Monday, June 02, 2008

Panel Discussion: Scans from 1985 #1, Teen Titans #59, All-Star Superman #11 and More

Every week we at Geekanerd rip panels from our comics and put them on display here, recognizing the best, worst, and weirdest moments of the week. Beware some major SPOILERS.

Click the pics for high res goodness!

Tou-flippin'-che - 1985 #1
More awesome shit from the books you love (or hate, or whatever) after the jump...

She Must Get That All The Time - New Avengers #41Spidey's pretty confident he's caught some Skrulls when really he's just confusing his Queens of the Jungle again.

Visual Repetition Alert - Teen Titans #59

It doesn't really matter what's going on in the following panels, all you need to know is that they're from two completely different scenes in the same book.
And later....The weirdest thing about these panels is although they're conveying the extact same expression in the exact same way, the artist actually took the time to draw it twice with very small differences, most notably Robin's hair. If Robin is going to keep hammering us with this look, it should have a name a la Derek Zoolander; I nominate "Red Dawn". - AHR

All In The Timing Award - All-Star Superman #11
These two panels actually made me laugh out loud. An evil sun-planet/supercomputer crashing to earth could have easily been drawn in one panel, showing the spectacular moment of impact from a distance, or could have been dragged out over several panels to build suspense. But by giving us one quick taste of what the approaching sun looked like from a bystander's point of view (just enough to merit a "wha?"), and then going directly into this ridiculous bounce....beautiful. -AHR

Millar Rips Marvel in Marvel? -
1985 #1
Millar sets up the 1985 world as "the real world" the same way he did in Kick-Ass... By having them talk about comics! This time the convo takes place in a comic shop, and a disgruntled employee interrupts a conversation about Secret Wars to denounce mainstream comics. Funny, though, that he looks like the mangiest, loneliest, grumpiest kid in town. - Albo

I'd hit it. - AHR

Naturally. He looks like you in a stocking cap. -Albo

Artistic License - Final Crisis #1If an artist wants to reveal a superhero via his alter-ego, they can get away with pretty much anything. Think of all the bat-shaped shadows has Bruce Wayne has cast over the years. J.G. Jones is a master of composition, as notably displayed by his stellar 52 covers, and I adore his spin on the classic opening-shirt-to-reveal-costume bit. It's nonsense, but who cares? It's an expressionist medium, people! - AHR

Clearest Example of Batman's Insanity - Batman #677
Okay, so this entire issue is centered around Jezebel Jet telling Bruce that he is nut nut nutty as a nutbar, mostly based on the fact that he owns and operates a giant cave filled not just with surveillance equipment but with dinosaurs and and other loopy items of interest one might expect to find at a roadside tourist trap. But nothing sums up Batsie's unique brand of clinically formal obsession like this drawing of Jason Todd's costume; I don't think I've ever seen it portrayed as all torn up and perforated. This of course implies that this is not just one of Jason's costumes, but the actual outfit taken off of Jason's corpse. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Yikes. -AHR

The Subtle Touches - 1985 #1There's a fun little coloring trick in this panel that works so well! The black level is lighter in the upper left than it is in the rest of the pic, simulating a lens effect that occurs when you've got a lot of bright light coming right into the lens. The boy here is squinting up to the top floor of a spooky house where he may-or-may-not see something. Lining the subtle coloring effect up with the boy's gaze doesn't just emphasize the squint--it makes it a squint! Look in his eyes and see if you can even fight the urge to squint along. This is something I recall feeling on my first read-through but it wasn't until another flip-through that I realized what was going on. You're a star, Tommy Lee Edwards! - Albo

Realism 0, Expressionism 1 - Batman: Gotham After Midnight #1 I know that some people hate this shit, but Kelley Jones really wowed me this week with his return to Gotham City. I'd forgotten how much I loved his valuing of mood and graphical impact over realism. There's a magic and a theatricality to his portrayal of the Batman, something he is given the most freedom to exploit in the Caped Crusader's, uh, cape. - Albo

Eschery goodness! - AHR
Look at that! Is that the Batman, or a demon emerging from the mists?! Or *gasp* Is there a difference? Jones doesn't shy away from anatomical inaccuracy (re: Batman's gigantic knee) in his quest to deliver a kick ass image. Oh, and about that theatricality I mentioned...
Yeaahhhh, there she is. I love the idea that Batman is so intent on maintaining his image that he strikes scary poses even when talking to friends. But really, in context it's almost immaterial what position Bats is standing in, because you get the impression that the story is more of a foggy nightmare recollection than a video recording--Bats was probably just leaning against a wall picking his teeth or something, but the memory of it is so clouded by his weighty presence that the ordinary becomes fantastic, like in the stories where eyewitnesses actually identify Bats as a man-sized bat creature. He's just that terrifying.And I couldn't resist one more killer cape shot. Our hero "dead," his faithful cape companion slumped and lifeless all around him. Awesome!
I leave you with Kelley's ridiculous little Bat-Kart. Wheee! - Albo

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Gotham After Midnight is one of the shittiest comic books I have ever read and that's completely ignoring the art. The story appears to have been crafted by a god damn five year old, scribbling with a crayon and a steel hard-on, bringing in random characters with no rhyme or reason other than "OMG, I gozta use da Joker caw he my fav'rit!" I stuck it out through the first four issues hoping it'd take a turn for the better but it only got worse. I am in total awe that DC Comics actually allowed this fucking shit to go to press.