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Review: Four Books for Pre-Adults

I had a pile of books more-or-less for kids, and thought: why not review them all together? And so I will:

[[[Flight Explorer, Vol. 1]]]
Edited by Kazu Kibuishi
Villard, 2008, $10.00

The popular [[[Flight]]] series, officially for adults but containing a lot of all-ages stories, has spun off a younger sibling. The cast of cartoonists is pretty much the same, and the editor is still Kibuishi, but this book is shorter, cheaper, smaller, and contains many more characters seemingly designed to headline a series of stories.

The stories are all fairly short – there are ten of them in a book just over a hundred pages – long enough to introduce what mostly seem to be series characters and given them a situation to deal with. The cover-featured “[[[Missile Mouse]]],” by Jake Parker gets the most adventurous, and will probably be the most appealing to the boy audience. (There’s nothing obviously aimed at the girl comics-reading audience – or maybe I mean nothing trying to poach some of the manga audience – though there are several strips with female protagonists, like Ben Hatke’s “[[[Zita the Spacegirl]]].”

The art is still mostly clean-lines enclosing solid colors – an animator’s palette – though the book gets more painterly towards the end, in the pieces by Ben Hatke, Rad Sechrist, Bannister, and Matthew Armstrong. It’s all quite professional and fun – all in all, a great book to hand to an 8-12 year old interested in comics.

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‘Hellboy II: The Golden Army’ Trailer Online

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  • April 3, 2008

Yahoo Movies has posted the first trailer for Hellboy II: The Golden Army. 

The trailer features all the things you’d expect from a Hellboy adaptation and a Guillermo del Toro film: huge monsters, fantastic art direction, action-packed fights and plenty of grumblings from the big red hero.

The sequel to 2004’s Hellboy, the film follows the B.P.R.D. as they attempt to once again save the world and protect innocent people from magical creatures. There are no evil Nazi experiments this time, but the crazy creatures more than make up for it.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army hits theaters July 11 and stars Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones and John Hurt.

First Posters for ‘The Spirit’ Revealed

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  • April 3, 2008

Frank Miller’s adaptation of The Spirit won’t hit theaters until January 16, 2009, but the marketing hype is already underway. The first outdoor artwork posters for the upcoming movie have been revealed and are highly reminiscent of the visual style employed by Miller’s Sin City.

The film is an adaptation of Will Eisner’s popular comic series about a cop that returns from the dead in order to fight the criminal element in Central City.

Miller shared credit with Robert Rodriguez on the adaptation of Sin City, but The Spirit marks his solo debut in the director’s chair. The film stars Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Paulson, Paz Vega, Jaime King and Eva Mendes.

High resolution photos of the posters can be viewed at Superhero Hype.

 

Happy Birthday: Jay Garrick

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Born in Hibbardsville, Kansas, in the early 1920s, Jason Peter “Jay” Garrick had an uneventful childhood. It wasn’t until he went to Keystone City for college, studying chemistry and physics at Midwestern University, that fate singled him out for greater things.

Garrick was a junior in 1940 and working on an experiment to purify hard water and remove all radiation when a test tube dropped. The fumes knocked Garrick out and breathing the vapors all night somehow changed him, granting him the ability to run at super-speed (later evidence suggests Garrick always had this latent ability and the vapors simply activated it).

At first, he used his new powers for personal gain, becoming a college football star, but his integrity would not let him walk away from those in trouble, so Garrick donned a stylized winged helmet and a red shirt with a lightning bolt and began to fight crime as The Flash.

Garrick joined the Justice Society of America and the All-Star Squadron and became a well-known and well-respected crimefighter. Though he briefly retired and focused on his scientific career in the 1950s, Garrick could not stay away, and returned to heroics in 1961, just in time to meet his Earth-One counterpart, Barry Allen.

He has been active ever since, and is once again a key member of the Justice Society of America. Most younger heroes consider Garrick the elder statesman of superheroes, and all of them admire and respect him and appreciate his calm manner and his sage advice just as much as his flying fists and speedy feet.

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Interview: From Animation to Print With James Farr and ‘Xombie’

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  • April 3, 2008

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In 2003, James Farr posted online the first chapter of Xombie, a short film he produced using Flash animation, on the ‘Net. The eerie tale introduced viewers to Zoe, a young girl who finds herself alone in a zombie wasteland with no memory of how she came to be there, as well as a sentient zombie named Dirge who rescues her from the menacing flesh-eaters.

Four years, 10 episodes and 13 million views later, Xombie: Dead on Arrival (as the series was later named) is widely regarded as one of the InterWebs’ first "cult classic" original animated series, and Farr  remains one of the most popular filmmakers from the early days of the Flash-animation scene. The series, with its well-scripted dialogue and pacing, as well as Farr’s use of talented voice actors who gave life — or rather, death — to many of the characters, continues to be held up as a prime example of the medium’s potential.

So, with a celebrated animated series behind him, what did the talented creator do next? He jumped into the world of comics, of course.

The first issue of Xombie: Reanimated, a six-issue series written by Farr with art from Nate Lovett, hit comic shops in 2007 courtesy of Devil’s Due Publishing, just a short time after the final episode of Dead on Arrival hit the online world. Reanimated continued the story of Zoe and Dirge, picking up ten years after the first adventure and moving Farr’s unlikely heroes (along with their zombie dog, Cerberus; the Egyptian mummy, Nephthys; and her zombie dinosaur, Chimaera) into a brand new medium.

According to Farr, Dead on Arrival and Reanimated provided the first two chapters in a trilogy that, he hopes, is breathing fresh air into the musty, recycled conventions of zombie-genre storytelling.

I spoke with Farr about the recent release of the Xombie: Reanimated collection, as well as the line of Xombie-inspired figures produced by DDP. We spoke about what’s next for the series, and his forays into manga, sniper-avoidance and his "big role" in last year’s live-action Transformers film.

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The Weekly Haul: Reviews for April 3, 2008

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  • April 3, 2008

A big week, with Marvel kicking off the summer event season with Secret Invasion #1, which earned a separate review. Plenty of other comics came out, with a couple of princes but way too many frogs.

omeg7-4890921Book of the Week: Omega the Unknown #7 — This issue earns "instant purchase" status for the amazing Gary Panter cover (seen at right) and his interior pages depicting a comic as drawn by the hero of the story (wrap your brain around that one).

So we learn a little more about the history of the invading aliens and how they began their essentially nanotech-style war on humanity (and other alien races before that). Back in the present, Omega remains caught in the Mink’s maze and unable to join the fight against the robots. He does, however, catch a rat to eat. I don’t know if that’s better or worse than when he ate a bald eagle in an earlier issue.

Titus, the seeming Omega protege, and friends end up sneaking into the Mink’s base to bust out Omega, only to make a pretty alarming discovery that I won’t spoil here.

This series is big and crazy and reckless, but I still get the sense that writer Jonathan Lethem is very much in control of the story.

Runners Up:

Action Comics #863 — Both in this series and in Green Lantern, Geoff Johns is pulling an interesting trick by going a ways into the past to develop upcoming big events. And while all this time travel and Legion of Superheroes stuff could just be an excuse to show off Johns’ mastery of continuity, this manages to be much more, with a slobberknocker of a fight and some classic teamwork. By the time it was over, I was more excited about Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds than I was about Final Crisis.

Nightwing #143 — A mysterious villain is nefariously reviving dead villains on his secret island base, then escapes in a rocket when Nightwing and Robin defeat him. Sounds like something right out of James Bond, albeit without the beautiful women and cocktails. Somehow it works really well, probably because of the great interplay between Dick and Tim, two characters who should work together more often. (more…)

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ComicMix Radio: Keith Giffen Obsesses

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It takes a certain sort of comic creator to oversee 104 weekly comics in a two-year period, not to mention wiping out a bunch of heroes at the other comic company across the street. That guy is Keith Giffen, and he talks to ComicMix about where he’s been and where he’s going, plus:

— Comic creators dominate the Scribe Award nominations

— Finally –  American Flagg

— Stan Lee and Disney team-up

—  Sure, there’s another  exclusive Graham Crackers Comics variant that could be in the mail to you – if you win by e-mailing us at: podcast [at] comicmix.com

While you were waiting to press the button, Keith Giffen just finished three more comics!

 

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-9221820 or RSS!

Review: ‘Secret Invasion’ #1

The first issue of Marvel’s big [[[Secret Invasion Summer Extravaganza Skrullfest ’08]]] (or whatever they’re calling it) is here, and there’s just too much to talk about for it to fit in my Weekly Haul reviews roundup. So let’s break this one down between the good, the bad and the ugly. And, be warned if you haven’t read it, spoilers lurk below.

The Good:

First, let me just say how happy I am that Marvel let Brian Michael Bendis continue his partnership with Leinil Yu, who is quickly becoming one of my favorites. His art has a uniquely nervy feel, and it would’ve been easy for Marvel to peg someone more “safe” for their big event. And while I like Yu’s work better when it isn’t inked, his inked work in [[[Secret Invasion]]] is still quite good.

Another strongpoint is the barrel-full of action, making this issue the complete antithesis of the yawner of an opener to House of M. Things develop quickly and the final pages are bang-bang-bang with big reveals and bigger reveals. In a sequence of just a few pages the SWORD base explodes, the negative zone is unleashed in NYC, Iron Man is taken out, Reed Richards is taken out, the “other” heroes show up and a Skrull army says hello.

I also got a kick out of the little details Bendis wrote in. For instance, every Skrull reveal is foreshadowed throughout the book by the art. Every character who is shown only in complete black outline somewhere in the issue turns out to be a Skrull. Well, aside from Sentry and Wolverine, who haven’t been outed yet.

The Bad:

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Finishing Therapy, by John Ostrander

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  • April 3, 2008

Spoiler Alert: This column will be reviewing HBO’s In Therapy series and more than a few of its secrets are bound to get spilled along the way. If you have the show TiVoed for future viewing, you may want to delay reading this week’s installment.

I’ve just finished watching HBO’s nine week, 43 half hour episode series In Therapy wherein we follow a bunch of patients as they have sessions with their therapist. Each day, Monday through Friday, is devoted         to a different client/patient with Friday devoted to the therapist’s sessions with his own therapist. In theory, you could watch just one patient’s sessions, such as X on Wednesday, and wind up with a complete narrative. The show is also designed, however, to have an over-all über-narrative that emerges if you watch all the episodes. It is itself based on an Israeli show, Be Tipul, and the episodes of In Therapy are adapted from specific scripts in the Israeli series.

The series boasts some fine – in some cases, superb – acting with a topnotch cast. At the center of it is Gabriel Byrne as therapist Paul Weston. Weston’s office is a room in his own home that has separate entrances and exits from the rest of the house. He’s about 50, very respected and successful in his profession but things are starting to crack. His marriage to his wife, Kate, played by the always incredible Michelle Forbes, is cracking. He barely knows his children anymore. One of his patients has fallen in love with him and he may be falling in love with her as well.

It was a demanding series, not the last for its length. 43 episodes is a major commitment to ask of viewers. Also, the bulk of the series happens in Paul’s office as we sit in on the sessions. That means a lot of talk with folks sitting. Perhaps better suited for a play, one might think, or a book, or a radio play. For television? Doesn’t that call for something that is more visual?

For myself, the length didn’t put me off. In the theatre, I’ve watched both parts of the staged production of Nicholas Nickelby in one day and a staging of all seven plays in Shakespeare’s War of the Roses cycle in one weekend. At the dame time, both had more movement, more spectacle, than did In Therapy. Perhaps the more important question is – did each individual story require the episodes devoted to it? Did each one add up? Did the whole series, all of the stories together, itself add up to something that was, frankly, worth the time and commitment to watching it? Do I regret spending the four hours or so with each character?

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Review: ‘That Salty Air’ by Tim Sievert

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That Salty Air
Tim Sievert
Top Shelf, 2008, $10.00

For a book about the sea, [[[That Salty Ai]]]r feels awfully Minnesotan. (Or maybe I’m just reacting to the underlying Norwegian-ness of both Minnesota and Sievert’s story – but there is something hard and dour and northern about That Salty Air.)

Maryann and Hugh are a young couple who live in a lonely cabin by the sea, and whose main source of income seems to be fishing. One day, the postman delivers two letters from the local doctor – it’s immediately clear that Maryann’s letter has told her that she’s pregnant, but we get a couple of montages of sea life (red in tooth and claw, for some immediate symbolism) before Hugh gets his letter.

From it, he learns that his mother has drowned, and he immediately turns against the sea, blaming it for her death. Really, he curses the sea and throws a rock, beaning an important squid far below (which action will be important later). Hugh curses his life, runs off to town to get drunk, and generally behaves badly through the middle of the book, while Maryann sits at home, trying to keep things together.

She also hasn’t gotten a chance to tell Hugh she’s pregnant yet, since he flew off the handle so quickly and so completely. He eventually does come back, and they reconcile, with each other and with the sea…more or less.

That Salty Air is an exceptionally symbolic story, very obviously so. Sievert is clearly young and energetic, and I expect he’ll be someone to reckon with once he settles down a bit. This particular book has a lot of strong points – the particulars of characterization, the evocation of a particular landscape, the inky blacks and assured panel-to-panel transitions – but its story made this reader roll his eyes more than once. It’s a bit much to swallow.

But, on the other hand, it’s only ten bucks for over a hundred pages of comics by a real talent. It’s hard to beat that. And I expect Sievert’s next book will add some subtlety to the already impressive strengths of That Salty Air. He’s definitely a talent to watch.


Andrew Wheeler has been a publishing professional for nearly twenty years, with a long stint as a Senior Editor at the Science Fiction Book Club and a current position at John Wiley & Sons. He’s been reading comics for longer than he cares to mention, and maintains a personal, mostly book-oriented blog at antickmusings.blogspot.com.

Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Andrew Wheeler directly at acwheele (at) optonline (dot) net.

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