Alan Moore and Frank Miller are the backbone of American Superhero comics. What they did in the 1980s on books like Swamp Thing, Watchmen, Daredevil, and Dark Knight Returns changed the general perceptions of the Super Hero Genre. There is a perfect mix of sophisticaton and intensity in those seminal projects that unleashed a whole new way of doing Super Heroes. Better yet, they were huge financial successes that suggested that "mainstream" comics don't have to be for kids anymore.

Let's ignore, that there's something very wrong with thinking that comics HAVE to be "Super Heroes". That's a scar to American Comics that came from the Red Scare 1950s. But, regardless, Moore and Miller took what they were given and legitimized it.

Frank Miller was more of the Jazz player. His comics had an organic flow and constant search to capture emotions at their purest. Alan Moore was far more calculating and meticulous. His way of writing was like putting together a swiss-engineered atom bomb. When it worked, it was a masterpiece... but no matter how perfect Moore's "instructions" were, they relied heavily on the craftmanship of the Artist in collaboration.

Alan Moore always seemed at his best when he was paired with a fellow Englishman. There must be something in the experience of being English that brought a fellowship to the pairing that us Americans could never attain. Maybe it's the cynicism, or the chastising humor.

Alan Moore's latest work with Kevin O'Neill on "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" has been wonderful. Ignore that awful movie. "LoEG" brings life to classic British genre characters in an exhaustively composed world that assumes that every major English literature "classic" character lived in the same world. In th first few books you had Dr. Jekyll, the Invisible Man, Captain Nemo, Quartermain, and Mina Harker (from Dracula) together as a sort of Victorian Super Hero team.

In the latest book, Black Dossier, we skip to the 1900s to follow a mysterious couple who have gotten ahold of the "Black Dossier": a rare collection of various text, articles, comics, and literature that directly or indirectly refers to the adventures and legends surrounding the personalities from the many groups that, over time, were called the "League". As the couple, whose on the run, reads through the Black Dossier, you read the book with them. So the book is a clever combination of comic chapters and segue ways through the entirety of the Black Dossier whose contents eventually give you a broad picture of the League's many members and adventures.

Throughout the course of the book, you end up reading Moore and O'Neill's interpretation of Political Cartoons from the 1800s, Pornographic Tequila Bibles, a "lost" Shakespeare Play, an excerpt from a Beatnik book, and many other texts. To fit in theme, the various sections are designed to emulate the look of published pieces of the time... going so far as occasionally changing the texture of the pages to fit in with the appropriate look.

The book ends in glorious 3D (it's not THAT glorious... color 3D never looks good) and includes a nice pair of red/blue lense 3D glasses.

Overall it's a very ambitious and fun experience that pushes the boundaries of Comics. It's not striving for the perfection and craftmanship of Moore and Gibbon's Watchmen... but I don't think that's what they were going for. It looks like Moore and O'Neill wanted to have be a bit more freedom and have readers join them on their crazy little romp through their distorted version of Pulp Genre Britain. It's a bit dense, but those with patience and an open mind will experience one helluva of an adventure.

Aside from working on Muttpop Inc. with myself and writing the various comic book series in the Lucha Libre Comic Anthology, Jerry also writes a Horror/Comedy comic book series called "The Zombies That Ate The World" with cartoonist extraordinaire Guy Davis (best known for his work on Hellboy's B.P.R.D. and The Marquis). The comic book series was published in the US released Metal Hurlant Comic Magazine until Metal Hurlant's cancellation. It has also been released in graphic albums in France.
Many years ago, there was some interest in developing "Zombies" into an animated feature or television series. In an effort to garner interest in the project, a short animated film was made based on the first chapter of the story (as written by Jerry and drawn by Guy Davis).
The short does a decent job of capturing the inventive nature of Jerry's concept...but I don't feel it does a very good job of capturing the frantic energy of Davis' beautiful style and illustrations.
Either way, it's pretty cool to see Jerry and Guy's work translated to another medium! One of these days, we should think about doing some "Zombie" figures! :-)

My expectations aren't very high for the Watchmen live action film. I wasn't the hugest fan of 300 (but then again, I didn't really love the Graphic Novel either)...and feel that if there's one Comic that's nearly impossible to translate to celluloid it's Watchmen.But I love to be proven wrong. And these set pics look very nice!

I've read both volumes of EMPOWERED by Adam Warren and I adore them. As I've mentioned before, Adam Warren is one of the few American "manga" creators whose work I love.Warren's a bit of an enigma to me, because I feel that he has all the makings of a "superstar" artist. But somehow he manages to hide in the shadows outside of the mainstream comic spotlight. No big deal, though. His work is always a charm to experience and his tenure on "Empowered" is the closest we've gotten to some regular Adam Warren artwork."Empowered" is about an insecure superheroine who repeatedly finds herself gagged and held hostage by the bad guys. Empowered's so caught up in being a crappy superhero that she doesn't realize she's envied by women for her beauty. The premise results in Empowered regularly being found in compromising scenarios and dialogues on the more sexual aspects of superhero genre conventions.Empowered is sexy, hilarious, and beautiful. It's a pervy pleasure crafted with a love and charm that's infectious.

Two issues have been released of Joe Casey and Eric Canete's Iron Man: Enter The Mandarin mini-series. The story's a fun retelling of an old Mandarin story for the modern era. Mandarin's your typical Fu Manchu Asian caricature villain complete with the long fingernails, pointed beard, and "evil" asian eyes...BUT he's got nifty powered rings that each have their own special power!Casey does a good job of telling the story thus far (complete with Iron Man technobabble) and Canete destroys each page with some gorgeous artwork. The rare bits of Eric Canete artwork that I have found have always been pulsing with energy and zesty design. But where once before Canete would regularly sacrifice strong storytelling for the benefit of design, Canete has found a strong middle ground where design and story coexist.Canete has the amazing ability to make Iron Man's suit look cool and energetic. He also does some really interesting things with perspective distortion and line work to convey movement and explosions.I don't purchase many traditional superhero books. But this one is too beautiful to pass up!

Whoever put this art team together for Gerard Way has excellent taste! James Jean on covers. Gabriel Ba on interior art. Even if Mr. Way (of My Chemical Romance) had nothing to say, they'd make him look damned good. But he's actually is an excellent writer...so it's a beautiful comic all around.Thus far Dark House has release 2 issues of this Limited Series and I can't wait for more! The story drips with plenty of clever ideas like Eiffel Tower rocket ships, an Ochestra that searches for a song whose sound can destroy the world, alien invasions, and an astronaut with a Gorilla's body.If that's not your example of a good time, then just look at the lush artwork of Jean and Ba. :-)