Author: Van Jensen

Review: Teen Titans Year One

The other day I was talking to James Kochalka, creator of Superf*ckers and the upcoming Johnny Boo children’s books, and he mentioned how difficult it is to find superhero books for his kids. Such offerings are mostly limited to comic book adaptations of cartoon series that were adapted from comics, he said, and “they’ve been pretty bad.”

For DC, the lifeline to younger readers has long been the Teen Titans, most recently through the TV spinoff Teen Titans Go! and Tiny Titans, which is almost too innocent for its own good. Now we also have Teen Titans Year One (issue #3 is out tomorrow), the “origin” story from writer Amy Wolfram.

The book succeeds on a number of levels, primarily in how it manages to be appropriate for kids without dumbing down. There are serious threats and the group faces violence and danger and interpersonal hangups. The art also perfectly fits the tone.

While I’ve enjoyed the series thus far, I doubt it’ll serve as a jumping-on point for any kid looking to get into comics. Another thing Kochalka complained about was how the youth-oriented Marvel and DC comics rely on readers coming into the book to have a firm understanding of the mythos, and that’s certainly the case with [[[Teen Titans Year One]]]. New comics readers will be fairly lost, if not out and out discouraged by the lack of exposition.

The Year One tag also only hampers the series, forcing it into a ridiculously incongruous existence amid decades-old comics. For instance, these Titans use cell phones and instant messaging, devices that weren’t around when the Teen Titans debuted. That’s nit-picking, to be sure, but when an editor’s note tells me this storyline happened right after [[[The Brave and the Bold]]] #54, I can’t help but be yanked out of the plot.

Van Jensen is a former crime reporter turned comic book journalist. Every Wednesday, he braves Atlanta traffic to visit Oxford Comics, where he reads a whole mess of books for his weekly reviews. Van’s blog can be found at graphicfiction.wordpress.com.

Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Van Jensen directly at van (dot) jensen (at) gmail (dot) com.

IDW Acquires Blue Dream Studios

  • News
  • March 4, 2008

IDW Publishing is best known for its gory horror comics and sci fi adaptations. Which made this morning’s news that the company had purchased an up-and-coming comics studio known for its all-ages fare seem a bit strange.

In a press release, IDW President Ted Adams and Blue Dream publisher Scott Christian Sava announced the new arrangement.

"I know Scott had offers from many publishers and I’m thrilled that he chose IDW as the home for Blue Dream Studios," Adams said. "I love the books he’s created, and I look forward to helping him reach an even bigger audience."

Blue Dream is likely best known for The Dreamland Chronicles, Sava’s online fantasy comic that’s become a fan favorite, drawing some 4 million readers and earning awards. The story is all computer illustrated, and has also been released in book form.

Though only recently entered into the comics world, Blue Dream has had a fair amount of success, with Disney acquiring the rights to the Pet Robots series and MTV buying the rights to another, Hyperactive. The deal with IDW is most likely seen as an opportunity for Blue Dream books to expand into the print market, where IDW already has a distributor.

According to the release, IDW sees the move as a chance to expand into the all-ages market. Apparently, Steve Niles doesn’t go over too well with the preschool crowd.

Former Eisner Judges Name Favorite Comics of 2007

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  • March 4, 2008

Jeff Vandermeer, the fantasy author and comic critic at Bookslut, caught up with all his fellow judges from the 2007 Eisner Awards and compiled a list of everyone’s favorite comics from 2007 (which are eligible for the 2008 Eisners).

Their choices are all listed right here. The panel consisted of Vandermeer, comics critic Chris Reilly, librarian Robin Brenner, Isotope Comics owner James Sime and the USA Today’s Whitney Matheson.

The most consistent choices are The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight, The Trial of Colonel Sweeto, The Arrival and my personal favorite, Super Spy.

I don’t know what it says about me that my best of 2007 most closely mirrors that of Sime, the self-styled "Comic Pimp."

The judges for the 2008 Eisner Awards, which will be held July 25 at the San Diego Comic Con, have been named. To see that list or to nominate a book, go here.

How Do You Give a Comics Reading?

  • News
  • March 3, 2008

As graphic novels and comic books become more entrenched in the high-minded literature scene, comics creators likely will begin entering into the world of the author.

That could mean holding book signings at Barnes & Noble as well as Comic Con. It could mean facing the scrutiny of self-important book critics as well as snarky Internet fanboys. In the case of Exit Wounds creator Rutu Modan, it meant holding a reading.

For literature, readings are easy enough. You step in front of an audience, crack open your book and read. But because comics are so image intensive, a reading becomes much more difficult.

I’ll never forget hearing John Ridley on NPR discussing his comic series The American Way, and how awkward it was when he tried to not only read the dialogue and captions but also describe everything. Luckily, I’d already read the book and could follow along.

Speaking at Jewish Book Week, Modan tried another tack by showing a projection of the pages as she read. However, even that wasn’t ideal. Here’s how the Guardian writer described it:

Modan’s presence raised the interesting technical question of how to conduct a reading of a graphic novel. The answer was via a PowerPoint presentation and a lot of advice from a tech-savvy audience shouting: "Now go to ‘Slide Show’, now click ‘View Show’."

Djimon Hounsou Set for Comics Trilogy?

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  • March 3, 2008

During a weekend press junket for the upcoming film Never Back Down, actor Djimon Housou told IESB that he’ll be taking a role in a comic book trilogy and referred to it as a dream project. The full article is right here.

Hounsou wouldn’t specify which trilogy, though, so the rumor mill can go ahead and start churning. Here’s what the folks at IESB theorized:

The obvious answer is that Hounsou is talking about staring as The Black Panther in the inevitable Fantastic Four 3. Tim Story mentioned in an IGN article nearly a year ago that Hounsou was his ideal choice for the Wakandan King. If this is the case, it’s actually perfect casting (outside of it being another Story-directed Fantastic Four film).

The other possibility, though, that I’m not entirely willing to shake is that Hounsou might be talking about Tintin.

Hounsou mentions that this is a dream project for him. While Tintin may not be the biggest bit of pop-culture this side of the Atlantic, it’s still extremely popular in Europe — especially in France where Hounsou moved when he was 13. Add in the Spielberg connection and the fact that Tintin‘s being done as a trilogy and I think its speculation with some potential.

Hounsou’s page at IMDB doesn’t have any mention of a project yet, and there aren’t a whole lot of other comic book trilogies on the horizon. Y: The Last Man is supposedly in the works, though Hounsou obviously wouldn’t have a place in that, unless the director decided to be very creative in casting Agent 355.

Black History Month: Calling the Heroes

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  • March 3, 2008

Wired.com’s blog recently posted this entry on the Online Museum of Black Superheroes, a Web site that compiles a fairly comprehensive list of black superheroes (as well as non-superhero characters).

The museum, which you can find right here, also contains a lengthy collection of articles on black characters in comics. The articles come from a variety of sources (from the Washington Post to Comic Book Resources) and while they don’t represent an end-all-be-all dissertation on black superheroes, they do offer a wealth of interesting discussion.

Simply reading through the character lists (they’re divided by publisher) offers plenty of opportunities for analysis. For instance, you can separate the characters by when they were introduced and look for trends. One thing I noticed was that while there were disproportionately more male characters than female ones, the division didn’t seem to be any more lopsided than the gender divide among white characters.

The site also documents some of the blatant racism evident in comics with characters such as Whitewash Jones (he appeared in the 1940s war comic Young Allies), and the unintentionally offensive, such as Marvel’s creation of Man Ape (he was a Black Panther villain).

Review: RASL #1

There’s something of a learning curve that comes with reading RASL, the new comic book series by Jeff Smith. After so many years of all-ages books like Bone and Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil, it’s a bit jarring to see Smith’s cartooning style appear in a book that’s so different from everything he’s done before.

The first issue begins with the protagonist (RASL is his "hacker tag," Smith told me in an interview) wandering through the desert, beaten and bloodied. While the immaculate linework may be reminiscent of Fone Bone, nothing else is. RASL is a dimension-hopping art thief (not to mention a fan of booze and cigars), and the issue quickly introduces him before laying out a string of hooks to catch readers’ interest.

There’s a great sequence where RASL thinks he’s returned to his home dimension only to look at a jukebox and see the album Blonde on Blonde credited to "Robert Zimmerman." "Dylan isn’t Dylan. Damn. I’m in the wrong place," RASL narrates as a shady figure lurks.

Smith also uses a much more complex narrative structure than in past books, revealing his antihero and a twisty back story through multiple time periods and dimensions. Such a structure can be unsettling for readers, but Smith handles it well. There’s a smooth cadence to his writing that bolsters the maturity of the material.

It’s still far too early to grade this series, but at the very least, it’s fun to see Smith continuing to develop as a creator and challenge himself even after he’s had a full and successful career.

 

Van Jensen is a former crime reporter turned comic book journalist. Every Wednesday, he braves Atlanta traffic to visit Oxford Comics, where he reads a whole mess of books for his weekly reviews. Van’s blog can be found at graphicfiction.wordpress.com.

Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Van Jensen directly at van (dot) jensen (at) gmail (dot) com.

Review: Brian K. Vaughan’s ‘Batman: False Faces’

With the recent and much heralded conclusion to Y: The Last Man, the continued strong run of Ex Machina and a gig writing for Lost, Brian K. Vaughan is living pretty high on the hog nowadays. But it can easily be forgotten that Vaughan wasn’t always a superstar writer, and the new collection of comics from his formative years at DC serves as a telling picture of the artist in progress.

In Batman: False Faces ($19.99), we’re taken back to Vaughan as a struggling writer, working a day job at the psychiatric ward of St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York. Three stories in the collection feature Batman or his rogues, and the fourth sets Wonder Woman against Clayface.

As Vaughan writes in his introduction: “[A]nyone who thinks that pitting a character made of magical clay against friggin’ Clayface isn’t a totally awesome idea is a dirty communist.” True enough. But while the setup is golden, the execution isn’t. What could have been a deeply introspective story is more cursory and trivial, while also moving a bit too slowly in places.

The Batman stories (which Vaughan wrote later) show the expected improvement. Further exploring issues of identity, Vaughan takes a thoughtful look at Batman’s two-bit-criminal alter ego Matches Malone in one story, and then he explores the diseased mind of the Mad Hatter. When Hatter says, “The only way you shall ever comprehend insanity is by ducking the shallow gerund,” Vaughan reveals the savvy and linguistic dexterity that would go on to make him a star.

[[[False Faces]]] isn’t for everyone, but for Vaughan devotees or those interested in the development of a talented creator, it’s a must-have collection.

Marvel Unveils Ultimate Spider-Man in Spanish

  • News
  • February 27, 2008

Marvel’s PR department just sent over news that Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection Vol. 1 and Ultimate X-Men Ultimate Collection Vol. 1 will be translated into Spanish and rereleased in late March.

The collections, which retail for $29.99, include the first year’s worth of stories from each series, all redone in Spanish. This is just the latest effort by Marvel to make a play for Spanish-speaking readers, as in recent months the publisher released a special issue of the Fantastic Four in Spanish. Fantastic Four: Isla De La Muerte #1 was released in Spanish and English in January.

It’ll be interesting to hear if anyone tracks sales of those issues by language. Though publishers of all stripes are interested in tapping into the growing Hispanic population in the United States, such efforts are clearly in the early stages.

Holocaust Comic Causes Stir

  • News
  • February 27, 2008

The New York Times has picked up on the debut of The Search, a comic book we reported on earlier this month being used in German classrooms to engage young students on the horrors of the Holocaust. In today’s story from Berlin, a reporter visits one classroom and sees how strong of interest the students are showing in the comic, even though it deals directly with the long forbidden topic of Nazis.

While some have castigated the comic (the story also references French President Nicolas Sarkozy earning criticism for wanting France’s youths to study the war’s victims), the article makes clear both how effective comic books can be in teaching children and how important the subject matter is.

The German children come across as not identifying with the Nazi history, but still interested in learning from it. There has been plenty of support for the book as well, as detailed in this story from the Web site Deutsche Welle. CNN has a video report on the book available here.

The Search was created by the Anne Frank Haus.

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