More Comicpalooza Pictures!!!

Today was the last day of Comicpalooza, and also makes for the last bit of self-allowed laziness in my writing for a while.  It was both cause of celebration and sadness as things came to a close, but I'm eager for next year's event, and am excited at the possibility that I might expand the professional and fan opportunities I've touched upon at this year's convention!

Anyway, enjoy these last pics of costumed con-goers from today.  Good-bye, Comicpalooza 2012.  It was a blast!

Mr. George Takei himself!

GN Review -- Batman: Harley and Ivy / Paul Dini, Judd Winick, Bruce Timm, & Joe Chiodo

A more cartoony, delightfully campy predecessor to Dini's work on Gotham City Sirens, Batman: Harley and Ivy explores the relationship between these two female characters that started in Batman: The Animated Series where Harley originated.  It also demonstrates the fact that, despite the overuse of the device, buddy comedies are timelessly entertaining.

Batman: Harley and Ivy collects three tales that showcase the characters' relationship.  "The Bet" focuses on Ivy betting Harley a dollar that she can get every man in Arkham Asylum to kiss her.  Things are going fine, and Harley doesn't seem to mind losing, until the Joker is suddenly returned to Arkham, and Ivy includes him in the bet.  Harley must use every trick in her charmingly demented book to thwart Ivy's attempts to kiss her man, leading to a chuckle-worthy ending.

"Harley and Ivy: Love on the Lam" starts off with Harley and Joker pulling a job in a museum when Two-Face and his men show up.  When Harley suggests a relatively bloodless solution to their problem, Joker throws Harley out on the street again, leading Harley to seek out Poison Ivy so they can pull a job and make some money.  Ivy, skeptical that Harley's doing this to get back in the Joker's good graces, agrees to do so on the condition that Harley consider working on her own, that and the fact that the company they're robbing is a major polluter of rain forests.

"Batman: Harley and Ivy" deals mostly with the antagonistic relationship between the villainous duo, as Ivy can't stand Harley's general air-headedness and incompetence, but also can't bring herself to abandon Harley completely.  After Harley botches their latest job, Ivy escapes from Arkham, intent on leaving Harley behind to go to Costa Verde by herself.  But Harley's not far behind, and manages to tag along on Ivy's adventure, causing equal amounts of grief and chaos for her begrudging partner, much to the delight of readers.

The plots are fairly light and trite, and rightfully so.  This is a focus on the characters, and it's hard not to be charmed by these two lead characters.  Not only are they gorgeous bad girls, but their comedic chemistry is undeniable.  Theirs is one of the classic comedy friends duos, with Ivy as the more uptight straight woman, while Harley gets the role of wildly demonstrative comic relief.  Ivy easily gets frustrated with Harley's childishness, but can never bring herself to really abandon or hurt her friend, despite how doubtlessly easier her life would be if she didn't have to worry about her.

The humor was very clever in places.  One of my favorite moments is when Harley knocks out an actor playing the Joker in a Hollywood production of a movie about Harley and Ivy.  The actor murmurs, "Yoda?  Dagobah System?" as he falls to the ground, a playful dig at Mark Hamill, who voiced the Joker for so long.

Art-wise, it's very delightfully modeled after the animated series look, with the exception of "Love on the Lam."  There, Chiodo's illustrations in that story, while still very cartoony, also have a more rounded, finished look that belies his work as a pin-up artist.  It's very lush and sexy in places, an obvious fit for two of the ladies who would come to make up the Gotham City Sirens.

Overall, I enjoyed this book on several levels.  The comedic team these two make up is quite a joy to behold, as are their mildly cheesecake depictions by the various artists who draw them.  If you like Harley and Ivy, or want to see the basis for their madcap relationship, definitely check it out.  If you enjoy buddy comedies, this is a good depiction of one.  Highly recommended.

GN Review -- Batman: Battle for the Cowl / Tony S. Daniel

When I first heard about Batman: Battle for the Cowl, I was impressed about a number of things, most importantly that DC had the gonads to kill off one of their most popular characters of all-time (I know these things never last, but still).  The promotional art for it suggested that virtually every vigilante character in the Bat-Family would be involved, which eventually turned out not to be the case.  But what we do end up getting is essentially a battle between Dick Grayson and Jason Todd that ends up also being a fight for the soul of the Dark Knight's legacy.

In the wake of Bruce Wayne's demise, Nightwing and a network of Gotham-based heroes and vigilantes have tried hard to keep the city from spiraling into a war zone, to almost no avail.  Knowing that Batman is no longer protecting the streets of Gotham City, Penguin and Two-Face viciously escalate their gangland battle for territory and supremacy on the streets, exhausting the GCPD and Nightwing's assembly of heroes.  Things get further complicated when Black Mask shows up, springs a bunch of Arkham Asylum inmates from their transports, and lets them loose to do his bidding and topple the other two gangs.

Nightwing has tried--hard--to deny himself the necessity of succeeding Bruce's mantle and assuming the guise of Batman, but when a ruthless, cold-blooded psychopath begins taking out street scum and calling himself Batman, he has little choice but to hunt the man down.  What ensues is much more than a battle for the right to become the next Batman.  It becomes a very personal, very brutal conflict between the heroes who seek to preserve Bruce Wayne's legacy as Batman, and the madman who feels not only the need to succeed Batman, but to surpass him--and he'll use any brutal method to subvert the meaning of Batman.

This is my first exposure to Tony S. Daniel's work, and I have to say I'm impressed that he handled both the writing and penciling duties for this story.  The central topic of the story--stepping up and preserving your predecessor's legacy, embodied by Dick Grayson/Nightwing--is handled extremely well, as is the conflicting subject of subverting your predecessor's legacy to what you think it should be, embodied of course by the bitter and psychotic, yet still needy Jason Todd.  I like that we get to see at least a little bit of extra help from the other heroes, most notably the Birds of Prey and Knight and Squire, who are all worked smoothly into the plot without overwhelming it with their presences.

There are a few decisions in the writing that left me asking questions that detracted from the overall narrative.  What exactly was Catwoman's final fate by the end of the story?  Why did Jason wear another mask under his Bat-cowl?  And if that wasn't the real Black Mask we saw for the final time in the story, who was it?  These were relatively minor questions that didn't really affect the overall story, but they did distract from it, and I felt they should have been addressed or resolved in some way.

I did enjoy Daniel's artwork in this story, particularly the good job he did in making Tim, Jason, and Dick all look similar (as they always have, to me at least) yet distinct.  The covers with the split images of the three each in their respective previous garbs and their Batman costumes were also nice touches.  The linework is smooth, the action shots are involving, and the heroes look as heroic as the villains look villainous.

Overall, this was a good Batman story, even without the traditional Batman character.  It suffers slightly from false advertising, as the story I found was much smaller in scope than I expected, but it was well written and nicely drawn.  A good read for Batman fans, as well as proponents of the Nightwing-Jason Todd-Tim Drake conflicts that inevitably arise.  Highly recommended.