No, the Blogathon didn’t burn me out. Here are a few choice bits from the week-or-two since.
Review code format: writing (3-1, faboo to mediocre), art (3-1), suitability for jumping on as a new reader (3-1), suitability for hooking a a non-comics reader (3-1), and eagerly waiting the collected TBP (Y/N).
Fables: Animal Farm TPB (Vertigo) [2/2/3/3/-]
The second collection of Bill Willingham’s series really hits its stride, even as the action moves (largely) up to the farm, where the refugee fairy tale denizens who can’t take on human form are exiled. But there’s revolution in the air, and more than a few heads are likely to roll. Willingham writes with wit, Buckingham and Leialoha on the art bring a fine realism to talking animals (and more). Fine stuff.
StormWatch: Team Achilles TPB #1 (Wildstorm) [2/1/3/2/-]
This series started slow for me, but I’ve warmed up to it a bit. The new incarnation of StormWatch is a UN hit squad to be used against troublesome metahumans. It’s violent, it’s irreverent, it’s smug, and, ultimately, it works, despite Portacio’s everyone-looks-sort-the-same artwork. Micah Ian Wright lets his characters off the leash enough to be exciting, without overly reveling in the bloody mess that results. One interesting aspect of this book is the (necessarily) negative view taken of the Authority — in their own book, idealistic world-savers, but here, interloping egotists.
Thor: Gods on Earth TPB (Marvel) [2/2/2/2/-]
Thor is All-Father, and has decided to bring Asgard to Earth — floating over NYC, in fact. The tensions — political, philosophical, religious — continue to grow between the Asgardians and the world they are commanded to protect, culminating with a battle between Thor and his former Avenger comrades. There’s a Squadron Supreme metas-intervening-in-mortal-affairs riff going on here, pretty decently (if oddly divorced from the rest of the Marvel Universe, Avengers and Iron Man crossover notwithstanding), while at the same time being firmly grounded in Marvel sensibilities (lot sof fisticuffs).