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September 1, 2009September 3, 2009

Divine Melody Volume 3

By I-Huan, translated and adapted by Lobelia Cheng & Sue Yang (DrMaster)
ISBN: 978-1-59796-175-2

Celestial Fox-Demons have almost vanished from the land: only vixens remain and if they wish to advance their status, let alone survive as a race, they must propagate their kind at all costs…

To this end their Shifu (leader/teacher) long ago stole the baby girl deity Cai-Sheng, who with the proper training and refinement would, when grown, be able to transform into a male to father another, superior generation. But this plan was necessarily a very long-ranging one. On the haunted mountain they inhabited the Fox clan grew impatient. Some, like Hui-Niang, renounced their powers in order to marry mortals, whilst bold Yu-Niang began to steal little boys as “offerings”…

Little Cai-Sheng was a bored and very lonely child. One day she escaped from her lessons and met two village children. With the girl Xiao-Que and boy Duo Xi they cavorted and played until a dog attacked the magical child (canines are the mortal enemies of foxes). Brave Duo Xi fought the hound and little Xiao-Que suffered a cruel bite protecting Cai-Sheng. Just in time her guardian Hui-Niang appeared and killed the hound with a well-aimed arrow…

To thank the humans for spilling their blood to defend the chosen child, guardian Hui-Niang marked the boy’s torn forehead and the girl’s bitten hand with mystic marks. No matter how long, nor how many incarnations passed, their sacrifice would be rewarded. Promising to meet again tomorrow, the children parted, but time and duty is different for celestial beings and the humans never saw their new friend again.

Two hundred years passed and Cai-Sheng finished her training. The Chosen One had never forgotten her joyous day with the mortal children, and more importantly, for one glorious afternoon, she learned of freedom from duty and destiny. Centuries later she was reunited with them – or at least their latest reincarnations, beautiful, rich scholar’s daughter Su Ping and apprentice priest/exorcist Han Yun-Shi. To repay them for their kindness Cai-Sheng determined to act as matchmaker for the pair, but Ping had seen Cai-Sheng’s male form Qin Cai-Sheng, and become enamoured with “him”.

Yun-Shi is smitten with Su Ping but can’t understand why the weird girl Cai-Sheng is always hanging around, making herself a nuisance. Moreover, while performing his appointed duties for his disreputable master the apprentice realizes he has a rival in Cai-Sheng’s male form, even if the transforming neo-deity doesn’t…

The debased fox-demon Yu-Niang has haunted Cai-Sheng, grown strong on two centuries of blood taken from boy children. She wants the power tied up in Cai-Sheng’s male form and has begun preying on the humans of the city. Even though Yu-Niang’s cat familiar now (supposedly) serves Cai-Sheng, the wicked fox-demon’s evil schemes are advanced in this third captivating volume as tragedy and death strike, destroying the Chosen One’s oldest friend and protector as well as the only mortal capable of thwarting Yu-Niang’s evil plans…

Cai-Sheng is confused, heartbroken and angry. She wants revenge and justice, but unknown to her the Goddess Lady Peony has informed her celestial envoy Wei Zi-Qiu – who has developed ungodly feelings for Cai-Sheng – that should the Chosen One advance the Fox-Demon cause in any way or harm a human then he must kill her…

This enchanting shÅjo tale of legendary China moves into the arena of grand tragedy as events are set in motion that will have disastrous repercussions for all, in Taiwanese creator I-Huan’s flawless blend of mythology and soap-opera. Huan seamlessly blends passion, comedy and action to tell a charming tale of duty versus free-will, and familial expectation battling personal desire. The beautiful, lyrical art perfectly captures the sense of a lost age and the enduring immediacy of three people falling in love in a world spiralling into cataclysm. A lovely series for the fanciful and romantic, this latest volume finally shows the claws beneath the velvety fur…

This book is produced in the traditional Japanese format and should be read from back to front and right to left.

August 31, 2009August 31, 2009

Secret Invasion: Thor

By Matt Fraction & Doug Braithwaite (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3426-8

The Skrulls are shape-shifting aliens who’ve bedeviled Earth since Fantastic Four #2, and they have long been a cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. After decades of use and misuse the insidious invaders were made the stars of a colossal braided mega-crossover event beginning in April 2008 and running through all the company’s titles until Christmas.

The premise of Secret Invasion is simple: the would-be conquerors have undergone a mass religious conversion and upped their game. They are now utterly resolved and dedicated to make Earth their new homeworld. To this end they have gradually replaced a number of key Earth denizens – including superheroes. When the lid is lifted no defender of the Earth truly knows who is on their side…

Along with that the Skrulls have also unraveled the secrets of magic and superpowers, creating amped-up counterparts to Earth’s mightiest and set them loose to destroy the world’s heroic champions.

Broxton, Oklahoma, is a small simple community with some intriguing neighbours. Local doctor Don Blake is dealing with a problem pregnancy in town when a colossal fireball strikes and he discovers that an old friend has returned. Blake is the mortal host for the God of Thunder and the fiery impact signals the agonized return of his old comrade Beta Ray Bill, an alien hero who possesses power the equal of his own.

The alien is severely wounded: tortured and traumatized near to death, he was thrown to Earth as a warning. The Asgardians must leave the world immediately. If they fight for humanity or oppose the Skrulls they will be destroyed by the same power that shattered Beta Ray Bill…

And so begins another glorious classic of noble combat as the unstoppable invaders are resisted by the epitome of supernatural nobility in a tale of heroism, tragedy, sacrifice and redemption that is any fan’s wildest dream.

But…

This is an oh-so-nearly perfect superhero fun-fest that just misses because of – as is too often the case – editorial sloppiness or lazy thinking.

I was dubious when J. Michael Straczynski and Olivier Coipel revamped Thor but their thoughtful and fun reiteration which established the return of the Norse gods and the rebuilding of the hallowed city of Asgard in – or rather slightly above – the Oklahoma badlands proved an intriguing delight and a solid springboard for fresh wonderment.

Moreover the three-issue miniseries which comprises the Asgardly niche of the company-wide event is compellingly written and superbly illustrated – if only it were longer… I even adore the fact that to pad out the book the editors have included a pertinent 1967 Lee/Kirby Thor classic ‘The Scourge of the Super Skrull!’, from Thor #142, wherein the Son of Odin delivered a sound and spectacular trouncing to a shape-changing marauder with all the powers of the Fantastic Four, but Why on Earth would any editor also include that issue’s back-up strip as well?

Don’t get me wrong: ‘We who are about to Die…!’ is Kirby at his most creative and mythic. He’s revisiting the legends of the Arabian knights with a young Thor and the Warriors Three fighting Djinni, wizards, giants and a host of fantastic horrors.

But this is part 6 of a nine-chapter Tales of Asgard epic that is just plain bewildering seen in isolation. It is five pages of pictorial candy that needs to be in a whole collection of these brilliant fantasy back-ups, not sitting here uncomfortably out of place and generally unappreciated because someone couldn’t search the archives for something more appropriate and new-reader accessible. As there was still room for two text pages on Beta ray Bill why not just add similar pages on Skrulls and Super Skrull? An old Asgard adventure from Marvel Comics Presents? Even a pin-up or two?

Ranting aside: There’s too much competition for the leisure dollar – and Â£ – to risk alienating new readers even slightly and dedicated fans surely deserve a little regard for their years of service. With the incredible wealth of material sitting unseen and unused in those capacious comics vaults surely a little industry and creativity isn’t too much to ask?

August 30, 2009

An Apology

We’re having a few problems with our picture quality â€“ and proportions â€“ at the moment, but we’ll carry on regardless and try to fix the intransigent icons as quickly as possible.

Please accept our apologies, and we hope the truncated visuals don’t spoil things for you.

Normal service and full sized covers will be restored as soon as possible.
Thanks.

August 29, 2009September 23, 2009

American Surreal

By Todd Schorr (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-709-9

There’s an intriguing coagulation of populist imagery and the childhood iconography happening on the capital “A” art-scene which blends baby-boomer memories of cartoons, comics, television, toys, monster-movies and a million other empty, unforgettable delights into a high gloss, stunningly lavish exploration of modern culture.

These lush and lavish pictorial conglomerations assemble myriad nostalgia-drenched components into stunning investigations of modernity. Whimsical and sly yet searching they take as their starting point the hyper-realistic painterly techniques of early Salvador Dali and the master artists of the Renaissance. The movement is known as “Lowbrow” or Pop Surrealism and the supreme master of this visual sampling is Todd Schorr.

American Surreal collects his latest works (2003-2009) with many beautifully luxurious close-up and detail sections, explores his work philosophy and techniques and even examines his twin affinities: the Old Masters of the art world – particularly the narrative genius of Peter Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch (imagine what they could have done with editorial independence and an exclusive contract with Vertigo Comics) – and the gestalt synthesis of childhood diversions that shaped his own life.

Wry and absurdist, these astonishingly compelling paintings are presented in a deluxe, wonderfully large format (38.6 x 25.7 x 1.8 cm) in eye-popping colour. This exquisite tome is a fabulous treat for anybody who’s ever regretted growing up, put away their toys a little too soon or recently felt the guilty pangs of pure, unadulterated nostalgia.

August 28, 2009September 23, 2009

Avengers/Invaders – UK Edition

By Alex Ross, Jim Kreuger, Steven Sadowski, Patrick Berkenkotter & Jack Herbert (Marvel/Panini Publishing UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-413-3

I’ve mentioned before my innate antipathy to time-travel stories, which can too often simply be an excuse for empty posturing and flamboyant stunts without impacting on a profitable brand.

It’s all true, and I stand by my view but every so often an exception comes along to shake my surly foundations and Avengers/Invaders happily falls into that rare category.

Released as a 12 part limited series this is a classy and well thought out romp set in the post Civil War Marvel Universe with renegade heroes on the run from the government (represented by superhero technocrat Iron Man,) for refusing to submit to federal registration and licensing.

In 1943 war-time super-team the Invaders (Captain America & Bucky, Human Torch & Toro, Sub-Mariner, Spitfire and Union Jack) is battling its way into Hitler’s Fortress Europe when a cosmic mishap sucks most of them to New York in our era. Disoriented and wary they encounter a battle between government-sponsored heroes and the unlicensed outlaw Spider-Man, and jump to the uncomfortable but logical conclusion that the Nazis won World War II!

They soon come into conflict with Iron Man’s Avengers and battle is joined…

And that’s just the start of a compelling epic which combines chilling mystery and a universe-rending threat with sheer, bravura comicbook shtick as childhood icons battle in spectacular manner, whilst the plot contains many twists and surprises to keep the accent on action and suspense.

Even though this sprawling epic contains a host of guest-stars the creators never forget the cardinal rule that every comic is somebody’s first one; meaning that even the freshest reader can happily navigate these continuity-packed pages with comforting ease, particularly in the extended sub-plot concerning Cap meeting the mystery man who replaced him (sorry, no spoiler hints from me!). This makes Avengers/Invaders a magnificently accessible tale for all lovers of the superhero genre in its most primal form.

Also included in this volume is the Sketchbook issue containing Alex Ross and the greatly underrated Steve Sadowski’s working drawings and un-inked artwork, plus a gallery of the many cover variants that graced the original comicbook releases.

August 27, 2009August 26, 2009

Songs of the Black WÃ¼rm Gism: the Starry Wisdom volume 2

By various, edited by DM Mitchell (Creation Oneiros)
ISBN: 978-902197-28-9

Although (somewhat aptly) borderline to my usual reviewing fare this intriguing and disturbingly adult collection of words and pictures is worth a brief mention, not only because of the stellar crew of contributors but also for the simple reason that it creatively honours the legacy of an author whose works shaped twentieth century horror writing and consequently greatly informed the comicbook continuities of many a publishing giant.

The Starry Wisdom was first published in1995 (with a revised edition in 2003, ISBN: 978-1-84068-087-4) and contained a number of tales inspired by the terrifying visions of H.P. Lovecraft. It included works by Ramsey Campbell, J.G. Ballard, Alan Moore, Brian Lumley and an unholy host of others. Now a second chilling and disturbing volume has been compiled featuring contributions from some of the world’s most individual horror writers and artists.

Enclosed within this tome are 22 features, essays, photo-spreads and stories from Grant Morrison, Aishling Morgan, Herzan Chimera & James Havoc, David Britton & Mike Butterworth, Jacques Dengue, Ian Miller, John Beal, DM Mitchell, Hank Kirton, Jacques Bertrand HoupiniÃ¨re, Frater Erich Zann, Alexandria D. Douros, David Conway, Kenji Siratori, The Reverend Paul Stevens, Claudia Bellocq, Joshua Hayes, Wakamatsu Yukio, Reza Negarestani, Alan Moore and even Lovecraft himself (!).

As you’d expect this is a chilling surreal exploration of the nastiest places in reality – and beyond – so it’s strictly one for grown-up and those minors so debauched and twisted that they are beyond the salvation of good and rational souls. Does that sound like anybody you know?

August 26, 2009August 26, 2009

Famous Players – the Mysterious Death of William Desmond Taylor

By Rick Geary (NBM/Comics Lit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-555-9

Master cartoonist and dedicated criminologist Rick Geary returns with another compelling and witheringly comprehensive episode of his latest series of crime reconstructions in this superb black and white hardcover. Combining his unique talents for laconic prose, incisive observation and detailed extrapolation with his proven fascination for the darker, human-scaled aspects of history, Rick Geary’s forensic eye rolls back the last hundred years or so as his latest ‘Treasury of XXth Century Murder’ re-examines the landmark homicide that shaped early Hollywood and led in large part to the swingeing self-censorship of the Hays Commission Production Code.

Some things never change. In 1911 the first moving picture studio set up in the sunny orange groves of rural Hollywood. Within a decade the place was a burgeoning boom town of production companies and back lots, and movie stars were earning vast sums of money. The area had become a hotbed of vice, excess and debauchery.

William Desmond Taylor was a man with a clouded past and a tremendous reputation as a movie director – and ladies man. On the morning of Thursday, February 2^nd, 1922 he was found dead in his palatial home by his valet, opening one of the most celebrated (and still unsolved) murder cases in Los Angeles’ extremely chequered history. Uncovering a background of drugs, sex, booze, celebrity and even false identity, this true crime became a template for every tale of “Hollywood Babylon” and more than even the Fatty Arbuckle sex scandal drove the movers and shakers of Tinsel-town to clean up their act – or at least to keep it out of the public gaze.

Geary is meticulous and logical as he lays out the crime, examines the suspects – major and minor – and dutifully pursues all the players to their recorded ends. Especially useful are snippets of historical minutiae and the beautifully rendered maps and plans which bring all the varied locations to life (the author should seriously consider turning this book into a Cluedo special edition) and gives us all a fair crack at solving this glamorous Cold Case.

Geary presents the facts and the theories with chilling graphic precision, captivating clarity and devastating dry wit, and this volume is every bit as compelling as his Victorian forays: a brilliant example of how graphic narrative can be so much more than simple fantasy entertainment. He is a unique talent in the comic industry not simply because of his manner of drawing but because of his method of telling tales. This merrily morbid series of murder masterpieces should be mandatory reading for every mystery addict and crime collector.

August 25, 2009August 24, 2009

Dark Entries – a John Constantine Novel

By Ian Rankin & Werther Dell’edera (Vertigo Crime/Titan Books Edition)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-342-1

Award-winning – and officially honourable – crime writer Ian Rankin makes a remarkable debut as a graphic novelist in this superbly unsettling horror story starring the best anti-hero in the business. John Constantine, seedy modern magician and consummate bad seed. tends to bring out the best in his writers, and although the plot here is nothing new the treatment of the large cast of characters is a deft juggling act nicely handled, while the narrative set-pieces are gripping and stuffed with good old fashioned creepy tension.

Constantine has acquired a certain reputation in the right circles over the course of his life, so he’s not too suspicious when a sleazy TV producer offers him wads of cash to advise on the latest reality show Dark Entries (I have to admit I loathe the title) wherein six contestants are isolated in a rigged haunted house, competing for big prizes and fully expecting to be scared out of their wits.

Unfortunately what’s terrifying these housemates is nothing the producers and technicians devised but appears to be the real thing.

Quickly inserted into the show as a new contestant Constantine finds himself mired in a diabolical mystery involving the seemingly innocent competitors, and too late realises that he’s fallen for the oldest trap in the world. Stitched up like a kipper, his only chance is to free his companions before he can escape the house and the horrors that built it.

Sharp, gritty and deeply compelling this is a powerful recapitulation of classic horror and murder yarns complete with a sting-in-the tail that will leave the reader breathless and hungry for more.

Viscerally illustrated by Italian artist Werther Dell’edera this black and white hardback is similar in format to the old Paradox Press DC imprint to which gave us A History of ViolenceÂ and Road to Perdition among other gritty adult thrills. Dark Entries is easily in the same class and would make any reader a very happy – if nervous – fan.

August 24, 2009September 24, 2009

Speechless – World History without Words

By Polyp (New Internationalist/Friends of the Earth International)
ISBN: 978-1-906523-19-0

No one can contest the sheer naked power and immediacy of pictures; a sequential narrative can have all the force of a Perfect Storm. Hopefully this startlingly bold pictorial treatise from the enigmatic Polyp (www.polyp.org.uk) will shake a few entrenched bastions and rattle some cages as it offers an alternative view of our progress as a species, using the monstrous tragedy of 9/11 as a starting point before scrolling back the very beginning to show how it all went so wrong.

In vivid primary colours the creator takes a jaundiced look at our 6 billion year relationship with the planet and the mistakes we keep on making, using wry, surreal wit, patient exasperation and not a little frantic desperation, as well as a bold cartoony style that blends a thousand childhood influences from Vaughn Bode to the Clangers, to whisper a warning and offer a few potentially last-minute suggestions.

As it says on the cover this book eschews words in favour of a broad humorous parade of “dumb-show” and mime: a brave and marvellously effective technique that really pays off. And besides, as a species we’ve been talking a good fight for ages and we’re now at a stage where words simply aren’t enough any more…

The old adage has it that history is written by the winners, but in this graphic exploration on how the world got into its current state we have a sharp, incisive and universal tome produced for those of us that have always demanded a recount. Buy this book. Give copies to your friends. But most of all read, inwardly digest and just do something…

August 23, 2009August 22, 2009

Black Jack volume 5

By Osamu Tezuka translated by Camelia Nieh (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-934287-55-2

In a creative career that produced over 700 hundred different series and more than 150,000 pages (most of them still infuriatingly unavailable to people who can’t read Japanese), Osamu Tezuka captivated generations of readers across the world with tales of history, fantasy, romance and startling adventure. Perhaps his most intriguing creation is Black Jack, who overcame horrendous injuries as a child, and although still carrying many scars within and without, roams the globe, curing any who can pay his deliberately daunting, exorbitant prices – usually cash, but sometimes in more exotic or metaphysical coin.

He is the ultimate loner, except for Pinoko, a little girl he literally built from the scraps of an early case. Unlicensed by any medical board on Earth, he holds himself to the highest ethical standards possible… his own.

Volume 5 begins with a biting satire on medical ranks and hierarchies in Japan. ‘Hospital’ sees the Director’s chosen favourites (all from his old university) riding roughshod over other staff with no thought to the patients in their care. When a young surgeon is ordered to amputate a concert pianist’s arm, irrespective of objections or medical necessity, the harried neophyte consults the ronin Black Jack…

‘Quite a Tongue’ in a heart-warming parable about Japan’s attitude to disabilities set against the backdrop of children’s national abacus competitions, ‘Asking for Water’ poses some searching questions about family and the care of the elderly and ‘Yet False the Days’ tragically compares little Pinoko’s penchant for adopting strays with the outlaw surgeon’s frustrating attempts to cure a media star’s impossible quadriplegia. THREE TISSUE ALERT!: this story contains sick kittens…

A chance journey on ‘The Last Train’ finds Black Jack travelling with the woman called the Black Queen (see Black Jack volume 1). Married now, she faces an impossible quandary, but reckons without the renegade’s tendency to extreme and unpalatable solutions…

‘There was a Valve!’ is a superb nut-and-bolts medical mystery, featuring the return of the mercy-killing Dr. Kiriko (see ‘Two Dark Doctors’ in Black Jack volume 3) in a startling tale of ethics and conscience whilst the Blind Acupuncturist from volume 1 returns with more unwanted lessons for the maverick medic in ‘Two at the Baths’.

‘Pinoko’s Mystery’ is a delightful comedy of errors featuring a mad bomber, whilst more secrets from Black Jack’s sordid past resurface in the gangster thriller ‘Imprint’ and then he’s placed in an impossible situation by Dr. Kiriko in the tense viral-killer thriller ‘99% Water’.

An aged doctor being forced out of his job comes seeking assistance in ‘The Helper’ whilst in ‘Country Clinic’ Tezuka shows us a different side of the profession through the inspired works of a simple rural practitioner – but of course there’s a sting in this tale too…

‘Wolf Girl’ finds the O.R. outlaw trapped behind the Iron Curtain (remember that?), and rescued by a hideously deformed outcast. Fixing her face proved far simpler than remedying her soul, and in Black Jack’s world far too often no good deed goes unpunished…

‘On a Snowy Night’ ends these tales with an out-and-out yarn of supernatural wonderment, as the renegade doctors performs the greatest achievement of his life, and one nobody will ever know of.

All the troubles and wonders of this world (and sometimes other ones) can be found in medical dramas, and in Black Jack elements of rationalism, science-fiction, kitchen sink drama, spiritualism, criminality and human frailty are woven into an epic of Magical Realism that rivals the works of Fuentes and Gabriel GarcÃa MÃ¡rquez. But above all else these dramatic, addictive tales of heroism are pure unadorned entertainment that that will stay with you for the all the days of your life.

This book is printed in the Japanese right to left, back to front format and also contains a superb 12 page teaser for Tezuka’s classic fantasy of alienation Dororo.

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