books, science, & rude behavior
Rat Queens is pretty danged adorable. Four life-long, perpetually-young friends in a self-aware sword and sorcery ‘verse (with a pinch of Lovecraft) get by on mercenary pay and drunken brawls.
Continue reading “Kurtis Wiebe’s Rat Queens, vol. 1: Sass and Sorcery (2013 – 2014)”
I read and loved We3 when I first started giving comics serious attention. Since then, everything I’ve read from Grant Morrison has failed to meet that standard, or say anything appealing at all.
Three years after the Sandman called it quits, and just over 10 years after issue #1 hit the stands, the Dream Hunters was the best return the King of All Night’s Dreaming could’ve asked for.
I was nervous about this story: It’s structure is a departure for the Dreaming, being a novella with accompanying illustrations instead of a ‘comic book.’ I didn’t expect it could capture Dream’s trademark twinkle nearly so well — and I was wrong. This is the Sandman, and it’s one of Dream’s most powerful stories. Gaiman spent years evoking the style of myths of all colors to tell stories about — well — stories, and this is him exercising that experience to pay homage to Japanese and Chinese folklore.*
Continue reading “Neil Gaiman’s the Sandman: The Dream Hunters (1999)”
Teddy Kristiansen’s artwork is incredible.
That’s about the only positive, and it’s a really big positive. Most of this crossover between Wagner’s Sandman and Gaiman’s more modern Sandman is hurt by being so incredibly boring. Nothing is gained, nothing’s learned by the characters. They meet, and then go back to their respective worlds.
Continue reading “Neil Gaiman and Matt Wagner’s Sandman Midnight Theatre (1995)”
Bryan Talbot’s a gifted-as-hell writer, and, like Gaiman or McCloud, an historian on storytelling and comics. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read from Talbot so far, including this, but this is the first book where the flaws really took away from the experience.
Grandville Mon Amour is the first sequel to 2009’s Grandville: A pulpy steampunk tale that thrives (intentionally, I presume) on cliches to tell gripping, silly yarns. It’s a huge departure from Talbot’s earlier, often abstruse trademark in that it’s all sex and thrilling shots of testosterone set in a steampunk Europe populated by anthropomorphic animals.
Continue reading “Bryan Talbot’s Grandville Mon Amour (2010)”
Like 2005’s Spellbinders: Signs and Wonders, the Stranded is another of Carey’s paycheck stories. The Stranded is a five-issue adaptation of a script for a TV show pilot Carey worked on with Syfy back when it was the Sci-Fi Channel. The only front-cover quote states “…just might become the next great TV hit!” Nothing ever came of the show.
None of this really bodes well for expectations going in — and, not surprisingly, it mostly meets ’em at that low level.
Continue reading “Mike Carey’s the Stranded and Faker (2007 – 2008)”
Mike Carey is an excellent writer — easily one of the most talented names in the comics industry. He’s most lauded for his dense, philosophical work in the Lucifer series (a spin-off of Neil Gaiman’s the Sandman that’s woefully underappreciated next to its source material) and the more recent the Unwritten, both of which deal heavily with the nature / meaning / impact of storytelling (and arguably put his peers-in-reputation to shame).
Unfortunately, he’s also not afraid to knowingly write dreck for a paycheck. His the Sandman Presents: Petrefax miniseries — another Sandman spin-off — , Faker, his early superhero work: There’s little room in-between. He’s either at the top of his form, or writing lifeless cliches, where every word just follows a checklist of bad writing tropes.
Continue reading “Mike Carey’s Spellbinders: Signs and Wonders (2005)”
