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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 Wednesday, July 27, 2005
From COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE #1608:
"That's the secret of entertaining. You make your guests feel welcome and at home. If you do that honestly, the rest takes care of itself."
- Barbara Hall, Northern Exposure, 1994
We are a contentious society. Too many people take extreme, inflexible, "my way or the highway" positions, characterizing those who disagree with them as scoundrels or worse...and you only think I'm talking about politics.
Think about all the opposing camps in comicdom. The readers who revel in dark depictions of classic comics icons as opposed to those who embrace the brighter versions of same. The manga-lovers and the manga-haters. The super-hero fans versus the anything-but-super-heroes crowd. Writing for the single issue contending with writing for the trade. Captions good, captions bad. Slabbed comic books against unslabbed comic books. I could probably keep this up all column.
When I devoted a recent "Tony's Tips" to a random listing of 100 things I love about comic books, one of the many responses was a venomous e-mail attacking me for not giving Jack Kirby his due. Putting aside the writer's wretched ignorance of the many times I have written about Kirby in the most glowing and reverential terms, I could almost have seen his point. I was running tight on space that month and all I wrote about Jack was that his presence on my list needed no further explanation. I wrote the exact same thing about Carl Barks and Will Eisner.
Kirby, Barks, and Eisner. That's as good a "holy" trinity of sequential artistry as you're likely to find. Did I really have to explain why they were on my list?
I might have received much the same e-mail even if I had. The gent's main reason for writing seemed to be to bash Stan Lee - who was mentioned twice, once with Steve Ditko for Doctor Strange and once for being an influence on my own writing - and to disparage me for my alleged favoritism towards Stan.
Say "hi" to yet another camp of comics fans, albeit one that's mercifully small. Those who believe they "honor" Kirby (and Ditko) by throwing bricks at another revered comics creator. Contentious, thy name is fandom.
When it comes to comics, I consider myself more inclusive than exclusive. I like all kinds of comics. However, when it comes to comics theoretically aimed at general audiences, I believe strongly that we need to be more welcoming than we are. I guess that places me in yet another camp.
I want to know the names of the characters appearing in comic books. I want to know who they are and what they can do. I want to know the details of their lives which are important to the story at hand. And I want to know all this whether I'm reading the first chapter of a multi-issue story or the last. I'll accept a little - stressing "little" - clumsy exposition in the name of clarity, but I want to know what the heck is going on in each and every comic I read. Because I think that makes comics better and more likely to attract new readers.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
Let me give you a case-in-point from a recent comic I thought was very good: BIRDS OF PREY #81 [DC Comics; $2.50]. It's written by Gail Simone who is intelligent, witty, and one of the best darn writers in comics. Previous to this issue, Helena Bertinelli, the daughter of a slain mob boss who fights crime as the Huntress, had a falling out with her BOP ally Barbara Gordon. Falling out as in "she jumped from a plane rather than continue working with Gordon." One of the neat things about the sequence is that, while Gordon had the best of intentions, she did do wrong by Bertinelli and Helena had every right to be peeved and then some.
Early on in issue #81, the Black Canary, another BOP-er, asks Gordon if there has been any word from the Huntress. There hasn't, but the question does allow readers, even readers new to the book, to learn of the riff between these crime-fighters. Unfortunately, because she is never referred to as such during this conversation, they don't learn that Huntress is Helena Bertinelli.
The issue's cliffhanger ending has Bertinelli, in her civilian identity, crashing a gathering of Gotham mob bosses and declaring her intention of commanding them as did her father. But there is nothing tying Bertinelli to the previously-mentioned Huntress and, for the new reader, this robs the ending of its punch.
THUS ENDS THE SPOILERS.
Comic books, especially serialized comic books such as BIRDS OF PREY and other super-hero books, too often read as if there were big "No Outsiders Allowed" blurbs on their covers. They assume the readers have a more thorough knowledge of their intricate universes than makes any commercial or creative sense. It's illogical and it drives off potential customers and readers.
Comics has storytelling tools that allow us to bring readers up to speed, even if some of those tools - flashbacks and thought balloons come to mind - are currently out of favor. We need to use those tools. Use them as creatively and as smoothly as we can, but use them nonetheless.
We need to make our guests feel welcome, the better for us to entertain them. Unless, of course, shy retiring creatures that we are, we prefer selling our wares to a few thousand buyers instead of a few hundred thousand.
Who needs all that extra fame and fortune anyway?
******
I am the poster child for side effects. If they listed side effects for Cheerios, I would have them. Sometimes I think doctors prescribe medication for me just so they can sit back and watch the festivities. Maybe they even bet on the results.
"Ten bucks on abdominal cramps!"
However, the most effective pain-reliever I have taken of late is THE COMPLETE PEANUTS: 1953 TO 1954 [Fantagraphics; $28.95], the second volume in what is arguably the greatest comic-strip reprint series of all time. It was 300-plus pages of comfort to an ailing tipster and thus infinitely superior to such chemical compounds as acheamine and nauseaphedrine.
Though it was sometimes difficult to read the hefty tome while curled into a fetal ball, two years of Charles M. Schulz's artistry and insight got me through the roughest two days of medical mayhem in sterling fashion. There were strips that were laughing out loud funny, strips that were charmingly real, and strips that were sad in the most gentle way imaginable. There is pain in PEANUTS, but one always suspects it's pain that can be removed with a kind word, a hug, or even a piece of candy.
Most of the material in this second volume, as with the first, was new to me. The discoveries to be found therein left me reeling with delight. The first appearance of Pigpen. The first time that a tree eats a Charlie Brown kite. Linus and Lucy developing their soon-to-be-legendary personality traits, even before they had the growth spurts that made them more or less the same age as the rest of the leads. Snoopy beginning to reveal that he was no ordinary beagle. Superb comic timing. Witty dialogue. Characters coming to life in pen and ink. Little people as real to us as those kids down the street.
That "Sparky" Schulz. How I love him!
Two quick observations. Note the prevalence of comic books in Charlie Brown's world. They may be garish and crude entertainments upon which right-thinking parents would certainly frown - How come CBG's guide doesn't list MANGLE COMICS? - but all the kids seem to read them anyway. Oh blessed nostalgia!
Adults in PEANUTS? It's true. We don't see their faces, but they appear in a four-week story (Sunday strips only) in which Lucy plays in a women's state amateur golf championship. It's a flight of fancy not to be repeated until Snoopy comes more fully into his own, but it hints at the strip's future interactions with the real world. I'll not reveal here how Lucy does in the tournament, save to say the tale's ending is brilliant, funny, and logical.
THE COMPLETE PEANUTS: 1953 TO 1954 gets the full five out of five Tonys, which doesn't seem nearly enough for a book this good. We should figure this in dog-Tonys. Depending on the weight of the dog, that gives Schulz and Fantagraphics between 33 and 42 Tonys. That would be much closer to the mark.
******
I never know quite how I feel about "24-hour comics." I can certainly appreciate the challenge of a creator producing a 24-page story within that time period. I can nod in agreement when people talk about the benefits gained from the experience, the confidence that comes from accomplishing the difficult task, the things that creators can learn about themselves and their art. However, when it comes to reviewing these works, I always feel as if I'm grading them on the curve.
24 HOUR COMICS ALL-STARS [About Comics; $12.95] brought this feeling to fruition. Editor Nat Gertler has put together 24-hour comics by some of comicdom's best. Some of the tales are terrific. Others not so terrific. Many of them are woefully padded to fill out the page count. Most of them would have been better stories if their creators had tightened them up, spent a little more time here and there, smoothed out the writing, corrected obvious errors, and the like. In short, from the reader's viewpoint, almost all of the efforts are more works in progress than expertly crafted and fully realized stories.
Scott McCloud is praised as the inventor of the 24-hour comic and his contribution crystalizes my growing ambivalence with this discipline. Not surprisingly, he's making it up as he goes along and the story reads like it. Intriguing situations are shown, but don't quite gel into interesting meaning. It's like stealing a few fries off someone's plate instead of eating a meal.
Some of the best stories in the volume would have been better at half their length or less. For me, this group would include the tales by Tone Rodriguez and Sean McKeever.
"The Present" by Chris Eliopoulos is my favorite story, a tale of a boy with a magic crayon and no sense of restraint. It could be more effective at half as many pages, but it could also be more effective with more meat in its existing page count.
In "The Seven Pillows of Fire," John Peters fills his 24 pages nicely. It's a good story, but, again, could have been better with more fine-tuning.
Paul Smith and David Chelsea tell multiple stories within 24 pages each. Smith's are especially choice with "Lights Out" being a wonderful commentary on authoritarian obstinacy. Chelsea's tales didn't do much for me; they have the "made up on the spot" sense of so many of these 24-hour efforts and just seem to stop rather than reach actual conclusions.
In introducing Tom Hart's 24-hour meandering misadventure, Gertler goes to that tired old "may not do the kind of comics that have him worshiped by throngs of screaming superhero fans" drivel, proving that even the well-intentioned can indulge in unnecessarily contentious behavior. (Some would say that's a hallmark of my own career and I wouldn't completely disagree with them.) But, Hart's well-deserved award nominations notwithstanding, his story here is poorly conceived and executed.
Dave Sim's "Bigger Blacker Kiss" may be both the best and the worst story here. Sim draws you into the character study and keeps you enthralled with mesmerizing writing and drawing. But the tale is so informed by misogyny that the protagonist is more caricature than character. Unpleasant as the story is, it's the best realized work in the collection.
24 HOUR COMICS ALL-STARS presents over 200 pages of comics by talented creators. Despite my not being as enamored of the 24-hour comics challenge as many, I still see that as decent bang for your bucks. The book gets a respectable three Tonys.
******
SHONEN JUMP [Viz, $4.99] has undergone some changes in recent months and some of them have been to the magazine's detriment. It remains one of the best buys in comics, perhaps even the best buy, but it's going through a rough patch.
I'm disturbed that JUMP's manga content has dropped below 300 pages on what appears to be a permanent basis. This decrease comes as a result of the welcome departure of the feebleminded DRAGONBALL Z from the magazine and the not-at-all welcome failure to replace the strip with another continuing feature. What we've gotten over the past few issues have been single-chapter previews of strips heading straight to their own paperback series.
While the original DRAGONBALL had some wit to it, DRAGONBALL Z was virtually one interminable fight scene. One could not even get any relief when characters were killed in battle; one way or another, they kept coming back to life or some reasonable facsimile thereof. I know the series was popular with younger readers, but it set a bad example for other JUMP series. In recent months, we have endured, for as much as a year, long and wearying battles in the semi-comical pirate saga ONE PIECE and also in YUYU HAKUSHO, a series about mostly human champions battling evil. The latter has had a few interesting moments, but if I have to spend one more ONE PIECE chapter at that enormous floating restaurant, I may swear off eating forever.
Even more disturbing was what JUMP did with one of my favorite features: YU-GI-OH! The magazine skipped ahead approximately 1400 pages of the long-running strip. If fans want to read what they've missed in the series, they have to get the seven-volume YU-GI-OH!: DUELIST paperbacks, each of which costs twice as much as an issue of JUMP. That seems more than a little unfair to me.
Beyond these problem areas, there is still much goodness to be found in SHONEN JUMP #30 [June, 2005]. Each ongoing serial begins with a full-page of what has gone before information, complete with illustrations of the leading characters. While there remain some holes in my YU-GI-OH! comprehension, I can easily follow Yugi Mutou and his friends on their journey back in time to the reign of the young pharaoh whose spirit resides within Yugi. It's a thrilling ride as the pharaoh faces a foe whose mystic powers dwarf his and those of his priests.
The oddly-named I"S is this issue's preview feature. Not an adventure strip, it revolves around a typical-for-manga-shy teenage boy, the girl of his dreams, whose bikini photos have made her a celebrity, and a second girl, a childhood friend who has grown into a sexy free spirit. If and when JUMP does add a replacement series for DRAGONBALL Z, a series of this nature would add variety to the magazine.
Extended fight sequences are also found in NARUTO (ninjas in training) and SHAMAN KING (young mystics battling to be chosen as the shaman who will lead the worlds of man and spirit for the next 500 years), but they are not as overwhelming in these strips as in the others we've discussed. The characters have more interesting personalities and the surprises which arise during their battles do more than merely extend the battles.
My current JUMP favorite is HIKARU NO GO. Its hero is Hikaru Shindo, a boy "haunted" by Fujiwara-no-Sai, a centuries-old "Go" champion. You won't find mystical threats here, just the thrill of victory and occasional agony of defeat as they play the game which Sai loves and at which Hikaru is becoming more skilled each passing week. I have no interest in the game per se, but the interactions of the leads, the opponents they face, and Hikaru's friends keep me coming back for more.
An issue of JUMP runs well over 300 pages and, while there are plenty of house and outside advertisements, the magazines also has a plethora of fascinating feature pages. There are columns on card games, video games, anime, and manga. There are fan art pages and letters pages. There's a column on playing "Go" and another which teaches Japanese words and phrases. That adds up to a great value for readers and contributes to JUMP's success in the United States. Last I saw, it was the best-selling comic in the country.
Though I might not love everything in SHONEN JUMP, I wouldn't dream of missing an issue. It still picks up the full five out of five Tonys.
******
Some quick questions before I call this a wrap. Review-wise, how are we at CBG - and yours truly in particular - doing? Are we covering a wide enough range of comics and other items? Are there creators, formats, genres, and publishers you think we could do a better job covering?
You never need a special invitation to share your opinions on matters like this. You can e-mail or write to me with suggestions and I'll happily pass them along to my editors and the rest of the CBG review crew. You can e-mail or write to CBG's editors and they will pass them to us what are in the trenches.
We may lock our comic-book collections away, but when it comes to CBG, our com-links are always open. Let us know what's on your minds. We're listening.
Thanks for spending a part of your day with me. I'll be back tomorrow with more stuff.
Tony Isabella
<< 07/26/2005 | 07/27/2005 | 07/28/2005 >>
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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