"Oh, yes, the art. I'd say more about it, but I think everyone's picked up on the issues with Simone Bianchi by now: the individual pictures are beautiful, the panel-to-panel storytelling not so much. The panel layouts are showy, but almost invariably distract from the story rather than supporting it. The action sequences are murky. There's a fair amount of elegant posing. The irritations outweigh the good points in the long run; I can never escape the feeling that the art is showing off when it should be telling the story, and even though it has plenty to show off, that still annoys me."
-Paul O'Brien.
"Ditto."
-Dylan Cassard
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
"BATMAN DOESN'T TAP!"
No words, should have sent a poet.
I love Neil Gaiman, the man was a visionary. I'm glad that he can sail on gently into the sunset selling $15.99 hardcover copies of Edward Gorey Burton-esque cabaret/goth delite for every generation (THE MAN HAS CHILDRENS' BOOKS!). If I had three good stories and a damn good voice that I could churn out books in, I think I'd be pretty happy. Hell, not everything written is art, if publishing your work is like printing money.
It's just sad to see when good writers get caught under the wheels of editorial. Instead of Gaiman telling a story he wanted to tell, we get a story that "needed" to be told in the editorial now and a final "product" that flounders in the face of history. Time will tell with R.I.P.
Dually aware of my article apery et regurgitation. Tuition dollars at work!
I love Neil Gaiman, the man was a visionary. I'm glad that he can sail on gently into the sunset selling $15.99 hardcover copies of Edward Gorey Burton-esque cabaret/goth delite for every generation (THE MAN HAS CHILDRENS' BOOKS!). If I had three good stories and a damn good voice that I could churn out books in, I think I'd be pretty happy. Hell, not everything written is art, if publishing your work is like printing money.
It's just sad to see when good writers get caught under the wheels of editorial. Instead of Gaiman telling a story he wanted to tell, we get a story that "needed" to be told in the editorial now and a final "product" that flounders in the face of history. Time will tell with R.I.P.
Dually aware of my article apery et regurgitation. Tuition dollars at work!
Monday, March 23, 2009
SF X-Men Makes Me Happy.
So, as anyone who has said "comic books" or "X-Men" or potentially "San Francisco" to me has found out, I am really happy with the main x-books right now.
For starters, Matt Fraction on Uncanny is brilliant! His work on The Order had me rolling on the floor with laughter "I'm fightin' a bear, y'all!" Is still one of my favorite close ups in comic book history. And now he ads his comic hilarity with human drama to the oldest X-title.
What does this give us? He's actually tackling character relations between Cyc, Beast and Angel since Bobby's MIA in Manifest Destiny limbo. Wait, a writer that's pointing out the fact that these people have a history together since the 60s? What a novel approach.
Then we also get a nice smattering of mutant media celebrity. The mutant kitsch exhibit at the MOMA was such a great touch and gave a sense of reality to the mutant world. Makes me wish Stan Lee had been into pop art so we could have seen more uses of Andy Warhol when the crew hung out at Coffee-A-Go-Go. Alas, hindsight is 20/20.
We're also seeing something happen with M-Day. Looks like they might actually be close to maybe finding a lead to a cure.
BIG SPOILER:
SPOILER OVER.
And my favorite part about this run, Colossus taking on the Russian mafia in the Richmond. Nuff Said.
Meanwhile, over at X-Men Legacy, we're getting an arc focusing on Rogue. Gambit and Xavier hunt for her in Australia while she is trying to quiet Mystiques voice inside her head. Really great story from her perspective and something I always wanted to see more of. Sadly, there's this whole deal with a Shi'ar smuggler/pirate and his crew and Danger who I have been waiting to pay off for some time, yet always just kinda sits there. It feels to much like a set of action scenes to sell a book than a device to move the plot along. We shall see.
Once again, for those not reading X-Men Legacy (and you should), it's basically Mike Carey going through the muddled history of X-Men continuity and trying to streamline it and have it make sense while dealing with the effect of Xavier's very existence. This has been my favorite book because it covers every era of X-Men history in every issue. It makes the universe gel, and gives it that tack sharp Mike Carey focus.
Lastly: Ellis. Parallel dimensions. Artificial X-Genes. Steam Punk X-Men. Tien Ming. Nuff Said.
For starters, Matt Fraction on Uncanny is brilliant! His work on The Order had me rolling on the floor with laughter "I'm fightin' a bear, y'all!" Is still one of my favorite close ups in comic book history. And now he ads his comic hilarity with human drama to the oldest X-title.
What does this give us? He's actually tackling character relations between Cyc, Beast and Angel since Bobby's MIA in Manifest Destiny limbo. Wait, a writer that's pointing out the fact that these people have a history together since the 60s? What a novel approach.
Then we also get a nice smattering of mutant media celebrity. The mutant kitsch exhibit at the MOMA was such a great touch and gave a sense of reality to the mutant world. Makes me wish Stan Lee had been into pop art so we could have seen more uses of Andy Warhol when the crew hung out at Coffee-A-Go-Go. Alas, hindsight is 20/20.
We're also seeing something happen with M-Day. Looks like they might actually be close to maybe finding a lead to a cure.
BIG SPOILER:
A quibble yet fangasm: Magneto goes to the High Evolutionary, they splice and examine Celestial DNA (the one in Golden Gate, I presume), and now he's got his powers back. Great job, Hank. Way to totally overlook that idea. I coulda told you that one.
Best part about the cliffhanger: we still have no idea what Magneto's powers ARE! HE HAS CELESTIAL INFUSED DNA GIVEN BY THE HIGH EVOLUTIONARY! He's got, like, the powers of the Beyonder's toenail! He's like Onslaught! Or at least an Eternal.
SPOILER OVER.
And my favorite part about this run, Colossus taking on the Russian mafia in the Richmond. Nuff Said.
Meanwhile, over at X-Men Legacy, we're getting an arc focusing on Rogue. Gambit and Xavier hunt for her in Australia while she is trying to quiet Mystiques voice inside her head. Really great story from her perspective and something I always wanted to see more of. Sadly, there's this whole deal with a Shi'ar smuggler/pirate and his crew and Danger who I have been waiting to pay off for some time, yet always just kinda sits there. It feels to much like a set of action scenes to sell a book than a device to move the plot along. We shall see.
Once again, for those not reading X-Men Legacy (and you should), it's basically Mike Carey going through the muddled history of X-Men continuity and trying to streamline it and have it make sense while dealing with the effect of Xavier's very existence. This has been my favorite book because it covers every era of X-Men history in every issue. It makes the universe gel, and gives it that tack sharp Mike Carey focus.
Lastly: Ellis. Parallel dimensions. Artificial X-Genes. Steam Punk X-Men. Tien Ming. Nuff Said.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
I've Watched the Watchmen.
Let me start by saying, in the past week I changed my tune and was syched beyond all get-out to see Watchmen. I was all set to hate it, but I said hey, let it go, don't be a jerk.
Sadly, I talked to Corey before posting this, so a good deal of my venom has been unleashed already.
I remarked this as I left the theater:
"If you're gonna adapt the bible, you might as well read it first."
Nicole liked it more than me, though. And she hates the comic. Let me state, she didn't love it, she just thought the ideas contained within it were intriguing and provoked interesting thought... LIKE THE BOOK THEY'RE TAKEN FROM.
So let me put this simply. Watchmen is a history lesson on the medium of comic books itself. Starting in the golden age, leading into the silver-age, and ending in the post-Taxi Driver New York of the 80's. It's a story about America and it's mythology. It's a story about what makes us human and our capacity to do good, and what does it take to be a hero and when does that line begin to blur? It's not our history because (as the Comedian says) in their world, the American dream "came true." If the masked vigilantes of our mythology did exist, what would our world be like? How would society change? And even though its details are different, it's still the same cesspool. There. There are your themes. Stick to that.
**Spoilers beyond**
And if this film is from a VISIONARY, he should be able to SHOW NOT TELL! Yes, the graphic novel is wordy. I will admit that all but maybe twelve panels in twelve issues do not have a word balloon or a narration box that has three sentences. And there are even three pages of prose at the end of every issue to boot (maybe they should have tacked something like that at the end as well. A novella for a proposal for Watchmen 2: Electric Boogaloo). But when you distill Alan Moore's overwriting down to its most simplistic, try not to end up with sequences that tell the audience what they have just seen. "ZOMG, LAURIE! TEH C0MED14N IZ UR F4VVER!!!1!"
The series is a textbook on "visionary" editing. If you want to know how to write a movie, or edit a film or understand how to build a world, Watchmen is it. There are entire sections that are parallel cut. Sequences that weave together in a quilt. Laurie figures out who her father is once she understands how to see the world from Dr. Manhattan's perspective (NOT BY BEING TOUCHED BY HIS MAAAA4AAGIC FINGERS!!!). Time and sound interweave to create the truth. It's brilliant and filmic. You can open up to any random page and find a sequence that lends itself quite simply to film and needs little changes (except getting the film to be under 12 hours of course) even Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons transitions lend themselves rather neatly to the chronal art. And I was rather shocked that some of the simpler fades/hard cuts were missing in favor of a cut to something completely unrelated.
And before everyone starts saying, "but Dylan! There's a director's cut! Maybe it's in that!" I hope it is. To be honest, I wanted to see the Fountain, and I wound up seeing Watchmen Episode I: The Phantom Topknot.
I was really frustrated by the trailers and was certain this film was going to be a pile of crap. But over the past few days I actually gave in while I was re-reading the graphic novel and said, "why not believe the hype? Maybe Zack Snyder gets it? Maybe he loves this book just as much as I do and he'll create something truly breathtaking. Maybe it will revolutionize the world of editing/cinematography and do for film, what Watchmen did for comics? Why not just believe the dream a little, eh? Everyone else is." I was especially excited to see the Moloch scenes because of the red neon light outside of his apartment and I was certain Zack Snyder would go hog wild with that punctuating lines in the Comedians speech a little better than Moore was able to given the constraints of his medium. Surprise, surprise, it was nowhere to be seen. I was completely baffled. It seems like it would be a cg-filter-whore's wet dream. But alas, nothing.
Instead, Dr. Manhattan GLOWS SO LOUD THAT EVERYTHING IS BLUE! Excellent compromise. So when he changes the saturation of his blue at the TV studio, it must be brilliantly saturated then, right? I mean if Zak Snyder's using up the film world's supply of full CTB filters on this film, he might as well go for broke. RIGHT!? Instead, he puts the saturation on his skin up maaaybe ten percent and then keeps the filters the same/gets rid of them when lights are hitting people near him during the taping. Oops. Now, it's possible that because he's pulling his molecules closer together to make him appear more saturated, perhaps he's not emitting as much light, but considering some of the other gaffs, I'm not goin' for it.
In all honesty, LARRY FONG SHOULD BE RUN OUT OF HOLLYWOOD WITH PITCHFORKS! His cinematography makes my stomach churn. He has no sense of light. And Zak Snyder missed the entire point of the cutaways that are littered throughout Watchmen. There's only one series of inter-cut shots using Drieberg's lenses. It's nice and probably one of my favorite shots in the film, but a far cry from what it could be. It's also in one of the worst acted scenes in the film too. Heck, they're all pretty poorly acted.
Also, going along with one of the reasons I love the book to begin with, Dan is a schlub. He's a Hellenistic superhero.
He's a man that is worn out. He is past his prime and he's overweight, but it's okay, because he fights crime with his gadgets anyway. Regardless of how out of shape he is, though, when he puts on that hood and they go out on patrol, you cheer in the book. He is Night Owl. And he gets the girl! "Oh no! We'd have to see Drew Carry naked!" Yes. That's the point. It's every comic book nerd's dream. Get the beautiful girl because she loves you for who you are. Apparently the world's still not ready for that simple little message.
This should have been as good as Blade Runner or the Fountain, and what I got was the biggest disappointment since I realized how bad Phantom Menace is.
Guess I had a lot more venom in me.
I could keep going on and on and on about all the things I love about Watchmen and how the film managed to leave out pretty much every single one of them, (except Veidt's line which is probably the greatest line in history) but I'll just let people comment.
Sadly, I talked to Corey before posting this, so a good deal of my venom has been unleashed already.
I remarked this as I left the theater:
"If you're gonna adapt the bible, you might as well read it first."
Nicole liked it more than me, though. And she hates the comic. Let me state, she didn't love it, she just thought the ideas contained within it were intriguing and provoked interesting thought... LIKE THE BOOK THEY'RE TAKEN FROM.
So let me put this simply. Watchmen is a history lesson on the medium of comic books itself. Starting in the golden age, leading into the silver-age, and ending in the post-Taxi Driver New York of the 80's. It's a story about America and it's mythology. It's a story about what makes us human and our capacity to do good, and what does it take to be a hero and when does that line begin to blur? It's not our history because (as the Comedian says) in their world, the American dream "came true." If the masked vigilantes of our mythology did exist, what would our world be like? How would society change? And even though its details are different, it's still the same cesspool. There. There are your themes. Stick to that.
**Spoilers beyond**
And if this film is from a VISIONARY, he should be able to SHOW NOT TELL! Yes, the graphic novel is wordy. I will admit that all but maybe twelve panels in twelve issues do not have a word balloon or a narration box that has three sentences. And there are even three pages of prose at the end of every issue to boot (maybe they should have tacked something like that at the end as well. A novella for a proposal for Watchmen 2: Electric Boogaloo). But when you distill Alan Moore's overwriting down to its most simplistic, try not to end up with sequences that tell the audience what they have just seen. "ZOMG, LAURIE! TEH C0MED14N IZ UR F4VVER!!!1!"
The series is a textbook on "visionary" editing. If you want to know how to write a movie, or edit a film or understand how to build a world, Watchmen is it. There are entire sections that are parallel cut. Sequences that weave together in a quilt. Laurie figures out who her father is once she understands how to see the world from Dr. Manhattan's perspective (NOT BY BEING TOUCHED BY HIS MAAAA4AAGIC FINGERS!!!). Time and sound interweave to create the truth. It's brilliant and filmic. You can open up to any random page and find a sequence that lends itself quite simply to film and needs little changes (except getting the film to be under 12 hours of course) even Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons transitions lend themselves rather neatly to the chronal art. And I was rather shocked that some of the simpler fades/hard cuts were missing in favor of a cut to something completely unrelated.
And before everyone starts saying, "but Dylan! There's a director's cut! Maybe it's in that!" I hope it is. To be honest, I wanted to see the Fountain, and I wound up seeing Watchmen Episode I: The Phantom Topknot.
I was really frustrated by the trailers and was certain this film was going to be a pile of crap. But over the past few days I actually gave in while I was re-reading the graphic novel and said, "why not believe the hype? Maybe Zack Snyder gets it? Maybe he loves this book just as much as I do and he'll create something truly breathtaking. Maybe it will revolutionize the world of editing/cinematography and do for film, what Watchmen did for comics? Why not just believe the dream a little, eh? Everyone else is." I was especially excited to see the Moloch scenes because of the red neon light outside of his apartment and I was certain Zack Snyder would go hog wild with that punctuating lines in the Comedians speech a little better than Moore was able to given the constraints of his medium. Surprise, surprise, it was nowhere to be seen. I was completely baffled. It seems like it would be a cg-filter-whore's wet dream. But alas, nothing.
Instead, Dr. Manhattan GLOWS SO LOUD THAT EVERYTHING IS BLUE! Excellent compromise. So when he changes the saturation of his blue at the TV studio, it must be brilliantly saturated then, right? I mean if Zak Snyder's using up the film world's supply of full CTB filters on this film, he might as well go for broke. RIGHT!? Instead, he puts the saturation on his skin up maaaybe ten percent and then keeps the filters the same/gets rid of them when lights are hitting people near him during the taping. Oops. Now, it's possible that because he's pulling his molecules closer together to make him appear more saturated, perhaps he's not emitting as much light, but considering some of the other gaffs, I'm not goin' for it.
In all honesty, LARRY FONG SHOULD BE RUN OUT OF HOLLYWOOD WITH PITCHFORKS! His cinematography makes my stomach churn. He has no sense of light. And Zak Snyder missed the entire point of the cutaways that are littered throughout Watchmen. There's only one series of inter-cut shots using Drieberg's lenses. It's nice and probably one of my favorite shots in the film, but a far cry from what it could be. It's also in one of the worst acted scenes in the film too. Heck, they're all pretty poorly acted.
Also, going along with one of the reasons I love the book to begin with, Dan is a schlub. He's a Hellenistic superhero.
He's a man that is worn out. He is past his prime and he's overweight, but it's okay, because he fights crime with his gadgets anyway. Regardless of how out of shape he is, though, when he puts on that hood and they go out on patrol, you cheer in the book. He is Night Owl. And he gets the girl! "Oh no! We'd have to see Drew Carry naked!" Yes. That's the point. It's every comic book nerd's dream. Get the beautiful girl because she loves you for who you are. Apparently the world's still not ready for that simple little message.
This should have been as good as Blade Runner or the Fountain, and what I got was the biggest disappointment since I realized how bad Phantom Menace is.
Guess I had a lot more venom in me.
I could keep going on and on and on about all the things I love about Watchmen and how the film managed to leave out pretty much every single one of them, (except Veidt's line which is probably the greatest line in history) but I'll just let people comment.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Manifest Destiny
I've been an X-Men fan ever since I saw Pryde of the X-Men as a kid.
There was something about the simple morality of Kitty learning to except the way she was as a person through accepting Nightcrawler that has deeply formed my social perspective to this day.
And the weird thing is, when the staff at Marvel pulled back the curtain and told the world that the reason the Team of Many Nations was nothing more than a marketing ploy to sell more books in countries that weren't buying, my dream was not shattered. Normally I am willing to hate anything at the drop of a hat if it furthers some capitalist greed.
Yet still, I saw them as a place of global equality. They can work together. Russians, Kenyans, Japanese, Irish, Germans, Native Americans, Alaskans and Canadians (later Chicagoins with Kitty Pryde) all setting aside their differences to stomp out prejudice around the world. And they are born with the powers to do it. As time went by, more and more ethnic and cultural backgrounds have been seen.
I have no idea where I was intending to go with this, and it's feeling a bit odd and a little unnecessary, but I guess what I'm really trying to say is I'm happy as hell to be an X-Men fan right now.
There was something about the simple morality of Kitty learning to except the way she was as a person through accepting Nightcrawler that has deeply formed my social perspective to this day.
And the weird thing is, when the staff at Marvel pulled back the curtain and told the world that the reason the Team of Many Nations was nothing more than a marketing ploy to sell more books in countries that weren't buying, my dream was not shattered. Normally I am willing to hate anything at the drop of a hat if it furthers some capitalist greed.
Yet still, I saw them as a place of global equality. They can work together. Russians, Kenyans, Japanese, Irish, Germans, Native Americans, Alaskans and Canadians (later Chicagoins with Kitty Pryde) all setting aside their differences to stomp out prejudice around the world. And they are born with the powers to do it. As time went by, more and more ethnic and cultural backgrounds have been seen.
I have no idea where I was intending to go with this, and it's feeling a bit odd and a little unnecessary, but I guess what I'm really trying to say is I'm happy as hell to be an X-Men fan right now.
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