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POUNDED

Regrettable Juvenilia

19:04 / 04.04.02

If you haven't bought this, the first issue of a new 3-part miniseries written by Brian Wood and drawn by Steve Rolston, you may as well go and buy a Green Lantern t-shirt and another one that says "I AM KILLING EVERYTHING GOOD AND PURE IN COMICS".

20:38 / 04.04.02

Actually flyboy, I have a Green Lantern t-shirt, but I also bought this and got it into my store. And it was all good.

Zoom.

09:45 / 06.04.02

i wanna get this.

10:02 / 06.04.02

Info! Infoinfoinfo! Now! Please?

And can someone tell me if I can make my local book shop sell me this? Or do I have to talk to Forbidden Planet in So'ton nicely? Hmm?

I'm sick to fucking death of missing out on every fucking thing...

Matthew Fluxington

13:37 / 06.04.02

Ah, I don't know. I read Flyboy's copy and I wasn't very impressed. It reads like a bad tv show, I think. It's not awful, and I think it's a nice accessable comic for a marketplace that the industry could tap for some great potential, but outside of economic/marketing terms, I can't appreciate it for much else.

The art is nice, in a second-rate Philip Bond sort of way...

Something about having the riot grrrl character only exist as a mindless deviant sex fiend rubs me the wrong way, too..

13:58 / 06.04.02

I haven't heard of this either - but there's stuff about it over at Steve Rolston's site and he has some links through to some other information. Quite a nice site, he's got, actually...

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:03 / 06.04.02

Well, okay, I probably should have provided some more information in my first post, but I wanted to be unreasonable and ranty.

Pounded #1 basically introduces us to Heavy Parker, supposedly the "punk rock king" of Vancouver but actually a trust-fund kid, something of a poser, and basically an asshole (but it's to Wood's credit that he doesn't make his protagonist so unlikeable that we don't want to see how this plays out). I'm not entirely sure yet how negatively we're supposed to see the whole culture that Heavy and his friends are part of - that revolves around partying, being obnoxious and playing and listening to bad punk rock.

But anyway, the main sense in which Heavy is an idiot is the way he treats his girlfriend, 17 year-old Missy - which involves his desire to have fun with old flame Ali 'Ali Cat' MacClaw, the aforementioned singer in a punk rock grrl band (although I think there are problems with the way she's portrayed, I wouldn't go so far as Flux does - it's refreshing to see a character like Heavy cop to being into the kind of "deviant" acts depicted/implied, for one thing - "the things she did to em, man - I fell in love").

I don't feel the art is sub Philip Bond - Rolston is pretty much Bond's equal, although not as tested...

10:44 / 08.04.02

a good intro to it would be the sunday comics over at oni. how heavy met missy and shit like that. in full colour!

http://www.onipress.com/sundaycomics/index.shtml

(again, not html-ising, can't remember the code to get a new window)

12:05 / 08.04.02

I read some of the sundays. Snap verdict: Hectic Planet starring Nathan Barley. Noise Verdict: Enh.

No star here laces

12:17 / 08.04.02

Mmmm. this is my problem with this comic. I think Heavy is far too obviously telegraphed as an asshole and a 'fake' punk. Presumably the 'real' punks turn up in the next issue.

To which I say: what a heap of bullshit.

Far more interesting to explode the idea that there's any such thing as a 'real' punk when the whole point of such scenes is to create an appealling and simplistic fantasy world for adolescent adventuring. Blue Monday understands this, I don't think Pounded does...

I also think it's a stylistic mistake to root the comic so squarely in a recognisably 'real' world. The best comics in this genre like Grrl Scouts and Blue Monday inject fantasy to allow the comic to be more about the creator's take on the 'scene' and prevent it from descending into old-schooler nazism and over-seriousness.

I'll keep buying it cos it's Oni and quite fun, but it's not in the class of Grrl Scouts or Blue Monday.

Murray Hamhandler

00:14 / 11.04.02

FYI-See also:
POUNDED: Wood, Rolston, Oni, punk rock!

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:26 / 11.04.02

Apparently Rolston is lined up to take over writing on X-Force as of #130, which will be renumbered as X-POUNDED #1.

Regrettable Juvenilia

02:24 / 12.04.02

Far more interesting to explode the idea that there's any such thing as a 'real' punk when the whole point of such scenes is to create an appealling and simplistic fantasy world for adolescent adventuring. Blue Monday understands this, I don't think Pounded does...

I also think it's a stylistic mistake to root the comic so squarely in a recognisably 'real' world. The best comics in this genre like Grrl Scouts and Blue Monday inject fantasy to allow the comic to be more about the creator's take on the 'scene' and prevent it from descending into old-schooler nazism and over-seriousness.

I dunno though, I get the impression that Heavy's lifestyle is supposed to be very appealing/seductive on one level, a fantasy for the WEF wannabe punk fanboy (he even puts some of his friends/cronies in it...). See the fantasy 'riot grrl' figure, etc - it's not that 'real world' by any means, and I don't think the 'real punks' who are going to show up are going to be meant to represent a kind of puritanical ideal - I expect them to be more like, say, the guys in El Mariachi (if that makes sense) - OTT guns for hire...

No star here laces

07:54 / 12.04.02

Mmmm, I think you give the writers too much credit in thinking 'Ali Cat' is a caricature of a fanboy riot grrl fantasy. I think she's an actual fanboy fantasy. Maybe episode II will make me eat my words but I reckon not.

Here's hoping you're right about the real punks - anything reminiscent of El Mariachi is bound to be good.

A

06:08 / 15.04.02

this strip might clarify Pounded's stance on "real" punks a bit- http://www.onipress.com/sundaycomics/popups/pounded-1.shtml (i bet that link doesn't work like i wanted it to)

No star here laces

07:45 / 15.04.02

Hah! Those were quality.

I take it all back - this comic kicks proverbial.

"Down with corporate fuckery!"

08:10 / 15.04.02

Finally got this the other day .. thoughts:

the art's dead cool, isn't it? d'you reckon Phil Bond's gonna sue?

Difficult to tell quite what moral angle the story is going to take yet, but I hope we're not supposed to feel sympathy for the central character .. what a dickhead..

I think maybe they're trying hard to capture the mentality of faux-slacker rich kids, but they're not quite sure whether they're celebrating their lifestyle or criticising it, with the end result that mostly the characters are just annoying assholes (see Reality Bites).

I think we can get some spoilers as regards what's going to happen in future issues by looking at the cover to the soundtrack (as advertised on the back cover): Heavy covered in blood, carrying a baseball bat, his girlfriend with punk hair and loads of piercings, and some very scary looking men throwing chairs around. Crikey!

Would it be foolish of me to point out that the 6 panel page where he's sitting at the party being miserable is really cleverly done? the way the characters (inlcuding Jim Mahfood and the Oni publisher bloke) move from panel to panel, and the scene from True Romance on the TV.. I really liked that page.

09:28 / 16.04.02

rizla:
"Difficult to tell quite what moral angle the story is going to take yet, but I hope we're not supposed to feel sympathy for the central character .. what a dickhead.."

uh, why not check the link to the oni sundays that i posted way up in the thread?

18:58 / 01.05.02

#2 and the soundtrack came out today. The soundtrack is quite good, but I haven't read the comic yet. Hope it lives up to it's promise.

Zoom.

Regrettable Juvenilia

16:20 / 24.06.02

Gah.

Gah.

Pounded#3 is *terrible*. It devalues the rest of the series in the way that the last issue of The Authority did... It reads like it's only 8 pages long... Oh dear. Although I'd still stand by issue #1, overall the series seems to prove the point that it doesn't matter how much better the setting of a story is than your average comic, if the story itself just... isn't... THERE.

Trite, brainless, argh...

Brian Wood has let me down horribly here. I can only hope that 'Fight For Tomorrow' sees him back on form.

16:43 / 24.06.02

Yikes.

I haven't picked up #3 yet, but in reading some of Brian Wood's comments over at the Ellis forum, I get the impression that Mr. Wood himself is a true-blue believer in "real" punk, that he considers himself "authentic" and "street" and "down with the kids, yo"--which makes POUNDED terribly ironic in all the wrong ways.

It can't be that bad, can it? Please tell me it can't: please tell me he's in on the joke...

09:23 / 25.06.02

Jeez .. I haven't seen issue #2 anywhere, let alone #3.. curse you, crap comic shops! Well at least it doesn't sound like I'm missing much..

No star here laces

13:06 / 25.06.02

Suddenly that great idea about a team of breakdancing, freestyling teenage superheroes in matching do-rags doesn't seem so bad....

15:30 / 30.06.02

Picked up those two issues yesterday - can't believe how shit they are. So he beats up those guys (or doesn't even - attempts to) and suddenly his sycophant friends love him again and his sins are negated, as is the general criticism of his lifestyle, and everything's alright? Um, ok.. how does that work? what was the point again? why did it seem about 12 pages long? exactly how many individual minutes did it take to write the script? Useless..

20:10 / 01.07.02

flipped through the last issue in the store... sort of glad I missed the 2nd issue

Jack The Bodiless

15:17 / 10.07.02

The age-old story... boy buys #1... boy falls in love with #1 and makes Important Pronouncements about the quality and width of the story... boy reads #2 and #3 and hears that the writer is a Bear Of Very Little Brain and realises that the emperor was totally naked THE WHOLE TIME!

It's the great Rock N' Roll Swindle all over again...

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:24 / 10.07.02

"hears that the writer is a Bear Of Very Little Brain"

Don't believe everything you hear - I wouldn't make too many judgments about any writer based on their internet posting habits, and Wood's other two major projects so far, Channel Zero and Couscous Express (both graphic novels), aren't diminished in quality just cos Pounded was crap. They're still mighty, and he's still a writer to watch out for, if you ask me. Plus, what he's said about Pounded in retrospect makes me wonder if it isn't his Big Dave...

09:11 / 11.07.02

Apparently Rolston is lined up to take over writing on X-Force as of #130, which will be renumbered as X-POUNDED #1.

WHAT?!?!?!

Why does everyone take Peter Milligan away from me?

Or is this a joke which I do not get from the depths of my 80s/90s Vertigo and b&w feminist indie comics lair?

09:29 / 11.07.02

The latter i'm affraid Deva - there will be no X-force 130 - Milligan and Allred's title is now called X-statix and starts again from issue one

10:01 / 11.07.02

thanks - I shall look out for it.

14:06 / 11.07.02

While X-FORCE is being restarted as X-STATIX, it will STILL be by Milligan and Allred. The above poster's X-POUNDED bit was a joke -- shame on you all for making Deva twist in the wind like that, thinking it was real!

Rolston is going nowhere near X-FORCE/X-STATIX/X-anything, for that matter.

15:46 / 12.07.02

Plus, what he's said about Pounded in retrospect makes me wonder if it isn't his Big Dave...

ezxcept Big Dave is really funny..

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:53 / 05.10.02

"i really should have written an epilogue where all [Missy] does is kick Heavy in the nuts for 45 minutes..."

Yes, he really should. Might have made all the difference. You can read Wood's other thoughts on the series, which are to be included in the forthcoming trade, here.