April 17, 2007
Brrrr, Springtime...

   Whoo! Even here in sunny F-L-A, it's sweater weather! This past weekend we've had some fierce winds blowin' through, but thankfully not as severe as predicted. Much as this yankee loves the extended cool weather, I'm dying to take a dip in the pool. But until Karen and I can scrape together several grand to buy a heater, I'll have to let nature warm it up over the next few months. Of course I could stop buying comics, but that's crazy talk!

   While I'm waiting for the pool to warm up, in less than a month, my first issue of Gen13 (#8) will be out, and I'm very very VERY excited about it! This is the first regular series I've been attached to since, well, now that I think about it, Route 666 and Sojourn at Crossgen. I could count my subsequent work with Scot Eaton on Thor and Captain America, but unfortunately, we were batting clean-up for both series prior to their respective cancellations/relaunches. Much as we enjoyed working on Cap, I think Scot and I, had we the chance to do it all over again, would've stayed on Thor, just to have a longer run on the book (not to mention all the buzz during Oeming's Ragnarok finale storyline!) You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, as they say.

   Before I go any further, I must show you a recent toy purchase. I don't buy as many toys as I used to, but I had to have this Marvel Legends 2-pack with Captain America/Baron Von Strucker. It was a variant of the Cap/Red Skull 2-pack, and for months I've been obsessing over one single thing: The toys come packaged with a free Cap #32 comic with my name emblazoned across the top, alongside Robert Kirkman and Scot Eaton from the previously-mentioned series! Kinda cool, huh?
   Anyway, back to Gen13: Hot on the heels of the announcement that it's prolific writer Gail Simone is taking over Wonder Woman, I say with very slightly reserved hyperbole that our first issue with new penciller Carlo Barberi and colorist Carrie Strachan will be a great book to 'jump on board', particularly if you're a fan of The Authority.

   It feels right to me, being a part of an ongoing team again, and I haven't felt this sense of 'family' in a long time. Editor Ben Abernathy shows me the respect usually reserved to 'hot' writers and pencillers. As an inker, I'm more used to feeling like a sorcerer's apprentice, trying not to get hit with shrapnel! I have to say, Carrie's colors rock and here's why: They convey a consistent mood and she doesn't try to bury my precious linework! Some colorists know the software, but not color theory. Carrie's work, on the other hand, shows that she doesn't have to show off all the photoshop tricks in each panel. Special color effects are cool, but if they're overused, any desired bedazzlement can get trivialized. Hmm, that last sentence was worded oddly, but I think you know what I'm getting at.

   What I'm reading: I still read comics before bedtime. I guess I'm hopelessly addicted to them for life. I've a backlog of trade paperbacks to get through. There's some great stuff out there that's seeing print for the first time in a decade or two. Specifically...

   Image's Kane by Paul (Jack Staff) Grist. Six volumes have recently been made available and Grist's work is always a treat. His style is deceptively simple, and he uses lots of repeated visuals, but his art serves the writing, more than the other way around. Kane is a police detective in New Eden, UK, but the series expands quickly to give you a wealth of great characters and their respective motivations. Damn good stuff.

   Also, over the past few years, DC now has published up to eight volumes of Alan Moore & Rick Veitch's groundbreaking Swamp Thing run from the 1980's. Twenty years later, it's still compelling work. I know this run's been well-covered by fans and pros alike but it's such a satisfying read that I feel compelled to share my enthusiasm! I confess to dropping the title back when it became one of the "New Format" comics with #60. New Format was the name attributed to a select number of books which had a paper and printing upgrades accompanying a price increase of, initially a measly quarter, to an extra quarter six months later. At the time, I was in Art School and broke as all hell, so I only bought the occasional comic and I had to go for affordability. I do remember buying Swampy #62 because of the New Gods/Darkseid storyline, but I just couldn't afford to hang in there. It was a matter of 75 cents vs. a buck twenty-five! Twenty years later, I again feel an exciting jolt of discovery, enjoying the subsequent stories that are now new to me.

   Going back to the "New Format" era, a lot of experimental books were given this more-expensive treatment, which may have lead to their short lifespan. El Diablo, drawn by the inspired and influential Mike Parobeck (who left this mortal coil far too soon). New Guardians, by Joe Staton and others. Out of all the New Format titles, I think El Diablo had the best chance of lasting, had the book been the standard 75 cents rather than $1.25. I bought a few issues, but again, it was an affordability situation. Come to think of it, a trade paperback of El Diablo would be awesome!

   A year or two later, my finacial situation improved with my first job out of school and I picked up a very different kind of comic under the New Format banner: Grant Morrison & Chaz Truog's Animal Man, with covers by Brian Bolland (I almost wrote the adjective 'exquisite' before 'covers', but with Bolland, it's redundant). I have to thank Cliff Bigger's long-running and sorely missed Comic Shop News weekly free comics newspaper for previewing and hyping the book, else I might've passed it by. Those first 26 issues remain some of my favorite stories. Sure, it owed a debt to Swamp Thing with Buddy Baker's attachment to a lifeweb that gave him a connection to all animal life, as Swampy had with his attachment to "The Green" as our appointed Earth Elemental, but that's where the similarities end.

   Back to the Swamp Thing 1980's run. One anomaly that impresses me is the singular vision amongst a small cadre of creators. Moore's work is covered in the first four trades, but before he took his leave, he sidestepped to graciously allow his co-conspirators to contribute to the series' writing, pencillers Stephen Bissette (#59, "Reunion") and Rick Veitch (#62, Wavelength"). Even more impressive is the seemlessness of the storyline. hese were not filler out-of-continuity stories, but contributions to the ongoing tapestry. Better-read scholars of the written word than I may notice some difference in the writers' 'voices', but I can't. The art throughout the series remains superb and consistent as well, thanks to the tight-knit styles of Bissette, Veitch, John Totleben, Alfredo Alcala, Stan Woch, Ron Randall and Brett Ewins. If you've never been into Swamp Thing, these trades'll get you hooked.

   Since I'm in a "praise stuff that's already been praised to-the-hilt" mood, I might as well state that the latest Peanuts collection (1963 to 1964) by Fantagraphics provides the usual ear-to-ear grin from me. To this day, I can't believe I'd live to see the day that Schultz' complete Peanuts work would be reprinted chronologically, yet here I am, reading this, the seventh volume, in seventh heaven. The large vocabulary Schultz employed still amazes. Like the time-released effects of medication, jokes that zoomed way over my young pate are now full-out bellylaughs written for me, the adult. A Time Magazine quote from the inner dust jacket reads: "What a brilliant, truly modern, totally weird idea it was to create a comic strip about a chronically depressed child."

   Much as I hate to admit this publicly, I'll probably drop the books when the strips from the 1970's come around. By then, the strip settled on simple gags or familiar situations with new punchlines, such as a multi-panel build up showing Charlie Brown falling once again for Lucy's football-pulling stunt. I can't swear I won't try to hang in there, but the first two decades of Peanuts are the best, striking in their honesty and cleverness. In this day and age, a strip about a chronically depressed child would never fly. Ah, I'm sounding like a chronically depressed child myself in what started as a positive-sounding blog...where's my Snoopy Pez dispenser? That always cheers me up!
 
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