| |
|
Thanks for doing this Finder. I forgot/never got round to it.
Anyway, I first read of Brubaker as part of the new wave of apparently very post-noir, 50's influenced American scriptwriters that were coming up in the late 90's; Bendis and Rucka being the other two, otoh. Might've been one more, but I cannae mind. At the time, he was by some distance the least famous, BMB had taken over Ultimate Spidey, and Rucka was doing, I dunno, Detective? Batman? Yeah, I think he'd done a lot of that 'No Man's Land', anyway. Brubaker had done Deadenders at Vertigo (which had nice art, iirc, not read it) or something, and was about to start doing Batman - some of which I later read, and wasn't very taken with, possibly partly due to Scott McDaniel's rubbish pencil-work.
Anyway, I sort've disregarded him (bought one ish of Dead Boy Detectives when there was sod all in that week - it's a Sandman spin-off, so you can probably imagine pretty much, though his Prez one-shot's decent) and carried on reading comics by Brits who'd done Vertigo titles at some point or other, the majority of whom ended up doing Marvel books over the late 20th/early 21st century. Until a pal, who'd lent me a not small amount of money when I was needy, the majority of which I'd paid back, expressed an interest in this Sleeper comic. As I went for the comics on a regular, anyway, I figured I should just get him it (and read it to myself first, of course.) Sleeper was pretty much the bomb, as you may know; it brought the grime to Wildstorm comics when there was pretty much fuck all else going on there, post-Authority, and between Planetary issues which largely aren't worth the wait anymore (I've yet to be convinced of the virtues of Joe Casey.) Sean Phillips, who must be one of the most underrated artists in the game, brought a suitably blocky, shadowy atmosphere and there were lots of nice narrative spins, like the embedded origin stories the villains told. So, at that point, I was sold.
Not much later, I think, I'd signed up to Barbelith and Cameron 'don't call him Cam' Stewart was showing his art for Catwoman off in a thread or link somewhere; I'd noticed the earlier Cooke/Allred redesign of the character and been really impressed, but it was Catwoman, y'know? Years of Jim Balent and his breast fetishism had their toll on perceptions of the character; but having read some of Sleeper, and been suitably impressed, I picked up the 5-6 issue arc with the Black Mask. I was pretty blown away; again, it was street-level, but the art combo of Stewart and Matt Hollingsworth's brilliantly chosen, flat palette alongside a really pretty grotesque denouement and wonderfully-realised characters (especially Holly, Selina's ex-junkie, gay best friend) made it really feel like an anachronism, something unique. The following arc, illustrated by Javier Pulido, 'No Way Down' was - in retrospect - the best character arc that came out that year (2003?) Again, it brought a great disjunct in presentation (four colour palette or something close, verrry elegant, simple linework) with content - a superheroine comic, albeit a very emotional (depressing, sad) one. Embedded stories ruled it here too; Holly's memories and dreams when she pocketed some medication were beautifully linked with childhood memories of listening to a shell-conch, wordlessly. Selina's dreams of everything being okay slipped away into her painful new life. There followed a tour of DC's lesser cities - Opal, Central - and a hookup with Ted 'Wildcat' Grant, which should always be good, and was and it was a nice bit've kitsch. Then Paul Gulacy came onboard for art and sucked it, massively, which is a shame 'cos I liked his Shang-Chi when I was 8 or so, so I stopped reading. (I've only read bits of Gotham Central, half of which is Rucka anyhow, but I did think it more than decent; perhaps Benjamin can fill people in on that a bit more.)
I'll get to the Marvel stuff later; just reread Cap. Tapped out for now. |
|
|
