Top 5 Lessons in comics

Comic book characters go through character development as much as any movie or book character and through this development these characters can set great examples and lessons that everybody can learn something from.

#5 Believe in yourself - Help Us Great Warrior!

I don't think we need to go further than when the Great Warrior says "Do you hear that? It's the sound of me believing in myself". The Great Warrior doesn't need other people to tell her she can succeed she knows she can succeed.

#4 It doesn't matter if people laugh at you - Aquaman the new 52

Aquaman is often laughed at and made fun of in both real life and the Marvel universe with many jokes referencing Aquaman's ability to talk to fish. despite being told he is nobody's favourite superhero and made fun of he still does his job as best he can and just ignores the haters.

#3 Leadership is difficult - A-Force

Being a leader doesn't mean you just get to tell people what to do, it means you have to solve problems, organize your team and sometimes do the hard jobs. In A-force #1 She-Hulk is forced to banish Miss America despite not agreeing with the decision. She-Hulk takes the brunt of the team's anger and betrayal with grace and dignity, despite not being ultimately responsible for the decision she takes responsibility for it because she is the leader.

#2 You can always learn something - Princess Ugg

Princess Ulga is a warrior princess from the mountains who decides to attend a school to teach princess' proper etiquette and behavior. Princess Ulga doesn't understand the point of learning to walk with a book on her head or proper tea drinking etiquette but she does know that this other way of life can teach her lessons that she couldn't possibly learn from her own culture.

#1 Taking responsibility for your actions - Captain America Civil War

During the Marvel Civil War event Captain America fights against the super hero registration act forcing superheros to register their secret identity with the gouvenrment. SPOILERS After an enormous fight with the pro registration heroes Captain America realizes that despite still believing in his cause it is coming at the cost of the civilians he wants to protect, so he peacefully surrenders. Captain America knows that despite his intentions he has made mistakes and must answer for them.

Spread Issue 12 - R18+

Spread Issue 12

Spread issue 12 is written by Justin Jordan, art by Jen Hickman, colours by Felipe Sobreiro, letters by Crank! and published by Image comics. Spread is one of my favourite comics currently running and I've reviewed Spread volume 1 before and now follow the series in single issues which has continued to be consistently enjoyable but if anybody needed a reminder that Spread is not for children issue 12 is an extremely confronting reminder of that. I can not stress enough that Spread is not for children and especially not issue 12, I'm giving you fair warning this review will contain spoilers, while I don't normally reveal the entire story I will for this issue, and contain some very confronting issues so I'm going to slap a big R18+ on this review.

Issue 12 is the origin story of Molly and how she became "Crazy Molly" and oh my god is it dark. It begins with a very young (pre-crazy) Molly alone and scared being taken in by two scavengers, John and Raven, despite Raven's objections that they are barely surviving themselves. Molly is taught the trade of salvaging and lives happily with John and Raven for years until the camp is attacked by raiders and John is killed and Raven fleas without Molly.

One of the raiders, Rachel, takes Molly from another Raider saying that she is for "Ravello" and offers Molly a chance to do "better". Rachel takes Molly to meet her new "sisters", the other women in Ravello's Harem, as they prepare her to meet him for the first time and tell her she should be grateful and that he is good to them. It gets pretty damn dark here as the young Molly is raped by Ravello as he talks about how much he loves this new post-apocalyptic world. Some time later Molly realises that she is pregnant and it suddenly dawns on her that there are no children in the camp, she confronts Rachel as to why there are no children with Rachel's silence speaking chilling volumes.

Molly causes a distraction and fleas the camp and is quickly pursued by Rachel. Rachel tells Molly she is taking her back to camp to which she reacts violently disfiguring Rachel as she fleas once again. Months later Molly is living in the wilderness with her new baby when Rachel comes looking for her again for revenge. Molly hides using well built traps but while trying to prevent her baby from crying Molly accidentally smothers her. Climbing out of her hiding place hours later Molly looks down at her baby, realising what she has done, and pitifully utters "Molly is sorry" completing her decent into madness and finally becoming "Crazy Molly".

The art for Spread is usually done by Kyle Strahm and is grotesque in a strangely enjoyable way but issue #12  is done by guest artist Jen Hickman and is much cleaner and simpler than the usual style. I really think the guest artist for this issue was a fantastic choice as the usual grotesque, quirky style would have distracted from the true horror of the story being told.

Molly is just heartbreaking in the way she seems to find a way to overcome the challenges she faces in this apocalyptic world and works with each situation so she can survive . Molly is happy living with John and Raven, despite being abandoned by Raven at the worst possible moment, and even finds a way to live a decent life as part of the harem referring to the other women as her "sisters". It is not until Molly has another life to worry about that she decides to escape her situation for not just herself but for her unborn child. Molly's terror and despair is so genuine that it makes the reader feel uncomfortable completely pulling them into the story.

I can't explain how uncomfortable this page made me feel

Rape is an extremely touchy subject that is not tackled by many forms of media, let alone in comics, and depending on the handling can come across as exploitative at the expense of the female character but I find that the handling of it in Spread is done very well showing it as a truly horrific event that makes the reader feel extremely uncomfortable and exposed. This issue was extremely depressing between the abuse that Molly suffered and the tragic fate of her baby I needed to go and read something sweet and innocent like Bizarro until I felt better about life.

Issue 12 was an extremely hard hitting issue that really stuck with me after I read it so I'm going to give it a 4 out of 5 fluffy puppies because I think we all need a bit of cheer after this one.

Look how fluffy they are!

Find out more about Spread here.

Should I take my kids to see Deadpool?

No.

The movie is rated R for a reason. If you still aren't sure go and buy a Deadpool comic, read it and then decide if you think it is appropriate for your children.

I'm heading to Japan

Hey everybody! It's been a dream of mine for a very long time to spend some time in Japan and now after months of planning it's finally happening.

I'll be gone for three weeks so it'll be a little quiet here on my blog but if you want to keep up with my progress and see all the things I'm getting up to in the land of the rising sun you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Love you guys 

Mama Jane xoxo

Sweet Tooth Deluxe Edition #1

Sweet Tooth Deluxe Edition #1

Sweet Tooth is written and illustrated by Jeff Lemire, colours by Jose Villarrubia, letters by Pat Brosseau and published by Vertigo. The deluxe edition #1 of Sweet Tooth contains issues 1-12 and like most omnibus or deluxe editions contains original sketches and a word from the author which can be interesting tidbits for anyone interested in the process of making a comic or the development from Idea to published comic. Sweet Tooth is a post apocalyptic story with a difference so even if you read other series like The Walking Dead or Spread, Sweet Tooth will not feel like you are reading the same story with different characters.

Sweet Tooth begins with our main character Gus, a small antlered boy, narrating how his father speaks to god who he says warns him to never leave their forest home or fire and sin will consume them. 7 Years previously a mysterious disease hit that wiped out a massive percent of the population, but even the surviving population will eventually succumb to the disease. The only people not affected by the disease are the children born after the disease originally struck. The strange thing is all the children born afterwards are a strange hybrid of human and animals with fur, tails or like Gus, antlers. Gus's father slowly succumbs to the sickness that took so many others, leaving Gus all alone in the forest. As he is burying his father Gus is attacked by two strange men saying that he will fetch a good price. Gus is saved from the hunters by the cold and mysterious Mr. Jepperd who violently slaughters them. At first Gus runs from Jepperd but after promising to take him to "The Sanctuary" where hybrid children are safe, Gus decides that he doesn't want to be alone anymore and decides to take his chances with The Sanctuary.

In the deluxe edition we do meet more characters than just Gus and Jepperd but to keep the spoilers to a minimum I'm only going to talk about those two. Gus I find written incredibly well exactly how you would expect a frightened child to act, he has been told his entire life that the outside world is evil and is therefore frightened of everything yet has an innocence about him that makes him have complete faith in those that promise to care for him. Jepperd is like the complete opposite of Gus in almost every way, Jepperd is cold, violent, bitter and cynical about everything seeing no good in the world. Despite Jepperd's nature he does still have some tender moments with Gus and some others they meet along the way, so no matter how suspicious you are of Jeppered's motives you are still crossing your fingers for a happy ending for him.

You can really see the innocence or lack of in their eyes

The art of Sweet Tooth I find really hard to classify as it can be both beautiful, grotesque and horrifying all at the same time and uses a lot of thick line work, flat colours and shading to make things look eerie and sick. One of the best things about the deluxe edition is having the textless covers of the single issues, which are just beautiful, at the beginning of each issue.

I actually really love this panel

After seeing the cover of Sweet Tooth on the shelf I couldn't leave the store without it and after I opened it I didn't put it down until I was finished. The characters are great, the story completely draws you in and the art is truly something different. Sweet Tooth is great for seasoned readers and could be an easy introduction for new readers if they have an open mind about different art styles.

I give Sweet Tooth Deluxe Edition #1 4 out of 5 hybrid babies.

Find out more about Sweet Tooth here.

Art Ops Issue #1

Art Ops issue #1

Art Ops is written by Shaun Simon, art by Mike Allred and published by Vertigo. I was really hoping that Art Ops was going to involve great works of art teaming up to kick some butt. I was also hoping to see The Mona Lisa battle The Scream or Michael Angelo's David fighting The Thinker (see I know art I'm cultured). But what I got was a secret agent organization full of, frankly, unlikable characters and so far a story that doesn't really pull you in with anything special.

Art Ops begins with a woman named Jones and her team walking through the Louvre, discussing the recent destruction of valuable works of art and there concerns for one of the most famous paintings in the world, The Mona Lisa. Jones is a team leader of the Art Ops, an organization tasked with protecting great works of art. The team uses a special device to pull the Mona Lisa out of her painting and replace her with a stand in, explaining that she is going into a sort of witness protection style program for famous works of art. We then meet Reggie, the son of the leader of the Art Ops team as he drinks, smokes drugs and messes around with his girlfriend, Jess, in his mother's bed (class Reggie, all class). In typical teenage angst fashion, Reggie whines about his mother's lack of attention growing up before realizing that his "buzz" is wearing off and him and Jess decide to go buy more weed (our hero everybody). During his transaction with the drug dealers, a painting on the wall comes alive and severely injures Reggie and during the commotion Jess is killed. As Reggie is dying his mother appears and saves him using art to heal his wound. Two years later Reggie is contacted and learns that his mother is missing along with the entire Art Ops organization and is asked to help find them.

I was super underwhelmed by the art of Art Ops, not because its bad but because it seems to have missed a fantastic opportunity to show more great works of art coming to life like the Mona Lisa., I wanted to see statues talking, graffiti murals giving directions and paintings giving advice. I was really hoping for a little more art in a comic called Art Ops.

Reggie is our main character at this point and so far I've found him entirely unlikable as he complains about his mother's lack of attention and messes around in her bed. It just seems like the lowest representation of teenage angst with little actual reasoning to back it up. Reggie says that his mother was often absent during his childhood but then goes on to say she would set him up with a colouring book while she worked not while she went out and partied or drank herself into a coma, she was working to provide for them.

I was really disappointed in Art Ops possibly because I already had my own ideas as to what I was expecting. But really so far I just found the characters unlikable and the story just a little "meh" for lack of a better word.

Arm removal usually works for DC why not Vertigo?

I give Art Ops 2 out of 5 plain clothes Mona Lisas

Find out more about Art Ops here

This has nothing to do with the comic I just thought it was hilarious

1 year old today!

One year ago today I decided that I would start a blog for myself to write about all the comicbooks and all things geeky that I loved. I've made some great friends, had many memorable experiences and had the opportunity to meet some amazingly creative and wonderful local creators and I want to say a big thank you to anybody who has read my blog or liked my Facebook page because it really means the world to me.

A special thank you to the local creators who let me review their work and thanks to my mum for proof reading all of my articles.

Thanks mum!

Looking forward to next year.

Love Mama Jane Xoxo