Sunday Comics (With Special Host Munchor!): Sam & Max

init.commandseq_run

IF keyboard= y AND monitor= y THEN goto "SundayComics"

_run

Loading...
Loading...

HELLO, EYE-HAVERS. TODAY MUNCHOR THE AMAZING ROBOT HAS BEEN ALLOWED TO RUN THE "SUNDAY COMICS" POST IN LIEU OF HIS SQUISHY HU-MAN OWNER AS AN EXPERIMENT, SINCE HE IS CURRENTLY GONE ELSEWHERE. MUNCHOR IS HONORED BUT WISHES HE HAD BREAKABLE YET FLEXIBLE HU-MAN FINGERS. IT IS HARD TO TYPE WITH FEARSOME GRABBING CLAWS. WEEP FOR MUNCHOR, WHO IS INEFFICIENT WITH KEYBOARDS!

MUCHOR FOUND THIS VOLUME OF SEQUENTIAL PICTURES AND TEXT TO BE ESPECIALLY DELICIOUS. MUNCHOR REALIZES HE HAS NO TASTEBUDS. BEAR WITH MUNCHOR.

...
PERHAPS YOU WOULD PREFER MUNCHOR CONTINUING IN A MORE FAMILIAR VOICE.
_run "HoldenVoice.exe"
_run "SundayComics_StandardFormat.exe"
Loading...

A Tiny Graphic Novel Victory

There's usually an issue of Entertainment Weekly lying around the house, and occasionally, if the cover grabs me, I'll thumb through it, because it can be, for lack of a better descriptor, entertaining; and I do like to keep at least sort of abreast of the goings-on of modern pop culture. This week's (I think it's this week's, I didn't look at the date) proclaimed it was a double-sized issue regarding "The 100 Greatest Characters Of The Last 20 Years!"

Well, I had to take a peek at that. Characters, no matter what medium, are very important to me because it is so frequently characters that truly drive a story and interesting characters that have such a large hand in shaping the pop culture landscape of their times. It was a fun read and I was pleased to see that the characters they selected did indeed span from all points in those 20 years, and that they plucked from a wide variety of entertainment media: characters from movies and TV series, yes, but also from books and even a couple plays...and one surprise entry from a graphic novel that made me grin in absolute delight.

Jimmy Corrigan was their number 62. The number, to me, isn't even important. It's that something like Jimmy Corrigan even made it onto that list, no less as the only purely comic-book entry (Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark and Heath Ledger's Joker also made it on there, but the entries were for the movies rather than the books. Understandable). Jimmy Corrigan is one of my favourite graphic novels ever. If I were to make a list of all the ones I've read and rank them, it would consistently be in the top 3, and I still don't think the Sunday Comics entry of it I did a while back does it true justice. I know hardly anyone who's read it and even fewer people who liked it. Yet there it is, nestled in the pages of a major national entertainment magazine, being hailed as containing one of the greatest characters of the 90s and 00s. They even describe the titular Jimmy as I often have when trying to explain the character to people...that he's sort of like a late-30s Charlie Brown.

Congratulations, Chris Ware, on having your artful novel recognized for something like this!

[Holden Out.]

PS. Also, there will not be a Sunday Comics entry tomorrow, or possibly even the following Sunday. I will be unavoidably distracted.

Skull Hat! SKULL HAT!

I was hesitant to post this intially, because really, I don't much care for "HEY GUYS LOOK WHAT I FOUND" posts. But this lil' guy was so cute that I just couldn't resist.

Above: The warm, fleecy embrace of the cutest death ever descending upon my noggin.

For a little background, I love skull stuff. It's not meant to be a macabre fascination, it's not me trying to be somehow edgy or gothy or whatever you want to claim, I just like skulls. They're neat-looking and structurally fascinating. I have a skull shirt that's among my favourites, I sleep in skull pajama pants...and now I have a skull hat.

I picked up this little cutie at Seattle's historic Pike Place Market a couple days back...they're made by a local crafty gal (Lynn Rosskamp) out of recycled/repurposed fleece, which is awesome, and she has hojillions of designs, all equally adorable--pandas, monsters, unicorns, cats, cows, zombies, pirates, orcas, elephants...the spectrum is wide. If you're ever in the area, pick one up, or at least stop by the booth. Lynn's company, PingiHats, currently has a website but no shopping cart functionality...yet. They're working on it. In the meantime, this little guy will definitely be warming my head come wintertime.

I think I will call him Yorick.

[Holden Out.]

There's gonna be some changes round here! (Plus: ICBIC Week!)

So you may have noticed my blog is looking a little...different. That's right, you squiggly nutters, I'm in the middle of an overhaul. I'm power-mad cruising down the information autobahn like Mad Max and I like it. Lost track of what I was saying. Changes. Yes.
So in addition the layout, you'll notice the title has changed. Again. Hopefully permanently this time. OverReactor is now Hungry Robot. Why the name change? Well, several reasons. I never really liked "OverReactor" much, and its connotations are still sort of a product of a bygone time when I thought this would mostly be an opinion blog. Plus it's self-depricating, which isn't always a bad thing but I didn't like it for the title of something.
"Hungry Robot," on the other hand, takes its name and shiny new mascot (woo, I have a mascot now I guess!) from a failed art experiment of mine--an attempt on a college campus to get a multi-student comics compilation effort going (much in the manner of Fat Chunk or Void Pulpo). It seems that will not see the day, so Hungry Robot can live on instead as the name of a blog.
I'm making genuine effort to really learn the tools this blogware has for me, so expect continued changes as I muck with formats, retrofit old entries, switch around the names of categories/tags and try, generally, to make this place look a bit prettier and more professional. The design now is happy and fresh but still a bit plain...it can be worked. I do appreciate the extra column width though.
Also, I'm intending to do more articles. A lot more. It's not just Sunday Comics anymore, if I can help it. I really want this to be a thing that I do. Just for fun, but a thing that I do nonetheless. It may take a while before these new articles start to pop up, since I'm mostly brainstorming about what directions to take this place in at the moment. I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I'm sure I will.

Also, I'm considering deleting the anemic, crumbling "Hundred Faces" blog. It was a fun idea for an experiment but has lain untouched for a year now. FoodPeople will remain, and eventually probably get a facelift of its own.

More after the jump. (Yep, I'm using jumps now, like a real blogger! Teehee!)

Sunday Comics: Kaput & Zosky

The Comic: Kaput & Zosky

By: Lewis Trondheim (translated from its original French by Edward Gauvin)

Type: Bound collection of several brief (six-page) "episodes," with a few one-pagers thrown in for good measure

Content Rating: G, teetering on PG at times but it's still pretty tame (this might be the first book I've ever spotlighted here that is actually meant for children). Lots of laser gun blasts but any injury or "death" is very cartoony, a bit of body humor here or there.

Plot: The episodes vary, of course, but the general overall plot is pretty much the same for most of them--Kaput and Zosky, a pair of alien buddies who fancy themselves great and feared conquerors, will attempt to invade a planet and subjugate the locals. In some way or another this will go all wrong. (Examples: In one story, they find a race that actually WANTS to be conquered and oppressed, and they leave in disgust, as they would have no satisfaction in such an easy victory. In another, they find a populus who are so obsessed with games and contests that they'll only even say so much as "hi" after engaging in one, and the pair decide taking it over won't be worth the trouble and time.) The characters themselves also have a classic Laurel-and-Hardy-ish chemistry that works to good effect, having them bounce off each other in their conversations--Kaput is short, impulsive, and the more violent and angry of the two, while the taller Zosky tends to be a bit more reflective, strategic and collected. The "regular" comics are broken up at regular points by a simple, wordless one-pager called "The Cosmonaut," about the continuing adventures of a little spaceman figure.

Personal Thoughts: I make a lot of noise about "comics as art" and I still believe sincerely in that potential, but you can't forget where comics came from when you're doing that. Sometimes you just want to sit down with a simple but fun brightly-coloured entertainment comic, and Kaput & Zosky delivers that just fine. I ran across this originally via my comics-loving little cousin, who had checked it out of his local library. Hey Max--I dunno if you'll ever read this, but thanks for letting me flip through your copy!



Holden Out.

Cricket Movie Review: Iron Man 2

DAA DAAAA DADADA, DUDDLE DUDDLE LUDDA LA DA DA DAAA~
(That, um, that was me humming/singing "Iron Man." In text.)

So, so far for 2010, there are only two movies I was really excited about. This is one of them. (The other is Sands of Time, which I know probably won't be anything special given video game movies' track record, but dangit I loved that game and I need to see how the silver-screen version compares. Ahem. Anyway. Moving on.)

I'll come out and say it straight away: In my opinion, Iron Man 2 is not as good as the first film.

However, it's still certainly not bad. I've seen worse sequels, and IM2 is entertaining in its own right--worth seeing once, doubly so if you were a fan of the first film, but it still lacks a lot of the magic of its predecessor. Iron Man himself has, in spite of my love of comics, never really been a character I knew much about (and what knowledge I do have of him mostly comes from research I did prior to the first film), so that also makes this movie series in particular more "new" to me, which is exciting.

A large part of the film is driven by an underlying subplot--Tony is dying. It turns out he never really considered the consequences of having an arc reactor in his body long-term, and the palladium batteries it runs on are poisoning him due to constant exposure. He's been researching possibilities for an alternate power source, but seems to keep hitting dead ends, and is coping with the possibility that he could die very soon. Meanwhile, his company's still in a bit of a dive, the public is divided as to whether Iron Man is awesome or dangerous, and the US Government is demanding Tony hand over the suit for military application rather than private use. Meanwhile, far off in Siberia, a man with some interesting connections to the Stark family is watching Tony's fame grow...and he's not happy. Not at all.

For this little overview, I'd actually like to start with the negatives, then move on to the positives so we can hit this on a high note. Ready, annnd go.

Sunday Comics: I Never Liked You

The Comic: I Never Liked You: A Comic-Strip Narrative

By: Chester Brown

Type: Though called a "Comic-Strip Narrative" in its subtitle, I'd classify this one more as a long comics-form short story.

Content Rating: PG-13, for continual language and a brief, somewhat random moment of nudity.

Plot: Follows the author through a period in high school involving his relationship with two female friends. One has an obvious crush on him that only grows over time (to the point of, eventually, being slightly scary), which he does not return, but neither does he push away her advances. Conversely, he himself has quite a crush on the other girl, but cannot bring himself to express those feelings towards her and indeed seems to have no intention of doing so, at least not in any sort of direct way. As a subplot, it also follows Chester's dealings with his mother--she has a truckload of personal issues, and he, in return, finds it somehow impossible to tell her he loves her, which brings her great worry.

Personal Thoughts: I Never Liked You isn't trying to do anything fancy--in fact, in many ways, it's very prettily minimalistic. The art style is very open, done in simple, thin lines, and Chester himself is relatable to pretty much anyone that went through any sort of quiet, brooding, awkward adolescent phase. The writing is very blunt and honest-feeling--in his narration, nothing mean is apologized for and nothing sweet is saccharined, it's simply...told. (This is a good thing in this book's case.) It's also sort of an anti-coming-of-age story, in a way that's difficult to describe without plot spoilers. If you're looking for a quick and simple read studying unrequited love from a couple different angles, I Never Liked You does this with poignant efficiency. It is an illustration of a young man simultaneously trapped and bemused by just how little he's able to make himself say to those that most need to hear something from him.

Holden Out.

Sunday Comics: The Joker Special

Yeah, yeah, yeah, two weeks since the last Sunday Comics. But, I'm back. And it's Sunday. And...comics. And another "special" article as a break from the pattern.

Many of you have noticed I don't usually cover too much Marvel/DC here--not a whole lot of superhero stuff. So today, I'll honor a bit of that with a covering of three DC graphic novels, two of which are focused prominently on their most mutable and arguably most enduring villain--The Joker. (And the third still has him as a prominent player.)

I picked up all three of these in a relatively small window of time, and was fascinated particularly at how Joker himself was portrayed--he's very, very different in each one, yet still quite himself, if that makes sense. They're more like different interpretations of the character. (The vastly differing art styles for each also helps.) So! Here's how today is going to work: a condensed plot synopsis, and then an additional section for talking about Joker within that book's context.

Hang on, despite my best efforts this could still be a long one. That said, let's begin.

Oh, and to cover my usual "content rating" portion under one sentence, I'd say all of these would garner an R. This is not the wacky Adam West TV Joker, these are all turns at the scarier, more serious Joker. He's crazy, he's frightening, people are killed, et cetera.