Earlier this year writer Sam Humphries and artist Steven Saunders had a cool little success story with their science fiction comic Our Love is Real. It was released digitally, sold via their website and a few select comic shops, and eventually went into multiple printings before finally being picked up by Image Comics. (Sam spoke at length about his efforts to market and distribute the book during a panel we were both on at the San Diego Comic Con).

It worked out so well for him the first time that Humphries is trying it again. He’s teamed up with artist Dalton Rose for Sacrifice, a full-color, self-published, self-distributed, six-issue mini-series that debuts Dec. 14. It’s about Hector, a time traveler/Joy Division fan who finds himself in the middle of the Aztec empire.

And courtesy of Sam and Dalton, we’re pleased to bring you a look at the comic, which you can find after the jump, along with the book’s many variant covers. The comic will be available for digital download through comiXology and Graphicly, or you can buy it in print from several comic shops or through online retailer Things from Another World.

Addition: If you are in L.A., Collector’s Paradise will host a release party on Dec. 14 for the book, and you can also purchase their exclusive edition from their website. The cover for the “Shadow Edition” they have can be found after the jump.

Sacrifice

New Avengers #1

Welcome once again to What Are You Reading?, where you’ll hopefully find something to add to your summer reading list. Our guest this week is Chris Arrant, who you may know from his comic book journalism work for Newsarama, Comic Book Resources and various print magazines for Marvel Comics, or from his comic book writing, which includes Female Force: Princess Diana, Tori Amos’ Comic Book Tattoo and 24Seven Vol. 2.

To see what Chris and the rest of the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click the link below …

*****

Tim O’Shea

Namora

When I bought this week’s stack of comics, I went with the expectation that my favorite writer for the week would yet again be Jeff Parker–given that this week saw the release of the Namora one-shot and the latest issue of Thunderbolts. Both were exquisite reads, the one-shot in particular left me wanting more stories with Namora alone (which is probably how it should be)–partially thanks to the art of Sara Pichelli. My one regret–I missed out on buying the alternate Ramona Fradon cover edition.

Instead of Parker making the top of my list for the week (sorry Parker), that honor goes to Jonathan Hickman with Fantastic Four 580 and Secret Warriors 17. The villain Arcade is not someone I would have thought would appear in Hickman’s FF run, so that element of surprise alone clicked with me. The whole reason I first got into Secret Warriors was that it starred Nick Fury. Fury has always fascinated me as a character because of his roots in Marvel history. So any cover that sports the title “The Last Ride of the Howling Commandos” (and stars Dum-Dum Dugan [christ I get giddy just typing his name]) is an instant sale. Hell, if Hickman pitched an Untold Tales of the Howling Commandos series, I’d be the first in line. Bottom line, both comics proved to be fun reads.

The unpleasant read for the week? Zatanna 2. In issue 1 I appreciated the introduction of the supporting cast, but in issue 2 I realize there’s another member of the supporting cast I overlooked: Zatanna’s breasts. Memo to Stephane Roux, I don’t know if writer Paul Dini has script notes suggesting that you make her breasts more prominent in every scene or why you insist on working her breasts prominently in seemingly every scene. Really the point where a dream demon is trying to get into her dreams, and he lands on her sleeping stomach with his claws poking into her breasts (wow, she is a heavy sleeper, ain’t she?) I just had to put the book down. Zatanna is a sexy character without going the 2010 version of Jim Balent route, people. Zatanna’s breasts have become a supporting character (and lord knows at that size, it takes a great deal of magic to support those breasts) and a scene stealer in a bad way. I’ll be back if and when the art becomes a little less obnoxious. And I don’t blame Roux for the art completely, as I imagine that’s exactly what Dini has asked him to do. There’s other ways to convey the sexiness of Zatanna (for me the fishnet is enough) without making me feel like I’m watching 1980s USA Network’s Up All Night with Rhonda Shear. It’s a shame as I really like the character and looked forward to her own series finally happening with Dini at the wheel.

Sean T. Collins

It Was the War of the Trenches

It was a horror-filled week for me. Click the links for full reviews…

It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi: Impeccably drawn, indescribably brutal stories from World War I by the great French cartoonist.

Peter’s Muscle by Michael DeForge: The altcomix up-and-comer keeps cranking out impressive stories that tread the fine line between humor and horror–this one’s (mostly) a Spider-Man parody.

Neely Covers Comics to Give You the Creeps! by Tom Neely: A sumptuous little collection of Tom “The Blot/Henry & Glenn Forever” Neely’s cover versions of old horror-comics covers. Worth it for the colors alone.

Chris Mautner

A co-worker who’s into comics is a big Invincible fan and let me borrow his hardcover volumes. And boy am I glad I did. This one great, funny, smart superhero comic — the kind that you wish the big two were doing more of, when they ever do it at all. I love artist Ryan Ottley’s clean, precise style, and am impressed with how well Kirkman is able to keep so many characters and plot threads piling up, one on top of the other, without the reader ever losing track of or getting bored with the story. It’s been a genuine blast to read, and I’m only sorry I’m all caught up and will have to wait a bit longer for the next collected volume.

Chris Arrant

Silver Surfer: Parable – I’m re-reading this both as a lark and as a tangent to some research for a book I’m doing about Stan Lee, even though the real star of this seems to be artist Jean “Moebius” Giraud. This dramatically different retelling of Galactus’ visit to Earth gives Lee & Moebius a chance to put that religious undercurrent from Fantastic Four into the dramatic forefront. I’m sure readers at the time didn’t know what to make of this out-of-continuity tale, but for me it seems in a way a reaction to Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

King City – This series has been the most fun I’ve had reading single issue comics in a long time. I was an early convert to KC with the original TOKYOPOP volume, but these Image re-releases and now continuation are really exciting. Brandon Graham puts a lot of time into each page, with story and art not working together but being one – story as art, art as story. I’m going to be sad when this ends – but hopefully more work will be soon behind.

Techno Tuesday – It’s painful because it’s true. Andy Rementer’s Techno Tuesday strips really hits home with me about the beauty and sadness of tech-obsessed life. I’m conflicted – maybe that’s why I carry an iPod Touch, straddling the line and not wading into the full iPhone world.

City of Glass – Another choice inspired by a project I’m working. In many ways, David Mazzucchelli is comics’ great problem solver. He relays some very complicated information using the terms of sequential art to break it down. In most comics, the medium is a vehicle for storytelling while showcasing great art, but Mazzucchelli (with help in this case by Paul Karasik) uses some unique comic storytelling devices to clearly lay out a story – and really get to the heart of it, using the tools of sequential art to reveal a deeper truth.

Multiplex – The life & times of movie theatre employees. This dialogue-driven webcomic originally served as a vehicle of sorts for film commentary and snark-i-tude, but Gordon McAlpin has given those personality-driven commentaries their own characters who now years later are living, breathing, dating, fucking, arguing… and being stand-ins for the kind of people I hang out with in real life.

Joe The Barbarian – When you grab a hold of the first issue of a comic written by Grant Morrison, it’s like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” as to what the comic will be – but it’s Grant choosing. Sometimes he works on a very easy-going narrative, while other times reveling in a multi-layered approach that requires more than just a casual flip-through some readers might expect from other comics. Joe the Barbarian has been of the latter – and I’m really enjoying it. Yes, it’s not an easy read — but it benefits from multiple readings, in much the same way that the Watchmen did (I really didn’t grasp the bigger things Moore was working at until about the fifth reading). And choosing Sean Murphy to illustrate this has been a very good thing — his artwork is some of the most exciting work out there – Alex Toth meets Bill Sienkiewicz, with Bruce Timm onboard somewhere too. Both Morrison and Murphy are taking real chances here, sometimes failing but sometimes succeeding too. Once this is finished and inside one spine, I could see this as a real sleeper hit of a book if people will just work with it.

Fantastic Four 571

Fantastic Four – Family comics can be fun. These recent issues have really shown the polar opposites of a family drama and wildly speculative sci-fi really working well together. Hickman really get Reed and Sue, while developing the kids as the heart of the team. The onslaught of ideas present here gives readers here a perspective to the world Fantastic Four lives in, where their daily adventures aren’t served up single file but the world running past them and Reed & Co. are simply choosing what they should focus on first. Seeing Hickman’s unique approach to comics run through the characters of Marvel’s key titles is an interesting experiment. After the Millar/Hitch run under-whelming most, the choice to bring Hickman is a risky one – but it seems to be paying off. The idea of pairing this relative newcomer with industry vets like Dale Eagelsham and Steve Epting is a very important choice – they give the work an air of comic timelessness while also being able to work out any rough edges from Hickman. Hickman’s growing by leaps and bounds here – he’s done less than 50 comics, with a learning curve like the beginning of a roller coaster.

New Avengers – Stuart Immonen has quietly become one of Marvel’s key artists – readers may not know it, but Marvel does. Marvel has really put him to work, doing layouts for the end of the Millar/Hitch run on Fantastic Four, being the replacement for Mark Bagley on Ultimate Spider-Man, and most recently being the primary artist on New Avengers. Although Romita’s doing fine work on the adjective-less Avengers, Immonen’s work on New Avengers #1 shows some refined detail that tops his previous work on NA in the previous volume. I chalk it up to perhaps more time to spend on these pages, but whatever it is, Immonen knows what he’s doing and takes very measured steps and knows when to slow down, speed up, or bring attention to certain things. If Avengers is the classic team, New Avengers isn’t new – but rather the Modern Avengers. Bendis’ ain’t no slouch either – I feel as if he likes these characters more than the stalwarts.

Stan Lee: Conversations – I found this book while wandering the aisles of the FSU library, and having these interviews spanning from Lee’s early days to the 90s give you a different sense of the kind of character he is. Editor Jeff McLaughlin got some odd but amazing interviews in here, including a transcript from the Dick Cavett show as well as a rollicking unpublished interview with Lee over dinner and driving around Los Angeles.

from 'War of the Independents'

A few years ago a crossover project called War of the Independents was announced, featuring a wide variety of comic book characters from different publishers, including the Savage Dragon, Madman, Cerebus, ShadowHawk, Shi and many more (you can find a longer list here). Spearheaded by Dave Ryan, the project at one time was originally supposed to come out from Arcana in 2008.

It’s been a few years since I’ve seen anything on the ambitious project, but it is still be alive — Ryan has started a Kickstarter page to raise money for it. The page also reveals that the six-issue full-color comic is now being published by Red Anvil Comics and will debut at New York Comic Con in October.

You can check out more art from the series by visiting Ryan’s Facebook page.

Kramers Ergot #7

Some sad news today out of Oakland … Alvin Buenaventura announced today that he shut down his company, Buenaventura Press, in January.

“I was forced to let go of the dedicated employees who had worked so tirelessly for so little money in order to create art that we all believed in,” Buenaventura posted on Blog Flume earlier today. “This meant that I had to abandon all current and future projects and discontinue sales and distribution. I deeply regret having to take these actions, but the press experienced a devastating financial blow that made it impossible to continue. (I will release more details about this problem in the future.)”

Robot 6′s Sean T. Collins reached out to Buenaventura today, and he added that the situation comes down to a single problem that is legal in nature.

Buenaventura Press published many independent comics, high-end anthologies, graphic novels and prints by creators like Ron Rege Jr, Ted May, Kevin Huizenga, Eric Haven, Lisa Hanawalt and Matt Furie. Back in 2008 they received a lot of attention when they published the massive Kramers Ergot 7, an “olympic-sized” anthology that included contributions from Matt Groening, Daniel Clowes, Seth, Gabrielle Bell and many more. They also published Comic Art Magazine.

Love & Rockets

Digital | Sean Kleefeld points out the launch of Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels, “the first ever scholarly, primary source database focusing on adult comic books and graphic novels,” the site’s home page says.

The site currently hosts 24,000 pages of comics and a small number of The Comics Journal issues — all with the permission of the copyright holders — with plans to eventually expand to 100,000 pages of materials. The site’s advisers and partners include Fantagraphics’ Gary Groth and Kitchen Sink Press’ Denis Kitchen. Access to the site is available for one-time purchase of perpetual access or as an annual subscription. [Underground and Independent Comics]

Publishing | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson rounds up reactions from the manga community on the recent layoffs by Viz Media. [Publishers Weekly]

Publishing | John Jackson Miller crunches direct-market sales estimates for April, comparing them with previous years. [The Comichron]

Newspapers | Steve Tippie, Tribune Media Service’s vice president of licensing, talks about the cancellation of the 86-year-old Little Orphan Annie comic strip. [Comic Riffs]

Digital | Zippy creator Bill Griffith and Soup to Nutz creator Rick Stromoski discuss the possibilities the iPad and similar devices might have for comic strips. [Hartford Courant]

Frank Miller

Creators | Comics creator Frank Miller talks at length about the “peculiar craft” of drawing a comic book. “Novice comic book artists often try to imitate film, moving the characters ever-so-slowly, breaking a single action into endless, nearly identical images, each image changed from the last only incrementally, inch by tedious inch. That approach usually belly-flops, only reminding the reader that he’s looking at static images, showing everybody, in no uncertain terms, that movies move, and comics don’t. Novice comic book writers, on the other hand, simply pile on the words, robbing the form of its energy and vitality, often unintentionally insulting the reader by cluttering the drawing with descriptions of the drawing, making either the pictures or the words irrelevant, and boring the reader to distraction. Still, you gotta find a way to slow the reader down without boring him, or, worst of all, confusing him. A confusing comic book hits the trash can or recycling bin faster than junk mail.” [Frank Miller Ink]

Creators | Naif Al-Mutawa talks about the success of his comic series The 99 and attending the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Washington, D.C. [Palestine Note]

Creators | Peter Hartlaub profiles Daniel Clowes upon the release of his latest book Wilson. [SFGate]

Creators | Jeff Yang talks to Belle Yang about her new graphic novel, Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale. [SFGate]

Creators | If it’s Wednesday, it must be time for artist Paolo Rivera’s Wacky Reference Wednesday. Today he shares how he created the cover to Amazing Spider-man #641.

Fandom | Harry McCracken explores the origins of the word “fanboy” in a post that references everything from a fanzine created by cartoonist Jay Lynch and Glenn Bray to a character on the gone-but-not-forgotten cartoon Freakazoid. [Technologizer]

Organizations | Terri Heard talks to Reading With Pictures founder Josh Elder about the organization’s goals and the upcoming Reading With Pictures Anthology, which features “comics and education-themed stories.” [Publishers Weekly]

Blogosphere | Rich Watson, who has blogged about race and comics for many years, has announced he’s stepping away from blogging. “I don’t feel as enthusiastic about it as I used to, for a number of reasons. Comics have become too expensive – $3.99 for 22 pages of a piece of a story is not a bargain. In Marvel and DC’s case, their superhero books rely far too much on continuity minutiae and excessive violence. And recent trends have made it clear they’re not interested in paying little more than lip service to the idea of multiculturalism. Yes, there’s still good stuff out there, and I’ve done my best to write about them, but after ten years… I need a break.” Watson says he’ll continue to administer the Glyph Awards and plans to focus on making his own comics. [Glyphs]

Humor | Chris Sims presents “The Periodic Table Of Super-Powers.” [ComicsAlliance]

Crime | A 42-year-old California man was arrested at the Canadian border for trying to bring a weapons cache into the country that “included batarang-type throwing knives, Chinese throwing stars, and sets of 12-inch knives embedded on gloves like the prosthetic blades of comic-book character Wolverine.” [The Vancouver Sun]

Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine

Welcome once again to What are you reading? Today our special guest is comics retailer James Sime, owner of the world-famous Isotope Comics in San Francisco. As a retailer, James has the opportunity to read a lot of comics, and his submission this week reflects the diversity of great stuff you’ll find in his shop.

Click below to see what he’s been reading lately, as well as what the rest of the Robot 6 crew has had on their reading lists this week ….

*****

Graeme McMillan

Thanks to my beloved Multnomah County Library system, I’ve recently had the dubious pleasure of catching up on two iconic 1990s comics that I’d somehow missed (Well, avoided, in one case) the first time around, and it’s definitely one of those “sublime and ridiculous” things: The former of those two would be Jeff Smith’s Bone, which I’d only read in fits and starts, and am now enjoying in the Scholastic colored editions, and the latter undoubtedly the complete X-Men: Age of Apocalypse saga, which feels like some strange perfect time capsule of 1990s superhero comics and makes me feel depressingly old with almost every single page (Seriously, is this what X-Men comics were like when I was purposefully pretending that they didn’t exist due to twenty-something snobbery? That idea kind of makes my mind explode).

Single issue-wise, I love the new Vertigo series, I, Zombie – Chris Roberson had already won me over with his Cinderella Fables spin-off, but the combination of his writing with Mike Allred’s art really made this one a winner for me. I’ve been loving a lot of Vertigo’s recent releases (Daybreakers, Joe The Barbarian, American Vampire); I think the line is as strong as it’s been in years, and yet somehow still underrated. Hopefully that’ll change sometime soon.

Brigid Alverson

I only have one book this week, but it’s a good one: Hope Larson’s Mercury, which I liked for a whole lot of reasons. Larson starts with a view of a little hill in Nova Scotia and imagines how it looked in different periods, from the 1600s to the present. That foreshadows how she tells her story, which is really two interleaved stories, one happening in the mid-nineteenth century, the other in the present, both in the same geographical space. One is the tale of a teenager returning to her old school after an upheaval in her life. In the other story, the stakes are higher: A prospector finds gold on the land of a struggling farmer. Both stories have twists, and they come together with a supernatural turn at the end. I like Larson’s easygoing style, but it was the story that really grabbed me, and once I started reading this I couldn’t put it down.

Chris Mautner

I just read the 10th and final volume of Dragon Head, the post-apocalyptic disaster manga by Minetaro Mochizuki that Tokyopop put out back when they were rolling in money and convinced nothing would ever, ever go wrong for them. Anyway, it’s a relatively satisfying end to the series that, thankfully, doesn’t attempt to explain what exactly caused the constant devastation that’s plaguing Japan, or give us any sort of suggestion that our protagonists will, ultimately, be alright, though they seem to be in slightly more emotionally stable shape than they were a few volumes before. Let’s face it: any attempt to neatly wrap things up in a bow or explain things would have stunted the horror of the work.

I say “relatively” however, because, honestly, the series kind of took a nose dive after the fourth volume or so, when the two main characters got themselves out of the tunnel they were buried alive in and made it to the surface world. The manga never really recovered its nail-biting sense of tension after that. Still, it remained a decent read nevertheless, firmly planted in the “psychological horror” camp and well-thought out enough to keep me from regretting my time spent tracking down and reading the whole thing.

James Sime

As a comic retailer it’s my job to read everything that I sell and I’m dedicated to carrying a really diverse range of comics and graphic novels at the Isotope. So… I read a *lot* of comics (laugh)!

Here’s some of those reads I’m really loving this week:

ASTONISHING SPIDER-MAN & WOLVERINE by Jason Aaron & Adam Kubert

Jason Aaron… that guy writes some really kick ass comic books. You’re reading Scalped, right? You should be. At my shop I call it the “Preacher Methadone Clinic” because it’s one of the few books that you can actually successfully follow up Preacher with. Everything else just leaves you feeling hollow and wishing that a Preacher volume 10 existed. But Scalped makes you forget about how much you loved Jessie, Tulip, and Cassidy. If only for a little while. And if something can do that? Well, that’s about the highest praise I can give.

Aaron’s been writing a number of other great comics, too. Wolverine Weapon X, The Other Side, Hellblazer, PunisherMAX, he even made Ghost Rider great. But Spider-Man? Now we all know Adam Kubert is going to knock a Spider-Man comic right out of the park. Seriously, Adam Kubert can do no wrong. But even with one of the most stellar track records in all of comics, Aaron doesn’t really strike a lot of my customers or me as a Spider-Man kind of guy, y’know?

Thanks for proving us all wrong, Mister Aaron, with one of the best first issues I’ve read in years with a note-perfect Wolverine and Spider-Man. Marvel, give Jason Aaron any title he wants. Not only can he handle it, he’s going to make your characters really, really shine!

THE TALE OF ONE BAD RAT by Bryan Talbot

The Tale of One Bad Rat

Originally published back in 1994, Talbot’s magum opus about child abuse is a book that every comic reader should seriously have on their bookshelf. Sadly, it’s been out of print for far too long and lots of folks who are new to the world of “graphic novels” who would absolutely love it have never had the opportunity to discover it. So thanks to our friends at Dark Horse at long last now they can. Personally I plan on selling hundreds and hundreds of these this year!

Tale of One Bad Rat is without a doubt a breathtaking work of comic art that was many, many years ahead of it’s time. And as popular as it was inside the comic industry 15 years ago, people didn’t really know what to do with a book like this back then. If it was released today it would be the toast of the town on NPR’s Fresh Air like Wilson is. Or on the New York Times best books (not comics, but books) list of the year list, like Fun Home was in ’06. Or winning National Book Awards like American Born Chinese did. Or burning up the Top Ten Best Seller on Amazon like Logicomix did. Or all of those put together!

There’s a reason why this book has pull-quotes from the likes of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. And that’s because it really is a run-down-to-the-shop-right-now-and-buy-yourself-a-copy hardcover.

WUVABLE OAF by Ed Luce

Hands down my favorite self-published comic being made today. So good!

I actually never thought of calling Wuvable Oaf the “Scott Pilgrim of gay comics” before… but that’s *exactly* what it is! The story’s main character is a giant hairy sweetheart of a guy who lives with a hundred kitties and is secretly in love with a scrawny punk rawker who wears a lot of Morrissey t-shirts. Every issue is jam-packed with those awkward unlucky in love moments that anyone can relate to, laugh out loud quirky personalities that instantly remind you of people you know, and plenty of references to all sorts of nifty and obscure 80′s bands. Luce’s charming art, smile-inducing writing, and downright loveable characters is the reason Wuvable Oaf is just as popular with my straight customers as it is with my gay customers.

As this book doesn’t have any distribution at this point, there’s a good chance your local shop doesn’t have them in stock yet, but Luce has been working the convention circuit pretty heavily recently (The Wuvable Oaf Ultimate Sacrifice Special debuted just a couple weeks ago at Portalnd’s Stumptown convention) and you can order them directly from his site here.

HELLBOY IN MEXICO by Mike Mignola & Richard Corben

YES! How beautiful is it that Hellboy In Mexico came out on Cinco de Mayo?! What could be a better celebration than seeing a hard-drinking Hellboy team up with a trio of vampire-killing luchadores for a tequila-drenched excursion through Mexico in the 1950s? And it’s got plenty of Aztec pyramids, vampire wrestlers, Satanic turkeys, Mayan death bat gods, zombie spectators, and all the high-flying luchador action you could ask for. And I ask for a lot!

This was one of the most fun issues of Hellboy ever. And I sold a ton of them, so “muchas gracias” Mike Mignola and Richard Corben!

GHOST PROJEKT by Joe Harris & Steve Rolston

You know those comics that fly just under your radar when they’re first released and then suddenly it seems like everyone’s is talking about how great it is? And by the time you find out it’s way too late to get copies of the whole series and you just wish someone had told you about it sooner? You know, like Chew or Stumptown or Stuff of Legend or Locke & Key or Choker or Last Days of American Crime or Forgetless?! Well, Ghost Projekt is one of those books… and I’m telling you to pick it up right now.

Ghost Projekt is an excellently creepy post-Soviet horror chronicle of two American weapons inspectors uncovering strange phenomena at an abandoned weapons facility deep in the heart of the Siberian outback. Rich with politics and unsettling arms race experiments, this book pours on cold war era paranoia and shakes plenty of 21st century WMD anxieties into a cocktail glass overflowing with the kind of supernatural strangeness you’ve been thirsting for. A perfect allegory for true modern terror.

If you’re looking for a comic that will keep you on the edge of your seat waiting for the next installment, this is it.

Grab yourself a sneak peek of issue #1 on Oni’s site here, you’ll be glad you did!

And this next one is “not comics” just for good measure… because I read a lot of “real” books too.

UNDER AND ALONE by William Queen

True Crime Novel. Under And Alone is the first hand account of ATF agent Queen’s years as an undercover agent inside the infamous Mongols Motorcycle Club. This book reads a lot like a Brubaker or Azzarello comic, or something Elmore Leonard might write… full of dead bodies, quick tempers, deals gone wrong, middle fingers to local law enforcement, and lots and lots of sleezy lowlife characters. It’s really a fascinating peek behind the curtain at biker culture and organized/disorganized criminal lifestyle.

For me there’s a special appeal in lurid motorcycle tales. Growing up there was a biker clubhouse not too far from my house, and although it probably was not the best environment for 11-year-old kids, a friend of mine’s mom knew one of the guys so sometimes we’d go hang around out front and look at bikes. But still, this book’s appeal is universal to anyone who likes a good crime story. I’m particularly interested to see what they do with the Mel Gibson-helmed movie version of this book that is currently in production according to IMDB. And for those who are fellow fans of FX’s Sons of Anarchy TV show – it cribs a lot from Queen’s writing here, but these truths are much stranger and more dangerous than fiction.

The Cowl

The Cowl
Written by Brian Azzarello; Illustrated by Benito Gallego
Based on characters created by Joseph Finder
JosephFinder.com; Free

One of the few highlights of this year’s WizardWorld Chicago Comic-Con was Crimespree Magazine’s booth and the focus on crime comics that it brought to the show. On one of my many trips to the booth I got handed a superhero mini-comic called The Cowl that was written by Brian Azzarello. The connection to crime fiction – other than Azarrello – is that it’s a tie-in to Joseph Finder’s most recent thriller, Vanished. Not an adaptation of Vanished, but a real version of a fictional comic created by one of the novel’s characters.

It’s only eight pages and mostly a teaser, so it’s tough to review, but it serves it’s function as a teaser very well. In some of the material that came with the comic, Finder talks about how he came up with the idea and asked a friend at DC for artist recommendations. After describing the style of art he wanted, Finder learned that he was looking for a modern-day John Buscema and was directed towards Benito Gallego. It was a good lead. I don’t know if Gallego’s intentionally trying to evoke Buscema for this project or if that’s his usual style, but he does a fine job in the way he draws anatomy, poses his characters, and delivers action.

Even though the comic is essentially an ad for Vanished, Azzarello isn’t wasted on it. The Cowl could have been – probably should have been, by all rights – a disposable superhero cliché. Certainly his costume is uninspired. But Azzarello gives him a couple of moments that are so cool – and a villain who’s so immediately wicked and horrifying – that you can’t help but hope to see him succeed. Only that’s when you hit the cliffhanger and realize you’re gonna have to read the novel. Nicely done.

Super Maxi-Pad Girl and Rooster Jack await you after the break.

Super Maxi-Pad Girl

Super Maxi-Pad Girl #1-2
Written by Daniel J Olson and AJ Niehaus; Illustrated by Daniel J Olson
Bewildered Kid Comics; $4.00 each

I didn’t get these at a convention – they were mailed to me – but I did see them at FallCon last weekend and it reminded me that I needed to read them.

The title of the book makes you wonder how Olson’s going to get more than one joke out of the concept, let alone fill two issues with material, but he actually pulls it off. Or, let’s say he fills two issues with material. Whether or not he gets more than one joke out of it is debatable. The surprising bit is that he’s able to retell that one joke with enough variation that it doesn’t lose whatever humor you found in it the first time.

I’m being careful with my words here because Super Maxi-Pad Girl is either uncomfortably funny or just plain offensive depending on your perspective. More often than not, it was both at the same time for me. Olson’s created a superpowered conflict out of the menstruation cycle, so your opinion of the book depends entirely on the amount of humor you’re able to find in that specific physical process. The evil Period operates out of his secret Uterine Fortress with his minions Cramps and Bloating. About once a month the trio emerge from hiding – sometimes accompanied by Migrane and Acne – to menace women everywhere with the battle cry, “Make blood flow through the streets!” Defending the female population are Super Maxi-Pad Girl and the other members of the League of Feminine Products.

Olson’s art is crude (in more ways than one), but effective. You can’t always tell what’s going on and he’s unsubtle as hell, but there’s obvious joy in what he’s doing and if you’re at all open to laughing about the subject matter, it’s kind of contagious. There are parts that make you grin and parts that are even sort of touching, but Olson never lets you get too comfortable with any of it. As soon as you think, “Oh, that’s kind of sweet. The mom used superhero metaphors to help her daughter understand menstruation,” the daughter goes to school and hits a bully in the face with a used pad. Let’s just say that I’m very glad the book’s in black-and-white.

The Visible Rooster Jack

The Visible Rooster Jack
Written by Adam Hansen; Illustrated by Ben Zmith and Sara Witty
Space Race Comics; $4.00

I picked up Adam Hansen and Ben Zmith’s first Rooster Jack comic at the Twin Cities’ MicroCon last Spring and loved it. Checking out the sequel was one of the thing’s I was looking forward to at FallCon. It wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be – no flying whales or clockwork city yet – but in several ways it’s better than I’d hoped for.

The immediately noticeable improvements are the quality of the art and the overall production of the book. Not that Zmith’s art was bad on The Sad State of Affairs of Rooster Jack. On the contrary, it was very effective in making me chuckle. But even though there were 3D glasses and some fun activities, I commented at the time that there was a crudeness to it. It was a very funny book, but it was undeniably homemade. For Visible, Zmith has Sara Witty helping out and the result is a sleeker, polished look with some at times downright gorgeous gray-scaling that loses none of Zmith’s humor. Add to that the nicer paper it’s printed on and The Visible Rooster Jack is a damn attractive mini-comic.

By mini-comic though, I mean only it’s dimensions. It’s small in your hand, but there are 36 pages, all telling a single, self-contained story. That’s another way in which it’s nicer than I expected. If I understand correctly, Hansen’s original plan was to make his comics more serialized with cliffhangers at the end of each, but Visible is a complete tale. It’s open-ended in the sense that there are obviously more adventures to come, but it wraps up in a satisfying way.

The storytelling’s way stronger on Visible than it was on Sad State of Affairs too. Sad State of Affairs was all about the gags as it introduced you to Rooster Jack and his cohorts. Visible is still quite funny (it can’t help but be with these characters), but the jokes serve the story this time rather than the other way around. I don’t mean that to sound negative about the first book, because I laughed and laughed at it. It totally did it’s job. I’m just impressed that Hansen didn’t decide to go for more of the same. He stretched out and told a real story and it’s a good one. There may not be any flying whales, but there are goat-people and a crazy, old peasant woman who’d make Monty Python proud.

Chimichanga

Albatross Exploding Funny Book

Chimichanga #1 – First of all, the title makes me hungry. Second of all, it’s by Eric Powell. Third of all, it has a little bearded girl on the cover and she’s holding the enormous, clawed hand of some kind of monster. I don’t know why Dark Horse isn’t publishing this; I’m just glad it exists.

Alterna

Adam Wreck and the Kalosian Space Pirates – Yeah, they pretty much had me with “space pirates.” But I’ll also take “shipwrecked on a strange planet filled with stranger alien creatures.”

The Swiss Family Robinson

Campfire

The Swiss Family Robinson – Speaking of shipwrecks, I’m not sure how well this story will translate into comic form, but the pages from this preview are promising. The island looks inviting and I’m already jealous of the treehouse from just the little I can see on the front cover. And as everyone knows, the primary goal of any Swiss Family Robinson adaptation should be to make you jealous of the treehouse.

A Christmas Carol – The art’s a little less even on this one, but I quite like the way Naresh Kumar draws the three spirits. Looks better than the Robert Zemeckis adaptation anyway. Ultimately though, my curiosity about it is related to an unnatural fascination with Dickens’ original story and the choices people make when adapting it.

Martians, dinosaurs, talking gorillas, and more space pirates after the break.

Dark Horse

Hellboy: The Bride of Hell – Dark Horse is making it really hard to wait for the trade with their one-shot program. I’m guessing that these will all eventually be collected with other material from the same characters, but Hellboy vs. King Solomon’s going to be hard to be patient for.

Conan the Cimmerian: The Weight of the Crown – As will Darick Robertson’s doing Conan.

Empowered – I have yet to experience Empowered, but everyone whose opinion I trust tells me it’s fantastic. Given the traditional graphic novel-sized format of the series, this monthly-sized format seems like it’s the least likely of these three one-shots to be collected, but I’m trusting Dark Horse to do the right thing.

Martians Go Home

Martians Go Home#1 – Unless I missed something, this is the first project to come out of Dark Horse’s new, much-anticipated Sequential Pulp imprint. An adaptation of a classic ’50s paranoia scifi novel seems like a great place to start.

Jet Scott, Volume 1 – And speaking of ’50s scifi, here’s a reprint of some obscure Jerry Robinson material starring Jet Scott, Officer of Scientifact as he travels the world uncovering the truth behind scientific oddities. John Adcock’s got some scans of Jet Scott strips if you’re curious.

DC

Batman: The Brave and the Bold – One of the things I’ve missed most about monthly comics is reading Batman: The Brave and the Bold to my son. Time to play some catch-up.

Cartoon Network Action Pack #44

Cartoon Network Action Pack #44 – This isn’t normally a series that I pay a lot of attention to, but the cover has the Secret Saturdays facing off against a T-Rex and a styracosaurus, so it’s got my attention. Once I see John Rozum’s name in the credits and Samurai Jack in the list of stories, I’ve already got my money out.

Graphix

Good Neighbors, Book 2: Kith – I just got a review copy of this the other day and based on the strength of the first volume, it’s going straight to the top of the pile. Then again, anything drawn by Ted Naifeh goes straight to the top of the pile.

Missile Mouse, Book 1: The Star Crusher – One of my favorite bits from Flight Explorer gets his own series. And he’s fighting giant space slugs and shark-people.

God Complex

Image

God Complex #1 – Michael Avon Oeming’s always good for some quality fantasy and this series about the god Apollo hiding amongst modern-day mortals from his family sounds like a lot of fun. The first preview page in the catalog is pretty heavy on the captions, but there’s some big action on the next couple after that. This might be an unfair comparison (it’s probably just the main character’s beard and black shirt), but I’m picking up a Mage vibe from it that makes me especially eager to check it out.

Marvel

Spider-Man and the Secret Wars #1 – There are only a handful of people who could write this without my dismissing it as a sad attempt to cash in on ’80s nostalgia. Paul Tobin is one of those people, so regardless of Marvel’s motivation for revisiting the events, it’ll at least be a lot of fun. Plus: it’s only $2.99. The similar Clone Saga revisit is a buck more for the same number of pages.

Black Widow and the Marvel Girls #1 – Another $2.99 mini-series by Paul Tobin with a band name for a title. And it stars Black Widow in a series of apparently stand-alone stories as she teams up with other women. Thank you, Iron Man 2, for all the attention Natasha Romanova’s about to be getting.

Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign

Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign – Jeff Parker’s awesome series about the greatest super-team in the universe is one of the two comics I still buy every month, but if you’ve been waiting for the trade on it: here’s where it starts.

Oni

Crogan’s March – I haven’t read Crogan’s Vengeance yet, but I hear good things and can’t imagine why I wouldn’t thoroughly love it. Or its sequel about the French Foreign Legion and a flesh-eating cave-monster. Oni also mentions The Three Musketeers and Doc Savage as comparable adventures, so it has that going for it. Which is nice.

Red 5

Atomic Robo, Volume 3: Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time – The other of the two monthly comics I still buy gets a new collection. Santa’s being very nice this year.

Tony Raiola

Connie, Volume 1: Captives of the Space Pirates – Crap. They’ve figured out my weakness for space pirates. And obscure newspaper strips. And female adventurers. And Frank Godwin. Also, the sample pages in Connie‘s Wikipedia entry look awesome.

So, what did I miss? What are you looking forward to in December?

Fantagraphics shows off a page from John Pham’s forthcoming second volume of Sublife.

Dream Life

Artist Salgood Sam shares some pages from a project called Dream Life he’s working on. You can read more about the project here.

When I first started thinking about this list I figured that I’d find maybe a couple of interesting topic-focused panels and then have to pad the rest of the list with booth visits and a few publisher panels. After all, with San Diego’s increasingly becoming a Pop Media Con, how much room is still left for talking about comics? Well, quite a bit actually.

So much so that I’ve had to leave out a lot of good stuff in order to get this list down to six things. In fact, my original plan was to make a more comprehensive list that divided a lot more stuff into six general categories. The result was extremely busy though and some of the things I was most excited by got lost in the crowd. This then, is the really, really good stuff.

Crime!

1) Attend a panel on crime comics. Max Allan Collins, Darwyn Cooke, Greg Rucka, and Steve Lieber will be talking about the resurrection of the crime genre in comics on Thursday from 2:00 – 3:00 pm (Room 5AB). If they’d also gotten Ed Brubaker and Brian Azzarello, my head would’ve exploded.

2) Welcome Mike Mignola back to Hellboy. Mike Mignola’s Hellboy panels have been fairly movie-focused the last few years, but with no new film in sight and especially with Mignola’s returning to art duties on the series next year, Saturday’s panel (4:30 – 5:30 pm in Room 4) with editor Scott Allie should be the most exciting for comics fans that these have been in a long time.

History!

3) Attend a panel on historical graphic novels. There are a few graphic novel panels over the weekend that sound fascinating, but I’m limiting myself to two for this list. Tom Spurgeon’s hosting a general panel on graphic novels that sounds great if only because it’s hosted by Tom Spurgeon, but the one that really gets me excited is the historical graphic novels panel on Saturday from 5:00 – 6:00 pm (Room 8). You’ll either have to skip out of Mignola’s panel early or come to this one late, but you don’t want to miss Randy Duncan (co-chair of the Comics Arts Conference) talking to Rick Geary (Treasury of XX Century Murder: Famous Players), David Petersen (Mouse Guard), Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), Jason Lutes (Berlin), Chris Schweizer (Crogan’s Vengeance), and Eric Shanower (Age of Bronze) about their individual takes on history and how to portray it. I’d pay money just to listen to Shanower talk about that topic for an hour.

4) Wish Usagi a happy 25th birthday. Usagi Yojimbo’s creator Stan Sakai has a panel on Sunday from 12:30 – 1:30 pm (Room 8). In it, he’ll not only discuss the history of his awesome comic and his upcoming plans for it; he’ll also demonstrate his creative process step-by-step. Should be an unforgettable hour with this legendary creator.

Talking badgers with big ass guns!

5) Attend the Comics and Graphic Novels for All Ages Panel. There’s another panel earlier on Sunday about Graphic Novels for Kids, but the real gem is going to be from 1:30 – 2:30 pm (Room 3) with the broader-themed Comics and Graphic Novels for All Ages panel. Not only are the topics more wide-ranging (including periodical comics and grown-ups in the discussion), but the line-up of panelists is also can’t-miss. Randy Duncan again talks to Jimmy Gownley (Amelia Rules!), Kazu Kibuishi (Amulet), David Petersen (Mouse Guard), Eric Jones and Landry Walker (Supergirl, Little Gloomy), Jeff Smith (Bone), and Alexis Fajardo (Kid Beowulf).

6) Celebrate the joy of talking animals. I’m proclaiming Sunday to be Unofficial Comic-Con Talking Animal Day. From 3:30 – 4:30 pm (Room 3), Bryan Talbot will talk about the influences behind his upcoming, badger-with-a-gun, steampunk comic in a discussion called Grandville and the Anthropomorphic Comic Tradition.

All-Action Classics, Vol. 1: Dracula

All-Action Classics, Volume 1: Dracula
Written by Michael Mucci; Illustrated by Ben Caldwell
Sterling; $6.95

Adapting classic literature for a younger audience is tricky business. I mean, any kind of adaptation has its challenges, but taking a novel intended for adults of a century or two ago and making it exciting for modern kids has to be daunting as hell. Especially when that novel is Dracula, which has a difficult narrative style with all those journal entries and spends a lot of time building dread by prolonging events. It’s also violent and bloody.

I’m curious to see how Dynamite’s Complete Dracula handles the slower parts of the story. And how much use they’ll make of captions as opposed to letting dialogue and images tell the story. That’s got to be a hard job and Dynamite has the advantage of targeting an adult audience with presumably longer attention spans. Plus, lots of blood will be welcomed by grown-up vampire fans.

Not that younger readers don’t also appreciate lots of blood, but I imagine that some of their parents aren’t quite as excited about their being exposed to it. Michael Mucci and Ben Caldwell had some hard choices to make. Fortunately, they made all the right decisions and have created an adaptation that’s perfect for their audience – including grown-ups in the mood for a fast-paced, exciting version of Bram Stoker’s story.

The fearless vampire killers

Caldwell’s animation-inspired characters and settings look like concept art for what could be Disney’s Dracula. I hope I can say that as a compliment because Mucci’s script does anything but dumb the story down. The combined result isn’t much like a Disney film, but the art has the same level of quality. Jonathan Harker and Mina actually have more of a Rankin-Bass look to their designs. They’re fresher-faced and less exaggerated than the other characters, which is appropriate since they’re the readers’ entry to the story. They seem the most normal of the cast.

Renfield is fully convincing as both a kind, pitiful, old man and a violently energetic lunatic. Van Helsing is a comical old scientist with professorial facial hair and enormously bushy eyebrows. Dr. Jack Seward is a thin, fragile-looking man. You can tell just by looking at him that when he moves he’s very careful and measured. Caldwell draws aristocratic Arthur Holmwood with classical, almost effeminate features. He looks like he’s stepped off the side of an ancient Greek vase. Quincy Morris is a big-jawed Western hero with long, Wild Bill Hickok hair and moustache. I want to read a whole series of stories about Caldwell’s Quincy Morris. Lucy Westenra has dark, exotic features that make you believe all of these men would fall in love with her. Her looks also make her into a hauntingly seductive vampire once Dracula’s done with her.

I haven’t forgotten about Dracula. Caldwell’s version may just be my favorite representation yet. He strikes just the right balance between seductive and menacing. I’ve never seen anyone be able to pull that off before. Usually the Count is either horrendous and disfigured or he’s dapper and handsome. Caldwell’s design with its switch-thin frame and terrible, crooked teeth leans toward the horrendous, but Dracula’s body language conveys a confident, powerful, compelling presence. Caldwell’s Dracula can seduce, but it’s a seduction based on the vampire’s awful will rather than romance.

Enter freely and of your own will...

The lettering helps with this image too. The tails on Dracula’s word balloons don’t point straight at him like everyone else’s in the book. They curl and wind, suggesting a silky, hypnotic voice. And this is the book’s greatest strength. Not just the lettering, but the ability that the lettering and the character design and the colors and everything else has to quickly tell you what you need to know about each of these characters. There’s no need for long, tension-building scenes. The tension and the horror is all visual. That frees Mucci to spend his time hitting the action parts of the plot.

All-Action Dracula lives up to its name. Not that there aren’t scenes of people talking, but Caldwell juices those up too with interesting details and animated facial expressions. Mucci uses very few captions – mostly at the beginning and end as the story ramps up and finally settles down again – and even then he’s sparing about how many he allows into a panel. There’s nothing in comics I hate more than having to spend a lot of time reading captions on a page. Mucci didn’t make me do that, which is pretty impressive in a Dracula adaptation.

I’m curious now to explore some other comics adaptations of the story. Halloween’s coming, so I think I’ll see what I can dig up. Suggestions about specific versions are welcome in the comments. This is definitely the one to beat though. And at $6.95 for 128 pages, there won’t be any beating the price.

Five out of five Mad Renfields.

Fools! Slaves!

Chicken with Plums

Chicken with Plums
Written and Illustrated by Marjane Satrapi
Pantheon; $12.95

Chicken with Plums is a misleading title for a murder mystery, but it’s especially appropriate for the one Marjane Satrapi has created. Chicken with Death or Murder with Plums: then you know what you’re getting into. Satrapi sneaks up on you though. You think you’re reading a slice-of-life story about her great-uncle and then you realize that he’s about to die and you’ve got no idea why. The twist that he’s going to kill himself makes it that much more intriguing.

Nasser Ali Khan is a great musician in Iran, but when his wife destroys his tar in the latest of a series of escalating arguments, his efforts to replace the beloved instrument are fruitless. In despair, he takes to his bed and gives up on life, declaring that he’s going to die in a week, presumably from starvation since he won’t eat. He won’t even take his favorite meal (you only get one guess as to what that is), which I guess represents the joy of life that Nasser Ali Khan has now turned his back on.

It’s such an implausible scenario, but Satrapi pulls the reader along with a strong characters, a delightful voice, and subtle clues that there’s more to Nasser Ali Khan’s anguish than a broken frickin tar. Why is he really killing himself? There’s the mystery.

I showed the book to an artist friend of mine today and the first words out of her mouth were to express envy at Satrapi’s ability to convey so much in so few lines. Not that this is a unique ability, but Satrapi’s got it. Her work is exquisitely uncluttered. She only draws what needs to be there.

But at the same time, everything that has to be there is. Characters are distinct and Satrapi has a slew of emotions and personalities that she’s able to convey. This is vital because we need these characters to be real if we’re going to care about what happens to this man who – at face value – appears to be self-absorbed. Though he’s often angry, Nasser Ali Khan’s overwhelming sadness is obvious as well. I may not understand him (not at first anyway), but I pity him. And I especially pity the people in his life who care about him and – like me – aren’t sure what he’s trying to accomplish or why.

While she’s telling us about all of this, Satrapi interjects her own thoughts. She never knew Nasser Ali Khan, so she talks about his relatives whom she does know. She goes off on interesting little sidebars to relate stories about what happened to his kids and how his death affected them. It’s almost stream-of-consciousness the way she does it; very much like she’s with you, telling you the story in person. But she never lets things go too far off track and always comes back around to Nasser Ali Khan’s story before you become disinterested. She’s a masterful storyteller. I’m bumping Persepolis up in my reading queue after this.

None of this though would’ve made the book worth recommending had Satrapi not paid off the mystery so well. Had Nasser Ali Khan killed himself over his favorite instrument, the best art and the most charming narrative in the world wouldn’t have saved it for me. I guess if I was a hardcore musician I might have understood his motivations in that scenario, but I’m not. I need another incentive that I can relate to. Satrapi supplies it and it damn near broke my heart.

Five out of five Azraels.

Age of Bronze, Volume 2: Sacrifice

Age of Bronze, Volume 2: Sacrifice
Written and Illustrated by Eric Shanower
Image; $19.95

The second installment of Age of Bronze wasn’t at all what I expected. Volume One ended with a thousand (or so) Grecian ships sailing towards Troy, so I fully anticipated the battle to begin in Volume Two. Not so. But rather than allowing me to become frustrated at the delay, Eric Shanower used his 200-plus pages to build tension, keeping me completely immersed in the story the whole time. More so even than in the first collection.

Sacrifice begins with Agamemnon’s fleet headed toward Troy with young Achilles and his warriors leading the way. But things go horribly wrong when Achilles spots shore too early, over-eagerly lands the fleet, and attacks Troy’s southern neighbor Mysia by mistake. The people of Mysia, thinking they’re being menaced by pirates, fight back and are no slouches. Even one of the King’s wives is a former warrior-princess and pirate-fighter. Though – in true comic book fashion – both sides eventually realize that they’re not actually enemies, they also both experience massive casualties. The Greeks are hit hard enough that they’re forced to return home for reinforcements. And with winter coming, they won’t be able to start for Troy again for at least another year.

I have to admit I was disappointed when Agamemnon decided to lead his fleet back home, but Shanower keeps things moving in a variety of ways. One of the best things about a story this epic is that there are multiple plots to bounce between, so while the Greeks are sailing Shanower can cut to Troy and let us see how Helen – just arrived with her new husband Paris – is being received.

Xena, horror, and more of that brat Achilles below the jump.

This was a crucial part of the story for me, by the way. I said when I talked about Volume 1 that my biggest problem with the Trojan War story has always been Helen. Why would so many Greeks go to Troy over her? Why would Priam, King of Troy, sacrifice so many lives to keep her? It’s never made sense to me.

Shanower convincingly explained Greece’s side of it in Volume One and touched on Priam’s, but he goes deeper into Priam’s motivations in Volume Two. Adding to the Trojan king’s arrogance and thirst for revenge, Shanower reveals him to be kind of a letch as well. And it’s how Shanower does this that I love so much. He never comes right out and says that Priam wants to boink Helen; he just has Priam spend a lot of time near her, touching her every chance he gets. Add to that Paris and Helen’s claim that Helen is carrying a future heir of Troy and there’s enough reason for Priam to let Helen stick around for a while.

I’m curious if Helen actually is pregnant, and even if she is, what Priam’s going to do when the child is born (he’s already shown himself willing to send Helen back while keeping her and Paris’ older child in Troy). Homer’s already spoiled what Priam’s decision’s going to be, but – like with everything else about Age of Bronze – I’m curious to see how Shanower explains the motivations behind the actions. Will Priam’s lust for Helen be enough to condemn Troy to war?

As important as they are to the epic, events in Troy actually take up a small amount of space in Sacrifice. Most of the story is devoted to Agamemnon and his fragile leadership as the Greeks’ high king. As soon as the ships get back to Greece, many of them scatter and return home to be with their families. Agamemnon’s got a difficult task in bringing them back together and he relies on two men to help get it done, though he’s resentful of having to rely on one of them.

Palamedes is a prince and natural leader. The Greeks look to him and rely on him and that makes Agamemnon nervous. We don’t get to know Palamedes well enough to know what his ambitions (if any) are, but Agamemnon’s distrustful and that creates a tense political situation in camp.

The high king is much more enthusiastic about using Odysseus’ skills as a tactician and diplomat. So much so that he continually refuses Odysseus’ requests to go home to Ithaka before the army sails again. Though Agamemnon is trusting, this creates more tension because we don’t know how long Odysseus is going to put up with it or what he’ll do once he’s had enough. Or, rather we do know (thanks again to Homer), but Shanower’s characterization of these people is so strong that we get wrapped up in them and forget that we know what’s coming.

The most heart-wrenching tension though is in the events from which the book gets its title. Even once the Greek army is gathered again, winds are making it impossible for them to set sail for Troy. According to the oracles, Artemis has set herself against Agamemnon and the only way to regain her favor is to sacrifice his fourteen-year-old daughter. I wouldn’t dream of revealing the outcome, but I will say that Agamemnon reacts exactly as a father would. Speaking as a dad, the horror of Agamemnon’s position feels one-hundred per cent genuine. Shanower never cheats. He never lets Agamemnon off the emotional hook. It’s painful to read, with your own emotions rising and falling with each attempt to save young Iphigenia and each foiling thereof. I won’t say more about that except to note that when Achilles gets involved I actually started liking him again.

I’ve always liked Achilles, but Shanower’s version is a young, impetuous brat. He was that way in Volume One and grows even more irresponsible in the early parts of this volume, but damn if he doesn’t turn out to be outright heroic by the end. I suspect that Shanower’s taking us on a journey as Achilles becomes the hero history portrays him as. I hope that’s the case. I can’t wait to find out.

Five out of five pirate-hunting warrior-princesses.

Matthew Shepherd, Michael Shoyket and David Hedgecock rework a few pages from Captain Blood to address the problems independent comics have with distribution, ultimately asking readers to “demand more from comics.” And, in one panel, not to download comics … which seemed very unpirate-like.

Strongman

Strongman
Written by Charles Soule; Illustrated by Allen Gladfelter
SLG; $9.95

I said in the weekend’s What Are You Reading that I wasn’t sure what to make of the lucha libre genre. “I can easily embrace the sillier aspects of it,” I said, “but it’s off-putting to me that people in the stories always seem to take the luchadors so seriously. We’re asked to believe that the ridiculous masks are badges of honor that command respect. Strongman plays around with that idea and I appreciate that about it.”

Having finished the book, I’m not sure that “plays around with” is the right verb. What Strongman seems to do is acknowledge the irony of the concept, but ends up defending it. As writer Charles Soule says in the press release for the book, “The real-life luchadors were incredible, larger-than-life figures. They were basically real-world superheroes – many of them never took their masks off in public. These people were big deals. And I thought a story that played with their legend a bit, while remaining respectful could be something special.” Okay, so Soule uses “played with” too. Maybe that is what he’s doing. I’m not the best person to judge.

As an outsider to the lucha libre world, I see movie titles like Mil Máscaras vs. the Aztec Mummy and Santo vs. the Vampire Women and I think, “Awesome!” I’m not however thinking about how much I respect El Santo and Mil Máscaras. I mean, no more than I respect Indiana Jones or Batman.

More plus Robot 13 below the cut.

The Bat.

But here’s where I have to acknowledge that my status as an outsider to this culture plays a huge role. El Santo and Mil Máscaras were real people. And though they may not have fought actual Aztec Mummies and Vampire Women, they were huge cultural icons and inspired a lot of people. I have a hard time dismissing or winking at that, so I can only imagine that someone like Soule – who’s immersed himself much deeper in it than I ever will – wants to treat it with some dignity. And he does.

And, indeed, something special was the result.

Strongman is the story of a former masked wrestler named Tigre. In his prime, he was up there with El Santo and Mil Máscaras. But tragedy struck in the early ‘70s and for the past thirty-five years he’s been living in New York and letting younger, more popular wrestlers beat him up for booze money. That is until a young, Mexican girl finds him and asks him to play the hero again for her by stopping a ring of organ traffickers who prey specifically on her and Tigre’s people.

Through the story, Tigre has to wrestle (sorry) with his current self-image and his memories of the past. Was he ever that heroic? The tragedy of 1973 casts that into doubt. He vividly remembers fighting Martians and bug-men, but those were just movies, weren’t they? How can he strive to regain something that he’s not that sure he ever had in the first place?

I will look...

That’s the beauty of the story. Soule and artist Allen Gladfelter have created a thoroughly pathetic character, but keep dangling just enough hope in front of him that readers will root for him anyway. Even deciding to help the girl is a huge step for Tigre. If he can do that, maybe he can overcome the numerous other obstacles in his way as well. But just when we start to believe that, something disastrous occurs to send Tigre spiraling down again. This happens more than once, and it’s an emotional thrill to get pulled along with it.

Gladfelter is a great artist for the story. Though Strongman has a ton of heart to it, in essence it’s a mystery-thriller and Gladfelter draws dynamic and exciting action sequences. At the same time though, everything looks very real. This isn’t a superhero story. It couldn’t be. It would be stupid if it tried. Strongman is absolutely grounded in reality and Soule’s description of luchadors as “real-world superheroes” is vitally important to its success.

In thinking about my initial ignorance of lucha libre, I wondered if there might not have been another genre this story could have been told in that would have connected more easily with me. It took some research for me to realize why someone might take luchadors seriously. A lucha libre fan is going to pick that up about Strongman right away, but if you’re like me you might not get it so quickly. Could the same story be told without masked, Mexican wrestlers?

Real?

I’ve decided that it can’t. I can’t think of another place where masked heroics and the real-world intersect so perfectly. I can see someone trying to tell this story with superheroes, but I can’t imagine it working. It would be just another of the countless attempts to validate superheroes by making them “realistic.” By choosing the lucha libre genre, Soule and Gladfelter have created something unique and special indeed. I wish that I’d connected to it more quickly, but that’s a minor irritation; not a valid criticism.

The only real complaint I have about the book is that I don’t really buy the ending. The events that have to occur in order to get that last page are either rushed through, completely implausible, or both. However, by the time I got there I had already enjoyed the journey enough that a last couple of faltering steps didn’t bother me so much.

Four out of five masked gatecrashers.

Gatecrasher

Robot 13 #1

Robot 13 #1
Written by Thomas Hall; Illustrated by Daniel Bradford
Blacklist; $3.00

You can’t help but compare Daniel Bradford’s art on Robot 13 to Mike Mignola. The influence is too obvious. And really, if you’re going to be obviously influenced by someone, I’d rather it be Mike Mignola than pretty much anyone else. But I hope it’s not a surprise or an insult to say that Daniel Bradford is no Mike Mignola. He’s very good at imitating the style and the colors, but I think I’ll enjoy him more once he finds his own groove. His work already has a sense of humor that breaks the boundaries of his inspiration, so I know it’s coming. I’m looking forward to it.

As for the story, it’s always tough to tell from one issue, but Robot 13 is off to a great start. It’s mostly action as the skull-headed robot is accidentally dragged from the bottom of the sea and has to save a fishing boat from an enormous cephalopod, but there are enough hints at 13′s mysterious background and teases about his future to make me want to see what happens next. The action is fun and inventive too, and at only three bucks for 24 pages, it’s a bargain to boot.

Four out of five anchors to the eyeball.

hruh?

The Apocalipstix

The Apocalipstix, Volume 1
Written by Ray Fawkes; Illustrated by Cameron Stewart
Oni; $11.95

I first encountered the world’s greatest post-apocalyptic band in the Rumble Royale anthology from Canada’s Royal Academy of Illustration and Design. There was a Sam Hiti story in it I wanted, but it also introduced me to The Apocalipstix (and Chip Zdarsky, but that’s another story). It’s well worth tracking down.

Much easier to get is Oni’s publication of the further adventures of The Apocalipstix. The band is sort of the Mad Max version of Josie and the Pussycats. The world has ended in nuclear fire, but that’s not stopping Mandy, Dot, and Meg from going on tour. The End-of-the-World Tour, they call it. The book is made up of three stories, each of which more or less stands on its own, but are all loosely tied together by the context of the girls’ tour.

Mandy

The first story pits them against a gang of road warriors that have stolen Dot’s bass. The second tale has the girls on a picnic, which of course attracts ants. Giant ones. The last story covers a huge battle of the bands for the prize of enough gas to get to California (which is rumored to be green and fertile).

This isn’t deep stuff. The watchword for Apocalipstix is “fun” and Fawkes and Stewart deliver that in abundance. The band is over-the-top awesome and the kind of girls who – while possessing no explicit super-powers – don’t have any qualms about going fist-to-mandible with a colony of monster ants.

That said, the girls themselves are fantastic and have wonderful, clearly defined personalities. Mandy is the guitarist and bandleader. The whole band is tough, but Mandy is the fearless action-hero, She’s always the first into a fight and the last woman standing.

Dot

I’m tempted to continue the Josie comparison and call Dot the Melodie of the group, but though she is blonde, carefree, and the most “girly,” she’s not especially ditzy. You can’t help but love Dot and her optimism. She’s the only one who’ll happily eat from the two-thousandth can of peaches the girls have opened when the other two would rather have anything else.

Meg (short for Megumi) is the drummer. She’s the most serious of the bunch, but that’s because her entire country was obliterated in the nuclear destruction. As far as she knows, she’s the last Japanese person alive. Not that she’s especially dour or anything. She loves the band and the adventure as much as the other two. She’s a little quicker to complain, but it’s always with a smirk. She’s got a great, dry sense of humor. I’m pretty much in love with her.

My only complaint about the book is that Meg only speaks Japanese and always gets first a Japanese word balloon, then a caption box with the English translation. I kept looking at the Japanese first and that slowed me down, but eventually I learned to ignore that and just read the captions. Still, I wonder if maybe there’s not a less distracting way of getting across that she’s speaking another language.

Meg

Stewart’s illustrations enhance Fawkes’ strong characterization. Mandy always looks extremely confident. Dot is forever wide-eyed, whether from fear or excitement. Meg is permanently cool. But it’s also Stewart’s drawings that give the book its humor and excitement. I mean, the dialogue is funny, but Stewart has to deliver the gags with body language and facial expressions and he does it perfectly. His action sequences are also powerful and excellently choreographed.

I also need to say that this is one of the few music-themed comics I’ve read where the lack of actual music to listen to didn’t get in my way. Usually, I see an image of a band onstage and read some lyrics and I’m left with the disappointing truth that this isn’t a real band and I’ve got no idea if I’d actually like their music a lot. That’s not the case with the Apocalipstix. Whether it’s the energy assault that Stewart gives their performances or just that he and Fawkes have fully convinced me that these fan-freaking-tastic girls really are the greatest rock band in the world, I was able to sit in my otherwise silent room and rock out to the music this comic put into my head.

Five out of five mutant rock concerts.

Get... RRRRROCKINNNN!!!

Robot 13 cover

Writer Thomas Hall and artist Daniel Bradford have worked together since 2003, and in a few short weeks they’ll publish a new title that really caught my eye when I received an email about it. Making its debut at the 2009 MoCCA Festival, which is presented every year by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York, is the first issue of Robot 13. It’s the story of an amnesiac robot who fights mythological creatures of destruction.

With a title like that, how could I not do an interview with Hall to find out more about Robot 13?

JK: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me. Can you give us a little bit of info on your background, like how you got into comics and when you decided you wanted to write them?

Tom: As far back as I can remember, I have always loved comics. Like a lot of kids, the first comics I ever had were given to me- some Archies, a few Legion of Superheroes books and a few Marvel books. One that I was obsessed with was an issue of the Incredible Hulk by John Buscema. I was three, and I stared at that thing all the time, and I don’t know to this day exactly why. My dad read it to me, and I asked him how he knew what everyone was saying. He explained word balloons to me, and being three and naive, I asked him where the words came from. When he told me that it was someone’s job to write comics, even at three it just blew my mind. From that point on, I wanted to be a writer of some kind.

alternate cover by Jeff Slemons

As I got older, I thought that doing comics would be great, but I wasn’t sure that it was realistic. In high school, I discovered mini-comics, and I started making my own with my brother and photocopying them and selling them to kids in school. By the time I was in college, I met a few people who were into making their own comics, so I got into doing DiY stuff- I was in some anthologies, and I was writing and drawing and doing whatever I could in my spare time to do comics. Around that time, the Internet was just starting to become a way people started to connect and do comics, so I started finding people all over who did their own thing, and my interest continued.

When I met Daniel, though, I found someone who shared the same drive I did and who I got along with and saw eye to eye with creatively. That’s where everything gelled, and we decided to make a serious push to do comics in a more serious and professional way than I had up to that point. It was all a learning experience, though. I had to follow that journey and make a lot of bad comics and a few not so bad ones to grow to where I am. And I am still learning. We all do, I guess.

from Robot 13 #1

JK: How did you and artist Daniel Bradford meet?

Thomas: Daniel did a comic that I saw online and really loved. I thought he HAD to be a professional, so I wrote him basically a fan letter, and I told him how great his comic was and I slipped in there that I would love to write something for him. Little did I know that he had done far less in the way of comics than I had at that point, and he had read something I did and was interested in working with ME. We talked about what we wanted to do, and the kinds of influences we had, and we started to get to work. But the first two years we worked together, everything was emails and phone calls. We didn’t meet until the San Diego Comic Con in 2005. It’s amazing how closely you can work with someone on opposite sides of the country.

JK: What do you do when you aren’t making comics? Do you have a day job?

Thomas: I am a purchasing agent for an architectural lighting company. I buy all the parts and pieces that make up our lighting fixtures. It’s a totally different job than writing comics, but it’s a lot of dealing with vendors, solving problems and negotiating… it’s different every day, and it’s a good “alter ego” for me to have outside of comics.

from Robot 13 #1

JK: The art, and the story too actually, in the first issue of Robot 13 seem to be influenced by Mike Mignola’s work. Who else would you consider an influence, on the book and on your writing in general?

Thomas: Every time I write a story, I like to sit down and do some research. Robot 13 was influenced by a number of things– Greek mythology was a big part, as was Mary Shelley, but there were some movie influences as well. Ray Harryhausen was big, as were some of the Gojira movies. I am a massive fan of that stuff– it’s amazing to me how well-written some of the original films were. Our dubbed versions don’t do the Japanese movies justice, because they were more concerned with moving the story along rather than being accurate to the original intent of the stories. Originally, I wanted to name him “Robot 13” because it had the sound of something from a Japanese sci-fi movie.

As far as my writing in general– I guess I like a lot of older writers. Edgar Allen Poe, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Flannery O’Connor … I like good writers who really know how to bend words to do their will. It’s inspiring.

from Robot 13 #1

JK: How have you been publicizing the book? You guys have a table at MoCCA, right?

Thomas: Well, it used to be that there were a handful of main print sources for comics information, and if you wanted to publicize your book and have people know about it, you had to get their attention. Today, those things still exist, but the internet has made everything far less centralized and free flowing. Yes, there are “big” sites, and we have reached out to many of them and we have been getting a great response so far, but there are SO many avenues out there now. We have made ourselves available to a lot of the podcasts and blogs out there who have been interested, and will keep doing that. We have our own website, and Robot 13 has it’s own Myspace page and a ComicSpace page, and you can even follow Robot 13 on Twitter. We are using everything at our disposal to get the word out.

Internet aside, we are also making appearances. MoCCA will be a big one this year- we will have a table where people can be the first anywhere to get Robot 13, along with other Robot 13 stuff and some of Daniel’s artwork and prints. We plan on doing some West Coast shows as well. Things will be busy for Blacklist Studios, you can be sure.

JK: And finally, it’s a question we’ve been asked … what happened to the other 12 robots?

Thomas: Our story has evolved since we started working on Robot 13 over a year ago. In our early drafts, yes, we did intent for Robot 13 to be one in a series of robots which had been developed. There would have been a battle between Robot 13 and the “new” model Robot 23, but things have totally changed. We scrapped the whole back story and came up with something we like far better.

In the current incarnation, the “13” means something far different. It’s a marking on his forehead and not a model number. How that marking got there and what it means is part of the secret of who Robot 13 is. I’d love to tell you more about that, but I can’t spoil the surprise.

Charlatan: Preludes

Charlatan: Preludes
Written by Gil Lawson; Illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia
General Jinjur; $14.95

I don’t think I’m a superhero fan anymore. Not as a genre anyway. I still have my favorite Marvel and DC characters, but I’m fond of them because I grew up with them and want to keep reading about them. By themselves, costumed heroes aren’t enough to get me immediately interested in a new story. In fact, whenever I hear about a new superhero comic from a new publisher, I have a hard time paying attention. If the word “universe” is mentioned, I pretty much write it off. Isn’t it conventional wisdom by now that new superhero universes are an automatic fail anyway? No one but Marvel and DC has really been able to sustain one for very long.

I’m doubtful that the Charlatan universe (called the Jinjurverse by its creators) is going to be the one to break that pattern. There’s reason for hope in this first volume, Preludes, but history is against it and the book is flawed enough to make me skeptical about its chance of success. That’s too bad in a way, because there are also some very nice things about Preludes that make me want to see it do well.

The Halfords

Charlatan is the story of a young family faced with a sudden, impossible decision. Augie and Mary Halford are a likable couple with a sweet little daughter named Lucy. Augie’s kind of a slacker, but Mary is patient and not opposed to kicking her husband’s butt every once in a while to get him moving in the right direction. Lucy’s a joy. Not just to her parents, but also to me as a reader. She’s kind and funny, but not too mature for her age. A real, delightful little girl.

In the first third of the book, writer Gil Lawson spends just enough time helping us get to know the Halfords without letting the story drag. Pretty quickly, Augie and Lucy are attacked on the way to Lucy’s school by some kind of enormous, alien robot. A tough, blue-skinned alien eventually shows up to help defeat the robot, but not before Lucy slips her lovey – an old piece of jewelry she found in the backyard – around her daddy’s neck, transforming him into a powerful being of light.

Once the battle’s over, the alien explains that the robot was after someone called the One Defender, a sort of celestial messiah who appears every so often as a different person in order to defend the universe against those who would destroy it. In a Terminator-like move, the robot wanted to kill the One Defender before she was powerful enough to defend herself. That’s right: “she.”

The One Defender

For the first time in history, the One Defender is a human: Lucy Halford. That’s where Augie and Mary’s awful decision comes in. Once convinced that the entire universe is truly at stake, do they let the aliens take their daughter away to train her for her new role? It’s an intriguing dilemma that Lawson and artist Eliseu Gouveia present very well. The Halfords and their relationships with each other are so grounded and real that I became emotionally invested in them and their decision.

Making it even more interesting is the mystery of why Augie is given power by the necklace. The aliens note that he’s not nearly as powerful as the One Defender would be, but they also admit that this has never happened before. Why is Augie different? Even more than the mystery, I love the idea that Augie is kind of standing in as an inferior, superhero regent for his daughter until she’s able to take the One Defender role on for herself. If – that is – Augie and Mary agree to the aliens’ plan.

Unfortunately, it’s shortly after the book’s central conflict is revealed that the story starts to stall. Augie and Lucy are taken to the aliens’ homeworld where Augie is given the complete history of the One Defender. Pages and pages are spent on exposition and Augie’s arguing with the aliens about Lucy’s destiny. The aliens prefer to have Augie’s blessing because it’ll be better for Lucy’s emotional wellbeing if she’s given up willingly. It’s not until the last third of the book that the story picks up again as Mary is reintroduced to the storyline and a final decision has to be made.

"He must willingly surrender the child."

Apparently only one parent needs to sign off on the training, so if Augie won’t do it then the aliens hope Mary will. I don’t quite get that and it’s one of a couple of important questions the book leaves unanswered. If the point is Lucy’s emotional and mental health, how does potentially turning her parents against each other serve that?

I’m giving Lawson the benefit of the doubt and noticing a possible, unspoken explanation. Perhaps the aliens don’t truly care about Lucy’s welfare. That may have been the original rationale for requiring parental consent, but by this point the aliens may just be seeking permission because their tradition demands it. There’s only slight evidence for that in the story, but it’s a valid, possible reading. One of my other unanswered questions involves a spoiler, so I’ll leave that alone, but there are other flaws as well. Why, for instance, don’t Augie and Mary have the option of staying in space with Lucy to oversee her training? We’re not told.

The art’s okay, but it improves dramatically the further it gets from depicting people. Gouveia has a great imagination and comes up with some very cool designs for alien technology and architecture. There are also a few, not-so-humanoid aliens that are also nice, but his people look plastic, out of proportion, and their clothes don’t really fit or drape the way they’re supposed to.

Those are some form-fitting robes

Lucy calls her lovey/necklace “Toadums,” which doesn’t make any sense (it’s a generic, circular amulet; not at all toad-like) until you realize that it’s actually a “totem.” It’s an overly cute gag that doesn’t work logically.

My biggest concern about the book though is something that’s pretty easy to ignore in Preludes, but has an overshadowing effect on my anticipation of future volumes. That’s the teasing of the Jinjurverse. Scattered throughout Preludes are throwaway scenes that have nothing to do with the Halfords’ problem, but show various other costumed heroes and villains back on Earth doing what costumed heroes and villains do. Maybe these scenes actually are closely connected to the Halfords and the One Defender, but you can’t tell it from reading the book. It just comes across as an attempt to quickly expand the universe for the sequel. The trouble is that we’re not told enough about any of these other characters to care about them. And that’s directly related to my problem with quickly developed superhero universes in the first place.

Lawson and Gouveia seem committed to the development of the Jinjurverse, but I’d much prefer a series that focused squarely on the Halfords. Their story needs some tightening around the middle, but it’s a solid story all by itself. Adding to it just for the sake of adding to it accomplishes nothing. It only waters down the good story that’s already there. Superhero universes for the sake of superhero universes also accomplish nothing. They only increase the noise level so that you’re distracted from what you really want to read about. Wouldn’t it be better to let the Halfords tell their story and then spin off other concepts – if there’s a demand – as they organically develop from the main plot?

If you’re going to try to introduce a new superhero concept to the market, you’ve got to have a strong story to tell. Superheroes for their own sake won’t get you readers. Charlatan has a strong story to tell, if only Lawson and Gouveia will hone in and tell it well, without being sidetracked by the desire to build a franchise at the same time.

Two out of five enormous alien robots.

Enormous alien robot

Warlord of Io and Other Stories

Warlord of Io
Written and Illustrated by James Turner
SLG; $3.95

Writers like Jeff Parker, Matt Fraction, Fred Van Lente, and Paul Tobin rightfully deserve to be at the top of the People Who Make Awesome list, but they get something of an advantage by being able to throw stuff like the Hulk or MODOK or Galactus into their stories. Not that it’s an unfair advantage. These guys got to play with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s toys by first showing what they could do with the stuff in their own rooms. But right up there with them has to be James Turner.

He may not have the exposure of those other guys, but he’s no less Rip-Your-Brain-Out-Of-Your-Head-Because-You-Won’t-Need-It-Anymore-After-This Awesome. If you’ve read Rex Libris, you know what I’m talking about, but baby he was just getting warmed up there. Warlord of Io and Other Stories has five stories in it and they’re all fantastic.

Half of it is the first chapter of the “Warlord of Io” story. I thought this was going to be a self-contained one-shot, but I’m happy to be wrong about that because I really want to read more of it. It’s about a boy named Zing who just wants to be a rock star, but unfortunately has to take over ruling the moon-world when his father Emperor Zoz suddenly decides to retire to the Pleasure Domes of Zur with Enormous Breasted Space Amazons in Zero Gravity. What’s a poor little Crown Prince to do?

Hopping Robofish Guardbots

His best friend Moxy Comet has some ideas, but they’re going to get Zing into trouble with the Imperial Ion Hub of Noble Generals, a cabal of warmongerers who really don’t care for Zing and Moxy’s new policies. It sort of reminded me of Lady Jane, but with Hopping Robofish Guardbots and Tiki Pirates. I loved Lady Jane, but man would it ever have been better with some Tiki Pirates.

The Tiki Pirates don’t actually appear in the “Warlord” story – they’re mentioned as background to one of Moxy’s adventures – but lucky for us Turner doesn’t just throw something that awesome out there without doing anything with it. There’s a great Tiki Space Warrior pin-up on the back cover and the Tiki Pirates actually do show up to menace Earth in a one-page story starring Supreme Commander Dan. Their “most terrible weapon”: The Dread Buttocks Beast. What other comic is going to offer you dialogue like, “Nuke that giant butt!” You show it to me and I’ll read it.

The other three stories are “Hell Lost,” “The Democrat of Globcorp,” and “Tales of the Inanimate Chair.” That last one is pretty self-explanatory, so I’ll leave it for you to discover. “Hell Lost” follows a demonic cop with a desk job as he suffers through endless paperwork and the gloating of a rival detective who has tickets to the Hitler vs. Stalin Smackdown Match. Even considering that he’s in Hell this poor schmuck has a relatively rotten deal, but Turner doesn’t do bleak and this story’s no exception. Our Officer Muk eventually will have his day, but even if he doesn’t it’s great fun watching him persistently endure all that his miserable life throws at him.

"Hell Lost"

“The Democrat of Globocorp” is a steampunk story brought to you by the Lacunan Foundation. It offers us the story of an employee on his first day at Globocorp. It’s fun watching Percival Proll take the dirigible to work and ride the elevator down from the roof of the Globocorp Tower to the office of the President. It’s even more fun watching Proll discuss Globocorp’s company values with his new boss. I’d tell you more about it, but that would ruin the gag. And it’s a good gag.

Oh, yeah. I didn’t tell you that there’s also a map. Turner is famous for his insanely detailed maps and there’s one on the inside front cover, right before the “Warlord” story. It’s a map of the Jupiter Subsystem that includes Io and about fifty-thousand other features – both on/in Jupiter and in orbit around it – like the Polyp Behemoths and Space Mall III. Once you’re done reading the comic, you can make up a gazillion other stories on your own just looking at the map.

Five out of five Tiki Pirates.

Tiki Pirates!