Graphic Detail Episode 14

[Randal]

Episode 14 - Animal Man, Captain Marvel # 5, Flash #239, Justice League Of America #20, and X-men: Divided We Stand #1.

In this episode of Graphic Detail we cover Animal Man, Grant Morrison’s ground breaking, fourth wall smashing series about one Buddy Baker.
We felt it only appropriate to break our own fourth wall this episode, so expect a lot more chatter in our intros and outros.
We talk about Buddy’s character, his journey as a fictional character and everything about the series that makes it so great. We also analyze the difference between the Big Two and the stories they tell, the common themes in Morrison’s work, why we like heroes who are people first, and what it means to meet your maker.

For weeklies we talked:

Captain Mar-Vel #5: and the dubious nature of knock off Nega Bands as well as if any of us are going to be reading Secret Invasion.

Flash #239 and Justice League #20: One of these books features a well developed Wally West who doesn’t use his kids as a crutch and interacts with other heroes in a realistic way. And one of them has Jay Garrick punching Wally in the face. Guess which is which.

X-Men Divided We Stand: Our group pick, we all have different favorite stories and artists in this collection of one shots featuring the cast off x-students after Cyclops booted them all out of the mansion.

[Bravemouth]

I have to agree with what you said about British writers looking at the past but what is strange is that Britain has no mythology, all our original mythology got wiped out by the Normans in 1066 so it could be a case of British writers trying to fill the void of great fantastical stories. Also just giving you a bit of a background on the UK during the late 80's over here there was IRA attacks all across the , Margaret Thatcher was raping the north of England of all its industry (e.g. mining,car manufacturing) and there was massive unemployment.

Also on the point on Britain just having more history that you I just thought it would be interesting to note the the town I live in that is just outside Liverpool called Kirkby is over a 1000 years old and Liverpool is somewhere between 800 and 811 years old yet America is on 201 (i think) years old

[HowTaoBrownCow]

Yea, you can get houses up to 400 years old in the U.S., but that's about the cap.

And the farther west you go, the younger they get. In the movie L.A. Story -- set in '91 -- Steve Martin is taking Victoria Tennant on a tour of L.A. and happily boasts "Some of these houses are over twenty years old!"

(My second favorite movie of all time.)

[Tony]

Good show. I was waiting for someone to say how terrible the art was. In fact you guys hardly mention the art at all. Looking back over your past shows, I think you guys generally don't go on about the art for your picks. Anyho, I was glad that GMO's Animal Man could supercede the lousy art and still be so good.

[HowTaoBrownCow]

That's true; we occasionally talk about the art, but not in anything remotely like the detail that we talk about the writing, plot, concepts, etc.

I think there's two reasons for that. The first is that if the book is particularly rich in plot, characterization, and concepts, then even the ones with really good art are not going to have as much to talk about on the art side as they do on the literary and conceptual sides. And the second reason is that we're not artists or art experts; we don't have the inclination, or the background required, to analyze the finer details of the art in the way that we can the writing. We're not going to be analyzing penciling versus inking on a book, and the artist's use of line thickness. Sometimes I wish that we could, but it's not going to happen.

But there are some that we hit harder on the art -- if we ever do the Invisibles, or the Watchmen, we'll end up talking more about the art in those because it's so distinctive.

That being said, I didn't mind the art in Animal Man. Any weaknesses I excused by the fact that it was designed to emphasize the comic-y aspect of the book, in the style of the 80's and earlier. There were bits that were very creative and well done -- and they were all where the 4th wall was being broken, like when he meets Grant Morrison at the end.

[Tony]

I see what your saying. I think it is interesting that Watchmen has sort of developed a better rep for the art for some reason. For years Watchemen was always "The story is great" but the art was either "not for everyone" or just plain "not that good". In recent years, like so many of Alan Moore's collaborators, Dave Gibbons has been elevated to a somewhat higher plain in terms of professional respect he gets as an artist and the new take on Watchmen art seems to be that it is now "perfect". Whatever.

I know that with some of the art there was an attempt to say something in Animal Man but for the most part, I think the artist was in way over his head. Perhaps as evidence you can ask "What else has he done?"

[HowTaoBrownCow]

I see what your saying. I think it is interesting that Watchmen has sort of developed a better rep for the art for some reason. For years Watchemen was always "The story is great" but the art was either "not for everyone" or just plain "not that good". In recent years, like so many of Alan Moore's collaborators, Dave Gibbons has been elevated to a somewhat higher plain in terms of professional respect he gets as an artist and the new take on Watchmen art seems to be that it is now "perfect". Whatever.

I'm not actually overwhelmed by the Watchman's art style -- it's got that gritty-but-we-still-only-have-4-colors look that so many 80's comics have. But I think it will make for some interesting conversation, mostly in the discussion of recurring patterns and themes, which are probably more due to Alan Moore than Gibbons.

I know that with some of the art there was an attempt to say something in Animal Man but for the most part, I think the artist was in way over his head. Perhaps as evidence you can ask "What else has he done?"

What, Chas Truog? He's famous, dude! He did that... thing... with that guy. And that other book! And then there was Animal Man, that was great!

Seriously, though, he did Chiaroscuro, Coyote, a few other odds and ends... he did an issue of Starman.... But he's no Frank Quitely, that's certainly true.

[Stin]

We tend to dive into the art when one of us absolutely hates it, see 30 days of night and the most recent Raping of Stin over Transhuman for examples.

I thought the art in Animal Man serviced the story incredibly well, but I'm a fan of less complicated art anyway.

[Crazy Clees]

Apparently I got the deformed end of the GD podcast... After 10 mins there is nothing but silence for the final 2.75 hours. Ill have to redownload it...







jerks

[HowTaoBrownCow]

Yea, try downloading it again. If you still get it, I'll talk to Randal -- he said he was itching to try a new banned-blocker technology, that let's him keep people he doesn't like from listening, but he promised he wouldn't use it unless we all didn't like the person.

1 out of 3 isn't enough. Bad Randal. No cookie.

[Bravemouth]

That happened to me on itunes but I just saved the file from the link Randal posted

[HowTaoBrownCow]

For anyone else who has this problem: delete the episode in iTunes, unsubscribe, and resubscribe, to pick up the good version.

The clipped version was up there briefly on Sunday before we realized that there was a problem with it and removed it. The corrected one was uploaded shortly thereafter, but if you got the bad one during that window, the steps above will fix it. (I'd offer Randal's apologies, but he's certain that it's your fault!)

[Stin]

Yea, try downloading it again. If you still get it, I'll talk to Randal -- he said he was itching to try a new banned-blocker technology, that let's him keep people he doesn't like from listening, but he promised he wouldn't use it unless we all didn't like the person.

1 out of 3 isn't enough. Bad Randal. No cookie.

What's all this 1 out of 3 business eh?

[Randal]

Stin is my twosies.

And I used Christian as my alternate 3rd.

[Stin]

Clees was even more fucked because Randal really cannot stand a Cylon with a Message.

Heh. Text message humor.