Ok, so; you watch your television and realize 80% of the damn quality you are taking in is years after the fact – shows come and go, serialized ever more, even the sit-coms. You might say that the broadcast, week-by-week serial is lost when you are waiting for the complete series bluray that was shot in 35mm anyway. It’s a medium that lost its delivery, a lack of storks for an odd experience that can best be described at best as novelistic pseudo-cinema. But the week by week… The goofy experience of physical media distribution is highlighted at length in my “Amateur Hour” (hyperlink) feature, so I will dispense with a recap, but suffice it to say that the experience of comics is as much physical and present as its classic, decades past milestones. While the vogue is a maximum-series format of 60 – 150 issues to exude a tight narrative years in the making, ongoing series lack a traditional narrativity – an unfolding literature, in which we step in between the chapter breaks to impart our socio-relevant mark between the eras. And here we come to the weekly pull, religious as it is, or ritual; simply reflecting on our weekly budgets as readers but not to review. I’m sure you’ll excuse personal grievances though, it’s not like you could stand to have a missing number anyway. Anyone’s pull list is chosen with the utmost of care, filtered, time tested, forgiving of creative droughts (not really), producing a roster that takes all others to school. I know AICN does something like this every week, but we have a few writers now that read these damn things and we have lists too, come on. Maybe we’ll consolidate them into a weekly feature, but as for now, here’s mine.
Amazing Spider-Man #636
Grim. Fucking. Hunt. Those three words pound like drums in the deep every time I dig into this story. You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who disagrees with the assumption that this is the best core-spidey arc since the high points of Straczynski’s run on Amazing. The Gauntlet shite is getting to the point now, offering a conclusion that is also a sequel to the legendary Last Hunt in the 80s. It is decidedly a rich throwback to the charcoal late 80’s and post-McFarlane tales, complete with clones, and the greater arachno-thology in the avant garde side of being bitten by a radioactive spider. To be fair, this version was my first impression of Spider-Man as a youngster, learning later he actually starred in the sunny book of Marvel Days Of Past. Joe Kelly (best of Amazing’s army of current writers) takes a turn here, finally fleshing out the Kravinoff family into something Frontiere(s)-ish with less explicit incestual relationships. It’s eerie and it’s fucking perfect. The three art departments here are tied by deep ink and Hollingsworth’s muted, lens flare vistas, burning instinct with cold nihility in every descending frame. Final page of the main story is a fucking atom bomb of inspiration, balls, and likely the best cliffhanger gobsmacking readers have had in years. Part 4 drops in 7 days.
Casanova #1
This week’s highlight (and what a week), Fraction, Ba, and Moon give their 2006 series its deserved venue, with pastel colour, a cardstock wraparound, and an absence of ads… I love Icon. Fraction, so enjoyably unrestrained here, creates a Godard vs. Ionesco vs. Miyazaki spy-fi masterpiece, with his familiar but unobtrusive wit and deconstructionist approach; “A black helicopter with delusions of Monte Carlo.”, and “Whatever – he’s an arrogant special effect and I am gonna fuck him up for money.” Less awkwardly (but lovably) serious than the odd worlds of Morrison, Fraction holds his world intact by keeping story logic tight, always following up on footnotes (especially with the 2010 inclusion of an epilogue for this 4 year old issue). It’s everything one wants from a writer totally uninhibited. The art is cool too.
Scarlet #1
Another Icon first issue, this is the book that supplanted the coolio Spider Woman series from Marvel, uniting Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev once again to blow our collective fucking minds apart (Daredevil). I was hoping Maleev would ditch the more photo-real look of Spider Woman for this one, and indulge in the iconic impressionistic I know he’s capable of… and my God, he does. Scarlet will likely be Bendis’ most interesting female lead since Jessica Jones, with humbling art that sees her squinting, chuckling unceremoniously, and hunched – a vivid girl, and with more internal strength than busty X-women. As Wonder Woman is lauded for putting on a damn jacket like a proper, demure lady, Scarlet’s sex is irrelevant and addressed merely through a recognizable female voice. Bendis takes liberty with his own grumbles here, setting it in his own home town with a Tom Twyker rapid cut style that has more grace on the comics page. The real selling point is the direct address nature of the book, not so revolutionary as the protagonist but aided by a limited narration on behalf of the versatile Maleev.
See you next week.
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