Saturday, February 05, 2005
This weekend is officially I Love Comic Books weekend
I've probably dropped well over a hundred dollars on comic books today and yesterday. This is probably not so unremarkable, since I haven't bought any new trades in about six months. I tend to buy in spurts as well, so perhaps I've gotten it out of my system for now. For the record, the titles are:
Planetary: All Over The World And Other Stories
The Authority: Relentless
The Authority: Under New Management
Planetary: The Fourth Man
Just A Preacher
Rising Stars: Born In Fire
I've read the first three, and plan on reading the second three shortly. In brief, Planetary and Authority are the dog's bollocks, or if that's not your thing, they are something equivalently amazing. My respect for Warren Ellis' writing ability has completely overshadowed the mind-rapingly disturbing links he sometimes puts on his site.
Planetary is essentially about a team of pseudo-superpeople who go around trying to find weird stuff. (Like the secret moon mission that took off 5 years before the one you saw on TV, or a quantum computer built in 1945, or the spider-human subterrans living under New York.) What makes it so great is that it takes advantage of the serial nature of comics by having each issue be more or less self-contained, but with ties to the other issues that weave an over-arching conspiracy theory. If you like the X-Files or Alias, you know exactly what I'm talking about, provided you subtract the pure obfuscation and the cliched campiness respectively. The first trade covers the first 8 issues or so and ends right at the beginning of what is sure to be a killer story arc, so I'm excited about the second trade which is in my hands as-yet unread.
The Authority, in contrast, is a superhero book not-so-plain and rather-unsimple. The premise is the standard "superteam saves the world" kind of thing, but rather than being "Superman saves the day, puts the flag on the White House and we go back to business as usual," The Authority does stuff, and they take whatever measure they need to to make the world a better place. That, and they are that good. I had up to now always considered the Justice League to be the top superteam ever, capable of besting anyone up to and including the War God from the universe before this one. The Authority, on the other hand, could give them a run for the money, and possibly win. You would think that a superteam whose individual members are buff enough to take down entire batallions of other superhumans might be boring, since they always win. This can be true, as the later issues of JLA has started to prove, but the writing on Authority (again, Ellis) is good enough that it doesn't get stale at all. The only beef I have with the series is that the team making it changes after about issue 12, and while I like Quitely and Millar's style, I like Ellis and Hitch's better, and for that reason, I'm not sure if I will be getting further Authority books.
Now, I still have some Planetary to read, and chicken to eat. Ta! ¶ 4:59 p.m.
I've probably dropped well over a hundred dollars on comic books today and yesterday. This is probably not so unremarkable, since I haven't bought any new trades in about six months. I tend to buy in spurts as well, so perhaps I've gotten it out of my system for now. For the record, the titles are:
Planetary: All Over The World And Other Stories
The Authority: Relentless
The Authority: Under New Management
Planetary: The Fourth Man
Just A Preacher
Rising Stars: Born In Fire
I've read the first three, and plan on reading the second three shortly. In brief, Planetary and Authority are the dog's bollocks, or if that's not your thing, they are something equivalently amazing. My respect for Warren Ellis' writing ability has completely overshadowed the mind-rapingly disturbing links he sometimes puts on his site.
Planetary is essentially about a team of pseudo-superpeople who go around trying to find weird stuff. (Like the secret moon mission that took off 5 years before the one you saw on TV, or a quantum computer built in 1945, or the spider-human subterrans living under New York.) What makes it so great is that it takes advantage of the serial nature of comics by having each issue be more or less self-contained, but with ties to the other issues that weave an over-arching conspiracy theory. If you like the X-Files or Alias, you know exactly what I'm talking about, provided you subtract the pure obfuscation and the cliched campiness respectively. The first trade covers the first 8 issues or so and ends right at the beginning of what is sure to be a killer story arc, so I'm excited about the second trade which is in my hands as-yet unread.
The Authority, in contrast, is a superhero book not-so-plain and rather-unsimple. The premise is the standard "superteam saves the world" kind of thing, but rather than being "Superman saves the day, puts the flag on the White House and we go back to business as usual," The Authority does stuff, and they take whatever measure they need to to make the world a better place. That, and they are that good. I had up to now always considered the Justice League to be the top superteam ever, capable of besting anyone up to and including the War God from the universe before this one. The Authority, on the other hand, could give them a run for the money, and possibly win. You would think that a superteam whose individual members are buff enough to take down entire batallions of other superhumans might be boring, since they always win. This can be true, as the later issues of JLA has started to prove, but the writing on Authority (again, Ellis) is good enough that it doesn't get stale at all. The only beef I have with the series is that the team making it changes after about issue 12, and while I like Quitely and Millar's style, I like Ellis and Hitch's better, and for that reason, I'm not sure if I will be getting further Authority books.
Now, I still have some Planetary to read, and chicken to eat. Ta! ¶ 4:59 p.m.
