Author Archives: theculture

Roadkill (2008)

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“Bitch, just give it up already.”

“It’s gotta end here, bitch.”

“I don’t know you well enough, but if they say you’re a bitch, then I’ll trust ’em on it.”

Roadkill cover

This 80 page graphic novel from Dark Horse Comics was written and drawn by the Fillbach Brothers, Matthew and Shawn. This is the first work of theirs that I have read – though I do have another, Maxwell Strangewell, in my to-read pile. They also produce a web comic, with writer Ed Hawkins, called Roninspoon Theater.

When a research project to genetically modify animals for super growth is compromised by a mutated, zombie byproduct, one of the researchers escapes with a giant rabbit before the facility goes into lockdown. Unfortunately the rabbit gets loose and is run over by a truck whose occupants are looking for roadkill to augment the burger meat at a local diner. Unfortunately, again, eating the meat of the genetically modified animals turns people into the aforementioned mutant zombies. Enter Jim Kowalski who works for Illuminati Trucking Inc., a mysterious firm fighting evil and the supernatural, and is sent to investigate the incident. Jim has to fight mutated cockroaches, deal with a death cult and clean up the mess left in the local town.

This is a fun, comic story featuring larger than life characters and outrageous circumstances. The artwork is quite cartoony in style but this complements the comedic nature of the story. The characters are well worn stereotypes but the energy of the increasingly bizarre story carries all before it. I look forward to reading Maxwell Strangewell.

Fairest #7 (2012)

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Quote:
‘You’re going to slay me with a walking stick? I know I’m just a girl and all, but it’s a bit far-fetched.’

 

I don’t tend to make many posts about single issues of comics but I thought I would about this one for completeness as, together with the previous issues in the series that I have already talked about, this will be part of the upcoming first collected volume of Fairest. It is a standalone story and was written by Matthew Sturges (Jack of Fables, House of Mystery) and with art by Shawn McManus.

The story has Beast on the trail of a monstrous killer in 1940s Los Angeles. However if he wants to capture the monster alive he must beat the dapper Englishman and monster slayer Saint-George to the punch. But why is Beast so insistent on catching the killer alive and why is Fabletown’s sheriff Bigby Wolf not on the case?

This is a nice standalone story some great art by McManus who colours the 1940s segment in sepia tones to match the mood of the era of fictional private detectives that is used as the setting of the tale. But the most significant development for Fables fans is that this issue shows that this is a series that needs to be followed as it looks like the stories told will relate more closely to the main series than I thought they would. I thought that the series of stories, like Legends of the Dark Knight for Batman, would be set in the universe of Fables but standing outside of the continuity of the main series. However issues 1-6 spun out of an incident in Fables #107 and this story provides some background on the relationship between Beauty and Beast that goes some way to explaining Frau Totenknder’s present for their daughter, Bliss. Now this may just be because the first two writers, series creator Bill Willingham and Jack of Fables co-writer Matthew Sturges, are well acquainted with the main series and its characters. So it will be interesting to see how it develops with the next story arc and a writer new to the world, Lauren Beukes.

The Underwater Welder (2012)

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Quote:
And you know what…? I’m right here … we’re right here. But you’re too busy chasing a ghost to notice!

 

The Underwater Welder is an original graphic novel from Top Shelf Productions by writer and artist Jeff Lemire. The only work of his that I have read before was The Nobody from Vertigo but he is one of DC/Vertigo’s hot talents having his own on-going series, Sweet Tooth, and writing several series in DC’s new 52 including Animal Man, Justice League Dark and Superboy.

The story in this book follows Jack Joseph, a 33 year old underwater welder at an off-shore oil rig in Nova Scotia. He and his wife are preparing for the imminent arrival of their first baby but Jack seems distracted and is more focused on work than preparations for the new arrival. It is also Halloween, the anniversary of the death of Jack’s father in mysterious circumstances. Jack’s memories of his father and the night he died start to take over his life as his own doubts about his fitness as a father begin to surface. While Jack loves his father he fears turning into man who broke up his family and ultimately wasted his life. But an incident at work is the trigger for a self-examination in which the buried truth is revealed and Jack must decide how he will live his life in the future.

Given the nature of the publisher, they also published his acclaimed Essex County collection, this is a return to Lemire’s indie roots and is a very different kind of book to his work on the new 52. This book is a  kitchen sink drama with a bit of a supernatural/hallucinational interlude. The imagery of the book works well with the point of view changing seamlessly between the past and the present through Jack’s self-perceived transformation into his father. This is a chunky 220 page book that can easily be read and enjoyed in a single sitting but certainly worth spending more time with.

Justice Inc. #1-4 (1975)

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Quote:
My weapons … the gun i call Mike and the knife Ike! Once again, They are my only friends … my only allies … and my hope!

 

Just as The Shadow series was about to draw to a close, DC released this short-lived series featuring another 1930s pulp character, the Avenger, with most of the original stories written by Paul Ernst writing as Kenneth Robeson. Like The Shadow series, Denny O’Neil handled the writing duties and had a crossover story in The Shadow #11. The art in the first issue was by Al McWilliams but what makes the series stand out is the art on the remainder of the series by Jack Kirby and Mike Royer. Jack Kirby is of course the comics legend who helped create characters such as Captain America and other Marvel staples such as the Fantastic Four, X-Men and the Hulk as well as the Fourth World mythos for DC.

The first issue features the origin of the Avenger. Richard Benson is an adventurer and explorer who boards a plane to Montreal with his wife and daughter. On returning from the bathroom, he finds his wife and daughter missing along with another passenger. Everyone else on the plane insists that they were never on it and in an ensuing fight Benson is knocked out cold. He awakes three weeks later in hospital to find that his skin and hair have turned white and that he can mold his face so as to mimic others. Benson then sets off to investigate what happened to his wife and daughter and avenge them.

All the stories can standalone but, as he picks up new members for his Justice Inc. crime fighting operation along the way with each issue, should be read in order if possible. The first story is about a hostile company takeover but the remaining stories all feature some technological or scientific discovery as the focus of the story.

The series features more pulpy goodness from O’Neil and fabulous art from Kirby. The technology based stories and face changing antics of the Avenger puts me in mind of the Mission Impossible TV series and it would be interesting to find out if O’Neil was influenced by this or if it was a feature of the original pulps. Worth a look for fans of Jack Kirby if you can find it.

The Shadow #1-12 (1973-1975)

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Quote:
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

 

I have been wanting to re-read Andrew Helfer’s run on The Shadow from the 80s for a while now. But when I went into the loft to dig them out I got sidetracked by DC’s first comic series with the character. The majority of issues (10) were written by Denny O’Neil with the other two written by Michael Uslan. O’Neil has worked on a vast number of titles for DC and Marvel and includes the Hard Traveling Heroes Green Lantern/Green Arrow story, a run on Batman and a revivial of the Question in the 80s. Uslan is better known as a film and TV producer and has been a producer on a number of the modern DC film adaptations including all the Batman movies. The art duties were handled by Michael Kaluta (5 issues), Frank Robbins (4 issues) and ER Cruz (3 issues). Kaluta’s work I know from Starstruck and a recent run on Madame Xanadu but the other two artists are new to me – in fact ER Cruz seems to be a bit of a man of mystery himself.

Each issue is a standalone story with no overall arc so each can be read on their own. The stories are true to the pulp origins of the character and set in the 30s (when the radio serial and books first appeared). The Shadow is a vigilante dispensing, often fatal, justice to organised crime gangs. He has unexplained mystical powers to hypnotize and evade adversaries and slip into the shadows. He has a number of alter egos including a rich socialite and in some ways can be seen as a precursor to Batman. He also has a team of associates that he uses to gather information and help him in his pursuit of criminals.

In general the stories were good examples of the pulp style. However, at 18 or 20 pages long, they were a bit too short for me – a lot of the story development and detection work was skipped to fit in the action within the page limit. The art was generally fine. This early example of Kaluta’s art was a bit cruder than his later Mucha influenced style but fit in well with the overall mood of the pulps. The Robbins art had more of a cartoony style but was still enjoyable to view. I probably liked the art by ER Cruz best as it was a bit cleaner than Kaluta’s and a bit more realistic than Robbins’. If you are a fan of pulp writing, the Shadow or Denny O’Neil then it is probably worth your while tracking this series down.

Memories (2005)

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This book is a collection of two books, Memories of Outer Space and Memories of Other Times, which are both in turn collections of short comics illustrated by Enki Bilal. Bilal is a European comic creator who was born in Yugoslavia but brought up in Paris. His best known works are probably the Nikopol and the Beast trilogies.

For all but six of the stories, Bilal is also the writer as well as illustrator. The stories all date from 1972 – 1981 and vary in length from a single page to 10 pages but with most being done about 3-5 pages in length. Thematically the stories tend to fall into three categories – space opera, near future and horror – and can be serious or comic.

As with most collections there is a variability in quality in the story telling but, in the main, the art is exceptional and a good illustration of the European style. For myself, I tended to prefer the grander SF/space opera stories rather than the horror ones in this collection but found myself frustrated by the short length of the stories and longing for a meatier story to sink myself into. But nevertheless an interesting collection worthy of investigation if you have never come across Bilal’s work before.

Real Lies (2006)

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Quote:
“Robots will surely signal the end of the world for all humans.”

 

Something a bit different this time. Real Lies is a collection of short stories by writer and artist Lee Si Young and is Korean Manhwa. Manwha is obviously a close relation to Japanese Manga as the styles are very similar – or at least they are in this case which is my first exposure to it.

The first story, How Martians conquer the Earth, centres around a young woman, Si-Ra, whose boyfriend has disappeared. Feeling like the world has ended she does her best to carry on  until one day out of the blue he returns. But there is something odd about him as with many other so-called Return Men. Why are the whites of their eyes blue and why do so many of them tell the same story to explain their disappearance?

In the world of Is it really impossible?, a virus has meant that no male children are born naturally only the occasional  female. Naturally born females are known as Goddesses and cloned men are either Dominants (males who can reproduce) or Recessives (men who live as women). Mi-no is a dominant who wants more from his brief relationships with the Goddesses – tired of being treated like a stud he craves female friendship.

The final story, Science Fiction Story, sees Yoon-Kyung taking delivery of a new rental robot. But she is surprised and disconcerted by how human it looks. As they are forced to spend time together, she becomes increasingly curious and frustrated by the robot and it human qualities.

This is a quite interesting collection of stories. They remind me a little of the Vertigo book Demo by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan. Delicate tales of love and loss but with a slight horrific or science fictional quirk in the background. These stories are more upfront about the science fictional elements but just as interesting.  The art is a bit rough in places but no more so than in some other Manga titles. I took a chance on this book as it was in a sale and it was certainly worth a look. Although she has written other books, from a quick investigation, it does not seem like any others have been translated into English.

Fairest #1-6 (2012)

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Quote:
“I smell a rat! No, I smell whatever sort of vermin a rat smells when he smells a rat!”

 

The recent publication of issue 6 of Fairest marks the end of the first story. Fairest is the latest spinoff from Fables and will focus on the female characters in the original series. This first story was written by the main man himself, Fables creator Bill Willingham. The truly fabulous interior art was pencilled by Phil Jimenez and inked mainly by Andy Lanning with some help along the way from Mark Farmer and Andrew Pepoy. The fantastic covers were by Adam Hughes. The wraparound cover to issue 1 shown above features mainly easily recognisable characters to regular readers of Fables but there were a few I did not recognise.

The story follows on from the abduction of the Snow Queen and Briar Rose by a goblin army from the Empire’s capital city in Fables #107. Ali Baba is looting the city when he comes across a minor bottle imp in a bottle. Although not able to grant him three wishes, the bottle imp promises to use his skills to guide him to vast wealth. He is led to the goblin camp where he frees Briar Rose with a kiss and both find that true love is hard to find and hold on to – even with seven fairy godmothers on your side.

This is an excellent start to the new series. Willingham has produced yet another fabulous tale from his winning formula of retelling classic fairy tales and updating the characters involved. This story focuses on true love and loss but is also a tale of revenge and redemption and is bound to be an instant hit with fans of the main series. It is also the perfect introduction for those who have missed out on Fables and don’t want to play catch-up or commit to the longer story arcs.

With the conclusion of the first arc, the series is being opened out to other creators for their take on these characters. The proposed format reminds me of the Legends of the Dark Knight comic that also featured standalone tales from different creative teams. Issue 7 is to be a single issue story by Matthew Sturges and Shawn McManus which is to be followed by another six issue story featuring Rapunzel by Lauren Beukes and Inaki Miranda. While I am excited about some of the new writers and artists involved – I am looking forward to seeing more of Inaki Miranda’s work after Fables #99 – I am slightly worried that the quality may vary with the introduction of writers new to the characters.

Having said that, this first arc has left me excited for the future of the series and it is worth picking up when it is collected – sometime after the publication of issue 7 which will also be included in the TPB.

Jonny Double (2002)

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Quote:
“You kids’re talkin’ about robbing a bank!”

“No, we’re talkin’ about goin’ to get a dead guy’s money.”

 

This book collects the four issue mini-series that was the first collaboration between writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso. This was the start of a successful partnership that has since produced 100 Bullets, the current Spaceman and some Batman stories.

Jonny Double is an ex-cop turned private investigator whose latest client has just turned up dead. The down on his luck Jonny is then hired by a mysterious Mr. Hart to find out what crowd his daughter, Faith, is running with and to keep her out of trouble. Everything seems fine until he is persuaded to impersonate the son of Al Brown (AKA Al Capone) to close out his daddy’s inactive bank account. However, the account is not as inactive as the Faith’s crew think and instead of scoring $300,000 they lift $7 million. Jonny’s world goes downhill fast as the kids start turning up dead and Jonny has to protect Faith from a legendary hit man.

This is an excellent book from Azzarello and Risso. A modern day noir crime caper with all the elements one might expect including a dumb PI falling for deadly femme fatale. Some of the parts of the story might be a bit too clichéd but the quality of the writing and art is such that you drawn along into the twisted narrative completely. There are enough red herrings to keep you guessing throughout the story and the ending neatly wraps up all the threads from Jonny’s past and present. The only thing that slightly jarred for me was Jonny’s speech patterns which were infused with 60s beatnik/hipster figures of speech. But otherwise this fabulous book should appeal to fans of 100 Bullets if they haven’t read it already.

Steve Niles’ Cellar of Nastiness (2005)

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This book is a collection of one-shots from writer Steve Niles, who is probably best known for co-creating the 30 Days of Night series.

 

The first story, Hyde is a modern reworking of the Jekyll and Hyde story. In this version, two brothers are close to creating a new anti-depressant drug but when their funding gets cut they decide to test the latest batch of the drug on themselves. After they awake from a blackout, they discover that the man responsible for shutting them down has been brutally murdered along with his family. The drug proves addictive but each use results in a trail of bloody mayhem – but who is too blame?

This first story was pretty good but, even as one of the longest in the book, was too short for me. I would have liked more on the relationship between the brothers and their transformed characters. The art by Nick Stakal was OK on this story. It reminded me a lot of Ted McKeever but not quite as good and the quality of the art varied quite a lot from page to page.

The second story is called The Very Big Monster Show. Theo is a boy who loves the classic movie monsters but in his father’s costume shop the children are all going wild for the newer horror movie monsters. Just at Hallowe’en, Theo stumbles across an old house inhabited by the classic monsters – Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, the Mummy and the creature from the Black Lagoon – who are sitting around moping about how no-one finds them scary anymore. But Theo’s belief in them encourages them to have one more go at being frightening.

This is quite a heartwarming tale of belief and courage with faith being rewarded in the end. It is also nostalgic for the lost era of movie monsters and the thrills they caused rather than than the easy gore laden shocks of the modern monsters. It could almost be a children’s tale if it wasn’t for the content. The illustrations by Butch Adams are very nice and are in a children’s picture book style.

The third part of the book was originally published by IDW as Horrorcide and features four short horror tales. The first two are stories in the same vein as the Future Shock tales from 2000AD. But the best one is a tale of revenge from beyond the grave where a repentant gang member is not forgiven by the family he helped murder. It also features some nice black and white art from Josh Medors.

As with most compilation books this is a mixed bag but I think it has enough goodies to make it worth a read.