“COURAGE! He Is But A MOLLUSCOID MOUNTEBANK!” COMICS! Sometimes We're Making Whoopee!

A samurai, a shadow and a sponge. It's either a further trudge through my pull list or the best pop band ever. Let's see! The Shadow: The Death of Margo Lane by Wagner, Wagner & A Larger World Studios Anyway, this...

USAGI YOJIMBO #155 Art by Stan Sakai Written by Stan Sakai Lettered by Stan Sakai Cover by Stan Sakai Cover coloured by Tom Luth Dark Horse Comics, Inc., $3.99 (2016) Usagi Yojimbo created by Stan Sakai

In which our roving ronin happens upon a murder most mysterious and is reunited with his old friend, Inspector Ishida, he of the emotively animated mono-brow. With more than enough suspects, both likely and unlikely, our anthropomorphic investigators could probably do without the uncanny and bloody additions to the notorious “Hell Screen”. Hurry Usagi, the game is a-paw! I mean, a foot! (Ouch!) So, yeah, another super-solid exercise in entertainment by the man who is quite possibly Comics' Most Undervalued Talent, Mr Stan Sakai. There is nothing that is not very good about Usagi Yojimbo, so much so that it remains somewhat galling that each issue receives little to no acknowledgment of its existence by the comics' press. This then is the reward for consistent brilliance: silence.

Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai

Meanwhile, The Hulk got shot by an arrow made of Dumb and someone got all school marmy because Wonder Woman doesn't go commando, and, quite rightly, that's all anyone goes on about. Alas, Usagi Yojimbo has to get by on clever plotting, consistent characterisation, barbarous action and a general air of amiable excellence. And then, when you've read it you can go back and marvel at how simply Sakai depicts his rain, how he creates the illusion of depth via varying the heaviness of his line, and how he expertly employs cross hatching to evoke texture. Every panel of every page proves Stan Sakai remains implacable in his delivery of high levels of artistry and entertainment. But never mind that, someone drew The Hulk with his cock out! Or The Hulk got shot by a cock! Or something. Oh yeah, more often than not the estimable Mr. Sakai finds time (as he does here) to pen a wee pin-up on the back cover, which is nice. Also, the letter column is one of the healthiest I've read, with people just genuinely reacting with unfashionable (ugh!) affection for the book and its author both. There's none of that creepy and needy validate me! Validate my tastes! stuff you usually get in independent lettercols; just pure heart. The cosplayer highlighted this issue is impressive alright roo, but, and I have no idea why this is, she just made me imagine David Keith replaced by a large rabbit for the final scenes of WHITE OF THE EYE. Why is daddy wearing hot dogs, indeed. That's a reflection on me rather than the talented lady in question. Man, I don't know what's wrong with me but I sure know what's right – Stan Sakai and Usagi Yojimbo. VERY GOOD!

SPONGEBOB COMICS #57 Art by Nate Neal, Vince DePorter, Derek Drymon, James Kochalka, Marc Hempel, Andrea Tsurumi, Maris Wicks, Hilary Barta, Jacob Chabot Written by Nate Neal, Vince DePorter, Derek Drymon, James Kochalka, Jay Lender, Robert Leighton, Maris Wicks, Chuck Dixon, Hilary Barta Lettered by Rob Leigh Coloured by Monica Kubina, Scott Roberts, Jason Millet Cover by Shawn Martinbrough (with thanks to Jacob Chabot) United Plankton Pictures Inc., $3.99 (2016) Spongebob Squarepants created by Stephen Hillenburg

As you can see by the text on Martinbrough's Hitchcock indebted cover this issue's theme is “noir”! But only in the loosest possible sense of “crime stuff”; you know, before a bunch of tedious old men start flapping their gums about what noir is or isn't. Look, it's a comic for kids about a talking sponge, so get back worrying about whether noirs can be in colour or not. Yeah, you take care of the important stuff, while the world goes to Hell in a handbasket. Anyway, as is mostly (but not always) the case there's a bunch of smile raising shorts. Sometimes there's only a couple, or just one, but they are always smile raising. It isn't the smile raising that’s in doubt, it's the number of stories within. I trust that's clear: SPONGEBOB COMICS is funny stuff.

Spongebob Comics by Hempel, Lender, Roberts & Leigh

And those titter inducing tales herein? Our porous pal's life is complicated when he crosses paths with a larcenous double, the new fish in prison reflects back on how his life was ruined by a yellow terror as implacable as a guilty conscience, a hilariously learnedly loquacious Patrick eruditely narrates the terrible tale of “Doctor Calamari” in a suitably German Expressionistic stylee (which, no, isn't noir but it is the root from which noir sprang. So go back to sleep, tedious old men.), there's a trenchcoat and hat PI pastiche, and Mermaid Man reveals the terrible secret of his stylish cape. And! Maris Wicks gives a one page shoal of facts about hermit crabs while James Kochalka remains James Kochalka. VERY GOOD!

THE SHADOW: THE DEATH OF MARGO LANE #1 Art by Matt Wagner Written by Matt Wagner Coloured by Brennan Wagner Lettered by A Larger World Studios Cover by Matt Wagner & Brennan Wagner Dynamite Entertainment, $3.99 (2016) The Shadow created by Walter B. Gibson

See! I told you about my LCS! They only went and sent me another Shadow comic! Again with The Shadow comics! I'm not old enough to remember The Pulps, people! I am old enough to remember Pulp though. In fact I'm old enough to have attended their final gig at the Magna Science Adventure Centre. Well, their first “final” gig. I'm also old enough to remember when words meant things, words like “final”. Grumble. Grumble. Mutter, mutter. So, The Shadow! Dynamite's Shadow stuff has been a bit variable, to be honest. There was that series which had a weird obsession with sinister Chinese laundries and had George Orwell fighting with El Shadder; it was okay and while the bit where George Orwell ended his adventure by going “Hmmm, ANIMAL FARM is catchy, but so is NINETEEN EIGHTYFOUR; which to write first?!?” was pretty hilarious, it was still nice to have a comic writer who knew about George Orwell. Then there was that one set in the present which was, well, terrible. After that it was all a bit patchy with Houdini cropping up and a Nazi car factory or something, but of late things seem to have settled down with Matt Wagner taking the reigns. And Matt Wagner? He can draw. Anyone who claims he cain't is all wet. And how!

The Shadow: The Death of Margo Lane by Wagner, Wagner & A Larger World Studios

Now I ain't ladling out no applesauce saying that this guy's blotto on graphic design and knows his onions when it comes to page layouts. I must have been all turned around for the last forty odd years because Matt Wagner's excellence has somehow passed me by. Sure and I wasn't giving his stuff the high-hat, I just never crossed its path is all. From the first page of this Shadow joint I was crushing on this stuff so bad I had to check my cheaters were clean. Storytelling-wise this ruckus is the cat's pajamas , and I ain't laying down a line. Boffo stuff all round. It's swanky stuff, on the up and up, I tells ya. Maybe it is just meat'n'taters, just horsefeathers story-wise what with alla them shenanigans with hats, flivvers, gats, cocktails, luxury liners and death traps. But, hey it's a Shadow comic and alla that guff is why we came in the first place. A ragamuffin it may be, but it's a ragamuffin swanked up like Valentino. That's gotta be worth the scratch. So I'm a few decades late for this party but I'm tellin' youse, this Matt Wagner kid's got the goods. Heck, he's got the VERY GOOD!s

Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Not Touch – 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!!!

"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!!!

"I've Tasted SHOES With More Flavour." COMICS! Sometimes Despite It Being Summer I Still Sit Here And Write This Rhubarb!

As tradition dictates I read some comics and then wrote about them. However, I feel it incumbent upon me to direct your gaze further down the page where two other people have done some real writing. Don't worry there's none of that below this cut; consistency is key! By Scioli & Barber

Anyway, this...

ALL-NEW DOOP #4 Art by Frederico Santagati & David LaFuente Written by Peter Milligan Coloured by Laura Allred Lettered by VC's Clayton Cowles Cover by Michael & Laura Allred Doop created by Michael Allred & Peter Milligan Marvel Entertainment,$3.99 (2014)

In which Ingmar Bergman is invoked, the man whose name is an anagram of Racial Kite returns, points are avoided, developments delayed and a Free Digital code still isn’t any compensation for charging three dollars and ninety nine cents for a slim pamphlet. I could buy a house for that. A house that looked and acted very much like a coffee anyway.

By LaFuente, Milligan, Cowle and Allred

If I just ripped right into this as it so richly deserves (it’s a mess, and not one of blues, nor of eggs) you’d probably think I had some kind of beef with Peter Milligan. I don’t. Just because I dislike this ungodly and resolutely lifeless muddle doesn’t alter one iota the joy and wonder of all the stuff Peter Milligan, together with various talented artists, has done which I do like. It’s not to be sniffed at either that stuff: Bad Company, Skreemer, Enigma, The Eaters, Shade The Changing Man, Skin, Rogan Josh, Paradax, The Extremist, Vertigo Pop: London, Egypt, X-Force, X-Statix, Animal Man, Face, Girl, The Minx, Human Target, Hellblazer and probably some other bits and bobs here and there. The art is good but it’s by two different people and this together with the fact that last issue a character appeared in a scene they shouldn’t have been in suggests some backstage shenanigans. Pure conjecture there but what remains beyond doubt is this book is refusing to work. If you’re a big hearted soul you could read this as some impish piss take of how vacuous busywork is now the hallmark of the current X-books but for those with normal sized hearts the best way to read this remains not to read it at all. EH!

BATMAN '66 #13 Art by Dean Haspiel Written by Gabe Soria Coloured by Allen Passalaqua Lettered by Wes Abbott Cover by Michael & Laura Allred Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger DC Comics, $2.99 (2014)

All of Gotham sits agog before the cathode ray counterparts of the caped crusaders! But what’s this? Is video villainy afoot? Don’t touch that dial, chums!

By Haspiel, Soria, Passalaqua & Abbott

Hey, Dean Haspiel! I like Dean Haspiel! He draws his figures all chunky and loaded with momentum dspite an oddly flat aspect. I like it and I liked seeing it unfold in service of Gabe Soria's comedic conceit about how in the frothy primary coloured world of Batman ’66 a Batman TV show would be all grim and B&W but still as fundamentally ridiculous as the world in which it was transmitted. Possibly even more ridiculous even. The highlight is obviously the whole “bat-business” schtick which is even better if you use the voice of that “Ya filthy animal” guy from Home Alone for TV Batman. I mean, you are doing The Voices in your head anyway aren’t you? Do people do that? I know I’m reading a good comic when I stop “reading” and realise I’ve started acting it out in my head. Some people might think it’s strange but I certainly have no problem admitting I do that as long as it’s a common enough to pass for normal. If it’s grounds for having my kid taken off me then I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about; get the fuck away from me you bloody lunatic! GOOD!

BATMAN '66 MEETS THE GREEN HORNET #2 Art by Ty Templeton Written by Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman Coloured by Tony Avina Lettered by Wes Abbott Cover by Alex Ross Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger Green Hornet created by George W. Trendle & Fran Striker DC Comics,$2.99 (2014)

In which Batman ’66 meets The Green Hornet and a malevolently mirthful villain is revealed! Actually, technically, Batman ‘66 meets The Green Hornet again since the pair actually met in the first issue but then they get split up and so meet again. If that happens every issue there will certainly be no complaints lodged with the Trading and Standards people as far as this comic is concerned.

This comic showed up because I get and like Batman ’66. However I have little to no interest in Kevin Smith and in fact have actively avoided his doings ever since, over a decade ago now, I realised with the kind of diamond hard clarity I wish I could experience about things of real importance, that I didn’t actually like his movies; I just liked watching Jason Lee being sarcastic. Turns out you can watch Jason Lee be sarcastic in things which have nothing to do with Kevin Smith. The Free Market in action there. I think we can all agree that being able to watch Jason Lee be sarcastic and know Kevin Smith was not involved is worth every bit of inequality such a system fosters. Anyway, the good news is that this comic isn’t as dreadful as I feared. Now I don’t know who Ralph Garman is but he seems to be exerting a steadying influence on Kevin Smith; there’s no scene in which Robin ends up sat in his own shit or any ridiculously long-winded fulminating the humour of which is in inverse proportion to its length. So, Kevin Smith fans beware!

By Templeton, Smith, Garman, Avina & Abbott

I mean it still isn’t much cop but it isn’t much cop in such a low key way it’s hard to say precisely why it isn’t much cop. We just don’t seem to have got very far after two issues and we certainly haven’t laughed very much, or indeed at all, but then we’ve not really resented the experience either. And by “we” I mean me and the unquiet ghost of Dandy Nichols, obviously. This qualified success can’t just be down to Ralph Garman as there are also the calmative effects of Ty Templeton’s art to be reckoned with. And this is despite said art being a bit raggedy, a tad approximate even, in places and generally looking as though he’s loaded up his brush with too much ink. Little matter, because underneath all that there’s still the appealing solidity of his figures, the slight quirk of his line and a definite talent for the delineation of Caesar Romero. And yes, Children of The Now, I realise this brush very likely never existed nor was ever dunked in ink as this is one of those digital books they chuck into print to maximise revenue streams or whatever the expense account big boys chunter over by the white boards. Alex Ross’ covers are fun too. Don’t want Alex Ross sulking in the corner; nice covers, Alex Ross. So, yeah, you can probably tell from the preceding that I wasn’t really engaged by this comic but in tribute to Kevin Smith I did give it an overly verbose, self-indulgent and resolutely charmless review. OKAY!

THE GREEN HORNET (2011) Directed by Michel Gondry Screenplay by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg Starring Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz, Cameron Diaz and Tom Wilkinson Green Hornet created by George W. Trendle & Fran Striker

My spawn wanted to watch this so we watched it. I swear he has powers beyond mortal ken (also I didn’t mind if I did either). Naturally I had been assured by the world outside my window that it was a big old stinker but since that’s the same world that liked the Nolan Batman films I didn’t listen. Also, The Lone Ranger had been denigrated by all and sundry and my spawn enjoyed that so, yeah, ignoring all warnings we gave The Green Hornet a shot. First of all there was too much f*cking effing and jeffing; if they’d f*cking cut that shit out a lower rating might have resulted and what should have been a f*cking kid’s film may have actually been seen by some f*cking kids. You know, kids other than those whose parents are terrible gatekeepers. Because, yes, I know it was a 12 certificate but, oh alright, I’m just a sh*tty parent and while we can talk all day about the sh*ttiness of my parenting (it’s pretty sh*tty by all accounts) I think we should all just move on to the movie. I could be biased there. So, The Green Hornet; I liked it. More importantly Wallace Kirby Chaykin Ditko Kane (or “Gil” for short) liked it. Although a lot of his fun was looking at me with a “HOO! HOO!” face every time someone swore. Which was pretty f*cking often. He had a good time though; Kato was his favourite because Kato kicked butt like butt kicking should be done. I liked the colours and general design sense of the thing and I thought Gondry was surprisingly good at action; it’s not really his usual stamping ground is it? And yet I always knew what was going on and there was quite a lot going on at times. Seth Rogen plays that “Seth Rogen” character he always plays and I find that amusing but I don’t need to see any more of it for a bit; Jay Chou was funny and charming and got all the best physical stuff; Christoph Waltz was just a joy and, yeah, um, Cameron Diaz unwisely hogs a role that should have gone to some up and coming actress and is just plain embarrassing every time she appears. It's more of a Seth Rogen film than a Green Hornet film but that's OKAY!

THE SHADOW: MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW #2 Art by Howard Victor Chaykin Written by Howard Victor Chaykin Coloured by Jesus Arbuto Lettered by Ken Bruzenak Cover by Howard Victor Chaykin & Jesus Arbuto The Shadow created by Walter B. Gibson Dynamite,$3.99 (2014)

In which The Shadow continues to prepare for his departure; turning off the gas, cancelling the milk, slaughtering criminals and uttering bleak aphorisms along the way.

By Chaykin, Arbuto & Bruzenak

I think the only person who enjoyed the first issue of this series more than me was Howard Victor CHaykin because here it is again. OKAY!

WONDER WOMAN #33 Art by Cliff Chiang Written by Brian Azzarello Coloured by Matthew Wilson Lettered by Jared K. Fletcher Cover by Cliff Chiang Wonder Woman created by William Moulton Marston DC Comics, $2.99 (2014)

In which all things move towards their end and Diana, the newly anointed God of War, rejects an offer of Love from that guy seemingly made of compacted corned beef while her allies savour the sour taste of loss. (OR: Wonder Woman’s search of the jungles of Paradise Island for a headache remedy proves fruitless as the paracetamol.)

If you scrape past the crap (and we’ll get to that; the crap) that’s accreted around it this run of Wonder Woman has been a pretty interesting if slow moving in the mighty modern manner. It’s been a bit of a go at a Sandman for the iPod generation or maybe a nice try at a Percy Jackson, but for children (insert smiley emoticon to indicate a joke nearly happened). Definitely more of an ensemble piece than usual and thus Wonder Woman has sometimes been lost in her own book. But on the plus side there’s been some clever reinventions of ancient idols without falling into that “Denzel - God of 8-Bit Cartridges” trap most mythic modernisers run right into (see: Neil ”Have You Now Or Have You Ever Been A Scientologist” Gaiman). Unfortunately there’s a lot of nose holding going on even as I enjoy the parts of the book which are actually enjoyable. And let’s be clear here absolutely none of the faults of this book lie in the art (except for a bizarre colouring blip this issue where it’s like someone accidentally pressed the “Edgar Delgado” button or something). The art here and throughout this run has been pretty fantastic. I mean there’s a reason I’m still sticking this book out and it sure as cupcakes ain’t the words. Chiang’s back for this final trot towards the end and most of the art for the book’s run has been from either his hands or Goran Sudzuka’s. It hasn’t been as consistent as one pair of hands but it’s been pretty consistent and while Sudzuka’s been no Chiang he’s been no slouch either. There’s been a Toth-ian emphasis on clarity throughout and the detail light results have hovered near the cartoony end of the illustrative spectrum, but that’s been all to the good; some of the stuff they’ve been called on to draw would have been pretty repellent if it hadn’t been presented with such a lightness of touch. Sadly lightness has been entirely lacking from the touch of the giant ham hands of Brian Azzarello’s writing.

By Chiang, Azzarello, Wilson & Fletcher

I try not to be a complete idiot so I realise the staginess of Azzarello’s work is intentional. That’s okay, I don’t mind that; Jack Kirby’s comics read in much the same “stagy” way (but in a way that actually "works"; for me anyway, and I'm all that matters). But Azzarello takes it to excess. There’s this thing he does where there’s very little dialogue in a panel and it creates a kind of beat of silence as you move onto the next panel; this is a very stagy effect. It’s an intentional pause for the reader to digest what they’ve just read. It’s thus implicit that what you have just read is worth the extra seconds of contemplation your sluggishly bovine mind is humbly being afforded. And that’s okay in moderation (like heroin) and while it would be wrong to say Azzarello does it all the time, it feels like he does it all the time because he does it far too much. Chuck in the mannered phrasing and nearly every utterance becomes a self-consciously theatrical stentorian oration; as though every part were played by the worst melodramatists to ever tread the boards. It’s fine in moderation (like murder) but so much of it is just fucking wearying. And most of this pause for effect business is purely an invitation to bask luxuriantly in Azzarello’s majestic word play. Unfortunately the level of Azzarello’s word play is such that this is like being invited to bask luxuriantly in cow flops. And it’s everywhere, from the terrible titles (Throne To The Wolves, Icy France; the pain, the pain) to the dialogue (or direlogue; clever, eh? No.)   There is nothing remarkable in noticing that two different words sound the same and then using one in place of the other. it’s wordplay all right but it’s just play; there’s no serious import there, no further depth, no…it’s just farting about. It’s stagy stuff but it’s stagy to excess and…I don’t know but this isn’t an isolated case is it? Isn’t this what happens with comic writers now? They mistake their quirks and ticks for the reasons for their success and their work becomes just quirks and ticks. It just seems odd that in The Age of The Writer quite a lot of the time the writing is the crap you have to scrape past. I told you we’d get to that; the crap you have to scrape past. Thanks to the art then Wonder Woman was GOOD!

THE TRANSFORMERS VS. G.I. JOE #1 Art by Tom Scioli Written by Tom Scioli & John Barber Coloured by Tom Scioli Lettered by Tom Scioli Cover by Tom Scioli Transformers & G.I. Joe created by Hasbro IDW Publishing,$3.99 (2014)

In which two popular children's toy properties I have no clear knowledge of nor any fondness for combine, with the almost certain result that I will express hostility of an almost hateful stripe. Only Tom Scioli and John Barber have the power to avert this disaster; the rest of us can only watch...and pray.

It took an invasion by robots that can turn into cars and stuff but there’s no longer any hiding the fact that Scioli’s work was a sneak attack all along. Flying under The Flag of Jack it’s now revealed for all to see that all that Kirby inflected (KOIBY! infected) alt art attitudinising was all a feint; the real crown he sought to knock askew was that of Wallace Wood. For was there ever another artist who tamed the thrill of toy soldiers and delivered it on the comics page as wonderfully as Wallace Wood? No, Cochise, there was not for it was a hypothetical. From the isolated panels of tanks and trucks and swarming hordes which punctuated such exuberant fare as T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents to his greatest evocation of the child at play, M.A.R.S. Patrol, Wallace Wood ruled supreme in the toy box of every child's mind.

By Sciol & Barber

True to his era Wood’s soldiers were all kin to the one piece moulded plastic cast bought by the box in militaristic multiples but Scioli inhabits times Science Fictional by comparison. His roster of rip snortin’ gun toters are the larger, more articulated figures bought by the single in bubble pack mounted on board. Scioli with Barber channel the magic of play so well you can imagine the tips of their tongues protruding from their mouths as they did so while every panel is pregnant with the possibility that a humongous dog will run through it scattering all and sundry hither nd yon before slipping behind the sofa to slobberingly chew General Flagg's head off. And it all takes place on pages artificially aged so well that the only omission from the illusion are those flecks of dark matter which grace most old comics; those which one always suspects are fly shit. These are pages rich in play also with the very format of comics from the hand lettered SFX to the occlusion of speech by the Krackle and flare of gun fire. Not only have Scioli and Barber done Wallace Wood proud they have done it by producing 21st Century comics' first great work of art. Blowing no smoke up your ass here either; it's EXCELLENT!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that people who start a sentence with those words have probably not actually read any Jane Austen but will very probably have read some - COMICS!

"This is Worser Than Washin' An Elephink!" COMICS! Sometimes It's Like I'm Shouting This At You While I Run Past!

Borag Thung, Earthlets! I have been quiet of late but I rested easy in the knowledge that the delightful Messrs Khosla, McMillan, Lester and Hibbs had been satisfying all your comicy needs to the highest of standards as ever. Not that I was resting you understand. So, practically writing this one as I move towards the door...Anyway, this... David Lapham from The Strain in DARK HORSE PRESENTS  #28

POPEYE:CLASSICS #14 Written and drawn by Bud Sagendorf IDW/Yoe Books, $3.99 (2013) Popeye created by E.C. Segar

Some issues of POPEYE: CLASSICS are available from the Savage Critics Store (which you have all quite patently forgotten about. Sniff!) HERE.

Month in month out the nautically attired freak faced grammar mangler continues to pleasantly baffle me with the weirdly logical escalation of the ludicrous incidents which comprise his preposterous adventures. Since Popeye, for all his charms, is in fact a fictional construct I’m going to place the credit for this consistently entertaining package at the door of Bud Sagendorf, a real life man (now deceased) who went done drew and writed it all. Fans of the magic old men do can marvel at Sagendorf’s use of long shot silhouettes to prevent a total nervous breakdown from having to repeatedly draw a train in what are quite small panels indeed. As a special bonus Sagendorf serves up some right nice visual gaggery, the best of which are the parts where sound FX have a physical effect on the drawn environment they inhabit. Basically they hit people on the chin is what I’m saying there.

Bud Sagendorf from POPEYE CLASSICS #14

In this issue the main tale involves Popeye buying a railroad, Olive Oyl’s demanding customer, an attempted hijack and a visual stereotype of a re..native American (altho’ in the world of Popeye this might actually be a vacationing accountant in racially insensitive fancy dress). Then there’s a story where Popeye buys the world’s cheapest and laziest race horse, another story where Popeye and Olive simultaneously seek to teach Sweetpea a lesson and demonstrate their poor parenting skills by scaring the shit out of the wee tyke in an abandoned mine, and a short with Wimpy being out foxed by a cow (“a lady of the meadow”), there’s a text story as well but I skipped that. Bud Sagendorf wasn’t writing for the &*^%ing omnibus is what I’m getting at here. Popeye is printed on weirdly bloated pages, haphazardly coloured and always, always a welcome arrival in my field of vision so I’m going to say it’s VERY GOOD!

THE SHADOW ANNUAL 2013 Art by Bilquis Evely Written by Andre Parks Coloured by Daniela Miwa The Shadow created by Walter B. Gibson Dynamite, $4.99 (2013)

Man, I’m not exactly Sammy Stable at the best of times (“No shit, John!”) but the temporal shenanigans in this thing almost gave me a panic attack. It’s five minutes ago! Now it’s three hours later! No, hang on, it’s five years earlier. No, it’s been seven hours and fifteen days. And nothing compares. Nothing compares. To yaaaooooooooowwwww. Clearly the comparison being begged here is that this comic is like Brief Encounter but starring two psychopaths and set in Vegas before Elvis conquered it.

Bilquis Evely from THE SHADOW ANNUAL 2013

Even more clearly it’s not like that at all but instead is very much like having to find your train in a busy station where all the clocks show the wrong time, people keep getting stabbed and shot and you’ve found yourself in the company of some boring jabberjaw who won’t shut up about his first love. Shadow, dude, move on. This is unseemly in a man of your standing. Fucking chin up, old son. As for the art, well, it’s okay, it’s alright, but there’s a tendency for noses to look like the owner has a heavy cold. That’s Sean Murphy’s influence (influenza!) in action there. So, a nice idea, not terribly well executed at a price point I want to hit with a stick makes this EH!

DARK HORSE PRESENTS #28 Art by David Lapham, Neal Adams, Richard Corben, Steve Lieber, Patrick Alexander, Ron Randall, Menton3, Michael T. Gilbert, Aaron Conley and Geoff Darrow Written/plotted by David Lapham, Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Corben, Neal Adams, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Ron Randall, Steve Niles, Michael T. Gilbert, Janet Gilbert and Damon Gentry Coloured by Lee Loughridge, Moose Baumann, Rachelle Rosenberg, Jeremy Colwell, Michael T. Gilbert, Sloane Leong Lettered by Clem Robbins, Nate Piekos of Blambot, Ken Bruzenak, Steve Lieber and Damon Gentry

Dark Horse Presents is an anthology so, you know, it’s a bit all over the shop. Mostly though it keeps its footing on the shiny tiles and rarely sends the display of stacked tins (Pork and beans! For the poor!) spinning madly about. First up, David Lapham reminds me how good he is at comics with his The Strain chapter. Even though I have no particular interest in this property and there's a bit of cultural shorthand verging on the cliched Lapham quietly did the business on every page to ensure that the final panel came as a punch to the guts and I actually wanted to read what happened next. Later in the ish Lapham resurfaces with the conclusion to his introductory Juice Squeezers tale which, with its teen focused Cronenbergyness, proves to be the kind of nuts that comics would benefit from more of and yet truculently resists embracing.

Michael T. Gilbert, Janet Gilbert and Ken Bruzenak from Mr. Monster Geoff Darrow’s spot illustrations continue to amaze with the visual conviction with which they deliver scenes at once grotesque, impossible and droll. In a similar fashion to the comics Darrow produces elsewhere, comics which chafe some SavCrits so (but, strangley, not this eminently chafeable one), Sabretooth Swordsman with its surprising Savage Pencil influences is an optically delirious but narratively slight piece.

Aaron Conley, Damon Gentry and Sloane Leong from Sabertooth Swordsman

Richard Corben chucks out another Poe adaptation which is notable primarily for the truly scintillating colour work executed therein. I am absolutely horrible at appreciating the colour in comics but even here, even I, had to stop and marvel at more than one point. Ken “The Chameleon” Bruzenak is here in several different stories and in each case serves up lettering apposite to the pieces in question; in the very traditional Trekker his work is attractive but modest while in Mr. Monster he provides an ostentatious display of madcap fonts.

Richard Corben and Nate Piekos from Edgar Allan Poe's The Assignation

As a whole Mr Monster, additionally armed as it is with Michael T Gilbert’s invigoratingly loose art, continues to cock a scruffy snook at seriousness; which I like. Mrs. Plopsworht's Kitchen by Patrick Alexander succeeds in making physical and emotional abuse funny which is an interesting type of victory. Oh, and there’s some other stuff here; Steve Niles producing his trademark pound shop horror; Alabaster continuing to not be anything I want while not actually being terrible and Blood by Neal Adams continuing to be Blood by Neal Adams. Overall though I had a good time so DHP was GOOD!

JUDGE DREDD CLASSICS#3 Art by Carlos Ezquerra Written by John Wagner & Alan Grant (as T.B. Grover) Coloured by Tom Mullin Lettered by Steve Potter Judge Dredd created by John Wagner & Carlos Ezquerra IDW, $3.99 (2013)

Look, before I start acting like a pissy arse let’s get this one thing straight: these are great comics. I know this because it isn’t the first time I’ve bought them and it certainly isn’t the last time I’ll read them. When I first read them they blew my school socks off (not a kink; I was at school). The Apocalypse War was where Carlos Ezquerra returned to the character he (co) created after an absence occasioned by unfortunate editorial decisions. Carlos Ezquerra was back and Carlos Ezquerra meant it. Carlos Ezquerra drew the cremola out of The Apocalypse War even as The Apocalypse War blew the world of Dredd to grud and back. Because The Apocalypse War was where Wagner & Grant (AKA T.B. Grover) took all the pages of world building that had gone before them and applied a match. After The Apocalypse War the world of Dredd would never be the same again. Really. In The Apocalypse War Dredd made a decision no man should ever have to make, a decision only a man who was not a man could make, and the following decades of the strip have shown the consequences and ramifications of that decision fashion Judge Joseph Dredd into a man at last. With The Apocalypse War Wagner & Grant’s breathlessly hi-octane narrative pace in tandem with Ezquerra’s consistently brutal style created an epic that looked like the end of everything but was instead the birth of the strip’s future. These are great comics.

Ezauerra, Wagner, Grant, Potter and Mullin from The Apocalypse War

Alas, when I talk about greatness I’m talking purely about the pages of comics in here. The actual physical pamphlet comic is a bit lacking. You know, these are great comics. Do I repeat myself? I repeat myself. Great comics, so how’s about a bit of care and attention; a bit of respect. That’ll have to remain purely theoretical because, oh, he’s off now…The cover’s a bit lacking for starters; look, I’m all about negative space and clear, crisp design but that looks a bit, well, I don’t think it achieved its aim. Imagine if they’d rejigged an original 2000AD cover featuring The Apocalypse War. Trust me when I say the new cover would be a poor second. Then, oh dear, the inside front cover seems to think this story is called Block Mania but it isn’t; Block Mania finished last issue. This story in this issue, (which is all reprints and cost $3.99) is called The Apocalypse War which is why I’ve called it that through all the preceding verbiage. Then between each chapter there’s a perfunctory full page graphic. Grud on a Greenie! I realise the space has to be filled due to the page counts of each episode but could you not have had a bit of fun, IDW? Got a bit creative? Maybe stuck the original covers on there instead, or blown up a portion of a panel pop art style like on those DC Kirby/Ditko/etc Omnibooks? You’ll notice, IDW, that I’m not even daring to suggest you commission some, choke, original content. I mean I realise reprinting decades old comics and charging $3.99 a pop might not allow for such largesse. Sarcasm there.

Ezauerra, Wagner, Grant, Potter and Mullin from The Apocalypse War

Then there’s that weird waste of space at the bottom of the page. Again, I appreciate you don’t want to mess with the size ratios but, drokk it all, that’s some token stuff there, IDW. And there's a page out of sequence. A page out of sequence in a comic of reprints selling for $3.99! However, I am okay with the colouring. Obviously, I’d rather they hadn’t bothered because the art was drawn for B&W (except for the opening spreads) but I understand Americans are fond of their colours. There they are America: enjoy your Colonial colours! Moan, moan, moan except this is all basic stuff. I'm hardly asking for Cher to sing live in my living room here just some vague pass at professionalism, if you please.

Ezauerra, Wagner, Grant, Potter and Mullin from The Apocalypse War

So, a confounding miscalculation on the part of IDW here; this material is readily available in a number of other formats and has been for decades so making a new iteration stand out from the crowd would, I’d think, be imperative. Making your books expensive and ill-designed is certainly a novel approach. Luckily, these are great comics so even though the crime is Fail the sentence is GOOD!

Anyway, I'm off now. With any luck I'll bump into some COMICS!!!!

"Do They Still READ In The Future?" COMICS! Sometimes It's Great To Be Rude!

It was Half-Term last week hence the silence. Yes, the blessed silence. But now your God has failed you and I am back! It has been quietly suggested that I put on hold my tribute to Charlie Drake and maybe look at some comics this time. So, no actors who were dead before you grew your big teeth this time out. Just comics! Just lovely, lovely comics! But were they lovely? Hmmmmm? Anyway, this... NEXUS by Steve Rude & Mike Baron

ALL STAR WESTERN #20 Art by Moritat (Jonah Hex) and Staz Johnson (Stormwatch) Written by Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti Coloured by Mike Atiyeh (Jonah Hex) & Rob Schwager (Stormwatch) Lettered by Rob Leigh Jonah Hex created by Tony DeZuniga & John Albano Stormwatch created by Brandon Choi & Jim Lee DC Comics, $3.99

I kind of liked this issue. I don’t know whether the worms have finally reached my brain, or what but twenty issues in and this one almost clicked. I’m not exactly the most demanding Jonah fan either, I just enjoy the scar faced twat in a hat going around kicking up dust and making life brutal, difficult and short for folks. I prefer it to be a straight western but it isn't a deal breaker.

Jonah Hex by Moritat, Gray & Palmiotti

No, I don’t mind Booster Gold turning up for no reason that is ever going to be explained (hey, that’s just how comic books roll these days). I’m just pleased the book has a bit of a spring back in its step. Maybe it’s the beneficial effect of getting Jonah out of the city and into the countryside? Like when you ferry troubled youths by coach out into the boondocks to stroke goats. Moritat’s art seems a bit more lively and engaged although that might be due to the brighter and more varied colour palette in use. Watch these backgrounds though, I’m not a native of the Americas but I’m pretty sure mesas aren't mobile. Like I say I don’t expect much really and this delivered that making it OKAY!

RED TEAM #2 Art by Craig Cermak Written by Garth Ennis Coloured by Adriano Lucas Lettered by Rob Steen Cover by Howard Victor Chaykin Red Team created by Craig Cermak & Garth Ennis(?) Dynamite, $3.99

More like RED MEAT amiright, soft lads? Here Comics’ Firmest Handshake Garth Ennis turns his surly attention to a tale of cops taking the law into their own hands. I’m sure that will work out really well for everyone involved. At the minute it isn't working out too well for me. I guess my LCS sent this as Howard Victor Chaykin is doing the covers and I like Comics’ Deepest Voice Garth Ennis’ war comics. So, okay, fair enough. I’m not turned off by the concept either. I’m always up for that old story which ends with a bunch of people dead or drenched in blood while sirens scream closer and those who aren't corpses suddenly realise why there are rules.

Red Team by Cermak & Ennis

Maybe it won’t go that way, after all Comics’ Hottest Curry Garth Ennis spends enough time (i.e. too much time) explaining how his characters can smoke in a government building that it must surely (surely!) pay off later in an example of Chekov’s Fags! Maybe everything will go swimmingly but the racially and sexually mixed cast will succumb to a series of smoking related diseases. Maybe not. But hopefully the series will avoid plummeting into maudlin sentimentality like a sloppy drunk slurring on about The Old Country as the barkeep dials for a taxi. Not an uncommon occurrence in work by Comics’ Softest Hearted Big Man Garth Ennis. This thing seems written for the screen (no, the page and the screen are not interchangeable) and the art just isn't up to the job of hiding this. It gives me no pleasure to say that. In fact I’ll leave it there except to express the hope that you really like that panel I picked because you’ll be seeing a lot of it on these pages. RED TEAM is not a complete wash though and that’s due mostly to the dialogue of Comics’ Hairiest Chest Garth Ennis. It’s good dialogue and it means RED TEAM is OKAY! That probably still won’t save me from a beating though.

THE SHADOW #13 Art by Giovanni Timpano Written by Chris Roberson Coloured by Fabricio Guerra Lettered by Rob Steen The Shadow created by Walter B. Gibson Dynamite, $3.99

Everything in this book is so familiar that the sight of your face in the shaving mirror delivers more surprises. This issue is impressive only in its devout refusal to bring anything new or interesting to bear on the join the dots plot with its transparent mystery, its space wasting reluctance to provide more than one speech bubble in a panel and…oh...look, there’s a three page sequence of a drunk man going home, going upstairs, pouring a drink and being surprised. No. That’s not comics, that’s just horseshit. I’m not even going to scan a picture of the contents as the fewer people who see this then the less damage done to those involved. Honestly, I’m doing them a solid here. Or a salad as they say in Nyawk. So, no offence to any of the people involved here as we all have bills to pay but this was AWFUL!

WONDER WOMAN: #20 Art by Goran Sudzuka & Cliff chiang Written by Brian Azzarello Coloured by Matthew Wilson Lettered by Jared K. Fletcher Wonder Woman created by William Moulton Marston and H. G. Peter DC Comics, $2.99

This is an atypically action packed issue but all too typically when the dust settles the forward plot motion is infinitesimal if not entirely illusory. With its large cast, stateliest of paces, squandered artistic talent and elevation of chat at the expense of incident it’s hard not to see WW as Azzarello’s attempt to bottle a bit of that drab Bendis magic. Luckily, despite his heroic efforts, Azzarello appears incapable of attaining such low levels of blandery. For starters his characters don’t sound like they are recovering from traumatic blows to the head; trading only in recursive whirlpools of bland doggerel. And every now and again something does happen. So, it’s an improvement but it’s still very far from being good. It still rarely rises above word play on a par with puzzles in the magazines old people in hospital spontaneously secrete in-between visiting times. Also, I think his cast have a problem with the booze. Although as the middle class assure us, if it’s wine it isn't alcoholism.

Wonder Woman by Chiang, Sudzuka & Azzarello

At some point in any given issue the chattering cast will mingle about some tasteful locale sipping drinks and hoovering up nibbles. Thankfully the medium of comics spares the reader the no doubt inevitable soundtrack of Toploader Orion snuck on to smooth things along. The whole thing is like one of those hellish networking soirees for people who do a bit of wee when they think about Powerpoint presentations. Except everybody is cosplaying Sandman and the evening ends abruptly when a big blue catfish in a crown stabs Simon from Accounts in the face. And puns! This issue’s highlight was when War asked, “Where’s my drink? You said you’d get me a Belgian White Beer!” and Wonder Woman replies “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a Hoegaarden!” Face it, Tiger; this book’s so far gone you’re not even sure if that happened. So it’s a fact that the crisp clarity of Goran Sudzuka and Cliff Chiang's art which brings this up to OKAY!

CREEPY #12 Art by Richard Corben, Richard P. Clark, Peter Bagge, Matthew Allison, Julian Totino Tedesco and Steve Ditko Written by Richard Corben, Ron Marz, Dan Braun, Peter Bagge, Matthew Allison, John Arcudi and Archie Goodwin Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot and Peter Bagge Dark Horse Comics, $4.99

There's the usal raggy grab bag of one pagers and spot illos but storywise we have:

Uncle Mangus by Richard Corben

Corben’s on first and Corben’s on form with a frivolous shamble of a shaggy corpse story. Corbenites won’t be disappointed as the shadows drape at strange angles across distorted faces, the undergrowth looks like gathia sticks from Bombay Mix, the borders are jagged when nerves become ragged and the horrific punchline is drawn with slapstick mixed with the ink. Yes, Richard Corben continues to defy Time itself and belligerently refuses to budge from VERY GOOD!

Uncle Mangus by Corben

Fishing by Ron Marz & Richard P. Clark Not entirely rote retelling of one of the usual variations on kids go fishing fear fables. Sorry, but EH!

Local Talent by Matthew Allison Allison's tale nicely conveys the grotty zest of late '70s foreign filmed schlock but would have conveyed it better in less space. Also, I know this charmingly cack cinematic genre was limited by budget but it's not a limitation shared by comic art, so c'mon let's have some backgrounds, son. Good enough for an OKAY!

The Spirit of The Thing by Ditko & Goodwin The Spirit of The Thing by Steve Ditko & Archie Goodwin

It’s Steve Ditko! "He is Dee Aye Tee Kay OH! He is Dee Aye Tee Kay OH! He’s Dee- delightful! Aye – Innovative! Tee- Totally not open to compromise on any point of principle upon which he has formulated an Objectivist stance! Kay – Kind of kooky! OH!- oooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo! He is Dee Aye Tee Kay OH!" In this reprint Archie Goodwin does his usual solid scripting but it’s Ditko’s groovy grey wash German Expressionism that makes this one retain its VERY GOOD! kick lo these many decades after its original printing. It’s also a nice reminder that aficionados of Sturdy Steve should be salivating after the Creepy Presents…Steve Ditko volume that will be dropping imminently. Pre order from your LCS now, they'll appreciate it!

Pack Leader by Tedesco & Arcudi

Pack Leader by Julian Totino Tedesco & John Arcudi While Ditko and Corben get to VERY GOOD! on the merits of their art alone Arcudi and Tedesco’s tale reaches the same grade due to the success of their collaboration. This one really gels and even wrong-footed me at the last. That's nice. Arcudi and Tedesco knew what they were after and they went and got it. Nice work, fellas!

DARK HORSE PRESENTS #24 Dark Horse Comics, $7.99

BLACKOUT CHAPTER 1 Story and lettering by Frank Barbiere Art by Micah Kaneshiro Blackout created by Mike Richardson (?)

This one didn't grab me I’m afraid. With its slickly appealing tech sourced graphics and plot predicated on the promise of explanations further down the line it read like the tie-in to some video game I've never heard of. It’s only a few pages though so maybe it’ll pick up and improve from EH!

ALABASTER: BOXCAR TALES CHAPTER 6 Art and lettering by Steve Lieber Story by Caitlin R. Kiernan Coloured by Rachelle Rosenberg Alabaster created by Caitlin R Kiernan

My total indifference to this one is purely a case of it not being my cup of tea rather than any failure on the part of the creative team. I did read it but I couldn't tell you anything about it except it’s in space and usually it isn't. There are some talking animals and a lady, usually with a very broad accent, having magical adventures. Oh, she’s called Dancy Flammarion. Yeah, that’s me gone. I'm no Garth Ennis but fey’s not my thing, I fear. Disregarding my witless bias this is bound to be OKAY! Because Steve Lieber can sure draw nice and Caitlin R Kiernan writes proper books (she should not be confused with Caitlin Moran who doesn't). The most interesting thing was how disproportionately irritated I was by the bit where the team tell us what they were listening to when they created the strip. It was really distracting. I mean was Kiernan really listening to the Sunshine OST? Why? Was it just because it’s the soundtrack to a movie set in space? That’s a stunningly literal approach isn't it? What did she do when it was finished? Start again? Stop writing?

Like a real asshole I find it all a bit disingenuous when creators share stuff like this with us. No one ever says they were listening to Phil Collins or Cher do they? Ever. Yeah, right. Have you seen some of the people who make comics? Seriously. I mean that guy who always does that stupid thing in photos with his face so it looks like a wet thumb sliding down a window is a Foreigner fan and no mistake. Look into your heart, you know it is true. Anyway, this stuff's just the thin end of the wedge, next thing you know they're telling you about their substance abuse problems, how many kids they have or whether they get to put the fairy on top of the Christmas tree. Being an unfeeling automaton it’s just not something I need to know about creators. I mean, does it do any of you any good to know I wrote this while listening to SWANS’ Time is Money (Bastard)? Oh, alright it was Cher. "Do you belieeeeeeeeve!?!"

Bloodhound by Jolley, Kirk & Riggs BLOODHOUND: PLAIN SIGHT CHAPTER 2 Art by Leonard Kirk & Robin Riggs Written by Dan Jolley Coloured by Moose Baumann Lettered by Rob Leigh Bloodhound created by Dan Jolley & Drew Johnson

This is a revival of a defunct DC property which has now been given back to the creators to do with as they will. I believe DC also returned the less than successful Monolith property to its creators recently too. This is really rather sporting of DC and we should probably acknowledge that before reminding ourselves of their treatment of Alan Moore. It appears that the lesson here is that if you create anything successful for DC they will line up and bang you like a shit house door. Meanwhile the creators of Bloodhound have decided to put it in DHP. I liked this series when it first appeared and I still like it despite the pony tail our hero sports. He’s kind of like a government sanctioned Punisher with all his marbles and a beer belly who targets super villains. This is just a short three parter so the mystery tends to be cleared up by the characters approaching each suspect, the suspect immediately breaking down and pointing to the next suspect and then the villain breaking cover to provide a thrilling cliff hanger. Brevity isn’t doing it any favours is what I’m saying. But I still find the premise promising, the characters solid and the art pleasant enough for it to be OKAY!

BRAIN BOY CHAPTER 2 Art by Freddie Williams II Written by Fred Van Lente Coloured by Ego ("The Living Colourist"?) Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot Brain Boy created by Gil Kane & herb Castle

Although it’s not explicitly stated I guess this is an update of Herb Castle and Gil Kane’s 1962 creation for the faster paced and more luridly violent Now. Since Dark Horse published a pricey hardback of these (old and very probably nuts) tales you’d think they might want to draw attention to this. Weird. Anyway, the update is definitely fast and bloody and it’s not without its charms. Chief amongst these are Van Lente’s witty revisionism best exemplified by the call centre riff and the ‘magic cereal' which fools no one. Artwise Williams II has obviously thought long and hard and come to some definite conclusions about how to draw our hero’s nose. I can’t speak with any surety as to the conclusions he’s reached but there’s definitely something going on with Brain Boy’s hooter. Oh, it all bounces along in a lively if not altogether logical fashion, which makes it GOOD!

Nexus by Rude & Baron

TREKKER: THE TRAIN TO AVALON BAY CHAPTER 1 Story and art by Ron Randall Coloured by Jeremy Colwell Lettered by Ken Bruzenak Trekker created by Ron Randall

It's super-nice that an old lag like Randall has his own creator owned property. It's less agreeable to report I found the whole future bounty hunting lady with sad past thing a tad too generic for my fussy palate. I am certain there is an audience for this but I adamant I am not amongst their number. I wish Randall well in all his travels but this, for me, was EH!

KING'S ROAD: THE LONG WAY HOME CHAPTER 2 Art by Phil Winslade Written by Peter Hogan Lettering by Steve Dutro

Oooh! It's a high concept! What if the kids from a book very similar to (but. lawyers take note, not the same as) The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe grew up and had kids who didn't know about their adventures and then The Evil Returned and the kids had to take up arms on behalf of their paunchy and totes dull 'dults?!? This. That's what. No doubt Hogan will be exploring the Christian symbols underlying his borrowings with the same rigour and aplomb as his source. Or at least get a movie deal. Just joking! This is a promising (if not a little cheeky) premise and it's made all the more attractive thanks to Winslade's endearingly gangly characters. Although these do inhabit a blurry world of boisterous blooms of colour, the intensity of which suggest Mr. Winslade should pop down the opticians pretty sharpish or at least dial his PC settings down a bit. Maybe I'm getting soft in my dotage but this was OKAY!

CRIME DOES NOT PAY: CITY OF ROSES CHAPTER 5 Art by Patric Reynolds Written by Phil Stanford Colours by Bill Farmer Lettering by Nate Piekos of Blambot Crime Does Not Pay: City of RosesCity Of Roses created by Patric Reynolds & Phil Stanford

This is EH! due to the perfunctory writing and the weirdly flaky looking art. It isn't terrible but it isn't terribly exciting either. Everybody thinks crime comics are easy and nearly everyone is wrong. Everyone except David Lapham. Christ, I miss STRAY BULLETS. Why can't Dark Horse Presents find room for new David Lapham genius? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY???? WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

NEXUS: INTO THE PAST CHAPTER 2 Art by Steve Rude Written by Mike Baron Lettered by Steve Rude Coloured by Glenn Whitmore Nexus created by Steve Rude & Mike Baron

Eventually every open ended continuing narrative strip gets to Jack the Ripper, it's likely that they get to Sherlock Holmes too, but only Nexus would throw in H.G. Wells without overbalancing, without even wobbling in fact. It's Nexus so it's VERY GOOD! In fact I'll tell you this: I'd never read Nexus until it appeared in DHP but once it did I ordered Vol.1 of the Omnibooks pretty darn lickety split. I would imagine there is no higher praise a comic creator can receive than a sale. We'll be coming back to Nexus at some point. Aw, yeah!

HUNTER QUAID: ARMAGEDDON OUT OF HERE Art by Melissa Curtin Written by Donny Cates & Eliot Rahal Coloured by Lauren Affe Lettered by Lauren Affe Hunter Quaid created by Donny Cates & eliot Rahal

I couldn’t get a grip on this one. It’s like something an artist would do to showcase their style but it has a writer, no, two writers? And they are the creators but it's the art that is the stand out feature? I don’t know. I don't get that. It looks nice but, hey, that’s all you need sometimes. It was OKAY! but only because of the artist.

Villain House by Wheeler

VILLAIN HOUSE CHAPTER 4 By Shannon "Papa" Wheeler

It’s a kind of testament to the durability and depth of the concepts at the heart of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s Fantastic Four that half a century later it still provides fertile soil for trees of mirth like this. As mirth trees go this is a sturdy beech indeed. This is some funny stuff right here from the surly insistence of 'Not The Thing' that everything bad is Communist to the laser targeted title of “Invisible Wife” and beyond. The laughs aren't empty either, there’s a sympathetic villain whose world is ruined by a bunch of powered berks getting all up in his business to hilariously disastrous, but not unmoving, effect. I’d hazard a guess this strip is somewhat more refreshing and engaging than yet another modernisation of an old Kirby & Lee classic. ( “Yo, Yo, Yo! Ben Grimm is Totes Sad, Bro! (Ch-Ch-Ch-check out Mi Tumb-LAH!!!)”) Wheelers’ treat of a tummy tickler may not beat the ultimate yukkifier of Don Simpson’ s Yarn Man and “Golly! That crazy gizmo really works!” but it comes closer than most in a very small space. And that’s VERY GOOD!

Christ, I think I sprained something back there. And now I know why people don't review anthologies. I still don't understand why they don't buy em. They're stilll - 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!!!

"Clean Living." PEOPLE! Sometimes It's 62 Years of Howard Victor Chaykin!

Just a quick Happy Birthday to Howard Victor Chaykin who is 62 years of age this day! Cheers!

A slightly cheekier Birthday greeting below the break.

Happy Birthday Howard Victor Chaykin!

I will MAKE them honour you!

Best wishes from JohnK (UK) and the whole of COMICS!!!

Edited three panels from THE SHADOW: BLOOD AND JUDGEMENT (1986)by Howard Victor Chaykin, Ken Bruzenak & Alex Wald. Rude panel from LEGEND (2005)by Howard Victor Chaykin, Russ Heath, Rob Leigh & Wildstorm FX.

(Hey Kids! Have I told you about LEGEND? Oh boy, just you wait, kids. Just you wait. It's bonkers!)

"Let 'Em Loose, Bobo!" COMICS! Sometimes They May Arouse The Proles!

How goes the day! I guess after that Olympics Opening Ceremony I should just assure all our American friends, particularly your President, that the National Health Service doesn't actually mean that you have a socialist nation 3,000 miles off the coast of America. And, no, if you let this stand all of Europe isn't going to go next in a kind of domino effect. You guys are so ansty!

Connor Willumson/Jason Latour (art/words)

I read some comics and then did the words thing. You can do the reading bit if you like, if there's nowt on the box.

UNTOLD TALES OF THE PUNISHERMAX #2 Art by Connor Willumson Written by Jason Latour Coloured by James Campbell Lettered by VC's Cory Petit Marvel, $3.99 (2012) THE PUNISHER created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Snr and Ross Andru Cover by Kaare Andrews

This VERY GOOD! book is about Punisher Max. Unlike the Regular Punisher he does not have a beard, and his stories have swears, gore and dead kids in ‘em! Because, yes, Regular Punisher now has a beard. That’s the only thing that caught my attention in that recent irritating crossover with Daredevil. Not wishing to impugn the, no doubt, exhaustive research by Greg Rucka into face foliage, but I don’t think it’s a good look for Frank. He should be clean shaven do you not think? Shaving’s about discipline, shaving’s very military. But a beard? A beard’s not about discipline, a beard’s about vanity. Vanity’s not really something I associate with psychotic vigilantes. I have a hard time believing Frank Castle puts his War on Crime on hold while he just trims his tidy beard. Yes, I can believe a man can fly, but apparently a vengeful killing machine that has a face care regime is a step too far for me. No offence intended there to any bearded people. Particularly any bearded people built like brick shit houses who control this site. The Punisher's beard is important, yes?

Connor Willumson/Jason Latour (art/words)

Anyway, this book is about the other Punisher, the one who can eat soup without upsetting people at the next table. It’s called Untold Tales and yet here they are. It’s the second issue and like the first issue the real reason for paying three dollars and ninety nine cents is the art. Last issue’s art was pretty good but this issue’s art by Willumson is preposterously good. I’m not well versed in anything too freaky but even I can tell there’s a real ComiX vibe to the art. It’s got a wild-eyed and feral vibe to it which makes the contents of every deceptively traditionally shaped panel thrum with an animal heat and press against the page with an almost physical weight. The youngsters will appreciate that the sound FX are even drawn in as though they are giant inflatable physical presences, like Frank Quitely did in that Batman comic that time. Admittedly this senses shattering artistic performance is yoked to a fundamentally meat’n’taters tale; one which seems inspired by that old Jerry Lee song (“Come on over, baby, we got Castle in the barn!”) and has a big chunky gold shout-out to the King. No, not Jack Kirby. Elvis. Jack Kirby’s dead, stop going on about it. Stan Lee did everything! C’mon, Stan Lee probably stood behind Jack Kirby’s chair and moved his simple little hands for him. Why not, eh?

MIND MGMT #2 Story, art and cover by Matt Kindt Dark Horse, $3.99 (2012) MIND MGMT created by Matt Kindt Cover by Matt Kindt Did you notice the stitches on the guy's face? Ahuh, Matt Kindt is still EXCELLENT!

THE SHADOW #4 Art by Aaron Campbell Written by Garth Ennis Colours by Carlos Lopez Lettered by Rob Steen Cover by Howard Victor Chaykin Dynamite, $3.99, (2012) THE SHADOW created by Walter B. Gibson Cover by Howard Victor Chaykin

It’s a shame Campbell isn't just that bit better because this issue he does a pretty good job; there's a real sense of time and place, a sense that someone has done their homework, that materials of an archival nature have been attended to but, due to certain core failings, he can't help but  fluff the big emotional bit somewhat, which has the unfortunate effect of my authorially intended species-shame at Ennis’ intentional homage to The Searchers being trumped by the fact that I find myself thinking, man, hats sure are hard to do. And they are, ask Lou Fine, so this was still GOOD!

BLACK KISS 2 #1 By Howard Victor Chaykin Image Comics, $3.99 (2012) BLACK KISS created by Howard Victor Chaykin

"That's a Pez Dispenser, right?" Cover by Howard Victor Chaykin

“Ban This Sick Filth!” blared the Daily Mail headline that Wednesday morning. Of course “Ban This Sick Filth!” is the Daily Mail’s headline every morning and had nothing to do with Howard Victor Chaykin’s new exercise in saucy muck being held by The Customs. Oooer! Held by The Customs! Fnarr! Fnarr! The true extent of the upset was only revealed when the owner of my LCS commented, “No one cares, John.” Before adding, “And when are you going to pay for all these comics.” Leaving him to his quips I realised something had to be done, so I poked my head over the wall and saw Her Madge was pegging her washing out. I mentioned the whole thing to her, and she said she remembered meeting Howard Victor Chaykin when she guest starred in Viper and he had "sad eyes, like a child with a grazed knee" and agreed to get The Head Boy over to sort the whole HVC BK2 UK situation out.

"I can see the beach from my window. That's how much I give a s***." He didn't say when he wasn't contacted.

So Cammers turns up, and he's a bit out of sorts because we’d interrupted him holding the back door of the NHS open so the Private Sector could run in and strip the place bare, wires and all, before anyone cottoned on. He’d got a copy of the moral soiling rag in question and he held it up to his face, his statesman’s face, his face with all the statesmanlike integrity of a lard sculpture of a single bum cheek, but with eyes, and commenced to read with those eyes. And he goes, he says,  “Yes, but is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?" And Her Madge points out it isn't 1960 and tells him to his face that the book will be available next week, or she'll be reminding everyone about that time he left his own child behind in the pub. "Did he thank you, then?" said my LCS owner when I told him of the entirely imaginary lengths I had gone to for HVC. "No", I said, "And he’ll never have to.”

THE SIXTH GUN #23 Art by Tyler Crook Written by Cullen Bunn Coloured by Bill Crabtree Lettered by Douglas E. Sherwood Oni Press, $3.99 (2012) THE SIXTH GUN created by Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt Cover by Brian Hurtt

Yeah, I miss Bat Lash too, so this was GOOD!

ADVENTURE TIME: MARCELINE AND THE SCREAM QUEENS #1 Written & illustrated by Meredith Gran, Jen Wang Coloured by Lisa Moore Lettered by Steve Wands KaBoom!, $3.99 (2012) ADVENTURE TIME created by Pendleton Ward

Much like Blessed Brian Hibbs I asked an 8 year old boy what he made of this comic. There must have been some kind of miscommunication because quite quickly there was a lot of shouting and after a bit of tussling a police presence was required. Anyway my court date is next month so if anyone can put me in touch with a good lawyer that’d be great. Otherwise, this comic aimed at 8-year old children contains a reference to the popular children’s entertainer Iggy Pop(!) and revolves around the fantasy of having a super-awesome musical career; that’s really more a teen and mid twenties thing, I think. Although these days I guess that dream can be dragged all the way into your forties. Mind you, it will probably weather the ravages of time about as well as the skin on the back of Cher's knees.

Meredith Gran (w/a)

People may mock, but you only need to do one song that plays over the end credits of the latest Jenifer Aniston flick (one where workaholic Jen learns the value of things via a series of laugh-out-loud hi-jinks stemming from her upsetting a genie and being cursed with a set of talking balls on her chin) and you’ll never have to hit up your Mom for cash again! I dunno, if you’re doing a kids comic I’d say get the stuff kids like right first, and then put all the hip stuff aimed at your mates in. Otherwise you’ll end up with something that’s really nice looking but essentially EH!

FATIMA: THE BLOOD SPINNERS #1 and #2 Story & Art by Gilbert Hernandez Dark Horse, $3.99 (2012) FATIMA: THE BLOOD SPINNERS created by Gilbert Hernandez

Covers by Gilbert Hernandez

Now this, this, is a comic an 8 year old boy would like! In fact it’s a bit like a comic an 8 year old boy would create. An 8 year old whose pets keep disappearing. It’s a disturbingly affectless presentation of a gorily deadpan comedy parody/celebration of genre trash. Maybe it has something serious to say about the human condition. We’ll probably never know as rational thought quickly gets tickled into insensibility by the women in bikinis shooting zombies, cleverly stupid names like “bittermeat”, laughably terrible jokes and the rewarding central conceit of beautiful people with beige minds seriously making a mess of the whole saving the world thing.

Gilbert Hernandez (a/w)

Look, the people in this awesome comic wear devices that look like metal Y-fronts to make them invisible for the delightfully childish and arbitrary time of 3 minutes. That should clue any slowcoaches in that this is no Walking Dead. And that's just peachy by me.  I also liked the letter in the back of #2 that said Fatima had a “manly” face. It’s comics by Gilbert Hernandez! Don't be getting all prissy, John Sayles wrote Alligator. I hear Beto's (I call him Beto because we are so close we were practically separated at birth.)  now been doing this stuff for 30 years, man and boy, and he remains VERY GOOD!

THE INFERNAL MAN-THING #1 and #2 Art by Kevin Nowlan Written by Steve Gerber Lettered by Todd Klein Marvel, $3.99 ea (2012) MAN-THING created by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway and Gray Morrow Covers by Art Adams

This doesn’t read too well as individual issues as (as I am sure we are all aware) it is an OGN cut up and shoved out in three easy, and pricey, pieces. It’s taken this long because Kevin Nowlan has taken this long. According to the text piece in #1 he was doing a page a week. At the Marvel page rates I have made up in my head, he would have starved to death before getting to page 10. So, rather than produce a half-assed product or die, Nowlan took his time and did other stuff. And I do have to say that the art here is very, very impressive. He’s got a ‘80s Kyle Baker thing going on, but with the additional, and considerable, oomph a foundation of fully painted colour provides. It’s a purposefully limited palette which gives everything a humid and lurid look. Like a swamp, see. Also, Nowlan’s also given Man-Thing a bit of a make-over and it’s kinda nice too, particularly the way Manny’s head seems to have slipped down to rest on his chest. Nice, that. Causes your gaze to stumble every time, good effect there. The words are very Steve Gerber, which is to say it’s very satirical in that endearingly adolescently blunt style Steve Gerber had. And when I say “adolescent” I don’t mean it as a put-down I just mean that in the sense of being energetic and all-encompassing. I always think of Steve Gerber as being an American version of Pat Mills, writing wise anyway. Although Gerber's more willing to accept his own portion of blame for the way things suck, I think. Maybe that’s why people respond more warmly to the work of Gerber than that of Mills.If you like Steve Gerber you'll like this, if you've never read Steve Gerber it's a good start as it is very Gerber-y. If you don't like Steve Gerber we won't be spending Christmas together. Because he and this are both VERY GOOD!

Kevin Nowlan/Steve Gerber (a/w)

According to #1 there's a lot of respect in this project. And yes, there probably is but this is Marvel. And so, as respectful as it was of your Uncle Nate to turn up to Pappy's funeral, it would have been better if he hadn't crammed his pockets with canapés, winked at the widow and blocked the bog with a boozy poo before drunkenly falling through a window. It’s a sloppy package what with the reprint of “Song-Cry of The Living Dead Man” looking kind of cheap and, in the second issue, having a double page spread printed on the front and back of the same page. This comic cost me two pounds and ninety nine pence Sterling, and yet I've had menus from the local pizza place pushed through my letterbox that had more thought, care and consideration in their design. But, I’m sure somewhere in there is a very real respect for Steve Gerber. At least Uncle Nate turned up, y'know. Ultimately, as Marvel as it is, it’s done out of respect for Steve Gerber, who is dead. And of course even Marvel respect the dead. Except for Jack Kirby. Who, it seems, can still just go f*** himself.

I hope you all had a smashing wekend and read some smashing COMICS!!!

"A Moi La Légion!" COMICS! Sometimes I Have Too Much Sun!

Greetings! It has been sunny in England for more than three consecutive days. This means that the entire nation is required by Law to sit outside until their skins glow like pink suns and crack like dry riverbeds in Texan heat. So I have been doing that. This means I didn't read many comics and when I wrote about them the fact that my brain had been lightly boiled in its own juices didn't seem to have a beneficial effect on my thought processes or judgement. But, hey, I made my deadline! I made it, Ma! I'm a hack!

FURYMAX #2 Art by Goran Parlov Written by Garth Ennis Coloured by Lee Loughridge Lettered by Rob Steen Marvel, $3.99 (2012) Nick Fury created by Jack Kirby AND Stan Lee

Imagine my delight upon opening the latest issue of this fine comic to find an act of recreational physical pleasure being performed by Nick Fury and Ms. DeFabio. No, not because I have always wanted to see Kirby/Lee characters nut deep in the fun patch, no. (Well, Lockjaw maybe but that’s a personal thing.) No, it’s the fact that the act is presented so matter of factly. Almost as though it is just a part of life; one of those things adults do from time to time, these days mostly when they lose their broadband service and the TV is simultaneously on the fritz. In fact I can assure you I am not idly boasting when I say that even I , the misanthrope's misanthrope, have in fact personally heard of people in real life who have encountered a real life lady in such close quarters; which is to say even closer quarters than Nick & Co. encounter the ‘Cong in this comic. For one moment I thought mainstream genre comics had, in actual fact as opposed to the popular fiction entertained by most fans, grown up. A bit. Then I remembered it was a MAX comic and so that was okay as the regular line of comics would continue to be as ridiculous in their depiction of recreational procreation as ever.

Seriously, how bizarre must the depiction of something in regular life be if  its depiction in a Garth Ennis war comic is actually a healthier alternative. Focusing on that aspect, as for some inexplicable reason I have, does Ennis' work on this comic a disservice as it is so well realised by all the involved personnel that its level of focus brings to mind a close up of a sniper's eye as the unseen finger exerts the required pressure to do the necessary. It's one well honed machine is what I'm saying. This week, because this book appears to be weekly for some arbitrary reason, Goran Parlov knocks my socks off on the several occasions when he draws the Nazi bastard’s head as just a collection of lines held together by Lee Loughridge’s ever-excellent colours. Giving us a glimpse into a horrific world where Pig Pen grew up and joined The Hitler Youth. To speak plainly then, I thought FURYMAX#2 was VERY GOOD!

THE SHADOW #2 Art by Aaron Campbell Written by Garth Ennis Coloured by Carlos Lopez Lettered by Rob Steen Dynamite, $3.99 (2012) The Shadow created by Walter B. Gibson

As is customary, and contrary to my therapist’s advice, I shall now devote more time to the cover by Howard Victor Chaykin than the book it adorns. It’s a pretty swell cover, yes it is. The elegant simplicity of its design elements is foremost amongst its pleasures but only because the cheekiness of anchoring it all on The Shadow’s torso (which is little more than an oblong) is, let’s face it, the kind of thing only people who should really stop harassing aged Jewish comics creators when they go for a jog on the beach are going to give a gefilte fish about. I’d plump for Arbutov on colours rather than Delgado because it’s less an attack on visual sense and more of an attempt to attractively enhance the base image. But, this being Dynamite the colour of your cover is not a fixed thing! You can have a “Bloody Red” Retailer Incentive Cover (red and white!) or the Dynamic Forces Exclusive Howard Chaykin cover (black and white!). I hope these are all in the TPB because I would actually have an interest in seeing the image without colour, but that’s because I am a Chaykinmaniac. Otherwise I am just totally flummoxed by the need for all these covers. There are another 7 of them! The Ryan Sook one looks lovely by the way.

Eventually, sated, I looked at the actual comic. Ennis’ script this time out is pretty great. It’s basically an extended action sequence inventively choreographed within the confines of a Pan Am clipper intercut with exposition largely designed to demonstrate the evil of the opposition (kiddy fiddler ahoy!). I can’t fault the writer's execution of the script or the savagery of the violence (injury to eye is just the hors d’ouvres, darling!) but it impresses only despite some serious fumbling of the ball on Campbell’s part. I’ll not dwell on it too much as, after all, the art turns up and does the job; albeit with all the fiery invention of a Council employee during the week before his pension finally kicks in. Also, Megalophobics are hereby duly warned to stay away from the hilariously outsize hat which dominates the last panel. Still, Ennis’ script is so solid the comic remains GOOD!

MIND MGMT #1 By Matt Kindt Dark Horse, $3.99 (2012)

In this comic's after-piece Matt Kindt runs the old I Want This Periodical To Work As A Periodical schtick. Y’know the one; the one about extras unique to the pamphlet (or FLOPPY!(cue Brian Hibbs rearing back like Christopher Lee before Pter Cushing's crossed candlesticks. Hsssss!)) which will enhance and entertain, yes, that one. I think he’s actually serious about it, too. That's on the evidence of the first issue of what future generations will call “that book Matt Kindt did no one bought” (but we will call MIND MGMT). I mean, only time will tell but I doubt this is going to take the form of backmatter telling us how his movie deals are progressing (Matt Kindt hasn't got any. Yet.), how hard life is for the talented and beautiful (my heart; it bleeds), a telephone book size list of all the awful comics he has in print (because Matt Kindt doesn't do awful comics. Ever. Fact.). Not that anyone else does that, but I severely doubt Matt Kindt will. The clue is in the comic itself.

Every page of this comic is the comic. The inside front and back covers are a short prologue to the book itself, the back cover is an advertisement that is in fact not an advertisement, text crawls up the side and across the page margins (a la ADVENTURE TIME) adding colour and background to the concept in a dryly humourous faux-bureaucratic way, there’s a short backup piece not intended for the TPB which ends with a six panel sequence so awesome that you know right then and there that MIND MGMT is the one. MIND MGMT is the one. MIND MGMT is the one where Matt Kindt arrives. This is Matt Kindt’s AMERICAN FLAGG! moment. This is where Matt Kindt turns up says, hey, this is what I do and this is the way I do it and you, well, you just deal with it! Matt Kindt just slapped his big talented balls on the table and now you either walk away or you just deal with it. MIND MGMT is odd but EXCELLENT! Deal with it!

And then I saw sense and decided my time, and yours would be better utilised if I wandered off to flick lima beans at next door's koi carp.

Hope you had a good weekend with some COMICS!!!

NEXT TIME: Something else!

"Let Him Be A Child A Little Longer." COMICS! Sometimes They Are Diverse!

Hey, the postman finally turned up.

I guess the hostiles must have been restless out there in the Badlands or something. Anyway, he may not have rung twice but he did drop off a box of comics. Here's me going on about some of them after the break: A NOTE FOR OUR AUDIENCE: According to Brian "Link-Hider General" Hibbs you can now purchase some of these comics direct from The Savage Critics!

There is a link under both Comix Experience Links and Industry Links which says "Digital Comics From The SavCrit Store!". It's that one.

I have of course followed the rigorous journalistic code of the 21st Century and given all the comics available from that link a rating of EXCELLENT! No, not really, because as a salesman I am a bit lacking.

As ever, here's some comics and what I thought! Buy 'em! Don't buy 'em! Leave them at the scenes of violent crimes to throw off the Feds! I don't know, don't look at me for help. Because I'll just look down and whisper "No."

And Now Our Feature Presentation- SOME COMICS WHAT I DID READ:

ANIMAL MAN #8 Art by Steve Pugh, Travel Foreman & Jeff Huet Written by Jeff Lemire Coloured by Lovern Kindzierski Lettered by Jared K. Fletcher DC Comics, $2.99 (2012) Animal Man created by Dave Wood and Carmine Infantino

Since he literally throws his daughter to the wolves I’m afraid I have to say Buddy Baker is the worst father in the DCU and he’s a pretty craptastic superhero to boot. You’re going to have to think of something better than beating an army of undead animals to death one by one, Buddy Baker! This guy is such a dumbnuts I’m getting tired of reading about him. The best thing about ANIMAL MAN is that it reminds me how wonderful Steve Pugh’s art is.

I love the solidity he gives everything and the way his art allows the realistic and the insane to exist frictionlessly together. If he’s too radical for the DC masses, and it doesn't take much to be that, maybe Dynamite could get him on some books? Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself; I haven’t got to THE SHADOW yet. Anyway, ANIMAL MAN was OKAY! But really his wife would have left him about 6 issues ago and in about 3 issues I expect Social Services to be having a firm word in his shell-like. Buddy Baker is a danger to himself and everyone around him, and not in a good way.

FATALE #4 Art by Sean Phillips Written by Ed Brubaker Coloured by Dave Stewart Image Comics, $3.50 (2012) Fatale created by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

Um, I don’t want to be the party pooper but I’m not really feeling this one. Where others would see complexity I see only confusion and the horror and crime aspects don’t mix well at all; blanding each other out if anything. I’m not convinced at all that Brubaker & Phillips are as deft with horror as they are with crime. There’s one sequence in particular which is meant to suggest the soiled undersheet of reality flickering on the edges of the protagonist’s vision, but it takes up a whole page. Which is a bit like the secret supernatural underpinnings of the world putting on a straw boater and doing back flips in front of you while belting out showtunes. Subtly unsettling it’s not. Mind you this series seems to not be a lot of things. Coherent and inventive being amongst the things it isn't. So far the whole thing seems a stolid muddle which barely fends off the blunt teeth of cliché. The police scenes are about the width of a gnat’s dick from busting out the old “This is straight from The Fifth Floor, you've got 24 hours to clear this case or you’re back handing out parking tickets! Capiche, you maverick bastard!”  And then there are the narrative captions and, boy howdy, are they bad. But then I think there’s a difference between understated and lifeless. These things are like “I saw a cat. It was big.” bad. It’s like Dan Brown bad. But then Dan Brown’s very successful isn't he?

After all, in a shocking real-life terror twist, it turns out that FATALE is the most successful thing Brubaker & Phillips have produced. Previously this was true of INCOGNITO which I thought was pretty bad. So, it looks like success beckons the Brubaker & Phillips team, but what appears to bring them success isn't what brings me reading pleasure. Mind you, they are professional enough to produce a comic that despite my tinny whinging still comes off as OKAY! While I found the front matter lacking, Stephen Blackmoore provides a compelling backmatter piece concerning a real life gumshoe called Harry Raymond. That bit was VERY GOOD!

You can buy FATALE from HERE.

RAGEMOOR #2 Art by Richard Corben Written by Jan Strnad Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot® Dark Horse Comics, $3.50 (2012) Ragemoor created by Richard Corben and Jan Strnad

Corben’s art looks a bit odd in this issue, as though he’s got some settings wrong on his software or something. It looks a lot less crisp than last issue. It’s still great because it’s still Richard Corben but…still. Fortunately Strnad’s scripting is really strong so that helps soothe any misgivings. I didn't really know where the series could go after the first issue’s seemingly complete unto itself set-up.

I certainly didn't expect it to make the previously understated humour blossom so broadly; so broadly that at times it verges on farce. I certainly wouldn't have expected it to work so well either. There’s horror here but humour too and in an impressive feat of facility each complements the other leading to a comic that is a really satisfying read indeed. I don’t want to give too much away but hopefully the fact I thought it was VERY GOOD! will be enough to tempt the unwary!

THE SHADOW #1 Art by Aaron Campbell Written by Garth Ennis Coloured by Carlos Lopez Lettered by Rob Steen Dynamite, $3.99 (2012) The Shadow created by Walter B. Gibson

I know you've all been on tenterhooks so let me assure you that I did indeed receive a copy of this comic with the Howard Victor Chaykin cover. I thank you all for thinking of me during this period of uncertainty. It was always a bit of a gamble though wasn't it? What with Dynamite’s penchant for plural covers. Mostly they get some decent names doing some good stuff. Howard Victor Chaykin, for instance, obviously did this one well before it struck Gin O’Clock at Chaykin Towers. He’s even used a different face shape; nice job Howard Victor Chaykin!  The art on the inside of Dynamite’s books tends to be a bit more problematic. Problematic in the Early Anglo Saxon sense of “bloody awful”. Aaron Campbell manages to buck this trend by being decent for most of the book, except when The Shadow erupts into murderous action at which point Aaron Campbell impresses the Heck out of me. Really, jolly good work on those parts! I’m still not a massive fan of the old drawing over the top of photographs business so the rest of the book was just okay art wise.

Ennis is behaving himself too, there's none of that aggressively puerile "funny" stuff or lashing out at easy targets with a nuclear bomb strapped to a machete. He seems to actually be having a good time too. He certainly gives The Shadow a clear personality, one that's all the more entertaining for being composed primarily of arrogant bastardry. But he's not without empathy either, which is a nice trick to pull off. The whole shebang is set in one of Ennis' well researched eras of upheaval, or at least imminent upheaval. Because, and it's to his credit this, Garth Ennis is one of the few writers in comics who shows evidence of reading books other than How To Bland Out And Find Big Bucks In TV And Movies. Books that demonstrate an interest on his part in the world around him rather than a monomaniacal need to write THE MENTALIST.  If you like Ennis' war books you'll like this. If you like The Shadow you'll like this. Blimey, if you just like decent comics you'll like this. Because it's actually VERY GOOD!

SUPREME #63 Art by Erik Larsen & Cory Hamscher Written by Alan Moore Coloured by Steve Oliff Lettered by Chris Eliopoulos Image Comics, $2.99 (2012) Supreme created by Rob Liefeld

SUPREME is an Alan Moore genre comic. I miss Alan Moore’s genre comics. Alan Moore’s genre comics were packed with invention and humour. Alan Moore’s genre comics had more ideas on the page than most of today’s self proclaimed genii have in a lifetime. Alan Moore’s genre comics played with the form in a way that was charming and cheeky. Alan Moore’s genre comics had characters with character, but their character was never static and if it changed it would do so coherently. Alan Moore’s genre comics had craft. Alan Moore’s genre comics had joy. Alan Moore’s genre comics were VERY GOOD! Yeah, genre comics are much better off without Alan Moore. Yeah, F***k you, Alan Moore! Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Alan Moore! We don't need you, Alan Moore! We never needed you! We've got AVENGERS Vs X-MEN and BEFORE WATCHMEN now!

Oh God, what have we done. COME BACK, ALAN MOORE!

...please...

You can buy SUPREME from HERE.

And that's your lot!  Yes, even I have other stuff to do!

Hope you had a good weekend, everyone!

Blah blah blah COMICS!!!

Hibbs catches up, sort of -- 4/18's books

Happy 4/20! OK, getting much closer to being "on time", right there under the jump!

AVENGERS VS X-MEN #2: A jarring tonal shift comes this issue as Jason Aaron handles the scripting. It's sort of on par with the change of George Perez to Ron Lim on Infinity Gauntlet, because the voices couldn't be more different. I *liked* what Aaron's got on the page here, but man that's three issues in a row now with no consistency whatsoever between them, and the round robin of writers continues through the series (and art changes with #5, as well) I'm finding this jarring.

I'm also not following a specific plot point, and that's how is Phoenix "coming" in outer space, but also already possessing Hope?

Again, this book isn't for me, really, but I thought this issue was at least OK

BATMAN #8: This here is the first $3.99 issue, and I was a little concerned it would cause a jump off, but people seem to be enjoying the Owls storyline enough to keep supporting it. Again, we'll see what happens when the first Bat-line crossover happens next month -- it seems to me that most of the tie-ins are going to read very similarly, though: owls attack, fight owls. This arc has had a bunch of bizarre "power fluctuation", though -- you'll remember how it opened with Bats kicking the ass of dozens of traditional bat villains, at once. THEN, a single Owl curbstomped Bats about as hard as he's ever been hit. And NOW, Bruce is fighting off dozens of Owls at once, showing again how butch he is. I'd finding this awkward, at best.

The backup story was largely the epitome of "unneeded back up", as it just showed and elongated a moment that we'd seen just minutes before. Boo!

I'm liking the book, overall, but there's something a little off about this whole thing that I'm not figuring out yet. I still thought it was a very low GOOD.

PROPHET #24: Ugh, now THIS is comics! Man, I don't even know what this bit has to do with anything in the first three issues (same character, wholly different scenario), but I also don't care, because it's such fun science fiction, AND we get some wonderful artwork from Farel Dalrymple. I think I've said this before, but this reminds me of nothing less than HEAVY METAL from the 1970s, amazingly inventive and lavishly illustrated science fiction that may or may not make a ton of sense, but who cares because the passion just drips off it. I think this is truly EXCELLENT work.

RESET #1: Peter Bagge returns with something new, and while his cartooning is as good as ever, I had two kind of overwhelming problems with this. First is that the setup is just too thin -- we understand the protagonist is someone who is at least somewhat famous, who did some unspecified awful thing, but there are no details about any of that given here, and so it makes relating to the underlying science fiction premise (that there's a machine that can allow you to relive your life, and make different decisions, but it has to always start from one specific point) just too difficult. We neither know where the protagonist came from, nor where he is trying to go, so taking any kind of suspense or anticipation is rendered virtually impossible.

My second problem is that I think that Bagge has grown into an increasingly "safe" cartoonist as the years have gone by -- not from his underlying style, but from the range and direction of his work. There's nothing "edgy" about his work any longer, it feels predictable and almost staid. Safe.

This work is OK, at best.

SHADOW #1: I was a little surprised how much I liked this. Well, maybe not, because it's Garth -- but there's almost no Ennis-isms here (other than whatever is naturally baked into the character and supporting cast), just a great straight-forward, historically-appropriate period-piece version of the best of the character. If I had one "problem" its that Dynamite really could do itself a favor and instead of spending the coin to get four different unique comics stylists doing covers, they should spend at least that much attention on the interior art. Aaron Campbell is in no way a poor artist, but it's hard to not suffer in comparison to Alex Ross, Chaykin, Jae Lee and John Cassaday. Despite that, I thought this was swell comics, indeed, and thought it was VERY GOOD.

SUPERGIRL #8: I'm only pointing this out because George Perez is suddenly drawing a pair of issues of this book, and I thought this was a very solid little comic that your eye might have wandered away from. Here's a place to wander back for an issue or two -- I thought this was GOOD.

WONDER WOMAN #8: I've said before, ad infinitum, I so don't care for mythological supporting casts, and, so, overall while I've been liking this arc OK, it's really not for me. I still largely feel that way about this issue, but I'd be a big ol' meanie if I didn't observe just how much I liked Cliff Chiang's "redesign" of Hades and the afterlife -- that's some genuinely creepy and affecting stuff. GOOD.

That's it for me for today, as always: what did YOU think?

-B

“…Of the PERPETUAL nightmare of the BESTIAL LIGHT in his EYES.” Comics? Sometimes they’re so good I get a bit excited!

I’m back! And God help those with a low tolerance for self-indulgence! Or is it the guilty? It's the guilty isn't it. Wait, I'll try that again, don't go anywhere...I need a hat, a big hat...where's my hat... In 2011 DC didn’t give him a book but in 1986 they did. Let’s see how that turned out using the captivating medium of too many words…

THE SHADOW: BLOOD AND JUDGEMENT By Howard Chaykin (a), Ken Bruzenak (l) and Alex Wald (c) (1987,Titan Books, £8.95)

(Collects the 4 issue 1986 DC Comics series with an interview with Mr. Howard Victor Chaykin together with The Shades of The Shadow by Anthony Tollin)

“In a NEW VARIATION on an OLD IDENTITY…”

In 1986 there was no Internet as we know it. You may breathe into a brown paper bag until your face becomes less florid at this point. No, in 1986 people had to rely on memories. My memory didn’t include The Shadow at this point so the learned article in the back of #1, by Ambush Bug’s nemesis and ace colourist Anthony Tollin, was pretty essential. Of course being young I thought this was some post modern joke. Not, so! Mr. Tollin’s concise and edifying words were proof that a lot of other people’s memories included The Shadow. But not this Shadow. This was a different beast. One re-tooled and refueled for the crass and nasty Me Decade. A dark vengeful force unswerving in its moral certainty and simmering with violence and sexuality. He had a big hat too. It was a Shadow only Howard Victor Chaykin was fit to cast.

Having acquired the licence to The Shadow from Conde Nast DC Comics lured HVC in because he was Mr. Big Pants following AMERICAN FLAGG! - a series so decorated with critical acclaim it provoked HVC to refer to it, in his customary apocalyptically self-deprecating manner, as a “piece of shit”. Luckily everyone knows he’s just a big old kidder so this didn’t put them off. HVC had also produced comics featuring Dominic Fortune (Marvel) and The Scorpion (Atlas) set in a similar milieu to that of The Shadow so, y’know, no brainer there. A nice little ‘30s set reverential potboiler to appease the fans coming right up. Except they’d hired HVC and HVC wasn’t interested in going over old ground but rather intended to update the concept to the then-modern times so hard its eyes would water. So he did and it looked just dandy, my virtual chums.

“…You’re even more GORGEOUS than I could have possibly IMAGINED.” HVC has always been adamant that it isn’t the content of genre comics, which he seems to regard as juvenile (but…why!?!?), that interests him but rather the form, forever downplaying his draughtmanship as average but resolute in his belief that design is his forte. Having emulated his one-time employer Wallace Wood in setting up a studio of talented individuals around him HVC was now, in 1986, free to focus on his strengths, secure in the knowledge that others would fortify his perceived areas of weakness.

So in TS:B&J he’s laying the whole thing out, leaving the backgrounds to assistants and concentrating on the main figures. While in awe of Gil Kane, as any mortal should be, he was perceptive enough to identify Kane’s flaw in falling back on generic environmental elements. To avoid this he uses photo references for all the parts that aren’t fleshy. In latter years computers would ease this job but make the successful integration of elements a conundrum he still appears to be struggling with.

Which is a quite painfully tedious way of saying that art on these pages is primo-HVC. It’s the rockin’ good stuff all right. Oh, he’s in such control of the camera of your eye it might as well be on a stick his sure and steady hand is guiding so effortlessly. Of course it is anything but effortless but it seems it. Which is the trick is it not. Every page here is just a work of optical genius filled with pertinent information, consummate storytelling, great staging and a rhythm that ebbs and flows with the flow outweighing the ebb until it reaches an irresistible momentum that carries you to the end of the book. Which is a good thing as by then the plot has pretty much evaporated. “The Master seeks ANSWERS..”

Which actually is okay since plot for HVC is just a hook he uses on which to hang all the things he’s really interested in (ladies, snappy patter, women, moral lepers, dames, raised eyebrows, chicks,  intercourse, violence, frails, art deco furnishings, etc.). It’s pretty simple plot wise really; someone from The Shadow’s past is trying to lure him out of his Shamballan seclusion by offing his aged minions in a variety of inventively sadistic ways. (No, I’m still not entirely sure how you get a human body into a water cooler; looks sweet though!) Unfortunately for the perpetrator the plan is entirely successful, unfortunately for The Shadow that was just foreplay.

The series opens with a lovely bit of misdirection via a faux ‘30s intro scene , which neatly the counterpoints the sleazy evocation of The Hateties, and then it’s a string of blackly comic murders, where the vicious brutality is offset by the blaise manner of the killers, intercut with the progress of a shadowy figure, the introduction of a host of characters, some of which will manahe to live longer than a page and some horny old people. (That’s right, peach cheeks; we do the musky mambo too. Reckon on that awhile!) Following a remarkable splash page of our hero looking like distilled sex in the world’s luckiest suit (and...that page is pretty much how I look in my head) the second chapter flashbacks into a prolonged mash note to Alex Toth.

In what is clearly the finest of the chapters HVC goes all out on the graphical delights in order to do his hero proud. With all the predictability of a rom-com Toth was singularly unmoved. But he was one tough cookie that Toth, so if you only read one chapter read this. But no one just reads one chapter so read ‘em all! Somewhere in there HVC even gives The Shadow a motivation for his single minded party pooping in a pivotal panel where Kent Allard is filled with the necessary self loathing to change; a life of moral passivity has led to him scooping bags of opiates out of corpses on a strange mountain while a colossal shitheel holds a gun on him. As moments of clarity go it’s pretty effective. In that one panel Kent Allard dies and The Shadow is born. It’s a great moment in a great book; one of many.

The third and fourth chapters are less successful as HVC shows the Master’s operatives at work (note: the use of file cards as an example of how to work exposition into a narrative), it’s all a little offhandedly frantic to be terribly convincing but it is still very, very entertaining and possesses that essential momentum I mentioned earlier before you fell asleep. “LOUDER…”

Time now to consider the work of the genius of the silent cinema of the mind; Mr. Ken Bruzenak. The big thing about The Shadow is his laugh. That raucous ricochet of rapture at having just psychotically slaughtered some moral cripple or other. The laugh that strikes fear into the heart of evil doers and also suggests that at right that moment you could hang a so’wester off The Shadow’s nethers. So the man enjoys his job, whatchagonnado?  It’s important to get the laugh down on the page where no sound exists and Ken Bruzenak does it superbly with the insertion of one font line within a larger one, a stroke of genius which successfully visually represents the aural phenomenon of a booming laugh complete with echo effect. The machine like precision of the text evokes the inhuman quality of the dreadful racket and in addition it can be used to fill up entire backgrounds due to its hugely attractive visual nature. Ken Bruzenak gets the laugh down pat.

That’s Ken Bruzenak’s big miracle but TS:B&J is littered with all kinds of little miracles in the form of sound effects that act both as elements of the page design and as vital storytelling devices. They need to be seen to be believed, like all miracles. Let’s not forget that this was 1986 and Ken Bruzenak did all this by hand mind you. Designing, drawing, cutting, pasting and overlaying - all achieved without computers. The human being as creative machine; art with real heart. It’s amazing. Ken Bruzenak is amazing. With all the new tech available this incredible stuff should have been assimilated and become the norm by now. That it hasn’t is a pretty poor reflection on the perceived worth of lettering in comics but doesn’t alter the fact that Ken Bruzenak is awesome.

THE SHADOW: BLOOD AND JUDGEMENT isn’t a perfect book by any stretch but it's ridiculously strong on the craft front and pretty formidable entertainment to boot. Considering this was just a work-for-hire gig for all involved it's EXCELLENT!

(THE SHADOW: BLOOD AND JUDGEMENT is predictably OOP, as they say, but you can source the singles easily enough or there’s also the TPB. For the true Chaykin maniac in your life: the tale was also printed in the UK magazine ZONES which lasted four issues. This reproduced the splendid art at magazine size which offsets the ever present dismay of glossy paper. Also, the backup is Wein/Wrightson’s SWAMP THING which is always a pleasure and never a chore.)

Have a nice weekend all and remember: the weed of crime bears bitter fruit!