Doom Patrol #20 – Review

By: Keith Giffen (writer), Matthew Clark & Ron Randall (pencillers), Art Thibert & John Livesay (inkers), Scott Clark with Dave Beaty, Jose Luis, Scott McDaniel (guest artists), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Wanted—studio space for four (one miniaturized), open access to power grid, appliances included.  Must love freaks.

The Review: With Doom Patrol’s cancellation imminent, it’s worth reflecting on the series’ possibly dooming shortcomings.  Of course, it’s a niche title, with a peculiar cast of characters.  It leans more towards comedy than drama—always risky, as comic book humor tends to be very hit or miss, as D.P. frequently is.  But the title’s biggest weakness is it has always been more interested in its character interaction than actually giving those characters things to do.

This issue serves as a good example: it’s one of the strongest of the series, yet basically involves nothing more than the Patrol looking for a place to crash after getting kicked off their base.  The interest comes from how each member’s particular brand of social awkwardness rubs off on the DCU’s more mainstream characters.  The ultimate unfruitfulness of the team’s efforts serves as a good reminder of how out of place they are in their world, and with readers in general.

You just can’t get a handle on these characters.  They’re ostensibly heroes, but as Beast Boy and Congorilla astutely point out, most of the Patrol’s endeavors to this point have come across more terrorist than heroic.  They’re more a gang of losers who can’t catch a break; most of their misadventures involve them acting out of self-preservation rather than for a good cause.

Emerald City Comic Con: Day 3 report

After staying up far too late the night before (albiet having an awesome time while doing it), dragging myself out of bed was not the easiest thing this morning.

Then it hit me: oh yeah! I’m at EMERALD CITY COMIC CON! That realization was better than a cup of coffee, so I was out the door, checked out of the hotel, and ready for day three in a flash.

This was easily my personal favorite day of the con. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as Saturday, and I wasn’t feeling the sense of overwhelmed lost-ness that I had been on Friday. It was a nice, low-key day comprised mostly of buying things I had had my eye on, talking to Kirby Krackle, Adam WarRock and the H2Awesome guys, and finally–after two days!–starting to understand why Artist’s Alley is such a sacred and integral part of any con. The largest portion of my day was spent browsing sketchbooks and artwork and just generally being blown away by the fact that all this talent was under a single roof.

I also bought–over my wallet’s protests–my very first piece of original comic book art! It’s a page from the wonderful mini series Captain America: Man Out of Time (which I review, by the way.) The artist, Karl Kesel, had tons of wonderful pages for sale–including some awesome stuff at more than reasonable prices–but when I saw this piece, I knew instantly that I had to own it. Not only is it one of my favorite scenes in the series (so far), it has beautiful drawings of Iron Man and Captain America–easily my two favorite Marvel characters. Wroth every penny:

Next, it was off to visit the guys who had entertained me so much at the concert the night before. Kirby Krackle was, as always, a blast to talk to, and Kyle Stevens (lead singer) helpfully pointed me in the direction of Adam WarRock and H2Awesome.

Adam, sadly, was out of CDs (ordering one is the next thing I do after finishing this report!) but it nice to be able to shake his hand and thank him for the show. I was smart enough to have bought H2Awesome’s CD the night before, though, so that I had in hand. Only problem: the cover was empty! No CD should have an empty cover! Fortunately, Charlie LaGreca, lead singer (and noseflute player extraordinare) came to the rescue!

“What would you like the CD to be titled?” he asked me.

I was a bit taken aback–since when do fans get to pick their own name for a CD? “I dunno,” I answered. “I think my favorite song you do is ‘Avatard’…so I guess I’d call it Avatard.”

That was all he needed to hear. 30 minutes later, I had a beautiful pencil and watercolor piece for my CD:

Better than some corporate-approved, computer-generated image any day of the week!

Sitting right next to the band was an exceptional artist named Hamza Pecenkovic. Now, I’m a huge fan of the Bat-family, so you can imagine how I reacted to this piece he had on display:

Yeah, that needed to be mine. And now it is. 😀 He also threw in a lovely sketch of Batwoman with the purchase, which I stupidly forgot to get a photo of, but trust me: it’s nice.

On my way to the Sunday Morning Conversation with DC, something catches my eye in a display. Is…is that what I think it is?