Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Sequential Art, & you

How often do you even get a TCJ review of a lone issue from a Big Two comic?

Burrows and Parlov are two very different artists, though both are among the highest echelon of cartoonists currently plying their trade in commercial comics. In a vacuum, Burrows would appear much better suited for the grim, elegiac tone of Ennis’s Punisher , but the strength of Parlov’s extended run on the character means the crown is his until it’s taken. Parlov is a purer cartoonist, born of the Alex Toth school. Fluid and gestural by style, he brandishes a crisp, flowing brush line that approaches braggadocio, but offsets it with a willingness to research and render perfectly stylized weaponry, vehicles, and period costume. Burrows, for his part, is a consummate draftsman, one of a very few action cartoonists to make a virtue out of stiffness. He is firmly of Curt Swan’s lineage, with meticulously constructed full figures, backgrounds that are detailed but never fussy, and millimeter-perfect lines of perspective converging to form pages that are both immersive and functional, windows into worlds designed for maximum reading comprehension. At his more fanciful he can recall Frank Quitely and even Winsor McCay in both style and preternatural ability to track movement across a sequence, but total commitment to a bone-dry documentary form of cartoon realism is his greatest stock in trade.

Burrows’ work on Punisher speaks to his recent experience with one of the most demanding tours of duty a comic book penciler can serve: the Alan Moore maxiseries. The lessons Burrows learned from his career-best work with Moore on Providence are immediately apparent: his facial expressions, always a strength, walk the tightrope between understatement and emphasis perfectly, and his action sequences feel more grounded within their environments than ever before. A car chase opening Soviet sees its artist in full throat, pulling off something that’s so difficult to do in comics it’s almost never attempted. Burrows immediately comes across here as a significantly more skilled version of another frequent Ennis compatriot (and original Punisher teammate), Steve Dillon: a grounded artist who can flip from talking-head sequences to extreme violence and, crucially, make such transitions feel smooth and logical. Burrows is simply a greater artist than Dillon, however: his blocking of dialogue sequences, exploited at great length by Moore in Providence , is smooth and graceful, neatly sidestepping visual boredom or repetition. His ability to render scenes of extreme gore, honed during a long and fruitful association with semi-infamous grindhouse comics publisher Avatar, surpasses that of anyone Ennis has worked with, and always carries a legitimate shock, backgrounded as it is by the quotidian.

I worried that working for Marvel might stifle this special skill of Burrows’s, but the very first image of Soviet did much to quell that fear, with a pitch perfect rendering of a dude with his fucking brains blown out front and center. Burrows flashes facets not seen for awhile, or at all before, throughout this first issue, tipping his cap to Parlov with his visualization of the Punisher’s black-eyed, slightly Frankensteiny visage, and approaching an Art Adams level of feathery detail in the issue’s big gore sequence, the aftermath of a massive IED explosion. The assistance of inker Guillermo Ortego is most apparent here, though in quieter scenes I missed the solid simplicity of Burrows’s Providence embellishings of his own pencils. Colorist Nolan Woodard’s cherry Kool-Aid colored blood is a strange touch, though his work throughout the issue is of a high standard, downbeat without descending into drabness, with occasional flares of unexpected tones that feel almost lush. This is the best looking comic Marvel has put out in awhile.

As for the story, well, who can say? The commercial comics industry’s insistence on ladling out book length stories in 20-odd page chunks makes less sense with every year, and while Ennis certainly shows comfort with this archaic form, it can’t be said to do him any real favors either. Soviet 's first issue sees the Punisher in a role he too infrequently plays in Ennis’s stories, that of the detective, and simply reading his first-person narration again (“Takes experience to hold one of those on target. At full auto it wants to wander everywhere. But: one long burst to put them down. A shorter one to drop the runner. Headshots as required. And no one even got to pull. Good work. Great, even.”) is a distinct pleasure. As is obvious from the title, this is a Russian Mob story; a worrying sign after The Platoon 's derivative ambience, given that it’s another area Ennis has mined hard and successfully before. But with Burrows on board Soviet is all but guaranteed to come out looking better than Mother Russia or The Slavers did, and honestly, there’s no real reason to nitpick this one. Garth Ennis is back on Punisher , and there’s a reason to visit the comic store every month again.

Carrie Kelly is still the best Batfamily member.

And in case you were worried Miller had gotten too subtle.

Hard to believe its been a dozen years since Grampá has done interior art for a full comic.



4 Likes

Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s Monstress is a lot like Berserk, if Berserk centered women and its monster population included considerably fewer phalli. Another difference is that while new collections for both books are released at a similar pace (roughly once per year), only Monstress forces me to read the whole thing all over again every time a new one comes out. It may just be the densest book I’ve ever read, with the possible exception of the Keith Giffen / Tom & Mary Bierbaum Legion of Super-Heroes or Colleen Doran’s A Distant Soil.

3 Likes

R.I.P. Albert Uderzo

1 Like

There is now a second Dementia 21 collection in English. Like the previous collection, it’s tamer than some of Kago’s other works and doesn’t play with the format itself as much. But it’s still amusing. I think I prefer the first volume, but that might be just because this one is in some ways more of the same.

https://www.fantagraphics.com/dementia-21-vol-2/?sef_rewrite=1

https://www.fantagraphics.com/dementia-21-vol-1/?sef_rewrite=1

Hell, apparently Covid-19 related.

2 Likes

been re-reading the later two jojo parts.

regarding steel ball run, it’s crazy how much of it i’d forgotten. maybe because i binge-read the thing at first, i had a memory of the story being one of the weakest in the series but i appreciate it now, going through again. a lot of the encounters are resilience contests, which fits the theme of cross-country race.

jojolion is still fantastic. i have some fourty chapters until i catch up and obviously it’s still an ongoing story, but i place it as one of my favorites. i love how abilites are mostly either long-range, not strickly combat-purpose, or they directly contribute to fistfights between users. never realized how much sex-related shit is in this part though, which i guess is hit-or-miss

2 Likes

CBR presents the world premiere of The Illumination of Jim Woodring, a documentary detailing the life of one of comics most unique creators.

8 Likes

I watched the Jim Woodring documentary today, and it’s very good. Basically, it’s just him talking about his life, his thoughts, and his work. Which is exactly what one might hope for. For some reason, I had the impression that he was one of those artists who guard their personal lives. But he seemed quite open. You also get to see him working on some drawings.

This line stood out to me, though I’m not sure exactly what to think of it:

Interviewer: “So, then, you’re not trying to escape reality through your art?”

Woodring: “No, of course not. Some people say art is their religion. I think that’s semi-tragic. Because it’s a dead end. Really, there’s no escape.”

5 Likes

http://www.tcj.com/the-jim-woodring-interview/

Haven’t watched that yet but I think about this Jim Woodring interview constantly

He talks about working at Ruby Spears in the early 80s on pieces of shit like the Rubik’s Cube cartoon and, of course, Turbo Teen

Screen Shot 2020-04-22 at 1.11.02 AM

Also an important reminder that Jack Kirby was the fuckin’ best

Screen Shot 2020-04-22 at 1.11.27 AM

10 Likes

just read this whole interview and it was really mind blowing

i started watching the documentary and just realized i should probably sleep before i finish it but wow

this guy is so inspirational, i think ive seen some of his pictures before but never knew anything about him. i never had hallucinations / apparitions like that but in other ways found the way he talked about his childhood so relatable, im going to be thinking about this fo r a long time i think

1 Like

Fun stuff!

8 Likes

4th wall panel trickery will never not work for me

13 Likes

every time i buy something from the 2000ad website, t seems that there’s a bunch of volumes of their roy of the rovers reboot on sale. i feel bad because it really seems like it’s a passion project for someone there, but at the same time i really really don’t have any interest i reading a roy of the rovers reboot

2 Likes

i feel the same way about Striker which i really respect as someone’s bizarre longrunning football comic opus. up until recently you could still find copies in the newsagents - i think it was all still just being funded by football fans who’d been reading it since 1985. all the recent issues are done in like uncanny Poser 3D and at least 50% of the content consisted of either summaries of previous crazed soap opera plotlines or of write-ups of league matches between the various fictional teams. based on the website it looks like they’re now also livestreaming those matches in the form of AI-controlled games of Pro Evolution Soccer or something…?? i’m delighted that this all exists and at the same time know i will never, ever understand it.

6 Likes

what

what is my Coarse

and why do I want to improve it

fff21699ad4a0d15194114d5ea6f9732c1c2ec33 (2)

I will believe the first thing I am told

2 Likes

i think i found the exact cover

if you go to a uk magazine shop, there are literally hundreds of magazines about fishing ,old cars, or trains. but no magazines about tokusatsu. really makes you think.

5 Likes

well I didn’t guess ‘fishing’

I need to bone up on my Beowulf

1 Like

In the US those are all just replaced with magazines about guns

1 Like

Just sittin’ on the can with an issue of Soldier of Fortune