The Weeklies

Cold Wind is a short adventure comic written by Dan Mazur and drawn byJesse Lonergan, independently published by Mazur’s Ninth Art Press.

I saw this story grow from a script that Dan shared with the Boston Comics Roundtable to its final form. Dan writes in screenplay format, not breaking his story into pages and panels. Often he draws his own art, so that’s obviously not a problem. In this case, he left it up to Jesse—who’s scripted his own Flower and Fade, Joe and Azat, and other tales—to divide the screenplay into images. Yet another approach to collaboration.

Dan’s told me a couple of times how he’s no longer a fan of superhero comics because of their repetitive themes. He reads one Spider-Man story, learns that “With great power comes great responsibility,” reads another story—and learns the same thing.

As former Marvel editor Jim Shooter has commented:

Comic books have become like opera. You go to see a particular performance of an old story, not a new story. How will this performer handle that familiar role…?

That familiarity is part of the appeal of a series, or a genre.

At the last roundtable meeting, Dan wondered aloud if Cold Wind is a superhero comic. I said it qualified, despite his ambivalence about the genre. It’s a pumped-up action story taking place against a fantastic landscape. Its characters are largely symbolic, and they work out the fate of the world through violence.

But Cold Wind reflects Dan Mazur’s take on the superhero genre, with the theme that things don’t change significantly. For all the adventure’s sound effects and fury, its surviving characters achieve only a short pleasure before the world spins on.

Cold Wind is on sale today at the MoCCA Festival, in the better Boston-area comics shops, and over the web.

(via Cold Wind and the Limits of the Superhero Genre)

 via UNCANNY X-FORCE #18

The Black Legion by Mark Brooks (from Uncanny X-Force #12)

If you ever liked the X-Men on any of it’s forms this is the book for you, Rick Remender rocks the X-World with the gorgeous help of Esac Ribic, Jerome Opeña, Billy Tan and Mark Brooks.

(via Uncanny X-Force: Best at what it does and what it does looks nice!)

A Review of Chew
by C Che Salazar
via Boston Gastronauts

The Authority: The Lost Year #10

Finally a great artist doing The Authority, it has been a long while since a really great artist has done this book, in this issue they find yet again a world in wich they have taken over and things go horrible wrong. But they show this alternate Authority taking down a team of Image Comics heroes. I can spot Savage Dragon, Invincible and Spawn there is some other I don’t know. Sadly this is only one panel of the book.

Astonishing Xmen Xenogenesis #1

by Warren Ellis and Kaare Andrews:
This books is amazing, the art it’s stunning and at the end you can see the script and realize that half the things in the page are just out of Kareen’s imagination and are not in the script at all, I think the genius of Warren Ellis is to be able to choose great artists.

via THE AEREAL

Daredevil: Born Again

by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli 
Continuing with my 80’s revival I got out of the library this Collection, the first thing to strike was how good the package was, usually Marvel collections are lacking in so many aspects, but this one is different. Great trade dress, perfect printed reproduction of the pages, and excellent extra materials, like a page that was “toned down” by Jim Shooter, complete pencil layouts and script of an issue and the first collaboration between Miller and Mazzuchelli.
This collection is a must have for any Sequential Story teller (or at least a must read/study), there is a lot of experimentation, change on style and introduction of elements from film and prose. Every cover has a different style and symbolism it’s peppered along the book with a great story. I honestly like this over Asterios Popyps any day. 

image via Superficie Contextual

Quick 80’s (90’s?) Recommendation!

Elektra Lives Again! by Frank Miller and Lynne Varley.
He does things in this Graphic Novel that are breaking new ground on storytelling, before praising Asterios Polyp you should take a peek at this.

Skreemer by Peter Milligan, Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon. 

Dense storytelling like this you will had press, the creators approach the story as past, present and future are occurring simultaneously, it’s thick and complicated with out getting confusing. It makes me think why does this old comics are so much better than what it’s currently being produced.

Roho

GEKIGA KICK!
This  is what I am on, I currently have from the library RED SNOW, THE BOX MAN and BLACK BLIZZARD. This three books are very different examples of what GEKIGA is: GREAT MANGA! This sequential art movement started by TATSUMI in the late mid 50’s represent three different approaches at a different kind of story telling, the short version: City life (Tatsumi), Country life (Katsumata) and Crazy life (Sakashira). All this books are available from your local library and or book stores, I recommend to read them and then own them. Also if you think going to the library is too much work and you don’t want to spend money on buying an old black and white manga, you can get a free test this weekend Drawn and Quarterly is releasing a GEKIGA sampler, so go pick it up and discover what all the buzz is about.

THE DRIFTING LIFE
THE PUSH MAN AND OTHER STORIES
GOOD-BYE
ABANDON THE OLD TOKYO
BLACK BLIZZARD
by Yoshihiro Tatsumi 

DISAPPEARANCE DIARY
by Hideo Azuma

THE BOX MAN
by Imiri Sakabashira

RED SNOW 
by Susumu Katsumata

Gekiga (劇画^?) is Japanese for “dramatic pictures.” The term was coined by Yoshihiro Tatsumi and adopted by other more serious Japanese cartoonists who did not want their trade to be known asmanga or “irresponsible pictures.” It’s akin to Will Eisner who started calling his comics ”graphic novels” as opposed to “comic books” for the same reason. 

VIA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gekiga

Edit: I started a TUMBLR related to this subject to keep adding recomendations:

http://gekiga.tumblr.com/