MONDOmagazine

Action Comics #891
Paul Cornell (w), Pete Woods, Cafu (p), Woods, Bit (i), Brad Anderson (c). DC Comics.

The opening is definitely taking advantage of the Return of Bruce Wayne book (having scenes in an ancient past and the old west) and Inception (said scenes taking place in a dreamscape), it acts as a visually exciting story despite not really accomplishing much. The Woods art is okay if a little too clean, especially when compared to the pages that Cafu fellow does. Cafu’s stuff was so good, injecting so much mood and dread with the right shadows and intensity in the eyes. Also, you’ve got to love an issue that ends with Lex Luthor punting Mr. Mind off a roof. – Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 3.5 out of 5

Amazing Spider-man Presents Black Cat #2
Jan Van Meter (w), Javier Pulido & Javier Rodriguez (a), Matt Hollingsworth (c). Marvel Comics.

I’m still not recovered from San Diego and my time is short this week; so welcome to another round of short and snappy reviews from Miles! Anyway, yeah, I really like this book. It’s fast-paced and has lots of heists in it. I love heists. If you like heists and would like to buy a well-drawn book about super-powered people stealing stuff than look no farther than this book. — Miles Baker

Miles’ rating: 4 out of 5 Read the rest of this entry »

Friday and Saturday are not as much fun to write about as they were to have. I did a little less in the way of covering the show, and a bit more enjoying it. But here’s some stuff that happened.

1. The crowd —  There were a lot of people at this thing. I read attendance was around 125,000 people. That’s a lot of people for a single building to handle. But it’s a show that does the best it can with the volume it has.
2. Comic Design — My good buddy Chris Butcher hosted a panel on comic book cover design that was really interesting. Designers from DC, Oni, First Second, Viz Media, and Fantagraphics were on hand to talk about some design success and failures. Neat to hear why each designer considered certain projects successes or failures. The best part is that they actually articulated that in a way that non-designers can understand.  Read the rest of this entry »

Inception
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Warner Bros, 2010

Christopher Nolan became a filmmaker to watch almost a decade ago with Memento. Despite that being still of my all-time favourite films, naturally he remains best known and most popular for his reigniting the Batman film series. What I like about Nolan is that despite the new heights of mainstream popularity he’s reached, he still takes the time to do his own projects. Which brings us to Inception, his project in between his caped crusader adventures.

Inception is sci-fi/action film about a world where it is possible for people to enter and manipulate the dreams of others.  Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is one of the best extractors in the business.  He and his team break into people’s minds and steal their hidden secrets.  One day, a powerful businessman (and former target) named Saito (Ken Watanabe) asks Cobb to enter the mind of his rival Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) and instead of extracting information, Saito wants Cobb to plant an idea into Fischer’s brain (hence the “Inception” of the title).  Cobb then proceeds to assemble his team: Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is Cobb’s right hand man and researches the target, Ariadne (Ellen Page) is an architect and designs the dreamscapes, Eames (Tom Hardy) is a forger and can disguise himself as anyone within the dream, and Yusuf (Dileep Rao) is a chemist that makes the sedative drugs required to put the team into a deep sleep.

Read the rest of this entry »

Miss Toronto Gets a Life_in Parkdale
Directed by Antje Budde
Featuring Eve Wylden and Art Babayants
Runs until July 25 @ The Theatre Centre

By Jen Handley

As if to assure us that it’s not a documentary, Miss Toronto Gets a Life_in Parkdale begins with an exaggeratedly earnest discovery-channel-type documentary segment about the performer that plays various beauty queens throughout the show.  Although the material seems to be thoroughly researched, the play doesn’t subject Miss Toronto itself to this level of scrutiny. The history of the beauty pageant and its contestants functions as more of a chronological frame of reference than a subject of exploration. The DitchWitch Brigade’s collective of writers and researchers, who along with performers Eve Wylden and Art Babayants have created the show, use the contest as a starting point for an exploration of the way the role of women has evolved over the twentieth-century in North America.

The show is divided into a dozen or so scenes, or vignettes, or presentations, or “segments” Read the rest of this entry »

Amazing Spider-Man #638
Joe Quesada (w), Paolo Rivera, Joe Quesada, Danny Miki, Richard Isanove (a). Marvel Comics.

Basically this is the sequel to “One More Day” that shows how Mephisto changed the past. It’s a pretty cool story so long as we forget that the heroes of the story ASKED for everything they’re getting here. And there’s also Quesada’s weird proclivity towards drawing the chunkiest Peter Parker ever. The inter-splicing of new scenes with the original Spider-Man Annual #21 (the wedding one) is super-cool, if at times a little jarring. There’s a surprisingly bad moment where the hero gets clocked in the head with a cement block. I don’t know about you, but given the option I would have dodged that. – Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 3.5 out of 5

Avengers #3
Brian Michael Bendis (w), John Romita Jr. (p), Klaus Janson (i), Dean White (c), Marvel Comics.

This book is still a blast to read, for sure. I certainly have my complaints about it, such as its slow pacing and Romita’s pencils not being in top form (or is it Janson’s inking? I’m not sure) but I still dig this book. However, this issue being almost entirely fight-scenes means that it’s not a particularly memorable (however fun) issue for me. – Owen Craig

Owen’s rating: 4 out of 5 Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re into San Diego for the exciting nerd news then being at home with the internet is the right way to do it. Joss Whedon is, in fact, directing the Avengers and I didn’t know about it until I got back to the hotel and turned on the computer. I’m not really complaining, but I thought something like that might have trickled through the crowd. Though, maybe I’m just hanging with the wrong crowd.

Today involved a lot more sitting, and that’s a good thing. I bunkered down in the safety of room 6 for free Wi-Fi and a handful of Marvel and DC panels. If you want to see what I was thinking while in the room you should check out my Twitter, theMONDOcomics. But here’s some more stuff–

1. Panels — Turns out that panels in San Diego are a lot like the ones in Toronto: The speakers whip though announcements, lots of inside jokes among the panelists, then a series of nerds as stupid questions. Well, not always. Occasionally you’ll get a good question or a dumb question will raise an interesting discussion. But mostly it’s just nerds asking “What about this second to fourth tear character that few people like, do you have plans for them?” and then an editor politely says, “we’re working on something.” And, you know, it’s all probably true. But you have a chance to ask an artist a serious question and you waste it on, “What about Quasar?” WHO THE FUCK CARES! Seven people care. After today’s panels I might be done with panels forever. That said, sometimes the awkward that these nerds generate is so entertaining I’m not sure if I can stop them forever. Read the rest of this entry »

Square-Enix booth! Giant screen playing Parasite Eve trailer! Toys so detailed they become the platonic idea of toys!

It’s impossible to cover the San Diego Comic-Con. There’s just no way that my corporeal body could do it. You’d need to bend time and space (and probably get into an argument about the logistics of bending time and space with some nerds) to do it properly. So, we’ll all just have to deal with whatever the crap I come up with.

Excuse the hasty nature of this article

1. I was nervous about today. I’ve heard a lot of things about Comic-con. Mostly terrible, terrible things. I didn’t know what to expect but there were a lot of people talking a lot of smack about this show — but here despite all that. Anyway, today was fine. Actually, today was totally fucking sweet. I don’t know how tomorrow will be, or the day after that, or the day after that, or — dear god help me — the day after that, but I’m having an awesome time as of right now.

2. Got a chance to see the show set up today. Very interesting to see a show of this scope, size, and production value get of the ground. There were lots and lots of forklifts. Read the rest of this entry »

Interview by Owen Craig
Bryan Lee O’Malley is the creator of and cartoonist behind the popular Scott Pilgrim series.

MONDO: I’m sorry, I know this is the most obvious question -

Bryan: How does it feel?

MONDO: How does it feel to be finishing up?

Bryan: It feels good. I think it’s starting to feel good. I’m looking forward to having people actually read the book, because I’m not sure if it’s any good. Hopefully it’s okay.

MONDO: Hopefully? I would think that you would have more confidence than that by now.

Bryan: Yeah, well I feel like it’s probably pretty good.

MONDO: Do you feel sad at all about leaving the characters behind?

Bryan: No, not really. I think I was a little bit sad while I was writing it, maybe. Read the rest of this entry »

Miss Toronto, 1926. The picture that inspired the mural at the Rhino.

By Kerry Freek

You may have seen her. Trapped in time, she resides in a weathered mural on the wall at the Rhino in Parkdale. It’s Miss Toronto 1926, holding a trophy and wearing a headpiece and dress made of flowers. She’s flanked on either side by her runners-up. None of them look too happy.

Inspired by the mural, the members of the DitchWitch Brigade have assembled a new show: Miss Toronto Gets a Life_in Parkdale. Last week I had a chat with Eve Wylden and Antje Budde (performer and director, respectively).*

MONDO: From 1926-1991, Toronto celebrated “beauty” with its own Miss Toronto pageant. Your website says that, while researching the pageant, you found “truths stranger than fiction.” What’s the deal here?

EVE & ANTJE (paraphrased, from now on): Well, one thing we discovered is that the Toronto Police ran the pageant. We found out that it ended in 1991 due to “pressure from outside sources.” What does that mean? We have our theories. Read the rest of this entry »

The Last Airbender
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Paramount Pictures, July 2010

You know, I’ve been an M. Night Shyamalan fan for a long time. I liked his directing style, his slow but engaging pacing, his characters and his stories. Where most people began to scoff at him for films like The Village, I still appreciated him. I even like Lady In The Water, which most people deride because of how silly it is — without realizing that it’s a fairy tale written for his kids.

And I’ve always loved the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon. It was suitable for kids but had a long, complex story during which deeply-layered characters matured and developed and became more and more interesting. It was rooted in, honestly, one of the best original mythologies I’ve ever seen.

Read the rest of this entry »

Adventure Comics #516
Paul Levitz, Jeff Lemire (w), Kevin Sharpe, Mahmud Asrar (p), Marlo Alquiza, John Dell (i), Blond, Pete Pantazis (c). DC Comics.

The Legion story serves as a sort of last will send off to a character that died a few years ago — better late than never? Otherwise most of the story is also a reiteration of the Legion origin. There’s really nothing to write home about here. However, the Atom back up was really nice; gorgeous art playing with some of the crazy science fiction effects of the Atoms world, it’s very quickly paced (as opposed to the drawn out Legion first story), and in old school fashion ends on a cliff-hanger (Will the Atom get out of this one?). It’s good enough that I have to buy the next issue to see how it turns out — you’ve suckered me in again, comics! – Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 3 out of 5

Amazing Spider-Man #637
Joe Kelly (w), Various (a), Matt Hollingsworth (c), Marvel Comics.

Alright, I’ll lay it out here: this is probably a better story than I’m giving it credit for. In fact, I can see that it is. It’s engaging, it’s complex, but it’s not the kind of Spider-Man story I really get in to. Grim and gritty, filled with some sort of spider-mythology about the true “Spyder” or what-not. It’s not quite my cup of tea. Still, there’s a lot to appreciate here. The art is quite good, and I didn’t even notice that Lark didn’t draw the whole thing until I saw the credits later (looking back on it now it seems more evident, but I didn’t notice at the time). Everyone involved crafted a very cool follow-up to “Kraven’s Last Hunt”, unfortunately it’s not how I like my Spider-Man. – Owen Craig

Owen’s rating: 3 out of 5 Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Jitters
Directed by Ted Dykstra
Written by David French
Featuring Kevin Bundy, Diane D’Aquila, Oliver Dennis, C. David Johnson, Abena Malika, Jordan Pettle, Noah Reid, Mike Ross, and Sarah Wilson
Runs June 24 – July 24 @ Young Centre for the Performing Arts

By Jeff Maus

To hear actors like Diane D’Aquila, Oliver Dennis, and C. David Johnson delivering lines about paranoia over forgetting lines, the anonymity of theatre acting in Canada, our desire for American validation, professional successes and failures, and criticism of their work, I couldn’t help but wonder how strange it must be for these seasoned professionals to reflect on these things off-stage as well as on.

First produced in 1979, Jitters is a funny show about a cast and crew opening a play in Toronto and is based, in part, on David French’s experiences writing for the Tarragon Theatre in the 1970s — and the satire hits home. Read the rest of this entry »