Tag Archives: Warren Ellis

Jul 28 2014

Trees 3

trees 3Today, Greg and Spencer are discussing Trees 3, originally released July 23rd, 2014.

Greg: At my high school, marching band was a huge deal. It had all the emotions, pressures, and big personalities of a championship football team.  I played in the pit upfront (marimbas, vibraphones, xylophones) my entire high school career. My freshman year was the long-running, much-loved band director’s swan song — he also happened to be my dad, which definitely didn’t help with the pressure thing. We won state championships for the first time that year, meaning my sophomore year definitely didn’t help with the pressure thing. Certain instructors and students started treating it like a military outfit, and it was too much for me. I took to my LiveJournal and posted an obscenities-and-hormones fueled diatribe on the people who I felt were taking it too far. My parents immediately found out. My dad, no longer the band director but now the assistant principal, ordered me to face the new band director in a one-on-one. I went in expecting to be eviscerated, but was surprised to find the director met me with patience, understanding, and forgiveness. I was primed and ready for battle, but instead had a deep, insightful, mutually respectful conversation. This sense of narrative rise-and-hard-left-turn happens in Trees 3 as well, and left me feeling similarly satisfied.

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Jul 9 2014

Moon Knight 5

Alternating Currents: Moon Knight 5, Drew and ShelbyToday, Drew and Shelby are discussing Moon Knight 5, originally released July 2nd, 2014.

For most people, the shot’s stunning aspects will go unnoticed. And for the rest of us — at least for me, at any rate — they’re a distraction.

Mike D’Angelo on Children of Men

Drew: It’s funny to think about now, but I can remember a point in high school when I thought literary analysis was such a huge waste of time. Allusion, foreshadowing, symbolism, and any other literary devices were distractions that cluttered the actual enjoyment of the piece. It was years before I understood how ignorant that attitude was. In fact, it took hearing that same attitude from a peer that shook me into appreciating how much more depth of meaning we have access to thanks to analysis. Can being more aware of analysis pervert how we experience it? Maybe, but the benefits far outweigh the risks. That is, unless you allow your knowledge of analysis turn you into a total snob.

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Jul 1 2014

Trees 2

trees 2
Today, Patrick and Greg are discussing Trees 2, originally released June 25th, 2014.

Tallahassee: My mama always told me someday I’d be good at something. Who’d a guessed that something’d be zombie-killing?
Columbus: Probably nobody.

-Zombieland

Patrick: Disaster narratives are always going to be rooted in the hardships of survival. When the aliens invade or the world starts to crumble on its foundations, that’s how we insert ourselves into the story: “how would I survive?” Zombie stories have permeated the zeitgeist so thoroughly that that question has slowly evolved into “how would I thrive?” That’s why Zombieland is so successful – instead of dwelling on the nitty gritty day-to-day of not-dying, the movie speedily gets around to the business of defining and achieving success in this world. Tallahassee isn’t a crass opportunist, he’s a man that understands his skills in the zombie apocalypse, and he’ll use those skills to better his quality of life. Trees, despite its unique premise, is also able to quickly move on to the business of understanding and taking advantage of the disaster. Continue reading →

Jun 6 2014

Moon Knight 4

Alternating Currents: Moon Knight 4, Drew and SpencerToday, Drew and Spencer are discussing Moon Knight 4, originally released June 4th, 2014.

Drew: The etymology of the verb “to haunt” isn’t entirely clear, but it likely stems from the Old Norse heimta “bring home”, which is itself derived from the Proto-Germanic  khaim- or “home”. That is to say, while we commonly refer to people being haunted by thoughts and ideas, “haunting” originally referred rather specifically to spirits being brought to or trapped in ones home. But are those actually different things? I tend to think of the idea of ghosts as vengeance-seeking beings as a manifestation of guilt, whether that guilt be the killer’s, or just of those lucky enough to still be alive. That is to say, I don’t think the spirit of Banquo actually visits MacBeth — he’s more powerful to me as a representation of MacBeth’s guilty conscience than of any supernatural power. Ghosts are our tell-tale heart, figments of our imagination that drive us mad. Unless, of course, you don’t have a conscience. Then Moon Knight might need to be driven mad on your behalf. Continue reading →

Jun 2 2014

Trees 1

Alternating Currents: Trees 1, Drew and ShelbyToday, Drew and Shelby are discussing Trees 1, originally released May 28th, 2014. Drew: All stories have a narrator. This point was obvious enough to me in high school english classes, as we aimed to parse first person from close third person, or subjective from omniscient, but was utterly lost when I thought about the more visual storytelling of film and comics. Who is the narrator of Casablanca? Of The Godfather? It’s easy enough for us to point to a first person narrator when there’s overbearing voiceover, but whose is the default point of view we take when watching a movie or reading a comic book without that kind of obvious diegetic narration? Some might argue that those narratives present some kind of objective accounting of the events in question, but subjectivity creeps in at every turn, with shot composition, lighting, costuming, pacing, editing, even music cues designed to illicit very specific emotional reactions (often those of the characters on the screen or page). With Trees 1, Warren Ellis and Jason Howard have shined a spotlight on those very details, starting threads that differ not only in their settings and characters, but in the perspective of their narrators, as well. Continue reading →

May 13 2014

Moon Knight 3

moon knight 3Today, Spencer and Drew are discussing Moon Knight 3, originally released May 7th, 2014.

Spencer: I’ve always struggled with ambiguity; as a child I was more concerned with knowing the “correct” answer or meaning of something than finding my own interpretations, and though I’ve mostly moved past this due to growing up, becoming (slightly) more emotionally stable, and especially due to my writing here, occasionally I still come across a piece of work that’s so ambiguous that I just have trouble dealing with it. Moon Knight is one of those books; it’s so opaque that any number of possible meanings could be applied to its story, leading me to wonder if there’s actually any meaning at all. Continue reading →

Apr 8 2014

Moon Knight 2

Alternating Currents: Moon Knight 2, Drew and Spencer

Today, Drew and Spencer are discussing Moon Knight 2, originally released April 2nd, 2014.

Drew: When I talk about “density” in a piece of art, I’m usually referring to its meaning — the way themes and symbolism is laid over the plot to give us something more than a sequence of events. The notion that a work of art is greater than the sum of its parts is our working assumption here at Retcon Punch, but Moon Knight 2 posits that exactly the sum of those parts can be incredible in its own right. Indeed, while this issue features only the thinnest wisp of a plot, it introduces and retraces the scene with such thoroughness to create an entirely different kind of density. It’s an awe-inspiring object, featuring an intricate clockwork of pieces that aspire to exactly what they are: an utterly brief moment in time examined from every conceivable angle.

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Mar 7 2014

Moon Knight 1

moon knight 1

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Moon Knight 1, originally released March 5, 2014.

Patrick: What do we call what we’re doing here at Retcon Punch? Literary criticism? Art criticism? Pop psychology mixed with informed gawking? I like to think that we’re simply exploring narratives and what makes them interesting. No matter what you think we’re trying to do, one thing we end up doing a lot is explaining. Occasionally, we lack the tools to properly explain something we read — maybe there’s a character who’s history we don’t have an adequate handle on or maybe the cultural references fly over our heads — but we always need to attempt to explain the issue in front of us. Moon Knight is one of those characters I don’t know shit about, but it’s cool — writer Warren Ellis is counting on my ignorance, and is waiting in the wings to exploit my every assumption. Continue reading →