Bigger Boat:Waited For The Trade #1
BIGGER BOAT: WAITED FOR THE TRADE #1
As I said in my opening post, I buy a lot of comics. However quantity does not always mean quality and there are times when I miss things. On occasions such as these good reviews or recommendations may lead me to pick up the collection. As was the case with...
EX MACHINA: TAG.
Writer - Brian K. Vaughn.
Artist - Tony Harris
Being a comic fan is a funny thing. If you are like me then part of the fun of being a fan of stuff (be it books, films, music or whatever) is introducing other people to the particular stuff that rocks your boat. Now, with a book or a movie or an album you are trying to convince people of the legitimacy of that particular item. While you may have a hard time if the person involved isn't a fan of the genre, or of whoever created it, it is very rare that you have to justify the format itself. How many times have you ever insisted someone see the new Spielberg movie and they've said 'a film? Aren't they just for children?'. Or how about trying to get someone to read the Da Vinci Code only to be told 'I'm sorry, I just don't like books'?. Because in the case of comics, more often than not, these are the kind of responses you will get. Before you can sell them on the story you have to sell them on comics as a viable art form.
Probably the biggest reason for this is the spandex. It is the medium's boon and its curse that in the public eye (the western eye at least) comics have become synonymous with the four-colour, two dimensional antics of the superhero. Now we comic fans know that this stereotype is far from fair. And if we come across doubting Tom's or Tammy's we have weapons in our comic arsenal to combat it. Weapons that will allow us to say "aha! Just flying guys in their underwear eh? Well stick this in your metaphorical pipe and (metaphorically) smoke it!" In my case, the comic bombs I like to drop are Garth Ennis' Preacher, Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan and Jeff Smith's Bone. These may not be the best comics ever (well Preacher is and you'll see why in a future Bigger Boat Hall Of Fame) but I think that all 3 prove that comics can be just as entertaining, just as intelligent and just as interesting as any fim or book. If not more so.
Now, if your still with me, the point of the long and unwieldy introduction is that Ex-Machina may soon join that list. Brian K. Vaughn nearly made the payload already with Y: The Last Man but I think that particular work is just slightly too geeky to be your opening assault on the closed minded. However this bad boy is the very thing for the unwilling and the uninitiated. Following the day-to-day life of New York City Mayor and former costumed hero Mitchell Hundred, Ex-Machina mixes politics, action and sci-fi weirdness into a tasty, heady taffy. I'm not fond of trite analogies but for the purposes of selling stuff to the layperson they can be handy so here goes - it's Spin City meets the X-Files (ugh).
In this second collection (the first was titled The First Hundred Days and is equally good) Vaughan manages to squeeze in murder, gore, history, new layers to the deepening mystery over the lead character's powers and and discourse on real-life political hot potatoes like gay marriage and school vouchers. It's an impressive balancing act, but it must be a damn sight easier when you have an artist like Tony Harris on board. As he did with the much missed Starman, Harris gives this title a unique look and feel. The action moments are conveyed admirably, but it is the individual character that he brings to the scenes featuring the Mayor and his staff that really impresses.
(For the hell of it, and because I fear I have become too serious as this has went on, I'll finish this the way I finished my book reviews in Primary school...)
All in all this is a very good book and I would give it nine out of ten and I will tell all of my friends to read it because it has a good story and good characters and I think it will be liked by them all and I'm sure I will read it again too.
posted by birrellesque @ 11:51 pm
3 comments
3 Comments:
First of all, I must say i agree with your assessment of Ex Machina in and of itself. It is an excellent book and BKV and Tony Harris are both very talented creators whose collaboration is my wet dream. I do take issue however with your introdction.
Comics are tarred with a superhero brush? Yes. They are capable of so much more? Yes. Books like Transmet, Preacher and Bone are examples of the diversity of the medium? Yes. Ex Machina, a book about a superhero, is an example of non superhero comics?
You see my problem here, right? Also, I don't agree whatsoever that it's the medium's "boon" to be associated in the public eye with superheroes. I think that's a problem and only a problem.
Ex Machina is not an example of a 'non superhero'book but it is a million miles away from the superhero cliche that the majority associate with comics. That's why I think it's more effective, because although it's vaguely superheroic in shape, it's got way more going on that your average shmoe on the street has been gentrified to expect.
And superheroics are a boon ,if for nothing else, for financial reasons. Without the cash Marvel and DC pull in from the films and merchandising of superheroics we would have no mainstream comic industry. While I understand that you're point is in terms of quality and perception I think it's important to remember what brought us to the dance.
First of all, apologies for my drunken belligerence. I think it’s slightly snarkier than my usual, sober belligerence. I understand what you’re saying about Ex Machina and agree that it’s a great example of what the medium of comics is capable of and that it would be a good book to try and convert infidels. (I also think Y: The Last Man’s a good book for this too, disagreeing that it’s too geeky since it’s only one of the main characters who’s a geek and the book is really in the character based thriller genre.) Your point as I read it however, was that Ex Machina, a comic about a former superhero mayor of NYC, could be added to a list of books that prove to non comic book types that comics aren’t just about superheroes. Isn't that a fallacy?
And your other statement? Hoo boy. I seem to remember a mainstream comic industry before Marvel and DC started pulling in money from movies. Also it’s not just superhero comics that can have movies and merchandise made of them. You might have seen Sin City? Constantine? Men In Black? Oldboy? And as for what brought us to the dance? I can only speak for myself, but my first comic was The Beano, a funny book. In fact what made the American mainstream comic industry the dance to go to in the first place? Newspaper funnies. (The clue is in the name: “comic” book.)My point: superheroes aren’t a boon. It’s the sad reality that they are the mainstream but that’s certainly not a good thing.
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