Now Read This!

By Mike Grell (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-024-0

During the troubled 1970s the American comics industry suffered one of its periodic downturns and publishers cast about for other genres to bolster the flagging sales of superhero comics. By revising their self-imposed industry code of practice (administered by the Comics Code Authority) to allow supernatural and horror comics, the publishers tapped into the global revival of interest in spiritualism and the supernatural, and as a by-product opened their doors to Sword-and-Sorcery as a viable genre, with Roy Thomas and Barry Smith’s adaptation of R. E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian an early exemplar.

DC launched a host of titles into that budding market but although individually interesting (especially the fascinating Stalker, illustrated by Steve Ditko and Wally Wood) nothing seemed to catch the public’s eye until number #8 of the try-out title First Issue Special.

In that comic superhero artist Mike Grell launched his pastiche and tribute to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar – At the Earth’s Core, which after a rather shaky start went on to become, for a time, DC’s most popular title.

In 1969 Colonel Travis Morgan, a U2 spy-pilot is shot down whilst filming a secret Soviet base, although he manages to fly his plane over the North Pole before ditching. Expecting to land on frozen Tundra or pack-ice he finds himself inside the Earth, in a lush tropical Jungle populated by creatures from every era of history and many that never made it into the science books. There are also cavemen, savages, mythical beasts, barbaric kingdoms and fabulous women.

Time does not seem to exist in this Savage Paradise and as Grell’s stated goal was to produce a perfect environment for yarn-spinning, not a science project, the picky pedant would be well advised to stay away. These are pure escapist tales of action and adventure, light on plot and angst but aggressively and enthusiastically jam-packed with fun and thrills. There is a basic plot-thread to hang the stories on, but you’ll thank me for not sharing it as the real joy of these tales (reprinting that try-out and issues #1-10 and #12) is in the reading. This is a total-immersion comic experience to be felt, not considered. Go for it!

© 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1991 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Greg Rucka

& Jesus Saiz (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-436-6

In the aftermath of DC’s Infinite Crisis an international organisation to monitor and control meta-human affairs was developed, under the aegis of the United Nations Security Council. Originally an American agency, the new Checkmate is tasked with policing all nations, protecting them from superhuman dangers and terrorism, and also preventing rogue nations and regimes from weaponising their own paranormal resources.

This first collection reprints issues #1-7 as the organisation (composed of superheroes and traditional intelligence operatives) faces the loss of their charter due to a traitor on the Security Council, all the while tracking down the death cult Kobra and investigating a suspicious facility in China.

This is a dark and engaging blend of genres from writers Greg Rucka, Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir, pencillers Jesus Saiz and Cliff Richards, and inkers Bob Wiacek, Steve Bird, Dan Green and Fernando Blanco, with the murky world of espionage coldly and logically grounding the high-flying gloss of costumed super-doers. Moody and addictive, if perhaps a little too dependent on a working knowledge of the DC universe, this is worth a few moments of any serious fan’s time.

© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Steven Weissman (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN13: 978-1-56097-866-4

If there is such a thing as ‘Dark and Comforting’ then the weird and wicked cartooning of Steven Weissman is a perfect example. Following the success of such books as Chewing Gum in Church and Kid Firechief Fantagraphics have compiled earlier works from his self-published comic Yikes!, supplemented with other rare and even unpublished strips to create a lovely insight into the development of a truly unique graphic vision.

The 32 tales, created between 1993 to 2002, all feature his cast of peculiar children in a macabre tribute to Charles Shulz’s Peanuts strip, but are also literal embodiments of the phrase “little monsters”. In simple childhood romps such as ‘The See-Thru Boy’, ‘The Loneliest Girl in Town’, ‘Inevitable Time-Travel Story’, ‘No Kiss!’ and many others the bizarre cast of Li’l Bloody (a child vampire), Kid Medusa, Pullapart Boy and X-Ray Spence live an idyllically suburban 1950’s existence of school, fishing, skateboards, white picket fences, aliens, wheelchair jousting, marbles and weird science. Weissman’s seductive cast all have huge round heads and ancient bodies like graphic progeria-sufferers, but the drawing is lavish, seductive and utterly convincing.

These are great comics about kids (but categorically Not For Kids) that are a treat, a revelation and most definitely darkly comforting.

MEAN © 2007 Fantagraphics Books. All content © 2007 Steven Weissman. All Rights Reserved.

By Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Adam Archer & Peter Guzman (WildStorm)
ISBN13: 978-1-0-84576-625-2

I’m not the greatest fan of modern horror movies, especially the frankly daft and usually logical-integrity free “Slasher-movie”. I really, really don’t mean morality here; I can be as nihilistically cynical as any hormonally drenched teen, and what guy doesn’t like vicarious nudity, gratuitous sex and gory giblets everywhere?

What I have trouble with is the creation of unstoppable, inescapable, unkillable monsters as Brands. Fear isn’t going “boo!” or making audiences jump, it’s the build-up; the piling on of tension upon anxiety till you just want it to be over. For that you need at least the possibility that the brand-name can be defeated. Without engaging that hope and desperation all you have is an ever increasing spiral of baroque stunts and shallow effects, ultimately pointless and hollow.

For example: A group of teens are hired to renovate Camp Crystal Lake, the rural paradise where so many wayward kids have been chopped into liver-sausage by the ghastly hockey-masked ghost of Jason Voorhees. They’re obnoxious and they get naked and they die grotesquely. That really all there is to it.

Accepting that I’m not the target market, this book (collecting the first six issues of the monthly comic) has credible artwork but not even the usually excellent scripting of Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti can get me to engage with this disparate cast of cadavers-in-waiting. I can’t even dislike them enough to look forward to their inevitable deaths. Maybe if they were people you really want to see killed like bigots or celebrities…

Competent but limited, and absolutely and only for kids over eighteen…

© MMVII New Line Productions, Inc. Friday The 13th is ™ New Line Productions, Inc, (so7). © 2006, 2007 New Line Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.