Analysis - On Cycles

Adam Dietrich

In my living room stand three largish bookcases, all of which are positioned around yours truly in the picture above. Each contains one or more forms of media: one holds books, another one comic collections, and a third a mixture of movies, video games and CDs. While I’m attempting to introduce new hobbies into my routine, my first and foremost pastime will remain the collection and cataloguing of media. I really do love it, whether it involves organizing, maintaining or, of course, enjoying my collected works.

Rant - ERMAHGERD, BERKS!

In my living room there’s a near-ceiling high shelf crammed from top to bottom with books, all of them my own. I’ll occasionally lie back on the couch perpendicular to its placement and just gaze at it—not basking in it, but looking for structural weak points. I’ve been collecting comics and literature for the express purpose of building a library for the past seven years, and as a result I’ve turned this towering, six tier bookshelf into a camel fearing the coming of some straw-bearing harbinger. (I should add I have enough space for another shelf and will be more than welcome to accept any donations or freebies, wink wink.)

This week, I’m veering as close to narcissism as I fear to tread. Make no mistake: this is literary show and tell, and when I’m done you’ll wonder if I’m even capable of loving other people given how much I adore my books. So without further ado, here are the most prized tomes in my personal collection. Pictures have been cribbed from various sources online, as I don’t have a dedicated camera and I don’t want to answer any of my roommates’ questions about why I’m holding my laptop webcam up to the bookshelf.

Analysis - Here Comes the Spider-Man

So I’m likely seeing The Amazing Spider-Man this week and I’m actually really pumped for it, much more than I was a few months ago when that really “meh,” vaguely Twilight-ish first trailer hit the Net. By all rights, I should be irked by the film’s very existence—the final part in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy came out only five years ago—but I can’t find it in me to generate even a modicum of outrage. And that’s because, as unpopular an opinion as it might be, I didn’t really dig Raimi’s trilogy. Specifically, I don’t think the movies did the character and his universe justice, even the critically-lauded Spider-Man 2.

But glancing over the smorgasbord—some might say plethora—of trailers and clips released over the last couple months, I’m seeing glimpses of a movie that is as true to the character of Spider-Man as Batman Begins was to its eponymous hero.

Review - Walt Simonson: Writer, Penciller, Auteur

The other day I purchased perhaps the heaviest tome that will ever sit upon my bookshelf: a Marvel Comics omnibus containing the entirety of Walter Simonson’s run on The Mighty Thor. A hardcover with over a thousand glossy pages, the compendium collects Simonson’s nearly four year run writing the Mighty Avenger, the bulk of which was also drawn by him (Sal Buscema pencilled 18 of the 45 collected issues).

With the exception of a few high profile scribes, Grant Morrison and Brian Michael Bendis chief among them, it’s rare nowadays to see a single writer dictate the course of a character and the surrounding universe for so long. And after reading most of the omnibus—I still have yet to read the final two fifths or so—I want to see more of these auteur efforts, because Simonson’s run contains some of the best superhero comics I have ever read.

Analysis - 2x3: The Fall(s) of Harvey Dent

One of my favourite things about the Batman universe is its malleability. As has been demonstrated by the Silver Age comics, the 1960s Adam West TV series and the recent Christopher Nolan movies, Gotham City and its denizens can be modified to suit any particular tone and theme, all the while maintaining the core traits of the setting and characters. Bob Haney’s excitable 1970s globetrotter is as true to the character as Frank Miller’s hardened libertarian crime fighter. Likewise, the Joker maintains his glee and twisted sense of humour whether he is harmless (Cesar Romero) or malicious (Heath Ledger).

But there’s no better example of this thematic pliability than Harvey “Two-Face” Dent, Gotham’s physically—and psychologically—scarred former district attorney and one of Batman’s most iconic villains. Two-Face has been depicted in nearly every media adaptation of Batman, most recently Nolan’s The Dark Knight, and in each one of those instances the character’s origin and personality has been changed to fit the themes at play. The following are three of the best, in chronological order:

Spotlight - "Huh, never thought of it like that."

Earlier today I read a blog post by sci fi author John Scalzi (Old Man’s War, Zoe’s Tale) wherein he compared “straight white male privilege”—i.e. the social advantages straight white males receive from being straight, white and male in Western society—to the lowest difficulty setting in a video game. Speaking as not only a straight white male but a gamer as well, I felt the comparison was spot on. Purely in terms of content, Scalzi didn’t really say anything new or that I didn’t already agree with, but I thought his actual rhetorical approach was utterly fascinating.

Every so often I stumble across an opinionated piece such as this one that’s able to phrase an oft-repeated argument in a new and surprisingly intuitive fashion that hammers the point home better than a straight take (“this is right/wrong because…”) ever could. I call it the “Huh, never thought of it like that” Effect. As someone who enjoys a good opinion piece and good writing even more, it’s as refreshing as a chilly can of Coke on a blazing hot day.

Review - Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2012

I spent this past weekend wearing out the soles of my newly-purchased shoes walking up and down the length of Yonge Street in Toronto and padding around the Toronto Reference Library just north of Bloor. The library has been playing host to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival since 2009, also the first year I attended. I’ve gone every May since then, adding more and more people to my little comic adoring posse and meeting several print and web artists I’m a big fan of, including comics theorist Scott McCloud, Ultimate Spider-Man penciller Stuart Immonen, Queen of the Webcomics Kate Beaton and my latest favourite writer, Jeff Lemire.

                                         Pictured L-R: Myself, Chris Mantil, Sam, Anjuli

So after spending a couple hours in a downtown diner, we walked over to the library and got our comics appreciation weekend underway.

Spotlight - Brad Neely

As anyone who frequents my Facebook profile knows, I’m a fiend for the absurd. My wall is a veritable art gallery of the staggeringly inexplicable, an endless list of links displaying nature and society’s greatest “what the fuck” accomplishments. Over the last half year or so, I’ve included among this debris several short cartoons, all of which seem to defy anything resembling sanity. They invariably feature freakish, hastily drawn characters, all devoid of pupils, babbling on in idiosyncratic voices and residing in a world devoid almost entirely of sense.

At first glance these animations appear to be the work of a schizophrenic ex-Nickelodeon employee, but in fact the man behind them—writing, illustrating, voicing and piecing them together singlehandedly—is a relatively sane Fort Smith, Arkansas native by the name of Brad Neely. And for all the seeming incomprehensibility of his filmography, this bearded, bespectacled Arkansan has become one of my favourite comedians as of late.

Review - Mini Reads

I've been on a bit of a reading binge lately. The recently released Mass Effect 3 had been taking up a lot of my time the past couple weeks and in between missions I ended up feeling guilty over neglecting the several bound volumes of literature and comics that had been collecting dust on my shelf, one of which had been sitting there for a couple of months. The following list is a kind of penance, but one I enjoyed for the most part. So, not really a penance, no.

Review - The Twisted Adventures of Animal Man

Late last August, I wrote about the impending DC comics reboot, wherein I detailed a few of my hopes and concerns in the process. A full five months have passed and as of this writing a quarter of the “New 52” series have put out six issues each—the typical length for a completed storyarc, or at least enough to gleam where each series will be headed. I confess I haven’t read much of the new material, with most of what I know being cribbed from ComicsAlliance reviews or from flipping through individual issues at the Silver Snail; this doesn’t make me a very good critic, but my income doesn’t exactly support my habit, so to speak.

That being said, I’ve managed to invest—monetarily and intellectually—in two series. One of them, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Batman, is pretty much a given, with the former's tight writing and the latter's fluid art combining to make an incredibly enthralling addition to the Bat-legacy. But as you might expect from glancing at this article’s title, I’m not here today to talk about Batman. Actually, I’d be surprised if you’ve even heard of the character I’m about to mention—provided you haven’t talked comics with me over the last few months. It’s not a bird, nor a plane, but the humble Animal Man.

Rant - "All this has happened before, all this will happen again."

This is going to be unforgivably nerdy.

This month, DC Comics is rebooting nearly all of its titles. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Action Comics, Detective Comics, Green Lantern et al. will all be reset to #1, as will (presumably) the stories of those depicted in each one’s pages. If I’m to use the hastily improvised analogy of DC as a militarized force, Justice League #1—August 31st—is the forward scout, and the flagship titles set to premiere next Wednesday will make up the first wave. I suppose the new Hawkman will head up the air squadron, though judging by the pang of shame I just felt it seems I’ve taken this metaphor too far.

Review - Batman: Arkham Asylum

Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Platform(s): PC, Xbox 360, PS3

I'm a Batfan, this cannot be denied. I've had a near-lifelong love for the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini animated series, but my fandom really began back in 2005 with the release of Batman Begins. I spent the next 4-5 years amassing a shocking number of Batman TPBs, hardcovers, and the like. So, upon discovering that Eidos would be publishing an immensely faithful video game adaptation of the series, I was understandably joyful. Bat-games have an unfortunate history, it should be said, but even from the first screens it was obvious that Arkham Asylum would be nothing short of the Dark Knight distilled to his purest elements.