No surprise that Statler and Waldorf, the two Muppets who sit in the back and make fun of the efforts of the other Muppets are a comics bloggers favorites, is it? The crudely drawn comic book in their crudely drawn hands is, of course, The Muppet Show #1, the first issue of Boom’s four-part miniseries by Roger Langridge. It’s really quite something, and I’d recommend anyone interested in comics as a medium at least give it a flip-through this week, regardless of your feelings about the original Muppet show, if only to see how Langridge takes live-action television puppets into comics (I’ll have an actual, formal review this weekend).
If Muppets, Langridge and the ways different media can present aspects of one another don’t do anything for you, well, I’m sure there are plenty of other comics coming out this week. Let’s take a look at some of the more noteworthy, shall we?
Amazing Spider-Man #589: Now featuring the greatest Spider-Man villain of them all—The Spot! And written by Fred Van Lente and penciled by Paulo Siqueira. Yeah, the same Fred Van Lente who was writing Wolverine: First Class. But don’t worry, the very best Wolverine comic is in pretty good hands even if they’re not Van Lente’s. This week’s Wolverine: First Class #13 is scripted by Peter David.
American Jesus Vol. 1: Chosen: Don’t recognize the title? That may just be because they changed it. This is Mark Millar and Peter Gross’ 2004 miniseries about a teenage boy who thinks he just may be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, since he’s able to perform Jesus’ miracles. If the words “Millar” and “Jesus” in the same sentence scares you, I should note this was back during his multiple-publisher “Millarworld” project, with Wanted and The Unfunnies. Chosen was the best of the lot, and originally published by Dark Horse. It was before Mark Millar wasn’t quite as…Mark Millary as he is now. They’ve added the “American Jesus,” and also the ”Vol. 1″ to the title, which seems to promise MIllar will get back to the narrative at some point in the near future and follow up on the soft cliffhanger at the end of the mini.It’s 72-pages for $9.99.
A Drifting Life: This is definitely the release of the week, if not the month, or year so far. This is the massive, 40-year-old kinda sorta autobiography of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, the influential Japanese artist whose short works have been collected, translated and released on this side of the Pacific by Drawn and Quarterly as The Push Man and Other Stories, Abandon the Old in Tokyo and Good-bye. It’s a whopping 840-pages long, and will cost you $29.95. Have a look at the preview here.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1: Legacy: Prior to reading this series, I knew nothing about the GoG concept or any of the characters involved or Marvel’s outer space settings in general. So if writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (Or “Dandy Labnetting,” as the tabloids call them) were able to make me care about a team consisting of a grab bag of old Marvel characters like an antennaed ex-Avenger, an anthropomorphic raccon, a tree monster and some space-based superheroes, well, I assume that means they wrote an extremely accessible superhero/sci fi comic book. And that if you already know and like characters like Adam Warlock and Gamora, it’s even more awesome. This trade paperback collects the first six issues of the new-ish series, weighing in at 144 Paul Pelletier-penciled pages for $16.99.
The Incredibles: Family Matters #1: This is Boom’s other big licensed all-ages titles this week, the first issue of a new four-part miniseries written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Marcio Takara. It should come as no surprise that Waid, who wrote a well-regarded run on Fantastic Four, the immediate ancestor of the Incredibles, and recently did a family-focused revamp of The Flash, is on extremely sure-footing when it comes to a story about a family of superheroes. Which makes it a bit of a shame that Boom is having trouble deciding if they’re in the business of telling stories or producing collectibles: This first issue has five (5) different covers, four inter-connecting ones by Michael Avon Oeming that spell out the word “Incredibles,” with a character or two posed around each syllable, none of which look like a complete image all on their own, and a fifth by Mike Mignola.
Oracle: The Cure #1: Batman may be taking it easy, working on his artwork back in caveman days, but the Gordon family is still busy battling crime in Gotham. Barbara Gordon gets a three-issue miniseries with a provocative (read: alarming) sub-title that kicks off this week, by the team of Kevin VanHook, Don Kramer and Jay Leisten (with covers by Guillem March). Her dad Commissioner James Gordon gets his own one-shot, in the cumbersomely titled Batman: Battle for the Cowl—Commissioner Gordon, by Royal McGraw and Tom Mandrake (with a cover by Ladronn). And if you need to see Batman this week, don’t worry, there will be new issues of Batman: Gotham After Midnight, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Trinity.
Showcase Presents: Ambush Bug Vol. 1: From the solicitation, it sure looks like this is every single Ambush Bug-starring comic up until the just-finished series by creator Keith Giffen. Here’s 480-pages of DC parody comics for just $16.99. God, I love Showcase Presents…
The Tick: The Complete Edlund: And speaking of huge collections of superhero parody comics starring a bug-themed protagonist, the Ben Edlund’s dozen Tick comics and other works fill out this 400-page, $35 collection.
X-Force/Cable: Messiah War Prologue: I think this is a pretty big deal if you like the X-Men, right? I read the solicitation on marvel.com , and it sounds a lot like every Cable story to me—mutantkind’s survival, Apocalypse, the future, event of the decade—but then not only am I not an X-Men fan, I’m functionally X-Men illiterate. It’s a $3.99 one-shot written by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost and penciled by Mike Choi. There should be at least three covers, and one of them is by Rob Liefeld, who has drawn the smallest Cable gun of his career, I think.
March 24th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Does Cable have an underbite in that Liefeld variant?
Also look closely at Cable’s right hand… it’s disappeared behind Wolverine’s head. It should be poking out from somewhere if he had a normal-sized arm. My guess is either Wolverine’s head is a vacuum in which nothing can escape or Cable’s forearm is half as short as it should be.
March 24th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Didn’t Complete Edlund come out a few months ago?
It’s been sitting (still unread, but nearing the top of the pile) on my nightstand since late December!
March 24th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Wait, hasn’t the last issue of Ambush Bug still not been released? What’s up with that? Will there be a sixth issue?
I DEMAND ANSWERS!!!!!
March 24th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
What… Are you trying to say that Liefeld’s “art” is sucks? Nah, couldn’t be.
Anyhow, I didn’t know about PAD writing the new issue of Wolverine: First Class. I don’t buy every issue, but I’ve bought several of them since that book started. I agree with Caleb that it’s the best Wolvie book out there, and that’s honestly saying something considering how many books he appears in. I’ll definitely check #13 out.
I’m on the fence about both The Incredibles and The Muppet Show. I love them both, and I’d like to support anything that helps keep The Incredibles alive (C’mon Pixar… Scrap Cars 2 and make the movie people REALLY want to see) and helps put The Muppets back in the spotlight. But… Neither of the previews I saw really flipped my swtich. I guess I’ll peruse them both at my LCS and see what I think. I can probably live without either one, but I’d like them to be good.
March 24th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Hah! Love the Waldorf & Statler comic up at the top.
March 24th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Yeah, the Statler and Waldorf sketch was great. Nice work, Caleb!
Speaking of, I get kinda sad whenever I’ve seen those two Muppets over the last decade or (almost) two. Both Jim Henson and Richard Hunt are gone and they just don’t sound right with other voices coming out of their mouths.
I guess it’s why, while I don’t think I see myself buying the comic, I hope it’s good and it finds its audience. It’s been too long since there’s been any “magic” where the Muppets are concerned.
March 24th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
The art and writing I’ve seen for the Muppet Show comic is, frankly, pretty awful. Even taking nostalgia into account, I can’t see myself wanting any part of it. Gonzo looks like a buzzard and Miss Piggy looks like Babe with hair extensions. As for the writing…meh. Kinda too cornball. I’ll save my 3 bucks for the Incredibles, and I totally agree with Shaun about another movie about the superhero family. (And feh to Cars 2; I nearly fell asleep during the first one. It’s a shame Pixar caved to creating an unnecessary sequel just because the original film merchandised so well.
March 24th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
My 14-year-old don grabbed my copy of Showcase Presents Ambush Bug and sat there, reading it cover to cover all afternoon. Laughing the whole time. That was so cool to see. (I received a review copy)
March 24th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Urrgghh. That’s “son” not “don.”
March 25th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Don’t worry Kat Kan, my grasp of the English language looks a bit suspect in my first posting on this topic. “..is sucks”? WTF was that?? I was thinking “is sh*t,” I think, and then decided on “sucks” instead and it all got mangled. Such is life when you’re an ADHD child and can’t be bothered to edit yourself.
But my point about Liefeld stands.
@ Roger: While I can’t wait for Toy Story 3 (or this year’s Up for that matter), I don’t think any Pixar creation is more ripe for growth and continuation than The Incredibles. It just worked on every level, and it probably doesn’t get enough credit for raising the bar for superhero/comic book inspired films.
As it is, it’s the best Fantastic Four movie ever made, and it was a better, more fun adaptation of Watchmen than the Watchmen movie itself (not to mention a “Watchmen” for the whole family).
As for the Muppets… The review over on the main page was great, so who knows? I’ll take a peek when I hit the LCS today. There were a lot of corny jokes back on the show itself, so I can tolerate that, but I wonder if that old “Muppet magic” can honestly come across in the funny books. If it can, then Disney should sign the writer up and launch an all-new Muppet Show. Why not? They aren’t doing much with the characters right now anyway…
March 25th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I guess you could argue that The Incredibles was an adaptation of Watchmen if you only watched the first half hour of it, but by the end it’s hard to imagine two works more philosophically opposed.
Really, The Incredibles boils down to a family friendly version of Ayn Rand more than anything Alan Moore ever wrote.
March 25th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
@ Dave: There’s a great article/review of Watchmen (the movie) that was posted here maybe two weeks ago, and it made its case effectively. I could try to find it later (I’m leaving work in 20 minutes though, and Lost is on tonight so I doubt I’ll get to it).
Anyhoo… Along with the whole heroes forced into retirement theme, The Incredibles deconstructs superheroes every bit as much Watchmen does. It just tells a very different story in doing it. Personally, seeing what an influence Watchmen (the book) has had on pop culture for more than two decades – including The Incredibles – for me at least it really rendered the idea of a Watchmen movie kind of pointless. It wasn’t so much that Watchmen couldn’t be filmed, it was more that a Watchmen really wasn’t needed in 2009. We’ve seen its influence play out in so many other places.
But, alas, I digress. All I was really saying here was that there deserves to be another Incredibles film, far more than another Cars movie. I looked at the Incredbiles comic when I went to the LCS over lunch and it just wasn’t in the same league as the movie. Sort of the opposite of how I felt about Watchmen the book vs. Watchmen the movie? The Incredibles comic just felt superfluous.
March 25th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Here’s the original blog posting Caleb did, with a link to the review I mentioned:
http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/03/14/linkaramanewsarama-44/