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The Forecast for September 28th 2005
Welcome to The Forecast. Every Monday, Ninth Art's core team of comment writers, the Ninth Eight, will be your guides to the best, worst, weirdest and most noteworthy books on the shelves of your local comic shop. BOOK OF THE WEEK: DC SHOWCASE It used to be that if you wanted to read old comics, you would have to brave the flea market or comic mart. And even if you could withstand the Stench of Ages, then the sheer cost of the comics would probably cripple you, and your children, and your children's children, and so on and so forth until your descendants changed their name to, or possibly from, the Schmidts. It wasn't long before the big companies discovered that people were prepared to spend their life savings on thin collections of old BLACKHAWK stories, as long as they were on shiny white paper. This age of the MARVEL MASTERWORKS and DC ARCHIVES only served to price the vast majority of the readership out of the market, the odd issue of MARVEL TALES aside. Then, at the dawn of the third millennium, the Marvel ESSENTIAL was born. A phonebook-sized collection of old Marvel comics, printed in black and white on service station toilet paper and priced to sell, the ESSENTIAL became the new paradigm and, for a time, it was good. Cap fought the Commies, Jonah Jameson fought Steve McQueen, and HOWARD THE DUCK fought both Writer's Block and the 1976 Presidential election. In the years since their inception, the ESSENTIALS have... sort of lived up to their name. I mean, sure, the Lee/Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR run is pretty much it when it comes to the 1960s superhero comic, but on what planet is Marvel's FRANKENSTEIN comic 'essential'? DC Comics, ever ahead of the zeitgeist, have finally jumped on the bandwagon. This week sees the debut of DC SHOWCASE, a new series of B&W phonebooks collecting the greatest stories from DC Comics' Golden Age: the Silver Age. Naturally, DC are putting their best foot forward, so the first Showcase books feature the ultimate avatar of the Silver Age, Hal 'The Second Green Lantern' Jordan, and Superman, as reimagined by Curt Swan. SHOWCASE PRESENTS: GREEN LANTERN and SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUPERMAN feature over 500 pages of naked nostalgia each, including the first appearance of Supergirl, stories by Jerry Siegel, art by Gil Kane, and plenty more besides. To many fans, these stories are the acme of comics - the absolute height of the medium. It's an attitude that has, in many respects, stunted the growth and evolution of, if not Comics in general, then superheroes in particular. Nostalgia for the whitebread wonders of the Silver Age has almost certainly contributed to the current psychosis affecting the DC Universe. And while it's great to be able to read Curt Swan's SUPERMAN without having to sell my mother, I can't help but hope that these books will finally drive home the idea that certain characters and concepts are products of their time, and as such are well, well past their sell-by date. Future SHOWCASE books will star Metamorpho (!), Jonah Hex, and the original Justice League of America. And while it may not have much of an effect on the back-issue market, the SHOWCASE line will certainly make your bank manager very, very happy. [Matthew Craig] POLLY MATH Here's a simple formula: Great creator plus pirates equals must-have-comic. OK, so the whole pirate thing is a little bit 2003, but swashbuckling never really goes out of fashion. Swordfights, sharks, lost treasure, stormy seas, 'arr mateys' and bottles of rum; what's not to love about pirates? But of course, outside of the WATCHMEN universe, pirate comics aren't exactly a big part of the industry. Books like EL CAZADOR, RED SEAS and SCURVY DOGS haven't set the sales chart alight or garnered much word-of-mouth. Yet ask anyone if they like pirates, and they're likely to answer with a hearty 'aye, jimlad'. Everyone likes pirates. In theory. In practise, they want the story told on the page to fulfil the promise of piratey goodness they hold in their hearts. That's where getting the right creator comes in, and that's where we turn with wide imploring eyes and a trembling lip to Ted Naifeh, whose POLLY AND THE PIRATES #1 ships this week from Oni Press. Naifeh has created a lasting favourite with the three-volume COURTNEY CRUMRIN series, the tale of a wilful schoolgirl who entangles herself in the occult underworld of her small town home, spun out in gothic lines and jagged shadows. It's a series that I never fail to enjoy every time I re-read it, and it's a series my friends never fail to be converted to when I lend it out. With POLLY, Naifeh has created another schoolgirl hero, but he promises that this is no COURTNEY CRUMRIN AND THE WET THINGS; while Courtney likes to play the rebel, Polly believes in propriety. She's a prim little boarding school princess who finds herself the unwilling heir of a pirate legacy that drags her reluctantly into high seas adventure. Naifeh has earned my trust with CRUMRIN and HOW LOATHSOME. Now comes the real test. Will his pirates buckle my swash? [Andrew Wheeler] SUMMER LOVING Mods pop up a lot in comics. Ed Brubaker's sadly short lived DEADENDERS was about crazy Mods from the future, while Dave Gibbon's recent THE ORIGINALS dealt with, well, slightly more sombre Mods from the future. There are Mods in LONG HOT SUMMER (Image Comics) too, but they're contextualised: the story is set in the late 80s, during a Mod revival. Ken isn't a Mod, but hangs out with them. Ken is someone I can relate to: scabbing anything, from rides, smokes and food, off his mates. His best friend Steve doesn't seem to mind, but what happens when you throw a girl into the mix? LONG HOT SUMMER follows on from writer Eric Stephenson's transformation from Rob Liefeld/YOUNGBLOOD crony in the early days of Image, to realist author, as evidenced by his short story 'Junk' in FOUR LETTER WORLDS (which he also edited). 'Junk', about a young man describing his divorce to an incredulous and cynical young woman, was a beautifully composed story, with dialogue and characterisation that rang true. I was amazed that this was the same Eric Stephenson who wrote the YOUNGBLOOD STRIKEFILE. Stephenson also showed he could write with his story 'A Different Kind of Tension' in the relaunched NEGATIVE BURN. That story was illustrated by Jamie McKelvie, who rejoins Stephenson for LONG HOT SUMMER. McKelvie made his debut in the aforementioned FOUR LETTER WORLDS, drawing a disappointingly banal goth story by BUFFY's Amber Benson, and he's quickly making his talent apparent. His clean-lined, minimalist art has a cool, retro feel to it (as seen in this preview). I'm enjoying this new, experimental direction Image is taking. If enough people check out books like LONG HOT SUMMER, then hopefully we'll come to enjoy it for a long time. [Ben Wooller] SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE Dark Horse continue to do a sterling job of publishing intelligent, sophisticated manga in America, from the sweet nuttiness of CLUB 9 (a guilty pleasure) to BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL and LONE WOLF. I still maintain that anybody who doesn't love the story 'Full mat, half mat, bowl of rice' in LONE WOLF has no soul. And now, to my complete delight, Dark Horse is bringing out LADY SNOWBLOOD, an early 1970s manga from LONE WOLF author Kazuo Koike. The series is short, only five volumes long. Even better, it's not in the itty-bitty eyestrain-inducing bunkubon format that LONE WOLF is published in, but a normal 5x7 manga size. You've probably heard of LADY SNOWBLOOD, if nothing else because the O-ren Ishii fight in KILL BILL, in the snow, is a direct rip from it. There have also been two LADY SNOWBLOOD films (enjoyable, but not staggering works of martial arts genius) and a modern/sci-fi reinterpretation, THE PRINCESS BLADE. A bit like Melville's LE SAMOURAI, LADY SNOWBLOOD is the story that the cognoscenti love to rip off. What is the story? Well, stop me if you've heard this one before. Thugs kill a baby girl's family, and she grows up as an instrument of vengeance against them. But with Kazuo Koike, such a simple framework will no doubt branch out - as LONE WOLF did - into meditations on beauty, the nature of love, the fragility of the human condition... and lovingly-rendered ultra-violence with a katana-wielding beauty. Really, everything is better with girls. [Alex de Campi] SALE OF THE SENTRY There appear to be two different blokes called Paul Jenkins working in comics. One of them puts out dreadful rubbish like ORIGIN and WOLVERINE: THE END - nonsensical, turgid dross that should never have made it out of the House of Ideas' think-tank. The other one does thoughtful, well-written character-based tales like INHUMANS, PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN and the often unjustly forgotten 2000 miniseries THE SENTRY. (Ah, but maybe we were all meant to forget it! Which is, of course, a joke that only makes sense if you've read the mini itself, so never mind.) Of course, with Brian Michael Bendis bringing the Sentry out of character limbo and dropping him into the 'new' Avengers, the time's right to revisit the character. A new edition of the original mini is on its way in December, and this week sees the launch of the Sentry's new series, again written by Jenkins. Much is promised of this series - single-issue stories that build to show a greater picture; a sense-of-wonder storytelling style largely absent in today's US superhero comics; a traditional superhero comic for the future. Quite honestly, it looks pretty groovy - Jenkins does his best work on characters that he's invested a lot in, so while the clearly editorially mandated Wolverine work he's put his name to is eminently forgettable stuff, this - being a character he created - should be more engaging. The artwork comes from the perennially reliable John Romita Jr, a talented and capable superhero artist, albeit one who presents a serious stylistic change from the character's original artist, Jae Lee. Quite why the Sentry is relegated to miniseries status while Spider-Woman gets an ongoing is something of a mystery, but if sales are there for the Golden Guardian of Good, we can be sure to see more of him in future. Let's just hope that Marvel have hired the correct Paul Jenkins. [Alistair Kennedy] THE SHIPPING LIST FOR SEPTEMBER 28th 2005: Shipping details come courtesy of Diamond. Visit the Diamond website for the latest information, as the list is subject to change. DARK HORSE JUL050017D BPRD THE BLACK FLAME #2 (OF 6) $2.99
DC COMICS JUL050294D ABC A TO Z TOM STRONG AND JACK B QUICK $3.99
IMAGE AUG051731 FRESHMEN MIGLIARI CVR #1 POSTER PI
MARVEL JUL051864D AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #524 $2.50
OTHER PUBLISHERS JUL052839F ACTION PHILOSOPHERS #1 2ND PRINTING $2.95
The Ninth Eight are Matthew Craig, John Fellows, Kieron Gillen, Alistair Kennedy, Zack Smith, Andrew Wheeler, Ben Wooller and Bulent Yusuf. Ninth Art endorses the principle of Ideological Freeware. The author permits distribution of this article by private individuals, on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice. Back. |