NowReadThis

November 4, 2014November 4, 2014

Inhumanity

By Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue Deconnick, Warren Ellis, Samuel Humphries, Matt Kindt, Christos N. Gage, Jonathan Hickman, Olivier Coipel, Nick Bradshaw, Todd Nauck, Matteo Buffagni, AndrÃ© Lima AraÃºjo, Paul Davidson, Stephanie Hans, Simone Bianchi & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-614-4

During earlier mega-crossover blockbuster Infinity, mad Titan Thanos invaded Earth and clashed with the Inhumans’ ruler Black Bolt to a standstill. As a last resort the embattled Inhuman king crashed the flying city of Attilan onto New York and into the Hudson River, simultaneously releasing the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the atmosphere where it triggered mutation in millions, proving that Human and Inhuman were not necessarily different racesâ€¦

Collecting assorted incidents of Terrigen exposure – specifically Inhumanity #1-2, Avengers Assemble #21.INH to 23.INH, #24-25, Avengers A.I. #7, Inhumanity: The Awakening #1-2, Inhumanity: Superior Spider-Man #1 and New Avengers #13.INH (spanning December 2013 to May 2014) – this epic chronicle of a game-changing publishing event takes a look at the fallout of that colossal catastrophe wherein a vast portion of the planet discovers everything they believed about themselves was wrong whilst coping with the shock of developing new and scary unnatural abilitiesâ€¦

The drama begins with Inhumanity #1, by Matt Fraction, Olivier Coipel, Mark Morales and Laura Martin (with flashback sequences illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu, Gerardo Alanguilan, Dustin Weaver & Israel Silva), as in the immediate aftermath of the cataclysm the Inhuman called Karnak is arrested by the Avengers.

His incomparable ability has been to infallibly detect the flaw and weakness of anything – object, person, even concept – but as he wearily describes the history of his people to his captors/hosts he reaches a startling fresh conclusionâ€¦

The Inhumans came into existence 25,000 years ago, after Imperial Kree explorers landed on Earth and tampered with the genetics of a tribe of primitives, just as they had on hundreds of other worlds.

Millennia later Randac, one of the rulers of the intellectual super-race that subsequently developed, took that meddling to its ultimate end by devising the Terrigen Mist process, enabling citizens to mutate into infinitely unique individuals of astounding power.

The measure originally met with much opposition and many citizens of Attilan quit the city forever, setting up their own diasporic enclaves and increasingly interbreeding with their unevolved cousins. As the Inhumans retreated further into myth, isolation and dogma, their alien-altered genetic heritage was slowly spreading and disseminating throughout baseline humankind.

Now the clash with Thanos has unleashed a Terrigen cloud that will slowly pass over the entire planet, activating all those dormant genes and metamorphosing possibly millions into new lives via body-altering cocoonsâ€¦

The diminutive warrior also speaks of the last moments of the city, the final official use of Terrigen and how his people evacuated the doomed city: passing through the chimerical living teleport door Eldrac; scattered to the place the living portal deemed they â€œmost needed to beâ€â€¦

As Karnak continues his ruminations, his cousin Queen Medusa arrives. Believing herself widowed and facing the shattering burden of saving her people without the aid of her messianic man Black Bolt, she is further shaken when her logic-driven kinsman continues his evaluation and arrives at an inescapable conclusion he simply will not abideâ€¦

Inhumanity #2, with art by Nick Bradshaw & Todd Nauck (augmented by Scott Hanna, Tom Palmer, Antonio Fabela & Andres Motta), follows Medusa as she copes with a fresh tragedy, the aching responsibility of repairing New York and the horrific tidings that a variety of human villains and scientists are stealing and experimenting on the cocoons of the newest and most vulnerable Inhumansâ€¦

As the Avengers’ top brains try to assess the scale of transformations, evil men are murderously hijacking her freshly revealed fellows whilst some full-blooded Inhumans – such as exiled former king The Unspoken – have organised into militias to reclaim the transformative pods and slaughter the sub-Inhuman transgressors who took them.

Worst of all, most inhabitants of fallen Attilan remain missing, included cousin Triton and all of the city’s childrenâ€¦

With such pressures engulfing her it’s almost a relief to learn of an A.I.M. science citadel where the technological terrorists are vivisecting confiscated cocoons and furiously lead a vengeful squad or outraged Inhumans against itâ€¦

The story shifts to a more personal mode with Avengers Assemble #21.INH to 23.INH and #24-25, written by Kelly Sue Deconnick and Warren Ellis with art by Matteo Buffagni, Paco Diaz& Nolan Woodward. Here the focus is on novice super-hero Anya CorazÃ³n – the latest Spider-Girl – as she strives to rescue someone close to herâ€¦

With Terrigen pods now a highly valuable commodity, rogue genetic researcher Dr. June Covington – AKA The Toxic Doxie – takes delivery of one and barely escapes a lethal booby trap which kills her favourite assistant.

Covington’s MO includes assimilating genetic discoveries and improvement into her own body and taking vicious, excruciating vengeance on those who cross her, so the failed ploy by A.I.M. agents quickly takes up all the outraged mad scientist’s attentionâ€¦

Meanwhile at Avengers Tower the big guns are being swamped by the Inhuman pandemic and haven’t time to listen to the junior arachnid as she demands some help to recover two stolen pods, one of which contains her Social Studies teacher Mr. Schlickeisenâ€¦

Finally, after plenty of sniping and her explosive tantrum, Captain America orders Spider-Woman Jessica Drew and Black Widow to assist and the trio quickly track down an errant A.I.M. cell run by wicked whacko Kashmir Vennema. Sadly the spider squad is promptly overwhelmed whilst learning that Schlickeisen is already dead, just as elsewhere Toxic Doxie takes over a rogue science lab to begin her mission of research and retributionâ€¦

Breaking free, the Arachnoid Avengers escape and return to base but Anya is unsatisfied and wants to go back, declaring that her teacher deserves a decent burial. This time grizzled warrior Wolverine and scary scientist Bruce Banner tag along and soon extract information out of a severely rattled Vennema.

Mr. Schlickeisen was gimmicked up and sold to Covington and now Spider-Girl has a fresh target to huntâ€¦

Whilst Toxic Doxie completes her Terrigen-assisted biological improvements, Wolverine takes Anya aside for a little private tuition and technological upgrading before they hit the trail for the maniac’s last known whereabouts. They’re too late but the battle against her abandoned and crazed associates yields more useful intel, such as the fact that Schlickeisen is still aliveâ€¦

Iron Man then assumes the role of on-the-job trainer, teaching Spider-Girl the value of research and preparation whilst deducing where the body-in-question is stashed. After rescuing the still comatose New Inhuman they have a solid idea of what new enhancements Covington has added to her body arsenal and that’s she’s readying an attack on the A.I.M. faction that set her upâ€¦

With the victim safe and a target location provided, Anya then gets the promotion of a lifetime, leading a team of veteran Avengers in a blistering raid to wrap up all the bad guys in her own web of justiceâ€¦

This fast-paced and deliciously light-hearted action romp gives way to a far more emotive and evocative tale in Avengers A.I. #7.INH (Samuel Humphries, AndrÃ© Lima AraÃºjo & Frank G. D’Armata) which examines the experiences of a recently transformed New Inhuman.

As Hank Pym‘s quirky cybernetic team encounter Daredevil and a lonely old lady mutated into a nauseating monster, the shock of her fate seems likely to drive poor Doris over the edge until a most unlikely robotic saviour talks her downâ€¦

Inhumanity: The Awakening #1and 2 by Matt Kindt & Paul Davidson then traces the efforts of a combined group of teen heroes from the X-Men’s Jean Grey School and Avengers Academy as they respond to the desperate social media cry for help of young Fiona who hatched out of a pod as a bird girl and was immediately targeted by online trolls and High School bullies.

The young thugs posted what they did to her on the web, but that proved to be very unwise as her angry little brother also mutatedâ€¦ and his power-set was far from benign or inconsequentialâ€¦

Sharp, witty and painfully relevant, the solutions proffered and accommodations reached in this no-easy-answers yarn are remarkably astute and optimistically hopefulâ€¦

Inhumanity: Superior Spider-Man #1 by Christos N. Gage & Stephanie Hans offers more emotional insight as arch-villain Doctor Octopus – currently inhabiting the body of the Wondrous Wallcrawler (see Superior Spider-Man: My Own Worst Enemy) – battles a tragic human victim of circumstance determined to exploit a Terrigen transformee. The original motive might have been cruel and ultimately selfish but a misconceived battle soon teaches everyone something about true power and responsibilityâ€¦

The portentous wrap-up provides a dark glimpse of horrors yet to come when The Illuminati clash over the Terrigen crisis in New Avengers #13.INH.

Scripted by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Simone Bianchi, the response of the world’s most powerful and important individuals (Black Bolt, Namor, Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Hank McCoy, Dr. Strange and Black Panther) is framed against a background of an even greater disaster – the ongoing collapse of the multiverse as alternate Earths randomly smash into each other.

On Earth-23099, a subtly different Illuminati conclave convenes to combat the threat of a Terrigen Bomb detonated by Maximus the Mad as another world hurtles towards them. From this malign Earth come unstoppable Black Priests who destroy everything and everybody. With their grim harvest completed the cosmic clerics then turn their gaze to our worldâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With cover-&-variants by Coipel, Dean White, Bradshaw, Skottie Young, Mike Deodato Jr., David Marquez, Davidson, Hans, Bianchi and Jorge Molina, this comprehensive exploration of a strange new phase for troubled planet Earth offers suspense, drama, explosive action, wry humour and a potent metaphorical message as it describes the reunification of two deliberately distant branches of mankind, and comes fully equipped with the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet,

November 3, 2014November 2, 2014

Wallace & Gromit – The Complete Newspaper Comics Strips Collection volume 2: 2011-2012

By various (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-87276-082-5

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a Grand New Christmas Traditionâ€¦ 10/10

Hard though it is to believe, Wallace & Gromit have been delighting us for nearly 25 years and this second extremely engaging newspaper strip compilation – originally published 2011-12 – again attests to just how much a cornerstone of British culture the potty putty pair have become.

The quintessentially English cheese-chasing chaps were originally conceived as an Art School graphic novel for the student Nick Park, before the Plasticene lure of movement and sound redirected the concept to the world of animation.

With the films a global multi-media phenomenon, the animator’s ingenious inventors went full circle bringing the dog and his old boy to cartoon album audiences. After years of perpetually pining for more Wallace & Gromit, the public were then given a big treat when Aardman and Titan Comics put their collective creative noggins together and produced a daily, full-colour comic strip to run in Red-Top tabloid The Sun.

Easily overcoming some early controversy about the suitability of the sometimes saucy venue, Wallace & Gromit debuted on Monday 17^th May, 2010, establishing a regular weekly adventure format which comprised six complete, stand-alone gags in traditional format (three panels: Set-up, Delivery, Punchline!) that built to one full storyline.

The tone is always bright and breezy, inventive family fare with all the film-originated regulars in play and the emphasis squarely focused on weird science, appalling puns and the beloved traditions of British sitcoms and farce.

â€¦And Cheese. Mountains and mountains of fermented milk-curd mirthâ€¦

Following a foreword of fond remembrance from animator and Aardman co-founder David Sproxton CBE, the witty workouts of nutty northern boffin Wallace and his incomparable best-of-breed working dog Gromit, in their preferred environs of scenic 62 West Wallaby Street, Wigan, start with ‘Library Mate 5000’ wherein a hastily constructed robotic shelf-filler soon proves too much for the staff and readers, after which ‘Pick of the Litter’ finds the likely lads inadvertently changing the nature and face of the Mayor’s clean-up campaign whilst the ‘Lazy Reader 3000’ proves no help at all when Wallace tries to bluff his way into wonderful Wendolene‘s new book clubâ€¦

As ever there’s a host of howling in-jokes scattered throughout the strips such as scholarly Gromit’s quirky reading habits (Mansfield Bark, Bleak Doghouse, Larry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Charles Spaniel, etcâ€¦) as well as a glorious parade of pained and hangdog expressions on the haunted hound’s hard-pressed, long suffering snout, such as seen when a blow to the head inflicts Wallace with ‘Am-cheesy-a‘ or, after the inventor is happily restored to what passes for normal, he misconstrues a sewing moment at Wendolene’s shop for a frenzied scissors attack in ‘D is for Dummy’â€¦

As always the strips are accompanied by a wealth of double-page photo-spreads taken from the original animated features and after the first of these the movie themes continue in ‘Not Matinee Idles’ when W & G take over a failing cinema and attempt to augment the viewing experience with a little technologyâ€¦

‘The Umpire Strikes Back’ then finds the canny craftsman regretting building a tinker-toy tennis partner whilst a bit of a cellar clearout leads to a cash bonanza in ‘Car Boot’ prompting our heroes to open their own cleaning business utilising the formidable yet ultimately useless ‘Washinator 600′.

Following another photo-op poster the vacation season finds Wallace testing to destruction his cybernetic camping kit in ‘Climb Any Mountain’ and designing a most troublesome vegetable labyrinth in ‘Mazed and Confused’ before succumbing to the invention-proof vicissitudes of a British ‘Heatwave’. When that results in ‘Coughs and Sneezes’ good old Gromit proves more of a remedy than the robot nurse Wallace constructsâ€¦

A film set poster leads to a spate of camera creativity and the making of a remarkable ‘Home Movie’ before the lads head for ‘The Grand Tour of Cheese’. The first stop is naturally Wensleydale, after which week two finds them on the continent scouting out France and (mis)hap-pily stocking up on Camembert and Brie inevitably ending up in Holland for ‘The Grand Tour of Cheese #3’.

An intimate poster or Wallace in romantic mood segues neatly into the balding boffin’s brief flirtation with ‘Street Art’, physical fitness in ‘One Dog and his Man’, the perils of barbeque in ‘Garden Party’ and ballooning in ‘Pup Pup and Away’.

Wallace and Wendolene share an romantic poster moment before the comic capers resume with ‘Polly Wants a Cracker (with Cheese)’ as the boys try to capture an escaped Macaw, whilst a haircut for Gromit inspires a new grooming robot, but ends up in ‘Hairs and Disgraces’.

A scheme to build toys for kids in hospital goes strangely awry but ends well on Halloween in ‘Night of the Living Bears’, but there’s no such saving grace when Wallace devises a Magic-o-tron for children’s parties in ‘The Entertainer’. At least his chickens derive some benefit from the wildly inappropriate ‘Rooster Booster 800’â€¦

An industrious photo-spread leads into a week of frantic fiddling with a mechanoid drinks dispenser in ‘Tea Party’, after which the lads turn their skills to trapping ‘The West Wallabyâ€¦ Wallaby!’ and latterly solving traffic congestion with their mobile, multi-decker ‘Easy Parker’ garaging invention.

They then turn into detectorists to unearth a fabulous lost horde (of cheese) in ‘Treasure Hunters’ and, after another poster break, construct something to take the drudgery out of present shopping in ‘That’s a Wrap’ before foiling a bold robbery attempt by evil penguin Feathers McGraw in ‘T’was the Night Before Christmasâ€¦’

A cold snap offers an opportunity to make some dirty money with a chimney cleaning gimmick in ‘Soots You!’ and leads to a bout of hang-gliding in ‘Blown Off Course’, before – after another photographic interlude – ‘Driving Ambition’ details the inventor’s attempts to start his own mass transportation system.

‘Foreign Exchange’ introduces the lads’ oddly similar French cousins Waltier et Bagget whilst in ‘Encounters of the Furred Kind’ Gromit has a brush with a dog from outer space and saves his boss from a big mistake babysitting a python as part of his ‘Pet Hotel’ ventureâ€¦

Following another poster ‘Bark Life’ depicts the duo’s dealings with a rowdy canine bully before those animated teddy bears pop up again as ‘Wallace’s Grizzly Valentines’, leading to much-needed break on the canals in ‘Straight and Narrow’, despite the boffin’s balmy barge improvementsâ€¦

Wallace gets completely the wrong idea after attentive Miss Anita Goodman starts pursuing him in ‘Leaping to Conclusions’ and, following another poster-show, returns to sow more chaos through her unruly pet mutt Cuddles in ‘Gromit the Underdog’â€¦

Wallace’s plans to improve Gromit’s favourite chair go predictably haywire in ‘Sofa So Good’ before the tinkerer takes up a new post teaching ‘Evening Classes’, and that short-lived endeavour necessitates a cycling tour only ruined by the inventor’s habit of â€œfixingâ€ things which aren’t broken in ‘On Yer Bike’â€¦

Easter brings an increased demand for baked goods which the bonkers brainbox tries to meet with his robotic ‘Hot Crossed Bunny’, after which he renovates an old bomber plane and takes the skies in ‘Wallace’s Wings’.

A stint in the Security business leads to skulduggery ‘Behind the Screams at the Museum’, jazzing up old horror films results in more neighbourhood terror in ‘Movie Night’ whilst Gromit eschews exercise for cunning and sheer luck to defeat a canine thug in ‘Dog Fight’ before a national holiday parade leads to out of control dragons and knightly nonsense to catch an fraudulent saint in ‘By George!’

Rounding out this annual of machine-based mirth are the tribulations of wasp nest removal in ‘Sting in the Tail’ and the greatest advancement in the noble game of Cricket ever misconceived with the invention of bombastic bowling machine the ‘Dibbly Dobbly 2000’â€¦

This classy collection closes with informational feature ‘Tomb of the Unknown Artist’ which tells all but reveals nothing of the Creation-by-Committee process which realised (for this edition at least) the mirthful material name-checking scripters Richy Chandler, Robert Etherington, Ned Hartley, Rik Hoskin, David Leach, J.P. Rutter and Rona Simpson, illustrators Jimmy Hansen & Mychailo Kazybrid, inker Bambos and colourist John Burns, all empirically overseen by Aardman’s enigmatic Keeper of the Flame, Cheese and Biscuits: Tristan.

Britain has a grand tradition of converting popular entertainment stars into sterling and memorable comic strip fare which gloriously continues in these superbly inviting, hilariously pun-chy, picture-perfect mini-sagas.

Moreover, all those parents who deliberately avoided the strip because of the paper which carried it no longer have any excuse and should now make this collection a â€œmust haveâ€ for the family bookshelfâ€¦

November 2, 2014

The Power of Tank Girl

By Alan Martin, Rufus Dayglo, Ashley Wood & (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-064-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: â€¦ 8/10

By golly, doesn’t time – and the occasional burst of bullets – fly! It’s hard to believe that our recent past is so far away. Back in the garishly gritty 1980s when I was tea-boy on Warrior magazine (still one of the most influential independent comics ever produced) there was a frantic buzz of feverish creativity in the British comics scene which seemed to say that any young upstart could hit the big time.

Possibly the most upstarty of all were art-students Jamie Hewlett & Alan Martin (and, tangentially, Phillip Bond) who prowled the local convention circuit impressing the hell out of everybody with their photocopied fanzine Atomtan. At the back of issue #1 was a pin-up/ad for a dubious looking young lady with a big, Big, BIG gun and her own armoured transport. And now it’s suddenly 30 years laterâ€¦

Commissioned by Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon for their new publishing venture Deadline (a pop-culture magazine with loads of cool comics strips), the absurdist tales of a feisty, well-armed chick roaming the wilds of a futuristic Australia with her Kangaroo boy-friend Booga caught the imagination of a large portion of the public. There was even a movieâ€¦

After many years dallying with a sordid plethora of different publishers, the salty, soldierly slapper found her way to Titan Books – self-appointed custodian of the Best of British strip art – who comprehensively remastered her old adventures and spin-offs into a series of unmissable volumes.

Now as Tank Girl continues to periodically sneak out for further frantic capers, they’ve added another tome to the canon as The Power of Tank Girl gathers recent serial exploits The Gifting, Visions of Booga and The Royal Escape (published in the USA by IDW between November 2007 and September 2010) into one stunning pocket – or is that pouch? – sized compendium of exuberant excess and blood-drenched hilarityâ€¦

Scripted throughout by Martin, the mucky-mouthed mania begins with a dash of poesy in ‘The Power’ and a pulsating pin-up before a transcendental epic ‘The Royal Escape’ (with art by the incomparable Rufus Dayglo) opens with ‘Part One: The Golden Egg’ wherein Tank Girl, paramour Booga (a most manly and lovable kangaroo) and gal pals Jackie (Boat Girl), Barney and Jet Girl are moments from death at the guns (and bombs, bayonets, RPGs etcâ€¦) of an extremely pissed off but much depleted army.

With their backs to the shattered walls and ammo gone, Jet Girl is forced to throw the last thing she possesses: a mysterious golden egg she has owned since childhoodâ€¦

The deed somehow turns her semi-catatonic and the mismatched team are forced to split up. As the gritty warriors hunker down, Barney and Jackie go on a mystic quest to recover the egg. The trek takes them up a mountain to meet skeevy shaman Wanka in ‘The Bulldog Breed’ who guides them to an eagle’s nest with a broken eggshell containing a teeny-tiny, very confused Jet Girlâ€¦

While they yomp back to the battle, the hard-pressed hold-out heroes are reduced to defending themselves with little more than a ‘Dead Man’s Sandwich’ even as their returning friends stumble across a gigantic statue deep in the Bush.

The monolith looks like Jet Girl and when the weeny wonder finds herself compelled to crawl into it, the statue comes to terrifying lifeâ€¦

Now possessed of an awesome unstoppable walking weapon, the wanderers return in time to make ‘A Terrible Souffle’ of the invading army in a shattering spectacle of intense and sustained carnageâ€¦

After a potpourri of covers and groovy pics, odd ode ‘Last of the Jensen Interceptors’ leads into a nostalgic nightmare when Tank Girl determines to attend at all costs a reunion gig by her fave girlhood manufactured Boy-Band in ‘The Funsters Will Play’ (with art by Ashley Wood)â€¦

A procession of fearsome fashion pages comes next as ‘Keys to the Tank’, ‘Booga in Extreme Jungle Wear’, ‘Jet Girl in Stealth Flying Gear’, ‘Barney in Urban Camouflage’ and ‘Cruiser Tank in full Racing Livery’ depict how the most stylish mass-murderers make the scene whilst ‘Tank Girl in Bad Camouflage’ and the concluding chapter ‘Uncle Smiffy’s Tombstone’ returns to strip storytelling to deliver a daft drama disclosing the bloodstained origins of Boat Girlâ€¦

Dayglo resumes the arty stuff for Visions of Booga which finds the lovers sucked into a Mafia plot and sent to prison in ‘Falling Angel Blues’. Unfortunately they’re also caught up in the daring escape of the Don’s favourite brother from the prison transport and have to go on the lam from both the cops and the mob.

The best disguise seems to be switching genders but perhaps they haven’t really thought it throughâ€¦

The pursuit continues and intensifies when they kill one of the Mafioso, accidentally acquiring in the process ultimate mystic panacea the ‘Book of Hipster Gold’ and stumbling onto unhappy diner waitress Barney who just happens to have an old SDKFZ 251 Mittlerer Schutzenpanzerwagen parked out backâ€¦

On the run again (but now in a perfectly working Nazi armoured halftrack) the fugitives head for the West Coast where a seasoned hippy dwells. He’s the only person on Earth who can be trusted with the eldritch tome of peace and perfection but as ‘Letters to Earth’ shows, The Mob never quit and hippies – even the sublime and most cool Spanky Smith – aren’t what they used to be.

Still, he does find time to marry Tank Girl and Booga before the bad guys turn up for the blistering and bizarre conclusion ‘Which Cuts the Finest, the Sabre or the Blade of Grass?’â€¦

Following some more covers, The Gifting opens with a batch of illustrated Beat poems extolling ‘Digging the Lonely Eternity’, before a bit of girl goss gets all scatological whilst solving the pressing mystery of ‘The Dogshit in Barney’s Handbag’ (Wood art) after which Martin & Dayglo spin us back to the 1970s for ‘Tank Girl and Friends in Our Glam Day Out’ revisiting such iconic treats as Evel Knievel, Chopper Bikes, Pub Lunches and much, much more, whilst Wood’s go on the art encompasses a ‘Barney Pull-out Poster’ and extended paean to days past ‘X2-38’ which sees Booga lose his heart to a toy raygun from his childhood which becomes his ‘Reason for Living’, before pausing for a brief ‘Tank Girl Haiku’

Dayglo’s smartly rendered ‘Bonko Patrol’ explains the downside of truly heavy ordnance before Wood wanders back to limn another extended battle against evil and ill manners in ‘The Innocent Die First’.

This sterling parable finds Tank Girl and Booga at a luxurious hotel they’ve just purchased, happily whiling away their days insulting the clientele and starting fights until they offend the wrong punter and start a full scale war in ‘Easy Action’. The conflict naturally escalates until the cataclysmic ‘Attack on the Foreskin Bridge Hotel’ ends the dispute in a most unlikely mannerâ€¦

‘Barney and Jet Girl in Stone Fox Chase’ (Dayglo) then pairs the dynamic duo with Style Icon Adam Ant for a bout of carnage and chaos after which ‘Tank Girl Tat’ offers the kind of merchandise you’ll never see anywhere else and Wood illuminates a quiet night in with nothing to do but ‘Kill Jumbo’â€¦

Booga then plays stage magician to entertain ‘The Kids from 23A’ with horrific results before getting stuck trying to buy lingerie in ‘The Gifting’ and everything wraps up nicely with another selection of moodful poetic meanderings comprising ‘Like a Roast Potato in a Pick-Up Truck’, ‘The Sunshine of Your Arse’, ‘The Ox’ and ‘You Are Loved’â€¦

Never too wedded to the concept of internal logic, chronological order, narrative consistency, linguistic restraint or spelling (so if you’re pedantic be warned!), this latest compote of outrageous and hilarious cartoon phantasmagoria revels in a glorious mud-bath of social iconoclasm, in-yer-face absurdity, decades of British Cultural Sampling and the ever-popular addictive sex ‘n’ violence.

Wildly absurdist, intoxicatingly adorable and packed to the gills with covers, spot art and other pictorial pleasures, The Power of Tank Girl is an ever-so-cool rollercoaster thrill-ride and lifestyle touchstone for life’s incurable rebels and undying Rude Britannians, so if you’ve never seen the anarchic, surreal and culturally soused peculiarity that is Tank Girl, bastard love child of 2000AD and Love and Rockets, you’ve missed a truly unique experienceâ€¦ and remember, she doesn’t care if you like her, just so long as you notice her.
Tank Girl and all related characters are â„¢ & Â© 2014 Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin. All rights reserved.

November 1, 2014October 31, 2014

Dreamworks Dragons: Riders of Berk volume 2: Dangers of the Deep

By Simon Furman, Iwan Nazif, Lee Townsend & various (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-077-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: an unmissable Xmas Treatâ€¦ 8/10

DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of Berk and its follow-up Defenders of Berk comprise one of the most popular kids TV cartoons around. Loosely adapted from Cressida Cowell’s glorious and charming sequence of children’s books, the show is based upon and set between the movies How to Train Your Dragon and its recent sequel.

Of course if you have children you are almost certainly already aware of that already.

Having wowed audiences young and old alike across the globe, the series has also spawned a series of comic albums and the second digest-sized collection by Simon Furman, Iwan Nazif & Lee Townsend (with the colour and lettering assistance of Nestor Pereyra, Digikore, John Charles & David Manley-Leach) is available just in time to fill out a few Seasonal stockingsâ€¦

The epic follows the astounding adventures of brilliant but introverted boy-hero Hiccup and his unruly kid compatriots of the Dragon Rider Academy as they gleefully roam the skies with their devoted scaly friends getting into trouble whilst generally saving the day.

When not squabbling with each other the trusty teens strive to keep the peace between the vast variety of wondrous Wyrms and isolated Berk island’s bombastic Viking homesteaders.

These days, now that the dragons have all been more-or-less befriended, those duties generally involve protecting the village and farms from constant attacks by far nastier folk such as Alvin the Treacherous and his fleet of piratical Outcasts and, occasionally, fresh unknown horrorsâ€¦

A masterly maritime romp ensues after a brace of handy information pages reintroducing Hiccup and his devoted Night Fury Toothless, as well as tom-boyish Astrid on Deadly Nader Stormfly, obnoxious jock Snotlout and Monstrous Nightmare Hookfang, portly scholar Fishlegs on ponderous Gronckle Meatlug and the terribly dim yet merrily violent twins Tuffnut and Ruffnut on double-headed Zippleback Belch & Barfâ€¦

The salty saga opens one terrible day when the fishing fleets of Berk reach home with their holds empty. With winter coming, the islanders need vast supplies of salted fish to carry them through the cold season, but this year the usually plentiful traditional areas are barrenâ€¦

After a fraught council meeting Hiccup’s father Chief Stoick declares that every able-bodied adult must set to sea and voyage to the only place the fishermen have not tried: the spookily taboo region known as the Veil of Mists.

Hiccup is nervous – he always is – to see the fleet leave, but his real concern is that Stoick has left him in charge. The lad might be brave and inventive, but he’s nobody’s idea of a commanding presenceâ€¦

As usual, he’s completely right. Neither young nor old will listen to him and the chores necessary to keep the village going are soon being neglected. Faced with insurmountable odds the temporary chieftain just gives upâ€¦

As the adults sail into the terrifying wall of engulfing clouds, Hiccup sees how badly his home town has declined and rallies the only five people who will listen to him. With the dragon-riders on the case things marginally improve, but that changes again after Astrid goes on patrol and discovers a horrifying secret: a gigantic undersea net which has prevented the fish from reaching their usual feeding groundsâ€¦

Hurrying back to the Academy she informs the others and Hiccup arrives at a grievous conclusion: the net is part of a scheme to invade Berkâ€¦

That terrifying thought is confirmed when the Alvin’s Outcast warships sail into view, intent on pillage and destruction. Instantly decisive, Hiccup lays his plans, despatching Astrid to the Veil of Mists to inform Stoick, whilst he rouses the rest to take over coastal defences and rally the recalcitrant idling youngsters – who would much rather fight than do chores anywayâ€¦

Berk’s adults meanwhile are having problems of their own. The trip into the billowing, grey mist wall utterly demoralised them, and that turned to sheer terror when their ships were targeted by a huge, ferocious and hungry Submaripper dragonâ€¦

They are barely holding their own when Astrid and Stormfly arrive, but after a frantic pitched battle the victors turn back for Berk, desperately rushing to save their children from Alvin’s invasion.

With ingenious Hiccup in charge, however, Stoick needn’t have worried. Thanks to the dragons, the blockbusting Battle of Berk is not going in Alvin’s favourâ€¦

Despite being ostensibly aimed at excitable juniors and TV kids, this sublimely sharp yarn is a smart and engaging fantasy romp no self-indulging fun-fan of any vintage should miss: accessible, entertaining, and wickedly habit-forming.
DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of Berk Â© 2014 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

October 31, 2014October 31, 2014

Nightmare Carnival

By various, edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-6165-5427-9

Here’s a somewhat rushed review because the reading copy arrived late but I’m still determined to get it out in time for Halloween.

Apologies to all involved for my uncharacteristic brevityâ€¦

Dark Horse are best known for their comics and graphic novel efforts but they occasionally slip into old-school legitimate book publishing as with the astounding 2009 release Lovecraft Unbound.

The creative force behind that cosmically unsettling chronicle was Ellen Datlow, the prestigious, multi award-winning editor whose past endeavours include being fiction-editor at Omni, compiling The Best Horror of the Year series, books such as Lovecraft’s Monsters, Darkness: Two Decades of Horror and many more. She spends her quiet moments sourcing short fiction for Tor.Com.

Here she has assembled a chilling coterie of prose parables set in the fertile literary field of unearthly travelling shows as previously exploited by such luminaries as Ray Bradbury in Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dean Koontz in Twilight Eyes or Katherine Dunn in Geek Love.

This last luminary contributes an atmospheric Introduction to this selection of shockers set in and around circus life, atmospherically restating why the Wandering Show biz is such a bastion of terror tales, whilst Datlow’s Preface offers a more personal view of the Three Ring Experience.

The cavalcade commences with ‘Scapegoats’ by N. Lee Wood, which makes us look at elephants in a whole new way, after which Priya Sharma’s ‘The Firebrand’ balances passion, murder and revenge on the tip of a burning tongue and ‘Work, Hook, Shoot, Rip’ from Nick Mamatas describes an aging wrestler’s ultimate battle against a weird new freakâ€¦

A.C. Wise recounts an ex-cop’s problems with a missing family case in ‘And the Carnival Leaves Town’, before Terry Dowling describes in ‘Corpse Rose’ how, when Jeremy Scott Renton was , a bizarre circus ran away to join him and (sadly recently deceased) Joel Lane offers a disturbing insight to the nasty, shabby-chic British experience via a paean to lost love in ‘Last of the Fair’â€¦

A brush with eccentric academics and hidebound college customs draws an unwary new tutor into ‘A Small Part in the Pantomime’ (Glen Hirshberg) and the near-loss of everything she was, whilst ‘Hibbler’s Minions’ (Jeffrey Ford) harks back to the Dustbowl depression of 1933 and a twitchy time with a circus of astoundingly well-trained fleas, after which Dennis Danvers’ ‘Swan Song and Then Some’ explores the amazing resilience and bitter wishes of a songstress who just won’t stay dead.

‘The Lion Cage’ by Genevieve Valentine focuses on the welcome fate of a animal trainer more bestial than his benighted living props, whereas the fun-loving kids in Stephen Graham Jones’ ‘The Darkest Part’ only want to fulfil their hearts desires – to kill as many clowns as humanly possible – whilst Robert Shearman (yeah, the Dalek writer from Doctor Who) takes a lonely insignificant balloon-animal maker on an incredible trip to ‘The Popping Fields’â€¦

According to Nathan Ballingrud, monsters and ghouls have their own festive places of fun and in ‘Skullpocket’ he invites our participation in a most inventive game and spectacle, after which Livia Llewellyn dictates the terms of unnatural desires and weird shopping in ‘The Mysteries’ before Laird Barron carries us to the big finale in ‘Screaming Elk, MT’ with his compulsive trouble-magnet Jessica Mace falling with eyes wide open into some gruesome difficulties at the more-than-it-seems Gallows Brothers Carnival. Naturally, as soon as she settles in the bodies start piling upâ€¦

Harsh, seductive, shocking, spooky, funny and winningly suspenseful, Nightmare Carnival is a bombastic program of perilous passages and macabre moments to amaze and amuse the most jaded fear fiend.
All contents Â© 2014 their individual originators and owners. All rights reserved.

October 31, 2014October 30, 2014

George R.R. Martin’s Skin Trade

Adapted by Daniel Abraham & Mike Wolfer (Avatar Press)
ISBN: 978-1-59291-233-9

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Dark Delight for a Winter’s Nightâ€¦ 9/10

George Raymond Richard Martin has been selling stories since 1970 and winning major awards for them since 1975. As well as his stunning output of dark, emotive, melancholic multilayered novels and short stories in a variety of genres, he has also successfully pursued a parallel career in television (and movies) and even finds time to teach.

His series A Song of Ice and Fire became the TV sensation A Game of Thrones.

Born in Bayonne, New Jersey in 1948, Martin was active in early comics fandom and studied journalism at Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois). He remains close to the funnybook and sci fi fan scenes to this day.

At the top of his form he is one of the most potent fantasy voices in the business, with short stories and novels that are witty, compulsive, imaginatively dark, tinged with wry black humour and always uniquely nuanced and atmospheric.

In 1988 his captivating yarn Skin Trade appeared in the fantasy anthology Night Visions 5 (a series he was editing which numbered Steven King, Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell amongst the contributors) offering a decidedly fresh and different interpretation of one of the most hoary (not a misprint) bÃªte noires in fictionâ€¦

Now that tale (which won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella inÂ 1989) has been adapted as a miniseries by scripter Daniel Abraham and illustrator Mike Wolfer and subsequently collected into a slim and sinister trade paperback to delight another generation of fear freaks who loving feeling their own skins crawlâ€¦

Randi Wade is a private detective with a lot of baggage. Not surprising when you think of how her cop dad died years ago. In circumstances still not fully explained, Frank Wade was torn to pieces by some kind of animal at the local meat-packing plantâ€¦

Still not over it, she divides her time between bread-and-butter cases whilst investigating the historic killing off the books. Her best friend is effete ineffectual asthmatic Willie Flambeaux – as a repo man, he’s even in the same sort of business – and one night he offers insights regarding a particularly brutal contemporary murder which change Randi’s life foreverâ€¦

Willie knew the deceased and, assuming Joan Sorenson‘s horrific demise will be covered up by the investigating officers, asks Randi to get involved. He was supposed to meet the victim on the night she died and might be suspect but the real problem is what his own snooping has uncovered.

Joan was found mutilated and might even have been partially consumed by her attackerâ€¦ just like Randi’s dadâ€¦

Willie has not told his friend everything however and later starts calling a few old acquaintances: men like financier Jonathan Harmon, the dark, wealthy untouchable powerbroker whose clan has been secretly running the city foreverâ€¦

Randi taps her other sources, questioning Barry Shumacher, Editor of The Courier and one of her father’s oldest friends. He tells her there’s no connection to the new killing but she knows he’s lyingâ€¦

Convinced she’s on to something Randi then storms into police HQ for a conversation with her dad’s old partner and discovers Chief Joe Urquart reviewing files from the missing persons case Frank Wade was working at the time of his death.

It seems the suspect put away for the crimes is out again, but Frank always felt they had the wrong guy anyway. Rather than big, simple-minded poor kid Roy Helander, he favoured the frighteningly strange son of Jonathan Harmon as the perp behind a spate of child disappearancesâ€¦

Willie meanwhile has been summoned to the Harmon home for an audience with the patriarch and his just-not-right heir Stevenâ€¦

The case takes a disturbing turn after Randi and Willie compare notes. Joan’s death is apparently unconnected to the cold case as she was chained in silver and flayed before the killer made off with her skin. What Randi doesn’t, disclose is the fact that in Frank’s old files she found a note from prime suspect Roy which simply said â€œIt was a werewolfâ€â€¦

And then a friend on the force informs her that there’s been a second killing. Someone else close to good old Willie has been skinned alive, and Randi arrives at a terrifying, inescapable conclusionâ€¦

All of that is mere scene-setting for the shocks, twists and surprises still in store for Randi as two 20-year mysteries are finally resolved, appalling ambitions and dark desires uncovered and apex predators become cowering victims for something which preys on monstersâ€¦

Accompanied by a fifteen-page gallery of covers-&-variants, this splendidly effective blend of crime caper and supernatural thriller is a pure visceral delight no lover of spooky chills can dare to miss.

October 30, 2014

Modesty Blaise: The Grim Joker

By Peter O’Donnell & Enric Badia Romero (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-711-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: unmissable comics for fans of classic blockbusting adventureâ€¦ 9/10

Modesty Blaise and her lethally adept, compulsively platonic partner Willie Garvin gained their fearsome reputations as top-flight super-criminals before retiring young, rich and healthy. With their honour intact and their hands relatively clean, they cut themselves off completely from a career where they made all the money they would ever need and far too many enemies.

When devious British Spymaster Sir Gerald Tarrant sought them out they were slowly dying of boredom in England. The wily old bird offered them a chance to have fun, get back into harness and do a bit of good in the world. They jumped at his offer and have been cleaning up the world in their own unique way ever since â€¦

From that tenuous beginning in ‘La Machine’ (see Modesty Blaise: the Gabriel Set-Up) the dynamic duo went on to crush the world’s vilest villains and most macabre monsters in a perpetual storm of tense suspense and inspirational action for nearly forty yearsâ€¦

The inseparable associates first appeared in The Evening Standard on May 13^th 1963 and over the decades went on to star in some of the world’s most memorable crime fiction, all in three panels a day.

Creators Peter O’Donnell & Jim Holdaway (who had previously collaborated on Romeo Brown) produced a timeless treasure trove of brilliant graphic escapades until the illustrator’s tragic early death in 1970, whereupon Spanish artist Enric Badia Romero (and, occasionally, others) assumed the art reins, taking the partners in peril to even greater heights.

The series has been syndicated world-wide and Modesty Blaise has also starred in 13 prose novels and short-story collections, several films, a TV pilot, a radio play, an American graphic novel and nearly one hundred comic strip adventures until the strip’s conclusion in 2002.

The tales are a broad blend of hip and cool capers combining espionage, crime, straight adventure and even – now and again – plausibly intriguing sci fi and supernaturally tinged horror genre fare, with ever-competent Modesty and Willie canny, deadly, yet all-too-fallible human defenders of the helpless and avengers of the wrongedâ€¦

Reproduced in stark and stunning black & white – and quite right too – Titan Books’ superb and scrupulous serial re-presentations of the ultimate newspaper troubleshooters continue here with O’Donnell and Romero offering a chilling trio of tales spanning November 1992 to February 1994, each prefaced with informative prose introductions from devotee and historian Simon Ward.

The rollercoaster ride begins with eerie thriller ‘A Present for the Princess’ (originally seen in The Evening Standard from November 3^rd 1992 to April 8^th 1993) with Garvin deep in the emerald mining region of Montelero, near Colombia.

He is in search of raw materials to create another of his outrageously over-the-top gifts for Modesty and is prepared for trouble from the thugs and bandits who inhabit the region, but not his own partner and guide Ramon who is, after all, a former pal from their long-defunct crime combine The Networkâ€¦

In England Modesty takes it easy whilst entertaining psychic researchers Steve and Dinah Collier – truly gifted individuals Tarrant wants to employ – who are happily on hand when Blaise has a nightmare premonition that Willie is in trouble.

As usual Garvin has told no one of his plans or destination and when Ramon attacked him had no hope of ever being found. However, the indomitable survivor escaped the ambush – barely – only to be washed up more dead than alive miles downriver. He was then nursed back to health by poor peon Rima: a young woman who looks astonishingly like Modesty.

Willie doesn’t recognise the fact though. The brutalised, battered Englishman has lost his memoryâ€¦

Although his history is denied him Garvin’s deadly skills are intact and he jumps to the obvious conclusion that he is some kind of criminal. His actions disprove this notion, efficiently saving Rima from an abusive landowner and his thugs.

Although she has fallen for him the native girl knows his clouded mind is obsessed with another woman and she treks with him to the capital city Toccopina to obtain papers and possibly passage back to Britainâ€¦

At home, with Willie long overdue, Modesty has employed the Colliers and another psychic to search for him. Their endeavours have narrowed the search to the selfsame South American city. They have also resulted in an enigmatic prophecyâ€¦

Willie’s gift for card-playing has meanwhile won the wanderers a nice nest-egg but dropped him clueless amongst the city’s criminal element, most of whom have good reason to despise him.

After an old enemy recognises him, Willie is befriended by the wily conman and unknowingly â€œsoldâ€ to local mob boss Senor Strobel, who cunningly convinces the lethally talented amnesiac that he is an evil man wanted for murder who would only be safe if he rejoins the gang as a hit-manâ€¦

By the time Modesty arrives, Willie is safely tucked away in a fortress-like nest of bandits, where his inner self rebels from the acts he’s expected to perform. Naturally she has a plan to save her brother-in-arms and make all the guilty parties very sorry indeedâ€¦

Following that spectacular and explosive resolution, the tables are turned somewhat for ‘Black Queen’s Pawn’, a riotous African adventure yarn (April 13^th – September 10^th) which begins in 1834 when Ranavalona, autocratic and utterly insane queen of Madagascar, obtains a treasure guaranteed to make her immortal. She then hides it away from the eyes of mankind and, just to be sure, has every person who knew of it slaughteredâ€¦

Now one hundred and sixty years later hard times have befallen the island, as is clearly observed by veterinary surgeon Greg Lawton who has been commissioned by government officials to find a giant fossil egg.

He’s brought old chum Modesty with him, but when they reach the poverty-stricken village of Mandofo they find the place has been taken over by ruthless thugs on a treasure hunt.

The leader Koch has crossed swords with her before and convinces his murderous underlings not to kill the westerners out of hand. If she dies, nothing could stop the absent Willie Garvin hunting them down. Far better to keep her alive and on her best behaviour by holding innocent villagers hostageâ€¦

Forced into unwilling neutrality, Modesty and Greg befriend local missionary Father Brienne and discover the savage invaders are seeking Ranavalona’s legendary lost hoard for mysterious millionaire paymaster Salim. As the cleric is also Koch’s unwilling translator of ancient documents, he provides clues which enable Modesty to deduce where the treasure actually isâ€¦

The suspenseful standoff continues until Willie – acting on his own uncanny instincts – surprisingly joins the party, but with Garvin now here in front of them instead of lurking unsuspected at their heels, Koch and Salim decide to arrange a little accident.

However with the deadly dÃ©tente effectively negated their targets know full well all bets are off and, after brilliantly locating the treasure for the gangsters, go on to prove just a bit smarter and more efficient in settling scoresâ€¦

The addictive action concludes in a classic murder mystery which sees Modesty take a rare personal interest in a news sensation as Britain is gripped by a series of bizarre, baroque and flamboyant murders by a macabre psychopath signing himself ‘The Grim Joker’ (September 13^th 1993 – February 9^th 1994)â€¦

The killer apparently devises convoluted, extremely public executions for sheer amusement but such callous slaughter for pleasure disgusts reluctant professionals such as Blaise and Garvin.

Soon they have made themselves prime targets for the maniac, unaware that the Grim Joker is not what he seems. The insanely Machiavellian exploits are in fact a cunning blind concocted by a trio of greedy brats eager to expedite an eventual inheritance.

Brothers Matthew and Mark Goodchild, along with their shared girlfriend Prudence, originally set up the crimes to divert suspicion after they decided to bump off their rich uncle, but as they carried out the string of publicity seeking murders, the thrill of achievement affected them.

Prudence especially has become intoxicated with the undertaking, and begs for more before topping their true target and retiring. Her wish is granted after Willie publicly ridicules the Grim Joker on television and arouses the righteous indignation of the brothers.

It’s all a cunning plan by the ex-Network leaders. After consulting old friend Police Inspector Brook, Modesty and Willie have correctly deduced that the crimes are the work of a team not a lone maniac, and Garvin has offered himself as a too-tempting follow-up target.

Relocating to an isolated Scottish island â€œfor a holidayâ€, Willie makes himself available for his unknown foes, with Modesty concealed waiting to spring their trap.

Unfortunately they’re keeping watch for a couple of strong men, not the frail helpless girl who first washes up on the desolate death trapâ€¦

What follows is smart, chaotic and shatteringly thrill-a-minute excitement, before the dust finally settles and the final tally is takenâ€¦

These are incomparable capers crafted by brilliant creators at the peak of their powers; revelling in the sheer perfection of an iconic creation. Unforgettable romps packed with sleek sex appeal, dry wit, terrific tension and explosive action and, these stories grow more appealing with every rereading and never fail to deliver maximum impact and total enjoyment.

October 30, 2014October 29, 2014

Wolverine and the X-Men: Tomorrow Never Learns

By Jason Latour, Mahmud Asrar, Mateo Lolli, Pepe Larraz, David Messina, Massimiliano Veltri, Marc Deering & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-610-6

Wolverine is all things to most people and in his long life has worn many hats; Avenger, Teacher, Protector, Punisher.

As leader of covert black ops (and frequently wetworks) unit X-Force he was responsible for executing many maverick mutants but experiences misplaced guilt and shared responsibility for sparing reborn mutant nemesis Apocalypse when he should by all rights have put down his kind’s ultimate foeâ€¦

Now that confused child of terrifying potential resides at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning where even his fellow students find it hard to believe that love and a good education can overcome the legacy of death latent within the boy now called Evanâ€¦

Collecting issues #1-6 of Wolverine and the X-Men volume 2 (May – September 2014), this fast and furious saga finds the diminished mutant everyman abandoning his preferred role as trainer of the next generation in ‘Tomorrow Never Learns’ to drag old X-Force comrade Fantomex back from a self-imposed exile of torture and unending combatâ€¦

While he’s gone many of the latest class of students are undergoing a wave of communal angst prompted not just by Evan’s proximity and existence. Also adding to the tension is the chilling realisation that former fellow student Quentin â€œKid Omegaâ€ Quire has been revealed (by a batch of X-Men from the future) to be the destined host of supernal cosmic ravager the Phoenix and by the simple, sobering fact that being an X-Man is tantamount to receiving a death sentenceâ€¦

As Logan returns with Fantomex the next crisis commences in ‘Storm Chasers’ as a global ad campaign co-opting the image of the Phoenix lures Quentin into a devious trap. The mind behind the Phoenix Corporation has employed time-displaced warrior Faithful John to psychically destabilise the already troubled Omega mutant and even the late arriving Storm and Wolverine are unable to overcome the Tomorrow Soldier’s mental assaults and sheer physical prowessâ€¦

In ‘True Believers’, as John escapes the adult heroes and turns to attacking their school, Quentin is hotly debating his possible future with disciple of destruction Edan Younge who worships the Phoenix and only wants to help the true host live up to his cataclysmic, universe-rending potentialâ€¦

Happily Quentin’s feisty not-girlfriend Oya is made of sterner stuff. With Wolverine out of action and whilst Quire brutally rebuffs Younge, she leads a squad of classmates against rampaging zealot John despite a wave psychic strikes which decimate the youthful defenders.

Kid Omega uses the opportunity to run for unlikely help ‘In the Land of the Blindâ€¦’, recruiting ideological opponents Cyclops and his Extinction Team to the battle, but even as Younge gloatingly discloses his ancient connections to the Phoenix to a dying Wolverine and hints of a hand guiding his own, Evan and the still traumatised Fantomex make their own off-kilter move on Faithful John in ‘Chekhov’s Gun’ before the shocking revelation of mastermind behind everything exposes the actual motivation behind the attacks in ‘A Fate Far Worse’â€¦

Non-stop visceral action, smart characterisation, hilarious interplay and shocking suspense propel this explosive yarn from high-octane start to explosive finish and the frantic Fights ‘n’ Tights School Daze delights is complimented by a beautiful gallery of covers and variants by Asrar, Marte Gracia, Mark Brooks, Jenny Parks, Art Adams, Jorge Molina and Michael Del Mundo.

Also upping the entertainment ante are added extras provided by of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

October 29, 2014October 28, 2014

The White Room of the Asylum

By Luke Melia, David Anderson, Zev Zimmerman, Bobby PeÃ±afiel, Kat Farjado, Omaik Neiv & Vinny Smith
ISBN: 978-1-50035-876-1

What really happens in our mental institutions?

Who really knows what occurs within troubled minds sequestered for their own good and too frequently at their own request?

Some answers are too appalling to stomach but thankfully political ideology, fiscal neglect and societal disinterest play no part in this inspired dark fantasy of pristine pale reflectionâ€¦

As I’ve frequently proclaimed, I’m a huge fan of creators with the drive and dedication to take control of their own destinies and that’s never been more splendidly affirmed than with the chilling collaboration between writer (and letterer) Luke Melia and his six illustrative collaborators in this inventively macabre and movingly spooky psycho-drama.

When the police are called to a suicide in a quiet house, it’s just another day for most of them. However for Officer Bardy, tasked with checking the contents of six old audio cassette tapes left with the sad old geezer’s farewell note, the case soon starts to resonate and she finds herself drawn into an incredible story impossible to let go ofâ€¦

The contents of each tape forms a chapter in a terrifying testament (every one uniquely rendered here by a different artist) and the fantastic voyage begins with David Anderson in ‘The Wicked Relative of the Dreamer’ as the policewoman hears recently deceased Steve describe how he was sectioned in 1982 and admitted to Soraberg Asylum displaying symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.

Steve recounts dreams of being chased by a ferocious, distinctly female monster down an endless accusatory corridor and the relentless waking hours spent mixing with or avoiding the other strange residents.

Terrified of facing the horror again, Steve began hurting himself to stay awake but therapist Maggie stepped in and forced the issue and his inevitable return to sleepâ€¦

The tone abruptly changes as the recently deceased describes an incredible, impossible phenomenon.

One night when Steve once more found himself pursued by the monster, he was saved by a superhero who revealed himself as taciturn, unfriendly Ralph. In the outside world he was the weird, standoffish cove who had committed himself to Soraberg and spent all day playing chess with withdrawn Juliaâ€¦

In the dream space Ralph became open and amiable and as they conversed both realised that the featureless limbo was a resource which they could visit at will: a communal landscape to be reshaped by every fleeting whim. Further discourse led them to conclude that the environment was the subject to a cumulative effect: the more you slept, the easier it was to access.

Steve however, as the first to discover it, harboured a strong sense of possessiveness for his â€œWhite Roomâ€ and didn’t want to share it with any other inmatesâ€¦

The second tape continues the record with ‘The Suppressed Desires of the Depressive’ (with art by Zev Zimmerman) as idyllic nights of joyous shared adventure in the pale playground were disrupted by the arrival of John the Vegetable who was as loquacious and smart inside as he was comatose and inert in the physical worldâ€¦

The newcomer was accommodated into the dreamscape but everything changed when Ralph created a simulacrum of Julia as a sexual plaything. After â€œharmlesslyâ€ slaking his desires with the construct in the White Room, the astonished and ashamed Ralph was attacked and nearly killed in the actual asylum by furious Julia, who had somehow experienced every agonising moment of his assault on her proxyâ€¦

‘The Relentless Taunting of the Saviour’ (Bobby PeÃ±afiel), begins with another inmate finding his baffled way into the dream world. Persecuted Tim suddenly saw himself in a strange place and able to talk to Steve. The shocked newcomer recounted how Julia suddenly, inexplicably attacked Ralph but was more concerned that here at least he seemed free of the brutal incarnation of Jesus that dictated his every move in the real world: a vicious, man-sized, foul-mouthed, priapic tyrannosaur with impulse issues and a propensity for extreme violenceâ€¦

When Ralph joined them from his distant hospital bed things seem to settle until Julia suddenly materialised threatening to tell the carers what Ralph had done. In a fit of fury Steve then attacked her for threatening his White World and in the real world her sleeping body diedâ€¦

‘The Flawed Operation of the Condemned’ (Kat Farjado) found Steve in complete denial as more and more inmates begin continually leaking over into â€œhisâ€ dream world. Soon suppressed hostilities began to manifest, and after John defeated Steve in a spectacular duel of imaginations, the furious schizophrenic threatened to kill the vegetable’s immobile physical form when he went back to the real world.

The act resulted in a schism in the White Room. As everyone else avoided him and played, Steve made plans to escape Soraberg, using the psychoactive landscape to construct a facsimile asylum to practise inâ€¦

His big mistake was working with Minefield Frank whose aggressive imagination kept changing the set-up, but before he could get away everything changed again as the first member of staff made his astounded way into the fantasy zoneâ€¦

With Omaik Neiv handling the art, ‘The Uncertain Conclusion of the Thinker’ saw Steve tortured by helplessness as the medical professionals took charge; methodically transforming the plasmic wonderland into a vast therapeutic environment. Despite his furious insistence that they were all trespassing on his property, the staff began an accelerated program which quickly reaped immense dividends amongst the troubled detainees.

With everyone against him Steve had no choice but to strike back in ‘The Broken Opportunity of the Vegetable’ (illustrated by Vinny Smith), but even against such a remorseless, merciless adversary some of the inmates were not willing to go down without a fightâ€¦

Available as a trade paperback and in a kindle edition, the startling events of The White Room of the Asylum are judiciously rendered in a range of palettes from full colour to black & red to overwhelmingly stark monochrome, uniting to highlight the moody power of the narrative and the mesmerising power of the shocking mystery’s conclusion.

Gripping, compulsive and unforgettable, here is a terrifying tale you’d be absolutely crazy to miss.

October 29, 2014October 30, 2014

Sock Monkey: Into the Deep Woods

By Tony Millionaire & Matt Danner (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-746-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a new classic to add to the â€œEvery Kid Must Readâ€ listâ€¦ 10/10

Tony Millionaire’s Sock Monkey first appeared as a Dark Horse comicbook in 1998. Since then the cast of characters within have achieved a bizarre notoriety as adored favourites of gentle lovers of whimsy and the degenerate darlings of clued-in cynical post-moderns.

Confused? Then by all means read onâ€¦

The original tales (recently repackaged in a sumptuous 336 page hardback) featured a lovable handmade simian puppet, a toy crow with button eyes and a much repaired doll in multiple award-winning, all-ages adventures published as occasional miniseries between 1998 and 2007 as well a couple of hardcover storybooks Millionaire created in 2002 and 2004. He later recycled and repurposed the durably distinct stars for an adult-oriented (by which I mean surreal and clever, not tawdry and titillating) newspaper stripâ€¦

Tony Millionaire comes from a dynasty of exemplary artists, loves to draw and does it very, very well; referencing classical art, the acme of children’s book illustration and an eclectic mix of pioneering comic strip draughtsmen like George McManus, Rudolph Dirks, Cliff Sterrett, Frank Willard, Harold Gray, Elzie Segar and George Herriman.

His own creative endeavours – words and pictures – seamlessly blend their styles and sensibilities with European engravings masters from the â€œlegitimateâ€ side of the pictorial storytelling racket.

Born Scott Richardson, he especially cites Johnny (Raggedy Ann and Andy) Gruelle and English illustrator Ernest H. Shepard (The Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh) as definitive formative influences. That is particularly obvious from the range of stunning pictures in this latest work starring his inimitable plushy paragons in a winning and memorable collaboration with animator, screen writer and director Matt Danner (whose past credits include Ren & Stimpy, Loony Toons, Monster High and The Drinky Crow Show).

With a variety of graphical strings to his bow such as various animation shows, his own clutch of books for children – particularly the superbly stirring Billy Hazelnuts series – and the brilliant if disturbing weekly strip Maakies (which details the aforementioned, riotously vulgar, absurdly surreal adventures of an nautically-inclined Irish monkey called Uncle Gabby and fellow Ã¼ber-alcoholic and nautical adventurer Drinky Crow: grown-up world iterations and mirror universe equivalents of the sweet and simple stars herein), every Millionaire project seems to be a guarantee of endless excitement and quality.

This one certainly is and may well push the featured creatures into the rarefied atmosphere previously inhabited solely by such esteemed and established children’s favourites as the Moomins, Wonderland, The Velveteen Rabbit and the assorted chronicles of Ozâ€¦

A prose tale scripted primarily by Danner with ideas, contributions and 46 stunning monochrome illustrations (in a variety of media from soft pencil tones to crisp stark pen & ink) from Millionaire, the sublime saga details how one day in a Victorian House by the sea, an old Sock Monkey named Gabby and his constant companions Crow and dilapidated, oft-repaired doll Inches discover that their beloved guardian Ann-Louise is missing and presumed taken by the recently discovered monstrous beast dubbed the Amarokâ€¦

Determined to save her, the ill-prepared trio plunge into the terrifying Deep Woods, armed only with maps and a compass from the library of Ann-Louise’s grandfather Professor Rimperton. Braving all manner of terrors – and with the occasional assistance of strange creatures such as the wood-elf Trumbernick, a partly digested sea captain and an undersized bear carpenter – the toybox heroes defeat, or more usually narrowly escape, such threats as Venomous, Triple-Spiked, Hog-Faced Caterpillars, stormy seas, a Sea Serpent, horrid Harpies and the unpleasantly ursine Eastern Mountain Guards of Bear Town, until they find her.

However even after the dauntless searchers have finished dodging pursuers, roaming the wilds and soaring the skies to be reunited with Ann-Louise, there is still one final trial as the remorseless Amarok tracks them to the beloved little girl they would lay down their lives forâ€¦

Like the very best children’s classics, this is a book that isn’t afraid to confront dark matters and actively embraces fear and sadness amidst the wonders in an effort to craft a better story.

Compelling, beguiling and visually intoxicating, this latest Sock Monkey yarn judiciously leavens discovery with anxiety, heartbreak with gleeful imaginative innocence and terror with bold triumph.

Millionaire has described his works as intended for â€œadults who love children’s storiesâ€ but this collaboration with Matt Danner may just have turned that around by concocting a tall tale of adult intent which is one of the greatest kids’ books of modern times.
Sock Monkey: Into the Deep Woods Â© 2014 Tony Millionaire & Matt Danner. This edition Â© 2014 Fantagraphics Books.

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