Writing, editing, storytelling, and more from Jim Gibbons
After drawing up my swine flu comic and feeling as if I had spent more time on it practicing perspective and scenery than actually on the characters and the humor of it, I really felt I needed to draw and post something a bit more…well, awesome.
Here’s what I came up with, and I think it turned out pretty darn good…
Continue Reading “No stranger to danger!”
I finished most all I’m going to read for this week, so here are my last reaction reviews on this week’s books…
Amazing Spider-Man
I can’t really gripe about anything here, nor can I say anything in this ish really excited me. I’ve been a big supporter on all ASM stuff since Brand New Day
Outsiders
Easily my favorite book coming out from DC right now, Peter Tomasi infuses tons of personality into a team of characters I didn’t care at all about till he took over, and Lee Garbett is just tops in my book—I love that guy’s art on anything and everything
Continue Reading “More of the quickest hits!”
Working at Wizard gives me access to way more comics than I should be reading each week. Though I guess it is my job, so I really should be reading tons of comics, shouldn’t I?! Either way, I cannot really say no to a huge stack of books each week—especially the kind you can read for free. When it comes to actually purchasing books, I am much more discerning, but when I can flip through a stack of books and read whatever I want, I’ll pretty much give anything and everything a shot.
Most weeks, I read somewhere between 15 to 30 new comics. With Wizard‘s online reviews on hiatus, and me not really able to write full reviews of each book anyway due to time considerations, I thought I’d start a little section here that’ll essentially be “Two line comic book reviews.” Basically, I’ll just weigh in quickly on each issue I read, as often as I can. These reviews are by no means super detailed and are very much quantity over in-depth quality, so here’s your first hors d’oeuvres platter of quickie comic reviews from EnemyOfPeanuts.com.
(The following are in random order, because I can’t be bothered by the alphabet today.)
Continue Reading “The quickest hits, aka “Two Line Comic Book Reviews!””
As a writer and editor (as well as an intern, reporter and freelancer), I’ve racked up a load of clips and links across the print and online mediums—once upon a time, that is. Here’s a semi-comprehensive catalog of my ol’ journo work.
A bunch of these links are dead now, but I’m leaving the list intact for posterity’s sake.
Freelance Writer (Late 2009)
Comic Book Resources
Associate Editor of Wizard magazine (February 2009-September 2009)
Editing clips
Writing samples
WizardUniverse.com News Editor (December 2007-February 2009)—Due to numerous Web site erasures and relaunches, all of the below links associated with WizardUniverse.com are now dead. Apologies.
Interviews
Reviews
Columns
Features
Beat News
Reporting for the Columbia Missourian (August-November 2007)
Wizard Freelancer (August-November 2007)
My days as a Wizard intern (Summer 2007)
Reporter, Staff Writer and Senior Staff Writer at student newspaper The Maneater, aka “The often embarrassing olden days of Jim’s journalism career.” (2003-2005)
Interviews
Reviews
Sidebars and mini-features
In what will likely become a regular feature—in some way, shape or form—on EoP, here’s a comic cover I am highlighting simply due to its inclusion of luchadores!
Moon Knight #29
The issue is written by Mike Benson and this whole south of the border arc has featured some incredible art by Jefte Palo (most notable for his work on Black Panther with Jason Aaron during “Secret Invasion”). The cover is by Gabriele Dell’Otto.
I have been flipping through the recent issues of this book mainly for Palo’s great, gritty interiors and got kind of giddy when it dawned on me that luchadores had to be involved—which led to this awesome cover, so early giddiness justified as I’m now a happy man.
“Why do you love lucha libre so much?” you loyal readers are undoubtedly asking yourselves. Well, maybe it’s because I grew up a WCW fan and was very into wrestling when WCW had its huge luchador boom back in the late ’90s. Maybe it’s because there is an enthralling element of mythic tradition surrounding these wrestlers and their masks. And maybe it’s because they can do f–king hurricanranas!
Maybe my favorite cover ever (seriously!), this piece by Gabriele Dell’Otto kicked off issue #4 (of 6) from Keith Giffen’s masterful Marvel cosmic extravaganza Annihilation. A truly epic “David vs. Goliath” image (in this case Drax vs. Thanos), it also actually teases the issue’s events, a rarity in modern comics. Feast your peepers on this puppy…
If you’ve heard the rumors about “Iron Man 2,” then I’m sure you’re coming up with theories or rants depending on how you feel about Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell being brought onto the movie.
Personally, I think going with another armor-clad villain in the second flick—it’s speculated Rourke will be Crimson Dynamo—is a mistake and I’d much rather see the Mandarin or Fin Fang Foom—or some other crazy, non-technology based villain—face off against ol’ Shellhead. Either way, Sam Rockwell’s role is supposedly that of rival industrialist Justin Hammer, which I hope is a front for a much cooler role. “What role?” you ask. Well, I’ll tell you!
I think Sam Rockwell is perfect for the role of Hank Pym. Just look at him!
He’s a legit leading man with the charisma and look to pull off one of Marvel’s oldest heroes, plus he’s got the chops to make Pym into a pretty dynamic character by capturing his heroism and charm alongside his faults: the jealously at being the world’s third smartest hero (behind Reed Richards and Tony Stark), the arrogance of a young inventor who dared to create a being like Ultron and the checkered past of an abusive husband.
Seventies Pym with his first version of Ultron?! Possibly!
Plus, if an Ant Man solo flick is in the works, you need a big name to put on that. Sam Rockwell is a little too big for a bit part in “Iron Man 2,” but if it’s a setup role for a solo flick that introduces people to the character before he spins off, well that’d be great! And I mean, who else are you really going to cast as Ant Man? He’s a little too goofy to do a film about him without a heaping helping of humor and putting some beefcake in the role is just not going to fly.
Rockwell in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy” and the helmeted Ant Man…pretty much the same thing!
Couldn’t you see Rockwell easily pulling off these two polarizing moments from the founding Avenger’s past?
I’m not really sure what Marvel would want in an Ant Man film, but I think casting an actor who can bring real humor and real depth to the role of Hank Pym—like Rockwell could—would allow them to present Pym as a fun-loving and suave character or, if they were looking fro another route from his comics history, they could play him as a dark and troubled hero. With Rockwell they really could do either. It’s win-win!
So, you heard it here first: Sam Rockwell is going to be Hank Pym (or at least he should be!).
Marvel Studios second big DVD of the year—”The Incredible Hulk”—is definitely a big piece of multimedia worthy of Green Genes legacy, but much like it’s theater outing, it doesn’t quite match up to “Iron Man.”
Where “Iron Man” boasted special features that looked as though they’d received as much love and consideration as the feature presentation, “Hulk’s” special fair feels tagged on and falls short in comparison. Be it the half-length “Making of…” feature (30 minutes as compared to “Iron Man’s” hour) or the lack of an extensive character history in the comics feature with numerous creator interviews (Instead of “Iron Man’s” compelling hour-long look at the history of Iron Man comics, it only features an animatic of a scene from eph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Hulk: Gray), “Hulk” isn’t bad, but just isn’t as good.
What “Hulk’s” DVD does deliver is a plethora of deleted scenes that give fans insight into the Edward Norton/Marvel Studios feud and rumors that surrounded the film’s release. With a brief alternate opening and about 40 minutes of footage that wasn’t seen on the big screen, fans can get a look at Edward Norton’s vision of “Hulk.” Disappointingly, every deleted scene is used for character exploration and none feature any Hulking out (which does make sense, considering effects budgets…but still!). While a few offer fun backstory (Banner’s time spent in Tibet and subtle references to Captain America), the main insight taken away from viewing these scenes is that Marvel Studios made an extremely smart move by removing 40 minutes of non-Hulk footage from the feature. These additional scenes definitely display Ed Norton’s complete understanding of the character and comic, but would have made for a very long and boring film even with all the theatrical release’s amazing Hulk-outs!
The featurettes in this special edition are great, especially seeing how Edward Norton and Tim Roth brought their CG counterparts to life, but the lackluster “Making of…” featurette really made me wish director Louis Letterier or Norton had taken a more vested interest in it like Jon Favreau did on “Iron Man.” Favreau’s cooperation and great enthusiasm for capturing the production and process of the film on tape made for an amazing, hour-long documentary. “Hulk’s” main documentation of this is standard, 30 minute fair and an enjoyable watch, but after seeing what it could have been in “Iron Man,” it left me wanting.
Lastly, the billing of this special edition DVD as a three-disc set is a bit misleading. Sure, it technically has three discs, but one of them is just a digital copy of the film. So, for all intensive purposes it is a two-disc special edition featuring a digital copy. That, and the overly complex DVD menus that focus on looks instead of user-friendliness, are my only real gripes on the technical issues of the package.
Overall, “Incredible Hulk” was a great movie well worth owning on DVD, but it’s special features don’t make much more of a compelling argument to pick it up. There’s definitely plenty worth watching on this three-disc set’s second disc, but DVD enthusiasts will likely be let down by how much more could have been added to sweeten the pot on this special edition.
With a last name like Gibbons—which led to a having a blog named “The Loudest Monkey” (and yes, I know a gibbon is an ape and not a monkey, as I stated in my first post)—it seems inevitable that I would have to comment on Marvel’s newest miniseries and variant cover phenomenon: Marvel Apes.
I read a review copy of the book yesterday and found what is quite possibly the most astonishingly personalized talk bubble I have ever come across!
Yep, I’m a Mr. Gibbons. And yes, I have lots of hair…everywhere. So, reading this panel felt eerily like the good doctor was breaking the fourth wall. Yeah, kinda creepy.
So, between DC trying to terrify me with their peanut-filled Joker covers and Marvel putting D-List Spidey villain The Gibbon into a starring role in Marvel Apes…well, reading comics has been a particularly bizarre experience of late!
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Another, albeit brief, Marvel-based monkey last name story:
I emailed editor Bill Rosemann to see if he’d be interested in answering a question about Guardians of the Galaxy for Thwack!.
His response: “Sounds fun, Jim. And how could I turn down a guy with a monkey-like last name?“
Crazy!
If you didn’t check out the King-Size Spider-Man Summer Special two weeks back, well you missed a ton of web-slinger fun courtesy of Paul Tobin, Colleen Coover and Chris Giarusso (not to mention a cool Spidey/Falcon retro team-up from Keith Giffen, Rick Burchett, Wil Quintant and Nate Piekos)!
However, fun as the whole super-sized issue was, the simplest yet most hilarious moment may have come on the intro page in a single-panel strip by Coover.
It’s the the wall-crawler’s origin in a silly six words! Good stuff, just like the rest of the issue, so go pick it up!