May 15, 2013
May 14, 2013
Review -- SUPERZELDA: THE GRAPHIC LIFE OF ZELDA FITZGERALD
This review originally ran on Comics Bulletin
Much like last year's Lincoln mania, this year it's all about the Fitzgeralds, F. Scott and Zelda. Baz Luhrmann is set to release his much-hyped interpretation of Gatsby (which fills me with an unsettling mixture of excitement and dread), and there is slated to be a whole slew of biographies about these icons of the Jazz Age.
I fully expect to see a great deal of bobbed hair, gin-drinking and Charleston dancing the next time I venture forth from the Bunker.
And I'm not immune to the hype. I'm teaching The Great Gatsby to my junior class right now, and, as a lead-in activity, I talked a bit about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, calling them "the Beyonce and Jay-Z of their time". I'm not proud of that analogy, but it worked on enough of a fundamental level for my students to grok it. Scott and Zelda are legendary characters as much for their volatile relationship and epic intoxication, as they are for the art they created. One Peace Books' latest publication, Superzelda: The Graphic Life of Zelda Fitzgerald, explores all of this and, by doing so, elevates Zelda even further.
May 13, 2013
May 12, 2013
May 11, 2013
May 10, 2013
May 9, 2013
Review -- SILENCE AND CO.
This Review Originally Ran on Comics Bulletin
Silence and Co.
(Gur Benshemesh, Ron Randall, John Workman; Crystal Productions)
3/5 stars
If you like your disillusioned hitmen stories to be full of twists and turns, hot jungle action and gritty New York streets, political intrigue and financial shenanigans, then Silence and Co. may be right up your alley. This 176-page black and white page-turner is pretty much a straightforward retelling of a story that's been told before and before and even before that as well. From time to time it puts its own stamp on the expected walk-through, but for the most part you pretty much know what to expect from whom and when it's going to happen.
May 8, 2013
May 7, 2013
Cheap Thrills -- BIG DADDY DANGER #1
This Column Originally Ran on Comics Bulletin
In these economic times, finding inexpensive entertainment is difficult. Thank goodness for the local comic shop and a slew of comics nobody cares about anymore! Each week Daniel Elkin heads on out to Empire Comics Vault in Sacramento, CA and grabs a comic from the bargain bin (for 25 cents) to see what kind of bang he can get for his solid quarter. These are those tales.
April 17, 2013 – paid 25 cents for:
BIG DADDY DANGER #1
Published by: DC Comics
Created, Written, and Drawn by: Adam Pollina
Inks by: Tyson McAdoo
Colors by: Thomas Chu
Editor: Mike Carlin
BIG DADDY DANGER, THANK GOD YOU'RE HERE!
I know things are weird and unsettled right now, but if you think about it, we've been living in that sort of state for a long time. Remember October 2002? Things were weird and vicious and frightening then too.
Remember the Beltway snipers? How about when a lone bomber detonated a homemade bomb in Helsinki, Finland killing seven and injuring 166? Then terrorists blew up bombs in Bali nightclubs killing 202 and injuring over 300. And, of course, there was that whole (yes, I know) Chechen rebel takeover of a Moscow theatre that ended up with nearly 200 people dead.
All of these things happened in October 2002.
Hell, Richard Harris died, Jam Master Jay was shot dead and Warren Zevon was diagnosed with cancer. While there is no denying that April 2013 is a vicious month, it almost pales in comparison to October 2002.
But, even among the brutality, there are always little shining dewdrops of hope, of happiness, of joy. One of those things happened to be DC Comics' decision to publish Adam Pollina's Big Daddy Danger #1. While this event did little to mitigate the aforementioned horrors, of course, it did show that even as we flee from the darkness, there are small lights to guide our way.
Sometimes, though, those little lights end up in the bargain bin.
Big Daddy Danger, a comic with a truly unfortunate name that brings up all sorts of incestuous pedophile nightmares, is about wrestlers (which, I guess, brings about its own set of fears as well). As such, it opens as a microphone lowers, an announcer slurs about slobberknockers andchampionships, and “two giants enter from opposing corners of the arena”.
These two giants are our titular Big Daddy Danger and his opponent, The Meat Maker. There is a double page splash of these two behemoths clenching each other in the ring (which my scanner couldn't fit) while Big Daddy Danger worries that The Meat Maker may be too strong and fast for him to beat.
May 5, 2013
May 4, 2013
May 3, 2013
May 2, 2013
Review -- IRON OR THE WAR AFTER
This Review Originally Ran on Comics Bulletin.
Jason Sacks: I'm writing the first part of my review of Iron on the day of the Boston Marathon bombing, one of the most horrifying days that I've lived through in a while. It's terrifying to think of all the innocent people who were caught in those two terrible bomb blasts in Copley Square, of the loss of peace of mind that everyone will remember from this day, and of the ramifications that every one of us is going to have to live with for the rest of our lives.
No matter how we try to move past that horror, the events of April 15, 2013, will always linger in our minds as one of those rare moments that cut right through all the grind and pressure of everyday life -- like the Oklahoma City bombing, the Newtown massacre and 9/11, this is a day that people will remember, people will react to, and people will always have in the back of their minds as they consider attending a wide open, major public event.
I only hope to God that the authorities find the craven murderers quickly. I hope that they show the same mercy on that killer or killers that the murderers showed to all the innocent men, women and children who were living their happy, normal lives attending the Marathon with friends and family. There's a special circle in Hell waiting for these evil terrorists.
The central scene of Iron, or the War After is another terrorist act. Today's events cast that act in a dramatically different light than that scene might have otherwise.
The world that S.M. Vidaurri creates is a world of slow glances and quietly important moments. Vidaurri's world is a place where only a few small pieces of the characters' tumultuous inner lives are on display in every scene. Much happens below the surface in Vidaurri's graphic novel. Therefore the effects of so much pain and fear, courage and cowardice, terrible memories and wrenching politics show in every character's well-shaded eyes.
A war has just concluded, but the pain of the war still lingers among those who experienced its trauma. Simmering angers and resentments simply cannot be submerged in a new word, particularly because the losing side resents the winners tremendously. There have clearly been many experiences like the Boston Marathon bombings in the world that these characters live in. The trauma of those events still lingers painfully in the minds of these anthropomorphized rabbits and geese and mountain goats.
Because the war has not really ended for these anthropomorphized characters. As Vidaurri so smartly labels it, this is the "War After." And that "War After" has consequences. A train with over 800 people onboard gets blown up in Iron, by the nominal good guys, as a bit of revenge for the evil that has happened in the war. A child is even the one who musters the courage to set up the bomb. I child is the one who prepares to blow up the train.
A child! Wars have consequences. Wars have terrible consequences.
Elkin, I've rambled a bit here in my introduction; can you help me focus my mind of the enormity of the actions that Vidaurri shows us readers?
May 1, 2013
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