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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Review: Western Tales of Terror #1-3

Comic books I like generally fall into one of two primary categories: 1) well-written, character-driven fare (Gotham Central, Ex Machina); or, 2) old school, straight-up fun comics (Ezra, The Losers). A third category - the thought-provoking, big idea classic - is a rare treat that usually starts in one of the two other categories before transcending it.Hoarse and Buggy's Western Tales of Terror is a great example of that second category: old school, straight-up fun comics combining the peanut butter and chocolate of Cowboys and Zombies...and it's an anthology, to boot!Narrated by Pete, a sarcastic, foul-mouthed, undead cowboy - "I…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Comment: Making Comics Thin-Skinned

It's no secret that creative types can be pretty thin-skinned when it comes to their art, especially when they're in their early developmental stages. Personally, when I first got into the poetry slam scene - competitive poetry readings, for the uninitiated, where original poems are performed and then judged on a scale of 0-10 by five random members of the audience - I was pretty thin-skinned, ready to curse out, throw beers at, or fight judges who gave my poems low scores. After awhile, as happens to most poets on the scene, I matured, wrote and performed better poems, and…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Free Trade Guerrilla: Superman: Secret Identity (TPB)

Intro time: My name is Oscar and where once I was a rabid collector and all-around comic fiend, I have had to calm my obsession down to where I now visit nationwide bookstores and happily use their cafés to help me catch up on what's happening in the comic book world through trade paperbacks. Not the most precise way to stay in the scene, but it sure is economical!My last such trip saw me pick up Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek & Stuart Immonen.This limited series starts with a rather ridiculous idea, what if there was a kid by…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Comment: Giving the People What They Want

Marvel EIC, Joe Quesada, and his main partner in crime, Brian Michael Bendis, caused a minor tempest in a teapot a couple of weeks ago during Newsarama's "Quesadarama" PR stunt that gave Quesada "control" of the site for the week. He posted an entertaining mix of informative and self-indulgent interviews with the likes of Kevin Smith, Allan Heinberg and, in a series of five installments, Bendis. During the third installment, the duo hypocritically riffed on the state of online journalism and the merits of Rich Johnston's rumor column, Lying in the Gutters, as well as the signal-to-noise ratio on various…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Review: Greg Rucka, Novelist

I first came across Greg Rucka's work in Gotham Central, during his Eisner Award-Winning "half a life" story arc (issues #6-10). In it, he puts his protagonist, Detective Renee Montoya, through the ringer in a well-paced, character-driven story of obsession and revenge. I'd only returned to comics less than six months prior at that point and was blown away by the difference in quality and style from the men-in-tights comics I'd grown up on and had initially sought out. Better yet, because Gotham Central takes place on the fringes of Batman's world, it was quality storytelling without the condescending pretension…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Retro: The Sentry (TPB)

I was still out of comics back in 2000 when Marvel pulled off its Sentry hoax, pretending to have discovered a Silver Age creation of Stan Lee's that pre-dated even the Fantastic Four, and getting that bastion of reputable comics journalism, Wizard, to go along with the stunt. Purportedly their answer to Superman, but with the personal foibles that were Marvel's forte, even Lee played along, claiming to remember shelving the character because he was "so powerful, he could very well have destroyed the entire Marvel Universe and everything we were planning." They even created, and then killed, a fictional…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Indie Spotlight: February 2005

[From the ridiculous to the random to the superb, a quick roundup of notable indie comics (aka, not Marvel or DC proper, though Vertigo, Icon, Image, et al, do qualify) I picked up in the past month. Release dates may vary.]Realizing a few weeks back that I didn't have a single Image title on my regular pull list, I decided to shine the spotlight squarely on them this month, taking a look at five of their newest books: Beyond Avalon, Freedom Force, Mora, and, via their Two Bits sampler, previews of The Imaginaries and Lullaby. A mixed bag overall, qualitatively…

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