Luby’s Review: San Diego ComiCon 2008

Dude! I went to ComiCon!

Yes, the 2008 San Diego International Comic Book Convention! The Mecca of all things geeky, nerdy, or in any way related to comics, sci-fi, fantasy, and pop culture. THE ComiCon! It was like MegaCon on CRACK! The friggin’ convention center was 5 times the size of the one in Orlando, or at least it seemed to be. My wife, Jessica, and I met with our friends, Keith and Vita, at the Con and had a great time meeting what I consider to be to new friends, Naomi and Fitzy. We milled through the unbelievable press of bodies; its like a constant concert floor! Not too many crazy costumes this con, or at least I didn’t see many.
I bought some hard to find comics, but still couldn’t find Mitch Byrd’s Notes to Draw from. I saw a few friends from SCAD, Wheeler, Kelli, and Jarrett; hoped y’all’s portfolio reviews went well! I only got one proper review, luckily it was with Dark Horse’s Chris Warren, who I’ve reviewed with before at SCAD and could follow up with. Unfortunately he cut his review short before he got to the best of my newest stuff, so that’s a bummer. I had a sheaf of CD portfolios to distribute, and have only 6 left, so I did well. I even got to give a couple out to company’s I’ve reviewed with and could ask it to be delivered to editors by name, that’s an added bonus. Fitzy was great, she’s got a knack for people, knowing and remembering them, and being known and remembered by them…   maybe its the mohawk… after I was already impressed with all the talented and successful people she knew I mentioned that I wanted to have a career like Doug Tenapel (a long and successful run followed by a midas of publishing, everything he publishes sells!) then she idly mentioned, “…yeah, I know Doug Tenapel, I could introduce you.” WHA-!!! I was speechless!
I got to meet two of my favorite artists, Sergio Aragones, and Stan Sakai. OK, well I met Stan Sakai. Sergio was a bit preoccupied. Admittedly I came up on him while he was talking to Mark Evanier. But I got to have a brief talk with Stan Sakai and his wife, she was very, very nice and we mainly talked about kids and how it seemed just yesterday mine was 3 months old. Stan’s 20-something son was behind them and Stan said it was just yesterday that he was 3 months old! An incredibly memorable trip and I’m already making plans to go back next year!

Luby’s Review: The Dark Knight

The wife and I stepped out to see the Dark Knight last night…

It was a good movie, not quite so good at Batman Begins, but still a good movie. I liked the characterization of the Joker, though I wanted less of a jerky, spasmodic delivery, but that helped to cement his insanity. Personally I prefer a colder, more calculatingly cruel Joker, but that went against the character and purpose they were putting forth in the movie. The film showed the rise of Two-Face in what I thought was the greatest use of two villains in any movie I have ever seen. If only Spiderman 3 *shudder* could have done so well…

Anyhow, Two-Face is a cool villain and I have always liked him best of Batman’s Rouge’s Gallery since I saw the cartoon adaptation as a kid on Batman: the Animated Series. Before you judge by the fact its a cartoon, go to Hulu or Youtube and watch it yourself. I guarantee you, its good stuff. I thought the movie handled it well, introduced him well, showed him as a threat, but never a grand, overschemeing threat like the Joker was. An excellent use of a secondary villain who eventually comes to bring more potential harm to Batman than the Joker ever could. Also I VERY much appreciated how they wrapped up each villain, and was completely shocked by the main supporting character that dies. I did not see it coming.

There are some great “Oh Shit” and “Holy Shit” moments, and some cool gadgets, like the bat-cycle. I also liked how simply they dealt with the very realistic threat of someone simply guessing batman’s identity with a few scraps of evidence (it doesn’t take much to put 2 and 2 together).

HOWEVER! There are a few scenes which are censored, as I believe and really made me scratch my head. The Joker had a guy tied to a chair on a giant pile of bills (very comic-booky, but they treated it perfectly normally, so it came off with no mockery or camp, very well done) he lights the pile of fire without removing the guy, we are to assume he burns alive, but it never shown, nor are any sounds heard while he a some other goons continue the scene just short of the top of the pile, its like the guy wasn’t there at all! Unnecessary censorship! Just like the scene where Joker has a knife in a guys mouth, very clearly ready to cut his cheeks apart the very same way his cheeks were, but you never see him do that or anything else to the guy, he just dies. That’s a bit more acceptable, at least you see that he dies, and the cause is implied, as opposed to vanishing all together…

All-in-all, though a great comic-based movie!
And Harvey Dent was a pretty cool character, and that made Two-Face much cooler!

8 out of 10
~Luby

Luby’s Review: House (Graphic Novel)

The House Graphic Novel is an angst/horror book put out by Fantagraphics. It’s a darksome little tale about a trio of teens visiting an old half-sunken mansion and the horrible things that happen there. Its entirely sinlent, no dialogue or captions or text of any kind, really. The book is basically a kind of window into the mental breakdown of all three of the characters as terrible events mount up on each of them as the book progresses.

There is no happy ending.

In its progression I found that the time dealt with seemed to shorten the farther into the book you got, this mostly has to do with the pacing. There are wide angle and panoramic shots used in the beginning, but shorten up to quick panels, up to 9-12 in a page which chops up the time into smaller, quicker chunks. The real gimmick, other than the silence is the tonal masking. Masking is a sequential tool often used to define a character against its environment, or vice versa. Tintin, for instance, is well-known for realistic  and complex backgrounds, but simple, cartoony figures; Cerebus does the same. House is a but is of different take: the mood is dark and serious, but the characters are cartoony. There is no way it would have sold as well or been as well received if the art matched the story and was photorealistic. Sure it would have sold on art alone, lots of comics do, but it would have lost quite a bit in the translation and been fairly difficult to read and appreciate. As it is, it is a tough read, very dark.

Not my cup of tea, but
6 out of 10
~Luby

Luby’s Review: Tom Strong (Collected Edition, book 1)

Tom Strong is boss!

I really enjoyed reading Tom Strong. It had adventure, action, mystery, all with that delightful pulp feel of the 40s. The origin is wonderfully preposterous in that simply-explained (hey, that makes sense, kind of way). Born in 1900, the child Tom is raised in a high-gravity chamber on a jungle island where all his meals are augmented with a special root which “promotes longevity and higher brain functions” His father is a super-brilliant scientist with peak-human physical conditioning, his DNA contribution, specialized tutoring program, special root, and high-gravity chamber cimbine to make a super-brilliant, physically perfect, super-strong, ageless “science hero”: Tom Strong; a lot like Doc Savage, but more even more extreme. I really like the later issues where he engages his enemies not just physically, but mentally and has long conversations as he deduces his enemies plans and weaknesses. In the issue Aztec Nights, its narrated from his point of view and there are some cool descriptions about his he has complete mastery of his brain and shuts down portions of it to avoid discraction and how he activates and manipulates his endorphine levels to minimize feelings of pain.  There’s lots of neato science and pseudo-science throughout, very cool. And he has a helicopter backpack, I know it sounds like a lame inspector gadget ripoff, but its still pretty cool. His own super-brain manufactured space-age science as far back as the 40’s, so by 99, when the comic takes place, they have massive technological advancements. Its like a comic-version of Sky Captain with an extra 50 years of advancement tacked on. Its a decent book, and is has a neat family element, and Tom actually has a degree of character that shows through in his intereactions with his family.

All this and a talking monkey!

8 out of 10