CR receives two to three comics a day. That adds up. It's more than we can handle in our 200-plus formal reviews a year.
Some comics are reviewed right away. Some comics are never going to be reviewed. The remainder go into a giant basket. When the basket is full and must be emptied, it's time to run whatever commentary we can muster. It may not be a full review -- and even that ain't much -- but least it's something.
We greatly appreciate you sending in your material for review. Thank you. It helps us track what you're doing, and what's going on in the field. All of it gets read. If it doesn't end up reviewed that's my fault for not coming up with a proper idea. I hope you'll forgive me.
Below please find today's skeleton of reviews, a skeleton that will be filled with words throughout the day.
*****
Title:My Life as a Foot Creator: R Suicide Publishing Information: Conundrum Press, soft cover, 80 pages, October 2007, $15 Ordering Numbers: 1894994264 (ISBN10), 9781894994262 (ISBN13)
The nicest thing about a collection of work from an artist like Richard Suicide is the most fundamental one: this is like the only Richard Suicide book that many folks would want to own, and now they can. That's not something to dismiss in a comics industry where work can be spread out over 30 different publications, some of which go right into the trash seven days after being put out. Suicide combines a kind of underground big foot energy and socially questioning eye with that textured comics feel you get form many artists working out of a fine arts tradition. The collections allows us to see how many different variations Suicide manages in what seems like a limited approach -- I think I like a couple of the older and rougher-looking short stories the best, but it's also fascinating to see what looks like a couple of one-page reportage assignments, social observations if you will.
I'm looking forward to fully reviewing this work at some point in the spring closer to their re-release by Touchstone; I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that Touchstone is doing three books with Schrag in the new year. This one and Potential are out in April, while a new edition of Likewise will be out in September. I'm kind of surprised they didn't find a new title for this particular re-publication of two works, but I'm convinced all three will do well.
*****
Title:The Cynic: Jugs, Beavers and Exploding Balls Creators: Jeff Swenson Publishing Information: Self-published, soft cover, 132 pages, 2007 Ordering Numbers:
This is a selection of strips from the more recent years of Jeff Swenson's daily striop The Cynic, which has been going in one form or another since 2000. I've only seen the strip a couple of times; it's not my sense of humor, not by a thousand miles, but god bless anyone who's worked in the strip format for that long a period. Reading a bunch of them at once I'm struck by how much I don't like the lettering, enough to make it a major issue in my getting to read it. Talking about a craft element like that is something that often enrages web cartoonists who feel that such things shouldn't matter because they've said so, or because it doesn't matter to the majority of their readers. But for me it made everyone seems as if they were talking in an agitated, warbling voice, like being yelled at by Julia Child. This was exacerbated by a staging that seems to feature a lot of individuals with their mouths wide open and the figures kind of gripping that mouth, as if they're once again shouting to be heard. While many may argue that to talk about these elements misses the wider point of the strip, I can't help but think I'd see the humor and the interpersonal relationships in a lot different light if I could better process how they're presented to me. I might still find myself on a completely different planet than the kind of jokes being told, to put it lightly, but I would have suspicions that there are different ways to read them.
I kind of like that cover, at least the design choices to go with a strong purple and shove all the technical information to the bottom. Imagine my surprise when I open up the book and it's a superhero parody. The twist this time is that it's a middle-aged garbage man that gains power rather than college student or whatever. There's nothing in the black and white art and fairly straight-forward characterization that indicates there's going to be a lot that's special about the author's exploration of this single, not-very-dramatic twist. If it's like dozens and dozens of similar titles that have come out in the last 30 years, it won't stick around past a few issues so that we'll see.
*****
Title:PVP Vol. 2 #37 Creators: Scott Kurtz Publishing Information: Image, comic book, 24 pages, November 2007, $3.50 Ordering Numbers:
I'm not certain why people have such a strong, negative reaction to Scott Kurtz's comics. It may be that we live in a rocks/sucks world at which gaming culture teeters on the cutting. It could be that people simply don't like Kurtz whom I recall is known as an outspoken creator. Or maybe they just have a straight-up reaction to the work that I don't share. While it's not my sense of humor, the work seems solidly constructed in a way that serves its jokes, it's cleanly designed and there are some interesting formal elements -- I'm not sure I know another creator who makes frequent use of a five-panel grid, for example. Another thing I always hear is that PVP is somehow baffling if you aren't immersed in gamer culture, but I have yet to encounter a joke I don't understand and the last game I played was a basketball video game in 1991 that let me load up by ball team with all of the LA Lakers' useless back-ups, much to my opponents' disdain.
Where I do see some signs of danger is in the strip become too cloistered or repetitive over time, something that hits a lot of features several years in. While the strip is set up to represent a variety of opinions as they pertain to gaming, I'm not sure that all of them are equally versatile in areas of interest outside of that, the kind of things that become more important as a strip shows its age. There's no shame in that; some strips have a longer life than others. I'm not just certain what kind of feature PVP is in those terms, at least not yet.
*****
Title:Fearless #1 Creators: Mark Sable, David Roth, PJ Holden Publishing Information: Image Comics, comic book, 32 pages, November 2007, $2.99 Ordering Numbers:
This reads to me like a pretty standard superhero comic book, maybe featuring better craft elements than usual, with the slight caveat that it deals with the mindset necessary for vigilante action as much as the abilities to make good on the decisions made while thinking that way. Instead of merely doing that for your average superhero they externalize it into a function of the superhero's power, but the possibility for exploration and commentary is there. I'll check out a subsequent issue or two.
It makes total sense to me that Simpsons comics have never become a huge thing in the comics market, although I'm sure they do very well according to those modest standards. The continuing popularity of the show would seem to demand ancillary products, but despite some feature-y supportive stuff on a few pages, the comics stories are in a lot of way ways repeating the pleasures of a TV show that's on in most markets twice a day and available on DVD 24-7. That means the comic probably gets its audience from a combination of some people who really like the comics form and the creators and whatnot for themselves, and those who simply want as much Simpsons as they can stand. The comics in there are fine: the Even Dorkin-written story about Bart receiving an all-you-can-place-in-a-cart toy shopping spree has a solid premise. I'm not sure Dorkin quite gets Homer Simpson, though, and I wouldn't be surprised if he had more of a respect than a passion for the entire franchise. A second story by Tony Digerolamo gets a boost from being a story about a couple of the characters rather than a story that could appear on the TV show without explanation, but fell flat for me gag-wise.
*****
Title:Catwoman: The Replacements Creators: Will Pfeifer, David Lopez, Alvaro Lopez Publishing Information: DC Comics, soft cover, 144 pages, February 2007, $14.99 Ordering Numbers: 1401212131 (ISBN10), 9781401212131 (ISBN13)
This shouldn't be in the basket; I interviewed the writer Will Pfeifer recently, and the comic must have moved from one part of my office to another. Still, it's a perfect comic for noting that unlike many people I know, I think a lot of superhero comics are actually fairly well done. Comics like this one, plugged into a soap opera formula with action-adventure elements about the costume-wearing thief and her struggles to balance life in the crazy-ass world of the DC superhero universe with being a mom, seem sturdy in the way that certain nighttime television dramas appear as if they're well-crafted. The thing I can't get past is the idea that there's enough of an audience out there that wants that form of storytelling through superhero costumes and quandaries for this to last past the current generation. It may be a moot question -- it's not like there's any room or appetite for comics to go back to the cheap, lurid thrills category, not anymore. It does make me wonder, though.
Is there anyone on a stranger roll in comics right now than Doug TenNapel? Not only does he keep pumping out the graphic novels, he has his own connections to Hollywood and therefore, I'd guess, one of the healthier set of projects in further development that way, too. Flink is the latest of his odd, sweetly drawn, fantasy graphic novels, this one about the relationship between a boy and a Bigfoot bearing the name that on the front of the book. Probably the most traditional of his recent stories, and therefore the least interesting on that level, the two leads form a caring relationship that endangers each of them within both of their cultures. Will the characters stay the course despite the dangers? Will there be a happy ending? Are there ideologically conservative messages hiding just beneath the loosely drawn surface? Only one way to find out, but your guess is probably a pretty good one.
*****
Title:Bonds #2 Creators: Durwin S. Talon Publishing Information: Image, comic book, 32 pages, October 2007, $3.99 Ordering Numbers:
I was unable to find a way to connect to this comic book on any level, although the art has certain surface sophistication that I'm sure will knock some people out, and the thought of someone committing murders that they experience as metaphor-laden dreams is an interesting one. Despite the strength of the visuals, there's so much talking here, of the vague allusion to greater meanings beyond everything you've known to date variety, and a lot of proclamations of love and fealty, that it was hard to shake the feeling I was being told what to think of what was going on rather than left to experience it on my own. That punted me right of the book by making me over-aware of the creator's voice behind what I was seeing. The artificiality of the entire exercise kicked in, and I found myself not really wanting to continue on to the next issue just to have something presented on my behalf.
*****
Title:Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace Vol. 4: 1957-1958 Creator: Hank Ketcham Publishing Information: Fantagraphics, hard cover, 672 pages, November 2007, $24.95 Ordering Numbers: 1560978805 (ISBN10), 9781560978800 (ISBN13)
The fact that Hank Ketcham hit a groove fairly quickly and for such a formidable span of years makes individual volumes of Fantagraphics' collection of Dennis the Menace as hard to write about as it is hard for me at least to conceive of the average comics fan wanting all of these books. For what it's worth, Ketcham seems all the way out of the strip's more chaotic early period by this book, and in his prime he was a great gag man, writing jokes that not only captured the moment but suggest a before and after -- if you think that's easy, you're insane. As Peter Bagge points out, these volumes might also serve to discourage anyone from cartooning ever again, such was his skill as an artist. Talk about not appreciating something beautiful in our midst for so many years.
This mini-comic holds two different genre stories: one a fantasy adventure with some hints of real-world and mythological underpinnings, and one a martial arts/spy story with a bit of the same. Vutuyan's art reminds me of a lot of small press work from the 1980s, traditionally accomplished but rather stiff, with problems in the staging of certain scenes.
This is a more accomplished than usual mini-comic by a person that seems to be a very nice fellow and MCAD graduate in Minneapolis named Ed Moorman. It is also one of the more sickly-sweet comics I've read in such a while. Every single comic seems to feature Ed's stand-ins or one of the other characters reaching for a moment of poetry and insight, and after a while, it's kind of exhausting. I wish I could write a review that felt like something more than I just made a mean joke at someone's expense in a middle school classroom, but there's little else onto which I can grasp. The work of fiction at mini's end is probably the best of the stories because it allows Moorman to get out of his own head a bit, but there's nothing in that story that surprises or enlightens in a way to make it more memorable except in contrast to the other. The tribute to a cousin on the back cover "who liked Peter Bagge" ends up being the most affecting thing in the comic instead of a coda to affecting things in the comic because of its directness, and the odd choice of crossing out the drawn figure.
I don't have anything to add that wasn't said about the first volume, but the second in this series of Moomin is every bit as desirable as the first. This despite settling into a kind of formula whereby a visitor or new person wanders into the feature and causes chaos for several installments before the essential mellow acceptance of our lead characters gently forces an amenable resolution. Actually, that description is nonsense, but it sort of feels like there's a baseline kind of form to these strip arcs, even if I can't describe. Plus the damn thing is so beautiful; Jansson designs characters with a touch of God's grace, and her work with incremental detail as a visual cue to speed up or slow down or even settle in just kills me. This is a beautiful presentation of a beautiful, idiosyncratic work.
*****
Title:Salvation Run #1 Creators: Bill Willingham, Sean Chen, Walden Wong Publishing Information: DC Comics, comic book, 32 pages, November 2007, $2.99 Ordering Numbers:
This is a terrible comic book that manages a feat much more impressive than anything you'll see in its pages: it is both labored and underdeveloped. The labored part is the stunt-programming nature of the mini-series, as various DC bad guys shipped off to generic fight planet #43 because their actions on DC's earth are just too awful to deal with anymore. The underdeveloped part is everything about its execution, from the Telly Savalas-level tough guy talk of the leads to the nonsensical nature of sending people off to a planet to die with all their weapons and costumes, to the broadly obvious character interplay. There's a sadness and pathetic quality to this comic's existence that I'm unable to communicate in words, as despite liking many of the creators I could never shake my first reaction: "It's come to this?"
*****
Title:Diary of a Catering Whore Year One Creator: Sean Seamus McWhinny Publishing Information: Self-published, mini-comic, 36 pages, 2007, $3 Ordering Numbers:
This is a great idea for a comic presented with a lot of enthusiasm by creator Sean Seamus McWhinny: comics from the point of view of a catering service, with lots of insight into the particulars in addition to portraits of people at their worst. The execution doesn't quite live up to the premise, though, and that's a terrible thing to say, because it's not like McWhinny is doing anything wrong. The craft chops just aren't there. The stories therefore tend to be told in a kind of driving first-person that doesn't flatter the observational aspects of the material, and the visuals are frequently unlovely and focus on perspective shots and exaggeration which at times overpower the moments within the stories. I'm not sure what the solution is other than I want these stories to be better.
*****
Title:Proof #1 Creators: Alexander Grecian, Riley Rossmo, Tyler Jenkins Publishing Information: Image, comic book, 32 pages, October 2007 Ordering Numbers:
This is a more charming than usual Image comic book where a Bigfoot is part of an investigative team that goes after cryptids, animals that are rumored to exist but no physical evidence exists for them -- the creatures in Jacob Covey's Beasts! book, essentially. The art is appealing and loose, and the banter seems sturdy enough, but both are put in service of such a horrible cliche that it's hard to see this book being able to sustain itself if a single false note crops up along the way, and maybe not even if everything else is perfect. That's a lot of pressure to put on a book, pressure that could have been alleviated a bit with a more original structure or backstory. Although I wouldn't be surprised if this were something of hit 12 issues down the line, I'm afraid I've already lost interest, and wouldn't be surprised if this crashed and burned, either.
*****
Title:Comic Strip Masterpieces Creators: Various Publishing Information: Various, tabloid, 16 pages, November 2007, $1 Ordering Numbers:
This is a mostly promotional flyer put together by Checker, Fantgraphics, D&Q and IDW to promote their various comic strip collections by spotlighting their efforts page to page with the kind of presentation they used to enjoy back in the day they were originally serialized. As such, it's not a serious artistic effort, but a pleasurable little item. It may be my age, or it may be something about the ways the colors settle into this kind of paper, but there's something bout seen this work on newsprint that offers up a particular sense of joy. It's also interesting to see some of those features one next to another. Despite some really strange selections in terms of the strip utilized, the BC page seems to more than hold its own next to works that can boast of a much greater critical reputation. This is one of those promotional items you keep.
*****
Title:Cartooning Creators: Ivan Brunetti Publishing Information: Buenaventura Press, soft cover, 80 pages, 2007, Bundled With Comic Art Vol. 9 Ordering Numbers:
This is the small booklet bundled with the latest issue of Todd Hignite's Comic Art, in this case a small book from Ivan Brunetti that presents both a philosophy of cartooning and a practicum/syllabus that should help just about anyone arrive at a greater understanding of what Brunetti preaches. In summing up an excellent and heartfelt introduction, the cartoonist compares a key to making comics to the cooking of a simple pasta recipe that crucially depends on not burning the garlic in the oil very early on, a nice of way of describing how some of the best comics have a central quality that either works or does not, and a nod in the direction of craft. I liked the book enough I want to take the course, and I was a terrible student.
*****
Title:This Is Still America #2 Creators: George Publishing Information: Self-Published, mini-comic, 32 pages, 2007 Ordering Numbers: I believe this is carried by Bodega Distribution.
This is fine little mini-comic, with its best feature thin-line artwork that is initially off-putting but more than creates the world and tells the story its author intends. Although I'm not certain how this fits into any earlier issue, this story seems to be about a young child living with an abusive father. The best extended sequence comes when the father forces the child to fight, which we know the child doesn't want to do because it may scotch his chance to return to another guardian (his mother?), but the comics is fairly haunting and therefore compelling throughout.
*****
Title:The Art of Greg Capullo Creators: Greg Capullo, Todd McFarlane Publishing Information: Todd McFarlane Productions, soft cover, 168 pages, January 2007, $24.99 Ordering Numbers: 9781582408392
I don't have the art chops or the art criticism chops to tell you if the individual works highlighted in The Art of Greg Capullo are good pieces of art or not. Accessing my personal taste reminds me that I'm not a big fan of the kind of over-rendering (lines for the sake of lines) that a few of the color pieces portray, and that some of the foreshortening of the couple of the portrait subjects' arms seems like they could have been reconsidered. That's minor stuff, though, and I'm fully aware that the longtime Spawn artist has the high regard of thousands of devote fans, including Todd McFarlane. I'm all for art books featuring cartoonist and comics illustrators, and this one is better than average in terms of production, at least to my lousy eye when it comes to those matters. As much as I'm happy to see a good soldier like Capullo get this sort of showcase, I would almost certainly take a pass on purchasing one. A lot of the visual moments fail to hold my interest; I'm just not all that intrigued by McFarlane's two cop characters or Spawn himself striking a prose in service of a story moment.
*****
Title:Strange Girl #18 Creators: Rick Remender, Peter Bergting, Publishing Information: Image, comic book, September 2007, $4.99 Ordering Numbers:
This is I believe the last issue of Rick Remender and Eric Nguyen's post-Rapture fantasy adventure series Strange Girl, and if you ever wondered how someone ends a story that begins with a classic ending of all believers going to heaven, the answer is a do-over. After speaking things over with God, our lead gets him to rewind the clock and not call his believers home at the moment he did at the series' beginning. It's cute, and it also gets to one of the presumptions that I think a lot of people take to stories of people flying to heaven: how can something decidedly so holy be so horrific and terrifying? Peter Bergting handles the scary monsters and the talky parts with equal aplomb. In a way, this series always read to me a bit too eager to please, a bit too self-aware of its status as story and/or concept than something into which a reader might lose themselves. Still, I'm certain it had plenty of fans that will miss its appearance in comic shops every so often.
And if that's not the last issue I take it all back.
The best thing about Emily Blair's Xeric Award-winning one-shot Living Statues is the appearance of layered metaphors touching on the relationship between art and real life: teachers vs. artists, living statues versus actual statues, history versus present day, honesty versus lying, connecting with someone else versus bullshit small talk, views through a camera as opposed to taking a view in, being caught up in the foreground and not taking in all that's around you. It's refreshing to see a book ready to look at a mess of comparisons and not to come to any pat resolution regarding any of them. While many might point towards a certain stiffness in the art, I found a bigger detraction a kind of over-formal quality to the writing, a lack of distinction between various choices and an over-reliance on clever transitions. Both I would imagine have a chance of decreasing over time. I know I'd look at Blair's next comic.
*****
Title:Poison the Cure #1 Creators: Jad Ziade, Alex Cahill Publishing Information: The New Radio, comic book, 104 pages, 2007, $9 Ordering Numbers: http://www.newradiocomics.com
Alex Cahill's art is probably the best thing and the roughest thing about Poison the Cure #1. At times it's hard to follow the action and keep things straight character to character. At other moments you kind of sit back to enjoy the more stylized sections, the way that stars crowd the night sky or a forest become suggested by a few ragged lines and conflicting areas of space. Jad Ziade's story involves a dystopia shaken apart by small-level moves for independence based on localized political conflict and core issues of trust and exploitation and freedom, and it's well-paced; the reader should never feel like the story has gotten away from them but there's definitely remains something beyond what we're directly experiencing. A lot depends on where the story goes from here: if the narrative ends up being compelling and representative of certain thematic truths or at least provides a few issues of intriguing exploration, or if it stays mired in vague generalities.
*****
Title:Savage Dragon #133 Creators: Erik Larsen, John Workman Publishing Information: Image, comic book, 32 pages, 2007, $2.99 Ordering Numbers:
There was a time not long past when a lot of superhero fans swore by Erik Larsen's long-running Savage Dragon series as the modern heir to superhero comics past, moving forward at 100 miles an hour and buoyed by a collective sense of its own comic book past as a way to add resonance and meaning to the current goings-on, a beneficiary of the mid-1960s Marvel comics above all others. I hear much, much less of that now, and this latest issue seemed more like filler than the kind of an example of the kind of fearless, propulsive storytelling about which I'd been warned. Savage Dragon and his kid tie up a plot point by finding a friend alive; Savage Dragon finds his kid a superhero team with which to train. There are hints at some sub-plots and two fight scenes of varying length, but as far as substantive plot goes, there's little that hasn't already been mentioned. I wonder if what I see as lethargy is a sign of Larsen's changing interests or simply the fact that you can't put a roller on top of such material for too long without some holes opening up.
This is a cute mini-comic done almost entirely in ugly stick figures. Most people will be able to relate to the idea of an insufferable, chatterbox co-worker that won't stop dogging their heels, and the extent to which Reeves goes to capture the full power of Carl's obnoxiousness is the one recommendation-worthy of this modest comic. And that's about it.
*****
Title:Supernatural Law: Wolff & Byrd: The Movie Creators: Batton Lash, Trever Nielson, Melissa Uran Publishing Information: Exhibit A Press, comic book, 32 pages, 2007, $3.50 Ordering Numbers:
Batton Lash is one of my favorite to see at various comics functions. He's about as nice as he can be, plus he's quick and funny. In fact, he reminds me a lot of various comic strip people I know. Like a lot of them, Lash works an extremely hard to negotiate corner of the comics medium that was once a lot more popular than it is today: in their case, newspaper comics pages; in his, black and white comic book self-publishing. What Batton does with his Supernatural Law lawyers for monsters and related creatures characters Wolff & Byrd generally results in a kind of comic that's not my cup of tea. It's an almost old-fashioned way of doing comics humor, very ingrained in character and presenting situations that are both reminiscent of some outside cultural phenomenon while also acting out according to precepts established in previous comics.
Despite Lash's occasional design flourish, it really works like a TV or a movie that could have a TV show spin-off. It's sturdy in the way that television shows in the 1970s through the early 1990s that captured a comedian's essence for the 8 PM ET crowd were: solidly constructed, but in a way that made you want to see the original stand-up. I think in most cases I'd rather hear Batton describe his stories than to read the final comics form, which is the kind of observation that usually invites someone to strike you upside the head. Well, maybe I deserve it. The recent comic of his I liked best was this movie special, that managed to build in a number of short comics parodies into the narrative. Most memorable is a spot-on Sin City riff that reads like a classic MAD Magazine bit of business in that it's funny whether or not you've seen the source material.
*****
Title: Ruffians #5-6 Creators: Brian Canini Publishing Information: Drunken Cat Comics, comic book (all newsprint), 16 pages, February/April 2007, $1.50 each Ordering Numbers: http://www.drunkencatcomics.com
These sort-of funny animal fantasy books are two of the flat-out oddest comics in the basket. First of all, they're in a strange newsprint format where the cover is also made out of newsprint, a format I haven't seen since I worked for the Republican party in the early 1980s and occasionally a candidate would do a flyer that way. Second, the comics themselves are weird: a stuffed-animal character named Scare (he's a bear) is in jail trying to negotiate a way to (I think) stop a series of murder that will eventually lead to his own demise. The sixth issue actually involves a visit by Scare to his creator's place, kind of a less pompous version of Animal Man getting to meet Grant Morrison, except with photos. There's a certain part of me that loves comics like this, because they're so strongly anti-commercial, there's no movie deal coming for something like this. I wish only the best for Mr. Canini, and not just because his comic allowed me as a reader to sort of meet him.
*****
Title:Brielle and the Horror #1 Creators: Jared Barel, Jordan Barel, Alex Goz Publishing Information: Loaded Barrel Studios, comic book, 28 pages, 2007 Ordering Numbers:
The distinguishing factor -- beyond the fact that this is another small press book in the basket with no price on it -- on this comic is that instead of comics art it feature altered photography. I'd heard of several projects like floating around, but this is the first one I've seen. It's nothing to write home about. What the creators here gain from having a unique visual look to their project they lose in a certain stiffness in the poses and that old enemy of North American fumetto: where one puts the lettering and how they make it look. If you read enough Dave McKean, you already know this approach can work, just maybe not saddled with an overheated plot with unsubtle, angry teens and a generally florid set of interpersonal character relationships -- if it were a movie, and I'm not sure why it isn't, it would almost certainly be straight to video.
*****
Title:love stories Creators: Mat Tait, Michael Brown Publishing Information: Self-Published, comic book, 28 pages, July 2007 Ordering Numbers: http://www.mattait.com
The best story in Mat Tait's "solo anthology" is called "Shortcuts to Enlightenment," where an unseen narrator describe a process by which you build a strange room onto your house, open it years and year later to find you put a chair there, and then sit in the chair. It's funny and slightly creepy, in both overt ways that may remind readers of surface elements of Al Columbia's work and more subtle tricks of design and spacing. Most of the work is reasonably strong, actually, although also relentlessly lightweight; the book comes across like one of those collections of small press work artists used to generate right before heading onto a different phase of their careers. I could see that with Tait, one can see a definite progression in the work here, from panels that don't work as well as others and some strange choices in terms of transitions all the way to more assured versions of the same.
*****
Title:Styx Taxi #1 Creators: Steven Goldman, Jeremy Arambulo Publishing Information:FWD Books, comic book, 24 pages, July 2003, $2.50 Ordering Numbers:
This one's been in the basket so long that prices have gone up on all comics of its type since Styx Taxi #1's initial publication. The nice thing about that delay is I think I can more safely say point out where the book is lacking in an area or two without it being a partial referendum on whether or not the series should continue. Simply put, an appealing high concept becomes lot on the page, not through the art the way these things usually work but I think in terms of putting a story to the idea. Although it was easy to track permutations of the underlying concept through moments of plot, I frequently got lost in terms of the stakes involved for individual characters, how they changed as the mechanics of the plot were altered on the way to the story's conclusion. I suspect, or at least hope, that future comics have been and will be beneficiaries of more experience by the series' writer.
I sort of liked the first issue of this comic book story based on Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer painting when it appeared, if only because the thing reflected a kind of unadorned integrity on the part of the artists involved, combined with a certain level of skill when it came to creating memorable fantasy images of the kind that 12-year-old boys and the 12-year-old boys that live in our hearts love unabashedly. This I guess is a special black and white version of that comic, and is still quite handsome, if not more so, and still has the limited appeal (at least for me) that the original, color comic did. It's a weird thing to make comics out of Frazetta's imagery because part of what works about those paintings is that they suggest a story in a single moment; it's almost like demanding to know how a magician does his tricks to see the story points spelled out in front of you rather than simply sensed as part of that iconic image. But if someone needs to do these things I'd rather it be someone that gets a lot of joy from the effort, as these artists seem to.
*****
Title:Strange Embrace #5 Creators: David Hine, Rob Steen, Comicraft Publishing Information: Image Comics, comic book, 32 pages, October 2007, $2.99 Ordering Numbers:
This ended up being one of the strangest comics reading experiences I had this Fall, a supernatural horror comic where I enjoyed the stories with the stories just fine but could make no sense of the framing sequence. I mean no sense to the point I thought it was working one way and then there was a clue that I was totally wrong. It might have helped had I not come into this at the beginning of the second half, but I'm also pretty skilled at making such of comics narratives, so I'd say that's a wash. The attraction for many people here will be Hine's stylized but sharply creepy art, which I'll admit is attractive but not, at least for me, appealing in the way most accomplished comics art can be.
*****
Title:Dynamo 5 #8 Creators: Jay Faerber, Mahumd A. Asrar, Ron Riley Publishing Information: Image, comic book, 32 pages, October 2007, $2.99 Ordering Numbers:
This superhero comic book about a team assembled from the illegitimate children of a randy superman-type -- kind of a Dudley Boys for spandex, I guess -- has received praise in certain quarters. I don't share those folks' high estimation of the work. I would guess it appeals on the basis of being a kind of retro comic, but the period being fondly remembered seems to be forgettable, mid-'90s DC mid-list than anything I would go out of my way to rediscover. Unlike Robert Kirkman's Invincible, Dynamo 5 doesn't seem to have anything to say about the comics it references nor does it have the kind of animating spark that would make revisiting such work enjoyable unless you've really, really missed it. In other words, that just seems like a dopey superhero comic book to me.
*****
Title:The Adventures of Millie Piddley Pup Creators: Graeme Macdonald, Chris Catlin Publishing Information: Local Act Comics, comic book, 28 pages, 2006 Ordering Numbers:
This is just as it appears: a long way from being ready for prime time comics publication and distribution, for the rough content, the bizarre size of the logo, and the fact that I can't find a price tag. Comics' low threshold for participating has a lot of advantages, but we should probably remind ourselves every now and then that things like this are possible under that system, too. I'm sure everyone involved is very nice, and there's something distasteful about being so negative about someone trying to make you laugh, like throwing your own feces at a stand-up you don't like, but this comic won't manage to convince anyone of its inherent skill or the effort of its making. Bad dog.
*****
Title: Superspy Creator: Matt Kindt Publishing Information: Top Shelf, soft cover, 336 pages, August 2007, $19.95 Ordering Numbers: 9781891830969 (ISBN13)
Matt Kindt's intricate wartime spy drama deserves far better than what I'll be able to manage on its behalf today. The problem is that it's so complex I'll need a second and probably third read-through in order to figure out what I truly think about it. My first impression is that this could be the underground critical favorite of the year, the book for which more people hold more affection than the works that make most of the actual top tens. At 300-plus pages, Kindt's able to develop most of his arching narratives through obtuse entry points, repetition and a slow-drip story momentum that I think he uses rather well. What I can't decided right now is whether or not this is a complex puzzle made up of pieces in primary color, or if the scene to scene work hold together in a way that flatters the overall result. I'll get back to you on this one. But If you're looking for a comics work that could work as a holiday vacation carry-with-you read, this is the best one I've seen outside of the new ACME date book.
*****
Title:Scott Bateman's Sketchbook of Secrets & Shame Creators: Scott Bateman, various essayists Publishing Information: Word Riot Press, soft cover, 176 pages, 2006, $12 Ordering Numbers: 0977934306 (ISBN10)
I couldn't figure out why I was in no way familiar with Scott Batmean until I looked up his web site: he's an animator-cartoonist, not a comics-cartoonist, which gets me off the hook. I liked his book, which is basically panel cartoons shrunk down so that a few can fit on a page interspersed with commentary from various alt-culture comedic personalities telling us how great Bateman is. I liked the book not for the commentaries, which are typeset in ugly fashion and tend more towards banal than using, but for the little joke panel cartoons, which are clever and a lot stronger than anyone's throwaway work has any right to be. At $12, it's a thick little read, too, with a lot of work between the covers. Two or three of the gags you may not only find funny but they make you intensely jealous for not having come up with them first. That' s high praise. I don't want to go out of my way over-praising the book; I'm happy for Batman to continue his animation and have no plans to kidnap him and sent him to work on prose. But for what this was, I liked it.
*****
Title:The Last Christmas Creators: Gerry Duggan, Brian Posehn, Rick Remender, Hilary Barta, Michele Madsen Publishing Information: Image, soft cover, 176 pages, November 2006, $14.99 Ordering Numbers: 1582406766 (ISBN10), 9781582406763 (ISBN13)
This is an odd book, and not in the way I think it's intended to be an odd book. A straight-forward comedy about Santa Claus dealing with a nukes-then-zombies apocalypse, the humor careens wildly between laughing because it's Santa doing unwholesome things and a more traditional kind of comedy that arises out of establishing a character and consequences and then marching him through them. It's the second half of that last sentence that becomes the part of the book I don't think is as well-developed as it should be; the authors' depiction of the Santa milieu never becomes its own, distinct set of characters and milieu and is so far removed from what I'm familiar with as a kid that once the crude shock of Santa Behaving Badly wore off I was no longer interested. Still, if you're directly on the wavelength of the authors, you'll probably have a good time. Hilary Barta finishing Rick Remender proves to be quite the attractive combination, although the character designs might disappointment.
This is a big, appealing comic of the kind you don't see anymore: comedic, narrative fiction. Two brothers and potential heirs to a prominent law firm and its attendant fortune find out their dad had been having an affair with the free-spirited pool boy. Most of this issue is left to Felix Moochowski taking an invitation of one of the two brother to visit as an offer to move in with him and his family. Much chipping away at the icy dysfunction of the family begins to take place. It's a nice comic, drawn in an attractive reminiscent of someone blending two different phases of Howard Cruse's long career. It's in that art and the over the top way that so many of the scenes are played that will probably win over or lose the casual reader. Some may enjoy the energy; others may see it as a little too mannered despite its quick pace. I've seen enough I'd like to catch up on further issues, and while I don't imagine a majority of comics readers would automatically agree with me on that, it's worth checking out a page or two to see if this is your kind of thing -- because really, it's not the kind of thing for a lot of people anymore. It's also a 1986 period piece, which I barely noticed except that some of the musical acts in a list late in the comic might be a bit past the time being portrayed.
*****
Title:Television #1 Creators: Ryan Alexander-Tanner Publishing Information: OhYesVeryNice Comics, comic book, 32 pages, October 2007, $3 Ordering Numbers:
While Mr. Alexander-Turner deserves to be punched in the face several times for what may be the ugliest cover to any comic book I've seen this year, the comedic insides turned out to be okay. The highlight is an interview with Kato Kaelin put into comics form, mostly for how the cartoonist keeps visual interest going through the piece, but I also liked a short story about a pair of ostensible bridge-jumpers that takes a surprising (at least to me) turn. Like many comics, there's nothing at all wrong with what's going on here, just a general wish that it all be sharper, that the art improve in its visual sophistication and overall attractiveness and the verbal interplay become more distinctive. Put a real cover on the comic, and I'd definitely take a look at issue #2
The thing I like best about this very crude effort is that Rusty Beech's crazy art slips back and forth between styles that makes a pretty pedestrian genre script that much more interesting, almost a flicker effect that distorts the entire reality on display. The comic fairly wears its indy-comics propers on its sleeve. It's nice to have the freedom that comes with ground-level publishing, but the work has to stand on its own, and except for those who get some sort of artistic kick out of inarticulate comic book making I can't imagine most people enjoying this at all.
*****
Title:After Life Creators: Graeme McDonald, Gareth Colliton Publishing Information: Local Act Comics, comic book, 24 pages, 2006 Ordering Numbers: http://www.localactcomics.com.au
Even though it peters out at the end with a twist-style ending, After Life proves to be a halfway decent comics short story. A sick man downloads his consciousness into a computer system with limited sensory abilities just in time for the world to basically go to shit. The cavalier obnoxiousness of the lead is the best thing about it, how he dismisses both his wife (too old; no longer sexy), his critics (clueless) and his children (ungrateful). Many will find the unrelenting bleakness of the future historical outcome amusing on some level as well. What the story lacks is enough depth or impact to carry its own publication. It's brief enough you feel sort of bad when you read supplementary material that takes longer to consume than the comic itself. Way better than I thought it would be, though, as much as that's worth anything.
I'd heard from other mini-comics readers and people like Tom Devlin that there were mini-comics out there where the most obvious influences were cartoonists from Fort Thunder, but I'd never seen one before. Black Wings follows a character that looks a lot like the creatures from Mat Brinkmans's Oaf as he knocks from the sky a winged version of his kind, takes its wings, and then proceeds to plod onward, the plucked wings now dragging on the ground. It's an amusing sequence; I like both the one image per page approach and the mark making by which each image is composed, almost like a cross between ink and the way that lights distort when used to depict a figure or form. It's not there yet, but it's not a wholly uninteresting comic, either. I'd gladly trade for one.
*****
Title:Essex County Volume Two: Ghost Stories Creators: Jeff Lemire Publishing Information: Top Shelf, soft cover, 224 pages, September 2007, $14.95 Ordering Numbers: 9781891830945
This is a solid piece of fiction from cartoonist Jeff Lemire, detailing the saga of one lonely, mostly isolated man as he tries to come to terms with a life distinguished by a brief career in hockey and a complex relationship with a dear, younger brother. I imagine Lemire to be a younger cartoonist; while some of the artwork is evocative a few of the scene-setting pages fail to hit as hard as they could -- I never really thought I was watching a real minor league hockey game, for instance, as much as a suggestion of one. There are area also several moments of staging that count on back and forth moves between views from the front of an individual person's, a tendency I found distracting. Still, despite some elements that didn't come together and an overall feeling like I was in a story rather than simply losing myself to that story, I liked the unexpected plot developments of the third act, and the generally humane treatment of all the characters. I can't really recommend this book, but I look forward to seeing work of the cartoonist's down the line.
*****
Title:MA.B #1 Creators: Graeme McDonald, Dave Cunning, Chris Catlin Publishing Information: Local Act Comics, comic book, 24 pages, 2006, $2.99 Ordering Numbers:
Another crudely realized effort from Local Act Comics, this drama from writer Graeme McDonald and artists Dave Cunning and Chris Catlin has a few things going for it: a tried and true pulp skeleton of a woman being pursued into uncharted territories where a confrontation is likely, an unrelenting ugliness to the characters and the writer's willingness to have those motivations make an impact on the plot, and a plot I haven't quite seen before by bringing in as the safe location an independent religious group/cult of the David Koresh variety. It doesn't appear as if the plot will be executed in manner that will come close to transcending those pulpy roots, but at least it has some.
Another of a bunch of comics I received from what I'm guessing is an Australian comic book start-up, this has the roughest looking art. In fact, the art lacks enough of a professional quality -- the figures fail to hold weight, the perspectives shift without warning, backgrounds are dropped so that there's little sense of place -- I have no idea if McDonald's script is serviceable or equally obvious. No offense to any of the effort involved, but this should not have been printed like this and presented as a comic book that matches these production values.
*****
Title:Hard Words Creators: Various Publishing Information: Blackglass Press, comic book, 40 pages, 2007, $3 Ordering Numbers:
I liked a couple of the stories in this comic book anthology: "All the Names in the World," with art by Greg Vondruska; and the John Cunningham-written EC-style story-with-a-twist "Chain Mail." But neither one knocked me off my chair and the others in the short volume were forgettable or clumsily told or both. I don't begrudge any of these comics for being out there, but in the end nothing here called for the comic book format over the mini-comics one. In fact, anyone attracted to the relative sophistication of that cover might be disappointed with some of the work inside.
What could have been a single-note riff on the reported-on notion of the US Army recruiting special needs students in order to fulfill quotas become in Kyle Baker's hands more a general assault against war and war comics. Baker's broader mandate enables him to riff on Frank Miller cropped dialog, Harvey Kurtzman's presentational styles in many of the old EC books, and war-movie cliches about the noble sacrifices of a string of soldiers on the way to a single goal. The book has a great deal of energy and a more traditional core of an admirable hero put in an untenable situation. Even though I feel like I've seen a lot of the comic before, I couldn't tell you where it's going next, and hope it continues rather than peters out.
*****
Title:How to Date a Girl in 10 Days (or So) #1 Creator: Tom Humberstone Publishing Information: Self-Published, comic book, 16 pages, March 2006 Ordering Numbers: http://www.ventedspleen.com
I'm not sure exactly why I find Tom Humberstone's 2006 comic showing off in print his on-line comics work to be charming rather than frustrating. Ten thousand young artists a day decide to apply their artistic skill to their own lives or rough approximation of its milieu, like Humberstone seems to be doing here with an attention to the romantic foibles of a comic shop clerk. I guess I like the fact that Humberstone was caught up enough in the making of the comic he forgot to include his own name on the work, and that while certain leaps of logic proved aggravating, they displayed a confidence that the reader was picking up on what the cartoonist was doing in terms of scene changes. There's enough stuff here that I think with continued development in terms of executing things like the art (he drops backgrounds, to no considered effect of its own) and the dialog (which is depicted in sophisticated fashion even if it's not yet crystallized past a kind of earnest, young-writer generic quality), that I'd like to see where he is five years from now. For now, I appreciate the snapshot of someone else's life, even though it doesn't seem fully developed. A violent fantasy twice as accomplished couldn't contain within it the observation of guy tracking down a woman he met on-line and then scared to send her a message until he built up his social network profile to a level of respectability.
*****
Title:Tales of the M.I.A.C: The Arguement Part I #2 Creators: Ed Mulreany Publishing Information: Comic book, 32 pages Ordering Numbers:
There's a germ of a good idea here: a comic book that examines the banalities of work-related incidents to such a sickening level of excess that their absurdities become clear. The execution simply doesn't work. Ed Mulreany draws almost generic-looking cartoon figures against minimal backgrounds and for some reason presents this in unnecessary full-color. The dialog never pops, and by ridding his comic of any sense of atmosphere and place, making what goes on the equivalent of black-out scenes in front of a stage curtain, everything about the work itself would have to be dead-on and electric. In the end this is pretty standard odd, self-published work that should have been worked on a lot more to be made sharper or funnier if not, in the end, abandoned. My heart breaks when I read stuff like this, but like the mis-spelled "argument" the project just doesn't seem like it meets a professional standard.
*****
Title: Spawn #172 Creators: Brian Haberlin, David Hine Publishing Information: Image, comic book, 32 pages, October 2007, $2.95 Ordering Numbers:
They still publish Spawn, Todd McFarlane's blend of elements of horror comics into a superhero framework. Like many comics that publish for a very long time, including all of the mainstream comics heroes which McFarlane at one point left behind in order to pursue fresher storytelling waters, Spawn also seems to occasionally dip into some hoary cliches that might have been better left undisturbed. This latest storyline delves into the childhood of Al Simmons and uses that to build a case for the inevitability of the Simmons character taking up his particular superhero mantle. I never like such plots, because to me they almost always take away rather than add to the power of whatever that character's secret origin might be, the way those stories break from everyday reality and plunge a character from that world into one of higher fantasy. This at least reads like it's in the same thematic ballpark than other efforts of that type, and the book is fairly clean and crisp, confident enough in the creepiness of its tone that Spawn himself barely appears. It is also a relatively dense read, which may partly explain the book's continuing march into the upper 100s. Me, though, it left rather cold, even in the context of like-minded works.
*****
Title:Parade With Fireworks #2 Creator: Mike Cavallaro Publishing Information: Image, comic book, 32 pages, October 2007, $3.50 Ordering Numbers:
This is solid work, and certainly the best thing I've seen form Jim Valentino's Shadowline imprint at Image, but Parade With Fireworks is also the kind of work that's easy to over-praise. This is essentially a true crime story drama with political overtones, but in what is perpetrated one actor to another and in the legal outcome. The political nature of the legal battle is the centerpiece and most compelling part of this issue, the way that shifting alliances are represented in a legal court battle, and the way an unfortunate outcome in both realms ends up being outlasted by the wronged principals. Cavallaro draws in a combination of cartoon iconography and illustrators' visual cues that may be most reminiscent to many people of Seth. It's attractive, but you have to be careful not to grant the story a greater dignity just because the art represents a classier than usual approach. While Parade With Fireworks looks like a jewel against the backdrop of most comics, even most comics in the line it share with several other titles, I think most people will rightfully see it as a distinguished effort rather than groundbreaking, point-to comics. Still, there's another cartoonist to place on the look-at-next-work list.
With the Internet allowing people almost unfettered access to pictures and videos of naked people and folks having sex, a straight-up porn comic like Calavera: Beautiful, Bloody & Bare must, one supposes, live or die on the nature of the sexual fantasy provided, the way it fulfills a very distinct menu of desires. What this comic does is mix sexual titillation with horrifying violence of the slaughter to bits variety, which is an uncomfortable blend on all sorts of levels. None of what's offered here storywise or art wise begins to transcend the comic's more utilitarian function. It's hard not to be judgmental about comics like this, and it's easy to conceive of an audience that like this sort of material for its horror-genre excess, but it's not an artistic combination I'd find enjoyable even were it done by European masters of anatomy and clever quips. As executed, I'd take a pass.
*****
Title: XXXombies #1 Creators: Rick Remender, Tony Moore, Kieron Dwyer Publishing Information: Image, comic book, 32 pages, October 2007, $2.99 Ordering Numbers:
A romp of cliched storypoints involving a zombie outbreak in Los Angeles, an extended porn shoot in a mansion where the occupants miss the orders to flee the city, and the various forces (mob, protective ex-boyfriend of one of the stars) that are about to descend on the movie-makers independent of the flesh eaters. This is a competently-crafted comic book where the gags live and die on essentially how corny they are, not how badly they're screwed up in the telling. If you're a huge fan of this kind of high-concept comic that always seem to me a dry run for somebody's movie script or the ability to write the same, you could do worse than this one. Confronted with the wide variety of comics available for sale in today's current market, there's very little and maybe nothing here in the way of working at the outer edges of someone's imagination that demands you read it.
Due to the way the current comics market is structured, the underlying message the Dorkin-Dyer effort Biff-Bam-Pow! gives out may be less about the comics inside its covers and more about the anachronistic feel of the entire package. "Remember when they used to release funny, throwaway comics by talent creators that didn't really have much in the way of ambition beyond being an entertaining comic?" Usually when you say something about people not making comics like this anymore it's a toast to the some sort of craft accomplishment, but here it's just a depressing indictment of the front-running nature of the comics business. As for those comics, it's standard Dorkin in all those great, tense ways: panels jam-packed with visual humor, stories that run on the razor's edge between celebrating classic approaches to comedy and berating them, cute ideas and cuter characters designs. In a perfect world, a comic like this would sell for the next ten years. In this one, I'm worried about it selling at all.
*****
Title:The Mammoth Book of Best War Comics Creators: Edited by David Kendall Publishing Information: Robinson, soft cover, 512 pages, 2007 Ordering Numbers: 9781845295868 (ISBN13)
This is a really fun book, collecting as it does a number of war stories across international borders, that grouping's various sub-genre, and comics' various aesthetic camps. I very much enjoyed seeing works with which I was unfamiliar from artists I enjoy like Carol Swain and Greg Irons; Raymond Briggs' gonzo picture story about the Falklands War, "The Tin -Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman" was something that I'd always meant to see but had never found the time to track down. It's as funny as I'd been told, featuring over-the-top, savage caricature with lovely, still pictures of war's consequences. It's hard to also downplay the pleasure of not one but two prime-time Sam Glanzman war stories in color, and work from Italy and Russian with which I was completely unfamiliar. If there's anything to complain about it, it's that the work goes for an affordable textbook vibe more than it does a deluxe presentation. And while I like reading all of these stories, I'm kind of a weird comics omnivore; I'm not sure how many people can switch on and off from "I like this story in and of itself" to "I like this comic because it's historically significant" to "I like this comic because it says this about this artist at this point in their career" as easily as someone blessed/cursed to spend enough time reading these things as I've been. I also don't know enough about comics to know if this is a complete survey, or how it might be lacking. Off the top of my head, I know that my comics reading war experiences starred a lot of superhero or superhero stand-in characters I don't see here. You know what this book really reminds me of? The kind of thing that I'd discover in my middle school library and check out during study hall every day for two months. That's a compliment, by the way.
*****
Title:MOME Vol. 10 Creators: Al Columbia, Sophie Crumb, Dash Shaw, Ray Fenwick, Emile Bravo, Jim Woodring, Robert Goodin, John Hankiewicz, Tom Kaczynzki, Kurt Wolfgang, Jeremy Eaton, Paul Hornschemeier, Tim Hensley Publishing Information: Fantagraphics, soft cover, 120 pages, December 2007, $14.95 Ordering Numbers: 9781560978732 (ISBN13)
This issue of MOME may end up being most memorable for the prominence of artists recruited after the magazine got underway, including the authors of what I thought were the two best offerings this time out, Dash Shaw and Jeremy Eaton. It's also nice to see John Hankiewicz get this kind of platform; I don't think there's any cartoonist of the last ten years that has done more work in a more decidedly idiosyncratic vein than Hankiewicz. Also boosting this issue is another strong interview from co-editor Gary Groth, this time of cartoonist Tom Kaczynski -- Groth interviews have been really good the last two or three issues, and he seems more frankly positive about the cartoonists with whom he's speaking. That's a swell cover by Al Columbia, too, but you can see that.
*****
Thank you for indulging me on a Sunday. Guilt is a terrible, terrible thing. The good news is that if I do one more of these in January sometime, I'll have made real progress on the bulk of review-able works sent me.
