pornokitsch

Five Favourites from Warren Ellis

I swear, we do this every year. But... with Storytelling Without Limits (April 30, Brixton Ritzy, tickets here), I've got yet another excuse to list my favourite comic books by Warren Ellis.

So here goes:

5. Stormwatch, The Authority, Iron Man: Extremis, Druid, Global Frequency, Supergod, FreakAngels, Aetheric Mechanics, Anna Mercury, Crecy, Gun Machine (not a comic), Switchblade Honey, Black Summer, DV8, Red, Lazarus Churchyard, Ultimate Galactus, Doktor Sleepless,... Don't make me choose.

Graphic Novel Round-Up: The Girl in the Iron Mask

So there I was - I'd wrapped up my read of all the Modesty Blaise books, sniffled my way through Cobra Trap, browsed all the websites... even watched the terrifyingly surreal movie. What's next? Fortunately, Titan Books pointed out the blatantly obvious - Blaise started as a daily comic. And however much I'd achieved in plowing through the spin-off formats, there were still (at last count) 8 quadrillion strips to read.

Thank god.

The Girl in the Iron Mask (2013) is the latest of Titan's collection editions - there are, if I counted correctly, 23 of them to date. As a Blaise fan, I was pretty comfortable jumping right in. And, daily comics being the savvy institutions they are, each of the story-lines starts with a solid explanation of Modesty and her background. So, don't worry - you don't need to start at the beginning (The Gabriel Set-up, if you're interested.)

The Girl in the Iron Mask has three stories - Fiona, Walkabout and Mask. These ran, somewhat shockingly, between 1990 and 1991, but we'll get to that shortly. Each of the stories is introduced by Lawrence Blackmore, who does a good job putting them in context with the rest of the Blaise mythos and, despite being a Blaise expert, is clearly not blinded by the series' weaknesses.

Fiona is about as close as Blaise ever gets to slapstick. Modesty flies out to India to visit one of the old Network members - this time it is Sumi, a former nurse in the organisation's private hospital. Sumi and her husband, David, (who is insufferably dense) have a tiny clinic in the Chittigong Hills. They're doing good work, but Sumi is nervous. David is getting their supplies from a group of (obvious) criminals. Mr. Wu Smith (one of the series' few recurring villains) is essentially buying David's silence - and David's just too dumb to realise it.

Friday Five: Winning with Webcomics

Last Friday, Jenni and Stefan swung by to inspire us with some of the hottest new and ongoing comic books... this week we're going digital. This whole Internet thing, not just a passing phase. The tubes are busier than ever with creators making brilliant webcomics. But... there are so many! 

Fortunately, Laura "Lor" Graham and Sara Westrop are some ideas where new webcomics readers can start. Lor is a writer, brassist (I made up that term) and provides an extremely soothing Twitter presence at @LorGraham. [Also, we published her first, so ha! Wait for 1853.]

Sara writes and edits comics for a living with Markosia. Her new webcomic, FANGIRLS, is out now (and whole-heartedly recommended). You can hassle her for updates at @sarawezzie. This is Sara's second Friday Five. If she does three, she wins a toaster.

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Lor:

1. The Darwin Faeries

This got pitched to me by a friend with the following: “there’s a loud, brash, ginger Scottish faerie in this. I didn’t know you had wings.” Charming friends I have. The story follows a group of tartan-wearing faeries punishing a male human who has spilled the blood of one of their own. It is in its second issue at the moment, and as a Scot I find it entertaining.

2. Supernormal Step

This probably my favourite webcomic at the moment, the tattoo of one of the featured “Tiny Fairy” on my left forearm will testify to that. Drawn and written by the very talented Mike Lunsford, and follows the story of Fiona Dae, sucked out of our world into one that is one above normal step to the left. She discovers magic, creepy security guards, and teams up with a reformed dark mage and a guy who turns into a bunny every time he does something wrong. Highly entertaining.

Friday Five: Comic Books You Should Be Reading

Comics. Where to start, right? There's always a cross-over multi-crisis on infinite shelves and, honestly, if you aren't up on the adventures of ultimate secret santa, there's no point in starting now anyway, you have to go back to the spin-off series that... etc. etc. And, hey, that just got cancelled. Oops.

Here to help are Stefan of Civilian Reader and Jenni of, well, many, many things (not the least of is her series of urban fantasy vignettes for Pandemonium). They're both people that capital-k-Know their comics so we've asked them to recommend five series that they're "following compulsively". How else would we know which bandwagon upon which to leap?

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Stefan: Jared and Anne gave me the brief – “5 comics I’m following compulsively” – and… I completely blanked.

Not because there aren’t series I am addicted to, but I don’t actually follow many on an issue-by-issue basis. Instead, I’m mostly addicted to collected editions.

So, here are five series that I am either still following and collecting, or obsessively read while it was ongoing.

1. Fables (Vertigo) - Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham

I only tried Fables after I read the first couple of issues of Fairest, its latest spin-off series. Since then, and in very quick order, I read the first five Deluxe Editions, and I’m absolutely hooked. Willingham has drawn together some of literature’s and fairy tales’ best-loved characters, brought them into a contemporary setting, and made them wholly his own. He has created his own modern mythology for these characters – everyone from Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella, the Frog Prince and so many more. This is, without a doubt, one of the best comic series ever published. The wonderful thing? It’s still running, and has thus-far not lost any steam in the story-telling.

New Releases: Deadbeats by Chris Lackey, Chad Fifer and INJ Culbard

Deadbeats (2012) is the latest spectacular success from SelfMadeHero. Written by Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer, and illustrated by INJ Culbard, this graphic novel unleashes Lovecraftian nasties in a Jazz Age setting. 

Set in 1924, three jobbing musicians are playing a wedding in Chicago. When Lester, the African-American trumpeter is sent out back to use the 'guest-house' bathroom, he catches one of the family (and Family, if you know what I mean, fugeddaboutit) forcing his affections on an unwilling woman. After a moment of indecision, Lester breaks the mobster's nose. He grabs Hank (pianist) and Willie (drummer, alcoholic and comic relief) and hits the road in the hurry.

Desperate to get out of town, Lester ("desperate is my middle name!") takes a commission from a preacher's daughter in rural Illinois. For a funeral, no less. The three musicians snatch at the opportunity and head out. 

From there, things get weird (and Weird, if you know what I mean, R'lyehwgah'naglfhtagn). The funeral is no funeral (although there are lots of dead people involved) and the preacher is no preacher (although there's certainly an angry god or two). Cue: chanting, tentacles and mayhem.

Underground Reading: Empire State by Jason Shiga

Jimmy, the protagonist of Empire State, is a bit of a sad sack.

He works in the Oakland library during the day and spends his evenings adding more animated gifs to his website. He's not a geek because he has no passions - his life is boring, repetitive and unfulfilling. In one telling scene, he explains how the "Walk" button doesn't work at a particular intersection, because he spent all day timing the light changes.

By contrast, his friend Sara is bubbling over with life. She's only in Oakland temporarily - capital-L-Life is in New York City, where she can break in to publishing and be at the center of the creative universe. During her brief stint in Oakland she opens Jimmy's eyes - poking and prodding him to break out of his routing. She introduces him to cappuccino and checking accounts and the other niceties of 21st century life.

Sara inevitably heads to New York and Life, leaving Jimmy with an absence in his life the exact size of a perky Jewish hipster. After some agonising, he makes his first ever impulsive decision: he's going to move to New York City. Because he, Jimmy, is in love.

Five and a Half Superhero Films (almost)

It's Friday, it's gorgeous out (I just popped up to the 16th floor on a boring errand and wound up spending five minutes gaping at a hazy early-morning London), and I've got a full pot of coffee to keep me going.

So let's talk about superhero films! Good ones, bad ones, and very inbetween ones, superhero films delight and perplex and awe and disappoint, often simultaneously. We live in an era chock-full of 'em, arguably kicked off by 2000's X-Men but, more likely, the result of the runaway success of 2002's Spider-Man.

Twelve years and eleventy-billion dollars later, both Spider-Man and X-Men have been rebooted (if you consider First Class a reboot, which I think I do); Iron Man has revitalized Robert Downey, Jr's career, and The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises have blown everything ever out of the water ever ever kerzomg etc. I mean, crikey. This genre is serious buisness.

So let's talk about them! Because it's Friday, and why not? I'll list a few opinions about a few superhero films (and, erm, one superhero Saturday morning cartoon), and you all should take profound and noisy issue with me in the comments and on Twitter, because it's Friday, and why not?

What we talk about when we talk about The Avengers.

The thing is, "we" in this case is you, devoted Pornokitsch readers, and me. Not Jared and me, because Jared hasn't seen it yet. So I'll pop all the spoilers under the jump, and Jared will have to sit on his hands and wonder. 

Okay, you guys. Avengers Assemble (is a stupid title and I'm just going to call the film The Avengers from now on) is really pretty good. It is not perfect, but it's excellent, and that's a very good start. It's also better than several of the more recent Marvel titles - particularly the paint-by-numbers Captain America, but also Wolverine (I'm still upset about what a waste Taylor Kitsch as Gambit was), and X-Men 3, and Spider-Man 3, and the Fantastic Four films... essentially, Avengers was right up there with the best of the recent run of comic book adaptations, and definitely one of the best of the Marvel canon.

And, come on. We all had a bit of a fanplotz when we learned that The Joss would be directing the film. Whedon is at his best when he's running a tightly controlled show about a group of smart, powerful people, and there was every possibility that he'd bring his A game to this, his first really mainstream feature. 

And he did. Did he make some missteps? Yes, yes he did. I haven't read any interviews with or articles about him in years, so I don't know if he wanged on about his feminism with regard to this film the way he has about everything else he's ever created. Hopefully he didn't, because his portrayal of women was here, as everywhere else, flawed.

That's what we'll talk about first - and then we'll get to the good stuff. 

Graphic Novel Round-up: Messiahs and Men

2011 was the year of the SF superhero, with multiple authors using the medium of the novel to explore various shades of the four-colour hero. Al Ewing's The Gods of Manhattan had a distinct Alan Moore sensibility with his fusion of pulp stars and postmodern sensibilities. Mark Charan Newton's The Book of Transformations investigated the sacrifice of the superhuman - the losses (physical and intangible) suffered in order to become something else. And Kim Lakin-Smith spun the whole thing on its head by looking at the increasingly blurry lines between superhuman and subhuman in Cyber Circus. (Also worth mentioning: Grant Morrison's Supergods, his book-length, utterly fascinating, semi-autobiographical ramble through comic book history.)

Back on its home turf, comics have never shied away from self-examination. Below the jump, a look at how Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis and Denise Mina have all gone about the task.

Review Round-up: Alternate alternate histories

Just when we'd thought we'd wrapped up our Steampunk discussion, two more pieces came along. Ian Sales' "A Light in the Darkness" and Geof Banyard's "The Steampunk Literary Review" showcase different extremes of the subgenre's spectrum - from the serious to the satirical.

Mr. Sales' "A Light in the Darkness" (2011) is an elegently constructed triptych. The first point of view is Second Lieutenant Wilfred Owen, entrenched at the front in 1917. The second is the inventor Nicola Tesla, also 1917, but in America (at his famous tower in Wardenclyffe, never completed in 'real' history). The third narrator is a nameless, contemporary figure - a prisoner in a mysterious institution. 

While Owen endures the miseries of WWI trench warfare, Tesla schemes to reshape all of human existence. His tower is the final piece of his "Stratospheric Lighting System". It will send electricity leaping into the sky, starting a chain reaction that will end darkness forever. Tesla will banish the night. 

The other two protagonists have more hesitant relationships with light, both physically and conceptually. For the unnamed contemporary figure, the bright lights of his cell blind him. They are both an instrument of torture and a warning that the next round of physical interrogation is about to begin. As his suffering continues, the lines between line and darkness, vision and blindness, begins to blur.