All Good Things...

Hey all. I really appreciate all that have come here and read my ramblings about comic books and movies and video games and such over the past almost two years, but I think my time as a blogger has come to an end.  Between wife and kids and work and home and family and doing things I want to do, I really don't have the time I would like to put into writing this anymore.  I do thank you if you have read the words that I have typed and I hope that you have enjoyed some of it.  Feel free to write me if you want and if you want this blog title for your own, feel free to contact me. It would be nice to see it used by someone.  Anyway, be good to each other and I hope you continue to love all things nerdy.  Nite.

Patrick

Tradio #56 - Near Death: Volume One

Wow...that was sure a lot of Sandman comics.  A lot of good stuff, but now it is nice to turn the focus back on my weekly randomness at Tradio.  This week, I look at Near Death: Volume One by Jay Faerber and Simone Guglielmini and published by Image Comics.

Near Death is a straight up hit man story that isn't so straight forward.  Markham is a professional contract killer who has a near death experience during a routine assignment that bleaches a tuft of his hair and sets him on a new mission to save as many people as he has killed and thus keep himself from going to hell.  Can he stay on the straight and narrow or will he fall back into old habits?  Will his sudden change of heart cause his past employers to come looking for him?  Since he is motivated only by his wanting to stay out of hell and not because he really wants to help people, will all his work ultimately have it's desired effect?  That remains to be seen, but each issue in the trade is a self-contained story that has central themes and characters woven throughout.

Near Death is good, but it just doesn't seem to be as thought out as something like Criminal, which you can tell that the series borrows heavily from.  The art is really a homage to Sean Philips which is a blessing and a curse.  In one hand, it is familiar if you are familiar with Criminal and feels natural, but on the other hand, this is NOT Criminal and Near Death suffers from that comparison.  It doesn't let the work stand on it's own and I think it will always live in that title's shadow.  Overall, it isn't bad at all, but there are some things keeping it back from being great.  The best this title can do is continue to separate it from other similar works and stand on it's own...only then will it be held up as the work it deserves to be.

Tradio #55 - The Sandman: The Dream Hunters

Wow! Who could have thunk it?!?! I am finally at the end of the Summer of Sandman here at Tradio with my final trade review.  This week, I look at The Sandman: The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman with art by P. Craig Russell and published under the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics.

The Dream Hunters is an oddity.  This work was produced during the twentieth anniversary of The Sandman and was an adaptation of a work that was produced during the tenth anniversary of The Sandman.  Confused?  Don't be, though I was at first.  What happened was Gaiman and Yoshitaka Amano produced a prose book called The Dream Hunters and then Gaiman and Russell adapted that book into a comic book.  The Dream Hunters is a Japanese fairy tale that Gaiman totally made up, though some have tried to discover what it was based on.  Telling the tale of a monk and a fox and how their lives intertwine with each other and Dream, we see a story of lose and love and ultimately revenge that will keep you turning page after page. 

The Dream Hunters is really a good read.  It is an oddity in more than just what is mentioned above.  It is also a rare Sandman story where the art gets a chances to tell a lot of the story.  Not that Gaiman is a bad writer or anything, he just rarely produces a work where he doesn't have something to say in every panel and in this tale, Russell gets an opportunity to shine and carry the narrative for many pages on end.  It is a nice change and a nice ending to my time with the Endless family.  I recommend it and the prose book it is based off of.  What is next?  Well, no more Sandman...though it has been an enjoyable time and a great way to spend the summer.  See you next week for something entirely different and if you haven't read the twelve volumes of The Sandman that I have showcased, give it a try.  It is quite good and well worth the time you will need to put into it.  See you soon.

Tradio #54 - The Sandman: Endless Nights

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...oh...sorry...sometimes all this reading can be grueling.  That said, this week on Tradio, I talk about The Sandman: Endless Night which is written by Neil Gaiman with art by Glenn Fabry, Milo Manara, Miguelanxo Prado, Frank Quitely, P. Craig Russell, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Barron Storey and published under the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics.

Endless Nights is the first big collection of Sandman stories done by Gaiman after the end of the Vertigo series.  Each story is illustrated by a different artist and focuses on one of the Endless family.  Through differing time periods and differing perspectives we see new facets to each of the characters and though the stories can be read in any order, there is a through line in some of stories that interconnects them.  We get to see some of the earliest days of the Endless and meet the first Despair and Delight.  We begin to get a sense of what it is like in Despair's and Destiny's realms.  We get to encounter how the Endless have played a part in the lives of many people over time and how they may have shaped things throughout the DC universe.

Endless Nights is amazing.  The writing is some of Gaiman's best and the art is nothing short of amazing.  The stories are so fascinating and effortless that once you start, you will have a very hard time putting the volume down before you have read it all.  If I have one lament about the work it is that I wish Gaiman had spent more time in the regular series like this.  For all of the one and done issues that were in The Sandman series, there really weren't enough that focused on the individuals of the Endless family.  There seems to be a lot of good stories there and though I know that The Sandman was ultimately the story of Dream, his family was so integral to what made the book great as a whole and I would have loved to have gotten to know each of them better.  But I digress...this one is probably my favorite, but it would not have the impact that is has without all that came before it.  Give yourself a few hours and read it...seriously.  Next week...the end of the Summer of Sandman with The Dream Hunters.

Tradio #53 - The Sandman: The Wake

This week, we talk about the last of the regular issue trades of The Sandman here on Tradio.  This week, we review The Sandman: The Wake by Neil Gaiman with art by Michael Zulli, Jon J. Muth, and Charles Vess and published under the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics.

A wake.  If you know what one is, you probably have an idea of what a majority of this story is about.  I don't think that is a spoiler given the title, but there is more to it than simply a wake.  These issues are a celebration of life, a passing of a torch, an introduction to a family, and ultimately a chance to tell yet untold tales.  We get to see how many feel about Dream and see how he has affected so many people and beings during his time of being.  The final two stories are an epilogue of untold tales where we see the bridging of gaps between two different dream lords and between the beginning and ending points of the professional life of a character we have seen before.  Overall, the stories are about the best of the series and helps us get a better handle on our feelings about what has come before.

Pretty amazing in so many ways.  The writing is sharp and reverent and the art is some of the series best.  It really is a great coda for the series as a whole, though the last two stories could have come earlier in the series for me, but that is just personal taste.  The Wake is a great end to the series and again answers a lot of questions that the series as posed along the way.  You never feel sorry for Dream, though you may feel that way for the people surrounding him.  It is touching, but not forced, which can be a difficult thing to achieve and it is a testament to the ability of Gaiman.  Next week, we look at Endless Nights.  See you then.

Tradio #52 - The Sandman: The Kindly Ones

Hello again!  This week on Tradio I get my wish with a very long intricate read in The Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman with art by a bunch of artists who I have no clue who did what and published under the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics.

Hippolyta Hall.  A character steeped in DC history doesn't seem like a likely cornerstone of a story that stayed on the periphery of the DC universe proper, but she is...or rather, her son Daniel is.  A character we had seen (and not realized it) many issues ago in one of the one and done issues of The Sandman.  In these issues, we see a mother trying to find her son and then wanting revenge, we see the Furies set loose upon the Dreaming, we see friends come and go, and we ultimately see the fate of Dream himself.  The tale is long, but it needs to be to tie up all the threads that has been started from the beginning of The Sandman.  I don't want to say too much since there is so much surprise and discovery to be had here, but if you aren't moved by this story, you haven't been paying attention.  By far, the best of the series, but only because so much has been so good before it.

Ok...before I go into anything else, I would love to know which of the artists did what in this trade.  There is a list of eight different artists on the front cover with no indication of who did what.  I hate that.  Most of the art was done by someone in particular and I liked it, but there is nothing so say who did what.  Yes, the story is very important and Gaiman should get lots and lots of praise for what all is done in this trade, but without the art, it isn't a comic book and there should be some indication of who did what.  It bothers me a lot...but I digress.  The Kindly Ones is good.  REALLY good.  So much of the ground work from stories before has been laid for what happens in these thirteen issues and many mysteries are revealed over the course of this story.  It is sad and triumphant and it reached an end that was laid out really as far back as issue one.  Old friends return and new "friends" are made and we get to see just what Dream is made of.  I finished it with a heavy, yet curious heart and am excited to see what is to come with The Wake.

Tradio #51 - The Sandman: Worlds' End

We are over the hump here at Tradio with the Summer of Sandman. This week, we look at volume seven The Sandman: World's End by Neil Gaiman with art by a BUNCH of artists including Mike Allred, Tony Harris, Bryan Talbot, and Micheal Zulli and published under the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics.

World's End starts with yet another road trip.  But this time, not one for the Endless, but one for some regular folks who just happen to come into a blizzard in the middle of June.  The unseasonable weather only makes a difficult night's journey that much harder and the occupants of the car are quickly ran off the road by an unidentifiable creature and they have to take refuge at the World's End Inn.  What follows are tales from various other travelers from different times and time lines stuck at the inn as they waste away the hours and wait for the storm to pass.  As with most of the collections like this that we have seen before, Dream figures into each story in one way or another and we meet a few people who may have more history with Dream and his extended cast of characters in one way or another.  Eventually we see a sequence that seems to foreshadow things to come as we see a death march that includes Most of the Endless family, but not all.

There are a lot of strong things about this collection, but we get more tales that, while good, really don't deal with the Endless family directly.  The series has really fallen into a pattern of a several issue arc dealing with Dream and then a series of one and done filler issues.  Each of the six different issues presents art from a different artist with the framing sequences all by the same artist which helps to make the overall package that much more coherent than we have seen before.  But, ultimately, it slows a lot of things down and I really wish we had more focus on Dream and his family.  Also, the stories within stories within stories is kind of annoying in the middle of things.  Overall, not bad by any means, but I wanted more of the central story...which is looks like may be on the way.  See you next week for The Kindly Ones.