Saturday, December 12, 2009
Comic Art
SO BAD, THEY'RE GOOD
To date, this space has been used to discuss bad guys from the traditional publishers - Marvel and DC. Some of the baddies we have discussed are decades old, some dating back to the 1930's. But today I want to devote this space to a relative newcomer as character and title and publisher. The title is Godland, from Image Comics and it has become my new favorite title of all time. Sadly, its run is over, but man what a ride.
This book is enjoyable to just about anyone that likes comics, but I think to really get Godland, you have to have been weened on Lee and Kirby. What this title does is take Kirby in particular as a genre and create a new book within it. But at the same time they make fun of it and the times that gave birth to those old classics. There were times reading these books had me laughing out loud, which is disconcerting to the person in the chair next to you if you are on an airplane, and I was.
One of the funnier characters in the book is the baddie we feature here today - Basil Cronus. He may be the most brilliantly conceived visual representation of a comic character I have ever seen. Come on, that head floating in that soup is just too much for words. How does he keep his eyes looking forward? (There's one of those very funny jokes I was telling you about - made all the funnier when you remember asking similar questions as a kid about Kirby stuff.) The male to feamile body gag you see scattered about you was total hoot!
So why is our intrepid baddie looking that way? Well, in one of the few places where the book does not give us long winded exposition, and make fun of itself for doing so, we're never really told, but we assume it is because he is an intergalactic junkie in search of his next high, and that system enables to to "mainline" his current drug of choice. In my opinion, Cronus is THE joke of the book as he is clearly modeled on the hippie culture of the '60's which Kirby/Lee worked so hard to tap into, but were way too old at the time to do anything to but cornball.
I do love this book and I encourage you to go to your local retailer and buy all the graphic novels now! They sell enough and they might start publishing the title again.
To date, this space has been used to discuss bad guys from the traditional publishers - Marvel and DC. Some of the baddies we have discussed are decades old, some dating back to the 1930's. But today I want to devote this space to a relative newcomer as character and title and publisher. The title is Godland, from Image Comics and it has become my new favorite title of all time. Sadly, its run is over, but man what a ride.This book is enjoyable to just about anyone that likes comics, but I think to really get Godland, you have to have been weened on Lee and Kirby. What this title does is take Kirby in particular as a genre and create a new book within it. But at the same time they make fun of it and the times that gave birth to those old classics. There were times reading these books had me laughing out loud, which is disconcerting to the person in the chair next to you if you are on an airplane, and I was.
One of the funnier characters in the book is the baddie we feature here today - Basil Cronus. He may be the most brilliantly conceived visual representation of a comic character I have ever seen. Come on, that head floating in that soup is just too much for words. How does he keep his eyes looking forward? (There's one of those very funny jokes I was telling you about - made all the funnier when you remember asking similar questions as a kid about Kirby stuff.) The male to feamile body gag you see scattered about you was total hoot!So why is our intrepid baddie looking that way? Well, in one of the few places where the book does not give us long winded exposition, and make fun of itself for doing so, we're never really told, but we assume it is because he is an intergalactic junkie in search of his next high, and that system enables to to "mainline" his current drug of choice. In my opinion, Cronus is THE joke of the book as he is clearly modeled on the hippie culture of the '60's which Kirby/Lee worked so hard to tap into, but were way too old at the time to do anything to but cornball.
I do love this book and I encourage you to go to your local retailer and buy all the graphic novels now! They sell enough and they might start publishing the title again.
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