Walking on the Moon

A short review of Freakonomics is up on Bell, Book, and Candle.

These get more irregular all the time. Nonetheless:

Will Eisner’s The Spirit #32, Ploog & Green. Some nice Eisner-esque visuals, but really too much going on to too many characters I didn’t care about. This is drifting towards dropable.

Doktor Sleepless #13, Ellis & Rodriguez. This was a nicely ominous issue signaling that the pot that’s been simmering is going to boil over. As a single issue, not much happened (though I suppose one extremely interesting thing did), but in the big picture, I think this is a necessary and elegant timing issue.

Doom Patrol #1-2, Giffen, Clark, Livesay. Interesting. Giffin’s usually interesting, and I like his pragmatic take on everyone’s favorite set of misfits. It’ll be another issue or three before I’m sure I’m happy with all the subplots and new characterizations, but so far I’m interested. There are some Giffin repeating motifs – or pet ideas – bobbing around in there. I think that the director of the supercollider is a nod to an old Heckler character, for example. There seems to be enough fresh stuff in here to keep me around. And there’s a Giffin, DeMatteis, Maguire Metal Men backup, that’s basically a JLI flashback. It’s almost trying too hard, but it’s still fun.

Incognito #6, Brubaker & Phillips. The ending felt a little rushed, but not too much so. Zack squeeks a little more redemption out than I was quite willing to believe, but overall the run was a lot of fun. I’ll show up for the next series. And it dragged me over to Criminal, too.

Batman & Robin #3, Morrison & Quitely. There’s a lot to admire about this book, but I don’t feel its heart yet. I guess it’s the nagging feeling that this is just a fill-in run until the main Batman gets back. I don’t know how you make readers care about characters when their fate is known to some extent, but no breakthroughs yet. Still, it’s beautifully drawn and tightly plotted. There’s a lot to like here, and I’m sticking around.

Secret Six #12 & 13, Simone, Scott, Hazelwood. Certainly my favorite book on the racks these days. Unlike most superhero stuff, I barely notice the plots – they’re fine – but seeing what these characters will do in a given situation is always exciting. Every single issue makes me laugh, sigh, and shake my head with disappointment at an all too real human error. This is really great stuff that doesn’t take it self too seriously. Or too lightly.

My capsule for Vidal’s Selected Essays is up on Bell, Book, and Candle.

This blog is now running WordPress 2.8.4.  Let me know if you have problems.

I forgot to review Super Folks last night. That review is up on Bell Book and Candle now as well.

A couple new capsule reviews are up on Bell Book and Candle.

A couple new capsule reviews are finally up on Bell, Book, and Candle.

Man these are way less regular than I imagine them to be. There’s a lot to catch up on, so:

A bunch of Captain America, Brubaker, et al. (Specifically, Captain America #50, #600-601 and Reborn #1). These all feel kind of hiccoughy. Honestly the reason I’m lumping them together here is that they’re all lumped in one mass in my brain as well. The pacing isn’t right and one gets the impression that the coordination of this arc with the rest of the Marvel Universe is throwing Brubaker’s usual pacing off. The fanboy in me will stick around to see Steve Rogers come back, but the critic in me isn’t very pleased. I note that #601 features art by the legendary Gene Colan, and that’s always worth seeing.

Batman and Robin #1-2, Morrison and Quitely. I’m a sucker for these two. However, despite several nice touches in Morrison’s writing, I’m really not getting involved in the central arc of the story so far. Maybe it’s because Damien’s so uniformly unlikable. Maybe it’s because I’ve been out of touch with Dick so long. Maybe it’s because someone else being Batman automatically feels like an Elseworlds. I’ll stick around a couple more issues, but this could easily drop off the list.

Secret Six #11, Simone, Scott, Hazlewood. I suppose that I could say that I’ve finally found something to dislike in Secret Six in that every difference of opinion among the Six leads to fisticuffs, but that’s kind of a genre thing. Still, the protagonists can punch each other once an issue if I get Artemis’s soliloquy on gulags or Jeanette’s simple clarity in rescuing someone she hates from a situation she finds unconscionable. Pitch perfect characters in a genre world.

Will Eisner’s The Spirit #29, Mottler and Rivoche. A one-shot that wasn’t anything marvelous. It was a well told crime story with the Spirit taking a hand, but nothing jaw-dropping. There’s a lot to like here, but not enough to love.

Will Eisner’s The Spirit #30, Oeming. I can’t say I followed the plot closely here, or would have liked it if I had, but Oeming’s dynamic layout and loose, flowing art are really fun to skim through.

Will Eisner’s The Spirit #31, Ploog and Green. While the last two issues have been stories with the Spirit in them, this is a Spirit story – of a sort. There’s the vaguely ridiculous magical caricature running around, mysterious goings on from the government, and The Spirit getting knocked around to a laughable degree. So far Ploog and Green are holding the whole shambling mess together in an entertaining story, but it could easily come apart. Still, Eisner pulled off this sort of thing with some regularity, and maybe these guys can too.

Incognito #4 & 5, Brubaker and Phillips. We’re finding out more about the world that underlies Incognito, and honestly it’s less interesting to me than the noir edge that Zack’s been walking. More plot and less characterization than I think is healthy. The plot’s fairly conventional – and maybe more than I want to suspend disbelief for – but it was fun following a down-on-his-luck super-villain through witness protection. I’ll stick around for the conclusion, though.

Nexus: Space Opera #3 & 4, Baron and Rude. If you’re expecting me to say something bad about Nexus, you can forget it. This little present arrived somewhat out of the blue, and I suspect only Nexus fans and completeists care, but I was happy to see it.

Glamourpuss #8, Sim. Man, can we please get rid of any writing not about comics photrealism? The art’s gorgeous and the history’s interesting (though we’re on a bit of a digression about Margaret Mitchell’s involvement with The Heart of Juliette Jones that I could live without), but the alleged parody just isn’t working at all for me.

Several reviews up on Bell, Book, and Candle.

Will Eisner’s The Spirit #28, Uslan, DeSnato, Justiniano, Wong. I’ve been enjoying these fellows’ take on The Spirit, but this issue didn’t have the winning character interaction from the core team that’s been holding up the short run. I found the plotting a little convoluted – a lot of exposition to introduce – and the art had some gratuitously odd perspective that didn’t improve the storytelling or look convincing. Still any issue that includes the line “Ellen, they poisoned my ketchup…” has something redeeming in it.

Glamourpuss #7, Sim. Honestly, too much unfunny parody, too little meticulously rendered comics history. Definitely playing away form the series’s strength from my perspective.

Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye #3, Morrison & Stewart. An ending of sorts for Seaguy. In keeping with the rest of the series, it’s not so much that Seaguy’s changed his world, but he’s definitely done what he can, and emerged different. The art’s still gorgeous and the odd world is consistent throughout. If you liked the other issues, you’ll like this one. I may be an old softie, but I thought the closing sequence was very sweet.

Secret Six #10, Simone, Scott, Hazlewood. After the last couple issues of one-shots, we’re back to a longer arc. Simone reminds us that these folks are bad guys, even with their redeeming qualities, by having them accept a job from some very bad guys. Beneath this rollicking adventure series is a very interesting look at good and evil, with very sympathetic but flawed characters asking hard questions. And it’s a smart, rollicking adventure. With art perfectly tuned to the story, and to communicating the characters internals. If you can stomach super-stuff at all, this should be on your reading list.