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Reviews and commentary by Tony Isabella
"America's Most Beloved Comic-Book Writer & Columnist"
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TONY'S ONLINE TIPS
for Friday, March 18, 2005
Sainted Wife Barb and I spent St. Patrick's Day morn signing papers for a home improvement loan. When she told my in-laws that she was getting a home improvement loan, they immediately assumed she was divorcing me. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Feeling homes should be fun places, I wanted to build a moat around our house. One I could fill with crocodiles or flaming oil as the mood struck me, such as on occasions when my in-laws might try to visit us.
Barb was unwilling to indulge this modest whim of mine. She's going with the new air conditioning, family room, and kitchen. It should be a fun experience working around walls being torn down and holes being drilled in my office ceiling. I still think the moat would have been far more humane.
I share this Isabella update with you, not so much because I think you're obsessed with my life, but to begin establishing the insanity plea I might need in the unlikely event the gravy-smeared bodies of my in-laws are found in close proximity to fat and happy crocodiles. Not that I'm planning ahead or anything.
Let's see what else I have for you today.
******
SHINING KNIGHT
SPOILERS AHEAD
Grant Morrison's SEVEN SOLDIERS epic consists of two bookend editions - I reviewed SEVEN SOLDIERS #0 in yesterday's column - and seven miniseries. Points to DC Comics for sensible scheduling on this event with a new issue coming out every two weeks and the big finish coming in April of 2006. If a reader enjoys what Morrison is doing, he's got a year's worth of comics to anticipate. If he doesn't, he'll be able to cut his losses early on. Count me in the "anticipate" ranks for the present as SEVEN SOLDIERS #0 was a very strong debut.
SHINING KNIGHT #1 [$2.99] didn't sit as well with me, mostly because medieval adventure has never been my thing. Morrison and artist Simone Bianchi open this issue as the Knights of the Round Table fall to the same alien warriors who made short work of those doomed heroes we met in SEVEN SOLDIERS #0. We meet Sir Justin, the Shining Knight, and Vanguard, his flying, talking horse, while they make a final desperate stand against the invaders.
We don't get much of a chance to know Justin in this opening issue. He's brave and pure of heart as befits one of King Arthur's knights, but that's the extent of his character development before he and Vanguard suffer grievous wounds and dive into a liquid that flows through time itself. They come crashing to Earth on Sunset and La Cienega in present-day Los Angeles. It doesn't look at all good for Vanguard.
It doesn't look much better for Justin either, who immediately runs afoul of the cops. The knight is in a state of panic and they don't understand his ancient speech. If I can fault the officers, and, by extension, Morrison, it's because even such strange events as an armored knight and flying horse falling out of the sky would be part of everyday police training in the DC Universe. After all, there are close to a dozen super-hero *teams* operating in the DCU, not to mention dozens of solo vigilantes.
Bianchi's art didn't do much for me here. His storytelling is lacking in clarity with key details hidden in the staging of some panels. Most problematical for me was that Sir Justin appeared of indeterminate age - looking younger in some panels than in others - throughout the issue. In one shot, he even looked like a teenage girl. If the Shining Knight of this series is really so young - a departure from the original - that's okay by me, but I think that needed to be spelled out in the text and in the visuals.
SHINING KNIGHT #1 is a solid comic in many ways, but, as noted above, medieval adventure just doesn't do it for me. It gets three out of five Tonys. I expect next issue - set in the present - will have a much better chance with me.
Coming soon: my review of SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY ARCHIVES VOLUME ONE. Watch for it.
******
COMICS IN THE COMICS
I wouldn't normally one "Comics in the Comics" two days in a row, but I didn't want to build up too big of a backlog. Today's edition starts with editorial cartoons by MIKE PETERS of the Dayton Daily News...
...and BRUCE PLANTE of the Chattanooga Times:
SALLY FORTH by Francesco Marcivliano and Craig Macintosh has never been a favorite, but its March 16 strip, in which Sally told husband Ted about one of her co-workers getting engaged, cracked me up. Enjoy it for yourself:
For the longest time, I suspected Ted was actually a woman and this strip was about a boring-but-loving same-sex couple raising a daughter. But Ted has been acting more like a guy lately, so maybe I was wrong. Or maybe not.
Jimbo and son Pasquale are back from their trip to the comics shop in the March 17 installment of Pat Brady's ROSE IS ROSE. I'm thinking the nostalgic Jimbo ended up hitting those back-issue bins for comics and characters he remembered from his boyhood. Probably the bargain bins...judging from how many comics he was able to buy. I'm thinking heavy on 1970s Marvel super-hero books - we so kicked DC's ass back then - with a smattering of JONAH HEX and SGT. ROCK to add variety to his reading.
I'm also thinking we'll be seeing more "Comics in the Comics" here before too long.
******
IN THE NEWS
Earlier this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a Republican, by the way, a fact which goes missing from many of the news stories involving him, made suggestions for changes in Social Security. The ones that struck me as showing the limited vision so typical of Social Security foes were to cut benefits and raise the retirement age.
A Greenspan quote:
"Increased labor-force participation seems a natural response to population aging, as Americans are not only living longer but are also generally living healthier."
And this:
"Rising pressures on retirement incomes and a growing scarcity of experienced labor could induce future increases in the labor-force participation of the elderly and near-elderly in the future. Extending labor-force participation by just a few years could have a sizeable impact on economic output."
Talking about cutting benefits at a time when costs continue to rise for most Americans seems callous to me. Increasing the cap on taxable incomes puts more of the burden on those who can afford it better. My household would take a decent hit if this were done, but it strikes us as both compassionate and logical. Strengthening the finances of and improving the lives of less fortunate Americans ultimately benefits us all.
As far as raising the retirement age, I'd be all for that if there were decent-paying jobs available for "the elderly and near-elderly." There aren't...not in the numbers which would be needed to make up the alleged Social Security shortfall and to provide the workers with a living wage. We're not a society that seeks to hire the older and more experienced workers. We want them young, pretty, and sans the life-knowledge which allows older workers to question how and why things are done. Indeed, many companies do their best to remove older workers from their payrolls and replace them with younger/cheaper workers long before the older workers have reached the age of retirement.
Touching on the comics industry briefly, it was maybe a decade ago when a high-ranking executive of one of the majors told me that editors didn't want to work with writers who were older than them, didn't want to work with writers who might conceivably know more than these editors did about...well, everything...art, craft, human nature, the real world, and so on. The executive told me I should accept that my comics career was over.
I was 42 years old and writing my second Black Lightning run, arguably the best work of my comics career. I didn't think I was through making good comic books then and I don't think I'm through making them today.
Editors and executives apparently do not age, though I'm told their hidden portraits look more hideous every day.
Back to Greenspan, who must at long last be recognized as just another uncompassionate Republican. The United States is truly in a financial crisis, but it a crisis caused by the policies of the current administration and - where they failed to curb the greed of the powerful and the wealthy - previous administrations. The road to solvency shouldn't be created by paving over the elderly or the poor or the middle-class. Not when there are loopholes protecting the coffers of the rich. Not when there are government boondoggles like the Star Wars missile defense system. Not when Halliburton is allowed to bilk Americans out of billions of dollars as it profits from human misery.
The war on terrorism doesn't scare me a tenth as much as the war on the have-not and the have-something classes. Greenspan and his ilk may be from the government, but they certainly aren't here to help you and me.
******
TONY'S MAILBOX
Much to my delighted surprise, back in January, I received an e-mail from underground comix legend JAY LYNCH. Truth be told, I'm not sure exactly which of my columns inspired Lynch's note, but it was cool getting it just the same:
The thing about comic books is that the original intent was to reach a mass audience. Today, it's a whole other kind of thing. In the 1960s, MAD had a circulation of 3,000,000...and we underground cartoonists thought we were bad off 'cause our books sold 250,000 copies. But today, MAD has a circulation of 250,000 circulation. And most comics sell what? 5,000 copies?
I've never really seen much difference between say Myron Fass - "You get $20 a page. Take it or leave it!" - and the underground publishers...
"You get 5% of the cover price multiplied by the number of books sold and divided by the number of pages. What could be fairer?"
Translation: "You get $20 a page." Anyway...I was in a Dollar Store last week, and I picked up some books published by the current Waldman publishing. These are illustrated hardcover books with $9.95 and 11.95 cover prices, that actually wind up being sold in dollar stores for $3. I don't think these books are ever actually sold for 9.95...that's probably just a marketing ploy.
These are classic books like Treasure Island, rewritten and illustrated by current writers and artists. They are not comics. They are 240-page hardcover books with illustrations. This is what the Waldman family publishes today, among other things. THIS stuff reaches great masses of kids--and the price is low.
One of the books in their Heroes of America series is a bio of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Herb Boyd, illustrated by Pablo Marcos. 240 pages. Published by Playmore, Inc. in cooperation with Waldman Publishers.
Before I did underground comix, I worked for Renewal Magazine in Chicago. This is when King moved to Chicago to organize the Poor Peoples' Campaign...toward the end of his life. Most people associate King with the earlier civil rights struggles. But in fact, he wound up articulating (in the pages of Renewal) new ideas about the problem being one of class, and not exclusively one of race. Now THAT is what was really dangerous to the power structure at the time. Especially in Chicago.
The usual bios of King don't even address this later stuff. Especially kid's bios. But the Waldman book DOES! I was expecting schlock, but got great stuff! Really thoughtful stuff for kids! So the Waldman family is still publishing stuff...and it's great stuff for what it is. But it isn't comics.
Actually, I didn't get this particular book at a dollar store. I got it at a A.C. Moore arts and crafts store, and it cost me $3. But if you ever see the Waldman hardcovers for sale, they are worth checking out. Usually I see the Waldman coloring and puzzle books in the dollar stores for a buck.
Thanks for the tip, Jay. I came up empty on my most recent visit to dollar-store DEALS here in Medina, but I'll keep looking for these books as I'm out and about.
Meanwhile, for TOT readers looking for a fun place to visit on the Web, I direct you to LYNCHWORKS at:
www.mindspring.com/~jaylynch/index.html
I'll have more from the esteemed Lynch in a near-future TOT. Until then, thanks for spending part of your day with me. I'll be back soon with more stuff.
Tony Isabella
<< 03/17/2005 | 03/18/2005 | 03/19/2005 >>
Discuss this column with me at my Message Board. Also, read Heroes and Villains: Real and Imagined.
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THE "TONY" SCALE
ZERO: Burn your money before buying any comic receiving this rating. It doesn't *necessarily* mean there's absolutely nothing of value here - though it *could* - but whatever value it might possess shrinks into insignificance before its overall awfulness.
ONE: Buy something else. Maybe I found something which wasn't completely dreadful in the item, but not enough for me to recommend it when there are better comics available. I only want what's best for you, my children.
TWO: Basic judgment call. I found some value, but not enough to recommend it. My review should give you enough info to decide if you want to take a chance on it. Are you feeling lucky today, punk? Well, are you?
THREE: This denotes something I find perfectly respectable. There are better books out there, but I wouldn't regret buying this item. Based on my review, you should be able to determine if it's of interest to you. Let the Force guide you.
FOUR: I recommend anything earning this rating. Unless you don't like the genre, subject matter, or past work of the creators, I believe you'll enjoy this item. Isn't it uncanny how I can look right into your soul that way?
FIVE: Anything getting this rating is among the best comicdom has to offer. You should buy/read this, even if the genre/subject matter doesn't appeal to you. It's for your own good. Me, I live for comics and books this good...but not in a pathetic "Comic-Book Guy" sort of way.
Please send material you would like me to review to:
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840 Damon Drive
Medina, OH 44256
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