Berlin: City Of Stones (Book One)
Writer/Artist: Jason Lutes
(Chris)
The Crusades #1
Writer: Steven T. Seagle
Penciller: Kelley Jones
(Ross and Chris)
House Of Secrets: Facade #1
Writer: Steven T. Seagle
Painter: Teddy Kristiansen
(Ross and Chris)
House Of Secrets: Foundation
Writer: Steven T. Seagle
Artist: Teddy Kristiansen
(Ross)
Metabarons #11
Writer: Alexandro Jodorowsky
Artist: Juan Giminez
(Ross)
The Red Star #5
Writers: Christian Gossett, B.J. Kayl
Artists: Christian Gossett, A.D. Coulter, Simon Chan, John Moberly, Snakebite (whew)
(Ross)
Strangehaven: Arcadia
Writer/Artist: Gary Spencer Millidge
(Ross)
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Saturday, March 10, 2001
Publisher's Weekly has published their latest quarterly report on comics. It introduces manga, Humanoids Publishing, the Alternative Press Expo and LOVE AND ROCKETS to the masses. I shouldn't have to tell you how positive a sign it is that information like this is being provided to booksellers...
(Thanks to Chris Ekman)
posted by Chris at 11:54 PM EST
It's a long one, folks --
HOUSE OF SECRETS: FACADE #1 (OF 2)
w: Steven T. Seagle
a: Teddy Kristiansen
"If your secret were an animal, what kind of animal would it be?"
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the much-anticipated return of the patented Po-Mo Steven T. Seagle Narrative Device.
I've missed HOUSE OF SECRETS. Big time. I got into the book right as it began in October of 1996. I was just starting high school, but more importantly, I was also just starting to read SANDMAN. On a superficial level, my friends and I were all shivering with the seeming coolness of Gaimanisms such as "I am following my fish" and "Sometimes you wake up; sometimes the fall kills you; and sometimes, when you fall, you fly." We were all listening to Tori Amos, and most of us were writing poetry. We were, in short, insufferable little bastards. Amidst all of this enjoyable, if detestable, wankery, something more important was happening, though. It was that classic period in life for all fans of comics-as-art. Despite being hip-deep in all this goofiness, this was the time when I was really discovering What Comics Could Do, and SANDMAN was one of the two books that was teaching me, as it has taught so many people through the years.
HOUSE OF SECRETS was the other book. And there aren't many people who will say that. Because let's be frank, there weren't that many people reading HOUSE OF SECRETS. It was, after all, cancelled after twenty-five issues. But there you are: it is one of my most profound influences as a reader and not-quite-writer of comics. Reading it is, to me, pure 1996, a direct connection to the joy I felt as someone discovering something great, and to the sadness I felt at losing it. So. Take my comments with a grain of salt. I am trying to push this comic on you, and you need to know that as you read this. But if I say anything that gets you even the littlest bit intrigued, I beg you: put down the money and see for yourself.
HOUSE OF SECRETS is a High Concept kind of book, the kind that can be (and was) sold to a movie studio on the strength of a one-line description. For HoS it would run something like this: "A fractured teenage girl on the run from her family and her self stumbles into Seattle in the dying days of the grunge scene, and finds herself haunted by the ghostly spirits of justice, The Juris." Wow. Sent shivers down your back, didn't it? No? Go on, read it again, I'll wait. Still nothing?
Not surprising. The joy of HOUSE OF SECRETS is in its execution: in Steven T. Seagle's self-referential, irony-filled, crammed-with-foreshadowing scripts and plots, and in Teddy Kristiansen's disarmingly simple jagged line drawings. Seagle, being Seagle, is after the big themes: What Is Truth, Our Guilt, Sin, Relationships, et cetera et cetera (it certainly looks like he's after them again in his new series CRUSADES). But he's also very much a man of the small details. You could choose to ignore the supernatural trappings and the big moral questions of HOUSE OF SECRETS entirely, and instead simply focus on Seagle's phenomenal characterization of Rain Harper, the pathologically lying protagonist who puts up wall after flimsy wall of paper-thin coolness and braggadocio in an attempt to hide her wounded, bleeding core.
You could also enjoy the supernatural aspect for what it is: a kick and a half. HOUSE OF SECRETS perfectly co-opts the Vertigo spirit of horror (best illustrated by SANDMAN's classic "24 Hours," featuring Dr. Destiny slaughtering the inhabitants of a diner): the combination of powerful beings beyond your control doing horrible things to you, and normal humans doing even worse things to you. Warren Ellis' run on HELLBLAZER taught us that there is nothing scarier than people themselves, but HOUSE OF SECRETS has always taken that as a matter of course. It's a ghost story and a crime story, and its greatest moments blend the two seamlessly.
All of this has addressed HOUSE OF SECRETS conceptually, but this is a review of FACADE #1. You want to know why you should plunk down $6 for it.
The first thing you need to know is that everything you need to know will explained in the course of the issue. You will not be lost. Seagle knows that approximately eight people were reading the first time around, and as a result he's making it as easy as possible for you to get aboard this time.
The premise of the story this time out is thus: Rain and co. return to her hometown for a mysterious reunion with her childhood friends, all of whom appear to share some kind of dark pact, complete with ritual hand-clasping a la The Fantastic Four. It's like a spooky after-school special gone wrong: "One time we saw Satan in the woods," recalls Rain inwardly, in typical melodramatic fashion. "And he saw us."
Again: oooh. Gives you goosebumps, or something. But believe me: Once you see Teddy Kristiansen's murky, expressionistic rendition of that scene (Kristiansen's painted art on this book defies description; see it for yourself), and once you've seen the events of the story before that point, then yes, you will shiver. That's the beauty of HOUSE OF SECRETS in general, and delightfully enough, FACADE in particular: to take the things that should be laughable -- for camp reasons, or melodrama, or sheer banality -- and to make of them the essence of pure horror. And nobody is doing it better -- there's no better horror comic on the stands right now.
But hey: don't take my word for it. Ross just entered the world of HOUSE OF SECRETS for the first time with the release of FACADE, and it kicked his ass up and down the block. His review will be up tomorrow, if mine doesn't satisfy you (and rereading it, it doesn't satisfy me either, but I don't even begin to know how to correct it. So). See you then.
posted by Chris at 11:31 PM EST
Grant-Morrison.com redesigned. It's very, umm, red. No new content, though. Hopefully this is a precursor to putting up a new essay or somesuch; it's been a long time going without some kind of wacked-out proclamation...
posted by Chris at 10:00 PM EST
The Warren Ellis Forum -- specifically, Ellis himself -- brings our attention to this article, from Mike Sangiacomo's JOURNEY INTO COMICS, which we normally do not read. In it, J. Michael Straczynski reveals his plans to make the SPIDER-MAN franchise interesting again. Oh. My. God. These. Suck. Big. Balls.
"He meets an older man, a guy in his 50s, who has similar abilities," said Straczynski. "He knows his secrets and he asks a simple question: Did the spider that bit you give you the powers because it was irradiated, or was the spider itself the source of the power and it had to bite you before it was killed by the radiation?" The stranger, Ezekiel, reveals that throughout history there have been men with abilities like Spider-Man`s. "It goes back centuries, there were always 2 or 3 at a time," he continued. "He`s not as much of an outsider as he always believed. He belongs to something."
Wow. Just... wow. I mean, I don't follow Spider-Man, and I haven't cared about him since I was 13. I read one issue of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN last year, deemed it OK, and promptly moved on to other things. But this is just ridiculous. In every possible way. I'd laugh, if it weren't so sad to be seeing a company I was glad to see making baby steps in the right direction make such a serious mistake with its flagship character.
Oh well. 'Bout time Spidey abdicated the honorary flagship throne to the X-Men anyway. They sell better and they're more interesting. Spider-Man can just Go Away for a while; maybe they'll cancel the regular books and just switch over to ULTIMATE, since everyone who reads the monthlies is reading that anyway, judging by the sales figures.
posted by Chris at 9:50 PM EST
Don't ask me why I'm just now getting around to reading this week's Savant (I'm a bad monkey), but it's rather enjoyable. Of special note is "Euromanga Fightcomik: Pope Vs. Matsumoto," this week's Essay by Dan Goldman. In addition to being entertaining, it takes the intelligent lit-crit approach to comics discussion that's so sorely missing from most all writings about the medium.
The �future as junkpile of the discarded present � firmly grounds HEAVY LIQUID as a piece of American science fiction; the American obsession to our �stuff� and what�s going to happen to it falls across Pope�s future like a funk.
posted by Chris at 6:03 PM EST
Neil Gaiman's journal (mentioned before) gets linked on Metafilter, and an entire nation of comics geeks appears in the comments section. It's heartening, especially when one sees comments like:
I'm pretty turned off to comic books in general, but a friend of mine introduced me to Neil Gaiman's graphic novels, Transmet, and Preacher (not mentioned so far), all of which I liked to varying degrees. Since I have absolutely no interest in the spandex franchises of mainstream comics, I'm interested in hearing what people in the know think of these preferences by a comic Philistine... are they representative (I hope) of some of the more interesting and provocative comics out there?
...and then sees a swarm of people intelligently responding and suggesting excellent, excellent books. It is *all* about the new normal human readers, people.
posted by Chris at 5:05 PM EST
LinkMachineGo apparently went diving through the Eddie Campbell Comics site and turned up this little gem: Campbell discussing the completion of FROM HELL and what it's like to draw from an Alan Moore script.
posted by Chris at 3:26 PM EST
Your obligatory Newsarama Weekly! link for the week. Tucked away amongst the uninteresting stuff -- big DC crossover, woo-hoo, LOGAN: YEAR ZERO by Larry Hama, woof -- you'll note that Bryan Hitch is leaving JLA (which, after his exclusive contract runs out in October, puts him up for grabs -- I can't *wait* to see what happens then), and that Patrick Stewart is writing the intro for the new TRANSMETROPOLITAN collection, LONELY CITY. And speaking of TRANSMET, there's also a bit with Darick Robertson talking about the soon-to-be-published long-delayed finale of -- heeheehee -- SPACE BEAVER. Rock out.
Also, take note of the fine, fine Leonardo Manco artwork for THE OTHERWORLD WAR (not to be confused with DC's aforementioned OUR WORLDS AT WAR -- I smell confusing times for fanboys), which will probably suck mighty ass but look pretty. I'm trying to remember which Vertigo books Peter Hogan, OTHERWORLD's writer, worked on, but I'm too damn lazy to just open up Google. He did the first DREAMING story arc, with Goldie growing up, right? I liked that, I think... umm, hmmm.
posted by Chris at 12:07 AM EST
Friday, March 09, 2001
Well now. Does this :::gestures at new design::: work for you? (In both a technical and aesthetic sense). We want feedback...
Reviews of the stuff up there on the left will be pouring out in the next 48 hours. We want you people to buy the work of Steven T. Seagle, and we will stop at nothing. I believe we might even hold a little contest or something. Stay tuned.
posted by Chris at 11:00 PM EST
"In every other art field women dominate. Comics is the only one where women don't."
Jessica Abel, creator of the excellent ARTBABE, gets interviewed by Simon Morse in his column THE MONKEY HOUSE at Silver Bullet. The two jaw about the topic Abel loves to hate: the position of women in comics.
posted by Chris at 5:09 PM EST
Because it's quick, and because it's easy, and because I'm spending my time tweaking the redesign, I provide you with the Comic Book Resources Roundup.
"Don't make me get Socratic on your ass," says Larry Young associate John Lee in this week's Loose Cannon. I can't lie; up until recently, LC has bored me. But this, this is good.
Also: an interview with THE RED STAR creator Christian Gossett, Jr. Keen.
A couple of other notes. First, if you were/are using Netscape 4 to view this page: (1) For the love of God, why? and (2) I'm sorry about how nightmarishly poor it looks. The new design has cleared all the browser hoops I've put it through so far. In the meantime, go download version 6 already...
Second, Ross will probably be conspicuously absent from the page for the next couple of days -- he's actually on his way here to visit his brother in NYC. Meaning -- yes, ladies and gentlemen -- your humble hosts shall be meeting in the flesh for the first time. You'll probably be able to follow the drama when it begins on Sunday in my personal blog, Not Enough Of Me; I won't clog this place up with it (not that there's been much to clog lately. Sorry about that. Frequent updates will recommence this weekend).
posted by Chris at 4:48 PM EST
Thursday, March 08, 2001
Learned today: If you're viewing this page in Netscape, it looks like ass. *sigh* I know we just started up, but I think I'm working up a redesign. I'm kind of an HTML moron, though, so God knows if it'll be an improvement cross-browser-wise... I ran this page through the W3 HTML 4.01 Standards Validator and nearly cried at the tremendous list of errors that I have no idea how to fix. Argh...
posted by Chris at 4:42 PM EST
Wednesday, March 07, 2001
The movie ROAD TO PERDITION, due out at the end of this year, might just be a Big Thing for the comics industry -- a non-superhero adaptation of an original graphic novel. And with a director like Sam Mendes (AMERICAN BEAUTY, Broadway's CABARET), and a cast like Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stanley Tucci, and more, it's guaranteed high visibility -- and, dare I say it, a certain level of quality. We can hope, anyway. Idiotically, DC (Paradox Press) seem to have allowed the book to go out of print, but you can get a copy at Barnes and Noble, and you can follow the film's progress at Corona's ROAD TO PERDITION page.
posted by Chris at 9:38 PM EST
4-Color Review has a lengthy interview with Devin Grayson up in their "Paper Cuts" section. Her new Vertigo miniseries USER was a pleasant surprise; you ought to try it out, even if the price tag is hefty (it's a Prestige Format mini). And hey, she even gives you the soundtrack to it in this interview. Rock.
posted by Chris at 9:10 PM EST
A new journal entry has gone up at Marie's World Tour -- and if you're unfamiliar with the site, that's comics goddess Marie Javins we're talking about. She's making a trip around the world, using only ground- and sea-based transportation. It's wild, it's crazy, it's one of the most amazing things I've ever heard of a human doing. Go check it out.
The Snow Apocalypse of 2001 (New York was ground to a standstill, I swear... :-P) has apparently delayed the new comics in the city. Meaning I don't get my double-Seagle fix, or the new RUMBLE GIRLS, or the BERLIN trade. I am quite cranky. But when I get them tomorrow, I shall blog about them, oh yes.
posted by Chris at 8:57 PM EST
Tuesday, March 06, 2001
Stealing a page from Disinfo, I've compiled a small "dossier" on the recent Brian Wood/David Choe NYX fiasco. Apparently, I just can't let it go. ;-)
posted by Chris at 3:15 PM EST
Neil Gaiman's using Blogger to maintain a journal about his new novel, AMERICAN GODS; and Warren Ellis might as well be using Blogger at Strange Machine for his photojournal/rantspace. Comics-creator weblogs have always struck me as a great idea. Any takers? Yeah, that's right, I'm talkin' to you, Dave Sim... ;-)
(Seething Hatred and Linkmachinego pointed us to the Gaiman site, but we already knew about Strange Machine. So there.)
posted by Chris at 2:47 PM EST
I know, I know - I blog a lot of Newsarama stuff here. However, I think it's pretty damn interesting stuff, and this bit is no less interesting - Joe Sacco, the acclaimed creator of PALESTINE and SAFE AREA GORAZDE, is doing a four-page comic strip for TIME magazine.
For those of you unaware of SAFE AREA GORAZDE, a graphic novel which has garnered major acclaim from the Washington Post and TIME magazine, Fantagraphics has set up a nice page for it here.
posted by Ross at 12:44 AM EST
Monday, March 05, 2001
Peter David writing more HULK? Image doing a CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON graphic novel? Eisner-winning colorist Laura DePuy joining the CrossGen collective? Roy Thomas writing the JLA into "The Island of Dr. Moreau"? Chris Claremont and John Byrne collaborating on X-MEN original graphic novel? One of these news items is false. To find out which one, get your browser over to the Comics Continuum.
Still not convinced? Well, you've also got Joe Quesada getting all cryptic and hyperbole-happy, too -
"Keep your eyes open for August solicitations," Quesada said. "Because, frankly, it's the biggest secret we've ever kept at Marvel Comics. In August, we will be soliciting, without a doubt, what will be the most controversial comic ever in the history of Marvel."
Call me a Hopelessly Deluded Fanboy, but stuff like this does pique my curiousity, Stan Lee-levels of hyperbole notwithstanding. Thoughts?
posted by Ross at 11:31 PM EST
Found an utterly fascinating thread on the Comicon message boards that intelligently discusses many of the major issues facing comics today - the failing direct market, the lack of other totally viable alternatives, etc. Go check it out.
posted by Ross at 11:02 PM EST
Sunday, March 04, 2001
This news is a couple of days old, but it needs to be blogged for posterity.
The X-Men New York Stories. It's gonna be out in August under Marvel Comics new Mature Line. (Brian) Wood's writing, I'm rocking the covers, and my boys from 38th street and the Crabshack Project will be taking care of the guts with my help. It's taking place in New York, and Rogue, Gambit, and Jubilee are the key players, that's all you get for now.
David Choe at Popimage
And then it all went to hell.
This might have been the greatest thing Marvel had done for ages. And they *certainly* didn't need this kind of press before launching a Mature Readers line that is already being met with skepticism.
Fools, the lot of them. The only good thing I can say for this is that I didn't get the time to work myself into a frenzy of anticipation for this.
posted by Chris at 5:52 PM EST
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