Glad it’s the Final Crisis
Looks like a happy story!
My good friend Ryan, proprietor of comics and action figures at Charging Star Comics recommended that I check out Final Crisis. Â He knows how much I enjoy a good trade paperback so I figured I'd give it a go.
You can find all sorts of information about the book at it's Wikipedia page, so I won't go in to any detail here. Â I was impressed previously by some of the large DC crossover story lines like 52 and Infinite Crisis. Â When I picked up the Final Crisis trade, I had just finished enjoying Blackest Night in issue format and was reading (and still am) some selected Brightest Day books.
Unfortunately for me, Final Crisis is a bit of a let down. Â I'm going to have to read through it a second time to see if it gets any better, but right now, it feels really disjointed. Â I can definitely imagine I would have enjoyed it more on a book at a time pace. Â I read it in about two sittings, and the story just doesn't flow very well from book to book. Â Just reading the plot synopsis makes me chuckle. Â It seems to be stereotypical comic book over the top. Â There's just too much plot jammed in to so short a time span. Â Just from a timeline perspective, it ranges from the formation of the universe to the present.
Part of my displeasure may stem from my recent love of Marvel's cosmic stuff. Â Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy, and others have shown me that Marvel can do more than just capes on Earth. Â I've never liked what I consider DC's equivalent. Â The New Gods, Darkseid, and Apokolips never really clicked with me. Â If I remember correctly, the story at least doesn't deal with Jimmy Olsen. Â The relationship between him and the New Gods reminds me of Wesley Crusher's relationship with The Traveler.
The Coloring Divide
I AM BETTER COLORED MAN
I've been watching anime and reading comics for less than half my life. Â Because of that I have no real attachment or sentimental memories of my childhood favorites. Â I can say that one of my favorite movies is The Last Starfighter;Â knowing it's a corny movie I can still say that I love it. Â As I play catch up with anime and comics, I'm finding that a lot of material that's recommended to me suffers from the same nostalgic memory lens. Â People remember things as being awesome, but under the light of fresh eyes, the ink starts to fade.
Take for example Gundam.  More precisely the earlier Universal Century stuff. I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for criticizing it, but a lot of the art is pretty poor.  It's quite possible that I'll never experience the adventures of Amuro Ray because I can't stand to watch it.  Until I saw Cyborg 009, I thought I had issue with character designs.  That was the first show that made me realize that wasn't the case.  So what's the matter?  I love mecha.  I enjoy mecha so much that I'm willing to put up with awful plot lines and whiny characters (see Gundam Wing) to get my fix.  It boiled down for me to a very shallow feature of the art.
I group anime and comics together here for a purely aesthetic reason: color.  The two art mediums share a common production process:
I Won a Prize!
The Loot!
So on a whim I signed up for Darkhorse's Manga Month giveaway. Â Nobody actually wins these online raffles! Â Well I won something, haha. Â So thanks Dark Horse for some free manga. Â Not only that, a special part of the prize is a copy of Berserk, autographed by Kentaro Miura! Â Also included is Dark Horse's 20 Years of Manga Mug, and copies of Blade of the Immortal: Blood of a Thousand, Gantz #1, and Eden: It's an Endless World! #1. Â These all look awesome and might make me want to read more manga.
Curse your devious marketing ploys!
They didn't notify me ahead of time, so I got home to this box from Dark Horse sitting on my porch. Â The labels identified it as containing 50 copies of the Dark Horse Spring catalog. Â It was sent to my name, so I thought maybe for some reason they decided I'd be a good recipient for catalogs, haha. Â I had totally forgotten about the contest.
I was definitely pleasantly surprised!
Copyright in the Digital Download Era
What follows here is just my thought process on copyright and piracy. Â I'm not trying to judge, just bring to light the factors at play.
A recent discussion amongst a few of my followed on Twitter brought this question to mind: how did the piracy of copyrighted works evolve to how it is today? Â Thanks to digital reproductions of digital products, there is rarely any difference between an original licensed work and a pirated copy. Â When copyright law was envisioned these circumstances can't have been imagined.
East Meets West: Anime and Manga of American Superheroes
I'm Lovin It!
There's more to an art form than the medium itself. Some subject matter lends itself better to a particular style. I'm sure you could do a landscape of a spring meadow with a sculpture, but surely an impressionist watercolor is better suited. That's a bit of a stretch, as different painting styles really can't be segregated that way, and there's an exception to every rule. In the plastic arts (wikipedia) this may not be so clear cut. Even in literature, it becomes difficult to make divisions along the lines of content being paired with style.
Serialized illustrated work seems to have taken an interesting evolutionary path.  Compare the American comic book and  Japanese Manga industries.  While there are standouts, the American comic book is often about a costumed super hero.  Sometimes there are secret identities, but more recently they have taken a back seat to the main course: heroes vs. villains.  Crazy fights in worldy and other places with amazing powers.  All of this done in beautifully drawn and colored artwork.  These are amazing to behold.
Spiderman 4 Cancelled!
Sony has decided to shelve Spiderman 4. Apparently Sam Raimi had some differences with Sony which resulted in him leaving the project. Instead of replacing him, Sony decided to crap the whole film and opted to continue with their planned reboot for the franchise. I grabbed this info from deadline.com
Why is this good? Creative differences between Raimi and Sony is why we ended up with Spiderman 3. Â *bleh* Â This also means that he's freed up to work on his next project. Â One of two planned projects for Raimi is the World of Warcraft movie. Â Another benefit? Â The empty space in the release schedule means that the Thor movie is being moved up earlier in the release calendar. Â Look to see Thor in theaters May 6, 2011.
Player 2 Has Entered the Game
Charging Star!
My friend Ryan Fuerstenburg, the owner of Charging Star Comics, will be joining the blogging "staff" here at SANO. The plan is for a monthly post about the comics of the past month. Look forward to the inaugural Charging Star Comics Update! in the first week of February.
CHARGING STAR!
The Sword is The Great
It's hot.
So my good buddy Ryan over at Charging Star Comics finally started getting in my requested copies of "The Sword" by the Luna Brothers. Â Damn it's good. Â In one sitting I read through both "Fire" and "Water", the first two trade paperback volumes. Â Looks like there are going to be a total of 4 volumes, with the third, "Earth" having been published last month.
The art is good. Â It's not the normal style I enjoy, but that's okay. Â Make that the character designs. Â The art itself is beautiful, but I think the faces are all a little too round. Â <shrug>
What I find truly awesome is the writing. Â So far, the main characters are developing as the mystery is unfolded to both the reader and the characters themselves. Â That story also happens to be really great.
The main character is a paraplegic college art student.  The story is also an action romp.  Awesomeness.
Oddly enough, I think the closest story I can relate to "The Sword" would be "Robocop". Â That's a compliment, really.
Get it, read it. Â I can't wait until I get the next two volumes and then I can read all 4 of them again straight through.
Jerry Ma at Rutgers!
So apparently, Jerry Ma from Epic Proportions just did a workshop and talk at Rutgers University.  It was about a book he co-edited about Asian American identities.  Here's an amazon link to the book Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology
Awesome!
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