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Hey, everyone! Life has been pretty crappy over the past few days, so I haven't been able to finish any new reviews just yet, much less respond to the epic discussions in my last Rogues Gallery post, but I just wanted to write a quick round-up of remarkable tidbits that've come my way recently!
First off, I want to thank writer Jonathan Larsen for his generous and gracious response to my review of his Two-Face brain surgery story, Together. At his suggestion, I bought the other issue of Legends of the Dark Knight he wrote, which also happens to be his first-ever comics work. The standalone story in LotDK #2, entitled All of the Above, is about Batman versus Amazo, the android who can replicate the powers of the entire JLA, and the two of them battling alone on the League's satellite HQ.
It's a simple story executed eloquently, and Larsen manages to do more with it than just show how the guy with no powers takes down the guy with all of the powers. It's also helped by the artwork of J.G. Jones, thus reaffirming my belief in the review for Together that Larsen's writing would benefit from a cleaner style of art. This story is only 99ยข, so definitely pick it up! And speaking of new comics you should buy:
So Walt Simonson's graphic novel The Judas Coin is finally out, not that you'd know from the complete lack of publicity it's gotten. Over the course of a week, the post I was working on has evolved into way more of a long-winded essay regarding the genesis of the graphic novel and the histories of the characters involved rather than a straight-forward review/analysis.
The short version is that I adored it, but it's not going to be for all tastes. Until I can go into details in my review, I'll just say that you'll probably love it if you already love Walt Simonson and/or classic DC historical adventure comics from the Silver and Bronze Ages. If that sounds at all up your alley, I urge you to buy it so we can hash it out in my eventual massive review/essay/rant thing.
That said, it is with great reluctance that I concede one big problem: it's way too expensive at cover price. $22.99 for a slim 94-page hardcover? Yeesh! Even though Simonson made the most out of every page, that's still WAY too much, DC. Thankfully, there are cheaper options, with print copies going for $13.77 on both Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble, which also offers it for Nook for $12.64. Other ways you can get it digitally include Kindle for $9.99 (the best deal of them all), and $12.99 for iBooks for iPad/iPhone. Few are talking about this book and DC has done nothing to promote it, so check it out however you can. And if you are willing to spend the full cover price, then hey, go support your local bookstore/comic book shop!
As a further incentive, here's an awesome Harvey sketch by Simonson.
And speaking of comic book shops (he said, trying desperately to come up with a relevant segue), I've just learned that I need to track down old back issues of Comic Shop News. You know, that freebie newspaper that many shops give away that features solicits, reviews, etc, that everyone probably just glances at and throws out? Well, I'm hoping that not everyone did, because guess what ran in the back of several issues around 1989-1991?
That's right: CSN ran color Sundays for the Batman newspaper comic strip in each issue! Egad, look at the quality of that! That's probably better looking than anything I might find at the Library of Congress archives! But argh, even if I could find back issues (roughly around issues #150-215), I couldn't afford them under the present financial circumstances, so I guess that will just be something to look out for once IRL things get back into shape for me. In the meantime, if anyone knows where I can find scans of these color strips, please do point them my way! I want to be able to include as many color Sundays as I can for The Daily Batman!
Okay, that's enough of an update for now. I was originally going to end with my quick thoughts on the animated Dark Knight Returns movie, but they soon took on a life of their own, so I'll give them their own review later. For now, I'll just say that I liked the film way more than I thought I would, and that it caused me to completely reevaluate my previous views on Harvey Dent's subplot. Pretty impressive feat, that.
First off, I want to thank writer Jonathan Larsen for his generous and gracious response to my review of his Two-Face brain surgery story, Together. At his suggestion, I bought the other issue of Legends of the Dark Knight he wrote, which also happens to be his first-ever comics work. The standalone story in LotDK #2, entitled All of the Above, is about Batman versus Amazo, the android who can replicate the powers of the entire JLA, and the two of them battling alone on the League's satellite HQ.
It's a simple story executed eloquently, and Larsen manages to do more with it than just show how the guy with no powers takes down the guy with all of the powers. It's also helped by the artwork of J.G. Jones, thus reaffirming my belief in the review for Together that Larsen's writing would benefit from a cleaner style of art. This story is only 99ยข, so definitely pick it up! And speaking of new comics you should buy:
So Walt Simonson's graphic novel The Judas Coin is finally out, not that you'd know from the complete lack of publicity it's gotten. Over the course of a week, the post I was working on has evolved into way more of a long-winded essay regarding the genesis of the graphic novel and the histories of the characters involved rather than a straight-forward review/analysis.
The short version is that I adored it, but it's not going to be for all tastes. Until I can go into details in my review, I'll just say that you'll probably love it if you already love Walt Simonson and/or classic DC historical adventure comics from the Silver and Bronze Ages. If that sounds at all up your alley, I urge you to buy it so we can hash it out in my eventual massive review/essay/rant thing.
That said, it is with great reluctance that I concede one big problem: it's way too expensive at cover price. $22.99 for a slim 94-page hardcover? Yeesh! Even though Simonson made the most out of every page, that's still WAY too much, DC. Thankfully, there are cheaper options, with print copies going for $13.77 on both Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble, which also offers it for Nook for $12.64. Other ways you can get it digitally include Kindle for $9.99 (the best deal of them all), and $12.99 for iBooks for iPad/iPhone. Few are talking about this book and DC has done nothing to promote it, so check it out however you can. And if you are willing to spend the full cover price, then hey, go support your local bookstore/comic book shop!
As a further incentive, here's an awesome Harvey sketch by Simonson.
And speaking of comic book shops (he said, trying desperately to come up with a relevant segue), I've just learned that I need to track down old back issues of Comic Shop News. You know, that freebie newspaper that many shops give away that features solicits, reviews, etc, that everyone probably just glances at and throws out? Well, I'm hoping that not everyone did, because guess what ran in the back of several issues around 1989-1991?
That's right: CSN ran color Sundays for the Batman newspaper comic strip in each issue! Egad, look at the quality of that! That's probably better looking than anything I might find at the Library of Congress archives! But argh, even if I could find back issues (roughly around issues #150-215), I couldn't afford them under the present financial circumstances, so I guess that will just be something to look out for once IRL things get back into shape for me. In the meantime, if anyone knows where I can find scans of these color strips, please do point them my way! I want to be able to include as many color Sundays as I can for The Daily Batman!
Okay, that's enough of an update for now. I was originally going to end with my quick thoughts on the animated Dark Knight Returns movie, but they soon took on a life of their own, so I'll give them their own review later. For now, I'll just say that I liked the film way more than I thought I would, and that it caused me to completely reevaluate my previous views on Harvey Dent's subplot. Pretty impressive feat, that.
