Comics: I'm Back, Baby!

A few months ago, I discovered Hoopla Digital, an app where you can check out digital items from your local library. There are several apps where you can do this, depending on which ones your library uses. But the big deal with Hoopla (at least for me) is that they specifically mention comics as one of the things you can borrow. Well, the selection is pretty damn impressive. There's no Marvel, but just about every other publisher I can think of seems to be represented. It's not perfect, but free is not something to be sneezed at. Anyway, I've been reading comics. A lot. Here's a few.

I caught up with Saga, and I'm happy to say it is still just as good as I remembered it being.  I haven't been following comics for a couple of years now, so I don't know, but I would still put my money on Brian K. Vaughn being the best damn writer in the medium. You're never quite sure where he's going to take you, yet it always makes sense. The characters are alive in ways that very few can manage. Although, I will say a big part of his success is also his ability to choose artists that can make those characters breathe. Fiona Staples can draw these really beautiful characters that captivate. It's easy to get caught up in her work from a distance, but one reason I really enjoy digital comics more than paper now a days, is that you can focus on details in each panel in a way that you (or at least I, and my old eyes) can't on paper. When you do that in Saga, you'll notice the subtlest hints of facial expression that are not typical of the medium. It's as if these were just freeze framed at very specific moments that only a real observer of humanity would know to choose. And she does. And it comes across in a way that makes you know exactly what these people are thinking and feeling at every moment, regardless of the words. I can't stress enough how everyone should read this book.

Because I'm a sucker for Elseworlds stories and it was free, I decided to give DC's Injustice: God's Among Us a try. I read 5 volumes of this shit, hating it and myself along the way at various points. Yet, I will likely read the next volumes when and if they become available on Hoopla because now I gotta see it through. To be fair, the first volume is a complete shitshow, but it does improve as it goes on. A little. Inconsistently. Without a doubt, this is the most inconsistent art I've ever seen in anything. One page will be filled with scribbles and then out of nowhere, there's a panel that looks amazing, like it was dropped in from another book. The "writing" is what you'd expect from a book that was thrown together just to justify a video game. It's ultimately nothing new. "What if Superman went mad and became a dictator" may not have been done outright in exactly the same way as this, but there have certainly been elements of all of this in other stories from Red Son to a bunch of other glimpses into alternate universes over the years. What I take most offense with in the whole story is the portrayal of Wonder Woman as almost a blood thirsty Lady Macbeth that at one point says she will be whatever Superman needs her to be. Fuck. That. Shit. I can't wait to finish reading this garbage, though. Like reading trashy novels, I guess.

What if you could stop time by having an orgasm? That's it. That's the premise of Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky's Sex Criminals and I would never have expected to love this book so much. I gave it a shot and, much like Saga, I was instantly hooked by how alive these characters are. And also, it's fucking funny. Without being immature, although, sometimes it is on purpose and that's funny too. But it never defaults to lowest common denominator humor like I would have expected. It's always smart without being pretentious or loosing the comedy. There's a lot of meta stuff going on with characters addressing the reader and background jokes like crazy. I have to admit at first Zdarsky's art didn't seem like my cup of tea, but I got over that by like panel 3 or so when (again, thanks to digital) I could really see what he was doing in the fine details. It totally makes sense now that this book has won so many awards. Read this.

Comics of the Week - There's Really Only One

For a few weeks in a row, now, I've been going on about Fantastic Four and the epic story Jonathan Hickman started telling a couple years ago. This week, Fantastic Four #603 concluded this story and the ending did not disappoint. Big action. Big ideas. And it all came together going back to the very beginning of this saga. What's left after all of this sets up a great status quo going forward. Hickman is off of Fantastic Four in October, I believe, so it will be interesting to see what's next.

Another arc that wrapped up was in Batman and Robin #7. One of the great things about the relaunch has been the tonal variety of the books. Yes, there are a lot of Batman books, but each one is slightly different in tone and you have a Batman for each taste. For me, it's been Scott Snyder's Batman, mainly, but Peter J. Tomasi's Batman and Robin has been right up there as well. This first arc was a great re-introduction to Damian as we see him and Bruce adapt to being partners as well as father and son. The dynamic between Batman and Robin is skewed from what Bruce was used to in many ways, such as Damian possibly being a tiny bit of a psychopath. Patrick Gleason's art continues to impress me. He's not getting the same attention that Capullo is getting over on Batman, but this book looks just as good.

Then there's Saga. . . . I read this first, and I very nearly didn't bother reading anything else. I just sort of sat there, wondering why all comics couldn't be this good. Brian K. Vaughn may be the best writer in comics right now, if not, ever. And I don't think that's an overstatement. There is just something about his characters that can keep the most insane things grounded and the reader fully absorbed. Saga is like taking the craziest elements of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and maybe Dune, amping up the far out concepts, but then, somehow, making it all cohesive, relatable and completely plausible from page 1. I think he does this because regardless of the concepts, he's telling a story, first and foremost, and is concerned with the human element, even if the characters aren't human. He can somehow make you care about a character the minute you see them, because he chooses what your first impression is going to be so carefully, and then backs it up as the story moves forward. He's not re-inventing the wheel here, so it's ironic that that is what makes this such a breath of fresh air. You never get the sense that he's trying to blow your mind in any way. There's no pretension and the whole thing comes off as completely organic. It's like the author completely disappeared and this book is just happening. This is about as perfect a first issue as it can get. Everything is laid out, without tons of exposition. You never feel lost. And a big part of that is Fiona Staple's art. She clearly has the chops to be flashy if she wanted, but instead she gives us visual storytelling of the highest order, never showing off for the sake of showing off. Every line, every expression is there for a reason. The looks on faces tell stories of their own. And that's not to say the art isn't beautiful, because it is. But it's there to serve the story. This is a creative team that is clearly in sync here. Pick this up now! This book will save your life. . . . OK, that was over the top, but still, pick it up and read it in issues. I can tell it's going to be a great ride already.