Month: July 2007

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Et Cetera

Et Cetera 

By Tow Nakazaki (Tokyopop)
ISBN: 1-59532-130-6

This irreverent, genre-bending western pastiche is a delightful romp if you don’t worry too much about history or logic, which sees young girl Mingchao leave her mountaintop shack and wild-west roots for an entertainment career in Hollywood. With her she takes the fantastic Eto Gun built by her grandfather that fires the spirits of the (Japanese) Zodiac. These fantastic bullets manifest in the form of animate animal ghosts.

Naturally it takes a while to discover how it works – by dipping the gun in the “essence” of the totem animal, such as food or clothing made from them or more often as not their droppings – and often the trouble she inevitably finds herself in is best dealt with by her innate feistiness and ingenuity. Along the way she has been befriended by a mysterious, young and good-looking “Preacher-Man” named Baskerville.

As they make their way to California they encounter many of the icons of the untamed bad-lands such as cowed townsfolk, villainous outlaws, evil cattle-barons, cows, ornery ol’ coots, cow-punchers, distressed widow-wimmin’, cows…

This light-hearted meander through the iconography of a million cowboy movies is fast paced, occasionally saucy and often laugh-out-loud funny, and has the added benefit of the freshness afforded by seeing these old clichés through fresher, oriental, eyes. This volume also includes a number of themed puzzle pages for anyone wanting to take a deeper dip into the legend.

© 1998, 2005 Tow Nakazaki. All Rights Reserved.
English script © 2005 Tokyopop Inc.

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Catwoman: The Movie & Other Cat Tales

Catwoman: The Movie & Other Cat Tales 

By Various (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84023-991-3

If you’re one of the six people who saw the truly abysmal Catwoman film: Sorry, no refunds.

If you bought the movie adaptation comic, here it is again, and even the tremendously gifted Chuck Austen can’t make sense of the silly, silly tale of corporate dogsbody Patience Philips, murdered by her cosmetician boss and revivified by the Cat Goddess to seek revenge. Artists Tom Derenick and Adam DeKraker are competent too, and worth looking at, anywhere but here.

I really enjoyed the other volume designed to cash in on this film (Catwoman: Nine Lives of a Feline Fatale ISBN 1-84023-833-X) but I cannot understand the thinking behind this volume. It also includes one of the many origins of the Selina Kyle incarnation (from Catwoman #0 1994) and two of her later revamps from her current comic series (issues #11 and #25).

Three such disparate and recent inclusions must surely be confusing to the movie-going purchaser who doesn’t know or care about two different Catwomen and this filler must already be known to or ignored by the comic reading audience. Surely they’re not just here as padding, like the sketches by comic superstar Jim Lee who was invited to draw Halle Berry on the set of the film? Nor to justify such a high price tag for a book reprint of a magazine still gathering dust on most comic store’s new comics racks?

Nah!

© 1992, 2002, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Blade of Heaven

Blade of Heaven 

By Yong-su Hwang & Kyung-il Yang (Tokyopop)
ISBN: 1-59532-329-5

This fast-paced and uproariously irreverent fantasy tells the tale of an unlikely alliance between Heaven, Earth and Hell in the face of a conspiracy that threatens to destroy the natural order of the universe.

Soma is an uncouth and vulgar human warrior who is captured whilst breaking into Paradise and accused of stealing the legendary Blade of Heaven. He is “befriended” by the beautiful and seemingly ingenuous Princess Aroomee (who is desperate to escape the cloying dullness of the Heavenly Court) and they are sent back to Earth to recover the missing sword, which is vital to the security of the sky-realm. The King of Heaven, being a dutiful parent, also sends the ancient and powerful elemental General Winter with them as a chaperone.

On Earth, the mysterious demon fighter Makumrang is pursued by his father’s vassals and harried by monsters when Soma and his crew meet him. They form an uneasy compact of mutual defence as a monstrous plot by the Demon-Lord Barurugo is revealed that will topple the hierarchy of the cosmos.

Although it might not sound like it, this light-hearted blend of slapstick and action makes mock of traditional fantasy themes but is nonetheless an engaging romp that will satisfy any fan of the genre.

© 2002 Yong-su Hwang & Kyung-il Yang, Daiwon C.I. Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman: Arkham Asylum 

By Grant Morrison and Dave McKean (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-022-0

This is, by all accounts, “the best-selling original graphic novel in… comics history”, which, obviously does not mean it is the best written or drawn. It is, however, pretty damned good. A brooding, moody script was treated as a bravura exercise in multimedia experimental illustration, literally changing the way artists and consumers thought about the pictures in comics. The attendant media play also spread throughout society, and as with Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns generated one of those infrequently recurring periods when Comics become Cool. All those big budget super-hero movies you’ve enjoyed or suffered through might not have happened without these media zeitgeist moments.

On the most basic level, however, it’s still a fine tale of the hero having to overcome terrible foes, terrific odds and traumatic trials to vanquish evil as the Caped Crusader fights his way through the freed lunatics that have taken over their asylum to save a hostage from the ravages of the Joker.

This 15th Anniversary edition also includes Morrison’s original script and page breakdowns, offering those of you intrigued by the mechanics of comic creation a hard lesson in production and inspiration.

© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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American Splendor: Another Day

American Splendor: Another Day 

By Harvey Pekar & various (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-452-8

Hopefully the brilliant Harvey Pekar will finally get some much deserved acclaim from the comics crowd now that his writings have appeared in ‘proper, mainstream’ comics. Or at least under the Vertigo imprint, which is nearly as good.

Kidding aside however, this collection of the four issues of new material published by DC Comics’ mature sub-division, and of course the excellent The Quitter graphic novel, should surely, at last, win him some fans amongst those dedicated consumers that have shunned him for decades.

Pekar has written another series of vignettes, asides, tales, observations and pictorial cathartics that are compelling and mundane, enthralling and ordinary, and made that quantum leap we all aspire to seem easy. He’s made comic strips something that civilians would want to read.

His collaborators this time around are Ho Che Anderson, Zachary Baldus, Hilary Barta, Greg Budgett & Gary Dumm, Eddie Campbell, Richard Corben, Hunt Emerson, Bob Fingerman, Rick Geary, Dean Haspiel, Gilbert Hernandez, Leonardo Manco, Josh Neufeld, Chris Samnee, Ty Templeton, Steve Vance, Chris Weston and Chandler Wood.

This book with all the shades, tones, textures and variety possible with black and white comics, is an absolute delight, but if you’re a colour junkie there is a section at the back with a solitary strip plus the captivating covers to ease you into the powerful world of monochrome. Buy this book!

© 2006, 2007 Harvey Pekar & DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.