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DK2

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Matthew Fluxington

14:06 / 08.12.01

Oh, I know what you meant, Cameron.

I was speaking for myself... I really think Batman is a spent character...same goes for Superman and Spider-Man. Such dead-ends... Actually, the majority of mainstream superhero franchises have had the beginning, middle, and end told, and are just in "The Continuing Adventures Of..." status now.

I think the big reason why X-Men has always done well is in part because that comic has a tradition of evolution and change and can seamlessly shift and adapt to the times, there need not be any key members (save for *maybe* Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Wolverine, and that's pushing it)...It's the most adaptable of all the big franchises...

The Knowledge +1

15:50 / 08.12.01

The best description of DK2 I've heard yet is that it's "the ESCAPE FROM LA of comics."
A pointless, overblown, unnecessary sequel that ends up being nothing more than an inferior remake of its predecessor.

How can you judge it as an 'inferior remake' etc if you haven't read it? Do you not actually agree with the assessment of its quality?

[ 08-12-2001: Message edited by: The Knowledge +1 ]

16:00 / 08.12.01

so when does FM'snullJESUS!come out?

16:33 / 08.12.01

>>>How can you judge it as an 'inferior remake' etc if you haven't read it?<<<

And around and around and around we go...

It's inferior on the basis of the artwork alone. This much is, I think, indisputable.

Regarding Miller's JESUS! project, from an interviewat the Onion AV club:

quote:

O: What's going on with the JESUS! project?

FM: It's on hold for now. If I do it, it'll take an awful lot of research, so it would be years off anyway. And Sept. 11 has made me a little down on religion these days.

[ 08-12-2001: Message edited by: CameronStewart ]

20:03 / 08.12.01

quote:Originally posted by Flux = Traffic Tiger:
[QB]
I was speaking for myself... I really think Batman is a spent character...same goes for Superman and Spider-Man. Such dead-ends... Actually, the majority of mainstream superhero franchises have had the beginning, middle, and end told, and are just in "The Continuing Adventures Of..." status now.

I don't think that Superman and Batman have reached a dead-end. In fact, I agree with what Miller said once when he said that these were the only two comic characters they would last forever (because they are the two main stereotypes, etc)...
Anyway, no character is dead if you put creative people behind them. The thing is that DC don't seem too keen on bringing these two characters to the new millennium. And the same goes to Spiderman (but that one is a character I've never been too interested in) It's quite probable that if Grant would have taken Superman under his wing, we all would be having a blast reading it, and Flux wouldn't have written that post. To sum up; don't blame the characters, blame the people behind them.

yawn - thing's buddy

20:46 / 08.12.01

I quite enjoyed DK2.

Some of the panel arrangements were actually pretty good. I dug the atom sequences a lot. Him grabbing hold of an elctron or whatever and sitting on it. Cool. His 'escape' from the dish - yeah, not bad. I like the Flash suit pop up out the ring. I sincerely liked the double spread of close-up of the young cat chick in that ridiculous spot costume.

I found this book interesting. I'm also lapping up the reaction from Barbelith.

Miller is an eighties man. You can feel it. He's no intelectual. But then again, neither is Morison. Moore, yes, definitle a very clever cunt. Back to Miller - he's reacting to a new world in a rather outmoded fashion. He lacks ******* but he does have something approaching verve. The structuring of the story is good. The Question and Green Arrow I could do without, but the other revivals are potentially interesting.

There is something creepy about how this book chimes with the present too. The book is ugly on first appearance. Agreed. But I've developed a liking for the art. Honestly. Superman really does seem like a cunt. More so than in DK1.

I'm a fan of the Warriors style device being used to progress an alternative media take on the story. Okay, the chick is a bit crap looking but the vibe is really quite good...

Naked news etc is a shallow take on the current western world view but it is a codified totem. A sigil if you prefer.

It does for me.

The patois is embarrasing. The fight scenes are difficult to follow. But the pacing is assured. The story does flow.

Lex's big creepy hands and scabby face are strangle sexual.

And on a final note:

you could draw parallels with the current obsession in X-Men - humans using their tenacity and capacity for domination over superbeings.

On a final, final note:

I've always been into Millers 'jump into the mind of a character' technique.

And I'm enjoying being inside the mind of Batman's young catbabe. It is a convincing young voice.

That said, it's not a great comic. But it is OK.

I'll be getting the next two issues.

[ 08-12-2001: Message edited by: I am SHAKO ]

Matthew Fluxington

09:04 / 09.12.01

quote:

Anyway, no character is dead if you put creative people behind them. It's quite probable that if Grant would have taken Superman under his wing, we all would be having a blast reading it, and Flux wouldn't have written that post. To sum up; don't blame the characters, blame the people behind them.

No, you misunderstand: I'm sure good stories can be told with all of these characters, but my position is that the essential arc of the character has been completed, that they are myths of the 20th century, and they will endure and live on, but there's little to be added to those characters that isn't already there. They can put the characters in new contexts, but it's still the same thing. The X-Men do stand as an exception, because they really can just make up a whole bunch of new characters and call them the X-Men and have it work and still BE the X-Men(it's been done about three times over), or completely reimagine the individual characters and situations into something distinctly different from past incarnations (what Grant is doing right now). It's because the X-Men is about a basic concept of mutation and persecution rather than about any particular characters. It loosens up the property to greater experimentation and freedom than something like Spider-Man or Superman or The Fantastic Four who must always be true to the original incarnation to work effectively.

So like I was saying: Superman is Superman, and whatever stories being told in the Superman comics is totally irrelevant because the myth has already been given a beginning, a middle, and an end. Whereas something like the X-Men can continue to grow and build and change (mutate, if you will) because it's far more open ended.

The Knowledge +1

09:04 / 09.12.01

>>>How can you judge it as an 'inferior remake' etc if you haven't read it?<<<
And around and around and around we go...

It's inferior on the basis of the artwork alone. This much is, I think, indisputable.

Cameron. U are a prick. You have not read this comic, yet u continue to bash it for no reason other than you suppose the artwork is bad. Newsflash dickhead: Frank Miller is a BETTER ARTIST than you, and he has twenty years on you, so you will probably never catch up. You base your assertions on the artwork alone? Than you are a twat because the writing is just as imoprtant, and your ignorance might be preventing you from seeing what the artworks desired effect is, placed within an overall context.

Wanker, jealous twat, you can fuck off moron, cause you might think I'm being unreasonable, but to make an assertion like you have without looking at the wider picture is a fucking crime, you asshole. You're just a wannabe tracer, so fuck you and your mother. Wanker.

Matthew Fluxington

09:04 / 09.12.01

I'd like for you to tell me why Frank Miller is a better cartoonist than Cameron Stewart.

The Damned Yankee

09:04 / 09.12.01

I don't give a good goddamn about who's a better artist than whom! I just want to know if DK2 is worth my money, and I'd like to hear it from someone who's actually in a position to know (as in: someone who's actually read the fucking thing!)! Stroke your egos elsewhere and stop rotting this thread!

01

09:04 / 09.12.01

It's definitely worth reading.

A sign of a really bad sequel is if it fucks up what was good about the original. ie. That bad Highlander movie where it explained that they were all from some stupid distant planet.

Is DK2 better or even as good as the original?
No way. It couldn't be.

Does it fuck up the original?
Not at all. It's just a good story continuing from where it left off.

09:04 / 09.12.01

>>>Cameron. U are a prick. You have not read this comic, yet u continue to bash it for no reason other than you suppose the artwork is bad.<<<

And you haven't read it either, according to your last post, but you continue to suppose that it's an unquestionable work of genius. How is your position any more valid than mine?

And out of curiosity, if I did read it and had the same reaction, what then? I'm just an idiot for not "getting it?"

As a point of interest, I'm part of a private Yahoo discussion group of professional comic artists - many of the members are very prominent names in the comics industry, people who you would no doubt hold in the same high regard as Miller. The reaction to DK2 over there is ten times as viciously negative as anything I've said here.

Because these people are artists, not fucking fanboys, and they know what they're talking about.

>>>You base your assertions on the artwork alone? Than you are a twat because the writing is just as imoprtant,<<<

I agree, but not more important. An ideal comic has a balance of great art and great writing. I don't like the artwork in DK2, I think it's sloppy and careless, and I'm certain that if it were in an amateur artist's submission portfolio it would be rejected without a second thought. Ergo, it is not a great comic by my definition, no matter how well-written the story (which I've already said has been reliably described as similarly poor).

>>>Wanker, jealous twat, you can fuck off moron, cause you might think I'm being unreasonable, but to make an assertion like you have without looking at the wider picture is a fucking crime, you asshole. You're just a wannabe tracer, so fuck you and your mother. Wanker<<<

...quipped Lord Byron one morning over breakfast.

Contrary to making me angry, which I'm sure was the desired intent, your post made me laugh out loud. So thanks for that.

I'm positive you'll enjoy DK2, Knowledge. You can read it, convince yourself that it's the most brilliant thing ever, roll it into a tube and fuck it before you go to bed at night. Meanwhile, I'll be over here with the rest of the adults.

Anyway, given that you're clearly just trolling, I'm not dignifying you with any further responses. Cheerio!

[ 09-12-2001: Message edited by: CameronStewart ]

09:04 / 09.12.01

>>>Naked news etc is a shallow take on the current western world view <<<

This Naked News bit is a pretty weak satiric device, given that it already exists...

yawn - thing's buddy

11:08 / 09.12.01

cameron - give me some credit man - I know it exists - and I was saying that it was a weak device anyway.

and also - so what if it exists already?

yawn - thing's buddy

11:16 / 09.12.01

it's all getting a bit bonkers here innit!?

knowledge - chill for fuck sake.

cameron - football critics can offer good advice concerning tactics and strategy. Art critics can profer words of wisdom. You don't have to be a professional footballer/artist/whatever to have a valid opinion.

And if the 'art is crap but the writing is fine does not make a good comic' thesis is applied to the Invisibles, then whats the score there?

Stil gutted at Celtic going out to Valencia on penalties....

[ 09-12-2001: Message edited by: I am SHAKO ]

12:47 / 09.12.01

>>>cameron - give me some credit man - I know it exists - and I was saying that it was a weak device anyway.
and also - so what if it exists already?<<<

That wasn't a barb aimed at you, sorry if you took it that way. I'm saying I don't think Miller is aware the Naked News already exists, and thought that he'd invented some clever point of satire.

>>>cameron - football critics can offer good advice concerning tactics and strategy. Art critics can profer words of wisdom. You don't have to be a professional footballer/artist/whatever to have a valid opinion.<<<

Absolutely, I agree with you 100%. I was mentioning the Yahoo group thing because I thought it worthy of note that since Knowledge +1 seems to think mycriticisms are invalid because I'm "not as good as Miller," that there are a good deal of artists who are who have precisely the same, and in some case even more extreme and rabid, opinions as myself.

And I was suggesting that Knowledge might be allowing his fanboyishness to overshadow his judgement.

>>>And if the 'art is crap but the writing is fine does not make a good comic' thesis is applied to the Invisibles, then whats the score there?<<<

An ideal comic is one that has great artwork and great story. Sadly it's a very rare thing, and occasionally there will be works in which the strength of one will compensate for the deficiency of the other.
I think The invisibles is a comic that is extraordinarily well written but occasionally very badly drawn.

The Invisibles is a slightly different situation in that it was a monumental collaboration between dozens of artists, not all of which cared or understood what Grant was attempting to do, so blame for its weaknesses can be diffused somewhat. DK2 is Frank Miller working solo (well, with Varley).

yawn - thing's buddy

15:12 / 09.12.01

cameron - you seem like such a sound chap!

02:29 / 10.12.01

yeah, i came back here after a long break, just to see how things were, and its nice to see that cameron is still insulting every other artist out there, and some other guy is bothering to argue with him.
Yawn. And everyone on here thinks that the dark knight is played out...

03:12 / 10.12.01

Um, can I just say again, for the record, that I like a lot of Miller's other work? I think Dark Knight Returns, Year One, Ronin, Daredevil, Elektra: Assassin, the early Sin City stories, etc etc etc are all really great comics. I do have a lot of respect for him.

But I don't like DK2!!! Horror!

03:28 / 10.12.01

And for everyone who is genuinely angry about this, you can all have your revenge in March when Catowman #5 hits the shops and you can tell me how much I suck.

[ 10-12-2001: Message edited by: CameronStewart ]

yawn - thing's buddy

06:19 / 10.12.01

and for the record, I was being sincere in my assessment of cameron's online persona.

08:42 / 10.12.01

Well i for one quite liked DK2...Heres my thoughts...

I can see why some people don't like the art...it's nowhere near as good as the first DK and isn't nearly as exiting as Millers finest work ...the splash page on pages 12-13 where Batman is using his mechanical bat-a-rang to swing up over the ominous looking gargoyles is pretty ugly i admit. Saying that though page 22 with the touching scene where Bruce Wayne is playing footsie under the prison vistors table with his falsly accused blind lawyer is exellent. It really conveys the mixture of anxiety and flirtation of the scene.

Other highpoints in the book include the re-design of the Riddlers' costume (changing the question marks with full stops was inspired...makes him much more menacing) and the final page with Batman standing in the rain looking at his Mothers pearl necklace (this coming after the previous sexually charged homo-erotic scene with Robin gives the necklace an interesting anal beads connotation...the rain dropping to the floor like a jism storm...classic stuff)...I think Miller is definatly exploring some interesting themes and still giving the punters what they want...some of them anyway...

08:42 / 10.12.01

Uh, Annotated, did you get some variant copy? Like the Blue Lizard, or Nude Elektra variant, only this time with entirely different interior pages ?

DBC

[ 10-12-2001: Message edited by: DaveBCooper ]

Matthew Fluxington

12:57 / 10.12.01

I was looking at DK2 in a shop yesterday passing the time while the laundry was going... Lord, the art is awful. I am very confident that I could have done better myself.. And it's not Frank's *style* which is the problem, people....it's the disregard for page layout, panel-to-panel continuity and storytelling, the piss-poor backgrounds and figure drawings, it's hard to imagine a person who has been drawing comics for this many years has decided to draw is such an amateurish hackish way... If the art reminded me of anything, it was the way Rob Liefeld and his proteges draw and compose pages...

yawn - thing's buddy

18:15 / 10.12.01

flux ma man,

really the panel sequencing is fairly engaging and quite smart in places. The more I check this book out, the more I get into it.

I am perverse, please note.

I do find your masochistic engagement with this particular title rather hilarious though. Why should you spend 6 bucks on this book when you could pump that coinage into your local laundry after all!

I'm gonna stop championing this book now, but I will say this:

it's really not as bad as it looks on first appearance.

Spose in the end I'm interested in the good bad and ugly of this medium - jeez I bought a witchblade trade last christmas. (wanna buy it? - pages not stuck together, honest guv)

nuff said.

19:16 / 10.12.01

I still haven't read it; it's sitting accusingly on my bedroom floor. I'll probably buy the other two whatever ("masochistic engagement" is about right), but I really ought to read the first one.

Matthew Fluxington

19:31 / 10.12.01

quote:Originally posted by I am SHAKO:

I do find your masochistic engagement with this particular title rather hilarious though. Why should you spend 6 bucks on this book when you could pump that coinage into your local laundry after all!

I haven't bought it, and I won't. I've read it at the shop, which I do for most comics which I am curious about but will not buy (though I still masochistically purchase Uncanny X-Men in spite of how awful it is, and I honestly can't figure out why.)

In my expert opinion, I think that DK2 looks and reads like it was created by a pair of teenage boys.

21:08 / 10.12.01

quote:Originally posted by CameronStewart:

>>>Wanker, jealous twat, you can fuck off moron, cause you might think I'm being unreasonable, but to make an assertion like you have without looking at the wider picture is a fucking crime, you asshole. You're just a wannabe tracer, so fuck you and your mother. Wanker<<<

...quipped Lord Byron one morning over breakfast.

[ 09-12-2001: Message edited by: CameronStewart ]

I
like Cameron...

10:11 / 11.12.01

From the Onion interview, Frank Miller sez:
"Right now, the comic-book mainstream is guys in tights, hitting each other in the face. I'd like to at least get to where we're used to the idea of crime comics, of Westerns, of political commentary, of autobiography, even."

Yikes.

Direct Currents, November 2002: Frank Miller: Behind The Pen With the Greatest Graphic Autobiographic-er Ever: My Life in Pictures - a Story By Frank Miller, About Frank Miller. Fans of Frank Miller will thrill to these illustrated versions of classic events in Frank Miller's life. From that time when he was drawing that comic book, the one with Batman, to the time he wrote that movie, to the time he wrote that other comic book, it's all here. Part foam rubber, part variant cover - all Frank Miller.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:51 / 11.12.01

It's not a silly idea at all - Judd Winnick's Pedro And Me and Brian Michael Bendis' Fortune And Glory are just two examples of critically-acclaimed graphic novels that are autobiographical (I've only read the latter, but it's great). Unfortunately Marvel then hired them both to write men in tights hitting it each other. Which is also what Miller is currently doing.

10:53 / 11.12.01

I should clarify: where it sounded like I was saying autobiographical comics are silly, I was really meaning to say Frank Miller is silly.

Mah bad.

11:00 / 11.12.01

Bit perplexed by that, to be honest, Reality; the man himself may seem to be an easy target if you’re not a fan of DK2, but I guess he’s probably talking about the kind of titles that we praise so highly when they actually come out – but meaning that we should reach a stage where we aren’t surprised when the medium throws up something other than superheroes.

In other words, a medium where works such as Stray Bullets, Kane, 100 Bullets, Desperadoes, Palestine, Fax from Sarajevo, Stuck Rubber baby and Maus are as commonplace as tights-and-capes titles. Sounds fairly healthy.

On the other hand, how easy a target should Miller himself be ? He’s a self-taught writer/artist who produces new material on a regular basis, an avowed supporter of the CBLDF and creators’ rights, it’s generally accepted that he’s produced some quality work, and on a personal level, he seems willing to use interviews to talk up the medium (and, sure, his own work, but he’s hardly alone in that) and its potential (as evinced by your quote). And on the occasion I met him, I have to say he seemed like a decent chap.

Bearing that in mind, and the fact that your summary of his career to date seems to suggest he hasn’t had any impact on the medium, I feel you’re being a bit unfair. No, make that a lot unfair. Yeah, I know you’re kidding, but you might as well dismiss Will Eisner as ‘that guy who drew some newspaper strip, and then those stories set in tenements’, which would be equally reductive, and probably about as accurate.

I think this thread is in danger of people missing the point : not liking DK2 is no more a reason to attack Frank Miller on a personal level than… well, liking DK2 is a reason to attack Cameron Stewart on a personal level.

DBC

11:27 / 11.12.01

Certainly not. The times I've met Frank Miller he indeed seemed like a perfectly nice chap. However, reading the interview with him on the Onion, he does come off a bit self-aggrandizing. Of course he's done good work, certainly a heavy influence on the medium. But as someone pointed out, he did write Robocop 2 and 3. So my take on Frank Miller is that while he has done some very good work, I don't revere him enough to NOT laugh at the idea of him hunched over his art table scripting and drawing his autobiography. Don't read any more into it than that.

Where I'm from calling someone silly isn't a personal attack; try saying it with a lisp and you get the general bileless tone.

As far as personal attacks on Miller, I don't think anyone has been too hard on him -though I haven't checked out the "I'm no fan of Frank Miller" lately - and I'd say it's up for debate how much he opens himself to "personal" attacks in his role as mainstream comic spokesperson of the week. I think his and DC's billing of D2K as the greatest thing since sliced bread probably makes them a bit more responsible for the finished product, seeing as how it's going to suddenly leap out of the dark underbelly of the comics shop into the mainstream limelight. So for at least a little while, to some people, Frank Miller = comics. I think that's a fair point to consider when it comes to critiquing both his work and his media persona. In that regard, if my career summary seems reductive, imagine how it will look printed in the intro to every article about D2K, filtered through the mind of someone who only knows Frank Miller as a guy who writes comics and the ocassional Robocop movie.

This should probably go in the other thread right about...now.

[ 11-12-2001: Message edited by: Reality Is Psychosomatic ]

12:00 / 11.12.01

Well, yes, I guess I see your point, but I think that we need to bear the facts of Miller’s comics career in mind, and not try to second-guess what the non-comics reader might read into an edited version of those facts.

And I think you’re probably right that he’s ‘this week’s spokesperson for the medium’. Though in the UK, that position might have gone to Chris Ware, what with him winning an award and everything…

And I’ll have a look in the other thread, as you suggest.

DBC

Matthew Fluxington

12:18 / 11.12.01

I don't see any real difference between crime and western comics and superhero comics...it's all specific genre work, it's all stuff that's been in comics since the beginning, it's all macho boy stuff for the most part. It's certainly not progressive, and the artists and writers who feel that by doing crime comics they are doing something to move the medium fowards are just kidding themselves.

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