Funnybook Babylon

The title speaks for itself. I’m here, and I’m going to be trying my hand at Newsrama/CBR-style liveblogging of all of the Big Two’s panels I can make it to. Wish me luck! DC Editorial Presentation

Camp Twilight (from movieset.com) I just read an editorial by Sarah Jaffe of Blog@Newsarama that largely centered around the negative reaction we’re seeing to the Twilight fans practically storming San Diego as we speak. I don’t disagree that a lot of the negative reaction to their presence this year is instigated by either overt or [...]

Batman and Robin #1 And we’re back after those messages! Finally, the main narrative line of the Batman books returns with Grant Morrison at the wheel aided by the ever-incredible Frank Quitely. And, in an all-new team-up, Alex Sinclair on colors, which leads to such interesting effects as the sky behind Wayne Tower looking like [...]

Flash: Rebirth #1 I was pretty optimistic when I picked up Flash: Rebirth #1 out of the stack. It’s a hefty volume, and I’ve enjoyed almost everything Johns has done since the epic career misstep that was Infinite Crisis, so my expectations were pretty much that I’d at least thoroughly enjoy it – I mean, [...]

Gonna go ahead and say it: David Aja is the best thing to happen to comic book art since J.H. Williams III. His technical and formal inventiveness is off the goddamn charts, and recently my co-Savage-Critic-ite Tucker Stone brought up what was a really damn great piece of storytelling from last week, Ed Brubaker and [...]

I’ve said it before! Are they trying to make each book seem soulless and artistically uninspired at this point? This weekend DC announced ten new titles, exactly one of which (Keith Giffen’s new Doom Patrol) was announced with a creative mind in tow.

Joining us for our final Final Crisis podcast is resident Annotation Ace David Uzumeri, broadcasting himself across nations on THE UNTERNET!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:51 — 28.8MB)

Final Crisis #7 Not much preamble to make here – it’s the last issue, I enjoyed it a lot, a lot of people probably think it’s confusing drivel. Maybe I can help you out.

For me Final Crisis, is about the type of guilt-ridden, self-loathing stories we insist on telling ourselves and, especially, our children—about the damage those stories do and about the good they could do if we took more responsibility for the power and influence of our words. – Grant Morrison Before we move on to #7 [...]

Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #2 When last we left our intrepid heroes back at the end of August(!), Superman and Captain Allen Adam were facing down Ultraman in Limbo as Ultraman hoisted the Infinite Book and Mandrakk’s Monitor nanomachinery cracked through the sky into Limbo. Meanwhile, Captain Marvel got knocked back to being Billy by [...]

Justice League of America #29 Why? Because they don’t! A couple of weeks ago or so, I read an interview with Len Wein that involved his upcoming work – the Final Crisis: Secret Files, which I knew about, and the Superman/Batman Annual, but Justice League of America #29? That’s odd, a straight-up writer change? Why [...]

They used the title! Yay! Final Crisis #6 Reaction to this issue:

Politics! Superhero comics! THE TOPIC OF TODAY! Superman #24 Anyone reading comics news sites has surely seen the 175-car pile-up that is the Robot 6 comment thread to Bill Willingham’s article on politics and superheroes. (I love how the Superman picture chosen there is the Alex Ross pose that mirrors the famous Alex Ross Obama [...]

And thus, we end Grant Morrison’s first run on Batman. You’ll be missed. Lots to annotate this time around; lots of stuff referenced that’s more within our lifetimes. Let’s get to it.

I know I’ve been hip deep in the Distinguished Competition’s “summer” event for a while, and I apologize to the House of Ideas. (I won’t even bring up everybody else; I’m still a goddamn troglodyte making my way through 100 Rooms in the first Maggie the Mechanic trade, so please speak to me in short [...]