Elizabeth Sandifer

From worst to best of what I bought, which actually includes things this week. And no, I’m not doing that KFC comic from DC. It’s free, so I can’t buy it, and you can’t buy it for me, so pfft.

Stumptown #10

Phil’s comic pet peeves, number 398 out of a series of fucking infinite length: when writers do near-wordless scripts and then give them to artists who aren’t actually good enough to carry it off. This is a reasonably good story, and there’s some smart, thoughtful writing with a real focus on letting the images tell the story. The probelm is as I said – Justin Greenwood’s not a strong enough artist to convey the information needed clearly. Too often one is left looking at a page going “OK, what’s happening here,” and not in the sense of “what are the storytelling implications of this” but rather in the sense of “is that the same person from three pages ago” or “wait, where are these people?” Letting the pictures tell the story is great and a lovely comics writers trick that I get why everyone likes. But the fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of professional artists working in the industry today can’t actually pull it off, and that writers would be better served not triyng to be so damn clever.

Wonder Woman #2

The start of Rucka’s other Wonder Woman storyline, an origin retelling with Nicola Scott. Like any origin retelling it’s overly well-trodden ground, and Rucka neither brings earth-shattering new ideas nor hyper-brilliant style to the task, but it’s still got a bevy of nice, subtle touches that at least remind what Rucka’s strengths on the character are. I remain inherently suspicious of Rebirth and of the first two issues here, but this is at least a perfectly competent and enjoyble comic, which has to be called a result in context.

New Avengers #13

The impending relaunch brings a sense of acceleration to the book, which is generally good for it. The resolution to the ongoing POD subplot is clever and moving, although I find myself rather sharply hoping the character was not then immediately killed. (I trust Ewing more than that, though.) The Songbird plot is good. The army of Dum Dum Duggans remains barmy and clever. And I’m excited to see the Maker finally make his move. All in all, successful rising action.

The Wicked + The Divine #21

Speaking of Rising Action, the penultimate installment of this arc, which fulfills the description “like Shakespeare but with lots more punching” even better than NextWave did. Gillen and McKelvie have maintained FULL TILT quite well with this arc, and the comparative lull of last month’s installment seems considerably more artful given this jump to eleven. Excited to see how many people have their consciousnesses expanded in next month’s conclusion. (There. I finally did a joke other than “mind-blowing.”)

Next Week…

Lazarus #23

Hunt #1

Snotgirl #1

Darth Vader #23

Spider-Man #6

The Ultimates #9…

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The Pex Lives boys are back with The Crusade. And also with “then-current events,” which I don’t actually know when refers to. Dallas? Brexit? The Crusades themselves? Listen here and find out. They also apparently talk about the classic westerns Shane, Johnny Guitar, and The Searchers. 

Also, apparently Jack uploaded himself reading Canto 25 of Dante’s Inferno a few days ago without explanation or mentioning it anywhere. Well we’re mentioning it here. You can listen here.…

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I think it’s symbolic or something. (The weird doors in the background, I mean.)

State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly.

Lions of King’s Landing: Tyrion Lannister, Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister

Dragons of Meereen: Daenerys Targaryen

Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow

The Mockingbird, Petyr Baelish

The Burning Heart, Melisandre

Archers of the Wall: Samwell Tarly

The Direwolf, Sansa Stark

The Direwolf, Arya Stark

The Dogs, Sandor Clegane

The Shield, Brienne of Tarth

Chains of King’s Landing: Bronn

With the Bear of Meereen, Jorah Mormont

Winterfell, the Dreadfort, and Braavos are abandoned.

The episode is in eleven parts. The first runs four minutes and is set in King’s Landing. It is in sections. The first section is three minutes long; the first image is of an angry Jaime, his dialogue preceding his appearance. The second section is one minute long. The transition is by dialogue, from Jaime talking about who Cersei will choose as her champion to the Mountain

The second part runs five minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The transition is by family, from Gregor to Sandor Clegane.

The third runs three minutes and is set at the Wall. The transition is by family, from Arya Stark to Jon Snow.

The fourth part runs four minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by hard cut, from Jon and Sam sitting ruefully to Tyrion’s window.

The fifth part runs three minutes and is set in Meereen. The transition is by hard cut, from Tyrion in his cell to the great pyramid.

The sixth part runs four minutes and is set in Dragonstone. The transition is by image, from naked Daario to naked Melisandre.

The seventh part runs three minutes and is set in Meereen. The transition is by hard cut, from Melisandre and Selyse looking into the fire to Daario walking out of Daenerys’s room and getting dressed.

The eighth runs three minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The transition is by hard cut, from Daenerys to a wide shot of the Hound and Arya.

The ninth runs five minutes and is also set in the Riverlands. The transition is by dialogue, with Brienne and Podrick coming to speak of Arya.

The tenth runs five minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by dialogue, with Podrick having just talked about Tyrion.

The last runs eight minutes and is set in the Eyrie. The transition is by family, from Tyrion to Sansa. The final image is of the Moon Door after Lysa Arryn has taken landing on a snake to new levels.

Analysis

Structurally speaking, the elegant style of play that had been the hallmark of the season pretty much gives out here. “Mockingbird” is a jagged mess of hard cuts and piece-shuffling concerned more with positioning plot lines to be able to handle the existence of a single-location ninth episode than with anything of its own. Thankfully the season’s overall shape from “First of His Name” on, in which episodes are anchored by a sequence of escalating set pieces, largely covers for this lack, making “Mockingbird” a more or less satisfying experience.…

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Ugh. It’s the Gatiss episode.

State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:

Lions of Kings Landing: Tyrion Lannister, Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister, Tywin Lannister

Dragons of Mereen: Daenerys Targaryen

Roses of Kings Landing: Margaery Tyrell

Ships of Braavos: Davos Seaworthy

Burning Hearts of Braavos: Stannis Baratheon

Kraken of the Dreadfort: Theon Greyjoy

Flayed Men of the Dreadfort: Ramsay Snow

Spiders of King’s Landing: Varys

Flowers of King’s Landing: Shae

With the Bear of Mereen, Jorah Mormont

Winterfell is abandoned and in ruins, the Wall is unmanned.

The episode is in four parts. The first runs eight minutes and is set in Bravos. The opening shot is of Stannis’s ship sailing across the Narrow Sea.

The second runs eight minutes and is set at the Dreadfort. The transition is by the concept of ships, from Davos hiring Sallador Sahn to Asha sailing towards the Dreadfort.

The third runs six minutes and is set in Mereen. The transition is by hard cut, from Ramsey’s smiling face to a goat herder.

The fourth runs twenty-five minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by dialogue, with Daenerys coming up in conversation at the council meeting. The final shot is Tyrion smiling at having landed on a ladder and demanded trial by combat.

Analysis

Like “The Lion and the Rose,” there are several courses of vegetables followed by dessert. The vegetables are much the same – two lengthy sections dealing with Stannis and the Dreadfort. Indeed, so is the dessert – a big King’s Landing set piece, although not quite so big as “The Lion and The Rose” due to significant attrition in the number of available characters. But this is in every regard the more intensive version of the exercise. “The Lion and the Rose” built inexorably to its denouement, inserting two earlier King’s Landing scenes to build to the wedding. “The Laws of Gods and Men,” on the other hand, drops its two slogs consecutively at the start, then offers a palate cleanser in Meereen before plowing into its King’s Landing piece as one single bloc.

This is, of course, slightly unfair to both the Stannis and Ramsay scenes, as they do have several legitimate points of interest. Stannis’s scene, for instance, is the occasion for introducing a new location to the opening credits, which gives it an odd emphasis, even if the weight of Braavos as a location is not entirely clear. (Although it’s notable that Tywin and Arya both talked about it last episode, further emphasizing it as a big deal.) But this is mostly an intellectual curiosity – Stannis is on his way back out of Braavos after eight minutes, and while the location sticks around in the credits for the rest of the season (whereas the Eyrie, curiously, never gets used), nothing of its importance is actually conveyed by the episode, its introduction serving the same purpose as Liam Cunningham’s charisma, namely desperately trying to spice up a dull scene.

The Dreadfort scene is more straightforward in its efforts to make itself engaging, in that it has people hitting each other with swords.…

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First of all, I just want to direct you all to Shana’s post from Friday, because it’s an absolute stunner. Really, everybody’s on form lately, and it’s leaving me itching to finish off Brief Treatise, because I feel like the weak link on my own site. Although the truth is that something fairly fast and easy like Brief Treatise is still useful while I finish up Last War in Albion Volume 1 revisions (which I got the last big part of done this week), typeset Neoreaction a Basilisk, and finally get some work done on the next actual chapter of Last War in Albion. So I’m busy, just not with stuff that goes on the blog weekly.

Still, I’ve been thinking about what I want to do after Brief Treatise and the Super Nintendo Project wrap. I’ve got a Jack-style series in mind called Build High for Happiness, and an ongoing thing called The Proverbs of Hell, both of which should be fun. And perhaps one-offs on things like Mr. Robot season two, which I’m terribly excited for. And probably reviews of The Obelisk Gate and Death’s End when those come out. Those will presumably come before Super Nintendo Project wraps, of course.

Meanwhile, for discussion this week… what do you want that science fiction isn’t providing for you right now? …

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From worst to best of what I read. Books bought by other people so that I could review them are marked with an asterisk. If you’d like me to review a book, just furnish me with a copy, whether by gifting it on Comixology, e-mailing me a download code, or PayPaling me the cost and telling me what you’d like me to buy. In all cases, snowspinner at gmail. (And it wouldn’t be a bad idea, as there appears we’ll be on hiatus next week due to a lack of any books I’m buying.)

Spider-Gwen Annual #1

A bunch of largely unremarkable short stories, of which only the Captain America one stood out worth a damn. A couple more were worth a chuckle, but on the whole this is firmly in the “annuals that aren’t actually worth your time” category. 

Black Panther #3

Coates was talking up bits of the Alan Moore Swamp Thing run on Twitter a while back, and the influence is all over this issue. But maddeningly, the book continues to not quite click – three issues in there’s yet to be any sort of triumphal “fuck yeah” moment where the book feels like it pays something off or actually sells the reader on its concepts and approach. I will continue to stubbornly hold out hope with this one, but man, I hope Coates finds his gear here soon.

Darth Vader #22

The Aphra scene at the start is quite fun, but the confrontation with Tulon Voidgazer that makes up the bulk of the book is a fairly light-weight “Vader disposes of the secondary antagonist” sequence. The cliffhanger it sets up is intriguing, but this is something of a blank within the overall run. 

Spider-Man #5

Bendis sticks to relatively conventional Marvel-soap plotting, and does interesting stuff with it, adding nuance to the Ganke/Goldballs relationship and taking the Miles’s Grandmother plot, which had been threatening to careen into self-parody, in an interesting direction by bringing Jessica Jones into the mix through her. The Hammerhead/Black Cat stuff is awkward-feeling, too-quickly raised and disposed of over the last two issues, but without at least one bit of slightly bewilderingly incompetent pacing how would we know it’s really a Bendis comic?

Cinema Purgatorio #3

A bit of a weak issue here, with Code Pru having an off month, Cinema Purgatorio itself being more interesting than effective, and Modded… being quite clever, actually, with a technically adept installment that gives Ignacio Calero a chance to cut loose pleasantly. A More Perfect Union is still crap, but The Vast is actually pretty good this month. Still probably the weakest of the set so far.

Nighthawk #1-2*

An unapologetically political book that proclaims itself to be invested in black culture right up front. It’s not subtle about this, which I appreciate. The relationship between Nighthawk and Tilda Johnson, who’s serving as his Oracle-figure, is reliably solid, and Ramon Villalobos has a solid Frank Quitely-style grotesqueness to his style that works well with the book.…

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I don’t really have a funny caption here, I just thought it was an ironic image to use this week.

State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:

Lions of King’s Landing: Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister,

Dragons of Meereen: Daenerys Targaryen

Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow, Bran Stark

The Mockingbird, Petyr Baelish

Roses of King’s Landing: Margaery Tyrell

The Direwolf, Sansa Stark

The Direwolf, Arya Stark

The Dogs, Sandor Clegane

The Shield, Brienne of Tarth

Spiders of King’s Landing: Varys

With the Bear of Meereen, Jorah Mormont

The Dreadfort and Dragonstone are abandoned

The episode is in eleven parts. The first runs five minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The opening image is of Tommen being crowned.

The second runs four minutes and is set in Meereen. The transition is by dialogue, with Jorah informing Daenerys of Joffrey’s death.

The third runs seven minutes and is set in the Eyrie. The transition is by hard cut, from Daenerys on her balcony to rocks.

The fourth runs three minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by dialogue, from Littlefinger and Lyssa getting married to Cersei and Tywin discussing weddings.

The fifth runs two minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The transition is by dialogue, with Arya reciting her list, including Cersei and Tywin.

The sixth runs three minutes and is set in the Eyrie. The transition is by family, from Arya to Sansa Stark.

The seventh runs two minutes and is set in the Crownlands. The transition is by dialogue, with Brienne and Podrick talking about Sansa.

The eighth runs three minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The transition is by hard cut, from Brienne and Podrick riding to the Hound waking up.

The ninth runs three minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by image, from a wide shot of a river to a pond.

The tenth runs three minutes and is set in the Crownlands. The transition is by hard cut, from Oberyn to a burning rabbit.

The eleventh runs eighteen minutes and is set at Craster’s Keep north of the Wall. The transition is by hard cut, from Podrick helping Brienne with her armor to an establishing shot. The final image is of Craster’s Keep landing on a snake and burning.

Analysis

Structurally, it’s largely a mirror of the previous week, only with a more disjointed build-up (prior to the jump to Craster’s it’s on track to be a Season Two-sized part count) and a more ostentatious set piece for the Craster’s sequence. The result is firmly the soft and kind of spongy middle of Season Four, and the sort of episode that trying to find anything to say about highlights why A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones is not quite the most functional project I’ve ever designed. (I reckon this’ll be the last run of it – I don’t see much point in writing second essays about S5 and S6 episodes.)…

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It is, of course, crass and ostentatious spectacle less interested in dramatically earning its major beats than it is in making sure they are explosively propulsive. Which is to say that it unapologetically plays to Game of Thrones’s strengths in a way that does not so much minimize its weaknesses as renders them largely irrelevant in the face of the giant fucking wildfire explosion that is the onrushing plot. Everything here is sufficiently thrilling, its implications generally punch-the-air triumphant, that their sheer momentum and the bald confidence with which it’s all carried off makes it work. This is what Game of Thrones’s aesthetic ultimately exists to do. It’s not a subtle pleasure. But, as Cersei would put it, it does feel good.

If there is a problem with it all, it’s that in the ludicrous din of it all moments that should have had real weight get swallowed. The biggest problem, of course, is the way in which the revelation of what actually happened at the Tower of Joy fails utterly to be a significant takeaway from the episode. The decision to save the revelation for this episode, as opposed to putting it in “Oathbreaker” where there would have been room to let Bran gawk at the fact that Jon’s a secret Targaryen, is in several regards baffling. And it highlights the extent to which this episode is overstuffed at the expense of previous ones. What on Earth, for instance, is the purpose of the four minute excursion to Oldtown? Surely Sam, who has spent the season blatantly being a plotline more than Benioff and Weiss actually wanted to deal with, could have been given a scene with actual weight, as opposed to one that exists purely to show the white ravens being sent out. Surely there was room for a third Benjen scene instead of having his second appearance be him leaving again. (Arya’s murder of Walder Frey is an interesting counterexample though. I admit, I didn’t think she’d be in this episode, since “No One” worked just fine as an ending, and the short nature of the scene and her appearance would have made it easy for it to end up as one of the swallowed moments. Instead Maisie Williams single-handedly kicks the scene into one of the best moments of the episode, because she is a fucking boss.)

But what minor quibbles. Let’s be real here. This is stunning, from start to finish. The opening set piece is majestic, due largely to Sapochnik’s direction. The decision to abandon the show’s normal visual storytelling in favor of heavy cross-cutting, further emphasized by a bespoke musical cue (which is subsequently mixed to satisfying effect with “The Rains of Castamere” for Cersei’s coronation) gives it a strange and unsettling quality that allows the realization of what’s going to happen to slowly build over the sequence’s frankly majestic length. The handling of Cersei this season has been one of its real high points – she’s been positioned relatively sympathetically and allowed to mostly be a rational, sensible character.…

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Neoreaction a Basilisk ebooks went out to Kickstarter backers yesterday. The first sentence never seemed so apt. I doubt I’ll find myself writing anything substantial on Brexit before the Capaldi volume of TARDIS Eruditorum, and thus with the benefit of a couple of years’ historicization. It’s obviously never a good thing when this many fascists are this happy, though. I honestly didn’t believe Britain would vote for the side that’s literally got Nazis gunning down its enemies in the streets. But then, as I noted last week, I honestly didn’t believe Britain would be a place where Nazis would gun down a politician in the streets. But of course, there’s always been more to Britain than the bits I love and have written at length about. Equally, that doesn’t mean the Britain I write about isn’t there. It’s always been a Britain of the margins. It’s still a land of madmen – poets and snake-worshippers and yes, of course, with boxes. It’s all still there, and still as important and central to what Britain is as it ever was. And if there’s one thing it’s lurking in the margins, ready to flood back in. 

That doesn’t make it any less of a depressing day, though. And I know I have a lot of readers for whom this was a particular gut punch. So consider this your open thread to vent, make fatalistic jokes, or cobble together fleeting optimism. 

Game of Thrones review will be Monday morning again, followed by Brief Treatise in the afternoon. Take care of yourselves and each other.…

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From worst to best of what I bought.

She Wolf #1

Nothing wrong with this comic as such – the art is tremendously striking, the themes are interesting. But there’s also nothing that particularly draws me in or makes me invested. By the end of the first issue I still wasn’t entirely clear on the premise. Will probably read interestingly in trade, but this doesn’t look like a single issue sort of thing to me.

Wonder Woman #1

Elsewhere in the wide world of uninspiring #1s, an issue of Wonder Woman that makes no real effort to sell a new premise or direction for the book. Rucka’s in typically competent mode doing the things he does well, which is to say soldiers and special ops stuff. He’s writing Wonder Woman in much more of a warrior/force of nature mode as opposed to the diplomat of his first run. Which is to say it’s lacking what made his first run interesting, and hasn’t really added anything to replace it. But it’s inoffensive and reasonably solid Wonder Woman, and I’m going to stick around for at least a few issues.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #8

A perfectly pleasant body swap issue that doesn’t really go anywhere, and ends with no real forward momentum into the next issue. Odd and a bit disposable, but still good fun.

The Ultimates #8

A tie-in that’s far better than the series it’s tying into, this is the first take on the big Thanos fight that kills James Rhodes that’s actually been well-done. Good character stuff for Monica and Adam. Needs more Ms. America, of course, but every comic Marvel publishes needs more Ms. America. Art is still gorgeous. All told, a solid issue that makes quite the silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Cry Havoc #6

This is an incredibly intelligent and well-done book, and I look forward to its eventual return (tragically not currently scheduled). I’m going to have to sit down and reread all six issues in one shot, because it’s definitely the sort of book that’s going to reward that, but its themes and approaches are both genuinely brilliant. The trade’s out in August, and I strongly recommend checking it out. 

James Bond #7

Ellis starts a new arc here, and at the outset at least it’s playing to his strengths much more than the first one did. I’m sure he’ll kind of annoy me by throwing in an all-action-sequence issue or abandoning all sense of single issue plotting, because that seems to be what Ellis does on James Bond, but for the moment I’m excited about this book again.

Bitch Planet #8

The most unapologetically social justice oriented book on the stands doubles down on that yet again, and as usual that’s not even the best part. The scene with Makoto realizing what’s happened to his daughter is heartbreaking, while the scenes between Cam and Whitney are full of twists and humor. Both are long on emotional nuance to boot.…

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