Drunken Comics #1: For You I Do This

I drink a salty dog (with vodka, not gin), read comics, and wax wax wax:

THE UNWRITTEN #1: WHAT IS IT WITH COMICS AND BORING ANALOGUES

Marvel proved with Squadron Supreme back in the ‘60s that you can use characters you don’t own if you create an approximation of the character you intend to steal. Watchmen did this in a smart way by having characters that only vaguely resembled the characters Moore was trying to evoke and ultimately felt starkly original because he’s a brilliant writer. Warren Ellis did this in The Authority by making the Batman and Superman characters gay lovers. They soon flourished and are themselves distinct except when crappy writers are on the book.

The Unwritten, on the other hand, uses obvious analogues of Harry Potter… why, exactly?

The premise of The Unwritten -- kid grows up as the inspiration for his father’s fantasy novels, may or may not be a fictional character come to life -- is brilliant. For some reason -- and the script acknowledges this -- it’s a total rip-off of Harry Potter complete with sidekicks and the anemic Max Shreck villain.

My only hope is that there’s something to the derivativeness. Imagine you find out you’re a fictional character. Someone dreamt you up on a typewriter. How would you feel if you were also unoriginal?

It’s an existential issue Peter Milligan would explore, but Peter Milligan isn’t writing The Unwritten. Maybe Mike Carey will address it. Don't screw this up.

Regardless, you should buy the first issue of The Unwritten because it's only a dollar.

ULTIMATE WOLVERINE VS HULK #6: SCREW YOU WILLINGHAM

It’s just occurred to me: Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk -- with its harems and in-half-rippings and its delectable Gammahulksex -- is exactly the kind of comic book that stupid Bill Willingham warned us of in that ridiculous column about “superhero decadence” that I made fun of. Quite frankly, I don’t give a shit about morality and fictional characters as role models. I want Wolverine saying things like “So help me God, I’ll turn you into coleslaw, you green bitch” and “I’m a mutant… I’m on humanity’s shit list.”

Bring it on.

My favorite part of Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk is the Hulk/She-Hulk sex. Not only is it appealing in a strictly base pornographic way (HELL YES MONSTERS FUCKING), but the sexuality of a character like She-Hulk is something that warrants examination. She’s Amazonian in a way that Wonder Woman is not (for a Warrior Princess, Wondie’s kind of delicate and feminine, huh?), and her skin is GREEN. GREEN. She’s a muscley nonwhite woman, yet she’s got serious staying power. I attribute it to latent homosexuality amongst fanboys.

The penultimate page is laid out in a 4-tiered, 12-panel grid. Funny thing about 12-panel grids -- they’re economical in that you can put a ton of information on one page (Part 3 of The Dark Knight Strikes again uses like 24-panel grids) but there’s something mechanical about having 12 panels of repeating size and shape.

Look at Panel 1, wherein Hulk grabs Nick Fury. Why is this presented in the same manner as a talking head (Panel 9) and Nick Fury mounting a horse (Panel 11)? If anything, the physical threat to the character should be bigger than a bunch of panels of people talking.

Unless you’re doing an Alan Moore circa Watchmen thing and giving every frame of the book the same treatment (and thus making the REALLY big moments matter).

Also, the last line in the issue is pretty funny.

THE LAST DAYS OF ANIMAL MAN #1: AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED PETER MILLIGAN SAID THE LAST WORD ON THIS ONE

My basic rule for superhero comics: if I’m not interested on Page 1, I’m not interested in reading the rest of it.

I was not interested on Page 1 of The Last Days of Animal Man.

Flipping through it, however, the art stood out. What initially bugged me about Grant Morrison’s brilliant run of Animal Man was how Chas Truog’s interiors never quite held up compared to Brian Bolland’s covers (I've sense gotten over this silly bias). Chris Batista’s linework seems an attempt to appropriate Bolland’s style, but a lot of his character renditions evoke Kevin Maguire -- the master of facial expressions. I’d love to see him on a quality book.

I gotta say, though, that the design of the villain on that page is so lame that it HAS to be intentional.

Anyone else noticing this trend of DC hiring older writers to work on weird fill-in stuff? You’ve got Len Wein on Justice League of America, Jerry Ordway on Justice Society of America, and Gerry Conway on Last Days of Animal Man. This isn’t a point, just an observation.

CROSSED #5: SHIT’S FUCKED UP

The Zombie Craze in comics is on its way out in favor of incessant Obama covers. People still love The Walking Dead, but that’s because it’s a quality book. My hypothesis is that most zombie comics suck because they pull their punches. To write zombies you have to be not only a total bastard, but a sick fuck.

Guess why Garth Ennis is the perfect candidate to write a zombie comic.

Ennis is less interested in sociology and psychology as Robert Kirkman is, but he manages to out-mean 28 Days Later not only in zombie violence, but in human atrocity. Wisely, he has his infected people talk, and they say the most heinous things imaginable.

Crossed #5, unlike previous chapters, is mostly character interaction and minimal actual violence. Oh, right: also, Garth Ennis is capable of restraint when he wants to be.

Garth Ennis is a mean man.

UNCANNY X-MEN #510: REKINDLING THE FLAME OR

I know Matt Fraction’s Uncanny X-Men is great because CBR’s Hannibal Tabu hates it. He hates everything good and proper and always gives glowing reviews of Transformers comics. He is what’s wrong with comics.

Uncanny X-Men is what’s right with comics.

Ignore that it’s a superhero comic with a painfully convoluted history -- or is that the appeal of X-Men? No it isn’t, I say. It’s about pathos and identification and everybody loves Wolverine. GRAAR SNIKT SNIKT

Fuck that, you don’t need to know anything about the X-Men to enjoy this. You’ve got the super-X-headquarters under siege. You’ve got a chick with a purple energy mind knife! There’s a chick with six arms! And swords! Beast drinking a coffee! Wit! Cyclops doing stuff!

Also, Greg Land’s art is a bit dynamic than usual. He’ll be a great artist yet if we keep making him render fight scenes. And stop swiping from magazine covers. Models = maybe not the best source to base human characters on.

Thanks Matt.