The Amazingly Sh*tty Spider-Artist
I’d like to begin by giving my good pal Andy a shout-out for the shout-out he gave Geek Force Five on his site last week. And I’d like to follow-up that shout-out by thanking Andy for inadvertently reminding me that the comics coverage of this site has been woefully inadequate thus far. You see, in describing what I was covering over here, Andy specifically mentioned “comic book movies” instead of just plain comic books. That got me looking back into the archives to see what might have given him that impression. And, lo and behold, I discovered that the only comic book story I’ve done prior to this one was the one about the forthcoming Wolverine and Hulk movies. Add to that the fact that I used a movie-version of Spidey in the header image, and you can see why people might be confused.
So, without further ado, here is my attempt to get the comics coverage on this site back on track. Next week, I hope to get you an Explaining the Obsession entry similar to the one I did for Nine Inch Nails. Until then, here are my thoughts on this week’s issue of The Amazing Spider-Man:
The art sucks!
The gist of my feelings about the now thrice-monthly Spider-Man title is that Marvel is sacrificing quality for quantity. I was behind them 100% when they decided to cancel their excess Spidey titles and start publishing only one book that would have a more cohesive storyline. In the past, you had Spidey dealing with one crisis in Spectacular Spider-Man, one crisis in the adjectiveless Spider-Man, and another crisis in Amazing. And then, every once in a while, they’d do some sort of line-wide crossover and you’d have to buy all three when you hadn’t been buying all three before. It was confusing, even more confusing than this paragraph, if you can imagine that. The new strategy of publishing one title, Amazing Spider-Man, three times a month, was supposed to solve problems. And, for the first two months, it did.
But the problem now is that they’ve cycled through their top-tier artist and writer combos and we’re left with Bob Gale of Back to the Future fame doing the writing and this guy Phil Jimenez, who apparently couldn’t draw a realistic-looking foot to save his life. I mean, the art is just shoddy. Maybe this guy has done some quality work in the past, but what he’s doing now is just not doing it for me.
I started collecting comics in the 90s, when art was the major selling point. Now, I’m not saying that art should be the major selling point, and I’ll be the first to admit that the writing in the 90s left a lot to be desired, but I can’t stand books that try to win customers over with good writing alone. Comic books are about the marriage of art and words. You can’t skimp on one or the other, in my opinion. And that’s what I feel like Marvel is doing. They want to capitalize on Spidey’s popularity by having a new Spidey book out in stores three weeks out of every month, but they’re losing so much in the process.
Maybe next week will be better, but I’m not holding out much hope.
This Week’s Other Book(s)
This week’s Uncannny X-men (#496) was a surprise of the far nicer variety. Ed Brubaker’s spinning a couple of fun yarns here, one involving Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler bar-fighting in Russia near where Colossus comes from, and the other involving Cyclops and Emma Frost traveling to San Francisco to rescue some friends from a city that’s suddenly psychically under the impression that it’s the 1960s again. Fun, fun stuff. The mutants have been through some dark days in the past year or so, and this story arc seems to be all about balancing that.
I also managed to snag a copy of Secret Invasion Saga, a freebie book/marketing device designed to pull people in for Marvel’s big Secret Invasion event this summer. That was mildly entertaining, too. I loves me some skrulls, man. And I’m really excited to see what they do with this whole storyline. Basically, these shapeshifting aliens have infiltrated every facet of the Marvel Universe’s Earth. And everyone’s flipping out, because no one knows who’s who anymore.
Topics: Marvel Comics
Games for the iPhone
I may still be without an iPhone of my own, but that doesn’t stop me from getting geeky about announcements for the device. And, while most of Apple’s iPhone Software Roadmap Event was nap-inducing drivel, I couldn’t be more excited about the announcements that they made regarding gaming on the iPhone.
The screenshot above was taken from just one of the three different games were demoed at the Apple event, and it was amazing to see the way that they were using all of the device’s features to create a unique gaming experience. For “Touch Fighter,” a game that Apple’s internal team cooked up over the course of two weeks, you tilt and twist the iPhone to maneuver your spaceship and to aim your weapons. And to shoot? You just tap anywhere you’d like on the touch-screen. There’s no need for a joystick or other directional device, even a simulated on-screen one. The accelerometer and touch screen that are built into the device are all that you need.
This makes me want one of these damn things even more. Now, not only would I have a phone, an iPod, and the whole damn Internet in my pocket; I’d also have a pretty spiffy gaming device (at least spiffy enough for my unsophisticated gaming tastes) to boot.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a bit more.
Anyone want to help me pay off my $20,000 in credit card debt so that I can finally pick up one of these bad-boys? Click on the Donate link in the sidebar and help a brother out.
Last Week on Lost: The Constant
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Jensen, Lost’s executive producer Damon Lindelof teases that, at some point during tonight’s episode ("The Other Woman"), “Ben’s gonna tell us who sent that damn freighter!” Which is pretty exciting, I guess, if you think Ben’s going to tell the truth. What’s more exciting is that Lindelof also rehashes last week’s episode with Jensen, and in the process clarifies a few points which might have otherwise been confusing.
I’ll throw some of my thoughts below the fold, so as not to spoil any RSS readers who might not have seen “The Constant” yet.
Is The Word ‘Porno’ Dangerous?
USA Today has some early scoop on Kevin Smith’s next flick says FirstShowing.net. But, aside from the photo I’ve included above—which is quite amusing, I must admit—color me disappointed. Most of the article focuses on how calling the film Zack and Miri Make a Porno could be damaging at the box office.
Seriously? We’re worried about the American public staying away from a film with the word ‘porno’ in the title. It’d be one thing if it was Zack and Miri Shoot a Gangbang or Zack and Miri Film a Circle-Jerk. But Zack and Miri Make a Porno? We’re seriously worried about that? Didn’t the Academy Award for Best Screenplay just go to a former stripper. Do we not live in a world where a sex-tape actually increases the popularity of a somebody who should still be a nobody? Red light culture has been on the rise since at least 2003. Porno is not a naughty word. The word piques interest. It’s not going to drive people away, not any more. It’s going to bring them in. As that dude from the Men’s Wearhouse commercials says, “I guarantee it.”
On the other hand, USA Today’s Dispatches from the set feature is well worth checking out. Topic #1 is “Preparing for a sex scene,” and both Banks and Rogen offer some amusing thoughts on the subject.
Crossover Craziness: NIN and the Dresden Dolls
One of the first things I learned about the new Nine Inch Nails record, Ghosts I-IV, was that Dresden Dolls drummer Brian Viglione had recorded drums for a couple of tracks. I am a huge fan of the Dolls, and I still think that they were the best opening act that I’ve ever seen at a NIN show, so this was most welcome news. The Boston Herald’s Michael Marotta posted a brief article on Brian’s involvement on the Herald’s Website today. It’s not particularly illuminating, but it’s nice to see the hometown heroes getting a bit of attention.
The Dresden Dolls’s newsletter provided a bit more insight, and a board member at Echoing the Sound has been kind enough to transcribe it. Here’s a snippet:
Here’s a little re-cap of that weekend:
Day 1: Trent said, “I thought a fun art project for today would be to have you put some things together to play on and we could improv some stuff tonight. I don’t really have room for a big drum kit and all the mics here, but, let your imagination go and we’ll help you piece together what you need. When you get something together, we’ll record tonight. Go nuts, see you in a few hours.”
So I put this together from stuff around his house, Home Depot, and the grocery store.
It sounded cool as hell.
Brian can be heard on two tracks of Ghosts I-IV, and they’re two of the better ones, in my humble opinion (and that’s saying something on an album where, to my ear, there aren’t any glaring weak spots). I love crossovers, man, whether they’re in comics, films, or even in music. Yay for Brian for landing this gig, and yay for Trent for giving the New Hampshire boy a chance.
Topics: Nine Inch Nails
