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Welcome to PopImage October. It's the 7th of October, 2 days until Canadian Thanksgiving, and I'm looking out the window noticing that the leaves really haven't started to change colour yet. It's strange. I chalk it up to some pretty consistently warm weather throughout September that helped mitigate the disappointment of a rather inclimate summer. You can definitely feel fall's chill in the air now though, and it's leaving me wonder if, true to Canadian tradition kids will be wearing snowsuits underneath their costumes come Halloween. The sluggishness in the weather has no doubt affected me, and therefore PopImage. You may have noticed we haven't updated for a few weeks. Chalk that up to over-extending ourselves once again. One day we're going to have to learn that writers are not to be trusted, that we all have day jobs, and school, and sometimes both. It's days like this that I start to consider chucking the whole thing and angling after some of that big Wizard/CGC money… But seriously, we're really sorry about the delays. We're all working very hard to make sure the site stays on time, and every once in a while we stumble. We appreciate your patience, and I'm pretty secure in saying that we won't be missing any weeks in the next little while. Speaking of which, yes, PopImage updates weekly. Meanwhile, last month's editorial went over rather interestingly, garnering some really intelligent comments. One such letter has made it into our letter column, so I invite you to sprint on over and check it out. We also had the beginnings of a debate at the forum, so if you haven't been there in a little while, do yourself a favour and drop by. I have been thinking about the rather… critical tone my comments have taken over the past few weeks, and I wanted to take a moment and do a little positive activism. I am going to list for you five comics that I am enjoying the hell out of, and why, and I'm going to tell you to go buy them. I have no vested interest in any of these books, I'm not angling for a job colouring any of them (though I wouldn't turn one down…), and I think that with all the bitching I do about crappy books, companies, and people, the least I can provide is an alternative. Note: I am buying, or planning to buy, some of these series exclusively in trade paperback. So, support whichever format you believe in. 5. DEADENDERS (DC/Vertigo): Brubaker, Pleece, and Stewart - My initial thoughts on this title (available in my half of the POP/DROP from June), have changed over the past few months. Entirely for the better. With the focus moving further and further away from the lead character (Beezer) being a twat and having people suffer for him, the book has begun to really branch out into compelling character-driven comics. The hero-quest explored in a fresh way for the new millenium. Brubaker is tackling different subjects and styles deftly, from romance to horror to the great youth/punk stuff I fell in love with in the initial story-arc. The artwork also continues to improve, and I'm not sure if the interior colouring is actually better or if it's just gotten less obtrusive. Either way, I anticipate each issue coming in a great deal. I recommend new readers to this title unreservedly, and urge those who gave up on the series after the first few issues to return to it. High Concept: It's the Archies on Meth-Amphetimine. 4. RACER X (DC/Wildstorm): Yune, Chen, Wildstorm FX - You only think that this is a crappy licensed title. Like the SPEED RACER mini-series before it, it's actually a clever adventure story from the days of yore with a visual and narrative style that makes it both relevant and exciting to today's readers. It's a very fast series, with a lot of big ideas that while cribbed from old adventure serials are presented in a really slick way. The artwork is gorgeous, and I don't use that word often. It's possibly the only mainstream "Shojou Manga" (Japanese "Girls Manga") work in comics right now, making it just as interesting a read for gals as guys. Really. SPEED RACER and RACER X are the movie TOP GUN in comics. Plenty of action, a good romantic sub-plot, and nail-biting cliffhangers to keep your interest piqued. High Concept: A Japanese take on TOP GUN on the racing circuit, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. 3. POWERS (Image): Bendis, Oeming, Garahy - Despite Brian Bendis only recently being recognized as the hottest thing in comics, this book has been great since the first issue. I've been a big supporter since day one, and that's for the simple fact that it is a damn good book. Let me repeat: This is a damn good book. Bendis is no stranger to putting together a compelling mystery, and with GOLDFISH, JINX, and TORSO under his belt we see the benefit of his experience in every word balloon. Mike Oeming is putting out some of the most beautiful pop-art on the stands, a perfect bridge between contemporary superhero work and those who's only experiences with comic properties has been BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. Pat Garahy's colours give the art an understated intensity and power, that directors like Michael Bay have to date only fumbled for with his colour-shifts and contrast tweaking. This is a wholly-created and wonderfully executed book, with each creator's contributions complimenting the other. It's one you need to be reading. High Concept: HOMICIDE meets the BATMAN cartoon. 2. LONE WOLF & CUB (Dark Horse): Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima - With a more detailed review already appearing in next week's issue of PI, I just wanted to prosteletize a little about this series. First and foremost, it's 300 pages of story for ten US dollars. Secondly, the stories are good. Really good. I was very skeptical about how enjoyable or relevant a story from 30 years ago would be today, and I was not only pleasantly surprised at the quality of the work, I was blown away by the complexity and maturity of the stories presented within. Finally, it's a compact read that is printed just a little smaller than the average novel. While many people have found the format to be too small and difficult to read, I had no problems at all with it and actually preferred it's smaller size. This is one of the gems of the comic industry, and it has finally been unearthed and polished by Dark Horse Comics. We should all be grateful. High Concept: None. Just mad Samurai knowledge, handed down from on high. 1. SIDEKICKS (Fanboy Inc.): Torres, Miyazawa - There are always people saying that we should push comics to new readers. That teenagers, and kids, and whomever need to be reading comics. Further, we've got to find a way to bring back the people that USED to read comics. Back in the day, best-sellers like TEEN TITANS and X-MEN were pulling in hundreds of thousands of people a month. Right now TITANS and X-MEN are so absorbed in their own convoluted history that anyone who hasn't been reading for the last 5 years will not be able to penetrate those books. So, what do we give them? SIDEKICKS. The art is fantastic. The pencils, inks, toning, and lettering is all done by the uber-talented Takeshi Miyazawa. All of the art, fashion, and design is very contemporary, and it looks like a book that is being pitched to teenagers. The story comes courtesy of COPYBOOK TALES and MONSTER FIGHTERS INC writer J. Torres. The book is sensational, and at the store where I work it now outsells X-MEN, entirely because we push it to new teenage readers, and people that have become disenfranchised with books like X-MEN. Currently my favorite book on the stands, despite it's slightly erratic schedule. Really, if you love superheroes, loved them in your youth, or have a young reader that you want to get into comics, give them this book. You won't regret it. And if you need more than my say-so, check out the preview of issue #2 available this week at PI. High Concept: BUFFY meets X-MEN, directed by Katsuhiro Otomo (the director of AKIRA). These are 5 books that I think, for various reasons, are really good reads, and more importantly good for the industry. They're pushing the boundaries of genre, pushing the form, and more importantly they're all high-quality works that will be appreciated by a new audience. And this isn’t all of them by any stretch. I didn't mention stuff like the para-military anime adventure of ECHO from Dreamwave/Image, Grant Morisson's Invisibles-for-the-masses work in MARVEL BOY from Marvel Comics, or any of Warren Ellis' upcoming, genre-breaking PopComics from Image. These books are, as far as I'm concerned, the future of comics, and the kind of stuff that we should all be supporting, and we should all pushing on our non-comics friends. Stuff that coincides with real mainstream entertainment ideals, available in both Pamphlet and Collected format, and damned high-quality. For more info on each of these books, check out the related links below. That's it for this month, folks. Make sure to tune in for the next three weeks of regular PopImage programming, and show up October 31st for our very special Warren Ellis ProFile. 'Til then, Christopher Butcher, EIC.
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