Originally, the plan was simple: take a week’s break while I took care of some real world commitments, ones that were going to take up all the free time I [...]]]> You may (or may not) have noticed that there have been no posts since October 2012. I feel like I should explain why that happened.

Originally, the plan was simple: take a week’s break while I took care of some real world commitments, ones that were going to take up all the free time I normally had to write reviews for Read About Comics. Except those commitments grew. And grew. And grew. And by the time they started to die down, a lot of time had passed.

“I’m going to start back up next weekend,” I’d tell myself each Sunday night. And then more things would rear their ugly head, and every time I thought I was free and clear… well, you get the idea by now. These aren’t excuses, rather just an explanation of what’s been going on.

That said, in the next few weeks, I promise reviews will return. Honest. I’ve got a stack of great books here that I want to cover. One way or another, it will happen.

So thanks for your patience, and sorry for the ridiculously long delay.

By Thien Pham112 pages, colorPublished by First Second Books

Thien Pham is one of those creators whose comics I’ve seen in small doses here and there over the years, primarily in mini-comic form. So with the release of Sumo, his first graphic novel as both writer and artist, I was eager to see just [...]]]>

By Thien Pham
112 pages, color
Published by First Second Books

Thien Pham is one of those creators whose comics I’ve seen in small doses here and there over the years, primarily in mini-comic form. So with the release of Sumo, his first graphic novel as both writer and artist, I was eager to see just what he’d turn out. His minis have always been pleasing but short, and the expanded page count had the potential to deliver something quite interesting. As it turns out, Sumo is a book that uses its page length perfectly.

Pham tells the story of Scott, a former football player who’s moved to Japan to become a sumo wrestler. With his blonde hair died black and given the name Hakugei for wrestling, outwardly Scott’s made a complete transformation as part of his new career. But inwardly, Scott is still struggling with his confidence and the emotional fallout from a relationship gone bad. It’s a simple story but in many ways that’s part of Sumo‘s appeal.

Pham’s story jumps back and forth between the present day and flashbacks to two earlier times; before he left the United States, and soon after his arrival in Japan. At first each of the two flashback settings appear when Scott’s own viewpoint has temporarily ended—getting knocked out during a practice, or taking a nap—but the second time through they act more as scene breaks. It’s a lot to be said for Pham that both methods work quite well; the early transitions ease the reader into the shift, the later ones just return when it feels natural to pick up with more information about those earlier times (and the relationships that ended and began for Scott). Pham makes sure his readers don’t get lost by performing a color shift on those pages; instead of the black-and-orange of the present day, we get black-and-blue for the US and black-and-green for Japan. It’s a simple but visually pleasing way to show the change in setting, and Pham uses it masterfully as part of the climax later in the comic.

The art in Sumo is very straightforward. Pham draws with just a handful of lines, and it’s a decision that feels absolutely right for this story. An over-rendered Sumo would take away from the quiet mood of the book, and he’s able to still bring across all the emotional heft of the story through his characters and their expressions. The motion is great; not just in the match, but also bits like the flick of a fishing line across the air that arcs across the page perfectly. I found myself entranced at times with some of the little details of the story, like how the lowest-ranked sumo trainees are the ones responsible for the food, or how Scott promptly had his hair dyed upon entering the school. Those are all moments that don’t draw any real attention to themselves (besides occurring), but in which you drink in the details through the art. The world of the sumo wrestler trainee is a foreign one to most Western audiences, and while reading Sumo isn’t a primer (and isn’t meant to be), it still gives you a glimpse into this new world. Even the lettering is handled gracefully, with just enough of a balloon rendered as you need for each individual panel and page.

What struck me the most about Sumo was the simple elegance of the graphic novel. It’s a quiet story that quietly builds to a crescendo; similar to the way that sumo wrestlers circle one another at first, Sumo does an almost graceful dance around the conclusion. You know that it’s all coming to a head when the match hits, and sure enough, that’s when everything comes fast and curious. Flashbacks hit left and right, Scott is losing chances to get that win he needs to stay in the program, and then that final moment appears… and the reader is left to slowly exhale. With the final pages providing a simple but beautiful closing image, it helped cement Sumo to me as a real gem. Whatever Pham’s next project is, I’m already lined up as a reader. Nicely done.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Reading the first of Carl Barks’ Duck comic collections from Fantagraphics last year, I found myself struck by how quickly I’d fallen in love with Barks’ entertaining stories of all lengths. After the review was published, though, I had several friends sidle up to me and warn [...]]]> By Carl Barks
240 pages, color
Published by Fantagraphics Books

Reading the first of Carl Barks’ Duck comic collections from Fantagraphics last year, I found myself struck by how quickly I’d fallen in love with Barks’ entertaining stories of all lengths. After the review was published, though, I had several friends sidle up to me and warn me that the best was yet to come. They were referring to Barks’ Uncle Scrooge comics, which they swore up and down were even better. And now that Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man is out and I’ve had a chance to sit down and digest it? Well, sorry Donald, but I have a new favorite Duck and he’s the one with all the money.

If you’ve never read anything with Uncle Scrooge before, it’s a fairly simple concept. Scrooge McDuck is Donald Duck’s fabulously wealthy uncle, and all Scrooge wants to do in life is somehow become even wealthier. There are several long stories in this book, and while the title story "Only a Poor Old Man" does a great job of bringing that concept to life (as the Beagle Boys attempt to steal all of Scrooge’s money in increasingly crazy ways), it’s "Back to the Klondike" that deserves your attention the most. In many ways I feel like it’s got everything you need for a Scrooge McDuck story: Scrooge’s greed, clever ideas, glimpses into Scrooge’s adventuresome past, and the foursome of Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie to try and steer him in the right direction. "Back to the Klondike" goes one step further, though, by giving Scrooge a bit of a soul as we discover a long-lost love from his younger days. It’s a story that ends up simultaneously touching and frustrating; you want to shake Scrooge within an inch of his life and shake his hand at the same time. In other words, it’s just about perfect.

Of the other long stories in the volume, "The Secret of Atlantis" is the other one that feels particularly iconic. What’s great about it is that it starts with a simple idea—collecting a miniscule debt—and rolls and shifts into a story that gets so large that by the end we’ve almost lost track of how it all began. "The Secret of Atlantis" mixes real world economic ideas (like how collector’s items become valuable through rarity) and crazy ones (the fish-people living in Atlantis) into a story that has an unexpected adventure burst into play about halfway through. With each new twist and turn, Barks keeps his audience guessing and the end result is nothing short of a delight.

Unlike Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes, this first Uncle Scrooge collection mixes the short, medium, and long stories together. With hindsight being 20/20, this is a shift for the better. After reading a longer story like "Only a Poor Old Man" it’s nice to get some short pieces immediately afterwards to change things up a bit and keep things moving at a brisk pace. I also found myself convinced that these short pieces wouldn’t work as well all clustered together. Because of the nature of Uncle Scrooge’s stories, the bit ones are mostly involving him going to ridiculous lengths for a tiny amount of money. Strung back to back, it would get old quickly, but popping up throughout the volume isn’t bad at all.

Completely consistent with what I’ve seen from Barks before is the art. It’s clean, it’s crisp, it’s handsome. It’s never particularly flashy or attention grabbing, but it doesn’t need to be. There’s a good progression from one panel to the next, the characters are all drawn well and easily recognizable, and the motion flows smoothly. It’s a good looking comic, and that’s exactly what I expect from Banks. Also, as with before, the recoloring of the comics from Rich Tommaso looks good; at no point did anything here feel out of place or like someone had slapped modern techniques onto vintage comics, and that’s the way it should be.

I liked Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes a great deal, but Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man is even better. The more I see of Barks’ comics, the more I kick myself for having taken this long to read them. (Although most of his Duck comics being out of print for ages is at least a somewhat reasonable excuse.) If you haven’t experienced Barks’ Duck comics yourself, I think this is a great a place as any to begin. Definitely check it out for yourself. Highly recommended.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

The Red Diary/The Re[a]d Diary is one of the strangest and most inventive graphic novels I’ve seen in a while, but it takes a little explaining. Teddy Kristiansen wrote and painted a graphic novel published in France titled Le [...]]]> Written by Teddy Kristiansen and Steven T. Seagle
Art by Teddy Kristiansen
144 pages, color
Published by Image Comics

The Red Diary/The Re[a]d Diary is one of the strangest and most inventive graphic novels I’ve seen in a while, but it takes a little explaining. Teddy Kristiansen wrote and painted a graphic novel published in France titled Le Carnet Rouge (or The Red Diary). In bringing it to North America and an English translation, he came to his friend and often-collaborator Steven T. Seagle. He’s part of the Man of Action Studios collective, which has a deal with Image, but (as Seagle explains in the book) he needed to be a co-creator in order to publish it, and he wasn’t sure that just providing a translation would suffice.

So, Seagle came up with an inventive plan. He’d take the French graphic novel and on his own write a brand-new script over top the art, trying to fit his script into the narration boxes and word balloons, and keeping in any names that didn’t require translation. Then, once he’d done that, he’d also (with the help of Kristiansen) script an actual translation of the graphic novel, and the two would be published side-by-side. The end result? The Red Diary, which contains Kristiansen’s original story, and The Re[a]d Diary, with Seagle’s brand new story "remixed" into Kristiansen’s art. It’s bizarre and off the wall, and yet? It utterly works.

As heretical as it may sound, I must admit that of the two stories presented here it was Seagle’s that caught my attention more. There’s nothing necessarily wrong about Kristiansen’s own story from The Red Diary (and after all without it we’d have neither of these projects), but its plot involving a researcher finding diaries of an artist connected to a poet from World War I feels simultaneously a little too convoluted and also disengaging. The researcher himself has no real connection to the person whose story is being told; had the researcher only appeared in the first and last pages of The Red Diary that might not have been a problem, but the book dips back and forth between the two on a regular basis. It’s ultimately a dispassionate story, one where there aren’t any real stakes for the reader or one of the two main characters.

Seagle’s story, on the other hand, put the researcher character firmly into the center of the spotlight. It was a logical assumption for him to make upon seeing the art, that the character had a greater role in the book, and it works in The Re[a]d Diary. As you read along into a story that is also about art and the war, you get a much stronger sense of urgency and mystery bound into the exploration of the three color-coded diaries examined throughout the book. There’s a promised end goal here, a story about a character that needs to be told. And while Seagle provides a slight twist at the end of the book (although I suspect most readers will have guessed it long beforehand), it generally feels much more straight-forward and to the point. The Re[a]d Diary becomes a book that sets its sights on a specific ending and then arrives there.

On the other hand, there’s no question as to the quality of the art for The Red Diary/The Re[a]d Diary, which is jaw-droppingly beautiful. Fully painted by Kristiansen, every page is carefully composed and would look amazing on display on your own wall. (For books about painters, this is of course an important thing to be able to pull off.) It’s also worth noting that each page is sequential enough that even though you lose the finer details without getting Kristiansen’s words, it’s still able to be followed as a story well enough that Seagle was able to create a story to overlay on top of the art.

The pages with the narrator are the most peaceful ones; ones as simple as him walking through a library or gazing out the window have a level of quiet beauty about them. Nothing is left out; the walls are carefully painted just as much as the main character, and you can read into how characters are feeling through the body language displayed here. I also liked his usage of simple techniques to tell the story in an effective manner, like a montage of the past that has multiple images fading into one another. In both Kristiansen and Seagle’s story, it works as a way to get across both a specific event as well as a general feel to the time period, and his gentle and graceful lines mesh well with the painted colors.

The war scenes are the most dramatic, of course. Here Kristiansen tosses out the lighter colors for dark greens and browns, a perfect choice for the infamous war of the trenches. There’s something in his color choices and heavy paints that can’t help but drag down the reader into the general despair of the moment. It’s beautifully rendered, and it gives those moments set in World War I an extra punch to the gut.

Could an experiment like The Red Diary/The Re[a]d Diary work again? Probably not. Re-dialoging comics has happened before and will again, of course, but there’s something about the utter mystery that confronted Seagle that makes this feel completely non-cynical and rather clever. I might have ended up liking The Re[a]d Diary half more, but I still appreciated what Kristiansen did for The Red Diary too. Add in the fact that this is published in a huge, over-sized flipbook that will let you examine the art for quite some time to come, and this is well worth your while.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

With IDW’s successful comic adaptation of Peter S. Beagle’s novel The Last Unicorn, it only makes sense that they’d dip back into that well again with another novel-to-comic conversion. This one is from Beagle’s first novel A Fine and [...]]]> Original story by Peter S. Beagle
Adaptated by Peter Gillis
Art by Eduardo Francisco
32 pages, color
Published by IDW

With IDW’s successful comic adaptation of Peter S. Beagle’s novel The Last Unicorn, it only makes sense that they’d dip back into that well again with another novel-to-comic conversion. This one is from Beagle’s first novel A Fine and Private Place, with Peter Gillis scripting and Eduardo Francisco tackling the art. And while A Fine and Private Place doesn’t have the same instant hook that a project like The Last Unicorn possessed, this quieter story is a pleasant and interesting read.

The first issue of A Fine and Private Place introduces us to Jonathan Rebeck, a man who lives in a cemetary mausoleum, can see ghosts, and understands ravens. It’s there that we see one raven bringing Jonathan food from a nearby deli, and Jonathan meets both a brand-new ghost (his body freshly buried) as well as a living visitor to the cemetary. A Fine and Private Place #1 is primarily introductions and setting the mood for the mini-series, and does so in a relaxed, unhurried pace.

Gillis finds a right balance between keeping the original narrative prose and letting the Francisco’s art tell the story. Early parts of the first issue use a lot of Beagle’s prose in narration boxes, but it sets the scene in ways that the art alone would have had a more difficult time with. It gets into the head of Jonathan, talks about the surroundings, and has a wry sense of humor. Once Jonathan’s got someone else to talk to (most notably the ghost of Michael) the narration boxes drop away substantially. Presumably that’s in part because the book itself has a lot more dialogue on its pages, but by that point Gillis and Beagle have also set the stage well. A Fine and Private Place #1 at that point becomes as much about their conversation as anything else, and for a book set in a cemetary with ghosts and mourners, it’s quite pleasant. We might not know yet why Jonathan lives in a cemetary but it doesn’t matter; this is a story that’s inviting enough that I want to keep reading and learn more about all the players involved.

Francisco’s art (along with colors by Priscilla Tramontano) is attractive to the eye. There’s nothing flashy about it but it doesn’t need to be either; it features well-rendered characters and smooth and easy to follow action. Jonathan himself looks very realistic; he’s short, has bushy eyebrows and a big nose, and comes across as someone you’d see walking down the street. It’s nice to see an artist who can draw real people instead of just hyper-realized ones. Even more important, though, are the settings in A Fine and Private Place #1. Both the cemetary and the New York city street come across as actual places that you could visit. Everything from store signs to different looking tombstones are carefully drawn out—I can only assume that Francisco did his research before starting the project—and it’s an unthreatening, inviting overall look.

A Fine and Private Place #1 is a good start to this new mini-series. It might not have the name recognition as The Last Unicorn, but for those who pick it up I think they’ll be pleased. As someone who’d never heard of this particular Beagle book before, I found myself drawn in enough that I’d like to see what happens next. It’s a quiet, unassuming book but sometimes that’s exactly what you’re looking for.

Laurianne Uy and Nathan Go’s Polterguys Volume 1 was one of those books that randomly showed up in my mailbox one day. I’m always a sucker for a book that won a Xeric Grant, and with the foundation [...]]]> Written by Laurianne Uy and Nathan Go
Art by Laurianne Uy
192 pages, black and white
Published by Mumo Press

Laurianne Uy and Nathan Go’s Polterguys Volume 1 was one of those books that randomly showed up in my mailbox one day. I’m always a sucker for a book that won a Xeric Grant, and with the foundation having handed out its final publishing grants, getting hold of one of those books was a pleasant surprise. What I found was a book that clearly gets its main inspiration from certain manga tropes, but also adds enough of its own twist to keep it from being too predictable.

When Polterguys opens, Uy and Go introduce us to Bree, a nerdy college freshman who’s looking forward to starting over now that she’s away from the high school that ignored her. When a roommate that drives her crazy pushes Bree into finding off-campus housing, she ends up in a house haunted by five young men, and before long Bree’s trying to solve the mystery of their deaths that not even they can remember.

At its core, Polterguys is similar to the popular "harem" genre of manga, where usually it’s a single man in a situation where he’s living with a large group of women. (Negima! is an example of one such series that gained a strong following in North America.) In this case, though, it’s a reverse harem where Bree’s the sole woman with a cluster of boys around her. And while that sounds like a small change, adding in the lack (for now) of any sort of amorous relationship between Bree and the five ghosts and I must admit that I found myself intrigued by this inversion of a trope that normally has me running screaming from a series.

The story itself is a little familiar in spots but all in all it’s not bad. Bree seems remarkably sheltered and naive in spots, but she’s thankfully not stupid. When she gets herself into a bad situation or two along the way, it’s much to Uy and Go’s credit that Bree quickly regroups and tries to figure out the smart thing to do next. She gets a little wound up at times, but in the end it’s her drive to figure things out and ultimately adjust to the things thrown at her that makes Polterguys work. The ending feels a little rushed, but it felt in part like of Uy and Go’s desire to have a major plot point wrapped up at the end of the book. That’s a smart thing, since it gives the reader enough of a sense of gratification (without wrapping up all of the ghosts’ stories) that they’ll be interested in reading more rather than everything being dragged out. So while that part of the ending does indeed tumble into place a little too easily, with future volumes Uy and Go should have more room (with all of the set-up now out of the way) to tackle the remaining ghosts’ stories. And while the moment on the final pages is telegraphed fairly early on for readers paying attention, it’s staged in such a manner that I felt that Uy and Go handled the situation well and once again kept it from being dragged out.

Uy’s art is nice; it’s heavily influenced by the sort of style that you see a lot in manga these days. Very expressive faces and actions, and at times an over-reaction to try and drive a point home. It’s staged well enough, and I think that Uy’s biggest strength is a good sense of pacing. I feel that she understand the basic beats and timing of comics well, so that the progression builds well not only for each chapter but also each individual page. It’s not just a collection of panels that happen to be grouped together here, and I like the end result. It’s not often that you see a young artist get that right off the bat, and it bodes well for Polterguys as a whole.

All in all, Polterguys Vol. 1 is a pleasant read. It’s a bit of pop entertainment; you’ll read it, you’ll like it, you’ll probably want to see the next volume whenever that happens. (There’s even a low-priced Kindle edition for those who are intrigued but need to save shelf space.) Uy and Go have taken one of the normally sketchy sub-genres of manga and twisted it around into something that drops all of the slightly unsettling pieces and keeps all of the good ones, and for that alone I’d have been impressed. The fact that it’s a nice read works even more to its favor. Polterguys is light fun, but it’s fun none the less.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Toon Books is known for creating a smart synthesis between children’s books and graphic novels; their books appropriate the storytelling traditions and techniques of both and turn them into a bridge between the slightly different formats. With The Secret of the Stone Frog, though, Toon [...]]]> By David Nytra
80 pages, black and white
Published by Toon Books

Toon Books is known for creating a smart synthesis between children’s books and graphic novels; their books appropriate the storytelling traditions and techniques of both and turn them into a bridge between the slightly different formats. With The Secret of the Stone Frog, though, Toon has published a full graphic novel for younger readers by David Nytra. And as it turns out, it was well worth the wait with a graceful, dreamy story that captures the imagination.

Nytra’s plot for The Secret of the Stone Frog is a fairly simple one; children Leah and Alan wake up in a strange forest and try to find their way home, with only a series of talking stone frog statues to help guide them back. As they stray from the frog’s path, though, danger quickly finds them over and over again. It’s the sort of structure that allows Nytra to hang just about anything he wants on it; as soon as the duo leave the path, all sorts of strange things can appear with only Nytra’s imagination as the limit.

Nytra’s story is the sort that’s well built for the graphic novel format. There’s one part in particular that uses a convention that wouldn’t have the same effect in any other medium, as a massive bee grabs a word balloon coming out of Alan’s mouth and starts to cart it away, rendering him mute. Only once Leah is able to chase down the bee, get the balloon back, and roll it up so she can feed it back to Alan is he able to talk again. It’s a great nod to the way that comics work, and it’s that sort of cleverness that made me tickled by The Secret of the Stone Frog. As mentioned earlier, just about anything can happen in this book; in many ways it reminds me of Winsor McCay’s classic comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, as things start out rather normal and then start twisting and changing the more you look at them.

Nytra’s art also has a certain similarity to McCay’s comics in the way that he draws his characters. They’ve got very loose features (perhaps so that it’s easier for children to identify with them?) and their expressions are always one of wonder and excitement, similar to Nemo’s wide-eyed looks back in the day. The rest of the art serves as a start contrast to his two protagonists, though; it’s very richly detailed, with so much packed onto the page that if the credits hadn’t mentioned what tools Nytra used you’d assume it required computers to get all of those little lines onto the page. Everything from massive rabbits to ambulatory fish in three-piece suits comes to life here, and in a way that will have you staring at the art for hours.

One thing that I appreciated was that while there’s one very small moral embedded into the story—it’s only by not listening to the advice of the stone frog that Leah and Alan find themselves in trouble—it’s never particularly overt. Instead it’s a tumbling, jaunty story that pushes them from one strange encounter to the next. The lack of overtness is part of the key of the charm in this book, too; most older readers will quickly pick up on the fact that Leah and Alan are dreaming, but Nytra never states it point-blank. Younger readers can enjoy the story in its own right, and as they grow a little older pick up on the additional nature of the story.

The Secret of the Stone Frog might be both Toon Books’ and Nytra’s first graphic novel, but hopefully it won’t be the last. This is a real joy to read and I’m already eager to see more. Younger readers will enjoy the adventure and anything-can-happen attitude, while older readers will also get out of it a strong appreciation for the amount of craft that goes into the art. This is the sort of gift that when you buy, you run the risk of quietly sitting down and reading it for yourself, first.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Talon is, at its heart, a slightly odd book at a glance. It’s a book that has obliquely spun out of the last year’s worth of Batman issues and its Court of Owls storyline, but [...]]]> Plot by James Tynion IV and Scott Snyder
Script by James Tynion IV
Art by Guillem March
32 pages, color
Published by DC Comics

Talon is, at its heart, a slightly odd book at a glance. It’s a book that has obliquely spun out of the last year’s worth of Batman issues and its Court of Owls storyline, but the main character didn’t actually appear in any of those issues. But at its heart? Talon #0 reminded me of not one but two different past DC Comics series, and has merged them into a title that I think can end up working quite well.

The Court of Owls, introduced in Batman #1-11, is a shadowy organization with assassins known as Talons. Calvin Rose was once a Talon for the Court, but unlike the others who have left the service only by death, chose to escape being a hitman. But of course, like all super-secret groups that employ killers, Calvin is quickly learning that the Court doesn’t take "goodbye" for an answer. It’s a very simple set-up, one that’s easy to follow. With the Court’s connection to Batman and Calvin’s own experiences as an escape artist, though, it’s hard to stop from thinking about past titles Azrael and Mister Miracle; the former about a former-brainwashed assassin for a secret organization in the Batman titles, the latter about a escape artist who finally escaped from the evil place where he was raised. Fortunately, Talon doesn’t feel like a copy of either, but rather sharing some elements from each. The similarity-yet-difference from those titles is something that I think can work in Talon‘s favor; it gives an easy "this is what it’s about" jumping on point, but avoids any direct elements from copying over.

This is James Tynion IV’s most high-profile project at DC Comics to date; he’s been writing and co-writing some back-up stories in Batman as of late, but aside from a co-plot credit from Scott Snyder Talon #0 is his baby. It flows well in his hands; as the book shifts back and forth you get Calvin’s life story, and a clear example of Calvin’s voice as narrator. Calvin’s by no means a perfect person—after all this is someone who killed for the Court of Owls—but Tynion gives us a character that is clearly wanting to be free of that past. It’s not quite a drive for redemption just yet, but you can see that lurking around the corner. For now, it’s a solid introduction.

Guillem March over the past few years has become so associated with the ladies of DC Comics (first in Gotham City Sirens, then Catwoman) that it’s a breath of fresh air to see him as the regular artist for Talon. When you get him away from the scantily-clad big-chested women and the reader expectations that seem to come with them, March is actually a strong artist. His use of thick heavy lines for shading and texture reminds me of the late great Joe Kubert; he’s excellent with the usage of shadow and darkness to help frame his pictures, a>nd little details like circus posters have a nice art nouveau feel to them. Layouts are good and easy to follow, with March only changing things up when the story warrants it (like a still-groggy Calvin having his world at a slight tilt).

Talon #0 was a comic that could have easily gone wrong, but succeeds thanks to the strong creative talent helming the title. It’s got a road that’s wide open to it, and with the hint that this might be a book with a moving setting, that feels apt. Things could easily change, but for now Calvin Rose feels like a protagonist that could carry a title. That path to redemption feels like it’s going to be stepped on sooner rather than later, and it should be a good journey for both character and reader alike.

Two years ago, Charles Burns began a new trilogy of graphic novels with X’ed Out, an odd book that shifted between reality and a different, cartoonish world following its protagonist Doug. It was simultaneously intriguing yet also frustrating; as good as it was, so much was still [...]]]> By Charles Burns
56 pages, color
Published by Pantheon Books

Two years ago, Charles Burns began a new trilogy of graphic novels with X’ed Out, an odd book that shifted between reality and a different, cartoonish world following its protagonist Doug. It was simultaneously intriguing yet also frustrating; as good as it was, so much was still feeling nebulous and unfinished with two more installments still en route. Burns’s second installment The Hive is now just around the corner, and with it comes not only a larger feel for Burns’ new story, but also a slightly more satisfying look back at X’ed Out.

The Hive in many ways doesn’t break any new ground that we haven’t already seen in X’ed Out. Doug is struggling with relationships in the real world—both with his dying farther as well as with Susan—and with fitting into the bizarre insect and lizard dominated science-fiction world where Doug’s features have been stripped away into something more iconic. But in giving us a larger glimpse at both worlds, where The Hive succeeds is that it makes both much more familiar and comfortable. The initial strangeness has faded into the distance, and as a result we’re able to start to get a feel for the smaller details.

None of Doug’s relationships seem to be functioning on a healthy level; a combination of bad communication and furtiveness. But in reading The Hive, it feels almost like it’s that level of failure that keeps Doug moving. If he’d ever stop and realize just how bad his entire life has rapidly become, the chance of collapse would leap up dramatically. Instead, it’s a certain sense of oblivion that both makes Doug fatally flawed and also somewhat approachable. His trajectory is bound for disaster, and you want to see just where that terminus will bring him.

More intriguing to me, though, remains Burns’ art. His ability to draw portraits of every-day people continues to be outstanding (not a surprise for anyone who’s seen his covers for the magazine The Believer, of course), and that continues through a lot of The Hive. His characters in the real world have such depth and expression on their faces that it makes the switch to the Hergé-esque look of the other world that much more jarring. All nuance drops away, and it’s clearly such a deliberate choice on the part of Burns that it’s hard to feel like it’s a big clue dangled in front of the reader. Is this other world Doug’s attempt to step away from the more difficult real world, even though on the surface it seems like the more horrific one? Or is there something bigger going on here? Whatever the reason, it’s hard to keep from reveling in the art in both worlds; the people crowded into a performance space, the alien foodstuffs laid out in a revolting manner, the dark curtains looming behind Doug in a hospital. The Hive is a gorgeous book to look at from start to finish.

With one more volume still on the way (tentatively titled Sugar Skull) to wrap things up, The Hive doesn’t give us any huge revelations on Doug or Susan’s story. But at this point, I feel like Burns has proved himself enough that we didn’t need them. The Hive has helped set X’ed Out alongside it in part of a larger narrative, and in doing so The Hive not only feels strong, but it’s managed to elevate X’ed Out with it. I enjoyed X’ed Out, but thanks to The Hive I’m fully on board for the conclusion. Burns is a master of the medium, and books like this remind us why.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Grant Morrison recently announced the end dates for his two ongoing work-for-hire titles for DC Comics (Action Comics and Batman Incorporated), and while he still has a handful of company-owned projects still in the pipeline (Multiversity and Wonder Woman Year One for starters), [...]]]> Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Darick Robertson
32 pages, color
Published by Image Comics

Grant Morrison recently announced the end dates for his two ongoing work-for-hire titles for DC Comics (Action Comics and Batman Incorporated), and while he still has a handful of company-owned projects still in the pipeline (Multiversity and Wonder Woman Year One for starters), he’s going to start concentrating more on some new creator-owned titles. The first of those is Happy!, a four-issue limited series with co-creator Darick Robertson. Reading the first issue, I have to say that this is a distinct change for Morrison. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought it was written by an entirely different big-name-creator.

Happy! #1 introduces us to Nick Sax, a former policeman who these days kills people for money. He’s hardly a shining example of society. When Happy! #1 opens he’s in the process of being hunted by the Fratelli brothers, members of the local mob. Then things go a bit off schedule, and not only is Nick injured, but he’s being hunted by the mob over  piece of information that he doesn’t actually possess. His only chance of escape? A little girl’s imaginary friend that he can now see, a winged blue unicorn the size of a fist named Happy.

If I didn’t know better I’d have assumed Garth Ennis wrote Happy! #1. It’s got a rough, foul-mouthed exterior that hasn’t been present in Morrison’s comics for a long time. So much of the first half of Happy! #1 in particular feels like an Ennis; low-class language, the seedy underside of a city, a prostitute about to be killed even as she’s blowing her john. I’m not saying that Morrison can’t write this way too, but rather that it’s quite a surprise to be encountering a book from him that revels in its own filth. Here’s the thing, though: I love that he’s taking this opportunity to veer off in a different direction than we’re used to. Perhaps we’re getting Morrison trying a little too hard in places but it’s still a refreshing change. And by the end of the first issue of Happy!, I feel like we’re on slightly more familiar ground with him. A deranged spirit guide feels more in line with Morrison’s other comics, but I’m still eager to see where this darker and dirtier version of the story is willing to go.

Robertson’s art, on the other hand, feels quite familiar; in many ways it’s like being reunited with an old friend. He and colorist Richard P. Clark are doing a great job here; the dizzying glimpse of the city from up above as snow falls down is a great image, for example, and the dead bodies wrapped up in Christmas lights is a perfect set piece. The idea may be Morrison’s, but I feel like Robertson and Clark are the ones who sell it; the crude sign propped up in a way that it’s off to one side instead of blatantly staring at the audience, or the gentle glow of the lights themselves. It’s cozy and awful at the same time, and that juxtaposition in the art is something that Robertson is great at bringing to life. Even the page layouts are nice; they’re not crazy or strange, but occasionally surprised me by doing something fun like having all the borders radiate out of the side of the page like bicycle spokes. Add in some of the driest expressions you’ll see in comics—the looks of disdain are just fantastic—and it’s a reminder of how Robertson’s career launched into high gear once Transmetropolitan began back in the day.

Happy! #1 wasn’t at all what I was expecting from this comic, but it was a pleasant surprise. It bodes well for Morrison’s other upcoming creator-owned projects; if he keeps stretching himself and branching into different genres and tones, we’re in for a wild ride. In the meantime, though, I’ll be content to just see how the remaining three issues of Happy! play out. All in all, a fun debut.