" it's hard to wake up to yr makeup - so let's take off that disguise "
ITEM! warmest w.o.agwu GONGRATULATIONS to nick abadzis on winning the 2008 eisner award for "best publication for teens" for LAIKA, his gomic abt the first dog in space
you can read an 8 pg excerpt of it here
http://www.firstsecondbooks.com/laika.html
& the first 7 episodes of nick's weekly strip for the times "the trial of the sober dog" are available here
http://nickabadzis.my-expressions.com/archives/9404_1511752327/301298
( - it's nice to be able to read it without having to buy the times, innit? - hopefully it'll be gollected together into a nice edition in the fullness of time )
ITEM! courtesy of tom spurgeon, here's a list of the other 2008 eisner award winners ( incl. daniel clowes, joss whedon, milton caniff, fletcher hanks, chris ware, ed brubaker & that bloke from my chemical romance )
http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/your_2008_eisner_award_winners/
( i note that some of the awards were presented by samuel l jackson ( aka nick fury ) & wee jane wiedlin - i wonder if nick a got to meet 'em...? )
ITEM! further to my post yesterday, i finally got round to reading the first four issues of "secret invasion" - here are a few "thoughts" ( warning: some minor spoilers follow )
well, i'm half way through this year's marvel gomics "event" & i must say i've rarely read such a muddled mainstream gomic - sadly, i'm pretty well versed in the marvel superhero universe & ( even with a scorecard ) i'm finding it difficult to keep track of who's who, who's a skrull, who's a goob avenger, who's a bad avenger etc - reading this is a bit trying to take the minutes of a big meeting with a weak chairman where EVERYBODY'S SHOUTING AT ONCE
do they have to make the marvel universe so needlessly gomplicated? for example, why are there two super spy organisations, SWORD ( sentient world observation & response dept ) & SHIELD ( supreme headquarters international espionage law-enforcement division ) running around doing essentially the same job for the same side?
some of bendis's dialogue is pretty funny tho
hawkeye: "natasha's gonna kill me when she wakes up - we used to go out"
luke cage: "is there ANYONE you haven't gone out with?"
leinil yu's art isn't as loose or scratchy as his run on avengers - i suspect we might have inker mark morales to thank for this - personally i like yu's art but i'm not sure this is the right gomic for him - his storytelling isn't the clearest & his panels tend to be very gluttered - which only adds to the general sense of gonfusion
apart from "the skrulls are impersonating some ppl" ( twas ever thus ) it's hard to find a clear story in between all the big fight scenes & shouting - i've read four issues but nothing's really moved on since no.2 - & yet there's the odd bit of greatness - the scene in issue 2 between ronin/clint barton/hawkeye & mockingbird = heartbreakingly goob - i hope bendis isn't f*cking with the fans on this 'un - it'd be unnecessarily cruel imo
i hope bendis & yu can somehow turn this mess around & make it into a coherent yarn - i yam curious to see how the secret invasion is resolved ( ie how they get out of it ) - it's almost inevitably gonna be an anti glimax - the worry is that it won't have a proper ending - just another gliffhanger that leads into the next big gompany grossover - hope i'm wrong abt this tho
ps. tony stark isn't REALLY really a skrull tho ( - IS HE...? )