C2E2 Report: Marvel – The Next Big Thing

 

 

Not to be outdone, Marvel had me scrambling out of the Batman panel to secure a spot in Marvel: The Next Big Thing. While the X-Men, Spider-Man, and Batman still rule the roost, Marvel’s made huge strides with some of their less famous characters lately and this was the place to hear about it.

Nick Lowe, our moderator and editor of Spider-Man and Moon Knight, took a moment to thank the Chicago fans before introducing the panelists. The first was Mike Marts, an Executive Editor, newly returned from DC’s Batman office. Lowe asked him what it was like to be back. Marts replied that it felt like slipping on an old shoe. Lowe was not entirely thrilled with the analogy, leading Marts to amend his statement, “A shoe that makes a lot of great movies.” Next up was Joshua Hale Fialkov, the writer of Ultimate FF. After him came Charles Soule, the writer of Thunderbolts, Inhuman, and She-Hulk, the last of which received particular applause. Then came James Robinson, writer of Fantastic Four and All-New Invaders. A trio of artists rounded out the panel; Mahmud Asrar, Wolverine and the X-Men; Ryan Stegman, Wolverine; and Skottie Young, both writer and artist on Rocket Racoon.

Godzilla: Half-Century War #1 – Review

By: James Stokoe (writer, artist, colorist) & Heather Breckel (color assists)

The Story: Godzilla attacks!

Review: I can’t really comment on the authenticity of the Godzilla story since I’m not much of a Godzilla-fanboy.  I know that he’s a big, green lizard-thing that trundles out of the ocean and attacks Japan sometimes….but that’s about all I know.

The attraction for me is the art of James Stokoe.  Stokoe first popped up a few years ago with his creator-owned series Orc Stain.  In the 2.5 years since, Orc Stain is only up to #7, so a Stokoe sighting is a rare event.  With some artists, you can kinda heckle them for their work ethic and assume they’re probably playing too much Skyrim or on Twitter too much.  Not Stokoe…..you take one peek at his pages and you can tell immediately why it takes a LONG time to draw when you see the intense detail and attention to design.

Orc Stain #7 – Review

By: James Stokoe (writer, artist, colorist & letters)

The Story: Orc Stain is back!  Let’s catch up with One-Eye as he tries to simultaneously evade and thwart the Orc Tzar.

A few things: 

1. So nice to have this comic back. – Wow, it has been awhile on this comic.  I somehow didn’t review issue #6, but here’s a link to my review of issue #5 back in October 2010!  It’s hard to complain too much though.  For one thing, this comic (sadly) isn’t selling enough to to make Stokoe rich or even pay the mortgage, so I’m sure that he must do other work on the side or have a full-time job.  I don’t know that to be true, but it seems a reasonable assumption.  For another thing, you can just look at this comic and see that it is impossible for something this detailed to be produced on a monthly schedule.  Anyways welcome back!  Who knows if Stokoe has stocked up a few issues to release over the next few months OR if this is something that’ll just pop into our lives ever 6 months???  I’ll take it however it comes.

2. I’ve lost the plot thread. – But, one problem with the delay is that I’ve kinda lost the plot.  I really just don’t remember why our protagonist, One-Eye, is afoul of the Orc Tzar.  On the other hand, I’m not sure if it matters that much.  There is an Orc Tzar who has hordes of orcs and standing against him is One-Eye and his kinda-ally the nymph and her vebal and sentient cloak Zazu (who is awesome).  One area where Stokoe deserves credit is for keeping the plot simple since I’m sure he knew that the release schedule might be irregular.

Quick Hits Reviews – Week of April 6, 2011

 

Is there ever going to be a “light week” of comics again?  Seriously, have these companies see the sales numbers?  Try as we might, sometimes we cannot get to everything for a full review, thus….the Quick Hits Reviews….

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #5 – This was my “pick of the week” and it really came out of the blue because you usually don’t expect a middle issue (i.e. 5 out of 9) to be anything too special.  But, this issue had great action as the Young Avengers (and a few “old” Avengers) tangle with Dr. Doom, some neat time-hopping courtesy of Iron Lad and the return of an iconic character to the Marvel Universe.  So, it get’s “full credit” for story.  And Jim Cheung’s art is just incredible.  Sure, this comic only ships every other month, but it looks like Cheung is doing twice as much work and I’ve had zero trouble keeping the story straight in my head during the wait between issues.  This is really worth jumping on, folks!  Just go get the back issues and ride along from here.  Grade: A

Who is Jake Ellis #3 – This is a good example of how to maintain momentum in a story as the creators hit issue 3 out of 5.  Because they sprinkled their mysteries with a lot of Jason Borne-action in issues #1 and #2, the reader isn’t bored by now with the titular mystery.  I’m still legitimately curious about who Jake is…..and who Jon is for that matter.  I also really like that there seem to be only two plausible explanations for Jake (that he is a figment of Jon’s imagination OR he is some other ghostly agent somehow grafted to Jon), but that both seem equally plausible.  This is just a really tight series and I love the art.  Nice job guys!  Also very happy to see that this has sold well enough that it’ll we’ll be getting more than just the five originally planned issues!  Grade: B+

Sweet Tooth #20 – Here’s a tip (and a minor SPOILER)….. if you are a character in a post-Apocalyptic story and you stumble across some kind of underground sanctuary that offers copious food and shelter AND it is only being occupied by a singular caretaker, you should probably run away, right?  Do you think you’re the first people that he has brought into his trap….ooopppps…..I mean “HOME”.  Again with this issue, Lemire is setting up another story that is probably going to have a kinda grim ending because….well…..it’s Sweet Tooth.  But, you just know it’ll be told with style and will tug at your emotions in a way that very few comics will.  I’m also loving seeing Sweet Tooth himself begin to asset himself a little more in his dealings with Jepperd.  He’s come a long way from his days in the woods.  Great art!  Grade: B+

Strange Tales II #3 – Review

By: Nick Bertozzi, Chris Sinderson, Terry Moore, James Stokoe, Benjamin Marra, Tim Hamilton, Kate Beaton, Bill Crabtree, Dean Haspiel, Toby Cypress, Michael Deforge, Alex Robinson, Eduardo Medeiros, Harvey Pekar, Ty Templeton, KT Smith AND Jody LeHeup (editor)

The Story: An anthology of short stories about Marvel characters told by indy creators.

What’s Good: Are you curious to see a young Thor who keeps losing Mjolnir because it doesn’t have a strap on it yet?  Would you like to see the kinda girls Reed Richards dated in college?  Any interest in watching the Silver Surfer play cards with a bunch of Skrulls as his master devours their planet?  How does Rogue get out of trouble if she breaks one of Professor X’s favorite vases?

If the answer to any of those was “yes” you should make a point to check out Strange Tales 2.  This is the last issue of an anthology series in which Marvel brings in indy creators and let’s them write/draw short stories about Marvel characters.  “Indy” is a confusing word in comic circles and I think a lot of people use that to mean “not Marvel or DC”.  The majority of these creators are doing things like writing comics under their own imprint, doing webcomics, etc.  In my mind, this is what “indy” means.

As with any anthology, some stories are better than others.  It really doesn’t get any better than the three stories to start this issue.  First we get a story by Terry Moore that shows a young, recently exiled Thor who is having some trouble with Mjolnir.  This story is just hysterical.  That is followed by a James Stokoe riff on Silver Surfer playing cards with Skrulls (who look a lot like his Orc Stain orcs) as Galactus ruins their world.  Might as well get in a last game of cards, huh?  Then we get an awesome Benjamin Marra story featuring U.S. Agent at his boastful, womanizing best as he takes down a terrorist “who’s been genetically spliced with the DNA of a velociraptor!! And if that weren’t enough, he has a nuclear warhead strapped to his back!!  We call him Terror-Saur!!” Of course, he lives in Terror-stan and is threatening the American way of life.

If tongue-in-cheek isn’t your thing, there are also somewhat touching stories about Reed Richards, Michael Morbius, The Thing and a few others.

Mostly though, this issue succeeds because it has a few memorable stories in it where you just say, “That was awesome!”.  And hopefully it inspires to check out a few of these really talented people’s other works.

Orc Stain #5 – Review

By: James Stokoe (writer, artist, colorist & one would assume letters, although it doesn’t say that)

The Story: One-Eye the orc finds himself captured by agents of the Orctzar, but why does the Orctzar want to capture our hero?

What’s Good: This is a really fun comic and whenever it releases, it is always among the “best comics of the week”.  This issue is no exception.  There is really nothing wrong with this issue or anything to find fault with.

As you can see from the credits above, Jame Stokoe is doing this entire comic himself and each issue has been ~30 pages long.  So, you would not really expect him to maintain a perfect, monthly release schedule (although it comes out more regularly than some other comics that have 4-5 dudes working on them).  But, Stokoe does what all comics should: It give us a quick, two paragraph recap of the story so far.  Why can’t all comics do this?  Not only did this recap serve as a reminder of what happened in issue #4, but it gave a nice recap of the main plot of the book.  Nicely done…

As for the story, Orc Stain = Fun.  The story is just delightful and off-the-wall as we watch One-Eye trying to evade the forces of the Orctzar and the designed traps that they lay for him.  One of the fun things is that One-Eye seems to have about 50 IQ points on all the other orcs and is almost annoyed by their feeble attempts to slow him down.  It almost has a Roadrunner/Coyote feel to it.  Again, much of the humor of the book comes from the word “gronch”, which is orcish for an orc’s junk.  In this issue we learn that one reason orcs are so eager to chop off another orc’s gronch is that it can then be spent like money.  Ha.

The art design in this book is just outstanding.  It would be nice to know a little more about Stokoe’s background because he has a wonderful imagination.  Everything in this world is alive.  The sexy swamp ramba’s (read: witch) cloak isn’t just an animal skin…it is a live animal with bulging eyes that mutters to her constantly about its desire to murder all of the orcs by smashing them.  The prison that One-Eye is trapped in is actually the belly of some enormous beast that the Orctzar had his minions excavate from the mountains.  The art is just delightful and vibrant.  There isn’t another comic that has this look and color palate.  It’s great stuff.

Orc Stain #4 – Review

By: James Stokoe (writer, artists, colorist & letters)

The Story: The forces of the Orctzar close in on our hero, One-Eye.

What’s Good: Orc Stain is such a clever book and I always find myself having a little trouble explaining its awesomeness.  It is NOT a book that exists on the strength of its narrative a la Criminal or The Walking Dead.  It is not a book that exists by building up to epic crossovers as do most superhero comics.  With this title, the excellence comes from the little things that are present in every issue.  The really impressive thing is that when you have a book written and drawn by one guy, you would expect excellence in one area and weakness in another, but Stokoe hits a lot of high notes in many different areas and the excellence is not wearing off now that we’re 4 issues in.

The design of the orc world is very cool.  All of their technology is based on using weird animals designed for the purpose or mechanical means.  So, in this issue the orcs show us wires being strung for the “talky” device so that regional chiefs can check in with the Orctzar.  “What could that be?  How could it operate?” I asked.  Well, it is a network of telephone-looking wires strung around the country side, but at each end is an orc who has wires tied to his arms, legs, fingers, toes, knees and he flails around in some sort of full body sign language which is transmitted to the orc at the other end of the line where a specially trained orc interprets the “dance”.  Very clever!

Orc Stain #3 – Review

By: James Stokoe (creator, writer, art & colors)

The Story: One-eye the orc tries to escape retribution for knocking the gronch off his old partner-in-crime.

What’s Good: If you aren’t familiar with Orc Stain, you should definitely try it out.  Track down the first few issues or get the trade when it comes out.  I read all the standard super-hero comics and the first thing you think when you open Orc Stain is, “Well…..this is different!”  The art is just tremendous.  It is weird and may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is one of those comics where you can just stare at a panel and look at some of the weird things that Stokoe has drawn in the background.  I love his sense of overall design as well: most of the tools/weapons/apparatus in this world are some sort of animal, so an orc’s armor is made of live animals that have all these whacky eyeballs jutting out everywhere.  Another example: To spy on One-Eye, the bad orcs send a bug into the room.  It looks like some wild crab with a huge eyeball on it.  It observes and trundles off to give its report by climbing into the mouth of an orc and commandeering his voice! Crazy stuff!

The story in this issue is fun too.  This is only the third issue, so we’re just getting to know the characters and the world.  We already know that One-Eye is a safe-cracker and can use his magic hammer to tap the perfect spot on safes to break them open.  In the last issue, we learned he could tap a fellow orc and make his gronche fall off (“gronche” is the orc word for a man’s….ahem…..”stuff”).  Here we learn that he can do just about anything with his little hammer.  Destroy a building?  Check.  Kill a room full of orcs?  Check.  It is becoming a very cool story and Stokoe has already violated enough taboos that you really don’t know what will happen next.

A final plus is there is a lot of bang for the buck here:  31 pages of great art for $2.99!