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shapinglightNow if LJ will only behave itself....My hands are in slightly better shape at the end of this week than they were at the end of last but still not that great. Consequently, I'm trying to keep posting/commenting to the minimum for the time being. Considering how much I post normally (a lot), this is really difficult, involving all that hard stuff which I'm not good at, like self-restraint etc. :(
That said, I felt I had to go on doing the comics reviews. I think that once you start something, you should finish it - possibly the only way in which I am in any way remotely like Spike.
So, went down the comic shop, to find Comic Shop Boy in a Very Serious Mood. He ticked me off for not wanting the IDW Not Fade Away comic because he claimed they'd only ordered it because they thought I wanted it, though I can't remember saying I did. Can't think of anything that could be a greater waste of time than a comics retelling of a TV episode, except maybe Angel: Aftermath. Anyway, on to the reviews.
Spoilers of course. Also, those of you I buy the comics for, I haven't posted them yet due to the postal strike and have no idea when I'll be able to. Sorry.
The Buffy comic first, and I'm not going to do the things I liked/things I didn't like thing because this month they're too bound up in each other. See, the story's quite fun, the writing is good (it's Jane E. Of course the writing's good). The art, however, is truly horrible. I'm not much of a Jeanty fan, as I'm sure everyone's realised by now, but in this issue all the things I don't like about his work are there ten times over. He can't draw a likeness to save his life and in this issue, with its cast of thousands, that just makes things horribly confusing. The only characters we can identify with any certainty are Xander because of his eyepatch and Giles because of his glasses. Oh yeah, and Twilight I suppose, from his Deadpool rip-off costume. The action sequences are confusing, so at times it's very hard to tell what's meant to be happening, and there are a huge number of panels where everyone's mouths are missing. There're also some (possibly) unintentionally hilarious panels, like the one where Oz either has a long furry tongue or has swallowed most of a squirrel. Maybe it's meant to be funny, but if so, it comes across more as just plain ridiculous.
Worst of all IMO are the places where the poor art detracts from the emotional impact of the story, such as in the scene where Oz says to Willow, re: the baby, "We're not okay, are we?", and you realise that Willow is supposed to be upset, because there's no clue in the art previous to this that this is case. You can't tell anything about Willow except that she's wearing a rather peculiar hat.
Finally, I guess it's silly after all this time to expect Jeanty to do any actual research, but I'm still irritated by the fact that he's drawn Tibet - the highest desert in the world -looking like the Swiss Alps. Wouldn't surprise me at all to see a chorus of (Buddhist) nuns go by singing "The hi-ills are ali-ive" etc etc.
So yeah, I hate the art even more than usual, especially because it ruins what would otherwise be a good issue, because as long as you leave logic at the door, the story's enjoyable, Oz's partner is a really good character (Jane once again proves she can write interesting OCs), the baby is very cute, and the dialogue is great. I enjoyed the 'Spike' conversation between Not-Riley, Clueless Nerd and Twilight, because I was hoping Jane might be able to shoehorn Spike in somewhere (though I don't take from this conversation that Twilight knows who Spike is, or that he is Spike, as one of the more Desperate-For-Spike-To-Be-Twilight-So-He-Can-Say-I-Told-You-He-Was-Still-Evil Spike-hating posters on Buffyforums was trying to fanwank yesterday). I also very much like the confirmation from Dawn that the Slayer power is demonic in origin. I'm glad that's settled. All that said, Buffy's plan is nuts, and if her friends/the other Slayers know what it is and are going along with it, they're nuts too. For reasons why they're nuts, probably best to go and read![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beer_good_foamy's review of the issue, which is much more coherent than mine.
I think I'd better just stick with story fun, writing excellent, art bloody awful, dragging what should have been a 9/10 comic down to a 6/10 IMO.
Angel 24 from IDW is in many ways the polar opposite of the Buffy comic. It's the first part of a two part story co-written by Juliet Landau and Brian Lynch, and though a fair bit happens in it, it's very unclear as yet how it relates to the bigger picture (in this A: AtF, I think, rather than anything that comes after it). The first part takes place over a very brief span of time and mainly features Drusilla being bonkers and killing people, with certain characters turning a blind eye to the murders becuase they've been ordered to by mysterious entities offscreen. Whether we'll discover who those entities are, only the next issue will tell. In the meantime, as I said, Dru gets to be bonkers and kill an awful lot of psychiatrists (that'll teach them to put her in a straitjacket), and it looks absolutely beautiful. I've liked Franco Urru's work from the first time I saw it, but I think in this issue he excels himself. Dru looks like Dru in every panel, even if she doesn't always look exactly like Juliet Landau (a trick he's previously pulled off very successfully with Spike and Angel, making them look like them without necessarily always looking like JM and DB). The two page sequence where Dru kills the doctors is particularly well done, like some kind of murderous ballet. The colouring is also very striking.
So, there we have it. One comic that looks beautiful but isn't about very much (or if it is, we won't know what it is until the next issue), and one that's almost about too much and looks terrible.
Finally - and I really have to stop now, hands are hurting and fingers are going numb - I also came back with the latest Authority which contains the most romantic scene in any of the comics this week, of the Midnighter and Apollo about to kiss. Sadly, the romance doesn't last as first Apollo turns into a ravening monster and then Midnighter wakes up. However, he does take the dream as a sign that he has to go and find a cure for what ails his lover, and off he goes. See? Romantic.
That said, I felt I had to go on doing the comics reviews. I think that once you start something, you should finish it - possibly the only way in which I am in any way remotely like Spike.
So, went down the comic shop, to find Comic Shop Boy in a Very Serious Mood. He ticked me off for not wanting the IDW Not Fade Away comic because he claimed they'd only ordered it because they thought I wanted it, though I can't remember saying I did. Can't think of anything that could be a greater waste of time than a comics retelling of a TV episode, except maybe Angel: Aftermath. Anyway, on to the reviews.
Spoilers of course. Also, those of you I buy the comics for, I haven't posted them yet due to the postal strike and have no idea when I'll be able to. Sorry.
The Buffy comic first, and I'm not going to do the things I liked/things I didn't like thing because this month they're too bound up in each other. See, the story's quite fun, the writing is good (it's Jane E. Of course the writing's good). The art, however, is truly horrible. I'm not much of a Jeanty fan, as I'm sure everyone's realised by now, but in this issue all the things I don't like about his work are there ten times over. He can't draw a likeness to save his life and in this issue, with its cast of thousands, that just makes things horribly confusing. The only characters we can identify with any certainty are Xander because of his eyepatch and Giles because of his glasses. Oh yeah, and Twilight I suppose, from his Deadpool rip-off costume. The action sequences are confusing, so at times it's very hard to tell what's meant to be happening, and there are a huge number of panels where everyone's mouths are missing. There're also some (possibly) unintentionally hilarious panels, like the one where Oz either has a long furry tongue or has swallowed most of a squirrel. Maybe it's meant to be funny, but if so, it comes across more as just plain ridiculous.
Worst of all IMO are the places where the poor art detracts from the emotional impact of the story, such as in the scene where Oz says to Willow, re: the baby, "We're not okay, are we?", and you realise that Willow is supposed to be upset, because there's no clue in the art previous to this that this is case. You can't tell anything about Willow except that she's wearing a rather peculiar hat.
Finally, I guess it's silly after all this time to expect Jeanty to do any actual research, but I'm still irritated by the fact that he's drawn Tibet - the highest desert in the world -looking like the Swiss Alps. Wouldn't surprise me at all to see a chorus of (Buddhist) nuns go by singing "The hi-ills are ali-ive" etc etc.
So yeah, I hate the art even more than usual, especially because it ruins what would otherwise be a good issue, because as long as you leave logic at the door, the story's enjoyable, Oz's partner is a really good character (Jane once again proves she can write interesting OCs), the baby is very cute, and the dialogue is great. I enjoyed the 'Spike' conversation between Not-Riley, Clueless Nerd and Twilight, because I was hoping Jane might be able to shoehorn Spike in somewhere (though I don't take from this conversation that Twilight knows who Spike is, or that he is Spike, as one of the more Desperate-For-Spike-To-Be-Twilight-So-He-Can-Say-I-Told-You-He-Was-Still-Evil Spike-hating posters on Buffyforums was trying to fanwank yesterday). I also very much like the confirmation from Dawn that the Slayer power is demonic in origin. I'm glad that's settled. All that said, Buffy's plan is nuts, and if her friends/the other Slayers know what it is and are going along with it, they're nuts too. For reasons why they're nuts, probably best to go and read
beer_good_foamy's review of the issue, which is much more coherent than mine.I think I'd better just stick with story fun, writing excellent, art bloody awful, dragging what should have been a 9/10 comic down to a 6/10 IMO.
Angel 24 from IDW is in many ways the polar opposite of the Buffy comic. It's the first part of a two part story co-written by Juliet Landau and Brian Lynch, and though a fair bit happens in it, it's very unclear as yet how it relates to the bigger picture (in this A: AtF, I think, rather than anything that comes after it). The first part takes place over a very brief span of time and mainly features Drusilla being bonkers and killing people, with certain characters turning a blind eye to the murders becuase they've been ordered to by mysterious entities offscreen. Whether we'll discover who those entities are, only the next issue will tell. In the meantime, as I said, Dru gets to be bonkers and kill an awful lot of psychiatrists (that'll teach them to put her in a straitjacket), and it looks absolutely beautiful. I've liked Franco Urru's work from the first time I saw it, but I think in this issue he excels himself. Dru looks like Dru in every panel, even if she doesn't always look exactly like Juliet Landau (a trick he's previously pulled off very successfully with Spike and Angel, making them look like them without necessarily always looking like JM and DB). The two page sequence where Dru kills the doctors is particularly well done, like some kind of murderous ballet. The colouring is also very striking.
So, there we have it. One comic that looks beautiful but isn't about very much (or if it is, we won't know what it is until the next issue), and one that's almost about too much and looks terrible.
Finally - and I really have to stop now, hands are hurting and fingers are going numb - I also came back with the latest Authority which contains the most romantic scene in any of the comics this week, of the Midnighter and Apollo about to kiss. Sadly, the romance doesn't last as first Apollo turns into a ravening monster and then Midnighter wakes up. However, he does take the dream as a sign that he has to go and find a cure for what ails his lover, and off he goes. See? Romantic.