Over at Entertainment Weekly, the Ausiello Files have uncovered a “super secret” project that sounds all too familiar:

“former Lost executive producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are developing a fairy-tale-themed drama series. Oh, and they’re getting a little help from—stop me if you’ve heard of this guy—Damon Freakin’ Lindelof!”

Because in December of 2008, it was mentioned that Vertigo’s Fables would be adapted for television at ABC (after an initial fly-by at NBC). Now, we haven’t heard much come from the project, until possibly now. The only question is, is this the proposed Fables adaption, or something in the same vein of the beloved comic series?

I’d like to think it is (perusing the message boards of the story, I’m not the only one). Especially with the notion that he will have a female lead. So is this Fables? Magic 8-ball says “all signs point to yes”. While Ausiello instantly calls for Sarah Michelle Gellar, I don’t simply see her as Snow White…Rose Red, on the other hand…

So, readers, who would you like to see in the cast of TV’s Fables? And do you think it could have a shot at massive popularity?

Cuba My Revolution
Written by Inverna Lockpez
Illustrated by Dean Haspiel
Colored by José Villarrubia
Lettered by Pat Brosseau
Published by DC/Vertigo

The hope for a better world takes on many forms, many of them tied to the hope for a better, more compassionate government.  Revolution.  It’s a romantic notion, and a hard one to let go.  Inverna Lockpez knows.  Her graphic novel, Cuba My Revolution, recounts her story: Seventeen years old when Fidel Castro took power, the young idealist supported the cause through food rations, artistic censorship, and the flight of her family to the United States.

Lockpez dreamed of becoming an artist, yet put her ambitions aside to study medicine and support her country in the years immediately after Castro’s government took control of Cuba.  Being a soldier brought her pain (on nearly every conceivable level), yet she believed in her country.  After her military tenure, she found that art schools only taught “accepted” forms of art, yet she hoped.  Her friends disappeared, yet her pride refused to buckle.

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The Beat reported today three DC Comics editorial personnel laid off as a result of the publisher’s “bi-coastal realignment,” all from the company’s Vertigo imprint — Pornsak Pichetshote, Jonathan Vankin, and Joan Hilty.

Pichetshote edited current hit The Unwritten; Vankin’s Vertigo credits included writing Vertigo Pop! Tokyo, illustrated by the late Seth Fisher; Hilty had been with the company for 15 years.

A filing last week by DC Entertainment showed 80 employees are planned to be laid off or moved as a result of the ongoing reorganization.

Mike Carey and Peter Gross’ Vertigo series, The Unwritten, has swooped up numerous award nominations and has found itself on the New York Times Best Sellers list twice already. It is a tale of intrigue, fantasy, father-son relationships, and finding your purpose in life. Tom Taylor has been on quite an adventure in the past year and a half and with the revelations of issue #16, it’s really only begun. Blog@ spoke to the author of the series, acclaimed writer Mike Carey about the ambitious undertaking he took with the most recent issue and what’s in store for Tom, Savoy and Lizzie. Caution, there are spoilers for those of you not caught up. (more…)

Dark Rain: A New Orleans Story
Written by Mat Johnson
Illustrated by Simon Gane
Gray tones and color by Lee Loughridge
Lettered by Pat Brosseau
Published by DC/Vertigo

Vertigo’s made a move recently toward publishing more graphic novels, and I approve in general of the move.  For whatever reason, I’ve never been a big fan of going to the comic shop every single week and prefer to pick up a meatier volume when something specifically strikes my fancy.  Much of their recent graphic novel output has come from the Vertigo Crime sub-line, which, for me anyway, has been a bit of a disappointment.  However, the graphic novels that aren’t part of the crime line have been quite impressive overall.

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Fogtown
Written by Andersen Gabrych
Illustrated by Brad Rader
Lettered by Sean Konot
Published by DC/Vertigo

Another Vertigo crime thriller, and another faux-noir protagonist being carried along by a series of credulity-stretching plot twists.  In Fogtown, Frank Grissel is, his closeted homosexuality aside, yet another in a long line of Chandler-lite detectives.  Grissel’s hired to find a missing daughter, but as is the way in these stories, he’s set up to be a patsy and refuses to be anybody’s patsy.  You’ve seen it before.

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Update: Hi there, your Site Editor Lucas Siegel here. This was actually a correction of a mistake. you see, the DC Comics App is a 12+ App. That means it can’t have anything rated as “Mature Content” available for in-App purchase. However, if you purchase a Vertigo book on the Comics by ComiXology App or on the website, Comics.ComiXology.Com, it will sync into your DC App via your account. No mystery, no conspiracy, just the way the apps were designed so that they could offer/market the DC App as an “All-Ages” application, and still have the mature imprint comics available digitally.

Hope that clears up any confusion.

Original Story: Hrm, it’s quite the vanishing act that even Harry Kellar would be mystified by.

Over at the comics for ipad blog , came an interesting observation that was brought to my attention about DC’s app, and the Vertigo comics are gone. “Nope, no Fables or The Unwritten or DMZ anywhere.” Though, the most recent digital releases of those titles are still available on the comiXology app, as well as the PSP.

So the question is , did DC pull the Vertigo books because of the mature content? I mean, yeah, Unwritten isn’t exactly kid-friendly. So did they feel it would get more exposure and would sell better exclusively on comiXology as well as to the PSP crowd? Is there workings of a deal in motion for them to be distributed elsewhere? Is it a temporary move? Will Vertigo have their own app?

The last scenario is the most unlikely, but it’s a shot.

Revolver
Written & Illustrated by Matt Kindt
Lettered by Steve Wands
Published by DC/Vertigo

With Sweet Tooth’s Jeff Lemire and now Matt Kindt in house, Vertigo’s done a fine job enlisting two of the best talents from Top Shelf Comics’ roster.  Lemire’s Essex County trilogy and Kindt’s books, Pistolwhip, Pistolwhip: The Yellow Menace, 2 Sisters and Superspy, rank among the most promising graphic novels of the past decade.

Kindt’s latest book, Revolver, verges on science-fiction, though in the oblique manner Kindt’s previous books touched on genre elements.  The book’s protagonist, Sam, finds himself shackled by dead ends: his job, his relationship and his self-righteous boss.  He wakes up one day to find himself in a terrifying world of avian flu outbreaks and dirty bombs, an apocalyptic landscape with danger in every minute.  And then he reawakens and finds himself again in his dull old world.  Flipping back and forth between two worlds, one dynamic but life-threatening, another safe but lifeless, Sam explores the limits of his relationships and searches for an answer to which world is ultimately his.

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Scalped v.6: The Gnawing
Written by Jason Aaron
Illustrated by R.M. Guéra
Colored by Giulia Brusco and Trish Mulvihill
Lettered by Steve Wands
Cover art by Jock
Published by DC/Vertigo

Some time ago, I read the first Scalped collection and was underwhelmed.  I always intended to give the series another chance to reach its potential, but at the time my library didn’t have the second book (they do now) and Scalped just slipped off my radar.  When the most recent collection, issues 30-34 of the monthly series, was placed under my nose, I decided to dive into the deep end.

Amazingly, I feel like I barely missed a beat.  Oh, events have occurred since that first book, but the emotional core of each character has remained.  I immediately remembered what I liked and disliked about the first book and where each character was at that time.

I didn’t like the first book, feeling that the characters were too obvious, too extremely distressed and unbalanced and “noir,” verging on caricatures.  Writer Jason Aaron continues to push his cast deeper into a self-destructive spiral, but he’s also unearthing different facets of them in The Gnawing.  He’s uncovering their humanity.

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Stuck Rubber Baby
Written & Illustrated by Howard Cruse
Published by DC/Vertigo

It’s somewhat a shame that Stuck Rubber Baby, high on the short list of most literarily ambitious (and successful) comics of all time, hasn’t gone through four times as many printings as it has.  Nevertheless, here we are, with a new edition, marking the fifteenth anniversary of SRB’s original publication.  In case you’re wondering, it holds up very well.

Stuck Rubber Baby was, from the start, a book out of time, with events simultaneously disconnected from it times, and themes deeply embedded into its culture.  The novel charts the life of Toland Polk, a young man coming to grips with his own homosexuality while the American South struggles to accept the civil rights movement of the 1960s.  So the book’s plot is explicitly a thing of the past, yet the (unfortunately) timeless aspect of bigotry prevents it from becoming irrelevant.  In truth, given the recent struggles for gay marriage and public acceptance, Stuck Rubber Baby’s message remains highly integrated into today’s society.

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Sweet Tooth v.1: Out of the Deep Woods
Written & Illustrated by Jeff Lemire
Colored by Jose Villarrubia
Lettered by Pat Brosseau
Published by DC/Vertigo

Wow.  I can’t recall a comic book quite like this.  It’s a post-apocalyptic road movie, about a nine-year-old boy named Gus who has deer antlers.  Apparently, in this new world, hybrids like Gus are big news, important news, as humanity is dying.  After Gus’s father passes on, having warned Gus to always run when he encountered anybody, Gus is saved from poachers by a grizzled, older man named Mr. Jepperd.  Together, Gus and Jepperd set out on a road trip across the tattered heartland of the United States to a mythical safe haven for Gus’s type.

Jeff Lemire, who came to comic readers’ attention a few years ago with his pastoral Essex County books, finds similar themes in Sweet Tooth.  The quietude of small towns and shocking nature of violence when it occurs in these safe havens are captured with a knowing and understanding eye.  Lemire presents Gus as painfully naïve, but in no way unintelligent.  Despite his lack of knowledge of the world outside his father’s cabin, Gus exhibits the ability to make value judgments and questions Jepperd when appropriate.

The final effect is a believable and sympathetic protagonist who is in far over his head, moving through a world of carefully realized, scared (often far more scared than Gus himself) and desperate threats.  Lemire’s strong ear for dialogue and careful, deliberate pacing ensure that each scene is grounded securely in an emotional truth.

Simply put, Lemire’s not the best illustrator you’ll find in the comics industry.  Various pages display awkward dialogue or posture, most often in action sequences, and several pages have an unfinished scratchiness to them. However, he’s adept at capturing emotional turmoil in facial expressions (one needs only see the deer in headlights cover of the trade paperback collection) and body language.  Similarly, his pacing and layouts facilitate a clear transfer of information from author to reader.  In fact, the page layouts in Sweet Tooth are among the strongest and most effective I can recall in any recent comic.  Lemire creates a powerful cinematic effect of solitude throughout the series, and makes strong use of blacks.

Sparkling with humanity and compassion, Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth kicks off with one of Vertigo’s most compelling debuts in v. 1: Out of the Deep Woods.  The story unfolds very slowly, and it remains to be seen if Lemire can plumb more than a sense of isolation and paranoia from the series, but if his handle on Gus’s voice is any clue, readers will be treated to a penetrating look into the heart and soul of a young boy confronted by the overwhelming struggle for survival.  Definitely recommended.

I, Zombie #1
Written by Chris Roberson
Illustrated by Michael Allred
Colored by Laura Allred
Lettered by Todd Klein
Variant cover by Darwyn Cooke

I would describe this book as eccentric.  Which should really come as no surprise if you’ve read previous Mike Allred comics.  The offbeat sense of humor works for it, and of course, it looks great.  However, it’s difficult to find a focus in this first issue, as our protagonist Gwen is clearly being prepped for some adventure and conflict.  I can’t quite recommend I, Zombie at this point, but keep it in the corner of your eye.  It might have something.

American Vampire #2-3
Written by Scott Snyder & Stephen King
Illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque
Colored by Dave McCaigLettered by Steve Wands
Variant cover by Bernie Wrightson (#2) & Andy Kubert (#3)

The debut issue held some promise, but precious little of it has been unearthed so far.  The biggest issue is that Skinner, the enigmatic protagonist, simply isn’t very interesting.  Dark, mysterious, absurdly self-assured – not much new there, y’know?  Pearl, the would-be movie starlet whose life was shattered, and has been resurrected by Skinner as part of the new breed of American vampires (no problems with sunlight, but apparently very lethargic on moonless nights), makes for more compelling reading, as her motivations are direct and instantly appreciable.

Albuqueque’s still tearing it up on the art side, and each issue’s second story, Stephen King’s potboiler origin of Skinner, isn’t anything new, but it’s a solid Old West horror riff.  I’m interested to see how Snyder develops Pearl’s story, as it’s the most compelling aspect of the book thus far.

iZombie #2
Written by Chris Roberson
Illustrated by Michael Allred
Colored by Laura Allred
Lettered by Todd Klein

Man, Mike Allred – this guy is a really superb comics illustrator.  He employs great layouts like the two-page spread of Nemia giving her vampire cabal a dressing down, and he’s one of the best in the business at capturing how clothing lays and folds on the human form.  You can read the character acting clear as day without melodramatic overacting, and his characters, every single one of them, are cute as buttons.  Even the mindless shambling zombies.  Granted, Allred’s been doing excellent work since the earliest days of the Kitchen Sink Madman series, but he just keeps getting better and better.

Roberson’s script moves a little slowly, but he’s establishing an interesting and diverse cast of well-meaning monsters, monster hunters and computer IT specialists.  Add to the mix Gwen, a zombie who must eat a recently deceased brain once a month or become shambling, sans-intelligence monster, but who also inherits the knowledge and memories of her latest meal – and she thinks this latest one might’ve been killed.  So there’s a lot of groundwork being laid.  It could move a little more quickly and hopefully Roberson can pay off some of this establishing material, but it’s beautifully drawn and colored, laid out and lettered perfectly, and chock full in interesting, quirky cast members.

Neil Young’s Greendale
Based on the album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Written by Joshua Dysart
Illustrated by Cliff Chiang
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Todd Klein
Published by DC/Vertigo

It doesn’t come up much in my writing here, but I’m something of a Neil Young fan.  One might even say a Neil Young obsessive, if you consider that I have nearly every officially available release (missing only the entirely redundant Greatest Hits and one import-only EP).

The announcement of Neil Young’s Greendale, the graphic novel, aroused some conflicting emotions.  Could the creators really get the point, yet still realize the full breadth of the album?  Maybe as importantly, could they add anything meaningful to the experience?  I’ve already spent time in Greendale via the concert show, the album and the feature film (directly by Young, with actors literally lip-syncing to the songs), so the book needed to bring something new to the table.

Greendale, the album, tells a winding narrative of the Green family, who live in the fictional southern California town of the title.  Each song spotlights a different aspect of the family and community, rounding out a complex, nuanced and involved portrait of small town America and family life circa 2003.  Major themes revolve around media saturation, energy consumption, anti-war sentiment during the building to the Iraq war, environmentalism and violence in American culture.  Actually, scratch “circa 2003”, because it’s all still pretty relevant today.

Neil Young’s Greendale, scripted by Joshua Dysart and illustrated by Cliff Chiang, tackles all the appropriate themes, but does so in a more focused and concise manner, befitting a book rather than a song cycle.  Dysart brings young Sun Green, eighteen and searching for her place in the world, to the fore.  Sun plays a considerable role on the album, carrying the final two songs, but steps off stage for nearly half the songs. Dysart wisely opts to put her front and center from page one, and he keeps her there until the finale.

For readers unfamiliar with the album, it’s a great move.  The narrative’s thrust is clear from the start, and seeing the world of Greendale through Sun’s eyes allows Dysart to dig deeply into the Green family history.  Characters who never appeared on the album, but were referred to on the expansive Greendale website, rise to prominence in Dysart’s script, each supporting the themes he’s exploring in Sun Green’s coming of age.

Suffused with magical realism, Dysart conjures forth imagery only suggested by Young’s grooving guitar solos.  Sun Green’s comforting connection to mother Earth plays nicely against the chaos erupting around her, in both her family and the outside world.  For Young fans, Dysart moves a few pieces around to make the story flow more elegantly – Sun’s war protest comes early, for example, leading to a touching scene of one young girl perhaps moved by Sun’s field art – but he also gives new insight into the Green family and effectively samples several of Young’s better lyrics throughout the dialogue.  Crossing paths with her grandparents, parents, cousin Jed, granduncle and officer Carmichael (oh, and the devil himself), Sun comes into contact with all the major characters from the album, as Dysart weaves their stories into Sun’s awakening social consciousness.

Hand-picked by Young for the job, Cliff Chiang handles the artwork, and to no surprise of anybody who’s read a book drawn by Chiang, Neil Young’s Greendale looks beautiful.  Crisp, strong lines carry the story forward inexorably.  Chiang’s character designs are very strong, instantly recognizable (they vary quite a bit from the James Mazzeo drawings in the album jacket, if you’re an album purist), and he shifts between the magical dream sequences and the mundane small town settings with aplomb.  Simple, clear visual storytelling keeps the entire story accessible to potential crossover readership.

So it’s a comic book, or graphic novel if you prefer, based on a rock and roll album.  Unusual origins, but the end result remains a terrific read.  Neil Young’s Greendale is a socially challenging, politically conscious coming of age riff, exquisitely illustrated, smartly scripted, offering something challenging and something engagingly fun for both Neil Young novices and the most hardcore of aficionados.  And it’s certainly a worthwhile addition to the library of any comic book lover.

Also, you can read my interview with Neil Young’s Greendale writer Joshua Dysart on the main page and my colleague Chris Arrant’s conversation with artist Cliff Chiang.

(P.S. If anybody knows where I can get an affordable copy of the El Dorado import EP, I’d be much appreciative.)

The Executor
Written by Jon Evans
Illustrated by Andrea Mutti
Lettered by Clem Robbins
Published by DC/Vertigo

The Executor was my first exposure to Vertigo’s new crime line, and it’s not the introduction I’d have hoped for.

Here’s the gist of this book: Joe Ullen, a one-time professional hockey player, returns to his hometown when his high school girlfriend, who he’s not seen in fifteen years, is murdered and her will names him executor of her estate.

Joe’s quickly introduced, locked into an apparently unsatisfying relationship (which establishes something about where he is in his life, but is never touched on again), before immediately jetting off to Elora, Calif., to attend the late Miriam’s funeral.  Several characters are thrown at the reader, though none hits hard enough to have much presence.

Among The Executor’s flaws is Evans’ reliance on quite-literally lifeless characters.  A mystery revolving around the deaths of two local Native American kids during Ullen’s youth ties into the tragedy of Miriam’s murder, but neither character has any presence in the narrative.  Both appear in brief flashback, often single panels, without speaking, leaving them a hollow presence, a wispy ghost with no impact for the reader.  Miriam herself, despite slightly more page time, barely registers as a presence either.

The characters, from Ullen to Miriam, from the dissatisfied girlfriend to the tragic boys of Ullen’s youth, are more types than realized personalities. They’re terse and tough, tragic and emotionally disconnected.  Their dialogue is predictably distant, preventing any of the cast from connecting with readers or showing any indication of humanity.

Andrea Mutti, The Executor’s illustrator, delivers stiff, but most effective pages.  The character designs aren’t strong, but show enough range that readers can tell the cast apart.  The layouts are simple and clear, but the camera work shows little imagination and Mutti’s characters have little acting range.

In short, The Executor is a disappointment, wallowing in cliché, supporting by pedestrian artwork, full of characters who don’t deserve any reader sympathy, and more to the point don’t muster an ounce of reader interest.

Air v.2: Flying Machine
Written by G. Willow Wilson
Illustrated by M.K. Perkar
Colored by Chris Chuckry
Lettered by Jared K. Fletcher
Published by DC/Vertigo

After it was recommended to me, I went to the library to check out the series Air, about an acrophobic airline stewardess who gets caught up in a massive conspiracy.  Vol. 1 wasn’t available, so I went straight into vol. 2, which was maybe not the best idea.  There’s clearly some groundwork that I was missing when reading this book, but it was still mostly entertaining and worth a look.

Flying Machine collects issues six through ten of the serial, and finds our heroine Blythe allied with a still-adventuring Amelia Earhart.  After Earhart’s history unfolds, much of the plot revolves around a mysterious ability called Hyperpraxis, an ability at which Blythe is naturally gifted, which allows the bending and folding of physical space.  A country called Narimar, which may or may not exist, comes into play, and Blythe’s love for a mysterious young man named Zayn underlines her every action.

G. Willow Wilson sets up a pretty compelling conspiracy, played with a supernatural bent, and she teases out new information at a good pace.  Conspiracies too often suffer from giving no consequential data, leaving the reader to feel like the mystery won’t ever actually pay off.  X-Files and 100 Bullets, I’m thinking of you.  In Air, Wilson feeds out more clues and more solid discoveries, yet keeps opening new doors to keep readers enticed.

Blythe’s character is hard to read from this one volume.  The plot drives much of the book, leaving her attraction to Zayn unclear, and the concept of the naturally gifted adept is well-trod territory.  The conspiracy plays out nicely, but there’s not quite enough here to see if Wilson has anything new to say about the concept of the concept of the adept.

Solidly unremarkably, M.K. Perkar’s artwork carry Wilson’s story effectively, despite occasionally inconsistent illustrations and sometimes choppy pacing.  Silent reaction panels often carry too much weight, giving a herky-jerky effect to many pages.  Perkar, however, carries readers outside conventional reality convincingly, showing readers the edge of reality and the gridlines beneath our universe in a creative manner.

A few people, in mentioning this series to me, have compared it to the television series Lost.  For me, it’s a wasted analogy; I’ve never seen Lost (take it for what you will, most of you probably have seen it), but Air is a compelling supernatural conspiracy saga.  It’s not really my bag, personally (which is to say, I’d probably enjoy it over a single-volume, but might not have the interest to follow it for several years), but there is no doubt that Air v.2: Flying Machine is put together in a mostly dramatic manner and is a worth a look for fans of supernatural mystery.

Other Lives
Written & Illustrated by Peter Bagge
Published by DC/Vertigo

Admission: I’ve never enjoyed Peter Bagge’s comics work in the past.  Yet after reading his latest, Other Lives from Vertigo, I’ve decided that I need to revisit his past work, because Other Lives is simply superb.

This time out, Bagge’s chronicling four characters whose lives intersect in both their everyday, humdrum reality and in various ways via the artificial, semi-delusional secret lives that we all imagine for ourselves.  In this case, Bagge’s protagonists include two “Second World” fanatics, one of whom also visits the online casinos obsessively; one self-loathing, self-critical reporter with serious family issues; and a role player and programmer selling a massively complex delusion of government conspiracy.

A study of outright lies and incidental misdirections, Other Lives dissects the divide between how we imagine ourselves and how we truly are.  Dark and quite hilarious, the narrative moves quickly and confidently from character to character, each scene building the contract between what is and what is wished.  Bagge’s ability to craft sad-sack losers that readers will still emphasize with is uncanny here, while still keeping enough distance to allow readers to appreciate their many faults.

Bagge’s illustrations fall into the “take it” or “leave it” category.  He’s clearly very skilled at layout and pacing, a versatile and evocative letterer, and able to present a range of comical and serious emotions.  His grossly exaggerated characters will likely rub some readers the wrong way, but the style suits the outlandish personalities of the book’s cast to a T.

Virtual lives overpowering real lives, it’s a powerful and creepy possibility, one skewered expertly by Peter Bagge in Other Lives.  Witty and funny, the script stabs to the heart of the matter, dissecting the delusions, self-denials, and self-hatred that fuel that divide between fantasy and reality, and how easily the line crumbles.  It’s excellent dark comedy, and well worth the time.

Area 10
Written by Christos Gage
Illustrated by Chris Samnee
Lettered by Clem Robbins

Do you know what trepanning is?  It’s the practice of drilling a hole in one’s head, typically – in real medical practice – to relieve cranial swelling or some similar extreme circumstance.  There also exists the school of thought that opening up the skull allows for more blood to the brain and enhances perception.

In Area 10, Christos Gage and Chris Samnee explore the life of Adam Kamen, a police officer whose perceptions are radically altered and enhanced by an accident – or is it? – that puts a hole in his skull right at Brodman’s Area 10, the pineal gland that affects how we process time and space.  Now Adam sees glimpses of people’s pasts and futures.  He’s also investigating serial killer “Henry the Eighth,” a homicidal madman leaving decapitated corpses all over New York City.  If you suspect there’s a connection in these assaults on people’s noggins, you’re probably correct.

The first thing that hit me about Area 10 is how great Chris Samnee’s art is.  This dude really draws the hell out of the book.  It’s a police procedural, and a lot of comics artists just don’t have enough body types to handle this in a naturalist style and still give you distinct persons.  Samnee handles it with ease.  His sense of black and white frames focuses each panel on the perfect emotional or plot beat, and his character acting is excellent.  I’ve been enjoying Samnee’s work since Capote in Kansas and Queen & Country, but he’s truly growing as a comics artist and illustrator with each project.

Christos Gage’s script hits the right marks as well.  Adam’s your basic crime thriller protagonist: a cop, emotionally distant, brooding and apparently sexy, dedicated to his job.  His colleagues – the captain who wants to give Adam a chance to get back in the saddle after his accident, the beautiful psychiatrist who’s a little too close to her subject, the buddy cops who have their mate’s back – are similarly of a type, but Gage’s crisp dialogue breathes some life into those standards.

Area 10 is a tense thriller, woven with a thread of supernatural, the plausibility of which will be heavily weighted on an individual’s suspension of disbelief standards.  The entire book builds to a finale that will elicit groans or cheers, with little middle ground. However, the predictable plot buoys up on Gage’s witty script and Samnee’s excellent artwork.  Despite my indifference to their finale, I felt Gage and Samnee presented a solidly gripping ride through Area 10.

Unknown Solder v.2: Easy Kill
Written by Joshua Dysart
Illustrated by Alberto Ponticello & Pat Masioni
Colored by Oscar Celestini & José Villarrubia
Lettered by Clem Robbins
Covers by Dave Johnson

2002. Uganda.

I missed v. 1 of this series, so I’m trying to get up to speed here.  Set in the midst of a brutal and horrifying (oh, and real) civil war – terrorist action might also be an apt descriptor – Easy Kill follows Dr. Moses Lwanga on a quest of vengeance and forgiveness.  Horribly scarred by a Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) assault, Lwanga wraps his mutilated face in bandages and sets about a quest for revenge.

In this volume, potential allies enlist Lwanga’s aid to assassinate a Hollywood starlet; their agenda to blame the LRA for the killing should bring international attention to the plight of the forgotten continent.  The starlet is working with Lwanga’s wife on a fund-raising dinner in memorial of Lwanga himself, leading to a conflict inside and outside the book’s hero.  It’s easy to guess that he doesn’t kill the starlet in the end, except he does murder dozens of innocents in this book, so don’t be too sure.  Later, Lwanga also escorts an orphan boy, once forcibly drafted into the LRA army, to his home village.

Easy Kill is a violent book, full of darkness and anger, and Lwanga chokes on its own regrets throughout.  Dysart does a fine job getting into his protagonist’s head, showing us his dreams and visions of failure and murder.  The conflicted desires for revenge and for peaceful life are played well.  The political situation is slightly unclear – perhaps because I’ve not read the first book in the series, and because this book focuses on Lwanga’s conflicted nature rather than the causes of conflict – but Dysart doesn’t really offer up good guys vs. bad guys anyway.  It’s an ugly, complicated world.

Ponticello and Masioni, the series’ illustrators, both provide solid artwork.  Each offers detailed backgrounds and angular, world-weary characters, set in a clear-to-follow grid.  A few angles are jarring, but most experienced comic readers won’t even notice.  Neither artist’s work transcends that page, but both are solid professionals ably abetting Dysart’s vision.

Driven by challenging moral quandries, Unknown Soldier’s second book, Easy Kill, is a gutsy, scary tale of loss, of a man committed to actions that terrify and repulse him, of a young boy terrified of the world he’s been taken from, of a woman torn between the man her husband has become and the man she remembers.  It’s unflinching, violent and extremely empathetic.  The big problems of the world do not have easy answers, but Unknown Soldier is seeking them anyway.

The Bronx Kill
Written by Peter Milligan
Illustrated by James Romberger
Lettered by Clem Robins
Published by DC/Vertigo

I love a good crime drama.  Of course, I’m somewhat picky and I expect more from the genre than most of the pseudo-noir out there.  Lesser writers resort to shallow posturing, tough guy clichés, and scantily dressed ingénues, slotted predictably into a plug-n-play.

Peter Milligan is not a lesser writer.  The Bronx Kill is a potboiler in the best sense of the word.  You’re reading the book, staring at it, waiting for events to occur, but Milligan’s just starting to simmer, building heat, creating tension, so that when it’s ready to pop, everything boils over in an instant.

Spending the first third of the book establishing his cast and their relationships, Milligan introduces us to his protagonist, Martin Keane, a writer caught in the orbit of his family’s history as police officers.  His wife Erin copes with her own demons, but Milligan allows their dramas to unveil themselves slowly, mixing in plus characterization, terse family connections and scenes of quiet pleasantry to round out each cast member, and to ensure that the audience is able to connect with them.

When Erin goes missing, Martin’s life is thrown into tumult, and the time Milligan’s devoted to his ambitions, fears, loves and familial tensions – in addition to the careful character work given to Erin – pays off in spades.

Mixing pages of solid prose into the graphic narrative, Milligan takes readers inside the writing and imagination of Martin, exploring how life reflects fiction, and fiction life.  The prose sections also show another side of Milligan’s talent, not only his ability to write prose well, but his ability to write mediocre prose and play with the form, adding hand-written “edits” and “author’s notes” in the margins as Martin writes and self-edits his newest novel.

James Romberger, a New Yorker, nails the atmosphere of Gotham.  Working in pencil, Romberger’s illustrations are scratchy and nuanced, full of subtle shading and gradient lines.  Atmospheric, cluttered, and full of characters suffused with confusion, loss and anger, each page reflects the emotional core of Milligan’s script and the physical truth of the city in which it occurs.

The Bronx Kill stands out from Vertigo’s crime fiction line of graphic novels, a gripping and emotional journey, beautifully illustrated, packed with a family’s ties, losses and betrayals.  Readers looking for a thrilling mystery, supported by strong characters, that builds to a roiling boil would do well to check it out.

FirstWave #1 (of 6)
Written by Brian Azzarello
Illustrated by Rags Morales
Colored by Nei Ruffino
Lettered by Clem Robins
Covers by JG Jones or Neal Adams

This series promises to be one of DC’s most interesting and fun projects in a long while.  Perhaps since Brian Azzarello’s Dr. Thirteen serial.  FirstWave is basically a pulp hero mash-up.  It’s like when you were a kid, and you grew bored playing just Transformers or just Star Wars or just GI Joe, so you got out all your toys and invented scenarios in which everything co-existed. (Thankfully, Azzarello doesn’t face the scale problems I had when He-Man had to interact with Luke Skywalker!)  DC took several old properties they possess the license to but didn’t quite know what to do with, and they threw Batman onto the cover for added muscle in the marketplace (he’s not in the issue, anyway…), and they stirred them all together to create something interesting, and really, really fun.

As all of the characters originate in the old pulp magazines, or trace their direct inspirations to the pulp traditions, Azzarello’s able to mix the characters very effectively.  Their milieus aren’t so radically different from one another, so characters like Doc Savage and the Blackhawks exist comfortably in the same world.

This first issue devotes itself to setting the pieces in their places, introducing each and setting up their initial goal.  Consequently, it’s hard to say much about the series’ overall direction or its effectiveness in telling a story; I can tell you that Azzarello gives each character a distinct voice.  He seems to have a handle on the entire cast, and he juggles the page time very effectively, giving each one a chance to shine.  And he understands the violent, fast-paced, offbeat humor of the pulp heroes, giving the narrative a breathless feel.  So the initial returns are very positive.

Azzarello’s properly abetted in his fast-moving adventure yarn by Rags Morales, a veteran artist whose detailed, nuanced illustrations add emotional heft and physical reality to every page.  Morales accomplishes the impressive balancing act of maintaining the traditional imagery of these characters while still making each of them his own – it’s a feat to capture the caricatured aspect of Will Eisner’s Commissioner Dolan and make that feel at home next to the gritty, rain-worn Doc Savage.

FirstWave #1 shows a ton of promise.  It’s a good start, a rollicking fun time with the edge of danger and fun that I personally would’ve eaten up when I was a kid.  And it’s still pretty damn entertaining as an adult, too. (more…)