Hercules: The Thracian Wars No. 1 (of 5)
Written by Steve Moore, Art by Admira Wijaya
Radical Comics, $1

It seems rather unfair that the first thing you want say about a comic like Hercules is “Well, this is nowhere near as awful as I expected it to be.” Nevertheless, that was the first thought that ran through my head after reading the first issue of this debut series from the newly christened Radical Comics.

Which is not to say that it’s any good. It certainly isn’t something I can feel confident recommending, even to the sort of folks who might gravitate to this sort of blood and sandal affair. No, Hercules exists on some blah middle ground, too rote and dull to warrant merit, but not nearly incompetent or disastrous enough to deserve scorn. Honestly, the best thing I can say about it I never had any trouble figuring out who the characters were or what was going on. Considering the sort of storytelling that enters my mailbox at a regular clip, that’s a higher compliment than it sounds.
As the title suggests, the comic takes us way back to Ancient Greece, where apparently the sun never came out and even the clouds were brown. Did these guys go to the “Gears of War School of Color Theory”? Is it so awful to at least throw an occasional blue or bright green or — dare I imagine it — pink onto the page? Do you really want your readers thinking of mud every time they thumb through your book?

I digress. The plot involves Hercules showing up to help some barbarian king, who’s a real dick and treats Herc and his friends like trash. Herc and his entourage kick the king’s ass and trash the fortress and then there’s a surprise twist at the end that I actually thought was kind of clever. Or at least well-handled.

The creators seem to have at least a passing familiarity with the original Greek myths and an interest in using them as a solid jumping-off point, which is admirable. But the characters, at least in this first issue, are little more than cardboard variations of the kind of stereotypes we’ve seen a thousand times since James Cameron first unleashed Aliens (he has much to answer for).

I also tire of the whole “let’s take a traditional story and grime the fuck out of it” approach. Hercules’ myth is really dark enough in all the right places that it doesn’t need this sort of “Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within” tone. Moore’s dialogue thankfully avoids awkward anachronisms and Wijaya manages to make each character have their own distinct look and feel, but it’s in the service of a muddy, unnecessarily dark comic that seems more concerned with making sure the blood flows freely than with being any good.

I dunno. Hercules didn’t make me angry like a really bad comic can for wasting my time. Nor do I feel I can rely on the old “if you like this sort of thing this sort of thing may be what you like” standby. More than anything else, Hercules felt like product, pure and simple. For Radical’s sake, I hope that doesn’t remain the case.

Caliber: First Canon of Justice No. 1 (of 5)
Written by Sam Sarkar, Art by Garrie Gastonny
Radical Comics, $1

Another Radical comic, this time a retelling of the King Arthur myth, but set in the Wild West for variety’s sake.

I’m a little more inclined to be more spiteful toward this book, if only because if anything, it features an even grayer palette than Hercules. Seriously Radical, there’s lots of colors available in that Photoshop program; your coolness factor won’t suddenly diminish if you sample more than two.

Gastonny’s art has other problems, mainly that most of her characters come off as overly stiff and posed. I’m not a big fan of the overly painted, overly detailed school that these comics so patently aspire towards, but held to that standard, Caliber comes off as awkward.

The comic has a much bigger problem though, and that involves the central premise. I’m sure the creators felt the melding of the two mythos — the taming of the American West and the chivalric tales of knights in armor — was a sure hit, never mind the occasional awkward symbolism, like the fact that Excalibur here is some sort of magical six-shooter that fires lightning. Wow.

But if the Arthur myth is about making order out of chaos, it’s also about protecting the helpless — might for right and all that. Caliber slips up in a major way by making its protagonist the son of a white Union officer. What a convenient way to absolve the creators of any white guilt for massacring the entire Native American populace! Merlin, at least, is portrayed as an Indian, though what tribe I couldn’t possibly say; the comic is maddeningly vague.

Wouldn’t it be more sensible, nay, more interesting even, to have the entire cast be made up of Native Americans, say Comanche or Cherokee? Wouldn’t it be more intriguing to intersperse actual Native American mythology and history in the book, drawing parallels between their plight and the heroic drama Malory wrote about so long ago?

Eh, maybe not, but there’s certainly nothing in Caliber as it currently stands to warrant my interest.

– Chris Mautner

Minima!
Written and Illustrated by Machiko Sakurai
Translated and Adapted by Athena and Alethea Nibley
Del Rey Manga; $10.95

When I got a manga in the mail about a young girl and her talking doll, I figured I knew what to expect. I’m not a huge manga buff, but I’ve read enough of it to recognize certain tropes of the various genres to make a decent prediction. After all, the press release that came with the book said, “What would you do if your favorite toy came to life and became your best friend?”

Well, knowing the way these things usually go, I figured that if it were me I’d probably try to keep my talking toy a secret, but that that would be difficult because he sure looks mischievous on that cover, and that hilarity would ensue. There would probably be a cute boy or two and my talking toy would somehow embarrass me in front of them, but in the end I’d keep my secret and maybe learn something about true friendship yadda yadda yadda.

Couldn’t have been more wrong.

First of all, that press release is way misleading. Ame is a young girl in – probably – middle school, but her favorite toy isn’t the one that ends up talking. It’s a chicken character that’s all the rage with the kids. And even then, she doesn’t have just one version of it. She has a large collection of chicken merchandise, most of which she doesn’t even play with, but displays on a shelf in her room.

The talking doll is a stuffed meerkat toy named Nicori that Ame finds on a school field trip to the local carnival. I wish my middle school had taken field trips to the carnival – especially unchaperoned ones like Ame and her classmates get – but that’s beside the point. Ame buys Nicori from a bargain bin because she accidentally knocked him in the dirt and she knows no one else will buy him. Out of gratitude, Nicori reveals that he – and all other toys, he claims – can talk.

With the talking meerkat out of the bag, it never occurs to Nicori and Ame to keep it a secret. And why should it except to conform to genre conventions? Nicori starts talking to everyone he sees and before the pair even leaves the carnival they’re on the news and the whole city is obsessed with the talking stuffed animal.

Right away, Minima! is surprising me and it keeps on surprising me for the rest of the book. There is a cute boy that Ame likes, and she does get embarrassed, and yes Nikori has something to do with it, but he does it openly and accidentally, not as part of any mischievous, Disney Channel hijinks. And Sakurai uses the incident to highlight one of the major themes in the book.

Yes, there are themes. Not Afternoon Special morals, but honest-to-God, thought-provoking subjects that Sakurai has some fairly profound things to say about. Subjects like celebrity and obsession and objectifying people. When the cute boy learns that Ame likes him, he asks her why she’s never talked to him and Ame realizes that to her he’s just like that chicken toy she has on her shelf at home. She liked looking at him, but never thought about befriending him or interacting with him like a real person.

Nikori, on the other hand, is a toy she can talk to. He’s like the chicken too in a lot of ways, but he’s more than that. He becomes her friend and they form a relationship that’s as complicated and real as any middle-school relationship can be. Ame is an awkward kid trying to figure out her place in her social circle. There’s a lot of self-absorption that goes with that role and it affects how she treats her friends, including Nikori. Nikori is also trying to learn his part as a local celebrity with news people and entertainment promoters constantly wanting a piece of him.

I loved their flawed relationship and their relationships with the other characters. Everyone in the story felt real, not like the simple genre archetypes in so much of the manga I’ve read. So by the end, when we see that some of the people who want a piece of Nikori aren’t at all friendly, we start to worry.

Minima! is a cute book, but it’s also a very smart one. I was pleasantly surprised by it and I’m very much looking forward to the next volume.

– Michael May

Iraq: Operation Corporate Takeover
Written by Sean Michael Wilson, Art by Lee O’Connor
Boychild Books, $10

An angry diatribe turned comic book, Iraq does two things right. One, it opts for a narrow focus, in this case the issue of the corporate corruption that runs rampant in the country right now (thought it doesn’t see a problem with spending a couple of pages talking about the use of Caterpillar bulldozers in Palestine) and two, it’s main characters consist of an actual Iraqi family rather than some anglo-saxon know-nothing who feels the need to speak for all the pain of brown people everywhere.

But ultimately the problem with Takeover is the same problem with every book of this nature, regardless of political leanings — it’s so concerned with informing you it doesn’t bother to tell anything resembling a story. The characters are paper-thin and they spend pages upon pages reciting endless facts in the driest manner imaginable. I liked O’Connor’s art, with it’s heavy use of shadow and black, but too many pages are given to annoying symbolism like watching a cat play with a mouse (OMG! That’s just like Halliburton’s relationship with the Iraqis!)

I could pick more nits but that really seems pointless in talking about a comic that has such noble intentions. I learned quite a bit from Operation Corporate Takeover, but I can’t say I enjoyed the reading any of it.

– Chris Mautner

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 11:00 am and is filed under Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Independent, News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.