Nothing particularly SIBAMmy this week. So let’s plow through the pile. How about alphabetical order? I have books that run A to Z this week.

ARMAGEDDON AND SON
Written by John Layman and Drawn by Dave Dumeer
Published by Oni Press

From the fertile (and possibly diseased) mind of John Layman comes this amusing spy parody. Doonald Feeney is a pathetic slacker, a wan sack of used testosterone… and he’s also the son of a homicidally psychotic supervillain who loves coming up with ideas for destroying the world. But when the villain’s own henchmen get tired of his crap and decide to eliminate him from the picture, he must reluctantly recruit Doon into his world and attempt to prevent Armageddon. Considering Doon can’t even avoid getting his ass handed to him by a waiter with an attitude, the populace would seem to be doomed.

Layman’s sense of humor has always paralleled mine pretty closely, so I found myself laughing quite a bit as I read through the book. Doon bears no small resemblance to a younger version of John, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to see him stuck in his own plot and having a good time. Dumeer does a decent enough job for the most part of translating the lunatic moments of the script, but he has his share of hiccups along the way where the action on the page becomes unclear and the characters aren’t as differentiated as you’d like. But in the end, ARMAGEDDON AND SON is a short burst of amusing pop entertainment with a nice edge to it. It avoids being overly predictable, and feels satisfyingly complete.

COYOTE VOL.1
Written by Steve Englehart and Drawn by Marshall Rogers
Published by Image Comics

Man, does this bring back memories. I read some of the original COYOTE stories when they came out a long time ago. So it’s pretty cool to see those stories find a new home and get the full presentation they deserve.

Coyote himself is an enigma. A man raised in the wilds that possesses powers beyond the mortal ken, he seems to have morphed into the trickster Coyote totem of legend. Arrogant to the point of overconfidence and getting in his own way at times, he is in moments, his own greatest foe. But in his first adventure, presented here, he must deal with a creature that may already be dead and beyond his touch, as well as his first lover, who wants him dead. Nothing is easy, after all. Making the volume even tastier is the inclusion of Englehart and Rogers’ never-finished series SCORPIO ROSE, with the layouts and plot synopsis of the never-published final issue thrown in for good measure. Rosa is a 400-year old gypsy who will be eternally eighteen, thanks to the vicious assault of a demon, and her fate is about come full circle as her story begins.

The comics collected here are all uniformly quite good. Englehart can be a bit in love with the sound of his own voice and write some terribly turgid dialogue, but whenever he slips down that road, Rogers’ brilliant artwork keeps you glued to the page and moving forward through the story. Unlike many “nostalgia” reprints, there’s still a freshness to this material that shines through.

THE CUTE MANIFESTO
Written and Drawn by James Kolchaka
Published by Alternative Comics

As longtime readers of this column may remember, I tend to be the anti-Doane when it comes to the subject of Kolchaka. His work tends to do very little for me. So it was with some trepidation that I cracked open this book, because it not only contains plenty of Kolchaka’s cartoon work, but also some prose material written as letters to THE COMICS JOURNAL.

However, much to my surprise, it was those letters that I enjoyed most in this book. They provide a clear picture into the mind of the cartoonist, and that’s something that interests me as a reader and a reviewer. They’re also far more concise, and less pretentious than the actual “Cute Manifesto” that appears in the book. That piece reminded me on every page why I’ve never enjoyed his work. It reads like something you’d find tacked the bulletin board of a food co-op in a college town for the appropriation of the local hippie population.

Still, I did also enjoy one of the fully drawn stories in the volume. “Reinventing Everything” shows Kolchaka dropping the mask of pretentiousness and actually discussing some universal emotions with some depth. I read it, impressed, and lamented that Kolchaka doesn’t take this route in all his work.

RING OF ROSES
Written by Das Petrou and Drawn by John Watkiss
Published by Image Comics

As with COYOTE, this series was originally published over a decade ago, and is now finding a home at Image. RING OF ROSES was probably a bit ahead of its time with its story of an alternate-future London beset by a religious conspiracy to change the course of not only the city, but Catholicism itself. Now, in the age of novels like THE DAVINCI CODE, this book feels very contemporary in its story and presentation.

Equal parts Dickens and V FOR VENDETTA, we meet lawyer Samuel Waterhouse and watch him drawn into the middle of the conspiracy, as a cabal of cardinals hire him to investigate the loss of a boat full of priests, one of whom is Waterhouse’s estranged brother. But to truly succeed, he will have to avail himself of the extra-legal skills of one of his clients, a brutal thief named Barnett. But even with Barnett’s gift for crime, they will find themselves well over their heads, as the bubonic plague has begins to rear its ugly head and close off every avenue that leads to their safety and salvation.

Just writing that paragraph calls to attention to just how thick the story can read at times, and sadly, the narration, which is meant to be helpful, causes more than a bit of confusion along the story’s path. However, Watkiss turns in a tour de force performance on the art, bringing a sense of life and authenticity to the pages that will blow you away. Adding to the texture is that the book is printed on a sort of “yellowed” paper, making it look the part of a newspaper or book rescued from the middle ages (or, when the last plague destroyed London). This was a nice surprise.

ROUND 4
Written by Chris Gumprich and Drawn by Dennis Culver
Published by Chris Gumprich Studios

A young boy, abused by his father, retreats into a fantasy world. But what happens when the fantasy is ineffective? What then?

ROUND 4 is a mini-comic that does a nice, effective job of peeking inside the mind of a victim, but where most stories where the victim dreams of fighting back have a happy middle ground where the characters can land, Gumprich doesn’t take that easy way out. Instead, we wind up on a very dark path.

The boy has broken a window, and after his father disposes of mom and begins swinging fists, we are transported to a boxing ring, where the boy imagines himself as a sort of Rocky character ready to pick himself up off the ropes and dash on to a late round victory. But life isn’t that easy. Or that fair. So the pounding continues, even after he gets solid instruction from his corner man.

Some might think that it’s a cheat, or that it lessens the story’s impact, that we never see the actual violence and damage done to the small boy, because it all happens to his boxing “avatar.” But to my mind, it doesn’t take away from it at all; the point of the story isn’t about how horribly the child is beaten; it’s about how his spirit is trying to fight to save itself, and that comes through just fine.

SEA OF RED VOL.1
Written by Rick Remender and Kieron Dwyer and Drawn by Salgood Sam
Published by Image Comics

I’m of many minds about this book, and not just because they spelled my name wrong in using a pull-quote from me on the back of the book.

That quote came from my review of issue one of this series (contained in this volume), which was absolutely brilliant. Maybe the best first issue of a title to appear in 2005. But subsequent issues saw the series run aground on a bed of tired character pastiches based on director James Cameron and producer Joel Silver. By the end of issue three, I was damned near done with the book, period. Issue four did its level best to put the book back on semi-solid footing, but offered no real resolution to the first arc. Now, those four issues are collected here, and taken as a whole, the highlights manage to shine just as bright, but the problems seem to loom larger than they did in the individual issues.

The story introduces us to Marco, a Spaniard who survives a shipwreck in the 1500s, only to be rescued at sea by a ship of vampire pirates. I’ll say it now like I said it when I read the first issue: that’s a brilliant fucking concept. But when the story moves forward to the modern day, we get thrown into the “Hollywood” plot, and the book loses the momentum that made it compelling. The director character is such an over-the-top dickhead that you can’t believe a single action he takes or word that comes out of his mouth. The only part of the story that works at that point is Marco turning a production assistant into a vampire, giving him something of an equal and protégé. That also allows for different directions the storyline can take in the future.

SEA OF RED had so much going for it out of the gate that it was one of the rare times I have truly been disappointed by the way a book has developed. There’s still some hope, and I fully intend to give it the rope it needs as a reader. But in the meantime, let this be a lesson to you about whether or not a pull-quote on the back of a book should influence your purchases, eh?

VAMPIRELLA: REVELATIONS #1
Written by Mike Carey and Drawn by Mike Lilly
Published by Harris Publications

VAMPIRELLA has had the misfortune over the years of being lumped into the category of “bad girl” comics because of her costume (which amounts to about as much fabric as you’d find in a well-tailored handkerchief). However, that’s always been a bit of unfair criticism. First, the character has been around for a long time, long before the “bad girl” phenomenon strolled through comics in the 90s. Second, she’s a vampire, and the entire concept of vampirism has always been about eroticism and intimacy. So sexuality is part of the package. Deal with it. Now, I think the proliferation of bad crossovers allowing Vampi to meet up with many of the “bad girl” characters greatly diminished the character, so you’d be dead on with that one. But take her back to her roots, and the character works just fine. Many of the best talents in comics have lined up over the years to take a crack at creating her adventures. So the old girl is obviously doing something right.

The one true problem that has vexed the character over the years, though, has been her origin. There have been about 862 different versions, some in which she comes from an alien world of vampires, some in which she comes from a Hell dimension, and there might be one where she was an “Easy Bake Oven” saleswoman. It’s gotten that convoluted. So Harris is now making a pointed effort to set the record straight once and for all with this series.

Picking Mike Carey for the job is a good decision. He’s a talented writer (LUCIFER, MY FAITH IN FRANKIE) and he comes out of the gate not trying to crap on the work of the folks who have come before him. Instead, this first issue attempts to meld together the myriad of explanations that came previously. Along the way, he presents Vampirella as a strong character of strength, emotion, and vulnerability. Yes, even in the costume. He’s aided and abetted nicely by Lilly’s art; he doesn’t randomly put Vampi in stupid hyper-sexualized poses, instead allowing the story to flow naturally. This is a good start; it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.

ZORRO VOL.1: SCARS
Written by Don McGregor and Drawn by Sidney Lima
Published by NBM

This trade collects the first full storyline, the first two issues of which I have reviewed here already. I have felt mezzo-mezzo at best about the book so far, because McGregor’s gifted for overwritten dialogue dwarfs anyone else who has ever written a comic. I read his stuff and wonder why his editors aren’t cutting like a surgeon on speed. Maybe McGregor got “final cut” on his scripts. I dunno.

On the flip side, I have not been shy about praising Sidney Lima’s art, which is just dandy. His Ameri-manga stylings pop off the page with life and verve. He does well at action scenes, and he even excels at landscapes. I think he has a bright future ahead of him. Hey, there are even scenes in the final chapter of the book where McGregor steps back and let’s Lima’s art take over, and they show exactly the kind of solid storytelling that you shake your head and wish you had been getting from the start.

I commend NBM on their excellent sense of timing, as well. Getting this collection into bookstores just before the new Banderas/Zeta-Jones sequel hits theatres should see this book get a nice, high-profile sales boost. Let’s hope that sets the stage for better, more tightly written Zorro stories in the future.

See you in seven.

Review materials may be sent to: Marc Mason, P.O. Box 26732, Tempe, AZ 85285. You can also find me at Happy Nonsense and The Comics Waiting Room

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