Just in case you're interested...

I'm going to extend this posting break here, perhaps at least until the end of the year. The stars, planets, humors, vapors, and all other sorts of esoterica in my personal life are just not conducive to me being a regular blogger right now. Plus, I'm just a bit burned out on the whole thing. I can't see a single damn thing that I bring to the party anymore that you can't get in better, cleverer fashion in a multitude of places. I don't want to go away completely, but I just can't see me contributing anything much here right now...and while I hate it like sin, I don't want to be just putting bullshit up here (well, more so than usual) for the sake of putting something up.

That said, unless ADD tells me to stop, I do intend to keep contributing infrequently to Trouble with Comics, so there's that if for some sad reason you just can't make it without my musings on books of the comical variety. I'll probably still do the Five for Friday at the Comics Reporter, whenever I can think of answers to the relevant topic in time to get them to him. And, sure, I'm still on Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook, so it's not like I'm going away for good, as pleasurable as that may sound to some. Oh, and I'm going to continue to put NFL predictions up on the LJ as well.

So anyway, be good, and be good to each other, have a happy holiday season, and sayonara for now, at least as far as the Johnny Bacardi Show goes.

Pumpkin Pie.

I guess that title is in poor taste, no pun intended, but I couldn't think of anything else more appropriate to go with this nice Autumnal picture of a young Marilyn Monroe, sitting in her sincere pumpkin patch.

Just wanted to get something up here, to show that I'm not dead or anything. Not much time or energy for blogging lately, and I hope that changes soon...I'm more behinder than ever, reviews-wise, and I'm behind on some stuff I'm writing for Trouble With Comics for Alan Moore month as well. Anyway, just checking in to let you know that I'm not done just yet.

Picture taken from this very nice Marilyn pics post at Golden Age Comic Book Stories.

CONFESSIONS OF A SPINNER RACK JUNKIE.

Please be upstanding for another CONFESSIONS OF A SPINNER RACK JUNKIE, in which I opine in shortish fashion about comics that I have bought and/or received and/or read in the interval between October 16th and 28th, some of which may even still be on sale at finer comics selling establishments worldwide if you're lucky. Or not, as the case may be.

And, yeah, once more I'm way behind, so please bear with me as I look at comics you read and most likely forgot about three weeks ago...

BATMAN AND ROBIN #5: Looks like Grant's just giving us a more genteel version of Miller's ludicrous Spillane-with-Tourette's All-Star Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder, and the more I read, the more squalid the whole thing seems. I know he can do better, and I know he knows that, too. Not helping: artist Philip Tan, who gives us not one but two absolutely incomprehensible action scenes. My interest is hanging by a thread, and only the promise of Grant's Squire drawn by Cam Stewart, coming eventually, is keeping me around. C-

THE BOYS #35: The sad/weird backstory of likeable Boy "Mother's Milk" takes center stage this time out, and it's typically Ennisian, with smirks riding shotgun with pathos. As always with this title, for them that likes, here's more. B+

B.P.R.D.: 1947 #4: Continues to flow along nicely thanks to the Moon/Ba art, but the story feels like it climaxed last issue. Hopefully Dysart and Mignola have something extraordinary in mind for the ending. A-

CRIMINAL: SINNERS #1: Wait, aren't all criminals sinners by definition? Anyway, Tracy returns, and is once more placed between the proverbial rock and the proverbial hard place. All your favorite noir tropes are once again present and accounted for, and those who seek to wallow will find this a most acceptable trough, especially as it's once more illustrated with aplomb by Sean Phillips. A-

DAREDEVIL #501: The first issue of the Diggle era reads pretty much like the last eleventy-hundred from Bendis and Brubaker, which is not necessarily a bad thing- consistency does have its virtues. As you probably know, the new wrinkle is that DD is leading longtime pain-in-the-necks the Hand, but we don't wanna get too crazy out of line so he is of course all angry and angsty about everything, just like Miller Christ didst intend. Lotsa good character work, especially with the supporting cast, and a decent enough plotline that while it doesn't break any new ground, at least moodwise, at least shows that Diggle will keep the dramatics compelling and I guess that will keep me buying for a while longer. I recall liking artist Roberto De La Torre on Thunderbolts; he told the story well enough, and his style, while derivative, at least had some personality. I'm pleased to report he brings that to bear here. B+

FABLES #89: Most of this issue deals with Bufkin the flying monkey, left behind in the old Fabletown digs and faced with the threat of not only Aladdin's old genie, but the Baba Yaga as well. It's almost impossible to describe the events in this comic without sounding nuts, you know. Also, more with Frau Totenkinder, now all young and hot and stuff, as she tries to find out more about the threat of the Dark Man. Lots of stuff going on; this title is as engrossing right now as it's ever been, and it's been pretty good before. Artist Mark Buckingham once more saves most of his creativity for his nifty panel borders, and does everything else as well as he needs to- he's always reliable. A-

GHOST RIDERS: HEAVEN'S ON FIRE #3: OK, I'm buying this now for Aaron's take on Daimon Hellstorm, so naturally only has a cameo in this issue. Even so, this one's still got a lot of fast-paced action, as the bickering brother Riders battle an old Marvel Monsters-age baddie whose schtick it is to possess inanimate objects like cars and bulldozers and such, as well as one of the House of Ideas' less-inspired ones, Big Wheel. It's the sort of left turn that would ordinarily be offputting, but Aaron makes it work. The action scenes pop thanks to a god job by Roland Boschi and Dan Brown. More drive-in movie-style fun. B+

HELLBOY: THE WILD HUNT #7: The lead story keeps on keepin' on, gearing up to what should be an appropriately apocalyptic finale. As always, Mike Mignola is Hellboy's best writer, and Duncan Fregredo is the next best thing to Mr. M himself on art. What I've been enjoying the most, though, and forgetting to mention is the backups- first, the return of Gary Gianni's quirky and bizarre MonsterMen (or Corpus Monstrum, or whatever the hell he's calling it these days), which I've missed, and this issue's not-as-good-but-still-pretty-good Henry Hood spotlight, which ties in with the Witchfinder series running concurrently. Whew, it is to make the head spin, keeping up with all this... A

INCREDIBLE HERCULES #136: Maybe the best comic I've read this year, certainly the funniest. Exhibit A for the jury:

Now I can cross "Seeing Hercules dressed like Thor giving a tittie twister to Thor dressed like Hercules while they're battling" off my bucket list. A

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #19: Somewhat anticlimactic resolution to an arc that was pretty good as a whole; your satisfaction depends a lot on whether you think Osborn would care all that much about being seen beating the crap out of a defenseless Tony Stark on worldwide TV. Me, I'm a bit skeptical- would Dubya or Cheney have had the same scruples? Anyway, the literal ending itself was pretty interesting, and I think I'll follow along a while longer to see what happens. B+

LIBERTY COMICS: A CBLDF BENEFIT BOOK #2: Just like last time, we get several somewhat heavy-handed and obvious stories, mostly of the barbed satire stripe, apparently OK because it's done by some outstanding creators such as Paul Pope, whose "Loverman" finally sees print, Brian Wood, who dusts off the Channel Zero concept, Paul Grist, more Apocalypstix by Ray Fawkes and Cam Stewart, and others, all for a good cause- it's great art showcase. I'm down with the cause, and the propaganda this time is slightly better than last time, but I prefer subtlety. Character flaw on my part, I suppose. B

SCALPED #32: Things are rapidly coming to a head, it seems, for both Dash and Chief Red Crow...and about the only thing I can predict is that the resolution will most likely be very bloody, and I'm pretty sure nobody will learn any damn life lessons. Once again, consistently consistent in its constant excellence. A

STARSTRUCK #2: It's difficult for me to be impartial about this series, so I guess I won't even try. As excellent now as it was 20 plus years ago, and the added scenes are providing clarity- I don't recall if the whole Mary Medea boards the spaceship to go to war in the aftermath of the botched Bajar spy mission scene was in the B&W Dark Horse reprint series, but it read as unfamilar to me, and made her motivations clearer. The dialogue is great, the helter-skelter script construction is still fun, Kaluta's art was never better and has rarely been better since, and the new coloring continues to kick ass. Perhaps I'll find something to nitpick eventually- the Galactic Girl Guides backups still strike me as somewhat trivial- but for now I'm completely in the bag. A

STRANGE TALES #2: Indie artists slumming once again, or so the attitude of most of these stories would have you believe; still, some are having fun and that gets this across just fine. Best of show, Jacob Chabot's amusing "Lookin' Good, Mr. Grimm" which carries the Thing's resemblance to chia pets to its logical conclusion and reminds us that hig-spirited humor was always a big part of the old FF formula; others which impress are Jim Rugg's long-shelved Brother Voodoo story, Matt Kindt, doing his Super Spy thing with the Black Widow, Jhonen Vazquez's cutesy MODOK, and Tony Millionaire's goofy Bob Burden-esque Iron Man tale. Less impressive is Pete Bagge's long-delayed Hulk, which only reinforces my own held belief that when it comes to the Bradleys or the Beach Boys, Bagge is golden. Everything else, not so much. B+

WITCHFINDER: IN THE SERVICE OF ANGELS #4: Continues to be an entertaining smorgasbord of cultists, ghosts, demons, and Mignola's ever-spreading Hellboy mythology, ably brought to moody life by Ben Stenbeck. A-


As always, sorry about being so late with these. More coming soon.

I had Seven Seconds to say...

Today's Bacardi Show Birthday Greeting goes out to writer ROBERT LOREN FLEMING, 53 years young today. Above, a small cover gallery of the many series he's had a hand in over the years. There seems to be one exception, though, and I just can't quite seem to put my finger on which one it is. Oh well, I'm sure it will come to me.

It also happens to be the birthday of the great JIM STERANKO, and Guy Fawkes Day as well! (Boy, wouldn't a Steranko-illustrated, Fleming-scripted issue of Thriller have been something to see?)

I gazed a gazely stare.

Back in the hazy, crazy days of 1973, Scottish pop singer Lulu, who was by then past a string of Sixties hits including "To Sir With Love", the theme for a film in which she also appeared with Sidney Poitier and for which she was probably best known here in the States, gravitated into the orbit of David Bowie (she years later confessed to a fling, Bowie hasn't commented) and Mick Ronson at the height of the Glitter era...and the a single, a cover of Bowie's 1970 title track from his Man Who Sold the World album, was the result. Above is a TV performance of same from 1974. Although I dearly love the music the Bowie/Ronson team made together, I had not gone as far as to check this out before- although I was aware it existed. The slightly-different arrangement isn't bad, although the sinuous guitar melody line that runs through the original is missing until closer to the end, it's definitely got that honkin' sax that DB liked in this, the pre-Ronson split Pinups era...but I don't think Lulu's vocal does much for the song at all, sorry to say. Her calm, sweet demeanor doesn't really jibe with the ominous paranoiac mood the song (especially in its original version) evokes. I haven't heard the B-side, "Watch that Man", a fave Bowie track of mine from Aladdin Sane.

Anyway, today is Ms. Lulu's birthday today, and reading about it got me curious to hear her cover. Thought I'd take the opportunity to send along a BSBdG. Wish I could have been more complimentary- I did like "Sir", and she was definitely a big part of the whole Swingin' '60s scene. So there's that!

"Your bodies will be unlovely..."

A two-page scene from Druid #3, Warren Ellis' sequel-of-sorts to his Hellstorm run in the mid-'90s. I was totally taken by surprise at the cultist's reaction to Ludgate's demand, and I still remember laughing out loud when I read it. Who says Ellis can't do teh funny?

What a cut-up.

Wishing you all a happy and safe Halloween!

Art by Matt Dixon, found via Drawn!

Another multi-cover Bacardi Show Birthday Greeting!

Yep, it's another of those big multi-cover birthday tributes, this time in honor of P. CRAIG RUSSELL, who turns 58 on this very day.

The first time I saw his art, early in his career on an Ant-Man tale in Marvel Feature #7, inked by mentor Dan Adkins and someone named Mark Kersey, I wasn't impressed. But then, a year or two later, I spied a copy of Amazing Adventures #28 on the spinner rack, and was surprised to see how much he'd progressed in the interim. And not only that, but I soon discovered that I loved the feature as well- War of the Worlds feat. Killraven, and began a fandom for both that has lasted to this day. It's been something to see how he's refined and developed his style over the years as well, from trying to play by the Marvel house rules to streamlining it, incorporating a myriad of influences. He's gone on to do a ton of work for a variety of publishers, including many adaptations of classic fairy tales and operas, and he brings the same verve and imagination to all of them. It's always a treat for me to see new artwork by Russell, one of my art heroes.

Here's his official site.

Sign of the times.

You see it happening all the time these days; there's even a blog devoted to it. Newspapers and print magazines are dying out, or at least the more repetitive iterations of same-- a winnowing of the herd, if you will-- and the Internet, along with the economy, are mostly to blame, it seems.

So with this in mind, it's a bit sad- and yet it isn't- to see the announcement today that the Comics Journal will no longer be on its bi-monthly, or quarterly, or whatever it was on, publishing schedule. Instead, they will offer a twice-yearly "bigger and more elaborate" issue, and concentrate most of their efforts towards expanding and redesigning their website, and providing most of its content there, supposedly free to all. Click on the link above to get the skinny.

Like Alan David Doane said this morning, back in the day- we're talking late 70s and into the 80s- the Journal was a hell of a thing, comparable mostly to the nothing-is-sacred attitude of rock's CREEM magazine than anything else, always striving to point out work that was better than the norm, and comparing/contrasting that work to the current output of the major companies of the day. While sometimes shots were taken that were uncalled for (the slagging of Don Heck's reputation comes to mind), at least they had opinions, and often passionate ones at that. Also, for my money, TCJ featured some of the best interviews I have ever read (and I'm not always crazy about interviews), and always had top notch art, even the filler illos in the letters page, some of which were done by the Hernandez Bros. early on, pre-Love & Rockets.

Ad now, I begin a rambling and personal account of my history with the Journal. You may skip ahead one paragraph if you don't care.

After buying an issue here and there via mail order or from my friend Dave Puckett (probably the first place I ever saw a copy), I eventually broke down and subscribed, and did so for many years. The cover of the earliest issue I own now is posted above. Finally, sometime in the mid-late '90s, turned off by the increasingly sour, dismissive and cynical tone that had begun to really become noticeable in practically everything that was written (It was always that way to an extent, but it had gotten excessively so by then, in my opinion), as well as an ever-increasing price point combined with the ever-crappier gray newsprint stock paper that the interiors were printed on...well, I stopped buying. By then, I had stopped subscribing (my comics shop gave discounts for holds customers then, and I figured I was breaking even), but it was five or six bucks that I could spend elsewhere, so I bade farewell to the Journal, thinking I'd pick up an issue when I could afford it and if someone I was interested in was featured. And sure enough, I did that for a while. But eventually, the Interweb came along, as did Fantagraphics' web site, and hey! They reprinted stuff from the Journal right there on their site! Plus, they had a cool news column that could actually report current comics news (a longtime bugaboo with the print edition)! And hey! When I got started blogging, I even got mentioned in that column a couple of times! (A far cry from today, where I do not exist as far as Deppey is concerned) And eventually, a lot of outstanding comics-related content became available to all via the rise of the Comics Blogosphere, much of it written by people who had read and were influenced by TCJ itself. So the upshot is that it's been quite some time since I actually purchased a physical copy, this one was my last, I believe...and I can't believe I'm the only one.

So this is a natural and inevitable progression, I believe, and while I, who will always have an nostalgic attachment to paper (not only comics and magazines, but album covers as well), still must acknowledge the necessity of this move. I wish them the best of luck- even though I gripe about them, I can't imagine the world of comics without Groth and the Journal to comment on it.

Happy Blogiversary to Me.

Yes, 'twas on this very day, seven years ago, that I decided to start writing stuff on the Internet for public consumption. Even though I've slowed down a lot (or perhaps spread myself a bit thin) over the last few years, I have no intention of stopping completely anytime soon, and as always, I appreciate each and every one of those of you who stop by and read, no matter how infrequently I post. You're all aces in my book.

And appropriately enough, this is my 100th post of 2009! Time was, I had 100 by April.

Be true to your teeth and they won't be false to you.

It was New Years' Day, 1965. I was five years old. I watched Soupy Sales's program that day, and Soupy told me to remove all the "funny green pieces of paper with pictures of U.S. Presidents" out of my parents' wallets and mail them to him. Of course, I did so. I got a severe beating (spent over a week in the hospital, and I still walk kinda funny to this day), my parents sued, lost their case, and lost their house due to all the legal bills. As we struggled to get our lives back in order thanks to Sales' irresponsible prank, we cursed his name every day and I never ever watched any Soupy Sales show again.

And of course, this is bullshit. That said, I think Soupy Sales would appreciate the joke.

Actually, truth be told, I never really paid a lot of attention to the Soupster on TV back in the early '60s. I vaguely remember the version of the show that ABC aired around 1965 or so, which I might have viewed once or twice (probably not on New Years', though) and he was a constant guest-star presence on shows (The Flintstones, even!) that I did watch as that decade went on, continuing in the '70s, where he always seemed to be popping up on game shows and stuff like Love American Style. Still, he was a definite part of the cultural zeitgeist, and everybody knew who the heck he was.

So, it's with a little bit of sadness that I see where he has passed on- while he wasn't as "special" to me as he was to some, He was a small part of my rapidly-fading childhood memories- heck, he even appeared as a panelist on Match Game- and thus will be missed.

The quote above was the only quote I could find attributed to him; I'm sure that better can be found with enough digging, so by all means keep looking!

Another Soupy-related side note- his sons, Hunt and Tony, pursued a career as professional musicians and played on a lot of music that I have bought and listened to- with Todd Rundgren on his first couple of solo albums, on through a short stint in Paris, the post-Fleetwood Mac group with Bob Welch, as well as David Bowie and Iggy Pop in the late '70s, on some of the best albums by either. They reunited with Bowie in his late '80s Tin Machine group project as well.

RIP, Soupy.

CONFESSIONS OF A SPINNER RACK JUNKIE.

Time once more for a way overdue CONFESSIONS OF A SPINNER RACK JUNKIE, in which I opine in shortish fashion about comics that I have bought and/or received and/or read in the interval between October 1st and 15th, some of which may even still be on sale at finer comics selling establishments worldwide if you're lucky. Or not, as the case may be.

DETECTIVE COMICS #857: This textbook example of the power of art with vision and imagination to enhance and enliven otherwise ordinary scripts continues in full force here; while Rucka's story is no great shakes, J.H. Williams III makes it look real purty. And even though this particular storyline is run of the mill, his Batwoman isn't; I like the prickly-yet-caring personality she's shown so far, and the back-and-forth between her and her Alfred-figure military dad is intriguing. There's also a mildly eyebrow-lifting reveal at the end that piques my interest as well. So far, so good. The Question backup, not so much. It's steadfastly bland, and sure, I liked Renee Montoya from Gotham Central and other Rucka Bat-stories as much as anyone, but I'll continue to say it- jerry-rigging her into the Question persona was not a good idea, and if this is the best that can be done with her/it, then maybe we should just retire her/it. A-

HELLBLAZER #259: Two things- Simon Bisley art (and I don't always say that- sometimes he gets carried away with the absurdity and distortion, and not always in a good way) and the huh-what? re-introduction of Kathy George from Milligan's fan-favorite Shade- lift this up a notch from what we've been getting previously. I am happy that his current JCH storyline is going in unpredictable directions, but I can't help but feel like he's winging it now, as it seems like it should have wrapped two issues ago. B+

HEROGASM #5: The "Supies", a caped-set awards show notion that Adam Warren beat Garth to in Empowered months ago, provides the background for more extrapolation and enhancment of what he had already set in motion in The Boys. Surprising, perhaps: a bit of sympathy for the Homelander? Not so surprising: more "cum-sponge" jokes. Plus, Hughie sure is taking a long time to realize he's been buggered. As always, if you like the main title, you will need to be keeping up with this as well. B+

IMMORTAL WEAPONS #3: So far, this series has been very good, shining a spotlight on the warriors that Danny Rand brought back with him from the Tournament at the Heart of Heaven waaay back in his most recent series...but this issue is the best so far, and somewhat surprisingly it deals with the one Weapon who has had the least exposure, the Chinese folk hero-style Dog Brother. DB is nowhere to be found in this case, though, except in stories told by one street urchin to another, and it's their saga that provides most of the story, as well as a poignant ending that ties it all together in great, affecting fashion. Artist Tim Green, who we had seen doing a flashback story in the Immortal Iron Fist series, illustrates this with nuance skill in his finely-detailed style. The backup story continues the Iron Fist tale that I suspect was slated for his "on hiatus" title, and is interesting enough; it sports a new artist, Hatuey Diaz with an odd drawing style that reminds me a bit of what Faryl Dalyrmple did on Omega the Unknown a while back. A

INCREDIBLE HERCULES #135: Amadeus Cho's turn again, as his investigation into his past gets center stage once more in alternating fashion. This one's a labored old-time movie serial-style semi-farce that at least boasts a cool character name with Captain Japanazi and a decent enough reveal at the end, plus Rodney Buchemi's art works well enough...so it gets by. The Thorcules saga is better so far, though. B+

MADAME XANADU #15: Finale of the three-parter which has turned out to be a treat for not only fans of Madame X but those who miss Sandman Mystery Theatre as well. Even though this sometimes looked rushed, it was a huge treat to see the Kaluta art on interiors as well as exteriors; between this and Starstruck, we haven't seen this much MwK in our four color funnybooks since the old DC ERB days. B+

MARVEL DIVAS #3: As smartly illustrated, with well-done dramatics and well-placed levity in just the right proportion. Interesting cliffhanger this time out, considering the history between Patsy and Daimon Hellstorm, who, between Ghost Riders and this, has rarely, if ever, had it better (at least appearances-wise) in print before. Whoever commissioned that sex-kitten cover (#1's, of course) from Scott Campbell should be smacked in the back of the head. A

MODELS, INC. #2: On the other hand, this one disappoints just a bit, especially when compared to its sister publication cited above; it's soap-opera murder mystery plot is fine, and the character interaction works well enough, I suppose, but there's a sort of joylessness about this, rote-ness if you will, and that kinda sucks the fun out of it. Perhaps if the artist was a bit better at drawing attractive comic-book females, who knows. The intro page was cute. C+

PLANETARY #27: Yeah I read this early; the height of irony for such an overdue title if I do say so myself. I seem to recall reviewing the previous couple of issues quite favorably about, what was it, 2006?- but this one fails to inspire similar enthusiasm simply because it's fairly obvious that this was tossed out in a "Oh, all right, HERE" fashion. I remember Ellis having to do this sort of thing once before, when he was faced with having to write the (somewhat unexpected, if I read the letters page correctly) final issue of Hellstorm after having just launched what was intended to be a multi-issue epic...and he did it in grimly amusing fashion, having Daimon pop in on the characters that he was going to be in conflict with, and just ruthlessly destroying them, or at least neutering the threat they posed. I hadn't ever seen anything handled like that before in comics, and it has stuck with me to this day. This time, Ellis had a little more warning, and therefore chose to concentrate on one central part of the vast tapestry he spent all that time establishing...and while the inclination is to want more, I suppose he was being just as ruthless by pretty much ignoring others to clear up what happened to the missing member of the Planetary team at the expense of everything else. Of course, this all flows along smoothly and works OK as a story; Ellis being Ellis, we get the usual hosts of ideas cribbed from Metafilter and Boing Boing, all described to the reader as tersely as possible. And befitting the epilogue that this is, each character gets a chance to do something one last time, be it expository (Drums- his exchanges with Snow were always good for a chuckle) in nature or physical (Jakita, of course), it works within that "here we go again, one more time" framework. Ellis is but one half the equation, though- Cassaday really grew up in front of our eyes on this book (and elsewhere, X-books, what have you, I know), and his work, far more assured and expressive of course than at the beginning, is really what gets the whole across. In the hands of lesser artists, like the ones Ellis has laboring for him under a lot of his other titles, this would be an unpleasant slog...but Cassaday makes it work and work well, and neutralizes somewhat Ellis' sour tone. Planetary sure morphed into something unforeseen before it was done, and I'm not always sure that that was a good thing, but overall it was a diverting read and I'm glad I was along for the ride. A-

POWER GIRL #5: Three hot alien chicas crashland on Earth, one hot dude follows in pursuit. PG investigates, meets dude. Progresses pretty much how you think it will, but it plays to Amanda Connor's considerable strengths, and is therefore still worth your time. B+

THUNDERBOLTS #136: Diggle, you are forgiven. Now, let's see where we go from here. B+

UNDERGROUND #1: I reviewed this a month or so ago from an advance PDF, and here it is again in case you didn't read it then.

X-MEN vs. AGENTS OF ATLAS #1: I understand, this is just a stab at expanding the brand awareness of the struggling Agents of Atlas ongoing, now on a hiatus of some sort. That's all very well and good, and I suppose it's as good a way as any to indoctrinate the heathen as to the wonderful exploits of the Agents, who are done very well as always. Problem is, it's not just an AoA story, and no matter how well Parker writes them, I simply can't care less about whatever permutation of the X-Men we're being given...that ship sailed for me long ago, and that tempers my enjoyment of this marriage of convenience just a bit, even though both Carlos Pagulyan and especially Chris Samnee, who really should have a regular gig by now, provide very good visuals. I'll keep buying, because I am invested in the Agents enough to want to see where Parker is taking them, and yes, because Venus (even this version) is in it. The things we do for love sometimes. B-

RIP George Tuska.

Above, four pages (actually, the last four- apologies if I've spoiled a FORTY YEAR OLD COMIC STORY) from Iron Man #11, cover dated March of 1969, which featured the resolution of a two-part thriller that pitted the Armored Avenger against the Mandarin yet again. Script by the great Archie Goodwin, inks by the great Johnny Craig...and pencil art by the late GEORGE TUSKA, who has died at the age of 93, according to various sources around the Web. These four pages illustrate what I thought Tuska did best, at least in my experience with his work- dynamic action, with expressive faces and gestures, and a grounded, not too flashy, but still visually unique style. Love panels 2 & 3 of that first page.

Personal reminisce department: This Iron Man run was the first time I remember being impressed by his art- I remember a short fill-in stint on Avengers earlier in 1968, and perhaps he had work in one of the Warren magazines as well, I'm not sure. He wasn't a favorite of mine, sorry to say, although I was never unhappy to see his art in any comic I chose to take home. I remember sitting in the hairdressers', reading the comic above while waiting impatiently for my Mom to get her hair done...I had probably just turned, or was soon to turn, nine years old at the time. For some reason, I kinda lost interest in Iron Man comics by the end of the year; I think I only bought three more issues. Not Tuska's fault, though. He went on to do many more issues of Iron Man, as well as the early issues of Luke Cage, Hero for Hire and many other jobs for both Marvel and DC. It wasn't until just recently that I became aware of his pre-60's Marvel efforts; what I've seen looked very good- no better than many of his peers at EC and places like that, but certainly better than the run of the mill back then. The style that I became familiar with as a kid didn't develop until much later.

Anyway, that's pretty much all I have to say about the guy. He was a hell of an artist. Don't know what Marvel would have done without him.

ETA: Evan Dorkin has an amusing, yet completely appropriate obit up in which he brings up a couple of points I meant to make but as so often is the case forgot until I read it in posts by better writers- Tuska's habit (in his 60's-70's work, anyway) of drawing big teeth on most of his characters, as well as his foreshortening tendencies, especially when drawing limbs (or lack thereof).

Others: Tom Spurgeon, Mark Evanier. And in this case, anyway, the Onion A.V. Club is full of shit.

Nice cover.

Spied this somewhere, probably CBR, the other day, and was quite taken with the pose and the somewhat extreme closeup point of view. Nicely iconic, and while yes, it doesn't give the prospective buyer any indication of what awaits within, it is certainly eye-catching, no pun intended- and isn't that what a good cover does? I assume this is by intriguing newcomer Lee Garbett, probably inked by Trevor Scott and Photoshopped by goodness knows. Am I gonna buy? Nah- the recent crop of Bat-books has been a huge disappointment to me, Detective excepted, and I've yet to see anything, besides the likable decision to resurrect Stephanie Brown in the lead and the aforementioned showcase for Garbett's pencil art, that would cause me to believe that I would feel any differently about it.

But this piece? I like. For what it's worth. Look! A preview!

ETA: My friends in the comments inform me that the artist of this here cover is none other than good ol' Phil Noto, something I figure I could have twigged on to if I'd only bothered to do a little not-so-creative Googling. Well done, Mr. Noto! Well done, and many thanks, friend commenters!

I got nothing.

Unlike this guy.

Hopefully I'll get back in the saddle eventually, please bear with.