Review: The DC Comics Guide to Creating Comics

THE DC COMICS GUIDE TO CREATING COMICS
WATSON-GUPTILL PUBLICATIONS/DC Comics – @CrownPublishing and @dccomics

WRITERS: Carl Potts
COVER:  Jim Lee, Bill Reinhold
ISBN: 978-0-385-34472-2; paperback (October 8, 2013)
192pp, Color, $24.99 U.S., $27.95 CAN

Forward by Jim Lee

Comic book writer, artist, and editor, Carl Potts joined Marvel Comics’ editorial staff in 1983.  Potts co-created Alien Legion, a comic book series published by Marvel’s Epic imprint, and he helped develop The Punisher as the character went from supporting/guest player to title character.

Potts may be best known for working with numerous comic book artists early in their career, including Jon Bogdanove, Whilce Portacio, and Scott Williams, among many.  Potts also helped Jim Lee and Art Adams break into the comics industry.  Potts’ work as an editor and his work with young comic book creators make him the perfect author for books about creating comics.

Potts is the author of The DC Comics Guide to Creating Comics: Inside the Art of Visual Storytelling, the latest book in the DC Comics Guide series.  The series previously focused on drawing comic books:  The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics, The DC Comics Guide to Inking Comics (both authored by Klaus Janson), and The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics (by Freddie Williams II).

With such a pedigree and with so many accomplishments, it should be no surprise that The DC Comics Guide to Creating Comics is not a book for beginners.  It is not that this book is highly technical; it actually goes into great detail about the art and craft of creating comics.  It discusses everything from the goals and principles of “visual sequential storytelling” to how a creator can affect the comics reader’s experience.

To me, at least, the people who can get the most out of The DC Comics Guide to Creating Comics are writers and artists, especially the latter, who have created comics.  Those writers and artists who have some professional experience or who have produced comic books (even if they have had to self-publish) will get the most out of this because they already either already understand comics (either by theory or practice) or have attempted to make comics.

The DC Comics Guide to Creating Comics is generously illustrated book, but this is not about pretty pictures and slick comic book art.  It is about teaching and guiding.  Potts makes his points with covers, whole pages, thumbnails, pencils, inks, details from larger pieces, etc.  I think my favorite part of the book is Chapter Twelve: Watching the Pros Work.  Three artists:  Whilce Portacio, Bill Reinhold, and Phil Jimenez take the same three-page script and provide breakdowns or thumbnails and then, turn those into pencil art.  Seeing how three veteran artists interpret the same script in ways that are both graphically and visually similar and different is a joy for a comic book fan and will likely be of use to someone wanting to learn the DC Comics’ way of drawing comic books.

So readers wanting to learn more about creating superhero comic books will want The DC Comics Guide to Creating Comics: Inside the Art of Visual Storytelling.  Carl Potts is a good teacher, and this is one good looking book.

A-


An incomplete list of the artists and writers whose work appears in this volume:
Arthur Adams, Joe Bennett, W.H. Haden Blackman, Brett Booth, Doug Braithwaite, Rick Bryant, Greg Capullo, Nick Cardy, Tony Daniel, John Dell, Steve Ditko, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Dave Gibbons, Russ Heath, Adam Hughes, Klaus Janson, Phil Jimenez, Geoff Johns, J.G. Jones, Joe Kubert, Andy Lanning, Jim Lee, Francis Manapul, Mike Mignola, Grant Morrison, Kevin Nowlan, Yanick Paquette, George Perez, Whilce Portacio, E. Potts, Bill Reinhold, Ivan Reis, Eduardo Risso, Alex Ross, P. Craig Russell, Walter Simonson, Scott Snyder, Ryan Sook, Ardian Syaf, Bruce Timm, Alex Toth, J.H. Williams III, Scott Williams, and Jorge Zaffino

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

X: Karen and Nataku

I read X, Vol. 6: 3-in-1 (X (3-in-1))

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin (which has free smart phone apps and comics).

Yaoi Review: SLEEPING MOON Volume 2

SLEEPING MOON, VOL. 2
SUBLIME – @SuBLimeManga

CARTOONIST: Kano Miyamoto
TRANSLATION: Christine Dashiell
LETTERS: NRP Studios
COVER: Kano Miyamoto and Courtney Utt
EDITOR: Jennifer LeBlanc
ISBN: 978-1-4215-5551-5; paperback (October 2013) Rated “M” for “Mature”
234pp, B&W, $12.99 U.S., $14.99 CAN, £8.99 UK

Sometimes I encounter a situation in which the second volume of a manga series is so much better than the first volume, even when that debut volume is itself good.  That recently happened again, and I am totally wowed by Sleeping Moon Volume 2.

Sleeping Moon is a yaoi manga graphic novel from creator Kano Miyamoto.  Yaoi manga is a subset of boys’ love manga (BL) and features explicit depictions of sex between male characters.  SuBLime Manga is publishing Sleeping Moon, which follows a young man trying to unravel a family curse, as a two-volume graphic novel series.

Sleeping Moon introduces 27-year-old college student-teacher, Akihiko Odagawa.  He returns to his family’s ancestral home in order to solve the mystery of a rumored curse that brings early death to the male descendants in his lineage, the Sakaki Family.  There, he meets his Aunt Akiko and her two children, twin brother and sister, Ren and Eri. While in the home, Akihiko experiences a time slip that takes him back 100 years in the past to Japan’s Meiji Period, where he meets student, Eitarou Shinjou.  The two men form a deep emotional bond as they bridge time to unravel a family curse?

As Sleeping Moon, Vol. 2 (Chapters 6 to 9) opens, Akihiko surrenders to his cousin Ren.  Their relationship, which has already turned sexual, grows more personal and intimate.  Akihiko, however, cannot stop thinking about Eitarou, the relative that he visits when he can time travel at night.

Eitarou and Akihiko grow closer, and together seek the truth behind the curse on their family.  Its origins are buried in an incident involving the Shinjou Family, which was tied to the Sakakis.  What went wrong or what happened?  But the nearer the two men from different eras get to the truth, the more Akihiko’s body seems to fade away.

No wonder so many readers seem to love these love stories that involve time travel.  They can make for great reading, and the Sleeping Moon manga is a terrific read.  Correction:  Sleeping Moon Volume 2 is a great read.

After reading Vol. 1, I thought that Sleeping Moon had potential.  Its supernatural elements were creepy, and the romance was strong; however, as I read it, I thought that creator Kano Miyamoto was being cool and deliberate about passions and revelations.  With the four chapters that make up the second half of the story, Miyamoto seems to unleash a torrent of passion, longing, and rage.

OMG!  The revenge-ghost story part of Sleeping Moon suddenly becomes spine-tingling J-Horror.  There were times when I thought the bad spirits would emerge from the page and contaminate me.  I really invested myself in wanting a resolution to the curse.

Akihiko, Ren, and Eitarou form one of the best love triangles that I have ever found in a comic book from any country.  That is another element of Sleeping Moon in which I heavily invested my emotions.  I wanted Akihiko to be with Eitarou, but at the same time, I saw that Akihiko and Ren made a great couple – regardless of the incestuous nature of their love.  This is one of those examples in which the reader will be happy about the outcome, but still yearn for the other outcome.

This is one of my favorite manga and comic books of the year.  There is a nice epilogue, entitled “Waning Moon,” and it is a near perfect ending, but it just reminds you that the good time you had reading Sleeping Moon is about to end.

A+

www.SuBLimeManga.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Book Review: HELP FOR THE HAUNTED

HELP FOR THE HAUNTED
WILLIAM MORROW/HarperCollins – @WmMorrowBks and @HarperCollins

AUTHOR: John Searles – @searlesbooks
ISBN: 978-0-06-077963-4; hardcover (September 17, 2013)
368pp, B&W, $26.99 U.S.

I have not read many prose novels this year, but I can honestly say that the best one that I have read (thus far) is Help for the Haunted, the 2013 novel by author John Searles.  Searles is a television book critic, magazine editor, and essayist, in addition to being the author of such novels as Boy Still Missing and Strange but True.  A coming-of-age tale and ghost story of sorts, Help for the Haunted follows a teen girl forced to unravel the mystery surrounding both her parents’ past and their brutal murder.

Fifteen-year-old Sylvie Mason isn’t sure who murdered her parents that winter night.  As of now, the police have in custody, Albert Lynch, a troubled man who had sought help from Sylvie’s parents, Rose and Sylvester Mason.  The adult Masons were known for providing “help for the haunted,” those people troubled by the supernatural – possessions, ghosts, and those sorts of things.

Still, Sylvie is determined to keep looking until she knows the truth of that night when she found her parents dead in a small church.  She needs to know the identity of the person she saw standing near their bodies in the darkness, but with certainty.  As Sylvie pursues the mystery, she slowly moves closer to the knowledge of what occurred that night.  Finding that knowledge, however, means she must not only dig deep into each of her parents’ past, but she must also relive the previous few years of her life with her parents and his sister, also named Rose.  As Sylvie comes to terms with her family’s past, she uncovers secrets that have haunted them for years, including young Rose’s secrets.  Did Sylvie’s sister murder her own parents?

Help for the Haunted is one of those novels that is “part” a lot of things.  It is part mystery, part ghost story, and part modern fiction.  Author John Searles tells the story from Sylvie Mason’s point of view or through Sylvie.  Thus, in a way, Help for the Haunted is like a young adult novel, but told as an adult story.

I think what Searles is actually doing is using two familiar genres:  the whodunit and the ghost story, to tell a story that delves into the highly-complex circulation systems that make up modern family dysfunction and into the hot mess that is family history.  In telling this story, Searles will withhold information, and then, in the next literary breath break open family secrets like an anxious bull in ye olde proverbial china shop.

This is superlative storytelling, but Searles also gives us a golden cherry on top – a great lead character in Sylvie Mason.  Searles puts us right inside Sylvie – head and heart, body and soul.  She is the classic plucky kid, but also the modern bullied teen girl who turns out to be a fortress of solitude, and, in the end, a lioness with a heart of gold.  We tag along with Sylvie for an amazing journey slash guessing-game that is one of the great reads of 2013, and it has a killer last act and ending.  Help for the Haunted is John Searles’ help for the bored reader.

A+

www.John-Searles.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: TIGER AND BUNNY: The Beginning Side B

TIGER & BUNNY: THE BEGINNING SIDE B
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

CARTOONIST: Tsutomu Oono
PLANNING/STORY: Sunrise
ORIGINAL SCRIPT: Masafumi Nishida
ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN: Masakazu Katsura
TRANSLATION/ENGLISH ADAPTATION: Labaamen and John Werry, HC Language Solutions
LETTERS: Stephen Dutro
ISBN: 978-1-4215-6076-2; paperback (October 2013); Rated “T” for “Teen”
160pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £6.99 U.K.

Gekijō-ban Tiger & Bunny – The Beginning (or simply Tiger & Bunny – The Beginning) is a 2012 anime film based on Tiger & Bunny, the science fiction and superhero anime television series.  Produced by Japanese animation studio, Sunrise (Accel World, Cowboy Bebob), Tiger & Bunny ran for 25 episodes in 2011.

Artist Tsutomu Oono produced a manga adaptation of Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning.  VIZ Media is publishing that manga in two volumes as Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Side A and Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Side B.

Tiger & Bunny takes place in a world where 45 years earlier, super-powered humans, known as NEXT, started appearing.  Some of them fight crime as superheroes in Stern Bild City (a re-imagined version of New York City).  They promote their corporate sponsors while appearing on the hit television show, HERO TV.  Each season, the superheroes compete to be named the “King of Heroes.”  The series focuses on the mismatched duo of Barnaby Brooks, Jr., a new superhero, and Kotetsu T. Kaburagi, the veteran superhero, Wild Tiger.

As Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Side B opens, Kotetsu’s employer, Apollon Media, gives him new instructions.  In light of the recent near disaster (as depicted in Side A), Kotetsu is expected to act as Barnaby’s foil, as well as to offer him encouragement.  Kotetsu tricks his fellow superheroes into throwing a welcoming party for Bunny, his pet name for Barnaby.  The party ends, however, when the speedy Robin Baxter gets his hands on the Statue of Justice.

The Tiger & Bunny manga is quite similar to American superhero comic books – closer than most manga I have ever read.  It resembles DC Comics’ 1980s Justice League comic book series, which was put a humorous bent on the venerable Justice League franchise.

Virtually the entirety of Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Side B is one long, extended chase/action sequence with comedy, lite death-defying moments, and some cleverness on the part of both heroes and villain.  I enjoyed reading it; in fact, by the time I got to the end, I really wanted more.  Maybe, it is a superhero thing with me, but I like this.  I am curious to know if other superhero fans will like it.

A-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: TIGER AND BUNNY: The Beginning Side A

TIGER & BUNNY: THE BEGINNING SIDE A
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

CARTOONIST: Tsutomu Oono
PLANNING/STORY: Sunrise
ORIGINAL SCRIPT: Masafumi Nishida
ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN: Masakazu Katsura
TRANSLATION/ENGLISH ADAPTATION: Labaamen and John Werry, HC Language Solutions
LETTERS: Stephen Dutro
ISBN: 978-1-4215-6075-5; paperback (October 2013); Rated “T” for “Teen”
160pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £6.99 U.K.

Gekijō-ban Tiger & Bunny – The Beginning is a 2012 film based on Tiger & Bunny, the science fiction and superhero anime television series.  Produced by Japanese animation studio, Sunrise, Tiger & Bunny ran for 25 episodes in 2011.

A year after the end of the TV series, Sunrise released the film, Gekijō-ban Tiger & Bunny – The Beginning, or simply Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning.  Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning apparently recaps the first few episodes of the series and then begins a new story.  Artist Tsutomu Oono produced a manga adaptation of Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning, which VIZ Media is publishing in two volumes as Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Side A and Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Side B.

Tiger & Bunny takes place in a world where 45 years earlier, super-powered humans, known as NEXT, started appearing.  Some of them fight crime as superheroes in Stern Bild City (a re-imagined version of New York City).  They promote their corporate sponsors while appearing on the hit television show, HERO TV.  Each season, the superheroes compete to be named the “King of Heroes.”

Early in Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Side A, the Justice Bureau approves Barnaby Brooks, Jr. as a new superhero.  Meanwhile, Kotetsu T. Kaburagi, who is the veteran superhero, Wild Tiger, begins his day.  Kotetsu makes a promise to his daughter, Kaede, but will he be able to keep it when a menace attacks the city.

That attack will change Kotetsu’s life, because it leads him to a new employer.  The new employer, Apollon Media, is about to introduce Kotetsu to Barnaby Brooks, Jr. whether he wants to meet him or not.

I am a fan of the Tiger & Bunny manga, and I became one after reading only one volume.  I have yet to see the movie, Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning.  Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Side A is simply a retelling of the original series with a new angle or two.  I also find it easier to read than the Tiger & Bunny manga, which is also an easy read.

Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Side A is to the Tiger & Bunny manga what the comic books, X-Men: First Class and Wolverine: First Class, were to the main X-Men and Wolverine comic book series:  less complicated retellings of familiar stories.  Like the “First Class” line, Side A eschews many subplots in favor of one storyline at a time, for the most part.  Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Side A is not inferior to the original; it is a simpler way to enjoy the excellent concept that Tiger & Bunny is.

B+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: SAMURAI JACK #1

"Jack's Back!"
SAMURAI JACK #1
IDW PUBLISHING with Cartoon Network – @IDWPublishing and @cartoonnetwork

WRITER: Jim Zub – @jimzub
ARTIST: Andy Suriano
LETTERS: Shawn Lee
COVER A: Andy Suriano
COVER RI: Rob Guillory
SUBSCRIPTION COVER C and COVER RE – beguiling.com Exclusive: Genndy Tartakovsky
COVER RE – Awesome Con Exclusive: Bryan Turner
COVER RE – Emerald City Comicon Exclusive: Sean Galloway
COVER RE – Hastings Exclusive: Sergio Quijada
COVER RE – Phantom Comics Exclusive: Jim Zub
COVER RE – Newbury Comics Exclusive: Ethen Beavers
COVER RE – Rhode Island Comicon Exclusive: Craig Rousseau
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (October 2013)

Samurai Jack created by Genndy Tartakovsky

“Samurai Jack and the Threads of Time”

I’m reading the first issue of the new Samurai Jack comic book from IDW Publishing.  The first time a villain appears in the story, I can hear the late, great Don Messick’s voice in my head as I read the villain’s dialogue.  Messick was a voice actor known for his association with television animation giant, Hanna-Barbera, performing on such series as Jonny Quest and The Huckleberry Hound Show, among many.  Although he died several years before Samurai Jack debuted on television, Messick, I think, would have fit in as a voice performer on the series.

Samurai Jack is an animated series originally broadcast on Cartoon Network from 2001 to 2004 for a total of 52 episodes.  This television series tells the story of a legendary samurai, known as “Jack,” who is transported to a dystopian, futuristic Earth ruled by the tyrannical, shape-shifting, demonic wizard Aku.  Jack wanders this future, trying to find a method by which he can travel back in time to the era in which he belongs, Feudal Japan, where he plans to defeat Aku, another denizen of Japan’s past.

Now, Samurai Jack returns as a new five-issue comic book miniseries from IDW Publishing.  IDW is partnering with Cartoon Network (CN) to produce original comic books based on CN’s animated properties.  Written by Jim Zub and drawn by Andy Suriano, Samurai Jack is not merely an adaptation of the series.  This comic book IS Samurai Jack.

As Samurai Jack #1 opens, Jack begins his latest quest to find a way back to Feudal Japan.  That involves a trip across a storm-swept, insect-infested desert to seek Soule the Seer.  From Soule, Jack learns of the Threads of Time.  If Jack can obtain these threads, he can rewind the Rope of Eons and therefore, rewind himself home.  But to get the first thread, this samurai must become a gladiator.

Of all the comic books that have debuted this year, Samurai Jack is the purest of them all.  It is so free of pretension, yet is still bright and imaginative.  It is so true to its source material, the Primetime Emmy-winning, Samurai Jack, that it does not seem like a mere licensed comic book, but rather a genuine continuation of the original story.

There are two things that really stand out about writer Jim Zub’s story.  First, Zub maintains the sparkling wit and smart humor that marked the television series.  Secondly, he gives Jack personality.  Thus, the character seems like a… well, a character and not just some corporate intellectual property doing the synergistic thing.  Instead, Jack is an approachable dude; sure he can kick some butt, but the character seems approachable.

Artist Andy Suriano, a character designer on the original Samurai Jack cartoon, transforms the graphic sensibilities of the animated series into the graphical storytelling aspects of a comic book.  Suriano does not draw everything in painstaking (and painful-to-look-at) detail.  The simple shapes and abstract features of cartooning figures, sets, and background details are just as effective at establishing plot, character, and setting as the pseudo-realism of much comic book art.

Reading this first issue reminds me of the fun I had watching cartoons.  That means Samurai Jack #1 is a success.  Zub, Suriano, and IDW do what Cartoon Network’s Time-Warner sister, DC Comics, could not do:  make a good Samurai Jack comic book.  Readers who want Cartoon Network comic books finally have one in Samurai Jack.

A

www.jimzub.com
www.IDWPUBLISHING.com
youtube.com/idwpublishing
facebook.com/idwpublishing

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.