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Review: The Tithe, Volumes 1 and 2, by Hawkins, Ekedal, & Sevy

June 7, 2016 by krisis

Sometimes tragedy imitates fiction, and sometimes fiction predicts tragedy. Or, maybe they are both tapped into the same wellspring of inspiration within the collective unconscious.

It’s silly, but the first example I always think about is the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The school shooting at Columbine occurred with five episodes left in the season, and by pure coincidence a pair of them featured plot points that echoed elements of that tragedy. The WB decided not to show either of them during the season, instead, airing them months later and out of order.

Buffy was a show that made the horrors of high school literal, so it’s little wonder that any tragedy at a high school would find its mirror in some of its episodes. However, in Earshot, Buffy is the monster of the week (she’s infected with a psychic bug and can hear everyone’s thoughts) while the intended school massacre was planned by a plain old human. It was set to air a week after Columbine.

Similarly, on the premiere of X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunman, the trio find themselves investigating a conspiracy to fly a plane into the World Trade Center. That episode aired on March 4, 2001.

Over 15 years later, a supernatural high school drama probably wouldn’t focus on a school threatened with gun violence and a show about fringe conspiracy theories might not focus on planes flying into buildings. That’s because those tragedies have been rendered too true. They’ve entered the realm of police procedurals, that attempt to rip plots from the headlines – not ones that try to imagine events if which we couldn’t conceive.

Once tragedy and fiction intersect, fiction is never quite the same. It’s the tragedy that keeps on happening.

The Tithe, Volume 1 & Volume 2

The Tithe, Volume 1 collects issues #1-4 written by Matt Hawkins with line art by Rahsan Ekedal and color art by Bill Farmer and Mike Spicer.

The Tithe, Volume 2 collects issues #5-8 written by Matt Hawkins with layouts by Rahsan Ekedal, line art by Philip Sevy, and color art by Jeremy Colwell.

#140char review: Difference between Tithe Vol 1-2 is like an x-over from X-Files to CSI: DC. Would you still watch the 1st? Probably.

CK Says: Skip it.

The easiest way I can think to explain the differences between the two volumes of Tithe is this: Volume 1 is like an X-Files inspired cult drama everyone is talking about, and Volume 2 is like a major network police procedural your parents like to watch.

Volume 1 was a blind pick-up for me, and I’ll freely admit it was largely influenced by the title and the captivating stained glass motif on its cover. When I began reading it, I gave a little inward groan when I realized it was about FBI agents and also takedown of organized religion.

I have an internal barometer that triggers when anything is supposed to be “just like real life” or made “to really make you think/feel,” and I was afraid Tithe was taking me to both places.

It did not. It was a clever little puzzle of motivation and technology, unwinding who might be stealing donations from mega-churches and pinning the blame on big time drug dealers and if it would be such a bad thing to let them keep on doing it. The primary FBI agent, Dwayne Campbell, felt like someone real with a deeper story yet to be revealed. Despite a couple of groaner moments, it was brisk and entertaining – I finished in one sitting. [Read more…] about Review: The Tithe, Volumes 1 and 2, by Hawkins, Ekedal, & Sevy

Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #45 to 41

June 7, 2016 by krisis

rsz_2016-06-06_095604 I’m back with the next five votes for most-wanted Omnibus volumes from major Marvel fans as collated via the Annual Secret Ballot by TigerEyes. I covered #50-46 in the last installment.

These next five low-ranked books are an interesting mix – flagging support for a pair of prior mid-list favorites, several debuts, and one book that’s held steadily in the 40s for three years.

If you have any extra intelligence to add about the probable runs or opinions about the comics therein, please leave a comment! I have read only a handful of issues from all five of these books combined, so most of my knowledge comes from reading about Marvel’s history and some good ol’ fashioned research.

Do want to learn more about the Marvel Omnibus editions that already exist and the issues they cover? My Marvel Omnibus & Oversized Hardcover Guide is the most comprehensive tool on the web for tracking Marvel’s hugest releases – it features every book, plus release dates, contents, and even breakdowns of $/page and what movies the books were released to support.

And now, onto entries 45 through 41! [Read more…] about Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #45 to 41

Review: Spider-Woman (2015) Vol. 2 – New Duds, by Hopeless, Rodriguez, Lopez, & Bustos

June 6, 2016 by krisis

If you are lucky (or: extraordinarily talented or beloved) you may start a trend, but most times you wind up following one.

I think about that maxim frequently. It applies to movies, memes, restaurants, fashion, start-ups, and comic books. To me the application where it is most obvious is in the music industry.

Bands making an album always have three choices – be themselves, try to match the current popular sound, or try to invent a new one.

A useful context to consider this within is Amy Winehouse. People were doing throw-back-y, Motown-influenced songs before Back to Black, but they weren’t all that popular. She already had a retro vibe of her own, but it was more jazz and classic R&B influenced, and she was moderately successful in the UK. When she went into the studio with Mick Ronson to make Back to Black, they had a choice: be the same Amy as before, try to ape current radio hits to expand her reach, or try to do something new.

That something new not only meant success for Amy Winehouse. It set a trend. Other acts started following the trend. Existing artists dabbled in the sound. I’m convinced that ten years later its trickle-down effect is fractionally responsible for the success of “All About That Bass” and Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats.

Whether it’s true of either of those two artists, they bring an interesting subtext to the maxim: what if the trend you wind up following makes you better than you were before? I’d call that a successful pivot, and now we are into start-up territory (or at least, start-up language). Maybe staying the course has proven only moderately successful and you have no idea how to set the next trend. Perhaps the current trend could make you your best self?

This plays itself out in a constant bust and boom in each of the industries I already named. It’s easy to follow with comics, because they are so visual and their success or failure is typically swift and obvious. Marvel had a hit with the “indie-style” Matt Fraction Hawkeye’s starting in 2012 that did nothing like a superhero comic – not the story, the art, or even the colors. Its massive success (and, to a degree, the reception to Mark Waid’s Daredevil the year before) was a reminder that superheroes seen as B-list characters who couldn’t maintain a book might survive by trying something different.

As with Back to Black, I think we’ll continue to see Hawkeye’s wake sweep through comics for years to come, but at Marvel “The Hawkeye Pivot” has quickly turned into a repeatable blueprint: write a small-ball story about how everything is local; give it some modern-day credibility through language or culture; pair it with an artist who doesn’t draw typically muscly/ busty superheroes; and use flat. less-shiny colors.

What’s so fascinating about the brief 10-issue run of Dennis Hopeless’s Spider-Woman is that it started out in the most flashy superhero mode possible – mid-crossover, illustrated by pin-up king Greg Land – and then abruptly executed “The Hawkeye Pivot” mid-run.

Did it work?

Spider-Woman, Vol. 2 – New Duds

Collects Spider-Woman (2015) #5-10 written by Dennis Hopeless with pencils by Javier Rodriguez, inks by Alvaro Lopez, colors by Rodriguez and Muntsa Vicente, and issue #10 line art by Natacha Bustos with color art by Vero Gandini.

#140char review: Spider-Woman’s New Duds was more than a costume change; Hopeless pivots Jess Drew to new status quo w/Rodriguez art.

CK Says: Consider It.

Dennis Hopeless reinvents Spider-Woman in the vein of former boyfriend Hawkeye and Superior Foes of Spider-Man alongside artist Javier Rodriguez and manages to make it feel like organic character growth.

That’s quite the feat, especially considering both of those series had the ability to start fresh with their more lighthearted tones. Hopeless pulls it off mid-run, going from the high-wire of Spider-Verse tie-in issues with Greg Land to a new look and direction here. [Read more…] about Review: Spider-Woman (2015) Vol. 2 – New Duds, by Hopeless, Rodriguez, Lopez, & Bustos

Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #50 to 45

June 6, 2016 by krisis

rsz_2016-06-06_095604 One of my favorite comic community happenings of each year is when a message board member named TigerEyes announces that it’s time for the “Annual Secret Ballot: Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibus.”

For the uninitiated, what this means is that over a hundred of the biggest Marvel fans and collectors who like to chat each other up on the internet send in their picks for what Marvel material is most worthy of compiling into an oversize Marvel Omnibus Edition, massive tomes that sometimes run over 1,000 pages and up to 50 issues of collected comics.

Whether it’s causation or correlation, books from the secret ballot tend to get printed by Marvel. Here’s the breakdown from the first three years of the survey:

2013 survey: 10 of 29 books were later printed as Omnibus (or are solicited).
2014 survey: 12 of 52 books were later printed as Omnibus (or are solicited).
2015 survey: 7 of 52 books were later printed as Omnibus (or are solicited).

That makes the secret ballot not only a fun exercise, but a useful straw poll to get an idea of what could be coming our way. In fact, the majority of omnibuses released in 2016 that are not from the past three years of comics are from the poll.

I’ll be tackling the results of the 2016 poll starting with this post, complete with likely contents, explanations, how to read the material right now, and the likelihood we’ll ever see the books in print.

Let’s get started! And, if you want to know more about all of the books that have been released to date, my Marvel Omnibus & Oversized Hardcover Guide is built on a database full of all of the information about these massive tomes so you can sort and filter them. It’s the only tool of its kind on the web!

Review: Wonder Woman – Earth One, Vol. 1, by Morrison, Paquette, & Fairbairn

June 5, 2016 by krisis

As a kid, I never wanted to be in a boys’ club and was always jealous of anything that was exclusively “girls only.”

I can recall many instances of this. Riding in the car, my mother tried to convince me that I might enjoy joining the Boy Scouts. “But, they’re all boys,” I replied, my rejection implicit. Later, when my female friends were allowed to sleep over together after parties while males went home, I rebelled. “Why shouldn’t I be allowed to stay over?” I raged. “They’re all of my best friends!”

It was hard for me to understand the power of either gendered space because, upon reflection, I did not feel strongly aligned to the idea of my maleness. There was nothing about it I particularly wanted – not the strength, or the camaraderie – because I did not have any evidence in my life that maleness could be good or worthwhile. I hated the idea of being a member of the boys’ club. If all you know about being a boy is bullying and irresponsibility – if the only masculinity you witness is toxic – then why would you want to access it?

That’s not to say I was desperate to be a girl. I liked to wear nail polish and own pink things because they were pretty, not out of a sense of gender dysphoria. Upon reflection, I think the idea of a gender continuum , or even simply a third gender, would have been powerful for me to be able to identify with at the time. (So would have a positive male influence, but I think the former would have been more accessible than the latter.)

Instead, I counteracted my boyness by idolizing female influences, none more than Wonder Woman – the only superhero that mattered to me even though Spider-Man shared my name.

Thirty years later, I can appreciate my ability to define my own maleness and that my gender role or expression does not define my gender identity. I also appreciate the power of single sex spaces in certain contexts. At RJ there was a recurring Ladies Night, were all the women would get together for dinner or drinks. Of course, I wanted to attend – these were all my friends out together! Yet, as women in tech, those friends shared an important, connected experience, and even as the most well-meaning male I might interrupt the ability to share that. Also, there may be women who don’t appreciate or benefit from that shared, female-only space.

Now this is a part of my story. Even when I’m accidentally or tacitly included in a boys’ club or male privilege, I don’t experience it in the same way as my peers.

I’m happy about that. I think it’s powerful to be able to access some piece of otherness to influence your viewpoint when you are in the majority. It doesn’t make you The Other, and you still have a lot of work to do to understand the experience of someone who prohibited from enjoying the club or the privilege, but it means you can see outside of your cave into the wider world of sunlight outside.

Oh, hey, and we’re here to review a comic book. [Read more…] about Review: Wonder Woman – Earth One, Vol. 1, by Morrison, Paquette, & Fairbairn