Posts tagged animal man
Read/Review: “Lost Dogs” by Jeff Lemire
The first Jeff Lemire comic I read was Essex County, his huge (and I mean huge) tribute to rural Canadian life. As a guy who grew up on the cusp of the community that Essex portrayed, I felt a little bit of attachment to it; in the long haul, it’s one of my favourite graphic novels to read start-to-finish,and I can definitely recommend it as essential Canadian lit.
Lemire’s style isn’t one I thought I’d end up liking, but now I have an appreciation for how much emotion he can pack into panels that are the opposite of sharp, clean lines. Below is my review for his earlier title, Lost Dogs, which I had a chance to pick up at TCAF 2012. Click the read more link to see it.
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I picked up the new issue of Animal Man, the series that I’m enjoying the most from DC right now. I’ve found this to be the first issue to really disappoint me, though. While I think Jeff Lemire is a tremendous writer and plotter (loving Sweet Tooth!) normally, I don’t think the plotting in Animal Man has been particularly remarkable. From what he’s said, he’s mostly building on the mythos that past writers have established—and that’s fine. For the most part, he’s reintroducing concepts and getting out of the way so that Travel Foreman can visualize them and scare the readers into enjoyment. I don’t want to downplay the excellent dialogue that’s got us to love the interplay between the family members—that’s good too. The series has largely been working for me, and judging by reactions I’ve been reading online, it’s been working for others too. Unfortunately, I don’t think this issue really added any momentum to the series—I’m three dollars poorer, but I’ve not been given anything new by the creative team.
Lemire reminds us that Animal Man needs to save his family, like we’ve been getting each issue. Animal Man saves his family, Messiah daughter uses her powers to display great power again. I’ve finished one chase issue only to receive another chase issue. And the plot of this issue? Almost entirely forgettable to me. Psychobabble and technobabble don’t work for me, and the necrobabble in Animal Man is no exception. For the fifth month in a row, mystic forces remind us that the bad guy[s] can travel in dead flesh, etc. etc. etc. All this culminates in the the cliffhanger, which is the promise of a crossover. Brilliant.
Travel Foreman delivers another solid issue, but failed to live up to the standards that he had set for himself. His work looks great, but nothing was so shocking or gruesome as issues that had come before. It’s possible that I’m expecting too much, but only because I’ve been so satisfied with his work in the prior four issues.
A big disappointment this Wednesday, but not as big as today’s Uncanny X-Force was. I did like some books this week, though. I promise!
This was a big issue I had with this month’s Static Shock (2 star review by me on ComicVine). We’ve had five months to move past the initial phases of a book, where the writers need to hook you into the story with (hopefully) good characters and premise - some books just haven’t even approached that point. The setup for some titles is woefully long, and I’m losing patience for a lot of the New 52.
I mean, look at Mark Waid’s Daredevil or Greg Rucka’s Punisher; they’ve both been around for seven issues and have done legions more in terms of plot and character building than books like Batgirl, Static, Blue Beetle and Frankenstein: Agents of S.H.A.D.E. Each of those books just seems content to drag along with not much actually happening in their pages.
I’m hoping Animal Man isn’t going to join them.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxavndkkUL1qclhovo1_500.jpg)
I picked up the new issue of Animal Man, the series that I’m enjoying the most from DC right now. I’ve found this to be the first issue to really disappoint me, though. While I think Jeff Lemire is a tremendous writer and plotter (loving Sweet Tooth!) normally, I don’t think the plotting in Animal Man has been particularly remarkable. From what he’s said, he’s mostly building on the mythos that past writers have established—and that’s fine. For the most part, he’s reintroducing concepts and getting out of the way so that Travel Foreman can visualize them and scare the readers into enjoyment. I don’t want to downplay the excellent dialogue that’s got us to love the interplay between the family members—that’s good too. The series has largely been working for me, and judging by reactions I’ve been reading online, it’s been working for others too. Unfortunately, I don’t think this issue really added any momentum to the series—I’m three dollars poorer, but I’ve not been given anything new by the creative team.
Lemire reminds us that Animal Man needs to save his family, like we’ve been getting each issue. Animal Man saves his family, Messiah daughter uses her powers to display great power again. I’ve finished one chase issue only to receive another chase issue. And the plot of this issue? Almost entirely forgettable to me. Psychobabble and technobabble don’t work for me, and the necrobabble in Animal Man is no exception. For the fifth month in a row, mystic forces remind us that the bad guy[s] can travel in dead flesh, etc. etc. etc. All this culminates in the the cliffhanger, which is the promise of a crossover. Brilliant.
Travel Foreman delivers another solid issue, but failed to live up to the standards that he had set for himself. His work looks great, but nothing was so shocking or gruesome as issues that had come before. It’s possible that I’m expecting too much, but only because I’ve been so satisfied with his work in the prior four issues.
A big disappointment this Wednesday, but not as big as today’s Uncanny X-Force was. I did like some books this week, though. I promise!
This was a big issue I had with this month’s Static Shock (2 star review by me on ComicVine). We’ve had five months to move past the initial phases of a book, where the writers need to hook you into the story with (hopefully) good characters and premise - some books just haven’t even approached that point. The setup for some titles is woefully long, and I’m losing patience for a lot of the New 52.
I mean, look at Mark Waid’s Daredevil or Greg Rucka’s Punisher; they’ve both been around for seven issues and have done legions more in terms of plot and character building than books like Batgirl, Static, Blue Beetle and Frankenstein: Agents of S.H.A.D.E. Each of those books just seems content to drag along with not much actually happening in their pages.
I’m hoping Animal Man isn’t going to join them.
(via allthegreatnamesaretaken)
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.
