Author: Ryan

Pure Trance is full of brutal violence, depravity, corruption and all-around weirdness, and it’s really, really, really cute.

An amalgam of several sci-fi cliches, Pure Trance is set in a post-apocalyptic future. The third World War left most of the planet inhospitable, so the residents of Japan moved underground. This subterranean world isn’t very good for growing crops or raising animals, so everyone receives their nourishment from Pure Trance pills. (No, they’re not made out of people) The pills, though, have resulted in many women developing serious overeating disorders.

Pure Trance, then, is set in one of the many hospitals dedicated to treating these eating disorders. While the nurses of Centre 102 are caring and dedicated, the same cannot be said of the director, who spends most of her time high on medication, performing surgery with a chainsaw, and demanding her lackeys bring her more contraband beef. When she finally goes too far and kills a few patients, brave and kind Nurse Kaori finally stands up to her. This leads to an escape to the forbidden surface, pursuit by a pop idol-worshipping security guard and two artificial people, sex with brains and eyeballs, supernatural twins, a meek zookeeper, and bizarre pregnancies.

No, Grant Morrison did not ghostwrite the book.

It’s essentially a fusion of a bunch of sci-fi cliches: Bits of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, Soylent Green, and other post-apocalyptic works figure prominently. There are plenty of mutants, androids, psychic powers, and rules about exploring the forbidden surface world. While this has the potential to make Pure Trance a derivative and dull cliche, it has two main things going for it: First, it is so gloriously over the top that you can’t help but appreciate the madness. And second, it is flat-out the cutest vision of a post-apocalyptic future you will ever see.

Mizuno draws in a hyper-cute, super-perky style that makes for a stark contrast with the often grotesque story. The nurses look like sexed-up Power Puff Girls, the children have a pixie-like quality, and the few male characters look like toadstools. Even the surface mutants are cute, with many of them looking like bunnies, teddies, or other fluffy critters. The extreme ultra-cuteness of it all may cause your brain to blow a fuse when you see the Director with syringes stuck into every inch of her body, someone’s skin dissolving until only the brain is exposed, or a large animal ripping in two as it leans into a hole.

For all the absurdity of the story, Mizuno’s established the world in great detail. There are annotations with details on background items – such as the weird surface vegetation or the Director’s supply of sex toys – that add odd details to the world. You can find out that the artificial police go on dates just like regular girls on their days off, and that the Mayor was frightened by the surface elevator and cried a little. Despite the fact that everything is totally absurd, it still makes a fair amount of sense: The loss of the surface world, and its corresponding relationship with the food supply, mean that the world of Pure Trance isn’t totally unrealistic. And while one has to accept a bit of weird-for-no-apparent-reason – such as psychic twins, a mayor with a stuffed animal fetish, or the Director leaving her pornography inside patients – it’s not like Mizuno expects you to believe that being bitten by a radioactive bug could give you superpowers or anything.

While Mizuno’s art is fantastic, it’s somewhat lacking when it comes to distinguishing different characters. There are a few too many blonde nurses …

Huh. Did I really just say that? How odd.

Anyway. With Mizuno using the same basic design so often, characters can often only be told apart by their hairstyle, and even that can change from time to time. This is compounded by there being just a few too many characters to begin with; aside the director, with her tattoos and ever-present syringes, and Kimiko the scarred security guard, many of the females blend together. There’s also not a whole lot of character development to be found, as the story is driven more by the plot than anything else. A few characters stand out well, like the gloriously insane director and brave nurse Kaori. The mayor’s a favourite, too, if only because he has a stuffed animal fetish and is scared of really fast elevators.

Pure Trance is probably one of the more unique books you’re going to find on the shelves this year. It doesn’t always make a whole lot of sense, and at times it’s carried solely by the demented imagination of its creator. But that imagination goes a long way, as Mizuno fills the book with an entertaining mixture of comedy and sci-fi. And it’s all cuter than the cutest bunny rabbit eaten by the most sadistic hospital administrator you’ve ever seen.

In previous reviews of The Losers, I’ve pointed out that the series is tailor-made for a
film adaptation.  It’s a big-budget
action movie on paper, with smart storytelling and strong characterizations by
Andy Diggle and killer action cinematography by artist Jock.  It’s an unholy mixture of The A-Team, Oceans
Eleven, James Cameron, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino that barely needs
to be changed to be successful on screen. 
And apparently Hollywood has realized this, as Diggle & Jock’s
magnum opus was recently optioned by Warner Brothers.  Just like Sin City, The Losers is a good candidate to become a far bigger film than it
ever was a comic, something that’s both a tremendous accomplishment and a huge
disappointment.

 Diggle has made The
Losers about more that just government conspiracies and terrorist
plots.  He’s brought paranoid
conspiracies into the 21st century by focusing on the one thing both terrorists
and corrupt government officials need: Money. 
Close Quarters opens with The
Losers travelling to London with a goal more suited to a team of
accountants than special forces operatives: They’re following the money they
know belongs to the government operative known only as Max.  They stake out Cayman Credit Internationale,
the bank owned by Max, in hopes of learning something about their target.  Instead, they find CIA operative Marvin
Stegler, who is also hunting Max despite the recent death of his supervisor in
an unlikely boating accident.

 When a familiar face shows up to collect some of Max’s
money, The Losers set off to the
Azores, where Diggle further complicates the plot with a rusty oil tanker, a
Russian submarine, and two very delicate US Navy shipments. It’s here that the
book really blows wide open as Diggle and Jock unleash their particular brand
of stylish violence upon the audience. 
It’s nasty and brutal, but even the most pacifistic reader can’t help
but marvel at the style with which it’s conveyed.

 Ben Oliver, who illustrates the first half of Close Quarters,
is a good stylistic fit for The Losers.
His dark, sketchy figures suit the mood of the book, and the particularly
story, almost perfectly, and on a quick flip through the book one might not
even notice that it’s not the work of regular series artist Jock.  Unfortunately, Oliver lacks Jock’s
superlative storytelling skills.  At
times, Oliver’s work is too dark, and his characters become indistinct.  Stegler seems particularly ill-defined, and
Jensen isn’t recognizable enough even though he’s supposed to be under cover.  The normally excellent colouring doesn’t help
– Pooch’s skin tone varies at one point, leaving one to question whether it’s
him or the white man he’s pursuing we’re meant to be following.

 Oliver’s action sequences are pretty good, but they suffer
from one major factor: He has to share the book with Jock.  When Jock returns for the second half of the
book, he bring with him the dynamic and explosive style Losers readers are
accustomed to.  Action sequences jump off
the page – Jock breaks out more “wow!” moments than just about any
artist in comics – and his characters always remain distinct and identifiable,
even when they’re skydiving and mostly visible in silhouette. As much credit as
Diggle deserves for his smart scripts and twisting plots, Jock is just as, if
not more, responsible for the book’s success. 
As good as the fill-in artists have been, it’s not hard to feel that if
it’s not Jock, it just isn’t The Losers.

 The disappointing part about The Losers‘ potential transition to the screen is how criminally
ignored the book is in its own medium. 
While I can accept that my other favourite books, like Street Angel, Desolation
Jones or Scott Pilgrim, may have their particular niches, The Losers is a book with mass appeal if ever there was one.  While it’s a smart book, it’s by no means
academic or highbrow: For all its strengths and plot twists, The Losers is ultimately a book about a
special forces team blowing stuff up getting into shootouts while hunting down
a rogue CIA operative.  There’s no such
thing as a book that truly everyone will enjoy, but how often does one really
hear comic book fans saying “No, I don’t really like action sequences; I
prefer more introspective and contemplative books”?

 As much as I love The
Losers – it’s unquestionably one of the top books on the market right now –
one wonders if it’s not the metaphorical canary in the coal mine: If the
majority of comic fans ignore a book like this and leave its discovery to
Hollywood executives, what does that say about the medium? For as much as The Losers thrills me by showing off
exactly what a comic is capable of, it depresses me that the majority of
readers will never even consider reading it. 
Thankfully, the upcoming film adaptation, combined with what seems to be
an accelerated trade program for the book, give hope that some day, The Losers will find the audience it
deserves.

Nice article about Alan Moore’s upcoming Lost Girls over at Publishers Weekly. It includes the usual “Aaah! Pornography!” exclamations from retailers:

Cliff Biggers of Dr. No’s Comics and Games in Marietta, Ga. … says that his store “will be cautious and prudent about how we display and market the book. Every store owner has to be careful to make sure that they’re making it available to the intended audience, and not to people thinking that it’s a perfect follow-up to Watchmen or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”

Because, of course, both the books he mentions are prime family material:
Watchmen features, among other things:

• Brutal beatings, frequently at the hands of one of the “heroes” of the piece;
• Rorschach’s origin as the the neglected son of a prostitute;
• Dogs killed with a meat cleaver and a man burned alive;
• The revelation the sex is better with masks;
• Attempted rape;
• The slaughter of a couple million New Yorkers;
• A giant naked blue man.

And as for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, that collection of fine Victorian entertainment?

• Sex between Alan and Mina;
• Rape and brutalization by Mr. Hyde;
• Numerous innocents fried by ray beams
• The molestation of young schoolgirls;
• Beloved children’s icons portrayed as deformed freaks.

Okay, so they’re not all explicit, at least not nearly as explicit as Lost Girls is supposed to be. I could understand if a retailer was worried about someone following Top Ten or Tom Strong to Lost Girls… but most of Moore’s work has been adult-oriented to begin with. Why draw the line just beause this one’s all about sex?
(That’s a rhetorical question, of course.)

Most of the One Year Later relaunches have followed a similar pattern: The first issue has been devoted to establishing the new status quo, with plenty of hints and questions as to what happened during the missing year. Consequently, not a whole lot really happened, other than some very exposition-heavy conversations and narratives. Some of the books were promising, but offered little more than hints as to where stories would be going.

Walt Simonson and Howard Chaykin’s Hawkgirl showed flashes of promise, but was bogged down by loads of exposition as everyone – Kendra in particular – spent the issue talking about everything they were feeling in reaction to the missing year. Simonson starts the plot moving this issue, beginning with an interesting resolution to last issue’s cliffhanger. (though it’s not one we need to see again any time soon) The storytelling is much smoother, and they mysterious goings-on in St. Roche don’t feel quite as forced. There’s a lot more action and a lot less talking, though Simonson maintains his old school style dialogue and narration. Chaykin’s got a better handle on the characters this time, turning down some of his T&A tendencies while keeping his lead character attractive.

Simonson and Chaykin haven’t quite delivered on the book’s potential, but they’re much further along the road than they were last issue.

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes doesn’t actually advance things very far. Last issue introduced the new status quo for the Legion – cleverly billed as 10001 Years Later to reflect the Legion’s futuristic time frame – and ended with a new addition to the status quo: The fairly spontaneous appearance of the 21st century Supergirl, who believes the Legion’s future to be entirely in her imagination.

This issue resolves the question of what to do with Supergirl. Of course, having already changed the title, DC isn’t holding a whole lot in suspense: She joins the Legion. Perhaps the need to build up advance publicity for the book precluded this, but wouldn’t it have been great to keep Supergirl’s appearance in the 31st century a secret? It would have made these two issues far more surprising, and they could always change the title with #18.

At any rate, Supergirl spends some time showing off how awesome she is, while the Legion debates whether or not to let her join. There’s the requisite awe and wonder at a real, live 21st century superhero showing up, and the question of whether or not she’s insane. They also talk about not having a Legion Flight Ring to give her, though one wonders why it’s entirely necessary: Supergirl can already fly and hang out in space, so why does she actually need a ring? Couldn’t they just give her a radio that patched into the communications system? But perhaps that’s just Mark Waid’s attempt at building some dramatic tension.

Waid’s also stumbled into another potential problem with suspense and drama: In spending two issue showing off how incredibly powerful Supergirl is, he’s raised the bar for any new threats he wants to introduce. The Legion was pretty tough to begin with, and now they’ve got a member who trumps just about all of them… so who’s going to stand up to them? Hopefully Waid’s been taking notes from All-Star Superman.

It’s all fairly predictable, but Waid’s got a nice knack for this kind of light-hearted superhero fare. It needs a stronger direction post haste – and hopefully one that doesn’t focus entirely on the new lead – but Legion is still a fun, if safe, superhero romp. And as a nice bonus, Barry Kitson’s Supergirl is one of the least skanky variations I’ve seen since her return.

I meant to write a review of the first issue of the new Blue Beetle series, but never got around to it. But the second issue is much the same, so I can cover it here: It’s very good.

Granted, it’s not the original concept: A teenager finds a mysterious object that gives him great powers. He kind of looks like he should be teaming up with the Power Rangers. But as much as the book relies a tried-and-true formula, it executes that formula surprisingly well. Blue Beetle isn’t a groundbreaking, original, or even particularly great comic, but it is a textbook example of how to effectively introduce a new character.

In recent years, it’s become conventional wisdom for writers to explore the origins of a new character slowly and gradually: Introduce the character in their everyday life. Show the event/accident/discovery that leads to gaining superpowers. Show them adapting to those powers. Have them learn a valuable lesson and become a superhero with a costume. It’s an approach that works well in the right hands – such as Miller’s Year One, or Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man – but more often than not it results in at least an issue or two’s worth of boredom before the reader gains any idea of what the book’s really going to be about.

Co-writers Keith Giffen and John Rogers bypass this entirely by splitting the book in a present/flashback structure. In present-day, the Blue Beetle crashes to Earth, fights Guy Gardner, and finds himself stranded in the desert. In the flashbacks, we meet young Jaime and his friends and family, and see him discover a blue scarab figurine that changes his life and attracts all sorts of attention from unwelcome elements.

It’s an effective plot structure that mixes immediate action with gradual character building. We get to see Jaime as a regular teenager with regular friends and family, and we find out how he becomes the new Blue Beetle. Jaime’s a likeable, average kind of guy who doesn’t fit any of the stereotypical nerd/jock/outcast roles. His two best friends bicker for our entertainment, but are still credible characters. His family falls into a lightly more routine role – hardworking father who pushes him to work harder at school, hardworking mother who keeps the family together, cute and slightly-annoying (though not overly so) little sister.

But we’re also rewarded with immediate action and a sense of what the new Beetle can do. Giffen and Rogers also manage to make the source of Jaime’s new powers mysterious without being confusing: While the reader doesn’t really know what’s going on, neither does Jaime, and there are enough hints and clues to keep the story moving. It’s the sort of thing that needs to be explained sooner rather than later, but for now it’s a compelling mystery.

I normally have my reservations about books that are solid yet don’t try to do anything new – what’s the point? – but Blue Beetle is proving an exception to the rule. While it’s not revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination, it’s well-rounded and expertly constructed to provide the maximum amount of superhero standards required by law: Action, character, mystery, and comedy are all found in abundance. Strong stuff, and one of the best launches for a new superhero to come along in quite a while.

I’ve been holding out hope for some time that Greg Rucka will be able to do at DC or Marvel what he’s done with Queen & Country at Oni: Write a smart, intriguing, and exciting book with unpredictable plots and well developed characters.

He’s tried, I know. Wolverine was interesting, but never quite got off the ground. Adventures of Superman was pretty dull. Wonder Woman was promising, but never really delivered. The OMAC Project was promising, but turned into a convoluted and pointless mess disturbingly quickly. Gotham Central has been his best DC work to date, perhaps because it’s not a superhero book.

Checkmate springs out of OMAC, which is bad, but it’s more focuses on Rucka’s home turf of espionage and regular (more or less) people, which is good. It’s got a distinctly familiar feel to it>: A high-tech team of spies and operatives fight evil terrorists and political opponents. Conceptually speaking, it’s Queen & Country with super powers, which is a good sign indeed when it’s coming from Rucka.

Unfortunately, Rucka hasn’t quite brought his A-game to Checkmate – at least, he hasn’t shown it yet. The book is off to a somewhat generic start: The bulk of the issue consists of showing off how much ass the field team can kick as they systematically wipe out a terrorist Kobra base. Meanwhile, organizational leaders Alan Scott and Amanda Waller attend the UN’s hearings on whether to extend Checkmate’s charter.

As an introduction to a new series, Checkmate is a mixed bag. Rucka gives a good sense of what the organization is about, both operationally and politically. (Short version: They beat up bad guys. Covertly.) But he doesn’t do nearly as good a job introducing the cast. They’re a collection of DC characters of fair-to-middling stature; some of them I knew (such as Green Lantern Alan Scott, JLI survivor Fire, and former Suicide Squad boss Amanda Waller), others were only vaguely familiar. None of them are exactly household names, which means they require more of an introduction than just their name and rank within Checkmate – particularly if you expect any sort of audience reaction when you kill one of them off at the end of the book.

Very few get any significant screen time, and those who do don’t seem particularly well developed. Even Waller, a force of nature in John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad, seems bland and uninteresting; her and Scott seem to exist solely for expository purposes. Sasha Bordeaux, a Rucka creation and ostensible star of The OMAC Project, gets most of the screen time. Rucka likes his strong female leads, but Sasha’s not quite up there with Tara Chace or Renee Montoya – she’s perhaps too strong and tough, and still doesn’t get much in the way of character development.

Rucka’s success with Queen & Country was a reason for optimism with Checkmate, but perhaps it’s also the reason for disappointment: One can’t help but feel that Checkmate is a dumbed-down version of Rucka’s other espionage book, and that he’s making a play for being meaningful and significant in the fictional DCU instead of building characters and plots on his own. Q&C continues to give me hope for Rucka’s mainstream work – yes, it’s just that good – but he’ll need to do better here than cardboard characters beating up on generic and disposable bad guys.

Excellent column by Brian Hibbs at Newsarama about DC’s multiple sell-outs and second printings of One Year Later titles.

The main point echoes something I’ve always thought: The super comic industry takes some perverse pleasure in sellouts and limited quantities. Their press releases practically crow “This book was awesome! Lots of people loved it! Hot creative team! You can’t buy it any more, or at least not for another month when we do a second printing.”

In some cases, I suppose it’s understandable – printing books isn’t free. But OYL, as Hibbs points out, was specifically geared towards attracting new readers to DC. Doesn’t it make sense to have a large overprint in the event these books are as successful as they hope? If everyone hears how great the new Aquaman book is, isn’t it common sense that Aquaman be easily available? I liked the first issue of Busiek and Guice’s relaunch, but missed the second because I’m not so fanatical that I always visit the comic shop on Wednesday. Now, I have to wait until they do a second printing – several weeks, maybe a month from now, by which point I may well have lost interest in the title. Any momentum and press for the book will have long since died off.

IT’s really a matter of DC insisting retailers take all the risk: If you don’t order the books now, you don’t get any more. Nyah. The store loses out on some short term money, but both DC and the store are losing out long-term, as customers aren’t able to begin reading the hot books everyone is talking about.

Yes, it’s really a very stupid industry sometimes.

Until about a year or so ago, I hadn’t read much, if any, of Warren Ellis’ work. His rise to fame overlapped my time out of comics, so I missed his early Marvel work and his rise to fame with The Authority and Transmetropolitan. (I still haven’t read Transmet, though I have the first volume of his run on Authority.)

Over the last year, though, Ellis has quickly risen to the top of my list of favourite writers. I still find most of his straightforward superhero books to be quite dull, but when he’s free to experiment, he’s one of the most interesting creators around, mixing high-concept sci-fi and freaky fetishes and ultraviolence.

The last two weeks saw new issues from two of my favourite Ellis books: Desolation Jones and Nextwave. While the latter continued its irreverence and general wackiness, the former abandoned most of its quirky tendencies to descend into a very dark place.

Nextwave, along with Grant Morrison’s All Star Superman, is probably one of the most fun superhero comics on the market. While Morrison’s book is steeped in more reverential and traditional tones, Nextwave is all about the silliness and stupidity inherent in the genre.

In this issue, for example, we finally get to see the origin of The Captain (“Not actually a captain of anything.”). Already something of a buffoon, he really doesn’t improve much here: He got his powers when he got drunk one night and ran into a couple of aliens looking for a saviour of humanity. After they gave him great powers, he beat them up, thinking they’d turn into gold coins – a nod to Scott Pilgrim‘s game logic, perhaps – and then threw up on them. Back in the present, he gets shot out of a giant gun. Not a great thinking man, our Captain.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team fights the corrupt cop who’s turning into a giant robot, while Elsa Bloodstone blows up some more broccoli men. Boom Boom blows up a bunch of stuff, Machine Man shows off some more of his extendable parts, and Monica gets knocked unconcious.

It’s all terribly silly. As with most parodies, not every joke is funny, but there’s enough of them to make for a decent average. It’s still a minimalistic, lowest-common-denominator kind of humour – things blow up and catch fire, people are hit on the head, and then everyone beats up a cop. It’s a classic “I Love Lucy” kind of thing.

Consequently, much of the comedic burden falls to Stuart Immonen, who carries his burden like a particularly proud and well-endowed mule. In lieu of actually analysing his artistic contributions, I simply present this panel:

Really. You just can’t top that. Da Vinci may as well have drawn with crayons.

I’m not entirely sure how much longevity Nextwave might have – apparently the commitment is currently to a dozen issues – but there’s little question it’s one of the least sane and sensible books to be found.

Ellis was channelling an entirely different vibe when he wrote the opening arc of Desolation Jones, the story of a British secret agent in exile in Los Angeles. The first five issues were slightly dark and disturbing, but punctuated by humour and quirky characters. The lead character was an odd, off-key, and disturbed, yet still generally a likeable sort as long as you didn’t cross him.

That setup largely goes out the window with the final installment of Made in England. This is just about as dark as it gets without actually resorting to overdosing on Joy Division and contemplating suicide. Jones has finally sorted out the business revolving around Colonel Nigh’s missing Hitler porn and the Temple Farm incident. After being jerked around and nearly killed over the past few issues, he finally sorts things out: First with the would-be porn kings, then with Colonel Nigh and his three daughters.

Ellis’ story has been very elusive in pinning down exactly who Michael Jones is. At various points he’s been intelligent, charming, clever, considerate, kind, and funny. But he’s also been ruthless, brutally violent, and manipulative. He is largely a chameleon, altering his manners depending on who he’s dealing with: Go back to past issues and review his conversations with Emily Crowe, the porn actress, Robina, or Tapper. But it’s perhaps his relationship with Emily, who makes a return appearance here, that’s the most telling.

Emily plays a minor plot role here, but more significant is the reminder
of her peculiar physiology. Jones is the only person who can stand being around Emily, thanks to her genetically altered pheromones, while both Robina and Paula Nigh just want to get as far away as possible. As Jones said earlier, and he echoes here, “Nothing disturbs me.” While one can fake compassion and empathy, it’s next to impossible to pretend to like being around Emily Crowe.

And so Jones resolves the whole sordid affair in the sort of way that’s only available to a man who’s nearly cut off from his humanity. It’s the sort of thing many writers try to pull off, or at least try to hint at, but usually pull back from because they’re afraid of the audience losing touch with the tough-guy protagonist. Ellis doesn’t flinch, though: Jones is capable of incredible violence, sadism, and cruelty, and while the finale may well make him less relatable, it only serves to make him a more compelling and complex character.

Just as Stuart Immonen deserves equal credit for the success of Nextwave, so too does J.H. Williams III deserve many temples, statues, and sacrificial virgins in his honour. Even if the story weren’t so fascinating, I’d be tempted to buy Desolation Jones just for Williams’ work. He’s the sort of visionary talent we’ll all be looking back on in the years to come, and if he doesn’t win the Eisner for best penciller they may as well call off the whole thing. Williams makes the dark and dirty story feel elegant and graceful without abandoning the mood and the plot itself. He mixes traditional (and fantastic) pencils with stark black-and-white and gorgeous painting. The tragedy of Williams moving to Batman is twofold: He’ll clearly be missed on Desolation Jones, and it’s also unlikely he’ll have the opportunity to experiment with styles and layout like this on a mainstream monthly. Williams, along with esteemed colourist Jose Villarubia, turns in one of the most beautiful and disturbing books I’ve ever seen. Kudos to DC, too, for running the issue uninterrupted, with only house ads appearing at the back of the issue.

With Williams moving on to another book, the immediate future for Desolation Jones seems in question. It’s impossible to actually replace Williams, and in a way I’d rather wait for him to return – even if that takes another year or so – and continue the series with him and Ellis together. But on the other hand, Ellis has a knack for picking talented artists, and I really don’t want to have to wait any
longer than necessary for more Jones, Emily, and Jeronimus stories. While I’m a fan of most of Ellis’ work, Desolation Jones has turned out to be one of the best books on the market today, and it would be unfortunate if it lost the incredible momentum it’s gained in Ellis & Williams’ opening act. Wonderful, fantastic, and completely messed up book.

There’s the awesome news that Scott Pilgrim 3 is done. There’s the less awesome news that it probably won’t be out until late may. But then, courtesy of Bryan O’Malley‘s site, we get the awesome news of this awesome postcard he’ll have at the Toronto Con next week:

Next, I want to see Scott in a hammer suit.

My review of Warren Ellis’ Apparat is up over at Popmatters. Quite a good book, with a nice dose of Ellis’ craziness and some fantastic art, particularly from Jose Ryp and Carla Speed McNeil.

Warren Ellis’ Apparat project is an attempt to look at what comics might have become if the breadth and depth of the pulps had been translated into comics. Apparat’s stories are full of heroes, villains, weird science, and high adventure — none of which are foreign to superhero comics — but bypass the specifics of the capes and cowls crowd.

It’s not an entirely original experiment. Alan Moore’s ABC line — particularly Tom Strong — was an attempt to capture the spirit of the pulp magazines. But while Moore’s stories were more of a cultural transplant, complete with the whimsy and absurdity of the original era, Ellis looks at the idea as if multi-genre fiction has been alive and well in North American comics for the past half-century.

Go and read the full review. You know you want to.