Read Comics

I picked up the first strange girl TPB on a whim. I just liked the art, and the premise was interesting: the rapture has come, and a spunky girl tries to find her way to heaven. Oh, and a blue demon sidekick is irreverent and funny.

Basically, in that first trade, I was totally surprised about how much else there was to like about the comic. The story was actually quite tragic, and the art was consistently pretty spectacular. I really dug the dialog, which was funny and at times philosophical, without ever getting preachy, or even seeming to take sides.

This book was more of the same, but somehow slightly less spectacular. I think it was mostly due to the inclusion of the final issue, a stand-alone x-mas/origin story. It was told a little bit quickly, I thought, and while the art was good, it was a bit more cartoon-ish than other issues within this trade (different artists).

This is a pretty secular series, for such a biblical premise. The post-rapture earth is shown to be a very bleak place, and comments like “Lord have mercy…” are followed up with “No, I don’t think he does.” This book featured a two or three page scene where the main character yells at a stained glass window of the virgin mary, asking where she was when a girl was being repeatedly raped. This is in the middle of a whole plot line where a group of human survivors (military types, who basically fought off the demons, and took refuge in a fort of some kind) are super right-wing religious because they think that God is supposed to judge them again in the near future. But seven years pass, and that was when he was supposed to pass some more judgment, so they’re all going a bit stir crazy. Of course, everyone is not as good as they’re supposed to be.

All in all, this is a very worthy read. Of course, read the first one first.

With all the awards this book has won, you’d think I would have been more excited to read it. When Florence brought home her signed copy from the reading that she went to with Jason, I gave her a list of excuses about why I didn’t think it was “my kind” of comic. First of all, it didn’t appear to be funny, or have any science fiction or fantasy in it. Secondly, it was more or less in black and white. Finally, it was supposed to be non-fiction for crying out loud! I basically didn’t even think I’d get past the first few pages.

But I did, and boy am I glad I did. (There are a few mild spoilers in the rest of this post.)

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Anyone familiar with my taste in comics will tell you that it is unusual for me to pick up a black and white comic book. What got me to make Birth an exception was the awesome alien artwork I witnessed while paging through it at the comic shop. Few books transcend what I consider to the be sort of modern popular “comic book art” style, and still manage to remain comic books, that is, books that tell a story with pictures.

Birth tells a very compelling story of two races of intelligent life, not all that different from one another, at war. One lives on land, and one lives in the sea. One whose fathers die in the act of procreation, and one whose mothers die in childbirth. There are very few words.

The author and artist, Michael S Bracco, also maintains spaghettikiss.com (with his wife), where they sell interesting looking apparel, ceramics and comics. You can read a relatively interesting interview with him over at ComicNews.info. You can also find a bunch more of his artwork at http://michaelbracco.websiteanimal.com/.

Birth is a prequel for the Novo series, which I have yet to read. (I will be very interested in picking up the forthcoming Novo Vol.1 TPB when it gets released.) Bracco has a very long arc planned out for Novo, so I for one hope it does well, and that it is as interesting as I found Birth to be.

My co-worker Sharyn saw my previous entry on Kevin Cornell, and loaned to me this, the second collection of Mojo the Sock Monkey.

Mojo is more a comic strip comic than a comic book comic. Each page contains its own mini Mojo story, each about Mojo performing a different job (that he then promptly loses). The sock monkey has a strange sense of humor, a strange sense of decency, and basically no sense of duty. The art is great, clearly hand-drawn, with a “look” that seems watercolor, but is more likely computer-applied.

The stories are mostly funny, some more so than others, but many are interesting more than they are humorous. Like when Mojo sleeps with a giant bird that he lets into the hotel while working as a doorman. That is one of the few stories that continues onto more than one page.

A bunch of Mojo comics can be found on Brear Skin Rug by searching for mojo. If you like those, you’ll definitely like Curriculum Vitae.

Lot’s of stuff to write about! 1)Last christmas Florence, and Marty got me the first volume of Absolute Sandman.  It was awesome, the second volume is even better.  The Absolute line (yes the name does make it sound like a promotion for Vodka) from DC is basically a repackaging of some of their most acclaimed series, in oversized, beutifully designed hard covered books.  Usually the art is recolored, and the back of the book is jammed with extra content.  I usually don’t think it is worth buying a second copy of something if the story has not changed, and other Sandman I don’t think I will (although Kingdom Come is tempting).  With Sandman they have reprinted three tpbs, per volume.  Volume 2 contains the Seasons of Mists, a Game of You arcs, and most of the short stories from the Fables and Reflections collection.  Though volume 1 had some really great issues, this is the period in Sandman in my opinion where it came into it’s stride both with the story and the art.  SoM, is an epic that feels like an ancient myth that no one had transcribed yet.  Lucifer decides to quit being the adversary, kicks everyone out of Hell, leaves locking the door behind him.  He gives the key to Dream, whom he had previously vowed to destroy but now just hopes it will make his life a little difficult.  Which it does, as figures from many different pantheons (religious as well as comic book) arrive in the Dreaming seeking the deed to Hell.  Reading it again now, it is amazing how a few small interactions in these early issues set in motion the conclusion of the whole series.   At one time Season of Mists was my favorite arc, but now I feel a Game of You surpasses it.  It is a much smaller scale story than most of the other large arcs, and though Morpheus id in it, he is mostly periphery.  The main character is Barbie, who was a periphery character in the Dollhouse (collected in volume 1).  She had at one time had a very vivid dream life, in which she was a princess in a magic world of talking animals called the Land.  She has however stopped dreaming, and no longer remembers the Land.  In her absence the Land has started to die and is under the thrall of a monster called the Cuckoo.  Barbie does eventually return to the land and the it causes serous damage to the waking world.   The story could just be another “magic land ” like Oz, or Wonderland, but the conclusion id entirely originally.  The supporting cast Barbie’s neighbors: sweet transvestite, Wanda, lesbians Hazel and Foxglove, and the witch Thessaly (the only one to have any importance to the bigger story of Sandman), as well as the Land’s animals, giant dog creature Martin Tenbones, and Wilkinson a cynical rat wearing a trench-coat, are some of the most memorable in the whole series.  These are the stories that where the art  finally moves away from the typical horror comic style (overly lined faces, and colored in sickly purples and greens) .  Despite having some of the most horrific  scenes in the whole series, a man chained to rock in Hell having his chest repeatedly torn open, a pile of decapitated heads singing, the face torn from corpse nailed to wall happily chatting away with it’s wagging tongue.  It was well worth spending seventy dollars for this excellent new printing. 2) I also read echo number 1.  It is Terry Moore’s new creator owned comic.  It appears to be his take on super heroes.  Of course the heroine is one of his beautiful girls.  the first issue is a simple origin story.  Girl taking pictures in the dessert, inadvertently finds herself in the path of a explosion, gain a super powered suit.  That is all that has happened so far.  Except that we know that the owners of the suit seriously nasty, killing the previous wearer of the suit (hence the explosion) just to test it’s durability.  I know in few issues this is going to have completely sucked me in, and the story will be any thing but simple.  This is from the creator of Strangers in Paradise after all. 3) I have totally fallen in Love the album Super Secret from the band Ookla the Mok.  They are by far the geekiest band I have every encountered.  Nearly every high energy song song is a packed with references to comic books, old school science fiction, or alien abductions.  A sample of one of there lyrics from the song Theme from Super Skrull “He can turn one leg invisible, which is not all that practical. Unless you are quite gullible, you won’t get fooled by Super Skrull!”  My favorite song on  the album is called Stop Talking About Comic Books or I will Kill You, but the one I can not stop humming is Guggenheim Love.  The songs are not only catchy, they are hilarious. 4)  In a couple of hours i will head over to my local comic shop and pick up a months a worht of issues.  Including issues of, Buffy, Angel, Runaways, Fables,  Astro City, and the first issue of Serenity: Better Days!  Woo hoo!That is all. 

Written and laid out by David Lapham, pencils by Ramon Bachs, inks by Nathan Massengill, colours by Jason Wright, letters by Jared K Fletcher

Collecting Detective Comics 800-808, 811-814, this 287 page tome is something to really sink your teeth into. I read this not too long after reading the War Games epic which ran across all the Bat Universe titles, and found a world of difference between the two. Lapham’s thriller is much more cohesive than the sprawling chaos of War Games, perhaps rightly so, considering it’s coming from a single writer of a single comic. While appearing in the issues shortly after Ed Brubaker’s epic, the chronological time for this story is unknown. There are no cues saying whether it took place before or after, but the previous event is never mentioned that I could find. Robin is definitely Tim Drake, Akins is the police commissioner. Beyond that, it could really take place any time.

The title is apt: this is as much a story about Gotham as it is about Batman, maybe moreso. A beautiful gothic Gotham, beautiful like the wings of insect seen close up, a stinging, poisonous insect. Ever since Tim Burton’s film, Gotham has been almost universially represented like something out of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, ironically enough, whereas Ramon Bachs give his Gotham a warmer feel. It’s the warmth of fresh blood, however, oozing from a slit throat. The first issue in the collection sets this tone, taking you on a journey through Gotham at night, a madman’s tour, pointing out the garishly painted masterpiece of a city. The price of admission is just a small bit of your soul. This is very much a prelude to the rest of the collection, lasting only 8 pages. This was originally a back up story, with the bulk of the issue having a War Games epilogue, but this collection only reprints this one.

Lapham has set the stage, and issue 811 contains the overture. Batman is seen sparingly, more hinted at, while Gotham’s residents go about their violent, unpleasant lives. Even the routine takes on a sinister cast when it occurs in Gotham. And the passing shadow in the gloom, preventing a domestic altercation with a thrown batarang, shows that Batman is there, even when not seen. He is an offspring of this city, but this parent does its best to reject its child, in much the same way as creatures in the wild attempt to consume their young. The characters start coming into play as the issue continues, lining up like a length of fuse, waiting for the spark to set them off, consuming each in turn just before the explosion that you know is coming.

The successive issues extend the plot, bringing in a few classic Batman villains, and hinting at a mastermind. There is much that is gruesome in this arc, and Lapham doesn’t shy away from the adult themes. Batman’s prime motivation in this story stems from an encounter with a Lolita-esque girl and his rejection of her advances. A run-of-the-mill tragedy in Gotham explodes into an atrocity to shake the city apart. We have an interlude in the action in issue 807 as a new act begins, and we focus on a specific neighbourhood. A magnifying glass is held up to a map of Gotham and we see this stretch of streets in detail, from the decaying dog in the gutter to the decaying crones gossiping on the stoop. Bachs’s art is glorious in its grotesquery, where we literally see all the warts. We also get to see Batman in a role that he seems so rarely used for anymore: being a detective. We see him almost as much out of costume as in it. The action ramps back up again for the rest of the arc, until the concluding battle royale.

This story worked in so many ways, compelling to me to keep reading far after I should’ve put it down for the night. It was nearly a compulsion to see what happened next, something that I haven’t found in comics as much lately. I can see where some might be frustrated with some of the convolutions that the story goes through, but it kept me riveted. I want to seek out Lapham’s other works to compare, see what he does with his own stories. The detail of the art kept me looking at panels over and over, picking up new things and little easter eggs with each new look. The muted colour palette fit in well with the noir revival setting, although it may have appeared differently in the single issues, as the trade used newsprint. I assume the single issues used the standard glossier paper, but the pulpiness of this story almost cries out for newsprint. The panels are on a black background, but a yellowing of aged newsprint wouldn’t feel out of place with these comics.

As I said, the chronology of this story isn’t pinned down, but in a real world context, Infinite Crisis is in swing, Jason Todd has reappeared as the Red Hood in the Batman comics, and One Year Later will start in just a few issues. The self-contained aspect of this story lets it exist on its own, outside of all of the continuity laden events going on in the rest of the DC Universe. No special knowledge, no real history lessons are needed here.

I just finished The Pulse, Vol 2 today, and it was superb. I only vaguely remember the whole Secret War thing, but you don’t really need to know more than the gist of it to “get” how this book ties in with the story. Although I will say that this TPB more than any others in the Alias series does seem to rely on your knowledge of the outlying Marvel universe.

When I first read Alias, I didn’t like Jessica Jones. Of course, by the end of the series, I was totally in love with her. Or anyway, with the idea of her. And she just keeps getting better. She’s such a no-nonsense character. A breath of fresh air when you start to imagine it in the context of the whole convoluted era of Secret War, for sure.

So if you haven’t heard of it, or maybe you’ve just never gotten around to it, I highly recommend you read Alias. (No, it’s not anything like the TV series, and neither is based on the other.) The Pulse seems to just continue the series under a different name (I have no idea why they changed it… although this does seem plausible.) and is also quite excellent.

I have the next TPB upstairs, and I think I’m going to have to read it tonight or tomorrow.