I have posted a review of “G.I. Joe #22″ over at The Terrordrome; check it out there if you’re so inclined, or read the review in its entirety right here. Thanks again to the guys at The Terrordrome for giving me the opportunity to do these.
G.I. Joe Issue #22
Writer: Chuck Dixon
Artist: Alex Cal
Andrew Crossley (colors)
Cover A: Charles Paul Wilson III
Cover B: Robert Atkins & Clayton Brown, with colors by Andrew Crossley
Street date: Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010
G.I. Joe #22 wraps up a three-issue story arc that revolved around the Joe team’s attempts to extract data from a Cobra mainframe on Manatua island. There are no surprises here; the mission to the island apparently was marginally successful after all, the Terrapin survived the tsunami and the Cobras decide they want their submarine back.
This issue, like the previous one, focuses on the battle for the Cobra Dreadnaught submarine. The fighting was inside in Issue #21 as the Joes staged their boarding raid of the ship, and in this issue it’s primarily an outdoor battle as the Joes attempt to thwart Cobra’s efforts to recapture the vessel.
Baroness and Destro finally reappear after lengthy absences; we haven’t seen either since Issue #19. Destro’s reappearance is going to lead us to a massive flashback at some point, particularly given his new position in Cobra we are to infer he has been granted by the last-page cliffhanger. We will need to find out how he got where he is now from the arctic prison on Section 10, when we last saw him four issues ago.
Storm Shadow’s finally coming in the next issue – so, yay, I guess. Dixon’s got his work cut out for him to introduce Storm Shadow in a meaningful way after the way this series has unfolded over the last two years.
I don’t know; I just am not feeling this book any more to the point that this review was flat-out difficult to write. I just couldn’t figure out what to say. This series seemed like it had the potential to get turned around and head in a positive direction a few issues ago, but this Manatua Island storyline has just derailed it again. It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to continue to find reasons to cut this series some slack and continually remind myself “there must be a plan to all of this… there must be a plan to all of this…” while the other series in IDW’s GI Joe universe continue to either steadily improve or cement their long-held positions as vastly superior books. Right now, “Hearts and Minds” and “Cobra” are so far out in front of the ongoing series that it hardly seems like a race any more.
I still cling to the hope that this thing is going to turn around, but those hopes fade by the issue. I’ll stick with it because, hey, it’s a G.I. Joe comic and I’m really getting into Alex Cal’s artwork. But that may not carry me much further.
ART
Alex Cal’s art continues to be the best thing going with this ongoing series right now. He’s turned in some really wonderful issue-opening splash pages, and this one featuring Scarlett saving a sinking Mainframe is no different. He really put a lot of effort into the weapons in this issue, too – the miniguns and everything surrounding the outdoor submarine fight look great. The Cobra helicopter is a little boring, though.
Cobra’s Big Three of Baroness, Destro and Cobra Commander all get some significant (or, at least very notable) panel time in this book; Cal’s Cobra Commander continues to impress, and Baroness hasn’t looked better in this book for a long, long time. He’s really got those two characters nailed, I think. Destro shows up as the issue’s cliffhanger final-page splash, and he looks good as well – although I desperately hope that’s not going to be his go-to everyday uniform in this series now.
COVERS
Charles Paul Wilson nailed last month’s “A” cover, with his portrait of Vicuna, and this month’s is pretty solid as well. It’s very stylish and fun.
Atkin’s cover is great as always, as well, but as is becoming a pattern with his covers it’s a reminder of what we’re not getting in the body of the book. EELs on the cover, boring red-suited Cobra divers inside. It makes the boring red divers really hard to get into.
I found a pretty killer deal on a drafting table, complete with a drawing machine, on CraigsList in Minneapolis; hopefully the person who had it listed will respond to my e-mail (hopefully he’s just out of town for the long weekend). If it’s somehow not still available, there are dozens of alternatives, and more added daily. I’ll find a suitable Plan B, I’m sure.
I want to put something like that in my office upstairs so I can have some space to set up a drawing and not have to put everything away after an hour, like I do when I set up in the dining room.
I wish I had some actual money to spend on this; there are some beautiful vintage hardwood drawing tables available, but I’m hoping to spend like $75 on this and not $350. Someday, maybe, if I actually get good use out of the low end one…
But, as always, once I’ve got the space, I’ll then need to make a concerted effort to actually use it…
I’ve come to rather enjoy myself on Twitter; here’s a sampling of some of the best stuff I saw in the last week. I was super-busy at work this week, so I wasn’t able to capture as much good stuff as I wanted to this week. I’ll try to get more in next week; at least MarsEdit didn’t eat the draft this week (well, because I didn’t use MarsEdit).
WEDNESDAY
• Ben Templesmith (@Templesmith)
“Hello LA. You make me sad with all the fake boobs. Wish ladies would have more self esteem & guys would appreciate non cartoony breasts.”
Ben Templesmith is an artist from Australia. He’s a very talented and entertaining guy.
• MC Chris (@_MCChris)
“thanks guys! sucks to be alone on ur birthday n becuse of u guys I’m never alone. and mc lars is here. we’re watching muppets from space:)”
I love this guy’s music, and this guy loves his fans. He’s one of my favorite follows, week in and week out.
• Tim Fitzgerald (@LifeofFitz)
“One of my favorites from the Matt Walters on-air roast: You are to local talk radio what Tiger Woods is to marriage.”
Tim Fitzgerald owns the K-State sports magazine, “Powercat Illustrated.” I worked with him when I was in athletic media relations at Kansas State. Matt Walters was also a friend of mine during my K-State days.
THURSDAY
• Sylvester Stallone (@TheSlyStallone)
“Working on my 66 nova ss- got it up to 640 horses. it is insane but the power moves a mans soul , like a great woman can.”
Stallone tries to be deep, but mostly comes off as a guy trying to be deep. Still, he’s a fun follow.
A great day for college football yesterday.
My alma mater, Kansas State, scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to beat UCLA, 30-22, and North Dakota State, from just a couple of hours down the road, shocked Kansas, 6-3, in Lawrence.
I actually got to watch the K-State game; ABC was showing the Michigan-UConn game since Minnesota is in its Big Ten region, but thankfully ESPN2 stepped up and had the Wildcats. So not only did I get to watch K-State, I got to watch K-State in HD. It was a great afternoon, although as always I miss actually being at the games.
Great game to watch, but a note to all high school and junior college quarterbacks: There’s a job for you at Kansas State. Please call them and get recruited.
The post-game commentary for the Michigan game was hilarious, though. All you heard from ESPN was how huge a win that was for the Michigan program. Actually, no, that shows how pathetic Michigan is right now, when a win over Connecticut is considered a potential turning point for your program when you’re supposed to be competing for national titles. It just shows how far over the cliff they’ve fallen in the last few years.
Probably will take a break from football today and look forward to Boise State/Virginia Tech tomorrow night. That should be an excellent game.
Day 1 of college football is in the books. I got a chance to watch the Minnesota/Middle Tennessee State game, the first half of USC/Hawaii and did some channel flipping to watch Utah upset Pitt.
I would’ve toughed it out with the USC/Hawaii game, but I just couldn’t do it. I quit on it at halftime and went to bed. As much fun as Hawaii’s offense is to watch, their defense was absolutely useless last night and they had no chance to get back into the game. USC wasn’t terribly impressive (despite Bob Davies’ ridiculous gushing over them); Hawaii was just that completely incapable of tackling anybody.
The Minnesota game was a joke. The Gophers dominated that game early and should’ve blown Middle Tennessee out of the stadium, but a second missed field goal in the second quarter deflated them and MTU actually held a lead at one point. That game easily could’ve ended up 31-17 and made it seem like Minnesota controlled it, but the Gophers were lucky to escape. It wasn’t a fun game to watch, and I’m glad Mel and I took a one-episode “True Blood” break in the middle.
Going to get some more football in tonight after everyone is in bed. I’m glad the games are back…
…college football begins this week.
Kansas State vs UCLA on Saturday; there are still about a thousand tickets left, according to the alma mater. I wish I was closer to Manhattan so I could go. I haven’t seen a K-State football game live since the 2001 Cotton Bowl, which sucks – I miss football Saturdays in Manhattan so much…
I had a pretty good “This Week in Twitter” post cooking up on my laptop; I was trying to compose it in a trial of MarsEdit to see if I wanted to take the plunge and buy that thing for managing the ol’ blog, but it decided to eat about five days’ worth of updates for some reason. And I do not feel like backtracking through an entire week of Twitter updates from teh 100-something folks I follow (many of whom are quite proflic) to remind myself of what I put in there.
So I’m skipping a week. It’ll hopefully be back on Sunday. Damn your dirty, evil soul, MarsEdit.
I don’t post about work stuff very often here because, well, it’s work and the other stuff I post about here is fun. But I did two things today that I thought were fun, so I wanted to share them.
First, this silly little image is going to be a handout at Bemidji’s Women’s Expo; this will have a little fun-size bag of M&Ms stapled to it and it’ll be handed out at a presentation given by a couple of BSU staff members. There’s nothing to this, but it’s the first “design” assignment I’ve had at work in I have no idea how long, so I jumped at the chance to do it. I’d change some things if I had to do this again, but isn’t that always the case?
Second, I wrote this story about a lecture coming up on campus in September; a guy who spent 17 years at the Navy’s NCIS lab in San Diego as a forensic chemist is coming to speak during a meeting of the American Chemical Society’s local section. I liked the lead a lot.
Somebody scanned and posted JPEGs of Charlton Comics’ “The Comic Book Guide for the Artist • Writer • Letterer” from 1973. I made a handy-dandy PDF of the images for easier consumption. Download it if you wish; it even includes the old Code of the Comic Magazine Association of America, which is a great read if you are old enough to remember when comics had “Comic Code Approved!” on the covers. Very cool.
Charlton Comic Guide (6.8 MB PDF)
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