The gap between panels / a splash of colour

Latest column on the London Graphic Novel Network blog looks at colour in comics. Seeing as I'm just a reader, rather than a practitioner, I can only circle around the colouring craft, and point out bits I've noticed that have impressed me. Those include Fiona Staples on Saga, Matt Hollingsworth on Alias, and Jason Howard on Trees – the latter kicking off the whole train of thought. Read it here.

Captain Swing and the Electrical Pirates of Cindery Island

"Why trap us in a world where power is enforced by the owners of so ludicrously finite a resource?" asks the hero of this short Warren Ellis steampunk yarn, where the steam is replaced with electricity. Captain Swing is leader of a commune of "natural philosophers" who believe science and technology will liberate humanity. I'm sure that similar ideas circulate in the wilder regions of Silicon Valley today. Which is why Ellis chooses a policeman as his hero, someone confronted with the worst aspects of humanity on a daily basis. As Captain Swing admits, this copper is "unable to see the world as anything but an ugly, unfair, unsaveable zoo".

Ellis keeps returning to mad scientists in the same way Scorcese keeps returning to macho gangsters – they are both seduced by dangerous powerful charismatics. Captain Swing may be an egalitarian, but his disciples are too enchanted to question his goals. In the end, Charlie Gravel (like most of us) walks a middle way between law and anarchy, the corrupt magistrates and the idealistic pirates.

Iron Man Three

Shane Black definitely leaves his own imprint on the series. It's darker and scarer, but also quirkier: the quick-fire witticisms are present but they form a kind of ambient background for the real standout gags, which feel a bit like something out of Arrested Development, obsessively calling out and undercutting the conventions that structure the narrative. Black also wraps up the series in a really satisfying way: Stark finally lets go of the technology he relied on to stay alive and protect himself from the chaos around him. The film describes the suit as a 'cocoon' from which a whole Tony Stark can emerge from. Indeed, extremis (which he uses in the end to heal himself) serves as internal armour, a nice symbol that could have been developed further.

Unfortunately, Aldrich Killian is too much of a cartoon villain for this to work out. His motive is less an understandable (even sympathetic) drive for self-perfection and more a typical Dr. Doom-like resentment at the successful hero, and we've been here before with Sam Rockwell. Maya Hansen is a more ambiguous character, but doesn't have enough time to establish herself. Perhaps it would have been better to have her as the duplicitous mastermind, as she was in the Warren Ellis comic.

I still prefer Favreau's Iron Man, which maintains a clear thematic through-line and is impressively compact (apart from the robot punching at the end). Favreau was lucky in that Stark was a more interesting character back then, shifting dramatically from apathetic hedonist to troubled hero. Black is dealing with a hero fully-formed, now suffering from anxiety attacks caused by a brush with death. Even this could have been developed further, tho – just steal from Lovecraft. Stark faces down the awesome hostility of the universe and comes back fretting about how the hell the Earth can be protected. You could even add an existentialist twist: have him wondering whether his fellow human beings, trigger-happy with their nuclear weapons, are worth saving. Admittedly difficult to build up all this drama and provide a neat conclusion for the trilogy. Perhaps this stuff is being banked for when Joss Whedon puts everything together again in 2015.

No Hero

Warren Ellis teams up with partner in crime Juan José Ryp for more superheroes behaving badly. The combo's previous Black Summer impressed me a great deal. This is also a superhero deconstruction à la Watchmen, focused (as all of them must) on the hero/villain repugnant-yet-necessary Ozymandias character. Ellis doesn't add much else. His portrayal of Ozymandias is nastier, a cold-blooded businessman ruling the world for money, sex, power and kicks. But his superhero squad nevertheless serves as a Leviathan force keeping the balance of power and avoiding a far more miserable alternative. The con is necessary, people need to be cowed into submission. Freedom is chaos.

Ellis may be working a betrayal of the 60s theme with Carrick's origins as an LSD merchant to the US army. More interesting for me is the Allfather figure (as callous as the God of the Old Testament) being challenged and overthrown (literally expelled out of the earth) by a sacrificed son figure, although Ellis being an irreligious sort, he plays some pretty sick jokes with these archetypes.

Multiple ironies are stacked over the "no hero" line. Josh wants to be a superhuman in order to end superhumanity, he's no hero but this is exactly what makes him heroic. And yet who is really the "insane villain of the piece"? Carrick throws the phrase at Carver, but it bounces back onto him. And yet... his new superpowered world order is what keeps the peace on earth. Perhaps unleashing freedom really is the least heroic thing to do.

But were back to the ironies in Watchmen again, Ellis only adding his own gross embellishments to Moore's foundational text.

Blackgas

An origin story for the Crossed universe – it's almost as if Ennis took Ellis's zombies (inhibitions stripped, mind still intact) and took them to the next level (no remorse whatsoever for the depravations they cause). Both writers are interested in "that black stuff in the back of our brains that we never act on", but while Ennis uses this to tackle ethical and religious themes, these only get an aside in Ellis's series (the stoic cop muttering "I stopped believing in God when I saw the mommies with black shit in their eyes eating babies").

Instead, Ellis turns in a Dr. Strangelove direction. Infection is harder to avoid in Blackgas, it's almost a kind of chemical weapon transmitted through any bodily fluid. When the zombies are blown up with grenades, the 'pink mist' caused by the explosions does the opposite of contain the threat – bombs just make more zombies. This catch-22 situation lends itself to several metaphorical interpretations, perhaps the most obvious one being that the war on terror creates more terrorists than it destroys. What's interesting is that Ellis grounds the political decision to nuke the horde in the rage, frustration and despair of (male) survivors of the apocalypse who decide to go on the rampage. The female survivor is only concerned with escaping the onslaught, but there are no options available when the (male) policy is to fight fire with fire. An interesting bit of gendering going on here (and almost everywhere in Ellis's work)...

Aetheric Mechanics

Sherlock Holmes gone steampunk, I thought, although Warren Ellis is gracious enough to provide his own genealogy, which also includes The Prisoner of Zenda and Japanese anime. You've got to use yr deductive skills on this one. The language, it being an alternate world story, is unfamiliar, and I had to read some exchanges several times before I could piece together what was going on. The only time it bugged me was the hour-long gap between two panels, signaled by the appearance of tea and an ellipsis at the beginning of Sax Raker's dialogue. It took about five seconds for me to realize that the conversation between those panels had shifted. This either means that the effect doesn't quite work, or that I am stupid.

In any case, as with all good speculative fiction, the world starts to feel more comfortable as you spend more time in it. Particularly liked how ur encouraged to look for clues with a page of silent panels examining a dead body. Like Dr. Watcham, ur trying to second-guess the brilliant detective working in front of you. (I got none of the clues right btw.) On a related note, some of the blocking is inspired. Particularly admire the three-panel zoom thru the motor car window from Watcham to Raker. Also the page of over-the-shoulders that lead to the p.o.v. half-page spread of Raker's study. Very lovely. The artist is someone called Gianluca Pagliarani. He has a very clean unfussy style, and the detail of his crowd-scenes, ships and laboratories is impressive.

I'm no scientist, but the science here is very funky: quantum strings fired thru laptops full of old movies into the brain of Albert Einstein reconfigures reality. Or something along those lines. There's talk of 'haunted meat' -- fiction reshaping fact, characters becoming real people. But the real interest lies in the dynamic between Watcham, Raker and Inanna. Watcham is scarred by his tour of duty, but will live to see his friend taking that experience seriously -- applying his intellect not just to solving crime in London but to international politics and war. Raker makes the choice Veidt refuses to make in Watchmen, putting the personal first, and then trying to salvage what is left of the world. It's a crazy resolution, but an inspiring one as well.

Another Apparat cracker, in other words...

Frankenstein's Womb

From Hell, the Warren Ellis version. It's not Jack the Ripper, but Mary Shelley that have birth to the future. Maybe by inventing science fiction? Our ability to dream about the future? Dream and believe the dream and call the dream real life? But it cuts both ways. Frankenstein -- science -- is a "dead child". Its works burn indiscriminately. The pursuit of alchemy leads to destruction.

And the alchemist realises this. Hope lies in the private, interpersonal virtues of love and self-sacrifice.

That's what I got out of it anyways. Ellis is writing poetry rather than prose here, and you can read him in lots of ways. It's a beautiful book, with exactly that Hellboy atmosphere I needed (props Marek Oleksicki -- where does Ellis find these artists??)

Kinda want to read the rest of the Apparat line now...

Doktor Sleepless

V For Vendetta with a lot of Frankenstein and a little bit of Waiting For Godot in the mix, as well as other stuff I don't recognise, probably. Oh, and written by Warren Ellis. One of the best things he's done. It's pretty much ALL ideas -- Aaron Sorkin length speeches about the world being fucked up: environmental disaster, overpopulation, privatised security, politicians building bunkers against their own people and culture manufactured for profit. This isn't the future we were promised, the book says. We have to burn it down.

Or do we? The Doktor thinks demons from other dimensions are waiting to eat us i.e. he's more than a little unstable. And then there is Sing. Ellis often leaves a (female) character to puncture the anti-hero's grand schemes for saving the world. Look at what yr doing! Yr hurting people, you arrogant asshole!

Lovely stuff about the real / the fantastic as well. People feel safer with imaginary characters -- they won't be able to affect yr life, not really. But the mad scientist persona is a masquerade. You WILL get touched.

A note on the artwork: perhaps it's the political Alan Moore vibes, but to me it feels like Dave Gibbons filtered thru the Wildstorm house style. Maybe that's just me...

Kick-Ass

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw found its relentless outrage-provoking stunts a tickle to the diaphragm, and he gave the film five stars. Me being a superhero comics veteran, am slightly less impressed by the Kick-Ass agenda. Yes, I get the gloriously offensive silliness, the satire with a human face mentality. It's just that I've read comics that have done all this better, and am rather frustrated that THEY haven't been made into fims, as opposed to Mark Millar's creation.

My biggest problem with the film is the romantic interest character -- a pining blank beauty who forgives Dave's deceptions at the drop of a hat. There should be a rule: useless geeks should not be given an easy ride on the relationship front. They don't deserve it. Yes, Hit Girl is awesome, but Mrs. Kick-Ass is nerdy wish-fulfilment. This is not a step forward for girls in comics.

Second, smaller problem. The butterfly knife and the bazooka were cool, but were there any actual funny lines in this film? Most of the gags were physical, and some of the funniest looked like ad-libs (the boogie in the car for example). The film-makers could have done wonders with Nick Cage's weirdness, or the two nerds, or anyone really. But they didn't.

Again, to risk repetition, the world of comics offers so much more. Read The Pro by Garth Ennis and Amanda Conner, where the satire with a human face actually hits you. Or Nextwave by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen, where pop ridiculousness gets taken to the next level. Or even Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley, where the teen superhero and his girlfriend are real people you can sympathize with. Having this perspective means I cannot see Kick-Ass as anything more than average.

That said, Hit Girl really WAS awesome.

How I love Warren Ellis...

'You're all too weird to live. Get in the car before I kill you on principle.' -- Sideways Bob