What I’ve Been Reading – September 1st 2010

I’ve forced myself out of my self-imposed comics bubble and started to regularly read novels again. It’s not clear why I ever stopped, possibly an illusion — a very retarded one — that I lack time to read a few pages a day.

I (re)started with a classic, J. D. Salinger’s THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. It’s a beautifully-written gem of a book, narrated in first-person by the protagonist Holden Caulfield, a whiny depression-prone teenager who finds himself in an existential limbo. During his narration, he uses a lot of the same words and expressions constantly, establishing a speech pattern that, throughout the book, goes from funny to disturbing. Adding excellent humorous touches to the narrative, Salinger portrays Caulfield’s many mood swings with brilliance and truly immerses the reader into the mind of the protagonist — and Caulfield, regardless of whether he’s likeable or a cunt, is nevertheless always fascinating.

I moved on to Charlie Huston’s THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH. I’ve never liked Huston’s work in comics, which is overly reliant on captions and grittiness, but as a novelist his talent is very much on display; the dialogue is fantastic, and Huston intelligently tailored his style around that; lines of dialogue are never followed up with “said Bob” or “Bob said”. Instead, the speaker is identified as the last person Huston mentioned. So Huston will describe a character doing something, and then a line of dialogue will appear, and once you’ve gotten used to this style, you’ll know that character is the one who spoke. After he’s identified the speaker, Huston rarely interrupts the flow of dialogue to give us more details because he knows that’s unnecessary. Therefore, this book always feels dynamic and really, really funny. It’s not as funny as Warren Ellis’ CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, but it’s more realistic and slightly less tongue-in-cheek, with a few dramatic moments that ring true (such as Web’s monologue about a traumatic event in his life, which he describes in a disturbingly disjointed manner). THE MYSTIC ARTS is also full of exceptional characters, my favorite easily being Po Sin.

Sadly, the book isn’t as consistent as CROOKED LITTLE VEIN and sags on the third act, concentrating on a silly subplot involving almonds that feels like it belongs to another, worse novel. Huston tries to make the shift sound natural by having almonds show up on the first and second acts, but they never do that in a way that justifies them being the center of the story’s finale. If Huston had concentrated on a subplot that was more fitting with the central theme — crime scene cleaning — it could have been far more interesting. But it’s important to note the novel never stops being a fun read, it just suffers a quality drop.

Then I got to a book that was very recommended by a lot of people, Cherie Priest’s BONESHAKER. Which is strange, because it’s mediocre. Surprisingly so. It opens with a prologue that gives away far too much of the backstory. When chapter one starts, we’re already familiar with the setting, and it would work better if the setting was gradually conveyed by the story, because it would also allow more time for character development; Priest seems far too eager to get to the action and, when she does, I knew very little (and cared very little) about the two protagonists: Briar and her son Zeke.

This impression only gets worse. Briar remains fairly dull, a watered-down version of the James-Cameronesque tough woman, and Zeke is absolutely unbearable. His immaturity and stupidity were probably meant to be endearing, but fail catastrophically. The supporting characters, on the other hand, are more interesting; them and the dialogue are the only aspects that keep BONESHAKER readable.

Priest’s greatest weakness is her style; she has the habit of spoon-feeding everything to the reader. It’s not enough to describe the actions of her characters, she insists on explaining why they’re acting this or that way even when it’s obvious (which is quite often). Unlike Charlie Huston, Priest frames her dialogue with completely unnecessary details — which often leads to ridiculous moments, such as a character giving a status report during a dangerous situation, and his line being followed with “Parks advised”. Yes, I know he advised, I’ve just read the line. If you’re going to interrupt the flow of dialogue, do it for a reason, such as letting us know how it was said. Another example of Priest’s clunkiness is preceding a line of dialogue with “She cut him off before he could say any more”. As opposed to cutting him off after he was done speaking, I guess. And there’s more. “‘Jesus’, Captain Brink blasphemed”. “‘Smooth‘, the captain accused.”

And then there’s moments Priest seems to stop paying attention, such as when she narrates, “It was the permanent dusk imposed by the height of the wall, its shadow blocking out even the weak, drizzling sunlight that came for a few hours each day during the winter.” So the shadow of the wall is blocking out the sun, instead of the wall blocking the sun and casting the shadow. And what is the word “even” doing there? “Blocking out even the weak, drizzling sunlight” — you’d think it would be easier to block out weak, drizzling sunlight than strong, blinding sunlight.

That, coupled with overdone descriptions of emotion (“the throbbing horror of her heart”), poor descriptions of surroundings (which makes an action scene inside an airship quite confusing) and lazy plot devices (a convenient earthquake destroying one of the ways into the city — it apparently had no trouble withstanding a decade of earthquakes before the protagonist came along) makes BONESHAKER a book that, for all its good ideas and interesting characters, constantly made me roll my eyes. And while the third act introduces us to the novel’s most interesting character, Dr. Minnericht, it resolves this subplot in a cliched manner.

I think Priest has potential, but in BONESHAKER, lacks the style and subtlety to make the most of it.

I’m now going to finish reading Roger Ebert’s YOUR MOVIE SUCKS (Ebert’s wit is always a pleasure to read), then move on to China Miéville’s THE CITY AND THE CITY.

As for comics, UNKNOWN SOLDIER continues to be a beautifully written and brilliantly lettered story which has seen enormous improvement in its weakest aspect: the visuals. For the arc DRY SEASON, Alberto Ponticelli adopted a heavily pencilled, tonal style that did indeed give the visuals a dry, arid feel and — here’s the surprising part – looked good. Ponticelli has always been talented with visual narrative, but his lines had an ugly, unpleasant look to them. With this new style, however, he delivered very competent and good-looking work in this arc, coupled with excellent color art by the very same Oscar Celestini who’d been previously adopting a simplistic and dull palette. After DRY SEASON, both artists went back to their previous styles, but they both continue to show improvement even then. Ponticelli, in particular, is starting to draw faces more carefully, and his splash pages are quite intense.

It’s wonderful to see one of the bravest and most intelligent books of late, a comic with teeth, becoming homogeneously excellent. So of course, it has been canceled and will end soon, for there is no justice in the world. Regardless, it’s one hell of a comic and I’ll stay tuned to the careers of all involved (the one member of the team I knew before reading this comic was letterer Clem Robins, whose work I’ve been a fan of since PREACHER).

I’m also reading Jason Aaron’s PUNISHER MAX, which accomplishes the same thing many other Punisher comics have: proving that only Garth Ennis knows how to write the Punisher. Aaron continues to resort to characters from the regular Marvel universe, giving them the MAX treatment. First, it was Kingpin, and it wasn’t too bad an arc. Now it’s Bullseye, and it’s been fairly ridiculous, although still entertaining. Aaron’s dialogue is fun, and his portrayal of Bullseye is wonderfully over-the-top, but the point remains: this is a shadow of the Punisher that Garth Ennis spent years and years sculpting into a fascinating character. It doesn’t even work as the simpler Marvel Knights Punisher Ennis used to write — Aaron’s Frank Castle is just your regular gritty vigilante. The writer tries to pull off the Punisher-as-a-force-of-nature feel, but he fails. Even poor Steve Dillon is on automatic pilot. His art is always a pleasure to admire, but here it feels less careful, not as subtle as usual, although colorist Matt Hollingsworth and letterer Cory Petit, unsurprisingly, deliver their typically very competent work.

To be fair, after Ennis’ magnificent run on the character, any writer will find himself in a nightmare trying to keep up the standard. I don’t think there’ll ever be a better pissed-off Punisher than in Ennis’ UP IS DOWN AND BLACK IS WHITE arc (Punisher #19-#24).

And in the regular Marvel universe, Frank Castle has apparently been turned into this:

So I give up on the regular Marvel universe.

As for the rest: Ennis’ THE BOYS continues to be exceptional (Russ Braun’s participation, I must say, is actually being superior to the series’ regular artist Darick Robertson), THE WALKING DEAD has seen a sudden improvement (it had been somewhat repetitive of late, but Kirkman kicked things up several notches on the latest issues), Mark Waid’s IRREDEEMABLE is gripping and inventive although a bit too talky at times (I don’t mind dialogue, of course, but I do mind extensive monologues uttered by characters while they’re fighting each other), Morrison’s BATMAN continues to be pathetic (the time-traveling plot and what Morrison’s done to the Joker are absolutely painful to watch, although I’ll admit the writer does manage to make the time-traveling plot interesting at times), Warren Ellis’ SUPERGOD is being, by far, the best in his recent superhero trilogy (comprised of the irregular BLACK SUMMER and the weak NO HERO), David Lapham’s CROSSED: FAMILY VALUES is laughably mediocre (the writing’s clunky, lacks any subtlety and the art fluctuates wildly in quality) and Alan Moore’s NEONOMICON is very, very promising.

And finally, since we’re talking about Alan Moore: I’ve finally read FROM HELL. Which is absolutely magnificent. It makes the movie seem even worse by comparison, and it was already a piece of shit. The comic’s thematic complexity is simply stunning, and the tenth chapter is phenomenal. Eddie Campbell’s art, though, is most of the time weak, and the lettering is often dreadful, but the man does pull off some good panels, particularly on the tenth chapter.

Sorry about the length of this post. Last time I gave a broad update on what I’ve been reading was eight months ago. I’ll try not to take that long again.

Clem Robins’ THE ART OF FIGURE DRAWING

(link to Amazon page)

In my attempts to improve my drawing skills, I’ve purchased a number of books on how to do so. Books being sold on news stands, because I didn’t know any better back then. In reading all of those books, I felt like there were several steps missing. It was like the authors believed that all you needed to teach an aspiring draughtsman was how to draw a pile of geometric figures, which were then magically turned into a human being. But how exactly is that human being the author drew so well-shaded? Why is the line thinner on one side and thicker on the other? How does the hair look so shiny while retaining the appearance of hair? How did he convince me that the figure’s forearm looks shorter than usual because it’s pointing in my direction? In fact, how do you draw a limb that is in a difficult angle?

Clem Robins’ THE ART OF FIGURE DRAWING, a book devoted to teaching how to portray the nude human figure, covers these questions brilliantly, thanks to Robins being both a gifted draughtsman and able writer who is capable of describing something as visual as drawing in a manner that is mostly (but, understandably, not always) clear. It’s filled with several beautiful drawings made with a variety of tools, and Robins doesn’t miss a single step on how he achieved these portraits, detailing the process concisely.

There is personality to his writing; reading the book is not only educational but also fun. Robins has a subtle sense of humor and a clear opinion on things, and neither ever feel out of place, always organically built into whatever subject he’s discussing. He starts by explaining lines, and right off the bat I saw I was doing a lot wrong in this regard (not just in comparison to Robins’ personal style — my lines downright sucked and need a lot of work). He proceeds to explain every element of figure drawing (in fact the name of the first part of the book is “The Elements Of Figure Drawing”) in detail. He’s not always successful in being clear, although he mostly is. His explanations regarding shading and some kinds of lines require reading the same paragraph twice or more due to the many jargons, although that could easily be blamed on my problematic attention span.

What can’t be blamed on that is the book’s design, which despite being overall beautiful, has ups and downs. Sometimes, a careful explanation of a certain aspect of drawing is interrupted mid-sentence by two entire pages of visual examples and written descriptions, only to resume in the next page what was being said two pages ago. This happens to a smaller degree throughout the book, as nearly every page has two kinds of text: the core text of the book, and the text written next to the visual examples, which is connected to the main text’s overall subject but concentrates heavily on the visual example itself. When the main text of the book is interrupted, requiring you to flip to the next page, you still have the visual example text to read on the page you’re on. After you do so and flip to the next page, you’re back to reading the main text — except it’s not a new paragraph, the page starts mid-sentence, and you have to go back to the previous page to make sense of what you’re reading. This isn’t the case always, as several pages end with full stops, with the next one starting on a new paragraph, but the mid-sentence problem still happens fairly often. In summary, it is far more comfortable when there is a paragraph break between pages instead of a line break, which just interrupts the thought being developed. Formatting the main text with this in mind would have ensured a better reading experience, although it is by no means a serious flaw, let alone a dealbreaker. Just a minor nuisance that could have been avoided.

It is still visually beautiful design, though. Robins’ drawings are placed on every page with care and are always amazing to look at and especially good at exemplifying whatever subject he’s talking about. The text attached to the visual examples always points out the areas of the drawing we should pay attention to, and often offer invaluable hints, such as using negative spaces to help you verify the accuracy of the portrait. When Robins refers to a visual example in the main text, a small arrow next to his words promptly points to the example he’s referring to, which is far less intrusive and much more efficient than numbering the examples, like “look at figure 2B”.

On the second part of the book, Robins explains his technique step by step and showing the same drawings at several stages. On the third and final part, he focuses on problem-solving, showing us the trickiest parts of human anatomy (such as the nightmare known as a foot) and simplifying them to make them seem less scary and help us see an overall mass rather than an incomprehensible pile of bones.

It’s a book about the nude, but the techniques it teaches are useful for much, much more. It’s a beautiful-looking, well-written and fun guide that helped me understand my own shortcomings as an artist and how to improve.

What I’ve Been Reading – December 27th 2009

The brilliant Clem Robins, whose comic book lettering I constantly and deservingly praise, has published what might be the most important editorial ever written. You will find yourself laughing, but do not be fooled: you will be crying inside for not having thought of this before. And because one day, you will inevitably join the greatest of all evils. Look. LOOK. We must act NOW.

Noah Gordon’s “The Physician” continues on the same pace, with the same dull style but a very interesting story. The characters aren’t as bright in this part of the book as they were in its beginning, but at this point the protagonist is developed enough to carry the novel on his back. The only serious problems — aside from the dull style of Gordon’s prose — being a few dodgy descriptions and a hilariously badly-written sex scene (way too explicit to be written in such a formal manner).

I was absolutely blown away by “The Boys #36″. It’s a memorable issue and the most touching in the series, since it deals not only with the drama of its characters, but also with a real-life tragedy — the nine-eleven attacks. In the universe of “The Boys”, the attacks didn’t destroy the WTC, instead collapsing the Brooklyn Bridge. The character Mother’s Milk was there during it, and the flashback sequence is a fantastic moment — starting with a page that has a single, small panel (which is incredibly impactful for this precise reason) and continuing brutally, it’s also a beautifully-drawn sequence, with colorist Tony Avina increasing the exposure of his palette — which portrays the shock of what just happened and the dizziness of the aftermath brilliantly. But the key moment of this issue is when Mother’s Milk tells Hughie the story of the bridge, and the last page, which ends the book perfectly. Simon Bowland’s lettering also deserves praise for adapting itself well to the context of the scenes (and to the state of whoever’s speaking) and for being very well placed in the panels.

“The Boys #37″ was just plain fucking funny, with special mention to the use a character finds for a croissant.

“Punisher Max #02″ benefits from a rich story structure, which shows Fisk’s efforts to create his Kingpin, the Punisher being lured into believing his existence, and Fisk’s story, all in a flowing, neat manner — even though the story itself has nothing original, but is well-executed. The art by Steve Dillon is clean and beautiful as always, with flawless narrative and good facial expressions. The coloring by Matt Hollingsworth is equally competent, especially in the sequence we see Fisk as a child, with red tones. Cory Petit’s lettering is nice and efficient.

“The Walking Dead #68″ — Kirkman still overusing splash pages, with zombies showing up in a very convenient manner (when the plot needs them, to make a point). The series largely feels like it’s in an interlude since issue #50, save some inspired moments. Let’s see where it goes from here. Artwork is still excellent, but I’m not a fan of how the letterer, Rus Wooton, alters the shape of the balloons to depict different forms of speech — especially the jagged ones for shouting. It can be done with more subtlety, but otherwise it’s decent lettering.

“Astonishing X-Men #33″ — good art, but writer Warren Ellis is on automatic pilot here.

As for “Unknown Soldier #15″…

…?

???

What the hell? Alberto Ponticelli’s adopted a new, shaded style that is… actually quite nice and Oscar Celestini can color… very well all of a sudden? The panel where we see the Soldier for the first time in the issue shows excellent work from them both. And while Ponticelli still has some problems — like faces drawn badly from an angle — Celestini’s coloring is… well, exceptional. Especially in the scene between the Soldier and Jack Lee Howl.

… if I was more paranoid and arrogant I’d think they’re just fucking with me.

But actually, it makes me VERY happy to see Ponticelli living up to his potential and Celestini completely surprising me. Good art and good coloring are the things this book badly needed, for it already has great writing by Joshua Dysart and inspired lettering by Clem Robins. The former offers his typically excellent characterization and dialogue, the latter impresses with the intelligent use of different fonts to depict dialects, and the usual subtlety of his work.

“Crossed #8″ already opens with a line of dialogue that sums up the point of this issue with perfection: “At least we don’t have to watch our language anymore”. Something that, in context, is a terrible thing to say — but the reaction it gets — or lack of — just goes to show how little these things matter to the protagonists after they’ve spent so long suffering. Like a character states, they’re becoming inhuman themselves. The death of a certain character in a surprisingly gratuitous manner is a good touch from Garth Ennis, who also finds time to add a touching last note from a dead soldier, blending it well with the ongoing story. Jacen Burrows’ art is superb, with impressive facial expressions and his narrative that rivals Steve Dillon’s. Juanmar’s coloring is technically unimpressive, but the brown palette that dominates this issue is a perfect choice. Unsurprisingly — since we’re talking about an Ennis/Burrows comic — another great issue.

What I’ve Been Reading – December 8th 2009

As I try to finish the second draft of my novel “Ares” while consistently keeping up with the astronomical (hahaha, clever adjective for a sci-fi novel, eh? EH?) amount of research AND creating promo material AND thinking of ways to distribute it AND writing the usual amount of flash fiction and short stories AND doing the usual amount of illustrations AND not killing myself…

… this is my half-assed attempt at reviewing comics and other things I’ve been reading. This will be written in no particular order, no particular structure and perhaps no particular coherence either, but that’s the best I can currently manage. If you’re interested in a specific comic review but can’t tell whether or not it’s included in some obscure paragraph of this text, CTRL+F is your friend.

Right. Since this is a fairly loose format, might as well start with a novel. I’ve been reading Noah Gordon’s “The Physician”, borrowed from my father, who doesn’t share my prudent habit of reading English-written books in English because he doesn’t speak the language fluently and because he clearly isn’t capable of getting his head around the utter incompetence of Brazilian translators. I am capable of this because of years reading American and English comics translated to Portuguese, and the things translators do to the complex, curse-heavy dialogue by writers like Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis is nothing short of magnificent in its stupidity. I have to admit there is some entertainment value to be had, watching translators struggle to try and get the dialogue right in a completely different language, and still fail horribly.

“The Physician”, however, has set a new low, since the title of the book in Brazil is “O Físico”. This means “The Physicist”.

The first gross mistranslation is in the TITLE of the book.

Which, of course, makes it hard for me to talk about Noah Gordon’s narrative — I am sure many subtleties were lost in translation, but I did find his prose very basic in its use of similes and descriptions. His style is fairly bureaucratic (and again, this might be the translation’s problem, mostly), and he has the annoying tendency of using exclamation marks in the narration every now and then. But the story itself is very interesting, about a young and gifted barber surgeon in the Middle Ages who wants to travel to Persia to learn everything he can about medicine. There’s many interesting characters, and Gordon is particularly competent in his portrayal of the flawed protagonist as he grows up and learns — the narrative starts with him as a child and proceeds from there, so far, with no leaps in chronology.

And as far as I can tell, with my vague knowledge of the Middle Ages, it’s an incredibly well-researched novel, incredibly detailed — I particularly liked the way Gordon describes recipes (one character is a skilled cook) and the protagonist’s learning experience with several skills.

It’s an interesting and enjoyable book, so far.

As for comics, the last two issues of “Unknown Soldier” (13 and 14) were a disappointment, because of their choice of artist that made me miss Alberto Ponticelli. Pat Masioni seems to have been picked for this book solely for being from the Congo. I hear he has a respectable curriculum as an artist, but none of this changes my opinion that, regardless of whether he’s from the Congo or from Mars, his art is absolutely atrocious, failing to achieve even basic storytelling and severely hurting Joshua Dysart’s writing, which didn’t feel nearly as inspired as usual, either. Masioni always draws the Unknown Soldier with the same slightly stunned facial expression that has nothing to do with the character, and the man has no subtlety at all. Strangely, they got the competent Jose Villarrubia (from Desolation Jones) to color it, but there’s not much he can do with art this ridiculously weak. Only Clem Robins continues to impress with his typically excellent and intense lettering, which, in this arc, has seen many uses of the competent type he created to portray the Ugandan language. However, a very forgettable arc, for the first time in the series — but a book this consistent is unlikely not to get back on its feet almost instantaneously,

“Punisher Noir 03″ is a bad joke and I lost my patience with it. Painfully bad writing wasting a potentially good idea and decent artists. But “Punisher Max 01″ turned out to be enjoyable, if derivative. There’s the typical “bad guys meeting to plan protagonist’s demise” scene, the equally typical “loud-mouthed idiot who gets sodomized by the newly-introduced villain”, the even more typical torture scene — and the use of a MAX version of the Kingpin because, apparently, creating new and original characters is hard work. Which seems to be Frank Tieri’s mantra on “Punisher Noir”, by the way. Jason Aaron’s dialogue is entertaining enough, though, I like the scene with the eyes and there’s Steve Dillon’s wonderful art to save the day (Kingpin’s expression on the last page was a bit overdone, though), colored unsurprisingly well by the great Matt Hollingsworth and with the familiar and efficient lettering by Cory Petit. This could turn into a good series.

“Supergod” is off to a much better start than “No Hero”, and just about as promising as “Black Summer” was. They’re all part of the same unnofficial superhero trilogy. “Black Summer” ended poorly — good series, mind you, but uninspired conclusion. “No Hero” started okay, sagged here and there, seemed to be going somewhere great and gave in to a ridiculously over-the-top ending and a plot that requires several characters being idiots for it to make sense. And since one of these characters is meant to be a genius, this caused coherency problems that, along with a lack of character voice in the dialogue (one of Ellis’ recurring problems as a writer, in my opinion) and the aforementioned over-the-top ending (involving a spine), resulted in a series I do not hesitate to call weak. But “Supergod” seems to be more comedy-oriented, in a dark way, and told in a monologue with flashbacks (which suits Ellis’ dialogue style perfectly). Issues 1 and 2 are fun, inventive and enjoyable, with competent artwork by Garrie Gastonny, a welcome replacement for the talented but flawed Juan Jose Ryp (who did the artwork for “No Hero” and “Black Summer”).

I take my hat off to Christos Gage’s and Roberto Viacava’s “Absolution”. I didn’t expect this mini to be this interesting and this good. Gage explores the depths of morality with intelligence and sensitivity and Viacava’s artwork is astonishingly competent (I especially like how he heavily tilts a splash page’s angle for dramatic effect, in a great portrayal of the protagonist’s psyche). So far as the latest issue, 4, a very good and very pretty piece of work.

And I’m running out of time and finger-energy, so let me conclude quickly (hey, loose form, remember?): “Ignition City #5″ was a lame conclusion to an initially promising book, “Astonishing X-Men 032″ is fun but that’s about it and “The Walking Dead 067″ has an interesting plot twist and some good moments, being overall a competent issue.