Finished up reading the other three collections of Alias and I have to admit that I really liked this series. Makes me want to go back and find old reviews on the web and check out how it was preceived by everyone at the time that it was coming out.
Here is the important thing that I've learned from reading Powers from day 1 as a serial, and Alias in collection form: Bendis' writing makes me want to read it in a trade paperback environment. Sorry, just does. He writes to set up the cliffhanger fairly well, sometimes very well, but his strength is the extended storyline, something that I'm sure he'd be the first to admit. These last 4 or five issues of Powers have had the continuing theme of opening and closing with a stand up comedian act, which is a nice monologue into that allows all his femail characters to swear as prolifically as the men in the series, and as a plot device will certainly work well in the trade. Lets face it, it will work better there.
I actually enjoyed Civil War 22 as we get a nice issue with Luke Cage and Jennifer Jones. It should sit on the shelf next to the Alias trades.
There are some people bemoaning the death of the pamphlet and the rise of the trade, and I'm not one of them, as I belive that I've made clear on some of my other posts. What is funny, and has more than a touch of irony, is the medium's hottest writer in pamphlet is better on the long form. The continuing use of collections, and god love him for keeping the Powers trades, the Jinx trades, the Torso trades and all the rest in print for fans, really is putting the nail in the coffin for the monthly series and he's square behind it.
I also like that Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim both have powers and are hiding it from each other. I don't like that he's had to reboot powers as many times as he has. I like Mike Oeming's artwork and have two originals in my collection. They're too violent for me to put up in the house however.
Jinx isn't all that, it reads like another Goldfish story.
More on the Alias collections, #2 - 4 which I've just finished reading.
2 comments:
Sorry, Charles, I'm one of those who feel that the pamphlets don't need to die for trades.
Personally, I think writers who use "long form" on monthlies are a part of the problem for slaes of them. If you can't (or won't) use the format correctly, then don't do it.
Pamphlets are great for getting some to try out a series, over a trade. Trades are nice, but a lot more expensive. While you get more content in a trade, some folks might not have the time or money for them, especially something they have never read before. Pamphlets would be great as "tasters" for folks who have heard things about a work, but haven't tried it before.
Of course, that would require writers to craft the story in such a way that you can get someone to pick up any pamphlet and get a good story, not just a "chapter" of a story already begun.
There are those who do this well, like Richard Moore, creator of Boneyard from NBM Publishing. Each issue of the series give a story in itself, but is also part of a great whole, which you can see in the trades. Moore uses each format to it's fullest potential and gives retailers the benefits in more easily promoting Boneyard by doing so. Other writers need to learn from Moore's example, IMO.
As I said, trades are nice and all, but that doesn't make pamphlets worthless. Comics are a creative business. Smart writers (and publishers) would be best served putting that creativity to use in how they use the various formats, as much as they do the product between the covers.
Yeah, I wasn't crazy about Jinx. And I thought it was closer to ripping off than paying homage to The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.
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