Sure, it will only be of moderate interest to a few people, but it's either that or me whinging about my job.
I'll pick a few recent comics.
Alias #4
Oh, crap. I forgot to put this comic on my pull list, and didn't pick up #3. Ok, onto...
The Authority #27
Oh, jeez. Well, let's start with the pros: Frank Quietly isn't drawing it anymore. Quietly could draw really nice-looking buildings, aircraft, even bodies. But he couldn't draw a human-looking face to save his life. As Sun Ra put it, all of his faces looked like wads of chewed gum. Every character looked like they had just had a marathon fight with a twelve-armed boxer. So maybe the new artist's buildings are as nice; at least the faces are human.
The cons? Well, that would be the story. Let's recap: Our heroes were killed off by a super-DUPER-powered villain (which I ranted about way back in January. But now, after a handful of mediocre issues describing their replacements, it turns out, ha ha, that they weren't killed after all. No, see, the bad guys, the ones who rule the world, are too eeeeeevil to merely kill the heroes. So they keep them alive in order to humiliate them, torture them, and just generally make them suffer. Anyone see a potential flaw in this plan? You know, the part where, in every damn story of this type, the heroes are saved, come back, and beat the crap out of the bad guys? Do bad guys not read in this universe? Have none of them seen a single action movie? How are these people evil geniuses if not one of them piped up and said "Hey, let's just kill them and atomize the bodies instead of going through a lengthy, expensive, and potentially reversible process to make them stupid/chain them up/mess with their minds?"
So, why do I keep buying this comic? I honestly don't know. In fact, I don't think I will anymore. If the writers can't be bothered to create intelligent villains, then they don't get my money.
Barry Ween #5
Will someone please give Judd Winick back his funny? He seems to have lost it.
Other than lacking the humor that made Barry Ween stand out as a comic, the story is...ok. It's not bad and the plot does move along, albeit sometimes too quickly. It feels like the writer is rushing past the good, action bits in order to dwell on the slow, "character growth" bits. Which, frankly, is not why I'm buying this comic. I want good action bits and a funny, foulmouthed little genius. Actually, even the character development parts of the story felt pretty rushed. I've said it before: Creators are at their best when they're poor and starving. The first two series of Barry Ween were just great, but this third series has been disappointing. Sure, it's still decent, even pretty good, but that's a long way from what it used to be.
Dark Knight Strikes Again #1
Jasona is smoking crack; this comic was pretty darn good. And, unlike Sun Ra, I think that the art is certainly no worse than it was in Dark Knight Returns. I'd even go so far as to say that it's slightly better. But some people are just way too picky about art in comics. As for me, I'm merely too picky.