Tag: graphic novels

Hawkeye Disney+ Show

This is my review from 2019 of the Hawkeye graphic novel, that seems to have heavily inspired the new show (which as of this post I have not seen). My Life as a Weapon and the following releases, Little Hits, Rio Bravo, and LA Woman seem an unlikely inspiration for a television series starring the marksman Avenger. His career as Ronin (briefly hinted at in Avengers: Endgame) would have been bad-ass. Flashbacks to his life as a super villain in the comics would have been neat. But, Clint Barton apartment complex owner who gets a dog, a girl-sidekick, and deals with the likes of the TrackSuit Mafia, gets the shit kicked out of him, and battles the villain known as (Spoiler) is a great choice for plot line to bring to the small screen. It’s exactly what I would have picked.Matt Fraction’s run on Hawkeye is amazing and different from any superhero comic you will ever read.

Volume 60: Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon (2013)

“What’s his name?”
“He’s not my dog. What’s his collar say?”
“Collar says it’s ‘Arrow’”.
“I’ll come up with something better.”

I thought this would be an ordinary story about a team superhero member on a solo adventure. Typically these solo missions involve their backstory, maybe a love interest, they might confront the person who trained them, and so on. You know, superhero stuff that expands the character but probably won’t come up again in the context of a team book. 

Wrong.

Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon features Clint Barton, a powerless, but not helpless Avenger. Clint’s meager apartment building is about to be sold and its residents evicted by a Russian slumlord aka Tracksuit Dracula. Clint offers to buy the building but the offer is rejected causing him to suspect something larger and more sinister is going on.  

Enter Kate Bishop, Clint’s young replacement during his recent absence. Together they journey to Madripoor to attend high stakes a high stakes auction of a videotape showing an assassination that the government and SHIELD and the Avengers would rather not be seen by the world. Everyone who is everyone is there to bid on the tape, including The Kingpin, Hydra, the Hand, and Madame Masque. 

This new (from 6 years ago) direction for Hawkeye is fun and the writing and art are perfect. Fraction uses some bold storytelling techniques including shifts in time without warning, something your creative writing teacher would say, “…is jarring” but it works, and what does she know anyway?

My only complaint is the disparity in Hawkeye’s combat readiness. Early-on he gets into fights with untrained thugs and the sheer number of opponents combined with the danger of combat and he is taken out. More than once. You might think, “Okay, it’s gonna be one of those kinds of stories where the hero gets his ass beat,” but later Hawkeye takes on trained and armed ninjas and beats them like they were cub scouts. What does this mean? I don’t know. Otherwise, Hawkeye, written by Fraction makes me happy.  

by Matt Fraction (Writer), David Aja (Artist, #1-3) Javier Pulido (Artist, #4-5) Matt Hollingsworth (Color Artist), Annie Wu (Illustrator) Chris Eliopoulos (Letterer), Alan Davis (Penciler), Francesco Francavilla (Illustrator)

Check out my other reviews on my Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/janivesthewriter

Confessions 9/23

On the theme of reviews: It’s easy to get energy from positive reviews but it’s just as easy, if not easier, to let the bad reviews get you down. Last night, I was looking at my Goodreads author’s page and trying to utilize its resources as best as possible, it is important to make sure your info and publications are up-to-date. Goodreads is a part of Amazon so they list all my books, available and not available. For some reason, it lists my trade paperback The League of Super Groovy Crimefighters twice and both listings have a few reviews. 

Scanning. 

Scanning. 

Two one-star ratings?! No followup on what they liked and didn’t like. Just fart and get off the elevator. I’m very proud of the work I did creating, writing, and publishing a limited series. To me, one star denotes the worst of the worst which would include terrible art and god-awful writing. Say what you want about the idea and execution, the art is great. I didn’t draw it, but the artists who contributed to the cover and interior work did a fantastic job. Maybe the humor was sophomoric. Maybe he didn’t like black-and-white. Maybe he didn’t think poking fun at the themes and oddities of the 70s was very funny. Either way, one star is harsh, in my humble opinion.

I’m being sensitive, of course. The comic series never really took off the way some other Indies like TMNT or the Tick did, so I understand some just didn’t get it. That’s okay. You never know. You have to try.

I did a promotion on Bookbub for a free book giveaway for my novel Twenty-One Octobers. 100 people were selected from thousands of entrants to receive a free digital copy. I netted about ten ratings and one written review, which was nice but perhaps not “worth it” for the money I spent. It’s hard to know if the other 90 winners have read or will read the book, but as an indie writer you can only try and hope something works. Some people will read what you write and love it. Some people will read it and hate it. Some will tell you, and fewer will tell you why. That’s okay, because most people won’t read it. 

I have a friend who showed her support by buying a copy of my science fantasy book Champions of the Maelstrom. Her mother picked it up off the table and read it without knowing anything about the book. She enjoyed it despite not being a fan of the genre or even knowing me. 

You never know. 

Confessions of a Failed Writer-rebirth edition

To paraphrase Ursula Le Guin: 

“When did you know you wanted to be a writer?” 

I’d respond, “I’ve always been a writer.”

I wish I had started writing with the intention of publishing earlier in life. In the computer lab in High School (class of 1990) I would write stories of my Dungeons and Dragons characters. My friend gave me my first criticism, she said, “You need more than fight scenes.” She was right.

I always had ideas but rarely got them down on paper. I wrote a poem on my love’s lament that was published in a school journal. I submitted an idea for a role-playing game adventure. But it wasn’t until I was in a near-fatal car crash twenty-four years ago that I decided to quit my job and become a comic-book writer. But I was wrong. I should have been writing while I had that full-time job. It’s all about time management and making choices on what’s important.

Make progress every day. Pick a goal (in this case-writing) and work on it every day. Ten minutes before work. After dinner before putting in a movie, write for half an hour. After putting the kids to bed. It adds up because on the day when you have more time, you already have a foundation. Even if you don’t use what you wrote, you got it out of the way and it will lead to better things. Write in the morning. Write at night. Write when you can’t sleep. Write when all you want to do is sleep.

I have a friend (actually a couple, but I’ll merge them into one for this) who is jealous of the time I have to write. This person would love to be a writer, but just doesn’t have the time. I disagree.  Sometimes, thinking I have unlimited time can be a detriment to the process of completing a project. When I have a job, I do a lot of “writing” while I work, looking forward to the time when I can jot down my ideas. The point is, we choose how we spend our time. There’s a quote, “I always wanted to be a boxer, until I fought someone who WANTED to be a boxer.” The point is,  if you want to do something, do it. 

Don’t wait until you “have the time.” Get a grain of sand and place it where you want it. Tomorrow, add another. Someday you’ll have your castle.

Archie: Volume One

Archie: Volume One

I’ve never read an Archie comic, nor have I seen Riverdale, but I get the premise. Archie goes to high school. His best friend likes hamburgers. Archie is torn between two girls. The end. But, like I said, I’ve never read one, so maybe there’s more to it. I mean, a non-superhero comic character who has been published continuously since 1942 has to have something interesting.

Cut to, an Archie reboot by famed superhero writer Mark Waid (Kingdom Come, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, et al). This is a reboot that doesn’t deviate front the source material too much (I think). The art is wonderful with big, colorful panels and cartoony characters with a modern style. Jughead loves cheeseburgers (but he’s rich). Archie has just broken up with Betty because of “the lipstick incident” and Veronica, a rich snob, moves to town and steals his attention. Archie is a loveable clutz. Moose is a dumb football player.  Nothing revolutionary, but familiar for new and old readers.

Archie: Volume One contains light, suitable-for-all-ages stories with a modern twist for a 78-year-old character.   

Collects issues 1-6 by Mark Waid and Fiona Staples

Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars

Amazon.com: Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars (9780785198673): Lolli, Matteo, Camagni, Jacopo, Bunn, Cullen: Books

Wade Wilson takes us back to 1984, before his own origin story in 1991, all the way to the Beyonder’s Battle World where he inserts himself into the original Secret Wars story. I feel like the story would be less impactful if you haven’t read the original Secret Wars, so definitely do that. 

Is it canon? Like, did it really happen? (As much as a comic book can really happen.) There are some clues that it did, but there are also elements that point to wacky Deadpool having fun and breaking the fourth wall. One piece of evidence that took me out of the story was Absorbing Man. His power (at the time of Secret Wars) is the ability to touch a substance and gain the properties of that substance, For example; if he touched steel, he would turn to steel but also gain the resistance and strength of steel. But Crusher Creel (Absorbing Man) touches DP and gains his physical attributes and power, much like Rogue’s power absorption. Was this a clue that the story didn’t really happen, creative liberty, or just a writing/continuity error?

Deadpool’s Secret, Secret Wars is full of nostalgia while at the same time adding DP to the original story in a fun, and sometimes, touching way.

Good touching, not bad touching.

Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars #1-4 written by Cullen Bunn and illustrated by Matteo Lolli.

Y: The Last Man: Volume One

Y: The Last Man

Y

No capes. No monsters. No heroes (well, there’s one-his sister, Hero). No powers. No villains. No magic (possibly a magic medallion). Y: The Last Man isn’t like most other comic books.
Without warning or explanation, every male on earth dies. The story centers on the humans, but all the male animals die as well, leaving the females to clean up a patriarchal civilization.
The Why in the comic book is:
Why.
Isn’t.
This.
A.
Show?!
It reads like Heroes or Lost, or even 24. You might respond with “Isn’t there a show about the last man on earth called, um, The Last Man on Earth?” Well, invisible questioner, that’s true. But the show is different because it’s a comedy and the comic book is more of a dramatic fantasy. The comic came first, and it’s hard not to imagine that the basic idea of the show was inspired by (ripped off) the comic. No spoilers, but the climax of the first trade paperback is a plot point in the show.
Y: The Last Man is thought-provoking in its execution. The real world concerns of every male dying at once are addressed (What do the survivors do with the bodies? What about the mostly-male governments of the world?) Yorkick, an English-major and escape artist, along with his monkey Ampersand, does his best to travel from the United States to Australia to reunite with his fiancee. Along the way, he encounters violent Amazons, the remnants of the elected government escape from the White House, and a discovers a seemingly utopian town. Did I mention that technology has been knocked for a loop? Oh yeah, the phones don’t work and things like cars and gasoline are scarce.

I look forward to reading the other books in the series. There are many mysteries to be answered, such as: What happened to wipe out half the human race? Will Yorick reach his girlfriend? What’s the deal with his sister? Is Yorick (and his monkey) really the last man (males) on Earth?
Y: The Last Man is written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Pia Guerra and published by Vertigo, an imprint of DC Comics collecting issues 1-10.