Commentary Track for The Buy Pile that was due on July 22, 2010
Every week I do a column full of comic book reviews as I’ve done since March 2003 and currently published at Comic Book Resources. Then, after the reviews post, I try to come over to my blog and expand on the thoughts and ideas listed there. Sometimes it’s profound, sometimes it’s gibberish, but it’s always about comics … let’s see what we get this week!
The hustle and bustle of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con is likely the root cause of why, days after writing it, my reviews have yet to be posted online. On one hand, this is a huge annoyance to me, because I have a fairly regimented life and when one thing falls off the wagon, it can make other elements go awry. No Buy Pile, no Commentary Track, cats lying down with moose, the world gone mad.
However, I need to move on. I won’t go any farther to spoil what I bought (and therefore didn’t) than I did in both of my mobile blogs, so I can’t go into much detail without spoiling the column for whenever it does see print …
Oh, yeah, I’ll still need to be paid for it, regardless. I was on time.
What can we talk about instead? What else is happening in comics? Oh, right … ‘Con itself (since I am #notatcomicon)! First big announcement that strikes home is the big announcement from Stranger Comics about their debut property The Untamed heading for the silver screen courtesy of Watchmen producer Lloyd Levin and Shopgirl producer Andrew Sugerman, with Eureka creator and Boom! Studios co-founder Andrew Cosby and already has visual effects covered from Ken Locsmandi, who did Fight Club and The Matrix. Quite a line up of talent for a story from tyro writer Sebastian A. Jones, even if he did have art from Harry Potter vet Peter Bergting.
In all fairness, I will note that I’ve been friends with Sebastian for more than ten years, and have pitched in on some light marketing duties for Stranger Comics, based in the same west LA special effects house where Stealth, The Dark Knight and many other cinematic wonders got their visual “wow.” I remember when his son was too young to walk, I’ve seen his make his way from the music biz through club promotion and acting to his true passion. The Untamed is the vanguard movement for twenty years of story development, and since I’ve read the original screenplay, there’s lots of scenes I’m psyched to see played out on a big screen.
I won’t pretend like the announcement of CrossGen coming back through Marvel is a huge surprise, since Disney bought their whole universe for pennies on the parsec, but I didn’t expect them to return to print, which is what I’m sensing from the little I read. CrossGen had a much stronger magical underpinning, and (The First notwithstanding) I felt they did mysticism a little better. How this’ll work — other worlds scattered through Marvel’s cosmic realm (easier) or somehow jammed into Earth, via present or past (less optimal) or just a separate shtick a la Ultimates and Zombies (likely easiest) — is anybody’s guess. The one thing I do hope for is that if Marc Alessi was honest in one overarching story through all the properties that we’ll see some resolution to it.
Re: the stabbing in Hall H? Given the annual preponderance of bladed weapons and people easily given to making bad decisions (almost linked to any ridiculous con photo I’ve ever seen, decided it was too easy), I’m honestly surprised there’s not more of this. Hall H is too amok, it’s time to broadcast the panels out from an undisclosed location already. My biggest beef? Did the suspect have to be a Black guy? Come on, people, don’t we have enough problems getting in and being okay? Sheesh.
While the visual excited me, the storyteller in is has some worries about tossing the Infinity Gauntlet into Kenneth Branagh’s Thor — feels like it’s either too ambitious for this tale (took dozens of entities to beat Thanos) or too belittling for such an item (i.e. if it’s just another trophy in Odin’s shiny Valhalla like The Destroyer), but it’s too early to render a real judgement.
Sadly, seeing this tweet from Dwayne McDuffie is the most interesting thing out of DC. I never liked the uniform on Ryan Reynolds and the corpse of Abin Sur didn’t do much for me. Creepy.
That said, Whedon on Avengers is vaguely interesting, the cast, not so much. I also have some interest in the trailer for Red (even as far from the Warren Ellis as it is). I didn’t really see much I got super excited about, honestly, and I did more business in Los Angeles than I did in the last two times I was at SDCC, so being #notatcomicon meant driving my six-year-old and her best friend to Disneyland … and leaving them there with the best friend’s dad and our babysitter. It also meant watching my six-month-old learn to bounce, tons of laughs with my wife and I got to see Inception, which — in terms of craft and skill at storytelling — was Matrix good. Like, the first Matrix. I would review it, but there’s little I could say that wouldn’t be a spoiler. I highly recommend it, though.
That said, I hope whatever you love brought you joy, no matter whether you were in San Diego or not. Auf wiedersen!
Playing (Music): “Our Generation” by John Legend and The Roots
[...] announcement will have hit the news circles, and if there will be content about it in both the Commentary Track and the mobile microblog. Maybe, maybe not, who can say? See you in the funny [...]
[...] As noted, the reviews from last week did not post on CBR, and the apparent cause was that somebody didn’t check an email address that I was allegedly told to stop using. I can’t find any record of that communication, but time marches on and waits for nobody to complain about some old isht. [...]