Aren't you a bit old for this?

A few weeks ago, a British/Spanish friend of mine came over to my house for lunch. One of the many topics discussed was what we were doing during our spare time, and when I mentioned I liked reading comics among other things, his immediate reply was:

“Comics? Don’t you think you’re a bit old for that? Most people stop around 12 years old…”

This is such a typical answer (that I get quite often) that I shouldn’t even care anymore… But I do. In the past, I usually went on naming titles of comics that have been used in the movie business such as 300 or Sin City as the common mortals they are usually don’t know they were comics to begin with… I would then go on telling them that the word “comics” doesn’t necessarily equals to “super heroes in tights” and that there are many other genres out there (that’s usually when I throw in some of Brian Wood’s work)

Well I am happy to say that I’ve finally found a book that will make everyone agree that a comic book reader can be someone else than 10 years old little Timmy from Kickapoo, Missouri. Batman: Arkham Asylum has become my weapon of choice when it comes to fighting heretics who stopped reading comics as they “grew up”. This book is pretty disturbing and I believe would make anyone feel uncomfortable while reading it… The art conveys that discomfort feeling very well, and if it has such an effect on adults, why would we give it to read to some pre-pubic almost teenager kid?

Back to the book itself…It is really good, the art is amazing, mixing oil painting, photographs, pencil scribbles, but what I really loved was that even the whole book is super depressing, it ends on a high note that gave me a laughter… Really smart way to end the story in my opinion.

Batman and Robin #1

A lot of readers were disappointed by the whole Final Crisis / Batman R.I.P thing… If you’re part of that crowd, you probably know that Grant Morrison is now back writing Batman and the 1st issue of Batman and Robin is now out. You’ve probably picked it up already, though, but for those of you who haven’t, you can read that positive review and check out Frank Quitely’s nice artwork before committing to buying it.

Done with Batman: Hush,Y the last man here I come

I’ve finally turned the last page of the second volume of Batman: Hush. I’ve finally got to know who Hush really is… And I was right with my first guess at the beginning of the book. I always find it funny how Jeph Loeb manages to screw your head up with his story telling. There’s always something happening that will make you believe you got the wrong guy (of course, that depends if you pick the real culprit in the first place), but later in the story, he reveals a tiny detail you didn’t think of at the time, which makes you say “Damn! I should’ve thought of this!” because you knew he was going to try messing up your head… I fell for it when reading The Long Halloween and fell for it again this time, even I was expecting it. That’s what makes these books so good; you get caught up without noticing it.

I really start liking Jeph Loeb’s work, it’s the fourth book he wrote I have read and would like to read some more… They were both Batman stories though, so I wonder if his style would match other characters too. He’s written different titles for Superman, Daredevil, Spider-man, X-Men, or even Hulk… Most of the top names at DC and Marvel actually, so I might pick up one of those sometime soon just to try it out.

And as you may have guessed from the title, I’ve started reading Y the last man yesterday. This title had very good reviews and some people even mentioned it was one of the top stories in the last decade, so it really got me pumped up and eager to read it… I’ve got the complete story spread around in 10 trade paperbacks… I first thought it was going to take a while to read them all, but I managed to read the first volume in one sitting. I hope I can start the second one tonight and keep up the good pace so as to reach the end sometime around Chinese New Year… My first impressions are quite good so it should be easy to do IF I find the time to read.

So far the story is only beginning as the plot was only getting set up so I don’t have much to talk about, but for the curious ones out there, the first volume goes like this… All the men… No, scratch that… All the mammals with a Y chromosome die, at the exception of Yorick Brown (the main character) and his monkey Ampersand… So here they are, the last man and male monkey on earth, sent by the U.S. government on a crusade to find a cure to this “plague” and repopulate the planet (with males). Of course nothing comes easy, a lot of people (well… women actually) are now aware there is STILL one man alive and they’re coming after him in this Mad Max kind of era… I’m mentioning Mad Max here as this is the first reference that came to my mind when noticing that, after all men (except Yorick) went instinct, people started using gasoline and food instead of money to trade goods.

That’s just a quick summary of what happens, there’s a lot more going on and I suggest you pick up the book if you’re appealed by this kind of stories.

More Batman readings

I haven’t been posting here for a while as I was pretty occupied taking care of my son and wife during the holidays. I have however had some time to go on reading some books, and all of them were Batman stories…

First in line was Batman: Anarky trade paperback that collects Detective Comics #608-609, Batman Chronicles (1995-2000) #1, Batman: Shadow of the Bat (1992-2000) 40-41, and Anarky (1997 1st Series) #1-4 all written by Alan Grant. I had no idea who Anarky was at first, but it was a Batman story with Alan Grant in the mix so it couldn’t possibly turn out to be too bad. And I think that’s exactly how I felt when reading it: “Not too bad”. It did not really thrill me to read it, Anarky is an OK character between a hero (or a “vigilante” as he says in the book) and a villain who’s trying to save humanity by doing not-so-legal things that put him on Batman’s blacklist. The art was just horrible in the first story but it got better as I read on, without being astounding… So yeah… “Not too bad” is what fits best when talking about that book in my opinion.

The second trade paperback I read was Batman: Gothic. I was a bit disappointed by the art at first… I found it was too “fuzzy” like when there’s too much noise when watching TV (the kind of noise that makes the image sloppy) but when reading I found it matched the story pretty nicely and wasn’t bothered by it. I found the story interesting as it unveils a part of Bruce Wayne’s childhood, and the outcome was quite unexpected but I was a bit disappointed by it… Ends up like one of those Japanese animation series where they seem to have used up their entire budget and only have enough money to produce ONE episode. So of course everything gets mashed up and it leaves a lot to be desired… So that’s a bit how I felt, the whole story is a crescendo but it’s concluded in 1 page so it leaves a “So that’s it?” impression. But besides that the story was good and pretty creative too and I think it stands out a bit thanks to its originality.

Last but not least is Batman: Hush vol.1 & 2. I’ve finished reading the first volume and am half way through the second one, and damn that’s a good book. Jeph Loeb is the writer (remember A Long Halloween?) and artist is not Tim Sale this time but Jim Lee. Let me tell you the combination is great! The story’s good, the art and colouring are impeccable, plus you get to see Batman kicking some Metropolitan’s ass which doesn’t spoil anything. Really worth the time and money spent…

Tough choice ahead

So I’ve finally found the time to finish reading Dark Victory. All in all it’s a great read and it ends the trilogy nicely. If I had to rate those 3 books in order of preference, it would be The Long Halloween first, followed by Dark Victory and Haunted Knight. I think I preferred The Long Halloween over the others because I somehow found the intrigue was better. I’ve changed my mind several times trying to guess who “Holiday” was, and Loeb and Sale got me several times… You get a new piece of info, you think you finally know, then it changes once more, setting your mind on something else, then reverses again to end up somewhere completely away from the first idea… I don’t know if you’re following my idea, read the book and you’ll figure out what I mean.

So what’s next? I’m not so sure myself… I have several books piled up on my desk right now, waiting for a charitable soul to pick one of them… There’s still several Batman books among them as well as others such as Watchmen, V for Vendetta and the complete Y The Last Man saga. Tough choice to make as they’re all very promising books… I’ll decide which one wins very soon and post about my impressions as soon as I start reading it.

Long time no hear (or read)

Hi all (not that anyone is actually reading this blog), I haven’t been around for some time… Well, life caught up with me, I got really busy at work and I basically spent all my spare time trying the new WoW patch 3.0 like everybody else.

Of course I still managed to get some reading done. I was in a Batman mood so I went through Haunted Knight, The Long Halloween and am about 70% through Dark Victory… And I have to say I really love those books. The first time I read Haunted Knight, I still had the chills from Batman: Year One and I have to admit I felt kinda disappointed by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s work at first. Not that it was bad or anything, it was just not up to par. But that was a mistake; it’s actually a great book that sets the tone for the next two. I love the art and storytelling and how the mix of both can make you feel the characters’ emotions, even when you cannot see their faces as lots of time, they’re just filled with black ink… I’ve recommended those books and the past and still recommend them now.

I’ve also mentioned one author I liked very much: Brian Wood. This week I finally read the first issue of DMZ and it is awesome. The art is great (he’s using colors as opposed to Channel Zero), it’s really detailed and dynamic too… Plus the story is really catchy. I was planning on waiting for all the trade paperbacks to be released before purchasing them but I got caught up and feel I want to read more right now… Maybe I’ll order the first 5 in my next purchase. I think the next one is coming up some time in February 2009.If you haven’t checked his work yet, head to his website’s download section and get some of the files available. They’re in PDF format so you may want to get a PDF reader first.There’s also a nice Channel Zero review written by Nooch over at J!NX.com you may want to check out.

What’s up with Ironman?

Ironman, just like Batman, has always been one of my favorite comic characters. But when I compare them, I can’t help but still prefer Batman… And by far.

But when you really look into it, their stories are quite similar. They’re both rich industrialists/playboys who lost their parents when they were kids. Then they somehow decide to do the good around them, and use their wealth to design and build top-notch technological tools that will help them do so. Their stories start off so similarly I’ve always thought Ironman was Marvel’s answer to Batman… And as Stan Lee mentioned it before, he always wanted Ironman to shine and be able to stand next to the ones of the likes of Spiderman, but Tony Stark never quite made it there.

So I’m wondering… What made them SO different in the eyes of comic books readers when they’re actually so alike? In a “rich orphan” kind of way…

First, I thought Ironman’s popularity could have been much higher if Tony Stark actually was the only one who could wear his armor… Maybe they should have designed the magnetic breastplate, which was keeping the shrapnel bits from entering his heart, in a way that could have allowed it. Like someone without this “feature” would not be able to power up the suit or something like that. But later on, Marvel heals Tony Stark via heart implant which makes the breastplate useless… Bad call, I’d say…

Why? Because that would have made him unique… He would have been the one and only Ironman. Take Wolverine as an example: the original idea was Logan was a beefy kinda guy wearing gloves equipped with retractable claws, and that was it. This character never really took off before they actually made the claws parts of Logan’s own skeleton! Then a whole new story appeared and it got people sucked in…

But again… Batman is not the only one who can wear his crime fighting tights… Alfred could appear as Batman too for as far as I know, so it’s not uniqueness that gives him the edge over Ironman… So it could be anything from his badass costume to his detective skills. Maybe it’s just that more talented/creative writers and artists worked on Batman? Maybe readers prefer the noirish atmosphere in those stories? Or maybe the marketing team over at DC comics was better? Personally, I’ve always laughed at Ironman’s aliases (The Golden Avenger, Shellhead) and I’d rather be called The Dark Knight or The Caped Crusader, so yeah, maybe it was really marketing that did the trick.

You're ready...! Almost... part 2

OK so you don't like Wolverine... Maybe he's too mean for you or something... Now if the idea of a rich playboy who's SO rich he doesn't need to work and instead spends his spare time trying to do something good for the society sounds nice to you, maybe you will like Bruce Wayne also known as Batman.
What I like in this character is not the fact that he's kicking bad guys' ass but more how he does it... If you think about it, most super heroes did not "choose" to be one before they actually went through some kind of DNA changing event that was out of their control and woke up one day with super powers... No... Batman does it using technology. One day he woke up and decided he was going to fight criminals in Gotham City and he knew he needed some kind of an edge (he is only human after all)... So he used his wealth to develop various equipment that would help him in his quest... So yeah, engineering rules~! (Yeah you guessed right, I'm an engineer...)
Anyway, you will find LOTS of books in which Batman appears or is the main character, but here is a short list of some of the ones you will definitely have to read:

Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli
The beginning of it all... Bruce Wayne has been training away from Gotham and is now coming back. That's the book in which he meets Jim Gordon for the first time... Sounds familiar? Maybe you've watched Batman Begins?

Batman: Haunted Knight by Jeff Loeb and Tim Sale
First of a trilogy of trade paperbacks that regroups 3 Halloween stories: Fears, Madness and Ghosts

Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeff Loeb and Tim Sale
Second of the trilogy in which Batman, Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent have to work together to catch a serial killer who is getting rid of mobsters from the Falcone family. The story happens over a year between 2 Halloweens and the killer only acts on holidays. This is the story that sees the death of Harvey Dent and the birth of Two-Face.

Batman: Dark Victory by Jeff Loeb and Tim Sale
Last one of the trilogy. Batman's off chasing another killer whose crimes will involve Dick Grayson's parents. Batman then decides to take care of him and he eventually becomes Robin.

The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland
This book reveals the origins of The Joker and marks the end of Batgirl as we know her as she gets paralyzed for the rest of her life.

Batman: Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean
On April Fools Day, Arkham Asylum is taken over and the inmates demand Batman to be delivered to them in exchange of their hostages. In the process of getting back the detention center, Batman almost goes insane... Creepy story, great art, this book is considered a must have in any comic book collection.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson
Batman is now "retired" but will put on his tights one more time to save the good old Gotham City. Considered a classic as well....

OK, I think that summarizes it... Of course lots of books are missing, like you could get the Knightfall saga if you'd like to see Bane, but I just wanted to list out the ones that I think are really worth your first order's money. If you get hooked up, order more!