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The Forecast for October 19th 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. Please note that this week's comics will hit US stores a day late due to the public holiday on Monday. BOOK OF THE WEEK: CONVERSATION There are all sorts of dialogues in comics. There's the dialogue on the printed page ? the interaction between characters in a story. There's the dialogue between the writer and the artist (or between penciller and inker), which often creates the sort of friction that turns to magic (or crap) in the finished product. Then there's the dialogue between the creator and the consumer - not the congratulatory to-and-fro of the message boards, but the communication of ideas and concepts between one human mind (approx.) and another (approx.). Comics can be such a slow, painstaking process that it's hardly surprising that there aren't more literal conversations within its pages. After all, only a certified lunatic would want to draw one half of a conversation, scan it, and email it across the country for another artist to complete/deface, before starting the process again with the next topic. A certified lunatic. Or possibly James Kochalka. Kochalka is the driving force behind Top Shelf's CONVERSATION, a new series in which the artist and diarist engages his favourite creators (this issue: BE A MAN's Jeffrey Brown) in a back-and-forth "jam," covering topics such as Life, Work, and Art - which, for some cartoonists, may well be the same thing. As described here, Conversation involves the use of Kochalka's elfin avatar. This approach will no doubt make the finished product that bit more engaging (c.f. Scott McCloud's affable abstraction), but the mind boggles as to how a creator such as Frank Miller might conduct himself. And if that wasn't enough to make your brain hurt, just imagine what Miller's recent Will Eisner interview would have looked like if it had been drawn, instead of transcribed. The cynics in the audience will no doubt be questioning the value of marrying two potentially dissonant art styles. After all, it might overwhelm the meat of the conversation - to wit: the text. But I think that might be missing the point. Whether it's Kochalka and Brown, Eisner and Miller or Roberta Gregory and Jack Kirby, a book like this is more than just an exchange of ideas and anecdotes. By utilising the full artist's palette, as it were, it operates on more levels than mere dialogue can reach, allowing the reader to gain valuable insights into not only the process, but the people behind the process. Top Shelf's CONVERSATION looks set to continue the showcase renaissance started by DC's SOLO. A key component of this trend has been the relative affordability of each book. Expensive oversized hardcovers are all well and good, but they price the average reader - including me - out of the market. Long may the Conversation continue. [Matthew Craig] SMASH THE SYSTEM We don't often think of the etymology of those little four-colour booklets that we pull down from the shelves of our LCS every week, but nevertheless, they're all comic books. Not, of course, that there's much in them that's often very comic (just look at the current grim DC line-up, for example), but that's where it's from. Marvel's first mutant made his debutant appearance in the pages of MOTION PICTURE FUNNIES WEEKLY #1, and while it's plain to see that Namor was just a little bit out of place there, that's because he's not a humour character. Still, comics used to be funny. We would do well to remember that more often. Dan Slott's obviously never forgotten that point, and this week the average comedy content of comic books is due to go up by a fraction as Slott and artist Juan Bobillo return with the second season of their critics'-favourite series SHE-HULK. The mixture of one- and two-part stories, together with a teasing fondness for the Marvel Universe and, y'know, plenty of gags, made for a book which struggled to make it in a marketplace obsessed with crises and disassembling (of course, its cheesecake covers by Adi Granov, which have been replaced by cheesecake covers by Greg Horn, show there are some lessons it would just be too easy to learn). Positive word of mouth was such, however, that the little book that could has fought back, and should receive a boost to its opening sales figures in the form of the return of dead Avenger Hawkeye, as She-Hulk teams up with him to face the terrors of... the US probate system? As with many books that get a second chance, those who enjoyed it the first time round are a bit mad-eyed and evangelical about the whole thing. Of course, they're right to be so. This is a funny book in a world of depressing funnybooks. Buy SHE-HULK. Or we'll come round to your house and rip up all your X-MEN comics. [Alistair Kennedy] THE SHIPPING LIST FOR OCTOBER 19th 2005: Shipping details come courtesy of Diamond. Visit the Diamond website for the latest information, as the list is subject to change. DARK HORSE AUG050047D BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL #106 (MR) (NOTE PRICE) $3.99 DC COMICS JUL050277D ASTRO CITY THE DARK AGE #4 (OF 16) $2.99
IMAGE AUG051646D AMAZING JOY BUZZARDS VOL 2 #1 $2.99
MARVEL AUG051979D CABLE DEADPOOL VOL 3 HUMAN RACE TP $14.99
OTHER PUBLISHERS AUG052593F 24 HOUR COMICS DAY HIGHLIGHTS 2005 TP $24.95
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. |