The Rack: Snoozefest
In today’s installment, a (kind of) day off is happily recieved.
Our Little Losties
In honor of the impending Season Finale of LOST, I whipped up this charming little comic strip. ”Whipped up,” in this particular instance, belies hours upon hours slaving over a piping hot bristol board and (wait, literally, actually) highly unreliable laptop. Click on the strip to see a higher res version. Enjoy!
My Newest Obsession
Scott Hansen records music under the name Tycho and designs the coolest stuff on Earth (pretty much) under the designation ISO50 (Warning: [Awesome] Sound). He also blogs about everything from music to design to all sorts of things, featuring plenty of his excellent photography. This guy excels at pretty much everything he does.
Go, bask in his ridiculous awesomeness.
I Review 100 Bullets #91
Behold, my first review as the newest member of the Comic Book Resources crack reviewing team.
But this is a book that’s so effortlessly successful at its intent while simultaneously so in-depth and complicated that you’d think everyone would be reading it, that message boards across comic book fandom would be bursting after every new issue. “ZOMFG, DID [BLANK] JUST KILL [BLANK]? AZZ WOULDN’T DO THAT NO WAI.” Alas, it never seems like anyone is paying attention.
The Rack: Staff Picks
In today’s installment, we continue to follow the wiles and whims of our hapless employees with their picks for this week’s “best”.
Your Panel Of The Week: 05.15.08
From 100 Bullets #91 by Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso, Patricia Mulvihill, and Clem Robins.
Nothing too much to really get in depth about with this one. Now that I’ve started this little “featurette”, I keep it in the back of my mind as I go through my weekly stack and this is the one that jumped out at me the most.
I love Risso’s work, so there’s that. I also really love the way the detail in Slaughter’s hair starts to peek out from the shadow.
And I guess that weird Inuit-style tattoo is pretty cool too.
Your Panel Of The Week: 05.08.08
From The Mighty Avengers #13 by Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, and Matt Hollingsworth.
Bendis and Maleev’s run on Daredevil is one of my favorite comic runs ever, and there’s one little moment I always venture back to. Matt is in a holding cell in an NYC Police Station and Foggy comes by to offer his help, representation, whatever. (Recall at this point, he was trying to deny his recently revealed identity as Daredevil.) Matt politely thanks him for thinking of him, but that he’ll be fine on his own. (It’s a two page spread, otherwise I’d post the whole thing right here, believe me. Also, I have the Oversized Hardcover so, yeah, no chance either way.) Anyway.
The last panel of the sequence is just Matt, sitting behind an interrogation table as Foggy walks off in the foreground, the coffee from a Greek Diner (you can tell by the cup) resting on the table in front of him. It’s a fantastically rendered moment and the one in which I pretty much decided I would buy and pore over any subsequent work Alex Maleev would ever do.
So this week, we’ve got Part Two of the Secret Invasion crossover in The Mighty Avengers bringing together that same Daredevil team (and Halo: Uprising, but that’s a story for another time) to tell the story of what Nick Fury has been up to all this time.
And it’s actually, as an aside, been a much better read than what Secret Invasion is devolving into as of #2. The first one was a blast, but this second one is a bunch of fights that, really, who ever wanted to see? Give me more crashing helicarriers and warping buildings, please.
Anyway. In this issue, Nick rounds up a bunch of unknown superpowers to help fight Skrulls. The young boy portrayed here is one such superpower.
The whole sequence introducing him is really visually lovely, but this panel in particular gave me the same vibe as that beloved one from their run on Daredevil.
I love the coloring, the way it makes the kid stand out. The posture, and the way he’s sort of slouched and mopey, it’s just perfect.
And thus, it is Your Panel Of The Week.
The Rack: In Memorium
In today’s installment, I draw a really great picture of a dead nerd.
Friday Night Fights: The Broom Of The System
You want to know the secret best thing about having a blog? Throwing your Lord Julius cap into the ring for another scinitllating installment of Bahlactus‘ FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!!!
Either of these could also double for Great Pages In Comics History, but you’d kind of have to post the entire issue. These two pages, while absolutely spectacular, don’t really capture the mastery of comic timing (ha!) Dave Sim puts on display.
And no. I actually haven’t read Glamourpuss yet.
-
Benjamin Birdie
Suddenly kind of aged, Benjamin lives in Queens with his cat. His Master's Degree in Creative Writing has helped him immensely with his primary responsibilities of drawing things.
He can be reached at benjaminbirdie (at) gmail (dot) com.
And do feel free to follow him on Twitter.
-
His Comics
Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, this charming comic strip by myself and Kevin Church receives a sparkling new installment. A Comic Strip About A Comic Shop.