The Cape

The Cape is the second book that has been released by veteran writer Joe Hill, and up and coming writer Jason Ciaramella. The story of the Cape is originally a short story by Hill that is featured in his collection of short stories “20^th Century Ghosts”. The last story that these two writers worked on was a one-shot entitled “Kodiak. If you have not check it out, do yourself a favor and do so, it is nothing less amazing, and The Cape is no different.

The Cape follows the story of a man named Eric, who like any little kid spent most of his days outside playing games with his brother, pretending to be heroes, but in Eric’s case he also sported a cape. Eric learns that his cape is not just an ordinary piece of clothes, but it has magical properties that would be stripped away from him before he got a change to get acquainted.

I have been a fan of Hill since the first time I read “Locke and Key”, and the work of Ciaramella was great in “Kodiak” so I was not worried about the writing going into this book, so all I was left with to critique was the art. When I first started reading the issue, I thought that the work looked familiar and at first I thought it was the work of artist Sean Murphy, but after looking at the inside cover of I saw that it was the art of Zach Howard. Howard has a style that has a rough feel to it, but also has a sense of perfection as well.

The issue ends with an event that I did not expect, I won’t ruin the ending like some other reviews have, but the ending is out of this world and will make any reader wish that more issues would be released following this storyline and character. Lucky for you, there will be three more issues that follows Eric and continues off of the spectacular ending of the first issue.

If you are looking for a new mini-series to read, or if you are just looking for something new to check out, check out The Cape, you will not be disappointed at all.

10 out of 10

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas To All
From Blogsout.net

Black Panther: The Man Without Fear

Many Daredevil fans were wondering what would happen to the Man Without Fear following the events of Shadowland. Marvel answered their question with the introduction of the new protector of Hell’s Kitchen, The Black Panther: The Man Without Fear.

When I first saw that Marvel was replacing Daredevil with Black Panther, I was not only confused, but also slightly upset. I had no idea why Marvel was not only replacing Daredevil in his own going book, but I was wondering why they decided to choose Black Panther. After some careful thinking, and deductive reasoning, my little brain figured out what Marvel was doing; they were trying to make more money. At the end of Shadowland they set up a story for Matt Murdock about how he was going to repent for what he had done while he was leader for the hand, which means that Marvel is going to be doing a mini-series that follows Murdock during this time. So Marvel thought that during this time, they needed to do something with the Daredevil ongoing, so they use Black Panther. To me the choice doesn’t make sense, but enough about this, let’s get onto the issue.

Even though I had a negative feeling about the issue going into it, I tried to keep an open mind about the issue and give it a fair shot. The first thing I noticed about the book was its art. It felt like Francesco Francavilla was trying to mimic the trademark art of Roberto De La Torre, using primarily dark colors, emphasizing on shading to give it the dreary feel of Hell’s Kitchen in general. Sad to say that he was unable to do it successfully, and the art really detracted from the story as a whole.

Contrary to the disappointing art, the writing of David Liss was definitely the best part of this issue. Liss, best know for his fiction novels delivered no less than a top notch story in this issue. He developed two storyline for this Black Panther arc, one following Black Panther, and the other following the main antagonist of the upcoming arc, Vlad the Impaler. He used the perfect amount of balance between the two stories, slowly connecting them as the issue progressed. In addition to this, he was able to use the perfect amount of story telling, and dialogue to keep the issue not too quick, not too long, but purely enjoyable.

Despite all of this though, I have fears for this book. Black Panther is a character who in the past has been given many shots by Marvel at his own series, mini-series, and much more and has never been able to really keep one afloat for a substantial amount of time, which really boggles me as to why they once again are using him as the protagonist for yet another story. I feel as though his lack of popularity will hinder the sales of the Daredevil title, despite the great story by David Liss. Only time and sales will tell if my prediction is correct, but I can assure you that this does largely affect this book as a whole.

6.5 out of 10

Pax Romana

Pax Romana was a four issue mini series that was released by Image comics in 2007 and 2008. This series is written, illustrated, colored, and lettered by author Jonathan Hickman. Jonathan Hickman is best known for his work on Marvel Comic’s Secret Warriors and he has been working on the current arc of the Fantastic Four.

The story takes place in the future, where the Vatican has backed a group of scientists that have discovered the wonders of time travel. The church decided that in order to save the present, they would use the new technology to send back a representative of the church, as well as an army of men with modern technology to remedy the past and enhance the future.

Soon after the introduction of the project that will act as the basis for the entire story, the plan goes wrong and the true premise of the books becomes clear to the reader.

This series has both an interesting style of writing, as well as a fairly interest art style. When it comes to the writing, the issues read more like a book, taking a break from the standard style of comic writing, implementing pages of text that depict conversations between key characters that allow for Hickman to better lay out the storyline in a shorter amount of time. Hickman would also use a block of information when each character was introduced in order to give quick background information to better acquaint the reader with the numerous characters featured throughout the story.

When it comes to the art, Hickman uses a style that is unlike anything I have ever seen. He tends to choose a certain color for each frame of the story, using the color, accented with shading bringing to life the scenes of the story. I did not expect this type of coloring to add as much as it did the story, but it certainly left its mark. As for the art style, Hickman tends to leave it simpler than most artists, usually leaving out extreme detail in each pane, especially when it comes to the faces of the characters. Instead he focuses on the shading and slight facial marks.

I think that Hickman designed the series like this in order to allow for the story to be driven more so by the writing and the story as opposed to the art. In my personal opinion, I am usually more art focused, but Hickman is one of my favorite writers and it is shown in this series that that is his strong point, so I was more than happy to have the focus on the writing style and this spectacular story.

9 out of 10

Conan and Bruce Timm....

What more do you need?

"Oh no. This is Earth, isn't it?"

[originally posted here]

It's finally here, the trailer for Marvel's anticipated Thor, to be released May 6th 2011. Adapted from the pages of Marvel comics, the film begins as "the powerful but arrogant warrior Thor is cast out of the fantastic realm of Asgard and sent to live amongst humans on Earth, where he soon becomes one of their finest defenders." (imdb.com)

A story heavily embedded in Norse mythology, I was initially worried that Thor would prove too tricky a concept to bring to life on the big screen, but - if the trailer is any indication - it appears that cast and crew alike have crafted something truly special. Directed by Kenneth Branagh (Hamlet), Thor stars Chris Hemsworth (Star Trek) as the titular hero, and boasts a superb supporting cast that includes Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Idris Elba, and Colm Feore. Clark Gregg (Iron Man, Iron Man 2) also returns to the Marvel movie universe as SHIELD agent Phil Coulson.

image credit: superherohype.com; video credit: movies.yahoo.com

A chance to give back and really make a difference.

http://myfreeimplants.com/

Hot Carl's quick review of The Warrior's Way

First ten to twenty minutes: Cool ninja (kinda) action.

Middle forty to fifty minutes: Boring, unoriginal, killer learns new way of life, plus terrible acting from Kate Bosworth.

Last twenty to thirty minutes: Cool cowboy vs. ninja (kinda) action returns.

Overall, Worth a rental but I definitely wouldn't pay more than manatee price to see this movie.

Will Image comics make you rich?

In the past year Image comics has put out more first issues that have exploded in the secondary market.
Yeah, The Walking Dead #1 is worth a bunch, but that came out over 7 years ago.

The first printing of Chew is still going for about $80 today.
http://cgi.ebay.com/CHEW-1-comic-1st-printing-NM-M-condition-red-letters-/270673939073?pt=UK_Books_Comics_Magazines_US_Comics_ET&hash=item3f056c8a81

Taking Ditko's work out of context....is funny.

Blake Bell is releasing a book of early (pre Amazing Spider-Man) stories by the incredible Steve Ditko.



http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/AjFtBC/techland.com/2010/12/06/exclusive-preview-steve-ditkos-unexplored-worlds//r:t

Question: Does any other writer use twitter more then Mark Millar?

Does he do anything else during the day?
http://twitter.com/#!/mrmarkmillar

Tuesday = Free time to post #1

Gift Ideas for the holidays + a creepy pic. Curtosy of  i09.com

Superman: Earth-One

I have always been a fan of J. Michael Stracynski, and I tend to check out almost anything he writes. I have been reading his recent run on Superman, and after hearing that he is already going to be off the title to write more full graphic novels, I figured I should check out his most recent major release: Superman Earth-One.

The beginning of the book moved kind of slowly, providing the reader with a different twist on the young adulthood of Clark Kent, chronicling his first adventures in Metropolis and his troubles coping with the power that he has.

Wolverine: The Best There Is

As comic readers looked on the shelf this week, they noticed yet again another Wolverine title. When I saw that this book was coming out, I initially thought that it was a one-shot, since Marvel has the habit of putting out more than a few Wolverine related one-shots, but I was wrong.

Wolverine: The Best There Is, is yet another Wolverine on-going title to go along with his other main title (Wolverine Goes to Hell) and all the other team titles that he is part of. When I found this out, I was very disillusioned, the Wolverine one-shots are usually entertaining at least, but I firmly believe that Wolverine is an over-worked character who, although I am a fan of the character, I do not believe that he needs all of these books, especially, as more and more are made the quality drops.