”), Charisma Carpenter (“Buffy: The Vampire Slayer,” “Angel”), Colin Ferguson (“Eureka,” THE OPPOSITE OF SEX), Vivica A. Fox (KILL BILL VOL. 1 and VOL. 2, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), Kai Owen (“Torchwood,” “Fun at the Funeral Parlour”), Ray Park (STAR WARS: EPISODE 1, X-MEN), Gareth David-Lloyd (“Torchwood,” SHERLOCK HOLMES), Alaina Huffman (“Smallville,” “SGU Stargate Universe”), Lou Ferrigno (“The Incredible Hulk,” “The King of Queens,”) and James C. Burns (voice actor, “Call of Duty: Black Ops”).  BOONDOCK SAINTS co-stars Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery will also reunite at the event.

The convention center floor will also feature several famous TV and movie vehicles for fans to pose with, including the Batmobile (original “Batman” series), DeLorean Time Machine (BACK TO THE FUTURE), The Mystery Machine (SCOOBY DOO) and Ecto-1 (GHOSTBUSTERS).

Children and adult attendees are encouraged to come dressed as their favorite villain, superhero or pop culture personality for the chance to win special prizes in costume contests.  Event-goers may also try their hand interactive product exhibits and shop for collectible comics, movie and television memorabilia, toys and games at more than 200 dealer booths.

And Sunday, August 14, is Kids Day at Chicago Comic Con, with face painting, balloons, a “passport” treasure hunt and other activities designed especially for kids!  Other special events include card gaming tournaments, professional photo opportunities (Photo Ops) and more.

Chicago Comic Con is the seventh stop on Wizard World’s 2011 North American tour.  Hours are Thursday, August 11, 5 – 9 p.m.; Friday, August 12, noon – 8 p.m.; Saturday, August 13, 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.; and Sunday, August 14, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.  Tickets are available in advance online at http://www.wizardworld.com/chicago.html at a savings over tickets purchased at the door.  Advance adult single-day tickets are priced at $25 ($35 on site); four-day all-session tickets are $50 ($60 on site), and tickets are free for children age 10 and under when accompanied by a paid adult (limit two children per adult).  VIP packages with special entry and exclusive items are also available on a limited basis.

About Wizard World:
Wizard World produces Comic Cons and pop culture conventions across North America that celebrate graphic novels, comic books, movies, TV shows, gaming, technology, toys and social networking. The events often feature celebrities from movies and TV, artists and writers, and events such as premieres, gaming tournaments, panels, and costume contests. Wizard World also produces Wizard World Digital, an online publication covering new and upcoming products and talents in the pop culture world, and is distributed on a weekly basis to online and iPad users worldwide.

The full event schedule can be found at www.wizardworld.com.

***** SAVE THE 2011/12 DATES *****
August 11-14 – Chicago Comic Con
September 17-18  – New England Comic Con
September 24-25 – Los Angeles Comic Con
October 22-23 – Mid-Ohio Comic Con
October 28-30 – Central Canada Comic Con (C4)
November 11-13 – Austin Comic Con
January 28-29, 2012 – New Orleans Comic Con
March 23-25, 2012 – Toronto Comic Con
April 27-29, 2012 – Anaheim Comic Con
May 19-20, 2012 – Big Apple Comic Con
June 1-3, 2012 – Philadelphia Comic Con
December 8-9, 2012 – Miami Comic Con

Deadline broke the news of the deal a day after DC Comics (who published the book under their Vertigo imprint) Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns let it slip in an interview that 100 Bullets was going to be a TV show. A few years ago, it was rumored to be going to HBO but that ended up not happening.
Goyer will reportedly executive produce and write on the series which follows the story of Agent Graves, a mysterious man who finds people who’ve had terrible things done to them and offers them a gun, a dossier of information, and 100 untraceable bullets to settle the score, if they so please. Over the course of the series, it’s revealed that all of these moral questions and killings are tied to a major crime syndicate.

Being around comics, you tend to hear and recommend the best of the best: Preacher, Y: The Last Man, and another that always gets mentioned is 100 Bullets. Peter called it “a gateway graphic novel — one of those books for someone who really hasn’t gotten into the world of superhero comic books.” And the entire series has now been collected in graphic novels.

Much like Game of Thrones, which started as a niche fantasy book and became a mass market show, 100 Bullets follows a similar trajectory. A small but well-received comic book whose story is suitable for mass consumption. Do you think it’ll make a good TV

By: Brian Azzarello (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Patricia Mulvihill (colorist)

The Story: And you said those mutants in the sewers were just an urban legend.

The Review: These Flashpoint tie-ins serve two purposes: one, they fill in some of the expository blanks that the central storyline neglects or hasn’t the opportunity to cover; and two, they offer us a tantalizing glimpse into a world whose existence will be all too brief and yet within its own continuity has a rich history all its own.

For that reason, you have to appreciate how Azzarello doesn’t play cute with this strange yet vaguely recognizable world he gets to work with.  There are no moments where he directly points out familiar characters and explains their changes with a wink and a nudge, as many writers would.  He simply incorporates them naturally into the story, as if Barbara Gordon has always been Thomas Wayne’s psychiatrist and the Penguin his casino crony.

Even if he wanted to, Azzarello couldn’t give these minor characters such treatment anyway without detracting from the really strong characterization he gives to our favorite anti-hero.  Clearly Thomas is less refined and sophisticated a vigilante than Bruce: he tolerates, even invites criminals to patronize his businesses; he allows Gordon to know his secret identity; he privatizes Gotham’s security; he makes little attempts to soften his public image.

Even in his crime-fighting, he doesn’t come across as superhumanly competent; instead it seems like he grits his way through challenges by drawing on an inhuman tolerance for pain.  We see the source of that tolerance when Azzarello reveals the details of his origins.  By now you know Bruce, not Thomas, died that night; this issue shows that fateful change came not from an alteration in circumstances, but one in Thomas’ character, a subtle one that nevertheless makes him react quite differently to the hold-up, and which leads inadvertently to his own tragedy.

Subtle describes most of the script, as it seems as disinclined to chatter as Thomas.  Only the most minimal, necessary sounds and words make themselves heard in this story, becoming even more chilling when they finally break the largely barren silence of the issue.  The whispered mantra of “Hell…” Batman hears during his sojourn in the sewers creeps into the corners of entirely wordless panels, only to complete itself when he finds their speakers: “Hellp uss…”

Our first look at this new Batman’s kind of caseload plays out simply, even a little predictably.  Nonetheless, it shows how low this world has sunken, where even the homeless are tortured beyond their poverty and then fed upon.  But to Batman, this situation is merely part of the daily horrors he faces down; no wonder his view of the world is so grim.

What is it about these street-level stories, especially where Batman is concerned, that makes minimal, semi-clumsy, even cartoony art like Risso’s work so well?  Perhaps because it’s a mocking reflection of reality, which serves to underscore just how unbelievably twisted Batman’s world can be.  Mulvihill’s monochrome colors add another layer of un-realness to the proceedings.

Conclusion: If the stories of this altered universe are going to be this solid, then I’ll be sad to see it go when it inevitably does.

Grade: A-

- Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: - “Mmmrrr…”  You’ve only existed in your own comic for one issue, and already you’ve got a great catchphrase.  Well played, Sir.

- And why not use Heath Ledger as a model for Joker if you’ve got a brand-new reality to do it in?

By: Various (see below)

The Story: A Vertigo anthology with a sci-fi bent.

[Note: The regular "what's good"/"what's not so good" format doesn't work so well for an anthology like this.  Don't worry, it'll return...]

Case 21: (Selwyn Hinds, writer & Denys Cowan, art) A very clever story dealing with a dystopian future police state where a tattoo artist is forced to make some pretty harsh decisions.  It’s well written and has some nice dynamic artwork, including a topless lady getting into a fight with the jackbooted cops.  Cool twist at the end too.  I’d definitely be in favor of seeing more of this story.

The White Room:  (Talia Hershewe, writer & Juan Bobillo, art)  I didn’t love this story as much.  It is set in the future and deals with a couple of punk-kids’ experience with a type of virtual reality/drug called The White Room.  Misadventures in virtual realities or hallucinogenic trips just aren’t my bag, so my lack of enjoyment is 100% due to the subject matter.  Bobillo’s painted and pinkish-tinged art is very visually appealing.

Partners: (Peter Milligan, writer & Sylvain Savoia, art)  This story didn’t really scratch my itch either although I think there is a clever premise within it.  The problem is that the cool twist is revealed a little too soon in the story and that robs it of some of its juice.  For some reason, the artwork reminds me of Charles Burns, but I’m not sure why.  Perhaps it’s because the subject matter is kids with identity crises sitting around a campfire?

All the Pretty Ponies: (Lauren Beukes, writer & Inaki Miranda, art)  This was one of the stars of the issue for me.  What starts out as a Surrogates-type story where rich people are paying money to inhabit and take virtual/remote control of a bunch of poor folks has a very wicked twist.  Great art by Miranda too.  This is another I’d like to see more of.

Ultra the Multi-Alien: (Jeff Lemire, writer and art)  Is it any surprise that Jeff Lemire would give us a heart-wrenching and plaintive tale?  The art is typical Lemire, emotive and stylized, and will be immediately familiar to any fan of Sweet Tooth or Essex County.  The subject matter hits the same types of notes as those other works too.  I don’t want to spoil the twist, but the story deals with an astronaut who is far from home in more ways than one.  More please!

Refuse: (Ross Campbell, writer and art) This story wins the award for the grossest, holy crap moment of the issue.  I really liked Ross’ willingness to show such a nasty looking story and anyone who is willing to draw that has got some real potential.  But, I didn’t really understand the purpose of the story and why this mother is living in such a filthy apartment that her child has been taken away by social services.

Post-Modern Prometheus: (Kevin Colden, writer & art) This story had a very X-Files vibe and is about an escaped sentient lab experiment and his struggle to find happiness as he tries to stay a step ahead of the nasty forces who created him.  I really liked Colden’s art on this because it caused you to really feel badly for this little monster.

A “True Tale” from Saucer Country: (Paul Cornell, writer & Goran Sudzuka, art) Another miss for me.  One problem for this story might be its placement in the issue.  This is a slower story dealing with a man recounting his experiences being kidnapped by aliens, but it’s a little too weird and meta to be on page 61 of a comic book.  Readers are a little weary at this point.  Not sure I need to see more of this story even though it is well written and drawn.

Spaceman: (Brian Azzarello, writer & Eduardo Risso, art) From the 100 Bullets team comes this enticing new tale.  If you read and enjoyed 100 Bullets this story won’t be much of a surprise.  Despite the sci-fi setting, you get classic Risso art (you can tell it’s Risso from page #1) and very chatty and jargonal dialog from Azzarello.  The story is set on a near (?) future Earth where the climate has been destroyed and seems to follow a character who was genetically engineered by NASA to be able to thrive in the lower gravity of Mars.  I’d LOVE to see more of this, but there is a rumor going around that Risso is going to work for Marvel, so who knows what’ll happen.

Cover: I usually don’t comment on covers because they have so little to do with the story, but why in the hell DC would commission a beautiful cover by Paul Pope of a beautiful lady floating out of a space suit and then plaster an ugly ass Green Lantern movie banner across the top is beyond me.  As if Ryan Reynolds didn’t look stupid enough in that mask, he now looks even worse being on the same page as Paul Pope art.  I’ve rarely been so annoyed as seeing a beautiful cover screwed up!

Conclusion: While it didn’t have a “holy crap” awesome story, there really aren’t any turds in this anthology and a few stories are quite promising.  There’s also the bonus that the whole comic is sci-fi themed and that isn’t something we get enough of in comics today.  Hopefully Vertigo will sell enough of these to keep this series going for a LONG time because we need more anthologies on the shelves.

Grade: B

-Dean Stell

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March 30, 2004

Quick Rating: Below Average
Title: Broken City Part Six

Azzarello and Risso leave Batman with a cap to the mystery of Angel Lupo.

Writer: Brian Azzarello
Art: Eduardo Risso
Colors: Patricia Mulvihill
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis and Bob Schreck
Cover Art: Eduardo Risso
Publisher: DC Comics

And the “Broken City” arc comes to its conclusion, with some fans sorry to see it end and others, myself included, relieved that another creative team will be taking over this title with the next issue. I’m sorry, folks, but “Broken City” just didn’t deliver for me. This issue gives us a clichéd cap to a clichéd “hardboiled” mystery, an inexplicable appearance by the Joker (this isn’t a spoiler, he’s right there on the cover) and an overwhelming feeling that I’m just glad its done.

Aside from the fact that the mystery of the arc never really grabbed me, the sudden inclusion of the Joker feels entirely superfluous, as though he’s only there so that Azzarello can say he wrote a Joker story. Plus, with him running around on the loose over in Batman: Gotham Knights but laced up in Arkham here, it’s no wonder some fans feel intimidated by so many bat-books. I don’t mean we should necessarily keep a chart somewhere showing where villains are at all times, but especially in the Batman books I don’t feel like there’s any effort at reason with them at all anymore – a villain is incarcerated when the writer needs him to be and on the loose when he needs him to be, rarely if ever showing him escape and rarely if ever showing him actually getting captured. There’s no sense there.

Risso for all the skill he’s shown in 100 Bullets, sacrifices more and more of his style to a Frank Miller pastiche in this issue. From body type to facial structure to the weird “chapped lips” look Batman has in come panels, it’s like looking at something Miller drew 20 years ago instead of something Risso drew in the here and now.

I’m sorry to the fans who enjoyed this run, but I simply don’t see what the appeal was. “Broken City” never felt fresh or original to me, it felt like a halfhearted attempt to pay homage to the Miller days and never quite lived up to it.

But at least we’ve probably seen the last of the Killer Croc’s ‘fro.

Rating: 4/10

February 23, 2004

Quick Rating: Below Average
Title: Broken City Part Five

Batman finally finds Angel Lupo… but will it do any good?

Writer: Brian Azzarello
Art: Eduardo Risso
Colors: Patricia Mulvihill
Letters: Clem Robins
Editor: Will Dennis & Bob Schreck
Cover Art: Dave Johnson
Publisher: DC Comics

With only one issue remaining in the “Broken City” story arc, try as I might, I just can’t find it in me to care about the overriding mystery. I don’t care about Angel Lupo and Margo seems just another stereotypical femme fatale. To tell a good mystery, you’ve got to have the audience engrossed, wondering, yearning to know the outcome. I’m just yearning for the next story arc to begin.

Batman has a little chat with the Penguin that leads to another confrontation with Fatman and Little Boy, who turn out to be far more brutal and effective in this issue than we’ve been given any reason to expect. The fight scene seems to exist solely to pad the issue.

Even the artwork, which has thus far been the high point of the “Broken City” arc, suffers in this issue. Eduardo Risso wants to be Frank Miller so badly it hurts, and any style of his own gets lost in this issue. Whether you’re a fan of Miller’s style or not, I’d still prefer to see Risso develop and evolve on his own rather than just ape someone who did his best Batman work almost 20 years ago.

There’s only one issue left for this title to wrap things up in a satisfying fashion. It seems less and less likely that will actually happen, but if you’ve been disappointed in this storyline, you can at least take heart in the fact that it’s almost over.

Rating: 4/10

February 4, 2008

Quick Rating: Good
Title: One Hundred! and other stories

Three short tales of the Spirit

Writers: Glen David Gold, Dennis O’Neil & Gail Simone
Art: Eduardo Risso, Ty Templeton, Phil Hester & Ande Parks
Colors: Max Sinclair, Jim Charalampidis & Alex Sinclair
Letters: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Ben Abernathy, Scott Peterson & Kristy Quinn
Cover Art: Darwyn Cooke & J. Bone
Publisher: DC Comics

Marking time between creative teams, this issue of The Spirit gives us three short stories with different creative teams under – inexplicably – a Christmas-themed cover. None of the stories are particularly memorable, but all of them are okay.

Glen David Gold and Eduardo Risso start the issue with “One Hundred!” On Halloween, a group of thugs sets out to steal 100 blue azure diamonds, and each thug dogs the Spirit’s distinctive duds for the job. It’s an okay heist story, but nothing to write home about.

“Family Treasure,” a funny little tale by Dennis O’Neil and Ty Templeton, shows the Spirit trying to help poor immigrant who has come to America looking for a treasure left behind by a late relative. The trouble is, the place where the treasure is supposed to be buried doesn’t seem to exist.

The best of the book is “The Cold Depths of the Icicle Heart,” a silent yarn by Gail Simone, with art by Phil Hester and Ande Parks. On a freezing night, the Spirit chases after a cold-hearted queen running a protection racket. Unlike most “silent” stories, Simone and the artists communicate mainly through pictures in the characters’ word balloons, a technique you don’t see too much, but which can be quite effective.

While none of the stories in this issue are outstanding, the artwork pretty much is throughout. The three different art teams each has a different style, but all three of them are highly qualified to draw the Spirit’s world.

Great art, okay stories. Now I’m just waiting for the new regular creative team to take over.

Rating: 7/10