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February 28, 2008February 27, 2008

Hellblazer: Damnation’s Flame

Hellblazer: Damnation's Flame

By Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, William Simpson & Peter Snejbjerg (Vertigo)
ISBN13: 978-1-84023-096-3

This collection of modern horror-thrillers follows the episodic Tainted Love collection (ISBN: 978-1-5638-9456-5) which deals with John Constantine’s descent into drunken dissolution and recovery following his break-up with love of his life Kit Ryan (see also Hellblazer: Bloodlines – ISBN: 978-1-84576-650-4). Now back on track, if not fully up to snuff, the modern Magus decides to visit New York City for a break but is too busy kicking back to remember just how many enemies he’s made over the years.

Caught napping, he is ensorcelled by Voodoo Overlord Papa Midnite (see Original Sins ISBN 1-84576-465-X and Papa Midnite ISBN 1-84576-265-7), his consciousness sent on an allegorical trip through a hellish metaphorical America accompanied by the corpse of John F. Kennedy, whilst his physical body is left to the tender mercies of the NYC Social Services system.

This sharp, satirical shocker is by Ennis and Steve Dillon, originally seeing print in issues #72-75, which also produced the gently elegiac short flashback tale ‘Act of Union’, illustrated by William Simpson, which describes the first meeting of Kit and Constantine, back when she was the girlfriend of the charming dipsomaniac Brendan Finn.

Steve Dillon returned for ‘Confessions of an Irish Rebel’, another soft tale (but with a few sharp edges concealed within) which sees a reminiscing Constantine on one last pub-crawl in Dublin with the ghost of Finn, before the book ends with ‘And the Crowd Goes Wild’, drawn by Peter Snejbjerg, (Hellblazer #77) a tense and funny portmanteau yarn that clears the deck for the final confrontation with the demonic First of the Fallen, who’s been lurking menacingly since his defeat and humiliation at the end of Dangerous Habits (ISBN: 1-56389-150-6).

Garth Ennis had a long, impressive and humanising run on Vertigo’s nastiest hero. This captivating, irreverent, chilling compendium perfectly shows why it is so fondly remembered.

February 27, 2008February 27, 2008

Babar’s Travels

Babar's Travels

By Jean de Brunhoff (Egmont)
ISBN: 978-1-4052-3820-5

Jean de Brunhoff’s beautiful, whimsical characters return in Babar’s Travels (first published in France in 1932 as Le Voyage de Babar). Newly crowned King and just married to Celeste, Babar and his bride set off on honeymoon in a glorious yellow balloon only to be trapped in a terrible storm and blown to an island where they are attacked by savages.

In an era where it seems any journalist or lawyer with an eye to the main chance seems to lurk outside bookshops or libraries waiting to scream â€œFoul!â€, it’s heartening to see a publisher respect the historical context of old material from less-enlightened times without bowdlerising the content. Kids today don’t pick up racist or sexist attitudes from books about talking animals, they get them from other people, so it’s great that Egmont are prepared to risk a potential publicity storm here.

Rescued by a friendly whale, Babar and Celeste are once again marooned before being picked up by an ocean-going liner and mistakenly sold to a circus. Meanwhile back at home mischievous young cousin Arthur has played a trick on Rataxes the Rhinoceros which has terrible consequences.

Escaping from the circus, Babar and Celeste make their way to the house of the Old Lady who first befriended Babar long ago (The Story of Babar, ISBN: 978-1-4052-3818-2). She takes them in, and they all go on a skiing holiday before Babar invites her to join them in the land of Elephants. But when they arrive they find Arthur’s pranks have provoked a war with the Rhinoceros’ which has ravaged the country! Now King Babar must save his nation from defeat by a mighty foeâ€¦

These are immortal children’s tales, gloriously illustrated and winningly told. They combine adventure and comfort in equal measure, thrilling children without frightening them, displaying values of boldness, ingenuity and fraternity by simply using them to entertain.

February 27, 2008

Spider-Man: Spirits of the Earth

A MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL

Â Spider-Man: Spirits of the Earth

By Charles Vess (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 87135-692-9

Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think this truly beautiful painted graphic novel has been re-issued since it first came out in 1990. If that is the case then it’s an appalling oversight as Spirits of the Earth is one of the prettiest graphic novels ever produced, not to say one of the most entertaining Spider-Man adventures ever told.

Newlyweds Mary Jane and Peter Parker are astounded and delighted to discover that an unknown relative has left her a castle deep in the Scottish Highlands. Setting off for a second honeymoon they soon become embroiled in ancient magic and high-tech abominations courtesy of the Celtic branch of the perfidious Mutants and Millionaires organisation The Hellfire Clubâ€¦

Ghoulies, Ghosties and villainous super-criminals combine with some of the best artwork you’ve ever seen for a truly wonderful adventure that desperately needs to be on your bookshelf. My copy also contains a lovely pictorial travelogue by Vess entitled â€œA Scottish Journeyâ€. Hopefully yours will too once you track down this little gem.

February 26, 2008February 25, 2008

The City

By James Herbert & Ian Miller (Pan Books)
ISBN13: 978-0-33032-471-7

In the early 1990s, many British publishers, fired up by the mainstream sales of Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and Maus, dipped their corporate toes in the waters of graphic novel publication, with varying degrees of commercial and aesthetic success. Macmillan, throughÂ its Pan Books imprint, was oneÂ that took it all very seriously and it’s a crying shame thatÂ it wasÂ so lacking in rewards for its bold efforts.

This slim apocalyptic tome went with an already popular property. Horror author James Herbert began his writing career (twenty four novels and counting) with The Rats (1974) following up with sequels Lair in 1979 and Domain in 1984. The three novels told of a post-Holocaust Britain where mutated Giant Black Rats have risen as humanity declined. In The City (technically Herbert’s 17th book) â€“ and more of an episode than a narrative – an armoured figure known as The Traveller fights his way into the devastated ruins of London. The decimated Capital is now the undisputed kingdom of the rats and their truly monstrous queen, and the lone human is on a mission of murder, but he also has a secret personal purpose for going into the hellish ruin.

Dark, simplistic and terrifying, the story is elevated to nightmare heights and depths by the astonishing, grotesquely beautiful art of painter and illustrator Ian Miller. Armageddon has never been better realised, the skies have never looked uglier and ruins never more familiar. His mutants are appalling to see and his intense line-work and domineering colours will haunt you.

Horror is tough to write and nearly impossible to illustrate. This book manages to tell no real story and make it scarier every time you return to it.

February 25, 2008February 25, 2008

Mome 10: Winter/Spring 2008

By various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-873-2

The latest volume of the alternative, cutting edge cartoon-arts anthology once again presents new creators to augment the fabulous regulars and also has the added bonus of an all-new Al Columbia cover – plus a long, copiously illustrated interview with Tom Kaczynski.

Sophie Crumb contributes 1910 Anon, The Vile Creatures of Merdeville, France, Kids, The Murdock Mystery and Sad Bird, whilst Dash Shaw introduces himself with the colourful and bizarre time-warp melodrama Look Forward, First Son of Terra Two.

Ray Fenwick reveals The Five Oracles of Gossip whilst Ã‰mile Bravo’s We are All Equal: The Equation takes a silent look at discrimination. Robert Goodin reinterprets an old Indian (by which I mean The Asian Empire not the native American cultures) fable in The Ten Fools and Post-Modern discontent is examined in the wonderfully rendered Success Comes to Westmont, IL by newcomer John Hankiewicz, after which the aforementioned Tom Kaczynski supplements that interview with the short strip Phase Transition. Jeremy Eaton (a long ex-pat Brit) contributes the wonderfully engrossing – and dark – Winchester Cathedral, the first of many contributions, I hope.

The fifth instalment of Nothing Eve is next, and although still fascinating to look at, its protracted nature is beginning to mar the enjoyment – hopefully a future collected complete version will rekindle the spark – and Kurt Wolfgang also contributes the jolly filler, 22 Tattoo Ideas. Oddly the eighth episode of Paul Hornschemeier’s urban pot-boiler Life With Mr Dangerous is as compelling as ever it was and the suburbanite pastiche Hope Gropius is another delight from Tim Hensley.

Without doubt though, the absolute prize of the book is the concluding half of Jim Woodring’s wordless tale The Lute String, originally printed in Japan and starring your favourites and mine, Frank, Pupshaw and Pushpaw.

Whether you’re new to comics, new to the areas beyond the mainstream or just want something new; these fresh, cutting edge artworks are there to refresh, renew and re-read. You may not like all of it but you will respond to something here. You really should try itâ€¦

Mome Â© 2008 Fantagraphics Books. Individual stories are Â© the respective creator with the exception of We are All Alike Â© 2008 Dargaud by Bravo with rights arranged through Sylvia Coissard Agency. All Rights Reserved.

February 25, 2008February 23, 2008

Green Arrow: Heading into the Light

By Judd Winick, Ron Garney, Tom Fowler & Paul Lee (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-344-0

Collecting issues #52, 54-59 of the monthly series this is a non-stop action bath, meant as part of the build-up to the Infinite Crisis, so all your enjoyment centres can focus on the craft and skill of the creators, because by the end of the book it won’t matter since that mega-crossover event will unmake and cancel out everything that has gone before.

The plot concerns the hunt by Green Arrow and Black Lightning for serial rapist and super-psycho Dr. Light who wants to torture and kill the loved ones of all the heroes he can find. This is because he is a very psycho super-psycho, but also because he was lobotomised by the Justice League (see Identity Crisis, ISBN: 1-34576-126-X) and since his recovery has been a bit tetchy.

The hunt escalates into an all-out battle with imported super-villains Mirror Master and Killer Frost as well as old rival Merlyn, an assassin who hates being the World’s Second Greatest Archer. Whilst they occupy the good guys Light stalks Mia, (Green Arrow’s latest sidekick) who he thinks of as just a teen-aged girlâ€¦

The action is intense, and the dialogue wonderful, but the story won’t appeal or even be understandable to new readers and the power of the cliffhanger ending is negated by the Cosmic Reset button of Infinite Crisis. The next volume will begin with the first One Year Later story-arcâ€¦

After a sterling run of truly superb costumed-hero adventures this total surrender to mindless violence makes for a dreadfully unsatisfactory conclusion, but writers Judd Winick and J. Calafiore, plus artists Tom Fowler, Ron Garney, Ron Lim, Paul Lee, Dan Davis, Rodney Ramos and Bill Reinhold can’t be blamed for that. Page by page and scene by scene this is great stuff, but the imposed conclusion renders all their fine work irrelevant. This is one for completists only, I’m afraid.

February 24, 2008February 23, 2008

Mazinger

By Go Nagai (First Publishing)
ISBN: 0-915419-46-7

If you’re any sort of manga or anime fan then the Mazinger premise and cartoonist/creator Go Nagai are names you will have heard. For the rest, suffice to say that this unflaggingly creative man (Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, UFO Robo Grandizer, Cutey Honey, Devilman, Kinta the Young Pack Boy, Shameless School and literally hundreds of other comics and TV shows) took Japan and the wider world by storm from the end of the 1960s. Whether with horror (Devilman), comedy (Cutey Honey), satire (Shameless School), historical drama (Kinta, the Young Pack Boy) or many other genres and series ranging from mainstream to underground and alternative, he blazed a trail that made his contemporaries gasp, but with science-fiction, which was considered an unfitting subject for adults when he began, he revolutionised world comics.

Nagai was the man who invented giant robots that heroes could wear as high-tech suits of armour. Mazinger Z — or MajingÄ Zetto — which first appeared in the magazine Shueisha Shonen Jump in 1972, captivated audiences when adapted as television cartoons. He then invented robots that changed shape (Getta Robo) leading to the Transformers sub-genre. Like his creations this prolific artist never stops.

In 1988 First Comics, one of the earliest American publishers to import translated Japanese comics to the US market, commissioned Go Nagai to return to his roots with an all-new Mazinger graphic novel, in a Western format and full colour (even today the vast majority of manga work is produced in black and white). In a world devastated by permanent warfare Major Kabuto (the name of the original human hero in the old series) spends all his time in frantic combat. But when a cataclysmic explosion catapults him into a parallel universe he meets the beautiful Warrior-Princess Krishna, whose fairy-tale kingdom is on the verge of defeat by the monstrous reptilian Zards.

Love blossoms as the mighty mecha saves the humans but all gods are cruel and the lovers face an insurmountable obstacle. On this Earth Kabuto can only hold Krishna in his arms whilst riding Mazinger. Here all humans are over 100 feet tallâ€¦

A simple fantasy, told at breakneck speed and with startling virtuosity, this long out of print item is a wonderful slice of exotica that genre-fans would love to see.

February 24, 2008January 14, 2009

Batman: Vampire — Tales of the Multiverse

Batman: Vampire â€” Tales of the Multiverse — Batman: Vampire

By Doug Moench, Kelley Jones, John Beatty & Malcolm Jones III (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-645-0

Now that the 52 multiverse is established as â€œreal continuityâ€ and an accepted fact of the DC Universe, lots of discarded story concepts should be up for repackaging in the foreseeable future. This compendium collects a trilogy of tales that appeared under the Elseworlds banner in the 1990s and are now bona fide Batman stories that all began with another of those literary cross-pollinations that publishers seem so in love with.

Batman and Dracula: Red Rain is a genuinely creepy adventure of heroism and sacrifice as Dracula moves into Gotham City and the Dark Knight is forced to ally himself with â€œgood vampiresâ€ in an attempt to stop him. Considering the title of this collected volume it’s presumably not a spoiler to reveal that he also has to sacrifice his life and his humanity before the threat to his beloved city.

This tale was a great success when it was first released in 1991; a minor gothic masterpiece, both philosophical and tension drenched, with the sleek, glossily distorted artwork of Kelley Jones and Malcolm Jones III creating a powerful aura of foredoomed predestination. It alone is well worth the price of admission

And that is a very good thing because the two sequels are ill-advised and, frankly, unwelcome and unnecessary.

Batman: Bloodstorm (1994, with the somehow more visually hygienic John Beatty replacing Malcolm Jones III as inker) sees Gotham City protected by a vampiric Batman who combines crime-fighting with dispatching those bloodsuckers who escaped the cataclysmic events of Red Rain. He is a tortured hero who struggles perpetually with his unholy thirst, but who is determined nonetheless never to drink human blood.

But when the Joker assumes command of the remaining vampires and attempts to take control of Gotham, not even the hero’s greatest friends and a lycanthropic Cat-Woman can forestall Batman’s final fate.

And yet Batman’s final rest is thwarted when the heartsick Alfred and desperate Commissioner Gordon recall the Batman from his final rest in Batman: Crimson Mist. Released in 1999, Doug Moench, Kelley Jones and John Beatty recount the grim but predictable tale of a city overrun by super-criminals since the caped Crusader went to his reward. So when his faithful manservant brings him back he is horrified to find the now corrupted hero a malevolent blood-hungry beast that plans to save Gotham by slaughtering every criminal in it. Only a bizarre alliance of good men and monstrous villains can rectify this situation before humanity itself pays the priceâ€¦

These stories take the concept of Batman as scary beast to logical extremes – and beyond – but although well drawn and thoughtfully written the sequels lack the depth and intensity of the initial tale and feel too much like most sequels – just an attempt to make some more money. At least in this volume you have the real deal, so buy it and just treat the last two thirds as bonus material.

February 23, 2008February 23, 2008

The Latest Herman

By Jim Unger (Sheldon Press)
ISBN: 0-85969-481-X

Herman isn’t a person: Bear that in mindâ€¦

Jim Unger was born in London in 1927 and emigrated to Canada where he took up cartooning as a profession. Herman began in 1974 when he moved to Ottawa from Ontario. He won The National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award in 1982 and 1987. In 1984 he moved to the Bahamas and in 1992 he retired.

Constantly nagged by friends and fans, he came out of retirement in 1997, reviving Herman on a piecemeal basis and overseeing an updated release of the long-running strip. Co-founder of INTRACA, an intranet feature using humour and cartoons on work-place computers, he is a keen proponent of the electronic dissemination of cartoon art. In 1990 he made cartoon history when Herman was the first US strip syndicated in East Germany.

Impressive, no?

Irrelevant. Herman is a superbly dry and wonderfully drawn old-fashioned gag-panel that covers all the old familiar subjects with trenchant wit and a mean eye. It is one of the funniest strips ever created and always worth a look. This particular collection was just the one nearest to hand.

And Herman? That’s actually anybody in the strip on the day. We’ve all been a bit Herman at times.

February 23, 2008February 21, 2008

JLA: Riddle of the Beast

By Alan Grant & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-84023-449-0 (Softcover) ISBN13: 978-1-5638-9867-9 (hardback)

The Justice League franchise lends itself to a lot of different interpretations, but this peculiar jam-session, taking its lead from the world fantasy boom triggered by the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, is perhaps one of the wildest.

Elfin Robin Drake, son of a dead hero, lives in the idyllic village of Haven and simply wants to marry his sweetheart and live a long life. But when the arachnoid seer The Riddler prophecies the return of The Beast his old life vanishes forever in flame and blood and a sea of devils.

One generation ago a monstrous evil conjured by a wizard nearly destroyed The World and only the entire force of the united Kingdoms and great heroism defeated it. Now those kingdoms are at each other’s throats and Robin must gather and reunite them if they are to have any chance against an evil that apparently cannot die.

JLA: Riddle of the Beast (Hardcover)

This is a rather formulaic saga-quest, given a boost by the character designs of Michael Kaluta, with the painted artwork parcelled out amongst Andrew Robinson, Hermann Mejia, Carl Critchlow, Alex Horley, Liam McCormick Sharpe, Martin T Williams, Glenn Fabry, Doug Alexander Gregory, Rafael Garres, Jon Foster, Saverio Tenuta, Jim Murray, John Watson, Gregg Staples and Simon Davis. Some of Kaluta’s designs are also included at the back.

Although not to everyone’s taste – and certainly not mine – this tale is full of wizards and heroes, and the fantasy analogues of the World’s Greatest Superheroes ranges from inspired to just plain daft, but all concerned give it their creative best and as such tales go it really isn’t as bad as it could be. You could do much worse. Professor Dumbledore’s School for Gifted Mutants; any takers?

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