Title: A Friendly Game
Artist(s): Joe Pimienta, Lindsay Hornsby, and Lauren Affe
Writer(s): Joe Pimienta
US Publisher: SLG Plublishing
It started as a game, something for friends Todd and Kevin do to pass time. Soon Kevin is entangle in Todd’s obsession. Can you say “Psychopath children”?
Artist(s): Terry Moore
Writer(s): Terry Moore
US Publisher: Abstract Studios
Rachel wakes up in a shallow grave. Ergo the name of the title, since she has to get up! But the rest is a realistic and thus terrifying roller-coaster of mirth and mayhem.
Welcome to a new type of blog entry that I am going to be testing, to see how it works. It is a quick way of adding a blog entry, and in it i will try to review a couple or three of floppies, and such.
That way, if you have doubts about picking up a floppy, you can always check me out and see if I am reading it, and what my first impression is, not that first impressions matter that much.
So lets get started.
Grant Morrison kinda lost me here. I don’t mean that I can’t follow the story, I mean that midway through… I stopped caring. Gone was the social angle that hooked me in the first two issues, and the human factor, and we are back to superheroics, and guys with their underwears outside their pants.
Kubert’s art is, as usual, a saving grace! Love the guy.
But then DC also give me some filler story at the end, and I felt kinda cheated. I like my floppies to have a theme, and one set of artists, unless I am buying a compendium, or something like that.
The reason why I bought this, besides cause I though Morrison was going to give me the same wow factor as in the beginning, and had to deal with the disappointment, was because I wanted to test the Digital Offering that you can find in the back cover. I tested it, and love it.
Seriously, $4 for a floppy is a bit too much, even more so for a floppy i didn’t love. I would feel better paying $1.5 for the digital version, and in this case I would’ve just deleted it after reading it, and wouldn’t cry about it too much. Continue reading ‘What am I reading now? Exciting new category of blog entry’
Writer(s): James W. O’Barr
Artist(s James W. O’Barr
US Publisher: Calibre Press.
The Plot:
A young couple is murdered by thugs one night while they take a car ride. The young male’s grief is bigger than death, and thus refuses to die till he avenges his lost love. Continue reading ‘Comic Review: The Crow by James W. O’Barr. How do you quote William Makepeace Thackeray in a comic and make it look cool??’
DISCLAIMER: This blog entry is not intended to be an argument in favor or against a position. It is intended to clarify and elaborate my views on a very complex problem (simple problem, made complex by the legislators and lobbyists). I use this blog entry to refer people to it, so I don’t have to retell my position and re-issue my arguments over and over.
Anyone is welcome to repost and quote paragraphs of this blog entry without requesting permission. I would appreciate quoting the source and referring your audience to the blog.
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Every other week I engage in a discussion pertaining internet piracy and the effect of piracy on different industries.
This blog entry is aimed at stating the ComicWatcher’s stance on this issue, and explain why we take this stance. The explanation should demonstrate that we have considered many sides of the argument and we have not arrived at our consensus lightly.
The ComicWatcher defines “Piracy” as “The action that takes place when someone appropriating someone else’s intellectual property for the sake of profiting from it, and in the process, denying the creator of the opportunity of profiting from it.”
Re-read the loaded phrase above again carefully and think about the implications.
What is now commonly referred to as “Piracy” in the US is a misnomer used by some monopolies to perpetuate their flawed business model and purport legitimacy to their immoral and/or unethical business practices.
Piracy, and the piracy that we are against (and everyone should be against), involves Company A producing a product (be it song, comic, movie) and then another company (Company B) makes, distributes and sales unauthorized copies of that product. Company B doesn’t have to be a incorporated entity. It could be a member of the local mafia running a knock-off factory from the basement of his grandma’s house. THE MAIN MOTIF HERE IS PROFIT.
A few things take place here:
1) An unauthorized product gets reproduced, and floods the market. That denies the original product and creator to get its fair market share from selling said product in that market.
2) There is an illegitimate manufacturer who “Pirates” the product and creates a tangible product that may disrupt the distribution chain, and arrives at the consumers hands posing as tangible original product.
3) By manufacturing a product outside the channels the creator intended, you are risking reputation of the creator, whose name is associated with the product, and you are denied control of the creation you conceived. Those are your rights as a creator.
Items copied and distributed around the internet for free do not fall in this category, no matter how much politicians and lobbying groups would love them to fall into.
When someone appropriates an idea or a product and copies or distributes them while charging for it, then it does fall into the category of loss of revenue.
Why the distinction of distribution with the intent of profit?
Well, the difference affects what is called Public Domain.
There are a bunch of cute graphics that explain the principle very well.
It was a 8 day hiatus, but it was worth it.
Some of the collaborators of the blog were out of the country, while I was busy helping a creative friend with a project that needed polishing and also supporting a couple of couses against Internet Censoring.
I will resume new blog posts shortly, stay tuned!!
I’ll be helping a friend with some deadlines, and finishing some of my own, so I will be back blogging and posting a week from today, the 23rd.
This month is only me so sorry for the delays.
Tim Vigil, Circa 2008
Few artists command my respect as much as Tim Vigil does, and not all the reasons for my respect are based on his amazing art.
Back in the mid 80’s, when every collector and fan where trying to make a profit out of the comic book bubble (speculatoin), I discovered a very underground series by a then quasi unknown artists that signed his work under the name of Tim Vigil. That work was Faust, Love of the Damned, published by Rebel studios.
Tim Vigil also shares credits with David Quinn on this gory master piece, a master piece that dabbles in demonic deals, loss of loved ones, psychosis and any sexual and violent deviant fantasy you want to dwell on.
We may create a blog entry on this amazing underground series, Faust, Love of the Damnedat a later time, but lets focus on the creator now.
In the late 80′s Faust broke into the comic scene like a hurricane. All the younger crowds where salivating over the work Miller was doing with Daredevil, while the older crowd were being fascinated by Tim Vigil’s tour de force, or maybe we were also busy hunting down the hard to find issues of Larry Weltz’s Cherry Poptart (another comic that should be covered on another entry).
If you manage to find any of these issues of Faust on eBay or by asking your LCS you will bear witness to a couple of different things, and just so you can be thankful you read my blog and continue to refer your friends to our site, I shall take the time to point some out:
Evolution: From issue 1 through issue 13, we get to witness the maturing process, and see how Tim Vigil’s art mutates from good to amazing, and these changes are such that the likes of which you will rarely be able to witness in the world of comics.
Yes, you may get to see how John Byrne or Frank Cho changes from year to year, but to see the evolution and the brilliance emerge from issue 1 to issue 13 that is something that seldom happens in the last couple of decades of comic book history.
Style: Tim Vigil is a master of detail and baroque art. Wether you enjoy his style or not (which is mainly a very subjective matter) he is a magnificient illustrator, as he proved from the start and continues to show us in his current work.
His attention to detail borders the ODD, and he belongs in the ranks of Berni Wrigthson in that both convert environments and surroundings in unavoidable parts of the complex and beautiful canvas.
His inks paint the vellum taking into account lighting, volume, thickness of lines, and uses the bricks of the cities, the stones of the castles, the wrinkles on the clothes, to convey either eeriness, or dread, or lust.
His female characters arch their backs and stick out their wet tongues when they are getting banged, and we feel the steam coming out the drool, and the sweat glistening on thier skins.
It does help the fact that Tim Vigil professes no small amount of love in his homage to Frank Frazetta with the positioning of the bodies, the contorting of the limbs, and he does this without falling into imitation. He adores Frazetta, builds from him, and using him as a reference in order to grow, and establish his own style.
Continue reading ‘Focus on the artists: Tim Vigil, Hard times from the Underground’
I rarely repost articles, but this one has so many insights, so many well developed opinions, that I had to post the link.
http://comicbook.com/blog/2012/01/09/printed-comics-nearing-death-as-marvel-strikes-latest-blow/
I actually believe that in the very NEAR future most comics will be purchased in digital format at very affordable prices. THEN the reader will head out to LCS (Local Comic Store) to buy the floppies.
I see a great market of selling digital comics for a dollar or so, and knowing that the true fan will want to have something tangible in his hands then the comic company will rely on the LCS to sell the Trade paper back.
I also predict that in the near future the LCS will shift their business models to carry mainly specialty items and Trade Paper Backs. The store will have more figurines and clocks, tshirts and paraphernalia than comics.
This trend will start in large cities, of course.
Smaller cities and large town, where you only find one LCS for 50 or 100 miles will be safer and be forced to adapt to this trend at a slower pace. Then again, almost everything is done at a slower pace in smaller towns anyway.
Anyway, go and read the article and let me know what your thoughts are!
