gustavo duarte, monsters! and other stories

I'm out of practice on reviewing comics. I used to read mountains of them--not so much the DC/Marvel stuff, but a lot of indie comics--and there are piles of them in our study. Pre-Rocket, we'd head into the city every weekend and go to Comics R Us and Minotaur, or catch the train to Windsor and hit up Alternate Worlds and their Comics R Us. I've always been lucky enough to be served by only the nicest of people, who didn't seem to care that I was a lady, and to be frank, I wouldn't have been anywhere near as interested in comics when I was a wide-eyed twenty-one-year-old looking for new interests if it hadn't been for the roundly excellent service we received in a few key shops. Originally, both of these were Comics R Us stores--the one on Bourke St, and the one in Ringwood. We don't go to Ringwood much any more, but every time we do we like to go there, because Ian is one of my favourite people, and even if we haven't been in there for months or years, he still remembers us, and says hello, and asks how work is going, and suggests things, and shows us exciting stuff he has and gives us sneaky extras. As someone who grew up in the eastern suburbs, I mostly see the ex-zone-three area as a place too full of embarrassing teenage memories to enjoy it (sigh for the memory of my silver nightclub pants), but Ian alone is worth the visit. The city store, though, is where we blasted a home loan's equivalent of cash on comics and figurines and assorted fun stuff, all because everyone who worked there was so enthusiastic and cheerful and friendly and all the positive words. Later, they and we expanded into All Star Comics on Lonsdale St, up near Queen, and while we don't have the money for armfuls comics any more (apparently babies need shoes, and sometimes even food), we still make it up there once a fortnight or so to pick up the new Hellboy or some local release, to build up karma for when Chris publishes his own indie release and we sell the film rights and become millionaires and well I'm definitely not letting this train of thought get out of hand here.

Mostly, I don't read what Chris buys. Mostly, I'm distracted by crime books, or whatever writing or reviews I'm working on, or the kiddo unpacking all our cds and repacking them into new, unrelated cases, never to be found again. I still read some, but not as many. Today, over a Lime After Lime cupcake, I read Monsters! & Other Stories.

via slate.com

Some art looks so natural it reads as if the illustrators have no difficulty in what flows through the arm and past the pen. Gustavo Duarte is one of those people. Every stroke looks flawless, relaxed, and easy. It's impressive and completely enjoyable. The realistic lines of people's faces--exaggerated yet honest--and the swirl of the fantastic in his monsters and the water; they are all just right. There were maybe one or two panels in the, uh [flicks, guesses] one-fifty pages where I got lost in what was on the paper. Those are pretty good odds.

There are three stories. In Co, a farmer encounters an alien, and the resulting abduction tilts his world into a pig-and-chicken-fueled confusion. In Birds, Death pays a visit to two work colleagues who try to avoid this unpleasant appointment. In the title piece, giant monsters storm a city, and only one man and his glorious moustache know what to do. In none of them is there a single word of dialogue. Duarte is Brazilian, so this probably saved a decent amount on translation fees. The lack of dialogue or narration is never missed, with everything told in expressions and a punchy storyline. It's glorious, cartoonish, fun, delivers some swift bloodletting and left me completely happy with the afternoon's purchase and with the medium itself. Fine, I'm convinced. I should get back into this comics malarkey.

via comicsalliance.com

the avengers

Since Captain America came out last year and Chris Evans’ upper-arm circumference became a bigger number than his paycheque, I—along with a good chunk of the population—have been nigh on frantic for the release of The Avengers. We knew it was going to star all of our favourite Avengers from previous Marvel-funded flicks—1940s transplant Captain America (Evans), metal-suited “billionaire genius playboy philanthropist” Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Russian spy Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Norse god Thor (Our Chris Hemsworth), candidate for anger management Hulk (previously Edward “Jerkface” Norton, now played by Mark “Unshaven Face” Ruffalo) and a new-to-this-series arrow sharpshooter Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). We knew the bad guy was going to be Loki (Tom Hiddleston), a god with a big stick and hair that flicks up at the ends. (How I wish I knew his secret.) We knew Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) would bring them all together into a great big tasty Avengerrific pie. But would it live up to the hype felt by full- and quasi-nerds everywhere? 

When Loki, brother of the more Earth-friendly Thor, arrives on our planet, he leaves a trail of destruction and borrows a few good guys on his path to global domination. When the person you’re fighting is as powerful as Loki, you need to band together the best of the best—the superheroes that have been defending our beautiful world (read: North America). But when they’re all together, it’s a clash of egos and personalities—will they band together to defeat a god, or will their group fracture and disperse the power they have as a team? 

If that sounds trite, it’s because it is. Yes, I’m aware that in some circles (aka mine) anything but adoration for this movie is controversial. I’ve already been threatened with death, or maybe a sulk, I forget which. It has caused discord even in my own relationship, which will hopefully survive this conflict like it survived the great Sultanas: Yes Or No debate of 2004. But while it was perfectly serviceable, well-acted and fun, it wasn’t as good as it should have been. Much of this comes down to having a plotline that has been done countless times before. The heroes bouncing off each other is part of the fun, and the infighting isn’t even a problem—of course they’re all going to grate on each other. (Have you met Thor? He’s an asshole.) When they all start getting suspicious of each other and of Nick Fury, it’s ridiculous, especially when someone even points out in the film that Loki will try and prise them apart. While they can get to the group’s split (not really a spoiler, come on) in an interesting way, it’s just not a fresh concept. Yes, superheroes aren’t “fresh”, they’re comic characters that have been around for decades. It doesn’t matter. We’re sick of seeing these things happen. Get a new plot. 

Despite director Joss Whedon’s habit of making women kickass characters, the film doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test. There are three major female characters: Black Widow, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders, recently seen 400 times this week as Robyn from How I Met Your Mother). They never talk to each other, though they are all very cool. Black Widow, while having the best introductory scene, is also the only character to break down after a confrontation. Seeing the female hero shaking in a corner, while everyone else just picks themselves up and gets over it, was a disappointment, especially after she’d flipped that idea in an earlier scene with Loki. It’s corny—Bruce Banner falls on a “contents under pressure” sign at one point—and the effects are pretty average, with a lot of blur. Because I am tragic, I saw it in 3D, which might explain some of the wonky FX, but if you’re going to market a movie like Avengers as a 3D movie, do it properly—this is one of the first movies I wish I’d seen in 2D instead. Even though the Hulk was utterly entertaining, is he able to hold a conversation while Hulky or not? Because he was coherent in convenient moments, but not others. Whedon didn’t bother avoiding that frustrating, easy-out trope where an enemy—numerous and flying—vanishes for just long enough for an important conversation to happen. There are also some continuity errors (can I just hit my past self about the head for forgetting to take a notebook, I am clearly out of practise), including the frequent amount of times that Tony Stark can be seen swanning about without his chest glowing even though it had been just a minute earlier. These are all things I could get over separately if the movie’s excellence had otherwise blinded me to them, but sadly (and I’m genuinely sad, I wanted so desperately to love this) it just didn’t. 

To the movie’s credit, the characters are all staunchly excellent and the casting blissful—Ruffalo is a brilliant Banner, and made all Banner/Hulk scenes my favourite, even though I’d assumed I’d be squealing every time Cap opened his mouth. (Actually, he was kind of sulky.) The fight scenes were a knockout, and there are a few one-liners and comedic tussles that kept me smiling. Working with a great cast and acclaimed director meant it was never going to be a terrible film, but it should have been a brilliant one. The characters shared a mostly equal amount of screen time, though it could have been retitled Iron Man 3 in a pinch. Hawkeye, being the only entirely new addition to the movie franchise, suffered from lack of a backstory, but time constraints—the movie is already nearly two and a half hours long—make it understandable. 

I give The Avengers three and a half out of six superheroes. How do you get half a superhero? Well, Bruce Banner, but not the Hulk.

luke pearson, hildafolk

At work we just got in a stack of new titles from a company called Nobrow Press. I hadn’t heard of them before, because I am mostly wandering around in a forest of book-related information feeling lost and overwhelmed, but let me tell you internets, they make a damn attractive book. We made a display just for the collection, because they are visually appealing, and we all kept wandering over to sniff the glorious, fresh-and-well-bound-book smell and discreetly flick through them and then eventually just buy. Seriously, I don’t know why we even bothered to make a display, it’s half-empty already just from employees with no self-restraint.

Anyway, the title I couldn’t resist was Hildafolk, by Luke Pearson. Nobrow has a graphic short story project called 17x23 and Hildafolk is one of the titles. It’s beautiful, and not very long, which is appealing to someone like me who has a short attention span. So I picked it up and took it home and read it and fell completely in love.

It’s hard to summarise something that has less words in it than the review I’ll end up writing (probably), but a young girl called Hilda lives with her mother, reads books on trolls, has an antlered-fox-type-companion-animal called Twig, and loves to draw and sleep in a tent when it rains. One morning, she goes out drawing, and, well, as she says at the end, “What a noteworthy day.” She learned a lesson about tolerance, made me do these alarming short barks of laughter, and then I sniffed the pages some more in a vaguely creepy manner and sighed at the end. It really is a perfect little story.

Luke Pearson’s big-eyed, stick-legged people and gorgeously coloured mountainous landscape are just the right level of cute and immersive. The snow and wind and Hilda’s fear of trolls are equally as clear and vibrant on the page, Pearson’s lines drawn as clear and smooth with the changing weather as they are with Hilda’s big, happy face. The terrain is familiar, but the critters within are not, trolls and giants as normal as snow and rain. Once I’d checked out other stuff on his site, I realised that his style, with clean lines like a Chris Ware tale but with movement (not to criticise Ware, who is amazing), if maybe Ware had an artistically-inclined baby with Charley Harper, is actually just my favourite style to look at. When it rains in Hilda’s tent, the PT PT PT of the downpour is evocative, and the earth-toned colours are so well-chosen that texture was rendered completely unnecessary. I mean, look, the whole thing has made me do entire sentences comprised entirely of fawning and without any terrible jokes. Surely that is something to be celebrated.

In summary: Exceeds Expectations, and about the most perfect way to spend ten minutes. It’s great, and you should read it. The only downside is the price here in Australia; while it’s a full-colour book with sturdy pages, it’s still only about twenty-four pages long and at twenty dollars, compared to around six dollars for a typical comic single issue, it’s a bit much. Still, it’s actually completely worth it, as both an art piece and as a comic, and you should all read it anyway and agree with me that the world created for Hilda should be the default setting for life. And then you should buy it. Or at least go and visit him over here, and tell him I sent you so he can be all, “What?”