Sep 26 2012

Catwoman 0

Today, Shelby and (guest writer) Heath Gordon are discussing Catwoman 0, originally released September 19th, 2012. Catwoman 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Shelby: I really want to like Catwoman. I’ve always been intrigued by the “villain of convenience,” that one character who does what he wants; sometimes his goals line up with the hero’s, sometimes they don’t. Every encounter reveals a new motive that can land anywhere on the villain/hero scale. We never really know where this character’s loyalties lie. Ultimately, it all adds up to interesting and engaging reading. This is what I want Catwoman to be: a kick-ass thief with a unique take on what’s right and wrong. I was disappointed with Judd Winick’s vapid, selfish, recklesly stupid Selina Kyle, and had high hopes for Ann Nocenti’e origin story. Looks like I’m going to have to stay disappointed.

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Sep 26 2012

Batwoman 0

Today, (guest writer) Jack Ehlers and Drew are discussing Batwoman 0, originally released September 19th, 2012. Batwoman 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Jack: I don’t much care for plot in fiction. There is enough cause-and-effect to parse out in real life, and I would rather just trust fiction-writers to operate within their own made-up rules and make all the numbers add up on their own. I want to stare out the window of the car and appreciate the landscape without worrying about whether we missed our exit, and Batwoman 0 allows me to do exactly that. Continue reading →

Sep 25 2012

Sword of Sorcery 0

Today, Shelby and (guest writer) Selene Gill are discussing Sword of Sorcery 0, originally released September 19, 2012. Sword of Sorcery 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Shelby: We take comic books pretty seriously here at Retcon Punch. We firmly believe in applying our liberal arts educations to the medium and offering up intelligent and thought-provoking discourse. We recognize that comic books are both a form of literature AND art, and we want to do everything in our power to take that critical eye we honed in Freshman Studies and apply it to the issues in front of us. But, we also know that there is nothing wrong with reading something that’s a fun bit of fluff; sometimes you just want to be entertained. It’s only the first issue, but I suspect that Sword of Sorcery might turn out to be that fluffy bit of nothing, and I think I like it.

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Sep 25 2012

DC Universe Presents 0

Today, Patrick (guest writer) Bryan Coratti are discussing DC Universe Presents 0, originally released September 19, 2012. DC Universe Presents 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

There are five separate stories within DC Universe Presents 0, each one from series that were cancelled back in April. Generally, these stories serve as excellent reminders of why those series were shit-canned in the first place. Patrick and Bryan tackle these stories one-by-one.

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Sep 25 2012

Blue Beetle 0

Today, Patrick and Shelby are discussing Blue Beetle 0, originally released September 19, 2012. Blue Beetle 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Patrick: The Blue Beetle series is unique among DC Comics for a lot of different reasons. Jaime Reyes is a normal teenager, who comes from the most convincing (and traditionally complete, I might add) family I’ve read since Animal Man. Most teenage heroes don’t sweat being on their own, but Jaime’s decision to leave home to protect his friends and family is appropriately difficult. He doesn’t know how to use his powers, but mostly he just doesn’t know how to live on his own. His life is scary in ways both totally relateable and completely unimaginable. Jaime’s also one of the only Chicano characters I’m reading – and unlike other half-assed attempts at integrating other cultures into comics, Jaime’s culture actually has a bearing on the thrust of the story: characters speak Spanglish, they attend Quinceañeras, their families are large and close. But the zero issue leaves most of that behind to explore the history of the Scarab on Jaime’s back – this is the story of Khaji-Da.

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Sep 25 2012

Wonder Woman 0

Alternating Currents: Wonder Woman 0, Drew and TaylorToday, Drew and (guest writer) Taylor Anderson are discussing Wonder Woman 0, originally released September 19th, 2012. Wonder Woman 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Drew: There’s a lot we take for granted in art. We accept the two-dimensionality of the canvas or the artificiality of a omniscient narrator as givens. It often takes an artist commenting on the arbitrariness of those boundaries for us to notice them at all, but that in itself has become almost expected. In comics, those expectations manifest in creative layouts and narrative devices, but it’s rarer that a creative team might challenge the arbitrariness of their tone. In Wonder Woman 0, writer Brian Azzarello and artist Cliff Chaing set out to do just that, delivering a brilliant deconstruction of modern comics via an apparent deconstruction of the Silver Age. Continue reading →

Sep 24 2012

Birds of Prey 0

Today, Shelby and (special guest writer) Lindsey Peterson are discussing Birds of Prey 0, originally released September 19, 2012. Birds of Prey 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Shelby: A difficult aspect of writing a comic book has got to be maintaining the balance between new and old readers: specifically, keeping both sides happy. You want to keep the long-timers happy; without their readership, you wouldn’t have been successful in the first place. But, you need to keep your books at least a little bit attainable to attract new readers; if your readership doesn’t grow, you won’t continue to be successful. With half of zero month behind us, we’ve seen examples of origins that bore us with nothing new and origins that confound us with no background knowledge given. Then we have my favorites, those titles which have struck that delicate balance between old-hat origin and current story arc connections. Birds of Prey is definitely in that last camp.  Continue reading →

Sep 24 2012

Red Hood and the Outlaws 0

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Red Hood and the Outlaws 0, originally released September 19, 2012. Red Hood and the Outlaws 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Drew: Back when we started reading this title, Patrick and I couldn’t believe how much we liked it. We were wary of this title, famous for it’s leering depiction of Starfire, but Scott Lobdell’s charming characters and Kenneth Rocafort’s distinctive art won us over. The title was a blast, and we couldn’t understand all the ire that was directed at Lobdell — he seemed like a great writer to us. Our love affair started to wane a bit as Rocafort left, and branching out into Lobdell’s other titles left us unimpressed, leading us to question Lobdell’s prowess as a writer (perhaps unfairly). Is Lobdell the clever writer we thought, or the hack so many were making him out to be? In Red Hood and the Outlaws 0, Lobdell seems to address that question head-on, counting on our writing him off as pedestrian in order to better shock us with a earth-shifting twist in the epilogue. Continue reading →

Sep 24 2012

Supergirl 0

Today, Patrick and (guest writer) Siri Hellerman are discussing Supergirl 0, originally released September 19, 2012. Supergirl 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Patrick: We’re going to do a little something different here today with Supergirl 0. Siri (while a fabulous writer in her own right) is a working actress in New York City. If you’ve ever listened to one of our Cram Session videos, then you’ve heard her acting chops at work. So when Siri suggested to me that we have a less of a stuffy, academic, boring conversation, and more of a fun, lively free-form conversation, I said “hey, that hurts my feelings.” Then we reached a compromise: recap the issue (as usual), then make a list of discussion points and film our conversation. Well, let the great experiment begin.

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Sep 24 2012

Legion of Superheroes 0

Today, Patrick and (guest writer) Sarah Singer are discussing Legion of Superheroes 0, originally released September 19, 2012. Legion of Superheroes 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Patrick: Comics – especially superheros comics – have an awful lot of bullshit working against them. For 90% of the comics I read, I reach a point where I just swallow hard and accept the fact that this is the kind of story I’m reading. It’s an extra-special form of suspension of disbelief. And more often than not, my faith in the storytellers is rewarded; comics are all the more satisfying when you have to go out on a limb and trust that the ride you’re on is worth taking. But sometimes the cost of admission is too high, even for good-humored nerds like me. When such nonsense is supported by 20 pages of awkward dialogue and interchangeably bland characters, the result is disastrous. I’ve read a lot of comics I don’t like, but I so seldom read anything this pointless and obtuse. Zero month is about sampling everything – I’m going to spit this one into my napkin, and try another bite of the Batman.

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