|
|
Reviews and commentary by Tony Isabella
"America's Most Beloved Comic-Book Writer & Columnist"
Current TOT >>
TOT Archives |
About Tony |
Message Board
TONY'S ONLINE TIPS
for Wednesday, April 13, 2005
This isn't a cover for a real comic book, but it could be. My pal PETE VON SHOLLY did up a series of covers based on the classic "The War That Time Forgot" feature which ran in DC's STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES title in the 1960s, albeit with his own humorous slant on them. He drew these covers for his CRAZY HIP GROOVY GO-GO WAY OUT MONSTERS magazine, but began considering publishing an honest-to-Godzilla STAR SPANGLED DINOSAURS comic book.
Pete asked me to ask you if you'd buy such a comic book. Now I could phone you - I know where you all live, thanks to a obscure clause of the Patriot Act that applies to any online columnist who has written Captain America - but I thought it would be quicker to relay Pete's question in an actual column.
Which I've now done.
While I'm waiting to hear from you, let me be the first to say that, yes, I would buy STAR SPANGLED DINOSAURS by Pete Von Sholly. Especially if he asks me to write for it.
Let's see what else I have for you today.
******
MORBID
PETE VON SHOLLY'S MORBID 2 - DEAD BUT NOT OUT! [Dark Horse; $14.95] is the second weird and wacky anthology from the cartoonist who creates sequential art with computer-generated special effects, living actors, and even custom-sculpted models. His inspirations are drawn from the best (and worst) of horror, monster, and sci-fi books and movies, filtered through an impishly dark sense of humor. It's a tough comic book to describe, but, whatever the heck it is, it just plain delights me.
There are 11 stories in this 100-page comic. "Antidiluvia" is a fun nod to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD and, to a much lesser extent, H.G. Wells' THE TIME MACHINE. Dinosaurs also figure in Von Sholly's "pALIENtology." The unspeakable horrors of H.P. Lovecraft are given voice in "The Graveswellers" while the spirit of the 1960s Marvel monsters is channeled for "I Created Hounduu - The Thing That Smelled" and its sequel, "The Return of Hounduu - The Thing That Got Big."
The issue also features "The Loogie"; the EC-ish "One Below"; "The Piss-Guzzling Ghost of Gallows Hill"; an fan's obsession with a "Queen of the Mean Screen;" the cleverly-titled "Xeno-Evil"; and the black-and-white fear noir thriller "That!". Okay, the last one is more 1950s paranoid sci-fi than noir, but I was having a Forry Ackerman moment.
MORBID 2 is one of those comic book that readers either get at a glance or ponder in befuddlement. For me, it pushes so many of my happy buttons I'm already hoping for a MORBID 3. Until then, on our "disembodied critic's head" scale of zero to five, this second anthology gets a solid four Tonys.
******
THE FLYING F---!
Propriety prevents me from giving you the uncensored title of HERE DOESN'T COME THE FLYING F---! [Vonshollywood Press; $3.95], a 36-page, full-color photo-comic devoted to the "adventures" of the Apathetic Avenger. What I can give you is my recommendation that, if you can get past the frequent use of the "F" bomb, you're gonna laugh our loud at this comic book.
Pete Von Sholly - yes, him again, and after this column, folks will probably think we're shopping for a china pattern together - has created an anti-social super-hero who basically doesn't give a you-know-what about anyone else's problems. He sits his behind in front of his TV set, occasionally crushes coal into diamonds to pay his landlord, and endorses the fat checks he gets for licensing his image. When he does anything remotely beneficial to others, it's because the situation/threat was annoying him personally. We just got lucky.
Von Sholly once again combines actors and computer-generated images to make a comic book. His flying guy takes on an electric company executive, a tire-iron-wielding vigilante named Roadkiller, and a rampaging dinosaur. The language definitely puts this comic into the "mature readers" class, but I had no problem with my 16-year-old son reading it. There's nothing here any worse than what he's seen on SOUTH PARK.
HERE COMES THE FLYING F---! gets Von Sholly the full five out of five Tonys. You wanna make something of it?
******
WHAT IF
Marvel published a handful of WHAT IF one-shots a while back, but I just got around to reading WHAT IF...JESSICA JONES HAD JOINED THE AVENGERS? [$2.99]. Brian Michael Bendis was the writer of this one while the artist was his ALIAS collaborator Michael Gaydos. We are definitely talking "A" talent here.
There was a good reason WHAT IF debuted as a "double-sized" title way back in 1977. Editor/writer Roy Thomas knew the stories would need to give their readers background on what had happened to characters in Marvel's "real" continuity - sometimes several pages of background - and then go on to tell a complete story and deliver a satisfying conclusion. In those days, no one assumed a reader's intimacy with every previous story.
This standard-size issue takes 9 of its 23 pages to bring the readers up to speed re: Jessica Jones, star of first ALIAS and THE PULSE. The rest of the comic isn't so much a story as the "Cliff's Notes" version of a story. While it's not entirely "this happened and then this happened and then this happened" - we get some swell character interaction between Jessica and Captain America *and* a satisfying conclusion - at the end of the day, it still feels like one long flashback.
I love much of what Bendis and Gaydos have done previously and they did some real spiffy stuff here as well. But this issue just isn't as good as it could and should have been.
WHAT IF JESSICA JONES JOINED THE AVENGERS ends up with three out of five Tonys.
******
TONY POLLS
Every Tuesday, I take down the previous week's TONY POLLS and put up a new batch of questions. Here are the final results of the voting for the week of April 5-11...
Wonder Woman is coming to the big screen. We asked you to vote on who should portray the amazing Amazon and the competition came down to seven finalists.
UNKNOWN ACTRESS.....27.17%
Catherine Zeta Jones.....16.85%
Morena Baccarin.....16.30%
Charisma Carpenter.....14.13%
Jennifer Connelly.....11.96%
Lucy Lawless.....9.24%
Catherine Bell.....4.35%
I think Catherine Zeta-Jones truly looks the part, but I went with UNKNOWN ACTRESS on this one. Comics heroines have had a rough go of it on the big screen lately and I think this movie will have the best chance of success if the movie audience isn't pointing at her and saying "Look, there's..."
Which of these items would you most like to see reviewed in TONY'S ONLINE TIPS?
CONAN #9-12.....28.99%
Concrete: The Human Dilemma #1.....26.81%
Incredibles #2.....9.42%
Usagi Yojimbo #81.....9.42%
Goon #10.....6.52%
B.P.R.D.: The Dead #2 and 3.....5.07%
Yasuhiro Nightow's Trigun Wolfwood.....3.62%
Star Wars Empire #28.....2.90%
Fierce #4.....1.45%
Last Train to Deadsville #4.....1.45%
Star Wars: Obsession #2.....1.45%
Blade of The Immortal #97.....0.72%
Grendel: Devil's Reign #7.....0.72%
Shi: Ju-Nen #3.....0.72%
Star Wars Republic #72.....0.72%
As I've noted in previous columns, I don't vote on the review questions. I just wait for you to give a mandate to one or more of the items on the lists.
Which of these items would you most like to see reviewed in TONY'S ONLINE TIPS?
CHUCK JONES: CONVERSATIONS.....32.81%
Nancy Drew Girl Detective #1.....24.22%
Comic Book Marketplace #120.....8.59%
Soulsearchers and Company #68 and #69.....8.59%
Rurouri Kenshin Volumes 12 and 13.....5.47%
Elvira, Mistress of the Dark #136-141.....3.91%
Animerica Anime & Manga Monthly....3.12%
Baron: The Cat Returns....3.12%
Norm Magazine #6 & 7.....2.34%
The Roach: Something to Die for #1.....2.34%
Cryptozoo Crew #2.....1.56%
Hunter X Hunter Volume 1.....1.56%
Random Encounter #1.....1.56%
Deadbeats #67-69.....0.78%
Which of these items would you most like to see reviewed in TONY'S ONLINE TIPS?
PVP #14 and #15.....36.28%
The Walking Dead #16.....23.01%
Small Gods #7.....20.34%
The Ride: Foreign Parts #1......10.62%
Amazing Joy Buzzards #2 and #3.....5.31%
Burglar Bill #2.....4.42%
Look for reviews of the winners in future installments of my online column.
For this week's TONY POLLS, we pay homage to STAR TREK as the franchise heads into a bit of down time. Besides the usual "What should Tony review" query, we have three questions on the Star Trek yet to come:
How long should Star Trek stay on hiatus?
Who should helm the next Star Trek series?
What would you like to see in a new series?
You can cast your votes at:
www.worldfamouscomics.com/tony/poll
Live long and prosper!
Thanks for spending a part of your day with me. I'll be back soon with more stuff.
Tony Isabella
<< 04/12/2005 | 04/13/2005 | 04/14/2005 >>
Discuss this column with me at my Message Board. Also, read Heroes and Villains: Real and Imagined.
Recent Columns:
| NEWEST | Finale (06/22/2010) |
| 06/17/2010 | I review Siege |
| 06/16/2010 | Linda Gold 1949-2010 |
| 06/15/2010 | Everett True Tuesday! |
| 06/14/2010 | I review The Amazing Adventures of Nate Banks #1: Secret Identity Crisis, Secret Identity Crisis: Comic Books and the Unmasking of Cold War America and The Walking Dead Volume 2: Miles Behind Us. |
| Archives >> |
Current TOT >>
TOT Archives |
About Tony |
Message Board
|
|
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:
Tony's Online Tips
840 Damon Drive
Medina, OH 44256
|
|
Anything Goes Trivia
