Tagged: review

Neil Gaiman to Write ‘Doctor Who’ in 2010?

Rich Johnston ignited a flurry of discussion among both comics fans and Doctor Who fans this week by reporting a rumor in his weekly "Lying in the Gutters" column that author Neil Gaiman had been approached to write an episode of the popular BBC series in 2010.

According to Johnston:

Such as the rumour running around my BBC sources that Neil Gaiman being approached to write an episode for 2010. That would be this Neil Gaiman, comic author, fantasy novelist, screenwriter, poet and writer of the Duran Duran Biography 1985. With possibly the most non-committal non-confirmation I’ve ever read. And I’ve read the responses of current Labour ministers.

In fact when I asked Neil if he’d care to comment, he pleaded the Francis saying, "You may very well think that, but I could not possibly comment."

I do very well think that. I do.

Of course, nothing will actually have been commissioned by the BBC at this stage, and there’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and prosthetic lip, but it’s looking good.

For more on the rumor, including other "potential facts" regarding the future of Doctor Who, check out this week’s "Lying in the Gutters."

And remember to check back here on ComicMix every week after a new episode of Doctor Who airs in the U.S. for our weekly Doctor Who in Review analysis of all the Easter Eggs, hints and continuity checks from the current series.

Touchstones, by Elayne Riggs

Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby
Can you tell me where he’s gone
I thought I saw him walkin’ up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin and John.

Well, last time I did an actual comic book review, and as expected it received almost no comments. So I don’t want to hear from anyone about how this column isn’t about comics!

I could probably make it about comics. After all, I’m going to be discussing the ’60s, which were about many things. Many people my age cut their fanboy and fangirl teeth on Marvel comics of the ’60s. (Me, I didn’t start reading until the mid-’80s or so, even though my late best friend Bill Marcinko tried pretty hard to get me interested in the Marvels of the late ’70s.) But, despite my trepidation about the kind of Google ads this column will attract, today I want to write about something else that happened in the ’60s, and about the persistence of memory.

Last week on the campaign trail, in an interview given to South Dakota’s Argus Leader, a frustrated Hillary Clinton reiterated her response to the "why won’t that bitch just quit?" crowd of media pundits that she’d initially articulated in a Time magazine interview back in March. Her original words: "I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn’t wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual."

This time around the phrasing was only slightly different: "My husband didn’t wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June. We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just don’t understand it," the "it" in question being the pundits’ incessant and unprecedented calls for a leading candidate to step aside (as if the media were orchestrating the process rather than the voters of each state). In March, nobody seemed to notice; this time, with the anti-Clinton hysteria ratcheted up as high as it’s been since the Whitewater nonsense, suddenly all sorts of folks were up in arms. (more…)

Review: The Complete Peanuts, 1967 to 1968 by Charles M. Shulz

peanuts67-3642515

The Complete Peanuts, 1967-1968
By Charles M. Schulz; foreword by John Waters
Fantagraphics, February 2008, $28.95

By 1967, [[[Peanuts]]] wasn’t just another comic strip in the local newspaper, it was a media phenomenon. The first TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, had won an Emmy amid universal acclaim two years earlier, and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown was about to open on Broadway. It was the epitome of mainstream entertainment – on May 24th, California Governor Ronald Reagan and the state legislature even proclaimed it “Charles Schulz Day.” The strip hadn’t quite hit its ‘70s mega-merchandising heyday, but it was getting there.

At the same time, not all that far from Schulz’s Santa Rosa home, Berkley was roiling with anti-war fervor and the Summer of Love had hit San Francisco. Peanuts had been seen as an edgy, almost countercultural strip in the early 1950s, but those days were long past, and Peanuts was the Establishment. In those days, you were with the pigs or with the longhairs, right? And where did Peanuts stand?

From the evidence here, Peanuts stood where it had always stood: on its own, only rarely commenting on specific issues of the day (such as the “bird-hippie” who would become Woodstock in another year or two), but talking around those issues in ways that most of America could laugh at… some more uncomfortably than others. Schulz was never one to declare himself on one side of an issue or the other; he’d just write and draw his cartoons, and let others make their interpretations.

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Review: ‘Burnout’ by Rebecca Donner

burnout-6585070[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a series of reviews of the five books coming out from DC’s Minx imprint this year.]

There is something almost daringly simplistic about Burnout ($9.99), as the central character Danni directly narrates her own story of teenage love and angst. No surprise, then, that fire is the central imagery to the book, unapologetic flames that do nothing but burn.

The first comics work of Rebecca Donner, who’s published work in nearly every other medium, Burnout finds Danni and her mom relocating to a remote locale, a forresting town. It’s quiet, aside from the drunken shouting of her mom’s new boyfriend.

The boyfriend’s son, Haskell, is the smoldering love interest, a young man angry at the world and especially at loggers, whom he attacks with near-thoughtless contempt. As Danni falls into a crush on Haskell she also falls into his world of ecoterrorism, and Donner turns the heat up even more.

A few times, the story becomes overly cute and childish, but by and large it is a stern book, as self-serious as the teenagers it describes. That’s not meant as criticism — Donner very effectively translates the caged sensation of youth, and the struggles (often misguided) to break free.

Minx books are at their best when they speak honestly with their intended audience of adolescent girls, and while the message of Burnout isn’t a happy-go-lucky one, it is honest. For that and much more, it’s a story that lingers in the mind, like the sharp pain of a burn.

[NOTE: I recently chatted with Donner about the book over at CBR.]

Van Jensen is a former crime reporter turned comic book journalist. Every Wednesday, he braves Atlanta traffic to visit Oxford Comics, where he reads a whole mess of books for his weekly reviews. Van’s blog can be found at graphicfiction.wordpress.com.

Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Van Jensen directly at van (dot) jensen (at) gmail (dot) com.

 

‘Dungeon Monstres, Vol. 1: The Crying Giant’ Review

The “Dungeon” series has gotten so full of stories, so complicated, that there’s a diagram on the back of this book to explain how all of the sub-series relate to each other.

Up top are the three main sequences – The Early Years (the creation), Zenith (the height), and Twilight (the downfall), as it says here – and below that are explanations of the other three clusters: Parade, Bonus, and Monstres. All are set in a giant castle in a standard fantasy world – the castle was set up by “the Keeper” as a habitat for various monsters, who could kill and devour the inevitable wandering adventurers. (So it’s a hack-n-slash D&D campaign turned on its head; the monsters win every time.)

Dungeon Monstres, Vol. 1: The Crying Giant
By Johann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Mazan, and Jean-Cristophe Menu
NBM, June 2008, $12.95

 

This particular subseries focuses on, as the back cover says, “great adventures of secondary characters.” So Monstres is the Cable & Deadpool of the “Dungeon” world, I guess…

The other different thing about Monstres is that the stories are illustrated by guest artists, not by series creators Johann [that’s how he’s credited on this book; though I’ve never seen the “h” in his name before] Sfar and Lewis Trondheim. In this case, the first story, “John-John the Terror,” has art by Mazan while the title story is illustrated by Jean-Cristophe Menu, head of the alternative comics publisher L’Association.

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Review: ‘Ayre Force’

The past few years have seen all sorts of graphic novels hit the market, but here’s a new one: Wealthy owner of online poker site commissions comic adventure starring souped-up incarnations of himself and his employees in a battle against deranged foes hell-bent on torturing animals.

The wealthy owner in this case is Calvin Ayre, founder of Bodog. And [[[Ayre Force]]] ($19.95) is the book, essentially an opportunity for Ayre to unleash his fantasies in illustrated form.

See muscle-bound Calvin battle his enemies, guns a-blazin’. See Calvin outsmart his foes. See Calvin walk around shirtless, showing off his chiseled features. (Ayre’s real-employees-turned-heroes get similar glamourous treatment.)

There’s a point when the villain confronts Calvin and says, “Look who’s talking, living out your fantasies and delusions of self-importance,” and he seems to be speaking as much to the real Calvin as the fictional one.

It’s a preposterous endeavor on its face, but that’s not to say there are no redeeming qualities. Ayre hired a quality crew to work on this book, including former [[[Batman]]] editor Joseph Phillip Illidge and artist Shawn Martinbrough. Their efforts are solid, if not quite enough to transcend the concept.

One seemingly bizarre inclusion is the involvement of the villains in “bear bile farming,” which sounds like something too absurd even for Doctor Evil. Turns out, it’s an actual practice, and bear bile is used for medicinal purposes (to the bear’s great discomfort). Ayre is putting the book’s profit toward ending that farming, so at least the book has good intentions behind it, even if it reads like a celebration of ego.

Review: ‘The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch’

finch2-6975608Neil Gaiman has been too busy lately to write much for comics unless it’s an event — like 1602 or his curiously pointless Eternals miniseries — but there’s still an audience for his stories in the direct market. So what’s a poor comics publisher to do? Well, if it’s Dark Horse, what you do is get various folks to adapt Gaiman stories into comics and publish them as slim trade-paperback-sized hardcovers. So far, Michael Zulli did Creatures of the Night, John Bolton adapted Harlequin Valentine, and P. Craig Russell tackled Murder Mysteries. And now Zullis is back again for:

The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch
By Neil Gaiman, Michael Zulli, and Todd Klein
Dark Horse Books, May 2008, $13.95

Now, for most writers, “[[[The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch]]]” would be by far their longest title ever, but Gaiman is not most writers. He’s also responsible for “[[[Being An Experiment Upon Strictly Scientific Lines Assisted By Unwins LTD, Wine Merchants (Uckfield)]]]” ” [[[Forbidden Brides Of The Faceless Slaves In The Nameless House Of The Night Of Dread Desire]]],” ” [[[I Cthulhu: Or What’s A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47º 9′ S, Longitude 126º 43′ W)?]]],” and ” [[[Pages From A Journal Found In A Shoebox Left In A Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, And Louisville, Kentucky]]].” So “[[[Miss Finch]]]” may just be one of Gaiman’s more punchy and terse titles.

According to the Neil Gaiman Visual Bibliography — and why should we mistrust it? — “Miss Finch” is one of Gaiman’s more obscure stories, showing up in the program book for the convention Tropicon XVII and a magazine called Tales of the Unanticipated before turning up in one of his collections — though in a different one depending on which side of the Atlantic you live on.

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Doctor Who in Review: Season Four, Episode #4 – Sontarans Strike Back!

The hit BBC series Doctor Who is now in its fourth season on the Sci-Fi Channel, and since we’re all big fans here at ComicMix, we’ve decided to kick off an episode-by-episode analysis of the reinvigorated science-fiction classic.

Every week, we’ll have our best Who-philes go through the most recent episode with a fine-tooth comb (or whatever the “sonic screwdriver” equivalent might be) and call out all of the continuity checks, names dropped and storyline hints we can find to keep in mind for future episodes. We’ll post our analysis each Monday, so you have ample time to check out the episode once it airs each Friday at 9 PM EST on Sci-Fi Channel before reading our review.

Missed a week? Check out our “Doctor Who in Review” archive or check out any of the past editions of this column via the links at the end of this article.

Keep in mind, we’re going to assume readers have already watched the episode when we put fingers to keyboard and come up with our roundup of important plot points. In other words, SPOILER ALERT!

Let’s begin now, shall we?

Season Four, Episode #4: “The Sontaran Strategem”

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Review: ‘The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard’

leotard-1710289Eddie Campbell has always done comics his way, without worrying about other people’s expectations or preferences — one of his two major series has been a fictionalization of his own life as a comics creator, and the other, a superficially more populist sequence about Greek gods in the modern world, was itself about storytelling more often than not. So it’s no surprise that his latest graphic novel — co-written with Dan Best — is more about telling its story than it is the story being told.

The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard
By Eddie Campbell and Dan Best
First Second, August 2008, $18.95

[[[Monsieur Leotard]]] will be published by First Second — who published Campbell’s last book, The Black Diamond Detective Agency, and have been putting together an impressive list of graphic novels for adults and younger readers for the past few years — in August, and the first thing to note is that it’s not the story the reader expects.

You see, the famous acrobat Jules Leotard lies dying of smallpox on page 12. So, we think, the book will be a series of flashbacks showing his life? No, he’s dead by the bottom of page 13, and the story moves on. So far, so very Campbell.

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Doctor Who in Review: Season Four, Episode #3 – Ood Get Even

The hit BBC series Doctor Who is now in its fourth season on the Sci-Fi Channel, and since we’re all big fans here at ComicMix, we’ve decided to kick off an episode-by-episode analysis of the reinvigorated science-fiction classic.

Every week, we’ll have our best Who-philes go through the most recent episode with a fine-tooth comb (or whatever the "sonic screwdriver" equivalent might be) and call out all of the continuity checks, names dropped and storyline hints we can find to keep in mind for future episodes. We’ll post our analysis each Monday, so you have ample time to check out the episode once it airs each Friday at 9 PM EST on Sci-Fi Channel before reading our review.

Missed a week? Readers can view past "Doctor Who in Review" features via the links at the end of this article.

Keep in mind, we’re going to assume readers have already watched the episode when we put fingers to keyboard and come up with our roundup of important plot points. In other words, SPOILER ALERT!

Let’s begin now, shall we?

Season Four, Episode #3: "Planet of the Ood" (more…)

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