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Breakdowns -- The Wart on Error

March 11, 2004

If you're a comics reader with a computer, you can't go anywhere these days without talk of The Comics Blogosphere". Though there were some committed webloggers like Neilalien before, it's been in the past year or so that 'blogging about comics--the industry, the creators, publishers and editors, and the books themselves--has really exploded. And this is a really good thing.

Some publisher's may not like it. Big corporations like DC and Marvel are only a little more skilled at controlling their image and keeping their secrets than they are at adapting to the surge in manga sales. If you're Marvel E-i-C Joe Quesada, would you want to read this? Of course not, but it's the kind of thing that helps keep these people and their companies at least a little more careful in their actions, if not more honest. The thing about the comics industry is that, for all our crying that it's not taken seriously as an art form/medium, the people involved in many ways do not conduct themselves at the standards of other media like film, television and books. If the President of CBS or Sony Music or Random House had said anything analogous to comments of Bill Jemas' during his time at Marvel, he'd likely be fired. And I like to think that increasing antipathy to Jemas' act had some bearing on his removal from the guidance of Marvel's books. I can't imagine Jim Shooter, with his memo about “the little fucks” who bought the comics, would have lasted as long as he did at Marvel in the ‘80s if the Internet was around then. I don't mean to suggest that comics-related blogs and columns are that mighty yet that they can fell mighty kings all by themselves. Even the most popular blogs only receive about 2,000 unique visitors a week. All I'm saying is that they have become an increasingly effective tool to dispense information and commentary. And it's the latter that interests me just as much as the news, really. When I started doing reviews and then my column, about three years ago, there was very little intelligent thought about comics on the Web. That has changed dramatically in the last year, with at least a dozen really smart, entertaining, and constantly updated 'blogs worth one's daily visit. Whether this has led to some comics sites losing half their audience in the past year, and infrequently updating sites like Savant Mag going away (some of their writers started their own blog, significantly) is anyone's guess, but I find it heartening and invigorating. You can't improve your tennis game unless you play someone better than you, so bless all these folks for putting such sustained effort into expressing their comics-related thoughts, as I feel it can only improve my own stuff. There's an old dodge a lot of creative people use to deflect criticism that one does not have the right to criticize if one hasn't created anything of his own, but the truth is that insightful criticism is really necessary for an artform to grow and mature, and to be taken seriously.

More on this topic soon, but I wanted to get into the reviews. First, though, here’s a little something that amused me, regarding the struggle the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE comics have been having. This is MV Creations’ Val Staples, explaining the problem:

“Obviously, everything Masters of the Universe related in the U.S. is having a bit of a hard time. Everything stems somewhat from the success of the toys. And since the new toy line battled things like poor case ratios and a lack of child support, everything associated with it has to fight related battles."

Yeah, I wish Skeletor’s deadbeat dad would just pay his fair share, you know? Was Beast Man a latchkey Beast kid? Seriously, though, isn’t that a funny way to put it, lack of child support? Doesn’t that just mean that the kids who are supposed to want the toys, don’t? Staples acts like this is something that’s not the toymaker’s fault, like the kids are to blame for not wanting this shit. The toys aren’t cool, the revamped cartoon wasn’t that popular, so all that’s left are the thirty-somethings who remember the awful, awful, mok-worthy cartoon fondly to buy the comics, and there just aren’t that many left, apparently, who already aren’t blowing their dough on G.I. JOE and TRANSFORMERS.

Feh.

The Reviews

BOP (MORE BOX OFFICE POISON) by Alex Robinson. Top Shelf Productions. $9.95
For those who experienced BOX OFFICE POISON as one immense, funny and involving graphic novel, rather than the long-running series, this volume will be a brief but emphatic reminder of how good the big book is. That’s not to say this book isn’t good on its own, but there was a reason this material was excised from the graphic novel. Some of the pieces are amusing filler, little bits of humor and character shorthand such as the cast naming which television show they would like to live in, which celebrity would they sleep with, that kind of thing. Fun stuff, but there’s already a lot of it in the big book. Likewise, the story about Sherman becoming manager of the bookstore at which he works, the power immediately going to his head, is good but predictable. However, there are some treats here, such as the realistic tale of Stephen and Jane’s relationship being tested by the appearance of Stephen’s ex-girlfriend, or the shorts “King Horse” and “Ex-Man,” which also deal with temptation and/or rekindling old emotions. There’s also some post-BOP material here, such as the slight “Cartoonist’s Widow” written by Robinson’s significant other, Kristin Siebacker, and the much more substantial “Flat Earth: Caprice’s Story,” a 24-hour comic covering a young woman’s life history of humiliation and bad relationships that still somehow does not defeat her. Robinson’s characters all have their own voices and in-jokes, and are weak and strong and noble and flawed on a very human, believable scale. Though the work here shies away from extreme dramatic highs and lows, the everyday, mundane struggles of men and women trying to get along with each other and themselves are well observed, usually funny, and sometimes touching.

ANIME PLAY #4 Edited by Robert T. Silva; Shinichi Shimura. Hirameki International Group. $9.99
For ten bucks, I’m sure you’re thinking that this had better be a really good anime magazine, right? And also, you’re wondering what the hell do I know about anime?

Fair enough, I don’t follow anime closely, having watched a couple Mizazaki films and some episodes of G.T.O. in the past year and that’s about it. But I have to say that this magazine did get me interested in some films I didn’t know about, chiefly the beautiful Gonzo production, LAST EXILE. There’s a feature on it, plus an interview with the character designer Range Murata.

There’s also an interview with YUKIKAZE character designer Yumi Tada and KIDDY GRADE U.S. voice director Justin Cook, so clearly the magazine is not focused merely on the anime directors and producers. There are also some short features on otaku culture, and several pages of hype for upcoming releases.

Thankfully for me, though, the magazine also looks at manga and other comics, with interviews with LUPIN III creator “Monkey Punch”—actually Katou Kazuhiko, and he hates to be called Monkey Punch; Scott (BAREFOOT SERPENT) Morse; and Jim (STUPID COMICS) Mahfood. All the interviews are very good, the Morse and Mahfood ones being fairly lengthy and boasting lots of art, in most cases seen here for the first time on glossy paper.

But the biggest selling point to me, and the justification for the price (notwithstanding the mag’s glossy pages and thick, cardstock cover) was the included DVD. The otaku stuff was tedious, as were most of the anime trailers, but the LAST EXILE character and vehicle designs were sublime, as was the experience of seeing Morse paint his Southpaw character during his interview, and Mahfood pencil and ink one of his Grrl Scouts during his. A really well-done, attractive magazine.

MICHAEL CHABON PRESENTS THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF THE ESCAPIST by Michael Chabon, Kevin McCarthy, Howard Chaykin, Kyle Baker, Jim Starlin, Steve Lieber and Eric Wight. Dark Horse Comics. $8.95
Kind of a shame, isn’t it, that non-writing director Bryan Singer gets so much buzz for an upcoming ULTIMATE X-MEN arc he’s only putting his name on, not writing, while Pulitzer-winning Chabon released this solid effort containing his own work and that of some top pros, to little fanfare. Well, that’s always the way, I guess.

This anthology presents a number of tales of The Escapist, the ersatz comic book character Chabon created for THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY, as well as one tale of Luna Moth, another superhero from that same novel. Chabon throws himself into the gag, which is that these stories were pulled from different eras of the character’s history, and that The Escapist character has been around for 60 some years. There isn’t much effort in the production, or on the part of the other creators, to really look like old work, but that’s really secondary to the contents, anyway.

Chabon leads off with the origin story, “The Passing of the Key,” which really is a good, Golden Age superhero origin, and Wight’s blocky and somewhat flat art is a fair imitation of the period. The story isn’t going to make The Escapist a hit character in 2004, but that’s not the point. What works is that Chabon takes something workable, as good as most characters of that time, and plays it very straight, with no condescension towards the era. And though Chaykin and Baker have to make it interesting for themselves in their own stories (McCarthy writes Baker’s), with a corseted, stocking-clad vixen in Chaykin’s and the exaggerated anatomy of Baker’s, they both offer a couple of fun adventure shorts better than the average phoned-in approach of many of their peers, when it comes to anthology work. In fact, Starlin’s effort is, though nicely drawn and colored, really dull. It’s the weakest link here, while the link that really holds the book together is not so much Chabon as it is McCarthy, who in addition to the Baker story writes “Prison Break,” the longest and most suspenseful of the Escapist tales here, and he writes and draws a cute strip, “The Escapegoat,” presumably inspired by silly spin-offs from serious superheroes, as Bat-Mite was to Batman.

While nothing here is going to win any awards, it’s a good collection of stories about a character who really is as interesting or moreso than many of the decades-old superheroes around today, and presumably, with names like Sienkiewicz, Baron, Colan, Brereton and more, the next issue should be worth a look as well.

THINGS ARE MEANING LESS by Al Burian. Microcosm Publishing/Top Shelf Productions. $10.00
This book, distributed by Top Shelf, collects four mini-comics Burian drew from 1997-98, documenting his aimless, often jobless, existence in Providence, RI; Portland, OR; and Chapel Hill, NC. In an affectless art style, he details many days of doing basically nothing. Staying inside; going out for donuts. He breaks these numbing episodes up with generous helpings—full pages, not comics word balloons--of his thoughts and theories, which mainly boil down to excuses he’s made to justify his lack of direction. The more intriguing material involves a look back at a teenaged Burian dealing with his first girlfriend, and the disintegration of his nuclear family and the families in his neighborhood, the seeds of his future nihilism.

While the Burian here seems like decent company at a party or over a few beers at a tavern, his musings are rather small and obvious. But while the book itself isn’t a great achievement, the fact that during this time he was able to create the work suggests a desire to rise above it all, to examine every angle of the dead end one finds oneself in order to find a way out of it. And in an Afterword, Burian himself acknowledges that he now finds the thoughts expressed here very naïve and on-the-sleeve. That, and the artistic growth seen in the backcover illustration, suggest that with the perspective of a few years, Burian may now have some comics really worth reading.

ADABAZAD #1 by J. M. DeMatteis and Mike Ploog. CrossGen Entertainment. $2.99
In an odd twist of fate, it would seem that with the company in danger of closing its doors for good, CrossGen has released a good all-ages book with great art and potential mass appeal.

It would seem, but that’s the way with fantasy, and fantasy books, isn’t it?

In this first issue, we’re introduced to one of those spunky, rebellious fourteen-year-old girls that 50ish writers like DeMatteis know how to write so well. I’m being facetious, but while he doesn’t take the bad route of too much slang, neither does he really invest Kate with much personality. “We stuffed our faces with so much food we nearly barfed in stereo! Do any teenagers say “barf”? She’s the loving sister, then the rebellious, confrontational daughter, and doesn’t have anything interesting to do or say in either role.

The reason for her rebellion isn’t the usual teenage hormones thing, or at least that wasn’t what started it. She takes her little brother to a carnival and he’s abducted. Flash forward five years, and her formerly scatterbrained mom is now an after-work lush, so Kate has to fend for herself. DeMatteis is still looking for a vessel for his lonely Brooklyn childhood pain (the story starts there), and that’s fine, but so far Kate is too shallow to contain it. And though some reviewers have claimed this is the kind of warm fantasy to read aloud to your kids, maybe abduction and alcoholism isn’t the kind of thing they’re ready to hear about, you think? But then, maybe they’ll like the kindly old neighbor who reveals some info about Adabazad and then dies that night.

Ploog’s work isn’t bad, but the faces are rather indistinct and glum for fantasy, and the coloring is rather dour, as this set-up takes place in Kate’s depressing Brooklyn rather than this fantastic, imaginative Adabazad we never, um, get to see here, other than the cliffhanger last page with some big, angry flowers.

There seems to be a desperation among many of these reviewers to find that big crossover hit, to slap your quote on the next rocket, wholly ignoring a book’s merits and flaws. From the cute in-jokes referencing true fantasists like Barrie, Carroll, Baum and McKay, all that is evident in this first installment is affectionate pastiche and grim, real-world villainy and human weakness substituted for ideas, joy and wonder.

OROCHI: BLOOD by Kazuo Umezu. VIZ. $16.95
Umezu has been called “The Stephen King of Japan,” and the title seems more or less appropriate, based on this graphic novel. It’s in more of a Gothic vein of horror than King’s work, but the sobriquet has less to do with stylistic similarities than it does to popularity and the way both author’s have worked in many other media besides fiction for many years.

This volume, the only OROCHI work published in the U.S. by Viz so far, is actually the last of the series, which all apparently feature a strange young woman as a vaguely defined participant in the drama. Just as Rod Serling’s narrator gave way to the 1980s HBO series’ THE HITCHHIKER’s mildly interactive title character, so does Orochi go one step further, impacting events in the lives of the characters, without quite being either protagonist or antagonist. In fact, an essay in the book quite rightly calls her a rather weak character for a horror series, and notes that in various stories her level of activity varies greatly. Just based on this one volume’s plot, it would seem that Umezu had the story in mind first, and just worked Orochi in in some way.

And that’s not a bad thing in this case, as it lends a nice bit of uncertainty and confusion to what is, in large part, the fairly ordinary plot involving a spooky house and a vengeful daughter who was always unfavorably compared to her sister. Umezu makes this work splendidly by really laying on the cruelty to the girl from her mother, building up in the reader’s mind unfathomable depths of hatred and resentment. He also expertly contrasts her grim, colorless existence with the surreal house and its vivid patterns on the walls and floors, a riot of clashing designs symbolizing her inner turmoil. Umezu is in great control of his art, but creates a perhaps more memorable work by following his instincts into some left-field plot turns, rather than relying on formula.

JUDGE DREDD VS. ALIENS: INCUBUS by John Wagner, Andy Diggle and Henry Flint. Rebellion/Dark Horse Comics. $22.95 HC; $14.95 SC.
Though this one isn’t destined to make many readers’ lists of either “best Dredd” or “best Aliens” stories, there is still a good deal to recommend here for those looking for a good bit of Sci-fi horror on paper. Dredd and some other officers take down a perp, only to find an Alien burst out of his chest. Then, without much explanation for how they got there, Aliens discovered under Mega-City One, resulting in several casualties to a Verminator crew. Dredd and the other cops, including a rookie named Sanchez who isn’t sure she’s cut out for the job, find the Aliens and the deformed fanatic who has nurtured them, and try to escape the under-city deathtrap, or at least to destroy the Aliens whether they live or die.

The story was originally serialized in 2000 AD, which often works quite well for collections, as there’s a lot of action and plot development in the six or seven page segments, though in this case it takes a little while for Wagner and Diggle to really get in sync, so there’s a bit of redundance with a lot of minor characters making the mistake of shooting the Aliens and then being sprayed with their acidic blood. But things do settle in for a fairly gripping suspense story tying into the long-standing enmity between the outcast mutants of The Cursed Earth and the fascistic Judges. Henry’s artwork is strong throughout, with lots of detail similar to 2000 AD legend Carlos Ezquerra, though he also shares Ezquerra’s penchant for lumpy, oddly structured faces. Very good coloring as well by Chris Blythe, especially evident in the hardcover. The hardcover is also oversized and boasts an Introduction, endpapers, sketches and the script for a deleted scene.

Note: You can see Dark Horse’s tpb cover at their link above, but I was kind of amused how the 2000 AD cover’s Judge Dredd logo dwarfs the Aliens one.

VAMPIRELLA COMICS MAGAZINE #1 & 2 Edited by Maureen McTigue. Harris Comics. $3.95
Kudos to Harris for hiring McTigue, who finally got them some attention again with this magazine, but it’s got a few kinks to work out before it becomes a reliable, satisfying purchase.

For starters, having just one or two comics stories per issue puts a lot of pressure on them, as well as the other features. The first issue at least has a nicely done story written and drawn by Steve (WHITEOUT) Lieber, but the other tale is a piss-poor attempt at humor written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, who have done good work in 21 DOWN. This is full of unfunny in-jokes, including a Kirbyesque hero who vomits on himself, a Spider-Man “homage” called the Dung Beetle, and an annoying nod to comics collectibles company Dynamic Forces for no good reason. Gabriel Rearte draws in an unappealing ‘90s Image Comics style, faces like J. Scott Campbell and breasts drawn with a compass. It’s awful, and unfortunately, it continues as the only comic story in issue #2, though with the added bonus of some homophobic dialogue!

With this comics magazine quickly failing as comics, how does it fare as a magazine? Quite a bit better, but still not good enough. The first issue sports an excellent Alan Moore interview, of special interest to those like me in the midst of reading his amazing novel THE VOICE OF THE FIRE. McTigue is a knowledgeable interviewer, and Moore always has much of interest to say. But the drop in interest with the second issue’s interview subject, former Marvel editor and now freelance writer of derivative SF comics LONE and ZENDRA Stuart Moore, is precipitous. The lesser Moore seems nice enough, but doesn’t have the body of work worth discussing at length. KISS frontman Paul Stanley is also interviewed in #2, and again, McTigue does her research well and treats her subjects with respect, but Stanley generally has the self-regard of bandmate Gene Simmons without the way with words.

Vampirella cover model Kitana Baker is also interviewed, and she’s cute enough, but one wonders if McTigue was forced to interview her or really thought she was at all interesting. Within the comics/hard rock/horror fanbase this magazine is trying to appeal to, there are certainly many more interesting personalities to interview, Rob Zombie covering all the bases right there, Steve Niles covering two, etc. Perhaps these are in the works.

Other features are spotty, though the focus on horror films and horror and other genre comics is a good idea, though the choices are a bit too focused on the U.S. McTigue does many of the reviews, and she’s okay, if a bit overheated. I liked LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS as much as the next guy, but a line like “Each page turn sends the reader into heated anticipation and into a moment of joy when the new page is reached” is cringe-inducing. Worse, she lets game but inexperienced assistants and interns fill up the space with other uncritical reviews. It doesn’t help that they’re followed immediately by a feature hyping upcoming/recent horror comics releases, because the reviews and the hype don’t read any differently. So far, the book is batting .500 only because the Moore interview is worth the $4 alone, but McTigue & Co. need to upgrade the magazine’s content in all areas to make it worth following.

LOST AT SEA by Bryan Lee O’Malley. Oni Press. $11.95
As catholic of tastes, as open a mind as I strive for as a reviewer, sometimes a book is passed over for fairly unimportant reasons such as, in this case, an unattractive book cover. So it took seeing a few good reviews of this graphic novel before I decided to go ahead and investigate it myself.

LOST AT SEA tells the story of fragile teenager Raleigh, who finds herself broken-hearted and “with no soul” on a road trip from California to Vancouver with some acquaintances from school. She’s in some sort of depression over her Internet boyfriend, her family life, and the fact she’s the outsider in the car. Will she “rally” her spirits, make friends and regain her “soul”? These are questions O’Malley sets out to answer.

O’Malley has a thick, confident line, and his characters are cute and affecting, looking appropriately childlike for their eighteen year old innocence rather than like magazine models. Like Craig Thompson, it’s a stylized but very warm, earnest style of art. And as with Thompson’s style inBLANKETS, it’s an extremely complementary style for a story of an adolescent’s intense emotional turmoil.

Raleigh has a very real voice, depressed without being depressing; melodramatic but charming; given to fantasies where the random incidents of life all tie together, conspiring against her. Cats are always nearby, and she’s allergic. Do they mean something? Do they know where to find her soul? O’Malley doesn’t indulge in magic realism, nor does he suggest Raleigh is disturbed. She’s just a sweet girl going through something deep and shattering. Thankfully, she’s not alone, and it’s moving and played just right the way the other girl on the trip, the tough-talking chain smoker, befriends her. And O’Malley really builds toward a wonderful scene of friendship, youthful adventure and catharsis when her new friends help her round up stray cats late at night to get her soul back. The others may look back at it and laugh, but it really does help her, and in the process she gets a new best friend in Stephanie. O’Malley remembers this age and conveys it with a wealth of emotion, but tempered by real storytelling craft and the instincts not to go too far. It’s an excellent debut, one of the better graphic novels of 2003.

The Publisher Report Cards for 2003 – Finale
I feel like I’ve been doing these for about four months—it’s freaking March now, and I’m still talking about 2003! So let’s finish it.

ibooks, inc. - This is the latest publishing venture for Byron Preiss, which I think started in 2001 and was going to be at the forefront of e-books. But from what I can tell on their website, they’re pretty much just a paper publisher. Where they interest us for these purposes is that in 2003, they came out with some graphic novels, and continue to do so. The first two were Harlan Ellison’s and Richard Corben’s 1980 VIC AND BLOOD, an unfinished graphic novel adaptation of Ellison’s novel, which is excerpted here as well. Another early 80s work brought back into print in a definitive edition was Gary Reed’s and Guy Davis’ HONOUR AMONG PUNKS: THE COMPLETE BAKER STREET. Shortly thereafter, they released a collection of three comics adaptations of Raymond Chandler stories, and a U.S. edition of the challenging Euro-manga ICARO. And that’s all well and good, but it’s with Joe Kubert’s YOSSEL, 1945 that ibooks has published original material that also garnered some mainstream acclaim.

• Public Face - Since the first couple graphic novels were new editions of old material, one can forgive the lack of full-court press on them, I guess. But I would have expected more of a push for something with potential mainstream appeal like YOSSEL. Still, it did get some mainstream press, so perhaps in this case they were targeting outside the direct market/comics press rather than in conjunction with it.
• Web Presence - An underachiever of a site, one can get an idea of the many books ibooks publishes, but that’s about it. No previews. No excerpts. No quotes. I don’t think they even keep a running list of press releases, either.
• Review Copy Policy - After an initial push for the first two books, I haven’t heard from them, nor received replies to requests for other books. So I’ll call the policy “spotty,” or maybe they just don’t send comps anymore.
• ibooks in 2004 - I don’t know what they’ve got coming. It seems somewhat unlikely they’ve got another YOSSEL type book coming, so it’s probably more of the well-chosen but quirky, limited appeal books.