X-Men: The Phoenix Saga
X-men was definitely the hardest to put down. I found myself to be on page 118 before I realized that I read a little too far ahead. Not that it matters so much, but I thought it was kind of amusing. The art and the story telling was great. I loved every panel of that comic. I had watched the cartoon show as a kid so I was familiar with some of the characters, though I had no idea there was an "old x-men" and a new set of characters. I like that this story keeps evolving with characters leaving, coming back, new ones showing up to fill in gaps and add in a new twist because of different abilities and powers available to the group. It's an interesting dynamic to the way the story is told.
Batman:
Batman was my next favorite and definitely my favorite batman comic so far. I LOVED the art, especially the use of color in and out of the panels. In this strip again, like Robin Dies at Dawn you see an incredibly tender side of Batman that completely balances out the ruthlessness shown to his enemies. He really is a dark knight, showing chivalry and kindness to those who mean a lot to him. I hope there are more stories like this one, art included. I would most definitely recommend this Batman comic to other readers if they haven't yet. The 12 pages goes by way too fast.
Creepy Archives:
This comic has a strange story. The ink work was incredible to say the least. This comic was definitely the classic EC macabre story from the documentary was watched about EC comics in class. The zombie artists' blood-inked picture was definitely a fun gruesome touch added to the end of the story. I wish that bit would have been left in color, or at least red. It made me think about artists I have come across on the web who do use their own blood for their artwork. Maybe that discussion should be saved for later but if there is anyone curious about it I can show you some artwork and ideology about working with blood as a medium you guys might find interesting.
Sabre:
I think I would have enjoyed this comic better if I could understand what was going on. There seemed to be a lot of plot holes in the story. I was able to read about halfway through with out getting a headache, but after that things were still not making sense. I flipped ahead.. and there were no clues as to answer my many questions about the story. I'll have to go back and re-read that just out of curiosity. I liked that the story took place in a V for Vendetta/ 1984-esque america. The fact that Melissa was a test tube baby brought up some interesting ideas about what it really means to be born with that kind of connection to your mother, not to mention Brave New World scenarios.
I liked both Sabre and Melissa as characters. I can't say why I was drawn to either of them, but from what I could put together from the reading, they were instantly likable, but strange. That is definitely not the most eloquent way of saying it, but this comic leaves me a little lost.
Oh. I managed to read Night Nurse as well. I thought that was a great comic because FOR ONCE the girl is smart enough to do something SHE LOVES instead for the pig-headeded love interest. I thought it was interesting how we didn't have to read one story from the entire series, but got the overview with some key pages to the story line, with blanks filled in by the blogger. I thought that was really nice. I could understand what was going on in general with the comic instead of just getting one snippet and feeling out of the loop with the past story lines. Night nurse wouldn't be something I would read on my own time, but I thought it was a good read none the less.
ReplyDeletehokay, I just caught that horrible cold this week, so I'm sorry if I stop making much sense, but here we go.
ReplyDeleteX:Men: X-Men was hilarious as far as the Dazzler goes but otherwise it definitely has an annoying soap opera feel a lot of the time. The issues had a good sense of flow to them. Cyclops is definitely the character we are suppose to sympathize with, he's the one we get lots of our info from and the one trying to control everyone, which I guess I always thought that was Xavier’s job. But in the comics Xavier just sounds like an asshole and then when he's talking with Angel he makes this odd flop explaining that he does care and wants to help but it feels really abrupt and fake to me.
Anyway, I also watched the X-men cartoon show, in fact I watched 2 of them. One was a bit more adult focusing on their adventures, and one was more cartoony and focused more on the school and all of the many mutants that went there. And, I guess, I don't know I had the opposite reaction then Lindsay. I liked the cartoons a lot better, and the comic was hard for me to keep reading, it just made me want to watch the cartoons more.
The only thing the comics did that I liked was go over where Kitty came from. Although, the idea of Storm and her becoming bff's that fast was kind of irksome.
I don't know, in general the writing for the X-men being people, not just superheroes felt stagey and awkward.
Also, I noticed that comics code logo. Wolverine is pretty violent, how did that make it in?
The Dazzler is clearly a character of the time that seems hilarious to us now. But do you think that having a ‘hip’ or easily dated character of the time is a good thing to have? Do you think it added anything to the story when it came out, or is it comics just trying too hard to relate?
Batman: Batman was still a little hokey but more in a good sense here. His emotions actually get to him and really see consequences to actions. Part of why I always liked Batman was that not only is a Batman himself a strong character, but Gotham and Crime Alley are also characters with history. I mean how much depth does Crime Alley get when it is explained that this is where Bruce’s parents died? It’s all very emotional.
Creepy Archives: Mmmm, gotta love that classic EC style. It’s beautiful. And as for this silly story.. well besides the zombie part, it really doesn’t sound all that outrages for the way people talk about the comic industry with lots of pen names and artists going unlisted and stuff. It makes me wonder if anyone did ever try to do that.
As far as color and blood…
Color adds a whole new layer to a piece. It can muddy it up, or it can make it really pop. It also adds a tone to the piece in some cases, and as far as I can tell these horror stories didn’t always have the best color printing, so seeing it without color might be better. And, not having color highlights the inking style more, which I think is really gorgeous here. I don’t think in this case image needs blood. It’s just not a story that’s going to be overly frightening and in my mind adding in color is like putting special effects in a horror movie. It doesn’t always work.
As far as other works… I think an artist using his own blood is just sort of unsanitary and if its used a lot it degrades its meaning. Plus, theres a good chance the reader isn’t going to know its blood without being told. So, why not just use ink?
(cause my post was too long, here's part 2)
ReplyDeleteSabre: Well um.. it’s pretty, and trippy.. and I have little to no idea what is going on, and it gives me a headache. So it is clearly post apocalyptic and I get the feeling the writer was someone who thought badly of society but didn’t quite understand what they were saying they didn’t like. I don’t know.. the whole think with the genetically engineered woman felt kinda sexist or something. It was just really hard to understand. And are they at Disneyland? Why? Why are there mermaids? Really when the mermaids showed up, I just couldn’t read it anymore. It’s like they tried to mesh science fiction, fantasy, and the war hero comics into one and never bothered to make sure it worked together. Can anybody explain this to me?
Night Nurse: Well, this was just weird. I can only imagine that chick crying constantly all the time. So the woman picked the job over the man, but woman are still being portrayed in a dumbed down manner. Like, how they hate each other and then suddenly bond over home-sickness because one of them cries!? And the poorest of them all buys pizza. Or when the black out happens they seem worried about giving hope to the patients by keeping the power on, but if they did manage to blow up the generators wouldn’t all of the patients relying on powered machines to stay alive be in serious danger? I mean we didn’t see much of the actual comic but it looked like all they did was tend bumps and bruises mostly. I was really glad for the overview of the story though, as Lindsay said. It’s nice to not feel out of the loop.
X-Men: I really enjoyed reading x-men. I liked that the story had all the episodes in it and I didn't have to wait for the next issue to come out to see what happens next. Yeah, I can see how it would build anticipation but you don't know how many books series that I have read that are still pending an ending. By the time the next books come out, I have read through another series and have half-forgotten about the last series and what happened in that. I also enjoyed the drawing of jean/phoenix. She is my favorite character and I love how delicate they draw her compared to how violent her power is.
ReplyDeleteBatman: It was a sad story, although I liked it none the less. Batman was touching when he kissed the old lady on the head. It held a lot of emotion in just that one frame.
Creepy Archives: It was simple and to the point. The bad man got what he deserved. The storyteller definitely reminded me of the EC comic character from tales from the crypt. It was a fun read though and the style of inking fit the oncoming horror that was awaiting the man at the end of the story.