Six books, none particularly film-worthy, this week. Sometimes that happens. Let’s get right to the reviews.

DEAD @ 17 VOL. 3: REVOLUTION
Written and Drawn by Josh Howard
Published by Viper Comics

Howard’s saga of the resurrected Nara Kilday draws to a conclusion with this collection. At least, I think it does. It sure feels like an ending, and with the wrap he provides, I think it’s cheapen the work to return to Nara again. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t return to the universe’s other characters though, at the right time.

DEAD got out to a rough start, for better or worse drawing distinct comparisons to BUFFY, but in volumes two and three Howard began to really find the story and develop his universe of characters in stronger fashion. I finally began to get a sense of what he was aiming for thematically, especially in volume three, and that makes this effort read easier.

In fact, that’s sort of DEAD’S weakest point as a saga: the individual issues were never even close to being as good a read as the trades are. Part of that is due to Howard relying on the reader to follow a healthy amount of minor plot minutiae, and part of it is due to his neo-animated artistic style: some of the characters weren’t different looking enough for you to keep them separated mentally as you read the pamphlets. That gets solved by reading the complete story in one chunk in trade format.

From here, it looks like Howard will be heading for new projects and concepts, and it will be interesting to see how he shifts gears and tries to avoid the sophomore slump. I’d like to see him stretch and try going straight to graphic novel rather than sticking with floppies first. Time will tell. At any rate, a job well done in completing this one. Grade: A-

ZOMBIE TALES
Written and Drawn by Various
Published by Boom Studios

Our pop culture is in danger of being zombied to death.

This summer alone, we have LAND OF THE DEAD and UNDEAD hitting multiplexes. In comics, we have the continued greatness of THE WALKING DEAD, the return of DEADWORLD, and the comics adaptation of LAND along with an adaptation of SHAUN OF THE DEAD. So you see this comic, and you ask yourself: do we need another zombie book?

Yep. If it’s as much fun as this one, we do.

All you need to do is read the first story in this book to get your money’s worth. “I, Zombie” is written by Andrew Cosby and drawn by the amazing Keith Giffen, and it’s a dandy. It’s told from the point of view of a zombie named Ted. Ted’s hungry. Ted needs love. Ted finds a zombie cat and decides to adopt it. The cat may hold the key to saving the world from zombiekind. This is funny, funny stuff.

Beyond that, you also get some other terrific stories, but the revelation of the book is J.K. Woodward, who will be doing the art for Peter David’s FALLEN ANGEL revival at IDW later this year. His stuff is a revelation: haunting, lyrical work that brings visual poetry to the pages of a very sad and poignant story.

We didn’t need more zombies, but in this instance, we got what we deserved, instead. Grade: B+

THE MURDER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Written and Drawn by Rick Geary
Published by NBM

This is the seventh entry in Geary’s “A Treasury Of Victorian Murder” series, and it lives up to the high standards of work you expect from him. Geary isn’t content to create basic treatises that the reader can gloss through in an attempt to learn some basic history; instead, he pushes to bring to the page work of thought and intellect that will leave you richer for having spent the time to read the book.

I can say this with some relative ease. In college, I took a fantastic course in American history that covered only the 1840s-1860s. Over a semesters’ time, that allowed for some in-depth study of that period and Lincoln the man, and yet there was a ton of information in this meticulously research volume that was completely new to me. What a wonderful sensation to have while you’re reading!

That isn’t to say that Geary pretends that he has all the answers about the oddities and machinations that surrounded Lincoln’s murder. On the contrary; he’s open and honest about the questions that seem to have no answer, ones that would shed an enormous amount of light on to what really happened in those final days of the great man’s life.

One other thing you’ll always get from Rick Geary’s work: unique artistic styling. No one else even remotely resembles him, and you’ll never have a problem picking his work out on the stands. If you like quality graphic novels and you like to learn, then you definitely won’t go wrong in picking up this or any other of the volumes in this series. Grade: A

RAVENOUS
Written and Drawn by Dawn Brown
Published by Speakeasy

The subheading to this book refers to it as “a graphic novel inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe.” To back up that notion, not only does Brown discuss the literary allusions in an afterward, she presents the inspirational stories (“The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Pit And The Pendulum”, “The Masque Of The Red Death”, “William Wilson”, and “The Raven”) as illustrated text in the back pages of the volume to share them with the reader. A fantastic idea.

The main story focuses on the hunt for a serial killer plaguing a small town called “Good Fortune.” Told from the point of view of a young cop named Mason, we follow his question to catch a butcher who is cutting bodies in half and leaving them in studied fashion in random areas around the city. Gruesome stuff.

I’m a sucker for serial killer thrillers, but I admit some disappointment in this one. Mason is a fascinating and creepy character , but there’s something far too obvious about how the mystery is going to resolve, and it eroded at my enjoyment of the story. I was drawn in by Brown’s strong character focus, but my encroaching intuition about the story’s twists and turns kept me from full involvement.

What works perfectly, though, is Brown’s art. She does some fantastic things here, moving back and forth between paint, ink, and implanted text to give the book a true “novel” feeling, and I found myself admiring her technique. She really shines at finding the best way to light a scene and give it the needed gravity, and I found myself with the desire to grab some of her earlier work and see how it has evolved. Her background is in set design for film, so I probably shouldn’t be too surprised at how good this book looks.

In the end, maybe Brown wasn’t too concerned about her mystery, and I’m being too picky. But I feel like, if you’re going to jump into the genre, you have to fulfill the conventions of the genre alongside whatever innovations or extras you’re trying to bring to the table. A minor quibble, but a quibble nonetheless. Grade: B

PEWFELL VOL.3: VIVA LAS VAGUS
Written and Drawn by Chuck Whelon
Published by The Author

Whether or not you’d like PEWFELL, you have to respect PEWFELL.

Chuck Whelon is the kind of story you want to see more of. He publishes PEWFELL online as part of the Modern Tales website collective, and then he brings his work together and puts it out under one cover. Perfect. This is a model that I expect to see more of in the future as comics shift further and further into being a trade-only business.

Putting out floppies would be pointless and stupid for Whelon. After all, that would require artificially measuring out his story, rather than allowing it to grow organically as he progresses. And now? Now he’s got a third volume out. He has books he can keep in print in-perpetuity, and that allows him to funnel interest back to the web comic as well. Smart boy, that Chuckster.

As for the book itself: Pewfell is the world’s worst wizard, a fuck-up of the highest order, but that doesn’t stop him from being selected to go on a heroic journey to rescue a stolen power stone and from finding himself in the middle of a plot to either save or destroy the entire world. In between, he’ll deal with an amazing amount of nonsense thrown at him by goblins, demons, gnomes, and other assorted weirdoes. But what he’ll never do… is something right.

This book isn’t ever going to be compared to WATCHMEN, but Whelon does a nice job of providing solid laughs, funny characters, and ludicrous plot points from start to finish, even if his ending is unusually weak this time out. The art chores, for the first time, are all Chuck, and he does a very nice job of visually bringing Pewfell’s milieu to life. This remains one of my favorite indy sleepers: a satisfying little book. Grade: B

THE COMICS JOURNAL SPECIAL EDITION #5
Written and Drawn by Various
Published by Fantagraphics

The JOURNAL only puts out these special editions once a year. There’s a reason for that: something this good takes a lot of time to put together.

How good is this thing? Start with the cover story, focusing on the masters of manga, and the historical looks at manga in the U.S. and how various publishers have tampered with it and treated it until companies like TokyoPop came along. Then dive into the comprehensive section looking at the strange and unusual life of classic cartoonist Vaughn Bode. Then read the profiles of the Cartoonists Of Montreal, a terrific look at the art scene in that cosmopolitan city. Then dice into the over 70 pages of fresh comics on the theme of “Seduction” from folks like Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez and Colleen Coover. That alone would be enough to fill an anthology worth your hard-earned cash.

The special editions are also printed in a larger format (about the size of a record album) and on high quality paper, making them an archive-worthy effort deserving of a place of honor on your shelf. Not everything in this book is a winner, but so much here is worth your time and effort to look at that I can’t give you anything but an unqualified “go buy this yesterday” recommendation. Grade: A+

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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