Marvel's new clothes:Moon knight

I read a lot of comics, european , asian and american ones and so far in this socialmedia construct called blog I have mainly talked about my own stuff.

Marvel comics is biggest comics publisher in US. In order to keep it's lead it tries to keep up with times and hire best possible talent.

that is the theory anyways.

The problem is that big comics is same as big music.

At some point you also reach a point where the guys handling the money come and try to reign in too much creativity in order to keep as many buying customers as possible.

Yes, comics is an art.

But everyone needs to eat and there are no fairies that feed you since what you do is art and should be just accepted in all it's incomprehensibility.

All art has also commercial side. As does 98% of all life.
The payment just isn't always monetary, to some it's acceptance, belonging, achiement etc.

Now Marvel has decided to try once more to relaunch some of it's material with trusted artists.

Like Moon Knight:

Those unaware who (or what) Moon Knight is a short introduction:

Marc Spector was a mercenary that died in the hands of his companions while looting ancient egyptian tomb.

While dead the Egyptian God of vengeance, Khonsu, made a pact to him: Marc spector lives and serves as avatar of Khonsu on earth.

Many people often discredit Moon knight as merely Marvel's rip-off of Batman.

I have no idea what issues of Batman they have read since while Batman obviously has issues he never believed to be the undead fist of dead god.

And actually, that is maybe the sanest way to descibe Moon knight.

Quite unsurprisingly Moon Knight is quite a lunatic. In every incarnation Moon knight has had several personalities and even in tight-wearing crew he is considered to be more than a couple of cards short of a full deck. Not that it has ever stopped him playing. The others just hope that they get at some point what is the game he is playing.

In the seventies Marvel brought the ticket of blaxploitation, kung-fu-madness, street level crime and supernatural horror. Moon Knight falls to most categories , even blaxploitation.

But after his seminal run from Werewolf-by-night's opponent to a anti-hero in his own right something happened. As previous writers quit there still was this very unstable and strange character they had, but no-one seemed to know what to do with him.

And so it went for a LOOOOOONG time.

He was resurrected to former glory by Charlie Huston's and David Finch s Moon Knight comic.

And it still worked.

So after they saw there is life in the old warhorse white-clad streetwarrior got again top level writers and artists.

The latest is Brian Michael Bendis's & Alex Maleev's on-going Moon knight.

This duo had a tredemendous run with Daredevil, bringing the noir essentials that Frank Miller had introduced to that series back. They knew their stuff.

They still do.

And in the first issue they showed that this gamble was golden for Marvel. While they have decided to play down the supernatural horror in this Moon knight dont let spandex fool you.

We are deep in horrortown. But this time they are playing it subtle. Marc Spector is movie/tv-producer, done more credibly than Bruce Wayne ever was.

But the way comic is written you realize it's not a facade of secret identity. Marc Spector is charming, like that nice Patrick Bateman. Or that quiant and polite Norman Bates.

And once he wears the mask you almost await the Rorshachblotches to crawl on to the mask.

Nope, he is not ok. Not in any planet in any universe.

Maleev's art has suitably edgy and angry tone to it. It's not as vibrantly brash and violent as TEX's art was in 90's Ghost rider comics, but it has tension. Every damn frame is loaded. Coiled like a compressed spring-baton, just waiting any excuse to leap in brutality.

Should have known that Maleev's vision of California isn't sunny with chance of beachbunnies. It's sharp and creepy, a bit like when you are half-awake half-asleep. It's real but with hints of unstability.

I for one hope that the team can keep to momentum and promise given by issue 1.

Cause then boys and girls it's gonna be a wild ride. Are you mad enough for it? Well?

ARE YOU?

the day of reckoning.

It is the last day of april.
In the off chance any lost soul stumbling upon this blog might remember I made a pact.
To create a script in april.
A story with-in one month.
Please dont tell anyone about it as I have quite obviously lost all my marbles.

I have paper booklet, a scrapbook of sorts awaiting translittering to computer. To interpret my hieroglyphs to something resembling any known human language.
It is still bound to have loads of spelling/grammar mistakes.
Yeah, I write scripts and have undiagnosed dyslexia.
Whoever says the universe doesn't have a sense of humor?

anyways...to the results!


yeah I didnt do one story in a month.
I did three.
I may have a attention deficit syndrome too I guess.
Not that there wouldn't have been plenty of stuff unfinished to finish, oh no...

but while I shant post full scripts here (Please,call me Paranoid as I really am and it is one of my favorite songs too) but in short:

A tale of Dieselpunk world in shades of a cold war burning whitehot. Meet Jenny Lane.
She is young, adventurous and in deep trouble.
You see she took over her dad's business when he was shot down over mediterranean sea.
the business? Glad you asked. Pony express for modern times. No horses though, aeroplanes.
But this time our couriergirl is hunted by spies and gangsters, aristocrats and revolutionaries.
Too bad they are up against Jenny.

But thinking up that I came up with another piece of dieselpunk/pulp tale. It's world war 2. Finland is blocked up in the north. The soviets are attacking and surrounding nations are under nazirule (yes, yes dear swedes I know you were unaligned) and left to their own devices.
but what creations they are. But are you really going to risk your nations best and brightest youth by putting them on frontlines with experimental mad science?
Of course not.
It's war now and every man counts. And those enlisting to fight for their country get their prison sentences nullified.
War is hell so who better than sinners inside the Devils machinery.

And the third is a actionhorror piece from current events.
I found it too tempting to use a public domain comic figure (apparently not public domain in US yet, but doubt regocnizion will happen, nor publishing there) in different way.
A bit of postmodern take of classisc "funny" comic creation in quite un-funny civil war in Libya leading to unspoken horros that drive men mad in of so eldritch ways...
(ok so I am HPL fanboy and a war-nerd. Deal with it)


the concepts were fun. Storylines too but now starts the hard parts: typing it down and finding the artists suiting the stories.

As Sherlock said: The Game's afoot!

Let slip the Werewolves of war.

Once more I am a day closer to death then I was yesterday.
And happy about it.

I consider myself gladly damned by the old chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."

And to prove it I jump from yesterdays much deserved praise for women to the other end of my inspiration: Horror. those of you expecting Twilight-type trite a) please go away and b) learn to read, I said Horror. As in :something scary.

While as of lately I have been introduced to US band My Chemical Romance (in spades) I can honestly say that Teenagers don't scare the living sh*t out me.
Nor vampires.

To me it's always been a mystery why vampires have been so popular.

Dracula's fine with all it's insidious little snipes at aristocracy, society, religion and of course sex and diseases.
If you are a horror fan (even if you aren't) these are given.
But I never got why settle for secondrate if you can have something better? Monarchy's all nice but while democracies and republics are less pompous we guys actually get stuff done. Empire has a nice ring to it, but then most of those are either ruined or mere shallow shades of their glory days.

Vampires and their fans are telling us that it's because vampires are in deepcore of horror: sex AND death.

Nope, sorry.
Nice sales pitch but I don't bite.

Sure you have the gothic chic, good looking aesthetics I'll give you that.

But see I am a goth too.

No, not in the way how it's seen now.
Not the stylized androgynous thingie of today that swears to Joy division.

The original goths.
The ones that sacked the roman empire.

See those barbarians were scary and had a real grasp of life. They were much closer to the true beast.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls...the Werewolf.

See? now THAT is real face of our primal fears. That is raw sexuality and source of nightmares considering one's mortality.

Yes, I heard you in the back row...very quaint and ironic the "*cough* vampires can turn to wolves and smoke*cough*"quip.

Righty.

Sorry to rain on your parade but the dentally challenged guys have more deficiences than advantages, in pop culture and the original folklore:

-sunlight burns, either just bit beyond the carrot tan or far beyond TexMex BBQ rib
-cant cross running water (considering the number of real cities on riverbanks..)
-cant enter buildings unless invited, "no second date for you, mope as much as you want!"
-stopped by garlic. My guess is no-one has (yet) tried plain pizza herb. Probably works too.
-decapitation and a stake though heart. Wow,the first of these that makes any sense

and, oh...

-stopped by religious symbols. This cracks me up on so many levels.

Holy water and crosses are commonly used shenanigans but why stop there?
Just think of David's star-shaped shurikens and since christian faith has common ground not only with judaism but islam too it explains why there are no eco-vampires: if green is a holy color...(and also explains why one of best vampires in comics, Cassidy from Preacher, is so rare: being irish)

So yes, the vampires can turn to wolves or to smoke.
As a defense mechanism under the three F's rule against werewolves.

The smoke gives Flee a chance via intangibility as does wolf-form.
Turning into a wolf makes Fight a bit more of a sane tone, if not utterly desperate one, as far as options go.
The third F ... well being the polar opposite of FIGHT the turning into wolf is the fangy kinds last ditch "pleaseohplease dont hurt me" choice.
(and turning to smoke is a one try in avoiding that exact fate)
Not the dumbest move the vampires can make.

Those in the know might point out that I have actually written about vampires, in comics as well as in the sequal of sort's to Run Monster, run ( a tale I wrote to Comicmonsters.com ,a great site for any fan of horrorcomics or the genre)in it's the Britain set romp Bloody high stakes.

In that as well as in my comics work they are mostly cannonfodder.
To me the vampire isn't an archetype.
It's more of a stock bad guy that is easy to use since everyone knows it and no-one gives a toss if you do something heinous to them.
A bit like the nazis.
They too had awesome clothes design by Hugo Boss, made very little sense and also had their asses handed to them.

But as I lately read Run Monster run again in order to see if I could turn it into a comicscript and in the process I also read the still unfinished Bloody high stakes.
So, I wrote this story with creatures that I don't give a rodents bottom about? But not about the real deal?
Now, let's add that to my list.
A werewolf story.
That is going to be fun.

After all, life is short and one has to make choices: cats or dogs (DOGS), Doors or Mötorhead (Jim Morrison is dead, Lemmy Rocks) prancing glowing jedi-ripoffs with quasireligious BS=Twilight or Horror (ok, so this defies the multiple in multiple choice. as if there was an option..)

Besides, the werewolf is proud sly daddy to the best monsters of them all: the unstoppable Jason Vorhees, the harrowing bogeyman Michael Myers are the modern slasher offspring of the werewolf .
Hailing back from viking berserkers in their bear- and wolfskins.
The duality of werewolf ancestry is seen in the many glorious versions of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde.

Those of you who thought that Jason and Halloween's main man are sole descentants of the beast... in the lineage of every slasher and serial killer from far too real Jack the Ripper to Dexter or that nice Bates-boy running his motel, there rises the shape of the wolf.
The roar and howl taints even pages of seemingly safe and spandexy atomic age superhero comics. The gamma radiation might have changed the furcoat to green muscles but the reason HULK of Marvel comics is tattooed on my leg is that he is also one of the members in the pack.

We humans are basicly are still (and will be )primitive. We are scared of the dark.

We should be.
Bad Moon is rising.

The wolves are coming.

Something new, something blue, something elder...

Been married once and I am one of those who tries to learn from their mistakes instead of repeating them. But I am also among those never got the memo about "giving up" On about anything. Reason I babble incoherently this time is that I had the pleasure of chatting with yet another artist after some unfortunate hiatus. And it made me pumped to hear he might actually be working on a comic in near future. Being an avid fan of comics I rejoiced as Hannu Lipponen is not only smart guy with a sense of humor but as an artist belongs to a class of his own. Like many other honestly good artists he also is far too modest and overtly critical of his work. I have many faults but modesty isn't one of them. He is astounding. to make matter more clear here's something for your consideration. Few years back I wrote piece of Mythos. Yeah a modern day yarn of cosmic horrors beyond euclid timespace, so immense they are beyond good and evil. The beings that will undoubtably crush all mankind as byproduct of their existance. So I belong to HPL fanboy club, your point? But anyways, there was a comicproject that has been on ice for three to four years now but this script lead me to talks with Hannu Lipponen. He made some unfinished sketches. Um yeah. See this is "unfinished sketch of Cthulhu's eye in that comic:

yes. that is Unfinished. Yes that is a sketch. Someday that comic of forbidden knownledge and library set horror will be hopefully published, most likely on the hour the stars are right...IÄ! IÄ!

I await the day I pick any comic sporting his art with excitement.

April fools month, part deux or bloody something

Been sick. Not fun. I Sound like Darth Vader's apprentice, the one with severe throat cancer. The dieselpunk is advancing nicely, as it should and even as my brain is filled to the brim with apparently sharks made of cottonwool it is still moving ever onwards. As in : new stories. right. I have(once more) 10-20 stories unfinished and there's a new one. Dear reader(s)...ever heard of the town of Roanoke? Blood will flow....

no fear of the Dark

Good guys are boring, villains aren't. That is why horror will always prevail. In real life we all want to meet nice people, people we can trust.

Safe.

Those are the ones we marry and hope to get as co-workers.

But still both sexes go for the bad boys or girls. To feel unsafe, alive, for a dare.

Horror comics don't lie to you the are about baser instincts and about truth veiled in social interaction and small talk. It has no reason for political correctness or respecting you, your friends or your enemies.

Death is unavoidable, pain is part of life and bad things happen.

But why would someone want to read about these things even more? If you ask that seriously, go somewhere else to grow up as a human.

Those of us enamored by horror know the allure. We are not adrenaline junkies as such but we like our fear.

We have understood that we are not the top of the foodchain nor pinnacle of creation. The world is not fair or safe. And it never, ever, will be. Horror tells us that but it shows both sides of the coin.
There is quote I vaguely remember saying how Stephen King "tells about most awful world where bad things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people"

And horror comics have one advantage: there is absolutely NO limit how over the top you can take it.
Want to blow up australia? sure. Have a team of flying were-hogs hunt your sadistic vampirekilling necromancer assassin? there you go. Zombie apocalypses of biblical proportions? Why thank you, dont mind if I do.

Yes, as a most writer I get the "easy" chores, that is thinking up twisted things as much as I can and hope that the artist is up for the challenge.
After all it is his/her talents that significantly make or break the entire thing.
I am a guy who follows the writers but even the best of them would be in trouble if their visions were finalized by autistic chimpanzees.

If someone would ask what current horror comics one should read I would tell them(heck, usually I just rant before they have time to run away) these:



















































The Walking Dead -by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard
The Crossed - by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows
Locke & Key - Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
Hellboy- by Mike Mignola et al
B.P.R.D - by Mike Mignola and Guy Davis
Hack/slash- by Tim Seeley et al

is that all? No.

There is loads of vibrant hungry beasts out there, from the great The Living Corpse to Jesus hates Zombies.

there are dark overlords after your hearts and minds and just you wait :I am applying to their ranks.

So, within few weeks on here I plan to have zombies, vampires, supernatural assassins, demons, slashers and other fun.
Pack your bags as I plan to go to war on the balkans, hunt for artefacts and lost places on europe and tear up american soil.

Some drawn by yours truly, hopefully most by people who actually know what they do.
And if any of you are fluent in drawing buxom final girls but is stuck on a storyline...in your service.