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PIPELINE COMMENTARY AND REVIEW #50
17 May 1998
by Augie De Blieck Jr.
http://www.nic.com/~augie/pipeline
INTRODUCTION
First, an update: School is over. Graduation is this Saturday. I'm
partying, and have plenty of extra time on my hands for the next couple or
three weeks. I just picked up a whole load of comics in the 50 cent bins,
including Warren Ellis/Terry Dodson's STORM mini-series, the first 40 or so
issues of John Ostrander/Tom Mandrake's SPECTRE, and more! So I have
plenty of time and plenty of material. Be prepared.
Welcome to the 50th column of Pipeline Commentary and Review! Special
thanks at the start to Elayne Wechsler-Chaput for convincing me that this
was a good idea way back in January 1996, when "Augie's Reviews" first
started. Thanks also to Ben Rawluk who originally gave me the name
"Pipeline Reviews." And thanks to my parents who never question how much
money I spend on comics. =)
I'm working on a couple of ideas to make the web site more
interesting. With any luck, that will all happen over this coming week or
two. Keep an eye out.
PORTRAIT OF THE WRITER AS A YOUNG MAN
I've always been something of a reader. Comic books were a natural
step for me, I assume. And although I had that brief adolescent flirtation
with the mystical realm of things artistic, I've always written. Back in
grade school, we used to get assignments to write a story. Everyone would
hand in their page or two, while I would have a sprawling epic of 5 or 6
pages. And I had fun doing it, dang-nab-it.
I took the creative writing and journalism courses in high school for
fun. I skipped over the stuff in college just because it got _too_
serious. And if I wrote what I wanted to write, the academic elites in the
class would look down their nose at me.
So I am completely self-taught. This column is a mixture of other
columns I've liked to read, with a bit of ingenuity of my own. I got sick
and tired of other column spoiling the stories in order to review them.
What's the point? If you want to entice someone to read a comic, why tell
them the whole story? After awhile, I burned out from that, so I stopped
for awhile. A few months later, the desire to do these reviews burned in
me again, but I wanted to do more. Rather than posting on a bunch of
threads in USENET about all sorts of comics industry-related trivia, I
should just put those thoughts into a column, mix it with reviews and
sometimes a bit of news and -- voila! Here I am. I'm two weeks away from
the first chronological anniversary of this column.
This is the 50th issue, and thus should be double-sized. The only
problem is that I haven't read that many comics lately due to school and
finances. So I have to make something else up.
So this column starts out about me. I'm Augie De Blieck Jr. And I'm
a writer, dangit. You want proof? Besides this weekly column -- and I
haven't missed a week yet -- there's also my Fan-Fic writings available at
http://www.nic.com/~augie/fanfic.htm
There's also a link to it on this very web site down below here
somewhere. It includes a bunch of links to other WWW sites which discuss
the finer art of writing. Like I said, I'm self-taught. Do I ever want to
make a living at it? I don't think so. Writers have a really cool
lifestyle, I've always thought. Stay at home all day and sit behind the
computer. I do that already. (A little bit of anti-social behavior
is a good thing for everyone. =) Short story writers keep selling the same
story over and over again, in collections and in other magazines and the
like.
I realize it's not that simplistic. And do I think I have a shot at
doing it for a living? Sure, I probably do. Everyone has a chance.
I probably just won't be the one taking a chance to do it. But I'd like to
do a little on the side. That would be nice. I'd like to get a comic book
story published someday. So I continue to teach myself the art. In the
meantime, I don't want to take the pay cut.
PROCESS JUNKIES
And what better segueway to heap praise upon Marvel for publishing
AVENGERS ROUGH CUT than that? For $2.95, it includes Kurt Busiek's
complete plot for the issue, along with George Perez's original pencil art.
For process junkies ( (c) the aforementioned Elayne, I believe) like
myself, this is tons of fun. For one, you get to see how one of the best
writers in the business does it. How much detail do you put into the plot?
How much do you leave to the artist? How much plot belongs on a page?
This doesn't all of those questions, of course, but it is a great example.
Furthermore, you get to see Perez's brilliance. There is more than one
occasion when Busiek will describe a page with 6 or 8 characters in it, and
Perez will turn around and throw in 16.
Marvel is planning on making this a series. July will bring us THOR
ROUGH CUT, containing Dan Jurgens and JR JR's work from THOR #1. I hope
these books get the support they deserve.
Once upon a time, WildStorm had planned to put out a book reprinting
Chris Claremont/Jim Lee's WILDC.A.T.s three-parter, with the script on the
left and the art on the right. With Claremont working full-script, that
would have been really interesting to see. Lack of interest, alas, killed
the project. (The high price tag was likely a cause. IIRC, it was a $80
or $90 book.)
In the meantime, there are several other scripts out there for your
perusal. Check my web site mentioned above for more, including the similar
treatment with X-O MANOWAR by Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn with IRON MAN'S
Sean Chen. Kurt Busiek has also made the scripts to MARVELS available
on-line and Steve Gerber has a script or two up there, too.
BEST OF THE BEST
But the point of all of this is to point out the writers I learn from.
Rather than review specific comic books, I'm here to review writers today.
My favorites, for various reasons, that is.
WARREN ELLIS is just one crazy bastich. He can write in a variety of
styles, but for the most part the more bizaare or the more
science-fiction-oriented, the better. He can be completely over-the-top
with his humor and with his situations. At the same rate, he's a master of
pacing and mood. His recent four-part WOLVERINE storyline moved along at a
furious pace, without slowing down for anything. His STORMWATCH vol 1.
ending storyline started off slow and menacing and picked up speed as it
went to a horrifying crescendo.
ERIK LARSEN actually shares somethings in common with Ellis. His
dialogue is spot-on brilliant. It's light-hearted, shocking, and often
terse. There are no words wasted. He's often done scenes and whole issues
just for the sake of a single punchline. Some might call that
over-indulgence, but it's spontaneous. His pacing is all over the place
and completely non-traditional. Storylines which in other books would race
up to a grand finale often end on a left-hand page, quite abruptly. It
keeps the readers on their toes when you never know what to expect next.
In addition, he manages a cast of dozen with ease. His character names are
simple and often funny, easy-to-remember, and colorful, not to mention
fitting. SAVAGE DRAGON contains more fun for your funny-book dollar.
MARK WAID is a terrific dialogue writer, as well, although in a
completely different way. His flows more naturally and sounds more
authentic. He knows how to build up a story, set the stage, and hit hard
with a big payoff. His second run on CAPTAIN AMERICA, so far, has been
just that. It started off slow, to set up the characters. It's built to a
scary climax, and now we're in that phase which says all hope is lost. I
suspect it will be wrapped up in the next issue. Some will then complain
that that's too short an ending, but for me it makes perfect plotting
sense. If you stretch out the ending, you dilute the impact.
What can I say about KURT BUSIEK that hasn't been said before? He's a
thinking-man's writer. He weaves old-fashion characterization with a
healthy knowledge of continuity and the ability to tell a wide variety of
stories, from the traditional AVENGERS to the modern IRON MAN to the
completely different ASTRO CITY and the twisted tale of the THUNDERBOLTS.
His characterization is particularly strong. As amazing as George Perez is
on AVENGERS with getting dozens of people to look completely different,
Busiek can do the same thing with a simple word balloon or a simple panel
full of action. Busiek's first-person narration and sense of wonder
inherent in MARVELS or ASTRO CITY is also well worth looking at. It's a
completely different form of story-telling from, say, the first-person
captioning on a book like WOLVERINE.
JOE KELLY is the best new writer to emerge in awhile. His scripting
is clever and witty. His trademark DEAD-POOL title is a study in how
Spider-Man ought to be written, particularly if Spider-Man were a little
nastier. DEAD-POOL #11 is on my short-list for funniest comics of all
time. But as much attention as his merc-with-a-mouth gets for its humor,
he's also adept at characterization and long-term plotting. DEAD-POOL is,
uinderneath the crass facade, a title about a character fighting against
all odds to be a good guy. This isn't your typical one or two-issue
conversion to justify making a popular bad guy into a character capable of
supporting his own title. This is an interesting story without easy
answers or trite endings.
CHRIS CLAREMONT wrote the textbook on super-hero titles. His UNCANNY
X-MEN has been copied and homaged ad infinitum by now and for good reason.
(Those ESSENTIAL X-MEN books are required reading.) His most recent
WOLVERINE issue and a couple of the most recent FANTASTIC FOUR issues he's
written show a leaning towards a return to his old form, with stong female
characters, strong plotting, and the most adept use of super-hero powers.
And most amazing and the most difficult for me to understand is DON
ROSA, master Duck storyteller. The duck books are a completely different
form of storytelling than your average super-hero or action/adventure
comics. In comparison, they SHOULD be plodding. There are grids of 9 or
12 panels per page. Simple stories fill up ten or twenty pages. Yet in
spite of all of this, the stories are fun to read, easy to sail through,
and more entertaining than half the super-hero comics I've read. I can't
explain it. But there is strong panel-to-panel storytelling. It may take
longer to read and the stories aren't as easy to remember due to the lack
of repetition inherent in super-hero serials. It is, however, the
strongest form of character-oriented storytelling.
I feel bad. I'm sure I'm missing somebody. Or "somebodies." Keith
Giffen did an incredible run on the old JUSTICE LEAGUE and FREAK FORCE
titles. John Ostrander did some incredible work on THE KENTS, SUICIDE
SQUAD, and, from what I've heard, THE SPECTRE. (His current series, HEROES
FOR HIRE, is also incredibly fun reading in the classic Marvel tradition.)
So that leaves everything but a recommended reading list. I would
have to go through way too many comic books to come up with one of those,
sorry. The first thing that jumps to mind, though, is Scott McCloud's
first dozen or so issues of SUPERMAN ADVENTURES. There's wonderful
storytelling in there on both a structural basis as well as an artistic
one. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Issue #6, "Seonimod", is
one of my favorite comic stories of all time.
AND NOW, FOR A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE
To finish off this column, let me review something. It comes from one
of my favorite up-and-coming writers, J. Torres. His THE COPYBOOK TALES is
my favorite non-super-hero series of all time. Together with artist
extraordinaire, Tim Levins, his work just exudes fun and excitement. And
this week debuted SIREN #1, his latest series. The first issue is
published by the Image non-line. Future issues will be published, er,
elsewhere. I'll let you know when that's finalized, because I like this
first issue. It's not perfect, but it's wonderfully inviting and very
interesting. And if the rest of this doesn't get published, I may get
REALLY angry. ;-)
Like Starman's Opal City, Siren is the main character of this series.
Siren is the town. Siren is a city filled with supernatural beings and
mystical things. Vampires are a norm, as are changelings. Super-heroes
are treated as an homage to Kurt Busiek's MARVELS. (OK, maybe they look
more like the JLA, but you get the point.)
There's a lot going on in this issue and that's both its strength and
its weakness. The city of Siren and the situation in which it finds itself
is wonderfully introduced through a series of incidents. We meet up with a
large number of the various groups living in Siren. At the same time, this
tends to send the reader in twenty different directions. I'd have
preferred a more linear story for the first issue. At the same rate,
though, this is shaping up to be a mystery series, so maybe all of this
introduction was necessary to set up the plot properly. We'll have to
wait for future issues to figure that out.
The main character is Zara Rush, investigator of the paranormal and a
private detective. In one of the best-handled bits of business in this
issue, we learn that she's half-Filipino. Why is this so well-handled?
Because it's not a plot point! Hallelujah! A "minority" character is being
portrayed, first and foremost, as a 'normal' person and not a persecuted
race. (This isn't to say there is no discussion of racialism or prejudice
in the book. In a city which is a melting pot of the supernatural, you can
well imagine there are some heated terms. I'd much rather see such topics
handled within the confines of the allegory than as someone screaming at
the top of their lungs in the real world. And there's something brewing
in that regard between Zara and Evan. Methinks Zara blames a supernatural
being for her father's disappearance, and holds that against them all.)
There's one off-handed mentionof the Phillipines and that's it. And Tim
Levins draws Zara as someone who looks like she's the product of a mixed
marriage. When you don't have a colorist to rely on to save your arse, you
have to draw these things in.
There's a big mystery surrounding her father, as well. Her assistant
has a fascination with the bizarre and the unusual. The local cops treat
her as a surrogate daughter, and her mother is still in shock over
everything. There's also a mysterious super-hero with questionable means,
and an attempted murder in need of explaining.
In other words, it's a good book. J. Torres and Tim Levins both
obviously put a lot of thought into this ahead of time. Sometimes, it
comes out rather abruptly. I can think of no better way to do it that they
did, but there's a lot of expository material in here. Scarlet goes on for
a page or so about vampire mythos. Zara does some internal dialogue to
describe her mother's state of being. Thankfully, it's shown at the same
time, so it's not like the info is being forced in wherever room could be
found.
Like I said before, pacing is slowed down a bit by all the expository
material, the frequent scene changes, and the lack of direct action
sequences. There are some tense moments, such as the last couple of pages,
which are handled well. There are some moody pages without many panels or
word balloons which work well. And I hope the introduction of a more
linear storyline might speed things up some.
But I don't want to get too critical. Because I liked this book.
It's interesting. It's fun. It's easy to read, fun to look at. And J.
and Tim are genuinely nice guys. (And I owe them one since they sent me a
preview copy of this which I forgot to review here for them. But, really,
that didn't bias this review one way or the other.)
-Augie
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