Hey, kids - comics!

Thanks to Lee over at Quit Your Day Job for giving me the perfect excuse to do a comics post, as I haven't done one in a while. Those of you who aren't comic-minded, if you're desperate for something new to read today, you could always pop over to my writing website where I've uploaded a new batch of short stories previously published at Elephant Words.

Favourite regular series right now?



I don't think Kelvin's following this blog at the moment, so I think I can safely say this without fear of too much reprisal (though you never know who else might be lurking)... Amazing Spider-Man. Yes, there are better written comics out there (at least until Ed Brubaker joins the Spidey Braintrust), but there's nothing I'm finding half as much fun as the post-BND Spidey. And I don't care who knows it. I'm sick to the back teeth of the One More Day 'Marvel destroyed the character!' fallout now, this is more Spider-Man than Spider-Man has been since JM DeMatteis and Sal Buscema were together on PPSM, or Roger Stern and JRJR were on Amazing. Anyone who can't see that... well, I'm not going to argue with you, but I'm sad you can't see it too.

Comic book character you only recently discovered/started reading?



I was a big fan of Jamie McKelvie's art after reading the first Phonogram collection he worked on with writer Kieron Gillen, so I was intrigued to see what he got up to on his own. Suburban Glamour blows a similar flute to Neil Gaiman's Sandman and its many spin-offs (at least in the crossover of realities: Faerie to Earth), but fortunately it's far less pretentious and every issue isn't a metaphor for the importance of storytelling. As with any successful fantasy series, the everyday characters work so well you don't even need the supernatural stuff. McKelvie has an excellent ear for dialogue and creates a wonderful atmosphere of teenage ennui. I could have done without the big expositional info-dump when he finally reveals the background to his Faerie story, but other than that this, it's a promising debut, and I'm looking forward to more.

If you could draw/write one character who would it be?

Come on... like you really have to ask.



Are you a fan of the big multi-issue crossover extravaganzas?

Sometimes. Though they rarely seem to live up to their potential. House of M and World War Hulk were the best recent examples. Civil War suffered from Millar's typical overkill and disrespect for / misunderstanding of certain essential character tropes. Secret Invasion, which I had high hopes for, just hasn't taken off. While I'll defend most things Bendis puts on paper, this has been pretty dull. It may well be one of those books that reads better when collected in a trade, but the momentum just isn't there for a monthly book.

Time to give the crossovers a rest for a while, I reckon - though I doubt they will as long as they continue to top the charts.

Last comic book series that you dropped and why?

I buy most of my regular comics as trade collections these days, and the one I gave up on most recently was New Warriors, chiefly because I couldn't tell who half the characters were and the writer / editor seemed to make no concessions in the storytelling to give me that information, just assuming that I automatically knew the back story of a bunch of obscure former X-Men I'd never encountered before.

Favourite character?

Yeah. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by answering this.



Are you a DC or a Marvel fan?

Though I've gone through phases where I've been a regular DC reader (at one point in the 90's, I may even have been reading more DC than Marvel - though many of those would have been Vertigo), I've always been a Marvelite at heart. It was Spidey and the Hulk that got me into comics, and I've never lost my love of the Marvel Universe (despite some disillusionment during the aforementioned decus horribilis). Some of my all-time favourite comics are DC (JLI, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, certain Batmans), but overall Marvel has much better characters and a fictional universe I find far easier to relate to. In recent years, my interest in DC has dwindled to reading two or three books a month, and once Grant Morrison leaves I'll probably cut those DC ties completely, unless they have a major rethink.

Do you remember your first comic/series?

Answered here before, but the first comic I had bought for me was Marvel UK's Hulk Comic (after watching the Bixby / Ferringo show), followed shortly after by Spider-Man Weekly (after the 'does whatever a spider can' cartoon).



Is Watchmen the movie going to be as good as the comic book?

Can I say that I don't really care? Though I'm not the world's biggest Alan Moore devotee, I do recognise Watchmen as a classic - but I'm so used to seeing Moore's creations ruined onscreen that I expect nothing more than for it to be awful. League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V For Vendetta, From Hell... all ranged from poor to dire, while the less said about Keanu-stantine the better. So I'm expecting the worst, in that respect it can't really disappoint.

In truth though, even if the filmmakers surprise everyone and deliver the goods, there's just no way that it can be half as good as the comic, because they just can't get into the depth of characterisation and theme in a two hour movie that Moore and Gibbons achieved in a densely plotted / drawn twelve issue comic series.

Favourite comic book movie?

Spider-Man 2. No contest.



Worst comic book movie?

Keanu-stantine. Really, I've thought long and hard about this, considering the wasted opportunities of Ghost Rider, Elektra, Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer and all the rest... but none of them comes close to the insult of casting The Plank as John Constantine. A tragedy made all the greater for the fact that other than Keanu's central performance, there's a half decent film going on in the background.

Character you’d like to see in a movie?



I'd really like to see JK Simmons's J Jonah Jameson get his own movie. Who wouldn't pay to watch that? But if you mean 'character who hasn't yet appeared in a movie', then any of the remaining classic Ditko Spidey villains... Casey Affleck's Electro, Larry David's Vulture, Bruce Campbell's Mysterio, or Josh Brolin's Kraven.

Heroes? Hawkeye. I could definitely go a decent Hawkeye movie.

Series that you’d like to see on TV?

Gotham Central would have made an excellent TV show. I have my doubts as to whether Bendis's Powers will translate, but it'll be interesting to see them try. I'd watch a Brubaker-scripted Criminal... or a Brubaker-scripted Daredevil. Hell, a Brubaker-scripted anything, but not if it took him away from comics.

And then, of course, there's always the dream of a live action show featuring this bloke...



Thanks for that, Lee.

Normal service will resume tomorrow.