And now, one of the most popular images on Great Caesar's Post in 2009

I can hardly wait for next year!

(You can read the whole sordid story in the "Blue Romance" series here.)

Countdown to Christmas: Ho ho ho!

No joke, this is my favorite scene from any Christmas movie EVER. It's a great movie and retelling of the Christmas Carol story, but Bill Murray's speech toward the end just kills me every time. It's Niagra Falls, Frankie angel. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you know the sentiment is sincere.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!

Countdown to Christmas: Part 4

Countdown to Christmas: Part 3

Countdown to Christmas: Part 2

Countdown to Christmas: Part 1

Aaaap-choooo!

Blarg.

I've been fighting off a cold for the past couple of days, and this morning the Germ Armies waging war in my head-meats decided to up the ante by giving me a constantly running nose and sneezing fits every ... every ... ev...

BLAAAACHOOOO!!

Sorry 'bout that. In any case, I'm taking the appropriate medications and while I haven't had any orange juice yet, I have been eating a lot of tiny oranges that showed up in the office recently (in your face, #appleclub!)

...

Still, it is new comics day, so it's not a total loss. My list is light, but its heart is true and it's a pal and a confidant (holy crap, did I just quote the Golden Girls theme? I need a nap). Here's what I'm getting:

Incorruptible #1: I enjoyed Mark Waid's recent Irredeemable, even if it did seem to mostly cover the usual ground of good-guy-gone-bad (or in this case, really bad). Incorruptible is a kind of companion piece, this time following the story of a bad guy trying to go straight in a world essentially ravaged by its greatest hero, and I'm digging it already. Waid is building a whole new universe here, and it's shaping up to be some thought-provoking fun. You can take a look here.

Nola #2: I want to like this title more than I do, but for some reason I'm just having a hard time getting into it. I hope the characterization makes the character of Nola a bit less of a cipher while maintaining the unanswered tension behind why she's out for vengeance — otherwise, I'm afraid the burden of carrying a story with so much potential will rest on a character with barely enough substance to carry herself.

Underground #4: This continues to be a neat little crime comic with a unique setting and characters who become more fleshed out with each issue. I've praised this book before, and with Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber at the wheel I don't have any reason to think Underground will be anything but good stuff.

...

Quick Aside: So, I think this Girl Comics thing is a pretty good idea, and actually I wish it was a regular title instead of just a three-issue anthology. The name's kinda dumb, but I understand it's supposed to be a fun nod to Marvel's publishing history; it's a minor complaint in what I think is overall a very positive move from the Bullpen.

...

Holy smoke, I'm running out of steam here. I'd better wrap it up before I start hallucinating or ...


Oh, god.

... and have a Super day.

Adventures in Sound: Part 14

Panel from Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter
Illustration: Darwyn Cooke

Review: Moon and Bá map the moments leading to a life in Daytripper

Daytripper is, quite simply, unlike anything else out there.

Sure, there are plenty of heartfelt, poignant and well-done stories on the shelves, but I can't think of any that match the unique sense of time and place seemingly grown so organically by brothers Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon. In the first issue of a 10-issue limited series, Daytripper's Sáo Paulo, Brazil is at once new and familiar, a feeling which only gets stronger when the reader meets Brás, the drifting center of a delicate story that still evokes the scrape of concrete and the hum of power lines overhead.

Brás is an newspaper obituary writer, a job that pales when compared to the literary success of his father, an author considered a national treasure in Brazil. Making his way, alone and lonely through a day that is special for his father and which should have been special for himself, Brás wrestles with feelings of disappointment and the fact that those feelings come as no surprise. Instead the reader gets the sense these feelings are an ever-present ache, not an unexpected stab of pain, quietly endured and masochistically nurtured and prodded.

Still, Brás isn't unhappy and he isn't unloved, which makes the sudden and violent turn the story takes all the more tragic, giving readers a powerful and intriguing plot with a beginning disguised as an ending. Coupled with beautifully rendered artwork — as well as a gorgeous palette of color from Dave Stewart evoking both time of day and Brás' emotional state — Daytripper is equal parts heart and heartbreak

I've been a fan of Moon and Bá for a while now, an opinion that was cemented with their excellent De: Tales: Stories from Urban Brazil. But, De: Tales did have a sometimes tiresome tendency to fall into the realm of magical realism, and I'm hoping Daytripper avoids that. The story of Brás, and the days that come together to make up a life, have enough magic on its own.

Highly, highly recommended.

Read a preview of Daytripper #1 here.

I got nothin'

So Random Spidey is go!





Yeah, I ... I don't know what's going in that last one.


BONUS!

Batman gives Alfred the day off!

The Monday Fly: Go to sleep, Brutus!

THE HUMAN FLY

SECRETLY READS DC.

Panel from The Human Fly #15
Bill Mantlo, writer; Lee Elias, artist; Ricardo Villamonte, inker

Adventures in Sound: Part 13

Panel from E.C. Segar's Popeye, Vol. 1: I Yam What I Yam
Letterers: E.C. Segar

Butterflies in the sky

Sorry about the radio silence lately, kids, but things have been busy here at GCP HQ. Of course, not so busy that I couldn't swing by the library yesterday to pick up some comic trades and graphic novels I missed out on the first time around.

I'm lucky enough to have a library that is really active in bringing in a wide variety of comics, from the classic collections to the newer stuff and for all age ranges. Take a look at what I checked out (literally!) and tell me what you think of my selection in the comments.


Marvel Adventures: The Avengers Vol. 4 — Weirder and Wilder (by writer Jeff Parker and artist Leonard Kirk)

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers Vol. 7 — The Dream Team (Parker and Ig Guara)

JLA: The Hypothetical Woman (Gail Simone and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez)

Rasl Vol. 1: The Drift (Jeff Smith)

Goats: Infinite Typewriters (Jonathan Rosenberg)

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 — The Authorized Adaptation (Bradbury and Tim Hamilton)

Jack Kirby's The Losers (Kirby)

Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter (Stark and Darwyn Cooke)


I'm probably looking forward to reading those last two the most, though I've got to admit the Satanic chicken of Goats has its own special kind of gravitational pull.

And for the record, yes, I do read books without pictures, too. Especially when I come across something called I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President (Josh Lieb). A title like that is catnip, I tells ya.