When Eclipse published Steed and Mrs. Peel twenty years ago, I knew who Grant Morrison and Ian Gibson were, but had never actually watched an episode of The Avengers television show. I’ve since fixed the latter omission in my entertainment knowledge, so it’s [...]]]> Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Ian Gibson
32 pages, color
Published by Boom! Studios

When Eclipse published Steed and Mrs. Peel twenty years ago, I knew who Grant Morrison and Ian Gibson were, but had never actually watched an episode of The Avengers television show. I’ve since fixed the latter omission in my entertainment knowledge, so it’s nice to have Boom! Studios bringing this long-out-of-print series back to life for another go-round. And so far? Well, like any story involving John Steed, Emma Peel, and Tara King, it’s a mixed bag.

Steed and Mrs. Peel takes place after the end of The Avengers television show, but still strongly within its continuity. Steed and Tara are still working for "Mother" (introduced in the Steed and King episodes that closed out the series), and after Tara has gone missing on a solo investigation, Steed has called up his old partner Mrs. Peel. The presence of Mother and an organization in general sending Steed out on assignments is just as regrettable now as it was on the television show; given the choice of using or quietly discarding the idea, I’ll admit to being disappointed that Morrison stuck so rigidly to the setup.

On the plus side, Steed and Mrs. Peel both feel spot-on. Steed’s still got his general suave nature, and Mrs. Peel’s playful personality shines through so much that I could almost hear Diana Rigg delivering her lines. It’s that interplay between the two that punctuated a lot of the entertainment from their episodes of The Avengers, and it works well here. When the pair of them visit Fanshawe’s home, Morrison places them inside all of the massive games that fill the estate, and it felt like a missing scene right out of their era. Playing with the ship in the bottle, making quips involving both the board game Clue (or Cluedo in their case) and if the butler did it… Morrison clearly loved those episodes of The Avengers, too. Fans of Tara King might be a little disappointed here; she’s barely in the story, and comes across as a bit naive when she does. Still, it’s her disappearance that spurs the rest of the story, so it’s only understandable that she’s hardly a star.

Gibson’s art is a bit variable in Steed and Mrs. Peel. It’s difficult to work off of real-life likenesses, of course, but it’s hard to ignore when the looks are a bit off-kilter. When Gibson gets it right, it looks fantastic; Mrs. Peel sitting on the desk at the magazine office, for instance, exudes the confidence and sexuality that was a hallmark of the character. On the other hand, the title page image of Mrs. Peel looks almost like someone else entirely, and in general the art veers back and forth between careful renditions and what feels like squiggled faces. Mrs. Peel playing hopscotch looks more like an electrocuted scarecrow than an actual person, and while I appreciate that Gibson is bringing his own slightly cartoonish style to the comic, it veers a little too far off-course every now and then.

The original Steed and Mrs. Peel was a three-issue mini-series, but with each issue having two chapters worth of story, it makes the split into a six-issue series here rather painless. (The main story, "The Golden Game," only runs four chapters with the remaining two chapters being drawn by Gibson but written by Anne Caulfield instead, with a story about the return of the infamous Mr. Peel.) It’s fun to see Steed and Mrs. Peel dusted off, and based off of this I’d certainly be happy to see Morrison—or just comic books in general—take another crack at the property. There’s definitely still some life in these characters.

Roger Langridge is one of those comic creators that I’ve come to think of as "dependably good." It doesn’t matter what title he’s working on, from The Muppet Show to Thor, you automatically know that it’s going to be a great mix of drama and humor that [...]]]> By Roger Langridge
24 pages, color
Published by Boom! Studios

Roger Langridge is one of those comic creators that I’ve come to think of as "dependably good." It doesn’t matter what title he’s working on, from The Muppet Show to Thor, you automatically know that it’s going to be a great mix of drama and humor that is entertaining from start to finish. I think that’s why I had such high hopes for Snarked!, his new creator-owned series for Boom! Studios that provides his own particular spin on some the ancillary characters from Lewis Carroll’s works. And so far? It’s as excellent as I’d hoped it to be.

The comic takes minor characters like the Walrus and the Carpenter, the Gryphon, and the Red King, and sets them in their own little world where they exist side-by-side with other Carroll creations like the characters and creatures of the poem The Hunting of the Snark. From there, though, all bets are off in terms of familiarity. Langridge makes the young Queen Scarlett the protagonist here, as she finds herself and her infant brother Rusty at great danger as the kingdom’s administration attempt to seize power away from Scarlett now that her father has gone missing. Paired up with the scheming Walrus and the dimwitted Carpenter, we watch them try to outwit the bad guys even as they scramble to find out what happened to the missing Red King and try to figure out how to rescue him.

Each issue is episodic in nature, but at the same time builds towards a greater whole. For example, Snarked! #3 focuses on Scarlett trying to break back into the castle to retrieve a map that they’d learned about in the previous issue, one that would guide them to the location of the missing Red King. At the same time, the Walrus has to try and hire a ship to take them out to sea on said rescue mission, even as he tries to look out for his own skin. It’s a crafty and well thought-out storytelling technique; make sure each issue stands on its own, but also give the reader a reason to come back for the next installment. It helps that while the main characters each have one or two defining character elements (the Carpenter’s dim-witted nature, for instance, or Scarlett’s brave-little-girl adventurer persona), they’re all likeable. You want to see them succeed, and Langridge makes them each rather charming in their own particular way.

There’s also always a fun little design element in each issue, waiting to be discovered by the reader. The first issue drew a map of the city, for example, or in the third issue Scarlett’s escape through a laundry chute turns into a twisty maze for the reader to follow along as she wanders through its tunnels. Snarked! is meant as an all-ages series, and these little touches give those younger readers something to stop and examine in great detail, even as older readers will get a chuckle and grin as they recognize the twist on sequential art. Langridge is a good enough of an artist that it never comes across as a gimmick either, but instead just a fun way to present the information. His characters in general look great; they’re a little cartoonish and spritely, and I love the "what the heck?" expressions that Scarlett in particular is so good at flashing to the audience.

Snarked! is only three issues in (plus a #0 teaser released months earlier) and I’m utterly enchanted with it. I love how Langridge is teasing us with the specter of the dreaded Snark (and the Boojum!), and how he’s building up its presence and danger without ever showing it to us. Scarlett’s a great heroine, too; she’s headstrong and tough and doesn’t give up easily, all good elements for an all-ages comic book character. As with his Muppet Show comic, Langridge is giving us an all-ages comic that truly is for all ages; it’s funny, it’s entertaining, and I look forward to a new issue every month. If you’ve never read a comic by Langridge, this is as good a time as any to fix that problem. Definitely check it out.

One of my top five favorite comic strips is, without a doubt, Peanuts. And in terms of the great Peanuts multimedia empire, there’s been [...]]]> Based on comic strips by Charles M. Schulz
Script by Stephan Pastis and Craig Schulz
Layouts by Vicki Scott
Pencils by Bob Scott and Vicki Scott
Inks by Ron Zorman
96 pages, color
Published by Boom! Studios

One of my top five favorite comic strips is, without a doubt, Peanuts. And in terms of the great Peanuts multimedia empire, there’s been a lot to love over the years. (Watching A Charlie Brown Christmas happens in my home every December, for starters.) So a new graphic novel based off a new direct-to-DVD animated special? Well, I certainly had to take a look and see just what we were offered up.

Peanuts: Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown! is published by Boom! Studio’s all-ages imprint Kaboom!, and with hindsight I should have pegged that this was not a book aimed at me. Not because it’s dumbed down or particularly juvenile, but rather, because it’s aimed at the newer reader for Peanuts rather than a long-time fan. The feature is an adaptation of popular Peanuts stories by Charles M. Schulz, and as a result the book does the same. So as Linus is given a one-week deadline to stop carrying around his blanket, I found myself nodding along to the different vignettes because they were all familiar. For instance, the classic sequence where Linus shows why children at school don’t tease him about his blanket will ring true to any Peanuts fan, but for a new reader it’s still funny.

It’s because the jokes are still entertaining that I found myself ultimately not minding that I’d seen this all before. Sort of like a band releasing a greatest hits album, just because all of these moments that I’ve seen before are showing up again doesn’t make them any less entertaining the second time around. Stephan Pastis and Craig Schulz thread their story around Linus’s looming deadline before his grandmother arrives and takes away his blanket, but they wisely include some shorter subplots to give the rest of the cast things to do. So we get some of the tried-and-true elements; Charlie Brown trying to fly his kite and failing, Lucy romantically pursuing Schroeder, and Pig-Pen’s general filthiness. It’s a nice way to be able to cut away and then return to Linus’s story, and keep things moving. The one downside to this, though, is that Pastis and Schulz’s subplots, unlike that of Linus’s grandmother arriving, can’t by definition have any sort of resolution. It’s a problem that stands out in part because of the main plot having an end point; it wraps up, but nothing else has changed.

Still, it’s a nice looking and innocent enough book. Vicki Scott, Bob Scott, and Ron Zorman ape Charles M. Schulz’s style well, with the familiar round-head of Charlie Brown, Snoopy’s grins and winks to the audience, and the snarl of kite string when Charlie Brown ultimately wipes out. There are a couple of nice bits to try and mimic some of the animation from the feature, like the multiple images (with no panel borders) of Charlie Brown running across the hill with his kite in tow, or the double-exposure of Snoopy whipping Linus through the air. It’s a cute looking comic, and while on the whole it’s exactly what you would expect, I think the art team stayed exactly within the parameters of Peanuts and successfully transferred the animated feature to a printed form.

Peanuts: Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown! isn’t a brand-new Peanuts story, although to be fair I think most Peanuts fans would find that bordering on heresy. So while the long-time readers might find little new with this book, for a new reader it’s a warm and welcoming way to show them what Peanuts is all about. Once they’re done, though, it might be worth breaking out some of the gorgeous collections from Fantagraphics, and let them experience the material direct from the source. All parties involved do a good job here, but at the end of the day, the best is still the real thing.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Despite having never seen any of the Hellraiser movies, I was a big fan of the comic from Marvel’s Epic imprint back in the day. A friend introduced me to the relatively new series when I was in college; when [...]]]> Written by Clive Barker and Christopher Monfette
Art by Leonardo Manco
40 pages, color
Published by Boom! Studios

Despite having never seen any of the Hellraiser movies, I was a big fan of the comic from Marvel’s Epic imprint back in the day. A friend introduced me to the relatively new series when I was in college; when I protested that I’d not seem the films, he told me it didn’t matter, that they were some shockingly good horror comics. And when you consider that early issues included creators like Bernie Wrightson, John Bolton, Ted McKeever, Scott Hampton, Kevin O’Neill, John Van Fleet, and Dave Dorman—to name but a few—you can get an idea of the pedigree of Hellraiser. So hearing that Clive Barker had come on board for a brand-new Hellraiser comic? Well, color me interested.

Barker and his co-author Christopher Monfette (the pair of whom also worked on the Seduth one-shot at the end of 2009) start the comic with a back-to-basics moment. We get to see one of the demonic puzzle boxes that summon the demonic Cenobites, and in the blink of an eye the first victim of the series is claimed. But this scene does more than just re-introduce the Cenobites; it also sets up something greater, with the introduction of an individual using the boxes to kill his captors, someone who clearly knows just who Pinhead and company are and what they’re capable of. It’s a logical step, and one that holds some potential.

From there we move between Hell and Earth, seeing both a plan of Pinhead’s to walk on Earth once more with the help of the Nebraska farmer who is killing people via puzzle box, and a painter whose art indicates that she knows something about the Cenobites as well. Writing wise, it’s a good introduction to Hellraiser; we’re getting the players on the field, and some of the greater cosmology (like the massive Leviathan that the Cenobites worship, or the fact that there are those out there destroying the puzzle boxes) is already being presented. It’s the latter that I think is particularly important, because it shows the reader right from the start that this isn’t just a simple slasher/monster story, but a much larger and intricate setting.

For longtime readers of the book, it also feels like Barker and Monfette are revisiting the concept of the Harrowers, a plot thread that Barker created for the later issues of Epic’s Hellraiser comic. The idea of a team of people fighting the Cenobites was always better in concept than actual execution, so it would be nice to see a soft reset of them in the new Hellraiser. I think Barker and Monfette are smart enough to not require people to have read comics that are over 15 years old, so chances are this is a fresh start for the name and potential group.

Leonardo Manco, probably best known for his long run on the similarly-titled Hellblazer, is on the art and it’s just what you’d expect for a horror comic. Manco’s photo-real art works at its best with the tight close-ups on people’s faces, the worry and fear reflected back at the reader. It’s some of the more expansive images (like Pinhead standing in front of the demonic organ) which feel a little weaker because there’s so much detail crammed onto the page that it’s actually a little hard to make out some of the finer points. It’s still good overall, though, and when it comes to some of the more interesting visual moments (the slow approach to the captive woman; the look from above at Samuel’s crops) it really sings.

It’s a little funny that the two supplemental pieces attached to Hellraiser #1, though, that are my least favorite things about the new comic. First, it preview 16 pages of one of the stories due to appear in Hellraiser Masterpieces Vol. 1, which promises reprints of the Epic series by creators like Barker, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, Alex Ross, Kevin O’Neill, and Mike Mignola. The story they reprint from, though, is by Larry Wachowski and Mark Pacella, from the Hellraiser Spring Slaughter special in 1994. I can understand the idea behind finding a story by Wachowski (who of course went onto projects like The Matrix), but Pacella’s art looks hideous and not in a good way. This is hardly a good enticement to pick up a collection that promises so many better potential stories.

There’s also a free online exclusive prelude to Hellraiser #1, which won’t show up in print until the collection. It’s just all right; it gives the reader a good look into what Manco’s art is like, but Barker and Monfette’s story feels much more standard and run of the mill. The writing is much stronger in Hellraiser #1, and it’s a shame this prelude isn’t quite as good so that potential buyers can get a better idea of what they’re in for. Still, at the end of the day, it’s the main comic itself which has me interested in seeing what Barker, Monfette, and Manco are up to next. Horror and Hellraiser fans, I suspect, will discover the same thing as well for themselves. It’s nice to see Hellraiser returning, and in good form. I’ve missed my little Cenobite stories, and this promises to scratch that itch.

It’s hard to not make the obvious comparison between 7 Psychopaths and Inglorious Basterds, both of them being about a team of slightly crazy people in World War II trying to assassinate Hitler. Once you move past that, though, the first issue this [...]]]> Written by Fabien Vehlmann
Art by Sean Phillips
24 pages, color
Published by Boom! Studios

It’s hard to not make the obvious comparison between 7 Psychopaths and Inglorious Basterds, both of them being about a team of slightly crazy people in World War II trying to assassinate Hitler. Once you move past that, though, the first issue this comic imported from France has little else in common with Quentin Tarantino’s film. 7 Psychopaths is a much more sedate story, at least so far, but at the same time Fabien Vehlmann and Sean Phillips are doing a good enough job that you’ll want to read more about these seven psychopaths.

Originally published as a longer album, Boom! Studios is serializing 7 Psychopaths into individual issues, and so far I’m pleased that they’ve found a good place to stop at the end of the issue, and are paying attention to the adaptation into this slightly different format. Vehlmann’s story moves at a leisurely pace because of its original longer page count, but it never feels like it’s dragging its feet. We discover the plan to send seven deranged people into Germany to go after Hitler, and while the reason for just seven is a little out there, you do also have to consider the source of the insane person that has come up with the plan in the first case. From there, it’s a typical "assemble the troops" series of scenes, except of course that so far each of the squad members has their own specific problem. It’s entertaining, but reading it serialized made me wish for the entire volume in one fell swoop so we could get to the action.

The big attraction, though, is Phillips’s art. It’s as beautiful as his work on books like Criminal and Incognito, able to draw character portraits that are striking and full at the same time. As strange as it may sound, though, it’s some of the layouts of 7 Psychopaths that gets me the most excited. He’s able to use the original oversized dimensions of these pages to play around with the extra space; on one early page, he keeps slicing away at a square he’s created on its top and left sides until we’re whittled down to the final panel in the bottom right corner. Other times, he creates almost-mirror duplicates on a page of his layouts, stacking horizontal and vertical panels into configurations that in other hands might be hard to follow but here flow perfectly across the page. None of these layouts ever detract from the storytelling that’s going on here, most importantly, and that’s why at the end of the day you have to raise your metaphorical hat to Phillips.

7 Psychopaths #1 is early enough in this mini-series that it’s hard to judge it too terribly much, but based on this first issue I definitely want to read more. The story’s good so far, and Phillips is unsurprisingly at the top of his game. 7 Psychopaths is part of a seven volume series of books by different creators, and if they’re all this strong, I hope Boom! Studios brings over the rest as well. It’s a good start.

Writing a comic book sequel to a hit movie has got to be a thankless task. It’s a project that by very definition will be compared to something that’s a different form of media, and as a result run the real potential [...]]]> Written by Marie Croall
Art by Erica Leigh Currey
32 pages, color
Published by Boom! Studios

Writing a comic book sequel to a hit movie has got to be a thankless task. It’s a project that by very definition will be compared to something that’s a different form of media, and as a result run the real potential of falling short in the reader’s mind. I guess that’s why I was so impressed, then, with Marie Croall’s script for Finding Nemo: Reef Rescue #1. Reading the comic, it’s hard to not feel like this is something that’s perfectly in tune with the Finding Nemo film.

It’s another typical day under the ocean for Marlin and Nemo; Nemo is going to class under the guidance of Mr. Ray, and Marlin is still the ever-worried father. When a class field trip to the edge of the reef reveals that something is killing the coral, the dim-witted Dory volunteers herself, Marlin, and Nemo to try and figure out what’s causing the blight. But have the three fish bitten off more than they can chew?

Croall really nails the Finding Nemo characters in her script. With each line, I could almost hear the different voice actors from the movie. Croall wisely keeps the characters very much the same; after all, Marlin is still going to be overly protective, Dory a little scatterbrained, and Nemo inquisitive. At the same time, though, Marlin is clearly trying to remain a little calmer than you might remember, so it’s not as if the characters operate in a vacuum. What I think I like the most about this first issue of Finding Nemo: Reef Rescue, though, is that it feels like the comic is continuing the movie’s look at the ocean as something both wondrous and threatened. In the movie, of course, it had more to do with fish being taken out of their ecosystem and into aquariums. Here, it’s the imminent destruction of the reef. But it’s still present, and it’s a story that doesn’t feel like a generic children’s comic with underwater elements grafted onto it.

I have to admit that I wasn’t quite as crazy about Erica Leigh Currey’s art for Finding Nemo: Reef Rescue. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t quite hit the strengths of the source material. While I wasn’t expecting it to look like Pixar’s gorgeous computer-generated creatures, I couldn’t help but feel that Currey and colorists Digikore really missed on the whole vibrant, colorful, teaming-with-life look of Finding Nemo. The comic seems to lack on having lots of fish and colors here, and that’s a real shame. The huge schools of fish and the amazing looks that they sport seem like something that should be a natural for a comic version of the movie. It feels like an easy catch that’s ignored entirely.

Other than that, though, the art has some strong points. I love that Currey can make a fish actually look worried; a fish’s face, after all, is hardly an expressive looking construction. Currey manages, here, and from a lost Dory to an exasperated Marlin, she gets the looks just quite right. The storytelling is solid and carefully constructed here; nice simple page layouts, although I appreciate that Currey will make an exception for moments like when Dory surprises Marlin, using a diagonally angled panel that almost explodes onto the page.

The complaint I have with the writing of Finding Nemo: Reef Rescue #1 is that the issue doesn’t seem to use the serial nature of this mini-series at all well. At the end of the first issue, the story doesn’t come to a cliffhanger, or even an appropriate chapter break. Instead, it just stops. It feels almost like this was originally written as a graphic novel and then chopped into four pieces. While it will no doubt work better in a collected form, as a single comic it slightly falls down in that regard. Still, it’s a pleasant and fun comic, and Croall makes the writing work so well here that it’s definitely a success. Kids who loved Finding Nemo will love Finding Nemo: Reef Rescue.

I remember when Mark Waid wrote the mystery series Ruse back in the day. It was a fun shift into a genre that few English-language titles have explored, even as it does well in other countries. When I heard that The Unknown was [...]]]> Written by Mark Waid
Art by Minck Oosterveer
32 pages, color
Published by Boom! Studios

I remember when Mark Waid wrote the mystery series Ruse back in the day. It was a fun shift into a genre that few English-language titles have explored, even as it does well in other countries. When I heard that The Unknown was in some ways a return to that genre from Waid, I was looking forward to it. What I didn’t expect to find, though, was a very different sort of mystery waiting to be told.

Cat Allingham is a bit of a minor celebrity in crime circles. She’s the one who not only cracked the new Zodiac Killer’s code, but confronted the murderer on her own with the police refused to listen. Now she’s on call for just about every sort of case imaginable, from missing objects to mysterious deaths. When a box mysteriously vanishes from the center of a quantum experiment gone haywire, even Cat’s new assistant Doyle knows that Cat seems unusually interested in recovering the missing equipment. It looks like Cat has one mystery of her own that she’s depending on the box to solve, not herself…

The idea of an investigator with a terminal illness who desperately wants to know if there’s an afterlife is certainly a strong hook for a story. Once that idea is revealed in the first issue, it suddenly puts the basic premise (as well as the title) for The Unknown in a different light. It’s certainly not a normal mystery story at that point, if only because the solution being looked for is in many ways a one-way ticket towards discovery. It’s a "big issue" sort of story, and I’ll be honest that I do worry that The Unknown almost can’t live up to the high bar it’s set for itself when it comes to a conclusion. With the introduction of what looks like supernatural elements in the second issue, The Unknown seems to be veering into a way that I’m not entirely sure will be as compelling as that initial concept. On the other hand, Waid is smartly keeping the question of an afterlife from being the sole driving force of this mini-series. In addition to the missing box, there are lots of other little mysteries, observations, and discoveries lurking in the nooks and crannies of this comic. I think that’s where The Unknown really succeeds, as we follow Cat and Doyle along their path of observation and deduction. This isn’t the sort of classic mystery where the reader is encouraged/expected to try and solve the puzzles (if that is what you’re looking for, The Kindaichi Case Files series might be right up your alley), but rather one where the characters reveal their reasoning and logic jumps along the way. It’s a fun story, and Waid never has their discovers be too out-there or unbelievable.

I have to give Minck Oosterveer credit that I think he’s growing more into this comic with each issue, and we’re only two issues in. I think he’s at his best when he draws Cat, who manages to look attractive without ever seeming overly sexualized or out of control beautiful. She’s got just the right level of sass in her body language, someone who is extremely confident in her abilities and doesn’t take no for an answer. I’m a little less crazy about his drawings of Doyle, who seems so overly muscled and inflated that he almost doesn’t seem to fit into the (mostly) real world setting that Waid and Oosterveer have created for The Unknown. He just seems a little too much the stereotypical corn-fed hulking jock, although I think Oosterveer has already sharpened and finessed the general look for Doyle in the second issue. Oosterveer’s definitely good at an action sequence, though; when the characters end up in a fight on a train in the second issue, there’s a nice amount of tension that builds up, as well as a good visual flow from one moment to the next.

The Unknown is shaping up to be a fun mini-series, although I do feel like with its high ambitions that I have to hold back slightly until I see how the conclusion plays out. There’s definitely a real potential here for a good conclusion, though, and I’m going to keep my hopes up high that it hits them. What’s also nice about The Unknown is that it feels like a story that could lend itself to a sequel, or come to a definitive conclusion after just two more issues. The fact that I find myself happy with either possibility says to me that it’s succeeding in its goal to entertain. Definitely take a look.

Who says you can’t go home again? I remember when Seekers Into the Mystery first debuted at the end of 1995. I was reading J.M. DeMatteis’s and Glenn Barr’s collaboration Brooklyn Dreams and being absolutely dazzled by how well [...]]]> Written by J.M. DeMatteis
Art by Glenn Barr and Jon J Muth
128 pages, color
Published by Boom! Studios

Who says you can’t go home again? I remember when Seekers Into the Mystery first debuted at the end of 1995. I was reading J.M. DeMatteis’s and Glenn Barr’s collaboration Brooklyn Dreams and being absolutely dazzled by how well they worked together on DeMatteis’s semi-autobiographical story. I was pleased, then, to see that they were collaborating again—but at the time couldn’t shake the feeling that it was the same book but with cast later in life. Re-reading the book now, I can’t help but think that I have a greater appreciation for it now that it’s had some time away from Brooklyn Dreams and can better establish itself as its own work.

Lucas Hart dreamt he could fly as a child, and as soon as he was old enough he went out west to Hollywood to try and become a screenwriter. Now, years later, he’s washed up and pitching scripts to the worst shows on television. He has an ex-wife and daughter who tolerate him, and a girlfriend Rhonda who’s perhaps more than he deserves. But just when his life truly hits a low point, he has a vision of a man known as the Magician, and the pilgrimage of Lucas Hart finally begins.

Seekers Into the Mystery was a series about a man trying to find himself, both mentally and spiritually. In some ways, I can’t help but think that’s why it only ran for 15 issues, because it was bound to scare away readers by its very content. Reading it over a decade later, it’s easy to see the spots that could be easily mocked or used as an excuse to give up on the book. DeMatteis seems to try and mitigate those points as best he can; that make sound a little strange at first, because he wrote the entire series. But they’re moments in the series that clearly meant a lot to him, and so while they’re included, there’s an additional wink to the audience that yes it’s a little odd in spots, due to the presence of an older, reflective Lucas Hart serving as a narrator remembering these events from his past. It mostly works, I think, because of this. Older Lucas Hart is in on the joke with us; he’s got the distance from the events to be able to nod ruefully in just the right spots, but at the same time he’s still bringing us to these points in his life because (silly or not) they’re key elements in how he finds himself.

The spiritual aspect of Seekers Into the Mystery feels like an amalgamation of many different faiths and beliefs, rather than a single religion, group, or spiritual path that DeMatteis based it upon. In spots it’s a little distracting, because it’s hard to not keep picking at the tangle of ideas and trying to see where each individual strand is originally from. What’s interesting, though, is that at least in the first volume you can take Seekers Into the Mystery as so many different possible ways without any of them being invalidated. Is it something religious? Alien? Hallucinatory? A combination of some or all? It’s actually a little hard to say, especially with some of the more traumatic moments in the book. Those moments themselves can be a little hard to handle, but not only because of what happened but how the aftermath plays out. Even now, re-reading the final fate of Lucas’s father, it can be a tough moment to take. I have to give DeMatteis credit for taking the route that he does with the story, because it certainly isn’t an easy answer given to the reader or to Lucas Hart.

Glenn Barr’s art in the first four issues is as beautiful as I remembered it. It’s a rough, squiggled style that reminds me in many ways of those early sketches that artists create to help map out facial features and shapes of people’s bodies. Except, in the case of Barr’s art, he’s done so in a way that feels more finished and complete; all of the texture and contours of the characters are there, but it’s polished without losing those original raw sketches and shapes that one would create when feeling through the initial moments. The last chapter is drawn by another former collaborator of DeMatteis, in this case Jon J Muth. (Muth would also draw the final chapters of what will hopefully be the other two volumes of Seekers Into the Mystery.) The shift over to Muth is surprisingly seamless; while the two have very different finished styles, Muth clearly takes a cue from Barr and alters the looks of his characters accordingly, while still saying true to his own, heavily inked method of art. Muth’s probably at his best drawing portraits of times past in his chapter, but even his panel-to-panel work is attractive to look at. It’s a rare non-painted contribution from Muth, and it’s a nice reminder that he’s quite good at other styles of art, too.

Thanks to it being so long since it was first published, it’s much harder to remember the exact comparisons between Brooklyn Dreams and Seekers Into the Mystery, and I think that’s a good thing. While they’re both books about finding one’s self, Seekers Into the Mystery certainly heads into a different direction, and it’s nice that it can do so in the 21st century without most of its readers forever glancing into a different direction. Hopefully we’ll see the remaining two volumes of Seekers Into the Mystery before too long; not only so the beautiful art from Michael Zulli, Jill Thompson, and Jon J Muth will get reprinted, but so all the other readers who head on Lucas Hart’s journey get to see its conclusion. I remember being attracted to DeMatteis’s honest and open nature of his scripts for Seekers Into the Mystery back in the day, and it’s nice to go on that journey one more time.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

It’s always seemed a little strange to me that there haven’t been many The Muppet Show comics. Aside from movie adaptations, you can round up most of their comic appearances in the form of Muppet Babies comics, and to me that really isn’t quite the same. I [...]]]> By Roger Langridge
24 pages, color
Published by Boom! Studios

It’s always seemed a little strange to me that there haven’t been many The Muppet Show comics. Aside from movie adaptations, you can round up most of their comic appearances in the form of Muppet Babies comics, and to me that really isn’t quite the same. I was pretty pleased, as a result, to hear that Boom! Studios had not only ended up with The Muppet Show license but that Roger Langridge was writing and drawing the book. Because quite frankly, if there’s one cartoonist out there who truly "gets" the The Muppet Show, it’s Langridge.

It’s another typical day at the Muppet Show; musical numbers are heading on stage, back stage is chaos, and Statler and Waldorf are still hating any and every act to grace the stage. The other Muppets are worried, though, thanks to an unusually melancholy Kermit moping about behind stage. If Kermit can’t have his normal fire to lead the show, what hope do the rest of them possibly have of moving forward? And is there anything that they can do to cheer him up?

First off, I have to say how happy I am that Langridge isn’t just doing a comic about Muppets, he’s doing a genuine The Muppet Show comic. By that, I mean it’s like reading a print version of the original television show; back stage drama, actual musical numbers and sketches, the whole works. There’s even a special guest appearance by a celebrity, something I wasn’t expecting to see in a comic version of the show. (Although here, said celebrities are thinly disguised as someone else, no doubt to avoid any potential legal situations.) And, just like the original program, it’s a nice mixture of recurring and new sketches; I just about cheered when Kermit did one of his reporter segments, for example, or we get the Muppet news anchor. By the time I finished reading The Muppet Show #1, I wanted to race out and buy all the DVDs of the television show. Langridge has a strong grasp of what makes the show tick, with one off-jokes as well as an overarching story throughout the entire issue that slowly gets resolved even as the show continues to move forward.

The art is also a real delight; Langridge manages to both make all of the various characters recognizable as well as keeping the entire comic in his own style. So for example, while Gonzo doesn’t look like a photographic reference of the character, it still feels like the character with his sheepish grin, hooked nose, and blue feathers. (Or is that fur? I’ve never managed to figure that out.) The entire book is really sharply presented, from old-fashioned transition cards for the start of new skits, to easter eggs for Muppet aficionados. (Beauregard the Janitor meeting George the Janitor in the background of the opening splash page is just one of the fine details that Langridge crams into the book.)

Best of all, have I mentioned that The Muppet Show #1 is just plain funny? It’s hard to not just crack a smile from start to finish, here. The idea of trying to transition a sketch comedy show into a comic book seems like a thankless task, but Langridge just makes it look easy. After I read the first issue of The Muppet Show, half an hour later I found myself still humming the theme song to the television show. Langridge has knocked this one out of the park. Highly recommended.

By now, I think most people know how some "gimmick" comics work. The most popular/well-known is the 24-hour comic, where the creator(s) of the comic have just 24 hours to conceive of, write, draw, and letter a completed comic book. What I’m actually [...]]]> Written by Kathryn Immonen
Art by Stuart Immonen
64 pages, color
Published by Boom! Studios

By now, I think most people know how some "gimmick" comics work. The most popular/well-known is the 24-hour comic, where the creator(s) of the comic have just 24 hours to conceive of, write, draw, and letter a completed comic book. What I’m actually more intrigued with, though, is Kathryn and Stuart Immonen’s tactic for creating Never As Bad As You Think. Originally serialized online, each strip was written by using a word chosen randomly by another website. Then, as soon as Kathryn Immonen wrote the script, Stuart Immonen had to start drawing that week’s creation. Not only is it an interesting challenge, but the impressive thing is that Never As Bad As You Think comes across as if it was always planned this way.

It probably helps that at some point in the process, Kathryn Immonen decided that she didn’t need to perpetually follow the same two characters through all of Never As Bad As You Think. So while the book starts with two characters meeting in a cafe, it quickly moves on from there, as one person’s story slowly bleeds into the next person, who detaches from the first person and eventually moves the story onto yet a new person, and so forth. It’s a tricky sort of storytelling to pull off, with the danger being that it won’t take much to lose your reader’s interest entirely. That’s not something you have to worry about here, though. After all, if Kathryn Immonen can tackle a superheroine/supermodel transplanted into a mystical Alaskan tundra, well, this is easy. So sure, there’s no huge over-arcing plot, but it’s a light and fun story, and Kathryn Immonen does a lot with each little character sketch as we visit with our latest protagonists.

Stuart Immonen’s art is, unsurprisingly, beautiful. It’s not as realistically rendered as his work on books like Superman: Secret Identity, but it doesn’t need to be here. Instead it’s a little more iconic, like his Nextwave art but taken to its next level. Stuart Immonen isn’t afraid to play with the basic page structure here; the temptation would certainly be to find a panel arrangement and stick with it, but you can see that Stuart Immonen is laying each page out carefully based on what would work best for the drawings within those panels. There are some nice stylistic tricks here, too, like the panel with a traffic accident suddenly shifting to reds and blacks, or an emergency medical technician having reflections on his window crisscross his face. Add in the nice gentle colors—not everything needs to be day-glow and full of lens flares, and it’s hard to beat the beautiful blues and oranges that we get here—and it’s a winner in the art department, too.

Never As Bad As You Think is a handsome book, and I can see why it’s making the jump from online to print; I’d certainly want to have a copy sitting around on my coffee table for people to ooh and ahh over as well. Knowing that Kathryn and Stuart Immonen are currently collaborating on a much more planned, methodically-approached graphic novel for Top Shelf at the end of the year makes me that much happier; if this is what they did together when just working on an artistic challenge, just imagine what the new project will be like. Until then, though, this is a nice addition to both of their libraries.