East of West

Weekly Pull Review 3/11/15

Southern Cross #1- Image

Hey, I’m giving a #1 top billing this week! Will you look at that? To be fair, none of the usual major heavy hitters came out this week (Saga, Sex Criminals, etc.), so I decided to push something a bit new. That’s not to say Southern Cross isn’t very deserving in its own right- I’m really digging it so far. Even apart from passing the Bechdel test, (the rarity of that in comics is extraordinarily depressing), it’s got solid art with an almost retro-futuristic look. Retro-futurism is most often applied to Buck Rodgers style futurism or 50’s futurism (Fallout), but Southern Cross feels like 80s retro-futurism. (And yes, that was three decades ago.) Grungy space stations and ships, industrial decor, headbands, transparent visors, actual naval outfits for starship personnel- it’s got the tone of so many of my favorite 80s scifi films. (My roommate thought of Cowboy Bebop.) The mystery set up has me interested, though there do seem to be hints of some sort of weird, semi-psychedelic craziness going on in the background- that, or the protagonists dreams are just extremely trippy.

East of West #18- Image

Babylon is really what this comic has been needing for a long time- a character you can actually sympathize with. There are abundant badasses and cool characters, but… yeah, I mention this every issue lately. Anyhow, Babylon gets to play with a giant horrifying demon that he sees as a giant hamster, Death and Lady Mao have a loving farewell, backstory backstory, the Endless Nation and the PRA plan out their war. Good times. I should backpedal on the character sympathy bit- getting to see Death and Lady Mao together actually goes quite a way towards humanizing the Horseman of the Apocalypse and the supergenius cybernetic despot.

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Weekly Pull Review 2/4/15

Saga #25- Image

SAGA! Saga Saga Saga Saga Saga! Saga! …Okay, I might be a little excited. Just a little. But… Saga. In all honesty, if I had to pick a favorite comic from my pull, it would have to be Saga. So fucking good. The newest volume of Saga opens up with depressing backstory, depressing story, depressing foreshadowing, dragon piss, an axe wielding baby seal (hi Ghüs!), Hazel being adorable, half a planet, Dengo making poor decisions that are going to draw the family farther into the middle of the war, and… well… Dunno what else I have to say there, actually, because spoilers. (Seriously, though, why aren’t you reading Saga yet?) Despite following up with the majority of the cast, it even finds time to introduce- or at least show- new characters, without it feeling like a particular intrusion into the screen-time of the rest of the cast. Also, Sophie has glasses now, and Lying Cat is being taught tact!

Hawkeye #21- Marvel

After a nearly five month delay, we finally got more Hawkeye- it’s just too bad that next issue is the last of Matt Fraction and David Aja’s run. This issue is very much an ode to the John Wayne film Rio Bravo, which is actually the name of the issue. (For those of you who’ve seen of Assault on Precinct 13- that’s basically an updated version of Rio Bravo). This issue, well… it’s goddamn heavy. One of the opening scenes has Clint sending the children and other noncombatants away from the building to safety as they prep the apartment building for battle against the Tracksuit Draculas. This issue is rapidly pulling together all of the elements that Fraction and Aja have been pulling together over the course of their run. Grills even gets a bit of postmortem vengeance. The sheer amount of work that was put into this comic becomes more and more apparent with every readthrough. The good guys don’t get a victory without paying a real, heavy price for it- and not the hilariously forgettable, easily brushed off price you’re used to in superhero comics. This is what a superhero comic should be. Boomerang arrow: it comes back to you in the end.

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Weekly Pull Review 12/31/14

This one’s several days late, because New Years. Plus, you know, the absurd amount of comics that come out the last Wednesday of the year. (That’s a lie).

East of West #16- Image

East of West continues to please- the art is great, the story is awesome, if a bit dense and hard to follow at times. My only real complaint is that the characters aren’t super sympathetic, but then this isn’t the type of story that you want particularly sympathetic characters in. The Endless Nation has started- and finished- its conquest of the Texan Republic with ease, but Governor Bel Solomon isn’t done yet. The creepy child Horsemen of the Apocalypse continue their hunt for Death, and… well, it’s hard to explain if you aren’t reading it. (Why aren’t you?)

Great Pacific #18- Image

Great Pacific #18 is the rather abrupt conclusion to the series. It’s not a bad one, necessarily, but it does feel rushed. For those unfamiliar with the series, it follows the rich scion of a Texas oil fortune as he embezzles the entire fortune of his company and uses it to found a nation (New Texas) on the Pacific Gyre- specifically, atop the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. (The book fictionalizes it to make it sturdy enough to walk on, which isn’t possible in real life. The actual patch largely consists of tiny plastic particles suspended throughout an area between the size of Texas and twice the size of the Unites States, making a kind of plastic soup- clumps are pretty rare.) The series follows him solidifying the Garbage Patch into an actual continent and forming a new nation atop it. (Also, finding old Soviet Nukes floating around. Don’t forget the giant octopi and genetically engineered, plastic eating anglerfish, either!) The art is good, though I don’t much like the faces. They frequently seem to slide around the faces. Overall, the series is pretty good. If you get the chance to read it, I’d go for it. The ending is kind of rushed, and leaves a lot open for a potential future followup, but I have my doubts about seeing that. As for actually buying the trades- well, read it first.

Weekly Pull Review 12/10/14

I know, I know, it’s technically the 11th, but I’m going to start dating theses reviews with the date I picked the comics up from here on out. Anyhow, on to this week’s comics I deemed good enough for my pull.

Bitch Planet #1- Image

I somehow utterly failed to realize that a new Kelly Sue DeConnick series was coming out until Tuesday night- but it was definitely a good surprise. Kelly Sue DeConnick is rapidly proving herself to be one of my favorite contemporary comic writers- anything by her is definitely going to receive at least a try. Bitch Planet might not have been something I’d pick up normally, since prison stories, even scifi ones, are hardly my cup of tea, but I gave this one a try, and the first issue already has me hooked. That’s not to say it’s perfect- the twist definitely confused me for a little bit, but that’s very likely to be my fault, so… Also, it’s pretty refreshing to have a comic book where the majority of the cast isn’t white. That’s still pretty damn rare these days. Valentine De Landro’s art is pretty well fitted to the book, and the dot-based backgrounds like you’d see in old comics really fits the aesthetic of the book. (I can’t for the life of me remember what that technique is called.) Also, having the title page be a two page spread four pages in? Actually works really damn well here. Very cinematic.

Copperhead #4- Image

Copperhead is really working well for me so far. It’s not that the story is particularly better than other good scifi police procedurals- and I do consider Copperhead more of a police procedural than a western so far, though it draws strongly from both- it’s that the comic focuses on a smaller, more focused cast than usual. It’s a consistent weakness of the genre, especially in comics- you have a limited amount of space to develop your characters, and introducing a giant cast just makes them all fairly forgettable. The comic Storm Dogs comes to mind- brilliant story, amazing setting, spectacular art, some of the best alien designs I’ve seen in a comic- but ask me to name the characters, or even describe more than a few, and I’d just have to shrug. It’s not that they are bad characters, by any means. I remember liking quite a few of them. Copperhead has avoided that pitfall by focusing on a smaller, more mobile cast, and it works extremely well. That, ultimately, seems to be its biggest takeaway from Westerns, rather than any stylistic element.

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Belated weekly pull review.

Sorry the pull review is late this week. Without further delay:

Beasts of Burden One-Shot: Hunters and Gatherers

Dark Horse Comics
Evan Dorkin, Jill Thompson
For those of you who have never read Beasts of Burden before: WHY? Seriously, this series about dogs and cats defending the town of Burden Hill from supernatural threats is amazing. Great characters, wonderful art, a dog lycanthrope, it’s got it all. I think it passes the Bechdel test, but I’m not entirely sure that it is particularly useful here, since you’ve got to guess the gender of the various animals from context clues/familiarity with the series, and there is no way to tell for some of the minor characters and extras. (I still have to finish the series proper myself, but I’m working on it). I think I’m just going to start commenting on whether a comic passes the Bechdel test, the test is non-applicable, or it is a serious failure. Otherwise, just assume it failed, which is sadly pretty normal in comics.
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