PICTURE PAGES, PICTURE PAGES, LOTS OF FUN WITH PICTURE PAGES!: Yet more comics reviews. Lots this time. Like, lots-lots.

Astro City: “Confession.” Forgot to review this last time around, even though it’s the reason I bought the other Astro City book. I was super-leery of “Confession” because of the Catholic imagery–when that stuff’s done poorly, it sends me up a wall–but ended up getting it anyway for various reasons. It’s… goodish. Nicely reactionary, with its whole “repress your intense desires for the greater good” theme. So that bit, I liked! The art not so much. I preferred the steel-skinned Robert Mitchum sad-sack from “The Tarnished Angel” (which I was too harsh on, last time–it isn’t Great Art, but I did like it, and there are nice shots of cats and good, moving contrasts between the main character and the superheroes of Astro City).

Channel Zero: Wow. What to say? My reactions to this comic were totally scattershot and ranty. Here are some snapshots, mid-rant.

First reaction: Ooooh. Nice black-and-white, text/pictures, ’90s dystopian futuristic artwork. Mmm-mmm. Very interested.

Second reaction: Um, the politics here are a joke, right? This is super-naive and adolescent–anarchowhateverist elitism–you are all SHEEP except for me and my fashionably alienated friends!

Third: Still, the artwork rocks. I really wish I could do a zine on the Web–I loved all that scissoring and Scotch-taping–all the catty or moving contrasts you could set up between images and seemingly-mismatched text.

Fourth: Oh wow, this comic has as many inane plot moments as the “Daredevil” movie! If you’re writing a dystopia, please try to imagine something more plausible than an American president who actually refers to his worldview as “National Socialism,” or an anti-immigrant government that tries to seal the borders by sending troops to Ellis Island. (Hint: It’s an island. It’s not particularly near anybody but us. If you don’t want immigrants coming to Ellis Island, all you have to do is stop sending ’em there. You-don’t-need-soldiers!)

Fifth: You know, it’s kinda weird how the “futuristic” aesthetic of this comic actually seems like a cross between badly-xeroxed zines and old Class War flyers. Yet another old-fashioned future–in the mix-‘n’-match world where Thatcher is always Prime Minister and Riot Grrrl is always the next big thing.

Sixth: Oh, okay, the politics are a joke! After all, this “revolutionary” chick is praising Castro and Mao Tse-Tung. Hmm, maybe this is going somewhere interesting?

Seventh: Oh. Got to the end. Interview with creator. Um. Yeah, you’re a real macho man, a real street-fightin’, like, comics guy. Apparently the politics weren’t a joke then. Could’ve fooled me….

Final verdict: Despite its dated, musty aroma, I did like the xerox-look. Channel Zero is like “Hulk” (ahhh, I get a snickering thrill just saying those words…)–someone should use this aesthetic to actually, you know, say something. Because this guy is saying nothin’, bupkes, sweet F.A.

If you want criticism of consumerism and media culture, try a) the Slits’ “Spend Spend Spend” (“I want to buy/Have you been affected?/I need consoooooling/You could be addicted”) or, better far, Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. Yeah, I prefer to treat consumerism as an existential rather than a strictly political problem. That’s why I’m Catholic, not Marxist. But that approach also allows me to be about twenty times more populist than the “Rupert Murdoch Is Eating Your Braaaaaaaain!!!!! Sheep!” school.

Daredevil: “Born Again,” “Elektra Lives Again,” and “Guardian Devil.” So I emailed Sean asking whether there were Daredevil books that explored the whole Catholic thing in a nuanced, non-wincemaking, possibly even insightful fashion. These were his three recommendations.

Of the three, “Born Again” really is as good as everyone says. Daredevil–blind lawyer by day, vigilante by night; Catholic womanizer with, eh, violence issues–is the kind of character that was made for me. I am one of the three million or so people in the world for whom Daredevil was personally handcrafted. “Born Again,” in which everything the guy has is stripped away bit by bit, is basically a big awl gouging deeper and deeper into the character so we can see everything that’s inside. I’ll have to reread it to see what I make of the “Catholic angle”–but that’s fine by me. Rereading it will be, if not precisely a pleasure, then the kind of mixed pleasure and pain condemned by Socrates but spurred by Raymond Chandler and his ilk.

“Elektra Lives Again” I’m much less sure about. I can see why people like the art–it’s cloudy and painterly–but I wanted lots less flesh and lots less weird-o-rama zombie plot.

“Guardian Devil”: The character study–how Daredevil and the people around him deal with situations of intense mistrust and trial–is great. Worth reading for that alone, maybe. In any series in which faith figures so prominently, such an incisive look at the limits of personal testimony and the far edges of ethical doubt is welcome.

But the superstructure, the plot cooked up to provoke these crises of personal trust and religious faith, really left me cold. It combined two elements I generally dislike in comics. Argh–I can’t even tell you what the second one is, because that would be spoiler-y, but the first one is “cosmic” elements and trappings. In this case we’re talking demons, which should not strike me as “cosmic”–they are a part of my very own beliefs–but the way they’re handled in this book did not seem to me to escape the objections I have to Marvel Universe aliens. I’m not sure I can really cash out why the demons felt “cosmic” rather than real, frightening, infernal; but they did. So, the plot–not a fan. It’s what the plot does to the characters caught in its machinery that’s worth watching.

Fire: This is good. Brian Bendis CIA story. Not sure what to tell you except, Go look at this, I think you’ll like it. Excellent use of layout, typical Bendis use of contrast between thoughts/text and images. Definitely persuaded me to seek yet more Bendis, not that I really needed much persuading.

Slow News Day: After all the sturm und drang above, here’s a nice slice of life. Sweet if somewhat predictable culture-clash romantic comedy about an American intern at a small-town English newspaper. Art not so much my thing (somewhere between “spare” and “stick-figure”), but well-observed dialogue.