Miranda Mercury: Am I the only one reading this?

valiance

So I tried to use spoiler tags to make this less gigantic and more readable. Lemme know if it works.

The Book:


THE MANY ADVENTURES OF MIRANDA MERCURY #295 (of 300)
Writer: Brandon Thomas (ROBIN)
Artist: Lee Ferguson (SUPERGIRL),
Inker: Marc Deering
Colorist: Felix Serrano.


Who is Miranda Mercury?

BRANDON THOMAS: Miranda Mercury is the star of the sci-fi adventure comic The Many Adventures of Miranda Mercury, which will begin publication in this very dimension through Archaia Studios Press on February 27, 2008. Some have called her the greatest adventurer in this or any other galaxy, but she doesn’t believe that impressive tagline for a second. Like most heroes whose own greatness and influence escapes them, Miranda exists in this kind of emotional vacuum where her actions are somewhat commonplace, a train of thought every intelligent being should logically follow. What person wouldn’t devote their life to experiencing every new world and culture one could experience? Or dedicate themselves to fighting injustice and intolerance on more planets than they could ever possibly visit? What kind of person does the impossible, and then does it again just so you know the last time wasn’t a joke?

They say one person can’t make a difference---that their relative insignificance makes them easily ignored, destroyed, or corrupted. Miranda Mercury would call these people cowards, offering the same level of disdain reserved for those who are causing a universe worth of problems in the first place.


My thoughts and preview pics:

So I got this today and I really hope people pick it up since it's pretty cool and will almost certainly need the support (well its a six issue series thus far but I'm assuming if it does well it may get picked up?). It's sort of a cartoony space adventure. Not quite pulpy but it's certainly not realistic or gritty. I feel like it's going to go over the top with space opera conventions, wacky science and bizarre alien worlds and if that sounds like your cup of tea (like if you're a Fear Agent fan) I urge you to go pick it up.

Luckily you don't have only my recommendation to go on, since I'm just some dude. We also get preview pics from issue 295 (really issue 1) out Feb 27th (2 days ago for those of you keeping track). You can check the site but since you guys are probably lazy and I'm trying to plug the book here are pages 1-10:

In a way I think it's a shame that the first 10 pages are the preview pics because I think the book only really takes off as this sequence is ending. Hopefully that gives some of you who are on the fence some incentive to check out the rest, if the first few pages have you interested but not fully sold.

You can get more preview pics from next issue and see the ones I just posted again at http://www.mirandamercury.com/previews.htm

I guess http://www.mirandamercury.com is their main site--they've got cover art for the next few issues, information on the creators, and some other neat stuff there. But I don't see a messageboard or anything like it so here I am making a thread about a book I think 3 people in GV have bought. Here's hoping it's not just me, Munch and wwtMask. But I guess if it is we at least have a cozy little thread to discuss the book in. If I screwed up this OP lemme know and I'll make with the edits.

Discussion SPOILER ALERT!!!:

Since I read the previews and read some backstory before getting the book I wasn't really surprised at much of the content. I knew about the poison in Miranda's veins, the Riddle of the Rebel Ronin being a Rubix Cube and basically the general plot of the whole book before I picked it up. But I was still surprised by Jack's attempted double cross (37 moves instead of 36) and Miranda's wish. I liked the idea of the mind expanding drug and the whole unlocking sequence was really well done. The art was solid throughout, I especially liked the way Rebel Ronin was drawn, but some of the storyboarding seemed a bit sloppy. I hate not being able to tell what is going on, and I felt like the art was cleanly and crisply drawn in style, but not clear in getting across meaning, especially in the early bounty hunting sequence.

Other links with cool info and interviews and stuff:

CBR basic info on the series: http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=12994
Comiccon has more good info from the creator: http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=007060
Newsarama stuff about art and character development: http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=147306
The Secret History of Miranda Mercury: http://www.comicsbulletin.com/ambi/11890103241818.htm
Random Review: http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?t=44585

Servo

i really like the design of the little villain guy. a little eric powell-esque, in a good way. who's publishing this bad jackson?

valiance

Servo wrote: »

i really like the design of the little villain guy. a little eric powell-esque, in a good way.

Yeah his design is pretty neat. I really like the design of Rebel Ronin, and Miranda's yellow and black shirt later in the issue (which you get to see if you... you know, buy the book). I'm feeling the red uniform but not as much as something more casual.

I really like the art on the book which a friend of mine described as Immomen-esque. I don't know if I would go that far, but there's definitely some of the same clean, smooth, stylized elements to the work, and I really like that kind of art. i.e. I'd take Immomen over Bagley on Ult Spidey and Cho over Bagley on Mighty Avengers. I don't mean to dump on Bagley, since he's a solid artist, but I just don't love his style. ((Strangely enough I also like Yu on New Avengers and he was magnificent on Birthright))

who's publishing this bad jackson?

Archaia Studios Press, apparently??: http://www.aspcomics.com/ O_o

Never heard of 'em before this but if this book is representative of their work they're doing good things.

DouglasDanger

That looks really fun.

Sars_Boy

yeah I picked this up, along with the Engineer

Mercury was great, but the engineer wasn't quite as good as the short in Popgun has lead me to believe

maybe issue 2 will pick up on that

wwtMask

No, you're not the only person reading this. I'll be picking this one up when I get to the store, hopefully this weekend.

valiance

wwtMask wrote: »

No, you're not the only person reading this. I'll be picking this one up when I get to the store, hopefully this weekend.

Get it yet?

Also: Another positive review from Chris' Invincible Super Blog http://www.the-isb.com/ :

The Many Adventures of Miranda Mercury #295: So is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that ever since Mouse Guard–which was excellent this week, by the way–exploded into popularity last year, Archaia Studios, which I was previously aware of only as the publisher of Artesia, has started getting behind a bunch of new projects that don’t necessarily fit in with their usual MO? Not that I’m complaining at all, I just wantedto mention it.

In any case, one of those interesting new properties is Miranda Mercury, and while I was originally drawn to it by the book’s High Concept, but I was surprised at how many High Concepts this issue actually had. There’s the most obvious one, of course–The fact that the series is building towards its title character’s death in #300 without actually bothering with the hassle of actually doing the 25-odd years of comics to actually get to #300–but the issue itself has one, too: Miranda and her kid sidekick (”Jack Warning: The Boy With the Golden Brain”) have to solve an impossible cosmic Rubick’s Cube to free the soul of a godlike half-robot samurai who grants wishes.

Now that, my friends, is High Concept.

Of course, the big idea is only half the work; it’s the execution that matters in the end, and on that front, I’m happy to report that Brandon Thomas and Lee Ferguson do a pretty good job with Miranda’s first and/or two hundred ninety-fifth outing, with a story that went in a direction I really wasn’t expecting, casting the heroine as a much sterner character than her lightning-bolt ponytail would indicate, including a forty-two panel double page spread that actually makes solving a Rubik’s Cube come off as a very tense sequence. It’s very fun stuff, so give it a look.

wwtMask

Yup, got it on Saturday and was quite pleased with it. I had a couple of quibbles. First, the cover had jaggies because the artist (or probably the letterer) probably didn't send an image which was Hi-rez enough for the size of cover. Second, in the first few pages where Miranda jumps out a window, I kinda had a hard time following what was happening and had to look at the sequence a few times to see what was happening. Other than that, though, I thought it was great. The artwork is excellent and I thought Thomas did some great dialogue. You bitches need to get up on this so I can have more Miranda Mercury past these six issues.

Munch

Sadly my shop didn't have this in stock when I went in, which sucks because they're usually really good about ordering indie books. So I had them order a copy for me, along with The Nearly Infamous Zango.

durandal4532

This seems really cool, I'll have to start picking this up.

I really like the setting. It's slightly cliched, but it's rarely done well, and this looks really put-together.

I also really like the alien language font. It's a cool way of making an "accent" for aliens, and it was neat to go back and realize that the gibberish I skipped was actually readable.