Just read the trade for the Valiant, the 4 issue mini co-written by Jeff Lemire and Matt Kindt with art by Paolo and Joe Rivera (plus a few sequences drawn by Lemire and painted by Kindt).

I haven't read a lot of the Valiant relaunch (sampled Harbinger and X-O when they launched and read the first trade of Archer and Armstrong, all of which I liked but not enough to shell out new comic prices for), but the talent on this series intrigued me, so when I saw it was only $8 for the trad eon Amazon and I had a gift card, I picked it up. I really enjoyed this. It was a good intro of the Valiant mythos, but also told a single compelling story with the lead characters fairly well fleshed out (yes a lot of the background characters were still plot puppets but in a crowded book with only 4 issues there's not enough pages and panels to flesh out everyone, but they did a good job of presenting and developing the leads). The flashback storybook sequences with Lemire's art were excellent and Paolo Rivera remains a master storyteller with his art-his facial expressions and body language speak volumes that many many so called big name comic artists cannot even approach the nuances and skill Rivera displays page in page out. Subtle things like using sound effects as panel borders to convey the immediacy of actions between panels (the cause and effect relationship on display for the eye to see-connected by the lack of a physical panel border but separated by the lettering is a brilliant technique) and it sets the pace for the readers eyes to follow and get all the narrative information needed to convey story.

After reading this, I am inclined to sample some more of the Valiant offerings and to check out Kindt's creator owned work (I already like Lemire's creator owned stuff, but had been lukewarm to his DC stuff, liking Green Arrow and some of Animal Man, disliking the rest he did there-and I haven't read anything he's done for Marvel yet).

I loved Rivera's work with Waid on Daredevil, but this is even better than that. I need to check out what else he has done as well.

-M

I think the thing about Boss is like most good villains, he doesn't see what he is doing as a bad thing at all. And considering how he came up, you understand that view point. Chief Lincoln Red Crow was a similarly complex bad guy in Scalped.

Just read the first volume of Injection by Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire.

It's typical Warren Ellis in that I am not quite sure I know what the fuck is going on or that I really want to, but I am completely engrossed by it and can't put it down. It's interesting to see bits of research he mentioned in his Orbital Operations newsletter and Morning Computer writing over the last year come into play in this story-particularly the bits about cunning folk and see how he used it (I love the behind the curtain of the craft kind of stuff).

And the art by Shalvey and Bellaire is just top notch. Beautifully horrific in places but the storytelling is clearly crafted while still visually interesting.

It's going to be a long wait for the second volume I fear though.

-M

Just read the free Jessica Jones comic Marvel put out by Bendis and Gaydos to promote the upcoming Netflix series. If the tone of the series is similar to the comic, it will be on par with the DD series (the Netfix DD makes an appearance in the comic too). I was already looking forward tot he Netflix series, but this added to the anticipation.

-M

Assuming you mean ASM VOl. 1 (which ended with 700), then you might. I haven't read the new #1 yet, but leading up to it, Peter Parker really very much resembled Iron Man in the mid 80s.

No, no....I meant the last issue that only came out 2 or 3 months ago. This one...




Also, isn't the volume that finished with issue #700 volume 2? It became volume 2 after the 1999 reboot and although they eventually returned to the original numbering, I was under the impression that those issues were all still counted as being volume 2.