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Post by berkley on Apr 26, 2023 19:57:19 GMT -5
I remember a couple reasons I didn't buy Tomorrow Stories consistently: precocious kid characters grate on my nerves so the Jack B. Quick feature was a hard-sell for me conceptually; and while I do like the underlying concept of the Silk Spectre, I don't really like Melinda Gebbie's style of art, which brought down my enjoyment of that character's stories.
Promethea was right up my alley, though. Far and away my favourite of Moore's ABCs.
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 27, 2023 11:28:09 GMT -5
I remember a couple reasons I didn't buy Tomorrow Stories consistently: precocious kid characters grate on my nerves so the Jack B. Quick feature was a hard-sell for me conceptually; and while I do like the underlying concept of the Silk Spectre, I don't really like Melinda Gebbie's style of art, which brought down my enjoyment of that character's stories. Promethea was right up my alley, though. Far and away my favourite of Moore's ABCs. I think you mean Cobweb, as Silk Spectre was Watchmen. I'm not overly enamored of Gebbie's art, but she adapts it to the different styles in each story and it works for what they do with the strip, which is mostly tease the reader with blatant sexually charged material that never descends into actual porn. They kind of use it to satirize the sexual undertones to a lot of superhero adventures, particularly with female characters. The last issue I reviewed satirized lesbian pulp fiction, while also poking fun at crime comics. The fun, for me, is identifying the source of the satire and seeing what they do with it, rather than the story itself. Jack B Quick satirizes those precocious kids and takes it into absurd territory, like the Animal Farm parody. Part of what I loved about the ABC books was that they had a sense of humor to them, which made a refreshing change from DC and Marvel, where everything was so damn serious. I miss the days when Batman used to crack a smile, once in a while. There were rare exceptions, like the JLI gang getting back together for a couple on mini-series/storylines and Dan Slott's She Hulk, Thing mini and Spider-Man & The Human Torch. Those are just sheer fun and downright funny, too.
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Post by berkley on Apr 28, 2023 2:52:09 GMT -5
I remember a couple reasons I didn't buy Tomorrow Stories consistently: precocious kid characters grate on my nerves so the Jack B. Quick feature was a hard-sell for me conceptually; and while I do like the underlying concept of the Silk Spectre, I don't really like Melinda Gebbie's style of art, which brought down my enjoyment of that character's stories. Promethea was right up my alley, though. Far and away my favourite of Moore's ABCs. I think you mean Cobweb, as Silk Spectre was Watchmen. I'm not overly enamored of Gebbie's art, but she adapts it to the different styles in each story and it works for what they do with the strip, which is mostly tease the reader with blatant sexually charged material that never descends into actual porn. They kind of use it to satirize the sexual undertones to a lot of superhero adventures, particularly with female characters. The last issue I reviewed satirized lesbian pulp fiction, while also poking fun at crime comics. The fun, for me, is identifying the source of the satire and seeing what they do with it, rather than the story itself. Jack B Quick satirizes those precocious kids and takes it into absurd territory, like the Animal Farm parody. Part of what I loved about the ABC books was that they had a sense of humor to them, which made a refreshing change from DC and Marvel, where everything was so damn serious. I miss the days when Batman used to crack a smile, once in a while. There were rare exceptions, like the JLI gang getting back together for a couple on mini-series/storylines and Dan Slott's She Hulk, Thing mini and Spider-Man & The Human Torch. Those are just sheer fun and downright funny, too.
yes, Cobweb, that was it - meant to look it up before I clicked "post" and then forgot.
I wasn't reading Marvel/DC at all at the time and hadn't followed their product regularly since the early 1980s so that contrast wasn't a draw for me. It was Moore's name that attracted me because I thought then, as I still do today, that he was possibly the best comics writer there's ever been.
I understood the satiric nature of the various features but that in itself wasn't enough to overcome the personal distaste I felt for some of them. When I really dislike something - as I do the precocious kid trope that Moore was playing with in Jack B. Quick - it doesn't really make a difference that it's being treated satirically, that something is still going to be a turn-off for me.
However, I now think I'd like to read all the ABC series I skipped at the time - if only because we probably aren't going to be seeing any more comics work from Moore.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 15, 2023 22:48:42 GMT -5
Tomorrow Stories #4Wow; Abe Lincoln and the Terminator dissing First American and US Angel. That's cold! Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, Jim Baike, Melinda Gebbie, Rick Veitch, & Kevin Nowlan-art, Todd Klein-letters, Bad@$$ & Wildstorm FX-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor Synopsis: First American-After brokering a peace with Fatwah Arbuckle, the Guzzlin' Muslim, First American and US Angel find themselves facing a new foe, Mortal Ken, the Special Prosecutor, come to make them answer to charges of corruption and depravity. he wisks them away to a courtroom, where FA stands defiant.... Mortal Ken plays the first piece of evidence, a taped conversation between US Angel and Tadpole, sidekick of Cane Toad Man, where she calls him a "fat creep" and says he made her give him a....you know...then 3 or 4, before he was satisfied. FA objects to being called fat. Next, we get heresay testimony from Cane Toad Man and the Human Porch, regarding the number of Mistresses that FA went through. FA takes up his own defense... He then rambles on about Girl Scouts, Rohypnol, crossing state lines, etc...until Ken interrupts and says they aren't talking about his sex life but his accepting sponsorship money from Mistress Snack Treats and doing advertising for them. He tries to deny it, but the weight of the evidence presented and it is all too much. He breaks down and says it is all true, then declares war on The Balkan States, The Middle East, The people's republic of China and Russia and ends up fighting Fatwah Arbuckle again, then unleashes Mistress Fruit Pies, to defeat him! Cobweb-Li'l Cobweb and Li'l Clarice knock on Mrs Ginelli's door and say they are investigating nefarious doings..... They believe Officer Henderson has been abducted by criminal anarchists and is being tortured for Atomic Secrets. Turns out, Mrs Ginelli is having an affair with Officer Henderson, as she goes back inside, takes off her robe to reveal lingerie, "stockings & suspenders" (as Alan Moore might say) and high heels. She feels guilty about two-timing her husband, but the cop says he has his own secrets. Li'l Cobweb and Clarice look inside Officer Henderson's car, for clues and find is appointment book, with obviously Russian names, like Bonk Delores and Bonk Elspeth and the days he was meeting them. They must have kidnapped him. They look through Mrs Ginelli's trash and find a bunch of empty liquor bottles and surmise they are being stockpiled to make molotov cocktails. Inside the house, Mrs Ginelli handcuffs Officer Henderson to the headboard and demands to know about the other women he has been seeing, which he denies. he has the key and unlocks the cuffs and slaps Mrs Ginelli. Outside, Mr Ginelli is coming home from work early and Li'l Cobweb and Clarice warn him about the anarchists, as the door of the house opens and there is Officer Henderson in his skivvies and Delores in her robe. Lenny Ginelli asks what is going on and Li'l Cobweb says that Russian anarchists, named Boff delores and Boff Elspeth have been holding Officer Henderson captive in the basement and that he must have spotted them the same way she did, by the liquor bottles in the trash can (a surprise to both Lenny and Officer Henderson, Delores blushes and stammers) The adults begrudgingly say, yes, that must be what occurred and the girls head home for milk and cookies, while the adults go their separate ways, none too happy. Greyshirt-Our hero is facing off against Turner T Tempus, the most timely criminal in Indigo City.... Turner slugs Greyshirt from behind and goes into the lab and finds a time machine. he is about to activate it when a night watchman comes along and tries to stop him. he shoots him dead and heads off to the future and the year 2030, where a preserved article in the lab says the police force was disbanded and Greyshirt would be dead. he arrives to find a massive city and a strangely evolved language, while everyone seems to enjoy their favorite pastime. He soon learns there is a wrinkle, in the form of robotic Greyshirts. he shoots one, then finds out that there are hundreds of them. He gets back in the time machine and escapes in time. he returns to the lab to see his earlier self about to fire it up and runs to warn himself, but the earlier Turner shoots him down. Greyshirt finds the body. It turns out that the night watchman that Turner shot was his future self, coming to stop him from making the same mistake. Jack B Quick-Jack needs to work on his history and geography homework and asks his parents if they have some uranium, alarm clocks and a big pair of shoes. they tell him inside the house, as they tie on their nooses and tell him the house is his now. He runs inside and puts together a pair of time shoes to take care of both assignments in one go... Since space and time are linked, he figures that history and geography are, too and starts running towards the town and sees various historical happenings at different locales, such as the Great depression, in the front ditch and the Sinking of the Titanic, in the duck pond. In the town, an officer arrests Mrs Lincoln for murdering her husband for the insurance (they don't buy the assassin story) and the mayor says that Herny Murk's cheese refinery has the Civil War going on, on the factory floor. He doesn't have time to help Mrs Thapp, who is about to be burnt, as a witch, by Puritans and tells some passing Native Americans that they do not defeat the white men and go to the moon; but, they do get to have bingo. he runs past the Mesozoic Era, to the dawn of life and the Big Bang. he keeps going and runs right past the limits of space and time and finds himself encountering his anti-gravity experimental cat, from issue 3, Officer Pete chasing down light photons from issue 2 and the black hole from issue one and gets sucked through it until he is outside creation, before issue one. Thoughts: The First American is a nice spoof of both the whole Clinton Impeachment (and Whitewater investigation), with Mortal Ken obviously based on Ken Starr. The taped confession mirrors the secret taping of conversations between Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky and how things transitioned from alleged corruption in a land deal and turned into investigating the president having an affair with an intern and then lying about it, before Congress. It then turns into a spoof of the old Hostess ads in comics of the 70s and early 80s. We then end with satire about the nature of some of our modern wars, as distractions from domestic issues....and this was before the invasion of Iraq! Some funny stuff in the court room and Fatwah Arbuckle was an inspired name. Li'l Cobweb pays homage to the Li'l Archie stories, with the Riverdale gang, as kids. This being Cobweb, sex is involved and we see that Officer Henderson is quite the neighborhood romeo, while Mrs Ginelli has more secrets than just an affair. The concept of Clarice, Cobweb's sidekick and chauffeur pulling Li'l Cobweb in a wagon is a nice touch. Greyshirt is a fine homage to the O Henry-styled Spirit tales, such as "Two Lives," where an escaped criminal and a hen pecked husband, who look alike, encounter one another and switch places. the husband gets peace and quiet in the prison cell and the convict gets an even worse prison. Here, Turner finds that the future isn't so great and the twist is that the man he shot, before activating the time machine, was his self, returned from the future and out to stop him from going. For a moment, I thought the gag about the future was going to be a Judge Dredd satire; but, that turned out not to be the case, though the robot Greyshirts are the authority. Jack B Quick is a riff on Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, where Jack takes the idea of space and time being connected to literal lengths, as history unfolds around his surroundings, as he runs away from his present, back to the past, going further and further, the more he moves away from the farm. You see his parent's wedded bliss being immediately interrupted by his mother telling his father that she is "late." He runs past the Big Bang until he is passing up plot elements of the previous stories, until he is beyond his original conception and lost in limbo. In truth, this was the end of the feature, with a journey back to the beginning. It is a pretty clever and fun ending, with a snarky comment that he will probably be replaced by some hulking figure with guns. In fact, he was replaced by a Plastic Man pastiche, Splash Brannigan. I don't know whether Moore ran out of ideas or Nowlan was to busy to continue on the feature. Either way, the book moves on. Jack does get a cameo in the next issue. Just pure fun.
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Post by berkley on May 15, 2023 22:59:32 GMT -5
I liked the concept behind Greyshirt but once again didn't find the art that attractive to me, though it wasn't as much of a negative for me as it was in Cobweb. If they had ever collected the various Tomorrow Stories features separately I probably would have bought Greyshirt, along with Jonni Future and perhaps a few others I'm forgetting at the moment.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 16, 2023 11:32:49 GMT -5
I liked the concept behind Greyshirt but once again didn't find the art that attractive to me, though it wasn't as much of a negative for me as it was in Cobweb. If they had ever collected the various Tomorrow Stories features separately I probably would have bought Greyshirt, along with Jonni Future and perhaps a few others I'm forgetting at the moment. Jonni Future was in Tom Strong's Terrific Tales, though.....unless you mean collections of individual characters from both anthologies. Greyshirt got his own mini, which I liked. I'm not a huge fan of Rick Veitch's art and it hurt The One and Maximortal, for me; but, thought it was fine on Brat Pak and Rarebit Dreams. Also on 1963. I think it had more to do with the context of the story, rather than the art style. Maximortal gets pretty scatalogical and just plain weird and the One had similar elements, where everything is very "Underground", (as in comix). It comes across as more grotesque. I think the subject matter of Brat Pack makes it work better, since you are dealing with depraved heroes who are twisting and abusing their juvenile sidekicks. First American and Jack B Quick actually make me laugh out loud. Cobweb is more of a visual experiment, with each episode aping a particular style of something, like Li'l Archie, or lesbian pulp fiction stories, or the first one, where she apes the style of Dare Wright's Lonely Doll books. I kind of like the variety and find the psycho-sexual element to be interesting, though there is a fine line between pushing at boundaries and conventions and just doing cheap tease. I do think Gebbie handles that balance a lot better than a large majority of mainstream comic artists.
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Post by berkley on May 16, 2023 13:57:08 GMT -5
I liked the concept behind Greyshirt but once again didn't find the art that attractive to me, though it wasn't as much of a negative for me as it was in Cobweb. If they had ever collected the various Tomorrow Stories features separately I probably would have bought Greyshirt, along with Jonni Future and perhaps a few others I'm forgetting at the moment. Jonni Future was in Tom Strong's Terrific Tales, though.....unless you mean collections of individual characters from both anthologies. Greyshirt got his own mini, which I liked. I'm not a huge fan of Rick Veitch's art and it hurt The One and Maximortal, for me; but, thought it was fine on Brat Pak and Rarebit Dreams. Also on 1963. I think it had more to do with the context of the story, rather than the art style. Maximortal gets pretty scatalogical and just plain weird and the One had similar elements, where everything is very "Underground", (as in comix). It comes across as more grotesque. I think the subject matter of Brat Pack makes it work better, since you are dealing with depraved heroes who are twisting and abusing their juvenile sidekicks. First American and Jack B Quick actually make me laugh out loud. Cobweb is more of a visual experiment, with each episode aping a particular style of something, like Li'l Archie, or lesbian pulp fiction stories, or the first one, where she apes the style of Dare Wright's Lonely Doll books. I kind of like the variety and find the psycho-sexual element to be interesting, though there is a fine line between pushing at boundaries and conventions and just doing cheap tease. I do think Gebbie handles that balance a lot better than a large majority of mainstream comic artists.
No, I was thinking Jonni Future was in Tomorrow Tales, so my memory was playing me false there.
I'm going to try to find the collections of Tomorrow Tales and Tom Strong and read all the ones I missed - which is the majority of them, especially for Tom Strong. I'm pretty sure I can get over my dislike of some of the artwork since I feel more motivated to give them a try now than I did when they first came out.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 16, 2023 22:21:50 GMT -5
Top 10 #5As we can see, even visionary futurist cities have their slums. Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, Gene Ha and Zander cannon-art, Todd Klein-letters, Wildstorm FX-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor Synopsis: An elderly woman stares at a huge hole in the base of her kitchen wall and then yells at the neighbors to turn down the "scrapper" music (think robot hip-hop). She picks up a phone that looks like Iron Man's first armor and calls her son to see if he can take a look at the hole. He's a little busy, as he is Officer Duane "Dust-Devil" Bodine and he is currently in a sewer trying to track the Libra Killer. Sgt Jackie "Jack Phantom" Kowalski is in charge and she finds a bore hole, but nothing out of the order. What with Mastermole, the Burrwer and the Magmamen running around the underside of the city, you find these all over. She calls in to the station to see if they have anything more on Libra that might help them. There are voices up above and Shock-Head Pete Cheny tells them that Large Marge, the boss of the prostitution business in the city, is there with some of her girls, looking to see if they have Libra or clues to locating the killer. Lt Peregrine is on the line to Alien Registration, looking for information on m'Rrgla Qualtz. What comes back isn't uplifting.... She is from Antares, is 800 years old and undergoes a metamorphosis, where she changes shape, after a ten year hibernation. She feeds on pinearin. Outside, Robyn and Smax are bringing in the ravers and Robyn is trying to recall where she has seen a boy, wearing a very Robin-esque outfit. he says she saw him in her dreams, as Girl One leads him away. Hector Lopez tells Smax that he and Robyn are needed over at the museum, to collect radioactive material. Smax balks and Bill "Wolfspider" Bailey says he will take it. With the noise moved along, Peregrine gets back to her call and learns that pinearn is a hormone produced by the human pineal gland and Qualtz feeds on it by taking heads, every year, during her life cycle. he new form includes monofiliment threads that can slice through objects and she is telepathic. Peregrine passes this on to Jackie Phantom. That thrills her to no end. Up topside, large Marge is arguing with Sgt Kemlo (the dog) and wants to help catch the killer. Caesar doesn't want civilians getting hurt but agrees to her offer to watch the various drains and openings from the sewers. Back outside the precinct, we see a bar, called Gods, offering "mead and ambrosia." We see the Buddha pass by and wave to a pair of Native American deities (Aztec or Olmec, I think). Robyn is heading home and Smax offers her a lift, since they both live across the bridge, in the suburbs. Her home in Carlingville is along the way to his, in Mardale. Smax blows off steam about them letting the Gograhs go and goes on about not holding with dragons and wizards and demons. Robyn is only partially listening, as she spots a poster for the boy band, Sidekix and recognizes the raver she arrested as one of the band, GlenGarland, aka Bluejay. As they drive down the streets we see a man riding a flying carpet, several futuristic vehicles, the SHIELD Helicarrier, and a silvery surfer type. There is also a billboard for rip-proof Gamma Pants ("You wouldn't like me when I am naked"). Caesar and Neural Anette get to know each other, while they stand watch above the storm drain, where Jackie, Duane and Pete are searching the tunnels below. Duane and Jackie are "shootin' the s@#$" when Duane yells for her to phase and we see why.... Jackie phases in time, but the monofilament still cuts between the photons in her light. Duane gets between her and the alien and fires his guns; but, the monafilament slices right through them. Pete gives it a blast of static electricity and it retreats. Jackie radios in that they have made contact with Libra and requests back up. Synesthesia and King Peacock have just returned to the station and she details them to head over; but they have new leads on the Graemalkin case, including a Trans-world world ticket. At the same time, Micro-Maid reports to the lieutenant about the blood test of Andy "Airbag" Soames. She tells her it will wait and asks Jackie if they can hold back until they can get more heavyweights on scene, in the morning. Jackie is afraid to lose the alien and says they will come up with something.. They radio in to Caesar and Large Marge and Marge's girl, Steel Gerda spots something and Marge recognizes it as Antarean and says she used to run an Antarean, called M'Rrgla Qualtz. Gerda zaps it with some weapon and Pete, Duan and Jackie hear it down below and head towards the noise. Jackie spots a portion of the carapace moving away and says she has gotten past them. they circle back and find a tunnel section bricked off. Jackie phases through and finds a collection of human heads. The alien crashes through a wall, near Caesar and Neural Anette... The monofilaments slice through Caesar's exo-skeleton and the tip of his right ear. He tells Anette to run, but she can't. Pete pops out of a drain and blasts the alien with electricity and takes it down. he radios in for a reinforced paddy wagon and they take the alien into custody, while everyone goes to a coffee shop to settle their nerves. Jackie orders and someone gooses her, though no noe is seen. She calls into the station and demands a forensics team to comb the place for shapeshifters, saying they have the Ghostly Goose. The living volcano vbartender tells her not to look at him...he's dormant! Duane and Pete head over to check on Duane's mother and Pete talks to her, while Duane goes to look at the hole in the kitchen. He suddenly comes flying backward out of the kitchen and Pete sees that they have a small problem, as Duane tells him to radio the department and tell the city authorities about what has come through the hole... . Thoughts: So, the Libra Killer has been identified and caught: M'Rrgla Qualtz, an alien from Antares, who feeds on pineal gland hormones. Also, she apparently worked for Large Marge, in the past. One of the ravers arrested is a singer in a major boy band, called Bluejay, and Prof Graemalkin had a Trans-World ticket, whatever that means. The alien is suitably horrific, as is the trophy room that Jackie finds. Me also see Caesar's exo-skeleton cut away and Anette has to help him walk. Jackie is goosed by the Ghostly Goose and calls for forensics to help locate a shapeshifter. This, plus Jeff Smax' odd conversation about hating wizards and dragons, as he and Robyn share a ride and get to know each other. The stories weave in and out, like a good police procedural should. We get some character building, with Robyn and Smax, plus Caesar and Neural Anette, the prostitute who escapped Libra. We know there is a conenction between Graemalkin and the ravers, as he supplied their hyperdrine and he was also supplying radioactive material to M'Rrgla Qualtz. Qualtz worked for Large Marge, in past and would know her girls. There is some kind of connection here, between these two cases and the reason why Graemalkin topped himself, in police custody and why Stefan "Saddles" Graczyk was murdered. Meanwhile, Duane Bodine's mother has a rodent problem...and they wear costumes. Moore does some worldbuilding, as we learn that robotic forms have their own street music, "Scrap." Since they are the under-privileged, it is the music of the ghetto. There are easter eggs around, like the deities seen outside Gods, the vehicles on the street and other background details. The mice seen at the end include a white one, with an eyepatch who is an homage to the World's Greatest Secret Agent, Danger Mouse! (Here, with his cowardly sidekick, Penfold) We will see more of them, in a future issue and the world's strangest ...and cutest cosmic event.
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Post by commond on May 18, 2023 19:17:22 GMT -5
Still following along at home. Top 10 is by far my favorite book. I think that's because team books are notoriously difficult to write yet Moore is juggling all of the pieces beautifully. Personally, I find the line itself far from the best thing Moore has done but it's still hugely creative.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 18, 2023 22:05:38 GMT -5
Still following along at home. Top 10 is by far my favorite book. I think that's because team books are notoriously difficult to write yet Moore is juggling all of the pieces beautifully. Personally, I find the line itself far from the best thing Moore has done but it's still hugely creative. I don't necessarily think it is his best work; but, I find it to be the most pure fun. Plus, just about everything he created for the line is in my wheelhouse, from pulp heroes, to Victorian adventure super-teams, to police procedurals, to satire to myths & legends (as superheroes). Each one of these has something that hooks me and I can't say that about many imprints of a bigger publisher. The closest I came to this kind of love was the Impact Line, at DC, with the MLJ/Archie heroes. Even then, I liked the potential more than the actual published comics, Legend of the SHIELD was my favorite and the only one I carried all the way through. The Comet started well and I loved Tom Lyle's art, but lost interest when he left. The Fly was more about Mike Parobeck's art than the story. Same for The WEB-only cared when Tom Artis drew it. It pretty much collapsed about halfway to 2/3 of the original run and the never really got it together to do a good Crusaders. I didn't even look at The Crucible. Valiant was another where I was following everything, at the start, but that changed by the time of Unity. Once Solar caught up with where he started (in the back up part, which built towards the event that dumps him into the world, in issue one, I didn't care anymore. Magnus was always tenuous and I liked him more as the universe was built and cared less when more interesting characters came along. Once we had stuff like Rai, Bloodshot and Shadowman, I didn't care much. Archer & Armstrong kept me hanging on longer, as the bloom came off the rose, then Shooter was out and I felt it collapsed, apart from A&A, until BWS left it. Eternal Warrior was always more in the potential than the execution, which is why I stuck it out as long as I did, dropping it when I dropped A&A. Tim Truman's 4 Winds imprint, at Eclipse, is probably the closest to ABC, for me, in that it contained something I loved in every series and book. The other reason I love the ABC stuff was that it was solid adventure that didn't take itself so seriously, except when it was supposed to, in contrast to the rest of the market. mainstream DC and Marvel were a mess, either regurgitating old plots or dirtying up old characters, with more extreme violence, cheap tease, and juvenile humor. Moore's stuff was actually funny, mature and thought out. it payed homage to the past, but didn't worship it.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 29, 2023 18:55:16 GMT -5
Promethea #5Inspired by a JC Leyendecker illustration..... Love Leyendecker's work; one of the greats for the Saturday Evening Post covers, his Arrow Shirt ads, posters for the government, magazine illustration and so much more. Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, JH Williams III-pencils, Mick Gray-inks, Todd Klein-letters, Jeromy Cox, Nick Bell & Alex Sinclair-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor Synopsis: We begin in 1915, at Ypres. A British Tommy lies wounded, his comrades are dead, when an angelic figure appears.... She assures the young soldier that she is not an angel, but Promethea and she is taking him home. She tells him that God is not on "our side" but tries to raise us up from war. We cut to the present, where Sophie and Stacia are doing research, in the library, as Sophie was reading this account of Promethea to Stacia, who has found and other account, by a woman, called the Book of Promethea, translated from the French by a Betsy Wing. Sophie receives word that the hospital has been in contact and she better hurry over to see Barbara. She races out of there as Stacia takes the Book of Promethea home, to read. Sophie sees Barbara, who says infection has set in and she isn't going to survive. She tells Sophie she must go into the Immateria and helps her transfer over. She first encounters the Pandeliriums, harpy-like creatures who speak gibberish. They are driven away by Promethea, the one from Ypres, who says to call her Margaret. They walk and talk of the Immateria and the nature of Imagination, comparing the average to everyday flowers and plants we see in a park and the rare ideas and concepts as the rare species hidden in jungles and other exotic places. She says the world exists as the physical, "real" world and the world of the mind. Mankind is amphibious, living in both worlds, but could travel in the mind, if they shut out the noise of the physical. That is the purpose of Promethea, she explains, to show the way, and why her enemies fear her.... She continues on, explaining she was an artist, a cartoonist, absorbed by her work and meeting deadlines. Then Promethea apepared to her and she took on the role and the concerns for the entire world. War, she says, is the ultimate failure of imagination.... Sophie asks that if the Immateria is like a Utopia, a blissful world, why do some oppose it and try to stop her bringing people to it? They have a vested interest in the world, as it is, because they have a level of power in it and over it and want to maintain that power. Imagination is the way beyond, into things like science, intelelct, magic, and language, to emotion and the universal. Sophie gets tossed by storms and the flower they ride is upended and Sophie dropped in a sea. Meanwhile, at the hospital, a nurse finds her unconscious at Barbara's bedside and they remove her to another room, for observation. In the Immateria, Sophie finds herself washed upon a shore, alone, and has to start walking and climbing. She finds herself outside foreboding gates, with a sign that says "Neptura's Protectorship," and warns travelers to turn back. Thoughts: This gets pretty philosophical and abstract; but, my understanding of what Moore is saying is that the imagination is what leads us to make leaps in things like science and art, and even evolution. We go beyond what we understand "is" and move into what it could be, if we imagine it and then make it so. look at the example of Star Trek. They present a future world where handheld communicators let you speak top someone by flipping open the cover and pressing a button. Food replicators provide meals at the press of a button. The beds in sickbay monitor vital signs. All of that was fantasy, in 1966....until someone made it real. Cell phones progressed from large cumbersome things, carried in a case the size of a handbag, to small handheld devices that could be flipped open and make or receive a call, anywhere that you could get a microwave signal. Then, they became smartphones, able to access the internet, providing information and able to download computer applications to carry out various functions. Microwave ovens were developed to heat food, quickly, for the space program and became consumer items by the mid-late 1970s. Now they are so common we consider them everyday. Modern hospital beds have sensors, linked to monitors that allow doctors and nurses to monitor vital signs. As my wife lay in her bed, her pulse and breathing was recorded on a monitor above the bed, just like in Star Trek, as sensor links in the bed were attached to contact pads, on her body. When the time came to take her off oxygen and let her rest in peace, we could see the readings decrease, though the monitor display was mostly turned off. There were still lights and when I saw Barb take a breath and then no other seemed to follow, I looked up at the monitor and saw a red light. I couldn't see the reading or the label; but could tell it meant there was no more reading. I turned back and saw no more signs of breath. Soon after, nurses came in and formally checked for a heartbeat and announced she had passed away. Imagination created these ideas for a sci-fi tv series, but other imagination took these ideas and searched for ways to make them reality, which came with things like silicon chips and micro-processors, which led to incredible leaps in computers and further development in digital technology. However, he also talks about imagination leading us beyond the physical, into the intellectual and even spiritual, if that is where it leads you. Imagination allows us to ponder concepts, in the abstract, and develop ideas about them, moving beyond what "is" to what it "could," or even "should" be. This is what people hope to achieve through meditation, which some call prayer and others call contemplation. Mindful Meditation seeks to quiet the distractions of the mind, by focusing on breathing, to then experience the hear and now, rather than the alternative realities our minds conjure to distract us and confuse us, making us act against our best interests. Meditation is also used to find enlightenment about the world, by removing the distractions to allow the mind to flow, un-distracted, to where it might go. Moore seems to be saying that the world we don't see and experience, in daily life, is that beyond, the universe of the mind, of thought and feeling, of the leaps in science, where magic lives, whether you consider magic just a term for what we don't understand or other universal forces. Through all of this, Margaret, the Prometha of World War 1, guides Sophie, helping her to leave behind the physical, to uncover the power of the Immateria and imagination, because her own survival is at stake, as the forces who seek to control the physical have targeted her and more dangerous ones than the Smee are coming. Margaret, as Promethea, takes on the legend of The Angel of Mons. During WW1, there were several stories of angelic or supernatural beings apeparing to protect the British from the German advance, at the Battle of Mons. There were stories of medieval bowmen, which were turned into a magazine piece by Welsh author Arthur Machen. The Spiritualist, a magazine devoted to spiritual subjects, reported stories of beings like St George and angels appearing to protect the soldiers. Much of this was likely concocted by writers, from their very imaginations, especially given the very patriotic themes of these supernatural figures aiding the "just cause" of the Allies. It has too much of the smell of propaganda to be given much credence as anything other than fiction created for that express purpose. However, the stress of battle or extreme situations can bring hallucinations of such things, or post traumatic stress, which fixates on such imagery as divine intervention, taking the form of the familiar, based on a person's religious or historical upbringing. These accounts are early in the war, when patriotic fervor is at their highest. men died by the thousands, entire companies and divisions wiped out, whole communities lost in single battles. Imagine being a survivor of such slaughter, with survivor's guilt, trying to make sense of it al. it is not hard to conceive that such mental conflict might lead one to concepts of divine intervention by angels or phantom warriors of the past, especially those based on legends of past battlefield glories, like the longbowmen of Agincourt or the religious symbol of St George, slaying the dragon, or Bodicea or King Arthur. Margaret Taylor Case is a cartoonist, working on the Nemo-like Little Margie in Mystic Magic Land, with tales of a fantastic world of dreams, when Promethea appears to her and she takes on the mantle, as the slaughter unfolds in Europe. She is one part Winsor McCay, the creator of Little Nemo in Slumberland and Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend, both exploring dream worlds, in amazing art nouveau-styled illustration. The next issue also suggests, o me, that she also draws some inspiration from a very unique woman: Margaret Brundage. Margaret Brundage was an illustrator and painter who worked primarily for Weird Tales magazine, the home of the stories of Clark Ashton Smith, HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard. She produced amazing paintings, in delicate pastels, often featuring nudes of fantasy scenes and women-in-peril, which was a stock trade, for the magazine (and the pulps, in general). She was paid a relative pittance, compared to her male colleagues; but, she got enough work from Weird Tales to support herself and her son, after divorcing her husband, in 1939. The work eventually dried up and she continued to struggle, to support herself, without the steady work of Weird Tales. Her originals were even stolen at sci-fi conventions. She lived most of her post-1930s life in relative poverty. her work, though, stood the test of time and she was a great pioneer of women working in commercial illustration and her original paintings are highly sought by collectors. This is a bit of a step forward, in the right direction, after last issue's disappointing themes. We are still in the realm of the esoteric, but I can wrap my head around more philosophical debates, especially when wrapped in the historical. Also, this treads into patriotic symboligy, as Promethea's image of the time can be likened to the figure of Britannia, with her Greek helmet, shield and trident. In this case, we substitute a caduceus for the trident and we give her less clothing than the toga of Britannia. That, in itself, matches much of Brundage's imagery, as her figures were often nude or nearly nude, with strategic slivers of clothing covering her nipples and genitals (which makes providing examples of her work problematic, in this board, though I have prepped one for next issue's discussion). It's funny how Moore and Gaiman are treading in similar territories, but with vastly different approaches. In Sandman, Gaiman explores the nature of stories and figures within them and their relation to dreams, while Moore is doing much the same thing here; but in a bit of a wider scope, delving more into philosophy. Gaiman touched more on the psyche and how dreams shape us, while Moore is dealing with the power of imagination to bring ideas into forms. Lots of overlapping themes, but different viewpoints. Makes a nice change from people in their underwear punching each other in the face. I like a good punch 'em up; but, I also like some food for my brain. Moore was very good about satisfying both desires.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 31, 2023 16:42:05 GMT -5
Top 10 #6Whoooa! Santa's going down! Someone's going to end up on the Naughty List! Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, Gena Ha & Zander Cannon-art, Todd Klein-letters, Wildstorm FX-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor Synopsis: Officer Jeff Smax arrives at the precinct house, to start his shift and he has a visitor..... No, not the Gorilla Soldier (I think, doesn't quite look like Cornelius), in the lower right panel; but, the little guy in the panel above. Smax loses sight of "Uncle Max and shakes his head. As he enters the station, people keep acting weirdly. Jackie Phantom calls Smax's uncle a "Backworldy," and offers to swap spit with him, even though she is a lesbian. he likes that idea, but has to report this event with his uncle. Duane "Dust Devil" Bodine offers his condolences and then Smax runs into his old partner, Stocastic Fats. He tells him he is Jeff's best friend and Fats tells him he wish he had said it sooner and asks him how many people he is going to lose before he tells them how he feels about them. Robyn arrives and tells Fats she was sorry to hear about him and Jeff's uncle. She asks Fats if it hurts when you die and he says, yes, it does. Jeff wakes up. (We see his bed, a mattress on cinderblocks, and his Miracle Dog-skin rug). He gets some coffee and then puts on his uniform and goes to work, after telling some unseen voice to shut up.... Jeff leaves his trailer, says hello to his neighbor, Mrs Gillespie (who remarks about the snow, in October) and he drives into the city, to go to work. he stops along the way, to pick up Robyn, who is dropping her father off with a neighbor, to look after him. They arrive at the station, where Officer Jenny "Multi-Woman" McCambridge is cleaning up snow, with her multiple forms and powers. Inside, reporters harass Sgt Hector "Monsoon" Lopez, about the arrest of Glenn Garland, aka Blue Jay, at the rave. Robyn meets Harry "The Word" Lovelace, the department's Hostage Negotiator. Irma Geddon and Girl One fill Robyn in about the arrest of the Libra Killer, M'Rrgla Qualtz. They go into the bowels of the station, as they talk and come to the holding cell, where Qualtz is being held and see Caesar, in full "dog mode".... A call comes in about a disturbance on Marconi street and Caesar dispatches Irma & Sung-Li to deal with it. They drive past kids and juvenile robots playing in the snow (making snow-bots) and then quickly discover the source of the disturbance.... (note the "round-headed kid" and his dog) Santa! One of the reindeer seems particularly exhausted and Girl-1 says she thinks it is dead. Irma starts to move towards Santa to arrest him and the kids (who are a mix of Peanuts, the Cosby Kids and some other influences) get mad and "Santa" levitates Ima and Sung-Li and dumps them in a snow bank. Irma is about to go apocalyptic, but Sung-Li settles her down and calls for back up, as she doesn't want the kids to see them fighting "Santa." Janus (the dispatcher) affirms the call and says to ask what happened to her Malibu Barbie, when she was 8. Janus alerts Detective Wanda "Synaesthesia" Jackson and Dr Sally-Jo "Micro-Maid" Jessell and they dispatch Smax and Robyn "Toybox" Slinger. Sally-Jo is still trying to find Lt Peregrine, to tell her about the results of Andy "Airbag" Soames blood test. She tells Wanda that he has STORMS. They run into Smax and Wanda details them to act as back-up and Jeff starts ragging about getting comedy calls and Wanda tells him to button his lip and get going and reveals that they once dated and she is tired of his "permanent PMS." Meanwhile, Duane Bodine and Shock-Head Pete are at his mother's place, where they have called in the Ex-Verminator, to deal with her rodent problem.... Like he says, when you have Ultra-Mice, you call in Atom-Cats. Ex-Verminator tells Duane to take his mother elsewhere, as she won't want to see what happens when the Atom Cats play with the Ultramice... Smax and Robyn arrive on the scene and Irma fills them in. Sung-Li gets word from Janus that "Santa" is actually William "Brainstorm" Bernhardt, a psycho-kinetic, who escaped from Neopolis Psychiatric Infirmary that morning and that some reindeer went missing from the zoo. Smax goes to confront the Jolly Old Elf and the kids pronounce him naughty and Santa send Smax flying away. Robyn goes to arrest him for assaulting a police officer and he turns her toys on her. Smax crashes into Irma's cruiser and is about to use his flash on the crowd, when Harry Lovelace turns up and tells everyone to put their hands up..... Harry orders Santa to calm the reindeer and the rest disperse the children, who express their disappointment (Awwwwwww........). It turns out the snow was Bernhardt psycho-kinetically affecting the weather, as it has stopped. Jeff and Robyn head out and Jeff tries to tell Robyn about his dream, though she starts ribbing him about it. Before it can go any further, they stop, in response to a woman running into the street, flagging them down, saying her son has been murdered. She is Freya, wife of Woden and she takes them to the Godz bar. Robyn asks if they are aliens or mutants and Smax says, no, just Gods. They then see the crime scene..... Thoughts: Up to this point, I was a little on the fence about this series. I liked the premise and it was a good read; but, it was hard to keep track of everyone and the story seemed all over the place. However, the previous issue kept me intrigued and then this one cemented it as a burgeoning favorite. It's just pure fun and character development. Moore really flexes his comedic muscles, in this one, with all kinds of gags, which are timed exquisitely. Zander Cannon was already a dab hand at comedy, in his own Replacement God series. Gene Ha was getting attention for the Times Past stories, in Starman. here, they go nuts with the visuals, with everything from Caesar as an actual dog, to Santa, to the crowd of super-kids, to the background details and easter eggs. Some of the jokes hit you head on and others have a nice subtlety that creeps up on you, like the last page, where Smax says "Nobody move in a mysterious way!" The Atom Cats and Ultramice subplot is a great visual gag, as they act like a Tom & Jerry cartoon, but are all decked out in homages to various superheroes or funny animal characters. We see a Martion manhunter mouse using heat vision to heat up some cheese, while another mouse hits a third (dressed like Captain Marvel), with an iron skillet. We see another, in a captain America costume, holding the door to the refrigerator. Not holding it open, holding the door.... This is what I mean by my thread title. Most mainstream comics were deadly serious and self-important and it was so refreshing to find not just one, but a whole line of comics that were both intriguing and had a sense of humor; sometimes serious, sometimes playful. Sometimes, just pure joy. The kids all look like they are in Halloween costumes (it is supposed to be October); but, given that this is a city of superheroes and villains, that is probably their version of Garanimals or Osh Kosh Bygosh! Yeah, I'm old....live with it! Santa ends up to be a slightly darker version of Kris Kringle, from Miracle on 34th Street, which given that this issue hit the shops on December 22, 1999 (get your Prince album on standby....) is rather appropriate. Meanwhile, Jeff Smax gets a lot of attention, in this issue. First, he has the dream where his Uncle Max visits him and we see what looks like a Viking member of the Keebler Elves. If you pay attention, you notice that Uncle Max calls him Jaafs, not Jeff, suggesting "Jeff" is an Anglization of Jaafs. The vaguely Nordic sound of that name makes the Scandinavian mythological look of Uncle Max fitting. We then see that Jeff lives in a trailer park and has something in a closet that seems to speak in verse, before Jeff shuts it up, with a threat to "snap it in half." Students of mythology and folklore might have a theory to what it is. That whole thing is bookended by the last couple of pages, where we see the Norse gods and a murder. Death is a theme of this issue, as the dream of Uncle Max centers around it, with Uncle Max saying he is "going away," then Duane passing on condolences for Jeff's uncle, then seeing his dead partner, Stocastic Fats. One of the zoo reindeer is dead, suffering an apparent heart attack from finding itself flying across the sky. Dr Jessell tells Det Jackson that Andy Soames has STORMS, which sounds a lot like he has been pronounced HIV-Positive, or has COVID, which is all too deadly, to me. It is also fitting, for a December issue, as in European Pagan traditions, the Winter Solstice represents the death of the world, as snow covers the world and plants lose their leaves and die and animals hibernate or nest up for winter. Then, in the Spring, the world is reborn. I suspect this parallel is deliberate, given Moore's own spiritual practices (or alleged practices, as I am not convinced he is serious about worshipping a snake god). We will learn more about Jeff Smax' uncle, later, in his own mini-series. For now, he is a background mystery. This issue also reminds us that there is still more going on, in relation to the Libra Killer and Prof Graymalkin and Boots & Saddles (his drug runners). This issue acts as a kind of break, from the bigger storylines, but keeps them simmering, in the background. Next issue will pick some of those threads back up, while we also get a little police procedural exercise in Norse mythology. ps there is a street scene, which has some of my favorite easter eggs, aside from Charlie Brown as Dr Doom, with a live dog Snoopy: it has a flying leprechaun, wearing Banshee's (of the X-Men) glide wings and a demonic figure in a drag racer car, which is based on a Big Daddy Roth cartoon.
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Post by commond on Jun 1, 2023 18:33:37 GMT -5
Promethea #5 was wordy as hell. So much exposition. I really dislike the way Moore writes the teenagers' dialogue in this series. The ideas are okay, even if Wonder Woman meets The Sandman isn't the most intriguing premise, but the plot is rake thin. Hopefully, there's more action in the next issue now that she's wandered into the bad part of town.
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Post by commond on Jun 1, 2023 19:01:00 GMT -5
Top 10 continues to rock. I'm bummed that it only lasted 12 issues. That "nobody move in mysterious ways" line was the best thing Moore has written for ABC.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 1, 2023 23:06:00 GMT -5
Promethea #5 was wordy as hell. So much exposition. I really dislike the way Moore writes the teenagers' dialogue in this series. The ideas are okay, even if Wonder Woman meets The Sandman isn't the most intriguing premise, but the plot is rake thin. Hopefully, there's more action in the next issue now that she's wandered into the bad part of town. I would agree that you have a lot of text covering up art. I also think Moore was throwing a lot at you, at once, especially with who the heck everyone is, in the modern world. I have to refer back, as I have trouble keeping Sophie and Stacia's names straight, let alone the previous hosts for Promethea. I've been reading ahead and the action picks up, but its going to take a couple of further issues.
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