Monday, January 07, 2008

My Latest Trip to The Comic Shop

I hadn't been to the LCS for a while, so on Friday i picked up three weeks' worth of comics, including a few i hadn't planned on, so it was a lot.

Jonah Hex #27
I got this one because of the gorgeous art by Jordi Bernet and Rob Schwager, which was previewed online. I love the mix of line weights: fine for details, thicker shading and hatching, and chunky inks for deep shadows. It was big in the old Western comics, which of course had far simpler coloring techniques. It works very well with today's colors, too. The scene where this issue's "star man" (no relation to the guy with the cosmic rod) shows off his collection of badges demonstrates how well the techniques can compliment each other. It really looks like those badges are blindingly reflecting the sunlight.

The story was engaging, too. A young man is inspired to take vengeance on corrupt lawmen. I've been in a particularly anti-authoritarian mood lately, probably b/c of all the political news, and a stupid and inaccurate "what's your politics survey" i took that pegged me as slightly authoritarian. (No way!) Hex is kind of along for the ride in this story, but it works. If this issue is the norm for this series, i need to start picking it up.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer #10
The "season" arc is picking up a lot of steam now. We find out a bit of what Buffy and Willow were separately up to between the TV finale and this comic season, and it's scandalous, for different reasons.
The Buffyverse shows its lovecraftian side again as Buffy and Willow seek information from an elder horror demon thing. In the same sequence, another Buffian trope (one i like) returns, as the bad guy forces the good guys to face some uncomfortable truths. (The best instance of this from the TV show was when Spike told Buffy and Angel, in no uncertain terms, that they would never be friends.)

I'm running out of time for this, so i'll do this quickly now and go more in depth later.

Blue Beetle #22 - More cool stuff with the Peacemaker and Jaime's dad (separately); there's some stuff about an underground society that could be completely ridiculous (in a bad way, not the good way) if not for John Rogers' deft writing. Albuquerque's art has such personality; it gives the characters personality, too.

Metal Men #5 - This issue was easier to follow than previous issues. If i had it to do over again, i'd read this one in a collected version. I'm still digging on all the great design work, though.

Dynamo 5 #10 - Lots of good character stuff in this issue, and a little more about the cabal of villains who are plotting to take down D5. Great superteam stuff here.

Birds of Prey #112 - I dropped this series when Gail Simone left, but picked this one up b/c it focuses on Zinda, aka Lady Blackhawk, who is supercool. In this story she moxies and drinks her way across the US while being chased by a pair of super-assassins. Caps off to Tony Bedard (who's one of those writers i like, but isn't on projects that interest me at the moment) for finding just the right tone and characterization.

The End League #1 - Remender's columns on newsarama (i think that's where it is) intrigued me enough to try this one out. The character concepts he posted were especially cool. I'm not sold on this one. The ideas are interesting, but the story didn't really grab me. This one probably needs a real review.

Shadowpact #20
- This one also needs a full review...Blue Devil runs into an old ally while continuing to fight the legions of the homo magi. Ragman, Nightshade, and Nightmaster (they always just call him "Jim", so i always forget his not so good superhero name) trek across the shade dimension, and find out it's also a place with which Jim is familiar. (Yeah, that last sentence was bad...i'm trying to hint without spoiling.)

Jack of Fables #18 - Jack and company finally arrive in Americana, the land of American fables, and it's awesome. I didn't expect some of the stuff that's there, b/c it's more recent than what i tend to think of as fable material, but it's very cool.