Dude, Where's My Update

Dude, Where's My Update? #9

I promise you're gonna want to read to the end this time.

It is such a relief to finally get this article out there. Yes, yes. It's in three parts. Because of how I structured it, I felt that it could be split without breaking the flow too much. Since I have to get something out each week, or, really, I like to, it's helped me fill in the gaps as I work on some other, larger projects.

No one should have to re-read "Heroes in Crisis" as many times as I had to for this piece. No one. I feel my brain rotting. Picking through that book was like sifting through a radioactive dumpster. My brain actively fought back at every turn. Actually, that's not true. I forgot it started off halfway decent. Still as undercooked as raw dough and ill-thought out as a car with only reverse but, you know, not as bad as I remembered.

It did not stay that way for long.

Worst part is, I thought I was free of the nine-panel nonsense once I finished my arduous editing process but I still had to scour the whole thing for panels to add. Visually break up the monotony and all that. I ended up picking 90% from the grid confessionals because everything outside of it is even worse and for a piece ostensibly about the positives, about what we can glean from this mess, why would I include those bits?

I did come across this gem though.

Tom King, trying to figure out why there's so much hate for Heroes in Crisis.

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why this fucking page was in this book. It is the tonal equivalent of being hit in the head by a fish that fell out of a tree at a funeral. Thank goodness I'm done with it. Never shall this work darken my door again.

Anyway, if you want to know more about why the hell I even did this, or to yell at me about it, shout out in the comments. Or message me directly. I don't bite.

Oh, and yes. The structure of the article did come after the title. If you've read part 3, it should be a bit more obvious.

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Other Reviews, Elsewhere

Last week, I had another review published at SOLRAD, which has been nominated again for an Eisner award. It's got some stiff competition with The Beat, a more all-rounder of a site, and Zdarsky Comics News, a brilliant magazine that, really, is on the list because of its name and may win because of it. Much as I love it - and I do truly love ZCN - I think it really is a Year 2 kind of contender.

Chip, if you think I'm wrong, you know where to find me (cowering in a corner with an eagle surrounded by Twinkies and clutching sundry americanna) and I know where to find you (behind the Tim Hortons, huffing maple syrup, and crying into your gigantic DC royalty checks as you stare at Ryan Stegman gloating about his even bigger Marvel royalty checks.)

Technically, because of the transitive property, I can now say that I am an Eisner Nominated Comics Critic.*

*In that I was writing at the site when the nomination happened, as opposed to being a writer at an Eisner-nominated site like Multiversity or SOLRAD the previous year.

Does this mean anything? Ha! No. But it is fun to say.

I also wrote a piece for Shelfdust about "The Walking Dead" #193. I wasn't sure if Steve would want it, since he'd written his own review a couple years back - spoiler: he was not a big fan - but he was very generous and agreed to run it! Even better, he let me run the full, unabridged review right here.

Basically, I had initially written the piece for this newsletter and there was an entire essay's worth of material that I cut, much of it focusing on the 'Commonwealth' arc, because it was outside the Shelfdust remit. I did some tweaking to make it work as a standalone and I think it came out wonderfully. I hope you read both versions, though I'm only linking to Shelfdust's to give Steve some love.

I've also recently caught up on some comics! Shock. Horror. Gasp! What foul trickery is this?! Well, it's me trying to flex a different muscle than my usual overly verbose, highly critical style of late. I'd say expect more of these but I haven't quite figured out how to get myself to a computer fast enough to be fresh, raw, and succinct.

Give it a year and I might get there again.

"Hunger's Bite" by Taylor Robin.

One of my favorites of the year thus far. Such a fun book. It's set on a steamliner around the turn of the 20th century and really takes advantage of that isolation to create a story of class, privilege, and the yawning void at the heart of _mumblemumble century capitalism. Think more Death on the Nile than Titanic.

My only real complaint is that I thought this was going to be a more straightforward, reality-based horror story and was disappointed to discover it was a supernatural story. What can I say? I was craving a purely historical piece. Thankfully, Taylor is a great cartoonist and I quickly got over my annoyance. I truly hope this turns into an ongoing series ala those classic Christie mysteries and we get many a dark adventure with these goofuses.

We're living in a serial mystery renaissance and I am here for it!

"Absolute Martian Manhunter" by Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez

"Absolute Martian Manhunter" is my favorite Absolute book, bar none.

I love the whole line thus far, and a couple of the other titles are sitting dangerously close, but "AMM" has hit that sweet spot of weird as hell and a feast for the eyes that I crave.

Do you remember The New Age of Heroes initiative from about 2018? Where the books were, supposedly, artist driven/focused? You probably don't since, like most of the initiatives launched in the latter Dan Didio era (see DCYou,) they died a quick and painful death, partially because of reader apathy and partially by gross-mismanagement and lack of support by DC.

The 'Absolute' line feels like that idea made manifest and done successfully. All the books are defined by their artists as much, if not more so, than their writers. Nick Dragotta on "Batman" and Hayden Sherman on "Wonder Woman" stick out to me as the other standard bearers. Again, no shade on the rest. All great books.

But damn...this book.

One of my favorite DC comics is "Shade, the Changing Man." I think reading that story in early college has shaped a lot of my comics tastes, and I suspect it may have shaped Camp and Rodriguez too. Time will tell if I'm right.