Explosivo Two-In-One

Friends hear my words!

We are in the NEW GOLDEN AGE of comic books! Two of last week’s comics are LITERARY PROOF. Now, I’m not gonna lie to you folks. There are a lot of times I say stuff like “This new series is gonna be the titz!” and then I never write about the series ever again. You know why? Because in the long 30 days between grabbing that first issue and then waiting for the second, I decide “Meh. You know what? I don’t need to be picking this book up.” The magic goes out of the relationship you guys!

BUT NO! Not all the time! CONSIDER:

FEAR ITSELF #1

Marvel events are supposed to suck the royal ass, amirite? I mean, not as bad as DC’s, but pretty bad. House of M was okay, but anyone remember Civil War or the Skrull Invasion? Epic humiliation! So here’s something that requires some pondering: How can Fear Itself rule so much after just one issue? I seriously haven’t been so excited about an event since my vasectomy (hi-YO!) Well, you know it’s the one-two punch of Matt Fraction on the talky-parts and Stuart Immonen on the doodley-parts. Man, those two mafkers could rock a comic about the lamest subject imaginable (Canadian History) and I’d still throw down my hard-earned skrilla every month.

GODDAMN! This comic has everything! Riots, Nazis and Captain America getting hit with a brick. Odin gives Thor the spanking of a lifetime right in front of all his friends. AWWW DAAAAAAAAAD! It’s amazing! And you know why? Because Stuart Immonen is probably the best artist working in Superhero comics today. There’s nothing the man can’t draw. I could have cried when he left New Avengers a couple of months back, but to see him on this title is to see an already brilliant artist at his absolute best. This first issue features splash page after splash page that show a sense of design second only to J.H. Williams III. There’s a ton of stuff going on, but nothing ever gets cluttered. I think that’s not only a result of Immonen’s excellent lay-outs, but Wade von Grawbadger’s inks and Laura Martin’s colours. Put plainly, Fear Itself #1 is the best Superhero comic book to come out this year, period. Artistically, it’s satisfying on every level and the story / dialogue is hands-down the best work Fraction has ever done.

Matt Fraction really seems to have been handed the keys to the kingdom on this one. People loved his all-too-short run on Immortal Iron Fist (myself included) and the Invincible Iron Man continues to be one of Marvel’s best sellers. On this book though, Fraction seems to have tightened up absolutely everything and the result is one hell of an opening scene. Tony Stark comes off as a real leader (as opposed to a jerk-nuts with nothing to offer but lots of money) and Steve Rogers is given a real warmth and sense of humanity that I personally haven’t seen before. Sure, it’s an Avengers book released just in time for the movie, but it’s so completely satisfying that it ruins the Big Two’s streak of chucking out crap comics to get more people to go see a film. The scenes with Odin rampaging around are absolutely amazing insofar as Fraction has captured all the brutal fury of the Norse gods, with NONE of the hokey malarkey that most authors give Thor & Co. The comic is extra long, but it doesn’t feel that way because the action is never slow. Everything that needs to be explained is explained in a manner that keeps the reader interested, and the end result is the best start to a Spring / Summer event in the history of the House of Ideas.

Seriously, go buy this comic if only to flip it on eBay in a year for a lot of money. Marvel is onto something big here and this 7-issue ride is gonna be a beat.

NONPLAYER #1

This is possibly the most beautiful art in any comic book ever. Who the fuck is Nate Simpson?

I assure you that for every single person who picked this book off the shelf last week, these are the first two thoughts that went through all of our heads.

Well, as it turns out Nate Simpson is a video game concept designer who recently decided “Hey, maybe I’ll just throw my hat into the ring and make every other comic book illustrator look like a monkey with a crayon.” I first found out about Nonplayer on the Sunday before it came out, and for the next three days I was in a dead panic that my comic shop wouldn’t get me one on such short notice. I was so worried that I actually called them from work on the Wednesday to make sure one hit my folder. Luckily it did because I assure you this comic will be completely unavailable at the retail level if it isn’t already.

I don’t know what’s going on over at Image comics, but they’ve been slowly and steadily taking over the entire industry with AMAZING titles like Chew and Infinite Vacation. It’s almost as though they never really hit their full potential until roughly two years ago when their first issues started selling out, only to be found flipping on eBay for upwards of a hundred bucks apiece. Speaking of which…

Looking on the Image website I see that Nonplayer has completely sold out at the distributor level. Oh man, for so many reasons I feel sorry for anyone who didn’t get a copy! Look at this art!

Okay, so basically what I’ve gathered from the story so far is this: apparently in the future it will be possible to design a fantasy / questing video game so real that the creators have essentially produced a new plane of existence where the characters within it are actually alive. Then, if you go on a sword-swinging rampage and kill a bunch of people with your sword and your friends – and your friend’s swords – you’re basically destroying the real lives of the people you’ve created. See the problem?  Well it gets even more complicated when you can throw this “designed” world over top of your own boring day-to-day existence like a new skin.

This comic blows my mind on almost every level, from its GORGEOUS art to its clever dialogue to its almost perfect pacing and execution. Nate Simpson hasn’t been in the comics industry for long, but you’d never know it. There are no clichés in this book and as an outsider to the genre, he brings an extraordinarily fresh voice to his work. It’s as close to a perfect comic book as we’re likely to see this year, and I can’t recommend Nonplayer highly enough. It’s really something special.

Enough!

– Ian