Because of reasons, I have been holding off on posting pics of my recent drawings. But rest assured, I have them. In my notebook at work, I use unruled paper and use it to doodle and draw. Which means that I’ve been pretty much drawing daily, and I’m excited to start posting them again.
Also with my renewed interest in drawing, I have been reading Jem and X-Men comics again. Which leads me to the topic of this post: I am trying to decide if I want to continue purchasing this title. Right off the bat, I was turned away by the marking, that basically says this series/event is the biggest thing to hit the x-titles since New X-Men. Which is a pretty bold statement. Every other milestone that was listed in the advertisement (The original #1, Giant-Sized #1, Jim Lee’s X-Men #1, and Age of Apocalypse) was not known to be a significant event until after the book hit and the fandom responded. With Hickman’s book, Marvel is pre-emptively declaring it a hit. Which leads me to want to drop as much hate on the book from the get go. That being said, as a writer, I have thoroughly enjoyed Hickman books in the past. Nightly News was great and thoughtful, and I am greatly enjoying East of West. However, as has been seen with superstar writers jumping on x-books in the past, the writers tend to have the idea that they are bigger than the characters. For example, Ed Brubrake and Rick Remender both came on to write x-titles that were unpopular with fans, but were well regarded with reviewers outside of the fandom. This is because they ignored the histories of characters and/or characterization to further their own plots. To me, it felt like they had a plot in mind and plugged in x-characters as an afterthought. This is very different from writers like Mike Carey that specifically wanted to write about character x, character y, etc. Carey has one of the best beloved runs in the fandom from one of the best loved eras, yet I wonder how the sales during that era compared to Remender’s run of Uncanny Avengers. I also wonder how much the marketing push that Marvel gave titles like Uncanny Avengers affected their sales too. House of X is most definitely getting a strong marketing push, so it will do well sales-wise, regardless. Hopefully, it gives us a story that will make fans happy.
With regard to the art, before this book, I was unfamiliar with Peppe Larraz and R.B. Silva, but one look at preview art confirmed that both are fantastic. As far as the colors, which to me, are very important, Marte Gracia is one of the best. He responsible, in my opinion, for turning Stuart Immoment from just a solid artist to a superstar. His colors do wonders with minimalist artists by truely helping to definte and give depth to otherwise flat renderings. In House of X and Powers of X, his colors do no less of an amazing transformation, and they absolutely shine. Even if the book reads terribly, it will at least appear fantastic.
Next, I’ll give my reaction after reading the first issue of each book.