More Comic Book Twaddle

by Pete on January 17, 2014 at 12:19
Posted In: blog

I got a pretty decent response to my comic book post, so I figured I’d keep up with it. This past week I got a few more comics under my belt, and a few other things.

The Rocketeer:  The Complete Adventures (IDW) – I mentioned last time that I wasn’t enjoying this collection, and it just got worse. I couldn’t deal with the poorly written characters, so I ended up returning it to the library without finishing it. And I was very disappointed because I wanted to like it. Oh well.

Bloodties (Marvel) – This is a trade paperback that collects the “Bloodties” storyline, which was the 30th anniversaries of the Avengers and X-Men combined. It was about a civil uprising on the island of Genosha between humans and mutates, and the political consequences of the previously mentioned teams. This story is one of the biggest reasons I’ve always loved Marvel. It’s rich with issues that can be translated to real life, and it looks at things from different philosophical perspectives. There was action, but I was more intrigued by story that was being told.

Legionquest (Marvel) – Unfortunately, with as many homeruns as they’ve had, Marvel tends to miss every now and then. “Legionquest” collects several issues from the early nineties dealing with Charles Xavier’s psychotic and powerful son traveling into the past to kill Magneto before he becomes Magneto. While it was interesting to see the bits about Charles and Eric as friends prior to being enemies, there wasn’t much to this story at all. And, it was a time travel story that ended with events never actually happening, and I HATE those kinds of stories. It always feels like a waste of time when things end up never having happened because that means there is no resolution and no one learns anything. I felt very empty when I finished the story.

Green Lantern: Rebirth (DC) – I’ve mentioned that I’ve always been a Marvel guy over a DC guy. However, one of the things I’ve always loved about DC is the Green Lantern mythos. It has that quality of epic galactic fantasy that I really enjoy, and from what I had heard, “Rebirth” was the story that brought all of that back into the limelight and was essentially a reawakening of the Green Lantern universe. I loved the heck out of this story. I didn’t really grow up with the Green Lantern, but the stuff that I did read sporadically I enjoyed, and this just kind of brought all of it to a head for me. I’m very much looking forward to reading the next handful of stories that have followed after this one.

Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme (Marvel animated movie) – As with the Green Lantern, in the Marvel universe I had characters that I liked, but didn’t necessarily read much about. Doctor Strange was one of those. Being a fantasy geek, a character who can do magic is pretty awesome. So I decided to give the animated movie a chance since it’s been on my Netflix queue for a while. It was all right. I think more could have been done with the story, but the animation was pretty tight. I just really didn’t care for the whole manifesting magic as a weapon thing, and wished for some of the classic spells that Doctor Strange would cast in the comic (shouting things like, “By the crimson bands of Cyttorak!”). I’d watch a sequel, though.

Comic Book Men (AMC television show) – My uncle suggested this show to me, since he was the one who got me into comic books. Essentially, it’s a half-podcast, half-reality show about the comic book store in Red Bank, NJ that Kevin Smith owns – Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. It revolves around the antics of the store’s employees, which can be entertaining, but I’m more into watching the stuff that customers bring into the store to sell. I love watching the looks on the employee’s faces when something big ticket gets brought in. It’s been a fun watch for me, and I’ve seen a number of things from my childhood pop up. So while the antics portion of the show can get a little annoying sometimes, the “pawn shop” portion of the show never fails to intrigue.

And that’s all I got for now! I have another TPB and a graphic novel to read, and I may watch another animated movie, and I’ll report back to you next time. As I mentioned last time, if you have any suggestions, please let me know!

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Wanna Have a Comic Book Discussion?

by Pete on January 11, 2014 at 15:38
Posted In: blog

I’ve been out of the comic book loop for a long time, with sporadic reintegrations into the comic book community for short periods before disappearing again. My history with comic books is steeped heavily in a variety of issues from both Marvel and DC, from the eras of the 60s to the 80s mostly. My uncle had given me several big boxes of these comics, his personal collection from over the years, and I read through most of it (before they were destroyed in a flood… long story). I was more a Marvel fan (still am), enjoying the Avengers, Doctor Strange, and the X-Men (and spin-offs of). But I had some fun in the DC universe, mostly with the Doom Patrol and the Legion of Superheroes. Throughout the years following my childhood, I’ve collected some trade paperbacks and graphic novels, and a few bundled collections of comics, but for the most part it’s a habit that I don’t take part in.

Recently, I’ve started checking some stuff out of my local library’s graphic novel section, and I’ve wanted to talk about some of my reads, but haven’t had a particular place to do so. So I figured, Bardsworth is a comic, there are bound to be some comic book readers here, right? If not, I won’t bother doing this again, but for now, I thought I’d talk about some of the things I’ve recently read.

Watchmen – Yeah, I had never read it up until recently. And, to be honest, there’s not a whole lot that I can say about it that hasn’t already been said throughout the years. Blasphemous to some, I saw the movie before reading the graphic novel. I enjoyed the movie, and still do even after reading the source material. I can see where some hardcore fans could get a little irked at the movie version, but I don’t get the hatred for it, except that it’s cool to jump on the “I hate Zack Snyder” bandwagon. Sorry, I don’t go for mob mentality. In any case, I loved the graphic novel, although I’m not sure I’d ever bother to buy it because I’m not sure I’ll ever read it again.

Doctor Who: Fugitive - Being a Whovian, I figured I’d love the comics. And I liked the writing, but the artwork… holy moley, what was up with it? It’s terrible, and I almost stopped reading it because of that. But the story kept me going to the end, although despite the cliffhanger I’m not sure I want to bother moving on. That was the first strike against publisher IDW in my eyes.

The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures - I loved the movie The Rocketeer when I was younger, and I never got to read the original comics, so I was a little excited when I found out IDW was going to be publishing a new series based on the story. Well, I’m still in the midst of reading it, and… ugh, this time the artwork is pretty good, but the writing is awful. Inconsistent characters, forced dialogue, pacing that needs to be slowed way down. It’s a disappointment, a big disappointment. Not sure if I’m going to finish it. The second strike for IDW.

The Death of Superman – I’ll be honest up front: I hate Superman. I’ve never been interested in him as a character, I grew up thinking he was overpowered and overhyped, his sense of morality got on my nerves, and let’s not even talk about his costume. I know that DC changed him or has done other versions of him over the decades, but I don’t care. Just never liked him. So – and yes this a bit sick – I wanted to read his death. Again. I read it back when it first happened (I knew a guy who had collected them all), and decided to do it again. Really, it just cemented why I didn’t read much of DC at the time. The characters didn’t interest me, the writing was over the top, and I never found the artwork to be on par with most of Marvel’s. I’m sure you could argue with me on those points, but I’m speaking from limited experience, so while you’re probably right, it won’t mean much to me.

I’m in the middle of one more right now, and I’ll be checking out more soon. I’m thinking of grabbing up some of the recent Green Lantern stories (one of the only areas of the DC universe that ever really grabbed my attention) and maybe a random choice by an indie publisher, just for fun. Feel free to make suggestions, too – the selection at my library is slim-pickens, but I could probably special order them.

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A Little Housekeeping

by Pete on December 29, 2013 at 13:21
Posted In: blog

In regards to a recent strip, someone in the comments section asked who Annette is. For a reader of a long-running comic like Bardsworth, it can get pretty tough to remember characters who have popped up only a few times, or who hasn’t been in the story in a while. That’s where Comic Easel’s character tagging system is helpful!

When you click on the current strip’s title and are redirected to that strip’s page (rather than the home page), if you look below the title of said strip you will find a listing of characters that appear. When you click on a character’s name, a list of all the strips that character appears in will come up. Simple as that!

character-tags

In other news, I will be playing with my character designs a bit as the new year progresses. I’m bored with my current character designs and I don’t feel that I’m pushing myself as an artist (although my backgrounds have gotten exponentially better). There shouldn’t be any jarring changes, as I’ll be trying to do things gradually, but you will probably notice some differences as time goes on. Feel free to leave (tactful) feedback in the comments sections.

Lastly, I will hopefully have a new wallpaper available soon for donors (as well as the donation button reinstated). I’m going to to strongly encourage any and all donors to support the comic in the coming months. Since my Kickstarter failed, I have to make up the income that I was counting on from that.

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Inspiration From Zombies

by Pete on December 21, 2013 at 16:04
Posted In: blog

I’m always late to the game when it comes to most types of media. I didn’t get into The Walking Dead until after season one had made its way to Netflix, and I didn’t get my hands on the comics until just this past week (it’s nearly impossible to find the first trade paperback).  But I’m not here to talk about The Walking Dead or to debate whether the comic is better than the show. I want to talk about what Robert Kirkman, the writer, wrote at the beginning of the TPB. Here’s the excerpt that really hit home for me:

With THE WALKING DEAD I want to explore how people deal with extreme situations and how these events CHANGE them. I’m in this for the long haul. You guys are going to get to see Rick change and mature to the point that when you look back on this book you won’t even recognize him. I hope you guys are looking foward to a sprawling epic, because that’s the idea with this one.

Everything in this book is an attempt at showing the natural progression of events that I think would occur in these situations. This is a very character driven endeavor. How these characters get there is much more important than them getting there. I hope to show you reflections of your friends, your neighbors, your families, and yourselves, and what their reactions are to the extreme situations on this book.

These two paragraphs alone made me put Kirkman on a level that I reserve for exceptional fiction writers. And in reality, that’s what he is – a fiction writer. Leave out the pictures and the writing still stands; it’s the structure that holds the comic panels together. And it’s a structure that I agree with wholeheartedly.

Anyone who knows me well knows that when it comes to writing, I very much subscribe to the characters-over-plot model of writing. If you take away the characters in a book and just leave the plot, you don’t have a story, but a summary of the plot. But if you take away a plot and leave the characters, you can still have all sorts of stories.

Bardsworth is, and always will be, character driven. The characters that I write for (I can’t even say I created them because they created themselves) have taken on lives that I don’t control, and I wouldn’t want to. Things are much more interesting to me when they live the story. I’m just here to share it with everyone else.

All that having been said, I hope you enjoy the upcoming storyline. I’m still in the midst of writing it, but it should be interesting. I recently realized that one of my characters hasn’t told much of her story, and that makes her a weak character, so I want to remedy that. Hopefully it’ll bolster her appeal in the eyes of some of you readers.

I’ll tell you one thing, though – I’m not looking forward to illustrating it…

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Getting There…

by Pete on December 16, 2013 at 05:05
Posted In: blog

As you can see, the site is running a little smoother than earlier last week.  There are still some superficial details to take care of, and I’m working on under-the-hood things (like getting my archive in order), but for the most part things are looking swell.  Many thanks go out to the one and only Frumph, the man behind the CMS I’m now using called Comic Easel.  I’ve wanted to switch over for some time, but I guess sometimes it takes a disaster to get your keister in gear.

Your continued patience is invaluable, although I suspect that as long as I keep the comics coming, you won’t mind too much.  ;-)

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