{"id":814,"date":"2010-04-21T01:34:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T08:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2010\/04\/21\/comic-book-report-alias-vol-1\/"},"modified":"2010-04-21T01:34:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-21T08:34:00","slug":"comic-book-report-alias-vol-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2010\/04\/21\/comic-book-report-alias-vol-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Comic Book Report: Alias Vol. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_5B85svs4ENE\/S8gvTkPDYEI\/AAAAAAABARM\/yhedjnPAmvo\/s1600\/5117F6SYM5L._SS500_.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_5B85svs4ENE\/S8gvTkPDYEI\/AAAAAAABARM\/yhedjnPAmvo\/s320\/5117F6SYM5L._SS500_.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5460666561377558594\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Comics legend Brian Michael Bendis does noir.  This was the first title published under Marvel&#8217;s &#8220;R-rated&#8221; MAX imprint, and the very first word of the book is &#8220;FUCK!&#8221;  Which sets the tone pretty well&#8211;the heroine is a world-weary private detective (is there any other kind in fiction?) who also happens to be a former superhero.  Hijinks ensue.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, being Bendis, of course it&#8217;s good, though I wouldn&#8217;t call it great.  It&#8217;s a stew of hard-boiled genre tropes lightly seasoned with references to and guest appearances by big-names Marvel heroes.  There&#8217;s a lot of dialogue, but it rarely feels talky, which is something of a triumph in itself.<\/p>\n<p>My biggest quibble is with the cover art&#8211;sure, it&#8217;s well-done, but it feels a bit too <span style=\"font-style:italic;\">Sandman<\/span> for this subject matter.  Sorry, guys, but Dave McKean didn&#8217;t just steal your thunder, he&#8217;s got that lightning bottled up like Kandor.  (And yes, I am being ironic by using a DC reference.)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Buy the book:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.powells.com\/partner\/34809\/biblio\/0785108726?p_isbn\">Powell&#8217;s<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ISBN=0785108726\/curtiscchensfree\">Amazon<\/a> (affiliate links)<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/snout.org\/HotSheet\/CKL.jpg\" alt=\"CKL\" title=\"CKL\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comics legend Brian Michael Bendis does noir. This was the first title published under Marvel&#8217;s &#8220;R-rated&#8221; MAX imprint, and the very first word of the book is &#8220;FUCK!&#8221; Which sets the tone pretty well&#8211;the heroine is a world-weary private detective&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[51,62,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-comics","category-geeky"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}