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PIPELINE COMMENTARY AND REVIEW #55
21 June 1998
by Augie De Blieck Jr.
http://www.nic.com/~augie/pipeline
MORE ONE-LINERS
By popular request, we bring back the one-liners this week. (Well,
not completely, but most of these ideas are little snippets I set
aside looking for the right time to put them in a column. And here
they are.)
I really like Trade Paperbacks. There's something nice about owning
collections and lining them up on a bookshelf. Maybe it's because
they look closer to "normal" books. I don't know.
THE ESSENTIAL WOLVERINE vol. 3 came out this past week. So how'd I
celebrate? I read the first volume. There's some pleasant surprises
in there. First of all, the Madripoor storyline has grown on me. I
like the disguised super-hero bit.
And the second chapter of the "Gehenna Stone Affair" may go into my
top 100 comics of all time list. Peter David and John Buscema put
together a 22 page car chase scene. It was done really well.
There's still the thrill of completing parts of your collection.
Reminds me of my extreme youth when I collecting baseball cards and
ripped into the latest pack of cards to find that final common I
needed to complete any given set.
On that note, I finally realized why I was missing all those issues of
Giffen/DeMatteis' JUSTICE LEAGUE. They renamed and continued the
numbering with JL INTERNATIONAL at one point. Sheesh. Glad I finally
figured this out. So the holes in my collection aren't nearly so deep
as previously thought.
EXCALIBUR is another one of those series I'm reading mostly "after the
fact." I only have one of the Warren Ellis issues, but I keep on the
hunt for the rest of his run. Of course, the best issues were the
ones written and drawn by Alan Davis with Mark Farmer. Chris
Claremont's no slouch, either.
CAPTAIN AMERICA #8, written well by Mark Waid, includes a street-level
hood named "Augie." John Byrne drew an ALIENS serial for PREVIEWS
which included a bartender named "Augie." John Ostrander, in one of
the earlier issues of THE SPECTRE, included a scene where the shady
businessman was on the phone with a character named "Augie." While I
love the fact that my name is showing up more and more in comics (and
not just on the letters pages ;-), I'm beginning to wonder if complete
strangers see the name "Augie" and think I'm some sort of hoodlum.
I'm getting a complex. How many other "Augie"s have you all seen in
comics? Please, let me know! (I keep thinking there was one in a
Warren Ellis comic recently, but I can't recall for sure. If so, it's
probably from TRANSMETROPOLITAN and then it was probably some REAL
wakko...)
Jan Strnad has an excellent web site set up at
http://www.atombrain.com
Check out his comic book on the web, "Dalgoda." It's actually the
first issue from a series he wrote awhile back. Not only is it very
entertaining, but it's a good example of how comic book presentations
should be done on the web.
Dale Keown used to be one of the best artists in the business when he
worked on HULK. Now he's all but washed up, a control freak and a
slow one at that. It's sad to see someone sink so low.
Sheesh, even Adam Hughes gets some specials out every year... I'm
looking forward to his SUPERMAN/GEN13 special. I'm looking more
forward, however, to the SAVAGE DRAGON/SUPERMAN issues.
Peter David's final issue of THE INCREDIBLE HULK came out this past
week and it's a real winner. I wrote a special edition of this column
at mid-week to recognize this fact. You can find it off the main page
of the web site.
Why can't comic books include page numbers? Is that so much to ask?
Is it just a reviewer's wish, or do other readers out there like them,
too?
I find it odd that I got more visitors the day I announced the
Pipeline web site redesign than I got the day it was announced a new
column was up that week. What does that say for you people? ;-)
JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE NAIL came out this week. STORMWATCH #7 came out
this week. Both were excellent reads. One was drawn by Alan Davis
and Mark Farmer, while the other was drawn by Bryan Hitch and Paul
Neary. Good luck figuring out which team drew which book. ;-) (OK,
it's not quite THAT bad; Hitch does some excellent work, but his
'inspiration' is obvious.)
GEN13/MONKEYMAN AND O'BRIEN #1 is written and drawn by Art Adams.
He's been watching too much STAR TREK. He also brings back some
continuity brought up by Mark Farmer and Alan Davis, who keep rating
mentions in this column. That's the third. I promise it's the last.
Oh, The Irony Dept.: While at Manhattan Comics a couple of weeks ago,
it was pointed out to me that the kid from CREED looks a lot like
Impulse. THE FLASH 80-PAGE GIANT features a story about Impulse drawn
by Creed's creator, Ethan Van Sciver.
John Byrne's washed-up. His story in said title did nothing for me,
and all his stuff is looking alike to me these days. What happened to
the creative mind that brought us NAMOR and NEXT MEN?
THUNDERBOLTS is still an entertaining title (I love a good sword
fight), but it's lost its edge. Either that or I've grown too used to
it. I don't know.
-Augie
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