Some Things

Mini Marvels: Rock, Paper, Scissors by Chris Giarrusso

2008-07-25T18:41:00.002-04:00

How come we never talked about cute in my philosophy classes?

For years now, Marvel Comics has published backup stories in some of their comics called Mini Marvels. Chris Giarrusso writes and illustrates these backups, and has been doing strips and full page comics of these sort for Marvel since 1999. (Incidentally, you can click the above link to check out some of his very earliest strips from that time period) Just about every time a comic comes out with a Mini Marvels backup in it, our staff at the comic book shop stops everything to read them. Then we laugh hysterically and go back to work, smiling and a bit happier for it.

Now, Marvel has collected these Mini Marvels comics into one convenient digest. It’s adorable, it’s entertaining, and it’s funny, to boot. Sometimes, the comics are about younger, more innocent-minded versions of the familiar Marvel superheroes. Spider-Man delivers newspapers for the Daily Bugle, for example, instead of taking pictures. Venom is still Spider-Man’s enemy…but only in the sense that they’re competing newspaper delivery boys. (Also, Venom tends to say ‘I want to eat your brains’…in every single panel he’s in.) Other times, they’re willful parodies of ongoing, big Marvel events.

It’s the slight alterations Chris Giarrusso provides that make the Mini Marvels so adorable and at the same time such great, loving parody. In regular Marvel continuity, a top secret group of powerful superheroes called the Illuminati (named after the secret society) make the decision to send the Hulk into outer space. The Mini Marvels version of the Illuminati is the worst kept secret in history (they hold their meeting in Avengers kitchen), and Hawkeye continually refers to them as the Illuminators (even though he’s not supposed to know they exist). They ultimately make the decision to send the Hulk away because he eats Namor’s sandwich.

There are a lot of inside jokes, naturally, and a lot of references to Marvel stuff in the background that will make you smile. But the book works so well because it doesn’t rely on continuity. The jokes work because they’re just funny. The art carries the book, and Giarrusso works a lot of funny into every single panel.

This book doesn’t collect every single Mini Marvels comic. In fact, there’s quite a bit of stuff left out. But everything in this particular volume was written and drawn by Chris Giarrusso, and I wonder if the plan might be to release another volume later with the stuff that others did the writing chores on. I hope so! In particular, the Civil Wards story that Marc Sumerak wrote was a standout.

Mini Marvels: Rock, Paper, Scissors is a no-brainer. If you like smiling, you should buy this book. It’s so much fun, I’m sure I’ll lend it to just about everyone I know, and they’ll all get a kick out of it. And you will too. Highly, highly recommended.

My favorite part:

3-D Man shows up!! Woo!! Also, any line that Hawkeye has in the entire book is hysterical. Or maybe it’s the line “That was a haiku, chumps!” Gosh, there’s just an awful lot to love here…just go buy it.

Realty Check by Piers Anthony

2008-07-24T21:27:00.002-04:00

So, uh…how about those tesseracts, eh?

Piers Anthony has written a lot of books. Like, obscene amounts of books. Seriously, the dude’s just prolific. Chances are if you like fantasy and science fiction, you’ve heard of him and probably read him. His books are creative and interesting and you always know there will be more like it, because he has written so many friggin’ books.

Additionally Piers Anthony seems eminently approachable. Most of his books feature Author’s Notes at the end that are at least as long as a chapter, and he is known for addressing his readers directly within these sections. That’s admirable.

All of this is to say: Piers Anthony, to all appearances, is a cool dude with a ton of great ideas and a deep love for writing. Anyone that prolific is bound to pump out a few books that aren’t at their highest caliber of writing.

Realty Check is just such a book. Though it’s a light, highly readable novel, there’s nothing here you haven’t seen before. Penn and Chandelle are an apparently retired couple looking for a new home. They luck onto the deal of a lifetime: A free month’s rent with no lease, and no requirements.

The house seems to know what they like; the fridge is fully stocked, and the closets are pre-stocked with clothes that fit them perfectly. The back door opens onto a forest that isn’t really there (what?) and the front door can apparently take them to any major city in the world. By this point in time, if I'm Penn or Chandelle, I'm out the door. Strangely, they don’t seem that bothered. It’s just a mystery to them, and they recruit Lynn and Lloyd, their grandchildren, to help them solve it.

I want to mention again: This was an entertaining read. I enjoyed reading about the discoveries they’d make, how the house kept score, and about the fantastic inventions they found in the attic (or hell, how they found the attic in the first place). But at the end of my read I found myself disappointed. The characters felt flat. Things happened simply for the sake of convenience. A surprisingly large amount of typos made their way past the copy editors, which I wouldn’t ordinarily point out if there hadn’t been so many of them.

At some point a character suddenly has a fake credit card. The only explanation give is as follows, and this is a direct quote: “getting that had been a neat trick.”

Really? If it was so neat, I’d probably like to read about it!

It’s these kinds of things that make this book one of my least favorite Piers Anthony novels. Fun to read, certainly a nice distraction…but certainly not one of his best. I’d skip this one.

My favorite (just try to imagine your grandfather saying this to you while the guy is standing right there) bit:

“He finds you appealing. Do you object, Lynn?”

Terror Inc. by David Lapham and Patrick Zircher

2008-07-23T23:24:00.001-04:00

Do we ever remember former lovers the way they truly were?

Terror Inc. features a relatively unknown character named Terror created for Marvel’s Epic line in the 80s. Epic Comics produced such works as Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar, and though they were mostly creator owned comics, characters such as Terror, who could steal people’s abilities by absorbing their limbs, would eventually be integrated into the mainstream Marvel universe (and promptly underused).

(Epic Comics also produced such gems as Elektra: Assassin and Meltdown, featuring Havoc and Wolverine. Good stuff.)

This version of Terror Inc. collects the five issue miniseries by the esteemed David Lapham, with art by Patrick Zircher. Lapham is most famous for Stray Bullets, a fantastic series he both writes and draws. He is also currently doing the writer/artist thing on Vertigo’s Young Liars, a promising new book on their line which will hopefully help fill the void being left by the multitude of fantastic Vertigo books which have ended or will end soon. Patrick Zircher is somewhat of a Marvel Comics workhorse. He drew runs on Thunderbolts, Cable & Deadpool, and Iron Man, among others. His work here stands out for its intensity and its stark contrast to his superhero work.

Here’s what you need to know in a nutshell. Terror—Mr. Terror now, actually—has been alive for a long, long time. More than 1500 years, to be precise. Due to a horrible curse, he can’t exactly die, but his body is cursed to decay. Very, very rapidly. The good news is, he can swap his body parts out for other, more fresh ones. This leads to some truly gruesome (and awesome) portions of the book, as Mr. Terror constantly rips off people’s limbs to replace his own.

There’s more to Mr. Terror’s back story, a hideous bit involving love, magic, and even more ripping off of limbs, but those are best experienced first hand. The story takes place in the present, which affords Mr. Terror plenty of opportunities to get shot, blown up, smashed in a car, etc… In fact this is as good a time as any to point out that Terror Inc. is GORY. This is a horror comic, one which does not shy away from the best of the squeamish bits. There’s a bit of blood on every page, and if there isn’t blood, there’s a nipple, (and if there isn’t either, you’re reading the wrong book).

The ideas behind this story could, in lesser hands, be ridiculous and over the top. In fact, this book IS ridiculous and over the top. But that’s part of the charm; it’s controlled over the top, if that even makes sense. These gentlemen know what they’re doing, and they do it well. David Lapham is a master story teller, and Patrick Zircher’s art creates an atmosphere dark and rich with violence. June Chung’s colors on this book are amazing, too, something that it is impossible not to notice. The predominant use of reds allows the gory feel of the book to continue even when it isn’t blood-spattered.

This book works. It’s scary, it’s exciting, it’s bloody, and it’s fun. Highly recommended.

My favorite bit:

The hand wants coffee. It wants a buttered roll, too.

Complicity by Iain Banks

2008-07-22T15:41:00.002-04:00

Who’s the victim?

Iain Banks gained quite a bit of acclaim with his debut novel, The Wasp Factory. A dirty, violent book full of twists and dark humor, The Wasp Factory also happens to be completely fantastic. Banks wrote Complicity later in his career, a novel that parallels a reporter’s investigations into some bizarre murders and a serial killer’s escalating cycle of violence.

Complicity is smart. The book features a definition of the word complicity on the back, but as far as I can recall never uses the word within the text itself. The novel is told for the most part from the perspective of Cameron Colley, a journalist who tries to emulate Hunter S. Thompson in his writing style. He frequently says ‘Saint Hunter would understand’ when he is disappointed in himself; when he falls short of his own ideals.

Cameron’s narrative is told in first person, but there are several second person narratives describing the serial killings occurring in the background. While the second person is usually awkward and gimmicky, Banks's use of it in this particular work serves to further the theme. At some point in his career Cameron wrote an editorial about justice. He writes about a tv show he’d like to see, a show about the kind of justice he doesn’t get to experience in the real world. Instead of drug dealers, he wants to see arms smugglers taken down. He wants to see billionaires who profit from the misery of others being made miserable. He names names.

And wouldn’t you know it, the serial killer has exacted exactly this kind of justice on exactly the people he listed.

The question proffered by the book (never quite asked, never quite answered) is this: Who’s responsible? The reporter? The serial killer? You? Are you responsible if you buy the newspaper? Are you responsible if you watch the shows?

Are we responsible because we bought the book?

The murders are grisly, full of torture. Sometimes the killer doesn’t even kill, he just forces his victim to experience what he has done to others and then leaves. In one memorable scene, he’s sucking down helium while wearing a gorilla mask, and doing horrible horrible things on camera.

We’ve seen this before. Se7en, in particular, explores the notion of a serial killer who kills for an obscene sense of justice, for a misplaced sense of right and wrong, tailoring the punishment to the sin.

But Complicity actually came first.

According to Wikipedia, Iain Banks said Complicity is "[a] bit like The Wasp Factory except without the happy ending and redeeming air of cheerfulness." It’s true. This novel is dark, dark, dark. But there’s a lot to like here, and the novel has a lot to say. The copious, vivid descriptions of drug use, sex, and grisly murder make this a book that will not appeal to everyone.

But if you’re not easily offended, this book is well worth reading. You’ll have plenty to think about by the time you’re through.

My favorite part:

Cameron in the interrogation room, unable to sleep and feeling worse and worse by the minute. Everything about that scene, bouncing back and forth between his memories and the present, was incredibly awesome.

APPLE Vol. 1 by Various

2008-07-06T00:22:00.002-04:00

Pretty pictures do not a comic make.

APPLE, a new comic anthology published by Udon, apparently stands for A Place for People who Love Entertainment. The anthology collects the gorgeous work of a group of Korean illustrators, most of whom work almost exclusively on video games.

At least that’s my understanding. Unfortunately the book contains no information about the creators or the idea behind the project except a brief couple of poorly translated paragraphs in the back that indicate that the book is supposed to be about daydreams.

The art is breathtaking. Because the book is an anthology, some of the artists are naturally going to be more appealing than the others. I love anthologies for precisely this reason; you never know when a book will introduce you to a new favorite artist. Unfortunately with only a few pages per artist, you barely get a taste of some of the creators working on this book. As you flip through the wordless art sections of the book (which, for better or worse, seem to take up the majority of the book’s 260 some odd pages), you may not even realize you are looking at a different person’s art unless you are searching for the names. But the pictures are very pretty.

The writing, on the other hand, is very much not. Again, I’m not sure if the words are poorly translated or the stories just don’t make sense to begin with. Many of the transitions from panel to panel are hard to follow. Many panels are poorly constructed, and though the images within are gorgeous, they add little to the story and many times detract from it. A few of the comics did stick out for me, though.

A simple morality play, Mom’s Wallet by Kyung-Hwan Kim and Kang-Geon has great panel construction and good flow, and though it’s as bizarre as everything else in the book, it actually works as a comic quite nicely. Dol-V01 by An Hee-Cheol (Hichi) seems like it has potential. It was humorous and strange and left off at the right moment to make me want to read the second chapter. Unlike Mom’s Wallet, though, this particular comic has little sense of storytelling. Images seem to be just plopped down on the page wherever they look nicest with little regard to their place in the tale. That said, the pictures are very, very pretty.

The last story in the book, by Jin-Young Lee, does not seem to have a title. It was completely fantastic. I would buy an entire book of this story were it collected as such. Strangely, this comic, which seems to flow so perfectly as one, is oddly out of sorts with the art in the rest of the book. It feels remarkably different from everything else in the anthology and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Overall, as an art book, APPLE is very pretty and very diverse. If it hadn’t contained a single comic book, I wouldn’t have a complaint. I have no problem buying an art book. I’ve purchased every issue of Ashley Wood's art magazine Swallow, and never regretted it. And I don’t mind my pretty anthology comics being weird; I have every volume of Udon’s (and DMP before them) Robot anthology, and I have enjoyed it immensely despite the strangeness of the book and the sometimes disappointing stories mixed in with the good ones. But the sad truth is that the majority of the comics in APPLE simply do not work as comics. So unless you’re willing to just look at the pictures and set the book on your shelf when you’re done, I can’t really recommend the book.

As an aside, let me mention that Udon’s website is dreadful. See for yourself, look at the difference between Udon’s Robot website and the official Japanese Robot website. Also, I’ve made every effort to get the names of the creators right, but sometimes it seems like the name attached to the comic is different from the name in the index. My lack of cultural knowledge in this case leaves me clueless, and I’ve gone with the name attached to the comic. My apologies if I’ve gotten the name wrong within the review itself.

My favorite part:
Within Mom’s Wallet:
What if…I get caught stealing? My mom will turn into a tyrannosaurus!

Dororo Vol 2 by Osamu Tezuka

2008-07-04T00:49:00.003-04:00

What gives a life its purpose?

Osamu Tezuka changed the world of manga, comics, and animation in general with his creation in the 1950s of Astro Boy. The comic (manga) and cartoon (anime) of Astro Boy were so popular and far-reaching that Stanley Kubrick actually asked Tezuka to handle the art direction on 2001: A Space Odyssey. (He turned the offer down, though; interesting to think how different the movie might have been)

Tezuka created Dororo in the 60s. Though he apparently never finished the work, what exists was interesting enough to spawn an anime, a video game, and most recently a live action film. The trailer for this film is a little bit unreal to behold, as it seems to follow the original so closely, at least visually.

Dororo tells the tale of a young man named Hyakkimaru. His father pledged his unborn son’s body parts to 48 demons, and when Hyakkimaru was born, he was hardly a person. His mother and father floated him down a river to die in peace, but he was found and raised by a benevolent stranger. Now he wanders the world, searching for the 48 demons that have his body parts. Each time he kills one he regains another piece of himself.

Along his travels, Hyakkimaru meets Dororo, the self-proclaimed world’s greatest thief, a young boy with no family and no home. Dororo has a really interesting back story, and very quickly we come to understand why the story is named after him, and not after Hyakkimaru, who seems to be the more obvious choice as protagonist.

Dororo is a very interesting book with a slightly unusual feel to it. A great deal of offbeat humor pervades throughout. On more than one occasion, Dororo turns to the reader and acknowledges that he is within a comic book. He occasionally breaks through the panel barriers to illustrate a punchline. These sorts of slapsticky intrusions are characteristic of Tezuka, and are simply part of his charm.

But the dark mood of Dororo, overall, belies these comedic moments. Selfishness, greed, and prejudice persist in all Tezuka’s depictions of the people our protagonists come into contact with. Very few people come across as innocent, and those who do frequently find themselves at the wrong end of a sword or an arrow. Hyakkimaru and Dororo see a number of demons, and Tezuka works a lot of subtext into the manga by using these demons as pretty obvious metaphors.

This volume tells three particular powerful stories. The first involves a city split apart by civil war. The second is the story of a religious icon perverted by demonic intrusion. The third is the story of a marriage gone wrong, but also of a woman who raises unwanted children. Hyakkimaru says, at some point in this third story, “Why abandon your child? If you won’t raise him, why have him? Why have it only to abandon it?”

This could be seen as the theme of the second volume of Dororo, as each story depicts a different story of abandonment and separation.

Dororo is just another example that proves Tezuka’s mastery of his artform. Osamu Tezuka’s works are being slowly reprinted by Vertical. Dark Horse will be reprinting Astro Boy, and hopefully someday we’ll see Phoenix back in print as well. I, for one, will be buying each book as it is released, because I have never been disappointed by anything he wrote. I doubt that anyone with any interest in comics would be, either.

Highly recommended.

My favorite part:

“This potato head’s a kid?”

Monster Vol 15 by Naoki Urasawa

2008-07-02T23:11:00.003-04:00

It’s hard to talk about a book this good.

Monster is an 18 volume manga created by Naoki Urasawa. With its sales of over 25 million copies, multiple awards, and a successful anime adaptation, the book obviously achieved great success in Japan. It is constantly nominated for awards in the United States as its translations are released, and there are currently plans for an English-language motion picture version.

So why haven’t you heard of it?

Monster tells the story of a Japanese brain surgeon named Kenzo Tenma who lives and works in Germany. Hospital politics continually to grate on his nerves, and his superiors constantly ask him to set aside his moral concerns and follow orders. One day he is ready to operate on a young peasant boy when an important, wealthy figure is brought to him. He is ordered to switch patients and refuses, operating on the boy instead.

The wealthy patient dies. Tenma is removed from his position. His license is revoked. His fiancé breaks up with him. Later he is framed for murder. And as it turns out, the young boy he operated on is absolutely and without question evil.

By doing the right thing, he has unleashed every manner of wrong.

The book, from the first volume on, asks all kinds of interesting, difficult questions. What is right and wrong? Do the ends justify the means? Can an evil action be justified? And all the time it does so through a chilling, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride from one part of Europe to the next. The slow change that overcomes Dr. Tenma is crushing to watch, as he goes from enthusiastic young surgeon to…whatever he has become by this point in time.

Obviously volume 15 would be a horrible place to start reading, which makes it difficult to review. If you’ve read this far into the series then you, like myself, are hooked. You’re going to want this volume, and it’s going to fit like the next piece of a very rewarding puzzle.

But here’s the skinny: This volume is great. The art seems to get better with each chapter, and the characters are really hitting their peaks. The farther into the book we get, the more motives everyone seems to have. And it’s fascinating that in three more volumes the whole thing will be finished.

You should read Monster. If you like comics, if you like fiction, if you like tightly woven narratives with existential questions and complicated motives, if you like complex storytelling and characterization, if you like guns and chase scenes, or if you just like a good thriller, this book is for you. In case it hasn’t become abundantly clear by now, this book gets my highest recommendation; if you read comics, you should be reading Monster. Even if you don’t ordinarily like manga, this book will probably scratch an itch you didn’t even know you had.

My favorite part this volume:
“It’s amazing. A single necktie will get you anywhere… Just a single, stupid little necktie…”

Our Friends From Frolix 8 by Philip K. Dick

2008-06-29T01:17:00.000-04:00

When the future comes, will we know it’s here?

Philip K. Dick was incredibly prolific. His body of work includes such notables as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (which would become Blade Runner on the big screen), Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (one of my favorite novels of all time), and Ubik, one of Time Magazine’s top 100 novels.

I’ve read a lot of Dick’s novels, and I keep expecting one of them to be disappointing, or at least mediocre. He’s written so many that I’m sure some of them are going to be. But I’m honestly kind of surprised to say that Our Friends From Frolix 8 is not one of them.

With a title like Our Friends From Frolix 8, it’s easy to walk into the reading experience with a bit of skepticism. And like a lot of Dick’s writing, the characters are a bit flat, some of the description a bit flavorless, and the dialogue a bit blunt.

But the ideas…if it were possible to see inside this man’s thought process, I’m not sure I would want to. There’s something I’ve discussed, the possibility that when one is writing, one is afraid to let go of all of those loose ideas for fear that there will never be another one. This is clearly not a belief that Philip K. Dick ever held. Each and every novel he wrote was filled to the brim with ideas, each page replete with fascinating topic after fascinating topic. And if he ever had anything more to say about a past idea, why, he’d simply return to it without any compunction.

Our Friends From Frolix 8 is about politics and morality and death and humanity and Yeats and choice. It’s about Nick Appleton, a tire regroover. His father was a tire regroover, as was his father before him. It’s the future, and the government is run by two separate parties: The Unusuals and the New Men. These two groups have evolved differently from the rest of the population, and mandatory tests are given to the rest of the people, the Old Men, to give them a chance to become a member of the two parties. But everyone believes the tests are rigged, and that the only way to get in to one of the two governmental parties is basically to have been born into them. And it turns out that this is true; that the tests are rigged, and that the people who give the tests decide on a whim who will pass and who will fail.

A two party system where the same families keep putting their offspring into office? Hm, sounds completely unfamiliar.

All of the Old Men believe a savior is coming, a man who left Earth long ago to find alien life that would be willing to come back and help him free the world from the tyranny of the New Men and the Unusuals. And he is coming back; they’re right to believe in him. He’s coming back, and he’s bringing with him an unfathomable alien being. And together they’ll free the Old Men, but to do so they’ll have to do something completely horrible.

It’s interesting that in a lesser novel, this would be the climactic moment of the novel. But the final confrontation between this savior and the New Men/Unusuals occurs off the page. This alien landing in Times Square and doing something truly evil is observed only on the television, and Nick Appleton only observes it and reflects upon what it means about the future, about the choices they’ll have to make, and about what it means about the nature of humanity.

I would love to talk about the ideas presented in Our Friends From Frolix 8 at length, but in the end it’s almost unnecessary. Just know that I highly recommend the book if you’ve any patience whatsoever for science fiction mixed in with your philosophy, because the metaphysical and political ideas presented in this novel are well worth exploring, and trip’s not so bad, either.

My favorite part:
The discussions of the corpse of the God-like organism found in deep space. Mostly unrelated to the plot, but fascinating and a perfect example of the bounty of ideas present in his works.

Pocket Full of Rain by Jason

2008-06-28T18:39:00.000-04:00

What is the opposite of anthropomorphism?

The Norwegian comics creator Jason has quite the impressive body of work. His most recently published book, Pocket Full of Rain, is a collection of some of his early work, much of which has not, as far as I am aware, been published in English until now.

Jason’s comic storytelling typically exchanges human faces for animal ones. This is typically referred to as anthropomorphism, ascribing human characteristics to animals, but I almost feel that his art ascribes animal characteristics to humans, and I’m not sure what the word for that is.

In any case, the majority of this volume does not employ this technique, which was surprising to see. Because the stories within Pocket Full of Rain come from such an early time in his career, there is a lot of experimentation in style here. This book serves as a very interesting slice of Jason’s evolution as an artist.

The graphic novella Pocket Full of Rain takes up the first fifty or so pages of the book which bears its name. Here the characters are human, but the story does not lack the sense of surreality that exists in almost all of Jason’s books. Occasionally a zombie or a monster will appear, and an ostrich seems to rescue a man; evidently it is possible to vacation on the moon. But the story itself very much remains within Jason’s wheelhouse: a police sketch artist falls in love with a woman with a troubled past, and together they have to deal with her hitman of an ex-boyfriend. Later in the volume we see some early strip ideas, some short one and two page comics, and just a few that are slightly longer than that, though nothing approaching the length of Pocket Full of Rain itself.

The one and two page stories are a mixed bag. All are worth reading, and all are very interesting. They run the range from downright bizarre to utterly disturbing to absolutely brilliant. And of course there’s a fair bit of humor mixed in.

I would would find it hard to believe that anyone, after reading a few Jason books, could not list him among his or her favorite cartoonists. He has a universal appeal that, I believe, will only grow. Each of his books is as good or better than the one released before it. And though this volume cannot compare to his more recent works, it certainly gives someone with a love for Jason a bit of insight into the process.

Another neat thing about this book from a personal perspective is the small amount of commentary by Jason in the index of the book. The wonderful introduction by another acclaimed cartoonist, James Sturm, is the icing on the cake.

While I wouldn’t recommend this as your first Jason book, it is an absolute must for anyone who has enjoyed his previous releases.

My favorite bit:

A zombie holding a sign that says DEAD while saying ‘Y’got a dollar?’

Concrete Vol. 1 Depths by Paul Chadwick

2008-06-27T21:33:00.001-04:00

What else have I missed?

Welcome to 1986, and the beginning of a giant shift towards comics as we know them today. Dark Knight Returns appears on the scene and shifts our ideas of what superheroes should be. Not much later, a little comic book called Watchmen comes along and completely changes our expectations for comics in general. The second Love & Rockets collection is printed, marking the true beginning of the strength of this ultra-important indie comic. And the brand new Dark Horse Comics began publishing.

Nowadays Dark Horse is a well-established publisher known for its licensed properties. With Buffy, Star Wars, Conan, Firefly, and Indiana Jones just for starters, they’re an important mainstay in the comic book world. But in 1986, they were the rebellious young upstart, and Concrete was one of the characters that made them work.

Our protagonist, a speechwriter named Ron Lithgow, finds himself trapped within a twelve hundred pound body made of stone. His mind has been switched out by pesky aliens, but this book does not go down any path that this scenario would have inevitably explored in a Marvel or DC book of the time. Rather, the book’s creator Paul Chadwick uses Concrete’s dilemma to explore the human condition, isolation, and a man’s worth in the world.

Though Concrete has superhuman abilities, he does not fight supervillains or aliens, nor does he have it easy. He spends his time crossing the Atlantic Ocean for fun, exploring the depths of the sea and the tops of mountains, and being probed by government scientists desperate to understand what has been done to him. And even when he does attempt to save people, it goes wrong as often as it goes right.

I’m honestly blown away by how good this comic book was. It’s perhaps an accident of when this comic book came out, but people don’t regularly bring up Concrete in discussions of the canonical comic book runs. While I know this comic book was a big deal when it came out, it just doesn’t get the kind of recognition that, frankly, I now think it deserves.

This naturally makes me wonder what other gems were overlooked for one reason or another and that I now have limited exposure to.

This book stands up extremely well, too, a constant concern when reading a book twenty years old in such a young medium. I also understand that Chadwick’s art and writing only got better as the book aged, so I’m very excited to read the other books in the series.

Highly recommended.

My favorite bit:
Concrete at the birthday party, playing with the children. This was a very happy moment and I was glad to see it in the book.

Mini Reviews for Comics Released 6/25/08

2008-06-25T21:22:00.000-04:00

This is a decidedly Marvel heavy week.

New Avengers #42 – The truth about Spider-Woman is finally revealed, and it’s not quite how we pictured it. This comic has been among my favorite superhero books since the beginning, and this issue is no exception. Cheung’s artwork is always a treat on a book like this, and I’m intrigued by how the Secret Invasion and the House of M will tie together…scary stuff.

Mighty Avengers #15 – Similarly, this issue deals with the truth about Hank Pym. This story was strangely more tragic than the Spider-Woman one, and there’s a strangely ominous tone to the last page. Another nice Secret Invasion tie-in.

Captain America #39 – I miss Epting’s art. Having said that, wow. There’s a lot of politics in this book, and this issue really pushes the comic towards an interesting end. Plus we get to see a pregnant, drugged up Agent 13 kicking ass.

Daredevil #108 – I love Michael Lark’s art on this book. This is a really interesting story arc which has allowed us to see more of Dakota North, which has been really neat. It’s also nice to see Daredevil stop moping for a little while and start acting. My favorite part: Dakota beating the snot out of the guy who assaulted her last issue. Turnabout is fairplay, right?

Final Crisis #2 – I’m not going to pretend like I understand everything that happened in this comic book. But I actually think it’s the kind of challenging read that makes me want to know. Not that I’d blame someone for giving up. We’ll see what happens. Not to be nitpicky, but there are some art issues with this comic. Ordinarily I wouldn’t nitpick little things like this, but in a book like this, where little details in the art are so important, I’d think this would be kind of a major issue. In particular I am referring to John Stewart’s Green Lantern ring, which seems to disappear off of his hand, yet it seems really important that he was wearing the ring on that hand later in the issue…

Fantastic Four #558 – I really enjoyed this issue. It’s got super science, romance, and Franklin Richards acting like super villain fights are no big thing. It also features some people breaking Dr. Doom out of prison so they can kick the crap out of him. (Okay, maybe that’s not the real reason, but it sure does seem like it!)

Ultimate Spider-Man #123 – A creepy look at Eddie Brock’s life. Actually this was really good, one of those issues that showcases Bendis’s strength with dialogue. Venom is a scary dude.

Superman #677 – Wow, this was fun. From the science police basically here to clean up after Superman and fix problems when he can’t be there, to a game of fetch with Krypto, to conversations about the lunacy of superheroes with Hal Jordan…this was a fun comic. Here’s to plenty more James Robinson Superman.

Thunderbolts #121 – Perfect. Shall we coin the term Deus Ex Bullseye? Yeah that doesn’t translate quite right, but it’ll work.

Trinity #4 – Uh oh. I really liked the first story in this issue, but I had a hard time caring about the back-up…I hope that trend doesn’t last. But the beginning was super fun. Mindless superhero violence and I’m okay with that.

Uncanny X-Men #499 – This story was just…weird. I’m glad it’s over, frankly, though it had some good laughs in it.

Marvel 1985 #2 – I’m excited about this book. I hope it lives up the promise of the first two issues.

No Hero #0 – Now this was an exciting primer for the series. Warren Ellis rarely disappoints, so I’m looking forward to reading this book as it comes out. Especially given the $1.00 zero issue, you have no real excuse to not at least give it a taste and see what you think.

Caliber #3 – This is a really cool book. The high concept: King Arthur set as a Western, I suppose. The art is great and the storytelling accomplished. I’m impressed.

My Favorite Comic Moment of the Week: Thunderbolts #121

Moonstone: Oh, no.

Hm, I guess you kind of have to read the issue to get that one.

A Rabbit’s Eyes by Kenjiro Haitani, translated by Paul Sminkey

2008-06-23T13:01:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it’s hard to see beauty when it’s covered in dirt.

I’ve always had trouble judging something that was orignally written in a different language. Should I attribute the blame for awkward phrases upon the author or the translator? Or for that matter, what about beautiful passages; are they the author or the translator?

A Rabbit’s Eyes apparently rocked Japan when it was originally released in 1974. The novel by Kenjiro Haitani sold millions of copies and opened a debate about the state of education amongst Japanese citizens. In 2005, Vertical released the novel in the States, freshly translated by Paul Sminkey.

It describes the events at Himematsu Elementary, a school located near a garbage disposal plant, which produces a great deal of pollution and is also home to several families who work at the plant. The children of these families attend the elementary school, and because of their dirtiness and their lower-class upbringing, there is a certain amount of discrimination in play at the school, even from the teachers.

The focal character of the story is Ms. Kotani, a relatively new teacher, who has a lot of heart and wants desperately to find a way to teach every kid in her class. Each page brings a new heartbreak or a new smile to your face as Ms. Kotani goes through great pains to provide an education for kids other teachers might have overlooked. I can’t count the number of times that this book made me want to cry, but its depiction of the human struggle and the importance of the educator in a child’s life rings true.

I should mention that A Rabbit’s Eyes is meant to be an all ages book. Much of the writing caters to a reader who may not be familiar with complex phrasing, though it doesn’t shy away from big words. I can’t claim to know whether it is this fact or whether the blame falls on the translators head, but the book certainly contains a number of clichés and awkward turns of phrase. But there’s an important thing to keep in mind.

It doesn’t matter.This book wasn’t meant for the elite, nor was it meant to sit on the bookshelf next to Catcher in the Rye. A Rabbit’s Eyes is a call to arms for a nation that had become goals oriented in its approach to education. It’s interesting that our view of the Japanese educational system is so different from the picture painted by this novel. Kenjiro Haitani, the author of the novel, was apparently himself a teacher for years before the release of the novel, and formed a nursery school some time after. This personal insight into the nature of the system is very valuable.

I found the novel to be very moving and engaging, and despite any awkwardness in dialogue and language, I would highly recommend it to just about anyone. Unfortunately it looks like the book may be going out of print, so until Vertical issues a second print, track down whatever copies you can, because it’s worth a read, and I promise whenever you’re finished you’ll think of a dozen people who should borrow it from you.

My favorite part: Chapters 11 through 15 deal with the student Minako. I’m pretty sure every single page within this section had something on it that made me want to cry, but in a good way. Certainly the most memorable part of the novel.

Thunderbolts Vol 1 Faith in Monsters by Warren Ellis & Mike Deodato

2008-06-22T00:15:00.000-04:00

There’s no such thing as good or evil, but there may be a right and a wrong…

There’s a high concept at work in the newest iteration of Marvel’s Thunderbolts comic. When it becomes illegal to be one of the good guys, do the bad guys, by definition, become the good guys? Warren Ellis wants you to see that the answer is kind of, but not really.

Thunderbolts: Faith in Monsters, written by Warren Ellis with art by Mike Deodato, Jr., is a truly post-Civil War superhero comic. For those who haven’t been following their superhero comic news, the Civil War in Marvel comics was a seven issue miniseries that truly changed the status quo. At the end, vigilantism in any form was made illegal, and anyone using superpowers is required to register them with the government and receive training like any officer of the law. Those who do not register are criminals and are treated as such by the authorities.

A direct result of this paradigm shift leads to the formation of the new Thunderbolts team, a group of former super villains who now track down these unregistered superheroes to bring them to justice. The team includes such A-list characters as Bullseye and Venom, and also several lesser known characters: Moonstone, Songbird, Radioactive Man, Swordsman, and Penance. The team’s director of operations is Norman Osborn, the former Green Goblin. A bad, bad dude.

This book oozes cool on every page. Periodically, we see Norman Osborn interviewing one of the super villains/heroes. The interviews with Bullseye are particular chilling. These are the people defending your nation, folks: A man who just likes to kill, a man with an alien symbiote that wants to eat your brains, a woman who’s willing to give a psychopath the wrong medication to give herself a better chance at promotion…

Deodato’s art fits this book like a glove. Darker and moodier than a lot of superhero work, his pencils here suit the very nature of the characters. This isn’t Spider-Man and Superman. I haven’t been a huge fan of Deodato’s artwork outside of the Bruce Jones Hulk stuff, but I’m second-guessing myself after Thunderbolts. His work here definitely makes me want to go back and give his other stuff a better look.

The only negative I can attribute to Thunderbolts is its frequent reference to Marvel continuity. While I think this is actually one of the strengths of the book, I can see this causing some confusion among newer fans. But to those willing to accept that they may not catch every reference, know that what Warren Ellis is doing here is admirable. He’s weaving together eight characters with very dense histories. There are references to Frank Miller’s Daredevil run and obviously to Civil War, and he certainly doesn’t skirt away from acknowledging the Thunderbolts stuff that has come before. There are even references to the Spider-Man clone saga.

I could talk about the little touches in Thunderbolts all day, (seven characters, just like the Justice League, just like the first Mighty Avengers team; the use of tilted panels to express insanity; the insertion of parody advertisements; etc…) but suffice it to say I highly recommend checking this book out. If you’ve any fondness for superheroes at all, you can’t get much better than this in the market today.

My favorite part:

“This ain’t super hero registration. This is making the skies safe for flying whitey.”

The Originals by Dave Gibbons

2008-06-20T22:45:00.000-04:00

All that is old will be new again…

In 2004, Vertigo published a graphic novel called The Originals, a vaguely futuristic take on the mod culture of the 60s. Dave Gibbons, best known for his art on the super-hit Watchmen, is the sole creator on this book, and his experience in the industry shows.

I’ve just had the chance to read The Originals for the first time, and I wish I’d read it sooner. While it would be easy to compare this work to A Clockwork Orange or even Akira, the book truly stands on its own as an original take on teenagers, violence, and friendship.

It’s interesting that the first few pages relay images of the future, while the words relate a story of the past. This juxtaposition of the future in visuals and the past in narration matches the tone of the entire graphic novel, for while the story seems to take place in the future, (everyone’s obsessed with buying hovering motorcycles, for example) the characters within the story are clearly stuck in the past, embracing sixties archetypes and carrying out their fights with fists rather than weapons. In fact later in the story, when one of the characters does bring a knife to a fistfight, it is jarring and disturbing, and serves as one of the major catalysts for change within the story.

It is these kind of themes that make Dave Gibbons such a great storyteller.

At its heart, The Originals is a very familiar story. Lel and Bok are friends since childhood who have always been obsessed with the idea of joining the Originals, the hippest mod gang in the world. The Originals have an archenemy in the Dirts, who dress in leather jackets and have a penchant for growing awesome sideburns. They join the gang, Lel meets Viv, and madness ensues.

Gibbons’s art emphasizes the theme of juxtaposition I touched upon earlier. Right on the cover, a checkerboard pattern is predominantly featured, the black and white standing out starkly with the greytones found through work. Unlike many black and white works, The Originals doesn’t see fit to use a color cover, mostly because, in my opinion, this work would not function in the same way in color. The grey scale of the comic itself is an important part of the narrative. The first thing Lel purchases is a checkerboard suit matching the pattern on the front, and while this will be a plot point later on in the graphic novel, more importantly it allows the character to be decked in extremes: his skin, grey, his jacket, black and white, his shirt, black, his collar, white.

The Originals is a strong work that I would highly recommend.

My favorite part:

Lel and Bok at The Place taking zebs for the first time. A two page spread of highs and lows as they experience a drug far stronger than anything they’ve taken before.

Life Sucks by Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria, and Warren Pleece

2008-06-19T23:54:00.000-04:00

A bad first impression may doom a relationship, but a bad third act does far worse things to literature.

Life Sucks, a graphic novel written by Jessica Abel and Gabe Soria with art by Warren Pleece (and lovely color by Hilary Sycamore), explores the notion that being a vampire in the modern world is no more exciting than being a human.

Part slice of life drama and part situational comedy, the first two thirds of the book introduces us to the charming cast of characters. Dave (our protagonist) and Jerome are young vampires. They work for their ‘masters’, the old-school, ‘ve talk like zees’ vampires who turned them. Then there’s Wes, the Hottie McHotpants surfer boy vampire, who thinks of Dave as his brother, since they were both turned by the same man.

Ah, and then there’s Rosa.

It’s always the girl, isn’t it? Their mutual interest in Rosa is what causes Dave and Wes to bump heads. And for a good part of the book, Dave, Jerome, and their human friend Carl have good times going to clubs, flirting with girls, and generally trying to find ways to get Dave and Rosa together. The dialogue between the friends is fun and the courtship scenes are enjoyable too.

It’s that tricky third act that has left this sour taste in my mouth.

The book takes a very odd turn. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but suffice to say that the humorous, fun nature of the first half of the book is not present in the last thirty pages or so. And maybe that’s the point. After all, the idea from the beginning was that vampirism is not pretty, and it’s not fun, and it’s rather tragic. But I still felt disappointed.

Over all, though, it was an admirable effort. The last thirty pages or so just kind of killed it for me, and I can’t say I’ll be recommending it to many people. I really wish I could, because the art is nice, and some of the dialogue made me laugh out loud.

My favorite part:

Dave, Jerome, and Carl have gone to a goth club to see Rosa. The bartender asks Jerome: Can I get you anything? Jerome says: Yes. I’d like to buy everybody in the house a sense of humor and a better wardrobe.