Graffic Traffic
by Ryk McIntyre
illustration by Greg Prindeville
It’s a dark and stormy night here in comic book land. Y’know why? Because it’s ALWAYS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT!!! You hear that creaking noise? There, that one; the one that sounds like a collection of moans, groans and expert opinions. But it’s the thick, cloying sludge of information and facts and falses and fears, that is what clinches it; it’s up and running again. The Rumor Mill is back in business.
I must say, witnessing the breakdown of the speculator market in comics along with the glut of SuperHero books and the crash that followed its over-inflated presence in the market, I get to feeling…good. I feel good because the big 1992-93 shit-storm of mediocrity has largely passed and everything isn’t F.U.B.A.R. like we all feared it would be.
Weathering the storm and still strong are Love & Rockets, Naughty Bits, Hate, Usagi Yojimbo, Cerebus; all of them knew that quality speaks for itself and never compromised. NEVER compromised.
Elsewhere, there are signs of quality in SuperHero Land (see, I don’t HATE superhero comics, don’t think that). Read anything by James Robinson. This quick Brit is responsible for Starman (DC), FireArm (Malibu), two Terminator mini-series (“Secondary Objectives” and “Endgame,” both by Dark Horse), as well as many others. Hell, the man made WildCats readable. Wow.
Also, I want to put a plug in for Very Vicky, by Meet Danny Ocean. Writer John Mitchell and artist Jana Christy serve up the wicked coolest book to hit a beach area. Trust me here, you have not read anything quite like this. It’s an Icon, it’s a testament to cool, armed with garb and unction!
You see, the good guys can win. Some things can go, if not the way of innovation and genius, at least the way of craft and competent quality. Marvel Comics (remember them? They bought out Heroes World recently?) has announced the cancelling of 30 – 40 titles over this year, and not a graceful beast among them. Silver Sable, Secret Defenders, Marvel Comics Presents, two Punisher titles (big loss there), Namor, Night Thrasher and Nova, to name a few of the not-to-be-grieved-for. And in the wake that they and half the editorial staff at Marvel make, there is a sense of paring down, then building up. Incredible Hulk, a book Marvel has long under-supported, a superhero book done so well even Dave Sim professes admiration, has received an upgrade in paper quality and color seperation. About time.
The point here is: life goes on, there is hope and there is joy again in reading comics. Or writing or drawing them. But to continue is to adapt, to change. We don’t buy multiple copies anymore like comics were a lottery; we seek out excellence and demand excellence and we don’t buy comics that suck from issue 32 on just because we have the first 31 issues and, well, you know….
….also, people like me would stop preaching so much and just reveiw the comics, which is what we were asked to do but, NO, NO, NO…we just love to talk and talk. What would you call that? Maybe just “Run of the Mill”…here’s this month’s picks:
Savage Dragon (Erik Larsen, writer/artist name witheld) (Image Comics) Sometimes you just want a good superhero comic, one with wit and punch-outs. Maybe some characterizations, some subplots to spice the main story, a little humor. The Savage Dragon, one of the best three or four Image books EVER is all that. Just like the theory behind fast food burgers; you want a burger, you like how a burger tastes, you buy it and it’s good, later you buy another burger.
X-Men Books in General: The Age of Apocalypse: Actually, I’m going to talk about these books at length later; the good points like Warren Ellis (writer of Excalibur) and the bad (y’know, they really are just X-Men books). The two immediate points worth mentioning are: 1) It’s the first interesting thing to happen in the mutant books since Magneto turned good back around issue 100 and 2) some of the alternate universe versions of the X-Men are way cooler than before. Henry “The Beast” McCoy as a Dr. Mengle? Yowza! It’s interesting to note though, even in an alternate universe, Scott “Cyclops” Summers is still equal parts Hamlet and complete Prat. More on all of this later.
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And one last thing – it’s rough in the world. Be careful out there.
