MONDOmagazine

Amazing Spider-Man #619
Dan Slott (w), Marcos Martin (a), Javier Rodriguez (c). Marvel Comics.

There are a lot of mobster guys to keep track of here, but as far as problems go that’s minor. The interweaving of previous subplots (which aren’t all that removed from the main story) is masterful as we leap from Aunt May being sinister to old Mr. Negative. Spidey is lithe, fast and powerful. The jokes are funny. When Spider-Man thinks he killed a guy? Heart wrenching. This is really just a fantastic book. There’s a panel with a punch being thrown at the cyborg Silvermane and we see the distorted image of that punch reflected in the shining armour. That’s just a cool touch. – Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 4.5 out of 5

Atom and Hawkman #46
Geoff Johns (w), Ryan Sook, Fernando Pasarin (a), Hi-Fi (c). DC Comics.

I wasn’t sure I’d pick this up, but beyond the fact that it’s Atom and Hawkman, it’s by Geoff Johns and Ryan Sook. That’s a great pedigree. For those who need the hint, Sook did the art on the Zatanna Seven Soldiers of Victory story, as well as Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth for this past summers Wednesday Comics production. And as beautiful as the Kamandi story was, it was done in a fairly static method, almost storybook style- and it’s really nice to see the alternative again. You know what else is nice to see? Ray Palmer the Atom being an awesome hero. Haven’t seen that for years. – Isaac Mills

Isaac’s rating: 4 out of 5
Crossover rating: (Almost) Essential
Owen’s rating: 3.5 out of 5
Owen’s crossover rating: A pleasant addition Read the rest of this entry »

Public Realm
Curated by Christopher Hume
Featuring work by Ian Amell, Broken City Lab, Eric Cheung + Sean Martindale, Desire, Rocky Dobey, Tina Edan, Christine Elson, Doug Geldart, Helena Grdadolnik + David Colussi, Josh Hite, Tyler Hodgins, Stuart Keeler, Mark Krawczynski, Marissa Largo + Sean Bennell + Daniel Pierre, Frances Patella, Allison Rowe, Kevin Scanlon, Laura St. Pierre
January 20-31 @ Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts

Review and photographs by Tina Chu
(MONDO does not hold the rights to the original images.)

What first drew me to The Propeller’s latest exhibit was an image of Eric Cheung and Sean Martindale’s Poster Pocket Plants. The last time I’d encountered these plants was around the corner from Bathurst and Harbord. Seeing the works in a new context required a follow-up.

Curated by Christopher Hume, Public Realm turned out to be a noteworthy exhibition of interventions into, meditations on and proposals for public space. Read the rest of this entry »

The winning design of the DSM Young Designer Award 2004, Cynthia Hathaway's lÓffice Perfume. (via the artist's website)

Tobias Wong and Cynthia Hathaway
Co-presented by Motherbrand and the Toronto International Design Festival
January 23 @ Harbourfront Centre

By Tina Chu

Harbourfront’s twelfth installment of the Innovators + Ideas lecture series featured Canadian expats Tobias Wong, now based in New York, and Cynthia Hathaway, now in Amsterdam.

The two designers kicked off the lecture with a photojournal presentation of a trip inside Honest Ed’s. Sifting through holographic clocks, chrome-coloured figurines, ad-hoc signs, and eccentric slogans, what most entertained Hathaway and Wong was the idea that each outrageous item is the result of conscious decisions. Read the rest of this entry »

Sherlock Holmes
Directed by Guy Ritchie
Warner Bros., 2009

By Caesar Martini

You know, when I first saw previews of Sherlock Holmes, I was skeptical. I never pictured Holmes as the type of detective that got into bareknuckle boxing matches with sweaty men, and the whole thing was presented in a silly action buddy comedy kind of way, with Robert Downey Jr. seemingly playing Holmes as a British ancestor of Tony Stark. And though some of those things are not far off the mark, I still enjoyed the movie immensely.

I reconciled the odd disparity between my image of Sherlock Holmes and the movie version of Sherlock Holmes quite quickly because: 1) Apparently, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first wrote Holmes as a somewhat socially unpleasant cocaine addict who was a skilled boxer and stick fighter, and 2) What am I, President of the Sherlock Holmes Fan Club? I was over it before the first preview ended (though apparently, members of said fan club really want Hugh Laurie to be Holmes), and I thought the action scenes were fun, cool, and entertaining.

Read the rest of this entry »

A behind-the-scenes photo from Tono. Wednesday's performance included just the musicians (background, in traditional dress). Photo by Alicia Ho.

Tono: a music concert
Presented by Red Sky
Featuring Tuvshinjargal Damindinjav, Bat-Orshikh Bazarvaani, Batmend Baasankhuu, and Rick Sacks
January 20-21 @ The Music Gallery

By Isla Craig

I am forever captivated and amazed by the similarities and expressions found in folk music traditions. Across land and time and centuries of histories, the power of song prevails, confirming our connection with life and the living world.  As a singer, I am interested in the sound of voice, the body as instrument and find great wonder in the connections forged between continents and across language.

Wednesday night’s performance of traditional Mongolian folk songs was undoubtedly an amazing display of vocal technique of a celestial nature. The voice is the driving force behind the Mongolian folk song, consisting of throat singing and long song. Throat singing sounds like crickets and bees and all sorts of frequencies you would never imagine could be replicated by the human voice. Read the rest of this entry »

Amazing Spider-Man #618
Dan Slott (w), Marcos Martin (a), Marvel Comics

It’s hard to say how I feel about this issue. I don’t quite know where Slott is going with this story yet, it was sort of all over the map: there was the stuff with Negative Man and Aunt May, the mob stuff, the Mysterio stuff… I know that Spider-Man is often a long-form book, but the other Gauntlet stories started with more of a bang than this. I don’t mean to imply that I didn’t like it, but I my feelings for this issue are a little wonky and will probably remain so until I read the second issue of this story. Something I am not unsure about, though, is Martin’s artwork. It rocks. — Owen Craig

Owen’s rating: 3 out of 5

Avengers Vs Atlas #1
Jeff Parker (w), Gabriel Hardman (a, main),  Takeshi Miyazawa (a, second) Elizabeth Breitweiser (c). Marvel Comics.

Hurray Atlas! Yay Hardman! This is one awesome-looking comic. And it’s really awesome that Parker skipped the part where the two hero teams fight each other and went right into working together. It’s refreshing and keeps the plot moving along to the important aspects of the story — namely, good jokes and big action. Really solid start to this series and this would be a great place to jump on the Atlas bandwagon. So jump! — Miles Baker

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

Series of the Year — The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

When they announced this title and showed the image for the first issue I was interested. This was at the beginning of my whirlwind romance with Mike Carey in 2009. We met in a couple of X-Men titles in 2007 and 2008, and I always liked what he had going on between the panels. But this year it was magic — magic and Tommy Taylor and a whole lot of literary references. I’m not going to pretend that I get all of them but I get enough that it enriches the work. And even if I didn’t know any of them, I would still be interested in this concept and committed to the series because of its excellent execution. The pages of internet reaction to this story are genius and show how much flexibility Mike Carey has as a writer. And Peter Gross is doing a fantastic job with clear, effective art, and solid sequential sequences. This is Vertigo’s next Y: The Last Man, Preacher, or Sandman. It’s that good.

Writer of the Year — Mike Carey

So, uh, based on what I just said about Mike Carey (basically implying that I want his word babies), this category is a no-brainer. Besides The Unwritten, Carey is writing my current-favourite X-Men title, X-Men Legacy, where he is not only telling entertaining stories about today’s X-Men, he is also fixing old continuity and making X-Men — as a franchise and cohesive narrative — better. This was also the year I caught up on Crossing Midnight and God Save the Queen, so we had a great year together. He’s one of the industry’s best and I don’t think people give him nearly enough credit. Read the rest of this entry »

By Allana Mayer

Editor’s note: In this MONDOmusic special feature, former music editor Allana Mayer shares her views on the music of the last 10 years, nominating her favourites and some honourable mentions…

Ten years ago I was using AudioGalaxy to download Bjork and Depeche Mode tunes. Now, people use YouTube as a radio. It’s been one long, exhausting decade, and it’s fantastically impossible to keep on top of everything. And yet people (myself included) continue to use the best-of list as a viable format for journalism. Let’s be honest: it’s all about the name-dropping, and not a bit about the ranking… and we like the arguing, too. With that in mind, let’s make some unnecessarily pigheaded blanket statements about the 00s, shall we?

Here is my no-holds-barred, no-discussion, completely-unaccountable list of the best albums of the decade, one per year: Read the rest of this entry »

Series of the Year (which also happens to be new) — Chew

My favourite series of the year were all new ones, so I have amalgamated both Series of the Year and New Series of the Year into one category. There is no end to how much I can rave about how much I love this series. This series centres around FDA agent Tony Chu and his uncanny ability to capture psychic impressions from things he eats. My only regret is not having been able to get my hands on the first issue earlier. The story is unique and the art is quirky — two things that make any series a great one. John Layman and Rob Guillory make a serious duo. Everyone should be taking a bite out of this one.

Writer of the Year — Ed Brubaker (Incognito, Criminal: Sinners, Daredevil, Captain America: Reborn, Captain America, The Marvels Project)

Why Ed Brubaker? Why not? This man has been the mastermind behind most of my favourite series of the year and consistently writes good stories with great characters. I cannot help but love a man that brings me such joy. Read the rest of this entry »

By Sean Kelly, Caesar Martini, and Shane McNeil

Caesar’s Disappointments

1. Halloween 2
I wasn’t expecting excellence going into this movie. I was expecting decent-ness, but what I got was an hour and a half of poorly directed gore scenes in between extreme close ups of talking heads, punctuated by a girl screeching directly into my ear like a Banshee taking a bath in acid.

2. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
This movie had so much potential. Wolverine, arguably one of the coolest and most badass characters ever in comics, played by Hugh Jackman, who somehow manages to be an amazing embodiment of the character despite being Australian and starring in way too many musicals.

How do you cock it up? Read the rest of this entry »

Adventure Comics #6
Geoff Johns (w), Francis Manapul (a). DC Comics.

I’m sad that this is over. Sure, the book is continuing, but without Johns, Manapul, and Superboy. That makes this issue bittersweet. After all, it’s an amazing issue… really amazing. Complex character work and completely crushing tragedy, that’s the stuff I love to read. In fact, it’s awesomeness cover to cover. I only dock a half a point because you can tell that this should’ve been the beginning of a great long-term run and instead it’s the end of a miniseries. *sigh* — Owen Craig

Owen’s rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Amazing Spider-Man #617
Main: Joe Kelly (w), Max Fiumara (a),  Fabio D’Auria (c)
Second: Joe Kelly (w), Javier Pulido (a), Matt Hollingsworth (c). Marvel Comics.

Thirty-three pages of story — and all of them were good. I know I mention this every time she appears, but I love Nora Winters. I really think she’s a fun character and I want Peter to get with her so bad. I just want to live vicariously through Peter Parker more so than I already do. Pete, buddy, she’s into you. Anyway, this is a great one-shot about the original Rhino that’s told with a lot of dignity; plus, an interesting introduction to a mysterious, new Rhino that is pretty scary. Add a good story with a lot of Norah Winters and really fantastic art from Fiumara and Pulido and you have one of the best books that came out this week. — Miles Baker

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

Patrick Watson & The Wooden Arms
The Wooden Arms
Secret City Records, 2009

By Sara Starkman

Patrick Watson and The Wooden Arms’ self titled album, The Wooden Arms, debuted in 2009. The Montreal based group consists of four highly skilled musicians who composed a collection of songs that can be described as none other than chilling. The overtone of the CD is ominous yet whimsical, and could, perhaps, make a great soundtrack for a Tim Burton movie. Listening to the album with my eyes closed feels much like Alice’s journey down the rabbit hole: fascinating yet arbitrary. At times I felt run off course: the tranquil sounds of harpsichord would often be sharply interrupted by abrupt, offbeat percussion. There is merit to this polarized tone: it steps outside of the box and causes you to rethink the journey you originally thought to have been on. Read the rest of this entry »