Previously: Jack did not find this joke funny

Despite which so many major changes will cause, The Big Smoke can’t stay mad at DC in the face of some of these interesting titles and all the new creative teams. Also, this event provides a much-needed excuse to drop some monthly dead weight and switch to something fresh.

There are a total of 52 titles to wade through, with all sorts of exciting stuff happening. At the end of Brightest Day, a number of characters previously consigned to the Vertigo universe are now being brought back into the main DC universe. This marks the biggest change to the new line-up, as a number of darker and more mystical characters are integrated with the heroes in tights.

In case anyone is interested, this post will provide a summary of changes made to The Big Smoke’s standing order, with some commentary on the rationale behind the choices. This post is based on personal opinion and should not be considered a recommendation one way or the other.

Okay, with that out of the way, here is the current list of titles currently on The Big Smoke’s pull list:

1. Batman Incorporated
2. Batman: The Dark Knight
3. Brightest Day
4. The Flash
5. Flashpoint
6. Flashpoint: Batman – Knight of Vengeance
7. Green Lantern
8. Green Lantern Corps
9. Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors

Brightest Day just wrapped up with the resurrection of Swamp Thing, so that’s finished anyway. Flashpoint is only running for seven issues, so that will finish soon as well; along with tie-ins like Knight of Vengeance. So onto the new selections.

1. Justice League
By Geoff Johns and Jim Lee

This is obviously one of the biggest new titles coming out of the reboot, with a creative dream team of Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. The first story arc is going to be a retelling of the League’s origin, so storywise they are going to be on pretty solid ground at least to begin with.

Judging from the cover of the first issue which DC is proudly displaying, the roster will feature Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg. If this is correct, then, well, bleh. The roster for Justice League International seems a little more unusual, and therefore more interesting.

2. Action Comics
By Grant Morrison and Rags Morales

The Big Smoke was never really comfortable with Morrison’s recent work with Batman, but found Morrison’s All-Star Superman extremely satisfying. Perhaps the Superman legend lends itself a little more easily to Morrison’s postmodern stylings.

3. Superman
By George Pérez and Jesus Merino

More Superman, why not? This could turn out to be a mistake, but George Pérez is a legend and The Big Smoke misses reading Superman comics. It seemed to make sense to couple Superman with Action Comics.

4. Batman
By Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

Taking a punt on new writer Scott Snyder. The Big Smoke is not a big fan of Greg Capullo’s artwork, but would rather spend money on this Batman title than Tony Daniel’s Detective Comics or David Finch’s Batman: The Dark Knight. Finch comes out of this reboot quite badly, as The Big Smoke is actually dropping The Dark Knight. It looked nice enough, but was a bit of a drag to read.

While on the subject of the Bat books, Gail Simone will be writing a new Batgirl title which has caused a fair bit of controversy. Barbara Gordon is somehow or other going to be stepping out of her wheelchair and will be taking to the rooftops of Gotham City again. She was of course confined to her chair by the Joker in a classic tale by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland called The Killing Joke. Since that time, she carved a new niche as Oracle and became one of the most important disabled characters in comics. The Big Smoke never much liked Batgirl, but thought Oracle was a great character; this revision seems a waste of great storytelling potential.

5. Batman And Robin
By Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason

The only other Batman title on this list is courtesy of Tomasi and Gleason. The Big Smoke enjoyed their short stint on the current Batman and Robin enough to want more.

6. Green Lantern
By Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy

If it ain’t broke, why fix it? Geoff Johns will hopefully continue to raise the profile of Hal Jordon in this title.

It’s big news that Geoff Johns is also taking on the writing chores for Aquaman, teaming up with another Green Lantern stalwart, artist Ivan Reis. The Big Smoke has decided to pass this over based on the Aquaman sections in Brightest Day, which were not particularly impressive.

The Big Smoke is also dropping The Flash with Johns’ move away. This was not a difficult decision, as The Flash was pretty mediocre even with Johns’ involvement.

7. Green Lantern Corps
By Peter Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin and Scott Hanna

It is great to see this team return to the Corps title. Their previous run was ultra-bloody and consistently very enjoyable.

Tony Bedard and Tyler Kirkham are moving over to Green Lantern: New Guardians. This is a huge relief to The Big Smoke, as he could not stand their work on Green Lantern Corps.

There’s a new Red Lanterns title coming from Peter Milligan, Ed Benes and Rob Hunter, but The Big Smoke is also giving this one a miss for now. The Red Lanterns don’t seem to have a great deal of scope and two Lantern titles a month are enough. However, those assholes at DC no doubt have another multi-part crossover in the pipeline which will force anyone reading the main Green Lantern title to buy a million and one spin-offs in the near future.

8. Swamp Thing
By Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette

Snyder emerges as a big winner in this reshuffle. He will be writing two exciting characters and is definitely established as a rising star. It will be very interesting to see what he does with the Swamp Thing property and how he goes about integrating him into the new DC universe.

9. Justice League Dark
By Peter Milligan and Mikel Janin

Although The Big Smoke has passed over Peter Milligan’s work on Red Lanterns, he has chosen to get in on the ground level with Justice League Dark. The premise is that the world’s greatest supernatural heroes come together to fight mystical enemies. Seems like a great way to mix Vertigo characters like John Constantine and Shade the Changing Man with the likes of Deadman and Zatanna.

10. All-Star Western
By Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Grey and Meridat

Finally, The Big Smoke has opted for something a bit different with All-Star Western. Apparently the early issues will deal with Jonah Hex in the settlement of Gotham, where he will meet the likes of Amadeus Arkham. Sounds like it could be fun for anyone familiar with Batman’s mythos and it comes from the critically acclaimed team behind Jonah Hex, which suggests it will be of a high standard.

For a full updated list of DC’s new titles, check out Bleeding Cool. No doubt you will have your own ideas about what does and doesn’t sound cool.

The Big Smoke was a little underwhelmed by Black Ops, but Infinity Ward’s latest looks impressive as all hell. The gimmick with this one seems to be they are replacing the letter “E” with the number “3″. Presumably this is something which appeals to the youth market. Does anybody know?

Okay, this Hustler porn parody thing has officially gone too far. They did a great job on the theme, though.

The Big Smoke spent the majority of last weekend mixing with fellow nerds at Mark Millar’s Kapow! Comic Con, and has since been trying to find time to post up a few pictures and some comments. The convention, held over two days at the Business Design Centre in Islington was a fairly impressive effort, but there was some room for improvement.

Way back when The Big Smoke was just The Little Smoke, he used to frequent the UK Comic Art Conventions held at the University of London. It was a simpler time, when “cosplay” was still called “dressing up”. Comic books, although popular, were not the drivers of popular culture that they are today. When L’il Smoke attended the UK Comic Art Conventions, they consisted primarily of awkward young men, and some genuinely creepy slightly older men, poring over boxes of musty paper.

The last UK Comic Art Convention was held in 1998, and since then the San Diego Comic Con has shown that comic conventions can be big business. As the superhero movie genre has taken off, San Diego has become more and more important as a platform to launch new releases. Superhero movies are aimed at the mainstream and the excitement they generate brings new readers to comic books, which has caused publishers to re-think their strategy. Although the industry still panders to male adolescent fantasies, there has been a shift towards writing titles in a way which will resonate with a broader audience.

Advertised as “an event dedicated to comic books and the films, TV shows and games they inspire”, Kapow! felt like a real attempt to establish a British rival to America’s larger conventions. With sponsorship from IGN, it perhaps felt more corporate than previous British conventions, and it was all simply done on a grander scale. There were bigger stars and events, with consequently more media coverage, and more attendees than ever seen before.

Although the venue was just about big enough to accomodate everything, the Business Design Centre is filled with assorted outlets and agencies that jarred with the spirit of the convention. The line-up of guests was impressive on paper, but a number of them pulled out at the last minutes and there were some embarrasing gaps on the panels. On more than one occassion, The Big Smoke saw Millar trying to keep the crowds entertained by standing in for other guests. In addition, the most exciting events, like the Thor panel, were filled up so quickly that only a minority got to experience the very best that Kapow! had to offer. These gripes aside, there was lots to see and do for fans of more than just Hollywood blockbusters.

Happily, there was an array of stalls offering comics for sale, with lots of bargains to be found. There were also dozens of independent writer/artists pushing their self-published works, and for these individuals The Big Smoke felt considerable pity. For self-publishers, it is near impossible to compete with established creators working for popular titles. Touting indie work at a comic convention has potentially got to be one of the most depressing activities for anybody creative.

The Big Smoke raised a glass to those poor souls on Saturday night, swiftly following it with several more glasses of varying sizes, containing assorted alcoholic beverages. Nursing a terrible hangover on Sunday, and clutching several rare issues of Frank Miller’s Daredevil in his sweating palms, he cast a weary eye over proceedings. He took in the balding Gambit, the paunchy Blue Beetle, and with willpower worthy of the mightiest Green Lanterns, shifted his gaze away from the cleavage of a young lady dressed as Black Cat. It might not have been perfect, the cosplay may have been cringeworthy, but the first Kapow! Comic Con was certainly a lot of fun.

World of Hurt is an award-winning web comic which has been running since 2009. It’s an awesome blaxploitation-influenced comic strip with tough, hardboiled stories brilliantly rendered in black and white.

Now writer/artist Jay Potts wants to publish a hardcover collection of the first storyline, “The Thrill-Seekers”, about Isiah “Pastor” Hurt’s search for a missing college student. He’s using the Kickstarter website to hopefully make it happen, and says:

This Kickstarter project was started out of my desire to raise the funds to self-publish a graphic novel which collects the The Thrill-Seekers storyline. The graphic novel will also feature bonus material, such as production sketches, layouts and an introduction by author and filmmaker, David Walker of BadAzzMofo.com. The graphic novel will be an 88-page hardcover book with a landscape format of 13″ X 6.5″ to match the original dimensions of the comic strip. Although the interiors will be black & white, the cover will be in full color. Part of the Kickstarter funds will also be used to pay for an artist to paint over my cover pencils to recreate the classic, pulp feel of a Blaxploitation movie poster.

This is something I can get behind, so I have pledged and am hoping Jay gets the start-up funds he needs. He’s offering rewards, including stickers, copies of the hardcover, original art and lots more, based on the size of individual pledges. If you’re interested, you can find more information about the project and how to pledge here.

What? Why are you still reading? Oh, okay, fine. If you’re still reading, I may as well provide some more lazy comments about another of these fine films. Although, honestly, I may as well be writing this in crayon on a toilet wall.

Day of Anger (I Giorni Dell’ira) (1967)

I’ve watched a lot of Lee Van Cleef films and Day of Anger is amongst his finest. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it’s not his best film, but it’s his best performance. As aging gunslinger Frank Talby, he provides exactly the right level of cunning and menace from the off. What’s more, he makes the character truly ambiguous in a way that will have you alternately enthralled and appalled by his actions.

Alongside Van Cleef is Giuliano Gemma, who I mentioned briefly in a previous post about Tenebrae. I wasn’t overly impressed by Gemma when I saw him in Day of Anger, but it was the first film I saw him in. I’ve since seen him in a number of other films and he’s become one of my favourite spaghetti western actors; I’ll happily watch anything he’s in. In Day of Anger, Gemma plays an orphan, Scott Mary, mistreated by folk in the town of Clifton and treated like a virtual slave. Talby takes him under his wing, teaches him how to be a real gunslinger and how to stand up to the oppressive townsfolk.

A good portion of the film is like the spaghetti western equivalent of Karate Kid, as Scott eagerly absorbs the lessons of the older man. Later, however, it becomes apparent that mastering the art of killing comes at a high personal cost.

Day of Anger was directed by Tonino Valerii, who was Sergio Leone’s assistant director. As you might expect, this is a high quality spaghetti western. One of the greatest ever made.

I want to post up a quick note about the new Fallout: New Vegas game, which I purchased a week ago. It received a lot of criticism on release, but I’m enjoying it quite a lot. I guess I just love walking around post-apocalyptic landscapes collecting useless junk too much for my own good. I spend a lot of game time discarding sensor modules, tin cans and empty “Nuka Cola” bottles just so I can walk at a speed which isn’t cripplingly slow. If you’ve played any of the other games, you will know what I mean.

To me it’s obvious that the publisher, Bethesda, handed over the fabric of Fallout 3 to new developer Obsidian Entertainment, who have simply thrown together a new adventure based on old models. As a consequence the whole thing looks a bit dated and not enough of an improvement on the previous release to warrant more than faint praise from the majority of reviewers. The game is rushed and underdeveloped, which is borne out by a significant number of unfortunate glitches. That said, every Bethesda game I have owned has had massive glitches which have forced me to go back and play major portions, so maybe that’s just their trademark thing.

However, despite the gameplay quirks and the negative press reaction, I am confident you will like this if you liked Fallout 3. You might not love it, you might feel it could have been better, but even an unimaginative Fallout 3 follow up is more interesting than a lot of other games which are on the market. So, Fallout: New Vegas is a solid game for Fallout fans, but don’t bother with it if you weren’t bowled over by Fallout 3.

Click on the pictures above to see more detail.

There’s a decent chance I’ll actually buy this, but I’m still trying to steel myself to spend the money on something which is essentially useless.

If you have no idea who the Spider is, well, you’re quite normal. He’s an almost forgotten pulp hero, one of the bloodiest, and you can find out more about him on this great site. Personally, I think he’s completely ace.

I saw the new Coen brothers film, True Grit, on Friday, and figure that deserves a blog update.

Based on the novel by Charles Portis, the Coens are not the first to translate his western tale to the big screen. The narrative of Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl out for revenge after the murder of her father, was previously filmed in 1969, by director Henry Hathaway. The first film version starred John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, the hard-nosed, one-eyed U.S. Marshal, paid by Mattie to track her father’s killer. The role came fairly late in the Wayne’s career, and his world-weary performance earned him his one and only Oscar.

I have to admit, I’ve found myself at times struggling to understand the appeal of John Wayne. However, I thought he was magnificent as Rooster Cogburn, as his veteran status and larger-than-life persona really brought the character to life.

The Coens chose to pit the Dude against the Duke, by casting Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn in their version of True Grit. Following in the footsteps of such an icon, in a role he made his own, is a daunting task for any actor, even one of Jeff Bridge’s calibre. Bridges has been smart enough to avoid trying to match Wayne’s star quality and give his version of the character a slightly different twist.

I thought Bridges was excellent, and his deliberately low-key performance allowed the film to focus more on Mattie Ross, played by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld. They are ably supported by Matt Damon, as an ineffectual Texas Ranger named LaBeouf. Damon plays his part with guster, and is a vast improvement on Glen Campbell, the country singer turned actor who played LaBeouf in the 1969 film.

The Coens claim they used the novel as their source material and did not allow themselves to be influenced by the other film version. This may or may not be true, but they have fairly effectively managed to brand True Grit a Coen brothers film. I derived some genuine pleasure from seeing how they added their own skilful touches to the scenes I was already familiar with.

Although I concede I may be allowing myself to be influencd by the earlier film version, I wasn’t convinced by the sombre ending. It didn’t gel with the rest of the film, which was essentially feelgood, and Mattie’s older self seemed at odds with her teenage persona.

My major gripe, however, is more basic. You see, I don’t understand why the Coens felt True Grit needed making again. They have turned in a very fine film, it’s hard to find fault with the way it’s made, but I don’t feel like they added much to what has gone before. Sure, I enjoyed seeing the way they adapted the story, but I think I would have have gotten more pleasure from seeing something fresher.

If they wanted to make a western, that’s great, I love westerns. I just can’t believe there there were no other western stories which made the grade.