Tuesday, September 29, 2009

New-to-me Comic Shop: Legends

I finally found another example of my ideal comic shop. The only problem—it’s in Victoria BC, which is the other side of the country. Much like The Beguiling, I found myself walking into Legends with a real sense of peace. It was almost like a homecoming.

It’s a small space packed floor to ceiling with comics, many arranged to highlight writers, artists and cartoonists. There’s art books, indie stuff, and the superhero trades with nary a figurine in sight. It felt sort of like walking into the ideal home library, is the best way to put it.

They know the audience they’re going for, and I feel like I fit right in. I ended up picking up the last couple of Walking Dead trades and I went back to get a gift for an eight-year-old, and was recommended Amulet (he’s about to finish Bone). All-in-all a great comic buying experience that just had a cool vibe. It could just be the whole West-coast thing since Victoria generally had a more laid back pace to it but I think this shop is something special. It seems like it should be easy to have more places like this but for whatever reason, I haven’t found them.

I really wish there were more shops like this, bookstores specializing in comics (or whatever you feel like calling them). Well worth the visit if you’re in Victoria BC.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Not-so-supreme


I was recently at a friend’s place and he recommended that I try reading the first volume of Squadron Supreme by J. Michael Straczynski and Gary Frank. So he lent me the Supreme Power trade and I eventually found the time to give it a whirl. We’d talked about it before and I knew the general idea behind it and in the end all I can really come up to describe it, is that first sentence he used to describe the series. It’s basically a Marvel version of an Elseworlds Justice League story that’s kind of trying to be like Watchmen.

Okay, maybe that is a bit harsh since there really isn’t anything wrong with this comic. The art is good, the characters are well developed and well written. The plot is engaging and the motivations for the characters all make sense. In the end, I sort of felt like this was all very familiar though and that while good it wasn’t the kind of pastiche I usually go for. On paper, it sounds like it should be my kind of thing and I’ve been trying to figure out for a few weeks now just why it wasn’t. I guess it just felt a bit too tied down to the analogous source material in some ways.

I don’t mind the riffs on the Justice League, but this just didn’t go far enough I think. These characters are full of potential, as is the plot, but the setup was just a bit too familiar and it all kind of felt a bit too much like what people who criticize superhero comics complain about. It’s all sort of been done before.

I’ll likely borrow my friend’s copy of the second volume and read a bit more of the plot since I do think it’s a decent conspiracy story and I’d like to see where the characters are going and how they all end up as players in the narrative. I guess I’m just a bit burned out on origin stories or something. I think it works as a more adult version of the Justice League but I kept wondering why I couldn’t just be reading a Justice League story instead. Does that make sense?

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Busy day...

I am making a concerted effort to post more but when I consider how I got the keys to my new house yesterday and am painting the whole thing, today is my birthday, my major work project got sent to the printer, and I'm stuggling to organize my thoughts on Supreme Power, I have to say one of those things has to give.