Rip Kirby: The First Modern Detective: Complete Comic Strips 1946-1948

Writer: Alex Raymond, Artist: Alex Raymond
Published by IDW 2009

One of the highlights of comic publishing in recent years has been IDW’s American Comics Library , which has been providing beautiful, quality reprints of some of the best newspaper strips.

A newer addition to the line is Rip Kirby, Alex Raymond’s post-war comic featuring the adventures of Remington ‘Rip’ Kirby, a private eye and the further thing imaginable from the works that made Raymond famous, Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim. Kirby if firmly grounded in the realities of late 40s America. He is a modern hero, as the titles says, and not a fantasy character - though, to be honest, he is still pretty fantastic. A war hero and athlete, he is also a gifted scientist, and with the help of his trusted valet, Desmond, he is always fashionably turned out. He’s not a tough guy, but he is always as tough as the situation requires. Besides Des, the recurrent characters are restricted to, at least in this volume, Honey Dorian, a beautiful blonde fashion model, and love interest, and Pagan Lee, a bad girl turned movie star and a rival for Rip’s affections. Not that he would ever cheat, but just having the one girl might seem a bit too domestic.

As an author Raymond’s hand at detective fiction improves a great deal over the period covered in this volume. An early story involves a thug who gets his hand on the formula for a bacteriological weapon and intends to bring the world governments to their knees. Raymond is talented enough to keep his readers interested, but not enough to lift the story above the silliness of the basic plot. The only good thing about it is that it introduces Pagan. Fortunately, there aren’t many missteps. Even when the villains lean towards the strange and eccentric, he usually keeps the stories grounded in more serious themes, such as blackmail, counterfeiting, black-market babies. The four main characters are all entertaining enough, but what you see is what you get and there is little in the way of complexities and few surprises. (Actually, I can only think of one, involving Honey, but I won’t spoil it here.) Artistically, it is easy to see why Raymond is so highly regarded. He came at this strip at the height of his powers, and every page is beautiful. One thing I particularly liked is that each story is given a title. I assume this is something Raymond himself provided, but I think it would have been a good idea to provide them with other American Comics Library collections as well.

The Beat Goes On

PW Beat has moved to its own site www.comicsbeat.com, or simply, The Beat. There Heidi MacDonald will continue to great to provide the great comics journalism she's been blogging for 5 1/2 years. I don't know of anyone who's been blogging longer and I wish her all the best.

I've already updated my link.

Goodnight Moon

Obama new budget cuts include scrapping the Constellation program. The highest profile aspect to the program is a return to the Moon, but the most important aspect is the development of replacement vehicles for the aging shuttle fleet. America is getting out of manned space flight. There is talk of allocating monies to keep the shuttles going longer, but with no replacement being developed where would that take us? We've have seen, on two occasions, what happens when one of these machines isn't in peak working order. Duct tape solutions only go so far. There is also talk of handing things over to the private sector, but the private sector isn't anywhere near ready to carry this burden. The most advanced private companies are not yet ready to deliver low sub-orbital flights, something NASA was doing 60 years ago. Moreover, the private sector will have to pay the same costs, plus mark things up in order to make a profit. There's no savings there.

Yes, we're in the midst of a great recession. Yes, there's a war on. Two, in fact. But there is still so much fat that could be trimmed in Washington, and no reason not to start with the billions that are being spent to buy support from Congressmen and Senators who never seem to vote for anything unless there's something in it for them.

Looks like its time to break out the English-Mandarin dictionary, because some countries are still moving forward.

NOTE: NASA's budget is now lower than its been since 1959, at less than half a percent of US spending.

Northlanders Volume 2: The Cross And The Hammer

Writer: Brian Wood, Artist: Ryan Kelly
Published by DC/Vertigo 2009

I enjoyed the first volume of Northlanders well enough, even if it could be a bit anachronistic at times. I kept thinking that Sven was a very modern hero. This time round Wood doesn’t even try. Just the opposite. This time we get a police procedural. Seriously. Five pages in and we’re talking about ‘splatter patterns.’ Its CSI Erie.

The story is set in 1014, relatively late in the Viking period, and the Scandinavians are about to be thrown out of Ireland. Still, their king dispatches one of his best men, Ragnar Ragnarsson, to stop a violent insurgency. The king’s officials and loyal servants are being ruthlessly killed. Once he is on the scene, however, the forensics make it very clear that it is all the work of one man. That man is Magnus Mag Rodain. After a life of violence, Magnus hopes to find some sort of redemption by funneling his energies into the service of his people, so, accompanied by his daughter Brigit, he has been terrorizing the Viking communities.

The book is one long chase as Ragnar attempts to run Magnus to ground. This is not a book for people who really know much or care about the period. While Vikings pillaged Ireland as much as anywhere, anyone who’d read anything of the period would know that their actual presence there was always tenuous. That aspect of the story would have been better suited to Britain. And so many of the details - Ragnar has detailed maps of the Irish countryside, Magnus is identified by his tattoo, the Irish are called Celts - are just wrong. It’s a crime story with swords and horses replacing cars and guns. And even there it hasn’t much to offer. Chase, violence, chase, violence. There is little reason to care. Only towards the end are we given any insights into Magnus, and never any into Ragnar, and those are offered in a gimmicky way, which might have worked better as characterization if it had been made clear from the beginning.

A definite miss.

Sixteen Miles To Merricks

My online comics reading has been slowing down and you probably have noticed that the number of links of have has been dropping. I was down to two, Sin Titulo, which is on hiatus while Stewart illustrates Batman & Robin, and Freak Angels, which is coming to an end. Fortunately, I just finished a very interesting graphic novel, which is also available online. Its called Sixteen Miles To Merricks.

I first got my hands on a copy a while ago, but on flipping through it I realized I couldn't read it. Not yet. I was - and still am - writing a story which features giant tardigrades and in it these water bears are responsible for moving the main character from one place to another. I crack open the book and what do I see? A giant tardigrade moving the main character from one locale to another. You think you have an original idea! Anyway, I have written enough drafts since then to have a feel for my own story and so I finally read the book. I liked it - a lot! - and you can check out the title story by clicking on the link to your left. It is not the story that features the water bear. You can find more of creator Barnaby Ward's work at his site somefield.com.

De: Tales and Daytripper

Writer: Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, Artist: Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba

De: Tales published by Dark Horse, 2006
Daytripper published by DC/Vertigo, 2009-ongoing

These two titles are by a pair of twins from Sao Paulo who have been making a name for themselves illustrating titles like Casanova, The Umbrella Academy, and B.P.R.D. Left to their own devices they leave behind super-spies, superheroes, and the supernatural behind to spin tales about twenty-somethings in modern Brazil.

De: Tales was published four years ago. It includes biographical and fantasy stories, but principally focuses on capturing moments in the lives of young people. Meetings, by chance or appointment, are a common theme. Like most anthologies, it’s a mixed bag, but none of them are terrible. The best, which was also the first of their stories I read, when it was collected in Autobiographix tells about an actual encounter the two had while in Paris. At their weakest the stories just seem a little pointless. They capture their characters’ youth, their hipness, in a way that seems more real than Pope, but there often seems to be little reason for the story.

Daytripper, which has a third issue coming out this week, also focuses on the on the lives of young Brazilians and may be heading towards the same problems. The first story centered on an obituary writer whose dreams of becoming a novelist suffer in the shadow of his father, one of the nation’s most revered authors. The second story centers on a young man on vacation. He meets a dream girl. There are various profundities spoken. While the first story is full of potential, the second goes no where, though both end at the same place. I am not going to say where - I don’t want to spoil things - but I hope it doesn’t become a gimmick. With only two issues out, and those so uneven, its probably too early to form a judgment of the series as a whole, but it seems to share the same strengths and weaknesses as the stories in the earlier book.

As with most stories in the earlier collection, the credits don’t break down who did what. Its Moon and Ba all the way.

Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume 1

Writer: Alan Moore, Artist: Stephen Bissette, John Totleben et al.
Published by DC/Vertigo, 2009

If I was worrying about trying too hard to sell things with my last review, I certainly shouldn’t need to sell this one. This is the comic that started it all! Alan Moore, Vertigo, and the Modern Age of comic books! Okay, that statement stretches things quite a bit, but it did introduce Moore to America, securing it an important place on must read lists.

I was just getting back into comics when this came out, having given them up during my teen years, and I wasn’t reading anything as mainstream as Swamp Thing, but a friend loaned my his copies a few years later. That was the only time I read them before re-reading them now, but I am pretty sure his collection of singles did not include .‘Loose Ends’, Moore’s very first issue. It has been collected here for the first time.

What did I think re-reading it after all these years? The art poses a problem for me, one that I often have when older comics are reprinted with modern production techniques. The colours are too much. Too bright. Garish, even. Especially when you consider how fine Bissette and Totleben’s lines are. The story? Through the actions of the vegetable villain Floronic Man, Swamp Thing learns his true origins and begins the process of reconciling himself with that knowledge. But first Moore kills, or tries to kill, just about everyone. He does kill the title character. And when he brings the Swamp Thing back, he completely retcons the character, taking him from the B movie monster he had always been and making him over completely. How often do we hear that complaint today? A new creator comes in and throws everything previous writers have done out the window? On reading this I also realized that this, and the first two or three Sandman arcs, were deeply steeped in the horror genre. A lot of people traced the darkness of the Modern era’s comics to DKR and Watchmen, but the roots are laid here and those roots grew out of monsters and nightmares. I also spotted the first appearance of Sting, a preoccupation of Bissette’s that would give rise to the character John Constantine.

Besides the addition of issue 20, this collection also boasts an informative introduction by Swamp Thing creator Len Wein, who describes both the original creation of the title and, with Wein acting as editor, the passing of the torch to Moore, whose changes he enthusiastically supported.