Year: 2008

By Karl Edward Wagner, Kent Williams & John Ney Reiber (EP Board Books 2003)
ISBN13: 978-2-70247-888-2
Also ISBN: 1-56389-032-1 (DC hardcover) ISBN 1-56389-088-7 (Vertigo softcover)

Originally released as a DC original graphic novel, this slight but effective urban horror thriller had something of a troubled genesis with Wagner apparently leaving the project before completion, giving John Ney Reiber his “big break” by completing the script for Kent Williams. I don’t know – or care, really – as the real import of this book is the role it played in the separation of the mature imprint Vertigo from the greater DC universe.

At the time of release the company was preparing for its boldest venture in five decades, hiving off its supernatural heroes and embarking on a series of projects targeting an audience that had moved away from, or beyond, mainstream comics. The success of this dark tale of sex ‘n’ drugs ‘n’ rock ‘n’ roll ‘n’ demons would prove the astuteness of the decision to separate.

Minor rock star Michael Sands is recovered and back in London. He’s looking for answers and maybe payback. He especially wants to reconnect with Barbara Flick, to relive that frantic, deadly, all-consuming love they shared. He wants to know if he jumped off that bridge into the Thames, or if she tried to kill him?

Following a dark and debauched trail he finds an overpowering satanic evil thriving in the city’s bowels and in the souls of far too many people. He doesn’t know what it wants. He doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t know how it’s all going to end.

Badly, he suspects…

The bleak and despondent story is a vehicle for the controversial art of Kent Williams, whose fans and detractors are equally passionate, and his painterly efforts here will certainly astound or annoy depending on your stance. Indisputably though, he’s at his most typical here, so if you’re not a fan don’t waste your time.

Re-released in 2003 this graphic horror breakthrough is apparently still available and offers something a little different for the discerning adult fan.

© 1992 Karl Edward Wagner, Kent Williams. All Rights Reserved.

By Marv Wolfman, George Perez, Karl Kesel & various (DC Comics/Graphitti Designs)
ISBN: 0-930289-26-9

It’s not often that I review a specific package. After all, as long as they’re not bowdlerised or mucked about with, comics are all about the story and art, and graphic novels and collections even more so. This is one of the rare exceptions however.

History of the DC Universe is a fan’s book. The material it contains was originally a two-part prestige format miniseries designed to compliment the landmark Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. In it the Monitor’s assistant Harbinger sets down the new chronicle of events after the history and reality-altering events of the Crisis have finally settled. It was a way of telling the fans just what was and wasn’t canonical; “real and true” if you like, in the DC Universe.

It was ambitious, concise, informative, very pretty and creators being what they are, pretty much redundant almost before the ink had dried. As a tool it was useless, but as a tale it still looks and reads very well. So why review it?

This Graphitti Designs hardcover has a few extras that dedicated fans would love and browsers might find of interest too. In what we’d now call the “added value section” are a number of essays and testimonials from Wolfman, Neal Adams, Julius Schwartz, Jerry Siegel, Bob Kane, Joe Kubert, Roy Thomas, Paul Levitz, Len Wein, Jack Kirby, Ramona Fradon, George Perez and Frank Miller.

Each has illustrations of the creators’ signature characters with lavish illustrations from Neal Adams, Joe Shuster, Dick Sprang, Joe and Adam Kubert, Kurt Schaffenberger, Steve Lightle, Steve Bissette & John Totleben, Jack Kirby & Steve Rude, Fradon, Perez and Miller, whilst the Julius Schwartz piece is studded with a dozen pictures by DC’s finest artists.

The real prize though is a four page gate-fold fold-out poster crafted by 56 separate artists and featuring 53 of the company’s greatest characters from the first five decades, nestled behind new illustrations of Sugar and Spike by Sheldon Mayer and Cryll by Art Adams. And if that’s not tantalising enough the Watchmen aficionados and completists should be aware that the poster contains the only DCU appearance of Rorschach by Dave Gibbons! Cor! Blimey!

Seriously though, as so much of comics’ magic is physical and visceral, the feel-good factor from this little gem is difficult to quantify, but impossible to deny. If you get the chance you really should experience it yourself.

© 1988 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Stephen Bissette, Rick Veitch & Allan Asherman (Heavy Metal/Arrow Books)
ISBN: 0- 09922-720-7

It’s not often that I get to review a graphic adaptation that surpasses the source material, but this odd little item certainly does that. I’ll leave it to your personal tastes to determine if that’s because of the comic creators or simply because the movie under fire here wasn’t all that great to begin with…

Written by Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale and John Milius, 1941 was a big budget screwball comedy starring some of the greatest comedy talents of the day and Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster follow-up to Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It did not receive the same accolades and approbation.

The plot, adapted by Allan Asherman, concerns one night in December of that year when Hollywood was panicked by sightings of Japanese planes and submarines. One week after the devastation of Pearl Harbor, much of America, and particularly the West Coast, was terrified of an invasion by the Imperial Forces of Emperor Hirohito.

In this tale one lone sub, borrowed from the Nazis, actually fetches up on the balmy shores of La-La land, but is largely ignored by the populace. The panic actually starts when gormless Zoot-Suiters Wally and Denny use an air-raid siren to distract store patrons and staff so that they can shop-lift new outfits, and peaks later when the feckless wastrels start a fist-fight at a USO (United Services Organisation) Dance. From there chaos and commotion carry this tale to its conclusion.

For the film that isn’t too successful, burdened as it is by leaden direction and a dire lack of spontaneity, but the frenetic energy and mania that was absent on screen is present in overwhelming abundance in the comic art of Steve Bissette and Rick Veitch. Taking their cue from the classic Mad Magazine work of the 1950s, they produced a riot of colour pages for the tie-in album reminiscent of Underground Comix and brimming with extra sight-gags, dripping bad-taste and irony, and combining raw, exciting painted art with collage and found imagery.

It’s not often that I say the story isn’t important in a graphic package, but this is one of those times. 1941 – The Illustrated Story is a visual treat and a fine example of two major creators’ earlier – and certainly more experimental – days. If you get the chance, it’s a wild ride you should take.

© 1979 Universal City Studios, Inc. and Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.

By Benoit Peeters & Francois Schuiten (NBM)
ISBN: 0-918348-36-6 (1987) ISBN: 978-0-918348-36-4 (2001)

The European manner of graphic storytelling places great emphasis on mood and style, with a much larger range of interests and themes than the English language mainstream. It is also, perforce, staggeringly accomplished in its artistic visions.

This brief (48 pages) album, the first in an occasional series entitled Cities of the Fantastic, tells the bleak, fantastic tale of Franz, a young civic official of the city state Xhystos, who accepts a mission to assess the condition of sister city Samaris.

Located far, far away, there has been no communication with the walled metropolis for a decade and all agents dispatched there have vanished with trace. The grim, arduous journey, however, is as nothing compared to the beguiling mystery Franz uncovers when he finally reaches the incredible and seductive city…

Eerie and paranoid, with architecture and design the most important characters in the tale, The Great Walls of Samaris presents a wholly believable world of familiarity and alienation, underscored with an almost Kafkaesque perversity. The aura of menace is palpable, but with only the merest hint of danger. Minds and souls are at risk here, not mere flesh and blood.

The astonishing artwork of Schuiten is entrancing, perfectly capturing – if not actually inventing – the creative anachronism of Steam-punk, but with the glistening veneer of fin de siècle pomp and the foredoomed glitter of the Belle Époque concealing the bitter content with a sheen of fragile beauty.

This is an incredibly stylish, unforgettable visual experience and a damned fine classical horror story, too. Don’t miss out on this glorious delicacy.

©1984 Casterman, Paris-Tournai. All Rights Reserved. English translation ©1987 NBM.

By John J Muth (NBM)
ISBN: 1-56163-059-4 (also Marvel Graphic Novel #25; ISBN: 0-87135-171-4)

As part of an adventurous foray into the budding world of graphic albums, the Marvel Graphic Novel line combined experimental projects and storytelling alongside glorified giant comic-books. This trés arty package from illustrator Muth purloins elements of Bram Stoker’s classic novel and reweaves them as framework for a painting tour-de-force of gothic set-pieces and moving, intimate images.

Familiarity with the original’s plot is not essential – if not ill-advised – as mood rather than narrative is favoured here, and the pictures are paramount. Inexplicably, Muth’s narrative mixes first hand accounts from protagonists Lucy Seward and her father, prose and “newspaper excerpts”, with faux film-script pages in this dark tale of bloody obsession.

For all these problems, it was picked up by Nantier Beall Minoustchine in 1992 and re-issued as a gloriously large and upscale hardcover album (and eventually a paperback edition) which particularly enhanced the extended sections where Muth’s paintings were allowed to carry the story without the distraction of text.

Although this is so much more “Graphic” than “Novel” and not as clever as it seems – all beautiful surface with no depth at all – it is staggeringly pretty, and a delight for any fan with an appreciation of the visual arts.

© 1986, 1992 John J Muth. All Rights Reserved.