Nov
28
2008
…or what to give a really young comic reader for the Holidays.
Andy Runton’s Owly is the only truly all-ages comic book I have ever found. Wonderfully simple and charming, Owly is a series of tales about a lonely young owl who has a lot of love and kindness to give, and how his interactions with other animals teach him and them life lessons. The stories are heart-warming, the art is appealing, and the comic is unique.
Owly has no dialog. The stories are entirely told in images, and when the characters speak, it is in further images, making this a universal comic: anyone can get something out of the stories regardless of their age or native language. However, this is not to say the stories are straightforward or dumbed down: the emotion and detail that Mr. Runton manages to convery in each story may surprise you.
If there’s a young child in your life and you’d like to introduce them to comics, this would be a great place to start. I can imagine reading this with my nephew, and having him supply the words, interpret the art, and give the details. And if you’re young at heart yourself, and enjoy a well-told children’s tale of friendship, pick up the first volume (The Way Home) and enjoy.
Owly by Andy Runton, published by Top Shelf. A great book for younger kids and the young at heart. A
Nov
26
2008
I had a bit of a false restart on Retro Review last week. It was kind of like an attempt by DC to restart Aquaman on Hawkman… okay, that was a little unfair. Geoff Johns’ Hawkman relaunch was good and did well, and Peter David did a great run on Aquaman. And I don’t think either book had problems with missed deadlines. I need to work on my geeky analogies.
Anyway, with a few things still going on, I needed to take a step back from blogging again, and rethink Retro Review a little. I’ve decided to devote the next couple of weeks to making some gift suggestions for trade paperbacks and runs of older books that would make good gifts for various people, starting with good comic books for children and younger teenagers, but also including good comics for non-comic readers, and people who like their comics a little more indie and a little less mainstream.
I have a large comics library but of course there’s plenty of comic books I’ve never read and know little about: if you feel I’ve missed an important series or a good contender for a particular category, please feel free to make some recommendations of your own in the comments.
See you tomorrow for a review of the wonderful Owly, the only guaranteed all-ages comic book I’ve ever read.
All the best, Derek.
Nov
20
2008
It’s amazing to me that a character could become so confusing to readers and creators alike that his name was considered unusable, even on a new character, but this was the case with DC Comics’ Hawkman. Introduced in 1940 in Flash Comics #1, the Golden Age version of the character (American archaeologist Carter Hall) had been a mainstay of the Justice Society of America, and the Silver Age version (alien police officer Katar Hol) had been a member of the Justic League of America. However, while DC managed to cope with having both Golden and Silver Age versions of the Flash and Green Lantern, after 1986’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, there seemed to be a problem with having two versions of Hawkman, and revisions and retcons kept being made to his origins, trying to streamline the character, but actually just making him horribly complicated.
You don’t believe me? Then try this: there was a human Hawkman, but then there was an alien one, and then the human one never existed but the alien one hadn’t arrived yet, so the one who showed up in the meantime claiming to be the original one’s son was another alien, and then they all merged to become a god. Saying that all his appearances between Crisis and the Hawkworld mini-series were actually those of an impostor was a particular gem; but the “hawk-god” thing in the absolutely dreadful Zero Hour was the nadir of character reworkings from DC.
It wasn’t until Geoff Johns’ run on JSA that Hawkman got straightened out, and in the best possible way: rather than trying to explain every appearance of the character in detail, with dates and times, Geoff Johns just brings him back and has him go into action. There is a small amount of dialog about him being a perpetual reincarnate, and having all the memories of every Hawkman ever, implying that all the previous Hawkmen were previous incarnations of the current one, and then they just get on with the story. This is the most essential thing for any retcon or revamp: if the story gets bogged down in explaining what actually happened on this or that page of this or that issue, instead of telling a new story that delivers a viable character, then the retcon has failed because it doesn’t engage. This is why none of the previous Hawkman retcons worked - they were too concerned with the details, not the story.
Nov
17
2008
A retcon is a change to the continuity of a story that goes into effect retroactively - not only does the change in the status quo affect the story from then on, but it also establishes that things have always been this way, and any older stories that contradict this reality should be ignored or adapted to fit. It is a practice that DC and Marvel engage in regularly, much to the irritation of plot- and continuity-obsessed readers. However, it is not only the Big Two who change established continuity: it can happen in long-running independent entirely creator-owned series like Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise.
If you are unfamiliar with the series, which ended in 2007, at its heart, it is the story of a group of people and how true love, truth and lies, and lust and obsession affect their lives. Initially, the focus is on the love between three characters: Francine, Katchoo, and David. However, as the series progressed and more characters gained voices and importance, the story developed to accommodate them. It is a good comic with many powerful and emotional moments, and with some excellent fully realized characters, and there are parts where the story, art and dialog shine. It has its weaknesses: the mafia-style Big Six organization’s story requires a lot of suspension of disbelief and distracts from the starker and more interesting reality of the main story; and the series arguably goes on for too long, leaving it sagging in the middle. That said, I still highly recommend it, especially the first few volumes, and especially to first-time comic readers.
However, despite being the vision of one writer, there is one glaring inconsistency that makes it difficult to read through the whole series and completely get lost in the world he created.
(The rest of this post contains plot spoilers for Strangers in Paradise.) Continue Reading »
Nov
16
2008
Can I get a retcon on the past week? Actually, make that ten days. There’s plenty I’d like to keep in them, like the evenings I spent with friends, but there’s plenty of stuff I could’ve done without.
No? No retcons in reality? Darn it.
As you’ve noticed, Retro Review has been a tumbleweeds-blowing-through-it ghost-town kind of a blog this past week. Some stressful issues at work came to a head, and some personal and health issues decided to pipe up at the same time, leaving very little energy and time for the research and blogging I’d planned. In the end, rather than being my usual stubborn self, I gave myself the week off. Starting from tomorrow, I’ll write about some of the best and worst retcons to appear in comics, starting with Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise retcon to the future, and finishing with the controversial One More Day storyline.
One of the things I’d like to keep from this week even if I could retcon it would be the comics I picked up. Fables really got moving again, showing for sure that the concept still has enough energy to keep moving, and Top 10 Season 2 #2 put my mind to rest that the series is a worthy successor to the original, and not another mess like Beyond the Farthest Precinct. I also picked up the Stray Toasters trade paperback: when it first came out, I found it to be one of the creepiest and most disturbing comics ever, and I’m keen to re-read it and see how I feel now.
Nov
10
2008
This week, I’d like to look at some of the retcons that have happened in comic books over the years. In case you don’t know the term, a retcon is a retroactive change in the continuity of a comic book series, or indeed a TV series or series of books. Retcons can be as simple as revealing that a character that was shown to have died actually survived, or as major as revealing that a character that was established as a hero was a villain all along. Some are done to keep characters seeming young or relevant, like the current retooling of Carol Danvers’ backstory to have her serve with the USAF in Afghanistan, rather than in the 70s space mission with NASA. Others are done to open up new story possibilities or for dramatic effect. Many are controversial, as continuity can be sacred to fans. Whatever the reasons, no retcon will pass without criticism.
There are also the revamp-type retcons, which DC Comics seem to be very fond of, where the entire history of a series is discarded in favor of a new version: the Crisis on Infinite Earths was the first time DC engaged in this kind of retcon, with changes like “Clark Kent was never Superboy, he only became active when he moved to Metropolis” and “Wonder Woman wasn’t in the Justice League of America from its founding”. This kind of retcon, because it disposes of so much history, can really disappoint fans: how do you handle your favorite series being basically cancelled and never referred to again?
So, join me this week for a walk through some of the best and worst retcons I’ve found while reviewing old comics.
Nov
08
2008
Legion of Super-Heroes went through a period of great controversy in the early 90s, and no issue was more controversial than#31, the issue in which a long-standing fan question about Element Lad’s sexuality was answered, and another character, Shvaughn Erin, was changed in a very significant way. Dealing as it did with gender identity and sexuality, the revelations of this issue were considered shocking by many, even though, at least according to Al Gordon, not as shocking as they could have been. Some people hated the issue, even citing it as the reason they dropped the title, but for me, LSH #31 had a very beautiful message about love and life.
The story is part of the “Five Years Later…” storyline, which ran through the first 61 issues of the 1989 relaunch of Legion of Super-Heroes, and included a lot of changes that long-time fans did not like. The team had disbanded in the wake of intergalactic economic collapse, and the universe was a darker place, with war, crime and strife abundant. Continue Reading »
Nov
06
2008
Animal Man, aka Buddy Baker, may be one of DC’s most underused characters. He had his own brilliant series, launched in 1988 and running through to the mid-90s, but since then, he’s only been a rare guest star: he had a supposedly major role that amounted to very little in 52 and a big part in Countdown to Adventure, and basically a cameo in a recent issue of Justice League of America. It really is a shame, as he is probably one of their best characters, and he and his supporting cast deserve better, as in a-book-of-their-own better.
Here are my six reasons why Animal Man is a great character, and probably one of DC’s best.
Continue Reading »
Nov
05
2008
Because the reprint trade paperbacks bear the Vertigo label, people forget that Grant Morrison’s run on Animal Man started before the Vertigo imprint was created. It was considered a mainstream DC comic book, with not even a hint of a “For Mature Readers” label on the cover. It was released without a Comics Code seal of approval because of its content, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t on the shelves with all the other hero books. I wonder what other kids in 1988 thought of the comic: I know I didn’t enjoy it at the time.
The Animal Man stories disturbed me. The portrayals of human cruelty to animals were unflinching, without even the safety net of the perpetrators being super-villains: whether scientists engaged in animal experimentation or drunken hunters, it was regular people doing the deed. Even when there were super-hero battles, they were complicated - a dying villain wanting to go out with a bang, for example. The rest of the work - the metafictional examination of the writer as God, and the exploration of the fragility of the human psyche - was beyond me at the time: Uncanny X-Men and The Avengers were more my speed.
Now, as an adult, I appreciate Grant Morrison’s Animal Man as a brilliant, innovative creation. It is one of the best things he has ever written, and the 5th issue, The Coyote Gospel, is the issue that really launched it into new territory. 20 years ago, I read it once and got rid of it; now I re-read it regularly in the trade paperback reprint, kicking myself that I don’t have the original issue anymore.
Continue Reading »
