Category Archives: comics

comics

The Quest for the Missing Girl (2008)

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“Why does everyone always talk about Megu and never about me? Me too … I’d like somebody to help me too sometime …”

Something a bit different this time. This book is a single volume Manga with writing and art by Jiro Taniguchi. This is the first work that I have read by him but he has a career stretching back to beginning of the 80s. This one was originally published in 2000 but this English edition is from 2008.

When the daughter of his dead friend goes missing,  Shiga feels obligated to travel to Tokyo to help look for her. He feels guilty for not being with his friend when he died on a mountain climbing expedition with his last written words being a plea to look out for his wife and daughter. Shiga’s investigations lead to the uncovering of a secret life of the missing girl and the climb of his life to rescue her.

This was an enjoyable read without being exceptional. The story was a fairly standard thriller that didn’t really explore the motivations of the characters and left a lot unsaid about tension felt by Shiga in the presence of his friend’s wife. Also the outcome of the story was never really in doubt so, for me, there was not a lot of dramatic tension. The black and white art, however, is very nice with some beautifully detailed backgrounds of the mountains and the city of the kind that you only seem to get in Manga books.

Graphic novel/books received 4/2/2013 DC edition

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Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

Batman Vol. 2: The City of Owls

Written by Scott Snyder and James T Tynion IV
Art by Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, Jason Fabok, Rafael Albuquerque, Becky Cloonan, and Andy Clarke
Cover by Greg Capullo

Promo copy:

• After a series of deadly discoveries, Bruce Wayne has learned that the Court of Owls is real — and a deadly threat out to control Gotham City!

• Unleashing their deadly assassins known as the Talons, Batman must stop the insidious Court of Owls before they claim the city for their own. In doing so, The Dark Knight will uncover dark secrets — not just about the city he’s sworn to protect, but about the history of the Wayne family.

• Collects BATMAN #8-12 and BATMAN ANNUAL #1. Continue reading →

Back to Brooklyn (2009)

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“It wasn’t Saetta, oh no, but it was part of the shitstorm he’s stirred up. Part of the fucking walking warzone the son of a bitch just is.”


This book collects the five issue series from Image Comics. The story was by Jimmy Palmiotti and Garth Ennis and was written by Garth Ennis with art by Mihailo Vukelic. Hopefully Ennis requires no introduction from me as he is one of my favourite writers and I have written about him and some of his books on this blog. Jimmy Palmiotti is a writer and inker who often collaborates with Justin Gray and had a five year run on Jonah Hex. This series marked the comic book debut of Mihailo Vukelic.

Bob Saetta is a gangster who has turned himself over to the police and federal agents to testify against his crime lord brother, Paul, and bring down his criminal empire. However, Paul is holding Bob’s wife and child and so Bob arranges with the lead investigators that he be released long enough so that he can free his family. They agree and so begins a bitter battle waged on the streets of Brooklyn between the brothers.

This is a pretty straight forward hard-boiled crime story from Garth Ennis. Whether it is under the influence of Palmiotti or not, the violence portrayed in the book is grim and brutal but without the underlying black humour that we expect from Ennis’ own work. The reason for Bob’s turning against his brother seems like a typical Ennis shocker but there are moments of the blackest humour when Bob visits his mother to talk about what Paul has been up to. The art from Vukelic is very nice but somewhat unusual too. The colouring leaves the book looking like a sepia toned document of the past and the colour palette is muted throughout. All in all a good read but I do miss the all out craziness of one of Ennis’ own scripts.

The Private Eye #1 (2013)

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“Look, once upon a time people stored all their deepest, darkest secrets in something called ‘The Cloud’, remember? Well one day the cloud burst.”

This is a new venture from Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin that is creator owned and only available online at a price that you choose. Vaughan is a writer known for series such as Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina and current hit series Saga. Martin is a Spanish artist who has worked with Vaughan before on Doctor Strange: The Oath and Gotham City Secret Files.

The story is set in a future where people guard every aspect of their private life including their true face from each other. In this society, the Paparazzi are private investigators who are hired to find out the personal details on subjects and the Press seem to act as the regulating force attempting to apprehend these illegal investigators.

The story has an intriguing premise in the current climate of the increasing blurring of private and public personas via social media and cloud services. The first issue, of a projected 10 issue series, rattles along and grips nicely. The art by Martin is very nice and the crowd scenes, with everyone in disguises of one kind or another, remind me of Geof Darrow.

I liked the comic very much and I hope that the creators get enough support for them to finish off the story. It will be interesting to see if this sort of venture can stand up against commercial enterprises such as Comixology Submit. The first issue is available now from the Panel Syndicate web site.

Swamp Thing #38-40

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“Hey! You broke your glass! Y’got blood all over your hands …”

“I shouldn’t worry yourself about it, Frank. I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

 
Issues 38 and 39 see Swamp Thing head out of Louisiana following Constantine’s directions to meet him in Rosewood, Illinois. This town was completely submerged by the actions of Swamp Thing to destroy creatures overwhelming the town. Unfortunately not all the creatures were destroyed and now a race of aquatic vampires are preying on visitors to the site and planning the evolution of their species at the expense of humanity.

The confidence of Constantine is brought to the fore as he stands toe-to-toe with Swamp Thing gambling that his supposed knowledge and Swamp Thing’s curiosity to learn more of his abilities will outweigh SwampThing’s desire to put a fist through his face. By the end of the story line Swamp Thing has learned that he can move across the country through the green, regenerate within minutes and can extend his influence beyond his normal frame to include the surrounding landscape.

All of these are learned despite Constantine rather because of him and so issue 40 sees Swamp Thing and Abby discussing Constantine and how much they distrust him. However Swamp Thing still goes off to the next appointed meeting place in Kennescook, Maine. Here he finds a werewolf running wild in the town and attempts to save her and prevent her injuring the people around her. Constantine does not turn up until the drama has played itself out and finds Swamp Thing in a belligerent mood refusing to follow Constantine’s directions and return home only to find that the trickster was ready for him all along.

These issues contain some great writing from Moore and an imaginative use of some of horror’s well used characters and tying them into small town American life and history. The tension between Constantine and Swamp Thing is well played with Constantine managing to stay one step ahead of Swamp Thing at all times.

Hit-Girl (2013)

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“Okay, if you’re going to be a little pussy about it I guess we can start on the baby floor. Jesus, Dave! It’s like training the Tiny Titans sometimes.”

Kick-Ass is back with a vengeance in this prelude story, to both the movie and the comic Kick-Ass 2, featuring Hit-Girl. The book collects the the five issue series and was created by the usual creative team of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.

After the death of her father in the first Kick-Ass series, pint-sized vigilante Mindy McCready finds herself back living with her nervous mother and police detective step-father. This proves to be to be a fly in the ointment for Mindy who , as Hit-Girl, wants to destroy the Genovese family and their associates as revenge for her father. She also takes Kick-Ass under her wing supervising his superhero training but her most difficult task is fitting in as a 12 year old girl at school.

I loved this book. It full of humour taking a long hard look at the actions of comic book superheroes when fighting crime, who Mindy places a lot of emphasis on when training Kick-Ass, but also in a great series of sequences featuring Red Mist as he takes the Batman route and learns Eastern techniques from Himalayan monks and mystics. The ultraviolence is present too as Hit-Girl destroys the Genovese crime empire piece by piece and closer to home as her actions bring the mob to her door threatening her new found family. If you are already a fan of the Kick-Ass series then you will probably be picking this up anyway without any recommendation from me but if you haven’t read them and are a fan of Garth Ennis then you should give the books a try – start with Kick-Ass followed by this one and then Kick-Ass 2.

I have to mention that the series cover gallery also features this fabulous variant cover to issue 5 by Bill Sienkiewicz after Sienkiewicz:

Brilliant!

Fairest #8-13 (2012-13)

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“I wish they’d let me join them in death. I would have been a great ghost. Maybe I didn’t have the right hat.”

Fairest #8 cover

This spin-off series from Fables enters its second major story line, and its first without creator Bill Willingham who remains as a consultant, with South African author Lauren Beukes taking on the writing duties. The art is handled by Inaki Miranda who has previously had some one issue credits on the main Fables title. The covers were all by Adam Hughes.

The focus of this story is Rapunzel and it is set back in 2002 before the start of the escalation of the war with the Adversary and Mister Dark – so we see them in their original residence, have Snow White in power, in all but name, and some old characters that have since passed on such as Boy Blue and Jack  who has a fairly prominent role in the story. The story itself sees Rapunzel travel to Japan on the hunt for the children that she believes where stolen from her but instead she runs into an old lover from the Hidden Kingdom, a feudal Japanese Fables homeland where Rapunzel lived for a while after the loss of her children. The actions of the past  catch up with her as her lover, now a Yakuza style gang lord, seeks revenge for the role she believes that Rapunzel played in the destruction of the Hidden Kingdom.

I read the first novel from Lauren Beukes, Moxyland, a while ago and I wasn’t terribly impressed. For me there were no sympathetic characters for me to have an emotional connection with and so in the end I didn’t really care what happened to anyone in the book. And the same problem affects this story line to a certain degree. In the end the story itself was fine and the broadening of the back story of Rapunzel was good – with enough left unresolved so that it could be revisited in the future – but the emotional connection was not there for me. Part of the problem may have been setting it in the past and so it doesn’t connect with much that has happened in the main series but mainly there was no threat as we know the fate of a lot of the main Fables that appeared and so the drama was lessened. The artby Inaki Miranda was clean and cute for the most part but horrific and brutal when it needed to be. It remains to be seen if there is to be any impact of this story on the main series or upcoming story lines in Fairest but at the moment it feels like a throw away, standalone tale with no real weight as it was not written by the series creator.

Swamp Thing #37

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“I said I’d tell the people your missus works for about her sleeping arrangement. I’m a nasty piece of work, chief. Ask anybody.”

And with those words John Constantine introduces himself to Swamp Thing. While that was the  introduction of Constantine to Swamp Thing, he had actually been introduced to readers 12 pages earlier in issue 37.

Our first sight of John paints him as a rather dapper figure with his familiar trench coat draped over his shoulders and wearing a pair of white gloves with the trademark cigarette in hand. A far cry from the rumpled mage of later years.

He is seen visiting various mystics and magic practitioners of his acquaintance trying to get to the bottom of rumours of a returning destructive force but each person he speaks to has a different vision of what that force might be.

In issue 37, Constantine enlists the help of Swamp Thing by promising to tell him more about his nature. Swamp Thing is undergoing his first painfully slow regeneration and it is John that tells him how his power is greater than he imagines and how he could abandon a body in one location and travel to another location and grow a new body there.

Abby is immediately skeptical of this new influence in the Swamp Thing’s life, probably due to still recovering from her first meeting with him when he appears in the back of her car, and sees to his heart saying, “Let him go, Alec. He’s trying to lead you on …” but John has him intrigued and by the end of the issue Swamp Thing is obviously planning to rendezvous with John in Chicago.

In this comic we have seen many of the defining characteristics of John Constantine that would be played on endlessly by writers – his air of mystery, moving in mysterious circles, his manipulative nature, his bravado. In a single issue, Alan Moore created an intriguing character whose appeal would continue for a further 28 years and counting.

Stuff received 3/11/13

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Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

Hand-Drying in America: And Other Stories

Hand-Drying in America: And Other Stories

by Ben Katchor

Promo copy:

WITH BEAUTIFUL FULL-COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT

From one of the most original and imaginative American cartoonists at work today comes a collection of graphic narratives on the subjects of urban planning, product design, and architecture—a surrealist handbook for the rebuilding of society in the twenty-first century.

Ben Katchor, a master at twisting mundane commodities into surreal objects of social significance, now takes on the many ways our property influences and reflects cultural values. Here are window-ledge pillows designed expressly for people-watching and a forest of artificial trees for sufferers of hay fever. The Brotherhood of Immaculate Consumption deals with the matter of products that outlive their owners; a school of dance is based upon the choreographic motion of paying with cash; high-visibility construction vests are marketed to lonely people as a method of getting noticed. With cutting wit Katchor reveals a world similar to our own—lives are defined by possessions, consumerism is a kind of spirituality—but also slightly, fabulously askew. Frequently and brilliantly bizarre, and always mesmerizing, Hand-Drying in America ensures that you will never look at a building, a bar of soap, or an ATM the same way. Continue reading →

Nemo: Heart of Ice (2013)

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“It’s just this coat. It’s so big and heavy sometimes.”

A spin-off story from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books featuring Janni Dakkar as Captain Nemo. The normal creative team of writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O’Neill are in charge again for this short adventure.

Set in 1925, the story sees Janni and her crew stealing the belongings of Queen Ayesha who is in New York as the guest of Charles Foster Kane. Back in her hideaway, Janni reflects on her life and her need to emulate and exceed the deeds of her father and so decides to travel to Antarctica to retrace her father’s steps on a quest that left his companions dead and him near to madness. Meanwhile Kane has hired three scientific adventurers to capture Janni at all costs to seek reparation for the loss and embarrassment felt by his house guest.

A more straight-forward story that the dense Century series that was completed last year, this story marks a return to the lighter storytelling of the original League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series. The shortness of the story does not give time for much context within the LOEG universe or a well defined reason for the adventure to the South Pole but it is still entertaining nonetheless. The usual elements are here with numerous figures from film and literature making an appearance as well as hallucinatory sequences and alien civilisations. Perhaps not a joining in point for readers new to the LOEG but a fun ride for those who liked the early books.