I love the smell of comics in the afternoon.

Well this may continue in the “unprepared but won’t let that stop me from typing and seeing where it leads” posts that I’ve been putting up here lately. I’ll make a few random points. And I think I got my rabies shot. What was that last post about anyway?

Oh, and thanks to Scipio (who I will now refer to as The Fabulous Scipio for no reason whatsoever except I think it would be fun to give people who leave comments here random nicknames but I may get bored of this in an hour or so) for pointing out who came from Whiz Comics and who came from Crack Comics. Either way I think those would be very “interesting” themes to write into the respective characters.

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Solo
I love this series. I think it allows us to see creators being flat out creative. There’s some neat little stories and original takes on familiar characters. But it seems to be more and more sketchbook like. You think maybe that will be the OYL take on Solo? It’s been renamed Sketch! Would you care? I think that would be fine by me but I doubt I’d continue to buy it. It’s sort of like the DVD you get that’s only extras – the extra pages in the trades, that sort of thing. I think maybe getting creators who are already swamped to do a Solo book means it gets put off and rushed thus becoming another notch on the internet bedpost labeled “things killing comics.” I still like the series even if this issue was weak.

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JLA Classified
Still going strong but you already wrote about it and dreamed about your marriage to Gail Simone or Grant Morrison even if he isn’t writing this right now.

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Mouse Guard
More please. Jon like.

It seemed to jump a bit but I think it’ll find it’s pace in the next couple of issues. I think it has more to do with me, the reader, getting bloated on decompressed stories. I think we’ve collectively got the bends and when you try to inoculate yourself your body initially rejects the cure because you’ve been surviving with the disease for so long.



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And what’s the deal with me suddenly buying Hulk comics? Didn’t see that coming. I need a big old helping of W. T. F. WTF? Someday I hope to post only in acronyms and smilies. But yeah, I'm digging The Hulk lately.

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Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl
I was enjoying this and cruising right along and then I think I entered some kind of time warp or something near the end because I’m pretty sure pages were missing or I was like the Flash and getting ahead of myself. I felt like I was reading one story then missed half of it and the credits started to roll. Again, WTF?

I know Bendis is criticized a lot (sometimes fairly, sometimes not) about his decompression. I just see the opposite here. Whereas in the latest New Avengers he took the whole issue to sort of gloss over something and not include any Avengers to lead up to nothing happening, at the end of this Powers stories it seemed to be the opposite. The story was cruising along nicely, focusing on some good character development and intrigue that is essential to any police whodunit then it had some kind of fit at the end and it was over.

I’m kind of left wondering why the hell that ending felt so rushed? I mean there was like four or five pages that were mostly black space, couldn’t you have added some kind of “plotting” or “dialogue” that could have mad the transition feel like it was A to B to C not A to B to F? I mean, I get the whole John Lennon connection but I feel like the two main cops being usurped in their abilities to suddenly stumble across the “perp” just took away from everything I was meant to feel and think about them. I get the whole passing the Retro-girl torch thing (which was cool) but it just seemed rushed at the end and it didn’t need to.

Otherwise I loved this story. It’s like Shaun of the Dead. I loved it up until they were in the pub which was still good but such a big turn that it was like I was watching a separate movie. That’s how the pacing felt here. Nice and good then bif bam boom over and the cops didn’t really figure anything out. I just hate seeing such a great idea get second thrift to something the guy gets ragged on daily for. I know he wasn’t writing New Avengers back then but it’s like a labour of love that was sidelined for some juicy contract – no biggie, it happens but don’t be a hack for your personal projects man.

This all said I’m still looking forward to the next trade. There is still much to love about this series.

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Oh, and does anyone know what's the deal with Fear Agent, Northwest Passage and where I can get back issues of The Amazing Joy Buzzards? I don't seem to have access to them in Ottawa.