Sketch Dump: The PO Notebook 10: Frozen

There's just a couple of sketches from Frozen here.  I think the one of the left is of Anna.  (I don't know.  I haven't seen the movie, but then again Anna has red hair.)  The sketch on the right is one of my favorites done from the Pernille book.  I think this was also the first time I used my new Gelly Roll pen to ink.  They work really well.  They have a small, firm tip and the ink dries immediately without smudging.  

  

There's definitely Elsa on the right, obviously.

This one turned out bad, really bad.  It's an anatomical disaster. 

It's a rare nude from me.  I actually like drawing clothes and fashion, even if I'm bad at it.  I feel like I might get the most out of a fashion design class, rather than an art class.

There was a page with a series of hair sketches in the book with the same profile.  

Sketch Dump: The PO Notebook 9: Cowgirls

The centerpiece of Pernille's artbook was a painting she did for a magazine cover, probably ImagineFX.  This turned out to be one of my better sketches.  I held off on doing it until I had plenty of time and was in the right mood.  Here's a couple of pics of the pencil sketch.   

I liked the pencil version so much that I didn't ink and color it, but instead copied it.  The blue version is based the original coloring.  I did it again in yellow later.

There was another cowgirl painting in the book.  I later found online another Pernille cowgirl painting after finishing this sketchbook.  I'll try doing that one someday.   

Comics Review: Bargain Bin Grab Bag: JLE and Teen Titans

Part 3

Justice League Europe #14

This was a poor concept to begin with.  The group might be called, “The Justice League of America,” but it was always implied that they were there to protect the world.  From reading a couple of issues, it was always mostly American superheroes with Europe as a backdrop.  Maybe Justice League International Missions would have been a better concept for the title.  Just show the JLA working around the world with some local superheroes.  Too bad, I’m not a DC editor in the 90’s.

 

As to this issue, the superheroes aren’t even in costume for it, so the characters weren’t even taking the story seriously.  I didn’t understand the “villain” in this.  Was he even a villain?  It all seemed too silly.  Yeah, that’s my whole review for the issue.  It wasn’t even worth this amount of effort.  (And how did Toho's lawyers miss this obvious reference to Godzilla?)   

Teen Titans #17

At last, we have a winner, as far as my tastes are concerned.  I’m not sure what volume of Teen Titians this would be in 1998.  None of the original Titans are in this.  Atom is a team leader in this, but he is able to grow to giant size and he’s definitely not a teen.  Argent is another prominent member.  I don’t know anything about her other than the entry in my DC Comics Encyclopedia.  (Yes, I know about Wikipedia.)  She’s very appealing here and clearly a favorite of the artist.  The character seems to have just disappeared since this iteration of the title.  Actually, I didn’t even know about this version of the team.

 

In any case, the story is simply Atom and Argent ill-advisedly hosting an open tryout for new members and drawing an attack from a super-villain group.  This is why you need a Robin in the group, somebody with enough brains to think these things through.  This set up did create lots of action and characterization opportunities.   

 

I didn’t recognize a lot of the characters, but there were familiar faces making cameos, like Superboy, Supergirl, Robin (Tim Drake, who isn’t and was never gay), Spoiler (Tim’s long time girlfriend and not a beard), Impulse (by next year, I’ll be saying, “Tim Drake was never a transsexual Muslim feminist), Arsenal (I’m not angry over this Tim Drake thing, because there’s nothing in current comics I consider canonical), and a very welcome appearance by Captain Marvel Jr.  (Since Captain Marvel later got officially renamed Shazam, what’s Junior called?  CM3?  Does that make any sense?) 

 

Captain Marvel Jr. is such a natural fit for the Titans you wonder why didn’t happen before this.  Argent calling him “Lightning Boy” was the best line in the book.  Then Junior thinks, I can’t say “I’m Captain Marvel,” because then I’ll turn back into Freddie Freeman and have to go back to playing first base for the Atlanta Braves.  Okay, part of the statement is directly from the comic book, part of it is mine, but it is steeped in comic book lore.  (If Captain Marvel is now Shazam, he can’t say his own name without turning back into Billy Batson.  My head is hurting.)

 

Admittedly, most of the guest stars in this seem to be here to promote their own books, like Robin, Supergirl, and Superboy, who has his own team, The Ravers.  Wow, that team is not only unnecessary, it really sounds dumb.  I may seem to be ragging on this a lot, which I am, but the issue is intentionally funny in places and just fun in general.  This is the kind of stuff, we read comics for: interesting characters, good story, great art, and having fun.

Comics Review: Bargain Bin Grab Bag: Warlord and Conan

Part 2

The Warlord #76

Dudes fighting on dinosaurs!  What more do you need?

How about this!  It’s a freaking D&D Bard using Song of Rest to heal his comrades!

Anyway, this issues precedes the ones I reviewed earlier (5-30-20).  It’s more fun fantasy sci-fi-ish adventure.  Unfortunately, all the issues I’ve seen were after series creator, Mike Grell, left the book.  I’d like to see his original version of the character and his artwork.  Warlord had a pretty decent run at DC, but there wasn’t much of a market for kind this title and other non-superhero ones like it at the time.  Conan at Marvel was about the only one that was ever really successful.  Speaking of which . . .    

 

 

Conan #29

Marvel let Conan go for a while to Dark Horse.  (They got him back later, as I reviewed King Sized Conan and the Life and Death trade.)  DH seemed to be trying to stay very close to Conan’s life timeline, so they were respecting the material.  The art in this issue has a painted quality that looks like something out of an issue of Heavy Metal.  The story though is the problem, specifically the lack there of.  It’s written by Mike Mingnola, who’s better known for this artwork.  I can’t wholly blame him as it’s based on “a fragment” of an REH story, and it’s been turned into a three-part tale.  It’s decompressed storytelling to the extreme.  

 

Part 4

Comics Review: Bargain Bin Grab Bag: Firestorm

Part 1

Fury of Firestorm #20, #22, #25

I collected Firestorm for a short while in the 80’s.  I forgot the reason why.  It was probably because of Crisis on Infinite Earths.  I also collected Amethyst for a while because of that series.  There’s a Firestorm trade paperback of older material at Zia Comics that I keep getting close to buying, but the price keeps putting me off.  I’ll save it for the day that there’s nothing else at the store I want to buy. 

I wanted to like Firestorm.  The character looks cool.  Well, the flaming head is problematical.  Ghost Rider and Flaming Carrot must also have issues entering rooms with sprinkler systems installed.  Firestorm is overpowered (he can transmute inorganic matter into whatever form he wants) and yet always seems to be overmatched by even mundane foes with a little smarts. 

The character needed a harder limit on his powers to explain why he doesn’t just dominate.  Or perhaps, he can’t fully use his powers without melting down or causing a nuclear hazard.  Firestorm is a physically normal person apart from his powers.  You could add way more drama to stories by playing that up and forcing him to fight smarter.         

 He’s a combination of a high student, Ronnie Raymond, which somewhat explains his lack of intelligence, and also a scientist, Martin Stein, who should be very intelligent.  Firestorm ends up being his own sidekick, with Professor Stein being a disembodied invisible head following him around.  Their transformation into Firestorm is awkward as it didn’t require them to be anywhere near each other.  In a narrative sense, this skips over the tediousness of making every story about getting them together, but realistically it makes having a secret identity ridiculous, as Stein could suddenly disappear whenever Ronnie wills it.              

 

The Firestorm in the CW Legends show (and the Flash) made a little more sense.  They had to touch, Wonder Twins style, to transform.  He didn’t have the transmuting powers, but fired energy blasts.  I still didn’t understand the Legends didn’t rule nearly every fight with this guy in their lineup, at least against normal foes.

 

Firestorm was supposed to be like Spider-Man, right down to the Marvel-esqe alliterative name.  He should have relatable issues to the readers.  (People who are young and in school and people remembering what it was like.)  Unlike Peter Parker, he lacked the motivation and truly tragic backstory.  Ronnie’s problems seemed to always fall flat or be too mundane.  Stein probably had the more interesting personal life, because it intertwined with his professional life.  He should have been the star of the book really.

 

Something I noticed over these three issues that would have made Firestorm potentially fascinating was his split personality.  Firestorm was mostly Ronnie, but actually his own person.  Ronnie had a girlfriend, Stein had love interests, but Firestorm had his own girlfriend in Firehawk.  It felt like there could have been a whole lot more made of Firestorm not being either of the people who composed him. 

 

I can remember DC making a sincere effort at promoting this character at the time, but he wasn’t interesting enough as he was.  Changes were eventually made later.  I wasn’t following the character at the time.  I think they made him the fire avatar, like Swamp Thing was the earth avatar (or whatever they called it).  It was too little, too late. 

 

As to the issues themselves, #20 and #25 were setups to fights in the next issue, which I don’t have.  #22 just recounted Firestorm’s origin.  I’m sure I read Firehawk’s origin in one of these too somewhere.  (They were really promoting her in these issues.)  In other words, these were not great issues.  I’d like to at least praise the artwork, but I can’t.  It’s great and dynamic in places, but mostly dark, muddled, and awkward.  (I know all about bad artwork.  I do plenty.)  I don’t know if it’s poor inking or bad pencils with the inker trying to cover it or save it.  (The art team isn’t the same on these three issues.)  Strangely, this was the same problem when I was reading this comic in the 80’s.

 

In sum, this character needs to be rethought in terms of powers and origin.  The psychological aspect of Firestorm’s persona would be interesting to explore.  Lastly, you can see what a difference having appealing art makes in selling a comic book.  Overall, Firestorm feels more like a more marketing effort by DC editors than a creative one. 

Part 3 

Comics Review: Bargain Bin Grab Bag: B&V and Power Rangers

So, I’d bought a couple of comics at Zia Comics a couple of weeks ago while waiting for a repair to my truck.  Those were for other people.  Before I went there, I’d gone to Coas Books and raided their bargain bin and gotten plenty for myself.  You never know what you’re going to find there.  Once, for example, I found a bunch of comics from the 50’s.  

(Archie and Uncle Scrooge, Huckleberry Hound, Classics Illustrated, Dennis the Menace Christmas Part 1, Part 2.  There are a few others listed in late 2013.  You can look for those yourself.  I should have put a separate tag on these.)     

 

These 12 issues are a bit eclectic.  There’s no way to logically group these.  I do notice that there’s no Marvel Comics here.  There were Marvels there, but I wasn’t interested in any of them, which is the usual for me.  I blame the closing of Hastings for this anti-Marvel bias.  I bought a huge number of comics at the time (which led to a terrible time at the cash register).  I kept a few of the DC comics, but divested myself of all of the Marvels.  They were mostly from the 2000’s, and they were all bad.  I’m still not over it. 

Betty & Veronica #1

This is a Free Comic Book Day edition.  I assume it’s about the same as the original, but has a section at the back promoting the CW Riverdale show.  Adam Hughes only did three issues of this series, but I’ve had a terrible time collecting them.  I have all of them, but they’re in three different formats.  Two of them are in digest form, so I’d like the full-size versions.  Now, I’ve got two of them in comic book format; I just need #3 now.

 

Adam Hughes is one of favorite artists and best known for his cheesecake.  Here he is doing two of my favorite comic book girls, Betty and Veronica.  That said, his script is way too precious in dialogue.  It’s hard to read when your eyes are rolling.  Also, the colors in this are really washed out and muted.  It’s not bright and colorful, even when totally appropriate for a story taking place in the fall.  What’s really disappointing are the character designs for the girls.  Maybe Hughes sort of toned down his interpretation because of his reputation and the context of a teen book.  They’re just not as glamorous as the two most famous high school girls in comics should be.

 

All that said, I’m keeping this and looking for that other issue.  It’s still really cool-looking and not bad to read.  If only Archie Comics had more actively pursued top-notch talent to do some special issues.  There’s no way they could hire someone like that for an extended stay, but I’m sure there’s lots of talent who would love to do their take on a comic they probably read as children.  Unfortunately, I think Hughes had some production delays.  In spite of his fairly conservative take on the characters, he was also getting protested because of his previous work.  (Some people don’t want women in comics drawn attractively.)  So much for this experiment at Archie Comics. 

 

I like Madelaine Petsch on Riverdale as Cheryl Blossom.  Somehow I ended up on her Youtube channel awhile back.  She's very likeable.  As for black Josie and the Pussycats, once again, a redheaded character was exchanged for a black person.  Nice job devaluing Valerie and eliminating one of my favorites, Melody.  I have more on this, but I'll stop here.            

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #6, #7, #9, #11

I’d heard good things about this comic, but passed up getting any individual issues or a trade.  Finding these four issues loose at a discount was a good opportunity to try it out.  First, the production is top notch.  The comic is physically made out of quality materials.  The story takes up all but four pages of the issue.  Two of those pages are even a little Bulk & Skull continuing comic strip.  The artwork is excellent.  The story is unfortunately basically decompressed in presentation, but is solid.  This was obviously written by someone (Kyle Higgins), who knew and loved the source material.  If a new comic could come close to being worth $4, this comes the closest. 

 

These are not an “adult” versions of Power Rangers stories.  They are also not just like the original series.  They’re not a kid’s show based on recycled footage of a Japanese Sentai show.  These are basically superhero-like comics in the Power Rangers setting.  The stories are more developed than the show and the characters are given some space to grow, but they are action-oriented adventures.

 

But just to be honest, while I watched Power Rangers, I was a bit out of their age-range when they first came out.  I was mostly watching for the girls (RIP Thuy Trang).  I’ve watched some of the follow up series, even on Mexican stations in Spanish, because they’re kind of fun, but I don’t really think highly of the franchise.  (I should mention that this series is based on the original team and villains.)  So, these are great if you’re a Power Rangers fan, but if you’re not a big fan, they’re okay.       

I couldn’t help but notice this ad.  If I find one of these, being the wrestling fan, I’ll have to try one.

Part 2