Recently in Graphic Novels Category

Fuck me, Batman's dead! Honest, the Dark Knight has kicked the bucket.

In the comic book sagas that make up the DC universe - and this is canon - in particular, the recent storylines of Batman R.I.P., Whatever Ever Happened to Batman and Final Crisis (where the characters of the DC Multiverse encounter each other) one can witness the demise of the Caped Crusader.

I'm shocked, appalled, but mostly confused. So confused I thought I'd ask a work colleague about this turn of events. Sam seems to be switched on when it comes to the Bat dude. I asked him the obvious question.

So is Batman dead or what?

Not at all. In fact I'd argue that he hasn't been so alive in a long time. Here is a Batman who really has to earn his victories, who when he's beaten down may well not have the strength to get back up, who when he wins - smiles.

Gotham's criminals are cowering and the Gotham City Police Dept. rallies under the batsignal. Batman is very much alive.

Bruce Wayne, however... now he's not in such great shape.

Surely, Bruce Wayne is Batman?

A year ago I probably would have agreed with you. There have been other attempts to replace Batman. When he was crippled by Bane back in the eighties Azrael tried to fill the void for a while, but the audience was never in any doubt that this was a pretender to the cowl.

Characters like the Flash and the Green Lantern are much better suited to reinvention. There you've got some every day Joe thrust into a destiny that had little to do with their previous life.

Batman grew in a much more organic way from two main stimuli. Firstly from Bruce Wayne's vengeance-as-therapy approach to lifestyle (call it justice if you really feel you must) and secondly from the demands Gotham City places on its champion.

These two aspects have been intermeshed since day one in Bruce Wayne's  Batman and it  wasn't until this year's Battle for the Cowl (the comic issues covering the chaos immediately after Bruce Wayne's death culminating with Dick Grayson becoming the new Batman) that this dualism was really analysed.

While Dick gives Gotham what it needs, he manages to leave behind those Bruce derived parts of Batman he doesn't need. Though Dick lost his parents as a child in a manner not dissimilar to Bruce, Dick doesn't rely on that anguish to motivate him day to day. For Dick, just doing the right thing is enough.

I guess what the argument comes down to is "Can there be more than one Batman?" and while thinking of Dick Grayson as Batman 2.0 might help some of us who are slower to deal with change, it isn't doing justice to the challenges Dick has faced and overcome to maintain the illusion that Batman never left.

The first thing he did way back when he was fired from the post of Robin was get rid of the cape he felt restrained his fighting style. As Batman he fights with a cape twice the size he wore as Robin; he doesn't like it and he makes a few minor changes, but for the most part he adapts himself to suit Batman, not vice versa.

So Bruce Wayne has left this mortal coil?

Firstly, no publishing house with half a brain would eliminate the possibility of such a solid seller being restored.

Secondly, the circumstances surrounding Bruce's death are messy to say the least. Crazy amnesia / hallucinations, pseudo gods, some time spent in a very confusing purgatory. You'd be forgiven for not being sure what actually happened there and I'm not really clear myself. So maybe he's not really dead. Maybe he's - big voice -TRAPPED IN TIME as the last few pages of Final Crisis might suggest.

Either way, he's out of the way now. Dick is Batman. Damien Wayne is Robin. This is the line up from here on in. Perhaps one day he'll be brought back as a support character. Perhaps one day he'll even be Batman again (hell, Hal Jordan's Green Lantern and Barry Allen's The Flash both came back in the past few years) but I've got $50 that says you will not see Bruce Wayne as Batman in present-day Gotham City any time in the next five years.

For the average person who would read this blog it would likely be known that the Watchmen movie was for some a rather anticpated event. I'm safely guessing, though, for the average movie going punter they had to be told, via the marketing, that they were supposed to be anticipating it. Still, that means that there were a fair number of people ready to not just watch it or review it but analyse it in depth and detail and reflect upon it the original text, namely Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' best-selling graphic novel (which was first a twelve issue comic event, at least in comic circles, from Sept 86 and Oct 87).

Watchmen still remains the best comic / graphic novel work I've read. It truly deserves the status as a novel. And ever since there had been talk of a movie, and there has been lots for a long time, I was always doubtful of what would be the eventual outcome. Regardless, I was curious as to the final result.

So too were many Planet staffers. Each came into work the night after seeing Watchmen and shared their thoughts with the rest. What struck me was not how varied their opinions were but the arguments put forward. So I decided to invite them to let me put this in the blog. Some took me up on the offer and I now invite you to check them out.  Emily / Rental - I enjoyed the Watchmen movie; it was probably as well done as could be expected given the source material. Most of the performances were well done as well. However, Snyder has tried to cram so much material in, it doesn't really give the scenes any sort of gravity. It helps with the pacing, sure, but with the comic you were able to digest things in full. The slow-mo and the sex scenes were a too prevalent for my tastes, too.

Sam / Books - It's prettier, it's louder, it's shorter and less nuanced, Snyder's adaptation is visually excellent with inspired casting but was doomed from the outset to underwhelm. When Richard Linklater directed the film adaption of A Scanner Darkly he was free to bring fantastic new ideas to the text and made the film a work of art in it's own right. Snyder, however, has no such freedoms; the characters and sets mirroring their graphic novel counterparts to the extent that watching the film feels like I'm reading the graphic novel for a third time and skipping all the parts that turned a great story into a great world. Like all graphic novel adaptions this could have gone two ways; an insult to it's origins or so accurate that it becomes redundant. I'm pleased it became the latter, but not so much that I'll be watching it again.

Keir / Rental - Having not read the graphic novel, I went into Watchmen with no knowledge of the story why it was so popular. I left the cinema with much the same feeling. Watchmen felt like two and a half hours of exposition, building to events that never came. The dialogue should have stayed on the pages of a comic book because when delivered by actors became laughable. I could never really work out if the Watchmen were ordinary people who took on roles of crime-fighters or whether they all had super powers and the line between factual and fictual political history was blurred. Overall I was very disappointed. Pretty pictures do not a good film make.

Ethan / Rental - Here's what I liked about the film...It looks great, it sounds great, and that's about it. I did not care for any of the characters, Rorschach came closest to the one I could 'side with'. The plot was constant back story and structurally it felt very disjointed. And then the rest of my grievances were simply continuity debacles such as 'Why is Dr Manhatten's glistening wang out in some scenes and not in others? He has the undies. We saw him wear them in another scene' and...'Why is Rorschach so tough? At least when Mickey Rourke takes a beating in Sin City my brain can justify it by the fact he's a big mother f%#$er, and he shows pain after, Rorschach was a runt with an illogical psychedelic mask, oh his mother wanted to abort him...Still makes no sense'...and during the sex scene 'Where are all their god damn bruises! They just got in a vicious alleyway fight recently!'

Cassie / Books - I really enjoyed Watchmen, it felt like a real treat, that Snyder had made the film just for us fans who'd been waiting forever for this adaptation. I loved seeing the characters on screen, Rorsharch and Comedian put in great performances and I delighted in the mise en scene and costume. It was infinitely better in all ways than most superhero movies, and while it wasn't as stylistically cogent as Dark Knight, it was a far more interesting and complicated film. I went specifically to see a giant many-tentacled entity but alas they thought Dr Manhattan needed a bigger role so I had to make do with a single tentacled entity...

Nick / DVD retail - I'm still kind of torn as to how I felt while watching Watchmen. On one hand I want to congratulate Zack Snyder for delivering such a faithful adaptation. In some ways, though, it's painfully faithful, to the point of mimicry - I'm really not sure what Snyder really brought to the table here. I mean, the storyboard and script were already written, right? All he had to do was get costumes and cameras and get to it!  On the other hand, the very small adjustments that were made seem completely pointless, and leave me baffled.

I think I probably need to watch it again to formulate an opinion on the movie, AS a movie, but the truth is I can't differentiate the movie from the book, and I don't want to watch it again. I can't watch the movie and appraise it "just as a movie." Why? Because the real problem is that it was made at all. In 2002, after the From Hell movie, Alan Moore spoke of "the fallacious modern notion that making a movie of something somehow validates it." The one thing that Watchmen, the movie, makes extremely obvious, is just how unnecessary it was in the first place.

Chris / Rental - I loved it. Visually the film is stunning - menacingly dark in places, contrasted with vivid splashes of colour from the Watchmen costumes or the splash of blood. The costumes are suitably outlandish enough for comic book heroes but also somehow real enough to make them believable in the alternative reality being created for us. As for the story, the film makers have been pretty true to the original, with time constraints mostly dictating what was left out of the film. There will be some opposition to the minimal differences in both texts, but what is important to remember is that they are both different texts - they should stand alone. The film is an adaptation, yes, but it needs to be remembered that the mediums of graphic novel and cinema, while they have many similarities, are still very different in how they are made, viewed and, perhaps most importantly, intended to be viewed. The makers of both mediums should be utilizing the best aspects of those mediums, not simply trying to fit one into the other. With the Watchmen graphic novel and film, I think you come very close to having the best of both worlds.

And my thoughts - On the whole I give it a thumbs up. But yes, with some minor reservations, largely with narrative structure. I find many friends and associates (some mentioned above) who have issue, albeit personal critique issue, with graphic novel purity and the valid argument that it adds nothing new. Some (not included in the above) just didn't get the politics stuff. Understandably, cause when you go to a superhero movie you've more often than not been trained to expect an Iron Man or X-men style of film. My opinion is that what narrative flaws there are (including some bad music choices) were all overshadowed by good filmmaking and a sincere attempt to tell a good story and honour the source material. In short, you have to disregard the nature of  Hollywood and the practical systems of general filmmaking to not appreciate that it is a miracle Watchmen is as good as it is.

But I have one final view to put down here. I asked a senior manager, one I knew was a big fan of the original comic mini-series, that when he saw Watchmen, can he give me an opinion. He told me he had no intention of seeing it. Why? Because the original work has come to be an integral part of a memory of a particular time in his life that whether the film is good or bad he has no want to have it alter the way he remembers it in his mind's eye. And you know, it was very easy to respect that.

Transformers first arrived on planet Earth back in 1984. Yep, for twenty-five years the Autobots and the Decepticons have been battling it out on Terra on Saturday morning TV and in the pages of comic books. Throughout that time the universe of the Transformers, though staying loyal to the original premise, has been expanded and branched and has undergone a couple of reboots.

The most recent major comic reboot was in 2006 when IDW Publications picked up the bouncing Transformer ball. Throughout the recent years of Transformers comics the main storyteller was Simon Furman. But in the shadow of the quite independent Transformers movie and forthcoming sequel someone else is having a go.

Shane McCarthy first came to prominence with his work on Batman that included a reinvention of the Riddler. The positive response to this and other works meant Shane would naturally be given another universe to play in. So now Shane, with the help of artist Guido Guidi, is giving Transformers a fresh coat of paint.

All Hail Megatron is a 12 issue series that allows a comfortable entry by newcomers into the long running saga, but more than that, throws light on new angles allowing past readers to refresh their approach, which is always a good thing.

With Volume One of All Hail Megatron collection (first six issues) published in March and the second volume coming out round early October I asked Shane about writing in the Transformer universe and what he has envisioned for the dudes of Cybertron.

I'm guessing that getting a gig like writing Transformers wouldn't normally go to someone who isn't already a fan of the big metal guys. How was it to become a new voice for the Transformers universe and how much did you need to get up to speed with the ongoing sagas between Autobots and Deceptacons?

Well, having been a fan of the cartoon since I was a little kid it was a real pleasure to be able to work on the series and add some of my own ideas to the characters.  There's a lot to work with and a real depth to the characters and the world if you want to look for it.  I was eager to keep them true to the characters we knew but to also reach in and find a side to each of them that perhaps we hadn't seen yet.

As for getting up to speed.  Well, my knowledge is pretty good to begin with (not as good as some of the guys out there though) so I set about reading everything IDW had published and familiarizing myself with their version of the Transformer universe.  Not to shabby a job when you get to sit about doing that.

All Hail Megatron is meant to be a place where someone can get into the universe without requiring the complex background knowledge of past stories. Should this saga be considered a reboot of the universe? How much does the past play on the story you are telling?

The past plays a big part but the appeal of the series is that you don't need to have read it to understand what's going on.  We billed this series as a 'soft reboot' in that we're turning our attention away from some aspects of what went before to give new readers a jumping on point without all the complex background.  If you have read what went before then you receive a bigger reward for your effort.

Clearly you are putting your own stamp on Transformers. What directions are you venturing to take the story and characters? Do you have long-term designs on how this new saga will pan out?

What I wanted to do was to show the real effects of war on these characters and show some of the ramifications of the choices they've made along the way.  You can't fight for as long as they have and still have the lines between good and evil being so clearly drawn.  I wanted to put each side, Autobot and Decepticon, in the worst situation they could be in and see what happened.

All Hail Megatron was always going to be a 12 issue story, start to finish, but I did drop in some clues and hints as to where things might go that I expect the next writers will pick up on.

I've heard that your fresh take was received with positive response by critics and by the buying public. You must be happy with that.

Oh very happy.  The bulk of the response has been overwhelmingly positive.  I mean, not everyone's going to love it when you play around with things like I have but most of the fans have been extremely positive.  I've received some of the best reviews of my career on this book.

I really liked the Transformers animated movie from '86, but I didn't care for the Michael Bay movie. Several of my friends don't argue with me over the flaws in story and character, but they still love the movie (and are excited about the next one) cause they all just flipped out on CGI Transformers doing their thing. As one respected friend said to me, "It has big robots beating the shit out of each other, what else do you need?" But you do need something else. What do you think that "else" is?

Story and character.

Not to put down the chaps that made Transformers too much but special effects don't make a good movie.  What they can do with CGI these days is impressive but if you want me give a damn about it when it's on the big screen then give me something to care about.  An explosion is pointless with nothing to back it up, it might as well be a mobile phone ad.

If you're going to make a film then subject matter is irrelevant, regardless of what it's about you need to tell a convincing story and show me interesting characters I can care about.  Whether it's about the war, a couple in love, a time traveling teenager in a Delorean, a whip cracking archeologist, the mob or giant transforming robots you still need to tell a good story.  And preferably one that makes sense.

It's hard to create a story and script that wins oscars, it's not hard to create a story and script that doesn't insult the audience.  I think most of these big budget movies should be trying harder and showing more respect to the people that pay for the tickets.

I'm assuming you would be happy doing Transformers for some time to come, but even if you did the adventures of Optimus Prime and Co. forever, do you have other things you want to do and what else is on the cards for Shane McCarthy?

I'm starting work on my next Transformer series which is going to be a hell of a lot of fun to write.  I'm in the research stage at the moment but it's seriously going to be a fun ride once I sit down to work.  Down the track I'll be working on a creator owned book with one of my best friends in the world who also happens to be one of the most talented artists in the industry.  I'm seriously a lucky guy.

1984 was a good year for lowbrow cinematic entertainments, but the shining light of independent off-the-wall filmmaking would probably have to go to anarchist punk sci-fi flick Repo Man. This was the debut film for maverick writer/director Alex Cox and still stands out as his most popular film (although his next film Sid & Nancy has also achieved a following). It was also Emilio Estevez's debute as leading man and remains his most memorable role (despite the efforts of Breakfast Club fans). It is also the place of one of Harry Dean Stanton's seminal performances.

Repo Man came out at the right time, just before the VHS revolution. Nowadays this sort of movie would go straight to video after an obscure run at some minor film festivals (where people with wine can nod about it). Instead it got launched like a mainstream slacker comedy and freaked out almost everybody who went to see it. Enough were freaked out in a good way and thus the legend was born.

So you'd expect a sequel or remake, right? Well, a sequel by Alex Cox hasbein talked about for some years. And supposedly, Repo Chick is in the can but I know little more than that. Cox tried to make a sequel before which continued the adventures of Repo Man's protagonist but the powers-that-be, namely those who own the rights, were not simpatico to Cox's vision. It didn't help that Emilio didn't want to do it. That version may never be filmed, but that doesn't mean you can't see it ... and read it.

Gestalt Comics very cleverly turned Alex Cox's unmade screenplay into a graphic novel. For all intents and purposes Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday is the sequel to the original Repo Man. Otto is back, now named Waldo (for legal and artistic purposes) and he has to deal with the post-punk mess of a world it is today.

Gestalt Comics is a Perth based independent company that has produced a good quality piece of work. Nicely illustrated by Bones and Randall, finely laid out, beautifully produced. I'm sure Alex Cox is happy with the result. It's an Alex Cox film on paper. So if you are one of the old and new Repo Man fans, I recommend Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday while we listen out for further news on that other sequel.

On the 10 January 1929, the first in the series of The Adventures of Tintin was published in a Belgian newspaper. That makes Tintin 80 years old. Yes, Tintin, the chipper young journalist and adventurer who got himself in all sorts of intrigue and nasty scrapes has been at it for that long. So too has his ever faithful Snowy, the brave little fox terrier, as also Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus and the detectives Thomson and Thompson.

Created by Georges Remi, using the pen name Hergé, he executed a beautifully simplistic but expertly drafted style that had a full understanding of the language of sequential art. The stories themselves, though extensive in all manner of genre and spanning the world and a bit beyond, were a tad formulaic, but this was made up for by intricate detail of history, archaeology, science, culture and politics. Indeed, they had a sophistication you just don't see in usual children comics (though Carl Barks' Scrooge McDuck comics were also an exception).

Hergé created new adventures for Tintin and Snowy right up to his death in 1983 at the age of 75, leaving the last book, the twenty-fourth adventure, almost, but not quite finished. Throughout that time Hergé was influenced by every manner of world change, especially during World War II and the immediate aftermath. Hergé's own life was an adventure in itself and his experiences are woven within Tintin's exploits.

Hergé's career as a graphic novelist was not all-smooth sailing. His political views were scrutinized and criticised from both sides. Tintin was also attacked in later years for racial stereotyping. This resulted in some bannings, forced changes, some

voluntary changes and some or all of the volumes being moved to adult sections of bookshops. Most recently there's been a debate over Tintin's sexual orientation. Why not, I guess?

But regardless of the ups and down, Tintin has become an institution of reprints, retrospectives, apropriations, tributes, stage, film and TV adaptations. It has been merchandised, even industrialised, but somehow it had not lost its integrity, despite some of those controversies previously referred to having some legitimacy, though now largely forgiven in historical contexts. And though the images of Tintin have become iconic, it never presented itself for more than it was, that being the adventures of that enthusiastic mystery solver Tintin.

The Adventures of Tintin deserves to be around today as big as its heritage clearly is.

Hergé deserves this legacy.

We deserve it too.

While watching The Mindscape of Alan Moore, I could almost pass him off as an English eccentric. He certainly has that neo-post-punk hippie thing going on and it doesn't help he's introduced as writer and shaman. He actually refers to himself as a magician but he soon makes it clear his magic is the manipulation of perceived reality through the use of words. Once he explains his philosophy his eccentricity is charmingly gothic and you know you'd be happy to share an ale or a pot of herbal tea. I like to think of Moore as a nice version of Alistair Crowley.

Moore's mindset is very English left; his political views were born from the time of Thatcher's Britain. He has a passionate distrust for government and believes they'll do whatever they can get away with.  Read any of his works, especially Watchmen, From Hell or V for Vendetta and that soon becomes evident. You'll also notice he often draws upon English history to build his past, present and future distopian fantasies and the world of Victorian England is where The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen resides.  It is a team of Victorian fictional characters, Alan Quartermain, Mina Harker, Captain Nemo and others, who under the direction of the British Government act as a Justice League for the British Empire.

In the first two books the league confront Fu Manchu, Professor Moriaty and even H G Wells' own Martian horde. But it's no thrill ride adventure as the characters find reasons to distrust their masters, the institutions, each other, even their own principles. Moore pushes this even further in the latest, The Black Dossier. But that's not all he pushes. Unlike the previous first and second volumes, Black Dossier is not a compilation of a comic book mini-series, it is a single self contained work that very much plays against the norms of graphic novels.

Black Dossier jumps from the Victorian times of the past volumes to 1958, a year after the fall of Orwell's Big Brother. The graphic novel part of it deals with two people discovering the dossier and being pursued by conspiratorial entities. The other part of the book is an excerpt of the Black Dossier itself.  That includes stories in different styles, comics from different eras, a Shakespeare play, a Tijuana Bible, maps, diagrams and a 3-D section (with glasses). How this all ties in with the League of past volumes you'll have to find out for yourself.

It is an ambitious and most diversified work that has Moore yet again challenge the pre-conceived notions of the graphic novel. And other than its surface appearance as a companion to the first two books, it might be better described as an intertextual conglomeration of coded pastiches. However, I think I'd just call it a pretty darn clever bit of writing and drawing. The film The Mindscape of Alan Moore may well take you into Alan Moore's unique thought processes, but how he applies that to works like The Black Dossier is where his mantel of genius truly resides.