Black Church

...Farewell happy fields

Where joy for ever dwells: hail horrors, hail

Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell

Receive thy new possessor...

Paradise Lost: I:249-252

Praise Belanger, from whom this comic flows;

Praise him all readers here below;

Praise him above, ye big publishers two;

Praise him editors, helpers, and printers too.

So begins one’s induction into the Black Church, a self-published 40 page mini comic by Andy Belanger that can be summarized as follows: 

Holding snake and skull, topless Kelda (a harsh iron maiden) adorns the cover while the skulls of killers surrounded her feet; the back cover contains the number of the beast while within the book Vlad battles a bear for piece of mind; a powerslave bishop seek to forestall the seed of Vlad, (to be born somewhere in time, a true seventh son of a seventh son that offers no prayer for the dying nor has any fear of the dark); Vlad’s son, Dracula, will be powered by some internal dark X factor, whose power level goes to a virtual XI, to usher in a brave new world with his dance of death; the Bishop frets over a matter of life and death in Wallachia and fears the final frontier. Come on you Irons!

The story contains a coffin-full of fun with its take on a Dracula (even though he appears only in zygote form) story. When reading and ruminating upon Andy Belanger’s tale, the question kept recurring of what services Black Church offers that can’t be obtained at The house of ideas or the aisles of DC.  What does the Black Church provide that you can’t obtain in another congregation?

Quite a lot actually, and it all starts with the presentation.

Andy Belanger has a great package. The display and delivery of the comic comes bound in a snug fitting sleeve colored with Satan’s preferred colored scheme.

Black Church Legends and Lore: Rumors have surfaced that Belanger mixed his own blood with the dye for the sleeves. 

The tyranny of rectangles maintains tight clutches on the published shape of comics. While rectangles read well, the novelty of a square comic (in shape, not savviness) adds to the unique experience of reading Black Church. While I suspect printing and shipping this geometric oddity must have summoned undreamed of horrors with the post office, the originality and effect was enjoyed (at least by one reader).

Black Church Legends and Lore: If you face a mirror while holding the front comic cover of Black Church upside down, you can trace a pentagram onto the mirror following the triangular lines of flame and snake. That night, if you leave the pentagram on the mirror and have used the appropriate ink, a miniature Andy Belanger will crawl through the center of the pentagram and answer any questions you have about the comic. Be sure to have wine, coffee, and a variety of snacks.

Lest you fear this comic is about surface with no substance (all style and no content), rest your worries, the metal spikes bite deep and true.

Despite the presence of sin, witches, and demonic sperm, Black Church (in the vein of the best metal bands) sports vaudevillian flairs and contains some fine humor. Dracula’s daddy wears a robust and wild Tony Iommi moustache, Bruce Dickinson chest hair, and Ozzy Osborne locks. The dialogue retains a natural speech rhythm (fragments, short expressions and questions, utilitarian sentences and word groups that clearly convey meaning).

After falling off a cliff during their fight, Vlad and the bear look at one another in the best Looney Toon fashion.   The humor extends to dialogue as well. After killing the bear, Vlad and Kelda say to one another:

Kelda: “I’ll get you fixed up, but no funny stuff.”

Vlad: What do you mean? I’m really good at jokes.

Kelda: No no, get fresh, you know.

Vlad: “Fresh?” Oh right.”

A healthy flow of good cheer and tongue-in-cheek toughness courses through the panels.

Black Church Legends and Lore: Rumors have surfaced of readers who have read a certain page of dialogue backwards during a full moon in a chalk circle have been able to summon and control a demon newt.

While colors dazzle the eye, glorious black and white rarely fails to transfix the cornea. Resisting the obvious analogy of black and white representing good and evil, a reader should know this comic is all black, doused with inverted crosses, hairy skulls, demon-headed maps, witches, snakes, bats, the devil’s number, and serpentine sex. The black and white color scheme provides  a complexity, a depth and wide range of exploration for the possibilities of two colors. Whereas a full chromatic palette may charm momentarily, here the black and white draws awe with the plethora of variations achieved with two extremes.

Black Church Legends and Lore: According to rumors whispered in waiting lines at comic book conventions, Andy Belanger sacrificed the soul of a cartoon llama he created for a newspaper syndicate to guarantee the success of Black Church.

Bleanger’s care for the media (comics and metal) blaze on every page of this comic. Here you'll find a combination of elements undreamed of (well ok, at least unpublished) at the big two or any other publisher. So if you've ever laughed at a horror movie, if the volume on your radio always rests at 11, and if you know who Paul Di'Anno is, you won't be displeased by your purchase of Black Church. 

 The Playlist:

“Murders in the Rue Morgue” Iron Maiden

“Hooks in You” Iron Maiden

“The Family Ghost” King Diamond

“Living After Midnight” Judas Priest

“The Warp Riders” The Sword

“Paranoid” Black Sabbath

***An enjoyable trait of heavy metal bands (for me anyway) were the rumors, outrageous stunts, and acts that became attached to them. The Black Church Legends and Lore are totally fabricated from my twisted comic-book metal-pocked mind. Please don’t believe them. Please don’t try them at home. Please don’t send sacrificial corpses to Andy Belanger. He seems like a really nice guy, and besides, he needs time to work on Mad Priest! (the sequel to Black Church) and can’t be bothered with police investigations, exorcisms, or demon possession.

****Add to the Black Church Legends and Lore. Please place your totally false and fabricated rumor in the notes below, the stranger (and funnier) the better.

Supergods Telling Stories

Supergods Review

“We live in the stories we tell ourselves” (Morrison xvii).

“Are you a god?”

If you’re talking to Gozar the Gozarian, answer yes.

If Gozar questions you further, use sections of Grant Morrison’s Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville can Teach Us about Being Human to provide some support for your hasty apotheosis. Although be warned that the divine powers which Morrison claims humanity possess tend to be better suited for mundane matters rather than celestial fisticuffs. If you still end up in a fight with Gozar, you might want to make peace with your preferred deity. You also might want to resist the urge to think of marshmallow icons.

Supergods, like its topic, possesses a secret identity. It addresses what superheroes can teach humanity, as promised in the title, by presenting its lecture through the structure of Grant Morrison’s biography rather than a formal jargon-laden academic treatise. While perhaps not living up to all the superlatives on the back cover, the book is engaging and contains some worthwhile thought-provoking tenets on superheroes and the nature of time and reality (these are the sections where the book becomes rather odd).

The 480 page trade paperback, sporting the cover of a cut-out Batman mask sized for a shrunken head, is divided into four parts: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Dark Age and The Renaissance. Of the four sections, the metallic partitions give a history of comics, focusing exclusively on the superhero and contain perceptive and thoughtful readings of Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27 (where the Batman first appeared…in case your inner fanboy momentarily forgot the issue number), and The Fantastic Four #1. Spider-Man’s origin and Peter Parker’s woes, along with highlights from a young Grant Morrison’s life, also haunt these initial veins of the book. The two parts historiography shift almost exclusively to Grant Morrison’s personal experiences as he relays his involvement with comics and the trends of comics from the 80’s to the recent present[1]. 

Of superheroes, Morrison posits some probing ideas. He readily acknowledges the limitations and repetitions inherent in reading comic-book superhero titles, yet instead of denigrating this element of the genre, he presents the repetition as “It’s not so much that history is cyclical, it seems to progress via recursive, repeated fractal patters with minute variations” (294). While noting and accepting how ultimately, nothing major really changes in a superhero’s comic, Morrison also focuses on the limited alterations that brush characters in their books through a span of time. These momentary shifts in how a character is portrayed (like when Batman was paralyzed, or campy, or grim, or insane) Morrison suggests can be used as a sign of the anxieties and desires of the society that rendered this version of the superhero. Some variations in the Superman stories also adhere to this pattern; Morrison notes how in the late fifties “The socialist power fantasies, the jingoistic propaganda and gimmick adventures, gave way to cataclysmic tales of love and loss, guilt, grief, friendship, judgment, terror, and redemption, biblical in their scale and primal purity” (63). Morrison describes a later depiction of Superman as “Freed of the baggage of the past, eighties Superman was no longer your dad but your big sister’s horny beefcake boyfriend. He snarled and got torn up a little” (215). This consideration of subtle changes helps guide a reader to become a closer reader of superhero comics, or at least to start asking questions of why certain elements of a hero’s mythos are given greater emphasis while the hero’s core identity remains intact. Morrison’s positive focus on one of the often lamented aspect of superhero books (nothing changes) serves as a refreshing response, and nudges comic-book superheroes close to the pantheon of ancient gods. Myths of the ancient Greek gods (and the stories of Buddha, Shiva, Krishna, Jesus, Mohammad, God, Gozar the Gozarian, and others) don’t regularly change on a monthly, annually, centennially, or millennially schedule, so if the superhero is viewed as a society’s mythology, why should readers expect the tales of superheroes to contain continual metamorphoses?

Morrison asserts superhero comics provide more than just escapist fantasy[2]. They have some important work to do for humanity that goes beyond killing some time with pretty colors; “It was time they [superheroes] got their act together and gave us something to look up to” (294).

That “something” Morrison wants superheroes to model are stories that “…emphasize our [humanity’s] glory, intelligence, grace, generosity, discrimination, honesty, capacity for love,  creativity, and native genius, those qualities will be made manifest in our behavior and in our works. It should give us hope that superhero stories are flourishing everywhere because they are a bright flickering sign of our need to move on, imagine the better, the more just, and more proactive people we can be” (414). 

Before engaging in a Lex-Luthor sneer and cynical roll of the eyes in regards to the previous quote, consider the findings reported in The Boston Globe’s article “Why Fiction is Good for You.” The article notes the metamorphisizing power of a good story: 

“This research consistently shows that fiction does mold us.…We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape.…Fiction is often treated like a mere frill in human life, if not something worse. But the emerging science of story suggests that fiction is good for more than kicks. By enhancing empathy, fiction reduces social friction. At the same time, story exerts a kind of magnetic force, drawing us together around common values. In other words, most fiction, even the trashy stuff, appears to be in the public interest after all.”

Morrison’s view on heroes, giving them both the role to mirror society and to model a superior society through encouraging and empowering readers fits current studies in fiction. And while the static elements of superhero comics often become vexing, Morrison’s work reminds readers that there are variations (if only momentary) and creativity that occur within the boundaries and parameters of a superhero’s chronicle. For a subgenre of comics so often targeted for jokes and derision, these stories transcend the immediate plot and empower readers an opportunity to contemplate their society and adjust their views and behaviors so their souls can soar up up and away.

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[1] Somehow I missed reading Grant Morrison during my initial deluge of comic books during the late eighties and early nineties. When beginning to read I was a Marvelite feeding heavily on superhero fare (Thor, Ghost Rider, Punisher, X-Men, Namor, and (yes, although I cringe to admit it) even Alf). Obviously my reading sensitivity and interest in comics weren’t up to the antics in Grant Morrison’s writing. After a bowing out and return to comics a dozen years later, I somehow again missed his work. From the ideas and explanations in Supergods (and thanks to my comic store’s stock of collected trades) I’ve been reading his work on Doom Patrol while eagerly awaiting All-Star Superman. Surely an author’s book that causes a reader to buy more of that author’s work has to count as some sort of literary success…or an unique form of printed mind control….

[2] Continually I ask myself why I read comics, especially superhero comics. While at times, elements of escapism and nostalgia tinge my reading of the panels, more often it’s the generation of a sense of wonder and imagination comics (especially superhero and science comics…for me anyway) provide. Comics are crucibles of creativity, banes to the mundane and routers of soul-wearying routines. They contain sparks of the sublime. Comic books stand as pulp pills for astonishment.

Conan the Barbarian #6: The Argos Deception Part 3

In Supergods, Grant Morrison writes "It's not so  much that history is cyclical, it seems to progress via recursive, repeated, fractal patterns with minute variations" (294).

While Conan the Barbarian #6 concludes the arc of the "Argos Deception," it also hearkens back to the beginning of Wood's run on the series and positions the plot for a future story to fall into this fractal pacing. Such structure unites the previous issues and weaves a strong structure for Brian Wood's Conan compositions.

So far in "The Argos Deception," Bêlit and her crew plan and execute a scheme to rob the port of Messantia by offering Conan as public-execution bait. While the populace assembles around the chopping block, the crew of the Tigress procure treasure (pirate style), give Conan a fighting chance, and then set the town afire (also pirate style) and wait aboard the ship for Bêlit, Conan, and N'Yaga to embark so they can sail a swift escape against the scenery of a setting sun.

It seems simple.

Of course it doesn't go as plan.

Even though enough edged and blunt trauma occur to provide a plethora of cadavers to Argos's medical students, this action serves solely as the McGuffin; the deeper focus of the issue transpires in Conan's head where he again, with a fractal reflection to previous issues, contemplates his freedom, love, and loyalty wound within his relation to Bêlit. This relation seems simple, but of course Conan's unsure of the plan. 

Wood reroutes the reader back to issue while Conan revels in his freedom slipping through the streets atop a horse thinking, "And for the second time in a few short weeks, the Cimmerian rides the streets of Messantia...but this ride could not be more different. He rides with passion and purpose. He rides to reunite with his lover and her crew of loyal followers. He rides to his future. But is this his future, he wonders?...He doubts himself suddenly." By having the narrator relay Conan's thoughts, Wood reminds readers of the first issue, and issue 5 that contained hefty doses of the barbarian's self doubt. 

Wood interweaves another recursive strand by conveying Conan's concern regarding his relation with Bêlit,"And in that moment, Conan the Cimmerian realizes something else...he is a free man. He is not tied to the Tigress. He is not beholden to anyone. He is as free as he was the last time he was on horseback...that thrilling chase through the streets. He could not help but laugh as he rose, even with the guards behind. Surely he could feel that way again? Why not just ride as he did before, but away, off to an unknown future?" It seems simple, but these narrator boxes have Wood returning Conan (and readers) to events in earlier issues. These rebounds seem to exceed a basic hack-and-slash plot-plan for issue 6. Wood has some sneaky subtext slipping slyly through issue 6. 

But why? Initially, this recursion and extended escape seems tedious and unnecessary,  but upon re-reading (and thinking while composing this post), these mental returns and repeats of Conan seem to serve several schemes beyond just providing a textual backdrop to James Harren's and Dave Stewart's revelings in panels replete with blood-gushing lacerations, decapitations, and penetrations of brutality. 

N'yaga's response to Conan's query of "Why not just ride as he did before, but away, off to an unknown future?" provide a parallel purpose to Conan's ride : "Conan. She chose you Conan. Do not despair. My mistress rules with terrible violence, but that is the law that governs in lawless lands. You know that. You are profoundly conflicted. And I say again, do not despair. There is another way, a path between the chaos and desolation...You can find the way to her heart. And you can understand her. And, in that, perhaps she will understand you too."

Learning and love are recursive. When understanding, at some initial level, is finally achieved, the entirety and full range of knowledge about the topic isn't known instantaneously.  In this detail of Conan's ride to a greater understanding, Wood deftly bolster's authenticity in portraying this young and inexperienced Conan in front of the readers. To thoroughly learn a lesson, the subject must be revisited and reflected upon to gather its full import and effect. It sounds simple, but of course it so often is not.

We're not treated to a verbal answer from the barbarian, to N'Yaga's urging towards understanding, but judging from the stern melancholy look on Conan's face and the fact that he perseveres in his hunt for Bêlit[1], the barbarian provides his answer. Through these recursive fractal reflections Wood cinches tighter the bond and believability of Conan and Bêlit's relationship. It seems simple, but such understanding demands repeated returns. 

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[1] …which is puzzling. How did Bêlit end up captured by two guards? When seen in the last issue, she had blood running down her demonic murder-eager face after knifing two high-ranking city guards. How could she be so easily captured by a pair of inept Messantian guards? Bêlit should be flossing her teeth with their arteries as she strolls back to the Tigress.

Mind MGMT #2

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and “Get” the Art

Despite my best efforts at an active stout resistance, Mind MGMT ensnared me with the brutal effectiveness of a Cold War Soviet style reeducation regiment in a Siberian gulag.

Matt Kindt controls all creative aspects of this book (story, art, color, letters) and coalesces them with such skill that, even with my extreme reservations and narrow and flawed expectations, I’ve become a convert. Fellow comic-book comrades, trust your comic book creators (especially independent creator-owners).

Mind MGMT relays the story of the journalist Meru as she treks from city to city searching for the allure of clay pots, and dolphins while being pursued by immortal assassins. Somehow mass memory loss, psionics, and secret organizations connect to integral parts of the plot too, but the details and roles of these elements remains very hazy. Ask again later.

How Love Arrives for a Hated Art:

Story indulges in a tantric relation with the art in this book.

A swift comic-shelf-browsing glance causes the art to strike the eyes as puerile with no sharp and consistent application of perspective and physical proportion (heads are too big, characters sport Muppet arms, and walls dissipate into flaccid ink washes). The lines are loose while details and characters appear to be laid on the page with sloppy and rushed swipes of the pen and brush.

But these reactions stem from an inept and fast 2-3 page glimpse of a book half-heartedly pulled from a shelf, and this loathing changes once I indulge in the story’s words.

Mind MGMT weaves an atmosphere of an existential noir detective tale. The mood of Mind MGMT could easily host Philip Marlowe drinking his morning coffee, or scotch. The works of John Shade and the brutality of Donald Westlake’s Parker could also coexist with Meru and the agencies of Mind MGMT.  Kindt weaves hard-edged desperation in his comic, through the apt collusion of images and words.

On pages 8-13 where Perrier (a mentally askew Mind MGMT agent) types and types and types and types Kerouac style on one continuous roll of paper through a typewriter until Meru’s arrival causes her to back over the balcony railing and pitch herself to the ground. Why? We don’t know. Meru’s reaction, after an initial scream of “No!,” involves asking “What is going on?” and sifting through Perrier’s typed scroll where she discovers the key command:  “Talk to the dolphins.” There’s little concern given towards Perrier, and far more questions raised rather than answered with this scene from issue 2.

This same feel of disregard and perplexity again is repeated on pages 20-21. A man watches Perrier plummet onto the pavement and the immortals enter the building while drinking espresso and smoking a cigarette before declaring “No, I’m out of those games” and then he walks away still possessing some hesitancy about his choice as show by Kindt’s 6 panel page with unvarying background.

Sharp clean bright color art would be out of place in this book. Instead of adding to the subtle oppression and confusion perpetuated by the plot, a style like Jim Lee’s work on the X-Men or Justice League would rob the reader of the full mind jolt of Mind MGMT. The surreal proportions of Kindt’s characters not only fit with the tone of the story, but actively work to enhance the story’s evocative power. The ink lines that initially struck me as hasty, when paired with the words and events in the panels have turned expressive and lively and add to the tension Meru feels as she dashes through the pages and propagates the paranoia that gnaws the mind when one begins questioning the reliability of one’s senses…or even when one reads about a character questioning the reliability of her senses. The skewed proportions and vanishing support lines in the art bolster the sinister sensation of the world not connecting or merging as expected.   

Gestalt theory’s “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” works wonders akin to Kool-Aid in Dixie cups at capturing and keeping an audience. The plot, the art, the dialogue, the characters, the colors, the presentation and meta-reading activities (Kindt offering a contest for finding planted clues in each issue will lead readers to a MindMGMT webpage) unite more tightly than any coupling described in the Kama Sutra to produce an ideal comic book reading experience. 

The Joys of Unknown Plots (in fiction)

While the absence of conventional art and spandex may not agitate most comic-book readers, the absence of a clear plot does tend to carry its own unique set of annoyances to an audience.  When the majority of questions about a story result in repeated replies of “I don’t know,” questioners may begin to suspect that they’re wasting time reading scrambled nonsense. While the plot to Mind MGMT proves difficult to relay, Kindt does a masterful job at giving the reader enough details to ground the story and orient the reader while leaving a plethora of questions and hints at plot possibilities to maintain his audience's curiosity and excitement.

The obscure elements of Mind MGMT stoke a sense of wonder and structure a world with labyrinthine potential. A page in Kindt’s comics calls to “[f]ollowers of obsolete unthinkable trades, doodling in Etruscan, addicts of drugs not yet synthesized, black marketers of World War III, excisors of telepathic sensitivity, osteopaths of the spirit, investigators of infractions denounced by bland paranoid chess players, servers of fragmentary warrants taken down in hebephrenic shorthand charging unspeakable mutilations of the spirit, officials of unconstituted police states, brokers of exquisite dreams and nostalgia tested on the sensitized cells of junk sickness and bartered for raw materials of the will, drinkers of the Heavy Fluid sealed in translucent amber of dreams” (45-46). A similar frantic and lyrical madness of both characters and ideas populate Mind MGMT as can be found in Burroughs’s Naked Lunch. Certainly the text may disturb, but, even if the eyes remain truculently closed, the unknown elements will engage and promise a myriad of prospects limited only by a reader’s own dreamy creativity.

Art and story meld into an ideal gestalt in a way that wouldn’t be possible with any other style than the one Kindt utilized for the pages of this comic book. Teased out and separated, neither art nor story could absorb a reader so completely. For the absorbed ones who feel Mind MGMT’s paranoia slouching them to madness, some proverbs for paranoids extracted from Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (the novel from which the title of this blog was plumbed) may sooth the mental distress caused by Kindt’s ongoing series:

1. You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.
2. The innocence of the creatures is in inverse proportion to the immorality of the Master.
3. If they cane get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.
4. You hide, they seek.
5. Paranoids are not paranoids because they’re paranoid, but because they keep putting themselves, fucking idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations.

X-Men # 31: Blank Generation Part 2

Speak X-Men #31 Speak! [1]

What transpires here? Why bother congesting the cyberspace sprawl with another comic book review blog? Posts at The Low-Frequency Listener[2] hope to highlight aspects of a comic that might escape an initial reading. Hopefully, awareness of previously overlooked features will enhance a reader’s perception and add to the appreciation and enjoyment of the comic book.

With such ideas in mind, I found myself holding X-Men # 31, wondering what could possibly be written about this book. Upon re-reading (and re-re-reading it again and again), the book itself provided the answers to my questions:

L-FL: Why did I just spend $3.99 on this 20 page story interrupted with too many advertisements?

X-Men #31: Because I’m worth it! Brian Wood wrote me! In this issue Wood provides a grand story ranging broadly (a new strain of mutant DNA reveals a new species of mutants) while not losing its focus on individual characters (Storm debates what information to withhold (or lie, depending on one's understanding) from Scott Summers). Also, Colossus tussles a giant mutant squid beast, Domino hits her target while clinging to the outside of a jet, and Psylocke chases an ever-growing mutant stomping towards Quebec City. Even though the story spans a mere 20 pages, it doesn’t “feel” short or skimpy. A fine variety for comic book reading rests between these covers; if you want greater depth, read Against the Day.

L-FL: Ok yes, the story is good, but how’s the art?

X-Men #31: Do you need to ask? Have you looked within my stapled pages?

David López (pencils) and Álvard López (inks) provide clear panels that clearly depict the occurring events at a glance. The compositions are concise, clear, and accessible. The characters radiate a sense of movement and motion that López conveys with the character positioning (note how Storm is off balance with the other characters in the top panel on the page to the right) and subtly tilting the frame (note how the top panel is slightly askew). These techniques combined with the action of the plot help readers imagine the characters in action.

 And the expressions on the faces! Look on page 27 (counting the ads...or you can just look at the page to the left of these words...) at the bottom panel with Psylocke. Sorrow, concern, perhaps a bit of fear exude from he expression. Her head's slight downward tilt accompanying the mere 7 short lines that mark the brow, and the 6 lines  beneath each eye immediately convey Psylocke's reaction to her brain scan of the alien…and her findings are dire…although to learn about those findings fully, you need to buy the next issue.

L-FL: Keeping on the idea of the art for a bit, I noticed a lot of the backgrounds in the panels are pretty sparse.

X-Men #31: Yeah, but come on, this is an action comic, not a Victorian romance adaptation. If your interest resides with an abundance of detailed minutia about furniture, indulge yourself in The Spoils of Poynton.

Consider those sparse panels on page 4. The fight’s taking place in the ocean, and unless you’re amidst icebergs or an invasion fleet, ocean scenery doesn't vary much, so the sunset color washes fit the environment. Also, the absence of details brings the action and the characters to the foreground. Come on, you’re reading an X-Men comic, do you want to see Colossus punch a monster, or do you want to look at cross-hatchings on a cloud?

López can and does provide intricate backgrounds when needed (the need comes from providing a clear location to the reader  that the writer conveys, and solidly grounding and positioning the characters in some specific location). Look on page 20 (counting ads...or just glance to the right); the details of the forest fill the top panel. You can count the leaves, if that’s really what you want from a comic. A clear setting is established yet the details give way to the characters and their reactions. In 5 of the six panels, trees appear to ground the location. If every panel contained every tree in the Canadian forest, the page's composition would clutter and wash away. The unfilled negative space within the panels  make the entire page a striking image. Take care that you don’t miss the page because of the panels.

L-FL: Why is this Storm the perfect Storm?

X-Men #31: Because she is awesome. Storm exerts a strong confidence in her leadership and care for the mutants she commands. Her struggle with what information to reveal to Scott Summers, and her motivations behind withholding information, add to her savvy sense of leadership and give her a bit of a rebellious and independent urge without utter anarchy. Her consideration of future consequences add to her leadership allure.  Plus, she likes and trusts graduate students, which always ingratiates an individual with me.

L-FL: When is issue #32 on sale?

X-Men #31: July 18th. Now please read through me again, and let that Silva guy know he’s missing a fine story…unless he wants to pick up issues 30 and 31….   

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[1] X-Men #31 marks the first Marvel book Marvel reviewed at The Low-Frequency Listener, a different approach seemed fitting. The title was adapted from Jonathan Lethem’s essay “Speak, Hoyt-Schermerhorn: Doom and Romance on a Subway Platform.” which is well worth the read, along with the other essays in the collection The Disappointment Artist.

[2] Keith Silva at Interested in Sophisticated Fun? encouraged me to start this blog. I couldn’t have done it without his kind words and assistance; thank you Keith.

My first fanboy teeth cut themselves on Marvel comics. With this current resurgence of comic book indulgence I kept looking for Marvel works to captivate and fire my imagination once again…wanting to cry “Make mine Marvel!” and needing only an excuse of a good book for the cry. But the house of ideas appears less astonishing from those heady days of reading Thor #416. Interest smoldered briefly with Rick Remender and Jerome Opeña’s Uncanny X-Force but after Opeña no longer helmed the illustrations I left the title. Daredevil, without Paolo Rivera couldn’t  command my attention.  But X-Men 30 and 31 have me impatiently awaiting the forthcoming issues. And while I don’t think I’ll ever again be able to cry “Make mine Marvel!” with clear consciousness (friend Silva has sworn off all big two titles), I will gladly cheer and laud the Wood, López , López and Rosenberg X-Men. Independent creators (Wood and Remender) bring a fresh freedom and verve to the Marvel titles, and Wood’s work on X-Men has me hooked. Silva, man, you’re missing out on this one….