So I Read Global Frequency

A 250 word (or less) review of the complete Global Frequency series

By Warren Ellis, Garry Leach, Simon Bisley, Glenn Fabry, Chris Sprouse, Liam Sharpe, Karl Story, Roy Allan Martinez, Lee Bermejo, Jon J Muth, Tomm Coker, David Lloyd, Jason Pearson, and Gene Ha; Verigto Comics

Global Frequency is an interesting comic. Structurally it’s a collection of stand-alone comics written by Warren Ellis and each drawn by a different artist. Collectively the comic follows the missions of The Global Frequency, a kind of crowd-sourced rescue organization of loosely affiliated experts and operatives founded by the enigmatic Miranda Zero to save the humanity from the manufactured terrors of the modern world. Each individual chapter of the Global Frequency sees Zero and Aleph, her mission coordinator/operator, activate a network of “on the frequency” operatives to tackle threats from runaway engineering projects to homegrown terrorist cults. It's an interesting premise executed superbly. Now I could go on about all of the different little reasons this comic resonated with me: like the striking similarities between Global Frequency and my childhood beloved International Rescue, or the groundbreaking use of crowd-sourcing in a book published before the rise of social media, or the masterful way in which the done-in-one stories are executed... but I think that's all secondary to what makes Global Frequency great. I think ultimately what makes Global Frequency so effective is the sheer empathy of these comics. In every single chapter Ellis conducts gigawatts of empathy into the comic and this made me care about every single character and worry about every single consequence, from the giant and existential to the small and personal.  This empathy elevates Global Frequency and makes it profound. Global Frequency is smart, tense, and beautiful. It’s nearly perfection and I cannot recommend it enough.

Word count: 250 

(Incidentally I was wondering how this comic hasn't been made into a series, and apparently they once made a pilot... so... question answered, I guess.)

The Un-Watched-Men

Or What I Think of Before Watchmen

(There will be a few expletives in this one)

Seeing as how this is the week Before Watchmen launches, I kind of want to write some thoughts on ethics and creator rights and boycotts… but first I guess I have to write what I think of the misguided prequels to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s seminal classic Watchmen.

I think Before Watchmen is a transparent money grab and, as an overall concept, completely artistically bankrupt and completely unethical.

Suffice it to say, I will not be reading them.

Watchmen, is to comics what Moby Dick is to novels: it is this looming, challenging, masterwork that I think every comics fan has to at least try to read and come to terms with. I think it is a completed work, and I really enjoy it as it is. As such, I have no interest in reading other stories using Watchmen characters since they are at best unnecessary, and at worst will detract from the original work. Fiction, like food, is discretionary; you can (and should) choose not to eat shit.

Before Watchmen is also morally bankrupt. Alan Moore got, for a lack of a better phrase, fucked over by DC comics. He signed the contracts for Watchmen and V for Vendetta with the understanding that he and his co-creators, David Lloyd and Dave Gibbons, would eventually gain complete control of their work. This didn’t happen, which is immensely shitty. Exponentially more shitty is the fact that DC comics decided to make Before Watchmen against the expressed wishes of Alan Moore.

Not reading Before Watchmen is a moral decision as well as one based on taste.

Now, as terrible as the idea of Before Watchmen is, DC managed to somehow convince a number of very talented creators to make these books (I’d wager by OFFERING ALL THE MONEYS).  I don’t really blame the creators for taking the work, per se…  although I wish they were making books I was actually interested in reading.

So, yeah, Before Watchmen is deplorable and unwelcome. I won’t be reading them, and I don’t think anyone else should either.