Monday, September 13, 2010

What I Read This Week

Doom Patrol #14 -- The Chief is mad as hell, and he is not going to take it anymore!  Since this series started, I have suspected that the Chief thought the Patrol was totally expendable, and that he was only using them until something better came along, and this pretty much proves that point.  Intriguing new storyline from Giffen and Clark.

The Mighty Crusaders #3 -- Gone missin'.  Dang it.

Weird War Tales #1 -- Make War No More!  So proclaims this week's War one-shot.  Three weird tales -- one comedy, two serious pieces -- make for a good installment of WWT, worthy of the sort of stuff you used to find in the title (although I must admit, the comedy one could have been cut by two pages and a page each added to the other features).  Just as well done as last week's and more fun to boot, owing to the weirdness.

ShadowHawk #4 -- Does the world still need ShadowHawk's form of justice?  With Atrocity in custody, have the killings finally stopped?  And what motivated them in the first place?  All these questions and more are answered, with a last page which changes the complexion of this series in a very subtle but meaningful way, especially for older fans of the title.  I very much am enjoying this series.

glamourpuss #15 -- gp presents: The ULTIMATE Prenup!  The front half of the issue is dedicated to excerpts from glamourpuss's questionnaire for supermodels trying to land a billionaire, while the second half deals Dave Sim's investigation of whether Stan Drake was drawing The Heart of Juliet Jones after the death of Alex Raymond.  Can't ask for more juxtaposition than that.  Something which started last issue and is even more pronounced this issue is that Sim has started doing more and more non-photoreferenced work.  He illustrates the narrative of Raymond, Drake, and Bunny freely, but they inks them in Raymond's style.  It's subtle but it's also quite beautifully drawn, evocative of the strips he is discussing but with his own touch.

Re-read Pile: Doom Patrol, Weird War Tales, ShadowHawk.

The Pick Of The Pile is Weird War Tales.  Man, I so wish this was an ongoing!

1 comment:

Robin said...

Hi Luke,

I loved your review on Glamourpuss 15 so much I would like to be able to reproduce this in a Fanzine I am making

Please email me robin.barnard@ymail.com and we can talk some more


Thanks