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Saturday, December 04, 2010 ( 12/04/2010 04:17:00 PM ) Bill S. WEEKEND PET PIC: Taken last Thanksgiving, a shot of Savannah Cat and the one dog in the house that she can get along with.  THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark." # | Thursday, December 02, 2010 ( 12/02/2010 06:36:00 AM ) Bill S.  THIS TOWN IS COMING LIKE A GHOST TOWN: The first question that arises with a comic book adaptation of Shaun of the Dead (Titan Books) is how does the graphic novel handle the flick’s great early moments: the bits where our hero obliviously makes his way around the neighborhood without once noticing that that his neighbors have become the living dead. Bottom line: while giving us plot details, the Chris Ryall/Zack Howard comic can’t replicate the deadpan humor of the movie -- perhaps because it’s too dependent on filmic elements (acting, pacing, camera placement) to work.Where the British comic book succeeds (none too surprisingly, perhaps) are in the broadly comic bromance between Shaun and his doltish friend Ed -- and in the straight-faced zombie attacks. Artist Zach Howard (with an ink assist by Sean Murphy) does a bang-up job with the walking dead, at times reminding us of Jack Davis’ work for the early EC comics only with more blood strewn all over the bodies, of course. It’s weak on the so-called romance between our hero and his disgruntled girlfriend Liz, but then so was the movie, so in this respect at least the comic gets it right. Back in the fifties, when comics companies produced comic book versions of then-current movies, they worked as both promos for upcoming features and souvenirs of the moviegoing experience. Today, with the chance to re-watch the original readily available, I can’t help wondering just how big the market is for a slickly produced, redundant package like this. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: modern comics # |Wednesday, December 01, 2010 ( 12/01/2010 07:05:00 AM ) Bill S. MID-WEEK MUSIC VIDEO: Reading about the new release by power-popper Bleu got me looking for songs from his debut disc, Redhead. Here's a good 'un. # | Sunday, November 28, 2010 ( 11/28/2010 10:15:00 AM ) Bill S.  “YOUR NEW REGULAR IS TRULY VERY HANDSOME.” A follow-up to the pulpish first volume, Hubert and Kerascoet’s Miss Don’t Touch Me 2 (NBM/ComicsLit) continues the original’s period melodrama sans the first book’s serial killer storyline. Our heroine Blanche, still stuck as a big-draw virginal dominatrix at the Parisian bordello the Pompadour, finds romance in this outing in the person of a blond scion of wealth named Antoine. Interfering with our heroine’s chance at happiness are a jealous rival at the Pompadour, Antoine’s hypocritical dowager mother and Blanche’s own manipulative mère who shows up in her life after abandoning our heroine and her sister years ago.Where the first book had a decent murder mystery for its forward thrust, the Hubert-scripted sequel proves more meandering. There’s a small attempt to make something of Blanche’s boyfriend’s chasteness, but when the story revelation comes, it’s no surprise to 21st century readers even if it is to our somewhat naïve thirties heroine. Through much of the graphic novel, Blanche is more victim of her era than she is an active protagonist, though there is a satisfying moment near the end where she hauls off on her mother’s scummy ex-boyfriend. The class-based themes embedded in the first volume are made much more explicit here, but the less subtle approach doesn’t tell us anything new about Miss Don’t Touch Me’s world. I was intrigued by the Sweet Relaxation Psychiatric Clinic that appears in the second half of the book -- a reminder of just how barbaric early mental health treatment could be -- which in its own way proves just as creepy as the serial killer plotline in book one. But even this can’t lift the book up to the compelling level of the first. Keracoet’s (a pseudonym for Marie Pommepuy and Sébastien Cosset) art again catches period Paris beautifully; though there aren’t as many visually gothic trappings in this story, there is a nice drug-induced hallucination sequence where the artists get to let loose. In terms of its look the “mature readers” graphic novel is as stylish as the first book, though midway when one of Blanche’s customers complains about her performance that night (“What happened to that enthusiasm that made all her charm?”) I found myself thinking we could probably ask a similar question of this book’s creators. Slickly made and packaged, Miss Don’t Touch Me 2 remains a pale expansion on the original. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: art comics # | |
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