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All-Star Superman

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11:57 / 01.09.06

Yep Pants Payroll, you should be on the All*star payroll for colour test proofing. Well spotted. Yes, ackkk! My bad! *colour error* I'll pick it up for the collection Chief!

My desperate spin to recover what cred I ever had is the awful line:
hoping that yellow pencil effect looks like bright flash of electricity reflecting on pencil's glossy surface. Hah! No such spin'll save my ass man!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:08 / 01.09.06

Very, very good indeed, as per usual. I must admit, I like the whole Lex-as-Hannibal-Lecter thing. Just the way Quitely draws him, you can almost feel the hatred emanating from his body.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

14:06 / 01.09.06

...emanating off of his distressingly well-built body. I ask you: was the world really ready for an entire issue devoted to Lex Luthor in short-shorts?

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

16:38 / 01.09.06

Is that the eyebrow pencil dropping on panel 2 page 4?

17:36 / 01.09.06

Yep Dan Fish, and this idiot coloured it yellow when doing the power cable and forgot to tint it dark later... Pass me the Poisoned Pistol McVicar!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:48 / 01.09.06

emanating off of his distressingly well-built body

I also like that he's so muscly- it's like he's containing huge amounts of cruel violence, but being so clever doesn't need to let it out very often.

18:11 / 01.09.06

The power cable thing to me is a little like a nod to Watchmen. Superman as the anti-Rorschach, undoing the killing of the prison's big figure and redeeming superheroics a little.

02:01 / 02.09.06

having just read it, I have nothing much to add as of now. still tripping on it...

Luthor looked a wee bit like Kevin Spacey to me, but a mad-scientist-would-be-tyrant Lex, the ultimate social man; which made this issue [one of my favourites so far] a relief when put next to the movie's disappointing portraial of Lex again as a small crook with real estate ambitions.

reality crumbling at those panel's edges... pure genious. that and the stairs sequence may have made the glowing spirit of Will Eisner glad.

Jamie, can you tell how much of this was Grant or Frank? man, you need not to apologise much, all the rest was so fucking amazing, the textured surfaces and how you build the colors from FQ's valued line. I could stare at those images for hours...

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

03:50 / 02.09.06

Stoat- I also like that he's so muscly- it's like he's containing huge amounts of cruel violence, but being so clever doesn't need to let it out very often.

Lex is very much the anti-Batman, with his keen mind and keen body, hitting the peak of human perfection in his attempt to spite the Man of Steel.

05:40 / 02.09.06

I love the underlying Angry-Nerd-Who-Grew-Up-Underprivileged that Morrison puts into Lex. So desperate to overcompensate and having such FUN getting reactions from people by saying things like "Fat Girls" and "Born Dictator", or "Atilla The Hun Is My Hero".

06:53 / 02.09.06

I think LDones hit the jackpot here... Lex is not so much about his brilliance here, but seems more like about his gigantic need to overcompensate a blackhole the size of Superman's present powers. He's pretty pathetic in this issue. And if he actually got to brilliant, he fucked that up big time by the very motivation that made him climb that brilliant stairs.

I'm still trying to eat this comic. That's the biggest thing I'm loving in A*S, it doesn't hold my hand through the path (but it's sheer simplicity is what makes it so complex. It's exposition of interpersonal dynamics, and it's transitions and the way it "walks" are fuckin' genious, and made me remember that not everything we eat up is made of 500 words caption balloons and academic essays in a dialogue balloon. And THAT -- and something else that procedes that line that I can't quite put my finger on -- is what's making this reading as enjoyable as my good readings of "high" literature when I'm high)

08:26 / 02.09.06

Hector, the Will Eisner worthy stairs sequence in A*Supe#5 is "six of Grant and half a dozen of Frank". Grant suggests interesting panel sequences (ala We3). Frank interprets Grant's vision and naturally comes up with some off his own bat. It's often hard to tell them apart. Simply an all*star team doing what it does! "You got your comic teams and you got your armies. Wanna turn a comic team into an army - this is what you get!"

17:50 / 02.09.06

thanks, Jamie! you rock.

Professor Silly

18:57 / 04.09.06

Is that a Jeff Simmons-via-Zappa paraphrase, Jaime?

yawn - thing's buddy

11:22 / 05.09.06

I dunno man . . . story good, art - not so.

My least favourite, graphically, so far.

Thought the line work was a bit 'image' - seriously! sharp, scratchy, not right.

I loved the art in 2 and 3 - this issue was less convincing all round. thought lex seemed like a different man by the end of the strip. didn't really go for the colouring either - some of the surface textures seemed lazy, like 'quake' levels.

and I found clark kent to be physically revolting in this issue - perhaps that was deliberate - regardless, I thought it uneasy on the eye.

basic quitely layouts are still good - I could feel the weight of the boat in the final full page shot....and clark causing the earthquake was a beautiful piece of character study, the positioning of the body, foot etc - tho overall, I felt this isue to be a visual letdown.

cover was dull too. uninspiring, stiff.

12:30 / 05.09.06

nonsense, you mad southern jessie. check the maw on the parasite's face as he lurches round the corner, pure allconsuming multicock nastiness, full effect.

i thought this was a fine contender to go up against the mcarthy one actually, both seemed to be pushing in and out against their respective boundaries in diametrically opposed ways, with solo like some huge lost manson era beach boys fugue and a*supes a missing canto, excised because pound thought its struture was just a little too tight. more on this later perhaps, but the sense of balance i got from reading the two in sequence felt just so right. as of today supes has more on the reread, though mcarthy comics are often wine-like in that way i've noticed, and probably needs more time for me yet.

important: where my barbe-annotations at? who the cons in the riot, especially cylinder-hat putting the mesmer-mojo on the guard?

yawn - thing's buddy

13:21 / 05.09.06

parasite reminded me of that all consuming unstoppable monster in captain britain.

same colour too.

as I said, layout etc, good. writing good. just didn't like the colouring or inking - even though normally I'm well into what Jamie's done with Frank in the past.

the inking seems hesitant...unsure.

hey - it's still well ahead of most of its rivals in the arts stakes tho. (but you know, I much prefer the inking in the silent X-men issue for example - rounder, less scratchy)

but due respect etc . . . nothing in ASS comes close to the duke hussey, lord of nothing opening sequence in solo.

nothing.

in fact seeing BMC2 for real again, reminds me how far even the likes of quitely have to go if they want to match the reversed one . . ah mean, the art in the batman story.....wow!

and just to balance it out - jaimie - thanks for doling out some really beautiful artwork this past couple of years. however I reserve my right to not find this ish's artwork as appealing as some of the others on this board obviously do.

fair enough gumbitch?

ps. I can see Quitely quiting comics after ASS.

13:26 / 05.09.06

This occasional scratchiness has been there all along; look at the first page of #1, especially his Kryptonian ma'n'da, or Jimmy at the start of the last ish.

I don't know how much of this is a result of the digital inking process.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

13:44 / 05.09.06

But. Just look at the one panel of the sprinkler being heated up - the subtle gradation of the heat vision effect...

As for the prisoners, well; I'm not sure. I'd swear the prisoner who tries to shoot Lex in the back of the head is the Earth-3 Steve Lombard, though.

yawn - thing's buddy

14:03 / 05.09.06

yeah, page 1 of ish one and a few of the solar-shocker pages in the same issue were indeed scratchy - and not liked by me! (in fact I think I said so in this very thread a good while back)

hence my already stated love for only ASS2 and ASS3 artwise in above post McFalcman.

anyway - I've made my point, don't want to labour it any more.

LAD LASS tho, in solo - genius.

15:05 / 05.09.06

>>>the inking seems hesitant...unsure<<<

If I understand it (and Jamie feel free to correct if I'm wrong), there is no inking. The term "digital inks" refers to scanning the pencil artwork and adjusting the contrast levels in Photoshop to create a solid black line rather than a grey pencil line, and cleaning up smudges, etc. There's no actual inking involved, so any "unsure" or "hesitant" linework would be there in the pencils to start. For the record though, I don't really see what you're talking about - the artwork looked just as good to my eyes as the previous issues....*shrug*

Jawsus-son Starship

18:18 / 05.09.06

I loved all of Lex's observations about Clarke - that he could be as buff as superman, that his eyebrows were a subconcious representations of Supe's. I love this GD comic, and bearing in mind I bloody hate Superman, that's high praise indeed.

Does hateing superman make me stoopid?

21:39 / 05.09.06

Not at all. But it might mean you love Shadowhawk.

21:55 / 05.09.06

*CRRACKK!*

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

01:54 / 06.09.06

With Lois, Jimmy, and Lex all getting spotlight issues, it occurs to me that Perry White - as the closest this Kal has to a father figure with Pa dead - deserves his own issue. What sort of story would that even be?

yawn - thing's buddy

09:33 / 06.09.06

yeah.....I take it all back!

it was me that was unsure, hesistant - and scrastchy. i was still reeling from white goods imbibed at the weekend.

I had another look and read last night and realised I was way off.

And clark's rendition is cool too. why did I find him so offensive the night before? dunno really.

so apologies jaimie for my off-the-cuff comments; a second look has proved my initial musings to be total bullshit.

man . . . what a mistake - the art is superb!

but

the cover IS still a bit dull.

22:36 / 06.09.06

Nae worries Yawn, ay?

I have to admit, I react badly to the printed version at first sight. Really don't know about it at first, but warm to it by the next day and totally dig it thereafter. Weird, but there you are...

The italianoid 'less-is-more' space everywhere is a bit scarey too. Cameron is spot on with the digi-inks m'larky. Frank's pencil is supersharp and we're in 'no thick outline' territory.

As Robert Crumb was said to have said,"it's just lines on paper folks!"

00:06 / 07.09.06

Jamie's a dish inne, folks.

23:09 / 09.09.06

Just read #4 and 5, and they were superb! I love this series.

And it looks like they've released the cover to #7, and it's ridiculously awesome.

23:31 / 09.09.06

Me am not liking that. Very much am hating it, me am.

[Quitely Bizarro squee]

23:38 / 09.09.06

So, rather than turning people into Bizarros, the "plague" creates Bizarro people? Interesting.

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

00:39 / 10.09.06

Love the cross-eyed heat vision!

Cowboy Scientist

02:39 / 10.09.06

Excelent, just excelent cover (altrought I think I like the angly-faced Bizarro better, but nevertheless).

And, Jamie, you see the way Superman's fingertips are redder that the rest of his skin? And the texture of Bizarro's skin? That's why they're paying you the big bucks, and if they're not, they should be.

03:59 / 10.09.06

I don't think that's Jamie's work. Didn't he say he was off after #5, or am I misremembering?

05:45 / 10.09.06

Wow, that feels like a completely different approach to Sups in that cover. Looks like "Bizarro as Colorful Zombi Plague From That Game 'Dead Rising' with touches of SupermanAllSeasons and some Oldies I can't put my finger on yada yada".

I mean, Superman is different in this cover. He's bigger, butcher, older... I don't know, I'm running out of english words for "caricature strong-manly" that doesn't make me sound -- well too late for that. Seriously now, compare this massive mofo with ish#2 (or #3, or #4). Looks more like the Superman FQ did on Earth2.

Doesn't feel like the "a Superman post-emoish could buy". Feels to me like Morrison's thinking that the glamNoir+epicScifi colored-seed in the past issues have done their work so we'll be able to enjoy a "full-blown-colors with no hang-ups". There's no use of "slick", of the "All*Star" curve (really can't think of a better word or way to express this). The composition, style and colors are incredibly different from all the covers and panels from FQ we seen before in A*S. We hadn't seen yet this sort of jump-in-your-face hardrock busy splash, these sort of fifties(h)' colors orgy (feels like those white-red thingys from barbershops is going to pop up in the background or something).

Or maybe GM just has the balls to jump from approach to approach as he sees it's fit, without losing it's bigger perspective. #1, #2, #3 and #4 felt like that to me in it's best parts (although I felt a continous line of "mid2000's-All*Starish" to reach the "all-times" Sups).

(I really feel like I'm reading this comic in my own bizarre little way -- way off. Feels like no one is seeing what I'm seeing).

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