The New 52, month number 2.

And Break!

     October draws to a close and I've received a second round of comics related to the new 52. I'm going to briefly touch a couple highlights and a casualty of war.

    Wonder Woman, Justice League Dark, and Birds of Prey all have kept my interest and feel the most refreshing of the new titles.  The writing has been solid and I'm looking forward to each new issue. These are probably the best books I have been buying.

     The Bat books feel familiar, yet it is fun to see the changes. Three titles stand out for me , thus far. They are listed in order of interest: Batgirl , Batwoman , and Batman. Nightwing is hanging on by a thread, and I'll decide it's fate after issue 4 wraps up this arc. I'm not sure how this portrayal of Dick Grayson compares with what he grew up to become in the old DCU. Detective Comics fell victim to the ax as I walked away from Issue 2 feeling it was going for gore over substance, and didn't fit what Detective Comics was in my mind.

.   Lastly, comes Animal Man and Swamp Thing, books that my wife requested since she has many of their original run under Vertigo from back in the 90's. Both characters are fairly new to me, so I've enjoyed learning about these characters.

     On the whole, I think with some titles the new DCU is still trying to get it's sea legs. Controversy over the cheesecake factor and sexual situations in Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws isn't unexpected with how DC's marketing tried to make this feel like this supposed to be a step away from what came before. I believe what the relaunch is trying to do is to infuse a taste of Cable TV into comics with a bit more skin, more gore, and characters in adults situations.

   Since Cable TV is already part of the adult culture it won't feel like such a stretch, but more importantly this is a part of the American culture  that younger readers have grown up seeing on TV and online at a far younger age than their parents. The end result is trying to make superhero and non superhero comics stop feeling like a "kid" thing. I left most of my comics buying behind when I was in college because of that "kid" concept,  and only returned in my 30's when I started working with people on writing projects in the field to study how they're telling stories visually and with the written word, compared to my literature focus in college.

     That's all for now, hope to have more musings another time.

And fall is here...

As the clouds and rain signal the return of fall to Portland, I shall take a moment to remember the summer that wasn't. 1..2..and we're done. Blog posting remains a impulsive event, which i realize now is as it should be , since I've had other things to occupy my mind.

    Finally picked up the last round of the new DCU comics from September. Hoping to put a top 3 from that bunch up n the blog for the fun of it..Later all.