Tag: comics

Review – Captain America: Civil War Prelude

Posted May 14, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Civil War PreludeCaptain America: Civil War Prelude, Corona Pilgrim et al

So if you were wondering if this is worth getting, the answer is — unless you’re a fanatic collector of the MCU tie-in comics — no. It really doesn’t present much new material: I counted eight pages of new stuff, if we’re being generous. The rest was either recaps of the movies (which, if you’re enough of a fan to be grabbing the tie-in comics, you’ve probably seen) or excerpts from the original Civil War comics. And sure, that might prepare you for the film, I guess, but so would rewatching the movies so far. The movie adaptation (which I have now seen) is different enough from the original comic that it’s not at all necessary to read the comic as a companion.

So there you go. Save your money.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Rat Queens: Demons

Posted April 30, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Rat Queens vol 3Rat Queens vol 3: Demons, Kurtis J. Wiebe, Tess Fowler

I’m not sure how different the art is in this volume — I can’t compare since my copies of volumes one and two are elsewhere — but I was left overall unsatisfied; I felt like it could’ve been better. Characters were clear enough, etc, but I didn’t feel it stood out, apart from Stjepan Sejic’s covers. I remember loving Stjepan Sejic’s art, so that’s not surprising; Fowler’s art is competent and expressive and all that, but it just doesn’t have the same feel.

Overall, this volume is a bit of a mess, too. It’s uneven as to which characters have anything important to do — Dee has almost nothing, in this volume — and it ends on an unsatisfying note. This volume is mostly about Hannah and her past, and I’m starting to really crave more background for the Rat Queens as a group. How did they come together, why do they stick together? They seem pretty disparate at times.

The interlude with Betty and the dragon is kind of fun, though, and it was obvious more time was going to be spent with Hannah and her family’s issues.

Possibly it’s because I wasn’t that invested in the first place, but I think this is the last volume of Rat Queens I actually buy. (I might borrow volume four from someone, if and when it exists.)

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Alex + Ada Volume One

Posted March 16, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Alex + Ada Vol 1 by Sarah Vaughn and Jonathan LunaAlex + Ada: Volume One, Jonathan Luna, Sarah Vaughn

I picked up Alex + Ada because I read some pretty positive reviews, and I’ve always been interested in AI/android stories, ever since my first fateful encounter with Asimov’s robots in The Positronic Man. I’m a little irritated now that the library only had volume one, because that barely gets things off the ground: Alex meets his new android companion, names her, and realises that she’s lacking that something that makes her a person. For whatever reason — and this isn’t really covered in depth, which actually kind of makes sense to me — Alex decides that he wants to free her intelligence and make her truly sentience. He hasn’t really thought about it before, even though he’s all wired up to his house, but it just feels right, so he goes through with it.

And that’s… pretty much it. It’s an intriguing enough set-up, but it’s barely the start of a story. I wish the library had the next book; I’d rather just go straight onto that, and hope that it picks up straight away. As it is, I’m not sure when I’ll get to read the second volume.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days

Posted March 13, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Cover of Ex-Machina: The First Hundred DaysEx Machina: The First Hundred Days, Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, Tom Feister, JD Mettler

This is an interesting take on the superhero genre, with a man randomly granted powers and first attempting to use them as a superhero, ‘The Great Machine’, before giving up on that and turning to politics in order to make a real difference. I’m not a huge fan of the art, but it’s not bad or distracting; there’s just something about it I don’t quite get on with, especially when it comes to faces.

There’s really a lot more to this story than can be packed into one volume, and in a way I wanted to skip the preliminaries and learn more. The last section was more engaging, because it really brought feelings into it — the Three Musketeers, split apart by not believing in the same things anymore — whereas the rest I didn’t feel that engaged with.

I’m intrigued by the story, but not enough to rush to get the next volume. Maybe if the library has it.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Wicked + The Divine: Commercial Suicide

Posted March 2, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of The Wicked + The Divine Vol 3 by Jamie McKelvie and Kieron GillenThe Wicked + The Divine: Commercial Suicide, Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie & guest artists

Commercial Suicide is right, sadly. I wanted to love this book. I adored the heck out of the first two volumes, and especially with that twist at the end of volume two. And then… McKelvie goes on holiday, we get a load of backstory and alternate points of view, and the story almost entirely lacks the characters we’ve come to love. Partly because there’s a high body count in these comics, but also because Odin can’t be anyone’s idea of a hero, and it’s becoming apparent that Ananke is more than she’s letting on.

I don’t actually hate the art in the way some other readers do. It has broken the consistency of the series, but it was interesting looking at other takes on the characters — and I actually liked the art in the comic about Sekhmet, which I know other people really hated. It just seems to suit her, somehow.

But… this just feels so thin compared to the other volumes. I wanted so much more, especially after Fandemonium.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Ms Marvel: Last Days

Posted February 22, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Ms Marvel: Last DaysMs Marvel: Last Days, G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona

Between the main plot and the extra material, this contains team-ups between Kamala Khan and both Captain Marvel and Spider-man. Awesome. Unfortunately, the extra material makes very little sense because it’s from Amazing Spider-man issues seven and eight… so pretty much without context. There are some funny bits, though, with Peter Parker teaching Kamala the ways of snark.

The main plot is better, though it is a tie-in with the recent timeline convergence event type thing which I know basically nothing else about. It’s interesting to see Kamala team up with Carol, although Carol is pretty bland here (why is her costume all grey?); Kamala’s excited questions and chatter are perfect. Expressions and art are perfect for the series, as usual: I love the faces Kamala makes.

Also, cute points like Kamala nursing heartbreak by eating tons of hotdogs and philosophising to the hotdog stand owner.

The family stuff is great here, too: we see Kamala’s brother come into his own a bit, defending his choices in life, defending his sister, and not wanting the same sort of life as Kamala. He’s happy as he is, and Kamran is entirely wrong that Aamir is at all discontented or jealous. That’s nice to see, and also the section with Kamala’s mother telling her she knows she’s Ms Marvel — much better than an ever-oblivious Aunt May situation, like Ultimate Spider-man. Aaaaand it finally resolves some of the tension with Bruno’s feelings for Kamala, with a very sweet scene in which they remain definitely best friends, with plenty of potential for more… if they survive.

Rating: 4/5

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Appreciating comics

Posted February 15, 2016 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

A lot of readers don’t like comics, or just can’t get into them, or can’t see what extra dimension comics add that works for other people. And I get it; there was a point where I didn’t really read comics, and in fact looked down on them as little more than picture books with extra dialogue (because teenagers can be snobs like that, and because I had some cognitive dissonance which allowed me to claim manga was something else entirely). But someone comments on one of my reviews today and asked what I like about comics in general, and I found myself wanting to explore it at some length.

I started readinCover of Marvel's Young Avengers: Mic-Drop at the Edge of Time and Spaceg comics really because of the MCU. I wanted more of Steve Rogers (“I don’t want to kill anyone, I just don’t like bullies, wherever they’re from”) — much as I loved him on the screen, that was only a handful of hours of time with him, and a lot of that taken up with explosions and supervillainy. I don’t think I particularly started with Cap comics, but I did mostly start with Marvel, where the character colours a lot of the narratives because he’s such an integral Marvel character — an instigator of Civil War, a moral compass, the leader of the Avengers. A mentor to the Young Avengers; a friend to so many others.

And then I found that in comics there was a whole lot more diversity, too. Female superheroes like Captain Marvel, whose translation to the screen we’re still awaiting. Gay superheroes like Teddy Altman and Billy Kaplan. Disabled characters like Vengeance Moth and Oracle.

think that’s when I got hooked. For the characters. But also because comics could tell me more about those characters, and give my very non-visual brain more to work with: the way they stand, the way they move, the way they react. The bonds between characters which would be overstated if you took a paragraph tCover of The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapio describe them, but which are explained so simply in a single panel of a comic.

It’s also worth noting that there are tons of really worthwhile comics which are not about superheroes, which is something people forget, because the words comics and superheroes have become so strongly linked. But there’s awesome stuff out there — The Wicked + The Divine, Bitch Planet, Saga, Rat Queens — which explores other kinds of worlds, and works like Maus and Persepolis which use the form to explore very serious, autobiographical subjects.

What really taught me to appreciate comics was Prof. William Kuskin’s MOOC, Comic Books and Graphic Novels. It’s a very rewarding course if you’re willing to engage with it, teaching you to dissect a page of a comic in just the same way you might a famous poem — understanding the conventions of the form like panels and gutters in the same way as you can learn to spot rhythms and couplets. It’s one thing to unconsciously be affected by these things, I find, and another to take a moment to realise how the page ratchets up the tension, how a particular artist has broken a convention or bent a rule to let the action explode out of the page.

Comics aren’t just novels with pictures — which is why I find the term graphic novel a bit disingenuous. It’s a whole different form, combining words and art, and I think it’s best appreciated that way. Reading it just for the words or the images and not for the way they combine to tell the story is definitely not the best way to experience them.

(And if it remains not your thing, that’s fine, just like it’s fine not to like poetry.)

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Review – Age of Ultron Prelude

Posted February 11, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Avengers: Age of Ultron PreludeAvengers: Age of Ultron Prelude, Will Pilgrim, Joe Bennett

This is probably the most disappointing of all the prelude books. If you know a little about the Avengers and you’ve seen all the other films, you’re covered. Don’t bother with this. It becomes especially pointless once you’ve actually seen the film, because it includes background on the Vision and Ultron which doesn’t apply so much anymore. Okay, it’s kind of cool to see a much more diverse team, including Jessica and Carol, but nearly all of this stuff is available elsewhere, and a big chunk of the book is just a retelling of the first Avengers film. Only it makes it a lot flatter and just lacks everything that made that a great spectacle: dialogue, fight scenes, team scenes… it’s all condensed down and drained.

Just… don’t waste your time.

Rating: 2/5

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted January 30, 2016 by Nicky in General / 30 Comments

Wait, it’s Saturday again already? Well, I haven’t bought any books this week (despite some temptation), so once again I get to showcase what I’ve been reading. It isn’t a true “Unstacking” week, though, because I did get a review copy… although technically, I got it last week and forgot to include it in the stack.

Cover of The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Hellig Cover of The Collectors by Philip Pullman Cover of Queen of the Flowers by Kerry Greenwood Cover of The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers Cover of Signal to Noise by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia

 Cover of Time's Anvil by Richard Morris Cover of Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart Cover of Kingfisher by Patricia A. McKillip Cover of Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey

It was a very good reading week, despite the struggle I had with the maths assignment that just wouldn’t die.

And here’s a book I was sent by the author:

Cover of Chameleon Moon by RoAnna Sylver

Aaaand the weekly round-up…

Reviews this week:

City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Loved this one, really looking forward to City of Blades5/5 stars
Unnatural Death, adapted from the book by Dorothy L. Sayers. I think in previous readings I rated it higher, but I got a bit tired of the convolutions in this one. Still, 3/5 stars
Santa Olivia, Jacqueline Carey. Actually a reread for me, but it still had some surprises. Lots of fun! 4/5 stars
Phonogram: Rue Britannia, by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. I was toddling in the 90s, so a lot of the references were lost on me. The art’s great, though. 3/5 stars
How Not to Summon Your True Love, by Sasha L. Miller. Cute story, kinda fun, but the asexual relationship wasn’t as big of a feature as I’d have liked. 3/5 stars
The Girl from Everywhere, by Heidi Heilig. I read it in two sittings, so despite having some quibbles about characterisation later on, the setting and worldbuilding definitely worked for me. 4/5 stars
Flashback Friday: Camelot’s Shadow, by Sarah Zettel. An old review of a series that’s turned into comfort reading for me, and this is the book that features Sir Gawain the most! 4/5 stars

Other posts:

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Picked Up At Random and Loved. It was a freebie week, so it took me a while to think of a topic, but this one was fun.
On reading kinks (that one trope). Is there something in a story that will always make you love it? I had a go at dissecting mine here.

How is everyone? Eating up books as much as you’d like? Tempted by anything in particular? Update me!

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Review – Phonogram: Rue Brittania

Posted January 26, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Phonogram: Rue Britannia by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelviePhonogram: Rue Brittania, Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie

You can see in Phonogram the seeds of The Wicked + The Divine, I think, and an earlier stage of McKelvie’s art which isn’t quite the style he uses for The Wicked + The Divine or Young Avengers, but which is attractive and clean. The aesthetic is different, since it’s all black and white; it looks quite striking, but I think I do prefer comics in colour. It makes things easier to read, for me: I had a tendency to lose panels and not read in the right order, for some reason, with Phonogram.

The story itself, well… I know the glossary says that you don’t really need to know Britpop to get it, but I feel like you do need more knowledge than I have. I was toddling and learning to talk and think in the 90s, and even once I was at school and other kids were listening to music, I would still rather have been reading. So a lot of the references and the nostalgia stuff, the whole attitude, was just not in my frame of reference.

The magic system, the goddess and aspects of her, the links to music — it was a cool idea, but not elaborated enough. So lacking that, sympathetic characters or a nostalgic link, I felt like I didn’t really have a way into the comic. It was interesting, but not my thing. Worth a look, though, if you’re a fan of Gillen and McKelvie as a team, and especially The Wicked + The Divine.

Three stars from me mostly because: a) it involves a guy having periods as a punishment for being an asshole, and b) the art.

Rating: 3/5

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