Cloonan’s infused the book with a sensual, sexual exoticism, most alluringly and arrestingly on the appearance of raven-haired Bêlit, the sub-titular Queen Of The Black Coast. With her eyes afire and tongue thrust out between ruby-red lips spitted with blood, she’s like a silent Siren with the seduction of a snake and our young, steel-willed stud of Cimmerian is completely in her thrall.

 - Stephen on Conan #1

 

The Life And Death Of Fritz The Cat h/c (£12-99, Fantagraphics) by Robert Crumb.

He da man! He da cat wit’ da hat! He’s hung up, strung out, uptight, outta sight! He’s whatever he needs to be to get laid. He is, in fact, one long list of learned behaviour, regurgitating what’s expected of him by his peers whilst incapable of articulating anything beyond the buzzwords of the day.

“Something’s calling me out there, Winston! And my soul is heedin’ the call…! I gotta go! The soul of a poet is forever cursed with the quest to see what’s over the hill! To discover all that is hidden behind the next bend in the road!”

Truly, he is going to “bug out”, dragging lost-suffering girlfriend Winston with him.

“Ahh, Winston! My love! At last we’re zoomin’ down that ol’ lonesome highway! Ahh, it’s wild!”
“Yes, it’s marvelous!”
“Marvelous, my ass! It’s exalting! Elating! That cool night wind blowin’ past the window… Man!”
“I’m hungry… Let’s stop someplace…”
“Th’hell with stoppin’… I just want those miles t’keep flying by!”
“I’m hungry!”
“Okay! Okay! Let’s dig one o’ those little greasy truck stops… I’d like ta talk with those truck drivers… ‘n’ hear what they gotta say about life on the road! Yeah… I bet they got wild stories of the road… drivers.. trucks… hijackers… yeah!”

Needless to say reality fails to match the irresponsible idiot’s vacant daydreams. “You’d be completely lost without me,” warns Winston, and he is. Abandoning her in a broken-down car in the middle of nowhere, it’s not long before he’s a bum, “ridin’ the rails” and imagines that to be romantic too. It isn’t. A wannabe revolutionary, at one point Fritz burns his books to liberate himself from learning; also, his flat, thereby liberating a whole tenement full of friends and neighbours from anywhere to live.

It’s satire, of course, Crumb ripping the piss out of so-called sensitive souls dissing all others as phoneys. You know what I mean. It’s rife in any subculture: cliques looking down on others as impostors for not wearing the right ankh or whatever. In the secret agent escapade the satire extends to America’s fear of communist infiltration and the prevalent reduction of the Chinese, proclaimed by our monarch’s main man to be “slitty-eyed bastards”, to cartoon villains unable to pronounce the letters ‘L’ or ‘R’. I confess laughing out loud at the names Captain Stin Ki Chin Ki and Tung Nchiki but then I’m equally prone to laugh when Harry Enfield sends up all manner of English class caricatures like Wayne and Waynetta Slob and Tim Nice But Dim. You can disappear up your fundamental orifice worrying about stuff like that.

It’s beautifully drawn, even the earliest material. Fritz’s face is as expressive as all get-out, though you may be surprised at how dainty Crumb’s line is mid-period. One thing, however, remains consistent throughout and once more it’s Winston who hits the juvenile nail on its dream-addled, sex-obsessed head.

“Oh you’re such a child! Such a self-centred, egotistical child!”

Fritz the Cat: leading sex kittens aplenty right up the garden path. Or into the bath. Or into a pond. Oh god, that’s his sister.

SLH

Buy The Life And Death Of Fritz The Cat h/c and read the Page 45 review here

San Diego Diary (£3-99) by Gabrielle Bell…

“Those guys over there are discussing some movie rights deal. Everyone here is pursuing their fantasy, confined within this hypercapitalistic world…
“Is there anyone here who believes in creativity more than commodification? Who would walk away from the temptation and think for themselves?
“Like Alan Moore when he said, “I will not allow my name to be associated with this movie. This is not what I do.””
“Maybe only people who can afford to can make such a statement.”
“I don’t think so. I think somewhere in the world someone is happily drawing pictures in the sand on a beach and when the tide comes in and washes it away he draws a new picture the next morning.”
“That person doesn’t exist, capitalism reaches every part of the world.”
“I disagree, because I believe there is magic in the world.”

Ever imagine what a comic convention must be like for a lesser-known creator? For someone who isn’t one of the slavering fan-boy favourites? Well, wonder no more as Gabrielle Bell takes her friend Tom toSan Diegoto ‘enjoy’ the delights of Comic Con in all its gaudy glory. Insightful, amusing auto-biographical material finely pencilled in a style which is what probably Chester Brown would be exactly like after 6 beers. That is, of course, a compliment.

JR

Buy San Diego Diary and read the Page 45 review here

L.A. Diary (£3-99) by Gabrielle Bell…

“In France you are expected to kiss someone you’ve only just met on the cheeks. InCaliforniayou’re expected to embrace them. I grew up here inCalifornia, in a culture of hugging but I never got used to it. And lately, I’ve realised whenever I’m hugged, I retreat inside somewhere inside myself and wait for it to be over.”

Almost as much fun as SAN DIEGO DIARY, this work covers Gabrielle’s everyday life in LA doing yoga, sketching and a fair amount of socialising, even if she’s still a little uncomfortable with the usual Californian manner of greeting each other. I really loved the two pages that cover her take on the whole meeting and greeting someone, and precisely who must have been responsible for inventing the hug as a formal greeting. There’s much anyone planning on attempting autobiographical comics could learn from Gabrielle, in particular her ability to cram in myriad events, conversations and narration without the panels and pages ever once feeling cluttered. You always come away from one of her minis feeling like you’ve just read a whole graphic novel, which is a pretty good trick to be able to pull off.

JR

Buy L.A. Diary and read the Page 45 review here

Conan The Barbarian #1 (£2-75, Dark Horse) by Brian Wood & Becky Cloonan.

Mesmerising. Cloonan’s infused the book with a sensual, sexual exoticism, most alluringly and arrestingly on the appearance of raven-haired Bêlit, the sub-titular Queen Of The Black Coast. With her eyes afire and tongue thrust out between ruby-red lips spitted with blood, she’s like a silent Siren with the seduction of a snake and our young, steel-willed stud of Cimmerian is completely in her thrall. The final six pages, coloured to perfection by Dave Stewart are disorientating as hell, and don’t bode well for Conan.

None of which would have worked half so well had Wood not successfully built the barbarian up first as a charismatic and capable man of action: a natural, gifted storyteller far more likely to do the charming than be charmed himself, and more than a match for a capital city’s finest elite guards. As the story opens, after a run-in with Messantia’s corrupt courts, Conan has made a swift exit by sea which is far from his natural element. This has made the captain and crew of the boat he boarded by force personae non gratae on those particular shores, but when they turn their trade elsewhere they hear word that Bêlit, infamous pirate and captain of The Tigress, is circling the waters off coast of Kush like a hungry shark. For Tito and his crew that means sailing those seas is an unacceptable risk; for Conan it’s an irresistible challenge. He’s young, impetuous and about to discover that he’s completely out of his depth.

Best-drawn Conan since Sir Barry Windsor-Smythe’s. Next issue there will be actual sharks. I’ve seen them and they’re petrifying.

SLH

Buy Conan The Barbarian #1 by dispatching a carrier pigeon to page45@page45.com or yelling down the gulley on (0115) 9508045.

Undertow h/c new edition (£14-99, Soaring Penguin) by Ellen Lindner…

Ahh, partly due to being a massive fan of Walter Hill’s seminal classic film The Warriors, I’m a guaranteed sucker for all things Coney Island-related. And here we have a glimpse of what life was actually like for 1950s poor working classNew Yorkyouth whose only respite from a pretty austere and rather tough existence was to head to the beaches and amusement parks of Coney every weekend and cut loose. Hard drugs, gang fights, unsafe sex all helped to temporarily assuage a general feeling of pointlessness to their lives. They could see the rich kids with all their advantages making good and moving onwards and upwards whilst they got left further behind and stuck, usually for life, in the poorest boroughs ofNew Yorkwith little real prospects of their own.

UNDERTOW’s main character is the sassy Rhonda, a smart girl already suffering emotionally and physically at the hands of her alcoholic parents, and on top of that now struggling to come to terms with the unexpected death of her best friend. At this uncertain time she finds herself strangely attracted to the rich Chuck who has come down to her neighbourhood to do some social work as part of his college education. It provides a stark contrast between the lives of the haves and have-nots at the time, and a poignant example that despite what successive governments throughout the ages may trumpet out, social mobility has never been an easy thing to achieve and if you really want to better yourself, it’s up to you to do something about it. Others may be able to provide help, albeit slightly pious and perhaps self-serving, if well meaning help, but you have to believe you can make the change for yourself. Rhonda is a typical example of someone smart enough to be able to help herself but, beaten down continuously by her surroundings, she’s finding it hard to believe she can actually do it. But as Rhonda’s budding romance with Chuck shows hints of blossoming further, is one of them perhaps using the other, or are they actually falling for each other across the social divide? Can a romance started on such shifting ground ever succeed at all or will the inevitable tides of class and money pull them apart again before it even really begins?

I loved UNDERTOW; this is great piece of period fiction, where the main protagonists all perfectly fit the time and place without feeling the slightest bit stereotyped or caricatured. Lindner expertly captures the simultaneously bleak and grubbily hedonistic feel of lower working class ’50sNew York. UNDERTOW isn’t merely a romance story, although it does deliver that key aspect of a good romance – you willing the characters to get together whilst they ebb and flow to and fro, towards then away from each other – but it’s also a great piece of social history too. Her art style is perfect for this story, as these characters aren’t people who hide their emotions but display them for all to see. She certainly does an excellent angry girlfriend and sheepish boyfriend! I loved the attention to period detail too, with the huge cars, the hair styles, the boys’ leather jackets and the girls’ skirts, and the ever-present, slightly worn but kitsch interiors. The palette of black and white with very light blue tones helps to convey the ’50sConey Islandmood perfectly.

JR

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

Jim Henson’s Tale Of Sand h/c (£22-50, Archaia) by Ramon K. Perez…

Interestingly, glancing around the internet, I note I am not the only person to make an immediate connection and comparison between this work and the 1968 Monkees’ “psychedelic comedy-adventure” film Head. That film, written and produced in part by Jack Nicholson (who also produced the soundtrack) and heavily, heavily influenced by LSD, is primarily meant to be a stream of consciousness burble about the nature of free will, and most definitely has much in common, concept and content-wise, with Henson’s screenplay for Tale Of Sand.

Which makes it all the more surprising, given that Henson was pitching his screenplay to studios around the same time that films like Head were being made, that it didn’t get picked up. This is undoubtedly a far tighter single concept story than Head; in fact on the face of it, it’s just one long extended dream / nightmare chase sequence, with a psychological undercurrent that gets resolved right at the conclusion. I would have thought it would have been ideal for an experimental film. Evidently so did Henson.

Happily for us (the altogether more low-budget, though no less beautiful medium of comics),  the masterful penstrokes of Ramon K. Perez finally allows Henson’s dream to see the light of day. There’s little I can add to my comments about the plot. Instead, I’ve posted some artwork on the product page to give you a glimpse of the bizarre world Henson envisaged and Perez magically transports us to. There’s no doubt in my mind that Henson, undoubtedly a master craftsman himself, would have been absolutely delighted by, and enchanted with, Perez’s adaptation. This is a beautiful constructed work, and who knows, may start a whole new trend for adapting screenplays which have never been made. I like to think Henson would have got a real kick out of that if so.

JR

Buy Jim Henson’s Tale Of Sand h/c and read the Page 45 review here

The Invention Of Hugo Cabret h/c new printing (£18-99, Scholastic Press) by Brian Selznick –

Hugo, a boy who lives in the walls of aParistrain station, keeping the clocks correct, is also the possessor of an automaton that does not work. His attempts to mend it and solve the mystery it represents, without telling his own secrets, lead him into jeopardous contact with a bitter old man who runs a toy booth and a bookish girl, both of whom have secrets of their own. The narrative resolves their mysteries, discovers their identities and explores the ways that memory and media can be interlocked. It also acts as a celebration of creativity, and shows that in making a work of art one will live on in the imagination of later generations.

This is a clever, atmospheric, lyrical and thoughtful book that employs a distinctive combination of word and image. It does not move swiftly, unfolding like a dream rather than engaging with action, but offers a great deal to readers of any age. The main appeal is that of solving the mysteries in the narrative, but just as interesting is working out how the book works, an exploration which itself reflects the parts of the narrative that focus on the repair and maintenance of clocks and automata.  

Overall the book is dominated by text, but this is interwoven with a range of images. Some of the images are stills from films, whilst others operate as storyboards, offering a sequence of images that move the action on for key moments in the narrative. The images are one image per page, or per double page spread, so using a structure more typically associated with picture books than novels or comics. These devices set the tone of the narrative, which initially offers a cinematic movement from a long shot ofParisat night to a close up on the central protagonist, giving a sense of space and journeys within the narrative. It also gives important clues as to the root of the mystery. These images sometimes supply all the information for a part of the narrative, but also sometimes repeat what is in the text (the written text is sometimes rather directive). This combination of repetition and carrying key information can be destabilising for the reader (in a good way) and also maintains the dream-like air and the mystery and fantasy of the narrative.

 - Dr. Mel Gibson for Page 45

Buy The Invention Of Hugo Cabret h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Quest For The Spark: A Bone Novel: Book Two (£8-50, Scholastic) by Tom Sniegoski.

More prose I’ve no time to read just now (I have some short stories on the go written by MOOMIN’s Tove Jansson), but checking the full-colour Jeff Smith illustrations, everyone appears to be present and correct including the Stupid, Stupid Rat Creatures.

SLH

Buy Quest For The Spark: A Bone Novel: Book Two and read the Page 45 review here

Fear Itself: Secret Avengers h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Nick Spencer with Cullen Bunn & Scot Eaton with Peter Nguyen.

“So… you’re not fighting to stay here. You’re staying here to fight.”
“No, no… You’ve still got it all wrong, my friend. To stay here is to fight.”

While battle rages all around in a Blitzkrieg USA, while the population cowers, its soldiers barely holding the line and its heroes running out of time, options and confidence… while FEAR ITSELF grips the nation and the wider world as well… one man in Washington D.C. is determined to make a stand, holding the political floor he struggled so hard to secure. His name is Congressman Lenny Gary, he has an empty chamber but the cameras are still running, and he will secure funding for a desperately needed health clinic forWest Virginia miners even if the walls come tumbling down upon him. Please see quotation above.

This book which could so easily be dismissed as “the SECRET AVENGERS that isn’t by Brubaker or Ellis” will surprise you. Or maybe not because apart from one short story this is all written by EXISTENCE 2.0 /3.0’s Nick Spencer and drawn by DOOMWAR’s Scot Eaton, and they’ve turned it into a remarkably thoughtful series of short stories set away from the main action.

The above co-stars the Beast, while another relates how Brunhilde first impressed Odin enough with her love and defiance for him bestow upon her the mantle of the Valkyrie, ferrying the souls of dead warriors toValhalla. She’ll be doing a lot of that after this war is over.

But most nuanced of all, however, is a conversation about death between the editor and writers or an online newspaper and an initially enraged Black Widow. Her lover, Bucky Barnes, has fallen in battle during FEAR ITSELF. He died on the front line, but the newspaper claims it’s a hoax. In retrospect – now that we know that it was indeed a hoax solving all sorts of political problems (see CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE TRIAL OF CAPTAIN AMERICA and PRISONER OF WAR, the CAPTAIN AMERICA: FEAR ITSELF book when that appears and the current WINTER SOLDIER series reviewed last week) – it’s laden with all sorts of additional ironies. But even when we thought Bucky dead it raised my eyebrows, the arguments flying into all sorts of unexpected territories. If death is more final for civilians and their families than it is for superheroes (in their fictional world), which feels it more? Those without any hope that their loved ones will be resurrected, you’d have thought. Well, Natasha has some very sound counter-arguments about the grieving process, one’s need to let go, one’s need to build a new life for yourself, and what it would mean for your lover to return to the land of the living when you now love another. Scott Summers.  Moreover, if you have a car accident one of the first things you’re encouraged to do is get back in the metaphorical saddle as soon as possible for fear you’re discouraged for life. Imagine getting straight back in the saddle of battle after being killed in conflict. That’s got to take some guts! There’s plenty more where that came from, I assure you.

Perfectly shiny art from Scot Eaton in the Butch Guice / Stuart Immonen / Dale Eaglesham vein.

SLH

Buy Fear Itself: Secret Avengers h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Secret Avengers #22 (£2-99, Marvel) by Rick Remender & Gabriel Hardman.

“Picking up a large blast of organically magnified energy in the Dera Ghazi Khan district of Pakistan, resulting in several hundred civilian casualties. No mutants detected on a sweep of the area.”
“Who will we vilify in their absence?”

Well done, Rick: another masterfully written McCoy. The Art Adams cover to this new creative team’s take on Steve Rogers’ covert Avengers screams, “Look! You can come back kids! This is no longer that odd Avengers title Nick Spencer made thought-provoking and Ellis turned into GLOBAL FREQUENCY II. This is much, much safer with colourful costumes, Hawkeye at the helm and even a brand-new Avenger in the form of Captain Gaudy-Pants Britain himself!”

All of which does Remender, Hardman and ace-colourist Bettie Breitweiser (see WINTER SOLDIER reviewed last week) a huge disservice for – the scenes featuring Captain Britain aside – this has so far proved plenty interesting with a startlingly unusual set-up beginning with a suicide bombing in Pakistan market place. There a young woman and her infant son have been shopping for cumrin, turmeric and bay leaves to prepare a small feast for Papa’s return. They believe they’ll eat well, but when the bomb goes off it’s the explosion she devours in an instinctive act to protect her child. It would have worked too, except when the military crowd round, only concerned for her safety, the bewildered mother reacts once more, entirely against her will, expelling the inferno she absorbed through her mouth. If that wasn’t startling enough the act appears to trigger reactions in four other individuals around the world, the nature of which I still haven’t quite figured out yet, let alone the punchline which appears to feature some pretty major Marvel characters a most unlikely meeting.

So basically stick around, at least for a while, if only to laugh at the idea that you could send someone dressed like CaptainBritaininto any arena and still remain covert. I bet his underpants are an absolute riot.

SLH

Buy Secret Avengers #22 without opening your mouth at page45@page45.com or phoning (0115) 9508045. If you melt the receiver at your end, that’s your problem.

Daredevil vol 1 h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Mark Waid & Paolo Riveria, Marcos Martin…

Well, that was a short road trip wasn’t it? Guess it didn’t take Matt Murdock too long to realise home is where the radar-sense-detectable heart is. And obviously there’s always a need for a little cleaning up in Hell’s Kitchen, that’s for sure, which is of course the NYC locale which Matt has made his own personal stomping ground over the years. Whenever there are some local hoodlums who need a good stomping on that is, not to mention super-villains and various semi-organised shadowy plotters.

So after the events of SHADOWLAND and DAREDEVIL: REBORN, arguably two of the weakest DD arcs for a good long while (hey it’s a personal opinion), are things back on billyclub bouncing-off-five-walls-before-crunching-head track? Yes, I believe they are. This is all about set up, in more ways than one. Various shadowy organisations have decided to pool their resources, in a manner which slightly defies belief, frankly, given how vulnerable it leaves them should a certain item fall into the wrong hands… say a certain costumed, club-wielding vigilante. Can you guess what’s coming next? Well, probably not, I suspect, which is why I think Waid’s run may already be shaping up to be a blinder. Figuratively, obviously, no imminent attack from radioactive trucks to the reader intended or implied.

We also have one of the finest fight scenes I’ve read in a while as Matt uses his brain as well as his brawn to work out exactly how to defeat his opponent. And I think I’m going to end up loving Paolo Riveria’s art too. It’s got a certain old-school flavour which may not be to everyone’s taste after the uber-gritty one-two combo of Maleev and Lark which worked us all over so effectively on the Bendis and Brubaker-penned runs. This distinct change of style is probably exactly what was required though, to take the title forward again.

JR

Buy Daredevil vol 1 h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Fantastic Four: Season One h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & David Marquez.

First of a series of Marvel graphic novels going back to characters’ earliest adventures, embellishing their skeletons and thrusting them into a more modern context. Some will be delighted at the renovation, others will be enraged at the sacrilege. I if ever do care less about something I’ll be sure to let you know.

Perfectly competent, this incorporates the four adventurers’ first flight and fight with the Moleman, their run-in with Namor, and obliterates all sense of their early, natural naivety and gradual adjustment to powers and popular attention. Boring! Next?

SLH

Buy Fantastic Four: Season One h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Batman: Time And The Batman s/c (£10-99, DC) by Grant Morrison, Fabian Nicieza & Tony Daniels, David Finch, Cliff Richards, Andy Kubert, Frank Quitely…

“How am I supposed to follow your insane leaps of logic?”
“Exactly. Maybe when you do, you’ll be good enough to be Batman. Trust me. It’ll all make sense one day.”

Honestly it will. If Dick Grayson says so, I believe him anyway. Probably the superhero question we got asked most frequently in late 2008 / early 2009 was, “So how come if Batman dies when the helicopter blows up and sinks in the harbour at the end of BATMAN R.I.P. is he alive and well until he dies in FINAL CRISIS then?” Well, finally, all is revealed with the publication of the two-parter ‘R.I.P. – The Missing Chapter’ that explains exactly what happened to Bruce between those two events. Actually, Grant being Grant, it’s quite a bit cleverer than that, as we get some snippets of information, sly nods and cheeky winks here and there, that also make segments of FINAL CRISIS and THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE clearer and more coherent as a whole too, as well as finishing BATMAN R.I.P. off properly.

Of course Grant being Grant, those two issues are prefaced by a story called ‘Time And The Batman’, featuring Batmen of several eras past, present and future which I had to literally read three times to understand. It is most definitely a proper detective story though, with a classic ‘locked room’ case to crack… if you can follow it. The story as a whole is exceptionally well put together, with substantially different art from several quality contributors to help emphasise the jumps in time, and there are loads of amusing references for the Bat-literati to pick up on.

Oh, and yes, there’s a rather good Fabien Nicieza-penned story thrown in with this volume for good measure too.

JR

Buy Batman: Time And The Batman s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Superman: The Black Ring vol 1 s/c (£10-99, DC) by Paul Cornell & Pete Woods.

“Lex Luthor! Kneel before GRODD! You have walked into my ambush! And I have brought my biggest Combat Spoon — to eat your tasty brains!”

Grodd, it should be pointed out, is a giant gorilla.

He slurps down cerebella like oysters from a shell in order to absorb their knowledge. But he’s about to bite off more than he can chew, just as Luthor is about to bite the proverbial dust and so meets his taker: Death of The Endless. Or does he? Well yes, he does meet Death but not under normal circumstances.

In or around BLACKEST NIGHT, Lex Luthor came in possession of an Orange Lantern Ring and it gave him the power he’s always secretly craved: the power of a superman. Now that power is gone but the Ring’s left its mark of avarice and what he craves now is more: the power of the Black Ring energy which reanimates the dead and seemed to have dissipated as the Black Rings disintegrated. But surely it must have gone somewhere and left tracks in its wake?

The search takes Luthor fromAntarcticaandUganda, and with him come assistants who are necessarily obsequious if they don’t want a hole in the head. Also: Deathstroke andLois Lane. Sorry…? Yes, as the book kicks off Lex Luthor is shacked up with Lois. Or is he?

Cornell likes to hide things and mess around with chronology so that you only discover later what he set up long ago. Sometimes it’s eminently satisfying like the Grodd campaign, but it can also disorientate or even alienate so I’d urge you to persevere through the first chapter where little is what it seems except that Luthor’s desires – his needs – are getting the better of him.

I’m really not sure about the telepathic alien caterpillar and I wince at “quaint” speech patterns like that prick Yoda’s or the “Urgent Decision: emergency extraction! Exclamation: now!” shit here but, as I say, do bear with it because it’s no simple A to B to C fist-fight but something quite cleverly constructed, and only round one. The art’s not bad, though setting each chapter up with a David Finch cover doesn’t do poor Woods any favours because, Hitch and Cassady aside, it’s pretty difficult to match Finch in the superhero stakes.

Oh yes, sorry. Do beware: Superman doesn’t actually appear! It’s a Lex Luthor comic.

SLH

Buy Superman: The Black Ring vol 1 s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Arrived, On-Line & Ready To Buy

Reviews to follow or already up if they’re softcovers of previous hardcovers. Regardless, you can go straight to each book’s shopping page by clicking on its title. Hurrah!

 

Madwoman Of The Sacred Heart s/c (£22-50, Humanoids) by Alexandro Jodorowsky & Moebius

Hellblazer: Phantom Pains (£10-99, Vertigo) by Peter Milligan & Simon Bisley, Giuseppe Camuncoli

Athos In America h/c (£18-99, Fantagraphics) by Jason

Sonic Universe: 30 Years Later vol 2 (£8-99, ArchieComics) by Ian Flynn & Tracy Yardley

Papertoy Monsters: 50 Cool Papertoys You Can Make Yourself! (£12-99, Workman) by 25 of the hottest paper toy designers in the world!

Daredevil: Reborn s/c (£12-99, Marvel) by Andy Diggle & Davide Gianfelice

Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man vol 1 h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Sara Pichelli

Uncanny X-Force vol 2: Deathlok Nation s/c (£11-99, Marvel) by Rick Remender & Esad Ribic, Rafael Albuquerque

Astonishing X-Men: Joss Whedon Ultimate Collection vol 1 (£22-50, Marvel) by Joss Whedon & John Cassaday

Marvel Zombies: Supreme s/c (£12-99, Marvel) by Frank Marraffino & Fernando Blanco

Annihilators s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning & Tan Eng Huat, Timothy Green

InuYasha vol 10 VIZBIG Edition (£14-99, Viz) by Rumiko Takahashi

Bloody Monday vol 4 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Ryou Ryumon & Kouji Megumi

Cross Game vol 6 (£10-99, Viz) by Mitsuri Adachi

Gon vol 4 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Masashi Tanaka

Pandora Hearts vol 1 (£8-99, Yen) by Jun Mochizuki

Pandora Hearts vol 2 (£8-99, Yen) by Jun Mochizuki

Pandora Hearts vol 3 (£8-99, Yen) by Jun Mochizuki

Pandora Hearts vol 4 (£8-99, Yen) by Jun Mochizuki

Pandora Hearts vol 5 (£8-99, Yen) by Jun Mochizuki

Pandora Hearts vol 6 (£8-99, Yen) by Jun Mochizuki

Pandora Hearts vol 7 (£8-99, Yen) by Jun Mochizuki

Pandora Hearts vol 8 (£8-99, Yen) by Jun Mochizuki

 

Spent Monday morning being interviewed by the magnificent Lynette from the Nottingham Post while their photographers swooned over Jonathan. We don’t know which edition of their weekend supplement we’ll appear in yet, but I think there’ll be a fold-out poster of Jonathan topless.

And the sales go through the roof….

 - Stephen

FLUFFY is a phenomenon at Page 45. An absolute phenomenon. And at very, very long last, Simone Lia has a new graphic novel, Please God, Find Me A Husband. Prediction: uproariously funny. Also below, new sci-fi series from Brian K. Vaughan, a whole bunch of Mark Millar interviews and Rachel Rising vol 1 by Terry Moore. You do not want to miss that. Meanwhile, ahem, we have the following…

 

The Coldest City h/c Signed Bookplate Edition (£14-99, Oni Press) by Antony Johnston & Sam Hart.

Page 45 is ecstatic to announce – at no extra cost – an exclusive Page 45 bookplate edition of THE COLDEST CITY by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart limited to 50 copies and signed by both artist and writer. Our logo, new art, signed! At no extra cost!

“Well, old boy, I suppose that’s it for us. I suppose now I’ll have to go home. In a way, I’m glad to see you here. Tonight of all nights. Some of them are saying there’ll be no more secrets, from now on. But you and I both know that’s not true.”

Fresh from the fiendish mind of WASTELAND’sAntony Johnston emerges an espionage thriller so hypnotic that I read it from cover to virtual cover in one rapt sitting, my mesmerised eyes wide open, my mouth somewhat agape. But to cap it all off, the dénouement proved so satisfying, so staggeringly devious that I just shook my head, rolled my eyes and Tweeted:

“You sly bastard!”

October 1989, andBerlinis both bleak and freezing. Protesters are massing by the Berlin Wall separating Allied West from the Communist East where the Stasi have informants installed in every work place, every block of flats. Communism is crumbling, tensions are rising, and old allegiances are so far from certain that MI6 don’t even trust their own officers. Left there too long with no Embassy to watch over them, some are suspected of having gone native. And now… now MI6 have a problem.

Three days ago an undercover agent codename BER-2 suddenly went radio silent; last night he was fished out of the river. He was on his way to deliver a list sourced from an agent called SPYGLASS, a Stasi officer who claimed that list contained every name of every officer in Berlin, be they British, American, French, even Russian. That list has now gone missing. MI6 suspect KGB officer Yuri Bakhtin who left for Moscow the day of BER-2’s death. The thing is, he never arrived. Desperate for the list not to surface on the black market then fall into enemy hands, MI6 dispatch Lorraine Broughton, a fresh pair of eyes, to meet with BER-1 inBerlin. An experienced spy fluent in Russian, Broughton’s German is relatively weak, but that’s because she has no former ties toBerlin: no friends, no family and no former colleagues to muddy her loyalties. Or help her out in a crisis.

To make matters worse BER-1, David Perceval, proves to be an old fashioned chauvinist: haughty, dismissive and barely cooperative. Lorraine Broughton is very much on her own and surrounded by agents on all sides. If she’s going to achieve her mission and survive on either side of the Berlin Wall, she will need to get creative and use the city itself – and the events unfolding within – to her maximum advantage.

The art by Sam Hart is riveting. Reminiscent in places of ZENITH’s Steve Yeowell at his peak, it is startlingly stark, with huge swathes of black shadow cast across offices and officers alike. His close-ups are intense, while outside in bleakest Berlin his figures drift like ghosts though the municipal parks, and I guess they are ghosts in a way. Sometimes they’re eroded by the blinding light into mere outlines of heads, hats, coats and scarves while the trees in both background and foreground loom large in silhouette. I love the way Broughton’s shoulders and hips cast shadows under the small of her back and down the length of her skirt. His instinct is mighty impressive.

To see what I mean you read extracts from THE COLDEST CITY on the book’s slickly designed, dedicated website: http://www.thecoldestcity.com.

To order the Page 45 signed bookplate edition, phone 0115 9508045, email page45@page45.com or simply make with the clicky here and have it sent straight to you the second it arrives or, to save postage, select the “collect in-store” option instead!

We sold out of our exclusive edition of Johnston’s THREE DAYS IN EUROPE almost immediately a decade ago before anyone else had even heard of the mighty Mr. Johnston, so quite how long these will last I have no idea!

Pre-order The Coldest City h/c Limited Signed Bookplate Edition from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 16/05/12

 

Please God, Find Me A Husband (£14-99, Jonathan Cape) by Simone Lia.

FLUFFY is a phenomenon at Page 45. An absolute phenomenon. And at very, very long last, Simone Lia has a new graphic novel. Great title too! As Simone said when I tweeted PLEASE GOD, FIND ME A HUSBAND in our customary capitals, it makes her sound truly desperate! Prediction: uproariously funny.

“Simone Lia’s FLUFFY is one of the best-loved books on the Cape graphic novel list. As her new book opens we find her in Leicester Square. She’s just been dumped by her boyfriend and she’s talking to God, telling Him that she’s nearly thirty-four and if He wants her to get married He’d better get a move on. Amazingly, God sends a reply, prompting Simone to plan an ‘Adventure with God’ that starts with a fortnight in a nunnery, then takes her to Australia in search of a hermit. The one she finds proves a disappointment, unlike Brett, the handsome horseman who takes her riding. She thinks he looks just like Crocodile Dundee; he thinks she looks just like Penelope Cruz. Is this the man she’s been searching for, or is God making fun of her? Funny, touching and even occasionally profound, Please God Find Me a Husband! will be essential reading for spinsters, seekers after enlightenment and lovers of the very best graphic novels.”

Here’s a short preview of DEAR GOD, FIND ME A HUSBAND with a great punchline.

Pre-order PLEASE GOD, FIND ME A HUSBAND in the traditional way with actual human contact! Email page45@page45 or telephone 0115 9508045. Thank you!

Due: 05/04/12

 

Saga #1 (£2-25, Image) by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples.

Brian L. Vaughan is back! From the writer of EX MACHINA, Y – THE LAST MAN and PRIDE OF BAGHDAD (ooh, interior art!), something completely different: an epic, sweeping sci-fi drama, and I am completely in love with Fiona Staples’ art. There’s an illustrated interview here, whilst Warren Ellis waxes lyrical about his reaction to SAGA #1 here. Highly recommended.

Pre-order Saga #1 from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due:14/03/12

 

Rachel Rising vol 1: The Shadow Of Death (£12-99, Abstract Studios) by Terry Moore.

My favourite series of 2011: just look at these haunting pages! That’s not RACHEL, though, but the mysterious woman shadowing her. From the creator of ECHO and STRANGERS IN PARADISE, then…

WALKING DEAD fans, do not miss out! Straight in, no messing about, and really quite chilling. I can’t recall the last time I read a first issue this self-assured let alone this beautiful. I’m mesmerised.

High above a sleepy town, way beyond its verdant pastures lies a wood that is dense with ancient trees. In the early morning light a statuesque woman with long blonde hair, tied back at the top, strolls calmly through its lush, leafy undergrowth to wait patiently on the bank above a deep, dried-up riverbed. Four birds, silhouetted against the sky, take off through the canopy. And then it happens: a solitary leaf lying in the middle of the dirt track spontaneously combusts. The soil starts to crumble. Fingers emerge, a body struggles free of its shallow grave, gasping for breath… and the tall woman watches impassively.

The pacing is masterful, the resurrection through dried chunks of clay so evidently arduous, and then those stricken eyes, the irises bright, as this second blonde woman in her short black dress starts to grasp where she is if not why… When she finally looks up there is no one to be seen. Instead she stumbles painfully up the furrow until the trees finally part and she emerges, exhausted, dirty and limp onto the grassy meadow beyond.

Oh, so many questions! Again, it’s all in the pacing and the relative silence as Rachel makes her way home, showers, looks in the mirror, absorbs what she sees there and the flashbacks begin. Her memory is incomplete, but evidently whatever happened followed some sort of dinner with old High School friends on Tuesday night. It’s now Friday evening.

“You’re not Rachel.”

Pre-order Rachel Rising vol 1: The Shadow Of Death from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 28/03/12

 

I’m Not A Plastic Bag h/c (£14-99, Archaia) by Rachel Hope Allison.

Oh, my word, it’s new discovery time! Breath-takingly impressive, all these Rachel Hope Allison images appear to come from this book.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is or was an honest-to-god, real island of floating trash in a remote area of theNorthern Pacific Oceanmore than twice the size ofTexas. “I’M NOT A PLASTI BAG tells a moving story about loneliness, beauty, and humankind’s connection to our planet. Told entirely through images, this ‘green’ graphic novel will be printed on 100% recycled paper and will be out in time for Earth Day on April 22”. In addition, Archaia promises to plant two trees for every one used in the printing of the book which is produced in conjunction with American Forestsand Global ReLeaf programs. Global ReLeaf! Like it.

Pre-order I’m Not A Plastic Bag h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 21/03/12

 

Blue h/c (£10-99, Top Shelf) by Pat Grant.

Superb, separate, online marketing mini-comic for BLUE by Pat Grant here, which accounts for all the preorders which have already flooded in. Very funny. “Part autobiography and part science fiction, BLUE is the story of three spotty teenagers who skip school to go surfing only to end up investigating rumours of a dead body in their beach town.”

HABIBI’s Craig Thompson writes: “This book rekindles my earliest enthusiasm for the comics medium. Pat Grant is the Australian Mark Twain, trading Huck’s raft for a waxed-up surfboard and an inked-up sable brush. Vast themes of racism and immigration unravel in sprawling murals and a single day in the life of some reckless teens in this sea-polished, perfect nugget of a book.”

Pre-order Blue h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 28/03/12

 

Art Of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist h/c (£24-99, SelfMadeHero) by Alvin Buenaventura & Daniel Clowes.

224 pages on the creator of GHOST WORLD, MISTER WONDERFUL, WILSON etc. Over twenty-five years this man has been providing us with material to sell to the Real Mainstream and for ten of them he was virtually alone in that respect. Oh, how we owe Dan Clowes! Pop his name into out search engine and you’ll see all his books!

Pre-order Art Of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 04/04/12

 

Kochi Wanaba h/c (£16-99, Blank Slate Books) by Jamie Smart.

From the creator of BEAR and UBU BUBU etc. comes something looking raaather different. There will be plenty of extra material in the book itself, but how’s this for a preview, eh?

“Kochi Wanaba is a quiet kid who loves nothing more than to draw secrets in his sketchbook. When the day of the annual Bee Festival falls upon his town,Kochi’s loud, hyperactive girlfriend Lhys can barely contain herself. Unfortunately forKochi, tolerating Lhys’ excitement becomes the least of his problems as supernatural chaos breaks out all around them, threatening to change their lives forever. Rendered in Jamie Smart’s characteristic illustration style that straddles the cute and the grotesque, Kochi Wanaba is a pencil-drawn graphic novel that combines all-out comedy with genuine, captivating emotional range.”

Pre-order Kochi Wanaba h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due:28/03/12

 

Fallen Words (£14-99, Drawn & Quarterly) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi.

From the creator of ABANDON THE OLD IN TOKYO, PUSHMAN and GOOD-BYE, all of which will be available in s/c from Drawn & Quarterly in March. BLACK BLIZZARD is available now.

“In Fallen Words, Yoshihiro Tatsumi takes up the oral tradition of rakugo and breathes new life into it by shifting the format from spoken word to manga. Each of the eight stories in the collection is lifted from the Edo-era Japanese storytelling form. As Tatsumi notes in the afterword, the world of rakugo, filled with mystery, emotion, revenge, hope, and of course, love, overlaps perfectly with the world of gekiga that he has spent the better part of his life developing. These stories resonate with modern readers thanks to their comedic elements and familiarity with human idiosyncrasies. Tatsumi’s love of wordplay shines through in the telling of these whimsical stories, and yet he still offers timeless insight into human nature.”

Pre-order Fallen Words from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due:14/03/12

 

NonNonBa (£19-99, Drawn & Quarterly) by Shigeru Mizuki.

From the creator of ONWARD TOWARDS OUR NOBLE DEATHS (reviewed by Jonathan with interior art), this was the first manga ever to win the ultra-prestigious Angoulême Prize for Best Album.

“NonNonBa is the definitive work by acclaimed Gekiga-ka Shigeru Mizuki, a poetic memoir detailing his interest in yokai (spirit monsters). Within the pages of NonNonBa, Mizuki explores the legacy left him by his childhood explorations of the spirit world, explorations encouraged by his grandmother, a grumpy old woman named NonNonBa. NonNonBa is a touching work about childhood and growing up, as well as a fascinating portrayal of Japanin a moment of transition.”

Pre-order NonNonBa from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due:14/03/12

 

Tanpopo vol 1 h/c (£18-99, Boom! Studios) by Camilla D’Errico.

You may have seen Camilla D’Errico’s work illustrating Bryan Talbot’s Little Red Riding Hood skit in FRACTURED FABLES – her art books have also proved big sellers here.

“Tanpopo is superhumanly intelligent and inhumanly emotionless. Attached to a mysterious machine and ruled by her vast knowledge, one day her heart rises up to struggle against her ruling mind. Torn and confused, she now seeks humanity, longing to feel what other humans feel. Each chapter of TANPOPO is inspired by a classic piece of literature or poetry, woven into its own epic story.”

Pre-order Tanpopo vol 1 from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 28/03/12

 

Megalex: The Complete Story h/c (£22-50, Humanoids) by Jodorowsky & Beltran.

I don’t think the full story’s ever been released in English. I know DC/Humanoids released one volume which I reviewed as follows…

“Megalex is Death! Megalex is Death!” screams the flock of white parrots is it dive-bombs the military base. And it’s hard to disagree with them. It certainly isn’t “Life”. Almost all of that has been consigned to history and buried under the planetary-wide city that is Megalex. Mountains have been levelled to form one homogenous sphere of dull grey, metal complexes – think The Death Star, only larger – and the final elements of resistance from the DeadOcean and ChemForest are brutally repelled. Governed from the Gubernatorial Palace, built out of unbreakable glass, by Queen Mother Marea and Princess Kavatah and the mummified remains of King Yod (“who has lost none of his wisdom”), the military machine is served by thousands upon thousands of identical clones with 400-day life-spans to avoid a potential contamination of dissent, after which they are slaughtered in vast meat plants and ground up like offal so that their constituent parts may be reused. The process – explicitly depicted in all its revolting “glory” – is overseen by drugged-up supervisors so that there are no anomalies. But on a chance distraction during another attack, one anomaly, a much larger humanoid, escapes their attention and finds unexpected help on hand to facilitate his escape. The art is generated on computer (there’s an insight into the process in the back), but doesn’t suffer from the same clinical forms and/or gaudy colours. It’s actually very impressive. And, in the process mentioned earlier, quite revolting. More nudity – it’s European.

Pre-order Megalex: The Complete Story h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 28/03/12

 

Crossed: Psychopath s/c (£14-99, £20-99 h/c, £25-99 h/c signed by Lapham) by David Lapham & Raulo Caceres.

The only zombie series to match WALKING DEAD’s sales, this is the third full graphic novel, although we do also have an original CROSSED 3D one-shot too. Dear God, why you would want to witness this in 3-D is beyond me. “I don’t care how depraved you are, this is worse” is generally promote this series so you have been warned when I link to this CROSSED: PSYCHOPATH preview.

Garth Ennis returns for a fourth series called CROSSED: BADLANDS due on 14^th March but in the meantime…

“In one terrifying moment, civilization crumbled. An outbreak of insanity swept across the planet, turning millions of people into the scarred homicidal maniacs known as ‘the Crossed.’ For one small band of survivors, the discovery of a starving, injured man in the desert seems like an unexpected blessing. He knows where they could be safe: the location of the last holdout of the scientific community, where the military offers protection and the cure to the Crossed plague is being developed. But Harold Lorre is not the saviour they hope him to be. He’s a calculating, lethal man whose mind was dangerously unhinged even before the world went mad. Surrounded by marauding hordes, their nerves shattered by unending fear, the group fall victim to the manipulations and deadly perversions of a psychopath. Writer David Lapham, the critically acclaimed creator of STRAY BULLETS, returns to the universe of Crossed with a descent into evil so far beyond what you could possibly imagine.”

They’re probably not kidding.

Pre-order Crossed: Psychopath s/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 28/03/12

 

Joe Golem And The Drowning City illustrated novel (£19-50) by Christopher Golden & Mike Mignola.

100 illustrations from Mike Mignola himself, and a beautiful, beautiful cover you can see better here. The same team’s Baltimore sold spectacularly well as a prose novel long before it became the graphic novel BALTIMORE: THE PLAGUE SHIPS.

“Fifty years have passed since earthquakes and a rising sea level leftLower Manhattansubmerged under more than thirty feet of water, so that its residents began to call it the ‘DrowningCity’. Among them are fourteen-year-old Molly McHugh and her friend and employer, Felix Orlov. Once upon a time, Orlov the conjuror was a celebrated stage magician, but now he is an old man; a psychic medium, contacting the spirits of the departed for the grieving loved ones left behind. When a séance goes horribly wrong, Felix Orlov is abducted by strange men wearing gas masks and rubber suits, and Molly finds herself on the run. Her flight leads her into the company of Simon Hodge, a Victorian detective, and his stalwart sidekick, Joe Golem, whose own past and true identity is a mystery to him.”

Pre-order Joe Golem And The Drowning City from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 28/03/12

 

Channel Zero (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Brian Wood & Becky Cloonan.

Warren Ellis wrote: “It’s about anger as a positive force of creation… Someone’s remembered what comics are for.”

Before LOCAL, NEW YORK FOUR, NEW YORK FIVE, NORTHLANDERS or even this couple’s DEMO VOL 1 and DEMO VOL 2, there were two CHANNEL ZERO books. Police surveillance, media manipulation and the repression of free speech in America. Goodness, how utterly outlandish!

Pre-order Channel Zero from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 30/05/12

 

The New Deadwardians #1 (£2-25, Vertigo/DC) by Dan Abnett & Ian Culbard.

Haha! The aristocrats are all vampires and the lower classes are all zombies! Everyone’s prejudices satisfied, then. From our very own Ian Culbard (AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS, SHELOCK HOLMES: THE VALLEY OF FEAR etc.) and good ol’ Dan Abnett interviewed about THE NEW DEADWARDIANS here.

“In post-VictorianEngland, nearly everyone of the upper classes has voluntarily become a vampire to escape the lower classes who are all zombies. Into this simmering cauldron is thrust Chief Inspector George Suttle, a lonely detective who’s got the slowest beat inLondon: investigating murders in a world where everyone is already dead! But when the body of a young aristocrat washes up on the banks of theThames, Suttle’s quest for the truth will take him from the darkest sewers to the gleaming halls of power, and reveal the rotten heart at the centre of this strange world.”

Pre-order The New Deadwardians #1 from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 28/03/12

 

Saucer Country #1 (£2-25, Vertigo/DC) by Paul Cornell & Ryan Kelly.

From the artist on LOCAL, NEW YORK FIVE etc. and the writer of Doctor Who, KNIGHT & SQUIRE etc. “Arcadia Alvarado, the leading Democratic candidate for President of the United States, says she was ‘abducted by aliens.’ As the Mexican-American Governor of New Mexico, she’s dealing with immigration, budget cuts and an alcoholic ex. She’s about to toss her hat into the ring as a candidate for President in the most volatile political climate ever. But then…a lonely road and a nightmarish encounter have left her with terrible, half-glimpsed memories. And now she has to become President. To expose the truth – and maybe, to save the world. With the help of her quirky staff, Arcadia will pursue the truth of her abduction into danger, mystery and awe. SAUCER COUNTRY is a dark thriller that blends UFO lore and alien abduction with political intrigue, all set in the hauntingly beautiful Southwest.”

Pre-order Saucer Country #1 from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 14/03/12

 

Supercrooks #1 (£2-25, Icon/Marvel) by Mark Millar & Leinil Yu.

Set in Spain, the art and architecture looks absolutely gorgeous. It’s a supervillain heist comic which Millar talks about extensively in this illustrated interview. Plenty more from Millar this year too. Already we have illustrated interviews for Mark Millar’s SECRET SERVICE with Dave Gibbons of WATCHMEN fame and JUPITER’S CHILDREN with Frank Quitely. Feel free to pre-order any or all of them now.

Pre-order Supercrooks #1 from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 21/03/12

 

Avengers Vs. X-Men #0 of 12 (£2-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron & Frank Cho.

The Scarlet Witch is back. Properly back. The woman who fell off her rocker in AVENGERS: DISASSEMBLED then declared “No more mutants” in HOUSE OF M (both highly recommended) meets the first new mutant to defy that decree: Hope, new wielder of the Phoenix Force. I’d probably sit that fight out! It’s this year’s biggie to be co-written by Bendis, Brubaker, Aaron, Fraction, Hickman and illustrated by Coipel, Kubert, John Romita Jr. Possibly more, I don’t know. Oh yes, there’s also another new series from Bendis called AVENGERS ASSEMBLE. And a film. Obv.

Pre-order Avengers Vs. X-Men #0 from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here. Or, you know, just email page45@page45 and ask for the entire series.

Due: 28/03/12

 

Secret Avengers vol 3: Run The Mission. Don’t Get Caught. Save The World h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Warren Ellis & Jamie McKelvie, Mike Deodato, Michael Lark, Alex Maleev, Kev Walker, David Aja.

Science fiction at its best. Like Ellis’ GLOBAL FREQUENCY this contains six self-contained bursts of frantic covert activity which rely not one jot on any previous knowledge of this series. The time-travel episode starring Russian superspy Black Widow was so jaw-droppingly clever (and funny, and sad) that I read it three times, each time gleaning an extra nugget of clever. So much to talk about on arrival.

Pre-order Secret Avengers vol 3 from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 28/03/12

 

Daredevil: Season One h/c (£18-99, Marvel) byAntony Johnston &Wellington Alves.

Original graphic novel from the writer of DAREDEVIL: SHADOWLAND, WASTELAND and THE COLDEST CITY (signed and numbered at Page 45 at no extra cost!), this goes back to the blind attorney’s earliest days in costume.

Pre-order Daredevil: Season One h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 04/04/12

 

X-Men: Season One h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Dennis Hopeless & Jamie McKelvie.

Another original graphic novel, this one drawn by PHONOGRAM’s Jamie McKelvie, the perfect choice for a more innocent age.

Pre-order X-Men: Season One h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 14/03/12

 

Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself Fallout h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Kieron Gillen & Pasqual Ferry, Rich Elson, Whilce Portacio.

More magnificent mythological fantasy otherwise known as JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY VOL 2, the successor to FEAR ITSELF: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (whole heap of praise in the full review there) which should have been called JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY VOL 1. Once more: you don’t have to be interested in FEAR ITSELF, just mythology and storytelling at its best.

Pre-order Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself Fallout h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 14/03/12

 

Batman vol 1: The Court Of Owls h/c (£18-99, DC) by Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion.

Quality guaranteed, and I write that without having read a word. As evidence I cite BATMAN: BLACK MIRROR by the same Scott AMERICAN VAMPIRE Snyder which was absolutely chilling. This is Scott’s contribution to the DC New 52 relaunch, and as such I would guess that it can be read without ever having picked up a Batbook before. A series of brutal murders rocks Gotham’s otherwise pristine reputation as world’s best holiday destination for young children and pensioners. [Are you sure? – ed.] The prime suspect is one of Batman’s closest allies: Dick Grayson.

Pre-order Batman vol 1: The Court Of Owls h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 09/05/12

 

Batman: Death By Design deluxe edition h/c (£18-99, DC) by Chip Kidd & DaveTaylor.

From nigh-ubiquitous designer Chip Kidd, an original graphic novel. “Gotham City is undergoing one of the most expansive construction booms in its history. The most prestigious architects from across the globe have buildings in various phases of completion all over town. As chairman of the Gotham Landmarks Commission, Bruce Wayne has been a key part of this boom, which signals a golden age of architectural ingenuity for the city. And then, the explosions begin. All manner of design-related malfunctions – faulty crane calculations, sturdy materials suddenly collapsing, software glitches, walkways giving way and more – cause casualties across the city. This bizarre string of seemingly random catastrophes threatens to bring down the whole construction industry. Fingers are pointed as Batman must somehow solve the problem and find whoever is behind it all.”

Pre-order Batman: Death By Design deluxe edition h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 30/05/12

 

Justice League vol 1: Origin h/c (£18-99, DC) by Geoff Johns & Jim Lee.

First of the DC New 52 relaunch titles to be collected. Think ALL-STAR BATMAN by Frank Miller and Jim Lee; I couldn’t think of anything else as I read the first issue. It’s not just the Jim Lee connection, either. These are the characters’ early years and they’re only now about to meet each other. There’s a great deal of grandstanding and animosity: they neither trust nor like each other. The authorities don’t like or trust them either, here coming at Batman and Green Lantern in helicopters, guns blazing. Once again, it’s like a return to the days of Image, only without Frank Miller chortling to himself in the background. I didn’t recognise Geoff Johns in the script and I suspected that his regular GREEN LANTERN fans – who are legion – would hate it. I know I did, and the worst thing is that it’s all been done before. It’s not new, it’s old and it feels tired before it’s even begun. That said, the sales have stayed stellar.

Pre-order Justice League vol 1: Origin h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 02/05/12

 

Green Lantern vol 1: Sinestro h/c (£16-99, DC) by Geoff Johns & Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy.

More DC New 52. “There’s an unexpected new Green Lantern in town: Sinestro. And now, this renegade GL has set a course for Korugar with one purpose: To free his homeworld from the scourge of his own Sinestro Corps – with the not-so-willing help of Hal Jordan!”

Pre-order Green Lantern vol 1: Sinestro h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 16/05/12

 

Wonder Woman Vol 1: Blood h/c (£16-99, DC) by Brian Azzarello & Cliff Chiang.

From the writer of 100 BULLETS, JONNY DOUBLE, SPACEMAN etc., further DC New 52. “Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, has kept a secret from her daughter all her life – and when Wonder Woman learns who her father is, her life will shatter like brittle clay. The only one more shocked than Diana by this revelation? Bloodthirsty Hera – so why is her sinister daughter, Strife, so eager for the truth to be told?”

Pre-order Wonder Woman Vol 1: Blood h/c from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 30/05/12

 

Exile On The Planet Of The Apes #1 (£2-99, Boom! Studios) by Corinna Bechko, Gabriel Hardman &Marc Laming.

For those who enjoyed Marc Laming’s art on THE RINSE. For someone whose twitter name has always been @monkey_marc, I guess this was pretty inevitable. Ed Brubaker calls it “The Apes comic I’ve always wanted”.

Pre-order Exile On The Planet Of The Apes #1 from Page 45 and read the publisher’s preview here

Due: 28/03/12

 

Reminder: these are our picks from the current crop, but you can read the whole of Diamond’s own comic and graphic novel PREVIEWS here. They’re divided into comics and graphic novels and then into publishers so if you’re only interested in particular publishers it’s all quite easy to digest. Try enduring the whole catalogue like I do every month, and you’ll realise why I take time to write this blog! Just for you!

- Stephen

 

To celebrate the release of his magnum opus, BIG QUESTIONS , in one big, beautiful book, Anders Nilsen is touring the UK including stops at Gosh! in London & OK Comics in Leeds. More about them in a moment; this is about us.

The date: Sunday 16^th October 2011

The time: 2pm to 3pm, then on to the slide show down t’pub.

The place: Page 45, Nottingham, then the pub in question.

How much do we love Anders Nilsen? We made DOGS & WATER a Page 45 Comicbook Of The Month.

How to get here: LINK

Bring what you want; buy what you can.

First we’ll hold the signing at Page 45 itself where Anders will sketch in one book for free then scribble his signature in whatever else you fancy. It’s at that point we’ll tell where we’ve booked for the slide show.

That’s the only price of admission to Anders Nilsen’s slide-show then casual bar-room chit-chat: turning up to the free signing first. We’ve booked the room from 3pm onwards so you can hook up, drink and be merry amongst yourselves until we arrive with Anders in tow, probably around 3.30pm

Anders will present his slide-show, you can ask him big questions about that talk, and then we’ll all mingle for a couple of hours afterwards in a relaxed and friendly manner as I slide down the wall and Anders starts to wonder about dinner.

It’s Our Anniversary!

Well, almost, which is why we want to see you all down at the bar. It’s a tradition! Officially our 17^th Anniversary will be 17^th October, but this is the last day that Stephen L. Holland of Page 45 will be… 45 years old! Please come along and put him out of our misery.

Breaking news: more importantly we have just learned that Dominique Kidd, one of Page 45′s three original members and still signed on as our very own Oracle, will be in personal attendance! The best birthday present a boy could ever ask for!

“I can’t make that date!”

Fear not, for Anders will also be at:
Gosh! in London on Saturday 15^th October.
OK Comics in Leeds on Monday 17^th October.
Both now confirmed to start at 6pm.

See also Travelling Man dates throughout the north but, by gum, it’ll be chilly.

Please note: Gosh has moved! New address:
1 Berwick Street, Soho, London W1F 0DR
For more details, see: LINK

Please note: OK Comics hasn’t!
19 Thornton’s Arcade, Leeds, LS1 6LQ
Why not visit their website anyway? LINK

We Have:

 Click on the titles for reviews and purchasing power!:

DOGS & WATER
THE GAME
THE MONOLINGUIST PAPER UPDATE
MONOLOGUES FOR CALCULATION THE DENSITY OF BLACK HOLES
MONOLOGUES FOR THE COMING PLAGUE
THE END
MOME VOL 1
MOME VOL 2
MOME VOL 3
MOME VOL 4
MOME VOL 5
MOME VOL 6
MOME VOL 7
BIG QUESTIONS #11
BIG QUESTIONS #12
BIG QUESTIONS #13
BIG QUESTIONS #14
BIG QUESTIONS #15

And Freshly Arrived!

 BIG QUESTIONS complete softcover

More About Anders:

Anders’ blog: LINK
Anders’ website: LINK
BIG QUESTIONS preview: LINK
(reduce the scale to 75% and you’re away!

This is, I’d have thought, your one and only chance to see Anders sign in this country. He’s only touring the UK because he’s on loan to some Parisian university in France!

Cheers,

Stephen

Page 45
9 Market Street
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Tel: (0115) 9508045

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Please note: we’ve had HELLBLAZER: PANDEMONIUM, X-MEN: EXOGENETIC and the SPIDER-WOMAN softcovers in for a month or so, and don’t normally reprint reviews of previous hardcovers; we simply list the books in “Also Arrived” and paste the reviews straight into the relevant books’ sections on the shopping side of the site. But the hardcovers of these three came out much earlier than the softcovers, and it was a very thin week!

Night Animals (£5-99, Top Shelf) by Brecht Evens.

One of the many things I love about our website is all the interior art, and the way Jonathan’s designed it to open up when you click on the images. The mere one-week time lag between a book’s arrival and its review (which is what we ideally aim for) isn’t always enough to grab interior art in time for the review’s initial publication in Page 45 News but I’m delighted to say that it’s already up in this instance and if I were you I’d stop reading right now and click on the link below instead. You can always read the review there!

Two silent stories, then.

First a middle-aged man in a business suit zips over it a bunny suit and waits for his date in the park. Evidently stood up, he doesn’t give up but rather gathers his bouquet, takes it to a bar and jumps down its toilet. Thereafter it’s a phantasmagorical, subaquatic journey through hell and high water down to the depths where only the angler fish see. Ride A White Shark is a song which Marc Bolan never quite sang, but he might have been tempted if he’d read this first; he did love comics, after all. Will our ardent lover’s determination pay off? I wasn’t sure if it would, but I adored the resolution.

There are hearts hidden all over the place in both stories: a nesting pair of vultures, their necks entwined; the snaking shape of a rabbit burrow, on clothes, at the bottom of a bed… Also an awful lot of bumholes, not so well hidden. In the second story there are four birds perched on a branch towards the top-left of a double-page spread, who seem to be signalling in semaphore. I can save you some time and tell you they’re not – there’s a ‘U’ there but nothing else, just the Beatles’ single cover never spelled ‘Help’ (it was intended too, but the photographer didn’t like the shape they made!).

Coming to that second story, then, a young girl changing after a P.E. lesson experiences her first period and flees school in shame to curl up in bed, pulling the covers up tight to her neck. Small spots of red trace her path up the stairs, past her puzzled parents. The dog has a lick. At night, however, the menstrual stain spreads over the page as a horned, hairy creature of the woods (Pan, to me, not the devil – though it would depend on your thoughts on female sexuality) sits at the bottom of the bed, playing its pipes, its legs in striped leggings, its feet in red, heeled shoes. She is dragged out the window and carried away to a Bacchanal where she’s gradually transfigured (or again, some would say corrupted), growing older, more comfortable, more exuberant by the second. There are some wonderful creatures flirting and rutting there as the red grows darker still, but the story has a far more ambiguous, sobering conclusion than the first which I enjoyed even more.

Something to make you think, then, and something to simply admire for all its individualistic craft.

LINK

SLH

Freeway (£22-50, Fantagraphics) by Mark Kalesniko…

“Why is the traffic not moving?
“Why is this happening again?
“Why?
“Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?”

Wow, Mark Kalesniko has really come on as a creator since MAIL ORDER BRIDE, a book I picked up myself on a recommendation from Mark and enjoyed back in 2001. FREEWAY is a rather clever and wonderfully illustrated work that literally takes us along for the ride as we endure and empathise with, and perhaps also chuckle at, the central character Alex’s truly horrific commute to work at Babbitt Jones Animation Studios in downtown L.A.

This day-in-the-life story is interspersed and enmeshed with memories from the slightly dishevelled Alex’s previous few months since moving to the big city and landing his dream job, as he falls in love with a co-worker, and also falls foul of his boss, but the story also weaves in flashbacks to another rather more dapper individual back in the 1940s, the Golden Era of animation, when L.A. was a rather different looking city. He too has landed his dream job at Babbitt Jones, falls in love with a co-worker, and then gradually falls out of love with his profession as the times start changing. These different elements, together with (I think) some dream sequences, blur and meld together, producing a truly captivating blend that really succeeded in drawing me deeper and deeper into the different stories.

This is such a well put together work, for example the sequences when we move from the present to the past are so gently handled, often by a three-panel sequence as a typically bustling modern L.A. street scene is literally rolled back in time in front of our eyes to a less urban, leafier and altogether calmer time. But one of my favourite sequences, where Kalesniko really showcases just how good an illustrator he is now, occurs when Alex takes his co-worker to the old part of L.A. on their first proper date, to see all the surviving beautiful pieces of classic architecture. There are art deco buildings, expansive, ornate period interiors, and even a funicular, and these surviving gems can’t help but make you feel wistful for some of the beautiful buildings that have disappeared from every city around the world over the years, to be criminally replaced with modern, soulless, high-rise slabs.

The aspects of the plot that take place within the conveyor-belt hothouse that is the modern day, entirely profit-driven Babbitt Jones machine are very entertaining too, and given that Kalesniko used to work for Disney as an animator, I suspect the elements revolving around office politics contain more than a few autobiographical moments reworked as fiction. And I also really enjoyed how the suspense builds during the truly epic commute as we’re pretty sure something climatic is going to happen, when or indeed if, Alex finally gets to work, but we’re just not sure what.

LINK

JR

Lenore 2 issue #1 (£2-99, Titan) by Roman Dirge.

“…And that is why I hate goats.”

“Whatever” is the lamest excuse for a sentence of all time. It doesn’t even contain a verb. If anyone utters, mutters or huffs that word in your vicinity then walk away immediately and never interact with the vacuous parrot again. There’s no point: they have no capacity for expression. It’s not a refusal; it’s not declining to think or reason; it’s just masking an inability to articulate a cogent response by mimicking something they heard in an atrocious American mooovie. “Whatev’s”, on the other hand, in response to personal discomfort or discombobulation seems perfectly stoical to me…

There’s a lot of personal discomfort in Roman Dirge’s LENORE. Something’s always getting poked, prodded or impaled, and it’s usually cute and fluffy. It kind of comes with the territory when the main protagonist is a ten-year-old girl who woke up halfway through her embalming process, and half the humour comes with the pervading shrug – the “whatev’s” in question, voice or unvoiced – with which each atrocity is greeted.

For this second series Dirge has switched shores to British publishers Titan and been given much better quality paper and a colouring budget. Works well, too, with a beautiful matt dawn ushering in the opening origin story and a Japanese sunset greeting the warriors charging up the mountain to do battle with the Samurai Sloth. Lightning reflexes? He’s a sloth! That one was positively Tom Gauld!

LINK

SLH

Lenore 2 issue #2 (£2-99, Titan) by Roman Dirge.

Unrequited love Lenore-stylee. It’s really going to hurt. No, I mean, it will physically hurt.

Full colour with an old-skool, double-sided, pull-out poster.

LINK

SLH

I See The Promised Land: A Life Of Martin Luther King Jr. h/c (£12-99, Tara Books) by Arthur Flowers & Manu Chitrakar, Gugliemo Rossi.

Beautiful art by Manu Chitrakar, who is apparently a scroll painter from Bengal, which vividly captures the momentous events of the life of Martin Luther King Jr., but the page design and general assembly of this work is just crying, nay screaming out, for someone who knows what they’re doing. The beautiful panels of art are just plonked on the pages with no thought whatsoever to layout. The speech bubbles too, or great breezeblock oblongs as they are here, only detract from the artwork too. This work was so nearly something wonderful, but instead merely serves as an example of how not to design a graphic novel. A shame.

LINK

JR

Weapons Of The Metabarons h/c (£14-99, Humanoids) by Alexandro Jodorowsky & Travis Charest, Zoran Janjetov…

“For a Metabaron, defeat is not an option.
“Victory or death. And if I die in battle, my death will be a triumph!”

Errr… not quite sure how that works, but there’s certainly no doubt the Metabaron with no name is a glass-half-full kinda guy. Still, when you’ve never been defeated by any foe, indeed when no Metabaron has ever been defeated, optimism is bound to be running high. And maybe a smidgeon of high-octane hubris to boot! This time around though, our wandering warrior has a tough task ahead of him if he’s to acquire the four secret weapons that will allow him to drive the reptilian Hulzgeminis back into their own Universe.

It’s been a while since the last new Metabaron material so was it worth the wait is the big question? For fans of the series almost certainly, as this work picks up right where the others left off, though special mention must be made of Travis Charest’s (and also Zoran Janjetov’s) exquisite and intricately detailed art. It’s hard to comprehend how this is the same artist who used to illustrate Jim Lee’s WILDCATS back in the proverbial day, and it would remiss of me not to observe that his skills have clearly continued to improve in the interim to a now truly exceptional level, as evidenced by the panel of internal art displayed on the product page.

Those new to the whole Metabaron saga might be a little non-plussed by this work, especially given the somewhat thin nature of Jodorowsky’s plot, but that’s never really been the point with this series in many ways. If this piques your interest though, I do highly recommend checking out the first four volumes starting with THE METABARONS VOL 1: OTHON & HONORATA. However, if you’re looking for a little Euro sci-fi something that’s just as beautiful, but also more taxing on the grey matter, you really should look at Denis Barjam’s UNIVERSAL WAR ONE.

LINK

JR

Hellblazer: Pandemonium s/c (£13-50, Vertigo) by Jamie Delano & Jock.

“War. I never realised just how brutally fucking loud it is. How viciously its explosive claws disintegrate soft sackfuls of humanity. How shockingly instant, the violent obliteration of a life. And how absolutely alone you are in the chaotic lottery of death.”

It’s 25 years since John Constantine, mouthy wind-up merchant, began tormenting the Swamp Thing under Alan Moore and in celebration the original HELLBLAZER writer returns with a typically topical original graphic novel set first in London then, once suitably stitched up by the British Security Service, out in the desert of Iraq, once home to the magnificent Sumerian temples where John quickly starts sniffing a familiar scent which I’m about to throw you off:

“There’s no humour in the eyes that I unveil… Just a predator’s primal recognition of prey. A hot feline musk engulfs me. And suddenly I’m back in the Big Cat house at the London Zoo in the ‘fifties. Six years old. Stomach churned by tectonic growls, flinching from the tawny lash of tails… Lion teeth gnawing on the skull of my imagination. Forty-eight years later, it’s as much as I can do not to piss myself again.”

It’s some of the Delano’s finest writing to date, every page littered with his love of the English language, whilst Jock’s line and light casts the sun in your eyes as well as the grit of sand.

Definitive HELLBLAZER then, eloquently conjoining the real world horrors of extraordinary rendition and the war in Iraq with John’s long and bloody occult history, whilst making it abundantly clear that any demons involved are merely benefactors of human brutality, not its catalysts. It’s John the witness and John the player, hiding his hand with bluff and black humour right to the gates of the Iraqi detention centres:

“So which way to the Dr. Mengele suite, sport? And where can I charge up my cordless drill?”

LINK

SLH

Gotham Central Book Four: Corrigan h/c (£22-50, DC) by Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka & Steve Lieber, Kano, Gaudiano.

“Hell, maybe it’s suicide. The kid worked for Batman after all.”
“Great. You want to ask him if Robin’s been feeling depressed recently? “How’s he been sleeping? Any signs of drug use? Trouble at school?”"
“Aw, God… Can’t be sixteen, even. You realise that if this is actually him, then even if this is accidental, the Bat is at fault?”
“Endangering the life of a minor… unless the parents are in on it too, then they’re all to blame.”
“Maybe Batman is one of the parents.”
“There’s a scary thought.”

It’s also quite a scary Batman: Kano’s feral, spectral version all shadow and blur. When a boy who could well be Robin is found dead on the rain-sodden streets and the crime scene photography is leaked to press, the investigation follows all obvious lines of enquiry until the least obvious and in some ways sickest presents itself.

This is the final volume of GOTHAM CENTRAL, the superb police procedural drama in which the streets are made all the more dangerous by its more notorious inhabitants, and Batman, far from being embraced, is blamed for their existence and resented for the emasculation involved in having to fire up the spotlight and call for outside help. So they don’t tend to do that: they solve the crimes themselves. Like any precinct, it’s populated by a variety of individuals, and it’s as much about them as the crimes themselves, in particular Detectives Renée Montoya and Crispus Allen, whose stories don’t end well, for snaking his way through the pages has been bent forensics expert, Corrigan. It’s here that their paths finally converge and the subplot erupts to devastating effect, shattering the lives around it.

Psychologically this is so well written, every artist they’ve chosen has kept it firmly grounded at street level, and a big tip of the hat should go to colourist Lee Loughbridge’s part in all that. There’s also a terrifying sequence in which no mere battle but outright Armageddon erupts in the skies above them, anarchy is loosed below, and Allen and Montoya have no idea whether they will ever make it across the city to see their loved ones again.

“Metal tears as something crushes the engine block. The windshield explodes inwards, showering me with safety glass. I tumble out of the car and into air that stinks of sulphur and burning flesh. My sight catches on one word and a face… and I freeze for a moment, staring into the eyes of a sin.”

LINK

SLH

Ultimate Thor h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Jonathan Hickman & Carlos Pacheco.

“Hello.”
“And you must be the man they have sent to help me. You’re a doctor of psychiatry, I presume?”
“Among other things.”
“Then be forewarned. It is not a delusion of madness you’ll find here, doctor, but purpose and destiny. Professor Braddock will have told you that I am Thorlief Golmen — this is incorrect. I am Thor, God of Thunder, and I will be called the name my father gave me.”
“Of course, and I am only here to help you, Thor. Why don’t you tell me how I can do that?”
“May I have your pen? This one is almost empty and I’m almost finished.”
“Certainly. It looks incomplete.”
“It’s all I can remember.”
“A rather ominous place to leave off, don’t you think?”
“You can read this?”
“I can.”
“Then do so.”
“‘There is a storm coming.’”
“Yes… Yes, there is.”

Nice touch that, having Dr. Donald Blake translate the sequence of the Norse Poetic Edda written on the observation room’s floor. It allows that final extra line of quiet and genuinely concerned worry perfectly in keeping with Mark Millar’s version of Thor. Now, why is it that we don’t get a proper look at Dr. Donald Blake’s face, do you think? In the regular Marvel universe Dr. Donald Blake is the tag-team partner to Thor, exchanging places with a tap of the cane or a smash of the mighty Mjolnir. But the Ultimate Universe is renowned for its sly departures and this is one of them written by the creator of THE NIGHTLY NEWS and the author of Marvel’s most original book in years, the current series of S.H.I.E.L.D..

Set in Germany 1939, in Asgard a great deal earlier than that, and in the Dome of the European Super-Soldier Initiative just prior to Mark Millar’s ULTIMATES, Hickman’s tale finally reveals the circumstances under which Loki was banished by Odin to The Room With No Doors, and those which overcame Thor’s reluctance to join Fury’s Ultimates just in time to join battle on the streets of Manhattan towards the end of the first volume.

So, Germany 1939, and Baron Zemo has been assigned one hundred thousand men by Reichsfurher Himmler, found a gateway near Niebull to any of the Seven Realms and the twenty-four sacred runes which will, if correctly partnered, activate various sequences of the legendary Rainbow Bridge. The Aesir sequence, for example, is how they’ll reach Asgard and plunder it in pursuit of mystic weaponry to use in service to the Furher; but first another sequence will dramatically improve their chances of success. Who is the Ultimate version of Baron Zemo, how has he come by his knowledge and when?

I particularly enjoyed the resurrection of the stone circle near Niebull, the early appearance of the Schutzstaffel symbol amongst the ancient runes and, the revelation about Dr. Donald Blake and – I didn’t see this coming – the origin of this Thor’s hammer. Pacheco you may already know from ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS volume one, and his Thor is a perfect match for Hitch’s, as his Nick Fury.

“Believe.”

LINK

SLH

Astonishing X-Men vol 6: Exogenetic s/c (£10-99, Marvel) by Warren Ellis & Phil Jimenez.

“They’re digging up mutants, Henry. They’re digging up dead mutants and making them into tools. They’ve got reanimated mutants as tools and they’ve engineered living missiles from alien DNA and they used your theoretical work to get there. That’s what I’ve been trying not to say.
“They’re using your work to try and exterminate you.”

Agent Abigail Brand, the Beast’s girlfriend, is back so you know this will end up in space, plus Ellis’s Beast is as delightfully loquacious to my adult self as David Michelinie’s was to the twelve-year-old me:

“Have you gone completely mad?”
“My viridian sweetheart, I went quite insane many years ago. I assumed it was one of my more attractive features.”
“This isn’t good.”
“We’re doing fine. This vessel was designed by the most expensive Japanese sadists working in engineering today. … Okay, that’s not so good.”
“Oh, you think? With engines blowing out and no weapons. You have hair growing inside your skull, don’t you?”
“We don’t need weapons, my little angel of death. We have science.”

Quick-fire carnage with lots of snappy banter as the X-Men find themselves under attack by tailor-made mutations of their former foes: the Brood (Aliens without the slime), semi-organic Sentinels (giant purple robots with trade-mark looming hands – seriously, show me a picture of a Sentinel with its hand not looming large) and that living island Krakoa whose appetite first caused Xavier to found the second wave of X-Men.

Phil Jimenez enjoys himself mightily, and so will you. He’s George Perez’s natural and exceptionally worthy successor, he’s upped his lithe game even further, and every single panel is worth waiting for, particularly the one wherein Cyclops grows bored of “faffing around” and lets rip on the Krakoa/Brood hybrid:

“Good grief, that’s a little Damien Hirst, isn’t it?”

Interview in the back.

LINK

SLH

Spider-Woman: Agent Of S.W.O.R.D. s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev.

Psychological action-crime-thriller with a big thing for internal monologue, set on the seedy streets of Madripoor.

Jessica Drew is a woman whose life has been an unmitigated disaster since she first said the word “Da-da”. After all, her father was murdering her mother at the time. Her parents were scientists working for the terrorist organisation known as Hydra – working for Hydra on Jessica’s deliberately damaged DNA. But Hydra was good enough to at least give Jessica counselling (that is how you spell ‘brainwash’, right?) and send her out to kill Nick Fury, head of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Nick Fury then knocked her back over the net in order to return the favour. Talk about failing to carve out your own destiny! After a few years being badly drawn by an ageing Carmine Infantino, Jessica was then abducted by the shape-shifting Skrulls whose Empress went on to use her likeness as the vanguard for their infiltration of Earth in events leading up to SECRET INVASION.

Convinced that everyone in the world is now baulking at the very sight of her, she’s sitting in a comfortless hotel room with a fist to her head, contemplating suicide, when an envelope appears on the floor. It’s Abigail Brand, Agent of S.W.O.R.D., with an alternative offer to get it out of her system: use her past as a Private Eye to flush out the remaining Skrulls around the globe and execute them. First off, a nice little holiday in Miami.

No, not really. First stop: Madripoor, gutter of the world. Almost immediately the whole mission goes tits-up as the hunter becomes hunted by Hydra, the Thunderbolts, plus half of Madripoor’s police, and Spider-Woman becomes the kiss of death to everyone caught in the cross-fire.

For those who demand costumes, you’re going to have to be patient: two-thirds-of-the-way-through patient. For those who didn’t care and just relished the action, I hope to God you’re reading Bendis and Maleev’s SCARLET. This is told with a similar chatty charm, as Jessica engages readers directly with a dry, self-denigrating tally of just how much trouble she’s in (she’s in a lot of trouble) and runs like hell from her former mentor, Madame Hydra, high up on the tallest skyscraper in the city, launching herself off the top.

“I can’t be here. I can’t. No more.
“I can’t be one of those people who keeps making the same mistakes over and over and over again. Never learning. Never growing. I can’t let that be me, I can’t!
“I snap out of my panic just in time to remember I can’t fly. Crap.”

The attention to the environment here is magnificent, whether it’s Maleev’s breath-taking aerial vistas spread across page after page, or his London sky pelting so hard with rain that he nails the twilight that can be England around two o’clock in the late-Autumn afternoon. I don’t know why Iran’s bothering to construct uranium enrichment plants, either. The colouring’s so radioactive, they’d just need to shove half a dozen copies of this in their warheads. Bendis has a history of taking two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs and the naffest characters imaginable, then completely reinventing them, charging them with a personality and perspective of their own. He’s also very good at taking self-loathing victims and taking them on a journey of self-discovery in order to reclaim their lives back. So it was with Jessica Jones in ALIAS; so it is here with Jessica Drew.

LINK

SLH

Red Moon (£14-99, Cossack) by David McAdoo.

“I… I don’t know what to do… One day we’re laughing and playing and the next I’m getting thrown out for the night because his glove smelled like a chew toy…. I’m… just a little confused…”
“They’re all the same, Mox. And it won’t get any easier to figure out why they wanted you in the first place.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they’ll spend less and less time with you the longer you’re with them.”

Mox, the back cover tells me, is a schnauzer; not a big dog, but not a yappy-type thing, either. Freed from his unhappy suburban existence by a larger dog, Daeden, himself liberated from being a household pet and since befriended by a coyote, he’s beset by terrifying visions of a big red moon burning in the sky. Together they seek The Colotal, a giant centipede-like creature presiding over a council of animals in a cave far away, in order to determine what the visions mean. Are they some dire warning of an approaching asteroid, and if so what can mere dogs do to alert the ungrateful humans to their impending doom?

There have been some outstanding books with similar premises: Morrison and Quitely’s WE3 was a scathing diatribe about animal experimentation and our treatment of household pets, whilst Dorkin and Thompson’s BEASTS OF BURDEN blended some of the same themes into its anthropomorphic occult investigations. Far from being sweet, both series were genuinely horrific, and there was always potential here too. But the conclave of animals is a million miles from Alan Moore’s Parliament of Trees in SWAMP THING, and whatever was left broke down immediately the second Mox started telepathically imparting his vision to Earth’s scientists who can see big chunks of rocks and their trajectories light-years away. I don’t demand total credibility from a story and I don’t want to spoil the last fifty-odd pages for you – I’ll leave that to David McAdoo – but it’s excruciatingly simplistic and twee. WE3 was never going to end in a military/animal kingdom love-in.

All of which is a shame because you tell McAdoo poured his heart into this, and the man can definitely draw. But the story was in definite need of a spine – not courage, but something solid to support it – or at the very least a carapace, an exoskeleton of sorts to stop all the squidgy bits flopping around so aimlessly.

LINK

SLH

Finally we have this, err, adapted from last week’s review of the new series!

Axe Cop vol 1 (£10-99, Dark Horse) by Ethan Nicolle & Malachai Nicolle.

“Written by a six-year-old and drawn by his thirty-year-old brother!”

That’s Dark Horse’s selling sentence right there, and it works. Customer Andrew Jadowski – otherwise known to me as Tigger – bought it on the spot based purely on that sentence! Of course the fact that it’s been such a successful web strip doesn’t hurt.

So what is the attraction? Witnessing the crazy, all-over-the-place result of a fertile imagination unfettered by any desire for artistic success, egged on by his brother at play and loving every second off it! That’s what’s transcribed here: hours of interactive play. It’s not actually ‘written’ as a comic by Ethan, but written up and then illustrated by his brother.

Of course it bounces off the wall! Ethan is bouncing off the wall and inventing on the fly – as did we all as we turned paving stones into imaginary transmats or time platforms; when plastic guns suddenly assumed new capabilities in the heat of the moment when put on the spot by our friends; or when one of us spontaneously came up with a new ‘plot’ development that turned the five-inch Aerofix spitfire model into an intangible space rocket and brought that big pile of bricks into fifty-foot life!

“No! No! Dracula’s behind you now, run!”
“But – but – I have a lolly stick and I stab him through the heart!”
“That’s his leg!”
“He knelt down to bite me!”
“And I chop off his head with my karate chop!”
“Ya!”

We were only playing Doctors & Nurses that day.

So it is in The Ultimate Battle, with Axe Cop called in to investigating the abduction of young Fishy Fish by a Zombie Dog Woman who has dog and zombie powers, and Axe Cop quickly narrows her current location right down to “up a tree”. With no time to find out which tree, Axe Cop, Ghost Cop, Dinosaur Soldier, Ralph Wrinkles and Sockarang jump straight into the Axe Cop Monster Truck and head straight there except that they stop to see if the Moon Warriors want help first and find Lobster Man who wants to be their leader but Axe Cop doesn’t want him to be leader because he’s leader and a Very Good Fighter and covers his forehead with lobster blood. Fortunately Ghost Cop has a gun which shoots bullets and unicorns and Axe Cop has a plunger because meanwhile in a park Babyman’s chasing a duck with exploding, projectile eggs…

It’s almost impossible to transcribe but I think I’ve done it justice enough: the way the story veers off on A.D.D. tangents and anything can happen. Did I think the storytelling was inventive, captivating, thrilling? Was I wowed by the art? No, no, no and no…

The stories are inventive. Highly inventive. The project is inventive too. As an exercise and a reminder of all things six-year-old, it’s highly amusing and even informative for those studying such psychology. And in any case, as a bit of fun – to put your playtime adventures with your kid brother up on the web for you both to chortle over and entertain passers-by – it’s not just utterly harmless, it’s positively sweet. If you’re looking to me for permission to buy it then you’re just plain weird; on the other hand, if you’re looking to me to dissuade you from buying it then you’ve come to the wrong guy.

Something that proclaims itself to be a ground-breaking work of art that falls dismally short of being even mediocre is what gets my goat. Cynical huckstering by comicbook corporations of yet another formulaic, barely literate load of same-old junk is what pisses me off. Neither Dark Horse nor the brothers themselves have done any such thing.

“Written by a six-year-old and drawn by his thirty-year-old brother!”

It does exactly what is said of the kin.

LINK

Also arrived:

Reviews to follow or in some cases not.

The Adventures Of Unemployed Man (£10-99, Little Brown) by Erich Origen & Gan Golan
Krazy & Ignatz 1919-1921: A Kind, Benevolent And Amiable Brick (£18-99, Fantagraphics) by George Herriman
God Of War (£10-99, DC) by Marv Wolfman & Andrea Sorrentino
Dragon Age  vol 1 (£14-99, IDW) by Orson Scott Card, Aaron Johnston & Mark Robinson, Anthony J. Tan
iZombie vol 1: Dead To The World (£10-99, Vertigo) by Chris Robinson & Michael Allred
Superman: New Krypton vol 3 s/c (£13-50, DC) by James Robinson, Greg Rucka & Pete Woods
Thunderbolts: Cage s/c (£10-99, Marvel) by Jeff Parker & Kev Walker
Deadpool: Pulp h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Adam Glass, Mike Benson & Laurence Campbell
Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Warren Ellis & Kaare Andrews
Neon Genesis Evangelion vol 12 (£7-50, Viz) by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto
Gantz vol 16 (£9-99, Dark Horse) by Hiroya Oku
Berserk vol 21 (£10-50, Dark Horse) byKentaro Miura
Berserk vol 22 (£10-50, Dark Horse) byKentaro Miura
Berserk vol 23 (£10-50, Dark Horse) byKentaro Miura
Berserk vol 24 (£10-50, Dark Horse) byKentaro Miura
… to fill in the gaps and
Battle Royale : Ultimate Edition vol 1 h/c (£18-99, Tokyopop) by Koushun Takami & Masayuki Taguchi
… because it looks like the normal volume one is out of print. Contains vols 1, 2 and 3.


Hearty congratulations to writer Kieron Gillen, agent of SWORD, on his wedding this weekend! Apologies to any customers who picked up a copy of Kieron’s GENERATION HOPE #4 to find it had been infiltrated by SHIELD in the form of four of Hickman’s pages. I suspect foul play!

It’s a little known truth that I went to Nottingham Girls’ High School.

Not when I was young, you understand – it’s not something I claim on my CV somewhere between Prep School and Nottingham University. But last month I was very kindly invited to address 30 or so school librarians there, and dutifully packed my trolley suitcase with 60-odd graphic novels I thought would prove enlightening in a show-and-tell for different age ranges and different environments (urban school libraries do tend to stock differently than those enjoying the fresh air and crows cawing in the countryside).

I did feel a bit like a travelling salesman and, let me tell you, security at the High School is pretty effective! I think I circumnavigated the main building twice before I found a suspicious cleaning lady lax enough to let me in.

Once inside, I couldn’t have asked for a more receptive crowd and after a brief introduction to dispel any fears that I was the comic shop guy off the Simpsons (I think that worked…), we all gathered round the tables to talk about the books themselves: some absolute beauties like CHIGGERS, AMULET, NEW YORK FOUR, BONE, CORALINE, COURTNEY CRUMRIN, GRANDVILLE, THE ARRIVAL, TALES FROM OUTER SUBURBIA, MEANWHILE, PYONG YANG, PERSEPOLIS, ASTERIOS POLYP, 99 WAYS TO TELL A STORY, GRAPHIC NOVELS by Paul Gravett, MAKING COMICS by Scott McCloud, a big dollop of manga and a few of the cooler superhero titles.

Tearing myself away after an animated hour of exuberant chat was a mixed bag of elation and deflation – I just wanted to move straight on to another meeting. Lovely, then, to receive this the following day.

Hi Stephen,

Just a note to say thank you so much for your talk and display at the school librarians’ meeting on Monday.  They (and I) really enjoyed the session – your knowledge and enthusiasm were awe-inspiring and I’m sure that it will lead many of them to visit the bookshop!

If you have a digital copy of the list of books you brought along with you, can you please send me a copy and I’ll put it in with the minutes (no problem if you haven’t as I still have my printed copy and can post it to those who weren’t at the meeting).

Many thanks again

Best wishes

Janet

Janet Huffer
Principal Librarian Education Library Service
Children, Families and Cultural Services Department
Nottinghamshire County Council

Once more, I can’t thank you enough for the invitation, Janet, or the reception. Having had to forgo the pleasure for so long while we built the website etc., 2011 is the year I want to travel!

Oh, and here’s a tip for anyone embarking on a similar trip: always hand out lists of what you’re taking first so potential buyers can take notes on the day for future reference. We’ve already had a visit from Dayncourt School’s librarian for a hefty purchase and, sure enough, she had an annotated copy of that list with her.

Here’s our library page on the website, by the way: LINK.

More letters in a second, but first a burst of news picked up from Twitter etc.

Item! Vote for Page 45 as the comic shop “least likely to resemble an android’s dungeon”! Seriously, Rich Johnston’s hosting an alternative awards ceremony of mirth and mischief at Chicago’s Comic & Entertainment Expo, Page 45 is shortlisted, and at the time of typing, the lines were still open. We’re in the last category here: LINK.

Item! Bryan Lee O’Malley had a birthday recently and posted new and behind-the-scenes SCOTT PILGRIM images and script. http://flic.kr/p/9k1csW & http://t.co/TIk6PY3

Item! Excellent online comic from Tom Humberstone featuring students protesting over tuition fees. Gorgeously coloured, this man has everything I want in a comics creator: something to say, and the skill with which to say it. LINK.

Item! Wizard Magazine is dead, killed by the internet. A catastrophically popular mag some fifteen years ago, it represented everything wrong with the US and UK comicbook industry by covering nothing but superheroes, promoting speculation by reporting on perceived rise in ‘values’ (hilariously an early Todd McFarlane issue of SPIDER-MAN was supposed to be worth a fortune because it was misprinted) and pandering to the corporations’ every promotional whim, thereby compounding the problems. Its one saving grace some fifteen years ago was that it was genuinely funny. For a couple of years. But the internet leaks information faster than print and the corporations soon found they had equally willing collaborators online. Whoops. Evan Dorkin, “Wizard ceasing publication is the End of an Error.”

Item! Ellen Lindner, creator of UNDERTOW (our copies signed and sketched in) and one of the many WHORES OF MENSA attended the Angoulême festival this year, and spent her time sketching in colour. And what colours they are! It’s like Linda Barry on absinthe: LINK

Item! There’s a readable copy of Frank Miller’s 1987 interview with Koike & Kojima for THE COMICS JOURNAL online. (Frank was drawing the American translations’ covers.) LINK

Item! Also, from THE COMICS JOURNAL, this on Jason Shiga, the creator of MEANWHILE, DOUBLE HAPPINESS etc.: LINK

Item! Occasionally, very occasionally when a customer’s been on a mad spending spree before going on another at Page 45, our credit card terminal asks us to pick up the phone and confirm the identity of whoever’s holding the card. In case the card’s stolen. In case something dodgy is afoot. And one of the first things we’re asked is the name on the card itself, and if the middle name is an initial, the credit card holder is then asked to confirm what his middle name is. Last month a jovial – and really quite genius – young man was asked what his middle initial D stood for. “Danger, “ he replied. The voice on the other end went quiet. “No really. Danger is my middle name.” He’d changed it by deed poll so he could proudly pronounce that Danger was his middle name. And get his credit card confiscated.

Item! New FINDER site here: LINK.

Item! Westminster Libraries wants submissions for Comics Art Exhibition in early April! LINK

Item! In my review celebrating the riotous triumph of ZITA THE SPACEGIRL, you may have read me agreeing Jamie Smart (SPACE RAOUL, UBU BUBU) about setting higher standards for children’s comics. Here’s his original blog on the subject: LINK

Item! Interview with ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY’s Chris Ware by Matthias Wivel on The Comics Journal website: LINK

Item! Debate goes on about the future of comic shops in the wake of all that is virtual. It’s a short but sweet article. The terrible thing is that it will actually be news to some: LINK

Item! There’s a new graphic novel by iconoclast Tom Gauld coming out from Drawn & Quarterly later this year. It’s called GOLIATH. LINK

Item! Author Philip Pullman recently wrote this of Bryan Talbot’s GRANDVILLE and GRANDVILLE MON AMOUR:

“I have indeed seen and greatly enjoyed your Grandville books. I think they’re superbly designed, beautifully conceived, admirably written,­ everything about them is terrific. They really show what the form can do. Comics is so rich a medium now that it can accommodate all kinds of wit and irony and self-referentiality without being arch about it. But the successful comic or graphic novel still has to build, just as film does, on the solid foundation of a strong story. I’m full of admiration for what you’ve achieved in these stories, and I hope we’ll see many more.”

GRANDVILLE trailer: LINK

Bryan will be signing and sketching at 4pm, 26^th March, at Plan B Books, 5 Osborne St, Glasgow G1 5RB. Tel: 0141 2371137.

Item! We want to compile a resource for new or potential UK self-publishers including a list of printers they could use. Do you use UK printers for small runs of comics and graphic novels. Please email us at page45@page45.com with details so we can pass them on and publish them elsewhere on this site.

Item! Two vital resources for any comic student or casual reader are Paul Gravett’s website with its attendant Comica! Events. LINK

Item! Every letter column should have some background music, so here are two exceptional cover versions from The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde. Radiohead’s Creep: LINK. Morrissey’s Every Day Is Like Sunday: LINK

Now here’s a cracking question from customer Ben Read who, four months after the launch of the website, currently holds the record for biggest-ever online spending spree. You’ll have to go some way to beat it, but we’ll let you know if you do, and give you a great big public shout-out too!

Amigos,

Thank you (once again) for an extremely kind gift. The signed Locke & Key was a fantastic bonus. All the more so in fact, because it’s one of the comics that I’ve pressed on friends as a gift and had missing from my shelf. (I do that with I Kill Giants a lot too, which is why I keep re-ordering it). Truly thoughtful of you, thank you.

Been away for a week so only just got to my parcel. Completely blown away by Weathercraft. Amazing piece of work. Funnily enough, my next brain pick question was going to be – can you recommend any good examples of ‘silent’ comics? I’m looking to do a ridiculously ambitious, long-form, no-dialogue piece, and would very much like to (steal) research whatever storytelling methods have been used to do this previously. Any thoughts?

All the best,

Ben x

P.S. Teaser to project: LINK!

Many thoughts – and a quick scurry round the shelves and a scamper down Memory Lane – reminded me of some of my all-time favourite comics:

WEATHERCRAFT by Jim Woodring
THE PORTABLE FRANK by Jim Woodring
BLOOD SONG by Eric Drooker
FLOOD by Eric Drooker
THE ARRIVAL by Shaun Tan
THE LAST LONELY SATURDAY by Jordan Crane
HE DONE HER WRONG by Milt Gross
GRAPHIC WITNESS anthology 
CEREBUS ZERO by Dave Sim (2 out of the three stories)
CEREBUS WORLD TOUR contains at least one classic silent strip by Barry Windsor-Smith, and another game of consequences between Dave and Chester Brown.
ROBOT DREAMS by Sara Varon
AGE OF REPTILES by Ricardo Delgado
THE SAGA OF REX by Michel Gagné
ALMOST SILENT by Jason
WHAT I DID by Jason – (the SSHHHH! part)
FOX BUNNY FUNNY by Andy Hartzell
NOTES OVER YONDER by Scott Morse
NEW ENGINEERING by Yuichi Yokayama
TRAVEL by Yuichi Yokoyama
ACTIONS SPEAK by Sergio Aragonés
H DAY by Renée French
QUIMBY THE MOUSE by Chris Ware (roughly half of the strips, anyway)
THE BAKERS: DOES THIS BELONG SOMEWHERE? (over half the strips)
TRAGIC RELIEF by Colleen Frakes
METRONOME by Véronique Tanaka AKA Bryan Talbot
A.L.I.E.E.E.N. by Lewis Trondheim
MISTER I by Lewis Trondheim
MISTER O by Lewis Trondheim
WALKING SHADOWS by Neil Bousfield
THE WALKING MAN by Jiro Taniguchi… 

… and, of course, every single one of Andy Runton’s OWLY books.

Alas Peter Kuper’s THE SYSTEM, a visual relay race through the heart of a city, is out of print at the time of typing, but there are massive chunks of CEREBUS that are silent, most notably the incarceration scenes in JAKA’S STORY. Reading it as a book, it’s easy to forget how radical it was as a periodical: page after page of barred prison doors barely lit from above.

Also, CATS ARE WEIRD and CAT GETTING OUT OF A BAG by Jeffrey Brown are mostly silent short pieces, Top Shelf published at least one younger-readers KORGI book that was silent, every single GON was silent, and Marvel dedicated an entire month to silent comics with mixed results. Certainly Chris Claremont was somewhat taken aback.

If you can think of more (there are bound to be more) please do email us at page45@page45.com and listen for the sound of me slapping my forehead at the other end. Chris ‘Waterworks’ Craven certainly wasn’t shy about sending us this:

First let me say one thing… Damn you, Stephen!!!!

It’s going to be one of those letters.

Right, glad I got that off my chest.

We all feel better for it.

The reason for the damning is due to Stephen’s choice for my annual “hey it’s christmas so i will treat myself to a graphic novel to read over the festive period and hope it doesn’t make me cry like Magneto: Testament did”. (By the way I am working on that name so I have something snappier for this year).

As he may remember he handed me a little book called Forgetless by a chap called Nick Spencer. To sell it me i’m sure he used some of the following words: your sense of humour, Bendis, Hickman and fractured narrative. Obviously I had to purchase this book and upon reading found that all of these words used to sell me this book were indeed present and correct. To cut a long story short I loved it, very funny and extremely well written.

This obviously lead to me googling this chap Nick Spencer to see what else he did, and the thing that kept popping up in the search engine were two words, Morning Glories. Hmmm I said to myself I wonder what that is, there seems to be a lot of articles about this book on CBR. So I went and had a look and read a little interview they did with Nick about the first two issues. Doing my best to avoid spoilers I skimmed through the article, saw some gorgeous artwork and kept seeing words such as Lost, Runaways and Battlestar Galactica. Again I thought, well I like those things (I would stretch to love for Battlestar) maybe I should give this book a go and then I remembered a little promise I made to El, that I would try and cut back on my comic spending due to our impending nuptials (as you can tell by my frequent visits every Thursday, that’s going well!!!) so to please the little lady I thought i would wait for the trade of the first arc and just stick to buying the trades.

Because you’re reeeeeaaaally good at comicbook self-control, aren’t you, Chris?

So last Thursday I purchased Morning Glories and left it to one side while I read that week’s new books and finished re-reading Preacher (which was as good if not better than I remembered). This takes us to last night when before bed I decided to have a read of the first issue of Morning Glories, expecting to leave the rest of the book when I got home from work today. That didn’t happen as I read the whole thing last night. 

The reason for this long and rather rambling email is that I really enjoyed it, no hang on I LOVED this book. At first I had it written off as a kind of x-men type book as clearly all the kids would have super powers right?? Wrong! What I got instead was a book with interesting characters, gorgeous artwork and one heck of a hook. Sciency stuff mixing with supernatural stuff, classic John Hughes esque school stuff and evil teachers… I’m on board with his book till the end. I’ve read that Nick Spencer has the book planned to go up to 75 issues at least with less of the short-term payoff story and more of the long-term story instead and I will be there with him.

Needless to say I cannot, nay will not wait for the trade so could you please add me for Morning Glories as of the latest issue which I think is 7 due this week?

All the best and see you Thursday

Chris

P.S That damn you Stephen is a thank you for introducing me to the wonderful writer Nick Spencer and Morning Glories. Now all I have to do is try and avoid buying Existence 2.0/3.0

Hahahaha. Yeah, good luck with that. Also, add SHUDDERTOWN to the list and the exceptional INFINITE VACATION #1 (reorders in) which I reviewed here: LINK.

Nick Spencer just blasted in from nowhere (well, he was certainly way off my radar until I caught the preview of EXISTENCE 2.0 #1) with a ridiculous number of books at once that have never failed to disappoint. I hadn’t realised MORNING GLORIES was such a long-form project, so thanks for that.

A chap called Stuart wrote on our Bookface wall:

Hello Page 45. I was up in Nottingham last weekend (doing an exhibition at the Malt Cross Gallery – go have a look!) and i popped in and got a Chris Ware book – the one with the red cover, his more “lighthearted” stuff to supposedly distract himself from the bleak/sad stuff. It’s super good. Anyway, when I was in there I saw a Daniel Clowes “Wilson” promo poster and asked if you had any more. The guy behind the counter said that they were around and that if he found them he would send me one.

IT ARRIVED TODAY! So, I’d like to say thank you. THANK YOU! I REALLY appreciate you guys going beyond etc. I live in London now but my wife once lived in Nottingham and I spent considerable time and $£$£ in Page 45 about 6 years ago and it’s good to see that the place is still tip top and the staff are still super duper.

Thanks again.

Stuart.

You’re very welcome, mate. We gave those prints out free of charge with our first fifty WILSON sales, but I’d manage to hide (read: lose) a couple behind the counter.

Seeing as you live in London now, I hope you shop at Gosh! opposite the British Museum. They’ve just celebrated their 25^th Anniversary which is mind-blowing for any independent retailer these days. I am in awe.

Anyone attending our own 10^th or 15^th Anniversary Booze Bashes may well have met the most loyal of the loyal, Ian Hunter and his wife Joanna. Ian writes:

Joanna & I brought her cousin, Jane, to see Page 45 on Saturday during a Nottingham tour. Having primed her for the visit during a lunch at The Malt Cross I awaited her response with the usual mixture of trepidation and excitement.

Jane swung immediately from: “I bet there aren’t any girls in there”…

50% female customer base.

Over half the Tweets we receive are from women!

We don’t resemble an android’s dungeon!!!

… to “I never realised there was such a range of material available” (I did point out that your fine establishment was quite unique in the range of material you have in store.) You also missed Joanna proudly marching Jane to the Posy Simmonds and Peanuts shelves…

Conversation continued throughout the rest of the day. Seeds have been sown…. Classic Page45 history in the making !

I also noticed Harker vol 2 was in stock – not really a detective fan per se, but I was drawn to the book because I am a long time regular visitor to Whitby.

What a surprise! – The artist has actually either been to Whitby and/or used actual photographic reference of the place. Judging by some of the scenes (e.g. the angles on the swing bridge) I suspect it is the former. Quite the contrast to some of the American artists who draw New York with red double decker buses as a stand-in for London. Seriously thinking of purchasing !

I’ll be in for my Iron Man fix next week regardless !

Best Regards.

Ian

Eur. Ing. Ian Hunter B.Eng, C.Eng, M.I.E.T.

Of course you will. Nowt wrong with that; we love Fraction’s IRON MAN.

However, Vince Danks’ Whitby is a joy to behold. Take a look at the cover and review here: LINK. His sunlit London suburbs, museums and pretty special too, as see in HARKER VOL ONE.

Right, gird yourselves for an epic dissertation on our recent selections for Page 45’s Comicbook Of The Month Club.

Hi

I noticed in one of the blogs that the number of letters/emails had reduced since the website was revamped and relaunched, so I just thought I’d try to redress the balance and send some of my ramblings.

So tea in hand (I know – tea! Should really be red wine but I hit forty last year and came to the sudden realisation that my waist is just going to keep on growing if I don’t do something, so no booze in the week, when I’m at home is my sacrifice… the week being Mon- Wed).

LOL!

(I just LOLled. Am I allowed to LOL or is it now frowned upon?)

Last FM on the laptop – incidentally is this one of the best things about Web 2.0. My own radio station playing stuff I have and stuff I may also like.

Anyway I digress. I had promised myself way back when the Comic Book of the Month club started that I would try to write about what I thought of each of them. Seemed only fair given the discount we get, but I have been a little remiss in this. Time to try and make up for it.

A quick mention for Walker Bean. It really didn’t catch me and, for me, was a rare miss for the CBOTM. I could see the attraction, and it was well executed, but the characters and story just did not manage to hook me. To be fair it may be the time of year. I was reading it in between Christmas and New Year, and it strikes me as a book to be read sat outside in the sun with some chilled white wine to hand. Could be worth another go in the summer.

Always works for me. Your young son will adore it in a few years time.

Having been a little negative about Walker Bean, I have to say that both Special Exits and Crickets were exceptional, the former being possibly one of the most affecting books I have read. As soon as I finished it I started making some notes on the effects, technique, context and possible meanings, which I meant to go back to on a reread. However on just flicking though it again to write this email, I found that it was too emotionally powerful, and I was not quite ready to go back and watch the sad deterioration of that elderly, infuriating, wonderful, human couple, especially Rachel whose journey from plump and pleasant old lady, to the emaciated being at the end brought tears to my eyes when I first read it, and does so now thinking about it and flicking through some of the images.

There is so much talent, skill and experience of the form implicit within the novel that it really deserves a proper, full essay-length analysis carried out on it. Maybe something I might put on my (rarely updated) blog when I get the chance to do it justice. As with all works of art, it enables the reader to view the world a little differently, and just maybe after Special Exits I may be a little more tolerant of the old people getting in the way in the supermarket, or driving so slowly in their cars. Maybe I’ll think, if only for a second, of Lars and Rachel and will have a little more empathy.

Following on from something so good could have been difficult, but Crickets manages it with aplomb. I have to agree with something I saw Jonathan post on the boards, that Sammy Harkham doesn’t put out enough work. I wanted more of the main story. I want to know what happens to these characters. I’ve only really associated Harkham with being the editor of Kramer’s Ergot and have never really taken any notice of his actual work. That’s a mistake I shall be rectifying. He has a style that reminds me of Kevin Huizenga, and he captures how mundane life can be perfectly, rendering it interesting. In particular his attempts at sex with his exhausted wife, and subsequent childish tantrum is something that a lot of fathers, if they are completely honest with themselves, have been guilty of at some point. Sammy Harkham does a good job of taking a subject that would seem beyond the experience of most people (a film editor, no matter how frustrated) and manages to make that into a mirror that reflects some part of the reader’s own existence and experience, even if it does show a part of us we would rather not look at too closely or too often.

Anyway, I’m confident that this month’s CBOTM [DAYTRIPPER] will maintain the high standards set. I’ve been meaning to check out something by those brothers since an excellent interview they did with the Comics Journal, so I am very much looking forward to it.

Thanks for listening/reading this long, rambling nonsense, and congratulations on such good February sales. Long may it continue.

Cheers

Marcus [Nyahoe]

Marcus is referring to the news that we’ve just beaten our all-time February sales record by a staggering 12.57%. In the worst year so far of this recession. We beat the record on the shop floor alone, not just through new internet sales. Thanks for that, by the way.

And a big thank you for Marcus for taking the time and trouble to send such an erudite email. In spite of the fact that I spectacularly failed to provide a February letter column and so lost the plot with a correspondence between Jonathan and Alex Sarll about the bleed between Vertigo and DC’s superhero universe, please keep the emails coming.

I’ve always cherished the interaction here, be it on the shop floor or letter columns, and it’s so easy to let the immediacy of Twitter become the sole receptacle now when in fact it’s so very fleeting, not everyone’s cup of tea, and… well, I’m not at my most natural when restricted to 180 characters!

To Whom it May (or may not) Concern…

Shouldn’t really be emailed off my work account, but hey ho, what they don’t know can’t hurt them (unless it’s the fact they don’t know an out of control plane is headed in their general direction. There’s gotta be paid there somewhere).

Anyway, need to stop myself getting distracted, just a quick question really.

I’m a writer. I write all the time, day, night, the times between those two where its kinda darky-light and lighty-dark. I write short stories, novellas, scripts and just letters to clients (the most boring writing I do, of course).

My passion, however, is writing comics and graphic novels. I devote my time between writing to read as many things with pictures in as possible. Only thing is, I’m working on what I’m already calling my magnum opus to myself and the two people I talk to my work about. The whole thing is nearly done, I’m just ironing out any creases I find.

My problem is (drum roll please) I don’t and can’t draw. I have (what I think) is a really good piece of fiction, but with no images to go with it. In any other case I’d translate it into a short story, but this thing feels like it needs to be told in a graphic novel.

The question I need to ask is where can I go from here? Who can I send it to? Why does peanut butter go so well with bananas and jam?

That is all.

It’s enough.

Just in case the history of aviation changes dramatically for the worst and it’s all your fault, I’ve withheld your name but suggest a little trip to our forums if you haven’t already. There are at least two threads here about artists seeking writers or vice-versa: LINK

Or maybe you could meet someone at Writing East Midlands Alt.Fiction event on science-fiction, fantasy and horror writing on June 25^th and June 26^th 2011. http://altfiction.co.uk

For Writing East Midlands, visit http://www.writingeastmidlands.co.uk/

I suggest you keep your thoughts on peanut butter to yourself, though, just as I have here in case there are people eating at the computer.

Greetings!

It’s been over a year since we lest sent a badly-disguised spam mail to you: as we write this mail we just happen to be chillin’ in a 17th century chateaux in the region of Angouleme, France – which just happens to be the host city of the largest comics festival in Europe. Thankfully, we’re not just here to drink good wine and eat stinky cheese – we’re here to represent Romanian comics: in fact, it’s our first ever Romanian participation at the festival.

We’ll be launching the BOOK OF GEORGE, a chunky almanac that presents some brand-new Romanian comic talent. We’ve searched far and wide to track down some Romanian comic artists who’ve never been involved with Hardcomics before, and have come up with some real surprises. So, if you’re interested in finding out more about the hot new kids on the comic block, you definitely ought to check out the book – and the site – www.thebookofgeorge.com. Keep your peepers peeled for more information about the Romania launch-party for the book – that is, if we don’t decide to sack it all off and stay in France for the rest of our lives, making cheese and making unnecessarily effusive gesticulations whenever we speak!

The last important piece of information we have to impart is that we’ve changed our email address: due to spam, and the fact that loads of hottie girls have been bugging us non-stop to “hang” with them, we’re now operating via hardcomics@gmail.com. Drop us a line with all your personal problems! And don’t pass it onto you’re hottie sister!

That website is well worth a visit! BOOK OF GEORGE is a quality anthology, you can read each story with its own theme music by clicking on individual titles, but the video itself… Just… watch the hands….

Hi there!

First off, I just wanted to say congratulations on the new website. It took a while, but the wait was clearly worth it in the end! It really has the spirit of the store in it, which is a wonderful thing.

I’d also like to take a moment to say how much I love Page45. To an embarrassing degree. I fully intend to have my ashes scattered on your carpet when I pass on – please don’t hoover me up, ‘kay?  I run the small Graphic Novels section over at Waterstone’s in Derby, and your store is always an inspiration to me, so thank you.

Anyway, the main purpose of my email (other than to say nice things, which is probably reason enough, actually) is a quick query concerning comic back issues. For my sins, I have a big ol box of Image comics from the 90s (mainly the Homage studios stuff like Cyberforce and Wildcats) which I’m feeling a bit stuck with. I don’t really want them anymore, but I’m aware that they don’t really have enough individual value to try selling on ebay or some such site. And I’d feel bad just throwing them all in the recycling – pulping comics is Bad Thing.

I know you guys don’t really do back issues anymore, but do you know of any dealers or persons who might just take the bulk of them for a nominal fee (as I said, I’m well aware they’re not really valuable)? I’d appreciate any advice you can offer.

Anyway, thanks for your time, and all the best to you and the store in 2011.

Regards,

Robert Leahy.

Anyone fancy giving Robert a nominal fee for some truly atrocious comics? Email us at page45@page45.com and we’ll pass your offers on. Otherwise, Robert how about donating them to a school or library to aid their literacy projects? Oh wait, maybe not their literacy projects…

May you live a very long life, Robert: our Tom is allergic to dust.

I leave you now with two items of news. Okay, one advertisement and an item of news. Firstly, the Misfits TV show made me laugh, so…

SCREENLIT CELEBRATES THE SMALL SCREEN:
TELEVISION SCREENWRITER EVENTS (27-30 MARCH)
BROADWAY CINEMA, NOTTINGHAM
http://www.broadway.org.uk/screenlit_2011

MON 28 MARCH, 6.30PM
BAFTA MASTERCLASS: MISFITS WITH HOWARD OVERMAN
Duration: 90m

Misfits appeared like a supercharged lightning storm on E4 in 2009 and went on to win a BAFTA for Best Television Drama for its clever and complex tale of five young offenders who discover that having superhero powers isn’t so super. We are thrilled to welcome creator and writer Howard Overman to reveal where Misfits came from, how it’s written and, perhaps, where it’s going in 2011. The Q&A will be led by freelance script editor and development executive Kate Leys and will be illustrated with clips.

With thanks to Clerkenwell Films, BAFTA, and E4.

Tickets: £7.00 full / £5.50 concs.

BAFTA’s public events and online resources bring you closer to the creative talent behind your favourite games, films, and TV shows. Find out more at http://www.bafta.org/

To buy tickets: http://www.broadway.org.uk/
0115 952 6611
in person at Broadway box office

Secondly I know so many friends who moved to Nottingham because of Selectadisc (R.I.P.), and that makes perfect sense to me.

But I just learned on Twitter that James Sharpe has paid Page 45 that ultimate compliment too:

“The decision to move was based purely on the fact that Nottingham has a proper comic shop (@PageFortyFive).”

Wow.

I sometimes struggle for a punchline, but that’s it.

Cursed Pirate Girl vol 1 (£14-99, Olympia) by Jeremy A. Bastian.

“What business does one so small have afloat those dark waves?”
“What was that? You may think me a spring shower, sir. But I’ve a hurricane in this heart that’d sink the Royal Fleet. So if your old bones would be so kind there’s a pirate here that needs to be squeezed through yer pretty door.”

What a refreshing, exuberant and intoxicating read! Jeremy A. Bastian, as if giddy on grog, liberates himself from all constraints – be they the laws of physics or so many comicbook formulae – to deliver a fantastical romp both above and below the Caribbean high seas which is so rich in detail that you’ll be scanning its nooks and crannies for hours. The lines are ridiculously fine yet as smooth as silk, as shrimp-strewn seaweed swirls to frame the pages or the Pirate Girl is lowered down the starboard hull of a galleon in a cage fashioned in the form of an enormous, ornate teapot. It’s not just ornate, this is bursting with inspiration and imagination, the pages populated by James Gillray grotesques, Sir John Tenniel hybrid creatures; and yes, while I’m think about it, there is more than a little of Lewis Carroll’s fantastical mischief here combined with the anarchy of Tony Millionaire (MAAKIES etc.), whilst the cluttered galleys and captain’s quarters o’erbrimming with jewel-encrusted treasures are delineated with fine lines as classy as Bernie Wrightson’s FRANKENSTEIN.

Charles Vess, Mike Mignola, David Petersen and Gary Gianni line up to praise the book’s originality as the Cursed Pirate Girl and parrot Pepper Dice take a deep breath and dive onto and into a fish, respectively, to journey underwater past fish made from whicker and squabbling swordfish siblings to rise in search of the girl’s missing father, one of five Captains sailing under the Jolly Roger flag in the Omerta Seas. Each ship they board presents a different challenge with new friends or foes, but the Cursed Pirate girl has boundless energy, a quick wit and at least one keen eye, while by the end of this first foray ‘x’ will mark the spot of the other.

LINK

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Human Target vol 2: Second Chances (£14-99, Vertigo/DC) by Peter Milligan & Cliff Chiang, Javier Pulido.

Christopher Chance is The Human Target, a man who lives other people’s lives in order to save them. If you’ve got a price on your head he’ll assume your identity just long enough to take out any striking hitman.

So lost is he in his work now that he has to use his not inconsiderable skills of impersonation – and a lot of prosthetics – to even look like Christopher Chance, because underneath it all he now has the face and wife of dead Frank White (see volume one).

Here he stumbles on a man who faked his own death in the chaos of September 11th, but who now wants his life back, his wife back, and to expose his old employers as the fraudsters they are. Messy. Chance is then persuaded to investigate the suicide of a baseball player who was being blackmailed into throwing games by high-stakes gamblers. To this end he has to take the identity of another baseball player, and although Chris is a crack actor, he’s never swung a bat in his life.

Complicating things even further he’s then persuaded into looking like Charlie Rivers who’s posing as John Charles and thinks Christopher Chance is actually Molloy, an active terrorist left-over from The Weathermen cell. Chance’s mission? Catch Molloy!

Yes, that is the sound of your brain shutting down. In terms of ingenuity of plot and slights of hand, this is one of the cleverest books on the market recommended to all fans of 100 BULLETS, THE KILLER and CRIMINAL. The final issue here played me for a fool. It’s a sly and subtle short in which Jim Grace escapes from prison, and Christopher agrees to buy him five days of freedom by keeping the cops chasing the wrong man while Jim gets some conjugal. And some extra-marital. And then some more. Guess prison makes you horny, eh? You have just been misdirected.

Bonus: art lesson from Cliff Chiang in the back.

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Tyranny (£8-50, Tundra Books) by Lesley Fairfield.

An autobiographical account of one woman’s debilitating battle with anorexia and bulimia, there will be much here, I’m sure, to provide empathy to fellow suffers and explanations to their friends. It seems an almost hopeless, never-ending struggle once the conditioning and consequent condition sets in, and one thing that stood out for me amongst many was that it’s more about self-image – a misperception of what one’s own body actually looks like – than a desperate desire to impress potential suitors with one’s look. Even when Lesley’s emaciation, her basic lack of nutrition and energy, causes her to pass out and become painfully ill, it is only because of the kindness of strangers or persistent counselling that any progress is made in raising her self-awareness and then self-control, and even then there are setbacks aplenty.

The art is equally frail with thin lines and the faintest of shading, and the stark depiction of Lesley’s withered and sore existence, teetering on the edge of total collapse whilst desperately trying to keep up appearances and keep hold of her job, is startling.

Unlike Rosalind Penfold’s DRAGONSLIPPERS: THIS IS WHAT AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP LOOKS LIKE, I’m not sure how much I learned from this, except that the warping of one’s self-image seems to start to take hold when the body changes during puberty and the natural, accompanying growth spurt is exaggerated by the eye of its beholder. Teenagers are pretty private people in the first place, parents’ strictures perceived as being unreasonable and out of all proportion, and here parental concern is met with an increasingly furtive determination to stave off the young body’s development. Tragically, she even manages to move out on her own.

“Catch it early on” is the advice for every medical condition, and I really do wish I’d read this before this week’s trip to advise 30 school librarians on stocking their shelves with graphic novels; this should be bought in all over the country and as soon as humanly possible because what it does share with DRAGONSLIPPERS is the same effect of holding up a mirror to those potentially unaware of their own plight, or the plight of their sons, daughters or pupils.

LINK

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On The Line h/c (£9-99, Image) by Rick Wright & Rian Hughes.

“E-mail… multimedia…on-line shopping… the Internet… and now the World Wide Web. At last! I’m well and truly wired… Better put another 50p in the meter.”

Can you even imagine a world without Broadband now? It was almost like putting another 50p in the electricity meter. What I certainly cannot recall let alone imagine is what Page 45 was doing by way of online activity back in 1995 and 1996. I’ll have to ask Dominique. That’s the era this is from, by the way, in the form of four-panel advertisements for Compuserve disguised as gag strips for The Guardian newspaper. Compuserve was never mentioned by name, just the services it offered.

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys…”

I can only imagine Compuserve paid through its nose, then, for never has there been such exquisite design work lavished on the gag strip than here, by font inventor, one-time Grant Morrison collaborator (DARE) and the man responsible for so many comicbook logos it’s not true. The characters themselves are determinedly flat, black, angular silhouettes with wide, expressive eyes; the male’s mouth scooped out in profile, his wife’s represented by a circle shot through with a curve. Everything’s been reduced to its purest, chic, almost symbolic self, putting me very much in mind of Woodrow Phoenix (SUGAR BUZZ, RUMBLE STRIP, both highly recommended, the first for insane laughs, the second for sober reflection on the way we drive our cars) with a dash of Shag. It’s exuberant, manic and colludes with its readership. Really, it’s as much of a social history document as anything else from; a time when googling was something that babies did and parents instantly imitated, and when most people thought that an e-mail was a man who hugged every stranger in town.

It’s small, it’s short, but thoroughly sweet with a two-page introduction by Rian Hughes himself.

LINK

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5 Very Good Reasons To Punch A Dolphin In The Mouth (£10-99, Andrews McMeel) by Matthew Inman.

“Did I mention I can juggle live animals? It’s quite a sight, especially when I do it with a bunch of pissed off wolverines.”

Working in this industry, it’s almost impossible to type ‘wolverine’ without a capital ‘w’. Go on, try it yourself. I had to correct that three times!

Another graphics-heavy but not-really-a-comic-at-all volume which Page 45 is happy to endorse given that it made me weep with recognition; laughter too, but also recognition.

It wasn’t so much ‘How To Tell If Your Velociraptor Is Having Pre-Marital Sex’ or ‘7 Reasons To Keep Your Tyrannosaur off Crack Cocaine’ (which is basic common sense) but ‘The 8 Phases Of Employment’, ‘ Six Types Of Crappy Hugs’, ‘How to Suck At Facebook’ and ‘Why I’d Rather Be Punched In The Testicles Than Call Customer Service’.

Jonathan in particular will be shaking his head in pained solidarity at ‘Why It’s Better To Pretend You Don’t Know Anything About Computers’ given what his father manages to do each time within minutes of owning one himself. Matthew speaks from experience as the small favours requested by relatives turn into larger ones:

“My computer is SO slow. Can you make it go faster? I’ve downloaded everything I’ve ever found on the internet, never once uninstalled a program, and my porn collection extends into the terabytes – but I think it’s all Microsoft’s fault.” Also, “Hey so this thing popped up and asked me if I wanted to download super_silly_funtime_and_free_tacos.exe. I installed it, of course! Who wouldn’t install that? But now I’ve got all these pop-ups and my mouse cursor is shaped like a can of refried beans – can you fix this?”

But I happen to know that Matthew used to be a website designer and having spent much time in conversation with our own genius, Chris Dicken, I can believe everything Inman says in ‘How A Web Design Goes Straight To Hell’. The first three steps from enthusiasm and recognition of a previous design’s shortcomings result in a brand-new, slick and fully functioning re-design… and are then systematically sabotaged by the client:

“So this design is perfect, but I’m CEO so I feel obligated to make changes to feel like I’ve done my job properly. Also, I’ll use phrases like “user experience” and “conversation orientated” to sound smart even though I barely know how to use a computer.” It gets a great deal worse before, “I’ve looped my mother into this conversation. She designed a bake sale flyer back in 1982, so you could say she has an “eye” for design.” “The design you put together needs some brighter colours; it’s too gloomy. Perhaps a little pink. Throw in a kitten, too. Everyone loves kittens!”

Even this Matthew did not make up:

“OK so my dog, Miffles, is a big deal. He’s basically the most important part of my life. I want you to add “stream of consciousness” copy to the web page, where it’s like Miffles is talking to the user. I’ll send you a few pages of narration of what Miffles is probably thinking about, such as I love tasty treats!” and “Hello, welcome to my website! I am a god and you should shake my paw! LOL.”

Originally posted on http://theoatmeal.com/, some sections are curiously informative with grammar lessons, spelling lessons, talks about cheese (learn why lactose intolerance is not another form of bigotry) and… what is it with everyone and Nikola Tesla at the moment? No, I’m with them – everyone should know about Tesla – but why now all of a sudden? Inman uses lots of different visual styles to keep it appealing. As a bonus there’s a big fold-out poster we can all relate to called ‘Why I Believe Printers Were Sent From Hell to Make Us Miserable’. Amongst the very many reasons:

“All printers come with a bonus feature where they’ll not only print on paper, but crunch it up for you as well. You’re lured in by the fact that the printer is so cheap. It probably has sleek surfaces and every feature is described with an exclamation point.
PRINTAMAX INKJET 2000!
IT PRINTS ON PAPER!
HAS A POWER BUTTON!
HAS A THING THAT LIGHTS UP!
You may even buy one of those scanner/printer fax combos, which means it will suck really hard at three things rather than just one.
Error Messages. I’ve come to believe that my printer produces cryptic error messages simply by using words like “load” and “tray” and arranging them randomly.
SPOOL ERROR: LOAD TRAY ERROR 2 UR MOM’S MOUTH HAHAHAHA.
Ink Cartridges. Either printer ink is made from unicorn blood or we’re all getting screwed. Biro (ink contained in plastic) $0.15. Ink Cartridge (ink contained in plastic) $25.
Ink Colours. Aside from getting gouged by ink cartridges that cost more than the printers themselves, what’s really aggravating is when your printer refuses to work unless all the colours are fully stocked.
ERROR Unable to print SomeBlackAndWhiteDocument.doc
Because your printer is currently out of Cyan.”

Aaaarrrrggghhhhh!

LINK

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Big Nate: From The Top (£7-50, Andrews McMeel) by Lincoln Pierce.

“Teddy! Where were you this morning during homeroom?”
“What? Wait a minute! You can’t think I stole Francis’ money?”
“Everyone’s a suspect! Why, the very first person I interviewed was myself! … And I must say, I found me fascinating.”
“I think we knew that already.”

He’s nailed me, hasn’t he?

Just like PEANUTS and BOONDOCKS, this is a syndicated newspaper strip whose focus is on precociously world-wise tykes in infant school for whom self-awareness either strikes like lightning with disastrous results or fails to make an appearance at all. Arguments with teachers, a battle of wits in the playground, and the overriding codes of youthful honour. Here we are on the school bus:

“Good morn –“
“Dibs.”
“Huh?”
“I called dibs.”
“On what?”
“On everything. Forever.”
“Wait a minute!”
“You’re in my seat.”

Not something we’d have bought in ourselves as I don’t know the strip from Adam, but Richard Fortey from Simon & Schuster who has done wonders for us otherwise (he gave me JESUS ON THYFACE, for example, and now we art bless-ed by the Son of God himself!) offered me a copy and we thought we’d try it out to see if anyone bites. If you do, we can quickly stock up on prior volumes, then I will pretend that I was always an expert.

LINK

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Morning Glories vol 1: For A Better Future (£7-50, Image) by Nick Spencer & Joe Eisma.

Hunter: “So I guess we’re going to be roommates and all that, we should probably get to know each other, right? Where are you from?”
Jun: “Tokyo.”
Hunter: “Wow, seriously, Tokyo? That’s gotta be cool. I’m from Toronto, which they say is like New York without all the stuff to do, you know?”
Jun: “No.”
Hunter: “Sorry, I’m probably just rambling my ass off, aren’t I? I think I’m a little nervous, new school and all that –”
Jun: “If anything happens, just stay close to me, you’ll be fine.”
Hunter: “Wow. Uhh… thanks?”
Ike: “It’s Brokeback Bunk Beds!”
Jun: “And you stay away from me.”

How did school work out for you? We used to joke about prep school being a concentration camp, and made plans to escape. Some of those plans weren’t even jokes and the police had to be called at least half a dozen times when one of us breached the walls at night and tried to make it home on foot. Sounds quite ambitious when it was a two-hour car journey, but you never went to Packwood Haugh. My older cousin Nick still refuses to talk about it even to this day.

Uber-prestigious Morning Glory Academy, however, makes Packwood look like a holiday camp. It looks magnificent on the outside, but once inside things grow increasingly disturbing for our new batch of fresh-faced pupils. In fact all six of them somehow dozed off on the chauffeured journey there, so they haven’t a clue where they are and when one of them phones home, her Dad grows increasingly irate at what he takes to be a prank because he doesn’t even have a daughter. Oh, and it’s everyone’s sixteenth birthday. Weird. Now the phones have stopped working, there is no internet access and although one of the pupils does see her parents once more, she won’t be doing so again.

I love everything Nick Spencer’s done to this point: FORGETLESS, EXISTENCE 2.0/3.0, SHUDDERTOWN and especially INFINITE VACATION #1 (restocks in), but although there’s a lot going on here and so much still left hanging for us to discover, this is his first project which hasn’t entirely convinced me yet. I’m not convinced by the children’s reactions to the terrors inflicted upon them (near-drowning, being chased by goons with guns, electric torture…) which seem relatively equanimous (equanimous: new word learned from Madness’ Dust Devil track!); I’m not convinced by the two-dimensionally wicked teachers and nurses, their behaviour towards the pupils or to each other; and I’m not overly convinced by the timing of and between certain sequences. It… meanders.

We are, however, dealing with some sort of reality shifts and it may all come together including the brief sequence set in 1490 where someone who looks just like Zoe or Julie is incarcerated in Spain – or at least somewhere they speak Spanish. And given the final revelation which took me by surprise at the very end of this first volume it may be that Zoe, Julie and the 15^th Century girl are supposed to look identical. Or it may be that the artist has a limited range in hair and faces. I just don’t know, because it’s the first time my faith has faltered.

I’ll be back, of course, because this is Nick Spencer and this appears to be his first long-form project. How long it will be, I don’t know, but I suspect the pupils may be getting their hopes up if they believe that “The hour of our release draws near.”

LINK

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Thor & Loki: Blood Brothers oversized h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Robert Rodi & Esad Ribic.

“I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? …I will revenge my injuries: if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.”
 - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

Loki the Deceiver wasn’t so much Thor’s half-brother as adopted sibling. All he craved was affection; what he received instead were careless dismissals or, from others, outright hostility. Tragically, defensively, the young boy reacted in kind and so began a vicious, accelerating cycle which he tried to reach out from and break, but something always went wrong.

Even now that he has conquered all of Asgard and enslaved the God of Thunder, when Hela, Goddess of Death, demands Thor’s execution Loki risks all to thwart her, but history has a habit of repeating itself…
Surprisingly affecting insight into the heart and soul of the embittered trickster god, accompanied by speeches that successfully evoke the required sense of the arcane as opposed to the traditional Marvel Norse hogwash. Add to this the ultimate in post-Frazetta fantasy art, and you have a book tailor-made for the mythologists, role-players and Hobbit-botherers out there. The scenery is monumental and Loki’s twisted, gnarled, and constantly snarling face comes with bloodshot eyes and a goblin-like, gap-toothed mouth that’s exquisitely repulsive.

But crucially there are the moments of quiet introspection like Loki rising in the cold light of dawn on the day of Thor’s execution to reflect with regret on what he has lost.

“Over all the millennia, only you have ever loved me, Thor, only you have ever looked at me with affection in place of condescension. Why, then, am I killing you, and not the others?

“Because you stopped.”

It’s possibly the best Thor story out there and heartily recommended to anyone looking forward to Kieron Gillen’s new series of JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY starting in April 2011.

This new, oversized incarnation comes with extra material including the original series pitch, full-colour character studies, unused cover sketches (they really should release a pencils-only version of this because Ribic’s shading is a joy) and the relatively recent THOR #12 ‘Diversions And Misdirections’ by Straczynski & Coipel, then JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY #85 and a bit of #112, both by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby.

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Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four vol 5 s/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby.

“Reed Richards, the only man in the world ever to defeat me, getting married today! This is my greatest chance for revenge – now, when he will least expect it! My attack must be foolproof, irresistible, all-powerful! Only by scoring the greatest victory of all time can I wipe out the humiliation of the past!”

God, it was only a game of Tiddlywinks. Or was it strip-Tiddlywinks? Was your winkle tiddly, Victor?

Weddings: always some trouble and strife. Traditionally that is the end result unless you’re left at the altar. What’s the cockney for left at the altar? Rocked in Gibraltar?

“Sue – my darling!”
“We’re married at last! And nothing will ever part us, my beloved!”

Yeah, not so much really. It’s not the supervillains who get in the way, although an awful lot of them try on the big day itself: Mr. Hyde, the Mandarin, the Mole Man, the Skrulls; the Red Ghost, the Black Knight, the Grey Gargoyle, the Pink Panther; the Puppet Master, the Mad Thinker, the Human Top, the Alien Bottom; Kang The Conqueror, Attuma the tuna and the pungent Masters Of Evil. Each and every one is “summoned” by Vicky Von Doom only to be dispatched by the most dysfunctionally dressed guest list in marital history consisting of the Avengers, the X-Men, Nick Fury, Dr. Strange, Daredevil and Spider-Man. At least Nick Fury and Charles Xavier bring their tuxedos. No, the real culprit, as we will discover over the next five decades, is Reed “I’ve got a test tube and I’m not afraid to let it obsess me for months before I actually get around to using it” Richards.

“Don’t get too near them, darling – !”
“Stop sounding like a wife and find me that gun, lady!”

“Reed! Look at you! You haven’t even shaved! And you must be starved!” 
“For the love of Pete, girl! Is that what you disturbed me for?”

So much for the honeymoon period.

The wedding aside this is one long epic which begins with magenta-maned Medusa of the Frightful Four being frightfully forward with Ben then awfully backward in addressing her roots. By which I mean her brethren, the Inhumans, revealed here for the first time and determined that they should all return whence they came, sequestered away in the Himalayan Great Refuge. But netting the human hairdo means venturing out themselves which is when Johnny Storm first spies Crystal and promptly falls head over heels in love with the one woman he can’t have… for now.

It’s one of the most fertile FF eras with the introduction also of the Silver Surfer, Galactus and even Wyatt Wingfoot, and it’s here you will learn how the Surfer comes to be stranded in exile on Earth, how he attracts the attention of The Thing’s girlfriend Alicia, and what the true nature of the Ultimate Nullifier is other than a device evidently used on an infant Johnny Storm’s brain.

On a visual front it’s immediately striking whenever Joe Sinnott’s on inks, and there are some cracking covers including a sunset scene anticipating Galactus and a most unusual choice in browns on #50’s. Also, although Galactus’ now traditional purple attire is adopted in #49, moments earlier in #58 he’s clad more like an early Wonderman at a Transformers fancy dress party. Colour coordination is so very important.

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Shadowland h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Andy Diggle & Billy Tan.

“They put the Green Goblin in charge of national security! They made Bullseye an Avenger! They spat on everything we ever fought for. And now I’m the bad guy?!”
“Yes.”

The five-issue climax to Andy Diggle and Antony Johnston’s run on DAREDEVIL which runs in parallel with DAREDEVIL: SHADOWLAND containing the DAREDEVIL issues themselves.

Matt Murdock sought leadership of the ninja-stuffed Hand in order to prevent the Kingpin from seizing control and to subvert the organisation from within: to bring light to its less than jocular fist. Unfortunately the reaction was equal and opposite.

A demon has seized control of both Daredevil and Hell’s Kitchen’s residents. A riot erupts, Foggy Nelson and Dakota North are caught in its centre and poor Becky Blake, bound to a wheelchair, is trapped in a Brownstone in flames. Wolverine, Spider-Man, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Moon Knight, Misty Knight, Colleen Wing, The Punisher, Ghost Rider, Shang-Chi and Elektra do what they can for Matt and for sales, but it doesn’t end well, I can tell you.

The bifurcation of a storyline to this degree is a relatively new (unwise and unwelcome) development in these superhero soap operas. In the past ‘events’ like CIVIL WAR have worked differently. Other books like AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: CIVIL WAR may experience their own repercussions, whilst ROAD TO CIVIL WAR might give you a little more perspective, but CIVIL WAR itself was completely self-contained. I’ve not read BLACKEST NIGHT and GREEN LANTERN: BLACKEST NIGHT, so can’t tell you with any authority whether they can be read separately, but I suspect not. I can tell you for certain that HULK VOL 5: FALL OF THE HULKS and INCREDIBLE HULK VOL 2: FALL OF THE HULKS was an unintelligible mess.

So here is the good news: SHADOWLAND works on its own. Sure, you won’t witness Murdock’s gradual disintegration over Bendis and Brubaker’s sterling runs on DAREDEVIL, nor the way he’s been pushed to the limits by Osborn in Diggle and Johnston’s DAREDEVIL:  THE DEVIL’S HAND. Plus there are bits missing, like Foggy Nelson’s ascension of the castle and the whole heart of the matter (“A riot erupts, Foggy Nelson and Dakota North are caught in its centre and poor Becky Blake, bound to a wheelchair, is trapped in a Brownstone in flames.”) which is the plight of Matt’s former friends under his illegitimate, unilateral declaration of martial law on Hell’s Kitchen. For that – and indeed for art far more in keeping with the last decade’s tone – you’ll need Antony Johnston’s imminent DAREDEVIL: SHADOWLAND. But if you’re a fighting woman or man and you want front seats to the key events here like the final fate of Bullseye and the Kingpin playing that hidden ace up his sleeve, you’ll do perfectly fine with this. A neat trick under the circumstances.

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Daredevil: Shadowland h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Antony Johnston, Andy Diggle & Roberto De La Torre, Marco Checchetto.

“We always have choices, Foggy. And Matt just threw all of his away.”

The final few issues to Andy Diggle and Antony Johnston’s stint on DAREDEVIL which run in parallel with SHADOWLAND itself.

It kicks off straight after the SHADOWLAND’s opening shocker as Foggy Nelson, Dakota North and Becky witness CCTV footage of their best friend doing the unthinkable, albeit to his worst enemy. Desperately Foggy flails around, trying to find something – anything – that would at least explain if not excuse Matt’s actions. The man has faith and no friend could ask for more; but for the others it may prove too much.

Recap: Matt Murdock sought leadership of the ninja-stuffed Hand in order to prevent the Kingpin from seizing control and to subvert the organisation from within: to bring light to its less than jocular fist. Unfortunately the reaction was equal and opposite. A demon has seized control of both Daredevil and Hell’s Kitchen’s residents. A riot erupts, Foggy Nelson and Dakota North are caught in its centre and poor Becky Blake, bound to a wheelchair, is trapped in a Brownstone in flames.

This is the view from street level, just as it should be, and as such the book as a whole – its perspective, dialogue and art – is so much more in keeping with Bendis’ and Brubaker’s contribution. It’s about the impact on Matt’s nearest and dearest, and the most extraordinary thing is that this too can be read with complete coherence on its own. Its ingenuity is astonishing: the CCTV footage was exactly right, whilst the mystery left in the wake of the climax and Matt’s subsequent fate, unseen here, is perfect. They’re lost, they’re bewildered and they’re battered beyond belief. They have taken such a bloody knocking and this is the final straw. All that remains is for Ben Urich, the reporter whom Murdock first made privy to his secret, to hear Matt’s final confession.

Crucially you’ll discover exactly how Luke Cage, Danny Rand, Master Izo, Elektra and even Typhoid Mary came to be where they were during the big bust-up. Meanwhile, once more, the artists have done ‘em proud. Some scenes are truly haunting, like the mist-enshrouded, moonlit Japanese castle in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen towering up in the midnight sky as glimpsed between the confines of hard metal railings below; or the toxic double-page spread of the fallen heroes, worthy of Alex Maleev himself.

In all honesty, how brave would it have been simply to print this book on its own, so that you never do know like the protagonists here, exactly what finally befell the man without fear? That would have been enormously cool.

Please read this first. Reprinting SHADOWLANDS: AFTER THE FALL one-shot, it is also the final word on a title that has now ceased to be.

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Ultimate Avengers Vs. New Ultimates #1 (£2-99, Marvel) by Mark Millar & Leinil Yu.

Yes, this is more like it! This feels far more like ULTIMATES SEASONS ONE & TWO than anything since, partly because it’s Millar writing from the original team’s point of view rather than the Black Ops unit now headed by Fury. Also, although stylistically worlds apart from Bryan Hitch, Leinil Yu still has a breath-taking sense of scale and has grown completely at ease with the quieter, tender moments in people’s personal lives, which we haven’t seen anything of during the last three mini-series. Or, you know, ULTIMATES 3 (ugh!).

The international Super-Soldier race is now truly on, and there appears to be a traitor in their midst because there’s human cargo being exchanged. Oh yes, and the Triskelion has been teleported into Iran.

“What about the locals? Do they realise this was an accident?”
“Are you kidding? The Triskelion is the ultimate symbol of American power. They might as well have beamed the Pentagon over here. They’re declaring this an act of war. We’ve got ten days to get out.”

This, according to Bendis, is the flip-side to ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN’s ‘Death of Spider-Man’ storyline. Don’t know how it ties in yet – it seems like something else entirely. I’m just pleased my favourite superhero comic is back.

SLH

Jennifer Blood #1 (£2-99, D.E.) by Garth Ennis & Adriano Batista.

“Treated myself to a manicure (toes only for obvious reasons). I was reading Guns + Ammo in the nail bar and it struck me how many articles were about 9mm weapons. Beretta, Glock, Sig-Sauer, Heckler + Koch – it was 9mm this, 9mm that, there wasn’t a single mention of a .34 or .45. What on earth’s the point of having twice as many bullets it you have to use three times as many to actually put someone down? Honestly.”

I think a garage mechanic may recently have enraged Mr. Ennis, either by leching over his wife or else overcharging them for some minor pimpage. For such is the second target here of model housewife Jennifer who tucks her kids in at night before donning a wig and going off like a grenade in whichever backyard she fancies, introducing local criminals to Mr. MP5 and his 10mm children. Her own kids are sedated, of course, but that’s de rigueur these days, helping to make Prozac a household name.

The art, like Robertson’s on Garth Ennis’ BOYS, is appropriately sturdy, though Ennis insists that compared to THE BOYS, this is just a bit of fun. What distinguishes this from the average lethal vigilante series is the voice, a series of diary entries in which Jennifer mulls over her methods with ridiculously reasonable detachment and a signature shrug of mild despair.

Honestly.

SLH

Mistress Fortune (£6-99, Viz) by Arina Tanemura.

“Why are girls always dieting?! Kisaki’s boobs… Her cup size… IS NEARLY HALF AN INCH SMALLER THAN BEFORE!!”

Good grief, that this should arrive the same week as TYRANNY…

Pink. This is very, very pink. If the insides weren’t black and white they too would be the colour of wedding-cake frosting. You know, if the wedding cake frosting was pink.

Fourteen-year-old Kisaki is a PSI agent partnered to Giniro, taking on aliens (read: Pokemon) using their psychic powers. Together they are Mistress Fortune! Kisaki’s attention, however, is firmly focussed on Giniro whom she adores, but with whom she’s not allowed to share personal information like phone numbers or email addresses. Because. Just because. Giniro’s also pretty focussed on Kisaki – or at least two aspects of her – so she really needn’t worry unless she wants to be loved for what passes for her mind.

So what does this have to recommend it? Next question, please!

Actually, in spite of the relatively innocent ogling of boobage, this might give a youngster a bit of a sugar-buzz thrill. They shout enough when they go into battle. I could have done without the constantly irritating Pikachu substitute, though, who even gets his own short story in the back, trying to keep down a job without blowing up entire city blocks.

LINK

SLH

I’m not proud to put my name to that review.

Also arrived:

(Usual rules apply: s/c reviews may already be up, others will follow next week!)

The Man Who Clapped (£5-00) by Tanya Meditzky & Matt Abbiss
The Chronicles Of Kull vol 4 (£13-99, Dark Horse) by Alan Zelenetz, Doug Moench, Bruce Jones, April Campbell & John Buscema, Danny Bulanadi, John Bolton, Bob Wiacek, Dan Green, Joe Chiodo
Scalped vol 7: Rez Blues (£13-50, Vertigo) by Jason Aaron & Danijel Zezelj, Davide Furno, R.M. Guera
Grimm Fairy Tales: Different Seasons (£13-50, Zenescope) by Joe Brusha, Raven Gregory, Ralph Tedesco & Axel Machain
Judge Dredd Casefiles 17 (£19-99, 2000AD) by John Wagner, Garth Ennis & Greg Staples, Ian Gibson, Steve Dillon, Simon Coleby, Peter Doherty, Carlos Ezquerra, Sean Phillips, Yan Shimony, Chris Halls, Dean Ormston
Hellblazer: Pandemonium s/c (£13-50, Vertigo) by Jamie Delano & Jock
Ghost Projekt vol 1 (£14-99, Oni) by Joe Harris & Steve Rolston
The Stand: Hardcases h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Mike Perkins, Laura Martin
Star Wars Omnibus: A Long Time Ago vol 3 (£19-99, Dark Horse) by Archie Goodwin, David Michelinie, Chris Claremont & Walter Simonson, Tom Palmer, Carmine Infantino, more
Zita The Spacegirl (£8-50, FirstSecond) by Ben Hatke
Freakangels vol 5 (£14-99, Avatar) by Warren Ellis & Paul Duffield
Tank Girl: The Royal Escape (£12-99, IDW) by Alan Martin & Rufus Dayglo
Shadowland: Thunderbolts h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Jeff Parker & Declan Shalvey, Kev Walker
Astonishing X-Men vol 6: Exogenetic s/c (£10-99, Marvel) by Warren Ellis & Phil Jimenez
Spider-Woman: Agent Of S.W.O.R.D. s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev
X-Men: Curse Of The Mutants h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Victor Gischler & Paco Medina
X-Men: Curse Of The Mutants: Mutants vs. Vampires h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Chuck Kim, Simon Spurrier, Duane Swierczynski, James Asmus, Christopher Sequeira, Peter David, Rob Williams, Mike Benson, Howard Chaykin, Mike W. Barr, Chris Claremont & Chris Bachalo, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Tim Green, Tom Raney, Sana Takeda, Mick Bertilorenzi, Doug Braithwaite, Mark Texeira, Howard Chaykin, Agustin Padilla, Bill Sienkiewicz
Shadowland: Street Heroes h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by John Layman, Zeb Wells, Rob Williams, Jason Henderson, Dan Slott & Sean Chen, Emma Rios, Clayton Crain, Ivan Rodriguez, Paulo Siqueira
X-Men Legacy: Collision h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Mike Carey & Tom Raney
Invincible Iron Man vol 5: Stark Resilient Book 2 h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Matt Fraction & Salvador Larroca
Justice League: Rise And Fall h/c (£18-99, DC) by J.T.Krul & Federico Dallocchio, Geraldo Borges
Warcraft: Shadow Wing vol 2: Nexus Point (£9-99, Tokyopop) by Richard A. Knaak & Jae-Hwan Kim
Starcraft: Ghost Academy vol 3 (£8-50,Tokyopop) by David Gerrold & Fernando Heinz Furukawa
Dragon Heir: Reborn vol 1 (£7-00, Sweatdrop Studios) by Emma Vieceli
7 Billion Needles vol 3 (£8-50, Vertical) by Nobuaki Tadano
Crimson Snow (£10-99, Blu) by Hori Tomoki
Unknown Soldier vol 3: Dry Season (£10-99, Vertigo/DC) by Joshua Dysart & Alberto Ponticelli

Quick note: next week’s reviews for once will almost certainly go up on Thursday rather than Wednesday around 8pm. On Wednesday Jonathan and I will be out on the piss with Dame Bryan of Talbotshire following this:

Nottingham Wednesday 2nd March 5.00pm 

“Grandville and the Anthropomorphic Tradition.”

Slide-show presentation by Bryan Talbot followed by signing and sketching for free! We will be there with books, don’t you worry; you just bring your lovely lolly. Open to the public and free of charge. Room A46 of the Trent Building at the University of Nottingham on the University Park campus, NG7. The Trent Building is the great big white jobbie with the clock tower, overlooking the lake and next to the Student Union building. If in doubt, ask: everyone’s very friendly there since Tom Paulin left.

Directions and maps: LINK.

GRANDVILLE volumes one and two: LINK & LINK

If you have any questions about that at all, please ask!

 - Stephen

How was 2010 for you, then?

It’s one thing to finally get rid of a Prime Minister who was the epitome of anticlimax after craving the position for so long, who squandered his reputation for prudence with a predisposition for dithering and displeasing all, and who traded his sterling accomplishments like the minimum wage for lingering overlong in a limelight he so evidently loathed… or which startled him… or which he was so ill-equipped for…

But to have seen what looked overwhelmingly in the polls like the prospect of a sane Liberal leadership (“I really think that tuition fees are wrong”) turn into another lapdog to pudding-faced Cameron like Blair was to Bush…. it is to weep. Especially if you’re a student.

Please don’t get me wrong, Los Bros Miliband are a refreshing pair far more into love than rockets as Ed’s unequivocal statements condemning the illegal invasion of Iraq makes almost astonishingly clear. But neither of them is in power. One’s walked away, and the other won’t be with us in time to save thousands of jobs, most of them in the public sector here after Nottingham City Council squandered its time and money on a vanity project that is the moderately modified new Market Square.

“This money isn’t local money screwed out of local people,” became their worried mantra.

A) Don’t believe you, and B) Regardless it could still have been spent in Africa, you unbelievable tossers. It was actual money that must have actually existed so it could have been spent on something a little less superficial than bulldozing an award-winning Market Square to minimal effect. Oh wait, it got rid of the skateboarders. And now Citizen Advice Bureaus are set to close (pity poor Birmingham where they’re all for the chop), and they claim they can’t afford to pay those looking after our most vulnerable citizens who have forked their horrendously high Council Tax the whole of their adult lives.

£13,669 per annum, by the way. That’s the size of our business rates and we don’t even get our refuse collected for that. We have to pay extra. What exactly do we get for our thirteen and a half k? Oh yes, letters threatening to take us to court for someone else’s graffiti under the Health And Safety Act. Fucking toxic, that.

Anyway

Anyway, 2010 was at least another stonking year here for comics.

Lizz Lunney’s sales went into orbit, SCOTT PILGRIM climaxed, Nick Spencer triumphed, PHONOGRAM’s Kieron Gillen made it large, and arch-conservative Paul Levitz finally fucked off from DC head office. Also, Page 45 got its act together and launched its new website. Hello again!

So I called out to all our friends on Twitter the other week, asking what their favourite comics and graphic novels were during the year 2010. I kinda meant favourite comics and graphic novels published in 2010 rather than read, but some of our correspondents have a will of their own. Which is an outrage, I know.

Each one is reprinted here in their original form, the book reviews linked to wherever possible.

Greythorne:

I loved Elmer by Gerry Alangulian. A graphic novel about sentient chickens. Made me cry. Thank you @PageFortyFive for the recommendation.

Marcus Nyahoe

@PageFortyFive a good year, but Eddie Campbell‘s Alec: The Years Have Pants has the edge for me. #bestcomic2020

Lizz Lunney (I said she’d win!)

@PageFortyFive aw shucks I wish! I vote for all @thatlukeperson comics this year- Hildafolk, Dull Ache and Some People, can’t choose one!

Ian Craig

@PageFortyFive – My vote goes to Transmetropolitan, because it’s the best comic of EVERY YEAR.

Katie Green

@PageFortyFive Ooooh tough call….I think I’d go for @DarrylToon‘s masterpiece Psychiatric Tales.

Timothy Winchester

@PageFortyFive I know I won’t be the first but Scott Pilgrim 6 wins 2010.

Aaron Lee

@PageFortyFive Resident Evil (by @rickzilla) gets my vote for best comic series.

Craig Dawson

@PageFortyFive Best of 2010 – Phonogram – the Singles Club by those two reprobates, @McKelvie and @kierongillen. Atomic!

They are reprobates, aren’t they?

Any idea what our Twitter name is yet? Follow us! I’ve been stuck on 444 followers for a fortnight which Lizz Lunney tells me is a veritable curse in China. Still, she was stuck on 666 for a couple of months.

I also asked for email responses, but most of you have stopped emailing now that you have our Twitter and Forums. Makes my life easier in some ways but a bugger when it comes to filling letter columns. Do you not love me no more?

Ivan Towlson

Pablo Holmberg’s “Eden” joins “Hicksville” and “Bone” in the exclusive club of “comics I inflict on people as presents.”  Beautiful lines, natural imagery, scripts that fuse melancholy with joy: graphic haiku. Thank you for all the recommendations in 2010, and all the best for 2011.

Chris Craven

In case you couldn’t tell by my post on the forums in my opinion the best read of last year was Ex-Machina 50, reason … that last page. Never have I read a comic and felt like i’ve been punched in the gut like that book did. 

Jonathan’s favourite book of 2010 was THE SUMMIT OF THE GODS VOL 2, whilst Tom’s was THE UNSINKABLE WALKER BEAN.

My own favourites published or at least reviewed during 2010 include (in chronological order only and excluding a good one hundred other books that I absolutely adored and whose exclusion will only get me into trouble, I know):

ALEC: THE YEARS HAVEPANTS
THE KILLER
PHONOGRAM: THE SINGLES CLUB
BODYWORLD
KING OF THE FLIES
PLANETARY VOL 4
WILSON
THE HIPLESS BOY
THE PLAYWRIGHT
SAN FRANCISCO PANORAMA COMIC SECTION 
PSYCHIATRIC TALES
THE WILD KINGDOM
EX MACHINA VOL 10
PALOOKAVILLE #20
ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY #20
TIMULARO
FORGETLESS

DAYTRIPPER was my favourite series of 2011, finally reprinted as a book and I cannot commend it to you all highly enough because, already in February, I have to declare with customarily premature passion that the collection will take some beating when it comes to my favourite book of 2011.

Best moments for me included a woman in a burqa reading LOVE AND ROCKETS on the opposite side of the counter, Bryan Lee O’Malley sacrificing so much of his UK time to sign and sketch for as many of you as humanly possible during the Scott Pilgrim film frenzy, my friends David and Rich getting married outside a windmill, seeing all my Bristol mates at one point or another, some of whom had helped out with the Page 45 Cerebus TV soundtrack… the relief of hearing that soundtrack in place of what otherwise-ace director Robin Barnard had popped there as a place holder … A boy aged 7 throwing himself into the shop asking if we sold condoms (“…’Cause… ‘Cause… I’m gonna have under-safe sex!”) then rushing back out again, chortling with glee, into the arms of a man I am sure was his father…

… and the launch of that Page 45 website. Thank goodness! I still haven’t published our original blog written in case we had launched on target rather than three days late. Maybe I’ll save that for our first anniversary.

We’d have launched some months earlier if I hadn’t been interviewed 386 times about comics on websites and Kindle. I rather think most of those interviews were paid advertisements: I’ve yet to see anyone on our bus using a Kindle. But then I’ve yet to see anyone on our bus read a graphic novel, so…

FAQ: What do you think of comics on the internet? Answer: It’s great advertising for the printed page, cheers. Also, it circumnavigates those comic shops who fail to stock the best books on offer, which serves them bloody well right.

I can’t imagine trying to order in graphic novels now without being able to look at some of their contents online. Many thanks to all those publishers (Drawn & Quarterly, Top Shelf and most self-publishers) who manage to pop previews online in time for me to write my own then order accordingly. Can Fantagraphics get its act together, please? Lovely books, so I’d like to show them off in time. (I’d say also Image, but I really don’t care. Their few decent creators know what to do, so if I find nothing on line I ignore the titles completely.)

Speaking of Drawn & Quarterly, 2010 saw them pull the plug on periodical pamphlets, a move met with gentle dignity by Seth in the preface to PALOOKAVILLE #20 whose form and contents adjusted themselves beautifully to the industry’s new climate. I hear that 2011 sees the last of Drawn & Quarterly publishing hardcovers but I doubt that it’s true: Lord knows what they’d be publishing in 2012.

Was it last year that saw IDW jump to the front of PREVIEWS, slotted between DC and Image? That was a relief: another 20 pages I can just skim-read early on then virtually ignore on the order form. They’re the modern Calibre whose sole attractions were BAKER STREET and EXIT volume 2 by Nabiel Kanan. With IDW I can just tick the box marked Ashley Wood then move confidently on.

On the superhero front, can I just thank Geoff Johns, Brian Michael Bendis, Garth Ennis and Mark Millar for so much bloody money? Thank you. We made far more from Bryan Lee O’Malley, and have been doing so for over five years, whilst Warren Ellis is like an industry unto himself. A day doesn’t go by when I don’t recommend something or other that Warren’s inflicted on us. The irascible bastard.

Now, although it’s not like me to back up my opinionated claptrap with facts, since Page 45 finally has a fully functioning Electronic Point Of Sale system, I thought it’d be fun to ask Jonathan which books sold the most copies here in 2010. I thought it might also be useful for other retailers curious about expanding their range. I haven’t time to link them all so please pop any you’re curious about in our search engine.

Please bear in mind that, to a certain extent, this list is virtually meaningless. So much depends on when any given title is published. A book arriving in January has a much greater chance of hitting the top spots than one published mid-year (SCOTT PILGRIM volume 6 – ha!) and especially in December (GRANDVILLE: MON AMOUR). In fact it’s a double whammy for Sir Bryan of Talbotshire’s GRANDVILLE, because the first book’s first 100 copies had already gone by Christmas 2009.

Ideally we’d be able to provide you with a chart for each graphic novel’s first 12 months’ sales instead. That would make sense but would be impossible to organise. So this is a load of rubbish.

Take this as you will, then, the top 75 graphic novels at Page 45 during 2010 out of our total of 7,500 different titles: 1%, smaller than the tip of the average iceberg. Or bigger, depending on how you look at it!

Scott Pilgrim vol 6
Scott Pilgrim vol 1
Scott Pilgrim Poster 2009
Scott Pilgrim vol 2
Scott Pilgrim vol 3
Scott Pilgrim vol 5
Scott Pilgrim vol 4
Kick Ass s/c
Wilson h/c
Walking Dead vol 1
Meanwhile
Cats Are Weird And More Observations
Crossed vol 1
The Boys vol 6
Walking Dead vol 11
Blacksad h/c
Psychiatric Tales h/c
Scott Pilgrim Exclusive Page 45 Signing 2006 Poster
Grandville
The Walking Dead vol 12
Naruto vol 47
The Unwritten vol 1
The Killer vol 2 h/c
Cat Getting Out Of A Bag And Other Observations
Lost At Sea
The Playwright h/c
Walking Dead vol 2
X’ed Out h/c
The Boys vol 5
The Boys vol 7
The Unsinkable Walker Bean
Weathercraft h/c
Fables vol 13
Asterios Polyp
Naruto vol 48
Phonogram vol 2: The Singles Club
Biomega vol 1
Pluto vol 7
Tsubasa: Resevoir Chronicle
Tamara Drewe s/c
No Hero – How Much Do You Want To Be A Hero
Alice In Sunderland
Grandville vol 2: Mon Amour
Mouse Guard: Fall 1152
Pluto vol 8
Bodyworld
The Boys vol 1
Naruto vol 49
Walking Dead vol 13
Mouse Guard: Winter 1152
Superman: Earth One h/c
Hellboy vol 9: The Wild Hunt
Planetary vol 4: Spacetime Archaeology
The Unclothed Man In The 35^th Century
Bakuman vol 1
Freakangels vol 4
Hotwire: Requiem For The Dead
Beasts Of Burden h/c
The Amazing Screw-On Head…
Batman: The Killing Joke
Death Note vol 1
Final Crisis s/c
One Piece vol 1
Ex Machina vol 9
Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn
Walking Dead vol 4
Logicomix – An Epic Search For Truth
A Is For Armageddon
Blackest Night h/c
The Arrival
Walking Dead vol 3
Alec: The Years Have Pants
Amulet vol 1: The Stonekeeper
The Boys vol 4
Bleach vol 31

If you’re wondering about ONE PIECE VOL 1, that’s down to school libraries. We sell a lot of books to libraries.

How old is ALICE IN SUNDERLAND now?! Yet still it comes in at 42.

The two cat books: Jeffrey Brown done us proud, as always!

In spite of how it looks on the website, PHONOGRAM 2 was not a CBOTM. The first issue was. So that puppy got itself way up there all by itself! (Okay, I pushed it. Hard!)

Many thanks to Bryan Lee O’Malley for both SCOTT PILGRIM posters. The 2009 edition’s were his own personal copies so exclusive to us in Europe; the 2006 he jammed on with the magnificent Hope Larson for his signing here way back then and so exclusive to us everywhere in the world. First prints too! Yes, we invest. That volume 6 beat volume 1…? We’d put the groundwork into that title years ago, and SCOTT PILGRIM was already our biggest seller in 2006 long before any idea of a film.

So, what you do you think of them apples, eh? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Email page45@page45.com. You will be heard!

- Stephen

Clearly this was a column that should have been completed over a month ago, but you know how it is: stuff gets in the way. Stuff that comes in tall green bottles marked ‘Produce of Chile’ or France, Italy and New Zealand. Some evenings I type with two fingers, slowly, with one eye squinting.

This column’s twin,’ 2011 Look Right’, will follow almost as soon as everything I’m looking forward to has already arrived. <sigh>

 

Scenes From An Impending Marriage h/c (£7-50, D&Q) by Adrian Tomine…

“Haha haha, he’s just like you.”

Not a quote, but in fact my wife’s chortling comment after reaching the part where Adrian decides to walk home to save a few bucks rather than get a taxi whilst laden down with several boxes of freshly printed ‘authentic hand-set type and letter press printed’ wedding stationary. In my defence I am from Yorkshire, a county renowned for producing fiscally prudent individuals perhaps second only to Scotland in that particular respect. I’m not exactly sure whether Adrian’s home state has the same reputation for parsimony, but I personally applaud his financial sensibilities nonetheless. Weddings are not cheap.

Actually after finishing reading, my wife did remark Adrian actually reminded her of me all the way through the book, and I heartily concur with that cheeky observation. From choosing a venue, to caterers, to music, to attire, to guest lists (particularly guest lists) I found myself nodding in agreement with Adrian, and in memory of my own travails. People who read this work will thus fall into two distinct camps: those who have been through the stress-inducing, blood-pressure-raising, three-ring circus that is otherwise known as getting married, and those who have not yet had that particular pleasure. Consequently whilst the force-ten farrago that ensues in the run up to the said ‘big day’ will be all too familiar to those of us in the former camp, however at least we’ve been through it and hopefully won’t have to endure it again. Hopefully the rest of you will have to, I mean get to, experience all that it entails at some point…

Indeed literally every single page of this book brought back some teeth gritting memories regarding my own (well, to be precisely accurate my wife’s) wedding preparations, and even Mr. and Mrs. Tomine’s post-nuptial comments in their hotel room afterwards about not even getting chance to enjoy the delicious looking food served up to their guests rang all too true.

About the only thing we didn’t seem to have had in common with our wedding preparations was having a priest of my wife’s religion (Catholic) ever so politely point out my religion of choice (Buddhism) was regarded as a cult rather than a bona fide religion by the Catholic Church, and thus we wouldn’t be able to have a full Catholic mass on the day in addition to our wedding ceremony. It would also be remiss of me not to point out I was absolutely delighted by that. I also like to think Adrian would have been equally amused / bemused had it happened to him.

And I’m also quite sure that every man who has been through the experience of preparing to get married has made exactly the same jokey comment Adrian makes to his fiancé on the prologue page of “Any chance you’d want to elope?” Sadly, he got met with the same response I did when I too asked that impertinent if somewhat hopeful question right at the beginning of proceedings… a rather stern stare.

LINK

JR

Daytripper (£14-99, Vertigo/DC) by Gabriel Bá, Fábio Moon.

“In order to go after your dreams, you must live your life. Wake up, before it’s too late.”

Quiet, contemplative and so beautiful to behold, this is the most startlingly original book from Vertigo since Paul Pope’s HEAVY LIQUID. Every fluid stroke is steeped in humanity or the living world bustling around it, and it’s so full of grace I could cry.

From the Brazilian brothers who brought us DE TALES and the artists on books like UMBRELLA ACADEMY and CASANOVA, a book about family, fatherhood and friendship; an outlook on life and the mortality that defines it; twelve separate yet integrated stories about the life and different deaths of aspiring novelist Brás de Oliva Domingos.

Aged merely 32, Brás is feeling old. His father is such a successful Brazilian author that the literary community is throwing a great gala in his honour tonight, while he’s stuck writing obituaries for a newspaper. Oh yes, and neither his father nor mother appear to have remembered his birthday. So he’s feeling a bit morbid, he’s feeling a little dejected and he’s… well, he’s sulking. Nevertheless he hoists on the tuxedo and makes his way to the Theatro Municipal just early enough to grab some smokes and a beer from a local bar. Which is where a different family’s argument ensures that his family will never forget his birthday again.

It’s quite the startling conclusion to the first chapter of a twelve issue mini-series – the death of its lead character. But make no mistake, Brás is the main protagonist and successive instalments unveil what might have happened if Brás had died earlier or lived a lot longer, chosen different paths and come to understand what really matters. He makes bad decisions and stagnates; he finds true love at last and marries. He lives to see some give birth, others die, and this best friend run away in terror. In one instance he respects Jorge’s decision, in another he drives long into the night to find him.

“Jorge was his best friend, and that’s what friends do. They care. They find each other and stick together when things get rough. Friends are worth every effort. Friends matter.”

Twice Brás dies because he believes in friendship, but as young Jorge says, “If it weren’t for people, life would be a fuckin’ desert”. Indeed on almost every page there’s an exchange to give one pause for thought and there’s some very sound advice for a Brás who so often wants to shut out life altogether, particularly from his writing, from the very source of his ambition, his father, who here speaks of his mother:

“I remember when we first met. I told her I wanted to be a writer and that I knew a great romance was waiting for me to write it. She smiled and said that she hoped a great romance was waiting for me to live it.”

The most affecting chapter for me was the one in which an older, wiser and more successful Brás is away from his wife and son on a book tour, yet still there in every corner of the house. He sends letters and texts and emails every day and his son could not be more proud of him. His wife smiles at a mobile phone call or messages left on the answering machine, telling her he misses them, seeing them mirrored in a happy couple, but always reassuring her he’ll be back home soon. His son carries his father’s books with him to school even though he’s too young to understand them and, during a disquieting bout of bullying, more eagerly awaits his return. We know from the start that Brás will never be home again, but it’s so well crafted with those messages received that the illusion is maintained throughout that he will. So reliable is he that when there are “no new messages” it’s assumed that the internet server is broken. It isn’t.

The book’s as close as I’ve found to an exploration and distillation about the secrets to love, life and happiness outside of Kahlil Gibran: comprehending, appreciating and enjoying what you have before something goes so catastrophically wrong that you yearn for the past; not dwelling on others’ perceived greater fortune or resenting what’s missing, but acknowledging and embracing what you do have in front of you. Because there’s nothing like death to put life into perspective.

 “Wake up, dude. You’re missing it.”

Full colour sketchbook in the back. The brothers write, “The most difficult thing wasn’t trying to create a world that would look real. No, the hardest thing was creating a world that would feel real.”

It certainly resonated with me, whilst Paul Pope, Jeff Smith and Gerard Way line up to sing its praises. Terry Moore of STRANGERS IN PARADISE writes:

“DAYTRIPPER is the most engaging story I’ve read all year. [This] tale of the life and deaths of a writer is the creative love-child of Eisner and Fellini at their best; a love story grounded in stark reality, yet awash in the magic of circumstance. DAYTRIPPER is a fascinating puzzle I will be contemplating for the rest of my life.”

Illustrated introduction by Craig Thompson of BLANKETS.

LINK

SLH

Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey h/c (£22-50, Villard) by GB Train…

For a certain American generation there is a word which perhaps inevitably carries more emotional baggage than any other, that word being Vietnam. This work, VIETNAMERICA is most certainly not a war story however, but a fascinating look at one (very) extended Vietnamese family’s history spread across several generations now living both in Vietnam and America. It’s documented and drawn by Tran Huu Gia-Bao (or GB Tran as he’s more commonly known) who himself was born in South Carolina in 1976 a year after his parents fled Vietnam leaving several family members behind them.

VIETNAMERICA immediately draws comparisons with FORGET SORROW: AN ANCESTRAL TALE, as the focus is firmly on family with a dash of politics and history thrown in for good measure. Such is the complicated nature of GB’s family, and the segmented way he’s chosen to tell his story, moving backwards and forward through time from the present to the past and back again, I did initially find myself getting slightly confused as to who was who, and thinking I could really do with a family tree, when lo and behold, up one popped on page 62.  

Once you have the various characters’ relationships with each other a bit more firmly fixed in your mind, the work immediately becomes much more engaging, and you start to more fully understand some of the very difficult choices, and their attendant consequences, that were forced upon different generations of family members at times by the continuous political and social upheaval in Vietnam during various struggles against French colonialism, occupation during WW2 by Japan, the American war against the Communists, and finally the difficult period of internal unrest and uncertainty following that last conflict. GB manages to capture the flavour of ‘normal’ life for typical Vietnamese against such a continuous melodrama, without detracting from the central drama of the family history.

He also, wisely in my opinion, decides just to tell the family’s story, rather than bringing himself and his own views on events into the work. When he does pop up from time to time it’s usually providing a bit of light comic relief at his own expense, about his naivety concerning life and culture in modern Vietnam compared to the USA. Or providing a counterpoint for his mother to further elucidate some long-forgotten or hidden story, usually about his somewhat taciturn father. GB’s actually an extremely good story teller, having obviously learnt that most vital of lessons regarding the depiction of true life events, just let the story tell itself. 

The art is wonderful too, containing a seemingly never-ending host of clever visual devices such as panels spiralling out of his father’s cigarette smoke as he grudgingly recounts another story, and a truly vibrant palette of colours, occasionally switching into black and white, and even combining the two on occasion for further effect. It seems the family play a lot of Scrabble too, and one of my favourite bits of art is the double-page spread of a Scrabble board inlaid with various panels depicting GB’s parents early days in their newly adopted country. My absolute favourite artwork though, is the actual cover of the book (hidden under the none-too-shabby itself dust jacket) which features a partially constructed jigsaw puzzle of a face, made up from pieces taken from the faces of several different family members. The message, running throughout this work, is abundantly clear: you can separate people by continents, oceans and thousands of miles, but can you ever really separate a family? 

LINK 

JR

Evolution: The Story Of Life On Earth h/c (£13-99, Hill & Wang) by Jay Hosler & Kevin Cannon, Zander Cannon.

Light, bright, concise and precise history of life’s rich tapestry here on planet Earth, and the science behind it all right down to the specific single-celled organisms that grew more ambitious, and the bacteria that stayed still or became breakfast instead.

As a Professor of Biology the creator of the much missed CLAN APIS is eminently qualified to talk about DNA, RNA, proteins and animo acids, whilst his natural skill as a communicator turn it into a remarkable fusion of education and entertainment in the form of one long conversation between a monocular, professorial starfish and its alien prince and king. Even Charles Darwin pops up at a gig to explain his own theories…

“Natural Selection is the name of the evolutionary mechanism I proposed. It’s the process by which favourable traits are preserved in a group of organisms and harmful traits die out. Some also refer to this as “survival of the fittest”.”

… before expounding on the four basic conditions that must be met for the process to occur, how it occurs, and how he observed it occurring in a succession of phenotypes before the genotypes behind them – the unique set of genes in an individual’s DNA chromosomes that dictate their individual traits – were unveiled later on.

Each biological and evolutionary mechanism is backed up with such evidence and the history of its discovery which is vital in refuting the head-in-the-sand stupidity of Creationists who maintain that man was created from scratch last Thursday, and woman from his elbow or something.

Moreover what could have been an unwieldy tangle has been streamlined to perfection with room for recaps, and – this is the killer – the fact that this a comic rather than prose means that each step is easy to digest and you can refer back to previous panels for a quick recap because you’ll have an associated image for that key information already stored in your head. I used this myself when I needed to remind myself about the cellular differences between those three types of single-celled organisms – bacteria, eukaryote and archaea – and I knew exactly which image I was looking for. Can you imagine how much easier this would have been to revise for at school? It’s like a series of illustrated flashcards linked with a narrative thread!

And it’s funny! Just like the CARTOON INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS, the cartooning hits just the right note of parenthetical asides (fungal-infected ant: “I think there’s a fungus among us”) whilst never distracting you from the information they pertain to (the difference between plants, fungi and animals when generating energy).

Over the subsequent chapters life on this planet is explored through fossils (a potential source of legendary creatures like the griffin and cyclops too?) as the notochords of chordates evolve into the backbones of vertebrates; and arthropods, with their supporting structure on the outside, develop eight jointed legs just to terrify Charlie Brooker in the bath. Plants start growing, insects start buzzing and hungry fish like the look of them so flop on the shore while those that see their brothers promptly expire decide it’d be better to wait until they actually breathed air first. Oh yes, and grow legs for non-flopping-about-ness. Amphibians, eh? Some decide to leave home altogether because their parents won’t let them smoke weed and then change their name by deed poll to reptiles just to have the last laugh. Just the sort of hubris that invites a mass extinction, which is what happens next.

Hosler entertains, but without the sort of buffoonery above that would make a mockery of his sound knowledge and expertise. There’s no disinformation to distract you for one second from the detail of what actual happens, how, why and when. He’s meticulous like that, right down to the evolution of insects which, unlike dragonflies, could fold their wings back after flight and so climb into crevices… and how the Permian Extinction, wiping out one-third of all insects, gave them a better fighting chance against the previously dominant species to the extent that 98% on all insect species can now fold their wings back.

I’ll leave you to learn of reptiles’ return to the seas (“Evolution is not a progressive march. Life has no destination, no ultimate goal. It evolves to take advantage of new ways of getting resources”), the emergence of mammals then birds and how their endothermy later proved a literal life-saver. But there’s nothing I have seen here that wouldn’t make this a perfect set text for schools – nothing that would be judged inaccurate or inadequate in an exam. As adult entertainment I know we’re now spoiled by David Attenborough and his successors on television, but I also like to retain knowledge and can rarely do so without the printed word which makes this the perfect medium, especially with its glossary at the back.

LINK

SLH

Stigmata h/c (£14-99, Fantagraphics) by Claudio Piersanti & Lorenzo Mattotti…

I have to say I was a little nonplussed by STIGMATA upon finishing it. I thought it started off very, very strongly indeed, taking the nameless main protagonist and plot very dramatically in some unexpected directions, and then it just rather trailed off, albeit gracefully, to its conclusion. Very much a book of two halves, then. The ending as it pertains to our nameless stigmartyr martyr (sorry, little Bauhaus joke, couldn’t resist) does make perfect sense, and it is emotionally satisfying in some ways, but after the barnstorming start to the first half of the book it all seemed rather tame and to an extent, passionless.

I guess what I don’t understand upon reflection is why the main character has the stigmata initially, and why, given that they briefly disappear when he falls in love with his wife, he then still has them at the end of the book. Despite the apparent resolution, it seems as though nothing at all actually has been. I feel as though I’m missing something fundamental about the ending, which I possibly am. With that said it’s still a powerful work, and perhaps I shouldn’t try and see meaning where maybe there isn’t intended to be one, at least not a clear-cut one, I’m not sure. What I am in no doubt about is the quality of the swirlingly mesmerising black and white art which at times put me in mind of Renee French and Craig Thompson, amongst others.

There is apparently a 2009 black and white Spanish film adaptation of this work called Estigmas. I can completely see that this type of story would make for an excellent art-house film, and despite my reservations – or perhaps lack of perception – about the work, I’d certainly be interested in seeing the film. If only to see if it sheds a little more light on the story as a whole for me.

LINK

JR

Johnny Red vol 1: Falcon’s First Flight (£14-99, Titan) by Tony Tully & Joe Colquhoun…

Ah this takes me back to my youth, when after my mother had kindly cancelled my subscription to 2000AD (I suspect a belated peak inside had convinced her that the thrill power contained within was likely to melt my tender pre-teen mind – too late, Mum!) I managed to ensure I got my weekly comic kicks by persuading her to get me BATTLE ACTION instead. Never mind the body count was about a hundred times higher every week than 2000AD, at least to her it was recognisable human bodies getting blown apart, I suspect.

And Johnny Red Redburn was indeed by far one of my favourite characters, the scouse merchant navy deserter waging his own personal war against the Germans after having seconded himself to a frontline Russian air squadron called the Falcons, which seemed to be a somewhat motley collection indeed of pilots and ground crew, and have a rather brutal, never ending supply of commandants and secret police officers who always seemed to be two minutes away from shooting someone, often Johnny, for some trumped up reason or other.

Reading it again after all these years, it’s still great fun, fantastically well written by Tom Tully (as much appreciated in the foreword by war freak himself Garth Ennis) and illustrated by CHARLEY’S WAR artist Joe Colquhoun in a suitably all-action manner. When Johnny is piloting yet another obscure Russian crate through the trees at low level to escape a better equipped Messerschmitt, you can practically feel the branches taking off the tops of your ears! Whilst I’m not sure I could sit through 13 years worth of Johnny’s aerial antics, which is how long the strip actually ran for, longer than even CHARLEY’S WAR in fact, I’ll certainly enjoy reading the next few volumes at least.

Fans of Garth Ennis’s BATTLEFIELDS and WAR STORIES really should take a look at JOHNNY RED – it will most certainly appeal – and I’m sure aficionados of CHARLEY’S WAR will be doing so anyway.

More BATTLE ACTION action in the form of DARKIE’S MOB and MAJOR EAZY is apparently still coming out, just much later on this year.

LINK

JR

Daomu #1 (£2-25, Image) by Kennedy Xu & Ken Chou.

Contemporary Chinese horror based on the roaringly successful novels of Xu “Kennedy” Lei with fully painted art (albeit on a computer, I’d have thought) by Ken Chou.

Sean Wu is not his real name.

Until he was ten the young man lived in China as Wu Xie but, after a rift with his wealthy father, his mother took him across the sea to Detroit where they made ends meet – barely – in a basement studio flat. But now, after a decade of silence, his father has sought Sean out for a reunion which lasts little more than a minute of bottled up resentment before a hooded figure emerges from the evening’s urban downpour, his face covered by a demonic Chinese mask. Umm… it’s not a mask.

Originally I wondered why the first issue kicked off with a full page of prose setting the far broader scene about elaborate tomb systems all over the globe and three factions of Chinese tomb robbers who plunder their targets either with respect or rapacious greed or, in the case of the Daomu, some sort of custodial protection. We’re also told that the Daomu have been corrupted, their prodigal son having defected, and that the Daomu legacy is currently left without an heir, while the shady, military-funded conglomerate called Coral do shady things in shady places, and I bet there’s a shady lady waiting somewhere in the wings.

It read exactly like the title sequence to a console game and I was unsurprised to find some brief biographical stats at the back as compiled by Coral Incorporated. This is, as I say, based on a series of novels but I bet you anything you like that the novels were partly inspired by Tombraider et al for, sure enough, following the armed ambush (check) and last-minute intervention by unknown field agents (check), Sean heeds his father’s dying words (check) by taking the hastily bequeathed key to his great, great grandfather’s opulent Chinese palace full of antiques (check-check) and unlocking its subterranean vault where the black stone coffin opens to reveal… (check, checkity check)

No, the real reason for the opening page, is that it gives you a far broader sense of the scope potentially on offer here than the first issue suggests. Well, it’s almost certainly also designed to appeal to us console addicts, but at least I haven’t played this game first so it may have something to offer me.

The human figures and faces are a little ropey but I’m relishing the landscapes so have some interior art. The fourth page is definitely worth enlarging:

LINK

SLH

Aftermath (£14-99, Humanoids) by James Hudnall & Mark Vigouroux…

I was so very disappointed with AFTERMATH, both in terms of the story and even more so the art. Overall it has the feel of a back-up strip from early 2000AD, and a weak one at that. It takes an interesting enough premise, concerning a now defunct military unit of weaponised individuals who defeated a (very) alien invasion, which has left the gradually recovering Earth with various xeno-contaminated no-go zones, but then fails to do anything else much with it, though are one or two neat little nods to some hard sci-fi gadgets and contraptions.

The story, such as it is, then involves a double-cross as team members and the scientists who helped create them starting being murdered, but despite the obvious attempt at misdirection it was pretty apparent fairly immediately to me who was behind it all. The art is so painfully basic in places, with faces being drawn particularly badly on several occasions to horribly jarring effect, it rather spoilt the whole work. If you want some quality Euro sci-fi just check out UNIVERSAL WAR, SCOURGE OF THE GODS or METAL instead. Not one of the Humanoids imprint’s finest moments I’m afraid.

LINK

JR

Pandora’s Eyes h/c (£14-99, Humanoids) by Vincenzo Cermai & Milo Manara…

Astonishingly low tittie count this time around from the master of Eurotica art fiction. Unless I missed a few I think we literally have just the one bare breast, which is quite unusual for the great man. Maybe the author just asked him to tone it down a bit. So here we have an action-packed, if somewhat brief crime story, featuring the kidnapping of the beautiful Pandora, secret daughter of the crimelord Castex. Everyone thinks it’s Castex who has kidnapped her, having finally found out she exists, but as Interpol pursue the apparent kidnappers it becomes clear there’s someone with a rather different agenda in mind behind Pandora’s abduction. This is a great little story from Cermai, with the usual vigorous and energetic art we’ve come to expect from Manara, the only drawback being it does feel like just a very short story rather than a full-blooded thriller you can really get your teeth into, which makes it seems pricey at £14-99. It is a hardcover I suppose though.

LINK

JR

Batman: The Return Of Bruce Wayne h/c (£22-50, DC) by Grant Morrison & Chris Sprouse, Frazer Irving, Yanick Paquette, Georges Jeanty, Ryan Sook, Lee Garbett, Andy Kubert…

Hmm, much like FINAL CRISIS you may find this needs a couple of readings to completely understand what’s going on, although that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as this is also a most enjoyable romp. Without giving too much away it seems that far from being killed by Darkseid’s Omega Beams at the climax of FINAL CRISIS, Bruce was in fact contaminated with Omega Energy and quite intentionally thrown back through history to Palaeolithic times. As he gradually slips forward through different time eras he’s accumulating more Omega Energy than Stephen does caffeine on a Wednesday sorting the customer orders, until he reaches the modern era where Darkseid intends him to detonate like a bomb wiping out all existence. Still Bruce being Bruce, and despite suffering from nearly complete amnesia, he’ll undoubtedly come up with a plan to save himself, and everyone else. As Superman observes, surviving is what Batman does.

What follows then is a reverse detective story in a sense, as clues Bruce has left for himself (how he’s done this finally becomes clear in the last part of the story) to find throughout time gradually restoring his memories, and allowing him to come up with a very ingenious way to foil Darkseid’s plan. Along the way we have cameos from Vandall Savage (twice, in different time eras), Blackbeard the Pirate, Jonah Hex, Doctor Simon Hurt of the Black Glove, and most of the JLA who are trying to understand where – or more precisely when – Bruce is, so they can help rescue their friend without him destroying everything. This last point is key, because there comes a moment when Bruce has to remember the first truth of Batman in order to finally save himself, that in fact he was never alone.

Morrison mixes in some nice little touches of hard sci-fi to the story for good measure, particularly when the heroes are gathered looking for clues of Batman’s whenabouts (more unabashed neology I’m afraid, Morrison tends to have that effect on me) at Vanishing Point, the temporal space station moored at the end of all time (no, there isn’t a restaurant) operated by the Linear Men.

And the distinctly different art contributions from everyone helping delineate the different time periods are all excellent, my favourite probably being Frazer Irving’s in puritan times which very much reminded me of his contribution to parts of Morrison’s outstanding SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY.

Overall it’s another very good Bat-book from Morrison, which has some of the zany feel of his BATMAN & ROBIN works in places as Grant has fun with some of the characters, but is actually much closer in tone to his BATMAN R.I.P. and the other immediately preceding books.

LINK

JR

DC Universe Online Legends #1 (£2-25, DC) by Marv Wolfman, Tony Bedard & Howard Porter, Livesay.

Cynically conceived advertisement for (and cash-in on) the new online computer game which scores a double own goal on account of being atrocious. It’s dull, turgid and – the first page aside – I can see little of Porter’s flair. It’s the worst possible advertisement for the game and the worst advertisement imaginable for comics. Come back, DEATH OF SUPERMAN, all is forgiven.

SLH

Also shipped:

(Reviews may follow, softcovers of hardcovers may already be online…)

Lost Boys: Reign Of Frogs (£9-99, Wildstorm) by Hans Rodionoff & Joel Gomez
On The Line (£9-99, Device) by Rick Wright & Ryan Hughes
Quest For The Spark: A Bone Novel: Book One (£8-50, Scholastic) by Tom Sneigoski
Sonic Select vol 3 (£8-99, Archie) by Various
Kiki De Montparnasse (£14-99, Self Made Hero) by Jose-Louis Bocquet & Catel
Big Nate From The Top (£7-50, Comic.com) by Lincoln Pierce
Air vol 4: A History Of The Future (£10-99, Vertigo) by G. Willow Wilson & M.K. Perker
d’Errico: Femina & Fauna (£16-99, Dark Horse) by Camilla d’Errico
The Flash: The Dastardly Death Of The Rogues h/c (£14-99, DC) by Geoff Johns & Francis Manapul & Scott Kolins
Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four vol 5 (£18-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
Shadowland h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Andy Diggle & Billy Tan
Spider-Man: Big Time h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Dan Slott & Humberto Ramos
Namor: The First Mutant vol 1 s/c (£10-99, Marvel) by Stuart Moore & Ariel Olivetti, Andres Guinaldo
Invincible Iron Man vol 5: Stark Resilient s/c (£11-99, Marvel) by Matt Fraction & Salvador Larroca
Daken Dark Wolverine vol 1: Empire h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Daniel Way, Marjorie Liu & Giuseppe Camuncoli
Biomega vol 5 (£9-99, Viz) by Tsutomu Nihei
Naruto vol 50 (£7-50, Viz) by Masashi Kishimoto
InuYasha vol 6 VIZBIG Edition (£14-99, Viz) by Rumiko Takahashi
Mistress Fortune (£6-99, Viz) by Arina Tanemura
Kimi Ni Todoke vol 7 (£7-50, Viz) by Karuho Shiina
Gin Tama vol 21 (£7-50, Viz) by Hideaki Sorachi
Tegami Bachi – Letter Bee vol 4 (£7-50, Viz) by Hiroyuki Asada
Slam Dunk vol 14 (£7-50, Viz) by Takehiko Inoue
Genkaku Picasso vol 2 (£7-50, Viz) by Usamaru Furuya
Doctor Who vol 3: Final Sacrifice (£14-99, IDW) by Tony Lee, Jonathan L. Davis, Matthew Dow Smith, Al Davison & Matthew Dow Smith, Kelly Yates, Matthew Dow Smith, Al Davison
Ben 10 Alien Force / The Secret Saturdays (£9-99, CN) by Matt Wayne, Charlotte Fullerton, Amy Wolfram, Jason Hall & Rob Haynes, Mike Cavallaro, Mike DeCarlo, Min S. Ku
One Piece vol 56 (£7-50, Viz) by Eiichiro Oda

 

Happy Birthday to Gosh! comic shop opposite the British Museum in London. 25 years old this week! Drop them a birthday greeting: info@goshlondon.com

Go on, it won’t cost you anything, and they deserve all the love in the world.

- Stephen

 

New York Five #1 (£2-25, Vertigo/DC) by Brian Wood & Ryan Kelly.

From the creators of LOCAL, this self-contained sequel to NEW YORK FOUR returns us to the lives of five young women handling life in the Big Apple with varying degrees of self-awareness, self-discipline and self-confidence.

Angie Wilder has her own band which has just struck it big on the gig circuit. She also has a boyfriend called Frank who is anything but: he anonymously seduced her younger sister Riley by text. Angie’s no longer speaking to Riley, Riley isn’t speaking to Frank, but Frank hasn’t done using Angie to speak to Riley as this issue’s cliffhanger makes clear.

Riley’s attending NYU with Merissa, Lona and Ren who all share an East Village flat roughly the size of a cupboard, their rent paid through part-time jobs evaluating PSAT/SAT tests. For this they need to undergo casual therapy sessions but the beautiful, outgoing Marissa’s stopped attending. In fact she seems to be spending an awful lot of time going back home to Queens. Lona’s less outgoing but still going out: she seems to be stalking her professor. We’re talking the breaking-and-entering end of stalking. I really don’t know what Ren’s problem is. No really, I don’t. She doesn’t seem to have one right now. She likes older men. Is that a problem?

Like LOCAL, there’s an exceptional spirit of place here whether it’s the civic parks in winter, the city skylines at night or the chunky tenements with street-level steps rising up to their doors. The gigs are perfectly populated while the pavement outside is teeming with individuals hanging out on bikes, checking their bags or checking out each other. You can tell when an artist is trying to avoid drawing something; I couldn’t find a single instance of that here. Even the iron fire escapes and scaffolding have been lavished with so much attention that they have as much weight and character as the pedestrians passing them by. When you stop to take in just how many cityscapes there are on top of that, at 31 pages of story this is one hell of a lot of Ryan Kelly for your £2-25.

For me this is what Brian Wood does best: compelling and thoroughly contemporary straight fiction with a young cast of real individuals gradually revealing bits of themselves as they contemplate, hesitate or override their better instincts.

Because coming back to that cliffhanger, it really is one of those, “Noooo, don’t do it!” moments.

Interior art: LINK

SLH

The Killer Vol 3: Modus Vivendi h/c (£18-99, Archaia) by Matz & Luc Jacamon

“Poor Mexico – so far from God and so close to the USA.”

 - Diaz Ordiz, Mexican President 1860

And so we start afresh with the titular assassin three years into retirement, lazing on the beaches of Venezuela. Lazing – that really doesn’t sound like him, does it? On the other hand he might well have stayed there had Mariano not sent fresh clients his way. Maybe they were the itch he couldn’t help scratching as they fed him a succession of contracts, one after the other. The first seemed relatively straightforward: a Spanish oil broker living in Venezuela but thankfully staying in Mexico. Then an assistant manager of the Venezuelan National Bank: a little close to home but another easy target because riding a scooter in Caracas is tantamount to suicide anyway. But it’s the third target which begins to rattle our unflappable killer who hasn’t been as calculating as he should have been. Her name is Madre Luisa, much loved in Latin America as a nun working the shunned slums of Columbia. He’s basically been asked to off Mother Teresa. Why?

With the help of Mariano and his Padrino, the connections become as clear and as they prove crude. This is Venezuela, after all, the third-largest supplier of the USA’s oil whose President Hugo Chavez is determined to nationalise the industry. Unfortunately that doesn’t change anything except the likely identity of his clients and their potential reach: if he doesn’t kill Madre Luisa someone else will, and then they’ll come looking for him.

As topical right now as I’m afraid it’s likely to prove for quite some time, events spiral out of control on a national level and when Cuba’s interest is revealed the cold cogitations inevitably take a turn for the political. Here’s our man in Havana:

“There were fewer people sleeping outside and dying of hunger in the streets of Havana than in New York or Bombay. Not bad for a country strangled by American embargos for more than forty years. They weren’t rolling in dough and might not eat their fill every day, but they weren’t America’s whore or flunky, or anyone else’s and they knew it.
“Why is Fidel criticised? ‘Cause Cuba isn’t a democracy? What country is? The USA and Europe are in name only. And they impose their so-called superiority on the rest of the world. Easy enough when you rape and pillage, when you grow rich off other men’s work, when you don’t respect the rules you force on them. Bolivar said in 1823: “Providence seems to have destined the United States to rain all sorts of calamities on South America in the name of liberty.” Seeing that far ahead is really something…
“Castro’s funny too. He once said Christ’s sermons would make for good radical socialism, whether or not you were a believer. At the UN, 184 out of 192 countries voted to lift the embargo on Cuba. Only Israel, the US, the Marshall Islands, and Palau voted no… and won. Democracy in action.”

There’s plenty more where that came from in a thriller whose killer has much more to say about foreign intervention and genocide throughout the ages and across the globe. You might say it’s his specialist subject and once more it’s that part of his nature he denies having that lands him in trouble: he can’t help but question everything he’s told, everything he sees around him, and in spite of his protestations he does actually care. In his line of work, nobody likes a troublemaker.

One of the most popular series of graphic novels here, it’s the light that readers comment on most. Whether it’s the dappled shade at a corner café or looking up from the forest floor to the canopy above, the foliage growing fainter as more sunlight shines through, the colouring’s a joy. Plenty of Cuban sunsets this time round as well as our nameless protagonist attempts to broaden his increasingly narrow options, and by the time this volume ends it’s quite the tangled web of international intrigue. Meanwhile, as well as taking a turn for the political, the internal monologue ponders paternal issues too…

“We believe, or pretend to, that fathers love their children and fatherhood makes better men of them, that guys with kids are inevitably good guys, more or less: respectable, wiser, more mature… Another made-up notion that just won’t quit. Lots of dads are the same filthy sons of bitches they were before they had kids. Otherwise the atrocities that punctuate history with depressing regularity would’ve stopped long ago.
“In the 20^th Century, 170 million people died in wars, genocides and massacres. That’s a big heap of dead people. Most of them were killed by kindly heads of households, sure of their might and right, sometimes in their children’s name.”

Did I mention that he now has a son?

LINK

SLH

Temperance h/c (£16-99, Fantagraphics) by Cathy Malkasian —

From the author of PERCY GLOOM, TEMPERANCE is a beautifully composed and affecting fable which weaves together complex social and moral ideas. Despite the episodes of violence that are scattered throughout the story, the prevailing mood is hope; the young Minerva is abused and witness to abuse, which sets events in motion that will not be resolved for another thirty years. During that time she constructs an imaginary world for herself and her fellow travellers, forever running from an unseen enemy, while concealing the truth of their situation from the only other person who knows; she suffers in the knowledge that if he were to remember, their boat would surely sink.

In a world where Chicken Little meets Yggdrassil, people wear hats to ensure the sky doesn’t fall on their heads, birds are enemy spies and the moon has to be chased away every night. The question is, will the ‘violence of purpose’ bring the people together or drive them apart? The themes of temperance and duplicity of language run through the book, giving multiple meanings to simple words like ‘hunger’ and ‘seeds’ (Final Fantasy 8? Anyone?). This tale made me keenly aware that there are always a range of perspectives for any event that occurs, and never before have I felt such empathy for a piece of wood.

This is a difficult book full of complex themes but is hugely rewarding: the entire work is held together by fluid, textured pencil lines and sparse backgrounds, yet you never fail to grasp the complexity of the world you are involved in. Cathy Malkasian deserves all the praise and plaudits she receives for this extraordinary piece of work.

LINK

Jhelisa Taylor

King Of The Flies vol 2: The Origin Of The World h/c (£13-99, Fantagraphics) by Pirus & Mezzo…

Eric, replete with his oversized fly mask, is back for the middle instalment of Pirus & Mezzos’ dark and twisted small-town soap opera. It just so happens that the small town in question makes Twin Peaks look like a haven of normality, mind you. And the king of the flies is certainly no happier than before. It’s not that Eric’s unhappy; he’s just becoming rapidly more aware that his life isn’t turning out to be quite what he’d hoped for…

“I think I was starting to realise that I’d never do anything meaningful in my life. That I’d never be as big as my heroes. I was giving up on my dreams. I’d thought I was hot shit, nailing a couple of girls at a time, but that’s like not doing any of ‘em. You might as well be fucking the wind.”

Several characters like the ten pin bowling obsessive Ringo, the bequiffed thug who now seems to have taken a strangely distorted, indeed almost paternal, interest in Eric, make a return, along with plenty of equally unbalanced new characters who further serve to muddy the already sewer-like waters of what passes for civilised society in these parts.

We also rather unexpectedly see the return of Damien, last seen dressed in a skeleton costume and bouncing off the front of a drunk driver’s car, whilst Eric was screwing his girlfriend Sal in the nearby bushes. Except now he’s an invisible ghost forever dressed in his fluorescent skeleton outfit, but free to pass through walls, observe everyone’s dirty little secrets, and thus provide us with his own unique narrative on the various comings and goings. More coming than going that is for sure…

And he’ll have some confused company from another character familiar to us from volume one on the other side, before too long as well. One whose absence Eric wastes no time in taking advantage of. For all his above protestations of seeing the error of his carnal ways, he’s certainly not one to pass up an opportunity – well any opportunity, it seems.

Once more the main plot is moved on by several short stories which, as before, initially at least appear to be wholly unconnected, before the intricately tangled and tawdry web of deceit, obsession, anger and general all-round nihilism is further exposed. Again there are mind-bending drugs and explicit sex aplenty, in fact once again there’s scant sobriety or heartfelt love to be found. I honestly have no idea how volume three will conclude the stories of our ensemble cast, I really don’t, though I’m expecting suitably disturbing endings for at least half our dystopian protagonists, and genuinely hoping for it in Ringo’s case, though I am fervently wishing he’ll help Eric finally see off his mother’s evil boyfriend Francis first…

Volume three is expected right at the end of 2011.

LINK

JR

The Technopriests vol 1 (£10-99, Humanoids) by Alexandro Jodorowsky & Zoran Janjetov.

“You have the most important skill in business: knowing how to cheat!”

A visual treat for fans of space-faring science fiction here with all the detail of HIP FLASK’s Ladronn and face and figure work not dissimilar to Frank Quitely’s. In fact Beltran’s moulded colouring with its metallic sheens and aqueous effects is so rich that it’s easy to lose sight of Janjetov’s meticulous cross-hatching on the ceilings and arched walls of a battleship’s bedrooms or the curved hull of the vast Verdant Fury. And if you likes yer monsters, do we have a menagerie for you! Diablodactyls, epidragons, drooling anthropomorphic sharks and enough different cybersaurs to fill a fantastical bestiary.

Yes, cybersaurs. Because actually this is as much about the gaming industry as anything else, and a not inconsiderable chunk of it is spent in the malleable world of virtual reality like the Technodojo where your greatest weapons are your wits and imagination. Games protégé Albino has both in abundance matched only by his driving ambition to create. To create games of unparalleled imagination, thinking so far outside the box that they transcend the traditional or the formulaic thereby raising the experience to another level. Commercially it’s seen as suicide.

“My boy, you see here a representative sample of our public… like the lambda consumers, with their neuroses and cherished complexes… who wish to be entertained, without ever rising above their feeble mental capacity.
“Fifty morons! A perfect cross-section of average consumers, drawn from all planetary systems… who will contribute their greed to your games. Any game which doesn’t please them will have to be remade, until they consent to enter your creations… which will be their creations more than your own, for they will be conceived specifically for their limited souls…
“The fifty morons love to fly spaceships, shooting at enemy vessels that use multi-directional propulsion systems to evade them… and all the manoeuvres have the same goal: chase your enemy while staying on his trail.”

It’s this sort of creation by consumer consent, pandering to the lowest common denominator and appeasing their minimal expectations by giving the public more of what they already know that almost crushes our protagonist’s dreams under the weight of its stifling mediocrity. His genius is recognised by the Pan-Techno Organisation but it’s either punished or at least bridled because their original goal of enlightenment has long since been warped by man’s base desire for money which has now become theirs. It’s all about the bottom line. Here are some of the sacredly held tenets of the Guild’s first credo:

“Fifty-three: never expect anything from someone in power. Only the disadvantaged can make the first move.
“Seventy: without greed and capitalist spirit, without strength and ambition, without trickery and shrewd business sense, the Technoguild would not exist,”
“One hundred and twenty-five: endeavouring to trap one’s stronger adversaries is the spider’s strategy. Remember that a Technopriest’s web is his network of contracts.”

It’s dense. Not quite as dense as LUTHER ARKWIGHT nor half as clever, but it still gave me plenty to think about… until it switched to the other more traditional half of the European sci-fi plot involving the rest of Albino’s fractured family whose fortunes are reversed time and time again during his mother’s quest to avenge herself of the rape which spawned her three children. Quite simply, she wants to cut off their balls. Whilst not as explicit as the works of Luis Royo, Manara and co. the themes are all there: sexual slavery, degradation, humiliation, revenge. The revenge cycle plays itself within the fucked-up family until but also spirals out in a series of rejections which I’ll leave you to discover yourself because this review is quite long enough as it is.

I will just add that I was taken aback by the startling similarity in some panels of Albino’s Jiminy Cricket shoulder-size side-kick, to Jim Woodring’s Frank!

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SLH

The Technopriests vol 2 (£10-99, Humanoids) by Alexandro Jodorowsky & Zoran Janjetov.

Less talk and more epic action in this second instalment of inner and outer space science-fiction with vast armadas in space, cat people and slightly more opaque colouring.

Discover the fate of the third space pirate who raped Albino’s mother, witness the expanding schism between herself and her once-cherished first son Almagro, and see her almost reconciled with her four-armed, blood-red daughter. Until they both give birth.

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SLH

Good Eggs h/c (£17-99, Harper Collins) by Phoebe Potts…

“I don’t think of myself as an infertile person who wanted to share her story. I’m an artist who happened to be going through infertility. I love to draw and tell funny stories in which I am the star.”

Phoebe Potts talking whimsically (I hope, rather than ironically) about this work.

I so, so wanted to love this book given the apparent subject matter: it being an autobiographical work about the trials and tribulations that Phoebe and her husband Jeff go through, unsuccessfully as it very sadly turns out in the end, in trying to conceive, first naturally and then using artificial insemination techniques. Indeed every portion of this book that focuses on that struggle and their warm and tender, enduring relationship that makes the continuing anguish bearable, is extremely enjoyable, informative and, from both my wife’s and my own experience, all too accurate.

Struggling to conceive is like riding an emotional roller coaster over which you have absolutely no control or ability to get off, even as all those around you seem to be falling pregnant and giving birth at the drop of a hat, whilst you, invariably, inexplicably in most couples’ cases, rather than for any specific medical reason, struggle on and on and on. Unexplained infertility is undoubtedly one of the most frustrating and emotionally demanding things for a couple, and in particular for a woman, to have to endure. On that level GOOD EGGS is most definitely a triumph. Unfortunately, despite what the title might lead you to conclude, the issue of infertility and all the attendant drama only forms a small portion of the book’s content.

Much like C.T. Tyler in her book YOU’LL NEVER KNOW: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR VOL 1 which is ostensibly about her father’s war experiences, far, far too much of GOOD EGGS is spent regurgitating Phoebe’s battle with depression ad nauseam, which started way back before she started trying for a baby, in fact way back before she met her husband Jeff. Also, you won’t be in any doubt that Phoebe is from a ‘partly Jewish’ family by the end of the book either, such is the repetition of this information.

If I’d wanted an insight into the life of a depressive non-practising Jew who just happened to be undergoing infertility treatment, then GOOD EGGS would have been an ideal work, but I didn’t.

I realise that sounds really harsh, because I get the impression that working on this book has been excellent therapy (a word used rather a lot in GOOD EGGS too) for Phoebe, both in terms of her battle with depression and also not in being able to conceive or maintain a pregnancy, and I absolutely don’t wish to belittle either of those issues. It’s just that I (and also my wife who was really keen to read this) found my natural sympathy and compassion for her being gradually eroded away after yet another round of crying, visits to therapy, and scenes from another partly Jewish family gathering.

Because in terms of examining the issue of her depression it’s just not on the same level as the excellent DEPRESSO and PSYCHIATRIC TALES, not even remotely close. And in terms of exploring what Jewish identity means in our modern world certainly nothing like the truly brilliant HOW TO UNDERSTAND ISRAEL IN 60 DAYS OR LESS by Sarah Glidden which I can’t recommend highly enough.

I just feel the really important issue of infertility is lost amongst a morass of background noise regarding other elements of Phoebe’s life. Personally I think a really good, truncating edit, or indeed maybe just a title more representative of the actual content, would have worked wonders for GOOD EGGS. Still, as I mentioned at the beginning of the review, where it does focus on the ordeal of infertility and merry-go-round of treatment it’s an excellent piece of work; it’s just a shame that focus is somewhat diluted by the rest of it.

LINK

JR

The Last Unicorn h/c (£18-99, IDW) by Peter S. Beagle, Peter Gillis & Renae DeLiz.

“Damn you, why won’t you help me? Why must you speak in riddles?”
“Because no cat anywhere ever gave a straight answer. That’s why.”

There’s no arguing with that.

All my instincts were to simply regurgitate my review of the first issue because doe-eyed unicorns that glow like irradiated My Little Ponies are unlikely to appeal to this haggard old brute. I’m far from a fan of this vein of fantasy – many a minstrel in Assassin’s Creed II has now been dispatched leaving behind widows and orphans whom I envisage gratefully removing plugs from their ears – and although the forests are great these doughy faces in which I find traces of Todd McFarlane are my idea of a medieval nightmare.

But, I found myself swept along by the jaunty rhythm and dialogue, began to understand the way it was embracing and examining conventions like the band of anti-establishment thieves, smiled at the occasional anachronism, then laughed out loud at the ultimate tree-hugging moment when Schmendrick, tied face-forward to a trunk, is addressed by its leafy owner thus:

“Always, always, faithfulness beyond any man’s deserving. I will keep the colour of your eyes when no other in the world remembers your name. There is no immortality but a tree’s love.”
“Sorry… m’engaged… to a larch.”

Then, before I knew it, the night air was crackling with a ferocious red bull, its molten core spitting through fissures in its leathery hide to hiss round its horns, hooves and flanks, and I couldn’t believe I was staring at the same artist’s work. I’d even started loving the language:

“… And all around her was a light as impossible as snow set afire… “

That comes later.

Unicorns are immortal. They live solitary lives in single places, usually a sequestered forest. But if they are immortal then why does this one believe she is alone – the last unicorn in existence – and why against her strongest, most primal instincts, is she driven to leave the sanctuary of the pines and waterfalls in search of her own kind?

Instinctively one fears for the potential trophy of that rarest of beasts out of its natural habitat in a land full of men, and those fears are realized almost immediately. But some hearts can be swayed like that of young Schmendrick (literally “somebody of out his depths, the boy sent to do a man’s job”) who bluffs and bungles his way through most of the book until it really counts and, buoyed on by the words of a barely coherent butterfly able to speak only in snatches of old songs and poetry, they begin to understand where they are going and what they must do, at least until love rears its distracting head then its temptation time.

But it’s not as straightforward as I’d dismissively presumed and there’s much here to make you think. As I say, certain traditions are lovingly observed. What’s a fairy tale without a tyrant and cursed castle to live in and loom over the land? Plus a town below it cursed in conjunction, its people living as a direct result in self-imposed celibacy, if not as barren as the land exactly then certainly without issue? But that’s not the curse, that’s their reaction to it. You’ll see what I mean when you get there. As to other traditions, here’s our Robin Hood counterpart, self-publicist supreme:

“Robin Hood’s a classic example of the heroic folk figures synthesized out of need, Mr. Child. John Henry is another. Men have to have heroes, but no man can ever be as big as the need, and so a legend grows round a grain of truth, like a pearl. Not that it isn’t a remarkable trick, of course…
“…Robin Hood is the fable and I am the reality. No ballads will accumulate around my name unless I write them myself; no children will read of my adventures in their schoolbooks and play at being me after school. I mean, you can’t leave epic events to the people. They get things wrong.” 

Inevitably in such an adaptation there are chunks missing. I haven’t read the original but you can occasional discern a disconcerting leap or two. But it does its job well enough for anyone missing the old Crossgen line and of its original prose author Neil Gaiman writes:

“For over forty years, Peter S. Beagle has been the gold standard of fantasy, one of the most elegant and genuine writers of fantastic fiction out there. His short stories are jewels. In Japan they declare their finest, most irreplaceable artists national treasures, and if there was any justice in this world Peter S. Beagle would be declared a national treasure and be left alone to get on with making magic.”

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SLH

Three Thieves Book One: Tower Of Treasure (£6-99, Kids Can Press) by Scott Chantler.

From the creator of NORTHWEST PASSAGE and a publisher dedicated to prose and graphic novels for kids, this is a full-colour medieval fantasy of one young acrobat’s quest to find her missing brother snatched when they were children… with one our two detours for daylight robbery and nocturnal theft.

From the state of the starving beggars, the royal city of Kingsbridge has obviously seen better days. Certainly the late King Roderick is still revered by the likes of the one-eyed Captain Drake as a ruler who never let his subjects go hungry, but the bloated Queen Magda exhibits no such compassion, sitting instead on a treasury overflowing with gold. At least that’s the rumour. Bright blue pickpocket Topper has found himself a map and persuaded dim purple strongman Fisk to help loot the vast tower but Dessa has other things on her mind. She remembers little about her brother’s abduction, just snippets here and there, but when her travelling circus first rolled into patrolled by its Queen’s armed guards, their all-too familiar livery triggered a startling flashback of a similarly garbed guard grabbing her brother in hiding after his lord and master commanded their home be burned to the ground. And she thinks she’s just spotted the culprit.

This is a trilogy, I think, so it’s more scene-setting than anything else. There’s a degree of tension in the court and more to the Queen’s chamberlain Maarten Greyfalcon than first meets the eye. Seems he has a few things in common with Leonardo Da Vinci. The book meanwhile has more than a few things in common with Tomb Raider. Okay, there are direct steals – which I guess is appropriate enough. There’s a certain similarity outside the central cast to the art of Jeff Smith and the storytelling’s fine insofar as it goes. It just doesn’t yet go anywhere particularly surprising yet. It’s also a short read – far shorter than, say, a volume of AMULET – but I leave it for the youngsters themselves or even their parents to judge whether this will appeal. Please let us know.

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SLH

No Touching At All (£9-99, June) by Kou Yoneda.

I promise you there’s touching. Honest! What kind of Yaoi would this be without some furtive fondling up against a wall and a couple of blanked-out areas populated with mildly implicit pen lines?

That there’s a little less of it here is down to boyish Shima being congenitally shy. Reticence personified, tentative is a word he’d hesitate to use if hesitation wasn’t such a scarily dynamic enterprise suggesting way too much purpose and resolve.

Yet opposites attract and Shima’s self-effacing silence intrigues his new team leader and booze hound Togawa, who determines to bring Shima out of himself and then out of his trousers even though Togawa the sour-smelling chain-smoker is straight. Shima isn’t straight. In fact the reason he left his last job was a relationship with a previous co-worker that went hideously wrong when everyone else in the office caught wind of it and his supposed lover backed out swiftly with all the courage and honour of a gelded Judas Iscariot:

“To clear his name, the guy was pretty hard on Shima, I guess. He started saying that Shima was hitting on him and it was a problem. He blamed work mistakes on Shima and basically made it hard for him to stay at the company.”

So you can kinda see where Shima’s coming from even though his immediate superiors are infinitely more liberal and Togawa himself is so uninhibited he’ll happily tongue young Shima in public. No, there’s something more going on in Shima’s head, as evidenced by the memorised snatches of conversation that echo throughout, and it’s a selfless concern based on Togawa’s past and stated ambition that’s actually very touching indeed. See, it’s all about family. That, and Shima’s low self-esteem which leads him to constantly question the strength of Togawa’s possible commitment when he must surely grow bored of him soon.

Will Shima’s bashfulness remain unblemished or will Togawa start to rub off on him? He’s certainly persistent right from the start:

“Shima, lunch!”
“It’s not lunchtime yet.”
“Shima, how about a smoke break?”
“You know I don’t smoke, right?”
“Shima, come to the meeting room for a sec.”
“Is it about work?”
“Shima-chan, toilet break!”
“I go alone!”

The only problem I had with this book was the balloon placement, often so random that I hadn’t clue who was saying what, or in some cases what it was they were saying. So, err, some of the balloons’ content too. Still, I got the main thrust. Will Shima?

LINK

SLH

Exterminators vol 1 restocks (£7-50, Vertigo/DC) by Simon Oliver & Tony Moore. 

You might know artist Tony Moore from early WALKING DEAD.

You think squirrels are cute, with their big, bushy tails, bouncing from branch to branch then perching on pagodas to nibble their nuts? Well sure, they are. But I’ve seen the permanent scars left on one guy in pest control who found himself trapped in an attic infested with squirrels, and they weren’t about to go down without a fight. There’s a similar scene in this first book, only with a racoon. And its mother. And the upshot is, if you don’t like rats – or cockroaches – you’re going to want to maintain a safe perimeter between yourself and this title because this is pest control on the outskirts of Los Angeles, where veteran A.J. shows Henry the ropes, his honed techniques (which are somewhat unorthodox) and his personal prejudices (which are manifold). He’s a rat of man himself. But the story begins with a miniature dissertation on the fall of the Roman Empire, whose punchline is not without resonance today:

“Cultural imperialism right up till 164 A.D. when the Empire slipped upon a banana skin. Nature’s banana skin. The army had returned from conquering Iraq and unwittingly carried home black rats… and with them the Black Death which wiped out over 100 million people in 16 years.”

What’s his point?

“Where’s our banana skin?”

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SLH

 

Exterminators vol 2: Insurgency restocks (£9-99, Vertigo) by Simon Oliver & Tony Moore, Andy Parks, Sean Parsons, Chris Samnee.

If you don’t like cockroaches, this is probably best avoided. If you do like cockroaches, then it’s you who’s probably best avoided.

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SLH

Avengers vol 1 h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & John Romita Jr.

Not so much a temporal anomaly as a temporal catastrophe.

Far in the future the Avengers have had children but the world they have inhabited has been devastated first by Hank Pym’s Ultron (an artificial intelligence housed in nigh-impenetrable metal with an Oedipal Complex like you wouldn’t believe) and then by a war between Ultron and Kang. As always Kang The Conqueror lost (obviously, it’s there in his name) but being a time traveler and a really, really sore loser he simply presses the temporal reset, travels back in time and tries again bringing increasingly vast armies with him. Over and over again. But the thing is, everything has an expiry date: carpets wear thin and metal fatigues – as Uri Geller will be happy to show you. And eventually, groaning at the strain of Kang’s relentless, bludgeoning misuse, time… simply… snaps.

That’s what lies at the heart of this devious time-traveling tale with ominous foreshadowing for the life, times and in particular the inventions of Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man, the fate of Bucky Barnes and a whole spread of imminent developments if you care to analyze the bizarrely child-like scrawl on the wall as drawn by a future counterpart of one of the Avengers who has already witnessed what Bendis and others have in store for the Marvel Universe.

But it all kicks off on the first day of this central team’s reformation high in Avengers Tower, and it’s a semi-classic line-up as dictated by Commander Steve Rogers and potential sales figures: Thor, Iron Man, Bucky as Captain America, Hawkeye as Hawkeye (at last), Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Wolverine and Kree warrior Nor-Varr all led by ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. director Maria Hill. Not the brightest day, you’d have thought, for Kang to show his purple puss, but he has an ace up his sleeve as conceived by Tony Stark.

“But I haven’t even built that yet.”
“But you will.”
“I won’t.”
“You did.”

He did. He went and built a doomsday device and now it belongs to Kang. The how and the why will fall into place later on for Kang is not there to conquer (quite fortunate given his 50-year score card) but to ask for their help. Funny how he doesn’t mention the time fracture.

As I say, this is far more devious that it first appears because there are a whole heap of surprises awaiting them in the eye of the temporal storm: strange alliances whose members aren’t necessarily being straight with each other let alone our assembled Avengers. But then one Avenger doesn’t necessarily end up being straight with the others. Habit of a life-time, really.

Art on a scale of huge from John Romita Jr. as befits a title whose very nature is dealing with the big stuff. That’s what this central book is: the big stuff. Here we have Ultron, Kang, time-travel and Apocalypse whose name I have mentioned just to boost sales. Next we have the Infinity Gems, the Illuminati and a cast of 5,312. Are Tony and Steve going to fall out again?!*

Lastly, there’s one other ex-Avenger Steve Rogers wanted for the team but he’s refused point-blank. In fact he seems determined to do everything he can to thwart the reformation. Do you sense a sub-plot*?

*Yes.

 

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SLH

Avengers #9 (£2-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & John Romita Jr.

“I can’t believe you, Tony.”
“It isn’t personal, Steve.”
“I’m in charge of the security of the free world. Something like this, you tell me.”
“I’m sorry your feelings are hurt.”
“My feelings?! You think this about my feelings?”
“This part, here, yes.”
“The ego on you. The astronomical ego. I told you that Congress wanted to hold you responsible for all of Norman Osborn’s actions! I told you that I convinced them not to go forward… And you told me that you would behave. That you would be a model Avenger. And so you just decide that you should have a secret group with a hidden agenda.”

The Illuminati outed. Boy, is Steve Rogers pissed.

Some very funny visual gags and a great line about Reed Richards, Namor and Sue. Here’s the background:

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Incredible Hulks: Dark Son h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Greg Pak, Scott Reed & Tom Raney, Barry Kitson, Brian Ching…

Proving that the gamma family that plays together stays together. There are just too many Hulks and other monstrous Hulk sidekicks of every hue and texture to keep track of now, even without grandpappy Red Hulk, who doesn’t appear in this volume being otherwise enraged, sorry engaged, in the AVENGERS at the moment. Instead to keep us ahem… entertained… we have Hulk, She-Hulk, Red She-Hulk (Betty Ross), Savage She-Hulk (Hulk’s daughter from an alternative universe), A-Bomb (Rick Jones), Korg (sort of an alien conehead lookalike of the Thing) Skaar (Hulk’s sulky tweenie with tattoos and sword), and Hiro-Kala who happens to be Skaar’s twin and thus Hulk’s other son, whom no one knew anything about at all right up until now, as he arrives hurtling towards Earth on a planet he’s moving through space using his not inconsiderable powers.

Obviously being the fine, dysfunctional, gamma-irradiated family that they are, this particular first contact isn’t all hugs and kisses, rather it’s smash first and get to know you later. Where are the social workers when you need them?! Well, we do have a brief cameo from Steve Rogers who of course wants to stick his oar in (err, I mean help) but he’s soon sent packing by Bruce who feels a little tough love is probably more what’s required for his errant son.

The few various issues that have featured Hiro-Kala to date before now, with him battling Galactus in outer space, being visited by the ghost of his dead mother who kindly disfigured half his face, and generally having a fairly tough stuff start to life, were actually reasonably entertaining, but did lead one to conclude the inevitable family reunion was probably going to get off to a fairly seismic start. Cue the smashing before emotional bonding all round and everyone, just about, kisses and makes up at the end. Spoiler alert: one character is, if not quite killed off in the grand finale, otherwise detained in a manner which means you won’t see them again until the Hulk writers are short of a decent plot. Sometime later this year then, probably…

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JR

Hulk: The End s/c (£12-99, Marvel) by Peter David & George Perez, Dale Keown.

Future stories of your favourite Marvel characters have met with varying degrees of acclaim and indifference. Quite how the 2099 line lasted as long as it did 18 years or so ago is beyond me. On the other hand Byrne and Claremont’s ‘Days Of Future Past’ which capped their collaboration on UNCANNY X-MEN, and in which most mutants have finally fallen victim to man’s love affair with genocide and concentration camps, is single-handedly responsible for so many homages and follow-ups that it’s easy to forget what a neat little self-contained number it originally was. We’ve seen the Punisher take on (and out) the Marvel Universe, we’ve seen the final days of the Avengers. There are so many variations that nothing is definitive – indeed they’ll only have aged another year or so by 2099 anyway, so putting a date on them seems somewhat foolish.

SPIDER-MAN: REIGN was a belter with more than a whiff to it of DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (a book so ancient that at the time of typing we don’t even have a review of it) but by far my favourite – which took us all by surprise at Page 45 – was Mark Millar’s WOLVERINE: OLD MAN LOGAN. In it we discover that something so atrocious has befallen the crested Canadian that he’s sworn to the cause of pacificism no matter the provocation. And it’s quite provoking having the inbred, redneck offspring of Bruce Banner as your landlords. Actually they’re just collecting the rent because Daddy dearest is very much alive and well and so many people have evidently made him so very angry over the years that nobody likes him at all anymore.

Which brings us to Peter David’s future counterpart of the Hulk as seen in this collection of FUTURE IMPERFECT from 1992 drawn by George Perez, and THE END as envisaged by Dale Keown in 2002 where we discover that the Hulk has finally got what he said he always wanted – to be left alone. By necessity, then, that’s a somewhat bleak and ruminative affair which has its origins in a short prose story called The Last Titan. But back in FUTURE IMPERFECT there were still plenty of people to give the giant grief because he hasn’t aged well. He’s outlived almost everyone whom he could ever have considered his friend and, in their absence, succumbed to his own worst aspects. As the Maestro he’s ruler of all he surveys. There’s only one relic from his past remaining who he sits in a trophy room of broken helmets, shredded capes, abandoned armour, fractured shields… and a poster of the Phoenix saying “Dead… Again!” He’s lived far too long – it’s over ninety years since we last saw him – but he’s determined to be reunited with the Hulk he once knew, even if it means bringing him forward through time, so that Banner can look himself in the eye and see what he’s become.

Originally written with a specific but unidentified European artist in mind, you could not have found a more apposite replacement back then than George Perez, an American master of ligne claire, so distinctly European-looking it remains. That trophy room (“Needs a giant penny. Pretty complete otherwise”) is full of tiny details – even at the back of a bookcase you can make out the Serpent Crown – some of which may prove useful or even fatal later on.

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SLH

Also arrived:

(All the below are on sale now. Reviews will follow for many, whilst some may already exist if they were originally h/cs. Just use our search engine!)

Scenes From An Impending Marriage h/c (£7-50, D&Q) by Adrian Tomine
Daytripper (£14-99, Vertigo) by Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba
Cursed Pirate Girl: Collected Edition vol 1 (£14-99, Olympian) by Jeremy A. Bastian
Pandora’s Eyes h/c (£14-99, Humanoids) by Vincenzo Cermai & Milo Manara
Johnny Red vol 1: Falcon’s First Flight (£14-99, Titan) by Tony Tully & Joe Colquhoun
Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey h/c (£22-50, Villard) by GB Train
Evolution: The Story Of Life On Earth h/c (£13-99, Novel) by Jay Hosler & Kevin Cannon, Zander Cannon
Charmed vol 1 (£9-99, Zenescope) by Paul Ruditis & Dave Hoover, Marcio Abreu, Novo Malgapo
Aftermath (£14-99, Humanoids) by James Hudnall & Mark Vigouroux
Ivy h/c (£14-99, Oni) by Sarah Oleksyk
Tezuka: Black Jack vol 13 (£12-99, Vertical) by Osamu Tezuka
Iron Man: Noir s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Scott Snyder & Manuel Garcia
Superman: War Of The Supermen h/c (£14-99, DC) by James Robinson & Sterling Gates
Batman: The Return Of Bruce Wayne h/c (£22-50, DC) by Grant Morrison & Chris Sprouse, Frazer Irving, Yanick Paquette, Georges Jeanty, Ryan Sook, Lee Garbett, Andy Kubert
The Savage Sword Of Conan vol 9 (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Michael Fleischer, John Buscema, Steve Skeates, Jim Owsley, Larry Yakata & Vince Colletta, Val Mayerik, John Buscema, Ernie Chan, Pablo Marcos, Rudy Nebres, Gary Kwapisz, Stan Woch, Ned Sonntag, June Brigman, Armando Gil
Blade Of The Immortal vol 23: Scarlet Swords (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Hiroaki Samura
Black Butler vol 4 (£8-99, Yen) by Yana Toboso
Ghost Talker’s Daydream vol 5 (£8-50, Dark Horse) by Saki Okuse & Sankichi Meguro
Exterminators vol 5: Bug Brothers Forever restocks (£10-99, Vertigo) by Simon Oliver & Tony Moore, Ty Templeton, John Lucas

Can I just say that although we have waited on Jhelisa’s review of TEMPERANCE above for some six months, it was worth every second delayed? Some words are worth the wait, and so are some people. Jhelisa is one of those people. I’ll sort the lady out with her new reviewer credit as soon as possible as well as a COMICS JOURNAL award for behind-the-times brilliance. For the moment the link takes you to her Staff Profile instead.

- Stephen

 

Who’s been knock, knock knocking on our website’s door? That’s what’s had our Jonathan obsessed since October as, like some invisible yet benevolent spider, he tracks each pull on the virtual thread and finds we’re not yet banned in China. Must try harder. Welcome to our parlour.

 

By the Power Of Google Analytics!

Okay, it’s not quite as catchy as by the Power Of Greyskull, but hey, who really needs a catchphrase anyway?

So… on the 27th January the new Page 45 website will have been up and running for 100 days.

Whilst not quite as important an event on the world stage as Napoleon Bonaparte’s ‘Hundred Days’ grand hurrah in 1815 marking the time between his return from exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20^th March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8^th July 1815 (actually 111 days if we’re being pedantic), or indeed even the start of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 administration resulting in the so called ‘New Deal’ and actually leading to the adoption of the term ‘The First Hundred Days’ now used by the media to comment upon an incoming President’s early achievements, our own first hundred days of wondrous new webbery have thrown up some statistics I thought I might spin your way. Cue the Page 45 anthem as performed by Duran Duran, unfurl and hoist our leafy flag up the pole and let the propaganda commence…

So far, we’ve have over 12,000 unique visitors to our new site, with over a 100,000 page views in total. The typical time spent on the site is averaging out at approximately five minutes. And the percentage of the daily visitors which are first timers has remained almost exactly at a very respectable 65%. So the amount of total daily traffic is continuing to maintain a steady, almost linear increase. Not a bad start at all.

But it’s where some of our visitors (and orders) are coming from that’s raised a few chuckles.

Whilst, as you would expect, the UK is the most common place for someone to be viewing our site from, we have now had visitors from 127 countries. Now given that – depending on your political point of view (Tibet is a sovereign state in my mind) – there there are 193 countries in the world, this means we’ve had visitors to our site from almost exactly two-thirds of the world in merely our first three months, including some pretty obscure places: Albania, Botswana, the Philippines, Guatemala, Iraq, Mongolia… Yeah, you read that right, Mongolia.

In some ways it’s actually easier to say where we haven’t had a visit from. We’ve now had visits from every single state in the US with the high plains of Wyoming finally succumbing last week, but in Central and South America there is only French Guiana, in Asia only Burma, in Australasia only Papua New Guinea, and in the northern hemisphere pretty much only Greenland that haven’t paid us a visit yet! In fact when you seriously look at where we haven’t had visitors from yet, the vast majority of the countries are in the sub-Saharan African belt, which is quite understandable.

Looking at the ranking table of most visits by country throws up some interesting facts too. Whilst the UK is top by some distance, it’s followed by the US, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and Australia (in that order), and then comes… Bermuda. Stand up and take a bow, Marcus Cooper! Are you actually getting any work done, mate, or do you just spend all day browsing our website?!! Brazil and Italy then round out the top ten countries. And occasionally you can tie up a specific customer to a specific location which is nice. For example I could see that we had been getting a few visits from Kuala Lumpur (capital of Malaysia for the geographically challenged amongst you), and it subsequently turned out that a long-standing Page 45 customer is currently living out there and still wants to put his custom our way!

In terms of visits from within the UK you might expect Nottingham to come in the top slot but – almost certainly due to sheer size – it is in fact London in first place, followed by Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham then Nottingham, with Glasgow, Bristol, Derby and Edinburgh rounding out the top ten. You know, I’m sure there are actually some comic shops in London and Leeds…

One of the healthiest signs for me in terms of future growth are the actual sources of traffic. Obviously when we first started it was almost 100% direct traffic, i.e. people typing www.page45.com directly into their browser, but we’ve seen a massive increase in the amount of search engine traffic and referred traffic from sites like twitter, facebook and creators’ own blogs. Thank you, one and all! And, err, please keep them coming. It now currently breaks down to 40% direct traffic, 40% from search engines and 20% referring sites.

Clearly there will come a point when this statistical set will hit equilibrium as new visitors come back directly to the site, but the amount of people finding us for the first time through searching for a specific product on Google is very, very encouraging and now in the hundreds per day. I probably don’t even need to add that Scott Pilgrim is the most searched-for term that’s led people to our website, although I am slightly disturbed to see how high “Jonathan Rigby” appears in that particular table! Seriously though, what’s with people in the US buying Scott Pilgrim posters from us?!

[Errr.. they’re exclusive to us..?  LINK and LINK - ed.]

But what’s really lovely to see is where someone from out there in the big wide world has searched for a specific graphic novel not riding particularly high on the cusp of current publicity and subsequently purchased it from us like Gary Spencer Millidge’s STRANGEHAVEN (that’d be New Zealand!) or a LIL’ ABNER collection (that’d be Spain!) or Dash Shaw’s THE UNCLOTHED MAN IN THE 35^TH CENTURY A.D. (that be Germany!).

Obviously we want more traffic, more new visitors, and in the fullness of time more web orders, but still it’s a very positive start. If you’d have said two-thirds of the world would have come and had a look at the website of any comic shop after just one hundred days, I’d said you were mad, but then, as in so many many other ways, Page 45 is not a normal comic shop so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised after all.

Finally I’ve big plans afoot for some improvements and tweaks later on this year, which Dominique and I covertly refer to in hushed whispers (when Stephen’s around) as ‘Phase 2’, but all in all I think The First Hundred Days report is a positive one. Hopefully enough to get me re-elected anyway!

 - Jonathan