Top of the Pile - 4/13/2016

It’s kind of a thing in literature these days to have unreliable narrators. Books like Girl on the Train tells the story through the eyes of a character who is completely within her own world. So the cool part is finding out what “really” happens in the story, because you can’t trust the person telling it to you. The one main character in the Marvel Universe that this happens to is Moon Knight. That’s why this book was my first read this week.

I have mentioned my fondness for the writing of Jeff Lemire, and he now is taking up the insane world of Marc Spector, the Moon Knight. In this book, Marc is in a hospital getting beat up by orderlies. Marc then learns from his doctor that he’s been in the same hospital since he was 12 and Moon Knight is just a delusion. He doesn’t remember anything and still hears the voice of the Egyptian god Khonshu, guiding him to fight his way free from his captivity. So, what is “really” happening? Since it’s a comic, we assume that there really is a god and that Manhattan is being overrun with flying dog headed warriors. But that would be crazy. Right?

The artwork by Greg Smallwood with colors by Jordie Bellaire is pretty cool. During the flashback sequences, Greg uses a colored pencil style where the lines are not smooth and inked. (Kind of like Gene Colan back in the day) And even plays with the panels. There is one page where Marc is going through electroshock and the panels form a large exclamation point. One thing to note is that reading this through Comixology, I didn’t see this element. But on looking through the print book, it was very obvious and made the page more dramatic.

So I will definitely continue picking up Moon Knight. The character is bat shit crazy, and I’m looking forward to seeing how Jeff Lemire tells his story.

Top of the Pile - 4/6/2016

The book that landed the top of the pile this week is Black Panther #1. Not because of the character or his place in the whole Marvel Universe, but because of the writer, Ta-Nehisi Coates. He is not a comic book writer, but rather a poet and journalist who is best known for writing the best selling Between the World and Me.

This book raises some interesting questions. What does it mean to be a king today? How does one rule over people when they have absolute power? What responsibilities does the Black Panther have with his country?

Though the first issue was really cool, it is just the setup for what hopefully will be a good story arc. Ta-Nehisi, for his first try at comic book writing, is pretty good. Often when a non-comic writer first starts writing for comics, they tend to be much too wordy not letting the pictures add to the narrative. But with this book, a good portion of the story is conveyed wonderfully by Brian Stelfreeze.

Interestingly, this book was pulled automatically by my local comic shop because the last time Black Panther was in his own book, it was penned by the best selling novelist David Liss. And with this new book, another famous non-comic world writer is making his mark.