Funny Pages

Lots of newspapers have comics sections, but that tends to mean a little pull-out with reprints of Peanuts or somesuch. I recently discovered that the Guardian has a slightly more ambitious comics section, on Saturdays I think; this morning I discovered that they actually have a pretty good comics discussion and news section on their website. I don't think I've ever seen a print version of it, but it's good to see nonetheless. It's not even as highbrow and faux-trendy as one might expect, either.

My Life in Comics

Borrowed from Rol...

Favourite regular series right now?

I'm not reading many regular series right now, because I'm tired of all the crap. Sorry. But I'm still really enjoying Invincible; it's a simple, solid superhero title that reminds me a lot of the old Stern/Frenz Amazing Spider-Man, only with more gratuitous violence. I could do without that bit, although I understand its inclusion.

Comic book character you only recently discovered/started reading?

Er... the only title I'm reading from the Big Two (and what a joke that concept has become) is Captain Britain and MI:13, but he's been knocking around for decades, so I wouldn't say I've "discovered" him.

If you could draw/write one character who would it be?

The Avengers. I know it's a cheat, but I don't care.
Alternatively, Death's Head.

Are you a fan of the big multi-issue crossover extravaganzas?

In theory, but they're never any good, are they? They're done far too often nowadays; both Marvel and DC have been in a constant state of crossover for about three years now. They always seem to confuse "epic" with "long", and they always promise much but deliver little. I think the last crossover I actually enjoyed was Operation: Galactic Storm, and that was 1992.

Last comic book series that you dropped and why?

Ha. Pretty much all of them. I finally gave up on the Avengers titles because I couldn't justify paying money to see Bendis (puttup!) run them into the ground; I even stopped accepting the free review copies I got through Comics Bulletin because I got worn out by the interminable awfulness of it all.
And then there's Spider-Man. The recent reboot was as wrong-headed, inane, and smug as Boris Johnson at the Olympics, and I couldn't go on reading.
I never thought I'd drop Spidey and the Avengers, but Marvel proved me wrong. However, Bendis (puttup!) is leaving Mighty Avengers, the series he created but proved unable to actually write properly; taking over is Dan Slott, who was one of the Spidey reboot writers, but that mess was editorially-mandated, so I'm cautiously optimistic about his Avengers. It will probably be rendered unreadable by being forced to participate in the braindead crossover of the moment, but I can hope.

Favourite character?

Spider-Man, Death's Head, Rocket Raccoon, Thor. In that order. I think.

Are you a DC or a Marvel fan?

I really don't get DC's heroes. They all seem so stiff and conservative, your grandad's superheroes, if you will. Also, DC reprints weren't nearly as plentiful as Marvel's when I was a nipper, so I grew up on the latter.

Do you remember your first comic/series?


I remember it from a reprint in a Grandreams Spider-Man annual in the early 80's. While I'm sure I read comics before, that story stuck with me all my life, and is largely responsible for me swapping the Black Cat in for the simpering Gwen Stacy in the classic Spidey love triangle.

Is Watchmen the movie going to be as good as the comic book?
Nowhere nearly. The thing is, Watchmen isn't a great story; there's a decent twist, and it's a nicely layered mystery, but it's not a brilliant plot. What's great about Watchmen is the density of the storytelling, the repeated motifs, the playing with the structure and format of the comic book, the focus on aging superheroes past their prime, and the examination of the superhero psyche. All that structural stuff will, by definition, be chucked out in an adaptation (to me, the film looks less realistic than the comic), and I'm not expecting in-depth character psychoanalysis from the director of the Dawn of the Dead remake...

Favourite comic book movie?

Spider-Man 2 without a doubt.

Worst comic book movie?

It's either Batman and Robin or LXG. I'm tempted to put Batman Begins in there too, but it's partially redeemed by Gary Oldman and Michael Caine.

Character you’d like to see in a movie?

Thor. I hear it's in the works, but it'll probably be awful. They should do it either as a gloriously over the top fantasy, pulling liberally from Kirby and Simonson, or drench it rain, blood and mud and play up the viking aspect.

Series that you’d like to see on TV?

I'm not a fan of Daredevil, but it baffles me that there hasn't been a TV show already. You can do the superhero stuff, and since he's low powered, it'll be cheap on the special effects; you're not going to need to spend millions on a cgi Galactus, for example. You can do plenty of the soap opera love life stuff, since Matt Murdock's got more than a couple of notches on his bedpost. And then there's the courtroom stuff. There's enough material for three shows in there.

Too Slow

For a good few months now, I've been chucking around the idea of a post-zombie-apocalypse sitcom. Not in any serious way, since I'm not a writer and am unlikely to ever be one, but I've mentioned it to a few people. I mean, "zombie apocalypse" is a situation, after all, and I've long held that you can find something to laugh about, no matter how grim the situation. And the genre standard of the house occupied by six or so survivors drawn from various backgrounds tallies up nicely with the usual sitcom small cast/one set structure. Like all my best ideas, it's just been done by someone else. Ballcocks.

Dying in Public

If you're on Facebook, then please pop over to my new group and vote. Following on from the likes of Garen, Tony and David, I'm going to be doing one of these daily art challenge thingies, only my one won't be halfway as good, since they're all proper artists.

Anyway, the basic idea is that every other day, I'll be drawing one cartoon/comic character from the beginning of the alphabet and one from the end, engaged in some sort of conflict. Starting with A versus Z, we'll then move to B versus Y, then C versus X, and so on. If I've done my sums right, we'll end with M versus N. You can vote for one of the combatants, for both, for the winner, and the type of conflict. I thought it was quite simple, but some people seem to be confused already. Oops.

Anyway, if you have time and a Facebook account (despite it being run by a bunch of Republicans), then do head over and vote. I will more than likely post the images here too.

Quickie Film Reviews: Casshern (2004)

Robocop + Hellboy II + Holocaust analogy + Christ metaphor = Utterly mental and probably not much good. 6/10.

It's a Kind of Magic

I wasn't expecting much of the BBC's new Merlin; it looked a bit cheap and tacky, and somewhat juvenile (and yes, I know this, Robin Hood and Doctor Who are all ostensibly for kids, but the latter two are rarely juvenile in tone). So I was pleasantly surprised by the first episode.

The costumes and setting are disappointingly generic pseudo-medieval fantasy, and I've never been a fan of that approach to Arthur; that said, unlike the Robin Hood story, which has ties to an actual historical period, this is myth and speculation, so I can let it pass, even if I'd prefer a more gritty rain-and-mud approach. What makes it work is the writing, a blend of solid plotting and some witty dialogue, and the characters; Colin Morgan makes for a charming Merlin, confident yet vulnerable in equal measure, and his relationship with the young Arthur, played as a posh prat (do we have an equivalent to the US "Jock"?) by Bradley James, promises to be an interesting inversion of the hero-sidekick dynamic. Anthony Head also entertains with an Uther Pendragon who's equal parts fascist bully and broken idealist.

It's not as gloriously over-the-top as Robin Hood, but Merlin is decent enough filler while we wait for Who to come back, and I'll carry on watching.

All You Need is Love(craft)

Is it just me, or is "Octopus's Garden" a Deep One hymn to Father Cthulhu?

Tabula Rasa

(I know.)

I've never been particularly satisfied with using the mouse for digital art; it's not particularly intuitive, and it strains the arm and hand in a way that the pencil/pen doesn't, so I've often looked into the idea of using a graphics tablet. However, I've never taken the plunge because, despite being a gamer for decades, I've always been concerned about how the hand/eye coordination thing is going to work; the very concept of "drawing" at the desk but having the results appear somewhere else bothers me slightly. And I don't know anyone local or well enough that has a tablet that I could borrow and try out. Also, the things have been hideously expensive up until very recently. So it's always been a case of a lot of umming and ahing and not much tabletting.

So birthdays are good, because people can buy you what they like, and you don't have to worry about the burden of buyer's remorse, even if the gift is rubbish (it's not) and will spend the rest of its life shunned at the back of a cupboard (it won't). This year, I got a Wacom Bamboo One, and while I haven't done much with it yet, I've had a bit of a play, and I think I can work with it. It is weird, but not in the insurmountable way I thought it would be. It will take a lot of practice before I'm anywhere near competent with it, but it should be good enough for my purposes; at the moment, I mainly use the computer for colouring and lettering, but I could see myself drawing directly on the screen once I'm more confident with the gear.

One question though: how is the pen powered? It's very light, so I don't think there's a battery in there, yet it has to be powered somehow for the buttons to work. Doesn't it? I'm confused, and the minimal documentation isn't very helpful. This is the kind of thing that occupies my thoughts, so do help if you can.

Not Dead Yet

Work has been insanely busy of late, what with it being the time when we're enrolling all the new hairdressers and mechanics for the year. It's been a lot of long days, so I've not had much else to be getting on with. Nonetheless, I've got some showing off to do.

There's another "Green Day" (argh) article up here, this time on the Young Avengers, Marvel's best idea in ages (not including nextwave, obviously), and one which has been characteristically squandered. I think I might do Rocket Raccoon next.

And I also did an interview with Andy Winter and Mick Trimble for their short graphic novel Septic Isle, a nifty spy thriller which is out in November.

Also, real online Scrabble isn't anywhere as good as Scrabulous was, despite all the bells and whistles, and that new Google browser is a bit naff.

The Dark Knight

I would have liked for this review to have gone up at Comics Bulletin, but due to the vagaries of international release dates, I missed the Slugfest by a week. Still, what are blogs for?

(I don't give scores for things here, but over at CB I do, and this would get four bullets out of five.)

I didn't much like Batman Begins. The cinematography and editing were ill-judged, relying on far too much in the way of MTV-style fast-paced cutting and never letting the audience get a good look at what was going on. What plot there was was choppy and confused, veering listlessly from storyline to storyline, with a feeble attempt to tie everything up into a cohesive but nonsensical whole by the end. Katie Holmes had barely anything to do, which is something for which I suppose we should be grateful, because she was awful, and Christian Bale was dull as ditchwater, sleepwalking his way to a paycheque as Bruce Wayne, and growling like a disgruntled terrier as Batman. Worst of all, the film overreached for po-faced seriousness, thinking somehow that this meant it was more intelligent and highbrow than its predecessors, when there was in fact nothing to it below the grime and darkness. All that said, the film looked quite good (except for the lumpy Batsuit), when we were actually allowed to look at anything for more than a picosecond, and both Gary Oldman and Michael Caine were excellent in their rather undeveloped roles.

So yeah, I wasn't exactly leaping with excitement over the sequel. Indeed, I was much more excited about Hellboy II, which is due out in Britain sometime in 2017, I believe.

So I was pleased to discover that The Dark Knight is a vast improvement over the first film, particularly in terms of writing and editing. This time, we actually get to see Batman now and then, and yet the film-makers retain that slight sense of him being an unnatural, otherworldly presence by occasionally showing him from the perspective of the common person, so we'll be sitting in a car with a family when a black shape whizzes by (the Batbike), or we'll follow a boy's line of sight up into a darkened corner to see a pair of eyes looking back, and the vague shape of something huge and dark perched up there. While the idea of Batman as an elusive phantom is hugely important to the mood of this revamp, it's also good to actually see him once in a while; after all, that's what we've paid our money for. All that said, some problems remain; while the action scenes thankfully now make sense, the editing elsewhere in the film is a bit choppy, with scenes switching abruptly for no particular reason.

Christopher Nolan wrote the previous film by himself, but is joined by his brother this time around, and the improvement in the writing is astounding. The Dark Knight is actually about something; competing concepts of order, chaos and justice, as embodied by Batman, the Joker and Harvey Dent respectively. The clash between these philosophies, and the way they change and develop as a result of that clash, is what drives the plot. And there is a plot this time around, which is a blessed relief after the seemingly random nonsense of the first film. On the other hand, the dialogue is a bit choppy at times, with characters occasionally breaking into speeches about their feelings and motivations, instead of conveying them through their actions.

Christian Bale's performance also shows marked improvement. Bale seems to have less to do in this film, but does seem more comfortable in the role. His Bruce Wayne is much improved, although his Batman retains that ridiculous growl. Furthermore, I suspect that the film-makers have told him to emphasise his mouth movements when he speaks, to make up for the rigidity of the cowl, but he's gone a bit over the top, and most of the film consists of him looking like he's chewing on tobacco while having some kind of facial spasm.

Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent is a tad disappointing, as he's potentially the strongest character in the film, but instead is not given enough to do. He hovers around as a sort of contrast to Batman, and to a lesser extent, the Joker, until his accident, when he just runs around shouting a lot. In this film, Harvey is the negative space that defines Batman's role, and while that works, it does short change the character somewhat. Meanwhile, Maggie Gyllenhaal is a huge improvement on the pudding-faced Katie Holmes, since she can at least act, but the character remains underwritten and largely pointless.

Of course, the performance everyone will be talking about is Heath Ledger's Joker, and while it is definitely a strong role, I think that's more down to the writing than Ledger. As mentioned above, the writers have given the Joker a philosophy and meaning, and to me it's that philosophy that drives the character, rather than the actor; while Ledger was a good actor (although I'm not sure he was quite as good as all the hysterical tributes following his death suggested), any quality actor could have done a portrayal of similar strength given the material. For me, it is Gary Oldman's Gordon who steals the film with a very human and natural portrayal of a simple man trying to do his best in a world gone mad. Oldman is quiet, thoughtful and real in the role, a humble hero, but a hero nonetheless. Towards the end of the film, when Gordon speaks of Harvey Dent as being the pure white knight, the "best of us", he seems to be speaking about himself, but is too modest and down-to-earth to perhaps even realise it. It is Ledger who will inevitably receive all the plaudits, but it's Oldman who deserves them.

The film also drops some interesting hints and potential continuity seeds. Early on, we see a nascent Bat Army, reminding us of Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, there's an oblique reference to the new armour being cat proof, and the weasely ex-employee of Wayne Enterprises who discovers Batman's true identity has more than a hint of Riddlerishness to him. I'm probably reading too much into that last one, but I suspect we will see him again in some capacity, if not a costume, and I'd be very surprised if we don't see Catwoman in the next film.

All in all, Tim Burton's 1989 blockbuster remains the better film, I think, and the 1966 movie is more ingenious, but The Dark Knight is nonetheless a good solid film, and it has convinced me that this update of the franchise is worth doing. I eagerly anticipate the inevitable third instalment.