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[Dredd]

Oh my Prog review from the weekend isn't here... I wonder what happened there and how I managed not to post it??? Anyway I think I said Dredd was a solid set up, Aquila had a bit of a damp ending compared to the rest but is setting up the next bit I guess. Intestinauts looks amazing and brings a nice balance to the Prog, Brink is AMAZING, Proteus Vex is AMAZING...

...BUT the final story according to the Thrillcast this week!!! Did we know that. Sounds lile it'll be longer (15 parts) bit Mike Carroll was hoping to do at least one more story. WHY THARG WHY!!!!

[Dredd]

Well that was a distracted read. The App has completely changed and it took a bit of getting used to AND I can't work out where to download my files to (though I think that's a change from earlier I'd just  not noticed and it doesn't handle double page spreads as well and I'm not sure how well it will sort my library when I open the app and...

oh yeah the comic...

Dredd was fun with shiny art. Text articles seems okay, only scanned them to this point. DeMarco was an okay conclusion. Armitage is losing me already. Extra strips fine but I've read Hookjaw and have to be honest the Robot Archie stuff has put me off getting the collection. Dredd Toxic... well I recently sold my copies of the originals so...Harrower Squad has some lovely art but I'm not sure what this strip is really offering. Dreadnoughts is by FAR the best thing in the comic. By far its really good.

So overall not the best Meg for me AND I've not got my previously downloaded issues any more and the Library is just a lump of comics so not as easy to navigate and....

Yeah I managed to book to late to get a ticket for the VIP bash - so Barrington if you fancy playing out in the evening that would be super cool.

To be honest it might be a little to sit down at a table to be as much fun as hanging out at the bar has always been at cons I've been to in the past has been. But sounds like it could be a blast for those who have got tickets.

[The Gate]

Well finally got around to finishing The Gate last night and not sure why I bothered. A seemingly random series of not at all scary stuff. I was kinda hoping for a hidden gem of an 80s horror. Nothing of the sort and the 2000ad cover was by far the best thing in this movie.

Entirely pointless!

Excellent stuff!

...And I've very conflicting feelings about Black Hammer, though partially that's because I loved how it began, but then it ended in a manner I didn't gel with, except that wasn't the ending, and what I've read of it since then has left me unsure of the direction it's going in. I've yet to finish it currently, and I don't even know if the most recent ending is the final ending, and given that I'm not sure I've the inclination to find out...

Oh man I have mixed feeling about Black Hammer - The End. I'd pretty much loved all of Black Hammer to that point, the odd exception aside and think I've got pretty much it all. Then 'The End' kinda read like the very thing it was paying tribute to as an inspiration. Just a great big event comic tyoe feel. Now that doesn't feel like it should have been a bad thing, but it strangely was on first reading.

Black Hammer has its place on my countdown and that set now BUT I had such mixed feeling about the end I've got that final (I believe) series out to re-read before I write it up as it may well change my entry (if not postion) as it might become about how sticking the landing can be so important!

We'll see I have a suspision I'll enjoy it more on re-read so I'm trying to reserve judgement!

Wow have to say that pin is lovely - especially when compared to some of the other stuff!

[Number 83 - Essex County - Part 4]

Number 83 - Essex County - Part 4

Where to find it

Easy one this. While there are three original graphic novels these are no longer in print and to be honest not the best way to get this. Rather just get the Complete collection. Its available in most places at a really good price.

Also available digitally if that tickles ya fancy.

Learn more

Obligatory Wikipedia page but there's not much there!

Really nice write up from a place called url=https://www.bookforum.com/print/1503/essex-county-by-jeff-lemire-2760]Book Forum[/url]... well I say nice any website / person that describes both Joe Kubert and Alex Toth as  'journeymen' can't be all good! I mean in the strictest sense yes that's true but really Joe Kubery and Alex Toth reduced to that... I'm getting off the point here aren't I!

And another nice summary from Panel Patter

And another one from The Captive Reader.

To be honest there's loads out there extolling the virtues of Essex County. Just remember to add 'comics' or 'Lemire' to your search. Well unless you want to read about Chelmsford. The world's your oyster for this one, from both comics and prose focused review sites. This one really cuts across the boundaries.

Apparently there a [TV adapation of the comics. I'm not aware of this being available in the UK and while I can take or leave most comic adaptations this one intrigues me so I might try to track it down.

What is all this?

Conscious that this is becoming a long thread and if you're wondering what the heck you've just read and can't be arsed (quite sensibly) to search back to find out I'll link to my opening posts that try to explain all this.

What this all came from

And of course a nerd won't do a list like this without setting 'Rules' / guidelines

Some thoughts on what will not be on the list.

[Number 83 - Essex County - Part 3]

Number 83 - Essex County - Part 3


Copyright - him what created it

What is true for the art is also true for the way he provides so much from the stories he creates. Everything I've said about the art is reflected in the quality of his writing. In Essex County he uses those same aspects to tell his story with a quiet effectiveness that allows them to have a massive impact on me as a reader.

Vast open landscapes and small, tattered towns and locations that say as much about the compelling characters he fills them with. Archetypal people that we know and have met, all be it in different specific circumstances that are used to say so much more about themselves and through them ourselves. Simple, soulful reflections represented in how we see the character and how they interact. Seemingly using so little to say so much and say it in a way that is relatable and reflects on ourselves as much as the characters he uses to convey those themes and ideas.

Essex County has big ideas and plays with themes that have scope and yet are intimate and personal. Family, isolation, even when amongst others. The need for connection and the things in us that can drive those connections apart. How a quiet 'simple' life can have such importance and significance, measured not in 'Likes' or 'Hits' but the eyes and souls of the people living those lives that Jeff Lemire lays out so honestly in front of us. These are 'small' lives and 'small' stories but they matter, both in and of the characters themselves but what they can say to the reader about themselves.

I have a curious relationship with Jeff Lemire. As said I think of him primarily as a writer, yet his art is so important to this work. Also as I don't think of him as a writer I particularly follow or read everything by, I think of him as someone whose writing I like, don't love and an artist I think works best on particular works and not so much on others. That doesn't really stand up to the scrutiny of this list as he will have two further entries to come and so will have 3 well placed series in my top 100, two of which he also draws... and this from someone I don't immediately think of myself as a big fan of!

I think in part this is due to how I came across his work. I became aware of Jeff Lemire through his mainstream work at DC and Marvel (I think, has he done Marvel work?) and it was all so okay. It was fine. Often good, never amazing. It was only after that I started to find his other works and I got Essex County as part of some Humble Bundle or other, having a vague awareness that it was seen as really good. When I got around to reading it, it was with a curiosity about how this lauded work would read to me given what I knew of him to that point - though I think I was reading one of his series that I'll get to later in this list by that point - and it blew me away.

Essex County was not what I was expecting from what I'd read of his mainstream work and even the works I'd read of his elsewhere. That in part might inform something of why I love these stories so much. Just as if I have expectations set high when I go into something. Or as I've said before, if I'm aware something is hyped and if I don't quite see why, regardless of how good it is, I find I might push against that. Is the opposite true as well. If I go in with limited expectations and what I'm reading defies that in ways I'm not ready for, might that elevate my enjoyment?

It's possible, but even if that's the case none of that takes away from how good Essex County is.

There still remains little pull to me for this other work, which seems odd, but there you go. What I have read of his creator owned work is generally really good, some bits amazing, such as Essex County, but he seems pulled to genre pieces that maybe aren't where I always see his strengths. Though we'll likely get into that more as we go on with this list.


Copyright - him what created it

Essex County is yet another example that makes contrast work and in doing so really works for me. Its themes and story feels both universal and personal. It's both wide in scope and intimate. Quiet and reflective yet speaks volumes. Whatever it is, well worth reading whatever else of Jeff Lemire's work you have read.

[Number 83 - Essex County - Part 2]

Number 83 - Essex County - Part 2


Copyright - him what created it

The second aspect I find so impressive is very specific. He draws solid men, so often ice hockey players, that feel so hard and beaten by life and yet with a vulnerability that belies their physical grandeur. While it's a very specific thing I notice it reveals something that runs across what he is able to do with his art. Firstly while his style could be said to be cartoony, almost caricature once you get into its rhythm it becomes very real and grounded. The faces he gives characters and I'll use those hardened men as the example here, can appear almost grotesque, yet they are immediately recognisable, they relate and reveal so much. I lose myself in his representations and just see these people, so often broken and bewildered. Their solid jaws and flattened noses give their history and the context in which they have lived their lives. Yet at the same time the lines that mark their faces reflect their worries and sadness behind that exterior presentation.

This carries on to the immaculate way he gives these same characters weight through their body language and the way they carry themselves. These big men, muscular and looming can present as intimidating and no nonsense when they need to. Quiet, hard men that I grew up with. Then in the next moment a slight stoop will be apparent in their postures, a sloping of their shoulders that give you the weight that they carry with them. I see in them that those broken hard faces have come at the cost and not just a physical one. Quiet, hard men so often mask the pain and worry they have to allow them to fit into the demands the world requires of them. The pretence they must maintain is a burden and one Lemire is so fantastically and subtly able to convey.

Once again we see how the very best comic artists are able to give the reader contrast and juxtaposition in a single image. They can use their art to display the contradictions we all have in a single frozen moment... with Jeff Lemire that just happens to strike me most with his old ice hockey veterans, or at least I can find a way to express it with those hard, quiet men, but he does it with all his characters.


Copyright - him what created it

Finally another aspect of how he presents character is an amazing 'trick' he seems to have mastered with the way he draws eyes. I mean they are apparently just so simple, black circles with a highlight, often, no detail, little variation in shape and form and yet they are incredibly soulful and penetrate into the characters and so into the reader of those characters. Quiet differences in placement, size and the eyebrows and lines around the eyes, so an attention to detail which works so well, rather than the number of intricate lines often used to present them (eyes) but mask them.

It's quite astonishing how with apparently so little he is able to give the reader so much. There's a depth presented in the simple, deep black circles he uses. They carry weight and importance. The fact that they are so simply realised means that those tiny subtle changes around the eyes hit with so much power. Their simplicity also makes them so relatable to the reader. There is little to distract us from what Lemire wants us to see, so we see it and are able to relate it to ourselves. Quite how he makes his eyes so soulful and powerful is astonishing. The work of a master of his craft with the apparent confidence to know what he is giving will allow the reader to get what they need.

[Number 83 - Essex County - Part 1]

Number 83 - Essex County - Part 1



Number 83 - Essex County

Keywords: Canada; Ice hockey; coming of age; graphic novel, not a graphic novel

Creators:
Writer - Jeff Lemire
Art - Jeff Lemire
Colours - Its in beautiful black and white baby

Publisher: Top Shelf

No. issues: 3 Graphic novels; collected into one bumper 500+ page collection
Date of Publication: 2008 - 2009 originally 2011 as a complete collection

Last read: 2016

I sometimes forget that Jeff Lemire's


Copyright - him what created it

was originally presented as three stand alone short stories. I forget 'cos those stories feel so perfectly bound together into a magnificent 500 page whole and work so much better as such... I assume, I've never read them separately but it's really hard for me to imagine doing so.

The three stories are all set in Essex County in Ontario Canada, though my understanding is that while the places are real, the history and specifics of the region are altered to support the story being told. Characters from each tale filter through the others, but each is distinct as a story and the connective tissue between them is really just in tone and theme. Largely how they deal with family. So while the stories are more closely linked than those in say Contract with God, each could still work perfectly in isolation.

The first story 'Tales from the farm' tells of Lester Papineau sent to live with his Uncle Ken after the death of his mother and with his father long since gone. The pair are united and separated in their grief at the loss of Lester's mum, who was Ken's sister. Lester forms a curious friendship with Jimmy, an ex hockey player, who suffered from a head injury and has a secret history with Ken and his family.

'Ghost Stories' the second tale slowly reveals the history of the relationship between two more ex-ice hockey players, in this instance brothers Lou and Vince. As we learn more about their pasts we learn about the course their lives took and the events that drove them apart.

Finally we meet Anne Quenneville. A Country Nurse who travels Essex County caring for people while also trying to care for her ageing mother who now lives in a nursing home. On her rounds she comes across characters from previous stories and through flashbacks reveals some history of Essex County. In many ways it's this story that brings everything together and unites the initially separate story into a whole.


Copyright - him what created it

While I primarily consider Jeff Lemire a writer I like, I feel I need to consider the impact of the art on Essex County first and foremost to start to unpick why I think Essex County is so good. His style doesn't strike me as something I instinctively gravitate to. It's loose and at first glance feels awkward and unrefined. That's so often something I would be drawn to, but in Lemire's case stylistically there's just something that doesn't leap off the page and draw me in. In fact when I flick through something by him I can find it a little off putting. Then as soon as I start reading I rapidly get beyond any supreficial concerns and quickly see the depth and power to his work. Any stylistic qualms I might have are washed away and I relax and enjoy the comfortable, expansive nature of what he's doing.

In Essex County that is particularly true, his art is just magnificent and so well constructed to carry the stories it holds. There's a few particular aspects of that I want to delve into. Firstly the way he creates open, sweeping landscapes that with apparently simple lines and brilliant use of white spaces he creates a cinematic feeling of wistfulness and isolation. By situating his character in these environments they are immediately given a lonely sadness that is really effective and often haunting. It gives me an emotional connection to the characters I can really relate to by the way they view the world around them, in the way Lemire places them in the world he drafts.

I find an interesting comparison to the way I discuss how Steve Yeowell opens up worlds in Red Seas (no.119). They both do so with similar choices in their use of white space and spare details but to very different effects. Yeowell does so to give epic scope and to add to the sense of wonder that Red Seas demands. In Essex County Lemire makes the space and landscape feel isolating giving a far more intimate emotional reaction to them. The comparison of common techniques (if different styles) to have such starkly different impacts is fascinating to me.

So watching 1987's The Gate and well I've not finished it yet but I'm half way through then the only exciting thing that's happened so far is 27(ish) minutes in Terry the best friend of the led Glen played by Stephen Dorff not less is dancing in his bedroom and on his wall you can clearly see the cover of Prog 458 (The Adrian Cockroach cover) is clearly visible...

I've seen quite a few good movies lately
4. Godzilla Minus One

7. Monster (Korea, 2023)

Really want to see Godzilla Minus One - must sort that out.

is Monster good? I think its on Prime (or was it Netflix) and forgot to tag it but if its worth watching will pop back to do so.

Both are superb, MONSTER is making my top 3 of the year. Did not have 'Rashomon for the education system about three autistic people and their struggles to communicate' on my bingo card for 2024 but here we are, and its great.

Cool beans I'll remember to check that one out then...

I've seen quite a few good movies lately
4. Godzilla Minus One

7. Monster (Korea, 2023)

Really want to see Godzilla Minus One - must sort that out.

is Monster good? I think its on Prime (or was it Netflix) and forgot to tag it but if its worth watching will pop back to do so.

By the way folks sorry for not posting Thursday - just silly busy so it dropped off the plate... I mean its not as if you are all desperately hanging on waiting for my next post here BUT in my dream where folks are I'm informing those imaginary folks that I hope to have things back on track Monday.