The gap between panels / Rehabilitating Red Sonja

The London Graphic Novel Network has a new website, which is much flashier that the old blogspot version. Begs the question of why I still haven't switched to wordpress (or tumblr) yet – to which the answer is: I'm old and set in my ways. Latest column deals with the Gail Simone / Walter Geovani fun and uninhibited reinvention of Red Sonja, and the contrast with the Michael Avon Oeming version, which was dark, troubling and a bit crap (although Mel Rubi's artwork was stunning). All done through the prism of working out the different justifications for that ridiculous chain-mail bikini. Read it here.

The Gap Between Panels / That Feeling of Vertigo

Third column at the LGNN blog takes The Unwritten as a starting point and delves into those comics that are particularly bewildering in their speediness. Somehow manage to rope in Machiavelli, Nietzsche and Napoleon to make the point. (I knew that Masters degree will come in useful eventually!) Read it here.

The Gap Between Panels / Writing about The Unwritten

Second column for the London Graphic Novel Network blog tries to capture the sensation of Mike Carey and Peter Gross's The Unwritten, and has the temeritry to suggest the series is better than Sandman. Read it here.

Lucifer

Just finished reading the fourth trade. It's a difficult series to love, this one. Peter Gross's pencils take some getting used to, for starters. At first glance they look weirdly fluid and shapeless. You do end up falling for the dynamic way he throws his panels together -- he makes the story flow beautifully. And the story itself? Powerhouse creativity and a truly mythic tone infuse proceedings, but I get very little sense of the humanity in it. Most of the characters are NOT human, true enough, and they act the part, but that does make the story difficult to relate to. Of course, myths can resonate as symbols. But here Mike Carey is extraordinarily reticent. Flight from oppression? Freedom from history? The quest for creative originality? That's what I was getting from Lucifer's rebellion against Yahweh and his new universe. But there's loads more going on that can be difficult to find an angle on. The amazing set-pieces and the relentless rush of events will hold your interest, but I'm holding on to little else when I finish each book.