Great Whites, Gouges and Gewgaws

I was a triple threat  this week with three posts going up on the same day, two on Comics Bulletin and one on Read Comic Books. When it rains it pours.

 

The Massive demands to be read in singles. Go with whatever nautical metaphor feels appropriate -- 'full speed ahead,' 'anchors away,' 'shake a leg' -- for this masterpiece in the making. Wood invests such stakes in this comic, there's urgency with this title that most comic books can't, don't and won't ever muster. The Massive #11 also has sharks in it, Great Whites and the 'bad fish' of all 'bad fish,' Megalodon.   I'm not convinced Wood's use of 'Meg' works, but I'm the wrong guy to ask, I saw Jaws: The Revenge, in the theatre.

 

Kill Shakespeare: Tide of Blood #3 arrived right on time to celebrate the anniversary of Shakespeare's, birth, next year is the big 450 (!) and death, 397 years since Bill S. shuffled off this mortal coil. I admit I am probably too close to review Kill Shakespeare with any kind of cool journalistic detachment. Personal bias or not, believe me when I tell you, this is a great comic. Belanger, McCreery and Del Col are telling a phenomenal story in a creative and surprising way in which the script and the art strengthen and reinforce each other it's a wonder of storytelling.

 

'New Ideas, Old Mutants' generated enough buzz that the good Canadians at Read Comic Books asked me to write a 'Long box' column for them. My first effort is the Rocket Raccoon limited series from 1985. In another 16 months or so parents everywhere are going to be awash in more Rocket Raccoon whimsy and Groot gewgaws than you can shake a marketing campaign at. These four issues are so oddball in proportion and so out there in every conceivable way it's hard to believe a mad scientist type didn't come up with it -- and believe me, Bill Mantlo was mad in all the best ways. His story is tragic, but his legacy will live on in Rocket.

Review: The Massive #11,

Review: Kill Shakespeare: Tide of Blood #3,

Review: Rocket Raccoon

Interview with Andy Belanger for Comics Bulletin

Cool Cool Cool 

 

I don't know how 'cool' I am. If you have to ask, right? I don't even know if I know what 'cool' is anymore. I'm a guy in his late (very late) 30's who spends a lot of time staring into the middle-distance as he thinks about what to say about comic books; and I do this for fun. So, consider the source.

Prepare for unsolicited name drop in 3 … 2 … 1 … I got to meet and talk with Stephen King for about 5 minutes at a party about ten years ago. It was awesome. If my twelve-year-old self had known I was going to meet 'the great man' one day, he probably would have thought his mother and father were right and that, in fact, he was reading too many Stephen King stories.

 

Meeting Stephen King was cool.

 

Everybody has a 'when I met so-and-so' story and there are all sorts of flavors of said story, above all, it's a tale by degree, by proximity -- whoever somebody's Stephen King is is personal. The person you met, however, is the tale, not the teller.

 

In trying to convince my wife why I wanted to drive a couple of hours up to Montreal to visit a comic book artist and his comic book artist fiancée, I said something about really liking this guy’s work and that maybe I could get a good story out of it. Well the story is out. I wrote it to challenge myself. I also wrote it because I believe more people need to know about how comic books are made and the talent it takes to invent characters, emotions and whole worlds with only a pen and some ink.

 

I've met some 'cool people' in my life. So believe me when I say: Andy Belanger and Becky Cloonan are cool. Very cool … and generous.

 

Writing is a solo act, but (re)writing, reviewing and reading is a team sport. So single-malt scotches all around for Justin, Daniel and David Fairbanks, the interviews editor at Comics Bulletin, who thrilled me more than he knows by saying he was honored to be one of the first people to read my article.

 

Here's the article: http://comicsbulletin.com/interviews/4982/a-series-of-moments-a-conversation-about-creating-comics-with-andy-belanger-and-becky-cloonan/

Here's where you can give Andy some cash: http://andybelanger.bigcartel.com/

And don't forget the charming Becky Cloonan, she needs cash too: http://estrigious.com/becky/

 

 

Review: Black Church

Children of the Damned

My review of Andy Belanger's Black Church is up at Comics Bulletin. I like the way this review turned out and I hope that my writing corrupts you enough, constant reader, to put some cash in Belanger's pocket. I believe that supporting self-published, creator-owned (natch) work like Black Church is the ultimate act in 'voting with your wallet.' As I continue to develop this ethos (Dude, at least it's an ethos) about creator-owned work, I'm beginning to wonder about how buying self-published work direct from the creator(s) and backing Kickstarter projects squares down at the ol' LCS. Another post for another time.  

I started out a Metalhead. As I was writing about Black Church and revisiting (reliving) the things I love about Metal, I remembered a time that, in a fit of pique, I burned a bunch of Thor comic books in a sand quarry behind my parent's house. Why I decided to burn those comics -- I remember a few of them being Simonson's Surtur Saga, so is that irony or coincidence? -- instead of throwing them in the trash (nobody recycled back then) remains a journey into mystery, but that's what I did. Maybe even then I didn't like mainstream publishers. I kid, I kid. It was around 1986 and I was beginning to develop my own taste in music. I was listening to the radio and, of course, watching as much MTV as I could. I'll spare you all the details about why I torched The Mighty Thor, other than to say, that as a young Roman Catholic and an altar boy, I thought a lot about Satan … a lot.     

Satan was easy to find in the 1980's. The big 'D' Devil was practically a franchise; and Satan was quite the polymath when it came to pop culture. TV shows, books, games and movies were all Satan's thrall, but where the 'Morning Star' burned brightest was in recording studios and record stores. The PMRC was coming into its ascendency and Blackie Lawless was about to become a household name.

What got me to strike a match and burn the 'God of Thunder' (besides ignorance and stupidity) was a two-night presentation (our parents had to sign permission slips to allow us to attend) at my middle school about the pervasiveness of Satan in popular culture. The guy who came to talk to us wasn't some fire and brimstone preacher. He was dynamic, I'm sure, but this was (for all intents and purposes) a school function and not a tent revival; and we were Catholics, after all, and you can't have Catholicism without Old Scratch.

Looking back on it now, it was little more than a power point lecture except back in the day we called those slide shows. Basically, what happened was I got my first taste of mass hysteria and (yes) mob rule. I'm glad this guy didn't hand out Dixie cups of Kool-aid and ask us to join him in the Kingdom of Heaven because it would have been bottom's up. The school was a mess the next day, nobody could concentrate and all anyone wanted to talk about was Satan, Ouija boards and what they threw out when they got home last night.

I guess I felt I had to play my part in the salvage mission for my soul by fighting fire with fire (again Surtur) and make a burnt offering to God. How pagan is that? ANYWAY! Once the hysteria wore off I went straight for the loudest and most satanic music I could find, Iron Maiden. My musical tastes have expanded since then, although I still love mid-80's Maiden and always will. Cynicism (I suppose) has turned Satanism into a marketing strategy, even children of the damned gotta' eat. In this case, maybe ignorance is bliss, there's something exciting about thinking that reading a comic book or listening to a certain kind of music is a dangerous and subversive act and maybe it still is … maybe.  \m/
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7/6 7 PM EST  Belanger confirmed in a DM on Twitter: 'The title of the next chapter [of Black Church] is called the 'Mad Priest!' It's going to be dripping with evil sermons.'  Pray for us!

http://andybelanger.bigcartel.com/ is where you can lose your mortal soul and get your own copy of Black Church.

and here's the link to the review on Comic's Bulletin: http://www.comicsbulletin.com/main/reviews/minicomic-black-church