{"id":11633,"date":"2007-07-28T08:54:08","date_gmt":"2007-07-28T15:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2007\/07\/28\/bt07-deep-thoughts.html"},"modified":"2007-07-28T08:54:08","modified_gmt":"2007-07-28T15:54:08","slug":"bt07_deep_thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/07\/28\/bt07_deep_thoughts.html","title":{"rendered":"BT07 – Deep Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

Action Philosophers: Giant Sized Thing<\/em><\/strong><\/a> #1 <\/i>(Evil Twin) [collects #1-3]
w. Brian Van Lente; a. Ryan Dunlavey<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Writing<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n New reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Art<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n Non-comics reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Action Philosophers: Giant Sized Thing<\/em><\/strong><\/a> #2 <\/em>(Evil Twin) [collects #4-6]
w. Brian Van Lente; a. Ryan Dunlavey<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Writing<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n New reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Art<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n Non-comics reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

A faboo series idea — present the biographies, thoughts and philosophies of great thinkers over the ages in an irreverent comic book style format.  Van Lente does an excellent job of distilling down some nasty philosophical concepts into an easy to understand narrative, and Dunlavey’s art provides entertaining visual cues for the same.<\/p>\n

The first volume works best — the thinkers chosen there (Plato, Nietzsche, Bodhidharma, Ayn Rand, Thomas Jefferson, St Augustine, Freud, Jung, Joseph Campbell) seemed to lend themselves more readily to the concept.  The second volume is still quite readable with the folks it talks about (Marx, Machiavelli, the Kabbala, Descartes, Sartre, Derrida, Wittgenstein, Aquinas, Kierkegaard), but feels a bit more forced (“running out of deep thinkers here, guys!”).  There’s a third (and final) volume coming out soon.<\/p>\n

A nice intro to philosophy and philosophers, and something that non-comics readers won’t even notice is actually a comic book.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

The Boys: The Name of the Game<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, Vol. 1 <\/i>(Dynamite) [collects #1-6]
w. Garth Ennis; a. Darick Robertson<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Writing<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n New reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Art<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n Non-comics reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

When the super-heroes start demonstrating that “absolute power corrupts absolutely” — the government calls in “the Boys,” an enhanced group of bruisers to sow them with great power comes great responsibility … or else.<\/p>\n

This is Ennis, of course, so the “corruption” generally involves sex, drugs, more sex, and casually inflected “collateral damage.”  And teaching them a lesson generally means some brutal violence and wicked social commentary.  The tale is told mostly from the perspective of a new recruit, “Wee Hughie,” whose girlfriend is killed in passing by a super-hero pursuit; but there’s a nice parallel thread with a very nice young teen metahuman who finds herself promoted up to the top-tier team — and learns just what those folks are like when they’re not issuing press releases and saving the world.<\/p>\n

Wickedly funny, brutal and abusive, it’s triffic fun, too.  Even non-comics readers will find it both outrageous enough to amuse and a great poke at the super-hero genre.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Action Philosophers: Giant Sized Thing #1 (Evil Twin) [collects #1-3] w. Brian Van Lente; a. Ryan Dunlavey  Writing New reader? Art Non-comics reader? Action Philosophers: Giant Sized Thing #2 (Evil Twin) [collects…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogathon","category-media-comics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6908,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/12\/03\/comic_relief_8.html","url_meta":{"origin":11633,"position":0},"title":"Comic relief","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 3-Dec-04 9:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A few graphic novels that have been stacking up ... and up to forty words about them. Review code format: [writing (5-1, faboo to mediocre) \/ art (5-1) \/ suitability...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15401,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/26\/bt09-u-is-for-unusual-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":11633,"position":1},"title":"BT09 – U is for Unusual (#Blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 26-Jul-09 2:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"Need to go take some aspirin. This is a good chair, and I'm sitting properly and all, but 20 hours of it is beginning to cause me some pain. \u00a0 Ultimate Power\u00a0(Marvel) [collects #1-9] w. Brian Bendis, Joe Straczynski, Jeph Loeb; a.\u00a0Grag Land\u00a0 Writing New reader? Art Non-comics reader? The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15350,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/25\/bt09-i-is-for-indefatigable-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":11633,"position":2},"title":"BT09 – I is for Indefatigable (#Blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 25-Jul-09 3:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Invincible, vol. 8, \"My Favorite Martian\"\u00a0(Image) [collects #36-41] Invincible, vol. 9, \"Out of This World\"\u00a0(Image) [collects #42-47] Invincible, vol. 10, \"Who's the Boss?\"\u00a0(Image) [collects #48-53] w. Robert Kirkman; a.\u00a0Ryan Ottley\u00a0 Writing New reader? Art Non-comics reader? Invincible remains a steady and powerful performer. While on one level Kirkman is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars5.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15369,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/25\/bt09-n-is-for-naughty-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":11633,"position":3},"title":"BT09 – N is for Naughty (#Blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 25-Jul-09 7:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 New Avengers, Vol. 5, \"Civil War\"\u00a0(DC) [collects #21-25] w. Brian Bendis; a.\u00a0various\u00a0 Writing New reader? Art Non-comics reader? A series of stand-alone stories, each with its own artist, on Avengers choosing sides in the Registration Act Civil War, delving into both motive and the circumstances that forced their decision.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11624,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/07\/28\/bt07_space_heroes.html","url_meta":{"origin":11633,"position":4},"title":"BT07 – Space Heroes","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 28-Jul-07 12:51pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Green Lantern: Rebirth\u00a0(DC) [collects #1-6] w. Geoff Johns; a.\u00a0Ethan Van Sciver\u00a0 Writing New reader? Art Non-comics reader? I missed this 2004 miniseries when it came out, rehabilitating Hal Jordan\u00a0as...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15348,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/25\/bt09-h-is-for-historical-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":11633,"position":5},"title":"BT09 – H is for Historical (#Blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 25-Jul-09 2:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Hellboy, Vol. 4, \"The Right Hand of Doom\"\u00a0(Dark Horse) [collects a whole bunch of stuff I'm not going to type] w\/a. Mike Mignola\u00a0 Writing New reader? Art Non-comics reader? Ah, the golden days of the mid-to-late 90s, when Mignola was first introducing Hellboy to the world (I was there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars5.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}