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Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Monday, December 1, 2014
Rin-ne: The Dream of Sharing an Umbrella
I read RIN-NE, Vol. 16
I posted a review at the ComicBookBin, which is seeking donations. Follow me on Twitter and at Grumble.
I posted a review at the ComicBookBin, which is seeking donations. Follow me on Twitter and at Grumble.
Another December (2014) I Reads You to Remember
It's December 2014. Welcome to I Reads You, a ComicBookBin web and sister publication (www.comicbookbin.com). We write about the things we read: mostly comic books, comics, and related books. Sometimes, we’ll write about or link to other topics: typically books, politics, and entertainment.
Visit me on Twitter or at Grumble.
All images and text appearing on this publication are copyright © and/or trademark their respective owners.
Visit me on Twitter or at Grumble.
All images and text appearing on this publication are copyright © and/or trademark their respective owners.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
I Reads You Review: WATSON & HOLMES #6
NEW PARADIGM STUDIOS – @npstudios
WRITER: Brandon Easton
ARTIST: N. Steve Harris
COLORS: Jay David Ramos
LETTERS: Wilson Ramos, Jr.
COVER: N. Steven Harris with Jay David Ramos
VARIANT COVER: Rick Leonardi with Jay David Ramos
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S.
Rated T+
Watson & Holmes created by Brandon Perlow and Paul J. Mendoza, inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes”
I first came across Watson & Holmes when the 2014 Glyph Comics Award nominations were announced. After Watson & Holmes #6 won four of those awards, I decided try the series, especially #6. By chance, I was visiting a regional comic book store, when I spied a box of comics with a sign on the front that said “.25¢ each.” I looked through the box and was surprised to find a number of interesting comic books. That included Watson & Holmes #6, which is produced by writer Brandon Easton, artist N. Steve Harris, colorist Jay David Ramos, and letterer Wilson Ramos, Jr.
New Paradigm Studios' comic book series, Watson & Holmes, is a modern take on the tales of “Sherlock Holmes” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The series envisions Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson as Black men in an urban setting, specifically New York City’s famous Harlem district. By placing them in a modern, American urban landscape, Doyle's legendary detective fiction characters can travel in story directions likely never imagined by Doyle.
In Watson & Holmes, Holmes is no longer the sole central character and shares the spotlight equally with Watson. Dr. John Watson is now the African-America Dr. Jon Watson, a former para-jumper for the U.S. Air Force and an Afghanistan war veteran. He currently works in an inner-city clinic helping the less fortunate, while dealing with the financial hardships brought on by a difficult divorce. The African-American Sherlock Holmes is currently a private investigator and a consultant to the New York Police Department (NYPD). Obsessive compulsive, Holmes had worked as a programmer for an Internet start-up that failed, which ruined his career. That led to him becoming a PI.
Watson & Holmes #6 opens at night near the George Washington Bridge in New York City. The next morning, the bridge is a crime scene when the body of Hazel Wainwright is found. The NYPD brings Holmes into the investigation because this murder requires a great deal of discretion. Hazel was the wife of prominent New York City councilman, Dexter “Dex” Wainwright.
Holmes strongly suspects that Dex murdered his wife, but Watson hopes against that, as Wainwright has led the revival of Harlem. Holmes' research has uncovered the name of Dominique Jiminez, a woman who is somehow connected to both Wainwrights. Watson and Holmes aren't the only ones looking for Jiminez, a woman who is also connected to a dark underworld.
I don't often come across self-contained, single-issue detective comic books; I rarely come across them as good as Watson & Holmes #6. Not only is the story good, but it is also riddled with consequence. Brandon Easton offers a story that is both real in a heartbreaking way and also really relevant. Easton makes the Wainwrights and Jiminez matter because I cared about their dilemmas and conflicts, and especially their situations in life.
Artist N. Steven Harris has huge upside. Although his compositions and technique are still developing, his storytelling has a strong sense of drama and makes Watson and Holmes' union and method of working together seem genuine. Harris' drawings are stylish, defined by a sense of dynamism that permeates each panel. The colors by Jay David Ramos strike the right tone, suggesting this story's quick pace, without loosing its crime fiction edginess.
I would like to see Brandon Easton and N. Steve Harris work together again, on Watson & Holmes especially. But I'll take something else... like maybe an creator-owned title.
A
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.
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Saturday, November 29, 2014
Spell of Desire: Enter the Black Witch Coven
I read Spell of Desire, Vol. 2
I posted a review at the ComicBookBin, which is seeking donations. Follow me on Twitter or at Grumble.
I posted a review at the ComicBookBin, which is seeking donations. Follow me on Twitter or at Grumble.
Friday, November 28, 2014
I Reads You Review: FANTASTIC FOUR #262
FANTASTIC FOUR #262
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel
WRITER/ARTIST: John Byrne
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel
WRITER/ARTIST: John Byrne
COLORS: Glynis Wein
LETTERS: Jim Novak
32pp, Color, .60¢
U.S., .75¢
CAN, .25p UK (January 1984)
Rated
“T+”
“The
Trial of Reed Richards”
A high-ranking Marvel Comics person
once said that most comic books published before 1992 were bad,
although Marvel is thriving largely due to pre-1992 publications and
creations. I know for a fact that one comic book series that was
no-ways-bad was Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four comic book series with
John Byrne as both writer and artist. After Byrne left the series in
1986, the Fantastic Four (sometimes referred to as “FF”) was
never the same. There have only been a few brief runs since then in
which the series has approached the quality of Byrne's work on this
seminal Stan Lee-Jack Kirby creation.
For some reason, I recently remembered
something called “Assistant Editors' Month.” Marvel Comics
Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter and Marvel's primary editorial staff had
taken a month-long trip in the late summer of 1983, supposedly. This
meant that the assistant editors were the acting-editors of Marvel's
regular titles for at least one month. The result of this was that
Marvel's superhero titles with the publication date of January 1984
would drift from the status quo, at least, a little bit. [I think
the Avengers met David Letterman in their title.]
Because I have many issues of Byrne's
run on Fantastic Four, I also happen to have the Assistant Editors
Month issue, Fantastic Four #262. The conceit of that issue is that
Marvel Comics exists in the same universe as the Fantastic Four.
John Byrne, as current writer-artist of the Fantastic Four, often
uses the adventures of the real Fantastic Four as the basis for his
Fantastic Four comics.
As Fantastic Four #262 (“The Trial
of Reed Richards”) begins, Byrne is having a telephone conversation
with Michael Higgins, the assistant editor of the Fantastic Four
comic book and the person currently in charge of getting the book
finished while the regular editor is away. Higgins is pressing Byrne
to deliver some pages, but Byrne is pressed against a deadline
because he cannot get in contact with the Fantastic Four.
Lucky him, The Watcher appears and
takes Byrne far into the cosmos. The Watcher says that Byrne, as the
“chronicler” of the Fantastic Four's adventures, must bear
witness to the trial of Reed Richards. Why is Reed, a.k.a. Mr.
Fantastic, on trial? He saved the life of the planet-devouring
Galactus, and now, victims of Galactus – old, new, and ancient want
to punish the man who kept Galactus living.
I had not read “The Trial of Reed
Richards” in ages. I first heard of it from comic book fans who
swore to me that it was a classic. It may be, but taken as part of
the entirety of Byrne's run on the series, it is one good comic book
among many.
Byrne has previously stated that some
comic book writers, artists, editor, and publishers “don't get it,”
meaning that they do not understand what made certain classic comic
book creations work – what made them “classic.” In the case of
the Fantastic Four, not only in the comic books, but also in the
movies and in television appearances, the writers, artists, and
creative types don't get it.
Many people focus in on the Fantastic
Four as a team that is also a family, and Stan Lee has bolstered that
every time he talks about creating the FF. They're right; the team
is a family. Whatever pulpy roots and TV family examples inspired
him, Lee did create a familiarity amongst the lead characters that
was, at that time, new to comic books.
However, comic books are a
graphics-based and visual storytelling medium, and in the hands of
and by the pencil of Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four had a second
distinctive and crucial feature or trait. This comic book was grand
and big in its scope. The monsters were not just big like those that
appeared in Marvel/Timely's monster comics; there was also something
bigger behind FF's monsters and creatures. It might be tragedy, or a
warning, or even a message. When the Mole Man appeared in Fantastic
Four #1, he was not just a monster wrangler or boss of monsters; he
was a leader and a protector. His mission wasn't mere destruction of
the human world, but the grand notions of the survival and the
prosperity of the creatures that lived below the human world.
Byrne's trial of Reed Richards isn't
just a trippy trip through the cosmos. It is a simple story about
existence, reality, and the natural order, but it was a story spun on
a grand, cosmic scale. Like Lee and Kirby's Fantastic Four, Byrne's
is not hard science fiction, but it embraces the sense of wonder
about the great big unknown beyond the planet, beyond the stars, and
beyond myriad dimensions.
Supposedly, sales of the Fantastic Four
comic book has been floundering for years, and the series is
reportedly headed for cancellation. Whatever the politics behind
that cancellation, the Fantastic Four has been a shadow of its former
glory for decades, for the most part. No one has done the Fantastic
Four like Byrne did it since he did it. I am glad I thought of
reading Fantastic Four #262 because it was part of the “Assistant
Editors' Month” gimmick. Thank goodness for back issues, trades
paperbacks, and Artist Editions that we can still read the new
classic that was John Byrne's Fantastic Four, after the original
classic FF of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
A
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux
The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy
Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication
rights and fees.
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