Things You Might Enjoy, If You Enjoy This Sort Of Thing--Episode Three

X-Men: Apocalypse vs. Dracula
Written by Frank Tieri
Pencils by Clayton Henry, inks by Mark Morales (with Livesay), colors by Wil Quintana

I borrowed this from my boyfriend about a week ago, but I only got around to reading it today, and it seemed like a good thing to do a review of. It's a good change of pace from my previous all-Gaiman all the time review format, and for once it's something I'm not going to rave about.

That isn't to say I didn't like the book. I did. It was fun, the writing was pretty good, and the art was nice. It's worth reading if you come across it. Nothing special, though.

The basics of the plot may be gleaned from the title. That great X-Men villain, En Sabah Nur, known as Apocalypse, fights Dracula. The story takes place in Victorian England, in 1897. It is told partially from the point of view of Ozymandias, a creepy ancient Egyptian guy in a robe who watches over Apocalypse in his rejuvenation chamber, and partially from the point of view of Jack Starsmore, a member of Clan Akkaba--a clan of descendants of Apocalypse who guard him and do his bidding and spend a lot of time killing each other. Once Apocalypse killed Vlad Tepes. Vlad objected. Now he is busy killing Clan Akkaba members.

So there it is. A non-spoileriffic plot summary. And like I said, it's nothing special. It's got some cool ideas. If anything, I'd say flip through for the art, if you find it. Read a few pages. Nothing glowing and beautiful, but it might be your thing.

Also? Apocalypse. He is scary but sometimes cool.

Do The Dance Of Squee

So this is not related to any specific comic, but to an opportunity I have encountered recently.

I may, in fact, be able to attend New York City Comic Con. Thus the title of this post, because that is indeed what I am doing--when my legs are not moving, I am doing the dance of squee in my heart.

For those of you who may not know, New York City Comic Con is probably the biggest East Coast comics industry convention--I'm not sure of this, but given that they've got the entire Javits Convention Center I think I can be safe in making the guess. This is where you go to immerse yourself in intense, up-to-date comics industry news, and you can buy comics and see panels and get your trade of Arkham Asylum signed by Grant Morrison (who is the Guest of Honor and I may hug him). And I am sure, because this is a huge industry convention, that there will be swag. Glorious, glorious swag.

Anyway, I am very excited. Almost unbelievably so, but I won't smack the full "unbelievable" stamp on it because I have no way of knowing what you people can and cannot believe.

Also, I mentioned Grant Morrison. Let me take this moment to rave about him.

You folks may have noticed that I talk about Neil Gaiman a lot. I love Neil Gaiman, it's true, but he is not my favorite comics writer. He is my favorite writer all around, any style of writing. If you want me to stick to strictly comics, though, my two favorites, tied, are Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. They both deserve their own posts, but Grant Morrison is on topic, so I will be brief.

The man is a wonderful writer. Read his work, and you can be sunk into the glories of the bizarre. He wrote Arkham Asylum, previously mentioned, my favorite Batman comic of all and possibly one of my favorite comics all around. He also wrote Sebastian O, which is sexy and about Victorian computer assassins and will probably get the next review I post. And he wrote The Invisibles. Now, those other two I mentioned might be weird, but The Invisibles takes the cake. A short description of the genre: it is a mystery-conspiracy-action-romance-psychedelic-brainsplosion. I love it to death. It makes my brain turn inside out.

Grant Morrison is also known for, among other things, his run on Animal Man, now collected into three trade paperbacks, in which he took a C-list-or-lower superhero and made him something amazing and new.

So he's a man worth seeking out and reading. And he's one of my favorite comics writers.

And I might get to go to New York City Comic Con.

Name Game

The Best of the Spirit
Will Eisner

I think one of my favorite things about reading all these old Spirit stories was learning the names of all the characters. They're wonderfully descriptive, for the most part. Then there's the font of awkward that's Ebony White, but we're not going to get into that.

Anyway, like I said, descriptive. Not really of who the person is--we haven't got any tacky Jack-Chick Lew Siffer characters here--but it says a lot about the culture here. For example, from "The Postage Stamp," we've got two lovely ladies, Dulcet Tone and Skinny Bones. Doesn't tell you much about who they are personally, does it? But given the euphemistic names we can tell that they're probably crooks, and it also hints at what life in their criminal underworld might be like for women. Skinny Bones may be a great name, but complimentary it's not.

Actually, I liked women's names in particular. P'Gell is a wonderful example, because it means nothing, but it sounds sort of sexy and exotic. Lorelei Rox (of Odyssey Road) has sort of a wonderful pun for a last name, and I'm a sucker for anyone who knows what a Lorelei is. There's Miss Cosmek, the visitor from Mars. Autumn Mews sounds lovely and dangerous, and Sand Saref is just really cool. It's a font pun! And then there's Silk Satin, whose name is wonderful particularly because it's so girly and she's so tough.

Men mostly get more...well, name-like names. Like Gerhard Shnobble, the man who could fly. Not much of a name. But doesn't it sound hapless to you? Or Carboy T. Gretch and Cranfranz Quayle, the crook and the henpecked husband who switch places accidentally. Great rhythm, and again. Hapless. I appreciate names with real qualities to them. Then there's the main character of "Fox at Bay," Reynard, which is cool because, like Lorelei, it's another reference to a fairy tale--Reynard the fox was a European trickster figure.

But I particularly like Quadrant J. Stet, the accountant. It makes me think of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, like he should be friends with another accountant named...oh...Fiduciary Blurt, or something. I think that's from there. Or maybe I'm just stealing it from Neil Gaiman.

Say what you like about Will Eisner (and I can't really say anyone saying anything bad), he certainly had an appreciable flair for naming. Even Denny Colt paints a picture. It's short and sensible. And probably secretly awesome.

The Glorious Pulps

Best of the Spirit
Will Eisner

This entry will be brief, because at the moment I'm rather busy writing a paper, but since it's been a week I figured I should check in.

This week in class we are reading Best of the Spirit, a collection of particularly remarkable stories from Will Eisner's rather remarkable comic. Reading them through the first time, I found them enjoyable, if not terribly surprising. Reading them through again, I found them interesting and well-written. And of course I have a weakness for this sort of thing.

I will make a confession. I love me some pulp fiction.

Now, my pulp fiction interests mainly run to sci-fi, but I like The Spirit because of my deep and abiding love of crime fiction a la Raymond Chandler and film noir. The Spirit and the police are nearly as cynical as Philip Marlowe, but they seem cheerier about it; that they take it for granted that eighteen-year-olds might take to crime is sad, but they run with it. Nothing they can do about it, hey?

I think I'd like to read some more of the Raymond Chandler novels lying around my house and compare them to the Spirit. It'd be fun. But for now I've got a paper to write.