Hosive

just like there’s indie music and indie movies, there are indie comics…not(always)for the masses…but unique stories told by people with singular vision.  back in the day, there were two major indie comics conventions….one on the west coast in sf and one on the east coast in bethesda, md. for 11 years, i happened to live nearby the one in md and went nearly every year. these days, there are a few more shows across the country trying to develop their own following but the small press expo in maryland will always be special to us. we’ve been going the last few years after a short hiatus after our move to nyc.

the show features some more established artists….here is steve lieber who will become more mainstream once the movie whiteout comes out. i’ve also met frank miller, art spiegelman, jeff smith, and paul pope at this con….

it also features up and coming artists such as dash shaw who wrote and drew bottomless belly button declared by new york magazine as the graphic novel of the year….it also got great press from lots of national publications……its cool to meet and greet these guys before they become more famous….at least in the comic universe…..

we also get to hang with old friends like local artist mark burrier who we’ve connected with and gotten sketches from for years. we are his small time patrons buying comics, prints and shirts to support his art. theresa really loves his t’s and sports them regularly.

this time, the big ticket artist featured was one of my favorites….jason lutes. i’ve followed him for over ten year first with his moving jar of fools graphic novels about a down and out magician. and now on his epic decade long(and longer)production of berlin.

in honor of the small press expo, no superheroes this time for my reviews(most indie comics deal with topics non-superhero)but here are reviews of books available at the small press expo. i start with jason lutes’ berlin.

berlin is about…..(i’ll let the blurb on the back of the book tell it): a captivating trilogy set in the twilight years of germany’s weimar republic. the first book covers eight months in berlin from september 1928 to may day 1929…documenting the hopes and struggles of its inhabitants as their future is darkened by a growing shadow. the second book creates a seamless, street level portrait of their city as tension builds between communist and national socialist, jew and gentile, and the dawn of the second world war draws closer.

pretty heady stuff! accompanied by crisp, clean beautiful art.

i love comics(and movies)about cities or how a city is a character in a story. to the un-initiated, think about a movie where the city plays a major role….sometimes when i visit a city, i watch a few movies set in that city. think of your favorite nyc movies, sf movies, los angeles movies…this is your pre world war two berlin story.

this is a textured journey through the tangled lives of a large cast of characters living in berlin during that time. they capture the wide range of life in the city from the devout to the depraved….finding beauty in the zeniths and nadirs of humanity. an extraordinary achievement.

people might complain….that nothing happens! well that’s life….and its not that nothing happens….it just happens really slowly…and a whole lot of nothing in between. but that’s life too. it captures one slice of time in a city. and there’s nothing else like it in comics…and that’s good news, bad news to people. it depends on who you are. but its 100% art. and i love art…..stuff people produce because they just have to….leaving you wondering where these ideas come from(as a theology dude, i suspect that inspiration originates from a spark of/from god).

the series started in 2001 and its been almost eight years….it will be finished in another 8 years. truly an epic effort. the power of the medium of comics is showcased in telling this kind of story. comics are not just the funny pages for below average readers with bad social skills…..it can be literary, sophisticated and cosmopolitan.

up next is exit wounds by rutu modan. another book set in a city(or too)not too familiar to westerners. here’s the blurb from the back….in modern tel aviv, a young man receives an urgent phone call from a female soldier named numi; learning that his estranged father may have been a victim of a suicide bombing in hadera. as they unravel the mystery, the young man finds himself not only piecing together those last few months of his father’s life but his entire identity.

the jewish daily forward says this about it: exit wounds makes wry comments about classism and sexism in israeli society, the matter of factness of living with terrrorism, and how personal and political inevitably interwine.

its a mystery! its a love story! its a exploration of how our parents influenced us! its a snapshot of living in modern day israel under the threat of terrorism….perhaps a preview of life for us in the states?

its executed very well and feels very human. it affirms the deep things in life. more art!! yay!

finally, too cool to be forgotten is a time warp trip as middle aged andy wicks finally tries hypnosis to help him to quit smoking. but instead, he gets transported back to 1985…back to his high school days! and he gets to live his life over again. faced with the same choices with a head full of wisdom, what will he choose? what will he do with a second choice? this is both a meditation on our teenage years and our middle aged years.

alex robinson has been a favorite of ours during our small press expo days with box office poison and tricked!….real life with real nuance; slice of everyman everyday is his specialty. executed with charm and magic.

maybe for next time….more superheroes!

Posted under comics, forbidden planet chronicles

this is courtesy of slashfilm.com and….my friend, angelo…..looks like my prediction of a y movie was right…but no skill here….they are making a movie of almost every comic. its like they’ve run out of ideas in hollywood and suddenly discovered comics and graphic novels and bowing down at their altars. my nerd existence is getting legit.

DJ Caruso’s Y: The Last Man in Summer 2010?

Today during our visit to Dreamworks, we got the chance to talk to Eagle Eye director D.J. Caruso with a group of select online journalists. During the discussion, the big screen adaptation of Brian K Vaughn’s Y: The Last Man came up, and Caruso dropped some potentially exciting news:

“What happened is New Line is now part of Warner Bros, and Warner Bros is now really high on the project. And Carl Ellsworth will probably be handing in a script to Warner Bros/New Line [real soon].”

Caruso says that in a perfect world, the film will hit theaters in Summer 2010.

“I was talking to Shia [LaBeouf] about this yesterday when we were looping him, because he really wants to do it as well, I would like to prep this movie in October, and start shooting it by January. Warner Bros keeps saying ‘We need movies for 2010? I’m like ‘We’re the movie!’” said Caruso. “[Shia] wants to do it, I want to do it. I think we just need to worry about him being exhausted, so I told him, if I prep it in the fall and we start in January, that’s a nice big break.”

Y: The Last Man is my favorite comic book series of all time. Shia would play Yorick Brown, a young amateur escape artist, and his Capuchin monkey, Ampersand, who instantly become the last two men on Earth after  something mysterious simultaneously kills every mammal possessing a Y chromosome - including embryos, fertilized eggs, and even sperm. Society is plunged into chaos as infrastructures collapse and the surviving women everywhere try to cope with the loss of the men. Yorick goes on a mission to find his girlfriend Beth, who was on vacation in Australia. However, DJ says that they aren’t planning “to follow that through-line [with his girlfriend Beth] out too much in the first film.” Yes, I said the FIRST FILM.

“I definitely see it as a trilogy. I see the first movie ending basically where you pick up six weeks after the incident then progressing down only a five or six week journey from that point on until the end of the first movie,” revealed Caruso. “It’s been hard in a good way just because there is so much good stuff to choose from. And every-time you start throwing certain scenes in the screenplay, you’ll see that it sort of dislodges and starts to head a different way.”

“We did something earlier where we sort of separated Yorick from Ampersand for a brief moment of time when Yorrick gets very sick. Also, the 355/Yorrick relationship, we’ve been working on that and not getting that right. Yorrick to me is so solid. It’s really like 355 and her joining with Yorrick that has been… and act three and where do you end the first movie, and where do you go from there.

Caruso claims that co-creator Brian K Vaughn is apparently “really happy” with the direction they have taken.

“I just want to fine tune it before I give it to the studio because I always think that first impression… Because to them Y: The Last Man… Now its Warner Bros. So you’re reeducating a whole different group of people.”

Caruso says that if the project was greenlit, it would probably be produced by Warner Bros and not “New Line” as it would probably be over the certain budget threshold that separated the two production labels.

“I’m still gonna give it to Tobey and Rick who are at New Line but I don’t know the policies at all. All I know is my agent keeps going ‘Oh my god, Warner Bros wants this’, which is great!”

new york from an indirect angle…..a few indirect angles….

in this segment, i’ll detail my amore for the art and medium of comics. the title comes from a comic shop i frequented as a kid in the city and a nod to my boy q and his blog.

in previous entries, i traced my history with comics…..in junior high, i read an epic fantasy series called elfquest that sadly has not gotten a larger audience via a television show or movie. with the current cultural milieu that includes lord of the rings and harry potter and where almost every comic book is being translated for the screen, perhaps elfquest missed the boat. or showed up too early for it. too ahead of its time. however, i did just discover that they will try again. i wonder how my friends from almost 30 years ago will react to a movie. it may resurrect some latent memories. some deeply buried memories.

elfquest came out quarterly and with each issue, it got passed around my homeroom for weeks even months. my sister also was a big fan. after reading elfquest, many of my friends asked if i had any other recommendations and that’s when i started sharing my comics. i got better copies, hardcover and collected editions, so that i could share stories with my friends. today, i frequently loan out stuff from my library as well as have people come over just to browse and discover stories before hollwood comes to shrink, ruin and reimagine them. perhaps i’ll do a longer review of elfquest in the future.

here’s what i’m currently reading:

dmz proposes that perputual war and conflict is how our species does life. so why do we assume as americans that war cannot take place on our own soil….with our own people. a cival war breaks out in the united states with manhattan island becoming a demilitarized zone.

military folks rave that it is an accurate portrayal of occupation, conflict and warzone life…an incredible achievement. its also about my beloved city as the new york times called it a love letter to new york. the story explores different neighborhoods and how they morphed when things go awry. its like stepping into an alternate nyc…something familiar, something i still love but am weary of.

the story primarily follows matty, a reporter who starts out as an intern until everyone gets killed and he becomes the only news guy in the dmz. themes of truth, media, journalism….how these disciplines get warped in the politics of war are constant. an intelligent, nuanced read that stretches the expectations and parameters of what kinds of stories comics can tell.

i’m reading them in trade paperback form right now.

i’m also reading superman. that can apply to clark or to grant.

grant morrison is one of the current arcitects of the dc universe entrusted with bringing superman, batman and their super friends into the 21st century. a few years ago, dc started these all star lines of comics without the constraints of chronology and back stories to make the characters accessible to non-fans. however, delays have made the comics frustrating to find and follow. luckily, they have collected the superman issues and are releasing them in 2 hardcover volumes. the first one is out now with a second one forthcoming in the new year.

grant takes the grand themes of superman and puts them on steroids(or some drug of his choice): space, heroicism, humanity, courage, good and evil. all the classic characters and relationships are touched upon: villians like luthor, friends like jimmy olsen and lois lane and family like ma and pa; but everything is elevated to something new. he is writing the ultimate and perhaps last superman story.

he’s doing the same over in the mainstream batman line where it is rumored that he is going to kill bruce wayne and replace batman with one of the former robins: dick grayson, jason todd or tim drake.

the art by frank quitely clean, cartoony, trippy and beautiful to view. a great marriage to morrison’s words. these two creators went nuts together in a few previous works including their epic run on x-men.

i can’t wait for the second half to be released!

in this segment, i’ll detail my amore for the art and medium of comics. the title comes from a comic shop i frequented as a kid and a nod to my boy q and his blog. i only recently restarted this feature so you might want to go back to the earlier posts to read what this is all about. ironically….despite this picture, i don’t really read too much marvel stuff.

here’s what i’ve been reading lately, starting with my non-spandex pick:

y the last man just finished not that long ago…and with the current comic avalanche on hollywood and movies, this modern classic should be adapted very soon. but that’s what we thought about the watchmen 25 years ago. and watchmen was named on time magazine’s top 100 novels of the 20th century! but watchmen gets its due in the spring of 2009. hopefully, y gets greenlit faster!

y is not about superheroes but a thriller about a plague that wipes out every male on the planet except for one guy named yorick and his monkey. the women rule the world and yorick is the last man on earth. what happened? what will happen to humanity? who did this? it’s a series of mysteries and social analysis….for example, what happens when women are really in charge? the answer…a nuanced, depends on which women!

brian k vaughn who writes for lost(the tv show)scripts this 10 volume set. pia guerra provides most of the pencils. and they create a realistic, disturbing window into a possible future. high recommendations but be warned…its an rated r read. i took a girl to an anime movie once and her mom thought i took her to a cartoon…like for kids. this is not for kids.

j g jones provides the covers and when i actually met j g, sketching in my sketchbook above, i thought he looked really familiar. on the covers of y….he drew himself as yorick!

speaking of j g jones, he’s doing the covers and most of the interiors for final crisis…the universal cataclysmic threat to all the dc heroes. reading this series feels like something evil has crawled into the room…under the couch or under the bed….something insidious is taking over the world…and everything is falling apart. it comes from one of the writers i trust, grant morrison. he crafts complex mindbenders that make you feel like you’re on something…..drugs done for you! which might just be the case.

i’m a sucker for these epics and i trust grant and j g to deliver. the third issue just came out with a bunch of specials to supplement the story. this is definitely worth my time as opposed to other dc mega projects that have just bored me.

in this segment, i’ll detail my amore for the art and medium of comics. the title comes from a comic shop i frequented as a kid and a nod to my boy q and his blog. i haven’t done one of these in a long time so you might want to go back to the earlier/first post to read what this is all about. you can use the nifty select category button on the right if you are on the agapeshack.com site. sorry, facebook.

in high school, there were two forbidden planets in nyc…one downtown and one midtown. i even saw/felt the presence of stephen king at the midtown one. i was looking at books and felt a shiver go down my spine when i heard the cashier ask someone for a few autographs. i turn around and see the scary nerd red sox fan who is stephen king. he was creepy even back then in the 80’s. that moment and picking up mike grell’s green arrow run starting with the longbow hunters are the clearest memories from that forbidden planet.

2 forbidden planets! but….that was the high level of comics sales back in the day. today, comic shops have closed down and are getting smaller.

i intend to use these columns to tell you what i’m reading but i’ll start off by telling you what i’m not reading.

i’m not reading trinity, the new dc weekly series. i gave it a try…three issues worth…and i was bored. i would have given it a longer chance that three issues but the main reason i cannot risk another 52 week series is…..

this:countdown. cover #6 says it inadvertently…countdown was a disaster. no payoff. weird writing. and the sin that cannot be forgiven: not interesting.

i am a sucker for these gimmicks. i love comics and willing to give any innovative format a chance but 51 weeks later….i felt ripped off. i hung in there for a year and paid way too much for this nonsense. i can’t take a chance with trinity. if i read that the reviews are good, i’ll pick up the trades(paperback collections). i’m wondering if the competition, marvel comics was right in their response to whether they too would dabble in weekly comics: “we don’t do comics weekly…we do them strongly”

i’m spending my money on people i can trust….grant morrison, geoff johns and the return of my favorite writer: james robinson.

one thing i am reading and re-reading is starman….my favorite monthly comic of all time. i introduced steph to this comic and she devoured it. they have just come out with the first of these omnibus type collections of the whole run. it is about a gen x’r reluctant hero who finds himself….yes, its about good guys and bad guys but like all good fiction, its about life and is a mirror for us to see ourselves clearly. and as you can see, the art is amazing. the comic is also about the city….james robinson wanted to make opal city a character in his story: from the skyline to the suburb to its shops to the citizens that inhabit. he wanted to show why you love a place….a city…a home. pretty literary stuff for a comic.

this is light years ahead of countdown. go to the barnes and nobles and flip through it. then buy it. or again, the offer is open to come and borrow it or read it at the agapeshack on the upper, upper west side.

a non-superhero comic i’m reading is this autobiographical travel log to north korea, the other white meat. its the diary of an animator who gets sent to north korea on a project and he starts sketching and recording the culture shock and difference. my wife, of course was totally into this especially after we went to see propaganda village and the north earlier this year. steph is reading it now….even new friend michelle, herself an artist has read it. and her sister too. i am going through it slowly as to savor it.

i will try to feature comics that are not just super-tights…though starman is more than adults wearing underwear on the outside. while, most of american culture is enamored with super-hero culture(check your movie theatre), i hope they also discover the non-super hero side of this genre.

Posted under comics, forbidden planet chronicles

in this segment, i’ll detail my amore for the art and medium of comics. the title comes from a comic shop i frequented as a kid and a nod to my boy q and his blog.

my love for comics/graphic novels started in chinese school when a dean confiscated some poor kid’s collection(not allowed in chinese school) and gave them to me….while i was still in class! my mom was a teacher at the school and good friends with the dean. i learned something about how power works that day(but that’s another entry).

next my uncle robert fed my habit by telling me stories of his collecting days and even buying a few issues for me. had a hard time finding money to fund my next fix but one time, my great-grandfather once gave me 50 cents to buy 2 comics. however, i hit a road block when my aunt and uncle came from hong kong and i asked them to pick a comic for me at the newsstand and they came back with some barbie dress me up book with cardboard cutouts you put different paper dresses on. something was lost in translation.

in my early junior high days, my dad would take us to barnes and nobles(when the only one in the world was in nyc)and forbidden planet(a branch of a famous london comic shop)in union square. it had two full floors of nerd and geek goodness and i was on my way to full addiction. later on, during the bust years of comics, the store relocated to the much smaller location it still inhabits. i don’t pick up comics there regularly because its too far south from where i live.

i’ll chronicle this journey in further editions but this is what i’ve been reading and re-reading lately:

box office poison is the story of (mostly)singles living in the city during the 90’s which sounds like a long time ago but not to old farts like me. its moving, sarcastic, with an ensemble of flawed but beautiful characters. there are so many character moments lovingly crafted by the author who clearly adores his creation. i followed this when it was a comic and even more so when i met the creator, alex robinson, at the small press expo. when it was finished and compiled, i got this edition. like any great fiction, there are new things to be discovered with each read.

green lantern has been getting great reviews mostly because of master super hero writer geoff johns. almost everything he writes is worth reading in the dc universe. this is a sprawling popcorn summer blockbuster sci fi epic. i waited until the hardcovers…..vol 2 comes out later in the spring. a rival/evil group of (yellow)ring wielding characters wage war against the good guys who use the green rings. rumor has it that there will be multiple colored ring corps by the end of the year. this was the sleeper hit in the dc universe this year!

here’s something marvel, something odd. james sturm, who i also met at the small press expo, imagines the folks that that the fantastic four is really based on and tells their story. he treats them as if they are real people….and this is their biography. when i met james and asked him what kind of comics he did….without hesitation, he asserted: historical fiction. wow! this guy has guts! and imagination! this is a surreal classic illustrated by the great guy davis.

i’m also slowly re-reading the cerebus epic….16 or so phonebook sized volumes about……we don’t know. when we were in college, q, phil and i devoured these books and still had no idea what they are about. all we can say is that its about the life of a talking aardvark…and about life. reading these volumes is making me nostalgic of the days when we had so much leisure time to just read in the spring air and the endless summers. a simpler era when good friends bonded deeply….before real life, distance and misunderstandings separated us.

i’m still reading the kind of comics that come out every week….in fact, this is a weekly comic. 52 issues that come out in 52 weeks. this is the 2nd weekly experiment by dc and sadly, it has been disappointing. not enough plot, payoffs or good creativity. but i’m a sucker for this stuff….i believe in the idea of a weekly comic and hope that the new one, trinity, about the big three, superman, batman and wonder woman will be better. i love the dc universe and i’m an easy sell for gimmicks and events!

finally for this edition, i’ve also been reading clandestine, which i thought was from my childhood but i discovered was from my college days(i guess a second childhood). it’s a marvel book but really an independent minded superhero story by the great alan davis. its about family with the powers and personalities reflecting the weirdness found in any family. more clandestine stories on the way! yay!

all these comics are available at your local store, amazon and of course at the tsang household! come visit us and ask for these recs!