Red light, green light

In his Lying in the Gutters column this week, Rich Johnston includes a Swipe File featuring art from a Spanish graphic novel and the poster for Vantage Point.

The Swipe Files can veer between literal and tongue-in-cheek, and I'd consider this one speculative. The images are very similar, but when I first saw the Vantage Point design (which I like) I felt like I might have seen a similar design before, and it definitely wasn't the graphic novel in question.

It's not so much there is an image within the cutout of a body, but that there's several hard panels within the body, themselves cut off by the outline.

Even if this item remains unresolved, there's always lots of other good rumors, reporting and comics industry shenanigans every week in Lying in the Gutters. Check it out.

UPDATE: Rich conveniently explains the origins and function of the Swipe File in his March 3 LITG.

McCain's pain

The "straight talker" didn't too much like this New York Times article about him, which offers some good reporting on John McCain and his (un)ethical history.

The second graph — the one McCain's people are having a conniption over, despite some serious business in the rest of the article — basically says people in McCain's camp thought he was having an affair during his 2000 run for president. It doesn't say he was, likely because the Times couldn't prove it. But it feels like they were being told by these anonymous McCain camp people that he was having an affair. But the Times couldn't go with that, so we get what was printed.

The gist of the rest of the article is that McCain continually seems to court ethical improprieties while maintaining a stance against the influence of lobbyists and corporate interests, though that stance seems not to be a priority in this campaign.

Hey, it's easier to just say you're a "straight shooter" than come up with an actual issue, especially when you can be called on your shit on the issues.

But anyway, why has he courted ethical problems the way he has? He's a dumbass? Probably has a lot to do with it. He'd still rather get things done in Washington instead of being a man alone, fighting the system? Maybe. He just like helping lobbyist buddies too much to really walk the reform walk? Looks like it.

He may be all about governmental reform now that the Republican bid is pretty much assured, and to take some of the sting out of Obama's campaign, but he wasn't making a righteous, indignant spectacle out of himself concerning the Bush administration/Congress in recent years when he could have, when it would have meant something beyond campaign pap.

Back to the article, near the end the Times circles back to this possible affair, and drip the hammer a little harder, writing:

In interviews, the two former associates said they joined in a series of confrontations with Mr. McCain, warning him that he was risking his campaign and career. Both said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman. The two associates, who said they had become disillusioned with the senator, spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others.

Yeah, great, but the Times didn't have it. The implication’s clear as to how McCain behaved "inappropriately" with this one lobbyist. They attempt to cover themselves by never coming out and saying it, but this feels like an all or nothing situation. You either have it and report it, or you don't, and don't.

The McCain campaign's response to the Times is worthless as expected, especially as it counters facts in the story disputed by no one, which leads to my reaction on the story.

There's plenty of good reporting in there, and they actually could have hit McCain harder I think. How many times did he request the FCC or other bureaucrats to expedite proposals not submitted by his lobbyist buddies? They say reform hasn't been a big deal in his current campaign — point out how (and thus, how hokey and meaningless his campaign has been).

But the inclusion of the "implication" will end up detracting from the rest of the piece. Speculation suggests the Times rushed it to print so they weren't scooped by a The New Republic story on the Times' handling of the investigation, and it feels like that may be the case.

UPDATE: Though the Times denied it, the McCain camp alleged the story came out as is because The New Republic was working on a story on the Times' reporting (delaying?) the McCain story. This was discussed on Charlie Rose Thursday night, with someone from the TNR saying he took the Times' at their word in that the TNR didn't affect their decision on the story. So now I have to go read this TNR piece.

TNR's Noam Scheiber also offered that "The story reads to me like it had originally been much more ambitious, but had its guts ripped out somewhere along the way," to which I'd agree.

UPDATE 2: Go read the TNR piece, it's great stuff. I wonder what it would have looked like before the Times went ahead and ran the McCain story.

Freakin' A

Warren Ellis and artist Paul Duffield launched a free, weekly web comic today called FreakAngels, which looks to be a post-apocalyptic, steampunky tale set in a flooded future London. More info here.

First six-page installment looks pretty good.

Catman, shhhhhhh, secrets

Secret Six was a pretty decent miniseries follow-up to Villains United, the best of the Countdown to Infinite Crisis minis, and the Infinite Crisis one-shot from a few years back.

I'm not really up on all the DC universe history — including most of the the characters' backgrounds, their House of Secrets headquarters, etc. — it's just kind of cool to have a book featuring a team of villains. As their main adversary is the Society which, founded by Lex Luthor, includes much badder guys, the Six come off more like good guys who don't mind robbing banks. Or killing people in their way.

Lineup-wise we still have Catman (not this guy, though he looked like this in Green Arrow during Kevin Smith's run), Deadshot who I liked since the post-No Man's Land Batman stuff, Ragdoll, Scandal, Knockout and the Mad Hatter, replacing the dead Parademon. They're facing a bunch of people, but mainly Society holdover Dr. Psycho and Vandal Savage, one of the best comics villains ever.

There's some interesting bits here. I like Deadshot calling to tell his wife she and his kids won't see him again as baddies tracked him through his family — click. Ragdoll keeps the deceased and stuffed Parademon in his room. And instead of just making hats to control others, the Mad Hatter made himself hats programmed to create bliss, and has become a hat addict.

Dale Eaglesham's not back as interior artist, replaced by Brad Walker who's solid if not spectacular. It's keeping with the general look of the previous series, though. Villains United one-shot cover artist Karl Kershl returns.

It's a year after publication, but as requested I'm letting DC know I want more Secret Six, if for no more reason than to see Catman track down the pilot in the first issue who makes them jump from the plane early.

Get Into it

Employing a thorough, journalistic style, author Jon Krakauer does a great job chronicling the road odyssey and last days of Chris McCandless in Into the Wild.

The synopsis for this true story hooks you — "In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter."

Krakauer admits to an obsession over McCandless' story, but succeeds in offering as much insight as seemingly possible into why this happened. Some of the best bits don't even involve McCandless, including Krakauer's detailing of his own near-fatal Alaskan adventure and the story of Everett Reuss, who disappeared in Utah in the 1930s.

Great book, and another movie I want to see. I'm guessing you can see the movie first and still get a lot more out of the book too. You may also want to check out the episode of Iconoclasts on Sundance Channel featuring Krakauer and Sean Penn, director of the film version.

No County no joke

You could see how someone would read this and want to make a movie right away. Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men hurtles along at a breakneck — or rather, a compressed air-powered stun gun pace, with only the reflective ruminations of Sheriff Bell offering a breather.

The setup: In early 1980s Texas near the Mexico border, Vietnam vet Llewellyn Moss comes across a drug deal gone bad, and helps himself to a suitcase full of money.

McCarthy doesn't present the internal thought process of the characters, aside from the Bell bits at the beginning of chapters, which come into tighter focus as the book progresses. So while we know why he takes the money (it's a lot of free money), we don't know what makes him return to the scene of the drug deal. He's not stupid, but this was a stupid decision, and the shit hits the fan.

Some weird things: The sheriff's name is Ed Tom Bell, and people actually call him Ed Tom. I guess the two-name name (Joe Don Baker) has gone the way of the bubblegum disciplinary issues in America's schools, as Bell might say. Also, the intentional run-on sentences, and the contractions without apostrophes. OK.

This was supposed to be McCarthy's most accessible work, and I want to check out Blood Meridian which was recommended to me by Tim Jim McGlynn (hey, there's a two-name name), which he said was stranger but better.

Having seen the movie's trailer, I thought the bad guy might be too cartoony, but I didn't think so reading the book. I have a feeling the end of the film won't be as much of an issue if you read the book first, though it definitely slows bigtime. But the last bit of Bell's police work continues to offer insight into some of the overall themes — drug buyers are as much of the problem as dealers (whether we're talking about drugs or not), and stakes keep getting higher.

Awesome crime fiction. You really don't want to put it down, and I knocked it out in two days. Bring on the movie.

Ultimates 3, still ultimate?

Not so much, no. Not really feeling The Ultimates 3, the third series featuring the Ultimate version of the Avengers.

I was pretty pumped when I heard Joe Madureira would be penciling Ultimates 3, even if his art style was a large departure from that of Bryan Hitch. Marvel needed big guns on this book, and going in a totally different direction seemed OK to me. Ironically, it was during Joe Mad's run on Uncanny X-Men (back when I was buying one book a month — ha!) that I first saw Hitch's art in a fill-in issue, and really disliked it. I came to appreciate it during his runs on Stormwatch and The Authority, and definitely on The Ultimates. But with Joe Mad out of the game for years, I was down to see him in action again.

And for the most part the art is pretty sweet, aside from two issues. The digital painting over the pencils (I'm assuming that's how they did it) give the art an unfinished feel at times. More importantly, however, the flat, washed out colors don't complement Joe Mad's art at all. I want to see vibrant, full-on cartoony goodness popping off the page. I feel like they dulled down the colors in an attempt to keep things gritty and realistic. But if you're gonna sub in Joe Mad for Hitch, go all the way.

But the art's hardly the problem through issues 1 and 2 of Ultimates 3, it's the story from Jeph Loeb.

I mostly agree with Blair Butler's points on the first issue. In issue 2 we have some interesting things, Magneto and The Brotherhood on the scene (cool), Cap vs. Sabretooth (hell yeah). But the issue starts with an annoying, comic book cliche battle between Hawkeye and Spider-Man. And before that Spidey, swinging through the Manhattan night, enters the fray when he hears of a shooting over the police radio, which must have been pretty loud as it's clearly snowing, so the police car's windows are up, but Spidey hears the call while swinging through the air. He doesn't have super hearing, does he? Yeah, it's a comic book, but previous Ultimates series stood out for their realistic vibe. This silly stuff wouldn't fly previously. And where the hell's Black Panther? We're told he's on the team in issue 1, but he gets thrown into a park and we don't even see him in issue 2.

Ultimates 3 has generally been getting panned, and while I'm not loving it to date I can hang in for three more issues of the five-part series to see how it develops.