Posts tagged Casanova

Why I love comics - March 2012

Prophet

Yesterday I picked up Prophet 21 and 22 from Image comics and they’re great.

Back in the 90’s Rob Liefeld had an imprint at Image Comics called Extreme. One of the books he created was called Prophet. In a lot of ways, it was kind of the essence of what Rob was doing at Extreme, distilled down into one character. Big mysterious guy with swords, guns, shoulder pads and head gear in a lot of highly cross-hatched action poses. I don’t say that to be dismissive - it was pretty sparse as far as concepts go, but kids loved it, and it probably got a lot of kids into comics, so good lookin’ out.

Twenty odd years later, Image has revived the character with a completely new team and largely new concept (but kept the old issue numbering). Prophet is written by Brandon Graham with art by Simon Roy. It’s a slowly unfolding story about a man who wakes up from a technologically induced hibernation with a mission to fulfill on an earth filled with strange new alien life forms. Simple, yet involving. It’s one of those books like Orc Stain where the creators are engaging in some serious world building - where new ideas are tossed out on every page. It’s great. I read two issues last night and immediately wanted a third. Well done to everyone involved.

To recap, this:

Became this:

And it’s great.
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Rick Remender

Rick Remender is one of those names I’ve always kind of been aware of, but never figure heavily into my monthy reading for whatever reason. When the feeling hit, I would pick up the random book like Doll and Creature, Fear Agent, or Last Days of American Crime, but that was the extent of it.

He grabbed a tighter hold on my attention when he and Tony Moore turned The Punisher into a Frankenstein monster. It was fun and goofy but still played straight enough to enjoy. No easy feat, I’m sure.

From there I started reading his work on Uncanny X-Force. It was his collaboration there with the phenomenal Jerome Opena that initially hooked me. Opena is now in a rotating position as artist on the book, but Rememder’s writing has kept me coming back (along with some other great artist - Rafael Albuquerque, Esad Ribic, Greg Tocchini). Something about Remender and his run on this book reminds me of Chris Claremont on Uncanny X-Men back in the late eighties. Claremont was writing great, involved, emotional stories with a talented regular artist (John Romitat Jr) and incredible fill-in artists (Arthur Adams, Barry Windsor Smith, and Rick Leonardi).

I’ve also started picking up Secret Avengers since he came on board as the series writer. Two issues in and I’m hooked. What I loved about the Avengers when I was a kid was the discordant personalities and the tension they created - and so far it looks like that will be a big part of Remender’s run, so I’m in.

To recap: Rick Remender has my full attention
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Casanova

To recap: New issue of Casanova soon.

You Are What You Eat - 2011

Earlier in the year I posted a quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” Makes sense. Here’s what shaped and fashioned me this year:

Early in the year I discovered Film Riot - an internet video podcast starring Ryan Connely and his crew of misfit filmmakers. Every week they dissect film making techniques - often by tackling requests sent in by readers to figure out how to reproduce big budget effects on a DIY budget. They never fail to be entertaining or useful.

I also found Vimeo’s Video School to be pretty useful. The information there can be a little elementary at times, but since they seek to address aspiring filmmakers at every experience level, that only make sense.

Moving from the web to television, Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations was essential viewing. I’ve always loved the show, but this year, in it’s seventh season, it took on an almost religious significance for me. It started with the Haiti episode. There was just something about the scene where Bourdain tried to buy food for a bunch of hungry kids and inadvertantly caused a minor riot - his willingness to show how a seemingly benign act of philanthropy could spin out of control, that our actions, no matter how pure hearted, do not exist in a contextless vacuum. It felt like journalism. It felt like a man making television with nothing to prove. If you can take that kind of honesty and couple it with food porn that’s good TV.

This year also saw the release of a second show from Bourdain called The Layover. It’s presumably filmed on Bourdain’s actual layovers as he travels the globe filming No Reservations. It features Bourdain telling you the best places to eat, sleep, and drink in various cities. It’s No Reservation’s less heady, less serious little brother. I wasn’t hooked by the first episode (Singapore). No problem, I thought, I still have No Reservations. No sense being greedy. But the second episode featured Bourdain in New York, his home base, and it was awesome. It was a Bourdain we rarely see; smiling, comfortable, almost giddy. The best part was him arguing with some poor schlub in hamburger joint about whether you could get good sushi in New York. Hooked.

The Layover features a very different editing style from No Reservations. One I stole from liberally (though poorly)

Moving from the small screen to the big one - I saw a lot of movies in the theater this year - but not nearly enough for my liking - and not nearly enough that really blew my socks off. Here’s what I saw that I liked, though:

Thor and Captain America were both childhood dreams come true, Hanna kept me glued to the screen and looked nice doing it, X-Men: First Class was a nice way to re-imagine a dull franchise, Horrible Bosses was genuinely funny (instead of genuinely grueling like The Hangover 2), True Grit was the western we’ve all wanted for a few years now, and Driver was unexpectedly stylish, compelling, and sad (it’s larger here by random, not because it was my favorite movie by any means).

Musically, I had a lot of favorite bands release new albums this year but none of them truly stood out for me. Instead the highlights of my year musically were all live. First of all there was seeing The Mountain Goats live for the first time at Mercy Lounge in Nashville. Sara loves John Darnielle but had kind of a bad night so out of respect of her, I won’t go on and on about this one:

Next was discovering local boy made good, Vandaveer. Sara and I had a front row table for his show at Natasha’s back in the summer. It was the perfect way to experience a perfect show:

Later in the summer my friends Dan and Jen and I sat with about 30 other people at The Green Lantern and got to hear These United States rehearse a bunch of new songs before taking them into the studio. As far as good shows go, you can’t get much better than that:

Finally, my buddy Paul had his birthday party at Cosmic Charlies at the end of the summer on the same night that one of his favorite bands, Ha Ha Tonka was playing. The band not only sang Happy Birthday to Paul, they let him get on stage and mumble into a microphone for about the minutes while they played. Nicest band ever? Quite possibly:

Oh yeah! I almost forgot! This was also the year that my favorite local band, Sunday Valley, released their first new material in years. It was a great album and cause for celebration:

I watch a lot of TV, see a lot of movies, and listen to a lot of music in a given year - but more than any of those, I read comics. All kinds of comics. What did I read this year that I loved? Glad you asked. 2011 saw the release of the first new issues of Casanova in years. Issue 2, by creators Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba, in particular was comic book magic:

Fraction is my favorite writer in comics. As such, he created more than one book I really liked this year. For instance, his third issue of Mighty Thor was probably the best comic I read all year. It had it all: Norse Gods in space armor, Galactus, naked sword play, Silver Surfer saying cool stuff, Olivier Coipel. That’s a comic!

Other things I loved: Supernatural western, Sixth Gun from Oni Press

Mini comic Wolves from Becky Cloonan:

Weird fantasy book Orc Stain:

There was tons more, but space is limited.

What about books without pictures?

Anthony Bourdain makes good TV and writes good books. This year I read and loved his memoirs Medium Raw:

I also thoroughly enjoyed Blood, Bones & Butter, by chef Gabriel Hamilton:

Notice how both the books I mentioned were more or less about food? I love food. So it only make sense to mention some of the great meals I had this year. Cooking is as much of an art as writing or creating music or films after all.

This year Sara and I discovered Nick Ryan’s Saloon in downtown Lexington and had the best braised short ribs ever:

Our other great discovery was Nicaraguan Latin Grille, a little whole in the wall that blew out socks off:

We also went to Azure, home of local culinary star, Jermy Ashby, and had an incredible seven course meal. Below is just one of the delicious plates:

Then there was Hawaii. We had a lot of great Hawaiin food. Too much to get into, but suffice to say, I now have a deep abiding appreciation for macaroni salad:

There were tons more from tons of great restaurants like Cheng’s , Pho BC, Sam’s Hot Dogs, Planet Thai, Ramirez’ Taqueria, Local Taco, Doodles, Rossi’s, Ramsey’s, Winchell’s, Marikka’s, and El Rancho Tapitio.

Well, that’s it. That was what I ate in 2011. That’s what I loved, took in, digested, and was shaped by. Except for the dozen or so things I will think of as soon as I hit the “post” button.

On to 2012!

Wizard Buys A Hat

They come out to Broadway and they look for me
I’m on the red steps smoking a cigarette
Easy to recognize
Black bandages on my eyes
This is the church, these are the congregants

-Wizard Buys A Hat by The Mountain Goats

The music references get more complex in Casanova: Avaritia

Casanova: Avaritia preview

Yay!

Click here for a six page preview. BEWARE! DIRTY WORDS!