The Factual Opinion

The Wife: Normally Likes Bad Puns, So Ya'll Must Have Really Screwed The Pooch

Supurbia #1
By Russell Dauterman, Gabriel Cassata & Grace Randolph
Published by Boom Comics

SUPURBIA: Yes. That's the words "Super" and "Suburbia" mixed together like Brangelina or....well that's the only one I can think of right now. I'm sure there's a million others.

Anyhow - the name says it all, in more ways then one. This is, at least for this issue, about some superheroes who are part of some team called the Meta Legion and who also live on the same street, in the same suburb.

Why wouldn't they, I suppose? It makes sense. Living amongst "like minded" or rather "like super-powered" people would make you feel comfortable, right?  

Oy....I don't really know how to write about this comic. Seriously. I guess it's a cute idea? When I was explaining the premise to my friend he said, "so, it's like The Unit, but with superheroes?" And, the answer is yes. That's basically it. 

In this issue, every couple of pages we're introduced to a different couple, their particular dynamic, who they are and what their powers are, and how they fit into the Meta Legion. I suppose I could type it all out, explaining to you who's who and what's what - but that's already been done. It's been done in the comic book. That's where you can find all of that info. And since I already spoiled the part about it being in a suburb, there's not much else in the comic to get into besides the specifics of the character relationships, so...there's that.

Here's something. The very first vignette shows this huge, powerful guy - he's got massive strength, can read minds, perhaps he's even faster than a speeding bullet - and he leaves his pretty blonde girlfriend at home as he goes off to work. And it made me think of some issue (or issues?) of some version of Superman a few years ago. Forgive me, as you know I don't really keep up. But I do remember someone showing this comic to me (and perhaps I even read it), and that it chose to explore the question "what would it really be like to be in a love relationship with Superman?" Can he hug you? Or do you put yourself at risk of death with every embrace? Does he ever have the time or space in his head to just focus on the woman in his life, or will she always be second, third, fourth, or fifth place? It's interesting to realistically explore unrealistic situations, and I find that sort of exploration to be the basis for some of the best comics that I've read. I'm not sure if it's good for the basis of a story, but it seems like it would be a good subplot, a good bit of flavor to go with all the regular stuff they do in these things. Again, not that I'm an expert, but at this point, I guess I've read a good amount of comic books.

Maybe this could be a fun, comic-book version of Desperate Housewives? I don't think so. This is the first issue and it was a whole bunch of set-up, and as it went on, it seems like it's mainly going to be about this Meta Legion and, for now, the cliff hanger is that the "First Lady" (the chick who's married to the guy who seems to be the leader of the Meta Legion, and who happens to be dying) is a double agent or shape shifter or alien or just not who she seems to be.

It's a cliff hanger, I don't know if it's a good one, but it is a cliff hanger. Some of the characters are interesting. But to me it just feels tiresome. It feels silly to have created a whole new set of super heroes and relationships to explore this particular storyline. Is that a weird thing to say? I don't know - do we need more super heroes? I have a hard time with these kinds of off brand super-heroes. They always feel like runner-up stories. I'm not sure why that is, but it just seems like a waste of time. This comic didn't make me angry, or sad. It just made me feel tired and sad. There's so much better places to be than this.

-Nina Stone, 2012

My Wife: Finally Got Her Mitts On The King

So.....apparently it's slim pickings at the Comic Book Store this week?

Wait - that doesn't look anything like the comic book store!

Anyhow.....what I've got here is this comic book from 1983, called Galactus, The Origin. Here's the cover:

True that. The title, I mean. This is an origin story indeed. This is a comic that not only covers some back story, it spans "millenia" to do so. Pretty intense, if you ask me.

I'm gonna be completely honest with my reactions to this book here. First things first, it's printed on the old newsprint pages....and I just hate those. I'm sorry that I do. But seriously? I HATE them. The reasons are all tied up in childhood memories and doctors' offices and silly putty, various things that I barely understand myself, and couldn't explain if I was under orders. I just despise the way they look and I hate the way they feel. It's like looking at an old faded decal-iron-on tshirt. I find the coloring on newsprint unappealing...but more than anything, it's that texture the pages have. Uch. No, not "ugh". Uch! Ucccchhhhhh. Something about the texture rubs me the absolute wrong way.

How far does the hate go?

I don't touch the pages while I read them. I lay it down on a desk and only touch it to turn the pages. See? I know how weird that sounds. I'm only writing it here becuase I was told that was just too unusual to keep to myself. "You gotta write that down, that's fucking weird", were the exact words.

So yes, obviously, this was kind of a miserable experience for me, one that I just tried to get through as fast as I could. I didn't really pause to take in the art, because, you know, I just don't like the way it looks on this kind of page. And, unfortunately, that means that I finally got a chance to read a Kirby comic for the first time and I barely looked at the art. I'm ashamed to say it, but it's true. I'll look at his art in a collected edition or something and get back to you on that. Just know now that this was not an "oooooh, look at Kirby's art!" experience for me.

So ANYHOW, I suffered through it. For you? Sure, let's go with that. I went through this for you. So, speaking of old, color-bleeding, news print-y pages.....on the very first page of the book there's a frame of Galactus, above his name in giant red letters (the Title, of course), and he's, like, inside a ship that I guess is supposed to be transparent-ish glass. So, he's kind of blurry. Well, something about the way the colors have bled, or faded perhaps, makes Galactus look like a giant bear in a blue suit. Like an Ameri-Bear or something (don't look that up - I just made it up). Red head, red boots, blue suit, red paws. (Seriously - you can barely make out the hands). And so, of course I was like, "SWEET!!!  Galactus is a BEAR in a space suit!!!" 

He's totally not a bear in a space suit. How disappointing. Wouldn't that be an awesome comic? Like Teddy Ruxpin as super hero in outer space? Perhaps I'll just have to write a song about that guy.

So yeah. First disappointment - no bear! But then I start reading and the story is fun. It's really clever, this Taa world. I love the "thought-spheres" that are flying around. That idea, alone, made for a whole slew of really cool drawings. Taa sounds like a great place, and is spoken of with such love and passion that one, such as I, does get a little invested. So, there I am, kinda hooked. And everything is going fine. But now and then...as I'm reading what turns out to be a long, long, long narration (although, at least a lot of the action in this book IS drawn) I get "taken out" by a few things:

1. Exclamation Points
I'm a girl who likes to read with, uh, feeling. Yeah...when I was in the 2nd grade they thought I was a slow reader (a.k.a. unable to read, that's what "slow" means at that age) and so I was put into the special group that worked on the Phonics worksheets. But I aced 'em all and a year later was in the Gifted Program, so....way to go public school! But I digress. The reason for my slow reading is...I read with feeling. I express myself inside my head. It's true! My brain is like an opera! All the words get a part. Sometimes they get each other pregnant! So, as I'm reading this comic I started to notice how my heart is racing a little bit and I'm feeling a little stressed. And the reason is because every single sentence ends with an exclamation point! So, in my head, my voice is getting higher and higher pitched! Louder and louder! To maintain and accelerate the level of EXCITEMENT!!!  

I mean, dear Lord....I need a spa day just from typing those last 4 lines. It's too much! It is too much.

And so, I started losing my interest in the story because suddenly I'm obsessed with the story's punctuation. But somewhere along the line, they must have used a period or two, or possibly a question mark, because I started to calm down. And then suddenly, I'm taken out again. By this:

2. ILLOLL
ILLOLL is a name in the story. And you must type it in all caps otherwise it looks like this: Illoll. Yeah - what?!?!?  I'd read ahead and then just go back and look at the name and say it out loud. Say it with me: ILLOLL. Why is it so attractive to me... and then I realize that inside that lovely little name is the internet's favorite acronym, LOL. And now, I'm trying to read ahead, but all I can think of is possible words to put to the name/acronym ILLOLL:

I Love Laughing Out Loud, Loudy
I Laughed Loudly Out Loud Loudly
I, Like, Laughed Out Loud, LOL
Insane Laughter Laughed Out Loud Loudly
I Love Lucy or Loretta Lynn?

See what happened? You know you want to come up with a few of your own. Don't lie to me. I can see your face, liar. Don't LIE

So again, that died out.....and then the last thing that kinda took me away again were story related....is Taa II a spaceship or a planet? Wasn't the original Taa a planet? And wha....Glactus has to eat people to have energy? Are you trying to tell me that he destroys so that he can have the power to create? Ease up, bucko..  

I guess that's about it. I mean, except that I neglected to mention how much I loved seeing an ad for Bubble Yum.

I apologize for nothing.

-Nina Stone, 2012

My Wife: To The Extreme, Glory Like A Vandal

Glory #23
Art by Ross Campbell
Written by Joe Keatinge & Ross Campbell
Published by Image Comics

It's interesting to read a comic about a character and a story line that I've never heard anything about before, even more so when it's an interesting idea. In Glory, I read about Gloriana, a 500 year old warrior Goddess from another "realm", the child whose birth brought peace to a warring and divided planet by virtue of the union of the two that brought her into being. She's been trained for 500 years to do battle, but there is no battle for her where she is...so, she goes to earth to help during WWII. 

Pretty good so far, right? That, alone, is fodder enough for one issue, don't you think? Even a couple of issues. A series of frames showing the former war, hopping around the fighting....maybe an issue dedicated to Glory's training. How about a series of vignettes of what she went through during World War II? As much as an interesting storyline that this is, my desire for an elaboration of it is pure wishful thinking. The above paragraph is a minor part of the overall story arc of this issue, and it's almost completely described in narration. Instead of an action comic book, it's a collection of panels where somebody talks about the awesome stuff they had done in previous panels that, unfortunately, there just isn't room to show right now. It sort of feels like I showed up at a party, on time, and there's only one person there and he just keeps telling me about all the crazy, awesome stuff that these really interesting and sexy people were doing right before I got there, but unfortunately they just left and they took all the food with them. But don't worry, he says! There's plenty of talking to come!

Parallel to the story of Glory, this issue tells the story of a young woman named Riley Barnes. As a little girl, Riley has had "dreams" of Glory. I used the quote marks because Riley's dreams told a continuing story from night to night until looping back to the beginning, repeating the same narrative over and over again. It's an interesting sounding idea, although I'll admit I think I might want to kill myself, or at the very least never go to sleep, if I had the same sequence of dreams over and over again.

Somewhere around this point in the comic is where I started to get confused. I initially thought that Glory lived in her mind as a special dream, and that Glory's time on Earth was only known to Glory and the people who had come into contact with her. But her friend saying "Isn't she dead, Riley?", made me have to rethink the whole thing, adn eventually I figured out that Glory was a well-known superhero on Earth while Riley dreamt about her, and that all of these things were occurring at different times.

Anyhoo, this isn't the crux of the issue yet. Essentially, Riley goes on a little expedition to France because she feels pulled there on her search for Glory. When she gets to the small town, she finds out that the waitress at the bar knows exactly who Riley is, and brings her to see Glory - who is totally laid-up, comatose and bandaged, in bed.

I should own up to something: I've skipped a lot in trying to make a point. And what's that, you ask? This is a story that has a lot of potential...but waaaaaaaaay to much is squeezed into one issue. I get that the writer is just trying to get on with the story that he wants to tell...but there's a whole lot of backstory jammed into one comic book to get to that story, and there's a limit to how much of this sort of exposition I'm willing to tolerate. The math just doesn't work out here: it's pages of telling me about the cool stuff I missed, the reasons that big decisions are made (at one point, Glory says that she's "lived", "loved" and "fought" with humankind and now she's going to "be one of them"--I would have really liked to see some, any, of that stuff), and then it ends with what's supposed to be the big dramatic moment, which is the character near death in a hidden back room and the ominous mention of bad-times-a-coming...

So? It's not as if Glory means anything to me. She's just someone who either talks or is talked about.

The unfortunate thing is that there is so much opportunity to SHOW action, and yet the decision has been made to only show what happened AFTER the action. It's always a character telling us about what happened. That's a good trick for a play, but it makes for boring comic books, I'm sorry to say. And when its the type of action being described in these pages? Trust me, "decades of living as a Goddess" is NOT something that should get tossed off and ignored. That's the sort of thing millions of women would pay to read and look at. We already know what that's like to imagine it, what I'd go crazy for is to see the big budget action movie version!

I understand that this is issue 23, and that issue 22 was published in the 90's--I asked for clarification, and it was given. Perhaps this was a big, big, big recap issue. Still - if a picture is worth a thousand words, stop writing so much prose and start drawing some of that action! These characters are drawn in an interesting style I don't think I've seen before. Glory is seriously built and has a simultaneously cute/fierce face. There is a lot of distinction between the characters, which is kinda cool because very often I fee like the only difference in these kinds of comic book characters is found in distinctions like hair or eye color. The difference between Riley and Glory, though, is quite stark. I'm sure it's intentional! Nevertheless, Riley is so cartoon-y compared to any other character that I sometimes felt like I was reading an entirely different comic book whenever she showed up. But again, maybe that's to set the tone for the upcoming storyline. I don't know....we shall see. I'll probably peruse the next issue just to see if this was, indeed, a super long recap story. I hope not. There's a lot of ideas here, and I feel like they are the kind of ideas that deserve a chance. Time will tell!

-Nina Stone, 2012

My Wife: Wants Belit's Oufit, Would Like Conan To Get It For Her

You may have guessed that I have not been choosing the comics myself lately. You're right! By my request, we've gone back to the old way, with a comic book landing in my hands that the "boss" has picked for me. How does he decide? What are his reasons? You'll have to ask him. I have time to read the things, and that's about it.

And so, here we are with Conan, The Barbarian, starring in "The Queen of the Black Coast, Part 1."

It starts in the midst of action. I like that. I like that a lot, actually. No heavy handed inner-dialogue while some character sits around "thinking" and thereby catching us up on the story (you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about). Just a little bit of scene setting and then BAM! Conan, on his black horse, riding through a city, down some stairs and leaping onto a ship. That's some fun stuff! The first two-page spread in this comic is pretty gorgeous. The pages of this book even seem thicker than most comics, too. I liked it, it made the book feel heavier, manlier. I never really got used to it, and kept thinking I had accidentally skipped a page due to the feeling of the page between my fingers, but I liked the experience it gave me. Going slowly through a comic that's a story like this--it made it better, somehow.

After the horse-jumping and yelling, there was this great little scene, with that "thing" that you men-folk are often portrayed as doing. You know, you sort of fight with each other first, either with words or fists. Then, through that interchange, something grows your respect or disdain for your "brother". In this case, the bad-assness of Conan earns him some the respect and friendship of his shipmates, it becomes mutual on Conan's side, and a true loyalty is born between him and Tito, Master of the Argus. I liked that part. It was quick, but it felt like it really happened.

After all the fun stuff, we're soon introduced to a woman named "Belit". She's something in the Bitch-Goddess magical creature variety of person, this one a "scourge, a plague among the seas." That's part of her description, and she's drawn with ivory skin, jet black hair, curvier than the Pacific Coast highway, and there's fire coming out of her eyes and blood dripping from her mouth. Yeah....that's where it started to get a little weird. I got a bit distracted, wondering if she was a vampire. And why is her tounge sort of poised at the opening of her mouth like that? And wait, what is going on with those fire eyes? How's she stay so fit? What's going on?

That happens to me with these kinds of stories sometimes, I don't mean to do it on purpose. There will be a thread, and I pull on it a little too hard, and something starts to unravel. I feel like I'm being mean, but I really don't mean to do it, it isn't purposeful. Here, everything was fine, it all made sense and I believed it, and then I saw that blood on Belit's lips and all of a sudden it was like a bunch of cars stopping short in my head, and all those cars are the parts of the story you just have to accept if you're going to participate in the story.

Anyway, the thing with the blood shouldn't have been that big of a deal, but it sort of stands out as where I started to get lost. After Conan hears about Belit, lo' and behold a series of events lead the characters (Conan, Tito and his Argus-ian crew) to sail further out than they expected to and voila, they encounter a ship from a distance that seems to have encountered Belit. 

What does that mean? Well, it's a ship, initially depicted in a silhouette that seems to convey tattered sails and a deserted ship. Conan, in what I assume is some kind of act of loyalty, decides he's going to go take stock of this situation and jumps into the ocean to swim to the ship. 

And this is where this comic takes a sharp turn and the last seven full pages made no sense to me whatsoever.

First we see Conan get on the ghost ship, only to find dead people and blood everywhere. He calls out Belit's name, and we see that simultaneously, on the other ship, Tito is sitting with his head in hand and head shaking (I think?) and then we cut back to the ship, where Conan has just yelled "BELIT!"

And then we cut to Conan, who is in the water alone.

Then Belit is with him. Next frame, they kiss. Next frame, she sort of lies down on him in the water. I think. The next frame looks like a whirlpool is sort of happening and the two of them are lying on top of the water? Unless the perspective is just drawn weird and we're really supposed to be seeing them as underwater - and she's choking him? I don't know. 

On the next page--and I'm sorry, this must be boring to read but I'm still trying to figure it all out--the scene shifts from pinks, purples and flesh tones to icy blues and greys. Conan is returning to the ship, or waking up, or coming to after being attacked, or just sitting up...or anything, I'm not sure. But it's happening on a ship and he's all alone and it's foggy or something. It almost looks like winter. Eleven different frames of him sort of coming to and looking around. Seeing another ship across the way. Is it Tito's ship? Did he never actually leave Tito's ship and this was all a dream? Did he never actually make it onto Tito's ship in the first place, but back in the beginning jumped on some boat and hit his head and knocked himself out?! I sincerely doubt that last one, but I don't have to, do I? There's no real evidence to the contrary. By that logic (or absence of logic), I could, of course, make any claim I want. I don't want to do that. I just wanted to understand the process as I experienced it.

On the next page, there is more of the same, and then Conan spots Belit in her little porn-y belly-dancing outfit on the other ship. She looks at him, with her tongue out (of course she does, I love her, she's such an obvious tramp) and he yells "Alarm!" and is suddenly surrounded by men on a ship that I thought was deserted. 

And that's it.

I have no idea where he is, where she is or what's going on. It's supposed to be a cliffhanger ending, but I'm so confused that I just want to put the book down.

Did anyone else have this experience? It's weird that it went from such a fun and succinct little comic with all this warrior-male-bonding stuff before turning into this trippy, mythological thing that either completely lost it's way, or just completely lost me. I'm no artist, but this just struck me as a clear case of the story not being told well by the pictures. There's virtually no dialogue at the end AT ALL. It's all pictures, and eventually just becomes impossible to follow.

So. I guess that's my take on it? You know, at this point I don't want to know what was really intended to be told in those last seven pages. I would love to hear various hilarious versions. You know, like those contests they have to write a caption for a comic or photo. I'd love to see what the most hilarious storyline could be thought up to go with these frames. I doubt that was the intention.

I want to add something here--I really liked the beginning of this comic. I expected to dislike it, because it was about Conan the Barbarian, a character I only know from that silly movie...which, to be fair, I have never actually watched. Instead, I found myself in love with this story almost immediately. Conan was just so likeably bad, that perfect mix. I liked the way he was drawn, the way he did his hair up the way a woman does whenever we take off our make up (just barely pulled back into the scrunchie), and I liked the way everything else looked to. It was a pleasure to read this comic, until it wasn't, and I admit--I might be a little harsh because of that. But I don't see any reason to pretend I wasn't. I can't remember feeling this way before, and it seems ridiculous to say it, but oh well: if the people who cared about the front of this comic had taken the same kind of care with the back, they could have made something really special.

Instead they just made this.

-Nina Stone, 2012

My Wife: Will Always Have Brubaker's Back

Winter Soldier #1
Art by Butch Guice & Bettie Breitweiser
Written by Ed Brubaker
Published by Marvel Comics

I'm actually going to talk about the art in this one first. That's weird for me, right? Maybe, but I don't think I have much of a choice: it's quite striking. There's something about this art that has me thinking I'm reading an "old school" comic book that's also totally new at the same time, in the same panels. The people, are drawn "normally", by which I mean realistic. Body parts are generally in proportion, facial features have naturalistic details. But there's an overall manner to the characters, a vibe that has me flashing back to 1960's & 70's era James Bond movies, with a bit of a Rockford Files vibe here and there as well. I love that the general palette is a washed out red, white and blue--it's very subtle, but very clever. You don't necessarily notice it while reading, but upon flipping back through the comic, it's evident throughout.  

It's funny to me that I like the art, because the old 60's & 70's comic book style could probably be blamed in large part for turning me away from comic books. It's not that the style is bad, I hope that's clear. It's just the sort of thing that I saw in comic books when I was younger, and I think I associate that art style and comics with something that I didn't read or like that much. It's a sort of learned rejection, not always tied into actual evidence. But in this case, I was drawn in. Some of the things that drew me were the way the frames were played with - on the first page, our main characters are are in these great catalog poses, with The Black Widow depicted too large for the frame in which she's drawn (love that!), and there's a lot of fun being had with frame size, shape, insert and overlap, teasing out things that draw the eye in. It just made me want to find the flow of the page and see what else was going on. And, of course, I loved the romantic scenes between Bucky and Natasha. They're really intimate and sensual, and yet there's nothing X-rated (not even R-rated) about those drawings. I think that takes real artistic talent to be able to draw intimacy with such restraint.

So, anyhow, that's the art! And now, onto the story. Although it's clearly a storyline that's grown out of another story that must have been going on for a while, it's not at all difficult to catch up with. Everyone thinks Bucky is dead, but he is actually trying to save the world. He's teamed up with Natasha, the Black Widow, and they are trying to find and "catch" (I'm pretty sure they're just going to kill whoever they find) some sleeper agents (who are actually sleeping - Cold War agents of destruction who've been put to sleep in sleeper tube-things and kinda forgotten about after the Cold War ended and it looked like they weren't going to be needed) before the other side finds them and actually uses them in some kind of destructive way. There seems to be a couple of problems when they find the tubes, because they are empty. The big surprise of the issue is who shows up at the end. He's a gorilla warrior.  No, I didn't spell it wrong. He's not a guerrilla warrior, he's an actual gorilla. And he's a gorilla that screams in Russian at that! Neato!

The only funny little problems I had with these parts of the comic were when some of the fight scenes occurred. I couldn't always follow the action. That might be on me, but half the time I saw all the bullets and legs flailing about, I kinda gave up trying to follow it. Instead, I skipped to the end of the scene to figure out what happened by looking at the end results. Then I went back and tried to map out what I was supposed to be seeing. I suppose if it were a little clearer, I'd look at it more. I can't figure out what I really need changed though, because the problems I had with the fight scenes seem to stem from the same experimentation that I liked so much in the more intimate, talky scenes.

The other thing that seemed kinda, um, unrealistic sandwiched within the realistic art is that neither Natasha or Bucky ever seem to get hit. I finally asked my husband if they had some kind of unspoken magical powers or something, because...seriously. Is there something I don't know? Because Natasha seems to just back flip over every bullet that ever comes her way, and Bucky never seems to get hit either. They seem to be completely invincible. Is that the case?

Apparently, its not true. I'm told that she doesn't age normally, and maybe that's what keeps her so agile, and I've read (and extensively analyzed) about Bucky's robotic arm before. But they are not magic.  

All that aside? I found Winter Soldier to be an entertaining and somewhat thrilling read. It's got one heck of a cliffhanger, too! A maniacal machine gun toting Russian Gorilla screaming "DEATH TO AMERICA!!!" It definitely makes one wonder, "What happens next?"

-Nina Stone, 2012

My Wife: And The Meandering Dead

The Walking Dead #93
Art by Charlie Adlard
Written by Robert Kirkman
Published by Image Comics

Hey hey, Party People. What’s going on? I’ll tell you what’s going on with me. I just had a new experience. I read The Walking Dead. Yeah...I don’t think I’ve ever read a single issue of it in these last 3 or 4 years of my comic book reading tenure. I did see some of the TV show, the one shot down in Georgia with all those British people pretending to be American. It kinda lost me after a bit. Not “lost” like I couldn’t keep up. No. It lost me because my mind wandered away, because although they set up a conflict, the story never moved faster than a snails pace. I think I'm remembering that correctly. I remember not being very grossed out by the show, which I thought was strange. It was pretty gruesome stuff, blood and gore all the time...but it was just kind of there on the screen. I felt like the violence on that show was an alarm going off, and then you'd hit the snooze button and the show would go back to sleep for ten minutes. (When I first wrote this paragraph, I actually thought the show wasn't on television anymore, but then I found out that it still is. Am I really that out of touch? I'm going to watch the wolves versus Liam Neeson movie this week. I still watch Justified and Parks and Recreation. Stupid zombie tv show. You make me feel old.)

Anyhow. I wasn’t sure what I was in for here. I was pleasantly surprised to find out the comic was black and white. Normally, I don’t know that I would like that, but for some reason it drew me in. As a matter of fact, the first page drew me right in. It's issue 93, does not start with any kind of recap, has no weird catch-up narration. It just jumps right in with Rick talking to this dude he just met, and the dude is telling him about this large community situation they have going on that he’d like Rick and his friends to be a part of. I don’t know if was somehow by design, and if it was it is GENIUS, but on the first page (!) I was saying to myself “Hmmm....I don’t know. I know I don’t really know anything about this situation, but I think this might be some sort of trap, Rick. You should tread carefully, as I believe this man may not have your best interests at heart.” And right there on the next page? Rick has a physical reaction that lets me know he was having the exact same thought I was having (by "physical reaction", I mean that Rick fakes a handshake and knocks the guy out). I found myself first thinking “see! I was right!” and quickly switching sides to “Wait! Aren’t you being a little hasty and paranoid?” I found that very entertaining. So much melodrama and conflict in just a few pages!

But I think there's a bad side to that as well.

Why? Look: it's good to get me so fully on board this comic's plot from the jump. I didn’t have to read a bit to find my way in. But the bad thing is that turned out be the only real conflict in the entire issue. By page 2, the whole thing is decided: some people are out there, and either this guy is lying about them or he's not. But by page two, Rick's already decided how he's going to handle that situation--he's going to go and be a badass--which means the next 20-some pages are just a bunch of place-setting type scenes--delegation of duties, game plans, declarations of love - and then the last few weird pages where Rick recaps his feelings on what it means to be a person who has to live with zombies all the time. Yes. Reflection on Life with Zombies. On who they’ve become. On how they respond. On maybe it being time to get outside of the walls and see A LARGER WORLD. (Which is...the title of the story.)

Yeah - it was kinda weird for me. It's about five pages of "stuff" dawning on him and him realizing that maybe the guy that he knocked out and has tied up in a chair “back at the ranch” might be honest and offering them the very thing that he just realized they needed. Cue violins. That’s where I suddenly realized that the the whole comic was just, like, this big set-up for the two page spread of the LARGER WORLD, and to introduce this new mini-series THE LARGER WORLD. And that maybe these characters need to get back to living life rather than fighting the dead.  Get beyond the little community they built and back to.....yes, THE LARGER WORLD. (Again: that's the title of the story.)

So, like, this comic went from feeling clever and fun to feeling like I was being spoon fed the writer’s pitch for this new series. It was a quick read, though, and I guess I enjoyed the art. It felt kinda easy on my eyes, in black and white, which I did not expect. But it seems like the comic book series might be similar to the TV show: it starts off with some engaging excitement and then digresses into a slow, meandering story. And then, on the last page, it promises to do something really important...at some later point. Perhaps? I don’t really know. What do you think?

-Nina Stone, 2012

My Wife: Tracked Down An Old Flame

Whispers #1
By Joshua Luna
Published by Image Comics

Oh man! Opening up to that first page and seeing that Luna art felt like coming home. Home! I had wonderful flashbacks to my time with The Sword. Gosh, did I enjoy that comic. I’d almost forgotten how much until I opened Whispers.

So here we are! Issue one in what I hope will be a long series. So far, it's mostly set up: introducing the who, the what, the where, the when and the why for the series. There are definitely some similarities to The Sword in story tactics (is that the right way to say it? You’ll see what I mean.)

You see, back in The Sword, our main character was a wheelchair bound girl who found a sword that gave her magical powers such as giving her the ability to self-heal, or massive amounts of strength. In Whispers, we have a young man who seems to be "crippled" by his OCD, and we see him developing a magical power that's sort of like astral projection: the ability to hear loved one’s thoughts as well as possibly influence their behavior.

And, yes, it looks to be a hero’s journey of sorts. In the Sword, Dara used her powers to go and avenge her family’s death which she witnessed just before finding The Sword - the very thing the killers were after. This powerful weapon had a story that spanned history, a whole mythology that served as the original source of conflict for the whole story.

So far, in Whispers, the set-up is not as dramatic. So far! I’m saying that because, well, I read the first third of The Sword in the trade format. My recollection of it as one overall story comes from that fact, that I read most of it in very quick succession. Reading Whispers, I realized that it might have taken a couple of issues to really set-up the story, something I wouldn't have noticed. Reading it like this, in a smaller chunk, I wonder if I might be giving the information (the piece of story I just read) more emphasis than it really needs. If, for example, I was reading a collection of multiple issues of Whispers, would I be stopping to wonder why Sam (the main character) and Lily recently broke up? Or would I just acknowledge that bit of information (okay, they broke up) and keep moving forward? Would I get as irritated with Rico (a character that picks on Sam for his behavior), or would I just keep reading, having faith that Rico's behavior is necessary to the story and not something I should get that worked up about?

I don't know. It's worth thinking about, but it would be a tough thing to test.

And that brings us to....Astral Projection. Yeah. That’s kinda what this is about. That makes me a little bit worried. I’m sorry, but it does. See, with The Sword, even though it wasn’t “realistic” or “plausible” it was easy to understand. The Sword made her strong. Without it she was weak and vulnerable. Being able to visit people while you are sleeping/dreaming in a way that they can’t see you - I don’t fully yet understand how to grasp hold of it. Sam will be armed with information and therefore truth? He can influence events, perhaps? I’m not entirely sure. It's not like vampires. I wasn't sitting here reading Whispers and remembering all those awesome astral projection movies I watched when I was a kid. I don't have a bunch of daydreams about invisibly floating around in people's bedrooms. (I have a few, of course.)

But I remember how much I loved the Sword, and looking at these very first pages of Whispers...I want this to be that good. I would love to fall in love with something like that again.

Fingers crossed.

-Nina Stone, 2012

The Wife: Likes Life More Because of These Johnny Wander Comics

I’m having a really cool week. And it looks like it's going to keep getting better.

Historical background: in my upper-middle-class, predominantly white-collar, Land's End infected, mega- conservative High School, I was considered artsy and “different”. And while that’s cool and all, I wouldn’t necessarily say that was a label I earned by doing anything particularly dramatic. I just happended to be living in a town/situation/cultural environment with an ingrown animosity towards creativity. I mean, it had to engage with these things in some fashion, if only to meet college preparatory requirements. And yet, even in the one tiny area where creativity was the actual purpose, it still operated with the strictest of observations. Channeled into the fewest possible outlets the community would allow, it ended up being: dancing school, band, choir, and a tiny bit of theatre. That was it. I don’t know what fine art students had on offer, if they could even find the support and guidance other communities provide with which to nurture their art. And when I decided that I wanted to be a dancer, that, by neccessity, took me away from school in a way that prevented me from participating in any extra-curricular school-related activities. The simple fact that I went somewhere other than the primary place that almost everyone went was all it took for me to earn the label as an "artsy" person.

I had an outlet for creative expression, sure. But, as I've come to realize, it was usually someone else’s creativity that I was expressing. That's what we were all taught to do there--to be the release for someone else's dormant fantasies of what a life of art might have been like for them. I don't regret it, and I can't say that I was cognizant enough at the time to have been disappointed it--I loved dancing--but enough time has passed for me to have no problem admitting that it might not have been the ideal situation for any of the parties involved.

Which leads us to this week: I’m having this late-bloomer, um, blossoming right now. I’ve dance and sung all my life, but my inner musician has always been there, aching to get out and replace the words of others with notes of my own. And now she’s out! Here I am, in Brooklyn, and just last night I enjoyed the first meeting of the new songwriter circle I’m now a part of (I even shared my latest creation!). Today I had a guitar and theory lesson, and with my new knowledge of some music theory (as well as some improvising), I came up with a bass line for my new song. Following that, I had an actual gig--I got paid to go rock my pink guitar and sing songs to children and their families. And I'm having so much fun doing all those things!

And the icing on the cake? Tonight I am reviewing Johnny Wander - Volume 2: Escape to New York, the night before I get to attend the release party for this comic and actually MEET Yuko Ota, Ananth Panagariya, and hopefully the rest of the gang. I am SO excited!!! Who’s having the time of her life??? That would be me. Totally me.

SO here we all are - the Johnny Wander folks and myself -- doing our thing ('s?) in Brooklyn. Doing my "thing” has also led me to reviewing comics with my husband's encouragement and support, and being so fortunate as to actually seeing a blurb of my review of Johnny Wander Volume 1 end up on the back cover of Johnny Wander Volume 2. (That’s all because I have the most awesome husband in the world.)

It's a great week, right?! In case it's not obvious, I am so thrilled to write about all of this right now. I loved this volume of Johnny Wander as much as the last. It is a 100% pleasure to read. Before sitting down at the computer to write this, I sat on the couch saying to my husband, “Oh and this one! Come look at this one! Isn’t that hilarious? Oh wait - you also have to look at this thing about Garies.”

Once again, as reader, I got to be a fly on the wall in the world of Yuko, Ananth, Conrad, John, Mike, Rook, and sometimes Evan and one time George’s. All that life is in this book. Is it weird to say that reading about their life made me want to stop and really observe my own a little bit more? It's not that I don’t. But from reading this comic, I feel like these are friends who really know how to enjoy their time together. It makes me want to be sure I'm doing the same. I realize that they are just showing us snapshots of part of their day(s) that, perhaps, are not all that special to them in the moment they are happening. However, writing and illustrating a series of vignettes about one’s life seems like a great way to capture time in a poignant way.It's way more poignant than taking digital photos or creating “clever” Facebook status updates does. (I'm not making fun! I'm talking about me.)

I’m sitting here, right now, flipping through the book in an effort to come up with my “favorites” to tell you about. And yet, with every page I’m like, “oh yeah....I LOVE that one! OH - and that one too....”

So let me gather myself up, again, and tell you about this book in case you’ve never read or seen it before.

Ananth, Yuko, Conrad, John and Mike, all live together (or did at one time) in an apartment in Brooklyn. And although along the way, some people move out and some move in, they all stay friends and hang out quite bit. This book is a series of one and two page vignettes, as I call them, illustrating their experience living in New York. Brooklyn, specifically.

We are treated to illustrations of things like their coffee mug collection, or the preparation or eating of a meal - as well as its aftermath - art about doing art, backstories such as Yuko’s “traumatizing dental misadventures”, excursions, and interludes about the newest addition to their home - the cat, Rook.

(I have to say that this might be my new favorite part. Anything about Rook. I’m a sucker for cats. Every single section that was about Rook and his quirkiness, or about cats in general, always had be laughing with recognition. I love that they’ve captured some uninterrupted cat behavior and brought it to life. Rook is drawn so well. The subtle changes of the height of his ears, the way he cocks his head when he’s inspecting something, the tiny little adjustments that cats make? It's all really well drawn. I adore him. (So if ya’ll ever need a cat sitter - I’m your girl.)

As a matter of fact, I continually find myself stopping to enjoy the facial expressions as they are drawn. Each individual comic seems to be set up with an opening frame that delivers the who, what, where and when. Then there is the conflict or the joke, and somewhere in the final frames is a close-up on the facial expression of one of the characters. And its often so subtle - just a stare, or eyebrows drawn slightly closer together - but every time it lands like a punchline. I LOVE it! (I find it hilarious how John so often is drawn with a bothered expression.)

The experience of reading Johnny Wander Volume 2 makes me understand why people like reading graphic novels and comics. And that’s a big thing for me to say. I’m not one who grew up reading comics, and I feel like if you didn’t grow up reading them, it's not something you get into later in life. But I’m finding that I thoroughly dig autobio comics, especially in this form. This material is so relatable, and like I said, it inspires me to observe and enjoy my own life more.

Perhaps that’s why this week is so cool. It's not necessarily cooler than any other week that I’ve been having. But as I’ve been reading Johnny Wander, I’ve stopped to observe the vignettes I get to have in my own life, I get to reflect, and I'm finding myself enjoying it even more.

It is an exceptionally cool week, however!!!! And I cannot wait for tomorrow night to hang out with these folks. It's gonna be like walking into a book and hanging out with my favorite characters. Who gets to do that?!?!? Me, that’s who. :)

-Nina Stone, 2012