Sunday, August 27, 2017

Review: MOONSHINE #1

MOONSHINE No. 1
IMAGE COMICS – @ImageComics

[This review was originally published on Patreon.]

WRITER: Brian Azzarello
ARTIST: Eduardo Risso
COLORS: Eduardo Risso
LETTERS: Jared K. Fletcher
COVER: Eduardo Risso
VARIANT COVER: Frank Miller
28pp, Color, $2.99 U.S. (October 2016)

Rated M / Mature

Moonshine is a new comic book series from writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso, the creators of DC Comic's long-running crime comic book series, 100 Bullets.  Moonshine is set in the Prohibition era and involves moonshine, mobsters, and the supernatural.

Moonshine #1 opens in 1929 in Spine Ridge, West Virginia.  It is night, and three federal agent, Nash, Denton, and Miller, are looking for a still (illegal moonshine production facility).  What they find is a horrible end to their lives.

Lou Pirlo is a “torpedo” for gangster, Joe “The Boss” Masseria.  Lou's latest assignment from Masseria is to go deep into the backwoods of Appalachia where he is to negotiate a deal with Hiram Holt, who makes the best moonshine in West Virginia.  Neither Lou nor “The Boss” realize that Holt is both the best moonshiner and is just as cunning and as ruthless as any big city crime boss.  Holt also has a dark, supernatural secret that he must protect.

I first read 100 Bullets in paperback form, the first two paperbacks, in fact.  When I started reading 100 Bullets in monthly installments, I found that I did not enjoy the story quite as much as I did in collected form.  Like the first issues of comic book series created by top creators, Moonshine #1 offers just enough to whet your reader's appetite to come back for more.  It is intriguing, but I would not call this first issue an outstanding work of single-issue comic book craftsmanship.  Moonshine #1 will probably read better when read with the entire story arc.

I can say that Eduardo Risso is as good as ever.  His exceptional line work and the masterful brushwork on the inking create graphical storytelling in a compelling and exiting manner.  Risso's coloring accentuates the interplay of light and dark and cold and warm spaces in his compositions.

I cannot imagine not coming back for the next issue.  I can tell you, dear readers, that if you wish to wait for the trade paperback of the first story arc, it will be one helluva read if this series is anything like 100 Bullets.

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2016 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Friday, August 25, 2017

#IReadsYou Review: BANKSHOT #2

BANKSHOT No. 2 (OF 5)
DARK HORSE COMICS – @DarkHorseComics

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Alex de Campi
ART: ChrisCross
COLORS: Snakebite Cortez
LETTERS: Alex de Campi
EDITOR: Aaron Walker and Randy Stradley
COVER: ChrisCross with Snakebite Cortez
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (July 2017)

Bankshot is a new comic book series from writer Alex de Campi and artist ChrisCross.  Snakebite Cortez is the series colorist and de Campi is the letterer.  Published by Dark Horse Comics, this five-issue miniseries focuses on an anti-hero. Part modern-day Robin Hood, part terrorist, or both, Marcus King is on a mission of revenge.

Bankshot #2 takes place in two time periods.  First, a decade earlier, Marcus King was left for dead after the CIA tried to kill him during a mission in North Africa.  He awakens a paraplegic in a hospital in Tunisia, where a nurse, Leah Soraya, cares for him.  After another attempt on his life, Marcus finds shelter in facility where a Soviet scientist may have the miracle tech to restore Marcus.

In the present, Frank, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), plots to stop Marcus, who has stolen untold millions in cash and property from government agencies and wealthy corporations and individuals connected to the FBI and CIA.  Meanwhile, Marcus' incredible body is a subject of interest to a group of scientists and engineers.

Like a Tim Duncan bank shot, the Bankshot comic book is more hit than miss.  [If you don't know Tim Duncan, try Wikipedia and sometimes ESPN Classic.]  Alex de Campi and ChrisCross are, as they say, killing it... and killing it again.

It seems as if some of the best elements of the Blade, Jason Borne, James Bond, and Mission: Impossible movies are blended with a dash of the Iron Man comic books and movies to create something that looks different – for obvious reasons – and is unique.  This is also a comic book that takes on the troubles in the Middle East and North Africa and Russia and Eastern Europe and connects it to the corrupt American security state.  Then, on the pop comic side, Bankshot gives us a hero who can destroy whatever is rotten in international rottenness.

I like that Alex de Campi has focused on Marcus King's past from a decade earlier to establish him as a character, while only serving up the “super” Marcus in small doses.  De Campi is making us care about the man, who is just as important as the colorful hero man.  ChrisCross' storytelling captures all the moods and the switches in pace and setting, and visually and graphically creates a balance between the the drama and suspense and the wild action and violence.  Even after two issues, it is obvious that Bankshot should continue past this miniseries.

A
9 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2017 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

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Thursday, August 24, 2017

Review: THE FLINTSTONES #1

THE FLINTSTONES No. 1
DC COMICS – @DCComic

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

WRITER: Mark Russell
ARTIST: Steve Pugh
COLORS: Chris Chuckry
LETTERS: Dave Sharpe
COVER: Steve Pugh
VARIANT COVERS: Ivan Reis with Marcelo Maiolo; Walter Simonson with Steve Buccellato; Dustin Nguyen; Dan Hipp
40pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (September 2016)

Rated “T” for “Teen”

“A Clean Slate”

The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time animated television series, produced by American animation studio, Hanna-Barbera Productions.  When it debuted on ABC September 30, 1960, it was the first American animated prime-time TV series.  A situation comedy, “The Flintstones” is an anachronistic and fantastic depiction of a working-class, Stone Age family, led by patriarch, Fred Flintstone, who has a wife, Wilma, and eventually a daughter, Pebbles.

The series juxtaposes what was then modern life (the late 1950s to mid-1960s) with a faux Stone Age setting.  Modern technology (such as cars and home appliances) have fanciful Stone Age versions, which sometimes involve animals and creatures that did not live in the Stone Age (like dinosaurs).

DC Comics has reinvented “The Flintstones” as part of its line of comic books that are reinvented and re-imagined versions of Hanna-Barber animated television series.  The Flintstones is written by Mark Russell; drawn by Steve Pugh, colored by Chris Chuckry, and lettered by Dave Sharpe.

The Flintstones #1 (“A Clean Slate”) is set 100,000 years ago in the town of Bedrock.  The story's focus is on Fred Flintstone, a brawny and muscular veteran of the “Paleolithic Wars.”  He is an employee of Slate's Quarry, where he has just been named “Employee of the Month.”  His boss, Mr. Slate, the owner of Slate's Quarry, has recently hired three male Neanderthals.  [Fred, Mr. Slate, and the people of Bedrock are Homo Sapiens.]  Mr. Slate wants Fred to train them, but each man has a different outlook on life, which may cause problems in their approach to dealing with the Neanderthals.

The inspiration for the 1960s TV series, “The Flintstones,” is the 1950s television comedy, “The Honeymooners.”  After reading The Flintstones #1, I believe the influence for the re-imagined Flintstones, at least in part, may be the 21st century television series, “Mad Men” (2007-2015), which is set during the early 1960s, when “The Flintstones” aired.  I also found a few scenes in this first issue that reminded me of similar scenes in the Oscar-winning film, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).

I think “The Flintstones” comic book focuses on a military combat veteran trying to make his way in a post-war society in which there is a business boom and a rise in consumerism.  People are less about “us” and more about “me,” and I will paraphrase a character in this first issue.  People want others to do their killing and their dirty work.  In that vein, I think The Flintstones comic book also makes allusions to the post-war lives of Vietnam veterans (such as was done in the films, The Deer Hunter and Coming Home).  You can even throw in the veterans of the 21st century “Middle East” wars and the nebulous “(Global) War on Terror.”

I am intrigued because the writer of The Flintstones comic book is Mark Russell, the writer of the deadly sharp satirical comic book, Prez (2015), from DC Comics.  “The Flintstones” animated series was a comedy, but The Flintstones comic book re-imagining is like a period workplace and domestic drama.  I am comfortable with grading this first issue, and I want more.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2016 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Book Review: SH*T MY PRESIDENT SAYS: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump

SH*T MY PRESIDENT SAYS: THE ILLUSTRATED TWEETS OF DONALD J. TRUMP
IDW PUBLISHING/Top Shelf Productions – @IDWPublishing @topshelfcomix

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

WRITERS:  Shannon Wheeler, Donald Trump
ARTIST: Shannon Wheeler
EDITORS: Chris Staros, Greg Goldstein, Leigh Walton
ISBN: 978-1-60309-410-8; hardcover – 5” x 6.5” (August 2017)
120pp, B&W, $14.99 U.S., $19.99 CAN

Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump is a 2017 book of cartoons from award-winning cartoonist, Shannon Wheeler (Too Much Coffee Man).  The book collects a selection of President Donald J. Trump's tweets of which Wheeler provided an accompanying illustration for context, illumination, or otherwise.

Before he (tragically) became President of the United States, Donald Trump was a real estate “mogul,” controversial figure, media personality, and anti-African-American bigot who once demanded the summary execution of five young men of color who were accused of a crime they did not commit.  Trump joined social media site, Twitter, in 2009 and began tweeting, first to promote himself, his appearances, and his business interests.

Trump's Twitter account turned tragic, probably after about a year, when he began fancying a run for president and also decided that the way to establish himself was to criticize President Barack Obama.  Soon, many of tweets began to make it obvious to the people who acted as if they never noticed what an incorrigible bigot, racist, sexist, and xenophobe Trump was and still is.  His pettiness and petulance is frankly stunning.  Imagine reading those tweets with cartoons that brutally accurately illustrate what a really bigly sad person Donald Trump is.

Back in 2008, Top Shelf Productions published Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance by Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger.  It was an illustrated history, survey, and list of the first 46 Vice-Presidents of the United States, from the first, John Adams, to the forty-sixth, Dick Cheney.  Over the past few decades many people have proclaimed many titles from comic book publishers as worthy of being placed in secondary and college education classrooms.

Many of those comic books and books are subject to debate as to whether they should be in classrooms; some clearly should not be in classrooms.  Veeps should be on high school history and social studies reading lists.  I think Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump is another Top Shelf book that belongs in classrooms and also in waiting rooms, public libraries, and in the offices of the leaders of every country of Earth.

Sh*t My President Says takes its title from Justin Halpern's “Shit My Dad Says” Twitter account which spawned a book and a short-lived CBS television series.  Although I have heard of Halpern's social media feed and even watched the first episode of the TV series, I have never read any of Halpern's tweets.  Quite frankly, I don't particularly care about the statements or opinions of white men who are of middle age and older.  The exceptions are some white men and older who are artists, writers, journalists, publishers, comic book creators, filmmakers, recording artists, performers, public figures, thinkers, and scientists – you know, creative types.  I don't care for the opinions of old white men who were once professional athletes even if I liked them in their athletic prime because, for the most part, many of them resent young African-American athletes (Terry Bradshaw, Mike Ditka, Boomer Esiason, to name a few).  So I don't give a shit about the shit Halpern's dad says.

I also ignore Donald Trump's Twitter account.  However, I am interested in what Shannon Wheeler has to say, especially via his pen.  Calling this a book of illustrated tweets is not quite accurate because it makes it sounds as if Wheeler has merely drawn cartoons to go with the tweets.  He does so much more than that, to the point that these cartoons sometime defies description.

Some of Wheeler's cartoons mock the tweets they accompany, such as the August 6, 2012 tweet about Barack Obama's birth certificate.  Sometimes, these cartoons illustrate Trump's authoritarian leanings in a way that is not funny, but poignant (July 18, 2013, which is essentially Trump's complaint about regular people criticizing famous people).  Many of the cartoons are prescient because I think many of us are just now understanding that Trump is not self-aware.  For instance, I don't think he understands how callous he often comes across to people.  There is a tweet from September 11, 2013 related to 9/11, and Wheeler's simple, but evocative cartoon is like a warning, sent from the day he drew it to every day of the future.  It is as if Wheeler is saying that we should beware this man's vanity and ego, and man who does not recognize sanctity and sacredness outside himself.

Make no mistake, however; much of this book is funny.  Yes, this sh*t will tickle your funny bone as much as it tackles ye olde thinking side.  Every single person who buys books about politics and all those who read political cartoons must have a copy of Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump.  Honestly, in a better world, this book would sell millions.

A+
10 out of 10

www.sh-tmypresidentsays.com
www.topshelfcomix.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2017 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Monday, August 21, 2017

DC Comics from Diamond Distributors for August 23, 2017

DC COMICS

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Marvel Comics from Diamond Distributors for August 23, 2017

MARVEL COMICS

MAY170948    ALL NEW X-MEN INEVITABLE TP VOL 04 IVX    $17.99
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IDW Publishing from Diamond Distributors for August 23, 2017

IDW PUBLISHING

JUN170504    ANGRY BIRDS FURIOUS FOWL CVR A MURPHY    $5.99
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