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Comic Book Brain by Erik Weems. Business site is here.
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THINGS TO CLICK
ONLINE COMICS
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REVIEW
DC Comics has had an excellent series of books in which short story form and the individual styles of creators are put together to make a showcase – for example Solo number 5 from August of 2005. It featured the beautiful black and white inking of Darwyn Cooke, along with his unique coloring.
Cooke's stories are tied together by a Slam Bradley tale interspersed between the individual short stories. Slam Bradley (wikipedia entry here) is DC Comics oldest (or nearly oldest?) character, dating from 1937. Cooke's stories are inventive and each one has a slightly different art and color sense.
For Batman fans, Cooke adapts the 1974 Night of the Stalker from Detective Comics #439. The original story was by Steve Englehart (from "an incident described by Neal Adams" so written on the first page of the tale.) the editing was by Archie Goodwin, who had the tough task in those days of making short 11 and 12 page Batman lead stories coherent and interesting with such little space. For an enlargement of a few panels from the tale click the image below:
COMIC BOOK BRAIN
Jesse Hamm has a "7 Reasons Why Alex Toth Drew Better Than I Do" page here.
GENERAL NOTES The Frank Miller and Jim Lee DC comic Batman and Robin All Stars has hit it's fourth issue. I noticed that in issue one, Batman and the traumatized Dick Grayson get in the Batmobile and head for the Batcave. Well, in issue four, they finally get there. Does this mean the "story arc" for this book will take approximately 3,792 pages to complete? Also, this issue has a six-page foldout drawing of the Batcave. I have a page analyzing this series at Art and Artifice.
Garry Alanguilan (inker on much of Leinil Yu's artwork) has an impassioned plea for artists, especially Filipino artists, to not "self-exploit" themselves. Read it at his site Komikero Comiks.
COMIC BOOK BRAIN
The DC Comics of history could not have published this book, which contains (among other things) hundreds of joking jabs at the silliness of under-wear on the outside of their pants heroes. But, there has been a thousand parodys drawn along these same lines about Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, et al, by thousands of kids since those characters first were created, and now DC Comics is pulling back the curtain and cashing in on the genre. (Historical footnote: Marvel Comics produced the parody title Not Brand Echh! back in 1967. And there were Mad Magazine parodies – e.g., Superduperman appeared in 1963.)
Bizarro World announces on the back that it is "whimsical, eccentric, unconventional," which is certainly true as compared to the regular line of "serious" superhero books put out by DC, but for the most part these (mostly) funny looks at DC's trademarks are what you might expect if a small army of cartoonists were turned loose to make family-friendly gags. However, not everything is a joke herein, there is some digging about for insight and analysis of these superheroes (one that is disturbing in its implication is Dylan Horrocks' "Dear Superman," which in effect is concerned with the Flash, and his inherant problem with being so fast. The artwork by Farel Dalrymple is nicely rendered cityscape that depicts a whole world of life that is both obvious and mundane, but from the point of view of a speedy superhero looks exotic and something like a voyeurs dreamworld. In particular the coloring by Paul Hornschemeier points out the intrusion of reality versus comic fantasy when the brightly costumed red and yellow figure appears finally at the end of the story/monologue. It is a perfectly thoughtful piece and not a parody, but certainly not a straight hero tale either. But what exactly is it then?) Another example, the Tomer and Asaf Hanuka "Batman" tale, it wants to be taken seriously, a virtual opposite to (say) Johnny Ryan/Dave Cooper's "Super Dumped". The Hanuka story could easily have fit the format of DC's "Batman Black and White" book which featured several stories of the Batman character as psychological phenomenon. It is not so far afield from a typical Batman tale that it could not feature as a "back-up" in one of the monthly titles. On the other hand, it would not pass as a standard lead story, it would certainly throw-off the typical reader (I think) though it might be a welcome surprise. (And also of note; there was the Simon Bisley/Neil Gaiman Batman tale which was a bitter gagfest and expose of Batman story formula itself. That story was in Batman Black and White and would fit into Bizarro World easily.)
But the hyper-energetic Dave Cooper artwork in "Super-Dumped" is more like the real theme of this book: well-drawn, gags, and more than a bit of satire about superheroes and comic fans in general. This volume is a beautiful collection of art styles. I can flip it open at almost any page and find something colored and drawn wonderfully. Many of the jokes are quite hilarious too, though a familiarity with the characters is definitely required (e.g., the Evan Dorkin/R. Sikoryak "Marvel Family Circus"). It is not all affection coming through in these tales, but the book is a simple, fun read (some exceptions mentioned above) and these short tales typically do not waste a moment of time getting right down to business and mocking the superhero they've targeted. There are pieces that look something like classic Mad Magazine, and stories with lineages that go straight towards Dan Clowes and other contemporary cartoonists. The Kyle Baker/Elizabeth Glass piece "Personal Shopper" in which Alfred has to order a new Batmobile from a custom shop without revealing who it is for is quite funny but is a little jarring. At first it looks like one of those "picture books" made from an animated film, but once you get accustomed to the computer typeface and page design, it truly is just another comic book story, and Baker's artwork is elegant. A compact, entertaining anthology. I hope it will spawn a sequel collection with the same eclectic quality. DC Comics, May 2006, $19.95 USD, 200 pages. DC Comics page on the book here.
I have a review of the film Poseidon at Cinemagraphe.
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MAY 31, 2006 
Paul Pope has had a 4-issue run of Batman Year 100. The story carries on with the same issues and concerns as Pope covered in 
I recently made a trip to Michigan. In particular spent time at Mackinac island which is in Lake Huron. Some photographs from the trip are 
