My semester started yesterday. Here we go!
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March: Book Two, written by Congressman John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, art by Nate Powell
My great regret, perhaps my only regret, about my time at ICAF last November was that I had to skip out of Columbus before a Saturday night presentation by Congressman Lewis, Aydin, and Powell, coincident with the Billy Ireland's excellent exhibit on comics and civil rights. Still, it's good to see the publication of the second volume of their (auto)biography of Lewis, drawn by Powell in really rich black and white tones. I think a book like this would have been widely acclaimed whenever it appeared, but I think its timing is particularly good-- the idea that the battle for civil rights didn't end in the sixties is becoming increasingly evident to people who aren't either activists or academics, and it will be interesting to see if the events of the last year or so will result in a different sort of reception for this book than the last one. Very short preview here.
Run Like Crazy, Run Like Hell, by Jacques Tardi, adapted from the novel Ô Dingos! Ô Châteaux! by Jean-Patrick Manchette, translated by Doug Headline
I've always wanted to read Jacques Tardi's adaptations of Jean-Patrick Manchette's crime novels, but for whatever reason I've just never gotten around to it. One time, in particular, I was determined to buy Like A Sniper Lining Up His Shot, so much so that I walked from the Angelika theatre on Houston Street to the Strand, only to learn that the book wasn't out yet. Tardi's clean, elastic lines are a real pleasure, and are of course the real draw here, but the story seems like its the kind of crime tale I love the best, the one that's just this side of absurd, played out by characters who are only caricatures when they need to be. It's interesting that Manchette gets equal billing with Tardi here, like they collaborated on the projected (they could have only done so with the help of a medium, as the former died in 1995). My hunch, and I've no way to back this up, is that Tardi must feel unusually indebted to the source material, perhaps even that he's working with or in Manchette's spirit. It would be interesting to read these adaptations alongside the original, and compare the way they were handled with the way, say, that Darwyn Cooke's Parker was.
Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier, written by Ales Kot, art by Langdon Foss and Marco Rudy
I want to love this comic. I love the character, I like the writer, I even think that the concept has some serious legs. But Marvel totally botched the art assignment, handing it to Marco Rudy to give this space espionage opera a little bit of a painterly European album flavor, which, while interesting, only really serves to make the comic stiff and illegible, exactly the opposite of what this book needs. Now they've added Langdon Foss to handle some of the drawing, and he's all the way at the other side of the spectrum.
I give up.
The Autumnlands: Tooth and Claw #3, written by Kurt Busiek, art by Ben Dewey and Jordie Bellaire
The Wicked and the Divine #7, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie and Matt Wilson
Galaxy Quest: The Journey Continues, written by Erik Burnham, art by Nacho Arranz and Esther Sanz
Finally, from the annals of WHO IS THIS COMIC FOR?!
