This Week in Comics (My Pull List 2-21-24)

This week’s witty banter has something to do with style, art and mental blocks. You see I have been drawing or “doing art” since I was very young. It has (like comics) been my way to escape. I’ve taken classes but a lot of what I do is self taught & that can be a problem. Over the years there have been times when I draw something and I know it is “good” basically because after I look at it I try to figure out who drew it. A lot of times I try too hard and it ends up just wrong. I have a picture in my head of what I want it to look like… many times it just doesn’t match. I’ve had many people ask me if I ever considered being a serious artist… what is that?!? Van Gogh? Monet? Warhol? Pollock? Lichtenstein? Calder? We all have our muses and mine happens to be a short, pudgy guy named Earl who has a big nose.

I’m currently doing some work for Comic Carnival, my LCS, and I’ve hit that stumbling block with my style… the female form. You see I was teased anytime I attempted to draw the female form so I have a bit of an anxiety about it. It’s something, as an adult I should be able to get over, but it will take practice. Walking around with a sketchbook full of sketches of women just makes me nervous. I’ve taken life drawing classes, I’m just concerned with the reaction when I open my sketchbook of “What kind of a pervert does drawings like this?” It’s something I have to get over. The funny thing is, as an artist and a teacher I tend to look at women in two ways- 1. As subject matter… like a still life. A bowl of fruit, a group of shapes. 2. As a teacher- it goes back to having taught for 35 + years and an old court case which defined a teacher in Indiana as having moral conduct “in all respects exemplary and beyond reproach.”(Crawfordsville vs. Abbie Hayes – 1873) I think of most young women (especially those that many Con attendees drool over aka cosplayers or the ones at booths used to draw in people) as former students… she could have been one of my third graders. Like any teacher with morals beyond reproach would want to get intimate with a student- that’s just yucky.
I’m going to start working on drawing from life and then warping it into my style… whatever that is, but I think for now I’ll stick with whatever Earl comes up with. Side Note: Earl was sick the day they filmed the “I’m Alive” scene in Xanadu where the muses all danced… he’s still a little mad about that- he had a great tap dance/clogging bit choreographed.

This week, the issue with the most variants is: Edge of Spider-Verse, Vol. 4 #1, with 17 variants! After last week it looks like they’re slacking off.

This Week’s Comics:

Edge of the Spider-Verse #1 (for the record I have cover 1A) – An anthology comic with a number of stories from a variety of creative teams. The first story deals with “Weapon VIII” taking its lead from the program that in Marvel comics created Wolverine (Weapon X). It looks like it is all going to end up (if given the chance) in a “Into the Spider-Verse” kind of organization- fighting bad guys, but what if the good guys, aren’t all that good?

U & I #1 – This month I got hit with three comics written by some of my favorites: Kirkman (Fire Power), Busiek (Arrowsmith) and Stracyzynski (U & I). Stracyzynski created a universe in which the world is hit with a plague (right around when COVID hit). This plague was similar to the one that happened in George R.R. Martin’s Wild Card stories. People got super powers, got a burst of super powers- then died, died (These people are called Moths), or had nothing happen. The comics deal with the world’s reaction to this event. I highly recommend them and will not spoil the stories here. in U & I we are just starting to learn about these characters… We start off discovering the first person we meet has powers, basically a super healing factor. He’s also a bit delusional. Our second character is a bit more of a mystery and all we know is that her name is Isabelle and was kicked out by her uncle’s family who has control of her money. She’s living on the streets and, while surviving, on the run from not so nice people. So what happens when these two meet up? We’ll find out next issue.

Batman #144 Joker Year 1 Part 3 – This looks like it was a simple three issue arc. Telling the origin of the joker intwined with a modern story dealing with the Joker basically turning everyone crazy using harmonics… As part of the origin timeline we also get to learn more about Jim Gordon dealing with the corruption in the GCPD as he started out and how the Joker manipulated so much even early on.

Superman #11 – With Superman and Action Comics (Bizarro storyline), things like this get confusing… Lex Luthor is in prison. He gave Lex Corp to Superman to do good in the world. Bad guys who hate Lex are trying to kill him and destroy everything he has created. They’ve done a bunch of stuff (like send Superman into the wild west of 1800’s) now we find out who all the players are and which team they actually are on. We also find out about all the rainbow of fruit flavors that kryptonite can come in (I swear after “Crisis on Infinite Earth” kryptonite only came in green- but I must not have been absent or just not paying attention at some point there have been a lot of “multiverse shattering” events over the last few decades). How will this end up? Will Lex die? Will Superman kill him? Will the entire population of the Earth die? Am I being overly dramatic?

Titans #8 – I did not read the Beast Wars crossover event… I’m too old to do that. From what I can tell people turned into animals, other people died, and the world has issues with Beast Boy. So after that kind of thing what would you do? Bring in one of the original big bad guys from Titans’ history… and plan for a double cross. Oh my…

Mech Cadets #6 – I’m guessing final issue in this arc… Can the Mech Cadets save the world from the Shard invasion being lead by one of their own? Will they continue working for the evil general who doesn’t like them (not one little bit). How does the military control giant robots that have bonded to their pilots if their pilots won’t follow orders?

Man’s Best #1 (Ashcan) – Spaceship, heading to another planet to colonize. A scientist has her two dogs and a cat with her (emotional support animals?) who have been augmented and can operate various machines. This is only part of issue one which will be released in a couple weeks. It’s an interesting story being told not only through the eyes of the humans, but also through the animals. I’m looking forward to reading more.

For those confused- “Ashcan” was a term used to describe a prerelease comic usually printed cheaply and given out to hook readers to a new title or concept.

Fire Power #30 (Final Issue) – For the last 30 issues we’ve followed Owen Johnson as he comes to grips with a bunch of stuff. Now he’s finally pulling together everyone (still alive) and saving the world. One thing I like about Robert Kirkman is his stories seem to have an end to them. The Walking Dead, Invincible, and now Fire Power. Some, like The Walking Dead I didn’t last through… others like Invincible the last few issues were a great way to celebrate the character and end the story in a nice way so those who read it can sleep knowing that sometimes, characters do get their happily ever afters. It’s also nice to see a series end without a ? and the possibility of continuation. Yes, there could be more… but there doesn’t have to be. We don’t need it.

Star Trek #17 – Oh boy, Dinosaurs, Romulans, possible intergalactic war, and undercover shenanigans (get your mind out of the gutter didn’t you read my intro?). It does look like things will be coming to an end, but is it the end of the Theseus and her crew? (non-Ensign) Harry Kim, Sisko, Scotty, and Data all have threads weaving together to hopefully bring this all to a world shattering (or not) conclusion.

Midlife #5 – So our hero does some saving and introspection while trying to figure out what to do next. After, of course talking with the kidnapped special agent responsible for dealing with fire demons. He learns about his past and his father… but not enough for us to know too much and we will need to tune in next month to find out more.

Spider-Boy #4 – The story of Bailey unfolds even more as he tries to find out his place in the world. Unfortunately his creator (the “They called me ‘MAD’ at the University) scientist creates another version of him (Boy-Spider) to draw him out, and give him a more problems. He’s also wrestling (like most kids) with strong emotions and these play a part in how Boy-Spider acts.

Ultimate Spider-Man #2 – Peter Parker, what have you done now?!? Imagine a world where most of the marvel heroes never existed. Then somehow they are given the choice to gain their powers. Peter Parker who has: married MJ, had two kids (Richard & May) now has powers and is trying to figure them out. He’s also learning just how trusting he is… which can lead to some issues. I’m enjoying this take on Spider-man almost as much as I did when the first (and second) versions of ultimate Spider-Man came out. It’s nice to see old heroes being taken in a different direction.

Arrowsmith – So Smart in Their Fine Uniforms Trade paperback vol. 1 – Imagine another world… there are many great writers who reimagine the world or a time period to meet the needs of their narrative.  Kurt Busiek has done this a few times masterfully.  In Astro City he focused on character driven storytelling in a super hero inhabited world.  Many stories focused on the ordinary people, but the world was filled with twists and turns and Easter eggs galore.  In Arrowsmith, he goes back in time to World War 1, but the twist is- magic and magical folk are real.  Things like airplanes have not needed to be invented, because men can use dragonets (small dragons) and magic to fly.  Here we find a young man Fletcher Arrowsmith from what we would call the Midwest, it’s part of the United States of Columbia,  Fletcher joins up to help in the war effort in Europe prior to the U.S. joining in.  This is his story.  This first volume goes through his early days and his discovery that “War is Hell.”  I highly recommend it especially if you are into “what if” or alternate history type stories. There are only two volumes in this series due to the untimely death of one of the creators.