Why. Why did Chris change up his style? Why did Lobdell leave? Why is Joe Q such a turd? Ok, I guess Joe Q had nothing to do with the failure of Gen X back in the late 90's but I still like to blame things on him.
All was well up until about issue 25; not about, exactly issue 25 in fact. On this 25th anniversary issue the hints to Bachelo's change in style are vague and few. I didn't even notice it until I went back to look at it after reading subsequent issues. I've never seen such a immediate and stark change in artistic style, especially in someone whom I've held in such high ranks of comic book artdom. Issue 26 features a guest artist, then 27 features the new, un-improved Bachelo. It seems decent at first, the wacky Bachelo-isms, the disregard for realism, things I love about him. With Bachelo it never seemed forced. It never seemed like he was purposely trying to abstract things and fill the page with the surreal; it just came natural. Natural abstraction, if there is such a thing. But here I see the work of someone who doesn't care anymore, like he has a quota to fill.
I would like to know more about the politics of business surrounding and affecting the creators during this time period. In my, albeit uneducated, mind I feel like this was a tumultuous time for Marvel studios: the late 90's. Things were falling apart internally, I think they went bankrupt at some point around here... let me confirm that. Wikipedia says so-- it must be true. Though it doesn't tell me the date, it says "they escaped from bankruptcy" in 2000. So anyway, I'm guessing this had an effect on everyone involved in the business, and in our immediate concern, Bachelo and Lobdell.
So Lobdell leaves in issue 28, and Bachello is not far behind. So here I am stuck on issue 33 with 3 more issues to read in my collection of the series, and I'm not sure I can do it. Its not that the issues are exceptionally bad, but comparatively, its just not the same. But I will do it. I promise. For you.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
War of the Twins in Two Paragraphs
It occurs to me that I haven't posted on War of the Twins since I finished the other book. Well here's a brief rundown on whats going on. After the Cataclysm, Caramon, Chrysania and Raistlin/Fistandantilus were transported by Raist's spell to 100 years later. Still 200+ years before their own time. Tas, feared dead by many, including me, was taken to the abyss by Takhisis unintentionally, along with the cornerstone of the tower of Istar, which would later be supplanted in Neraka in a perverted form.
Raist realizes that the portal through which he hope he could cross into the realm of the Gods, and kill the Dark Queen Takhisis, is not there; there where it would be some 200 years later. Caramon, Chrysiana, and Raistlin travel from the Tower of Palanthas south along the lands of Solamnia in search of the portal at its new location. This new location being below some place owned by dwarves. Through some events I wont bother with, Caramon and Raist take command of an army of thousands. This army marches towards the Dwarves to do battle, but Raistlin's true purpose is to reach the portal. Yadda yadda yadda, Raistlin gets stabbed... AND NOW I HAVE TO GO READ THAT PART.
Raist realizes that the portal through which he hope he could cross into the realm of the Gods, and kill the Dark Queen Takhisis, is not there; there where it would be some 200 years later. Caramon, Chrysiana, and Raistlin travel from the Tower of Palanthas south along the lands of Solamnia in search of the portal at its new location. This new location being below some place owned by dwarves. Through some events I wont bother with, Caramon and Raist take command of an army of thousands. This army marches towards the Dwarves to do battle, but Raistlin's true purpose is to reach the portal. Yadda yadda yadda, Raistlin gets stabbed... AND NOW I HAVE TO GO READ THAT PART.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Generation X Bachelo is Back!
About three months after the Age of Apocalypse, Bachelo took a break from Gen X, and went to do a DC book I believe, can't remember the title. Tom Grummet, among others, took over pencils for the time being. But now, issue #17, Bachelo marks his triumphant return. Although Scott Lobdell is a great writer, one of the 90's best, he and Bachelo define the book as a team. Without Chris, Scott Lobdell was able to keep my attention-- not only that but accelerate the story impressively, but still, without the promise of a return from Chris, I may not have been able to hang on.
I am now on issue #19. In recent issues, the White Queen has taken the students to an old estate up in Canada. In September of '96, when this issue was published, Marvel was in the final stages of rising action for the company-wide Onslaught crossover. Emma was influenced vaguely by Onslaught, and brought the students here to keep them safe from him. She is stricken with guilt from the death of her previous students, the Hellions, back in Uncanny X-Men #281. So here she has them under loose mental control, keeping the students sedated. Toad lurks around the estate as well, plotting something evil of course. Why he happens to be there, I don't know yet.
Anyway, Bachelo's art is filled with a multitude of psychedelic detail, mixed with sharp lines that capture the character's expressions in unique way. There are ambiguous references, a copy Julius Caesar is barely noticeable piled under rolling hills of folderol. Numerous frogs, and amphibious types of creatures (which has always been a kind of tenebrous theme of his art in this book), act as spies for Toad. Thus they transcend from sort of a surrealistic fourth wall breach to characters with an active role within the story. This invitation to the reader to enter the realm of fantasy created by Lobdell and Bachelo is precisely why the title is so enduring; 10 years later and I still connect with it the same way I did when I was a teenager. Actually better.
I am now on issue #19. In recent issues, the White Queen has taken the students to an old estate up in Canada. In September of '96, when this issue was published, Marvel was in the final stages of rising action for the company-wide Onslaught crossover. Emma was influenced vaguely by Onslaught, and brought the students here to keep them safe from him. She is stricken with guilt from the death of her previous students, the Hellions, back in Uncanny X-Men #281. So here she has them under loose mental control, keeping the students sedated. Toad lurks around the estate as well, plotting something evil of course. Why he happens to be there, I don't know yet.
Anyway, Bachelo's art is filled with a multitude of psychedelic detail, mixed with sharp lines that capture the character's expressions in unique way. There are ambiguous references, a copy Julius Caesar is barely noticeable piled under rolling hills of folderol. Numerous frogs, and amphibious types of creatures (which has always been a kind of tenebrous theme of his art in this book), act as spies for Toad. Thus they transcend from sort of a surrealistic fourth wall breach to characters with an active role within the story. This invitation to the reader to enter the realm of fantasy created by Lobdell and Bachelo is precisely why the title is so enduring; 10 years later and I still connect with it the same way I did when I was a teenager. Actually better.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Cowboy Bebop: Jamming with Edward
This is my favorite episode of Bebop. One of them anyway, I like Edward, even though this androgynous weirdo is the kind of anime character that I hate in other anime. Anime for example like FLCL; I can't really get into that. Its not really the over-the-top cartoonyness, its more because of those kind of standard anime conventions, jokes, and attitudes; too fast editing, then skipping over parts of the story that you might not need explained to you if you were raised within that culture, or watch enough of it to understand.
Ed seems like a character that might be out of FLCL, but I still like her. Jamming with Edward is the episode in which the crew of the Bebop finds Ed. Actually Ed finds them, apparently she has been tracking their exploits, and finds them sufficiently capable of maintaining her interests despite a severe case of ADD.
I haven't been watching the episodes in complete order because I've seen some of them so many times, and others none at all. I'm just going through the ones I've seen only once or twice, and haven't even gotten to the ones (later in the series, up to the end) that I've never seen.
Oh, plus, the music is great. They released like a five disc boxed set of the soundtrack that I once downloaded. It's full of winners, and a few unmentionables. Its a great soundtrack to sitting around doing nothing, or maybe reading comics. I'm hungry. Breakfast.
Ed seems like a character that might be out of FLCL, but I still like her. Jamming with Edward is the episode in which the crew of the Bebop finds Ed. Actually Ed finds them, apparently she has been tracking their exploits, and finds them sufficiently capable of maintaining her interests despite a severe case of ADD.
I haven't been watching the episodes in complete order because I've seen some of them so many times, and others none at all. I'm just going through the ones I've seen only once or twice, and haven't even gotten to the ones (later in the series, up to the end) that I've never seen.
Oh, plus, the music is great. They released like a five disc boxed set of the soundtrack that I once downloaded. It's full of winners, and a few unmentionables. Its a great soundtrack to sitting around doing nothing, or maybe reading comics. I'm hungry. Breakfast.
Age of Apocalypse review part III
Astonishing X-Men told the tail of X-Men co-leader Rogue, who went to the Midwest to stop the culling of hundreds of thousands of humans, by the hands of Holocaust, Apocalypse' son. Holocaust is cursed to live within life support body armor, which also serves as battle armor. Nemesis, as he used to be called, when he was human, discovered Magneto's secret base on Windegoo mountains, or something like that, and slaughtered all the remaining students, while Magneto, and his (at that time) fledling X-Men were on a mission, again, saving humans somewhere. So it also happened that Nemesis killed the scarlet witch, Magneto's daughter. Mags was pissed. He destroyed Nemesis, but did not kill him. Somehow Nemesis was given the life support body armor that he now wears as Holocaust. When Scarlet Witch died, Rogue was by her side; this gives partial credence, to me, for her 'present day' family with Magneto, but it is also sillily disturbing.
Right off the bat in Issue One Magneto makes reference to the whole Bishop thing. That, I will explain later, keep it in your mind though. Oh, and Joe Madureira (has his last name conspicuously absent from the title page so I can't tell if I spelled it right) draws this absolutely seminal rendition of Apocalypse sitting at his throne upon a monument comprised entirely of stories and stories of human bones. One of my favorite comic images of all time. The rest of Issue One further elaborates on Magneto's choices to dispatch his mutant army in various locations (i.e. each other spinoff title) and why he is sending his A Game team of mutants on a practically suicidal mission to free a legion of constrained and tortured humans.
So then we move on to Sabretooth and Blink, which is oddly reminiscent of the relationship between Wolverine and Jubilee. 'tooth needs Blink to transport him to where Holocaust is, and everyone knows it will probably lead to Sabretooth's imminent death, but he goes anyway. He goads Holocaust into revealing the hidden location of the Infinite processing plant (the plant where live humans are genetically altered and composited to be Apocalypse' super-soldier-mutant pawns), hearing this, Sabretooth lets Wildchild, his weirdo, semi-homoerotic, partner loose from his chain, to go relay the info to the rest of the X-Men, 'Tooth and Holo fight. Holo kills 'tooth, Not.
Issue Three, the rest of the team infiltrates the Infinite processing plant compound, and Holocaust kills Sabretooth again. Not.
Issue Four, Blink kills Sabretooth....not, the X-Men free all the humans. Here though, we also learn that Apocalypse has captured Magneto, and he and Rogue's son, take a guess, Charles.
This is the cool part of reading it this particular way. Though my review of the last two issues makes it seem trite, we have now learned the format of each AoA series. You must remember, though I never stated, there were One-Shot issues that bookend all the events of each spinoff issue, and the bookends spawn each issue's specific direction and lay the foundations to tie each issues cliffhanger together. Take a deep breath. Reconvene at a later date.
Right off the bat in Issue One Magneto makes reference to the whole Bishop thing. That, I will explain later, keep it in your mind though. Oh, and Joe Madureira (has his last name conspicuously absent from the title page so I can't tell if I spelled it right) draws this absolutely seminal rendition of Apocalypse sitting at his throne upon a monument comprised entirely of stories and stories of human bones. One of my favorite comic images of all time. The rest of Issue One further elaborates on Magneto's choices to dispatch his mutant army in various locations (i.e. each other spinoff title) and why he is sending his A Game team of mutants on a practically suicidal mission to free a legion of constrained and tortured humans.
So then we move on to Sabretooth and Blink, which is oddly reminiscent of the relationship between Wolverine and Jubilee. 'tooth needs Blink to transport him to where Holocaust is, and everyone knows it will probably lead to Sabretooth's imminent death, but he goes anyway. He goads Holocaust into revealing the hidden location of the Infinite processing plant (the plant where live humans are genetically altered and composited to be Apocalypse' super-soldier-mutant pawns), hearing this, Sabretooth lets Wildchild, his weirdo, semi-homoerotic, partner loose from his chain, to go relay the info to the rest of the X-Men, 'Tooth and Holo fight. Holo kills 'tooth, Not.
Issue Three, the rest of the team infiltrates the Infinite processing plant compound, and Holocaust kills Sabretooth again. Not.
Issue Four, Blink kills Sabretooth....not, the X-Men free all the humans. Here though, we also learn that Apocalypse has captured Magneto, and he and Rogue's son, take a guess, Charles.
This is the cool part of reading it this particular way. Though my review of the last two issues makes it seem trite, we have now learned the format of each AoA series. You must remember, though I never stated, there were One-Shot issues that bookend all the events of each spinoff issue, and the bookends spawn each issue's specific direction and lay the foundations to tie each issues cliffhanger together. Take a deep breath. Reconvene at a later date.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Age of Apocalypse review part II
Astonishing X-Men (Uncanny X-Men)
Generation Next (Generation X)
X-Calibre (Excalibur)
X-Man
Factor X (X-Factor)
Gambit and the X-Ternals (X-Force)
Amazing X-Men (X-Men)
Weapon X (Wolverine)
These are the 8 titles that make up the important meat and potat'as of the AoA universe; in parenthesis are the derivative titles from the normal Marvel universe (616? I don't know, who cares). Anyway, I'll do a little case by case evaluation on each one.
The reason I selected them in this order, as somewhat explained a little earlier, is because the fourth and final issue of each series, ends in that same order chronologically (according to one particular AoA chronology I've found). My goal was to create a sense of time-progression of the storyline, as well as maintaining the coherence of each individual series, as it's creators may have intended (or better to say as I would have intended for them). This method is opposed to reading each individual issue of the entire crossover in its retroactively researched and discovered Chron. order. For instance, here.
My attention span has grown short an weary, so once again I will continue this post later. That's ok, it makes for more posts, which makes me feel like I'm actually sticking to my goal of posting regularly.
Generation Next (Generation X)
X-Calibre (Excalibur)
X-Man
Factor X (X-Factor)
Gambit and the X-Ternals (X-Force)
Amazing X-Men (X-Men)
Weapon X (Wolverine)
These are the 8 titles that make up the important meat and potat'as of the AoA universe; in parenthesis are the derivative titles from the normal Marvel universe (616? I don't know, who cares). Anyway, I'll do a little case by case evaluation on each one.
The reason I selected them in this order, as somewhat explained a little earlier, is because the fourth and final issue of each series, ends in that same order chronologically (according to one particular AoA chronology I've found). My goal was to create a sense of time-progression of the storyline, as well as maintaining the coherence of each individual series, as it's creators may have intended (or better to say as I would have intended for them). This method is opposed to reading each individual issue of the entire crossover in its retroactively researched and discovered Chron. order. For instance, here.
My attention span has grown short an weary, so once again I will continue this post later. That's ok, it makes for more posts, which makes me feel like I'm actually sticking to my goal of posting regularly.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Age of Apocalypse review part I
Reading the series in its whole once again cements in my mind that which was already cemented seven feet thick to begin with, the Age of Apocalypse epic is the single greatest work of writing, nay all of art & entertainment, ever to come out of humankind. The story is so huge, yet broken down into perfect increments that allow you to absorb what's happening up to, and no more than, exactly the point of saturation. Here's a sort of breakdown, feel free to skip if you are as cool as me and already know. There are several different branches of the storyline (eight I think
) that are all part of the same tree. Effectively, each branch is a four-issue-long mini series (derived from existing series' prior to the AoA, merging back into themselves after the AoA; but don't even worry about that), and each mini series describes the tale of one important facet to the overall story.
I'm bored of writing for now so I will continue this tale later.
Also, since I finished AoA I've had a little time to start reading War of the Twins once again; I thought I may have lost interest in it, but just a few pages reminds me of how cool it is. Prepare for further postage.
) that are all part of the same tree. Effectively, each branch is a four-issue-long mini series (derived from existing series' prior to the AoA, merging back into themselves after the AoA; but don't even worry about that), and each mini series describes the tale of one important facet to the overall story.
I'm bored of writing for now so I will continue this tale later.
Also, since I finished AoA I've had a little time to start reading War of the Twins once again; I thought I may have lost interest in it, but just a few pages reminds me of how cool it is. Prepare for further postage.
The first mutation of the purpose
I've decided to include a television show as available criteria to write about. Someone might say i should change the name of the journal, but I wont. This television show I bought on ebay, the place where you can always hope to get something great for cheap. Well it turned out to be a bootleg, and, astute as I thought I was, I never saw it coming-- until after I relooked at the listing. Here's a website I went to that helped me realize i had bought a bootleg: http://www.digital.anime.org.uk/piratefaq.html Anyway the bootleg is near perfect and I can't tell any difference so far, I gave the guy positive feedback but linked to a bootleg awareness site in my feedback. Here's the weird part, I felt like I should help inform the people he's pirating, but that makes me a hypocrite. I was just mad because I wanted the official Bandai version that I thought I was getting. But since I don't really care when it comes down to it: prepare for Cowboy Bebop!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
