Neil Gaiman is in town. Finally a chance to meet him.

It seems up to now any time he was here, I was flying somewhere. And I’m no jetsetter. If I was it would be a small consolation.

Nonetheless its great that he does make the effort. Australia is quite a distance.

But I’m booked in. Just deciding on what to get signed. He’s here in Australia doing a number of appearances which is good. Although his new works aren’t due for release for awhile.

So that leaves me with getting him to autograph some existing material or splurging on The Absolute Sandman. Its an amazing collection I’ve heard. Extremely expensive but a terrific piece for the bookshelf.

I’d need to locate it this weekend if that was the case. I’m sure a lot of others have the same idea. Decisions. Decisions.

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Been doing a bit of spring cleaning around the house. Following through on some new years resolutions.

Decided to not be so precious about books. I love them. Would dearly like to have a room to dedicate to a library. Lovely idea but dead weight in reality.

So I’ve been purging all the books that aren’t near and dear to me. Well at least that I think I might re-read anyways. Shifting a third of them out.

As a side thought, I’ve been eyeing off those e-book readers. Dymocks have gone into it in a big way. The only problem is that they’re selling the Iliad reader for eight hundred and ninety nine dollars.

I’d tried to locate the Sony reader in Japan whilst I was there. But had no luck. Not even at the Sony store. The Iliad has more that I want. From what I’ve read its not that flexible.

The ASUS eeePC could probably do the trick. Its small and light. However the screen is small and the form factor really isn’t conducive of reading on the bus or train. The newer model with the larger screen looks serviceable.

That currently leaves me with the Ipod Touch which I own. The chief issue is that the only reader is a builtin PDF reader in the mail app. I needed to drop twenty five dollars to obtain it and a number of other apps. Lets not go into this issue again.

The multitouch interface serves well for reading. Being able to magnify text at a sweep. Both portrait and landscape reading.

Graphics come up well. However the overall screen size is small. Reading comics may be difficult as it would require much touching to get through a page. So to speak.

But mailing a document to read ? I guess thats easier than most other methods. Although I can’t see why they didn’t just make the pdf viewer available generally.

Its a good start. I’ll give it a go around and abouts to see if it serves.

Definitely looking forward to the App Store. Perhaps the forthcoming WWDC will provide further details. There appear to be developers galore in line so it will be interesting to see how they compare to the existing apps available.

A document viewer must be in there somewhere. Either from Apple or a third party.

Using the Itunes store on the Touch is a revelation. So I can only imagine the App Store will be the same. As a delivery and payment mechanism it should be seamless.

Apple are going to go to the bank.

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What a year. My heroes. Creative people who’ve influenced me. Given great inspiration and enjoyment are all passing on.

Gary Gygax, Dave Stevens. Now Arthur C Clarke.

Inevitable but sad.

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New X Men is the only X-Men title I read. Grant Morrison pulled some major character work and warped the X mythology with amazing ease.

Following on Joss Whedon narrowed down on the core characters and their relationships. Solid stuff.

Deciding to confirm some thoughts about the current storyline I checked out the Cyclops wiki. Leading to a giant “WHAT THE” ?

Can I say RETCON to the end of Morrison’s run ? Can folks not leave something alone ?

A great character was woven new and fresh. A definite arc and role to play. However popular characters can’t be left alone. Another new addition to the pantheon.

I want to see more attempts at great new characters. Where can writers go if there is no significance ?

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My four colour habit has been on life support for quite awhile. I guess I’m out of step with the general target audience.

My preference is for something I can pick up and read without needing a truck load of continuity. Thankfully there is still some of that left.

The big two publishers appear to be following movie release logic except running it for the entire year. So we get universe wide mega events running for what appears to be the entire year. I don’t have the time, patience or money to read these. Apparently the majority do as this tactic seems to be yielding huge sales numbers.

Fortunately some stuff has slipped through the net. It appears to be the leftovers which is fine by me. Former darlings of the publishers which have been passed over for the new marketing push or are no longer what the majority wants.

Vertigo are still producing good work (like Fables) despite having been around for donkeys years. Wildstorm are producing excellent self contained books like Deus Ex Machina and Planetary. The Ultimate line still produces strong titles like the Ultimates and Ultimate Spiderman. Although very few new Ultimate titles have been added since the emphasis has been put back into the standard line of books.

My standing order isn’t what it use to be.

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Finally made it to this pop culture expo. Last years was huge but I was too busy to go. Cleared some time and went this year. The last convention I went to was quite some time ago. I dimly recall it was the last time that Dave Sim came out to Australia. That would date it as being in the previous millenium.

The very fact that its a pop culture expo means that things have changed quite a bit. Most decidedly for the better. Theres a broader spectrum of stuff. So there are girls about. Not just girl friends (although theres quite a few of those too). Predominantly teenagers although there were some families and older folk (that would be me).

There was a good selection of activities. Good use of the Olympic Park facilities was made. The expo was centralised into two areas. The main area occupied a small number of rooms for the talks / guest appearances and a general amphitheatre showing videos to take a break.

The dealer rooms were all held in one expo hall five minutes away from the main section.

There seemed to be less international guests and of lower profiles. Nonetheless they were entertaining. The headliner was Summer Glau. She did Q & A on Friday night and Saturday. She was very open and generous during her talks. A good sized crowd of folks turned out to see her.

Clare Kramer gave a very good talk. Came across as very confident and relaxed. She handled a good range of questions. The best were about her opinion on what qualities are needed to be a good actor.

Kevin Weisman also gave a confident and funny Q & A. His experiences on Alias were great. Amusing that he was the only one allowed to improvise. He was very surprised about the widespread love for his part in Clerks 2.

Mira Firlan was interesting. It was good to discover some of her background and what drives her as not just an actor but as a person. She filled us in on the goings on in the post B5 world. Along with her new work in Lost.

Its interesting that everyone nominated their current work as the most favourite (if they had to choose). A common running theme was that TV work was extremely hard and long. That fun and practical jokes were not appreciated by the production companies.

The surprise for me was Crispin Freeman. I like anime but have a preference for manga. Although I don’t read or watch either all that much. I caught the last half of his dubbing class. This involved hauling audience members out to go through an actual dubbing. Immensely amusing and showed exactly how hard it is.

I only caught the last five minutes of his mythology talk as I’d gone to the Kevin Weisman Q & A. What I heard was great and I’m sorry I missed it as Kevin was also doing a session on Sunday. Crispin had quite a rockstar following. He actually looks quite like a manga / anime character. He was signing at a stall and was asked to sign a girls chest (a boobignature if you will). Much to the bemusement of his significant other or agent.

Paradoxically with the huge popularity of Japanese manga and anime in the US. All the production companies are having trouble staying in business. That corners and consequently quality was dropping.

The dealer room had a good mix of the usual suspects and new stuff. Kings Comics were upfront with a good sized stand. They had Gary Frank as their guest. I’m not a big one for signatures or sketches from anyone so I just hovered for awhile.

Weta Collectibles had a small selection of excellent products. Chief was the sculpts from the HellsGate London computer game. They had the game trailer playing. Quite impressive graphics but it didn’t seem to have any game play in it. In the display cases as well, were a range of fifties inspired science fiction weapons. Complete with case and ammo. Very cool.

Also present were the new Superman Returns sculpts. The boxes were quite large so I’d imagine the actual product is too.

Towards the centre was artists alley. Two back to back stands of local artists which was great to see.

There was a group called Novus Ordo. They specialise in costumes. They had a good selection of well made Star Wars costumes and props (R2 units, carbonite Han Solo and such). Various costumes were modelled both in the hall and outside. Their Mara Jade and Grievous costumes were exceptional.

All up it was a fun experience. A good selection of guests and activities. The facilities were good. Food was readily available if a little expensive. At least there were healthier alternatives to the usual fare. Parking was easy.

Would I go again ? Possibly if they have guests who interest me.

BTW excuse the graininess of some of the shots. I was practicing low light with no flash. Faster lens are in mind.

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Sure signs I’m getting old.

Sign One.
Went to watch a local soccer match on Sunday afternoon. It was freezing especially when the sun went down. There was seating but it was rows of aluminium benches. So not only numb backside but cold all over.

Got up during the half time break to kick the ball round with the boys. Got home with a sore back from not warming up for a ten minute kick around.

Sign two.
Rocked into the local LCS to pickup my standing order. Scanned the shelves for anything interesting. Came away with absolutely zero.

Theres good stuff but I can’t muster the will to buy the singles. Rather pick stuff up as trades.

Apparently the current crop of mega annual events is racking up record sales. To be fair the Steve McNiven art for Civil War looks amazing. But I just can’t bring my jaded hands to pick it up.

Instead I’ve been getting my fix from webcomics and downloadable stuff. Highly recommend comical for reading packaged graphics. Open source and available for all OSes.

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The ever excellent the Beat comics blog covered some comments from a publisher about us old fogies being set in our ways. Trotting down to the local comic store to collect our parcel of the golden oldies each week.

Well I’m not that demographic. Sure I like product from the Big Two. But I don’t go in for the multi issue mega tent pole events that span the entire universe. Sure I’m old enough the remember all that continuity but I don’t want to. Most any comic that is likely to be so affected isn’t one I read.

I’ll pick up the occasional superhero but its not an imperative.

I want the same qualities in comics as in the books, music and movies that I like. A good premise which isn’t necessarily original. Told well and consistently. New points of view or takes on characters. It doesn’t have to be spandex. In fact its probably an advantage not to be.

The art should be good but I’ll put up with journeyman. That good art should be inside the book not just on the cover. I don’t appreciate the Adam Hughes like covers with the roughshod artwork inside.

Read my lips “I want new stuff”. I will buy “new stuff”. I’m down with genres. Action adventure, science fiction, thrillers. Heck I’ll even read some romance. Whats worse is to waste my precious time with the “same old”. Where’s the research that says all I want is spandex ? How do we explain manga being so popular ? My local LCS is almost half manga in terms of shelf space.

Last I looked manga covered a whole spectrum of genres and themes.

Its kind of like saying the only music I buy is new bands doing the “mutant punk death metal from the eighties style” cause thats my defining period (I like Green Day too). Or a bookstore of only Harlequin romance novels (wait I think I have one up the road). That I’ll only watch movies in the John Hughes style. I like the Breakfast Club but I think my tastes have grown a little since then.

I realise that the comics biz is amazing hard. The supply chain is incredibly insular. Retail stores only want what will sell and will under order to hedge their bets. To this I don’t have an answer.

But I do know I vote with my dollars. I preorder what looks good. Although more than likely I’ll pick it up from the shelf. Otherwise it better make it to trade.

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Numenorean

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

I’m sad that the Lord of the Rings movies are done. Return of the King came out in 2003. Amazing that it finished two years ago.

Time to break out the extended edition DVDs and have a marathon.

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Apparently Steve Rude is tossing around suggestions for publishing a new series of the Nexus. I’m excited !

The Nexus was one of my all time favourite comics. It combined a great premise and characters with the gorgious art of Steve Rude.

The designs were heavily influenced by Space Ghost and alot of the Hanna Barbera space cartoons. The Dude’s art evolved continually. It always had great design flair and expressiveness. Steve would always work in little science fiction or pop moments into the backgrounds.

Mike Baron worked the concept well. Turning out stories to do with fame and power wrapped in the conundrum of an executioner of mass murderers.

Some of the Nexus is available as trades. So cast your vote over on the Dude’s site and trek over to your LCS to buy an excellent read.

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My tastes are proven to be non mainstream again. Which usually means it gets canned.

Apparently the Losers is being finished up soon. Gotham Central is getting renamed (not sure if this involves a reboot). One of the writers has left as well. Part of the fun was that each writer plotted a pair of detectives on different shifts.

I’m definitely having one of those days today. Not even helped by the $50 I won on Powerball.

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Finished the new Harry Potter book last week. Its a very fast read despite the size. Finished half of it on the flight to and from Hong Kong.

All up it was enjoyable but very straight forward. A change from the last two books that got lost in extraneous details or plot twists. This book kept my interest all the way through. I had to take breaks away from the previous ones.

This new installment is quite dark. The stakes are escalating and its interesting to see where various characters allegiances lie. I’m still holding out hope on one character. Despite friends saying I’m reading too much into things.

All up entertaining but getting a little stale. Some of the charm of the characters seemes to have gone for me. The most enjoyable parts for me were the wizarding world and its borders with the Muggle world.

Most of the new book concentrates on the main plot which was interesting but not alot of fun since it was chiefly explanatory. Alot like the Star Wars trilogy explaining Anakin’s fall. The whole mystery of the Prince ends quite abruptly as well.

The teenage hormonal moments were amusing but a little predictable.

It does setup a major change to the formula. Lets see if J.K. Rowling runs with it.

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Neil Gaiman comes to Sydney to make an appearance at the Galaxy Bookshop on July 20. Of course I’m out of town that week.

Same thing happened when Crowded House was to do their farewell performance on the Opera House steps. I had booked to go overseas.

I don’t suppose Neil’s going to be in Hong Kong in November ?

AAAARGHH !!!!!!!

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I blame my dad. He used comics as a way to make me learn to read. It worked and it kept me out of his hair.

Of course this became a life long addiction for me. Previously quite an expensive one as well. Here I sit with well over 15 document storage boxes and a shelf load of comics (I use to have alot more). Graphic novels. Sequential art. Whatever you want to call it.

Prior to 1980s or there abouts, I would haunt all the newsagencies from the city to home. On the hunt for new material on the way back from school. I even read 2000AD cause it was cheap. Despite its nasty cheaper than newsprint paper and ink.

Then I found nirvana. A dedicated comics store in Sydney, The Land Beyond Beyond. Terry Brown ran a terrific shop dedicated to collectibles for well over twenty years. I poured a ton of money into that place. My habit became known to my friends as “Paying the rent”. Unfortunately the store is gone now. Much missed.

Back to the point. The problem is that I am more time poor now than I’ve every been. Family and mortgages do that to you. Not that I’m complaining. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

However the whole weekly visitation thing has become quite stale. Having to rush in to get what I’d like. More often than not missing out as the store has understocked. Thanks to Marvels no reprint policy, kiss your chance of following any popular series from them goodbye. As I have for Ultimate Fantastic Four.

Note this has nothing to do with my LCS or its service. Which is topnotch on all counts. They are also a business and need to to pay their bills.

Its more a point where I’m not willing to commit any new titles to my standing order because the quality of a series is never assured. Case in point. Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo on Fantastic Four. Marvel advertised the new team heavily. I got really hyped over the new creative team. I collected the first few issues only to discover that Marvel had laid them off suddenly. Then they bowed to reader pressure and brought them back after some filler issues. Of course by this time I’d lost momentum and couldn’t be bothered.

Combined with my enui over the current directions of comics at the moment. Everything has become quite conservative. Which is galling as the market had just gone in more creative and original directions for a year or so. Pretty much everyone is going back to the standard spandex.

Apparently the market doesn’t want anything original. There are some bright spots like the Losers, Powers, Ocean, Planetary, Gotham Central, Fables, New Frontier and such. But these are either established series or minor projects.

I’m very much considering switching to trades. Its a natural selection process. I can then cut back on the number of visits. Not have to worry about missing issues. Not have to religiously follow all the latest comics news. Plus I save on shelf / storage space.

Such huge problems I have to solve. My next articles will be on creating world peace and infinite cheap renewable energy.

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Official word from the production company for Global Frequency has come down. Apparently Warner Bros have passed on producing anything beyond the pilot.

In their defense, the WB had been quite good. They released the series and pilot back to the production house to shop around to other networks. Apparently they didn’t have to but they did.

American television production is mind boggling. A wicked brew of money, ratings and creativity. Lately the creative end of TV series has been winning. More often than not extremely challenging in storylines and acting. Not always up my alley but solid. Series like The West Wing, Smallville, Six Foot Under, Buffy, Angel, Battlestar Galactica, Alias, Sex and the City, CSI.

So hears to the Frequency finding a new home. It deserves a chance to run.

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Mr. Monster

A resurrected Atomeka release a new Mr Monster adventure. This is classic stuff by Michael T Gilbert. The title says it all Mr Monster Versus the Nazi From Mars.

Not having seen any Mr Monster for quite awhile. Its good to know Gilbert can still crank out the EC Comics style horror mixed with some 50s science fiction horror movies. His art is still terrific although the lettering doesn’t have the old pizzaz.

Four alien ray guns out of five.

Astonishing X-Men #5

The cover pretty much says it all. Joss Whedon begins the arc conclusion after quite a long build up.

Not being up on X Men history as I stopped collecting most XMen for at least five years (other than the Grant Morrison New X Men and X Factor / X-Statixs). I wasn’t quite aware of who had lived and died.

However the story fills in the needed blanks. Joss gets in some great jokes even for Cyclops. The team do a huge doubletake with a cute joke and a literally smashing ending. Hard not to put in spoilers.

The script is paced well giving John Cassaday plenty of space to work his usual magic. Interesting that his art goes very Paul Smith towards the end. Rather than going for striking panel layout and design on every page. Cassaday instead alternates between basic story art and amping up the graphics for impact.

Four Xs out of five.

Marvel Knights: Black Widow #1

I can’t resist a woman in a catsuit. I guess its the early genetic imprinting from Emma Peel in the Avengers. The Greg Land cover helps.

What made me pick this up was the Bill Sienkiewicz art. Its been quite awhile since he’d done any regular sequential art.

Prior to this there were some mini series that played up the nascent fetish aspects of the Black Widow character. As interesting as that could be it never really delivered as it never really got beyond “nudge nudge wink wink”. The JG Jones art helped immensely though.

Given this is the first issue. It plays out along the lines of an Alias episode. Natasha Romanov escapes an assasination attempt and decides to find out whose behind it all.

Most definitely the best thing about this title is the return of Sienkiewicz. There isn’t anything ground breaking but his highly impressionistic style still looks good.

I’ll follow along for the first arc. I’d like to think Richard Morgan has something up his sleeve that would attract Bill to a regular series at least for awhile.

Three catsuits out of five.

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Not so much a review as a comparison. Both written by Brian Bendis. Marvel writer extraordinarie.

62 issues of Ultimate Spiderman. USM was the first title and prototype for the Ultimate line of books. Most of which were written by Bendis.

However I have to say that what was once a solid title has become a bit ragged. The previous Doc Ock storyline seemed quite loose with little to recommend it. The whole Spiderman movie angle seemed a little staid and gratutitous. Perhaps geared to try and interest people coming off the Spiderman 2 movie. The current Carnage storyline see the Ultimate version of Carnage appear.

Bendis is a master of character and pacing however the last few issues seemed bereft of these skills. The pacing is very slack and the characters seem to be going through the motions. Even the trademark dialogue just doesn’t seem to lift. Mark Bagley’s art looks slack. Perspectives and facial features askew. Quite alot happens in this issue but none of it really sinks in.

In comparison the new Marvel printed Icon line has the revamped Powers which is great. This is one of Bendis’s creator owned properties. Its a solid issue containing all the usual skills kicking at top form. The Pilgrim / Walker dynamic at its usual best. As with USM, alot goes on but they have genuine value and interest (hard to write about without spoilers). Perhaps Michael Oeming wouldn’t let Brian slack off the way he has on USM. Or its just this is wholely Brian’s baby.

I personally think Bendis is stretched too thin managing all the titles that he’s doing. Granted I don’t know when each issue was produced in relation to all the other work. I’m not denying the man his success but his standards seem to have dropped some. To be fair, he’s recognised that he’s working on way too much. Wisely stepping down from various titles. Warren Eliis and Stuart Immomen’s take on the Ultimate Fantastic Four is leaps and bounds ahead of Bendis/Millar and Kubert initial run.

However he’s since moved on to revamping the Avengers in the standard Marvel continuity. This alone spans a number of core Marvel titles and has been building for months.

To me his skills are in interesting delivery, pacing and characterisation. Without this his work seems a little flat and uninspired.

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I caught a couple of preview pages of this book awhile ago. What guaranteed me buying the first issue was the Tony Harris art. I’ve been sold on his work since Starman in fact.

The first issue kicks along nicely. Setting the background, the players and the origin using a number of flashbacks. In this case its about Mitchell Hundred. Ex superhero and incumbent Mayor of New York City. We see how he comes by his powers and his reason for becoming mayor (its a doozy).

Its all handled well and doesn’t have that feeling of slackness that the usual first issues can have. Mainly due to all the exposition that needs to be sorted through. Brian Vaughan delivers.

As I said before. Tony Harris’s art is excellent. Its richly detailed. Even the action scenes. Harris has a terrific command of lines and layout. Added to this is some subtle colouring by Tom Feister. What more can I say.

Well what are you waiting for ? Get over to your local store and pick it up.

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Last week saw the finish of a couple of good series for me. Bone was one of them.

Bone came out with the great Indie rush. From memory this coincided with the end of the speculative comics boom. It was a huge contrast to the then market. Heavily animation based, black and white, funny animals with alot of humorous dialogue. To top it off it was independently published.

Jeff Smith’s strongest suit is funny dialogue and character interaction. The first third of Bone exemplifies this. Especially between Bone and the Rat Creatures.

After this Smith strikes out into drama along the typical fantasy storylines. Laying out a prophecy for the Bone brothers and a right of passage for Thorn (the farm girl that Bone falls for). Thorn turns out to be royalty in hiding. Her family are protaganists and antogonists in the war with the King of Locust.

Smith attempts to resolve things in non typical ways but seems to come off too pat and neat. Especially after pacing his story well. It certainly isn’t due to being afraid of killing characters. The final issue leaves alot to finish up and has to do it quickly.

All up I’d say Bone is true to its animation roots and all ages format. I think I need to reread the entire run to get a better feeling for the series. I’ve got the complete single volume printing on order which will probably be a better format to enjoy it.

The two mini series that Smith did Rose and Stupid Stupid Rat Tales, are exceptionally good. Less scope means Smith can focus on smaller dramas and character interaction.

Most definitely two thumbs up. Bound editions and such are available at Boneville.

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The final issue. It sports another terrific cover by Ashley Brian Wood. Pity the barcode is so distracting.

As its the final issue. Ellis pits the entire Global Frequency team against a city destroying threat. We get to see the extent of the resources that Miranda Zero can field. Along the way we see some familiar faces from previous issues.

The core of this series is about how communications technology can enable a disparate group of people to coordinate and achieve goals. Kind of like the Warren Ellis Forum mixed with the Thunderbirds.

Warren Ellis is perceived by many as a pessimist. However titles like Global Frequency, Orbiter and Ministry of Space are such optimistic works this label has to be wrong.

Gene Ha delivers some amazing art. Its consistent quality throughout and he shows an amazing eye for detail. Ellis really cuts loose with the types of visuals so Ha gets to really stretch. Sometimes the panels seem a little squeezed given the amount of story and detail is there.

I can’t recommend this series enough. A trade must be in the wings. As such I’ll be handing this one out for Christmas.

As a side note for those that don’t know. Global Frequency has been picked up by Mark Burnett Productions. This production house produces the American version of Survivor and the Apprentice. They are attempting to branch out and I can’t imagine a better concept for an ongoing series. Its been jigged a bit to have a more stable cast.

Heres hoping it can go the distance in TV land.

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