AWESOMEVENT CALENDAR 2007 - DAY 014
December 14th, 2007 by Brack
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AWESOMEVENT CALENDAR 2007 - DAY 013
December 13th, 2007 by Brack
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AWESOMEVENT CALENDAR 2007 - DAY 012
December 12th, 2007 by Brack
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Ultimates Volume 3.
December 12th, 2007 by Brack
For those who’ve not read Joe Madureira’s fairly awful comeback comic, Ultimates Volume 3 Issue 1, his art has been coloured by Christian Lichtner in an style opposed to the flat colours his work had in the 90s. There’s been some talk in reviews about how the colours don’t fit the art, and make Madureira’s weak layouts murky and unclear. Those latter points are quite true, however the colours do fit the art. At least they do if you take into account Madureira’s influences.
All the work of Madureira’s that I’ve encountered (the first being that issue of X-Men where Storm tears Marrow’s heart out) has been influenced by manga and anime. However his interpretation of his influences are superficial at best, and he often uses them to detrimental effect. For instance in the Ultimates 3 #1, there’s a page where it looks like Hawkeye is bursting out of a panel, facing away from the character he is addressing. He did this plenty of times on his X-Men run (to better effect too) and what Madureira appears to be attempting is something Rumiko Takahashi frequently did in Ranma 1/2 and have the first panel on a page be a long, borderless, background less, full body portrait shot of a character entering the scene that takes place on the rest of the page. Madureira however has too much space filled in behind Hawkeye so he looks like he is escaping the page, rather than walking into the following panel.
So back to the colours.
My theory is the choice of the overly rendered colours provided by Lichtner is down to another of Madureira’s influences - Masamune Shirow.
The colouring we have in Ultimates 3 seems to have be chosen due to the Shirow influences in his earlier work (most glaringly the appearance of The Major’s haircut on the head of both his Storm and AoA Rogue). In terms of the actual art work of the book, the Shirow influence is most obvious in his redesign of Ultimate Valkyrie. Lichtner’s colouring on the book is very similar in style to Shirow’s later colour work, though Lichtner is positively subdued compared to Shirow’s frequent tendency to give everything an oily sheen.
However, while I can see a reason for the choice of colours, it doesn’t work in the slightest. Previous colouring of his art has tended to be flatter and more cartoon like. Which suited it far better than his Lichtner’s does, as for all his attempts at employing manga conventions he doesn’t quite understand, Madureira’s influences from cartoons and anime come through far more in his art.
Ultimately (pun intended) Madureira/Lichtner’s art really doesn’t matter that much as Loeb’s script just plain stinks.
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Stuff That Ruled 2007 - Part A
December 11th, 2007 by Brack
LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver
Ever since hearing Losing My Edge I’ve been in love with LCD Soundsystem, and by extension DFA Records. This was a great album that I have no qualms about declaring being better than the debut LCD Soundsystem album proper. Only the title track was a little disappointing, being a bit too close to The Mighty Boosh’s “Crimping” in it’s delivery. Everything else was good, good, good with “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” my utter favourite.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Despite claims to the contrary, GAINAX had never really stopped being good, they’d just been being rubbish in equal measure. Hiroyuki Imaishi’s mecha series for kids brought the goodness that GAINAX had been confining to OAVs back to television audience. When animation talent is spread ever thinner in Japan these days, the dense amount of eye candy this show served up was amazing. Coupled with a story by playwright Kazuki Nakashima, it was concentrated anime pop thrills that few shows can match. ADV’s R1 DVDs cannot come soon enough.
Never Not Funny
I picked up on Jimmy Pardo’s podcast late last year after near constant mentioning from The Sound Of Young America’s blog. I think the appearance of Paul F. Tompkins as a guest sealed the deal. After a somewhat sudden end to the first “season“, it came back better than ever with the rotating third guest of season two. After a year, I still can’t wait for Fridays to come around so I can get my fix of NNF.
30 Rock
The best sitcom in the world right now. Despite some truly dreadful trailers for it on Channel 5 in the UK that sucked all the humour from the clips they showed, it seems to have caught on in the UK, at least among critics. Of course, through the evil powers of the internet, I’m watching the second season at the moment, and it’s still going strong though with more of a focus on character’s personal lives rather than the show within the show.
One Piece
Eiichiro Oda’s manga rounded off the epic Water Seven/Enies Lobby saga at the start of the year, and began the more humorous Thriller Bark story full of homage to Tim Burton and Hammer Horror. The now 10 year old series has been credited this year with an increase in Shonen Jump sales in Japan this year, and it’s a good estimate to expect it to run another 10 years. Oda’s boundless imagination (Thriller Bark looks at times like 2 years of doodles escaped onto a page) and the series structure of story arcs that have their own resolutions, seems to guarantee it’s longevity. The anime has suffered a little from talent drain to other shows (Lovely Complex and the aforementioned Gurren Lagann to name but two), but seems a little surer footed as the year ends with even an anime-only filler story proving appealing.
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AWESOMEVENT CALENDAR 2007 - DAY 011
December 11th, 2007 by Brack
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AWESOMEVENT CALENDAR 2007 - DAY 010
December 10th, 2007 by Brack
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Incredibly brief 8 Diagrams review.
December 10th, 2007 by Brack
“The Heart Gently Weeps” is nowhere near as good as “My Guitar” that was among the leaked “lost tracks” from Ghostface’s Pretty Toney album. It sounds like they’re rapping over a cheap ass karaoke version of “My Guitar Gently Weeps”.
Also the presence of Erykah Badu is the final nail in the coffin of this song. It’s the same problem I had with Kirsty Maccoll in the 80s and 90s. She’s perfectly fine when singing lead vocals, but when she shows up uninvited as backing vocals, she comes across too strong and distinctive to fit in with the rest of the song.
The rest of the album is fine, but Ghostface’s Big Doe Rehab album (out last week) is better.
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AWESOMEVENT CALENDAR 2007 - DAY 009
December 9th, 2007 by Brack
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AWESOMEVENT CALENDAR 2007 - DAY 008
December 8th, 2007 by Brack
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