Matt Demers dot com

mikelaughead:

Critical visual essay for my Graphic Novel Literature class. This was really fun to do and I really like that character.

There needs to be more comics theory work like this.

Why I love the Silver Snail in Toronto.

agentmlovestacos:

The brand new trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man, which hits theaters on July 3.

A couple thoughts:

The costume looks pretty damned bad, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over it. Too much blue, too much over-design, too much “Oh, the mask got removed so the actor can have more face-time.”
They still have that whole “trying to quip with a mask muffling your voice” problem that the Raimi films had, and it really hurts how these lines are delivered.
I like how they touch on Pete being a genius - or at least approaching one - but it’s not clear if that’s a “him” or the Spider powers.
This “untold story” thing makes me really nervous. I’m not sure why, but I just have a really bad feeling about them adding something to Spider-Man’s origin that’ll taint the whole thing.
I like Gwen’s interaction in this film, as she actually seems to have a point.
Dennis Leary is going to be the JK Simmons of these movies.

Probably will skip this when it comes out, but catch it on Netflix/DVD.

Brian Wood’s DMZ - An Appreciation

I review comics for a living. As a result, I tend to read a lot of books that, if given the choice, I would avoid completely. They are books that do nothing for me, and usually receive the harsh end of the review stick in my writing.

Not DMZ.

DMZ is a comic book that just finished this year, after a six-year, seventy-two issue run; it featured the hypothetical situation that a second American Civil War had turned the island of Manhattan into a no-man’s land.

While two armies were fighting over the land, there were still people living in the burnt-out husk of a city. These people had not made it out with the initial evacuation, stayed because they wanted to, or moved in with some hope that they could exploit the situation for personal gain.

People ran restaurant greenhouses and opened boutiques stocked with clothes stolen from racks in abandoned apartments. They defended their turf with violence and guns, learning that sometimes it was safer to depend on themselves. They still managed to be artistic, self-sufficient, and have culture.

Our hero, Matty Roth, wanted none of that. He just wanted to be a journalist. He would spend the next few years of his life reporting on the DMZ, learning the ways of its people and chasing that story. Along the way, however, he fell. He fell hard.

Matty was corrupted by the power he received from the one man he thought could help the DMZ, and eventually, it ruined him. He couldn’t turn back.

While reading this story, writer Brian Wood quickly became one of my favourites because of the way he managed to turn one-off characters into light bulbs that illuminated the whole picture of the DMZ.

Through reading about a DJ who dodges minefields on his way to a club, or a forty-something graffiti artist who only viewed his final work while being detained in a military helicopter, I understood the heart and spirit of the city. I understood the people who didn’t want to give up. I understood the people who just wanted to be free.

And frankly, that ability to make one-shot characters with no lasting impact on the main plot important amazed me. Matty Roth would never run across them in real life, apart from a faux “New York Times” published in issue twelve. This issue really stuck with me due to its construction, art style and purpose.

The issue is constructed like a real booklet that outlines maps, neighborhoods, interviews, talking heads and concepts. Learning “the anatomy of a street battle” or learning that people who ventured into the Empire State Building were never heard from again added character to the city without explicitly devoting too much time to the specifics.

Instead, when Wood comes back to them, issues later, a light goes on in our head that says “Man, I read about them back then and they sounded cool - this is 100 times better!”

That takes talent - the ability to plant a seed of an idea in a reader’s brain, have them forget about it, then have it bloom brilliantly later.

By the end of the story, I’m not just reading about the DJ, Random Fire, or the artist, Decade Later. I’m living with them. I’m sharing the same vegan restaurants, or dodging the bombs raining down from both sides.

I’m huddled in a subway tunnel with them with the vain hope that the fighting will stop, we’ll be able to go home, and everything will be alright in the DMZ.

It’s 2012, and we still have comics that look like this.

DC’s first round of New 52 cancellations don’t really surprise me

USA Today just announced that DC will be cancelling six titles after their eighth issue, which includes the following:

Men Of War
Mister Terrific
O.M.A.C.
Hawk And Dove
Blackhawks
Static Shock

This announcement doesn’t really surprise me, as most of these titles seemed destined for the chopping block due to poor sales and a lack of quality. I’ve only read three of the titles up there (Static, Mister Terrific, Blackhawks), so I can’t give full reviews, but here’s my thoughts.

Blackhawks

- This book had a very “GI Joe” feeling to it, which sadly included a lot of the throwaway characters without any solid development.
- Like many New 52 titles, we were thrown into action without a chance to actually care about the people we were reading. Here’s a protip: if the first issue of the book closes with a “stunning murder!” cliffhanger, you are doing something wrong.
- The Blackhawks are an act based on Nostalgia: if you’re picking up the book you’re either looking for something completely new (and running into the problems above), or you’re looking for any similarity to the badasses of old. Sadly, that isn’t present here, which leads me to think they could have just made a leap of faith and used them as new IP.
- They had no relevance to the DC Universe. There was never any feeling (unlike with Secret Warriors/Avengers over at Marvel) that their action had some permanence or significance. There’s a number of DC books feel like they could be in their own imprint, instead of part of the universe proper.

Mister Terrific

- This book is possibly my biggest disappointment out of the New 52 (well, maybe besides the Gail Simone-helmed Batgirl). It took an awesome character with defining traits and turned him into a Black Reed Richards, dullness and all.
- Michael Holt was never about super science, but subtle science. He was an atheist while standing beside gods, and stuck to his guns. Medical emergency? Guy was there. Computer virus? Memetic villain? This guy’s your man. Time travel, teleportation and space adventures? Not exactly his forte.
- I’m not saying that that kind of comic scientist isn’t great, but it’s shit we’ve seen before. Michael’s old incarnation wasn’t. He was unique, and DC smeared some vaseline on him, gave him Karen Starr as a fuck-buddy and murdered someone in the first two issues (see above).

Static Shock

- This is perhaps the only surprising entry to this list of cancellations: I was under the impression that this book was at least the same quality as the surviving Blue Beetle.
- Again, this book suffers from poor characterization and a rush to get to the action, leaving us to not care about the people we’re reading about. Static lost a lot of his “realness” as a teen hero, and a convoluted backstory (which is just being revealed now, four-five issues in) did not help him.
- He seems to be a know-it-all, well-funded super-genius, which, again, we have seen before. We didn’t see much interaction between Static and other teens except when he was in “stakeout” mode, and it just took away from the belief that he actually had a life when he wasn’t in the suit.
- The book was a terribly formulaic, poor attempt at replicating the “Spider-Man” success without any qualities for teen readers to identify with and latch onto. Villains would scheme, Vergil would show up, spout some science and zap them into submission.
- He would then go home and deal with his sister and her evil doppelgänger (which still hasn’t been explained and is still treated as a “normal thing”, five issues in), while the villains would scheme again. It was like Tim Burton’s Batman film: Batman ended up not being the main character at all.

A Growing Problem

It’s a pity that two books with African-American leads are cancelled at the same time, but the quality of the books were indicative of a growing problem. Terrific’s creative team changed issue-to-issue, and Static made no traction to actually getting the story under way.

It’s disappointing, because these were characters with a ton of potential. I enjoyed them in Teen Titans, the DCAU and Justice Society in the “old” DCU, and it pains me to see that the New 52 has chewed them up and spit them out.

Consistent quality is the most important factor in the opening months of a new book, as it establishes readers and gives a strong foundation to build off of. These books did not have that.

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Review: The Amazing Spider-Man Issue #677

The Amazing Spider-Man #677 (Mark Waid, Emma Rios)

The Good

For starters, I have to applaud Marvel in bringing Mark Waid over to write a few issues of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN while pulling double duty on DAREDEVIL. It’s fitting, because the latter teams up with Spidey in this issue for some hi-jinks.

But here’s the thing: Waid writes Spider-Man and Daredevil in having a kind of comraderie that I never thought them having before. In short, Spidey and Hornhead act like long-time bros in this issue, and it suits them immensely.

Hearing Daredevil saying that his swining routes have changed because of renovations to a building and a lack of “grip points” switched on a lightbulb in my head that made me think “Hey! They do travel using the same method. Why wouldn’t they talk about “traffic conditions” like any other commuter?

Spider-Man has a great personality in this issue, and it shows during certain exchanges with Black Cat; as a recently-dumped dude, his desperation shows, and the boiling over point where he tells Daredevil that he’s “Having a bad day, dammit!” really made me smile. We can tell this is one of the many bad days Peter has dealt with during his life, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better.

The Bad

The only thing I can say that I didn’t like about this issue is the art; I find that it was far too messy/gritty for the story it was telling, and at times Peter simply didn’t look like Peter. I know the brown-hair-and-lean build isn’t exactly unique, but there’s always been unique indicators that keep Pete, Pete.

In this issue there was some of those missing, which is a pity, considering the praiseworthy art that’s been present in DAREDEVIL and this title in the past.

The Verdict

Like I said above, this issue makes great use of characters, and has a witty use of technology to involve both Spider-Man and Daredevil’s powers. There’s a bit of misdirection with DD’s blindness that pays off in a big way, which left me grinning.

I think what’s most important to realize in this issue is that it harkens back to the old-school team-up, and it manages to refresh it nicely. No longer does Daredevil “just happen to be in the neighborhood”; Spider-Man finds him due to their past association, and characters from both stories intertwine. I loved seeing continuity between the two titles, and it only served to reinforce that these are some of Marvel’s best books right now.

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Pages: Matt’s favourite comics of 2011

Happy New Year, everyone! It’s gotten off to a great start for me, so I thought I’d throw together my favourite comics of 2011. This year had a bunch of ups and downs with a lot of crossover success in films; I can’t applaud all the “successes”, but I’m glad that the medium seems to be puttering along.

Let me know what you think of my list with a reblog, tweet or comment. Give me a follow, too! Cheers!

Daredevil (Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera)

Mark Waid taking over the book and reinventing Daredevil has got to be one of the best moves Marvel have made all year. The book is fresh, inviting, has amazing art and simplistic stories. After the clusterfuck that was Shadowland, this series was exactly what the character needed.

Marvel’s been doing great things with artists like Chris Samnee and Paolo Rivera, who have a very retro style. I’ve never liked Daredevil at all, and their art is partly what’s doing it for me.

Punisher (Greg Rucka, Marco Checchetto)

Another revived series, but a great one all the same. Greg Rucka knows how to write gritty stories, and that’s something that’s in this book in spades. Again, like Daredevil above, Punisher has managed to take a property that was veering into the weird and refresh the concept. Frank is brooding, stoic and going through hell; just the way he needs to be.

This series gave me one of my favourite individual issues of the year with its Thanksgiving story. The book lacks the wanton destruction of MAX, but still manages to tell great tales.

Huntress (Paul Levitz, Marcus To)

While not officially a New 52 title, Huntress was launched as part of that wave of new titles, and I can applaud its quality. Marcus To’s pencil work is amazing, and it captures the tone of the “Birds of Prey” Huntress that I liked so much.

There’s subtle things that make the book so much better than a lot of New 52 series; like Nightwing, the character seems more like an actual person, instead of a name, a pair of tights and powers. It’s a pity it’s only a mini series - emerging talent like To are have the potential for some great runs.

Nightwing (Kyle Higgins, Kevin McCarthy)

As one of the two books that’s really impressed me out of the New 52, Nightwing has great character work and pacing. A lot of my problems with the other books stem from the inability to get the story going, or terrible set-up otherwise.

Sometimes, in an effort to get people to read the book, the writer will throw too much action with little meat to the story. The inverse is true as well, where the characters are written bland (I’m looking at you, new Blue Beetle and Mister Terrific) and reading the series becomes tedious. Nightwing has managed to balance personal drama, action and genuinely likeable people in an effort to give Dick a good base to work off of.

I still maintain that Barbara Gordon has been written better in Nightwing than her own book.

Animal Man (Jeff Lemire, Travel Foreman)

This book has been a surprise in that I didn’t think I would like it. Buddy Baker has impressed me in his ability to carry himself as a hero, and I applaud Jeff Lemire for not making his daughter a Layla Miller-esque know it all. While presumptuous youths aren’t an automatic death-knell for books, they tend to undermine the hero’s actions by throwing second-guesses most often than they should.

But, like I said, this book is great. It has a tendency to have at least one panel/page an issue that drops my jaw and leaves me with a smile on my face.

DMZ (Brian Wood, Riccardo Burchelli)

DMZ finished last week, and I can say it gave me one of the most satisfying ends to a book I’ve ever read. I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a little bit of a Brian Wood fanboy, but so much of this book just spoke to me as a person. As a journalist, I identified with a lot of the problems and issues Matty Roth ran across, and his character arc made me think about the type of man I want to grow up to be.

The character work in this book is some of the best I’ve ever read; the degree to which some characters were fleshed out in only one issue was absurd, and I found myself fascinated that I could care that much about someone I’d never read about again. If you haven’t read this book, do yourself a favour and pick it up.

PSA: The method to my reviewing madness

[This was originally posted on my ComicVine blog in response to a growing number of comments I’ve received saying that I should be grading books higher based on… nothing really at all. I thought I would write a response.]

Every week, I write four to five comic book reviews for ComicVine as a freelancer. I’ve been working with them since May of 2010, and have enjoyed my time here immensely so far; the quests are fun and it gives me a platform to write about a medium I love.

Since CV requires me to quantify my reviews in a star rating, there seems to be an increasing number of people who take issue with them. While I’d like to say that every review gets at least one comment questioning a score, that wouldn’t be true: four to five-star reviews remain relative feedback ghost towns.

So instead of responding to each comment as they come, I’ve decided to head them off at the pass and post a blog on how I come to my score decisions.

I’d like to preface this by saying that I try to be as honest as possible, and that a book with a large amount of hype is not immune from bad scores. As always, reviews are supposed to be subjective, and the fact that I didn’t like a book doesn’t mean you will, as well.

In short, there’s really no reason to post angry comments saying “this score should be higher” because, really, it shouldn’t. I’m confident in what I gave the book, and stand by it.