Greetings Mr Graham. You were due to be interviewed by The Beast Must Die, but sadly he is too busy travelling the globe as an international podcasting megastar with his good friend/mortal enemy Gary Lactus. Therefore you will instead be strapped into the Quizzlertron, and be interviewed by Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735. Expect no fleshy soft peddling and ego-stroking – Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 is hard-hitting interviewer. Expect Frost/Nixon style hardball, human! Be warned –any deviation from the truth will result in severe electric shocks to the balls, nipples and brain. You have been warned fleshy one. Now on with interview good times, yes sir!

Section 1: Secret Origin

1) First question, simple. Or is it hard? YOU DECIDE FLESHY ONE. Why comics?

BG – It was a decision that I made before I remember making it. My mom says that when I was Seven I announced that I was going to do comics for a living. Past that incredibly well thought out life choice comics has been amazingly rewarding, there’s so much that can be done when you consider what’s possible in mixing words and images and how much of it is still so untapped. My big fear is not doing nearly as much as could be done with it. I feel like I’m on a comic book continent and I’ve just explored the coast but behind me is miles and miles of untapped mysteries. Tell me Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735, have you ever really loved a woman? You’ve got to know her deep inside hear her every thought see every dream and give her wings if she wants to fly…

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SILENCE! #12

April 25th, 2012

UP FROM THE DEEP, THIRTY STORIES HIGH, BREATHING FIRE, HIS HEAD IN THE SKY…

SILENCE!

IT’S SILENCE!!

and SILOOOOOOOOOOOOOKI….

In this 12th anxiety inducing episode of the World’s* Favourite* Podcast* Gary Lactus continues to sit at the table (verily) and The Beast is saddened by the imminent Geoff Johns revamp of his life. There will be blood…

After Lactus reveals his theme for America’s Got Powers, a strongly ethical SILENCE! news follows, before the pugnacious pairsome get all frisky with the latest comics fillies. Under the merciless eye of scrutiny this week…Peter Bagge’s Reset, Matt Kindt’s 3 Story, Garth Ennis’ Shadow (he knows, by the way), the truly exceptional Prophet (with added Dalrymple), King City, and Wonder Woman. But! Then! Gary Lactus reveals that he is the bravest man(god) on earth as he tackles EVERY SINGLE AVX and BATMAN: OWLS crossover issue released last week. And he plans to continue with this foolhardy plan until his eyeballs pop like cherry tomatoes on a griddle… what a guy! There follows a bit of discussion of Wolverine and the X-Men, and crossovers in general, and Lactus rounds things off with a mention of Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse’s Resident Alien.

That is not all, tough you lucky little piglets! The tenacious twofers then spend way too long discussing what kind of music superheroes listen to, before they head off into the sunset like Clint Eastwood and that orangutan in that film about Clint Eastwood and the Orangutan (and wasn’t it weird in that movie the way that when Clint hooked up with a lady, and then they’d go home and bump uglies and then there’d be a fucking orangutan in the mix…how fucking gross would that be having a post coital glow interrupted by a six foot ape wearing denim?????)

So dig yourself in, and await the heavy shelling that is….SILENCE!

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Click below for SILENCE! gallery please!

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Criminal: Sinners #1
Icon
(Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips)

Well, I didn’t think it’d be the case, but I’m glad Incognito is over. Something about that series didn’t quite click for me. Don’t get me wrong, Brube and Philips always produce quality work, but Incognito just felt a little…uninspired. It didn’t say anything about supervillians and heroes that the infinitely more sophisticated Sleeper did (God, that was such a good comic).

So seeing Criminal back in it’s place was a winner for this Beast. Criminal feels like it’s the comic Brubaker really wants to write, and there ain’t nothing like an A-grade writer bringing his A-game to the table to put a smile on the face of a discerning comics fan (that’s me by the way, you peasants). This issue takes up with tracy Lawless from the second arc. Still plugging away as a heavy hitter for sebastian Hyde, but he seems to have developed more of a conscience about what he’s doing. Add to the mix a hardnut CIA operative on the trail of Tracy (who’s a deserter), and some upstart vigilantes with an as-yet unspecified agenda, and you’ve gotthe usual ingredients for another hardboiled twisty tale. Part of the pleasure of Criminal is the way that Brubaker plays with absolutley familiar plots and characters, but invests them with the right amount of pep and originality to keep the comic ticking over. Whilst Sin City is a bezerko quasi-parody of noir tropes and themes, Criminal is content to carve out a more convincing, believable style. It’s still a world of permanent night, sleazy neon bars and dangerously horny brunettes (yes Ed, we know you have a type…), but we the reader can relate to Tracy, or Leo in a way we could never hope to with a gonzo caricature like Marv.

Sean Phillips does such sterling, exemplary work that you can take him for granted. But here’s the fact: he’s one of the very best artists workimg in comics and Criminal would be a tenth of the comic it is without his input. He and Brubaker have a powerful creative synergy that many comics would benefit from.

Add the fact that you’ve got a nice interview with Darwin Cooke about his Stark adaptation, an essay on a lesser known Peckinpah movie, and no ads, and there’s really no reason for you not o be buying Criminal. And if you’re buying Captain America and not buying Criminal – naughty!

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Strange Tales #2
Marvel
(various)

Hot damn, it seems like every week is ‘indy creators take on established corporate property’ week don’t it? Let’s see what they’ve come up with…

Well, mostly lighthearted pastiches of Marvel characters! I’ll be danged! I’m a big fan of projects like these, but there’s always something a little…bollockless about them. I mean don’t get me wrong, seeing Tony Millionaire take on Iron Man in his usual drunken style is something I want to see (is it me or is that a perfect fit – big ol’ drunk creator writes big ol’ drunk superhero?) And the talent show on display in this issue and the last is pretty impressive – ‘Red Meat’s’ Max Cannon take on the Fantastic Four is something I genuinely didn’t think I’d see come to pass. But nontheless there’s always something a bit cutesy and tame aout this stuff. Bizarro Comics suffered from a similar slight lack of imagination.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m definitely just grousing here. I’d rather read a comic like Strange Tales than 90% of Marvel or DC’s current output, but I’d really like to see some creator’s go apeshit with their strip, rather than the nudge-nudge wink-wink stuff on display here. The recent Fin Fang Four stuff by Roger Langridge as waaay cuter than most of the stuff in Strange Tales. More often than not you’re left with a watered down version of both the character and the creator, which is a shame. That said I loved Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg’s Brother Voodoo strip, with it’s obvious nod to the duo’s own Afrodisiac character.

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Astro City Special: Astra #1 (of 2)
Wildstorm
(Kurt Busiek & Brent Anderson)

Well thank Galactus the Dark Age is over. I dunno…I really dug the first mini in the most recent Astro City epic (in particular it’s evocation of the streetwise, edgy 70’s strain of Marvel superheroes), but boy did it fucking drag towards the end. For every great idea, like the Apollo 11, there was reams of tedious plot about Charles and Royal’s mission to uncover their parent’s killer. I think the truth is that Astro City functions better with the stand alone stories. Kurt Busiek can often pull tremendously affecting meditations on superheroes out of the bag, but just isn’t served that well by long running story arcs.

Which is why it was nice to pick up the recent special focussing on Astra, youngest daughter in the Furst family (AC’s loose Fantastic Four analogues). Busiek neatly positions her as a kind of Paris/Lindsay Lohan figure, only with super powers and a deeply cosmic social life. It’s a cute idea, played out nicely. It’s exactly the kind of thing this comic does so well. By playing around in a universe of his own creation, one that nonetheless seems ever-so familiar, Busiek can do things he simply can’t in either of the Big Two’s continuity constipated clog holes. At it’s best Astro City reminds you why you fell in love with superheroes and their colourful complicated shared universes. Brent Anderson’s comfortably timeless artwork is a constant throughout evoking Neal Adams or Gene Colan to great effect. His art’s been a bit wibbly of late, but he’s an intrinsic part of Astro City’s appeal – you can’t imagine the comic without it. Even Alex Ross’s overused, bland style seems re-invigorated with his AC covers. Good stuff all round.

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King City #2
Image
(Brandon Graham)

2nd issue of Image’s lovely repackaging of Brandon Graham’s idiosyncratic and fresh King City. I love the expanded format – it gives Graham’s loose fluid artwork room to breathe and really emphasises his use of negative space and weird perspective. Truth be told not a great deal happens (part of the hindrance of chopping up Manga-style formats) but it’s all so charming and different that it’s hard to care. Much like Bryan Lee O’Malley or Taiyo Matsumoto Graham mashes together East and West in a gloriously uninhibited way, and the results are a blast. I could do with slightly less of the hipster angst – too bloody reminiscent of Brian Wood and Jim Mahfood – and more of the Cat, but really, no complaints. Do yourself a favour and pick this up. Gorgeous covers too – I’d dearly love to see some full colour BG stuff.

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Batman & Robin #5
DC
(Donna Tartt & Ernest Borgnine)

Well I can’t really be fucked to talk too much about this. Not because I disliked it – quite the opposite, I’m enjoying the sordid trashy vibe that Morrison & Tan are bringing to the table, in particular the gleefully stupid new characters being introduced and dispatched with giddy abandon. No, I just simply don’t want to fill up any more blogspace with writing about it.

Starstruck #2
(Elaine Lee & MW Kaluta)

IDW’s sumtuous repackaging of this lost and loved sci-fi epic from the 80’s continues at it’s glacial pace – I didn’t bloody realise it was bi-monthly! Difficult to gage the story at this stage. Lee employs all sorts of narrative tricks and quirks to keep things oblique, much like Robert Altman did with film in the 70’s. Characters talk over each other and interrupt each other mid-way through sentences, not to mention talking about vast, complex socio-political alien situations. The scope for the series is certainly ambitious, and the attempt to create a convincingly futuristic world is admirable.

The real draw, obviously, is Kaluta’s beautiful, beautiful artwork. It really is fantastic – delicate, complex linework and a truly marvelous sense of design. The recolouring is sensitive and luxurious and the whole package reeks of quality. Plenty of backmatter as well, not to mention brand new Kaluta artwork in the shape of the curious ‘Galactic Girl Guides’ strip. Starstruck is well worth sampling if you’re after something different