Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

Filmstar Double A-Side: Drum Mixdowns

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I am radically Do-It-Yourself when it comes to music.

Since Gina is also a dedicated DIYer we always go that route with Arcati Crisis with no questions asked. We record ourselves, design our own graphics and websites, rehearse at home, and are now working on creating our own merchandise.

Filmstar is different. They DIY some things, but not others. They’ve been to a recording studio, used a rehearsal space, hired a photographer, and are even discussing working with a manager.

I try not to unduly influence the band with my mutinous DIY ways, but when it came to dropping big dollars on studio recording when we had never been through the process before I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. The result was last month’s drum engineering session in our dining room, which I spent a big chunk of yesterday mixing down. [Read more…] about Filmstar Double A-Side: Drum Mixdowns

DC New 52 Review: Legion Lost #1

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Clearly the theme of today is titles where I’ve got no idea about a darn thing. These are apparently superheroes from the future who get mired in the past? Despite my DC newbness I have a way of hoovering up information about random heroes, yet I don’t even vaguely recognize a single one of them on the cover.

Will this one delight as much as Frankenstein did earlier this evening? Let’s see…

Legion Lost #1

Written by Fabian Nicieza, art by Pete Woods

Rating: 2 of 5 – Uneven

In a Line: “Accessing the sensory patterns of this time period without the transuit filter — is like to see, hear, and talk while inside a pool of mud.”

#140char Review: Legion Lost #1 aren’t the only ones lost. Fast-paced issue w/a slew of chars whizzes by with little effect

CK Says: Consider it.

Legion Lost is a wobbly comic that I suspect improves greatly with any foreknowledge of the characters within or the events of Flashpoint.

The story? A team of superheroes from the future pops back into our present in a malfunctioning time traveling bubble, in pursuit of a villain carrying a contagion. They’re too late to stop him, thus their dilemma becomes how to retrieve him and retreat to chronal safety. However, there are some potentially deadly kinks in their plan.

Scripter Fabian Nicieza hits the ground running and never pauses for a second, wobbling be damned. I appreciated the non-coddling pace and the way his characters always restate the implied question of “what the hell is happening.” I came away with all of their powers and most of their names, if not their relationships with each other.

However, I wouldn’t call the experience pleasant.

Adding to the rushed tone is Pete Woods’s artwork, which looks like it tumbles out of his pen a mile a minute. I’m not sure what gives that impression. Maybe that the action doesn’t always track from panel to panel? Or maybe that the focus of his panels is always crisp and perfect, with perspectives and details bending away at the sides to thicker, heavily-inked lines.

(Also: the weirdly amalgamated logo is awful.)

I understood the book, and even enjoyed some of it, but it doesn’t seem worth returning to next month. I didn’t get the sense it was necessary to be telling a story with these largely charmless characters, and the story that was told wasn’t compelling enough to make me want to track down a seemingly difficult backstory.

Still, it seems like someone fresh from Flashpoint with some fondess for The Legion of Superheroes would be invested in the events that unfold.

DC New 42 Review: Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1

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Is there really anything to say here? The cover of this book features Frankenstein wielding a gattling gun, backed up by his four-armed bride and a Japanese school girl wielding a revolver.

My hopes, they were not high.

Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1

Written by Jeff Lemire, art by Alberto Ponticelli

Rating: 4 of 5 – Excellent

In a Line: “And so far, I must say I am worried. This place is an advertisement for mad science bound to go wrong.”

#140char Review: Frankenstein #1 makes magic happen w/outlandish plot, gruff antihero, & messy/sketchy art. Perfectly exciting debut left me howling for more

CK Says: Buy it!

Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1 is a great comic book, and I’m shocked it’s out as an ongoing under the banner of DC. It goes to show that The New 52 isn’t completely for show – some different concepts are really getting a trial run as marquee titles, and it’s up to readers to show their support.

I was cold to this book for about half the issue. A miniature base in a a bubble that requires agents to shrink down to size to enter. Disposable organic robots that dissolve after a day of use. A master who randomly swaps bodies every decade, and is currently inhabiting an Asian school girl. A special forces squadron of volunteer monsters.

It all sounds rather tiresome. Yet, somewhere in the middle of the issue it turned from an obligatory read to a page-turner.

A lot of that has to do with the constant slinging of madcap plot points from author Jeff Lemire. (Yes, that’s the same Lemire that illustrated Animal Man. He is amazing.) If oddball details had been hammered into the ground I would have found them awkward. Instead, each was treated as routine – just another minor facet of an outlandish and compelling world constructed around our titular horror. Not explaining the ridiculous reality of the book gives the reader tacit permission to just not care where Frankenstein came from or why he’s a hero. The book became immediately more enjoyable.

I’d be lying if I said it was solely my suspension of disbelief that kept me hooked until I was really hooked. Actually, that can be chalked up to art from Alberto Ponticelli. I love the deliberate messiness of his pages, things left sketchy and roughly hewn. Yet, he can also scale back to show a clean panel of faces. At points he is definitely reminiscent of Chris Bachalo’s DC work.

The plot? Some sort of hell mouth has opened in a remote town, expelling hordes of carnivorous monsters. The Bride of Frankenstein went missing trying to contain it. Now it’s up the Frankenstein and his horrific team to monster mash their way through the town to plug the hole and locate Bride. If it sounds silly… well… it sort of is, but the book never descends into humor despite a few consistently wisecracking characters and an even-funnier straight man werewolf.

Frankenstein’s DC history is short and relatively recent, and doesn’t seem to have much bearing on the proceedings here. Lemire uses SHADE’s computer to narrate through a few otherwise incomprehensible situations. For a while we’re left to think it’s talking to Frankenstein, but by the end of the book it is addressing us directly. Again, advantage Lemire, who am I now mildly obsessed with.

This isn’t a perfect issue, but it is perfectly entertaining and absolutely worth a purchase. Pick this up while you still can, and while we can still send a signal to DC that we want more of Lemire and Ponticelli’s edgy horror on the slate for many months to come!

(I’ll offer the minor caveat that I have a confirmed soft spot for horror tropes used in not-entirely-horror idioms. See also Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula, Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Kripke’s Supernatural, etc.)

30 for 30 Project, 1992: “Precious Things” – Tori Amos

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Tori Amos has a new album out today, Night of Hunters, released just a few months shy of the twentieth anniversary of her seminal solo debut, Little Earthquakes.

I spent this morning tweeting my reaction to the new album, a classically set song cycle heavy on mythological themes. The music is bold and haunting, but the lyrics are largely obscure and off-putting.

Little Earthquakes was practically its opposite, all about clever wordplay even when the piano was reduced to music box simplicity, quoting the same lines again and again, or utter silence, on “Me and a Gun.”

(Watch me cover “Precious Things” on YouTube. For more info on my 30 for 30 Project, visit my intro post or view the 30for30 tag for all of the related posts.)

I remember Tori’s debut tickling at the fringes of my consciousness that year, maybe on MTV. [Read more…] about 30 for 30 Project, 1992: “Precious Things” – Tori Amos

DC New 52 Preview: On Sale 9/21

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This week brings the third wave of DC’s New 52 debut titles, all aimed to be easy to pick up for new readers but still rewarding to longtime fans.

Week two’s raft of titles was definitely less impressive on the whole than week one, despite a big block of above-average books. Week three packs heavy hitters Batman and Wonder Woman, and an underbill of beloved second-stringers like Catwoman, Blue Beetle, and Supergirl. Will this be be the week to break the better-than-average barrier with a score that tops 3.0? Or, will it do worse than week two’s four-book crop of sub-average comics?

Batman
Written by Scott Snyder with art by Greg Capullo & Jonathan Glapion

I’m a little gun-shy on this one. I thought a Snyder/Paquette Swamp Thing was a sure thing, but I wound up dissing it and drawing a personal comment from Snyder. Dare I get my hopes up here for Snyder on the more well-established Bats in his flagship, illustrated by killer artist Capullo? I daren’t identify this as my most-anticipated of the week, but let’s say I have a firm interest in the outcome.

What are the four other Bat-group titles out this week, and which of them is my most-anticipated book of the week? Keep reading to find out. [Read more…] about DC New 52 Preview: On Sale 9/21