REVIEW - BLACK SUMMER by Warren Ellis Art by Juan Jose Ryp

BLACK SUMMER is a recent mini-series written by Warren Ellis with art by Juan Jose Ryp, published by AVATAR PRESS.

Suppose that there existed, in our current world, 7 Guns; super powered human weapons, intelligent people that figured out how to give themselves seemingly unbeatable super human abilities, and used those abilities in an attempt to make the world a better place, and, for the most part, succeeded, gaining public support and eventually acceptance by the government. Now suppose that one of those 7, John Horus, suddenly decided to kill the President of the United States and demand that the country right itself or they would be at war... with him.

BLACK SUMMER is an interesting, dark, serious, and realistic take on the superhero genre filled with political outrage, ethical questions,and moral dilemma's... that unfortunately falls just short of being enjoyable to me.

It's hard to really pin down where BLACK SUMMER failed for me as a story... I mean, I really like Warren Ellis' writing, and this kind of twisted superhero story is usually right up my ally; but it was missing something for me. I think the main problem I had was that the story felt rushed to me. This is a concept I would have preferred to see told in a more decompressed way, establishing the characters and their world a bit more firmly... 8-12 issues would have been great.

I also think that it was entirely too plot driven, rather than character driven. There was no one I could identify with, and not a single likable character. Everyone was portrayed as being an arrogant, self righteous, bastard, and none of the 7 Guns, the books superhero team, supposedly made up of 7 friends from college, even got along or seemed to have any sort of emotional connection with each other besides mild loathing. A lot of the characters only interaction with each other was just boiled down to "Bitch," a lot of the time. I get that the story is supposed to be a bleak, critical, examination of the kind of arrogant, self righteousness need to proclaim yourself above man's laws, as imperfect as they may be... but I can help but think that could have been better served by contrasting it against the fact that these people as human and flawed as anyone else. There was a hint of a romantic subplot between two characters, and even a moment of tenderness, which was completely glossed over, and then forgotten.

In the end, it didn't feel like there was a sacrifice, or any sort of redemption, because I just didn't care for anyone; which is disappointing, because Warren Ellis is usually so good are writing amoral, monsterous, characters that still have a shred of humanity and empathy. DESOLATION JONES is a perfect example of this. I loved that Jones, as bleak as his world view was, was at least empathetic towards those people he had contact with whom life had shit on. There was a subtle sensitivity to DESOLATION JONES that just isn't present in BLACK SUMMER.

Another problem I had with the book... my biggest problem actually... was the art. I can't say that it was just outright BAD... but it wasn't great. Juan Jose Ryp can definately draw. His background are highly detailed and reminicent of Geoff Darrow's super detailed layouts, and his characters are solidly constructed... but his linework is chunky and has little line variety... it looks like it was inked with a sharpy, and the pages get really busy, and at times I found it hard to seperate foreground and background elements from each other. I liked the costume designs, but the characters themselves are almost impossible to tell apart from each other, particularly the females, who all have the same body types, big porn-star hair, and the same face. Male characters are similarly difficult to differentiate, as they too, all possess the same basic facial stuctures.

The most GRATING thing about the art though? There are a number of instances where a characters body languege or facial expression just do not match what is being said. People look angry when asking a harmless question, or their expressions are too extreme for what's trying to be portrayed. There's no subtlety or range. There are also times when the drawing is just outright BAD. The guy definately has potential, but he's also lacking in a lot of area's.

The coloring definately doesn't help... this is probably some of the most garish and cheap looking computer coloring I've ever seen, and gives the books mostly servicable art a really cheap look.

BLACK SUMMER is a book that feels like it could have been great, but somehow falls short. I can't say it's outright horrible, but it's definately not my favorite Warren Ellis work. It feels like he really phoned it in. There's a lot of interesting concepts and cool idea's, but it's missing heart and character.

STREET FIGHTER TRIBUTE: A Tribute to Street Fighter.

I had the honor of helping with Toronto comic publisher UDON's big STREET FIGHTER event, launching their newest contribution to the expansive world of STREET FIGHTER merchandising. It was, quite possibly, the best event I've ever taken part in (though I wish we had had more before the event to plan the tournament so it would be run more smoothly... hindsight is 20/20).

The space was great; we used the new party space at ROCCO's, referred to as THE PLUM, which was large and classy looking, and the staff was enthusiastic, helpful, and hard working. UDON provided a lot of banners and art to decorate, so there was no mistaking what you were there for, and the idea of having a tournament with some pretty sick prizes, was ingenius and fun, as it was very appropriate to the event and allowed for unprecidented audience participation. The event was well promoted, and a lot of people showed up, and a LOT of them wanted to play STREET FIGHTER. I lent my own TV to the event, and the BEGUILING had a big ass digital projector, which was AWESOME. Combined with the two giant arcade controllers that UDON provided, it was a pretty sick set up, and worked out really well in the final round of the tournament... which itself could not have gone better as we had two equally matched combatants going blow for blow, ramping up the intensity right up until the very end. They both pushed it to the limit and made it probably the most enjoyable part of the entire event for everyone involved.

As for the book itself, I got one for myself after the event for a great price, and it's totally worth it; a truely unique project which showed how impressive and dedicated to their product that UDON is... a giant artbook featuring over 300 new pieces of art from an epcleptic and varied array of artists encompassing every possible style and medium; from north American cartooning, to anime inspired, digitally painted, and even surrealism. The book comes across as a massive love letter to what is probably a huge part of my generations adolecense, full of passion and vigor.

A great event promoting a great book, which I recommend to everyone.

SPACED: You Read my Mind.

Above: My favorite scene from SPACED (season 2 episode 2: Change). I swear to God, I've had this conversation almost word for word...

SPACED is a show about real people living a very close approximation to real, mundane, life, but shot in such a way as to make the mundane extraordinary. Two twenty something's, Tim and Daisy, find themselves homeless after their mutual relationships break down, and become fast friends. They decide to get a flat together when they see an ad in the paper, but take the ad very literally, and fabricate a relationship to trick the flat's super. Add a few absurdly weird secondary characters, and let comedy ensue!

I'd seen a few episodes of SPACED on SHOWCASE (it was on after TRAILER PARK BOYS, which seems appropriate somehow, as it could be argued that TRAILER PARK BOYS is almost the Canadian equivalent of SPACED), and I liked it, but wasn't in love with it. It's not a show where you can just walk into an episode and pick up on everything; it's a show that you really need to watch to get everything out of it. SPACED is more serialized dramady than traditional sitcom, given it's origins on the BBC and the nature of how serialization works across the pond.

Each season is 7 episodes, and there is a definite progression of story from episode to episode, rather than an unconnected string of shenanigans. Each season has a beginning and ending, and each character has an arc, growing and evolving. Which I enjoy, because I find that while I can enjoy a sitcom, I often find them tedious in the long run, as it's a lot of the same shit happening over and over again to the same people.

SPACED is definitely more dramady than tradtional sitcom. There are no snappy comebacks, no laugh track, and no sitting around an apartment waiting for people to come in... the comedy comes more from the situation, and the style of the show, which treats even the most mundane, ordinary event, like an action movie. As the show moves along, though, the reality of the show sort of starts to flux as things become more absurd and ridiculous, and your ability to suspend your disbelief slowly grows. One of my favorite episodes involves main character Tim (Simon Pegg), and his best friend Mike (Nick Frost), building and managing a robot for entry into ROBOT WARS (which was a popular BBC reality show that was called BATTLE BOTS over here), and I just found any scene where Mike treats the robot like a dog, hilarious.

Another facet of SPACED that appeals to me, is it's use of pop-culture. Not only are the characters obsessed with pop-culture and make references to things that they like; such as Tim working in a comic book store, and his love of STAR WARS (which is bittersweet as shown above); but also in it's visual references, recreating scenes from movies, or pulling in idea's or characters from movies (such as the two VERY MATRIX-esque agents from the first episode of season 2, or the scene were Tim burns all his STAR WARS toys), not to mention music cues... I literally almost CRIED when they referenced the LITTLEST HOBO. This use of popular culture as a sort of short hand to communicate with the audience on a very honest, familiar, level appeals to me greatly, because it's almost exactly what I do with my friends. Nerds communicate with other Nerds by quoting old Arnold Swartzenegger movies, or THE SIMPSONS, or obscure old TV shows from our youth. Everyone can relate to that in some way.

SPACED was thoroughly enjoyable to me, and quickly became one of my favorite all time shows. The DVD is very well put together with tons of extra's, such as the original audio commentaries from the British release, and new commentaries with special nerd-guests, as well as some a documentary which cleverly ties up the shows one loose end. Best 40 bucks I ever spent.

Black Lagoon - Red Fraction - Mell and My Anime Lamentations

Funimation has finally started releasing all of the GENEON shit that they scooped up when them bought up all the SOJITZ shit that ADV somehow lost, and all the GENEON shit that was just lying around when they went tits up, making Funimation pretty much the Kings of Anime... the OTAKINGS of Anime, even. :B One of the things that I'm actually quite interested in and am relieved to see is BLACK LAGOON: THE SECOND BARRAGE, as I bought and enjoyed the first season of BLACK LAGOON and was pretty pissed that I'd probably never see the second season.

BLACK LAGOON is basically just action pornography, a handy little expression I got from an utterly BRUTAL review of BAD BOYS II I read in the STAR a few years ago. Action Pornography is basically excessive violence and absurdly over the top action scenes (EX: when John McClain kills a helicopter with a car). BLACK LAGOON is aaaaaaaall about the action pornography... and that's GREAT, because that's what anime is supposed to be about. At least... that's why I originally got into anime.

I sort of miss the days of oldschool anime; the days of VAMPIRE HUNTER D cutting guys in half, or Jubei Kibagami stabbing a guy with a fucking log and then leaving him to burn in a wave of melted gold while screaming, "GENMA! BURN IN YOUR GOLDEN HELL!" You just can't see that kind of crazy shit on Saturday morning! And EVERYTHING used to be like that... at least, everything I saw. AKIRA, VAMPIRE HUNTER D, NINJA SCROLL, GHOST IN THE SHELL, SPRIGGAN, DEMON CITY SHINJUKU, IRIA: ZEIRAM THE ANIMATION, FIST OF THE NORTH STAR... crazy, violent, sex filled, exploitive shit that you'd NEVER see over here. The kind of shit that would have made Uncle Walt's anti-semetic head roll back and melt as if he'd just looked into the Arc of the Covenant. I miss those the days when Cat-Sharks would die, and Hurricane Polymar would kill them.

I think that may be part of why I sort of find myself falling out of anime again. It happened when I first moved to Toronto back in 2000 as well, though that was mostly due to financial restraints, it was also because there was just nothing that interested me... and I find it happening again. I'm not really sure it's because my tastes have changed; I still like all the stuff that I liked back when I got into anime in the first place; but that the industry has changed over in Japan, leaning more toward Otaku pleasing, Moe-esque, material; teenage power trip fantasy wank material about having awkward relationships with pre-teen girls in a the fantasy Japan of the 1980's, were people still wear uniforms and dance around their emotions. Where's the GUTS that anime used to have? The take-no-prisoners attitude that wasn't afraid in get in there and fuck things up a bit? Where have the Gattsu's (BERSERK), Kenshiro's (FIST OF THE NORTH STAR), and Jotaro Joestar's (JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE), gone? The by the balls heroes of my young adulthood that would solve their problems definitively by cutting them in fucking half with a ridiculously huge sword, or make their heads explode by punching them a few hundred times?

That's not to say that there hasn't been shows that have met my expectations, or shown a little class; but those have either had an oldschool mentality (like THE THIRD: GIRL WITH THE THIRD BLUE EYE), or have been more contemporary and given a taste of the modern Japan, or shown a wider world view (COWBOY BEBOP, THE BIG O, GIANT ROBO, FLCL, GUNBUSTER II, GENERATOR GAWL, READ or DIE, ERGO PROXY, SAMURAI CHAMPLOO, etc etc) than "Japan, 1985." Fuck, even PRINCESS TUTU managed to be a psychologically deep and fascinatingly original show that took a dismally pedestrian and derivative manga and elevated it to as close to fine art as TV anime can get.

Anyways, at the very least, this lack of good shit to watch is saving me money in the long run. I just miss the magic is all.

That said, BLACK LAGOON is a series I enjoy... there are a lot of obvious homages to various actions movies (one of the secondary characters is obviously based on John Woo, and one storyarc is obviously based on Robert Rodriguez EL MARIACHE franchise) in it's content and the excessive gunplay, horror show violence, and filthy fucking language. There's also a bit of deeper characterization, which is nice, as one character is forced to deal with the fact that she doesn't like the person she's become, while another has to deal with the fact that the world is a much darker, sicker, place than he'd like to believe it is. There's an interesting dynamic as they both simultaneously try to change each other; Rock tries to get Revy to deal with the darkness inside her and open up to the idea that she is allowed to be happy, while Revy tries to get Rock to admit to the harsh realities of the situation and place that he is in, and that there isn't always a silver lining to every dark cloud. The series is both humanitarian and nihilistic at the same time, examining both the bright, and dark, sides of human existence.

Anyways, all of this was brought on by the fact that I am currently obsessed with the theme song from BLACK LAGOON which is called RED FRACTION by a singer named MELL. It's that perfect sort of crass J-Pop that manages to somehow not sound like it came from the 80's, and the awkward English lyrics add a sort of rawness to it. The AMV above is a pretty good example of both the song and the anime. ENJOY.

Osamu O'Malley, or Brian Tezuka?

HA HA HA! Mal look so adorable wearing his little Tezuka hat. ADORABLE.

WATCHMAN TRAILER

Haven't had any really good thoughts to post about in a while, but expect me to write a LOT about THE DARK KNIGHT... as soon as I'm sure I'm not ruining anyone's day.

In the meantime, since there's no way I can possibly spoil this for anyone, take a look at the WATCHMEN trailer (see left).

Now, see, embarassingly enough, I have yet to read Alan Moore's seminal, industry changing, politically charged, graphic novel. I know enough about it... I know the premise and key story elements, I know the characters, I've just never really gotten around to reading it (Jerry has informed me that a new hardcover will be made available soon, so I'll probably buy that and then read it, as the ABSOLUTE EDITION is way to pricey for something I don't really have strong feelings about... yet, anyways), so I can't really say I have any expectations for how they could fuck this movie up, beyond the usual ways that Hollywood usually fucks up movie adaptations of comics I like (GHOST RIDER anyone? I think GHOST RIDER is, like, the worst case scenario for any comic book movie... maybe the old CAPTAIN AMERICA, but you can at least forgive that for being so shitty because it was the 80's and they had no budget... GHOST RIDER had millions of dollars and modern technology and they STILL fucked it up beyond all recognition). That said... this trailer looks pretty fucking sick.

This is obviously really early stuff, as the movie is almost an entire year away, but I sort of like how artificial Doctor Manhattan looks, as it plays to the idea that he's turned himself into an idealized version of himself, and distanced himself from humanity. I've noticed a number of visual cues from the graphic novel (most notably the Owlship rising from the river), and I got a little chill listening to Rorscach's creepy little monolouge. That SMASHING PUMPKINS song is creepy too.

Frankly, I've gone from absolutely Zero interest in this movie to frenzied anticipation. I'm totally excited. Of course, I'll probably pay for saying that the next time I see Jason Azzopardi.

DRAGONBALL MOVIE: WHERE ARE ALL THE ASIAN PEOPLE!?!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1098327/

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Where the fuck are all the Asian people? I mean... there are SOME Asian people in this movie... set in Asia, based on a Japanese comic, based on an Asian Folktale, with predominantly Asian characters... but there's only, what, like Asian's in the entire cast... not one of which is Goku?

Ok, maybe I'm just being stupid... Goku isn't technically Asian... he's a Saiyan, so, yeah, he can be whatever ethnicity you want, I suppose. Still... something seems wrong about that. I think the only good thing about the cast for this movie is that James Marsters (Spike from Buffy) is Picollo... just because James Marsters is awesome. Hell... he might even be a good Picollo. Still won't stop this movie from sucking ass. I-I... don't even recognize most of these characters... and ERNIE HUDSON!?! I have nothing against Ernie Hudson... he helped give up GHOSTBUSTERS, one of the best movies of all time... but still... why is he in this movie, playing a character that was never in DRAGONBALL?

This movie is just a huge mistake... not only is DRAGONBALL unadaptable, but it's waaaaaaaaay past it's popularity. I'm sorry, that's just how it is. Let's focus on better things... like METAL GEAR SOLID. That could potentially be pretty sexy given the level of input that Hideo Kojima seems to have in the project (I like how he actually stated that Uwe Bowell was not even allowed to fart in the direction of this movie).

On another note, I saw GET SMART and KUNG-FU PANDA this weekend, and neither sucked... in fact they were both pretty fucking good. I'm pretty content.