One of my favorite graphic novels of 2008 was Chris Schweizer’s Crogan’s Vengeance, the first in a proposed series of stories about various ancestors of the Crogan family tree over the years. Schweizer’s story of pirates and high-seas adventure hit all the right notes for me, and since then I’ve been looking forward to seeing if he could capture that lightning in the bottle a second time with Crogan’s March. What I found was a book that takes everything I liked about the earlier volume, and then improves on it. Now that’s something you don’t see every day.

Crogan’s March takes place in 1912, letting us meet Peter Crogan, member of the French Foreign Legion stationed in North Africa. At first it seems like a standard story with this kind of setting; Crogan has just a short time left on his five-year tour of duty, the troop is full of all sorts of characters, they’re generally disliked by the locals. And honestly, if that was all that Crogan’s March brought to the table, I’m sure that I would have enjoyed the end result if perhaps forgotten about it a few months later. The thing is, though, Crogan’s March early on begins to take a different route than I was expecting. The book opens with a member of the troop going missing in action after a horrific two-day sandstorm, and things never really improve from that point on for Crogan and company. This isn’t a story where everyone stops and realizes how great each other is and starts giving out big hugs; instead, this is a grim setting with some admittedly entertaining characters who are going to be lucky to make it out alive.

The end result is a curious mix of fun and deadly serious. We can get a bit of story where the soldiers sell their undergarments to make money to buy booze (only to realize the next morning that it might not have been the wisest of decisions thanks to scratchy pants), and then switch over to a raid that has the cheerful local boy kidnapped and hauled away to presumably a life of hardship and slavery. It’s a deliberate storytelling device on the part of Schweizer, letting us see how the members of the legion try to combat the nature of where they are, as well as giving the darker and more dramatic moments of the story additional heft. Even then, though, the book takes a huge turn at the halfway point, and I was startled enough at that point to momentarily put the book down and deliberately take myself out of the reading process to fully digest what had just happened.

Schweizer’s art helps carry the punch of this story; just like the script, on some page it’s cartoonish and funny, while others show off Schweizer’s skills in a more violent, tougher manner. Like Crogan’s Vengeance, I found the big fight scenes easy to follow, or at least when that was supposed to be the case. There are some moments in Crogan’s March where chaos breaks out and it’s drawn to be deliberately confusing, mirroring what Crogan and company are going through. It’s that use of perspective that keeps cropping up throughout the book; we "see" what’s happening through a focus on Crogan, so moments in a cave are handled by the use of sound effects moving across black panels, and shadows shift and move across the pages excellently. The one thing that did take me by surprise was his depiction of the North African cityscapes, which are beautiful; it felt like a big leap forward for Schweizer, and it makes me that much more eager to see the next book.

Crogan’s March, with its grimmer and more complex plot, stood out for me as something stronger than its predecessor. While I’d have been satisfied with all the Crogan books being primarily light-hearted and fun, knowing that Schweizer can stretch his legs to hit all different sorts of moods and styles makes me that much more interested in what is still to come. Published in an inexpensive but beautifully designed hardcover, Crogan’s March is an irresistible book. After Crogan’s Vengeance, I was looking forward to Crogan’s March. Now that I’ve read Crogan’s March, I’m dying to see 2011′s Crogan’s Loyalty. This is a series that I’m going to be enjoying for a very, very long time.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

How bitchy do you like your bitchy-high-school-girls stories? That, at the end of the day, is going to determine how much you like the new Spell Checkers series of graphic novels from Oni Press. Because trust me, Jamie S. Rich, Nicolas Hitore de, and Joëlle Jones have created a supremely bitchy trio of witches here, and while I suspect that will be a turn-off to some readers, other ones are going to laughing their heads off and cheering the ladies on for much, much more.

The early pages of Spell Checkers Volume 1 set up the status quo fairly quickly; Kimmie, Cynthia, and Jesse are three high school students who rule their school in terms of popularity, three queen bees buzzing their way down the halls. Except, in this case, we have three queen bees who use a stolen spell book to rise to the top of the ranks. It’s a nice twist on the typical "high school is hell" sort of story, doubly so because Spell Checkers is from the viewpoint of the oppressors and not the outsiders struggling to fit in.

At the heart of Spell Checkers, and what will ultimately determine if you like the book or not, is an extremely unapologetic trio of protagonists. They aren’t misunderstood, or "good people trying to break out" like you might see elsewhere. They’re backstabbing, manipulative, slightly lazy, untrustworthy people. They can barely stand to be around each other at times, each of the trio keeping a wary eye on the other two members. And that, really, is why I found that I enjoyed Spell Checkers Vol. 1 so much. Rich’s script is unrelenting as the three suddenly find their magic starting to fail and with it their grip on the school. As they turn on one another and their true colors come out, I didn’t find myself thinking, "I hope they find who is really doing all of these bad things." Instead, my reaction (and presumably the intended one from Rich) was, "Yay, fight!"

The girls are, at this point, largely interchangeable, but I didn’t mind that. We’re still learning how they saunter around the school and rule it, and in many ways they’re almost supposed to be identical save for superficial physical differences. They all scheme and plot, and even have the slightly condescending wave of their papers as they turn them in at the end of class. Down the line I suspect we’ll start seeing more differences between them, but for now they’re still being painted in broad strokes. As long as someone’s tossing out a particularly nasty line towards the other two, or we get to see more of just how each of them treat people not even within the little coven, it’s all good. There’s a lot of good humor here too that isn’t just snappish dialogue, from the group having to deal with a demon in the big finale of the book, to a nicely sadistic elementary school spelling bee that had me snickering. Spell Checkers lets Rich go hog-wild and have fun, and I whole-heartedly approve.

The book is primarily drawn by Hitori de, with Jones providing the art for flashbacks. While I’ve seen a lot of Jones’s art in the past and loved it, this was my first exposure to Hitori de. His style is a lot like westernized manga, with their flip hair and large heads. He’s got the energy level that manga artists who use this style are often associated with, too; when the girls leap across the room or try and claw each other’s eyes out, you can feel the motion building and then exploding across the page. I also like the ever-changing fashions that he brings to the characters, from paperboy caps and distressed jeans, to skirts (of varying lengths) and sweaters. The girls always look like they have real wardrobes, and it’s that attention to detail that helps make Spell Checkers seem more real, magical spells aside. Hitori de’s figures are a times a little too skinny and lanky, with body types either being ultra-skinny or slightly schlubby, but since the book is through the eyes of our skinny witches it’s something that could be a deliberate choice.

Jones tackling the flashback pages is a technique we saw back in Hopeless Savages, and it works well here too. Jones’s art is a little more solid and substantial; unlike Hitori de’s usage of zip-a-tone styled shading, it’s all pure black and white for Jones, and her deep blacks provide an instant visual difference for the reader to pick up on. This is the first time I remember Jones drawing younger characters, though, and her depictions of children for some reason make me pre-disposed to laugh at any incoming punch line. There’s something both sweet and devious about their faces that makes me want to see more of them, even though they’d probably just steal my wallet in the blink of an eye.

Spell Checkers is a gleefully mean-spirited book, and I love it for that. Some readers might find it to be too much, and I can see where the book could end up being a turn-off in that regard. For people who like dark comedy and bitchy dialogue, though, they’re hitting the jackpot. If your favorite parts of the movie Mean Girls were watching the queen bees rule the school and then rip on one another, look no further. Here’s hoping the next volume of the series comes out before too long, because Spell Checkers is a lot of fun.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

When I heard about the basic premise of The Return of King Doug, I had to laugh. As far as concepts go, it’s a good one: young boy discovers a magic kingdom, is told he’s the king and savior, and responds by running screaming in the opposite direction. It’s a knowing nod towards series like The Chronicles of Narnia where instead of jumping full hog into the story as dictated to the child, we instead get a realistic, honest reaction. The only thing hovering in the back of my head as I heard about this, though, was that everyone would surely see exactly how the end of this story would play out. Fortunately, I think it’s also clear that writers Greg Erb and Jason Oremland understood that potential pitfall, too.

What we end up with is a joking, tongue-in-cheek series of gags, one-liners, and pratfalls as the adult Doug and his son Oscar enter Valdonia and are yanked back into the unfinished epic that Doug had abandoned. This is a comedy, through-and-through, not an epic adventure. It’s a decision that both does and doesn’t work for the book, depending in which spot of the book you’ve arrived at. When The Return of King Doug works, it’s worth quite a few snickers. The elf village deciding to eat the returning Doug, setting the dogs on the Doug after he flees, and then realizing that they should just eat the dogs instead made me chuckle because of how Erb and Oremland play the scene out. It’s got a good sense of comic timing and pacing, with each line building towards the next until you hit the final punch line. That’s where I think Erb and Oremland work best, creating longer jokes that gather steam over the course of panels or pages.

What I wasn’t as crazy about were the swift one-liners that pepper the book, going for the instant joke and then moving onwards. Some of them just don’t work that well—actually proving to be a little distracting rather than funny—and there’s a strange sort of desperation with the less-funny jokes. It’s like someone frantically trying to tell joke after joke just to see which one will finally generate a laugh, throwing everything out there possible. When Erb and Oremland pull out a particularly unfunny poop joke towards the end of the book, I actually found myself shaking my head a bit.

I also found myself slightly unconvinced about the progression of Doug’s character as the book unfolds. There’s a little too much flip-flopping of Doug starting to man up to his promises and responsibilities; every time it looks like he’s starting to understand what he did wrong and that he needs to help fix it, the next section of the book seems to have Doug reverting to his old ways. I know that The Return of King Doug isn’t supposed to be the deepest of books, but it felt like Erb and Oremland were trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Wook-Jin Clark’s art in The Return of King Doug is at its best when showing off reactions to the events unfolding. Surprise, fear, amusement, these are all things that Clark easily hits with a loose, young looking art style. It’s a take that works well for the joke-filled script and I can see why Clark teamed up with Erb and Oremland for the book. I’m not as crazy at how Clark draws the fantastic; save for a large monstrous report card just about all of the larger than life creatures and moments come off more like blobby people. There’s a strange sort of sameness to a lot of the art here, and I wish that Clark had stretched himself a little more in making the world of The Return of King Doug looking a little more fantastical. The fantasy element might not be the main thrust of the book, but for those who did enter the book looking for it, a stronger take on those ideas might be better at keeping them amused too.

The Return of King Doug is a solid first effort, and it’s the kind of story that you can see a company like DreamWorks jumping all over to turn into an animated film. While the humor didn’t always work for me, there were more than enough moments that I did laugh that I do consider the book a success. It’s fluffy and light-hearted, but it’s fun and at the end of the day, that feels like a win. I’m also happy with the production values on the book; Oni’s slick, inexpensive hardcovers look fantastic and this one is no exception. If I was a teenager, I suspect I’d have already read The Return of King Doug several dozen times by now. Definitely worth a look.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

If I had to try and sum up my general feeling about the premiere issue of Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth’s Stumptown in just a handful of words, I suspect it would involve, "Back to basics Rucka." Rucka’s career in comics started just over a decade ago with Whiteout, and while he’s tackled his fair share of comics since then in a wide variety of genres, it’s the mystery/investigative/thriller genres that he’s forever associated with in my head. Stumptown goes back to those roots, and I don’t think it’s a small coincidence that (along with his current run on Detective Comics) it’s one of his strongest comics in years.

Rucka opens up Stumptown in media res, as Dex Parios is in a particularly bad situation. When handled properly, starting the story in the middle of the action and then leaping backwards works well, but it’s a technique that can just as easily fall flat on its face. It works here not merely because those first five pages are a particularly tense situation for our protagonist, but because Rucka understands that you need to keep the book moving even when you then shift back into the past. Rucka moves just one day earlier, so that Dex’s dangerous confrontation is rapidly approaching even as she starts her search for a missing 18-year old. Even as Dex begins her preliminary fact-finding, Rucka keeps the stakes building; two very different confrontations about Dex’s search happen in short order, and then things go from bad to worse. By the time Stumptown #1 returns to its opening moments, everything that led us as readers to that point helps put those pages into context, and what looks like a bad situation is undoubtedly worse.

As a character, it’s easy to fall into liking Dex. Like so many stories of this genre, she’s full of flaws. She’s a gambler who doesn’t know when to quit, she’s a little brash, and while she talks a good game the end result doesn’t always go in her favor. Rucka tries to show us all the sides of Dex, though, and it works. We meet her younger brother that she cares for, and the relaxed relationship between the two feels startlingly real. Readers also get to see just how Dex operates as a private detective, picking up on small facts about the vanished girl’s departure that are later related to us. It’s a good way to have us learn about Dex, and makes her feel like a good protagonist. She’s got her problems, but she’s still someone you want to see succeed.

Up until this point the most I’d seen of Matthew Southworth’s art was his inking a few issues of Infinity, Inc. As it turns out, he’s an excellent artist in his own right, drawing in a heavily-realistic style that will bring to mind similar artists (and past Rucka collaborators) like Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano. He has an excellent point of view for his art, letting us see through Dex’s eyes for a hand coming towards her, for instance, or using a series of slim panels to shift the action from one moment to the next in rapid succession when Dex suddenly realizes just how bad a situation she’s in. It’s a tight, narrow focus that lets him zoom in on each individual moment, and he handles the script perfectly, taking care to capture details like a bruised face, bags under the eyes, or the pupil dilating in a moment of fear.

While I’ve never been to Portland before, I have to say that Southworth draws the town in such a way that to this outsider, it feels right. Care is taken for all of the small details, like neighborhood houses that range in style from stand-alone houses to old apartment buildings, jumping from richer and poorer neighborhoods easily. Even little details like fireplaces, bookshelves, and ash trays are drawn like a glimpse into real life, and it’s a handsome final product. Lee Loughridge’s colors help accentuate the final product as well, often saturating the page with a single base color and then using shades and complementary hues to let individual items or people pop out at the reader.

Stumptown is planned as a series of four-issue mini-series, and if the quality stays this good we’re all in for a real treat. This is a top-notch book, and I think that Stumptown is the kind of comic that should be a huge hit. I had a blast reading it, and when my only complaint was that I want the next issue in my hands right away, that’s a great sign. Definitely check it out; for people who fell in love with Rucka’s work on books like Whiteout, Queen & Country, and Gotham Central, you’ll be quite happy. I’m packing my bags and moving to Stumptown, and you should too. Highly recommended.

I almost feel bad in saying this, but at times Festering Romance didn’t feel like a graphic novel, but rather an illustrated movie pitch. Renee Lott’s graphic novel has it all built in; a small cast, a simple setting, and a strong core idea involving a potential romantic relationship being hindered by each of them hiding the ghost in their lives. And you know something? I think Festering Romance would have the potential to make a ton of money at the box office, with "hit" written all over it.

It’s not like there’s a shortage of romantic comedies (or romantic dramas) where one side of the potential romance is trying to hide the presence of a ghost from the other. Lott takes that idea to the next level, though, as both Janet and Derek are trying to hide that they each live with a ghost. I appreciated that Lott doesn’t go for the same sort of living/ghost relationship on both sides, though; there’s a very different vibe between Janet and her childhood friend Paul, and that connecting Derek and Carol. It would have been the easy way out, and as we learn more about Derek and Carol it certainly complicates the situation. Instead, it puts all four characters in a different light, especially once Lott reveals just what is keeping Paul and Carol in the world of the living instead of passing on.

On the downside, while I like the basic premise of Festering Romance, some of the execution left me a little cold. The basic plot structure is a little too predictable, one we’ve all seen before. Every time Janet and Derek hit a speed bump on their path to happiness, you can see it coming a mile away. In some ways, that’s why I think Festering Romance would actually work better as a movie, because you could have talented actors distracting you from the predictability because of their delivery of the lines and giving some physical comedy. There’s also a fifth character, Freya, who feels like she either needs a larger part of the book or should alternately be dropped entirely. With her limited page time, she comes across a little too one-dimensional as the conniving friend who sets everything up. And, unfortunately, the resolution arrives a little too quickly; once we get the revelation of what is keeping Paul around, everything else happens in such a fast manner that it all gets lost in the shuffle. Even another dozen pages from Lott, I think, could have fixed the problem.

The real star of Festering Romance for me, though, is Lott’s art. It has a slight similarity to Jim Mahfood’s art, with the sharp angles on characters’s faces and crisp ink lines. Lott’s art is more cartoonish, though, prone to humorous exaggerated moments that always made me crack a smile. Her characters are expressive, and there are fun little touches along the way, like the wispy way that a ghost’s trails off at the end of their legs. What struck me upon a re-read, though, is that Lott not only sets up basic rules in her storytelling but knows when she should break them. Most of Festering Romance is drawn in a basic six-panel grid, with three rows of two panels. It’s an easy format to follow, and is more than functional. Occasionally, though, a row has an extra panel squeezed in when there needs to be some additional transition available, or sometimes rows are knocked together to form a larger panel. I appreciate that Lott is savvy enough with storytelling to know when the method she chose to tell the book needs to be temporarily put aside so that she can make it a better experience for her reader.

Festering Romance isn’t a perfect book, but it shows a lot of promise. Lott’s art is certainly beautiful, and there was enough I did like about the story of Festering Romance that I’m still glad I read the book. It’s certainly an attractive final product, too; the 6×9" dimensions of the book help show off Lott’s art, and the paper stock for both the cover and the interior not only shows off the art but actually has a smooth quality about it that is pleasant to the touch. I look forward to seeing Lott’s next book down the line; it’s certainly a good debut.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

A couple of years ago, Oni Press debuted Resurrection, a title that detailed just what would happen after the end of an alien invasion, once the planet is finally free. After six issues and an Annual, the book went on a temporary hiatus. Now it’s back, and this time in full color. But in an effort to bring in new readers, I fear that Marc Guggenheim is trying to push too much too fast into its new first issue.

When the "bugs" finally left Earth, after almost ten years of warfare, things seemed good for about 30 seconds. Now the planet’s population is reeling from not only all the destruction and death they’ve had to live through, but their sudden newfound freedom. Now the survivors are scattered across the planet, moving towards a new civilization. Or is it anarchy that is the final destination?

I feel a little bad for Guggenheim, to be honest. With the comic starting over with a new #1 and now in full color, he’s got to try and bring brand-new readers up to speed while not leaving older readers behind. It’s in many ways a losing situation no matter how you look at it, because almost certainly someone will end up feeling a little frustrated. Guggenheim ends up revisiting some scenes of the original series here; you get the basic idea of what’s happened, or at least the pieces of story that are continuing into the all-new Resurrection. The problem is, we end up with several scenes that feel rushed and disjointed, jumping from one moment to the next. There are just so many ideas and moments here that they can’t all comfortably fit into a single issue, and everything ends up feeling a little rushed. I think I’d almost have rather seen some of this tackled in exposition, because there’s just so much ground that it’s trying to cover.

Don’t get me wrong, a book that tries to tackle a lot is much preferable to one that doesn’t have high ambition. I think there’s still a good solid core of story here to attract readers and at the end of the day it’s still a good read for those who give it the time needed to fully parse just what’s going on here. It was nice to see a bit of Mount Weather make the cut for what’s being continued into the second series, and I think Guggenheim does a good job of bringing to life the idea of just what post-invasion Earth would really be like. Resurrection‘s new debut might be full of short scenes, but they do add up to a good atmosphere.

On the downside, I’m not sold on Justin Greenwood’s art for the new Resurrection. I hate to admit it but if I hadn’t known better I’d have thought that Sara and Suzanne were the same character, save for different hair color. The art is a little too cartoonish for the scripts, here; this is a grim, war-torn setting and the overly simple art just doesn’t quite click in my head as connecting. There’s an unfortunate sameness to so many of the characters that I had to re-read a few times to make sure I knew just who was in each individual scene. Hopefully with future issues he’ll grow into the title a bit more, but at least for the moment it isn’t quite working for me.

Now that all the staging is done, hopefully Resurrection volume 2 will do what the first volume did so well—tell interesting stories about post-invasion Earth. I’m certainly sticking around for a few more issues to see how it progresses. And, if you’ve never read Resurrection before, then take my word: it’s normally a lot more smooth and solid in terms of storytelling. With a collection of the first volume also out (and bargain-priced), it’s fortunately very easy to discover how true that is.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

It doesn’t take a detective to know that author Jamie S. Rich writes movie reviews for all different sorts of publications, but even without that piece of information I think it’s safe to say that Rich is a fan of movies. Reading his and Joëlle Jones’s new collaboration You Have Killed Me (their first full-length book together being 12 Reasons Why I Love Her) makes me feel like I’m actually watching an old crime noir film. Fortunately, it’s not one that I’ve seen before.

Antony Mercer is a private investigator, one that seems to be trying to cut all ties to his past in the process. Unfortunately, sometimes the past won’t stop coming back, like in the case of his old girlfriend Julie Roman. Julie’s now engaged, but there’s just one problem. Namely, she vanished into thin air from a room with only one exit, and her sister Jennie is now frantic in trying to find what happened to Julie. With a deadbeat fiancé who may have only been in the relationship to cover gambling debts, and private music lessons from a local jazz player whose nickname is "Killer," there’s no shortage of suspects for Mercer to hunt down. The more Mercer digs, though, the deeper he’s pushing himself into the mystery. And with this case, it’s certainly not going to end prettily.

I hesitate to call You Have Killed Me a mystery because Rich isn’t setting it up as a story where the reader is gathering clues to solve the puzzle first. Rich’s script for You Have Killed Me is a classic noir story in almost every sense of the word. The untrustworthy gambler, the secret relationship on the side, the clandestine trip to the casino, the local police leaning hard on Mercer, it’s all there. One of the very first lessons you learn as a reader is that none of the characters in this book are to be trusted; Rich has made sure that every last one of them have their own secrets waiting to be unearthed, and all of them are doing their best to keep them hidden. More importantly, I appreciated that Rich doesn’t put everything out on the table in an obvious manner. There are enough references to Mercer’s past, for example, that readers can connect the dots and figure out a lot of his history. There’s no huge expository dump, though, no long inner monologue about how things used to be so much easier, and I really appreciated that. Instead we get the information that we need to know and the narrative moves along from there.

I do have to say, though, that the one thing I didn’t like about You Have Killed Me is in many ways a testament to Rich nailing the noir style. Stories that have the protagonist always on the bottom of the heap, and generally not being believed by everyone they talk to, really set off all sorts of nerves for me. It’s frustrating because they just keep getting kicked to the curb, and that’s definitely a fair portion of You Have Killed Me. Ultimately, it’s really a compliment to Rich for hitting that part of noir fiction so well; by the time Mercer gets hassled by the police again, you can see it coming and just start cringing in anticipation. In that same sort of noir fiction mold, I do have to say that I found myself unmoved by most of the characters in You Have Killed Me; they’re less people and more obstacles for Mercer to try and maneuver by as best as possible. It’s an impressive aping of another style, and both the highs and lows from that type of story are firmly implanted in this book.

Jones’s art continues to grow by leaps and bounds. As much as I enjoyed her art in 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, she’s become more accomplished since then. Her usage of graytones in You Have Killed Me provide just the right shady, seedy look to characters and situations in a way that stark black and white might not have handled. It’s a nice texture to each of the pages, and I can almost hear the filmstrip crackling in the background. Her action sequences are good here, too; a scene with Mercer hurling a water pitcher across the room has the object splash across the panel, composed almost perfectly so that you can imagine the spin and arc of the pitcher as well as the water spraying out of it. Her characters have clean, open expressions here as well; Mercer’s smile can melt a cold heart, and those smoldering eyes of Jennie’s speak volumes.

You Have Killed Me continues the success rate of Rich and Jones’s collaborations; this is a perfect example of how to use a familiar style in a different medium. It’s funny, because at the end of You Have Killed Me my first thought was, "I wonder if Rich and Jones are going to create more books with these characters?" I suspect the answer is no, but would certainly be happy to see more down the line. The thing is, they don’t need to. You Have Killed Me stands on its own as a strong and satisfying book, one that doesn’t need anything else to prop it up. It’s definitely a book to be proud of.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

I always loved one of the finer details of Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, and that had to do with the state of the comic book industry. With no comic books about superheroes (what with the real things existing), that gap was instead filled with comics about pirates. That made perfect sense to me; larger than life, full of adventures of daring and surprise. In other words, a real-world equivalent to a superhero. With all that in mind, I’m really happy that Chris Schweizer is able to channel that with his new graphic novel Crogan’s Vengeance; there may have been a lot of pirate comics in our own world, but I think is the one that really best captures that sense of excitement and adventure.

In the West Indies of 1701, "Catfoot" Crogan’s had better days. The captain of his ship hates him, with Crogan’s mouth always getting him in trouble—even when sometimes he really wasn’t meaning to be insubordinate. Then the pirate ship The Hind’s Foot attacks, and Crogan is about to learn what it’s really like to have a tough time. Even if he can survive the initial attack, though, can he keep living with having to keep one eye on his back at all times, with half of the crew out for his blood?

First and foremost, Crogan’s Vengeance is a lot of fun. Framed as a story being told from a father to a son about their ancestors, Crogan’s Vengeance has almost every element you’d expect; an underdog rising to power, a traitorous shipmate, ship-to-ship battles, and clever ambushes. Schweizer is able to think through each of the events in the book carefully, meaning that when characters in the book are surprised, it makes sense. A twist is meaningless if it doesn’t follow some sort of logic, but here when Crogan would come up with a plan to turn the odds in his favor, I was always pleased with what was pulled out of the proverbial sleeves. There’s enough high-stakes adventure and fun going on here to satisfy anyone looking for high-seas fiction; just about the only things we don’t get are a massive hidden treasure and a love interest, but considering this is just the start of Crogan’s career, I’m sure any future books starring Catfoot Crogan will almost certainly have to use those plot points.

From a storytelling perspective, Schweizer has plotted out Crogan’s Vengeance perfectly, following Crogan’s evolution from the low man on the totem pole of a ship to eventually becoming a pirate captain in his own right. Emotionally, we watch him grow and adapt, with each new twist and turn of events forcing him to learn how to deal with the new challenges thrown at him. He may start off as a smart-ass whose mouth and agility are all that keep him alive, but by the end he’s an genuine leader, and it never felt forced or out of the ordinary.

The art in Crogan’s Vengeance is a cartoonish, squiggly line explosion across the page. Schweizer uses a minimum of inks here, but it’s a good final look; it’s that lightness that lets Schweizer draw Crogan sailing through the air on the ship’s lines in a way that feels light and smooth. And, just because Schweizer’s art comes across in a fun, energetic way doesn’t mean that he can’t handle the heavier moments of the book. There’s a scene early on in the book where Crogan is in the middle of a battle that he masterminded, and you can see the distress on his face very plainly, even as the reader’s viewpoint pans back to let you fully drink in the carnage going on all around him. Schweizer tells more in those silent panels about what Crogan is thinking, than a dozen narration boxes could have done even half as effectively.

Crogan’s Vengeance is the first in a projected whopping sixteen books, each one moving down the Crogan family tree. With the family tree printed on the insides of the covers, we’re talking about a group of people that spans two and a half centuries and includes professions like minuteman, lion-tamer, ninja, diamond miner, private eye, and secret agent. If the other members of this family are as entertaining as Catfoot, well, we’re in for a good time in The Crogan Adventures. Add in the high quality production values of the book, with its slick hardcover binding, handsome cover design, and crisp white paper, and I am really loving the idea of having a whole series of these books sitting on my shelves over the years. I was a little wary about the idea of reading such a long series when I first heard about it, but now that I’ve read Crogan’s Vengeance, I’m in. Crogan’s Vengeance is exactly the kind of high-adventure book I was looking for as a kid. Fortunately, it’s just as much fun to read now that I’m an adult. Check it out.

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When I was a child, one of my favorite books to check out from the library was what I’ve come to think of as, “children’s vacation adventure.” It’s a book where the main characters are school children off on a trip (often but not always their summer vacation), where what may seem to be a boring place turns out to be anything but. It’s a tried and true set-up, in no small part because the reader more often than not can project themselves into the same situation, wishing that their less-than-exciting vacation suddenly was full of magical creatures and items. I know that over the years, books like Susan Cooper’s Over Sea, Under Stone or Edward Eager’s Magic by the Lake grabbed my attention quite firmly on many a long trip. Matthew Loux is using that same basis for his new graphic novel series Salt Water Taffy: The Seaside Adventures of Jack and Benny. And you know, I can’t help but think that kids will be just entranced by Loux’s graphic novel as I was by my books back in the day.

Jack and Benny are being forced to spend their entire summer in Chowder Bay, Maine, because their parents think it will be fun. With no television and the batteries in Jack’s Gameboy rapidly running down, this looks like it might be the worst vacation ever. Then Jack and Benny see a mysterious shape sliding across the beach—could it be a bear? Or something far stranger and more deadly? When they meet local fisherman Angus O’Neil, he’s more than happy to tell them about the mysterious Old Salty lurking below the ocean’s waves. And that’s just the start of the trouble…

Salt Water Taffy is a book that could be used almost as a lesson in how to properly pace a story. Not a single one of its 96 pages are wasted; it starts by introducing Jack, Benny, and their family, then slowly expands outwards to bring the town of Chowder Bay, its inhabitants, the children’s ally, and finally their nemesis into the greater picture. Because Loux introduces them one at a time, it never feels rushed or like exposition is being dumped on the reader; at the same time, it moves along at a fast enough clip that at no point did I ever feel like Salt Water Taffy was dragging. The story itself is a lot of fun, fighting lobsters and solving the mystery of missing salt water taffy, while simultaneously adding in new and strange things to be explored in later volumes. (There’s a fantastic reveal towards the end of the first book involving a stranger in town that is just screaming for seeing more of, and soon.) There’s a moment about halfway through the book when Jack’s mother offers up new batteries for the Gameboy, and Jack instead rushes off in search of more real-world adventure, and you absolutely understand why he does so—Salt Water Taffy is fun, pure and simple.

Loux’s art is nicely attractive, with thick, sharp, angular ink lines that carefully outline each character. It’s a neat look; sure, people’s elbows don’t really come to a fine point but under Loux’s brush it seems very natural and cool. It’s a good way to draw his cast; everyone’s got very expressive faces, and Loux seems to delight in having Jack and Benny leap across the page from one panel to the next. With this much energy in the art, it’s easy to see why the book feels like it moves at such a good clip. I also really like the attention to detail in the backgrounds of the book, from the individual floorboards and decorations in the taffy shop to the rocks and grasses dotting the shoreline, it helps Chowder Bay really come to life for the reader. I must say, though, that looking at the color cover makes me kind of wish that this book was all in color. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the black and white end product—but there’s something about the cover that just grabs my attention so much more that I’m now dying to see a full color book by Loux.

When I finished reading Salt Water Taffy Vol. 1: The Legend of Old Salty, my first thought was, “I can’t believe it’s already over!” My second thought was, “Then again, a lot did happen in just this installment.” Loux packs a lot of fun into this book, and with each new twist and turn it just gets more and more entertaining. You’ll read it quickly not because it’s short, but rather because it’s hard to not want to read it as fast as you can… so that you can go back to the first page and start all over again. Fun, fun, fun from start to finish. More, please.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com

You’ve no doubt encountered “fusion” cuisine, where two or more different styles of food are applied to the same dish. Japanese meets Italian? Mexican meets Chinese? You name it, it’s out there. I mention this not because I’m craving dinner, but rather because I’m surprised we don’t hear about “fusion genres” when it comes to writing. Take, for instance, Lars Brown’s North World, which takes fantasy and modern day settings and crushes them into one. And you know what? So long as you don’t think about it too hard, it tastes pretty good.

Conrad Lionel is a vagrant swordsman, taking jobs from his guild to vanquish different deadly monsters that menace the land. Once he brings back his proof, they wire the money into his bank account, simple as that. Things begin to get sticky, though, when a high-priced job in search of an evil demon-summoner takes him back to his home town. If the family he abandoned seven years ago wasn’t reason enough to stay away, there’s also his ex-girlfriend—who had just invited him to her wedding.

North World comes across to me as a nice, if a little goofy story. At a glance, throwing swords, magic, and monsters into our modern world seems to work pretty well. You’ve got people talking about repairing air-conditioners but wanting to move over to forging swords, and library book records used to try and track down evil sorcerers. It’s kind of fun and cool, these elements co-existing with each other. The only problem with North World‘s setting seems to be when you really stop and think about it for a while; it doesn’t entirely feel like having all of this technology side-by-side is thought out. After all, if our technology is still available, why would people use swords instead of more modern weaponry to defeat creatures? Conrad’s sword certainly has nothing special about it (no silver coating, no enchanted spell) and in some ways the antiquated weapon that forces you to get very close to a creature with massive claws seems a bit, well, backwards. It’s things like that which just stand out the more you really start examining the setting of North World. Now it could be that Brown has already lined all of these ideas up in his head, and if so I hope he puts it on the page at some point. For now, though, it doesn’t just quite click.

As for the story itself, though? It’s certainly fun. Conrad’s story is pretty straight-forward, with just enough pieces of mystery to keep the reader interested in what is yet to be revealed. He’s a pretty likable character, if perhaps a bit dim here and there, but you always get the impression that he’s trying. He’s certainly not afraid to make changes in his life, which was a nice surprise; so often a main character refuses to resolve a situation simply because it’s more convenient for the author, but Brown doesn’t fall into that trap, letting things slowly evolve over time. I wasn’t quite as thrilled with the supporting cast, though. They’re a little too one-note, a little too easily categorized. As an occasional guest character that’s not so bad, but with the amount of page time they’re getting, they’ll need some fleshing out the longer they stick around. In many ways it’s a scene towards the end of the first volume that really brought this flaw into sharp focus. It’s between Conrad and Emily, and it makes Emily seem so cliché (and also rather weak-willed and a little pathetic) that I hope there’s more to it than meets the eye—trust me when I say that you’ll know it when you see it. It’s frustrating because Conrad’s an interesting character that some more thought was clearly put into; the others suffer greatly in comparison.

North World‘s art can probably best be described as “relaxed.” It’s a loose, uncluttered style that fits the attitude of both its main character and the storyteller in general; it’s unpretentious, very much out on the table. I like how Brown draws action scenes; they flow really smoothly and are easy to follow and seem to happen naturally. Even better are the expressions of the characters during them, a combination of smiles and teeth-gritting that somehow just seems to work perfectly. It’s a nice look for the book, and I do like it. My one quibble is that here are some pages here and there that don’t seem to really fit with their surroundings; the line thickness suddenly shifts and the style is just different enough that if I didn’t know better I’d think someone else had stepped in to draw a page. It’s a little odd and off-putting when it appears, but at least it’s few and far-between.

The first volume of North World is a little breezy in places, and all nitpicks aside, I enjoyed the experience. There’s a lot of energy in Brown’s story, and there’s certainly enough potential here to carry North World onwards for many volumes without worrying about getting stale. It’s a good addition to the Oni Press family, and I definitely want to see a volume 2 before too long. It’s fun.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com