Batman and Robin #9 the annocommentations
February 27th, 2010
Here and in the comments, we got the shit ain’t no-one else got. Read on!
Tuesday is reviewsday: Batrob #3 the annocommentations
September 1st, 2009
Yet more bloody thoughts about Batman and Robin #2
July 9th, 2009
Batman & Robin #2 would appear to be the book where the uncommitted became converts, or at least became considerably more interested. People have made the usual gestures towards Quitely’s wonderful art, and highlighted the elegant conceptual economy evident in Morrison’s character work and its meta-textual dimensions. And here we get to the first object of this droplet of criticism - a slice of meta-commentary of surprising value, in that it makes a strong case for shedding our fears and anxieties about this ersatz Batman. By framing Dick’s tenure as a performance, Morrison shows us how both the characters and we, the audience, can engage with the new status quo without feeling that anyone’s toes are being trod on. The real beauty of this idea is that it brings with it the flexibility and permissiveness of adaptation and interpretation (key elements of any performance), and consequently lends the book a lightness and unboundedness (made much of by Amy in his review) that is all too rare in A-list superhero books. Put simply: a lot more can happen because this Batman isn’t Batman. Implicit to this way of approaching the comic is the understanding that theatrical performances are there, largely, to be enjoyed. Morrison is tacitly telling us to allow ourselves to sit back and have fun, to take pleasure in the unfolding of the role, to view it for what it is: entertainment.
Batman and Robin #1: Never rains in Gotham
June 9th, 2009
The leading, upper-outer edge of the page’s porous membrane extends outwards into the reader’s domestic reality-space, super-imposed on an imaginary plane nearly a foot distant from the paper-thin physical boundary, roughly on a level with the occipital lobe, back there at the back of the brain. Looking forwards, the page’s fluctuating inner boundary is theoretically infinite, a vanishing point occurring wherever the texture gradient of the eye-line happens to converge in that now-frozen, now-fluid moment, caught there in the net of the panel borders.
Bat/Rob #1 - the highwire
June 7th, 2009
You could listen to the similarly titled Motley Crüe song to accompany this post, but I’d advise against it. Bit rusty, hold on:
It’s all been done before, of course.
Always and forever: A quick, gushing rant over an ASS. And there’s nothing wrong with that
September 26th, 2008
SUPERMAN SAYS “NO!” TO DRUGS
It was 2005 when I decided to paint my walls ASS pink and give up dope.
I was a smug bastard about it too.
I think the catalyst for it had something to do with a very nasty bout of cannabis fuelled morbid self-analysis, which saw me pacing my then matchbox of a bedroom, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, for at least half an hour, in an attempt to disperse the soul-shredding anxiety and paranoia, through, if anyone should have really been spying on me via evil satellite link, embarrassing levels of exercise. Thankfully the munchies eventually kicked in, the clouds lifted and I decided enough was enough. It would be the last time I raided the fridge for Ryvita and sweetcorn relish (anything tastes good when your in the throws of, as my Mum’s friend put it, ‘the delicious eating’) at four in the morning, and it would be the last time I performed like a crazy monkey-man for the entertainment of the evil bastard demons plaguing my befuddled noggin.
After that everything shifted.
