5 books total ties my personal best.
So whad’ja think?
15 comments on “OUT THIS WEEK PART 2: Fallen Angel #3, Soulsearchers #76, and Red Sonja”
Just got done reading Fallen Angel #3. Great stuff. Art and story really meshed on this one.
Holy crap… I didn’t even realize that PAD was writing the Red Sonja Vs. Thulsa Doom series. I’m really digging it so far; interesting story and, um, very stimulating art in this issue. I’m also reading X-Factor and F’N Spider-man, too. All in all, good stuff; please keep it up, PAD!
Who is Luke Lieberman (your co-writer on Red Sonja vs. Thulsa Doom? Why are you colabarating with him, who does what, etc?
Just curious…
Fallen Angel was grueling… in a good way. I wish the art wasn’t so stiff and and “posed picture with a Photoshop filter”-looking though.
I didn’t even realize you were writing Red Sonja. Good, now I have an excuse to go back to the comic shop on Saturday.
Fallen Angel was good. But I had no idea that you wrote Red Sonja, and only now do I recall reading something about that in a CSN preview or something. Now I gotta run out and get it. 🙂
Been a reader of Fallen Angel since the start and the IDW series is kicking all kinds of ášš.
One very important question though. How can I contact JK Woodward to try and purchase some of the art? I can’t seem to find a website.
Soulsearchers rule.
Wait – what?
My comic shop said Fallen Angel #3 wasn’t out yet…..
I’m gonna have to go knock some heads around….
Quick confirmation question:
The weekly ship list from Diamond listed FA as # 3 of 5. If it safe to assume this is a typo (or an old reference that hasn’t been updated yet)?
R David Francis
I have a question about Fallen Angel as well. I order through Westfield Comics and there is no Fallen Angel available for June (should be FA#6). Is there a month off because it was originally slated as a miniseries and is now ongoing? Loving the new FA, by the way. I need to check out Red Sonja.
I think that my shop sold out of FA #3 and neglected to put on in my bin despite my pull list.
I think I’m not especially happy with them. We’ll see if they manage to reorder me a copy as they promised.
TWL
I haven’t got “Soulsearchers” yet – hopefully it will arrive in the UK next week. And I didn’t realise that you were writing the “Red Sonja” comic, so I’ll keep an eye out for that next week too.
As for “Fallen Angel”, I thought it was very good. It was a very harrowing story, that didn’t go the way I’d expected it to; I thought that Liandra would get booted out for saving the child against the rules, so it was quite a shock to see the way that it turned out. This does fit the standard explanation for “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?”, and I can sort of understand the reasoning behind it (in the abstract), but it still feels wrong (from the character point of view, not the writing).
Liandra’s frustration when she was trying to save Holly came through very well; it was a bit like one of the cliffhangers in “The Death of Jean DeWolff” that still has me on the edge of my seat when I re-read it now, even though I know how it turns out.
The artwork does seem a bit stiff in places, but it got the job done, and I liked the cover – I’m guessing that this was a deliberate reference to the old Supergirl cover that had a similar split?
The only minor flaw in the issue (and this was very minor) was a typo on page 10 – “receiving an additional charge” rather than “received an additional charge”. I only mention that now in case it can get fixed in a TPB.
Soulsearchers was excellent, cracked me up with the shots at Diamond.
Red Sonja rocked! Of course it is hard to go wrong when writing about a ravaging redhead in a metal bikini, but maybe that’s just me.
Fallen Angel has been absolutely amazing.
Fallen Angel was so good, I went back and read the other 2 issues before I read this one. YEAH!
Following up on this, now that I’ve read “Soulsearchers” and “Red Sonja”, and unfortunately I was less impressed by these.
“Soulsearchers” was billed as “A jump-in issue for new readers”. I suspect this is accurate, in that I’ve been reading it since #34 (minus the issues that didn’t make it to my shop), and I had trouble figuring out which bits were “true”, so a new reader would be equally confused. For instance, has Clora Fille appeared before?
I think the main problem is that all the references to the comic being underappreciated are pitched at the wrong audience. Digressing slightly, when Disney were talking about putting trailers at the start of their DVDs that couldn’t be skipped, I didn’t like that idea. For instance, I’d go to rewatch film A, and they’d say “Film B is really great!” My attitude is “Ok, you convinced me, I like film B, and I’ve bought it, it’s sitting on my shelf right now. So stop nagging me about it!” There’s a similar problem with the “badverts” in the UK, trying to stop people from drink-driving etc. I don’t do any of those things, but I still find the adverts really annoying. Coming back to Soulsearchers, I think “Ok, I like the comic, and I’m already buying it – what more do you want from me?”
The odd thing is that some of the concepts in this issue have worked well elsewhere. For instance, “She-Hulk” is playing with the conceit that Marvel comics are published within the Marvel Universe,, and I like the way they’re handling it. And the “retcon bomb”/varying memories issue came up in PAD’s “Spider-Man meets Spider-Man 2099” story, which I enjoyed.
I don’t know; maybe this just caught me on a bad day. I want to like it, and I’m certainly not dropping it from my pull list, but this one just didn’t grab me for some reason.
As for “Red Sonja”, I think the best assessment I can make is that I’m not really the right target audience for it.
I picked up an issue with the snake cover, and by doing so I revealed the “naked Sonja” cover on the next issue on the shelf. Frankly, I was embarrassed to even be holding the thing, especially since there was a girl standing next to me – nobody I knew, but I felt as if I might as well be wearing a “Hi, I’m a pervert” T-shirt. As for the inside, I certainly wouldn’t read it in public (I normally read comics on the train/bus when I leave the comic shop). Arguably it’s no worse than other skintight superhero outfits (e.g. Spider-Woman), and she didn’t strike me as implausibly over-endowed (unlike, say, the Catwoman covers from a couple of years ago). But it’s still a bit too close to borderline pørņ for my tastes.
Regarding the story, there was an odd effect on page 21, where the same speech bubble is used in two consecutive panels. I’m not sure whether this was a mistake, or whether it was trying to emphasise that the two panels were happening at the same time, but it was a bit confusing.
On the plus side, I did like the Blackadder reference, and the idea that the prince may in fact be right to stay out of the way until he’s ready (a bit like “What if Luke had stayed on Dagobah with Yoda?”).
Ultimately, this may just be that I’m not familiar with the character – all I’ve heard about her in the past was the BID article that PAD wrote a while back (“a poet wouldn’t stand a chance with her”). In the same way, I’m not really a Conan fan, so I read the first issue of Kurt Busiek’s series, and it didn’t inspire me to read any more. That’s not a criticism of PAD or Busiek, and I still enjoy their other work, but I think I’ll avoid the Conan/Sonja stories in the future.
Anyway, sorry for the negativity, but hopefully it at least makes my praise for other stories seem more sincere.
• 
Just got done reading Fallen Angel #3. Great stuff. Art and story really meshed on this one.
Holy crap… I didn’t even realize that PAD was writing the Red Sonja Vs. Thulsa Doom series. I’m really digging it so far; interesting story and, um, very stimulating art in this issue. I’m also reading X-Factor and F’N Spider-man, too. All in all, good stuff; please keep it up, PAD!
Who is Luke Lieberman (your co-writer on Red Sonja vs. Thulsa Doom? Why are you colabarating with him, who does what, etc?
Just curious…
Fallen Angel was grueling… in a good way. I wish the art wasn’t so stiff and and “posed picture with a Photoshop filter”-looking though.
I didn’t even realize you were writing Red Sonja. Good, now I have an excuse to go back to the comic shop on Saturday.
Fallen Angel was good. But I had no idea that you wrote Red Sonja, and only now do I recall reading something about that in a CSN preview or something. Now I gotta run out and get it. 🙂
Been a reader of Fallen Angel since the start and the IDW series is kicking all kinds of ášš.
One very important question though. How can I contact JK Woodward to try and purchase some of the art? I can’t seem to find a website.
Soulsearchers rule.
Wait – what?
My comic shop said Fallen Angel #3 wasn’t out yet…..
I’m gonna have to go knock some heads around….
Quick confirmation question:
The weekly ship list from Diamond listed FA as # 3 of 5. If it safe to assume this is a typo (or an old reference that hasn’t been updated yet)?
R David Francis
I have a question about Fallen Angel as well. I order through Westfield Comics and there is no Fallen Angel available for June (should be FA#6). Is there a month off because it was originally slated as a miniseries and is now ongoing? Loving the new FA, by the way. I need to check out Red Sonja.
I think that my shop sold out of FA #3 and neglected to put on in my bin despite my pull list.
I think I’m not especially happy with them. We’ll see if they manage to reorder me a copy as they promised.
TWL
I haven’t got “Soulsearchers” yet – hopefully it will arrive in the UK next week. And I didn’t realise that you were writing the “Red Sonja” comic, so I’ll keep an eye out for that next week too.
As for “Fallen Angel”, I thought it was very good. It was a very harrowing story, that didn’t go the way I’d expected it to; I thought that Liandra would get booted out for saving the child against the rules, so it was quite a shock to see the way that it turned out. This does fit the standard explanation for “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?”, and I can sort of understand the reasoning behind it (in the abstract), but it still feels wrong (from the character point of view, not the writing).
Liandra’s frustration when she was trying to save Holly came through very well; it was a bit like one of the cliffhangers in “The Death of Jean DeWolff” that still has me on the edge of my seat when I re-read it now, even though I know how it turns out.
The artwork does seem a bit stiff in places, but it got the job done, and I liked the cover – I’m guessing that this was a deliberate reference to the old Supergirl cover that had a similar split?
The only minor flaw in the issue (and this was very minor) was a typo on page 10 – “receiving an additional charge” rather than “received an additional charge”. I only mention that now in case it can get fixed in a TPB.
Soulsearchers was excellent, cracked me up with the shots at Diamond.
Red Sonja rocked! Of course it is hard to go wrong when writing about a ravaging redhead in a metal bikini, but maybe that’s just me.
Fallen Angel has been absolutely amazing.
Fallen Angel was so good, I went back and read the other 2 issues before I read this one. YEAH!
Following up on this, now that I’ve read “Soulsearchers” and “Red Sonja”, and unfortunately I was less impressed by these.
“Soulsearchers” was billed as “A jump-in issue for new readers”. I suspect this is accurate, in that I’ve been reading it since #34 (minus the issues that didn’t make it to my shop), and I had trouble figuring out which bits were “true”, so a new reader would be equally confused. For instance, has Clora Fille appeared before?
I think the main problem is that all the references to the comic being underappreciated are pitched at the wrong audience. Digressing slightly, when Disney were talking about putting trailers at the start of their DVDs that couldn’t be skipped, I didn’t like that idea. For instance, I’d go to rewatch film A, and they’d say “Film B is really great!” My attitude is “Ok, you convinced me, I like film B, and I’ve bought it, it’s sitting on my shelf right now. So stop nagging me about it!” There’s a similar problem with the “badverts” in the UK, trying to stop people from drink-driving etc. I don’t do any of those things, but I still find the adverts really annoying. Coming back to Soulsearchers, I think “Ok, I like the comic, and I’m already buying it – what more do you want from me?”
The odd thing is that some of the concepts in this issue have worked well elsewhere. For instance, “She-Hulk” is playing with the conceit that Marvel comics are published within the Marvel Universe,, and I like the way they’re handling it. And the “retcon bomb”/varying memories issue came up in PAD’s “Spider-Man meets Spider-Man 2099” story, which I enjoyed.
I don’t know; maybe this just caught me on a bad day. I want to like it, and I’m certainly not dropping it from my pull list, but this one just didn’t grab me for some reason.
As for “Red Sonja”, I think the best assessment I can make is that I’m not really the right target audience for it.
I picked up an issue with the snake cover, and by doing so I revealed the “naked Sonja” cover on the next issue on the shelf. Frankly, I was embarrassed to even be holding the thing, especially since there was a girl standing next to me – nobody I knew, but I felt as if I might as well be wearing a “Hi, I’m a pervert” T-shirt. As for the inside, I certainly wouldn’t read it in public (I normally read comics on the train/bus when I leave the comic shop). Arguably it’s no worse than other skintight superhero outfits (e.g. Spider-Woman), and she didn’t strike me as implausibly over-endowed (unlike, say, the Catwoman covers from a couple of years ago). But it’s still a bit too close to borderline pørņ for my tastes.
Regarding the story, there was an odd effect on page 21, where the same speech bubble is used in two consecutive panels. I’m not sure whether this was a mistake, or whether it was trying to emphasise that the two panels were happening at the same time, but it was a bit confusing.
On the plus side, I did like the Blackadder reference, and the idea that the prince may in fact be right to stay out of the way until he’s ready (a bit like “What if Luke had stayed on Dagobah with Yoda?”).
Ultimately, this may just be that I’m not familiar with the character – all I’ve heard about her in the past was the BID article that PAD wrote a while back (“a poet wouldn’t stand a chance with her”). In the same way, I’m not really a Conan fan, so I read the first issue of Kurt Busiek’s series, and it didn’t inspire me to read any more. That’s not a criticism of PAD or Busiek, and I still enjoy their other work, but I think I’ll avoid the Conan/Sonja stories in the future.
Anyway, sorry for the negativity, but hopefully it at least makes my praise for other stories seem more sincere.