Hellboy's 16

I am a fan of Hellboy. No its not what you think. I like the movies. In fact, they were my first exposure to the character. Since then, I have become an even bigger fan of Guillermo del Toro. I have dabbled in the comics here and there, but I have never managed to like them as much. Maybe thats because I haven't read them from the beginning, or maybe its just that I want to want the movie in the comic, even though both are very different in every way.


Hellboy is 16 this year, and there are some great articles celebrating the fact here.

Todd Klein does a Captain America logothon

Is that a word? I hope it is. Mr. Klein's logo studies certainly feel like huge logothon's to me.

Have a gander. There are 5 parts, so don't come running back after the first part saying its incomplete.

Grant Morrison interviewd by Clive Barker

GRANT MORRISON * CLIVE BARKER * MENTAL MELTDOWN

A Morrison interview is always fascinating to read. Great Mark Waid moment in between. I believe that the gist of this interview had already been covered on CBR and Newsarama, but this is a complete transcript. Easier to read than listen to, because Morrison's accent can be hard to decipher.

He's a Demon

Monster
by Naoki Urasawa

Monster is a strange beast. Spread over 18 volumes it tells the tale of a hero out to get the bad guy. Its about a journey of discovery, as the eventual meeting of the two is paralleled with the stories of what makes a hero, but more importantly, for this story, what makes a monster. There are so many things about it that should not work, so much that at first glance would point to this being just another banal thriller. And yet it works. It works so brilliantly that I do feel that it may be one of the finest example of this medium.

At its heart this story is about the hero, Dr. Tenma going through a long journey in search of the villain, the monster, Johan to finish him. That statement makes it out to be black and white, as is the art of the book. But in reality the shades of gray explored, may fill out the whole continuum between black and white. The story starts off with Dr. Tenma grappling with his reality of his life. He's a brilliant surgeon who saves the life of so many, and yet the director of his hospital gets the name. His life is perennially twined with his director's who seems to have the qualities of a leech, and has raised his daughter the same way. But it is on the question of equality of lives that Tenma reneges, deciding to save the life of a small boy, shot in the head instead of the mayor as deemed by the director. This is the first ethically correct decision that Tenma seems to make in the story, and ironically is the one that haunts him for the rest of it. The child he saves, murders the Director and two others and leaves a trail of murders, blamed on Tenma. Tenma, on the other hand, decides to dedicate all his days seemingly oblivious of the charges and chase Johan, the child, to correct his mistake. But throughout the story, this question pops up again and again. Are some people really more equal than others? Tenma continues to help people, some obviously more depraved than others and it kind of mirrors his quandary. As a doctor, what is he supposed to do?

As Tenma goes on his journey, sometimes running from others, sometimes helping people in need, there's one thing he's always sure of. That he wants to kill Johan. On a very similar sure footing is the character of Inspector Lunge. There are aspects of him that are downright silly and yet he makes for a very compelling character. The theme of objectivity seems to play an important part here, as both Lunge, as well as Johan and other inmates of Kinderheim 511 pop up in the story. Lunge has a very singular way of life, always calculating. He goes through every situation with his fingers continuously tapping, assimilating information, clues. His mind seems to work on the principles of cold logic. And so do those of the Kinderheim 511 inmates, especially Johan. His mind is that of the cold calculating individual, who seems to have worked out events from start to end like an equation. He manipulates events, characters according to this, and the coldness of it is downright scary. There are others like him, for example, Roberto, who just follows, again with no feeling, for he believes. And this is contrasted beautifully in the character of Grimmer, who seeks out an end to this aspect of his life. He craves to understand what emotions are, but even in this he stutters as he tries to understand it as an external concept. Indeed, when we first encounter Grimmer, his smile is off putting, and yet not creepy. But when we finally realize what lies behind his smile, we find new depths in his character as we are forced to reexamine previous events. There is a motif in his characterization wherein he asks Tenma what he's supposed to feel in each situation that he encounters, because he does not understand what emotions even are. And peeling back his character gives us clues of Johan's coldness as well. Grimmer is a fascinating character who seems to have a suppressed second personality in him, the magnificent Steiner, a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde analogue. And in the very end, when we race to the last scenes featuring Grimmer, we see his full growth as instead of turning into Steiner, he fights his last fight by letting rage take over. He feels. And his life ends in tears, a strangely happy ending to a sad life. The same growth is mirrored in Lunge who eventually learns to live, though complete transformation is still some time away, but in the end, Tenma's philosophy of making happy memories seems to take over the entire story.

Two aspects of the story that interested me, were very strongly interconnected. The aspect of the importance of parents, and what to me was the underlying theme that bound the whole story together, that you can become whatever you want to become. At various points in the story it seemed that the second theme was strongly influenced by the first, that is, what any of the characters wanted to become was strongly influenced by the parenting they received. That is why a problem I had with the story was the lack of any insight into Tenma's past. I had hoped that the end of the story would involve more information about Tenma's parents. At one point Lunge was actually investigating this aspect and I thought it would come to the fore, but it never did. Maybe Urasawa wanted to use this thread later on, and just forgot about it, or maybe it was never meant to come out. Lunge's method acting was hilarious for the same reason in the case of Tenma, because we really get no background at all. On the other hand we do get backgrounds on so many others. Eva raised by her father becomes just like him, greedy, vain and empty. Poppe/Bonaparta's son becomes a storyteller telling as malicious a story as his father did. And the most important among them, Johan and Nina. Johan goes to Kinderheim 511, the orphanage from hell, while Nina goes to a much happier one. But a point that needs to be made here is that the Red Rose Mansion also played an important part. While Nina forgets all about it, Johan imbibes it all as his own memories but maybe if they had swapped orphanages, things might have happened differently.

It is strange but most stories seem to happen in cycles. Even here, in the end things seemed to have returned to what they were in the beginning. Anna is back at the college, fulfilling her dreams, Tenma is back doing what he does best, after having saved Johan's life from a head injury, like at the very beginning, and yet so much has changed. All these characters go through complete cycles. Tenma saves a child, and then goes on a journey to kill him, and yet saves him again. Anna starts out a happy girl, goes on the same journey as Tenma and yet in the end forgives Johan, and regains her happiness. And Eva. She falls in love. In all these cycles there were things that existed before and happened again. But this did not exist before and hence it points to a much better ending for Eva. For if it happened before, it'll happen again.

There is so much more in this story, and if I were to start writing everything, I may never stop. But as it stands now, Monster is a rich, fulfilling book that needs to be read.

The Cool and the Forgotten

Its been 10 years since the first part of the Matrix came out. What? Only one part ever came out. Hah. That maybe true in your head. But the fact is this was the first part, of what later became a trilogy. I have a unique perspective for the matrix. The first movie I actually got to watch was The Matrix Revolutions, in my last year in school. That was probably not the right way to watch it, but in general I have watched very few movies on the big screen. There was a time that I used to watch a lot of them, but that time went away. Watching this movie changed all that, and I watched plenty of movies after that. I am not proud of the choices of movies now, but they were part of my life then. Anyway, I watched Revolutions with a bunch of friends. One in particular was instrumental in getting me to watch this. And after it ended, he looked with starry eyes, saying "This one was the best." I had been more than impressed, even though I had been lost more than once, and he had to guide me a number of times. "What's with the stupid phone?". "Whats with the bullets stopping?""Whats all this nonsense?". Naah, I was as impressed as he was. It was slick and fast and black. Yeah, there was plenty of black. And black's edgy and stuff, right? Of course all the main cast was white but that's not the black I am talking about.

I think everyone of my peergroup was impressed. It was kinda infectious as well, and maybe kind of forced. I mean somebody had to dislike it. We weren't all of the same mind. And I look back now, and think of those times and I wonder how many of them remember those feelings. I mean its been pretty much declared as law that The Matrix is only one movie and whatever else exists, should not exist, and maybe that thought has been ingrained. Logic and experience tells me that if none of us ever watched that movie again, the filtering process of nostalgia would actually make that experience something wonderful. And that is a necessary part of growing up, realizing that Knight Rider isn't as cool as when you saw it as a small child, or the mullet hairstyle. That nostalgia colors your thoughts.

I think what this post is about is that essential breaking point that comes in our lives, when we realize that being cool and badass isn't all there is to media that we experience. But that is something we have to decide for ourselves. You don't start to dislike Rob Liefeld(Oh god that again) because everybody tells you to. You have to learn to forget what nostalgia has actually made it, and what it actually is. Because you can't suddenly decide that you don't like Rob Liefeld because of all the technical faults in his art and then go on and profess your love for Marc Silvestri and J. Scott Campbell. Thats just stupid. A lot of comics today seem to aspire to coolness and badassery. Period. That's all they aspire to. All that would take would be for Wolverine to take out his claws. SNIKT. Cool. Batman snarls. BADASS. And that's not even true for comics. How about Baysplosions? And its just so ubiquitous. On and on and on and on...... It never stops. But why would it. People seem to have an infinite desire for it. Sad. Pathetic.

I recently rewatched Matrix Revolutions. Correction. I tried.

For that matter I can't stand Matrix any more either. Slickness has been done to death. Give me Ghost in the Shell any day.

A review, folks.

Icaro volume 1

Writer: Moebius

Art: Jiro Taniguchi

I sometimes read Manga. No, thats not true. For most of my sequential reading days, I have only occasionally read manga. Its not that manga isn't good. Its just that I am not very good. No thats not true. I am brilliant. But the fact remains that for most of my sequential reading days, I have not been a very discerning reader. Biff, bam, pow was enough for me. Or you know, Batman. I seem to have changed now, regretting the older me, regretting the older me's taste. As I was saying, I have read very few manga, and I realise that manga isn't a very good word for what is essentially comics. Of course there are those who would bring out all the nuances in form that differentiate the two, but really, both are sequential imagery, bound in a narrative. Obviously they have to be marketed as manga, to appeal to anime fans, who certainly form a large part of the market, and the term has remained.

Anyway, so I was reading a manga by two very good creators. Unfortunately, I haven't actually read anything from Moebius, which is a shame, but I have seen a lot of his artwork and they certainly affirm his status as among the form's greatest creators. Taniguchi on the other hand was the writer/artist of the manga A Distant Neighbourhood, which I have read. On a tangent, isn't it odd that we read comics. We watch movies, look at art, photographs, read prose and verse, but also read comics. Shouldn't there be another word for what we do with comics. Tangent over. A Distant Neighbourhood was fine. Interesting idea which often led the story to become creepy, but by not delving on things for too long, the creepy factor was glossed over. Great artist though. More detailed than manga art usually is. I liked it just fine.

Reading through Icaro I had some of the same problems, that I had with A Distant Neighbourhood. Now this has a different writer, a much more accomplished one at that. But there are problems. Moebius says in the introduction, stories are being strangled, but have one unadulterated outlet, dreams. And this story comes out of his dream. I think he should have left it there. The story that follows is that of a boy who's born with the power of flight. There's some stupid mumbo-jumbo science that is popped in there that makes no sense. Really, there's no turbulence. Really, what Reynolds' number are we talking about. Really. Nah, as I said, its mumbo-jumbo. But the point is, there's no point. Here's a trapped hero, who the government traps to make him their ultimate villain, while a bunch of exploding people, explode. The boy feels lonely but there's this one girl, who is his psychatrist. Well kind of. Is it just me, or have I heard aoo of this before.

There's no point, at all. The mum gets separated from the boy at birth, and we don't get to know anything about her. None. Nada. There's a lesbian relationship, between ostensibly the big bad and her secretary. And there's voyeurism by the hero. Yeah, cause he was not edgy and stuff. There was a neat sequence at the beggining where I thought that this would be a unique story, when there are all these people who have black eyes, you know the type where the whole eye becomes black, which has been used as many times as this plot. And these people go around in trains, on the sidewalk and their eyes turn black, and they explode. At this point I thought these are just people who are frustrated of their banal lives, and they wish everything exploded. But thats what literally happened. They exploded. And its not for their jobs. Nope, they are terrorists. Superhumans. They show their superiorty to humans by exploding. Did Micheal Bay write this?

The kid is born, and grows up and he can lift 150 Kilos. Wow. Thats awesome. And he can withstand air at 60 metres/sec. Awesome. Thats why I was reading this thing. To know how strong he's compared to Wolverine. And then suddenly he disappears. And then he does his voyeur thing. And he's captured before he can kiss the girl. Wow, was I reading a wolverine comic. Sure felt like one. Is Icaro Japanese for wolverine. Sure hope not. Its pretty much shallow to its core. (Haha) At this point I am not even interested in saying anything about the art. Its detailed, tells the story. But there's hardly any story to tell. Will I read more of this Michael Bay Wolverine comic? Maybe. Cause I am a sucker.