Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

From May 1953's Strange Adventures #32, Captain Comet submits to an experiment switching his mind with that of a gorilla in this cover by artist Murphy Anderson illustrating John Broome's lead story, "The Challenge of Man-Ape The Mighty." Why the good Captain would agree to an experiment run by such a sinister-looking scientist is beyond me, especially since the scientist thinks that a green lab coat goes with purple trousers (a science lab faux pas if I've ever seen one!)

(Standard disclaimer about gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)

Image is courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a full-sized version.

Quick Comic Reviews

Superman; Adam Strange; Amazing Spider-Man



Superman #211

by Brian Azzarello, Jim Lee & Scott Williams

If you're looking for a comic with pretty pictures of Superman & Wonder Woman having a smack-down in the Fortress of Solitude, then this is the book for you. If however you're looking for anything resembling a plot or characterization, the you're going to be disappointed. Lee does draw a nice Wonder Woman--muscular and feminine--but I can't help but think that Diana would have shown up for a battle with Supes wearing her battle armor, and not a skirt and long cape.

Rating: 2 (of 5)




Adam Strange #3

by Andy Diggle & Pascal Ferry

After two rather slow-moving issues, the plot starts to pick up a bit as Adam is rescued from the ruins of Rann by a Thanagarian warship that has also come to investigate what happened to the planet. The Thanagarian commander gets a couple of dimensions to her character, arrogant yet concerned about Adam, wanting to know the truth yet not willing to risk her career for it. The final scene is not much of a cliffhanger, since we know that the title character isn't going to die halfway through his own miniseries. The art by Ferry & colorist Dave McCaig remains as gorgeous as ever, and I especially appreciated the alien bird-like qualities of the Thanagarians. I'm glad to see such a good-looking comic finally moving the plot along.

Rating: 3 (of 5)




The Amazing Spider-Man #514

by J. Michael Straczynski, Mike Deodato & Joe Pimentel

If you ignaore the complete ludicrousness of the underlying plot, this is actually a rather good resolution to the "Sins Past" arc. A new Goblin faces off against a weakened Spider-Man, giving us an actual sense of peril--even though we know that Spidey won't die, it's very possible that he could be defeated (and if we hadn't seen the solicits for upcoming issues of Spectacular, then Sarah's survival wold have been in doubt). But however well done "Sins Past" has been, I imagine that most Spidey fans wish that it would just go away; and I suspect that after Straczynski is long gone this is one of those things in the character's history that will be ignored.

Rating: 3 (of 5)

Giving Thanks

Here are some of the things in comics for which I am thankful on this Thanksgiving:



Gotham Central. Every month Rucka, Brubaker and Lark bring us the best police comic ever in the guise of a Bat-book.



Sam Hiti, for Tiempos Finales and its Lovecraftian trippiness.



Astonishing X-Men, for bringing me my monthly fix of Joss Whedon.



Spider-Man 2 & The Incredibles, for being good super-hero movies.



The Manga Explosion. Sure it's meant a lot of dreck on the shelves, but without it we wouldn't have gotten gems like Planetes, Uzumaki, or Paradise Kiss. Plus, it's brought comics into bookstores and young people back into comics.



Oni Press. Not only for publishing some of my favorite books like Queen & Country, Courtney Crumrin, and Blue Monday, but for publishing a diverse line of books with something to appeal to just about everyone.



Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely, for We3, which showed even this jaded camics reader that you can still do innovative storytelling within comics.



Fanboy Rampage. Graeme reads the message boards so that we don't have to.



Dorian, Christopher & Brian, for the retailer's-eye view of the comics industry.



Fantagraphics, for bringing us The Complete Peanuts.



Gold Digger. It's my monthly guilty pleasure.



JSA, for being one comic a month that we long-time Earth-2 fans can geek out over.



New Comics Day, for giving me something to look forward to in the middle of the week.



Gary Spencer Millidge, for StrangeHaven, a combination of Twin Peaks and The Prisoner in comics form melded with it's own sensibilities. Even if it does only come out a couple of times a year.



Webcomics, for giving talented strip creators an outlet not available in newspaper syndication.



And the entire artform that is comics, which at its best is the perfect interesection of pictures and story, art and commerce, passive and interactive entertainment; and the creators who work hard every day to bring their vision to us. There's no medium of which I'd rather be a fan.

New This Week: November 24, 2004

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop tomorrow:



The pick of the week comes from About Comics: It's Only a Game is a collection of the other comic strip done by Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, a single-panel sports feature that ran in the late 1950s. I've never read any of these, so I'm really interested in checking it out.



In other comics:



Abstract has the latest Strangers In Paradise collection (vol. 15).



Avatar has the first of the Apparat titles from Warren Ellis: Frank Ironwine. This is the one I'm most looking forward to, as it has art by Carla Speed McNeil.



Dark Horse has the first issue of a new Jingle Belle mini.



DC has the third issue of Adam Strange, the second issue of Brubaker's Authority: Revolution, another Identity Crisis tie-in with Flash (#216), the second issue of Green Lantern: Rebirth, a second Technopriests volume, and another Superman (#211) with pretty Jim Lee art.



Image has the second Walking Dead collection.



Marvel has new issues of Black Widow (#3), Daredevil (#67), New Thunderbolts (#2), Powers (#6), Supreme Power (#13), and just in time for the holidays, the Marvel Holiday Special 2004.



New Flame has the final issue of Nabiel Kanan's The Drowners (#4).



Oni has the third issue of Sam Kieth's Ojo.



In manga: A. D. Vision has the first volumes of three new manga: First King Adventure, More Starlight To Your Heart, and Mystical Prince Yoshida Kun; TokyoPop has two new manga series: Love or Money and Mouryou Kiden: Legend of the Nymphs; while Viz has just one new series, Wolf's Rain.



And lastly, TwoMorrows has Best of the Legion Outpost for all you old-school LSH fans.



That should be enough to keep you busy reading over the long holiday weekend!

Quick Comics Reviews

Adventures of Superman; Ultimate Spider-Man; Wolverine



Adventures of Superman #634

by Greg Rucka, Matthew Clark & Andy Lanning

This is the most fun I've had reading a Superman comic in quite a while. Smack in the middle of a story about the new Parasites, Mxyzptlk shows up and tries to help. Mxyzptlk is one of those characters with whom it is very easy to mess up a story, but Rucka handles him quite well, and he and Clark pull off some great gags, verbal and visual. Of course it's not the best Mxyzptlk story ever--that honor belongs to Evan Dorkin's World's Funnest. But it does show why Adventures is the Superman book to be reading right now.

Rating: 3.5 (of 5)




Ultimate Spider-Man #69

by Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley & Scott Hanna

Bendis and co. finish off another fun two-parter, this one featuring a team-up between Ultimate Spidey and Ultimate Human Torch. After Johnny accidentally catches on fire he is exposed as a probable mutant and has to leave the school, leaving poor Liz Allen crushed. It was kind of disappointing that Liz didn't show up to meet Johnny, but then she is a teenage girl, and no one ever in the history of the planet has ever been able to figure out how teenage girls think. In the traditional Marvel-U, it's Spider-Man who had the hero worship for the more experienced Fantastic Four, so it's interesting to see the roles switched here int he Ultimate-U (I figure that the previous meeting in Ultimate Marvel Team-Up is going to be ignored.)

Rating: 3 (of 5)




Wolverine #22

by Mark Millar, John Romita, Jr. & Klaus Janson

Part 3 of "Enemy of the State" is a mostly mindless punch-up between the mind-controlled Wolverine and the Fantastic Four, but it is a competantly done punch-up and is not without its charms. Millar has the FF use their powers in some unique ways to fight off the intruder, including one by the Invisible Woman that, while novel, is one of those things that makes you wonder why she has never done it before, and when she doesn't do it in the future it will beg the questio of why not? There seems to be a big reveal on the last page, but are we supposed to recognize who it is? (I'm not nearly as up on the knowledge of obscure Marvel characters as I am with DC.)

Rating: 3 (of 5)

GNs for an Academic Library

It looks as though we're really going to do it.



The library where I work, the Art, Architecture & Engineering Library at the University of Michigan, is going to develop a comic book & graphic novel collection. The collection will focus primarily on indy/art/alternative/underground/mini comics, as well as artistically and historically important domestic and foreign comics.



(We are not trying to duplicate the excellent collections of nearby universities such as the Comic Art Collection at Michigan State or the Cartoon Research Library at Ohio State.)



The bad news is that I don't get to be the person who purchases the items--that job will belong to Annette, our Art & Design librarian. (I'm the Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences Librarian, which means that I rarely get to buy any fun books...) The good news is that Jim O and I will be advising Annette on what to buy; finally after all these years I get to make use of my lifelong obsession in a professional capacity!



Now I need your help.



We will have a chunk of 'seed money' with which to develop the initial collection. Now while I could probably draw up a list of titles on my own, many minds are better than one, and any such list would reflect my own biases.



So I'd like to ask all of you reading this to make recommendations for an Academic Library Comics & Graphic Novels Collection. The recommendations should be consistant with the focus of the collection as I have outlined above.



Please limit your recommendations to 20 volumes. Simple lists are fine, but if you can offer brief annotations as to why you think they should be included, that will be helpful.



You can post your recommendations in my comments section here, on your own blog if you have one (please email me the link), or send them to me directly via email.



(In many ways this is similar to the Lieber's Eleven, but with an academic library focus rather than a public library focus. Plus, you know, 20 instead of 11.)



Thanks in advance to you all for helping me out with this.

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

From 1959's Superboy #76, Curt Swan & Stan Kaye bring us a cover illustrating the feature story, the origin of Beppo the Super-Monkey. A founding member of the Legion of Super-Pets, Beppo stowed away on the rocket that brought Kal-El to Earth, where the lighter gravity and yellow solar rays gave him super powers.

How could anyone not like Beppo the Super-Monkey? He has all the powers of Superman, and he's a monkey!

(I only own two items from DC Direct, one of them being the plush Beppo. Because, you know, Super-Monkey!)

Image is courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a full-sized version.