WHY WASN'T IT A TWINKIE WRAPPER, MORRISON?! OR A FRUIT PIE, AT LEAST?!?!
*Last night, I had one of the oddest dreams I’d had in a very long time. It was a real saga, spanning years of my life, elevating me to a character of near-Shakespearian tragedy (I’d throw in the disclaimer ‘in my own mind’ except through the situation being within a dream such connotation is self-evident). Slowly but surely, my place in my social circle was worn away through little mistakes like using the wrong hair-care products or laughing at inappropriate moments. It was like some social satire of my own device with myself cast in the lead for an audience of only me, except it was 370% more nerdy than average due to my final defeat arriving via the output of Aardvark-Vanaheim. It seems that in dream-time past I’d written a letter to Dave Sim filled with off-color jokes on the subject of Michael Jackson, and apparently Sim had reproduced the letter in his annotations to “The Latter Days” trade paperback, which were duly scoured by an enterprising young man, doubtlessly a self-publishing comics connoisseur (and possibly - *gasp* - a reflection of myself at a younger dream-time age; I apparently cannot escape the use of dubious irony even at the mercies of my own subconscious) bent on my undoing to his own gain. Truly it was “The House of Mirth” for our days, except I’m the only one who saw it and the “Cerebus” bits would probably fly over most exterior audiences’ heads anyway.
Seven Soldiers - Klarion the Witch Boy #1 (of 4)
In a nice change of pace, the official title in the legal type is actually longer then the comparatively casual “Klarion” as evidenced on the cover. Also, the ‘coming soon’ page can’t seem to decide if Witch Boy is perhaps only one word (Witchboy). As always, the indicia rules, formalist bastard that I am.
This is one of the better “Seven Soldiers” first issues, though it’s a tale often told, sometimes resembling a type of EC shock story with all of the unsubtle allegory that such confections tend to employ. But it’s told with panache and fun, and the art is nice, if somewhat uniform through necessity.
Klarion is only 167 bells away from being a Witch Man, and he’s pretty excited, if only because it affords him access to areas outside of his underground homeland of Limbo Town; the Witch Men of his blue-skinned people often travel slightly upwards to trade with the Trolley Men out in High Market. But not much movement overall is allowed by the Book of Shadows, the governing holy text of the Submissionaries, high priests that have recently begun cracking down on the *UGH* democratically elected Parliament. And now there’s been a Sheeda sighting (you’ll recall them as the recurring villains of this project) and Submissionary Judah is howling for a policy of total lockdown. But the delightfully fey Klarion (reminiscent of Morrison’s Sebastian O if not yet quite as amoral) has no use for such superstitious buggery, rejecting the tomfoolery of religion for something tangible and realistic, like magic! Aided by his kitty familiar Teekl and his subversive mentor Ezekiel, Klarion discovers some nasty stuff going on behind the scenes.
Not bursting with originality from every pore, no, but entertaining stuff. Morrison writes the characters well, with an able mix of pomp and humor (“Trouble thine elders and betters no more and let yon fleabag cat hide…” spits Judah at one point), enough to offset the familiarity of the plot mechanics (anyone who doesn’t see a certain character’s awful fate coming from a mile away, or at least as soon as he pulls out a gun to protect himself on his journey, ought to sit in the corner for the rest of the day). Even the obligatory reconditioning of DCU history is cleverer than usual, with a certain Grundy inserted into the Witch Folk’s belief system as a bit of a keystone. Or maybe I just find it clever because I actually noticed the reference this time.
Frazer Irving’s art and color is noticeably hampered by the cave setting: get ready for a lot of blue backgrounds to match all the blue skin. But the character art (lots of talk in this issue) is goodly expressive, and the Puritan-style costume designs are fun; Klarion looks surprisingly badass on that final page, despite the knee-socks and clunky shoes. Good beastie designs as well, offering an opportunity for needed variety; there’s a swell wide panel depicting near-identical Witch Men and Women sitting in church, the only colors beyond blue or black or white provided by their familiars, cats and owls and frogs and even a floofy dog with a panting tongue, way off in the back. And the character art responds to such hues with its own color, Klarion’s half-amused half-disbelieving face soaking in the preaching and praising.
Big cliffhanger ending here, and the coming soon page essentially promises connections to “Guardian” and suggests a “Shining Knight” reference in upcoming issues. Perhaps the info page will also serve to point out connecting threads as they become more evident, more in focus? We’ll have to see as we finally approach some second issues, though this wasn’t a bad finale to this very much extended introduction for “Seven Soldiers”.
Hate Annual #5
And just as expected yesterday, I enjoyed the obligatory Buddy story most out of all four features in this (largely) annual Peter Bagge release from Fantagraphics. Buddy experiences a sort of renewal of inner vigor when an action figure in his nostalgia shop falls from its shelf and damages his eye, necessitating an eye patch. Buddy proceeds to shave his head, invest in a corncob pipe and sailor’s hat, and finally start looking into home ownership: an extra-cheap junkyard (“Hey, I used to dream of living in a dump when I was a kid!”)! But wife Lisa is miffed with her husband’s transformation, and demands a little home-shopping in the suburbs. At 12 pages it doesn’t wear out its welcome, and offers some neat evolution for Bagge’s longtime lead character. Devout “Hate” fans may get the most out of it, but there’s some fair laffs for the uninitiated too.
Following that, we get a heavily-illustrated essay from Bagge, on the topic of renovation of bars from blue-collar joints to hipster hangouts in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. Bagge is strongly in support of it, though the piece tends to wander around from historical info to unfocused ranting to social/economic analysis, and the quality is as scattershot as the focus. Some sharp points are made on the topic of Average Working Joe attitudes and how such nominally salt-of-the-earth outlooks tend to coalesce in practice into self-limiting blinkerism. Bagge’s classification of hipster-hating young urban folks as hypocrites, indulging in little more than “self-hatred” to bolster their artificial senses of individuality, probably won’t be quite as well received seeing as how it cuddles the entirety of city youth under a nice big blanket statement (true, the same can be said of his comments on blue-collar slobs). I’ve gotta say though: Bagge’s got a great sense of courage, tearing into “humorless whining” directly in the middle of three long paragraphs devoted to his hatred for live music and pool tables in bars. It’s left up to the reader to determine the humor content, I suppose.
Also on hand is the first comic book format release of Bagge’s “Weekly World News” strip, “Bat Boy”. Twelve and one half weeks worth of strips are presented, though the feature is kind of damned from the start. “Bat Boy” is positively loaded with of-the-moment pop culture and political gags, seemingly designed to be as ephemeral as the weekly tabloid in which it first saw print. Thus, on reprint, we get to relive the fun of Martha Stewart and the lack of Bin Laden and Abu Gharib and all of that, though it’s a little too early to enjoy it as a time-capsule, and there’s not quite enough satire to bring big laughs today. Near the end of the collection the series does begin circling around a larger satirical point, as Bat Boy is elected US President solely on the basis of his enormous popularity and decides to fill his Cabinet with assorted pop stars and teen actresses (after all, if politics is just entertainment, why not be honest about it?), leading to a power struggle between Vice President Lindsay Lohan and Secretary of Defense Lil’ Kim (whose painful dialogue unfortunately offers a less intentional brand of humor). Some decent gags, yes, but I was most impressed with how stale references to the ubiquity of Ms. Lohan already feels. Though, again, such circumstances are here beyond Bagge’s control.
The book ends with an amusing Lovey three-pager, in which all sorts of dark secrets (or lack thereof) are unearthed. The best line in the story, as well as the entire book, charitably arrives on the very last page: “The only other time I got busted was for having sex with farm animals… and I still don’t get why that’s illegal…” Sure, I laughed at that. Are there five dollars of laughs waiting inside for you? A resounding maybe. Use your prior Bagge experiences to guide you.
Seven Soldiers - Klarion the Witch Boy #1 (of 4)
In a nice change of pace, the official title in the legal type is actually longer then the comparatively casual “Klarion” as evidenced on the cover. Also, the ‘coming soon’ page can’t seem to decide if Witch Boy is perhaps only one word (Witchboy). As always, the indicia rules, formalist bastard that I am.
This is one of the better “Seven Soldiers” first issues, though it’s a tale often told, sometimes resembling a type of EC shock story with all of the unsubtle allegory that such confections tend to employ. But it’s told with panache and fun, and the art is nice, if somewhat uniform through necessity.
Klarion is only 167 bells away from being a Witch Man, and he’s pretty excited, if only because it affords him access to areas outside of his underground homeland of Limbo Town; the Witch Men of his blue-skinned people often travel slightly upwards to trade with the Trolley Men out in High Market. But not much movement overall is allowed by the Book of Shadows, the governing holy text of the Submissionaries, high priests that have recently begun cracking down on the *UGH* democratically elected Parliament. And now there’s been a Sheeda sighting (you’ll recall them as the recurring villains of this project) and Submissionary Judah is howling for a policy of total lockdown. But the delightfully fey Klarion (reminiscent of Morrison’s Sebastian O if not yet quite as amoral) has no use for such superstitious buggery, rejecting the tomfoolery of religion for something tangible and realistic, like magic! Aided by his kitty familiar Teekl and his subversive mentor Ezekiel, Klarion discovers some nasty stuff going on behind the scenes.
Not bursting with originality from every pore, no, but entertaining stuff. Morrison writes the characters well, with an able mix of pomp and humor (“Trouble thine elders and betters no more and let yon fleabag cat hide…” spits Judah at one point), enough to offset the familiarity of the plot mechanics (anyone who doesn’t see a certain character’s awful fate coming from a mile away, or at least as soon as he pulls out a gun to protect himself on his journey, ought to sit in the corner for the rest of the day). Even the obligatory reconditioning of DCU history is cleverer than usual, with a certain Grundy inserted into the Witch Folk’s belief system as a bit of a keystone. Or maybe I just find it clever because I actually noticed the reference this time.
Frazer Irving’s art and color is noticeably hampered by the cave setting: get ready for a lot of blue backgrounds to match all the blue skin. But the character art (lots of talk in this issue) is goodly expressive, and the Puritan-style costume designs are fun; Klarion looks surprisingly badass on that final page, despite the knee-socks and clunky shoes. Good beastie designs as well, offering an opportunity for needed variety; there’s a swell wide panel depicting near-identical Witch Men and Women sitting in church, the only colors beyond blue or black or white provided by their familiars, cats and owls and frogs and even a floofy dog with a panting tongue, way off in the back. And the character art responds to such hues with its own color, Klarion’s half-amused half-disbelieving face soaking in the preaching and praising.
Big cliffhanger ending here, and the coming soon page essentially promises connections to “Guardian” and suggests a “Shining Knight” reference in upcoming issues. Perhaps the info page will also serve to point out connecting threads as they become more evident, more in focus? We’ll have to see as we finally approach some second issues, though this wasn’t a bad finale to this very much extended introduction for “Seven Soldiers”.
Hate Annual #5
And just as expected yesterday, I enjoyed the obligatory Buddy story most out of all four features in this (largely) annual Peter Bagge release from Fantagraphics. Buddy experiences a sort of renewal of inner vigor when an action figure in his nostalgia shop falls from its shelf and damages his eye, necessitating an eye patch. Buddy proceeds to shave his head, invest in a corncob pipe and sailor’s hat, and finally start looking into home ownership: an extra-cheap junkyard (“Hey, I used to dream of living in a dump when I was a kid!”)! But wife Lisa is miffed with her husband’s transformation, and demands a little home-shopping in the suburbs. At 12 pages it doesn’t wear out its welcome, and offers some neat evolution for Bagge’s longtime lead character. Devout “Hate” fans may get the most out of it, but there’s some fair laffs for the uninitiated too.
Following that, we get a heavily-illustrated essay from Bagge, on the topic of renovation of bars from blue-collar joints to hipster hangouts in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. Bagge is strongly in support of it, though the piece tends to wander around from historical info to unfocused ranting to social/economic analysis, and the quality is as scattershot as the focus. Some sharp points are made on the topic of Average Working Joe attitudes and how such nominally salt-of-the-earth outlooks tend to coalesce in practice into self-limiting blinkerism. Bagge’s classification of hipster-hating young urban folks as hypocrites, indulging in little more than “self-hatred” to bolster their artificial senses of individuality, probably won’t be quite as well received seeing as how it cuddles the entirety of city youth under a nice big blanket statement (true, the same can be said of his comments on blue-collar slobs). I’ve gotta say though: Bagge’s got a great sense of courage, tearing into “humorless whining” directly in the middle of three long paragraphs devoted to his hatred for live music and pool tables in bars. It’s left up to the reader to determine the humor content, I suppose.
Also on hand is the first comic book format release of Bagge’s “Weekly World News” strip, “Bat Boy”. Twelve and one half weeks worth of strips are presented, though the feature is kind of damned from the start. “Bat Boy” is positively loaded with of-the-moment pop culture and political gags, seemingly designed to be as ephemeral as the weekly tabloid in which it first saw print. Thus, on reprint, we get to relive the fun of Martha Stewart and the lack of Bin Laden and Abu Gharib and all of that, though it’s a little too early to enjoy it as a time-capsule, and there’s not quite enough satire to bring big laughs today. Near the end of the collection the series does begin circling around a larger satirical point, as Bat Boy is elected US President solely on the basis of his enormous popularity and decides to fill his Cabinet with assorted pop stars and teen actresses (after all, if politics is just entertainment, why not be honest about it?), leading to a power struggle between Vice President Lindsay Lohan and Secretary of Defense Lil’ Kim (whose painful dialogue unfortunately offers a less intentional brand of humor). Some decent gags, yes, but I was most impressed with how stale references to the ubiquity of Ms. Lohan already feels. Though, again, such circumstances are here beyond Bagge’s control.
The book ends with an amusing Lovey three-pager, in which all sorts of dark secrets (or lack thereof) are unearthed. The best line in the story, as well as the entire book, charitably arrives on the very last page: “The only other time I got busted was for having sex with farm animals… and I still don’t get why that’s illegal…” Sure, I laughed at that. Are there five dollars of laughs waiting inside for you? A resounding maybe. Use your prior Bagge experiences to guide you.
posted by Jog at 5:48 PM
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