Category Alternating Current

Cross-talks on individual issues.

Oct 10 2016

Shade, the Changing Girl 1

Alternating Currents: Shade, the Changing Girl 1, Drew and Michael

Today, Drew and Michael are discussing Shade, the Changing Girl 1, originally released October 5th, 2016. As always, this article containers SPOILERS.

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Drew: Last week, I saw a program of animated shorts at a local film festival. I’ve always loved shorts, but seeing a dozen back-to-back highlighted just how effectively vastly different worlds could be established in just a few short minutes. This is especially true of animation, where the “rules” of the world — from its physics to the question of whether animals can talk — can often take unexpected turns. Indeed, I think discovering those rules is one of the joys of cartooning; examples from the shorts I saw include “oh, this is a world where a crow in a shirt and tie might become a young boy’s step-father” and “oh, this is a world where someone’s bomb shelter might be at the top of an impossibly tall tower“. That’s a joy that’s just as true of comics, and creators that take full advantage of just how weird their worlds can be often come up with something magical and unexpected. Cecil Castellucci and Marley Zarcone are clearly willing to go weird in Shade, the Changing Girl, and issue 1 suggests that they might be on to something very special. Continue reading →

Oct 7 2016

Descender 15

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Today, Spencer and Ryan D. are discussing Descender 15, originally released September 28th, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

Spencer: The third arc of Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen’s Descender is called “Singularities,” and it’s an appropriate title. The progression of the narrative has slowed to a crawl as, instead, each issue gets drawn into the orbit of a single character, exploring the way the ten years since the Harvesters’ attack have shaped them into the person they are today. Issue 15 focuses on Effie (a.k.a. Queen Between), the ex-wife of Tim-21’s former owner, Andy Tavers. Not only do Lemire and Nguyen deftly flesh out the past of a character who, up until now, had been a bit player, but they pack a heartbreakingly comprehensive look at a ten-year-long relationship into a scant 23 pages. Continue reading →

Oct 7 2016

Cage! 1

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Today, Taylor and Spencer are discussing Cage! 1, originally released October 5th, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

Taylor: Somewhere in my internet wanderings I read an article about the evolution of American cartoon design. In the article (which totally eludes me now despite many internet searches), the author makes the claim that the design of characters in American animation has gradually moved away from the influence of major animation houses over time. Looking at this evolution in pictures, I could see characters going from more detailed to symbolic and abstract in their design. With these ideas still rolling around in my brain, I read Cage! 1 and was delighted by the radical design of the characters and setting. Eschewing traditional styles in favor of his own unique brand, Genndy Tartakovsky has created a comic that is totally unique yet somehow familiar.

Continue reading →

Oct 6 2016

Black 1

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Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Black 1, originally released October 5th, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

Patrick: Representation is a remarkable thing. From my position as a privileged white dude, it can often appear to be one of the more superficial qualities of a work of art. I’m so used to seeing my race and gender portrayed in fiction that diversity is a welcome garnish, rather than the main course. I like to see different races, genders and sexualities represented in my movies, TV shows, comics and games, but that’s not the sole reason I seek them out, or even one of the primary reasons. But again, I never need to look too hard (like… at all) to find myself on the screen or on the page. Kwanza Osajyefo, Tim Smith 3 and Jamal Igle’s Black 1 makes a case for representation as a reason for existence, mapping the specifics of modern Black American culture onto an otherwise unremarkable superhero origin story. But those specifics make a world of difference, and the blackness of Black ultimately convinces both the reader and the protagonist that this is a story that needs to be told. Continue reading →

Oct 5 2016

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps 5

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Today, Michael and Spencer are discussing Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps 5, originally released September 28th, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

Michael: One of my cardinal sins of writing about comics is leaving the artwork by the wayside in favor of a heavier focus on the narrative of a comic book issue. Similarly, I think we tend to primarily associate iconic superheroes with a specific writer instead of an artist. And while he’s worked on many different projects, I will always associate Ethan Van Sciver with Green Lantern. Continue reading →

Oct 5 2016

Star Wars 23

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Today, Patrick and Michael are discussing Star Wars 23, originally released September 28, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

Patrick: There has been a lot of digital ink spilled on the subject of the predictable nature of the structure of the Star Wars films. Whether we’re talking about the Campbellian Hero’s Journey or some kind of impossibly orchestrated ring-based super structure, or just the fact that Force Awakens hits all the same beats as A New Hope, everyone likes to image that they know how a Star Wars story is going to go. Hell, even the interquel nature of the Star Wars comic book series forces the reader to apply all kinds of knowledge about how they already know the story ends. There are — presumably — no surprises to be found between the 4th and 5th episodes of a ubiquitous series based on the culturally omnipresent mono-myth. But writer Jason Aaron is aggressively mucking with structure in this story arc, “The Last Flight of the Harbinger,” and issue 23 finally starts to marry disparate story threads and character beats into genuinely harrowing conflict.

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Oct 4 2016

Deadpool Annual 1

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Today, Taylor and Drew are discussing Deadpool Annual 1, originally released September 28th, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

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Taylor: As a kid, I was a cartoon addict. I would wake up at 6:00 am every day for the sole purpose of watching cartoons for an hour before school. Needless to say, Saturday morning cartoons were like manna from heaven for me. Being young, I watched these cartoon shows for hours on end indiscriminately. In retrospect, much of the shows I watched were truly awful, sporting low production values and shoddy writing at the best of times. Still, I fondly remember these cartoons, and I’m willing to bet most children of the ’80s look back on these cartoons through a rosy lens like myself. In the Deadpool Annual, writers Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn take a look back at these shows and wonder what would happen if the Merc with the Mouth had gotten his own crack at Saturday morning.

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Oct 3 2016

Josie and the Pussycats 1

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Today, Ryan and Taylor are discussing Josie and the Pussycats 1, originally released September 28th, 2016.

Ryan: As a longtime Archie comics reader, I’ve read quite a few Josie and the Pussycat stories. I remember the blond ditzy drummer, their shady manager, their frenemy with a white streak in her hair who was sometimes a literal witch, and the striped leotards. I couldn’t tell you much about Josie herself. She is a redhead and nice, I think? After reading Josie and the Pussycats 1, I still couldn’t tell you much more about Josie. Continue reading →

Sep 30 2016

Wonder Woman 7

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Today, Patrick and Mark are discussing Wonder Woman 7, originally released September 28th, 2016. As always, this article containers SPOILERS.

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Patrick: When the odd-numbered issues of Greg Rucka’s Wonder Woman kicked off a story arc called “The Lies,” we all thought we had figured out what the titular lies were. Presumably, these are lies about Wonder Woman’s origins – a kind of meta-reading of the dozen or so conflicting origin stories that have been put forth for Diana of Themyscria. Is she the God of War? A champion of submission? The Justice League secretary? Diana’s voice over in issue #1 supports this read, but as we move throughout the series, it becomes more clear that the lies Rucka is exploring have more to do with the roles women play and less to do with the roles Wonder Woman plays. Continue reading →

Sep 29 2016

Spider-Woman 11

Alternating Currents: Spider-Woman 11, Drew and Spencer

Today, Drew and Spencer are discussing Spider-Woman 11, originally released September 28th, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

The five stages — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Drew: As a psychological heuristic, Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief is arguably as well-known as Freud’s id, ego, and super-ego structural model. However, that may make it one of the most misunderstood, as Kübler-Ross explains in the quote above. We often talk about those five stages as if they fall into a prescribed linear order, but it was never really meant to be understood in that way. Which is to say: someone experiencing grief may feel any or none of these feelings in any order or any combination. Grief is a remarkably complex phenomenon that everyone experiences differently — some might feel mostly depression or mostly denial, while others, like Jessica Drew in Spider-Woman 11, feel mostly anger. Continue reading →