Silverfish: Pre-Review RantYou know what I'd really like to be SnapJudgin' today? David Lapham's Silverfish. I'm a huge fan of his and was really excited to pick up his book today before I realized it would set me back $25. That is way too much to pay for 160 pint-sized (6.875” x 9”) black and white pages, I don't care how flippin' hard your cover is. Moving on.
Stephen Colbert's Tek Jansen #1: Cable Funnyman in SpaceI actually had high hopes for this series, since I'm a fan of Colbert and get a kick out of the brief Tek Jansen jokes on The Report. In case you're unfamiliar, these jokes involve Colbert making up some silly futuristic names for things. For example (and this is from the comic): "Look at the chronotime! No time to radioshower, lasershave, or autodress!" That shit cracks me up. Unfortunately, that line was pretty much all this ish had to offer. And the story is so forgettable that... I just forgot it. The back up tale had the benefit of having a satiric bite, but it's over way too soon. Apparently catchy one-liners don't expand well into full-length comic stories. Color me disappointed.
Supposed To Be Funny, Not - Bad Story + A Bit of Satire = D
Reviews for Martha Washington Dies and Green Arrow: Year One after the jump...
Martha Washington Dies: Guess What Happens?I'm a Frank Miller junkie, but recently his work has been pretty lazy. All-Star Batman will make me chuckle occasionally, but there's really not much depth to it. And The Dark Knight Strikes Again... Well, I have a pet theory that the whole thing was a great joke Frank played on all of us and he's laughing his ass off right now. But Martha Washington Dies is some good stuff. It felt so good to read a Miller book that wasn't so... Miller-ish. There's no jokes, no silliness, no lazy pages... Just some solid storytelling that caps off the story he began telling 18 years ago. There's one big problem, though... The book is only 17 pages! WTF?! It feels like a backup story, and maybe should have waited until the Complete Martha Washington Collection which is advertised in the back of this issue. I guess he wouldn't be Frank Miller if he didn't piss us off at least a little. Oh, and Dave Gibbons art is scrumptious as always, though Angus McKie's colors don't do it much justice and there are some fireworks at one point that are clearly cut-and-pasted jpegs somebody downloaded from the internet. It is some ugly shit.
FM Returns to Form + Great Gibbons - Short As Sin = B+
Green Arrow: Year One #1: Ollie Wanna Reboot?If this book didn't have the words Green Arrow on the cover, I think I would've come away happy. The writing is sharp enough, the art, while a little bare, gets the job done, and the growth of this "Oliver Queen" character seems like it will be fun to watch... The problem is that it says Green Arrow on the cover, and the Ollie Queen in this book is not Ollie Queen in my book. And I hate "modern" reboots of characters that are doing just fine. And the cover features some crucifixion imagery. Which is silly. Did I mention my sarcastic, witty Ollie Queen has turned into a spoiled frat boy? Not that there isn't a precedent for this, the Ollie of Mike Grell's The Wonder Year was similar, if I'm remembering correctly. But I don't remember liking that story either.
OK Writing - No Backgrounds - Annoying Ollie = C+
No comments:
Post a Comment