Year: 2008

A BADGER GRAPHIC NOVEL

By Mike Baron & Bill Reinhold (First Comics)
ISBN: 0-915419-30-0

During the huge creative outburst of the early 1980s a number of quality independent publishers sprang up with an impressive variety of high quality concepts and packages. One of the very best of these was Mike Baron’s captivating psycho-warrior The Badger. Thankfully for those I can convert, those tales are being gradually collected by IDW Publishing and as I lay my hands on copies I’ll review them, but this oversized, slim tome might not make the cut, drawn as it is in the larger, squarer format that finally went the way of Betamax video tape in the early 1990s.

Norbert Sykes is a Vietnam veteran and martial arts devotee. On his return to Madison, Wisconsin after his tour of duty he was locked in an asylum where he met an immortal Celtic wizard named Ham. Together they escaped and teamed up for some of the strangest adventures in comics. As well as believing himself a superhero, Norbert has many other discrete, distinct personalities ranging from a little girl to Pierre the homicidal maniac rattling around in his battered skull. He can also communicate with all animals.

Hexbreaker was a tentative experiment in the new format of extended story “graphic novels”. Briefly, it relates how the Badger is invited to compete in a martial art tournament organised by the Black Lotor Liu Hu Society, who as Any Fule Kno are the secret masters of the World. Every century the 100 best fighters on Earth battle to the death and the winner/survivor receives one wish: anything at all, possible OR impossible.

As a westerner and certified lunatic, Norbert has to overcome s certain amount of graphically physical resistance just to get there and picks up the tragic and mysterious Dr. Mavis Davis along the way. Once there however, it seems a lot of old enemies have been waiting for him…

Baron’s love for Hong Kong cinema is evident in this glorious, manic riot of all-out action, but even so there’s a huge amount of comedy and character-play on show, and the denouement has lasting repercussions for the regular series.

This is a big box of comics delights: raw, frantic, captivating and beautifully illustrated for full-on fun and well worth tracking down for the red-blooded fightin’ man of your clan.

© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Johns, Pacheco, Van Scriver, Cooke & Bianchi (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-204-9

Following on from his bombastic return in Green Lantern: Rebirth (978-1-84576-131-8) this volume recounts the further adventures of Hal Jordan, troubled test-pilot and inter-galactic policeman, in a series of short tales that reintroduce some of his oldest foes whilst re-establishing him as a major star in the DC firmament. Collecting issues #1-6 of the current monthly comic book with the addition of pertinent sections of Green Lantern Secret Files and Origins 2005, all the stories are written by Geoff Johns, and the eagle-eyed among you can probably pick up his first hints and plot-markers for both the Sinestro War and Final Crisis epics to come.

‘Flight’ is illustrated by Darwyn Cooke, providing some additional character-building flashbacks whilst fixing Hal’s current place in the hierarchy of GL’s currently on Earth. The eponymous ‘No Fear’ introduces the sexy rival jet-jockey Jillian “Cowgirl” Pearlman, the sub-plot of the slowly rebuilding Coast City (razed by the space-tyrant Mongul and now a new town seemingly incapable of attracting residents) and sees Hal’s new employers messing around with very dangerous alien technology that leads to an all-out battle with a new breed of robotic Manhunter, courtesy of Carlos Pacheco and Jesús Merino.

Ethan Van Scriver returns for the next chilling yarn as paralysed psychokinetic Hector Hammond and the super evolved predator The Shark find themselves victims of alien meddlers, before the dead and very unhappy Black Hand returns to genocidally stir the mix, lavishly rendered by Simone Bianchi, all ably assisted by inker Prentiss Rollins.

Green Lantern has always been a lynchpin of the DC universe and whilst these action-epics won’t win too many new readers, they do successfully provide the faithful readership with high quality superhero fare.

© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Jan Strnad, Dennis Fujitake & Tim Solliday (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 0-930193-24-5

In terms of variety and creativity the 1980s were a fabulous time for comics, with an expansion in every aspect of the market, except general sales, where, in fact, the decline of all printed reading matter continued. Comics died as a mass-market medium, becoming too expensive to sell on corners and in general stores, but developed their own methods of direct distribution, allowing different formats and most especially a broader spread of genre and cross-genre storytelling. Artists too, for good or ill, were no longer tied to house-styles or chimerical fashion.

This lovely slim volume of classic fantasy comes courtesy of then-fledgling publisher Fantagraphics who have since gone on to become the leading proponent and champion of both the American industry’s most radical, experimentalists and the World art-form’s fascinating and endangered history and antecedents.

Best known for his television and film work today Jan Strnad worked sporadically with a number of leading comics figures such as Richard Corben. He garnered well-deserved praise and attention for the satirical science-fiction series Dalgoda, which he co-created with the wonderfully stylistic Dennis Fujitake, and wrote a number of short serials for the fantasy anthologies that sprang up with the rise of the direct market. Here in ‘Sea Dragon’ they combine to tell the salutary tale of Winston, a young Wyrmling who dared to aspire, and of his consequent fate in a glorious fairytale for modern kids of all ages.

This brief saga (18 pages) is accompanied by the far more traditional story ‘Goblin Child’ which expands on the theme of children stolen by the Night Folk to tell a truly moving and compelling tale of mother’s love, power, pride and sacrifice. It’s drawn by Tim Solliday, better known today as a painter and illustrator, in a loose, linear manner that evokes memories of Everett Raymond Kinstler and Roy G. Krenkel (people you need to look up NOW if the names are unfamiliar – this internet stuff’s great, innit?) and one of his early paintings adorns the back cover. His eerie black and white line-work is a perfect fit for the script and it’s a pure shame that he’s produced so few strips.

This delightful book is happily still available from the publisher – and, I’m sure, elsewhere – and will impress any story fan or aficionado of traditional fairytales as well as the usual comics suspects.

Sea Dragon © 1986 Jan Strnad and Dennis Fujitake.
Goblin Child © 1986 Jan Strnad and Tim Solliday. All Rights Reserved.

By Geoff Johns, Jeff Katz, Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-847-8

Spinning off from the weekly series 52 and by extension Infinite Crisis, this intriguing take on Heroism features Booster Gold – a hero traditionally only in it for fame and fortune – acting as a secret saviour, repairing the cracks in Reality caused by all the universe-warping shenanigans of myriad universal, multiversal Crises. Working at the instruction of the enigmatic Rip Hunter: Time Master, Booster forgoes all his dreams of acclaim to save us all over and over again.

In this volume (collecting issues #1-6 of the monthly series) whilst undertaking this monumental plastering job, Hunter and Booster find themselves at war with a gang of villains using time-travel to eradicate superheroes before they can begin their careers. In short order he reinstates the events that lead to the creation of Green Lantern, both the Barry Allen and Wally West Flashes, and via a unique team-up with butt-faced bounty hunter Jonah Hex, even Superman himself.

Along the way he has to take steps to ensure his own birth by introducing his 20th century ancestor to his future wife and is attacked by another relative using the Supernova outfit he used in 52. Complex, no?

The book ends on a semi-cliffhanger that depends on one of Hunter’s prime Maxims being wrong. After a salutary lesson involving Batgirl and the Joker (based on Batman: The Killing Joke) falls on deaf ears, Booster ignores the warning that the past cannot safely be changed, and with the aid of past and future incarnations deliberately thwarts the murder of the Ted Kord Blue Beetle. With his best friend restored to him he feels ready for anything, but surely, nothing is ever that easy for the Greatest Hero Never Known?

Fast-paced and deeply imbedded in various DC continuities this is a light but readable thriller, but might be a little hard going for readers new to the DCU. However writers Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz do a fine job keeping things accessible whilst Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund capably handle the vast cast of characters just passing through. Worth a look, but if you’re unsure, perhaps you should wait for the paperback edition.

© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Richard Moore (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-510-8

Boneyard goes from strength to strength. This sixth black and white collection features more frantic antics of a decent young guy who inherited a cemetery with an extremely engaging – and lively -gang of goblins, monsters and weirdoes in situ.

Michael Paris is developing much more than a crush on Abbey the Hot Vampire Chick, but life – and unlife – is made really complicated by an over-amorous fish-woman, the jock (think “Grease” not Glasgow) werewolf and all the assorted demons and monsters he’s nominally responsible for.

Nevertheless he’s finally summoned up the courage to ask her for a date when pernicious fate sticks out another hobnail-booted foot for him to trip over. That’s how he ends up attending a formal ball held by the Over-God with the power and duty to eradicate all misbehaving supernatural creatures. And then somebody spiked his date’s drink…

Charming, touching and wickedly funny, this is one of the best comics comedies of the last thirty years and should be on everybody’s bookshelf.

© 2006, 2007 Richard Moore. All Rights Reserved.

By Paul S. Newman & Dan Barry (Marvel Music)
ISBN: 0-7851-0086-5

No, I’m not kidding.

Enterprise and quality should always be applauded and during the desolate 1990s when sales were dwindling and new markets were desperately needed Marvel went looking for fresh fields to create comics in (as opposed to now when the company claims to be a media franchising outfit that just happens to print funny books – and if you dispute that check out their financial reports and see just how far down the list of products publishing comes).

In the search for fresh markets back then Marvel tapped religion (please don’t make me talk about their Christian Comics line) and popular music to augment their home-grown stable of stars and the prodigious line of toy, cartoon and film licenses, with admittedly, mixed results.

Still and all, a good comic read is a good comic read so this astoundingly impressive general adventure package which just happens to have an Achey-Breaky country singer as the star should come as no surprise to long-time fans and collectors. After all, the immediate post-Golden Age of American comics was littered with product based on the “real-life exploits” of celebrities such as Judy Canova, Alan Ladd, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, and many others.

As high profile franchises they were handled by top artists and writers. Buster Crabbe and John Wayne Adventures frequently featured Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta, Roy G. Krenkel, Joe Orlando, George Evan and Harvey Kurtzman. Dell’s Roy Rogers has issues by the great John Buscema, Pat Boone… No, here, at least, I’m kidding.

The music is side-lined by “King of Comic Book Writers” Paul S. Newman (possibly the most prolific scripter in the business; creator of Solar, Man of the Atom, Turok, Son of Stone and writer of both comic-book and newspaper strip Lone Ranger as well as stories for a host of other companies) and Dan Barry, an artist who quit comics such as Captain America, the Heap and Airboy for the strips Tarzan and Flash Gordon before returning in the 1990s to write and draw Indiana Jones for Dark Horse. Here they spin a couple of traditional yarns, dotted with sly humour, featuring plucky kids encountering a haunted US cavalry fort and a time-jaunt to the court of Edward I of England (that’s Edward Longshanks, 1239-1307, history buffs), ripping yarns that can suspend common sense enough to provide the maximum thrills and spills.

The basics of good comics often get subsumed nowadays by flash, dazzle and “Big Thinking Concepts”, but sometimes the old ways are really the best. I don’t know if you’ll be able to find a retailer with the nerve to stock such an uncool item as Billy Ray Cyrus, but I hope you do because it’s what comics are all about: using compelling pictures to tell a story well: something that’s increasingly a lost art.

© 1995 Billy Ray Cyrus. All Rights Reserved.