[REVIEW] Dave's Comic Capsules Snippet for Oct 22

                    Dave's Unspoilt Capsules and Awards
         The Week's Picks and Pans, plus Awards of Dubious Merit

Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups.  Recommendation does
not factor in price.  Not all books will have arrived in your area this week.
Made my final buy from the old shop.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

Capsules:
     The regular Capsule reviews of books I actually buy.  If I get a book
late due to distributor foulups or whatever, I'll put it in the Missing
section.  
[snip]
     How To Draw Manga #26: Antarctic Press - Okay, I'd pretty much given up
on this series, but I couldn't resist an issue devoted to transforming
mecha.  It's broken up into three sections, but unlike a lot of HTDM issues,
they're all by the same person (Sherard Jackson).  The first section is more
a taxonomy than a how-to, and it strikes me that Jackson probably read
http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Fanfic/ThreeR at some point, since his
definitions/divisions lie pretty close to mine.  }->  The second part is a
useful bit on adding details and drawing joints, while the third emphasizes
drawing female robots (non-transforming).  I buy a lot of How To Draw Mecha-
type books, and this has a decent slice of that sort of product.
Recommended.  $4.95/$7.95Cn
     GIJoe vs. Transformers #4 (of 6): Image - The first few pages are pretty
badly laid out in terms of storytelling, a clear case of writing for the TPB
and ignoring the fact that not everyone rereads all previous issues before
reading a new one.  The storytelling improves later, but does tend to have
some awkward scene transitions.  Miller's artwork is pretty good, although
the highly organic (even Maguire-like) face on Megatron doesn't quite work
for me.  Of course, its clarity is very welcome after Jae Lee's shadows and
fog in Transformers/GIJoe, and the clean coloring is likewise welcome
compared to the overproduced Dreamwave house-murk.  Recommended.
$2.95/$4.35Cn 
[snip]
Awards:

[snip]
"What's A Rough Joint Like You Doing On A Nice Girl Like That?" Award to
     How To Draw Manga #26

"Reflector's Green With Envy...Or Coloring Error" award to GIJoe vs.
     Transformers #4 (of 6)
[snip]
     Dave Van Domelen, "Can't sleep!  Clowns will eat me!" - TMNTA #5