Angel and Buffy comic Reviews

Feeling a bit disgruntled this week. Without going into details, because sort of boring and whiny and well not wise to discuss work online when you work for a public service that hits the newspapers a lot, the work week was difficult and frustrating. Am taking a break from it, from talking to my mother, and from politics - if I am lucky. [Which is why I deleted my last political post...I'm sick of politics, can we have the election now? I don't need two more frigging months of nasty political wrangling.] The three things combined have made me a bit crazier than usual. Add to that the monthly cycle and a couple of hurricanes bearing down on us. At the moment, Canada and New Zealand look like wonderful places to live.

Picked up my comics Friday, to avoid the nasty weather predicted today, and to cheer myself up. The comics were: Angel: After the Fall and Buffy: S8 - Time of Your Life, Part III and neither did much in the cheering up department. Was sort of annoyed at the end of both of them. The Spike:After the Fall comic is soooo much better. So is the Dresden comics for that matter.

Wasn't all that surprised by the developments in either comic nor all that happy about them.

It's odd, I just finished reading Fray - which was really good. Well-drawn, interesting characters, and most importantly - fun as well as poetic in places. Nothing at all like the Buffy comic I just finished reading. What's odd is both comics have the same writer and artist, the same creative team, and more or less the same characters. Also, it's been mentioned by others, so I'm not the only one picking up on this - but there is a lot of female nudity in the Buffy comics. Hardly any male nudity. And a lot of female love scenes - which, and may be wrong about this, appear to be directed towards a male audience. I don't see this as particularly odd, by the way, since it is more or less what happens in a female centric action hero and/or fantasy comic books that are not indies and not written by women. IF you don't believe me, just go to a comic book store and thumb through a couple - anything by Alan Moore, Frank Miller, the Japanese Magna, and most of the Marvel/DC Vertigo stuff. It's no secret that 75% of the comic book audience is male. Nor that it is a medium that is often and somewhat annoyingly marketed towards heterosexual boys who like to look at porn on the internet. Granted it's worked hard to rise above that to relief of many...but, not that hard. Buffy's actually a lot better than most. Personally - I think our society is just obsessed with sex.

( Buffy: Time of Your Life Part III - spoilers )

Angel After The Fall - issue 12 - was possibly the worste drawn and/or colored of the bunch. At the very least the editing was off. Caught a huge continuity in inking/art error in one of the panels. Nina literally changes her outfit and hair color. Goes from being a blond wearing a red tank top, to a red-head wearing a blue hoodie. Okay...now that's just bad editing.

Will state that the characters looked like the actors that portrayed them and were very expressive in places. Unfortunately, this wasn't consistent. I felt like there were two artists doing this book. One who could draw and was very expressive, and one who couldn't - made for a distracting read. Say what you will about Urru and Jeanty, but at least they are consistent.

The story? Sigh. The problem with the Angel Series and to a degree with how the character has been written - is how self-absorbed and egocentric he really is. No one matters but Angel. The only people who do matter are those who Angel cares about or affect Angel. If they aren't an obstacle, someone who can give him something, or a way to success - they don't factor in.
It's all about poor Angel. Which would be fine, because let's face it, who isn't that way to some degree. But...does the writer really need to hammar us over the head with it? Wes seems to go on for about ten panels about how this who deal is about Angel and the Shanshu, that this is all about Angel's hell, and none of the rest of them matter to WRH or anyone else. And all I could think of - is why? Angel's not THAT great. I like Angel, he's interesting. But's he's not all that. No one is. The fact he thinks he's "all that" makes him a bit annoying actually. Although, he does pay for that attitude. It's his biggest achillees heel.

( Spoilers: Angel After the Fall )

(no subject)

Interesting link that I found on Facebook and oddly reassuring, teachs me not to make generalizations about people, although I already knew that - being surrounded by people who do not agree with me on everything has a funny way of keeping me honest.

Arianna Huffington's new book entitled "RIGHT is WRONG - or How the Lunatic Fringe Took Over and Made Us Less Safe": http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/rightiswrong/

Here I always thought Arianna Huffington was a right-wing conservative.

I think at least when we look at things historically, that the danger comes when we go to extreems. Too far in any one direction. You should never give one group of people, no matter how great they seem, total power. And you should never give into fear. I think fear has a tendency to bring out the "monster" in people, fear and frustration and rage.

Dexter Season 2 - "The Monster inside us All"

Hurrican Hannah has hit NY with drenching rain, so I decided to stay indoors and finish Season 2 of Dexter courtesy of Netflix. Just finished watching it and was incredibly impressed. Season 1 was pretty good, but also slow in places. Season 2 on the other hand is flawless, perhaps the best season of a series that I have seen since Season 1, BattleStar Galatica (the new version). Everything worked. All the characters evolved and were interacted in the plotline.

The series also played with a couple of rather complicated issues, such as the Death Penalty, in fact I'd have to say this was the most complex take I've seen on the Death Penalty, leaving the audience to make up its own mind. Usually, tv shows that tackle the Death Penalty either preach against or for it, and leave the viewer feeling a tad bored or hollow at the end. This one leaves you feeling itchy and uncertain.

It ends with a wonderful line quoted by the lead character, a serial killer who murders serial killers: "I have stopped asking myself if I am good or evil, because does anyone ever know for certain? Aren't we all a little of both?"
( Dexter Season 2 - Cut for major plot and character spoilers )

Aren't you sick and tired of Political Posts? Time for the Snarky TV Slut Report!!

Read most of my flist - or as far back as I could manage. Saw quite a few political posts, so clearly I'm not the only one who is struggling with politics at the moment, but methinks it is time I drifted away from it and focused on well, more, fun things like the upcoming fall TV season.

I swiped this idea from one of the people on my flist. So it's not original.

( First things first: Summer TV List )

Here's my tentative DVR list, I'm going to wait for True Blood, Dexter, and Weeds to come out in DVD via Netflix, because I really can't afford Showtime and HBO at the moment. Nor do I have the time to watch them. As you'll see, I'm watching enough bloody tv as it is. Show's that I'm either looking forward to the most or consider can't miss are in bold. Others are fun/guilty pleasures that I don't mind missing that much. Note, while I have incredibly ecletic taste, I tend to drift more towards serial drama or dramedy's and am really not into situation comedies, reality shows or procedurals with minor exceptions. I miss the situation comedies of my youth - Bewitched, MASH, Cheers, Frazier, Night Court, News Radio, Caroline in the City, Murphy Brown, Mary Tyler Moore...even if I saw a good portion of them in reruns.

( cut for length and potential embarrassement quotia - mine, not yours, which means chances of being deleted sometime tomorrow when I come to my senses are about 10-1. )