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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 Monday, August 18, 2008
From Comics Buyer's Guide #1645:
"I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it."
- William Faulkner
For a second month in a row, I have no great theme upon which to expound in these opening remarks. So, once again, my friends, I give you a selection of random bits and bytes which have crossed my desk since last we chatted.
* Last fall, I recommended Lisa's Story: The Other Shoe [Kent State University Press; $27.95, hardcover, $18.95, paper] by my pal Tom Batiuk as "his strongest work in a career filled with memorable work." I wasn't alone in that assessment.
In April, Batiuk's collection of strips recounting a death in his Funky Winkerbean family made the cartoonist a finalist in the 2008 Pulitzer Prize awards. Since then, he's picked up a few other well-deserved honors.
Lisa's Story: The Other Shoe was awarded a silver medal in the Nautilus Book Awards category of "Grieving/Death & Dying." These awards recognize "world-changing books, and to celebrate how they contribute to positive social change, spiritual growth, conscious living, high-level wellness, and responsible leadership."
In ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards, the collection was a finalist in the "Popular Culture" category. Batiuk also won a bronze medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards in the "Most Life Changing" category.
Congratulations, Tom, and keep up the great work!
* About once or twice a week, I'll receive an e-mail request for an autographed photo of myself. I always ignore them because a) I can't believe these requests are legit, and b) not even my ego is so big that I have photos of myself for this purpose. Maybe I should send out the floating Tony heads that appear in my reviews. Maybe not.
When I'm at a convention, I'll happily sign anything on which I worked. However, since I don't attend many conventions, I'm also willing to sign comics and stuff by mail. But you'll have to tell me where you want me to sign (cover or interior page) and include a stamped self-addressed envelope so I can return the signed item. Obviously, I take no responsibility for items that go awry in the mail, but I'll do my best to accommodate your autograph requests in a timely fashion.
* Much to the embarrassment of my teenage daughter, I have a MySpace page. I got it as a networking tool, but am still figuring out how to use it. Regardless, it's turned out to be a good way to get my daily minimum requirement of ego boost in the form of nice notes like this one from a young lady named Chelsea:
A friend of mine showed me your MySpace page after I told him how much I really enjoyed a character you wrote at Marvel. Funny thing is I read somewhere that you actually forgot you created her! Darkstar was her name. I really enjoyed her concept and character, as well as the stories in which she debuted (Champions). I always thought she was a beautiful character with a lot of great potential and an awesome power, but unfortunately it seems she did not get to fulfill that potential. Regardless, I really appreciate you writing her...even if you forgot! She's a character I first stumbled upon as a child and later on, when I could better understand comics, I researched her and she became an immediate favorite.
One of the cool things about creating comics is that you never know when some character you conceived or some story you wrote will turn out to have truly resonated with a reader. Thanks, Chelsea, and, if I ever get an opportunity to write Darkstar again, I'll do my best to do right by her and you.
* I frequently convey my respect for the hard-working writers of the Marvel Handbook volumes and, God love them, they are always ready to return that respect.
Witness this note from Sean McQuaid:
We're doing an expanded/updated Goliath (Bill Foster) profile for our series of hardcover handbooks, and I wanted your feedback on naming a couple of characters from your Black Goliath stories. In BG's origin, he mentions an Officer Wells and schoolteacher Mrs. Coombs as formative influences from his ghetto childhood. Okay by you if we give those characters full names as Anthony Wells and Isabella Coombs?
I did most of my work for Marvel Comics over a period of just four or five years, so it's always a pleasant surprise to have my relatively small contributions recognized in this manner. It lifts my spirits and makes me happy to have been a part of the company.
Here come this month's reviews
Drawing Heroes in the Backyard: Tim Sale: Black and White [Image; $39.99] is a hefty hardcover "art and career retrospective" of the artist by Richard Starkings and John "JG" Roshell with Tim Sale. Revised and expanded from an earlier edition, it's one good-looking and handsomely-made tome. Image has been publishing some excellent books of late and I hope they're finding their way to the shelves of your local public libraries.
Sale was already a comics superstar through his collaborations with Jeph Loeb, but his drawings for the TV series Heroes have him shining brighter than ever. But this book is not remotely a self-serving boost to the ego. It's a solid look at his career that allows Sale to describe his thought and working processes, the how, why, and what he was trying to do of his past efforts. Like the best books about artists, it also opens up intriguing avenues for comics writers to explore as they consider their own works and the emotional and visual aspects of them.
As with most of my reviews, it's the story and/or information elements of books and comics that interest me most. But you need not fear that Sale's book lacks for way cool illustrations. There are hundreds of them, sketches and finished pages from his comics and other efforts as well as dozens of commissioned and sketchbook pieces, including a new color section. It's evocative, lovely art and a joy to behold.
Drawing Heroes in the Backyard: Tim Sale: Black and White gets the full five out of five Tonys. If Image keeps this up, I'll need to buy more coffee tables.
If you're looking for a goodly chunk of comics entertainment that blends several genres (super-hero, horror, crime), I recommend the three Witchblade trade paperbacks recently published by Top Cow and Image. Writer Ron Marz, working mostly with artist Mike Choi, produced stories completely accessible to readers who haven't read Witchblade with any regularity or whose knowledge of the character comes from the short-lived TV show. Indeed, even though Witchblade is tied to a couple other Top Cow titles of which I have even less familiarity, Marz never allowed the back stories to interfere with my enjoyment of the main stories. A back cover blurb on all three trades sums up the series concept:
New York City Police Detective Sara Pezzini is the bearer of the Witchblade, a mysterious artifact that takes the form of a deadly and powerful gauntlet. Now Sara must try to control the Witchblade and learn its secrets, even as she investigates the city's strangest, most supernatural crimes.
Witchblade Volume 1 [$9.95] collects "Witch Hunt" from issues #80-85 of the ongoing series. Touted as reinventng the character, it opens with Pezzini in a coma following an attack at a church. No one knows what happened to her and, when she wakes, her memories are shaky. But, with the assistance of partner Jake McCarthy, new addition to the cast Patrick Gleason, and a curious shop owner, the truth is revealed and a monstrous threat to humanity is faced. The supernatural elements of this story are dominant, but Marz handles the police stuff exceptionally well. Choi's art and storytelling are both first rate and, while Pezzini is a very sexy heroine, the artist never lets the sexiness get in the way of the storytelling. The book also includes a cover gallery featuring the work of Choi, Greg Land, and Frank Cho.
Witchblade Volume 2 [$14.99] reprints issues #86-92. Most of the stories are done-in-one and their range is impressive. "Blood Sword" is akin to a monster-of-the-week tale. "Heart of the City" is spooky urban scariness. "Partners," my choice for the best and most emotionally driven story in the book, is also the best "cop" story. The three-issue "Fugitive" mixes Frankenstein science with government intrigue while "The Balance" is an overview of some of the amazing women who have wielded the Witchblade in the past. Not a bad story in the bunch.
Choi does his usually fine job on "Partners" and "Fugitive." Keu Cha and Chris Bachalo deliver solid fill-in visuals on "Blood Sword" and "Heart of the City." Fifteen pencillers contribute to "The Balance," among them Darwyn Cooke, Luke Ross, Terry Dodson, Brandon Peterson, George Perez, and Marc Silvestri. Another cover gallery rounds out the volume.
Witchblade Volume 3 [$14.99] collects issues #93-100 and Marz never lets up for a moment. Pezzini searches for the origin of the Witchblade. Old friends return and not in good ways. There is a bit of closure on an old case. Pezzini and Gleason try awkwardly to take their partnership to a new level. There are surprises at every turn, including one at the end of the book's last story that insures this reader will be back for more.
Choi draws four of the eight stories with excellent fill-ins by Stephen Sadowski and Adriana Melo. The finale is again drawn by a bevy of top artists. Besides the usual cover gallery, the third volume presents Rob Levin's mini-bios of the "Bearers of the Blade" and lots of illustrations thereof. That adds up to wonderful value for your fifteen bucks.
All three Witchblade trades are great buys for the bucks. In this day of transient writers and artists, it's rare for an ongoing title to be as consistently good as Witchblade. That and my crazy mad love for comic books that combine cops and super-heroes and the supernatural earns these books the full five Tonys.
Strip For Murder by the always-entertaining Max Allan Collins [Berkley; $14] is the second in his new series of comics-oriented mysteries about Maggie and Jack Starr, the mother and stepson team who run the Starr Syndicate. She's a gorgeous ex-striptease artist who inherited the syndicate from her late husband. He's the V.P. and chief troubleshooter.
Collins uses the real-life feud between legendary cartoonists Al Capp and Ham Fisher as the inspiration for this tight thriller. Sam Fizer, the creator of "Mug O'Malley," the Syndicate's leading strip, is found murdered in his studio with the clues pointing to Hal Rapp, his former assistant and the creator of "Tall Paul," the satiric hillbilly comics strip about to open as a big time Broadway musical. Maggie and Jack are connected to both, since Maggie has a role in the musical and Rapp has offered them the new strip he's created. Between their feud and the "complicated" personal lives of Fizer and Rapp, the cast of suspects is almost as large as the cast of the musical.
Enlivened with illustrations by Terry Beatty, so fitting for a murder mystery set in the world of comic strips, Strip For Murder is a page-turner par excellence. Collins ducks and weaves with the skill of Fizer's boxer hero; every time I thought I knew who done it, he directed me elsewhere. The book is marvelous fun and earns a full five out of five Tonys.
Justice League Unlimited: The Ties That Bind [DC; $12.99] is a collection which should appeal to both adult fans of the Cartoon Network and to younger readers. The trade paperback collects the stories for issues 16-22 of the recently and sadly-canceled title, adventures that feature a truly staggering number of DC heroes and villains. The range of the individual tales, all suitable for all ages, is likewise notable.
Mostly written by Adam Beechen, we get a super-villain's look at Christmas, a bit of neocon intrigue guest-starring Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, a team-up between Superman and Space Cabby, a time-trip to the Old West featuring several DC western heroes, some romance with super-hero and super-villain couples, and a tale focusing on Gypsy. Taking nothing away from Beechen, my favorite story is probably Paul Storrie's "Just Us Girls," a very hip girl-power story that makes points without getting sappy. I especially liked Storrie's explanation, delivered by Supergirl, of why J'Onn J'Onzz sent these particular JLU members on this mission. It rang very true to me.
Carlo Barberi penciled most of the seven stories with fill-ins by Ethan Beavers, Rick Burchett, and Gordon Purcell. All are done in a crisp style that emphasizes clarity and storytelling. It's a nice, bright-looking collection.
Justice League Unlimited: The Ties That Bind earns four out of five Tonys.
I want to like Leader's High! [CMX/Flex Comix; $9.99] so much more than I do. The Arashi Shindoh book has a very funny premise: the principal of a school for young magicians goes awol and leaves the running of the school to his non-magician son. Poor Daichi is ill-equipped to deal with the student council that hates him and a crazy teacher who are forever challenging him to sorcerous duels of one sort or another. His only real ally is the cute young magician Yozora, president of the council and the reason why the rest of its (male) members hate him. The action is fast-paced and hilarious, such as when Yozura turns Daichi into a Sailor Moon ripoff, but the art, storytelling, and writing are all over the place. With more experience or a better editor, Shindoh could have a truly terrific series on his hands.
According to the book's inside front cover, Flex Comix is a young Japanese company "on the cutting edge of technology, creating manga and delivering it in innovative new ways," but there's naught in this book that lives up to that hype. The intro also says this is a "stand-alone" title, but Shindoh has clearly not exhausted the comedic possibilities of his premise.
Leader's High! earns a disappointing two Tonys. But, despite its flaws, I'd read a second volume of the series.
******
TONY POLLS
Every Tuesday, I post new Tony Polls questions for your balloting entertainment. Which makes today your last day to vote on our current "Summer Fun" questions. You can cast your ballots by going to:
www.worldfamouscomics.com/tony/poll
Thanks for spending a part of your day with me. I'll be back tomorrow with more stuff.
Tony Isabella
<< 08/15/2008 | 08/18/2008 | 08/19/2008 >>
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.
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