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Friday, August 26, 2011 ( 8/26/2011 07:14:00 AM ) Bill S.  “HOME OF THE HOPELESSLY NETWORKED BRAVE” You know you’re in for some post-Apocalyptic hi-jinx when a comic opens on an image of a trashed-out California highway and the first narration says simply, “The Emptiness.” The hero surveying said emptiness (which we’re told is Apache Junction, AZ, even though an interstate sign is clearly marked “California”) is Sgt. Drake McCoy, a lone wolf type scouting the desolate landscape for retrievable technology to take back to one of the few surviving cities, New San Diego. (Home of the New ComiCon, mayhaps?) Drake, by his own admission, gets a charge out of the desolation as it’s far removed from the trappings of so-called civilization. “It makes me feel like they’re not looking and listening over my shoulder,” he explains in interior monologue even as, ironically, an unseen band watches him from afar.Within a few short pages of Marksmen #1 (Benaroya/Image), our hero runs into an ownerless dog that he names Chewbacca, a band of cannibals, plus a group of refugees from one of the other extant western cities, Lone Star. The last are fleeing the cultish community for the more scientifically minded New San Diego, though right behind ‘em is an army that’s looking to loot NSD for its techno goodies. Even though its leaders give lip service to overseeing a faith-based community, they’re not above a little old-fashioned pillaging. Typical religio hypocrites, in other words. Scripter David Baxter takes this Road Warrior set-up and smoothly sets it up (doesn’t tell us the significance of the title in the first of this six-ish mini-series, hwever). At this point in pop history, post-Apocalypse yarns are as formulaic as westerns -- a fact of genre that is heightened by this familiar-but-diverting story’s southwest setting. Penciller Javiar Aranda (aided by inkman Gerry Leach) convincingly depicts the tale’s landscape and players, even if his headshot of a grim-faced Drake at times looks overly reminiscent of Judge Dredd. Must be an unwritten rule which sez that futuristic hard-asses have to have a jawline Bruce Campbell would envy. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Tuesday, August 02, 2011 ( 8/02/2011 05:59:00 PM ) Bill S.  “THERE. THAT IS THE REVELATION.” Look at the cover to the first issue of Image Comics’ The Vault (Image Comics), with its skull face looming over an unwary skin diver, and the first thing long-term comics lovers will think of is the EC series, The Vault of Horror. But on the basis of the first issue of this Sam Sarkar and Garrie Gastonny (both responsible for Caliber) mini-series, The Vault has more in common with an s-f movie like James Cameron’s The Abyss than it does the fifties era walking corpse fest. It’s a deliberately paced tale about a group of undersea treasure hunters who pull up something from the ocean depths that they probably shouldn’t have.As such, the opening issue of the three-part mini-series is devoted to establishing the characters of the crew and the technology that they use to get themselves in trouble. Looking to explore the Oak Island Treasure Pit located off the coast of Nova Scotia, our gang races an approaching hurricane to enter a previously unbroachable underwater vault, using a dog-like robot named Macula. Scripter Sarkar devotes a lot of the densely dialogued first issue to establishing the financial stakes each lightly distinguishable crew member feels over the ultra-pricey expedition, though one suspects once things start popping in the second ish, money will take a back seat to simple questions of survival. What our intrepid six-person crew uncovers proves to be a sarcophagus containing some distinctly unusual remains. This somehow connects to an opening two-page spread of angels battling demons, potentially turning what has started out as a straightforward sci-fi tale into something a trace more metaphysical. A sign of the times: where we once would’ve gotten our kicks from Things from Another World, these days we look to more medievally inspired terrors. Artist Garrie Gastonny renders all this with clear-lined distinctness, the comic book equivalent of a big-budget summer blockbuster. How drive-in summery is The Vault? We even get a panel of shapely archeologist Gabrielle Parker in the shower. Never saw that in the old EC comics . . . (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Saturday, July 23, 2011 ( 7/23/2011 10:44:00 AM ) Bill S.  ”YOU COME FROM WARRIOR STOCK.” A newborn comics company in the tradition of genre steeped small-presses like Boom! And Radical, Benaroya Publishing recently launched its first titles under Image Comics’ publishing and distribution banner. I recently received a pair of the new line’s titles, both mid story -- a somewhat dubious tactic since you’d think a new publisher would want to send reviewers the debut issue in the hopes of hooking ‘em -- but I dutifully read through both books anyway. Figured if I had difficulty keeping up with their storylines, that’d give me something to complain about.So let’s look at one of the titles, Red Spike #3, written by Jeff Cahn with art by Mark Texeira and Salvador Navarro. Released in time to run alongside the new Captain America movie, Spike is a story about two government created super-soldiers, Matt Cutler and Greg Dane. The latter, in the third issue, has apparently gone rogue “after a failed attempt to activate Greg’s Phase II system,” and his compatriot -- along with a comely doctor named Maggie Downey -- are invested in pulled Greg back from the brink. The inevitable shadow government types have other plans for both “toy soldiers,” of course. Even if you don’t know all the players among the sinister suits, the plotline is familiar enough to make the third issue readable to newcomers. Though somewhat flashback heavy, this centerpiece of a five-issue mini-series has its one grisly moment (courtesy a flashback to a failed third super-soldier volunteer’s fate) and some convincing brotherly rivalry between the two super-leads. If Dr. Downey’s presence in the storyline could’ve been fleshed out a bit more for newcomers -- since she is the one who spends much of the third ish snooping out the secret behind the Red Spike system -- that’s a small grouse. Too, scripter Cahn is cheeky enough to set the issue’s climactic confrontation at a soon-to-be-decimated Washington monument, giving his slickly stalwart artists a chance to revel in some old-style Marvel Comics rampaging. The advertised cover to issue #4, with Greg brandishing the head of a beloved capital statue, promises even more boyish mayhem. Why else make your super-soldiers super? (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Thursday, July 14, 2011 ( 7/14/2011 06:07:00 AM ) Bill S.  “SORRY IS A THING FOR DISOBEDIENT BOYS.” Self-rated “mature,” Radical Comics’ six-ish mini-series Damaged opens on a suitably violent note. In it, a heavily scarred Frankenstein-ian figure with a police badge scar on his chest walks into a redneck bar in Dunbar, Oklahoma. He’s looking for a quartet responsible for the rape and strangulation of two teenaged girls, but when most of the bar patrons rally around their perp drinking buddies, the hulking vigilante sets fire to the place and kills all but a few innocents. “You nodded for his alibi,” he tells one of the doomed barflies, “that makes you an accessory.”Cut to San Francisco four weeks later -- and the newly appointed head of the city’s task force on organized crime, Jack Cassidy. The new commander is replacing retiring copper Frank Lincoln, who has a personal connection to the Dunbar vigilante. When the latter seemingly shows up and begins taking out hitherto untouched local mobsters, both Cassidy and Lincoln get involved. By the end of the first issue, it’s the older cop who has an edge over the new guy, though one suspects that control of the investigation will shift more than once over the remaining five issues. Scripter David (Stray Bullets) Lapham, a pro at writing hard-boiled comics, takes this familiar set-up (courtesy Michael and John Schwartz) and invests it with the right dose of violent cynicism. Aided by artist Leonardo Manco, who shows an affinity toward rendering the roadhouse and late-night diner settings that are de rigueur in a tale like this, he pulls us into the story quickly and keeps us there. “A man can’t be sorry,” Lincoln says near the end of the first issue. “He can only try to clean up the mess he’s made.” On the basis of its first issue, lovers of Dirty Harry/Death Wish-styled crime fiction should enjoy the blood smeared clean-up. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Tuesday, July 05, 2011 ( 7/05/2011 09:22:00 AM ) Bill S.  “IT ISN’T REVENGE I WANT, JESSE, IT’S A RECKONING!” With the final entry of Radical Comics’ four-ish re-imagining of the Wyatt Earp legend, Earp: Saints for Sinners, the big showdown between our hero, Doc Holiday, and the James Gang (not to be confused with the 70’s band that gave us Joe Walsh) against an army of Pinkerton goons takes place. Lots of bloody shoot-outs, plus a sequence where Earp goes Jack Bauer on slimy Vegas kingpin/mayor Flynn -- as well as some scene chewing thuggery by Alan Pinkerton, who has kidnapped Earp’s shapely lady love Josie. The girl holds her own, natch, much as we’d expect her to.While our title lead by and large remains a tough guy cipher throughout the Matt Cirulnick/M. Zachary Sherman plotted adventure, his mercenary buddy Doc adds much needed character spice to the proceedings. “I cut off Osama Bin Laden’s head with the sharp end of a rock after I finally beat him unconscious with my bare hands,” Holiday tells Flynn in a scene obviously written long before more current events, but since this book’s plainly set in an alternate dystopian America, I guess we can let it pass. Colin Lorimer’s painted art is up to the demands of broad action, though he perhaps overuses the big overhead shots. It’s generally stronger in the one-on-one conflicts: the crowd pleaser is the pummeling mano-a-mano finale ‘tween Earp and Pinkerton, of course, and it’s as brutal as you’d expect it to be. The days when western showdowns took place with foes shooting at each other from a distance on a sunny dusty street are long gone. If they ever existed in the first place. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Saturday, May 21, 2011 ( 5/21/2011 07:52:00 AM ) Bill S.  “ALMOST TIME FOR MY PRE-LUNCH SNACK.” The first in a new series of all-aged graphic novel adaptations of the current French-produced Cartoon Network series, Garfield & Co: Fish to Fry (Papercutz) features three comic retellings of cartoons utilizing screen captures from the original computer generated animated art. The results proved decidedly mixed for this reader, though young viewers who primarily know the fat cat from his current cartoon series may not feel the same sense of cognitive dissonance as those who came to the character via his funkier pen-and-ink incarnation.Still, transferring screen captures onto a page and adding word balloons doesn’t address all the storytelling needs that basic comic book art can. Animation expresses much of its characters’ emotions through movement and sound, after all; comics artists have to pull in other visual tools to suggest these missing elements (more dynamic panel composition, for instance). Placing screen captures on the page, no matter how interestingly you cut the panels, can’t help but flatten the players. Art aside, the three six- to nine-page adaptations in Fish are amusing and make for good early reading materials, though most older readers will most likely find ‘em pretty disposable. The title piece, arguably the weakest, puts our feline Falstaff in a dream sequence after owner Jon’s girlfriend brings her pet fish over to the house: a dubious decision at best, which makes you wonder if the lady vet even likes her fish. The strongest entry (originally credited to long Garfield cartoon scribe Mark Evanier, though it's unclear if he had a hand in the comic book version) concerns Garfield’s rivalry with the arrogantly cute kitten Nermal, who holds our hero’s teddy bear hostage so the cat’ll be nice to Nermal for a day. Of all the stories, “Nice to Nermal” works best because it’s most attuned to the foibles of its cast. As a comic character, Garfield is primarily known by the sum of his deadly sins -- gluttony, sloth, envy -- which may be a key to the kitty’s enduring success over the years (that and the aggressive marketing of creator Jim Davis and his cohorts). Papercutz’s new series may not place Gar and company in their best format, but I suspect that plenty of fans will want to take a peek anyway. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Wednesday, May 04, 2011 ( 5/04/2011 07:38:00 AM ) Bill S.  BLUE LIGHT SPECIALS, DAEMONS AND CRAZED MESSIAHS: Re-reading my review of Action Comics #900 after it was recently posted, I found myself looking over at my spare little review pile and three Radical Comics mini-series. Not a one of these’ll ever come close to reaching that daunting number, I thought, which is as it’s meant to be. Where big comics companies look to promoting properties that they can publish in perpetuity, smaller lines generally look to time-limited titles with a beginning, middle and end.Which doesn’t mean that the last element won’t contain room for a mini-series sequel or three, of course. All three of the Radical books on my pile -- After Dark, Hot Wire and Ryder on the Storm -- are sufficiently open-ended to support a follow-up. Warren Elis and Steve Pugh’s Hot Wire (subtitled: Deep Cut) is, in fact, the second mini- to feature its spunky lead, futuristic detective exorcist Alice Hotwire. A spiritedly arrogant loose cannon, Hotwire comes up against ambitious mercs and a resurrected dead soldier who is carrying both a dead mother with a still living baby inside her, plus a tagalong host of “blue lights” that may or may not be spirits of the dead. Though co-creator Ellis gets second billing on this outing, in actuality both the writing/art credits go to Steve Pugh, who has fun with both his prickly lead and the series’ parapsychological mumbo-jumbo. If, at times, all the blue light actions seems to be more smoke-and-mirrors than a clear-cut comics contretemps, well, you could probably say the same thing about such durable company comics paranormalists as DC’s Spectre or Marvel’s Doc Sttrange, couldn’t you? Me, I just like watching Alice get snippy with hes less intelligent co-workers. The title hero of David Hine and Wayne Nichols’ Lovecraftian Ryder on the Storm is less punkishly flamboyant than Hotwire, more your broody late-nite detective type -- who also happens to have some daemon blood in him. Our gumshoe’s latest case leads to a conspiracy to revive daemon control of the city through a monstrous motherly creature hidden in the sewers and her drone warrior offspring. While the opening volume in this three-parter focused on the sexually provocative dancer Katrina and a decadent sex club, the finale takes us into a dank city underbelly that H.R. Giger or the creators of Alien would recognize. This shift in focus from steampunky supernatural noir to action horror proves a bit of a letdown -- horror fans have been down sewers like this before -- though artist Nichols gets some good panels out of the monster mother. Love the image of her slurping down a daemon victim. After Dark, “created by” Anton Fuqua and Wesley Snipes, though actually written and illustrated by Peter Milligan and Leonardo Manco, takes an even sharper storytelling swerve in its third issue. Having dispatched a ragtag crew to return a Madonna-like femme named Angel to Solar City to bring hope to its besieged populace, we swiftly learn that Angel is not the redeeming force as advertised. Our surviving crewmembers thus find that their return to city is even more perilous than their trek across the deadly wastelands. “I don’t think she’s good with pressure,” a mind-reading mutant infant understates as much of our remaining cast finds itself getting attacked one at a time by Angel’s minions. This shift in focus is a little bit disconcerting -- it’s as if John Carpenter’s Escape from New York had changed settings in its final third from its desiccated Big Apple to a West Wing look at the rescued president’s White House -- but it ultimately works. As with the other two mini-series, Dark leaves plenty of room for a follow-up. But its basic theme -- “Don’t follow leaders/Watch the parking meters,” to quote Mr. Zimmerman -- holds it all up through its neatly ambivalent final panel. I’d be okay with the story as it is even if Snipes and Fuqua never scribbled down the notes for an After After Dark. Sometimes, short and punchy is the way to keep it. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Friday, April 29, 2011 ( 4/29/2011 07:35:00 AM ) Bill S.  “THE GREATEST SICK JOKE EVER ON THE UNIVERSE.” Let’s just acknowledge the significance of the occasion. Action Comics -- the book that introduced Superman and thus helped push comic books from a cheaply produced delivery system for reprint newspaper strips into something more unique -- has reached its 900th issue. To commemorate the occasion, DC has released the ish as a “96-page spectacular,” opening with a 51-page lead, followed by five shorter pieces examining facets of the Man of Steel’s life. Written by such familiar names as Damon Lindelof, David S. Goyer and director Richard Donner, it’s the latter half of the book that’ll most likely appeal to readers who haven’t been closely following the DC Universe. The lead story, Paul Cornell and Pete Woods’ “The Black Ring/Reign of Doomsday,” proves a bit more dubious. Culling together plotlines from five different DC titles, it primarily features our hero in an extended debate with a god-like version of perpetual villain Lex Luthor. The chapter ends with a resurrection of the monster who once “killed” Superman, Doomsday, and whether that will warm your heart most likely depends on if you were the right age to fall for the original “Death of Superman” storyline when it was first published/publicized in the nineties. The other tales examine our hero’s original and place in the superhero world. Lost’s Damon Lindelof, aided by artist Ryan Sook, looks at Superman’s father Jor-El in the time before Krypton’s cataclysm, and while Sook’s art is typically moody, the story details themselves seem a bit too Earth-bound, not alien enough. In contrast, Paul Dini and R.B. Silva’s “Autobiography,” which also shows the Man of Steel’s home world, has an appealing visual strangeness typified by Silva’s depiction of a hippopotamus-y alien named Serva. Geoff John and Gary Franks’ “Friday Night in the 21st Century” is a lightweight look at Lois and Clark’s relationship, while director Donner and Derek Hoffman’s “Only Human” uses a faux movie script/storyboard (sketchy graphics courtesy of Matt Camp) to tell the tale of a scientist who tries to artificially replicate Superman’s powers. Of all the back-of-the-book entries, this ‘un reads most like a story rather than a vignette. The fourth entry, David S. Goyer and Miguel Sepulveor’s “The Incident,” is the one that’s been generating the most fannish comment, however. In it, the longtime icon for “Truth, Justice and the American Way” renounces his U.S. citizenship after witnessing a citizen demonstration in Iran. “I showed up in solidarity,” our hero says, a gesture which brings the president’s national security advisor out to determine if our hero has “gone rogue.” He hasn’t, of course, though judging from the contentious politicized responses from many fans, you might think otherwise. Those of us with a longer view of the character, though, know that with an established figure like Superman, every major change is a reflection of the time in which it occurs (could you imagine DC’s editors trying something like this in the immediate wake of 9/11, for instance?) -- and is something that can very easily be undone by subsequent editorial regimes. You don’t last 900 issues without enduring a lot of editorial tweaks along the way. Remember when Superman had a mullet? (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Friday, March 18, 2011 ( 3/18/2011 09:23:00 PM ) Bill S.  “EVERYTHING IS NOT ALWAYS WHAT IT SEEMS.” A reinvigorated comic book series that first saw a brief run in the nineties, John Rozum’s Xombi (DC) tells the story of Korean-American David Kim, a victim of science/magic gone too far who has become a sort of “immortal weirdness magnet” in a world gone supernaturally haywire -- where coins deliver prophecies and silent movie vamps escape from the screen. His body packed with nanomachines that have given him a range of still-evolving super powers (among these, the ability to turn paper into popcorn), the former medical researcher gets called to a secret prison that’s in the care of the Catholic Church.There, the church has housed unfortunate victims of the supernatural, including a college student who was unlucky enough to buy a copy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde “that was riddled with semi-colon cancer.” As a result, he was transformed into a murderous version of the title monster. “If only he’d been assigned Middlemarch,” a priest sighs. If from my spoilage re: one of Rozum’s (plentiful) jokes, you get the idea that Xombi is not one of your more deadly serious superhero yarns, you’d be on the (talking) money. Rozum, ably abetted by clean-lined artist Fraser Irving (a master at understated comic reaction shots), tosses a heavy mix of fantasy horror concepts and bad puns at the reader with shameless enthusiasm. The results prove appealingly off-kilter, the kind of quirky comic storytelling that deserves a bigger audience than it’ll most likely ever get. Catch it while you can. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Monday, February 21, 2011 ( 2/21/2011 08:26:00 AM ) Bill S.  “WHY STAY HUMAN WHEN YOU CAN BE LIKE ME?” “Based on the Best-Selling Video Game Franchise,” DC’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution has one aesthetic advantage over its recently initiated DC Universe Online Legends comic in that it doesn’t fool around with characters established in the pre-game era. Set in 2027, the game spin-off posits a future where biotechnology has progressed to the point where “augs,” humans who have been cybernetically augmented,” have become prevalent. Our series lead, Adam Jensen, is a former cop who has had over fifty per cent of his body replaced by mechanical parts. “You’re a man, Jensen, not a machine,” one of his colleagues states after our hero has successfully rescued a kidnapping victim. “Kinda hard to tell these days,” the hard-case Jensen replies.Our hero works as security chief for Sarif Industries, the mega-corporation responsible for making augmentation more accessible to masses. Opposing Sarif are anti-aug groups -- moderate Humanity First and the more violent terrorist group more sinisterly self-named Purity First -- as well as a variety of underworld types wanting a piece of the biotech action. First ish of the “mature readers” comic, timed to be released with the newest variation of the Deus Ex video game, opens with Jensen saving the niece of Sarif’s founder from some way nasty types in Juarez, Mexico, and ends with a Humanity First demonstration being violently disrupted by an aug who thinks nothing of forcing his arm through the head of an on-camera TV newsman. In between we’re given background on the ideological conflict that’s fueling all this brutal conflict -- including a reflection by Humanity First founder William Taggart on the psychological trauma being experienced by augs like our surly hero. Writer Robbie Morrison slathers on the hard-boiled attitude -- Jensen is the type of hero willing to use a thug as a body shield when the bullets start flying -- and artist Trevor Hairsine clearly gets a charge out of drawing flying bodies. How close this lean little dystopian tale is to the actual game I couldn’t say, though as a stand-alone piece of genre work, Deus Ex Human Revolution moves in a brisk no-nonsense fashion that gets the job done. If we must have comics based on video games (and considering the state of the American comic book industry, I don’t see publishers shying away from ‘em any time soon), this is probably the way to go. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Saturday, February 12, 2011 ( 2/12/2011 10:57:00 AM ) Bill S.  “I MAY BE RUTHLESS, BUT I AM NOT CRAZY.” “Inspired by the Highly Anticipated Game!” the cover to the first issue trumpets, which could be considered a recommendation or a warning depending on your inclinations. Me, I’m more than a little wary of comics where the plot mechanics are dictated by the demands of the game instead of, you know, character, but I still retained some curiosity about the 26-issue DC Universe Online Legends. It’s got old pro Marv (Crisis on Infinite Earths) Wolfman collaborating on the script with current fan fave Tony Bedard. The former helped set the template for Event Comics like this, after all -- so how lame could it be?Fairly lame, it turns out. The debut issue opens on a sequence designed to get the reader’s attention: a scarred Lex Luthor, encased in a robotic battle suit, defeating his long-time foe Superman. “Superman will not live again!” he shouts, aiming some sort of kryptonite-y spear at the Man of Steel, but we’ve all read that ‘un before. The bald super-villain has teamed up with the evil alien computer Brainiac, wreaking havoc on Earth, forcing both superheroes and villains to fight against an invading hoard of “exobytes.” Smart guy Lex has never even considered the possibility that Brainiac will betray him (really?) and consequently doesn’t have any contingency back-ups when it all goes to hell. I supposed we’re meant to accept that the guy’s super ego is his undoing, but this reader didn’t quite buy it. As illustrated by Divers Hands (top-billed Howard Porter, Livesay, Adriana Melo, Norman Lee), this all looks suitably action game-y with plenty of effective devastation ruin shots: the focus stays on Luthor though most of the debut issue, with only a few incidental shots of the superhero Legends that we expect to see from the title. When the spotlight does turn on DC's heroes, I found myself missing a stellar crowd-controller like George Perez at the helm. There’s a full-pager at the end of the first issue, for instance, where you can barely tell Black Canary and Power Girl’s facial features apart. It had me yearning for a stronger, more individuality attuned artist -- which I suppose is too much to expect for an obviously committee-crafted work like this. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Monday, January 24, 2011 ( 1/24/2011 07:18:00 AM ) Bill S.  “SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO BREAK THE LAW TO GET JUSTICE.” Taking a cast of fabled Wild West heroes and anti-heroes and depositing ‘em into a near future Nevada, Radical Comics’ five-ish “mature readers” mini-series Earp: Saints for Sinners is an agreeably foul-mouthed actioner set in an all-too-plausible Depression Era where Las Vegas is “the only boom town left” in America and the world has reverted to rough-hewn pistol-packin’ justice.The comic follows former U.S. Marshall Wyatt Earp and his pal Doc Holiday as they come up against outlaws, thuggish Pinkerton agents (a.k.a. “Pinks”) and corrupt city politicians in this new/old frontier. Out title lead, Wyatt, has retired from law enforcement at the start of the story to run his own casino, the A-One Hotel and Saloon, when the reappearance of his headstrong brother Morgan Earp shoves him once more into the fray. Morgan has hooked up with celebrity bank robber Jesse James to get into the redistribution of wealth business -- none too surprisingly, a full-blown market crash has heightened the disparity between haves and have-nots even more distinctly -- and his presence in Las Vegas provides the Pinks an excuse to try strong-arming the ex-lawman. You just know this is gonna piss Wyatt off. Writers M. Zachary Sherman and Matt Cirulnick take the familiars of basic Western conflict and add enough doses of modern cop drama (courtesy a Doc Holiday flashback involving dirty fellow cops) plus dystopian s-f to keep things interesting. A trio of artists (Mack Chater, Martin Montiel, and Colin Lorimer) tackles the visuals, making boomtown Las Vegas look as grimly dark as the urban landscape in Blade Runner. If the first issue’s two big action scenes -- a flashback train robbery and an assault on Wyatt’s home -- come across more murkily chaotic than necessary, the aftermath of each is strong enough to keep us reading. Earp: Saints for Sinners may not break any new ground, but it mixes things up with heaps of storytelling enthusiasm. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Sunday, December 26, 2010 ( 12/26/2010 08:08:00 AM ) Bill S.  ”THAT’S RIGHT . . . YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE! A BLACK MAN WITH GUNS . . .” Radical Comics’ three-ish mini-series, Time Bomb, shot to its explosive finale this month: as in the first two issues, scripters Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray slather on the r-rated violence and language, even providing a phallic joke that caught this reader off guard. The violent sci-fi war actioner concerns a quarrelsome quartet (is there any other kind in these stories?) that is sent back in time to prevent the unintentional launching of a Nazi missile loaded with a particularly virulent bio-weapon. The still experimental time traveling procedure is intended to send our heroes to a day before the missile is discovered, but instead they go all the way back to Nazi Germany where, naturally, they decide to try and nip the whole project in the bud.As the third issue opens, part of our group has been captured by the Nazis alongside a shapely British agent, while the rest of the crew try and figure out a way to break into the underground city where both the missile and their imprisoned comrade are housed. There’s an inevitable interrogation sequence, a scene where one of the group has to hold off an army all by himself, a guest appearance by Der Fuhrer hisself plus a bit where the distaff member of the group becomes a knife-wielding naked super-being for all of fifteen seconds. Artist Paul Gulacy pulls the latter sequence off with his usual slick élan, even if the gimmick does seem to have come out of nowhere. That insufficiently set-up credulity strainer aside, Time Bomb proves an agreeable read. If I don’t see it being turned into a moviehouse feature, I bet it’d make for a pleasurable Syfy Channel teleflick. They’ll have to ratchet down some of the language, of course. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Saturday, November 20, 2010 ( 11/20/2010 12:33:00 PM ) Bill S.  “IT’S THE SWEET SCIENCE . . . AN’ I AM THE PROFESSOR.” Now this takes me back. In 1978, as a part of its large-sized Treasury Edition series, DC released the 76-page comic, Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali. At the time of its release, Ali was indisputably the most famous athlete in the world, while the Man of Steel still held his own as a pop culture icon, so the match-up made its own kind of commercial sense even if a lot of comic book fans back in the day were nonplussed the first time they saw that title. Recently, DC reissued this comic book curiosity in two editions – a facsimile hardcover reprinting the book in its original 10-x-13.25” inch size, along with a smaller “Deluxe” edition containing some additional developmental art – for a readership that in many cases is too young to even remember the Thrilla in Manilla.The plot, credited to long-time comics pro Dennis O’Neil and artist Neal Adams (who reportedly did the bulk of the actual script work), is a simple one. A race of warrior aliens called the Scrubb shows up on Earth, challenging the planet’s greatest fighter to a contest. “We know you to be this galaxy’s most warlike and savage people,” Scrubb leader Rat’Lar leader tells Ali as a conveniently present Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen witness this first contact. Once Clark does his usual vanishing act and Superman shows up on the scene, both he and Ali are challenged to a contest wherein the winner gets to take on the Scrubbs’ champion fighter, a hulking creature called Hun-ya. At stake, of course, is the fate of this ”green-blue pearl” called Earth, as an armada of Scrubb ships surrounds the globe. To prove their seriousness, Rat’Lar orders a rain of plasma missiles on the city of St. Louis, but, of course, Superman is able to avert that catastrophe. The actual contest is set to take place in a solar system with a red sun, taking away the Son of Krypton’s super powers, so before the match Ali teaches him all about the tactics and psychology of boxing. (That Superman -- who has been in an uncountable number of scraps over the years -- proves naïve about the ways to psych out your opponent seems rather preposterous, but never mind.) The fight itself is broadcast over “intergalactic television,” with Jimmy Olsen incongruously being thrust into the role of blow-by-blow commentator. While Ali fights in the usual boxing shorts, Supes remains in his costume for the sake of the aliens watching the event. “Except for subtle changes in hue, all humans look exactly alike to them,” Jimmy none-too-subtly explains. “The Fight to Save Earth from Star Warriors,” the book’s front cover trumpets (the comic was released a year after Lucas’ Star Wars), and Adams the artist brings his usual muscular commitment to a storyline that could’ve come out of the original Star Trek. You can clearly see the artist enjoying himself in sequences like the pre-fight training scene, where Ali gives a stance-by-stance demo of basic boxing moves, while the sci-fi action scenes take maximum advantage of the outsized format. If at times, the banter comes across more campy than comic (“Too much red sun make Scrubb wack-a-ding-hoy!”), well, sprightly word balloons weren’t DC’s stock in trade back then -- that was more Marvel’s turf. Without getting too spoilery, you know that the gladiatorial competition between Ali and Kal-El will be resolved without either character losing out. Both of these icons have way too much dignity for this comic book conflict to play out any other way. But as an artifact of a time when a two-page spread of Metropolis’ Inner City ghetto could look sexily vibrant and friendly, when Ali was still the Greatest even if this comic was actually released between his reigns as heavyweight champion, when the idea of a sporting competition that was more than just a match-up between overpaid athletes didn’t seem that outlandish, Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali provides the nostalgic goods. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Sunday, November 14, 2010 ( 11/14/2010 07:30:00 AM ) Bill S.  “SOME MORBID FREAK JUST TAKES A LIKING TO THE PLACE.” Initially credited to Darren Lynn Bousman, a writer/director in the Saw franchise, Radical Comics’ six-part mini-series Abattoir is a horror comic that lets you know exactly where it’s going by opening up on a bloody slaughter at a child’s birthday party. A hired clown’s fingers get sliced off with a weed eater, a burly neighbor gets a butcher knife across the mouth, the party’s birthday boy is found dead and bleeding at the foot of his rampaging father. Makes those birthday spankings look pretty innocuous, huh?Once we get past this attention-grabbing opener, the scene shifts weeks later to Richard Ashwalt, an “almost former cop,” family man and would-be real estate salesman stuck with unloading the house where the birthday slayings took place. Ashwalt is feeling pressure by his boss, not to mention his nagging wife, to sell the place, but he’s initially reluctant to immediately do so when a creepy geezer aptly named Jebediah Crone shows up wanting to buy the splatter flaked domicile for fifteen per cent above asking price. Plagued by grisly dreams and visions of the murders, Richard is told the credulity straining ghost story of a boogeyman who buys up properties where someone has recently died -- though to what nefarious purpose the storyteller can’t say. Based on the series’ title, though, you know the reason’s gotta be nasty. A decent set-up, even if you don’t quite buy the real estate urban legend. As fleshed out by scripters Rob Levin and Troy Peters, the series’ protagonist is both flawed and sympathetic enough to make a believable witness/victim of the horrors still to come. Though there are hints that there’s a history which explains his strained relationship with his wife, he's also shown in a caring interaction with his young daughter Claire. Given that this book opened on another seeming caring father, though, we can’t help wondering just how much Richard is gonna be effected by his involvement with Mr. Crone -- especially after another character quotes the “all work and no play” adage made infamous in The Shining. Abattoir is set in the eighties, and Bing Cansino’s painted art does a strong job conveying the era’s slasher movie vibe. It’s dark, of course, though there are some moments that you don’t want to see too clearly, and while most of the characters have the visual blandness of so many actors in low-budget pictures of the era, Cansino’s Crone is a suitably malevolent boogeyman -- with more than a trace of the Cryptkeeper in him. The final panel at the end of ish one, showing him sitting at the table with Ashwalt’s puzzle-building daughter definitely gets the reader’s attention. Kids in Peril may be the easiest trick in the horror story playbook, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t effective. Just ask Danny Torrance. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Wednesday, October 06, 2010 ( 10/06/2010 07:21:00 AM ) Bill S.  “IN THE END HE BELIEVED THAT HE HIMSELF WAS A DAEMON.” When it comes to hard boiled heroes facing off against demonic adversaries, Radical Comics has clearly staked out their own parcel of the shadowy turf. Recently received two review comics from the company, Driver for the Dead #2 and the premiere ish of Ryder on the Storm, and, aside from the fact that both titles seem to mimic each other (kudos to Ryder for its play on the Doors, however), the two three-issue mini-series also star lone wolf heroes pitted against murderous supernatural nemeses.In the second issue of Jeff (Snakes on a Plane) Heffernan and Leonardo Manco’s Driver hearseman Alabaster Graves continues the task of transporting the body of a dead witch doctor and his hot sceptic daughter across the swampy southland, pursued along the way by a necromancer who keeps stealing body parts from fortune tellers, collaterally slaughtering their unfortunate customers on the side. The results are bracingly grisly, if a bit repetitive -- by the time the third party of hapless Southerners shows up for a reading, we know they’re doomed -- but it decidedly establishes what a mean s.o.b. the villainous magicman Fallow is. And Graves remains an expressive enough protagonist to make us want to see the showdown in issue #3. In comparison, the tarnished knight hero of David (FVZA) Hine and Wayne Nichols’ Ryder on the Storm (no first name: “I don’t like it,” he succinctly explains to his femme fatale-y client) plays things a trace closer to the chest. A p.i. working in an alt-universe 21st century cityscape out of a 30’s sci-fi pulp, Ryder gets hired by a Russian chanteuse named Katrina to look into the seeming suicide of a playboy who’s dispatched himself with a power drill. His investigation takes him to the Lust Garden, a decadent private sex club devoted to bloody sado-masochistic shows, and attracts the attention of the city’s wealthiest family -- who would appear to be other than human. It’s all connected to daemons plotting to regain control of the human race, of course. How could it not be? Hine and Nichols treat this dime novel fare with an occasional visual nod to material as diverse as the Green Hornet and Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. If the characters come across more constricted than the wounded leads in Driver, some of this can be attributed to artist Nichols’ treatment of his people, who look more wooden in their close-ups. Still, with this kind of hardnose genre work, flat affect is often part of the package, the better to contrast against the visual horrors we’re gonna be shown. In this last, the first issue of Ryder delivers, most effectively in the unnerving club scenes and a sequence where a character gets his hand lopped. “There’s something uniquely disconcerting about seeing a piece of your body lying on the other side of the room,” we’re told -- a classic piece of hardboiled understatement if ever I read one. (First published in Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Friday, September 10, 2010 ( 9/10/2010 06:59:00 AM ) Bill S.  SO ARE THEY ALL HONORABLE BLOODSUCKERS: If you’re sick of vampires as the go-to mode for the modern Bryonic protagonist, chances are you’ll want to skip the new Wildstorm comic, Ides of Blood. Set in 44BC Rome, the mini-series posits a past where Julius Casear includes a piece of Transylvania in his conquests -- and its vampire citizens were brought back to Rome in silver chains. A few of these bloodsuckers have managed to lift themselves out of slavery in the years since, but the division between living and the undead remains.When a series of Roman aristos start getting bumped off, Valens, the vampiric head of the Praetorian Guard, is brought in to investigate. His investigation takes him to the “blood brothels” of Fang’s Alley, but not before a soothsayer shows up to warn our hero to “Beware the Ides of March.” Yup, the events in this series are set right within the frame of Skakespeare’s play, though from the cover of the first ish (Caesar surrounded by his assassins, one of whom is sporting fangs), it’s clear writer Stuart Paul and Christian Duce are working to put a modern fantasy spin on things. Perhaps they’re working a little too hard, however, as writer Paul’s dialog occasionally comes across more TV cop show than it needs to be. (“Drained him dry,” a surly drunken Marc Antony states as he examines the bloated corpse of a murder victim. “Must have been one hungry bastard.”) Still Christian Duce’s art, aided by Carlos Badilla’s scarlet/orange tinged colorings, effectively captures the alt world Roman setting: more believably than the 1953 movie version of Julius Caesar, say. Duce’s treatment of the desolate Fang’s Alley is especially convincing. It all ties into a vampire rebellion simmering in the story background, which promises much bloody action beyond the inevitable Et tu, Brute in upcoming issues. How in tune you’ll be with all this pulp fabulism may depend on your fondness for vampire fiction or warped revisions of the Bard, though. I'll admit I’m more intrigued by the latter. Do they still make students plow through that play in high school? (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Sunday, August 29, 2010 ( 8/29/2010 10:03:00 PM ) Bill S.  “SOLAR CITY MIGHT BE INSUFFERABLE, BUT IT ISN’T DULL.” With its plot credited to director Antoine Fuqua and actor Wesley Snipes, it’s clear that the three-part mini-series After Dark (Radical Comics) fits under the comics line’s overarching umbrella of producing movie-ready comics. A harsh post-Apocalyptic quest, Dark takes a small crew of military types and criminal outcasts out of the (relatively) safe confines of Solar City and drops them into the blackest wastelands of a pollution ravaged Europe. Our quarrelsome crew (is there any other type?) is searching for a Madonna-like woman called Angel in the hopes that bringing this possibly mythological figure back to Solar City will provide hope to the increasingly more discontented city dwellers.Not all of our team make a distinct impression during the first issue of this Peter Milligan-scripted mini-series. The two most obvious movie leads prove the aptly named drugged-up military man Colonel Brood and the mystical Bedouin navigator Omar. The latter is able to able to navigate by the stars even through a pitch black, pollution festooned sky “filled with unpredictable matter.” Sort of like being able to pilot a fighter ship blindfolded and guided by the Force, I guess. The crew gets separated when one of the military types, a hard-nosed female trooper named Jones (think Jenette Goldstein in the second Alien movie), becomes violently sick from a “hermaphroditic viral strain” in mid-flight to Archipelago City. After the inevitable “the mission is all important” debates, four of the crew wind up on the inhospitable Euro ground, one of ‘em the Bedouin navigator Omar. Wanna bet which half of our gang’ll be the first to find Angel in an upcoming ish? On the basis of its first entry, Dark looks to be a fairly formula B-picture s-f horror yarn, told with minimal fuss and plenty of hard-ass attitude. Illustrator Jeff Nentrup (aided with “additional art” by Sara Biddle) slathers on the darkness effectively, though at times his glisten-y faced treatment of his people seems at odds with the grittiness of this futureworld. Wish he’d provided a close-up of the only apocalyptic mutation to show up in the first issue, the “blind bugs,” but he makes up for it with a satisfying severed arm panel. A nice bloody bit of wholly unnecessary violence: Fuqua and Snipes clearly know their target audience. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Tuesday, August 10, 2010 ( 8/10/2010 10:56:00 PM ) Bill S.  “PRESSURE MUCH?” A slick if somewhat nonsensical sci-fi actioner, Time Bomb (Radical Comics) opens on the discovery of an underground Nazi city with a missile that amazingly launches after all these years (kinda like the fantastically resilient cigarette lighter in Wall-E) when its trigger is tripped by agents of the ironically(?) named New World Order investigating it. Said missile proves to have a virulent virus so aggressive “it makes Ebola look like a runny nose.” Unchecked, it will wipe out most of the planet within 72 hours. What to do? Sent a quartet of agents back in time to prevent the missile from being launched, of course.Our foursome is a fairly standard grouping: quarrelsome newly divorced couple, sociopathic licensed-to-killer, NWO agent whose disdain for the regs is typified by his refusal to obey the no smoking signs in the office. As drawn by seasoned comics pro Paul Gulacy, they’re an attractive bunch for all their familiarity, though. Scripters Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray (Jonah Hex) treat their “mature readers” confection with gobs of ruthless violence -- when the missile launches we can see it decimate much of Berlin, while the panels of bubo-laden plague victims are all suitably icky. Who’s responsible for this bioengineered chaos is a mystery at the end of the first of this three-ish mini-series, but I’m betting the original vanished scientist responsible for the creating the time traveling tech is somehow connected to the underground city’s anachronistic gadgetry. On the basis of its opener, Time Bomb looks to be a decent little popcorn comic book mini-series. Just try not to get some of that fake butter crap on the pages when you’re reading it, okay? (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # |Tuesday, June 29, 2010 ( 6/29/2010 07:21:00 AM ) Bill S.  “I AIN’T YOUR AVERAGE CORPSE JOCKEY.” Alabaster Graves, the hero of John Heffernan and Leonardo Manco’s Driver for the Dead (Radical Comics), is not the kind of driver you’d expect to see at a traditional funeral. A “scruffy looking” guy in a cheap black suit, Graves drives a souped up hearse named Black Betty which looks like something Ed “Big Daddy” Roth might’ve concocted. His job is to chauffeur problematic corpses (a newly transformed vampire, for instance) to their final resting place and ensure that they stay down for good. In the first book of the three-ish mini-series, Graves is assigned the task of picking up the body of Mose Freeman, a recently slain hoodoo man whose body is of interest to a lot of parties working the sinister side of the street. It’s a dangerous job, and, judging from the crappy trailer that we see him living in, the pay ain’t that great either.Graves is accompanied on his pick-up by Freeman’s college-age great granddaughter Marissa, who refuses to acknowledge what the old man really did for a living (to her, he was a “medicine man who helped poor black folks when the rich white doctors wouldn’t treat them”) and looks at our hero with a suspicious eye. Marissa is about to get schooled, of course, since a monstrous necromancer named Uriah Fallow is after the body. To establish just how much of an s.o.b. Fallow is, he’s introduced cutting out the eye of a blind fortune-teller. Rated for “Mature Readers,” Driver makes good use of its Louisiana setting and its hard-boiled hero. Scripter John Heffernan (he co-wrote Snakes on a Plane, but let’s not hold that against him) paces the pulpishly horrific moments effectively, so that even when you’re pretty sure you know where a scene is going, its arrival still has impact. His monsters are suitably nasty (there’s a great naked green-skinned witch), and our hero is agreeably rough-mouthed. Leonardo Manco (who has previously worked on another lone-wolf fighter of supernatural beasties, Hellblazer) catches Heffernan’s creep-outs beautifully: I was won over by the book’s opening featuring a snake and demon-filled exorcism, though there are other visual moments just as choice. A strong start to a promising horror hero series. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: fifteen-minute comic # | |
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