Storming Heaven

[paulvonscott]

"I am Supersperm amd the world need my love!"

Ah, an appearence by scojo is always welcome :) just when the world is looking as grim and grimy as a painted page he cheers an old shopping channel up.

Oh, and thanks Watcher, but I don't want to upset Tharg here!

I heartily agree that 45 pages isn't much space to produce an epic story in the vein of Zenith or Watchmen, therefore, I wouldn't try.  As simple as that.

Where as, those text pages in Watchmen are interesting but at the end of the day redundant (after the first few readings I left them alone), it's a big enough comic to not need them.  I suspect it was added to give some meat to a monthly released title.

Storming Heaven could really do with a 2 page pseudo-factual back up for each episode on the times, places and characters to give depth to the glorious surface sheen.

If anyone thinks I'm saying this, just because I don't like Storming Heaven or the artists, I can assure you I'm not.  It's well drawn, Rennie is a great writer, its an exciting strip, it just needs something more than exciting.

[McNulty]

I agree with a lot of what's been said in this thread.Storming Heaven does seem to have hit the ground running. A longer introduction where we get to know the main characters more would have been preferable in my view. Groovy artwork cannot carry a strip all the way. As for the normal people: some of the best strips I've read concern ordinary people who are witness to extraodinary events. I certainly could have interesting to see what the normal people though about a superhuman civil war on their doorstep. However, you can't please everyone all the time. Let's see how it turns out before we pass our final judgement.  

[Leigh S]

It's not a bad strip, but it is a real missed opportunity IMO.  What grates most is the simplistic Good/Evil line it draws.  Manson was not an outcast, indeed he was very close to a number of high profile sixties stars:


"As for murder, Charles Manson's relationships with the LA rock fraternity are well known. They go far beyond the Beach Boys, who recorded his tunes. In Barney Hoskyns' excellent history of LA rock, Waiting for the Sun, a glance at the index under Manson reveals a number of instructive entries. "A lot of pretty well-known musicians around LA knew Manson, though they'd probably deny it now," Neil Young recalled. "The girls were around, too. They'd be right there on the couch with me, singing a song." Young was impressed enough by Charlie to recommend him to Warner Brothers. The only impediment seemed to be that Charlie didn't have a band.

Young met Manson at the Benedict Canyon home of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, where the serial killer became a familiar of the Golden Penetrators' club formed by Wilson with record producers Terry Melcher (step-son of Doris Day) and Gregg Jacobson. Manson's composition, Cease to Exist, was included on the Beach Boys' album 20/20, re-titled as Never Learn Not to Love."

The possibilities of exploring this kind of relationship, rather than having Caliban an exile, would have been much more interesting

[paulvonscott]

Well, we are probably more than half way through now aren't we?  It isn't really a judgement on the strip, the jury is still out on if it will 'work' in the end.

But a lot of people felt they could have had 'more'.  I think most of the people haven't said its bad, but, 'yeah this is good, we want more'.  I really don't think there is going to be any big depth summary at the end that really gives us this.  I hope I'm wrong.

The addition of a single page of pseudo-background for each episode in the style of everything from a 60's underground comic/magazine to the San Francisco Herald and at the height of the conflict, The New York times and the London Times (where surely this sort of thing is also going on at some level) would have really given a fantastic perspective on a world we only see as flying (and frying) superheroes.

It's like turning on to a news item about a terrible war going on in some African country.  But you've turned in part way through and you can't tell where it is or why its happening.  It's hard not to feel detached and a little uneasy.

But quite, right, we are still in for the ride and will have to see where it takes us.  Good trip or bad trip?  We'll see.

Cheers

PVS

[Thread Zero]

So anyway Supersperman had to fight his archenemy.......Impotentman!!

Along with the league of Fertility Followers, Supersperman has to prevent Los Angeles' population from becoming sterile. Impotentman is planning to use his impotent ray on the city and well..can't say anything more.

I have already got DC interested and some Hollywood movie mogul guy has optioned my screenplay.

Who needs Watchmen when you have Spermen!

Supersperman and all characters associated are the copyright of scojo and any similarity to any living persons is purely intentional.

scojo with a high sperm count
 

[paulvonscott]

Next week on Channel Scojo...

Okay Scojo, but it sounds like a very similar strip to be found in Action Comics 24, Where The Inseminator confronts his arch enemy, The Fiddler!

I won't go any further, but let's just say they saved on ink that issue (no pun intended).