Thursday, March 19, 2009
Wildcats/X-Men
Damn, Travis Charest can really draw can't he? (And to prove this, I will post no art by him). I mean, he doesn't really draw that many backgrounds, but I presume that's because the book actually had to come out at some point*. It's a pretty dumb little story, with Wolverine and Zealot fighting Nazis in WWII over a thing, but it's readable, and the art means it's worth rereading.
While I knew the Charest comic would be worth looking at, it was to my great surprise that the rest of comics in this collection were pretty good too. The Jim Lee drawn one has a pretty stupid plot, but that's going to happen when you have the WildC.A.T.s (let us shoot things!) cross over with the original X-Men (I have agility and big feet). Actually, it gets really stupid at one point when Nick Fury gives Grifter his uniform complete with mask and coat. Really? Really? But yeah, the Jim Lee art is pretty good.
The Adam Hughes drawn one also looks good (hmm, I know he's a big name, but what else has he drawn? I'll have to find out), and has the most sensible and reasonble excuse for the characters to meet. Oh! It's written by James Robinson. Perhaps that's why? Though I imagine most of the plots of these books was based on "what do you want to draw?"
The final book is drawn by someone I don't recognize, but is written by Warren Ellis. And it's an Ellisy book featuring superheroes in a dystopian future, so it's got fetish wear and ridiculous bleakness (though admitedly, based on previous X-Men comics) and bitterness. I don't think anyone smokes though. Surprise twist!
Considering how big a deal the artist was in early image books, and how Wildstorm produced some books with really nice art (another crossover with Marvel, Wolverine/Deathblow, has an incredibly interesting colouring style not normally seen in superhero comics), it's somewhat ironic that the last several years seem to have more or less developed a "Wildstorm house style" that doesn't seem to be doing the label any favours.
Uhm, so yeah. It's dumb, and the ways it ends means it has no relevance to either set of characters (okay, crossovers rarely do). Well, maybe the Wildstorm ones. Maybe. But the main reason to read it is the art, Travis Charest's art alone is good enough to make it worth checking out (of the library).
*Even in France, where slow artists are the norm, Charest pushed his luck too far when he decided to _learn how to paint_ in order to do a Metabarons comic, and was eventually kicked off the book for producing like 30 pages in seven years or something.
While I knew the Charest comic would be worth looking at, it was to my great surprise that the rest of comics in this collection were pretty good too. The Jim Lee drawn one has a pretty stupid plot, but that's going to happen when you have the WildC.A.T.s (let us shoot things!) cross over with the original X-Men (I have agility and big feet). Actually, it gets really stupid at one point when Nick Fury gives Grifter his uniform complete with mask and coat. Really? Really? But yeah, the Jim Lee art is pretty good.
The Adam Hughes drawn one also looks good (hmm, I know he's a big name, but what else has he drawn? I'll have to find out), and has the most sensible and reasonble excuse for the characters to meet. Oh! It's written by James Robinson. Perhaps that's why? Though I imagine most of the plots of these books was based on "what do you want to draw?"
The final book is drawn by someone I don't recognize, but is written by Warren Ellis. And it's an Ellisy book featuring superheroes in a dystopian future, so it's got fetish wear and ridiculous bleakness (though admitedly, based on previous X-Men comics) and bitterness. I don't think anyone smokes though. Surprise twist!
Considering how big a deal the artist was in early image books, and how Wildstorm produced some books with really nice art (another crossover with Marvel, Wolverine/Deathblow, has an incredibly interesting colouring style not normally seen in superhero comics), it's somewhat ironic that the last several years seem to have more or less developed a "Wildstorm house style" that doesn't seem to be doing the label any favours.
Uhm, so yeah. It's dumb, and the ways it ends means it has no relevance to either set of characters (okay, crossovers rarely do). Well, maybe the Wildstorm ones. Maybe. But the main reason to read it is the art, Travis Charest's art alone is good enough to make it worth checking out (of the library).
*Even in France, where slow artists are the norm, Charest pushed his luck too far when he decided to _learn how to paint_ in order to do a Metabarons comic, and was eventually kicked off the book for producing like 30 pages in seven years or something.
Labels: comics
# posted by tomorrowboy 2.9 @ 9:23 pm 
