REVIEW: End of Month Reviews #76 - April 2010 [spoilers]

Andrew Perron pwerdna at gmail.com
Sun May 30 03:23:34 PDT 2010


On Sun, 30 May 2010 03:58:18 +0000 (UTC), Saxon Brenton wrote:

> Journey Into... #11

<snip>

> but the bottom line is that UTS has decided that first 
> use of its finite library facilities should go-to UTS students and staff, 
> and guess what?  That means part of the front desk work involves finding 
> new and interesting ways to explain to students from elsewhere that 'we 
> don't want your type here'.

Eesh.  As someone who's worked on both sides of the
interacting-with-the-public equation, I sympathize.

> As I usually remind my readers whenever this comes up, comics are a medium 
> rather than a genre, and there's nothing in rec.arts.comics.creatives' 
> charter that says our stories have to be about superheroes.

Indeed, there's very little in the charter that says what our stories need
to be about, period.

> The characters are larger than life 
> eccentrics with grotesque obsessions and egos who operate in a world 
> that doesn't have quite the same laws of cause and effect as ours do.  

Though the characters are far more unlikely than impossible.

>      (A further thought occurs: if I had of applied that same suspension 
> of disbelief to the events of the previous _Journey Into..._ episode, I 
> would have been able to avoid the nitpicking and gone straight to 
> enjoying the character study of Ms Schenck.  Oh well.)

Eh, dropping the suspension is worth doing if it leads to a better story.

>      I have a particular liking for the pacing during the introduction.  

I gotta agree - the sentences are strung together magnificently.

> Just Imagine Saxon Brenton Vs Andrew Perron In The Return Of The RACCies #7
> 'Across The River And Into The Trees And Past The Forcefield And Through 
> The Lazer Maze'  or  'The Bittorrents Of Spring'

And note I teased Cyborg Gorilla Hemingway at the end of last issue, made a
double Hemingway reference in the title of this one, and yet still haven't
had him appear as of the latest!  It's taking a lot longer to get to the
center of the universe than I expected.

>      For the most part there's not really that much that I can add that 
> hasn't been said before about previous issues of this cascade.  Well, 
> nominally-a-cascade.

Again, if anybody's interested in writing an issue...

> The whole making-it-up-as-we-go-along aspect can act as a challenge for 
> participants to forge something coherent out of what has gone before, 

I'll say! @-@

> The revelation of the 
> reincarnation of the original Mange Man is either going to simplify or 
> complicate continuity.

Simplify, I'm hoping.  If I do this right, all three Manga Men will have
their place in the Looniverse afterwards.

> However the main point of parody in this short 
> issue comes from a cute use of a crossover with the postings of the 
> RACCies awards, where Pointless Awards Man IV is literally dumped from 
> the end of this post into the narrative text of the ceremony in the 
> awards posting (and then comes back next issue).  It's a variation on 
> some of the more egregious types of crossovers that monthly(-ish) comic 
> books have used over the decades to exploits any sense of completism 
> that their readers may have and thereby raise sales.



> SW10: The Opposites

<snip>

> Personally I keep envisioning him as Lobo the Duck - the Amalgam Comics 
> combination of Lobo and Howard the Duck - but that's probably just me.

No, I'd say it's about the same here!

>      However the merger of Psychovant and Saint Cecilia - so as to 
> synthesise and reinforce their dualities so as to face off against the 
> Ultimate Darkness - and then having that synthesis take the form of an 
> acoustic guitar, was surreal.  

An acoustic guitar with wings! (And a big mouth?)

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, I think a mouth.


More information about the racc mailing list