| The Department of
Special Media Preservation presents . . ..
Welcome to the "Whatever happened to Ginchy! the Comics Zine?" issue of Ginchy! the Comics Zine. Since we last spoke, National Periodical Publications officially changed its name to DC Comics, Jim Shooter came and went at Marvel (formerly Timely), and Adventure Comics' Adventurers was briefly advertised all over CBG as the 'hottest' book on the market. What became of the Ginchy! crew you knew and loved in the meantime? Well, Joe Kalicki found Dylan and now studies album jackets in a hushed awe the whole day long. Ian Casselberry currently pursues his dreams in the wilds of Ann Arbor, MI, and is using the fame he found in the fanzine world to effectively court actress Ashley Judd (could those be wedding bells this June?). As for editors Matt Sommer and Joe Lunday, no one is quite sure what became of them after Ginchy! #41, although frequent "sightings" have been popping up from time to time on radio personality Art Bell's syndicated call-in program (most recently the pair were sighted by 47 year-old Tallahasee, FL resident Eunice Pfester in a local Denny's). This most recent issue was culled from their unpublished notes and outlines, and with the help of a ghost writer, we've managed to recreate what their actual reviews of some current comics might look like, were they with us today! (Look for contributions from V.C. Andrews in future issues.) As you browse our latest offering, you'll find Joe Linehan and Austin English eulogizing two rather different comic book institutions, reviews of the latest issues of Inhumans, Bone, Robin, and Magic Whistle, as well the debuts of Hulk, The Lemon Kids, and Planetary. Perennial Ginchy! standby Troy Nunis offers up his latest helping of mind-sharpening trivia, and you speak your mind in our latest letters column. Enjoy, and be sure to check out our website at: Ginchy! The Comics Zine And by the way, a BIG thanks
to Phil Hall, web guru for the excellent UK comics magazine Comics International
for all the recent Ginchy! plugs in his column, and welcome to any and
all UK/European readers who've checked us out due to said coverage.
If this is your first issue, make sure to let us know what you think, and
keep in mind Ginchy! is always on the lookout for contributions . . . and
now with Joe and Matt on the lam, those contributions are more important
than ever!
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| PART ONE: | PART TWO: | PART THREE: |
| NEWS | Shades Of Gray | TRIVIA |
| Tales From The Front | REVIEWS | RAVES |
| How Ginchy! Are We? | LAST CALL |
| NEWS
compiled by the GINCHY! staff -- Writer/Artist David Mack, best known for his work on creator
owned Kabuki, will serve as Kevin Smith's replacement on Daredevil with
May's issue, #9. According to artist Joe Quesada, Mack's take on
DD will focus more on the internal workings of the characters' psyches,
starting with a look into the mind of the Kingpin.
-- More musical chairs in the art department of the Superman books,
as artist German Garcia will be taking the reigns of Action Comics starting
in October. Steve Epting, who was on Action will be moving over to
Adventures of Superman, which will most likely change all over again when
Stuart Immonen comes back to the book in early 2000, and penciller Ed McGuinness
will be taking on the adjectiveless Superman. Garcia, who was set
to pencil Marvel's X-51, is no longer attached to the project. In
other Super news, the quarterly Superman: Man of Tomorrow will be cancelled
with issue #15.
-- Continuing the cross-over tradition of the last few years, Marvel
and DC will be teaming up once again in May to bring readers Hulk vs. Superman:
Double Lives. Written by Roger Stern and with art by Steve Rude,
the book chronicles the first meeting of the two powerhouses. I wonder
if, through some wacky misunderstanding, the two heroes will fight each
other for the bulk of the issue before teaming up to defeat the true menace?
Nah.
-- Keep in mind that this is MAJOR rumor here, but Rich's Ramblings
has reported that a possible writer's company or imprint (something like
Dark Horse's Legend imprint crossed with an Image style breakaway?), supposedly
including such creators as Mark Waid, Grant Morrison, Kurt Busiek, Tom
Peyer, Roger Stern, Garth Ennis and Joe Kelly, may be in the works as early
as late '99. This new venture may be published through an existing
company, or may be an independent creation. Mark Waid has aparently
denied his involvement in such a project, however.
-- Due to widespread demand, DC will release a TPB collection of the
stories that kicked off the year's big Batman event, No Man's Land, on
March 24th. The collection will have no ads, 112 pages including
the Batman: No Man's Land special and the sold-out Shadow Of The Bat #83,
Batman #563, and Detective Comics #730, and sell for $5.95.
-- Green Lantern editor Kevin Dooley gave Mania a look into GL's future
last week, which holds, among other things, a hardcover graphic novel entitled
Fear Itself (which spotlights all 3 GL's fighting the same fear-inducing
villian), and an upcoming 2 part story, #115-116, written by Dan Jurgens
which teams Kyle with Booster Gold and Plastic Man.
-- Writer Mike Baron and artist Tom Yeats are working on a new mini-series
for Vertigo entitled Burnout, which focuses on the eternal struggle of
magic and technology, with immortality as the ultimate prize. A release
date has not been set.
-- John L. Goldwater, the creator of most of the Archie Comics characters,
died Friday, February 26th in New York City. Goldwater was 83.
-- New from Top Cow this July comes Rising Stars, a 24 issue maxi-series
written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, which deals with the
repercusions of an alien power which grants super powers to the 113 residents
of a small town. With TNT cancelling Crusade, this may be just the
ticket for that JMS fix.
-- Awesome Entertainment has unveiled Lionheart, a new mini-series by
Coven creators Jeph Loeb and Ian Churchill which "chronicles the saga of
an ancient power that has been handed down throughout the ages, and the
woman who now shares its amazing properties." The new series is set
to debut at this summer's Wizard World '99 convention in Chicago, with
a direct market release a few weeks later. In other Liefeld news,
Satan must have been ice skating this week because Rob is heading back
to handle the creative chores on Cable, a character he co-created during
his glory days with Marvel.
-- On the Image front, Chris Eliopolous's Desperate Times has been cancelled
with issue #4. Issues #5 and 6, which have been solicited, will not
ship. Eliopolous has plans to bring the series back as a self-publishing
venture, however, a move which will save him money (he won't have to pay
a cut of the profits to Image) in the long run. He's also looking
into syndicating the strip nationally in the newspaper market.
-- Stan Lee Media Inc. has hired three new executives to help flesh
out his new on-line superhero venture. Dana Moreshead, previously
executive director of creative services for Marvel Entertainment, joins
as vice president of creative services; Ken Hoin, formerly senior producer
for Disney Online, is now executive producer for StanLee.net; and film/television/interactive
writer Buzz Dixon joins the company as vice president of creative affairs.
-- Former Disney Adventures editor and co-founder of the Friends of
Lulu Heidi MacDonald has been appointed the new editor of DC's Warner Bros
and Cartoon Network properties.
-- Yet another indy comic creator turns his attention towards kid-focussed
media as James Kolchalka (aka Jimminy Kroekel) debuts two songs/videos
on Nickelodeon's popular Kablam!. The first, "Hockey Monkey," aired
on February 26th, while the second and more "loony" song "Pizza Rocket"
will appear on the March 12th episode. Kolchalka's most recent comic
related work, Monica's Story, an illustrated version of the Starr Report,
was released last month.
-- ABC is attempting to ink a deal with Miramax and Touchstone TV for
a 6 episode animated series based on Kevin Smith's Clerks. If the
deal goes through, the show could debut as a mid-season replacement next
year.
-- The syndicated TV series The Crow: Stairway to Heaven has been renewed
for a second season.
-- After years of legal wrangling, it looks like Sony Pictures Entertainment
has emerged as sole owner of the rights to produce a Spider-Man feature
film. This opens the door to a Spidey movie actually being able to
be made, and Sony seems to be hinting at the character's franchise potential.
Stay tuned.
-- The official Bernie Wrightson web site will begin selling Wrightson's
original creature designs for the teen monster movie The Faculty over the
web beginning March 6th. Prices start at $150.00 though, so be warned
this isn't for the casual collector.
[Do you have a hot news tip or press release? If you'd like to
spread the word, please e-mail
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PART TWO:
| REVIEWS
Bone #35
A while back, I wrote a review on Bone #34. The review wasn't entirely negative, but it wasn't glowing either. I complained a little bit about the apparent downfall of the book's humor, citing the fact that it had become a bit more slapstick, and aimed more at Smith's younger audience. Well, in Bone #35, Smith answers back in a strange but more then adequate way. I'll get to how Smith did that, but first, a little backstory . . . In the simplest terms, Bone is a fantasy story, but it's so much more then that. It's a wonderfully written and drawn story about 3 cousins who find themselves mixed up in all sorts of strange and wonderful adventures, all after stumbling into a valley with an assortment of oddball, but interesting characters. Currently, the story is in a critical phase, as Fone Bone and Smiley journey with Thorn to confront one of the book's most mysterious villains, The Hooded One, while a variety of other subplots come into play. It's quite a but for one issue, but for me, the true joy of reading #35 is the improvement over the previous issue. As I said earlier, my problem with #34 is the overuse of slapstick, and the dip in the quality of Smith's humor. Smith has remedied this problem in an odd way: he severely cut back on the gags in this issue, but when he actually did feel the need for one, he executed it perfectly. He stops dropping jokes all over the comic needlessly, and yet still lets the true focus of the book be the humor. All the other elements of Bone shine as well. Smith's art is as beautiful as it always is, and if you've never laid eyes on it, it deserves a close look. Even more impressive is Smith's ability to handle so many plot developments, and still have the story be clear and enjoyable. Bone is not a book that gets bogged down in continuity. Of course, the main reason I love this book so much is that it's returned
to the greatness that I saw it in the first time I read it. There's
something to be said for a book that can give you the same feeling it gave
you when you read the first issue, a feeling that a book like this doesn't
come around very often, a joyful feeling as you read it.
Hulk #1
In a surprising aesthetic turnabout, John Byrne uses economy to his advantage in Hulk #1, writing a simple, almost graceful Hulk story around Ron Garney's powerful imagery. Probably the best work that I've read by Byrne since Batman/ Captain America, it's also the best work I've seen to date from Ron Garney, whose overrated Captain America caused such hoopla, and whose underrated Silver Surfer was so sorely overlooked. To take the most obvious example, Garney's two-page spread on pages 2 and 3, wherein an eighteen-wheeler flies sideways into a house, is actually quite powerful, not something that can be said of too many of the similar action sequences in so many contemporary comics. It's too early to see where this latest 'new direction' will take the
perpetually transient character, but if this is taken as a return to his
'wandering hero' roots (circa the '70s), it's nowhere near as melodramatic
or cliche as such a move might've been. Most surprising of all, in
a turn away from the soap opera norm of modern superhero comics, Byrne's
story is injected with a bit of dream-like mystery, appropriate to what
has always been, at root, a monster comic. Definitely not as multifaceted
as Peter David at his best, but certainly worth a look.
Inhumans #5
It's clear that a book is more intelligent and literate than anything else on the shelves when the damned letters column reads like a series of eloquent, insightful essays. Inhumans is so originally, lovingly, expertly created that no promo or recommendation can do it justice; it's so patient and passionate, subtle and engrossing that one can only fully appreciate its magic by experiencing it for his or her self. Witty yet never silly, eloquent but never pretentious, Paul Jenkins' scripts are purring, burning beauties, perfectly suited to the richly detailed (though never cluttered), deeply shadowed (though lively and never melodramatic) landscapes and figures of Jae Lee (a plea to those who pity ignorant readers such as myself: somebody please direct me to other titles Lee has worked on . . . and Jenkins, too, for that matter!) For those readers who, like myself, knew nothing of these fascinating characters before this current volume began last Fall, Inhumans concerns the struggles -- some minor and mundane, others fantastic and overwhelming -- of an isolated, mythical breed of metahumans who keep their society hidden within a magically shielded island called Attitlan. Each man, woman and child is a wonder like no other, a subspecies of one, living in peaceful seclusion and avoiding human concerns whenever possible. Issue #5 presents the heroes with little choice but to interact with
our inferior ranks, after a small band of rebellious Portuguese soldiers
begins firing on the protective dome over Attitlan, in a seemingly doomed
and ridiculous attempt at breaking into the island and destroying the Inhumans.
With one of his most clever and suspenseful scripts to date, Jenkins has
found a clever and frightening method of making it actually all too possible
for the humans to achieve their goal, and this issue draws to a close with
the future of our lovely, mysterious creatures a terrifying and questionable
thing, at best. There is nothing on your pull list that can not be
replaced with this magnificent title, so if you have yet to pick it up,
stop procrastinating and do so immediately. You may well be missing
the greatest book on the shelf right now.
The Lemon Kids Book One
As much as I love a good indie-humor comics, sometimes I wish this tiny genre wasn't so insular and refined. Take Steve Weissman's The Lemon Kids. Working from an already odd premise, Weissman works in references to Speed Racer that most people with a comic book background will pick up on, and a sly, hysterical parody of Palookaville auter Seth, which only his target audience/ peer group will pick up on. That said, the references are still quite funny, handled with the same surrealistic aproach as the wrestling and general show biz targets here. Weissman's Lemon Kids are cherubic advertising mascots who embark on
promotional misadventures which may find them engaged in no-holds-barred
wrestling one minute, and fired and fending for themselves in the harsh
world of advertising the next. As you might gather, The Lemon Kids
is a little difficult to get a grip on on a conceptual level, but Weissman's
frenetic little figures convey some kind of infectious enthusiasm that's
hard to shake. A weird one.
Magic Whistle #3
Improvised absurdity at its finest, Sam Henderson's Magic Whistle is
comic strip humor reduced to essentials. Not really avant garde in
its minimalism, Henderson's artwork is simple because it doesn't need to
be anything more. It's tempting to say that rather than deliver the
predetermined aesthetic pleasures of, say, an Ernie Bushmiller line, that
he instead detracts from the visual in order to make the jokes work harder.
But the visuals are a part of the humor - plants coming out of rear ends
aren't just funny because they're an example of his silly imagination at
work, they're funny because he draws them that way. Combined with
Henderson's eye for the akward moment, interest in pop culture so stupid
and harmless that it's funny, and drop-on-a-dime gag timing, and Magic
Whistle makes for one irresistable funnybook.
Mechanical Man Blues #1
As its first translated manga project, Radio Comix, known mostly as
a publisher of "furry" comics and made up of many ex-Antarctic employees,
has made a pretty safe choice. The artist for this title served as
character designer for Battle Arena Toshinden, the popular line of fighting
games on the Sony Playstation, so they can use that as a marketing hook.
The art itself is clean and pretty highly detailed, with lots of screen
tones, and it doesn't hurt that the female lead is drawn throughout wearing
a "butt-floss" bikini with more cleavage showing than in a Victoria's Secret
pictorial. The story, too, is utterly conventional post-apocalyptic
sci-fi, with a strong but silent android savior helping the humans fight
the evil machine overlords. What could be more mainstream?
Nothing, unfortunately. Mechanical Man Blues suffers from being too
average. Manga readers, and well, sci-fi fans in general, have seen
this story done before, and done better, many many times (see Viz's Battle
Angel Alita). There's nothing really bad about the book, but there's
also nothing to separate it from the multitude of similar product on the
shelves. I believe this is set to be a mini-series though, so it
may serve as an easy introduction into the manga world for the uninitiated,
or as a quick fix for readers looking for a self contained sci-fi themed
story. Those looking for depth, on the other hand, should look elsewhere.
Mona #1
If for nothing else, buy this book so I can read the second part of Matthew Guest's story. I mean, there are plenty of other reasons to lay down $4.95 for this Kitchen Sink anthology book, but for god's sake, if I don't get to read part 2 of "I Sold My Soul to Satan" (more sophisticated then the name suggests), I'll go nuts! Of course, in all likelihood, not enough people will buy this book, and the inevitability of Kitchen Sink going belly up will become reality. Mona #1 is probably the company's last release. Great note to go out on, but still, what a shame. Anyway, let's talk more about Mona. Anthology books are hit and miss most of the time, with a few good stories, and a lot that are bad. But I have faith in them, considering that one of my all time favorite characters, Paul Chadwick's Concrete, premiered in an anthology. Let me tell you folks, this is a good one . . . even if it does have some clunkers. In addition to a great Jaime Hernandez cover, the book leads off with a Hutch Owens story, by Tom Hart. Hart, winner of the Xeric grant in 1994, is a wonderfully hilarious minimalist, who I'm vaguely familiar with, but I never took as much notice of him as I did with this story. It's hard to categorize Hart's humor, because it doesn't rely on one-liners, or sight gags. Still, it's unabashedly cartoony, and very dry. This particular story focuses on Hutch Owens, a reoccuring Hart character, as he leads a third world country's population in a revolt against a notorious international soft drink corporation. I can't really do Hart's work justice, but it's an amalgam of dirty jokes and sophistication, served up in a perfectly simple drawing style. As if that weren't enough, Hart's gem is followed up by none other than . . . Harvey Kurtzman! Kurtzman doesn't really need an explanation, so I won't blather on about him. Then we get to the clunkers . . . only they're not really that bad. "The Thinkers Secret," by Lorenzo Mattoti, is a beautifully conceived, dreamlike story. Usually, free-weeling, airy stories such as this one are those I like the most, but this one was a bit too unfocused, and just lacked a good anchor to stabilize it. If nothing else, it's a good contrast to Hart's story. Nice art. "King Bee," by J. Bradley Johnson, is a head-scratcher. It's kind of a bizarre 3-pager about a crafty king bee, but I didn't really get much out of it. I would've enjoyed it if I saw it in the Sunday paper, but it seemed kind of out of place among the company of these other stories. (If anyone reads it and likes, e-mail me and tell me what was going on.) The final entry in Mona #1 is the best. "I Sold my Soul To Satan, Part 1," is just dripping with darkness, tension, anxiety, and incredibly expressive art. Matthew Guest paints a thoroughly disturbing picture of teenage suicide in Dallas, among other things, as he tells the tale of a man going to the funeral of his old college buddy. Stuck in the middle of this story is one with the title "Minimum Wage," which is a perfect companion piece. Both stories succeeded in really disturbing me. . . . with their unflinchingly harsh dialogue, sickening pauses, and depressing subject matter. To top it off, Guest uses a load of black ink to set the mood, along with painting honestly twisted faces. Part of the greatness of reading Guest's story is the contrast to Mona's first story, the Tom Hart one, since both stories couldn't be more different. So please, please pick this book up. I really want to see what
Guest has in mind for the next half of his graphic novel, and I for one,
would love seeing an anthology of this caliber appear month after month,
showcasing some of the best talents this industry has to offer.
Planetary #1
Okay, everyone got their #2 pencils ready? Welcome to the CB-SATs (Comic Book Schoolastic Aptitude Test -ed.). First question: Alan Moore is to Awesome as _________ is to Wildstorm. Ok, ok, you got it. The answer is C) Warren Ellis. Just as Alan Moore seems to be the sole writer of anything that comes out of Awesome Comics these days, Warren Ellis pretty much *is* Wildstorm, handling writing chores on both Planetary and the upcoming The Authority (not to mention creator owned Transmetropolitan for parent company DC . . .) I'm not much of a fan of Transmet's skin-deep moralizing and homogenized "fight the power" message, but Ellis' name served it's purpose here by getting me to check out a new #1 I probably wouldn't have bought otherwise. After reading the book though, I'm still not sure if it was a worthwhile purchase. First off, let me just get this out of the way: Cassaday's art is quite excellent here, and the simple fact that it worked so well is what allowed me to focus almost entirely on the writing . . . and the writing is exactly what i need to discuss in this review. The basic set-up in issue one is the recruitment of a new "third man" into a mysterious global white-hat organization known as Planetary. Elijah Snow is the new guy, a hundred year-old professional soldier-o- fortune/ societal outsider who's been there and done that all before. Joined by bad girl/leader Jakita Wagner and "the drummer," a lunatic who can speak with machines, Snow's first assignment finds him investigating a newly discovered man-made structure burried within a mountain, which turns out to be the secret headquarters of a 1940s "hero" group led by none other than the legendary Axel Brass (a not so thinly veiled copy of classic pulp character Doc Savage, Man of Bronze), who, still alive, recounts the tale of a fateful day in 1945 when the world almost came to an end. At least that's what it's about on the surface. Rather than a straightforward adventure story, though, Ellis sems to be wandering into parable territory here, as the "pulp" hero brigade (Brass/Doc Savage, Tarzan, Fu Manchu, The Spider/The Shadow , etc) fight to the death to defend their "world" against an invasion of a not-so-thinly-veiled JLA. Is Ellis trying to make a point about how superhero comics "killed" the pulp heroes of the 30's and 40's? It appears so, yet he also takes a stab at the evils of a "multiverse", the damage caused by "retro-active continuity" and the absurdity of characters being "kept alive" year after year for no other reason than the whims of "the brain" (the comic companies themselves?). I will admit that this "twist" to the story really took me by surprise.
The rather pedestrian and cliched introduction left me flat, but my interest
piqued with the introduction of the classic pulp heroes, making me wonder
if Ellis was planning to take an angle similar to Moore's League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen. Alas, it appears that they were only visiting. Ellis'
story as told did become something more meaningful than your average comic
book story, and yet, as the first issue for a brand new "super" team, is
this the appropriate venue for this critique on the industry? An
excellent one-shot, but it did little to make me care about the book's
main characters themselves, as they are left with nothing to do here but
sit around and listen. Not exactly a brilliant strategy. As
a stand-alone story, I'd rate it higher; but as it stands:
Robin #63
Robin has many admirable mainstream values that win it points with those looking for Quality Comic Books (i.e., superhero comics that don't make self-conscious people feel ashamed). Realistic portrayal of teen growing pains isn't terribly hard to come by in comics, or superhero comics especially. But Chuck Dixon's knack for earthy dialogue has won him many fans for the two Bat Jr. books which he steers, with Nightwing usually the favorite for its bounding dialogues, stylish artwork, and organized crime tales. For Tim Drake, Dixon lets real-life kid problems like relating to parents, relating to father figures, moving, cliques, and responsibility shape the book. And hey, Robin's girlfriend is pregnant! I mean, who can't relate to that? (Okay, okay . . . ) Unexceptional but very reliable in the substance department, what Robin
is lacking is a conceptual hook, and maybe humor, too. Like a lot
of DC superhero comics, Robin is more meat-and-potatoes than sturm-and-drang,
for which there's a lot to be said. But at the same time, a book
like this needs some kind of unique angle to really give it life; at this
point it's just a solid comic book about a teen superhero, nothing more,
nothing less.
Interested in writing reviews for Ginchy!? Contact Joe Lunday at LundayJoe@aol.com for more information. (Submissions should adhere to the format used above, including letter grades, creators, company, and price information.) |
| LAST CALL
To subscribe to GINCHY! e-mail Joe Lunday at LundayJoe@aol.com. Do you have a news item or press release? Mail them to Matt Sommer at Mateo@execpc.com or SommerMatt@aol.com If you'd like to see any back issues of GINCHY! (and we're building
up quite a
Do you have a friend that you think might be interested in receiving
GINCHY!?
Editors: Joe Lunday and Matt Sommer Ginchy! #42 has been brought to you by: Austin English - Three1145@aol.com
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