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shadowkatWas a bit on the chilly side in my apartment this morning and last night - not because I don't get heat, but whenever there's a blast of wind - it will hiss right through my windows and chill the apartment. Spent three hours after the company holiday party, shrinkwrapping two of the windows (the worst of the bunch) which helped a bit. Also alerted my landlord to the problem this morning. (Shrinkwrapping - is basically taking plastic, cutting it to fit the size and shape of the window, cutting a hole for the window blind puller/opener, pushing the plastic against doublesided scotch tape, using a blowdryer to shrink the plastic so it holds and becomes an additional layer of insulation. Not perfect, but better than taping plastic bags and towels to the windows - which is what I used to do. You can buy shrinkwrap kits in your local hardware store. A work colleague told me about this - although my brother, I'd noticed was also doing it. Bro got all the handyman genes in the family, they skipped over my Dad entirely, whom I take after.)
Finally picked up and read part II of the latest Bryan Lynch/Stephen Mooney - Angel/Spike comic that everyone was grousing over several weeks back. I can see why they didn't like it, it is not by any stretch of the imagination Bryan Lynch, or Stephen Mooney for that matter, best work and that, I'm afraid, is putting it politely.
Angel/Spike comic reminds me a lot of Lynch's Zombie comic, wherein Lynch attempts to pull of the Whedon snark banter and Whedon's specific brand of satirical ironic wit, genre parody, and fails miserably. (I did not like the Zombie comic and gave up on right quick.) There are moments, scant ones, that Lynch appears to almost pull it off...but he plays it too safe, and as a result the jokes fall flat. I don't think Lynch quite gets the character of Angel. A lot of people don't. I have yet to read a fanfic or comic that fits what I saw on the series...Lynch in some respects comes closest. But in others is off the mark. Angel, admittedly, is a tough character to write - most writers either make him too heroic (and lose sight of the complex subtext which made the character fascinating and tragically humorous) or too petty/self-absorbed/holier than thou/what-have you - failing to see the positive side, or what made him compelling for many viewers - why people rooted for him. Few seem to hit the character dead on. Of the Mutant Enemy Writers - I think David Fury, Jeff Bell, Joss Whedon, and Tim Minear were the best regarding Angel. Greenwalt, Denight, Petrie and Craft and Fain had a tendency to romanticize him. Noxon on Buffy, made him sexy and gave him edge. Fury didn't romanticize anyone - he was a humor writer, it went against the grain. And of course David Boreanze - who, while I'm admittedly ambivalent about the actor, did manage to portray the contradictions.
It's a shame, because the set-up has oodles of comic potential, not to mention deft commentary on our prevalent pop culture of hero/celebrity worship and no more so than at a fan convention - where people literally worship fictional heroes. Everyone in the comic, except for Groo and Angel (who perceive themselves as the most heroic thing since Superman took flight or sliced bread was invented) is the hero and/or villian they wish they could be or fantasize about, failing to see that they are most likely heros on their own. Add to this - Spike is dressed up as Angel, and now as a result of the spell, thinks he is Angel, and Angel has to witness it. Done right - this could have been a deft critique of Angel, Angel's own need to be a champion, what a champion is, and how our culture perceives it. It could also have been incredibly funny. (Makes me sort of wish that Minear/Fury or Whedon had tried it.)
Unfortunately, it's neither - funny or a deft critique. Just sort of bland and a bit stupid. Spike's actions make little sense. His great plan for saving the day is to get hold of a loudspeaker and tell all the wouldbe heroes to work together, be heroes, and track down the device causing all of this. Which Angel states, he would never do, well he would but more subtly and this is clearly Spike's interpretation of what he would do. I can't see Spike doing it. Nor Angel for that matter. And the banter is flat, almost forced. Partly because Lynch decides to split up Spike and Angel and spend most of his time following a whiny Angel around. (Angel is whining about Spike pretending to be him and the fact that everyone wants to kill him, and has lost their minds. He can be funny at times, usually in regards to Spike, but mostly he's just whiny - which I guess is Lynch's attempt at brooding??) I don't know why Lynch chose to follow Jeremy and Angel over Groo and Spike thinking he's Angel? My guess is the Spike/Groo teamup seemed funny on paper, but once Lynch attempted to write dialogue and banter, it did not fly and he got stuck? Groo and Spike as two romaticized versions of the Angel as White Knight are hilarious - but only if you have a straight man along for the ride. Get rid of the straight man and the humor falls flat.
We learn nothing new about either Angel or Spike in this episode. Angel sees himself as the hero, knows Spike is one too, even if Spike refuses to admit it and thinks poorly of himself. Okay, got that at the end of Angel After the Fall, heck I got that at Not Fade Away (except it was a bit more sarcastic and humorous and less straight-up) - why the constant repetition? The jokes are tired and have been done before. Groo's comment that Spike is now Spangel and Angel protestation that he'll never go by that...is not that funny, because it's too obvious. Lynch is better when the jokes are more understated, more subtextual - like they were in Spike After the Fall or Spike:Aslym. It's almost as if he doesn't trust the reader to get it, or worse, he's bragging - see how funny I am? Aren't I nifty? Aren't I the cats pajamas? Maybe it's just me, but the moment someone tells me how great they are, I start hunting the imperfections and feel this overwhelming urge to point them out..call it tall poppy syndrom.
I prefer Lynch when he is self-deprecating. This braggart bit is becoming borish. Also Angel in this two-parter, was written rather flatly - making me miss the series. I'm not sure that Lynch picked up on Whedon et al's ironic subtext on Angel. Whedon really doesn't like straight up heroes, he has a tendency to cut them down to size. It's a common thread in all his stories, starting with Toy Story.
As for Mooney, well...at least I can tell who the characters are - granted their costumes help and Spike/Angel/Groo do have specific traits that are probably easier to draw than Satsu, Kennedy, Willow, Buffy, Andrew, OZ, Riley, Giles, and a million plus slayers. That said, I'm not a Mooney fan. Not a Jeanty fan either, but I like Jeanty better than Mooney, except for the fact I can't always tell who is who in Jeanty's books, which can make the read a bit headach inducing. I'm not sure this is entirely Jeanty's fault - he has been asked to illustrate a book with epic battle sequences in what can best be described as bubblegum art style. I feel at times as if I'm watching the Powder Puff Girls or Archie Comics as drawn by the folks behind My Little Poney.
Also picked up Joss Whedon's Sugarshock comic from Dark Horse Presents. Fabio is a rather fascinating illustrator and far better than Jeanty. I loved his edgy punk style. Reminiscent of Jai Lee (who only X-men readers would be familar with.) The story and banter? Rather hilarious in places and quite indecipherable, not to mention head-scratching, in others. Whedon apparently has a thing regarding Vikings? Or he thinks Vikings is humorous? I keep catching references to Norse mythology and Norse gods in Whedon's stories - not sure what is up with that - except it may or may not be an indirect reference to the Marvel comics universe - which also used the Norse mythology quite a bit. In Marvel comics - the gods are the Norse ones - Odin, Loki, etc. Not the Roman or Greek Gods. And the characters were always resulting with them. The devil/trickester/tempter in Marvel - was Loki - the god of Lies. While Thor - was the Hercules character. (The thing about mythology is the names and setting may change, but the gist stays more or less the same.). Was never quite sure why Marvel went with Norse mythology over the more popular and prevalent Greek - except maybe because it was less prevalent and popular and therefor not ahem, overdone? At any rate, Norse and Tibetan gods appear in Buffy, and are referenced here. The Abraham Lincoln joke was I felt borderline offensive or it just went over my head, possibly both. White male comic geek jokes about racism and slavery, I'm sorry, don't work. When you joke about another culture or ethnicity or race or sexual orientation that is not yours and/or their painful past and your culture's painful short-comings regarding it, it can, if you aren't careful, come across as a bit off-color or crass - particularly when it is a culture that has historically been woefully underrepresented in the medium that you are writing in and to a degree woefully underrepresented by you, ie. a minority. Dandelion got on my nerves. She felt like an inside joke about Magna comics, which again I'm not sure works for the reasons stated above. But Robot Phil made me laugh really hard (the bit about the legs had me roaring with laughter). This comic more or less underlined what was wrong with Lynch's Angel/Spike, etc snark banter in Angel After the Fall and this two-parter. OTOH - I will admit there were places where I wanted to say, okay, I get it, you are hammering the joke over the head and other places in which I thought, uhm, maybe Whedon is spending far too much time on his own fanboard, whedonesque.
Other two purchases were Ex Deus Machina - Dirty Tricks by Brian K Vaughn and Tony Harris, and Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics (which appears to be a comic in of itself, with it's own sly wit.) Wanted to buy Atreis Polypos (I think that's the name of the thing), which the comic book reading group that I've joined is reading next month - but alas it's only in hard cover, thus too rich (as in too expensive) and too big for my blood.
When I get back from my vacation, will pick up the Buffy comics, or wait until January and get the Willow one shot and the next installment in the series at the same time. Word has it that the Twilight reveal will come in Feb. But I'm not holding my breath. Also from the interviews...I'm starting to suspect that it is either Giles, Buffy, Xander or Dawn. Because anyone else would be rather low-key, and not be the brilliant reveal they are hollering about.
Can't see how it's going to be brilliant. The main problem I'm having with the comics and why I don't like them as well as the tv series is they lack dramatic irony. That subtle and often witty irony that Whedon excels at. I'm not sure why. Maybe it is harder to pull off in comics?
Comics as Meltzer states in his most recent interview aren't really set up to be told in the same manner as a tv series. Dragging a story thread or thematic story arc over the course of 44 issues in 9 months is not quite the same as doing it over the course of 22 episodes in 30-40 months. Comic book writers are sort of like short story anthologists. Television writers in contrast...tend to do novels. Comics don't really work well as long novels, they work better as episodic stories, with a developing arc behind it. Here we have a novel stretched out over the course of 35 episodes and in a culture that is used to getting stories and information quickly. This probably worked better during the days of Charles Dickens or in the 1980s, not so much now in the age of the internet and text messaging. People have shorter attention spans now, and shorter memories. The information age has made us woefully impatient, forgetful, and with a dreadfully short attention span.
Finally picked up and read part II of the latest Bryan Lynch/Stephen Mooney - Angel/Spike comic that everyone was grousing over several weeks back. I can see why they didn't like it, it is not by any stretch of the imagination Bryan Lynch, or Stephen Mooney for that matter, best work and that, I'm afraid, is putting it politely.
Angel/Spike comic reminds me a lot of Lynch's Zombie comic, wherein Lynch attempts to pull of the Whedon snark banter and Whedon's specific brand of satirical ironic wit, genre parody, and fails miserably. (I did not like the Zombie comic and gave up on right quick.) There are moments, scant ones, that Lynch appears to almost pull it off...but he plays it too safe, and as a result the jokes fall flat. I don't think Lynch quite gets the character of Angel. A lot of people don't. I have yet to read a fanfic or comic that fits what I saw on the series...Lynch in some respects comes closest. But in others is off the mark. Angel, admittedly, is a tough character to write - most writers either make him too heroic (and lose sight of the complex subtext which made the character fascinating and tragically humorous) or too petty/self-absorbed/holier than thou/what-have you - failing to see the positive side, or what made him compelling for many viewers - why people rooted for him. Few seem to hit the character dead on. Of the Mutant Enemy Writers - I think David Fury, Jeff Bell, Joss Whedon, and Tim Minear were the best regarding Angel. Greenwalt, Denight, Petrie and Craft and Fain had a tendency to romanticize him. Noxon on Buffy, made him sexy and gave him edge. Fury didn't romanticize anyone - he was a humor writer, it went against the grain. And of course David Boreanze - who, while I'm admittedly ambivalent about the actor, did manage to portray the contradictions.
It's a shame, because the set-up has oodles of comic potential, not to mention deft commentary on our prevalent pop culture of hero/celebrity worship and no more so than at a fan convention - where people literally worship fictional heroes. Everyone in the comic, except for Groo and Angel (who perceive themselves as the most heroic thing since Superman took flight or sliced bread was invented) is the hero and/or villian they wish they could be or fantasize about, failing to see that they are most likely heros on their own. Add to this - Spike is dressed up as Angel, and now as a result of the spell, thinks he is Angel, and Angel has to witness it. Done right - this could have been a deft critique of Angel, Angel's own need to be a champion, what a champion is, and how our culture perceives it. It could also have been incredibly funny. (Makes me sort of wish that Minear/Fury or Whedon had tried it.)
Unfortunately, it's neither - funny or a deft critique. Just sort of bland and a bit stupid. Spike's actions make little sense. His great plan for saving the day is to get hold of a loudspeaker and tell all the wouldbe heroes to work together, be heroes, and track down the device causing all of this. Which Angel states, he would never do, well he would but more subtly and this is clearly Spike's interpretation of what he would do. I can't see Spike doing it. Nor Angel for that matter. And the banter is flat, almost forced. Partly because Lynch decides to split up Spike and Angel and spend most of his time following a whiny Angel around. (Angel is whining about Spike pretending to be him and the fact that everyone wants to kill him, and has lost their minds. He can be funny at times, usually in regards to Spike, but mostly he's just whiny - which I guess is Lynch's attempt at brooding??) I don't know why Lynch chose to follow Jeremy and Angel over Groo and Spike thinking he's Angel? My guess is the Spike/Groo teamup seemed funny on paper, but once Lynch attempted to write dialogue and banter, it did not fly and he got stuck? Groo and Spike as two romaticized versions of the Angel as White Knight are hilarious - but only if you have a straight man along for the ride. Get rid of the straight man and the humor falls flat.
We learn nothing new about either Angel or Spike in this episode. Angel sees himself as the hero, knows Spike is one too, even if Spike refuses to admit it and thinks poorly of himself. Okay, got that at the end of Angel After the Fall, heck I got that at Not Fade Away (except it was a bit more sarcastic and humorous and less straight-up) - why the constant repetition? The jokes are tired and have been done before. Groo's comment that Spike is now Spangel and Angel protestation that he'll never go by that...is not that funny, because it's too obvious. Lynch is better when the jokes are more understated, more subtextual - like they were in Spike After the Fall or Spike:Aslym. It's almost as if he doesn't trust the reader to get it, or worse, he's bragging - see how funny I am? Aren't I nifty? Aren't I the cats pajamas? Maybe it's just me, but the moment someone tells me how great they are, I start hunting the imperfections and feel this overwhelming urge to point them out..call it tall poppy syndrom.
I prefer Lynch when he is self-deprecating. This braggart bit is becoming borish. Also Angel in this two-parter, was written rather flatly - making me miss the series. I'm not sure that Lynch picked up on Whedon et al's ironic subtext on Angel. Whedon really doesn't like straight up heroes, he has a tendency to cut them down to size. It's a common thread in all his stories, starting with Toy Story.
As for Mooney, well...at least I can tell who the characters are - granted their costumes help and Spike/Angel/Groo do have specific traits that are probably easier to draw than Satsu, Kennedy, Willow, Buffy, Andrew, OZ, Riley, Giles, and a million plus slayers. That said, I'm not a Mooney fan. Not a Jeanty fan either, but I like Jeanty better than Mooney, except for the fact I can't always tell who is who in Jeanty's books, which can make the read a bit headach inducing. I'm not sure this is entirely Jeanty's fault - he has been asked to illustrate a book with epic battle sequences in what can best be described as bubblegum art style. I feel at times as if I'm watching the Powder Puff Girls or Archie Comics as drawn by the folks behind My Little Poney.
Also picked up Joss Whedon's Sugarshock comic from Dark Horse Presents. Fabio is a rather fascinating illustrator and far better than Jeanty. I loved his edgy punk style. Reminiscent of Jai Lee (who only X-men readers would be familar with.) The story and banter? Rather hilarious in places and quite indecipherable, not to mention head-scratching, in others. Whedon apparently has a thing regarding Vikings? Or he thinks Vikings is humorous? I keep catching references to Norse mythology and Norse gods in Whedon's stories - not sure what is up with that - except it may or may not be an indirect reference to the Marvel comics universe - which also used the Norse mythology quite a bit. In Marvel comics - the gods are the Norse ones - Odin, Loki, etc. Not the Roman or Greek Gods. And the characters were always resulting with them. The devil/trickester/tempter in Marvel - was Loki - the god of Lies. While Thor - was the Hercules character. (The thing about mythology is the names and setting may change, but the gist stays more or less the same.). Was never quite sure why Marvel went with Norse mythology over the more popular and prevalent Greek - except maybe because it was less prevalent and popular and therefor not ahem, overdone? At any rate, Norse and Tibetan gods appear in Buffy, and are referenced here. The Abraham Lincoln joke was I felt borderline offensive or it just went over my head, possibly both. White male comic geek jokes about racism and slavery, I'm sorry, don't work. When you joke about another culture or ethnicity or race or sexual orientation that is not yours and/or their painful past and your culture's painful short-comings regarding it, it can, if you aren't careful, come across as a bit off-color or crass - particularly when it is a culture that has historically been woefully underrepresented in the medium that you are writing in and to a degree woefully underrepresented by you, ie. a minority. Dandelion got on my nerves. She felt like an inside joke about Magna comics, which again I'm not sure works for the reasons stated above. But Robot Phil made me laugh really hard (the bit about the legs had me roaring with laughter). This comic more or less underlined what was wrong with Lynch's Angel/Spike, etc snark banter in Angel After the Fall and this two-parter. OTOH - I will admit there were places where I wanted to say, okay, I get it, you are hammering the joke over the head and other places in which I thought, uhm, maybe Whedon is spending far too much time on his own fanboard, whedonesque.
Other two purchases were Ex Deus Machina - Dirty Tricks by Brian K Vaughn and Tony Harris, and Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics (which appears to be a comic in of itself, with it's own sly wit.) Wanted to buy Atreis Polypos (I think that's the name of the thing), which the comic book reading group that I've joined is reading next month - but alas it's only in hard cover, thus too rich (as in too expensive) and too big for my blood.
When I get back from my vacation, will pick up the Buffy comics, or wait until January and get the Willow one shot and the next installment in the series at the same time. Word has it that the Twilight reveal will come in Feb. But I'm not holding my breath. Also from the interviews...I'm starting to suspect that it is either Giles, Buffy, Xander or Dawn. Because anyone else would be rather low-key, and not be the brilliant reveal they are hollering about.
Can't see how it's going to be brilliant. The main problem I'm having with the comics and why I don't like them as well as the tv series is they lack dramatic irony. That subtle and often witty irony that Whedon excels at. I'm not sure why. Maybe it is harder to pull off in comics?
Comics as Meltzer states in his most recent interview aren't really set up to be told in the same manner as a tv series. Dragging a story thread or thematic story arc over the course of 44 issues in 9 months is not quite the same as doing it over the course of 22 episodes in 30-40 months. Comic book writers are sort of like short story anthologists. Television writers in contrast...tend to do novels. Comics don't really work well as long novels, they work better as episodic stories, with a developing arc behind it. Here we have a novel stretched out over the course of 35 episodes and in a culture that is used to getting stories and information quickly. This probably worked better during the days of Charles Dickens or in the 1980s, not so much now in the age of the internet and text messaging. People have shorter attention spans now, and shorter memories. The information age has made us woefully impatient, forgetful, and with a dreadfully short attention span.