Tag: Comics

ComicFest 2024: 5 minutes with Lily Duval

AlayneLeave a comment

While we look forward to ComicFest 2024, meet Lily Duval in this “5 minutes with” interview.

an illustrated portrait of Lily with a paintbrush and pencil behind her ear and a book with a little creature on top of her head.
Self-portrait by Lily Duval

What first got you interested in comics?

From about the age of 5, I was obsessed with Tintin. I loved the clean lines of the drawing style and his wild adventures. Captain Haddock is a terrible role model for a child but I loved him the most. He was often drunk, had a seemingly endless supply of creative obscenities (some of which are terrible to read now) and was altogether pretty hapless. I even cut my hair like Tintin in my early twenties (shaved all over with a ‘party at the front’) and made Tintin-esque clothing.

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Graphic Classics

VaughanLeave a comment

Among the graphic novels held at Wellington City Libraries are several adaptions of classic literary works. If you’re looking for a first step into these works, or simply want to experience them in a different way, here is a selection of what’s available!

Dracula / Bess, Georges
“Bram Stoker’s original novel about the world-renowned vampire, Dracula, is adapted into a beautiful graphic novel by the renowned artist Georges Bess. This volume includes an epilogue adapting Stoker’s short story “Dracula’s Guest” (believed to be the original novel’s first draft chapter before later revived for publication two years after the author’s passing).” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Watership down : the graphic novel / Sturm, James
” Watership Down is a classic tale of survival, hope, courage, and friendship that has delighted and inspired readers around the world for more than fifty years. Masterfully adapted by award-winning author James Sturm and gorgeously illustrated by bestselling artist Joe Sutphin, this spectacular graphic novel will delight old fans and inspire new ones, bringing the joy of Watership Down to a new generation of readers.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Macbeth : a tale of horror / Ascari, Stefano
“Deep within the walls of Castle Dunsinane, a seed of madness begins to bloom. Spurred on by the prophesies of witches, and the whispers of his scheming wife, Lord Macbeth plots the death of his friend, King Duncan. This one cruel act soon spirals out of control, and murder after murder erupt into a wave of chaos and violence that threatens to consume all of Scotland.” (Catalogue)

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Illustrated Lives: Biographies and Memoirs in Graphic Novel Form

KathLeave a comment

If you have never read a graphic novel – maybe because you find yourself reluctant to pick one up or assume that they’re all superhero stories or just for kids – perhaps an illustrated biography or memoir might tempt you to give them a try. Illustrated biographies are a very popular genre and there are plenty of them to get into. Perhaps you could give one or two of these suggestions a go?

Johnny Cash : I see a darkness : a graphic novel / Kleist, Reinhard
“Cash was a 17-time Grammy winner who sold more than 90 million albums in his lifetime and became an icon of American music in the 20th century. Graphic novelist Reinhard Kleist depicts Johnny Cash’s eventful life from his early sessions with Elvis Presley (1956), through the concert in Folsom Prison (1968), his spectacular comeback in the 1990s, and the final years before his death on September 12, 2003.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

It’s lonely at the centre of the Earth : an auto-bio-graphic-novel / Thorogood, Zoe
“The 2023 Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award winning cartoonist, Zoe Thorogood, records six months of her own life as it falls apart in a desperate attempt to put it back together again in the only way she knows how. It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth is an intimate and meta-narrative look into the life of a selfish artist who must create for her own survival. A poignant and original depiction of a young woman’s struggle with mental health–through the ups and downs of anxiety, depression, and imposter syndrome–as she forges a promising career in sequential art and finds herself along the way.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Andre the Giant : closer to heaven / Easton, Brandon M.
“He was called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” and became an inspiration for millions of wrestling fans all over the globe. While his in-ring exploits were full of flash and spectacle, the personal life of Andre “The Giant” Roussimoff was complicated by an excess of partying and the devastating physical toll of his deteriorating health. This graphic novel biography explores the bookmarks of Andre’s story.” (Catalogue)

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If ye be worthy, peruse our Reading Guide to Thor: Love and Thunder!

Gus

July sees the release of Thor: Love and Thunder, the fourth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thor series, and the second directed by Aotearoa’s own Taika Waititi. The plot of Love and Thunder is based around characters and concepts from the recent Thor comics, including the villain Gorr the God Butcher, and Jane Foster becoming worthy of Mjolnir.

This ‘run’ on Thor, written by Jason Aaron and primarily drawn by Esad Ribic and Russell Dauterman, was critically beloved for its dazzling art, its bold plot twists and its cosmic scope. However, while it was all written by the same writer, during its run between 2013 to 2019 the Thor series itself was rebooted not once, not twice, but four separate times, making it difficult to know which ‘Thor Volume One’ to start from. So to help you prepare for the new film and guide you through the Thor comic’s many reinventions, we’ve put together this mighty reading guide!

First series: Thor, God of Thunder meets the God Butcher

Beginning in 2013, Thor: God of Thunder by Jason Aaron and artist Esad Ribic introduces Gorr, the God Butcher (played by Christian Bale in Thor: Love and Thunder), an vengeful alien who wants to destroy every god across time and space. To stop him, Thor teams up with his younger self from his Viking days and an older, surlier All-Father Thor from the future.

Thor, God of Thunder [1] : the God Butcher / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

Thor, God of Thunder [2] : Godbomb / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

Thor, God of Thunder [3] : the accursed / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

Thor, God of Thunder [4] : the last days of Midgard / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

 

Original Sin – Thor becomes unworthy

Jason Aaron also wrote Original Sin, a crossover series where the Marvel heroes uncover secrets about their pasts while investigating the death of the Watcher. During this series, Thor learns a devastating truth that causes him to become unworthy of wielding Mjolnir, setting the stage for a new Thor to arrive.

Original sin : Thor & Loki : the tenth realm / Aaron, Jason

Original sin. Who shot the Watcher? / Aaron, Jason


Second series: Who is The Mighty Thor?

With Thor now unworthy of wielding Mjolnir, the hammer goes to Doctor Jane Foster, Thor’s ex-girlfriend, and she headlines a new series as The Mighty Thor. In her first series running for two volumes, written again by Aaron and drawn by Russell Dauterman, she fights the minotaur CEO Dario Agger and reveals her identity to the superhero community. After being teleported to Battleworld during Secret Wars, she joins the Thor Corps, a police force made entirely of Thor variants from across the multiverse.

Thor : the goddess of thunder / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

Thor [2] : who holds the hammer? / Aaron, Jason

Secret wars / Hickman, Jonathan


Third series: The Mighty and the Unworthy

The Mighty Thor reboots again after Secret Wars, again with Jane Foster as the Mighty Thor, which ran for five volumes. Meanwhile, the original Thor (now going by ‘Odinson’) gets his own limited series called The Unworthy Thor as he struggles with his identity following the loss of his hammer.

The mighty Thor [1] : thunder in her veins / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

The mighty Thor [2] : Lords of Midgard / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

The mighty Thor [3] : the Asgard/Shi’ar war / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

The unworthy Thor / Aaron, Jason 

The mighty Thor [4] : the war Thor / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

The Mighty Thor [5] : the death of the Mighty Thor / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

Final series: The War of the Realms

Jason Aaron’s final Thor series has Thor Odinson reclaim Mjolnir as his enemies from across the Nine Realms band together to invade Midgard. This results in the The War of the Realms, bringing Aaron’s near-decade long run on the God of Thunder, and now also Goddess of Thunder, to a close.

Thor [1] : God of Thunder reborn / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

Thor [2] : road to war of the realms / Aaron, Jason (also on Libby)

The war of the realms / Aaron, Jason

Thor [3] : war’s end / Aaron, Jason


But wait, there’s Thor!

Except not quite! To wrap up a few plot threads, Aaron definitively ends his Thor run with the miniseries King Thor, featuring Thor’s future self from all the way back in the first series. Meanwhile, Jane Foster gains a new weapon called Undrjarn the All-Weapon and becomes a new Valkyrie.

King Thor / Aaron, Jason

Valkyrie : Jane Foster [1] : the sacred and the profane / Ewing, Al (also on Libby)

Valkyrie : Jane Foster [2] : / Ewing, Al (also on Libby)

What’s next for Waititi?

Taika Waititi’s next comic-to-film project is an adaptation of The Incal, a French science-fiction comic by famed writer and director Alejandro Jodorowsky and legendary artist Moebius, about a down-on-his-luck detective who gets embroiled in a cosmic prophecy. You can also read it in its original six-issue run on Libby starting here. Waititi is also attached to direct the long-gestating film of the classic cyberpunk manga Akira, which runs for six volumes.

 

Comics in Conversation with Literature: The Immortal Hulk – Part 3

Gus

The Immortal Hulk is the newest comic to feature Dr Bruce Banner and his green alter ego. Since the series’ debut in 2018, it’s become a massive hit with fans and critics. Written by Al Ewing and drawn by Joe Bennett, the series centres on a new revelation about the character: Bruce Banner can die but the Hulk cannot, which makes them, as the title suggests, immortal.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to this undead twist, Ewing and Bennett use the story opportunity to turn Hulk into a horror book. The newly-minted Immortal Hulk battles such terrors as radioactive zombies, paranormal possessions, city-destroying kaiju, the Devil, the legions of Hell, and — my personal favourite — Xemnu the Titan, a cyborg yeti alien who can manipulate people’s memories through smartphones.

The other unique angle to The Immortal Hulk is that every issue opens with a quote from a famous book or writer, chosen by Ewing to give thematic weight to each issue and something for the audience to ponder on a close reading. Below, I’ve picked out some of the best opening quotations from volumes seven to nine of The Immortal Hulk, and linked them to the works of their respective writers so you can find them in our collection.

If you want to read the comic first, you can order the first volume here or read it on Overdrive here. Check out the previous editions of this blog (Part One and Part Two) to read about all the references in the first six volumes. If you’ve read up to volume seven, reserve it here.

“And from this mind I will not flee, but to you all that misjudge me, I do protest as ye may see, that I am as I am and so will I be” – Collected poems / Wyatt, Thomas

The quote that opens Volume 7 is the final line from Sir Thomas Wyatt’s poem, “The recured Lover exulteth in his Freedom, and voweth to remain free until Death“, a poem about defining one’s identity in the face of other narratives forced upon it. Volume 7 also introduces Xemnu the Titan to the series (who first appeared as ‘Xemnu the Living Hulk’ in Journey into Mystery #62 from 1960). The Roxxon corporation exploits Xemnu’s ability to hypnotise people through media like televisions and smartphones to make everyone forget the Hulk existed, including Banner himself, and plant a false memory in the public consciousness that Xemnu was always the Hulk. With the other personas of the Hulk locked up in Banner’s mind, it falls to the child-like ‘Savage Hulk’ to remind Banner who he is: that ‘Hulk is Hulk’.

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Task Force Xceptional: A Dirty Half-Dozen Recommendations for DC’s second-chance Squad

Gus

The story of the Suicide Squad is one of second-chances. When DC Comics relaunched all their series following the Crisis on Infinite Earths event in 1986, a lot of characters were left untouched, particularly a lot of the minor villain characters like Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, and Count Vertigo. Inspired by The Dirty Dozen, writers John Ostrander and Kim Yale and artist Luke McDonnell gave these characters a new lease on life as Task Force X, a team of super-criminal prisoners doing covert missions for the government in exchange for shorter prison sentences. The team is supposed to be both deniable and expendable, a fact that their leader, the aggressively pragmatic federal agent Amanda Waller, rarely lets them forget. Many team members would wind up losing their lives over the course of the series, a rare thrill in a medium where characters rarely stayed dead for good. Though the series has been retooled and rebooted numerous times since 1986, it’s so good a premise that it rarely stays gone for good.

Now the team is getting a second-chance at a movie with James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad this August, which is said to be directly inspired by both the original 80s run and The Dirty Dozen, so we’ve assembled a rag-tag ‘dirty half-dozen’ recommendations to get you prepped. Whether you’re interested in the origins of the team or just want to see how many people King Shark can eat in one issue, we’ve got you covered!

Suicide Squad [4] : the Janus directive / Ostrander, John
When Amanda Waller begins to send out Task Force X for her own secret agenda, it draws the attention of every covert ops organisation in the DC Universe, and bring the hammer down in response. Little do all they know that Waller is being manipulated by another mysterious higher power. Part of the classic Ostrander/Yale/McDonnell run, The Janus Directive was one of the defining arcs of the original 80s series.

Suicide Squad. Volume 4, Discipline and punish / Kot, Ales
The highlight of the ‘New 52’ run on Suicide Squad is Ales Kot’s all-too-brief tenure on the book from 2014. After several missions gone awry, the team gains a consultant in the form of James Gordon Jr., the ‘recovering psychopath’ son of Commissioner Gordon, to help them better acclimate to prison life and find out what motivates them. Discipline and Punish (named for Michel Foucault’s book about the institutional origin of prisons) takes a more psychological spin on the team reminiscent of The Silence of the Lambs while still managing to be fun and breezy, a rare balance that Kot nails so well you wish they stuck around longer.

Suicide Squad : hell to pay / Parker, Jeff
Based on the animated film of the same name, Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay follows the team being recruited to obtain a mystical artifact that seems too good to be true; a ‘Get Out of Hell Free’ card that allows the holder to completely absolve themselves from eternal damnation. Of course, sending a bunch of hardened criminals with rap-sheets longer than Plastic Man’s arm after such as card is quickly revealed to be as short-sighted an endeavour as it sounds, but it makes for a great exploration of the characters as they come to terms with their past deeds.

Suicide Squad. Vol. 1, The black vault / Williams, Rob
Part of the DC Rebirth initiative and drawn by DC boss Jim Lee, this run of Suicide Squad ties in closer to the then-recent David Ayer film. The team’s first mission sees them trying to break their newest potential recruit out of the ‘The Black Vault’, a secret Russian prison guarded by its own Suicide Squad, the equally dangerous Annihilation Brigade. A alum of Britain’s premier anthology comic 2000 AD, Rob Williams’ writing is a perfect blend of over-the-top action and gallows humour that makes for a great Suicide Squad story.

Justice League vs. Suicide Squad / Williamson, Joshua
Sooner or later, the Suicide Squad comes into conflict with the Justice League, who aren’t exactly pleased that the villains they work so hard to put away are out on the streets and being co-opted by the government. One of the better DC Comics crossovers in recent memory (I also rated it in my Justice League recommendations), it’s genuinely impressive that every member of both teams gets a moment to shine, a hard task for a brief series with two massive casts slammed together.

Suicide Squad : bad blood / Taylor, Tom
The most recent Suicide Squad run sees the team behind the smash hit series Injustice: Gods Among Us, writer Tom Taylor and artist Bruno Redondo, take the reins. Once again under new management, the Squad is tasked with defeating and recruiting a team of anarchist superhumans called ‘The Revolutionaries’, allowing the creative team to introduce a slew of new characters to the DCU, any one of whom are bound to be a fan’s new favourite (mine being the out-of-shape speedster Jog and the Indigenous Australian tracker Thylacine).  Taylor’s signature humour and knack for great plot twists and Redondo’s expressive art that defined Injustice make this short run on the series one a must-read.