hazylium: comics

Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts

Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts

Friday, July 21, 2006

It's the 80's all over again- TMNT trailer!

Wow- movie studios are really milking 80s nostalgia for all it's worth. First Transformers (with it's very underwhelming teaser trailer) and now everyone's favourite pizza-eating amphibian ninjas get their own trailer for their upcoming big-screen comeback. Surprisingly, it looks really good!

Love their new look!

The upcoming CGI feature film (directed by Kevin Munroe, a veteran animator) is set after the first two live-action films, much like the recent Superman Returns. Another similarity with that movie is that both look to set new standards in depicting the way their title characters move by utilizing the wonders of computer animation. The flying scenes in Superman Returns were nigh-incredible and the acrobatic way the turtles run and jump across the rooftops of New York city is far above and beyond anything the first two movies, with actors clad in clunky full-body turtle suits, could offer.

With director Kevin Munroe saying that the tone of the film will hearken back to Eastman and Laird's original comics (by far the coolest version of the turtles), this movie looks to have quite a bit of potential. Colour me excited.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Spider-Man 3 gets a sexy 3D poster!

Superherohype.com, that fine purveyor of all superhero-related filmic goodness, has brought us this first image of the new lenticular (that snazzy 3D effect where a picture changes as you walk past it) poster for Spider-Man 3. Check out the twisted emblem for Spidey's black costume! It looks totally evil- but in a good way. ;-)

Symbiote suit!!!

Monday, June 19, 2006

The advance buzz on Superman Returns is hot, hot, hot!

Superman Returns is by far and away my most anticipated movie of the year, simply because of the trust I place in director Bryan Singer. His first X-Men movie was amazingly non-sucky- the second one was just flat-out brilliant. Still, the question remained: Was this man up to the Herculean task of creating a Superman movie that could possibly live up to the collective expectations of audiences around the world?

Judging by the first few reviews that are trickling out, he's succeeded magnificently. Time Magazine loved it. As did Newsweek. Variety.com's fairly-glowing review of the movie predicts that it will "pull down stratospheric B.O. around the globe."

Perhaps the most encouraging sign of all is the reception the movie is getting from the geek crowd. Harry Knowles', head geek of Aint It Cool News, ecstatic review of the movie. Now, the man does occasionally display questionable taste in movies, but where comic book movies are concerned he's been right on the money every single time (at least for my money :P). Aint It Cool's Massawyrm has a similarly positive review. Comic Book Resources' Jonah Weiland claims "with total confidence that it was everything a comics fan - and movie fan - could hope for."

So far, the movie's garnering praise from both the mainstream press and the geek set! A backlash is inevitable, but I dare say that this movie might turn out to be the Lord of the Rings of comic book movies. What I love most about is the sentiment echoed in every review I've seen: that Bryan Singer has, in Superman, made a summer blockbuster that's filled with heart (the one element that is notably missing from his otherwise excellent X-Men 2). My froth-meter for this movie is redlining. ANTICIPATION OVERLOAD!

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Superheroes meet Fine Art

Worth1000.com recently ran a Photoshop contest challenging people to incorporate superheroes into pieces of fine art. The results are amazingly creative and well-done.

This is one of my favourites:

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Twitchfilm reviews 3 Dev Adam & Seven Swordsmen!

Twitch, that font of news about indie, cult and world movies, has posted 2 reviews that rather pique my interest. Both of the reviews are by Todd, Twitch's founder and editor, who's a true movie buff and has great taste too (or so I gather from his reviews and posts).

The first is for the Turkish cult film 3 Dev Adam- which I wrote about 3 posts down. Sounds like Todd liked it:

3 Dev Adam is essentially the equivalent of the Dozier produced Batman TV show on acid. Played resolutely straight faced it is nonetheless a monumentally ridiculous film loaded with goofy action sequences, bizarre set pieces and absolutely littered with plot holes. The script is the flimsiest of things, existing only to get these three unlikely co-stars from fight to fight. It's as camp as camp gets, a film that aspires to B status, and appreciated on that level it's great fun.

Mmmm... sounds tasty! I'll be placing my order for a copy of the 3 Dev Adam DVD.

The second review is for the Tsui Hark-produced TV series Seven Swordsmen- based on the same story as his movie Seven Swords, which I reviewed quite positively for Aint It Cool News here. Mind you, that review should be taken with a grain of salt- I really did enjoy the movie but I glossed over it's many, many faults in my review. Now, it's main problem was that Tsui Hark was trying to cram too much story into too little screen time. Todd describes the problem well:

The edit was rushed and cramped and far too many supposedly key figures – including most of the titular heroes – slipped by the wayside doing little more than poking their heads on screen to remind people that they were still around.

Now, the Seven Swords TV series is 39 episodes long- ample time to tell the long, convulated story of the Seven Swordsmen of Mt Tian (who give both the and the movie and TV series their titles). Todd gives Seven Swordsmen a pretty positive review overall, though he didn't like it's soap operatic tendancies (unavoidable for a Chinese wuxia series, really). Here's his final word:

While it stops short of being a classic or essential viewing and is not without some serious shortcomings Seven Swordsmen represents a significant step forward over the theatrical Seven Swords in the area where fans felt it needed it most: in the story. Very similar in tone to the theatrical release this version gives fans far, far more in terms of characters. While Swords often felt cramped and rushed Swordsmen has ample space for everyone to stretch out and get their moment.

As a fan of the movie who really wanted to see more of the intriguing story it told, I can't want to see this series!

Friday, June 09, 2006

Batwoman is gay!

Sweet costume!

There's a new Batwoman in town and it seems she goes for girls! This juicy piece of news has been stirring up the comics world- heck, even the mainstream media's gotten ahold of the story! Pretty interesting- now a cynical observer would say that DC Comics is just doing this to get publicity and for the opportunity to put loads of cheesecake girl-on-girl smooching scenes in the comic. However, she isn't the first major gay character in Batman's world (no bad Robin jokes, please :P)- the very best story in the excellent and sadly-cancelled series Gotham Central had Detective Renee Montoya outed as a lesbian. The mature and nuanced handling of that story makes me think that DC could actually make this new Batwoman's sexuality more than just a cheap novelty. I'll be interested to see where they go with this.

In Turkey, Spider-Man has face-eating gerbils!

EDIT: Replaced another missing Youtube video!

The insanity!

I've seen some crazy movies in my time, but nothing as amazingly weird as 3 DEV ADAM (3 Mighty Men)- a movie in which Captain America and mexican masked wrestler (and national icon) El Santo team up to battle the evil... SPIDER-MAN!!! I kid you not. Apparently in the 70's and 80's, mere trifles like lack of a budget or copious copyright violations didn't stop Turkish filmmakers from making movies with, well, whatever they felt like.

Case in point: The Man Who Saves The World, AKA Turkish Star Wars- a movie that used footage from the original Star Wars along with music from Battlestar Galactica and Raiders of the Lost Ark to tell a completely different, and completely ridiculous, story! Check out the video clips at ifilm and see for yourself (the one simply labelled 'Fight Scene' is really great- the hero beats up a dozen muppet-looking monsters, killing one by ripping off it's arms and impaling it with them!!!).

OK back to 3 DEV ADAM! Spider-Man is really, really evil in this movie (I'm guessing he's bitter at losing all his powers and having grown a beer belly and bushy eyebrows). How evil? Well, in the opening scene he orders his hench-men to bury a woman up to her neck in sand and then gets them to back up a boat towards her. Propeller meets head = DEATH (don't worry folks- the nasty death occurs off-screen. The audience just gets to see a splash of blood)! If that wasn't enough, he later uses gerbils (yes, GERBILS) to eat a guy's face (it's in the trailer, folks!). This Spider-Man also enjoys strangling girls in showers and stabbing Mafiasos with switch-blades. For a full breakdown of the crazy plot, check out I-Mockery.com's multi-page review.

Oh boy, the Turkish translators for Marvel comics must've been terrible if they gave people the impression that Spider-Man was a super-villain, and an INSANE one at that! Anyway, this marvel-lous (hyuck, hyuck) movie just got re-released by Onar Films- I figure it's worth checking out for sheer humour value alone. What I really want to see, though, is a 1966 black-and-white Turkish Spider-Man movie, the existence of which I found out from this FFWD Weekly article about the world of Turkish cinema. Look at his costume!!!

Psychedelic, baby!

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

In Japan, Spider-Man has a Giant Robot!

EDIT: Updated the embedded Youtube video of the show's opening sequence as someone had taken down the first video!

Supaida-Man!

Strangely enough, it seems that the style of Japanese superhero show that was popularized in the English-speaking world by the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers may actually have it's origins in a true-blue American superhero- Spider-Man. It's true! In 1978, Toei (the same studio that produced Kamer Rider and the shows that the footage for Power Rangers was taken from) made a Spider-Man TV series. Instead of following the comic book storyline, this series gave Spider-Man a uniquely Japanese spin. Here's a synopsis, taken from Wikipedia (emphasis added by moi):

Young motorcycle racer Takuya Yamashiro sees a UFO falling to earth, in fact a combat spacecraft named the "Marveller". Takuya's father Dr. Hiroshi Yamashiro, a space archaeologist, investigates the case. The incident also brings the attention of Professor Monster and his evil Iron Cross Army (Tetsu-Jyuuji-Gun), an alien group that plans to rule the universe.

The Iron Cross Army murders Dr. Yamashiro, and also attempts to kill Takuya. Takuya's life is saved by Gallia, prince of the Spider Planet, who came to Earth in the spacecraft. Gallia gives Takuya a bracelet that injects him a liquid which not only heals his wounds but also gives him super strength, the ability to climb walls and a special sense of danger (i.e. Spider-sense). The bracelet give him his web-shooting ability, is also a communication device used to summon Marveller, and finally can be used to store the costume.

Takuya battles Professor Monster's "Iron Cross Army". After Spider-Man beats up on the human sized monsters they turn into giants. Spider-Man then calls on the Marveller to fire missiles at the monster, then transform into a giant robot, Leopardon.

What'd I tell ya? The Japanese Spider-Man totally has a giant robot! According to this review on Japanhero.com, this series was responsible for popularizing the Japanese superhero standards of giant transforming robots and monsters that enlarge in size when defeated (and hence need to be defeated again, by said giant transforming robots)! That's incredibly cheesy, and yet totally awesome. Mmm... Giant Robots and Spider-Man, two of my favourite things. Who'd have thought they had such a deep connection?

You can watch the entire first episode here, as well as a comedy fansubbed version. It's actually pretty entertaining. Even though the show strays far, far, faaaaaaaar away from the original Spider-Man in terms of plot, they did a great job in depicting the way he moves and fights- heck, he strikes all the right poses, too! Oh and I love this clip where Spidey gets saved by an el mariachi singer with a machine-gun guitar. Brilliance!

Movie Review: X-Men 3

Funny thing- I was actually pretty entertained the first time I saw X-Men 3, mostly because the movie is so loud (so VERY loud in the theatre I watched it in!), fast and stupid that I scarcely had time to think about the ridiculousness of the proceedings while I was watching it. Even so, I left the theatre with a bad taste in my mouth because of something the X-Men did near the end of the movie- a morally questionable act toward one of their enemies that none of them had the slightest qualm about. Something so completely out-of-character for all of them that I couldn't believe a fan of the comic books had written the script.

The movie is full of moments like that. The more I thought about them after the movie, the more I didn't like it. By the second time I watched it, I outright hated it.

It's not director Brett Ratner's fault. The opening scene with younger versions of Magneto and Professor X (complete with the much-vaunted de-aged versions of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart) meeting an adolescent Jean Grey is very well done indeed. So is the rather harrowing follow-up scene with a young Angel. Clearly, Mr. Ratner can do a good job if he sets his mind to it. No, what really lets the movie down is its script. The premise was awkward from the start- both the Cure and the Phoenix storylines could each be a movie by themselves. Stuffing them both into the same movie was just a terrible idea as it's impossible to do them both justice at the same time. One of them had to get short shrift- sadly, it was the Phoenix story that suffered here.

That's not the end of it, either. For such a short movie (it's barely over one and a half hours long), it has way too many extraneous characters. What's Beast doing here (looking terrible, despite what Halle Barry as Storm might say)? Or Angel, for that matter? A character important enough to be introduced in a pre-title sequence should not get all of 5 lines in the movie! Oddly enough, with the sheer amount of useless mutants in the film (like, every single mutant in Magneto's army- none of whom he needs because they all get massacred by US Army troops and the X-Men, after which he ends up fighting the good fight with just Pyro at his side anyway), they forgot to bring back the coolest mutant of all (at least in these movie versions)- Nightcrawler. They don't even refer to him in the movie.

Now that's lazy script-writing. Bah. One of many examples you can find in this mess of a movie. Eventhough I followed the debacle of this movie's production online, via sites like Aint It Cool News, so I knew it'd probably turn out as bad as it did, but somehow I went in hoping it wouldn't be a pile of crap. So much for that.

That being said, people who aren't big fans of the series are likely to enjoy themselves- this is very much a summer movie- big, loud and stupid, like I said at the start. The Armageddon of comic book movies, if you will. But as someone who really loved the first two X-Men movies (especially the second one), I was just incredibly disappointed- especially as it looks like this is the last real X-Men film we're going to get. Way to end a series, people.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

2 new trailers for Ghost Rider!

I'm not a fan of Marvel Comic's Ghost Rider character- never read any of his books- but this new movie starring Nicholas Cage as the fiery skull-faced biker looks like it could be really fun. Take a look at the trailers here (or if your PC can handle the superior-quality HD trailers, here).

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Read a Scott Pilgrim story online for free! PLUS: Fearless Griggs rocks.

Bryan Lee O'Malley (who is both the best English-language mangaka around and a kick-ass musician) recently made a free, stand-alone installment of his excellent Scott Pilgrim comic for the annual Free Comic Book Day (May 6th- it really should be a holiday worldwide. Free comics, people!) event. For those of us not lucky enough to get a copy of the comic, NEWSARAMA.com has kindly put it up online here. Check it out!

The printed edition of Free Scott Pilgrim also came with a backup story called Fearless Griggs: Victory at Sea. It's drawn/written by Andy Helms and it's totally awesome. Don't take my word for it. Go here and download the entire story.

The artwork is part-manga, part-Mike Mignola (ya know, the brilliant artist who created Hellboy) and the writing is deft and funny. It reminds me of Howard Shum's wildly-entertaining Gun Fu comic- both books feature lead characters who anachronistically speak in modern slang in period settings, to great comedic effect. If the upcoming Fearless Griggs graphic novel can live up to the promise of this preview, it'll be something special. Can't wait to get my hands on it!

Friday, March 10, 2006

Year of Superman

Warner Brothers just launched a new site to celebrate what they call the Year of Superman. The page features an ace montage of different Supermen over the years, both live-action (I spotted George Reeves, Christopher Reeves, Dean Cain, the Smallville guy) and animated. The site's more or less a giant ad for all the Superman DVDs that'll be coming out later this year- including the never-before-seen Richard Donner cut of Superman II (Donner started work on the movie but left the production due to disagreements with the movie's producers- he was replaced by Richard Lester who created the version that was eventually released)- and of course the Superman Returns movie.

In other Superman news, John Holbo (famed lecture of PH1101E in NUS) just posted on the Crooked Timber blog about Chris Appelhans' (one of the artists on the great Flight comics anthology) wonderful Superman animated musical short that has a beaten Superman being revived by the magic of a little girl's song. Aaaw isn't that sweet?

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

X3: The Last Stand

The new X-Men movie gets a subtitle and a new trailer. I had my reservations about the movie after watching the previously-released teaser trailer, but I have to admit this trailer looks pretty good. The movie looks to combine elements of the classic Chris Claremont Dark Phoenix storyline, the mutant cure story from Joss Whedon's recent Astonishing X-Men (actually the idea of a mutant cure dates back to before Astonishing, but I don't know where it actually originated) and a bit of Grant Morrison's New X-Men (Magneto destroying the Brooklyn Bridge with his powers). I'm going to give Brett Ratner the benefit of doubt and hope he turns out a worthy sequel to finish up the X-Men trilogy (I'm betting they don't make any more for quite some time, especially given that the plan seems to be to spinoff Wolverine into his own movie). We'll find out in May.

Monday, February 27, 2006

An Assortment of Fine Webcomics

Comics writer extraordinaire Warren Ellis is running a new column called Ministry for Comicon.com Pulse. In his second Ministry column, he compares the webcomics scene of today to the small press comics scene in Britain in the 60s and 70s. He says most of the minicomics out of that scene were crap, but some of the best future writers and artists in the comics industry started there. So now, he says, the future of the comics industry is unfolding right here on the Web. Yeah, I can see that. I've been reading webcomics for a long time. I've seen a lot of crap but I've seen some really great stuff too. Here's some of the good stuff I've been reading recently:

Little Dee- A really sweet comic about a little girl who gets lost in the woods and is adopted by a rather odd family consisting of a bear, a dog and a very cynical vulture.

Dinosaur Comics- This one's pretty impressive. Every comic strip has exactly the same visuals, only the dialogue changes. Ryan North, the creator of the comic, shows remarkable creativity in keeping the comic fresh week after week simply by dint of superior writing that manages to be both funny and intellectual at the same time!

Alien Loves Predator- much better than Alien Versus Predator, this comic is all about New York, pretty much the only city in the world in which guys who look like this would fit in. It's kind of like Friends, except with a smaller cast. And funnier.

a softer world- this weekly photocomic combines gorgeous photos with gorgeous words. Coolness.

Copper- I give my highest recommendation to this comic by Kazu Kibuishi, editor of the excellent graphic novel anthology series Flight . I won't put it up here because each comic is huge at 900 by 900 pixels, but it's well worth your while to click on the above link and check it out. Kazu's artwork is unique and beautiful and each self-contained Copper comic tells a story that's simple but sublime. The kind of thing that puts a smile on my face every time I read it.

Grant Who?

I just realised that non-comics people would probably have a question mark hovering above their heads, Metal Gear Solid-style, after reading my last post. So who is Grant Morrison? Why, simply one of the greatest writers in the comic book medium, that's who! His magnum opus, in my opinion, is the amazing, mind-bending Vertigo (DC's line of mature comics launched in the wake of Swamp Thing, Hellblazer and Sandman) series The Invisibles. It's about psychic secret agents who are waging an unseen war against those who would rule the world. It's about sex, drugs, violence and magic. It's about Buddha and the end of the world. It's about everything, really. It's also the reason I still read comics today- I got my hands on a copy of the first trade paperback. At a time when I thought comics were all about overly-muscular men beating 10 kinds of $*#! out of each other while angsting about their dead wives/girlfriends/children/pets (this was the early-90s!), The Invisibles restored my faith in the medium.

Grant Morrison's specialty is subverting the superhero genre and transmogrifying it into a way to express supremely imaginative concepts and ideas. One of his most famous mainstream works, Arkham Asylum (illustrated by famed Sandman cover artist and director of the recent fantasy film Mirrormask, Dave McKean), is a metaphorical story based on the theories of Carl Jung. Batman is cast in the role of the conscious part of the human mind, fighting to keep the unconscious part (represented, of course, by the inmates of Arkham Asylum) in check. One of the most original takes on the Batman mythos in recent years, Arkham Asylum has been a best-seller since it's release.

He's not incapable of doing mainstream work either! His mid-90s Justice League of America revamp was hugely popular and helped create the genre of "wide-screen" superhero action that Warren Ellis would use to great effect in his later title The Authority (the same book GM is going to be revamping later this year!). He similarly revamped the X-Men in his book New X-Men, which was by far and away the most exciting, SEXY X-Men book to come out for a long, long time. Last but not least, his new All-Star Superman series (with the supremely-talented artist Frank Quitely) makes that tired old hero cool again.

So that's who Grant Morrison is- the coolest English-language comic book writer ever (not the best because that's Alan Moore. Neil Gaiman's the gothest). That's why I'm so, so, so excited about his new (old?) books coming out later this year.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

2006 is the year of Grant Morrison

My main man GM is already writing the superlative All-Star Superman. This year, he's also going to be writing two books for DC's Wildstorm line of comics: WildC.A.T.s and The Authority. The former will be drawn by star artist and cheesecake specialist Jim Lee, while the latter will be drawn by Gene Ha (most famous for his work on Alan Moore's Top 10). If that wasn't cool enough, it's been announced at a DC Wondercon panel that he'll be writing both Batman and Detective Comics after the current writers' runs end.

COOLNESS OVERLOAD. I'm going to have to go lie down now.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Superhero suits in real life!

Right-o. So it seems that a company called d3o lab's making futuristic material, called d3o (doh!), that's lightweight, bendable and stiffens on impact, effectively turning into a form of body armour. A clothing company called Spyder's making ski suits made of this material- and apparently the US and Canadian ski teams are loving it. Awesome stuff. I'm willing to bet the designs of Spyder's d3o suits were inspired by Spider-Man's suit. They look pretty cool, don't they? Now if only they would make some for hot weather. ;-)

Art in The Age of No-Privacy

I was just looking through a few sites I'd bookmarked recently in order to put up links to them here when I realised all of them had a unifying thread. They were all about the way Internet and surveillance technologies (current and near-future) are eroding away our privacy and freedoms. It's good to see artists (writers, comic artists and animators in this case) tackling these issues that really don't get as much attention in the press as they should. Anyway, here goes.

Online science-fiction magazine Futurismic has a great story up by Mark Ward. It's called Cycle Thieves and it's a deft blend of noir-mystery style cyberpunk and Internet-generation concerns about pervasive social technologies. Very nice and it's apparently his 2nd story, which makes him a ery promising writer indeed.

Wired Magazine's February issue has a nice write-up about the uber-cool artist Paul Pope's upcoming Batman story- Batman: Year 100. I love the man's work- his graphich novel 100%, a character centred science-fiction story filled with beautiful dialogue and even more beautiful art, was just brilliant. So I'm rather looking forward to his take on the Batman myth- set in 2039, Batman: Year 100 posits the character as the last bastion of freedom in a dystopian police state. Which is a bit similar to Frank Miller's take on the character in The Dark Knight Strikes Back, his sequel to the seminal Dark Knight Returns, but I think that given the state of America today (cough*Patriot Act*cough) it's a scenario well worth revisiting. Paul Pope's stated in interviews that he wants depict Batman as a sort of escape artist, fighting the powers that be with dangerous, acrobatic acts of civil disobedience. Whoa, apparently the comic came out last week. Time for me to hit the comics shop.

Animation blog Cartoon Brew linked to a very nice British short animated film titled Welcome To Glaringly. The quality of the linked Quicktime video isn't the best, but the animation itself is gorgeous- utilizing a blocky, pixel-artish look to great effect. This wryly funny short film posits a scenario where video footage from a public surveillance camera is wildly out-of-context, to hilarious (for the audience, anyway) results. The underlying message here, I suppose, is that due to the very nature of public surveillance, it's hard to put any context to such footage and it's necessary to take whatever those cameras see with a grain of salt.

Monday, September 26, 2005

COMICS SALE!

I'm selling off a bunch of old comics. Drop me a line at my email address hazylium@gmail.com if you're interested in any of them- let me know how much you're offering for a comic in the mail. But please don't offer ridiculous prices like $0.50! Oh and I'm only selling to people in Singapore (unless you're willing to fork out for shipping costs too).

Here's the looong list of comics I'm selling.

MARVEL:
DISTRICT X #1-6
RUNAWAYS 2 #1-2 (by Brian K Vaughn, writer of Y The Last Man)
Neil Gaiman's 1602 #1-8
ULTIMATES #2 1-6
ASTONISHING X-MEN TPB: GIFTED (by Buffy creator Joss Whedon)
ASTONISHING X-MEN #7-12
NEW X-MEN #146-150 (PLANET X)
NEW X MEN #151-154 (HERE COMES TOMORROW)
HULK: GRAY #1-3
NYX #1-2
MARVEL KNIGHTS: SPIDER-MAN #1
ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE #1

DC:
ADAM STRANGE #1-2
JUSTICE #1
BATMAN BROKEN CITY #1-6 (by Brian Azzarello and Eruardo Risso of 100 Bullets)
CATWOMAN #25-27
BATGIRL #45-48 (Covers by James Jean of Fables)
SUPERMAN #204 (For Tomorrow 1 by Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee)
BATMAN: CITY OF LIGHT #1-2
DETECTIVE COMICS #788-793 (Covers by Tim Sale)

VERTIGO:
THESSALY: WITCH FOR HIRE #1
DREAMING #38-39
SWAMP THING #1 (by Brian K Vaughn, writer of Y The Last Man)

WILDSTORM:
AUTHORITY REVOLUTION #1
COUP D'ETAT SLEEPER, STORMWATCH, WILDCATS, AUTHORITY, AFTERWORD
MAJESTIC #1-3
ASTRO CITY DARK AGE BOOK ONE #1
STORMWATCH: TEAM ACHILLES #20-23

DARK HORSE:
Paul Bagge's APOCALYPSE NERD #1
Matt Wagner'S GRENDEL CYCLE TPB

IDW:
METAL GEAR SOLID #1-2

ONI PRESS:
LITTLE STAR #1
LOVE FIGHTS #7-12

TOP COW:
WANTED #1-6 + DOSSIER
RISING STARS #1

IMAGE COMICS:
CREECH: RAGE AGAINST DEATH TPB
SPYBOY #1
BONE #1

BECKETT:
RUULE: GANGLORDS OF CHINATOWN #1

Monday, September 05, 2005

Naoki Urasawa's Pluto

Whew this is the 3rd manga series that I downloaded online. I'm on a manga downloading binge! This one I heard of via this post on jeansnow.net. Jean Snow usually links to cool stuff so I took a look at the article linked to in the post. Turns out that Naoki Urasawa wrote the manga Monster, about a physician who saves a little boy who grows up to be a murderer. I've heard of the anime of the same name that's based on it- it's quite renowned. So anyway, Pluto's quite an interesting manga project. It's actually a remake of a story arc from Osamu Tezuka's seminal Astro Boy titled "The Greatest Robot on Earth." In that story, a powerful robot named Pluto fights the world's seven most powerful robots under orders from his master.

Urasawa's remake focuses on a human-looking robot policeman named Gesicht and his efforts to solve a series of bizzare murders which are connected by a weird visual symbol. Urasawa's interpretation of Tezuka's future world where humans and robots live side by side is both visually arresting and manages to evoke the same kind of emotions that Tezuka's original did. It's very very good stuff. You can download scans here.

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