Saturday, September 13, 2008

Long Box Extraction: Nextwave

One thing I wanted to start doing "little" blogs on when I got really set on talking more about comics in my free time were sort of "catch ups" on some of those series that are in full swing but you don't really here much about. Y'know, the WASTELANDS and FEAR AGENTS and so on's out there. Recently though I was redoing my collection, putting away about three long boxes of issues I had sitting out of line with the rest of the stuff in my bedroom that is a testament to the joke that is my sex life, and as I was putting integrating all these new books in with the old, I couldn't help but be compelled to start pulling out all these wonderful titles I haven't read in ages, or never got back to once they finished. It took me about an hour and a half to get all this junk settled, but once I was done I had a full longer of material in there of what I just mentioned, old runs I just haven't read in forever, some series that had ended not too long ago and I never had a chance to go over them again in a sitting or however many, or titles like I mentioned above that are going on right now and I want to re-season the old brainmeat with. ..


...Basically that was a giant expository ramble for me to say "I'm going to be rereading a bunch of shit in my comic book collection and talking about them." I don't know why I feel the urge to drag people along with my gibberish, I just do.


So, as you can see, the first set of issues of the near 300 I pulled to go back over was Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen's NEXTWAVE, a book that I absolutely adored when it was out and did something like four reviews on for the AICN site. There are titles I've been reading for the entire three+ years I've been doing reviews for there I haven't even reviewed for the quatro, let alone something that was only a dozen on the nose. I couldn't help but be a whore for the book though; it was unbelievably under-read and since I had that fabled "Power of the Press" I just had to speak up on its behalf. It was such a wonderful ride in the sense that it made your brain wonder just what the fuck was going on but at the same time your nuts (or female equivalent) hurt from laughing so hard at the said shenanigans. And going on near two years after it's unfortunate end, it's still damn near as funny.


Admittedly, I do think the overall tone of the book has worn a little bit. I think the rise of technology and social networking and sites like this one and the fact that several times a day ever since I've pretty much had Mr. Ellis talking in my ear with his Tweets and Mailing Lists and lord knows what fucking else he's wired into on my computer and phone, have kind of dulled his more extravagantly bugfuck crazy sense of humor on my tastes. Don't get me wrong, that British bastard still knows how to get me to burst out with those out of place HA!'s when I'm at work and a Twitter about god knows what comes to me via text, but the "My Robot brain needs beer" line and stuff like that has kind of worn a little thin.


Cable talking about "Techno-Organic Prolapse" and calling Boom Boom "X-Bait" though? Fucking amazing.


I still loved pretty much everything about the book though. The cast he assembled from pre-existing characters and his own creations in The Captain and Dirk fucking Anger (and you know a character is awesome when you feel obligated to insert the f-bomb as his middle name). The random emergence of other established Marvel characters for the gags was always impeccable too. From Fin Fang Foom trying to put people in his pants to the Celestials calling Machine Man @#$% to goddamn Forbush Man and his special, uh, Forbush powers? - it was all perfect. For someone who probably couldn't tell you more than five books the company produces, Ellis sure knew how to use some of these characters and creatures for a big gag. And I could go extolling praise for Dirk Anger alone, but anyone who read the book knows pretty much how much of The Man he was...


And the book looked gorgeous too. It damn well better have since apparently it's the combination of Immonen's pay grade and the inexcusably low sales of the book that caused it to go into hiatus I guess, but at this point I don't ever see it coming back. Without either one of these two on it, there's no point, and I didn't mean to sound like I was pointing a finger at Immonen, I was cracking wise there, but I still can't help but wonder what the fuck was going on that this thing couldn't even generate the 15K or whatever in sales to keep going. That's a different tangent though, and as I was saying, this thing looked amazing. It really had to be Immonen and his more "cartoony" and somewhat angular and highly detailed style that did this. It had just the best timing in the comic book sense to pull off all these bits while at the same time just looking breathtaking because of all the elements that composed each panel, and especially the splashes and two page spreads. All around just an amazing book to look at.


I love this book so much, I'm still crushed there hasn't been an over-sized collection of it all in one volume. It's something I'd gladly shell out the cash for and carry around with me, and the art has to look astounding with being blown up the extra couple inches. I love this so much so that I've been thinking of PM bombing Jen Grunwald via the Bendis Board with various nude photos of myself until she finally caves and pushes the project through for fear of losing her eyesight, be we all know that's more a call for a restraining order and maybe even a weekend in a holding cell than anything. There's got to be a better way to organize a rally for this though, I just am not much of a thinker past trying to scare people with my pasty manflesh. Still though, it got me that D I needed instead of the F in Business Law II in order to get my degree in college. You just never know...


So, yeah. NEXTWAVE good. Will definitely buy three copies of it if it ever comes back in hopes it'll never leave again. Next up out of the box is Ennis and McCrea's HITMAN, but that may take a while. Hopefully in the meantime I can continue with the "State of" blogs I want to make a thing, but I felt more like talking about this instead. All in due time though, all in due time, and this little book here might even be a part of one of the points I want to make in the next segment, which will probably be about Marvel. We'll see though.


And now, my beer is drained (yay Octoberfest!) and I need to be up in six. I'm out. Cheers...

1 comment:

Cavalock said...

Cool. Read Nextwave Vol 1 from my local library. Loved it. Now just waiting for the library to bring in the next volume.

Am a sucker for the Marvel Universe handbooks. How bout u? Just got the Iron Man manual trade last weekend. Was gonna start collecting the hardcover marvel universe trades but figured they are mostly reprints from the comics that came out like last year?