Life and Death

Wyrms
WRITER: ORSON SCOTT CARD and JAKE BLACK

PENCILS: ADRIANO BATISTA

I read Orson Scott Card’s Wyrms when I was in college and I was pretty surprised when I saw Wyrms #1 in the weekly list last month. Card’s science fiction novels were always anchored in anthropological, socio-political, and cultural milieu of the worlds that he created. His stories are often about human colonies in other planets and their interaction with local sentient life form.

So I was really worried about how Wyrms would be translated to comics when the plot was very dependent on discourses on politics, religion, and the will to survive predestined evolution. Jake Black’s adaptation was fast paced and Batista’s drawing were great! I couldn’t help but fill in the blanks in the conversations and the storyline. The limited series will be of six issues and I hope that team will be able to do justice to the book as the plot becomes more complicated and more characters will be introduced.

Death Jr
by Gary Whitta and Ted Naifeh

Ang cuuuuuute ni DJ!!! Whitta’s Death reminded me of Terry Pratchett’s Death though – somebody who wants to experience normal human life – Terry’s Death also had a daughter – adopted though. Whitta took it further since his Death has a wife and a biological son. How the mom (a human) got pregnant though….. This TPB’s is fast paced, funny, and ang cuuuuuute ni DJ and his gang!

R.I.P. The Question

You finally got your moment.
And we loved every paradox, every cryptic admonition.
The wasting away though, that hurt.
The conspiracy of a lifetime.
But you were always ahead of the game.
You always knew the answer.

SILENT WAR 1-2

Writer David Hine; Art Frazer Irving
(Marvel)

Woohoo!

Yes. Wild cheering. Fucking Frazer Irving. I'd buy any of his books. Good thing they're all great books. Klarion was whimsical art. With a capital A. But Silent War. Silent War is mythical. The carnage on the first issue, brilliant. Edvard Munch giggling. Acidic swirls. Whirlpool for screams. Hine steps back while the splatters do all the telling.

David Hine. He is now my man. Paul Jenkins rewrote the Inhumans but Hine (my man) he injected the speed. The gasp. Son of M feels like a prelude to Silent War. Hine pushes Blackbolt. The great Blackbolt. Waring Blackbolt. Blackbolt vs. Sentinel. Fuck. Quivering in my pants. Sweaty palms. Fuckin smoking at my desk. I never do that.

Issue 2. Last panel. Fucking crazy! Forget Civil War. Flogging a dead horse if you ask me. This is THE war. With fuck all at stake. *****

And I thought I was having a bad day

MELTDOWN 1-2
Writer David B. Schwartz; Art Sean Wang; Covers Chris Bacalo and Greg Horn
(Image)

A comicbook can be just as poignant as a pop song. Accidental, as most poignant moments occur, a collision between pavement and memory. And a bad fucking day. Last quarter 2006, a disaster. Tick-tock temper. I kept thinking: any day now. Any day now.

Kaboom.

And so the story begins of superhero Flare. Up in the air. About to lose it. To his arch-nemesis. About to lose it.

Kaboom.

Like the art. Scorched. Fuming. In between flesh dripping off bone, childhood memories rudely interrupt. Wide-eyed pastels of solitary Cal (Caliente aka Flare) in a boiling swimming pool. The soft countours of falling in love for the first time. Crashing into the present. The meltdown.

Schwartz's writing jumps from innocence to rage just as Wang's pencils shift from sweet to dour. And it works. Compact, with only two issues, the push-pull pacing didn't have enough time to grow old.

We pretty much know what happens in the end. Salvation, blah-blah. But I didn't really mind that tear threatening to roll down. I got Flare. And I got the need to wrap it up with a smile. I wanted the happy ending.

Or that's just good writing. ****