Hep Jivin'

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, during my redonkulous birthday extravaganza, I featured a lovely image of Clark Kent doing some disco dancing. Here, let's look at it again for funsies:

Heck, here's a little bonus material for you, just to show how much I care:

Plus I love that last panel of him hitting his knees. That's right kids: clap for Clark.

Since I posted Disco Kent I've been thinking about the trend that his dancing points toward: the appropriation of popular dance, music and other trends to make comic books more relevant for the kiddies. Why, I remember when I was in elementary school and I really connected with the West Coast Avengers during their epic encounter with the Defiler:

Yes, I was tickled pink when I saw that hard-rockin' dude show up. Too bad that he was just interested in feeding kids to extra-dimensional lemon pudding. Seems like a lot of the metal-inspired guys in the Eighties were villains, actually. Probably all the skulls and fringe - that stuff'd give anyone the heebie-jeebies.

No worries though - once I was in high school there came a super-hero that was drawn from the Top 40 of the day, Gen-13's own Grunge!

Not that I ever met anybody that could both be described as "grunge" and would be caught dead with their shirt off. It was a revolution for the heavy and the scrawny, at least in my neck of the woods. Still, Grunge slacked off sometimes and occasionally wore a flannel shirt, which is kind of close.

But it couldn't last. Those crazy kids kept on having crazy fashions and interests and so eventually you had the return of the "popular musician/movie star lures children to their extradimensional doom" plot when the Titans started scrapping with a guy named Goth:

 Because the kids just can't resist a guy with really interesting male pattern baldness.

"Man, I like Emo. He's balding from the sides!"

"Sides nothing, yo. Goth is balding from the middle out."

I think that I'm trying to say that this is a continuing trend, and that it's usually kind of laughable. The real reason for this post, though, is to showcase the fact that anything Clark Kent can do, Bruce Wayne can do better and also thirty-five years earlier. Witness the granddaddy and best of all comic book popular culture appropriation, Bruce Wayne: hep cat.

See, Bruce was getting kicked in the face one day when he noticed a very important clue: the kicker's soles were dry! Not being the nigh-invulnerable Batman of later days, our cowled pal had a nice long nap, during which time he mulled over the significance of the Mystery of the Mysteriously Dry Soles and, well, just made me so proud when he deduced that they were waxed from plenty of jive dancing at the local juke joint. I'm proud because his deductions led to this:

Oh that swinging cat! He's so cool that he makes the caption uncertain! He confuses the hell out of Alfred and has his own perspective and just doesn't care!

("You're the tiger's nightgown! The bobcat's boxers! The lion's lingerie! The civet's nothing at all!"

"You're so close, Alfred.")

Bruce hits the town and in short order is accosted by the most adorable girl in any Batman comic ever:

And here's some more:

So: Hep-cat Batman is the best iteration of the trend that I'm blathering on about here. That's all I'm trying to say, really. That and that I wish that Bruce had kept on seeing this girl. The idea of him constantly trying to figure out what she was saying is delightful to me, especially if she was constantly attaching herself to new trends, so that by the Eighties she would be, say, a Valley Girl and then an incomprehensible PC-speak enthusiast or something. And then a swing dancer again. Trust me, it would be great!

Oh, and one last thing:

"Zoot-Suited Looter" is a great turn of phrase.

Good evening, folks!

Playing God with HeroMachine

You know how when you're "working" in your office, or on your lap top at home, it's always about 30% actual work and 70% dicking around on the internet? You're like, how can I possibly write a report without first checking Icanhascheezburger? And if you find some sort of cool little game, you're just screwed for the day? Uh huh.

My latest internet time waster is the awesome HeroMachine, where you can build your own superhero. If you've ever tried to create the perfect Mii, or spent hours on one of those doll making sites, you'll lose your mind over this. The options are endless for costumes, weapons, hairdos and sidekicks.

I made one of Rachelle, LBW's creator, founder and stern, yet loving mama.

Bobo the Bold wears a spider insignia because it's what she fears most! Her costume easily transforms into office biz-casual, for when she's in secret identity mode. Her sidekick, Wally, is a magical pony that turns into a stuffed Walrus when necessary. She's got the weaponry of some of her favourite heroes. And yes, Bobo's rocking a beaver tail.

Go make one! You can be all Stan Lee, "When I created this special character..."

Giant-Size John Buys Comics

Well, giant-size in that I bought a butt-load of 'em this week.

Hey! Have I ever mentioned Super Future Friends here? I have? Well, I'm mentioning them again beause they are awesome. They speak of the Legion of Super-Heroes with great joy and some swears and bring me delight. Seriously, it's the only podcast that I listen to multiple times, plus they just did the first appearance of matter-Eater Lad, my fav'rit!

Zeke Deadwood, Zombie Lawman

Hee hee hee! This was a terrific comic to start my weekly read-on with. I know that “disdain for zombie-based entertainment” is the new chic attitude (uh, new as in for the last year or two), but like “disdain for Jimmy Olsen” and “admiration for tapered jeans” I can’t really get behind it. A good comic is a good comic and a bad comic is a bad comic, zombies or no. And nobody looks good in tapered jeans.

Anyway: this is a fun comic. It has a good premise (a zombie would make a great lawman), a couple of good running gags (Zeke smells very bad, zombies are very slow), lots of good sight gags (as outlaws take over the town a man is seen reading a paper with the headline OUTLAWS ARRIVE) and a framing sequence that preys on my love of old-time radio. Zeke and his zombie horse look great. Zeke sings some Johnny Cash. Johnathan is delighted. Also: a Guy Davis pin-up (and did I mention that Guy Davis drew a little Hellboy for me when Rachelle saw him at HeroesCon? He totally did! Wotta guy!)

Good job, T.A. Boatwright and Ryan Rubio.

Poe No. 1 No. 1 (of 4)

Oh man. There was a preview for this in the back of something I read last week and it didn’t look very appealing, mainly because whoever put it together chose pages that focused on Edgar Allen Poe as a crazy dude mourning his dead child bride and possibly seeing through time, instead of the far more awesome Edgar Allen Poe who does all of that stuff and also solves mysteries like an insane Sherlock Holmes.

This is a great story. Poe is the grand-daddy of detective fiction and also the godfather of the American horror tradition and also a crypto buff and general crazy genius, so casting him in an investigative role is a natural - if this is the first time that it’s been done then I’m surprised. He has this terrific nervous energy that is accentuated by the art of Dean Kotz so that you can almost hear him blurting out all of his deductions in one long blather, all talking with his hands and pacing around.

On top of that, this is shaping up to be an interesting mystery that I actually care about and try to figure out, which doesn’t happen often in the comic books. And the villains look terrific.

Oh, and also the magic in this book appears to have been cribbed from D&D, which is awesome.

Last Resort No. 1

Dang it, this looks like a candidate for the SECOND ISSUE OF JUDGEMENT treatment, as this issue was all setup and that could be a good thing or a bad thing.

See, this comic can be summarized as follows: plane heading for Aruba is forced by a storm to land on an island that is probably covered in zombies. Between the first couple of pages (zombie-esque dude washes up on resort beach) and the last couple (the plane lands at the resort) this issue is basically concerned with establishing the cast of characters: the angry lesbian, the fornicating couple, the nerd, the old lady, etc. They’re okay character sketches, so the really key thing that will make or break the series for me is going to happen in the second issue. Will the characters that I like get horribly killed after making an optimistic prediction? Will the irritating characters get killed in spiteful and ironic ways? This is the axis of judgment for a character-driven zombie book. I’d love to see everyone with a personality survive for once, while nameless extras are mown down around them.

Two further things strike me as worth mentioning. First, that Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray need to run the script for the second issue past a proofreader one extra time if they don’t want people like me to be rendered sad by the punctuation and spelling errors. Editors read comics too, guys. And weep.

Second, either the script contains three separate art directions that read “the girl’s shirt is hiked up over one boob so that you can see her nipple ring” or Giancarlo Caracuzzo loves drawing girls with their shirt hiked up over one boob so that you can see their nipple rings. Either way, I think that someone is letting their freak flag fly a bit. “I LOVE BOOOOOOBS!”, they are saying.

Creepy No. 1

Ah, good old Creepy. I’m glad to see this title out and about again. And it’s good! Someone at Dark Horse understood exactly what magazines like Creepy and Eerie and so forth were good at: telling stories with a twist at the end, some of which were clever and some of which were amusing and some of which were a little scary. The only really important stipulation was that they should all be as interesting as possible and look good in black and white.

And in the back: a story that manages to be the other thing that a good horror comic tale can be: touching in a weird way. It's called "Daddy and the Pie" and just touched my tiny heart, I swear. Much more than the racists earlier, I swear.

The Brave and the Bold No. 25

This issue continues the merging of the Milestone and DC universes, as well as the theme of pairing up guys with something in common, with an all-armour team-up between Blue Beetle and a dude named Hardware, of whom I know little since my Milestone reading has only progressed by about five issues since B&B No.24 (and how odd is it that I feel disappointed in myself for letting my having a life get in the way of reading comics?). His created-in-the-Nineties roots are really showing here, though, as he spends a lot of the issue acting like a mistrustful dick who HAS TO DO IT FOR HIMSELF!

There’s also a villainous team-up in this issue, as Hardware’s enemy the System (or possibly SYSTEM) hires a shadowy, bald technologist to consult on their battlesuit designs. I spent the issue figuring that it was Luthor and then at the end - POOF - it turns out to be Gizmo, only not the zombie Gizmo from Birds of Prey but rather a full-sized guy in the Gizmo costume who implies that he’s the original’s… son? Brother? What really matters is that the costume looked stupid on him.

Oh, and this was a pretty good comic! It may be recovering!

Domino Lady No. 1

I bought this comic because I love pulpy stuff and detectives and so forth, so a masked detective in an evening gown should have been right up my alley. Man, I shoulda bought that Blonde Phantom book instead.

Maybe the giant breast implants on the cover should have tipped me off, but some part of me said “Nah, they must have had fake boobs in the Twenties or Thirties or whenever. Probably made ‘em out of wood or something.” And so I blundered on, into a comic that started badly and then went downhill.

The Domino Lady! Makes a big deal about how rare it is for someone to know her secret identity but wears a domino mask, the mask that does nothing to conceal your identity! The artist forgot to draw the mask for a page and I thought that it was on purpose!

The Domino Lady! Featuring a pointless appearance by Sherlock Holmes! He disguises himself as a clown!

The Domino Lady! There are lots of shots of her in her underwear! She puts her evening gown on over top and the underwear disappears! Oops!

I could go on. This is bad. This is… this is Alan Moore’s Cobweb as written by, well, not Alan Moore. It’s T&A (which I have no objection to, in theory) with nothing to back it up, story-wise (this I object to). Booooo.

Blackest Night No. 1

Okay, here it comes. Blackest Night, the War of Lights, etc. Black Hand is tongue-kissing Bruce Wayne’s skull and there are zombies everywhere. This is probably going to awesome if it doesn’t suck.

You know what I liked best about this comic? At the beginning there’s a sequence showing people celebrating the holiday that started in memory of Superman and then became a general costumed hero memorial day once he came back. Everybody’s visiting graves and remembering their pals and it’s all so nice. I know that it was just setup for when all of those pals come back as awful creatures of the night, but I kind of wished that the comic could just be fun all the way through. Hey look, the Rogues have their own secret cemetery! Hey look, Barry Allen is more interesting in this book than Rebirth, even though they’re written by the same guy!

ZOMBIE WATCH (there will be spoilers in the ZOMBIE WATCH): Every dead member of the Green Lantern Corps (including Ch’p!), Martian Manhunter (and who didn’t expect that), Sue and Ralph Dibny (and who wasn’t dreading that). I’m sure that future ZOMBIE WATCH installments will be more action-packed.

R13 No. 1

This actually came out last week and I somehow missed it, which is weird because it's directly up my alley. Check it: a fishing boat hauls up a crazy-cool robot with a dome head. Inside that dome is a skull. The robot fights a tentacled beast of the sea and also there is a giant lobster. There is a mystery.

How could I resist any of that, let alone all of it? It's like these people (these people = Thomas Hall and Daniel Bradford) are hiding in my house and taking notes. And it looks really nice, too - the art lives in the same neighbourhood as Mike Mignola and Guy Davis' and maybe picks up their mail while they're away. There is some inconsistancy in the resolution of the panels but looking at Blacklist Studios' website I think that a) It's their first comic and b) it's just these two guys, so I'm willing to forgive some minor loss of crispness in exchange for more robot vs. mollusc action, delivered quarterly.

Edward Grey, Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels No. 1

Speaking of Mignola...

This comic has been a long time coming - Edward Grey has been lurking around the edges of the Hellboy universe for many, many years now. Heck, he even had a little solo adventure in the prequel to the recent Abe Sapien miniseries.

Now, I know that I might not be the most unbiased person on this subject, but this is a great comic. Edward Grey is a Victorian occult investigator looking into a series of murders that are all connected to an archeological expedition and there are crazy skeletons and pre-human societies and things in jars... It's just distilled joy for me.

Actually, now that I think about it, this might be a good jumping-on point for someone who wants to check out the Heellboy family of comics but is daunted by the interconnectivity of the whole thing. Sure there are a few references to earlier series here (Hyperboreans, eeeee!) but they aren't in the least bit essential to the story. And how can you resist Victorians versus pre-human ape-guys?

And it's pretty much bedtime. Quick reviews!

Buck Rogers No 2 - Passes the SECOND ISSUE OF JUDGEMENT! Good fun here!

Wednesday Comics No. 2 - More of the same, the same being goodness!

The Unknown No. 3 - What? Insane monk? Hooray!

Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape No. 3 - I am so confused.  This is going to be great!

Sherlock Holmes No. 3 - Mycroft: not fat enough. Otherwise terrific.

Good night everyone!

This Week's Haul: Mommy, why is that man licking Batman's skull?

Blackest Night #1

Ok, so I finish reading this week's Wednesday Comics and I am all smiles about Kyle Baker's Hawkman (that thumbs up and smile?! Seriously!). Then I read Blackest Night and...maybe I didn't read these things in the correct order.

Wednesday Comics fills me with love and happiness when I read it. I love those characters, and you can tell that everyone writing or drawing the comics loves them too. And then Blackest Night was just so...messed up.

SPOLIERZZZZZ!!! If you haven't read Blackest Night yet, and don't want to be spoiled, stop reading now.

I have been looking forward to this since it was first announced, and that was like two years ago. I loved The Sinestro Corps War, I love Geoff Johns, I love Ivan Reis and I love Green Lantern comics. I don't want to judge too harshly after one issue, but was very reminiscent of the kind of comics I don't like. It was a lot of over-the-top, nineties-style dark sensationalism. And I know that it's silly to accuse a comic book of being sensationalist, as if they are supposed to be something else, but this just seemed like, y'know, Carnage or Spawn or Knightfall. I felt like it was aimed more at the barbed wire Superman symbol tattoo set, or those who might wear this t-shirt, or this one, than at those of us who love superheroes. I'm not against dark in my comics, or character death. That's not really my problem here. I liked Identity Crisis and Final Crisis, and I am sure that from all the darkness in Blackest Night there will be great moments of heroic triumph in future issues. But isn't there a better way of getting to it than zombie Ralph and Sue Dibny?

Also: skull-licking.

I will doubtlessly be buying and reading the entire series, but for now I am going to say that the beginning was way over-the-top and, for me, disappointing. The whole thing made me want to grab all my Showcase Presents books and hug them.

Wednesday Comics #2

Last week I declared Superman to be the winner, more or less, of the first issue of Wednesday Comics. This week it falls far behind thanks to an abrupt scene change to Superman and Batman engaging in one of their usual rooftop chats about Superman's humanity (or lack of). As much as I love those two hanging out, it was pretty unoriginal. This week I felt the strongest comics were Metamorpho, Supergirl, Hawkman, Batman and Kamandi. The Deadman page was really hot looking, too.

Super Friends #17

DC Kids tries to cash in on the Obama comics craze with a cameo that never really calls the President by name, but you know it's him. Then they go back in time to stop Chronos from turning the nation into the United States of Chronos. Oh, Chronos. It's always something with you.

Hey, the second trade collection of Super Friends came out this week too! Buy it for your kids!

All Select Comics #1

Michael Kupperman does a comic for Marvel! He wrote and drew the back-up in the 70th Anniversary comic that revisits some of Marvel's Golden Age characters. Kupperman does a hilarious short comic about Marvex the Super Robot, which is followed by a couple of Golden Age Marvex reprints (which are no less absurd than Kupperman's parody). Absolutley worth buying for the Kupperman comic alone, All Select also features a pretty neat Blonde Phantom story by Marc Guggenheim that is more like illustrated prose than a comic.

Captain America #601

This was amusingly called a very special issue of Captain America on the cover. It was very special because it is drawn by Gene Colan, but based on these first page panels, I thought it was because Bucky and Nick Fury were finally going to make out:

This issue is sure to be a hit with teen girls because it is jam packed with vampires. Man, as if WWII didn't suck enough, Cap had to fight vampires too?! There must have been times that he wished he didn't volunteer for the experimental super soldier serum.

Rasl #5

I was going to just buy the trades of this, but since the issues are only coming out three times a year I decided I couldn't wait that long. Rasl is awesome. And Jeff Smith seems to getting all of his years of writing PG comics worth of frustrations out by having the characters do it a lot in this series.

Nexus: Space Opera Conclusion

I'd say it's a rare week indeed when we get a new issue of Rasl AND a new issue of Nexus. Sadly, this is the end of the road for Nexus, at least for now. It started with a great first issue a couple of years ago...and then a reprint of Nexus's origin...and then the second issue...and then another reprint of the origin...and then a Manga-sized collection of the first issues of Nexus...and now this double issue that collects the final two issues of what has turned out to be a 4-part mini-series. Oh well. As per usual, this issue of Nexus is beautiful and fun.

Angel: After the Fall vol 4 HC

Aw man. Like it isn't embarassing enough for me to be buying these hardcovers, they go a slap this cover on the newest one. Gross. I could not get it in my shopping bag and away from judging eyes fast enough.

I haven't read this yet, I just want to point out how bad the cover is.

Wednesday Interview: Curt Franklin and Chris Haley

If you enjoy comic books, and I know some of you do, then you should probably be reading Let's Be Friends Again. Writer Curt Franklin and artist Chris Haley combined forces in October, 2008 to create something awesome, like Voltron, or the Planeteers, or, I suppose, that Transformer that's a big Transformer made out of little Transformers. The strip, a loving parody of the comics characters and creators that we all hold so dear, comes out several times a week. If you haven't yet, take a half hour of your life to read all of them from the beginning. It's one of the best gifts you will ever give yourself. Do it while other people are doing yoga or something.

Not unlike Grant Morrison, Curt and Chris make themselves the star of their own comics, along with a rotating cast of superheroes, television characters, classic cartoon characters, political figures and rap stars.

I let Curt and Chris write my post today interviewed Curt and Chris for this week's Wednesday interview because all of the comic creators in the world are busy getting ready for San Diego I think everyone needs to read their comic. I got their Blackest Night hopes and dreams, and got up close and personal with two of the comic book world's biggest heartthrobs. The interview is helpfully peppered with links to their strips so you can read along.

I'll bet you guys have a pretty awesome origin story. When did you first team up?

Curt:  Like most milestones in my life, our first meeting took place at a karaoke bar. Chris was a friend of a friend and we decided to duet My Sharona.

Chris:  From there we discovered that we were the only two people on Earth who could do Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure" justice besides Freddie Mercury and David Bowie.

Wait, this interview is about our singing isn't it?

Curt:  You wish it was. It's the only thing you're good at.
 
Chris:  I think Nerd Dads would disagree.
 
Curt:  Cool. Get Nerd Dads to write comics for you. Get used to drawing stories about changing diapers and playing Naruto: Evolution.

Chris:  This may be getting away from us.

In your comic you have taken shots at people like John Byrne, Brian Michael Bendis, Jeph Loeb, and Tyler Perry. Do you guys have a hit list that you are working your way through?

Curt:  I'm hoping to get to the point where we're completely unemployable in the comic book industry due to ruined husks of bridges we've burnt, which is when I'll take my mask off and reveal that I've been Chuck Austen all along and I'll welcome Chris into my bunker; my years of work having created the perfect sidekick to aid me in exacting revenge on everybody who hated WorldWatch.

Chris:  That would actually explain a lot about Curt's mysterious secretiveness.

Curt:  Well, to seriously answer the question, there's no agenda to people we make fun of. I really like Bendis. I have never met Tyler Perry though I think a little bit of Tyler Perry exists within all of us. Jeph Loeb has been putting out a terrible product for a while now. And John Byrne is, by any measure, an asshole. Those two, on the hit list.

Chris:  John Byrne's got good qualities too though. And we did that comic about Bendis after Ed Brubaker told me that Bendis had really liked one of our strips, so if anything, I felt like that one was done lovingly.

Curt:  So, it depends. We make fun of the ones we love and the ones we hate. And ourselves. Who we hate.

Chris, you are obviously a giant Superman nerd. What comics are you into, Curt?

Curt:  I'm always drawn more to writers than artists, though after doing Let's Be Friends Again for almost a year I have a much greater respect for artists than before. Having said that, I'll get the predictable Alan Moore and Grant Morrison answers out of the way. All of the ABC comics I think I've gone through at least ten times, and I remember Doom Patrol was one of the first comics where I paid attention to who the writer and artist were. Until then, I didn't think it really mattered. I'm a huge fan of Chris Onstad's Achewood, which has some of the most amazingly developed characters. I re-read Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Sleeper every few months. There are so many that I'm going to forget. Starman. Hitman. Recently, Iron Fist has completely kicked ass.

I just like good comics. Western, kids, super-hero, manga, indie, whatever, if it's good and somebody I respect recommends it, I'll read it.

Chris: I wanted to chime in and say that it's not that I'm a Superman nerd, it's that I'm a Superman some other word I can't think of.. what would the word be?

Curt:  A Superman-phile. Like a pedophile, except instead of children you love Superman.

Chris:  Come on, dude, don't make it that way. I'm trying to say that it's like he's what I believe in.

Curt:  Like a religion.

Chris:  ... yeah, but not like a dick about it just you know, he is like the dude I look up to
 
Curt:  Yeah. I get that. People believe way more cruel and hurtful things than any Superman comic would ever teach you. Not to get too personal, but I know Chris had a tough childhood, and sometimes Superman was the only constant thing in it. Growing up in a non-stable environment, moving around a lot, never having the same friends, I'd feel lucky to have my kid turn to Superman for life lessons in that situation. And it's turned him into a pretty alright guy for the most part, so you'll never hear me make fun of the Superman nerdiness. Too bad Superman can't help him draw any better.

So how about those Harvey Award nominations? Do you think NASCAR Heroes #5 will sweep?
 
Chris:  Imagine us both answering 'Yes' in unison.

Curt:  YES. If it wins, I think we deserve full credit. That whole thing is ridiculous, but if everybody was working within the system I can't see anybody blaming a publisher for trying their best to get awareness of their comic out.

I hear rumours that you guys are planning on collecting your strips in a book. That would be awesome. How's that going?

Curt:  It's challenging doing it by ourselves. We're still trying to determine exactly how and what to collect. We looked at sites that some of our friends have used, but the cost for doing a color book is very prohibitive. We looked at some of the strips in B&W and it doesn't seem like it would be worth it to go that way. So, we're definitely planning on having something ready for SPX in September, but, right now, we're still not exactly sure what. But we need to hurry.
 

Probably the most intriguing thing about you, Chris, is your love of 90s-era Halifax, Nova Scotia indie rock. Especially since you live in Memphis or somewhere. Can you please explain this to me?

Curt: Smoke break.

Chris:  Comics, music, and cereal are really the only chapter headings in the book of my "background", so I don't really know how to obsess over much else. Ages ago, one of my best friends and former bandmates, Edward Stanley, let me hear "Coax Me" from Sloan's "Twice Removed". As is my way, I spent the next several years scouring used CD shops for their back catalog. By the time "Action Pact" came out they were well on their way to becoming my favorite band. Being a huge fan of theirs has led me to meeting other people who like them who have then told me to check out Thrush Hermit and Joel Plaskett Emergency and so on.
Plus it always gives Bryan Lee O'Malley and I something to talk about at conventions so it's not just me gushing over how much I love him.

Curt:  You worked in your O'Malley love, impressive.

Chris:  :)

In the interest of balance, what kind of music are you into, Curt?

Curt:  I'm listening to The Flaming Lips right now, but I usually listen to older classic rock and hip hop. Queen bonded Chris and I in a lot of ways, most non-sexual. I have a history with Elvis and classic country and blues. The Elvis stuff comes partly from growing up in Memphis, but mostly from working at the largest annual Elvis impersonator's contest that my parents started a long, long time ago. They also owned a country-western bar, so the first few notes of any Garth Brooks tune trigger a childhood urge to flee to my dad's office where I can watch cartoons and look at my dad's Playboys that he thinks are hidden.

What are each of your top five favourite ongoing series right now?

Curt:  I'm a wait-for-the-trade heathen, but I have the luxury of reading everything that comes out because the guys at the local comics shack, Comics & Collectibles, owe me a blood debt. I'd go with RASL, Green Lantern, Incognito, 20th Century Boys, Young Liars.

Curt:  And I know it's not an ongoing series, but I read the first two issues of Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers today, and I love them. No joke, it's genuinely funny and surprisingly well drawn.

Chris:  I'm scared to answer this question, because every time I start telling people how much I like some book, it seems to get cancelled. I know it just started, but I'm really excited about Wednesday Comics. Doug Mahnke and Patrick Gleason on the Green Lantern books makes them must reads. Anything Grant Morrison does is must read for me, so Batman & Robin has made an All Star Superman-less world a little more liveable. Up until the last issue, I was a huge Invincible fan.

Chris:  Agents of Atlas is taking the place of Captain Britain & MI13 on this list since it just got cancelled. God, I'm leaving so many out. Captain America! Iron Fist! The Unwritten! Anything Stuart Immonen draws!
 

Who do you hope comes back from the dead in Blackest Night? And do you think your White Lantern vision will come true?

Curt:  I hope Sue and Ralph Dibney come back and can enjoy whatever brief respite from evil and danger and madness fictional characters can. And if the rumors are true and Hal Jordan becomes a White Lantern at some point, I'll be disappointed if John Stewart doesn't at least raise an eyebrow or something.

Chris:  I'm really not that interested in seeing characters I love (Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Firestorm, Ted Kord, blah blah blah) come back as monstrous bad guys, and I can't really think of any characters that I didn't like that are dead, so I'm just kind of along for the ride.

Chris: If the White Lantern thing does happen, I just hope they ask me to do an alternate cover.
 

For real, guys, Let's Be Friends Again is the most consistently hilarious web comic that I read. Will you do it forever?

Curt: We'll do it 'til we're bloody well dead. Or until we split up over a woman's love.

Chris:  Unless he dies before me and I get the map and keys to the Scrooge McFranklin Money Vault, my plan is to be drawing Curt and I being friends (again.. and again) forever.

Asterios Polyp

To say that David Mazzuchelli’s new graphic novel Asterios Polyp is, at times, a highly experimental narrative that explores how our own self-perceptions affect and are affected by those around us makes it sound like an impenetrably abstract chore, when it is most certainly not. Conversely, describing it as a story about an big-city intellectual who begins a new life in a small town and is forever changed by the people he meets there makes it sound like quirky, shallow, feel-good junk food, when it’s not that either. Somehow, Asterios Polyp straddles these two extremes masterfully, and the result is a book that works like a charm on two simultaneous levels; Mazzuchelli plays with the cartoon form in several unexpectedly thrilling and ingenious ways, challenging himself and the reader, while delivering a fully fleshed-out narrative filled with memorable characters and episodes that answers all our questions while leaving us wanting more.

Mazzuchelli, best known as Frank Miller’s artistic collaborator on Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One, abandoned the capes-and-tights scene as the 1980s ended and reinvented himself as an alternative comics artist, sporadically appearing to adapt Paul Auster’s novel City of Glass to comics and to self-publish the anthology Rubber Blanket. With Asterios Polyp, Mazzuchelli seems to have taken what he learned from both alternative and mainstream comics and fused them together into an invigorating new style. Polyp begins as the title character, a renowned professor of architecture whose acclaimed designs have never actually been built, loses everything he owns in an apartment fire on his fiftieth birthday. On a whim, he leaves New York with only the clothes on his back, finally ending up in a rural town called Apogee. As he begins a new life as an auto mechanic, Polyp’s history is filled in with a series of flashbacks detailing his academic career and failed marriage to Hana, an abstract sculptress. As Polyp reconstructs himself as a person, he eventually realizes he needs to leave Apogee behind and return to his old life to address his past mistakes.

Most fans remember Mazzuchelli for the gritty, realistic style he employed in Batman and Daredevil, but that was two decades ago. These days, his sparse linework is more reminiscent of Al Hirschfeld or Chester Gould. The muted, often symbolic colour palette of Asterios Polyp adds further layers of meaning. However, for all of the high-art trappings on display, there is plenty of perfectly relatable relationship drama and lowbrow jokes too. Characters have names like Willy Illium and Lotta Latte, Polyp’s employer mangles countless phrases (he admits that his wife wants him to do more “male bondage” stuff), and there’s even a fart joke at one point. Mazzuchelli’s story is so thoroughly planned out and delicately constructed, you’ll find yourself flipping back through it to glean the significance of various items, like the three things Polyp rescues before his apartment burns down. Mazzuchelli melds mainstream and alternative storytelling in a way that’s more successful than I’ve ever seen, and the result is challenging yet accessible, intellectual yet emotional, highbrow yet lowbrow. I read all 344 pages in one sitting, and I wanted to read it again almost as soon as I was done, knowing that there were tons of details and nuances that I wouldn’t appreciate until a second reading. Mazzuchelli might well disappear for another decade now, but if he does, I sincerely hope he brings another book like Asterios Polyp with him when he returns.