Comics I Bought: January 31, 2008

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got no new comics! That's three out of five weeks this January without a new comic for me. I did find a hard cover collection to buy that I've never even heard of. Plus I got a new sweater and pair of pants but not at the comic shop:

"Sight Unseen" by Robert Tinnell and Bo Hampton

And now for a review of something I've read this week.

Warren Ellis "Blackgas"

Here's where you can tell I've been a real sucker for the moderately priced (cheap when compared to buying the individual issues) hardcover collection lately. I gave a short review of Blackgas 1-3 back in June or so and I didn't even particularly like it. But when this "Limited Edition" (sure, limited to how many they could sell) hardcover of issues 1-6 went on sale for about $17 at Amazon I picked it up. I wanted to read the rest of the story.

Y'know I still like the beginning of the story when we are getting to know the characters and they're just doing normal stuff best. Our lead characters are a boyfriend and girlfriend who are visiting the home of the boyfriend which is a small island of the coast. I'm not even sure which coast. But then the earth belches some black gas and everybody on the island turns into a zombie like monster.

That was issues 1-3 and issues 4-6 are when our characters make it to them mainland. Yeah, everybody in whatever city it is on the mainland is a zombie too. What little plot there was in the first three issues virtually disappears and zombie mayhem ensues. Issue six is nothing but violent destruction that leads up to a rather obvious conclusion.

Overall this book was not really my cup of tea but I did appreciate the obvious enthusiasm the artists (Max Fiumara 1-5 and Ryan Waterhouse 6) and writer had. This is some B level talent trying to put out a B level book and it's okay in the end.

Super Impatience

Next Sunday my favorite sports team of all time the New York Giants will play in the Super Bowl. I never thought the Giants would be in the big game this year. I am one of those people who thought that the Giants' head coach, Tom Coughlin, should have been fired at the end of last year. This was his fourth year with the Giants and they have been mediocre for most of that time. Who knows if that was really his fault but when a sports team has been bad to mediocre for too long you fire the head coach. That's how professional sports works.

Most of this year the Giants have been pretty mediocre. They have talent but they didn't play like it for a lot of games. I watched every game and they tortured me for a lot of them. They won just enough games to make the playoffs, which is better than twenty other teams in the league, but it was still painful to watch them in most of their games. They played plenty of teams that they were better than but never blew them out. They let bad teams hang around to the end of games and the Giants barley hung on to win. They lost a bunch too. Watching them did not fill me with confidence.

At the beginning of the year I fully expected their coach to be fired by now. Through out the season I saw no evidence that would have changed that expectation. I wanted to my expectations to change. I was hoping that the Giants and Tom Coughlin would do well because they're my team and I always want them to win. I kept waiting for them to prove me wrong all season. But their game time execution didn't always reflect my hopes.

Then a funny thing happened. The perfect record 15-0 New England Patriots came into town for the last game of the season. The Giants and Patriots had their playoff slots sewn up and the result of the game meant nothing, standings wise, but the Giants finally played with some fire. They played like the game meant something to them. This is the kind of football I've been waiting for them to play for years. They finally played like a good team and not a mediocre one. Unfortunately the Patriots played like a great team and won the game 38-35 but you can't have everything.

The next week the Giants played their first playoff game. It was against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Giants were the underdog. I expected the Giants to win this one because they have more talent than the Buccaneers. All the experts picked the Bucs but I never really understood why. Except for the fact that it was a home game for Tampa. The Giants won the game without a whole lot of trouble and it was on to Dallas.

The Dallas Cowboys had the best record in the NFC and were heavy favorites. The game was in Dallas and I didn't expect the Giants to win but I though they had a good shot. It was a game between division rivals, which means they play each other twice a year (out of sixteen games), and know each other well. The Cowboys had already beaten the Giants twice this year but that meant nothing. Anything can happen in a game between division rivals. The Giants won in thrilling fashion. Excellent. On to Green Bay.

The Green Bay Packers and their fans were happy that the Giants beat the Cowboys. If the Cowboys had won then the Packers would have to go to Dallas to play. Since the Giants won the game was in Green Bay (they had a better record than the Giants). Every team wants home field advantage in the playoffs.

The Giants were big underdogs again but I had confidence in them. They were finally playing well and I thought Dallas was a scarier team than Green Bay. It was zero degrees Fahrenheit at game time and both teams put on a hell of a show with a Super Bowl berth at stake. The Giants pulled off the win and something I never thought would happen this year is happening. They are going to the Super Bowl. They get to play the perfect Patriots (18-0 now) again and are bigger underdogs than ever. I'd put the Giants' chances of winning at one in three but I don't care. I never thought they'd make it this far and I can't wait for next week's big game.

Comics I Bought: January 24, 2008

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got 4 new comic plus a trade paperback collection:

Usagi Yojimbo - 109

Grendel Behold The Devil 3 (of 8)

The Authority Prime - 4

Jack Staff Special -1

The Invaders Classic TPB

And now for a review of something I've read this week.

"Walt and Skeezix Vol. 2 1923-1924 " Frank O. King

This is the second collection of the "Gasoline Alley" comic strip. The newspaper still owns the name "Gasoline Alley" so this book is named after the two main characters. I think these actual strips might be in the public domain but I'm not sure. The book has obviously been made in conjunction with the King family because the introduction is loaded with old family photographs and anecdotes.

I loved the first volume of this and wrote an appreciation of it and this second volume is just as good. We get more of the day to day life of "Uncle" Walt and his adopted son Skeezix. I find it fascinating to read an everyday account of life in a US town in the 1920's. The strip has it's characters age in real time so Sheezix grows up in front of us. The strip is as lively today as it was eighty five years ago.

Along with everyday life we get cross country trips in automobiles, the drama of Skeezix's legal adoption, and the mystery of where he came from. It's a good humored strip that rambles and meanders its way around a gag in a way that today's "it's all about the last panel" comics don't do anymore.

Another thing that you don't see on the comics page anymore is full figures. Most strips in "Gasoline Alley" have full figures in every panel. All of the characters are drawn from head to toe. Plus there are lots of backgrounds. That creates a rich full world for everybody to act in and makes it all believable and absorbing. Today's comics which are printed much smaller have almost all of the art stripped out of them. We have a series of talking heads leading to a joke in the last panel. I'm not a "everything was better in the past" kind of guy but "Gasoline Alley" is a Cadillac to today's average comic strip Pinto.

I can't say enough good things about this book. Having never read "Gasoline Alley" before the first Walt and Skeezix collection I'm glad they printed it for me to buy and discover. We are in the middle of a golden age of comic strip reprints and Walt and Skeezix lead the way.

Clean Sweep

I didn't mean to start cleaning things up and moving them around. It just sort of happened. I'm an organized person but not a neat freak. I'm not a slob either but cleaning isn't my favorite thing to do. Being that my studio is in my home I have to have a lot of art supplies and computer things at my fingertips. As a result everything is out and not tucked away. I keep things as neat as possible but organized is more important. Until things reach a critical mass. That's what was reached tonight.

Things got to a point in my place where the clutter overwhelmed the organization. That's the time when I can't get any more work don until I clean up. And cleaning up, this time, meant organizing some things, throwing others out, and moving stuff around. I had to try and find a new place for everything new. And the old too.

Living in a typical 60's- 70's suburban split level ranch I have a closet reaching under the stairs that split the levels. This is the closet of last resort. It's an unfinished space so you really can't store anything in there that you don't want to smell like musty concrete and slowly deteriorate. I usually store boxes under there. Whenever I get a new piece of computer, audio, or video equipment I store the box it came in under the stairs. You never know when you are going to have to return something in its original box.

Boxes come and boxes go. I don't pay too much attention to under the stairs but I do get rid of older boxes when I need to store new ones. I sometime temporarily store stuff under there too. Recently I had my collection of HeroClix figures under there. I used to play the game all the time on my lunch breaks when I worked in the Marvel Comics offices but it's been a couple of years since I've gotten the chance to.

I put the HeroClix under the stairs but knew I wanted to store them in a better place. Even though I haven't played the game in ages putting them under the stair was condemning them to a slow death by dampness and neglect. For some reason the HeroClix are one of the few things that make me nostalgic and I didn't want to burry them. Yeah, the world's a weird place.

I needed new storage containers for the HeroClix because I had them in these big open flat boxes that didn't really fit anywhere. I decided to get some of those cheap plastic food containers that you can buy in the supermarket or big box store. I bought the entree sized ones and the were five for $2.19 Pretty cheap. I kept underestimating how many I needed but after a few weeks I had them all stored in ninety containers That's about forty three bucks worth of containers. It does add up now. Doesn't it? The ninety containers then sat next to the couch in my studio for three weeks.

Today my new scanner arrived and a critical mass of clutter was reached. I had to clean out under the stairs to put its box under there. After all, the box my computer came in was still under there and got that computer in the spring of 2002! I'm thinking about getting a new one this year so I might as well get rid of the old box. That and my two year old printer's box hit the recycle bin.

The next step was to rearrange the shelves in my laundry room so I could put the HeroClix on them. Crap had to be thrown out. Boxes had to be broken down. Things had to be shuffled from place to place. Anything with an impenetrable layer of dust was chucked. It's amazing what collects in the laundry room. I had a container full of Armor All wipes. I don't know where they came from. They've been there for years. And they were just dried cloth now. Any cleaning solution had long since evaporated. Other bottles with a quarter inch of cleaning solutions in them also went.

So now all my HeroClix have been successfully stored away. They are fairly easy to access so I can indulge my nostalgia by thumbing through them any time I want. No longer are they falling apart under the stairs. But all this breaking down of cardboard boxes and gathering of styrofoam pieces have left this place in real need of a good vacuum. I don't want to vacuum. I never meant to start cleaning up tonight.

Comics I Bought: January 17, 2008

Another week with no new comics for me. I had to go back to the 1950's and 1970's as I picked up a hardcover collection. a trade paperback collection and a magazine:

Shock SuspenStories Volume 2 (EC Archive HC)

Thor: The Eternals Saga Volume 1 (TPB)

Back Issue Magazine 26

And now for a review of something I've read this week.

"Wolverine: Enemy of the State" by Mark Millar, John Romita Jr., and Klaus Janson

I haven't read a Wolverine story in a lot of years. The character doesn't interest me as he's a one note bad ass. But flipping through this collection got me a little nostalgic for the X-Men of my youth (I started reading it regularly a couple of issues before John Byrne come on board) and the art looked really nice. Plus the writer has written other stuff I've enjoyed.

Unfortunately this book starts out pretty dumb. Two bad guy organizations: The Hand and Hydra, kidnap Wolverine, brainwash him, and use him against the good guy organization: S.HI.E.L.D. (and anyone else who gets in their way). This is accomplished by killing Wolverine and raising him from the dead. Huh? The Hand can raise people from the dead? Yes they can. And though the ability to raise people from the dead would have profound implications for society and whole books could be written on that subject alone what effect does it have on the Marvel universe? Virtually none except that the Hand can make assassins out of anyone they want. Pretty mundane and stupid application of death's defeat if you ask me.

The first third or so of the book is Wolverine leading Hydra/Hand teams to kill and kidnap more super heros to turn them into Hydra/Hand assassins and to steal stuff. It's all pretty typical and dumb. Wolverine takes on the Fantastic Four and, of course, the only way he could possibly survive that encounter is if the FF don't fight as a team. So inexplicably they don't. Dumb dumb dumb. And as always in the Marvel universe fire (in the form of the Human Torch) is a mere nusiense. This has always annoyed me as one breath of superheated air will kill a person (never mind getting burned on your outside getting burned on the inside will kill you quicker) but wrestling with the Human Torch while saying, "Ouch" is all that ever happens in the world of Marvel.

Wolverine also steals a hard drive with all of Mr. Fantastic's plans for way out devices that the bad guys want to turn into weapons. Why the world's smartest man has all those plans in one spot is beyond me. Oh yeah, and Wolverine was the only person in the world who could get around Mr. Fantastic's security. Why is this? Who knows? It's not explained. It just is. Dumb dumb dumb.

Oh, and the Hydra/Hand can teleport Wolverine (or anyone) in and out of anywhere. Why didn't they just teleport the hard drive out? Who knows? Dumb dumb dumb.

Fortunately things take a turn for the better when Wolverine inevitably gets free from the Hydra/Hand mind control. Then we get Wolverine in full revenge mode. That's also when we start getting a lot of moves and counter moves from the good guys and the bad guys. The plot picks up and lots of cool super hero things happen. Good fun stuff.

The art is really nice on this book. I've always found that what John Romita Jr.'s art lacks in subtlety it make up for in power. He's perfect at these over the top, super dynamic, things flying everywhere super hero books and this is no exception. His double page spreads really have an impact. I also like his mix of illustrative and graphic drawing. Nobody else does that.

Klaus Janson does an excellent job capturing all of that in the inks too. I've seen JR Jr.'s work taken down a peg when the inker can't keep up with his variety of marks but that doesn't happen here. Top shelf action stuff.

The coloring by Paul Mounts is also first rate. With so much bad coloring out there in the world of super hero computer coloring I almost expect it all the time. But no here. Mounts keeps the colors bright when they need to be and dulls them down when he's supposed to. Clearly a man who knows what he's doing and can set the mood with color.

Any just for Randy the lettering is also very nice. No one else cares but Randy does!

Over all I say that if you can get through the dumb stuff in the beginning of the book there is good stuff waiting after it. And even the dumb stuff is well drawn so if you want to read a Wolvy story check this one out.

Breezy Readin'

Reading takes time let me tell you. I've bought a lot of hardcover comic collections lately that I haven't yet had time to read. But I look forward to reading them. I read a book recently, I can't remember which, that mentioned a person's bookshelf should be filled with books they haven't read. It's a joy to look at a shelf full of unread books and dream of the fun of reading them. I'm enjoying looking at my shelf.

I won't be able to get to many of those books for a while because I just started reading a big ol' novel. It runs about 1200 pages. I've read plenty of big books and am not intimidated by them as some people are. After all, I enjoy reading and it is no more effort to read a big book than a small one. It just takes more time. And time passes whether we want it to or not so I may as well spend some of it reading.

The book I just started reading is Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". I've never read any of her books before. I am aware that she started some sort of philosophical movement and has a society dedicated to her work and philosophy but I don't know many of the details of her school of thought. I've always been a little curious about it because, I believe, it's based on reason. Reason is a favorite of mine.

I was watching Book TV last weekend (that's when the cable channel CSPAN2, which broadcasts the US Congress during the week, shows lectures by non-fiction authors on the weekends) and they were broadcasting a bunch of people (from whatever the Ayn Rand society is named) lecturing on Rand and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of "Atlas Shrugged". It got me interested.

The particular lectures I saw were more of a celebration of Rand than an explanation of her philosophy. It was touched on but didn't really give me the Xs and Os of her thinking. There were a few people who explained how the book affected their lives and how it held more truth than their school experience but I never quite got a handle on what that truth was. Because of what they were saying I think it has something to do with capitalism in general and business as a heroic endeavor. People often like to imagine what they are doing is a heroic endeavor. It's what gets us through or lives but I have a hard time thinking of a philosophy based on that. Maybe I'm way off base though. That idea was put into my head by the speakers and not the book.

Speaking of the book, I'm about a hundred and twenty pages into it and I am enjoying it so far. The back cover blurb sums it up best, "...a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller". I'm not sure if I get the "philosophical revolution" part yet but it is full of interesting and original characters. They are all business people too. A diverse group of business people for sure and I'm not sure yet who the heroes and villains are. That makes things interesting.

We are living in age that worships business and capitalism (was it ever not so in the USA?) so maybe we're living in a post-Rand time when a lot of her philosophies have been adopted and I don't even notice them or maybe I'm only 120 pages into a 1200 page book and that's why her philosophy hasn't hit me over the head yet. Either way I'm enjoying my reading and someday I'll let you know if I understand it all. Right now I'm just bleary eyed.

Comics I Bought This Week: January 10, 2008

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got no new comics this week. None! But I did get a hard cover collection:

Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus Volume Three

And now for a review of something I've read this week.

"Spent" by Joe Matt

Joe Matt is crazy and he lays it all out for us to see. He's also the crazy part in all of us. For those of you not familiar with his work he is one of the small press autobiographical cartoonists who came to the comic world's attention with his comic "Peep Show" in the 1990's. That comic was a no holds bared look into his life and romantic relationships in his early twenties. He really portrayed himself as a weirdo who was his own worst enemy. A good book.

This latest volume has been a long time coming. It collects the story published in "Peep Show" numbers 11-14. To tell you how long in was between issues the four of them come out in 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2006 respectively. He can't even get an issue every two years out. This volume lets us know why.

And, "Why?" you ask. Because Joe Matt has been too busy beating off. Literally. Joe gives us a peek into his life from 1994 until 2002. He no longer has a girlfriend and his neurosis and porn obsession keep him from getting a new one. He is crazy cheap, lives in a rooming house, doesn't have a job, and obsessively edits borrowed porn VHS tapes into his own "perfect" mixes.

Joe Matt even shows us his technique for editing the tapes as he plays them on one VCR, tapes them on another, and edits out any trace of man ass or face. Plus he shows himself beating off to the tapes. He beats off like a crazy person. Six times a Day! Twenty is his record! There is no graphic sex or anything in this book but lots of reference to it.

This book may not be for everyone but I really like it. Most of it is Joe Matt's dialogue with himself as he tries to come to grips with his obsessions, his feeling of pointlessness, and his fear of death. He really explores the dark side of living and some of the crazy bad habits he has. Like peeing into a jar in his room because he doesn't like to go to the rooming house's shared bathroom (where he always pees in the sink).

Some of this book is also dialogue between Joe Matt and a couple of his friend who are also cartoonists, Seth (one name) and Chester Brown. I also like their work so it's weird to see them as characters in this book. But their conversations give as more insight into Joe Matt as we see him through their eyes. Yet all the while we know that we are seeing them through Joe Matt's eyes as he looks at himself. Kinda neat. Kinda freaky.

It could be said that Joe Matt is an "Everyman" but he is way to strange for that. Still he has to come to grips with the same things the everyman has too. Even if he does it in a completely different way. This is a book with a lot of introspection but little enlightenment. I like that because I'm tired of the whole notion of "enlightenment". I think it's good to think about things but I don't believe that someone will throw a light switch and I'll suddenly have all the answers. The questions are more interesting anyway. "Spent" is all about asking the questions. Don't let 'em scare ya.

Scan it!

Yep, I've been looking at scanners again. I have plenty of scanners already. My new 11x17 scanner (it rocks), my old 8x10 scanner (it rocked for ten years but bigger is better), my Uncle's old 8x14 scanner (which I can't get my computer to recognize), and my 35mm slide/film scanner. I used the 35mm scanner to digitize all of my photos that I took before I entered the world of digital photography. That took a lot of time and effort but now it's done and they are all on my new iPod Touch. Good times.

But last year I got a whole bunch of negatives of family photos from my Mom. You'd think they'd be easy to scan in since I did all of my own but they're not. Mine were 35mm negs but my Mom shot with an old Brownie camera that used Kodak 620 film. Each negative is 2.5 x 3.5 inches. That's much bigger than 35mm and falls into the category of medium format film.

A lot of flatbed scanners nowadays can scan film and transparencies but they don't do a very good job of it. The focusing power and resolution of flatbeds just aren't good enough for the relatively small size of a film negative. That's why I bought a dedicated film scanner in the first place. They are easier to use with film and do a bang up job. But I have a consumer lever 35mm scanner (a Minolta Dimage Scan 3) and once we're talking medium format film scanner we're talking professional. And professional prices.

There are a couple of different companies that make (or made) medium format film scanners. The first being Nikon. They make great optics and all the reviews have been good for their scanner but it's $2000! That's just not going to happen for me. Plus it's hard to find. Minolta also made made a medium format scanner. A few different models over the years but now they've discontinued the line. Microtek also makes a $1500 one. Also not going to happen.

Since the Minolta models were discontinued and I already had a Minolta that I liked I decided to search Ebay and see if there were any to be had. After watching for a couple of months I observed that the oldest model went for around $500. Not too bad but it used the older SCSI connecter to hook up with my computer. My old 8x10 scanner was also SCSI and I never had a problem with it but my Uncle's old one was SCSI and I never got my computer to recognize it. I don't want to take a $500 chance with an unreturnable scanner from Ebay.

The next Minolta model had a USB connector and went for around $800. Too expensive once again. Story of my life. The final model had a Firewire connector and was obviously the one that was in the most demand. The reviews on it were great and but the bids immediately rose to the $1500 level. I'd love to get it but, once again, it is not going to happen.

After watching prices on Ebay all through the fall I kinda gave up on the notion of a medium format film scanner. I decided to look into flatbed scanners and see if they had gotten any better at scanning film. I was on the Epson web site (my two flatbeds have been Epsons) when I discovered a something new. In the last couple of years, when I haven't been looking, a new type of scanner was being developed. A flatbed film scanner. Not just a flatbed scanner that could could scan film as an afterthought but one designed to scan film as a primary function.

Epson's latest model even uses some sort of liquid surface to enhance scanning. I'm not sure if I'd ever use that feature but it showed they were trying. It also cost around $750 dollars so it was still too expensive. But reading some reviews on that model eventually lead me to a less expensive ($400) Canon model. Turns out that Canon model was already old and they have an even less expensive ($200) new model. That's a price I can't ignore.

In all of the reviews they said that these flatbed film scanners did a good job but in no way reached the level of a dedicated film scanner. But I'll take a good job. After all, the reviews of most flatbed scanners say they do a crappy job at film scanning. So a good job is a huge step up. And these are old family photos that I am scanning not professional images that need to be printed. For $200 I think I'm going to give the Canon a try. I'll keep you posted.

Comics I Bought: January 4, 2008

Due to the New Years Holiday new comic book day, which is usually on Wednesday, was pushed back to Friday. Plus my local comic shop is having an end of the year 50% off trades and hardcovers sale so I got extra stuff. I got one new comic and two hard cover collections:

Buffy Season Eight - 9

Weird Science Volume 1 (HC)

Weird Science Volume 2 (HC)

And now for a review of something I've read this week.

Criminal Vol 2 "Lawless" TPB by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

This is the second "Criminal" trade paperback collection released by the Marvel Comics creator owned imprint "Icon". It also stands on it's own as a complete story that is unrelated to the first volume. If there is any connection between this volume and the first I don't remember it. New criminals and new crimes.

I reviewed the first volume and I don't remember the specifics but I remember being a bit ambivalent about it. I do know that I like this volume better. The story is about a man who comes from a criminal family getting out of the army, where he was in the brig for the past eighteen months, only to find out that his younger brother (also a criminal) was murdered months ago. He heads back to the Coast to try and find out what happened to his brother.

Once again Brubaker and Phillips give us a story with no heroes. Not really even an anti-hero. Everybody is a criminal and a bit messed up. As with the first volume there is almost no one for me to relate to. But, oh well, the story is still well told. It's dark tale about life's criminal misfits.

When our main character, Sam West, goes to try and find out what happened to his brother he doesn't have an exact plan. He's no detective and he's winging it. But the rest of the criminals are too. I don't want to give anything away because this is a book that is mainly about the plot and the mood. There is a voyeuristic quality to it as we get a glimpse of small time criminals and their lives.

One nice thing about the writing is that Sam West actually takes pains to not leave behind a trail of bodies. Sure there's a body count but he's actually aware that he should do his best not to have them lead the cops back to him. Recently I've seen too many comics and movies where some criminal leaves a trail of dead bodies behind him with no concern for being caught. It's like they live in a world with no police. That's usually because the writer can't be bothered with writing about the police tracking the criminal down. Just a pet peeve of mine.

The cops in this story are nameless and faceless things that are to be avoided. We don't get to know any of them but they are there in a criminal's life as a force that you don't want to deal with but always have to think about.

So if you want some criminal action; if you want a dark book with no heroes; if you want to check out the dark side of our society give "Lawless" a read. It's well done.