Glass Under My Skin

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Comics I Bought This Week: July 30, 2009

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics, a trade paperback collection plus a hard cover collection:

  • Glamourpuss -8

  • Fear Agent - 27

  • Lone Ranger Volume 3 (HC)

  • Northlanders Volume 2 "The Cross and the Hammer" (TPB)

  • And now for a review of something I've read recently.

  • "The Mice Templar: The Prophecy" by Bryan J.L. Glass and Michael Avon Oeming

  • I had read some good things about "The Mice Templar" but was still hesitant to pick it up. I'm not sure if it's because the name is a bad pun or because Mickey Mouse has made me prejudice against mouse stories in general. Either way the trade paperback collection of it came out on a slow week at the comic shop so I decided to give it a try.

    The world of "The Mice Templar" is pretty interesting. They give it some nice backstory with myths and legends based on our own but different enough to make the mice's world unique.

    It's also a quest, coming of age, fulfilling a prophecy story. I'm usually not a prophecy fan and the other elements can become clichéd pretty fast but Glass and Oeming play with the expectations of such stories in such a way as to make it fresher than I expected.

    The story also had more breadth and depth than I anticipated. They create a world filled with history, legend, gods, and danger. All based on the natural world without mankind on the scene. It owes a lot to the world of fantasy novels, as is stated in the afterword, with animals playing the parts of various orcs, goblins, trolls, or whatever fantasy races that we are used to seeing.

    Oeming's art in the book is very nice and I especially like the coloring by Wil Quintana. They do a good job of visualizing the world of the mice and the other creatures.

    The only complaint I have about the art is that in the first issue, when there is a whole town full of mice, I was a little confused because I had a hard time telling all the mice apart. It's tough to make them all distinct. They're mice after all. I mention this only because if I had only purchased the first issue I might have stopped there. So if you've only read the first issue pick up the rest because the confusion ends quickly.

    So I have to say that "The Mice Templar: The Prophecy" lives up to its reputation as a good comic. I'm glad I picked it up despite my own prejudices. Give it a try.

    Sunday, July 26, 2009

    Ramblings at the Gate


    It's a pensive evening and I'm sitting around thinking about nothing. How is that? I'm not sure. It's a cool, crisp, and a bit rainy July evening that is perfect for letting the mind drift into new places. But somehow it's not. Hmmm...

    I want to write a couple of more comics strips tonight but I'm not sure if I'll get to it. I've been writing and illustrating about five strips a week in advance of setting up a web site to display them. I've been putting off setting up the website because it's something I don't enjoy too much.

    It really is a lot of work making a functional and good looking web site. It involves a lot of moving things over an eighth of an inch and contemplating how it looks there as opposed to there. Endless minutia and endless contemplation of boring-ass gradients. It really is dull stuff. It's much more interesting making the strips. Plus the website probably doesn't even matter. Who's ever going to see it?

    For me the joy in making anything is the making of it. The odds of any creative endeavor making anyone money or bringing them fame is slim to none. If that is your expectation then prepare to be disappointed. And most of us get disappointed. So I enjoy the act of adding something to the world. Even if the world doesn't know it.

    Of course I generally don't care what the world knows. It matters to me more what I know. That's what I'm in charge of. Plus the world cares about way too many things that I don't care about. Mostly pop culture stuff. I have no interest in the latest hit movie, song, or TV show. I can find my own things of that nature to like. It's pretty easy. They broadcast them right into our homes.

    Now I'm rambling. Where was I? Contemplating the nature of contemplating? That's little odd.

    I was just contemplating the NFL's announcement that next year they are moving the NFL draft to prime time. I'm against the idea. It ruins the good time my friends and I have on draft day.

    For the last few years we'd hang out on a spring Saturday afternoon (the draft continued on Sunday but we were done with it by then) while the NFL draft was going on and have some pizza and shoot the breeze. It was an oasis of football in the off season and an excuse to get together and hang out. Not a ton of "Watching the draft" really went on because there is not much to watch.

    Next year the draft will be on a Thursday night at 8 PM. They want to get a bigger TV audience but I think it will be a smaller audience. No one will be getting together on a Thursday night and consequently anyone who watches the draft will actually have to watch the draft. You really don't want to do that. The draft is long and boring. And I'm one of the people who likes it.

    I think there is no way that as many people will be interested in the draft on a Thursday and Friday night. A Saturday afternoon is one thing but after a long day at work who wants to sit by themselves and be bored by talking heads killing time between draft picks? Bad move NFL. Way to spoil my good time.

    I'm in the mood for some video game football now. Too bad there are no football games I like. I'm not a Madden fan which is the last of the officially licensed NFL games since Electronic Arts payed for the exclusive rights to use NFL players and teams. I still have my older NFL 2K games and do like them okay but they are far from perfect. I want to play a near perfect NFL football video game. Sucks for me that it doesn't exist. Such is life.

    I'll sign off now before I ramble on any more about another topic completely unrelated to anything that has gone before. It's that kind of night. Think I'll write those comic strips now. Maybe I can pull something out of my brain.

    Thursday, July 23, 2009

    Comics I Bought This Week: July 23, 2009

    I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a hard cover collection:

  • Captain America - 601 (I bought this because of the excellent Gene Colan art printed from his pencils)

  • Creepy Archives Volume 4


  • And now for a review of something I've read recently.

  • "Young Liars Volume 1: Daydream Believer" by David Lapham

  • Here is a series that I didn't even know existed until about issue five. I usually buy Lapham's stuff but missed out on this one until now. Probably because it's a Vertigo comic. I'm used to ignoring Vertigo comics because I don't care much for them.

    To summarize this volume all I have to say is, "Boy does David Lapham write some messed up comic books". Messed up in a good way. Dysfunctional people, murder, drugs, mayhem, and madness fill this book in a way that only Lapham can pull off.

    Gerard Way, in his introduction, said "I hated the characters as soon as I met them. I just knew it was only a matter of time before I loved them." That pretty much hits the nail on the head.

    What is weird though is that the characters don't get any more lovable as the story goes on. They are all still screw-ups behaving badly. They just get more human as the story goes on. We learn about why they act as they do, how their bad actions haunt them, and how their regret doesn't matter because they still can't control things.

    The basic story revolves around Sadie and Danny. Before the story started Sadie was shot and now has a bullet lodged in her brain. It's going to kill her sooner or later but meanwhile she has lost her impulse control. Danny is the boy from Sadie's home town who loves her but isn't loved back. He watches out for Sadie and is a bit of a sap but is really a bit crazy too. He is more trouble than he seems.

    A transvestite, a too skinny ex-model, a rock 'n roll groupie, and a ne-er-do-well rich kid round out the cast. The rest of the plot is too crazy and convoluted to go into but it's good. This might be the most fantastic plot that Lapham's come up with. It stretches believability at times but clearly that's what he's after. There is a lot of craziness going on.

    I'm glad I finally got around to reading this one. I enjoyed it a lot and think I liked it better than "Silverfish" which was the last thing of his I read. Give it a read if you're a Lapham fan or a fan of comics about messed up people getting into too much trouble. Just don't expect to find any redemption.

    Sunday, July 19, 2009

    Lookin' in Books


    I’m looking in my books. My drawing books that is. Books in which I’ve made drawings not printed books of other’s drawings. This would be a lot less confusing if I just called them sketchbooks but I’m not really a sketcher. I make drawings in marker and try not to always think of what I’m drawing as I draw. I try to pull odd things out of the back of my mind and let them come through in the drawing.

    I do this in my five by seven inch sketchbook. I make from six to eight drawings on a page. I draw a box in the upper left hand side and then draw within the box. Since composition is my strongest natural talent I find it easier to draw inside a box. By defining the edges of a drawing I have an easier time fitting all the elements together. I make a drawing in the first box and then draw a second box beside it. Then move down a row and repeat until the page if filled with drawings.

    This is the basis for most of the imagery in my art. I’ve been working this way for about ten years now and have nine sketchbooks filled with my little drawings. When I want to start something new I’ll grab one of the books from my shelf and thumb through it and look for something that interests me.

    What’s weird about that way of working is that I don’t always remember each individual drawing. Looking through the books can be quite a surprise. A lot of the drawings I do remember and some of them I even know I will be making into something bigger as I finish the little drawing but may of them are unfamiliar.

    I am sometimes surprised at which drawings interest me years later. Occasionally a drawing that I have passed by for years because I didn’t think it was very good will catch my eye. I see something different in it than I’ve ever seen before and I work it into something new.

    So that is what I was just doing before. Thumbing through one of my books. Book number seven to be exact. I’m currently drawing in book number ten. Some of the time I flip through the book I’m currently drawing in and some of the time I flip through an older book.

    The current book often has the most unknown drawings in it. Even though a page of drawings might only be two weeks old I haven’t gone back and looked at the page a second time. And since I’m often trying to draw with out much use of my conscious mind I can easily forget a drawing after completing it. The older book I’ve gone through many time and certain drawing become familiar.

    Sometimes I come up empty looking through my sketchbooks. I don’t always want to do drawings based on far out imagery. I do come up with idea for pictures the normal way. Think of things I want to draw ahead of time and then go draw them. Most of the time I prefer not to work this way though. I find it a little tedious. I don’t know why. I used to work that way all the time.

    I also recycle my images every now and again. If there is a particular face or body that I liked I will sometimes redraw it for another medium. I may have made a painting of something and then I redraw it and make a print. Or a watercolor painting to an acrylic painting. It can be an interesting process of transformation.

    Some images only work for me in one medium. Or at least adapt themselves well in one medium. My most dense and complex images are usually in my prints. I make my prints on the computer which is quite adept at complexity. To make a painting of the same complexity would take more time than I would care to spend on it. Plus I don’t think needless complexity would help my painting. Needless complexity is right at home on a computer.

    So that is what I’m doing tonight. Looking through my drawing books and searching for an image that I think I can turn into a piece of art. Or at least an image that interests me. I’ve also been looking through my computer scans of drawings I’ve made. Often I’ll pull an image out of my drawing book and work it up into a more finished drawing and then do nothing with it. Nothing but scan it into the computer to sit and wait. Sometime later it might get made into something. Or maybe not. At least I’ve given myself lots of choices.

    Thursday, July 16, 2009

    Comics I Bought This Week: July 16, 2009

    I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a hard cover collection:

  • Creepy - 1 (The new Dark Horse series)

  • The Walking Dead - 63

  • Guardians of the Galaxy - The Power of Starhawk


  • And now for a review of something I've read recently.

  • "Hulk: Red and Green Volume 2" by Jeph Loeb, Art Adams, Frank Cho, and Herb Trimpe.

  • I'll tell you right off of the bat that I bought this book for the artwork. I wasn't that fond of Volume One but it had been years since I bought any Art Adams drawn comics and I wanted to see what his latest stuff was like. Plus Frank Cho is a good artist and there is some Herb Trimpe thrown in. A nice mix.

    This is a thin volume of comics and the writing is even thinner. It seems that they've dispensed with any plot whatsoever and now super heroes just show up to fight the Hulk out of nowhere. There is nothing else going on in this comic. Even less then in Volume One and that's hard to believe.

    I was even a little disappointed in the artwork. Not because it wasn't drawn well but because the fights weren't even interesting. I have to blame the writer for that because clearly no plot was written except, "Page One: Fight scene. Page Two: Fight scene. Page Three: Fight scene etc." Overall this book was a let down.

    One other thing this book made me realize. I hate the Sentry. Even more specifically I hate the idea that a centerpiece hero in the Marvel Universe is a straight up rip-off of Superman. That's as cheap as it gets. Marvel isn't some small outfit with no heroes of their own so they have to do their "take" on Superman. The long time Marvel Comics fans that I know always liked Marvel comics because we didn't have to put of with the likes of Superman and his storytelling flaws. It's annoying turn of events.

    The problem with Superman has always been that he is so powerful that it's hard to find a problem he can't solve easily. On a team book he is especially trouble. Why would anyone need Green Arrow or Batman when Superman is around? The upside of Superman is that he is Superman, world famous character with lots of fans who want to see him. He means something to people.

    The Sentry has all the downside of Superman without the upside. I've read two Hulk stories with the Sentry in them and both times the writer had to come up with a reason for the Sentry not to save the day. And no one is rushing out to buy a Sentry book like they would a Superman book. He means nothing to people. The Sentry is a storytelling anchor and Marvel should get rid of him. That's my rant for the day.

    Sunday, July 12, 2009

    Cars at One Six Four


    I'm building a new book case. Some knotty pine, wood screws, and three coats of white paint. I've built a lot of shelves and book cases for my comic book/book collection and here comes another. It's going into my laundry room in a spot that held my collection of Matchbox/Johnny Lightning/Hot Wheels cars. They have been moved into the garage above the work bench. I haven't bought any 1:64 scale cars in years now.

    I like collecting things but as a freelance artist don't always have a lot of money. Therefore I certainly can't can't collect expensive things. Expensive doesn't mean better or more interesting anyway. There are plenty of cheap things in this world worthy of collecting.

    I started collecting Matchbox cars in the late 1990's. They were just a dollar and there were a lot of fun makes and models. I say "Matchbox Cars" but there are plenty of different brands to buy. Plus they don't take up a whole lot of room. At least at first.

    I probably have a few hundred cars now. That's where I stopped. I keep then in little plastic cabinets that have a lot of drawers. The kind of cabinets that are made for holding various types of screws, nails, little tools, or whatever in a workshop. They work great for little cars too. I have six of those cabinets. That's too many.

    I stopped getting any new cars around the year 2000. I remember getting some new millennium special edition ones but not much after that. What made me stop you ask? Money and space. Those two oh so important elements.

    The cars were getting more and more expensive. Not huge money of course but the toy companies were making more and more "Collector" cars at $2.99 - $4.99 a pop. I liked them. Some were much better than the basic one dollar car. As nice as they were getting two or three cars for ten bucks is a lot different than getting two or three for three bucks. Cheap suddenly isn't cheap. I could've be getting comic books with that money.

    And space to put toy cars isn't always easy to find. Each year Hot Wheels and Matchbox put out new cars for the year. There are forty or so cars in their dollar line. That plus another ten buck will get you a case to put them in. Only a hundred dollars a year. Not bad. But then what do you do?

    I collected two years worth of cars and had four cases but said to my self, "How long can this go on?". In five years I'd have ten cases. In Ten years twenty cases. Did I want that many? The answer was, of course, no. I don't like toy cars that much. I much prefer to collect comic books.

    I couldn't see spending and more of my limited resources on toy cars. I'd rather spend my money on comic books and support the industry that I had worked in for many years. They are of much more use to me as a fan, a professional, and an artist.

    I still like my toy cars. At least some of them. I keep a couple of them on my drawing table and rotate them for others whenever I feel like it. But I could probably get rid of about 90% of them and never know the difference. But where do you get rid of toy cars? Who wants them? A problem for another day. For now they'll sit in the garage.

    Matchbox cars are cheap but they are not the cheapest thing I've ever collected. Those would be little plastic football helmets. It was 1996. I remember that because in December 1995 I bought my first computer ever. It set me back about five grand and I was more broke than I had ever been before. Sure I was still getting my regular comics but I wanted something new to collect. Toys, games, cards, they were all too expensive.

    I was at the toy store one day and I noticed a bubblegum machine filled with those little plastic NFL helmets. I hadn't noticed them since I was a kid. And they were only a quarter per random helmet. I started getting a couple of them whenever I had the urge to collect something. It was fun. Until a few months later when the price raised to fifty cents a helmet. Too much dough. Plus I had most of them already. Fun while it lasted.

    In the early 1990's I used to collect action figures. I don't have a lot of them left though. I gave them away. They also took up too much room. Most of them were crappy anyway. I never wanted to spend that much on an action figures so I used to collect the ones that were in the sale bin. Those are usually not the most desirable ones but some were okay. They eventually took up too much space and I gave them away bit by bit. Threw some out even. Those were the really crappy ones.

    So that's a story of collecting for you. Some of us just love collecting things. The key is not to let them overwhelm you. If they start to then get rid of stuff and build more shelves. Shelves are your friend.

    Friday, July 10, 2009

    Comics I Bought This Week: July 10, 2009

    I'm back from a Friday trip to the comic shop this week and I got 2 new comics plus a hard cover collection:

  • Ex Machina Special -4 (I somehow missed this one the week it came out.)

  • Wednesday Comics - 1 (Printed on tabloid size newsprint to remind us of comic strips of old. From DC Comics.)

  • Warlock Archives Volume 2 (The Jim Starlin stuff.)


  • And now for a review of something I've read recently.

  • "The Starman Omnibus Volume 2" by James Robinson, Tony Harris, and Others

  • Once again I'm glad that there is a plethora of collections of comics that are old favorites that I never though would get the deluxe hardcover treatment or stuff that I never got a chance to read but now can. It's a golden age of comic book and comic strip collections.

    "Starman" falls into the "Never got a chance to read" for me. I know people who liked it when it was new but somehow I never gave it a try. I read "The Starman Omnibus Volume 1" and like it so now here comes volume two. Guess what? I liked this volume too.

    It's interesting reading "Starman" all these years later. Though there are many good artists working on the book it's James Robinson's writing that sets it apart. "Starman" is not your typical superhero. As a matter of fact I'm not quite sure what his super powers even are.

    Starman is just an ordinary guy who has an energy rod that allows him to fly and shoot energy blasts (which frequently miss their target). He has no super strength or invulnerability so villains with automatic weapons are frequently a challenge to him. But this comic is really not about superhero battles.

    "Starman" is about not only living life as a superhero but just living life. It's more about conversation and the people in Starman's life than about giant super battles. There is also a sense of history in the book since Starman is about the third or fourth hero to carry that name. Stories pop up about the old Starman and The Justice Society superheroes that he used to hang out with. Connections are everywhere.

    It's also interesting to read what good writing was before the "decompressed" style that is the norm now took over. There are lots of balloons and lots of ideas in "Starman". It's overwritten by today's standards but it's not. Most stuff is underwritten today if you ask me.

    "Starman" was also written before the "write four to six issue story arcs for the trade paperback collection" routine that we are burdened with today. The story evolves at it's own pace and has a much more natural feel than a lot of stories I've read.

    So if you haven't given "Starman" a try yet go ahead and grab a volume. I think the third one is just about out and I'll be getting that one too.

    Sunday, July 05, 2009

    What I Got!


    Ahhh… collecting things. Isn’t it fun?. I just found some comic books at an online comic shop and ordered them. About thirty comics. The vast majority of them were under a buck so the whole shipment cost me under fifty dollars. A good chunk of change but not a ton.

    I really didn’t need any of the comics. They aren’t ones I was dying to read. I was just filling in some holes in obscure comic series that normally I can't find anywhere. I bought two issues of “The Masked Man” that I have been missing for decades.

    “Masked Man” is a series from 1984-1988 published by Eclipse comics. It was kind of a tribute to Eisner’s “The Spirit”. I remember liking it but haven’t read it since then. I’ve been missing two of the twelve issues since the Eighties and have never seen any issues of the series anywhere. I’m sure demand for them is not high so no dealer is going to drag out his issues to bring to a comic con. Not that I’ve been to a comic con in a decade.

    I also bought the last issue of “Usagi Yojimbo” that I’ve been missing. It’s “Space Usagi” Volume 2 Number 1. The one time I did this same thing, sometime last year, I ordered this comic but they sent me “Space Usagi” Volume 3 Number 1. It gets a bit confusing sometimes. Hopefully I’ll get the right comic this time and complete my Usagi Collection. Of course I still need the comics he appeared in before he had his own book.

    A few recent things were in the order too. Like a couple of issues of “Fear Agent” that I missed. Most books that I buy month to month I never miss an issue but sometimes I pick up on a book a little late or maybe money is tight and it doesn’t quite make the cut for a little while. “Fear Agent” was one of those books. I started with it late, picked it up for a while, dropped it, and then picked it up again. I still am missing a couple of issues but they are cheaper then when they were new. If you can track ‘em down.

    It was a little annoying ordering from this online shop. Only because I missed putting an issue in my order. I thought I did but I didn’t. I e-mailed them and got a response that since the web site used an automated ordering system they couldn’t add things to my order. That seems a little crazy to me. When a sales system is so inflexible that is loses sales I have to say that is a big flaw.

    I haven’t bought any back issues of comic book in a while. There are so many collected editions of old comics being published that there is no need to hunt down back issues. I especially like the oversized hardcovers of stuff that’s been coming out. I’m not a huge trade paperback fan. I prefer the hardcovers. Often, but not always, they’re printed better and if they are bound well they are easier to read that TPBs.

    I still like actual comic books though. I like their periodical nature. Waiting until next month to see the next part of the story is part of the fun of comics. I buy the individual issues of all of the small press stuff that I read regularly but nothing from Marvel or DC. If I want some mainstream super hero stuff I’ll usually by a collected edition. There are too many ads and not enough story in a regular Marvel or DC Comic for me.

    I’ll often buy the collected edition of the small press stuff I like too. Not only to support my favorite cartoonists but also to lend out. For some reason I find comic book fans are more likely to read something new that they can borrow if it is in book form. I don’t know why. They’re comic book fans and read individual comic books but would rather not be bothered with something new unless it’s collected. Weird. Regular people won’t read a comic at all but might read a collected edition.

    The collected editions are fairly cheap on a per issue basis. A comic costs three or even four dollars an issue now. For twenty two pages of story. That’s expensive. A two hundred page collected edition is going to run you twenty five to thirty dollars. Plus I get a thirty percent discount on collected editions at my local comic shop. A powerful incentive to get collected editions. Of course that also means buying a lot of "comics" at once. The downside of collected editions if you’re just trying stuff out.

    I’ve already started digging through the database of my comic collection to see what other obscure comics I am missing. Maybe I’ll put in another order soon or maybe I won’t. Let’s face it these aren’t comics I’m dying to read right now. I’ve been missing them for a lot of years and have been in no rush to find them. Still it is fun to fill in holes in the collection after all these years. And most of the ones I need are cheap.

    Thursday, July 02, 2009

    Comics I Bought This Week: July 2, 2009

    I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got three new comics plus a hard cover collection:

  • Savage Dragon - 150

  • Buffy Season 8 - 26

  • Echo -13

  • "Spider-Man: Election Day"

  • And now for a review of something I've read recently.

  • "Herbie Archives Volume 2 " by Shane O'Shea and Ogden Whitney

  • This volume reprints "Herbie" issues six through fourteen from 1964-1966. These are all comics I've never read since this is the first time I know of that "Herbie" has been collected or reprinted. I've known it by reputation and by one or two issues that have been reprinted but this is the first time I've been able to read the whole series.

    I don't have much to say about volume two of "Herbie" that I didn't say about volume one. It's a unique comic. Herbie is a "Fat little nothing" to his always disappointed father but unknown to his family Herbie has all sorts of magical and super powers. His powers are completely unexplained except some of them are related to the magic lollipops he eats.

    These stories are all a bit crazy. Plots can go anywhere they want and the unexpected is always popping up. Herbie travels through time and space effortlessly and is always meeting famous people of the past and present. President Johnson and Adlai Stevenson show up in this one. Not to mention Herbie give a Christmas present to Cassius Clay.

    This volume is also notable for the first appearance of Herbie's super hero identity "The Fat Fury". Exactly why Herbie would need a super hero identity is a mystery to me but one day a super villain was terrorizing the town so Herbie decided to become a super hero. Before that Herbie just went adventuring in his regular clothes.

    Herbie is also very well known among all the famous people, mythical characters, historical figures, and animals that he meets but no one knows who the Fat Fury is. Just another one of the weird things about this comic.

    I could go on all day recounting the strange goings on in this comic but it's best if you read it for yourself. Check it out.