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Comic Book Reviews
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Posted by Kris Bather
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07:53 AM Wednesday, 26 December 2007 |
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 I only read this because of Simon Bisley. The painter has always been a favourite of mine. In the 90s when the comic racks were filled with spandex clones and similar art styles his chaotic brush strokes, like Sam Keiths, stood out from the crowd. Bisley's work on DC's Lobo series was probably his high point. The Brit's work always suited the horror and comedy genres, with its scares and buckets of blood.
He hasn't been as prominent as he once was, but painters like Bisley rarely are. Alex Ross being perhaps the sole exception. But his books are always worth the wait. Here Bisley is on ground he's walked before - monsters. He's not alone however, with Mike Ploog's slightly exaggerated pencils as the underlay. Both men's best work has been away from standard superheroes, with Ploog having worked on Werewolf By Night and Man-Thing, and Bisley, or Biz as his signature proclaims, on 2000AD's Judge Dredd and the barbarian Slaine. Ploog also co-created Ghost Rider for Marvel in the late 70s and now has a place in my heart as I discovered he also did design work on two of my fave childhood films - the Jim Henson productions, The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.
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Comic Book Reviews
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Posted by Joey Ruff
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02:37 AM Wednesday, 26 December 2007 |
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 If Medieval knights built their cities to look like feudal Japan and formed picket lines outside the market square where giant video monitors showed ESPN-like highlights of the best warriors and their slaughtering of dinosaurs, well...then you'd have the new book Neozoic. Because essentially, that's issue 2. Yeah. Knights with swords sans armor, giant dinosaurs, Shinto temples, video-playback. Definitely not history. Not even sure that it all meshes well, but well, it's kinda cool.
Brought to you by Red 5 Comics, Neozoic is definitely a unique book.
And the art's not half bad either. In fact, it's remarkably good, and you may find yourself turning the pages just to see the next few panels. The action in places is a bit difficult to follow, but artist J. Korim is very good with a pencil, delivering a sophisticated cartoony style, very reminiscent of Joe Mad (Ultimates 3) or any Japanese anime. The one thing I will say against Mr. Korim, however, is that almost every adult female character looks exactly the same in issue 2, some with different hair cuts and styles, but every one with the same face.
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Comic Book Reviews
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Posted by Mladen Luketin
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09:23 AM Wednesday, 19 December 2007 |
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 "What a bleak dystopian future we live in." Writers love dystopian post-apocalyptic future scenarios. Pick whatever your society is currently afraid of, and capitalise on those fears by writing a book/comic/movie about it. Its actually a pretty lucrative business even if you're not the first one to come up with an idea. Climate change, the inspiration (but not the central subject) of North Wind is prime material.
This is writer David DiGilio's first comic book project, having previous written the Disney film Eight Below as well as creating the ABC TV show Traveler. North Wind presents the after effects of a hypothetical scare-scenario: melting of the polar ice-caps results in the spread of a world-wide winter via the North winds. As the people of all nations migrate to the inhabitable equator, the fight for resources escalates and results in nuclear war, forcing the survivors out to the frozen cities to wait for the world to thaw again (so like "The Day After Tomorrow" but not nearly as stupid. The actual story of North-wind takes place after these events, in a frozen wasteland that is Santa Monica and Lost Angeles (their pun, not mine).
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Comic Book Reviews
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Posted by Kris Bather
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06:58 AM Wednesday, 19 December 2007 |
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 BOOM! are touting this as a comic in the midst of a bidding war between studio execs who see the potential of this concept. It's an odd selling point. Here in Australia we are often told, "#1 film in America," "The hottest TV Show in the States," etc. Don't get me wrong. I don't want angry letters from my US brethren. I'm just saying - so what? Just because the Americans like it we're supposed to? What if their taste is worse than ours? Before I settle in to a rant I just would like to point out that apart from the standard "soon to be a major motion picture" blurb I didn't really know anything about this series. And the blurb enough isn't ... enough. I've heard nothing else about this series. But being an objective reviewer I came to this book with an empty, I mean open, mind. Written by newcomer John Rozum with art by someone else I've never heard of (not that that's a bad thing) Chee this is a tale of mystery, adventure and one man's search for purpose. Man, now I sound like a blurb.
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Sensational Spider-Man #41 |
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Comic Book Reviews
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Posted by Sam Holland
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06:50 AM Wednesday, 19 December 2007 |
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 Part three of One More Day is easily the best chapter thus far. And it's also the worst. Don't worry, it'll all make sense soon enough.
Peter has been running around for two issues trying to find a way to save Aunt May who is on her death bed. He's explored the scientific and the mystical, sought council from both heroes and villains with no solution forthcoming. Time is running out, and all seems lost. Then he meets a little girl who literally and figuratively leads him down a path of discovery. This issue has a great message on how our choices define the people we become. Peter gets to see two different threads of what his life could have been like if he hadn't been bitten by that spider all those years ago. In one, he becomes introverted and bitter, the other, successful and empty. There is, of course, at least one more way his life could have gone that he isn't shown. But what do you expect from the Devil?
Mephisto, the Marvel universe version of the devil, offers to save his dear aunt- at a price. I know what you're thinking, and it's not his soul, that would be too cliché. No, he wants his and Mary Jane's love. Peter and MJ are given a choice, a rock and a hard place kind of choice that sends their world reeling.
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Comic Book Reviews
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Posted by Anthony Willier
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05:07 AM Wednesday, 19 December 2007 |
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 In like mind to my fellow Infuze reviewer, Mladen, I was presented with this opportunity to check out a new company with a new series. The company is Red 5 comics and the title is Abyss. It's quite a bit easier to review something you're familiar with like Spider-Man or the Uncanny X-Men; you have a history together. Coming in on the proverbial ground floor provides a different perspective.
Abyss presents us with Eric Hoffman, the son of a multi-billionaire. Eric recently attended his father's funeral and afterward stumbled into more than just the family riches. He discovered not only that his father, Rafer Hoffman hasn't kicked the bucket, but that he was the Abyss, a diabolical super-villain bent on taking over the world and becoming involved in all manners of evil. Eric is astounded by what his father has revealed to him and dons his father's battle suit to try and right his wrongs, starting with a bomb set to go off at City Hall. While Eric is trying to do the right thing, one of the local heroes, believing that he's still a villain, attempts to stop him.
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Comic Book Reviews
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Posted by Mladen Luketin
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07:27 AM Wednesday, 12 December 2007 |
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 I came to The Exterminators through being curious about the covers. They really are hard to ignore. Little boy blissfully about to take a big mouthful of cockroach infested cereal. Pixilated insect karma sutra. They tap into the ingrained human fear of insects and ‘dirty' pests and remind us what creeps into our food and our beds every night, no matter how hard we try to keep them out. Vertigo have always put out great books, but instead of a story starring gods, mythic creatures, ex-green berets or cocky criminals, there's something very down to earth (way way down) about a series like Simon Oliver's "Exterminators".
This is the third volume in the series, entitled Lies of our Fathers, and really one of the best ongoing series on offer from Vertigo (following closely behind DMZ and Fables, placing it in good company). The Exterminators story has really begun to branch out and spread itself around in complicated side-stories as the writer and his creative team settle in with the knowledge that they're not going to be cancelled any time soon, but saving us the cocky complacency of so many ‘star' creators of the more adult comic genre.
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Comic Book Reviews
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Posted by Joey Ruff
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05:27 AM Wednesday, 12 December 2007 |
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 From the opening page of Ultimates 3, the image on the screen in the background of entangled bodies, one can clearly see this is not one of those Marvel titles to cater to younger audiences.
However, from the art, one can also see that this book is indeed something special. Welcome back, Madureira.
If you have not heard the name of Joe Madureira, if you know nothing of his awesomeness, then you were not reading Uncanny X-Men with me in the mid-90s. And you don't know what you were missing out on.
Well, he's back and better than ever.
As far as the story for Ultimates 3, you won't be let down there, either. Lots of action. Venom busts in on the Ultimates and it's up to Hawkeye, Wasp, Thor, Black Panther, and Valkyrie to subdue the beast. The only problem is, he catches them off guard so they're all a little dazed or unconscious.
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Comic Book Reviews
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Posted by Kris Bather
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07:31 AM Wednesday, 05 December 2007 |
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 Yes, I read the Bible. But I have to admit I'm not a fan of the Old Testament. Well, not as much a fan of the New, which is full of bite sized nuggets of wisdom. The Old Testament is jam packed with stories full of every manner of human wickedness and themes which story tellers have used for centuries. Lust. Revenge. Betrayal. Genesis to Malachi are full of such things. Basically the Bible is full of stories about people and how they interact with God. Dust Press know what good adventures lie within the pages of the world's bestseller and hope to bring them to a new audience with their series of sequential art adaptations. The Bible has been translated in to a myriad of art forms and this certainly won't be the last attempt. However Dust have confidence in what they're doing with their books and they have a deep and enticing well to draw inspiration from.
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Comic Book Reviews
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Posted by Joey Ruff
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06:33 AM Wednesday, 05 December 2007 |
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 Boom! Studios is back with issue 8 of Fall of Cthulhu, and this time, they're killing puppies!
Never a kid-friendly story to begin with, the series continues to delve darker and deeper into the murky mythos of these "gods" and their twisted crusade. Mr. Arkham, bad guy extroardinaire, is up to something. For the past three issues he has been gathering darkness to him, placing his pawns into place, and preparing for what only he knows or expects is coming.
The opening pages reveal that Connor, Arkham's right-hand guy, must die to fulfill his role in whatever grand scheme these pagan whack-jobs are concocting. Not a strong character to begin with, Connor begins cracking wise and slinging quips that seem uncharacteristic of the lap-dog he's been portrayed as up to now.
What's worse, most of the issue takes place in "the Dreamlands" which means it's been pencilled in the same horrible style as half of the first 5 issues. Also, that annoying green lady with the huge shark-mouth and 1950s hair style is back and cryptic as ever. What's worse is she likes to flirt, and flirting with the green-skinned lady is creepy and gross, like flirting with your grandma.
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