Archive for June, 2014

Reviews June 2014 week four

Wednesday, June 25th, 2014

Popstars on their pedestals: that’s where we place them in order to worship, just as we used to old gods.

 – Stephen on The Wicked + The Divine #1

The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains h/c (£12-99, Headline) by Neil Gaiman & Eddie Campbell.

“I can forgive myself for many things. For where I left him. For what I did. But I will never forgive myself for the year that I hated my daughter, when I believed her to have run away, perhaps to the city.”

Who could possibly resist the ominous implications of opening lines like these? But once you have teased out the truths which lead to the bleak consideration above they prove word-perfect. Are there many things more satisfying in life than poetic justice? I think not.

I relish a clever structure and this one is crafty indeed. The following paragraph alone seems straightforward and innocuous enough, but words are chosen carefully throughout and retrospect is a funny old thing.

“I had searched for nearly ten years, although the trail was cold. I would say that I found him by accident, but I do not believe in accidents. If you walk the path, eventually you must arrive at the cave.”

The narrator is a Scotsman of strikingly diminutive statue. You might think that puts him at a disadvantage. You might be right; you may be wrong.

He calls at a fair-sized house gleaming white against rich, green pasture and fresh, purple heather as well as mist-shrouded mountains beyond. There he seeks a reaver called Calum MacInnes.

Calum MacInness proves to be a tall, guarded man with a wolfish face who looms over him. The narrator asks Calum MacInness to guide him to a cave in the Black Mountain on the Misty Isle. Although most believe that the cave exists not, he has heard that Calum McInness has been there and found gold inside. Those who do believe of the cave’s fleeting existence believe also that it is cursed and that there is a price to be paid for any gold gathered from within. Calum MacInness warns him of this:

“This is bad gold. It does not come free. It has its cost.”
“Everything has its cost.”

I have not lied to you once up above nor have I told you the truth.

I’m not lying now when I tell you this is one of Gaiman’s finest novellas which has gone through so many forms, including a reading enhanced by music and Eddie Campbell’s projected illustrations first performed at the Sydney Opera House, before arriving at this similarly hybrid book not just designed but constructed by ALEC’s Eddie Campbell himself.

Fascinatingly, the key conversations – snippets or largely confessions – are given subtle emphasis by being pulled up from the illustrated prose surrounding them in the form of comic panels. In any other circumstances I would have used the word “inset” instead, but to me they appear raised in an effect similar to spot-varnish. If you read these alone (and with careful inference) they expose the story’s skeletal backbone buried beneath the body of the book. Or at least, I think they do: I read the tale in its entirety and things unlearned cannot be unlearned, only forgotten, and none of us have time to forget.

In any case I don’t recommend doing so because only the emphatic effect is what’s intended and you would, of course, have lost much of the flavour in the form of Campbell’s atmospheric landscapes – his nocturnal croft, his majestic black mountains and in particular the twin thorn-bush paintings in which the seasons of life are contrasted with consummate cruelty – and Gaiman’s measured tone which is as solemn as the judgement pronounced.

There are precedents for mixed media in comics like Posy Simmonds’ TAMARA DREWE and GEMMA BOVERY but this shifts the balance in a new, daring way and there aren’t many first attempts at anything which you could consider resounding successes. This is note-perfect, even without the contribution of the FourPlay String Quartet, although they are all on tour right now with this: http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/

SLH

Buy The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains h/c and read the Page 45 review here

The Wicked + The Divine #1 (£2-75, Image) by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie with Matthew Wilson.

“Her eyes scan the front row like the sun rising and setting. Oh god. Oh god.
“The girl to my left passes out, hyperventilating. The boy to my right falls to his knees, cum leaking from his crotch. She’s not even looking at them. She’s looking at me. I swear, she’s looking at me.”

I love Amaterasu’s eyes there, her black eyes blazing with the corona of a solar eclipse.

Amaterasu is a new pop goddess already catalysing the sort of tearful, screaming crowd hysteria formerly generated by the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Duran Duran; commanding a Bowie-like level of devotion which inspires one to dress up and make up to match; and generating all the cynical, scornful nay resentful press coverage that can come with it. Paul Morley is a very clever man, but he can also be the most crashing bore.

The difference is that Amaterasu isn’t just a pop goddess in Smash Hits terminology, she’s a pop star who claims that she really is a goddess and she’s not alone. There is a… family of them, each performing gigs separately, each with a shtick of their own – which is fabulous marketing.

And that’s all today’s interviewer sees: a sophisticated advertising campaign built around bullshit. Mythological claptrap. Pretention. Dissemblance. The idea that Amaterasu is anything other than Hazel Greenaway from Exeter is preposterous.

All of which is witnessed by seventeen-year-old Laura – last to pass out, the first to wake up – who has lucked into Luci’s favour and been taken under her wing.

I love Luci in particular: sexy, slinky, positively sybaritic. As styled by McKelvie she is the ultimate in androgyny, immaculately dressed in pressed white. As scripted by Gillen she is an arch, knowing merchant of mischief but beneath the velvet veneer there is something sharp and a little brittle waiting to break. Oh yes, it’s called a temper.

I think we’d better leave it there.

From the creative crew behind PHONOGRAM and YOUNG AVENGERS this moves startling fast for a first issue. For a writer who relishes wit-riddled repartee – and provides plenty here packed with musical winks and nudges – this is quite the “fuck, no!” jaw/floor thrill.

Without giving the game away (which is what someone usually says when they are about to give the game away) McKelvie and Wilson have come up with multiple special effects involving dots, rays and flat, spot colour to make the more miraculous moments stand out a mile from the warmer, graded pages. Who decided what is always difficult to discern with this team, but there is some gorgeous design work on display as well (hello, Hannah Donovan!) from the cover and its logo to the make-up and most especially the 1923 night’s round-table with what I infer to be its remaining members’ fashion sense and symbols.

The symbol circle’s contemporary counterpart on January 1st 2014 is markedly different not just in individual composition but… oh, you’ll see.

Popstars on their pedestals: that’s where we place them in order to worship, just as we used to old gods. Mass hysteria really is nothing new. Add in unhealthy hubris and the confluence of ideas here makes perfect sense. I anticipate something quite epic.

I am also intrigued. Which is exactly how a first issue should leave you.

SLH

Buy The Wicked + The Divine #1 and read the Page 45 review here

The End signed, sketched in (£6-00, Thingsbydan) by Dan Berry.

“14 Days & Counting.”

Well, this will give you pause for thought.

Bound within a luxurious, rough-grained, card-stock cover which had been screen-printed with scarlet, black and gold are some of the most sobering pages I’ve read from Dan Berry. Such is the beauty of the cover you might not register at first that the objects which the gold adorns are skulls.

It’s closer to CARRY ME in tone that the comedy of CAT ISLAND, THE SUITCASE, HEY YOU! and THROW YOUR KEYS AWAY, but in execution it’s yet another departure. The washes are in a wet, inky black and blue whose sheen is picked up beautifully on the crisp, white, satin paper.

A lot of this takes place at night, which doesn’t always bring out the best in us. We don’t like it when we can’t see what is happening. We don’t like it when we don’t understand what is happening. We don’t react well to that which we cannot control.

Time in particular we feel the need to control: we measure it out in years divided into months or weeks, which we decided should have seven days composed of twenty-four hours each housing sixty minutes and they, sixty seconds. A day makes solar sense, as does a year, but boy we don’t half attach a lot of importance to some of the more arbitrary measurements and a countdown sure gets the adrenalin rushing.

When the numbers first appeared overnight – all of them “14” – they did so on walls and billboards and buses: the sort of places you’d expect from a marketing campaign. So we shrugged because that’s what we assumed it was.

“Thirteen came and went the next day with a chorus of “I told you so” and eye-rolling from the people who kept up with this sort of thing. The progression from 14 to 13 was predictable and had been done to death, they said. If this was to be a truly effective ad campaign, we’d need to given a reason to car and we didn’t have that. 6 /10, must try harder.”

Love the smug, supercilious pundit there in his turtleneck sweater, brandishing a cigarette and tut-tutting with his fingers.

Dan’s put an enormous amount of lateral thought into this, a study in human behaviour under unusual circumstances extrapolated from how we do react to numbers and time. Also, I love the core conceit and where Dan ran with it right to the end.

SLH

Buy The End by emailing page45@page45.com or phoning 0115 9508045 because we have next to none in and it’s already out of print. Demand was that fast, yes.

Escapo h/c (£18-99, Z2 Comics) by Paul Pope…

“They conceived me up over that summer, those fresh-faced two…
“That little sperm and that little round egg, they joined and blended and rolled up, and they conceived me.
“And I was born in a sterile room full of steel tools and knives…
“… and they didn’t even ask if I wanted to be there.
“And it was in this way I made it through my very first escape hatch. Escapo, King of the World!”

You’ve either got it, or you haven’t. Me, having bought this newly coloured edition in addition to the black and white 1999 original, well, I guess now I’ve got it twice! Paul Pope just has it in abundance, though. Talent, that is. Seemingly he always has, though in a fascinating afterword, which explains why ESCAPO has been reworked and re-released, it’s clear Paul feels he’s moved on considerably since 1999, not just in artistic ability but also in the understanding of the tools of his trade. Not least that you shouldn’t used markers which will fade or bleed over time if you want to retain the integrity of the original artwork! Hence, his need to revisit, restore and thus (re)produce this new edition of what is, to my mind, an early Pope masterpiece.

There are comic artists who are truly, singularly unique, seemingly inspired by no one nor indeed inspiring others. Their style stands – in Pope’s case even down to his lettering – for all intents and purposes alone. I can’t imagine what effort of will it must take to produce such a performance. Much like that required to defy death purely for the entertainment of others perhaps, though obviously without the potential for a fatal mishap at any moment. Pope, however, does not perform with the drama-sapping luxury of a safety net, either. Epic in scale and grandeur, his pages and panels here are all spectacular in their concept and construction.

ESCAPO, though, is no showy piece of three-ring hoopla, instead it is a story bristling with passion and sentiment, albeit unfulfilled and misplaced, which at its pounding heart has the cruellest kind of love known to man, the unrequited variety.

Poor Vic: the public may marvel at his exploits and gasp at his brushes with disaster as that most daring of escape artistes, but he’d happily trade it all for just a single kiss from the lithesome object of his desires, the capricious Aerobella. Unfortunately for Vic, her vainglorious heart belongs to another, the beautiful Acrobat King. Will Escapo choose to end it all distraught, mid-performance, under the gaze of a rapt but terrified crowd? Or will he choose to live forever more with a broken heart? You want to know? Well then step up, step up, buy your entrance ticket, come into Paul Pope’s tent of wonder and delight, and above all prepare to be amazed…

This edition also contains a whole host of extras not in the original edition, besides the afterword, including the two-page alternate ending from the original French version and various beautiful Escapo circus posters by Paul and various friends which I absolutely adored. Some things are just worth buying twice.

JR

Buy Escapo h/c and read the Page 45 review here

The Harlem Hellfighters (£12-99, Broadway Books) by Max Brooks & Canaan White…

“’The Harlem Hellfighters,’ that’s what Fritzee’s callin’ us now, ‘The Harlem Hellfighters!’”
“Ya think it’ll be enough to get me a medal a’ honour?”
“Until then, this will have to do. The French Croix De Guerre, The Cross Of War. And you are the first American, black or white, to win it. I’m both proud and sorry to say… you won’t be the last…”

So, not only did I not know that a unit of black Americans volunteered and fought in the First World War, I also didn’t know the first American recipient of the Croix De Guerre was black. A great-great uncle of mine won the Croix De Guerre in WW2, as it happens, fighting for the French Foreign Legion, though that is a story for another time, obviously. It seems the lack of knowledge regarding the existence of the Harlem Hellfighters is quite widespread though, as Canaan White talks about in his illuminating afterword as to why he took on this project.

There are talks about a Harlem Hellfighters movie happening, based on his script, not least because White has approached LeVar Burton. (Yes, possibly best known as Geordi La Forge, but also before wider Star Trek fame he was the star of the massively popular Roots: The Saga Of An American Family depicting the story of a Gambian slave seized and transported back to America in chains in 1750, and what subsequently happened to him and his descendants right through to the Civil War. If you have never seen it, you should, by the way, for it is truly epic.) Fingers crossed because, given the current anniversary of WW1 – which is presumably why this graphic novel is coming out now – I am amazed it hasn’t already been made. What a shame – and I use that word in a couple of different ways quite deliberately there.

So, is this straight non-fiction? Nearly. Artistic licence has been taken with certain characters, but it does mainly feature characters that are based directly on real-life people including Henry Johnson, the Croix De Guerre recipient. The events depicted are, again, fictionalised to an extent, but much of what we know did happen both during their training and active service, is exactly as portrayed here. This fictionalisation doesn’t reduce the impact in any way, either of the pure warfare element itself or of the story of the heinous discrimination the Hellfighters faced at every turn, from the moment they volunteered, at the hands of local Americans whilst stationed at training camps, to even on a daily basis at the front, at the behest of their own government, who simply did not want the allies treating them as equals lest they gain the idea they ought to start demanding equality more forcibly back home.

In lesser part therefore, this is simply a fantastic war story, the type I used to love reading as a kid in BATTLE. The action is captured with brutal precision, accurately portraying what an absolute hell on earth WW1 trench warfare was, with the senseless over-the-top charges directly into machine-gun fire and the industrial-scale use of chemical munitions adding to the wholesale slaughter.

But primarily this is story about a lesser-known side to the fight for racial equality in the United States. I suppose most of us presume it began in earnest with the civil rights movement during Martin Luther King’s era, but obviously there were trailblazers long before that. What simply beggars belief is that people who wanted to fight for their country, and to uphold democracy, could be so appallingly treated, even whilst undertaking their brave defence of liberty, by the very people they were protecting. Much like with SALLY HEATHCOTE, SUFFRAGETTE it’s quite hard to grasp in our more relatively enlightened society (relatively, note) how such insanely fascistic oppression could be deemed acceptable, and widespread casual discrimination just viewed as normal everyday behaviour. Bizarre and upsetting in equal measure.

Also, I should mention, White’s art style works really well here. I’m normally used to seeing him draw something horrific in an Avatar comic, but it’s nice to see that beneath all the gore he’s a really talented artist, and can do facial expressions that don’t involve demented psychosis or extreme torture, though obviously WW1 does still provide him with the opportunity to provide more than a few stomach-turning panels. Also, I think the decision not to colour the art is the right one as I believe it would have detracted from the story. Much like CHARLEY’S WAR, it’s much more emotionally disturbing for being in black and white. It allows the true human story to be told without it sinking under the blood and muck of the battlefield. An absolute triumph in my eyes, and I really do hope the film gets made one day.

JR

Buy The Harlem Hellfighters and read the Page 45 review here

Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer Complete Edition s/c (£18-99, Top Shelf) by Van Jensen & Dustin Higgins.

You can always trust Top Shelf Productions.

I made the mistake once of questioning a book Chris Staros had signed up, thinking it odd for that publisher, and he quietly told me to trust him. He was right. It was SURROGATES, since you ask.

On the surface this looks like such an obvious one-trick pony which should swiftly become a knackered old nag unable to bear the weight of its 500+ pages: Pinocchio, the ultimate vampire hunter on account of an endless, self-replenishing supply of wooden stakes he doesn’t even have to carry round with him. All he has to do is lie and *SHINK* he’s stuck his nose right into someone’s “business”.

But you know what? Trust me. The creators have come up with a startling variety of permutations and they don’t all involve impalement; some involve the love of his life, Carlotta.

Pinocchio: “Carlotta! What are you doing here? It’s dangerous outside of Nasolungo! I wish you hadn’t come.”
*SHINK*
Cricket: “Some poker face…”

Likewise the running gag of Cricket’s multiple, accidental deaths at Pinocchio’s easily distracted hands: that the cricket is already dead – a ghost as in Collodi’s original tale, much, much darker than Disney’s – makes for moments of smile-inducing, resigned exasperation rather than oh-my-god tragedy.

There are moments of loss, don’t get me wrong, and it’s to the creators’ enormous credit that they restrain themselves from even considering the obvious gag when Pinocchio quietly murmurs, “I’m fine”. As to the ending, it is a very brave ending. It is the very best ending. But I doubt it is one you will see coming. I’m glad they took their time with that.

 

 

The art in black and white with a lot of grey tone may not seem much to write home about on the surface, but comics is all about the flow and I flipped through this at an astonishing rate. Where it comes to the fore is the flashbacks: the Puppet Theatre’s performance of Hamlet (King Claudius in conclusion: “I really had this coming.”) and the introductory summary of the Collodi’s original tale which I can’t successfully quote, so intrinsic is the cartooning to the comedy.

SLH

Buy Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer Complete Edition s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Eye Of Newt #1 (£2-99, Dark Horse) by Michael Hague…

“The eye is cold and merciless, a window to death and destruction. Only a true hero, one with a courageous heart, can stare into the dragon’s eye.”

Someone completely insane too, I would imagine. Or maybe once you start dabbling in magic, you’re bound to go a bit cuckoo, as you take your first steps along the road less travelled. Anyway, thus begins a highest of high fantasy four-part mini-series, that positively glows and crackles with eldritch energy.

Meanwhile, our youthful neophyte hero Newt is about to be engulfed in a very ancient and dangerous quest, an initiation into the deeper world of wizardry. An expedition that will help determine his place in the pecking order of the spell casting power structure for the rest of his magical career. The stronger the element he can find for the headpiece of his staff, the more powerful a wizard he will have the potential to become. If he survives the quest, that is, obviously.

His master, a particular ancient and somewhat curmudgeonly fellow known as the Dark Man, means well but his idea of a pep talk about the dangers that lurk beyond the not-so-metaphorical door to the netherworld consists primarily of curtly telling his charge that he would rather see him die than return with anything less than the most powerful headpiece. Tough love, eh? There are of course ‘Dark Forces’ and other multitudinous villainy afoot, which will undoubtedly plague and imperil our hero en route.

 

I think this really has the potential to be an excellent mini. Clearly there are parallels to be drawn with UMBRAL in high fantasy terms, and if you’re enjoying that epic series, you will definitely like this. Art-wise it’s also a bit different from the norm, though very much in keeping with the subject matter, and the closest comparisons I could make would be Charles Vess and Arthur Rackham, though perhaps with a slightly more sinister touch, in part engendered by the stylishly dappled use of colouring. I must confess I’m not familiar with creator Michael Hague, but apparently he is well known and highly regarding book illustrator, of the fantasy and children’s variety mainly, and he did do a graphic novel a few years ago called IN THE SMALL which sounds rather interesting, though sadly looks to be out of print. If you like the odd bit of beard-stroking and wand-waving, this could be for you.

JR

Buy Eye Of Newt #1 and read the Page 45 review here

Avengers World vol 1: A.I.M.PIRE s/c (£12-99, Marvel) by Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer & Stefano Caselli, John Cassaday…

How many Avengers books is one too many? I have to say probably this one, despite it being written by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Spencer. One of the main stories never really got me interested, rehashing old villainess Morgan Le Fey in a run-of-the-mill manner, though clearly it is actually about developing the Starbrand character, and the other featuring A.I.M. seems to be trying to tie up loose ends from elsewhere primarily. This book sits somewhere between the current NEW AVENGERS, AVENGERS and also SECRET AVENGERS storylines, without ever really getting anywhere near the highs of those books, particularly the first two, which have been consistently brilliant for a while.

It does, however, have an eight-page sequence featuring Manifold and Captain Universe which I think are highly significant for NEW AVENGERS readers as they answer a very significant question posed there. I actually think it’s slightly naughty the answer being put in a different title which probably considerably fewer people are reading, when it really should be in NEW AVENGERS. Anyway, read it or not, your choice.

Asst. Ed.’s note: this title has switched direction a bit now with the current issues, is solo written by Spencer and I am enjoying it considerably more. I think it may well have found its own groove.

JR

Buy Avengers World vol 1: A.I.M.PIRE s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy!

Reviews already up if they’re new formats of previous graphic novels. The best of the rest will be reviewed next week while others will retain their Diamond previews as reviews. Neat, huh?

 

Abe Sapien vol 4: The Shape Of Things To Come (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Mike Mignola, Scott Allie & Max Fiumara, Sebastian Fiumara

Big Damn Sin City h/c (£75-00, Dark Horse) by Frank Miller

Dead Boy Detectives vol 1: Schoolboy Terrors s/c (£7-50, Vertigo) by Toby Litt & Mark Buckingham

Disenchanted vol 1 s/c (£14-99, Avatar) by Simon Spurrier & German Erramouspe

Dog Butts And Love. And Stuff Like That. And Cats. (£9-99, NBM) by Jim Benton

Massive vol 3: Longship s/c (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Brian Wood & Garry Brown

My Little Pony: Friends Forever vol 1 s/c (£13-50, IDW) by Alex De Campi, various & Carla Speed McNeil, various

Rogue Trooper: Tales Of Nu-Earth vol 4 (£19-99, Rebellion) by Gordon Rennie, Ian Edginton, Mark Millar, Andy Diggle, Gerry Finlay- Day & Mike Collins, Simon Coleby, Steve Pugh, Dave Gibbons

The Harlem Hellfighters (£12-99, Broadway Books) by Max Brooks & Caanan White

Wonton Soup Collected Edition s/c (£14-99, Oni Press) by James Stokoe

Before Watchmen – Ozymandias / Crimson Corsair s/c (£14-99, DC) by Len Wein, John Higgins & Jae Lee, various, John Higgins, Steve Rude

Batman Detective Comics vol 4: The Wrath h/c (£18-99, DC) by John Layman, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson & Andy Clarke, Jason Fabok, various

Batman Detective Comics vol 3: Emperor Penguin s/c (£12-99, DC) by John Layman & Jason Fabok, Andy Clarke

New Avengers vol 3: Other Worlds h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Jonathan Hickman & Simone Bianchi, Rags Morales

Superior Spider-Man Team-up vol 2: Superior Six s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Christopher Yost, Kevin Shinick & Marco Checchetto, Ron Frenz, Will Sliney

Attack On Titan: No Regrets vol 1 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Gun Snark & Hikaru Suruga

Whispered Words vol 1 (£12-99, One Peace Books) by Takashi Ikeda

ITEM! Best single stash of comics from Page 45 ever: ALL the best books!

ITEM! Oh yes, and this we announced late Monday night:

Bryan Lee O’Malley

Signing at Page 45

Monday 18th August, 5pm-8pm

The very 10th Anniversary of SCOTT PILGRIM.

So that’s a thing.

– Stephen

Bryan Lee O’Malley signing, sketching at Page 45

Monday, June 23rd, 2014

Page 45 loudly and proudly presents

Bryan Lee O’Malley signing SECONDS

5pm to 8pm
Monday 18th August 2014
which is the exact

10th Anniversary of SCOTT PILGRIM!

You are allowed a little squeal.

“Advise me to pre-order SECONDS, Stephen!”

Hey, SECONDS is on sale NOW! Not only that but it is already out of print!

SECONDS was released early in the UK by SelfMadeHero and there will be no new printing in time for the signing. Copies are now scare, so please order in advance of the signing!

You can order SECONDS from Page 45 (and everything else that you fancy) and select “collect in store” then it will be ready and waiting for you on the day itself – or immediately, if you fancy. All orders placed now are guaranteed. We will not sell your copy to anyone else!

 

“What if I can’t make it on the day in the end?”

We will get your copy signed and mail it on if necessary. But only if you order now, before our online sign says we’ve sold out!

“What if I know I can’t make it and select mail order?”

We will get your copy signed if you ask and mail it on accordingly. But only if you order before our online sign says we’ve sold out!

I’d basically order now. Click this sentence to order SECONDS!

Your card is never charged here until your pre-order arrives.  In any case, this is no longer a pre-order: we have SECONDS in stock, right now!

We Also Have:

LOST AT SEA 10th-Anniversary H/C
SCOTT PILGRIM
HOPELESS SAVAGES

Page 45’s World Exclusive 2012 Signing print

On The Day:

Entry is free, no tickets required.

Please turn up early, buy stuff, buy more stuff, join the queue outside the door (the queue starts outside the door but not in the actual doorway, please), then wave one of us down if you need anything at all. We won’t leave you hanging there!

Traditionally we start with any one book sketched in and whatever you fancy signed.

What happens later depends on the length of the queue which is usually cut an hour before the end. Please, please get here early to avoid disappointment.

Keep Up To Date:

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s tumblr
Bryan Lee O’Malley’s twitter @radiomaru

SelfMadeHero’s website news
SelfMadeHero’s twitter @selfmadehero

Page 45’s website news
Page 45’s twitter @pagefortyfive

If you have any questions now or on the day, please phone 0115 9508045. After all, we’re already on your speed-dial, aren’t we?

Brilliant!

– Stephen

Reviews June 2014 week three

Wednesday, June 18th, 2014

Alison phones her mother in the desperate but vain hope of finally hearing some words of approbation, and then her mother talks at her about her own current focus of interest while Alison just sits there, recording and acting as little more than punctuation marks in her mother’s self-absorbed discourse.

 – Stephen on Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? finally in stock as a s/c.

Not unrelated: we finally review Neil Gaiman’s Ocean At The End Of The Lane.

The Summer Of Blake Sinclair vol 1 (£12-55, Zetabella) by Sarah Burgess.

 

Perfect in pale peach and lemon yellows, the pages here glow like a summer sunrise or a glass of Bellini with the early evening light pouring through it. They are as tangy as a citrus fool with bits of lemon peel left in.

A fool of the love-rat variety is what Blake Sinclair first appears to be.

He’s up bright and early and cheerful as anything, prising open the bedroom window to soak up the sunshine and leap barefoot into the day. He’s young and dashing in a gangly, tousled-hair kind of a way and, oh, how he loves the ladies. Unfortunately he has just left one behind back in said bedroom whose window he’s now clambering back through. Daisy is just waking up, punctuating her sweet-smiling words with love hearts.

 

It’s a brilliant Blake and Burgess moment of which there will be many more. Blake isn’t in love with himself and doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body but he is completely open and honest, by which I mean blunt and careless and more than a little inconsiderate. You don’t go on and on about how fab your ex is in front of the girl with a big crush on you. (That isn’t Daisy, by the way; that’s Janey and Ruthie, respectively.) Especially not when your ex is heading back into town and you’re virtually hyperventilating with glee. It’s really not at all fair on Ruthie.

Oh, but is that what’s really happening? We shall see, we shall see… I promised more brilliant Blake and Burgess moments, and I swear Sarah won’t let you down.

Each chapter title falls in with the theme like ‘bright light summer days’ and there is so much space – more space perhaps than in any comic I have ever read. The forms are all as lithe as you like, the clothes and bed sheets hanging off them with a perfectly judged weight depending on texture, while quite often the panels are free-floating and borderless. Every single page is composed with perfect balance and there is a visual Unity to this graphic novel that is positively Greek.

There will be drama and laughter and maybe a few tears; hellos and good-byes and the occasion awkward introduction. There will be shared enthusiasm and gossip as well, and I love how the gaggle of friends venting their “tut-tuts” on the very first morning are only partly overheard – partly because half of their sentences are lost outside the word balloons. It’s clever like that.

SLH

Buy The Summer Of Blake Sinclair vol 1 and read the Page 45 review here

Cat Person (£13-99, Koyama Press) by Seo Kim.

Recognition Factor Fifty!

Short, observational comedies can be so hit and miss, but this one ticks every single box.

First comes the cat with the never-ending Territorial Armchair Wars between the feline and the feckless (but what can you do?); those incessant “I’m being starved to death” yowls when the biscuit bowl is full, you add three more biscuits and – whooomf – instant munch mania until they’re all gone; that bizarre, talking-to-itself, speaking-in-tongues “mraaoowwwaaaoohl” coming from the other room only to discover it’s OD-ed on catnip and you’ve got a seriously monged-up moggie on your hands.

Don’t own a cat? Bet you own a mobile phone and “Oh my god I’ve left it at home there’ll be so many missed calls most of them vital and people will think that I’m dead or I’m rude or I hate them and — ” Oh.

E-mail procrastination? I’m probably worse: sometimes I daren’t even look, let alone reply.

Then there’s true tragedy: the loss of that tasty treat you’ve been longing for to ten minutes’ terminal distraction and the malicious, capricious God Of All Things Burnt Beyond Recognition. Oh, the walk of shame as I open the kitchen door with my diseased dinner and dump it in the bin. Sometimes at 2am.

There are also precise, scientific studies here akin to Professor Lizz Lunney’s in which Science Officer Seo compares humans to cats and comes to a startling conclusion which could change all that we know about nature. The final panel of ‘Humans And Cats Are The Same’ basically is LizzLizz through and through. Infer from that what you will.

The majority of this is in full colour, by the way, and I love the cartooning which is energetic, wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked and fun, fun, fun. The body language is brilliant, the tears all too real, the sheer I-probably-shouldn’t-do-this triumph of desire over moderation and all common sense is both familiar and messy. She even tries to have words with herself which turns into an argument and finally a fist-flying punch-up.

Time management is possibly the most recurrent confession here: specifically Seo Kim’s complete failure to go to bed and so salvage the following day which is inevitably lost to a late start, early dithering, then more social media than strictly necessary until “Oh my god it’s five to five already and I have written bugger all!”

I have absolutely no idea what she means.

SLH

Buy Cat Person and read the Page 45 review here

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane s/c (£10-99, Harper Collins) by Neil Gaiman.

“Oh, sweety-weety-pudding-and-pie, you are in so much trouble.”

There was an ocean at the end of the lane.

Or, to be more precise, there was a pond behind a farm at the end of the lane which eleven-year-old Lettie Hempstock declared was an ocean but it looked just like a pond, to be honest. And Lettie Hempstock looked just like an eleven-year-old.

It’s funny what you forget until something jogs your memory: even Important Stuff can grow cloudy, opaque, or vanish from sight altogether. Sometimes it takes a smell or a sound – and especially a song – but in this case it takes a subconscious detour during a drive that leads the adult narrator to the ocean at the farm at the end of the lane of the house which he grew up in.

This was when he was seven; after the kitten he was given as a birthday present was run over during the arrival of the family’s new lodger a mere month later; after their car was discovered at the end of that lane with something deeply unpleasant inside it.

That was when the narrator first met the Hempstocks: young Lettie, Mrs Hempstock, and Old Mrs Hempstock who lived on the farm, milked the cows and made tasty and traditional meals like porridge and shepherd’s pie and spotted dick with the creamiest custard. For breakfast his father burned toast.

But there was something odd about the pond, something other about Hempstocks,and soon there was something very wrong within the young lad’s family.

It’s funny what you forget. Now it’s all come flooding back.

I’m a very slow reader; I never learned how to speed-read nor would I care to, and when the hardcover appeared there were so many graphic novels coming out which demanded and deserved our attention that I couldn’t find time to read prose. My loss: this is magical.

The novel is set both when and indeed where I grew up: during the late sixties, at a farm at the end of a lane with my mother and grandparents. I used to love mucking out the shippens. I had a child’s fascination with cowpats, their textures etc. A midden is where the slurry ends up and my uncle fell in once, eww.

It’s all here: the early morning milking, creaming off the top, the silver-gleaming milk churns hoisted onto a raised platform at the right height to be collected later by lorries.

There’s much more besides if you didn’t grow up on a farm: pre-decimalisation calculation (always with reference to how many sweet chews you could buy); successfully picking out verrucas with the point of a metal compass when all modern medicine had failed; being scared of eating meals outside your own home in case you didn’t like and yet had to eat them; secret ways in and out of your garden which adults wouldn’t even know about; failing to be the sporty son your father actually wanted; younger siblings who got to watch the telly they wanted (or didn’t even, particularly) at your expense.

I’m just picking out the bits I recognised while subconsciously, I’m sure, ignoring that which I didn’t. You’ll have a different list of your own: night terrors, car smells, comics brought home by your Dad.

All these familiar elements are either set out as standard or woven into a new context as Gaiman gradually glides the everyday into the other whilst retaining the recognisable characteristics of a child’s cognitive process: what would seem odd and what wouldn’t.

I have given far less away than the dustjacket, but then I’ve only just read the dustjacket sleeve. I went in knowing nothing and I recommend you do the same. It’s not as if Neil needs prove himself now: you either trust him or you don’t.

The one thing I would say is this: your home is or should be your castle. Even if you’re not the queen or king of your castle as an adult aspires to be, it is still where you feel safest. It is your home territory, both familiar and comforting, and there can never be anywhere you should feel more secure than in the loving arms of your mother or father.

So imagine if it wasn’t.

SLH

Buy The Ocean At The End Of The Lane s/c and read the Page 45 review here

The United States Of Murder Inc #2 (£2-99, Icon/Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming.

Years ago:

“Right on time.”
“Jimmy, you really gonna act like this ain’t no big deal?”
“It ain’t. What they hell’s the matter with you? We’ve done this shit fifty times.”
“You really don’t think this is any different?”
“No. It is what it is. One guy fucked up. Another guy pays us to take care of said fuckup. The end.”

The beginning.

You wait until you see who you’re looking at through the rifle sights.

Rarely does Page 45 review second issues of comics let alone the 373rd. We know your time is precious so we wait until the book comes out. But this cannot wait. This new series is so cracking and – in a crammed and competitive market – we believe more of you would love to know.

From the creative team who brought you POWERS comes something equally dark but completely free from capes. In a power struggle between some very dangerous men it is so, so tense. I recommend it to readers of CRIMINAL as well.

The mafia were never subdued in America. Instead a considerable portion of the country was conceded to them to rule semi-surreptitiously and with impunity.

In THE UNITED STATES OF MURDER INC #1 Valentine was sworn in as a made man long before his years of service would generally merit it. But his father – and his father’s father before him – was of such stock that he was effectively fast-tracked. And Valentine is equally committed to the family.

His first duty was to deliver a message to a Senator in Washington DC. The message was in the form of a briefcase and, however cryptic to others, would speak for itself. Valentine asked for his cousin to accompany him. Reluctantly that was agreed. He didn’t ask for Jagger Rose to accompany him but she was persuasive, effective, so reluctantly he agreed.

The message was delivered. Another was sent in its place: the detonation of a bomb. Nobody knows what it means. Or at least, no one will admit to knowing or being its messenger.

Now, at the most critical moment possible, someone has delivered yet another message to Valentine, pulling the rug from under his feet, in the form of a revelation so shocking it threatens everyone and every thing in a series which has only just begun.

The hunt for the truth behind the bomb blast is on and it’s a race against time because Valentine and Jagger Rose – although caught in its path – are the most obvious prime suspects.

Who do you trust? I don’t have a clue.

This is the sort of thing that terrifies me: straying too close to the struggles for power within the likes of the Mafia or the IRA or even the CIA. People with power and way beyond accountability who can use you and abuse you and demand your submission.

Oeming and Soma have delivered something dark, stark, brooding and sweaty: claustrophobic and unsettlingly lit. The colours are occasionally venomous – I’m thinking the intrusion of Valentine’s Ma on her son and Jagger Rose – while the first page’s flashback was just a wee bit Gilbert or Jaime Hernandez. Lots and lots of silhouettes. Quite a lot of crimson.

SLH

Buy The United States Of Murder Inc #2 and read the Page 45 review here

New Lone Wolf & Cub vol 1 (£10-50, Dark Horse) by Kazuo Koike & Hideki Mori.

“This was Daigoro, the son of the Wolf, with countless slaughters burned into his eyes, he who had led numberless warriors to call him the child with shishogan – the eyes of life and death.
“Who could possibly raise such a child?”

The classic samurai series set in feudal Japan, LONE WOLF & CUB originally ran for 142 chapters from 1970-1976. It had a startling beginning and a dramatic, most emphatic end. Moreover with the death of its original artist, Goseki Kojima, in 2000 we never dared imagine the story would continue.

You’ll find the first LONE WOLF & CUB omnibus reviewed in detail (and examined at the back of this book), but in summary: Ogami Itto, the titular Lone Wolf and the shogunate’s official executioner, is betrayed by the leader of the shogunate’s political assassins, Yagyu Retsudo, in a bid to consolidate his own power base; not only is false evidence planted that Itto was set to betray the regime but his pregnant wife is murdered during labour, his newborn son Daigoro found by Ogami lying by her side, umbilical cord still uncut.

What follows is a long, arduous and meandering road to revenge, Ogami carting his son around the countryside and building his war chest by taking on assignments between the twin distractions of hypocrisy and injustice he encounters along the way and fending of further attacks by those sent by Yagyu Retsudo to silence him.

I now present you with a single paragraph of SPOILERS if you would prefer to read the original series. It climaxed in a final duel between the two adversaries after which only young Daigoro was left standing, above his father’s dead body. And it is here that the series is rejoined with time taken to evoke and respect the boy’s perspective and acknowledge the implications of anything that now happens to either of those two corpses. I would expect no less of Koike – this was ever the thoughtful series – but I can assure you that slicing and dicing will follow.

In the back Koike – ever a man of honour – goes to great lengths to pay proper tribute to his friend, original artist and co-creator of LONE WOLF & CUB, Goseki Kojima, before recalling the incredulity with which he first laid eyes upon art from Hideki Mori which suggested to Kojima that the story could be continued worthily.

Soaking in these new pages, you could almost imagine that this was Kojima himself, honing his craft further still, so well has Mori studied him. Some of the finer and more precise landscape detail may have been sacrificed, but the sun blasting through clouds that resemble billowing, black smoke is monumentally effective and the waves close to shore are thrilling. Certainly at this size a thicker line is a lot kinder on the eye, while some of the silhouettes and facial close-ups with their moulding strike more embellished notes of Ikegami or even CONAN and HULK artist Ernie Chan. Which has just aged me.

SLH

Buy New Lone Wolf & Cub vol 1 and read the Page 45 review here

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama s/c (£11-99, Mariner) by Alison Bechdel.

Softcover edition! Obviously the hardcover adorned the top of our blog when originally released but I worried that you might have stopped reading if you’d heard this before.

“I told the clerk at the bookstore my daughter has a book coming out. She asked what it was about, and I said, “Me!” She said she could get me into a witness protection programme.”

Bechdel’s last book, FUN HOME, was my favourite graphic novel of 2006. It’s a literary, autobiographical work about an early Obsessive Compulsive Disorder regarding the truth in Bechdel’s childhood diaries, her deceased father’s predisposition towards artifice, and her relationship with her father who was secretly gay. Not the best idea, having secrets when your daughter is compelled towards truth. Her mother – still very much alive and with some justification – took exception to the private being made public: the exposure of their family life to her friends and neighbours. They didn’t have a tempestuous falling out, but the disapproval was there and was voiced.

So, um, guess what this one’s about?

Yup, in her quest to get to heart of all matters – and matters of the heart – Bechdel pursues the truth about her relationship with her mother, the underlying causes behind it and the effect it’s had upon Alison’s self-esteem and love life, this time with the aid of psychoanalysts’ therapy. Extraordinarily, she does so in the full knowledge of her mum who is given access to Bechdel’s script in time to comment on it. On that level, at least, I think Ma Bechdel is as forgiving as a saint.

Dr. Mary Talbot, expert in Critical Discourse Analysis and author of DOTTER OF HER FATHER’S EYES (about two daughters’ relationships with their fathers) and now SALLY HEATHCOTE, SUFFRAGETTE, had plenty to say but summed one aspect of the book up beautifully with the word “reflexive”. It really is, and all the more fascinating for it. That it was ever completed at all, given its method of construction, let alone organised with such clarity and precision is a major miracle of creative instinct and discipline.

“Of course, the point at which I began to write the story is not the same as the point at which the story begins.” At the very least!

Visually it’s far more exhilarating than FUN HOME, for Bechdel’s loosened up on the layouts and lines, replacing the swimming-pool blues and greens with a rich, warmer plum, kicking off each chapter with a single image which bleeds right to the edge opposite a full page of said pleasurable plum, and concluding with a double-page spread with a thick frame of black. And, speaking of discipline, I cannot convey in strong enough terms my respect and appreciation for the trouble Alison has taken to reproduce by hand every map, photo, newspaper clipping and prose quotation rather than throw lazy, incongruous and therefore distracting photocopies at us which would have obliterated my immersion in the work.

Those opening sequences, by the way, are each one of them dreams which Alison and her analyst then proceed to interpret as part of their investigative process which also incorporates childhood, teenage and more recent memories and Bechdel’s own research into the infant-based, analytical works of Donald Winnicott and co. And this, I suspect, is where most British critics’ heckles will rise so uncontrollably that they’ll mistarget their ire, disappointment or disdain. As a stiff-lipped nation we have a low tolerance for psychotherapy, dream analysis and the numerology claptrap so enamoured or even obsessed over by our transatlantic cousins. I know I do. But I wince with worry that readers will take exception to the book, which is brilliant, purely because they have issues with Alison’s issues. If I shook my head at some of the conclusions drawn from, say, Alison’s third eye in one dream being hit by a stick, there were other instances, like the anxiety nightmare of a timorous growth on her cheek, which struck home; plus I still found the surrounding jigsaw puzzle pieced together over the course of the book to be both fascinating and valid, never mind the wider issues of parenting and childhood.

Both Bechdels are fiercely intelligent and culturally versed women, passionate about books and art. However, instead of sharing their opinions in a conversation mutually appreciative of each others’ learning, Bechdel’s mother is instead given to pronounce while Alison’s predisposition is to rankle. It’s produced a certain degree of rivalry which also rears its head as professional jealousy whenever Bechdel hears of the success of others who make a successful career out of being a feminist – and more specifically lesbian – writer or artist. For, let us be clear, Alison Bechdel is very much a ‘lesbian’ comicbook creator. I’d never define someone by their sexuality but Alison does, as is her right, so there you have it.

For someone who complains about a lack of communication with her mother, you might think it odd that they’re on the phone to each other virtually every day. But what actually happens is that Alison phones her mother in the desperate but vain hope of finally hearing some words of approbation, and then her mother talks at her about her own current focus of interest while Alison just sits there, recording and acting as little more than punctuation marks in her mother’s self-absorbed discourse.

In keeping with making the private public, then, I can relate to that. On the rare instances my father would venture out of his Cheshire-based comfort zone to the sub-cultured city of Nottingham (once every other year for an hour and never staying over), he would bring with him an envelope; and on the back of that envelope would be detailed notes on the topics he wished to pontificate upon without pause to minimise the risk of discovering anything about my own life. He was a frightened (and so very angry) man, but that particular prospect terrified him, and so I fear it is with Alison and her mother who is far from homophobic but just wishes it wasn’t such a public part of Alison’s private life – i.e. in her comics.

“You’re not going to use your real name, are you? Couldn’t you use one of your funny names?”
“That would defeat the purpose!”
“I would love to see your name on a book. But not on a book of lesbian cartoons.”

None of those books, by the way, now collected as ESSENTIAL DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR would have likely seen the light of day without Ma Bechdel’s unconditional patronage in the form of cheques amounting to $5,200 to support her daughter’s creativity in a field she disapproved of. That, folks, is maternal altruism. Doubly unfortunate, then, that Alison’s moved into a second field her mother disapproves of: memoir, full of “inaccuracy, exhibitionism, narcissism”.

“The self has no place in good writing,” declares mother Bechdel. Or has her reaction to the genre been coloured by her inclusion within it? I certainly don’t believe it was an act of belligerence on Alison’s part as any reading of FUN HOME would make clear, and in any case inaccuracy is an anathema to her.

And so we come to the five A4 pages of notes I wrote while reading the proof copy, not one of which have I used here! “True Self”, “False Self”, and quotations like, “Patterns are my existence. Everything has significance. Everything must fit. It’s enough to drive you crazy.” But do you know what? They’re not for me to transcribe – let alone remember which pages they came from! – they’re for you to make for yourselves, or else why buy and enjoy the book for yourselves?

For the record, I like Ma Bechdel. She had a difficult life you’ll discover for yourself, and she has a genuine passion of her own for truth and discovery, even if some of those discoveries are at odds with what she believed:

“Wait, I just read something interesting about memoir, hang on. Are you there?”
“Uh huh.”
“It’s by Dorothy Gallagher. “The writer’s business is to find the shape in unruly life and to serve her story. Not, you may note, to serve her family, or to serve the truth, but to serve the story.””
“Wow.”
“I know! Family be damned!”
“Ha!”
“The story must be served!”

The story, I promise you, is very well served.

FUN HOME’s featured writer was Scott Fitzgerald; this one’s is Virginia Woolf. Excellent!

SLH

Buy Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Catwoman: When In Rome s/c (£10-99, DC) by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale…

Can’t quite believe I have never read this before, because it is excellent, every bit as good as this pairing’s classic Bat-works LONG HALLOWEEN, DARK VICTORY and HAUNTED KNIGHT. And actually, ties in perfectly with events in the weekly BATMAN: ENTERNAL title. Catwoman has taken flight, along with Edward Nigma a.k.a. The Riddler, but merely to Rome for a holiday. Well, it’s not quite all pleasure as our curious feline is after information pertaining to Carmine ‘The Roman’ Falcone. I am reluctant to give too much more away, but suffice to say whilst Selina’s preferred profession might be the pilfering and purloining of valuable trinkets, she’s not exactly a slouch in the detective department, either.

 

 

It was the act of taking a very precious item without the Roman’s permission which has set her on her current collision course of enquiry, and there are interested parties who seem most determined to ensure her investigation does not come to a successful conclusion, just a terminal one. Rather than Catwoman, this focuses more on Selina Kyle-related action, just like the equally artistically appealing and well constructed Brubaker and Cooke CATWOMAN VOL 1: TRAIL OF THE CATWOMAN – which is personally how I prefer it. She even finds time for a holiday romance too, not provided by The Riddler despite his multiple, odious, amorous attempts but a blond Mafia hitman who is seemingly unable to resist her feline wiles. It’ll end in tears – and blood, obviously – for she is a heartbreaker, our Miss Kyle, but will she find the answers she is looking for? And if she does, will they be the ones she wants?

JR

Buy Catwoman: When In Rome s/c and read the Page 45 review here

X-Men: Phoenix – Endsong / Warsong s/c (£22-50, Marvel) by Greg Pak & Greg Land, Tyler Kirkham.

[Spurious “review” with in-joke apologies, this was originally written during the 2006 season of Big Brother and Grant Morrison’s run on NEW X-MEN when Magneto infiltrated the X-Men as new teacher Xorn. I can’t even recall who Big Brother’s Richard even was anymore. Sorry! – ed.]

First time if was ENDSONG, now it’s WARSONG; next time I anticipate LAPSONG SOUCHANG. It might go something like this, with Cyclops and Wolverine strolling down the hall and Professor Jean Luc Picard calling from afar…

[Off camera] “To me, my X-Men!”
“Did you hear something…?”
“Eh, you know how these corridors echo.”
“Well, I’m just going to take a look. It’s been months since the funeral, and not a word from Jean.”
“Dude, it was Jean’s funeral.”
“Your point…?”
[Off camera] “To me, my X-MEN!!!”
“There we go; he’s on the crazy paving again.”
“Professor!  Are the grounds breached?”
“Has your blanket slipped?”
“Are we under attack?”
“Do you need changing?”
“Scott, I’d dropped my saucer! My tea was getting cold.”
“You can’t drink tea from your cup?”
“Yes, but I like to pour it — into my sauce-er.”
“But, Professor, that’s what makes it go cold…”
“And listen, Chuck, can’t you just ask nicely? All this, “To me, my X-Men!” It’s a little –”
“Shakespearian…? Melodramatic…? Morrison-esque…?”
“Rude!”
“Yes, Logan, I see, I see… How about “X-Men, I’ve dropped my saucer! Do come and see that it’s righted!””
“Haven’t we forgotten a little something…?”
“’… Do come and see that it’s righted right now!’”
“…”
“’… Do come and see that’s it’s righted, my dears…?’”

[Strolling away]

“By the way, who’s that guy in the purple cape and helmet, with his gloved mitts in the mansion’s Milk Tray?”
“One of the new teachers, I think.”

[The Diary Room]

“Hello, Eric, this is Big Brother. How are you feeling today?”
“Vain, supercilious and monomaniacal.”
“Oh I’m sorry, Richard, I thought you were somebody else.”

SLH

Buy X-Men: Phoenix – Endsong / Warsong s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy!

Reviews already up if they’re new formats of previous graphic novels. The best of the rest will be reviewed next week while others will retain their Diamond previews as reviews. Neat, huh?

 

Velvet vol 1: Before The Living End (£7-50, Image) by Ed Brubaker & Steve Epting

Escapo h/c (£18-99, Z2 Comics) by Paul Pope

Metabarons Genesis: Castaka h/c (£29-99, Humanoids) by Alejandro Jodorowsky & Das Pastoras

Moomin Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip vol 9 h/c (£14-99, Drawn & Quarterly) by Lars Jansson

Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer Complete Edition s/c (£18-99, Top Shelf) by Van Jensen & Dustin Higgins

Preacher Book vol 4 (£14-99, Vertigo) by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

Before Watchmen – Nite Owl / Dr Manhattan s/c (£14-99, DC) by J. Michael Straczynski & Adam Hughes, Adam Kubert, Joe Kubert, Eduardo Risso, Bill Sienkiewicz

Before Watchmen – The Comedian / Rorschach s/c (£14-99, DC) by Brian Azzarello & Lee Bermejo, J. G. Jones

Green Lantern: Lights Out h/c (£18-99, DC) by Robert Venditti, others & various

Amazing X-Men vol 1: The Quest For Nightcrawler s/c (£13-50, Marvel) by Jason Aaron & Ed McGuinness

Avengers World vol 1: A.I.M.PIRE s/c (£12-99, Marvel) by Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer & Stefano Caselli, John Cassaday

Superior Spider-Man vol 6: Goblin Nation s/c (£13-50, Marvel) by Dan Slott, Christos N. Gage & Giuseppe Camuncoli, others

Fairy Tail vol 39 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Hiro Mashima

Full Metal Alchemist Omnibus vols 1-3 (£9-99, Viz) by Hiromu Arakawa

NGE: The Shinji Ikari Raising Project vol 14 (£7-50, Dark Horse) by Osamu Takahashi

 

ITEM! The cuddliest comic of all time AND the finest comics reportage ever! Forget Joe Sacco, Lizz Lunney investigates Berlin! Serious “Awwwwww… Factor!

ITEM! Loved this image from Luchie: subtle and ethereal, I stared at it for ages. Here’s Luchie’s blog.

ITEM! And this a detail (and what detail!) from a panel by Simon Gane of a graphic novel he couldn’t name yet.

ITEM! Exceptionally fine and thoughtful interview with Brian Michael Bendis on Marvel’s rise from bankruptcy to diversity and the perfect answer to “What’s the superhero comics industry’s biggest challenge?” Triple A+++ points to Abraham Riesman for taking the trouble to include the word “superhero” in that question when most others would fail to even think about it. It doesn’t affect the wider world of comics.

Clue: the biggest problem is some superhero readers’ abysmal failure to act like their heroes. “You know what Captain America would never do? Go online anonymously and shit on a girl for having an opinion”. There’s more, and it’s spot-on.

ITEM! From the creators of THE NEW DEADWARDIANS comes Dan Abnett & Ian Culbard’s WILD’S END mini-series – interview! Here’s Abnett  & Culbard’s DARK AGES comic referred to.

ITEM! Teacher includes Pokemon reference in maths test to perk up kids’ interest. One kid is smarter!

ITEM! Yet another fab Tom Gauld cartoon for the Guardian. Have you tried YOU’RE ALL JUST JEALOUS OF MY JETPACK yet? Includes the funniest three-panel strip I’ve ever read, reproduced there.

– Stephen

Reviews June 2014 week two

Wednesday, June 11th, 2014

I love the way the colour of the crayon mutates to frame the picture it’s written round or to pick out certain elements within it. The drawings themselves are suitably wan in spite of the colours which are far from naturalistic. Hair might be bright red or – in the doctor’s case – in strands of green, yellow and a purple which matches and so complements his loose, short-sleeved smock.

 – Stephen on Everywhere Antennas by Julie Delporte

Petty Theft (£14-99, Drawn & Quarterly) by Pascal Girard…

“She chose my book. Of all the books she could have stolen, she chose mine. It’s flattering.”

Ah, Pascal… what are we going to do with you? Not sure who is less of a Lothario between Pascal and Joe THE POOR BASTARD Matt, but one thing is for sure, no matter how shy they are with the ladies, neither of them shies away from bearing their tortured souls and romantic disasters for our salacious amusement. Yes, whilst I bet writing autobiographical material can be cathartic, I feel it takes a certain… special… type of person to let us into their innermost thoughts and intimate emotions.

In Pascal’s case, between coming off the back of a failed relationship, considering quitting comics for construction, staying with a friend and his family, well, he’s not in a good place, frankly. All the wiser, therefore, not to pursue a young lady who frequents his favourite bookshop but seems to be rather averse to paying for her reading pleasures.

However, her selection of one of his books for her latest freebie, observed by him though not of course the proprietor, is enough to convince our hapless hero they could be star-crossed lovers who are destined to be together. That he’s prepared to go great lengths to see this happens, straying into territory most of us would consider stalking, convincing himself it’s under the auspices of getting the bookshop their books back, well, that’s Pascal for you.

Anyone who enjoyed former Comicbook Of The Month and guide par excellence of how best to embarrass yourself at a school REUNION, or the car crash relationship melodrama that is FANNY & ROMEO in conjunction with Yves Pelletier, will know exactly what they are in for. As with REUNION, though, Pascal has an almost Frank Spencer like ability to pull a happy ending of sorts out of the metaphorical bag, whilst nearly managing to suffocate himself with it in the process…

Great fun!

JR

Buy Petty Theft and read the Page 45 review here

Von Doogan And The Curse Of The Golden Monkey (£6-99, DFC) by Lorenzo Etherington.

Alert! Alert! Alert!

For expert-level, decrytological, bright-as-a-kite minds only, this is terrific!

This is both a thrilling, exotic, interactive Young Readers adventure comic (I know it doesn’t look like one inside but it most emphatically is!), and also a truly testing, multi-layered puzzle book which will require a little lateral thinking and an instinct for picking the single first thread which will then unravel the tapestry of each devious dilemma.

I am not kidding you. I was flummoxed for a while on several occasions then came away grinning my head off at Lorenzo’s wit and ingenuity.

There are no pedestrian mazes, no join-the-dots and no simple “Where’s Wally?” spot-athons; instead you will discover a sequence of site-specific conundra which you’ll need to solve in order to bluff your way out of trouble, escape incarceration, win a very cool card game you’ve never even heard of before and follow your informant from the first clue-clogged package he sends you to an island protected by so many ancient safeguards that even Dame Lara Croft might turn back from it in tears.

First you need to figure out this in order for find that which – only if you are quick-witted and eagle-eyed – will help you slip undiscovered onto the right boat, inspect snapshots of the crew then discern the captain through a process of keenly judged elimination before bumping into the first mate who, let me tell you, can spot a liar and a thief a mile away but has the memory of a prodigiously challenged piece of plankton.

And it’s comics!

It’s comics because it is a story told through a sequence of art which is absolutely essential to the narrative. That so much of said art is a metaphorical crossword so cryptic that arch-dunderhead I was occasionally fooled by it is irrelevant.

Plus the whole family can join in (if you let them) because multiple skill sets are invaluable.

All you will require in addition to this book is a pen or pencil, some scrap paper, a mirror and a pair of scissors. Don’t worry, you won’t need to cut up the book itself: you can download Doogan’s Danger Kit from the website address provided. Solutions are provided at the back (teachers and parents, rip ‘em up now!) as well as the logic by which they’re arrived at.

Plus the puzzles could well generate interest in further activity: want to try your hands at a dozen different rope knots which only sailors and scouts have ever mastered? They’re here!

Right, I’m off to tackle the Nine Vine Incline and I get vertigo on the bathroom scales.

SLH

Buy Von Doogan And The Curse Of The Golden Monkey and read the Page 45 review here

Hellblazer vol 8: Rake At The Gates Of Hell (£14-99, DC) by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon with William Simpson, Peter Snejbjerg.

“What was dying like?”
“Could’ve done it in me sleep.”
“You did.”

Completing the outstanding Garth Ennis run which was as much about friendships as anything else, not only does this reprint HELLBLAZER #72-83 but also the HEARTLAND one-shot set in Belfast which catches up with John’s ex-girlfriend Kit, reveals her family’s harsh history which has had a lingering effect, and takes a look at a city whose streets were habitually patrolled by armed British soldiers from the point of view of a complete outsider as well as a long-standing residents like Kit herself. As always with Ennis the troubles are given careful and level consideration and the dialogue comes with a light Irish lilt which is beautiful.

Almost all of this book is illustrated by Garth’s collaborator on PREACHER, Steve Dillon, and there are few artists who can make a casual conversation – or even a loaded one – as attractive to read as Steve Dillon. His characters are vulnerable and their expressions are not simple but subtle – so many eyes averted or looking down – so when anger or violence explodes his art by contrast is truly shocking.

There are a lot of talking heads in HELLBLAZER: the power of the word can be the most endearing magic or devastating. But there is also a lot of violence.

HELLBLAZER at its best always combines the occult with very real horrors like domestic abuse, bigotry, political and police power misused at the expense of those whom they’re supposed to serve, illness, homelessness and helplessness. The finale partly takes place in the thick of London’s Tower Hamlets during the rise of the right including the B.N.P. and a police force not just systemically racist but overtly so. Crucially John is distracted by that throughout and by an ex-girlfriend he discovers so hooked up on drugs that she is barely coherent and in thrall to a very vicious pimp. He is distracted because he actually cares in spite of his culpable history when it comes to close friends.

Girlfriends are driven away by the shit he cannot resist either embroiling himself in or igniting, and we are reminded well in advance of both romantic and mortal casualties. The moment you even shake hands with John Constantine you are living on borrowed time. Of the friends Garth Ennis introduced us to only Kit, left-leaning urban psychic Nige, ex-army Header and Rick the vicar remain alive as this climax kicks off.

It all harks back to Ennis’s opening salvo, HELLBLAZER VOL 5: DANGEROUS HABITS, in which he gave John Constantine terminal lung cancer with but a few weeks to live. Get out of that one, John! He did, not through hocus pocus but by manipulation. He manoeuvred Satan, the First of the Fallen, and the Second and Third of the Fallen into a stalemate which kept him alive. Ever since then he has screwed over other entities like Archangel Gabriel in such a manner that they might be of use during the retribution he knows is inevitable while continuing to goad Satan himself. Among his many fatal failings, John Constantine simply cannot let it lie. Nor can the King of Hell.

John has always got by on his quick wits and knowledge but now he is neither as sharp as he used to be and – as I say – he is distracted. He has failed to keep track of his pawns.

At which point young Astra, condemned to Hell these sixteen years thanks to John the Con’s arrogance, comes before Satan’s presence with a song. It’s a song Satan’s never heard before: the true history of the Fallen. Let the casualties begin…

Every familiar face you can imagine making a reappearance does so, and a fair few you will never see coming. It is an impeccable climax on every level I’ll refrain from signposting here.

But just in case you think it’s all plot, it is not. Just as Ennis gives voice to life on the streets of Belfast, there is a key conversation between Constantine and the First of the Fallen which reveals what may originally have been Satan’s real role in the God’s Grand Scheme Of Things which is both startling and makes so much sense.

SLH

Buy Hellblazer vol 8: Rake At The Gates Of Hell and read the Page 45 review here

Everywhere Antennas (£14-99, Drawn & Quarterly) by Julie Delporte.

I’m ambivalent about this one.

An evocation of misery and despair in brightly coloured crayon, it follows a young woman’s rapid decline as she begins to experience crippling headaches brought on, she is convinced, by the radiowaves emitted from what are now ubiquitous antennae and household devices from computers to mobile phones.

She is, in essence, allergic to modern living.

France, for example, has few if any “white zones” left free from radiowaves, and the only country to recognise the illness is Sweden. Reading is next to impossible.

“I manage a paragraph or two but I can’t concentrate. I keep at it, I start over… I feel like everything is a huge waster of time… And I feel like crying.”

What worries her most isn’t the imminent exam she would be doomed to fail, but her future which she feels certain she’ll fail too. All of it. “Could I even teach in this state?” The doctor is typically useless, prescribing antidepressants.

“It makes no sense to me. I don’t have headaches because I’m depressed – I’m depressed because I have headaches.”

Rather than give in, however, she tries a complete change of location and lifestyle in the country but although the headaches ease off, her obsessive worries have by now taken root, and her self-confidence has given way to self-loathing.

I suspect Delporte has just successfully given voice to thousands of misunderstood sufferers whose illness has gone unrecognised and therefore untreated. You can’t make sure massive, relatively sudden and unnatural changes to one’s natural habitat in and to which the human body has gradually evolved and expect there to be no repercussions.

It isn’t comics, it’s illustrated prose: take away the images and little is lost except eye candy. But I do love the way the colour of the crayon mutates to frame the picture it’s written round or to pick out certain elements within it. The drawings themselves are suitably wan in spite of the colours which are far from naturalistic. Hair might be bright red or – in the doctor’s case – in strands of green, yellow and a purple which matches and so complements his loose, short-sleeved smock.

I don’t know if this a complete red herring, but a few of the bits stuck on intrigue me.

“Would I have blown off the exam if my father had been around more? I don’t know.”

The word “know” covers another. Was it simply a spelling error or badly written, or does it replace another word or phrase like “care” or “think so”? “Obsessive” is merely crossed out.

There’s a bizarre choice of countries to move to later on given what we already know about radiowaves, and a curious anthropomorphic, black and white digression in the middle. The contents are perfectly relevant but I can’t fathom the relevance of the anthropomorphism. As to the image sitting aside an anecdote about a young Buddhist monk, I am completely baffled.

Ambivalent, as I say, but I’m pretty sure that the plural of “antenna” is “antennae”.

SLH

Buy Everywhere Antennas and read the Page 45 review here

Jonathan Starlight (£2-99, self-published) by Ethan Wilderspin…

“I’ve not been sleeping lately. Maybe it’s because I’m unhappy.
“Am I happy?”

Ah, now that’s a big question to start every day with. Fortunately for Jonathan Starlight, a teenager who bears more than a passing resemblance to an alien with a Santa Claus hat-like bobble quiff, he seems to have his head screwed on and priorities straight. Faced with the endless billboards on the way to school that suggest happiness is a mere purchase away, he knows being suckered in by mindless consumerism won’t make him happy. Until he sees the advert for the Zombie Slayer 2 game, that is. But, even then, it seems as though mindless video game violence doesn’t quite fill the angst-shaped hole in his heart. I wonder what might?

 

This 16-pager is Ethan’s first comic and it’s a hoot. I was greatly amused by the not-so-subliminal advertising messages pushing society’s various distractions, and those alone show a wonderful sense of comedy. The punchline and cure for Jonathan Starlight’s insomnia when it comes, made me chuckle too. Hand-bound with green yarn in simpatico with the cover just for good measure, you can see Ethan has a care for his craft which I am sure will take him places. Having heard some of his and his cohort James’ plans for future output I don’t doubt that is the case. Prison being one of them possibly…

Watch this space!

JR

Buy Jonathan Starlight and read the Page 45 review here

Afterlife With Archie vol 1: Escape From Riverdale (£13-50, Archie Comics) by Roberto Aguirre Sacasa & Francesco Francavilla…

“Sorry to disturb you, sir. But, Mr. Lodge, I’ve been trying to sneak into your daughter’s room for as long as I can remember, and I know what a fortress this place is…
“If humanity is going to be making its last stand in Riverdale, it’s gotta be here, at Lodge Manor.”

Okay, first up, you don’t need to have read any all-ages Archie comics to enjoy this work, which arguably manages to simultaneously be a parody and pastiche of its ultra-innocent self, given that it both mocks and celebrates one of America’s longest running comics which began way back in 1941. All you really need to know is that Archie and Jughead are best friends, the latter usually rescuing his somewhat headstrong mate from yet another scrape of his own creation, and that Archie seemingly has the hots for every attractive girl in town. Two of them form his main, if not by any means exclusive, love interests: the ever-attentive girl next door Betty and the well-to-do arch-manipulator Veronica, resulting in an endless love triangle that has produced more mystery and mayhem over the years than even the Bermuda one.

We did for many years have a mysterious Beeston Triangle in Nottingham that afflicted young Tom’s attempts to get into work from said suburb by bus, breathtakingly described to me as “passing the QMC”. Which itself could take a good hour.

Moving more swiftly on, following the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse everyone is safely sequestered inside the relative safety of the formidable residence of Riverdale’s richest man, awaiting rescue by the authorities. Now what could possibly go wrong?

“One last thing, are all the children safe? And accounted for?”
“Yes, sir. Err… well… that is… except for one…”
“… Andrews.”

Yes… Archie Andrews, the bane of Hiram (father of Veronica) Lodge’s life. Having got all the kids who were at the High School dance to Lodge Manor, Archie has slipped out through the secret passage he was more used to using for nocturnal trysts with Veronica, this time to try and rescue his parents. I’m quite sure Hiram Lodge is hoping Archie doesn’t make it back intact, as it would be fair to say that he doesn’t have the highest of opinions regarding Riverdale’s resident heartbreaker extraordinaire. Events after this point really don’t go to plan for Archie, or indeed anyone else, and I have to say I was genuinely surprised by how moved I was by what happens.

I have no idea who came up with the genius stroke of deciding to do what is effectively an Archie / WALKING DEAD mash-up, but they deserve a medal, because this manages to be both hilarious and genuinely affecting at the same time. All the various characters foibles are dialled up to preposterous levels for maximum comedic effect, whilst the horror, when it begins in earnest, is played completely straight. It’s actually a very clever manipulative trick to put such typically comedic characters through the horror wringer, because subconsciously I just wasn’t expecting it to get as heart-wrenchingly dark as it very quickly does.

Suitably spooky art from Francesco Francavilla, most definitely designed to evoke the style of the classic CREEPY COMICS and EERIE COMICS, this just proves that even when you think that a comic’s title as old as time has surely run its course, done everything it can possibly do, there’s still some life in it yet… until a zombie sinks its teeth in.

JR

Buy Afterlife With Archie vol 1: Escape From Riverdale and read the Page 45 review here

Attack On Titan Colossal Edition vol 1 (£42-99, Kodansha) by Hajime Isayama –

Whopping great new edition of the £8-50 softcover (still in stock) reflecting the scale of the problem at hand! It’s album-sized, reprinting the first five books (oh yes!) and contains (some) colour pages which weren’t even in the original Japanese editions!

We now return you to our Dominique:

ATTACK ON TITAN is set in a world which has been all but overrun by giant humanoid beasts many metres tall. No one knows where they came from or what they are; the only thing they seem to want to do is eat human beings whole. And so, over 100 years after the beasts emerged humanity has been pushed back into one little corner of the planet. A few small cities (well, more like large towns, really) exist inside a series of walls which are constantly guarded in case the behemoths should attack again. But it has been a century since the wall was last breached so everyone is probably safe right? Yeah…

When we meet the group of youngsters we are going to follow through the story we see some familiar themes. A headstrong young man who wonders about the world outside the walls. He dreams of joining the Survey Corps who undertake the dangerous mission of going out into the world to try to make sense of everything. His group of peers, some of whom share his dream while others thinking he is barmy and his sister, who never leaves his side, muttering something about her duty to protect him after she was brought back from the dead. She never seems particularly happy, sad or anything else. Just resigned and, occasionally, worried. We never see her without a scarf around her neck.

Though we begin with a perfectly normal day things, of course, soon go to pot. One minute our guy is having dinner with his family, his father (slightly incongruously) promising to finally show him the big secret in the basement. Then the alarm sounds and chaos descends as a colossus appears and begins destroying the wall. In fact you can see him *over* the wall, at 50 metres tall he is many times the size of a Titan. 100 years of preparing for an attack evaporate in a heartbeat as the outer wall is devoured by this new monster. A desperate evacuation follows but many lives are lost.

A year later we find our group (those who survived, anyway) about to graduate from their training and humanity holed up inside an even tighter boundary, the lands behind the first wall lost to the Titan invasion. The colossus is still out there, the Titans are still out there and it feels for all the world like humanity is just waiting, maybe even hoping for the coup de grace. What can our heroes do in the face of such (literally) massive opposition?

So this manga has a bunch of classic elements: wilful protagonists, family tragedy and a foe so hideous it seems like a case of when, not if humanity will be destroyed. There are a few touches and elements which set it apart from run of the mill, though, which is probably why the manga has proved so popular in Japan. There are flashes of repressed memory which get you thinking that all may not be as it seems inside the walled enclave. It seems like there are lots of secrets and undercurrents to be explored. And there is a very detailed and ingenious combat system involving lines and winches which allows the tiny humans to actually go into combat with the giant enemy, though always at great personal risk. There are no punches pulled when it comes to that combat: death isn’t by a tidy death ray or an annihilating stomp. It’s all bitey and disgusting and in places really quite disturbing, which actually brings the characters closer to your heart because, bless them, they don’t have it easy.

Most striking for me was the sheer ickyness of the Titans. They are so close to being human and yet so obviously inhuman, all teeth and unsheathed tendons. They seem mindless, except for their determination to devour their prey and their lack of obvious reason or communication skills leaves any negotiation or bargaining out of the question. They give me the same visceral heebie-jeebies as the album cover to News of The World by Queen used to as a kid, or the sleeve art to the Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds. Just… *shiver*. I can see why this series is so popular in Japan and I can’t wait to read more.

DK

Buy Attack On Titan Colossal Edition vol 1 and read the Page 45 review here

Toshiro s/c (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Jai Nitz & Janusz Pawlak…

Long-gestated project which at last gets a publisher that, as one of the creators’ comments in the afterword, will finally outlive the character. It’s a steam-punk / samurai / zombie / Lovecraftian mash-up as the titular character, a steam-powered robot samurai, fights for the forces of good alongside a mysterious American adventurer in Victorian England.

I did quite enjoy it. There are some interesting plot devices and amusing dialogue, though I found the art a trifle confusing at times. If you like steam-punk material generally, or some of the period B.P.R.D. spin-offs like ABE SAPIEN VOL 1, or maybe even samurai shenanigans like USAGI YOJIMBO at a stretch, I think it will have some appeal. It’s certainly no NEW DEADWARDIANS in terms of horror with a twist, though it is written well enough.

JR

Buy Toshiro s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Guardians Of The Galaxy / All New X-Men: The Trial Of Jean Grey h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Stuart Immonen, Sara Pichelli.

Kitty Pryde: “I hate space. I’ve had very bad luck in space.”

Yes, you have.

Third book of the current GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY series and the fifth book of ALL NEW X-MEN both written by Bendis with a great deal of mischief and charm. Moreover Pichelli and Immonen are such a perfect match that you won’t see the join.

They’re thrilling and yet subtle artists with complete command of body language and interaction which is vital when you’re working with Bendis because interaction is all. Also, I see so many teenage superheroes bulging with muscles whereas here the young X-Men are as lithe as you like.

In MARVEL MASTERWORKS: UNCANNY X-MEN VOL 5 an adult Jean Grey lost control of the Phoenix Force and gobbled up a sun, effectively committing genocide as its orbiting planets’ populations went with it. The Shi’Ar put her on trial, not least because she turned rather tetchily on them as well. They basically made sure she was dead.

Now a much younger Jean Grey has been whisked from the past to the present along with her team-mates, the Shi’Ar have found out, want to put her on trial and basically make sure that she’s dead. The point is put to the Shi’Ar’s Gladiator over and over again that this Jean Grey has not yet committed the crimes she’s being charged with and possibly never will. Gladiator really doesn’t care. He’s not interested in justice, he’s out for blood. He basically wants to make sure that she’s… yup.

Guardians and X-Men to the rescue.

It’s some of Bendis’ best writing recently, with Shi’Ar telepath Oracle acting as counsel for Jean Grey so effectively stuck in the middle. There’s plenty of playful dialogue between both sets of friends, like Star-Lord to Gamora:

“What is a Canada?”
“It’s cold and distant. You’ll love it.”

Rocket Racoon has christened Gamora and Angela the Murder Girls. They are effective, Angela believing in decapitate first, ask questions never. Sending her into battle as your advance party is good strategy.

“Gentlemen… It’s time to move to the second part of the plan. But I have to warn you… it’s a little messy in here.”
“Angela, will you marry me?”
“You’re too short, Rocket.”
“This is Gamora..”
“Oh. Then I’ll think about it.”

One of Bendis’ many endearing trademarks is the complete lack of defensiveness he imbues his characters with when it comes to gender and sexuality. Here’s the delightfully juvenile Bobby Drake (Iceman), given to squealing “Yike-a-hooty!” when attacked and who, as drawn by both artists, continues to be an absolute sweetie.

“I just like talking to the talking raccoon. It makes me feel like a Disney princess.”

“We’re here because… princess?”
“What? I’d make a better princess than you.”

Amazingly the Guardians’ sentient, bipedal tree’s singular declaration “I am Groot!” has yet to wear thin. His name is indeed Groot, but he’s not necessarily introducing himself. “I am Groot” could mean any number of things from, “I don’t like line dancing at the best of times but you’re treading on my toe” to “If you think I’m wearing mauve, you are very much mistaken”.

Dale Keown and Jason Keith’s cover to ALL NEW X-MEN #23, published in the back, plays with this beautifully.

SLH

Buy Guardians Of The Galaxy / All New X-Men: The Trial Of Jean Grey h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Stormwatch vol 2 s/c (£14-99, DC) by Warren Ellis & Tom Raney, Bryan Hitch, various.

“Think for yourself and question authority.”

That is the single best piece of advice that was ever given to me, by a maths master when I was twelve. Actually, he instructed, “Always ask why”.

Stormwatch are the UN-sanctioned international, satellite-stationed, superhuman taskforce orbiting the world in order to keep an eye on it and, using that eye, keep it in order. Its leader is called The Weatherman and its current Weatherman is Henry Bendix. Henry Bendix is pathologically insane.

In this second half Ellis’ run on STORMWATCH which runs smoothly into THE AUTHORITY VOL 1 by Ellis & Hitch (you will hear much mention of the word “authority” right from the get-go), Stormwatch finds itself stymied again and again by an America with vested geopolitical interests. They will also find themselves stifled, for Henry Bendix has vested interests of his own.

First they encounter The High who has been contemplating the human condition for decades. An anti-establishment superman who loathed those who preyed on the poor, he once engaged in liberating tenants from corrupt landlords etc. Indeed he once dallied with Stormwatch Black’s Jenny Sparks, now almost a century old but looking a little under thirty (the bitch!). But he left to meditate, to cogitate on what more he could do than to save but a few. Now he has gathered cohorts around him and the man has a plan as broadcast to the globe thus:

“Fighting crime is no good unless you look past crime, to its root. Saving the world is no good if we leave it the way we found it. It is our intent to hand you a saved world, to offer you tools that will make you great. And then – you will never see us again.
“When we are done, you will be able to provide for yourselves, for free. You will want for nothing. All of your society’s structures will be removed. No laws, no authoritarian structures, no crime, no war. In a few hours it will begin.”

He offer us a Utopia, and the freedom which comes with it. It’s the ultimate in altruism and The High genuinely means it. He seeks no control, only to assist. Here’s what’s on offer:

“The Engineer will seed nanotechnological oases across the planet, and inform you of their use. These will be your horns of plenty.”

Oh dear, he’s anti-capitalist.

“The Doctor will initiate a program of education about the natural resources of this world, its plants and magic. He’ll show you the door to a whole new world just sideways to this one.”

Uh-oh, he’s pro-personal-enlightenment.

“And I’ll talk to you. We’ll share ideas I’ve had. Use, them, ignore them, whatever. During the coming days you may see some of my friends in your cities, towns and villages. They’ll speak your language. Talk to them.”

Now he’s about breaking down borders and instilling worldwide cooperation.

“One final message. There are those of you who will seek to stop us. Don’t. Please.”

They do.

Under Ellis STORMWATCH began changing the landscape of superhero comics: its potential, political emphases, its wit, its sexual mischief and its periodical instalments’ structure. He even found novel ways of explication without insulting the intelligence. With THE AUTHORITY VOL 1 Warren Ellis terraformed it, so paving the way for Millar & Hitch’s THE ULTIMATES, the very pinnacle of the superhero science-fiction subgenre including – I kid you not – WATCHMEN. But the changes, they begin here and it is fascinating to watch.

It is a series packed full of political intrigue, international espionage, strategy, subterfuge and personal betrayal. In The High, Henry Bendix has met his match in terms of second-guessing, precautionary measures and indeed ruthlessness. Without Bendix I confess that the series does falter, not least because Rayner is replaced by an artist so insipid we cannot even be arsed to name him.

But wait! THE AUTHORITY’s Bryan Hitch is on the horizon and he brings with him Apollo and Midnighter, first seen post-coitally pulling their clothes back on even though no one spotted that at the time. No one! It’s not just Hitch’s neo-classical figure work which will wow, either: his storytelling transforms the series, injecting a kinetic awe, and you wait until you see his dazzling cityscapes at sunrise as enhanced by Laura DePuy.

Appropriately this book begins and ends with blonde Brit iconoclast Jenny Sparks whose middle name is so evidently Attitude. Along the way you will pick up hints of what is to come: an Engineer (male), a Doctor (black), Apollo and Midnighter in the buff (I may have mentioned that), plus Swift and Jack Hawksmoor because I can promise you that – other than them – there is no one left alive at the end of this series.

An asteroid threatens to enter Earth’s orbit, so a team of two shuttles is dispatched to land and lay explosives so sending its trajectory into the sun. Two problems: a) it isn’t just an asteroid, there’s a spaceship within; b) one of the shuttles successfully makes it back home…

There is an episode missing from this, yes. There’s not much that even DC owned by Time Warner can do about that. Lord knows what price they paid for publishing the periodical in the first place. Still, at least Jenny Sparks and co. thereby discover the transdimensional Bleed.

Leads straight into Ellis & Hitch’s THE AUTHORITY VOL 1.

“There has to be someone left to save the world.”

SLH

Buy Stormwatch vol 2 s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy!

Reviews already up if they’re new formats of previous graphic novels. The best of the rest will be reviewed next week while others will retain their Diamond previews as reviews. Neat, huh?

 

Hoax Psychosis Blues h/c (£19-99, Ziggy’s Wish) by Ravi Thornton & Hannah Berry, Karrie Fransman, Leonardo M. Giron, Julian Hanshaw, Rozi Hathaway, Rian Hughes, Rhiana Jade, Ian Jones, Mark Stafford, Bryan Talbot

New Lone Wolf & Cub vol 1 (£10-50, Dark Horse) by Kazuo Koike & Hideki Mori

Baltimore vol 4: Chapel Of Bones h/c (£18-99, Dark Horse) by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden & Ben Stenbeck

Cat Person (£13-99, Koyama Press) by Seo Kim

Doctor Who: The Cruel Sea (£14-99, Panini) by various

Showa 1939-1944: A History Of Japan vol 2 (£18-99, Drawn & Quarterly) by Shigeru Mizuki

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane s/c (£10-99, Harper Collins) by Neil Gaiman

Catwoman: When In Rome s/c (£10-99, DC) by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale

JLA: The Deluxe Edition vol 5 s/c (£18-99, DC) by Mark Waid & Bryan Hitch, Paul Neary

Red Hood And The Outlaws vol 4 s/c (£12-99, DC) by James Tynion IV & Julius Gopez various

Deadpool: Night Of Living Deadpool s/c (£12-99, Marvel) by Cullen Bunn & Ramon Rosanas

Wolverine: Worst Day Ever h/c (£10-99, Marvel) by Barry Lyga & various

X-Men: Phoenix – Endsong / Warsong s/c (£22-50, Marvel) by Greg Pak & Greg Land, Tyler Kirkham

Gangsta vol 2 (£8-99, Viz) by Kohske

Ranma 1/2 2-in-1 vols 3 & 4 (£9-99, Viz) by Rumiko Takahashi

 

ITEM! Haha! They so cute! Jonathan Edwards & Felt Mistress’ mascots for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in a boardroom meeting. If I owned that photo I’d turn it into a caption competition.

ITEM! Luke Pearson on his five new Charlie Mortdecai Penguin Book covers – and the covers! Delicious colour scheme.

ITEM! Stewart Lee interviewing Alan Moore on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

ITEM! Marc Ellerby draws a new CHLOE NOONAN comic about his comics to help fund his… comics. Brilliant!

ITEM! Lots of lovely original festival sketches via Jock.

ITEM! Massive tidal wave by Marc Laming. Phenomenal sense of weight, power and tension.

ITEM! Two poignantly contrasting Chris Ware covers for the New Yorker.

ITEM! Time lapse vimeo of Oliver East painting his giant murals for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival.

ITEM! Dave Sim on CEREBUS past, present a future plus new work. Best interview with Dave I’ve seen in a long, long time.

ITEM! Goodness! CALVIN & HOBBES creator Bill Waterson really has returned to comics – in secret – and here’s how. Funny!

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Reviews June 2014 week one

Wednesday, June 4th, 2014

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 – Stephen

Umbral vol 1: Out Of The Shadows s/c (£7-50, Image) by Antony Johnston & Christopher Mitten.

Oh, this positively glows – it glows red and purple!

It’s a formidable artist who can slash out choking-smoke nightmares that are both amorphous and fully formed: to be as intangible as a shadow yet as vicious as jagged rows of sharp sharks’ teeth, their eyes and mouths blazing with fire as if furnaces fuel their pitch-black souls.

Basically, I’d run.

But where do you run to when you’re trapped in the Umbral? The only apertures in this other dimension are riddled with skeletal spikes like a giant lamprey’s mouth and risk snapping shut like a Venus Flytrap. The ground could give way any minute. And Rascal is not alone in there.

Fans of PORCELAIN are going to lap this up.

A solar eclipse approaches the kingdom of Fendin. On such an occasion the day dawns twice and then, the songs say, “Shall the dark shadows fall”. The crowds are gathering to see King Petor and Queen Inna wave from the balcony to reassure them that all is well. More specifically they want to see the Mordent – a staff that has survived three rebellions, two wars and dozens of King Petor’s ancestors – grasped by King Petor, safe and sound. Petor is fretting; the more confident, no-nonsense Inna is irritated at the absence of their son.

Their son is Prince Arthir and he… has a date. A date with young orphan Rascal, raised by smugglers and trained by thieves. Oh, it’s not that sort of date, though they are more than a little fond of each other. Rascal is a member of the Thieves’ Guild and she has acquired a vial of the Mist. That will help them steal through the trophy room’s cage and acquire the sacred Oculus, a purple orb whose true purpose has been “lost to time and myth”. But whatever it was that spell-caster Prince Arthur intended to do with the Oculus is rendered irrelevant, for the Oculus is missing and high Redguard Borus lies slaughtered in his own congealing blood. Worse still, the trail of blood looks like it leads to the throne room…

As for what follows, the nimble, quick-thinking and ever resourceful Rascal is in for some mind-melting shocks and a run for her bloody life. She runs full-pelt throughout most of this book through caverns and taverns, trusting few who come near. The Umbral are shape-shifters, you see, and they’ve been here before. Some of them never left.

This is dark fantasy and world-building at its best: power struggles are already in play by the time it kicks off, some of them going back centuries if not millennia. You will learn why magic and religion are illegal, which wars are still raging and the origin of the Umbral themselves; but crucially you are going to have to wait a full six chapters to do so. A series seeking to prove its own cleverness by bludgeoning you with everything immediately and all at once only bogs itself down and can bore early readers to bits. Instead this thunders along at a furious pace giving Rascal little time to take stock. You learn as she learns, and I hope she learns fast because some of those she once trusted are not as they seem.

Old man Dalone has me most intrigued but it’s the one-eyed smuggler called Shayim who makes me laugh, flashing her blade at everyone and everything:

“I will open you up from mouth to moon.”

Ouch. She has a colourful way with words.

John Rauch, Jordan Boyd and Thomas Mauer provide the colours and lettering and the whole package is exquisitely designed. I’m completely in love with the symbol language of spell casting which manifests itself as crimson, purple and yellow speech orbs. Also, wait until you discover the subterranean Mistwalker merged with the rock to guard its treasures. It’s like something out of early Tombraider: you can tell Johnston also writes games.

He’s also a dab hand at dialogue which is both effortlessly entertaining and deliciously free from the sort of portentous claptrap and mystical mumbo jumbo other occult-orientated series bore me with. The Umbral swear like nobody’s business.

Johnston & Mitten are the creative team behind the fast-closing, post-apocalyptic WASTELAND about which Warren Ellis declared, “Mysteries within mysteries and an original mythology to become immersed in”. Antony is also the manipulative mastermind behind spy thriller THE COLDEST CITY whose 50 exclusive Page 45 bookplate editions we sold out of very, very quickly and £7-50 for six issues is an absolute steal.

SLH

Buy Umbral vol 1: Out Of The Shadows s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Bunny vs. Monkey Book One: Year One January – June (£6-99, DFB) by Jamie Smart.

“What are these things? Can I eat them?” CHOMP!
“They’re hedgehogs.”
“Argh!”
“And no, you can’t.”

Haha! Immaculate comedy timing as ever!

From the creator of FISH HEAD STEVE and abducted from the pages of the weekly PHOENIX comic for kids, watch bewildered beasts Bunny, Monkey, Weenie, Skunky, Pig, Metal Steve, Le Fox and Action Beaver “Eeek!”, “Shriek!”, “Screeeam!”, “Ftung!” and “Whoosh!” their way through two-page parcels of manic mentalism.

Monkey will not tolerate anything vaguely lovely. Woodland bluebells? I don’t think so.

“SHRIEK! Monkey, what are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m lawnmowing these things into oblivion!”
“But they’re beautiful!”
“They’re a virus! They make me feel awkward!”

The sun?

“Nope, it won’t do. This place is becoming disgusting and pretty, and I find it offensive. I’m taking these hedgehogs and I’m going to prang everyone’s bottom with them.”

Like a sugar-stuffed blackcurrant cordial, this is chaos concentrate distilled for mass destruction and maximum disaster with Monkey enlisting Skunky to build ever more insane inventions like Caterpillarzilla consuming every last trace of nature with its nitro-chomp! Action Beaver’s vocabulary consists of solely of sound effects while Weenie the squirrel and Pig the pig have the collective memory of a goldfish.

None of which would work were the cartooning anything short of the most carefully controlled and cleverly conducted insanity. Each element within a panel is just-so: the sound effects are arranged like scores on a sheet of music.

“It was a quiet morning, until…
“AUGH!”
CRASH!
“TAA-DAAAA!!”

Even the volume levels are precisely regulated. It’s not as easy as it looks. On the surface it’s a bunch of hyperactive delinquents making Bunny’s love of a quiet life a loud and bombastic nightmare.

Okay, at its heart it’s also a bunch of hyperactive delinquents making Bunny’s love of a quiet life a loud and bombastic nightmare. But chaos needs order to work so well, and bonkers needs logic to thrive.

“It’s lucky I lost the map, or this might be the wrong way!”

Stick that in your sat nav and steer it.

“Oh, I blocked your toilet by the way.”

SLH

Buy Bunny vs. Monkey Book One: Year One January – June and read the Page 45 review here

Trees #1 (£2-25, Image) by Warren Ellis & Jason Howard…

“I was there ten years ago when they landed, Del.
“I remember the panic. ‘We’re being invaded by alien spaceships!’
“I remember the fighter jets. I was there for the first flooding when the leg went through downtown.
“I remember days going by before we even found out it’d happened anywhere else.
“Weeks before we found out nukes and biochem inactivate when they go near a tree.
“Months going by, and nobody ever coming out of one or communicating from one.
“I remember years later, when all the Trees became normal. Just things that stand on us.
“You know what I remember best?
“No cop lifting a finger. Fending for ourselves. Building our own infrastructure from debris.”

Somewhat perturbing that this particular speech-maker wants to be mayor of New York, but then why should post-apocalyptic politicians be any less corrupt or criminal minded than their predecessors? Not that we are in a full scale post-apocalyptic scenario, for aliens do indeed seem to have landed, but then done absolutely nothing else. Consequently whilst everything has changed in an instance, people are just getting on with their lives, doing exactly what they were doing before. Humans are a pretty adaptable species, after all. Transplant us from one place to another, either as individuals or en masse and we will start to thrive, working our way into the local ecosystem. Much like plants…

 

 

 

What we have therefore established is a backdrop against which Warren begins to introduce some of the various characters which I presume are going to feature heavily in this series: politicians, scientists, artists, and of course everyday folk. And be assured this invasion, if that really is what it is, is on a global scale. No one knows exactly how many trees there are world-wide, at least that hasn’t been revealed yet, but they are literally everywhere from the Antarctic to the equator, standing solitary in the remotest regions and also piercing the centres of bustling metropolises.

I am quite sure however they aren’t going to stay so passive forever… Just a hunch that, but we do know how Warren likes to build the tension up first, before letting all hell break loose! Very nice art from Jason Howard, not someone I am familiar with, but I would wager he is a fan of Guy Davis.

JR

Buy Trees #1 and read the Page 45 review here

Brass Sun #1 (of 6) (£2-99, Rebellion) by Ian Edginton & I. N. J. Culbard…

“Heed not the dissenter! Be not lured from the winding way by their wild abstractions!
“Stay constant!
“Stay steadfast!”

No, not Stan Lee proselytising on avoiding non-superhero comics at all costs, but the followers of The Cog extolling the virtues of being vigilant against the temptations of believing in The Watchmaker. And as the Archimandrite himself is behoved to exhort upon hearing Speaker Eusabius mention such a blasphemous term…

“Speak not that name in these halls! The Cog is, was and always shall be! The Cog was not created by a charlatan prophet! The Cog is creation!”

Maybe, maybe not. It would seem to be a question of faith, misplaced or otherwise… Me, I can’t say I’m a true believer, no matter how hard Stan preaches, but what cannot be disputed is The Cog itself is very real indeed, as yet another epic astronomical introductory sequence by Culbard makes clear. It really is becoming quite the trademark. The world Edginton has created, of a technologically devolving society, living on what seems to be a planet somehow mounted on an impossibly complex mechanical structure bearing, I should add, more than a passing resemblance to watch parts (waiting tensely for divine bolt of lightning to sizzle my private parts), is equally grandiose in concept, magnificently so in fact, both in scope and design. Design… hmm…

The populace at large, though, are almost singularly unaware of their situation. Those who think they know the truth, far fewer in number than the hoi polloi, but of course who have control, are doing their best to avoid dealing with the fact that their world is gradually, year on year, getting colder, with summers shortening and the winters becoming ever more harsh. Almost as though a watch were winding down (air positively crackling now!)…

The one person who does seemingly know the real truth, or at least considerably more than anyone else, a former high official of the church of The Cog, is about to commit a very elaborate form of suicide, both to save his granddaughter from the authorities and also to attempt to absolve himself for a frankly irredeemable sin. That this act will enable his granddaughter to undertake a revelatory journey, both for her and by extension us, is also part of his intentions. Without wishing to spoil anything, it’s perhaps suffice to say The Watchmaker, well, it might not be an entirely abstract concept. But then worlds don’t just make themselves? Or do they?

What a brilliant opening issue. I’m hooked, and if Rebellion are planning on further titles that can match this quality, because frankly both the writing and the art are brilliant, the two Ians have truly done a sterling job here, then we could be looking at an excellent new monthly publishing imprint for this type of material. It is apparent publishers like Rebellion, Titan and Dark Horse have looked at the success of Image over the last few years and are beginning to try and emulate it. Rebellion are off to a great start with this mini-series.

JR

Buy Brass Sun #1 and read the Page 45 review here

Ordinary #1 of 3 (£2-99, Titan) by Rob Williams & D’Israeli.

“You let people down. It’s… who you are.”

Drawn with such energy and coloured to sunshine perfection, I came away laughing, “What the serious fuck?!”

Truly, we are on the road to random. Utterly bananas.

Michael is a muppet. A divorced plumber with a son in school… somewhere… he is perpetually late, increasingly broke, in debt to some thugs and in spite of a widow’s peak of raggedy, receding hair he dreams of his chances with actress Scarlett Johansson.

Today he is late assisting his mate with an octogenarian’s crapper. The assistance in question is taking on the old biddy’s verbal incontinence while Brian finally gets down to the plunging. On his way he encounters said thugs and in the middle of “negotiations” a plane breaks down. Well, its engine goes boom. Then everything starts to change.

Well, every one. I don’t want to spoil the surprises but even the taxi driver appears to have experienced an epiphany of sorts – calmness, satori, enlightenment. If he was in London, he might even drive south of the Thames.

Everyone except Michael, that is, who is freaking the fuck out and I seriously can’t blame him.

I have absolutely no idea where this is going, but I suspect it will be another waterslide ride like Grant Morrison & Richard Case’s DOOM PATROL: totally mental but you cannot stop and sure can’t get off so you might as well sit back and adore the insane trajectory.

D’Israeli delivers on the sweaty, weeping desperation department swiftly followed by the stooped head and sunken shoulders of a broken man.

Also: lovely, subtle foreshadowing of strange things to come in the form of a kid’s golden aeroplane.

Here, have an interview: http://scifipulse.net/2014/06/comics-writer-rob-williams-chats-about-ordinary-doctor-who-and-more/

SLH

Buy Ordinary #1 and read the Page 45 review here

Moomin And The Golden Tail (£6-99, Drawn & Quarterly) by Tove Jansson.

“It’s been worrying me for days. Yes! It is getting thinner! What will Snork Maiden say if it goes bald?”

He’s taking about his tail.

It is a worry, isn’t it, male pattern baldness? Some find it so stressful that their hair falls out.

Moomintroll’s so embarrassed and upset that he’s taken to bed and is cowering under the blankets. Hilarious cartooning! Still, the family physician is at hand with a stethoscope.

“Breathe! Stop breathing!”
“But there’s nothing wrong with my tummy… It’s my tail.”
“Oh that… that’s only symptomatic.”
“Good heavens, don’t let my tail go symptomatic…”

Moomintroll’s prodded and poked and X-Rayed and “observed” until Moominmamma’s had enough. She’s really quite cross.

“Now I’m getting tired of all these cryptic specialists. I’ll cure the boy myself. Ah! Here it is! Grandma’s recipe for a magic potion…”
“Mamma, where are you going?
“Back to the Middle Ages.”

Against all expectations the spell works like a dream, hence the title. The repercussions, however, are enormous.

Tove Jansson was ahead of her time on so many issues like ecological disaster so MOOMIN hasn’t dated one jot, and this in particular is as pertinent as ever. In for some merry mockery over 50 full-colour pages are: fame, hair loss tonics, quacks of all kinds, tabloid journalism and its lies, lies, lies; fan mail, flattery and the follies of fashion; opportunistic merchandising, tyrannical management and interminable, deliberately protracted lawsuits than make only the lawyers any money. Worst of all – oh dear God – the most excruciating endurance tests ever conceived… the dreaded cocktail party!

SLH

Buy Moomin And The Golden Tail and read the Page 45 review here

Glacial Period h/c (£16-99, NBM) by Nicolas De Crécy.

The first and finest of the Comics Lit / Louvre collaborations returns in a much classier, album-size hardcover on matt cream paper which really shows off the winter colours. There’s a constant chill in the air and some of the skies are phenomenal.

Highly edifying as well as hilarious, the book follows an expedition consisting of one woman, some talking dogs and several men rife with rivalries as they explore the frozen wastes of the future before a giant structure which used to be the Louvre in Paris erupts through the ice and draws them down into its long-lost corridors.

Struggling to make sense of their discoveries, they get it all wrong. It seems we’ve lost more than our history – we’ve hit another dark age of art:

“How is it done? It’s flat, yet you sense the depths. It’s an avalanche. You can imagine its breath.”
“It’s a coded message, or a simple representation of their lives.”
“Yes, it’s a message meant for us. They knew they were doomed, hemmed in by the cold, and, since they didn’t know how to write, they drew like children.”

Yeah, well that particular painting was Louis Hersent’s “The Monks of Saint Gothard” so nul points for accuracy there.

Other blunders include mistaking the ecumenical for the erotic, the pagan for the pornographic, and a mythical satyr for a real-life genetic anomaly. In fact they mistake all these individual exhibits for a single historical narrative – a graphic novel, if you will. Brilliant!

SLH

Buy Glacial Period h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Black Science vol 1: How To Fall Forever s/c (£7-50, Image) by Rick Remender & Matteo Scalera, Dean White…

“Sequestered in my lab… there was a beauty in the self-imposed loneliness.
“And when it was too much there was Rebecca.
“Wedding vows… more rules I wouldn’t follow.
“Built my anarchist league of scientists on reason and empiricism.
“No tolerance for blind obedience, financial motivation, ego, or politicking for station.
“Built on one rule… there is no authority but yourself.
“After a lifetime of powerlessness and insecurity, opposition to authority forced me to have faith in myself.
“To trust my own judgement… to prove, motivated solely by the fire within… a self-educated main could master the laws of the universe.
“To prove that there is only one type of person capable of breaking down such barriers…
“…an anarchist.”

Rick ‘The Mindbender’ Remender unleashes the unfettered power of his weird imagination upon us in this surrealist science fiction adventure. I do like Rick’s work, really enjoyed his sci-fi-esque take on UNCANNY X-FORCE and semi-quasi sequel UNCANNY AVENGERS, which, I think, is on the verge of concluding. He takes no prisoners when it comes to comprehension – you of him, that is – which has possibly reduced his readership numbers on the Marvel front, vol 2 onwards of UNCANNY AVENGERS (when it really gets going properly) being too self-referentially complex and convoluted for some, for example, but it has certainly bolstered his core fanbase who like the cut of his jib. The man can write a damn good yarn.

Now, on Image, casting the capes and tights aside in exchange for spacesuits and blasters, he’s commenced what instantly has the feel of a pulp classic of the genre. Drama, humour, mortal peril and crazy technology, it’s a nice blend of ridiculous which blasts into life right from the first page. Grant McKay, leader of the Anarchistic League of Scientists, who let’s be honest, sound like a complete bunch of nutters straightaway, has had a slight, if unsurprising, accident with his bleeding edge Black Science technology. Cast adrift in the endless realms of the Eververse, amidst alien worlds so weird it makes your head hurt – giant toads, that’s all I’m saying – can he lead his team home? This title feels like it is in part inspired by the classic Weird Science and Weird Fantasy comics, whether they are something Rick has an affection for, I have absolutely no idea. I am pretty sure he is having great fun writing this, though, that is gleefully apparent.

With Matteo Scalera on art duties, a man who rivals Sean Murphy for drawing the most pointed proboscises in all of comicdom, there are myriad panels I would swear Murphy had drawn if I didn’t know otherwise, and a cerise and cyan-tinged colour palette which will seem not entirely unfamiliar to UNCANNY X-FORCE and UNCANNY AVENGERS readers – something I am starting to wonder if Remender has some serious input on, actually – this helps give the book a gritty, stylish retro-modern look.

JR

Buy Black Science vol 1: How To Fall Forever s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Sledgehammer 44 vol 1 (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi & Jason Latour, Laurence Campbell, Mike Mignola…

“Jeez, was this trip necessary? I mean, what’s so damn important in that armoury, anyway? And where’s our air support?”
“For Pete’s sake, Redding! Weren’t you even listening at the briefing? Tonight we’re the support!”

Indeed they are, not that the titular Sledgehammer needs support or even a warm up act. Well, maybe he does, actually… The grunts on the ground think Sledgehammer is a man encased in armour, which in a sense he is, but in other very important ways he most certainly is not. There are supernatural forces at work, precisely as we would expect in a story set in the HELLBOY universe penned by Mignola. I mainly read this to see whether it was required material for HELLBOY / BPRD readers, or whether it was a spin-off.

It is the latter, but it is excellent. It does feature Professor Trevor Bruttenholm and Doctor Gallaragas, whom I presume is Professor Gallaragas’ daughter, inventor of the V.E.S. (Vril Energy Suit) as seen in LOBSTER JOHNSON VOL 1: THE IRON PROMETHEUS. Time and technology has moved on since then, so I am sure you can join the dots for yourself as to what power source the allies might be using for Sledgehammer.

As I say, you don’t have to read this as it doesn’t tie-in in any way with current events in HELLBOY IN HELL VOL 1 or BPRD: HELL ON EARTH, but if you like all the various character spin-offs such as the LOBSTER JOHNSON material or, like me, in particular the BPRD: 1946, 1947 and 1948 arcs featuring Professor Bruttenholm, I think you will really enjoy it. Also, the supernatural Super-Nazi with the highest and hottest hairdo on the battlefield, the Black Flame, returns… Art from occasional BPRD contributors, so in keeping with that title’s typical rough and ready style.

JR

Buy Sledgehammer 44 vol 1 and read the Page 45 review here

Miracleman Book vol 1: A Dream Of Flying h/c (£22-50, Marvel) by Alan Moore, Mich Anglo & Gary Leach, Alan Davis, Don Lawrence, Steve Dillon, Paul Neary…

“I’m Miracleman… I’m back!!”

Indeed. I really can’t be bothered to get into the whole ‘original writer’ shtick. It’s Uncle Alan Moore, for the one person in all of comicdom who doesn’t know. The first part was originally published in March 1982, in the very same issue of Warrior as the first part of V FOR VENDETTA, so Moore was already into his full creative flow and this was around the time he also was doing a fair few futureshocks for 2000AD (prior to THE BALLAD OF HALO JONES in 1984) and also some pretty seminal, and frankly pretty out there for the time, CAPTAIN BRITAIN stuff for Marvel UK with Alan Davis.

Re-reading this material for the first time in a good few years, as indeed whenever I re-read V FOR VENDETTA, you can easily forget what an expansive yet eloquent writer Alan was at the time. I’m not saying he isn’t now, but it’s hard to get away with being so verbose, so wordily dense, in comics, yet here, as with much of his SWAMP THING run, he carries it off easily. It’s almost comics with an overtone of narrative prose in places. Perfect for setting the scene, or unsettling the reader… for whilst your eyes are telling you one thing with the artwork, Alan is in fact implanting something into your subconscious that is slightly different, a little deeper, and also darker with the narration.

In fact, this material does indeed have a mild flavour of horror to it, but that may also be with me knowing where the story is eventually going… Yes, it’s superheroes, but there’s an definite edge to it which is just as equally apparent as compared to the more overtly political V FOR VENDETTA. I do remember, though, when I first read the whole run, including the subsequent Neil Gaiman material, wondering if Alan had a clear idea of precisely what, if anything, he wanted to achieve in a wider sense with MIRACLEMAN when he started. Maybe he did have something in mind, though maybe he had more than enough going on in that respect with V FOR VENDETTA. I’m intrigued to see if I have that same sense this time around. Lovely art from Garry Leach too. Not sure why he didn’t go on to do a lot, lot more in comics. I have a strange recollection he did at least draw one issue of GLOBAL FREQUENCY.

Do you need to read this? Should you read this? The answer for me is definitely so. It is a seminal work in many ways, which clearly influenced much of what was to shortly follow in the rapidly darkening superhero genre (remember, Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN weren’t until 1986) but also in a wider comics sense. Superhero comics have often been, are, at their most interesting with heroes who are fundamentally flawed, riddled with doubts and insecurities and, most of all, that unforgiveable cardinal sin in the superhero credo, vulnerable instead of just plain, well, invulnerable. Yes, there were comics before this one that did that, but this work in my eyes does represent something of a turning point, however small, for the genre in and of itself. Anyway, read it for yourself and make up your own mind.

Contains the first four recent reprints and a wealth of extra back-up material including scans of original art, preliminary roughs, WARRIOR covers, house ads, more.

JR

Buy Miracleman Book vol 1: A Dream Of Flying h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Marvel Boy s/c (£11-99, Marvel) by Grant Morrison & J. G. Jones.

Matrix action half-baked with INVISIBLES meta-language to produce the ultimate in contra mundum, as a young alien with a ferocious line in diplomacy finds himself shot out of the skies by a technology thief calling himself Midas.

The assault kills all Noh-varr’s colleagues, leaving him alone to escape torture and dish out the global reprisals, carving “FUCK YOU” in sky-scraper-sized letters and then take on Hex, a living corporation, all of which he performs in his cycling shorts.

Here comes the language:

“He’s seething with submicrotech! His body fluids are nanoactive! Xenohazard alert!”

With slick and sexy balletic art from J. G. Jones of Mark Millar’s WANTED etc., this completely self-contained series was the very first appearance of YOUNG AVENGERS’ Noh-Varr.

SLH

Buy Marvel Boy s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Cataclysm Ultimates Last Stand h/c (£37-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Mark Bagley, various.

Some sources said this was to be the death knell of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe. I wasn’t sure whether I should be pinching salt or tickling its ribs, but it was far from improbable given that interest in the various series outside of Miles Morales’ had plummeted.

And in some ways it was its death knell because – once more outside the subsequent Miles Morales relaunch which came with quite the cliffhanger – there is now zero interest in any of the abominable titles that lamentably limped from this wreckage.

Following events during the AGE OF ULTRON, a hole has been torn in the time-space thingummybob and globe-gobbling Galactus has found his way through to a brand-new dinner table: the Ultimate Universe. It is woefully unprepared, and not just in the crockery department.

This invulnerable grim reaper, so vast he makes Manhattan look like Legoland, has made it to Earth and trampled the whole of New Jersey to dust. Nothing the Ultimates have found to throw at it has even raised its eyebrow. In the regular Marvel Universe only Reed Richards successfully managed to stave off the ravenous appetite of this world eater, but the Reed Richards of the Ultimate Universe has chosen the distinctly different career path of monomaniacal would-be world tyrant.

What’s to do? as Victoria Wood might say.

Bagley’s interior art delivered the sense of scale which this cover does not while Bendis fell relatively silent for the initial onslaught, letting the action rip across the page right from the start, but since this includes every single mini-series which attended and even preceded the event (like HUNGER), the rest is a very mixed bag.

Among the 20 issues here is the prologue which smoothly and succinctly explained everything you needed to know about the situation as it stood, regardless of whether you’d picked up AGE OF ULTRON or indeed a single Ultimate comic before, whilst delivery an affecting tale of love understood just in time to be too late.

SLH

Buy Cataclysm Ultimates Last Stand h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy

Reviews already online if they’re new formats of previous books. Otherwise the most interesting will come under the microscope next week, while the rest will remain with their Diamond previews acting in lieu of reviews.

 

Hellblazer vol 8: Rake At The Gates Of Hell (£14-99, DC) by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon, William Simpson, Peter Snejbjerg

Von Doogan And The Curse Of The Golden Monkey (£6-99, DFC) by Lorenzo Etherington

Adventure Time Eye Candy vol 1 h/c (£14-99, Titan Comics) by various

Adventure Time vol 3 Mathematical Edition h/c (£14-99, Titan Comics) by various

Afterlife With Archie vol 1: Escape From Riverdale (£13-50, Archie Comics) by Roberto Aguirre Sacasa & Francesco Francavilla

Jonathan Starlight (£2-99, ) by Ethan Wilderspin

Morning Glories vol 7 (£9-99, Image) by Nick Spencer & Joe Eisma

Star Wars Ongoing vol 2: From The Ruins Of Alderaan (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Brian Wood & Ryan Kelly, Alex Ross

Mass Effect: Foundation vol 2 s/c (£12-99, Dark Horse) by Mac Walters & various

Toshiro s/c (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Jai Nitz & Janusz Pawlak

Batman And Robin vol 3: Death Of The Family s/c (£10-99, DC) by Peter J. Tomasi, Scott Snyder & Patrick Gleason, Ardian Syaf, Gerg Capullo

Batman And Robin vol 4: Requiem For Damian h/c (£18-99, DC) by Peter J. Tomasi & Patrick Gleason

Before Watchmen – Minutemen / Silk Spectre s/c (£14-99, DC) by Darwyn Cooke, Amanda Conner

Stormwatch vol 2 s/c (£14-99, DC) by Warren Ellis & Tom Raney, Bryan Hitch, various

Swamp Thing vol 4: Seeder s/c (£12-99, DC) by Charles Soule & Kano, Jesus Saiz, Alvaro Lopez, David Lapham

Uncanny Avengers vol 3 (UK Edition) s/c (£12-99, Marvel) by Rick Remender & Steve McNiven, Daniel Acuna

Attack On Titan Colossal Edition vol 1 (£42-99, Kodansha) by Hajime Isayama

 

Nottingham Independent Business Award

Voting has begun in the first stage of the Nottingham Independent Business Award 2014 and only the ten most popular businesses will get through to be secretly shopped and assessed by the judges!

Thanks to your votes not only did Page 45 get through in 2012 and 2013 but we won both years! Yippee! Here on page 3 is silly old me, Stephen L. Holland extolling the virtues of Independent Retail in the Nottingham Independent Newspaper June 2014.

Please, please vote! You don’t have to be local – that’s half the point – a Nottingham business that generates tourism!


Here’s how:

1. Tweet @itsinnottingham with “I vote for Page 45” or something similar.

2. Comment “I vote for Page 45” on the It’s In Nottingham Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/itsinnottingham I’m sure you can elaborate if you want to!

3. Fill in voting cards at Page 45 itself by Thursday 19th June.

4. Email info@nottinghambid.com with (you’ll never guess) “I vote for Page 45”!

This may sound greedy, but I very much want the hat-trick on the year of our 20th Anniversary after which I promise to leave you in relative peace.

Your votes won’t guarantee Page 45 wins by any stretch of the imagination – after that it’s up to us to provide the level of personal customer service you’re used to and dazzle the judges with our effortless wit and charm (ruh-roh!).

Big love to Diane, Judi et al at Gemini PR & Marketing for all their kindnesses over the last two years. Splashes like that lovely page 3 are invaluable in helping us reach a wider public and introduce it to the comics and graphic novels we all adore!

Cheers,

– Stephen x

Your regular ITEM!s will return next week. Linking some up as we speak!