Sunday Comics: Bone

Sunday Comics is a weekly feature where I spotlight awesome comics that you may want to check out.

The Comic: Bone

By: Jeff Smith

Type: Graphic Novel, originally done as several individual issues which were later collected into larger volumes, currently available in both black-and-white and colour. The volumes were later collected into the tomelike "One-Volume Edition," which as of this writing is still black-and-white only. (Hardly a bad thing, the linework rocks)

Content Rating: G. A few moments of sword violence, but nothing beyond that to worry any parents or sensitive/cautious readers out there.

Plot: Fone Bone, one of a race of cartoony whiteish creatures known simply as bones, finds himself lost in a desert after he and his cousins Phoncible "Phoney" Bone and Smiley Bone are run out of their hometown, Boneville. Through mere wandering, the trio end up in a place known only as The Valley, inhabited by human beings still living in a swords-and-dragons fantasy era. Unbeknownst to any of them, their arrival there will be the catalyst that nearly causes The Valley's mythology's equivalent of Armageddon.

Personal thoughts: I admit I haven't read a lot of high fantasy beyond Tolkien and Lewis, but I think I can safely say the fantasy elements of Bone are actually pretty well-crafted. It's a good mix of what's already familiar (swords, lost kingdoms, dragons) and some original stuff (primarily the mythology within The Valley's cultures, which becomes quite important to the story). It also maintains a very careful balance between silly humor and "serious" action moments...neither overwhelms the other, instead they work together (mostly through character...a pair of unnamed Rat Creature scouts and Smiley Bone are examples of characters that are mainly used for comic relief, characters like The Locust and Captain Tarsil are examples of primarily "serious" characters, and ones like Gran'ma Ben, The Great Red Dragon, and Fone Bone himself meet in the middle, having both humorous and serious moments). I also like the contrast between the art styles granted to the Bones versus the rest of the valley inhabitants--the Bones are very simply drawn and cartoony (especially recalling the art style of the late Walt Kelly, best known for his comic strip Pogo) while everyone else is drawn more realistically enough to make a difference, to emphasize the Bones' "otherness." Despite the one-volume edition's telephone-book-like thickness, the story also felt just the right length to me...it neither dragged on nor cut off too soon, and ends on a satisfying note. Whether you're a fan of fantasy looking for something just a tiny bit fresher or just someone who enjoys comics (or heck, just someone who likes an entertaining multi-mood story), Bone's definitely worth a look, and the fact that it's available in smaller, seperate volumes in addition to the big tome makes it easier to "sample" or to buy in installments if you're frequently low on book money.

Holden Out.

Watchmen Review—Second Look

I know my review of Watchmen was many things, among them rambling, indecisive, faintly hypocritical (with regards to the objectivity), and exceedingly, exceedingly lengthy. I concede that it’s a tricky movie to review, and that I didn’t allow enough time for my thoughts to truly settle before writing it. This, therefore, is an attempt at two things: to sort of condense some of my points of the first review, without retreading things like the plot synopsis; and to sort of show how some opinions have changed slightly with a second viewing.

Yes, I felt I was ready to see it a second time, and did. And overall, I felt a little more warmly towards it this time around. Some of the changes I feel like I understood better, I was able to truly appreciate the efforts that were put into it a bit more, and by not having such a self-stated focus on “viewing it objectively,” I found myself suddenly actually able to do so. So, with that said:

- I partially rescind any of my earlier comments about the movie possibly being confusing to people who are entirely unfamiliar with the book. Parts of it definitely still will be, but many of them are details—I think a second viewing helped me see how Snyder fit the pieces together, and the results are more coherent than I first felt.

- I more readily accept some of the song choices, though a few of them, I feel, still don’t fit—“99 Red Balloons” fits from a content perspective but has the wrong feel, and the use of “Hallelujah” is still a bad choice.

- I still think the parts where additional violence was utilized—most particularly Rorschach’s “birth” scene and a brief moment in the prison scene—are gratuitous and unnecessary, and the changes could have been implemented in other ways.

- The Dan/Laurie Owlship sex scene is as poorly handled, laughable, and farcical as ever. Sorry Zack, you still fail here.

- I rescind my comments about some of Jack Haley’s lines as Rorschach coming off as “melodramatic.” I think I was more trying to get used to his voice. On the flipside, however, I did start to notice more that they made Nite Owl more melodramatic, but I’m okay with this in the context of the film.

- I felt a little more positive towards how Matthew Goode portrayed Adrian, but overall he’s still the weakest character in the film, and still a bit mischaracterized.

- Malin Ackerman(Laurie)’s lines actually felt a bit flat to me this time around, something I don’t think I noticed in my first viewing.

- The results that come from the new ending still don’t quite work, entirely, if you stop to think about it.

- Whoever they got to play Nixon still looks and sounds ridiculous, though I’m still not entirely sure if that wasn’t the intent (i.e. if it’s supposed to be more of a caricature of Nixon rather than a realistic representation).

All this said, I would like to revise my original score. My first review gave Watchmen a 3 out of 5 crickets. I would like to bump that up to a 4. There’s still a few too many issues with it to give it a shot at fivedom, but I think I was a bit quick to judge it as much as I did—I needed a second viewing, to watch it with my inner fanboy now calmed down. No matter what, though, I still recommend reading the book. I’m glad it’s getting the exposure that the film is now giving it. Every time I see another person on a bus reading it for what seems like the first time I smile.

Holden Out.

Sunday Comics: Water Baby

Sunday Comics is a weekly feature where I spotlight awesome comics that you may want to check out.

The Comic: Water Baby

By: Ross Campbell

Type: Graphic Novella (Like a graphic novel, but on the shorter side)

Content Rating: PG-13, for language, innuendo/sexual discussion, and some scenes of freaky shark-attack violence.

Plot: Water Baby focuses mainly on a few days in the lives of best friends Brody and Louisa, two surfer girls living in Florida. Brody’s surfing days are tragically cut short when a huge shark makes a snack out of one of her legs. Louisa takes it upon herself to help take care of Brody while she gets used to her nifty new prosthetic leg, which would be a lot easier if Brody’s jerk ex-boyfriend Jake hadn’t decided to visit right then (and if she didn’t keep having loads of freaky shark-related nightmares and hallucinations). Jake invites himself in and mooches off the girls’ hospitality for a few days before finally driving Brody nuts and leading to an impromptu road trip to drive him back to his home in New York.

Personal thoughts: Yeah, yeah, I did two Ross Campbell comics in a row. So what? If you’re a fan of Campbell’s ongoing series Wet Moon (covered in the last Sunday Comics) you’ll find a lot to like here…Brody and Louisa are sort of like what would happen if you roomed that series’ Trilby and Audrey together, and throwing Jake in is like adding a Slicer analogue to the mix (in fact, until I realized that Water Baby was produced after Wet Moon was well into its run, I thought Jake might have been some sort of design/personality predecessor for Slicer). There’s also a fair number of references back to Wet Moon, including an indirect mention of Natalie. (Brody herself made a cameo in Volume 3 as one of Fall’s friends.)
For those who aren’t as familiar with Ross’ other work, I’d recommend a volume or two of Wet Moon first…Water Baby seems to work best as sort of supplementary material to it even though it has only faint ties to it. I liked it for sure, but it’s not quite as good as that series. It’s not bad—it’s just a little lighter than I was expecting, especially after WM’s so far slow and sprawling plot. However, I think the few days, including the awkward road trip, were captured well and there even seems to be hints of “based on some real experiences” about them. Brody’s shark hallucinations are definitely meant to be symbolic, but, as seems to be usual with Ross and symbols, what they symbolize is open mostly to the reader’s interpretation. If you like that, great, if you don’t, you might see the segments as unnecessary or just odd. Either way, Water Baby’s worth a quick interested browse-through at the least, especially if you’re hooked on the adventures of Cleo and Co. already.



Holden Out.

Sunday Comics: Wet Moon

Sunday Comics is a weekly feature where I spotlight awesome comics that you may want to check out.

The comic: Wet Moon

By: Ross Campbell

Type: Ongoing Graphic Novel Series (At the time of this spotlighting, it's up to Volume 4, so this really only covers volumes 1-4)

Content Rating: R, for language, drug use, frequent (but usually tasteful) partial nudity, occasional violence, and occasional (creatively censored or otherwise alluded to) sex.

Plot: Follows the lives and times of Cleo Lovedrop (pictured above) and her friends, accquaintances, family, and rivals as they deal with their freshman year of college. Wet Moon's overarching plot is very extended and will be hard to truly see until the series completes, I feel--it deals more in chunks of loosely connected, character-driven subplots. However, there's definitely some weeeeiird stuff going down in Wet Moon (the fictional Southern US college town that acts as the series' namesake), and lots of unanswered questions that pop up to slowly be answered, and speculated on until then...how did Fall's father die? What's up with random occasional dream-sequence cameos of characters as zombielike creatures? Why does Fern venture into the swamps late at night? Who is the identity of the local vigilante called "unknown?" What's with the strange art projects Malady's been so focused on? And most recently and distressingly, what on earth is Myrtle's PROBLEM?

Personal thoughts: Wet Moon is essentially a soap opera in comics form: there's tons of characters, it's all very drama-driven, and it's highly addictive, though I like to think it's more well-written than your typical soap. It's certainly not for everyone; many might find the psuedo-goth aesthetic that blankets a lot of the environments and outfit design a bit silly (I personally think Ross does a very good job with it). I'm also a big fan of the art style--Mr. Campbell treads a good line between realism and cartoon, and the ink-wash shading is simple but highly effective. His knowledge of human anatomy is very clearly top-notch. I also love how immensely varied his characters are in personality, appearance, behavior...everything, really. They all feel very human. Cleo's hard to sympathize with at first because she still has a lot of growing up to do, but she shows signs of slowly maturing. Mara starts out as a very two-dimensional Angry-All-The-Time character, but has especially in the last two volumes been getting truckloads of development (Volume three is almost devoted to her specifically) that make her into a much more well-rounded personality. Trilby's boisterous, teasing nature have begun to crack a bit and show her vulnerabilities. And the list goes on. Do be warned that the character design is sort of transient in the first couple volumes, they don't seem to get "locked" until volume three. So if a character shows up looking noticably different before then, just roll with it. It took me a little while to get into it, but once I finally did (somewhere around my second reading of Volume 2), I was hooked.

Holden Out.

Tobacco will STOMP YOU FLAT.

Holden here, with a big bottle of Hate-orade for the No Stank You campaign.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for anti-drug campaigns...if they go about it the right way. Whether one smokes or not should still remain a choice, but it's good for the negative health effects to continue to be made known to the younger set so that when the choice is set upon them, they can at least make something resembling an informed decision.

Back in my day, we had the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program, which, granted, had its own set of problems here and there, but overall, I think it had the right idea. (I understand that a lot of places are beginning to phase it out now...hope they find some sort of replacement, especially considering today's post)

So what on Earth happened?

There's been a resurgence in anti-drug commercials the past couple years, perhaps in anticipation of DARE's phasing out. And for the most part, I haven't had any real beef with them. There's been the "(blank) is my Anti-drug" campaign and the "Above The Influence" anti-marijuana campaign. And then, just this year, came "No Stank You," a new Anti-Tobacco campaign that seems to prefer ditching the previous two's slightly drier approach to a more..."wacky" one. (I'm also told they're unique to the state of Washington, so if you haven't heard of these, well, that's apparently why) And at first, it was okay. Kinda...stupid, but fairly innocuous. The usual staples about tobacco's detrimental effects on tooth and lung health. The two most recent ones, however...augh, how did they get them approved? Here, I'll show you.

Exhibit A:
...annnd hmm. Well...I was going to show you a couple video clips for the best impact but it seems those aren't currently around the internet. Very curious.
Exhibit A anyway, then. One of the more recent commercials asks "whatcha gonna do when they hand you a smoke?" A kid in an alleyway then has an oversize arm dangled next to them, clutching some cigs. I can't say I agree with the advice that follows: "G-G-GO BLIZONKO!" The kid then begins to freak out to further musical repetitions of this questionable solution, culminating in, I kid you not, them taking a large bite out of the offering arm.
Somehow, DARE's approach of politely declining unless pressure is involved seems a lot more...I don't know...tactful? In deference to the consumption of human flesh out of a fiery spite? I know, I know. Kids aren't dumb. Very few if any of them are going to literally flip out and start gnawing them some forearm. But the fact that the suggestion is there, that it's been taken to the extreme of suggestions of actual violence...surely you'll agree that's a little disconcerting.

The other ad in question is a little less worrisome, but still raises an eyebrow of mine. It involves a giant cigar monster chasing and devouring some children, Dune worm style. No dialogue in this one, even. Just a cigar worm eating kids. Not even sure what to really say about that one. Granted, the majority of anti-drug commercials use at least some degree of exaggeration, but I think I can say that's...stretching it a bit.

Now, I recognize the risks of smoking (and for the record, I myself am a nonsmoker) but when an anti-drug campaign seems…not right, it’s usually due to one or both of two things: demonizing the drugs themselves above and beyond what is rational, or demonizing people who do them (as Starlight has stated before of this same subject: “smoking does not make you a bad person.”). And unfortunately one sort of leads to the other. While I understand why anti-drug advertisements focus on the negatives (and don’t have a problem with them doing so), I do think some part of drug informing should include some of the reasons why people do them in the first place. Not as an advertisement for them, no—but if only the negatives are learned, people fail to see why anyone would try any drug, and the rationale must still be figured out. So the simplest conclusion is reached—because they are bad people. Bad people that want to do bad things to themselves. It becomes cyclical.

I’m not making some sort of pro-drug advertisement. I’m not excusing or dismissing people who have honest drug problems. I’m not anti-anti-drug campaigns. But “going Blizonko” ain’t the answer. Go back to the drawing board, Washington…and come up with a say-n0-to-smoking ad that doesn’t involve cigar monsters or cannibals.

(EDIT: I've been informed by my closest companion that No Stank You has allegedly been around since at least 2007, it's not a new campaign. Apologies. I'd only heard of/noticed it this year.)


Holden Out.

Sunday Comics: Jimmy Corrigan

Sunday Comics is a weekly feature where I spotlight awesome comics that you may want to check out.

The comic: Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth

By: Chris Ware

Type: Graphic Novel

Content Rating: PG-13, for occasional violence, some language, some sparse nudity and (humorous) sexual content.

Plot: Imagine Charlie Brown as a 30-year-old man, and you'd get something pretty close to Jimmy Corrigan's character. He's a quiet, meek, boring man; paralyzingly shy and doormattish. He has no friends and his life is punctuated only by continuous phone calls from his clingy and worry-filled mother. The cycle is finally broken when Jimmy recieves a message from his father, whom he's never met, asking if he'd like to visit for Thanksgiving weekend. In a surprising move, Jimmy agrees, and steps out of his bubble to meet this “dad” person. A simple visit blooms into a poignant visual narrative on the negative effects of fathers both overly permissive and overly commanding as it explores four generations’ worth of Jimmy Corrigans.

Personal thoughts: Since I first discovered it, this has been a graphic novel very high on my list; a big personal favourite of mine. I don’t know if I can necessarily recommend it, however, as my like if it in my experience seems to be a rare thing. In fact, most of the people I know that have read it absolutely hated it, citing it as “moving too slowly,” “not having enough happen,” and Jimmy as being “a boring character.” I don’t know, I think Jimmy’s external boringness is offset by his vivid and highly symbolic imagination. This is a very dense book. You can’t read it once, long as it is, and have “gotten” everything. With each subsequent reading you pick up things you hadn’t noticed before. It’s also very picture-heavy, the words are limited to small scraps of narration and snatches of dialogue, most of which is not Jimmy’s. Jimmy himself is actually a very quiet character, relegated mostly to Ums, Uhs, and little bits of nervous laughter. There are symbols everywhere, something that from what I’ve noticed is true of a lot of Chris Ware’s work…he constructs his comics sort of like flowcharts sometimes. Some of these symbols will be fairly evident on the first time through (for example, red panel backgrounds when Jimmy is panicking or a leg injury he has that shows up very suddenly representing his being socially crippled), others are more obscure (birds representing the passage of time, peaches representing notions of family ties). Chances are also, fair warning, that if something really bizarre begins to happen, it's Jimmy's imagination at work. I also really like how Chris Ware’s art style works here—he has a very slick, smooth-lined “factory-produced” feel with bright colours being a rarity, most of the hues are subdued or washed-out, which perfectly captures Jimmy’s bleak world. It looks like something on a faded product package. In a good way, that is. Give it a shot if you have the time to commit to reading it. Whether you end up loving it or hating it (it seems to be very polarizing), it's still something doubtless different from a lot of things you'll read, even other comics. Since I got it, I've re-read it once each year.



Holden Out.

Cricket Movie Review: Watchmen

(A warning, before I begin: This is a fairly long entry.)

Watchmen.

A book that’s often considered one of the greatest graphic novels yet written. While I do refute that claim, it’s nonetheless a personal favourite of mine. Alan Moore was one of the first to really deconstruct the notion of a superhero and, in a way, make us sort of glad they don’t exist. It took a couple readings for it to grow on me, and sometime after that I found myself dressing up as Rorschach for a convention and sporting a blood-spattered comedian pin on a favourite old jacket decorated with other comics-related pins (which I refer to as, logically and affectionately, my “comics jacket”). So needless to say I was excited about the adaption, to see how it panned out.

It’s also long been considered an “unfilmable” book, and the history of its being made into a film has been a long and arduous one filled to bursting with problems. There’s been tons of various scripts by just as many tons of screenwriters and directors, with tons of different perspectives an adaptations. It’s something that’s boiled in development hell for years, and don’t even get me started on the legal disputes that embarked during the development of the version that’s finally made it into theaters that, for a time, looked like it might keep it out of them. So on one hand, I certainly recognize the challenges associated with the conversion. Think about it—think about audience alone, when you decide to make a movie based on a very dense and layered piece of writing that’s highly admired by until recently a fairly niche population. A movie will attract a wider range of people than a book potentially will, and all this has to be accounted for. In the audience there will be uberfans, casual fans, people vaguely familiar with the work on some level, people who aren’t aware there was a work the movie is based on, people who didn’t even like the work but hope the retelling redeems it for them somehow, and even more. How do you create something that will appeal to all these? That will contain enough winking inside references, charactorial correctness, and major plot detail inclusion to sate the fanboys/girls but present things in such a way as to not be confusing or exclusive to people that are less familiar?

March's Magnetic Poem

I forgot the monthly magnetic poem! Here's March's:

Night weather from above
can question man
as the rain tastes spring





Holden Out.

The Cardboard Tube Army Cometh

I made a lot of references to the Cardboard Tube Army in some of my older entries, but now that I at last bought up some fresh batteries for my camera, I can stop referencing them...because here they are! Or most of them anyway. There are about nineteen intact, there were 20-something but a number of them were lost to some water damage (some smears are evident even on some of the intact ones).

These are based on a silly/fun project British comicker Jamie Smart did in his own blog once--drew little faces on used toilet paper tubes and set them up on top of the tank, along with a little sign that said "we're watching you poo." For my own I've omitted the sign and rather than giving them all the same face as he did, I tried to make them all look very different. I even named them. Check it out:

From left to right, starting at the top: James, WideAwake, Simple, The Sclurrious Flurge, Nippon, Count Tilde, FrankenTube, Tube-Bot, Admiral Agent General Scarrson, Tikiman, Wyso Sirius, Nom Chompsky, Hotep, Randolph Wiffles, Zaan, A Walrus, Lindsey, Lisa, and Steve. Lisa had to be elevated a bit to be seen since Lindsey and Steve are paper towel tubes rather than TP tubes.

Soon, they will be lords of the restrooms.

Holden Out.

Sunday Comics: Penny & Aggie

Sunday Comics is a weekly feature where I spotlight awesome comics that you may want to check out.



The comic: Penny & Aggie

URL: http://www.pennyandaggie.com/

By: T. Campbell and Gisele Lagace

Type: Webcomic, updated MWF and published in volumes available at their online shop.

Content Rating: PG, for occasional (fairly tame) sexual content.

Plot: Essentially, Penny & Aggie is a well-written, character-driven high school dramady (dramady = drama + comedy). It centers primarily around the titular characters (as you might expect): Penny Levac, one of the "popular" girls; and Aggie D'amour, a sort of neo-hippie/proud oddball, as well as the friends, family, accquaintances, and antagonists of both. Initially, the pair were fairly two-dimensional and the comic focused on the antagonism between them, fueled by how opposite they were, but eventually their rivalry culminated in the (figurative) birth of Karen Duvall, arch-antagonist of the comic for the majority of its run now. With Karen threatening to dismantle both Penny and Aggie's social networks for her own evil attention-seeking glee, Penny and Aggie have now begun to be steadily less reluctant friends and have been rounding out their characters--Penny has well shown that she's not just another pink-loving fashion plate, and there's more to Aggie's weirdness than meets the eye. The comic draws from a large number of high schooler issues, from sex and relationships, popularity politics, parent-child relations, self-discovery, and more.

Personal thoughts: There's a lot to like here--I've enjoyed watching all the characters, even the minor ones, develop and round out as the comic's writing has gotten tighter--every character is a fully realized person. You can probably find analouges for most of them in your own life. The art style seems to be born of an interesting blend of old Archie comics and manga that I think works very nicely and looks distinct. It's easy for a high-school drama to become overdramatic, but P&A also thankfully avoids this--the drama and humor blend in just the right amounts so that it's neither overbearing nor self-mocking. Karen is also a well-realized villainess...ohhh, you want to see her to fall. You want to see her to fall so hard. It seems like we're allowing ourselves fewer "classic" villains these days--don't get me wrong, a villain with good intentions or lots of admirable qualities, when well-written, can be an amazing thing in a story, but it's used often enough now that someone like Karen, with very little to like, someone who just bathes in their evil and absolutely loves the power it gives them--is refreshing. I've no sympathy for her. As for Penny and Aggie themselves, no matter how much rounding out they do, you'll likely still inextricably find yourself drawn more to one or the other--I'm a bit more of an Aggie fan, personally. Go check it out. And as always, start from the beginning, otherwise you'll miss out on all the yummy character-building.







Holden Out.