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The Spirit Archives, Vol. 26 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Darren

It’s strange reading The Spirit Archives, Vol. 26. Not just because it’s a collection of absolutely everything (from stories to pin-ups to posters to sketches) rather than a set of comic strips. Also because of the scope of this final hardcover collection in DC’s Spirit Archives programme. While, with the exception of the last volume, each book collected six months of the weekly strip, this final book collects pretty-much everything Will Eisner did with the character from the time that the weekly strip ended through to his death in 2005. I’m a bit surprised that there’s only one book of this material, although it does allow the reader to flick through the decades following the end of the strip as if examining a family photo albums – watching the subtle changes as time marches on.

Despite the fact that he was cancelled, The Spirit never seemed to quite go away. There was a lot of work featuring the character by other writers and artists, but most of that isn’t collected here. Instead, this admittedly disjointed collection reads best as a sort of a documentary charting the on-going relationship between Will Eisner and arguably his most popular creation.

Still making waves…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: art, Business and Economy, CONTRACT WITH GOD, Dolan, Ebony, Eisner, Ellen, Ellen Dolan, Harvey Comics, james bond, Kitchen Sink Press, Metro Areas, new york, New York City, New York City Metro, Octopus, Religion and Spirituality, Spirit, Spirits, superhero, United States, Will Eisner | 3 Comments »

12 Movie Moments of 2012: “You’d Love My Boyfriend, He’s a Total Chick Flick Nut” (ParaNorman)

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Darren

As well as counting down the top twelve films, I’m also going to count down my top twelve movie related “moments” of 2012. The term “moment” is elastic, so expect some crazy nonsense here. And, as usual, I accept that my taste is completely absurd, so I fully expect you to disagree. With that in mind, this is #7…

I’m normally hesitant to involve politics in this blog. It is, after all, a blog about popular culture. Indeed, I am the first to complain about obnoxious celebrities standing on their soapbox espousing their political beliefs. It’s not that I disagree with them, or that they aren’t entitled to their opinion, I’m just uncomfortable with the idea that being famous makes you an expert to speak on a particular cause or issue. Still, in the spirit of Christmas, allow me one small digression.

That said, I couldn’t help but smile at the climax to ParaNorman, a solidly entertaining family adventure that took its own message to heart. Embracing the idea that there’s nothing scary about something just because it’s different than you, it earned the wrath of the extreme right because it dared to suggest that one of its character might be in a loving and stable homosexual relationship. It’s great to see a family film actual acknowledge that sort of diversity, particularly in a way that doesn’t sensationalise the matter in hand. It’s a damn funny one-liner to boot, and the fact that it’s willing to call the audience on their assumptions is particularly endearing.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Anna Kendrick, art, avengers, Blu-ray Disc, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Courtney, Dark Knight Rises, Family film, film, joss whedon, Kodi Smit-McPhee, loki, Mitch, Moonrise Kingdom, Movie, nick fury, Norman, ParaNorman, Sam Fell, Tucker Albrizzi | Leave a comment »

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 24 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 24, 2012 by Darren

And so, the end is near. The Spirit Archives, Vol. 24 is a bumper-sized edition, collecting every Spirit weekly strip published in 1952, from January through to October. It’s nice of DC to put out a slightly larger collection to finish out the weekly strip, rather than breaking the final year of the comic into two smaller (possibly more profitable) volumes. This collection devotes its cover to The Outer Space Spirit, but that storyline only emerges towards the end of the book. Given how much attention Wally Wood and Jules Feiffer’s reinvention of the masked crimefighter has generated, it’s interesting that it’s actually a fairly small contribution in terms of page count. Still, reading those adventures now, it’s easy to see why the storyline has attracted such a strong following, even if you practically see the weekly strip dwindling as you approach the final pages.

And we’re flying to the moon and back…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: art, arts, dc comics, Eisner, Ellen, Fantagraphics Books, Jules Feiffer, Spirit, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, United States, Wally Wood, Washington D.C., Will Eisner, William Birch, world war ii | Leave a comment »

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 16 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Darren

We’re more than half-way through Will Eisner’s tenure on The Spirit, and I find myself struggling, just a bit, to come up with something novel to say about it. After all, I’ve gone on and on (and on and on) about how Eisner has handled the weekly strip for the bones of about 10,000 words at this point. As much as I like to examine each six-month period on its own terms and merits, there comes a point where I have to concede that this is just one giant project, and a lot of what I can say about it I have already said. Sure, there are some new themes and ideas, and Eisner always enjoys putting a new slant on old concepts, but I can’t help but feel that this extended bunch of reviews and retrospectives will wind up tripping over each other. (I say that as if they haven’t already.)

With that in mind, just because I might have a bit less to say about The Spirit Archives, Vol. 16 doesn’t mean that it isn’t a great collection of stories. We are, after all, in the middle of the most celebrated part of Eisner’s run. This collection is pretty consistently smart, funny and moving. Just because this reviewer is struggling not to cover old ground doesn’t mean that Eisner is any less of a master.

A web of deceit…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Amsterdam, art, business, Derek Dooley, Eisner, fatalism, fiction, frank miller, james bond, Kentucky, Merry Andrew, Mikkeli, Octopus, Online Writing, Pecha Kucha, Recreation, Spirit, Spirits, The Spirit Archives: Volume 12, The Spirit: Femmes Fatale, Vanderbilt Commodores, Will Eisner, world war ii | Leave a comment »

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 14 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Darren

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 14 finds Will Eisner back in full swing. The Spirit is truly firing on all cylinders, after taking about a year just to get everything lined up after the creator returned from military service. The success of this volume isn’t so much that Eisner is doing anything especially new or innovative. Rather, it seems like The Spirit has made a note of the aspects of the strip that work and has decided to concentrate on those stronger elements. This six-month stretch on newspaper strips doesn’t necessarily contain a record-breaking number of stand-out stories, but there are far fewer duds that we’ve seen before. There’s still a couple of Ebony-centred stories, but they’re few and far between. The other annoying kid sidekicks are mostly demoted to black-and-white one-line “P.S.” strips at the bottom of the page, and don’t intrude on the narrative.

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 14 isn’t so much about doing things better, as doing them more consistently.

Getting into the Spirit of things…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: art, arts, balkans, Bastille, Bastille Day, Blackmail, comic strip, Comics, crime, Derek Dooley, Eisner, fiction, Harry Truman, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Jules Feiffer, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Manhattan Project, Nuclear weapon, Online Writing, Spirit, Spirit (comics), The Spirit: Femmes Fatale, United States, Will Eisner, world war ii | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Monster Squad

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Darren

The Monster Squad is an affectionate celebration of the monster movies of yesteryear, written from the point of view of a generation that grew up with the Universal Horror monsters. When Dracula conspires with his monstrous brethren to conquer the world, it’s up to a gang of plucky kids and their knowledge of horror movie tropes and clichés to stop the lord of the vampires from swaying the balance of good and evil once and for all. It’s an understandably cheesy celebration of those old monster movies, one that benefits from never taking itself or its subject matter to seriously. However, there’s a deep and abiding affection to be found in The Monster Squad, a polite and endearing salute to the iconic monsters of the thirties (through the fifties) from a generation that has its own scary subjects to worry about.

Staying under wraps…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: art, Boris Karloff, dracula, frankenstein, Frankenstein Monster, Fred Dekker, Groundhog Day, halloween, maryshelley, Monster Squad, Mummy, Universal Monster, Victor Frankenstein, Wolf Man, wolfman | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Stitches

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Darren

Stitches is an interesting little Irish film. Featuring an interesting set up to parody the conventions of the supernatural slasher film, the movie finds itself falling prey to them just a little bit too often. Irish writer and director Conor McMahon creates a credible gory teenage bloodbath, but doesn’t really find a narrative hook to engage the audience. Never entirely sure how ironic it is trying to be, Stitches is a solid effort, albeit one far from greatness.

Not clowning around…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: art, arts, ATB, Cinema of Ireland, Clown, Conor McMahon, Cross-stitch, film, grabber, Horror film, irish, John Wayne Gacy, Movie, nightmare on elm street, non-review review, Performers, Performing Arts, Recreation, review, Ross Noble, Sewing, Slasher film, Stitch, Stitches, United States | Leave a comment »

The Demon by Jack Kirby (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Darren

Of all of Jack Kirby’s seventies DC work, I think that everything must be somebody’s favourite. His Fourth World books bristled with ambition and perhaps serve as the most high-profile, influential and long-running of Kirby’s work with the publisher, but you never have to look too hard to find a proponent of the author and artist’s work on O.M.A.C. or Kamandi. While I am fond of all of Kirby’s DC work, enjoying the raw energy and sheer volume of ideas he brings to his high concepts, I have a soft spot for The Demon, if only because it’s a delightfully off-the-wall example of Kirby’s multiple interests bouncing off one another and familiar archetypes to create something that is often quite difficult to pin down.

Night of the Demon!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: art, Arthur C. Clarke, batman, Dan Turpin, dc animated universe, dc comics, Demon, Etrigan the Demon, fourth world, Garth Ennis, gotham city, Hero Initiative, hulk, JackKirby, jason, Kirby, marvel comics, Merlin, Nintendo, Philosopher's Stone, Shopping, superman: the animated series | Leave a comment »

The Picture of Dorian Grey at the Abbey Theatre (Review)

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Darren

Neil Bartlett’s take on The Picture of Dorian Grey sounds like it might be a good idea on paper, but it doesn’t really come off in the execution. Oscar Wilde’s dark and sinister gothic horror has a timeless quality to it, but Bartlett’s interpretation of the material seems a little too shallow. Given the subject matter, you could argue that’s a good thing, but it sadly doesn’t make for the most satisfying of results.

Shades of Grey…

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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: art, Dorian, Dorian Grey, Eric Idle, gothic, Gothic fiction, Jasper Britton, Lord Henry, Neil Bartlett, oscar wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray, sherlock holmes | 2 Comments »

Justice League Unlimited – Alive! (Review)

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Darren

This September marks the twentieth anniversary of Batman: The Animated Series, and the birth of the shared DC animated universe that would eventually expand to present one of the most comprehensive and thorough explorations of a comic book mythology in any medium. To celebrate, we’re going back into the past and looking at some classic episodes.

I have to admit to being a bit disappointed with the final season of Justice League Unlimited, and the final season of Bruce Timm’s animated DC television shows to air. It had its moments, of course, but it felt a bit more shallow than everything that had come before. The first season of the show had wrapped up in such a way that it really was the perfect conclusion to well over a decade’s-worth of stories. While the finalé presented here, in the two-part Alive! and Destroyer, works well enough for what it is, it isn’t nearly quite as satisfying as either Divided We Fall or Epilogue.