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PIPELINE COMMENTARY AND REVIEW #78
29 November 1998
by Augie De Blieck Jr.
http://www.nic.com/~augie/pipeline
AS LONG AS I SPELL SHAMUS CORRECTLY. . .
I come this week to both praise and bury WIZARD: THE GUIDE TO
COMICS. Issue 89, the year-end spectacular issue was published this
past week, started off with a tough decision: Which cover to
buy? On one was a face-off between Superman and Spider-Man as
painted by Alex Ross. On the other was a pen and ink illo of
Batman by Jim Lee. I went with the latter. I've seen enough Ross
art, I think, that it's all starting to blend together on me now. =)
Jim Lee has a remarkable ability which not too many other have. He
can draw in that cross-hatching style at the same time creating a
sense of three-dimensionality. In contrast, you look at Norm
Rapmund's inks over Dan Jurgens in SUPERMAN: THE DOOMSDAY WARS and
you can see example after example of cross-hatching done just to
fill blank space, rather than to texturalize a space. (I doubt
that's a word, actually.) Scott Williams is the best inker Jim Lee
can ever ask for.
But, anyway, onto the interior of this issue: I was impressed by
the sheer number of references to Erik Larsen and his book, THE
SAVAGE DRAGON. Everything from declaring TSD the "sleeper" hit of
1998 to pointing Larsen out as the writer to look out for in 1999.
There's a half-dozen more references, but I won't list them all. I
just hope this helps boost sales on DRAGON. I doubt it, but I can
hope, can't I?
There's some interesting stuff in this issue, including a
delightful interview with Stan Lee. But the highlight of the issue
has to be the explanation of how Alex Ross painted over George
Perez's pencils for the CRISIS hardcover. It's an amazing
pictorial, and a fascinating look into the process.
There is a wonderful 6 page comic by Scott McCloud discussing the
use of computers in today's comics. And didja know that Gareb
Shamus owns the original art to all twelve of the WATCHMEN covers?
Yeesh! The man is challenging Steve Geppi all of a sudden for
America's #1 comics fan. Sheesh
On the other side of the coin, they really dropped the ball on the
two-page map of the world listing which comics are popular where.
They discuss with glee the numbers X-MEN sells in The Netherlands,
and Brazil's love affair with SPAWN. But, somehow, in all the hype
over the tens of thousands of copies these books sell in those
respective countries, it completely misses the MILLIONS PER WEEK
books like UNCLE $CROOGE and DONALD DUCK sell in any of the
Scandinavian countries. How could they possibly miss this one?!?
Actually, I suppose that on-balance that's a really minor nit-pick.
It's probably their best issue in a while. Pick it up.
THE ERIK LARSEN HAT TRICK
Erik Larsen currently has three books on the stands. (4 if you
count the covers he helps Chris Eliopoulos do on DESPERATE TIMES,
but for the sake of this argument, we won't.)
Until NOVA starts up next year, these three reviews per month will
have to do:
THE SAVAGE DRAGON #55 contains more funny for your funny book dollar
than any other comic being printed for $2.50 today does. In
addition to the stirring 20 page main story, you also get 7 pages'
worth of letters column (which is 7 pages more than Vertigo plans
to offer across their ENTIRE line now), 2 pin-ups, 2 pages of
Megaton Man by Don Simpson and two pages of Desperate Time strips by
Chris Eliopoulos. The main story has everything in it you've come
to expect from an Erik Larsen free-for-all: Shocking costumes and
costume-details (check out Smasher in the third panel of page 10 --
I guess her pants couldn't get much tighter -- or Earth Girl a few
pages later), shocking left-hand page revelations, surprise guests,
witty dialogue, and some damned-great storytelling. Erik Larsen
doesn't get enough credit for his storytelling ability, but it's
some of the strongest stuff in comics today.
I also believe Chris Eliopoulos got through an entire issue without
misspelling any words! ;-)
Jeff Matsuda draws WOLVERINE #133 over a script from Larsen. It,
too, works pretty well. He manages to stick to the script, not
confuse the reader, and to draw some rather nice visuals, as well.
His style is a little more cartoony than Wolvie has been used to
lately, but it's a nice change of pace. Also check out the return
of the Larsen-created villain, Powerhouse, here. She was originally
used in Erik Larsen's first story in the adjectiveless SPIDER-MAN,
and was clearly a precursor to DRAGON's Rapture, despite sharing her
name with a character based on a chicken in TSD. This 6-part
storyline promises to be a fun romp through the Marvel Universe, as
only Larsen could tell it.
The least of his three books right now is AQUAMAN. It's not a bad
book, by a long shot. It just isn't as exciting as the previous
two. Eric Battle's art is better in this issue [AQUAMAN #51] than
the last, but is still murky and often confused. The story is
logical, exciting, and makes sense. The characters all act, well,
in-character. I've just never had an affinity for these characters
in the first place, so I'm still learning them. Maybe I will come
to like them -- and this book -- a lot better in the future.
FOLLOW-UP
Regular readers may remember a column I did this past summer on
Archie Comics. In it, I asked if there was a single creator, like
Carl Barks with the duck books, who created and guided the destinies
of those characters. The column was recently reprinted in the CBEM,
and elicited this answer from Steven Rowe:
Not really; great artists include Bob Montana (who co-created
Archie and did the newspaper strip from the 40s to 80s) Bob
Bolling (Little Archie writer/artist); artists: Harry Lucey
(50s-70s on Archie), Dan DeCarlo Senior (57-presnt), Samm
Schwartz (Jughead artist 40-80s, except for 66-70 when he
edited Thunder Agents and Tippy Teen and then drew for DC) and
writer Frank Doyle (50s-90s, "teenager as a vaudeville
sketch").
Thanks, Steven, for solving another of life's little mysteries. You
learn something new every week here.
I'm still looking for that compilation of Archies stories from the
1980s. =)
-Augie
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