So, this theatre thing means I have to tape my TV* and watch as I can. Got around to watching Monday's shows, and both of them turned somewhat sour for me near the end. While both events were different, they both had that smack of cliched male/female relational plotting to them that means I'm throwing 'em in one post.

Spoilers for both The Class and Heroes

( Why can't The Class just stay friends? )

( Heroes loves Gwen Stacy a little too much )

*No, I don't have a DVR. Seriously, I watch about three shows on TV right now, so I'm not laying out cash on a new machine and service plan just so I don't have to remember if the tape's rewound.

Tags: criticism, feminism, tv

I saw The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe this weekend, and enjoyed it, though it seems to suffer from a couple of strategic missteps: First, trying to make this "the next Lord of the Rings." Second, failing to do some editing to let the female protagonists prove more than props. But at least the Christian underpinnings are understated. (Lots of) details behind the tag:

( Step through to another world's spoilers )

Tags: criticism, movies, reviews

I've been following the growing discussion on lit crit and webcomics over at Websnark because, well, I'm still a lit crit geek. Duh. Anyway, Ursula Vernon (of Digger and gearworld fame) has some of my favorite entries. On the lit crit / fan fic connection:

For people with a literary background, who can speak with authority about literary devices and actually know who Balzac was, this sort of criticism can be FUN. Frustrating, tough, sure, granted, geeky, hell yeah, but it's basically an English major equivalent of arguing about where access panels on the Enterprise were located. It is an expression of passion for the form, in the idiom that these people enjoy. It's all about The Love, or at least an analysis of why The Love failed in this particular case.

Better still, Ursula gets the Best Metaphor award in the secondary discussion that's developed there re: the place of authorial intent:

The only way to make your interpretation stick is to stand next to the canvas and grab each viewer by the lapels and scream "THIS IS WHAT I MEAN!" Even that's only got a fifty-fifty shot. Merely posting an explanation won't do it. Once you do art, it goes out into the wide world, a tender, trembling doe-eyed image, stepping on delicate little Bambi-like hooves through the grasses of sweet innocence, and then the viewers jump on it and mug it. You find your painting in [a] pool of vomit in a back alley a few hours later, with two black eyes, torn clothes, reeking of booze, and the only thing still IN its wallet is your artist's statement.

Much, much more at the link. Part of the reason I haven't jumped in is because I don't think I have it in me to read all of it, but even skimming, it's some good stuff. If you're so inclined, take a look.

Tags: art, criticism, recommendations, webcomics

It's been a few weeks, but I'm still really impressed with how Slott and Pelletier's GLA mini-series pulled together as it went along. The first issue seemed to have an oddly discordant clash of tones, and I couldn't figure out just what it was Slott was trying to do.

Turns out, that was the point. As the series progressed, I started noticing an odd pattern to the much-touted death-per-issue, and now that it's finished, my theories seem to have been borne out. Spoilers for the whole series follow, so if you're waiting for the trade or to read a friend's copy and don't want to know major plot points, you should turn away now.

( Find out who dies, and why it might matter )

Tags: comics, criticism

Both Formerly Known as The Justice League and I Can't Believe it's not The Justice League use not plot, but rather a strong thematic through line to give their stories cohesion. And, interestingly enough, the juxtaposition of those themes between mini-series give the pairing an overall cohesion, as well.

In other words, for all that this is "the silly heroes," the fact of the matter is that Giffen and DeMatteis have constructed a genuinely multi-layered work. You can read these twelve issues as individual issues / two-issue event arcs; you can take them on in six-issue, discrete thematic units; or you can put them together to find a twelve-issue thematic arc wherein the the two mini-series' primary themes become themselves a larger thematic underpinning.

Spoilers for both series, behind the cut tags

( Part One: Backtracking )

( Part Two: They can be good people without that gun to their heads, Mr. Misfit )

It's a great trick that the creators here took a property best known (and perhaps best loved) for its immature humor and helped it naturally evolve into a story about maturation.

And Captain Marvel in a dog collar.

Tags: comics, criticism

Having finished watching this season of Lost, there are a lot of things I liked and didn't, and I'll try out the first few eps of the new season, but I think the thing that struck me most as I rode along in the finale (aside from the lazy use of red shirts to simulate danger to the regular cast) was the sinking realization that the character arcs we've seen have largely served to empower the men and turn the women into a bunch of whiny dopes. Spoilers for the finale, so I'll cut tag it for the TiVo set and for those who don't want to be subjected to my over-analysis (I'm looking at you, dealio). Turn back while you still can:

( we gots to take care of the womenfolk )

There are still a lot of good things going on with the show. If I didn't think there were, I wouldn't be nearly as frustrated by the parts I see as weaknesses. I wouldn't get annoyed that Rose seems to have fallen off the face of the island, or that the vague-dialogue-enabled plot twist was so painfully transparent.

So, while I thought the Pandora's Box reference was really cool in its subtlety, I do wish I was seeing a little less of the "those durn women" elements of that myth in the one Lost's writers are trying to build.

Tags: criticism, feminism, tv

Nothing waiting for me this week, so on a whim I thought I'd take a look at Gail Simone and John Byrne's first issue of Action Comics.

Mostly solid writing, with fun little moments for a number of supporting players and subplots started on their way. And whether it's objectively "better" or not, I do tend to enjoy Byrne's pencils a lot more when someone else is handling the inks, as is the case here. I do wonder what's up with all the single-name inkers finishing Byrne? Blood of the Demon has Nekros; this book has Nelson.

What has me most interested in picking up the next issue, though, is that the reveal at the end injects a rather interesting feminist meta-commentary into the story. It's not a big slap in the face point, and I hope it stays that way, but--especially in light of the upcoming Big Event at Marvel--it's got my gears grinding, which is always something I enjoy.

Tags: comics, criticism, feminism, reviews

I've had topics running around in my head, but nothing so imperative I've managed a full post on it. In no particular order, then, the "not quite ready for blogtime" ideas:

An assortment of comics writers whose writing I don't find particularly amazing have been displaying (or continue to display, depending on the creator) sharp insights into comics: the industry, the fandom, the storytelling (wait, they do that in comics?), etc. I find it odd, nodding in agreement with the theory though it's coming from someone I don't think manages to put it into practice particularly well. A study in having to separate the message from the messenger, I suppose. If critics are going to dismiss the "talk to me when you make a comic" defensive cry of the comics creator, it seems disingenuous for them to respond to the valid points of creators by simply re-casting that cliche with "talk to me when you make a comics masterpiece" or somesuch.

I'm going to wind up picking up that New Warriors mini, aren't I? Likening super-heroes to home improvement shows is amusing, Skottie Young's art looks much more yummy than what I've seen in the past, and I simply can't resist crazy super-hero concepts like a guy who talks to germs. Is this some sort of natural evolution of Nicieza's previous work with the characters? No. But I'm getting pretty good these days at remembering that the comics I collected and enjoyed are still in my comics boxes; an irreverent reboot doesn't magically turn them into ash or rocket them into space or something. I think Speedball turned into a chimp was what finally pushed this into a pre-order. (or better still, what if it's Beppo the Bouncy Chimp Sidekick? Oh, good lord, I think I might have to cry from the joyful crazy of that if it is)

Ray Bradbury Day! I am jealous beyond measure to not live in Chicago.

The new sci-fi/horror/fantasy blogging that's been going about (or that I've been running across. I'm entirely willing to concede it may have always been there and I'm just blind to it) has me so happy people are using those terms. I'm always afraid that people writing on the genres with a literary analytical bent will start whipping out Nu Literary terms like Speculative Fiction (in particular) or Magical Realism. I rail against those not for some lack of descriptive accuracy in the labeling, but because they feel like they were developed so academic literary writers could pretend they had nothing in common with their pulpier genre brethren. The only one of the NL terms I like is probably Literature of the Fantastic, and then only because it acts to encompass sci-fi/horror/fantasy under a single heading and thus circumvents the clunky slash-constructed alternative.

Tags: comics, commentary, criticism, hype, sci-fi

I seem to run into more and more days when I wish I had a better vocabulary for discussing visual art. I don't know if that means I'm finally starting to develop the beginnings of an eye for these things, or if I'm just overwhelmingly jealous of The Pickytarian, but either way, it's there.

Heck, this time it's not even the line art generally, but is focused on the inks. Specifically, Andrew Hennessy's inks on Spellbinders #1. Between this and his work on Madrox, Hennessy's developed a line that's ... see, here's where the words start flipping me off and loudly mocking my inability to use them. I want to say it's fluid, but that's not right. Or, rather, it's not right in context. A fluid line is such because it flows, whereas Hennessy's line is fluid in the liquid sense. In both of the books listed above, figures seem, well, malleable, I suppose. Soft. Just a little ... melty? I have this weird sense in some panels like I could dip my finger into the image and the whole thing would suddenly produce ripples along its surface.

In both cases, it works just fine for me. Madrox, with its questions of identity and duplicating / absorbing mutants (and shapeshifting mutants, for that matter) seems the kind of story that benefits from equally fluid visuals. Spellbinders does the same. There are unseen demony things and people turning into piles of lizards and hands shaping themselves out of walls. With the overall sense that the world isn't as ... well, solid and immutable as we want it to be, that same liquid effect contributes to the atmosphere of it all.

There may not be a point here, beyond the fact that I (probably unfairly) don't tend to attribute stylistic elements to inkers, and I'm kind of excited that I seem to have come across one all on my lonesome. Possibly, too, this is just a blind call for confirmation that I'm not just convincing myself the element's there.

Tags: art, comics, criticism

Looks like I'm going through with this, then. Thanks to Johanna for the encouragement, by the by. I feel like I should do a more comprehensive overview of the series proper first, but that's not going to happen just yet. Hey, I'm a low-volume blog, and that's what we're all about, yeah? Basically, then: deal with my randomness. Nyah. I will give the benefit of a cut tag, though, as I've gone on quite a bit.

( Read more... )

Tags: comics, criticism