The Brown Wedge

Wolverine: Old Man Logan and the art of the single issue comic

Almost all the talk these days in comics is of graphic novels, mostly meaning collections of the continuing traditional 24-page monthly comic. Writers create story ‘arcs’, i.e. they write for later collecting, most often in six-issue chunks. I have nothing against this, but I want to celebrate the monthly comic, too, and the writers who make really good ones, who, without sacrificing the longer story, write great single issues that make you desperate for the next one.

Mark Millar’s previous run on Wolverine, collected as ‘Enemy of the State’, was fantastic, but this current run may be even better, and the latest issue was one of the best I’ve read in years. The setup: it’s set in a future 50 years after just about every Marvel villain somehow got it together to team up and massacre all the superheroes and take over the world. Wolverine hasn’t fought anyone or popped his claws since then. … read on …

A Spirited Failure

Frank Miller’s film of the Spirit has been beaten to death by the press, which befits a film where ultra-violent beatings are the order of the day. Watching it out of curiosity it is interesting to see how much of this beating is due to
a) Frank Miller
b) Superhero fatigue
c) Violence fatigue
d) Blue-screen movie boredom

There is no doubt that all of the above contribute to the Spirits’ awfulness, but at the same time the film has a gusto and energy missing from many movies, something which could be down to the writer directors singular vision of the titular character. Which unfortunately boils down to “What if Miller’s Batman moved into Sin City?”. So we get endless voice-overs of how “The city” is The Spirit’s wife and life - which is somewhat ironic as the choice of filming technique leaves us with little image of the city itself except as a black silhouette and a few bricks. … read on …

The Broken World - Tim Etchells

When I found out my favourite theatre director in the world had written his first novel I was intrigued, but also somewhat trepidacious. Tim’s theatre writing (which I talked about a bit here) is so strongly of and about theatre itself, would he trip up in an entirely different mode of writing? Would what he produces that makes forced ents such a theatrical force work on the page?

So I was in borders with a gift voucher, unsure of what to spend it on, when I remembered and picked it up, not quite out of duty, but frankly without any great expectation (not unlike when i got the new girls aloud alBUM).

It is ASTONISHING. I can’t remember the last time a book, a BOOK, has hit me like this, it might have been shampoo planet (yes, i read it before generation x, because waterstones in cheltenham didn’t have gen x) or My Idea of Fun, fifteen years ago. You might think “ah fanboy, bound to like it” but it’s so far away from his theatrical writing, and yet contains hints of all his beautiful little linguistic ticks that made me cheer inside when I spotted one.

Anyway, it may be the best novel yet written about blogging, the argot is so spot-on, the way the unnamed narrator, like all bloggers, moves away from the Proper Subject At Hand (a walkthrough of mindbogglingly complex computer game) to talk about himself, his friends (who are all referred to by their internet names throughout), his crappy job making Cooked Circular Food (a beautiful neologism that i intend to use at Every Appropriate Point) and everything else in his real life. There’s clearly a deep love for the subject matter, alienation and distance has always a key driver in forced ents work, but an embrace of distance, that it’s a good thing, and this links so strongly with how people immerse themselves in MMORPGs that it was kind of inevitable that Tim would see the potential in them.

Really, I can’t recommend it highly enough, and am worried that i’m doing a shocking job of describing how great this book is, but I HAD to tell you about it.

Manga review #3: Absolute Boyfriend; I Won’t Let You Become A Star!; and Aromatics

The story in today’s Independent on manga is pretty telling about what the author thinks of “comics for girls”. Quote: “The [typical] manga reader was a man, and he probably liked SF and he could be a student. But then they decided, let’s sell these as books. And so girls could walk into a book-shop and pick up their angst-ridden pretty-boy vampire comics and not feel intimidated by the smell or the staff”. Followed by in brackets, the shocking fact that 7%-85% percent of readers of ‘yaoi’ or Boys Love comix are in fact GURLIES. Anyway yesh but now onto the “real” manga. Patronising much, o fuckwit? There’s a picture of a manga written by a female author but you immediately realise it can’t go anywhere because half of the font is COMIC SANS.

Anyway, this article reminded me that recently I picked up my first SHOUJO MANGA (manga for gurlies, typically published by Shoujo Beat over here)! My decision to Try It (given that I hates all comics) was provoked by intense lolz from recent jdrama Yasuko to Kenji, which featured boyband drummer Masahiro Matsuoka as an ex-biker gang leader turned awesome shoujo manga artiste (each episode would feature him dressing up his two goons as eg swooning schoolgirls, cheerleaders, puppy-walkers etc).

I picked up “Absolute Boyfriend”, as I have familiarity with the jdrama (‘Zettai Kareshi’) based on the manga, which turns out to come with two further ‘stand-alone’ comics, “I Won’t Let You Become A Star” and “Aromatics”. I’m not sure if each ‘book’ has one ‘serial’ in each instalment, followed by two standalones or whether this is a one off as it was the last episode of ‘Absolute Boyfriend’, mind. As AB is the finale of a long-running story, it’s actually quite hard to say anything about it without talking about the drama which is a different kettle of cream-puffs. So I shan’t bother! … read on …

Linkasaurus Rex

A bunch of FT writers and close associates have NEW BLOGS (or bloglike entities) which demand some of your attention: … read on …

Don’t They Know It’s The End Of The World?

With Rubicon and Persian Fire, Tom Holland proved himself a master of narrative history with a sizeable weakness for relating the ancient world to the modern. His third history blockbuster, Millennium, dials back the parallels but finds its narrative coherence threatened.

It’s still a very readable and interesting book – a thorough exploration of a relatively obscure period in European history, covering the time from the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 to the culmination of the First Crusade in 1099. Holland doesn’t dwell on either event, looking instead to less well-known – but more crucial – turning points: the victory of Otto over the Hungarians at the Battle of Lech; the rise to power of the Abbey of Cluny; the humbling of Emperor by Pope at the fortress of Canossa, which Holland contends represents the crucial division of Church and State on which Christendom was founded. … read on …

nanobama

“Each face is made of approximately 150 million tiny carbon nanotubes”

Zot! 1987-1991 by Scott McCloud

I mentioned this in one entry in my Beginner’s Guide series, and rereading it now in this big collection, I think I may have undersold it a little. This volume collects all McCloud’s B&W Zot!s: it therefore omits the first 10 colour issues, a two-parter with a guest artist (to give McCloud time for his honeymoon), and some very funny stick-figure addenda strips by Matt Feazel. It started as a charming superhero adventure series, one that felt more like Astro Boy than any US series. Zot is the top superhero on an alternate-Earth, a utopian pick-and-mix blend of the history of SF. Zot flies with jet boots and has a ray gun, but his greatest assets are his unshakeable confidence and total optimism. It’s smart and bright, with the best use of speed-lines since Infantino’s heyday, and has some terrific villains - 9-Jack-9 in particular is magnificent, looking like no one else ever, unbeatable and very sinister. McCloud has demonstrated his deep formal understanding of comics in a series of book-length comic analyses since then, so it’s unsurprising how beautifully executed, despite the odd moment of clumsiness in some of the draughtsmanship. These are some of the most delightful and entertaining comics you’ll find this side of Osamu Tezuka*. … read on …

A Bite of Stars, A Slug of Time, and Thou - Episode 16

In the last episode of Series 2, Astrophysicist Michael Williams joins Mark Sinker and Elisha Sessions to talk about “The Forgotten Enemy”, written by Arthur C. Clarke in 1949. It’s about comfy isolation, radio static, and forces larger than oneself. Elisha reads the story at the front of the programme; music is “Speculative Reminiscing” by Low Res, “Permafrost” by Magazine, and “From My Window I Can See A Mountain in Snow” by Tisane feat. Kevin.

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end times watch: robocop on a unicorn ‘08

this has been fairly widely linked in the last few days, but as a journal of record of such matters…