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Alan Moore’s Jerusalem Arrives Next Week

Alan Moore’s Jerusalem Arrives Next Week

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Alan Moore is one of the most celebrated writers of the last 30 years. His most famous work — including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell, Batman: The Killing Joke, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — is arguably the canonical literature of modern comics. And let’s face it, whether you’re a comics reader or not, the most valuable media properties on the planet today (Batman, Iron Man, Superman, X-Men, Spider-Man, Captain America, and Deadpool, just to name a handful) all trace their first seminal steps into the world of adult literature directly to the early comics of Alan Moore.

Jerusalem is — by far — Moore’s most ambitious work. Among comics fans it has acquired an almost legendary status, as Moore has been working on it — and dropping cryptic hints about it — for roughly a decade. In his 2012 review of Moore’s first novel, Voice of the Fire, Matthew David Surridge summarized some of the anticipation surrounding Jerusalem.

How do you follow a book like this? Moore’s currently working on his second novel, Jerusalem. It’s scheduled for publication in autumn of 2013; reports suggest it’ll be 750,000 words long (about the length of two volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire put together), be set entirely in an area of a few city blocks in Moore’s home of Northampton, and, according to Moore, disprove the existence of death. It’ll be concerned with time, different chapters set in different eras; like Voice of the Fire, it seems. What transformations will we see in it? How different will it be? Voice of the Fire‘s a strong book that, in its ellipses, promises more. Now that we shall have. What spirits shall we see? What work shall it accomplish?

At 1280 pages, one thing’s for certain: Jerusalem certainly delivers more. What’s it about, then? Well, that’s sort of hard to describe.

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Blogging Marvel’s Master of Kung-Fu, Part Three

Blogging Marvel’s Master of Kung-Fu, Part Three

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Master_of_Kung_Fu_Vol_1_22Giant-Size_Master_of_Kung_Fu_Vol_1_2Master of Kung Fu #22 sees the welcome return of artist Paul Gulacy who came and went a bit in these early issues. The first half of the story sees Shang-Chi set upon by Si-Fan assassins at a Chinese restaurant in New York before infiltrating his father’s skyscraper base of operations. Fu Manchu has captured both Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Black Jack Tarr. Shang-Chi stows away aboard Fu Manchu’s private jet unaware of their destination. Once on the ground, he follows as his father’s minions lead their captives to a cave in the side of a mountain which has been filled with dynamite. Shang-Chi rescues the two Englishmen and prevents the detonation which would have seen Fu Manchu kill his archenemy in the same instant he destroyed Mount Rushmore. Doug Moench, like Steve Englehart before him, has an embarrassment of riches that are largely squandered with insufficient page count to fully develop his narrative. This would soon change, however, and make the series one of the finest published in the 1970s.

Most of Marvel’s Giant-Size quarterly titles were throwaways, much like too many of their special Annual editions, but Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu #2 was a 40-page epic designed to showcase both the character of Shang-Chi and the talents of the series’ writer and artist, respectively. Doug Moench had been harboring a desire to address racism and bigotry directly and a series with an Asian protagonist gave him the perfect forum to do so. Paul Gulacy now had the freedom to display martial arts fighting as well as moving displays of romance and longing relying solely on the power of his images in a string of panels that conveyed storytelling free of words. Even more significant is the fact that Gulacy’s depictions of lust and attraction never pandered to titillation as the artist evinced a mature understanding of the art form’s possibility. The fact that he was strongly influenced by cinema and Steranko’s pop art work of the 1960s take nothing away from the fact that Gulacy was coming into his own as an artist with this title.

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Heavy Metal Lyrics, Sword & Sorcery Fantasy and Video Games: A Cultural Synergy by Dr. Fred Adams

Heavy Metal Lyrics, Sword & Sorcery Fantasy and Video Games: A Cultural Synergy by Dr. Fred Adams

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Fred_SpaceInvadersLast year, Dr Fred C. Adams, Ph.D., joined our parade of writers in the Discovering Robert E. Howard series with an entry on Esau Cairn, REH’s classic science fiction character. Dr. Adams is back for another guest post here at Black Gate. Put on your headphones and go!

The parallel (and almost simultaneous) ascensions of heavy metal music, video game technology (which later migrated to personal computers), and sword and sorcery fantasy to mass popularity from the early 1970s forward are not coincidental. Rather, they are synergistic. All three draw from the late 20th century youth culture’s fatalism and nihilism, honed to a fine edge in the fin de siècle era of the 1990s.

Consider the aesthetic of the Ur-arcade-video game of the 1980s, Space Invaders: ranks of grotesque aliens march across the screen as space ships fly overhead firing missiles. You, represented by a screen icon, scuttle back and forth, trapped in a small area firing and dodging missiles while trying to destroy the oncoming ranks of invaders before they reach you and symbolically stomp you into the earth.

The more you destroy, the more ranks appear, starting closer and advancing more quickly. You can forestall death for a time, but the denouement is inevitable. You will lose; the programming foreordains that you will die no matter how well or how long you fight. Other games of the era, like Missile Command, and Asteroids followed suit.

An occasional arcade game like Dragonquest allowed victory, but most reduced play to a life-and-death struggle the player will never win. The kill tally represents the only satisfaction—how many of them do I take with me? As the Time Traveler of Wells’ famous novel says of fighting an impossible number of Morlocks in the darkened forest, “I will make them pay for their meat.”

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The Flaw in Everything: Warren Ellis’ Karnak the Shatterer

The Flaw in Everything: Warren Ellis’ Karnak the Shatterer

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karnak2cov-e50d0It’s the best part of the reading experience to run across a story with a new voice. Warren Ellis, of The Authority and Transmetropolitan fame, has assumed various voices, but I love his newest one: the narrative perspective of Marvel’s Karnak the Shatterer, a character associated with the Inhumans.

The Inhumans, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, have been around since The Fantastic Four was in double-digits. Some of you may recall that Karnak is the one with the big head and the super-effective karate chops because his special talent is finding the structural flaws in things.

(Although, to be accurate, Karnak isn’t technically an Inhuman because was never exposed to the Terrigen mists — bring that up at a dinner party for a No-Prize!)

Over the years, Karnak’s powers and perceptions have expanded to include seeing the flaws in arguments, concepts, and people. His greatest achievement is finding the flaw in death, thereby returning from the dead.

It may sound a bit blithe to say it that way, but Karnak’s philosophical viewpoint has been strengthened over the years and bears some thematic resemblances to people like Iron Fist’s warriors of K’un-Lun or the Ancient One (of Dr. Strange fame).

The Inhumans of course, have been increasing in their importance in the Marvel Universe. I’ve seen internet theories that Marvel is downplaying the X-Men while up-playing the Inhumans, because Marvel doesn’t hold the X-Men movie rights.

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Air Pirates, Acrobats, and Zeppelin Fleet Action: The Ring of Seven Worlds

Air Pirates, Acrobats, and Zeppelin Fleet Action: The Ring of Seven Worlds

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…very hard to review without spoilers.

The Ring of Seven Worlds  (by Gualdoni, Clima, Piana, and Turotti) is a meaty Steampunk graphic novel sent to me by Sloth Comics when I was looking for reading for my daughter… and it’s very hard to review without spoilers.

It delivers a Steampunk (or is it Valve Punk?) setting with a Studi Ghibli feel in which Seven Worlds connect through a now sealed gate — the ring of the title — and of course the gate unseals and there’s an invasion that kicks off a rollicking adventure for two teenagers: a girl air-acrobat and a highborn boy.

And of course there are air pirates and zeppelin-on-zeppelin fleet action.

Meanwhile, in the background we have threads for clearly delineated power politics, gritty insurgency, and, ultimately… ah well, no spoilers.

Unlike some graphic novels, it does have a proper plot that makes a breathtaking kind of sense and takes you on a real journey. But again; no spoilers!

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Blogging Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu, Part Two

Blogging Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu, Part Two

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MOKF19Master of Kung Fu #19 was the final issue scripted by Shang-Chi’s creator, Steve Englehart. While the idea of a guest appearance from Marvel’s swamp creature, Man-Thing was an offbeat idea, the issue is more notable for the influence of the television series, Kung Fu. This influence is felt strongest in the philosophical discourse on pacifism conducted throughout the issue by Shang-Chi and his fellow Chinese visitor to  the Everglades, Lu Sun (a character clearly based on Kwai Chang Caine from Kung Fu). Shang-Chi admires the pacifist philosophy but the unremitting pursuit of a pair of Si-Fan assassins, (an Asian and Arab double act known as Jekin and Dahar) make it impossible to put it into practice.

Shang-Chi’s memories are colored by the realization of his father’s immorality. The childhood flashback (a familiar conceit from the Kung Fu television series) employed here serves to underscore the point that as the pieces of the puzzle come together for Shang-Chi, he is left more fragmented than before. This conundrum is one that Steve Englehart was leaving for future issues to build upon.

An intriguing sub-plot sees Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Black Jack Tarr launch an assault on Fu Manchu’s convoy of trucks as he abandons Florida following Shang-Chi’s successful sabotage of his operations in the preceding issue. While the casualties on the side of the Si-Fan are heavy, the mastermind makes his escape in the Everglades leaving Sir Denis facing another hollow victory. The Man-Thing is almost superfluous to the plot, but his position as an unwitting pawn in others’ games mirrors Shang-Chi’s own place as a man who strives for peace on a battleground.

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Strange Aeons 19 Now Available

Strange Aeons 19 Now Available

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Strange Aeons 19-smallSeems to me I should be paying more attention to Strange Aeons, a magazine of horror and dark fantasy that mixes comics and graphic narratives with fiction, all in one attractive package. (The editors describe it as “the illegitimate love-child of a hot tryst between Heavy Metal magazine and Weird Tales” — and you must admit, that’s an evocative image.) They’ve produced 19 issues since the Spring of 2010, and yet we’ve somehow managed to overlook them in our regular magazine coverage here at Black Gate. Shameful.

Time to correct this egregious oversight. Issue 19 is now available, and it contains fiction by Kristi Demeester, CM Muller, and Michael Wehunt, and comics by Rob Corless, John Donald Carlucci, and Eric York. Here’s the issue description from the website.

Our magnificent Issue Nineteen is now available!

Our amazing cover is by artist Clint Langley, and it was originally commissioned for a film we were pitching called Sunset. The film never got made, but the cover sure is gorgeous!

52 pages of gorgeous B&W and Color Comics by Rob Corless, John Donald Carlucci, and Eric York! Three Fiction Stories by Kristi Demeester, CM Muller, and Michael Wehunt! Articles, Columns, Reviews and so much more can be found waiting inside, including an interview with the maniac behind the Dreams in the Witch House rock opera, Mike Dalager!

And as an added bonus, a collectible Art Card from the incredible Mohloco!

Check out the full details, including sample pages, below.

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Goth Chick News: Marvel and Ghosties and Disney, Oh My

Goth Chick News: Marvel and Ghosties and Disney, Oh My

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Marvel The Haunted Mansion-smallBack in March I explained the odyssey undertaken by Black Gate photog Chris Z and I to obtain copies of Marvel Comics’ just released Haunted Mansion #1, a one-off series of five issues inspired by my favorite ride in the park.

No shocker there.

But now that the fifth and final issue is about to be released on July 27th, it’s time to explain why all you pseudo-grownups need to own this collection and not pass them over thinking they’re targeted only at the kiddies.

You see, early in the first issue readers encounter a ghost. This part is expected of course, as Haunted Mansion lore tells us there are 999 of them living inside the manor.

Only this ghost isn’t of the “grim, grinning” sort, as described in the attraction’s theme song. No siree, this ghost is serious, horror-comic stuff; all bones and menace and flailing sword.

Remember, this is Marvel as much as Disney.

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Thinking about the Evolution of Marvel Comics’ Star-Lord

Thinking about the Evolution of Marvel Comics’ Star-Lord

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Marvel’s conception of Star-Lord for the 1970s and 80s.

I’ve been doing a bit of thinking lately about puzzling characters in comics and how they change over time. In the last couple of weeks, I decided to reread they comics I’ve got around with the Marvel Universe’ Peter Quill, also known as the Star-Lord.

Now, for those who’ve been living in a hole for the last decade, or for those who only know Peter Quill from the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, Peter Quill made his first appearance in 1976 in Marvel Preview #4 (a black and white magazine), under the creators Steve Englehart and Steve Gan, who envisioned him as an unpleasant, introverted jerk who would go on to grow into a cosmic hero.

I love that arc, and wonder how much it was kicking around then. Around the same time, Jim Starlin wanted to do something similar with Captain Marvel, but Marvel didn’t give him the character, so he did it with Adam Warlock (see my thoughts on that in my series on Adam Warlock I, II, III).

Star-Lord didn’t reappear until Marvel Preview #11, this time under Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin (the team that would later moved over to Uncanny X-Men from #108 to #143, famously creating the Hellfire Club, the Phoenix Saga, and the Days of Future Past).

Under Claremont, he wasn’t the introverted jerk, but a straight-faced loner, traveling the space-ways. I haven’t read the Heinlein juveniles, but it sounds like Claremont was aiming for that kind of bland square-jawed adventurer, and that persona stuck in Star-Lord’s appearances through the 70s and 80s.

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Kurt Busiek’s Astro City. Also Joyce, Hemingway, Faulkner, and a Tangent on Modernism

Kurt Busiek’s Astro City. Also Joyce, Hemingway, Faulkner, and a Tangent on Modernism

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Astro_City_A_Visitors_Guide_Vol_1_1This is mostly an homage to Kurt Busiek and Astro City, and to one story in particular, but buckle in because we’re going to cover a lot of rambling ground getting there in a sort of stream-of-consciousness way, taking in stuff by random association — sort of like the streets of Astro City itself…

Kurt Busiek’s Astro City is one of my favorite superhero comics. It consistently delivers brilliant, funny, poignant, human stories in a colorful, wonderfully idiosyncratic comic-book world. It is Busiek’s magnum opus — like Bendis’s Powers, it towers above his other work for the big publishers using their branded characters. He brings the sensibilities he honed in the groundbreaking Marvel miniseries Marvels to his own universe and, beneath all the ZAP! BANG! POW!, weaves tales you will never forget.

What Marvels did that was so fresh in 1994 is it “lowered the camera” from the god-like supers knocking each other through buildings and focused in on the ordinary humans down here at street level, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, watching it happen. What impact did the existence of such powers have on their day-to-day lives?

In Astro City the camera is completely unfettered, ranging to the heights to reveal very human dramas among people who have the power to level cities and then zooming down to the alleys to follow a day in the life of a two-bit petty thief who is really a pretty ordinary, decent human being (with the exception that his skin is covered with a steel alloy). Through the course of following Carl Donewicz, aka Steeljack — in the classic story “The Tarnished Angel” — we come to sympathize with and like him, and even find ourselves rooting for him: just once, could one of his heists go off without a hitch and not be foiled by The Jack-in-the-Box? And in Astro City, where narratives don’t always follow the comic-book formula, he does have his day. A fun, feel-good story, that one.

And then there are Astro City stories that rip your heart out. “The Nearness of You,” I contend, is among the great American short stories of the late twentieth century, and I think it could be anthologized as such. (Wizard Magazine does rank it number 6 on their list of “100 Greatest Single Issue Comic Books Since You Were Born.”) Publishers these days would have no problem formatting a four-color comic story into their prose collections. But should they? It is, after all, a comic book.

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