24Seven, Volume 1

Written and/or Illustrated by Jose Luis Ágreda, Jeff Amano, Paul Azaceta, Gabriel Bá, Hilary Barta, Frank Beaton, Nate Bellegarde, Ivan Brandon, Ryan Brown, Chris Brunner, Eric Canete, Benito Cereno, Becky Cloonan, Dave Crosland, Farel Dalrymple, Jonathan L. Davis, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Rami Efal, Matt Fraction, John G, Rob G, Brandon Graham, Miles Gunter, Phil Hester, Mike Huddleston, Adam Hughes, Rian Hughes, Frazer Irving, Paul Lau, Jasen Lex, Sonny Liew, Vasilis Lolos, Andy MacDonald, Jim Mahfood, Alex Maleev, Paul Maybury, Fábio Moon, Tony Moore, Melissa Oeming, Mike Oeming, Dan Panosian, Leland Purvis, Rick Remender, Esad Ribic, John Ney Rieber, Eduardo Risso, Jim Rugg, Neal Shaffer, Lakota Sioux, Mark Andrew Smith, James Stokoe, Rick Spears, Ben Templesmith, Frank Teran, and Danijel Zezelj.

Edited by Ivan Brandon
Image Comics; $24.99

This was a hard review to write. Not because I’m conflicted about the material (though I am), but because I was so completely off in my expectations for the book and it’s taken some work to align myself with what it really is.

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The Slightly Askew Adventures of Inspector Ham & Eggs #1
Written by Stephen Lindsay; Illustrated by Lauren Monardo
Chimaera Comics; $3.95

Like my write-up of Pirat Tales last month, this is going to be a shorter review. Since I’m used to writing longer pieces about graphic novels and collections, I feel a little weird doing these briefer ones for single issues. It feels like I’m slacking off or something.

But thinking about the name of this column, I also feel like it’s a huge part of what I’m supposed to be doing to tell you about new series that look like they’re going to be really cool. Pirat Tales was one of those; Ham & Eggs is another one.

I learned about Inspector Ham and his junior partner Eggs over at Steve Niles’ forum, so I suspected right away that this wasn’t a kids’ book. And of course, any comic that proudly talks on its cover about reveling in the carnal delights of hookers, hatchlings, and hogs obviously isn’t meant for the little ones. So, in spite of the adorable characters and the cute names, I wasn’t exactly shocked at what I found in Ham & Eggs. Still the art and the concept is so disarming that with every profanity and decapitated guinea pig whore I found myself grinning and thinking, “No, they didn’t just do that.” But they had, and they’d continue doing it for the rest of the issue.

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The Fog Mound, Book 1: The Travels of Thelonious
Written by Susan Schade; Illustrated by Jon Buller
Aladdin Paperbacks; $8.99

The first thing you notice about The Fog Mound is that it’s an interesting mix of chapter book and graphic novel. Chapters alternate between being told first with illustrated text and next with comics. I’m halfway through the second volume now and I’m still not sure why they chose to do it that way, but I like it for a couple of reasons.

First, it breaks up the visual monotony that comes with any 200-plus-page book. Maybe it’s just me, but unless the story is the greatest thing I’ve ever read, I always find myself counting how many pages I’ve got left when I’m reading longer material. There’s just something about seeing page after page of text or comics panels that makes my eyes glaze over. I also set my DVD display to show me how much time I’ve got left when I’m watching movies, so like I said, maybe it’s me.

I didn’t have that problem with Thelonious though. Each chapter felt new and interesting because it was a different format from the one I’d just read.

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The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle
Written by Jim Butcher; Illustrated by Ardian Syaf
Del Rey; $19.95

I’m a Dresden Files n00b. Probably because I got my fill of supernatural detectives a long time ago. I still love John Constantine and Hellboy and Cal McDonald and Goon, but those are the guys who introduced me to the concept. I don’t need Anita Blake and I didn’t think I needed Harry Dresden. Actually, I’m still not sure that I need Harry Dresden, but I found out that he’s a lot more fun than I expected.

It helps me and my compulsive need to start series at the beginning that Welcome to the Jungle takes place before the first novel in Butcher’s Dresden series. It introduces the characters in an easy, natural way. Of course, it also helps that most of the characters are clichés.

I’ll come back and talk about Dresden in a minute, but the most formulaic characters are the police. Lt. Karrin Murphy is Dresden’s contact at the police department. She’s strong, smart, blonde, wears pantsuits, and though she trusts Dresden enough to hire him for cases, she rides him pretty hard. She’s the tough lieutenant from every ‘80s cop show you ever saw.

Her partner, Sgt. Carmichael, is Harvey Bullock. Or maybe Sam from Sam and Twitch. Or any other fat, balding, cynical detective.

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The Wretch, Volume One
Written and Illustrated by Phil Hester
AmazeInk; $13.95

I’ve been a big fan of Phil Hester’s art since his Green Arrow days. I think it was The Atheist or thereabouts where I realized he could write too and became an even bigger fan of that part of his career. Since then, I’ve slowly been tracking down stuff like The Coffin, Stronghold (which I hope he and Tyler Walpole will finish some day), and now The Wretch.

I didn’t know what to expect from The Wretch. I guess from the costumed character with the pitiful name I figured it must be about some kind of under-appreciated superhero. Knowing Hester’s other work, I knew there had to be something else to it than that, something deeper, but I never anticipated the metaphysical questions Hester introduces.

I remember reading something Hester said in an interview or wrote in an article when The Atheist came out. He wouldn’t pin down exactly what he was trying to say in The Atheist, but he did specify what it wasn’t doing. He wasn’t trying to declare his world-view through the mouth of his title character. He was, in fact, coy about what his world-view actually is. I’d be putting words into Hester’s mouth to try and paraphrase further, but the feeling I got was that he was trying to raise some worthwhile questions without specifying what he thought the answers are. I see a lot of that in The Wretch too.

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Pirat Tales #1
Written by Dan Taylor; Illustrated by Orlando Baez
IDW; $3.99

Orlando Baez draws one, hideous rat. Well, lots of them, actually. The rodents in Pirat Tales aren’t the cute-and-cuddly variety. They’re the kinds of animals my wife has nightmares about. Long, evil snouts; tiny, beady eyes; thin, naked tails; vicious, little teeth.

It’s really rather perfect for the story Dan Taylor’s written. There’s not a lot of high-seas adventure and swashbuckling in the first issue of Pirat Tales. That may or may not be coming in future installments, but the story begins not with a daring, Reepicheep-like pirate-king swinging from the rigging, but in squalid backrooms and seedy, dockside taverns.

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Flight Explorer, Vol. 1
Written and Illustrated by Kazu Kibuishi, Johane Matte, Kean Soo, Phil Craven, Jake Parker, Steve Hamaker, Ben Hatke, Rad Sechrist, Bannister, and Matthew Armstrong
Villard Books: $10.00

I’m not convinced that there’s a need for a version of Flight that’s specifically aimed at kids, but I’m sure glad there is one. I’ve only read two of the Flight anthologies and I’m struggling to think of anything in them that I wouldn’t read to my six-year-old. Some of the material may go over his head, but that happened in Flight Explorer too. That doesn’t mean we didn’t enjoy the heck out of it though.

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Halo and Sprocket, Vol. 2: Natural Creatures
Written and Illustrated by Kerry Callen
SLG; $8.95

First thought on receiving a review copy of the book in the mail: Uh oh. I haven’t read Volume 1 yet. I’d better see if I can get that one sent to me so I can review it first.

First thought on reading the letter that accompanied the book: Hmm. It’s been five years since Volume 1 came out. There are probably a lot of folks who haven’t read that one. Maybe I should just dive in and see how it reads to someone new.

First thought five pages into the book: Reads really well, actually.

On the back cover of the book, Randy Lander calls Halo and Sprocket “the perfect sitcom.” With all respect to Lander, I disagree; mostly because that description raises expectations that I don’t know if Halo and Sprocket is trying to meet. I tend to judge comedies on one thing only: how much they make me laugh. And while Halo and Sprocket is cute and charming and insightful, I didn’t find it uproarious or side-splitting. Nor do I think it was intended to be.

Maybe what Lander meant by “sitcom” (I haven’t read his full review) has more to do with the book’s format. It’s not a narrative with a plot; it’s a series of short stories about a young woman who lives with a robot and an angel. More Casper the Friendly Ghost format than Owly, if that distinction makes sense. The stories are all delightful and funny, so yes, “situational comedy” is definitely an appropriate label, but again, you won’t be struggling to breathe from laughing too hard. You’ll be smiling though. Widely.

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Rob Hanes Adventures #11
Written and Illustrated by Randy Reynaldo

Rob Hanes Adventures is an infrequent comic, but it’s one that I look forward to. Like Jeff Smith’s Bone, I cut Randy Reynaldo a lot of slack on his release schedule because I know he’s doing it a) as a labor of love, and b) all on his lonesome. And RHA’s “complete story every issue” policy means that I’m not having to remember plot threads from three or four months ago when I pick up a new one.

RHA is a great concept. Rob works for a global investigations outfit that sends him all over the world to get involved in all kinds of adventures. One issue may have him trying to solve a cozy mystery in the English countryside, while the next issue finds him deep in the jungle or stopping a mad scientist. Reynaldo has complete freedom to tell whatever kind of story tickles his fancy at the moment. That means that the series is always fresh; always surprising.

In the most recent issue (#11), Rob is fighting a pirate ring with ties to a fictionalized North Korea. Unfortunately, it’s not one of the stronger issues in the series. For one thing, while the pirate ring operates in part from a junk in Chinese waters, it’s really not a band of high seas raiders. This group is more interested in things like counterfeiting money and making a profit from other people’s copyrights.

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Flight, Volume 5
Written and Illustrated by JP Ahonen, Graham Annable, Chris Appelhans, Bannister and Grimaldi, Matthew Bernier, Scott Campbell, Svetlana Chmakova, Tony Cliff, Phil Craven, Michel Gagné, Steve Hamaker, Kazu Kibuishi, Kness and Made, Sonny Liew, Reagan Lodge, John Martz, Sarah Mensinga, Ryan North, Richard Pose, Paul Rivoche, Dave Roman, Israel Sanchez, Kean Soo, and Joey Weiser; Edited by Kazu Kibuishi.
Villard Books; $25.00

I’ve got some catching up to do on the Flight series. I read the first one ages ago when it came out, but various other reading obligations prevented my getting Volumes Two through Four. There’s nothing like a free review copy to renew your interest though, and now that I’ve read Volume Five, I very much want to go back and read the ones that I missed.

Volume One was unique and beautiful, but as with most anthologies, not all the stories were successful. At the time, I still thought it was one of the best anthologies I’d ever read, but there was room for improvement. For one thing (whether this was the fault of the book or my own misinterpretation, I’m still not sure) it seemed like every story in Volume One was somehow tied to the theme of flight or flying. At some point since then, I’ve read somewhere that “flight” isn’t the focus of the anthologies anymore, if it ever really was in the first place. So, with Volume Five, I felt freer to just enjoy the stories on their own terms without trying to read a unifying subtext into them. Possibly as a result of that – but possibly as a legitimate increase in quality as the editor and artists have grown and matured – I enjoyed every single story in the latest volume. Certainly some of them affected me more deeply than others, but each of them affected me in some way. I wasn’t tempted to brush off or dismiss any of them. And together, they form a harmonious package that’s absolutely lovely.

The anthology opens with Michel Gagné’s “The Broken Path.” It begins as a beautiful, silent fantasy about the inhabitants of an alien world who are trying to save themselves from an oncoming meteor. The action is easy to follow, even when it involves magic spells and otherworldly solutions to the crisis. But I say it “begins” as a fantasy, because by the end it’s become more than just that. It’s a touching story about sacrifice, gratitude, and love.

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Full disclosure in that Grant Gould is a friend of mine. It may not be important to you that he’s one of the nicest dudes I know and that he constantly cracks me the hell up, but what should be important to you are that he’s talented and the following three words: Vikings vs. Werewolves. How can you not want to read that?

Grant’s career so far is mainly as a sketch card artist for every major trading card set from Revenge of the Sith to Iron Man. His first comic Wolves of Odin is coming in November from Super Real Graphics, but I wanted to know more now, so I asked him some questions and I’m sharing the answers with you. He was also recently announced as one of the artists on Lucasfilm’s Clone Wars webcomic, but I’ll save that conversation for a future column.

Michael May (MM): Tell me about your background with sketch cards. How’d you get into that?

Grant Gould (GG): In 2004, Topps was looking for new artists to tackle their Revenge of the Sith card set and one of my online pals, artist Tom Hodges, was already on the set and gave me the heads-up and put in a good word, etc. I sent Topps some samples, they got me approved through Lucasfilm, and that was that. Since then I’ve worked on several more Star Wars sets, Lord of the Rings sets, DC, Marvel, Heroes, Halo, Indiana Jones, you name it. Sketch cards have been huge for me in terms of helping to get my name out there and get my foot in the door.

MM: What’s your favorite piece that you’ve done so far?

GG: As in, which is my favorite card set so far?

MM: I’m wondering more about which drawing of yours are you most proud of? You’ve done so many sketch cards and commissions and fan prints; is there one particular piece that you still look at and think, “Yeah, that was a really good one.”

GG: Well, I tend to be my own worst critic. I have a habit of really liking a piece, then going to sleep and looking at it the next day and suddenly hating it. But there are a few things I’ve done that I’m pretty pleased with, even if I do see faults in the art that I wish I could change. For example, on the most recent Lord of the Rings: Masterpieces card set, I had the opportunity to illustrate one of the base cards and that was a huge thrill because I’m such a massive fan of Tolkien and the LOTR movies. I think I tend to be most proud of the projects that I enjoyed the most – not so much the projects that I think the drawings look the best, if that makes sense.

MM: Perfect sense. Drawing sketch cards and commissions is pretty secure work for you, right? What’s the attraction to making a comic that makes you want to spend more time on that and less time on the work that pays more regularly? In other words, at this point in your career, why comics?

GG: To be honest, sketch cards and commission work aren’t very secure, or reliable, in terms of making a living off this stuff. I knew that I would have to start branching out into other things if I wanted to keep any sort of fulltime art career going. I think there are three major factors in me getting into comic work:

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Out of Picture, Volume 2
Written and Illustrated by Andrea Blasich, Nash Dunnigan, David Gordon, Michael Knapp, Benoit le Pennec, Sang Jun Lee, Kyle MacNaughton, Peter Nguyen,Vincent Nguyen, Jake Parker, Willie Real, Jason Sadler, Daisuke Tsutsumi, and Lizette Vega
Villard; $26.00

If I’m going to talk about Out of Picture, I gotta talk about illustrators first. I always note the writers and primary illustrator at the top of my reviews, but I think I might be doing some of the visual artists a disservice by referring to them primarily as illustrators.

An illustration, whether it’s a picture or a verbal thing, is an explanation. It’s intention is to make your story or your point or whatever clearer. Yeah, visual illustrations can be beautiful pieces of work on their own, but they really succeed or fail based on how well they clarify the writing. And that’s a lot different from what we’re asking comic book artists to do.

A comic book artist (or cartoonist, if she’s drawing her own story) has to do a lot more than take a story and make it prettier or – ideally – more understandable. In comics, the visual artist is supposed to be part of the storytelling process. There’s acting to be done, with facial expressions and body language. Yes, the best illustrators do all that too, but it isn’t as vital to – as inextricably a part of – what the book is. That’s why I hate all the arguments about whether the writer or the artist is more important to the final product. It has to be both of them or it isn’t comics. The visual artist has to be every bit as much a storyteller as the verbal artist or your comic sucks.

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The Underburbs #1
Written by TJ Dort and Joe Haley; Illustrated by Joe Haley
Rolling Boil Press; $3.00

Halloween is my second favorite holiday right after Christmas. If we got presents and the day off from work on Halloween, it’d probably nudge Christmas right out. I certainly anticipate it as much as Christmas every year. I start watching horror movies in September as my son is figuring out what he’s going to dress up like. Leading up to the big night, there are hayrides and apple orchards and Jack O’ Lanterns to make. Then on the last day of October my wife takes the boy out into the crisp night air to collect his loot while I stay home to pass out candy and watch Bela Lugosi movies. What could be nicer?

Because I have all these fond emotions wrapped up in Halloween, I’m a sucker for comics like I Luv Halloween, Cryptics, and The Super Scary Monster Show. I love books about cute, little monsters or kids dressed as monsters. Anything that captures that Halloween atmosphere for me. So, when I saw TJ Dort and Joe Haley’s table at Wizard World Chicago, The Underburbs immediately got my attention and I had to stop.

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Wilcox Primary art teacher Jason Tait has created the Coolest Classroom Ever, including life size She-Hulk and Spider-Man statues. Take the tour here.

On Sunday, there was a Women in Comics panel that wasn’t announced in the Wizard World printed program. I only found out about it because a friend of mine, Katie Cook (who’s done some recent work for Dark Horse), was on it. Because it sounded rather impromptu, I figured most of the panelists would be in the up-and-coming category, but Gail Simone and DC Coordinating Editor Jann Jones were also there. Spider-Man too, but he was in the audience.

To be candid, I was a little concerned about the direction the panel was going to go. I’d like to live in a world where a Women in Comics panel isn’t necessary because women in comics isn’t a big deal. But it still is a big deal, so I went, partly to support Katie, but mostly because I was curious about the direction of the discussion.

And as long as I’m being all open and stuff, I’ll also tell you that I got way too into the panel and didn’t take any notes. I’m kicking myself for it now, but at the time I just wanted to drink in the atmosphere, because it was awesome. There was very little us-versus-them and Simone affirmed my feelings when she said she didn’t often think about the concept of “women in comics” except for when she was asked to be on panels like this one.

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The Comics Are for Kids Too! panel was made up of Art Baltazar and Franco from Tiny Titans, Peter David (mostly because of his work on Marvel Adventures Spider-Man), Josh Elder and Russel Lissau from The Batman Strikes, and Owly’s Andy Runton.

The Wizard moderator opened the panel with a question about what comics the panelists read as kids that inform their current work. It probably shouldn’t have been surprising that most of them came to comics from other media. Bugs Bunny cartoons, Adam West’s Batman, Star Wars, and Super Friends were a few examples. David in particular talked about watching the old Adventures of Superman TV show and how excited he got when the announcer mentioned that the characters were based on a Superman magazine he’d never heard of.

In addition to that though, a lot of them were introduced to comics by older relatives. Lissau’s grandparents (on both sides of his family) loved Batman and Superman when he was a kid and used to make up stories for him featuring those characters. Elder learned to read when his mom lost her voice and couldn’t finish a Transformers comic she was reading to him. He figured out the words himself just to complete the story. Similarly, Runton learned to read from his mom’s reading him the Sunday comics pages.

David said that he got into comics at the barber shop, which stocked plenty of Harvey Comics. He fondly remembered not understanding that when Casper was drawn with a dotted line, it meant that he was invisible. Thinking it was supposed to be interactive, David would just connect the dots.

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Saturday’s Wonder Woman Spotlight panel with Gail Simone, Aaron Lopresti, and Greg Rucka was one of the two I’d most been looking forward to (the other being the Kids and Comics panel later that day). Rucka and Simone began by talking about the challenges and rewards of working on Wonder Woman. For Simone, it’s writing her as a character with a message instead of a character who is a message. Rucka didn’t exactly disagree, but added that Wonder Woman is inherently political. She’s the only woman in DC’s big three characters and you can’t ignore that.

Simone built on that notion by saying that because Wonder Woman is the first female adventurer, she has a lot of weight on her shoulders. Characters like Xena and Buffy – any strong, female, adventure character you can think of today – are here because Wonder Woman paved the way. So while Wonder Woman may not have to be a feminist (an idea Rucka doesn’t accept), she does have to carry that weight of her historical importance. She has to be strong and keep up with DC’s male characters, while not just being written as a male in a woman’s body. She needs her own motivations and personality.

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I’ve been mostly blasé the last few years about Wizard World Chicago. Probably because it’s followed San Diego during that time and those creators who even bother to show up at Chicago are so exhausted from the other show. This year, even though Heroes was last weekend, there was a lot more energy. At least in Artists Alley. And even amongst the bigger names, though there were still some like Joe Quesada who didn’t show up, those who were there seemed rarin to go.

Friday night’s Bendis vs. Johns panel was a great example. It was the first of several panels that made the trip worthwhile this year and even though Vaneta’s already given an excellent and much-more-thorough rundown of the event at the mothership, I want to talk for a minute about what I learned from it. Then, in separate posts, I’ll cover the other three panels: the Wonder Woman Spotlight (also covered on the mothership, but I’ll have some more to add to it), Kids and Comics, and Women in Comics.

After a brief wrestling match, the two out-of-breath writers explained that their original intent for the panel was to highlight how similar their approaches are to writing corporate-owned characters and then talk about the differences. It was Wizard’s idea to dumb it down (my words) and add the “versus,” but Bendis and Johns hijacked their panel back (their words) by calling up other writers and artists from their respective companies to create the first ever DC/Marvel panel. There was some polite banter and trash-talking, but the hour was noticeably marked by mutual respect and admiration as everyone talked about the similarities and differences between the two companies.

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Atomic Rocket Group 66 #1
Written by Robert Curley; Illustrated by Will Sliney
Atomic Diner; $4.95

I thought I’d become skeptical of self-published comics. I thought I’d become jaded enough that if I didn’t know the publisher or hadn’t read some darn good reviews, I was going to be very careful about my purchases. Guess not.

But c’mon. I see in Previews a comic with a robot, a spaceman, a black-masked pulp adventure hero, and a gal wearing what looks like a ‘60s spy catsuit… I’m gonna be curious. Then I read that it’s set in ’57 and features characters named Space Phantom, Night Ghost, Lunar Girl, and a misogynist who turns into a woman named Minute Maid? You’ve got to work pretty hard to screw up a concept like that.

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Strangeways: Murder Moon
Written by Matt Maxwell; Illustrated by Luis Guaragña, Gervasio, and Jok
Highway 62; $13.95

Much like its main character, Strangeways has had a long, hard road. Matt Maxwell may not have encountered any werewolves or crooked sheriffs – at least I hope not – in his quest to produce his Western werewolf comic, but I still don’t envy him the headaches.

Strangeways first saw publication as a mini-series for Speakeasy. Sort of. One issue had been released when Speakeasy shut its doors and Maxwell, like all the other Speakeasy creators, had to figure out something different to do with his book. I don’t have any inside information as to why, but for whatever reason Maxwell chose not to pursue publication as a mini-series with another company. Instead, he decided to finish the entire story and publish it himself as a graphic novel. It meant that fans of that first issue had to wait longer to finish the story, but the wait’s over now. Sort of.

I remember being struck at how cinematic that first issue was. I’m often confused when comics creators use the word “cinematic” to describe their work, but it fits Strangeways. Comics and movies are two different animals and one doesn’t feel like the other, regardless of the comparisons the press release writers love to make. Still, there are several things about Strangeways that bring the word to mind.

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