It’s full-colour comedy in which our Jeff captures the contrariness of childhood to perfection along with its nagging and needs, while Darth dotes on his darling boy like any other proud father.

 - Stephen on Jeffrey Brown’s Darth Vader And Son.
 

Folly, The Consequences Of Indiscretion s/c (£13-99, Fantagraphics) by Hans Rickheit…

I mean this in the nicest possible way but self-confessed obscurist Hans Rickheit is clearly not all there in the head. Stephen is often fond of describing reading Jim Woodring (WEATHERCRAFT, CONGRESS OF THE ANIMALS) as the closest thing to taking mind-bending drugs without actually doing so. If that is so then reading Hans Rickheit is certainly also of that ilk, but most definitely of the having-a-bad-trip variety. Unlike his previously published work, THE SQUIRREL MACHINE, this material is a collection of shorts from over the years, frequently featuring the same characters, in particular identical twins Cochlea & Eustachia, who inevitably get themselves into all sorts of unpleasant bother.

Definitely the type of read to make you wary of opening doors when you’re not entirely sure what’s on the other side, as Hans frequently surprises his characters, and us readers, by taking you somewhere you’d never expect, nor probably want to go to. It’s not just doors that characters have a habit of passing through / emerging from either… The closest analogy in terms of weird narrative I can make would probably be Charles Burns’ X’ED OUT I think, or David Cronenberg’s cinematic adaptation of William Burroughs’ The Naked Lunch. I would be genuinely intrigued to know what his inspirations were for some of these stories.

JR

Buy Folly, The Consequences Of Indiscretion s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Darth Vader And Son h/c (£9-99, Chronicle Books) by Jeffrey Brown.

“Luke, do you need to go potty?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re kind of doing a little dance.”
“I don’t have to go.”

He really has to go!

This is too, too funny. From the creator CLUMSY, FUNNY MISSHAPEN BODY, the two INCREDIBLE CHANGE-BOTS books and so much more, this comes in much the same format as Jeffrey’s CATS ARE WEIRD… and CAT GETTING OUT OF A BAG. It’s full colour comedy in which our Jeff captures the contrariness of childhood to perfection along with its nagging and needs, while Darth dotes on his darling boy like any other proud father. It’s the humour of incongruity, the joke being that the dastardly Darth isn’t really renowned for his kindness and compassion, or wearing bright orange, red-dotted ties. “Thank you, my son,” he rasps after unwrapping the proudly presented gift. (“I can’t wear this,” he keeps to himself. I think he’ll have to at home for a while.)

The recognition factor will keep you chuckling throughout: Darth with a dead arm, cradling a slumbering son he doesn’t want to disturb; puddle-splashing; tittle-tattle; that same, irritatingly twee album played over and over again.

“Luke, let’s listen to something else for a while… Maybe –“
“Ewoks!”
“Are you sure? How about –“
“No, Ewoks!”

There are a lot of long car journeys, aren’t there?

But it’s just as funny seeing the evil emperor attempting to wrap a small present of his own in those enormous, cumbersome black gauntlets, and getting sticking plaster everywhere. It’s more of a mess than mine! Also: some highly unorthodox uses for the Force, but you just know that you would if you could. You need know nothing about Star Wars to yuk-yuk it up here – I don’t. Still, it does make you wonder about nature and nurture.

“Luke, pick up your toys right this instant.
“Luke, I am your father.
“Do you want a time-out?”

Such a rebellious child.

SLH

Buy Darth Vader And Son h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Megalex h/c (£22-50, Humanoids) by Alexandro Jodorowsky & Fred Beltran…

Before we get into discussing the book itself I must mention the excellent foreword by the artist, Ferd Beltran, where he primarily discusses how his interest in producing ‘3D’ computer generated art arose, and the challenges involved in rendering such worlds and characters. I should add he doesn’t mean 3D in the literal comedy-coloured glasses sense, just the sense of depth and realism that can be achieved by smooth, computer-rendered art when done well. He also talks about working with Alexandro Jodorowsky and I must confess I had forgotten that Fred Beltran was also involved with THE TECHOPRIESTS books, having wrongly assumed for some time that it was virtually entirely the art of Zoran Janjetov, but obviously not.

Anyway, apparently this work is set in the same universe as THE INCAL and THE TECHNOPRIESTS , though I didn’t see any overt connections as such, this seems entirely stand alone to me, but it certainly has much more in common with the latter than the former, and people who enjoyed THE TECHNOPRIESTS material should certainly take a look at this. This work has an entertaining, fairly typical, metaphysical commentary on society and the individual story from Jodorowsky, but it is indeed the art that really makes it come to life, and I frequently found myself stopping to admire Beltran’s skill.

JR

“Megalex is Death!Megalex is Death!” screams the flock of white parrots as 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 isMegalex. Mountains have been levelled to form one homogenous sphere of grey, metal complexes – think The Death Star, only larger – and the final elements of resistance from the Dead Ocean and Chem Forest 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.

As Jonathan says, the art is generated on computer, but doesn’t suffer from the typical clinical forms and/or gaudy colours. It’s actually very impressive. And, in the process mentioned earlier, quite revolting. More nudity – it’s European.

SLH

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

Skeleton Key Colour Special (£2-75, Dark Horse) by Andi Watson.

And what beautiful colours there are on this smooth, silky stock! It showcases Andi’s exuberant cartooning to perfection: my favourite pale blues in the world!

Three introductory short stories, then, from the creator of GUM GIRL, GLISTER and so much more as schoolgirl Tamsin, fox spirit Kitsune and Mr. Raccoon continue in their quest to find a way home using the transdimensional Skeleton Key which can pick any lock, letting them in and out of family tombs, filing cupboards and even petty cash tins if necessary. It’s often a tight squeeze, and it’s usually very funny seeing them extricate themselves.

It’s all a bit Doctor Who if the Tardis’ chameleon circuit were only working. For each time they find themselves faced with something already suspect or about to go disastrously wrong.

Here they encounter the New Necromantics: a trio dressed like David Bowie in ‘Ashes To Ashes’, Adam Ant in ‘Prince Charming’ and Alannah Currie from the Thompson Twins circa ‘Sister Of Mercy’ trying to train drained zombies to dance in their latest pop promo:

“No, no, no! It’s step, step, shimmy, step. Not shuffle, shuffle, drool.”

Next it’s a question of questionable Room Service at a hotel haunted by a former occupant who found its mini-bar nuts. Best of all, though, is their misstep into theMuseumOfThe Lostwhere their current condition immediately qualifies them as prize exhibits – along with Amelia Earheart’s Lockheed Electra, passports and homework. Also, presumably: the never-present dog who ate it. Very funny word-play.

My favourite panel was the ghost administering the Heimlich Manoeuvre to Mr. Raccoon, for the cartooning involved in Mr. Raccoon is exceptional. On the surface he is a flat-faced, square-head, but here you see best the invisible, three-dimensional contours which always exist due to the impeccable colouring but which never break the facial rectangle. I don’t know how well I’ve explained that. Ask me for a quick show-and-tell on the shop floor. It’s subtle but brilliant!

SKELETON KEY original series books ONE, THREE and FIVE still available. Just. You don’t need them for this, but you’ll want them for sure and immediately afterwards.

Buy Skeleton Key Colour Special and read the Page 45 review here

SLH

Tokyo On Foot: Travels In The City’s Most Colourful Neighbourhoods (£15-99, Tuttle) by Florent Chavouet ~

There is an honesty in wonder, truth in bewilderment. To visit a new place and soak it all in line by line must take a keen sense of the absurd. This isn’t really a CARNET DE VOYAGE in the strictest sense as Florent stayed for six months, taking the opportunity to explore the different districts of the sprawling capital while his partner interned. Instead what we have here is a personal, unofficial guidebook to the city. It’s an unapologetic love letter appreciating its dingiest dives to its most beautiful moments. Through the eyes of a westerner,Tokyo seems overwhelming at times; Florent softens the neon strips and gaudy consumerism with his crayon-coloured illustrations and photo montages. It’s clear when you read the book this is all sequential art, but only occasionally will he break a page down into a standard comic sequence, like when he’s arrested and interrogated byTokyo’s notoriously zealous police. And as harsh as that experience sounds, he remains a resolute outsider observing the unfolding pantomime with a keen eye.

In this way he reminds me of Nicholas (Momus) Currie’s ongoing adventures in Osaka. Although Nicholas, ever the chameleon-alien, actively participates in the pantomime, complete with dress sense, revelling in its absurd beauty. Through Florent’s you will see a city quite foreign and in its reflection a West equally as alien on every level. Wonderful.

TR

Buy Tokyo On Foot: Travels In The City’s Most Colourful Neighbourhoods and read the Page 45 review here

NonNonBa (£19-99, D&Q) by Shigeru Mizuki…

Enchanting autobiographical work from the creator of the scathing anti-war satire ONWARD TOWARDS OUR NOBLE DEATHS, which details his relatively austere, and at times quite poignant childhood, his developing interest in illustration, and also looks at his early fascination, partly fuelled by his grandmother, the titular NonNonBa, with the Japanese spirit world and the monsters, or yokai, who inhabit it. It’s clearly something that’s developed into a bit of an obsession as apparently he’s “travelled to over sixty countries to engage in fieldwork based on spirit folklore” whatever that may mean!

This work was actually the first manga ever to win the prestigious Best Album prize at Angoulême, and it’s easy to see why as it rewards the reader on many levels, especially narratively. Even though I loved this work I possibly just prefer ONWARD TOWARDS OUR NOBLE DEATHS, though again that too was a prize winner at Angoulême! Amusingly enough it has just occurred to me that Mizuki’s own fascination with war may well have begun in the pitched battles he and his friends seemed to be endlessly fighting with other kids from nearby neighbourhoods, and which seem to have been fought with a ferocity the Bash Street Kids would have been proud of! He draws a particularly amusing lumpy bruised head!

This would definitely be an interesting read for someone who has worked his way through the Tezuka and Taniguchi canons and is now looking for another true manga master to discover. Highly recommended.

JR

Buy NonNonBa and read the Page 45 review here

Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland h/c (£16-50, Top Shelf) by Harvey Pekar & Joseph Remnant.

From the writer – and star – of AMERICAN SPLENDOUR, with an introduction by Alan Moore, this is Harvey’s last pronouncement on those around him and the city he and they inhabited. Harvey Pekar and Cleveland were inseparable, and this is part-autobiography, part-history. Some of the finest art ever to grace a Pekar project: incredible detail and a real spirit of place, vital for a project like this. Which is a relief, because some of the artists Pekar’s worked with over the years have been awful.

This is a place-holder review. More when it manages to stay in stock.

SLH

Buy Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Mastering Comics (£25-99, FirstSecond) by Jessica Abel, Matt Madden.

The sequel to DRAWING WORDS AND WRITING PICTURES which I wrote about extensively. Rigorous instructions from two of comics’ finest creators responsible, separately, for LA PERDIDA, LIFE SUCKS, 99 WAYS TO TELL A STORY and BLACK CANDY.

SLH

Buy Mastering Comics and read the Page 45 review here

FLCL: The Complete Omnibus (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Gainax & Hajime Ueda ~

Takkun thought he had problems. His town is being smothered by the giant factory, his family are serial perverts and his brother’s slightly slow ex is trying to get in his pants. Then the mysterious Vespa girl thwacks Takkun with her guitar. And large robots pop from his forehead like bad spots. His brain disappears and the void left in its wakes leads to the belly of a robot cat intent on taking over the universe. No really. Pronounced “Fooly Cooly” or “Furi Kuri” and sometimes “eF eL see eL”. But now we’re getting silly.

TR

Buy FLCL: The Complete Omnibus and read the Page 45 review here

Frankenstein: Alive, Alive! #1 (£2-99, IDW) by Steve Niles & Bernie Wrightson.

The return of comics’ definitive FRANKENSTEIN h/c artist and classic collaborator on Len Wein’s ROOTS OF THE SWAMP THING in a mini-series written by 30 DAYS OF NIGHT’s Steve Niles.

The much maligned monster has finally found a home and companionship in a travelling Freak Show but, oh, the things he had to endure to get there! The tortured soul casts his mind back to the frozen, desolate wastes he’d once thought his Arctic tomb only to be revived in the thaw and tormented once more by the ghost of his callous creator.

Let’s be clear: you’re here for the art, and even if it isn’t quite the same insane detail of Wrightson’s original FRANKENSTEIN h/c which inclined me to compare it to Gustav Doré via Franklin Booth, it is still amongst the very best Bernie’s ever bestowed upon us, with exceptional modelling and breath-taking landscapes. Rarely do I link off our site during reviews but you have got to experience Bernie Wrightson’s FRANKENSTEIN: ALIVE ALIVE interior art for yourself. Also: classy matt black cover with shiny silver ink framing a full-colour oval portrait.

Extras include an extensive interview of Wrightson by Steve Niles himself about his earliest encounters with the Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee incarnations with much more to follow, hopefully including Bernie’s own experiencing crafting the FRANKENSTEIN h/c. How much do I love that book? I have a signed, full-colour print hanging above the fireplace in my study.

Buy Frankenstein: Alive, Alive by lurching to the counter, fumbling on the phone or hamfistedly hitting page45@page45.com

The Clock Strikes #1 (£3-50, Kult) by John A. Short & Vincent Danks.

Are you reading HARKER? You should be! Contemporary British crime comic riddled with mischief. Two books so far: HARKER VOL1 set in London and HARKER VOL 2 up in Whitby , with a third, original graphic novel to follow shortly from Titan. From Titan, not on Titan – that’d be quite the departure.

Anyway, its artist is the same Vince Danks, here illustrating a one-off pulp piece in ridiculously lavish detail under a cover worthy of Brian Bolland. This man’s architecture – exterior and interior – is an absolute joy and he’s really gone to town on the tone. A police Lieutenant investigates rumours of a supposed faceless vigilante tearing into organised crime and destroying their dope factories. Unfortunately he’s ticking off all the wrong people, and they’re tocking it all to heart.

“That’s awful, Stephen!” I’ve written worse. “We know!”

*sigh*

SLH

Chime in with an order for The Clock Strikes by phoning 0115 9508045 or make with the clicky on page45@page45.com

Higher Earth #1 (80 pence, Boom! Studios) by Sam Humphries & Francesco Biagini.

“Always be proud of where you come from. Even if it is made out of trash.”

From the writer of the fiercely funny pansexual comedy OUR LOVE IS REAL (copies still in stock @ £2-99), an 80 pence introduction to his new sci-fi series which asks a lot of questions which the surly sword-wielding protagonist seems keen to avoid answering.

Why has young Heidi grown up on one Earth used as landfill by another? Why has the chap with the crow come to reclaim her? Who is after the chap with the crow? And why does this all look so much like the old X-FORCE series only featuring Cable and Hope with Shatterstar thrown in for bad measure? See, Biagini looks a lot like Ron Garney on the surface, but the visual storytelling could use a lot more clarity. I shouldn’t have to check what’s happening; I should see it immediately.

Still, I wouldn’t bother typing this if I wasn’t intrigued. You’ll note there was no review of DIAL H FOR HERO. Grant Morrison, it wasn’t.

SLH

Buy Higher Earth #1 by recycling this into an email using the portal page45@page45.com or dumping your demands down 0115 9508045.

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

“My point is, sometimes we become so concerned with little dangers that we don’t see the big one, right beneath our feet. That’s all. Bruce?”
“I’m sorry,Lincoln. I have to go. I’m going to have my own people watch your room. They’re the best. Get some sleep.”
“But, Bruce, if they’re watching me… who’s watching you?”

Ahh… methinks the battle for the post-Morrison* quill is over, and Scott Snyder is the hands-down victor as this easily is the finest Batman title I’ve read since Morrison’s extended run.

This is exactly what Batman should be all about, with mystery and misdirection teased and tormented out over several issues as elaborate, nay labyrinthian (you’ll see what I mean), games are played, and masterplans deviously plotted and callously executed. It’s just that here it’s Batman and indeed Bruce Wayne who find themselves, initially at least, being manoeuvred round the board, seemingly at will by players unknown, the faceless and until now presumed mythical Court Of Owls.  

Exceptional storytelling here from BATMAN: THE BLACK MIRROR’s Scott Snyder as he creates a brand new set of Bat-adversaries, which have apparently been around since the founding of Gotham (more on that possibly in the ALL-STAR WESTERN part of the Court Of Owl crossover currently ongoing), yet which everyone believes to have no more reality than a children’s nursery rhyme. In fact the Court Of Owls referenced in said rhyme is something a very young Bruce Wayne tried once to investigate, in the distraught aftermath of his parents’ deaths, as he desperately searched for a deeper reason for their murder than the simple mindless thuggery of a single robber. He didn’t find anything then however, and hasn’t since on the rare occasions Batman has heard very vague rumours, leading him to conclude it really is nothing more than a fairy tale. Except now, for reasons yet unknown, it seems that the Court is ready to make a very public statement by killing Bruce Wayne, and yet Batman still isn’t convinced that they really exist.

“The man who tried to kill me made a comment about how much he loved killing Waynes.”
“No Wayne in the last fifty years has died suspiciously to my knowledge… other than your parents, of course.”
“I know that. But whoever he is, this man wants me to believe that he isn’t just a killer, but that he’s The Talon.”
“The Talon? From the Court of Owls folksong?”
“Except that he wants me to believe that the Court isn’t a fairytale… that in reality some secret group of men has actually been ruling Gotham from the shadows since colonial times. So I’m assuming the Wayne killing he’s referring to involves some incident from the past. Something to give credibility to the bedtime story. So again Alfred, what do you know about owls?”
“Just common trivia… they’re carnivorous, masters of camouflage… they’re natural predators of bats…”

Snyder is creating an epic storyline here, something that really sinks its roots deep, very deep into Bat-history, and producing something which will, I suspect, have profound implications for Bruce and for Batman for some time to come. Not a page or panel is wasted; every single bit of space is used to lay out an incredibly complex, dense tale. Anyone who thinks writing a Bat-comic would be child’s play would be well advised to read this and think again. There’s one superb sequence (out of many) which I don’t want to spoil, which oh so cleverly puts a completely different spin on one of the most pivotal parts of Bat folklore that had me absolutely gasping in admiration, and no, it’s not the death of Bruce’s parents. Snyder has put some serious thought into this, so just sit back and enjoy.

The art, from Greg Capullo, is of an equally high standard with some wonderful conceits employed liberally throughout which artfully (no pun intended just for once) match exactly what is happening on the page at that moment. He’s clearly read Gary Spencer Millidge’s brilliant COMIC BOOK DESIGN: THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO DESIGNING COMICS! Simply magnificent stuff, and if Snyder and Capullo can maintain this standard, I’ve every reason to believe this storyline will be added to the relatively short list of modern Bat-classics which we at Page 45 are happy to recommend to people who ask which are worth reading.

*Yes Bat-pedants, I know Morrison is coming back to finish things off with the new monthly BATMAN INC. title but I quite liked the BATTLE FOR THE COWL pun once I’d thought of it and I didn’t want to waste it, so there!

JR

Buy Batman vol 1: The Court Of Owls h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Captain America vol 2 h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Ed Brubaker & Alan Davis.

Sharon Carter is Agent 13, and about to do something stupid.

“Computer, shut down all wireless commnetworks onboard.”
“Affirmative.”
“No communication traffic in or out of the Quincarrier. And lock all systems. No changes authorised without my command.”
“Affirmative.”
“If I don’t reauthorise by 0800 hours… activate self-destruct sequence one. And then contact the Avengers… tell them I’m sorry.”

Alan Davis is always a sight for sore eyes: it’s like bathing them in artistic Optrex. In addition, there are some lovely little nods to classic Captain America artist Mike Zeck. Take a look at the seventh page of #8: unmistakeable, that bottom panel.

Floating over a stormy ocean on the Hydra Flying Island, Baron Zemo and Queen Hydra are playing a long game. The Queen’s husband, Codename: Bravo has been captured and incarcerated, but she’s far from concerned. It’s time for phase two: new, improved Madbombs which once nearly started a race war inHarlem. Once detonated all hell breaks loose in the form of bloodthirsty riots, and at each critical juncture Steve Rogers finds himself reverting to his former, impotent self, pre-Supersoldier Serum.

The Machinesmith managed to deactivate the Serum in STEVE ROGERS. SUPERSOLDIER, while Bravo managed the same thing in CAPTAIN AMERICA VOL 1. Worse still, it happened once before: a psychosomatic effect of a crisis in confidence. Is that’s what’s happening now?

Both Stark and the Beast fail to find anything clinically wrong with Rogers, so that the seeds of self-doubt sown in the last volume now germinate, take root, dig in and grow, spawning a second crisis of confidence. Is that was this is all about? Clue: I’d check those two former reviews. A clever one, our new Queen Hydra. Guest-stars Hawkeye and the Falcon.

SLH

Buy Captain America vol 2 h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Avengers vol 3 h/c (£22-50, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Daniel Acuna, Renato Guedes, Brandon Peterson.

It’s no secret I’ve been devoted to Bendis’ AVENGERS in its many incarnations ever since AVENGERS: DISASSEMBLED, and the whole Osborn saga culminated beautifully in SIEGE. Why, then did we need another, weaker iteration of what went before?

Osborn is back and giving the Avengers P.R. hell, accusing them of being traitors to their country and detaining him without trial. Which is a bit like the Burmese government accusing Aung San Suu Kyi of being a despot. Incredibly the American people are lapping it up. And I do mean “incredibly”. Given Osborn’s reputation it’s just not credible.Meanwhile the Avengers are lured to his lair, newly populated with another set of Dark Avengers, ex-H.A.M.M.E.R. agents and Hydra.

Excuse me, I’ve just dozed off. By the time Renato Guedes took over as penciller I wasn’t even recognising this as written by Bendis. Both were so lacklustre. I’m beginning to see the corporate strings and the puppeteer become puppet: Storm joining the team just so she can leave in a huff for AVENGERS Vs. X-MEN…? Transparent. The only bit that really had me going was the Vision being resurrected and then having to learn exactly how he came to be in two pieces. Not just who tore him apart, but who made her do it: who tore the whole team apart in AVENGERS: DISASSEMBLED. His wife, yes.

SLH

Buy Avengers vol 3 h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Silver Surfer: Parable h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee & Moebius, Keith Pollard…

Wonderful to see this work back in print following the sad passing of one of the true greats of the comics industry. Don’t get excited, I’m not referring to Stan Lee, who’s still excelsiorising his own furrow in ever-decreasing circles, but of course Jean Giraud, better known as Moebius. Here isn’t really the place to eulogise the man, but suffice to say he was uniquely talented, which in some ways make him a logical choice to illustrate one of the great enigmas of the Marvel Universe, the Silver Surfer. Enigma, primarily in the sense that he’s never managed to sustain a series for very long, usually because he’s written so two-dimensionally, which is odd considering there are practically no constraints on where the character can go or what he can do.

Sadly, this non-continuity collaboration isn’t really any different in terms of the writing, as Galactus arrives on Earth, declares himself ruler, abolishes all laws, and then sits back to wait for mankind to destroy itself, thus neatly obviating the promise he made to the Surfer not to destroy humanity. He never said anything about not eating the leftovers though, did he?!

It isn’t, in all honesty, Moebius’ finest work either, and certainly not his most consistent. I did feel extremely guilty thinking that about the great man’s work as I went along, as he can usually do no wrong in my eyes whatsoever. But I then felt completely exonerated (and somewhat relieved, frankly) when reading the fascinating afterword to see Moebius felt exactly the same about this work himself, even going so far as try and get to the bottom of precisely why. No need to explain, Jean Giraud: if your heart’s not in it, mate, your heart’s just not in it. With that said there are some panels and pages – many, many of them in fact – where you just have to stop and admire a peerless master at work, and those alone are easily worth the price of the book.

And, along with the honest dissection of his own artwork, there are some other excellent extras, including a series of promo posters of various Marvel characters he did, including Daredevil, Elektra, Punisher, Spider-Man, The Thing, Wolverine and, probably my favourite one, Iron Man. Makes you think what might have been, or perhaps it’s best if some things always remain a… What If?

Sorry, that really was some pandemonius punnery worthy of Stan himself there.

Actually, in what might be a first for the Page 45 website, I think, I have actually added some interior art for a superhero book, so you can see for yourselves, and happy days, I came across an image of the Iron Man poster in question too! Wouldn’t it have been amazing to have a full Iron Man story in that art style? Preferably not penned by Stan.

For some reason, however, Marvel didn’t think all that by itself would tempt you, and so have included another non-continuity story, again penned by Smilin’ Stan and illustrated by Keith Pollard. Nicely illustrated, for sure, in fairly typical superhero style for the time, but frankly another appalling hokum plot and, for me, it doesn’t add anything whatsoever at all.

JR

Buy Silver Surfer: Parable h/c and read the Page 45 review here

 

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy

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

 

Deadenders (£22-50, Vertigo) by Ed Brubaker & Warren Pleece

The Art Of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist h/c (£24-99, Abrams) by Daniel Clowes, edited by Alvin Buenaventura

Fables vol 1: Legends In Exile (New Ed’n) (£9-99, Vertigo) by Bill Willingham & LanMedina

Cerebus The Barbarian Messiah: Essays (£29-99) by various, edited by Eric Hoffman

Red Mass For Mars (£10-99, Image) byJonathan Hickman & Ryan Bodenheim

Green Lantern: Brightest Day s/c (£14-99, DC) by Geoff Johns & Doug Mahnke

Catwoman vol 1: The Game s/c (£10-99, DC) by Judd Winick & Guillem March

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

Batman: Bruce Wayne: The Road Home s/c (£13-50, DC) by Fabian Nicieza, Mike W. Barr, Bryan Q. Miller, Derek Fridolfs, Adam Beechen, Marc Andreyko & Cliff Richards, Ramon Bachs, John Lucas, Javier Saltares, Rebecca Buchman, Walden Wong, Pere Perez, Peter Nguyen, Ryan Winn, Szymon Kudranski, Agustin Padilla, Scott McDaniel, Andy Owens

New Avengers vol 3 h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Mike Deodato, Neal Adams

Moon Knight vol 2 h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev

Generation Hope: The End Of A Generation (£11-99, Marvel) by James Asmus & Ibraim Roberson, Tim Green II

Tenjo Tenge 2-in-1 Edition vol 6 (£10-99, Viz) by Oh!Great

Saturn Apartments vol 5 (£9-99, Viz) by Hisae Iwaoka

Starry Sky vol 1 (£9-99, DMP) by Hal Minagawa & honeybee

The Flowers Of Evil vol 1 (£8-50, Vertical) by Shuzo Oshimi

Maoh: Juvenile Remix vol 10 (£6-99, Viz) by Kotaro Isaka &Megumi Osuga

 
“Is it a superhero comic?” I asked, with a hint of suspicion.
“Do you want it to be?” he replied.
“No.”
“Then it isn’t.”

 - Stephen and Andrew Tunney’s first exchange ever – on Girl&Boy

 

The Celestial Bibendum h/c (£24-99, Knockabout) by Nicolas de Crécy.

“Syrupy words, tender chords, 800 decibels and fireworks! The perfect cocktail for political and cultural success!”

Ah, the pursuit of power: power over the puppets, influence over the masses… there’s even a struggle for control of the narrative, you’ll see! And our seal Diego is very much a puppet in that scene, his blubbery mass suspended and swung helplessly over the throng. Everyone and everything will come crashing down in this comedy of the grotesque that careers into crevices where few other creators would ever dare to venture. Hold onto your hats, it’s going to be quite the maniacal performance!

Your narrator is the disembodied, bulbous white head of one Professor Lombax, PHD, benched on a sideboard in a remote, dilapidated country manor after the man came a cropper on account of a dog lost in the middle of an oil-slicked, hairpin bend overlooking a deep ravine. He’s had quite the experience getting there and has far, far further to travel, but he’s determined to tell you a story. Unfortunately the house isn’t abandoned: he’s not entirely alone.

The story he recalls is that of Diego, a naïve seal pup on one centre leg and crutches, disembarking on the quayside of New York-on-the-Seine, “the Capital of all excesses” with all the wide-eyed excitement of a dream come true. No sooner has he done so, though, than a man in black picks him up at the docks and stuffs him back on the next ship departing! Apparently Diego has been chosen – but not everyone wants him around. Swimming once more ashore Diego is picked up again – yes, apparently he’s been chosen (the same words exactly) “to become an important figure in the political and social life of this great capital city”, and swept swiftly off to the Educational Brotherhood who have friends in the City Hall.

“Victory over ignorance!” the academic rabble cries, guffawing with laughter and cramming the creature with knowledge. They make quite a song and dance of it. Politics, social sciences, mathematics, linguistics and art – yes, the seal pup rather takes to the naked female bottom – all these things he’s coached in (the funniest being fencing with crutches), but suddenly it is decided that above all he needs tutoring in charm. “Diego needs to be more popular than smart,” declares the gesticulating balloon that is Professor Lombax. What they need is a Communications Advisor – it’s time for a makeover!

All this Diego endures with bewildered silence – even the second attempt at sabotage – but will he stay schtum forever? Depends what gets into him, I guess. Also, what precisely is Diego being groomed for? What does the armless, legless, floppy old President really want of him? And what’s the opposition like, eh?

That, dear readers, is but a slither of the first thirty of these dense two hundred pages which will, like I said, take you into startlingly unexpected territory. The narrative’s focus flashes all over the place, cutting between past and present and hither and thither, sometimes for no more for a panel.

“Back to Diego!!! Stay on Diego, for God’s sake!!!” demands a horrified Professor Lombax, presumably of de Crécy himself.

It’s masterfully done, particularly the Professor’s spectacularly convoluted fate, and there’s many a main character I’ve not even touched on, but animals seldom fail to steal the show, eh?

Now, if you’re reading this in the shopping area you will already know from the interior art which can be blown up at the click of a button, that this is a monumentally beautiful book with Nicolas de Crécy catching a Mediterranean light to perfection there. And yes, the architecture is gobsmacking. But that’s just one style employed with a variety of line and paintwork where the colours both impressionistic and expressionistic grow as intense as you can imagine, veering from the sort of light employed by Monet (the various Rouen Cathédrales etc.) to Mattotti eye-scorchers (BOB DYLAN REVISITED etc.). The switch from one to the other or even the incorporation of one within the other can happen at any moment. It never jars, it just thrills each and every time.

For me it’s the work of the man’s career that I’m aware of, as confident as it is self-indulgent as it is judicious during each said indulgence. It is surreal and satirical and huge.

As to the title, Bibendum is of course the famous mascot of a certain tyre company better known over here as the Michelin Man. In slang it’s also come to mean someone comically overweight, and I rather think our seal Diego more than qualifies. I’d hazard a guess, given both the proceedings and delivery, that it even tangentially refers to the 1898, mascot-launching poster which declared “Nunc est bibendum” from dear old Horace: “Now is [the time of] drinking”. But you’ll need to wait until the opening of the third act to see exactly who or what the Celestial Bibendum is. Tyres used to be a translucent creamy beige, you know.

SLH

Buy The Celestial Bibendum h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Girl&Boy (signed) (£3-99) by Andrew Tunney.

I caught Andrew Tunney at a comic convention late last year. He had a table in the self-styled Troublemakers Alley next to Adam Cadwell, Marc Ellerby, Lizz Lunney & co., and on it sat a preview to GIRL&BOY. Now, I don’t know if you’re reading this on the blog or on the shopping page where you can see the cover, but it’s really quite striking: a young woman, backlit on white and looking slightly ambivalent, in a loose t-shirt and Robin-style eye mask. Which caused me a certain degree of ambivalence too.

“Is it a superhero comic?” I asked, with a hint of suspicion.
“Do you want it to be?” he replied.
“No.”
“Then it isn’t.”

After an effortlessly sassy rejoinder like that, I knew I was going to be stocking this whether I liked it or not. Guess what? I love it, precisely because Andrew was spot-on. It’s not a superhero comic, but something else entirely; a smart surprise with the perfect punchline told at night with the city’s harsh neon light filtered through Venetian blinds. Ladies, you will high-five Andrew Tunney immediately. Promise.

Printed on quality paper, each of our copies at the time of typing are graciously signed. Feel free to check before buying. You can always type “as long as it’s signed” with any online purchase, and we will always honour the request.

So, here’s my only real hint apart from the high-five:

“My name is girl. And this is my sidekick, Boy.
“Together we fight crime and loneliness…
“Never each other.”

And the panel directly beneath is a belter.

SLH

Buy Girl&Boy (signed) and read the Page 45 review here

Fallen Words (£14-99, D&Q) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi.

And now for something completely different.

Tatsumi has made me laugh before, but his own particular brand of manga – the darker, more socially realistic gekiga – isn’t exactly renowned for its comedy value. This, on the other hand, is a riot: short stories in the centuries-old Japanese performance-based storytelling tradition called rakugo, each with a comedic and often unexpected punchline.

They’re set in the past, many involve Geisha, most have marital relationships at heart, but all of them – each and every one – involve money. Still socially realistic, then.

There’s a great deal of conniving, deception or outright swindling going on. I did like the young page’s night in a brothel curiously empty of women, attempting to placate disgruntled old customers over the absence of the Geisha they’re all waiting for. She’s not stupid. There’s the story of the wife and mistress battling it out beyond the grave and the lesson that some things should not be expected to be forgiven.

My favourite, however, was ‘The God Of Death’ in which a young man accidentally summons the Grim Reaper who turns out to be unexpectedly amiable and accommodating. Struggling financially the young man finds himself offered a brand new career as a doctor: with the aid of the not-so-Grim Reaper’s knowledge about each patient’s preordained life span he is able to tell each patient’s family whether their loved one will live or die. But then the silly man gets a bit desperate (although highly inventive) and tries to cheat Death, and you know that’s one thing you can’t do. Easily the best punchline there, Tatsumi knowing the precise moment at which to depart and leave the reader laughing.

USAGI YOJIMBO fans will love the Stan Sakai-style backgrounds particularly ‘The Rooster Crows’ where a man is tricked and subsequently  traumatised by his first visit to a brothel, while ‘New Year Festival’’s spoiled brat is pure Gilbert Hernandez.

There’s also much to learn about ancient Japanese traditions, handily backed up by the occasional annotation. Did you know, for example, that each godfather must be paid three ryo before he will name his godchild? Or that a godfather used to name the godchild at all? I had no idea that lotteries were this old. There were Three Edo Lotteries permitted by the Tokugawa shogunate from 1700. Finally, where would we be without the odd Japanese proverb?

“Look upon the snow on the peaks so you don’t have to feel the chill.”

Look but don’t touch, basically.

SLH

Buy Fallen Words and read the Page 45 review here

A Dinosaur Tale / Tofu + Cats (£2-00) by Lizz Lunney.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards,” wrote Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.

But this neat little 4” x 3” mini-comic can be read both backwards and forwards. Stitch that, Søren!

Yes, it’s the return of arch-existentialist Lizz Lunney in another profound treatise on post-modern solipsism, contemporary geopolitics, and European fiscal mismanagement. On the subject of which, next time you watch Cameron and Clegg retreat through the doors of 10 Downing Street, watch how each tries to get the last patronising, proprietorial pat on the back in. Funny!

Oh wait. No, sorry. This is about dinosaurs ditching their nihilistic ways in favour of a decent knitting pattern. And cats confounded by cubes of semi-sentient tofu which only experience satori after sanitary rejection. They’re fragrant to a vagrant. The end.

Actually… this is quite existentialist. As you were!

SLH

Buy A Dinosaur Tale / Tofu + Cats and read the Page 45 review here

Curse Of The Bogmen / Horseome (£2-00) by Lizz Lunney.

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced,” wrote post-modern, existentialist and relatively Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.

Clearly he never experienced extricating oneself from a British telephone company.

This, then, is the precise metaphor Lizz Lunney applies to the BogMen, dreaming of travel but tied to their osmotic roots by a contract with nature and cursed by internet trolls until –

You don’t think I read too much into these things do you? 4” x 3” mini-comic.

Also, horses: I’m totally giddied up.

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” – Søren Kierkegaard.

Oh, do shut up, Søren.

SLH

Buy Curse Of The Bogmen / Horseome and read the Page 45 review here

Black Orchid h/c (£18-99, Vertigo) by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean.

This is a book of impressions: of memories, shadows and echoes.

So many songs evoke a past much missed, misremembered or barely recalled at all.

There is a wreck of man out there called Carl; a drunken, washed up, one-time player full of hot-air and an acrid obsession with the ex-wife who had the audacity to leave him for another, less violent man, and then testify against him. Her name was Susan Linden and he killed her for it. Or he thought he had; he’s in for a bit of a surprise.

For then there was the other Susan. An effective, solitary agent, undercover and on the brink of exposing a criminal organisation and the mastermind behind it. They caught her, they shot her, they set her on fire and then bombed the inferno for good measure. She was the Black Orchid, named after a flower that doesn’t exist, and she is quite, quite dead.

So who is this new Susan of radiant purple, grown in a greenhouse, and cast adrift in a world she’s had no time to comprehend? She has no idea. She doesn’t know who she is, what she is, or what she should do now. The only clues lie in a dead man’s past, in his contemporaries at college: Dr. Jason Woodrue, Pamela Isley and Alec Holland. Her only brief ally is a man in a mask who hides in the shadows of Gotham, and he says:

“Most of the things that “everyone knows” are wrong. The rest are merely unreliable.”

Now, several of those names my sound surprisingly familiar for a Neil Gaiman book. What one forgets is the Vertigo line originally had far stronger ties to the DC universe and its superhero community; what one may also have forgotten is that this was created long before the Vertigo line even existed. It’s a far more ethereal read than most DC Universe books – it’s far more of a child of Alan Moore’s SWAMP THING – but a DC Universe book it most certainly is. It’s just… going to do things differently.

“I’ve seen, y’know, the movies, James Bond, all that. I’ve read the comics. So you know what I’m not going to do? I’m not going to lock up in the basement before interrogating you. I’m not going to set up some kind of complicated laser beam death-trap, then leave you alone to escape. That stuff is so dumb. But you know what I am going to do? I’m going to kill you. Now.”

That was within the first six pages, and it was quite the arresting development.

Returning to the legacy of Alan Moore, the early segues and black humour owe much to THE KILLING JOKE. “You’re fired” was inspired. But it quickly establishes its own tone which, as I say, is far more ethereal, far more impressionistic, as our newly bloomed Orchid struggles with the genetically implanted memories she shares with her dead sister, and reacts to the world empathically. Here, for example, is Arkham.

“This is the bedlam. The jungle of despair. I watch their expressions: milky eyes peering from frozen faces, mouths unsmiling wounds in ruined flesh. I spy a skull-faced man who lies unsleeping; his nightmares pool and puddle on the floor around him. In a glass cell a blazing x-ray sits and smoulders and weeps. His tears burn as they fall… then his out on the pocked glass floor.”

Another marked departure from the superhero genre is that the only hunting being done apart from the peripheral predators – domestic and child abuse both play a part here – is by the antagonists and the only one out for revenge is the bitter ex-husband and resentful ex-employee. Some people really don’t handle rejection well. In other authors’ hands it would be the Black Orchid out to avenge her predecessors’ murders – particularly given their shared memories – but no, that is the instinct of the animal. A plant has quite different priorities.

It’s a beautiful book, rich in green and purples, by a Dave McKean in his photorealistic phase, much inspired at the time by Bill Sienkiewicz. The computer has yet to be embraced and the only element of photographic collage I registered was the psychotic grin. Instead it employs pencils – sometimes coloured – and paint, some chalk and maybe, I think, oil pastels. There’s a terrific sense of light. It’s also thoroughly accessible to new readers, McKean splitting the page in half horizontally then working with three or four columns across. The occasional break into tumbling panels and the larger compositions in the Amazon jungle are all the more spectacular for it.

This new deluxe edition also boasts those rarest of extras: handwritten early jottings from Neil Gaiman’s notebook, Karen Berger’s first, detailed reactions to Neil’s draft proposal, Neil’s own proposal and promotional marketing text,  preliminary notes and dialogue sketches for the second of the three original issues, its page-by-page, one-line breakdowns and an excerpt from its draft script.

“Winter is coming. The leaves are beginning to fall.”

SLH

Buy Black Orchid h/c and read the Page 45 review here

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

Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Wonderwoman, Green Lantern, Flash and Cyborg. We know the line-up matters to you. Hold on – Cyborg?!

“Open your eyes, son! Look at the world we live in today! We’re witnessing the birth of a new race of people. Super-humans. Beings who can fly, tear through building and outrun cars. They will make what you can “do” obsolete! Do you understand? Catching footballs and scoring touchdowns is a joke!”
“…”
“…”
“You’re never going to come to one of my games, are you?”
“No.”

World’s Worst Dad! World’s worst pep talk too.

First off, I’d like to publicly apologise for writing this off in my review of the first issue. Geoff Johns, I’m sorry. The flagship title in the DC New 52 relaunch develops beautifully once the other Justice League members arrive, as evidenced by the fact that I’ve found so much of it eminently quotable. It’s funny! Take sword-swishing Wonder Woman, for example, with her one-track mind for smiting things and preferably through the eye. She’s actually quite sweet when encountering a girl so star-struck that she drops her ice cream.

“You’re Wonder Woman!”
“My name is Diana.”
“My name’s Raquel.”
“Thank you for speaking with me, Raquel. You’re not afraid of me?”
“No really.”
“What are you eating?”
“Oops. Ice cream.”
“Ice cream?”
“Haven’t you ever had ice cream?”
“No.”
“It’s greatest food in the world if you ask me.”
“Mm. [To street vendor, pointing with her sword] May I try some ice cream? And another for my friend.”
“Yeah… Yeah, sure. Just don’t, y’know, take my arm with it, okay? Heh… Oh man.”
“Hm. Ice cream is wonderful. You should be very proud of this achievement!”
“Um… thanks.”

What you have to remember is the key word “relaunch”. The DC Universe for most but not all of these titles has started again from scratch. Wonder Woman is unused to this world and the world is unused to super-humans: it’s terrified of them. Also, none of these people have ever met except the Green Lantern and Flash. Caught on the hop under assault from Darkseid, they’re still sizing each other up and don’t necessarily all like each other.

“You sound like a cop.”
“I am. I work in the crime lab.”
“Barry, you’re exposing your identity!”
“And you just called me “Barry”, genius.”

Green Lantern in particular is far from a team player. So is Batman but Batman is a tactician, a strategist, and is quick to grasp their current condition which is critical. Darkseid is virtually indestructible and his legions are spiriting the innocent away to defile them in his own image. So it’s the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, or the one etc.

“Get out of your own way. Focus on what’s important here: everyone else. So far it’s been batter up, but we need to stop playing baseball and start playing football. We need to be a team.”

They need to think up metaphors!

Jim Lee is an epic artist as everyone who loves BATMAN: HUSH will know. Here Darkseid’s realm is a post-industrial inferno, a Sheffield Steel Works from Hell which stretches on as far as the scorched eye can see. Personally I prefer his pencils uninked as demonstrated in BATMAN: HUSH UNWRAPPED, and blissfully his pencils for each cover are reproduced for all to swoon over and study. However, one big criticism I’ve made many a time before: it is never, ever a good idea to demand that the reader turns her or his book 90% to read a single spread vertically. It obliterates one’s immersion. Pure self-indulgence on the artist’s part. A more disciplined approach is to find another way. There is always another way.

SLH

Buy Justice League vol 1: Origin h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Animal Man vol 1 (£10-99, DC) by Jeff Lemire & Travel Foreman.

Bad dreams in the night in black, red and white. Now that’s what I call capillary action!

Part of the DC New 52 relaunch, this isn’t a superhero book. Anyone worth their salt is going to make a Buddy Baker book all about family, and ESSEX COUNTY’s Jeff Lemire has written about family extensively there and even to a certain extent in SWEET TOOTH. Sure enough Buddy’s wife, son and especially his daughter Maxine are centre-stage as Maxine, forbidden a living, breathing pet, decides to exhume those buried round the neighbourhood and bring them back to some semblance of life. At the same time Buddy’s own powers go on the fritz, his family come under attack and it’s all very creepy. What’s wrong with the Red?

Grant Morrison’s own three-volume run on ANIMAL MAN is an absolutely essential read, especially if you’re on board for this.

SLH

Buy Animal Man vol 1 and read the Page 45 review here

Avengers: Kree/Skrull War h/c (£25-99, Marvel) by Roy Thomas & Neal Adams with John Buscema, Sal Buscema.

An absolute classic and oh, my days, but the extras! Twelve pages of swoonaway Neal Adams pencils taken from AVENGERS #93 (‘Journey To The Centre Of The Android’ etc.) and five additional pages of uncoloured excellence toned and inked by Tom Palmer, the last of which originally depicted Rick Jones with six fingers! Roy Thomas’ note to production read, “Rick has six fingers here; please take off, as carefully as possible, whichever one you feel will be missed the least.” Alas, this is the post-production page! There’s also a gallery of covers used for previous reprints formats though I’m delighted to see they have opted this time to merely recolour the majestic cover to #92.

Not exactly recoloured as colour-corrected (eliminating a couple of misplaced yellows and filling in the formerly dotted blues and flesh tones), this new h/c printing kicks off with four issues of enormously sexist silliness drawn by Sal with The Avengers reduced to The Vision, The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. And yes, this is where that oddest of Marvel relationships kicks off with The Vision discovering that not only can an android cry, but he can also love and is quite prepared to beat a bastard to death because of it. That scene, which I probably wasn’t alone in being stunned by at the time, comes later during the Neal Adams climax.

Clint Barton has swapped his bow and arrow as Hawkeye for Hank Pym’s growth serum as bare-skinned muscle-and-metal Goliath, whilst Captain America, Thor and Iron Man return to find they’ve managed to disband The Avengers. How could they?! They didn’t. Nor was it a group of three cows that shot down the Vision. Well, not exactly. We’re going waaay back to earliest days of the FANTASTIC FOUR.

Mar-Vell (Captain), Rick Jones, Ant-Man, The Inhumans and Carol Danvers are also caught up in the war raging above and so below, whilst the public are incited into anti-alien lynch mobs by political opportunism, scare-mongering and imprisonment-without-trial in a McCarthy-esque witch-hunt that will be as all too horribly familiar to modern Americans as it would have been at the time to those who’d witnessed or even endured the U.S. internment camps for the resident Japanese during World War II.

By which point Neal Adams has taken over the art, and it becomes pure, purple-prose, neo-classical gold! With the Vision in a coma after his bovine beating, Ant-Man is called on to shrink even further than ever in order to navigate what passes for the android’s blood stream only to be assaulted as an alien entity by anti-bodies. Superbly visualised by Adams, but that’s just the beginning: the sheer scale of Goliath bashing on a spaceship; Triton emerging from the Hudson, his gloved left hand the very model of foreshortening; and the ever-impassive Vision losing his cool for the first and worst time ever in search of his beloved Wanda:

“Vision – stop! Your android strength — ! You’ll kill him! You don’t know what you’re doing!”
“Another correction, Iron Man: my brain is a miniaturised, high-speed computer. I always know precisely what I am doing. I – AM – KILLING – HIM!”

SLH

Buy Avengers: Kree/Skrull War h/c and read the Page 45 review here

New edition, old review

City Of Glass new edition (£10-99, Picador) by Paul Auster, Paul Karasik & David Mazzucchelli.

As a short prose story, this is one of the most frightening things I’ve read; as a piece of comicbook fiction under ASTERIOS POLYP’s Mazzucchelli, it’s one of the cleverest. Amongst their shared subjects are identity and fabrication. The horror lies in the blurring then loss of former through the use of the latter, for to lose your sense of identity – of who you are, and how you relate to others – is to lose sight of reality itself, and thereby lies insanity.

You might want to take these sentences slowly!

Daniel Quinn is a writer. He employs words to create fiction. One of the fictions he has created is William Wilson, the supposed author of his books. Moreover, “Quinn had long ago stopped thinking of himself as real. If he lived now in the world at all, it was through the imaginary person of Max Work, the private-eye narrator of William Wilson’s novels.” So even before the first phone call, his relationship to the real world in which he has no friends is several times removed, and when he does venture out, it is to walk through the New York labyrinth: “Each time he took a walk, he felt he was leaving himself behind…”

That single page is a perfect example of Mazzucchelli’s craft, visually tying the main themes together as the bricks of the New York tenements dissolve into a maze from which the reader pulls back to see it first perhaps as an overhead shot of the brain, then as a finger print left on the inside of his window. The mapping of New Yorkwill be revisited later on as Quinn, having assumed the role of detective, tracks the movements round the city of a crazy old man called Peter Stillman who drove his son insane in pursuit of the language of God. This he tried through isolation, by locking the boy up in the dark for thirteen years and beating the real words out of him, supposedly in order to prove the theories of Henry Dark… whom Stillman Sr. had invented.

Quinn first hears of this when the telephone rings and a voice floats through the receiver asking for Paul Auster (yes, the same name as the man who wrote the original prose!) of the “Auster Detective Agency”. At first he says there is no Paul Auster there, but when the phone rings again (on the anniversary of the night he was conceived – italics mine), the Max Work P.I. in him cannot resist. He pretends to be Paul Auster, and agrees to meet Stillman’s son, also called Peter. What he finds is a young man who can barely function any longer.

“I am Peter Stillman. I say this of my own free will. That is not my real name. No.
“Of course, my mind is not all it should be, no. But nothing can be done about that.
“This is called speaking. The words come out for a moment and die. Strange, is it not? I myself have no opinion…
“I am Peter Stillman. That is not my real name. Thank you.
“My real name is Mr. Sad. What is your name, Mr. Auster? Perhaps you are the real Mr. Sad and I am no one.”

Sometimes Peter refers to himself in the first person singular, sometimes as “Peter”. To accentuate this, rather than employ a regularly positioned word balloon, Mazzucchelli deliberately isolates the words from the speaker. At first they flow out of his throat (which looks stranger than you might imagine), then they’re assigned to Charon crossing the Styx, a caveman painting, a city drain, a plug hole, a well, and so on until, behind the bars of a locked jail, they drift from the open mouth of a broken puppet of a boy, abandoned at the bottom of a dark pit.

That’s the level of lateral thinking Mazzucchelli’s put into the work, when the image must be as telling as the phrase. The book’s full of panels with similarly symbolic imagery and expressionistic storytelling. As Quinn – orWilsonor Work or Auster – awaits Stillman Sr. at the station and the train “CLACK BEDRACK LACK YAYAYA”s past him, he’s split into multiple Quinns, each with a different facade. Later he will go on to call himself both Peter Stillman and Henry Dark, and if you think this work has layers on top of layers already, Quinn eventually resorts to tracking down the Paul Auster he’s been impersonating, only to discover that Paul Auster isn’t the detective he was hoping for, but a writer who’s currently embarked on an essay about Don Quixote, an attack on make-believe which Cervantes pretended he never wrote but merely translated.

Now, if you’re already fully frazzled, I would caution you against reading the entire New York Trilogy back to back because it seriously did my own head in, but I can assure you that as a single graphic novel this is both more lucid than this review might suggest, and a great deal more inventive than almost any other translation from one medium to another. Mazzucchelli’s done far more than merely illustrate the words: he’s interpreted them, and the ideas behind them, distilling the work without at any point diluting it, then charging it with associated images that go straight to the brain.

SLH

Buy City Of Glass and read the Page 45 review here

 

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy

Reviews already online if they’re new formats of previous books like AVENGERS: CHILDEN’S CRUSADE. Otherwise the most interesting will come under the microscope next week, while the rest will remain with their Diamond previews acting in lieu of reviews. “In lieu of”. Get me!

 

Mastering Comics (£25-99, FirstSecond) by Jessica Abel, Matt Madden

Megalex h/c (£22-50, Humanoids) by Alexandro Jodorowsky & Fred Beltran

Halo: Fall Of Reach: Covenant s/c (£12-99, Marvel) by Brian Reed & Felix Ruiz

Sandman vol 9: The Kindly Ones (New Ed’n) (£14-99, Vertigo) by Neil Gaiman & Marc Hempel, Neil Gaiman, Frank McConnell, Frank McConnell

The Savage Sword Of Conan vol 11 (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Michael Fleischer, Don Kraar, Larry Yakata, Craig Anderson & Dave Simons, William Johnson, Tony Salmons, Val Mayerik, Sal Buscema, Ernie Chan, Rudy Nebres, Gary Kwapisz, Pablo Marcos, William Johnson, Rey Garcia, Andy Kubert, Henri Bismuth, Roy Richardson, Rod Whigham

Ozma Of Oz s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by L. Frank Baum, Eric Shanower & Skottie Young

Superman: Grounded vol 1 s/c (£13-50, DC) by J. Michael Straczynski, G.Willow Wilson & Eddy Barrows, Leandro Oliveira, Wellington Dias, Amilcar Pinna, J.P. Mayer, Walden Wong, Eber Ferreira

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

Brightest Day vol 2 s/c (£14-99, DC) by Geoff Johns & Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark, Joe Prado

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade s/c (UK Ed’n) (£16-99, Marvel) by Allan Heinberg & Jim Cheung, Alan David, Oliver Coipel

Ultimate Comics: X-Men vol 1 s/c (UK Ed’n) (£12-99, Marvel) by Nick Spencer & PacoMedina, Carlo Barberi

Spider-Man: Season One h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Cullen Bunn & Neil Edwards

CaptainAmericavol 2 h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Ed Brubaker & Alan Davis

Avengers vol 3 h/c (£22-50, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Daniel Acuna, Renato Guedes, Brandon Peterson

Silver Surfer: Parable h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee & Moebius, Keith Pollard

Blood Blockade Battlefront vol 2 (£8-50, Dark Horse) by Yasuhiro Nightow

Yasuhiro Nightow (£6-99, Viz) by Eiichiro Oda

Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll vol 3 (£5-99, Viz) by Yumi Tsukirino & Chisato Seki

Naruto vol 56 (£6-99, Viz) by Masashi Kishimoto

Psyren vol 4 (£6-99, Viz) by Toshiaki Iwashiro

FLCL: The Complete Omnibus (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Gainax & Hajime Ueda

InuYasha vol 11 VIZBIG Edition (£14-99, Viz) by Rumiko Takahashi

Nonnonba (£19-99, D&Q) by Shigeru Mizuki

Good Morning (£9-99, June) by Ritsu Natsumizu

 
Lizz called out to Twitter today to ask us to write a CV. Ever obliging, I replied: “Lizz Lunney. Occupational mentalist. Experience: being bananas. Hobby: horses. Motto: It’s all the pun of the pear.” 

Apparently she’s just into crisps. 

 - Stephen on Lizz Lunney’s At The Cave (signed). 

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

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last…?”

 - WB Yeats, The Second Coming.

Turning and turning in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an honest-to-god, real island of floating trash more than twice the size ofTexas. It floats there like a toxic, ticking time-bomb; an indigestible iceberg whose plastic bags are mistaken for jellyfish and so swallowed by the likes of endangered Loggerhead Sea Turtles. What we see here is merely the tip of it. What we don’t do about it will only come back to bite us.

This is a thrilling piece of sequential-art storytelling, a symphony in its silent sense that can be absorbed between other graphic novels whose magic will linger long thereafter. It begins inSan Francisco as a heart-stamped carrier bag caught on a winter tree’s topmost skeletal twigs is blown from those branches in a storm. A loosely gripped umbrella follows suit; a book bounces from a briefcase; an old rubber tyre tumbles into The Bay. They’re trapped in the tempest, caught in the ever-widening gyre and settle mid-Pacific with the rest. There it is, that Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as seen from above. But then something strange happens.

Look a little closer and it’s a semi-sentient sea creature with claws like a crab, its eyes that tyre and umbrella, its mouth yawning like a ravenous chasm to reveal the book’s greeting, “HELLO”. We bob beneath the waves. The gargantuan gullet is open there too. Slowly it starts to reach out to suspicious squid and unsuspecting seagulls.” Hello”, “Welcome”, and will you “Come In”? It is mad; we are mad and will you “Have A Nice Day”?

Today, perhaps.

This is magnificent, and Rachel Hope Allison is a major new find. So much more has gone into this full-colour comic than its silence suggests. It’s all very matt yet far from opaque and the forms sweep across the page.

In terms of the story itself, you get out what you put in: that’s the nature of silent storytelling. In the back, however, it’s unafraid to be educationally didactic. Learn what the Garbage Patch is composed of. Weep at its effect on the wildlife. I cannot believe that 32% of items found in ocean debris are cigarettes, presumably cast overboard during sailing. They’re non-biodegradable, those filters. (And you wonder why I pop my fag ends back into my packet to be safely disposed of later. It’s not me being cheap, no. Although I am cheap, yes!)

Printed on 100% recycled paper this comes with a jacket-free hardcover as thick as an early-reading book. Archaia promises to plant two trees for every one used in the process of printing which is produced in conjunction with American Forests and Global ReLeaf programs.

“Global ReLeaf”! I like it!

SLH

Buy I’m Not A Plastic Bag h/c and read the Page 45 review here

The Boy Who Made Silence vol 1 (£17-99, Markosia) by Joshua Hagler…

Absolutely intriguing.

This work is something which I think most people will need and want to read twice, at least, because if you’re anything like me, the first time through you’ll become immersed in admiring the incredible artwork, and probably also thinking of all the different artists it reminds you of, for a whole host of different reasons, primarily of technique. Dave McKean for some of the PARTICLE TAROT: MAJOR ARCANA, PARTICLE TAROT: MINOR ARCANA (and Sandman covers) mix of photographic snippets and other media, plus some sequences which very much reminded me of MR. PUNCH and PICTURES THAT TICK; Kent Williams for the effortlessly deconstructed and oblique painting style, particularly of people seen, amongst  many other places, in THE FOUNTAIN. You’ll possibly see things that may also make you think of David (KABUKI) Mack, including a couple of uses of his trademark triangular motif panel bordering, which must surely be an outright nod to him or Bill Sienkiewicz or maybe even Barron Storey from whom Mack appropriated much himself. I was also thinking that certain other visual elements strongly reminded me of Sam Keith’s MY INNER BIMBO, and then I remembered that Josh Hagler himself had actually contributed significantly to that work!

All of which goes to make it sounds as though I’m suggesting Hagler is some sort of stylistic copycat whereas I don’t believe that at all. In fact I think he’s very much his own man, but just of the same school or perhaps more precisely mindset as to how art can be used as a medium for communicating ideas to the reader, as those luminaries I’ve mentioned above. Moving into discussing the actual narrative elements of this work, I think that’s where I made the mental connection with MY INNER BIMBO, because – and I’m searching for the right word here really, abstract seeming too strong – there’s a definite attempt at a most assuredly unconventional construction of the narrative. Which is certainly the case with MY INNER BIMBO too.

Yes, when you break down most individual pages, there is relatively straightforward information being communicated to us, mostly through conversation after conversation taking place between all the various protagonists or, upon occasion (particularly in Nestor’s case) internal monologues, but most if not all of the emotional content is conveyed entirely through the ever-morphing, chameleonic, subliminal and also in places outrageously overt illustrative techniques, including the multiple lettering styles, plus the endlessly vivid colour palette, which are then built up to produce each multi-faceted panel, page and sequence, and by extension the whole work. The overall effect is something therefore which is quite admirably breathtaking.

There are a million clever touches small and large to admire here and there which just make the whole work a continuous bustle of vibrancy. Picking just one for an example, when the titular boy, Nestor, is baptised in a river towards the end of the work, whilst he’s upside down immersed in the water, the pages are printed upside down. And were that not enough then during this immersion whilst Nestor is having a flashback regarding his absent father, and indeed about his mother, the epiphanistic moment is portrayed in a panel where Nestor’s words in the particular speech bubble are reversed. It’s extraordinarily clever because if, like me, you think “I can’t be bothered working out what this says the hard way, I’m going to find a mirror”, those several seconds pause before you then see precisely what it is that Nestor has thought of, really do give you a sense of his personal build up to a truly momentous flash of realisation. I’m almost certain Hagler intended the reader to do it this way rather than puzzling it slowly out, word by word, because it provides such a striking note to proceedings.

So, the second time around I read this work I was fully able to marvel at the story itself, which is as equally as clever a construct as the art. There are certain works you come across in comics, which you know quite simply could not be done justice in any other medium, and this is one of those. Together this story and art produce something that is simply comics at its most envelope pushing and limit stretching. This is only volume one as well, though when Hagler says he’s not sure how long it’s going to take him to produce volume two, I can quite understand. It’s okay though, I’m more than happy to wait however long it takes. And, as I conclude this review I realise I haven’t provided any synopsis of the actual plot at all.

So, in a few brief sentences then… A boy called Nestor falls into a river, comes out completely deaf but also experiencing the world in an entirely different way. Some people in his small town come to believe he has a gift to make others be more empathetic to each other. Local pastor obviously gets rather excited and tried to get in on the act claiming it’s a gift from God. Nestor’s mother is rather more dubious about the whole thing, and in any event isn’t a particularly pleasant individual. Nestor’s father disappeared long ago, and for the moment we have absolutely no idea why, and neither does Nestor.

JR

Buy The Boy Who Made Silence vol 1 and read the Page 45 review here

Dream Locations Postcards (£5-99,) by Joe List, Lizz Lunney, Soju Tanaka.

“Greetings from the void,” says one of Joe List’s postcards, neatly naming my brain, while Lizz Lunney invites you to “Lovely, sunny, beautiful…SquirrelPark.” Keep your windows up and don’t get out of the car!

I was once chatting to a professional pest control expert and, if you think squirrels are cute little critters who just love to nibble their nuts, you wait until you get some in your loft. And if you do find some in your loft, under no circumstances try a summary eviction yourself. Rats will run away. Squirrels do not back down! Nuts are aphoristically famous for being tough to crack, so imagine the damage a squirrel’s teeth can do to yours.

Anyway (one public service announcement later), we are now bursting with Lizz Lunney epistolary madness including those twelve hilarious LIZZ LUNNEY GREETINGS CARDS, and this neat little booklet of 21 postcards by Joe, Soju and Lizz which comes with a bonus of  8 glossy stickers.

I’m constantly misreading “the sea of faces”, though. I wonder if that’s intentional?

SLH

Buy Dream Locations Postcards and read the Page 45 review here

At The Caves (signed) (£4-00) by Lizz Lunney.

Ooh, our current crop comes with original cat sketches. Mine’s actually beaming.

Conversely, Depressed Cat is still sighing his way through his NINE MISERABLE LIVES, this time at the seaside, and experiences an imaginative cure for the most awkward of silences. Sour Rabbit refuses to knock his own knees, newly tattooed with a couple of smiley faces in a bid to stave off loneliness (that’s a rabbit?!). An Invisible Friend finds it impossible to hold onto his seat on a train; and Keith The Wizard experiences his ultimate dream holiday except for the Duty Free. Also: Dullbog The Bulldog, Leaning Rabbit, and a couple of competitive fish and chip shops punning their way to first plaice.

What…? Look, this is Lizz Lunney. If you are expecting any of this to make sense, you are delusional. The woman is all kinds of crazy, as are her comics and cards. That’s why we love her and that’s why they all sell so well.

Lizz called out to Twitter today to ask us to write a CV. Ever obliging, I replied: “Lizz Lunney. Occupational mentalist. Experience: being bananas. Hobby: horses. Motto: It’s all the pun of the pear.”

Apparently she’s just into crisps.

Lastly, I should just flag the fact that the semaphore inside this mini-comic’s covers isn’t just a random pattern. But Lizz won’t even tell me what it says, so I’m going to Google myself a quick lesson now. *waves good-bye*

Seriously: that’s a rabbit?!?!

SLH

Buy At The Caves (signed) and read the Page 45 review here

The Avalon Chronicles vol 1: Once In A Blue Moon h/c (£14-99, Oni) by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir & Emma Vieceli.

There be dragons! And griffins! And a certain degree of mind-bending, literary paradox!

Timed specifically to coincide with my adventures on Skyrim, it seems, THE AVALON CHRONICLES is the fresh resurrection of the BLUE MOON high fantasy from the writers of THREE STRIKES with a brand new artist for the saga, VAMPIRE ACADEMY’s Emma Vieceli. That means a lot of clean lines, whooshes of fine, flowing hair and bursts of cute comedy, manga-stylee.

But The Avalon Chronicles was also a book which Aeslin’s parents used to read her at bedtime. Aeslin became obsessed with the legend of the Prince and his beautiful Dragon Knight bride until the day her mother demanded she put away childish things and broke the bad news:

“Dammit, Aeslin! We don’t live in that kind of world. There are no happy endings and we don’t ride off into the sunset on the dragon. Your father and I…”
“Mom… where’s Daddy?”

Many years later and Aeslin’s Mum is a politician on the verge of an election and Aeslin’s on the brink of a date with hilariously self-regarding school heart-throb, Michael. He’s invited her to watch him play football tonight. It’s at this point, however, that Aeslin and best friend Meg discover a new shop that’s seemingly sprung up overnight, and in it a copy of Once In A Blue Moon, the sequel to The Avalon Chronicles written by the original author’s son. It costs them everything they have, but Meg is determined to rekindle a reluctant Aeslin’s interest in the series she once loved so dearly. A single stray thought later, it works.

Now Aeslin’s truly immersed in the book. Literally! She’s been sucked into Once In A Blue Moon, only to discover that it’s all about her. She’s even met its author, playwright Will Redding there. But she’s just not cut out for its contents.

“Go home? But Aeslin, you have a grand destiny. You’re supposed to be our Dragon Knight.”
“Me? There’s got to be some mistake.”
“No mistake. I’m charged with chronicling your adventures, like my father was for the last Dragon Knight.”
“I’m not a Dragon Knight. I’m not a fighter. Why not pick Cassidy?”
“Because Cassidy’s not supposed to be the Dragon Night.”
“If you’re writing the book, then change it.”
“That’s not how destiny works. I chronicle the story. I add a certain dramatic flair, if you will. But I don’t change the facts. And the fact is, this is your story.”
“Well, if it’s my story, then I decide. And I want to go home.”

Back home, Aeslin meets up with Meg, but when they open the book again, it’s very bad news.

“Holy crap!!!”
“Is that me?”
“Wow… You don’t come off so good.” “She left Avalon in its hours of need.””
“That Will! He’s doing this on purpose. He’s trying to make me look like a selfish — “
“Will? That’s the playwright, right? So when he writes in his book, it appears in this one. That so cool!”
“Cool?! Michael could read this. He’ll think I’m shallow.”
“Really? Michael… reading? You’re kidding, right?”

Whatever will Aeslin decide to do? Will she embrace her destiny in the hope of embracing Michael? Will she accept the challenge of the Dragon Knight to save a kingdom on the brink of war? Why is Aeslin destined to be the Dragon Knight anyway? And will she pass her maths test on Monday? Lastly, what happened to Aeslin’s Dad? No, I mean what really happened to him? Reading Once In A Blue Moon may be the only way to find out. Hmm. I really didn’t use capitals there, did I? Heh.

There is so much more to this black and white beauty than I’m prepared to giving away right now – plenty of surprises for Aeslin in the book itself – and it’s going to go very well in our young teen section. Probably to adults, if past performance is anything to go by.

SLH

Buy The Avalon Chronicles vol 1: Once In A Blue Moon h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Stormwatch vol 1 h/c (£22-50, DC) byWarren Ellis & Tom Raney with Jim Lee.

Washington DC, America:

“What the hell is this?”
“Two of yours, Mr. President. These are the explosives experts who murdered one of my officers last night. You either have no knowledge of this, or you will pretend you don’t. It doesn’t matter. You, or one of your creatures, have decided for no good reason to commit an act of war against Stormwatch, and therefore the United Nations. There will be a reprisal. And then we shall see where we stand. Do not test us. We have received your message that we are not wanted or safe in your country. Stand ready for ours.”

This is it: this is where the real Warren Ellis voice finally emerged from its corporate restraints on a title far enough off the radar for anyone to be bothered to bleach it. He inherited a numbskull, run-down Image superhero title and turned it into a literate, Yukio Mishima-referencing, fast-paced, geopolitical, science-fiction action thriller starring a madman called Henry Bendix, the Weatherman, who ran the satellite-based Stormwatch from its platform’s Watch Hall with clipped, military precision.

Like THE AUTHORITY this title grew into, Henry Bendix wanted to change the world whether it liked it or not. And like THE AUTHORITY he quickly discovered that the United States government was amongst the first to stand up and oppose him. Unlike THE AUTHORITY, his methods grew increasingly utterly ruthless. But Stormwatch should have guessed the second he foisted upon its metahuman officers a certain Rose Tattoo, a weapons expert who could drive a man irretrievably mad just by having sex with him.

What astonished me when rereading this 11-issue repackaging of the first two softcovers, is how swiftly Ellis nailed his ambition. I count one page of slightly awkward exposition and that’s it. Like Bendix himself, Ellis swiftly reconfigured the existing Stormwatch to his own tastes and ends, ruthlessly rejecting several of its extant officers, repositioning others and bringing in his own new recruits (Rose Tattoo, the lemon-sharp Jenny Sparks and city-centric Jack Hawksmoor who could commune with his urban environment:

“In situations like these, Jack always checks the windows first. In cities, windows hold images for longer than you’d think.”

It was ridiculously full of new ideas and relevant, news-headline issues, setting the strategically split three teams against Japanese Death Cults, America’s paranoid, racist and deluded militias (claiming to protect its indigenous citizens from the Federal Government by bombing them both into oblivion), and rogue states like the fictional Gamorra funding terrorists to bring down planes over Britain. We are, of course, talking Lockerbie andLibya’s Colonel Gaddafi dressed like the legendary Fu Manchu. Throughout the book it’s all-out mutagenic warfare, while Bendix cleverly, covertly, moves his pieces into place while covering his tracks in the process.

There’s one particularly clever issue in which the ageless, no-nonsense Jenny Sparks, the spirit of the 20^th Century (“I won’t wear one of those damnfool spandex body-condom things. I don’t have the bust for it.”) finally reveals her 96-year-old history. And hats off to Tom Raney for each decade is drawn in its relevant, predominant comicbook style, successfully mimicking the 1920s’ scientific romance of Flash Gordon, the 1930s’ invention of Superman, Will Eisner’s THE SPIRIT in the 1940s, Kirby, Crumb and then finally Dave Gibbons’ WATCHMEN. Parenthetically, I should just add that there’s a nice (precise) juxtaposition at the end of that sequence of black Battalion’s optimism for the future and the harsh, racist reality he encounters the very next issue. These are not accidents.

But really, let’s get back to the main man Bendix and the madness in his methods. He’s speaking second.

“Torture me, drug me, beat me… won’t do any good. You’re not getting a thing out of me.”
“Torture you? Dear God, you are living in the Dark Ages. No, all we’re going to do is strip your scalp, drill a hole in your skull and push scanning needles into your living brain. We’ll extract the necessary information from your brain quite painlessly.”
“Unless we forget the anaesthetic. Hi, I’m the surgeon, and I’m drunk.”

Elsewhere, Jenny Sparks:

“Don’t ever touch my beer again.”

SLH

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

Batman: Knightfall vol 1 (New Ed’n) (£22-50, DC) by Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, Alan Grant & Jim Aparo, Norm Breyfogle, Graham Nolan, Jim Balent, Bret Blevins, Klaus Janson, Mike Manley.

It’s not just the comic that’s spine-damaged.

Reprint of the big Batman event from 20 years ago, this time including vital chapters never previously reprinted. I always thought the previous editions were weird. Please note: we offer this up, but unlike GOTHAM CENTRAL, for example, it’s far from personally recommended. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

“In the first instalment of this classic storyline, the Dark Knight’s greatest enemies have all simultaneously escaped from Arkham Asylum and are preying onGothamCity. With his city under siege, Batman pushes his body to the limit as he takes on The Joker, the Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, The Riddler and the Scarecrow. But things get much worse when Bane, the man behind all the madness, confronts an exhausted Batman – and breaks his back. This massive first KNIGHTFALL volume collects BATMAN: VENGEANCE OF BANE SPECIAL #1, BATMAN #491-500, DETECTIVE COMICS #659-660, SHOWCASE ’93 #7 and 8 and BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT #17-18, including chapters never previously reprinted.”

See? I told you.

SLH

Buy Batman: Knightfall vol 1 (New Ed’n) and read the Page 45 review here

Gotham Central Book 4: Corrigan s/c (£14-99, DC) by Ed Brubaker, Gred Rucka &Kano, Stefano 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.”

SLH

Buy Gotham Central Book 4: Corrigan s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief (UK Edition) (£9-99, Puffin) by Rick Riodan, Robert Venditti & Attila Futaki.

Ridiculously affordable, this dense, witty and complex full-colour adaptation took me hours to read. Robert Venditti (SURROGATES, SURROGATES: FLESH AND BONE, THE HOMELAND DIRECTIVE) has obviously had to make some hard decisions of what to leave on the cutting room floor, and he’s done a fine job of keeping it clipped and to the point so that it canters along at a cracking pace without once throwing you out of the saddle.

There be centaurs and satyrs, oracles spewing poisonous predictions, minotaurs to battle and petty rivalries to overcome; our young hero’s going to have to grow up very fast if he’s to survive not just the mythological threats to his contemporary life but the loss of his mother and revelations regarding his lineage.

“You should never have been born.”
“You really need to work on your delivery.”

Percy Jackson is a young man who should never have been born. His very existence threatens everyone around him. His mother was mortal – all too mortal – but his father was Poseidon, Greek God of the Ocean, giving him elemental control over water. Unfortunately Poseidon had sworn an oath on the River Styx with his brothers Zeus and Hades not to sire any more demi-gods after the catastrophes of WWII. Zeus being Zeus, of course, simply couldn’t keep it in his pants and soon fell off the good wagon Chastity. His new daughter paid the price.

All of which leaves Percy very vulnerable indeed. Hades has already dispatched a fury, the three Fates have cut the line, and there’s more than meets the eye to the rivalry between Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. Someone else is pulling some strings. Now he, Grover and Annabeth have to race across a modern-day America littered with treachery and traps before the Solstice is upon them to reach the entrance to the Underworld (current location: D.O.A. Records, Los Angeles!) and retrieve Zeus’ stolen thunderbolt. The outlook’s somewhat overcast:

“You shall go Wessst, and face the God who has turned.
“You shall find what was stolen, and sssee it safely returned.
“You shall be betrayed by one who callsss you friend.
“And you shall fail to sssave what matters mossst in the end.”

Perfectly suitable for early teens, this couldn’t be less patronising, making it a riot for adults as well. I honestly think fans of Neil Gaiman’s AMERICAN GODS would get a blast. Some very funny unbelaboured visual gags like half-goat Grover’s diet, and the promise of Pan appearing further down the line…? You know I’m there! Also, Ares turns up on a motorcycle.

“Um… Deus Ex Machina, anyone?”

SLH

Buy Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief and read the Page 45 review here

The Babysitter’s Club: Kirsty’s Great Idea (£6-99, Scholastic) by Ann M. Martin & Raina Telgemeier

The Baby-Sitters Club (B.S.C.) itself is a series of 213 children’s prose novels, many written by the original creator Ann M. Martin, published between 1986 and 2000 that have gone on to sell over 170 million copies. Enid Blyton, eat your heart out! There’s also been a 1990 TV show and 1995 movie based on the books and this graphic novel is the first of four that have been created, being faithfully adapted and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier (SMILE).

Unsurprisingly as a 39-year-old male, I was somewhat unaware of the B.S.C. phenomenon, though you may well be so much better informed! If not, here’s all you need to know. Basically, four friends get the idea to earn some extra cash babysitting and set up a club to do so, and this first volume does little more than introduce the friends and their families. It’s nicely done and I can see it appealing to very young girls, but in story terms it’s certainly no THE PLAIN JANES or EMIKO SUPERSTAR. The art is nice enough but I would expect no less from an Eisner Award winner. I would presume the subsequent three graphic novels have a bit more plot to them. Quite how they managed to make 213 prose works out of such a thin premise as a baby-sitting club is beyond me. Still, I’m quite sure some people would say exactly the same thing about superhero comics…

JR

Buy The Babysitter’s Club: Kirsty’s Great Idea and read the Page 45 review here

 

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy

Reviews already online if they’re new formats of previous books like CITY OF GLASS. Otherwise the most interesting will come under the microscope next week, while the rest will remain with their Diamond previews acting in lieu of reviews. “In lieu of”. Get me!

 
Girl&Boy (signed) (£3-99) by Andrew Tunney

The Hobbit (Revised Edition) (£12-99, HarperCollins) by J.R.R. Tolkien, CharlesDixon, Sean Deming & David Wenzel

City Of Glass new edition (£10-99, Picador) by Paul Auster, Paul Karasik & David Mazzucchelli

Judge Dredd Casefiles 19 (£21-99, 2000AD) by John Wagner, Grant Morrison, John Smith, Mark Millar, Garth Ennis & Greg Staples, Carlos Ezquerra, Brett Ewins, Ron Smith, Mick Austin, Dermot Power, Paul Marshall, David Millgate

Locke & Key vol 4: Keys To The Kingdom s/c (£14-99, IDW) by Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez

Fallen Words (£14-99, D&Q) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Snarked: Forks And Hope (£10-99, Kaboom!) by Roger Langridge

American Vampire vol 2 s/c (£13-50, Vertigo) by Scott Snyder & Rafael Albuquerque, Mateus Santolouco

Essential Daredevil vol 1 reprint (£14-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee & Gene Colan, Bill Everett, Joe Orlando, Wallace Wood

Avengers: Kree/Skrull h/c (£25-99, Marvel) by Roy Thomas & Sal Buscema, Neal Adams, John Buscema

Avengers: X-Sanction h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Jeph Loeb & Ed McGuinness

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

Batman & Robin vol 3: Batman & Robin Must Die! s/c (£13-50, DC) by Grant Morrison & Frazer Irving, Cameron Stewart, David Finch, Chris Burnham

Animal Man vol 1 (£10-99, DC) by Jeff Lemire & Travel Foreman

Highschool Of The Dead vol 6 (£10-50, Yen) by Daisuke Sato & Shouji Sato

Higurashi vol 18: Atonement Arc vol 4 (£8-99, Yen) by Ryukisi07 & Karin Suzuragi

Black Butler vol 9 (£8-99, Yen) by Yana Toboso

Durarara!! vol 2 (£8-99, Yen) by Ryohgo Narita & Akiyo Satorigi

Tegami Bachi – Letter Bee vol 9 (£6-99, Viz) by Hiroyuki Asada

X 3-in-1 Ed vol 2 (£12-99, Viz) by Clamp

Sailor Moon vol 5 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Naoko Takeuchi

Tokyo On Foot: Travels In The City’s Most Colourful Neighbourhoods (£15-99, Tuttle) by Florent Chavouet

Y The Last Man: The Deluxe Edition Book One h/c (£22-50, Vertigo) by Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan Jr.

 
That last one purely because someone specially ordered it then singularly failed to collect and pay for it. Lord, how I’m tempted to name names. If you order something, please have the common courtesy to collect. It’s, like, part of the deal?

- Stephen

The art has a lovely, swooshy, vogue-ish feel to it that really does put you in mind of sashaying catwalk models and blinged-up sparkly darlings all mwah-mwah air-kissing away. In other words, he’s captured the utter vacuousness of their illusory world to perfection.

 - Jonathan on Knockabout’s Paris

St. Colin & The Dragon signed editions (£6-50, My Cardboard Books) by Philippa Rice.

“My Clopsy got burnt!”

Wheezing myself into extinction over that line, I’m still salty-eyed with laughter. Clopsy, by the way, is one of the many sturdy steeds issued to the King’s chump champions including MY CARDBOARD LIFE’s own Colin. There’s Stormcloud, Captain, Bully, Dynamite and wedding-cake-coloured Clopsy who makes My Little Pony look like a Shire on steroids.

Also, all our current copies aren’t just signed but sketched in. Each one’s different! And you should see the current sketches in our restocks of MY CARDBOARD LIFE – so elaborate!

So. Another comicbook collage created from cardboard, variously patterned paper, cloth, gold/silver foil and – I don’t know – Wheetabix or something, this is Philippa’s first relatively long-form foray into her unique brand of cut-and-paste comedy and, liberated from the need for a succession of instant punchilines, it is on fire! Err, as is everything and everyone else here.

A dragon’s egg has descended from the heavens like a comet ‘cross the sky, and we know how well that omen bodes. Acutely aware of how badly a bad-breathed, bad-tempered dragon’s presence can wreak havoc with property values – along with the properties themselves – the local wizard / wise man recommends treating it like gold for a year, feeding it up so it’ll then fly away:

“Food for dragons:
 Sheep
 Pigs
 Goats
 Crabs
 Babies

 Not suitable:
 Salad
 Anchovies
 Boiled egss
 Cakes
Chewing gum”

Dutifully our peasants bring the beaming beastie sheep after fluffy white sheep and our dragon is delighted! Absolutely delighted! It loves sheep. But after four seasons pass, there are no sign of wings and the dragon is gutted when no longer wanted and doesn’t react well to eviction. It’s time to teach the world to singe; and you can forget the perfect harmony.

That, then, is merely the premise. What follows is a life-lesson about making friends, playing nice, and appreciating what you’ve got while you’ve got it. All of which potentially saccharine sentiments are undercut beautifully by Philippa’s uncontrollable mischief whilst enhanced by an exuberance that takes it beyond all measurable levels of cute. It’s too, too funny, and there will be all manner of unexpected metamorphoses as Cardboard Colin finally takes charge and actually gets a result. Well, several results.

As to the craft involved – the pageant of paper-play – that in itself is what will bring so many smiles. The original dragon’s egg in itself is a work of wonder. I think it’s the wit with which Rice has interpreted what’s in her head using the full potential of materials repurposed for her vision, and I love the way the gaily coloured king dances across the page to his knights, like Rick Mayall in Black Adder II only way camper still and almost in jim-jams.

Bonuses include a ‘Celebrity Clopsy’ one-page and four alternative covers. Also: Philippa’s signature on each and every copy. The punchline, by the way, is right up there with ASTERIOS POLYP’s. You’ll see what I mean when you get there.

SLH

Buy St. Colin & The Dragon and read the Page 45 review here

The Shark King h/c (£9-99, Toon Books) by R. Kikuo Johnson.

“The sea is full of surprises today.”

Stunningly beautiful, with more than a nod to Gilbert Hernandez on almost every full-colour page, this is from R. Kikuo Johnson whose debut NIGHT FISHER was so electrifyingly impressive it would have definitely been Page 45 Comicbook Of The Month had it only existed back then.

It’s a short children’s story based on the Hawaiian legend of the shape-shifting shark god Kamohoalii who terrifies then rescues a woman prisings limpet from an outcrop of rocks above treacherously deep waters. Soon they are married, then the mother’s with child. Born with an instant affinity to water and a ravenous appetite beyond his tiny body, Nanaue can’t help snatching the fishermen’s quarry from out of theirnets right under their noses, but his inability to control the shark side dormant within finally gives the game away and he flees from the beach for his life. Thankfully, the moment has been prepared for…

The poignancy for me lies in the wife and mother losing both her loved ones, one after the other, to the sea. It’s their nature, their destiny, but I’d reassure your children they’ll be back. Nanaue yearns for his father but at least has his mother who copes as best she can when Nanaue brings home his increasingly unwieldy daily catch: going to need a bigger cooking pot!

Young eyes will sparkle over the subaquatic dives. Likely they’ll be terrified by the majestic silhouette of the king’s true finned form placed so perfectly on the page. They’ll laugh out loud at the snap-snap snapping of the hungry jaws morphing out of the young boy’s back. Me, I’m still in awe of the opening, early morning splash page as the young woman leaps over the rocks below the waterfall in search of her sea snails, the verdant misty mountains cast in cool, purple shadow, the sky behind a bright yellow.

Published by Françoise Mouly’s Toon imprint (yes, that Françoise Mouly, for this is RAW Junior) the book even has some top tips for teachers and parents in the back when exploring these books with young minds. There’s also a website you can visit for free online lesson plans etc. It’s really quite the package and this is far and away the finest book in the range so far.

SLH

Buy The Shark King h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Science Tales h/c (£11-99, Myriad Publishing) by Darryl Cunningham…

This time around we find Darryl in full-on debunking mode, as he takes on the scientific lies, hoaxes and scams that annoy him the most, those being: electroconvulsive therapy, homeopathy, the moon landing, climate change, evolution, chiropractic, the MMR jab debacle and the general denial of irrefutable scientific evidence. I personally would have included shampoo adverts with their pseudo-science, made up chemical names and definitive surveys based on massive sample groups of errr…100 people, but that’s my own personal bugbear!

It’s well researched by Darryl as in each case he goes to great length to not only show how preposterous the various claims are, but also how just unreliable the particular people making those assertions are themselves, and in the case of climate change the infinitely more sinister aspect of just who it is that’s funding the idiots. But this is no diatribe, instead it’s a meticulous picking apart of the ridiculous web of half-baked facts and fiction that’s often woven around one or two grains of truth, usually completely taken and distorted totally out of context, to prove his case. Anyone who enjoyed Darryl’s previous work, PSYCHIATRIC TALES, which was a Page 45 Comicbook Of The Month, will definitely enjoy this. Darryl also employs the same understated clinical yet also slightly comical art style this time around, once again inserting himself as a talking head from time to time for additional narrational emphasis.

SLH

Buy Science Tales h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Paris (£15-99, Knockabout) by Maarten Vande Wiele, Erika Raven, Peter Moerenhout…

Ah, capricious whimsy at its finest as our three heroines Chastity, Hope and Faith set out to find fame and fortune in that most chic of cities, and whilst they might be named after virtues, these ladies will do pretty much whatever it takes to try and succeed. Initially at least, I thought that Hope, a beautiful girl left with ugly scarring on one side of her face after a car accident as a small child in which she also lost her mother, was intended to be the moral rock around which the story would be built; for upon arriving in the big city as a naïve, sensitive soul and hiding her scars beneath her locks, she seems immune to the insidious moral corruption that is utterly prevalent almost everywhere she turns.

Her two roommates Chastity, a party girl who’s determined to sleep her way to the easy life whilst acquiring more than a few column inches in the gossip magazines along the way, and Faith, a singer harbouring dreams of the big time who’ll stab absolutely anyone in the back, repeatedly, to get even a centimetre ahead, are two beautifully observed examples of the modern airhead wannabes and two-a-penny manufactured muso-clones that currently clutter the social landscape like so much detritus.

However, as the story progresses and Hope experiences an unexpected breakthrough into the world of modelling, and is then offered the opportunity to have plastic surgery to fix her imperfection to become a truly unblemished beauty, she inevitably succumbs to the temptations and ego-titillations that accompany such success. From that point on, it’s no longer a question of whether she’ll fall, just how far she’ll drop and how fast she’ll be travelling when she hits rock bottom. It’s going to hurt…

Chastity and Faith meanwhile are also finding that the road to wealth and fame isn’t always straightforward, and that sometimes you’ll need to sell your soul, not just your body (though that goes without saying) just to survive and stay in the game. It’s almost like a fairy tale in reverse really, which is a pretty chilling allegory that the myriad fame-hungry never-will-be suckers of our modern world – who are only too happy to humiliate themselves for the chattering classes’ televisual entertainment on increasingly absurd reality shows – would do well to pay attention to. If they could read, that is.

I think the scariest part is whilst it would be easy to conclude the story here is unrealistically dramatic, I actually suspect it’s pretty much bang on the money, which of course makes it all the more enticing a read, as whilst I’m usually a sucker for a happy ending, I, like pretty much all of us normal people if we’re honest, enjoy watching a good celebrity meltdown in full car-crash effect. Yes, they may be people underneath it all, but they’re celebrities first and foremost, so one can’t help fell they do probably deserve it. At least a little bit…

The art, by one of the three collaborating writers, has a lovely, swooshy, vogue-ish feel to it that really does put you in mind of sashaying catwalk models and blinged-up sparkly darlings all mwah-mwah air-kissing away. In other words, he’s captured the utter vacuousness of their illusory world to perfection. An unexpected guilty pleasure this work turned out to be then, much like reading a gossip magazine, only infinitely more satisfying.

JR

Buy Paris and read the Page 45 review here

Reset #1 (£2-75, Dark Horse) by Peter Bagge.

Mining a similar vein to Taniguchi’s A DISTANT NEIGHBOURHOOD (two volumes) and Alex Robinson’s TOO COOL TO BE FORGOTTEN, but in his own inimitable car-crash comedy style, HATE’s Peter Bagge returns to the realms of virtual reality. First there was the identity crisis of OTHER LIVES, now it’s that eternal question about whether – given the opportunity to relive major moments – you’d change any decisions you made in your life: things you did, things that you said, things you can never take back. Now you can, or at least washed-up actor/comedian Guy Krause can, after he signs up as a guinea pig for a virtual reality experiment. Thing is, is he only going to make matters worse? I don’t know! He keeps pushing the reset button!

Lead scientist Angie Minor has done extensive research into Guy Krause’s history, gleaning all manner of intimate details based on Guy’s stand-up routine, extensive media coverage and interviews –  that’s what makes him the perfect candidate – but she’s even dug out the relevant college yearbooks. And that’s where the opportunities for exploration begin: on Graduation Day as Gail Malone, a girl Guy had admired from afar, says the first and last word she will ever say to him: “Spaz.” It’s a moment that’s sure left its scars.

Speaking of research, I can’t believe how well Peter Bagge’s thought this through – how they know each specific detail which an increasingly paranoid Krause questions – and can’t wait to see where he’s going. I’ve no idea what the backers are actually after yet, but I think that they’ll get what they want. However many times Guy Krause walks out, he keeps coming back: convicted of road rage, he’s been off the stage for too long, and when he tries to secure the spotlight again, however minor, the rug’s pulled from under him at the last minute. Those mysterious backers are pretty ruthless.

SLH

Buy Reset #1 by shouting and snapping down the phone on 0115 9508045 or entering our own virtual reality at page45@page45.com

Severed h/c (£18-99, Image) by Scott Snyder, Scott Tuft & Attila Futaki.

Nasty, nasty, nasty.

A crafty placement of raised spot-varnish creates quite the chilling 3-D effect as a gnarled hand, dripping with blood, tears through the cover and its unsuspecting city of Chicago to reveal a set of eyes staring right at you that definitely don’t have your best interests at heart.

In BATMAN: THE BLACK MIRROR, AMERICAN VAMPIRE’s Scott Snyder proved he could successfully mess with our minds, playing upon our expectations to keep us guessing as to the protagonist’s much maligned innocence or psychopathic guilt. Here, along with co-writer Scott Tuft, he plays upon our fears, our worst nightmares of being lost and alone a long way from home, helpless and hopelessly trapped. Then there’s the matter of trust, and the sinking, hollow horror of finding it most misplaced.

One year ago young, aspiring musician Jack Garron stumbled upon evidenced that he was adopted, ever since when he’s been gripped by the secret hope of finding his father. Instead of confiding in his loving, adoptive mother he managed to make contact, and the last letter he received mentioned a fiddle-playing gig in the city ofChicago. That’s where Jack’s heading now, having run away from home to stow away on a freight train. But the freight train’s occupants are far from friendly, while what’s waiting for him inChicagois even worse. What follows is a cruel breadcrumb trail that will take Jack further from home still; what’s so damnably clever is how that trail was laid.

Unlike BATMAN: THE BLACK MIRROR this isn’t an “Is he or isn’t he?” – we know right for the beginning that there’s a murderous, cannibalistic monster waiting in the wings, adopting a succession of seemingly beneficent guises and preying on the young and vulnerable, so when Jack strays too close for comfort the dramatic irony racks up a tension so taut it’s not true. As to his new friend Sam(antha), found on the freight train, just… don’t go there.

Attila Futaki’s art has a fine period feel while the colours are suitably dowdy, for this is all told in retrospect. Even the countryside low-lit and earthy. It’s a far from comfortable set in series of uncomfortable, bleak or outright hostile environments: bedsits and bars, hotels and motels and shacks in the middle of nowhere.

SLH

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

H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror (£13-50, IDW) by H.P. Lovecraft, Joe R. Lansdale, Robert Weinberg & Peter Bergting, menton3…

Yet another decent Lovecraft adaption, this particular short story revolves around a demented individual Wilbur Whateley who is determined to get his hands on an original copy of the Necronomicon for the purpose of performing a ritual allowing the ‘Old Ones’ to return. When the librarian at one of the few places to have such an item, Miskatonic University, refuses to let him have it, Wilbur breaks in late at night to help himself. It’s at this point that events take a surprising turn (or perhaps not considering it is Lovecraft) and everything starts to unravel for poor old Wilbur. Probably the closest thing you’ll get to a happy ending in a Lovecraft story, this, if memory serves. Respectable art from Bergting and the oddly named menton3, which I presume is a pen name rather than a jazz ensemble filling in on inks during a particularly quiet gigging period.

JR

Buy H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror and read the Page 45 review here

Abe Sapien vol 2: The Devil Does Jest And Other Stories (£13-50, Dark Horse) by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi & Patric Reynolds, Peter Snejberg, James Harren…

More finny fun with the Bureau’s laugh-a-minute gagster. That’s a joke by the way. A relatively hotchpotch collection of patchy shorts, frankly, much like Abe’s… I really would rather see these solo titles focus more on the characters themselves which – given Abe’s weird and wonderful origin that has only recently been partly revealed in the main BPRD title and with so much more alluded to and clearly yet to come – would have been far, far more interesting to me, than just yet another ghost story. Hellboy obsessives, please note that he guest-stars in one of the stories.

JR

Buy Abe Sapien vol 2: The Devil Does Jest And Other Stories and read the Page 45 review here

genetiks [I] (£14-99, Archaia) by Richard Marazano & Jean-Michael Ponzio…

First volume of some cutting-edge speculative fiction which in addition to being a great little bit of sci-fi in its own right also posits one or two perturbing questions we’re all probably going to be worrying about in the not too distant future; such as the ownership of mapped human genomes and the possibility of genetic manipulation to achieve vastly extended life spans. For the lucky chosen few, that is… and also the consequences for the unlucky expendable few who get experimented on for the ‘greater good’ along the way.

Wisely this work stays away from getting into really hard science and instead concentrates on a character-driven plot as the usual set of dodgy scientists, snooping activists and nosey reporters, power mad businessmen and mysterious men in black bursting through doors in the dead of the night are all used to good effect to drive the story along.

This work also comes as close as I have seen anybody come to getting away with manipulated art that is based on photographs. It doesn’t quite manage it though, with the usual problem of facial expressions feeling rather static, and thus losing the flowing sense of continuity that illustrated sequential art achieves effortlessly when done well. Still, aside from that particular element, it’s rather neat, and makes me think before too long someone will really totally crack this particular artistic approach. They’ll probably be a robot, mind you…

JR

Buy genetiks [I] and read the Page 45 review here

Hellcyon (£9-99, Dark Horse) by Lucas Marangon…

Another title trying desperately far too hard to be the next APPLESEED / GHOST IN THE SHELL. However, like the recent woefully bland GHOST IN THE SHELL STAND ALONG COMPLEX manga by Yu Kinutani, without the master himself on the pens, Shirow it is not. I couldn’t establish whether it was the same artist doing the covers; I think it is the same guy, and if so, he’s certainly put considerably more effort into aping Shirow’s style on the front than inside where it all just goes a bit flat and two-dimensional, which doesn’t sound much like the future to me. The story is a kind of APPLESEED / ENDER’S SHADOW mash-up. And that’s being kind. Far too kind. I can’t resist finishing with a bit of the dialogue, which seems in places like it’s been put together by randomly picking phrases out of a hat, just in case you were somehow under the misapprehension that I enjoyed this.

“I want to live in Paris some day. What you did back there was very impressive.”
“I’ve never killed anyone before. I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

JR

Buy Hellcyon and read the Page 45 review here

Wolverine And The X-Men vol 1 h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Jason Aaron & Chris Bachalo.

“Whiskey!”
“Whiskey!”
“Whiskey!”
“Come back here, you stupid blue rats!”

In which a visit from the Department of Education school inspectors passes without incident. <snort> Everything that could possibly go wrong does go wrong on the first and possibly last day of term at the new Jean Grey School For Higher Learning, and teachers will surely empathise. There is, however, a great deal more that can go wrong in a school full of mutants which boasts the most dangerous boys’ bathroom in history. Also on the roll call: a junior Shi’Ar warrior, a young and studious member of the alien Brood, a mini-Apocalypse and the spawn of Krakoa, theLivingIsland.

“Is it a him or a her? Can a walking island have a gender?”
“Figure at some point it’ll come in handy to have school grounds that can fight back in need be. Plus I’m trying to teach it to turn our ponds into beer.”

And then there’s the infestation of tiny blue Bamfs out to steal Logan’s liquor. It’s an anarchic mix of misfits which makes the pupils of St. Trinians look like paragons of dutiful obedience, calm and conformity. That Kitty Pryde is headmistress is not unexpected; that Wolverine’s the headmaster is insane. The Toad is their janitor, by the way, and will be spending some considerable time cleaning up that bathroom later on.

Following directly on from the mini-series X-MEN: SCHISM wherein Cyclops and Wolverine stopped seeing eye to eye, there has been a mass evacuation from the X-Men’sisland ofUtopia, Wolverine opting to educate the children rather than allow them to fight. Joining their faculty is the Beast who stopped enjoying Scott Summers’ increasingly militant company quite some time ago plus Iceman, Rachel Grey, Cannonball, Chamber, Husk, Karma, Frenzy, and Doop. Yes, Doop. He of the translatable alien language.

The schism was engineered by Kade Kilgore, school-aged son of a wealthy arms manufacturer, who’s forcefully inherited a fortune and multiplied it considerably by selling Sentinel technology on the back of the some pretty successful worldwide scare-mongering. It also secured him his seat as Black King of the Hellfire Club. His next move, then, is something of a surprise.

Writer Jason Aaron (SCALPED) appears to mainlined raw, liquid sugar, for the whole, frantic fiasco is played purely for laughs, and long may that continue. There’s even a couple of pages of school twitterfeed and a school prospectus in the back complete with extracurricular activities, special events and the proud school motto, “The best there is at what we do”. Courses include “Algebra Sucks: I Know, But You Still Have To Learn It” which is, naturally, delivered by Professor Bobby Drake who couldn’t even spell ‘quadratic equations’ let alone solve one.

Chris Bachalo (DEATH, SHADE THE CHANGING MAN, GENERATION X) plays the perfect co-conspirator with cartoon comedy postures, expressions and hyperkinetic action against backgrounds with an enormous attention to detail, injecting background and even foreground jokes galore. That he’s managed to make Apocalypse Jr. look cute is extraordinary.

Meanwhile the unruly Mr. Quentin Quire, Kid Omega, starts as he means to go on, dripping with attention-seeking sarcasm.

“The Wolverine Home For Wayward Boys. I can’t wait for that scene in the third act when your tough love finally breaks through my thorny exterior to reach the frightened, lonely little boy underneath. There won’t be a dry eye in the house. Should we just skip the drama and hug it out right here?”
“Shut your face, bub, before I cut it off. How’s that for tough love?”
“I’m feeling the magic already.”

SLH

Buy Wolverine And The X-Men vol 1 h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Punisher Max: Homeless h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Jason Aaron & Steve Dillon…

A fitting conclusion to Jason Aaron’s non-continuity run in which pretty much everybody dies with the body count reaching truly prodigious levels, as the Kingpin and Frank enter their mutual and most assuredly destructive  end game. But fret ye not, MAX fans, as the baddest eye-patch-toting landlubber of them all, Nick Fury himself, is about to get his own MAX series.

JR

Buy Punisher Max: Homeless h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Batman: Venom (£10-99, DC) by Dennis J. O’Neil & Trevor Von Eeden, Russel Braun…

No, not a new DC-Marvel crossover which would no doubt have the fan boys positively covering themselves in web fluid through overexcitement, but a rather old Batman tale (c. 1990) from the now defunct LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT monthly bat-title. In a mildly interesting aside, that particular title when it started was boldly purporting to be telling self-contained five-issue arc stories using rotating creative teams that would be of ‘graphic novel’ quality (bearing in mind relatively little was collected at this time, and what was tended to be things of exceptional quality like Frank Miller’s BATMAN: YEAR ONE).

I suppose therefore it actually foreshadowed how modern comics have pretty much completely gone in recent years with the use of continuous multi-issue arcs, solely for the purpose of collecting as much as possible into graphic novels. There was some pretty good stuff in this title though, especially in the first few years, though this arc which was issues #16 – #20 was decidedly pretty average. So why are DC collecting this now? Well simply because it features the first appearance of the drug Venom which would go on to be used and abused by upcoming Bat-film villain Bane. Here Bruce, feeling somewhat inadequate after failing to save the life of a young girl being held for ransom, decides it be worth trying and that he’ll be able to keep it under control and not get addicted. Cue Bruce losing the plot, in a plot twist we just couldn’t see coming, as he can’t keep it control and gets addicted…

JR

Buy Batman: Venom and read the Page 45 review here

A Game Of Thrones vol 1 h/c (£14-99, Harper) by George R.R. Martin, Daniel Abraham & Tommy Patterson…

I was slightly sceptical that the ultra-dense plot-packed prose book and recent massive television smash would adapt well to comics, but actually Daniel Abraham has done an excellent job of conveying just how rich a world George R.R. Martin has created with its enormous cast of characters and locations, awash with political intrigues, dynastical double-dealings and Machiavellian manoeuvrings. Not to mention substantial amounts of swash-buckling action and demented monsters causing chaos. It certainly reads like the prose works, and the art from Tommy Patterson is pretty decent too, making this something which will should appeal both to seasoned Thrones fans, but also those wishing to see what all the fuss is about for themselves.

JR

Buy A Game Of Thrones vol 1 h/c and read the Page 45 review here

New Review For An Earlier Book

Strangers In Paradise pocketbook vol 5 (£13-50, Abstract Studios) by Terry Moore.

Featuring the controversial ‘David’s Story’ – the full history of what originally brought him to Katchoo on that rainy afternoon right at the beginning of the series. Also: see that scene and others played over again. Yeah, all looks a little different now, eh? Also, the funniest gallery show opening imaginable as Katchoo finally hits it big.

Also, also: check out pages 122 and 123 for Leah The Dead Girl. Do those eyes look familiar? Has Terry Moore’s RACHEL RISING really been gestating that long?! Too much of a coincidence. “Then she said something no one has ever said to me before… “Have you ever thought about making a story with your images?” I swear the idea had never crossed my mind, but once she said that it was, like, liberating and scary, all at the same time. Not just Deadgirl, the painting… Deadgirl… the story!”

For far more indepth coverage of this extraordinary series, please see reviews of SiPPKT VOL 1 and VOL 2 and, oh yes, VOL 3. One more book to go and it won’t disappoint.

SLH

Buy Strangers In Paradise pocketbook vol 5 and read the Page 45 review here

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy

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

 

At The Caves (signed) (£4-00) by Lizz Lunney

Curse Of The Bogmen / Horseome (£2-00) by Lizz Lunney

A Dinosaur Tale / Tofu + Cats (£2-00) by Lizz Lunney

Dream Locations Postcards (£5-99,) by Joe List, Lizz Lunney, Soju Tanaka

The Babysitter’s Club: Kirsty’s Great Idea (£6-99, Scholastic) by Ann M. Martin & Raina Telgemeier

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

The Avalon Chronicles vol 1: Once In A Blue Moon h/c (£14-99, Oni) by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir &Emma Vieceli

Chew vol 5: Major League (£9-99, Image) by John Layman & Rob Guillory

The Boy Who Made Silence vol 1 (£17-99, Markosia) by Joshua Hagler

But I Really Wanted To be An Anthropologist h/c (£14-99, SelfMadeHero) by Margaux Motin

Black Orchid h/c (£18-99, Vertigo) by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean

Folly, The Consequences Of Indiscretion s/c (£13-99, Fantagraphics) by Hans Rickheit

Stormwatch vol 1 h/c (£22-50, DC) byWarren Ellis & Tom Raney

Batman: Knightfall vol 1 (New Ed’n) (£22-50, DC) by Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, Alan Grant & Jim Aparo, Norm Breyfogle, Graham Nolan, Jim Balent, Bret Blkevins, Klaus Janson, Mike Manley

Gotham Central Book 4: Corrigan s/c (£14-99, DC) by Ed Brubaker, Gred Rucka &Kano, Stefano Gaudiano

Dark Tower vol 5: Battle Of Jericho Hill s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Peter David, Robin Furth & Jae Lee, Richard Isanove

Wolverine vol 3: Wolverine’s Revenge s/c (£12-99, Marvel) by Jason Aaron & Renato Guedes (£12-99, Marvel) by Rob Williams & Ron Garney, Matteo Buffagni, Riley Rossmo

Ultimate Comics X: Origins s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Jeph Loeb & Arthur Adams

Spider-Man: Flying Blind h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Dan Slott, Mark Waid & Humberto Ramos, Emma Rios, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Kano

Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil vol 3 (£18-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee & Gene Colan

Onamori Himari vol 1 (£8-99, Yen) by Milan Matra

Onamori Himari vol 2 (£8-99, Yen) by Milan Matra

Itazura Na Kiss vol 7 (£12-99, DMP) by Kaoru Tada

Is This A Zombie? vol 1 (£8-99, Yen) by Sacchi

Highschool Of The Dead vol 5 (£10-50, Yen) by Daisuke Sato & Shouji Sato

Sailor Moon vol 4 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Naoko Takeuchi

GTO: The Early Years vol 12 (£9-99, Vertical) by Toru Fujisawa

True Blood vol 3: The French Quarter h/c (£18-99, IDW) by Mariah Huehner, David Tilschman & DavidMessina, Claudio Balboni, Bruno Letizia 

Mass Effect vol 3: Invasion (£12-99, Dark Horse) by Mac Walter, John Jackson Miller & OmarFranca

Sonic Select vol 5 (£8-99, Sega) by Sega

Gears Of War vol 2 s/c (£10-99, DC) by Michael Capps, Joshua Ortega & Liam Sharp, Leonardo Manco, Simon Bisley, Joel Gomez, Trevor Hairsine

 

Waiting for the new issue of FATALE? Try CRIMINAL: COWARD by the same creative team. The crime of our times: Zeitheist!

More seriously, if it was you in my dreams late Sunday night, could you please get in touch? Thanks ever so much. You were magnificent.

 - Stephen

“What is important for you to offer your customers?”
”The credit card terminal.”

 - Stephen in the new Page 45 interview for Sequential Highway What a clown.

League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier s/c (£14-9, Knockabout) by Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill.

1958, and Britain has only just rid itself of Big Brother. Mina Murray and Allan Quartermain have severed their ties with MI5 and are currently considered rogue agents. Now they are back, sent to steal the Black Dossier secretly stashed in MI5’s Military Intelligence Vauxhall HQ. The Black Dossier, compiled from intelligence records and fragments of fiction, contains every known record of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’s various incarnations and its constituent members across the centuries.

Disguised as actress Oodles O’Quim, Miss Murray plays on the vanity of a womanising Secret Service agent licensed to thrill, who can’t keeps his hands off her. Snatch it they do, and from that moment on it’s one long chase up the Thirty-Nine Steps to Greyfriars, the boarded-up boarding school cared for by one William Bunter, then onto Birmingham’s spaceport where Roger The Robot awaits. Unfortunately so do the agents dispatched by the mysterious M. Will you recognise them before they recognise Mina? And what national secrets can the Dossier possibly contain that MI5 is so desperate for it back?

As you’ve probably inferred, like all the other LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN books, everything here is a cut-and-paste collage of previously published fiction, and half the fun is spotting the references. No one other than Alan can be expected to get them all, but merely catching a nod to one of your favourite books like Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies is quite the fuzzy thrill. What is utterly mind-boggling is not only Uncle Alan’s breadth and depth of cultural knowledge, but the ingenuity with which he’s reweaved his unpicked threads into a brand new tapestry which holds so well together. Also, Moore’s ability as a literary chameleon and mimic.

For within THE BLACK DOSSIER lies The Black Dossier containing, amongst many gems, part of a previously undiscovered piece of Shakespearian bawdiness called ‘Faerie’s Fortunes Founded’ starring Masters Shytte and Pysse; ‘What Ho, Gods Of  The Abyss’ by Bertie Wooster; the erotic ‘New Adventures of Fanny Hill’; and ‘A Prospectus Of London (1901)’ from which this description of Freemasons Hall, Vauxhall made me laugh:

“While architecturally an acquired taste, this riverside landmark is an undoubted benefit to the community, as the worthy fraternity within are believed to occupy themselves mainly with organising charitable jumble-sales and similar altruistic activities.”

Naturally Orlando is as ubiquitous as he always claimed!

Also included is a set of 3-D glasses for when Alan and Mina reach Ye Blazing Worlde with its extra dimension, and at this point we really do doff our battered top hats to artist Kevin O’Neill whose art on this series has always been riddled with detail worthy of what must be the most gargantuan scripts imaginable. The 3-D sequences, however, with the likes of the Effervator (an effervescent elevator travelled on via bubbles) is a triumph on another level entirely.

Finally, big love to Knockabout who finally published this in the UK after DC’s Paul Levitz banned it from our shores to spite Alan Moore, thereby rewarding all DC’s loyal readers – and their loved ones buying presents – with petulant contempt, and depriving Page 45 alone of thousands of pounds worth of Christmas revenue. Oh yes. The book gets pretty pugnacious too:

“What’s that he’s wrestling with?
“I – I think it’s poetry. They must be rehearsing for later. Ooh, look at that! It dazzled him with imagery, then beat him over the head with a blunt metaphor!”

SLH

Buy League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Gloaming h/c (£14-99, Pocko) by Keaton Henson.

“I spent my childhood alone with views of rooftops and chimney stacks,” writes Keaton Henson, “wondering where all the creatures from my storybooks were, why I couldn’t see them in the suburban landscape where they so clearly belonged.”

Clearly!

A haunting, wordless narrative of restless, lonely giants and wispy black wraiths drifting away from the towns and out through the countryside where they try, tentatively to unite. Subtitled 23 Years Of Seeing Things, it starts with a poem evoking a blurring of the boundaries between sleep, dream and the waking world for those who bring their slumbering senses with them. If you succeed, you’ll find the streets stalked by strange and silent somnambulists; naked, sweaty and saggy-breasted giants, their black, greasy hair drawn over their face like the girl in The Ring, slumped over the rooftops of whole neighbourhoods. An enormous, exploratory finger pokes through your bathroom window, like a mildly inquisitive ape’s.

Goodness this is beautiful. The lines are clean, with pools of black ink printed on a thick, creamy stock. There’s a tremendous sense of weight even when the Gloamers take to the air, their limbs undulating or dragging on the ground. It’s also stricken with a terrible melancholy, broken only occasionally when the spirits attract new attention.

The first thing Tom said was, “That’s very Tom Neely”, and he’s right. A little research tells me it was inspired by Scandinavian folklore and Japanese Kwaidan (ghost stories) from the Edo period, and also the films of Hayao Miyazaki. It is its own thing, and it’s great.

SLH

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

Lizz Lunney Greeting Cards (£2-20 each, UK Greetings) by Lizz Lunney.

FAQ: “Do you sell greetings cards?” WE DO NOW!

If Lizz Lunney was ever actually on a trolley, the cart has long since sped away, careered down the mountain and jettisoned Ms. Lizz into Page 45’s gratefully open arms.

These, then, from the creator of DEPRESSED CAT: NINE MISERABLE LIVES and all those shiny badges we mercilessly market like boiled sweets in a bowl right next to the till. And the delightful thing is that so many of these are comics: short stories told through sequential art! Each classy card comes matt in two or more colours, and enhanced with a slither of foil. Also, envelopes: you get a free envelope! I can’t tell you how much giving away free stuff sticks in my craw.

The cards weren’t in for five seconds before Jonathan bought CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’RE NOT DEAD YET! and ONE YEAR CLOSER TO EXTINCTION for each of his parents. I’m praying for a week free from irony.

And some of the others are beautifully observed. Everyone’s going to relate to PEOPLE YOU DON’T WANT TO SIT NEXT TO ON A BUS, though I would like to apologise for my initial antipathy towards Facebook given MR FACEBOOK and the fact that I now love Page 45’s. MY MATE PRIMATE is just so stoopid it’s cool, but the pick of the bunch for me and anyone else at the mercy of the technological cynosure that is the bloody computer will be able to relate to this, the DEPRESSED CAT card where he’s hard at work in the office, tap-tapping away for panel after silent panel, hour after hour, sighing his way from 9am to 3pm at which point:

“Due to an internal error all of your work has been deleted.”

Please note: 10% Student Discount applies to these too in the shop, making them the most affordable greetings cards you will probably find around town. Neat, eh? Alas, unlike our DEPRESSED CAT books, none of these cards come signed. YOU HAVE TO DO THAT YOURSELVES!

Take a look at all twelve lovely designs at the link below. If you can’t read the card click on the interior art below it because it zooms up beautifully!

SLH

Buy Lizz Lunney Cards and read the Page 45 review here

Courtney Crumrin vol 1: The Night Things h/c (£14-99, Oni) by Ted Naifeh.

Complete colour hardcover upgrade for which Oni Press have pulled out all the stops: the paper stock is thick and silky, the front matter and end pages are a dark, rich plum printed with silver ink, just like the matt cover hardcover with its spot-varnish and smooth and glossy portrait inlaid. As to the colours themselves – beautiful!

So let’s meet Courtney herself, here dressing down a doppelganger who’s taken her place and impressed her parents. They’re not very impressive parents.

“My Mom would kiss a diseased mollusc if it could get her into a cocktail party. They’re both selfish morons.”
“You have no friends. I made friends…. Cathy Keller says I’m cool.”
“Congrats! You can kiss ass. Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back. Just the fact that your lame performance actually fooled these people should tell you what nitwits they are.”
“What do you mean, lame?”
“If you wanted to become Courtney Crumrin, you should have done a little homework. I’m rude, bad-tempered and basically, I don’t like people.”

That’s because of the people poor Courtney finds herself surrounded by. Her new classmates are snobbish and superficial bullies, her parents are clueless and indifferent… only the initially austere Great Uncle Aloysius breaks the spell of utter isolation Miss Crumrin feels now that they’ve moved into his creepy old mansion. Gradually, though, young Courtney finds she rather likes creepy, and although she has a knack for biting off more than she can chew she has a few key qualities on her side: resilience, pluck, and a practical approach to problem solving.

Over the course of four self-contained stories Courtney negotiates her new territory with its goblins, changelings, faeries and night things, and learns the lesson of the The Beguiling Glamour. The lesson being, don’t cast it: being too popular brings a whole new set of problems. Much better to be yourself.

The pen lines and character designs are exquisite, the lessons sometimes harsh (at one point it looked like Crumrin was going to give Constantine a run for his money with the body count), and if as many people read comics as books, Ted Naifeh might be almost as rich as J. K. Rowling. He certainly deserves to be.

SLH

Buy Courtney Crumrin vol 1: The Night Things h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Courtney Crumrin #1 (£2-99, Oni Press) by Ted Naifeh.

“Butterworm! I thought I told you humans are off limits.”
“I weren’t gonna eat all o’ her. Just a few bits.”
“Bugger off.”

Brand new series, this time in full colour as a new girl called Holly Hart moves into the neighbourhood and – much to her surprise – Courtney finally finds she has a friend. More surprisingly still, she finds she likes it. Ingeniously Ted mirrors the whole of the first book, as Holly too gets drawn to the woods, to the casting of spells and to the Goblin Market. But she’s taking it all far too fast and Holly has no Great Uncle Aloysius to guide her. And although our Courtney finds her company compelling, she is older and wiser these days and something to her seems ‘off’. She’s going to wish she’d trusted her instincts.

SLH

Buy Courtney Crumrin #1 the old-fashioned way by visiting our Goblin Market Street, casting the spell of email alteration page45@page45.com or pressing the arcane glyphs 0115 9508045 and intoning politely.

Secret #1 (2-75, Image) by Jonathan Hickman & Ryan Bodenheim.

Brutal, industrial, back-door espionage that begins with a break-in and a certain extraction. Continues with extortion which will result in a quite different extraction, then far more break-ins as a direct result. Extortion, extraction, it’s just a distraction.

That’s one way to drum up trade.

Just buy it, it’s brilliant: a series with teeth. In more ways than one. Let’s eat!

SLH

Buy Secret by your powers of persuasion on 0115 9508045, page45@page45.com or visit and just look at us funny.

The Secret Service #1 (£2-25, Millarworld/Icon/Marvel) by Mark Millar & Dave Gibbons.

“Anything new on the kidnappings?”
“Nothing we can figure out. That’s six cast members from the Star Wars films, four from Doctor Who, eight from Battlestar Galactica and five from Star Trek.”
“The originals of the JJ Abrams version?”
“Oh, the originals, of course. But Lady Hunt and I watched the new one on pay-per-view last weekend, and I have to say I was very impressed. I resisted the idea of a remake at first, but the chap playing the doctor was practically channelling DeForrest Kelly.”

Ha! That’s the first thing I ever say about that version too!

This is James Bond with a substantial twist: Jack London is not a public schoolboy. His sister and nephew live in Peckham, southLondon, and they are all kinds of disasters waiting to happen. The father’s a paranoid, violent thug encouraging his young son to roll up his doobies, and that nephew may well object – and be brave enough to voice his objection and stick up for his mum – but he’s out joyriding and about to get nicked yet again, relying on Uncle Jack’s get-out-of-jail-free card. NeitherLondon nor Millar mince their words, and I’m all for that. Let’s “press the issue”, shall we? Plenty of well reasoned abuse on all sides, except for the dad. Thing is, they all think Uncle Jack works for the Fraud Squad, but one of them is about to find out otherwise.

With art by WATCHMEN and indeed WATCHING THE WATCHMEN’s Dave Gibbons, it’s a classy affair with a superb piece of early misdirection which plays with the traditional James Bond opening to perfection. Guest-stars Star Wars’ Mark Hamill.

Buy The Secret Service #1 and read the Page 45 review by looking above, then report for debriefing on 0115 9508045 or page45@page45.com

America’s Got Powers #1 (£2-25, Image) by Jonathan Ross & Bryan Hitch.

A) My favourite superhero artist of all time, THE ULTIMATES’ Bryan Hitch.
B) Yes, that Jonathan Ross, but on infinitely better form than TURF.
C) Double-sized issue for £2-25
D) Very well structured.
E) Something to say.
F) Funny.

This is spectacular stuff set in San Francisco seventeen years after a giant blue stone lands there, and every pregnant mother within a five mile radius successfully gives birth. No matter how pregnant, they all give birth at exactly the same time. To children with gifts. With powers. Every single one. Except Tommy Watts, brother to Bobby, the boy who burned out on TV. See, there’s a TV show now called America’s Got Powers which is a bit like Gladiators but without the – which is exactly like Gladiators: preposterous posturing, rabid crowds, and the biggest star is the biggest dick! So anyway, Bobby Watts won all his battles but it cost him too much and he died.

Which was absolutely fantastic for ratings!

Reacting accordingly, the producers of the new season ofAmerica’s Got Powers have lifted all limits on the level of violence permissible! The mechanical Paladins will be bigger and operating at maximum force, and the combatants can use all that they’ve got. Of course, there may be some military motivation behind the rule changes that nobody’s thought about…

There’s so much merely hinted at so far: the San Francisco Power Riots that prompted the development of these TV tournaments in order to channel the children’s attention and give them a controlled outlet for their potentially destructive gifts; the military’s beef with the project’s head scientist Professor Syell; and Syell’s latest discovery which sounds ominous. Anyway, I can assure you it’s all going to go to hell in a helicarrier.

Some of the best bits, even visually, are set high above the stadium (which I note is adjacent to Alcatraz); also in the cash-cow gift shops of the super-mall surrounding the arena, which sounds odd when one considers Hitch’s gift for hyper-dynamic fist-fights which are totally stunning here, but I’ve always loved his architecture, his everyday faces and civilian clothing. Oh, there are no masks: good. Not necessary. 

Jonathan Ross has relaxed and really thought this through: the timing is excellent from the 8-page introduction right through to the punchline right at the bottom of the panel. The chirpy commentators’ blithe blood-thirstiness as combat goes disastrously wrong is perfect and far from overplayed – the key being “blithe”, oblivious to their own crass, crowd-pleasing cretinicity and indifference to everyone’s health and safety including innocent bystanders. Tommy is spontaneously iconoclastic without being a relentlessly rebellious smart-arse and – given the reputation of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury– I love that the teenagers who received their gifts from that big blue stone are called “Stoners”.

Gentle reminder: £2-25 for full-colour, double-sized quality. Have you bought it yet?

SLH

Surrender to Stephen’s outrageous huckstering and half-arsed neologisms by grabbing that phone and hammering 0115 9508045 or emailing page45@page45.com NOW!

Batman Incorporated h/c (£22-50, DC) by Grant Morrison & Chris Burnham, Yanick Paquette, Michael Lacombe, Scott Clark, Cameron Stewart, Dave Beaty.

“You heard the rumour the Dark Knight has become a kind of God?”
”He’s only a man. Let him build his army. We are ready for war are we not?”
“The first 500 are in place. Each trained to imitate the actions of a virus. Infiltrate. Contaminate. Destroy.”

Following directly on from BATMAN & ROBIN VOL 3 at the end of which Bruce Wayne returns, summons his cohorts and declares war on crime financially, internationally and technologically, this substantial, oversized hardcover reprints the entire first series of BATMAN INCORPORATED including its climax, the LEVIATHAN STRIKES one-shot.

Grant has weaved an enormously dense and complex tale in this worldwide saga taking inAfrica,Argentina,Australia,ParisandJapan. Old allies in the Batman family reaffirm their allegiance; others have their faith sorely tested; and new ones are recruited all around the globe. The plan is to be everywhere at once. But all the while Batman knows he’s not the only hunter, for the great beast called Leviathan, with its multitude of fiercely cunning killers, has its eyes set on world domination and settling one particularly personal score. Over and over again, it’s strike and counter strike on both sides as each army attempts to pre-empt the other.

It kicks off in seriously old-school fashion with giant robot rats and the first of so many increasingly ingenious death traps as Bruce hires Selina Kyle to slink alongside him and burgle a criminal mastermind. Then it’s on to Japan to find and train a new Batman but the man he’s set his sights on is dead, his hands and face melted away by nitro-hydrochloric acid by Lord Death Man, a sadist in a skeletal Halloween costume who seems one step ahead of everyone including the boy who escaped him earlier. Maybe Batman will have to settle for a Japanese Robin. You know, if Catwoman survives the giant, carnivorous octopus!

I love the way Grant threads each climax through with teasers for next issue. Thankfully they’re all still here. Never seen it done quite like that before and it works like a dream.

My favourite sequence, though, is the attack on the internet which is, let’s face it, the frontier so many criminals have now set their sights. Bruce Wayne’s scientists have developed Internet 3.0 a virtual version of most major business cities of the world in mind-boggling detail. He and his investors are admiring it from within. Suddenly they’re assaulted by malware, a zombie virus in the form of cadaverous avatars smashing through the virtual pane glass windows, armed to their skeletal hilts. But wait until you see Batman Incorporated’s anti-viral software!

“I’m scanning for a signature, but it’s polymorphic. And there should be a mutation engine somewhere to make all this work, but I haven’t found it yet. All I know is somebody brought the engine through my firewalls. Which means one of your investors is a Trojan Horse… and we need to test the system. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

It climaxes with two final chapters, the first following one of Batman’s many minions to girls’ school where it’s all a bit MORNING GLORIES, a control cult of mass indoctrination training and supplying spy girls to whoever can afford them – which is just where Leviathan wants them. Your master of secret ceremonies is a chip off the old block, but which tree he fell from I will leave you to discover yourselves. The second chapter takes no prisoners at all – well, except two Batmen and both Robins in the labyrinth of Doctor Dedalus – as Grant Morrison puts them and indeed you through the disorientating ringer with much misdirection before Bruce finally figures it all out. Uh oh! I promise you, when the true identity of Leviathan is finally revealed, it all makes perfect sense.

The book features a superb set of artists including Chris Burnham doing a fine impression of Frank Quitely, while Scott Clark with Dave Beatty on the virtual reality chapter will dazzle your eyeballs for daze. There are pages of preliminary sketches in the back along with a guide by Grant Morrison just in case you lost track of things the first time round and want to go back with hindsight and new set of clues.

“We take our memories for granted, never imagining the day must come when they, too, will walk out on us, one by one, like the lovers and friends we never truly appreciated until we are alone.”

Now there’s a frightening thought. I can already see my memories waving good-bye from here.

SLH

Buy Batman Incorporated h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Saga Of The Swamp Thing vol 1 s/c (£14-99, Vertigo) by Alan Moore & Steve R. Bissette, John Totleben.

Exceptional piece from Jonathan here, only so far down because it’s a reproduction of his hardcover review. But that was ages ago, so enjoy!

“It’s raining in Washington tonight. Plump, warm summer rain that covers the sidewalk with leopard spots. Downtown, elderly ladies carry their houseplants out to set them on their fire escapes as if they were infirm relatives or boy kings.”

The new softcover version of the first part of the classic Alan Moore reworking of the SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING, during which DC finally gained enough balls to take the shameful self-censoring Comic Code Authority Seal Of Approval stamp off the cover of one their titles for the first time, and fully let loose the monster that is Alan Moore’s imagination on its readers. To be fair, you have to give due credit to whoever made that decision at DC, because it certainly helped in beginning to change corporate comics at the time.

For me, Moore’s run on SWAMP THING is some of his finest storytelling ever as he takes over a previously peripheral DC character and creates a wondrous, beguiling and captivating story that is truly mammoth in its vision and scope, so vast it’s impossible to summarise everything it encompasses. It is truly worthy of the description ‘epic’, a saga indeed. True to the original Len Wein origins of the character, there are some genuine moments of real horror which are very unnerving and very uncomfortable stuff to read, with potentially nightmare-inducing artwork. But there are also moments of genuine tenderness, as a very unlikely inter-species romance unfolds between the Swamp Thing and Abby Cable. We are transported along utterly, emotionally and spiritually, with this entity that is on a quest like no other to understand his place and at times simply survive, in a very confused and unforgiving universe.

In short, the writing is everything you would expect ofMoore. From excursions to the very depths of hell, the heights of heaven and the myriad realms in-between. Reaching down to the ancient roots of the earth and the forgotten, timeless elementals that dwell there, to the void-filled outermost fringes of the universe where life exists but not as we could have ever imagined it. With metaphysical explorations of the very nature of insanity and enlightenment and the sometimes infinitesimally fine line that divides the two. The truly amazing thing is that all this takes place within the costumed mainstream DC universe and it just works perfectly. Yes, we get the obvious more mystical characters cropping up such as Boston Brand / Deadman, the Spectre, the Phantom Stranger etc. but we also see Swamp Thing go toGothamand take on an uber-fascistically depicted Batman (“You ever threaten my city again, I’ll kill you…”), and we also see him in Metropolis encountering an ignorant, almost arrogant Superman. We even see him encountering Adam Strange on the dying desiccated planetof Rann during his enforced off-world sojourn. Mind you, we also get plenty of madness with incestuous villains that just refuse to die and when they finally do confound the very demons of hell by being happy, underwater vampires, a cabal of South American tribal magicians with seriously ambitious plans to change the order of things through more than a few unwilling sacrifices, not to mention an island-sized technology-based alien life-form rapist drifting lonely in the vastness of interstellar space.

It’s just that when Moorechooses for the Swamp Thing’s path to intersect with those of the costumed characters he does it so seamlessly, always seen from the Swamp Thing’s perspective which has become ours so completely, that it works perfectly. Again and again we feel the sadness and confusion of a being who quite frankly would just like the world at large to leave him alone, but sadly – as is very much true for all of us – life just doesn’t unfold as smoothly as that, does it? And let us also not forget that we see the first appearance of a certain John Constantine, serene, dapper, cocksure and at his most arch and manipulative, indeed at the very top of his game. In fact Constantine is a very central character throughout the entire run once he has made his dramatic first entrance in volume three and anyone who has ever read HELLBLAZER and enjoyed it should not miss out on reading SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING. One of my favourite moments is at the end of one particular storyline as Swamp Thing and Constantine are stood by the side of a road preparing to part company and John is repeatedly teasing Swamp Thing about a great vegetable joke he’s got but it would be completely wasted on him due to his lack of humour. In the end the frustrated Swamp Thing is basically manipulated into asking him to tell the joke. John feeds him the opening line whilst Swamp Thing’s back is turned (“How do you baffle a vegetable?”) and when Swamp Thing turns in exasperation having answered that he doesn’t know and received no reply, Constantine has simply vanished into thin air.

Masterful stuff and a neat example of the counterpoint humourMooreincorporates to the horror and seriousness which lightly punctuates and delicately seasons his writing to perfection.

This first new softcover edition includes the very first Moore issue which was never included in the original softback collection simply because it actually concludes a story started by Marty Pasko who himself put together a very creditable 19-issue run and established many of the minor characters used throughout the Saga by Moore and later Rick Veitch. Then we get Moore’s start proper, his reboot origin tale for Swamp Thing told very cleverly and obliquely within another story featuring a most obscure DC villain, Jason Woodrue the Fluoronic Man, who inadvertently awakens to the underlying consciousness connecting all plant life on the planetand promptly goes mad. We also get a most amusing cameo from a very baffled and helpless JSA which neatly sets the tone for the disdainful and delightfully dismissive manner in whichMooretreats the super-heroes whenever and wherever they crop up throughout his entire run. This collection concludes with a disturbing horror story wherein Jason Blood and his alter-ego, the rhyming Demon Etrigan, are tracking down a very, very unpleasant fear demon which has recently moved into the Louisiana Bayou.

I personally can’t recommend SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING highly enough. If you like horror writing, you’ll love it. And If you liked intelligent explorations of topics such as heaven and hell, enlightenment, the nature of reality and relationships as only Alan Moore can in works like PROMETHEA, you’ll love it too. The SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING is definitely an oft-overlooked part of his canon that deserves much more praise.

As to the art: as orgasmic as it is organic. And it is set in a swamp…

Buy Saga Of The Swamp Thing vol 1 s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Daredevil: Season One h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Antony Johnston & Wellinton Alves.

“Well. I didn’t see that coming.”

Another of Marvel’s original Season One graphic novels taking you back to each character’s earliest days, this one written by WASTELAND’s and THE COLDEST CITY’s Antony Johnston.

Here blind defence lawyer Matthew Murdock is still leaping around in his black and yellow costume wondering why his foes are so far from afraid of him. Closer to home, and Matt’s fallen in love with secretary Karen Page. He’s about to mention it to business partner Foggy Nelson when Foggy pre-empts him: he’s going to ask Karen to marry him. Which is awkward.

All of which has been firmly established in Marvel history. What’s new is a distraught Father Samuel Mullen, Matt Murdock’s Catholic priest, turning up at their office. City Hall claims the lease on St. Finnians will expire next year, and it’s going to evict them. That lease should be good for another twenty years but the original documentation’s gone missing. Meanwhile Councilman William Doyle – who’s on the Land Board himself – is campaigning for mayor on a ticket that involves freeing up land for lucrative property development. A little bit obvious, wouldn’t you say? Ah, but no. It’s far more complicated than that, because the lease isn’t the only paperwork missing…

X-MEN: SEASON ONE drawn by Jamie McKelvie was particularly beautiful. Here too the art is clean and shiny. Shame about their impenetrably stodgy covers, then.

SLH

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

Essential Avengers vol 8 (£14-99, Marvel) by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie & George Perez, Dave Wenzel, John Byrne and more.

Prime old-school AVENGERS boasting one of my all-time favourite AVENGERS covers, recoloured to perfection, as Henry Peter Gyrich – who will go on to be a thorn in the X-Men’s side – dictates to everyone assembled round the coffee table exactly who will be the new members. Trust me, it doesn’t go down well. And it really is a very full house at that point for this black and white monster package incorporates THE KORVAC SAGA which required every extant Avenger bar the Hulk.

Prior to that it also includes the sequence in which Count Nefaria, currently appearing in Brian Michael Bendis’ MOON KNIGHT, first sends off for the Charles Atlas programme, and Hank Pym’s oedipal offspring, the robot Ultron, creates a lady friend for himself using the brain patterns of his ‘mother’, the Wasp, just as he used the brain patterns of Wonderman when he created the Vision. Wonderman himself in his original gaudy costume is having doubts about his courage/manhood (doesn’t get any better in his new, red-leather-jacket edition), Ms. Marvel arrives, and Thor struggles with memory loss as that KORVAC SAGA subplot kicks in as the Avengers, both here and abroad, start blinking out of existence one by one.

Visually what’s interesting is seeing what difference an inker makes to John Byrne’s art. Pablo Marcos fleshes it out with sinew, Gene Day stays true while adding texture, while Klaus Janson goes for a whole new moody approach. I like all three.

Collects AVENGERS #164-184, Annual #7-8, and MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE Annual #2.

SLH

Buy Essential Avengers vol 8 and read the Page 45 review here

A Game Of Thrones vol 1 h/c (£14-99, Harper) by George R.R. Martin, Daniel Abraham & Tommy Patterson.

Surely this is going to sell itself?

Good, because I know nothing whatsoever about this or what it’s based on. Feel free to write your own review.

SLH

Buy A Game Of Thrones vol 1 h/c and read the Page 45 review here

 

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy

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

The Shark King h/c (£9-99, Toon Books) by R. Kikuo Johnson

Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland h/c (£16-50, Top Shelf) by Harvey Pekar & Joseph Remnant

H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror (£13-50, IDW) by H.P. Lovecraft, Joe R. Lansdale, Robert Weinberg & Peter Bergting, menton3

Krazy & Ignatz 1922-1924: At Last My Drim Of Life Has Come True (£18-99, Fantagraphics) by George Herriman

Cinderella vol 2: Fables Are Forever (£10-99, Vertigo) by Chris Roberson & Shawn McManus

Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief (Graphic Novel) (£9-99, Puffin) by Rick Riodan, Robert Venditti & Attila Futaki

Abe Sapien vol 2: The Devil Does Jest And Other Stories (£13-50, Dark Horse) by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi & Patric Reynolds, Peter Snejberg, James Harren

BPRD Plague Of Frogs vol 1 h/c (£25-99, Dark Horse) by Mike Mignola & Guy Davis and many others

BPRD Plague Of Frogs vol 2 h/c (£25-99, Dark Horse) by Mike Mignola & John Arcudi, Guy Davis and many others

American Gods UK edition (£8-99, Headline Review) by Neil Gaiman

True Blood vol 2: Tainted Love h/c (£18-99, IDW) by Marc Andreyko, Michael McMillan & Joe Corroney

Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War (Complete) (£22-50, DC) by Geoff Johns, Dave Gibbons, Peter J Tomasi & Ivan Reis, Ethan Van Sciver, Patrick Gleason, Angel Unzeta

Batman: Venom (£10-99, DC) by Dennis J. O’Neil & Trevor Von Eeden, Russel Braun

Six Guns (£10-99, Marvel) by Andy Diggle &  David Gianfelice

Wolverine And The X-Men h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Jason Aaron & Chris Bachalo

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man vol 4: Death Of Spider-Man s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Mark Bagley

Red Hulk: Hulk Of Arabia (£10-99, Marvel) by Jeff Parker & Patch Zircher

Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force / The Deep h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Rob Williams, Cullen Bunn & Simone Bianchi, Lee Garbett

Cross Game vol 7 VIZBIG Edition (£10-99, Viz) by Mitsuru Adachi

Dorohedoro vol 6 (£9-99, Viz) by Q Hayashida

Katsuya Terada’s The Monkey King vol 2 (£12-99, Dark Horse) by Katsuya Terada

Gantz vol 22 (£9-99, Dark Horse) by Hiroya Oku

 
r.e. The Lizz Lunney greeting cards reviewed above: today someone literally did ask, “By the way, do you sell greetings cards?” He bought this one, about knitting your own beard.

 I don’t think Mark would have approved!

 - Stephen

For me this is a contender for the best ‘metaphysical’ work Morrison has ever done, simply because he stays on theme – albeit of the hypersigilic variety – and doesn’t go over the top. Well, only just past the event horizon by his standards.

- Jonathan on Flex Mentallo by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely

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

From the creator of ECHO and STRANGERS IN PARADISE.

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 of the first chapter is masterful, the resurrection through dried chunks of clay so evidently arduous. And then those stricken eyes – the irises bright, the whites blood-red from asphyxiation – as Rachel rises in her short black dress and 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 occurred on Tuesday night. It’s now Friday evening.

“You’re not Rachel.”

This was by far my favourite new series of 2011. I can’t recall the last time I read a first issue this self-assured let alone this beautiful. I’m mesmerised. Just look at these haunting pages: http://www.terrymooreart.com/?p=1833.

That’s not Rachel, but the first woman above, a catalyst for death who’s now shadowing Rachel whilst corrupting the innocent, turning love into hatred and the town of Manson into a mass graveyard. Well, it already is – look to the past. Nothing good can come from a town called Manson.

So far this series hasn’t been about Rachel’s death but her life: the current state of her unnatural existence. We know she’s been strangled as well as asphyxiated – not only does she bear the scars but she’s been coughing up rope – but we don’t know by whom. Given recent events the perpetrator might not even remember they did it, let alone have been responsible for their actions; and that opens up a whole new set of awful possibilities.

As always with Terry the cast are predominantly women. There’s a young girl called Zoe orbiting the central narrative very much against her own will, and Rachel’s best friend since childhood, a mechanic and guitarist called Jet. Best of all, though, there’s androgynous Aunt Johnny, a mortician working well into the night and quite used to the company of corpses.

“Johnny, what’s wrong with me?”
“You’re dead, honey. Get the butter for me, will you?”
“Uh…”
“In the fridge. Grab the milk, too.”
“Okay, you just said I’m dead.”
“Yep.”
“… So I’m in heaven?”
“No, you’re in the kitchen, dear. You wanna check the fridge? Butter… milk?”

A pragmatist to the end and seemingly unflappable, even Aunt Johnny is in for some rude awakenings. In fact, it’s the wakenings one worries about most. It’s not just Rachel who’s rising. Killer cliffhanger.

SLH

Buy Rachel Rising vol 1: The Shadow Of Death and read the Page 45 review here

Please God, Find Me A Husband! h/c (14-99, Jonathan Cape) by Simone Lia.

Your prayers have been answered! From the creator of FLUFFY, one of our all-time favourite graphic novels, comes an autobiographical episode in which Simone, recently dumped by email, begins to fret at still being single aged thirty-three, asks God if he can fix it for her to find a husband, then dances with Him to INXS. This is Simone Lia we’re talking about, after all. Quickly she comes to the conclusion that what she really needs is “an adventure with God” which she plans and lays out to Him, in a room down the hall:

“Okay, so I like the idea of hazards and excitement. That sounds great. I was thinking that perhaps we could go to the outback somewhere in Australia. We’ll visit a religious hermit in a remote location. And then I thought it would be good if I have a near-death experience. It would be an interesting near-death experience. Probably involving animals, dangerous ones.”

God’s expression at this point is a picture. He surreptitiously swipes Simone’s best laid plans to inspect the details… and presumably check that He’s in them.

“Then at some point I meet a gorgeous man. We fall in love. No, he falls in love with me. I’m unsure about him but he manages to woo me. Let me write that bit down. At this point we’ll probably be in Sydney. This will give us a chance to go to some trendy parties. Then I suppose I have to go back. I’ll be here and he’ll be there. We won’t be able to see each other – that’s not good. Why is life so complicated? Maybe you can sort something out so that we can be together. A little miracle would be lovely, please.
“Anyway – I’ll leave this with you to mull over. I’ll get googling for hermits.”

“With hindsight,” writes Simone, “I wish that I’d waited to hear what God thought, what His plans were for me. I’d not heard of the expression: If you want to make God laugh, show him your plans.”

Sure enough God has a good old chuckle. And a sigh.

What follows is indeed an adventure with God which eventually lands her in Australia with a friend where she meets a real hermit – and a man! – but I’ve no intention of revealing how that goes down. It begins, however, in a far more contemplative manner at The Society Of Our Lady Of The Trinity community in Wales. Population: four. There she and her friend Sister Mary visit sick parishioners, reflect on the Gospel together and back at the community they meditate on the charity of Christ. Well that’s the idea, but Simone swiftly slips into meditating instead on an email from her publisher questioning a book’s ‘commercial potential’ – and then descends into brooding on her own abject worthlessness. Even during the act of Adoration, kneeling in front of the Blessed Sacraments, Simone is prone to distraction and wonders if the two weeks are working for her. They are working for her, splendidly, but before the gain there comes that aphoristic pain.

“I became aware of internal wars raging. Painful memories. Fear and hurts buried in my heart. Unlikely triggers allowed feelings to surface in unexpected and spectacular fashion.”

Tellingly, it’s a child’s teddy-bear mug inscribed with “I love you” and the break-down is immediate, tearful but ultimately cathartic.

Gradually Lia learns to relax in the tranquility of the retreat and begins to achieve a genuine sense of peace and perspective. That sense of silence is beautifully evoked in the art which opens up into quiet, sparsely populated panels in the same cool blues that pervade the book, adding their own gentle serenity, then warmed with the odd spot of flesh tones. Indeed those scenes in the kitchen and chapel are in marked contrast with the London commuters crossly cramped together and often glaring at each other with extreme irritation or even mild malevolence. Life in the city, eh?

I love everything about this book. Simone has softened then slayed the cynic in me, and I came away enormously impressed and respectful of her own love of God which never prevents her unique brand of fanciful mischief bubbling playfully to the surface. It’s honest, very honest, and I would imagine that regardless of its religious content – and sometimes because of it – a lot of the territory covered here about self-love, self-doubt and even being left on the shelf will be so very familiar to many. Also, the trauma of constantly rowing parents, from a scene in which Simone as an adult revisits her younger self and remembers how it once was:

“I’ve turned into a block of concrete, Jesus. I feel so sad here. I want to cry. I can’t start crying here. There’s too much inside. I’ll hold it in, I don’t want to disturb anyone.”

Very affecting.

So has God found Simone Lia a husband? I’m not telling you, but you can be sure she’ll be asked that forevermore. Even pre-publication it’s started as evidenced by this Twitter exchange between us after I remarked that one particular panel – coloured as it was and set in the morning kitchen – could be called ‘Blue Nun for Breakfast’.

“Ha ha. My builders have just knocked on my door to ask if I’ve found a husband. They were in the kitchen reading the book! The builder was laughing at a picture of the nun falling off her chair, then the chair that HE was sitting on broke. Was that the wrath of God?”

“No,” I replied, “if it had been the WRATH of God, you’d never have had to buy rock salt AGAIN. You would, however, have needed to find a new builder.”

“Ha ha. New builder and a MUCH bigger salt pot! I think probably I gave him too many hob-nobs with his tea this morning.”

She probably did, too.

SLH

Buy Please God, Find Me A Husband! h/c and read the Page 45 review here.

Flex Mentallo, Man Of Muscle Mystery h/c (£16-99, Vertigo) by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely…

“You look lost son. Need any help?”
“I’m looking for a friend. His name was The Fact. He was a crimefighter.”
“What is this place? This used to be the School For Sidekicks until they closed us down.”
“If they closed the school, why are you here, old-timer? I hope you don’t mind my asking, but who exactly are you anyway?”
“Me? I’m the mightiest man in the Universe, son. Got a secret origin too. I saw the old man in the underpass, thought he was ill. People were just passing by but I gave him some money… In return for my kindness, he gave me a crossword puzzle to fill in. Said I should speak aloud the last word I wrote down. He claimed it was the word God said: the word that brought the Universe and consciousness into being. So I tried it. What boy wouldn’t? Didn’t ever see the old man again. Sometimes I think he was my own future self.”
“But why are you here? If you’ve got all those powers you can help me save the world.”
“It’s just people who need saving. The world’s fine as it is.”

Part of the thematic hypersigil trilogy (apparently, according to Grant) along with THE INVISIBLES and THE FILTH, this work was never collected at the time, but I remember picking up the four issues when they came out circa 1996 and enjoying them immensely. Ostensibly it’s the story of Flex Mentallo, Man Of Muscle Mystery and all-round hero of the beach. Those who’ve read DOOM PATROL will be familiar with, and probably fond of, the character already, but here he’s the undoubted star of the show. Or is he? Is he even real in fact? As in what appears to be our real world, a failed pop star Wallace Sage (again, familiar to readers of DOOM PATROL) is in the process of committing suicide by overdosing on alcohol, pills, LSD and ecstasy. Not surprisingly he’s having a trippy time of it as he rambles on to the Samaritans over the phone about his childhood memories of comicbook heroes, including his own comics he used to draw as a kid and a certain leotard-clad strongman. There’s a connection between the two stories and worlds, if you will, which becomes gradually more apparent as the stories progress. For Flex Mentallo, meanwhile, there’s a case to solve, as he investigates where the ultimate superteam, The Legion Of Legions, have disappeared to. Have these creations really abandoned Flex’s world? Or is it just somehow possible that whilst they are of course fictional, they are also somehow real and are going to return and save us all?

The real beauty of this absurdist nonsensical work is it all does make complete perfect sense in the end. I actually remember being profoundly moved by the pay-off when I first read it, probably not least in part due to a certain paradigm shift that had happened inside my own mind just a few months beforehand, and the whole thing certainly hasn’t lost any of its grandeur or impact over time. For me this is a contender for the best ‘metaphysical’ work Morrison has ever done, simply because he stays on theme – albeit of the hypersigilic variety – and doesn’t go over the top. Well, only just past the event horizon by his standards. By sensibly restricting himself to working on a set number of story-telling levels, the overall coherence is sufficiently maintained in a way that unfortunately disappeared at times in THE INVISIBLES. Indeed, I would go so far as to say FLEX MENTALLO is most definitely a work of genius, and should be on everyone’s ‘to read’ list. If you have a friend who says superhero comics are all complete and utter rubbish, this may well be the one book which will prove him right… and change his mind…

Plus, the art is quite simply pure Quitely perfection. Try saying that ten times quickly! He was clearly having an absolute ball bringing to life some of the crazy creations Morrison came up with for this work like Origami The Folding Man, which made me chuckle then, and did so once again this time around. And his rendering of the Charles Atlas pastiche that is Flex instantly evokes the classic adverts from ‘70s DC comics showing how you too could go from a pot-bellied wimp to a dynamite-encrusted bicep-laden Adonis in a mere handful of weeks. If you stopped reading comics and got off your arse for long enough to get down the gym that is…

Finally I’ll leave you where I found you, with the crossword puzzle mentioned above, which I think has to be one of the finest pieces of misdirection ever in comics.

14 Across: A mystic word imparted by God that has the power to transform a small boy into a superhero. SHA_A_

JR

Buy Flex Mentallo, Man Of Muscle Mystery h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Sharknife Stage Second: Double Z (a bargain at £8-99, Oni Press) by Corey Lewis ~

Twice the size and at least five times the action, the sequel to SHARKNIFE: STAGE FIRST delivers in true videogame sequel style. Throwing even more of everything at you, DOUBLE Z expands theArcade universe with origin stories, more characters, and an actual point to the relentless fighting. So kick back and relish in the combo hits.

Ceaser Hallelujah is a cool-headed bus boy at Guangdong Factory, the world-famous five-storey restaurant, which faces constant attack from his rival Ombra Ravenga’s weird monsters. Luckily Ceaser is just one fortune cookie from transforming into Sharknife, his half-ninja half-shark alter ego. With nearly 100 monsters under his belt, Sharknife is due to level-up, but Ombra has designs on the raw power unleashed when Sharknife evolves into his Double Z state.

But how on earth did a half-ninja half-shark come to be? Learn the shocking possible truth as Ceaser’s crush, Chieko, dreams of that fateful day years ago when her father built Guangdong Factory using just his chi. Emerging from the shiny new establishment came a monster eel which tried to eat her Peeps (li’l chicks), and it would have succeeded if Jaga the Shark King hadn’t arisen also with a challenge for the young Ceaser and his buddy Enta Dadragon, the winner of which would become protector of the best restaurant in the world.

This is a world apart from Corey’s first volume (some seven years back, and back in print along side this) which suffered from its tiny size, as the art needed to be printed in a larger format, but Corey’s style has changed considerably since then. He manages to delicately balance a potentially chaotic infusion of action while remaining clean, clear, and infused with video-game logic.

TR

Buy Sharknife Stage Second: Double Z and read the Page 45 review here

Pandemonium (£14-99, Humanoids) by Christophe Bec & Stefano Raffaele…

“Hey, PSST!… My name’s Louis… So you’re sick too?”
“Yes, I caught tuberculosis.”
“Then you’re going to die.”
“You’re a liar! Why do you say that?”
“It’s true! I’m no liar! It’s not me who said it. It was George… He says thousands of people have died here already.”
“And this George who said it, how does he know?”
“You’ll see for yourself. He only speaks to kids, and he says some terrible things… he says that the sanatorium is the antechamber of death.”

They’re a cheery little double act, George and Louis, aren’t they? Just what you need to entertain you if you’re a small girl whose been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Now in 1951, six years after the discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic, your chances of surviving TB should actually be pretty good, except of course if you’re being treated in a remote sanatorium that is steadfastly persisting is using antiquated medical procedures. Which is precisely the unfortunate position Cora finds herself in. Oh dear…

On the face of it, given that her own mother, who has accompanied her to the sanatorium to work as a nurse and pay for her daughter’s treatment, made a successful recovery from TB in that very hospital as a child herself, it appears to bode well for Cora, but it quickly becomes apparent to us that patient mortality at Waverly Hills isn’t necessarily something some of the medical staff are too concerned with. Not as long as they get chance to continue their own experiments, that is, be that electro-convulsive shocks, trepanation or other macabre surgical procedures.

True, genuine horror, with just the teeniest amounts of gore to unsettle and unnerve in the right places, from writer Christophe SANCTUM Bec that plays out rather like The Shining as the spookiness and sanity-twisting shenanigans are oh so gradually ratcheted up. Cora’s mother meanwhile is beginning to suspect something is amiss (finally!) but is it going to be too late to save her own daughter? Fine euro-style art from Stefano Raffaele too to produce yet another excellent work on the Humanoids imprint.

JR

Buy Pandemonium and read the Page 45 review here

The Year Of Loving Dangerously (£13-99, NBM) by Ted Rall & & Pablo G. Callejo.

Homeless, penniless and perfectly prepared to have sex for shelter. Maybe a sandwich for the road, if possible.

Autobiography from the renowned satirist and creator of SILK ROAD TO RUIN and TO AFGHANISTAN AND BACK, and a quietly attractive if basic artist who reminded me of a more accomplished Judd Winnick. In fact I think this’ll go down very well with the many of you who’ve enjoyed PEDRO AND ME. I certainly couldn’t put it down, and if ever you find a large wart appearing overnight, I think you’ll be seeking immediate medical attention.

That’s what happened to Ted: he found one on his chest, the root grew down into his aorta and popped like a cork. Blood all over the place. Illness led to absence which led to being kicked out of college – it was a particularly ruthless college. Fired from his last job because someone else had stolen a bicycle and diverted attention to Rall, he was also up to his eyeballs in student-loan debt. Refusing to take the crap that would have come with falling back on his mother, he found himself the unexpected object of female attention in a diner whilst eating his last dollar’s worth of pizza, and so started down a road leading to a daily game of musical beds, a certain degree of mild deception and a mystifying range of female hair products. Fascinating in terms of human nature and a very different side of New York at ground level. His friend Chris was a right prick, and yes, in danger of dragging Ted down with him.

SLH

Buy The Year Of Loving Dangerously and read the Page 45 review here

The Wolf Man: Graphic Freud (£14-99, SelfMadeHero) by Richard Appignanesi & Slawa Harasymowicz.

“The aim of analysis is modest. To turn neurotic misery into common unhappiness.”

Not something you tell your patient before you begin!

Brave but unfortunately unsuccessful stab at adapting From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis, also known as The Wolf Man, a case study first published by Sigmund Freud in 1918, eight years after he began treating Sergei Pankejeff for what he considered obsessional neurosis stemming from some pretty dark and evidently traumatic encounters in Sergei’s past. And if Freud is to be believed they resulted in some seriously fucked-up, repressed, sadomasochistic sexual desires towards both his mother and his father. Particularly his father. Modern opinion, I’ve read, favours the diagnosis of borderline pathology. I’m no expert but that seems right to me!

The wolves in question were white in the night and sitting on a walnut tree, staring at Sergei in his dreams. Visually, that’s most the impressive part of this adaptation, but I knew we were in trouble by the very third page when Freud’s floating head found itself pasted artificially above Sergei’s country mansion estate like Jack Kirby used to on Marvel Comics covers. On the covers, mind. It returns five pages later – the exact same head. That’s but one symptom; the real malady here is the composition. It’s extraordinary how cramped some of these pages are considering how little is depicted and written on each page, with some panels’ contents cropped quite unnecessarily when a far better balance would have afforded much greater clarity. It is, in short, an ugly, ill-proportioned mess in such heavy graphite you expect it to rub off on your fingers. In all fairness, however, the script itself doesn’t make it easy on the artist. Here Sergei tells Sigmund about this sister Anna’s death:

Sergei: “Anna went to stay at our Aunt Xenia’s estate in the Caucus in the Summer of 1905.”
Anna: “Adieu, Sergei. Don’t forget me.”
Sergei thinks: “Why so sad?”
Sergei: “Some weeks later, we heard that Anna had shot herself.”
Sergei thinks: “This is the result of repressing her femininity.”
Sergei’s Dad: “Your mother is still in Italy. She won’t receive the news in time for the funeral.”
Freud: “You felt no grief.”
Sergei: “What for? Now I was sole heir to my father’s fortune.”

It’s all so forced, so jumbled and I winced once more when the thought bubbles crept in, not just at their very inclusion, but in this instance their baffling contents. Maybe it’s intentionally bleak give the contents of Freud’s findings and the path of Sergei’s own life depicted well past Freud’s first therapy sessions which, parenthetically, don’t seem to have worked as Sergei develops both chronic hypochondria and a catalogue psychosomatic illnesses whilst sponging off Freud (whom he deceives) after his vast fortune’s whipped away in the wake of the Russian Revolution. Something he then blames on Freud.

So don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to have read this. I found the subject matter fascinating with its castration complexes et al, though I am a bit of a sceptic when it comes to stretched connections like these, when Sergei recalls being panicked by a striped yellow butterfly.

“The way a butterfly moves its wings… like a woman opening her legs. And it forms the Roman number V, the hour of my depression.”

Honestly, I just think he was startled. There’s a great deal of peeing and also some pooing, very early sex with his sister, a craving for parental attention and an unhealthy desire towards mutilation. Depression is a very real and terrible illness which should be taken very seriously indeed. But in Sergei’s case, and in Freud’s place, I’d have been inclined to just tell Sergei he was a deeply unpleasant man and have done with him.

SLH

Buy The Wolf Man: Graphic Freud and read the Page 45 review here

Crazy Hair s/c (£5-99, Bloomsbury) by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean.

An exquisite nonsense poem set to pictures by Dave McKean. Well, it’s not really nonsense if you’ve big hair and run out of conditioner: it’s more of a diary. I’m sorry if you’ve an infestation of birds, beasts and relatives snuggled up in your enveloping locks and the BBC has declared an expedition is in order. That’s exactly what happens here.

“Twisting tangling Trails and loops,
Treasure chests And pirate sloops,
These await The ones who dare
Navigate my crazy hair.”

A great little children’s book or indeed a fully fledged art book, for McKean is on top form, sizing and swirling the verse as he sees fit.

SLH

Buy Crazy Hair s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Joe Golem And The Drowning City h/c (£19-50, St. Martin’s Press) by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden.

100 illustrations from Mike Mignola himself, and a beautiful, spot-varnished cover. The same team’s Baltimoresold 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 ‘Drowning City’. 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.”

SLH

Buy Joe Golem And The Drowning City h/c and read the Page 45 review here

 

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy

Here we go, then: reviews already online if their new formats. Otherwise the most interesting will come under the miscroscope next week,while  the rest will remain with their Diamond previews acting in lieu of reviews.

 

League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier s/c (£14-9, Knockabout) by Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill.

The Celestial Bibendum (£24-99, Knockabout) by Nicola de Crécy.

Courtney Crumrin vol 1: The Night Things h/c (£14-99, Oni) by Ted Naifeh

BPRD Plague Of Frogs vol 3 h/c (£25-99, Dark Horse) by Mike Mignola & John Arcudi, Guy Davis

Gloaming h/c (£14-99, Pocko) by Keaton Henson

Brody’s Ghost vol 3 (£4-99, Dark Horse) by Mark Crilley

The Curse Of The Masking Tape Mummy: A Collection Of Basic Instructions (£10-99,) by Scott Meyer

Severed h/c (£18-99, Image) by Scott Snyder, Scott Tuft & Attila Futaki

genetiks [I] (£14-99, Archaia) by Richard Marazano & Jean-Michael Ponzio

A Game Of Thrones vol 1 h/c (£14-99, Harper) by George R.R. Martin, Daniel Abraham & Tommy Patterson

Dollhouse: Epitaphs (£13-99, Dark Horse) by Andrew Chambliss, Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon & Cliff Richards

Charmed vol 3 (£11-99, Zenescope) by Paul Ruditis & Dean Kotz, Tess Fowler

Batman Incorporated h/c (£22-50, DC) by Grant Morrison & Chris Burnham, Yanick Paquette, Michael Lacombe, Scott Clark, Cameron Stewart, Dave Beaty

Hitman vol 6: For Tomorrow (£22-50, DC) by Garth Ennis & John McCrea

Batman: No Man’s Land vol 2 (New Ed’n) (£22-50, DC) by Dennis J. O’Neil, Greg Rucka, Scott Beatty, Kelly Puckett, Chuck Dixon, John Ostrander & Mike Deodata Jr., Damion Scott, Andy Kuhn, Staz Johnson, Roger Robinson, Scott McDaniel, Dan Jurgens, Jim Balent and more

Punisher Max: Homeless h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Jason Aaron & Steve Dillon

Essential Avengers vol 8 (£14-99, Marvel) by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie & George Perez, Dave Wenzel, John Byrne and more

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

X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga s/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Chris Claremont & John Byrne

X-Men Legacy: Lost Legions s/c (£12-99, Marvel) by Mike Carey & Khoi Pham

Itazura Na Kiss vol 8 (£12-99, DMP) by Kaoru Tada

Magic Knight Rayearth vol 2 (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Clamp

Pandora Hearts vol 9 (£8-99, Yen) by Jun Mochizuki

 

Before someone becomes a monster, what were they? How did they become something so beyond the comprehension of most normal people without anyone apparently noticing?

 - Jonathan on Dahmer, written and drawn by one of Dahmer’s classmates.

 

It’s book of bad decisions. Awful impulses acted on, and then immediately regretted. People lost, lonely, isolated and alienated, out of step with their times and under so much pressure in Japan of the 1960s where, as Tatsumi tells line editor Adrian Tomine, “Economic development was considered more important than the way people actually lived their lives”.

 - Stephen on Abandon The Old In Tokyo.

 

Gone To Amerikay h/c (£18-99, Vertigo) by Derek McCullough & Colleen Doran, Jose Villarrubia…

“What’s that song, that one where you start off singing way up high, Johnny?”
“The Road From Ballycrovane.”
“Oh yes, yes, that’s it. I like how you start way up high, then Brian comes in lower, then you go down lower still… the way you go down on each other, it’s marvellous.”

Which is made all the more amusing given that Johnny and Brian are indeed lovers, for a time at least, and the panel in question is hilariously illustrated as Johnny is having to physically stifle Brian’s laughter with a hand over his mouth as Johnny’s unsuspecting landlady heads into the kitchen to fetch them their dinner. GONE TO AMERIKAY is an exceptional work, both in terms of the storytelling (well, that should be stories plural, I suppose, given that we have three interrelated tales all set in New York told from differing time periods of 1870, 1960 and 2010), but also in terms of the art which may well be the finest I’ve seen from Colleen Doran to date.

The overall story – part-historical fiction, part-detective story, and indeed even a little bit of spooky stuff thrown in for good measure – is gently unravelled for us using the conceit of Lewis Healy, an Irish billionaire who wants to find out more about the music that so enchanted him as a child. And thus we find out more about the life of one Johnny McCormack, a Galwaylad who arrives in the Big Apple in 1960 dreaming of bright lights and a singing career. He’s well versed in Irish folk songs and one in particular tells the story of a Ciara O’Dwyer, an Irish immigrant who arrived in the slums of 1870’sNew Yorkwith her young child, expecting her husband to follow after her shortly. But when her husband never arrives Ciara is forced to face the harsh realities of her new life alone.

I’m loath to give anything more away about the stories, actually, as there is a real joy in following the complex thread of the narrative and finding out more about the lives and circumstances of our various protagonists and sundry secondary but equally important characters. Derek McCullough manages to give this work such intimate depth and real emotional content that many supposedly worthy prose works struggle to achieve, and the weaving backwards and forwards in time to seamlessly tease out each plotline, making the connections between the three time periods gradually more apparent is so, so deftly done. Plus, as you can tell from the quote above, there’s certainly plenty of bawdy humour too. And then in perfect harmony – much like Brian and Johnny! – with the writing, is the art. The beautifully clean lines perfectly capture the privations and misery of 1870’s slum life whilst simultaneously dramatising the up-and-coming bohemian bustle of the Greenwich Village social scene of 1960. This is a fabulous work and I do just hope it doesn’t fall flat like some other Vertigo attempts to present their readers with something completely different have done before. That would be a real shame, as this is a mini-masterpiece.

JR

Buy Gone To Amerikay h/c and read the Page 45 review here

After We Shot The Grizzly (£6-00) by The Handsome Family & Dan Berry.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful: each and every page of this book is a compositional joy.

There’s some fiercely expressive cartooning in thrillingly tight, dark pencil and luxurious, black cherry washes as our not-so-merry men set about sabotaging their own expedition when they descend into Darwinian Hell. Whether doomed, albatross-like, by the titular crime, by the series of initial catastrophes or by their own subsequent, survival-of-the-fittest free-for-all, doomed they most certainly are. Although can I just waft in a comparison to Jordan Crane’s LAST LONELY SATURDAY while you’ll be unaware of its context? Thank you. Wonderful book.

The words are taken from The Handsome Family’s song of the same name, butBerryhasn’t simply illustrated each of the lyrics’ lines; he’s inferred extra narrative angles, apposite to each. That’s why I say each of these panels tells a story in its own right: for such a short read it makes for a long, lingering gaze.

Not only that, but the production values are gorgeous. Printed on thick watercolour stock throughout with an even tougher cover, it’s exactly what printed comics need to be in the age of the digital download: objets d’art you want to have and to hold forever.

And if all that wasn’t enough (and it really, really is), Dan has kindly signed and sketched in every one of our copies – elaborately so! Each sketch is completely different, and in watercolour or ink wash. I’d be bloody quick about it, if I were you.

SLH

Buy After We Shot The Grizzly and read the Page 45 review here

Cat Island (£6-00) by Dan Berry.

Signed and sketched in for free! Cat sketches: you want!

Dan Berry does love his production value: thick, silky smooth stock this time, showcasing a fine pen line and glowing, autumnal colours. There are trees and leaves galore in this suburban battle for territorial supremacy between one feather-ruffled man with a freshly cleaned car and his muddy-pawed moggie. You know who’s going to win, right? But wait; add to the domestic drama a newborn baby with its routine-wrecking demands and anything could happen. Anyone who’s ever had a baby will roll their eyes with recognition.

“As far as anybody could tell, the baby had three modes: 1. Crying because she was tired. 2. Crying because she had pooped. 3. Crying.”

Really, I think our Jonathan should have been reviewing this.

So what exactly is the CatIsland? Nope, no clues, but fans of Jeffrey Brown’s CAT GETTING OUT OF A BAG AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS and CATS ARE WEIRD AND MORE OBSERVATIONS will instantly fall for Dan’s lithe, leaf-chasing and occasionally petulant puss who obviously steals the show, while its insouciance put me in mind of Lizz Lunney. Superb, silent punchline that will have you roaring with laughter.

SLH

Buy Cat Island and read the Page 45 review here

Abandon The Old In Tokyo s/c (£12-99, D&Q) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi.

“Excuse me. I seem to have lost my way.”

Rarely have I found a quote more apposite to kick off a review.

It’s book of bad decisions. Awful impulses acted on, and then immediately regretted. People lost, lonely, isolated and alienated, out of step with their times and under so much pressure in Japan of the 1960s where, as Tatsumi tells line editor Adrian Tomine, “Economic development was considered more important than the way people actually lived their lives”. In lieu of actual conversations, so often the male protagonists remain silent while they’re being talking at by their mothers, girlfriends or co-workers. People feeling dragged down and trapped…

And over and over again things are thrown away. Not just worn-out yet still serviceable household objects, but marriages, people and pets. There’s a scene in a zoo involving monkeys which you simply will not believe. Also, jobs are lost, limbs are lost and businesses go under. Sex is far from celebrated, either, but an object of obsession or revulsion. It’s pretty dark but far from bleak, such is the beguiling quality of each short narrative; I don’t think comparisons with Eisner are out of order. Occasionally an element of horror creeps in, but even then it’s in service to the thematic content summed up beautifully here:

“Please help me… I fell down this hole… I can’t get out.”

We also have new softcover editions of THE PUSH MAN AND OTHER STORIES and GOOD-BYE as reviewed by Tom. I don’t know why we never got around to reviewing ABANDON THE OLD IN TOKYO before. It begins with a man on the toilet; it ends with a man down the sewers.

SLH

Buy Abandon The Old In Tokyo s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Dororo: The Omnibus Edition (£18-99, Vertical) by Osamu Tezuka ~

Supernatural fantasy set during the “Warring States Period” (5th Century BC).

Daigo Kagemitsu, a Samurai aspiring for total dominance overJapanoffers parts of his unborn child to 48 demons for the realisation of his selfish dream. Discarding the “deficient” newborn into a river, Daigo soon forgets about his terrible acts. But somehow the boy survives. Calling himself Hyakkimaru he roams the country looking for the 48 demons and his missing body parts, aided by incredible prosthetics, telepathic powers (as he has yet to find his eyes/ears/mouth) and an irritating boy-thief named Dororo who wants the blade hidden in Hyakkimaru’s arm.

Not quite as epic or deep as BUDDHA or PHOENIX, this is nonetheless excellent Tezuka and the relationship between Hyakkimaru being a man physically in pieces and Dororo, a boy whose mind is in a similar state, is fascinating.

TR

Buy Dororo: The Omnibus Edition and read the Page 45 review here

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

“How are you this month, Chief Inspector?”
“Very well.”
“Do you require any dental attention?”
“I had them filed back the week before last.”
“Good, good. So… have you been having any tendencies?”

Haha! Aristocrats are vampires and the lower classes are all mindless 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 comes a series featuring fick Laaandan accents and the first reference to the scavenging Mudlarks I’ve seen since… well, since I acted in a version of the film’s screenplay. Completely forgotten about that.

London 1910, and quite what happened during the hinted-at war to turn the aristocracy Young and the proletariat Restless, we don’t yet know, but whole zones are barricaded off to keep out the ravenous riff-raff, and quite right too. Unfortunately Chief Inspector George Suttle has had a break-in, and lost one member of his household staff to a curiously pin-striped zombie with another bitten and in danger of turning. To save her, Suttle takes Louisa to receive the Cure while he receives a booster of blood himself.

Meanwhile overnight a body has washed up on the banks of the Thames. Or, more specifically, it’s been dumped on the mud right in front of the Houses of Parliament and the Albert Memorial Tower. Is someone making a statement, do you think? The body is male, naked, had his right hand chopped off and in his mid-forties. Well, he might be, or he might not. Because he’s recently had his teeth filed too.

“That’s not possible, Chief Inspector. For a fatal case, there are none of the three causes present: impalement of the heart, decapitation, incineration. None of them.”
“Quite so. I didn’t say I could explain it, Doctor. But somehow, someone has managed to murder that which was not alive.”

Abnett has packed so much in to this seemingly simple package. Even the reference to The Young And The Restless TV show with its mixed financial fortunes works perfectly. I’ve no idea if I’ve caught something salient in the pin-stripped, three-piece suit or whether I’ve thrown you a red herring. Certainly there are political stirrings like the Zone-B union protestors. For those familiar with Ian Culbard’s work, you’re in for a bit of a surprise: his lines here are far slimmer and crisper than usual and that works rather well for this particular project. His tour de force, however, is George’s bedridden mother, whose hooded eyes and pursed lips in one silent panel of what-on-earth-does-that-matter disdain are an absolute scream. It’s my single favourite Culbard moment so far.

“My breakfast is inordinately overdue, George.”
“I’m sorry, mother. There was an incident below stairs this morning.”

Cue silent panel.

“I am quite beside myself with hunger. I think I may perish.”
“I don’t think you’ll ever perish, mother.”

SLH

Buy The New Deadwardians #1 by telegraphing page45@page45.com, sounding the horn on 0115 9508045 or just shambling in off the streets. Current copies at the time of typing are all signed by Ian himself.

My Friend Dahmer (£11-99, Abrams) by Derf Backderf…

“Derf! It’s me! It’s going nuts in the newsroom! There’s a big story breaking.”
“Yeah? Whassup.”
“This guy in Wisconsin killed a bunch of people! He had sex with the corpses… and ate some of them!! Derf, this guy went to Revere! He was in your class!!”
“What!?! Who!?!”
“Well… who do you think it was? Guess!”
“Figg!!”
“Um… no, that isn’t it…”
“Dahmer!”
“Yes! Dahmer! Yeah, that’s the guy!”

That’s right… Dahmer was my second guess…

Before someone becomes a monster, what were they? How did they become something so beyond the comprehension of most normal people without anyone apparently noticing? In retrospect, were there warning signs that were ignored by authority figures like parents and teachers? And by their friends? Written and illustrated by a classmate of Dahmer’s who was probably the closest thing he actually had to a friend in high school, this work certainly sheds some light on the peculiar teenage years of the boy who would go on to become America’s most infamous mass murderer, but also leaves several questions hanging rather disturbingly unanswered. And indeed perhaps makes you realise they are in the end utterly unanswerable, even to Dahmer himself.

Certainly in the interrogations after his arrest Dahmer was at somewhat of a loss to understand how his life had taken the course it had, whilst also displaying some not inconsiderable regret for his victims. But as to whether it was nature or nurture that him made into a sociopath, that isn’t immediately apparent, and perhaps in the end, for Dahmer at least, it almost certainly was a combination of the two. Even from early adolescence his sexual urges included the desire to have sex with corpses, and the lack of virtually any parental engagement, positive or otherwise, meant he was left to grapple with his very considerable inner demons entirely alone.

His social network at high school consisted of those, like the author, who were prepared to tolerate his social awkwardness, which often manifested itself in bizarre mannerisms or verbal absurdities that became known as Dahmerisms and were much copied and repeated as colloquialisms by the author and his friends. In fact Dahmer became almost something of a mascot to them, and whilst not exactly wholly part of their social circle he certainly wasn’t excluded.

It was only as Dahmer’s demons began to take a deeper and deeper hold and he resorted to drinking massive quantities of alcohol daily, presumably to numb himself and keep his urges in check, that he began to drift away from the author and his friends completely. They were aware of his drinking, but just put it down to Dahmer’s incredibly difficult living situation with his warring parents, including his most definitely mentally ill mother. But perhaps because they were also subconsciously aware that there was something just not quite right with him, they never made any effort to reach out to him or offer help. Astonishingly his teachers seem to have been completely unaware of any of what was going on.

This work is the perfect combination of truly fascinating biography of the teenage Dahmer, combined with the unique autobiographical perspective of the creator, whose own insight into the troubled teen makes for uncomfortably gripping reading. The final revelation that the last time the author or any of his friends saw Dahmer, the body of his first victim was probably in the boot of his car that he was driving the particular friend home in, is disconcerting to say the least! Derfbacker’s art style, possibly influenced by Robert Crumb a little, may not be to everyone’s taste, but I actually thought it helped to get me in the appropriate ‘70s highschool state of mind. (Actually, Crumb provides the pull quote on the front cover, so perhaps the observation regarding artistic influence is justified.)

JR

Buy My Friend Dahmer and read the Page 45 review here

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

Bang, bang, bang. Science fiction at its swiftest.

Like Ellis’ own GLOBAL FREQUENCY this contains six self-contained bursts of frantic covert activity which rely not one jot on any previous knowledge of this series or who these people are.

As drawn by MOON KNIGHT’s Alex Maleev, the time-travel episode starring the 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. I think there may be one crucial panel missing – or at least a button that needed pressing on camera – but still…

It’s all gone catastrophically wrong: against overwhelming odds and some seriously high-tech weaponry, the Secret Avengers have failed. Sharon Carter, Steve Rogers and War Machine are dead. Reluctantly the Black Widow retreats – five years into the past – taking with her a responsive time-travelling device seemingly designed to tease her to death with hints about what she can and can’t do. What she cannot do is materialise behind the bad guys three minutes before she left with a bloody big gun.

“The flow of time must be preserved.”

What she can do is use her knowledge of the past to her maximum advantage and change time in such a way that it appears not to have changed at all… to fill in the gaps, as it were, with what she wants to happen. It is, as I say, ridiculously clever, right down to where the Shadow Council originally sourced their high-tech weaponry from. It’s all so self-fulfilling, Natasha cleaning up after herself beautifully. On top of that there’s a stand-out sequence of three-panel daily syndicated newspaper strips called ‘The Black Widow’ designed to look time-aged and repurposed with new captions in the word balloons just as Natasha herself is “repurposing” history.

In addition, Michael Lark provides some magnificent city snow scenes in Symakaria (borders on Latveria, Serbia and Transylvania, geographical fact fans) with the sort of rough textures we all loved in GOTHAM CENTRAL, while at the other end of the spectrum Jamie McKelvie (PHONOGRAM, SUBURBAN GLAMOUR, X-MEN: SEASON ONE) delivers a subterranean, futuristic cityscape on a breathtaking scale with the clairest of lignes imaginable.

Warning: the cover looks nothing like this. Which is a shame.

SLH

Buy Secret Avengers vol 3: Run The Mission, Don’t Get Seen, Save The World h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Marvel Masterworks: Avengers vol 4 (£18-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas & Don Heck.

“Beware of the man who sets you against your neighbour!”
“For, whenever the deadly poison of bigotry touches us, the flame of freedom will burn a little dimmer.”

Bravo! In 1966 Stan Lee took a brief break from his stream-of-sexism to tackle racism, and did so with commendable directness and fairly robust language. In AVENGERS #32 and 33 he introduced the Sons Of The Serpent, Marvel’s version of the Ku Klux Klan, seen here spitting their white supremacist venom to a crowd which laps it up:

“Our enemies must know we will show them no mercy! As the original serpent drove Adam and Eve from Eden… so shall we drive all foreigners from the land!”

Err… really, it didn’t: that was God. But then these are racists, so of course they’re stupid. Instead the serpent poisoned the mind of innocents – and with that double whammy we’ll notch the scene up to a Serendipitous Stan. Coming back to the commendable directness there’s another scene in which the hate-mongering tosspots set about ethnically cleansing a section of the city by beating the living crap out of a man while successfully intimidating neighbours into doing absolutely nothing:

“We warned you not to move into this neighbourhood!”
“But it’s a free country! I’m a law-abiding citizen! You have no right –“
“You dare speak to us of rights? You – who were not even born here!”

Up above:

“Henry! What’s the commotion outside the window?”
“It’s the Sons Of  The Serpent! They’ve cornered Mr. Gonzales! We – we have to do something –!”
“No! Come away from there! It’s dangerous to get involved! It’s none of our business!”

Well, isn’t that so often the way? Lest some of his readers learn the wrong lesson (bear in mind a lot of them were young and impressionable), Stan takes a moment to emphatically sneer at the couple’s cowardice:

“Thus we take our leave of Henry and his wife – two less-than-admirable citizens who feared to get “involved”…”

Again, bravo! This is, after all, a book about getting “involved” – that’s what the Avengers do – and they’re not slow off the mark voicing their own disgust after Goliath catches the racists attacking Bill Foster outside his lab. I think that may be the first appearance of Bill Foster (he went on to become Goliath himself), and it’s certainly Steve Rogers’ first trip to the S.H.I.E.L.D. H.Q. buried under a barber shop. This is also the era when Hercules signs up as an Avenger and the Black Widow signs up to S.H.I.E.L.D. having spectacularly failed to win a place with the Avengers. Meanwhile Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch have lost their powers but Stan The Man has lost none of his way with women. The Wasp speaks last:

“If you wish to see Captain America alive once more, you are to follow these instructions to the letter! You will report to the next meeting of the Sons Of The Serpent, at the following address – “
“They can bet on it – we’ll be there!”
“I’d like to see someone try to keep me away!”
“Oh dear! I haven’t a thing to wear!”

*sigh*

SLH

Buy Marvel Masterworks: Avengers vol 4 and read the Page 45 review here

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

From the creators of SUPERIOR, one of my favourite books by Mark Millar to date, comes a news series that will eventually be set in Spain. And if the architecture on the front cover is anything to go by, I cannot wait until they get there! Want to see what I mean? It’s right at the top of this illustrated Mark Millar interview.

Yes, it’s all a bit Ocean’s Eleven, isn’t it? Deliberately so! Imagine trying to run a casino in world of telepaths and precogs.

Five years ago Johnny Bolt was busted. Again. With four of his similarly empowered mates he’d attempted a diamond heist but was dispatched by the Patriot in, oh, about seven seconds. Five years on, he’s finally out but his fiancée’s no longer speaking to him. Why? That jewellery store robbery Johnny fucked up was pulled on the morning of they were supposed to get married. It’s only when their old friend Carmine collapses in front of them owing one hundred million bucks to a casino he’d tried to fleece that Kasey reluctantly relents and takes them both in. Now, to help Carmine, they’re going to do something both incredibly stupid and really quite smart. Johnny’s going to call in the old gang to pull off the biggest job of their careers. It’s incredibly stupid because, well, look at Johnny’s track record:New York City is with superheroes. But Spain? Not so much.

Way too early to give you much more than that, but you don’t often see this sort of thing from the supercrooks’ side, do you? I’m looking forward to the strategy sessions.

SLH

Buy Supercrooks #1 by emailing page45@page45.com or phoning 0115 9508045.

Axe Cop vol 3 (£10-99, Dark Horse) by Malachai Nicolle & Ethan Nicolle.

“All right. I’m inside the mouse’s imagination. It’s full of unicorns and cheese.”

Of course it is.

Hyperactive crime and punishment as dreamed up by a seven-year-old and meted out by a cop in a cat suit (occasionally). Guess what his weapon of choice is? In addition to Dinosaur Soldier, this time there guest-stars galore include Army Chihuahua, but there are emphatically no girls allowed:

“Sorry, no girls allowed on my team. Girls are not good fighters.”

They are, in fact, all on The Dumb List. Of course it’s sexist: it’s written by a seven-year-old boy! Well, most of it, because this time the proceedings are fleshed out by ‘Ask Axe Cop’, a feature in which internet readers pose soul-searching questions or demand the floor plans to Axe Cop’s secret headquarters (it’s very well defended), and the best single page here is in fact written by a five-year-old called Nicholas. It’s in answer to the question, “What would you be if you weren’t an axe cop?” and almost every single sentence is priceless.

“I would be a ninja. I would have a sword instead of knives because swords aren’t sharp. I would get my degree fromTikiBeach, the best ninja school in the country. Octobie is the first bad guy I would steal from [he steals his pants]. I would solve world peace by spying on people… mainly girls. The way to spy on people is by punching them into the air. I would make three dollars.”

That’s it, beginning to end. There’s a Christmas-coloured special in green and red, Vikings, pirates, rocket ships, dating tips, and radical solutions for housing the homeless. Also, an AXE COP spin-off pitch by UBU BUBU’s Jamie Smart. For details on how this is all actually created, please see AXE COP VOLUME 1. Dismissed.

SLH

Buy Axe Cop vol 3 and read the Page 45 review here

 

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy

Reviews to follow or already up. You can check by clicking on whichever you’re curious about: all the titles have been linked to their relevant product pages.

 

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

Flex Mentallo, Man Of Muscle Mystery h/c (£16-99, Vertigo) by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely

Thank Goodness For Herald Owlett #1 Ver 2.0 (£4-99) by Nicola Stuart

Thank Goodness For Herald Owlett #3 (£4-99) by Nicola Stuart

Fragile Things s/c (£8-99, Headline) by Neil Gaiman

M Is For Magic s/c (£6-99,Bloomsbury) by Neil Gaiman

Crazy Hair s/c (£5-99,Bloomsbury) by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean

Joe Golem And The Drowning City h/c (£19-50,St. Martin’s Press) by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden

Saga Of The Swamp Thing vol 1 s/c (£14-99, Vertigo) by Alan Moore & Steve R. Bissette, John Totleben

The Wolf Man: Graphic Freud (£14-99, SelfMadeHero) by Richard Appignanesi & Slawa Harasymowicz

Pandemonium (£14-99, Humanoids) by Christophe Bec & Stefano Raffaele

30 Days Of Night: The Beginning Of The End vol 1 (£13-50, IDW) by Steve Niles & Sam Kieth

Farscape vol 7: The War For The Uncharted Territories Part One s/c (£9-99, Boom!) by Rocke S. O’Bannon, Keith R.A. Candido & Will Sliney

Star Wars: The Old Republic vol 3: The Lost Suns (£9-99, Titan) by various

Batman: Gotham Shall Be Judged s/c (£14-99, DC) by David Hine, Fabian Nicieza, Peter Calloway & Cliff Richards, Guillem March, Freddie Williams II, Andres Guinaldo, Lorenzo Ruggiero, Walden Wong

John Carter: A Princess Of Mars (Digest) (£10-99, Marvel) by Roger Langridge & Filipe Andrade

Shattered Heroes h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Jeph Loeb, David Lapham, Chris Yost, Fred Van Lente, Brian Michael Bendis & Butch Guice, Adam Kubert, Salvador Larocca and many more

Ultimate Comics Ultimates vol 1 s/c (UK Ed’n) (£12-99, Marvel) by Jonathan Hickman & Esad Ribic

Spider-Man: The Return Of Anti-Venom s/c (£11-99, Marvel) by Dan Slott & Giuseppe Camuncoli, Ryan Stegman, Humberto Ramos

Rin-Ne vol 8 (£6-99, Viz) by Rumiko Takahashi

Bleach: Masked (£9-99, Viz) by Tite Kubo

Spice & Wolf vol 6 (£9-99, Yen) by Isuna Hasekura & Keito Koume

The Drops Of God vol 3 (£10-99, Vertical) by Tadashi Agi & Shu Okimoto

GTO: 14 Days In Shonan vol 2 (£8-50, Vertical) by Toru Fujisawa
There will be new SCOTT PILGRIM colour hardcovers. Bigger, better and beautifully coloured. Reserve yours NOW!

Also: Malley talks about his career to date here.

Right, I’m off to meditate on the legend that is Bryan Talbot in preparation for my interview on camera tomorrow for the Talbot DVD. Pants-wettingly terrified, thanks for asking.

- Stephen

The exceptional Page 45 feature written by the Nottingham Post’s Lynette Pinchess is now up online! Click on that sentence to read, and if you enjoy it, please, please spread the word by twitter or email or Facebook. Or even carrier pigeon! Thanks. I could not be happier!

The Lovecraft Anthology vol 2 (£14-99, Self Made Hero) by Jamie Delano, Chris Lackey, David Camus, Dwight L. MacPherson, Chad Filfer, Pat Mills, Benjamin Dickson, Simon Spurrier, Dan Lockwood & Steve Pugh, Adrian Salmon, Nicolas Fructus, Paul Peart-Smith, Bryan Baugh, Attila Futaki, Mick McMahon, Matt Timson, Warwick Johnson Cadwell…

“That is not dead which can eternal lie.”

Which obviously means my darling tornado of a daughter who turns one on Sunday isn’t planning on giving me a much needed lie-in until I’m six feet under…

Or it could be the bold Lovecraft legend on the shiny rare bookplates that will be included free for the first few lucky purchasers of this second volume of eldritch horror at Page 45. Get yours whilst sanity – I mean stocks – last!

After the monster (ho ho) success of LOVECRAFT ANTHOLOGY VOLUME ONE publishers SelfMadeHero have rightly wasted no time in getting out a second compilation of creepy, sanity-testing tales penned by the great man himself, and adapted by a whole host of luminescent luminaries such as Jamie Delano, Pat Mills and Si Spurrier. As before a completely different art style is employed on each story by an extremely talented and stylistically eclectic set of artists. Actually, the first thing that strikes you before you’ve even opened the book are the four tiny bits of spot-vanish which form two pairs of glowing eyes looking out of two cadaverous beings shambling along a rather scary looking street. They really do seem to follow you around the room, which serves to get you in just the right frame of spooky haunted house mind before you begin reading. The stories themselves will all be familiar to Lovecraft devotees, but whether you’ve read the original prose or not, you will find every single one of these adaptations disturbing, one or two them extremely so due to the art. Perfect for anyone looking for some pure spine-tingling period horror.

JR

Buy The Lovecraft Anthology vol 2 and read the Page 45 review here

The Intrepid Escape Goat vol 1: The Curse Of The Buddha’s Tooth (£9-99, Th3rd World Studios) by Brian Smith.

“Where are you taking me? Who was that man? Where are the dancers? And the fire jugglers? You better not have wrinkled my dress! Where’s the feast? I’m starving! This is the worst ceremony ever!”

Poor Princess Isis! She’s just been rudely awakened – from her pyramid tomb in Egypt, thousands of years after she last took a breath and way before they invented ice cream! Caught in a conflict between debonair, world-famous escapologist Thomas Fleet and his faithless assistant Fassad, Miss mini-myth is going to waste no time at all catching up with such modern delights as the Knickerbocker Glory and letting her elders-but-not-betters know exactly what she thinks. She’s not just a diva, she’s a goddess!

But Thomas Fleet, the Intrepid Escape Goat (he is a goat; he is intrepid and escapes from all sorts of stuff), has more pressing concerns. Having fired Fassad, he is need of a new assistant for his public performances and Princess Isis fits the bill. Not only that but he’s been challenged by a newspaper to expose the mystical doings of a certain Sri Lankan Princess Jayani who’s offered to use her ancient Buddha’s Tooth to discover the whereabouts of the royal Windsor family fortune via (wait for it) the appliance of séance!

Can our doubting Thomas get over his own scepticism of no-nonsense, non-mechanical magic to reveal what’s really going on? Can little Isis stop scoffing seventy-five scoops of ice cream for five seconds and so pay attention? It’s pretty unlikely.

Yet another Young Adult graphic novel that has made me grin again, this full-colour fandango will go over so well with those who’ve loved books like ZITA THE SPACEGIRL because it’s artlessly exuberant and. Just. Good. Fun. Art included, it’s like a modern Scooby Doo with its supernatural crime-solving and occasional anthropomorphism. Fassad, for example, really is a snake – in the grass, Egyptian sand or otherwise. And if you think I’ve been too heavy on the puns myself, Brian Smith should stand up and also take half the blame: this entire book centres on a crime in which the The Intrepid Escape Goat is cast as… the scapegoat!

G’ahh!

SLH

Buy The Intrepid Escape Goat vol 1: The Curse Of The Buddha’s Tooth and read the Page 45 review here

The Red Tree (£7-99, Lothian) by Shaun Tan.

From the creator of THE ARRIVAL, Page 45’s Comicbook of the Month December 2007, this too will give you pause for thought, especially if you’re a young person lost in the world.

It’s not so much a story as a short evocation which is heralded by a McKean-like clock against a Van Gogh cornfield, letters leaking from its base as they do from the child’s megaphone on the previous page. Inside it’s leaves piling up on the girl’s bedroom floor before the surrealism really kicks in courtesy of an enormous coelacanth floating down the high street above her. It’s not the last of the leviathans to come crashing onto the pages, either.

“Darkness overcomes you… Nobody understands… The world is a deaf machine…”

Interpret it as you will. To me, with its padlocked windows it’s an exploration of bewilderment, helplessness and hopelessness – the struggles most of us face, when children, to understand our identity, our place in the world or even perceive our future. If you’re young and going through that at the moment, you have my deepest sympathy and empathy, but it isn’t hopeless, I promise you, as this book makes clear.

SLH

Buy The Red Tree and read the Page 45 review here

The Viewer (£7-99, Lothian) by Gary Crew & Shaun Tan.

Well it’s certainly a picture book driven by inventive and densely coded images as you’d expect from the creator of THE ARRIVAL, but I’m not sure I’d want children reading it for fear they’ll fall in. They’ll certainly never go near a View-Master again.

This is what young Tristan finds within an old box he salvages from a rubbish dump. That, and three discs. Instead of a “3-D” light show of a Thunderbirds episode, however, he is drawn into a chronicle of evolution, and a history of death, natural disaster and man-made violence as the discs update themselves overnight. But how were these images recorded, and if the discs seek to update themselves, who will be their next witness?

Like THE LOST THING and THE RABBITS, this is a book that will reward thought and attention to detail. If you read Shaun’s own comments on his website, you’ll be drawn to investigate yourself, but I suggest you do so late at night and on your second bottle of booze so that you forget most of the details and rediscover them for yourselves. They’re certainly there to find.

SLH

Buy The Viewer and read the Page 45 review here

Strangers In Paradise pocketbook vol 4 restocks (£13-50, Abstract Studios) by Terry Moore.

You don’t need yet another review of this, do you? You do?!

Okay: David loves Katchoo who loves Francine who probably does love Katchoo, though she’s going to marry Brad anyway. Isn’t she? Tambi wants David to impregnate Katchoo, but Katchoo doesn’t want David, so he may have to impregnate Tambi instead. Freddie was unfaithful to Francine, but can’t leave her alone; so Francine has three suitors and a mother but would rather they all left her alone. Oh, and guess who’s pregnant? Also: Casey is finally beginning to pick Katchoo up off the floor of rejection. But just because the past is a foreign place, it doesn’t mean it won’t cross borders, and someone should tell them both to look over their shoulders…

An awful lot happens in this big volume, and a lot that happens is awful. Will anything ever be the same? No, unlike most superhero series that pose that question, in this instance it won’t. Get your hankies out and prepare your heartstrings for another tough tug courtesy of one of the sweetest gentlemen on the planet.

For far more in-depth coverage of this extraordinary series, please see reviews of SiPPKT VOL 1 and VOL 2 and, oh yes, VOL 3.

SLH

Buy Strangers In Paradise pocketbook vol 4 and read the Page 45 review here

Elektra: Assassin h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Frank Miller & Bill Sienkiewicz –

Deadly but beautiful ninja action from 1987. Bill’s art begins to approach the wild invention of STRAY TOASTERS with lashings to photocopies, splayed paint, collage, stickers and time-saving short cuts. The first chapter alone seems to have given David Mack his current tortoise-like career. Frank’s splintered storyline uses multiple voices to give a sense of confusion in both the narrative and their own minds.

We begin with Elektra escaping from the asylum, controlling her memories and trying to keep the ninja training at the forefront. Throughout the book, this discipline is responsible for many great plot twists – mind-swapping, lightning-quick reflexes, mind-control, everyday objects used as weapons. There is a great beast looking to bring the destruction of the world by controlling the mind of the next president of the United Statesand Elektra must stop him. Although this was published by Epic, it references Miller’s earlier DAREDEVIL storyline but the only Marvel bleed-through we get to see is a big-gun-obsessed Nick Fury along with several disposable S.H.I.E.L.D operatives.

MAS

Buy Elektra: Assassin h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Ultimate Comics: X-Men vol 1 h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Nick Spencer & Paco Medina, Carlo Barberi.

“”The Tomorrow People.” Sounds great on a loop, doesn’t it? It sent a message that we were the future. We represented progress, evolutionary and otherwise. We were what comes next. But obviously there’s a problem with being the people of tomorrow… Tomorrow will never be today.”

The thought that’s been poured into this! Nick Spencer has made the political personal and the personal political, and thrown in fear, grief, religion and retribution. The only thing that’s emphatically missing is evolution, and that, for some, will make all the difference in the world.

In the wake of ULTIMATUM – the flood of nigh-Biblical proportions caused by Magneto’s tectonic temper tantrum – the American government, under the “apprehend or execute” statute, has made it legal to shoot on sight any mutant refusing to turn themselves in. Some like Storm and Colossus have already been interned in concentration camps where torture is rife. Others like Kitty Pryde (The Shroud), Bobby Drake (Iceman) and Johnny Storm (The Human Torch), reeling from the death of their friend Peter Parker in ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN VOL 4: DEATH OF SPIDER-MAN, have fled to the Morlock tunnels.

But now, everything changes. The public’s just learned that mutants, far from being the natural result of Darwinian evolution, are the direct, man-made result of experimental bio-engineering conducted and funded by the United States government in Canada.* In other words, the very existence of a man like Magneto who could drown entire cities is the U.S.government’s fault. So many loved ones were lost in the deluge, and America has exploded into mass protest and riots. But for Reverend William Stryker Jr it’s not just that he lost loved ones, it’s that the American government played God. They interfered with His Plan, and now both the government and the abominations they spawned must pay.

Now… that’s just the set-up. What actually happens is so far from obvious. Spencer has woven an astonishingly intricate yet elaborate tapestry from precisely placed, multiple threads which aren’t necessarily the colours they first appear. What exactly is Quicksilver – a known mutant terrorist – doing in the White House with the President’s ear? Why, after Rogue appears to have fallen off everyone’s radar, does she suddenly create such a spectacle of herself when she knows she’ll be hunted by death-dealing Nimrods? She says God told her to. Has she too found religion? The full picture reveals itself only gradually, but when it does – oh, the surprises!

There are some very neat touches like Stryker, haunted by his father, adopting the monk’s traditional past-time of self-flagellation. Talk about beating yourself up. Also, the smile-inducing  dialogue between Bobby and Johnny is full of pop culture references, but if you think it’s all rosy between those two and Kitty, well, these are bad times, they’re burning with grief and harsh words will be spoken. Not really surprising when you find yourself in a world where your very existence is illegal.

* See ULTIMATE ORIGINS for how, and ULTIMATE COMICS: DEATH OF SPIDER-MAN FALLOUT for the public revelation.

SLH

Buy Ultimate Comics: X-Men vol 1 h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Astonishing X-Men: Joss Whedon Ultimate Collection vol 2 (£22-50, Marvel) by Joss Whedon & John Cassaday.

Brilliant, beautiful and tremendously cruel. I had my doubts when Whedon was given Grant Morrison’s set-up to play with, but he grasped the baton, ran full-pelt and won gold medal by a visible distance. Helped in no small part by having a consistently impressive single artist rather than at-times barely readable companions on Morrison’s travels, Whedon delivered sharply timed reversal after reversal, of which there are several here, each of which confounded expectations he’d carefully set up with surprises which were equally well constructed when you went back and looked.

Features the single finest use of telepathy I’ve ever come across (one such reversal), and concludes with the biggest reversal of all. For as the series began Kitty Pryde was still mourning the death of her old flame, Peter Rasputin AKA Colossus. Now, having been resurrected by one of the Breakworld’s warriors to rid Earth of mutants in order to avert the doom prophesied to their own planet, and freed from his strange-metal prison by Kitty, Colossus learns that it is he who is forecast to destroy Breakworld: they have created the means of their own destruction. But at least he and Kitty can finally be together…

Yeah, right.

The complete second half of Whedon’s in a single volume.

SLH

Buy Astonishing X-Men: Joss Whedon Ultimate Collection vol 2 and read the Page 45 review here

Essential Hulk vol 3 new edition (£14-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas & Herbe Trimpe, Gil Kane.

“Hulk can lift buildings in the air… Smash thru solid steel! But the boy is dying… and Hulk can do nothing to save him! Hulk never felt so weak before… so helpless! Wait! The boy moves — groans — ! Then maybe it’s not too late — not yet! Maybe Hulk can save Jim — if he can just figure out what to do! Think, Hulk! No matter how hard it is… think!!”

See, if I were General Talbot Ross, I wouldn’t come after The Hulk with several squadrons of weapon-loaded stealth jets. I’d just set him quadratic equations.

Fortunately the Hulk has taken Jim to the shores of a lovely deep lake:

“WATER! Yes! Water is the answer — it has to be! Cool water always makes Hulk feel well again – strong again! Maybe it will do the same for Jim! It has to!”

Dear God, he’s going to drown him!

The Hulk’s a marvellous creation, a stupid version of Frankenstein’s monster – i.e. the one popularised by Boris Karloff rather than Mary Shelley’s version – unleashed in moments of rage with a vocabulary as limited as his powers of comprehension. Yet somehow he manages to understand words like “litter” when the General refers to a stretcher being lowered from a helicopter:

“Won’t you let me have a litter lowered for him — before it’s too late?”
“Ross want to cover Jim in bones, jam and rusty tiny cans?! How that help Jim?! That just Modern Art!”

No, of course he doesn’t say that. He says, “Yes — a litter! Maybe you can do — what Hulk can’t!”

And then they start shooting at him again. Poor, misunderstood child.

All the regulars are here in their primitive joy: The Leader, The Abomination (who has found himself on board an alien spaceship as first mate), The Rhino, The Sandman (who forces Betty Ross into a blood transfusion which transforms her into a glass statue which proceeds to wobble precariously each time The Hulk jumps at a plane), The Avengers, Hydra, Maximus, The Absorbing and The Glob. Ah, The Glob! Yet another muck creature your mother would kill you for bringing into the sitting room. Twenty-eight issues of numbnut nostalgia, admittedly in black and white, for just under fifteen quid. Hours of mirth, if you want to rewrite some of the dialogue and send it to your friends.

SLH

Buy Essential Hulk vol 3 and read the Page 45 review here

Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring The Flash s/c (£13-50, DC) by Scott Kolins, Adam Glass, Sean Ryan, Sterling Gates  & Scott Kolins, Joel Gomez, Rodney Buchemi, Ig Guara, Oliver Nome, Trevor Scott…

Wee bit of naughty titling from DC this one, as whilst it certainly features The Flash it doesn’t actually have any FLASH issues in. Although, to be fair, there weren’t any published during FLASHPOINT! Instead this collects the REVERSE FLASH, CITIZEN COLD, LEGION OF DOOM, GROOD OF WAR and KID FLASH LOST FLASHPOINT tie-ins. The Legion Of Doom is my pick of the bunch featuring various good guys and bad guys in their different FLASHPOINT incarnations, including a psychopathic Plastic Man, having a huge face-off inside prison. I did also enjoy the Citizen Cold mini which does a completely different heroic take on that character. The other stories were okay, though there was a much better Reverse Flash story told in the main Flash title a few months ago which involved the not so good Professor constantly fine-tuning his own origin story. Flash Fact: it was issue #8 for those of you who want to read it. Overall, probably the weakest of the FLASHPOINT supporting books.

JR

Buy Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring The Flash s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Green Lantern s/c (£13-50, DC) by Adam Schlagman, Jeff Lemire, Pornsak Pichetshote & Felipe Massafera, Robson Rocha, Joe Prado, Ibraim Roberson, Alex Massacci, Ig Guara, Marco Castiello, Ruy Jose, Vincenzo Acunzo…

What If Abin Sur didn’t die? Oh, wrong publisher. You get the idea anyway, as this book opens with a really fun FLASHPOINT mini that just completely goes for it and manages to be an alternate reality BLACKEST NIGHT tie-in as well! The other minis are a mixed bunch, the FRANKENSTEIN one is easily the best thing in the book, actually, but seeing as it’s written by Jeff SWEET TOOTH Lemire that’s no surprise and is worth picking this book up for on its own. (I’ve literally just noticed the cover quote states pretty much the same.) The other two minis are the stories of playboy Oliver Queen and pilot Hal Jordan, both of whom are not superheroes in this reality, but find themselves drawn into the conflict nonetheless, with rather differing outcomes.

JR

Buy Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Green Lantern s/c and read thePage 45review here

 

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy

Reviews to follow or already up. You can check by clicking on whichever you’re curious about: all the titles have been linked to their relevant product pages.

Cat Island (£6-00) by Dan Berry

After We Shot The Grizzly (£6-00) by The Handsome Family & Dan Berry

Sharknife: Stage First (£8-99, Oni) by Corey Lewis

Sharknife: Stage Second (£8-99, Oni) by Corey Lewis

Doctor Who series 2 vol 3: It Came From Outer Space (£14-99, IDW) by various

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?: Dust To Dust vol 1 (£7-50, Boom!) by Philip K. Dick, Chris Roberson & Robert Adler

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?: Dust To Dust vol 2 (£7-50, Boom!) by Philip K. Dick, Chris Roberson & Robert Adler

DMZ vol 11: Free States Rising (£14-99, Vertigo) by Brian Wood & Ricardo Burchielli, Shawn Martinbrough

Gone To Amerikay h/c (£18-99, Vertigo) by Derek McCulloch & Colleen Doran

My Friend Dahmer (£11-99, Abrams) by Derf Backderf

Star Wars: Jedi: The Dark Side vol 1 (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Scott Allie & Mahmud Asrar

Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Green Lantern s/c (£13-50, DC) by Adam Schlagman, Jeff Lemire, Pornsak Pichetshote & Felipe Massafera, Robson Rocha, Joe Prado, Ibraim Roberson, Alex Massacci, Ig Guara, Marco Castiello, Ruy Jose, Vincenzo Acunzo

Marvel Masterworks: Avengers vol 4 (£18-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas & Don Heck

Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man vol 1 s/c (UK Ed’n) (£12-99, Marvel) by Brian Michael Bendis & Sara Pichelli

Deadpool vol 8: Operation Annihilation s/c (£11-99, Marvel) by Daniel Way & Sheldon Vella, Bong Dazo

Secret Warriors vol 6: Wheels Within Wheels s/c (£10-99, Marvel) by Jonathan Hickman & Alessandro Vitti

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

Thunderbolts: The Great Escape s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Jeff Parker & Kev Walker, Declan Shalvey, Matthew Southworth

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service vol 12 (£8-99, Dark Horse) by Eiji Otsuka & Housui Yamazaki

Dororo: The Omnibus Edition (£18-99, Vertical) by Osamu Tezuka

Abandon The Old In Tokyo s/c (£12-99, D&Q) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Good-Bye s/c (£12-99, D&Q) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

The Push Man And Other Stories s/c (£12-99, D&Q) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi
All copies of Cat Island and After We Shot The Grizzly by Dan Berry have the most beautiful, individual sketches in them for free. Each one is different. Review to follow next week, but we may have fun out. Thank you, thank you, @thingsbydan!

 - Stephen

“This always reminds me of fishing – casting loose lines into a random sea, trying to hook something substantial. It’s surprising what sense can emerge from nonsense, and how the juxtaposition of odd images on a page can have a serendipitous effect, catching ideas that might otherwise be hidden by the waves.”

 - Shaun Tan on idle doodling. See The King Bird, below.

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

“Did you bring us anything, Dad?”
“Little Gudrun, I brought you the greatest gift of all. I brought you a story.”

Hear ye, hear ye! The best fantasy comic currently in town! And it’s funny!

Ignore the fact that it’s published by Marvel, in exactly the same fashion that SANDMAN came from DC. Exactly the same fashion. The comic’s a comedy. It’s also a blood-soaked high fantasy ripe with mystery and matured mythology. It’s a rollicking, full-blooded entertainment. It’s a battle of wits contested by a right royal cleverclogs, and written by another one too.

Its star is a Loki reborn as a boy with no memory of his former self, sponsored by Thor yet distrusted on all sides by those whose memory is all too vivid. He’s not interested in perpetrating evil, but the successful execution of a meticulously laid plan, acquiring leverage with cleverage in this case to save Asgard and Earth from the Asgardian Serpent. In the first half, FEAR ITSELF: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, young Loki gathered all his pieces in a manner which left us wondering what on earth they were all for. Here he moves them all into place, and when he finally makes his play I can promise you so many smiles of admiration both for the little tyke trickster and his author.

It’s written with a real love of language enriched with a singular wit, and when the dark lord Mephisto takes the stage, he frankly steals the show. Far from the two-dimensional soul-stealer of yore, this debonair devil (“I have the most luxuriant sideburns in all creation”) is a bon viveur with a penchant for power but also for pretzels. He’s an iconoclast who loves messing with minds and mocking the misfortunate from a position of relative impunity. Here he’s telling a barman about his trip to the Infinite Embassy created by Living Tribunal:

“They say that all realities’ Embassies are one and the same, and if you know the way you can emerge anywhere and anywhen. Which just proves that gods and demons are just as likely to make up myths about things they haven’t a clue about. But everyone agrees on one thing. You come in peace. Otherwise, the Living Tribunal gets a tad touchy… and, generally speaking, unless you want your existence privileges revoked, that’s a bad idea.”
“Is he… God?”
“Oh, you are just so cute. I could eat you up with a spoon. Maybe later… No, he’s not God. He’s just the biggest kid in all the playgrounds. And if he knows the principal, he’s not exactly chatty about it.”

It’s all about stories and storytelling. That is, after all, how Loki achieves his goals: spinning the right yarns to the right entities in exactly the right fashion. Volstagg’s tall stories told to his children are an exuberant joy. But back to the action – and there’s plenty of that – as Loki and his motley crew must navigate the halls of a far darker Asgard in order to, well, tell another story. You’ll see. Unfortunately the opposition is considerable.

“We need a distraction. Destroyer? Act in a suitably eponymous fashion.”

SLH

Buy Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself Fallout h/c and read the Page 45 review here

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

“This is how an idea becomes real. But ideas are fragile things. Most don’t live long outside of the ether from which they were pulled, kicking and screaming. That’s why people create with someone else. Two minds can sometimes improve the odds of an idea’s survival… but there are no guarantees.
“Anyway, this is the day I was born.”

Grand, double-sized opening to a new science fiction epic from the writer of EX MACHINA, Y – THE LAST MAN and PRIDE OF BAGHDAD (one of our earliest Page 45 Comicbooks Of The Month), and half the draw here comes in the form of Fiona Staple’s Alana and Marko, two of the most beautiful individuals I’ve ever encountered. Their expressions are infectious, whether it be Alana’s eyes smiling up between her flop of green hair or Marko’s tearful joy at the birth of their child. Her name is Hazel and she bears the embryonic stumps of her father’s curled ram-horns and her mother’s green wings. It’s the last moment’s peace any of them will know for some time.

Marko and Alana’s peoples have been at war with each other for as long as anyone can remember. It’s a war that has spread from the planet Landfall and its moon called Wreath for fear that either’s destruction would cause the other to spin out of orbit. Right across the galaxy other worlds have been dragged into the conflict and caught in its crossfire. This one’s called Cleave, and Alana and Marko are trapped there, wanted by both factions for desertion; she specifically for abandoning her post and aiding the enemy, he for fraternizing with it and “betraying The Narrative”. And they have no idea what’s heading their way…

Beautifully written, the double-sized chapter affords Vaughan the space to drop in so many introductory elements without cramming them together, but Warren Ellisexplains it far more eloquently than I ever could in a preview to SAGA her posted up here.

I would just add that as a Native American totem the Big Horn Sheep whose horns Marko bears represents new beginnings. I doubt that’s a coincidence.

SLH

Buy Saga #1 and by summoning us on 0115 9508045 or casting the arcane spell of page45@page45.com

Northlanders vol 6: Thor’s Daughter And Other Stories (£10-99, Vertigo) by Brian Wood & Marian Churchland, Simon Gane, Matthew Woodson…

I still can’t believe this title is coming to a conclusion. Sales here are phenomenal and I had hoped it was going to give some of the Nordic sagas a run for their money in duration, but sadly I think there may be just one more book after this. Still, at least Brian is getting the chance to continue channelling his inner barbarian on Dark Horse’s CONAN comic which, with art by Becky Cloonan on the first arc, has very much succeeded in getting me excited again about a character who I thought I was done with reading, despite much love for the classic 70’s Roy Thomas / Barry Windsor-Smith incarnation. I know the Dark Horse version of CONAN has been running since 2003 I think, and has its loyal followers, but you haven’t seen anything like Wood and Cloonan’s version, trust me.

Still, back to the book at hand… where Wood continues as before, giving us very different short stories and tales rather than an ongoing yarn, with three in this volume. The first, about the siege of Parisc. 885A.D. as seen from the perspective of one particular mercenary foot soldier, was probably my favourite, as the Norse nutjobs try just about every tactic imaginable, without success, to take down the tower that’s stopping them over-running the city and having a merry old time raping and pillaging. The irony being that King Sigfred, the Viking head honcho, wasn’t even actually interested in Paris, he just wanted fat King Charles to raise his bridge and let his 700 warships and 30,000 fighting men sail blithely past, so he could get on with sacking the rather less arduously defended rural interior of the country.

King Charles, probably thinking he could trust his fellow regent about as far as he could throw him (not far I wouldn’t think given how legendarily fat King Charles was and presuming King Sigfred was probably also wearing a ton of armour and weaponry), admirably declined, although perhaps his decision was also informed by the fact that he wasn’t actually resident nearby himself at the time… So, the Vikings decide they’re going to have to teach the Parisians a lesson, but all is not going to plan, a fact which is proving particularly irksome to our footsolider in question, who decides to take matters into his own hands. Gloriously brutal art from Simon Gane here (DARK RAIN, ALL FLEE!), with a lot of red used to say the least, that really suits the story perfectly.

So when the next tale of a lone hunter following a deer far up into the Arctic Circle, far, far further than is sensible or safe comes along, with a change of art style to Matthew Woodson’s altogether more delicate and detailed lines and palely lit skies, the difference is striking. This tale is as much about the mindset of one lone man as the first though, and is very much a direct counterpoint to the first story in some ways. I shall say no more as I don’t wish to spoil it.

Finally we have the titular tale of a young woman forced to make a hard choice, when her father, the local chief of the small island on which they live, passes away suddenly. For women cannot inherit, which is precisely the uncomfortable position Birna now finds herself in as others perhaps not entirely well disposed to her threaten to take over, leaving her facing a rather uncertain existence. But here again, we see into the mind of someone forced to make a choice, whether to accept her reduced lot, or to challenge the convention and lay a claim to her birthright. For perhaps if she chooses a make a stand, some of her father’s loyalist men will follow her, but first she needs to convince herself. Marian (BEAST) Churchland provides a completely different art style again here, almost ethereal in places, with a touch of Charles Vess feyness to finish off this volume in magnificent fashion. Sigh, I’m really going to miss this title when it’s gone.

JR

Buy Northlanders vol 6: Thor’s Daughter And Other Stories and read the Page 45 review here

The Bird King And Other Sketches h/c (£14-99, Templar) by Shaun Tan.

“Some are exercises to simply keep fit as an artist, where the practice of drawing is about learning to see, a study that never ends.”

“Nevertheless, interesting or profound ideas can emerge of their own accord, not so much in the form of a ‘message’, but rather a strangely articulated question.”

From the creator of THE ARRIVAL, etc., a highly illuminating insight into one artist’s driving passions and thought processes. You’ll discover sketches and page layouts which eventually found themselves included in some of Shaun’s finished graphic novels, unusual artefacts, experiments with the language of the sea, and curious creatures which themselves suggest stories so far untold. Some of the preliminaries have brief notes jotted in their margins, like the series of interconnected, roofless rooms arranged like a stage set, one evidently a watertank containing an octopus tentatively exploring the next; another, hilariously, on fire. Tiny figures look in on others. “Are we just moving from room to room?” he asks to one side.

Better still Shaun introduces each segment with some extended, eloquently expressed and inspirational thoughts of his own. On doodling, he writes:

“This always reminds me of fishing – casting loose lines into a random sea, trying to hook something substantial. It’s surprising what sense can emerge from nonsense, and how the juxtaposition of odd images on a page can have a serendipitous effect, catching ideas that might otherwise be hidden by the waves.”

It’s the perfect cure for ‘artist’s block’: “just start drawing,” he suggests, quoting Paul Klee’s description of “taking a line for a walk”.

“Klee has a second good metaphor: the artist as a tree, drawing from a rich compost of experience – things seen, read, told and dreamt – in order to grow leaves, flowers and fruit… Artists do not create so much as transform.”

Hence all the observational sketches and the section entitled ‘drawings from life’, a lot of them in colour, where Sean explores “the relationship between individuals and their respective environments”, a theme found throughout the artist’s graphic novels, especially the three listed above and, of course, THE RABBITS. Likewise “the tensions between natural and manmade forms”. I think ‘tensions’ is underplaying it somewhat! THE RABBITS, THE LOST THING and TALES FROM OUTER SUBURBIA are all littered with visual and narrative commentaries on what man has made of his natural environment, as a quick glance of any of those reviews will make abundantly clear!

Rarely have I had as much fun absorbing an art book, or come away so inspired. It’s a neat little package, and I’d pay good money to see any one of those ‘untold stories’ come to full, expansive life.

SLH

Buy The Bird King And Other Sketches h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Week In Hell: The Art Of Molly Crabapple vol 1 (£7-50, IDW) by Molly Crabapple.

Forward by Warren Ellis: it’s all his fault.

Molly had just finished a enormous job for a big hotel and made the mistake of askingWarrenwhat to do next. Inspired by a photo of Molly posing between three large canvasses, one on each side at an angle and one at her feet, “It was like looking into a box of art with a midget artist inside. I said, “what you should do, is seal yourself in a box, and every surface is covered in art paper, and you shouldn’t be allowed out for a week, until you’ve every inch of the box in art. Call it Molly Crabapple’s Week In Hell.””

Unbelievably, Molly did exactly as she was told: the box in question manifesting itself in the form of a hotel room. This, then, is the photographic chronicle on that Week In Hell and every possible inch of space bar the floor and ceiling is indeed given over to art paper: vast ‘canvasses’ swirling with the lushest of lines forming the sort of neo-Victorian fantasies that could only come from Crabapple. It’s like some Bacchanalian tea party as attended by animals, aerialists, and hundreds and hundreds of tiny girlthings, and hosted on the double doors by Molly herself and porn star Stoya, spliced onto octopus arms. There are vast, suckered tentacles everywhere.

The composition on those double-doors is particularly impressive: a fish bowl filled to capacity yet structured in a way that maintains a vast sense of space.round all its edges each of the revellers. Some of the shots are works seen in progress as Molly is visited by friends whose portraits find themselves incorporated into the whole or inspiring parts of it.

Political allegories inevitably find themselves into Crabapple’s work. She recently tweeted that it made her so proud seeing her works used on protest banners. So you’ll find not only grotesque, hook-nosed caricatures (‘a formal tea party for one’s worst self’) but specific appearances by the likes of Marie Antoinette, her mouth crammed with coins like a piggy bank, then split wide open to reveal those all-too familiar piggy bankers enjoying the proceeds as bonuses.

“Week in Hell took place 10 days before Occupy Wall Street hit New York. As I’m writing this, our loft’s been converted into a laptop charging station for the reporters covering police brutality down at the square. Week in Hell is the sort of deeply personal artwank that feels awkward in a landscape where senior citizens are getting tear-gassed. I can’t write about it without writing about that.”

The final photograph shows Molly holding some of the finished art work liberated from the walls, a process which would have terrified me. I mean, there are doorknobs to consider.

The Forward by Ellis is called ‘This is Not My Fault’. In it he writes:

“I get the blame for everything up to and including the bloody weather. I have read people inLondoncomment on Twitter that the sky has gone black and supernatural Witch-Rain is hammering down from the skies and smashing brick and bone and surmising thatWarrenmust be coming toLondonand therefore it’s all his fault. Which would not have been so bad if I hadn’t been reading said comments on my phone while seated in a train approachingLondon. But still.”

It’s all his fault.

SLH

Buy Crabapple: Week In Hell: The Art Of Molly Crabapple vol 1 and read the Page 45 review here

Durarara!! vol 1 (£8-99, Yen) by Ryohgo Narita & Akiyo Satorigi…

Wow, I think my head has just melted and turned to whispy black smoke… Not remotely what I was expected when I idly added this to my pile to review this week. I didn’t know anything about it and I thought from the cover it looked like it might be a slice of life manga, set in the fashionable Tokyodistrict of Ikebukuro. I wasn’t expecting SOLANIN or anything like that given it’s an on-going series, but sometimes the most unlikely on-going series, on the face of it given their content, like YOTSUBA&!, BAKUMAN, TWIN SPICA and CROSS GAME, just come out of nowhere and hit some random pleasure centres in your brain. This could just well be another one of those.

What I was expecting therefore was light-hearted social drama. What I was not expecting were suicide chat-rooms, a presumably slightly deranged if not completely mad scientist, a teenage psychopath and an urban legend known as the Black Rider who is in fact very real, and actually turns out not to have a head, as it roars around Ikebukuro on a motorcycle. All neatly tucked under some light-hearted social drama as naive fifteen-year-old Mikado Ryuugamine from the boring ‘burbs has, at his sophisticated friend Kida-Kun’s invitation, decided to start attending a private school in the fashionable district.

They’ve not seen each other for four years, but have been in daily contact via chatrooms (not the suicide ones) which feature prominently as chapter breaks and provide a sort of round-up / teaser of what has just happened and what’s going to happen next. Mikado, of course, has no idea that his old friend has turned into some sort of social kingpin, and is quite taken aback and more than a little disorientated by his initial introduction to the neighbourhood and some of its various colourful characters. He also has a close encounter with the Black Rider.

I have absolutely no idea where this manga is going to go, but I’m sufficiently intrigued that I will read volume 2 when it comes out.

Buy Durarara!! vol 1 and read the Page 45 review here

Beast & Feast (£9-99, June) by Norikazu Akira.

Another yelping of yaoi as a police detective finds himself caught in the clutches of a yakuza. And in his shower and in his bed. Warning: absolutely filthy.

SLH

Buy Beast & Feast and read the full Diamond preview here

Depression Of The Anti-Romanticist (£9-99, June) by Yasuna Saginuma & Riyu Yamakami.

Warning: not filthy enough.

SLH

Buy Depression Of The Anti-Romanticist and read the full Diamond preview here

Martiniere: Velocity (£19-99, Titan) by Stephan Martiniere.

We don’t stock many art books unconnected to comics and when we do they’re usually by Lowbrow peeps. However, we’ve been asked so many times, “Do you have anything with jaw-dropping, futuristic landscapes in them?” And now we do! As evidenced at Stephan’s own gallery: http://www.martiniere.com/environments/

For something less fantastical but no less futuristic, I’d recommend the 8-volume set of PLUTO, my favourite manga that isn’t by Taniguchi.

SLH

Buy Martiniere: Velocity and read the Page 45 review here

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

“Being in a girl’s bedroom makes a guy tingly.”

Superb and subtle body language throughout. Young Bobby Drake’s shoulders hunched, hands in pockets, eyes wide and wandering round the room as Jean Grey lies on her bed nonchalantly messaging on her mobile was one of so many details here that made me grin. Fingers then twiddling on her dresser… excellent! In fact Bobby’s loose, purple shirt is a star in its own right, its chequered pattern folding to perfection round his waist or across his back.

The artist on PHONOGRAM: RUE BRITANNIA, PHONOGRAM: SINGLES CLUB and the creator of SUBURBAN GLAMOUR has made this book his own. Just like Nabiel Kanan for our website front-page, for me McKelvie was the only choice for this graphic novel predominantly starring doubtful teenagers, and Matthew Wilson’s clean, bright colouring could not complement Jamie’s ligne claire any better. Out of costume, Jean, Bobby, Scott,Warren and Hank are dressed like the best contemporary teens; in costume as the original five X-Men, they are pure Paul Smith.

Although it should be noted that Cyclops is never out of costume!

Another original graphic novel, then, going back to the team’s earliest days yet set in the here and now. It works. Rather than retreading tales already told, most of this concentrates on the moments in between as the four young men and one young woman gradually get to know and figure out where they fit in which other. It doesn’t go smoothly, no.

Mostly it’s seen from Jean’s point of view and it ends on exactly the right note, although I caution you once again that it ends before you’ll expect it too, since the final pages are given over to the first full issue of Kieron Gillen’s recent UNCANNY X-MEN relaunch. My only regret is I’d have liked to have seen more of Jamie’s preparatory design work.

SLH

Buy X-Men: Season One h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade h/c (£25-99, Marvel) by Allan Heinberg & Jim Cheung, Alan David, Oliver Coipel…

This is easily the best YOUNG AVENGERS material so far; easily. Actually it’s astonishing to believe just how much Allan Heinberg has managed to cram into one mini-series with deaths, resurrections, reincarnations, reappearances and indeed a possible revision of a certain piece of well-established Marvel history. Oh yes, and a marriage proposal and indeed a jilting at the altar, not even of the same couple either.

A quick overview then… deep breath…

Magneto finds out the Young Avengers are searching for the Scarlet Witch because Wiccan and Speed might be reincarnations of her two children who never actually existed, which when she realised she’d lost them she also lost the last of her remaining marbles and declared “No more mutants!” depowering most of Marvel mutantdom and killing Hawkeye again for good measure. (Read AVENGERS DISASSEMBLED and HOUSE OF M for more on this in that order, and you really should.) Along the way Quicksilver turns up during a rather disappointing reunion with Wanda in Wundagore after she turns out to be a Doombot in disguise, when the fingers obviously all start pointing Latveria-ward. By now the grown up Avengers and Wonder Man (set long before the recent Avengers annual) have arrived and everyone sets off to confront Doom. There they find the real Wanda, devoid of memory and powers and all set to marry vivacious Victor.Meanwhile, Iron Lad (who will eventually become Kang The Conqueror) has just reappeared out of the timestream too. There’s an initial confrontation, the results of which include the resurrection of an Avenger (though there’ll certainly be no happy ending for him), and Wanda gets her memory and powers back. The Beast then asks Wanda if she can reverse her mutant depowering spell, the X-Men show up to kill Wanda, and Doom tries to claim credit for absolutely everything, including what happened to the mutants. Somewhere along the way X-Factor show up as well too. Time for the absolutely-everyone-team-up versus the not-so-good Doctor big battle to conclude everything. Which isn’t going to be quite so one-sided as it sounds given that Doom’s managed to make himself near omnipotent with the aid of the power which actually enabled Wanda to depower all the mutants, when combined with her own innate powers, in the first place. It won’t end well for some, that is for sure.

… and breathe!

Now that brief summary doesn’t do this book justice at all, but hopefully you get the point that there is an awful lot going on here, and that’s before I’ve got into any of the snappy dialogue or myriad sub-plots such as Hulking and Wiccan’s very sweet romance, which no doubt has had the Concerned Mothers of America getting their collective knickers in a twist because they’re both boys. Never mind that one’s a magical being and the other one a half-Skrull / half-Kree shapeshifter. It’s handled here with so much humour, not least when Jarvis seems not entirely sure as to how to handle the situation domestically. More often than not when titles are taking absolutely forever to come out, it’s not a good sign. This, on the other hand, was well worth the wait.

To put it in context we need to ask the question is this as good as what it builds upon, namely AVENGERS DISASSEMBLED and HOUSE OF M, and the answer is simply yes, it most definitely is. But is Doom really responsible for everything that happened then, or was he just blowing his own trumpet? Well, maybe, but if you’ve got to blame somebody, a megalomaniacal despot is as good as anybody, right? Perhaps, but suffice to say Wanda’s got a long way to go before pretty much anyone will trust her ever again.

JR

Buy Avengers: The Children’s Crusade h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Kieron Gillen & Carlos Pacheco, Brandon Peterson.

Post- X-MEN: SCHISM, this is Gillen’s relaunch of UNCANNY X-MEN, and I’ve been loving his work there prior to it. He’s also writing the finest Marvel title currently on offer in the form of FEAR ITSELF: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY and its sequel JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY: FEAR ITSELF FALL OUT which I commend unequivocally to lovers of fantasy, mythology and storytelling. I’ve compared him to Gaiman. They’re funny.

This too has moments of mirth and one final, poignant, self-contained chapter about the last living member of the Phalanx, gorgeously illustrated by Brandon Peterson. The Phalanx were a race like the Borg: a hive-mind that absorbed others into its collective. For this shared consciousness, communion was constant, loneliness unknown. But thanks to Mr. Sinister’s scientific… inquiries… he’s now been hived off.

“He cut me in places I didn’t even realise existed. He colonised my undiscovered countries with pain. In the years that followed, he learned much. What I learned I would rather forget.  Eventually, he had what he wished. He left me in a great storage unit. I could sense other life nearby. I tried to communicate. I stretched out my mind. I clinked the remains of proxy-fingers against my cell. For years there was no response.”

Ditched at long last by Sinister in the wake of the preceding chapters, all the Phalanx survivor wants to do now is resume contact with the rest of his race and then he’ll be whole once more. This is the story of his struggle to do just that.

Did I mention that they are all dead?

SLH

Buy Uncanny X-Men vol 1 h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Batman s/c (£13-50, DC) by Brian Azzarello, J.T. Krul, Jimmy Palmiotti, Peter Milligan & Eduardo Risso, Fabrizio Fiorentino, Mikel Janin, Alejandro Giraldo, Joe Bennett, Tony Shasteen, Alex Massacci, John Dell, George Perez, Fernando Blanco, Scott Koblish…

Once upon a time there was a reboot (that wasn’t a reboot, remember) that all hinged around an event called FLASHPOINT. Now the good and kindly people at DC, who promised to hold the line at 2.99 (dollars, that is), something conveniently forgotten about post-non-reboot I note, decided it would be only fair that, if they were going to cancel all their titles and restart them, they did mini-series of them all first. Which is a rather churlish introduction actually, because I did rather enjoy FLASHPOINT, and unlike BLACKEST NIGHT, I did actually enjoy pretty much all of these spin-offs. Like that particular event, they’ve carved up the big three – Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman – so that their minis are in different books, and then lumped in all the other stuff with them too. Actually, there are the Green Lantern and Abin Sur stories yet to come, but they’ll be out soon.

So in this particular volume we have the Batman mini where, in the Flashpoint world, it wasn’t Thomas and Martha Wayne that were gunned down that fateful night, but young Bruce. So as Barry Allen desperately turns to the one person he thinks will be able to help work out what on earth is going on, he’s rather surprised to find that Batman isn’t the person he thought he was. So who precisely is behind the mask? And how can Barry convince him to help? And what of the villains of this reality, are they their usual selves, or someone else entirely, especially a certain rictus-faced comedian? This is far superior to most of the various Batman Elsewords tales that have come out over the years, as this reality’s Batman has an even more heartbreaking back-story than Bruce if that’s possible, and perhaps because of that, he’s even darker, grimmer, more ruthless. Certainly not someone who’s easily persuaded that his entire reality is an illusion by a madman dressed in a bright red costume who wants help with being electrocuted to try and restore his super-speed.

The other stories were actually some of my favourites. ‘Deadman and the Flying Graysons’ features, of course, Boston Brand and Dick Grayson as part of a travelling troupe of acrobats who get caught in the middle of the upheaval in Europe, as the Amazons try to hunt down another member of their circus (one Kent Nelson, better known in mainstream DC reality as Doctor Fate) for a certain artefact in his possession, the helm of Nabu. ‘Deathstroke and the Ravager’ sees Deathstroke and Warlord as piratical buccaneers facing off on the high seas in a very personal battle, with a whole host of low grade, super-villainous sidekicks for crew on either side. And ‘Secret Seven’ re-introduces Rad Shade aka Shade The Changing Man along with various magical characters such as Black Orchid, Zatanna, Enchantress, now holding regular spelling bees in JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK. The first two back-up stories are well written, making full use of the chance to do something completely different with the characters, the third less so; but it’s just nice for me to see some old favourites return.

JR

Buy Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Batman s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Superman s/c (£13-50, DC) by Scott Snuder, Lowell Francis, Rex Ogle, Dan Jurgens, Mike Carlin & Gene Ha, Eduardo Francisco, Paulo Siqueira, Roland Paris, Dan Jurgens, Rick Leonard, Ig Guara, Rags Morales, Rick Bryant…

The main story in this work, the Superman mini, is excellent as poor little Kal-El has spent his entire life locked away in a lab being experimented on by the government. As he’s never been exposed to the yellow rays of the sun, he looks like a puny, skinny weakling, albeit still one with vertiginous powers. General Lane meanwhile has been making use of what he’s learnt in his experiments on Kal-El to try and create his own superpowered humans to use against the Amazonians and the Atlanteans. It’s all going to go horribly wrong, of course, but when humanity needs its Superman to defend them in its most desperate hour, why should Kal-El come to their defence? It was nearly a tear-jerker, this story, in a couple of places, I’m slightly ashamed to admit. It’s a cleverly put-together tale that also featuresLois Lane, who is key to showing Kal-El that not all humans want to insert probes into you.

Two of the three back-up stories aren’t bad, with World Of Flashpoint featuring Traci13 magically travelling round the world incidentally showing us what’s become of various mainstream characters, the most amusing one certainly being Guy Gardner who is a peace-loving Buddhist. And the Booster Gold issues, concluding his own title rather than being a mini-series per se are interesting as he is the only character other than Barry Allen who remembers the world as it was before the Flashpoint; it’s just a question of whether he’s going to be able to do anything about it. The third story, a single issue, called The Canterbury Cricket doesn’t really add anything, but does feature characters which all crop in the ‘Lois Laneand the Resistance’ mini in the WONDER WOMAN book.

JR

Buy Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Superman s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Wonder Woman s/c (£13-50, DC) by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Tony Bedard, James Robinson & Agustin Padilla, Scott Clark, Vicente Cifuentes, Adrian Syaf, Eddie Nunez, Gianluca Gugliotta, Christian Duce, Javi Fernandez…

It’s slightly harsh on Aquaman that he doesn’t share the billing on this title, as his mini, along with Diana’,s are simply different aspects of the same story really, as attempts are made to resolve the political differences between the Amazonians and the Atlanteans through a marriage of convenience. There are parties on both sides, though, plotting to ensure our lovely couple doesn’t make it to the altar, and in fact, one side’s dastardly plan is pretty much going to ruin everyone’s day, and explain how the world of FLASHPOINT came to find itself in the state it is today, half shaken to pieces and flooded.

The back-up stories are both pretty good, the first being ‘Lois Laneand the Resistance’ as a whole host of second-stringers try to bring down the Amazonian occupation of Europefrom behind enemy lines. DC take the opportunity to bring in people like Grifter onto the scene ahead of the non-reboot, and whilst it’s one continuous chase / fight scenario, there is a fair amount of humour throughout, as it certainly goes to show that the Lois Lane of pretty much any reality is going to want to have the last word. The other story, The Outsider is a real surprise and just goes to show what can happen if you give someone free rein to do something completely different. I don’t think the main character existed in the DC mainstream universe, I’m pretty sure that name was just something Alfred, Batman’s butler used from time to time, but here Michael Desai is a metahuman who has risen to take control of all of India and turn it into a vast criminal enterprise. Someone is trying to assassinate him, which turns out to be [SPOILER], and Black Adam is also involved as well. It’s great fun from start to finish probably because it doesn’t really tie into the main FLASHPOINT story at all but just concentrates on doing its own thing.

JR

Buy Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Wonder Woman s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Crossed vol 3: Psychopath (£14-99, Avatar) by David Lapham & RauloCaceres…

Kind of difficult to understand how the same person, David Lapham, who wrote the wonderful STRAY BULLETS, YOUNG LIARS and SILVERFISH could be responsible for this horror show, or indeed that Avatar would actually think it is acceptable to publish it. Honestly, it’s the kind of thing that gives comics a bad name, as it is basically torture porn. If someone showed me their sketchbook in the shop, as happens from time to time, and it had this sort of material in, I’d be making sure they never found out where I lived, that’s for sure. I certainly hope the Daily Mail never find out about this or they will be encouraging people to start burning comics.

Joking apart, what I really don’t understand though is how a good premise like the Crossed can be so totally wasted. CROSSED VOLUME ONE penned by Ennis was utterly vile, but it wasn’t, on the whole, particularly prurient and was frequently darkly comedic. Hence whilst it was a writing tightrope act of balancing out the most horrifically unpleasant scenario imaginable with the most preposterous humour you could wring out of the situation, Ennis managed it very successfully. To the point where when people have caught up to date with THE WALKING DEAD, we do recommend it, with a note of caution [“I don’t care how depraved you are, this is worse!” – That’s-The-Way-To-Do-It Ed]. And it was ultimately about man surviving in the face of the complete and total insanity that are the Crossed.

CROSSED VOLUME TWO: FAMILY VALUES, however, as I noted in my review when Lapham took over the writing duties, wasn’t based around that fight for survival of man versus Crossed, but instead was a deeply unpleasant tale of someone taking sexual advantage of others who were looking to him for security, including his own daughters, hence the sub-title of the work. Yes, he met his comeuppance so we had a happy ending, of sorts, but still, there was absolutely no humour in it all, and I found it pretty much without merit.

VOLUME THREE: PSYCHOPATH is something else again though, as an insane loner manipulates other survivors he meets purely so he can fulfil his own sordid rape / murder fantasies. Which pretty much sums up the book from start to finish, full stop. Whilst the psychopath in question is human, he is in effect just as depraved as any of the Crossed, which I presume is the token point that Lapham is trying to make, that man himself is the beast and whatever causes the sickness that turns people into the Crossed is merely setting it free.

Ennis is thankfully back on writing duties for the Crossed ongoing series that has also started this week. Well, initially at least, then Jamie Delano takes over which could also be very interesting. I haven’t read that first issue yet, so I can’t pass any comment on what direction that is going in, but I think perhaps that Lapham has ruined this franchise for me now anyway. I can’t really see how Ennis is going to be able to turn it around into something readable that will allow me to forget about this monstrosity.

JR

Buy Crossed vol 3: Psychopath and read the Page 45 review here

 

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy

Reviews to follow or already up. You can check by clicking on whichever you’re curious about: all the titles have been linked to their relevant product pages.


The Lovecraft Anthology vol 2 (£14-99, Self Made Hero) by Jamie Delano, Chris Lackey, David Camus, Dwight L. MacPherson, Chad Filfer, Pat Mills, Benjamin Dickson, Simon Spurrier, Dan Lockwood & Steve Pugh, Adrian Salmon, Nicolas Fructus, Paul Peart-Smith, Bryan Baugh, Attila Futaki, Mick McMahon, Matt Timson, Warwick Johnson Cadwell

Axe Cop vol 3 (£10-99, Dark Horse) by Malachai Nicolle & Ethan Nicolle

Jeffrey Jones: A Life In Art h/c (£37-99, IDW) by Jeffrey Jones

Red Robin: 7 Days Of Death (£14-99, DC) by Fabian Nicieza & Marcus To, Ray McCarthy

Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring The Flash s/c (£13-50, DC) by Scott Kolins, Adam Glass, Sean Ryan, Sterling Gates  & Scott Kolins, Joel Gomez, Rodney Buchemi, Ig Guara, Oliver Nome, Trevor Scott

Astonishing X-Men: Joss Whedon Ultimate Collection vol 2 (£22-50 ,Marvel) by Joss Whedon & John Cassaday

X-Men: First To Last s/c (£11-99, Marvel) by Christopher Yost & PacoMedina, Dalabor Talajic

Annihilators, Earthfall s/c (£11-99, Marvel) by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning & Tan Eng Huat, Timothy Green II

Wolverine: Goodbye, Chinatown h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Jason Aaron & Ron Garney, Renato Guedes

Elektra: Assassin h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Frank Miller & Bill Siekiewicz

Ultimate Comics: X-Men vol 1 h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Nick Spencer & PacoMedina, Carlo Barberi

Essential Hulk vol 3 (£14-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas & Herbe Trimpe, Gil Kane

Marvel Adventures: Avengers: United (£7-50, Marvel) by various

Witchblade Compendium vol 1 s/c (£52-99, Top Cow) by various

House Of Five Leaves vol 6 (£9-99, Viz) by Natsume Ono

Tenjo Tenge 2-in-1 Edition vol 5 (£10-99, Viz) by Oh!Great

Gunslinger Girl Omnibus vols 9-10 (£12-99, Dark Horse) by Yu Aida

Bakuman vol 10 (£6-99, Viz) by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata

Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys vol 19 (£8-99, Viz) by Naoki Urusawa

Kimi Ni Tokode vol 13 (£6-99, Viz) by Karuho Shiina

Bleach vol 39 (£6-99, Viz) by Tite Kubo

Rosario + Vampire Season II vol 8 (£6-99, Viz) by Akihisa Ikeda

Blue Exorcist vol 7 (£6-99, Viz) by Kazue Kato

Bunny Drop vol 5 (£9-99, Yen) by Yumi Unita

Star Wars Legacy vol 11: War (£12-99, Dark Horse) by John Ostrander & Jan Duursema


This simply cannot be passed over: Tom Gauld’s hilariously concise short story: scroll down here!

If you liked that, then you will love Tom’s GOLIATH, our current Page 45 Comicbook Of The Month Club selection.

 - Stephen

“Moebius RIP. He died during the solar storms so it’s as if even the universe wept.”

 - Larry Marder

“Moebius isn’t gone. He’s just looped back to the beginning to start over. He is, and will be, forever.”

 - Kurt Busiek

There’s more from Matt Fraction, written months in advance, in Fear Itself: Invincible Iron Man.

King City (£14-99!!!, Image) by Brandon Graham ~

They say you can never go back. When Joe left King for California with nothing but some shell-toes and sick lock-picking skills, he never thought he would. But here he is years later, a Cat Master in charge of his own fate, at least that’s the idea. But this city has other ideas for him and his cat.

The cat’s name is Earthling and given the right injection he’s capable of anything. Need a second key, he’ll be a copy-cat, need a hover-board? A periscope? How about a Rubix Cube solved? All in one swipe of a claw, the cat has infinite uses, and in the right hands is the ultimate weapon. But that last part is just cats in general, right?

Joe’s only real friend left is the balaclava-clad Pete Taifighter, nicest guy in the world. Wouldn’t think he’s in this business of spies and thievery too, but he just about drowns in self pity when he’s asked to escort a beautiful, water-breathing alien to her fate at the Raquet Club, the seediest sex den in King City. Now he’ll do anything to get his finned fatale back. Joe has his own femme on his mind, memories of his ex, Anna, haunting these mean streets since he returned, but across town Anna has her own problems with her current beau, Joe. A vet in the Korean xombie war, Joe struggles with his addiction to Chalk: the drug that becomes you. It’s the only thing that holds back his PTSD; it got him through the war but with his whole squad succumbed to the drug’s dusty fate, and now his future with Anna looks set to crumble with his along with his body. And throughout these streets battle lines are being drawn, a new gang called the Owls are not what they seem, and creepy men in black take a special interest in Joe’s latest heist.

This book must have used all its nine lives to reach the shelves, and in spite of illness, emigration, publishers going belly-up and contractual hell, Brandon still managed to land on his feet. This isn’t merely a comic, but a hardboiled manifesto, a call out to everyone in this industry to raise your aim and up your game from a man who literally gave his left nut to finish this book. His first long-form work, Brandon took care to put his art first and just draw what he wanted. That isn’t to say this is needless indulgence, he clearly took from all his influences and challenged his ability to match their best work on every level and from character design to sequential layout, this is some of the most inventive and fun sequencing I’ve read all in one comic, yet it still comes off a concise, even succinct read!

The three story threads of Joe & Earthling, Pete and the water girl, and Anna and Joe wind around each other before coming together in a way you just don’t expect. So you’re safe to let your eyes wander round, immersing yourself in a string of visual puns and satirical asides. Lose yourself in a crowd scene, while the next chapter asks you to navigate a maze of streets set out like a board game. Literally, with cut-out pieces.

The city itself is very Moebius-esque at first glance but the more you see, the more its crowded shop fronts and dank back alleys open up and you see Brandon’s taken elements form Moebius’ style – its cinematic scope, the incredible cast of brilliant throwaway background cast, the never quite straight lines of his big blocky buildings – but other influences are bubbling in the brew. There’s a heavy Akira Toriyama (DRAGONBALL) influence in Joe’s flashbacks to the Cat Master training, the cat-shaped, domed houses are incredibly Capsule Corp. cute, but also the character inventory, and in fact whenever there are intricate pieces of junk to look at I’m reminded of early DRAGONBALL covers. When action calls for it, the scene will decompress and warp at the edges lending a kinetic energy to the movement reminiscent of Taiyo Matsumoto’s TEKKON KINKREET.

But I don’t want to give the impression Brandon’s style is without originality, I’m just emphasising how much he has clearly learnt from the very best and incorporates it into his own distinct vision. I suspect there’s a secret school somewhere like the comics version of the Cat Master training grounds. Clearly Brandon, James Stokoe, Marian Churchland and the handful of other contemporaries who contribute back-up stories and interludes to KING CITY are the class alumni.Brandon’s art is all swagger and cool charm, it breezes onto the page and lets you think it looks easy, just because it doesn’t boast; it doesn’t need to. The ideas are exploding off the page like a nerd-infused beat tract, and they speak for themselves, much like a cat.

TR

Buy King City and read the Page 45 review here

Murder She Writes (£4-00, ScaryGoRound) by John Allison…

All current copies are signed for free!

“SUSPECT ONE: the grievin’ young wife-to-be.”
“Lottie, I don’t think we should… she’s in no state.”
“Yeah WELL Shelley, she was gonna inherit ole Hugo’s cash… AND she found the body AND messed up the crime scene.”
“I want to be alone.”
“Oh I jus’ had a quick question. Were you marryin’ Hugo Nance for his money? Only I saw that Harald with his hand parked down the back of your tights.”
“Harald has REYNAULD’S! I was warming his fingers!”
“With your bum. Okay, wicked.”

The prolific Mr. Allison returns with a story featuring children’s writer Shelley E. Winters, famed for her stories about Tibkins the hedgehog (whose egg got a bit too hot before he hatched and so was born with chicken’s legs) and her intern, 12-year-old Charlotte. Shelley’s agent Barry wants to give her an early Christmas present so invites her to a writer’s retreat at a beautiful lodge in the Welsh mountains, along with the other children’s writers he represents. Shortly after arriving however, with Charlotte in tow, there’s a murder! Hugo Nance, writer of the massively popular Donald The Sheep books is found dead in his room. The only problem is that just about everybody present, with the exception of Shelley and Charlotte, seems to have a motive for wanting to pop Hugo off. Fortunately for all concerned Charlotte is a tween sleuth on the quiet, and here’s a little sample of her unique approach to investigation as all the guests are gathered round the body…

“HUGO NO NO NO NO NO!”
“Um, excuse me, if you can stop interferin’ with the corpse for a minute… maybe the crime scene won’t be COMPLETELY DESTROYED UP. Actually no, don’t worry. Because based on the number of bloody footprints you lot have done in the room… EVIDENCE SUGGESTS HE WAS MURDERED BY RIVERDANCE!”

Whilst I do love John’s utterly surreal SCARYGOROUND COLLECTIONS, it would seem based on this and his previous two shorts GHOST STORY and GIANT DAYS, that he’s writing more straightforward material these days, though no less hilarious. The character of Charlotte is just genius, with the complete lack of regard she shows at every turn to adult sensitivities. It’s clever actually, because the opening few pages make you think Shelley is likely to be the detective and Charlotte her comedy side-kick, whereas Charlotte steals the show in pretty much every scene she’s in as master detective and comedy genius, with Shelley in fact merely acting as her unwitting straight man.

I think this less surreal material is a great direction for John to go in at the moment actually in terms of building his fan base, and this could well be my favourite thing he’s done yet. As ever the art is masterfully illustrated with a light cartoonish touch and no less exquisitely coloured. This would be an excellent starting point for those unfamiliar with John and his work. Highly recommended.

JR

Buy Murder She Writes and read the Page 45 review here

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

I think Pat Grant is certainly going to make a big splash with this work set in a small surf town in late twentieth century Australia; well, certainly at Page 45. Before I get into discussing the story however, I simply have to make mention of the art, and despite being rather remiss in putting up interior art recently I have found some for this work, because it’s a fabulous, stylish concoction with elements of Jim Woodring (FRANK, WEATHERCRAFT, CONGRESS OF THE ANIMALS), Marc Bell (SHRIMPY AND PAUL AND FRIENDS, HOT POTATOE, PURE PAJAMAS) and also the classic Sega console game Toejam and Earl in Panic On Funkatron! It’s absolutely beautiful and I know it’s going to win Pat Grant lots of new fans.

I was initially puzzled by the first 24 or so pages which are comprised of a couple of short stories, some abstract pages, and a trail of various thumbnail images. I was starting to think it was going to be rather more abstract work than I thought when I realised this… sequential collage, I think might be an appropriate term… was in fact intended to serve as an introduction / character-primer to the main story. There is also an excellent twelve-page essay entitled ‘Genealogy of the Boofhead: Images, Memory and Australian Surf Comics’ concluding the work, that is an excellent read for anyone like myself whose knowledge of antipodean comics is somewhat limited.

The main story tells the tale of three friends, of sorts, who skip school to go surfing, but when they realise the waves might even be a bit too big and rough for them, decide to walk along the train line outside of their small town to where someone has apparently been mown down on the tracks and various body parts left strewn around. This is all set against the backdrop of their small coastal town ofBolton, a one-factory town now gradually falling into a state of decline and disrepair, and about to succumb to an influx of immigrants, except the immigrants are blue, multi-legged aliens. Not aliens literally in the extra-terrestrials sense, but metaphorically in the sense of the Vietnamese arriving illegal en masse in boats, which was a hot topic at the time in the international media due to the Australian government’s tough stance, and still is at a national level today.

It’s fascinating in the context of this work, because the main character is clearly a bonehead, and there’s certainly the hint of nationalism, if not outright right-wing leanings in his overlying discourse reflecting back on things as an adult. It’s a sensitive one, this, because as the subject matter is presented here, one could conclude the underlying message of the work is that illegal immigrants are colonising and ruining small Australian towns for the people who’d always lived there. Yet one of the two short intro stories make it quite clear that this mentality was probably always present with respect to anyone who hadn’t grown up in a particular place, not just people arriving from overseas. And that’s something that’s true the world over to some extent.

I really don’t think Grant is making any bold personal political statements through this work, but I still think it’s necessary to bear in mind all the various social, historical, cultural and political differences in this particular discussion about illegal immigration between Western Europe and Australia. Which all serves to make this sound rather highbrow and hard work, when it fact it’s just a fun story about three friends, of sorts, skipping school and shooting the shit as they goof off.

JR

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

It’s Dark In London: A Graphic Collection Of Short Stories (£14-99, Self Made Hero) by many includingWoodrow Phoenix, Josh Appignanesi, Neil Gaiman, Graeme Gordon, Alexei Sayle, Chris Webster, Steve Bell, Stella Duffy, Alan Moore, Iain Sinclair, Carol Swain, Chris Petit, Tony Grisoni, Ilya, Yana Stajno, Stewart Home, Warren Pleece, Dix, Carl Flint,Melinda Gebbie, Dave McKean, Garry Mashall, Chris Hogg, Jonathan Edwards, Oscar Zarate.

Sitting outside on this sunny Sunday afternoon after mowing the moss, I was all buoyant. Then I made the mistake of reading this again and, let me tell you, it’s very, very dark in this particularLondon.

But I learned from Neil Gaiman what a rookery was: “a warren of houses jerrybuilt onto houses, lightless courts, alleys and dead ends; a true warren – you could enter through a door in one building, leave through a door in another, far away, which made a rookery a perfect place for people who did not wish to be arrested”. Alan Moore’s ‘Highbury’ anticipates his public proclamations of all history happening at once, and precedes the NEW DEADWARDIANS series by nearly 20 years: “It’s romanticism in a way, and you can read the disappointment in Karl Marx’s eyes: the haemoholics are traditionally drawn from a certain class, lisping around their fangs, where he would have preferred a proletarian commonality of zombies.” I also enjoyed seeing Chris Hogg’s art again. Do you remember KILLER FLY? We’ve a piece of original Chris Hogg art on our office wall. Lovely.

Woodrow Phoenix takes you on a silent stroll which is possibly the only crimeless comic here, whereas Stella Duffy & Melinda Gebbie’s short story may reduce your sodium chloride intake whilst simultaneously increasing your blood pressure. But I don’t know, it all seems so utterly joyless.London.

As I wrote back in 1997 (and it was all that I wrote on the book): “Nice place to visit…”

SLH

Buy It’s Dark In London: A Graphic Collection Of Short Stories and read the Page 45 review here

Emitown vol 2 (£18-99, Image) by Emi Lenox.

“If the grass is greener on the other side, maybe that’s because you’re not taking care of your grass.”

More daily diary entries, this time drawn long after the fact and after Emi herself had started working for Image, published her first book there and begun sharing convention space with the likes of Brandon Graham, meeting James Jean, and occasionally hanging out with the Allreds etc. She’s bursting with enthusiasm, and it’s so sweet when Emi spies her first book in PREVIEWS, gets her very own ISBN then embarrasses herself on a panel. But the vast majority of the book is still spent living a life familiar to us all and, boy, does she amass parking tickets and speeding fines. But she also experiences tremendous mood swings she’s quite candid about and worries herself half to death:

“Sometimes, (a lot lately) I feel like I have to wear all these masks. I guess I don’t have to but I do. It gets to the point where I don’t remember which one is truly me. I mean, yeah, they are all me… but I mean the “me” that doesn’t feel forced.”

“Sometimes my worries lead to problems and then I worry I ruined something. Did I always worry so much? Sometimes I wonder if there is a deeper issue that is causing my worry.”

None of us are immune to self-doubt, and one of the reasons I love Lenox is her ability to help people recognise they’re not alone. The bit when she actually has to ask her beau Tim if they’re boyfriend-and-girlfriend or not made me laugh. Their gradual, tentatively blossoming romance is super-cute, and I wonder if at this point I should offer a SPOILER WARNING. Go on, then, have a SPOILER WARNING. Stop reading now.

The very best bits here are, I’m afraid, about their long, painful and protracted break-up. Not because I revel in another’s misery; far from it, I want to give last year’s Emi a great big hug. It’s because her bewilderment is so perfectly presented, and her awkward uncertainty as to what to do when they keep bumping into each other is horrifically familiar. She just can’t get a clean break and I thank God that most of my ghosts live a very long way away indeed.

P.S. There’s a short story by Jeff Lemire in the back! Yowsa!

SLH

Buy Emitown vol 2 and read the Page 45 review here

The Art Of The Secret World Of Arrietty (£25-00, Viz) by Hiromasa Yonebayashi.

With plenty of key sketches by Hayao Miyazaki himself, this new collection of full-colour preparatory work and fully finished paintings is as lush the others, particularly the garden landscapes which our leaf-sized heroin has to negotiate. Some two hundred and fifty album-sized pages long, this also contains creator commentary on artistic decisions and specific production processes, each song lyric and the complete voice-over script. The script is surprisingly short, but then there are so many silent sequences in these films which give the animation space to shine in its own right. So the overwhelming majority of this book is pure, visual craftsmanship, jaw-droppingly detailed.

Come Christmas especially all the Studio Ghibli books (which you can find on our site under art, criticism and creating comics > art books > manga & anime) outsell everything else in that category by a very wide margin. They’re not the cell-by-cell reproductions you can buy elsewhere which make me wonder why readers don’t just watch the films themselves with the pause button handy. You’re seeing the film from a very different angle, and some of the preparatory paintings are rendered in a far more expressionist fashion than you’d expect. A few are explorations of form, light and colour with a daubing of paint on the fronds that in one instance put me in mind of Paul Cézanne, helping to keep the finished frame as vibrant as you can imagine.

I should just take the opportunity to mention that if you’re reading this review as a young fan of Studio Ghibli, I think you’d get a massive kick out of Kazu Kibuishi’s AMULET series of all-ages fantasy graphic novels. Infused with the spirit of Hayao Miyazaki, they are stellar performers here, and every time I do a shop-floor show-and-tell making that specific comparison there is instant recognition followed by a purchase, and an almost immediate return-visit for book two!

SLH

Buy The Art Of The Secret World Of Arrietty and read the Page 45 review here

The Manhattan Projects #1 (£2-75, Image) by Jonathan Hickman & Nick Pitarra.

“This is America… everyone gets a gun.”

It’s 1942 on the day the War Department hired child-prodigy turned physics-genius Dr. Robert Oppenheimer to join its quest to ensure thatAmericais armed to the teeth. Officially tasked with building and deploying the world’s first atomic bomb, its actual avenues of exploration are far more esoteric:

“Dr. Seaborg and Mr. McMillan are currently mining something called pan-dimensional space for the fringe materials we need to build our impossible machines of expansion. For example – - We use divergence engines to recover mythological artefacts from discarded space. These are imaginary weapons made real through scientific exploration.”

That’d be the likes of Poseidon’s Trident. But they’re not the only ones who’ve been thinking outside the box, and as the War Department’s military commander enjoys giving thin, frail, white-haired Dr. Oppenheimer a tour of Base Zero (skipping swiftly past a familiar face locked in his own private laboratory), security is breached by a Red Torii gateway (“No doubt Zen-powered by Death Buddhists.”) delivered by a blazing Hinomaru and an automated invasion force sweeps in threatening to steal or destroy everything they’ve worked on so far. Entertainingly, however, the main action is intercut with the parallel lives of Robert and Joseph Oppenheimer, twins born six minutes apart, and their divergent paths through early study, experimentation and ‘areas of interest’ taking us right up to the present day. You’ll have to see why it’s so entertaining for yourselves. Neat punchline.

From the team behind RED WING, the art here displays a little bit of Frank Quitely, maybe a more fragile Geoff Darrow, while the terminology put me in mind of Matt Fraction’s CASANOVA. It’s not taking itself too seriously!

“Ever since the success of Pearl Harbour, the Emperor and his Warlords have gotten extremely aggressive. We’re even having to check every ream of paper that’s delivered to critical government offices after last month’s sentient origami incident. I saw the bodies, Doctor… Papercuts are no way for a man to meet his maker.”

True. If our Tom were a haemophiliac he’d be dead by now.

Buy The Manhattan Projects #1 by emailing page45@page45.com or phoning 0115 9508045.

Hellboy vol 12: The Storm And The Fury (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Mike Mignola & Duncan Fegredo…

“NIMUE!”
“Not anymore.”
“Guess I don’t really care who you are.”
“Ah, but you do know me! Rasputin tried to set me free the day you were born. He failed, but I forgave him. I held him close and guided his hand, and when he tried again he cracked the wall of my prison. Through that gap I’ve stretched my long arm back into the world, I cast my shadow over all, no light…”

As the sagely Kurgan himself rightly noted, it’s better to burn out than fade away, and whilst those slightly nihilistic words of wisdom, which are most appropriate for a son of the Devil, came from 1986, it’s somewhat hard to believe that Hellboy made his first appearance a mere 7 years later, and a staggering 19 years ago. But, as Mignola wisely notes in his foreword to Hellboy’s final appearance, inevitably over time all creations begin to succumb to character fatigue on the reader’s part, and if you are trying to maintain a sense of continuity or build any sort of coherent mythos, then the option of continuously rebooting/retreading/retooling characters whilst discarding much or all that has gone before à la recent DC reboot (that wasn’t a reboot of course – am I ever going to tire of saying that, probably not…?) isn’t possible.

Whilst one thing that has been a positive character trait of Hellboy’s through this entire run is his steadfast, indeed stubborn refusal, to accept his apparent destiny as the offspring of him down below, it has, over time, meant that Mignola has pretty much done everything he can possibly do with the character. I think a lot of people began to feel that the shark was well and truly in danger of getting jumped* when the final, Arthurian-related wider arc began, but I can state that the resolution to that is handled in a satisfying and suitably blunt manner.

So, preamble aside, here we have the final confrontation between Hellboy and the Dragon of Revelation, or as long-term readers will know it, the Ogdru Jahad. This story is set as the world is rapidly beginning to go to hell in a hand basket as detailed in B.P.R.D., as Hellboy himself begins to realise from the various news flashes shown on the television in a rather peculiar pub he unexpectedly finds himself in. Of course, it’s not the totality of the Ogdru Jahad Hellboy finds himself facing, but the fraction of which the evil wizard Rasputin managed to loose upon the Earth due to his magical meddling. I said earlier that this is the final appearance of Hellboy, but… without spoiling anything, it is certainly possible, but by no means certain that there yet may be a curtain call at some point in the future for the crimson curmudgeon, maybe even in the pages of B.P.R.D., now I come to think about it…

*(For those of you unfamiliar with the idiom ‘Jumping The Shark’ it was coined by an American radio personality Jon Hein in reference to the exact moment when popular television shows begin to go into decline. If you’re curious as to exactly what the expression originally refers to, just have a look here www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDthMGtZKa4)

JR

Buy Hellboy vol 12: The Storm And The Fury and read the Page 45 review here

The Boys vol 10: Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker (£14-99, Dynamite) by Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson.

In which we finally learn why Billy Butcher wants to end all superhuman activity on Earth. Finally, violently, and in public. Adults only, please.

You might want to start at the beginning with THE BOYS VOL 1. It’s certainly a lot funnier, but this isn’t a bad place to start, either, since it goes right back to Billy’s childhood in theEast End as the man we know today travels home for a heart-to-heart with his father. Who’s dead. And never had a heart in the first place.

It’s a brutal story of horrific violence as Billy and brother Lenny struggle with their father constantly beating the living snot out of their mother, and if you wonder why she stays with him then you really need to read DRAGONSLIPPERS: THIS IS WHAT AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP LOOKS LIKE. Ennis understands perfectly, and it’s eloquently expressed by young Becky. Becky is the woman who saves Billy from himself: from becoming just like his Dad. He’s inherited his father’s volcanic temper which the stupid man only encourages. And, as happens, it grows even more explosive when soaked in alcohol. Billy’s service in the Falklands War provides a temporary release but on his return he’s just seen too much, done too much and… oh, I’ve seen this documented in real life, especially after some soldiers are released. He’s angry – angry at himself and everyone around him until the day he meets Becky, a woman of extraordinary compassion, unafraid either of Billy or of asking him gently to stop.

What’s so perfect about this chronicle is that there isn’t even a mention of superhumans existing for the first four chapters. Billy’s life was like anyone else’s in the ‘70s and ‘80s in the east End of London. It was all school yard fights then the cold practicalities of harsh economics, whether it be earning a living for a family to subsist on, or Thatcherite politics jettisoning those the state is supposed to care for into a community it had already demolished. There’s even a scene at the dinner table where Ennis explores the chasm between those middle class liberals condemning the destruction of the working class’s sense of community and the working class’s perspective and insight into it, as sat right in front of him in the form of Billy Butcher. Extraordinarily well written. My point is this: it could all have been so different. Against all odds Billy had found happiness with a woman in a part of the world superhumans had not impacted one single jot.

Then, towards the end of the book, something happens. Something so ghastly it actually makes Jessica Jones’ story in ALIAS VOLUMES ONE then TWO look lightweight. Some of you have pretty vivid imaginations. I like to think I do too. I never saw this coming.

Best book so far by a very wide margin. Now I’m really looking forward to the finale.

SLH

Buy The Boys vol 10: Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker and read the Page 45 review here

Superior h/c (£19-99, Titan) by Mark Millar & Leinil Francis Yu.

“Oh, baby. I know it’s embarrassing. But the hospital said we need to get used to it. You can’t just have baths when your dad’s around.”

The Mark Millar project I was most worried about turns out to be one of his finest. Like  MARVEL 1985 it has so much heart, and Millar has a knack for writing young boys: how they perceive the real world around them. It’s also dazzlingly drawn in breath-taking detail, whether it be a quiet afternoon secluded under the fiery canopy of the woods in autumn or during the epic scenes of colossal devastation. Yu can be tender and intimate as during the mother-and-son bath scene above, yet impressively bold. Some of his forms and compositions reminded me of Travis Charest.

Set in a world where superheroes are mere fiction, the province of comics and films, twelve-year-old Simon Pooni and his best pal Chris have just been to see Tad Scott star in the latest Superior movie. The special effects are stunning, but in all honesty the franchise is tired. And now they’ve been ambushed by the all-too-familiar school bullies who always kick hardest when someone is down.

“Hey, homos. You have a nice time making out in the back row?”
“Just ignore him, Chris. I hear the basketball team’s really missing you these days, Pooni. Still, the way these guys play, they might as well have a cripple up front.” 
“You’re an asshole, Sharpie, and you’ve always been an asshole. If I wasn’t in this chair, I’d kick your ass all over the mall.”
“Yeah, well. I got news for you, Simon… you kinda are in that chair.”

Yeah, Simon kinda is in that chair.

Multiple Sclerosis snuck on him with particular aggression; he’s even lost the sight of one eye and on bad days he can barely talk. There are days of remission, weeks even, but nothing permanent. Once a basketball player of promise, sometimes Simon’s on sticks but mostly confined to a wheel chair so his muscles have gradually atrophied through lack of use. It’s unlikely to get any better. Until, late one night…

“Simon? Wake up, Simon. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“Huh?
“I’m here to make a serious proposition.”
“HOLY SHIT! Mom! Dad! There’s a monkey in the room!”

There really is a monkey in his room; a monkey in a spacesuit who has selected Simon as the “most appropriate” out of six billion candidates to be turned into the adult, post-human powerhouse Superior: the fictional character as played by Tad Scott. Now that would take some explaining to his mother.

Now, I don’t really want to tell you what happens next, I just want to reassure you that is far from obvious, right up to the end. My one worry was that this, Millar’s riff on Superman / Shazam, ran the risk of insulting the plight of those who can’t call “Kimota!” and transform into perfect superhuman specimens but have indeed lost the use of one side of their body or their peripheral vision, rendering them unable to scan more than one word at a time. (Parenthetically, comics – with few words per line – are far more accessible to those without peripheral vision. I’m told by dyslexics that they’re a much easier read too.) My best friend had Multiple Sclerosis and – by far the finest dancer I’ve ever had the pleasure of filling the floor with – that’s exactly what happened to her.

I would have been livid, but Millar doesn’t fall into that trap for this is far less straightforward than it initially appears, being more a Faustian pact with some serious twists, some serious bait, and some seriously hard decisions ahead. Not just for Simon, either, but for the Lois Lane counterpart. And that really is where we have to leave it with just one observational note that a talking monkey at the bottom of your bed is hardly conducive to an easy night’s sleep.

“You gonna tell [your Mom] about the space monkey?”
“Sure. Especially now I’ve figured out who he really is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, I prayed every night that my Multiple Sclerosis would go away and Mom was always praying that America would get fixed again too. So what if that magic wish was the answer to both our prayers? What if Ormon was an angel? Did he turn me into a superhero because America really needed one right now?”

“I dunno, man. I’m twelve years old. I struggle with friggin’ long division.”

The scene pulls back to a rooftop opposite where Ormon, the cute little spacemonkey sits, wide-eyed, staring at them from a distance.

“An angel? That’s hilarious.”

The monkey bears his teeth: two rows of sharp enamel spikes like a dental mantrap.

“I’m afraid I’m actually quite the opposite.”

SLH

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

Nemesis s/c (UK edition) by Mark Millar & Steve McNiven.

“Holy shit. I’m covered in old person.”

Like KICK-ASS this is set well clear of the Marvel Universe. There are no superheroes in this world, just one man in white with a great deal of money and time to kill. Time to kill people, specifically the finest Chiefs of police around the globe. He’s an inverse Batman relishing the suffering and humiliation he inflicts on the mighty or noble with meticulous timing for maximum death and destruction by toppling over metaphorical dominoes of explosive set piece disasters set at precisely the right angle to each other. HereTokyo is in for but a taster of what he has planned for America, its President and Washington DC’s Chief Blake Morrow. Nevertheless it’s a taster of the proportions compelling enough to convince Morrow to take him seriously, to take every conceivable precaution to outwit the man. Waste of time, actually.

A master strategist, every conceivable countermeasure has been anticipated days, months, years in advance, and every eventuality catered for. Everything they glean turns out to be fabrication, every hard-won advantage but a poisonous joker in Nemesis’ perfectly played hand – or at least proof that he was right all along. It’s relentless.

There is a tradition in superhero comics that the villain is unerringly outwitted by the hero of superior intellect, ingenuity or perspicacity, nowhere more so than in Batman’s last minute fat/fryer extractions. But this is a Batman who in addition has the luxury of acting rather than reacting, and on plans made laid at leisure leaving others to repent their haste.

Truly I would advise you to steer clear of any other publicity concerning this title if you want to be surprised by the sheer scale of the spectacle ahead of you because even in the short space of the opening chapter your jaw will drop not once, not twice and not even thrice. It’s an experience replicated by the number of reversals later on. Don’t flick ahead, basically.

Is it over the top? Of course. There’s more than a moment that’s pure Frank Miller. Is it gratuitous? Umm, it’s a superhero comic. Is it any good? Well, McNiven you may know as Millar’s artist on CIVIL WAR and WOLVERINE: OLD MAN LOGAN. It’s not a team generally known to disappoint.

Jonathan’s even found some interior art for you.

SLH

Buy Nemesis s/c (UK Ed’n) and read the Page 45 review here

Fear Itself: Invincible Iron Man h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Matt Fraction &Salvador Larocca.

“I figure Gods like it when you sacrifice things to them. At least this one always did, in the stories they tell about him. So I gave this one the two most valuable things I had… my sobriety… and my dignity.”

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Stark is over his limit. Caught in the worldwide grip of FEAR ITSELF, the population of Paris is petrified. Truly petrified. Turned to stone by the Grey Gargoyle, they are the rubble that their city lies in. It’s a battle which Iron Man lost because the transmutational touch of the Grey Gargoyle had been enhanced beyond calculation by one of the weapons dispatched by the Asgardian God of Fear. But Tony Stark’s been designing weapons all his life – his very armour is a walking weapon – and he’s nothing if not logical. He just needs to catch someone’s attention and then take a leap of faith.

Meanwhile back at the ranch there’s a power struggle brewing between Pepper Potts and Bethany Cabe, and with Iron Man absent someone else will have to fill his sizeable, soldered shoes inFrance.

Otherwise known as INVINCIBLE IRON MAN VOLUME 9, this has already significant impact on whatever they actually call the next book: possibly INVINCIBLE IRON MAN VOLUME 9, possibly INVINCIBLE IRON MAN VOLUME 10. Either way, I can see we’re going to be explaining that on the shop floor forever. It also contains more swearing that any Marvel book I’ve ever read. Thankfully it’s all in Asgardian. Lastly, written months before the passing this weekend of one of comics’ own Gods, Moebius, Matt’s love of the man is evidenced here:

“Wait. What happened in Paris?”
“Where have you been? Tony was… There’s a… like a monster and it’s turning everyone to stone.”
“Is Moebius okay?”

Genuinely funny, and any comic lover’s immediate priority. Nice one, Fraction.

SLH

Buy Fear Itself: Invincible Iron Man h/c and read the Page 45 review here

Avengers 1959 s/c (£12-99, Marvel) by Howard Chaykin…

“You broke that jaw?” – Ray Tango to Gabriel Cash from the finest action film of 1989 – not 1959 I realise, but hey, close enough – yes, it was Tango & Cash.

I have a sneaking theory that Howard Chaykin’s secret fantasy would be to draw Judge Dredd. Unless he has already and I’m just blissfully unaware of it? My reasoning behind that is his love of the redoubtable lantern jaw is now reaching truly ridiculous proportions. I absolutely loved this book, by the way, both the plot and the art, but literally everyone has a jaw, including the ladies, that not even Kurt Russell could have cracked, no matter how bad a day he was having.

Still, that minor quibble should not detract from what is an excellent yarn featuring one Nicholas Fury and his team of proto-Avengers battling various fascist leftovers intent on establishing a Fourth Reich. Or are they? Because who precisely is behind the reanimation, reactivation and redeployment of the myriad monsters, Übermenschen (und Damen) and what is the meaning of the numeral-embossed Skull they have taken as their new symbol? And how does the abduction of the young emperor of Wakanda by forces unknown factor into it all?

This book is great fun and the team of Kraven, Sabretooth, Dominic Fortune, the original Silver Sable and Namora (Subby’s cousin) is no less dysfunctional that the modern day bunch of Avengers that we’re more familiar with. Indeed Chaykin has just as much fun with the sparky interplay of the team’s members as Bendis does with the New variety. So if that particular title regularly tickles your fancy do give this a look, as it went criminally under the radar as single issues with only three takers here including one Colonel Gordon Davidson, Scotland’s answer to Nick Fury and a man whose been known to employ an Life Model Decoy upon occasion inside Page 45 to avoid talking to people from his mysterious past… and who regularly sends in one of his howling mad commando minions to pick up his comics for him when he’s too busy swooshing over the city in his helicarrier.

JR

Buy Avengers 1959 s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Avengers: The Korvac Saga s/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Jim Shooter, Len Wein, Roger Stern, George Perez, David Micheline, Bill Mantlo & George Perez, Sal Buscema, Dave Wenzel.

Ah, Marvel in the mid 1970s! What a thing to behold! Billowing capes, ballooning boots, those racial stereotypes and hilarious dialects, improbable team-ups and epic plots cascading over a dozen issues; melodrama on a scale rarely experienced since the days of Caligula! All epitomised by this very book, distilled into a concentrate so strong that it’s virtually toxic. This is the Dynasty of the superhero genre, where even the over-dub wears shoulder pads:

“On the plane of physical reality, Starhawk strikes first. ”For Aleta — for the Universe!” The Enemy tumbles backwards, the stunning impact of the blow ripping through the sum of his being. Somewhere in the depths of the cosmos within his mind, a planetshatters — and in unison, the billion billion souls who inhabit the sub-reality of The Enemy’s id scream in utter horror as their entire dimension trembles!”

Wow! Not just horror, but utter horror! Naturally I wasn’t around back then, having barely hit my teens last week [errrr... - ed.], but if I had been around to buy the originals I’d be able to tell you that I lapped it all up and then some. Almost every Avenger bar the Hulk appears, each being abducted one by one! The Guardians Of The Galaxy guest star! Everyone bickers! Henry Peter Gyrich makes his first appearance and promptly rescinds their national Priority Status! Yes, several dozen high-ranking superheroes have to take the bus into action! Hawkeye cracks some gags I swore blind were the funniest things I had ever heard back then, as Earth’s Mightiest attempt to locate their nigh-omnipotent enemy in leafy suburbia and fail to find more than some antique fittings (“Terrific. ’Avengers Attack Suburban Home! Defeated By Stylish Decor!’ The tabloids are going to love this!”). And then – then the really big fight happens!!! Had I been old enough, I would have spontaneously ejaculated.

Now, of course – now that I’ve reached double figures – the whole thing looks and sounds ludicrous. No, make that utterly ludicrous. The plots have holes in them so big that even I could whack a golf ball through them. The exchanges are hokey (“Hey! Wh-where do you get off, baldy? Treatin’ someone’s mind like a… bathtub with a ring! If you’ve hurt Quicksilver –!” ”No, Hawkeye, there was no pain. It was more like… insight!”), some of the battle scenes are just plain silly (“By Hela — what sorcery is this?! My hammer — I cannot withdraw it from the creature — or release my grip upon it!” ”It has passed into another dimension, Thunder God — where it is held fast by the dimensional interface — Should you succeed in pulling it free — the resultant temporal upheaval would doom billions of innocents inhabiting that far-flung other-verse!”), and the fact that you can just stroll into the Avengers’ Mansion off a little side-street does beggar belief. But some things are just so bad they’re brilliant, you know? And, hey, I just loved reliving that Yellowjacket costume.

Recommended for students who play Marvel vs Capcom on their games consoles in thrall to the mighty weed until3amin the morning. ”Seriously old-skool,” “Random” etc..

If you want to follow this up, go next to AVENGERS: NIGHTS OF WUNDAGORE where the Scarlet Witch first loses the plot. Or, to be fair, has it stolen from her.

Buy Avengers: The Korvac Saga s/c and read the Page 45 review here

Batman: Birth Of The Demon s/c (£22-50, DC ) by Mike W. Barr, Dennis O’Neil & Jerry Bingham, Eva Grindberg, Norm Breyfogle…

“Before we begin, hear me. I have knowledge which is alien to you, for I have tasted food fresh from dark fertile soil, and I have filled my lungs with untainted air, and I have quenched my thirst with water clear as the first day of creation, and you have not… because you cannot. Those things do not exist on this world any longer. They have been destroyed by man’s lust for dominance … a lust I know well, for at times it all but consumes me.

“All is corrupt, all is sick, all is dying.
“As am I. As are you.”
“Listen to him. He can halt the corruption. He can be our saviour.”
“By imposing his will on every single human being alive.”
“Is that so terrible?”
“Yes. I think it is.”

You tell ‘em Bruce! Collected trilogy of previously published material (BATMAN: SON OF THE DEMON, BATMAN: BRIDE OF THE DEMON and BATMAN: BIRTH OF THE DEMON from 1987, 1991 & 1993 respectively) which is touted by DC on the rear cover as being a prequel to Grant Morrison’s BATMAN & SON. That’s rather mis-leading because whilst the conclusion of the first story does indeed feature the first appearance of Damian in the last three panels, that is it. In fact, it’s never actually made overtly clear it is Damian, but it is clearly implied as the poor mite is abandoned in an orphanage before being adopted, all unbeknownst to Bruce who isn’t even aware he has a son. (Pedants please note, those of you who are about to ‘Ask the Answer Man’ – anyone else remember Bob Rozakis’ monthly column answering DC trivia that used to be in the back of each monthly title? – about the apparent differences with this story and Damian’s current established origin of him being grown in a test tube and raised by the League of Assassins, I have a nagging feeling that somehow it got ‘adjusted’ as a result of Infinite Crisis. Don’t quote me on that though.)

What this trilogy is really comprised of – and is definitely strong enough to sell it on its own merits – are two superb Batman vs. Ra’s al Ghul match-ups and Ra’s al Ghul’s origin story. The first two stories are penned by Mike Barr and illustrated by Jerry Bingham and Tom Grindberg in very typical period-Neal-Adams-like style, which is a compliment by the way. No spoilers but as ever Ra’s has got his warped mind set on wiping mankind from the face of the earth and starting all over again, with himself in charge of course, and it’s up to Bruce to put the pieces together and stop him. What I do like about Ra’s al Ghul stories is you usually do get some detective work as well as the fisticuffs and so it is here. The third story is completely different, told primarily in flashback as Talia recounts her father’s life to Batman, who has been destroying Lazarus Pits around the world just before a dying Ra’s can make use of them, before Bruce and Ra’s have a quick punch-up to finish the story.

JR

Buy Batman: Birth Of The Demon s/c and read the Page 45 review here

 

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy

Reviews to follow or already up. You can check by clicking on whichever you’re curious about: all the titles have been linked to their relevant product pages.

 
McPherson: Bunny In The Moon: The Art Of Tara McPherson vol 3 (£17-99, Dark Horse) by Tara McPherson

Martiniere: Velocity (£19-99, Titan) by Stephen Martiniere

Crabapple: Week In Hell: The Art Of Molly Crabapple vol 1 (£7-50, IDW) by Molly Crabapple

The Complete Crumb Comics vol 1: The Early Years Of Bitter Struggle (£18-99, Fantagraphics) by Robert Crumb

Crossed vol 3: Psychopath (£14-99, Avatar) by David Lapham & Raulo Caceres

Moriarty vol 2: The Lazarus Tree (£10-99, Image) by Daniel Corey & Anthony Diecidue, Mike Vosburg

Peanuts, Complete: vol 17 1983-1984 (£21-99, Fantagraphics) by Charles M. Schultz

Star Wars Omnibus: A Long Time Ago vol 5 (£19-99, Dark Horse) by various

The Intrepid Escape Goat vol 1: The Curse Of The Buddha’s Tooth (£9-99, Th3rd World Studios) by Brian Smith

Northlanders vol 6: Thor’s Daughter And Other Stories (£10-99, Vertigo) by Brian Wood & Marian Churchland, Simon Gane, Matthew Woodson

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 h/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Kieron Gillen & Carlos Pacheco, Brandon Peterson

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

Ultimate Comics Avengers vs. New Ultimates: Death Of Spider-Man s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Mark Millar & Leinil Yu, Stephen Segovia

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

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade h/c (£25-99, Marvel) by Allan Heinberg & Jim Chung, Alan David, Oliver Coipel

Essential Hulk vol 2 (£14-99, Marvel) by various

Essential X-Men vol 10 (£14-99, Marvel) by Chris Claremont, Louise Simonsen, Walt Simonsen & various including Jim Lee, Rob Liefield, Art Adams

Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Batman s/c (£13-50, DC) by Brian Azzarello, J.T. Krul, Jimmy Palmiotti, Peter Milligan & Eduardo Risso, Fabrizio Fiorentino, Mikel Janin, Alejandro Giraldo, Joe Bennett, Tony Shasteen, Alex Massacci, John Dell, George Perez, Fernando Blanco, Scott Koblish

Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Wonder Woman s/c (£13-50, DC) by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Tony Bedard, James Robinson & Agustin Padilla, Scott Clark, Vicente Cifuentes, Adrian Syaf, Eddie Nunez, Gianluca Gugliotta, Christian Duce, Javi Fernandez

Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint featuring Superman s/c (£13-50, DC) by Scott Snuder, Lowell Francis, Rex Ogle, Dan Jurgens, Mike Carlin & Gene Ha, Eduardo Francisco, Paulo Siqueira, Roland Paris, Dan Jurgens, Rick Leonard, Ig Guara, Rags Morales, Rick Bryant

Spawn Origins vol 14 (£10-99, Image) by Todd McFarlane, Brian Hoguin &  Greg Capullo

Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Official Casebook vol 4 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Kenji Kuroda & Kazuo Maekawa

Higurashi vol 17: Atonement Arc vol 3 (£8-99, Yen) by Ryukishi07 7 Karin Suzuragi

Twin Spica vol 12 (£10-50, Vertical) by Kou Yaginuma

Soul Eater vol 8 (£8-99, Yen) by Atsushi Ohkubo

Monster Hunter Orage vol 4 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Hiro Mashima

Beast & Feast (£9-99, June) by Norikazu Akira

Depression Of The Anti-Romanticist (£9-99, June) by Yasuna Saginuma & Riyu Yamakami

Blue Sheep Reverie vol 5 (£9-99, June) by Makato Tateno

 
Sad, sad news this weekend.

Why we love Moebius and always will, with thanks for the link to esteemed publisher Picture Box: http://butdoesitfloat.com/filter/moebius

 - Stephen