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Posted by Chris Sims on May 13, 2010
Well. This has certainly been a week, hasn’t it? There’s a lot to talk about on both sides of the equation, but as I’ve pretty much had my say on the matter, I’m just going to let shirtless Batman kicking Vandal Savage soothe my troubled soul:
Yes, it’s time for another round of the Internet’s Cheeriest Comics Reviews! Here’s a couple of the comics that made me smile and love the medium this week!
Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1: Last night when we were recording Ajax, I was describing this issue to Euge, and right about the time that I got to a bare-chested Bruce Wayne fighting Vandal Savage during caveman days with his grappling hook, he stopped me and just said “This is like porn for you, isn’t it?”
And he was absolutely right.
I’m sure it doesn’t surprise anyone that I loved this comic, but I loved everything about it, from the way that it picks up directly after the events of Final Crisis
to the fact that Batman’s just straight up kicking it in Caveman days with his shirt off like a boss. But beyond those big fist-pumping awesome moments–which include Superman showing up to drop one of those great “Batman is so awesome you guys” speeches that Morrison first had him drop way back in JLA #4
, it’s just a really well-done comic.
My ComicsAlliance coworker David Uzumeri hit pretty much everything in his annotations to the issue, but I really don’t think you can say enough good things about how well it’s all put together: The symbolism of the white necklace that Vandal Savage takes from the deer tribe, the fact that Batman’s very presence inspires Robin-esque heroics from others. It’s astonishingly thoughtful for a book that, when you get right down to it, is ostensibly about Batman beating ass in Caveman days.
It’s not just Morrison that makes this issue great, though. Chris Sprouse is one of those artists that i can’t get enough of, and I’ve always wondered why he was never The Guy for Batman or Superman in the modern age. He and Karl Story always do good work, and here, under Guy Major’s coloring, it’s no exception. They take everything Morrison throws at them and pull it off beautifully, from the Steranko-esque hallucination sequence to the sheer ridiculousness of a guy dressing up in the skin of a gigantic bat to Bruce Wayne himself, with his… chiseled abs… broad shoulders… deep blue eyes you could lose yourself in for days…
…
Whuh?! Oh, sorry, lost myself there for a second. Point is, it’s a fantastic, exciting comic book that was just pure joy for me to read, much to the surprise of absolutely nobody.
Birds of Prey #1: I think I’ve mentioned it more this past week than I ever did during the actual run of the first series, but I was a long-time reader of the original run of Birds of Prey for over a hundred issues, and while it was never my favorite book, it was always pretty solid and entertaining. As such–and as weird as this was for me to realize as a guy who constantly rails about nostalgia being the poison that’s killing comics–Birds of Prey sort of represents my idealized DC Universe, way back in the distant time we call “the mid-to-late ’90s,” when anything was possible! Continuity and world-building were the tools for books like Chase, and second- and third-stringers roamed the land in their own titles, proud and free.
You can probably already tell it’s going to be a night where I go into a lot of weird tangents.
Anyway, getting back to what I was trying to say, I’m glad to have Birds of Prey back, and Gail Simone certainly didn’t disappoint. She hasn’t missed a step in the years since she last wrote the book, picking up with a classic “getting the band back together” type of plot. In fact, I think she actually used the phrase “get the band back together” in the script, but once I hit the Gotham City street gang composed entirely of evil cheerleaders, everything else just sort of faded to background noise.
Which isn’t to say that it’s perfect: There’s no power in Heaven or Earth that’ll make me care about Hawk and Dove, for instance. And artwise, while Ed Benes is certainly better here than he was on Justice League–especially in terms of storytelling and fight choreography–there are still places where he could improve. The faces, for instance, all look very similar, and while you can get away with women who all look the same in some places, a book about an all-female team requires a little more diversity. Plus, I would’ve liked to see him use the Huntress costume that Cully Hamner has her in in the Detective Comics backups (you know, the one that isn’t Daisy Dukes and an ab window), but that’s hardly an insurmountable flaw.
So yeah, it’s a solid issue, and even after almost ten years straight reading it, I’ve got to admit that Birds of Prey can still surprise me. I mean…
Who knew Dinah Lance was down with the 36 Chambers
?
Flash #2: Every now and then, someone will come along and inform me that I have a grudge against someone I’ve never met. I’m pretty sure these are the same people were telling me I hated comics five years ago when I started the ISB, but it boils down to an insistence on their part that I can’t just dislike a work on its own merits or flaws, and that my vocal hatred is the by-product of some secret vendetta that I just won’t cop to, which ignores the fact that I tend to be vocal about things in general. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been told that specifically, I have boundless hate for Mark Millar (who, I will admit, has an ultra-huckster public persona that I find frequently laughable), and of course, Geoff Johns.
I bring this up because I’ve been thinking about it lately in regards to The Flash. If ever there was a book that was ready-made for me to go in to further my alleged crusade, it’d be this one. It embodies something I’ve written about hating a dozen times–the regression of a legacy character to an earlier state and the consequential invalidating and shunting-to-limbo of two decades of stories I love–and I’ve said more than once that outside of Tom vs. the Flash, my interest in Barry Allen is nil.
So if there’s any book my “grudge” should lead me to hate, it’s this one, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t initially go into it expecting to do just that. And yet, here we are at the second issue, and just like the first, I think it’s pretty darn enjoyable. I still think Barry Allen is a cipher who could be just about anyone at this point, but the plot’s engaging and entertaining, the speed tricks are fun and suitably heroic, and there’s even a scene–the little girl and her doll–that made me laugh out loud while I was reading it. Even with a scene that has all the subtlety of a brick wall (“No one will stop! They’re all too busy to help!”) it’s a good comic that shows just how fun a book Johns is capable of writing, and Francis Manapul’s art is not only great, but surprisingly stylized for something that’s clearly meant to be a top-tier book. It’s a chance that I wouldn’t have expected DC to take, but I’m glad they did.
The only thing I don’t like is the violence. This may just be me being a premature Cranky Old Man at 27 and indulging my own nostalgia for Mark Waid’s “bank robbers–not killers” characterization of the Rogues in his defining run on the title
, but was it really necessary for Captain Boomerang to murder two cops by shattering their frozen bodies? It seems to me like… well, like something out of Batman as oposed to The Flash, and as crazy as that sounds, I think it’s a legitimate expectation for the guy in a bright red and yellow leotard to have a little brighter book than the dude who dresses like Dracula and only has adventures at night.
It’s probably not as bad as it seems, but it really stuck out to me; like Invincible, the violence is more noticeable when what’s surrounding it is so comparatively lighthearted, and having a guy named “Captain Boomerang” commit a double homicide and then get beaten to a pulp just seems… off. But again, it didn’t break the issue for me. I still thought it was a solid comic. I just wish I could get behind it a hundred percent, because contrary to what folks might think, I’d be perfectly happy to love every comic I read.
Well, except Anita Blake. There’s no fixing that one.
And that’s the week. As always, if there’s something that caught your eye in this week’s books–and I’m sure there is–feel free to leave a comment below.
Posted in The Week In Ink | 
48 Comments »
Posted by Chris Sims on April 16, 2010
It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for another installment of Ask Chris! This week, I answer a question about my feelings to a genre that encompasses both Anita Blake and Hellblazer, do my best to think up something good about comics in the ’90s (which wasn’t actually hard at all), and then move it down to the increasingly in-jokey quick hits.
As always, if you’ve got a question you’d like to see me tackle on ComicsAlliance, tag it on Twitter with #AskChris, or shoot an email to comicsalliance(at)gmail.com with [Ask Chris] in the subject line.
Posted in Bonus Content Update | 10 Comments »
Posted by Chris Sims on April 4, 2010
Finally, at long last, the fifteen-issue adaptation of Laurenn J. Framingham’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter: The Laughing Corpse has come to an end!
Well, if you want to get technical, it actually ended about three weeks ago, and while you’d think I would’ve been in a hurry to get this thing over with, the fact that they’ve already solicited the first issue of the next adaptation, Circus of the Damned (in which I assume Anita goes undercover as a healthy-thighed Jugalette) has once again recast my efforts as a round of Sisyphean masochism an academic pursuit that continues to take a little longer than I’d hoped.
But no matter! Much like The Goonies
, your humble annotator never says die! So grab a copy of your own and follow along as we delve for the final time into the academic mysteries of The Laughing Corpse!
1.1: When we last left Anita, she had shocked the world by actually doing something for what pretty much amounted to the second time in three years. Specifically, she straight-up murdered two dudes with a machete, which has taken us one step closer to my dream project of an Anita Blake movie starring Danny Trejo.
When this issue picks back up, we’re witnessing the aftermath of Anita’s double-homicide…
…specifically her enjoyment of the thrill that comes from ending a human life that she was never able to feel no matter how many animals she killed in the past. That’s our heroine, folks: Pretty much just quoting the Charles Manson playbook.
2.2: You know, in the midst of all this action involving Anita actually doing her job (albeit not the one where she hunts vampires like it says on the cover), which is actually coming on a level that we’ve never once seen from the Anita Blake comics…
…it’s nice that Framingham still takes the time to make sure we get a wordy, awkward DungeonMaster’s Guide explanation of what necromancy is. Even more amazing: The fact that it’s actually necessary to explain it at this point.
3.1: You know, while it’s nice that Anita’s finally using her super-powers to raise the dead after a whopping thirty-one issues of talking about it, I’ve gotta say that this incantation she drops is a little pedestrian:
“Arise and serve me?” C’mon, Laurenn, magic words aren’t supposed to be someone shouting their exact-literal intent! At least throw in some faux-Latin and a flick-and-swish, or–better yet–let me have a crack at punching this one up:
And you thought I was going to go with a hip-hop reference.
3.3-3.4: I think it’s worth noting here that when Anita, who allegedly raises the dead for a living, performs a double-human sacrifice and shouts “ARISE AND SERVE ME”…
…Aunt May, who is herself a necromanceress of some renown and made an Octofrankenstein last issue–needs this explained to her. Seriously, I know I’ve been critical of Anita’s powers of observation (or lack thereof) in the past, but considering that everyone else in this book is dumb as a bag of hammers, I’m starting to think she might just be the smartest one by default.
4/5: Okay, your humble annotator has to admit: Despite taking over three years of publication to actually get around to happening,l the fact that Anita uses her super-powers to raise a hundred zombies at once and send them to get revenge by ripping her enemies limb from limb? That’s actually pretty… awesome.
Sorry, it took me a minute to remember that word, as I don’t think I’ve ever used it while writing one of these articles before.
6.2-6.3: Of course, the fact that she does all this in order to murder a septuagenarian who looks like she spends her time making wheatcakes and reminding Peter to stay away from that awful Spider-Man does taint the moral victory a little (even if it results in a truly great last word noise)…
…but like my mama always said, there’s no kill like overkill.
8.5: Also meeting his untimely end in this issue: Harold “The Big Lebowski
” Gaynor, which brings an end to his plot and allows us to finally answer the question I’m sure someone on the Internet has been desperately asking: Would The Big Sleep be better if it had zombies?
Answer: No. No it would not.
10.3-10.4: You know, with as thrilling as it is for Anita to resurrect an entire graveyard’s worth of zuvembies and unleash them on those who have wronged her, I think there’s something pretty appropriate to the way she ends up dealing with them once they’ve outlived their usefulness:
By talking them to sleep, much like she’s been doing to me for the past three years.
Still, this issue’s been a major turning point for the series: Not only does Anita double-cross her captors and mete out harsh, deadly justice in a very proactive way, she also resists a supporting character’s urge to stop, outright rejecting the idea of doing nothing for the first time in the entire series. This is the Anita that we’ve been promised since Day One, the badass that’s finally living up to 31 issues of blowhard hype. This is actually a character I wouldn’t mind reading about, and shockingly, I’m starting to think that there’s nothing about her left to make fun of.
13.1:
Okay, well. Maybe there’s still something to make fun of.
And considering that the rest of the issue is epilogue stuff that I can’t be bothered to care about because a lot of it hasn’t been mentioned since the Bush administration, that about wraps it all up. Although this issue does give me the opportunity to say something I’ve been waiting quite a while to drop on Anita:
21.4:
Shhhhhhhhhhh… just you shut your mouth
.
Posted in The Annotated Anita Blake | 20 Comments »
Posted by Chris Sims on March 22, 2010
On the off chance that today’s episode of War Rocket Ajax did not meet your daily recommended allowance of hearing me yammer on and on about comics, I guest hosted this week on the Awesomed By Comics Podcast!
As you know if you listen to Ajax, ABC is one of my favorite podcasts, and Evie and Aaron are just ridiculously fun to talk to, so while Evie was off playing Pokemon HeartGold covering South by Southwest, I was thrilled to step into her chair and give out the weekly awards. And by “give out the weekly awards,” I of course mean “tell Aaron how utterly wrong he is about Batman and Robin.” Originally it was supposed to be both me and Euge (as two of us make one Evie), but unfortunately Euge got bogged down in work over the weekend, and as I just really didn’t want to annotate the new Anita Blake, it came down to me.
Euge did, however, have time to record a new track for your listening pleasure as part of his Adam WarRock project, though: a five-minute rap recap of Scott Pilgrim v.1-5 called “I Gotta Believe!”
You’ve probably already heard it–it got twittered by Oni Press, Matt Fraction, Edgar Wright and Bryan Lee O’Malley–but if you haven’t, go check it out. And heck, if you haven’t listened to any of the stuff Euge’s been doing for Adam WarRock, you need to quit sleepin’ on it toute suite.
So there you go: More stuff to listen to, some of which I am tangentially involved in!
Posted in Bonus Content Update, Shameless Self-Promotion | 3 Comments »
Posted by Chris Sims on March 17, 2010
Those of you who follow me on Twitter have seen me liveblogging a reading of Twilight (which I wrapped up this week, just in time for–sigh–the new issue of Anita Blake), and while it certainly drove me to drink, that’s not necessarily a bad thing! Sure, it’s not like anyone actually needs an excuse to down a bottle of fine Irish whiskey today, but on the off chance that you want to stay pop-culturally aware, I’ve provided the necessary incentive you’ll need to get through the book with my Twilight Drinking Game!
Enjoy! Or, as is probably more apt in this case, tolerate!
Posted in Bonus Content Update, Book Reviews, Worst Thing Ever | 10 Comments »
Posted by Chris Sims on February 21, 2010
As regular ISB readers know, the last few weeks have seen some major changes in my life. With the release of my first professional comics work and a move over to a full-time job with ComicsAlliance, I’ve become a full-time freelance writer. And yet, no matter how hard I try to get them to do it, nobody will pay me to read these Anita Blake comics.
Yes, like all disproportionately bitter loudmouths devoted seekers of knowledge, my dedication is unappreciated in its own time, but sometimes scholarship is its own reward. This, however, continues to be largely thankless, so let’s get on with it. Grab your own copy and follow along!
0.0: Though the interiors are still done by “Rascally” Ron Lim, this issue’s cover was provided by the original Anita Blake artist, Brett Booth…
…which means that once again, Anita has a thigh that is wider than her waist and tiny, tiny little hands. Both of those are to be expected, but the weird thing here is that your humble annotator has been doing this for so long that the sight of ol’ Thunder Thighs up there actually sparked a twinge of nostalgia for when I started doing this three years ago. Remember that? Back when I was young and hadn’t had the hope crushed out of me by interminable scenes of chatty vampire hunters refusing to hunt vampires?
Ah. Memories.
1.1: In equally cheery news, this issue picks up right where we left off last time, with Anita being menaced with the threat of rape and torture:
Because, you know. Empowerment. Given that we’ve got another issue to go (and that there have been something like forty-six Anita Blake novels after The Laughing Corpse), I think it’s safe to assume that Anita’s not actually going to die here, but if three and a half years of this book have taught us anything, it’s that this conflict will most likely be resolved by Anita talking someone to death and/or being rescued by someone with an actual shred of competence. Let’s find out!
2.1: Hey, wait a sec–
–wait–
2.6: –slow dow–
3.2: Just hang on a min–
3.3: Whoa whoa whoa wait–
Okay. Is it over? Okay.
So, uh… Basically Anita Blake just poked out a guy’s eye, threw a knife into his chest, and then beat him to death with a chair, which means that Framingham & Co. just straight turned this book into a late ’90s New Jack match
, and I assure you that no one is more surprised by this development than me. Seriously, I checked the cover three times to make sure I was reading Anita Blake.
I’ve got to say, I’ve been pretty harsh on this book’s complete and utter lack of action, but now I’m starting to wonder if this isn’t some metafictional con on the reader, where fourteen issues of monumentally low expectations are given to the reader so that when she does go apeshit on a bad guy, it actually comes as the kind of visceral shock that it should, even to someone jaded by a lifetime of comics about people kicking each other in the head.
Maybe it’s a long shot, but I’m willing to embrace the idea that I might be wr… That I might be wrrr… that I might be slightly incorrect in my assessment of the series thus far, and the last three years of boredom is just a masterful commitment to storytelling that are finally paying off. Maybe this is the turning point I’ve been waiting for!
4.5: And here’s the first test for LJF’sABVHTLCB3E‘s bold new direction:
Cicely, the Big Lebowski’s deaf prostitute henchwench, who has apparently taken some time off from her important work with the Mad Gear Gang, and–Zounds!
4.6: Anita just cold went Inspector Tequila
on this!
Man, I just… I can’t believe it. Anita Blake’s getting shot and returning fire and killing bad guys! She’s doing stuff! I mean, none of it’s actually related to hunting vampires like it says she does on the cover, but still! I’m actually liking this comic!
5.5: Quick aside, though: Am I the only one who thinks Anita’s broke-ass K-Mart Nike knockoffs are hilarious?
I am? Okay, well, they are.
7.1: Oh man, this should be awesome! The crazy zombie monster that first appeared in the last issue has shown up! Given that Cicely’s been shot through the heart with Anita to blame and Tommy’s been beaten like Mick Foley at Royal Rumble ’99 (Note To Readers Who Did Not Spend Their Youths Watching WWF: He got hit with a chair a lot. Like, a lot), then this ought to be a huge moment. Cicely and Tommy were, after all, minor villains (Cicely only appeared in two issues that were released more than a year apart), and the big zombie monster is the most impressive supernatural threat that we’ve yet seen in a series of comics that are built entirely around supernatural threats! This, therefore, should be the biggest and most tense action of the series thus far!
9.3: Or, she could fucking talk to it.
For those of you keeping score at home, the amount of time that I was actually enjoying Anita Blake is 7 pages, 2 panels. And you know, that’s my fault, really. I should’ve known better.
11.2-3: Yep, things are well and truly back to normal:
After a brief flirtation with competence, Anita’s back to being unable to resist external forces that are compelling her into exciting activities like “walking around.” That’s our Anita!
14.5: Yeah, nice try here…
…but I’m not falling for it again. You can have Aunt May smack her around all you want, you can even have her murder two dudes with a machete (but not, unfortunately, with Machete
) on Page 22, but I’ve learned my lesson. I’m not going to get my hopes up that anything of substance is ever going to happen in this comic.
You got me once, LJF’sABVHTLCB3E… But I won’t get fooled again.
Posted in The Annotated Anita Blake | 29 Comments »
Posted by Chris Sims on February 4, 2010
I mentioned it before here at the ISB (and on this week’s Ajax, and on Twitter), but this is my last week working full-time at a comic book store, which I’ve been doing for holy crap six years. What I haven’t mentioned is why I quit, but in case anyone was worried, it’s good news:
I’m quitting to become a full-time writer.
The bulk of it, which I’m sure will come as no surprise, is going to be a full-time freelance job with ComicsAlliance as their Senior Writer, but there are a couple of other things that hopefully I’ll be able to mention soon.
So what’s this mean for you, the cretinous loyal reader? At this point, not much. From a content standpoint, I’ll actually be writing more than I do now and doing a bigger variety of things. I’m certainly not abandoning the ISB–believe me, try as I might to sell it, nobody wants to pay me to read Anita Blake or slap together a Wrestler Wisdom Friday–so there’ll always be stuff here, although the links to external content are going to be a more permanent fixture.
The biggest change for the ISB itself is probably going to be regarding The Week In Ink. It’s probably the longest-running feature I’ve got, but in both depth and frequency, it’s largely a product of me being at the store all the time. With the new schedule, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get my comics by Thursday night, let alone read ‘em all and write Uranus jokes reviews. But I’ll see how it goes on that front. It might be just as simple as moving ‘em to a different day.
I’ve got to say, I’m pretty excited about this. Even if it’s not going to make me rich, being able to make a living writing is something I’ve wanted since I was twelve years old. So please, join me in celebrating Quitsgiving this Saturday, and be on the lookout for more changes (good ones, I think) coming to the site soon.
Posted in Serious Business | 116 Comments »
