Category: Graphic Novels

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THE SPECTRE: TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED


By David Lapham, Eric Battle, Prentis Rollins & Tom Mandrake (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-668-9

Completing the intense horror-drama begun in Crisis Aftermath: The Spectre (ISBN13: 978-1-84576-577-X – an absolute prerequisite before you tackle this tome) murdered detective Crispus Allen, newly bonded to the all-powerful supernatural force known as the Spectre, finds himself irresistibly drawn back to the tenement house where slum-lord Leonard Krieger was murdered.

Eventually murdered. Prior to that he was chained in the basement for two weeks, starved, tortured, abused and generally made to regret the miseries he had inflicted on his many tenants. One man has already paid the ghostly guardian’s ghastly price for killing him, but somehow the sin remains unpunished and Allen, as well as Gotham cops Marcus Driver and Josh Azeveda, are convinced there’s more to know and further horror to come from God’s Spirit of Vengeance…

The Spectre premiered in More Fun Comics #52 (February 1940), the brainchild of Superman writer Jerry Siegel and artist Bernard Baily. Jim Corrigan, a murdered police detective, was ordered to fight crime and evil by a glowing light and disembodied voice, as the most overwhelmingly powerful hero of the Golden Age.

He has been revamped and revived many times, and revealed to be God’s Spirit of Vengeance wedded to a human conscience. Corrigan was finally laid to rest in the 1990s and Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan replaced him.

Jordan had nearly destroyed the universe when possessed by the alien fear-parasite Parallax, yet sacrificed his life to reignite Earth’s dying sun in the Final Night miniseries (ISBN-13: 978-1-56389-419-0). The fallen hero’s soul bonded with the Spectre to become a Spirit of Redemption as well as Retribution. Following a complex series of events in the wake of the Infinite Crisis Jordan was resurrected as a mortal superhero and the Spectre was left without human guidance.

But even now the human ameliorating influence is having little effect as the Spectre, unable to leave Gotham, goes on a rampage of grotesque and baroque retribution in the murder capital of the World. As the police chip away at the mystery of Krieger’s death and the wall of silence from the other tenants of the seemingly accursed Granville Towers, Crispus Allen is becoming more and more inured to the atrocities humanity perpetrates on a daily basis. Without intervention, he may become more ruthless and relentless than the Spectre itself…

Featuring outstanding guest-appearances by Batman and the Phantom Stranger (the latter fully illustrated by veteran Spectre artist Tom Mandrake) this volume reprints issues #4-8 of the lead strip in DC’s anthological revival Tales of the Unexpected, including original cover’s by Bernie Wrightson, Mike Huddleston, Bill Sienkiewicz, Art Adams & Prentis Rollins and Eric Battle & Dave Stewart.

A harsh, uncompromising exploration of justice, provocation and guilt, this is not a story for the young or squeamish and the mystery, engrossing though it be, is secondary to the exploration of the events that produced it. Can the modern world still use an Old-Testament solution to sin, or is every crime now too complex for prescribed punishments?

It’s rare for superhero comics to be this challenging but Tales of the Unexpected manages that and still delivers a visceral, evocative thriller that is a joy to read.

© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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BATMAN ADVENTURES: THE LOST YEARS


By Hilary J. Bader, Bo Hampton & Terry Beatty (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-483-1

The Batman Animated TV series masterminded by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini revolutionised the Dark Knight and led to some of the absolute best comic book adventures in his seventy-year publishing history. The five-issue miniseries collected here features the Batman Family in an adventure that recounts how Teen Wonder Robin became the mysterious avenger Nightwing.

Increasingly discontented with his junior role Dick Grayson acrimoniously departs Gotham City to travel the world, eventually encountering a tribe of Brazilian Indians called the Invisibles who teach him their unique stealth secrets.

Meanwhile in Gotham Batman and Batgirl carry on the good fight, but their lives change forever when they meet a troubled kid named Tim Drake whose dad is caught up in a situation that only a hero can handle…

Compelling, superbly designed and spectacularly illustrated, these stripped-down action romps are quintessential Bat-magic, and with such arch foes as the Joker, Two-Face and Ra’s Al Ghul on hand to provide the menace this is a book any fan, no matter their age, will adore.

© 1998, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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100 BULLETS: SPLIT SECOND CHANCE


By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-268-4

What would you do if you had a grudge, an untraceable gun, one hundred bullets and an ironclad guarantee of no repercussions?

The second collection (reprinting issues #6-14 of the monthly Vertigo comic) continues to explore that fascinating proposition as it slowly unravels the mystery of the enigmatic Agent Graves – purveyor of both the ordnance and the inquiry.

‘Short Con, Long Odds’ introduces hard luck kid Chucky Spinks, a cheap grifter and ex-con who gets a visit from the cadaverous Man in Black. Chucky’s life was ruined when he got drunk and killed some kids: but at least his friend Pony always looked out for him when he got out of prison. Still, what kind of friend drags your drunken ass out of the passenger seat and behind the wheel before the cops show up?

In ‘Day, Hour, Minute… Man’ we get some insight into the manipulative Graves’ long-term goals as he engineers a gang-war to draw some old comrades back into his game. There are intriguing hints of an old crew and some very high-powered bosses when he contacts the brutal enforcer Lono and claims someone’s reviving something called “the Minutemen”…

‘The Right Ear, Left in the Cold’ finds an ice-cream vendor named Cole Burns selling stronger stuff from his van shocked to discover that his boss torched the old folks home where his grandmother died. Yet that’s just the start as Cole is revealed as another retired Minuteman. It looks like someone’s putting the band back together…

A viscerally satisfying one-off story follows as a waitress gets an unwelcome heads up about her happy home in the chilling ‘Heartbreak, Sunnyside Up’ and this volume concludes with the return of Isabelle “Dizzy” Cordova (see First Shot, Last Call, ISBN: 978-1-84023-298-1). She’s in Paris to meet American ex-pat Mr. Branch, a reporter who dug too deep and uncovered the greatest secret in US history.

‘Parlez Kung Vous’ begins to unravel the mysteries of the Trust, the Minutemen, and especially Agent Graves in a brutal yet delicate manner, engrossing and satisfying: yet manages the magician’s trick of leaving a bigger puzzle and readers hungry for the next instalment.

The slick switch from crime comic to conspiracy thriller is made with superb skill, with no diminution of the extreme violence and seedy sexuality that are hallmarks of this uncompromising series. Savage brilliantly executed and utterly addictive, this is a landmark book in a landmark series.

© 2000 Brian Azzarello and DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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CRISIS AFTERMATH: THE SPECTRE


By Will Pfeifer & Cliff Chiang: David Lapham, Eric Battle & Prentis Rollins (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-577-X

The Spectre first appeared in 1940 in More Fun Comics #52 (February 1940), the brainchild of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and artist Bernard Baily. Jim Corrigan, a murdered police detective, was given a mission to fight crime and evil by a glowing light and disembodied voice, and swiftly became one of the most overwhelmingly powerful heroes of the Golden Age.

He has been revamped and revived many times since. Latterly revealed to be God’s Spirit of Vengeance bonded to a human conscience, Corrigan was finally laid to rest and Hal Jordan replaced him.

Jordan was a Green Lantern who had nearly destroyed the universe when possessed by the antediluvian fear-parasite Parallax, only to sacrifice his life to reignite our dying sun in the Final Night miniseries (ISBN-13: 978-1-56389-419-0).

Jordan’s soul bonded with the Spectre force and became a Spirit of Redemption as well as Retribution. Following a complex series of events in the wake of the Infinite Crisis Jordan was resurrected as a mortal superhero and the Spectre was left without human guidance.

Collecting the three-part miniseries Crisis Aftermath: The Spectre and the lead stories from Tales of the Unexpected #1-3, this book follows the Ghostly Guardian in a search for a new host, which he finds in the reluctant, intangible form of Crispus Allen, a Detective in the Gotham City police force, murdered by fellow officer and dirty cop Jim Corrigan (no relation to the original).

In ‘Dead Again’ by Will Pfeifer and Cliff Chiang, The Spectre first has to convince the angry atheist Allen to bond with him to dispense Heavenly Justice. It then has to prove the validity of the admittedly illogical way the Spirit of Retribution selects his victims from the billions of murderous sinners in sore need of their personal and bloodily ironic attentions.

A subtle tale, the inescapable tragedy of the ending lends some desperately needed depth to a character far too powerful for traditional periodical tale-telling. This is followed by the first quarter of an eight-part epic by David Lapham, Eric Battle and Prentis Rollins that featured in DC’s revival of the classic anthology title Tales of the Unexpected.

Slum-lord Leonard Krieger has been murdered in one of his own rat-traps. He was chained and tortured for two weeks in the foul basement of a tenement filled with desperate people and outcasts on the edge of society. When he was very nearly dead he was stabbed repeatedly. There’s certainly no shortage of suspects…

Crispus Allen may be dead but he’s a still a detective and he knows that there’s some terrible secret buried in the wasteland of the Granville Towers. And so do investigating officers Marcus Driver and Josh Azeveda. When the Spectre identifies and dispatches the killer it would seem the case is over but the dark mysteries of the building are not all revealed and the horrors within keep calling out to both the harassed unsettled cops and Allen as well…

Davis Lapham took the Spectre into uncharted waters with this raw and savage portmanteau saga. Rather than one crime and one grisly punishment, he examines the nature of evil by focusing on all the inhabitants of the slum and their degree of culpability in this murder as well as other sins. Can every door hide a secret worthy of God’s punishment? And does Crispus Allen have the power – and the inclination – to temper the Spectre’s awful judgements?

‘The Cold Hand of Vengeance’ is engrossing and challenging stuff, well worth your attention, but to truncate the saga this way (the remaining issues 4-8 are collected in the sequel The Spectre: Tales of the Unexpected, ISBN: 978-1-84576-668-9) is annoying and unnecessary.

Even with a gallery of alternate covers by such luminaries as Neal Adams & Moose Bauman, Michael Wm. Kaluta & David Baron, Michael Mignola, Matt Wagner & Dave Stewart, both these books are short: 128 pages for this one and 144 for the follow-up. Would it have been so hard to schedule them all as one larger format volume such as Superman: Birthright?
© 2006, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved

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AIRBOY: THE RETURN OF VALKYRIE


By Chuck Dixon, Timothy Truman, Tom Yeates, Stan Woch & Will Blyberg (Eclipse)
ISBN: 0-913035-59-9 (limited edition) ISBN: 0-913035-60-2 (trade paperback)

The recent ads for the totally unrelated movie reminded me of this little corker of a tale from the 1980s which returned a classic Golden Age hero to the killer skies. Created for Hillman Periodicals by the brilliant Charles Biro (Steel Sterling, the original Daredevil, the Little Wiseguys and Crime Does Not Pay among many other triumphs) Airboy featured a plucky teen and his fabulous super-airplane, affectionately dubbed ‘Birdie’.

He debuted in the second issue of Air Fighters Comics in November 1942 and the comic was eventually renamed Airboy Comics in December 1945. For more than twelve years of publication the boy-hero tackled the Axis powers, crooks, aliens, monsters, demons and every possible permutation of sinister threat – even giant rats and ants! The gripping scripts took the avenging aviator all over the world and pitted him against some of the most striking adversaries in comics. He was the inspiration for Jetboy in the 17 Wild Cards braided Mega-novels by George R.R. Martin and friends.

Then the world moved on and he vanished with many other comicbook heroes whose time had run out. In 1982 comics devotee Ken Pierce collected all the Airboy adventures that featured the pneumatic Nazi-turned-freedom-fighter Valkyrie, which apparently inspired budding independent comics company Eclipse to revive the character and all his Hillman comrades.

Always innovative, Eclipse were experimenting at that time with fortnightly (that’s twice a month) comics with a lower page count than the industry standard but also a markedly reduced price. Airboy premiered at fifty cents a copy in 1986 and quickly found a vocal, dedicated following. And looking at this compilation after more than a decade it’s easy to see why.

Deep in the Florida Everglades the monstrous bog-creature known as The Heap stirs after decades of inactivity. Something momentous is beginning to unfold. It remembers a previous life, brave heroes and a diabolical evil. It begins to walk towards a distant villa…

In the Napa Valley David Nelson is a bitter, broken old man. Not even his teenaged son can bring joy to his life. Trained since birth by the Japanese Ace and martial artist Hirota, the boy is a brave, confident fighter but still doesn’t know why his life has been one of constant training.

Then suddenly a horde of assassins attacks the compound and the old man dies in a hail of machine gun bullets. Only then does young Davy discover the truth about his father. Once he was the hero known as Airboy, with valiant comrades and a unique super-aircraft. Once he loved a beautiful German woman-warrior named Valkyrie. But for thirty years she has been trapped in suspended animation by Misery, a supernatural being who feeds on evil and steals the souls of lost fliers…

Forced to do the monster’s bidding for three decades (such as providing weapons for South American despots to slaughter and enslave innocents) the old hero had gradually died inside. But now his son is ready to avenge him and free the beautiful sleeper, aided by such combat veterans as Hirota and the legendary Air Ace Skywolf…

Fast-paced, beautifully illustrated and written with all the gung-ho bravado of a Rambo movie, this tale of liberation and revolution rattles along, a stirring blend of action and supernatural horror that sweeps readers along with it. The book collects issues #1-5 of the comic plus an 8 page promotional preview with a cover gallery that includes art from Stan Woch. Tim Truman, and the late, great Dave Stevens.

I’m reviewing my signed and numbered hardcover limited edition which has a beautiful colour plate included plus a superb Steranko painted cover, but the standard trade paperback is almost as good, if that’s all you can find.

Let’s hope somebody’s got the rights and sense to reissue this great book – and all the other stories from this superb little mini-franchise which was briefly one of the best indie titles available.
Story © 1989 Timothy Truman and Chuck Dixon. Art © 1989 Timothy Truman, Tom Yeates, Stan Woch and Will Blyberg. Cover art © 1989 Jim Steranko. Airboy, Valkyrie, Skywolf, Misery, The Heap ™ Eclipse Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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John Constantine, HELLBLAZER: THE LAUGHING MAGICIAN


By Andy Diggle, Leonardo Manco & Daniel Zezelj (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-881-2

Following directly on from the events of John Constantine, Hellblazer: Joyride (ISBN: 978-1-84576-775-4) this second collection of the unstoppable mystic trickster written by London’s Pride Andy Diggle re-presents issues #238-242 of the monthly Vertigo comic-book; comprising two chilling preludes and a visceral saga that sets up the series for a longer, even darker tale to follow.

Modern mystic Constantine is indulging in his downtime of choice: ciggies, booze and a hot date when he’s summoned by the ethereal Map, Patron god of London to rescue a trio of young thrill-seekers who have inadvertently slipped into the metaphysical hell of Shadow London. Grudgingly acquiescing, the sordid sorcerer forgets his own first principle “what are you really after?” to his eternal regret…

‘Smoke’ is illustrated by Daniel Zezelj, and is followed by ‘The Passage’ a prologue illustrated by Leonardo Manco (as is the rest of the volume) which introduces Mako, a War-Mage in devastated Darfur who’s hunting for the eponymous ‘Laughing Magician’. A Muti master (blackest blood magic), the deadly sorcerer is thwarted by an old wizard (last seen in John Constantine, Hellblazer: Original Sins (ISBN 1-84576-465-X) who sends a warning to Constantine by possessing an aid worker and dispatching him to Britain.

Magic is harsh and has no thought for innocence. The harrowing trip is just a taste of what is to come when Mako gets the right scent and follows all the way to London.

The trilogy of chapters that follows once again displays the callous superiority of comics’ greatest anti-hero as he finesses one threat against another, but the book ends without closure as his foes are now aligned against him and the trickster leaves his home turf to prepare himself for what’s still to come…

Andy Diggle has a powerful feel for and grasp of the idiosyncratic world of John Constantine. Blending Gangland, today’s news headlines, politics and the ghastly unknown, these dark pleasures are some of the most compelling stories in a series that has spanned more than twenty years and drawn the best work from a truly stellar cast of creators.

If you haven’t sampled the delights of Hellblazer you should climb aboard the ghost train and get chilled right away!

© 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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CATWOMAN: THE DARK END OF THE STREET


By Ed Brubaker, Darwyn Cooke, Cameron Stewart & Mike Allred (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84023-567-8

Reinvigorated and transformed by her return to Gotham City and the shucking of her sleazy, buxom, “bad-Grrl” status, (See Selina’s Big Score ISBN: 1-84023-773-3 for the full details and another rollickin’ good read) Catwoman began a more socially conscious career as a vigilante; extending her own brand of succour to the shady denizens of Gotham City’s sleazy East End District. This book collects the back-up series that ran in Detective Comics #759-762 and the first four issues of her 2001 series (volume 2, I rather suspect you’d call it).

Technically a Slam Bradley story, the ‘Trail of the Catwoman’ serial by Ed Brubaker, Darwyn Cooke and Cameron Stewart sees the grizzled old private eye hired by the Mayor to find the legendary super-thief even though all evidence indicates that she’s dead. In true film noir tradition a convoluted trail leads to lots of sordid situations and hairsbreadth escapes for the world-weary gumshoe as he unravels her life, the tension increasing as he realizes he’s falling for a girl he’s never met and hunting her for the worst cutthroats in Gotham…

For greater clarity you should read Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score (ISBN: 1-84023-773-3) before continuing with this book which then picks up a few months later as Selina Kyle moves into the East End of Old Gotham and finds renewed meaning when she determines to stop a serial killer preying on prostitutes and street girls.

‘Anodyne’ by Brubaker, Cooke and Mike Allred, reintroduces Holly Robinson, first seen in Batman: Year One (ISBN 1-84576-158-8) and the follow-up Catwoman (1989) miniseries by Mindy Newell and JJ Birch (collected as Her Sister’s Keeper ISBN: 978-0-44639-366-9). Reunited, the old friends decide to solve the case that Gotham’s corrupt authorities won’t touch.

The transition from sleek, sexy cat-burglar to tarnished champion of the underclass is a masterpiece of slick storytelling, and the cutting-edge art from Cooke et al pushed this series to a level few could touch.

Even after all this time this is probably the best incarnation of Catwoman ever – and that’s including Eartha Kitt purring away in that outfit! Fans of caper movies, Noir thrillers and just plain fun-seekers should make this book their own forever.

© 2001, 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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MARVEL: 1985


By Mark Millar & Tommy Lee Edwards (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-406-5

There’s an old saying in our business that “the Golden Age of comics is ten” (or eight or eleven or… you get the picture). Simply stated it posits that there’s a perfect moment when dawning comprehension and sophistication meets childish wonderment and imagination head-on and whatever you’re reading at that time suddenly transcends Art, Entertainment, Every Thing: it becomes all-encompassing magic.

And no matter what, nothing that follows – cars, sex, extreme ironing – absolutely nothing can touch or tarnish or diminish that Road to Damascus moment.

Hold that thought and consider this collection of the 2008 miniseries from Mark Millar and Tommy Lee Edwards – two superb creators more commonly associated with the older end of the marketplace. In 1985 cynical young Toby Goodman is just getting seriously into comic-books. His local comic store has just turned him on to the maxi-series Marvel Super-Heroes: Secret Wars and the four-colour madness he’s increasingly drawn into acts as a welcome respite from his personal life.

His parents are getting divorced and he’s embarrassed that his cool dad can’t get his life together while the yuppie whiz-kid his mom’s living with seems to be an obnoxious “Mr Perfect.” The old ramshackle Wyncham House where his dad and that weird kid Clyde used to play and collect funny-books twenty years ago has been taken over by a strange bunch of oddballs. They offer Toby’s dad the pristine collection of comics in the cellar – left untouched since Clyde Wyncham was put in a sanatorium – but honest fellow that he is Jerry Goodman tells them to sell the stash to the comic store – just like you or I would…

And then things start to get weird. Toys that don’t exist start appearing. People dressed like Marvel Super-villains start appearing around the tiny town. A giant green monster who looks and talks like the Incredible Hulk catches Toby snooping…

This intriguing tale recounts what happens when a fantasy world invades our real one, and the everyday actions of comic life become gritty horror as all the villains of the Marvel Universe are brutally unleashed on a Small Town USA. As the carnage escalates only Toby knows what to do. Using a portal in Wyncham House the boy goes into the Marvel Universe to fetch the super-heroic cavalry…

This tale reads like a movie plot seeking to marry the way-out world of comics to our world, and has some pleasant echoes those Gardner Fox days of Infinite Earths as well as a flavour of Marvel’s own boldly innovative Nth Man series (by Larry Hama and Ron Wagner, from 1989-91 if you’re interested) and it won’t be to everybody’s taste, but if you’re a casual visitor or lapsed fan this well-executed yarn might tickle some old fancies.

© 2007, 2008 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. (A BRITISH EDITION BY PANINI UK LTD)

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UNCLE SCROOGE & DONALD DUCK Gladstone Comic Album Special #2


By Carl Barks (Gladstone)
ISBN: 0-944599-27-3

Carl Barks is one of the greatest storytellers America has ever produced, and was finally beginning to get the recognition he deserved when he died in 2000, a few months shy of his hundredth birthday.

His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you need detail, but briefly, Barks worked as a animator at Disney’s studio before quitting in 1942 to work in comics. With studio partner Jack Hannah he adapted a Bob Karp script for an unmade cartoon short into the comicbook Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold which was published as Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9 in October of that year. Although not his first published comics work, it was the story that shaped the rest of his career.

Until the mid-1960s Barks worked in productive seclusion writing and drawing a vast collection of comedic adventure yarns for kids, creating a Duck Universe of characters such as Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Flintheart Glomgold (1956), John D. Rockerduck (1961) and Magica De Spell (1961) to augment the stable of cartoon actors from the Disney Studio. His greatest creation was the crusty, paternalistic, money-mad bajillionaire Scrooge McDuck.

So magical were his creations that they actually influenced the animation output of the parent company itself, although his work was actually done for the licensing company Whitman/Dell/Gold Key, and not directly for Disney.

Throughout this period Barks was blissfully unaware that his work, uncredited by official dictat as was all the companys output, was nevertheless singled out by a rabid and discerning public as being by “the Good Duck Artist.” When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, his belated celebrity began. As well as only being fair it meant that an awful lot of great work was now able to be conscientiously reprinted, by an adoring and grateful band of well-intentioned aficionados.

Gladstone publishing began re-releasing classic Barks material, and a selection of other Disney comics work, in a variety of formats beginning in the 1980s and this album is one of my favourites.

In glorious oversized format it reprints Uncle Scrooge #5 (1954) wherein Donald and his nephews are bullied and bamboozled by the miserly mallard into finding the sunken city of Atlantis. It’s a stirring blend of timeless slapstick comedy and fanciful Boy’s Own adventure that entrances and captivates, and it supplemented by a couple of single-page gag strips that still deliver a chortle today.

These are followed by the contents of Donald Duck Four Color #256 from 1949. “Luck of the North” features another duel of wits and fortitude between the irascible Duck and his good-for-nothing but preternaturally lucky cousin Gladstone Gander, which leads to the pair going treasure hunting to Alaska: with Huey, Dewey and Louie in tow to keep the grown-ups from acting too childishly.

This is a epic yarn fit for Indiana Jones himself, full of action, hardship, fantastic discoveries and rip-roaring spectacle – all delivered in the mesmerising line style that so elevated Barks above his peers. Topped off with another gag-short from Donald Duck Four Color #178 (1947) this album perfectly shows why Barks is so revered and influential.

Thankfully even if you can’t find this particular volume, Barks’ work is now readily accessible through a number of publishers and outlets. So if you’ve never experienced captivating brand of magic, no matter what your age or temperament you can easily experience the wonder of what Will Eisner called “the Hans Christian Andersen of Comics.”

© The Walt Disney Company. All Rights Reserved.

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THE HEART OF THE BEAST

Heart of the Beast
By Dean Motter, Judith Dupré & Sean Phillips (Vertigo)
ISBN: 1-56389-145-X

From the early days of DC’s Vertigo imprint comes this disturbing reworking – or more accurately contemporary sequel – to one of literature’s greatest stories of mystery and gothic imagination. Dean Motter is a creator with a singularly unique voice and style and his collaboration with Judith Dupré on this moody script adds a chilling edge to a fantasy which is suitably sub-titled “a love story”.

Released as an original hardcover graphic novel it tells of Sandra, who spends a fateful night tending bar at a New York Gallery opening paid for by the rich but creepy celebrity plastic surgeon Dr. Andrew Wright. Even in the supremely decadent world of the Art Glitterati the surgeon is infamous, with dubious connections to the high and mighty and the down and dirty.

So Sandra is surprised when she meets the beautiful, sensitive Victor, a poetic rose among crass, wealthy thorns. Despite herself she is drawn to the mysterious paragon who seems so much more than Dr. Wright’s factotum and dogsbody.

A man of many secrets, Victor is almost the ideal lover, but his devotion to the shadier side of the doctor’s dealings with gangsters and art forgers augers nothing but disaster for their budding relationship. Furthermore there is some hideous secret he is keeping from her – an obstacle not even the truest love can overcome…

I’ve tried to keep the origin of the source work as vague as possible here since the unfolding secret is well-handled and adds to the dawning horror of the situation. The love-story spirals to a tragic conclusion that echoes that of the classic novel, and the beguiling painted art of Sean Phillips heightens the mood, evoking the distant past and spotlighting the harsh modern world with equal skill.

This tale failed to find a large audience when first released, but it’s a solid story superbly told and I’m convinced it would do well if released today – especially in a more economical paperback edition.
© 1994 Dean Motter & Sean Phillips. All Rights Reserved.