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Calling all Time Lords! Ready the Tardis! The Doctor is here! I love Doctor Who with David Tennant, so I’m a little apprehensive about the upcoming series where he’s replaced by the much younger doc. So when I was in London, I picked up a copy of Doctor Who Adventures (#123, July 9-15, 2009) even though it’s not a traditional comic book. Doctor Who Adventures is actually a magazine from BBC Magazines that features a comic book section. The magazine part takes up the largest portion of the publication with photos (including pictures of readers dressed as the Doctor, and photo-spreads of the metal-munching Stingrays, The Tritovore Ship, Lazarus Revealed, and pin-ups of The Daleks, and even Jack Barrowman), Doctor Who’s “Top 10 Fights And Battles,” puzzles, and a “Where’s Waldo”-inspired feature called “Who’s Where?” by Christopher Cooper.
Click to continue reading BRITISH COMICS: Doctor Who Adventures 123 with David Tennant
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I’m only mildly familiar with the British tradition known as The Beano. I know there’s a British version of Dennis the Menace who bears no resemblance to Hank Ketcham’s creation beyond the idea that they’re both right little stinkers. And I know that the weekly Beano has been published for decades. So I was really looking forward to grabbing a couple of issues.
First of all, it was hard to find a copy. On the newsstand, especially the independent corner ones that are just outside the Tube stops, I couldn’t find a copy and the vendors just shook their heads when I asked. It took a trip to Border’s, yes that Border’s, to grab them. I picked up The Beano #3490 (July 4, 2009) and The Beano #3491 (July 11, 2009). Both issues have all the regular features. Dennis is there (along with an effeminate gang of rivals called The Softies), Minnie The Minx (the world’s wildest Tomboy), Bea & Ivy (a sort of Muppet Babies version of Dennis and his friends), The Bash Street Kids (the perennial favorite created long ago by the great Leo Baxendale), Ball Boy (he’s football crazy), Rasher (Dennis’ pet pig), The Numskulls, Freddie Fear (the son of a witch), Billy The Whiz (the fastest boy in the world) and several others.
Click to continue reading BRITISH COMICS: The Beano & Dennis The Menace & Bash Street
Now this is comedy, but it’s not for children. This is funny stuff for adults who need a few giggles over bodily functions, naughty words, and sexual situations. Viz #187 (August 2009) has a lot of great strips featuring The Fat Slags, The Drunken Bakers, Mr. Logic, Biffa Bacon and Cedric Soft, Aesop’s Cables (with a heartwarming fable about his bathroom habits), and a “super-hero” called The Brown Bottle who derives his courage from drinking a six-pack. PC Hubble and PC Bubble are two cops who take their jobs very seriously in a humorous 2009 abuse of power way. Even the girls of St. Bridget’s School get into the act when they find a man – an “inconsequential piece of celebrity flotsam” - in the backyard and try to keep him as a pet.
Click to continue reading BRITISH COMICS: Viz 187, The Fat Slags and Elton John
BRITISH COMICS: 2000AD Prog 1643: Judge Dredd & Zombies!
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Reviews, DC Comics, IDW Publishing, Independent,
Whenever I’m in London, which is where I am this week, I like to check out the local comic books. And I don’t mean the repackaged American comics that Marvel does, or the magazine-sized comic books like Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation that feature quizzes, puzzles and games inbetween a repackaged American comic. (Although the UK Star Trek comic does a very nice job of repackaging IDW’s Star Trek comic with an assortment of photos and features on the new movie.) I’m talking about the stuff the Brits do for themselves, specifically for the newsstand. Stuff like…Judge Dredd.
I’ve been a casual Judge Dredd fan for years. Back in the 90s, I worked my way through the collections from Titan Books with all that great Brian Bolland and Mike McMahon artwork, I read the DC Comics mini-series and I saw the godawful Judge Dredd movie with Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider. So I have some familiarity with the Judge and his colleagues, which led me to pick up 2000 AD, Prog 1643 from July 8, 2009.
The cover is a nice zombie-baby horror from Leigh Gallagher, tying into this issue’s final story.
Click to continue reading BRITISH COMICS: 2000AD Prog 1643: Judge Dredd & Zombies!
Rating: ***
Another descent issue of Red Robin by writer Chris Yost. I’m not blown away here, but I am enjoying this new journey that Tim Wayne is on right now. Tim is alone. He feels betrayed by Dick Grayson his “older brother” so to speak and the bastard son of the Batman family Damian has taken over his job as Robin. As mentioned in the previous issue, Tim Wayne believes that his mentor and adopted father Bruce Wayne the original Batman is still alive and well and Tim has gone out into the world to search for clues as to his whereabouts.
He’s currently in Paris and finds himself fighting a group of assassins. The assassins turn to be working for one of Batman’s deadliest enemies: Ra’s al Ghul. Ra’s has an offer for Tim. He agrees with and he also believes that Bruce Wayne is really alive and wants to help him. How does Ra’s know Bruce is alive? We don’t know. Why does Ra’s want to help Tim? We don’t know this one either, but I’m assuming Ra’s wants his revenge on Bruce and what better way to do it than use his son to get to him.
I’ve mentioned this before and I said that Tim seems to becoming more dark like his father Bruce. When he’s fighting Ra’s’ assassins, he’s thinking about how he needs to work on his voice in the same way Bruce put on his “Batman” voice when he was fighting. He’s also pushing people away in the same Bruce has done so in the past. He deletes the messages of friends who are trying to contact him and he turns his back on Stephanie - the Spoiler who comes looking for him in this issue.
Click to continue reading DC Comics Review: Red Robin #2
Robert Englund Loves Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash Artwork and Not Much Else
Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Interviews, Marvel Comics,
Robert Englund, best known for his portrayal of Freddy Kruger from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, recently commented on WildStorm’s Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash comic; however, he seems to merely enjoy looking rather than reading it.
“Well, I love the artwork. I absolutely love the artwork. I like the storyline but I love the artwork. I think the cover art is just phenomenal,” the Los Angeles native explained.
Makes me wonder if he actually read the books…
Click to continue reading Robert Englund Loves Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash Artwork and Not Much Else
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Tom’s Story Starts to Unravel in The Unwritten #3
Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,
Being a literature-embracing nerd myself, it was no wonder that Mike Carey and Peter Gross hooked me into their latest Vertigo series, The Unwritten, in a whole of two issues. With that said, I can assure that you’ll love these books just as much as I do, even if you absolutely detest the English language. I am that confident in the series. This is the team that gave us Lucifer, after all.
While issues #1 and #2 brazenly hook you into Tom Taylor’s world (mind you, something this epic needs the two-issue start), The Unwritten #3 is the true beginning of his tale.
Tom travels to the legendary Villa Diodati, birthplace of both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and “Tommy Taylor.” Interspersed through the issue, Carey and Gross provide us with Tom’s childhood flashbacks from when he and his father spent time at the notorious manor. The connection between Pullman and his father becomes increasingly apparent as Pullman’s lackey appears at the Villa with a penchant for havoc.
Carey’s affinity for literature (astoundingly exemplified with Tom’s geo-lit knowledge) heightens. The beautiful parallel between Frankenstein and Tom—not subtle per se, as they chose to embody this theme in the cover—proves that Carey has an eye for that which he admires. He does this all while maintaining the alarming critique of our society’s fixation with celebrity figures. Moreover, he concurrently blurs the lines between fiction and reality in a way that said critique is made probable without coming off as overbearing.
Get to your local comic book store and pick up The Unwritten—there are only three issues, so it’ll be quite easy to catch up.
Rating: ** !/2*
This month’s issue of Batman is not as good as the previous issue. I can’t put my finger on why that is, but I was left kind of with a whatever attitude after I read this story, where I was pumped after I finished reading Batman and Robin last week. I think maybe the reason I felt this way was because of the way Judd Winick wrote the character of Dick Grayson. He seemed weak. I still don’t feel like he’s confident that he can do the job when he’s been fighting crime all his life. I know DC wants him to portray him as if he’s not worthy, but he is worthy - more than worthy. Which is why I was a bit upset by two scenes in this particular issue.
One scene is the opening scene where we see Dick dressed as Batman fighting an unknown assailant in the Bat-Cave three weeks from now. The assailant knows he’s not the real Batman and is telling him so as he kicks the crap out of him. Dick lays defeated at the foot of his mentor’s cowl encased in glass with the assailant ready for the kill. This scene screams you’re a loser and a pretender. The second scene is comical, but again it seems like what we have here in Dick is a pretender to the throne. Dick is talking to Alfred about the cape and cowl and how he can’t see and the cape is too heavy to move around. I know that DC wanted to change the dynamic of Batman and Robin and have Robin be the dark figure while Batman is more light hearted, but it doesn’t seem to work here in this issue, where it’s been portrayed well over in Batman and Robin.
We’ve seen in the previous issue as well as in the Battle for the Cowl mini-series that the Penguin and Two-Face are both trying to take over the Gotham City underworld. On a side note, I wonder what happened to the Black Mask. Wasn’t he supposed to be involved as well? Maybe he’ll show up later. Anyway, Dick Grayson as Batman stops one of the Penguin’s shipments and is caught on camera. Two-Face notices something is different about Batman. He finds it interesting that the Batman would even allow himself to get on camera in the first place. After watching the footage Two-Face says to his cohort that the man in the Batman costume is not Batman.
Click to continue reading DC Comics Review: Batman #688
Marvel Comics Review: Amazing Spider-man Annual #36
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, Marvel Comics,
Rating: ****
Wow! Last week I gave a glowing review to Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin #2 where I used the phrase “wow” to express my appreciation for that issue. Well, here I am saying “wow” again for Amazing Spider-man Annual #36 because that is exactly how I felt after reading this issue.
I’ve been reading Spider-man on-and-off since the mid-80s. If the writing was good, I read it, but if it wasn’t I dropped it. There were three or four monthly Spider-man titles to chose from so I was at least collecting one of them at some point through out the years. In the 90s there was a storyline that will go down infamy as far Spider-man and comics in general: The Clone Saga. If you’re a comic reader, there is no explanation needed for what was the “Clone Saga”. I am one of the few people who liked the “Clone Saga” at first, but as time went on the story became a mess and the original planned ending was abandoned due to fan outrage.
I haven’t read Spider-man for probably over a year now. I haven’t read it since Marvel Comics committed the sin of the “Brand New Day” storyline which effectively wiped Peter Parker’s marriage to Mary Jane from continuity. The way in which they did it was atrocious and I refused to buy another Spider-man comic until they reunited Peter and MJ. Well, I decided to break my promise this once and pick up this issue. The reason I broke my promise is because of one name: Ben Reilly
Click to continue reading Marvel Comics Review: Amazing Spider-man Annual #36
San Diego Comic Con 2009: Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba
Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Conventions, Interviews, Dark Horse Comics, Independent,
In case you’re one of the luckier
richer people in this world (myself not included, very much to my dismay), you are probably attending this year’s San Diego Comic Con at the end of the month. Due to my masochism, I’ll be aiding you in your panel and booth decisions.
First up are the award-winning twins from Brazil, Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, who may not have a booth this year, but will be at a few panels:
Thursday, July 23rd: 6:00 -7:00 Vertigo New Ongoing Series/Crime Line? (Room 5AB)
Friday, July 24th: 5:30-6:30 Vertigo: View of the Future? (Room 5AB)
Friday, July 24th: 12:30-1:30pm Spotlight on Fabio Moon (Room 10)
Now go have some geeky, nerdish fun on my behalf.
Read More | Fabio and Gabriel's Blog
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