Taboo Talk with Stephen R. Bissette

Stephen R. Bissette's Taboo

As promised, I'm back to regular postings!The second episode of Pod Sequentialism is posted and now you can subscribe on iTunes!

My guest this time is comic book artist, publisher and educator Stephen R. Bissette, perhaps best known for his work on Saga of the Swamp Thing, as well as his other collaborations with Alan Moore and John Totleben. I first met Steve as a teenager, and the very first piece of published comic book art I ever bought was one of his Swamp Thing pages.

A fellow New Englander, and an early advocate for self-publishing, Steve was one of the first comics industry professional I had ever met, and freely willing to demistify the business. His Spiderbaby Grafix imprint debuted Alan Moore's From Hell and Lost Girls as well as new works by Neil Gaiman, Charles Burns, Chester Brown, Eddie Campbell, Moebius, S. Clay Wilson, and Michael Zulli, while helping to launch the careers of Thomas Sniegoski and Mike Hoffman.

http://www.meltcomics.com/blog/category/pod-sequentialism/

Pod Sequentialism Espisode #02 is the deepest look behind the curtain that most comic fans will ever get. Bissette is an industry legend with over 40 years of experience in the business, and he speaks openly about the things that most pros are loathe to discuss. Steve gives up page rates and royalty agreements, reveals which publishers were the worst to work for, and gives an informal history of the direct distribution model.

We talk about the history of ‘zine culture, the risks and rewards of self-publishing, and how Frederic Wertham inspired pop surrealism.   

The Great Influence of the Late Margaret Thatcher on Modern Comics

Maggie bought the farm yesterday, and I doubt that Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Jamie Delano, Brendan McCarthy, or any of the UK comic writers who emerged in the mainstream in the 1980s are doing much grieving. In fact, a great deal of those writer's early work is a direct result of living under Margaret Thatcher's rule, a contentious era of upheaval which helped earn her nickname of "The Iron Lady." When sifting through the sanctimonious epitaphs that are sure to appear in newspapers and news programs between now and her funeral remember that Prime Minister Thatcher called Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela "a terrorist."

Here in the USA, Thatcher's allegiance to Ronald Reagan earned her much higher praise than she received in her own country. Of course the nightly American newscast didn't feature the constant hunger strikes, worker strikes, public rioting and general dissent that festered in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and throughout the British Isles in response to her poll tax, union busting, state-supported terror tactics and racially and economically divisive politics. While American punks blasted anti-Thatcher anthems from their Japanese boom boxes, comprehension of the British condition remained nearly non-existent. While the Clash, Elvis Costello, and U2 penned song after song attacking The Baroness to the wider pop audience, the severity of British austerity was largely lost on Americans. Her deregulation of the markets, privatization of the dockyards, and general lack of sympathy for the working class left a legacy of unemployment and heroin addiction.

But comic book fans got the straight dope from the source.

Readers of Alan Moore's V for Vendetta got a stark dose of anti-thatcherism. Moore exposed the homophobic Section 28 Law that vaguely forbade the publication or presentation of any materials that promote homosexuality. V's Larkhill Resettlement Camp is a fascistic, nightmare scenario of what many feared would be the next step. The totalitarian government presented in his groundbreaking anarchists tale is very much modeled on Thatcher's Tory party. The extent of terror-state interrogation techniques allowed by British Police remains mostly unknown to the majority of Americans–even those who read about them in V, who perhaps thought it part of the fictional aspects of the story. The anti-establishment aspects of V for Vendetta would become more prominent and more polarized in Moore's Watchmen, which featured graffiti silhouettes like Banksy's long before most people were aware of him. Banksy's most popular image of a scarfed man throwing a tear gas cannister is, itself,  straight out of the era of the Brixton Riots.  

Moore also wrote Maggie into his Miracleman/Marvelman series in issue 16, where she scoffs at the idea of market interference. It's hard to believe after the economic collapse of 2008 that the dangers of deregulation had been outlined in a superhero comic book released back in December 1989. The hero's sympathy for the aged leader in spite of her obtuse uncompromising nature is prophetic of what many Brits and most Americans saw on their televisions last night. Moore foresaw the pending candy-coating over two decades ago, not that it was so difficult to predict. The visibly shaken Thatcher depicted by American artist John Totleben in the sixth panel on the page appears moved to tears, which is consistent with reports of her state upon exiting Downing Street almost a year later following her resignation from office on November, 22 1990. Moore completists will note that Thatcher's resignation took place a mere seventeen days after Guy Fawkes Night.



Grant Morrison's visionary and rarely seen St. Swithin's Day features an assassination publicity stunt with Thatcher as the intended target. In the UK, it is illegal to depict the assassination of any actual politician in any form–satire included, so Morrison had to be very clever about the motive of his young protagonist, who in the final frame threatens her with... his finger. Morrison's Scotland was the most heavily hit by Thatch, who swept like a wrecking ball through the mines, the steel industry, the car factories, shipbuilding and engineering and oversaw the demise of the communities which had built their livelihoods around them. The poverty there was rivaled only by Northern Ireland, which held a particular Ire for the PM. Morrison would also present an unfavorable vision of Margaret in his Dare, in which Gloria Monday colludes with the Mekon for a karmic demise.

Jamie Delano criticized Thatcher's "Help yourself society" amidst satanic stockbrokers in the third issue of Hellblazer. I remember reading that series as a teen, thinking, "Wow, this is really British!" Years later while reading Canadian author Dave Sim's Cerebus: Jaka's Story I realized just how disliked Margaret Thatcher was everywhere but in the USA. By the time the Spitting Image puppeteers lampooned her, her poll numbers were so low that they might have actually helped her image. When rock band Genesis utilized the puppets in their Land of Confusion video, it succeeded in creating a buffoonery that undercut the reality of nuclear catastrophe that warhawks Reagan and Thatcher almost led us into.





So when I say "influence," I mean it in the same way that Adolph Hitler influenced Art Spiegelman's Maus. Go on, Maggie–and good riddance!

Special acknowledgment to Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool for some of the images featured on this page.

Gentlemen, Reset Your Watchmen!

Half a year has passed since DC Comics launched the first issues of their controversial re-visitation line, BEFORE WATCHMEN. Following on the heels of the successful but somewhat ill-received film, and including the involvement of neither the writer nor penciler of the original series, the move was immediately dismissed as an attempt to crassly cash-in on Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' characters while DC still owned them. The largest share of criticism came from creator Alan Moore, himself, who was adamantly and vocally against the idea.

In the spirit of full disclosure, Moore has never been happy with anyone handling his works other than himself, having famously lambasted the film adaptations of From Hell, and the disappointing League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Moore even dismissed the very well-adapted V For Vendetta, and had his name removed from the credits. So, while the fans have been at odds over the years with Moore's opinion concerning the handling of his characters by others, they were very much in the creator's corner when it came to this selling off of the family jewels. The fan backlash against DC Comics was loud and nasty for moving forward with the release of new comics starring Ozymandias, Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, Comedian, Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, and a series dedicated to their forefathers, The Minutemen.

I didn't want to let the internet chatter interfere with my ability to objectively review these new comics, and the talent roster announced for each series ranged from merely interesting to absolutely inspired, so I steered clear of any online news and awaited the weekly supplements to the overall story. This past few weeks has seen the close of the Silk Spectre four-issue, mini-series, but rather than winding down the other titles,  DC announced an expansion with the release of two new series: one dedicated to anecdotal villain, Moloch, and another for Minuteman hero, Dollar Bill. This makes one wonder, can a Captain Carnage one-shot be far behind? Just how far down the vein are they going to drill?

Well if you didn't get a sense of it from that last paragraph, I think the experiment has been a failure. This is where a lot of you get to scream, "I told you so!"
But there have been some successes within that failure, too.

Darwyn Cooke's MINUTEMEN series is still running, and has been excellent every single issue. He's done a great job of padding out the history of the team with adventures that add to the rich legacy of the original series. The same magic he weaved into THE NEW FRONTIER is fully intact in this series, which had advertisements and other interruptions that the original source material did not. Cooke's retro-style perfectly fit the setting of post-war America, and his writing has been crisp and enjoyable.

His work on SILK SPECTRE with artist Amanda Connor was fresh, but got a little goofy in the middle. 1960s psychedelia has never played well in comics (outside of Jim Steranko), and it derailed here as well. It was nice to see such a different take than anything Moore would have been able to script, but it didn't maintain across all four issues. Still, it was above average.

RORSCHACH in the hands of Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo is exactly what fans wanted: gritty, dirty and violent. This was the right team for the task and they're having fun within the historical context of Moore and Gibbons' set-up. It's been a treat thus far, and there's no indication that will change within the remaining issues of the series. The same team that delivered the incredible JOKER graphic novel have proven themselves as dependable a team as Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely.

DR. MANHATTAN is a deep sci-fi character, and there are few people you could trust within that genre to not completely ruin the great work the original WATCHMEN series showcased. In J. Michael Straczynski, DC found the perfect man for the task, and paired him with one of the all-time greatest illustrators of naked flesh, Adam Hughes. So far, this has been a wondrous collaboration that ranks among the best for both of them. JMS brings an even deeper understanding of real science with with the big blue guy than he did with his cult hit Babylon 5. This series enriches the concepts developed in the source material and expanded in the film adaptation, making this a great bridge between the two mediums.

That is pretty much where my praise ends.

If Azzarello seemed like a logical choice for Rorschach, why not handle The Comedian, too?
Well, apparently there was only enough moxy for the one series, because THE COMEDIAN is a big disappointment. There are many places one could aim to pinpoint the failure, but I think it's this: choosing to center on what turned Edward Blake from an affable man's man into a sadistic monster is to miss the point entirely. Blake's always been bad. He's an anti-hero, through-and-through. Azzarello is a talented writer and it's because he's so talented that the expectations were high for this. Clearly, The Comedian and Rorschach are the two most popular characters, and the chance to tackle both of them must have been more than Brian could turn down. He chose to tell a single story with Rorschach, and must have felt the need to do more with The Comedian, but that wasn't necessary nor advisable. The guy who rapes a fellow costumed adventurer in the 1940s shouldn't be seen as a good-old boy in the early 1960s paling around with the Kennedys. The writer's take on America's first family is speculative to the point of insult and he changes a piece of Watchmen lore by giving Blake an alibi in the JFK Assassination. He took unnecessary liberties in an attempt to flesh out the bad guy.
I think it would have been wiser to tell Blake's story in an Apocalypse Now series of dossiers outlining his black ops activities. A nice set-up might have been to show someone hired by a Veidt corporation shredding these boxed documents, possibly reading them as they do. If there was a need to take a liberty, the shredder could turn out to be Moloch, who has already been established as an unwilling pawn in Adrian Veidt's game. If there was need for a bigger liberty, it could have been Walter Kovacs.

If Straczynski's specialty is deep sci-fi, how did he wind up on the short list for NITE OWL?
MJS has never done a run on Batman that I ever read, and since Nite Owl is based on Blue Beetle (Charleton's Batman), why didn't DC execs go with a Batman writer? Scott Snyder and Neal Adams would have been a great team for this. Instead, we got a story that seemed too bored with itself to not include the more interesting Rorschach (written terribly, I might add), and really scratchy pencils from the Kubert family. I am a huge fan of Joe Kubert, but I would never have suggested him for this project. He's got the wrong look for inner-city super heroes. Adam and Andy Kubert do superheroes just fine, but I'd be lying if I said they were my dream team for a Watchmen revival. Of course, Snyder already has his hands full writing the terrific BATMAN, SWAMP THING and AMERICAN VAMPIRE series, so he might not have been available. And Neal isn't known for being deadline friendly. But perhaps most importantly, is there enough about Nite Owl that we don't know? Alan Moore (way back in the day) had suggested the possibility of a Nite Owl and Rorschach team-up book in the vein of Randall and Hopkirk: Deceased, but that would have been a comical take on the characters, and it would have been disrespectful for anyone else but Moore to treat these characters anything less than seriously. In this case, Nite Owl was fairly pedestrian. The first issue of MOLOCH THE MAGICIAN was actually quite enjoyable, though, so MJS has a 2-1 record overall.

Jae Lee is an artist's artist. The guy is incredible. In OZYMANDIAS he has produced what many must consider to be the best work of his career. The book is beautiful to see. Unfortunately Len Wein added words to Lee's pictures. Wein helped shape the comics industry in the late 1960s and 70s, and I'm forever grateful for that. I'm a huge fan of his seminal work with Bernie Wrightson on Swamp Thing, and as an editor, Len is a legend. But as a writer? Not so much. His Ozymandias reads so... comic booky that it actually makes me mad. Anyone who read the original Watchmen series would immediately get that Adrian Veidt is a secretive man. He is calculated and charming. He was designed as a forty-something Robert Redford, so he's got the common touch in addition to his immense wealth. He's not a smarmy, two-dimensional confessor. Choosing to fill each page with a description of what is actually on each page as a sort of inner dialogue is not only poor scripting, it's against character. Wein seemingly took the not-too-subtle performance from the film adaptation as the springboard for this series, and wrote it like it might have been written forty-five years ago at Marvel. The way to tell Veidt's story should have been through his auto-biography, which was established as a best seller in the Moore-Gibbons universe. A great writer might use that plot device to show one thing and describe another, so that Veidt's autobiographical descriptions narrate less than heroic visuals creating a sense of the false advertising that we know Ozymandias to be post-Watchmen. Matt Wagner or James Robinson would  have been better choices to pair with Jae Lee, and Brian K. Vaughn could have been stellar, but honestly almost anyone would have been a better choice to write this after reading what's been published thus far. And now Mr. Wein is writing DOLLAR BILL.

I have opted-out at this point. I find myself falling back to collections of serialized newspaper strips like Steve Canyon and Johnny Hazard. I'm drifting away in the lush illustrated tomes of European fumetti and bande dessinee being released by Humanoids and Dark Horse, and even wandering off to discover all the great Japanese manga I missed. The glory of the superhero is cyclical, and with the exception of the current Scott Snyder  and Greg Capullo BATMAN run and the DAREDEVIL END OF DAYS mini series from Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack, Klaus Janson and Bill Sienkiewicz, there hasn't been much on par with the series I first highlighted in Pop Sequentialism.


As such, I'll be posting monthly rather than weekly unless something inspires me to interim reporting.

A Clean Break (of sorts)

Since I was thirteen years old I have been what you might term a "serious" comic collector. I had previously purchased the occasional comic from the newsstand, but after discovering specialty shops (after an episode of Simon & Simon–documented here) I took up the hobby in earnest.

In the twenty-eight years or so since, I have accumulated and sold many collections. My first collection of ten or so long boxes I sold to the shop that became my first employer after moving to California. The owner figured that no one would be able to price and highlight my collection better than me, so he hired me to do that and run his sport card department. It featured at least 20 books valued at over $300 each, and this was in 1991. I had a near complete run X-Men/Uncanny X-Men, and all the important Bronze Age first appearance and origin issues like Hulk #180-182, Amazing Spider-Man #127 and more. He gave me $3,000 and a job.

While employed there, I bought a crucial set of key and classic Marvel and DC Silver age books including the Neal Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow series,  complete runs of Tales of Suspense, Journey Into Mystery, Avengers and Fantastic Four. I donated that collection along with a newly acquired run of Uncanny X-Men (Giant Size #1 and #94 to somewhere in the high 260s) to The Boys and Girls Club of America in 1998. It was four long boxes and two short boxes with an Overstreet value of $220,000.00. I needed the $22,000.00 tax write-off badly, and made a lot of kids happy on Christmas Eve that year.

In the 90's I had gotten way into the Vertigo stuff, and when I moved to Chicago in 2005 I dropped off three short boxes of Sandman, Preacher and pretty much everything that Alan Moore and Frank Miller had written, at Meltdown Comics. Through some sort of lack of communication I never got paid for those, and I still bust Gaston's balls about it to this day.

A few years ago an old friend of mine got me back into the hobby. At about the same time, my mother moved from her house in Massachusetts to Arizona, and my sisters found my secret stash of two short boxes of what I considered the really great stuff. Weird one-offs by Alan Moore and Dave Stevens and Bernie Wrightson, and rare undergrounds by Richard Corben and Rick Veitch and Steve Bissette. UK imports of Warrior Magazine and Crisis. Basically, these were the comics that didn't have much price guide value but which I knew would be difficult to track down in the pre-internet 1980s. I had started to read Bill Willingham's Fables, and it launched me back into hardcore collecting. From Halloween 2009 until my birthday (October 17th) this year, I went from guy with no comic books to a guy with nine short boxes. That does not include the two to three dozen Ombnibus, Absolute or other special edition hardcovers that still occupy about fifteen linear feet of shelf space.

On Sunday, October 21st, I sold the entire Pop-Sequentialism collection, with the exception of some recent issues from a handful of series that are currently ongoing and therefore not collected in hardcover yet. Well, those and a literal handful of comics that I treasure too much to sell or give away. I kept a CBG 9.5 grade Howard the Duck #1, and a similar Werewolf By Night #32. The first was the book I always wanted as a little kid, and the second was the first one I actually bought. I also kept a fine condition Haunt of Fear #19, which was a sixteenth birthday present from the guys I worked with at my first after-school job. Those guys were my mentors and if I ever escape a house fire, you can bet that this comic book will be make it out with me ahead of my wallet. The only other two comics I kept were the original Trident Comics edition of Grant Morrison's St. Swithins Day, which almost became a movie in the mid 90s and was a dream project for me as a young actor, and very good House of Mystery #261, which features a brilliant Mike Kaluta cover of the grim reaper, which is an image I redrew with some proficiency in my teens and of which I am still proud today.

Why am I liquidating this important collection? Because I'm moving. I'm also getting married next year and I realized that I have a ton of stuff. Like any mad collector, I've had trouble limiting myself to just one area of collectibles, so I've got a couple thousand DVDs, way more books than space to display them, fifteen CaseLogic binders full of audio and data cds, crates of movie posters and lobby cards, more clothing than I will ever wear, and more shoes than any other straight man on the planet.

And I'm practically hemorrhaging art. I've got more paintings than square feet of walls. I've got way more sculptures than counter top space. I've got guitars that I almost never play but find it impossible to get rid of them. Do you know what I use for a coffee table? Architectural drawers filled with artwork.

Somehow I've managed to limit my toy collection to a single suitcase-sized box.

So what have I given up? The list is below. The collection now resides at Comics Vs. Toys in Eagle Rock, CA. The owner, Ace Aguilera, has been a friend of mine for almost twenty years. He's a fair dude, and his clientele for back issues is well matched for this collection, which represents some of the best work done in sequential storytelling over the past thirty years and more. There are full sets, and obscure runs within titles by great creative teams. There are random issues of forgotten series that feature absolutely iconic cover art from some of the industry's best.

This is Pop Sequentialism:

After Watchmen: What’s Next? 
Airboy #5 (Dave Stevens) 
Alias #1-12
Alien Worlds #2,4 (Dave Stevens)
All-Star Superman collection Vol 1 & #7-12 (Morrison) Anarchy Comics #2 (1st Tales of the Black Freighter)
Animal Man tp (Morrison), and complete Animal Man series
Astro City: Confessions
Back to Brooklyn #1-5
Batman Year One (#404-407 Frank Miller)
Batman #666, 686, 687
Batman & Robin #1-16 (Morrison)
Bedlam #1, 2 (Bissette & Veitch)
Blood: a Tale #1-4 (Kent Williams)
Blood of the Innocent #1-4
Brat Pack tp
Capt. America Reborn #1-6 (Brubaker)
Chaingang #1,2 (Rex Miller)
Cinderella From Fable Town with Love#1
City of Silence #1-3 (Warren Ellis)
Comico Attractions: Rocketeer (Dave Stevens)
King Sized Conan #1 (BWS)
Corinthian #1-3
Criminal: Sinners #1-5 (Brubaker)
Grant Morrison's Dare #1-4
Daredevil #41 (Bendis)
Dave Stevens greeting card (Thanks for a Wonderful Night)
DC Sampler #3 (Bissette & Moore Swamp Thing)
DC Spotlight #1 (1st Frank Miller Dark Knight, 1st Watchmen)
Death Rattle #16
Detective Comics #853-863
DNAgents #24 (Dave Stevens)
Doom Force #1 (Morrison)
Doom Patrol (entire Morrison run)
Dreaming #55
Eclipse Extra #53
Eddy Current v.2, 3
Egypt #1-7
Elektra Assassin #1-8 (Miller & Sienkiewicz)
Elvira's House of Mystery #11 (Dave Stevens)
Enigma #1-8 (Morrison)
Ex Machina (whole series)
Extremist #1-4 (Milligan)
Fables #81,90-98
Marvel Knights Fantastic Four 1,2,3,4 #1-4 (Morrison)
Fantasy Masterpieces #1
Filth (whole series - Morrison)
Giant Sized Man Thing #1
Glueboy #1-4
Golden Age #1-4
Gumby Summer Fun Special (Art Adams)
Hellblazer #1-8, 12&13, 18-22, 25-27, Dangerous habits tp, 53, 61-end of Ennis Run, #134-139 (Ellis Run), #250-268 (Milligan Run)
Heroes for Hope – signed
History of DC Universe #1&2 (Wolfman & Perez)
Horrorist #1&2 (Milligan & David Lloyd)
Human Target – mini series complete, ongoing #1-3, 7-18, 20 (Milligan)
Incognito #1-5 (Brubaker)
Invincible Iron Man #20-27
Invisibles – complete run of all three series (Morrison)
Jack Cross #1-4 (Ennis)
JLA - #1-18 (Morrison)
JLA Classified #37-41 (Milligan)
Joe the Barbarian #1-5 (Morrison)
Johnny Nemo Mag #1-4 (Milligan & Morrison)
Johnny Nemo coll v.1
Johnny Quest #5 (Dave Stevens)
JSA Liberty Files tp
Junk Culture #1&2
Kick Ass #1-7
Kid Eternitiy #1-3 (Morrison)
Kill Your Boyfriend (Morrison)
Kurztman Komix
League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen v.1 tp
Losers Special #1
Losers – complete Vertigo series
Love & Rockets Short Stories & Heartbeak Soup collections
Madman Jam
Mage, The Hero Discovered – complete first series
Merv Pumpkinhead
Mesmo Delivery
Mindless Self Indulgence – signed
Ministry of Space #1-3
Moon Knight #29&30 (Sienkiewicz)
New Frontier – complete series
New Funnies v.1 #126 (1938!)
New Titans #50-55 (Wolfman & Perez)
Northlanders #21,23
Ocean #1-6
100 Bullets v.5 tp
100 bullets #67,82,86-97
One Million #1-4 (Morrison)
Planetary All Over the World tp (Ellis)
Preacher: The Story of You Know Who #1 (Ennis)
The Programme #1-12 (Milligan)
Proposition Player #1-6 (Willingham)
Reid Fleming World's Toughest Milkman #1
Robot Comics #0
Ruins one shot #1
Sam & Max #1
Sandman: Endless Night Special
Scalped #1,7,9,10,11,14,15-28
Sea Guy tp
Sea Guy v.2 #1-3
Sebastion O #1-3 (Morrison)
Secret Origins #1 special (Gaiman)
Seduction of the Innocent 3D #2 (Wrightson)
Shade the Changing Man #1-70 (whole series)
Skreemer tp (Milligan)
Slow Death #8
Sheena 3D #1 (Dave Stevens)
Spider Woman #1-7 (Bendis)
Star Spangled War Stories #151 (1st Unknown Soldier /dbl cvr)
Dr Strange mini series #1-3 (Waid)
Stumptown v.1 #1-3
Sub Mariner #1,2 (coverless)
Superman Annual #11 (Moore & Gibbons)
Superman Batman #60-62
Superman for All Seasons (complete series)
Superman Secret Origins #1-3
Saga of Swamp Thing – #21-64, annual #2 (x2) Alan Moore run, Annual #3 (Veitch), #140-147 (Morrison/Millar)
Sweeney Todd (Gaiman/Zulli)
Tainted (Delano)
Tales of the Teen Titans #41-43 & Annual 2 (Judas Contract issues - Wolfman & Perez)
Tank Girl tp
Teen Titans Lost Annual
Territory #1-4, (Milligan)
Thessaliad #1-4
Journey into Mystery #91, #104, #116, 119, Thor #127, 128, 129, 132, 138, 139, 144, 145 (Kirby), Thor #601-603, giant sized finale (JMS), annual #1
Tongue Lash #1&2
Torso #1-4 Jinx #6
Transmetropolitan #1-60 (whole series)
True Love #1 (Dave Stevens)
Twisted Tales #2 (Wrightson)
Ultimate Avengers #1-3,5
Umbrella Academy #1-6 & free comic book day
Unknown Soldier #1-4 (Ennis)
V for Vendetta #1-10 (whole series - Moore & Lloyd)
Vanguard Illustrated #2 (Dave Stevens)
Vertigo Pop London – full series
Vertigo Preview
Vigilante #17&18 (Alan Moore)
Vimanarama #1-3 (Morrison)
Walking Dead tp v.1
War Story #1-3 (Ennis)
Wasteland #1-18
Watchmen #1-12, Watchmen button set (Moore & Gibbon)
Wednesday Comics (complete set)
We3 tp (Morrison)
Witchcraft #1-3
the Witching #1-10
Wonder Woman #27 (Quitely variant)
World of Wood #1-4 (Dave Stevens)
X-force & X Statix (all Milligan issues)
New X Men (complete Morrison run)
Crime Does Not Pay #46 (classic SOTI)
IT #1 (Gaiman magazine)
Mad Magazine #159 (A Clockwork Lemon)
Neat Stuff #9
Neat Stuff best of
Weirdo #10 (first Peter Bagge art)
Comics Journal #273 (Gaiman), 278 (Gaiman), 176 (Morrison)

Passing the Rorschach Test

Without a doubt, the most highly anticipated title in the Before Watchmen line has been RORSCHACH. The narrator of the original series has long been the most beloved character and this new prequel is undoubtedly the one that fans critical of the relaunch feared most would be mishandled.

Fortunately for Brian Azzarello, Alan Moore invested more time in the backstory for Rorschach than he did in the Comedian. Fans of the original WATCHMEN have a clear picture of what he is all about because his origin from childhood to crime fighter is well documented in the original series. It's effortless to pick up the beat of his prosthelytizing monologues, and his disdain for corruption is unforced and amenable; in other words he's easy to identify with. Rorschach may be crazy, but like his cinematic predecessor Travis Bickle, his intentions are good and he, himself, is a victim of society. With such a well established personality (or lack thereof), and with such a high percentage of the original source material dedicated to him, success should come relatively simply to a writer worth his salt.

If I had my choice of any living comic book team to write and illustrate this comic I would have picked the same duo that DC did: Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo. And you'll all be happy to hear that they didn't disappoint.

The JOKER graphic novel is one of the few examples of post-WATCHMEN sequential literature that can be either recommended or discovered independently and be completely enjoyed regardless. There are books by Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, and a few others working within the superhero cannon that also succeed at this but none of them star the bad guy, and most of the issues that are dedicated to villains try to humanize them with sympathetic explanations about what made them monsters. Azzarello chose to forego that route completely and served up a day in the life of an utterly unpredictable lunatic. One minute he's funny and the next minute he's deadly and twice as frightening because of it. Bermejo painted a portrait of a true psychopath, and within panels captures a subtle shift in body language and even pupil dilation to support the explosion of violence that commonly bridges the Joker's wavering moods. This is the team you want when telling the tale of the most violent costumed vigilante this side of BADGER (a schizophrenic, indie comics hero whose popularity once outshined Wolverine's).

Bermejo's original art from Rorschach #1

Since Moore already told us how the red-headed Walter Kovacs became Rorschach, the masked scourge of the underworld, Azzarello is spared having to repeat it. He has chosen (thus far) to detail a single case file well into the vigilante's career –from the late 70s if the look of Bermejo's New York City is any indication. Like Moore before him, Azzarello has chosen to pull from Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver to present the nasty and scary 42nd Street of the post-Vietnam era that became synonymous with crime, vice and pornography for a generation of New Yorkers and tourists along the great, white way. In the quarter-century that has passed since the original series first saw print, the level of violence and obscenity allowed in mainstream comic books has increased exponentially, and thus are we presented with a more extreme version of the character.

Even though it carried a recommendation "For Mature Readers," original series artist Dave Gibbons was forced to work within the framework of the accepted norm, obligating a subtlety that helped his work connect with academics and even conservatives who were critical of "comic book violence." Lee Bermejo is not so restrained, and there is nothing comic about his violence. When the aforementioned Kovacs shows up in public after his masked alter-ego receives a savage beating from some street thugs, he's not just worse for wear: he's f**ked up –a credit to Bermejo's detailed pencils.

The heightened violence and stronger language aside, Azzarello has remained faithful to the character comic fans know. Maybe this was motivated by fear, or maybe he's just having fun with a character he never dreamed he'd be allowed to write. Then again, they just might have found the perfect pairing of writer and artist for this particular project. It is possible that WATCHMEN was one of the titles that made Azzarello want to write comic books in the first place. One can draw a series of comparisons between the best and worst of Moore's heroic fiction and the best and worst of Azzarello's, and while they are each their own man, if you are a fan of one you will likely be a fan of the other. Azzarello (like Moore) is at his best telling dark stories about those who rage against the dying of the light; a sort of dystopian poet. And Moore (like Azzarello) experienced his biggest failures when working with other people's material that hadn't been completely mapped via years of pop-culture establishment (SPAWN, WildC.A.T.S., SUPREME).

In the 25 years that have passed since Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons buried Edward Blake, many subsequent writers have injected elements of The Comedian into mainstream heroes like The Punisher, Daredevil, Nick Fury and even Captain America (not to mention pretty much every Image-published title of the 1990s). In an attempt to make the character something special again, Brian may have chosen to write a larger than life character worthy of The Comedian's legend but unmindful of his published history. It's got to be a challenge tackling something that nobody wants to see succeed, and I don't envy the task –especially when he can write (and has written) any number of books that the fans will not only love, but fawn over. All of those involved in the Before Watchmen line have exhibited great courage, but the failures have outnumbered the successes. Azzarello's COMEDIAN had a shaky start, and seems to be recovering, but thus far I'd list it among the failures. With RORSCHACH #1, DC and Azzarello can add one more check to the success column.

Moore Goes Head-to-Head with New WATCHMEN

It had to happen sooner or later, I guess.

The Before Watchmen line continued yesterday with NITE OWL #1, the fourth new title released in this prequel line of comic books based on Alan Moore's WATCHMEN characters. With a new title streeting every week, that's no surprise in and of itself, but this week a new Moore comic also arrived; namely, THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: CENTURY 2009. And thus was the stage set for the most public (if not exciting) geekdom Beef battle since, well... the last time Lord Alan got something published, I guess.

The verdict? Alan Moore wins this round hands down.

If Brian Azzarello's THE COMEDIAN #1 failed for taking too many liberties with the source material as it is understood by the fans, J. Michael Straczynski falls just a bit short for rehashing too much of what we already know and mixing it with original material that just isn't very exciting either on its own or in juxtaposition with the history as it's represented. His script is by no means bad, but it's not as exciting as either of Darwyn Cooke's books (MINUTEMEN and SILK SPECTRE) have been thus far. Rorschach fans will be delighted to find him in great support in the second half of the origin story, but I found the multitude of Hurms to be tiring and betrayed a use of the familiar to make up for a basic lack of understanding of the character.

Nite Owl was based on Charlton Comics' Blue Beetle, and JMS has really tapped into that for his portrayal of Daniel Dreiberg as Night Owl II. He is an affable, comical hero, which seems slightly at odds with his adolescent home life, but that would seem to fall completely in step with the personalities of stand-up comics of that era (the 60s), many of whom used comedy as a relief for the harsh circumstances of poverty or abuse. His partnership with the deadpan Rorschach makes for an interesting odd couple, and fans will want to see as much of this team-up as the space allows, which could get in the way of the narrative in a limited series.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: I feel that the page count is a serious handicap in this new line when compared with the original series. Eight less pages is a huge, possibly insurmountable deficit.

The original pitch behind this new line was in presenting the origins that we never got to see in WATCHMEN, but so far (with the exception of SILK SPECTRE #1) we are being rushed through those stories. So anyone expecting NITE OWL YEAR ONE will be sorely disappointed. Also, like with COMEDIAN #1, the cover art and the interior art is so different, that it's easy to feel baited and switched. Andy Kubert's cover is text book perfect comic art, but the interiors look much more like his dad's SGT. ROCK work. There's nothing wrong with that necessarily, but war books and superhero books have different looks and the interior pencils have a sort of schizophrenia as a result. This book doesn't feel very heroic, and not in a post-modern sense –which might have been a good thing. Still, it's got a solid backbone of readability that Straczynski brings to most of his work. His lack of feel for the Rorschach character might be a strength; by not allowing a secondary character to chew his way through the scenery, he positions Night Owl to shine. I'm looking forward to seeing what the specific plot of this book will be, and I hope it enriches the legacy of the original series.

The final chapter of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's third volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (BLACK DOSSIER was a stand alone one-shot) was also released this week. It had been so long since the last one (1969) that I had to go back and reread it and 1910 to get back up to speed. And I'm really glad I did because each of the previous volumes enriches this latest one, and vice versa. I prefer O'Neill's WARLOCK art that he did for 2000 AD and his brilliant MARSHAL LAW to his pencils on this set of characters (and I absolutely hate the cover of this last installment), but there is no doubting that his work with Moore is his best from a raw storytelling perspective. It's been a challenge for everyone who has worked with Moore to rise beyond his shadow, but fans have little choice but to give credit for the success of this collaboration equally among the partners.

Moore is in top form as wordsmith and conjurer. He has a gift with language and dialogue that knows few peers, and the meta-narrative employed here is presented unconfusingly and almost poignantly. It's refreshing to see an author rework themes from previous works to better effect, and to do so within the framework of a story that utilizes borrowed characters and confront our current reality in that mix is a work of genius. Where I found FROM HELL to be a beautiful but incomprehensible mess, I find CENTURY to be a clever, well-constructed ruse.  If it is hampered by anything, it is the inherent pessimism of the author's world view, but Moore doesn't really do "happy."

So if there really was a competition, Moore & O'Neill outpunched Straczynski and the Kuberts, and they landed those blows with more power, but there are no losers in this fight. The fans least of all.

Last and certainly not least is a reissue of one of my all time favorite comic book runs. IDW have placed the same love and care they put into their brilliant THE ROCKETEER: The Complete Adventures volume into David Mazzucchelli's DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN artist's edition. Curiously absent from the cover is Frank Miller's name, almost refreshingly so. If Alan Moore has been something of a curmudgeon regarding his opinion of other comic book professionals, Frank Miller has become a talk radio version of his former self (and rarely do his occasional right-wing rants do anything to endear fans to his cause), but there's no denying the impact he's had as a writer on the medium, and Born Again is one of his very best. By making this all about Mazzucchelli from the cover onward, we are afforded the opportunity to see the extent of their collaboration and just how powerful David's line work is. He brought a swashbuckler feel back into comics that had been missing since John Romita's run on THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN, but he also captured a film noir sensibility that perfectly complimented Miller's narrative. His heroes are beautiful the way that Milo Manara's women are beautiful, the way that Bernie Wrightson's FRANKENSTEIN was beautiful. Mazzucchelli mastered the compromise between telling a story and drawing a picture. His pencils and inks are a textbook example of everything that was wrong with the Image comics that followed. It's amazing how the time and space that passed since this was first published have done nothing to detract from it at all. If anything, this volume will make you enjoy it more -even if you forget what you're reading because you've lingered on the art.