It’s hard to believe that Hellblazer had to get all the way up into the 250s before Peter Milligan became its new regular writer. Milligan was one of the pre-Vertigo writers whose book Shade the Changing Man became one of the Vertigo launch titles, and his contributions to the Vertigo line have continued ever since then. We’re several issues into his run on Hellblazer, and I think what’s made me the most pleased so far is that Milligan’s managed to mix just about everything I like about the book back into the title all at once.

John Constantine’s had better days. His latest girlfriend, Phoebe, recently dumped him and has no intention of coming back to his side. There’s a Babylonian spirit named Julian who has Constantine in his thrall, ever since Constantine had to get a cure for a curse involving hideous scabs covering the body. And oh yes, there’s also a love potion involved. Constantine’s definitely had better days, but this is also pretty much par for the course for him.

To me, a Hellblazer story should have several different elements; Constantine being slightly untrustworthy, a conflict between his sympathetic and bastard sides, a double-cross, and some strange form of magic or horror. With Hellblazer #256, Milligan’s managed to mix all of these together and make it feel right. I’m just now starting to really buy Constantine’s relationship with Phoebe, perhaps because Phoebe has felt more and more like a real person with each issue, and in part because now that they’re separated we’re starting to see just how both of them react to the split. Milligan starting his run with the two of them already together hadn’t quite rung true for me, and now I know why; it’s because only when they’ve come apart are we starting to really see how the two of them do (and don’t) fit together.

Constantine’s dilemma with the love potion is also handled well here. I like that he knows he’s doing something wrong, but at the same time how he rolls with the opportunities and situations that present themselves. It’s a sharp reminder that being Constantine’s friend is opening yourself up for disaster, and in more ways that one. Plus, of course, there are lots of little touches along the way that capture the imagination, like the return of Julian’s protection-spell-as-graffiti, or how Julian’s cure back in Milligan’s very first issue (#251) turned out to have a long-term burn just waiting around the corner.

Giuseppe Camuncoli and Stefano Landini work well together in Hellblazer, giving Constantine and company a harsh angular look that helps play up the whole untrustworthy nature of Constantine’s life. I have to give Camuncoli and Landini credit that they’re able to take a scene as simple as a telephone call and make it just full of life. From Constantine’s startled, "Pheeb?" as he picks up the ringing phone that he wasn’t at all expecting, to the manipulative half-smile on his face as he talks to Phoebe while dangling a portion of the potion between his fingers, the two of them just nail each side of Constantine effortlessly. They’re also good at the odder side of Hellblazer, too; the guardian spirit in Julian’s apartment building is suitably eerie, and I love the strange twisting shapes of the graffiti that dot the building’s walls as Constantine walks through the halls.

Milligan seems to have really settled into Hellblazer, now. It no longer comes across as the new guy still feeling his way through those early issues, but instead as a confident, decisive take on the character and the series. Hellblazer has always been lucky to have strong creative teams assigned to its title, and fortunately Milligan, Camuncoli, and Landini are continuing that tradition. It’s nice to see Vertigo’s longest title still in good hands.

There are a handful of creators for whom I’ll buy just about anything, and Kevin Huizenga is one of them. I will admit, though, that I was a little surprised at first when I saw one of his more recent comics, Fight or Run: Shadow of the Chopper. At a glance it seemed a little more low-brow than the sort of comics I was used to from Huizenga. But you know what? I really shouldn’t have doubted that this comic would be anything less than fun.

Fight or Run is a series of stories with a simple set-up. Two characters appear and then they either fight, or run. Last character standing wins. It sounds simple enough, but just like video games, comics, and movies, the combinations are endless. Each match-up features a different personality and ability set, so while some characters are easily victorious at one match, the next one could reverse the odds considerably. It’s a combination of these ever-changing abilities and the imaginative situations that makes Fight or Run so much fun. It’s almost like you’re watching a solo one-upmanship game with Huizenga, as each story gets progressively bigger and crazier. So what may start with a half-page strip of two characters fighting or running turns into so much more. I think it was the three-page story where the characters start pulling the moon and the sun down out of the sky to use as weapons that I realized how much I was drawn into the comic.

Huizenga’s art may look deceptively simple, but there’s a lot of craft and care put into its pages. Huizenga uses the simple nature of the characters to get away with all sorts of things. So there might be a match-up where almost all of the panels are focusing exclusively on the feet of the combatants, or a slow shift on the page from horizontal to vertical panels. Even the characters themselves have a lot of artistic fun going on; they may look ordinary at first, but as arms start stretching, additional legs start sprouting, or body parts start forking, you never know just what you’re going to get.

Fight or Run is a slightly silly comic, don’t get me wrong, but I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. If down the line Huizenga wants to insert more Fight or Run stories into his other comics, well, I’d certainly welcome the return of characters like Chopper, #1 Song, Bride to Be, Taxpayer, and Pronouncement. There are few comics where you get even more a sense that the creator just had fun writing and drawing it, than you do with Fight or Run.

Assembling a book of short stories—be it by a single creator or an anthology—is a delicate undertaking. You can’t front load the book with the best material because if the weaker pieces are all at the end, you run the risk of the final impression for the reader being disappointment. On the other hand, saving the best pieces for the end has its own problems, where the early entries aren’t strong enough to have someone continue to read the book. All of this came to mind for me when reading Byun Byung-Jun’s Mijeong, a collection of the author’s short pieces. At the end of the day, I can’t help but think that whomever decided the order of this book could have done a slightly better job.

The title story of Mijeong is also its lead, about an observer trying to adjust to this new world he’s entered. "Mijeong" has the most beautiful art in the book; with delicate thin lines placed together that sometimes seem to give the impression of form more than actual concrete images, if that makes sense. It’s gorgeous to look at, but is also saddled with one of the most pretentious narrations I’ve read in a long time. "I’m always alone, melancholic," the protagonist thinks. "Nobody understands my sadness." The writing is so juvenile and in love with itself that I almost put Mijeong down after this opening piece, and it was less than 20 pages long. It’s a horrible opening to Mijeong, and I wonder if there was any reason other than it being the titular story that it got that spot of honor. Frustratingly, the second piece ("Yeon-du, seventeen years old") has both the weakest art and the second-weakest story in the book as well, and at 60 pages in length I can understand if anyone gave up on the book by this point in time. Byun’s certainly not making a good first or even second impression with this one-two punch of underwhelming stories.

Thankfully, the book takes a turn for the better at this point. "Utility" (written by Yun In-wan) reminded me a lot of short stories by writer and director Etgar Keret, with its quirky characters and situations. There’s something oddly compelling about its lead character who keeps trying to use a sink-or-swim technique (or should it be fall-or-fly?) on baby chickens to jumpstart their knowledge of flying. It’s an odd but effective introduction to the character, and from there things get stranger as an attempt to preserve the family honor of a friend leads to a particularly macabre debate. It’s a sharp and memorable vignette, and while it might not be a story for the ages, it’s strong enough to restore the faith enough to continue reading Mijeong.

The remaining stories are all enjoyable, little tales of wish fulfillment, searching, and even a love triangle where one of the members is a cat. None of them particularly blew me away, but I found myself becoming more appreciative of Byun’s storytelling. Some of these later pieces should have appeared earlier, if only to help assure a casual reader that Byun had some good stories up his sleeve. I feel bad that they’re buried in the back, because there’s a good chance that the reader will miss them. Most of Byun’s art looks good here, too. It’s not as strong as that initial opener, but his textured surfaces have a strange, almost tubular look to them and it’s an attractive final product. The one color story in the center of the volume is particularly attractive; if I had to guess I’d say he used watercolors over rough pencils, and what Byun gives up in fine details he more than makes up for with rich, deep hues.

I’m glad I read Mijeong, but I really wish someone along the chain of publication had swapped some of these stories around. It’s such a weak opening that I think it’s a logical assumption to make that Byun’s work isn’t quite your cup of tea. The reality, though, is that while Mijeong takes a while to get going, there are some very nice surprises waiting for the reader.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

"I see dead people." It’s a statement that’s echoed through all sorts of media, for as far as history is recorded. So when you create a story these days about someone who is able to view ghosts, you need more than just that as your hook to draw the reader in. With El Torres’s and Gabriel Hernandez’s The Veil, the basic ideas in the first issue might be the same, but they’re able to bring a strong enough voice to the concept that I think they’ve successfully found their hook.

Chris Luna is a private investigator who can see and talk to ghosts. Provided the ghost doesn’t keep "looping" and getting caught in reliving that moment of death, she can use her ability to get the information out of them to solve their deaths and set them free into the afterlife. The problem is, of course, the dead don’t usually have checkbooks to help Chris pay her bills. So when Chris hears that the small town she grew up in wants to buy Chris’s aunt’s house (which was willed to Chris), she heads off to Maine to take care of business. The problem is, there’s a reason why Chris fled her hometown soon after the accident which gave her the ability to see the dead…

I’ll admit that I was a little worried at first. The first page of narration came across to me as a little pretentious, an attempt to sound deep that instead just felt eh. Fortunately, though, when one turns the page things really get rolling. Once Chris is interacting with the dead, there’s a strange mixture of fun and morbidity that works well for The Veil. Torres hits all the right paces here; first showing us how Chris works with the ghosts, then how she uses that information, and finally what life is like when she isn’t talking to the deceased. I also appreciated that while Torres shows us that Chris is a slightly broken individual, that she’s still an entertaining and likable person. Sure, she’s in some serious denial about what happened to her before, and she’s got plenty of issues buried pretty deep, but her narration is entertaining and as a reader you want for her to succeed. Slightly caustic doesn’t have to equal annoying, and Chris is just the right kind of lead for this title.

Now that I’ve seen Hernandez’s art, I think I need to take a look at his previous work in the adaptation of Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always. This is a beautiful comic, one that reminds me of old Bill Sienkiewicz comics and how they effortlessly merged standard character designs with the fractured and blurred. Looking at the panels where we first have Chris talking to a ghost is a prime example of this; Chris is on the left, looking very normal with clean lines and features. To her right is Beth the ghost, with her form almost seeming to blur and shift, a perpetual red spray halo around the side of her head where she was shot.

I was also quite pleased with Hernandez’s usage of color in The Veil. The New York City scenes, for instance, are all drawn in a pale washed out yellow, save for the occasional red burst of color and in the most unfortunate way. And then, about halfway through the book, things start to change. Chris’s nightmare of the Slug Man, with everything in a deep red, manages to look positively eerie. Even better, the next page with all of the different colors of the Maine countryside are hard to ignore. We’re suddenly seeing greens and oranges, although it’s hard to say if the visual shift is supposed to be saying more about Maine, or New York. Either way, though, it really works for me.

The Veil #1 is a strong start to a four-issue mini-series. I’m definitely interested in seeing more, not only of The Veil but from Torres and Hernandez in general. When people tell a familiar story in as strong a way as these creators are, it’s a pleasant way to revisit what could have otherwise been dull. Torres and Hernandez can help me pass through The Veil any time.

This may sound strange, but comics like Detroit Metal City are, I think, an argument for why a collected edition is not always better. Don’t get me wrong, I like this first volume of heavy metal silliness. But this is definitely an example how when it comes to just from a pure reading standpoint, I wish I’d been reading it as a serialized comic every week.

Soichi Negishi loves pop music, especially from Sweden. His favorite movie is Amelie. He’s a soft-spoken, sweet guy. Or at least, by day. At night, he puts on his makeup and becomes Krauser II, the lead singer for the death metal band Detroit Metal City. Even as Detroit Metal City (or DMC) becomes more and more popular, though, can Soichi continue to juggle his double life?

Reading the first chapter of Detroit Metal City, I laughed a lot at this deliberately over-the-top extravaganza of in-your-face metal. The lyrics to their songs are a parody of death metal, nothing but profanity and mentions of hell, with occasional diversions of just how you’re going to do things to people while in hell. And then, of course, we get the innocent Soichi who meekly moves through life and wishes that he could end up with a girlfriend. It’s a classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pairing in many ways. So as you see Soichi go on a date, or try to hide his job from his parents, or appear on live television, Soichi’s attempts to try and keep these different halves of his personality grow more and more futile. It’s silly, it’s fun, it’s easy to enjoy.

That said, though, the one failing of Detroit Metal City is that when reading it in a collected form, the stories can start to get a little repetitive. There isn’t quite enough variation from one piece to the next, with the end result being that you’re actually better off reading one chapter a week. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that if there wasn’t the collected edition we probably wouldn’t see any of Detroit Metal City in English. But I think you’re doing the product a favor by reading it piece by piece, because each new chapter will end up feeling a little fresher and more entertaining. Once I started taking breaks between chapters, all of the fun of Detroit Metal City came rushing back.

Wakasugi’s art is surprisingly clean and almost cute for a book about a death metal group. As strange as it may sound, Wakasugi draws his characters with such clean, soft lines that every now and then the members of DMC actually look sort of sweet. Of course, that’s usually right before they start simulating having sex with someone while on stage, or screaming more profanities. Still, it’s not the sort of art you might have expected. It does make me think more and more that it’s the quieter side of Soichi that is the "real" personality; it certainly matches much more with his life than with Krauser II’s debauchery.

Detroit Metal City Vol. 1 is a fun book, but it’s best read in short doses. That way, you can get the full metaltastic impact from each story. Wakasugi’s got a good sense of humor, and it’s fun to take a plunge into his over-the-top metal parody. And hey, any book which includes free temporary tattoos in the back gets an automatic bonus point from me. Detroit Metal City definitely brings in the noise.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

For a non-comics related project, I recently had to perform a lot of research about avian flues. You can imagine my surprise and amusement, then, to read Chew #1 and discover that one of the plot points involves, yes, avian flu. But I have to give John Layman and Rob Guillory credit, this is absolutely not the way that I’d have expected such a take on current events. Anyone else might have served up a grim, depressing story, but Chew is a funny dark comedy with a sharp premise.

Pity poor police officer Tony Chu. Tony has a strange condition, in that whenever he eats something he suddenly gains its memories. Animals, vegetables, it doesn’t matter—he’ll get a flash into its life up to the point of death. (Well, unless it’s a beet. Which probably says a lot about the life of a beet.) The one thing Tony doesn’t have to worry about gaining past memories of, though, are chickens. That’s because chickens are now an illegal substance due to an outbreak of avian flu resulting in their banning. Now Tony and his partner John Colby are arresting people for contraband chicken, trying to help shut down illegal speakeasies that serve up that delicious but forbidden flesh. Well, until the night that everything went wrong…

I have to give Layman credit, he takes an odd story idea and really runs with it here—but not in the way you’d expect. After introducing Tony’s cibopathic ability, the book swerves into a story about illegal chickens, speakeasies, and FDA agents. In other words, it has absolutely nothing to do with what Tony does or doesn’t feel when he eats food. More importantly, though? It’s a fun and engrossing story. I love the idea of taking Prohibition-era set-ups and seeing them transplanted into the 21st century, and having the FDA serve as a law enforcement agency fits the rest of Layman’s set-up for Chew in a way that just seems right. When Tony’s special eating ability finally does come back into the picture, the reader may have forgotten about it entirely. Suddenly the two plots converge, but once again not in the way that you might immediately expect. Layman turns up the bleak, dark humor in Chew; as a dry plot synopsis, some of the events of this book will sound a little disturbing and upsetting. In Chew, though, it’s something that makes you laugh. It’s gross and a little gruesome (but not graphic!), but I couldn’t help but just keep snickering to myself as I read and re-read Chew #1.

Part of the humor certainly comes from Guillory’s art, here. I like the way he draws the characters, in a slightly cartoonish and exaggerated way. It makes the subject material come across a little lighter and more humorous than if it had been drawn in a more realistic way, and it’s that slight caricature nature that gives extra punch to the script. Guillory’s able to really push the speakeasy waiter’s good cop/bad cop routine with this extra emphasis, for example, or able to make Tony’s partner look that much more perturbed when their sting operation is disrupted by the FDA. Most importantly, though, some of the final scenes might very well have lost their humor if Guillory hadn’t drawn them in such a light and funny manner. I think that’s actually where I got sold on Chew #1, and with Layman and Guillory’s partnership on the book.

Chew #1 has all the right elements; good central idea, a strong script, and just the right art. It’s nice to see a good book like this getting so much attention, and with any luck it’s just the start of a long collaboration between the creators. With this first issue kicking off a five-part story titled "Taster’s Choice," I can’t help but think that a lot of people will be back each month for another little nibble. It’s a good debut, and I definitely want to read a lot more. Good, silly fun from start to finish.

It took a little longer than planned due to some publisher reorganizing, but Mouse Guard: Winter 1152—David Petersen’s second Mouse Guard mini-series—has come to a conclusion. With a hardcover collection scheduled for this summer, it seemed like a good at time as any to sit down and re-read all six issues. While Petersen certainly made a splash with his debut mini-series (Mouse Guard: Fall 1152), I have to say I was a little surprised with this second story. As good as the first was, this one feels even deeper and richer than what we’ve seen up until now.

The mouse kingdom of Lockhaven has seen better days. While the army of Midnight failed to destroy Lockhaven or slay its queen, Gwendolyn, they’re running desperately short on supplies. A handful of Guardsmice are out visiting Lockhaven’s neighbors, trying to get food and medicine to bring back to Lockhaven and keep its mice alive. But the combination of a deep snowfall and several hostile species means that getting back to Lockhaven alive and with the much-needed supplies will be considerably more difficult than originally planned…

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Petersen’s original Mouse Guard mini-series; it was charming and fun, and beautifully drawn. Here, though, I feel like Petersen has truly made the jump from just telling stories about mice, to having a fully-fleshed out world in which he’s chronicling. I love that we’re seeing so much more of the other species in the Mouse Guard world. From the abandoned weasel kingdom of Darkheather and the clouds of angry bats who thrive in the darkness, to the dangerous lone owls and the mice-allied rabbits, there’s a beautiful depth of storytelling and world-building going on here. Honestly, the more I read of Mouse Guard: Winter 1152, the more I wanted to just go over to Petersen’s house and have him tell me stories about the kingdoms and species of these lands.

While Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 stars five of the Guardsmice, in many ways I felt like this was really Lieam and Celanawe’s story. Sure, the other three mice get their own moments, and their journey through Darkheather provided some of the most beautiful visuals in the book. But it’s the young apprentice and wizened master relationship between Lieam and Celanawe that grabbed my attention more than anything else. Celanawe’s tough attitude might have grown tiresome in other hands, but I was entranced here. From his tunneling through the snow in order to make it to their destination in one piece, to his attack on the roving owl, Petersen made Celanawe a character that practiced what he preached, but in a way that wasn’t forced or over the top. Watching Lieam continue to grow and mature by listening and following Celanawe felt natural as well; by the end of Mouse Guard: Winter 1152, he might still be a rookie, but he’s clearly much further down the road towards his destiny. I also appreciated that we’re seeing other repercussions of the first mini-series in this story; it’s nice to know that Midnight’s uprising isn’t so easily brushed to the side and done with, and that Petersen’s playing out some of the ramifications still. It helps Fall 1152 and Winter 1152 feel like parts of a much longer story, even though both of them have had their beginning, middle, and end so that it’s a satisfying reading experience.

As for the art, it’s as lush and beautiful as ever. I just can’t get over how well Petersen draws his characters and settings. The underground kingdom of Darkheather, for instance, is ominously dark and creepy, but at the same time its high vaulted ceilings and ancient stonework bring to mind places in our own world that makes it feel that much richer a place to read about. There are so many nice touches to the way he draws the world of Mouse Guard, too. Little details like the old stone cisterns that plunge into the depths of the earth, for instance, or the old wooden doors built into the bases of trees to get into the different mouse kingdoms. And as for the animals themselves, well, it’s lovely. The attacking cloud of bats is a scene that truly deserved its own two-page spread, for instance, with Petersen bringing all their menace and terror to the page. At the same time, though, Petersen’s able to handle the softer side of Mouse Guard through his art as well. When I saw the wrap-around cover to the final issue, with the mice mounted on rabbits as steeds, I almost cheered out loud at the sheer rightness of the image. And with colors so deep and beautiful, it’s almost hard to believe that Mouse Guard was originally envisioned as a black and white comic.

I’m so happy to see the return of Mouse Guard, and even more pleased to know that a third mini-series (Mouse Guard: The Black Axe) is on deck soon. It may have taken a while to see the conclusion of Mouse Guard: Winter 1152, but it was absolutely worth the wait. This is the sort of book you’ll want to buy the hardcover edition, so that you can lay it all the way open and just marvel at Petersen’s talent. Petersen’s an extremely talented creator, and he just keeps getting better. Highly recommended.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Of all of the Showcase Presents books from DC’s low-cost black and white reprint line, the one I’ve been looking forward to the most has been Showcase Presents: The Doom Patrol. I’ve heard so much about Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani’s original run on the characters that it’s been a must-read in my mind. But as someone who never read Doom Patrol until Grant Morrison’s revamp of the team in the late ‘80, I couldn’t help be a little worried. Was I setting myself up for disappointment?

Robotman, Elasti-Girl, and Negative Man: three freaks who don’t fit into the rest of the world no matter how much they may wish otherwise. So when the enigmatic man known only as the Chief offers them a chance to become heroes and have a place in society, they join forces and become… the Doom Patrol!

Who knew that 1963 would be such a great year for teams of super-powered outcasts being lead by a man in a wheelchair? In this case I’m not talking about the X-Men, though, but the Doom Patrol. Reading these reprints, I found myself pleasantly surprised by just how strong these comics were. Beginning in the pages of My Greatest Adventure (before getting retitled Doom Patrol), Drake’s scripts have a wonderful love for the strange and mind-boggling, to the point that it’s increasingly clear that Morrison’s take on the title in many ways brought it back to its roots. Drake keeps a mad science theme running throughout the book, too; with characters like Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man and Mr. 103 playing around with the ideas of able to change into different beings or chemical elements, there’s always something strange just around the corner, each idea bigger and crazier than the one before.

One thing I was a little surprised about Doom Patrol was the number of recurring characters in the title. Showcase Presents: The Doom Patrol Vol. 1 collects 21 issues, and 14 of them feature villains that make return appearances. If you add in the characters of Mento and Beast Boy, all but three issues have returning characters. It’s to Drake’s credit that the reusing of characters doesn’t grow tiresome, though. The Brotherhood of Evil with the villains of the Brain, Monsieur Mallah, and Madame Rouge are so entertaining that it’s hard to not hope that they’ll step out of the shadows in a new issue, and even characters like General Immortus and Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man bring enough new ideas to their returns that Drake keeps it feeling fresh. It also, deliberately or not, seems to place the Doom Patrol squarely in a strange minor league. Even as they try to become heroes and help the world around them, they’re perpetually dogged by the same handful of villains, many of whom seem to have a personal vendetta against the Doom Patrol members. It’s strangely comforting, though, to have the Doom Patrol  in this sort of niche; if anything it adds to their general low-grade, misfit status.

Premiani’s art for Doom Patrol was a handsome affair, reminding me in some ways of early Mike Allred comics. There’s a smooth, classic look to how he draws the main characters, unable to recognize their own attractive looks as they’re blinded by their own internal perceptions. Premiani takes simple concepts like Elasti-Girl’s massive hand smashing through a window and lets it look slightly creepy, bringing to mind scenes from horror films as the hand and arm move towards their target. Bob Brown draws some stories here as well, and he’s a good match for Premiani, keeping the general look that was already established for the title, and even drawing one of my favorite covers that I’ve admired for years (Doom Patrol #94, where Robotman is getting pulled into a device that first flattens then drills holes into his body, with mere seconds until Robotman’s brain is destroyed).

Showcase Presents: The Doom Patrol is utterly fantastic, and the sort of comic that justifies the entire Showcase Presents line. (Not that it needed justifying.) If you’ve only read the Morrison Doom Patrol, you should give this a chance. There’s a reason why Drake said that Morrison’s take on the comic was the only one that followed the original spirit of the title. Great, great fun.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Depending on how you look at it, I’m either the right or the wrong choice to review Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of the Richard Stark novel The Hunter. Stark (a pseudonym of author Donald Westlake) was the star of no less than 24 novels, and The Hunter was adapted into two movies, Point Blank and Payback. Of those, I’ve read and seen none of them. But I love books like Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s Criminal, or Jamie S. Rich and Joëlle Jones’s You Have Killed Me. And in the end, I decided, surely that must be enough to get a good read on Parker: The Hunter and see just what Darwyn Cooke ended up bringing to life in comic book form.

It was the 1960s, and Parker had pulled off an amazing heist when one of his partners and his wife betrayed him, shooting Parker and leaving him for dead. Somehow Parker survived, but ended up in prison. Once he caught wind of where his betrayers were, though, it was time for Parker to break out and exact the revenge that’s been simmering inside of him. Step one, track them down. Step two, get the $45,000 they still owe him. Step three, revenge. Simple as that.

I think I was about a dozen pages into Parker: The Hunter when I realized I was already entranced. In that brief amount of time Parker had scared drivers on a bridge (as he walked across it), jumped a subway turnstile, charmed (and then disgusted) a diner’s waitress, and had just started to forge a driver’s license. And in many ways, these pages help really define Parker in a way that sticks throughout the rest of the book. He’s single-minded, he’s driven, he has a plan, and woe to anyone who gets in the way of it. When Parker charms the waitress early on, the charm is on for only as long as it needs to. Then, the second he has what he needs, it’s business again. Parker is, ultimately, all about the business. As he threatens, punches, shoots, manipulates, and kills his way to his goal, it’s almost hard to not like him. Cooke brings a certain charm to the page when it comes to Parker, a man who really deserves every ounce of self-confidence that he continually whips out to all who think otherwise.

At the same time, Cooke doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that Parker is not a good person at all. When innocent people die as a result of Parker’s plans, there’s no remorse evident, no sympathy. He might go so far as to call the police to let them know where the dead body is, but other than that Parker’s eyes are still on his ultimate prize. This is, after all, a professional criminal who performs all sorts of crimes whenever his bank account gets low, and who was involved in a gun-running scheme when he was betrayed and caught. Cooke doesn’t apologize for Parker’s behavior here, but instead just leaves it like it is—a man you may enjoy reading about but would absolutely never want to meet in real life. I can only assume that Cooke’s leaving Parker true to form the way he was in the original novel of The Hunter, but based on everything I’ve heard about the book (and its numerous sequels) over the years, it certainly sounds accurate to me.

As for the art, though. Oh, the art. Cooke’s black and blue art for Parker: The Hunter is drop-dead gorgeous. It’s in Cooke’s traditional animation-styed art, with streaks of blue used to give it an old-fashioned look. From perky waitresses and timid innocent bystanders, to slimy crooks and double-crossing ex-wives, everyone has their own distinct look that comes across sharply. It’s fairly impressive how Cooke can just use black and blue as his colors and create so much depth to each of the pages. As for Parker himself, Cooke waits for 15 pages until we actually see his face. Until then, it’s either glimpses of him from behind, or the focus of the panels what Parker himself is actually seeing. It’s a smart move, letting us see how people are reacting to Parker before we finally "meet" Parker himself. When he does appear, it’s with unkempt hair, water dripping from his face, his clothes a mess. But his eyes stab out at the reader, with such grim determination and sense of purpose radiating out of them that it’s not only striking but unnerving. This is a man that you don’t mess with, under any circumstances.

From start to finish, this is a handsome book. Cooke uses some good stylistic tricks to tell his story; it’s amazing how something as simple as a slight pixilated effect on any panel containing a flashback never has to be explained but is instantly evident to the reader. And for a violent book, it’s amazing how very little violence is actually on-panel. Sometimes it’s told merely with silhouettes, other times it’s pushed off the edges of the panel with only the shrieks and screams drifting into the view of the reader telling the full story. My only complaint about the entire book is rather telling: wishing that there was an optional oversized version of the book to show off Cooke’s art even more.

When I was done reading Parker: The Hunter, my first instinct was to run out and read some Richard Stark novels. But you know what? For now I think I’m going to sit tight. The last page of Parker: The Hunter, after all, announces that "PARKER WILL RETURN IN 2010." With Cooke scheduled to adapt four of the Parker novels into graphic novels, I think I want my first exposure to them to be the Cooke versions. I had so much fun reading Parker: The Hunter that I don’t want anything to distract from it. If you like crime, thriller, or noir novels, you absolutely must buy this book. It’s set to debut in mid-July 2009, right as Comic-Con International kicks off in San Diego. I can’t blame IDW, because this is going to be one of the crown jewels of their publishing line. Highly recommended.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

I don’t think there’s any denying that Marjane Satrapi didn’t so much arrive in comics as she burst onto the scene with her autobiographical Persepolis graphic novels. A huge success (both commercially and creatively) in both comic and movie format, it’s safe to say that Persepolis will be a work that leaps first to mind for most people when they hear about Satrapi. While she’s released two books for adults since then, though, they seem to have slightly fallen under the radar. So with Chicken With Plums just being re-released in paperback, it seemed a good at time as any to see what Satrapi’s been up to since Persepolis.

Chicken With Plums is a biographical comic about Nasser Ali Khan, a renowned musician in Iran as well as Satrapi’s great-uncle. When Nasser Ali’s tar—his musical instrument—is broken, he finds himself unable to find a replacement that can ever play as well. And so, in the depths of depression, he decides that it is the end of his life. And slowly, over eight days in his bed, Nasser Ali wastes away. But in doing so, we learn so much more about Nasser Ali’s past, as well as what’s in store for his family’s future.

Chicken With Plums is an odd book, there’s no way around it. I suspect that most people will find it a little hard to empathize with Nasser Ali’s plight, and it’s a big stumbling block for any potential readers. Satrapi deliberately doesn’t help the reader, either, with the opening chapters of Chicken With Plums. Nasser Ali comes across in those pages as a very arrogant, self-absorbed man. Satrapi’s showing us how he appeared on the surface to everyone around him, and it’s easy to see why Nasser Ali alienated and frustrated people left and right. Then, as Nasser Ali decides that his bed will become his deathbed, Satrapi begins to examine Nasser Ali’s past and let us try and understand the events that landed Nasser Ali in such a tumultuous marriage and his path to becoming a musician.

Because Chicken With Plums is a biography, it comes off as a little flippant to say that the book’s main character is one that Satrapi should have tried to make more likable. After all, she’s telling Nasser Ali Khan’s story, not one about a fictional creation. But none the less, it is a little boggling as to exactly why Satrapi decided that she needed to tell the world about Nasser Ali Khan’s end of days. Understanding how Nasser Ali became the man he did and agreeing with it are two very different things, and when the book was over I still found myself more than a little cold towards the man. He may have been a musical genius, but because this is a book rather than a film, we don’t get to gain any sort of appreciation for his musical talents. Instead all we as readers have to go on is what Satrapi tells us, and I left the book thinking that Nasser Ali was a slightly pathetic man who ends up with a stronger legacy than he may have deserved on a personal level.

On the bright side, Satrapi does a good job of the actual storytelling, here. Her dips into Nasser Ali’s past are expected, and weaving in-between Nasser Ali’s wife Nahid’s memories of how they met with Nasser Ali’s perception of the series of events is handled deftly. (If anything, Chicken With Plums made me feel bad for poor Nahid; if the book was really meant to slyly vindicate Nahid under the guise of celebrating Nasser Ali, it worked.) I was also impressed with how Satrapi is able to shift in the future, explaining what will happen to Nasser Ali’s family after he’s gone, without feeling trite or forced. It’s an interesting look at legacy, and how children remember and honor their parents. In many ways, it’s the most interesting part of the book. Satrapi’s art is still simple and stark, but there’s one part in particular that jumped out at me—a dream of Nasser Ali’s involving actress Sophia Loren’s beautiful breasts. It’s drawn with such a beautiful, deep ink line that it reminded me of art you might see in Love and Rockets; both Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez have celebrated the female form in their comics, and that one page is akin to their work.

Chicken With Plums is a strange book, one that felt to me oddly inconsequential. I appreciate Satrapi’s attempt to tell this story of a man who died before she was born, but it’s hard to say what she’s really trying to accomplish here. I’m a little worried that she’s getting locked into the genre of Iranian biographies and I’d like to see her try something entirely different with her next book. She’s a good storyteller, but Chicken With Plums made me feel like she was a little too constricted by the biography format to be able to tell another story as engaging as her own life stories from Persepolis. Until then, I’m afraid that Satrapi’s newer works are destined to be read, talked about briefly, and then forgotten. It’s not a bad book, but it’s lacking that extra memorable punch. Hopefully her next book will bring that back.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books