Beyond the Beano
Apr. 27th, 2007 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelkI’ve been wondering what this Golden Compass soon-to-be–movie was that’s been inspiring all the memes. Rather bafflingly it turns out to be the American title for the first book in Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. While it’s almost understandable why publishers with a low opinion of the American audience’s erudition might have changed the title of the first Harry Potter book from The Philosopher’s to The Sorcerer’s Stone how on earth is The Golden Compass less obscure or off-putting than Northern Lights?
It’s tempting to re-read the book but reading is so hard on the eyes these days. Really ought to suck it up and test for a new prescription or, segue alert, try sticking to comic books. Since, on the strength of the second Buffy S8 instalment, I went and ordered the Astonishing X-Men trades.
The first one Gifted was mostly “meet the people” while the second Dangerous got bogged down somewhat in “Artificial Intelligence 101” and the inevitable daddy issues but the third Torn was gut-wrenchingly brilliant and also built on so many passing moments and flip asides from the first two that I love them both in retrospect and can’t wait for the next instalment to come out. Comics seem to impose a very concentrated form of storytelling, nothing wasted from programming mistakes that turn out not to be metaphors to running jokes about Logan and beer.
Another real strength of Astonishing was the diversity of female characters. I liked Hank from the beginning and Scott by the end, but my heart belongs to Emma and, since she went all feral saving her hallucinatory slug-baby, Kitty. In addition to the X-women there’s Doctor Rao with the mutant cure for her surrogate daughter and Agent Brand. Brand looked like a stock military-industrial complex antagonist until she began snarking at the “states the obvious” alien psychics and even dumber sidekicks. You really can’t get the staff these days. I hear she’s going face-to-face with our heroes in the next issue, could be good times to come.
On the other hand I’m not tempted much by the previews for Spike:Shadowpuppets. It is interesting the way the art is more cinematic than for the Buffy books mirroring the differences in the way the two shows were shot. BtVS in 4:3 more domestic but also less predictable, more liable to break out of the box. I wonder what a comic equivalent of a musical might be.
It’s tempting to re-read the book but reading is so hard on the eyes these days. Really ought to suck it up and test for a new prescription or, segue alert, try sticking to comic books. Since, on the strength of the second Buffy S8 instalment, I went and ordered the Astonishing X-Men trades.
The first one Gifted was mostly “meet the people” while the second Dangerous got bogged down somewhat in “Artificial Intelligence 101” and the inevitable daddy issues but the third Torn was gut-wrenchingly brilliant and also built on so many passing moments and flip asides from the first two that I love them both in retrospect and can’t wait for the next instalment to come out. Comics seem to impose a very concentrated form of storytelling, nothing wasted from programming mistakes that turn out not to be metaphors to running jokes about Logan and beer.
Another real strength of Astonishing was the diversity of female characters. I liked Hank from the beginning and Scott by the end, but my heart belongs to Emma and, since she went all feral saving her hallucinatory slug-baby, Kitty. In addition to the X-women there’s Doctor Rao with the mutant cure for her surrogate daughter and Agent Brand. Brand looked like a stock military-industrial complex antagonist until she began snarking at the “states the obvious” alien psychics and even dumber sidekicks. You really can’t get the staff these days. I hear she’s going face-to-face with our heroes in the next issue, could be good times to come.
On the other hand I’m not tempted much by the previews for Spike:Shadowpuppets. It is interesting the way the art is more cinematic than for the Buffy books mirroring the differences in the way the two shows were shot. BtVS in 4:3 more domestic but also less predictable, more liable to break out of the box. I wonder what a comic equivalent of a musical might be.