Boy, is Collected Editions behind. Gotham Central: Half a Life, Nightwing: On the Razor's Edge, Hawkman: Wings of Fury, JSA: Black Reign, Batman: War Games Act Two, Fables: The Mean Seasons ... don't go away, because Collected Editions will be back ... soon!
Don't forget WE3!
ReplyDeleteYes, WE3*. And Ex Machina**, and Sleeper. Between all that and Absolute Crisis, my holiday list's going to be full indeed.
ReplyDelete* And having just read Absolute Authority, it brings clear just how much I like Frank Quietly's art. So if WE3 wasn't on the list before, it is now.
** I just read the first issue of Ex Machina in the local comics shop and loved it. What great stuff. Of course, Brian Vaughan's Y: The Last Man is great, too, and I love Tony Harris's stuff from Starman. So this does indeed seem like a slam-dunk.
Question, though: what do you think of the influence of West Wing on comics? It seems an unlikely combination, but I'd say both Ex Machina and Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman are direct descendents of West Wing. Thoughts, anyone?
I think they've certainly shown that politics can make for great drama. Heck, Gotham Central is influenced by police procedurals like NYPD Blue and Law & Order, while Warren Ellis's Frank Ironwine seems to be a reaction against CSI. I'm a bit wary, however, of seeing just how much influence popular television programmes may have on writers, in that they might end up creating a knock-off of such programmes as opposed to something original. In any case, the comics environment doesn't have much support for books that don't have tights or superpowers in them.
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