Comic Book Resources

There wasn't a Random Thoughts post last week? ...Then what thread was I posting in? AAAAHHHH THE CALLER IS IN THE HOUSE

Also, I'd really love to buy the main Thor comic, for I am the biggest Thorophile on this blog (suck it, Nevett!). and putting Matt Fraction in the writer's seat will get me to do just that. C'mon, Matt! Drop Uncanny X-Men! It's not doing you any favors.

Wednesday Comics will come out on Wednesday here. Since the holiday falls on a Saturday, comics will still ship on Thursday here. Trust me, a wh9ole bunch of fellow retailers and I went through this a couple times over the past few weeks.

I like this random thoughts column, it's nice to see a lot of small thoughts in a quick and easy to find/read format. I do not agree with everything you write (serious, none of the final crisis spinoffs have anything resembling good writing, and that includes Dance) but so what, it's your opinion and I like hearing other peoples opinion once in a while.

Does mediocre art ruin good writing? Or does good art hide mediocre writing? Or is it both? Would fans of Jeph Loeb's Hulk enjoy it so much if it hadn't been drawn by Ed McGuinness, Art Adams, and Jeph Loeb? Would Ultimatum be enjoyable to those who hate it if any of the three aforementioned artists had drawn it?

The problem in Thor is less a matter of "How did that happen?" and more of "Why does no one in the comic seem to notice?" For me, at least.

The difference, CHAD, is that in THIS format you and you alone have the floor, so you are in a position to use all the hyperbolic and inflamatory language you want to, to praise or condemn. You aren't attempting to have a discussion, you are ranting in a column.

Things are different on a messageboard, where common courtesy is more important than being "right" the loudest.

Matt -- You're right! My math and predisposition to that idea made me a moron. Editing now.

You're pretty harsh on Silvestri fans.

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Comics delayed a day? HAH! It happens almost every month here in the US, or so it seems.

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I recently went through a bunch of comics from around 2002-4, and was amazed at how many Wildstorm titles I had bought.

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There is no hope for me, but that has nothing to do with NASCAR Heroes.

Random Thought: I'm seeing a lot of 5 star, 10/10 reviews for Detective, the body text geared mostly towards Williams. Am I the only one who thought the story was completely subpar/boring and a waste of Willaim's immense talent? I like Rucka a lot, but this story slops somewhere in the bottom 10% of his output, which is a real shame considering all the lead time, the tremendous artist, and the creator-created character could've made this an opus for Rucka. I have no doubt that people will admire Batwoman as part of William's progression as an artist for years to come, but as part of Rucka's body of work, meh, not so much.

That art on Utopia was hideous. I couldn't really tell you what happened in the story because all i can remember is how ugly the book was. Also, the Harvey Awards lost whatever credibility they had for me with that NASCAR Heroes inclusion. Just get rid of all the ancillary awards and make the Eisners the gold standard.

@Adam: "Does mediocre art ruin good writing? Or does good art hide mediocre writing? Or is it both?"

I think it's both, but I'm more willing to forgive bad writing if the art is spectacular than vice versa.

I think it’s both, but I’m more willing to forgive bad writing if the art is spectacular than vice versa.

I actually disagree. Bad art can be visually unappealing -- a few issues of Alan Moore's Supreme would've been much better without the Liefeld studio -- but when I see beautiful art matched with a terribly written story I get frustrated that the artist wasted his/her talent illustrating a script that never should passed the editor. Since the scripts are done first (even if done old-fashioned "Marvel style"), I wonder why bad scripts aren't dealt with before an artist is even assigned to a crappy story, aside from deadlines.

Like, if Quitely drew a book with a horrid story, it would annoy me because there has to be a half-dozen or so other projects offered to him that probably were much better. Of course, someone like Quitely can pick and choose his own projects, so maybe he should be blamed for wanting to illustrate the cruddy story in the first place!

Comics are a marriage of art and story. If its an unequal marriage you get a weaker comic regardless of which "spouse" is the stronger. A horrible story with great will look pretty and draw you to it in the store. You'll flip through it, enamored by all the pretty panels. Then, when you actually read the story, you will be bored, confused, irritated or insulted.

Bad art on the other hand will keep you away from the comic altogether unless you are really into the writer or story already. In that case, you have to spend a lot of effort ignoring the art, unless you want to be bored, confused, irritated, or insulted.

Also, casting artist to writer is important. I'm one ot those people who read Morrison's JLA run, and was confused by the noisy chaotic images. However, when Waid took over, I had no problem with reading Howard Porter's art.

The comic industry seems to cycle between saying either writing or art is more important in comics. Either viewpoint misses the point in comics. Comics are stories told through pictures. Sometimes artists forget to tell a story and focus on each page being a wonderful collectible on E-bay (Jim Lee) . Sometimes writers forget that and fill pages with the talking heads spewing witty dialogue (Brian Micheal Bendis).

If story is all that you need, then there is a world of prose fiction out there. If art is all you want, may I suggest Deviant Art?

If both float your boat (though not necessarily in equal measures) may I suggest the web comic Opey the Warhead?

I ran a comic shop in Labrador for a while, back in the 90's. We ALWAYS got the comics a day or two behind everyone else. The distributor even told me off for not getting back to them in "a timely fashion" when I called to complain about damaged comics in a shipment I'd just received an hour earlier.

Aren't the Harvey Award nominations voted upon by industry professionals instead of by fans? There's no doubt some kind of problem with the process (though, I can't say I've actually read the fifth issue of Nascar Heroes...). But isn't the standard accusation that it's a disproportionate level of voting participation by publishers wishing to promote their books?

Compared to the crap that Dodson/Land have been producing on Uncanny, Silvestri is damn near JH Williams quality.

I can honestly say I've never read a Thor comic that didn't involve either Jack Kirby or Walt Simonson, so yeah, when I read Utopia I had no idea what the hell was going on.

Also, I'll echo Bill in saying that taking Fraction off of Uncanny and moving him to Thor would probably be in the best interest of both titles, as I've heard great stuff about Fraction's Thor work with Zircher, whereas his run on Uncanny has been pretty dismal thus far.

In the UK, not only do we have to wait until Thursday for new comics, but we also get BOTH bank holiday delays!... So sometimes we get your Wednesday comics on a Friday! This gets particularly painful when something sells out or gets spoiled on the interweb before they've even arrived here...

I mean, sold out in the States just means any issues that were shipped over here inevitably vanish just as quickly here, because the hype has built up for two more days sometimes!

Thanks for clearing up the Thor issue but on the very same day that Thor #602 & Uncanny X-Men/Dark Avenegers: Utopia #1 (try saying that 10 times fast) came out, New Avengers #54 was also released and that featured Loki as a woman so no wonder people were confused. Even ones who read Thor #601.

> C’mon, Matt! Drop Uncanny X-Men! It’s not doing you any favors.

Until 512 it wasn't doing the rest of us any favours. And then it was the some of the best bits of Iron Fist with the serial numbers filed off !

Can't Loki assume any form he/she wants? If he really wanted to be male, why didn't just change himself?

I picked up a copy of Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #2 but have yet to read it. I'm leery of the rushed, fill-in art.

ChrisCross' absence seems to be due to a health scare he had in May:

I woke up to the reality of the world of hypertension. I had spent a great deal of my life trying to do the right thing to take care of my body and then i got caught in some circumstances of life where pressure was all around me. And instead of asking for help and taking care of myself, I was awakened with intense vertigo and vomiting. Nothing says, "what the hell are you doing to me?" like going to the hospital to see that your blood pressure's through the roof and that through sheer God miracle, I didn't have a stroke or heart attack or didn't damage anything internally. I'm better now, and I voluntarily took myself to a great nutritionist who owns a wellness clinic in Manhattan, but I wanted to make a point that even though this isn't something that I wished on myself or planned to put myself through.

From his in-depth interview about Dance at The Pulse.

1. If you buy anything and everything that has Aquaman in it, you are, by definition, a hardcore fan.

2. Just because one title sells more than another doesn't make it a better title. Final Crisis did great numbers, but that doesn't mean it was the best title DC put out those months. So it's unfair to say that 52 is the best of the weekly series so far (I think Trinity will hold up much better after a few years of distance).

3. Good art will elevate mediocre writing, and good writing will elevate mediocre art (to an extent), but really bad art and writing will contaminate anything they touch.

When the Sinestro Corps War turned out to be a riproaring, classic cosmic comic saga I was excited. Then came those last few pages where Johns essentially promised that the previous entertainment was nothing compared to what was going to hit the fan. So at that point I went "Oooh! Blackest Night will be AWSOME!" I mean, instead of two corps fighting there's seven! And someone's bagged and tagged the Anti-Monitor to power an eighth! Coming out of that the Green Lantern line had a lot of energy and just about anything could happen.

As the run up to it has been dragged out more and more I'm becoming less and less enthusiastic. It turned out that "anything" has been pretty dull. The run up to Sinestro Corps was like an avalanche building; with Blackest Night feels more like people milling about waiting for something to happen. All of the stories have been so contained and confined: here's the leader of a new corps and he does something then it's off to meet another one and there's no ongoing tension or conflict. And a line wide crossover makes me less interested than one confined to its own books. And DC zombies. (Really? DC Zombies? That's what they come up with for the black lanterns?)

So my point is this: you may "still not care about Blackest Night" but DC seems to have been actively working to lose my interest.

@Wesley

about point #3. Well said!

Wesley -- I was calling others "hardcore fans who will buy anything featuring the character," whereas I just want the Craig Ferguson version. Sorry for it being unclear. I have no great affection for Aquaman and... no, I don't think I've ever gotten a single issue of his comic.

Carl -- Loki's female guise was due to him taking over Sif's body while her essence was trapped elsewhere. I don't know how that relates to his other abilities, but it's all part of his scheme.

Based on the SI Thor trade, I'd second Fraction for the new writer of the ongoing. That was great work.

Tony Isabella

Wildstorm pretty much died with the cancellation of Eye of the Storm.
But 99-03 you get
Authority, Planetary, and a slew of mini's from Warren Ellis
Automatic Kafka, Wildcats vol 2 at least 8-28, and Version 3.0 from Joe Casey
Authority by Millar, Quietly, Weston, Adams and more
LoEG, Promethea, Tom Strong, top Ten and everything else ABC from Alan Moore
Point Blank/Sleeper by Brubaker, Phillips, and Colin Wilson
Micah Ian Wright's real world controversy or not Stormwatch:Team Achilles was pretty awesome
Jesus, I pretty much bought everything Wildstorm produced back then.
-neil

@Carl and Wesley -- Marvel's Loki has never been a classical trickster, certainly not a Protean shapeshifter; rather he's a verbal deceiver, kind of the god of corrupt lawyers and evil advisors. Indeed, when Walt Simonson wanted such a character, he created Malekith. (Loki under Simonson was gently tweaked s as to better resemble this, but he never went all the way into the mythic version who turned into whatever he needed to physically.)

Remind you of anyone?

I agree with your last random thought so strongly, it makes me want to stand up.

Anyone who wants to argue the quality of Silvestri's work only needs to zoom in on the face of any of his characters in a group-shot panel. They look like chicken-scratch.