First off, good to have you guys back!! Feels like it's been longer than a couple of weeks!
Secondly, thank you so much for fielding my question, re: Jeff Lemire! I can't quite tell if you're laughing
at me or
with me, but i'm happy to assume the best : ) And i'm pleased as well-spiked-punch to report that in the last several days (after I wrote that question), there has been some definite progress on the finding-something-of-his-that-I-like front. A good friend of mine, with whom I am -coincidentally- going to Image Expo, lent me a decent-sized stack of his Lemire trades, and i've flown through them one after another feverishly trying to find something that hits me in the heart-shaped-box just so. This is how that went.
Justice League Dark wasn't at all for me, despite what I thought was a really promising #0 issue, and despite very much wanting to read something with Constantine, Zatanna, and Madame Xanadu in it. Bummer.
Animal Man volume 1 also did very little for me, which was a real disappointment as i've had at least a half-dozen people tell me over the last year or so how great it is and that I really need to read it (though i've heard that it gets better, so i've not slammed the door on that one just yet, but it didn't grab me).
Sadly, I just couldn't get into Underwater Welder at all; the art proved to be a major impediment on that one in particular . .
. . and although I definitely felt some feels reading the first story in Essex County (the one with the orphan kid living with his uncle who befriends the washed-up hockey player who works at the gas station), I was -once more- really taken out of it by the art (and I also wasn't super-enamored with the slow pace and the sparse, rudimentary feel of it; I put the book down after the conclusion of that first story).
But then, THEN, I read Lost Dogs, which I actually kindof liked! A bit! I mean, I didn't love it, i'm not rushing out to buy and/or own it, but I started to feel like I was turning a corner of some sort or other in my ability to "get" Lemire's style.
So then I picked Trillium back up (after previously abandoning it multiple times over the last year), and . . well, it still didn't do it for me.
BUT(!!!), then I read a little bit of Sweet Tooth; the first three issues, maybe. And it was rough but interesting. Put it down, went for a bike ride, fixed dinner and such, showered, . . and then promptly picked Sweet Tooth back up and binge-read the rest of the series to completion right then and there, which was something near 40 issues, yeah? And that may sound like I fell in love with it, which wouldn't be quite accurate, 'cause I have a few problems with it (it's a little repetitive and a bit Mark Millar-y in a couple of ways) and it's not my new favorite thing ever or anything, but it had a great message, and I didn't hate the art at all, and if I hadn't liked it I certainly wouldn't have pounded 40 fucking issues in less than a day, now would I have. So that was good!
Today, I finished off the last book in the stack, The Nobody. Now this book,
THIS FUCKING BOOK, this is what I wish i'd read first! After what seemed like much trial and error, and much effort, I found 'It': This is my Jeff Lemire book. What a beautifully written little masterpiece, and even though he drew it himself, I felt like the art was cleaner, more appropriate, and somehow more palatable than the other self-drawn stuff of his that i've read through. It just felt right, for some reason. Sent a message to my shop to see if they had it in (they didn't), and then had them order me up a copy of my own, which I will be bringing, proudly, to Image Expo in Jan. So thank you, again, you were 100% right that his best work ended up being the stuff that he both wrote and drew, and rest assured that this ended up being a success story after all.
Epilogue: Before I return the stack of trades to my friend on Monday, I felt it was only right that I should try for the umpteenth time to finish Trillium, because he's been telling me for what seems like all year how brilliant it is and how we should pick it for the graphic novel reading club and such, yadda yadda, ad nauseum. Picked it back up today and finally finished it. It was . . eh, it was ok. Cool idea, iffy execution, truly,
truly awful art : ) I guess no matter how many corners you turn, some things remain constant, eh?
Other things:
* thanks, Bobby, for talking-up Superior Iron Man #1! I definitely was not planning on reading this, ever, for any reason, and I flipped through it on your recommendation and, lo(!), it was really good. Imagine that. Funny, intriguing, makes me want to jump on and see where it's headed. Good lookin' out.
* On a scale of 1 to Epic, Mara's sigh at 1hr42min ranks at least an Epic +2, and I just about lost my shit at that point. Too good.
*
"It's gonna take them nine months to . . what're you, takin' the Hobo Train? What's goin' on, here?" Steve #GreatMomentsInPodcastingHistory
* Also, once again you guys just totally nailed it with the Fantastic Four movie discussion. +1 to the entire thing, . . except for the bit where Bobby claimed that the X-Men movies get more right than they get wrong, that's . . *whew* . . yeah, we could not possibly be further apart on that.
Which is ok! That's just fine. But . . damn, man; they know the characters? They've done really well by Mystique? They're not ashamed? Yeeeeeeeesh. That's where comic shame in movies started, Bobby! Naked rubber oily-bulb-head Mystique, Halle Berry's half-assed non-African Storm, Anna Paquin's Rogue that couldn't be further away from who Rogue is, all the black leather, that's the very origin of comic shame in the modern era of film, and they've never really broken away from that, even all these years later. Patrick Stewart slaying it as Professor X doesn't mean that Singer "gets" those characters, it just means that Patrick Stewart is Patrick Stewart, which is hardly news. There've been, what, seven of those movies so far, and even though Logan's been the lead in all but one of them, how many times in all seven of those combined have we seen the real uni's? How many times have we seen Wolverine in the blue and yellow, or in the orange and brown, or with the mask on, regardless of color.
I'll give you a hint, it's less than 1. But I digress, i'm not here for that, that's a debate for another day, we'll agree to disagree, moving on, upwards and onwards . . .
*
"What really pains me the most, . . to the regular audience, to the civilian stiffs out there who don't read the book, their idea . . however many, I dunno 40 million people go to see this thing, for the sake of argument, this is going to be the Fantastic Four to them? That's what's really appalling to me." - Bob
Yes, yes, yes, and thank you, and amen, that's exactly what gets me, too. That's the thing that kills me. It's not just some random bad movie that I can totally ignore and why would I care and no worries there are always bad movies out there, it's more important than that, because this (adding to the first two atrocious FF movies) is going to become The FF to millions of people who don't know any better, and that's awful. That truly bothers me. That's what killed me the most about Man of Steel; they didn't just put out a bad Superman movie, they sold that mess as "This is who Superman is, kids!" and because of that it pains me so, so much how that turned out and made it so hard to ignore and let go of. This is why i'm anxious and so very very worried about the Wonder Woman movie, ya know? How many people are going to be introduced to Diana via her upcoming cinematic debut and the follow-up chapter? What if that's another Man of Steel? That's what kills me about the X-Men movies; the X-Men are and have always been my jimmy jam. That's my most beloved corner of comicdom; it's precious to me. And they've never gotten it even close to right, and i'm not ok with that. It's never going to be ok that tens of millions of people only know the X-Men through those horrifically-mediocre pieces of Wolverine and The Wolverine's utter tripe that have absolutely nothing to do with the X-Men 90% of the time. They destroy little bits of my soul every time a new one comes out. But I said I was moving on, so move on I must.
*
"The movie's called the Fantastic Four; it should not be grounded and real, it should be fantastic! It's in the name! It's in the effin' name of the movie!" - Bobby
Hah! Yes indeed! Well said, sir. Very.
*
"Where's the positive, though? They are taking the fans of the book, and comic fans in general who aren't even fans of the book but understand its history, and ya know peeing in their cornflakes . . at the breakfast table, in essence." BobI couldn't possibly agree more, Bob, that's why these things hold meaning for me, be they successes, utter failures, or something in between.
This is why I love you guys; good on you all for calling it like it is.
Which is ok! That's just fine. But . . damn, man; they know the characters? They've done really well by Mystique? They're not ashamed? Yeeeeeeeesh. That's where comic shame in movies started, Bobby! Naked rubber oily-bulb-head Mystique, Halle Berry's half-assed non-African Storm, Anna Paquin's Rogue that couldn't be further away from who Rogue is, all the black leather, that's the very origin of comic shame in the modern era of film, and they've never really broken away from that, even all these years later. Patrick Stewart slaying it as Professor X doesn't mean that Singer "gets" those characters, it just means that Patrick Stewart is Patrick Stewart, which is hardly news. There've been, what, seven of those movies so far, and even though Logan's been the lead in all but one of them, how many times in all seven of those combined have we seen the real uni's? How many times have we seen Wolverine in the blue and yellow, or in the orange and brown, or with the mask on, regardless of color. I'll give you a hint, it's less than 1. But I digress, i'm not here for that, that's a debate for another day, we'll agree to disagree, moving on, upwards and onwards . . .
