Best Comics of 2014, No. 6 : Serenity: Leaves on the Wind

Running behind my self-imposed schedule, as I'm prone to do, but we persevere!
Today's entry is a reprint of my review from Goodreads, with a couple points expanded and some cool images thrown in.

Cover art for issue 1, without copy

When I see a Star Trek film, even the embarrassing ones,I feel like I'm revisiting old friends (hey, your friends can embarrass you and still be your friends). Yeah, I know it's fiction, but there's a level of familiarity and comfort that welcomes me into the story.
Multiply that by 10 for this book.
If anything, Serenity: Leaves on the Wind is more meaningful in that respect. We get to catch up with the lives of characters we've grown to appreciate and care for, characters we've not seen for a while, in a well-written story that's completely consistent with both on screen and in print predecessors. Kudos to Zack Whedon for carrying on Joss's story!
The art is tight yet fluid, and integrates well with the text.
The story actually began in Dark Horse's 2012 Free Comic Book Day flipbook. The Serenity side was titled "It's Never Easy" and featured a prequel to the events in Leaves on the Wind, including showing Zoe's pregnancy. The prequel art, by the very talented Fabio Moon, is consistent with Georges Jeanty's work on the miniseries proper, though I find Moon's work a bit more quiety aggressive (if that makes sense). I've included representative pages of both in this article. You be the judge!

Moon's art on the FCBD issue

However, from the standpoint of comic binding, this series is somewhat frustrating. Some of Dark Horse's best stories in the Firefly/Serenity arena are only available in small hardcovers. This means they can't be rebound without gutting the book.
But that's a minor concern for most folks. Serenity: Leaves on the Wind is a remarkable achievement. It's touching and tender, action driven and philosophical. It's consistent with its source material while being fresh and new.
My one regret is that Inara is not in this story. We learned during the reunion special that, as many of us suspected, Inara has a fatal disease. In pre-press for this series, Whedon said that was a story that would be told another time. I hope so, as I'd like to see more, but only under the right conditions.
After completing this miniseries, I'm torn on hoping for more. I'd rather see measured doses of quality stories than a glut of mediocrity. As long as they're of this quality, I'll take as many as I can get, but the quality has to come first. If that means we have to wait a while, so be it. I waited months between the final two issues of Watchmen. I can wait for this if I have to, despite my eagerness to learn Inara's fate.

Continuity page from issue 2, spotlighting
Jayne's character

Variant cover for issue 1

Note on reading and process: I read this as floppies, not as a trade. While it may pose frustrations for some, I recommend this approach for Firefly/Serenity material. It feels more like watching new episodes, and having to wait to find out what happens is exciting!
It's worth noting that a hardcover was released in November 2014, for those of you who prefer to read it all in one fell swoop!
Next: Best of 2014, No. 5, as the Doctor is in... sort of...

Best Comics of 2014, No. 10: Nemo: The Roses of Berlin

For someone whose most pub publicly recognized works, Watchmen and V For Vendetta,  appeared around 30 years ago, Alan Moore is having a pretty good year. Not only are the reprints of Miracleman proceeding apace (which Moore may not care for), but his Electricomics site is up and running (if a bit challenging to navigate), and his work with Top Shelf proceeds swimmingly, including reprinting his neglected Bojeffries Saga..
In the latter arena, Moore and cohort Kevin O'Neill continue to hash out League of Extraordinary Gentlemen one-shots. Last year's offering, Heart of Ice, was the first to spotlight Janni Nemo, daughter of THE Captain Nemo, who was killed and left his legacy to her in Century: 1910. In March 2015, we will be graced with Nemo: River of Ghosts, creating a trilogy. I hope for an omnibus hardcover.
The central piece of the trilogy, 2014's Nemo: The Roses of Berlin, is typical Moore, if there is such a thing.
The story is, as always, a pastiche of cultural references. Some of these, such as the use of Chaplin's Hinkel character from The Great Dictator, are rather obvious. Others, references to Lang's Metropolis, Verne's Master of the World, H. Rider Haggard's SHE (a recurring theme/character in the League stories), and Robert Wiene's Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, are sometimes less blatant.
All the references, fun as they are, take a back seat to adventure in Roses of Berlin. This thing is the Indiana Jones of the League stories, nonstop action from the onset. A quick overview shows a total of six of its 56 pages are exposition driven (exclusive of the obligatory text piece at the book's end). It should be noted in passing that the first of these pages is entirely in German, with no translation offered. That's fine with me, but it irritated some critics. I don't see that. Few expressed frustration with untranslated Martian in the second volume of the League stories.
Ahem. Be that as it may. The majority of the book is a long, well-executed fight scene.

Chaplin's Hinkel with She Who Must Be Obeyed!

Other critics have contended that Moore's writing takes a back seat to Kevin O'Niell's art here. Taking nothing away from Mr. O'Neill's work, I have to disagree here. Anyone who's seen an Alan Moore script is aware of the immense detail put into descriptions for the artist. Given that the script for the first panel of Watchmen is a full page of rather dense text, it seems likely that O'Neill is decoding a rather dense script here, and that Moore is hardly slacking off.
The story involves Nemo and her husband Jack attempting a rescue of their daughter and her husband from the fallen airship of Robur, the Conqueror.
Their efforts take them deep into a Berlin replete with robotic soldiers, chaotic architecture, Rotwang's robotic Maria, and a new adventure, television, all the while fighting and killing with deliberation, and sometimes with glee.

This is also a powerful love story between Captain Nemo and her husband Jack, whose tenderness towards her is only matched by his deliberation in defending her and the rest of his family.
It's worth remembering that despite their forays into popular literature, the League tales were begun as pastiches of adventure, science fiction, fairy and horror stories, either aimed at or embraced by young readers, especially young lads. So there should always be this element of high adventure.
It's to Moore's credit that he's able to inject a smart feminist subtext into what have historically been rollicking tales for pre-pubescent lads. Even the villain of the piece, Ayesha, is a fairly complex character, one whose motivations have been shaped by centuries of life and a drive to continue that life.
In terms of the book itself, it's a slight volume but well-appointed, having endpapers that frame the story (first depicting the attack on Robur's vessel, then Captain Nemo's devastation of Berlin after the rescue attempt- don't worry, there are still plenty of surprises despite that spoiler). It's a sewn volume, with tight binding. Due to its thinness, the spine is not rounded, which may effect its longevity. I suspect the collected edition will remedy this flaw. The volume is priced reasonably at $14.95 US, though I read a library edition and will wait to purchase the inevitable collection of the trilogy.

The first end papers!

 As always in Moore's work, it's vital to read the text piece. It fleshes out the story, particularly significant in this case.
But above all, it remains a love story.

Next: Best Comics of 2014, No. 9, a scarred work.

A few quick thoughts on Disney's Maleficent

Through facebook, I saw this trailer today.

Now, I'm not as locked-in anti-revisionist as this is going to sound. But I have a big problem with this film.
I've seen some remakes I've enjoyed, and quite a few I have not. In general, it strikes me as lazy filmmaking- rework an old idea just for the sake of marketing, rather than come up with something fresh. That's why I give kudos to Marvel for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film. While Marvel is also milking successful franchises like Thor and The Avengers, they're also breaking some new ground, taking some chances.
Maleficent, however, has two problems.
First, it seems to aping the success of recent revisionist fairy tale TV series, which in turn are aping the success of Vertigo's FABLES, which in turn is building on similar notions going back to Gaiman's Sandman and much farther back than that. That's not inherently evil. I'm rather enjoying NBC's current Dracula series, and that's hardly fresh territory.
The other problem is Maleficent's relation to its source material. You can't say Disney and Sleeping Beauty without thinking about that incredible 1950s design work. The film was visually stunning in a new way, reflective of its times, and its look remains iconic.

Yet Maleficent appears to be another live-action effects-heavy take on an old Disney story, like Sorcerer's Apprentice a few years ago. And I suspect that, in the long run, it will be every bit as forgettable. I only hope that people who are first exposed to the characters through this film won't judge the original work relative to it. Lest you think this unlikely, I have students who have used Zak Snyder's film version of Watchmen as the standard by which to judge Alan Moore's original work.
The point: once a watered-down version is out there, it's hard to take it back.
You'd think Disney would have learned that from The Lone Ranger. I still ache for a good and respectful film version of that character! I only hope I'm wrong about this, and that the characters in the 1950s Sleeping Beauty remain memorable.

Original Art Sundays No. 94: Surrealist Cowgirls, It Does This, p. 7

Back in the saddle again (me or the Cowgirls?).
Either way, here we go with the next page.

 

I'm a tad concerned that this page is too light, but other than that,  I'm pretty happy with it.

I really like the transparency I got on the sneeze sound effect.

The story is going some  dangerous places in the next few pages. But I have some basic rules for the Cowgirls: the story must always be at least a bit silly, it must have a fair amount of action, and it must always be a romance at its core.

I try not to use too many sound effects. I agree with Alan Moore- you can't see sound. Look how effective the jailbreak scene is Watchmen is - no words or sound effects visible in the panel, yet it's a very loud image.

I've been thinking a lot about the way I work lately. My friend Tyler Page plots out and thumbnails an entire issue of  his delightful book Nothing Better, then methodically begins rendering each page.

By contrast (and this is difficult to describe accurately), when I plot a comic story,  I see myself holding the finished book of my work. As I read it, I "see" each page. Sometimes the page changes because there were necessary changes to the previous page (or pages), but mostly I just try to write and draw the book as I see it in my mind.

I might have something to gain from applying a bit more structure a la Tyler, but I don't want to lose the spontaneity, especially in the Cowgirls material.

Hrm, as Rorschach might say.

Food for thought. I've studied, interpreted and taught storytelling techniques enough that I've internalized many of the basics, and although it's a bit of a conceit, I'd like to think I apply those basics as I go about working in my less conventional manner. But there's never harm in questioning your own methods, so long as you keep working!

Next, a new page of A Private Myth.

Note that we are six installments away from Original Art Sundays No. 100! I have a little something planned for that week, which, if I keep to the schedule, should fall right before I start teaching Comic History again this fall!