“****ing WHITE People, Know'm Sayin'?” COMICS! Sometimes People Are...Complicated!

That surly rogue Howard Victor Chaykin had a new comic out, so I took a look. Buckle up, Sunshine... THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Arbutov

Anyway, this…

THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA© #1 Art by Howard Victor Chaykin Written by Howard Victor Chaykin Lettered by Ken Bruzenak Coloured by  Jesus Arbutov Cover Colourist Wil Quintana With thanks to Ramon Torres and Calvin Nye A tip of the Chaykin chapeau to Sabrina Pandora Image Comics, £2.49 (digital), (2017) © HOWARD CHAYKIN INC

1. An Actual Honest To Gosh Synopsis To Start Us Off, Like I hear The  Professionals Do…

THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA (TDSoH) is the latest paper swagger from cerebral beefcake, Howard Victor Chaykin (Tony Curtis), and his unruly crew, Ken “The Bruise” Bruzenak (Russ Tamblyn) and Jesus “No Relation” Arbutov (Channing Tatum). It’s set in a kind of alternate reality that doesn’t seem altogether all that more awful than, uh, actual reality; it’s just slightly more awful in different ways. A Presidential coup has been averted but America is getting low on Presidents, and paranoia is the new normal as the skies are spattered with drones and besmirched with the babble of conspiratorial chat rooms. Besmirched visually, because interestingly this latter internet chatter is given concrete form by “King” Ken Bruzenak, giving the pages a chaotic ugliness I’d guess is entirely intentional. It’s an ugly world under Arbutov’s crisp kitchen-catalogue sheen. Basically The War on Terror isn’t going well in this one, particularly for CIA spook-meister Frank Villa whose career just turned to wet shit and in order to save his rep and the world itself he’s going to need the help of polite society’s worst nightmares.

THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Arbutov

2. The Bad Ham Sandwich of History Always Repeats Itself

Judging by this first issue it looks like Howard Victor Chaykin is tweaking his 2004 CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN series for the 2010s. That is, a ragbag of ragamuffins are introduced and clearly set up to combat the instigators of a terrorist attack on American soil. Close reading Chaykinmaniacs will note the recurrence of the terror-attack-on-American-soil motif from both CHALLENGERS and CITY OF TOMORROW (2005), even closer reading Chaykinmaniacs will smugly recall this goes back through BLACKHAWK: BLOOD AND IRON (1988) and, yea, even unto AMERICAN FLAGG!(1983). That’s because, unlike 99.9% of North American Comic Creators Howard Victor Chaykin didn’t just start thinking about terrorism post 11th September 2001. And that’s because Howard Victor Chaykin knows that there are fundamental forces which move through history, thanks to the delightful intransigence of human nature.

Alas, terrorism itself is far more persistent than it is modern, staining history’s robes from the 1st Century AD  Sicarii Zealots’ opposition to the Roman occupation of Judea, to, well, that Islamophobe in a van just the other day in dear old London town. (Yes, it’s still terrorism if the perpetrator is a white dude.) That’s two thousand and seventeen magical years of terrorism, not that anybody’s counting. There are other tangy chunks of familiarity in Howard Victor Chaykin’s latest jam, such as the fractious domestic doonybrook (see also MARKED MAN (2012)), because although somewhere in-between 1590 and 1597 William Shakespeare wrote that “the course of true love never did run smooth” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), it was true before that and it’s still true today. Chuck in kids, as Chaykin does, and make the bloke a philandering schmuck and it’s truer than ever. Truth persists after all. But so do shitty interpersonal relationships and terrorism. But there are other forces equally tenacious.

THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Arbutov

3. Exit Hubris, Pursued by Nemesis

“Theresa May is more popular with voters than any leader since the late 1970s, a new poll shows…” The Daily Telegraph, 26 April 2017.

What with a clutch of terrorist attacks, a general election, the resulting hung parliament, the possibility of the Tories propping themselves up with a party that doesn’t believe in either dinosaurs or homosexuals, a horrific fire so horrific it resists acceptance and sundry other whatnots and wellnows, the world of comics has been far from my senescent mind. Seriously, with all the real world upheaval I can’t even pretend to care about Nick Spencer’s Captain America comics, Marvel’s shrinking share of the market, or even DC’s latest attempt to use some dust they found trapped in an Alan Moore script to wrap Geoff Johns’ latest bovine Event comic maunderings around. As to that last, it seems that there is just too much honour and decency in comics (sarcasm), so DC have had to outsource the latest corporate fracking of Watchmen to some ex-CIA dude. Hey, I’m not saying the CIA are hazy on morals, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they thought ethics is a county in England immediately north-east of London.

All of which is a typically round the houses way of saying that like DC’s latest wunderkind homunculus TDSoH’s main protagonist, Frank Villa, is CIA, although Villa’s still employed by The Agency and currently riding a crack-head high on results and reputation. Nope, old Villa won’t have to write comics about Batman finding buttons (UK: badges) in his Batcave anytime soon.  Crucially Villa also displays all the humility of a Marvel editor on Twitter. Pride goeth before a fall, as my old Mum used to say (she had a lisp). But it’s a pattern even older than my old Mum (bless ‘er oxen heart). Aye, truth be told  thousands of years before Geoff Johns bought his first baseball cap the ancient  Greeks noted that Hubris (the god of arrogance) was oft followed by Nemesis (the goddess of fate and revenge).

THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Arbutov

But since Howard Victor Chaykin isn’t Greek lets stick to the Hebrews, who stuck it in a book for posterity: Proverbs 16:18 to be precise in a little tome called The Bible. Said spiritual foundation would of course be familiar to our Prime Minister, Theresa May, who is keen to remind everyone at every opportunity that she is a vicar’s daughter; as though this were the 1930’s and somehow that accident of birth meant anything at all with regard to morals or the lack thereof. For as Saint Francis of Assisi (and indeed Otis Redding in 'Hard To Handle'), would have it, “actions speak louder than words”, and her actions contain as much Christian charity as Turkish Delight contains vitamins. In essence, my mum was a Nursing Auxiliary but I think there’d be some raised eyebrows if I started bed bathing strangers. Anyway, that’s got nothing to do with anything, I’m just sick of Theresa May. In a minute I’ll go on about her again, but it will actually be relevant. Which will make a nice change for us all.

So, yeah, what I’m getting at is the pursuit of Hubris by Nemesis is not some cobwebby redundancy to be disdained in this age of wifi, streaming content and fidget spinners. It was true back when men wore togas and were lot looser about where folks’ gristly bits went, and it’s no less true now. What’s that? “Can you give me an example, John? Perhaps involving Theresa May?” I’m glad you asked, imaginary reader! Flex your brain and imagine being so secure of your political position that you called a General Election three years early with the stated intention of gaining a massive majority and driving the opposition back into the sea for a generation or more. (That’s Hubris.) Now, keep that brain flexing and imagine if the election results came back and you not only had lost any previous advantage you had, but were now dependent on alliances with other parties in order to have a functional government, and even better, the opposition you sought to scour from the face of the earth had risen up and pushed back hard, in the process rediscovering its fire and grit. (All that bit would be Nemesis.) There’s a lot of it about, basically, and there’s been a lot of it about for a long, long time; so it’s exceedingly apt that Chaykin chooses this as his starting point. Hubris is all over the pages featuring Frank Villa, but on the last page, in the very last panel, Nemesis roars.

THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Arbutov

4. All The Action Is Always At The Shit End of The Stick

“The scum of the earth... but what fine soldiers we have made them.” The Duke of Wellington on the British soldier.

Knowing he’ll set Nemesis loose at the close of the issue Chaykin fills the preceding pages with introductions for his motley cast of embryonic leads. He makes some, er, interesting choices here; choices so extreme in their awfulness I suspect some dark joke is being played. I think part of the set up for that joke is recognition of who exactly ends up being the boots on the ground when a geopolitical fart unfortunately follows through. Because, c’mon, it is always, always, down to the ordinary Joes and Josephines to come to the rescue.  Christ, these days even the spooks themselves don’t even have to get their hands wet; they sip their root beer in a shed a thousand miles from the zone, drawling instructions to some Iowa farmboy weighed down with a cam set into his breastplate, like it’s Call of Duty 15: It’s Not My Balls On The Wire. Yeah, should things turn to shit in a hot second it won’t be the sugar rushed Yalie whose mum gets folded flag and  a telegram. And all for the benefit of the Status Quo (not the Dad-Rock band) and those who benefit most from the Status Quo (still not the Dad-Rock band); all of whom it would be pushing things to say gave even the slightest wisp of a shit for the human lives spent keeping them fat and happy.

More realistically, and more pertinently to us all on a day to day basis, take the low regard with which Emergency service workers are held by the political class. Their disdain for these mere cogs is clearer than a Cornwall summer dawn. Over here the emergency services have  suffered more cuts than a sadist’s Sunday roast under the last 7 years of Tory austerity. But when the bombs go off, when the knives come out, when the cars slam into crowds and when the buildings burn, who is there saving lives, containing chaos, stacking the dead and stockpiling nightmare scenes for the rest of their nights? It’s not the politicians. It’s the mortgage slaves and the supermarket shoppers; the people who always have to do more with less. Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. It’s not the people who start the shit who finish it, it’s the people who get stuck in the shit. In a bleaker than bleak gag Howard Victor Chaykin overeggs this propensity  to the extent that his whole sick crew are plucked from the ranks of the razor taloned boogeymen under the bed of western civilisation: the real bottom rungers. These being Henry John Noone, a black racist fresh off a shooting spree; Paul Evan Berg, a confidence trickster with a yen for mass murder; John Cesare Nacamulli, a serial killing shithead; and Christopher Michael Silver, a chick with a dick kicking violently against the pricks.  And Howard Victor Chaykin, a comic book prince, sets these utter sweethearts the task of saving the world. Or he will do, next issue. Unless his pacing is totally fucked.

THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Arbutov

5. Offence Is In The Eye of The Beholder

Even in my privileged cis cocoon of blithe obliviousness I heard some people were offended by this comic, now I’m no fan of Arbutov’s colouring myself but really, people, chill! Ah, a little cornball humour there. The thing is if people were offended then people were offended, I’m not about to argue against that. But if Comics as a whole is to be offended it’s probably best to nail down the nature of the offence. In the pages of DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA is Howard Victor Chaykin transphobic, homophobic or (God forbid) neither? After all, the point of contention appears to be the portrayal of the character Christopher Michael Silver, and the book’s not entirely crystal on Silver's status. As I understand it a “chick with a dick” can be either a passive male homosexual or transvestite, or a trans woman (i.e. male to female) with male genitalia. Silver's one of them. Unfortunatley Silver is also beaten savagely while turning a trick and kills in self-defence. This, it has been argued, is a less than wholesome representation of an already besieged section of society. Well, yeah, it is. And?

Look, Chaykin has long been active in at least promoting the existence of the, uh, sexually lavish. I don’t know how many Trial By Internet points that’s worth, but it must have some traction. But just because he has a preoccupation with this aspect of human diversity I don’t think an automatic blanket condemnation is due. That would be as moronic as pointing out there’s a lot of rape in Alan Moore’s work and thinking that you had thus proved Alan Moore himself is a bit rapey. You’ve got to take it on a case by case basis. If the approach is consistently derogatory or repellent then, fine, fuck off, Sunshine; but if it isn’t… And just in case you think I am contorting myself unnecessarily to support an inherent bias, you’ll be pleased to note that, on a case by case basis the results are not entirely wonderful.

THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Arbutov

6. An Incomplete Look At The Many Chicks With Dicks of Howard Victor Chaykin

In AMERICAN FLAGG! comedy occurs when Reuben kicks a chick and his foot finds a dick. Comic relief is one of the earliest stages of societal acceptance when it comes to types considered outside the norm (see all the homosexuals in the sit-coms of the homophobic ‘70s), so…not great, but okay. Ah, but there’s also a whole plot in FLAGG! revolving around a kind of transvestite twist on Vertigo, which is pointedly humane in its portrayal of the (then) improper. Big points go in the pot for that one.  The camp comedy stylings continue with a urinal encounter between the plucky fireplug Maxim and a hefty transvestite in POWER AND GLORY (1994). Significantly Chaykin’s bold as brass about it all, and the real punchline arrives with the superhero’s full pelt flight from the glam man, powered not by the atom or nanotech, but by his super-homophobia. So, still in the realms of humour, but since the brunt of it falls fully on the homophobe, some strong points awarded there. Unfortunately, in PULP FANTASTIC (2000) Chaykin’s portrayal of the sexually versatile reaches a sour nadir, so we’ll just say that the series itself has a thoroughly distempered air that does none of the contents any favours. Oof, some genuine demerits there. It’s okay though, because the spectacularly unpleasant BLACK KISS/BLACK KISS 2 is Chaykin’s ace in the hole. BLACK KISS (1988) prominently features a chick with a dick and while this prominence is slightly undermined by the fact s/he is used as none too flattering metaphor, by BLACK KISS 2 (2012) Chaykin, in a quite phenomenal feat of artistic sleight of hand, delivers a romantic horror comedy in which the demonic chick with a dick finds true love and peace (of a kind) with Chaykin’s doppelgänger, Cass Pollack. There are probably some I missed but I think that gives the gist.

THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Arbutov

Pillory Chaykin if you wish, it’s your dime and I’m sure he couldn’t give less of a shit; but I can’t think of another white male whose work extends to chicks with dicks the ultimate compliment of treating them just like everyone else. No, I don’t know why I  am even bothering; it’s not going to change your mind. Howard Victor Chaykin’s a transphobe, a homophobe a Francophobe and a chifforobe. Think what you like. Sure, The Anti-Chaykin Grant Morrison had a  chick with a dick in the waywardly great THE INVISIBLES, but s/he was an avatar of bullshit magicky wagicky woo-wooooooh! Maybe that’s better, more helpful to the cause, but I don’t think so. In his grumpy back matter Chaykin chunters on about identity politics, and I think this point gets lost in his anger at Trump winning the election. (There are many reasons Trump won, but mostly it’s because The Democrats didn’t campaign on policies, and seemed to believe they should win just because Trump is a dick. SPOILER!) Because I think his point is...that you shouldn’t define people by their labels, but instead by their behaviour. Define them by who they are, not what they are. There are white shitheads and there are black shitheads; there are hetero shitheads and there are queer shitheads; there are cis shitheads and there are chicks with dicks shitheads. Real equality is not achieved by singling a group out, but by treating that group as individuals, and treating all individuals equally. So, to take an example from TDSoH, it might rankle that Chaykin’s black character, Noone, is a racist murderer, but it’s not his skin that defines him, it’s his racism.

I was a bit naughty there. I overplayed how equally Howard Victor Chaykin treats, Silver. Mostly because the Witchfinder Internet also ignored this (how odd!). Howard Victor Chaykin does in fact apportion a greater measure of narrative sympathy to Silver than any of the other misfits. Significantly the only one of the characters whose situation is adulterated by backstory is the trans/queer character. It’s fairly clear from the punchy and unself-pitying internal monologue that the situation in which Silver finds him/herself is down to society’s failure to adapt or include. So, yes, there is transphobia and homophobia on the pages of TDSoH, but it belongs to the characters not to the author of those characters. The only two protagonists who don’t come across as monsters are Villa and Silver. Hey you know, this could turn out to be a love story after all. Let the chick with a dick get the guy. It’s 2017 after all, so why the fuck not?

THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Arbutov

7. Poor Old Ken Bruzenak

The real loser after all that noise is Ken Bruzenak. I intended to spend the bulk of this thing digging into the colossal contribution of Ken Bruzenak to the look of TDSoH, but now I have neither time nor room. Also, he goes over it himself in the backmatter. That's right! The backmatter in TDSoH is actually of interest! Sure, there's Howard Victor Chaykin's provocative screed about the election and how it messed up his intentions for the series, which is nice. But, better yet, Ken Bruzenak takes us through the creation of one single panel, from a black and white bitmap devoid of letters to the lushly layered final product. In the process he cements his right to be considered as much the artist as the colourist, Jesus Arbutov or the penciller, Howard Victor Chaykin. He puts a ridiculous amount of work into every panel and I'd like to single out his contribution for applause and pony rides but I've run out of room. Maybe next time, Ken Bruzenak. Because there will be a next time since THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA was VERY GOOD!

THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Arbutov

NEXT TIME: Hopefully something a bit sooner, lighter and altogether shorter than this, and involving the plural of comic, which is – COMICS!!!

“F*** you, Tarzan.” COMICS! Sometimes ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore!

In which I aimlessly amble around Howard Victor Chaykin’s recent series ‘Midnight of the Soul’ and see what strikes my fancy. No, really, even more than usual, I just sort of prattle on rather aimlessly and hope some kind of coherent point emerges. It probably won’t, but as I haven’t written it yet we’ll have to find out together. Take my hand, fellow stranger in paradise! Take my hand... MIDNIGHT OF THE SOUL by Chaykin, Arbutov and Bruzenak Anyway, this...

MIDNIGHT OF THE SOUL #1-5 Written by Howard Victor Chaykin Art by Howard Victor Chaykin Coloured by Jesus Aburtov Lettered by Ken Bruzenak Image Comics, $3.50 each (2016)

On one level ‘Midnight of the Soul’ is exactly the kind of comic everyone thinks Howard Victor Chaykin makes, but on another level it isn’t, and the abrasion between what you expect to read and what you actually read creates some smart sparks. I think. The success of Chaykin’s smuggling run in 'Midnight of the Soul' is aided no end by the fact he draws it and so, inevitably, it looks just like a Howard Victor Chaykin comic. This is the bit that misleads because the surface is flawlessly “Chaykin”. Obviously. What did you want, Dave McKean? The guy’s in his sixties, he’s not likely to be suddenly incorporating mixed media and sculpture into his work. Not when “Diagnosis: Murder” is on and there’s kosher Franks in the pan! Thus, the art is as Late Chaykin as Late Chaykin gets. And, yes, it breaks my heart too, but it is getting late in the Seasons of The Chaykin. But dry your eyes, o feral child, because he’s still with us, and he’s still delivering his pugnaciously suave art. Sure, some eyes will still be perturbed by the clip art that doesn’t quite gel and flinch at the odd lapse in positioning. I’m a Chaykin maniac but I’m not blind to his transgressions; there’s one panel of Patricia in a doorway that doesn’t work – at all, and he’s stuck himself with a motorbike image that doesn’t always suit the angle of his composition, and that precise image of a woman was in Satellite Sam, and that cop’s all out of whack with that barrier and, and, and, you know, we could carp all day, but what matters is that for the most part, most of it works. As your eye sweeps over it, as you read it, it works. If you sit and look at each panel, eh, not so much. But who’d do that? Whaddya think comics are? Art? Comics are for reading first and looking at second. 'Midnight of the Soul' is a VERY GOOD! read.

MIDNIGHT OF THE SOUL by Chaykin, Arbutov and Bruzenak

The occasional glaring visual infelicity aside, Chaykin definitely gets in a major artistic victory by resurrecting a sense of of New York as 'twas. While Arbutov’s colours remain a little too garishly lacquer-ish for my sedate tastes, they contribute enormously to this effect as well. The interiors of the dance halls and gin-joints are particularly noteworthy and Arbutov lays down some seriously hot pinks and cool greens. So, y’know, yay. The ‘50s being the Golden Age of The Billboard, omitting to mention the phantasmagoria of styles and fonts Bruzenak scatters as gloriously and as evocatively as the notes Gershwin throws over the opening of ‘Manhattan’(1979) would be a serious dereliction of duty. Bruzenak also subtly colour codes his speech bubbles so you know who is speaking even when they are “offscreen”. The big thing about Big Ken Bruzenak is that he never stands still (artistically, that is), and his stylistic evolution continues here with a pretty darn exciting and innovative mock 3-D lettering effect, used sparingly and effectively. Conjuring a particular time and  a particular place from the past into the present via paper and ink is a very Chaykin preoccupation. The man’s rightly proud that locations in the original ‘Black Kiss’ are so redolent of ‘80s Los Angeles that readers’ noses start convulsing for coke in sympathy. In ‘Midnight of The Soul’ Chaykin (and Arbutov and Bruzenak) work a similar feat for ‘50s New York, though here it’s your stomach that rumbles for coffee and a doughnut, rather than your nose for Class ‘A’s.

MIDNIGHT OF THE SOUL by Chaykin, Arbutov and Bruzenak

Not that the New York of ‘Midnight of the Soul’ is drug free. Au contraire, mon frère! On past evidence Chaykin’s not one of those selective amnesiacs who thinks the past was a magical Eden, to which the present is a disgraceful relative. If anything he’s prone to wallowing in the seamier side of things, and we’re not just talking about stockings there. And so it goes that Joel Breakstone’s search for his errant wife brings him up against a rash of rascals, a pair of gun slinging gunsels (in the correct sense of "catamites"), a saucy whip-smart dancer, a corrupt cop, and a boss man with a ginger flattop. This is after all, the ‘Midnight of The Soul’, so a certain sense of threat and moral conflict come with the territory. I mean, I could be wrong, but I believe the title alludes to ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’ (AKA ‘Noche obscura del alma’). That’s not because I am an expert on the poetry of St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), but because ‘Midnight of the Soul’ has a familiar structure, one which accords with the ‘time of testing’ the poem assures us we must all go through before reaching a state of Grace. Something to look forward to there, kids. That’s some high falutin’ stuff, poncho! Don’t worry, it just means ‘Midnight of the Soul’ is a lot like, oh, ‘After Hours’ (1985). Basically in these things you get some dude (or maybe a lady these days) out of his depth flailing about a thoroughly threatening city, encountering threats embodying his inner failings, while his intended goal remains persistently out of reach until his ordeal has suitably shriven him for the final confrontation. After which he’s a lot more at peace than he was when he started. And so it is for our slightly schmucky and typically Chaykin-esque looking lead, Joel Breakstone.

MIDNIGHT OF THE SOUL by Chaykin, Arbutov and Bruzenak

Joel’s a failed writer but a successful drunk who slouches despondently in the garage of a house he sold to his Brother-in-Law to clear debts accrued, pecking out unwanted alt-History tales of a World where Germany won WW2. If Joel punched himself every time he ate a bagel he couldn't be more obviously a self-hating Jew. He doesn’t hate himself because he's a Jew though, he hates himself for some unpleasantness which occurred during the liberation of a Concentration Camp in WW2. Something, as Joseph Heller famously had it, happened. Coming to terms with that memory is Joel's key to Grace, but to do it he'll have to navigate his 'Midnight of the Soul'. Meanwhile, just to underline his emasculation, his wife is out bringing home the bread working as a night-court stenographer. Except she isn't, as Joel finds out while pathetically creeping the house for booze. Turns out she's turning tricks. The lit match of his self-righteous indignation plops straight into the accumulated reservoir of self-hatred, and the resulting explosion of dumb machismo is sufficient to propel the cuckolded schmuck out into the city in search of vengeance. New York, however, has other ideas. 'Midnight of the Soul' is a picaresque adventure comic in which a man finds out a lot of the things he thought he knew about himself aren't true, and that the truth might hurt but not as much as living a lie does. Also: violence, jazz, profanity, blow jobs, snappy patter, racism, jokes and a man dressed as a baby in an Irish bar. 'Midnight of the Soul' has something for everyone! Except humourless drips.

MIDNIGHT OF THE SOUL by Chaykin, Arbutov and Bruzenak

Joel's a luckless boob for the most part, but he is ultimately lucky because he gets to inhabit one of Chaykin's more vital narratives. From the first loaded word (“Parallels”) there’s a sense of Howard Victor Chaykin pushing through the pages of the narrative at the reader. The explicit fictional narrative of the book seems shaken every now and then by subsurface ructions, barely repelled authorial outbursts, which threaten to make it lose its footing.  Which it never quite does, but it comes close. There’s a lack of commitment to the pulp fiction on show, as though Howard Victor Chaykin is intermittently is gripped by the urge to be doing something else. And I think he probably is. In a sense 'Midnight of the Soul' works as a big kiss-off to a bunch of tropes you suspect Chaykin feels he’s outgrown. Joel enters a midnight world of Chaykin standards, but always at an odd angle, always a few beats behind thee action, always playing catch-up, as though trying to find his way into the story proper. A story which seems to be occurring in parallel(!) to his search. This story, the story Joel circles for the bulk of the book, is the “usual” Chaykin, the Chaykin we expect; all bad behaviour, colourful characters, sassy patter and blunt force violence. For much of the book Joel never quite connects with this pulp strand, instead he keeps bouncing off it into a more sedate but no less colourful screwball romantic comedy. Both strands hinge on a portrait of New York anchored by visual verisimilitude and the odd nod to reality (is that Joe Gould reciting 'The Face on The Bar-room Floor'? In #3?) but both run parallel(!) to each other; until the final pages, anyway. And it's on these final pages that Chaykin seemingly states his current genre preference. But is it “Goodbye” or just “Au Revoir” to the genre staples that made his name and brought him fame? Alas, despite what I tell ladies in bars, I don't know Howard Victor Chaykin personally, so we'll all just have to wait and see together...

NEXT TIME: Take a guess, punchy. That's right - COMICS!!!

“Back Up, Old Man!” COMICS! Sometimes The Business of North American Genre Comics is Wolves.

This time out it’s a He-Wolf and a She-Wolf! Don’t worry, there’s nothing remotely connected to the real world in this one. PHEW! SHE WOLF by Rich Tommaso

Anyway, this… MOONSHINE #1 Art by Eduardo Risso Coloured by Eduardo Risso Written by Brian Azzarello Lettered by Jared K. Fletcher Variant cover by Frank Miller (I haven't seen it, I'm sure it's awesome.) IMAGE COMICS, INC., $2.99 COMIXOLOGY (2016) MOONSHINE created by Eduardo Risso & Brian Azzarello MOONSHINE © Eduardo Risso & Brian Azzarello

So there’s manly Brian Azzarello watching LAWLESS (2012) with a manly drink of bourbons and ryes in his manly hand when his uncle Barry, who works in unmanly IT, pops in to say hello. Raising his manly eyes from the screen, where Guy Pierce is acting and Tom Hardy is standing about looking dazed, Azzarello notes manfully that Barry is sporting a lovely 100% cotton jumper with a big wolf’s face on the front. Barry notes his manly nephew’s manly gaze and starts telling him that he has one with a hood on as well, and is thinking of getting a matching one for his wife, Brian’s Auntie Babs, but that’ll be for Christmas because she’s had the conservatory roof changed to a solid one, and that didn’t come cheap. But Brian Azzarello is manfully preoccupied because a light bulb has gone off over Brian Azzarello’s manly head. Hooch. Wolves. Hooch and wolves! And thus HOOCH WOLF was born! Oh, okay MOONSHINE (geddit!) A tad on the snout it may be, but the title is a pretty good sign of what’s on offer here; what with it being within acceptable parameters for wordplay because, y’know, it actually works, it’s kind of droll and, basically isn’t godawful. (Remember “Hello”, “Hell low”? Oh, boy. Oof! Who died in here?)  There’s nothing special about it as a title and similarly there’s little special about Azzarello’s script, but the simple lack of anything bad enough to step in is cause for rejoicing. Particularly as Azzarello is once again monopolising the talents of the amazing Eduardo Risso.

MOONSHINE by Risso, Azzarello and Fletcher

Hey! This is the best writing Brian Azzarello has done for a long while. There you go. Oho! Don’t reach for the ticker-tape just yet, you little eager beaver you, because that’s pretty faint praise at this point. But yes, I’m happy to report that MOONSHINE’s more coherent than the witless farrago of DKIII:TMR (O boy! That’s like burn-it-and-salt-the-earth bad) and it’s far less of a waste of Eduardo Risso’s time and talent than LONO: BROTHER LONO (The main man wasn’t even in space and no sign of any dolphins.) Mind you, MOONSHINE’s far from spectacular, but it’s okay. As is so often the case in comics that’s mostly down to the artist, here one Eduardo Risso by name. I’m partial to a bit of Risso, so that means I get to read a lot of Brian Azzarello comics, as Azzarello has a habit of hogging Risso. Sometimes people float the idea that some writer and artist teams elevate each other to new heights. Unsurprisingly, I don’t see a lot of evidence for that. I see a lot of evidence to suggest writers get away with feeble work by having talented artists illustrate it. It’s for RM Guera’s art I suffer Jason Aaron insecurely rubbing his sweaty balls in my face, not because I enjoy the sharp tang of insecure ball sweat, you dig? But Risso has had to elevate weaker work than this (Did I mention LONO: BROTHER LONO, bastiches?) and he seems invested in MOONSHINE, even to the extent that he’s colouring his art for the first time. And that works out quite nicely. Enjoyable as his colours are, his art is too tough for his colouring to make much impact. Risso’s work has appeared in coloured and uncoloured versions (WOLVERINE: LOGAN, BATMAN NOIR: EDUARDO RISSO); neither approach significantly more appealing than the other. I’m a firm believer that the colourists’ motto should be primum non nocere, so Risso’s work is thus a great playground for a neophyte colourist, it being pretty much invulnerable. And so it goes that Risso’s colours are pleasant enough; inky blues for the night scenes, autumnal oranges in the dusk scenes etc. It’s all very good but it’s the art that’s the true strength of the pages. I enjoy just looking at how Risso has drawn his trees, that’s how good he is. What colour they are comes second. And in MOONSHINE Risso draws some mighty fine trees. He draws a whole lot of other things too; jalopies, candlestick telephones, men in hats, all that good time old-timey stuff. Yes sir, that’s my baby/No sir, don’t mean maybe! Ayup, Risso works his talented Argentine arse off bringing the ‘20s back.  Why it was just the Cat’s Meow; I didn’t know whether to Shimmy or Charleston, darling!

MOONSHINE by Risso, Azzarello and Fletcher

While I wouldn’t say the writing was strong as such, it is solid enough to bounce back from an opening which, while it doesn’t employ Clichéd Opening Device #1 (woman running down street at night pursued by something (insert name of male comic creator)), it does employ Clichéd Opening Device #2 (Bunch of characters offed by mysterious thing). The funny thing about clichés is how writers just employ ‘em without thought, like a muscle spasm, and that makes ‘em just about as creative. When my arm shoots out and knocks a hot cup of tea over I don’t expect applause for my Craft©™, you know? I mean, just how much suspense is there in a bunch of Feds rooting about a still at night suddenly being torn to pieces by something never clearly shown, but shown enough to register as a big furry animal with sharp teeth. Sure some people might have their money on a rabid capybara but most folk will have read the title, which kind of gives it away. Some people are killed by…exactly what you think….SUSPENSE! The only suspense is why the Feds think J Edgar Hoover wants to fuck them, I know he liked a bit of tranny action but did he also sexually harass all his agents? A flashback to J Edgar Hoover all gussied up in his scanties chasing a bunch of young be-suited WASPS around to the Benny Hill music would have maybe been ridiculous, but it would have been a bit of fresh air amongst the mustiness on show. Everyone sing along as I tickle the ivories: It’s prohibition times and a typical ne’er do well with his typical handsomeness and his typical comic book drink problem, is dispatched by his typically small, bald and sweaty shifty slug of a boss to a typically Appalachian backwoods den of torn gingham, dirt streets, cross eyed kids  and generally dirt poor hicks, to barter with a typically shifty but crafty paterfamilias in order to sell his typically special recipe hooch in the typically big city. There’s a typical sassy lady, and a sexy black lady dancing round a fire (SYMBOLISM!) Now I don’t know if that dancing black lady is typical or not, but I’m pretty sure our typical anti-hero will be typically sniffing round both sets of typical knickers with typically disastrous results. There’s not a lot of suspense here, as soon as you see that Pa Dingleberry has a scar and a milky eye you KNOW we’ll be seeing a wolf with a tuxedo and spats, no, don’t be silly, with a scar and a milky eye. It’s just a question of when. Still, inevitability can be quiet entertaining. Particularly if Eduardo Risso is drawing it. MOONSHINE is all very comfortable, it’s all very TV. There’s worse things, I guess.

MOONSHINE by Risso, Azzarello and Fletcher

So yeah, it’s looking like Brian Azzarello’s usual go-to formula: to take something familiar and populate it with people who are irredeemable shitbags. (LONO: BROTHER LONO is basically just Two Mules For Sister Sarah crossed with one of those ‘80s movies where Chet Brisket gets pushed about for the first 60 minutes, and then spends the next 30 burning through the bad ‘uns like he was an arc welder and they were cheese. But, y’know, updated, set in Mexico and populated with walking faeces. And not as good.) Obviously this whole “everybody’s a shitbag” approach is edgy and revelatory and not all as childishly one-side as believing everyone is a magical laughter machine. No, I’m not sure why that is either. Anyway, MOONSHINE is GOOD! Risso is his usual superlative self and even Azzarello is manfully reining in his worst tendencies. (Applause!) However, I do reserve the right to throw the book across the room if he uses “hair of the dog that bit me”. A man has to have some standards, after all. Even me.

SHE WOLF #3 by Rich Tommaso Pin-ups by Patrick Dean, Chuck Forsman, Brandon Graham, Brian Level, Tom Neely, Eraklis Petmezas and Jim Rugg IMAGE COMICS, INC., $1.99 COMIXOLOGY (2016) SHE WOLF created by Rich Tommaso SHE WOLF© 2016 Rich Tommaso

I say, I say, I say, who are Macbeth’s three favourite comic creators? “To-mmaso, and To-mmaso, and To-mmaso!” Ba-da BING! Ba-da-BOOM! Aw nertz, youse bums ain’t got no class, ya hear! Ya gots no class! A-hem. Unlike many comics which shall remain nameless (cough-MOONSHINE-cough) SHE WOLF#3 is cliché free! Unless there are a lot of stories where the heroine is invited into a stained glass window wherein she witnesses, in a stained glass art style, the origin of lycanthropy, which involves, Jesus (Christ), a luckless sorceror, a demon and a right silly bastard. With its flat colours and basic shapes this blasphemous and ultimately very nasty sequence pops hard against the lush colours and magnificently evocative cartooning surrounding it.

SHE WOLF by Rich Tommasso

While Risso’s colours on MOONSHINE seem a handsome afterthought Tommaso’s colours are entwined inseparably with the art. The colours are the art and the art is the colour. And the genius in that combination is all Tommaso’s. There’s a single panel of our heroine waking in bed, her room a cool blue splashed with a buttery light. That panel alone is worth the paltry pennies this comic cost. But like a papery excess of largesse this comic is filled with other things besides! The exceptional panel itself leads into a dream sequence of familial violence; one made exponentially creepier by the silence within which it unfolds and the ferine shapes usurping domesticity on the periphery. Be that not enough, o seeker of thrills, then there’s a captive menagerie of monstrosities being read to by a priest with a colossal cross, reality turns out not to be, the passage of time is represented by a row of variously phased moons, a rescue occurs and, finally,  an ill-starred decision is made. Summoning demons always works out really well as we’ve seen, but to be fair sometimes the only choice is the least bad choice. Choosing not to buy SHE WOLF would be a very poor choice indeed. Rich Tommaso's SHE WOLF is  EXCELLENT!

“A secret society exists, and is living among all of us. They are neither people nor animals, but something in-between.” They are COMICS!!!

“I’m Not Taking a Dump!” COMICS! Sometimes The Female of the Species is Not Only Deadlier Than The Male But Has an Extendable Pseudoprick. Which is Nice.

…wolf! It was “hungry like the..wolf! Did you get it? Oh, forget it; I’ll not bother in future. Here’s a couple of comics I liked. Lady werewolves and that, innit. GRRR! SHE WOLF by Rich Tommaso Anyway, this… CRY HAVOC #1 Art by Ryan Kelly Written by Simon Spurrier Coloured by Nick Filardi, Lee Loughridge and Matt Wilson Lettered by Simon Bowland Design by Emma Price Main Cover by Ryan Kelly & Emma Price Variant Cover by Cameron Stewart IMAGE COMICS, INC. £0.69 on sale on Comixology (2016) CRY HAVOC created by Ryan Kelly & Simon Spurrier CRY HAVOC © 2016 Simon Spurrier & Ryan Kelly

Oho! Looks like we got ourselves a Writer here. For starters the title’s a truncated nub of Shakespeare (from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). It’s one which is so culturally ubiquitous it irresistibly evokes the phantom residue of the quote r.e. dogs of war and the letting loose thereof. Thus it is not entirely inappropriate for a lesbian werewolf war comic. Ah but lest you think you are in for Stirba, She-Wolf of the SS, Si(mon) Spurrier slaps your crude face up with a quote from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (as opposed to, say, The Chuckle Brothers’ Heart of Darkness), and it isn’t “The horror! The horror!” or “Mistah Kurtz, he dead.” Good start there; if a little high falutin’ for a lesbian werewolf war comic. But, hey, maybe if Joseph Conrad (Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) were alive today he’d be writing lesbian werewolf war comics for Image. But Mistah Conrad, he dead, so it’s up to Si(mon) Spurrier.  Say, do you remember when comics used to have quotes at the front from, like, Great Literature? I always liked that as a nipper. There was a real sense back then that folks really respected literature. Now it’s taken as some kind of snooty elitist one-upmanship and only quotes from 1980s movies count. Back then though, Bill Mantlo or whoever would lead off an issue of THE INADVISABLE SHIT FLINGING TEEN MONKEY with a snippet of Virginia Woolfe. I remember one time excitedly holding court and declaiming that HULK issue #261 (1981) (wherein behind a Frank Miller cover The Absorbing Man tried to, uh, absorb Easter Island but failed) was nothing less than a four-colour, two-fisted evocation of John Donne’s immortal ‘Meditation XVII, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions’. To wit: “No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine...” And even though the bastards decided not to renew my tenure that year, I still stand by that.

CRY HAVOC by Kelly, Spurrier, Wilson and Bowland

But back at CRY HAVOC, and Si(mon) Spurrier is flirting with a hernia he’s writing that hard. Most obviously there’s a tripartite structure (London, The Red Place, Bangor, Afghanistan) with each section being coloured by a different colourist (Filardi, Loughridge and Wilson, respectively). Which is a little bit special structurally, if a bit disruptive on the old suspense front. Lou clearly survives because she’s in each distinctly hued part, so at the minute the greatest question is how did a lesbian werewolf get with child. (No, not the specific biological mechanics, thanks.)  Si(mon) Spurrier also chucks a varied cast in the reader’s face, and while Inappropriate Sexual Comment Thor is funniest, everyone is interesting. Although everyone may not be as interesting as Si(mon) Spurrier thinks. It’s possible other people warm to chirpy street fiddlers with blue hair who say “sammiches” instead of “sandwiches” more than I do, but that’s our protagonist so that’s that. (Also Si(mon) Spurrier probably isn’t going for the menopausal balding male who’s made catastrophic life choices market.) CRY HAVOC’s not just about werewolves though, there are all kinds of odd mythical misfits aiding our chipper lass in her search for a rogue agent in an area torn apart by Western shenanigans (Oh, oh, like Mr. Kurtz! I get it now!) There’s even a bit at the back where Si(mon) Spurrier annotates the whole issue with his writerly wisdom. I didn’t read that because I wanted to know if the comic worked without someone explaining it over my shoulder, but its presence was appreciated. Ryan Kelly, though, hmm; I wasn’t super-sold on the art which was a bit unspectacular and a tad muddy at times. The initial alley attack was a bit meh; I’d have thought that would have been your set piece. Mostly though in that bit I was just distracted by the uncertainty that cheeky street urchin chomping would go unnoticed in an alley next to The Old Bailey. Justice may be blind but she isn’t deaf. Ho Ho! So not exactly hanging out the bunting for the art just yet. However, there’s a clear sense of an individual style trying to form, and it’s far from an incoherent mess. So watch and see, I guess.  Hopefully CRY HAVOC will avoid stumbling into some twee-shite Young Adult territory where all the Fairies and Little People are real if only you have the sight to see! Because if it does do that then what’s Neil Gaiman going to do? CRY HAVOC is currently up to its sixth issue and, yeah, I’ll catch up on those because it is GOOD!

SHE WOLF#2 By Rich Tommaso IMAGE COMICS, INC., £1.99 on COMIXOLOGY (2016) SHE WOLF created by Rich Tommaso SHE WOLF © 2016 by Rich Tommaso

Damn, look at that cover! BOOM! That’s classy stuff right there. Oh, just get it bought. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, and I’ll keep saying it until Rich Tommaso can buy his own private island: SHE WOLF is many things but best of all SHE WOLF is total COMICS!!! I don’t know anything about Rich Tommaso, so going in so deep on the old recommendation front may backfire in my oh-so-trusting face. He’s a male comic creator after all, and there’s not a week goes by when we don’t discover some dude who can draw Batman or can write about Batman has, uh, bad habits. Listen, guys, I’m not unsympathetic; drawing Batman or writing about Batman are vital tasks and in many ways you are the Real Heroes, and I also know it can be confusing these days what with women being allowed to vote, drive and even enter pubs unattended but, seriously, hiding under a lady’s bed, then creeping out when she’s asleep to stand astride her head pantsless? Then slowly bending your knees, thus bringing your balls nearer to the sleeping lady’s face until her slumberous breath stirs the wispy hairs upon your fleshy danglers? Not normal, fellas. Frankly, aside from the phenomenal muscle control required there’s little to approve of in that behaviour. Oh, am I perfect? No, but there’s imperfection and then there’s behaviour which would mean Joe Spinell would play you in a movie. Basically, it shouldn’t be so hard to know when you are being creepy, guys. So, yeah, just in case my praise comes back to haunt me I’m building in my escape hatch early. Obviously, I’m not even really talking about Rich Tommasso there, okay? Got that. Until I hear otherwise I operate on the principal of ‘Innocent until proven Guilty’ and so I’ll continue my “Make Rich Tommaso Rich!” campaign. All I have to say currently about Rich Tommaso are good things, nay, great things, because SHE WOLF is great. But Rich Tommaso made it, so maybe he’s even greater? SHE WOLF by Rich Tommaso

Sure, Rich Tommaso’s name may sound like someone six pints into the evening unadvisedly trying to talk about wealthy red fruits often mistaken for vegetables and frequently used in salads, but you mustn’t hold that against him, because he is an artistic behemoth! For realz, chirren of the comics! SHE WOLF has a muscular narrative propulsion not entirely dissimilar to that of our titular loping lycanthrope. All kinds of stuff kicks loose in SHE WOLF#2’s short span: a freaky friend is found, vampires and sunblock are discussed, an arm is torn off, a mother is displeased, an arm grows back, a small boy is hilariously traumatised for life in the play area, dimensions and dreams are discussed, a certain goat should have stayed in bed, secrets are revealed, further secrets are hinted at and next issue even has a demon penis on the front. All that and much, much more for one pound and ninety nine pence! SHE WOLF is as perplexing and alarming as adolescence, but a lot more beautiful to look at (and with a lot less surreptitious wanking). More wolves too. SHE WOLF wears its allegorical trappings lightly so it can be read as a coming-of-age tale, or a coming-out tale, or both, or just as a maniacally inventive and breathlessly paced horror romp, or all three and probably a fourth thing I missed. Maybe five, possibly six things. Seven might be pushing it though. The level of visual invention on display in SHE WOLF is kind of frightening in itself. Tommaso manages to blend ‘80s mall culture, toilet humour, freakazoidal Ditko-scapes, body-morphing horror, lucid dreaming, dreamy reality, counter-intuitively sunny colours and then, just because he can, he smothers the entire canis lupus caper in a Rich Tommaso sauce. SHE WOLF is EXCELLENT! 

Next Time: Decisions, decisions. Howard Victor Chaykin’s revolting bananas OR a xenophobic Little Englander’s view of Euro-COMICS!!!

“Even BABIES Got Scars.” COMICS! Sometimes I Recall My Mother Saying That Resorting to Profanity Indicated a Failure of Imagination Rather Than Being a Reliable Indicator of Toughness. Then She Bopped Me One in the Eye To Drive Her Point Home. One Tough Broad.

There was a sale on Image Comics on The Comixiology to celebrate comics creators saying awful things at some convention or other. Me, I hate Rosicrucians because someone once told someone who told me that they make their kids pee standing on their hands so it goes in their mouths. I could be wrong, but why check? Oh, also I bought some stuff. For starters I got four issues of THE GODDAMNED for £0.69 each. Then I wrote this. True story, bro. “In the beginning was The Word. And The Word was poo-poo-botty-stinker.” The Book of Aaron Ch1, v.1

THE GODDAMNED by Guera, Aaron, Brusco & Fletcher

Anyway, this…

THE GODDAMNED #1-4 Art by R.M. Guera Written by Jason Aaron Coloured by Giulia Brusco Lettered by Jared K. Fletcher Image Comics, Inc, £0.69 on sale (2015-2016) THE GODDAMNED created by Guera & Aaron Based characters from The Bible by God (via 40 or so human vessels for His Word).

Man-mountain (not man-mounting, cheeky!) Jason Aaron’s new cock-flicking comic is a fiercely oh-so-adult exercise in shit-fingered maturity. Swears adorn each funky page as flies bejewel turds, if you can’t take the swears get in the kitchen, weak-o! Rattle those pots and pans! Aaron’s jizz-caked high-concept is to set THE GODDAMNED after the bastard-felching Fall but before The donkey-fellating Flood. You know, as in The bum-truffling Bible. Because that’s mother-scatting Edgy, I guess. Some library haunting self-abusers might be disappointed to learn that this Bible stuff is just a swerve, a crotchless pair of sophisticated knickers, a sop for the four-eyes out there, but proper swinging dicks will delight in the fact that THE GODDAMNED, lacy Biblical guff aside, basically resembles a booger-snuggling Heavy Metal story; from back when The Metal had robot tits on the cover, you know, not now they have a materialist magician at the helm (“Hocus Pocus! Self-Promotion!”) Make no dog-fondling mistake THE GODDAMNED is all boob-kneadingly grim stuff, with sweaty men wielding axes made of babies’ femurs and folk calling God a cunt. Golly! Ear muffs, kids!

THE GODDAMNED by Guera, Aaron, Brusco & Fletcher

Our protagonist aside (it’s Cain. Different spelling, no relation. Or is he? Eh?), everyone, even the ladies, even the kids, are all scarred and hairy. Not unlike my savaged groin after that orchiopexy. Yeah, I know it’s primarily a kid’s procedure, but my balls were so large and laden with swimming future Winners, they had to wait until I was manly enough to take the pain of the surgically assisted descent. And, yeah, it hurt because anaesthetic is for girlymen Liberals and pussyboy intellectuals, both of which can smoke my fat porker. But not in a gay way. In a manly way. Yeah, THE GODDAMNED is a comic for all us big balled fellas who sweat when we shit; who almost pass out when we pass stool, straining faces as swollen and empurpled as our members on the vinegar stroke because our diet, see, contains only red meat. Meat we have killed our bare hands, skinned with our filed down teeth, and smoked over a fire of burning titmags. THE GODDAMNED is studly stuff, engorged with hard won beefy truths about how a man can find the drive to live within a sad child’s eyes or a woman’s shrill neediness. It’s only slightly marred by the fact that having a protagonist who can’t be killed detracts from the suspense a bit, every fight thus becomes as one-sided as an arm-wrestling contest between a long-haul trucker and a Sociology major. Imagine The Outlaw Josey Wales set on John Norman’s Gor and written by someone overcompensating for the fact that his churchy family think writing is for the ladies. “With John Vernon as Noah”. Grrr! Woof! SAY MY NAME! SAY IT!

I THE GODDAMNED by Guera, Aaron, Brusco & Fletcher

Damn, this comic is so butch it’ll whip you with its dick ‘til you start to like it. Pushing past the childish desire to outrage, as through the foresty pubes of a ‘70s pornstar, it is possible to see some cute pacing, decent characterisation and robust structural integrity in the writing. But it’s hard to give credit when the whole thing consistently mistakes infantile for audacious. Luckily for the soft sods out there, like moi,  who can’t take Jason Aaron’s burnt bacon brilliance, R. M. Guera draws the hot balls off everything in such a way as to actually make the ridiculous thing seem worth reading. Reading is for mulch-cuddling professors though, so make that “worth looking at”. R.M. Guera is just a goddamn (heh) joy to watch. Even when folk are face down in pools of shit, or guts are unspooling in red splashes from twisted and gnarled bodies, there’s a vein of feral splendour running through everything. Guera’s briefly glimpsed Eden is as pure and cold and distant as perfection itself, but his broken sin-stained earth is filled with vitality and a shockingly brutal beauty. Aided only by Brusco's apocalyptically lush colours Guera’s art is eloquent enough to make an unflinching and convincing case for humanity, flaws and downright shitty behaviour and all, while the script blithely rebels uselessly, stridently and foolishly against an empty sky. Because of R.M. Guera THE GODDAMNED is VERY GOOD! But only because of R.M. Guera. Otherwise it’s EH! (N.B. I didn’t really have a late life orchiopexy. So don’t send cards. Save the money and buy yourself something nice.)

THE GODDAMNED by Guera, Aaron, Brusco & Fletcher

NEXT TIME: Hungry Like The…COMICS!!!

“My WHOLE BODY experiences Disasters And It's—I'm WORRIED About It Getting To Me.” COMICS! Sometimes I Should Just Shake My Head And Leave The Room.

So…The biggest names in comics! The biggest comics in comics! Several thousand words which can be summed up as, “Seriously? You jest, right? THIS?” Break out the bunting because the world’s sourest man is back! Nothing is good enough for him! He’s a big old stinker and no mistake! Comics by beloved creators spat at by a man with not a fraction of their talent! Oh, it’s good to be back. (We are back, right?) The following is dedicated to OKOliver who left OKComics without me having the chance to say goodbye. Good luck in your new life as a space gigolo! M-Wah! M-Wah!

CASANOVA: NO JACKET REQUIRED #1 by Moon, Fraction, Harbin & Peter

Anyway, this…

Someone must have been telling lies about John K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he found himself blocked from The Savage Critics… Ho ho ho, a little bit of Kaf-KA! there. Actually, I have no idea what happened. At first I thought Cap’n Hibbs had sacked me but…wait, he hasn’t has he? Anyway, I don’t know because I’m writing this while the site’s still down, so I don’t know what happened because as I type it’s still happening. If you’re reading this we’re BACK! If you’re not, then we’re NOT!

CASANOVA: SUSSUDIO#1 Art by Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon Written by Matt Fraction & Michael Chabon Lettered by Dustin Harbin Coloured by Cris Peter Image Comics, £0.69 Digital (2015) CASANOVA created by Fraction, Moon & Ba

I’m not really a Matt Fraction man, so if you are you might want to just skip this one. But, as little time as I can find for his work in my withered and bitter life I do have to give Fraction kudos for the unflinching portrayal of vacuous self-obsession embodied by the almost heroically oblivious buffoon, Jerry Cornelius, er, Casanova Quinn. Few are the authors who would dare be so upfront about the distasteful shallowness of their lead. We’re all grown-ups hereabouts (we skew “old” at the SavCrits, so I hear) so we all know that no one needs to actually like a lead character. Still to actually invite, nay, compel, readers to loathe so fiercely the focus of a work of fiction is a feat worthy of attention, nay, applause. Applause I imagine Mick Jagger, er, Casanova Quinn, would expect purely as his due for his mere existence. The book’s right upfront about it as well. So foolish a fop have we here that he openly declares himself to be “good at people” (and, oh, the attention that “at” so conceitedly coerces!) Obviously, it is a secret only to people who utter such self-serving bilge that people who feel they are good “at” people are never  anything of the sort, and that the people that they feel they are good “at” only endure their hilariously transparent horseshit (ugh, all that open body language, the direct gaze, the tilted head and, worst of all, the excessive interest in, no, really, you; how are you doing? Spare me.) with such forbearance because it would be cruel to just laugh in their patronising face as it swarms with smarm.

CASANOVA: FACE VALUE by Moon, Fraction, Harbin & Peter

This total lack of self-awareness reaches a hilarious nadir when the book risks actually transmuting  into a substance composed of pure condescension as Casanova Quinn explains his own very poor joke about an elephant in case we missed how clever he was being. Like all his type Casanova Quinn understands that if you have to explain your own joke the fault is always (always) that of the audience.  There is no such thing as a bad joke just bad audiences. Just as there is no such thing as bad writing, just bad readers. Obviously. Cruelly, but understandably since he is so dulled by self-adoration, Quinn is made to inhabit a world as obsessed with surfaces as he himself is. His oleaginous self slithers through a slurry of outdated signifiers of alienation and joyless ostentation snipped from decades of pop culture (swimming pools, ladies flashing their knickers, gamines with balloons, joyless parties) all huddled together like confused refugees yanked without thought or feeling from other, better, works in the futile hope that their mere proximity will create fresh meaning. Casanova Quinn is the kind of person who has watched The Great Gatsby and thinks this is the same as reading The Great Gatsby. How can anyone know me, when I don’t even know myself?, thinks Casanova Quinn; so impressed with his own insight he practically shudders with the struggle not to climax. Casanova Quinn and his banal world are such flagrantly faux creations that it’s testament to the art of Ba and Moon and the muted citrus wash of Peters' colours that I kept coming back to the this series as long as I did. But enough. I shall find places where their art is better served, and inflict upon Casanova Quinn the, to him, ultimate insult of the snub. Postscript: Michael Chabon writes a strip in the back. This is a big deal because Michael Chabon not only won a Pulitzer Prize but, more importantly, wrote a whole book about old timey comics which was nice of him. Unfortunately his comic writing is very much exactly as good as you would expect someone his age trying to be H!pS@xyF*n would be. In short then, Casanova EH!

FCB: CIVIL WAR II©™ #1 Art by Jim Cheung & John Dell, Alan Davis & Mark Farmer Written by Brian Michael Bendis©™, Mark Waid Coloured by Justin Ponsor, Matt Hollingsworth Lettered by VC's Clayton Cowles, VC's Cory Petit Free! from Marvel Comics©™ All characters within created by human beings who had hopes, dreams and loves just like you, but they don't get a mention. You can look them up on Wikipedia if you want. I'm betting you don't want.

This was sent unbidden by hands unknown, so don’t get the idea that I’ve gone out of my way to read this. It was stuck in the packing of an almost criminally flamboyant purchase, just in case you had the idea I had fans who send me stuff. I don’t have fans (boo fucking hoo), and if I did they’d have more sense than to give stuff away. Also, don’t get the idea that I have anything against Brian Michael Bendis©™ as a human being, as a sentient entity, as a carbon based lifeform. He seems like a nice enough man; he’s certainly a wonderful provider for his family and I don’t doubt he is a loving father, a rewarding partner, and I’m even willing to entertain (under duress) the notion that he’s a regular sexual tyrannosaur (although I think that’s his business really). He does use his exalted position to bring in talented new artists and he obviously has a lot of love for the medium of comics. He’s well into it isn’t he? What  with his perpetual tumbling  and incessant tweeting, and he’s dutifully repaid Marvel©™’s faith in him like a good little soldier. And who has a heart so hard that it can be failed to be moved by his child like glee when Marvel©™ put him, and a bunch of other White Hot Fan Favourites©™, in a room to harvest their brains for ideas, like they are interchangeable cogs in a hugely dull machine. Oh, I wish to be as happy as Brian Michael Bendis©™ is when he tweets a picture of himself holding a Name Brand Burger next to the literary colossus Matt Fraction. There, I say, there is a man who has built a life and is enjoying it. There, right there, is a successful human being. Unfortunately, having said all that I think his writing is terrible. Dreadful stuff. Quite disheartening. He is consistent though, to give him his due; with all his work running the gamut from gibberish to mediocre with much of it falling into that sweet spot of mediocre gibberish. However, we have a saying over here – tackle the ball not the man. Hopefully that’s what I’ll be doing. (Hopefully that’s what I always do, but I am a bit of a prick so sometimes I probably slip.) Know ye this then: I wish Brian Michael Bendis©™ no ill will; and anyway I have a sneaky suspicion that the millions of dollars in his bank account will soften the feathery blows from some anonymous dude who should really save his energy to provide for his own family one fiftieth as well as the tiny dynamo Brian Michael Bendis©™. But, uh, y’know, maybe, just maybe, I mean this, uh, comic, will make the preceding cowardly caveats redundant. (SPOILER: it doesn’t. It’s bloody awful.)

FCBD 2016 (CIVIL WAR) No.1 by Cheung & Dell, Bendis, Ponsor and Cowles

Events, eh? Why are they so hard? You’d think it would be a slam dunk every time. A big threat, heroes band together, some character work, a few set pieces and a page shaking climax. I’m up for that, I was up for that from the first time they did it (because I am old, did I mention I was old?) but as bovine and intellectually listless as even I am,  the perpetually dreadful incarnations of this promising ideal soon withered my good will to naught. Tell you what, take a break from imagining punching  me in the face and let me know of a good Event comic. Whoa, hold up there, podna, not one you liked; one that was good. E.g. I liked FINAL CRISIS but it was not exactly good was it? So take your time – a good Event comic. In your own time. At your own pace. No rush. Ah, there they are: the sounds of silence. This time out the latest in the never-ending stream of comics to which the only sane reaction is to wonder, “Who is buying this crap?” comes CIVIL WAR 2©™ FCBD#1. In which Brian Michael Bendis©™ bring his intellect to bear on the thorny philosophical problem of if the market has been gamed to the extent that a comic is guaranteed to sell hundreds of thousands of copies no matter what’s in it, what does it matter what’s in it? Only joking, it’s really about the thorny philosophical problem of how to rip off Minority Report and sleep at night. Haw, Haw  I’m just joking! A regular jester I am with my fool’s cap jangling. Ting-a-ling! Ding-a-ling!

FCBD 2016 (CIVIL WAR) No.1 by Cheung & Dell, Bendis, Ponsor and Cowles

Which is about all this…thing deserves. Because this…comic(?) is basically a bunch of painfully “cute” scenes which, uh, follow each other and kind of depend entirely on the generosity of the reader to pretend they are a coherent narrative. The first couple of pages set the tone as Brian Michael Bendis©™ takes a ridiculous amount of space to tell us that Cap’n Marvel©™ and War Machine©™ are an Item. Let me just pause to reassure any other crusty comics warhorses like myself that Cap’n Marvel©™ is now a lady. Marvel©™ may be chasing that progressive dollar like it made off with their car keys but they aren’t that progressive. Gays are a bit much, right? Sure, I mean a tip of the hat is in order for a white lady and a coloured man locking lips , but pernickety as ever I think this kind of Step Forward would be a lot better in a Good Comic. Call me Icarus, eh? Despite the fact that everyone in this scene is a grown-ass adult Cap’n Marvel©™ asks Black Panther©™ to turn round while she snogs War Machine©™. That’s not because adults behave like that but because Brian Michael Bendis©™ saw it in a TV programme, probably iCarly if I had to guess. Page wastage, “cute” scenes ported across from other media, adults acting like tweens, a narrative as taut as unset jelly (US: jello), so far so Brian Michael Bendis©™; all we need now is some of his Stellar Character Work©™ And whaddya know, as if on cue…Thanos©™ turns up! I know arguing about character consistency at this point in the history of North American genre comics just earns you pitying looks like you turned up at work with two jumpers on but sans trousers, but still…Thanos©™…Thanos™© just beams in bellowing and festooned with weaponry like he was just plucked from a particularly savage session of the new DOOM (VERY GOOD!) game. Does that sound like Thanos©™? Is that anyone’s idea of how Thanos©™ operates? Personally, and I’ve not really been paying attention so I could be wrong, I thought Thanos©™ was a master manipulator, a singular strategist, a regular Machiavelli of the Marvel©™ Universe. Apparently I was wrong, it seems that nowadays if Thanos©™ wants something Thanos©™ just covers himself in guns and bursts into view bellowing and fighting everything in sight until he gets what he wants. Stellar Character Work©™. Obviously, I’m guessing, this happens not because that behaviour is an accurate reflection of the established character of Thanos©™, but because that’s what the (ahem) plot demands. You could plug anyone into that role, you could even, maybe, and I’m just throwing this out there, plug someone suitable into that role. The only reason it’s Thanos©™ is because he appears for less time than it takes me to make sweet love, at the end of the credits of some Marvel©™ movie or other (I neither know nor care which, thanks). Of course it is possible behaving like a bear on fire might be Brian Michael Bendis©™’ idea of a regular Sun Tzu; I mean Brian Michael Bendis©™ is not exactly into that whole subtlety deal is he now. I mean, I know he thinks he is, but I think I’m fucking sunshine on legs so we can already see that self-perception isn’t always reliable.

FCBD 2016 (CIVIL WAR) No.1 by Cheung & Dell, Bendis, Ponsor and Cowles

So, yeah, Thanos©™ is in it, but rather than have him act like Thanos™©, he just acts like a big violent idiot because the (cough) plot require someone to do that. Synergy’s on the whiteboard, so put The Thanos©™ in! Personally I don’t think this is pandering mindlessly enough at the cost of the internal consistency of the comic. They should have really blue-skied this one. I mean, sure people like Thanos©™ because he was at the end of that movie (nope, still don’t care), but they have also always liked chocolate, and even before chocolate they liked diddling themselves, so why not work that in? Have Thanos©™ turn up but instead of guns he could be studded with giant chocolate dildos. That should cover just about everybody. If you’re going to pander then don’t hold back, you know. Shame? Just a movie with Alan Ladd in, yeah? The Inhumans©™ are in it too, but the only interesting thing about The Imhumans©™ (outside of the work of Jack “The King” Kirby) is the big teleporting dog. Until Marvel©™ realise this The Inhumans©™ are just a dead loss. Al Ewing on LOCKJAW? I’d buy that! No, I wouldn’t, because I’m not paying Marvel prices. The fact this denies me access to Al Ewing’s work is a major thorn in my paw, but he’ll leave eventually. They all do. Except Brian Michael Bendis©™.  So, yeah, Thanos©™ shows up and there’s a regular wing-ding. So life-or-death, so savage, so brutal a fight is this that She-Hulk©™ comments on Thanos©™’ funny chin while they are whaling away at each other. I can’t be doing with these soul chafingly awful attempts at quippy humour which constantly puncture any sense of drama in modern comics. Worse yet, She-Hulk©™ upbraids Thanos©™ for his poor sentence structure. That’s right, Brian Michael Bendis©™ (BRIAN. MICHAEL. BENDIS.©™) writes a character that has the self-absorbed gall to criticise another character Brian Michael Bendis©™ is writing for their poor English which Brian Michael Bendis©™ has written. Let that sink in for a bit. Take your time. Christ, if She-Hulk©™ were really that keen on correcting the grammatical infelicities of everyone in Brian Michael Bendis©™ comics she…she’d be very, very busy, let’s just leave it at that. I mean, there’s irony and then there’s just heartbreakingly unaware. Of course why Thanos©™ is talking like The Hulk©™ (it’s almost as if it was The Hulk©™ in the first place but was ineptly changed to Thanos at short notice©™. As if!) anyway is not explained, because it’s all just so bloody hilarious, so who cares. Except it isn’t hilarious, it’s jarring. We get that all these writers want to work in TV and that they have a sense of humour apparently completely shaped by sub-par sit-coms but, look, Everybody Loves Raymond is not something to aspire to. I’m sorry, but there it is.

“Oh, Mr Robot!” is ©™ John K Inc.

Mind you I’m not exactly well disposed to the TV. This Golden Age of Television? Look, just because you can name three TV series you liked in the past 5 years doesn’t make it a Golden Age of anything, it means there’s some stuff you liked on Television. That’s kind of the whole raison d’etre for television: to put stuff on you like. I liked The Wire too but one program does not a Golden Age make. Because I have to work with people younger than I am (when you get to my age most people are younger than you are, except the dead) sometimes they puppyishly tell me to watch something. Well, setting my monocle firmly in place, I did just that: I had a pop at that there Mr. Robots people squeal so deliciously about. Alas, the charms of a program about a pill popping magic hacker who wants to fuck his sister and is haunted by Christian Slater eluded me. With a title like Mr. Robot it should be about Christian Slater made up like he’s in Heartbeeps moonwalking about a patently fake set, with his arms set at right angles and slowly turning his head, while learning important lessons about human behaviour from the wacky family of his scatty inventor with whom he lodges. The series’ catch phrase would be “Oh, Mr. Robot!”, at which the camera would unfailingly zoom in on Christian Slater in a tuxedo and slathered with silver paint, body popping in confusion at the latest mistake he’s made in aping these crazy humans. “Oh, Mr. Robot!” You’ll all be saying it tomorrow. Or you could just read that VISION comic. Ha ha ha! You didn’t like that punchline did you?!  No prisoners today! Oh, hey, thanks for sticking with this one; it’s gone a long way from the point hasn’t? It’s possible that the lack of focus was intentional and an indication of just how much serious critical consideration this comic(?) deserves, but on balance it’s more likely that I am a feckless twat. As a comic it was CRAP! Even as packing (remember that bit?) I think it was bettered by the polystyrene doohickeys it was stuffed in with. Nothing personal though, right? Oh, and it’s no good telling me it was free. So what? It should be shit? It’s supposed to be an enticement not a turn-off. Weirdly even if it's free I still turn my nose up at shit. Me and my high standards! Yes, the best thing about it was the art and we’re always told to say something about the art but why, seriously, why bother when the stench of the writing just makes any art at all an utter waste of talent. It’s pretty but unthrilling stuff, which given the stink of a script is a monumental testament to Cheung & Dell's professionalism. This is a flatulent jumble of dumb and it’s worth reiterating it’s CRAP! It’s like a poorly coded robot tried to write a comic – everything rings tinny and off. And cue:

“Oh, Mr. Bendis!” (Laughtrack annnnnnd roll CREDITS).

(N.B. There's also a story about The Wasp©™ by Waid and Davis & Farmer. I'm sure it's fine, but after the slackjawed pap I'd had just about enough of comics for a while.)

NEXT TIME: I burn even more bridges in "The Biz" as I take a “look” at some Brian Azzarello Bat-comics.

I was locked out in the dark but I never stopped loving – COMICS!!!

“I Myself Played A Zobo Kazoo.” COMICS! Sometimes Comedy Lurks In The Unlikeliest of Places!

Yeah, uh,  sorry. Didn't mean to be gone quite so long. Got distracted by the real world. Big Mistake. What an awful place the real world is. Simply dreadful. So, yeah, not a good year thus far for any of us, huh? Hey, I know what we need, some sweet, sweet COMICS!!! (DISCLAIMER: Contains words of praise for Alan Moore.) Midnight of the Soul by Chaykin, Arbutov & Bruzenak

Anyway, this... MIDNIGHT OF THE SOUL #1 Art by Howard Victor Chaykin Written by Howard Victor Chaykin Coloured by Jesus Arbutov Lettered by Ken Bruzenak Image Comics, Inc., $3.50 (2016) Midnight of the Soul created by Howard Victor Chaykin

So, yeah, at long damn last Howard Victor Chaykin's MIDNIGHT OF THE SOUL strikes at your eyes like a comic book cobra! My son (“Gil”) wasn't even born when the coiner of the phrase “moral cripples” started talking this one up. You can't rush awesome though, so here we are. Fifteen hairline depleting years later, here we are. This time out Howard Victor Chaykin's dreamy doppelganger is one Joel Breakstone who as ever looks good, looks fine, maybe a little too good, a tad too fine for someone in Joel Breakstone's position. That being one of a man wallowing in a self medicated haze of booze following an as yet unrevealed incident while liberating the WW2 Death Camps.

We'll obviously be coming back to the Death Camps of WW2. Largely because Joel Breakstone keeps going back to the Death Camps of WW2. Because, as Joseph Heller might have it “something happened” in the Death Camps of WW2. Not just the stuff we all know went on in the Death Camps of WW2 but something particular to Joel Breakstone. Because Joel Breakstone helped liberate one and what occurred in The Death Camps of WW2 is the gift that keeps giving. But then don't judge the book too quickly, because there is such a thing as an unreliable narrator and a pretty good candidate for such a post would be a man whose spent five years coping with PTSD by self medicating himself with alcohol and refusing to leave his house. That's Joel Breakstone, not me. On the very first page turn Chaykin seamlessly entwines the past and the present via the images of chimneys and he keeps this high standard of storytelling up for the duration. He seems more than present, he seems engaged, and because Howard Victor Chaykin is engaged the words on the page matter and no word matters more than the first word here “Parallels.”

Midnight of the Soul by Chaykin, Arbutov & Bruzenak

Art-wise it's looking good, it' s looking cleaner and smarter than a Howard Victor Chaykin joint has for a while. The big test of Chaykin art in 2016 is how is going with the cheeks'n'chins? I checked with my eyes and the cheeks and chins in MotS seem altogether more controlled than they have for awhile. Chaykin's reigning in his prognathous tendencies and no one is stylin' Jō Shishido cheeks,so that's good. His figure work's sweet, with a killer panel of Breakstone kicking his TV in. And that TV, like everything around it, seems period authentic so I guess he's as reliable as ever in that respect. There's still a little ghost-float where the images don't quite cohere ideally, but Jesus Arbutov's shadows attempt a corrective tethering. And Ken Bruzenak, lovely, lovely Ken Bruzenak continues his ridiculously innovative attempts to visually represent the purely audible; by now his constructions of visual onomatopoeia are as integral to the art as a whole as any pictures Chaykin lays down. It's a finely honed machine, is what I'm saying.

MIDNIGHT OF THE SOUL is as ridiculously virile, as cheekily provocative, as visually intelligent and as resolutely “Chaykin” as anyone could wish. VERY GOOD!

THE TWILIGHT ZONE: THE SHADOW #3 Art by Dave Acosta Written by David Avallone Coloured by Omi Remalante Lettered by Taylor Esposito Cover by Francesco Francavilla Dynamite Entertainment, $3.99 (2016) The Twilight Zone created by Rod Serling The Shadow created by Walter B Gibson

Here's a thing, my LCS just automatically sends me every comic about The Shadow. I'm not entirely sure why that is, but it is. Maybe they think I am so old I remember the pulps or something. Anyway, this isn't what I was expecting at all. I was hoping The Shadow would be maybe fixing Burgess Meredith's glasses, or leaning past William Shatner and firing his twin .45s through the plane window and blowing that thing to fuck and back, or maybe saving the world by saying, “For the Love of God, it's a cookbook, you blithering fools.” Nope, it's some kind of meta affair whereby Shads has entered The Twilight Zone and every issue he is plonked into some situation where The Shadow is a fictional construct (i.e. kind of our reality; last issue he was an Orson Welles doppler, this issue he's “Maxwell Grant”, and thus deucedely confused) and learns a lesson which brings him that bit closer back to the humanity he had been in the process of losing.

The Twilight Zone: The Shadow by Acosta, Avallone, Remalante & Esposito

It's a clever little set up and while David Avallone might have bitten off a little more than he can chew and the spindly art by Dave Acosta is more game than it is successful, it's neat enough stuff. The kind of thing Neil Gaiman makes such bloody heavy weather out of , but Avallone & Acosta keep it all light with just the right amount of humour and some inventive set pieces. What could be more Twilight Zone-y than The Shadow being attacked by giant typewriter keys spelling J-U-S-T-I-C-E? Not much, I trust you'll agree. GOOD! PROVIDENCE #9 Art by Jacen Burrows Written by Alan Moore Coloured by Juan Rodriguez Lettered by Kurt Hathaway Cover by Jacen Burrows Avatar Press Inc, $4.99 (2016) Providence created by Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows Inspired by and indebted to the works of Howard Philips Lovecraft

In which everyone's favourite ginger haired Jewish homosexual nebbish glides blithely nearer a Stygian fate swarming with noisome and gibbering cyclopean terrors whose preternatural forms possess angles in defiance of all mortal conceptions of GEOMETRY!!! It took a bit of getting into to be honest, this one. Burrows' art was a bit of an impediment to immersion until I figured it out. It's purposefully bland. Being, I think, the visual equivalent of Lovecraft's dense and willfully archaic texts, which softly lull you into a kind of waking stupor, allowing the horrors to encroach subtly but decisively even as your eyes glaze over. Thus leaving you ripe for the final unveiling of...no, no, it cannot be named! At first I thought the series could be improved by having, say, Cam Kennedy or Richard Corben draw over the, uh, unutterable aspects. But then they'd really stand out, which isn't what they're after, I think. Even the, uh, eldritch elements have to be visually contiguous so that our protagonist’s rationalising of the thoroughly irrational has some credence.

Providence by Burrows, Moore, Rodriguez & Hathaway

Sure PROVIDENCE took some effort to read, but it repaid that work. Heck, I even started rereading Lovecraft hissownself, and I haven't touched the stuff since I was 15. Lovecraft that is, not the glue. Yes, I'm still merrily huffing into my forties. No, but, anyway re-reading Lovecraft? Hoo boy is he racist! It's right on the page as well. I missed that when I was fifteen, so either I was a bit thick or I was very racist myself, because seriously HP Lovecraft? Big racist. Just lays it right out there. Turns out he was the kind of racist who was anti-Semitic too. Lovely. Funny thing is though he was the kind of anti-Semite who marries a Jewish woman, because racists never make sense. (That's because racism doesn't make sense.) Anyway that marriage was less than successful (I know! SURPRISE!), but it does lend HP Lovecraft's jolly time with our Jewish friend herein a undercurrent of humour. Because there's a lot of humour in PROVIDENCE, some of it quite dark but some of it just plain funny. I mean, HP Lovecraft on these pages is a hilarious creation, seemingly inhabiting the century just prior to the one everyone else is living in. His erudite vocabulary set to task on the most mundane of conversational niceties is a proper hoot. He was actually a bit like that as well, so they say. Odd cove all round that HP Lovecraft. Say, did I mention the racism?

With PROVIDENCE Alan Moore brings a depth, intelligence and care to his writing which makes most everything surrounding it in the mainstream comics world seem as unto hurried mush, and Jacen Burrows acquits himself well r.e. his apparent brief to keep it real. The book repays the work you put in, basically. That dumpy looking washer woman staring balefully from the tower in this issue? It's not the first time she's appeared in the series. But to what end. To what...END!!! VERY GOOD!

That is not dead which still reads – COMICS!!!

“The Matter of Britain Has A Desperate, Clawed Gravity.” COMICS! Sometimes I Suspect History Isn't Finished With Us Yet.

In which I go up against Warren Ellis' current series and...the usual snark is not deployed! Find out why after the “More...” INJECTION by Shalvey, Ellis, Bellaire & Fonografiks

Anyway, this... INJECTION, VOLUME ONE Art by Declan Shalvey Written by Warren Ellis Coloured by Jordi Bellaire Lettered & Designed by Fonografiks © 2015 Warren Ellis & Declan Shalvey Originally published in magazine form as INJECTION #1-5 Image Comics, £5.49 (currently £2.99) via Comixology (2015)

I was going to start off on a portentous note by solemnly intoning something along the lines of “Britain is an old land...” But all lands are old, you know; Belgium didn't just turn up one day and forget to leave. Still stubbornly aiming for that serous note that would get me the gold elbow patches I so dearly I aspire to, I toyed with “Despite its size Britain is full of history...”. But all lands are full of history. Even Belgium. Clearly this wasn't working, particularly as I'm not exactly sure what Britain's history is. Not WW2 and The Corn Laws, no, I mean the stuff they don't cover in class; the bit when we were all running about in woad and worshiping trees and stones. But is even that Britain? I mean we were a very popular spot for invasions, seemingly right from day one. Before wi-fi the old rape and pillage were all the rage, and Britain had plenty to rape and pillage by all accounts. It's not much to brag about but we'll take what we can, thanks. And British people will drone on about how hardy we are, but a lot of the time the invaders won. E.g. in 1066, as commemorated on the Bayeux Tapestry (one of the first long form comics) the French arrived quite violently on our shores, and it wouldn't be until 1399 that we again had a king whose mother tongue was English. Strangely we don't go on about that a lot. But, boy, we never shut up about Agincourt. Like all races the British memory is selective, but facts dictate that the British are a mongrel race; we can agree on that at least? Which perhaps explains their preoccupation with defining British-ness. Seriously, I'm British but that shit is just tiresome. Here we have a comic by Declan Shalvey and Warren Ellis which is all about Britain and Britishness but...it's not tiresome in the least. I know! You could have knocked me down with a feather!

INJECTION by Shalvey, Ellis, Bellaire & Fonografiks

When I first read INJECTION, I'll admit I was less than impressed. At first glance it looked like a rejig of the PLANETARY template: there's a group of hideously over competent specialists investigating singularly odd occurrences which all point to a larger, world threatening conspiracy. Is that PLANETARY? I didn't read past the first two TPBs, mainly because I got distracted, but also because there was a character called the Drummer who was, sigh, a drummer and every time he appeared I sighed a little harder until I had to drop the series lest all the air sigh from my body. But if I'm writing about a thing I usually give it a couple of go-overs (I know, arent I professional!), and a second read of INJECTION resulted in me ejecting my biases and appreciating the comic more fairly. And having given it a fair shake I'd say it was certainly among Ellis' best work. That I've read, naturally.

INJECTION by Shalvey, Ellis, Bellaire & Fonografiks

In INJECTION Shalvey and Ellis have come up with a cast of five specialists, each of whom is typically sickeningly proficient in their area of expertise. (I am of course wildly jealous as I am the kind of man who calls heating a bolognese in the oven “cooking”.) There’s also a healthy spread of ethnicities within the group, unlike PLANETARY. Maria Kilbride is the notional head of the group and she may be white but she is ginger, which in bitter old Britain is treated as a distinct race and abused in a similarly unthinking fashion. Maria's also cracked in the head. Trained in the art of exposition-fu Maria is currently attempting to atone for something she and her gang of four did. And this Something is something the series makes clearer as it progresses. Simeon Winters is, for want of a better description a spy; he is also black. He allows Ellis to bring in his creepy feel for gadgetry and indulge in long stretches of artfully choreographed violence. During an an extended contretemps gone wrong in a plush hotel Declan Shalvey demonstrates once again (see MOON KNIGHT) that he is one of the premier action artists of the modern age. Falling chandeliers, knives through bone and faces smashed into unwashed dishes are just some of the stuff he pulls off. And all as the combatants dance their deadly dance through dimensions discretely defined and adhered to. Fucking beezer, in short. (If Simeon Winters is any indication that Ellis penned JAMES BOND: VAGNA might be worth a look.)

INJECTION by Shalvey, Ellis, Bellaire & Fonografiks

Brigid Roth is your street urchin/hacker and is also not Caucasian, but she is Irish. Although she never exclaims “Bejaysus!” or dances a jig, so I'm taking this Irishness on trust. (Racism Disclaimer: I'm not mocking the Irish, I'm mocking the poverty of their portrayal in comics. I can mock the Irish if you like. Drop me a line.) There are only five issues collected here so not everyone gets equal space and Brigid gets sketched out nicely enough, but I imagine the depth will come later. However, in one of her pieces, Shalvey draws a super piece of body language in one panel as she scoots some discarded grundies under a chair with her foot while hoping her visitor won't notice. He also goes to town on her house and her tech bringing much needed sense of realism to this particular steet urchin hacker thing I find so difficult to digest. I know, I know, there are singing stones distorting the fabric of reality and ancient ents spitting Middle English in modern travel lodges, but what I have problems with is how such a street-wise scamp got so much PC kit. That's on me. Vivek Headland is another non-Caucasian and is the least defined character in the book. At the moment he is the OCD Sherlock type that is currently in vogue. Hopefully he'll be fleshed out later, and if not hopefully he'll fall under a bus. Fifthly and finally, Robin Morel is the token Caucasian male (how'd you like them apples; better get used to 'em. Multiculturalism is here to stay!) and the most explicitly British of the cast. So British in fact that his ancestors were Cunning Folk (i.e. druids) and it is strongly implied that his family tree has its roots in the first soil that settled on the rocks of Britain. He denies he is a magician or has any ulterior motives with all the strength and conviction of someone who is in fact a wizard and has ulterior motives to spare. Wesley's wise words to “always bet on black” are wise indeed, but Kane's creed of “always to keep your eye on the white guy” might also need heeding.

INJECTION by Shalvey, Ellis, Bellaire & Fonografiks

Ayup, it's a varied and interesting cast. One which, for maximum narrative interest, we're introduced to in the present and also the past via parallel narratives. In the present strange and deadly shit is erupting, while in the past we find out why that is. Sure, Ellis can't help indulging in tediously sarky banter, but he does keep it to a minimum, leavng plenty of space for actual characterisation, nasty set pieces and technical gobbledygook, all driven by the visual urgency of Shalvey's art work. Art work aided by the sublimely accomplished colours of Jordi Bellaire. Now, I don't have a handle on colours but it's clear Bellaire's up to something here. The play of blues, greens and reds in particular across the pages suggest some underlying theme which I have not yet gleaned. Which is perfectly appropriate for a series I suspect has surprises yet to unleash. INJECTION is a work of quiet strength and that strength comes from the scope of its approach. Ellis works in a cheeky nod to Will Wiles' 2014 novel The Way Inn while also sprinkling in Olde England legends. Ellis explicitly brings in the legend of Wayland The Smith, and it's a cute way of showing the old stories still have meaning in the modern world. I think it's notable though that Ellis keeps Wayland sympathetic, because there's an ending to his legend that Ellis doesn't tell. A brutal and cruel revenge which makes him less symapthetic than he appears here. Which suggests that with this first volume of INJECTION we've just settled on the surface and deeper, darker depths will be broached soon.

INJECTION by Shalvey, Ellis, Bellaire & Fonografiks

Essentially, Ellis combines his fetish for the future with a passion for the past and creates a more balanced work than I've yet read from him. Being aided by Declan Shalvey (who similarly elevated Ellis' writing on MOON KNIGHT) ensures that the visuals are compelling and arresting even during the quieter scenes. Crucially then, Ellis keeps his Ellis-isms to a minimum and Shalvey appears incapable of doing anything but shine. I don't really know where INJECTION is going but the chances are good it will have more to say than it's all the Fantastic Four's fault. VERY GOOD!

NEXT TIME: I don't know! I'm not a machine! COMICS!!! COMICS!!!

“THE TRAVELLING PALACE OF IEMUHM ANNOUNCES ITS ARRIVAL IN BRIGHT RUNES” COMICS! Sometimes Houses Are Surprisingly Mobile!

In which I write about a single series that is in fact like a whole imprint in itself. Now, I'm not usually one for comics about, you know, the Frangipanis struggle against the Ipanemians on the planet Sega, but I have a weakness for good storytelling, which all of these had. Um, spoilers! 8HOUSE: ARCLIGHT by Churchland, Graham & Maher

Anyway, this... 8HOUSE #1 -2: ARCLIGHT Art and Colours by Marian Churchland Art by Brandon Graham om p.27 in #1 Art by Brandon Graham on p.28-29 in #2 Story by Brandon Graham Letters by Ariana Maher Image comics, $2.99 each (2015) © 2015 Brandon Graham & Marion Churchland

Man, this thing just drips aristocratic hauteur does it not? It can barely bring itself to allow a prole like you to sully it with your low-born gaze. First there’s that weird title to get past; the one that sounds like a Bullingdon Clubber saying outhouse e.g. “Haw, haw, by 2020 we’ll have turned this country into an 8House. Hard times for the little people, what?” I mean, as title’s go it’s not exactly informative is it? 8House? Hate House? Yeah, I’m not fond of it myself, more of a Northern Soul man. Luckily, I have been gifted with powers beyond those of mortal ken so I know it refers to the 8 Houses (or Families) which rule the planet of Greg Araki where Ghoonga Djinn will save everyone by using the magic white spice to make his pupils contract to pinpricks and talk crap very fast. Or is that our Chancellor, Norman Osborne? Hard to tell in days as strange as these. No, all digressionary bullshit aside I’ve read two issues of this comic now and it’s basically magical space fops in love. Oh, and more importantly it's pretty great to boot.

8HOUSE: ARCLIGHT by Churchland, Graham & Maher

I know it’s pretty great because even though its pacing is stately and the storytelling somewhat opaque (two things which when done badly I hate), this stately opacity is tethered to meticulously honed storytelling. Each image from line weight, framing, size through to colour is carefully measured to maximise its impact and import.  Brandon Graham's captions are sparse, being used mainly for an atmospheric mix of the evocative and the expositionary and so the book is mostly imagery drive. And the imagery Marian Churchland brings to it is really quite striking. Everything looks hand drawn with a lovely human wobble to the line, and the colouring is the soothingly smooth combination of hard and soft only coloured pencils seem able to achieve (although it was probably all done on those computers I hear about). Gesture and expression are pivotal in conveying information here and the book's lucky to have someone so gifted in conveying such tricksy stuff on board. Having said that, I'm still a bit unsure if I gleaned all the meaning from these two issues. As far as I can tell there’s a bundle of twigs in a cloak hosting the soul of a genderblended noble and s/he/it is and her pal are tracking whatever has nicked her/his/its body. The whole being made of kindling thing is putting a serious crimp in stick face’s attendance at soirees where all the gentleladymen wear gossamer nighties and trade bitchery of the barbed variety. So when news reaches Twiggy that his/her/its body is doing the rounds off they set, and after some blood fueled sigil based scuffling a confrontation, the outcomes and import of which are still a tad unclear to this most unreliable of readers, seems unavoidable. Now, I could have some stuff wrong there, after all I read it a bit back and this book isn't exactly eager to give up its secrets, but puzzling them out is part of the fun. And it's gorgeously illustrated and meticulously executed fun, which makes 8HOUSE: ARCLIGHT VERY GOOD!

8HOUSE: ARCLIGHT by Churchland, Graham & Maher

8HOUSE #3: KIEM Story & Art by Xurxo G. Penalta Story by Brandon Graham Image Comics, $2.99 (2015) © 2015 Brandon Graham & Xurxo G. Penalta

In which that unavoidable confrontation promised by #2 is...avoided. I guess whoever’s in charge of this 8HOUSE gaff (Brandon Graham)  thinks you’re getting a little too comfy, a little too complacent what with you being all involved in the story of Sir Arclight, aristo-discos, blood-magick combat, hidden agendas and the cloaky twig-thing - HOOPLA! – 8HOUSE is now, without any whiff of warning, about a completely different bit of the 8HOUSE world and a whole new set-up!  I guess this is to stop your brain getting all swaddled in fat and lethargic, so we’re now dealing with a young woman who appears to be part of a military unit, one which is sequestered from the outside world. This bunch of bantering naïfs only leave their bunker to mind-leap into the far-distant deceased bodies of their mono-zygotic twins, whereupon they battle alien creatures on an upsettingly huge construction I failed to retain the exact nature of. Which is nice but don’t put your feet up, Cochise, because now Kiem (yes, it’s named after the lead character; a rare sop for the traditionalists there) has to enter the real world on a Special Mission and finds all is not as she thought (or as we have been led to believe in the preceding blah-de-blah pages (if they aren't going to number them then I'm not going to count them, people)).

8HOUSE: KIEM by Penalta & Graham

In line with its contrasting tech-heavy ambience KIEM takes a different approach to storytelling to ARCLIGHT with the captions being both more plentiful and more larded with straight exposition. But then they are the inner monologue of the main character (a soldier) who is less high faluting than those in ARCLIGHT (dandyish aristos). Which is fair enough as soldiers tend to be more direct in communication than ruffle necked aristocrats. That's not to say the storytelling burden borne by the art is any lighter. You can't fault Penata's art, it is a pretty staggering achievement; it’s as though someone saw Jean Giraud and decided it was good....but not detailed enough, or wanted to explore how deep a focus a paneled image could pull off. The art on these pages is so visually dense it made me worry about the sanity of the mind behind it. I mean, I didn't worry that much because I had tons of fun looking at it and I'm not actually all that caring a person. You drive yourself nuts, Xurxo G. Penalta, just keep those comics coming! Also, there's a cool bit where Penalta upends the images so proving he knows when simplicity is the best tool in the box too. Pretty much a totally different approach and experience from ARCLIGHT it turns out that KIEM is also VERY GOOD!

8HOUSE #4: YORRIS Art by Fil Barlow Written by Fil Barlow & Helen Maier Image Comics, $2.99 (2015) © 2015 Brandon Graham, Fil Barlow & Helen Maier

Obviously, predictability being toxic to this series, with the next issue we needs must leave Kiem staring slack jawed at a truck sized crystal with her war wounded space-panda beggar friend because issue 4 of 8HOUSE (The House That Likes To Move About) is about Yarris or YARRIS (although that reads like CAPSRAGE, and I prefer to save that for when someone writing Spider-Man has done something I don't like; you know, the important things in life). Again, in what can only be deemed a calculated slap to the face of the unrepresented male, Yarris is a young woman but, aha, she is a different young woman to Kiem (clue: different names); she seems a bit more of a hot house flower who spends most of the issue sat very still indeed while indulging in an internal monologue of such expositionary density you could put icing on it and pass it off as a christmas cake. If exposition were edible. To be fair though, while show not tell is an important rule it's hard to carry off when what you are showing is a big alien dog phantom spitting ectoplasm formed of screaming faces. Since this is the primary form of oppression used by one sect (The Bound) to undermine another (The Un-Tied) some explanation is forgivable. Also, I think a little of it is lack of confidence on the part of Barlow & Maier. They’ve done some comics but they aren't a seasoned old lag like Brandon Graham, whose influence here only seems to extend to an invitation to the talented pair to play in his sandbox. Ultimately though it's probably just another form of storytelling. It's not wrong, it's just different, as I used to tell my teachers to admittedly very little effect. Alas, poor YARRIS is the weakest entry so far but it's still pretty strong. It's all relative. This is 8HOUSE after all. There's a flamboyance to the designs in YARRIS which is somehow both restrained and demented, and the storytelling finally settles down to promise thrills aplenty. And how could one not warm to a comic which ends with a character worrying that The Suprymes have been dispatched after them. On past evidence however we'll probably be denied the sight of Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross, and Betty McGlown as sassy steampunk bounty-hunters because this is 8HOUSE so it'll be about something else entirely, but a young woman will probably be involved. Just like many a fight on Saturday night. Unlike physical violence fueled by alcohol, stupidity and hormones 8HOUSE: YARRIS was GOOD!

8HOUSE: YORRIS by Barlow & Maier

Pro Tip: When visiting the 8House I always take some – COMICS!!!

"It's All About The Angles." COMICS! Sometimes I Hope Someone Isn't Expecting The Dog Poo Fairy To Clear This Mess Up!

As a break from Dredd here's a look at a sci-fi horror outing remarkable for the artistry of its visual execution. I've not noticed anyone go on about this one, but I think it's worth going on about. So I did. DOGS OF MARS by Maybury, Zito, Trov, Wieser, Bautista

Anyway, this...

DOGS OF MARS Art by Paul Maybury Story by Johnny Zito,Tony Trov and Christian Wieser Lettered by Gabe Bautista Book Design by Pauk Maybury & Jordan Gibson Collects DOGS OF MARS#1-4, plus a couple of sketch pages, with pin ups by Steve Funnell, Viktor Kalvachev, Alexis Ziritt, Christine Larsen, Giannis Milonogiannis, Michel Fiffe, Rob Giullory, Jordan Gibson and Victoria Grace Elliot Image Comics, £7.99 (Digital) (2012)

I bought this on Comixology a while back and read it the other day due to circumstances having interposed a considerable distance between myself and my faithful paper pals. (This time of year I travel around unlocking the doors to lunatic asylums. I'm in Haddonfield on Saturday, watch out for me!) I'm glad I got round to reading it finally, because while it is a work few would grace with the term original it is effectively, efficiently and, I have to say, impressively done. I should probably set your trembling minds at rest right from the off that this has nothing to do with John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars; a film so execrable that all I can remember is the sight of Ice Cube stumbling about in camo “fat pants” (i.e. vanity pants designed to hide excess poundage) and the reliably stolid Charles Cyphers gamely failing to save this regrettable repetitive muddle of cinematic junk. (John Carpenter remains a cinematic God though.) No, this is completely different, by which I mean a bit similar. But then again DOGS OF MARS is a bit similar to a lot of things. That's not a problem. Borrow away; it's what you do with it that counts - that shall be the whole of the Law. And I have to say I was pretty impressed with DOGS OF MARS; particularly considering the only member of the creative team I'd heard of was Paul Maybury. The man no one calls “Magic Maybury” was the reason I found the book. I searched on his name, since Comixology won't find anything if you put in “derivative but fundamentally entertaining and surprisingly well executed genre entertainment”. Strangely “Paul Maybury” returns a lot more hits, I find.

DOGS OF MARS by Maybury, Zito, Trov, Wieser, Bautista

Endearing itself to me right from the start DOGS OF MARS doesn’t piss about. It opens in media res; I think that's the term. Anyway stuff's kicked off already, we're dropped straight in and you have to run to catch up. Clearly things on Mars Base Bowie (ugh) are less than ideal; order is breaking down, an execution is in the offing, a murder has occurred and there's talk of something “out there”. Before you can get your bearings the space fan gets a good coat of space faeces and we whipcrack back to the start to see what went wrong. Turns out that what we've got here is a bunch of scientists and soldiers planning to terraform Mars by dropping a nuke into its guts and then then, uh, algebra, plants and, er, things because, science. Clearly it's a case of Chekhov's Nuke so the “science” doesn't matter. Also, it's an action-horror story set on Mars so worrying about the science might not be the best use of your time here. The plot's good in its urgent hokiness, the whole thing's delivered with a straight face and the thundering pace means it can barrel right over any disbelief that might stray into the road. It's also pretty icky stuff and manages to define its cast quickly and with elegant simplicity. Other than Maybury's visuals this might be where DOGS OF MARS impresses most. No matter how brief their appearance all the characters are discrete and their demises are affecting. I liked the burly sad guy who became an astronaut to impress his wife but, “She left me for the manager of a Mr. Cluck's Chicken in Utah.” He's barely in the book but he's funny, sad and when he goes...it's bad.

DOGS OF MARS by Maybury, Zito, Trov, Wieser, Bautista

All the secondary characters, no matter their genre mandated impermanence, are similarly sketched by the creators with an efficiency lacking from (sshhhhhh!) many established writers. But the best bit of the book is the relationship which defines the two key protagonists: Zoe and Turk. They being two female characters who occupy the top spots in the Mars Base hierarchy and whose love/hate dynamic is so sharply defined you'll keep checking your fingers for punctures. Yeah, yeah, at first you might roll your eyes as it looks like Zoe's husband is the source of the sisterly friction, but it's soon apparent that that's just a symptom of a deeper and more realistic fracture. It's far less the usual rice cakes pressed into the shape of women that comics usually deal in. No sad lady assassins or sad lady robot assassins or ladies who are basically differentiated from the same male characters by their sadness. Nope, none of that sad crap. The interaction between Zoe and Turk is far more akin to the women in The Descent; which, yes, is a movie about weekend spelunkers menaced by cannibal throwbacks but, you know, fair's fair, is still pretty good on character. Honest. Horror always hurts more when you care about the characters, and because someone had bothered to write some characters DOGS OF MARS made me wince more than once.

DOGS OF MARS by Maybury, Zito, Trov, Wieser, Bautista

Mind you there's a difference between writing and “story” which is what Zito, Trov and Wieser are actually credited with. It's entirely possible they gave Maybury their “story” and the distillation of it into a viciously entertaining comic is down to Maybury's alchemical finesse. Or his “storytelling”, as it is known. Because be in no doubt Maybury rocks these pages like honeymooners in a caravan. In the back there are sketches of the characters which are clearly defined and reader friendly in the extreme. But in the book itself Maybury discards this catchy clarity and goes for an approach so loose it gives David Cameron's grasp on truth a run for its money. It also, honesty demands I concede, at times gives lucidity a run for its money. But...that's okay. It really is. There are a number of approaches to horror – show it, don't show it, and show something but let it unsettle via its lack of clarity. (Hey, you want Kim Newman you go pay Kim Newman, Cochise.) It's this latter approach that gets most play from Maybury. Given there's an awful lot of body horror and panicked rushing about it also turns out to be the most aesthetically appropriate approach. From character designs, hardware and general atmospherics there's an obviously experimental edge to all of Maybury's work here, but never moreso than in the frequent and intentional dips into visual bedlam. None of which detracts from the pleasure of the reading experience. In fact this lurching in and out of coherency works in tandem with the unusual colouring choice of having just white and red. On occasion this is powerfully inverted and so guts spray out like cold white worms into a warmly carmine world. There's also some lovely dream imagery and a daring fragmentation of images into pixellated chaos. All of which ultimately raises what is at root a merely satisfying act of genre homage up several levels, into a propulsive and frenetically entertainingly unique beast. Woof , woof! DOGS OF MARS is VERY GOOD!

Mars wants – COMICS!!!

"If Only I Could Convince BEVERLY That He's As IMPORTANT As I Know He Is." COMICS FOLK! Sometimes It's 65 Pictures For 65 Years!

It's the 7th October 2015 and that means it's been 65 years of the chunky wee thermodynamic miracle Howard Victor Chaykin! Today is his day, so I'm going to shut my yapper and below the break you can feast your eyes on 65 images culled from The Chaykin Section in The Kane Garage Archives. Raise your root beers high and let's all drink to another 65 years of the amazing Mr. Chaykin!

THE SHADOW by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Wald

Anyway, this...

  Happy Birthday, Mr. Chaykin and thanks for all the - COMICS!!!

“Thy Opinion Hath Been NOTED, Wrinkled One.” COMICS! Sometimes I Wonder If It's Gil -BERT or Gil-BEAR! And Then I Just Settle for GODHEAD!

In which a vain attempt is made to engage with The Present and some words are written about comics produced during these times known as Modern. In a display of staggering arrogance at no point is any excuse proffered for the extended absence of the author, although he would like it to be known that upon occasion it is necessary for him to work for a living. Would that it were otherwise. BLUBBER by Gilbert Hernandez

Anyway, this... Yeah, I know, what the world needs more of is middle-aged white males talking about what they like. Condemned as I am by the circumstances of my birth to a prison of unearned privilege, all I can offer by way of recompense are these words; as ungrammatical and dismayingly keen on cant as they may be. However, in the interests of diversity please note that while there is little I can do about being a middle-aged white male without multiple hospital stays and a bunch of therapy, I did at least show willing and wrote the following while wearing my wife’s knickers.

VALHALLA MAD#1 Art by Paul Maybury Written by Joe Casey Coloured by Paul Maybury Lettered by Russ Wooton Graphic Design by Sonia Harris Flats by Ricky Valenzuela Valhalla Mad created by Maybury & Casey Image Comics, $3.50 (2015)

I bought VALHALLA MAD for the art of Paul Maybury which I previously encountered in SOVEREIGN, a comic which now appears to be defunct despite its dense pleasures. Chris Roberson wrote that one but this one's written by Joe Casey, who here has done one of those comics which are inexplicably basically about some Big Two characters but, you know, in the literary equivalent of those disguise kits you get from joke shops with the big pink plastic nose, the Groucho 'tache and the lens-less specs fit only to fool only vegetation and estate agents. So VALHALLA MAD is clearly not a comic about Thor and The Warriors Three because there are only three of them in total not four, and they all have different names: The Glorious Knox, Greghorn The Battlebjorn and Jhago The Irritator. (Extra bonus comedy points for Jhago The Irritator).

VALHALLA MAD by Maybury, Casey, Wooton, Harris & Valenzuela

It's a light comedy which is amusing enough (they rescue a plane but unbeknownst to they, their arrival caused it to crash in the first place!) Much sport is made of the voluminous verbiage of the Stan Lee Style and a generally pleasant time is had by all, not least our three protagonists who have graced Earth with their presence for a glorified pub crawl. Or there may be more to it than that as the final page appears to promise. It's a lot of talking is what it is, and with the exception of the odd typo (e.g. "feint" for "faint") it's propulsive and amusing enough stuff but visually it doesn't give Maybury much to work with. Good job he packed his Awesome this time out and he goes to town on it nevertheless. His boldly chunky style of cartooning brings the otherworldly and the mundane together while never losing the humour of the juxtaposition. Throughout the molten flow of his line is broad enough to encompass two realities and it's ultimately his art which makes VALHALLA MAD #1 GOOD!

BLUBBER #1 By Gilbert Hernandez Fantagraphics, $3.99 (2015)

If VALHALLA MAD is the stag do then BLUBBER is the morning after where you wake up in a strange and distant field covered in sick while a stray dog humps the back of your head. Yes, it’s the one man kick to the nuts of rational thought that is Gilbert “Berty” Hernandez. Here he’s unleashed one of those baffling one-off comics that just exist because, well, because he wants it to. Is this the first in a new ongoing series of madcap anthropomorphic laff mags based around mutilation and sexual degradation? Or will the next time we see this be some sixty years hence in some pricey Fantagraphics boxed set big enough to hide a chopped up dog in? Trick question! The next time we see this will be in a court of law when Gilbert Hernandez is called to account for crimes so bizarre and outlandish we’ll have to redefine the concept of human society just to register the correct level of disgust. I particularly like the way this looks like a kids’ comic but it isn’t (unless you want to go to jail or your kids are The Children of The Damned). I was going to moan about how he got the name of his character wrong in the first strip but, y’know, the fact he didn’t murder anyone while making this bizarre farrago of puce faced lunacy probably outweighs that. Hard is the heart that weighs a typo heavier than a human life.

BLUBBER by Gilbert Hernandez

It’s a pint pot of horror poured in a teacup of visual discipline. Because as ostentatiously obtuse and unremittingly repellent as things get “Los Boss” Hernandez sticks to his grid like a fly to a fast moving windshield. It’s this friction between the boiling horror and the discipline of craft that sets that itch you just can't shift to work in your startled mind. Sandwiched inbetween the Charles Manson's Discovery Channel stuff is a bleakly funny exercise in unsettling obfuscation the equal of Lynch or (maybe a Beckett). I could feel profundity pressing against the tender membranes of my eyes as I read. Mind you, at other points I could also feel my mind pulsing and straining, like the overworked and exhausted sphincter of a pensioner at stool, as it tried at punishing cost to impose some meaning, some sense onto this EXCELLENT! comic.

Like the lady nearly sang, I can't live if living is without - COMICS!!!

"I Have Got To Be Sure, You Old Poop!" COMICS! Sometimes Democracy Comes Second!

Yes! Beat out that rhythm on a drum! Here's the only comic reviews worth reading on The Internet. No, Not really. No, not really in the mood either but if I don't put something up They come round and stand outside my windows in silent judgement. Hoopla! Also, don't forget to Save The Hibbs - HERE! LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES by Jaime Hernandez

Anyway, this... GILBERT AND JAIME HERNANDEZ' LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES ISSUE 7 IS “FRISKILY AGAINST THE PRIVATISATION OF THE PENAL SERVICE” IN AN ISSUE WHICH IS “BOUNCY.”

LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES #7 Everything by Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez Fantagraphics, $14.99 (2014) Love And Rockets created by Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez

My LCS always forgets to send me this because, I guess, they are young and they think my aged mind is rotted like the teeth of a candy addicted child, and probably also being like super old and intellectually vulgar I can't appreciate The Good Stuff. That John, they think, he just likes 1970s war comics and Howard Victor Chaykin. He's just not been the same, that John, since his cock left him for the circus, they say opening themselves to a libel suit. Or slander. I'm not the lawyer, that’s the other chap. Either way, you know what I mean. Eventually though I remember to ask for it and they send it and it arrives and I read it. Write what you know, right? Have you seen this stuff? Look, someone in Comics needs to talk to someone in a position of authority pretty damn sharpish before things get out of hand. I'd say send Tom Spurgeon because he is disturbingly level headed about everything but they'd bang him up before he got a word out, what with his not exactly being dissimilar to that rangy dude out of Manhunter.

LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES by Gilbert Hernandez

So, no, don't send him, but someone needs to be sent. Because on the evidence of the last few LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES it's just a matter of time before Gilbert Hernandez flies a dirigible painted to resemble a giant, solitary boob at the Superbowl while spraying jellybeans and blue urine from an intricate system of nozzles and feeder tubes while playing MMMBop! at a volume sufficient to shatter skulls like plates chucked at a fireplace. Gilbert Hernandez' contributions here look like he just got a felt pen and proceeded to set down a bunch of pages so ridiculously bizarre that they threaten at any moment to explode into a nightmarishly profound revelation about the very nature of reality itself. I mean, after the dirigible thing, people are going to ask why no one saw the warning signs, and we're all going to have to hide our copies of LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES and act sheepish until the hullabaloo dies down. Then the other one, that Jaime, he's doing his thing about relationships and the past and learning to live, learning to die and all that, and I realise he is excellent at it but all that? it's just not me but BOOMSHAMALAMABINGBANG! he then only goes and equals the derangement which fists its way through every page of his siblings efforts, and what we have here is a comic so insanely aflame with creative fire that we have to break the Emergency Glass and throw the word ART! at it. No doubt, no doubt at all, The Bros Hernandez are still simply the best; better than all the rest; NA NA NA NA STEAMY WINDOWS! BONUS: KIDS! Can you spot the two Thomas Harris references in the preceding? Bully for you; you'll still get old and hate everything you once held dear! EXCELLENT!

REVIEW: FRACTION, CHAYKIN & BRUZENAK’S SATELLITE SAM #12 WISHES IT “HAD MORE THAN ONE LIFE TO GIVE FOR ITS COUNTRY” WHILE ALSO REGRETTING “TAPING “EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND”.”

SATELLITE SAM #12 Art by Howard Victor Chaykin Written by Matt Fraction Lettered by Ken Bruzenak Image Comics, $3.50 (2015) Satellite Sam created by Matt Fraction & HowardVictor Chaykin

Show me the man who has greater love for Howard Victor Chaykin and Ken Bruzenak. (Show me! Show me!) No, that guy doesn’t count he’s just some bum you bribed with a cot and two squares to say that. Me, I’m the real deal; I‘m the original walking bias when it comes to Howard Victor Chaykin and Ken Bruzenak so it pains me to say that this (the twelfth; what will be the first in the third trade paperback; what is already $42.00 in real money) issue of Satellite Sam is the only one so far to actually have worked. A bit. That’s just me though. Matt Fraction described this comic as “the ultimate Howard Chaykin(sic) comic” apparently blind to the arrogant condescension within his glib shilling. (What about all the Howard Victor Chaykin comics Howard Victor Chaykin wrote and drew? What about The Shadow: Blood And Judgement, Blackhawk: Blood and Iron, American Flagg!, Time2, Midnight Men, Black Kiss, Black Kiss2, and all the ones that aren’t as good as those (but are still better than Satellite Sam)? Sweet Mother of Pearl, the unmitigated gall of the man.) Anyway, in this issue characters suddenly realise the series is almost over and stop aimlessly noodling about and start blurting lines more suited to those movies Sally Field and Brian Dennehy are in that only children and people old enough to have varicose veins in their eyes watch, because only they are at home during the day. “I'm just another hole your Daddy left behind that you can't fill!” shrills one character and we all pretend that this isn't just a Empty Bullshit Moment unattached to anything in the preceding issues. It's the pact we make with today's writers. A pact signed in lattes.

SATELLITE SAM by Howard Victor Chaykin, Matt Fraction & Ken Bruzenak

As full of blazingly manipulative yet calorifically negligent emotional bombast as this issue is it's still better than any of the preceding issues. Mainly, it's better because every scene isn't at least a third too long, hanging about like a hammy actor reluctant to leave the stage and Howard Victor Chaykin seems to no longer, apparently, be drawing in a state of arousal so heated he can barely see. Ken Bruzenak remains flawless as ever. When people tell you this comic was mature, provocative and insightful always remember it was dumb enough to have a character blackmail a writer and for that not actually be a joke. As it enters the home stretch it looks like SATELLITE SAM will wind up being a gauche muddle of half-digested research that expects everyone to share its naive shock that in the past there was racism, homophobia and sexual intercourse other than the missionary position. Anyway, this thing is over soon and then we can all concentrate on an actual Ultimate Howard Victor Chaykin Comic. One that will hopefully be better than OKAY!

REVIEW: MAHNKE, ALAMY, IRWIN, CHAMPAGNE, MENDOZA AND MORRISON'S THE MULTIVERSITY: ULTRA COMICS #1 "RESTS ITS BALLS FOURSQUARE ON THE CHIN OF FANDOM."

THE MULTIVERSITY: ULTRA COMICS #1 Art by Doug Mahnke & Christian Alamy, Nark Irwin, Keith Champagne, Jaime Mendoza Written by Grant Morrison Coloured by Gabe Eltaeb, David Baron Lettered by Steve Wands DC Comics, $4.99 (2015) Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster

It was VERY GOOD! Because it was smart and entertaining but mostly because Mahnke & a crowded taxicab of inkers' art just plain fit like flesh on a skull. Those dudes are the dreamiest team. I hear inkers are on the outs what with there being no real need to divide the work that way for the hyper streamlined assembly line of 21st comic book production. I hope some teams stay together: this Sunday 5-a-side Team obviously, and Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, John Romita Jnr & Klaus Janson, Jack Kirby & Mike Royer, oh wait...Anyway back at Grant Morrison, we can't talk about the artists more than Grant Morrison now, can we? He'll get in a right snit. So, yeah, really now, can we have a moratorium on whining about Internet criticism within the books themselves. This childishly one sided last-wordism is even more distasteful as it always comes from the writers  criticism can’t touch.  Like Elvis sang, why are writers always first to feel the hurt and always hurt the worst. Or was it children? Is there even a difference? Questions. Anyway, thanks, Elvis; see yourself out. Loves his Mum, you know. Also, for someone so keen to be understood Morrison is remarkably opaque about the nature of his eggy Evil here. It’s the critics; no, wait, it’s the comics companies; no wait, it’s the fans; hang on, it's Terry Blesdoe from next door but one to me Mum; no, wait, it’s poor people; no, wait, it’s rich people; no wait, it’s Alan Moore! (It’s always Alan Moore! That utter, utter shit! Look at him over there apparently minding his own business, but we know he’s really biding his time. Oh, we’ve got your (big) number, Alan Moore!)

THE MULTIVERSITY: ULTRA COMICS by Mahnke, Alamy, Irwin, Champagne, Mendoza, Morrison, Eltaeb, Baron & Wands

I think (and I didn’t think too hard) it ended up being just that nasty old Negativity; it’s Bad Thoughts that are Dragging Us All Down, Maaaaan! If You Can’t Saying Anything Nice…Then You’re Evil. Seems fair enough. That’s the world’s problems sorted out then; who’s for a cuppa! Maybe I’m wrong. No doubt a small Commonwealth of vastly more gifted bloggers will shortly refract their own intelligence through the prism of this comic to reveal its hidden intricacies which, naturally, were there all along! It’s a smart book but it's a canny sort of smart; it’s all surface and any depth is dependent on the willingness of the reader to muck in and add it. I mean, seriously, there’s a bit about what’s the difference really between soldiers and murderers (Maaaaan)? #BIKOBAR! So, yeah, everyone just be nice; the Corporations are coming to save us!  Which is about the level of connection with the real world I’d expect from someone who lives in a castle with a medal from the Queen. MULTIVERSITY thus far is a mixed bag; MULTIVERSITY is pastiche, capiche? And Morrison can do pastiche well (Thunderworld) and he can do pastiche badly (Mastermen) so it all tends to even out. Here Grant Morrison's pastiche is of Grant Morrison so, of course , it works really well. When you can no longer impersonate yourself it's time to turn off the lights. It's not that time yet. Despite the niggling sense that behind the wonderful, intentionally slightly off-kilter art someone was throwing their toys out of their pram, this was smart and entertaining; it was VERY GOOD!

REVIEW: BURNHAM & MORRISON'S NAMELESS #3 “PREFERS ‘(NOT ENOUGH) LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING’ TO ‘GYPSIES, TRAMPS AND THIEVES’” LARGELY DUE TO “MISGIVINGS ABOUT FEDORAS FOR PIGS.”

NAMELESS #3 Art by Chris Burnham Written by Grant Morrison Coloured by Nathan Fairbairn Lettered by Simon Bowland Logo and Design by Rian Hughes Image Comics, $2.99 (2015) Nameless created by Chris Burnham & Grant Morrison

There are two reasons why this book works as well as it does (and it works very well indeed): Chris and Burnham. If it wasn't for Chris Burnham's Sunday joint textured art I'd have noticed that the first issue was a dense blizzard of folderol designed more to excite than deliver. Were Chris Burnham not so wonderful at imbuing every panel with sneakily discombobulating detail and at setting said panels in slyly unbalanced page designs I'd have maybe thought that the only real development in issue two was the jolly obvious “flu” reveal. And had it not been for Chris Burnham's deftly unsettling scale games in this, the most recent issue, better folk than I would have perhaps suspected that the pace was somewhat, ahem, leisurely and that narratively this should have all happened within the first two issues at most.

NAMELESS by Burnham, Morrison, Fairbairn & Bowland

Luckily though I was aware of none of that so dazzled was I by Chris Burnham's muscularly disturbing performance here. I didn't even notice that for someone so magically special and all that our hero is pretty crap. Even though NAMELESS remains basically Event Horizon - But Not Shit NAMELESS is VERY GOOD! because last time I looked NAMELESS still had Chris Burnham.

NEAL, SCHIGEL, KOCHALKA, WICKS, SIENKIEWICZ, DESTEFNO, DEPORTER, BRUBAKER, WEISER, HI-FI, JIHANIAN, KUBINA AND LEIGH'S SPONGEBOB COMICS #43 BELIEVES IN “FROM EACH ACCORDING TO THEIR ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEED” AND SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE WITH EVEN A SHRED OF GODDAMN HUMAN DECENCY.

SPONGEBOB COMICS #43 Art by Nate Neal, Gregg Schigel, James Kochalka, Maris Wicks, Bill Sienkiewicz, Stephen DeStefano, Vince DePorter, Charles Brubaker Written by Nate Neal, James Kochalka, Maris Wicks, Joey Weiser, Vince DePorter, Charles Brubaker Coloured by Hi-Fi, Levan Jihanian, Monica Kubina Lettered by Rob Leigh

This isn't a particularly spectacular issue of SPONGEBOB COMICS; it does remain, however, beautifully illustrated and amusing enough to be a papery riposte to the idea that this kind of thing must needs be crapped out hackery. I mention it not because Bill Sienkiewicz has provided a cover with the titular spongiform loon in his best Wolversponge pose, but because Bill Sienkiewicz also provided a pull out two-page poster of Spongebob as a kind of symbiotic melange of kitchen utensils and undersea cretin. What this means, in effect, for people of a certain age is that Bill Sienkiewicz has provided a poster in a children's comic which readily brings to mind his creator owned '90s epic of child-murder, mental breakdowns, talking birds and general nutjobbery, STRAY TOASTERS. Now, tell me that ain't GOOD!

SPONGEBOB COMICS by DeStefano, Weiser, Jihanian & Leigh

We're having an Election over here but when the dust settles and it's all over no matter who is in charge we'll still have – COMICS!!!

“I Think Guys Don't Know These Things.” COMICS! Sometimes I May Be Slow To Praise But When I Praise It Comes Like The Rains!

Sometimes people stop me in the street and ask me to stop following them what the best monthly periodical genre comic currently on the stands is. And I tell them, all these people who I’m pretending constantly stop me in the street and ask that question, that the best monthly periodical genre comic currently on the stands is STRAY BULLETS. I haven’t said that before on here because, honestly, I didn’t think it needed saying. It seems I thought wrong. So no blame, no shame and let’s don our knuckle dusters, knuckle down and rectify this shabby state of affairs right damn now. Also, I tell you how to get CHEAP COMICS!!! Yeah, thought you’d like that.

Anyway, this...

What is STRAY BULLETS? I’m glad you asked. STRAY BULLETS is in all likelihood all the things you say you want in a comic and a few more things chucked in for good luck. It’s a long form story told in done-in-one chunks; the dialogue’s to die for, being smoothly natural and never, not ever, no, not once, nope, degenerating into tic driven idiocy; the pacing is aces and while it’s got sex, violence, profanity and perversion by the pound it’s also got characters, intelligence, humour and heart to spare. STRAY BULLETS might hide behind Crime but it’s neither desiccated homage nor a canter through the clichés reliant on violence for impact. Superficially STRAY BULLETS is a crime book but like all the best crime fiction it’s really all about life. I never said I was above stating the obvious. STRAY BULLETS is set in a world where everyone pretends they live in a civilised society but they are all just a moment’s inattention or single surrender to temptation away from finding out just how many teeth the world still has. Sometimes teh chracters find out they have the sharpest teeth of all. STRAY BULLETS is about many things but mostly it's about surviving. Or not surviving.

Now you may say that away from STRAY BULLETS Lapham’s a mixed bag. Me, I thought YOUNG LIARS was a modern classic, his strange take on Batman (City of Crime) was pretty frosty large plant seeds and SPARTA U.S.A. was messed up in the right way but sunk by the art (who can ever forget High Blood Pressure Colin Farrell?). There’s others but it’s variable stuff. Which is fine; which is how that stuff goes. But when Lapham’s on STRAY BULLETS he’s up there with los Bros Hernandez, with Clowes, with Speed McNeil. When David Lapham's on STRAY BULLETS he is on. Bang a gong.

STRAY BULLETS is in all likelihood all the things you say you want in a comic and a few more things chucked in for good luck. But you aren’t buying it. What’s all that about?

Right, my sleeves are rolled up so let’s get stuck straight in. Firstly, roll your jellied orbs of sight over this ridiculous nonsense:

March 2014: STRAY BULLETS #41 – 8,297 March 2014: STRAY BULLETS: THE KILLERS #1 – 14,208 April 2014: STRAY BULLETS: THE KILLERS #2 – 9,147 May 2014: STRAY BULLETS: THE KILLERS #3 – 7,935 June 2014: STRAY BULLETS: THE KILLERS #4– 7,092

Those figures are taken from Chris Rice’s Indie Month-to-Month Sales June 2014 column which lurks on Heidi McDonald’s The Beat. With admirable brevity and mordant understatement Chris “Numbers Are My Wonders” Rice comments only, “Should be selling better.”

He’s not wrong.

Okay, sure, STRAY BULLETS #41 was the final issue of a storyline left dangling since the cessation in 2005 of the regular publication of STRAY BULLETS; mass turnouts weren’t ever really on the cards. Staggeringly, in 2005 the world of comics was so preposterous that David Lapham couldn’t actually afford to publish his Eisner winning (not that that matters, but still) and thoroughly EXCELLENT! comic. Beyond staggeringly this nonsensical state of affairs persisted for nine years until Image Comics rescued David Lapham’s EXCELLENT! series. An understandable state of affairs then that such a long delayed comic should shift so few ‘units’ (ack!). Turning that frown upside down though; that’s a remarkable number of units for a nine years delayed comic to move. Always a silver lining, that’s me. Anyway this is collected in STRAY BULLETS UBER ALLES EDITION which we’ll get to shortly but STRAY BULLETS: THE KILLERS is the new stuff and y'all ain't picking it up.

I like to try before I buy and purchases cost money and money is not something I am fat with, you might say. Hush, for this is a strange new world where procurement does not always require payment in full. All the sexy souls riding The Future bareback like the Pope intended can just get right on the STRAY BULLETS bandwagon right here and right now at the slightest possible cost. See, the first issue of the original 1995 series is available for just $.99 and just $1.99 for each issue thereafter at just the touching of a screen or two. Being all old and not really into the whole riding my jetpack to the mall thing I won’t risk embarrassment by going into any further detail but, yes, Digital users curious about STRAY BULLETS can have a virtual bunch of them in two shakes of a Vic20. Okay, there’s the hidden cost of actually being able to afford one of those tablets or pads or gadgets; which might explain why you haven’t any money left to purchase comics on the shinily enticing thing. But I just showed you a way round it that doesn’t involve piracy (not a fan, sorry). No worries, my pleasure. While I do want you to read STRAY BULLETS I do draw the line at discretely placing it on your devices without your consent like some shower of tax dodging rock star ****s in servitude to some dark Corporate Beast. Politeness is the first casualty of synergy it seems.

STRAY BULLETS UBER ALLES EDITION Written & Drawn by David Lapham El Capitan/Image Comics $59.99 STRAY BULLETS created by David Lapham

If I can just prise the offended fingers of noted paper based merchant and mini brew swigger Brian “Two Shops Are Better Than One!” Hibbs from around my throat I’ll swiftly make amends by shilling the physical things. Because what of those resistant to the tug of the Future? What of those medieval souls who through habit or penury remain chained to the physical world? Oh, shred not thy garments and untear thy hair for those wayward dregs also have the ability to start at the beginning; thanks to STRAY BULLETS UBER ALLES EDITION. This is not a low cost entry point; it is in fact $59.99. But for that money you do get 41 issues of consistently EXCELLENT! comics. Yes, that is a lot of greenbacks, a lot of hours at the coal face, a lot of time staring at a screen while your arteries quietly harden, but it is worth every ass busting cent in terms of comics. Also, you’ll get STRAY BULLETS #21. You don’t know this yet but STRAY BULLETS #21 is one of the finest single issues ever made. If I was stranded on a desert island I’d die within three days of exposure. But if before that happened I was allowed to take two comics one would be OMAC #1 by Jack Kirby and the other would be STRAY BULLETS #21. That’s because they are my idea of perfect single issue genre comics and together the two of them would provide enough entertainment for the three days I had left to live.

STRAY BULLETS #21 is just great comics as Lapham smoothly fillets the heterosexual male psyche with the scalpel of satire without once faltering in his deadpan delivery. All those lazy boner scenarios which flit across the inside of the bored suburban male’s skull are drily depicted in all their banal hilarity. In the character of Benny David Lapham wrought a comic creation the equal of Jack Kirby’s OMAC. For just as OMAC was the ultimate man for the world which was coming!!! Benny is the ultimate man for the world that’s already here. (Fucking Benny. You fucking shambles, Benny.) And then there’s a whole bunch of comics around that little sweetie during the course of which David Lapham shows us many things, all of which come under the umbrella heading of Comics: How They Should Be Done. Reading STRAY BULLETS UBER ALLES EDITION it becomes apparent that it is possible to create a series with a strong sense of time and place without wallowing in received clichés; it is possible to create characters at once grotesquely monstrous but also unsettlingly human and relatable; it is possible for the ridiculous to sit beside the realistic without duelling elbows; it is possible to take for granted art displaying the influences of Mazzucchelli, Munoz and Meskin; it is possible to get things right right from the start and to keep right on getting them right. STRAY BULLETS UBER ALLES EDITION might look pricey but it’s a steal for what it is, because it is EXCELLENT! multiplied by 41!

Of course it’s cheaper just to hop on board the new series so let’s see how that’s shaping up! (SPOILER: It’s EXCELLENT! You didn’t know I could be this positive for so long did you? Ack! I think something just popped inside my head.)

STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS #1 Written & Drawn by David Lapham El Capitan/Image Comics, $3.50 (2014) STRAY BULLETS created by David Lapham

But c’mon! Where were you all with this one? STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS #1 was a real Double Deckers (“Get on board! Get on board!”) moment but it seems most of you forgot to set your alarm and missed the bus. Because, according to those figures at The Beat in June 2014 STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS was the 234th best-selling comic book to North American retailers. 234th. Two hundred and thirty fourth. True, nestled just beneath it in 235th place was Parker & Shaner’s bubbly respray of FLASH GORDON, so it’s in good company down there. But it remains a fact that STRAY BULLETS: THE KILLERS is being outsold by 233 other comics, many of which, horrifically, have Mark Millar involved. While you don’t need any prior knowledge of STRAY BULLETS if you do have prior knowledge of the series then it’s a richer experience but then that’s what knowledge does; it makes experiences richer. All you need to enjoy this comic is to read it. But to do that you have to buy it. If you do you'll find that this one’s about Dads and how men who become Dads don’t stop being men. When people say it’s a full time job being a Dad they mean it’s a full time job not backsliding into being an asshole. Thematically this issue is akin to that episode of East Bound And Down where Kenny took everyone to the water park. It’s EXCELLENT!

STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS #2 Written & Drawn by David Lapham El Capitan/Image Comics, $3.50 (2014) STRAY BULLETS created by David Lapham

Well, that was upsetting. But not in a cheap way. It's EXCELLENT!

STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS #3 Written & Drawn by David Lapham El Capitan/Image Comics, $3.50 (2014) STRAY BULLETS created by David Lapham

This one’s like David Lynch trying to do one of those John Hughes movie things people who aren't me like. One of those full of loveable scamps and risky japes. If you worked in Television and needed everything reducing to a formula you could kind of boil this one down to: Hi-jinks ensue when Laura Palmer babysits for Bobby Peru! It’s all kind of light and frothy except for all the darkness and psychological pain which keep bursting into the dollhouse setting like a mental elephant at full pelt. It’s EXCELLENT!

STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS #4 by David Lapham El Capitan/Image $3.50 (2014) STRAY BULLETS created by David Lapham

Wherein David Lapham focuses in on the burgeoning romance of his young leads without once making me do a bit of sick in my mouth. Maybe that’s because Lapham’s such a good storyteller that he can communicate that early adult feeling of being so trapped between the life you have, the life you want and the life everyone else wants for you that you can feel your brain physically flex. And then you go and do a load of dumb shit and get to live with it. Forever. Jellybeans for everyone! Or maybe it’s just that David Lapham knows just when to throw in a panel of monkey cuddlies dangling from a beach hut roof. Either way in this issue I watched a couple of kids behave as foolishly and as purely as any real hormonal basket cases and I liked them even more by the end. It's EXCELLENT!

STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS #5 by David Lapham El Capitan/Image $3.50 (2014) STRAY BULLETS created by David Lapham

This is one of the regular breather issues which have peppered the series since it started. One of the ones some folk don’t cotton to overmuch. One of the issues where Lapham interrupts the regular narrative to catch up with the ridiculously violent, bombastically nonsensical and wholly imaginary adventures of Amy Racecar. It’ s possible these issues act as the very dreamlife of the series itself with all the key themes and motifs allowed to frolic across the pages without the constraints of logic the preceding issues worked within. I’m probably the wrong man to ask about that kind of stuff as I’m busy laughing my ruby red ass off at it all. Can a mass murdering and quite fetchingly befreckled fugitive from justice who has sworn off killing find love with a suicidal and blind quadruple amputee; yea, though all the guns of the world be turned against them? Buckle up and find out. Makes Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers look like Downton Abbey, and I like Natural Born Killers. STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS #5; the louder you scream the faster it goes! It’s EXCELLENT!

STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS #6 by David Lapham El Capitan/Image $3.50 (2014) STRAY BULLETS created by David Lapham

It’s a bit late in the day but I should probably say that STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS is for mature readers. Sure, it’s for mature readers in the commonly accepted sense that it’s frequently rudey-roo and would make your vicar’s cheeks shine like a freshly slapped arse. However, it’s also for mature readers in that it can tease and hint at the contents of a locked room and let your mind fill in all the unspeakable details only to wrongfoot you at the end with an ending which admits that sometimes reality is horrible enough. Basically (and it’s unusual for genre comics this) STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS is for mature readers in the sense that it treats you like a fucking grown-up. It’s EXCELLENT!

So, there you go, I’ve told you all about STRAY BULLETS (and STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS) while leaving you no wiser. Some might argue that that’s pretty thoroughly bloody useless but, what; you want me to spoil everything for you? That isn’t going to happen. All you need to take away from this is that I think STRAY BULLETS (and STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS) is EXCELLENT!

Or to put it to you a little more pithily:

David Lapham’s STRAY BULLETS is – COMICS!!!

"...Workers Killing Each Other In The Name Of Some Plutocrat's Lies." COMICS! Sometimes They Come Back!

My Internet is back up! Got no time for smalltalk. Who knows how long this window of technical opportunity will stay open? So, hello, my name's John and I wrote too many words about two comics and I hope you have fun. A boy can hope, right? So, let the merrymaking commence!

Anyway, this...

Here are two comics predicated on the fact that in the future things will be worse. It’s a pretty reasonable assumption since in the future there will still be people. And we all know what they are like, right? Jackasses. Except for you, you dreamy fool. And except for that one person who can make a difference, obviously. Thank God up in the big blue sky for that person! Is it you? It could be you (it won’t be you)! Both of these books also concern themselves with this special person. Anyway, I though the books’ premises had enough in common and their implementation had enough differences to justify another bunch of sense repelling words from yours truly, John The Ripper. And so without any further ado let’s get our papery candidates drunk and see who boils John’s eggs properly!

BUCK ROGERS #1 Art and Story by Howard Victor Chaykin Colours by Jesus Arbuto Letters by (Ken Bruzenak?) $3.99, Hermes Press (2013) Buck Rogers created by Philip Francis Nowlan

LAZARUS #1 Written by Greg Rucka Art and Letters by Michael Lark Colour by Santi Arcas Cover art and colour by Michael Lark $2.99, Image Comics (2013) Lazarus created by Greg Rucka & Michael Lark

Hell, I’m feeling saucy so let’s give this shameful shit a basic veneer of professionalism and crack out some titles:

Judging Without Reading or First Impressions and the Unreliability Thereof

One of these books, LAZARUS, is a creator owned comic from a creator owned friendly publisher. The accepted wisdom would be that by rights this should be the one fizzing with invention, reckless with innovation and altogether so comicstastic that it would be the nearest you could get to a good time without emitting liquids while pulling a stupid face. The other one, BUCK ROGERS, is work for hire intended to raise the profile of a 9000 year old Intellectual Property in a clear attempt to shift some of the meat’n’taters reprints of newspaper strips (or continuities if you are a TCJ reader) the publisher is primarily noted for. Some folk get all florid faced, spittle flecked and bug eyed when an old property is dusted off because new things should be created, always! Insipidly, I reckon it depends on whether the actual comic is any good though. So here comes Buck Rogers (yet) again! But in 20 years will anyone be bringing LAZARUS back from the dead? DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE! NO…DO YOU SEE WHAT THEY DID!!!

LAZARUS is new and the new is good! BUCK ROGERS is old and the old is bad!

BUCK ROGERS: 0 LAZARUS: 1

Titles Or The Naming Of The Animals (and some puerile humour)

LAZARUS is called LAZARUS which is an immediately recognisable Biblical reference to anyone brought up in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, or anyone familiar with said tradition. Or just familiar with pop culture. This is actually quite a lot of people, particularly in America which is the book’s primary marketplace. The first scene involves the heroine coming back from the dead just like…my penis on a Saturday night! Oh, okay just like…LAZARUS! Although titling the book MY PENIS ON A SATURDAY NIGHT would certainly get tongues wagging. I used to be quite good on The Bible but that was a long time ago, so other than the fact that every word on its pages is super-true I’m a bit hazy. However, I don’t think Lazarus rose from the dead and proceeded to heal the world with violence. Unlike…my penis on a Saturday night! I know, don’t milk it. Like…my penis on a Saturday night! I can do this all night, you know. Like…my penis on a Saturday night! Anyway, as titles go it is pretty bad. Pretty Television. It is dismaying in its obviousness and empty in its promises of depth. Just like…all together now!

The Hermes Press comic BUCK ROGERS is called that because it is about a man called Buck Rogers. Truth in advertising there. It is written and drawn by the divinity made flesh Howard Victor Chaykin. (Bias ahoy!) Since his last book was filthier and funnier than my penis on a Saturday night (This? This is what pride feels like.) I half expected a Flesh Gordon approach but since he hasn’t called it FUCK RODGERS it looks like he’s keeping his pants on and his hands to himself this time. I feel compelled to note the lack of …IN THE 25TH CENTURY. This means that Hermes Press aren’t wishing to trade on nostalgia for the cheerfully shit TV Series which I enjoyed when a child; the one with Gil Gerard and Twiki. Anyway, Hermes Press (or HVC) have gone back to the source for this one; buck to basics! (You liked that.)

Title wise then BUCK ROGERS wins despite the fact it is a dully literal title because it is at least honest while LAZARUS goes for a veneer of sophistication about as convincing as a politician’s choice of favourite authors.

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: 0

INTERVAL: It’s Ladies Night! A Brief Digression Guaranteed To Backfire Right In My Face Like Nobody’s Business, So Thank God I’m Drunk. Ladies! Why won’t you read comics, ladies! It’s okay, ladies! Because we here at The Comics have the answer! The answer to the question which is always phrased to imply that ladies will read comics but only if they are for ladies! Comics by Lentheric! This question about why ladies don’t read comics is Trojan horseshit. Ladies do read comics they just have better things to do than go on the Internet and get upset about Marvel or DC. That doesn’t mean ladies don’t read comics it means ladies have priorities. Anyway, so much concern about ladies and comics lately, so much, so very much. But as John Vernon said, don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining, Senator; all this concern about ladies and comics is really about how can they get ladies to like formularised pap and give them their money just like they did with the daft men folk? Nobody gives a shit about ladies reading comics except the people who make comics, and they don’t give a shit about ladies reading comics but they sure give a shit about those ladies’ money. Spending power as spur to equality! Well done, comics! Capitalism hasn’t been around long you’ll soon catch up! There’s clearly a popular conception that ladies will only read comics with ladies in them. But only comic book ladies who are violent because violence is strength! Also, violence means the men will read them too. And ladies, your time is nigh! Coming soon from Image is a new series about a lady spy. She’s a Spy! But she’s a Lady! She’s soft! But she’s strong! She’s…Silky! From Image! Also, a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey but in the future and…with a lady! When she went on an odyssey it was an…Ody-SHE! From Image! The home of comics for women written by men who can’t master a safety razor! I can see their logic here about ladies only reading about ladies and it is sound. Personally I only read comics about embittered old men who can only build themselves up by dragging other, better people down. And POPEYE; I like those Sagendorf Popeye comics. As boring as it is I fear that the answer to the question of Ladies and Comics is: just make good comics. Maybe ladies will read those. Maybe they already are. Lead Character or Lead(en) Character

Of course, ladies and comics? I don’t write comics (which, really, I am all eaten up inside about) and I’m not a lady (but I have brushed up against a few in crowds, purely for research) so I know bupkis. I don’t even know what bupkis is. Is it when you burp while kissing? Greg Rucka isn’t a lady but he writes comics for a living and so he knows what to do. What Greg Rucka usually does is give us a troubled woman in a sweaty vest kicking nasty men in the face in a series of mundane locations. When tasked with reimagining Steve Ditko’s ideologically charged and visually iconic character The Question Greg Rucka gave us a troubled woman in a sweaty vest kicking nasty men in a pay-n-stay car park…but wearing a hat! In a bold move Rucka here gives us a troubled woman in a sweaty vest kicking nasty men in the face in a series of mundane locations…but in the future! Form an orderly queue, ladies! She is a strong female character in the thuddingly literal sense that she is physically strong. She is also called Forever Whatsit like a bathroom suite in a catalogue. This leads to some inadvertently cringey dialogue when people say things like “We were attacked, Forever.” and “I was in the toilet, Forever.” Any such amusement occurring is probably inadvertent because humour isn’t high on the agenda for LAZARUS. Naturally Forever Amber is pretty. Despite being a killing machine she remains unmarred by scars, her nose is unbroken and her teeth unsoiled by tea or coffee stains. Although she is a killing machine she feels sad about all this killing; it is important that she feels sad about killing all these plebs because otherwise she would be a mass murdering monster with nice hair. Forever Amber is vulnerable though. Forever Amber’s vulnerability (despite her being a killing machine) is stressed by her being surrounded by people who are using her, lying to her and just downright being a bunch of two faced meanies. Forever Amber also comes across as not a little feckless and more than a bit stupid. I mean these people around her are practically twirling their moustaches and tying her to railroad tracks. She’s no Keatinge and Campbell's GLORY, is what I’m saying there. For all its surface sophistication LAZARUS is oddly unsophisticated in many very basic ways. Subtlety’s not even in this race, it’s Cliché all the way! So much so that I was hoping the ultimate signifier of Monied Evil would appear; the sweater draped over the shoulders with the sleeves fastened over the chest. Not yet but give it time, though.

Over in Buck Rogers we find Howard Victor Chaykin’s Wilma Deering outranks Buck Rogers and is busy getting on with her job and sassing him back. Like Forever Amber Wilma kills people but everybody in BUCK ROGERS is killing people. But it's in that sort of pulpy weightless way. Okay, Colonel Deering doesn’t exactly look like a bag of spanners but other than that she’s treated as a capable individual in her own right. It’s hard to find fault in that, really. Mind you, Howard Victor Chaykin’s female characters have always skewed towards the independent, intelligent and individual. If they weren’t also so keen on lingerie more people might have noticed. It’s okay though, he’s only been doing this for forty years. The real star of BUCK ROGERS is, naturally, Buck Rogers whose voluminous and lively quiff sets my mind at rest on at least one score; in the future there will be pomade. Buck Rogers is portrayed as an adult human being who has had a number of experiences before the book opens and is written as being capable of rational thought and informed decision making. He is also purposefully written as a bit irritating. He can however quote Eugene Debs in support of his acceptance of his sexually equal future.

I have now become tired of summarising.

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: 0 Setting The Scene Or Budgetary Restrictions Of The Mind’s Eye

The worlds visualised in these books are quite different. The world of LAZARUS is oddly dull. There’s a tepid quality to the storytelling by Rucka & Lark, a sense that nothing should be too exciting, too challenging. A sense of imposed limitations. I don’t know what they are and they might not even exist outside my mad head, but reading LAZARUS the storytelling felt constricted. There’s a sense that everything on these pages wouldn’t be beyond the reach of a mid-level Television budget. Coincidence, I’m sure. I don’t find Lark’s art to be exactly to my palate, he’s far too parsimonious with ink for my tastes. He can draw well though and he draws everything he’s asked and while nothing really stood out as amazing, nothing stood out as awful. A measured and professional performance from Lark, I guess.

Meanwhile, Greg Rucka’s done his research and Greg Rucka lets us know he’s done his research. The tepid world of LAZARUS is based on fact, okay, it’s based on prediction based on fact. Facts like the statistics Rucka quotes to prove that the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider despite the fact that no one believes the opposite is ever the case. Except rich people. And  in the book there is science, but the science is based on real things that might happen based on real things happening now. Or at least things Warren Ellis told him might happen when Greg Rucka e-mailed him. Apparently Warren Ellis can see the future! Can he see the future where he finished that NewUniversal series? Future cloudy, ask later! Maybe warren Ellis just has a subscription to New Scientist. There’s even some maths to prove the elite control the majority. A great deal of work has been put in to make the world of LAZARUS convincing. It’s admirable really the work Greg Rucka and Michael Lark have put in conceptually and visually delineating the world of LAZARUS. Sadly, they appear to have built a living breathing world and populated it with papier-mâché people.  When I was young and shone with fear of the world I used to build dioramas using TAMIYA kits. Mine were a bit shit but other people could work wonders making the hardware and the scenery as realistic as could be. But the figures would always be stiff and there would never be any life in their faces. That's what LAZARUS reminded me of. People in LAZARUS say things like, "She's asking questions.", "AGAIN?" and "We can't have her getting IDEAS." It's very Television dialogue. But wait, run those numbers about the Elite and the oppressed past me again. Hmmmm, I think I see a way out!

And so does Buck Rogers! And it’s the same way out because for all its differences the world of Buck Rogers has the same central problem as the world of LAZARUS: an elite few are mucking the many about. Buck Rogers has figured out that if all the oppressed band together instead of fighting amongst each other, maybe…just maybe! Oh, sorry, no, it's okay, settle down, my American friends, that’s not Socialism, it’s just common sense. Common sense which, and I’m going out on a limb here, it will take Forever Amber many issues (seasons maybe (uch!)) to reach but HVC’s not interested in the long haul (the DVD box set) so Buck’s already figured this out by the time he arrives in the 25th Century. In fact there’s a truly super page of storytelling where, reading down the page via a series of repeated set ups with different specifics to suggest the passage of time, we see Buck’s ideology evolve. Great page of comics. It is also preceded by another great page of comics where HVC’s modern technique of cut’n’paste and vivid texturing gels so well I had to genuflect and concede that when HVC’s modern approach works it really fucking works. Of course not every page works that well but they all work at least well enough for the story’s requirements. Well…okay, he does really chuff up the origin bit. I had no idea what happened there. It’s like some text or some pages were missing or something. Seriously, that whole how Buck got to the future bit was seriously muffed. Otherwise I liked the storytelling and art just fine. Even the fact that a scene seemed to take place in an apartment from BLACK KISS 2 but with different textures was okay; it just made it seem even more like a cheapy pulp serial where you’d recognise bits of scenery from other stuff. A fun side effect that.

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: 0

Colours or Colors(sic)

LAZARUS' world is coloured in a way that further study might prompt me to use the word subtle, but as it is I just read the thing and afterwards I thought: brown. Actually I didn’t think about the colouring much at all. That may be the point. Colouring can be purposefully unobtrusive after all. The palette did appear to be one chosen to suggest seriousness, and also to be easily replicable on a mid-level TV budget. Coincidence, I’m sure.

Jesus Arbuto vividly and vibrantly colours BUCK ROGERS’ world and over it all hang great slabs of sky in unnaturally cheerful hues. These bring to mind nothing less than the vivid and arrestingly swirling skies of Mike Hodges’ majestic Flash Gordon (1980). Here even the colourist is in on the pulp sensibility action and the colourist goes Big and Bold and it is lovely and it is apt.

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: 0

Lettering or The Strange Case of The Invisible Bruise

I didn’t like the lettering in LAZARUS. The text is oddly placed in the balloons in just such a fashion that before I’d read the contents I mentally went NnnnH! Then I’d read the contents and I’d go NnnnH! verbally. Basically, the lettering seems to have been tasked with being as unobtrusive as possible. This is the default setting for genre comics and so no great demerit. But. But it does indicate a disinterest in exploiting the visual possibilities of comics as a medium. Which would make it easier for people to visualise it in another medium. A mid-level budget TV series perhaps. Just a guess.

BUCK ROGERS has fun lettering bouncing about all over the shop. The ray guns make silly noises in an overwrought retro font, an explosion FX is shaped and there’s just a real sense that the letterer, like the colourist, is contributing to the whole lurid pulp aesthetic. There’s also a strong suspicion the letterer is Ken “The Bruise” Bruzenak. It’s only a suspicion as I couldn’t find any letterer credit so I don’t know. I hope that this was an oversight that will be corrected by Hermes Press in future. It’s okay bringing back old IPs but we don’t want to bring back the bad habits of not crediting creators with them.

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: 0

Back Matter Or Ingratiation Really Grates

The back matter of LAZARUS is a slick mix of interesting yammering about process and clammy glad handing. Some will find this fascinating and feel privileged to receive such a peek into the world of the creators. For those people I am happy. But I am a bitter man, slow to trust and quick to flinch from unsought intimacy. Basically, I’m British. Look they’ve got a hard row to hoe here because by this point I’ve read the comic and I’m not sure I believe the unchallenging lukewarm TV friendly content of the comic is really such a passion project for the creators. That sounds shitty but it’s actually a compliment to the creators. Shitty compliments; that's me all over. As usual with creator owned comics’ back matter it’s a bit like someone hugging you while clumsily going through your pockets. The worst bit is when Greg Rucka recounts a conversation he had with a financier friend of his. The financier friend tells Greg Rucka that because he was on The Inside he can tell Greg Rucka that during the recent financial crisis we were seconds away from it All Going To Hell. Greg Rucka stresses that this person is intelligent and so implies that this fear mongering talk should be taken as a clear indication that the world of LAZARUS is just another bunch of inadequately regulated arrogant greedy c*nts away. Greg Rucka tends to forget that people talk nonsense, even intelligent people, particularly when talking to writers. Anyway, we can tell things were sixty seconds from shit city because this totally blameless financier dude was on the cusp of buying shotguns and actually stocking up on pork and beans. Christ, reduced to pork and beans! Pork and beans yet, like an animal! My heart went out to him here, it burst from my chest and travelled across the Atlantic to shatter his window whereupon he shot it with a shotgun (“for hunting purposes, Officer”) because he thought it was after his precious pork and beans. What I took away from this bit was comfort knowing that when it all goes down the financiers will be armed. Armed financiers. Great. Maybe LAZARUS would have been a better comic if Greg Rucka had talked to more of the people more directly affected by the crisis. You know, the people who would have been on the other end of his financier pal’s shotguns. He could even have bought them dinner. After all, pork and beans are cheap.

Actually, most annoyingly, the backmatter in LAZARUS comes across mostly as an attempt to kneecap any criticism. Rucka pre-empts queries why he chose a lady lead with, er, because it had to be so. He shows his data to reinforce the possibility of the future he presents and provides his liberal bona fides with Occupy memories and stresses he and Lark have waited ten years to tell this story, and only this story and only in this way could it be told and...such and so forth. All this pre-emptive defensiveness does is convince me of a lack of confidence in the material. Read the comic and ignore the back matter and what do you have? A not very good comic. Factor in the back matter and only an animal wouldn't feel bad about pointing that out. The backmatter almost worked, I admit; I almost spiked this because I felt bad. And also because it is too long, the jokes are weak and posting stuff always makes my nerves sing like cats with stepped on tails. Sure, the intentions are good and the creators are talented but this comic just sits there, failing to engage. I don't like writing negative reviews. I put the humour (if humour it is) in to soften blow but maybe it just sharpens the knife, I don't know. I really don't sit here touching myself at my perceived superiority as I bring my foot down again and again on the newly hatched chick of independent creativity. But it is what it is and LAZARUS isn't very good, to my mind, and no amount of back matter can change that.

Howard Victor Chaykin requires no caveats. Howard Victor Chaykin remains brazen. His back matter blather consists of him outlining his basic approach to the series; he read some old continuities thought about it a bit and kept what worked and updated the rest. Then there’s a quick bit of comics criticism in which he maligns the reprint books advertised a page or so later but makes me hungry for some Russell Keaton Buck Rogers Sundays. Then there’s all the variant covers and a promo poster reproduced in colour and black and white which is just spoiling little old me really. Now I can scan the B&W ones in and play at being Jesus Arbuto (Arbutov? Make your mind up, son.) for a day! Basically beneath all HVC’s usual loveable grumpalumpagus schtick there’s the usual humble air of “I did what I did and I did it as best I could. I hope you like it. Now pound leather, foetus. Did I mention I live by the beach?” It’s quite short words wise and there’s a couple of typos giving it a hurried air as though HVC had somewhere else to be. Maybe he had a dinner appointment? Christ, maybe HVC stayed in and ate pork and beans that evening even though there was no State of Emergency. Pork and beans, like an animal! Or worse, a poor person! I hope he ate with his Colt Python near at hand. For as Jesus said, the poor will always be with us. And apparently they will always be after our pork and beans. Arm yourself, Jesus!

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: Pork and Beans!

The Verdict or Who’s Better, Who’s Better, Who’s Best?

BUCK ROGERS is messy and vivid and altogether lively. It is fast, funny intelligent and far from flawless but it has a genuine sense of pulpy fun shining out of it on every page and so it is GOOD!

LAZARUS is cold and calculating; it affects to address real human concerns but instead it's like someone returned from the dead but with something crucial missing. Something intangible, something like a soul perhaps. That's why LAZARUS is EH!

The Intellectual Properties may be old or they may be new but as long as there are good ones, in the future there will be - COMICS!!!

PEOPLE! Sometimes He's Not Here To Blow Out His 96 Candles But We Lit 'em Anyway!

Ninety six years ago on this date Jacob Kurtzberg (1917 - 1994) was born. Life may harry me and life may hurry me but I will always find time to celebrate the birth of the man who became Jack Kirby; the man who became a King! The King of COMICS!!! Anyway, this...

So, today I will be celebrating Jack Kirby's 96th birthday by reading a Jack Kirby comic. Hardly an unusual occurrence there. Unusually though, I will also be donating $9.60 to The Kirby Family endorsed charity The Hero Initiative. It is a worthwhile and fine charity which aids members of the comic community who are in need. Howard Victor Chaykin is on the Disbursement Committe, and that's just one awesome thing about The Hero Iniative.

So, on this day, Jack Kirby's birthday, I will send them something in remembrance and celebration of Jack Kirby. You may wish to do so also. You may not wish to do so. I'm just throwing that out there. I'm not expecting anyone to do anything because I'm not asking anyone to do anything. I thank Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter for bringing this notion to my attention.

I do hope, however, that you take this day to particularly relish the medium to which Jack Kirby contributed so very, very much. The medium of - COMICS!!!

And now, at the risk of transforming from The Count Arthur Strong of bloggers to The Greg Land of bloggers, may I humbly present a visual (and typically sedate, low key and altogether dignified) tribute to Jack Kirby? Well, I'm going to:

(All images repurposed from SILVER STAR (2007, £25.99,VERY GOOD!) published by Image Comics. Except for photographs which I swooped in and stole like a magnificently amoral bird of prey.)

Happy Birthday, Jack Kirby!

Happy Birthday to The King of COMICS!!!

(Unprofessional Behaviour Continuation Notice: Circumstances once more dictate that I shall be unable to post for a short while. After that I shall endeavour to regain some semblance of regularity and aim for more diverse content. I'm talking about my posts not, you know, something else there. I know, sorry. Until then; be well and be happy!)

"spilf!" Comics! Sometimes They Are Probably Not Everybody's Cup of Tea!

And now, as demanded by literally nobody at all, I look at BLACK KISS 2 by Howard Victor Chaykin. No, no need to thank me. Your smiles are reward enough. Of course you’ll only be clicking on MORE! if you are Over 18 years of age. I can trust you, can't I? Anyway, this...

BLACK KISS 2 Story & Art Howard Victor Chaykin Lettering & Logo Ken Bruzenak Editor Thomas K (No relation) Special Effects Jed Dougherty Design Drew Gill Image Comics, Inc. $14.99USD (2013) Rated M+/Mature Plus

This book came in a modesty bag and, gentle reader, ten minutes after cracking the covers so did I. Hee-haw, hee-haw, heeeee-haw! No, but see how once you’ve got a distasteful image (wrinkly old me crouched and tugging like I’m trying to create fire with an empty sock) in your head it’s hard for you to focus and you are certainly inclined to view what follows as erring on the trivial. BLACK KISS 2 is far more than the sordid trappings might lead you to think, is what I’m saying there. It is true that the book came in a modesty bag because, and I don’t know if you heard about this, there was some kerfuffle over whether it would drive the populations of Canada and Great Britain doolally tap due to its mere presence on our shores. Why, to expose the simple child-like natives of Britain or Canada to this filth would be to risk priapic rampages turning our quiet high streets into open air abattoirs cum knocking shops. But I have a copy so clearly sanity prevailed. No, of course not, sanity’s having a hard time these days. No, in the end I don’t think it was actually banned. Rather than HM Customs rejecting the book, I believe, it just wasn’t submitted for their consideration after the first issue. So, the control of illicit materials is a lot like the Oscar selection process then. I could be wrong and maybe possession is actually illegal in this magical land. In which case I stood on the UK side of the US/UK border while someone in America held it up and turned the pages. Maybe I was in a boat; depends where the border is. Geography isn’t my strongpoint; that’s fan dancing. Look, whatever saves me from a lengthy period of imprisonment, prison would be hard on my piles. What I’m getting at is it took some time and it took some doing getting this book. And knock me down with a feathered sheath because it was worth it. Ayup, BLACK KISS 2 is VERY GOOD!

Yeah, I know, shocker! But, honestly, if Howard Victor Chaykin had laid a big brown egg I’d tell you. I don’t know much about porn comics as I don’t have many. That isn’t because I’m a buckle hatted Puritan, no, it’s the same reason I don’t have a roulette wheel in my living room, a bar next to the bed and the only crack in my sugarbowl is from when I dropped it pissed on my winnings. But I know my Howard Victor Chaykin comics and BLACK KISS 2 is VERY GOOD!

As well as being VERY GOOD! BLACK KISS 2 is, fittingly, a form of literary hermaphrodite; being both a prequel and a sequel to HVC’s 1988 black comedy BLACK KISS. The original slides neatly between chapters 9 and 10 to create comics’ first great sleaze epic. BLACK KISS 2’s a pretty explicit book. It is a book which contains scenes of violence, sexual violence, debauchery, debasement, casual racism, casual homophobia, casual saxophony, dressy sexism, profanity, jeans worn with a suit jacket and just a hint of scat for flavour. There might also be some interspecies romance but that depends on the lady having taken the horse out for a nice dinner beforehand. Otherwise it’s just plain old vanilla bestiality. All this is presented in the patented Prolific Period Howard Victor Chaykin style. Except he’s clearly had a bit more lead time on it, or maybe it’s just the fact that it’s his, either way his focused application has nipped and tucked his art nicely to produce a far tighter style than you might expect. The faces in the page anchoring insets are a particular high point, but I really don’t want to be saying Howard Victor Chaykin gives good face. When Howard Victor Chaykin straight up replicates his original BLACK KISS style for chapter 8 its position surrounded by the newer style stuff reveals that in the meantime, while barely altering his signature page routines, Howard Victor Chaykin’s managed to develop a rather good perceptual trick. Rather than the impression that each panel is like looking through a camera at a fixed set there’s an assured shift towards the impression of looking through eyes at a world. A damned and dirty world, but a world.

Sure, sure all the problems I have with HVC’s current work are here but far less so and sometimes they work to the book’s advantage. The biggest advantage the art has is that it’s in B&W. This means that the visual noise of all Chaykin’s textures is kept down to a muted hum. The lack of his modern toffee-apple glare colouring enhances the visual coherence of the art no end. Sometimes the application of textures is a bit skew-if but here this, together with the tendency of the pasted elements to contain too much visual information or sometimes seemingly spookily float creates a nicely off-kilter effect. Needless to say, his figure work and attention to period detail remains stirring. But I appear to have said it anyway. However, I remain unconvinced by Howard Victor Chaykin’s pasting of the same image further along successive panels to show movement. However, this is small beer indeed. This stuff doesn't need to be perfect it needs to work. And here Howard Victor Chaykin's art works like a (wet) dream. In BLACK KISS 2 Chaykin’s art is far stronger than in his work for hire stuff and Ken Bruzenak’s period specific text boxes and enduring mastery of the art of the letterer brings it up another level. As ever. Ken Bruzenak. Ken fucking Bruzenak. The Bruise!

Sadly, living in the real world (which isn’t where BLACK KISS 2 is set) I have been unable to find the time to go full LitCrit on BK2 but I can certainly say it is about something. Things, some of them, yes, that’s what it’s about. This is because Howard Victor Chaykin is sometimes quite explicit about his meaning but then he gets all coy and retracts before you get the full brunt of his point. As ever, draped like lacey underthings over every page, we have the dryly delivered Howard Victor Chaykin Revisionist History of These United States (“Some people say we stole the land from the Indians, well, fuck them in the neck with a rusty spoon…” You know the drill). When he isn’t riding his hobbyhorse about how America’s insecurities have led it to neglect its own rich cultural products he’s telling us how America was built by assholes. Honey to mine ears as ever. And all this is punctuated by his usual clipped and caustic dialogue. It’s good reading is what I’m saying there. Because it’s good writing. Funny as fuck, too.

Anyway, as far as I can tell it’s about fame, or the peculiarly democratized form of fame ushered in by the movie business. With the invention of movies even a Cotswolds boy could be a cowboy. It’s about fame and success and how they attract and how they devour. But in BLACK KISS 2 it’s a sick and shabby kind of success Chaykin's concerned with. An illusion, a reflection. Famous people crop up in BLACK KISS 2, but they are people whose fame is tainted by violence, from Lee Harvey Oswald to Andy Warhol; epoch defining events are brushed past (Aids,9/11) as the solipsistic cast wallow in their own base natures. Faces so deep in each other’s asses that their world (the world of BLACK KISS) becomes truncated and defined by their appetites to the exclusion of all else. Because BLACK KISS 2 doesn’t show us the world, it only shows a portion of the world. For all the glossy cars, spacious houses, natty clothes and cheeky bondage gear to exist there must be a world beyond that presented on these pages. A world where people are just getting on with their business; the regular world. BLACK KISS 2’s world ignores the mundane and is set squarely in a world of excess. A world where want is confused with need. A world populated by people who can’t control their appetites. Or rather, are unwilling to control their appetites. And it’s to these people the succubus, the vampire, the whatever the hell it is gravitates when the need to feed descends. And it seems wholly appropriate that this is so.

Timely, too. There’s a modern vogue for phrasing failure/success in terms of appetite. Repellently judgmental phrases are now part of the vocab of the vainglorious, “You weren’t hungry enough”, “You didn’t want it enough”. Such generosity of spirit is always expressed by those who were and, naturally, did of course. Such depths of empathy. Yes, fame costs as someone in leg warmers once said and when Beverley shows up is where you start paying. And at the last, in the final chapters, in a voice so resigned and heavy with a history of experience (so heavy, so resigned it must, it just must, sound just like William Holden’s in Sunset Blvd.) Cass Pollack (AKA HVC) lays it all out. Like a body on a slab. Because, you know what? BLACK KISS 2’s about the same thing all HVC’s stuff is about. It's about defining your worth by your work and not by anyone else's opinion of same. It's about having some self re-cocking-spect. It’s about learning to accommodate your appetites before they destroy you. He’s just changed the focus from the usual Chaykin avatar (Cass) to the villain. A new twist on an old theme. An old theme with a new twist. No wonder Chaykin loves jazz. Jazzzzzzzzzzzz, babies. Jazzzzzzzzzzzz. This time out then, in a startlingly optimistic (that’s optimistic for BLACK KISS) climax both “Chaykin” and the bad gal/guy have experienced moments of clarity which entitle them to a happy ending. They aren’t exactly going to save each other but at least everybody else will be safe from them. And that’s about as happy an ending as there ever could be in the world of BLACK KISS 2. Which is VERY GOOD!

And like HVC’s VHS copy of Raiders Of The Lost Ass – I’m gone!

This week your safe word was – COMICS!!!

"Decency." COMICS! Sometimes They Do Not Bring Me Out In Hives!

Look, we all know that last time John read some comics released this century it all got a bit hairy. John would like to point out that this was not out of malice, low blood sugar, jealousy, his piles flaring up or sunspot activity. No, difficult as it may be to believe, John maintains it was the result of those comics not actually being all that good. Think of it as being a bit like John was showing you that sometimes he and Comics would argue but it didn't mean they didn't love each other any less and it certainly wasn't your fault. John can see why Doctor Doom talks like this – it’s fun. Anyway, this…

Due to the lack of a scanner all pictures are stolen from other people. That's what I'm reduced to. I hope you are all proud.

(Note: Doctor Doom was created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. Or Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, whichever floats your boat. The important thing is to get both names in there. It’s free and respectful, Marvel.)

CREEPY#11 Art by Gilbert Hernandez, Amy Reeder, Peter Bagge, Chrissie Zullo, Johnny Craig and Joelle Jones Written by Gilbert Hernandez, J. Torres, Dan Braun, Peter Bagge, Alisa Whitney, Archie Goodwin and Jamie S. Rich Lettered by Gilbert Hernandez, Amy Reeder, Peter Bagge and Nate Piekos of Blambot® Dark Horse Comics, $4.99 (2013)

CREEPY is a horror anthology comic so it’s a given that it'll be a mixed bag but this issue kicks itself in the head from the off by kicking off with The Gilbert Hernandez Show and so everything after that is done no favours whatsoever. Oh editors, you never put Elvis on first. Hernandez’ tale is haunted by the phantom sounds of a thousand readers’ eyes revolving as his statistically gifted heroine grits her teeth through her lower back pain and bounces through a story as trashy and daft as all get out. By the final full page reveal said fun parched eyes will be revolving so fast that dogs from miles around will be howling at the resulting sound. The only way this nonsensical and nasty strip could have been improved would have been to slather it with hot pinks and crystalline greens a la Stuart Gordon's From Beyond. Ayup, fear fans, that’s the toxic territory we’re in here and while there does not actually exist a monograph called Basket Crepes: The Nearly Edible Imagery of Frank Henenlotter if you wish one did you’ll enjoy this magnificently shameless embracing of schlocky horror by a man so gifted he just doesn't have to care anymore.

"...like a gingerbread man!"

After that, Amy Reeder illustrates a story about a pining husband and his inadvertent contribution to the locally sourced fishing industry. This one is mainly notable for Amy Reeder’s art being far better than it was on her BATWOMAN stint. Then there’s one about how a lady’s monthly cramps might be hunger cramps because women are unknowable monsters who prey on men. I've made it sound really misogynistic there because I wanted to see who reached for their buckled hat and flaming torch. And now I know, don’t I? Now we all know. Alas my New Puritans it’s far more mundane than all that; the tale isn't terrible but is too derivative and tamely delivered to work as a terror tale. Filling in the cheap content reprint slot there’s Johnny Craig joint from an old CREEPY. It may be from the '70s CREEPY, but could just as well have come from a '50s EC Comic which is fine and dandy by me but might not be by you. I feel quite tremulous merely mentioning EC Comics on The Internet as currently any conversation involving them seems to devolve rapidly into a fucking chimps tea party where the winner is whoever gets the most shit in Eddie Campbell’s hair. The final story reads like someone excorcising the baggage of a bad relationship through the medium of words and pictures; with the pictures not quite sleazy enough to do the job justice. Throughout the book there’s a drizzle of Peter Bagge strips which, if you are a Peter Bagge fan, I guess you’ll like. Like I said, it’s a horror anthology so if you like horror anthologies what with their customary blemishes and surgical scars and all then this one was GOOD!

GLORY#31 Art by Ross Campbell & Ulises Farinas Written by Joe Keatinge Coloured by Owen Gieni Lettered by Douglas E. Sherwood Glory created by Rob Liefeld Image, $3.99 (2013)

Ah, Glory. What a fine comic this is. Sales aren't so hot so I hear. That’s most likely because Glory is a female character who hasn't been designed with the aim of appealing to the lowest portions of the lowest portions of fandom. She’s a bit butch, this lass and no mistake. Glory doesn't so much look like she’s built like a brick shit house as she looks built out of brick shit houses. A sturdy pile of at least five on top of which sits a creepy wee Barbie head but with Action Man’s scarring. Flesh may be on display but the flesh on display has the bluish-marbled sheen of freezer burned meat. Fancy your chances, chaps, and Glory will snap it off and feed it to you. Which is refreshing. What’s also refreshing is the jumble of outrageously gory issue(s) long fight scenes and convincing character interactions the series has managed to deliver thus far . The splatterhouse fight scenes are by Ross Campbell, who gives the offally antics a Darrow/Quitely/Burnham/Burrows burnish of detail; a level of detail which explicitly testifies to the relish with which the task is attacked. With GLORY Keatinge and Campbell (et al.)  have built a sweet story of friendship, a brutal story of family and a comic that’s basically just all round engaging entertainment. Although I greatly enjoyed Keatinge's effective deployment of undercutting (pancakes, anyone?) his savage and serious buildup I think I most enjoyed the issue which flash forwarded to a point in the narrative where everything looks to have gone tits up. Now we've jumped back and the suspense is doubled; nice one. I enjoyed this stratagem when I first encountered it in the WARRIOR SUMMER SPECIAL in 1982(ish) where Alan Moore did it in Marvelman. I don’t know if Alan Moore did it first and nor do I care because what’s important is that Keatinge deploys it at least as well as The Magnificent One; meaning GLORY is GOOD!

1982 - That was certainly a special Summer!

Of course a lot of you won’t be familiar with Marvelman due to the reasons outlined so smashingly in Padraig O'Mealoid’s fascinating, informative and wholly necessary investigation into the history of Marvelman. An investigation which promises to reveal who actually owns Marvelman. This, of course, is a bit of a cheeky maguffin as the ownership of Marvelman is beyond doubt. Why, as any fule kno, Marvelman is owned wholly and totally by Marvel©™, man! Oh sure, sceptics call this into doubt and wave at the fact that Marvel©™ has released nothing Marvelman related except for a bunch of insanely overpriced reprints of the Mick Anglo strips and a bad Joe Quesada poster. Now while these Anglo reprints are certainly of nostalgic interest (which is of more interest than the Joe Quesada poster) they are not the Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman material; i.e. the only material anyone cares about. Hataz fixate on this as though it proves something and yet these Hataz fail to take into account Marvel©™’s publicly stated position that they are taking their time so that when the MM stuff appears it will be done right. I mean, let’s face it perfectionism is a major, if not the defining trait, of Marvel©™. After all they do a perfectly good job of (and seem perfectly happy doing so) of denying Jack Kirby any credit or compensation for his co-creator role in the creation of the IPs without which no one at Marvel©™ would have a job. Oh, you thought I was going to do that thing where someone looks at Marvelman and has the shit shocked right out of them like brown toothpaste from a tightly squeezed tube by the bloody remarkable fact that in the last 30 odd years Marvelman has dated somewhat. But I didn't. Probably will do at some point though!

BATTLEFIELDS#4 Art by Russ Braun Written by Garth Ennis Coloured by Tony Avina Lettered by Simon Bowland Dynamite, $3.99 (2013)

Garth Ennis once popped up in one of the Dynamite back pages to bemoan the fact that no one read this here comic and that writing the series was pretty much a thankless and financially fruitless task. Since the contents of Dynamite back pages don't exactly inspire credence I thought Garth Ennis was just being a drama queen because he seems that sort doesn't he? A bit flaky; no good in a firefight; dress as a lady as soon as the lifeboats are struck; you know the sort. Seriously though, who believes anything comic creators say anymore? No, no, no, their wives just say they do; it’s part if the matrimonial pact. Anyway, I had a look at the sales figures and this comic is the #300 best-selling comic. That means people find that there are 299 comics better than this one. At first I thought this meant that readers would much rather read a bad super hero comic than a good war comic. Then I realised these were sales to Retailers. So really Retailers were happier ordering bad super hero comics rather than good war comics. Then I realised the “super hero” and “war” were red herrings and basically retailers were okay ordering bad comics rather than good comics. And at those deep discounts and attractive retailer incentives who can blame them! I guess everyone’s okay with comics being a giant Ponzi scheme? Do they generally work out well those things? Ha ha ha, only joking. I know nothing about retailing and I'm sure it's all fine! Say, while I was enjoying myself reading comics (or, if it was a Tuesday, enjoying myself staring into space silently weeping) my long suffering partner pointed out that there had been a programme on TV about the Hindenburg. Apparently the Hindenburg worked really well. Until suddenly it didn't.

Everything was going so well!

So, this comic no one is reading? Turns out it’s pretty great. BATTLEFIELDS is basically a banner under which Ennis and his various (and variable but very good at the least) artists deliver three part story arcs. Sometimes these arcs are stand alone and sometimes they involve recurring characters. There’s usually a good reason if the characters don’t recur. Death, I’m talking about death there; happens a lot in war, so I hear. Obviously raised on British war comics of the '70s Ennis synthesises the chippily anti-authoritarian swagger and honest violence of these with modern sophisticated storytelling to create (along with his artists) some of the best comics (apparently) barely anyone is reading. They also usually have covers by the divine Garry Leach (and maybe one fine and shining day he could do some interiors?), Leach is of course the man who first drew Alan Moore’s reinvention of Marvelman and is one of the few people who give cross hatching a good name. I’m getting off the subject now, but let’s be clear here – Marvel own Marvelman, Padraig O’Mealoid! MARVEL! Also (SPOILER!) Marvelman may have dated a bit in the last three or so decades. OMG! KIMOTA! Anyhoo, this issue of BATTLEFIELDS kicks off a new three parter involving Anna Kharkova; she being a female Russian pilot previously featured in an arc you need not have read to enjoy this comic. All you need to enjoy this comic is to read it.

"AIIEEEEEE!!!!"

Because, yes, despite the fact that comics is a primarily visual medium this comic, one which consists for the most part of two people in a room talking, is pretty great. It’s pretty great because the words coming out of the characters’ mouths are not bland pap; you know, the kind of page filling sub-TV blather dependant on some weird mutual non-aggression pact between the reader and the writer. These words here have content, these words here have substance and within these words a world unfolds. Admittedly it’s a world consisting primarily of a Quonset hut populated by two people but, still, it’s a world. Unfortunately for all involved it’s a world within a world and all that divides the two is wood, tin and glass which is little use against the irrevocable intrusion of the larger, madder and infinitely more savage world which is the world at war. It’s fine work in the words department is what I’m saying. The staging’s good too with both Ennis and Braun working with very little to convey the passing of time in an unobtrusive but effective fashion. It’s mostly Ennis’ show given the confined cast and setting which means Braun isn't given much to work with. Then again Braun is given the human face to work with and that is everything a decent artist needs; he proves to be a more than decent artist by the way. So, this issue was engaging, effective and intelligent and I’m going to go all the way up to VERY GOOD! Should you have the temerity to doubt my words then you’ll have to read it won’t you now? Check. And mate.

Oh, and because there is no podcast this week here's some thoughts on the latest Big Ticket Thinks in Recentville:

1) There is no question to which the right answer is arming Brian Hibbs. We "don't want any more trouble like you had last year in the Fillmore District", Brian Hibbs! 2) I won't be buying anything by people who actively seek to deny other people equal rights. You do what you want. That's how that Freedom stuff works. 3) Jerry Ordway is a good artist and yet he's still basically turning up at the WalMart parking lot at 6 in the morning hoping someone will pick him to go in the back of the truck. Nope, nothing wrong with this industry. 4) Howard Victor Chaykin is starting a new series about General George Custer in the next issue of DARK HORSE PRESENTS - aw, yeah! You'll miss him when he's gone you know!

Now go and fight like the mad dogs you are! But only fight about what's worthwhile - COMICS!!!

"Rodeo Ain't Over Yet!" COMICS! Sometimes I Don't Have A Title!

Hello! Here are some words about some comics. The sales figures analysis is just below this. Very good it is too! To clarify, the Hibbs' stuff is good, not this stuff. Anyway, this...

ALL STAR WESTERN#16 Jonah Hex: Art by Moritat, written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, coloured by Mike Atiyeh and lettered by Rob Leigh. Tomahawk!: Art and colour by Phil Winslade, written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti and lettered by Rob Leigh. DC Comics, $3.99 (2012) Jonah Hex created by Tony DeZuniga and John Albano Tomahawk created by Edmund Good and Joe Samachson

I finally realised that it isn't the sticklebricking of DC Continuity and the basic desperate casting about for stunt elements that are hamstringing my enjoyment of this book. No, it's the joylessness of it. Its total and wholehearted acceptance of the current DC mode of storytelling which puts a premium on prevarication and encourages emptiness. Look, this book would be great if Bob Haney was writing it. Bob Haney isn't writing it though so it isn't great. If I'm hankering after Bob Haney in 2013 it's a fair guess your book isn't up to snuff. On the up side this issue doesn't contain the dismayingly frequent page filling device of having that Oriental lass fighting for five pages. In fact she doesn't appear once which means that any entertainment can be rightly said to be just like the cast - purely occidental. You want better jokes, make better comics.

In the Tomahawk back up the most startling aspect as ever is Phil Winslade's bizarre digital watercolours job which I find enjoyable without actually knowing why. In other news, the English turn out to be the villains! I guess that's how Germans feel when they read DC war comics. A taste of my own medicine there. And it is bitter, bitter, bitter. This book, however, is only EH!

DJANGO UNCHAINED #1 Art by R M Guera with Jason Latour Adapted by Reginald Hudlin Coloured by Giulia Brusco Lettered by Sal Cipriano Adapted from the original screenplay by Quentin Tarantino Vertigo/DC Comics, $3.99

I can’t speak as to how good an adaptation this is because I haven’t seen the movie. I’m old and the wild and outrageous young rebel Quentin Tarantino scares me with his outrageously youthful rebelliousness and his youthfully rebellious outrageous movies. Luckily my much younger sister had seen this very movie so I asked her how she found it. She said, and I quote so the record may be deemed complete, “It was entertaining, Johnny, but it wasn’t good.” There you go then. Me, I fear I invite your youthful ire as I just don’t think Tarantino is all that. Oh, it isn't his childishly inflammatory use of the “N” word, after all I’m sure should our paths cross the edgy auteur would be equally forgiving were I to pepper him with the “C” word like it was going out of fashion. No, but some of it is the fact that he uses the word “cool” too much. The only men his age who should use “cool” that much are Grateful dead fans who live in San Franciscan dumpsters. Mostly though it’s that he reacts to proper questions like THIS. Yeah, I'll let that speak for itself I think. On the plus side the iconoclastic Quentin Tarantino does seem to have exhausted his celluloid fetish for Uma “Man Hands” Thurman.

The stated aim of this comic is to illustrate the original script. Every golden word. I guess it does that. It certainly seems like a Tarantino script. The dialogue is surely as self-satisfied and in need of tightening as ever and it retains all the usual rhythm and musicality (i.e. all the rhythm and musicality of a tune played on an arse flute); scenes outstay their welcome or outstay their welcome while also leading up to a totally predictable reveal and the characters haven’t any. Usually it would take hundreds of talented people and millions of dollars to make this stuff at least enjoyable if not actually good. All this comic has is R M Guera. All this comic needs is R M Guera. It’s an amazingly savvy choice since for the last 5 years and change R M Guera has been tasked with tricking everyone into thinking that a tour through Jason Aaron’s 70’s movie memories constitutes something with anything more to say than, hey, wasn't cinema in the 70’s just grand? Or SCALPED as it is known. Elevating the mundane to the magical is just what R M Guera does I guess. He does it bloody well though. Jason Latour throws down a few flashback panels and his art is excellent every time it appears but the shining star here is R M Guera. R M Guera with his ambulatory toby jugs and smooth storytelling once again showing everyone else up. Hey, the poor old writer doesn't even get a credit except here: Reginald Hudlin. I don't know why he doesn't get a credit but it's not a trend I want to encourage. Anyway, thanks largely to RM Guera this was GOOD!

SUPREME #68 Written and Drawn by Erik Larsen Coloured by Steve Oliff Lettered by Chris Eliopoulos Supreme created by Rob Liefeld Image Comics, $3.99

In this pulse pounding issue Erik Larsen basically says that he enjoyed illustrating Alan Moore’s script but since then he’s been noodling about and it’s been just super, thanks, but he’s off now. Apparently someone else will be taking over, no idea who but, yeah, someone at some point. Of all the moves to steal from the DC playbook that’s a pretty strange choice. At least he didn't steal DC’s signature move which is now apparently making comics nobody likes but lots of them. Larsen’s departure is a bit of a shame because I found his Kirby with a split nib art quite charming and in this issue it’s particularly so because, for no readily apparent reason, Larsen suddenly starts drawing this thing like it’s Kyle Baker’s RONIN. (Yes, I know it was Frank Miller's RONIN but this looks like Kyle Baker's RONIN).

I quite enjoyed this book. It had enjoyably stupid characters like Lion headed Supreme and Darius Duck, people flew around, punching occurred and Larsen always respectfully drew Supreme in that scratchy Liefeld mode without actually ever being as shitty as Liefeld. Sure, it was pretty basic stuff but it was basically pretty stuff. Sometimes I don’t actually want all that much from a comic and this certainly delivered that. I wouldn't recommend that Erik Larsen make a habit of just dumping books as people might start referring to a failure to commit as having committed Larsen-y. Unlike that joke this was OKAY!

FATALE#9,10 Art by Sean Phillips Written by Ed Brubaker Coloured by Dave Stewart Fatale created by Sean Phillips and Ed Brubaker Image Comics, $3.50

Everyone can relax because I’m done here. I’ve had my doubts about this one all the way. For starters the horror elements have been inexplicably dusty and dull (cassocks! tentacles!). I don't need my own pet Jess Nevins to know that horror in the '70s was actually engaging with real world events and offering up savage and innovative treats which were leaving Corman's Poe adaptations for dead. Then there's the inescapable drab narration which mistakes deadpan for just plain dead on the page and is written in a fabulous new tense even more inactive than the passive; the comatose tense perhaps. The only sign of life in this one-note stuff is that it works the word “but” like it yearns to be a Salt’n’Pepa track.Then there's stuff like this:

That pivotal oh, go away moment occurred in issue 9 but due to the caprices of my comic dispersal system I still had issue 10 to go. Yes, one more chance! A chance which was immediately crushed when the central character (who thus far has been less like Fatale and more like Docile) just suddenly remembered she had special magic powers and plain killed everyone in a climax as rewarding as being inadvertently brought off by the motion of your train seat. Look, there’s no mystery about why men will act like complete tools for a pretty face, certainly not a supernatural mystery. Unless you think the contents of your pants are supernatural and mysterious. In which case your Pope just resigned. I didn't know Popes could do that! This series always seemed less James Ellroy and H P Lovecraft and more Quinn Martin and Donald P Bellisario. An impression strengthened by future covers which indicate the series is just going to stick a new genre on top of the usual stuff. Now she's a witch, now she's a space man, now she's a turtle, dis-integrating! Like my interest. Mr Ben with a magical woo-woo may well be a new direction but not one I’ll be pursuing. So, I’ll be missing future essays on The Scarecrow And Mrs King and, more importantly, the fine work of Sean Phillips and Dave Stewart which deserves better than to be yoked to work this EH!

SHADOW SPECIAL #1 Art by Ronan Cliquet Written by Scott Beatty Coloured by Mat Lopes Lettered by Rob Steen The Shadow created by Walter B. Gibson Dynamite, $4.99 (HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!! FOUR DOLLARS AND NINETY NINE CENTS!!!! THAT'S INSANE!!!!)

In the main title The Shadow is currently palling about with George Orwell. George Orwell is the author of a couple of books on how shit being poor is and how we will all willingly participate in a system designed to crush our common humanity. He was right about both of those things and remains right, although he missed a trick in not realising that the main way The System would ensure our complicity would be by making nice things for us to buy. But then there weren’t many nice things to buy back then so we’ll let him off. Rip The System! You don’t bring Orwell to the party unless you want that party to get political! Orwell also did a book about animals on a farm. I can’t remember what it was called but it was about animals on a farm. It was a metaphor or an analogy or some clever shit like that about some animals on a farm. Oh yeah, I remember now, the one about the animals on the farm? It was called BEFORE WATCHMEN.

Anyway, this isn’t the main series so George Orwell isn’t in it. No, this is a “special” but it isn't very, possibly even at all. Except for the price. That’s pretty fucking special right there. There’s the core of a fun and pulpy tale here but something’s gone awry on the pacing front. When there’s more pages devoted to The Shadow moaning about going shoe shopping (yes, really) than there is to his fight in a minefield with a man who has courageously chosen to sport only a bouquet of barbed wire around his nuddy bod (Oooch! Owch!) then, yes, I’d have to disagree strongly with the storytelling emphases.

Ronan Cliquet has a good go at being Alan Davis but he seems to have jumped ahead a bit; Alan Davis didn’t get to be Alan Davis until he’d got the basics right, son. I’m guessing he’s just some wee snip learning his trade but the best I can give him is – promising. The most special thing about this comic is the paper it’s printed on. Paper so much like catalogue pages from your youth that there’s a constant urge to riffle through them to the Hot Wheels section or the sports bra section depending on which age your development is currently arrested at. No, it wasn't special unless special is EH!

And like The Pope - I'm gone! But there's still COMICS!!!

"Any retailer who doesn't know how to order a comic by issue #7 is bad at thier job"

(Which I must have read 10 times in the last 2 days, from 10 different people) OK, so let's talk about how one might need more copies by issue #7 (for crying out loud!), using some Actual Numbers.

SAGA #1 went through five printings. They declined to do a sixth printing (as the trade was imminent), and this appears to have happened in mid-to-late August (I say "appear", because all I can factually check is when I was no longer able to have an order fill -- but it could have been a day or multiple weeks before that that the last printing officially sold out nationally)

At the point there were no more copies of #1 for sale, I stopped reordering #2-6, since, typically, customers want to start at the beginning. Therefore, it is possible (and, perhaps, likely) that my sales on #2, 4 and 5 might have potentially been higher if I kept rolling. #3 and #6 had leftover copies come off my racks (in November!) as "biffage" -- I also think that, had there been a 6th printing of #1, I would have KEPT selling more of all of the issues.

We've also been aware of SAGA's sales potential since issue #1, and have ACTIVELY been TRYING to grow the book.

These are my ACTUAL sales for SAGA, expressed as a percentage of #1:

#1: 100%

#2: 65%

#3: 60% (remember -- I had copies "left over" after a FULL SIX months on the rack!)

#4: 52%

#5: 52%

#6: 49% (also had "biffage" here, of about 10% of initials)

So, given this (ABSOLUTELY NORMAL) pattern, how many copies of #7 would YOU order? Remember, if you guess wrong, YOU pay for those books and insulate your attic, just like the long boxes worth you pull from your rack every other month.

What *I* did was:

#7: 55%

#8: 52%

In other words, I ordered MORE copies of #7 than either #4, 5, or 6 sold in about 90 days, give or take.

Today we're at 31 days on sale on #7, and I've sold 49% of #1, but more importantly, my current velocity on #7 shows we're selling an average of 1 copy per day, so I will be sold out before the first of the year, if things hold steady. But... I want to have copies of #7 on sale, in theory, until the night before the second trade paperback comes out -- in May or June. That's six more months, or maybe like another doubling or tripling of current sales. I don't *think* I'll have a-copy-a-day velocity for SIX months, but the current trend says we *might*.

So how do I order the 2nd printing? the "right" number, assuming "we don't want to do a third printing", especially with the excellent discount Image will be offering is somewhere between 50 and 150 more copies. That's a pretty stupidly big range, however, and I'm almost positive that I have to order on the lower edge of that.

More than that, how do I order #8 and #9 and #10, are they going to keep up that high? I also will "need" each future issue a little shorter timeframe then the one for it, presuming that the second trade release abrogates most of the market need for single releases.

Mathematically, it is *possible* (but not very probable) that I *might* sell more copies of #7 than I did of #1, by the time we get to June, IF there's copies TO sell...but actually taking on THAT much stock? Kind of not plausible -- especially when #8-12 are not going to be offered at the (frankly) crazily good discount the 2nd prints of #7 will be offered at.

And, remember, I'm ON THIS book (like white on rice), and I'm struggling hard with just how to manage its post-TP success. Now picture a store that WASN'T all over it from day #1:

They ordered (let's make up a number) 10 copies of #1. Unbeknownst to them, they shoulda ordered FIFTY, but they order and sell 10, then reorder, say, 5, then another 5, then ANOTHER 5, then they go "this is nuts" and they go to 10, and those sell out, and there are no more, and they've managed to shift 35 copies of something they thought would sell 10, but they actually COULD have sold 50.

It's much much harder for this guy to reach his maximum potential on this title, because they 1) haven't figured out what that maximum COULD BE, and 2) because they're capped lower because of lack of availability in the sales period as they understand it. EVENTUALLY they'll figure it out, but carrots carrots carrots are the way to help them get them to that point.

Listen: history shows us that on a "growth" book, it is ABSOLUTELY NORMAL that it takes between 13 and 20 issues for the market to actually properly "figure out" the title, and how to order it. This is because the market for new books/comics is ENORMOUS (500+ SKUs each and every month), because MOST books decline, rather than hit big, and because capital is limited.

I hope this helps your understanding of the difficulty of "right sizing" your orders in a predictive fashion.

Any questions?

-B