Finally a chance to sit and read

The Lone Ranger/Green Hornet No. 1

Dynamite Entertainment

Michael Uslan, writer

Giovanni Timpano, artist

Pete Pantazis, colorist

Hey, Kiddie Cops, long time, no see! Work is still keeping me hopping at a crazy pace; so much so, in fact, that this is the first comic I have had time to read in nearly six weeks. Now maybe that had something to do with it, but I very much enjoyed this comic. So much so that I wanted to share.

I’ve liked most of what Dynamite has done since obtaining the rights to Lone Ranger comics, and while I have avoided most of the more modern takes on Green Hornet, I also very much enjoy the character and his ties to the Lone Ranger. So I decided to give this six-issue mini a try. And if this first issue is any indication, this series is off to a great start.

This tale is set in 1936-38 with an aged John Reid (the Lone Ranger) still around to help shape the beginnings of his grand-nephew, Britt Reid’s origins as the Green Hornet. Michael Uslan uses the setting and time period to tie real-world events and figures into the narrative to very great effect. Further, he uses some pass Green Hornet stories, particularly GreenHornet Year One by Matt Wagner and Aaron Campell to flesh out some of the early career of the Green Hornet. I absolutely love it when creators take something done before and build on it rather than going the everything-you-know-is-wrong route to erase and re-write history. It doesn’t hurt when the tale the current creator is building on is one I have read and enjoyed.

This is still only the first issue of a six-issue series, and I don’t want to spoil the story twists and historical tidbits by revealing them here (half the fun is discovering them in the story as they come up), but this was a nice story to return to my hobby with, and I recommend it highly!

Thank You, Sirs, May I Have Another

Hype

PaperFilms and Adaptive Comics
Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, writers
Javier Pina, artist
Alessia Nocera, colorist

 I don’t like everything I’ve read by writing partners Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti — at least not everything they write with someone else’s characters. But I have read a few of their original creations — titles like Time Bomb, for instance — that I did enjoy quite a bit. So their names draw my attention when I’m placing my monthly comics order or shopping around for occasional extras.

Several months ago, I came across a Kickstarter promo ad for another original creation of theirs, Hype. Apparently, the duo has released several projects via Kickstarter in the past. Anyway, the promo caught my eye, and their names piqued my interest. I found a support level I agreed with and funded the project. And a few short months later, I had not only Hype but a couple other standalone original graphic novels by the pair to look forward to.

I confess I haven’t yet had a chance to read the other titles I received with Hype — Abbadon and Denver — I’m not even quite sure what they are about. But I have read Hype. And I loved it! The promo art had me expecting a pretty straight-forward superhero title with a little time twist: the main hero, Hype, can only experience life for 45 minutes a day. The rest of the time he’s asleep, recharging. But the actual story is so much more.

The pacing of the story, for example, seemed a bit jarring at first. Transitions were almost nonexistent. The story is told in brief glimpses of the various players. Each snippet of story gives you information about the central characters and advances the plot, but it is clear there is more going on that we readers aren’t privy to. By the third such break, I came to realize that this was a neat bit of writing that allows the reader to experience things in much the way Hype does. It’s a way for us to connect with the character beyond the norm. And it works very well.

I will also reveal that the story in this OGN has a bit of an open ending. There is very much the promise of more action to come, and I hope this creative team can reunite to produce future volumes of Hype’s story, either through another Kickstarter or their own PaperFilms or by being picked up by another publisher. But sometimes, such a story can seem incomplete. Readers are left feeling like they only got half a story for their money, just the set-up and no payoff. That isn’t the case with Hype. This is a complete story, beginning to end, and feels like a satisfying read despite being only 52 pages long. Yet it is also very clear that there is more story to tell with these characters, more questions to be answered, more adventure to be had.

As usual, I'm more of a story person and tend to focus mostly on that aspect of books. But the art is always an important component of the comics medium. Great art can enhance a good story, while art that is not to a specific reader's taste can ruin an otherwise good tale. Javier Pina's art is crisp and clean, not gritty like the covers on the other downloads I scored at the same time as Hype. Pina's art, along with Alessia Nocera's bright vibrant colors, add to the superhero feel of this story despite its departure from the usual story conventions of the genre. They help make this story feel familiar while the writing direction takes readers in an unexpected direction. And the union of all these efforts is something truly worth a look.

Thinking Inside The Box

Hey, thanks for checking in here; I know it’s been a while, and I do appreciate those of you who stop by from time to time.

Just had a quick tidbit to post today that I thought might be of some interest. Those of you who have followed this blog in the past know I’ve been trying to sell off some of my comics collection to free up space after the birth of our first child. I started that effort back before my wife was even pregnant, and our daughter is now 4 years old, so it has been a slow, ongoing process.

In the meantime, I’ve not only sold off some of my collection, but I’ve switched to a drawer boxes system of storing the comics I plan to hold onto, so I have a number of emptied short comic boxes. Now some of those boxes continue to hold the books I have yet to sort through and decide whether to sell or keep. Others hold the ones I’m trying to sell until they are gone. But I’ve also got a small collection of now empty comic boxes in our garage.

At the same time, our daughter has a number of toys, including several playsets — the kind with many big and small parts that take up too much room to leave assembled when not being played with but for which one can lose many of those small parts if they are just tossed in a big toy box with everything else. And before you suggest storing such toys in the original boxes they came in, really, who keeps the original packaging if you are going to open the toys, and what 4-year-old has yet grasped the collector mentality of NOT opening original toy packaging?

Even if you couldn’t see exactly where this topic is going, the above picture should have given you a big hint: I had the idea recently to convert some of those old comic boxes into playset storage boxes and decorated them accordingly for my daughter. I thought it was a good idea and thought I’d share.

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I apologize again that the posts have been non-existent of late, but if you enjoy reading this blog, you can get more by liking my page on Facebook (where I recently posted some of my thought on “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” for instance) and/or following me on Twitter. And of course, if you are looking for a good deal on some of the comics I am selling off to make room in our house, please check out my main Steve's Comics For Sale site or the StorEnvy version of the site. As always, thanks for stopping by and happy collecting!