August 2010 Archives

THE CHICAGO Comic-Con recently took place in the USA.

In attendance was writer Andrew Joseph who took many a picture there that we're grateful he's agreed to share with Speech Balloons' readers.

Yes, there were pictures of creators and the like, but we here at Speech Balloons are rather fond of those that people who get dressed up and have a fun time, so those are the ones we're highlighting here.

To see the complete collection visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/mreman47/ChicagoComicCon2010#

For more about Andrew Joseph visit:
www.strangefuncomics.com, www.wonderfulrife.blogspot.com, www.ih8itih8it.blogspot.com, www.google.com/profiles/mreman47

THE BIRMINGHAM Zine Festival is due for 10th-12th September.

The event will take place at a variety of venues, including The Custard Factory (original home of the Birmingham International Comics Show).

It will feature a wide range of self-published books, comics and magazines. A selection of artwork from those connected to the alternative press will also be exhibited

For more information visit: www.birminghamzinefestival.com

CLICK ON Episode 32 of Shang Ri La La La below and it will expand to fill your screen.
For more information on the creators visit:

For Paul H Birch: www.myspace.com/paulhbirch

For Gary Crutchley: www.gcrutchley.blogspot.com

For Mats Engesten: www.go.to/engesten

For John Robbins: www.mylifeinshorts.blogspot.com

For Andrew Dodd: www.timebombcomics.com

BRUCE JONES, veteran writer of such classics as Conan The Barbarian and more modern tours of duty on books such as The Incredible Hulk has a new novel due.

The Dead-Enders is the title of this horror-some tome and it will be available as an e-book from Kindle before being released in trade paperback format.

Jones has written several novels previously (some under pen names) and used the title of his own horror comic book series Twisted Tales for a collection of short stories - Alien Worlds the science fiction sibling to that title is due for a return to publication with a number of celebrated artists involved.

Bruce Jones has also written for television and the screen, alongside being a published artist, and respected editor himself.

XIII Book 2: Where The Indian Walks

Cinebook

In Book 1 of this series we were introduced to a man with amnesia, someone trained in combat, possibly a murderer, and bearing the Roman numerals XIII on his shoulder.

People were after him for a variety of reasons, most of them wanting him dead but a number of innocent individuals losing their own lives instead.

All XIII has to go on regarding his past is a photo of him with a woman named Kim Rowland and on the reverse of it there's a message that tells him to meet her "Where the Indian Walks". This book, we're due to find out where that is.

But it takes some time before he does. First off, in a snowbound military base a General Ben Carrington tells XIII that he is Steve Rowland, a man thought to be dead, husband to the mysterious Kim, and someone who was personally trained by the general himself.

It doesn't ring any bells with XIII, but it does make sense, and looks forward to re-establishing contact with his aged father. The problem there being his father's infirm, has a second wife who's cheating on him with her brother in law. It all turns very Dallas with a murder mystery angle, and there may be a need to get out a piece of paper and keep a scoreboard as XIII's enemies from the first book start reappearing.

Suffice to say, XIII finds the place where the Indian walks, and inside a log cabin Kim Rowland herself. But then comes the twist, and she's not who he thinks she is, more to the point nor is he! Those Roman numerals appear to have been hatched on a number of other people too, and it may be too late to find out what because armed police arrive and take him in for the murder of his own father, or rather Steve Rowland's.

Ignoring the fact that it was made into a modern TV series, Van Hamme writes this series like it was some late seventies early eighties American big screen thriller where I'd expect an aged Henry Fonda put in a cameo role, while his daughter might play a more pivotal role and actors like Alan Alda would have serious character parts, that's the way it plays out for me anyway. While Vance's art connects with my childhood memories of so many British anthologies where we'd have craftsmen of this calibre pumping out two to three pages every week, often drawn by European studios; I miss those days with a passion but books like this help bridge the gap.

For more information visit: www.cinebook.com

Astonishing X-Men Volume 3: Torn

Marvel

So after rating the first volume of this series well recently, let's skip the next collection and see how the series was progressing with the regular series and its characters now established in the eyes of its monthly purchasing public.

Well, Marvel chose to put a page recapping past events to bring the book buying public up to steam so that's an unexpected editorial brownie point. As to the tale?

Well, there's a new Hellfire Club in town, or rather Xavier Mansion. Only not everyone can see them. Not all the time anyway. And the outcome of that is mainly what this whole collection's about without giving away the ending.

Whedon has fun playing through Chris Claremont's (the man who mainly made Marvel's X-Men the franchise it is today) back catalogue and subverting themes and characters, but respectively even while maintaining his own narrative voice and Cassady gives us more full figure views instead of a preponderance of well crafted head shots.

Wolverine and the Beast get their comedy one-liner comparisons to each other early on in the book and raise a smile, and the whole book has story momentum and is pleasing on the eye.

The only fault, for me, is the time-worn cliché of the denouement for the reason for the Hellfire Club's presence. Maybe this wouldn't be so telling read in monthly instalments, but it lets it down a bit for me. That stated, the creative team don't let the book end there and within the last few pages send those Astonishing X-Men flying out into space and danger with the threat that at least one of them might not return.

On the whole: superior, solid stuff.

All-Star Superman Volume 1

DC Comics

DC's All-Star books were (for want of a better marketing term) Elseworlds books done by major creators. Imaginary tales as they used to call them back in the 60s!

And Grant Morrison has gone back to that 60s period as his source material, added some of the attitude John Byrne's Man of Steel reappraisal gave the character, and further defined it to become one of the best Superman stories ever.

Saving Dr Quintm and his team from a genetically-enhanced booby trap as they explore the heart of the sun, Superman finds he has gained new powers but is also on course to himself die from them. As events turn he reveals his secret identity to Lois Lane, has his own life temporarily saved by Jimmy Olsen, but ultimately fails to save his own father's life.

Throughout this first collection of the 12 issue series I repeatedly feel myself going down memory lane as Morrison picks up a thread from some old battered comic I too once read as kid and runs with it in such a life-affirming way that I want to tip my hat in respect to him at every page turn.

He also slots in some radical theories concerning cutting edge science technology as part of the story structure without us being bogged down them is gratifying.

That he blends this to make one very readable story is beyond impressive.

Frank Quitely with Jamie Grant, passively enhance the story visually, their art full of grace and danger as we move from adventure to quest.

This is seriously excellent work!

Valerian and Laureline Book 1:
The City of Shifting Waters

Cinebook

Valérian, as its original title was, debuted as long ago as 1967 in the French comic Pilote #420 where it continued to be serialised and has subsequently been collected in over 20 bestselling graphic albums from the publisher Dargaud, with foreign editions too.

The English based Cinebook has actually chosen to start with the second book in the series wherein tough-jawed hero Valérian travels back in time to capture Xombul, a political prisoner who sought to make himself dictator in the 28th century.

Valérian is a spatio-temporal agent for Galaxity, capital of the Terran (read: Earth) Empire, and his job is to prevent temporal paradoxes occurring either naturally or by the acts of troublesome time-travellers.

Xombul has gone back to a 1987 where global warming's come on fast, the polar ice caps have melted and begun to flood the world.

So if you take a scenario from Waterworld you'll see late one night on TV (because no one sat through it at the movies!), prequel a scene reminiscent of the ending of Planet of the Apes, and have a plot that bears comparisons to Escape From New York you'll have a few inklings about the direction this story takes.

Only, you need to remember it was delivered in comic strip format during the late sixties way before those movies where ever made and imagine Woody Allen was making a straight adventure tale back then.

Not that the movie comparisons end there. Many Valérian fans have created lists noting the countless similarities between Valérian and the subsequent Star Wars franchise with artist Jean-Claude MéziÚres himself being quite angry in print over the matter.

Swipes, rip-offs, homage or influences spring from a common well? I'll leave that one to the lawyers. Suffice to say this is still an early work in the series so it's not firing on all guns yet.

But it is a heoric tale in the space opera sense where Valérian stumbles in his heroics, gets captured by a scamming salvage crew, gets saved by Laurelinem escapes, finds Xombul but needs to make a deal with his former captors' leader, Sun Rae, and then there's a whole tick box of mad scientist sci-fi inventions to explore (that do tend to reflect the time the book was made in) before the book draws to its conclusions with at least two little twists in the tale.

Primarily an adventure, the book is not without conversational humour, and some underlying philosophical themes - matters that would develop further as the seventies harkened and liberation in all its forms took hold on our real world and the creative thinking of Pierre Christin's scripts.

MéziÚres's characterisations opt for a cartoon look, but his backdrops and world scenes are heavily detailed, and it is no wonder he was one of several great French comic book artists whose names can be seen in the credits at the end of The Fifth Element as having produced concept art.

His characters would become more realistic as books would evolve, but here we see a strong Jack Davis influence (Mad Magazine) along with the slick inking of Belgian artist Franquin, and I'm informed Lucky Luke creator Morris was one of MéziÚres's influences so that would explain the choreography of his action scenes while maintaining that cartoon flavour.

Either way, the resulting work found great favour as can be seen in this Youtube video of an exhibtion for Valerian and Laureline:

The creators came up with the name of Laureline themselves one that like Wendy in Peter Pan has lead to parents in their thousands giving their daughters that name too. And so popular a character would she become that her name would eventually be added to the title of the series.

Having been nominated and won numerous awards the creators have seen their works translated into various languages before.

The first time I saw the series was when the Ambassador of the Shadows book was serialised in the original American version of Heavy Metal back in the early 80s. Indeed, as that magazine was heavily influenced by France's Métal Hurlant (again its original version) so was that too influenced by the French comics scene of the late sixties among which the Valérian has to be counted.

That stated, it isn't an adult orientated book, and Cinebook has recommended it as being for 12 plus aged readers. I'd say ten year olds would have no trouble enjoying it either, nor their parents have concerns over it. It's a solid tale this one, not an epic, nor giving too many clues that it would become such a raving success, but it's pleasantly diverting enough even for this grown-up.

The series has itself been adapted to a long-running animation TV series, and being co-produced by French and Japanese companies it has a strong anime style to it. A clip from Youtube is featured below:

For more information on current English language versions of Valerian and Laureline vist: www.cinebook.com

Civil War: Wolverine

Marvel

It's funny what catches your eye, and why it does so. Take the front cover to this collection - it made me think someone had stepped on the bushy tail of Thomas O'Malley the alley cat (and animated star of Disney's The Aristocats) and made him rather angry.

My comparison no doubt upsets comics fans by the legion comparing their mainstream bad-boy to an old cartoon, but that's their loss. I like things for my own reasons, not others.

I have to say though, that leafing through the interior pages I thought I wasn't going to like it was running headlong into a hi-octane Image-manga cul de sac. Fortunately I did pick it up and mostly appreciated the abstractions in Mexican born artist Ramos' work and liked the fact that he did on-panel action scenes rather than all that modern superhero macho posing that's likely to get your head kicked in during a real fight.

And TV writer Guggenheim (The Practice, CSI etc) starts slow and a tad predictable but then pulls the rug out from you as a reader with some nifty plot twists.

See Wolverine's chasing after Nitro, an old Captain Marvel villain (Captain Marvel as in the Kree warrior version, but possibly a latter variation or too also) but members of The Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D; and the old Sub-Mariner himself.

It's vicious, has some black comedy, pushes a few choice buttons on the political agenda front and turns out to be at once a handsomely written modern thriller but also for me evokes happy memories of a couple of ancient issues of Strange Tales where one Jim Steranko had Nicky Fury and Captain America battling the Yellow Claw (see something catches your eye, and your mind wanders).

If there's a fault it's one Marvel too often commit. They really give us no background and for the casual purchaser for whom the graphic novel/collection book store market is aimed at it only causes confusion.

Like, why is it titled Civil War? Well it transpires that back in Marvel-land there was a cross-continuity series for their books that went with that heading (crossovers are both a chance to promote certain books and kill off a few low-sellers or naff sellers).

And what was the Stamford Tragedy? Well, you kind of work out that Nitro had killed the townsfolk and while I'd guessed that it took half the book for it to be clarified. All they had to do was clarify these things on the inside front or back cover.

The book loses points for Marvel's lack of consideratino with regards to packaging books - I don't care if it sold by thousands of copies to committed fan boys it is still sloppy and could easily have been remedied.

Aside from that: cool Tomcat cover and a well crafted edgy modern comic book story!

CLICK ON Episode 31 of Shang Ri La La La below and it will expand to fill your screen.

For more information on the creators visit:

For Paul H Birch: www.myspace.com/paulhbirch

For Gary Crutchley: www.gcrutchley.blogspot.com

For Mats Engesten: www.go.to/engesten

For John Robbins: www.mylifeinshorts.blogspot.com

For Andrew Dodd: www.timebombcomics.com