I think most comic book readers have at least one creator whose works they’ve kept meaning to try out, but never gotten around to. Some of us even have lists; one of the people on mine for a while now has been Faith [...]]]> By Faith Erin Hicks
224 pages, black and white
Published by First Second Books

I think most comic book readers have at least one creator whose works they’ve kept meaning to try out, but never gotten around to. Some of us even have lists; one of the people on mine for a while now has been Faith Erin Hicks. I’ve heard good things about her past books (writing and drawing Zombies Calling and The War at Ellsmere, and illustrating Brain Camp), and so with Friends With Boys due to be released just around the corner, now seemed a good a time as any to finally give Hicks a whirl. Fortunately, this is one of those situations where it was worth the wait.

Friends With Boys is a slightly odd book when you stop to think about it. On the surface, it’s got two different stories going on. There’s our main character Maggie, who after being home schooled for her mother for eight years, is about to enter high school where the only people she knows are her three older brothers. If that’s not bad enough, the only woman in her life (her mother) has just abandoned the family and gone to parts unknown. Meanwhile, there’s a secondary storyline, involving Maggie being haunted by a ghost from the local cemetery. And at a glance, the two really don’t have that much in common.

I think it was once I hit the halfway point of Friends With Boys that it hit me that this wasn’t a book with two major stories; rather, it’s a book with one story about Maggie trying to find her way in the world, and that some of the finer details (like the ghost in the cemetery) are just that. Looking at it on that level helps focus the book; it makes Maggie’s struggles to fit into high school and her budding friendship with Lucy and Alistair more interesting once you stop waiting for it to get sidelined by the ghost. That’s not to say that the part involving the ghost doesn’t intersect with the rest of the book, but it’s not a primary thrust of the overall story. And at that point, I felt like the book really began to sing. Alistair recounting how he shifted from being part of the cool kids to an outcast is a great anecdote in its own right, but Hicks tells it with such emotion that it feels like you’re actually living the moment through Alistair. It’s the part in the book where you’ll start caring about Alistair, too; in recounting his greatest betrayal of Lucy and his attempts since then to make it up to her, it shows a shift in conscience that you’ll wish more people in real life could have, too.

Maggie herself, though, is the star of Friends With Boys and I think Hicks makes her a likable main character. In some ways she initially reminded me a bit of Sarah Oleksyk’s protagonist from Ivy, but the big difference between Maggie and Ivy is that Maggie manages to make the right decisions in life. She stands up for herself, but privately admits her fears and indecision even while she puts on a good game face in public. And when the story with the ghost shows back up, to me it becomes important in that we see how Maggie has grown throughout Friends With Boys; she’s shifted from running away from or trying to ignore the ghost, to actively trying to address its presence and try to put it to rest. The rest of the supporting cast of Friends With Boys pale a bit in comparison to Maggie and Alistair; twin brothers Lloyd and Zander in particular feel a tiny bit underdeveloped for when they’re suddenly involved in the resolution, but ultimately I’d rather have had more pages of Maggie and Alistair than giving some of that space away for their own plot.

Hicks’ art is that slightly blocky, stripped down style that’s been on the rise in the last decade, and it looks great here. Right off the bat Hicks establishes her style when we see Daniel dragging brothers Lloyd and Zander across the hallway; it’s a little silly, a little cartoonish, and a lot of fun. It’s Maggie’s run through the cemetery, though, that helps solidify what’s good about Hicks’ art. She packs a lot of emotion into her art; not just in the expressions on people’s faces (which are lively and help nail the tenor of a scene), but even in the backgrounds. You get just the right mood looking at the tilted headstones, or the nearby homes. It helps you get a sense of the kind of neighborhood we’re looking at, and the world in which Maggie lives.

Friends With Boys is a coming-of-age story where the main character deals with both the very real (bullies and cliques) and the fantastical (being haunted by a ghost), and deals with them all with equal aplomb. It’s a charming little story that carries just the right emotional wallop when you’re least expecting it. The charm is good for the overall impression, but it’s those emotional gut punches that make me want to read more from Hicks. She’s definitely a cartoonist whose comics I should have read sooner. I won’t make that mistake again.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Call it heresy, but I think I enjoyed Ed Brubaker’s issues of Captain America that starred Cap-replacement Bucky Barnes in the outfit more than when Steve Rogers was in the suit. And with Rogers helming Captain America once more an inevitability, I’m glad that [...]]]> Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Butch Guice
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel

Call it heresy, but I think I enjoyed Ed Brubaker’s issues of Captain America that starred Cap-replacement Bucky Barnes in the outfit more than when Steve Rogers was in the suit. And with Rogers helming Captain America once more an inevitability, I’m glad that us Bucky Barnes fans are getting our fix in the new series Winter Soldier. And so far, it’s exactly what I want from such a series: a mixture of black ops and crazy Marvel mayhem.

Brubaker’s origin for the Winter Soldier, when first introduced a few years ago, was that Bucky Barnes had not only been brainwashed by the Soviets, but put on ice and then thawed whenever they had a mission for him. It makes perfect sense, then, for Bucky to not have been the only killer on ice, and Winter Soldier #1 opens with him trying to track down three recently discovered sleepers. From there we’ve got casinos, Soviet agents in America’s heartland… oh, and a gorilla armed with heavy artillery that shouts anti-American phrases in Russian.

And to me, that sums up everything that works with the whole idea of Winter Soldier #1. Similar to Greg Rucka and Marco Checchetto’s revival of The Punisher, Winter Soldier is taking a mostly more-serious, grounded tone… but still reveling in all of the craziness that the Marvel Universe offers, like talking Communist gorillas, or cyborg Prime Ministers. I like that he’s taking established Marvel villains like the Red Ghost and his Super Apes and keeping their same spirit alive, but at the same time making them feel a bit more dangerous, for lack of a better word. The overall grounded feel for Winter Soldier doesn’t exclude the fantastic, it just makes them fit better into the book’s particular world view.

Speaking of views, the view of the world through Butch Guice’s pencils is a lovely one. Guice penciled some issues of Captain America starring Bucky as the main character, so he and Brubaker already had a history of working together. The art here looks just fantastic; carefully crafted, fine-detailed portraits of characters that look like they’re ready to step right off of the page. He and colorist Bettie Breitweiser work well together on some of the trickier moments, like the slightly granulated look for a video projection, only to shift back to a more subdued, gentler look in the next panel as we snap back into reality. Even some of the smaller moments, like the establishing images of the casino on the first page, come across classy and slick thanks to Guice; who knew a playing card and a few poker chips could look so intriguing?

Winter Soldier has only just begun, but considering it’s spun directly out of multiple years of Captain America, it’s not like we don’t already have somewhat of a good idea what we’re in store for. If you’ve never read stories with the character before, though, this is a solid entry point. Winter Soldier continues to remind us that what had sounded laughable (Bucky Barnes is alive and a Soviet assassin!) could be top-notch story material in the right hands. I’m along for the ride, absolutely.

With the current wealth of classic reprint series, it’s easy to fall behind on your reading. (I don’t even want to admit how far behind I am on the Complete Peanuts books.) With the fifth volume of the Prince Valiant reprints scheduled for this spring, though, it seemed [...]]]> By Hal Foster
112 pages, color
Published by Fantagraphics

With the current wealth of classic reprint series, it’s easy to fall behind on your reading. (I don’t even want to admit how far behind I am on the Complete Peanuts books.) With the fifth volume of the Prince Valiant reprints scheduled for this spring, though, it seemed like a good a time as any to catch up on Hal Foster’s legendary newspaper strip. With a slight shift in the format of the strip in this volume, it turned out this was the perfect time to take another look at the series.

I’d found the third volume of Prince Valiant to drag a little bit, so it was a relief to find that the fourth strip in this collection begins a new story, sending Prince Valiant back to his homeland of Thule. With his helping his father reclaim Thule being such an important driving force of the earliest years of Prince Valiant, it’s almost a relief to see the strip shift its focus here. We’re reminded not only of Val’s heritage (he is, after all, a real Prince) but about the prophecies that were laid upon him early in the strip. It feels like Foster himself took the start of 1943 as a chance to kick the book back into high gear and forge new paths for the strip.

From there, we end up with two years’ worth of high adventure. There are wonderfully inventive moments peppered throughout these strips—one of the best being Prince Valiant building a dam to turn an enemy’s castle into the center of a lake—and Foster keeps the stories moving briskly from one to the next. Even with the return to Thule taking up seven months of this volume, it never feels like any stories are overstaying their welcome or dragging.

In mid-1944, Foster also added a secondary feature into his full page strip, "The Mediaeval Castle." Taking up the bottom third of the page, it follows everyday life for a family living in a castle; everything from schooling to being besieged by enemies, it’s a strange but charming mixture of adventure and historical primer. Considering that most installments are only three panels, I found myself a little surprised by how much Foster is able to cram into each installment of "The Mediaeval Castle." Originally I’d planned to skip reading those strips until I was done with the book and then backtrack to read just those (so I wouldn’t mix the two of them together in my head), but I was pleasantly surprised to find not only the two of them distinctly different, but also each succinct enough that there was no need to try and make each its own reading experience.

I’ll admit that I was a little worried when I saw that "The Mediaeval Castle" was taking up a third of the page of Prince Valiant, because one of the things I quickly fell in love with here was how Foster used the huge full page spreads to his advantage, with large layouts and inventive uses of the space. At first, it felt like Foster fell into a pattern; a nine panel-grid where the first six panels were for Valiant, the last three for the Castle. But as the comic progressed, Foster soon clearly felt comfortable enough with the new arrangement that we had him break that structure as need be. The return of Aleta, for instance, is a huge panel the size of four normal ones, letting us not only see Aleta and Valiant, but her entire court, the tapestries hanging on the walls, and even the tears in Val’s cloak.

Then again, Foster is no stranger to fine detail in Prince Valiant, so this shouldn’t have been a surprise. The fine lines that are on every single page are a joy to simply stop and study. From the veins running through stone walls to the individual fibers on a loincloth, Foster made sure every last detail was present. He was also an excellent artist when it came to understanding the human body and how to depict it move. When Valiant frees himself from a dungeon after being strung up, watching him pull his legs up and through the ropes, and then hang from his knees while undoing the rest of the bonds, makes you feel like you’re watching an acrobat move across the page. Every new image flows gracefully from the previous one, a reminder that a lot of modern artists could learn a great deal from Foster’s storytelling techniques and craft.

Prince Valiant Vol. 4: 1943-1944 is not only a great book, I think it could also serve well as a good jumping-on point for those curious about the strip. By this point Foster has gotten a strong grip on his characters and the format of the strip, and with a new storyline beginning so early on in this volume you don’t have to worry about being lost. And while this volume doesn’t end at a conclusion for the last storyline (running a whopping 20 months in all, as it turns out, only the first 7 months are present here), there’s so much meat here that you’ll be eager for Prince Valiant Vol. 5 so you can find out how it ends. I, for one, can’t wait.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

In the world of monthly comics, there are a handful of creators who really should reign supreme. At the top of the list? Stan Sakai and his long-running title Usagi Yojimbo. Usagi Yojimbo chronicles the adventures of Usagi, a ronin (masterless samurai) who wanders Japan [...]]]> By Stan Sakai
24 pages, black and white
Published by Dark Horse

In the world of monthly comics, there are a handful of creators who really should reign supreme. At the top of the list? Stan Sakai and his long-running title Usagi Yojimbo. Usagi Yojimbo chronicles the adventures of Usagi, a ronin (masterless samurai) who wanders Japan during the early 17th century. In the latest Usagi Yojimbo, we’ve got everything you can want in an issue; action, intrigue, bad guys, and soy sauce recipes. No, really.

One of the things that is so great about Usagi Yojimbo is how well Sakai is able to mix adventure with a bit of a Japanese history lesson (don’t worry, there’s no quiz and it’s interesting to boot). In "Shoyu" Part 1, Usagi gets caught up in the middle of a dispute between the owners of two soy sauce manufacturers in a small town, as a young spoiled heir tries to sabotage the property of the long-established rival. After saving Mitsui’s warehouse, Usagi is taken on a tour of the facilities, and we learn how soy sauce is made. What could have been boring is instead somewhat fascinating; it feels very conversational instead of being lectured at, and it also helps explain why the young Hata’s soy sauce business is faltering. It’s not simply a matter of, "His isn’t good enough" but rather, "He refused to listen to good advice and made poor decisions."

It’s that lack of respect that is an ongoing theme in Usagi Yojimbo, which has always placed a high value on listening to those with wisdom and applying it appropriately. It’s not simply a matter of, "Old is best" but rather, "Use all your resources and then make decisions wisely." But then again, that’s to some extent Usagi Yojimbo in a nutshell. Sure, the protagonist is a rabbit, but at the same time it also looks backward and learns from both great samurai literature as well as the comic book greats. Sakai’s stories mix just the right amounts of influence from its predecessors while still not being afraid to move forward and come up with brand-new, original ideas.

As always, Usagi Yojimbo #143 looks great, too. The backgrounds are always full of detail, with varied building styles creating the town, different designs on people’s clothing, and even making sure to draw all the vats of fermenting soy beans in the processing plant. Usagi himself is quite expressive too; I love how Sakai can shift him from inquisitive to alarmed in the blink of an eye. Usagi’s energy—from flinging a rock on top of a torii arch to helping put out a fire—is always fluid and lively. Sakai handles a lot those details well, like how the rock bouncing across the torii is broken up with panel borders so that we get that extra passage of time as we see it skip and move.

Usagi Yojimbo is consistently one of the great monthly comics being published, and if you aren’t reading it yet, you owe it to yourself to try. Sakai’s always good about making sure each new story is a good introduction, and this one is no exception. Or if you’d rather just buy a collected edition? I can guarantee you’ll find it just as easy to step into. Usagi Yojimbo is always welcoming new readers, and as one of the top monthly books being published, I suspect you’ll like it once you try it.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Archaia’s been publishing some comics based off of some of the smaller Jim Henson properties in recent years; books like The Dark Crystal and [...]]]> Original screenplay by Jim Henson and Jerry Juhl
Adaptation and art by Ramon K. Perez
Additional inks by Terry Pallot, Andy Belanger, Nick Craine, Walden Wong, and Cameron Stewart
144 pages, color
Published by Archaia

Archaia’s been publishing some comics based off of some of the smaller Jim Henson properties in recent years; books like The Dark Crystal and Fraggle Rock come to mind. But perhaps the most interesting one to date isn’t a prequel or sequel to a Henson creation, but rather an adaptation of one that was never made. Henson and Jerry Juhl had written a screenplay titled Tale of Sand early in their careers which was never made, one that artist Ramon K. Perez has adapted into a graphic novel. And the end result? It’ll probably make you wish someone had filmed this script.

It’s hard to describe the story of Tale of Sand beyond the absolute basics. A man comes to a small town, his presence is suddenly celebrated, and then he’s given a map and a bag and told he’s got a ten minute head start. Also, not to trust the map. From there, his life transforms into a desperate chase across the desert, both from a group of people trying to hunt him down as well as a mysterious man with an eye patch who keeps turning up when least expected.

So much of Henson and Juhl’s Tale of Sand switches between thrilling and surreal; it initially feels like a normal chase story, but quickly changes tactics when a limo that pulls up has a lion step out and attack. It’s at that point where you begin to realize that anything and everything can happen in Tale of Sand, and the story transforms into a dizzying spiral of unpredictability. An outhouse that contains a massive fine dining hall. A swimming pool with a man-eating shark. A gramophone playing sound-effects records that change reality. And throughout it all, the man with the eye patch forever dogging our hero’s heels.

In lesser hands I think Tale of Sand could have been a disaster. Why should you care about this nameless man’s plight as he struggles to reach Eagle Mountain and its purported safety? Why aren’t we cheering on the man with the eye patch? I think it helps in part that Henson and Juhl kept the story moving at such a brisk pace that you don’t get a chance to truly stop and think. Instead it’s a scramble to make it forward, to survive the latest moment of oddity. With small running through-lines like the eye patch man, or the hero’s inability to ever get his cigarette lit, there’s an overall narrative just strong enough that this doesn’t feel like a random set of unconnected events.

That said, the heavy lifting in Tale of Sand is by Perez, whose art is a revelation to me. He’s had some comic credits to his name before this, but I can’t help but feel like this is going to make his comic career skyrocket. His art is beautiful, able to handle both the most normal and the craziest parts of the script with equal aplomb. He’s good at tight focused panels, zooming in tightly on specific moments and ideas to bring the story to life, and doing so with life and vibrancy in his characters. His montage scenes are just as great; a sequence of panels (or sometimes with no panel borders at all) which guide the reader through the sequence to give a number of images and ideas that form a greater whole. His sense of motion—critical for a book about a chase—is exquisite. From the hero’s initial run across the desert floor, to getting attacked by and punching a shark, I feel like every moment has come to life just as strongly as it would have, if Tale of Sand had been made into a movie.

Henson and Juhl came up with a great script for Tale of Sand, but it’s Perez’s art which makes this graphic novel sing. Beautifully drawn and dreamlike, it makes its story structure work in a way that draws the reader in; in a lesser hand I think it would have frustrated rather than captured its audience. If you haven’t already, do check this book out. And when you’re done, I suspect you’ll want to read it again. From its everything-seems-normal to its dizzying conclusion, it’s hard to put Tale of Sand down.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

I’d never heard of Australian cartoonist Pat Grant before Blue, but in a matter of pages I found myself deeply impressed by the creator. In his graphic novel, Grant does more than just tell a story about three teens on a local adventure; he brings a [...]]]> By Pat Grant
96 pages, color
Published by Top Shelf Productions

I’d never heard of Australian cartoonist Pat Grant before Blue, but in a matter of pages I found myself deeply impressed by the creator. In his graphic novel, Grant does more than just tell a story about three teens on a local adventure; he brings a story together in a way that can be read with as much or as little allegory as you want and still have it provide a punch, and in a way that immerses you in the Australian culture of Grant’s youth that ends up dropping you in, wholesale.

In an afterward/essay, Grant admits that there’s a certain similarity between one of the main ideas of Blue and Stephen King’s novella “The Body” (which was turned into the film Stand By Me). After all, in Blue the three main characters of Christian, Verne, and Muck decide to head out and see a dead body on the tracks that was hit by a train. In the case of Blue, though, there are two things to keep in mind. First, Blue is based on an actual experience of Grant’s as a teen of going to see a dead body in the same situation; and second, that Blue has a lot more packed into its pages than just a hunt for a body.

I think the element of Blue that grabbed me the most was the usage of the the blue-skinned, tentacled aliens that are arriving in the town of Bolton. Issues of immigration are just as contentious in Australia as other parts of the world, these days, and Grant’s “blue people” can certainly be seen as an allegory for any group of people that look outwardly as different than the locals. There’s something instantly touching about the first scene that introduces the blue aliens, as they pause to dress in a way to try and blend in, and slowly move through Bolton performing generic events in everyday life. It doesn’t matter if you view them as actual aliens or merely people from another country; the more you get to know about the blue people, the more it’s hard to keep from feeling bad for them. Grant gives them a strong visual, too; not just in their appearance, but by their graffiti/scrawl/tags that they leave on the walls. They look almost like hieroglyphics, packed in tightly in a way that lets you decode their meaning when you look closely, but becomes an overwhelming buzz of static as you take in more and more of it in a single glance.

The main characters are interesting in that Grant doesn’t go the easy route of making Christian a particularly wonderful person. He and his friends are, after all, skipping school and more than a touch of hoodlum. We get an introduction to them that comes across as spiteful and bullyish; it’s not until a few pages later that you realize that they’re not the villains but in fact the protagonists. With Blue being told in flashback by Christian, Grant also lets us see early on the kind of person he turns into, and he’s not terribly pleasant. More than a touch xenophobic, it seems hard at first to find yourself able to warm to this sort of character. And yet, that’s part of the strength of Blue. Christian and friends might not be the brightest or most pleasant of characters, but they’re compelling. The more we see them wander through town and up the tracks, the more Grant drags you into their small world. From the childish taunts to the destructive games that they clearly don’t think all the way through (until it’s too late), these are pitch-perfect depictions of teenagers. And even though we know how Christian’s life is going to end up, it’s hard to keep from hoping that somehow, impossibly, they’ll shape up. When we get to the climax of Blue, it’s a surprisingly gripping and emotional moment; the fear and hesitation there really leaps off the page and grabs you as a reader.

Blue‘s art is great, a slightly devolved, cartoonish style that reminds me of artists like Dave Cooper and Patrick McEown. Their faces and features are simple, but their over-the-top nature hides a bit of expression that grows on you with time. They’re comical to look at, even as there’s an edge of steel to their creation. But even as you marvel at his oblong, distended characters, don’t let it distract you from the backgrounds, or the page layouts. Grant fires on all cylinders there; the rock that Muck throws arcing through several panels in a 6×5 layout, or the resulting sprint down the train line even as trees and buildings alike sprout up all around them. The amount of detail in something as simple as an abandoned (and wisely, never truly explained) machine is great; it feels alien and dangerous at a glance, even as you want to get closer and focus more on it while the story moves on. Something as simple as a pattern of waves is hypnotic in nature, thanks to Grant.

Blue is a great introduction to Grant as a comic creator, and if that isn’t enough there’s a strong and informative essay about both Grant’s life growing up as well as the Australian surf comic scene, something I’d never heard of before (but which appears briefly in Blue). Blue is scheduled for a March 2012 release, and trust me when I say that it’s a winner. Blue is a strong, focused graphic novel that is bound to impress.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Joshua Luna and Jonathan Luna are best known in the comics industry, collectively, as the Luna Brothers. They’ve had three hit series from Image Comics—Ultra, Girls, and The Sword—and I think everyone assumed that their next project would also be together. With Whispers, though, Joshua Luna is [...]]]> By Joshua Luna
32 pages, color
Published by Image Comics

Joshua Luna and Jonathan Luna are best known in the comics industry, collectively, as the Luna Brothers. They’ve had three hit series from Image Comics—Ultra, Girls, and The Sword—and I think everyone assumed that their next project would also be together. With Whispers, though, Joshua Luna is not only writing but drawing this new series. And if this is what happens when one of the brothers works on a solo project? Well, nothing against their successful partnership, but I’d like to see some more solo comics from time to time.

In Whispers, Luna isn’t taking an easy route with its protagonist. Sam suffers from a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, terrified of touching a door handle because the germs on it might somehow kill him, and going through his rituals over and over again just to be certain. He’s also got an ex-girlfriend, Lil, with whom he’s trying to stay friends even as he coldly barges past her issues of her parents being in a horrible car accident (one dead, the other hospitalized) to blurt out the strange dreams he’s been having. This is not a character for whom most readers are going to find an instant affection for.

That said, it’s hard to keep from finding yourself intrigued. Maybe it’s because you start to learn that Sam’s "dreams" where he’s jumping from one friend to the next aren’t dreams at all, starting with a biting comeback to the bullying from Blake that quickly settles on if all of this is in Sam’s head or not. But for whatever reason, in spite of the slightly-prickly protagonist, Whispers pulls the reader in and holds onto their attention firmly.

Once Whispers starts looking inside the thoughts of the bystanders that Sam visits, we get the book’s strength and weakness at the same time. The idea of Sam being able to get some thoughts but not all while going through his astral projection (or whatever it is) holds a lot of possibility, and watching Sam try and steer them into the right direction is good. But for whatever reason, some of the lines in the internal monologues of those that Sam visits feel a little stilted, not quite the way that most people would actually think. It could be that these aren’t literal words running through their heads—only time will tell—but right now it’s the one rough patch on the script.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Joshua Luna draw before, and while his art style is similar in many ways to his brother Jonathan Luna, there are differences. Both of the Luna Brothers go for a clean, open art style. With Whispers #1, though, I found myself a little surprised to see some more fine details in the art. Joshua Luna definitely goes for more texture in the hair, or some lines around the nose and mouth. It’s a nice, instant visual difference that sets him apart from his brother, each carving out their own end of a style’s range.

I do like how Luna lays out pages; it feels very cinematic, with tight focuses on a character that can then pull back to give the greater scene unfolding. It works well, flowing from one panel to the next and always having Luna in full control of how the art will affect your emotional responses. Occasionally a character’s expression comes across a bit odd, almost dead in some ways, but when Luna hits the mark it brings that person’s emotional response to life. (Clearly none of Luna’s characters should ever become professional poker players.) It’s also nice to see Luna tackle a lot of scenes from the Washington DC area so well; something as simple as the right types of buildings in the city, or drawing one of the many traffic circles that fill its streets is a pleasure. DC has its own distinct look, and it’s something that few comic artists get correctly.

Whispers #1 is a good start to a new series from Luna; I’m definitely curious about where it’s going from here, and I have to give Luna full credit in that this is a book whose main character should by all rights alienate the reader. Instead I’m finding myself drawn in despite those deliberate character flaws. I’ll definitely be back for a second issue.

I still remember when DC published the revamp of The Ray back in the early ’90s, with Jack C. Harris and Joe Quesada taking the core concept and creating Ray Terrill, a new character with the power [...]]]> Written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray
Penciled by Jamal Igle
Inked by Rich Perrotta
32 pages, color
Published by DC Comics

I still remember when DC published the revamp of The Ray back in the early ’90s, with Jack C. Harris and Joe Quesada taking the core concept and creating Ray Terrill, a new character with the power to transform into and manipulate light. With this new The Ray mini-series 20 years later, I’m getting a similar vibe from Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Jamal Igle. And that’s a very good thing indeed.

Palmiotti and Gray’s main character of Lucien Gates opens his mini-series with an internal monologue to the reader, saying that the audience probably wants his origin story, because everyone has one, no matter how ridiculous. He then goes on to mention that at the moment, he’s fighting gigantic telepathic jellyfish. And that, to me, sums up The Ray. The writing here is light and fun, as we see that the accident that gave Lucien his superpowers also did all sorts of other strange things, like creating a two-story tell horned lizard, or the previously mentioned flying telepathic gigantic jellyfish. A lot of this story feels like an excuse to whip up bizarre things and throw them both at the reader and the main character.

Palmiotti and Gray write The Ray in a conversational, almost intimate style. It gives you the sensation that you’re being sat down with the main character and are listening to his rambling, never-ending saga. It’s a style that in comics is probably best associated with Christopher Priest’s work on comics like Quantum & Woody and Black Panther; since Priest himself wrote an ongoing The Ray series (and edited the Harris/Quesada mini-series), it’s a rather fitting approach to take. This also isn’t a book that too concerned with the normal trappings of superhero books. The Ray focuses less on the flying mutant manta rays, and more on how Lucien’s trying to make his girlfriend Chanti’s parents like him (despite the fact that he’s not Indian, but in fact of Korean descent). And as a hook, I like it. Lucien and Chanti’s relationship feels real, and Lucien’s fumbling through figuring out his powers (controlled in part by meditation and yoga practices his hippy mother taught him) and how to deal with the fact that putting on clothes causes them to incinerate is entertaining. There’s something about The Ray‘s breezy style that makes me wish that this had been one of the launch titles for DC’s "New 52," because this is the sort of ongoing series I’d cheerfully read every month.

Igle’s pencils are, as always, attractive. He’s got a good sense of anatomy (and let’s face it, as Lucien keeps vaporizing his clothes initially, we see a lot of anatomy here), the backgrounds look good, and most importantly Igle is able to bring across the sensation of speed whenever Lucien uses his power. Every time the Ray zooms off, it feels genuinely fast; considering this is a print medium, that’s no small feat. There are lots of good little touches too; the faint wrinkles around Lucien’s father’s eyes, for instance, or how a hovering Lucien is drawn in a streamlined manner that matches up with the diagonal zap of light in the next panel over.

I’m actually a tiny bit disappointed that we’re halfway through The Ray mini-series. This is fun, pure and simple, and Palmiotti, Gray, and Igle feel like they’re paying homage to the old Ray comics while still defining their own title character. The Ray might not be getting a snazzy "New 52" logo on its cover, but trust me, this is one of the better new comics to launch from the company these past few months. If you’re looking for a fun, darkness-free comic (both figuratively and literally), you can’t go wrong with The Ray.

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

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

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

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

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

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

With the number of comics currently being published, it’s easy to have one (or lots) slip past you. That was the case with Witch Doctor, a mini-series from Brandon Seifert and Lukas Ketner, and published under Robert Kirkman’s imprint (Skybound) at Image Comics. [...]]]> Written by Brandon Seifert
Art by Lukas Ketner
32 pages, color
Published by Image Comics

With the number of comics currently being published, it’s easy to have one (or lots) slip past you. That was the case with Witch Doctor, a mini-series from Brandon Seifert and Lukas Ketner, and published under Robert Kirkman’s imprint (Skybound) at Image Comics. Fortunately, Seifert and Ketner aren’t above giving readers a second chance, and that’s what I feel like I was handed with the Witch Doctor: The Resuscitation one-shot published last month. In many ways, it’s a model approach that I’d love to see more creators follow.

Witch Doctor: The Resuscitation was, to me, a perfect introduction to Witch Doctor in general. In a matter of pages, Seifert introduced the three main characters, the setting of the book, and what I can only assume is the general approach for the title. All of this is delivered in a smooth, unobtrusive way; I never felt like I was being besieged by an information dump, but instead just had a new patient learning the ropes as we did. It helped that Seifert keeps most of this in the background; the main focus is on the strange case of a person who wakes up in a bathtub full of ice and an incision where his kidney lies underneath. Except in this case, he still has two kidneys, it’s just that one is a little… different.

One of the things I liked so much about Witch Doctor: The Resuscitation was that it starts with an old urban myth—the waking up in a bathtub full of ice with what appears to be a kidney stolen—and then not only turns it on its head, but keeps upping the ante. Seifert continually adds in new plot elements and escalations, and it’s the progression of each new piece leading to the next that makes it especially fun. By the time we get to the conclusion of the story, you can see exactly how we arrived there, but at the same time it’s nowhere near the original opening scene. I also appreciated the introduction of a potential recurring love interest/villain; Catrina Macabrey, to this new reader, comes across almost instantly as a strong foil for main character Dr. Vincent Morrow, and like assistant Eric Gast, I’m expecting to see her again before too long.

Both Seifert and artist Ketner helped ease me into the main characters, for that matter. I felt like I knew them quickly, in part because of the way that our new patient is introduced to them, but also in how Ketner draws them. Dr. Morrow has a wonderful blase manner about him, that almost-sneer on his face as he first walks in to give a second opinion about the swapped-out kidney. When we first meet Ophelia the smoke child, though, there’s an expression of surprise and disgust on his face, and that helped nail the character for me. He’s got great knowledge in his head, but he can still be taken aback by the events around him. Look in comparison to the slightly odd postures and expressions of Penny Dreadful, or the wonderful normalcy of Eric. Even Catarina’s self-assured nature comes across in no small part due to the art. Ketner balances the personal, the grotesque, and the otherworldly in a way that makes me feel like I have a strong grasp on the world of Witch Doctor.

Witch Doctor: The Resuscitation works quite well as an introduction to the series, even after the first storyline’s wrapped up. Fortunately for me, there’s already a collection published of what came before; Witch Doctor: The Resuscitation is in many ways a teaser for that collection as well as 2012′s upcoming mini-series Witch Doctor: Mal Practice. I’m amused by Witch Doctor: The Resuscitation that I’ll be catching up sooner rather than later. It’s nice to get a second chance that not only offers an easy introduction, but also timed perfectly between past and future material. Creators, take note.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books