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PIPELINE COMMENTARY AND REVIEW #14
07 September 1997
by Augie De Blieck Jr.
http://www.nic.com/~augie/pipeline
"Damned Good Comics"
I've done a little catching up in the comics-reading department this past
week. I've been missing out on a lot of good stuff lately by delaying these
readings, lemme tell you.
In fact, it's prompted me to put together a list of ten or twenty of the best
comics/series I've read this year. I hope to have it ready for next week's
column.
DAREDEVIL #369 and DEAD-POOL #9 have come out in the past two weeks. I wrote
in a letter to DEAD-POOL that I thought Joe Kelly was the best writer to come
into comics in the past couple of years. After DAREDEVIL, I'm ready to
replace "I think" with "I know." The man is a complete package. He can do
dark and brooding just as easily and light and humorous. He can mix the two
together in a most interesting way, as he does in both of the above titles.
His dialogue and captions are imaginative, informative, easy to read, and
fun to quote. I can do without Ariel Olivetti's art on DAREDEVIL (where the
hell is Cary Nord?!?) but it's still an amazing issue.
Hey, didja notice that Marvel is finally putting creators' names on the
covers of their comics at last? It's about time. Thank goodness those silly
"Putting the character back in comics" ads from a year ago are gone. It
sounded particularly funny coming from Marvel. (Of course, DC is just in the
process of trying to repeat the superlative Death of Superman story for every
single one of its characters, so they're not doing much better.)
THE FIGHTING AMERICAN #1 finally came out from Awesome Entertainment after
months of legal wrangling with Marvel. This litigiousness, of course, does
little to make me automatically hate the issue. In fact, I went in rooting
for it. I have to admit to having a brainlessly fun time. And I mean that
in more than just the way one has fun with a Liefeld CAPTAIN AMERICA #1,
picking out all the little continuity and logic gaffs. I mean there's some
parts to this which come off interestingly and well done. Rob Liefeld's art
hasn't gotten all that much better, but I was impressed here with Stephen
Platt's art. What little work I've seen of his in the past just looked
completely over-drawn and too far out of whack with commom decency and
humanity. This stuff looks good. In conjunction with the coloring team's
use of dramatic lighting, it even looks exciting. (I prefer not to have all
the computer coloring trickery in my comics, but if you're going for flash,
this is the way to do it.)
THE COVEN #1 I'm still unsure of. It's the new Awesome title by Jeph Loeb
and Ian Churchill. The first issue has a bunch of pretty pictures, and a
good scene or two, but little story. Too many big panels, and not enough
story. Maybe next issue?
THE KENTS #4 came out from DC Comics this week, thanks to the feverish mind
of John Ostrander and the perky pencilling of Tim Truman. This issue wraps
up the first chapter of the storyline, and it's an awesome, brutal, tough,
inspiring read. The character of Jeb Kent is about as complex a one as
you'll get in all of comics today, and Ostrander pulls this off without being
obvious or overbearing with it. The change is subtle, but you see it
happening, and you feel the repercussions at the end.
I have to admit to not being a big cowboys and indians fan or a western fan.
And sometimes I say that it's books like this which will change my mind. But
when I think about it some more, I realize the reasons I love this book are
not for the genre, but in spite of it. I like this story because it is
expertly told. This isn't a comic book, it's a text book of storytelling. I
also like this story because of the historical detail given it, and I'm a
sucker for American history. But this book has proven to me that just
because it's a western tale, it doesn't mean it's going to be bad.
THE COPYBOOK TALES #5 came out at last, too, sometime in the past couple of
weeks. I finally got around to reading it the other day. It's everything
this book has been and then some. This time around, the brunt of the story
doesn't come from the harshness of kids as they grow up so much as the
emotions that those kids have upon reflection of those days. This sounds
terribly convoluted, so let me try it this way: In previous issues, the
humor and emotion comes from watching the kids as kids being kids. They're
immature and funny and caught up in their time. This issue, though, uses
that solely as a sort of jumping-off point, in order to tell the story of how
we grow up to be more than just that. This story is sweet and it's nice to
read, and teaches some good lessons for all of us. However, it achieves all
this subtlely, without being moralistic, saccharine, or cute. This is a book
I continue to not be able to recommend highly enough. You can count on it
being on the Top Twenty list next week.
SAVANT GARDE #7 ends this title's run, and it's another comic that was too
good for its time, I suppose. It was a fun and adventurous comic. It wasn't
about crime-fighting or heavy moral themes. It was a fun team-up comic with
cool characters who all acted like individuals. The art was easy on the eyes
and not caught up in itself or the current hot trend of the day. I will miss
it. And I recommend all 7 issues when they hit your local store's quarter
bins. (Heck, I recommend them all now, but I won't blame you for waiting a
bit longer.)
SUPERMAN ADVENTURES #13 fooled me, I can admit. I saw the cover and thought
right away it was going to be some cheesy, boring, campy thing. No, it was
much more than that. It was funny. It was exciting. It was, I'm told, a
brilliant throw-back to the Silver Age. Whereas John Ostrander is teaching
us all how to tell a story, Scott McLoud and Rick Burchett are showing us
here how to tell a story in a comic book medium. The panel layouts and
story-telling techniques here are wonderful and memorable. And the new
Superman cartoons begin tomorrow! Yeee-ha!
-Augie
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