[Trade Winds] Chumble Spuzz vol. 1 & 2

Posted by Graig on October 2, 2008

SLG Publishing

I picked up the first volume of Ethan Nicolle’s Chumble Spuzz earlier this year mainly as review fodder. I’ve done that a lot over the years with Rack Raids, picked up a title not for my own enjoyment but for review purposes, and by and large it results in a stack of comics and trade paperbacks that may be good, but I don’t enjoy, or that I enjoy but aren’t any good… or both… or neither. It’s easy to stick with DC and Marvel, comics companies that I’ve invested time and years in, but I’m getting to the point where they’re comfortable fluff (for the most part), and sometimes I want substance, or something different.

Chumble Spuzz volume 1, subtitled “Kill The Devil” is certainly not “substance” but it’s definitely different. The biggest draw for me was Nicolle’s art, which is a masterstroke of cartooning wonder. Every panel is eye-catching, beautifully rendered with a decidedly clean, yet richly and precisely detailed, inking style. Flipping through the book before purchasing sold me on it, even though the description about a pig possessed by Satan didn’t exactly captivate me.

The book stars Gunther and Klem, two simplistically illustrated, made-for-cartoons looking characters of indeterminate species (I’d have to say that Gunther is perhaps a mouse while Klem is possibly a rabbit), with the typical buddy duo (ala Ren and Stimpy or Pinky and the Brain) of the schemer (Gunther) and the simpleton (Klem). In “Kill The Devil” the duo infiltrate a carnival — by way of an “Indian Rug Burn” box — where they proceed to become involved in a pig catching competition that wins them, yes, a demonically possessed pig. They consult with their friend, the gangsta-talking monkey Reverend Mofo, who advises them to take on the devil, naturally.

The main story is amusing in concept and much of the execution is pretty humorous, but a lot of the comedy also fell flat, like Nicolle was trying too hard to push the edge. Again, it’s in Nicolle’s art that I found the most laughs, as his facial expressions on humans, demons and anthropomorphic animals alike are expertly controlled. He also has a knack for dropping easter eggs in the background, and it’s these little things that I found more rewarding. It’s in the second, shorter story that Nicolle reigns his script and delivers a potent dosage of the funny. Titled “Salmonella”, it treads on beloved institutions like the Keebler Elves, Cookie Monster (emphasis on the “monster”), Colonel Sanders and, naturally, Jesus, as vampire chickens break loose at a blood drive. It’s a tight, hilariously absurd romp that plays fast and loose with pop culture while contributing something of its own to it.

Chumble Spuzz Vol. 2

Nicolle explains in the introduction a fascination he has with feral people — dedicating the volume to wolf girls of Singapore — in particular a spoof ‘pigeon man’ which he came up with for a Far Side-aping comic strip he did in high school (one included in the volume, and quite good, mind you).

The story finds Gunther obsessing over the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich, lusting after the PBJ-Bot that’s out of his financial reach, while Klem feeds the pigeons in the back yard. There, the titular Pigeon Man shows up and Klem, having conveniently witnessed a program about feral people, calls a feral human zookeeper and sells the old naked guy for a princely sum (allowing him to acquire his own PBJ-Bot). Klem feels bad about his short-lived pet, and goes to visit him at the zoo. There they discover the zookeeper is using the feral men of the zoo in an illegal pit fight (which leads to some hilarious feral men with names like “manda bear”, “man-cock” and “homo-snakien”.

The sheer variety of feral men, illustrated in Nicolle’s impeccably funny-yet-disturbing style, is the big draw here, but with his brother the pair have a tighter, funnier script which keeps the laughs and even a few knee-jerk “icks” coming (the “mangaroos” have to be seen to be believed).

The second story is a surprisingly multi-layered tale that runs through alternating stories about a blind blues man, Gunther and his feeble uncle, and Klem and his dead sea monkey, all which eventually collide in a mind blowing, epic fashion. Condensed to 27 pages, this rich story moves at an incredible clip and is all the more impressive for it. Unlike previous tales, where Nicolle’s art takes the spotlight, here the script is actually the essential ingredient, fully engrossing and funny.

There’s no doubt that with the copious amounts of poop jokes and naked old men running about this book that the Nicolle Brothers aren’t reaching for a high-brow audience, but anyone who has the stomach for a good belly laugh and an eye for incredibly well designed and rendered art will find a lot to appreciate.

Volume 1 - 3 out of 5 Vikings

Volume 2 - 4 out of 5 Vikings

[Trade Winds] Help Is On The Way

Posted by Graig on September 26, 2008

(Dark Horse)

Though comic book makers are slowly embracing the internet as a different storytelling avenue, it’s the comic strip creators who have really triumphed in exploiting the world wide web for creative satisfaction. The conventional newspaper comic strip world is even more difficult to break into than the comic book industry, with the newsprint medium waning as people turn to the internet and television for information, traditional comic strips no longer reach the audience (children or adults) like they once did. As such, syndication agents controlling who will and won’t succeed demand an almost generic quality that appeals to the broadest audience possible, altogether making the likelihood of achieving any sort of For Better Or Worseor Ziggy-like (nevermind Peanuts or Calvin and Hobbes) popularity almost nil. If you actually have something to say or are trying to appeal to a specific audience, you didn’t have much of a chance to do so until the internet came along. Now, the creators of strips Penny Arcade or The Perry Bible Fellowship or The Rack or even our own Adam Prosser’s many creative endeavors can be made in a format of their choosing, on a schedule of their own design and for a potentially limitless international audience.

If you take even a lazy look around, you’ll find there’s certainly a lot to consume, all at varying levels of quality, but it’s also almost all at no cost, which is the bargain of the century, I’d say. However not all of us can make the daily or weekly, or even sporadic commitment to checking in on favored web-comics or checking out new ones. As the end result of having a day job spent in front of a computer, I confess that unless I’m creating it, I have a hard time consuming on-line content. So, what’s the next best thing? Paying for it in printed form!

Reading a web comic, especially a good one, will make you want to read more of it, all at once. Sometimes this can lead to head-splitting hours in front of a computer screen, not wanting to leave until all is consumed, else you might forget where you left off, or worse, never return. I find the paperback collection is perhaps not the most cost effective, but easily the preferrable way of consuming the bulk of someone’s web comic output. And when it’s good stuff, it’s something you’ll want to have on your shelf, beside your bed, or in your bathroom magazine rack for repeated reading, all places where a laptop is remarkably inconvenient/inflexible.

Help Is On The Way is that good stuff, the kind of funny you don’t want to end, the kind of funny you want to revisit over and over again, the kind of comic strip you want your friends to read, the kind that inspires quotable quotes like “Your hair is resplendent, like the mane of a hirsute Quebecois” or “Your hide will make a fine poncho”.

Help Is On The Way presents a dense collection of comedian Scott Meyer’s Basic Instructions web-comic, each one a four panel “how to” on a particular topic. Each panel features instructional narrative below which is a cartoon of Meyer exchanging some snappy repartee with friends, co-workers, his wife or some kid to either highlight the “how to” or contrast the instruction with a “how not to” example. They’re illustrated in a style Meyer’s wife calls in one strip “Photocartooning”, which Meyer himself refers to as “tracing”, so it’s not necessarily the peak of illustrated comedy, but the use of repetitive imagery is a skill in upon its own and Meyer uses it to great effect here.

Although characters are rarely, if ever named, you start to get a sense of the cast of the strip after the first dozen or so. Every strip includes Meyer, and key players are his wife, his mulleted, mustachioed boss and his self-absorbed asthmatic friend Ric (who provides the preface), each of whom are equally as capable of dishing out the sarcasm.

Devising the formula for an effective comic strip can be tricky and take some time. The same way the early episodes of a sitcom can be rough, so to can the early days of a comic. So, instead of starting from the very beginning, this collection begins at a point Meyer feels confident that the formula is down. A few of his earlier entries are present providing an interesting look at the early manifestation of the strip.

It’s quite difficult to explain to someone why something is funny (perhaps there’s a strip in “how to explain why something’s funny”?), so I’ll just say go to the site, read a few for yourself, and decide. Even if you read it all for free, you might just want to have it in a handy, accessible at-your-disposal version (like having watched all of a TV series then purchasing the DVDs for repeated consumption), or as a convenient gift for people you like.

If I were more adventurous I would have written this review in the vein of one of Meyer’s strips, but I’m not as smart nor witty as Meyer, so it’s probably best that I didn’t.

4 out of 5 Vikings

[Trade Winds] Herbie Archives, Volume One

Posted by Adam on September 12, 2008

(Dark Horse)

“Comic books” in general are known for being pretty weird, but as any connoisseur knows, the Silver Age is legendary as the wildest and weirdest era for comics. What I’ve always found interesting is that the weirdness was, in many ways, a practical response to the limitations of the medium; under the draconian standards of the comics code, writers and artists were restricted from using certain basic dramatic elements, particularly those that might have made things too “edgy”, and they had to get around them in unusual and creative ways. Unable to build tension or thrills or chills, they instead threw out zany plot twists and far-out visuals to keep the reader engaged.

On the other hand, some of the people who make comics book are apparently just drawn to the weird no matter what conditions they’re working under. You can’t explain a book like “Herbie” by placing it in the context of comics history. Actually, I don’t think you can explain Herbie, period.

Herbie Popnecker, one of the oddest comic book characters ever published by the mainstream, first appeared in the early 60s. In that first story, Herbie’s dad attends a lecture emphasizing the need for kids to be active and energetic, apparently a big movement in parenting at the time. Dad (no name ever given) then goes home despairing for his “little fat nothing” of a son, Herbie, who does nothing but lie around all day sucking on lollipops. At dad’s urging, Herbie is sent (with immense reluctance) to play outdoors, whereupon, in the span of a few pages, he tackles an escaped tiger, saves a shipwrecked senator, and foils an alien invasion, before heading home to his unimpressed dad. Over the course of several more stories, Herbie reveals that he’s pretty much omnipotent, able to walk on air, turn himself invisible, reinflate himself like a rubber ball after being squashed, talk to animals, seduce any woman, fill in for Ringo Starr, ingratiate himself with world leaders, and travel through time, all with the barest minimum of physical exertion. In fact, not once does he lose his utterly blank, bemused and apathetic expression.

Humour doesn’t usually age too well in comics, but Herbie bucks the trend through sheer, unadulterated weirdness. Writer Shane O’Shea has a knack for the absurd, such as Herbie’s reasoning when he’s hunting for a monster: “Monsters come from the unknown, so that’s where I’ll go.” In the next panel, Herbie’s walking up to a big gate on a cloud marked “Unknown”. Or there’s the fact that Herbie is always being summoned by world leaders for help, particularly Lyndon Johnson, and always has to fight off the advances of the first lady. Or the way Frankenstein’s monster is always showing up for little or no reason. But it’s Ogden Whitney, the artist, who really makes this comic shine–he underplays even the most bizarre elements, making them timelessly funny, when most comics of the era feel the need to reduce every joke to a corny, “cymbal crash” punchline. Even Herbie’s signature gag, in which he wordlessly waddles off into the air whenever he needs to, remains funny the 12th or 57th time.

Herbie’s bizarre abilities are just one of many things that are never explained about the book, and that’s probably its strongest virtue. A deconstructionalist, Alan Moore type (Moore is on record as a big fan of Herbie, by the way) might try to rationalize what we’re seeing as a pre-Calvin and Hobbes-style look into the imagination of a pathetic little kid, driven by his frankly dickish father to imagine a world where he’s nigh-omnipotent and beloved by all. Certainly that was a subtext that I couldn’t help reading into it at times, but of course I’m looking back with modern eyes. There’s no denying, however, that Herbie is a very slyly subversive poke at everything from superheroes to parents to the overly wholesome suburban world that dominated comics in the pre-Woodstock era. And it accomplishes all this not with overly clever, sophisticated writing but just by being one of the most unapologetically imaginative and gently insane comic books of all time.

5 out of 5 Vikings.

[Raided] Arsenic Lullaby Pulp Edition No. 0

Posted by Graig on August 28, 2008

(Arsenic Lullaby Publishing)

Oh, oh god. Here’s another one. A new issue of Arsenic Lullaby. I’m elated, and filled with trepidation. Dare I open the cover? I dare. Page 2. Another dead baby joke. That’s so typical of this book. I burst out laughing anyway. I’m on the subway. Are people staring? I’m so filled with self loathing right now. I’m embarrassed. I stare at that last panel, and burst out laughing again. I hate myself. I want more. My eyes follow to the top of the next page. A terrorist joke, only skewering post-9-11 paranoia, not terrorists. That was surprising and funny, but not shocking (which is just as surprising). Maybe the Mad Magazine gigs have tempered Douglas Paszkiewicz’s humor some. I turn the page. Oh, a cult compound, followed by cow-aliens meeting child kidnapper, followed by “when lawyers dream”, followed by the most unhinged retelling of “the little engine that could”. Nope definitely not tempered. I’m laughing. People are staring. I don’t care. This is genius. Baron Von Donut, yesss. Paszkiewicz’s art is tighter than ever, but he still needs a solid copy editor… …I’m at the end, Abe Lincoln’s the devil, and that little engine that could just delivered… oh I won’t spoil it. Needless to say, it’s in bad taste and uncomfortably hilarious. I laugh. Hard. Staring people can go to hell (didn’t their mothers ever teach them that’s rude?). I want more. I’ll read it again. Paszkiewicz is an evil genius.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve never read Arsenic Lullaby before, if you’ve got the constitution for boundary-bursting, button-pushing humor, this is some of the funniest comic booking ever put to paper. Seek it out.

4 and a half out of 5 Vikings

WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Galaxy Quest #1

Posted by Jeb on August 23, 2008

(IDW)

David Mamet has called Galaxy Quest “a perfect film,” and while he was principally referring to its structure, there’s no question that it’s an amazing once-in-a-lifetime movie that’s equal parts loving tribute to, and wicked satire of, the original Star Trek TV series. It’s a touchstone favorite film for several families that I know, and has proved endlessly rewatchable both for folks (like my wife and myself) who were young and impressionable tykes at the time of the series’ original airing, as well as those (like our daughter) who’d never seen (or expressed any interest in) Star Trek. If any film comedy of the last few years deserves to be considered a classic, it’s Galaxy Quest.

I’ve rarely been so surprised, then, as to have seen a review or two of this comic which revealed that the critics hadn’t actually seen the movie of Galaxy Quest: I’d have thought it was every bit as much essential viewing for the comic/genre fan as the Terminator or Star Wars films.

On the odd chance that any similar benighted fans are reading this, Galaxy Quest (the movie) is the story of the washed-up cast of a long-dead sci-fi TV series, whose lives are changed (and, incidentally, careers revived!) by their accidental involvement in a galactic war (a synopsis that doesn’t even begin to describe the wit and charm of the film).

The comic picks up some time after the movie ends, and fudges things a bit. While the end of the film [spoiler ahead!] seems to show us a revived “Galaxy Quest” series hitting TV, the comic opens with a classic “Star Trek” crisis moment, including the various analogues of Kirk, Spock, etc. Turns out, though, that what we’re seeing is not a “real” adventure, but a new pilot that the cast hopes will actually revive the still-dormant series, leaving the original film’s promise of a “happy ending” still very much up in the air.

Most of the rest of the issue introduces new readers to the “Galaxy Quest” cast, with little character moments to sketch out the key relationships and conflicts among these actors. Writer Scott Lobdell does a good job of covering key points for new readers (and he nicely captures the overblown Roddenberry-style melodrama and portentous dialogue in the introductory TV pilot segment), but fans of the movie more or less have to be content with this issue as a reunion with old friends, since the actual storyline (involving separate crises for their careers, and their planet) doesn’t really get moving till the last couple of pages. These days, though, I suppose that’s to be expected: in the extended trade-paperback story structure, first issues really do serve as little more than introductions.

The script’s not as successful emulating the film’s ability to mine humor out of the improbable situation (and the prickly relationships among the cast members), with a few one-liners here and there, but the only really big laughs coming in the over-the-top excerpt of the TV pilot. Part of that, I think, is inherent in the nature of the translation: jokes that can be effectively conveyed with a raised eyebrow or smart line delivery in a film can appear flat and formulaic when simply laid out in a word balloon.

The art by Ilias Kyriazis is brisk and cartoony (not unlike Tony Moore’s work on Fear Agent), though I presume (hope?) that IDW didn’t pony up for the rights to use the actual faces of Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and the rest, since the characters in this book look nothing like them. It’s serviceable, but unremarkable.

I’d have to say that, whether you’re a fan of the film, or a newcomer to the property, this might be one to trade-wait. If Lobdell and Kyriazis have a trick or two up their sleeves to kick the storytelling up a notch, there’s potential in Galaxy Quest. But if the level of mild amusement on display in this first issue is to be the tone from here on out, I’d probably give it a miss.

Two and a Half out of Five Vikings

Golly #1

Posted by Graig on August 21, 2008

(Image)

I’ve had a fixation on carnival sideshows for a long, long time. I blame Ripley’s Believe It or Not growing up. On TV and comic strips, the surrealistic aberrations that occur in nature are natural curiosities. Oh sure, it’s impolite to stare, but it’s that which is out of the norm that gains the most attention, by reflex as much as intellectual intrigue. As I got older, it was the nature of the “freakshow” of old, and not necessarily the “human oddities” themselves, that interested me. Whereas today we try and incorporate those that are physically or mentally different from us as much as possible, way back when they were ostracized from society, acceptable only as spectacle in the confines of a tent or, in some cases, cage.

These days, we have TLC and Discovery Channel documentaries like “I Woke Up In A Morgue”, “Joined For Life” or “World’s Strongest Boy In” to satisfy all our desires to witness the irreverences of humanity, both natural and self-inflicted, approached from the angle at first of spectacle and then humanizing. It’s, in a sense, a desensitization technique, which I think has worked. It won’t stop us from staring, but it does put them in the context that there are more to these people than just whatever deformity or condition they may have.

It’s one reason why Golly is surprising, since it’s set in an out-of-step-with-time carnival where there’s still the “freakshow” attractions. But the “freaks” aren’t the attraction any longer, supplanted by a demolition derby in the book, and by more “spiritual” events of the story itself. The sparsely attended side-show figures are the supporting cast, treated like any regular cast only with obvious visual differences and the unique career choice. The lead character is the titular Golly, a blue-collar jack-of-all-trades at the circus, meaning he can fix rides and clean up vomit with the best of them, earning extra money racing the figure-eight.

The crux of the book comes when Golly is knocked unconscious and visits with… well, with a triangle. The triangle identifies itself as a superior being, an angel for lack of better description, and informs the rather suspicious Golly that he’s been chosen (at random) to protect the Earth from misguided demonic forces, as the Armageddon has been canceled and not all of Hell got the memo. The interaction between Golly and the angel/angle had me laughing out loud. You’ve seen encounters like this before, between superior beings who speak in colloquial tongue and unsuspecting humans who are completely in awe of the encounter, most notably between God and King Arthur and crew in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As classic as that encounter was, this handily surpasses it, twice over.

Phil Hester is better known for his artistic work on things like Green Arrow and Ant-Man but I’ve always liked his writing (The Coffin, Deep Sleeper) infinitely more. Hester is able to twist the unique and the ordinary alike in engaging and entertaining ways. He rarely falls prey to conventions or clichés and is gifted at putting forth naturalistic dialogue. Tough Hester has quite a repertoire of writing credits under his belt at this point, none of them have been outright comedic, but he nails it here, both in timing and in tone. It’s set up may share themes with TV’s Reaper or Carnivàle it quickly manages to stand on its own within panels, never mind pages.

The art by Brook Turner is incredible. His style is highly detailed, immersing the reader in the somewhat grimy carney atmosphere (while simultaneously making it sanitary enough to seem uncomfortably livable) and then punctuating that against the bizarre “dream sequence” consisting of a starfield, Golly and a big white triangle (much credit also goes to the fantastic colors of Rick Hiltbrunner for selling both atmospheres). Turner captures the uniqueness of each character exquisitely, punctuating the humor with some keen facial mugging and physical comedy. Hester and Turner work exceptionally well together, the book flowing nicely, hitting all of its marks in both set-up and execution, making me want more immediately.

I guess I was predisposed to embracing this series, as I fully enjoy the setting and supporting cast whose uniqueness is surpassed by the foul-mouthed, trucker-hat wearing, southern-fried protagonist, a normal joe given a paranormal job that he most certainly is ill-equipped to handle. There’s promise in the premise that’s already delivering in execution. Gold.

5 out of 5 Vikings

[Trade Winds] Shmobots OGN

Posted by Graig on August 9, 2008

(BOOM! Studios)

I hope writer Adam Rifkin isn’t really trying to make some serious or pointed cultural analogy in his first graphic novel, Shmobots, because if he is, it’s the most racist comic I’ve ever read!

That get your attention? I’m not totally serious, but I did find myself wondering just what the point Rifkin was trying to make while reading the book. Shmobots takes place in an alternate world where the government decided to have robots perform all tedious labor (picking up trash, cleaning dishes or toilets etc.). The problem is they sourced it out to the cheapest firm, who skimped on the manufacturing process (must be set in America, because in Canada, our government always pays way too much for everything), but instead of receiving a tireless workforce, society wound up with a whole new class of citizens (”mechanical-Americans”), lazy slackers, given a programmed sense of free will which has evolved into an unjustified sense of entitlement (Shmos - defined as “a stupid or obnoxious person”, hence “Shmobots”). They’re angry, they’re useless, they’re annoying, and it’s hard to escape the parallels to stereotypes of some immigrant populations. You also have to wonder about the inspiration/motivation behind taking away jobs that are usually performed by an immigrant population (the jobs “regular folk” are too good for), both legal and illegal alike. Sounds like a grand Republican scheme to deter further illegal immigration, but that’s neither here nor there. To its detriment, the book doesn’t actually tackle such delicate matters, but instead is a variation of the slacker/stoner movie and is out to have a good time, and (I believe) sincerely means no harm.

Though the satire may be lacking, the exploration of the Shmobots and their integration into society is a lot of fun (especially once I relaxed a little). Centered around three robots - Rusty, Eyeballs and 69.5 - and their equally slacker human roommate, Miles, the quartet rehearse in their garage, pine over women, discuss topics inanely, and generally loaf around failing to contribute to society. Rusty has his eyes set on a human cashier at the egg salad fast-food joint they frequent, despite the fact that she absolutely despises him. 69.5 goes out to get an actual job, but finds that he can’t overcome society’s prejudice towards his kind. Miles goes to see his dad, a doorman at a hoity-toity building, to hit him up for cash, instigating only conflict. Eyeballs, well, he has the car. Meanwhile, there’s a Shmobot Killer in town, which has the bulk of the human public rather enthused and glued to the media coverage, but remains the police’s top priority. In another sub-plot, there’s Marshall Rumplebaum, a balding husband and father who discovers his wife has been cheating on him… with Linc, the robot who messed up painting all the house numbers on their street. Marshall is sent into a tizzy, both about the cheating and what she was cheating on him with. It all coalesces nicely as the quartet gear up for their “big gig” upon which all their hopes and aspirations lay. Of course, given the tone of the book, it’s not going to fare well. Along the way they find themselves harassed by rednecks, getting kicked out of strip bars, and winding up before the bolt cutters of the Shmobot Killer.

Although far from groundbreaking, Rifkin has created an sub-genre that takes all the clichéd conversations of pot-addled college drop-outs and puts it in the mouths of robots, and the effect is actually quite hilarious. The exploration of the many ideas behind the general public’s reaction to Shmobots is present, but thin, but the decision probably was made that further exploitation of the “racism” theme would be, like, a bummer dude.

The art by Les Toil is ingenious, capturing a retro-50’s pastiche in the robot designs and color scheme (and even sound effects), even though the book is set in a contemporary setting. Toil is able to get nuance out of static robots brilliantly, each having their own peculiar physical or facial quirks which allow them to emote, but unlike normal human expression (think of the variety of robots in Futurama and you’re on the right track). His designs are wonderful (not just on the robots, but on buildings, cars, signs, clothes, tv shows) and his storytelling fluid and engrossing. Toil also seeds the book with a lot of clever backgrounds and nuanced imagery to nice comedic effect. He’s not a flashy artist, but he certainly knows his way around the page, and sells the story way beyond what I’m sure even Rifkin imagined.

I would be more impressed by Shmobots had it actually approached some of the more serious themes it sidesteps, but as it stands it’s tremendously entertaining. Plus, it gives us Kitten TV, which may be an even greater pop-culture invention than the Shmobots themselves.

4 out of 5 Vikings

( Note: BOOM! is currently serializing Shmobots on their website, updating a page a day)

Creature Feature #1

Posted by Adam on August 8, 2008

(Th3rd World Studios)

Despite a tepid performance at the box office, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s double feature movie Grindhouse seems to have captured certain people’s imaginations. There’s been quite a bit of nostalgia lately for the sleazy, pulpy, lo-fi genre cinema of the 70s and early 80s–and I personally can relate. Weird little subgenre trends, especially the ones that originate in the movies, inevitably make their way to the comics, and this “Grindhouse” fad is no different. Hence we have, among other things, Mike Raicht’s Creature Feature.

This is a black and white anthology of stories supposedly inspired by the drive-in horror movies of the aforementioned era. The premise is that each short story is a movie being screened at a drive-in, introduced by the editor, Mike Raicht (who, no offense to Mr. Raicht, makes a somewhat less memorable horror comic host than the Cryptkeeper or The Phantom Stranger.) WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

[Raided] Special Forces #3 (of 5)

Posted by Graig on

(Image)

It’s been a few months since we last saw an issue of Special Forces, previously solicited as a 6-issue mini-series. Word from Baker is that he overproduced for issues #1 and 2 (full 32-page instead of 25-page books), and thus fell behind but is also ahead, with the main story wrapping up in issue #4 instead, with one wrap-up issue to follow. This issue, proudly being touted as “the most offensive thing Kyle Baker’s ever done”, is certainly a button-presser. When we last saw our protagonist (won’t say “hero”) Felony, she had just been shot, while her autistic comrade-in-arms, Zone had been kidnapped by insurgents. Merely wounded, Felony is knocked unconscious by a child she refuses to kill, only to wake up to a room full of scarred and deformed children (as hideous as Baker could make them) playing soldier themselves. The kids are a serious threat to both Felony and themselves, and she needs to devise her own rescue. Zone meanwhile is having the living $#!+ kicked out of him, but when they take away his toy soldier, it’s payback time. Baker riddles his book with definitely-not-code-approved imagery, inappropriate bondage and action cheesecake shots, as well as gratuitously malformed children. In the backmatter Baker includes articles and photos excerpted from different sources, detailing his influences for this issue (child soldiers in Iraq, birth deformities, sexual assault within the army ranks, Hamas-sponsored Disney rip-offs) which he then takes and pushes to, well, comic-book extremes. Not even broaching any sense of idiotic patriotism, Special Forces is uncomfortably wrong on every level, which is entirely the point. Awareness goes down a lot easier with Kirby-inspired two-page spreads of a nearly-naked, Ellen Ripley-esque babe kicking the crap out of 6 mutant children in one shot. You’re supposed to be equally revolted and entertained. If you’re the former and not the latter, just as well. If you’re the latter and not the former, then does America have a career for you. This book doesn’t just want you to react to it, though, it wants you to question why you react the way you do. It’s absurd, it’s horriffic, it’s funny, and it’s disturbing, it wants you to feel it all, and somehow Baker manages to weave a thread of intellect through all the knee-jerking around. Like Buckley’s medicine, it taste bad, but it works.

4 out of 5 Vikings

Ambush Bug: Year None #1 (of 6)

Posted by Graig on August 2, 2008

(DC)

It’s been almost sixteen years since the Bug has had his own feature book, the extra-sized Ambush Bug Nothing Special. I was half as old then as I am now, half my life has passed since the Bug last infected my brain. How would I feel, twice as old, married, a stepfather, having read thousands of more comic books, having seen embarrassing hours of television programming, having watched hundreds more movies… how would I still feel about Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming returning to a character that was - more than Monty Python or the Kids In The Hall or Bill Cosby or Mad Magazine - the biggest comedic impact on my young mind?

Pretty goddamn excited, I say.
Enough to blaspheme even.
And how’d that all work out for me?
Pretty damn fine, I’d say.

Back in the 1980’s at the age of 10, I wasn’t exposed to metatext much. The idea of a character breaking the fourth wall or being completely self-aware of his surroundings wasn’t something you saw on Saturday morning cartoons or in storybooks. But there was Ambush Bug, making endless fun of editor Julie Schwartz, calling out Giffen for drawing an unfavorable situation around him, looking at the DC Universe of the 1980’s (well before the internet) much like fandom did, with humorous observations on overused cliches or satirizing the various scenarios and crises major characters then found themselves in. Kids just weren’t exposed to that kind of stuff back then. Not like these days, with cartoons like Spongebob or Fairly Odd Parents which prove as entertaining to adults as they do to children seeded with layers of comedy. With the silly and sarcastic, goofy and ingenious Ambush Bug always delivered something that was unique to mainstream comics: the ability to laugh at themselves. It’s about time he returned (I can see why he wasn’t around for most of the 1990’s though, the joke was far too easy).

With 16 years worth of publishing history having passed, Giffen and Fleming have a lot for the Bug to catch up on in Year None (the title itself taking a poke at the plethora of “Year One” stories that have surfaced recently). As expected, the title is entrenched in the it’s own pocket of the DC Universe in which the absurd and the self-aware coexist with the status quo of capes and tights and mega-epic-crossovers. Ambush Bug is shopping for a new appliances and can’t seem to find one that doesn’t contain dead women’s bodies, when he gets word that his old pal, Jonni DC (an iteration of a mascot for DC marketing back until the early 1980s, resurrected recently for DC’s kids line) has been murdered and as then tries to sluff off the sleuthing of her death onto one of DC’s other great detectives to no avail. Is she part of the same rash of killing of women in comics or is it something else? The Bug doesn’t want to care, distracted by the absence of thought balloons (replaced by narrative captions), it all just seems annoying to him, but he’s thrust into the midst of a mystery that won’t let him abandon it, hunted at the same time by his Doom-faced-sock arch-enemy Argh-Yle. Is there a connection? He visits (per usual) a plethora of rejects and limbo characters from the DCU archives - giving folks like ‘Mazing Man or Kirby’s Sandman their 1 - 5 panels of resurrected notoriety - to suss out answers. It’s a mystery that’s ridiculous and compelling… and dramatic, as the Bug tends to his adopted stuff-toy son, Cheeks… and groovy, baby, as the checkerboard fiend Go-Go Chex steps into the game, plunging our hero head-first onto a spoof Justice League cover.

Year None delivered everything I remember so fondly about the character, and perhaps an even more cohesive story than usual. While not wholly new reader friendly, there’s still a lot to enjoy for those less familiar with the 80 years of DC’s publishing history. In general though, if you’re not much of a reader of mainstream books, the overall joke is probably going to go over your head.

Morrison and Moore and Ellis etc. have deconstructionist tendencies in their superhero stories, but the U.K. imported writers use that to try to make sense of the worlds they play in, of the characters they manipulate, of the medium within which they work, in essence searching for validation. In Ambush Bug, Giffen and Fleming use it to (seemingly) simply point out the absurdity of the publisher and their universe, using their own past against them, but in the same fashion they do also manage to inspire appreciation and affection, rather than just straight out mockery. It’s the same path, two completely different ways of getting there, with Ambush Bug virtually unshackled from any constraints save for the physical pages that contain him.

I smile a lot reading Ambush Bug, occasionally chuckling to myself, with a few surprising moments causing milk to come out my nose (which is weird because I wasn’t drinking any).

5 out of 5 Vikings

Hoverboy: The Republican Superhero #1

Posted by Graig on July 9, 2008

(Mr. Comics)

In the grand tradition of the Peacemaker, Ma Hunkel: Red Tornado and Forbush-Man comes not just another (bucket-headed) superhero, but the greatest (bucket-headed) superhero of them all: Hoverboy returns! That’s right, don’t call it a comeback (because it’s not), Hoverboy, the greatest Republican hero (take that Stephen Colbert) is back on the scene. After languishing in “publishing limbo” for almost thirty years, Mr. Comics is publishing the “first all-new Hoverboy story in decades”. Sure, the costume has been modernized, but this is still the same classic fighting American (bucket-headed) superhero that your grandpa used to read while socking it to the Ratzis back in dubya dubya two.

Wait. What?
You confused? I’m confused.
Who or what the hell is Hoverboy?

Well, Hoverboy is a cleverly crafted dose of surrealism created by animator/mad genius Marcus Moore. Not only is he a fictional character, but he’s a fiction of a fictional character. No, Hoverboy never actually existed in comics until now, but with just a wink to acknowledge their fakery, Moore and the gang at Mr. Comics have established a nearly-believable 80-year history for the character.

The book opens with a word from Mr. Comics’ Editor-In-Chief, Ty Templeton, detailing his personal “history” with the character, tongue firmly planted in cheek. Following his introduction comes a note from the “Ombudsman of Mr. Comics” explaining that the reprinted material may be racist and offensive but that, like Disney’s Song of the South, it’s a ” ‘product of the times’, which is the phrase that makes it all acceptable in hindsight”.

The main story hits heavily the satire button of far-right Republican values and ideals, as well as playing highly upon the exaggerated perception of the current administration. George Bush’s White House is under attack by a giant Assassi-bot, but it’s Hoverboy to the rescue, shooting first (to the neck) and not even bothering with the questions. After saving the day, President Bush enlists his rescuer in a top-secret mission to find evidence of Al Qaeda in Iran. Despite Hoverboy’s pointing out the improbability of succeeding, he will find that evidence if his President says it’s there. Handed a hand-made map from the President, Hoverboy heads off on his mission. It doesn’t go as planned, and in fact is a huge cock-up, but the story ends with Bush in the clear and a thumbs-up from Hoverboy, with a heart-felt patriotic message.

Written by Ty Templeton, with spot-on likenesses and dynamic illustrations by Steve Molnar (and lush coloring from Bernie Mireault), the main story is a hilarious spoof of the outgoing administration. Though there’s no fresh satire here (the sheer amount of Bush mockery over the past 8 years has left little room for ingenuity), it’s nevertheless told with Colbert-like mock sincerity and sharp wit, looking upon American patriotism as only a Canadian writer could.

What follows the main story, however, is what sells the book. Moore credits himself as the “Curator of the Hoverboy Museum”, and in the book he provides commentary over 20 pages of “historical” material, including eight “classic” Hoverboy covers, a vintage ’50’s PSA for the House of UnAmerican Activities Committee, images of various Hoverboy paraphernalia, a hilarious “Fruit Pie” spoof, a page of “where are they now” profiles of Hoverboy talents past, and the creme de la creme, a 10-page “reproduction” of a WWII-era Hoverboy story.

The “reproduction” is deftly illustrated in the generic art style of the time (though the colors are a smidgen too clean), and is a hilarious send-up of the prejudices that cropped up during war time (”Now, now Miss… it’s not true that Japs eat babies”). It’s presented on the page as a scan of the original printed book, getting a full sense of the yellowing, pulpy paper comics used to be printed on.

The ancillary material is brilliant and obviously painstakingly created, mimicking the appearance of old pulp magazines, Dell-style kids comics, Archie comics, and navigating the various genres popular over the decades from sci-fi, westerns, outrageous Weisinger-esque storylines (Hoverboy in blackface undercover!) and the scandalous. Complete with Moore’s commentary, one actually starts to believe the possibility of Hoverboy’s legacy. To this point, the main story feels like it was printed solely to capture Hoverboy in this modern era, where the worst elements of Republicanism are championed by Fox News (amongst others), excusing xenophobia and adhering to war as hero-maker, drawing parallels (somewhat) to the rather bitter-tasting stories of WWII-era “Japanazi” comics and McCarthy-era at-all-costs paranoia.

If you head over to the Hoverboy website the experience deepens, with era-specific cartoons (including Moore’s hilarious Hoverboy short film from 2000), a documentary, photos, more comic covers and fan club trinkets from the “Hoverboy Museum”. Together with the comic, it’s an ingenious, meticulously crafted, and utterly impressive multi-media project that’s actually succeeds at it’s objective… not just to entertain, but to provide a believable, if satirical, sense of history for the character.

I don’t know if Hoverboy will find himself in a regular series or not, or if he even has legs to support one, but as a concept for humorously exploring pop- (and political) culture past and present, there’s endless potential for entertainment. From “neck full of bullets” to communist zombies (”Com-bies”), Hoverboy: The Republican Superhero doles out a delirious dose of awesome. Recommended.

5 out of 5 Vikings

[Raided] Ubu Bubu 2

Posted by Graig on June 21, 2008

(SLG Publishing)

Oh, I think I’m showing my age. Perhaps if I were 10 - 15 years younger (and possibly a girl, and/or maybe into the goth/punk aesthetic) I’d be quite agog for Ubu Bubu. As is, it’s cute-ification of the sadistic isn’t as appealing as I think it would be to a 20-ish-year-old me. I mean, I quite liked Jamie Smart’s Bohda Te one-shot, and ultimately the same humor and keen design sense presented there are on display here, but where Bohda Te had a dizzying, folding-upon-itself story execution, Ubu Bubu is a sequence of nonsensical skits full of death, pestilence, and mayhem as enacted by cute, cute, cute manga-stylized demon kitties. I fully admire Smart’s design sense (the book has a full underground, b&w, DIY ‘zine feel, although Smart’s inks are precise and immaculately crisp, using zip-o-tone to add a depth and shade to the work), but his humor is missing an edge, primarily because I’ve seen the sweetly-violent done many, many, many times over the years already, and Smart doesn’t give it anything particularly new here (not like he did in Bohda Te). I smiled often, and I ogled the pages as there is definitely something stimulating here, alas I didn’t ever laugh. Perhaps I’ve just outgrown the sub-sub-genre of cute-horror, and maybe, just maybe, I’m not the target audience for books like this anymore. That said, I think the target audience for this book (see top of review) will love the hell out of it.

2 and a half out of 5 Vikings

[Trade Winds] The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus

Posted by Graig on June 13, 2008

(Image)

Everyone’s got their opinions, and these days, thanks to das interweb, everyone can share them with an audience as large as tens of thousands or as small as, well, themselves. Blogs, man. I speak of blogs. They’re everywhere! You’re reading one right now, technically. Thanks to blogs, and the internet there’s more opinions generated for public consumption every day than Andy Rooney can generate in a lifetime. But blogs aren’t just about opining, they’re also about entertaining. Some people are better at it than others, but on the internet, everyone gets their fair shake. Some blogs have a tight focus, sticking to one topic for discussion (like politics or television) or having a singular format (reviews only or links only), while some blogs are themed (writing in character) or personal (livejournal). Most blogs aren’t worth your time, poorly written, endless/sporadic meanderings of someone you’ve never met full of self-pity/glorification, resorting to memes or youtube embedding or LOLcat pictures for content, but some blogs create personalities that have you — and plenty of others — coming back, because, well, that person has something interesting to say (or at least says things interestingly).

I won’t go into a full history lesson of blogging (I’ve been involved in the broader blogging community for going on 6 years, I’ve seen it rise and fall and get all commercialized and stagnant) but comics blogging, and its community (equally invaluable and impenetrable), right next to the music bloggers, has become one of the standout triumphs of the medium. From the creators to retailers, from the lamented Fanboy Rampage to When Fangirls Attack, from Chris Sims to Chris Butcher, you get info and ego, entertainment and insight, rants and tantrums, fanboy wankery and outrage, reviews, previews, parodies, satire, and smarm, all the while peering into the inner workings of the creative mind, the fan’s irrationalities, the retailer’s business, the corporate workplace and more unabashed-geekiness than ever before. Without the internet, without comic bloggers, I don’t know where fandom would be today. Without Johanna Draper Carlson or (our own) Devon Sanders where would we turn to experience the commonality of being a comic book fanatic?

All we have to do is look back.
Look back to Fred Hembeck.

(Nearly) everything a Dave Campbell or Kevin Church is doing these days, Fred Hembeck has been doing for almost 30 years… analog style. Well before message boards and chatrooms, Fred was the center of comicbook geekery, the fan who had a forum for expressing himself which almost no other did, as well as the talent to stand out from the letter column crowds. His strips were published on the corporate pages of Marvel and DC comics throughout the 1980’s, as well as in Comics Buyers Guide, earning enough exposure to garner him a name that’s as renowned in fandom’s lexicon as Simonson, Chaykin, or Giffen (or more likely DeCarlo, Jaffee, and Aragones). Like any exceptional cartoonist, Hembeck has a style definitively his own, and for those that are even passingly familiar with his work, the name alone will conjure images of skinny, knobby-kneed representations of virtually every superhero imaginable (there is a drawing within this ominibus which I’m sure tops even George Perez’s record for most superheroes on one comic book page.)

The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus is an over-900-page(!) tome containing the bulk of Hembeck’s published work. A lot of his work-for-hire is absent and a few omissions of questionable quality are noted, but overall this is a massive, overwhelming but genuinely enjoyable look back at the cartoonist and his fandom. Much of Hembeck’s work features illustrations of himself, either in monologue or interviewing major superheroes. His monologues are the most engaging part for me: a page, broken up into 16 or 20 panels (or more), Hembeck’s tiny lettering a struggle to read at times, but it’s the message that makes it worthwhile. Providing insight into comics related issues of the time (interesting to note that even in 1980 comics pundits were spouting the impending obsolescence of the medium, a tradition which continues to this day), or things as a comic book fan that struck him peculiar (like whatever happened to Steve Ditko, a question which has reared it’s head again recently), or going on and on about a comic book-to-TV (or Movie) adaptations (the Dr. Strange TV movie, for instance), Hembeck talked about ideas and events from a different era but, in tone at the very least, remain relevant today.

The voice Hembeck’s monologues are written in should prove very familiar to the comics blog audience, and it’s surprising how little has changed in terms of how fandom relates to their obsessions. Hembeck voices concerns over the direction of various titles, or wonders why certain creators aren’t more popular, or delves into some rumor that he’d heard about a certain character’s death/romance/revival. Hembeck introduces his audience to a plethora of weird stories by illustrating Hembeck-ed excerpts from those books while providing narrative captions. These days, a blogger would just scan and/or Photoshop the image, but there’s something immeasurably more charming about Hembeck’s illustrative revisiting. The books he highlighted are equal parts favorites and travesties of the medium, both of which are still fodder for much of the bloggerati today. Hembeck’s revival of DC’s absurd Silver Age (Superman primarily) covers are used even more often these days for comedic fodder (especially with the Essential and Showcase archive lines reintroducing readers to old stories), but joking about the books proves fairly easy (they’re already jokes as is), it’s the redrawing of the covers in his own cartooning style gives them an heir of disbelief. Back in the days before the internet, people couldn’t do a Google image search or go into the Comic Book Database and find the cover for confirmation, so they’d have to take Hembeck’s “They’re real books, folks” statements at face value. There’s the possibility that he’s pulling your leg, but stuff that crazy is just too crazy to make up.

My favorite segment (I was going to write “post”) so far is Hembeck’s 3-page Superman: The Movie quasi-review. It’s an intense “before viewing”/”after first viewing”/”after second viewing” write up which is exactly what websites like AICN and CHUD make their bread and butter. The reservations and excitement Hembeck expresses before the film can be exchanged for any Star Wars prequel or Spiderman or X-Men movie. His reaction from the first showing, presenting the over-analytical fanboy observation, picking apart every nuance rather than enjoying the film, is true to so much of the internet’s initial reactions to the big blockbusters that are becoming year-round staples. It’s in his assessment after seeing it a second time that yields the most pleasure for him, and for the reader, and the whole three-part monologue is probably the best of such introspective examinations of the geek mindset I’ve read recently… so true in 1979, even moreso today.

I’ve only managed to wade through 100 or so pages of the collection so far (it’s dense reading, and lettering issues frequently prove challenging) but I’m thoroughly enjoying the experience. I read two to six pages a night, which isn’t far off from catching up on a blog every day. Each page presents something exciting, either a strip altogether new, or the return of a Hembeck feature. While the whole book isn’t just Hembeck’s narratives or bizarre character parade (before the days of Who’s Who or Handbook of the Marvel Universe, I can’t imagine how he found all of these) - there is some storytelling featuring original characters the cartoonist created or flashbacks to Hembeck’s childhood comic fixation, and pinups galore - it is the blog-like aspects which most engage me.

Despite the title, I wouldn’t consider Hembeck’s work “essential” reading, but this collection is highly interesting reading for any fan of the medium and/or of fandom itself. It’s charming and insightful, and at times its incredibly fresh despite some of the material’s age. At it’s size and for it’s $25 pricetag, it’s an absolute bargain which will provide weeks (if not months) of stimulating reading.

4 out of 5 Vikings

[Trade Winds] Vaistron tpb

Posted by Graig on May 30, 2008

(SLG Publishing)

Here in North America, we pretend ourselves to be a refined culture. We snobbishly poo-poo foul, “blue” humor and those that enjoy it, saying it’s cheap and easy because it is crude, offensive and “low-brow” (I know the wife and I spend our days chiding my stepson for his obsession with discussing bodily functions). But, in recent years, the edge of gross-out or offensive humor has been pushed to the teetering point where it’s threatening to topple over into art. Comedians like Sarah Silverman have been straddling that edge for some time, waiting for the audience to catch up and push it over. TV shows like South Park and Curb Your Enthusiasm (and the bulk of the Adult Swim lineup) are all about finding the line in the sand and stepping past it. Ever since the “hair gel” scene in There’s Something About Mary cinema has been flirting with more and more extreme (and extremity-based) humor, even spilling over into art-house cinema with fare like the Aristocrats. What it comes down to is the boundaries are broadened and it’s harder (and, actually, disappointing) to shock just for shock’s sake these days, it takes a real talent to make the shocking funny and the funny shocking.

Vaistron is, yes, extreme, and there are moments that are visually or verbally toying with bad taste, but what could have been a simple sight-gag gross-out is actually a farcical and highly enjoyable sci-fi romp in the vein of Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill’s Marshal Law. The story is set in the futuristic metropolis of Vaistron, which resembles visually the cities in, say, The Fifth Element or Blade Runner, which is to say highly industrialized, with towering skyscrapers and abundance of flying cars. The city itself is a hole, a pit of degradation, perversion, and idiocy. The future has not been kind.

The protagonist of the story is Gabriela Bukowsky, a “road killer” (the book’s colloquialism for a highway robber or bandit) who’s having a rough go. Her last haul got brought down by the Cripo (police) and she escaped with nothing but her life and what was left of her ride. Looking for a get rich quick scheme she decides to kidnap for ransom the current girlfriend of the city’s most prominent billionaire playboy. Of course, nothing goes right for Gabby as her subject is of less value than she thought, and her victim decides to turn the tables on her, setting a swarm of bounty hunters upon her while also indirectly forcing the police to inanely impose martial law on the city. Gabby’s got more than her fair share of tough-guy moments (she’d give Sin City’s Marv a run for his money), she’s one hell of a tough customer (literally) with a no-nonsense attitude and the biggest brass balls you’d ever find on a lady. A childhood trauma made her the way she is, but, in the context of the cesspool that is Vaistron, there’s really nothing all that wrong with her.

The opening scene, which is later revealed to be Gabby’s origin, is more than a little distasteful, which the book takes a while to recover from, but the spirit and tone, which is equal parts wild, absurd and hilarious, reaches equilibrium by the midway through the second chapter (I went from grossed-out to engrossed [sorry] over the span of the first 40 pages). The dynamic between Gabby and her porn obsessed droid, Rekoton intones a much deeper relationship than initially perceived and once introduced to their mad scientist doctor friend (a regular Dr. Strangelove), the rationale for their personalities are made abundantly clear. But as enjoyable the snide quips of the main characters are, it’s the surrounding environment of Vaistron that make the book even more fun. The religious Freeminder cult, the buffoonish Mayor and Cripo, the cannibalistic denizens of the the streets, and the bounty hunters (chief amongst them the clueless superhero-physiqued, unkillable bounty hunter named “The Rob”) all serve to bolster this bizarre world. And upon reading the Naked Gun-esque sequence featuring Grand Imperial Dragon of the Order of Baracus at the beginning of the third chapter I felt like parts of this book were written with me in mind (seeing a billboard for Kompressor in the background also filled me with glee).

Oh for sure it’s a bleak future environment if you’re really to think about it, but the rough-and-tumble ride which Gabby barely survives only increases in entertainment as it progresses, and will serve as more than enough distraction from any kind of serious thought. Written by Andrew Dabb, Vaistron is morbid, gross, twisted, outrageous, hysterical and exciting. It’s not something everyone will enjoy, but the fusion of Heavy Metal-style European sci-fi and the more bent Japanese and Korean anime (memories of the similarly extreme sci-fi action-comedy Aachi and Ssipak came flooding back while reading this) is something not routinely seen from North American comics.

If there’s a stumbling point for some, it might not be the content but Quebec artist Boussourrir’s line. It’s not the most pristine looking, but believe me he gets every iota of Dabb’s script across (and more, adding in a plethora of visual gags on billboards and in backgrounds that only a dementedly savvy mind could come up with). He’s got a highly stylized, cartoonish sensibility which isn’t the most attractive, reminding me highly of (again) Kevin O’Neill, but I think it works very well for this type of in-your-face action-comedy. When you’re setting is unseemly, and your characters filthy, and the situations somewhat repulsive, a clean, realistic art style is the last thing you want. Though there’s plenty of nudity and grotesquenesses, none of it is alluring or beyond cartoonishly repulsive thanks to Boussourir’s art, it’s just cringe-inducing funny.

Is Vaistron a tough sell? For a mass audience, probably. Fans of grindhouse cinema will no doubt be familiar with the rhythm of the book, which is so sharp in its presentation/exploitation of trash culture that it swings right around the “bad” territory and well into “good” again. Were it more European in look/feel, it might be seen as more refined, or were it more manga in visuals and/or dimensions, it might attract a larger swarm from bulge-eyed crowd. But like our continent, it really fits smack in between the the two comic cultures. It’s a product of a North American pop-culture as influenced by others, and I think the people that find their way to this book through honest reviews and recommendations will heartily enjoy it.

4 out of 5 Vikings

[Trade Winds] The Amazing Joy Buzzards in: Here Come the Spiders

Posted by Adam on May 28, 2008

(Image)

Comics are naturally suited to absurdist humor. I think this is because they can combine visual gags with density of information, balancing a madcap, breakneck tone with coherency. You’re never going to miss a line in a comic because you were laughing too hard at the last one. On top of that, of course, you have comics’ ability to seamlessly combine realism and exaggeration, so that if a characters’ head explodes or if she jumps over the moon in one panel, it can seem like the most natural thing in the world. Both western comics (starting primarily with Mad Magazine) and Japanese manga (starting primarily with Osamu Tezuka, natch) have made use of these techniques, and there’s a new trend in comics that combines the two regional sensibilities to produce some extremely funny comics. The standard bearer for this new school is Scott Pilgrim, but there are other comics similar in style, such as Josh Lesnick’s hilarious webcomic Girly. Now you can add The Amazing Joy Buzzards to the list. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

[Trade Winds] Hazed OGN

Posted by Devon on April 21, 2008

(Image)

The beer with a shot of Jack slid towards the back of your throat. Nine in and your stomach threatens revolt. Your gullet nears full and there it is and you know what come next: that gurgle in your gut, that burning spew that sends up the night. That acidic concoction that, as it hits the back of your throat, takes just enough time to let your nasal passages know what this is going to smell like, tenfold, in just another half second. And, there it is: that wet, familiar sound of liquid hitting pavement and just like that, you’ve made room for more.

The night is young and thank God, you have a “big sister” there to hold your hair back.

College.

Welcome to the world presented in Image’s original graphic novel, Hazed.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

[Raided] Cemetery Blues #3 (of 3)

Posted by Graig on April 13, 2008

(Image)

I’ve been chronicling my thoughts on Cemetery Blues through each issue of the series, starting with my original reservations about how the humor of this Vaudevillian paranormal detective story might be better suited to a more performance-based medium from first read through to the second issue where the rhythm of the humor and horror seemed perfected both in Thomas Boatwright’s visuals and Ryan Rubio’s dialogue. Now that “The Haunting Of Hernesburg” is complete, I’ve realized I’m not ready to see it end. Sure the story in Hernesburg is complete (though some loose ends left to explore at a later date possibly) but the story of Ridley, Falstaff, their ghostly benefactor Mr. Lear and their nemesis Count Orlok are by no means complete. Cemetery Blues is a mini-series written like an ongoing, with seeds of a greater arc sewn throughout. It gives it tremendous depth for a stand-alone 3-issue mini-series, but effectively leaves you wanting more. The art I’ve dug from day one and I think it took me an issue to catch up to speed with the writing, but it’s altogether a very entertaining series that should be enjoyable for fans of everything from Scooby Doo to the X-Files to Buffy and Supernatural… Ridley and Falstaff could certainly join great paranormal investigative teams like the Scooby gang or Mulder and Scully.

4 out of 5 Vikings

Bohda Te (one-shot)

Posted by Graig on March 22, 2008

(SLG Publishing)

I’m sure there were humorists or storytellers before Jhonen Vasquez came along that did it, but he really was my first exposure to the highly juxtaposed cutesy-horror style of comedy. Glimpses of it were in his comic Johnny The Homicidal Maniac that later featured more prominently in Squee and then hit an even broader market with his Nickelodeon cartoon series Invader Zim. If he didn’t create it, he certainly mastered the genre, the ingredients of which include, basically, horrible things happening around (or to) the widest-eyed, cutest of creatures, testing the resolve of their cuteness every step of the way. Alternatively, sometimes it’s the cutest of creatures that inflict the strangest of horrors (like the old Monty Python and the Holy Grail “killer rabbit” idea). Other sources around include Happy Tree Friends or Wonder Showzen collections on DVD, as well as other SLG published books like Lenore (written by Vasquez’s contemporary and fellow Zim writer Roman Dirge) and Bear created by Jamie Smart, who just unleashed on an unsuspecting (or, more likely, a suspecting) audience Bohda Te.

Scatological comedy is really too easy a place for any humorist to go, and typically only the laziest of funnypeople go there, but as the film The Aristocrats taught us, creativity, tone and context can really transform LCD (lowest common denominator) poo-humour into something challenging, perhaps even intellectual. I won’t go so far as to say Bohda Te is intellectual, but it’s certainly creative. Even though it completely falls in league with the Vasquez-mastered cute-horror thing (replete with the gratuitous use of the word “dookie”), which may feel derivative for some or simply wearing thin for others, Smart has done something different with this book, as if a poop-obsessed six-year-old interjected his juvenile and naive sense of what’s funny into a Lovecraft story. Bohda Te finds separate tales of a giant squid-hunting mariner, a carnivorous kitten, a pair of bumbling soldiers, an angry robot, a disturbingly cute little girl, anthropomorphic poop and a monkey all colliding in a realm of black-oozey darkness from which there is no escape… except there is… kinda.

There’s not a lot of logic to the comic, but its whimsically and gratuitously irreverent characters and story structure somehow come together to make a whole that is, if not sensical, still quite satisfying. Smart’s illustration style is cartoony with a keen design sense and very adaptable, bringing different layouts and varying levels of detail and shading to the various flashbacks and side-stories in glorious black and white with digital gray tones.

Readers keen on other of Slave Labor’s gothic-tinged humor titles will no doubt enjoy this thoroughly, and fans of the upscale vinyl figure and imported Japanese figure market will should find Smart’s visuals appealing. Me, well, the word “dooky” jusy makes me laugh.

4 out of 5 Vikings

[Raided] Rex Libris #10

Posted by Graig on March 5, 2008

(SLG Publishing)

Titled “A Cock and Bull Story” on the cover, I can’t help but think the 2006 film Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story was invading creator James Turner’s mind more than a little bit this issue. Much like that film’s spiraling diversions through story, documentary and tangents, this issue find more than a few characters breaking off into long-winded asides, discussing the very book in self-aware terms, drifting off into flashbacks, and even meeting with the (fictional) publisher of the book. Now that I think about it, the whole conceit of multiple layers of reality that the Tristram Shandy movie displayed, Turner’s been perpetuating since issue 1, as “Publisher” B. Barry Horst has provided editorials inside the front cover of each issue, and he frequently cameos within the series (often interrupting the story at hand) to discuss the title’s sales or story focus with the titular hero. It’s with this issue that Turner hits home the fact that this series is supposed to be a recounting of the daily life of Rex Libris, which means, for this semi-immortal librarian’s life story to be told, the book’s creative staff’s really going to have to step up the pace. Interestingly enough, and perhaps wisely, Turner has yet to inject himself into the meta-textual fold. Anyway, Tristram Shandy comparisons aside, a giant chicken and a giant cow do appear in this story, which is just another layer growing on this sweet onion. This book never fails to entertain, not just yanking the old funnybook bone, but tweaking the smart receptors in the brain too. And I’d be negligent in my duties if I didn’t mention the innovative comic book technology (see last page, first panel) Turner employs, making this some pretty special reading indeed.

4 and a half out of 5 Vikings

[Raided] Abyss #3 (of 4)

Posted by Graig on February 26, 2008

(Red 5 Comics)

I wasn’t immediately taken with Abyss when I read the first issue, the story of a kid who finds out after his dad’s death that he was the world’s nastiest supervillain, and shortly thereafter that pop’s not actually dead when he’s blackmailed into taking up the family business. Clever in concept, but it seemed a little too easy for a lighter-sided look at superheroes. But two issues later, the book has definitely proven itself fun, funny and smart. Now having revealed himself to his father’s adversary, The Arrow and his (latest) sidekick Quiver, Eric Hoffman has pleaded for their assistance in stopping his dad’s evil machinations. Like any right-minded superhero would, they’ve ignored him, dismissing him as some kind of mentally challenged lunatic. But with the Abyss Senior enabling plan “B”, involving, in part, the kidnapping of Quiver, Eric and the Arrow have teamed up. But it becomes obvious that the elder Abyss is much smarter than both of them, forcing them to seek out the assistance of Schaafte, the Arrow’s former sidekick (the second of eight). While this book doesn’t shy away from action or giant robots or super-villainy, it’s the repartee between characters that takes center stage. Artist Lucas Marangon deals with the copious banter quite well, the personality he infuses in his character’s body language is tremendous. He has a style reminiscent of Todd Nauck or Humberto Ramos, a loose, bubbly line with manga influences that captures the lightheartedness of this book perfectly, with playful panel arrangements and some great sight gags. Avoiding obvious superhero jokes or parodies and forging his own amusing trail, writer Kevin Rubio has firmly found his groove with the characters and the humor with this third issue. It’s a shame that the mini-series concludes next issue, as it doesn’t feel like it’s moving towards something finite, at least not so soon.

4 out of 5 Vikings

Cemetery Blues #1 (of 3)

Posted by Graig on January 28, 2008

(Image)

It’s odd to say but one of the most difficult things to convey in comics is comedy. By their very name comics are a humor venue, and it’s true that the gag strip or punchline is the foundation of the medium, and sequential narratives do have some advantages over most other avenues of storytelling mostly in the realm of defying both laws of physics and physical limitations. Woodstock can kick Snoopy out of frustration, impossibly punting him comically askew in the air. Milk and Cheese can wreak a tornado of chaos screaming “Merv Griffin!”, each panel more wildly illustrated than the next without necessarily needing direct linear flow. But what comics lack that television, movies, cartoons or radio have is performance. A really good graphic artist can convey a lot of comedy through their character illustrations - like Kyle Baker’s Cowboy Wally mugging for the “camera”, Jhonen Vasquez’s wide-eyed Squee, or even Kevin Maguire’s Justice League (who can forget Batman’s one-punch knockout of Guy Gardner) - but something even the best artists and letterers can’t do is project the intended comedic inflection on all the audience.

Cemetery Blues is a comedy, but a subdued one. Set in a non-specific era (the 1930’s would be my guess), the cast starts with a Vaudevillian-esque British duo of paranormal hunters who are equal parts professional and inept buffoons. Ridley (who looks like a cross between Ian Curtis and Jughead) and Falstaff (a character of the Peter Lorre persuasion) are agents of Mr. Lear, a ghost who has charged them with taking down his arch-nemesis, although what Lear knows about the paranormal world and his men understand seem to be two completely different things.

Ridley and Falstaff happen upon a funeral scene in Hernesburg, which they disrupt to ensure the deceased is, in fact, what he appears to be (dead, that is). Satisfied that he’s not a vampire and horrifying the attendees, the duo are greeted by another eccentric pair: the presiding minister and an obviously daft fellow, Father Morell, and his sidekick Father Roddy (Roderick), who appears to be the competent one of the lot. The fathers explain of the upcoming hunt to rid the town of it’s ghosts and/or demons and wishes the perceived experts to assist in leading them on their crusade. The daughter of the now desecrated corpse, Ingrid, had her last straw broken and is bailing on the village, while her nebbish admirer Peter hopes to curry her favor by joining the paranormal hunters and proving himself a man.

The situations crafted and dialogue written by Ryan Rubio are humorous, starting off strong and tapering somewhat towards the end of this first chapter as the plot is established. What is missing and what keeps the book from being even more amusing all the way through, is performance. The characters of Falstaff, Ridley, Mr. Lear and Father Morell need punch-up through physical, but moreover, verbal inflection. Artist Thomas Boatwright does a great job in pushing the physical elements, including facial expressions through his simplistic character line, but there’s only so much he can do towards delivering dialogue. The dialogue seems written for delivery and not so much for comics, that or else it just loses something slightly on the page.

Boatwright’s illustrations are an interesting dichotomy on the page. His characters are simply structured, similar to what you’d find in daily syndicate comic strips from the masters in the field, conveying all it needs in but a few loose strokes, but at the same time his settings and backgrounds - trees, skies, buildings, cemeteries, etc - are lavishly illustrated with an incredible depth of field. I have never seen cloudy skies rendered in ink washes so beautifully. Although a black-and-white book there are some absolutely astounding textures and visual flourishes that I have never seen achieved without color before, including flame and smoke.

Though the comedy isn’t as punchy as it might intend, the story and characters are still more than enjoyable enough to bring you back for more, and Boatwright’s straddling-Gothic art just adds a pop of visual flavor to hook you. This first issue works well as a lead in to something that might push further either the comedy or its horror aspects… or perhaps both.

3 and a half out of 5 Vikings

Fell #9 and The Goon #20

Posted by Jeb on January 20, 2008

Yeah, I wasn’t sure it was ever coming back, either, but this week marks the long-awaited return of Fell, Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith’s sharp and slightly supernatural police procedural comic. Once more, detective Richard Fell manages to buck his superiors in Snowtown, and handle a macabre situation on his own. This time, he faces a deadly hostage crisis, one that reaches a conclusion that feels surprising at first, but upon reflection is sadly inevitable. The highlight of this issue (and one nicely detailed in Ellis’ notes at the back) is the portrayal of Fell’s mental analysis of the situation. It’s a visual trick that would wear out its welcome quickly if overused, but as a representation of the reasoning process, it beats the “thought balloon” by a mile. Now that Ellis and Templesmith have some other commitments behind them, they’re promising us a much more regular dosage of Fell, and that’s cause for celebration: sixteen densely-packed pages of done-in-one storytelling for two bucks. It’s also going to be interesting to see if they can maintain that structure when they begin to open up the storytelling, filling in blanks and backstory, as Ellis has promised.

Also back from an extended hiatus is Eric Powell’s The Goon. Last year, Powell focused his time on the self-contained Goon graphic novel, Chinatown, a tough and heartbreaking noir story, with none of the Mad Magazine grossout touches that have won The Goon so much of its popularity. In its wake, it was reasonable to wonder if Powell had decided to take his creation in a more “serious” direction. That question is quickly answered, as the story begins with an Eisner-type prologue, introducing a secondary character… and it’s among the most disgusting things Powell has yet put on paper. With that reassurance out of the way, he moves forward with another tale of murder, mayhem, and monsters as The Goon and Frankie take on a mutant gorilla in a derby, harpies, zombies, and the personnel of Madame Elsa’s Burlesque show. Not only is the art as stellar as ever, but the brilliant Dave Stewart has been recruited to color the book. That’s a great thing… not that Powell doesn’t do a great job coloring the book on his own, but because turning over that task to Stewart is freeing up Powell’s time to start putting out The Goon monthly!

More Fell and more Goon? Keep this up and 2008’s gonna be great.

Both books:

Raided: KISS 4K: Merry KISSmas!

Posted by Max on December 31, 2007

(Platinum Studios)

In order to thwart Graig’s attempt to single-handedly take over the site (and because the poor guy probably has carpal tunnel by now), I would like to present the following review of the KISS 4K: Merry KISSmas special!

The Night Before KISSmas

I’ve always at heart been a closet KISS fan
Enjoying their music whenever I can,
So imagine my joy at this latest KISS fiction
Complete with an actual author (It’s Chuck Dixon!)

Now I hate to admit, but this idea seemed too trite
A rip-off of parody, to fans a great slight
But I can honestly say that while weird it may be
This rock and roll tale filled my dour heart with glee WAIT! There is more to read… read on »