TEEN TITANS #29: This comic is not fun. Have you ever been to one of those parties when there are lotsa people you know, but they are all acting strange and not at all like themselves? Before, you knew them and liked them a lot, and they were fun to hang around with and easy to talk to, but as soon as they get into this popular fancy party they're all a sudden "too cool for school" and dressing diff'rent and talkin' all serious? And they don't seem at all like the people you knew and palled around with because they're full of woe-is-me angst and they're more concerned with their hip new friends or maybe their older friends who went away for a while but who are back now and soooo popular because they have an edgy dark streak even though they were kinda fun and goofy in the past? And none of them want to talk to or hang around you anymore and just pitch pennies and eat submarine sandwiches and talk about dumb stuff that makes you all laugh until soda comes out your nose?
Well, that's what Teen Titans is like now. It's not fun anymore. Everybody's mad and angsty and fighting people who have come back from the dead either angry and evil or angry and good, but most of all angry. And they're all angry about stuff that's happening in this Infinite Crisis thingee, which isn't only a party I don't want to go to, it's a party I don't even wanna hear about. So...this is where I get off the Teen Titans train. I won't be picking this book up next month. Have fun at your goth party, Titans! Maybe I'll go hang out with these guys instead!
THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF THE ESCAPIST #8: This comic is fun. There's four stories (one of them is to be continued) and one kinda po-mo gag page in this issue of the Escapist, and even though it cost me a lot more dimes (90 of 'em!) than Teen Titans #29 did (25 dimes), it was pound-for-pound a more fun comic all around (Note: I did not weigh the actual comics). I really like the anthology aspect of Escapist, which pretty much guarantees you at least one really solid fun story in every issue, and the top-notch ones give you four or five. My favorite one this time is part one of a story called "The Escapists" in which a boy grows up so obsessed with the character and the comics that when he gets older, he buys the rights to the Escapist and plans to make his own comic. I like Philip Bond's art a lot (John has showed me some of his Vertigo work...well, at least the ones that I was allowed to look at) and there's a neat reprint of a Golden Age Escapist comic in the middle of the story. This one story defines everything I love about comics and what makes them fun: a sense of wonder over the comics and their characters (even the characters in the story have a sense of wonder for the Escapist!), great expressive art, and wow, I can't wait to read the next issue! All the other stories are pretty good too. I liked the one where grumpy Harvey Pekar (who I have seen with David Letterman and in that film last year) meets the Escapist on the bus, and then there's a Andi Watson World War II story that is kinda sad but very dramatic—it reminded me of Band of Brothers with artwork that is in the style of Joe Kubert (and when I say that, Andi, it's a big big compliment!). The last story was a more traditional, rip-roarin', pulpy-style tale of the Escapist at the Royal Festival of Magic, and there was a nice text piece on the Big Little Book it was based on. I'm oh-so glad very nice Mister Chabon is letting Dark Horse publish this anthology of old and new Escapist stories, 'coz I keep reading all about the old Escapist comics in the text pieces and yet I can never, never find any of them in the back issue bins at Jim Hanley's Universe! They must be so popular that I could not buy them even if I had a whole bag fulla dimes! Oh well, a fella can dream, can't he? Maybe I will write and draw my own Escapist comic, huh? I will call it...The Escapbull!
(Trots away merrily to look for my paper and magic markers)
(Trots back hurriedly) I forgot to say: That's why THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF THE ESCAPIST #8 is the most fun comic of the week!
(Trots away again)
(Trots back and stares at you crossly) I do so know what "po-mo" means!!!
Hmm, I disagree about the Teen Titans thingy - I find myself often disagreeing when it comes to crisi-related DC comics.
ReplyDeleteOfcourse not everything should be as angsty and dangerous as things are right now, but it is a crisis we're having at the moment, and such a thing will not result in happy tales about the disco legion beating another stupid supervillain who just finished explaining his plan of ultimate world domination.
I fear very much that after the crisis, the DCU will be a place where mostly things will be good again. No need to question the heroes, because they simply are good and do not err. No need to worry, because obstacles are there only to be overcome. It would be pretty two-dimensional, like in the 70s or the start of the 80s. :(
What you're saying is what I hope too. My complaints are mainly because it seems that there is no corner of the DC Universe that gets to have fun--that everybody seems thrown into the same dark pit. Much as I talk about how much I like 1950s Batman on this blog, I really don't want to return to the days of the Bathound and giant typewriters. I just want Robin to crack a joke and Batman to wryly smile sometimes. And really, the Bat-books can stay deadly serious after all; that's their modern genre. But whatever happened to the days when a book like Blue Devil or the Giffen-era Justice League could co-exist alongside more serious fare? That's what I hope Crisis leads up to.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting!
Hmm, good to know. By the way, there was that jeckyl and Hyde batman storyline a few months ago. Wow!
ReplyDeleteActually I HATE Batman, but this one was...WOW!