Leave Your Spandex @t the Door 21.10.07

Reviews

This is Leave Your Spandex @t the Door, packed neatly every week for your enjoyment, freshly arrived from Birmingham and preparing a huge expose (no, really!)

This is number 105 and it has a bit for everyone:

• Panel of the Week voting

• Recent Reviews from the Big Three

• American Virgin Ends

• Closeted Homosexual Professor Murdered at Hogwarts!

• Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man #24

• New Warriors v.2 #5

• Casanova #1 and #8 for FREE!

• Radio Music Piracy killed the Video Star

• Are you Mr Guy Debord? For daily updates and even more reviews, videos and commentary, keep checking the LYS@D daily blog. and subscribe to the RSS feed.

This week in comics…

PANEL OF THE WEEK VOTING 17.10.07

Each week I’ll be posting the 3-4 most memorable panels from the week and putting them up for a public week-long vote. The winning panels gets posted on the sidebar and earns boasting privileges over lesser panels…

Last week gassy WW1 Wolverine caught a very narrow win over Joss Whedon’s space frolics.

This week is even quieter, with few standout panels. Where has the funny gone?


Panel A

Dinah Lance: Blonde Bimbo (Green Arrow/Black Canary #1)

Panel B

Get it? He’s a teen cyborg (Runaways #28)

Panel C

Goldie Fishman’s Funeral Service (Captain Carrot and the Final Ark #1)

Recent Reviews from Big Three

It’s been over 2 weeks since the last juicy column ,so here’s what I’ve been reviewing lately:

(Click on the covers below to read the full reviews on the Nexus)


American Virgin Ends

Another great comics bites the dust.

It will of course be missed, although this isn’t such shocking news to me, as I explained here

Two things to take from Steve Seagle‘s ‘eulogy‘ of the title.

1. This reply, epitomizing the heart of the title very succinctly (something i had difficulty doing in my own review)

American Virgin’ is an ongoing book, which means it goes on as long as people are into reading about interesting, obtuse, offensive, and just plain out-there sexual practices going on around the globe. It goes on as long as people are intrigued by how a conservative Christian responds to the kind of stimuli he’s been sheltered from his whole life. It goes on as long as people are hooked into our road-adventure-revenge story. As long as they are, I have stories to tell about Adam Chamberlain, because it’s the balance between oath and temptation that this book is actually examining, and not just sexual temptation.

2. This sneaky critical quote at the top of the page:

“American Virgin is one of the most enjoyable monthly reads from Vertigo. Adam is a very intense and controversial character, and the writer doesn’t waste any chances to really push his beliefs and convictions to the breaking limit.” – Insidepulse.com

from yours trully, and my earlier review of #18.

Closeted Homosexual Professor Murdered at Hogwarts!

Shock. Gasp.

In unexpected news this week, J.K. Rowling outed Harry Potter’s Professor Albus Dumbledore, fictional Headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Wizardry, a mere two books and 4 years since his death.

And everyone applauded, for a gay man who was never outed, not in his fictional lifespan, not in the books published or the movies released. Way to go to give us a great role model, ms Rowling!

As for the media circus?

Let’s quote:

Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell welcomed the news about Dumbledore and said: “It’s good that children’s literature includes the reality of gay people, since we exist in every society.

…and remain closeted in our studies not letting anyone know our real identity

And a spokesman for gay rights group Stonewall added: “It’s great that JK has said this. It shows that there’s no limit to what gay and lesbian people can do, even being a wizard headmaster.”

… … … …

“Dumbledore is gay,” she said, adding he was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, who he beat in a battle between good and bad wizards long ago.

This could actually fit, looking back. But I still couldn’t prove this isn’t something that Rowling tacked on after the fact; there was simply no hinting or nudging for the reader to make this jump on his own. If Dumbledore was always perceived as a gay character, why is there not a single hint in the series of 7 books? And what is the point of revealing it after all the books have been released?

Is it safe now?

Source: BBC News

Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man #24

Writer: J. M. Straczynski
Artist: Joe Quesada

Marvel Comics

Aunt May is dying. Peter has heard the bad news that science can’t do anything to save her life, but he’s not willing to let go, instead turning to the metaphysical for answers. Peter knocks on Dr Strange’s door for answers, but he won’t like what he finds out and his desperation will lead him to an ill-advised time-travelling jump tying into an earlier cryptic scene in JMS’ run.

Color me impressed. JMS had the whole thing planned for over 6 years before?

All in all, One More Day, despite expectations, doesn’t suck! Spider-man’s desperation is now tangible and his actions have a real emotional resonance. Better late than never.

Joe Quesada is making his big artistic come back with tihs storyline, and also deserves praise. First, for the amazing quality of the layouts and panel arrangements. Secondly for beating his track record and delivering the issues on time!

The back of the issue reprints MJ’s origin along with a very detailed Handbook profile, trying to compromise the actual continuity with the various retcons throughout the years like MJ always knowing Spidey’s identity, and Gwen’s secret pregnancy.

7/10

New Warriors v.2 #5

Writer: Kevin Grevioux
Artist: Paco Medina

Marvel Comics

So the new New Warriors are really M-Day depowered mutant survivors donning tech-suits and new identities to stick it up to the Big Man Tony Stark. That’s fine and dandy, but Kevin Grevioux is missing the point when he’s dragging the revelation of the secret identities and the team’s origins so far.

It’s issue 5 now, one of the Warriors has just died, and I couldn’t honestly even remember who she is or why I’m expected to care. At this point I don’t even remember how many members they actually have, what anyone’s name is or their powers.

They can’t be very impressive anyhow, since they fail to fight off the Zodiac, but instead sit back and lick their wounds while a depowered ex-mutant waitress goes in alone against them. Death wish, anyone?

Paco Medina‘s art work is always well-suited for teen adventure books, although it clashes when the writer decides to take a sudden left into grim, bloody and gritty. I also have serious objections towards his rendition of former Morrison New X-Men graduates Beak and Angel, who became such darlings partly because of their average everyday looks and attitudes; now Beak is a muscle-bound idiot on mechanical wings, and Angel is a slim-waisted big-boobed teen bimbo instead of the chubby-assed trailer park trash we learned to love. I’m still waiting on an explanation as to why they would take up this cause when they have 5-7 young babies to raise at home, and noone to babysit for them.

As for the grade, this is probably the lowest I have gone in the last year. Bravo.

(Now please please please cancel this atrocity and erase it from continuity)

1.5/10

CASANOVA for Free!

Are you one of those cheap bastards who won’t shell out $1.99 (seriously, under 2 bucks! Why are you being miserable) to read one of the 3 best comics out there!

Please, say it isn’t so!

Well, Image Comics are being super nice so they’re now offering not one, but TWO (count it), two ways for you to get addicted to this crack.

CASANOVA #1 By Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba is available as an online comic on Image Comics’ homepage

and now MySpace is offering the complete CASANOVA #8 issue for a download as a .CBR file (isn’t that kinda ‘extra cherry on top’ cool?). Issue 8 kicks off the ‘second season’ of the title with new artist Fabio Moon and a perfect jumping-on point for new readers.

(Don’t forget to also check out my review of #9 here)

Radio Music Piracy killed the Video Star

A video fairytale with a didactic core. Starring a pop queen, a thieving sorcerer, a band of trovadours, and the court Jester who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

The ingredients of this little story, in video:

Music, is quite good, ‘Clocks’ from Coldplay

Piracy, is of Greek origin, ‘Thelo Na Se Do‘ (I want to see you), from Despina Vandi, ‘composed’ by Greece’s #1 music man, Foivos

Start playing the videos, and do a bit of mixing, see if you can Spot The Difference.

This is where the Video Star, or VJ, comes in.

Guy Krief is a French-Greek who has been making waves with his part off-beat, part brain-dead way of presenting a music show, on Greek TV’s #1 (or is that ‘only’?) music channel, MAD TV. Last week, he decided to push his luck, by commenting on the newly released Foivos song, and presenting a mix clip comparing it to Coldplay.

The Kill? That came after the show’s end, with Foivos and the company Heaven, ‘allegedly’, calling in the station, causing havoc and giving Guy the ax for his (=their) sins. Guy’s show Ninja TV was never seen again and the young VJ (the second most popular presenter on the station after the actual manager) was laid off.

After this, feel free to make your own conclusions; I’m feeling too happy this morning to get into Freedom of Expression, Media Hypocrisy and Survival of the Most Profitable.

Are you Mr Guy Debord?

(Source: Caballos Peligrosos)

That’s a wrap for this week! I’m waiting your comments and feedback through email to Manolis@gmail.com or through the site’s comments feature

If you self-publish your own comics or represent an Indy comics company, add me to your press release list, and I will run your news in this space every week.

Manolis Vamvounis
a.k.a. Dr. Dooplove

ah, the good old Dr Manolis, the original comics Greek. He's been at this for sometime. he was there when the Comics Nexus was founded, he even gave it its name, he even used to run it for a couple of years. he's been writing about comics, geeking out incessantly and interviewing busier people than himself for over ten years now and has no intention of stopping anytime soon.