It's Never as Simple as it Seems

In what could possibly be considered a Robot 6/ACT-I-VATE crossover, our own Michael May and artist Simon Roy contribute a story to the Panels for Primates project. And as all the stories feature primates of some sort, it was only natural that May and Roy’s comic, “It’s Never as Simple as it Seems,” would feature Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs.

Our work here is done …

The Spider #1

There’s something very attractive about the classic pulp heroes. As cool as superpowers can be, there’s a reason that Batman’s the most popular superhero on the planet and a huge part of that is that he’s a (relatively) normal guy. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.

What I find interesting is this entire pulp heritage that he’s heir to. We don’t have time to dig into why Batman’s more popular than Doc Savage, the Shadow, and the Spider, but it would be fascinating to pull that apart and look at it sometime. For now, let’s concentrate on the similarities. There’s this huge catalog of characters that share some extremely close similarities with the Dark Knight (many of whom predate him in creation) and yet we don’t hear much about them anymore.

Moonstone’s trying to change that with their Return of the Originals event and that makes me happy. I’m also happy about DC’s whole First Wave thing (or was until that previous post) that I’m finally going to get to read when the first collection comes out in a couple of months, but Moonstone’s effort is even wider spread. They’re reintroducing a ton of characters to comics that I’ve heard about most of my life, but until now have never read a single adventure of. One of the most intriguing is The Spider.

The Spider

What I’ve heard about The Spider is that he’s sort of a cross between Batman and the Joker. We’ve all heard the comparisons between those two characters (“I made you?! You made me!”), but The Spider (who beat both of DC’s characters to print by several years) combines them in an interesting way. He puts on a costume and fights crime, but he’s really violent about it and laughs maniacally the entire time. Or so I’ve been told.

The first issue of Martin Powell and Pablo Marcos’ new series is also the first Spider story I’ve ever read, but it certainly reinforces that description. The similarities between The Spider and Batman are huge. The story opens with wealthy playboy Richard Wentworth’s being grilled by his friend Commissioner Kirkpatrick about a subway incident at which witnesses placed both Wentworth and The Spider. Apparently, Kirkpatrick is also a bit of Lois Lane to Wentworth’s Clark Kent in that he suspects the secret identity, but isn’t able to prove it.

Powell doesn’t spend a lot of time on that, but I hope he comes back to it later. I always like Lois and Clark’s relationship best when she was trying to prove that he was Superman, but she was so bad at it (to be fair, the deck was stacked against her) that she was never a real threat. But imagine if Jim Gordon knew – really knew – that Bruce Wayne was Batman and was constantly on his case to prove it. There’s an element of danger there that already makes we want to come back for the next issue.

The real plot of The Spider #1 has to do with the abduction of Wentworth’s girlfriend who does know that he’s The Spider. Even though this is the first issue of an ongoing series, it’s a done-in-one story with a mad scientist and a – well, “army” would be an exaggeration, but certainly a “gang” of undead creatures. Not zombies thankfully. Powell and Marcos’ depiction of them owes more to Mary Shelley than George Romero. They’re not the scariest part of the story though. That would be The Spider himself.

Though Wentworth appears normal enough, when he puts on his wig, mask, cape, and fake fangs he seems to switch personalities. The descriptions of The Spider as violent and maniacal are apt. What’s unclear from this issue is whether that’s an act or a true shift in personality brought on by the change in costume, but I don’t really care to learn the answer to that. Not knowing makes the character more interesting. Just like Kirkpatrick’s investigation of Wentworth, this is something I’d love to see Powell tease out for a long time.

Operator 5

Also in this issue is a back-up story by Gary Phillips and Roberto Castro featuring a character called Operator 5. Unlike the lead story, this one will be continued in the next issue, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Operator 5 is a mysterious agent working for an unseen boss, so there was a lot of potential for him to have been an extremely bland protagonist. That’s not the case though thanks to a couple of things that make him particularly endearing.

First, there’s the way Castro draws him. I love Castro’s work on the whole story, but his depiction of the unnamed hero combines square-jawed toughness with expressive gentleness. There’s no doubt that he’s a capable fighter, but there’s an extremely attractive vulnerability about him too that gets you rooting for him even though you know nothing about him. It’s impressively done and is backed up by Phillips’ script. When the white supremacist that the undercover Operator 5 is investigating asks, “Do you love your country, Joe?” and Operator 5 answers, “That I do, sir. There’s very little I wouldn’t do in that regard,” you know exactly what he’s talking about and you can’t wait for the villain to find out too.

Planet of the Apes #1

Catching up on our monthly trips through Previews looking for good, new, adventure comics.

Archie

The Man from RIVERDALE – I enjoyed that issue of Betty and Veronica Spectacular where they were catsuit-wearing super-spies. In fact, I’ve been wanting more like it ever since. And here we are.

Veronica #206 – And here we are again, with promises of still more super-spy action in next month’s Betty. Anyone who says that Archie comics are the same story over and over again clearly isn’t paying attention.

Blank Slate

The Girl and the Gorilla – Talking gorillas are always cool, but the preview for this looks absolutely charming.

Boom!

Planet of the Apes #1 – I’d forgotten how much I love and miss these movies until I saw the cover for this issue. I’m not only getting it; it’s sending me to Amazon for a little DVD shopping too.

Mickey Mouse #307 – I don’t know if Boom’s changed something about their Mickey Mouse books or if I’m just now paying attention, but four of them caught my eye this month. In this one, Mickey and Goofy go on jungle safari. I love nothing if not a good jungle story and it’s been a long time since I’ve read any kind of Mickey comic.

Mickey Mouse on Quandomai Island

Mickey Mouse on Quandomai Island – Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Pluto go Lost, only their time-travel includes dinosaurs.

Mickey Mouse and the World to Come – More time-travel, but this time to the future where giant robots await.

Mickey Mouse and the Orbiting Nightmare – You know what we need more of in stories? Space hotels.

Campfire

Kidnapped, King Solomon’s Mines, and The Three Musketeers – Campfire continues picking the best literature to adapt into comics.

Dark Horse

Dark Horse Presents #1: I came in on the tail end of the original DHP just before it was canceled, but realized quickly that it was one of the coolest anthology series in existence. Hopefully this new version will be just as good. With Frank Miller’s Xerxes and the return of Paul Chadwick’s Concrete kicking things off, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be.

BPRD: The Dead Remembered #1 – The adventures of young Liz Sherman. I’m glad Mignola’s finally drawing from that well.

Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish – Two words: Giant. Robots. Though I guess “fighting” and “Hellboy” aren’t exactly insignificant either.

The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde

Baltimore, Volume 1: The Plague Ships – While the rest of the world conspires to burn us all out on vampires, Mike Mignola continues showing how to make them cool.

Magnus, Robot Fighter, Volume 1 – I’m not hip to all the old Gold Key characters (and totally missed out on the ’90s Valiant revival), but the guy who fights robots needs checking out. Even if he does wear a skirt and go-go boots.

The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde #1 – Hyde vs. Jack the Ripper sounds awesome on its own, but Cole Haddon’s come up with a way to tie the characters together in an intimate way that promises a great story in addition to (hopefully) a fantastic fight.

Solomon Kane: Red Shadows #1 – You can set anything on a dreary, English moor and I’ll read it, but Solomon Kane seems especially well-suited to that environment.

DC

First Wave – Can’t wait to finally see how this worked out. The concept of an alternate, DCU Earth where superpowers don’t exist, but superheroes and pulp characters do is thrilling to me. It’s been tough to wait so long for this collection.

Legion Lost – I’ve got these as single-issues, but it’s the best Legion of Super Heroes story I’ve ever read and I need it on my bookshelf instead of in a hard-to-find box.

Wonder Woman, Volume 1: Odyssey – I said in this week’s Food or Comics that I’d be willing to read Straczynski’s Wonder Woman in order to catch up and see what Phil Hester does with the series. Here’s where my money and my mouth meet.

Isle of 100,000 Graves

Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom – All you have to say is “Tom Strong,” but if you’re going to add more to the title, you could do a lot worse than “Robots of Doom.”

Fantagraphics

Isle of 100,000 Graves - Jason makes a pirate comic. Featuring a little girl and an island of student-executioners.

Humanoids

The Hounds of Hell – Sometimes you just really need to read a French comic about barbarian treasure-hunters.

IDW

Deep Sleeper – Speaking of Phil Hester. Here’s an older work of his that I’ll finally get to read. God bless IDW.

Bloom County: Complete Library, Volume 4 – I keep mentioning these as great presents for my dad, but let’s be honest: They’re for me too. Like I said, God bless IDW.

Image

Super Dinosaur #1 – I’m having a bit of a Hit Monkey flashback here in the sense that it’s almost too calculated to be awesome, but I’m still going to have to give it a shot. I’m not made of stone here.

The Chicagoland Detective Agency, Volume 2: The Maltese Mummy

’68 #1 – I really enjoyed the one-shot this is based on and how it married Viet Nam to Night of the Living Dead, which – as you’ll remember – was released in 1968. I don’t like zombie comics as a rule, but if it’s anything like its predecessor, this promises to be a rare exception.

Nonplayer #1 – I’ve been following Nate Simpson’s production blog for this simply because of the breathtaking artwork. I had no idea that it has a modern-world element to it and isn’t just a straight fantasy series, but that makes me more interested in it, not less.

Lerner

My Boyfriend is a Monster, Volume 2: Made for Each Other – Lerner’s got a fun idea for a graphic novel series: unconnected tales of monsters and the girls who love them. Volume 1 is a zombie story, so I’ll skip it, but Volume 2 mixes teen romance with Frankenstein. It’s obviously going after the Twilight crowd, but with Lerner’s name on it, it’s going to be 100x as literate as the thing it’s imitating.

Chicagoland Detective Agency, Volume 2: The Maltese Mummy – Trina Robbins writes and Tyler Page (Stylish Vittles, Nothing Better) illustrates this story about kid-detectives and a talking dog searching for a mummy’s amulet.

Marvel

Sigil #2 – I don’t typically mention single issues after the first in What Looks Good, but this is the return of El Cazador.

The Tooth

Skaar: King of the Savage Land #1 – The Son of Hulk tries to take the crown away from Ka-Zar. I hope he gets his butt kicked…royally. Plus: more giant robots!

Spider-Man #13 – More Ka-Zar and dinosaurs. Good month.

Oni

The Tooth – Cullen Bunn (The Sixth Gun), Shawn Lee, and Matt Kindt (Super Spy) present a graphic novel about a monster-fighting tooth. And Matt Kindt can draw the crap out of some monsters.

Radical

After Dark – I’ll try to forget that this is a celebrity comic imagined by Wesley Snipes and remember that it’s written by Peter Milligan and illustrated in part by Leonardo Manco. Of course the “in part” thing bothers me, but Jeff Nentrup’s stuff looks good too. Also, it’s space pulp. Pretty, pretty space pulp.

Red 5

Moon Girl #1 – Red 5 joins in the Golden Age Character Revival Game. If you don’t know who Moon Girl was, Pappy’s Golden Age Comics Blogzine has a description as well as one of her EC adventures. She’s basically a Wonder Woman ripoff, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to see what Tony Trov, Johnny Zito, and The Rahzzah can do with her. If those boys make comics nearly as cool as their names, it’ll be a treat.

Wulf #1

Time for another (belated) trip through Previews looking for good, new adventure comics.

AdHouse

Johnny Hiro, Volume 1 – I missed Johnny’s giant-lizard and ronin adventures when they came out in single issues. Don’t want to make that mistake with the collection.

Archaia

Cyclops – The scifi plot sounds interesting, but it’s the storytelling team behind The Killer that’s the real draw.

Ardden

Wulf #1 – I’ve never read any of the old Atlas Comics books, so I’m not really hooked by just that. I do like barbarian comics though and one of my favorites was that What If issue where Conan comes to the future, becomes a gang lord, and meets Captain America. Not that I’m expecting this to be exactly like that, but it reminds me of it. And it’s by Steve Niles and Nat Jones. I love it when those guys work together and can’t imagine a better concept for them than a gritty, barbarian-in-modern-New-York comic.

Xombi #1

Dark Horse

Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #1 – The axe-wielding cop and his partner Dinosaur Soldier get an original mini-series.

DC

Xombi#1 – There’s only one downside to John Rozum’s getting to continue my favorite Milestone series (and calling it my favorite is saying something because I loved that line like I’ve never loved a comics line) and that’s that I have to dig out the original run and re-read them. Oh wait. That’s not a downside at all.

Birds of Prey, Volume 1: Endrun – Gail Simone’s return to the series that put her (and Black Canary) on the map is finally collected.

Disney

Pirates of the Caribbean: Six Sea Chanties – I’ve long wondered why there wasn’t a Pirates of the Caribbean comic, so while this is a long time coming, I hope it’s the start of more like it. An anthology – given the right creators (and this one was at one time announced to include Eric Powell, Andy Kuhn, and Tom Mandrake) – seems like the right way to go too.

Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1

Dynamite

Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris #1 – I’ve yet to read Dynamites Warlord of Mars series, but I like the Edgar Rice Burroughs stuff enough that if they’re going to do a bunch of spin-offs of a comic, I don’t mind if it’s this one. And Dejah Thoris’ backstory seems like a good place to go for extra stories.

Eureka

Graphic Classics, Volume 20: Western Classics - Featuring stories by Zane Grey and Robert E Howard as well as a Hopalong Cassidy story by original newspaper strip artist Dan Spiegle.

IDW

Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1 – It’s called Monster World in Previews, but that’s changed. Eric Powell writing, Phil Hester drawing, and they get to use all the other Toho monsters that Marvel and Dark Horse never got to. This is gonna be goooood.

Danger Girl, Volume 1: Destination Danger – I’ve been meaning to read some Danger Girl for a while and this collection with art by Phil Noto and Art Adams seems like an excellent place to start.

Rat Bastards #1

Image

Carbon Grey #1 – I’m in the mood for some steampunk. Especially when it’s this pretty.

Rat Bastards #1 – The girl with the jetpack and her cool-looking friends are great and all, but all the cover really needed was the giant, cybernetic bear. Okay, that’s not true, but it’s almost true. Anyway: comic about a bunch of kids who fight mad scientists. I’m in.

Lorna: Relic Wrangler – Lara Croft meets Lovecraft. Those are two of my favorite “L” words.

Marvel

Ruse #1 – If Marvel had asked me which CrossGen title most deserved a comeback, this would’ve been in my Top Two. My only caveat would’ve been that they please please please set it on Earth and not the almost-Earth that the original series was in. Which they’ve very kindly decided to do even without my input. Couldn’t be more thrilled.

Sigil #1 – This wouldn’t have been in my Top Two, though I enjoyed the original very much. Even with the too-often, radical shifts in tone with every new writer that came on, it was still a fun, pulpy space adventure book. Tough-guy hero Samdahl Rey is now 16-year-old Southern girl Samantha, but that actually sounds more interesting. Plus, a certain pirate ship from another highly-praised CrossGen title makes an appearance in an upcoming issue.

The Heap #1

Captain America and the Secret Avengers #1 – As long as I’m dreaming about Marvel’s asking me what they should publish, they couldn’t have guessed the top of my Wish List much better than a Black Widow/Agent 13 comic written by Kelly Sue DeConnick.

Lots of collections – Marvel has several good collections coming out this month. Or June or whenever they really come out. The Strange Tales II hardcover leads the pack, but I’m also looking forward to Girl Comics, Heralds, and Hawkeye & Mockingbird/Black Widow: Widowmaker.

Moonstone

The Heap #1 – The description for this sounds like the Swamp Thing meets Thor in WWII. I’m always up for a good swamp monster story; throwing in Vikings and Nazis almost isn’t fair. Not that I mind.

Nemo

Sea Ghost #1 – “Let’s take Space Ghost and let him have underwater adventures instead of outer space ones.” Okay!

Oni

Salt Water Taffy, Volume 4: Caldera’s Revenge – Matthew Loux’s sea-side series continues with a “spooky whaling ship” and a Moby Dick-like adventure.

Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour

Radical

Driver for the Dead – I read the first issue of this voodooey version of The Transporter and liked it. Intriguing characters and an interesting mystery. Looking forward to finally seeing how it ends.

Top Shelf

Incredible Change-Bots Two – I missed the first one, so I need to catch up. Jeffrey Brown’s the last guy in the world I figured to do a giant robot book, much less the sequel to one.

Night Animals – Creepy and delicious. I reviewed it based on a PDF copy. I’m going to want the real book.

TwoMorrows

Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour – Not really comics, but certainly comics-related. I’ve recently discovered Baker’s work thanks to blogs like The Comic Book Catacombs and am a fan. I’d love to learn more about the guy and see more of his stuff.

Zenescope

Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Predators – I’m having a hard time accepting that Zenescope has an all-ages imprint, but even more concerning is that – though the catalog description calls it a graphic novel – nothing is said about any sort of plot. Does the Discovery Channel logo mean that this is really an educational book that uses comics to get its lessons across? Because while that’s cool too, I have a lot of questions about just what this is. It’s going to require a flip-through before purchase.

And that’s it for me. What are you looking forward to?

Steve Niles

There’s some disagreement about where it started, but it couldn’t have been much earlier than Steve Niles’ blog post, which is where I first heard about it. Some credit Eric Powell and it’s true that this is a drum that he’s been beating for a while now. As has Robert Kirkman and others. But Niles’ post last week called for specific action (that doesn’t necessarily require walking away from well-paying corporate gigs) and inspired a flurry of opinions and commentary about supporting creator-owned comics and what that really means. Readers and creators alike have been talking so excitedly about it that some have called it a revolution. But is that really what it is? And if so, a revolution of what? Since most of the books this column covers are creator-owned, these are good questions to try to answer here.

When Kevin quoted Niles’ post for Robot 6, he pulled this piece of it: “Can I say something I’ve wanted to say for a long time? If you like something, tell your friends. If you love it, tell the world. But if you hate something, just throw it away, don’t buy it again and move on. We spend way too much time tearing shit down. I just want to try the other direction for a while.”

The commentary on that quote was split between defensive and supportive. “I don’t get that logic,” wrote one person. “That’s like going to see a movie and finding out it’s really, really horrible. Then you hear that a dozen of your friends are going to see that same movie. Wouldn’t you want to warn them about what they are about to endure, the time they will waste, the money they will lose, etc, etc?”

Micah S. Harris and Loston Wallace's Lorna: Relic Wrangler

It’s a good point. Should comics commentary be 100% positive or is there room for serious criticism? I think that writer B Clay Moore’s comment on that same post speaks to this. “I’d love to see sniggering snark eliminated from comic book blogging and reviewing. A renewed focus on promoting the positive is something anyone should be able to get behind.” Without putting words into Moore’s mouth, I don’t hear him saying that there’s no place for serious criticism. For him, it seems to be more about the tone. I would agree.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about manga-blogger David Welsh’s distinction between criticism and reviewing. “Reviewers are offering advice to consumers,” he wrote, “while critics are engaging in a more canonical discussion.” Both of those are valid reasons to write about comics and neither is inherently nobler than the other. But they do have different relationships to less-than-positive commentary.

Criticism, by Welsh’s definition, requires some objective distance between the comic and the person writing about it. The critic has to be able to talk about what works and what doesn’t in a way that doesn’t take into consideration how much money was spent on it.

Kody Chamberlain's Sweets

Reviewing, on the other hand, which is what the vast majority of online comics commentary is, is intimately tied to personal investment, whether financial or just the amount of time spent consuming the story. As the commentator said above, “Wouldn’t you want to warn your friends about what they were about to endure?”

Well, sure. But there are different ways to do that. You can calmly share your opinions and talk about what didn’t work for you without what Moore calls the “sniggering snark.” Too many readers and reviewers seem to take malicious glee in tearing apart comics that they aren’t enjoying without seriously engaging the work. Granted, not all work deserves serious engagement, but it’s not hard to tell which books those are and to avoid them. After a point, it becomes a case of “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” If you know you don’t like a particular storyteller or type of story or tone of comic, but you read it anyway, you sort of lose the right to be taken seriously when you complain about it, don’t you? As another commentator to Kevin’s post said, “Maybe there’d be a lot less whining and curmudgeonry in Internet comic fan circles if people just read and talked about the comics they liked, and stopped buying the comics they didn’t.”

Not everyone agrees of course. That last commenter I quoted prefaced his remark by saying that he’s been told his opinion is naïve. And there’s certainly a reason that there’s so much snark on the Internet: people love to read it. I tend to be a positive-thinking hippie like Niles, but I’ve also caught myself chuckling at Abhay Khosla and Tucker Stone from time to time. I don’t regularly read those guys, because it gets to be a bit much after a review or two, but they’re excellent writers and I do get the attraction.

Joshua Hale Fialkov and Rahsan Ekedal's Echoes

I kind of feel about them like I do hot peppers though. A little in the dish adds some zing that I appreciate and even like, but too much is overwhelming and ruins the meal. There are too many folks trying to be Khosla and Stone and it’s destroyed the online comics discussion for a lot of people.

Unfortunately, the traditional response to that hasn’t been very helpful either. Complaining about snark is just as useless as the snark itself. Less so, because it doesn’t even have entertainment value. So the Internet discussion has largely degenerated into a bunch of people complaining about everything. That’s not news to anyone, I know, but this is what I see Niles and others trying to change.

When I hear words like “creator-owned comics revolution,” my first thought is that creator-owned comics are going to take down Marvel and DC as the top-selling comics in the US. I would love to see creator-owned books sharing the Direct Market best-seller lists with the Big Two, but I don’t know how realistic that is. At best, it’s a long term goal. (It’s already happened with self-contained graphic novels and bookstores, but the focus of the current discussion seems to be mostly on serialized periodicals and the DM.) So it’s not particularly valuable to see the current mood as the start of some kind of Big Two takedown, but then again, Niles’ comments don’t even remotely suggest that. What he’s recommending is revolutionary in another way.

Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt's The Sixth Gun

Skottie Young clearly identified the real problem on his Twitter feed. In response to Eric Powell’s continued (as Powell calls it) “farting and bitching,” Young wrote, “I’m interested in hearing your thoughts. Will you be providing actual solutions or just old fashion bitching?” Later, to Scott Wegener, Young wrote, “If you were to write detailed blogs about said books and why you like them, I and probably others would retweet. This would help direct me. Telling me what’s wrong doesn’t actually give me a direction. Tell me what’s right leads me to it.”

Later, on his blog, he said, “As comic creators, we’re lucky to have our fans, and in the day of instant social networking we have their ears on stand-by. So I’ll put out the call for everyone who has a blog or Twitter account. Spread the word on the books you read and enjoy that may not get the attention you think they deserve. It’s not about dissing the books that get attention, it’s about propping up the ones that need more. Give links to Amazon, or your local shop that has it in stock.” This is also what Niles is recommending.

In that initial post that Kevin quoted, Niles also wrote, “All I’m doing lately is attempting to call attention to creator-owned books. I think plain and simple, things are going to get even tougher out there and we have to find our place. Personally I believe there is severe lack of cooperation among creators. There’s a very dog-eat-dog mentality in comics sometimes and I think all we harm in the end is ourselves. My simplistic solution right now is to support as many of my fellow creators as possible. We just don’t have access to publicity budgets, so simple grassroots networking can help us all a great deal.”

Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener's Atomic Robo

To that end, Niles has announced that he’s going to start a column devoted to spotlighting creator-owned work and has requested that creators contact him about potential coverage. Young has already begun putting action to his thoughts on his own blog by recommending I Kill Giants and promising every Monday to continue showcasing a different book that he’s enjoying. And he’s rubbed off on at least Scott Wegener who also resolves to write occasional recommendations for books he’s enjoying.

That’s a revolution. Wegener in particular admits that this isn’t his default setting. For creators to take an active role in promoting the work of other, worthy creator-owned projects is huge and I’m looking forward to it. I hope it catches on in a big way. I’ll be closely following the recommendations of Niles, Young, and Wegener and any other creators who are willing to jump on board.

It’s one thing to read the opinions of reviewers and critics. Regardless of their respective abilities to put thoughts into words, their opinions only hold so much weight. But when a creator whose work I admire takes the time to recommend something that he or she is enjoying, I notice that more. “If you like my stuff,” it says, “you may enjoy this too.” After all, it was Steve Niles who introduced me to Charles Burns and Sam Hiti who turned me on to Richard Sala.

The creators can only do so much though. A revolution in their way of thinking and approaching their community is important, but it only truly affects the industry with the participation of readers. For my part, I promise to buy one new comic a week based on the recommendations of Niles, Young, Wegener, and anyone else who chooses to join them. This week, I’ll go to my shop looking for I Kill Giants. Chris Smits and Patrick Brower offer an additional resource in their Creator-Owned Comics blog, but however you get your recommendations and whichever creator-owned book you choose to try, I hope that that some of you will join me.

Bluewater sent out a press release last week to announce that Morningside Entertainment has optioned the film rights to Bluewater’s Sinbad: Rogue of Mars comic from 2007. There are several interesting things about that.

According to the press release, Morningside has optioned the comic in order to adapt it into a feature film for 2012. Not a reboot, the movie is intended to be an extension of the Sinbad films that started with 1958’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and continued into the ‘70s with The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

The release went on to quote Executive Producer Barry Schneer as saying that Rogue of Mars would be the first film in a new trilogy. “I’m thrilled to continue the amazing legacy my uncle, Charles Schneer began with 7th Voyage and to bring to the screen the Sinbad movie that he and Ray Harryhausen never got to make.”

Since Bluewater published Sinbad: Rogue of Mars as part of its Ray Harryhausen Presents line of comics, I started wondering how this fit together and who owned the rights to what. I assumed that Morningside already owned at least a portion of the rights to the Sinbad films. Since Rogue of Mars was based on those movies, why would Morningside need to option the story from a comic book company that had bought the license from them in the first place? What exactly was Morningside optioning? And how does Ray Harryhausen himself fit into all of this?

I contacted Bluewater’s Darren G Davis and asked him to help me put the pieces together. “It’s sad to say that Ray Harryhausen doesn’t own rights to the characters that he created,” Davis told me. “Sony controls a lot of the rights to the previous film library.”

He went on to clarify. “What people have to understand is that Harryhausen was the special effects person behind the films. He was instrumental and a huge part of them, but doesn’t own the rights. The film industry was very different back in the day. I am a huge Harryhausen fan and when I got to work with him it was a dream come true. Charles Schneer, who was the producer of the films, owned a stake in them, which now has gone to his nephew Barry Scheer, who is producing this film.”

As for the comic and the ideas in it, “We own the rights to it. It was part of the deal when we decided to move forward with Harryhausen and produce the comics.”

But wasn’t Harryhausen part of the creative process on Rogue of Mars? When the series was first announced, Davis talked about his “excitement toward developing the property with Harryhausen.”

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

Davis explained it to me, “We took the basic concept from an idea that was out there called Sinbad Goes to Mars from the ‘80s. They were going to produce it after Clash of the Titans, but it never got green lit. There was a script or treatment on it that we got from Harryhausen’s people, but we took it and went another direction with the story and concepts.

“I wish I could say that Harryhausen had a lot to do with this one, but his people just signed off on what we were doing. When we started this project Ray Harryhausen was in the midst of retiring. When we created the world, we definitely wanted to pay tribute to his world, giving new people an introduction to who Harryhausen is as well as giving Harryhausen fans something classic.”

I talked to Harryhausen’s people and they told me basically the same thing. Tony Dalton, the curator of Harryhausen’s collection and co-author of The Art of Ray Harryhausen said that “neither Ray Harryhausen nor The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation have been formally approached to participate in this project.” But he also added that he met with Schneer earlier and advised the producer that neither Ray nor the Foundation would desire to be involved.

So with Harryhausen out of the picture (so to speak) except for developing the core concept of Sinbad’s visiting Mars, it’s Bluewater’s take on that concept that Morningside is interested in. Davis specified that “they optioned the characters, story and design of the worlds” and added that Bluewater and Morningside have had a partnership for a couple of years now. This is just the first thing that’s come out of it.

That got me wondering about how faithful to the comic the new movie will be then. Especially since the film’s not being written by Greg Thompson, who wrote the original story. Instead, Morningside and Bluewater selected Logan’s Run: Last Day writer Paul Salamoff to write the screenplay. I talked to Salamoff and my first question was about how he got the assignment.

“I’ve been a screenwriter for many years and Darren hired me to write comics based on the strength of my screenwriting. As I continued to write comics for Bluewater we would also discuss doing film projects together. Because I’m primarily a genre writer and such a huge fan of genre material, when the Rogue of Mars project came up, Darren felt I was the right person for the job. I met with Barry Schneer and his development team and they responded to my writing and my ideas for Sinbad. The next week I was hired to write the screenplay.”

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

I was curious about his other credits, both in film and comics. “Currently I’m developing a number of films; one with the producers of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World called The Last Breath. It’s a horror movie that I wrote that I’m also attached to direct. I’m also writing a comedy called Population: Me for Unstoppable Entertainment in the UK. Noel Clarke is the producer. He’s the writer/director of Adulthood as well as a BAFTA award-winning actor (you may also know him as Mickey Smith on Doctor Who).

“In comics, I’m currently writing for Bluewater the next Logan’s Run series called Logan’s Run: Aftermath as well as more issues of Vincent Price Presents. I also have two graphic novels coming out later this year for other companies. Discord is a new twist on the Frankenstein legend with stunning artwork by Giuseppe D’Elia. The other is Stasis with artist Adrian Paladini. It’s in the vein of Aliens and The Thing.

“Sinbad is a good fit for me,” he added. “It’s 100% in my wheelhouse as a writer. I’ve been a fan of Sci-Fi, Horror, and Fantasy since I was a little kid and the Harryhausen films were a big part of it. So the good news is that the property is in safe hands.”

But what about Thompson’s story?

“Morningside had been developing Rogue of Mars for many years and they had very definite ideas of what they wanted Sinbad’s newest adventure to be like. They had developed the comic, but simultaneously also worked out a pretty amazing outline for a potential film. But they didn’t want me to be too influenced by either.

“I was hired because I’m an idea guy and bring a lot to the table with my knowledge of genre films. So I was just given broad strokes and told that the comic was the comic and was only to be used as a springboard for the film. They didn’t want me to be slavish to the comic or the outline, just certain concepts and design aspects.

“What’s great is that the storyline has been evolving into something really special because the story development has not been so rigid. They want my input and ideas and my take on the characters. I’ve actually already written the first draft of the script, which was well received by the producers. We’re now using my draft as a base to even further expand the story. We’re weaving back in some of their original ideas as well as new ideas that have evolved directly from my draft. It’s very exciting as a writer to have a development process like this. The end goal is to have something really special that not only will appeal to the legions of Sinbad fans that have been with the series since the ‘50s but also to a contemporary audience just discovering the characters.”

I asked him too about special effects restrictions. How much are budgetary concerns a limiting factor as he writes?

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger

“Fortunately they have not restricted my imagination at all, just the opposite. [Morningside] wants to do this as a trilogy and they want it epic. Like Lord of the Rings epic! You can’t do this kind of scale on a small budget and from what I’ve been told these are going to be high-budget, tentpole films.

“In regards to special effects, we now are working in a time where virtually everything is possible. I worked in Special Make-Up FX for the first 14 years of my career and worked on over 40 films, so I have a really good base knowledge of what can be done on what budgets, but I also know that FX are only a tool that’s supposed to enhance the story, not dictate it.

“I feel that’s the mistake a lot of these big FX-driven movies make. They become more about spectacle than story and character. What makes these kinds of films truly work is having relatable characters that you care about and want to go on a journey with. That’s my number one goal with this. The FX will be top notch and we’re working on some amazing visuals (and creatures) that will have that ‘wow’ factor, but once again it will be in service of an exciting story.”

I asked Salamoff if he could tease the story any and he was happy to oblige. “Sinbad has had amazing adventures over the years, but nothing has prepared him for his latest voyage. On a mission for King Kassim, he unwittingly releases a Jinn trapped for millennia. He and his crew are soon transported to Mars where his actions are going to have dire consequences to the planet’s inhabitants, who are already burdened by an impending war over a recent discovery hidden for centuries beneath an ancient temple.”

With Harryhausen retired and uninterested in making more movies (or comics) based on his ideas, Morningside doesn’t have a choice about whether to move with or without him. I’d love to see more of his stamp on Rogue of Mars, but frankly I’m excited just by the possibility of a new Sinbad film, especially if it ends up getting the budget that Morningside wants it to have.

What do you think about this? How do you feel about continuing the Harryhausen films without Harryhausen? Does it matter that he’s not involved or is the concept cool enough on its own to make a good movie?

Ray Harryhausen photo from Stuart Crawford’s Flickr photostream.

Update: Greg Thompson, whom I mentioned as the writer of the Sinbad: Rogue of Mars comic, wrote me to clarify his involvement with the project and to offer some additional commentary. Thanks, Greg!

Greg Thompson: I read your article on CBR regarding Sinbad: Rogue of Mars, and while I’m thrilled about the potential of the film and the release of the trade paperback, I did want to clarify a few points.

Morningside Ent. did not have anything to do with the development of the comic story on my end. I was given art for the first issue and developed the story from that. I had written the fourth and fifth issues of the series but I never delivered them to Bluewater, and they hired a different writer to finish the story with a “fourth issue” that will be included in the trade. I don’t know how the story ends, but I’m very excited to read Ryan Burton’s wrap-up!

I was asked by Morningside Ent. to write the screenplay for the film, and had a meeting with them at SDCC in 2007 to go over the outline they had. I made a few changes and started work on the script. After several starts and stops on the screenplay over the course of the next year and a half, I decided to bow out for personal reasons. Barry Schneer and the folks at Morningside were great throughout the process, and the legacy of Harryhausen’s Sinbad films is in great hands.

As for Harryhausen’s involvement, I was told that he and his people had approval on my scripts for the comics. Had I known Harryhausen was not involved, I probably would not have taken on the project, despite my love for the source material.

Night Animals (cover is probably NSFW)
Written and Illustrated by Brecht Evens
Top Shelf; $7.95 (Shipping in March)

When Brecht Evens describes his new work as “a walk on the Where the Wild Things Are side,”  he’s not exaggerating. Night Animals contains two stories, each of which follows a normal person into a fantasy world that comments on his and her real-life situation. The second one, “Bad Friends” is especially (and intentionally) reminiscent of Maurice Sendak’s most famous book, complete with homemade crown and a wild rumpus in the woods with fierce, wonderful creatures.

But the similarities end right there. Night Animals is no children’s book. From the graphic details in the visuals to the dark, oppressive themes, this is a book for grown-ups. Or – especially in the case of “Bad Friends” – well-adjusted teens at least.

"Blind Date"

The first story, “Blind Date” (this is the one we ran a preview of a couple of days ago) is about a man who puts on a bunny costume to wait for his date in the park. The story is wordless (both are), so the reader can only guess at first about what’s going on. Is the man a furry? A Donnie Darko fan? Just weird? More is revealed when no one shows up at the park. As it becomes dark, the moonlight reveals a series of luminescent arrows that the man has to follow through fantastic scenes and horrifying worlds. He has terrible encounters with creatures who become increasingly appalling, yet he keeps going, revealing more of his loneliness and desperation with each turn of the page and each obstacle he has to overcome. By the end, I was hoping hard that he’d be rewarded for his trouble and not forced to endure some awful, final torture. It’s to Evens credit that I had no idea which it would be.

Where “Blind Date” is a poem about loneliness, “Bad Friends” is a fable about growing up. Especially about girls’ growing up. And it’s effective. It’s about a young girl who gets her first period and takes a Where the Wild Things Are journey into adulthood. At first, it’s just rowdy fun, but it soon takes a turn and becomes rabid and scary. I’m not a woman and neither is Evens, but if he’s not accurately describing the way girls experience the world as they enter adulthood, he’s certainly nailed the fears parents have for their daughters during that time.

As dark as these two stories can be though, there’s a lot of creative joy in them too. I can tell that Evens had a good time drawing this book, designing all of these creatures and imagining their worlds. I can tell because it spills off every page and I had a great time exploring what he created and immersing myself in the details, even as I dreaded whatever he was going to have me encounter next.

"Bad Friends"

Aquaman '64

Since this is a column about big-concept, adventure comics, I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to talk about the Silver Age, especially as DC did it. A lot of fans, myself included, point to DC’s Silver Age as something we want to see more of: angst-free characters facing bold concepts in stories that don’t take more than an issue or two to tell and don’t crossover into other series. A lot of older fans grew up at least at the tail end of the Silver Age, so we recall those comics as the kind we enjoyed when we were kids. And if we enjoyed them, then our kids might too. For that reason, the Silver Age sometimes becomes a rallying point for grown up fans who wish their children had good superhero comics to read. But, was it really everything we remember it as?

I’ve been going through DC’s Showcase Presents Aquaman volumes recently and just finished the second one, which takes me through the birth of Aquababy. The reason for this is that I’m fascinated by Aquaman’s reputation as a lame character. I’ve been trying to unravel it on my own blog for a while now and have found numerous examples of industry professionals who love Aquaman and defend his concept. By all rights, he should be an awesome character. So why does the world at large give him such a hard time? The only way to find out was to stop reading what other people think and visit his stories for myself. I don’t know that I’m any closer to my answer about Aquaman, but I have learned one important, broader lesson. The Silver Age kind of sucked.

It’s not just Aquaman’s solo series. I’ve been reading Silver Age Justice League stuff too as well as odd issues of World’s Finest and Brave and the Bold. And though I’m focusing on DC, this isn’t just their trouble. Try reading all the way through Essential Ant Man sometime. I dare you. The problems I have with Aquaman’s series apply to the early adventures of (Gi)Ant Man and the Wasp as well.

Jimmy Olsen '64

It’s true that the Silver Age is full of nutty, bold ideas. That’s its strength. I don’t know if it’s true that DC editorial came up with the cover concepts first and then asked the storytellers to create around them, but it certainly seems plausible. Regardless of how they came about, DC’s Silver Age is full of stuff like Ant-Head Superman, Jimmy Olsen as the Red-Headed Beatle of 1000 BC, Bat-Baby, and Quisp the Water Sprite. And as stupid as some of that sounds, it’s also kind of insanely brilliant. That’s the kind of imagination that I’d love to see more of in today’s comics.

What I don’t want to see is the crappy characterization and sloppy continuity that plagued these stories. And before anyone misunderstands that “sloppy continuity” comment, I should clarify that I’m not advocating for some kind of extremely tight, nigh-impenetrable continuity where the minutia of each story has to stand up under a magnifying loupe examination and cross-reference with every story that’s come before. I’d just like for a character not to change completely her personality between issues.

As an example of this, I’ll offer Mera from Aquaman. I enjoyed getting to know the Silver Age version of her for a while. More powerful than Aquaman himself and no sidekick, she was an adventurous, fun-loving, equal partner with the sea king in her first several adventures with him. And then they got married. Overnight she retired from adventuring and became a moody, depressed harpy of a woman who berated Aquaman for continuing to adventure without her and punished Aqualad in her husband’s absence.

The New New Giant Man '65

We could have a whole other discussion about male perceptions of marriage and women in the ‘60s, but my point for now is how fluid characterization and continuity were in that time period. See also Superman’s love-hate relationship with Lois and his subscription to the New Power of the Month Club (not that he was he the only member). Or back to Marvel, witness the constant concept-refiguring that went on in many of their early series (Ant-Man again and Hulk immediately come to mind) as Stan and Company tried to figure out what they were doing on the fly.

I’m complaining, but please don’t think that I hate these comics. I like them. I love the ideas in them. But these aren’t All-Ages Comics. They’re Kids Comics, because kids don’t care about things like characterization or stories making any damn sense. What I advocate for in today’s comics is the fun and the imagination of the Silver Age, but for crying out loud let’s not pretend that the Silver Age was the pinnacle of superheroic perfection.

That’s why I appreciate Marvel Adventures and Johnny DC (or whatever DC’s calling their all-ages line these days) and the work of writers like Jeff Parker, Paul Tobin, Fred Van Lente, and Paul Cornell. And what Grant Morrison’s doing with Batman right now. They’re making comics that my son and I can enjoy together, each on our own level. They’re capturing the pleasures of the Silver Age without the audience-hating carelessness that characterized so much of it. Let’s see more of that.

This week’s Discussion Question: What’s your favorite and least favorite moment of Silver Age zaniness?

X'ed Out

X’ed Out
Written and Illustrated by Charles Burns
Pantheon; $19.95

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

I’m sure I’ve used that quote before when talking about serialized comics. One nice thing about trade-waiting is that you tend to get complete stories and I’ve grown used to that. And like being used to it. To the point that when Pantheon sent me a copy of Charles Burns’ X’ed Out, I didn’t read it right away because I knew it was only the first chapter in a continuing saga. The instinct to hold off until it was done kicked in right away and I put it on my shelf unread. And then all the accolades started pouring out of my computer screen.

When Chris Mautner told me it was his favorite comic of the year, I finally caved. Chris and I don’t have exactly the same tastes, but they cross over enough that when I realized I had his #1 pick for 2010 just sitting there unread – and it’s pretty short – I figured I’d end the year with it. What could it hurt?

Little did I know. The bastards.

I figured it would be a decent book to talk about for this column too, since no one can talk about it without also mentioning Tintin, one of the most famous adventure comics of ever. I’d been told that there’s a lot of Tintin homaging going on in X’ed Out and everyone was absolutely right about that. And also about how good it is.

The first squiggle of a line in the comic is an impression of Tintin’s familiar haircut. As the lights come on and the story begins, it becomes obvious that this isn’t Tintin, but damn if poor Doug doesn’t look exactly like him, only with dark hair and a classic, x-shaped, cartoon bandage on his head. In fact, Burns’ style in this opening sequence is very Hergé-esque and not much like what I became familiar with through Black Hole, except maybe for the weight of his lines and my God the details (like all the little divots in the bricks making up the wall of Doug’s room). Okay, actually, the room is very Burns-like. Only Doug looks different. Which immediately raises questions and puts me on edge, which is also quite Burnsian.

Doug’s first comment is that he’s lost some memory. “This is the only part I’ll remember,” he says. “The part where I wake up and don’t know where I am.” That sets the tone for everything that follows. The buzzing that comes from a hole in his wall. What he finds when he crawls through it (horrifying in content; so, so beautiful in the way it’s drawn, which is also classic Burns). The jumps in and out and between events that may be happening out of order or all at once.

I’m making it sound more confusing than it is. Burns is skilled enough that I never felt lost, even when I had no idea what was going on. He grounds the story in Doug, his relationships, and his desire to follow in William S. Burroughs’ artistic footsteps. I may not know exactly who Doug is or how he ended up having bizarre dreams in which he looks like Tintin, but I know that I like Doug and want him to figure it all out. Because Doug is trying to use his dream to untangle his past, confusion plays a large part of the story, but it’s just linear enough to keep me engaged and interested in putting the puzzle together too.

The real Doug (I think) looks much less like Tintin and more like someone Charles Burns drew. He does have a large part of his head shaved though, so that from his right side his hair kind of sticks up and gives him that familiar silhouette. The bandage is no longer small, cartoony, and x-shaped, but a large piece of gauze taped to Doug’s head. Has he had brain surgery? What relationship does that have to his bizarre dreams and lack of memory?

There are adventuresome elements to X’ed Out, especially in the dream portions with their lizard-men, desert cities, and caches of huge, spotted eggs. But it’s mostly a mystery, and as such, there are a ton of clues to help the observant reader piece things together. Some of Doug’s dream-imagery correlates directly to things he’s seen – or thinks he seen – in real life. I enjoyed piecing together what I could from my single reading, but I know there’s more to keep me busy through repeat trips. Which is good, because this is only the first part of the series and it ends on a cliffhanger just like you’d expect from any monthly issue of Detective Comics or Spider-Man. Now I’ve got to wait for the next installment.

I thought I’d left behind that part of my comics reading experience, but they sucked me back in. The bastards.

The Unsinkable Walker Bean

The Unsinkable Walker Bean
Written and Illustrated by Aaron Renier
First Second; $13.99

As popular as pirates are, you’d think there’d be more comics featuring them. Certainly there’ve been some good ones over the years. Isaac the Pirate and Polly and the Pirates immediately come to mind, but the most recent of those is more than two years old. And even then, that’s not a lot of pirate comics for a time when Jack Sparrow was the hottest thing going at the box office. Since then, there’s been what? Boom! did a nice one-shot called Pirate Tales about four years ago and there was also Galveston, a pirate-Western mash-up by the same publisher, in 2008. That’s not a lot, but maybe I’m missing some. Let me know in the comments. It’s hard to believe that we haven’t even had a licensed Pirates of the Caribbean comic yet (outside of some short stories in the old Disney Adventures Magazine). That sounds like a no-brainer.

One reason for the shortage of pirate comics may be that it’s damn hard, apparently, to write an original pirate story. I interviewed Chuck Dixon about it back when he was promoting CrossGen’s El Cazador. When I asked him how we end up with so many bad pirate stories, he said that the problem is not having a story in the first place, but relying on a string of clichés and hoping that’ll suffice. As anyone who’s seen Cutthroat Island or that Walter Matthau movie will tell you, that’s true. You need a lot more than just peg legs, buried treasure, and a character who talks like Robert Newton.

Aaron Renier’s doing his part though. The Unsinkable Walker Bean is as original as it is swashbuckling and adventurous. It’s the story of a young boy named Walker Bean who’s never been to sea, but comes from an ocean-faring family. In fact, his father and grandfather both serve in the navy of the fictional country they belong to.

The Beans at home

The world of Walker Bean closely resembles ours (and you’ll certainly recognize the oceans and land masses – if not the names –  on its map), but since it’s not really ours the story has a cool feeling that anything can happen at any time. If the giant lobster-witches at the bottom of the Atlantic want to rise up and destroy civilization…well then, they bloody well can without factual history’s being able to deny them. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The story kicks off when Walker’s grandfather returns from sea with a mystical skull, stolen from the lobster-witches who now want it back. The skull grants special insight to anyone who looks into it, but it also makes them fatally sick unless the viewer has blood “as thick” as the witches’ (what that means is a mystery for Walker to figure out). Unfortunately, Walker’s grandfather has looked and will die unless Walker can return the skull to the deep ocean trench where the witches live. Preferably before the witches come looking for it, trashing everything in their path.

Complicating matters is Walker’s own dad who doesn’t believe the legends about the skull and only sees money to be made from it. And of course the pirates who learn about the artifact and also want it. Walker’s journey leads him all over the world, surviving on his wits and the ever-shifting alliances he’s forced to make with the various parties who covet the skull. It’s a great page-turner of a story, charmingly told with fantastic art.

Detail from The Spread

Renier’s expressive linework drew me into Walker’s world and the details in it kept me there. There’s a double-page spread that I must have spent fifteen minutes studying all by itself. In it, Walker is being shown around a new town by a friend and Renier unfolds it like one of those Family Circus strips where Billy and Dolly explore the entire neighborhood on their way home from the park. As I traced Walker’s path, I was amazed at the stories I encountered along the way. In the space of two pages I found a barefoot pirate waving merrily to the whore he’d just spent the night with, a well-dressed busker playing the violin, a young man crying deeply over some unnamed loss, a murder about to happen, naked children playing in a Poseidon-shaped fountain, a rooftop chase and gunfight, a killer game of hide-and-seek, and more shoppers, vendors, and lovers than you can shake a belaying pin at. There was literally a story around every corner and I wished that Renier was able to tell them all. Or not, since I had a great time making them up myself. The spread was as packed as a Where’s Waldo page. Which reminds me that yes, I even found Waldo too.

Now I’ve got the itch for more like this. Renier promises at least one more volume and I hope for even more beyond that. In the meantime, I need to dig up some others. Pierre Mac Orlan and David B’s The Littlest Pirate King and Drew Weing’s Set to Sea have been on my Wish List since they were announced and Brigid just mentioned Scott Christian Sava’s Gary the Pirate earlier today. What else am I missing?

Witch attack!

FX2: The Lost Land

FX2: The Lost Land
Written by Wayne Osborne; Illustrated by Uko Smith
IDW; $19.99

In FX2, Wayne Osborne takes analogues to various superheroes and other adventurous characters and archetypes and then mashes them into a story so packed that it may just include the kitchen sink as well. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but I suspect that readers will have mixed feelings about it. I certainly waffled about it a few times.

If we re-replace the FX characters with the ones they’re standing in for, the story’s about Green Lantern and Spider-Man’s attempt to rescue a bunch of high school kids from the Mole Man. The villain has appeared from the ground in the middle of a football game and taken his captives back into the Earth. Among the kidnap victims is Mary Jane Watson, who’s transformed by Tyrannus into the Hulk (she becomes too dumb and uses the word “smash” too much to be a She-Hulk analogue).

The characters don’t stay in the caves forever though. When the Hulk disappears, the heroes follow her to the Savage Land where they meet up with Ka-Zar and learn the horrifying truth about what the bad guys are really up to. There’s far more at stake than the lives of a few kids.

JK's going to have a field day with this. Simmons, not Parkins.

Of course, Osborne puts his own twist on these characters. Arachnoid is actually a Spider-Man/Iron Man hybrid who gets his spider-like powers from a metal suit. He’s not a student, but he does teach science at the place where Tom Talbot (aka FX , our Green Lantern stand-in) goes to school with his friends Vicki and Jack. I’m not sure exactly how Tom’s powers work (I’m guessing that’s revealed in the first FX collection, which I haven’t read), but the ultimate effect is that he can create anything he wants out of what looks like some kind of hard light. Vicki has power of her own: the ability to read minds (an X-Men reference?) and a helpful aid in the form of a ghostly knight (maybe a Black Knight/Haunted Tank/Firestorm combo?). Jack has no superpower, but is a skilled fighter (Robin?).

Obviously, the further Osborne deviates from the templates he’s using, the more difficult it becomes to tell who represents whom. But he’s not trying to be sneaky or even subtle about his analogues. This is apparent from the very first scene in which Arachnoid tries to stop Minx (Black Cat) from robbing a museum, but is mistaken by the guards as her accomplice. The editor (named Simmons) of The Daily Reveille gets a lot of mileage out of this the next morning with the headline, “Arachnoid: Threat of Menace?!?”

Later, in the Lost Land, John (Ka-Zar) uses phrases like “Kree-gah” and “Bundilo” that will be familiar to Tarzan fans.

Spelunking

Because Osborne’s so obvious with his swipes,  I ultimately decided to excuse them. He’s having fun; throwing all of these childhood inspirations and ideas into a big pot and stirring them together to see what comes out. And he is – in fact – able to produce something that’s more than just the sum of its various parts. Tom and his friends are believable, likable characters who have a great adventure to the center of the Earth where they encounter mad scientists, lost cities, time travel, Nazis, samurai, and pterodactyl-riding cowboys.

It’s also fantastically illustrated by Uko Smith, whose work somehow marries the fascinating geometry of Larry Stroman with the more conventional attractiveness of someone like Adam Hughes. The combination is unique, which further allows The Lost Land to stand on its own and differentiate itself from its characters’ influences. And that’s vitally important.

Because even though I was able to settle back and enjoy characters like Arachnoid, The Lost Land works best the further it gets from Marvel and DC. Once you’ve combined Mary Jane Watson and the Hulk, for example, the result isn’t really Mary Jane Hulk anymore. It’s its own thing. And because it’s a giant, purple cheerleader with a proclivity for smashing, it’s pretty awesome. As The Lost Land progresses, it does more and more of that. So that by the end, it’s chock full of its own awesomeness as well as the borrowed kind.

If only he was a GORILLA cowboy

Muppet Sherlock Holmes

Boom!

Muppet Sherlock Holmes – Because I’ve mentioned every other Sherlock Holmes comic in Previews for the last year. And because it’s the Muppets.

Campfire

Swiss Family Robinson – I love the Disney movie. Maybe I’ll like this adaptation of the classic, island adventure novel too.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Jekyll/Hyde adaptations succeed or fail on the depiction of Hyde. I’m not totally convinced that Campfire’s the company to present a truly horrific Hyde, but it’s worth checking into.

Dark Horse

King Conan: The Scarlet Citadel#1 – I’m disappointed that Dark Horse is skipping so far ahead in Conan’s career. I’d like to think that this is just a one-off mini-series, but their pronouncement that “a thrilling new era begins” makes me wonder. Still, I do like the King Conan era, so as long as they’re not completely abandoning the plan to chronicle his earlier careers, no harm I guess.

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja

Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever #1 – Mike Mignola’s Weird Western hero starts a new adventure.

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: Night Powers – This is going to save me a lot of online time combing through Dr. McNinja’s webcomic archives. I just discovered the Doc of Awesome this summer and have been too overwhelmed to dive in yet.

The Outlaw Prince – I imagine that an Edgar Rice Burroughs Viking story is as cool as it sounds.

Flash Gordon Comic Book Archives, Volume 3 – At this point, I’ll read pretty much anything with Flash Gordon’s name on it. I thought I was past that kind of habitual consuming, but not yet where Flash is concerned.

The Spirit: Angel Smerti

DC

The Spirit: Angel Smerti – I gave up on DC’s first Spirit series shortly after Darwyn Cooke left it. I can’t even tell you why I’m willing to give this go ’round a try, but I’m curious about it. It probably has something to do with their wrapping it into their Pulp line. Nice job, DC Marketing.

Zatanna: Mistress of Magic – Been waiting a while to check out Paul Dini’s new Zatanna series. I became interested in the character during Identity Crisis and its aftermath. Dini’s take on her in his Detective Comics run makes me think I’ll really enjoy this.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!: Mr. Mind Over Matter – The first BBatMoS collection was a bit shaky thanks to the jarring change in creative teams two-thirds through. But of the two artists after Mike Kunkel, Byron Vaughans was easily my favorite and he’s the only one listed for this collection. Should be much more even. And those Tiny Titans guys writing it certainly know a thing or two about all-ages stories.

iZombie, Volume 1: Dead to the World – I’ve been looking forward to being able to read Chris Roberson and Michael Allred’s series about a zombie detective.

The Arctic Marauder

DC Comics Superhero Collection Magazine

Azrael and Saturn Girl – Two of the coolest costumes in comics are getting made into little lead statues to go on my bookshelf. Seriously, there’s no costume more awesome than Joe Quesada’s Azrael design. Although the pre-teen me may disagree when it comes to Saturn Girl’s outfit from the ’70s.

Fantagraphics

The Arctic Marauder – A steampunk story with mad scientists, sea monsters, and futuristic machines at the North Pole. In a “faux woodcut style.” Fantagraphics continues to be the most consistently innovative publisher of adventure comics around.

Graphix

Bone: Quest for the Spark, Book One – This illustrated prose novel isn’t comics, but as the sequel to the greatest comics series of the ’90s, it’s close enough.

IDW

Jericho Redux and Jericho #4 – For me, the saddest part about Devils Due’s financial troubles was that it left uncertain the fate of Jericho…again. Thank you, IDW, for coming to the rescue. I loved that show. It was so much cooler than what Skeet Ulrich is doing now.

Tyrannosaurus Rex

Image

Tyrannosaurus Rex – Mark Kidwell’s a very imaginative horror writer and Jay Fotos was the big brain behind those cool Frazetta comics from a while back. I bet they tell one hell of a dinosaur story.

Marvel

Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Jungle Adventure, Volume 2 – This volume collects stories about (among others) Jann of the Jungle, my favorite jungle heroine, who almost joined the Agents of Atlas once upon a time.

Moonstone

Airboy Presents: Air Vixens #1 – Butt-kicking female pilots duking it out in a zeppelin loaded with secret weapons.

Savage Beauty #1 – As the former writer of The Phantom, Mike Bullock knows his way around a jungle story. Now he’s using those talents to tell one about jungle girls. I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s got planned, especially considering his tweak of using the genre to talk about the real-world conflicts of modern Africa. Full disclosure (and obviously a selling point): The issue also includes a back-up article about the jungle girl genre in general by Yours Truly.

The Hunger of Seven Squat Bears

Oni

Stumptown – Always up for a Greg Rucka story about a woman detective. Especially when it’s compared to The Rockford Files and Magnum PI.

Radical

Time Bomb – Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Paul Gulacy’s Nazi time-travel story is collected.

SLG

The Vesha Valentine Story – There may not be any Cold War spies or giant monsters, but Des Taylor’s drop-dead gorgeous art promises to make this story about a young woman’s attempt to succeed in ’50s Hollywood adventuresome enough.

Yen

The Hunger of Seven Squat Bears – Fifteen bucks is a lot to pay for 32 pages of art, even when it’s bound in hardcover, but Émile Bravo’s art is adorable and I love the idea of mashing Snow White, the Three Bears, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Puss in Boots into one story.

Now it’s your turn. What did I miss?

Not necessarily Brian Clevinger

Brian Clevinger first came to my attention with Atomic Robo and I’ve been a big fan ever since. Anyone who writes dialogue like “I beat them with my violence” is aces with me.

Of course, by the time Atomic Robo came to town, Clevinger was already a familiar name to fans of his award-winning webcomic 8-Bit Theater. And he’s becoming known to even more folks with his Marvel work. He wrote the back-up stories for World War Hulks: Wolverine vs. Captain America as well as the mini-series that features a space trucker and the line, “Doom does not mop”: Avengers: Infinity Gauntlet. And starting next month, he’ll be writing the WWII adventures of Captain America in Captain America: The Fighting Avenger.

Let’s get to know him:

Q: Who’s your personal hero?

A: My grandfather is an obvious choice. My parents too. They’re good people.

Q: What’s your morning routine?

A: First Charlie wakes me up 10 seconds before my alarm goes off. It looks like this. Then my alarm goes off. Then I feed the damn cats, start some coffee, check my email, skim Twitter, poke at a couple websites, and get to work.

Captain America: The Fighting Avenger

Q: What’s your favorite item of clothing?

A: Right now I’m loving this new hoodie I got. There’s nothing special about it. No design, not even an interesting color. But it’s WARM. I’m a Florida boy what moved to Virginia in the middle of the coldest winter they’ve had in thirty years. And with Winter looming in the near future, me and that hoodie are gonna be good friends.

Q: What do you always have with you?

A: My fancy phone!

Q: What’s always in your refrigerator?

A: The basic ingredients for a great sandwich: smoked turkey, smoked ham, roast beef, some kinda cheese, locally grown hydroponic lettuce, and spicy mustard. Also Dr. Pepper. That doesn’t go on the sandwich though. Not on purpose anyway.

Q: What’s your favorite food?

A: Whatever’s on my plate. I never get tired of Chinese food though. Or tacos. Not together though. Not on purpose anyway.

Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne

Q: What’s your fitness routine?

A: I sit down writing comics all day.

Q: What superstitions do you have?

A: I wear Spider-Man boxers every time I travel.

Q: What do you do to procrastinate?

A: I kind of don’t. It’s weird. Y’know how in school you’d stay up all night to finish a big project or paper or whatever? Yeah, I don’t. ‘Cause I never did. I have this deadline paranoia that drives me to getting things done ahead of schedule. Usually WAAAAY ahead of schedule.

Q: What’s your biggest self-indulgence or guilty pleasure?

A: I play video games and faff around on the internet. If I’m feeling particularly saucy I’ll get a Twix bar.

World War Hulks: Captain America vs. Wolverine

Q: What gadget can’t you live without?

A: My fancy phone. WHAT IF SOMEONE EMAILED ME WHILE I WAS OUT AND IT TOOK LIKE AN HOUR TO GET IT AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

Q: What’s your most prized possession?

A: My laptop. I do all my work on it, so this sees a lot of action. I loves it.

Q: What kind of vehicle do you drive?

A: 2006 Mitsubishi Eclipse. Just paid it off earlier today!

Q: What’s your next big purchase going to be?

A: Kinda thinking about trading in the Eclipse for a Mini now that we live in a city with tiny roads and cramped parking.

Q: What’s your favorite place in your home?

A: The bed. But that’s entirely the fault of these new covers. They’re so comfortable I think there’s a solid case to be made they’re the work of the devil.

Atomic Robo and the Dogs of War

Q: What’s your greatest artistic strength?

A: I’m not too terrible with fun dialog.

Q: What’s your greatest artistic weakness?

A: I’m pretty terrible at everything else.

Q: Do you play a musical instrument?

A: Only insofar as Rock Band counts.

Q: What talent do you covet?

A: I secretly hate everyone who can draw. That’s xxxtreme coveting.

Q: What’s your best memento from your work?

A: The original art from Atomic Robo that Scott was kind enough to give me.

The Avengers: Infinity Gauntlet

Q: What household chore do you absolutely hate to do?

A: Unloading the dishwasher. Which is very odd because I don’t mind doing the dishes themselves. But unloading that thing? BAH!

Q: What obsolete item can you not part with?

A: Does my NeoGeo emulator count? It’s not even a recent version. Damn thing must be at least five years old by now, so it’s Obsolete x2.

Q: What’s the best recent gift you’ve received?

A: Got some swank pants for Christmas. There’s no story here. I just likes ‘em!

Q: What’s your retreat?

A: Soon as I take a day off I’ll let you know.

Q: Do you collect anything?

A: Historical esoterica. Which sounds a little like “historical erotica” but only occasionally is.

Q: Do you have any hobbies?

A: It’s strange, but I don’t know. I have a habit of turning my hobbies into my job. Like, I spent the other day going over Project: Orion. Again. Because I love Big Science stuff and Weird History, especially in the 20^th century. But it’s also for Atomic Robo. Was that hobby time or was that work time?

Bustin' makes me feel good.

Q: What movie have you seen more than any other?

A: The original Star Wars trilogy and Ghostbusters.

Q: What book have you read more than any other?

A: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Q: What are you always asked at parties?

A: After they ask me what I do, and after I tell them, “I write comics,” the very next thing they ask is if I do the art too. And then when I say “No” the very next thing they ask is if I write what happens in the panels and stuff. I’m assured by my artist friends that they go through a similar routine, but with “art” and “write” reversed.

Q: What’s your evening routine?

A: At some point I put the damn laptop away and then goof around in a video game or watch a movie with my special lady friend.

Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time

Q: What do you always have at your bedside?

A: My fancy phone so it can wake me up ten seconds after the cat does.

Q: What do you obsess over?

A: You may have noticed that “my work” features heavily in these answers.

Q: What’s your travel routine?

A: I try to pack up the night before so I can hit the road as early as possible. Also the Spider-Man boxers.

Q: What’s the worst thing about traveling?

A: The time it takes. Can someone explain to me how a three hour flight eats up about twenty hours of work time?

Q: Which historical figure would you most like to meet?

A: ANSWER OVERLOAD.

Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness

Q: What’s the greatest misconception about your life?

A: Most people I know with “real” jobs have no idea what working at home is like. I guess because they associate “home” with “relaxing” or with “getting away from it all” they think it’s getting paid to sit around in pajamas eating ice cream all day.

Which is just stupid. You’ve got to supplement that with cookies.

Q: What are you going to work on tomorrow?

A: Wrapped up my latest Captain America issue this evening, so tomorrow I’m moving on to outlining an unrelated Marvel one-shot I’ve got to write up next week.

Flash Gordon: Mercy Wars #0

Ardden

Flash Gordon: Mercy Wars #0 – Ardden’s releasing what was formerly an exclusive comic for NYCC 2008. This has already been included in the Mercy Wars collection, but if you like the periodical format and didn’t make it to New York two years ago, here you go.

Avatar

FreakAngels, Volume 5 - I really need to get on the ball and start checking these out.

Campfire

Jules Vernes’ A Journey to the Center of the Earth and Jules Vernes’ 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – I’m not a big Verne fan, but I always like looking at adaptations of his novels, because they often correct some of the things I don’t like about his work.

The Hound of the Baskervilles – I am a big Doyle fan, so I like Holmes adaptations for a whole other set of reasons. Baskervilles is one of my favorites, because I always like to see if the artist can make the moor as spooky a place as I imagine it to be.

Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead

Dark Horse

Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead #1 – It deserves mention just for starting a new Hellboy story, but extra points for “giant bat” and “vampire apocalypse.”

BPRD: Hell on Earth – Gods #1 – And a new story starts for the BPRD too. Nice month for Hellboy fans.

The Finder Library, Volume 1 – I’ve always wanted to check out Carla Speed McNeil’s critically-acclaimed, award-winning sci-fi series.

John Carter of Mars: Warlord of Mars – Dark Horse continues collecting old  John Carter stuff. The first volume featured DC’s time with the character; this one has the complete run of Marvel’s ongoing series (including annuals) from the late ’70s.

Sherlock Holmes: Year One

Dynamite

Sherlock Holmes: Year One #1 – Interesting idea. “Join Dr. John Watson as he meets young Sherlock Holmes in a fateful encounter that will forever shape both men’s destinies.” Does that mean they’re ignoring A Study in Scarlet or just working around it? They’ve got me curious.

First Second

Lewis & Clark – I don’t know nearly as much about the Lewis and Clark Expedition as I’d like, so I’m hoping that Nick Bertozzi’s story is as educational as I’m sure it’ll be entertaining. Also looking forward to see his take on Sacajawea.

Zita the Space Girl – It’s got the words “Space Girl” in the title. Of course I’m going to read it.

Graphix

Missile Mouse, Volume 2: Rescue on Tankium3 – Missile Mouse vs. a space bat. I think Jake Parker may be colluding with Mike Mignola to get all my money.

Book of Lilah

Kickstart

Book of Lilah – I expect to enjoy this 1000x more than I enjoyed Book of Eli.

Lerner

On the Case with Holmes & Watson, Volume 6: The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire – Shame on me for not knowing that Doyle wrote a Holmes mystery about vampires.

Marvel

Secret Avengers, Volume 1: Mission to Mars hardcover - With Black Widow and Valkyrie on the team (and knowing that Shang Chi’s coming in the next volume), it’s been really difficult to wait for this collection.

Avengers Academy: Permanent Record hardcover – Likewise this one, though to a lesser degree. Super Hero Squad has made us big Reptyl fans at our house.

Moonstone

Spider #1 – One of the most interesting (and violent) Pulp heroes finally gets his own comic.

Cursed Pirate Girl

Olympian

Cursed Pirate Girl: The Collected Edition, Volume 1 – Jeremy Bastian’s Cursed Pirate Girl is a gorgeous, fantastic comic, but has been kind of hard to get hold of. Until now.

Oni

Ghost Projekt, Volume 1 – This got my attention when it was first announced because Oni compared it to The X-Files and The Coffin. Now they’re also mentioning Fringe and Warehouse 13, which does nothing to lessen my enthusiasm for finally getting the chance to read it.

Pacific Comics Club

Connie: The Menace of Mo Tung and Connie: The Unseen Avenger – One of Pacific’s previous volumes (Captives of the Space Pirates/Master of the Jovian Moons) made me fall in love with Connie. Glad there’s more coming.

SLG

Pepper Penwell and the Land Creature of Monster Lake – Looks like a mixture of Encyclopedia Brown and Scooby Doo. Right up my (dark, scary) alley.

Strongman, Volume 2 – I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the first Strongman book, so I’m looking forward to seeing how I feel about this one now that my expectations have been raised.

Now it’s your turn. What did I miss?

So, once a month I’d like to use this space for a different kind of look at the creators of the fun kinds of comics we usually talk about here. I hope you’ll dig it as much as I do.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

First up is Kelly Sue DeConnick who got started in the biz translating manga for VIZ and Tokyopop before doing some Image anthologies (most of which featured robots) and 30 Days of Night: Eben & Stella for IDW. Nowadays, of course, you’ll find her name all over Marvel comics in anthologies like Age of Heroes and Girl Comics and one-shots like Sif and Rescue. You may have also noticed that Osborn, her first mini-series for Marvel, just launched today.

Let’s get to know her:

Q: Who’s your personal hero?

A: Man. After far more deliberation that I really should cop to, I’m going to go with Laurenn McCubbin. There are about a bazillion ways to interpret “personal hero.” I’m going with the person from whom I think I have the most to learn, the person I wish I were more like.

Laurenn’s exceptionally courageous and open-minded, two areas where I think I could be improved. More impressive still, she has the extraordinary willingness to be wrong. Do you know what I mean by that? Laurenn is one of the few people you’ll ever meet who will go into an argument with you willing to change her mind. She doesn’t seem to have her ego wrapped up in any of that. You don’t really realize how rare that is until you meet someone like her. I think it’s tremendously evolved.

I suck at being wrong. I’m embarrassed by it.

Good thing it happens so very rarely.

Wah wah.

Osborn

Q: What’s your morning routine?

A: Wake up in a panic, make coffee, pack HL’s lunch, unload the dishwasher, check email, nurse Tallulah, feed HL, dress the kids, dress me, take the kids to “school.” Come home and make a pot of coffee, go downstairs to my office.

I’m still, uh, refining it.

Q: What’s your favorite item of clothing?

A: Right now? Matt’s bespoke suit. Henry’s orange, slim cut jean. Tallulah’s black, tiered-ruffle onesie.

Oh, of mine? Tough call. There’s a white Armani Exchange trench coat that I dearly love, but I need to finish getting the baby weight off before I can wear it again. I should be back in it by Spring.

24Seven

Q: What do you always have with you?

A: My phone.

That’s so sad, isn’t it?

Q: What’s always in your refrigerator?

A: Lemons.

Q: What’s your favorite food?

A: Tabasco sauce.

Q: What’s your fitness routine?

A: My what…?

Oh, right! I used to have one of those. These days, it’s chasing the kids. I’d love to get back to running, swimming and/or Ashatanga, but making the time is difficult.

Q: What superstitions do you have?

A: Any time I back the car out I imagine getting T-boned. It’s a horrible vision, but I’m afraid that if I forget to do it it’ll actually happen.

Comic Book Tattoo

Q: What do you do to procrastinate?

A: Clean. Answer emails.

Q: What’s your biggest self-indulgence or guilty pleasure?

A: Chocolate, maybe? Coffee. Swearing. Magazines I don’t actually have time to read.

I feel guilty about all of those.

Q: What gadget can’t you live without?

A: Again with the iPhone. Though… the iPad is making its case.

Q: What’s your most prized possession?

A: Hm. I’d be very sad if anything ever happened to my pink typewriter. Or my Mason-Pearson hairbrush. Or my Walt Simonson-signed Thor #380.

Q: What kind of vehicle do you drive?

A: Black Honda Odyssey.

…shut up.

Thor #380

Q: What’s your next big purchase going to be?

A: Probably a treadmill.

I hate making big purchases. I get very stressed out by the research.

Q: What’s your favorite place in your home?

A: My office.

Q: What’s your greatest artistic strength?

A: Character.

Q: What’s your greatest artistic weakness?

A: Plot.

Sif

Q: Do you play a musical instrument?

A: Nope.

Q: What talent do you covet?

A: The ability to plot.

Q: What’s your best memento from your work?

A: I guess probably that Walt Simonson-signed Thor #380. It’s honestly the only “momento of my work” I can think of and I do love it dearly. It’s sitting right here on my desk next to me. Say hello, Thor #380.

…

It says, “Aye.”

Q: What household chore do you absolutely hate to do?

A: Checking voice mail.

The Heroic Age

Q: What obsolete item can you not part with?

A: I have several dead people still in my address book. They’re not at those numbers any more but I can’t bear to delete them.

Q: What’s the best recent gift you’ve received?

A: Laurenn sent me a little red-headed doll that she called a “Kelly Sue Action Figure.” It’s winking and holding a purse.

Oh! And Alisa bought me some Kate Spade sunglasses. She remembered that I’d liked them when we tried them on in the store and she went back for them for me when they went on sale. I love that she remembered. That was sweet.

Q: What’s your retreat?

A: Wow. That’s a good question. I have no idea.

NPR, maybe? I like to zone out and listen to the radio while I’m cleaning.

Rescue

Q: Do you collect anything?

A: Manual typewriters, I guess. But I only have two. I’ve owned three in my life, but my black one was stolen. Similarly, I have two racehorse bobbleheads, but Henry broke the head off one.

Q: Do you have any hobbies?

A: I used to knit. I loved it, but I haven’t picked up my needles since I was pregnant with Henry.

I still bake pretty frequently.

Q: What movie have you seen more than any other?

A: Hm. Probably either The Jungle Book or Footloose. The former because it’s Henry’s favorite and latter because I worked in a video store for four years or so and Footloose was one of the few movies we were allowed to play on the big screen. The Golden Child would be on that short list too.

I’m not proud, I’m just sayin’.

Eben & Stella

Q: What book have you read more than any other?

A: Easily The Sun Also Rises.

Q: What are you always asked at parties?

A: “Do you draw the pictures?”

Q: What’s your evening routine?

A: Pick up the kids, have a little adventure on the way home (sometimes this means feeding the ducks or something exciting, sometimes it means stopping at the grocery store for “Baby Coffee,” which is what we call a steamer), I make dinner, we eat together at the table, we have some family play time, then Matt takes HL to have his bath and I clean the kitchen, load the dishwasher, whatever. Henry and I brush our teeth together, then Matt reads Henry his bedtime stories while I nurse Tallulah to sleep.

Girl Comics

Q: What do you always have at your bedside?

A: Lip balm.

Q: What do you obsess over?

A: What’ve you got?

(Seriously. I’m an obsessive personality.)

Q: What’s your travel routine?

A: 1) Book trip. 2) Get excited. 3) Have something come up or someone get sick. 4) Cancel trip. 5) Mope.

Q: What’s the worst thing about traveling?

A: The canceling.

Age of Heroes

Q: Which historical figure would you most like to meet?

A: Eleanor of Aquitaine, maybe? Alice Paul… Diana Vreeland… Jackie Cochran… I’m sure I could go on.

Q: What’s the greatest misconception about your life?

A: Man, I’ve tried answering this three times and I keep coming off like a jerk. Can I answer something else instead?

Q: What are you going to work on tomorrow?

A: Osborn. And a little bit on another thing. Oh, and some insurance stuff.

Glamorous, no?

Thanks so much to Kelly Sue for indulging me with these. Next Month: Atomic Robo‘s Brian Clevinger!

Black Metal

Black Metal, Book 1
Written by Rick Spears; Illustrated by Chuck BB
Oni; $11.95

As someone who’s not a fan of Black Metal the Music Genre, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about Black Metal the Graphic Novel. I hoped I’d like it. I love Chuck BB’s (Secret Skull) art for one thing. I’ve also heard great things about Rick Spears’ Teenagers from Mars. Mostly though, while I don’t dig a lot of the music, I’m very entertained by the trappings of Metal: the skulls, the demon lords…the Vikings. If Spears and BB were able to just tell an awesome story with all that stuff, Black Metal would succeed.

Undoubtedly, readers will find more enjoyment in it the closer they relate to the music and the culture that Black Metal celebrates. There’s no false advertising in that title. Shawn and Sam Stronghand are an orphaned pair of junior high twins who’ve been shuffled from school to school and foster home to foster home. They also – as the book says – have “a penchant for the darkest of metal.” When they play an album by a hardcore band called Frost Axe, they hear the legend of a war in Hell between two Barons: a huge, horned bruiser called the Roth and the sinister demon named Von Char who defeated the Roth through trickery. Playing the record backwards, the twins are pulled to Hell where they recover the Roth’s Sword of Atoll and return to Earth with it.

Von Char doesn’t like this of course and sends minions to kill the boys. As the Stronghands (and their gross little foster brother) try to survive, they encounter a band of ancient warriors (action!), Norse gods (adventure!), and cute girls (romance!) only one of whom is human.

Romance!

For the most part, Black Metal is awesome, funny, and even sort of touching. The boys are tough and put up a good front, but Spears humanizes them with humor, like when they profess their disdain for Easter until their foster mom asks if the Old Gods come with chocolate bunnies. “Damn your sweet confectionary bribes,” says Shawn. You can tell they’re kind of sweet on her even as they’re complaining about her taking them to the mall and her love of argyle. They even get a little protective of her booger-eating son when demons threaten.

What I didn’t care for so much was a lot of the dialogue. Some funny jokes notwithstanding, the twins and the rest of the Metal crowd in the book (human and demonic alike) have an overly formal way of talking that begins to grate after a while. “We are not Goth and your grievous error offends greatly.” That kind of thing. If it was just the boys talking like that, it might have been endearing. When everyone’s doing it, it sounds pretentious and annoying. Especially when characters are stealing lines from Predator, Lord of the Rings, and The Ten Commandments in order to sound hardcore.

Still, that’s small potatoes for the level of enjoyment Black Metal delivers otherwise. Even though it’s Book 1 and ends with a set up to a possible sequel, it’s a complete story. I’m not giving anything away by saying that the last scene is no more a cliffhanger than the last scene in the movie Carrie. Sure, you can tell another story (and I’d like to read it), but it’s a satisfying read all by itself.

More important than that to my fondness for the book though, I came to really like the characters. I rooted for them whole-heartedly, both in love and in their battle against the Forces of…well, let’s say the Forces of Darker Than They Are. It’s Metal, but it’s sweet Metal. Not that I’d want the Stronghand brothers to hear me say that.

Discussion Question: What’s the most interesting depiction of Hell you’ve read in a comic?

Poop!

Beasts!

Beasts! Book 1
Curated by Jacob Covey; Written and Illustrated by 95 writers and artists
Fantagraphics; $28.95

Beasts! stretches the definition of what a comic book is, but we’re adventurous folks, right? At first glance, it’s an art book. Ninety different artists each depict a cryptozoological creature in the style of his or her choosing. There’s also a paragraph about each by one of five different writers, but that sounds like the kind of thing you’d flip through once and then stick on the coffee table. It certainly doesn’t sound like a comic. There’s no story and that’s what comics are. They line up pictures to tell stories.

Except that this book does tell a story. Not a very conventional one perhaps, but it’s there.

The first clue is Jacob Covey’s title. He didn’t edit the book; he curated it like a museum exhibition. The book’s Introduction further reinforces that notion. It reads like a program, with a definition of Cryptozoology and notes about the artists, the creatures they selected, and the approach the curator took in putting the collection together. It also shares interesting facts, points out easily missed elements of the book’s design, and even suggests the best way for “the enthusiastic reader” to experience what’s to come. In other words, it’s not only a program; it’s a tour guide. By the time I was done reading it and ready to turn the page, I genuinely felt like I was entering an exhibit. Not just an art show, but a fascinating trip into The Study of Hidden Animals.

Colleen Coover's Baba Yaga

As you’d expect from a collection like this, there’s a healthy mix of the familiar and unfamiliar. For every Bigfoot and Unicorn, there’s a Barometz and Utukku. That’s not only true for the creatures, but also for the artists who depict them. I saw lots of recognizable names – Colleen Coover, James Jean, and Richard Sala, for example – but I was also introduced to a lot of folks I’d never heard of. As much as I loved seeing new work from old favorites like Kevin Dart, Dean Yeagle, and Jason, it was even cooler to discover new artists like Tim Biskup, Ryan Clark, and Nathan Jurevicius. Covey didn’t just approach comics artists for this project, he talked to people from all over the art world: from fantasy illustration and children’s books to animation and graphic design. Beasts! is full of people whose work is primarily seen in art galleries and on rock posters and skateboards as well as in bookstores and comics shops.

Because of the wide variety of ways these artists see the world and approach art, it’s understood that some pieces delighted me while others left me scratching my head. But even the head-scratchers – especially the head-scratchers – left me pondering various aspects of the mythical and legendary creatures in ways I’d never considered before. Why for instance does Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch’s Loch Ness Monster appear to be a beached, black, amorphous shape stood over by four people (are two of them carrying pitchforks?) instead of the familiar aquatic dinosaur I’m used to seeing? Perhaps something to do with the way humans have popularized this formerly mysterious creature, metaphorically dragging him up on dry land for our examination and entertainment? I’ve no idea if that’s close to Holyoke-Hirsch’s intent, but who cares if it is? That’s art.

Finishing the book are a fascinating and enlightening conversation with Yeti-expert Daniel Taylor,  a very helpful Taxinomical Diagram (a beastly family tree that organizes and categorizes the creatures by various traits like habitat and appearance), and a handy Bibliography for those interested in further study. Once I was done, I realized that I’d held onto that feeling of going through a real, marvelous exhibit of strange and wonderful creatures. Like I’d been told a story in which I was the main character, visiting this museum, learning about these beasts, wondering about them, and in turn creating stories of my own.

Discussion Question: What’s the best comic you’ve ever read about cryptozoological creatures?

Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch’s Loch Ness Monster

Boneyard, Volume One

Boneyard, Volumes 1-7
Written and Illustrated by Richard Moore
Published by NBM

I’m trying to figure out how to use the words “Monster Decadence” to describe Boneyard without sounding mean about it. It’s a wonderful, fun, involving series, but there’s an element to it that reminds me of the problem with having Speedy beat crooks up with a dead cat or Guy Gardner vomit blood all over the cover of a comic. I’m not suggesting that Richard Moore’s done anything wrong – it’s his series, he created it; he can do whatever he wants with it – but on its surface Boneyard appears to be simply a cute story about an unlucky everyman who inherits a graveyard full of funny monsters. There’s something very Bone-ish about the concept and kids would love the creature designs and giggle at some of the jokes. But it’s not a kids’ book. At all.

Again, I’m not faulting Moore. He’s got an appealing, humorously animated drawing style, but it would be foolish to suggest that he should tone down his writing because of that. On the contrary, it’s very cool that he’s been able to create such a grown-up story with such attractive, endearing characters. And as much as I kept thinking, “My son would love this if only…,” Boneyard is a whole different creature from “adult” superhero comics.

This is ironic since Boneyard is a monster comic, but it’s nowhere near as bloody or violent as the Superhero Decadence crowd of books. What puts it out of kids’ reach is mostly its playfulness about sexuality. There’s plenty of cheesecake, but nothing graphic; just good, naughty fun.

Nessie introduces herself

And the themes can occasionally get heavy, like when we learn why Nessie the gill-woman is so promiscuous. She’s such a light-hearted character that the darkness of her back-story is surprising, though not nearly as surprising as how tenderly Moore relates it. He’s masterful with the way he switches from laughter to tears and back again, but it’s not a transition that most kids are going to be able to make.

As I said, Boneyard is the story of a young man who inherits a cemetery. Michael Paris hasn’t had a lot go right in his life, but things begin to look up when his grandfather leaves him the graveyard and a nearby town makes him a very generous offer to take it off his hands. It’s when he travels to the town to close the deal that he realizes his bad luck is holding true. The boneyard is full of creatures who make their home there: a couple of gargoyles, a leather-jacket-and-shades-wearing werewolf, a lecherous skeleton, a sarcastic raven, a Cockney witch, a megalomaniacal demon, and – most importantly for Paris – a kind and beautiful vampire named Abbey. She and the others convince Paris not to sell to the pitchfork-and-torch-wielding townspeople; a decision that sets one of Boneyard‘s two, continuing plots into motion.

Over the course of the seven books, the forces that want the graveyard (I won’t spoil who it is, but will just say that the townsfolk aren’t the ringleaders, but only tools) try various schemes to get what they want. The other, over-arching story is the sweet, will-they-won’t-they romance between Paris and Abbey. That kind of thing can often be frustrating and annoying, but Boneyard avoids that by making it clear that Paris and Abbey do truly like each other; they just can’t get past their own insecurities enough to express it. It’s obvious that they’ll end up together eventually; Moore’s just coy about the when and how.

Skinny dipping

The nice thing is that Paris and Abbey are both so likable that it’s easy to wait for them to get their act together, knowing that seeing them do so will be worth the delay. And it’s not like Moore asks readers to twiddle their thumbs as they’re passing the time. Each volume moves the series’ story ahead while also presenting a complete story of its own. For instance, one volume is about the monsters’ trying to raise money to pay off the graveyard’s debt by publishing a swimsuit magazine. Others feature various threats to the cemetery like a zombie attack or a chainsaw-wielding serial killer.

By the end of Volume Seven, one of the two meta-plots is resolved. That the other isn’t speaks well of the likelihood that Moore will return to the series. He put it on indefinite hiatus after Seven, but I’m hoping he feels the itch to return to it soon. I’m already anxious for Volume Eight.

Discussion Questions: What’s your favorite monster comic?

The whole gang

Sherlock Holmes: The Painful Predicament of Alice Faulkner

Time for another trip through Previews to look for cool, new adventure comics.

Alterna

Sherlock Holmes: The Painful Predicament of Alice Faulkner – There’s a surprising amount of Sherlock Holmes stuff coming out this month, not that I’m complaining. In this book, Bret M Herholz adapts William Gillette’s 1899 play, Sherlock Holmes, or The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner.

Archaia

The Killer, Volume 3: Modus Vivendi – The next volume in Matz and Luc Jacamon’s beautiful and thrilling series about an international assassin.

Aspen

Lady Mechanika #1 – It’s with considerable discomfort that I’m interested in one of Aspen’s books. The company doesn’t have a great reputation for getting issues out on time or even always completing them for that matter. But I could really go for a cool, Steampunk adventure about a cybernetic detective.

Everything else, after the break.

The People That Time Forgot

Campfire

Campfire usually has one or two fun adaptations every month, but this time all of their releases are cool. They’re doing three novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs (The Lost Continent, The Land That Time Forgot, and The People That Time Forgot) as well as Jules Verne’s Master of the World.

Dark Horse

Conan: The Road of Kings #1 – Roy Thomas returns to Conan in this six-issue mini-series. I’m wishy-washy about how much I enjoyed his time with the character at Marvel, so it’ll be interesting to see what he does with this.

Robert E Howard’s Savage Sword #1 – A couple of ways to make sure your anthology is good are to have all the stories based on Robert E Howard characters and have folks like Marc Andreyko, Paul Tobin, Tim Bradstreet, and Barry Windsor-Smith telling the stories.

Mighty Samson

Mighty Samson #1 – The post-apocalyptic warrior-hero of N’Yark is a fine addition to Jim Shooter’s stable of classic Gold Key characters. Until I get my Thundarr the Barbarian comic, I’ll scratch the itch with this.

Age of Reptiles Omnibus, Volume 1 – Collecting everything so far (three mini-series) from Ricardo Delgado’s exquisitely detailed dinosaur saga.

Fantagraphics

The Hidden – Richard Sala’s latest has eight people stranded in a snowbound diner, telling spooky stories while a dangerous, escaped inmate from a nearby hospital roams free.

Trickster: Native American Tales

Fulcrum

Trickster: Native American Tales – I’ve always loved trickster stories whether they’re about Anansi, Coyote, or Bugs Bunny. This collection – written entirely by Native American storytellers – also features a story with art by Jason Copland (Perhapanauts), a fine artist as well as a pal of mine.

IDW

John Byrne’s Next Men #1 – I knew this was coming, but having waited 16 years for it, I’m still having a hard time believing that it’s almost here. The only thing more exciting would be for Byrne to return to Alpha Flight.

Doc Macabre #1 – Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson’s latest story begins. I need to get caught up on these, but I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve read so far.

Mystery Society

Mystery Society, Volume 1 – I also liked the first issue of Niles’ Mystery Society, so I’m looking forward to catching up with the rest of the story in this collection.

Wynonna Earp: The Yeti Wars – Beau Smith’s modern-day, Western monster-hunter returns just in time to get in the middle of a Yeti-Bigfoot war.

FX2: The Lost Land – I missed the first FX series, but I’m a big fan of Uko Smith’s art and Hollow Earth stories in general. This has both. Also Uko showed me some preview pages at a convention last Spring and I’ve been looking forward to it since. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Marineman

Image

Marineman #1 – I love the idea of underwater heroes. They rarely meet the full potential of their concept, but I’ll always give a new one a look. Ian Churchill’s version looks like a nice mix of adventure and humor, plus the main character – Steve Ocean – shares a name with a DJ on the radio station I grew up with, so that’s going to make me chuckle a lot.

Firebreather, Volume 3: Holmgang #1 – One day I will catch up with Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn’s Firebreather. I like both of those guys’ work too much not to.

Mice Templar, Volume 3 #1 – Same with Mike Oeming and Victor Santos. And I’m a big fan of Mouse Guard. It’s a shame I’m not more on top of this.

Proof: Endangered

Proof: Endangered #1 – Image sure does have a lot of new stories launching this month of series that I’ve been meaning to get around to. Here’s another one.

Santa Claus vs. The Martians #1 – Ooh. You know what’s better than re-visiting this cheesy old movie in comic book form? Giving Santa a bad-ass Father Christmas look and putting the Martians in War of the Worlds-style tripods. Also, having Benito Cereno write it.

Kids Can

Three Thieves, Volume 1: Tower of Treasure – A new series begins about medieval, traveling circus-performers and their quest for treasure, reputation, and the answers that unlock a young girl’s mysterious past. .

The Adventure of the Speckled Band

Lerner

On the Case with Holmes and Watson, Volumes 4 and 5 – Lerner’s Graphic Universe imprint adapts two more Holmes short stories: “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.”

Markosia

The Young Sherlock Holmes Adventures – I’m doubtful that I’ll enjoy this very much as a Sherlock Holmes story, but I just might like it as a young, Victorian adventurer and his pals vs. a London vampire story.

Marvel

Widowmaker #1 – You know, I’d probably buy this mini-series just for Jae Lee’s Black Widow on the covers, but an exploration of the spying side of the Marvel Universe also sounds pretty cool.

Ka-Zar

Ka-Zar, Volume 1 – I was a fool for not reading Mark Waid and Andy Kubert’s run on Ka-Zar back in the day. Time to rectify that. This is exactly the kind of thing I wish Marvel (and DC, for that matter) was publishing more of right now.

Hit-Monkey: Year of the Monkey – Did anyone read these as single issues? I figure it’s either going to be fantastic or soulless and calculated. Which is it?

Atlas: Return of the Three-Dimensional Man – The most recent – and sadly, final – installment of the adventures of the world’s most awesome super-team is collected.

Gorilla Man

Gorilla Man – This won’t get rid of the pain of losing Atlas, but it’ll soothe it some.

Moonstone

Rocket Man: King of the Rocketmen #1 – One of the coolest-looking, classic movie serials ever gets a comic book sequel in Moonstone’s Return of the Originals event.

Oni

The Sixth Gun, Volume 1 - The first six issues of Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt’s supernatural Western are finally collected.

Classics Illustrated Deluxe: Treasure Island

Papercutz

Classics Illustrated Deluxe: Treasure Island – The best-recognized name in comics adaptations of classic literature has a 144-page version of the Greatest Pirate Story Ever Told.

Undercover Fish

Dracula: The Dead Travel Fast – Ten bucks seems like a lot to pay for a 52-page, black-and-white comic, but I love the idea of retelling the Dracula story in 1931 with Nazis, ghosts, werewolves, and a potential affair between Mina and Quincey P Morris.

Zenescope

Sinbad, Volume 2: The City of the Dead – I didn’t care for the rotating artists from issue to issue, but there was nothing wrong with Dan Wickline’s fantastically swashbuckling take on Sinbad in Volume 1. I want to read more and now I shall.

What did I miss? Anything you’re looking forward to in December?

Big Book of Horror

Big Book of Horror
Written by Steve Niles; Illustrated by Scott Morse, Ted McKeever, and Richard Sala
IDW; $19.99

More this week about horror and all-ages comics, because I’ve found my next bedtime storybook for my son. The boy loves monsters, but he’s appropriately freaked out by serious horror. IDW’s collection of Steve Niles Little Books of Horror is the perfect middle ground.

Niles adapted three, classic horror stories for children, each with a different artist. They’re not comics so much as picture books, but comics fans will recognize the talent Niles worked with. Scott Morse (Soulwind) illustrated Frankenstein, Ted McKeever (Metropol) did War of the Worlds, and Richard Sala (Delphine, Cat Burglar Black) painted Dracula. Each page is a giant, gorgeous illustration overlaid with Niles’ text that summarizes the story.

Frankenstein

He varies his level of faithfulness to the source material. Frankenstein, for instance, is very faithful. From a writing standpoint, it’s my favorite in the collection. There’s not enough room to include everything – the blind hermit’s gone, for example – but Niles makes other cuts that I imagine were meant to make the story easier on kids. I certainly appreciated for my son’s sake that he left out the detail that Frankenstein’s murdered brother was just a young boy. None of these omissions change the focus of the story; it’s a great adaptation.

Morse’s art is beautifully designed as Morse’s art will be. I love his stuff, but I’ll be interested in getting my son’s reaction to the busyness of it and how heavily stylized it is.

War of the Worlds

McKeever’s work on War of the Worlds is powerful and dramatic. It’s full of shocking, searing reds and stifling oranges that make you feel the heat of the Martians’ rays. McKeever also uses double-page spreads throughout to make the invasion feel huge and epic. Niles doesn’t pull many punches with this story, but it would be hard to, wouldn’t it? The whole point of Wells’ writing it was to make us empathize with less-developed cultures that we would subjugate. Any adaptation is going to have to convey the terror of being conquered and exterminated, even one for kids. But neither Niles nor McKeever is graphic about it. Instead of describing the vivid details, the gorier aspects of the story are ironically tamed somewhat by sensationalizing them (“I watched a man die a shrieking death only to witness the hideous things digest the dead man’s blood!”).

Dracula

The least faithful adaptation is Dracula. I’m not sure why that is, because the changes don’t seem to be for the purpose of taming the story, but for simplifying it. Maybe space was a bigger challenge here than for the other stories, but Lucy’s gone as are all of her suitors. Dracula attacks Mina directly when he arrives in England and Van Helsing is called in by Mina’s dad. He and Mina hunt Dracula alone and the end of the story owes a lot more to Tod Browning than Bram Stoker.

Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with that; it was just a surprise after the authenticity of the first two stories. Having adjusted to it, I can just enjoy Niles’ twists and Richard Sala’s work. He was the perfect choice to illustrate it, with his dark, but humorous style. My son’s going to love it.

Discussion Question: What’s your favorite comics adaptation of Frankenstein, War of the Worlds, and/or Dracula?