David Bird

Salvatore

2012-01-23T06:47:00.000-08:00

Salvatore

Written by Nicolas DeCrecy, Art by Nicolas De Crecy

Vol. 1: Transports of Love (2010)
Vol. 2: An Eventful Crossing (2011)
Published by NBM

The new year gets off toa great start with two books by Nicolas De Crecy.

Salvatore is about three love stories. The titlecharacter is a miniscule mechanic who pours all his love into the constructionof his Julie-mobile, so that he can travel to South America to be with hislove. Lea is a goth cat—all the characters are anthropomorphized animals—whofinds, and pours all her maternal love onto, a little piglet. Amandine is a sowand mother of Lea’s piglet. So myopic that she’s practically blind, she has allbut turned her back on her twelve other children in her obsession to find herone lost child.

The stories share themesof blindness and obsession. Each character is in love and tries reshaped theirworld in honour of their love. But their world’s aren’t as malleable as theybelieve and while they each pursue their ideals they leave behind aconsiderable amount of wreckage. Salvatore has built his vehicle by stealingparts from his clients. Lea’s parents, who are quite rich, are deeply opposedto having a pig in their house and, because Lea absolutely refuses to get ridof it, are manipulating things in the hopes of getting her to do what theywant. And Amandine’s ignored children have turned to a life of crime and fraudin order to support themselves. Everything is constantly on the verge of ruin,and yet everyone pushes on. Salvatore and Amandine have deeply compromised themselvesin their pursuit of love. Lea’s wealth has helped keep her hands clean, but herfather has set up a long line of dominoes and it is obvious a day of reckoningis coming.

I enjoyed De Crecy’s Glacial Period very much and pickedthese up with great expectations. I was not disappointed. His is the work of a fullymatured and gifted cartoonist, and he tells each of these stories withsympathy, but without excuses. I am sure you’ll enjoy them as much as I did.

Seriously, South Carolina? Seriously?

2012-01-22T10:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday saw the collapse of the Christian right and the Tea Party movement with the victory of a Washington insider whose 'character issues' eclipse every candidate's since Gary Hart, Gary Hart included. That both of these groups came out in force to support the winner, Newt Gingrich, is not a sign of their strength. Rather it is an example of something we've known all along: that they exist only to bring Evangelicals and those who fear a black president under the Republican umbrella. The values they claim to bring to the table are irrelevant.

My Bungee Jump

2012-01-08T18:36:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post this for a long time, but when I did it I didn't have the software to convert the video to an mpeg. By the time I did, I'd forgotten about it, but a story about bungee jumping reminded me and so here it is. There's no sound.

And We're Off. Again.

2012-01-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

I can't be the only person who has wondered if more Americans would participate in their elections, if the campaigning wasn't a constant drone. Day after day, month after month. Iowa has spoken. Finally. After months and months of campaigning, the state with only 6 of the 538 votes in the Electoral College has decided to back Romney. Sort of. Turns out they like Santorum and Paul almost as much.

I can remember when the Republicans were good at this sort of thing. They were known for it. They'd figure out who was the most likely candidate to gain them the White House and they would back that candidate. This year there's a consensus that Romney is that guy, but that's not good enough. If they ('they' being the many factions making up the party) can't get it done their way, they'd rather not do it at all. That's not partisan voting. That's the opposite of partisan voting. Somewhere on Pennsylvania Avenue there's a guy from Illinois already planning his next term--and who can blame him?

Welcome to 2012

2012-01-02T20:50:00.000-08:00

Well, its been a month since I've posted here (just about), though I've posted on my other blog. Tomorrow the school's winter break ends and normality returns. I have the day off, in lieu of the stat holiday, which fell on one of my regular days off, so it'll be like the beginning of a normal week for me.

At this point I don't really have a vision for the blog in the coming year. I may put up more film reviews. Maybe some comic ones too. I plan to re-read Grant Morrison's Animal Man, a greatly unappreciated work, and Stephanie Brown's Batgirl run, also greatly unappreciated. Maybe I'll write something up about them.

Creatively, I intend to spend much of 2012 researching a novel I've been turning over in my head for some time now. It takes place in ancient Greece and I've put together a good reference library. Now I just need to familiarize myself to the point that I feel comfortable in that world. I've also collected up all the extant dramatic and comedic works of Greek theatre, there aren't that many, in order to get a feel for their storytelling. Apart from the plays, there isn't much besides Homer and Hesiod. By the summer I hope to be at work on a proper outline.

I am also busy with my church right now. We have just merged with another church, which is quite a story in itself, but a story for another time, and we're spending a lot of our energy ensuring things get off to a smooth start. Its something everyone wants, but making it a reality will take work.

Life

2011-12-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

Life (2007-2009)

NBC, Starring Damian Lewis

Typically I have been reviewing movies on Mondays, but todayI am going to review the TV series Life, which ran on NBC for 32 episodes overa year and a half.

Charlie Crews (Lewis) is a LA cop wrongly convicted for themurder of a friend and the friend’s entire family. He is released after twelveyears with a huge settlement and his job back—actually, with a promotion: he’snow a detective. He found religion in prison, something that’s made a bigimpact on his life, but now he finds himself continually in conflict: Zenmaster versus answers and/or revenge? He doesn’t have to pull at many threadsbefore a vast conspiracy begins to unravel, connecting his conviction to roguecops, the FBI, and a psychotic Russian mobster. He’s aided in his search by aformer inmate, a partner who may have connections to the rogue cops, and a castof interesting, well defined characters.

I like this show a lot, but I have to admit I had neverheard of it until a friend forced the two DVD sets on me. TV is chalk full ofpolice procedurals nowadays and the prospect of watching another didn’t appealto me, but this one is very different. It is bookended by two very strongthings. The first is an interesting cast of characters, anchored by Lewis’great performance. In our post-Law &Order TV universe, formula is everything, but Charlie Crews is characterthat could have held the show together for years without becoming tired. Hewants peace and answers. He can’t have both, but he can’t be satisfied withjust one, and won’t be until all the questions are answered and people who areabove the law answer for what they’ve done. The other thing is a complex andcompelling conspiracy that creates links where you would least expect them,while still remaining convincing. The show does suffer towards the end,however, as the producers, realizing they needed to wrap things up, rushed toanswer as many questions as possible. The episodes themselves are great TV, butit’s disappointing to get a hint of what might have been, knowing there isn’tgoing to be any more.

Re-reading what I’ve written so far, I realize I’ve made theshow sound a lot darker than it is. This is not dark show. Crews’ situation bringsa sense of absurdity into the show that never far away. He’s joined by AdamArkin as his ex-con roommate and financial advisor, and Sarah Shahi as hispartner Dani Reese. And, yes, the show is on Netflix.

Miracle On 34th Street

2011-11-28T09:53:00.000-08:00

Miracle on 34^thStreet (1947)
Directed by George Seaton, Starring Maureen O’Hara and EdmundGwenn

Who doesn’t like Miracle on 34th Street? A hit when it was released in 1947, it's continued to be a Christmas favourite for the last 64 years. Now that the holiday season is inarguably upon us, I thought I would watch my favourite classic holiday film.

It starts with the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. Kris Kringle discovers the parade’s Santa is drunk and complains to the woman in charge, Doris Walker. Given his white beard, rotund physique, and jolly disposition, he quickly finds himself with a job, one he distinguished himself in by sending Macy’s customers to the competition whenever Macy’s itself can’t provide what they’re looking for. It's a customer service that rebounds very well for the store and raises the question, isn’t there more to Christmas than commercialism?

But that’s not what the movie is about. Mrs. Walker is the loving mother of a little girl, Susan, and is raising her to appreciate the real and the practical. Make-believe and fairy tales are not a part of the Walker household. This becomes a problem as Kringle becomes a bigger and bigger part of their lives. You see, he not only believes in Santa, he believes he is Santa. This raises the ire of Granville Sawyer, a personnel employee who fancies himself a psychiatrist. He’s the guy--girl--you know who reads a lot of self-help books and is all too happy to tell you everything that is wrong with you and why. Today he’d host his own show. Through provocations and lies he manages to get Kringle locked up at Bellevue and it's up to Frederick Gailey, a young lawyer who is also a neighbour and love interest for Walker, to get him out. All he has to do is convince the court that Kris Kringle really is Santa Claus.

What the movie is really about is trust and faith and belief. About holding out for a world as you believe it should be, even if your life so far has been one of disappointments. The movie is well written--it was nominated for Oscars for writing and best picture, and won one for acting (Edmund Gwenn, who play Kris Kringle)--and it provides many practical explanations for events, while including an O. Henry-esque ending that opens the film to another possible interpretation. It's easy to think that Christmas used to be better. It can be a stressful time for grown ups. Bills and preparations and schedules and more bills. We forget what it was like when we were kids. Or, rather, we assume that back then adults enjoyed the same Christmases we did when we were kids, and don’t realize that they were as stressed as we are now, and that our children are as excited as we were when we were their age. What this movie reminds us is that the holiday can be whatever we choose it to be. There can be a Santa, gift, and festivities, or there can just be a kindly old man in a red suit, but sometimes that kindly old man might just be the real thing.

One Soul

2011-11-21T10:38:00.001-08:00

One Soul

Written by Ray Fawkes,Art by Ray Fawkes

Published by Oni Press,2011

This graphic novel istouted as an attempt to push the boundaries of the medium. It tells the storiesof eighteen individual characters, each a panel at a time. That is, every pagehas nine panels and each panel tells the story of a different person. Each twopage spread shows eighteen panels, eighteen characters, at once, and every twopages advances their life stories one panel at a time. Got it?

The stories are linked byrecurrent themes, words, and phrases, and by visual images. As they begin, theyare all very similar. A black panel represents the time before theirconception, a white on black smear represents their fetal development, they arenewborns in their mother’s arms, the homes the live in, the worlds they livein, as so forth. Each lives in a different historical period, from Paleolithicto modern times. We see them grow old and die, and once again their panel isblack. They are also linked by the theme of random violence and death. By theidea that, if there is a god, he is indifferent to our sufferings. Some of thecharacters are angry and violent, but all have violence impact their lives insome way. If there is one soul, a life common to us all, then we are asuffering creature, lost in the dark.

My last comic review, twoweeks ago, was of Jonathan Case’s work and, like everyone, I marveled at howsomeone with so little experience could produce such a polished work. I couldn’thelp it. In his introduction Steve Lieber draws the reader’s attention to thefact and throughout the whole time you’re reading you can’t help by marvel athow polished the work is, incredibly so for someone’s first work. One Soul doesn’t have an introduction,but it does have a dedication: “To Dorian our beloved son: born and died March13, 2010: In Memoriam.” That’s only fourteen months before this book hit theshelves, so rationally it was already conceived of and well under way beforethe Fawkes family’s tragedy, but it’s impossible to read the book withoutwondering how it was influenced by the event. I read the book twice. After afew pages I stopped and read each character’s story one at a time, though Irandomly selected the order I read them. Then I went back and read frombeginning to end. Fawkes is a writer and his art can be generously described asindie influenced. His hands are so bad, they’re a distraction. I was neverdrawn into any of the stories, but I don’t think that was intended. It is onestory in eighteen lives. In the end I think it’s an interesting concept,structurally speaking, and worth a look because of that.

(If you are interested incomics that push the boundaries of form and convention, check out Rebecca Dart’s2004 Rabbithead.)

Ponyo

2011-11-14T07:00:00.001-08:00

Ponyo (2008)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Ponyo, called Ponyo On The Cliff in Japan, is Miyazaki’s take on The Little Mermaid. In it Brunhilde, a little goldfish princess, sneaks away from her wizard father and encounters a five year old boy, Sosuke, who names her Ponyo. Her father recovers her, but she escapes again, stealing from his magic elixir to become a five year old girl named Ponyo, determined to live with Sosuke.

Since 1984 Miyazaki has made ten films and established himself as an animator on par with Walt Disney, his only rival being Jon Lasseter. And there are many film fans who would happily to put him ahead of either of them, so it’s not surprising that any new release would be met with both anticipation and a lot of expectations, and that these expectations can become a barrier between enjoying the film for what it is and viewing in terms of Miyazaki’s whole filmography. And taking that into consideration it’s not surprising that many viewers, myself included watched this movie and thought, ‘it’s great, I mean, it’s Miyazaki, but I really didn’t think as much of it as his other films.’

The truth is, Ponyo has some significant weaknesses. It isn’t a complex enough film to balance off the conflicts it raises. Most notably, man and the balance of nature. From the beginning we see an ocean full of pollution and garbage. Fujimoto, Ponyo’s father, rails against it and the need to restore the balance of nature, but in the end its Ponyo’s desire to be human and the use of magic that upset things, not people at all. What is that supposed to mean? The love between Ponyo and Sosuke is also a strong motivator, and an important part of restoring the balance of nature, but the love of two small children is not the same thing as the hormonally, emotionally, and socially driven package that comes with age. Sosuke loves Ponyo in all her forms. Why wouldn’t he? Was there really any reason to think he wouldn’t?

On the plus side, this is a Hayao Miyazaki film and as such it brings with it a wealth of talent and artistic vision that stands above most of his contemporaries, in either animated or live action film. The quieter scenes, such as when Ponyo and Sosuke go looking for Sosuke’s mother, are beautiful and magical; recalling the childlike dream quality of My Neighbor Totoro. There is a lot to praise in these moments. They aren’t ancillary to the story’s success, but they don’t drive it either. They make for a beautiful trip, but not always an interesting one.

Two By Jonathan Case

2011-11-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve been posting weekly film reviews for the last couple of months, but I am going back to comics this week to share two very good books.

Dear Creature
Written by Jonathan Case, Art by Jonathan Case
Published by Tor Books, 2011

It’s a tale as old as time. A hormonally-charged-teenager eating mutant sea monster falls in love with a crazy shut in and the whole world, well, okay, maybe it’s not that conventional a story. Grue (short for gruesome?) is a mutated sea monster, who lives in a sunken sub with a chorus a wise-cracking crabs. The crabs are pretty happy, Grue provides them with a steady diet of delicious teen flesh to feast on, but Grue himself is unsatisfied. Something is missing from his life and he finds it in the pages of Shakespeare’s plays, which have been torn out, put into cola bottles, and thrown into the deep. Tracing the origin of these bottles leads him to the sorry story of two Italian sisters, the sheriff who loves one of them, and the boy blamed for the death’s caused by Grue’s appetite. Can Grue overcome his own nature and make everything right? Well, the course of true love never did run smooth.

This is Jonathan Case’s debut (almost) and it’s a very strong one. His story is fun, engaging, quirky, and emotionally true. His art is equally good, with a tone that recalls the macabre tales that used to be common place before superheroes ate American comics. You have to wonder what they’re putting in the water in Portland to produce newcomers this accomplished. I enjoyed it so much, I bumped his other new book to the top of my ‘to read’ pile.

Green River Killer: A True Detective Story
Written by Jeff Jenson, Art by Jonathan Case
Published by Dark Horse, 2011

Coming out just a month before Dear Creature, Green River Killer: A True Detective Story is a very different book. Growing up in British Columbia all our American TV channels came out of Seattle, so I’ve long been familiar with one of the Northwest’s most notorious serial killers, but I have to admit I knew nothing of the circumstances of his capture. The book is a collaboration with writer Jeff Jenson, who has a unique connection to the case: his father was the lead detective. In fact, there were times when he was the only detective on the case. Tom Jenson spent most of his career trying to find the killer of over forty women, and finally managed to catch him utilizing the latest developments in genetic research. It was a long, wearying journey that culminated in six month period in which the killer worked with police to locate victims and explain his motivations, in a deal to escape the death penalty.

I don’t know anything of the nature of their collaboration, but Jenson and Case have put out a serious and compelling work. It focuses on Tom Jenson and how the case impacted his life. As a character in his own life’s story, he comes across as strong, dedicated, and very real. As his son points out, the victims were prostitutes, but they were also daughters, sisters, and mothers and they deserved someone like Tom Jenson, who wouldn’t quit until they had justice. The tone of Case’s art is very different from Creature’s. The book doesn’t concentrate on the violence, but its effects and the day to day frustrations of decades of hard work. Not an easy thing to capture in a visually compelling manner, but Case pulls it off again.

Two very rewarding reads.

Miller's Crossing

2011-10-31T10:23:00.001-07:00

Miller’s Crossing (1990)
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, Starring Gabriel Byrne

To tell the truth, I haven’t been following movies too closely for a long time. Like a lot of people, I am a wait for the video kind of fan, but my interest in film dropped off precipitously when I got a DVD player. One thing DVD has, hands down, over VHS is the television sets. Soon my film library was chock full of old shows, British imports, and fewer and fewer movies. There’s only so much I can afford. The pendulum is swinging back now, but if you’d asked me, back when I was a movie buff, what my favourite film was, I had ready answer: Miller’s Crossing.

Last week’s movie’s opening made the mistake of telling viewers what it was all about. This movie’s opening does the same thing—it’s about friendship, loyalty, ethics—without ruining anything. At the center are two siblings, Verna and Bernie Bernbaum. Bernie is a weasel, exploiting his boyfriend’s relationship to a mob leader’s lieutenant in order to make a few bucks. Verna is the gun moll of another, and the dominant, mob leader, and is using her position to protect her brother from the wrath of the man he’s ripping off. Simple enough.

The movie starts with the first mobster, Italian Johnny Caspar, making a courtesy call on the second, Irishman Leo O’Bannion. Leo tells Caspar that Bernie is under his protection and that he can’t kill him. Caspar tells Leo that he isn’t asking permission. That he has to give up Bernie. It’s a matter of ethics. Leo leaves with that ultimatum. Lines are drawn. Leo versus Caspar. Irish mob versus Italian mob. But things aren’t that simple. Leo’s lieutenant, Tom Reagan, agrees with Caspar. Bernie isn’t worth the mountain of trouble a gang war would produce. The rest of the movie is about Tom trying to brings things to the best resolution circumstances allow.

Why was this my favourite movie? (And I only put the question in the past tense, because I don’t really think like that anymore. I’m not the movie fan I once was. No other movie has replaced it.)

Why? Because it’s perfect! In an interview Barry Sonnenfeld, who was the film’s cinematographer, said they made the film with the intention of making it both beautiful and manly and , as unlikely a combination as that sounds, it is just that. The former is something that really pops out at you in when on watch it on Blu-ray. The lights, the sets, the costuming, everything is beautiful, and that carries over into the editing, the writing—though I will admit, there was more than one time, listening to them talk, that I thought of Rocky and Mugsy of the Bugs Bunny cartoons. As for the manliness aspect, the Coens do a wonderful job of recreating the tough guy persona of the 30s and 40s. Unlike today’s they don’t look like they spend half their days in the gym, and they don’t rely on quips. These are men you’d be afraid of getting on the wrong side of. These guys live in a world of criminality, but to avoid drowning in their own violence, they live by codes—friendship, loyalty, ethics. Playing a man, searching for a way to save his friend from himself, Byrne gives a performance that not only evokes the era of Bogart and Cagney, but stands equal to them. A rare thing. A great movie.

---

Interesting factoid. In the above mentioned interview Sonnenfeld says that John Turturro came up to him afterwards and thanked him for filming the movie. Sonnenfeld thought he was just being nice until Turtutto told him he’d based his whole performance on him!

Dreams and Memories

2011-10-27T11:19:00.001-07:00

Dreams are funny things. I rarely remember mine. They seem to dissipate as soon as I get up and its rare that I remember them at all. I had one about three weeks ago. In it I was eating with a friend. I can't remember which friend. There was somewhere we had to be, but we figured we had plenty of time. In the end we were rushing towards my place. I live in James Bay, a downtown neighborhood in Victoria. On the way I found myself in an area I had never been before. It was strange. I've lived in the city for 27 years, but I had no idea where I was. I looked at a building across the street. It looked very familiar. Then I woke up.

I quickly forgot most of the dream, but the image of the building stayed with me. I knew that building. I puzzled over it all morning before I realized that the image was a memory and not simply something my subconscious made up. And I realized that because it was a childhood memory my perspective was a bit skewed. Buildings, distances, had seemed bigger than they do now and that added to the strangeness of the dream. I also figured it was in the Old Town or Inner Harbour area of the city--pretty much the same thing--but that was about it.

Because dreams so seldom stay with me, I decided to track down the building. To find out what I was remembering. I didn't grow up in Victoria, but my father did and when we were very young he would take the family on trips to see his mother. She was already quite old and so he stopped including the children after a while--she was in a home and a bunch of bored kids was seen as something of a disturbance. So I had a time frame. The image/memory had to be from the 1960s.

When I had a free morning I made my way to the City of Victoria Archives to look for a picture of the building. On my first visit I familiarized myself with how things worked. On my second I came equipped with a list of street names and had every intention to check each one. I didn't get very far, though, before I found the above picture in their Johnson Street file. Its the corner of Johnson and Broad Streets.

Now, I know there are other buildings like it, and I realize that there is a small possibility that the memory could be of some place on the Lower Mainland (that's the Vancouver area for non-locals), but looking at the picture I felt very sure that this was it. I looked at some other files, but began to feel I was wasting my time and I stopped looking and bought a copy. With it I went to the corner and there it was! The exterior is red brick now, but the design so much the same that I suspect there was always red brick under the paint or plaster. Even more interesting, see the door in the center of the picture? That's the entrance to Curious Books and Comics, I place I shop at at least once a week.

Now why I would remember my local comics shop as it was forty years ago, I have no idea!

Dark City

2011-10-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

Dark City (1998)
Directed by Alex Proyas, Starring Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jennifer Connelly

I hadn’t watched Dark City in many years, when I decided to pop it in this week, and I wondered first of all if I would still in enjoy it as much as I once did. The film has had a devoted following amongst science fiction and fantasy fans since its release, though it wasn’t a box office success at the time (in spite of generally positive reviews). I had picked it up on VHS, but never upgraded my copy to DVD or Blu-ray (I rented a DVD copy).

The opening narration spills all the secrets: the Strangers are a dying race and studying us because they believe we may hold the key to their continued existence. John Murdoch wakes up in a hotel bath tub to find out he has no memories and that there is the body of a dead, carved up prostitute on the floor beside the bed. Fleeing the scene he is stopped by the clerk who tells him that the automat has called. He’s left his wallet there. The wallet leads him to his home, a wife who’s cheated on him, and a psychiatrist who’s been helping him deal with the breakdown of his marriage. If he’s off to a bad start, it only gets worse as he discovers strange powers and encounters the Strangers themselves, all while trying to figure out who he is and how to elude the police.

It’s at these times that the movie is strongest. Proyas has assembled a strong cast and the story works best when puzzling over koans like, how do you get to Shell Beach? But in the second half of the movie story development is given over to a series of chase and fight scenes (which largely translates into people staring really hard at each other) and it just isn’t as interesting. It rests on atmosphere and set design, which become somewhat repetitive after a while. I mean, how many noir-ishly lit streets does one need? In the end Sutherland’s character comes up with an impressive way to save the day, but it’s used to generate a conventional comic book ending (read: principle characters hitting one another).

A good movie if you’re looking for something different, or want to entertain a SF fan (though they’ve probably already seen it); but it’s an uneven film.

NOTE: This film shares with The Matrix the ideas that the world isn’t what it seems and that we’re being controlled by malevolent forces. Dark City was released first, thirteen months before the Wachowski Brothers film.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2011-10-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
Directed by Steven Speilberg, Starring Harrison Ford

This past week has been Indiana Jones week at the Bird household. We’ve watched all of them in order and enjoyed... most of it. This was the first time I’d seen the fourth one. I had heard a lot of bad things, but I had also heard that lowered expectations help.

This movie was set 19 years after the last one--and released was 19 years after the last one--and opens with the Russians taking control of a secret US facility, opening their car trunk, and revealing their prisoners: Indiana Jones and some guy named Mac, I’ve never heard of. The Russians are after something and believe Doctor Jones can help them find it. They’re right, it turns out, and in no time at all Jones loses his job, meets his son, and ends up in South America looking for the lost city of gold, which turns out to be an alien spaceship. Writing that down I see Jack Kirby making something out of that, but he wasn’t around to help and nobody thought to look to him for inspiration.

This is not the worst movie ever made. Its not even a particularly horrible one, but the more I think of it, the more problems I’m drawn to. That’s never good. For all the particular problems I could point to, the biggest one is that the middle third of the movie is pretty much all exposition. Characters explaining things. Explanations are good, even helpful, but an action-adventure film needs action, and adventure, and Indiana Jones spends much too much time as a prisoner of the Russians, tied to a chair, talking.

And what about the particulars? Starting at the top, the thing that annoyed me most was the soft lighting. Pretty much the whole movie was soft lit. Harrison Ford’s not that old. Neither is Karen Allen. There was no reason for it. Next were the duck falls. There were four of them. The duck in question is the amphibious car used by our heroes to escape the Russians. First, its driven over a very high cliff and into a river. There’s really no reason they shouldn’t have all been killed. But they go on down the river and over three water falls, each bigger than the last, and they all escape unharmed. There’s a difference between an incredible stunt and an unbelievable one. This was my introduction to Shia LaBeouf. Some people really don’t like him, but I didn’t have any problems with his character or performance. I did have a problem with the protracted Tarzan homage. What was that about? Don’t get me started on the nuclear explosion and the gophers and the too widespread use of CGI (except for a brief trip to Hawaii, this film was pretty much all filmed on a sound stage and it suffers for it).

In a word, or four: I didn’t like it. Its not Catwoman bad. Since I now own it, it may well be popped into the DVD player again, but certainly not any time soon.

Johnson, Abe, and Sir Edward

2011-10-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus (June 2008)
Abe Sapien: The Drowning (September 2008)
Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels (April 2010)

This time its three separate stories, each featuring a supporting character from the Hellboy universe. We get a 40s pulp hero, a cast regular, and a 19th century predecessor to the Bureau’s many monster hunters.

The Lobster, a.k.a. Lobster Johnson, is a quasi-mythical character in the Mignola-verse. We know he was real, but not everyone believes in him. A Dr. Gallsragas has invented a suit of armour powered by Vril energy—the Hyperborian power source that would powered Atlantis. Nazi agents, working in a pre-war America, capture him and his daughter, but his assistant escapes to find aid from the Lobster and his claw of justice. This battle puts him up against another party wanting the suit, Memnan Saa, an earlier version of whom will show up in another of these volumes.

The premise for Abe’s story is much more straight forward. A century ago Witchfinder Edward Grey stopped a warlock named Vrooman by driving a rare and mystical lipu dagger into his heart. Bruttenholm wants that knife and since its located in the waters off Saint Sebastien, Abe is the perfect man to get it. If only things really were that straight forward.

The last book, starring the aforementioned Edward Grey, takes place in Victorian London. A group of archaeologists returns with thoughts of professional glory and a terrible secret that is systematically killing them, one after the other.

I enjoyed these books the first time, and I enjoyed them more on re-reading. The Iron Prometheus captures the fun and the crazy inventiveness of the pulp novels and early comics—and marries it well to the Mignola-verse. There are even times in which Jason Armstrong, the artist, thanks to the tech and the big and brutish heroes manages to invoke something Kirby-esque, though I don’t think that was ever his goal. In the Service of Angels provides us with our first real look at Edward Grey, a Victorian occult detective whose career was a real influence on Bruttenholm, and subsequently the Bureau itself. The story is really good, and effortlessly connects with everything from the B.P.R.D.’s Hollow Earth and King of Fear arcs to Memnan Saa, but the character of Grey himself is left undeveloped. He’s a Victorian gentleman and an occult detective. That’s about it. There’s been another story arc since this one, which I haven’t read (waiting on the trade as I am), so there may have been more since, but as it stands I recommend it on the strength of the story.One thing I did like about Grey was that he confronted the demonic with appeals to God. He doesn’t come across as a particularly religious character, but it was nice to see someone fight fire with water for a change. When you fight fire with fire, everything is burnt.

And that brings me back to my continuing problem in seeing Abe as a lead character. The Drowning is easily the best Abe solo story to date, and it recounts his first solo adventure (so he is supposed to be a bit of a noob), but I would have to put the story over the character when it comes to recommendations. That’s one thing with a new character like Grey; it’s quite another with one of the series’ originals. Unlike the other two stories, we don’t really learn much about the broader Mignola-verse--except when the focus is off our hero. Moreover, the art is too static. Alexander has talent, no question, but I was never drawn in. It doesn’t help that Dave Stewart’s colouring gives it a jaundiced hue.

So, three good stories. I would rank them: Lobster, Witchfinder, Abe.

I am not through the initial list of trades, but--at this time, anyway--I think I am going to call it a day. Its been fun, and I’ve enjoyed re-reading, but I started this as soon as I posted the last one. That was in August. Time to admit the drive just isn’t there any more.

Let Me In

2011-10-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Let Me In (2010)
Directed by Matt Reeves, Starring Chloe Grace Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee

Having watched Let The Right One In last week, and having heard a lot of positive things about the American remake, I figured I’d rent it for this week’s movie.

Drawing from the same source material, the two movies do, of course, tell the same story: a lonely, bullied boy befriends a new neighbor--a girl his age who is also a vampire. The American one starts much differently. Police and ambulance are racing through a snowy night, sirens blaring. The cynic is going to think, of course, that that’s Hollywood for you, but the movie does steer clear of action sequences far more than you’d think a Hollywood production would. The movie starts with the capture of Hakan and then moves back two weeks in time in order to bring things back to this point.

He’s not called Hakan in this movie--he’s simply referred to as “the father,” and that’s only one of many changes. The boy is renamed Owen and the girl Abbey. I don’t know why. Oskar and Eli (or Oscar and Ellie) aren’t that unusual. Owen is introduced wearing a Halloween mask and spying on his neighbors. Creepier than Oskar. He is also much more socially isolated. The movie seems to go out of its way to make him appear as weak and as vulnerable as possible. Though Abbey does state that she isn’t a girl, there is no indication that ‘she’ was ever a ‘he.’ Watching this movie, you’re watching the story of a little girl and a little boy, vampirism notwithstanding. It's also clear that Owen is forming a romantic attachment towards her, even taking a growing interest in his class’ assigned reading of Romeo and Juliet as their relationship grows. Abbey, on the other hand, is a little more complex. It may look like she’s reciprocating his feelings, and maybe she is, but her relationship with Hakan raises other possibilities.

Now I am calling him Hakan, again. He is referred to as her “father,” though it's made clear he isn’t. In the novel Hakan is a pedophile that Eli brings into her service. She is a child, or at least in the form of a child, and she needs an adult figure to enable her to move more freely in the world. A child alone raises too many questions. In the Swedish film version he is just seen as her servant and little more. Its not much of a character at all. In the US one not only does Richard Jenkins do a fantastic job of bringing the character alive, making us feel for the guy even as he’s hunting victims, but the adaptation itself recasts the nature of their relationship altogether and raises questions about Abbey’s intentions. At one point we see a photo in her apartment of her and a little boy that looks somewhat like Owen, and somewhat like a younger version of Jenkins’ character. The implications are that he has been with her since he was Owen’s age, and that Owen himself is being groomed as a replacement. Another hint in this direction is that Owen has a sweet-tooth and is constantly humming bits of a candy jingle to himself, ‘eat one now, save one for later.’ Indeed.

Another change from the original film is the introduction of the cop played by Elias Koteas. The character isn’t given a name, but he makes himself felt throughout the film while trying to figure out the nature of the killings. I haven’t read the novel, but this is something I didn’t like about the Swedish film. Surely the killings and attacks would have provoked some response from the police. If Koteas’ character is unsure of what’s going on, and really given little to work with, the actor still manages to make it work. He comes across as a character out of Homicide. One of the film’s most effecting scenes involves him, Owen, and Owen finally choosing a side. It's one of the strongest scenes in either film. Whichever of the two films you enjoy most, there no question but that the actors in this version are all very talented and are all bringing their A games, including Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Grace Moretz as the leads.

As for problems I had with the film, there’s the wide use of CDI, including in unnecessary places like her attacks and two sequences where she climbs. Watching her jerkily climb a tree, I couldn’t help but think that a normal person climbing without effects could have made it look easier and more convincing. And the neighbors all but disappear. In part this is to boost Koteas’ role, but I think it would have helped to see the impact of these events on others in the story. I thought it was interesting to place the story during a winter in Los Alamos, New Mexico. I associate the area with desert and was surprised to see it snowing, but there are problems when it comes to reproducing an important scene. In the the other version Hakan pushes the body of someone Eli has killed under a frozen river, where it is later found by children. In the US version Jenkin’s character does the same thing, but the river really isn’t frozen. In fact, its running pretty freely. Coming from Canada I couldn’t help but think, ‘You don’t let kids on the ice when it's that warm. It's not safe.’ Reproducing scenes is another problem with the movie. So many were shot the same way they were in the Swedish version. Yes, they’re drawing from a common source, but Reeves seems content, when he isn’t making specific changes to the story, to just re-do Alfredson’s work.

All in all, though, it is a good film. I don’t really see a need to pick one version over the other, though on the whole I’d probably go with the Swedish one--ideally with Jenkins and Koteas spliced in!

Let The Right One In

2011-10-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

Let The Right One In (2008)
Directed by Tomas Alfredson, Starring Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson

It’s a long Scandinavian winter in Blackeberg. Oskar lives with his mother and spends his days running a gauntlet of bullies. He spends a lot of time alone until new neighbors move in next door. A man with a girl his age. She doesn’t go to school. There’s something wrong with her. Or something different. She’s a vampire.

Based on a novel by the same name, and made into an American film called Let Me In, Let The Right One In is a Swedish vampire movie with a dedicated following. Vampires are my favourite movie monster, but I haven’t really enjoyed a vampire movie in a long time. From Anne Rice’s Lestat to Joss Whedon’s Angel to Stephanie Meyer’s Edward, the last few decades have not been kind. The vampire has gone from being a menacing seducer, a devil in evening wear, to a whiny, moping annoyance.

This movie touches on two themes that have been a part of the problem, the vampire as victim and focusing on the vampire’s relationship with a human, but it succeeds in skirting these tropes without losing itself in them. It succeeds with the first because the vampire, Eli, is a child and children are almost by definition dependents; even when they have been children for a very long time. What’s more Eli never expresses regret for being a vampire. It skirts the second issue by never turning the relationship into a romance. These are two lonely kids, who each need a friend. A connection. The movie is set in the 80s. Were it set today Oskar might have an active online social life, but it isn’t and he doesn’t. He suffers alone until Eli shows up.

Moreover, Eli isn’t a girl. She looks like one and comes across as one, and is played by one, but when the subject comes up she tells Oskar she isn’t one. Audiences might interpret this to mean that ‘she’ isn’t human, except for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot of Eli’s naked groin. Where you’d expect to see genitals there is only a nasty scar. The implication being that when Eli was human, ‘she’ was a ‘he.’

I enjoyed Let The Right One In. So far I’ve been very lucky in my Monday movie choices. No turkeys yet. This one shares a lot of the same ingredients of previous winners: it’s well directed, well acted, well written. It seems so simple to turn out a good movie, you have to wonder why they aren’t all winners. I’ve heard good things about the US version too. Maybe I’ll check that one out too.

September Comics

2011-09-29T18:46:00.000-07:00

My summer hiatus meant there were no reviews of my July or August comics. I am not going to go back and dig those out, but I am going to pick things up with this past month’s. To mix things up I am also tweeting it. If you don’t follow me on Twitter, I am here.

Abe Sapien: The Devil Does Not Jest #1: Solid start. Heavy on action. Interested but I’m going to have to see part 2 before I decide whether its any good.

B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth: Russia #1: Another good start. Kate and Klaus in Moscow. Meet counterparts. I’m hoping Varvara shows up.

Batwoman #1: Continues from where Rucka left off, including supernatural theme. My only DC 52 comic and its looking good.

Casanova: Avaritia #1: Cass is back... and hating it. Its a multiversal genocidal romp.

Dark Horse Presents #4: New monthly schedule and really getting on its feet.

Sergio Aragones Funnies #3: Sergio continues to charm. Buy this!

13 Assassins

2011-09-26T17:01:00.000-07:00

13 Assassins (2010)
Directed by Takashi Miike, Starring Kōji Yakusho

Back to Japan! This time for a samurai revenge story set in the 19th century. The Shogun favours his young half-brother, in spite of a history of sadistic cruelty. When he decides to place him on the ruling counsel, Sir Doi, a senior member of the government realizes that the consequences for the nation would be catastrophic. He enlists Shinzaemon, a trusted samurai, to save Japan and kill the evil lord. Hanbie, an old associate of Shinzaemon is entrusted with saving the lord from his would be assassins.

The movie is a remake of a 1963 film of the same name and apparently draws on two historical incidents. One is the famous story of the 47 ronin. The other is the assassination of Ii Naosuke, who was killed in a plot by 17 ronin assassins. His crime? He was the minister responsible for signing the Harris Treaty and opening Japan to the US.

The first half of the movie unfolds with simplicity as the plotters and officials set their schemes like an elegantly played game of chess. Here we meet the victims of Lord Naritsugu’s cruelty. He has no respect for class or age or gender. The second half of the movie is one protracted battle scene, as the thirteen assassins lure Naritsugu, Hanbie, and two hundred soldiers into a massive trap: an entire town remade into a maze of kill zones.

Miike shifts pace with ease and really seems intent on pouring whatever ingredient he feels he needs into a blender and mixing it into something whole and complete. At one point an assassin dies and everything is still except his blood pouring through a rivulet of water; another blows himself up with a stick of explosives and a wave of blood pours over onto the street that runs parallel. CGI is used to with varying degrees of effectiveness. The best use is when we’re shown what Naritsugu’s cruelty has meant for one woman. The least convincing is when a small group of water buffalo, with burning logs tied to their backs, are set loose during the battle. The incident itself doesn’t add much to the story and CGI itself is unconvincing.

All in all, it’s a very good movie. It never rises above its genre to become the sort of movie that might appeal to a broader audience, but like Battle Royale in represents something we don’t see much of in Hollywood movies. If this movie had come out of LA, it would have been delegated to a known action director and be riddled with action movie clichés and tropes. Not there that aren’t things in this movie that you won’t see in other samurai movies, but Miike, like Fukasaku, brings to this film a broader and deeper background than his North American counterparts could be expected to have and the film is richer for it.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

2011-09-19T07:21:00.000-07:00

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
Directed by Kerry Conran, Starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie

Well, my plan to use Monday mornings to watch movies, now that my kid is in school on my day off is not going well. It’s a Pro-D day. A Pro-Day? They’ve only been in school two weeks! I had planned on watching my VHS copy of Una Pura Formalità or renting 13 Assassins, but it turns out my video is in Calgary—long story—and 13 Assassins is exactly the sort of movie I had to wait until for kid was in school to watch in the first place.

So this week: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Friends have been telling my I’d love this since it first came out seven years ago, but for some reason I never got around to watching it. It is 1939 and the evil Dr. Totenkopf’s robot army is attacking the great cities of the world. Who is he and why is he doing this? With the nation’s military resources stretched thin, Joe Sullivan, the Sky Captain and leader of the Flying Legion, is sent out to find the answers. He is joined by the-intrepid-and-spunky-girl-reporter Polly Perkins and aided by Commander Francesca "Franky" Cook and Dexter “Dex” Dearborn.

World of Tomorrow got a lot of press when it was released, because its sets, locales, and many of the extras are entirely computer generated. It uses a sepia-like colouring to mask the dull flatness many human-CGI films seem to have, but there are times when that flatness is there anyway. It even seems to affect the actors in many scenes, who come across too quiet and subdued in a movie that turns the action up to 11 almost from the beginning.

The movie draws heavily from 40s Science Fiction and movie serials; so much so that I’ve made a mental note to count the number of big action sequences the next time I see it. Classic serials had twelve to fifteen parts, with a big scene in each one. The action takes us from New York, to the Legion’s base, to Nepal (a nod to Indiana Jones?), to Totenkopf’s island fortress. Along the way he meets up with a character obviously styled after Marvel’s Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D., Jolie’s “Franky” Cook. In spite of being played as an English woman, she is the eye-patch wearing commander of an aerial flying platform. She even uses a jet pack.

It’s a fun movie, but never really an engaging one. Conran, who also wrote the script and spent years trying to get it from his computer to the big screen, seems more interested in the process than the characterization. Finishing it I want to dig out my old Fleischer Superman cartoons, but if you’re not into the geeky nostalgia that it invokes, I doubt this movie will interest you much.

Battle Royale

2011-09-12T12:45:00.000-07:00

Battle Royale (2000)
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku, Starring Aki Maeda, Takeshi Kitano, Tatsuya Fujiwara, and Taro Yamamoto

This eleven year old import has been getting a lot of press these past couple of years due to the similarities with the popular Young Adult series The Hunger Games. In Fukasaku’s movie the turn of the twenty first century has seen the collapse of Japan’s economy and social norms. The government’s response includes a program to keep teens in line, and provide entertainment for others at the same time: Battle Royale. Each year a class of high class students are abducted, brought to a isolated locale, and made to fight to the death. Each student is forced to wear a collar that will explode after three days—unless all the other students are dead. Its kill or be killed and the ultimate test of who you can trust, who your friends are, and how far you will really go to defend yourself.

This year’s class is gassed while on a field trip and wakes up on an island that has been evacuated for the game. The entire class finds themselves in one room with Kitano, a teacher one class member knifed the year before, two “exchange students” they’ve never seen before, and enough soldiers to make sure everything is set off in a orderly fashion. After their orientation each student is given a bag that includes, among other things, their weapon. These vary widely. Some kids get machine guns, others pot lids. They leave the building one at a time and run out into the night.

Fukasaku came into this picture with a directorial career that was decades long, and included groundbreaking films and many awards. It’s as well made and acted a movie as one could hope for, zipping along from fatal encounter to fatal encounter as each student has to make a choice—or have someone else’s choice forced upon them. Like Hunger Games, however, it has an obvious weakness: the kill or be killed concept is too strong. Audiences don’t want to identify with characters that can kill people, innocents like themselves, even if their circumstances require it. Killings happen fearfully, clumsily, accidentally, stupidly. Only one student, a girl named Mitsuko, really embraces the bloodlust. Another, Ogawa, another girl, refuses to play altogether, rejecting her bag and jumping from a cliff. Groups of friends band together for mutual protection, though, for some reason, that usually fails miserably. The movie relies on the two exchange students to keeps things moving. One, Kiriyama, is a psychotic, who has joined in for the thrill of killing. The other, Kawada, is a survivor of a previous Battle Royale, and brings his experience and judgement to bare—something the others, being children, don’t have. He teams up with a young couple and together they attempt to beat the system and survive.

It all makes for a much more accessible movie, providing the audience with heroes and villains and more traditional story lines. I suspect that if it had relied on the series of vignettes of the kids responding to their situation, we would have had a very different movie. Perhaps a better one; perhaps one in which most of them were paralysed with fear and doubt and simply waited until the time limit ran out, hoping for some kind of rescue.

A Fistful of Dollars

2011-09-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
Directed by Sergio Leone, Starring Clint Eastwood

My four year old wanted to watch something she’d never seen before, so I put on A Fistful of Dollars. Not what she was looking for, I suppose, but in my defence I’ve sat through a lot of kids movies and kids aren’t the most critical of audiences. Actually I expect to be watching a lot more movies on Mondays from now on. She starts kindergarten this week and will be in class next Monday. My wife also works Mondays, so I can get a couple of hours to sit and enjoy what I want and I’m looking forward to it.

In 1964 Clint Eastwood was an American TV star who went to Spain to make a cheap Italian western. Apparently he was far from the first choice (that was Henry Fonda) but the end product would make him and Leone international stars and launch a whole new sub-genre of Westerns. The movie itself is a remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, a fact that didn’t escape the Japanese director’s lawyers and would cost Leone fifteen percent of his profits and some Asian disribution rights. Leorne repsonded by pointing out that Yojimbo was based on Red Harvest, which was based on the 18th century Italian play Servant of Two Masters (and people say Wikipedia is no good for anything!).

In the movie an American gunman is on the Mexican side of the border and comes across a town in which two gangs are competing for dominance. He decides the best way to make a little money isn’t to join either group, but to play the two off one another. The leader of one gang has taken a woman from her family, claiming her husband owes him a gambling debt. The American plays his game skillfully, but the woman’s plight eventually forces him to put his better nature ahead of his better judgement.

Fistful was so influential that its hard to watch it and realize how original it was. Eastwood’s film personae was largely created here. But almost 50 years later it remains a suspenseful and rivetting action film. Throughout the movie Eastwood’s character—called ‘Joe’ by the undertaker, but known to movie fans as The Man With No Name—uses his wits first and his gun second. That he’s a phenomenal shot is established early, when he insists a group of other gunmen apologize for frightening his mule, but his game depends on being able to out think the gang leaders; especially Ramon, who is as clever and as skillful a shot as he is, but also willing to kill anyone he needs to to make a dollar. If you’re a Western fan, you’re probably already familiar with this movie. If you consider yourself a film buff, but avoid Westerner—shame on your pretentious self!—you need to check this one out. Really, anyone who’s looking for a good way to spend a hundred minutes will be well rewarded for their time.

Hellboy Volumes 8-10

2011-08-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

This project was originally conceived as a Hellboy/BPRD discussion thread, where each volume was discussed in publication order. Then it was pretty much just me, continuing in the same order. Now I am going to cut a few corners and hopefully finish it all up. I am going to do all the Hellboy titles together, then do the special stand alones (Abe, Lobster, and Witchfinder), the 40s Bureau stories, then the current Bureau stories.

There are three Hellboy volumes. Volumes eight and nine, Darkness Calls and The Wild Hunt, launch the story that only just ended with The Fury, and volume ten is a collection of short stories. It may be more correct to say that Darkness and the Hunt represent the culmination of everything that’s happened to the Big Red One. They also represent the triumph of the mythic and folkloric elements of his story over its pulp fiction origins. There has been a bifurcation, with the former setting the tone for stories set in the present and the latter setting the tone for the nostalgic short stories--represented in Crooked Man and other short story compilations.

Darkness and the Hunt are dominated by women: Hecate, Baba Yaga, Nimue, Alice Monaghan, Vasilisa, Morgan Le Fay, and witches. Lots and lots of witches. Events are set in motion when Igor Bromhead, a weaselly little confidence man we’ve met before, manages to trap Hecate, the Queen of the Witches, and attempts to usurp her throne. That doesn’t work out too well for him, but the witches are still left without a leader. They choose Hellboy. He says no. Enter another weaselly little character we’ve seen before, Gruagach. We first met Gruagach as the little goblin changling that was put in place of the baby Alice Monaghan. He fought Hellboy and ended up trapped in the body of a pig. Since then his hatred for Hellboy has turned into a bloody-minded call for revenge and destruction. So much so that he works to see an old pretender to the throne made Queen of the Witches, Nimue. Nimue is best known for sealing up Merlin alive a stone tomb, but in the Mignola-verse she is a character so dark that all of the other witches came to fear her. They killed her, chopped her up, put her in a box, and put the box in a deep well under the guard of a giant. With Hecate gone and Hellboy refusing the throne, the witches accede to Gruagach and free her.

Back before facing Gruagach’s revenge Hellboy must face the anger of one of the most famous witches, Baba Yaga. Still upset over the loss of her eye she manages to call him into a mystical version of Mother Russia and sets her forces against him. Much to her consternation, she is not the only “god” in the “thrice-tenth kingdom” and other mythological figures are pleased to see her aims frustrated. His chief aid comes in the form of a little, Vasilisa, a Cinderella-like character who actually does appear in the stories of Baba Yaga. Vasilisa is instrumental in saving Hellboy and returning him to the real world. The Russian witch learns that she cannot take revenge on Hellboy. If she will get what she wants--in eye for an eye--she must wait until he is ready to give it to her.

Events in The Wild Hunt begin with an olde English giant hunting club--seriously--and go on to reveal a lot about Hellboy’s past and future. Not long after the hunt, Hellboy travels to Ireland to see Alice Monaghan. Alice was swapped for Gruagach in 1959. That would put the girl well into middle age by now, but she’s still a beautiful, freckled redhead. Events quickly take them to Queen Mab and then to Morgan Le Fay. We learn a lot of stories in these two volumes, including Gruagach’s, and Hecate’s, but the most impressive is the story of Hellboy’s maternal ancestry. Le Fay was the mother of Mordred, who had a daughter, and that daughter had a daughter, and that daughter had a daughter... All the way down to Hellboy’s mother, Sarah Hughes. By the demon Azzael, Sarah had a son: Hellboy. The true heir to Arthur. I don’t know how that’s supposed to work. British monarchies, at least until Victoria, were not matrilineal, but let’s just go with it for now. Armed with his ancestor’s sword, Excalibur, Hellboy boy can save the world from Nimue’s blood lust. But there’s a catch. There is always a catch. If he does take up the sword he sets himself off down the path to fulfilling his destiny as Anung Un Rama.

Considering how much more I’ve written about Hellboy volumes that aren’t nearly as important as these two, it feels a little odd to stop here, but, really, I could go on and go. Someday I might. In a comics market saturated with Big Events things happening here are truly seminal. Before I stop, however, I have to point out the work of artist Duncan Fegredo. A British artist, best known over here for doing a Jay and Silent Bob mini, he has done a fantastic job in both volumes. He’ll be stepping aside now, because Mignola is coming back to draw Hellboy again, but I am not alone in thinking Fegredo could be Hellboy what Guy Davis was to B.P.R.D. He’s that good.

Volume 10, The Crooked Man and Others, is a collection of four short stories. The title story is a three issue mini drawn by Richard Corben. It was inspired by Appalachian folk tales and the the pulp stories of Manly Wade Wellman. I have to admit I had never heard of Wellman before opening this comic, his character Silver John, or John the Balladeer was a major influence on Mignola at the time he created Hellboy. I don’t recall any mention of him in the Hellboy Companion, however. “The Crooked Man” takes place in 1958. Hellboy has been on assignment in the South and decided he would “wander” his way back home, hiking through the Appalachian Mountains. There he comes upon a tale of witchcraft and deals made with the Crooked Man--a local incarnation of the devil. Or perhaps just a devil. For the purposes of this story it really doesn’t matter. Hellboy is no sooner on the scene than Tom Ferrell, a prodigal son and Mignola’s take on Wellman’s John, also arrives home after many years travelling. Together they face down the evil and set things right. Its a strong story, and all the stronger for Corben’s art. In his introduction Mignola says that he couldn’t have pulled it off without Corben, but in reading it my mind went a step further and wondered if it were written for Corben. It really seems to play to all his strengths.

The other three stories are much shorter. “They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships” was put together as a free comic insert for a Hellboy video game. “In the Chapel of Moloch” was published as a one shot. And “The Mole” was a Free Comic Book Day giveaway. They’re all solid stories, but none of them are exceptional.

That’s wraps up Hellboy to date. There are more volumes coming very soon, but I am far enough behind in this and don’t want to wait. Next up are three volumes each starring a different character: Lobster Johnston, Abe Sapien, and Edward Grey.

Hiatus Over Already?

2011-08-29T16:05:00.000-07:00

Well, technically there is another month left--though for most of us it ends with Labour Day--but I am bringing it back this week. I want to finish up the Mignola read through and a couple of other projects. I also want to clean up a few things here (dead links, etc). I don't know how much blogging I'll be doing, but I will be doing some.

Summer Hiatus

2011-07-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

I've decided to take a couple of months off blogging. See you in the fall!

June's Comics

2011-06-30T22:04:00.001-07:00

50 Girls 50 #1: I picked this up because I am a sucker for retro SF comics, but I don’t expect it to end up on my pull list any time soon. It’s written by Doug Murray and Frank Cho, but drawn by newcomer Axel Medellin. The premise is that Y chromosomes are somehow “incompatible with wormhole travel” and so we get a fleet of ten ships staffed by all woman crews, seeking resources Earth desperately needs. This story focuses on two members of the ESS Savannah, who crash land on a planet whose atmosphere contains chemicals that rapidly corrode plastics. And wouldn’t you know it! Their clothes are pretty much all plastic. Nobody’s aiming very high here.

B.P.R.D.: The Dead Remembered #3: I’ve been skeptical about this one since it was announced, and I will admit that it’s proven better than I expected it to be, but it’s still just okay. I can’t really say that it has added much to the series as a whole.

Batgirl #22: The good news: another fun issue, with Steph traveling to London and teaming up with Squire. The bad news: this is a two parter and the second part will be in Batman Incorporated #9. That’s not even released until August 10, the same week as the last issue of Steph’s run.

Dark Horse Presents #2: On the whole this issue keeps pace with issue one. There are no interviews or prose stories, however, and only three of the ten stories weren’t continued from issue one—and two of those three launch stories that will be continued in issue three. I like the episodic stories, but I think the series would be stronger if there were consistent number of stand alone stories too. Mix up the formats as well as the genres!

Hellboy: The Fury #1: As soon as I put this down I realized I’d made a mistake reading it first. Nothing else this month was going to measure up (and nothing did). Hellboy takes on Nimue and the all the good men of England stand behind their rightful King. The Big Two have spent the last five or six years selling epic events, but there’s more awesome in this one issue than in any ten of the recent events.

Who Is Jake Ellis #4: The penultimate issue sees Jake lead Jon through a building that could hold all the answers, or send him back to square one. It’s a tense, straight ahead thriller that sets up the answer to the titular question. Very good.

All Nighters #1

2011-06-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

Writer: David Hanh, Artist: David Hahn
Published by Image Comics 2011

Image Comics has become home to another orphaned title. Last year it rescued Brandon Graham’s King City from Tokyopop’s discontinued OEL line—only half of which saw print before cancellation—this year it’s rescued David Hahn’s All Nighter.

All Nighter was originally done for DC’s MINX imprint. MINX was a young adult line aimed at teenaged girls and headed by the much vaunted Karen Berger. The whole line was cancelled in just under a year and a half, leaving Hanh with a nearly completed OGN and no publisher. At the time he was quoted as promising to see it in print. It’s taken him a couple of years, but here it is.

All Nighter is the story of Kit Bradley, an art student needing to make some changes in her life. At the top of her list is dumping Dwayne, her long time boyfriend and partner in crime. I don’t mean that figuratively. The two make ends meet with the occasional B & E. The book gets its title from the local hang out, a 24 hour diner catering to twenty-somethings. We meet her family, her two roommates, one of whom works at the diner, and we meet two more characters, Martha, who, if solicits are to be believed, will prove very important, and Jim, who stirs up some tensions among the roommates. On paper Kit is not a very sympathetic person. She steals and lies and, she claims, has killed her mother, but she doesn’t come across that way at all. She comes across as a real person, frustrated at not being able to put her adolescence behind her—a sign that Hahn’s skills as a writer are a match for his skills as an artist and that his new mini is off to a strong start. But you don’t have to believe me. Hahn has put the entire first issue online. He sent me the link last month and I owe him an apology for not getting this up sooner. My offline life has been crowding out my online life a little too much lately. But check out the link. Read it, enjoy it, and pick up all five issues!

Make Me One With Everything

2011-06-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

I don't know who Karl is, but I'm impressed! If I were to ever meet the Dalai Lama, I'd like to think I'd try something like this.

Captain Canuck

2011-06-13T06:25:00.000-07:00

Support for the Vancouver Canucks is everywhere in the city. If you go down to the Victoria Harbour promenade, you'll find that even Captain Cook has joined in and is now sporting a team jersey. Local Boston Pizza franshises have been re-named Vancouver Pizza for the duration of the playoffs.

Right now Vancouver is leading 3-2 and needs only one more win to take the series. Game six is tonight and I hope they finish it, because my schedule won't let me watch game seven and there'll be no point in trying to watch it later. If they win, you'll hear the celebrations all through the city. So, here's hoping they win tonight.

Spider-Nam

2011-06-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

James Stokoe, author of the fantastic Won Ton Soup and (the not really my thing) Orc Stain, has put his spin on the Amazing Spider-Man. It's just four pages on his blog, but Marvel would be crazy not to incorporate this into their next volume of Strange Tales.

If You Believe In Yourself, You Will Know How To Ride A Bike!

2011-06-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

World At Large: Rapture Ready?

2011-06-01T06:14:00.001-07:00

Still here? Me too. As everyone knows, the end of the world came and went on the 21st of May. Harold Camping, a television minister who preaches a numerological based form of end time prophesy, had predicted that at 6 p.m., in each consecutive time zone, God’s judgment would begin with earthquakes and the righteous being “raptured” to meet the Lord. In the thirty years since I’ve become a Christian I’ve run into these ideas before, though never one that generated as much media interest, and never one that has generated as much contempt—not just within the groups that you’d expect, but within the Christian community as well.

But for all the attention Camping drew to the idea the God was going to ‘rapture’ His people away, there was little discussion of what exactly is meant by the concept. There was even less discussion of how it is actually a new teaching—one unheard of before the mid-nineteenth century, when it was promoted by an Irish clergyman named John Nelson Darby. Darby’s teaching, collectively called Dispensationalism, would later form the basis of the Schofield Study Bible (1909), which would promote it throughout the US and UK. A distinctive feature of Dispensationalist eschatology, the study of the end times, is the idea that the Church will ascend to meet Jesus in the air before His actual return to set up an earthly kingdom. A lot of terrible things will precede Christ’s return, but Darby taught that the Church would not have to suffer through them. Christ would take His people safely out first. In spite of efforts by its advocates to prove otherwise, no one taught this doctrine before the rise of Dispensationalism.

Eschatology has always been an important part of Christianity. Arguably Christianity itself grew out of Jewish eschatology and the expectation that the Messiah was coming and that he would bring justice for his people and peace on earth. When the Messiah did come (hey, I am a Christian after all), things didn’t quite meet their expectations. He came, sure, but instead of setting up an earthly kingdom He set up a spiritual one. He was crucified, buried, resurrected, and ascended into Heaven, promising to come again and bring about the sort of triumphant new world the Jews had been expecting in the first place. The first generation of Christians fully expected to see this happen in their lifetime. When some of them died without seeing it, others began to worry. Paul wrote to believers in Thessalonica:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17

And in the next chapter he wrote:

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

While they often cite of verses as well, these two passages are the hooks on which the Dispensational idea of a separate “rapture” of the Church hang. Verse seventeen of chapter four, highlighted in the first quote, describes the Church rising to meet Jesus on His return. But what Paul is writing about is not the escape of the Church. He is addressing a concern that members of the Thessalonian church had regarding those who had died waiting for the Second Coming. Paul assures them that all of Jesus’ followers will rise to meet Him, not just those still living when it happens, and that’s how it was understood for almost the entirety of Christian history.

Verse nine of chapter five, highlighted in the second quote, is quoted to prove that the Church will not have to suffer the wrath God will pour out on the Earth before He returns, but the point Paul is making here is that the Church is meant to walk uprightly and that we should do exactly that. We were not meant for Hell, the “wrath,” but for Heaven. And, again, that’s how it was understood through most of Christian history.

When I say these interpretations were held for most of Christian history, I mean universally held. They are still held by the majority of Churches. One of the interesting things about Dispensationalism and being ‘rapture ready’ is their dominance over Christian media, particularly in the US. It’s a dominance that tends to overshadow other positions. Historically, most Americans followed the Calvinist teaching of the Puritan forefathers and were Postmillenialists, believing that the coming of the Lord would be ushered in by the evangelical work of the Church, which would create a universally Christian world and only then would Jesus come.

Being a Pentecostal, pre-tribulation Dispensationalism was one of the first things I was taught. Almost immediately I saw that the idea of the Church escaping the Great Tribulation, as its called, was inconsistent with many scriptures and I adopted what is called the “post-trib” position. This accepts the historic—and, yes, scriptural—teaching regarding the Church and the tribulation, but retains the Dispensationalist understanding of the Bible and the Church. Over time, however, due to the inconsistencies of Dispensationalism, I studied the matter out and rejected it altogether. (This was one of the first things I blogged about.) Ultimately I decided that what was more important than any of the ‘isms’ was that I be ready. That I walk as a Christian each day, living the values I profess, so that I will be ready whenever He comes. Whenever that happens.

A New Look?

2011-05-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been messing around with the look of the blog. No, it isn't final.

B.P.R.D. Volume 7: Garden of Souls (January 2008)

2011-05-28T19:42:00.000-07:00

I did one entry into this project last month and, obviously, I’ll only be making one this month too. Of course the April entry was at the beginning of the month and this one is at the end of the month, so its really been about two months between entries. I do intend to finish this project. My summer posting may not be better--though I hope it is--but after the summer I hope to put up about one a week. Fingers crossed. As it is I am about half way through the trades. This is the fourteenth of the twenty seven released, and 10,772 words, but there will be more out soon. A new B.P.R.D. trade in August. A new Hellboy in October. Still, I will catch up. Promise.

Garden of Souls brings Abe’s history back to our attention. We start back at the mountain fortress. Roger’s last wish is being fulfilled and he’s being given a proper funeral. To keep the curious away he’s being buried as Archie Stanton. Presumably no one watches Westerns anymore.

The burial seems to put an end to everyone’s mourning as life draws everyone back to their own priorities. Ben is continuing his traditional medical treatments and has an horrific vision, recalling the attack in the jungle. Johann’s continued study of the sub-basement’s records also reveals a new factor in Ben’s story: his grandmother was the Axis agent Crimson Lotus. He shows this to the others, but no one seems to think its important. Readers will immediately recognize the link between her, the doll faced monkey, and Ben, but maybe the others are right. To date this revelation has had no bearing on Ben’s character development or anything else.

Liz meanwhile is visited by another vision of her Mandarin spirit guide. She isn’t happy to see him. As far as she’s concerned they’re through, it’s over. But she’s wrong. Its not over. To make this point he gives her a vision of what it will look like when things are over. The frogs have won. Giant monsters, like the one destroyed in the Black Flame, do the landscape. He calls them ‘sentinels.’ I wonder what they are supposed to be watching? This vision is actually the second time we meet her guide in this book, but we’re not supposed to know that yet.

Abe’s story starts with the arrival of a package: a pocket cigar case belonging to his former self, Langdon Everett Caul. In it are three cigars and a map of Indonesia with the city of Balikpapan circled. Not sure what to make of it, he takes Ben with him to South East Asia where they end up sitting on the docks with no idea what their next step should be. Eventually he is contacted by a mentally challenged child who is acting under the control of another. Following her, Abe leaves Ben in the middle of the night, writing an address on the wall in red. Ben hurries to the police and threatens them with the US embassy if they don’t drop everything and jump to his assistance. There are two things wrong with this. First, what is the message written in? Blood? Lipstick? The latter is more conventional in scenes like this, but I don’t see Abe carrying a stick. Second, Ben is supposed to be a man of the world, but his behaviour with the police is that of a bumpkin. Your friends been gone for one hour? Maybe you should go back to the embassy and get out of our hair? Still this is a comic, so they jump.

Abe meanwhile takes a boat out to a remote island and discovers a secret colony of chimeras created care for by three robots and a blond giant. The robots aren’t robots. They’re the surviving members of the Oannes Society, an occult group whose members once included Caul. The bodies of the ‘robots’ are preservation chambers, which are made mobile with mechanical arms and legs. Inside are the men, now decrepit well past 150. The blond is a member whose soul/mind was transferred from his chamber into a new body especially created for the completion of the Society’s great mission. Their mission? To save the world by destroying it. Of course. Actually, they are only going to destroy the Asian-Pacific coast and they expect the souls of the dead to be drawn to them and into their new bodies. Why are they doing this? Why do they expect their plan to work? I don’t know. The whole story line is effectively derailed by another story, that of Panya.

Panya was an Egyptian woman mummified thousands of years ago and unwrapped in London in 1859. Astonishingly the moment her face was uncovered she opened her eyes. Caul was in the audience. She was taken in by the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra, who guarded her and indulged her, but in time she felt like their prisoner. She was rescued by a splinter group, the Oannes Society, and taken to her current location in Indonesia, but soon realized that she’d traded one prison for another. She was the one controlling the girl. Caul was a member of the Society, but it isn’t clear whether she was ‘rescued’ before or after his transformation. They call her Naunet, the Egyptian goddess of the sea, but she resents it. Panya, meaning mouse, was an actual Egyptian girl’s name.

The day is saved but we’re really no closer to knowing anything important about what happened to Caul. How did he become Abe? Why? The story ends with Abe telling Ben, “I’ve met some men here, Captain, and they all knew Langdon Caul. Knew his very well, as it turns out. But they didn’t know me.” Well… maybe not, but maybe the problem is that Abe doesn’t want to know. There’s been an attempt to write a parallel story, between Abe and Hellboy. Both are on journeys of discovery, and both seem intent on rejecting the destinies laid out for them. The difference is that Hellboy knows what he is rejecting. He is turning his back on a terrible, Hell born future. Abe on the other hand seems afraid to face up to what really happened to make him what he is today. He’s running from himself. In the end its not surprising that he threw away this chance to learn about himself. It was the last place he wanted to be.

May Comics

2011-05-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

B.P.R.D.: The Dead Remembered #2: I am still not a hundred percent convinced of the need to go over this ground again, but this issue does do a great job of retelling the story of the death of Liz’s family. The second plot line, the witch and the haunted wood, hasn’t grabbed me yet, but there is one more issue to go.

Batgirl #21: A villain is vanquished and two new ones are introduced. A friend departs and another turns against her. It’s an important issue, but it felt busy, rather than momentous.

Hellboy: Being Human: This is such a great idea; I can’t believe they haven’t done it before. Everyone loves Roger, but he’s dead. Ben Parker dead. He’s not coming back. So why not tell a new story that took place before he died? The story is one of witchcraft, haunting, and revenge. Roger and Hellboy are only there to watch it unfold and put a heavy handed end to it, but it’s a great story nevertheless. Another fantastic Mignola-Corben collaboration.

Mouse Guard: The Black Axe #2: The story of three mice at sea is okay. The art is fantastic. My only complaint is that the lettering Petersen uses in the captions is often hard to read.

Strange Adventures #1: Another anthology. Last month it was Dark Horse Presents. This month it’s Vertigo’s Strange Adventures. While listed as issue #1, it seems to be a one shot. At least there is no word of a second issue so far, and that’s too bad. It’s a strong collection. The two horror stories, “Refuse” and “Post-Modern Prometheus,” could have been tweaked a bit, but the story quality is generally strong. The big draw is a preview of Azzarello and Risso’s upcoming series Spaceman. From what I see here it could go either way. It looks interesting, but the dialogue and tough streets looks a bit too much like there work in 100 Bullets. Not that that’s a bad thing. It’s just too soon to tell.

Showcase Presents

2011-05-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent most of the last six weeks’ comics reading time going through six volumes of DC’s Showcase Presents trades. I was very excited about the series when it was announced and picked up the first five releases--Green Lantern, Superman, Metamorpho, Jonah Hex, and The Justice League of America--even though I really didn’t have the time to get into them. Once I did I was disappointed to realize that Silver Age storytelling was not for me. To each his own. I stopped buying them. Some months later I did pick up The Challengers of the Unknown, but quickly put it down. Now five years later I picked them all up again and read through the lot. The immersion experience did help somewhat. Here are my thoughts on what I’ve read.

Green Lantern: Easily the best of the lot. We get to see the development of the Lantern Corp mythos--did you know the Oath was originally something Hal Jordan just made up because he thought it sounded cool?-- and we are always rewarded with Gil Kane’s fantastic art.

Superman: These stories are often terrible, but mostly just okay. Our hero comes across as a sad little space orphan who is always lying to his friends. The most interesting thing in it is the develop of Supergirl. There were various versions of the female Superman scattered through the adventures, always as a gimmick, before those elements were put together to create the actual character.

Metamorpho: The sad thing about this book is how truly great it could have been. A hybrid of the superhero comic and Mad Magazine, it could have been one for the ages if only DC had let it embrace its ‘Mad’-ness completely. In fact, the worst stories were the ones to include other DC heroes. The best thing about it? Ramona Fradon‘s fantastic art. Two fun facts: 1) The elements Metamorpho could morph into were limited to those occurring in the human body. 2) His favourite element? Manganese. Seriously. He turns into it in practically every story.

Jonah Hex: This was the most modern of the lot--no surprise there, given when it was made--but it was entirely too formulaic. Even when they lengthened the stories and added an arch-enemy, the stories were too much alike. I think it my appreciation might have improved if I were reading it on a monthly basis, instead of all at once.

Justice League of America: Very much a ‘gee whiz,’ boy’s own adventure feel to this one. This one did benefit from reading it all together, because it helped me to get into the spirit of the title. A curious thing I noticed right away was how often Batman, the one with no powers, and Superman, the one with too much power, were marginalized or cut out entirely. (Of course, they later made Green Arrow a regular member and he was little more than a B-man clone at this point.)

Challengers of the Unknown: Last… and least. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Challengers. I first read them in the 90s mini Challengers of the Unknown Must Die! by Loeb and Sale (their first collaboration), then Chaykin’s and Cooke’s. When this volume was released I decided to reverse my earlier decision and try it out. It’s bad. Really bad. It reads like it was not only written for children, but plotted by a young child as well. The drawing card for this book is the art by Kirby. Unfortunately, before he was the Kirby who recreated the genre with Lee, he really wasn’t the Kirby who recreated the genre with Lee. There are moments, panels, that look great, but not enough of them. Not by a long shot.

I don’t know if I’ll make any future exceptions, but from now on its one volume at a time.

World At Large: A New Legacy?

2011-05-02T20:43:00.000-07:00

It looks like today’s election will be a game changer. Maybe. Stephen Harper finally got his majority government. He’s been Prime Minister for five years now, having won two minority governments. Harper is sort of a reverse Trudeau. When he was first elected in 1968 Trudeau was the beneficiary of a deep seated need within Canadians for something a little more glamorous than what they were used to. A little bit of the Kennedy magic up north. Harper, an economist with the personality to match, has suffered from the left’s need for a George W to demonize. But Harper and his majority isn’t the big news. Its not the game changer. No, that’s the NDP’s new status as the official opposition and the end of Mackenzie King’s nearly ninety year legacy.

William Lyon Mackenzie King was prime minister of Canada from 1921 to 1930 and 1935 to 1948. He was our war time leader and our longest serving prime minister. As the leader of the Liberal Party he succeeded where the Liberal leaders in the UK failed. There Labour outflanked the Liberals to the left, replacing them to create a simple left-right choice for the voters. King, on the other hand, stripped the Liberal Party of Canada of its ideological underpinnings and created what was essentially a party of middle class professionals. It was a winning strategy and one of King’s greatest legacies. They leaned left under King and continued to until the eighties, when, beginning with Trudeau’s last government, they began to lean right. These shifts weren’t driven by ideas, but by reading public and international opinion. Trudeau’s shift wasn’t quick enough to save them from defeat, but once they returned to power party leader Jean Chrétien gave the nation its most conservative government to date. (It’s interesting to point that out to people condemning Harper. They never dispute it, but they still dismiss it. Facts often get in the way of haranguing Harper.) Under Chrétien Liberal pundits used to argue, why would you vote for the Conservatives when you’re already getting solid conservative policies from us? Perhaps that, as much as the uninspiring leadership from Dion and Ignatieff, is what helped the NDP supplant them. Why vote for a conservative party when you can have actual The Conservative Party?

So now Jack Layton is the Opposition Leader and the New Democratic Party the Official Opposition. Will he be able to keep it this way? The NDP managed to create a left-right dichotomy here in BC decades ago, but they pushed passed the Liberals to form the government of Ontario in the 90s only to see the Liberals retake the province. Which way will it go for Layton? Personally, I’ve never seen him as a future prime minister--but then I’ve never seen him as the Opposition Leader either. Too often he’s come across as a university leftist. Someone who’s spoken his piece without any real consideration of getting elected. That’s not a bad thing, of course, but I doubt that’ll continue now. He’s also got a lot of new, completely inexperienced parliamentarians. A great many from Quebec. In recent years the French left has been hampered by the leadership of the Bloc Quebecois, which has focussed on advancing the province and not on national issues and needs. And most of these are not just new to parliament, but to the party itself. Interestingly, one caucus member he’ll be able to turn to for support is his wife Olivia Chow, herself a NDP Member of Parliament for the last five years.

So now we have our first majority government since the 2004 election. We’ll see a lot less dealing making, because the government doesn’t need to make any deals, but we’ll see also get to see what could be a historic starting point for Canadian politics. Will we become a two party state? The answer to that question really lies with Mr. Layton. His leadership will see either a new legacy, replacing King’s, or a lost opportunity. Either way, the next four or five years promise to be interesting.

Countdown To Withdrawal

2011-05-02T08:21:00.000-07:00

Bin Laden is dead. Ten years ago his terrorist network, Al Qaeda, murdered three thousand people by destroying New York's World Trade Center. He had been given a safe haven by the Taliban government of Afghanistan, so, under American leadership, NATO invaded the country and sent both the Taliban and Al Qaeda fleeing for the hills. Unfortunately, Afghanistan is 98 percent hills. The Taliban and Al Qaeda have remained at large, active from secret bases in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. Many, including military leaders, have admitted its a lost cause. Not enough troops. The Afghan leadership unpopular and corrupt. The reasons are many, but with Bin Laden at large there was no chance of withdrawal. Without the NATO presence the Taliban would retake control and Al Qaeda would be free to train and plan future attacks. For all the talk of nation building that's why we're still there. At the heart of the mission has always been 9/11 and Bin Laden. And now he's dead. How long until we withdraw?

April Comics

2011-05-01T21:38:00.000-07:00

Batgirl #20: Steph wins the first round with her new nemesis, The Order of the Scythe; and, thankfully, it was not a SUV, but a boxily (“boxily”?) drawn compact.

B.P.R.D.: The Dead Remembered #1: Okay, but just okay. It was a lot of set up and not much new ground. This three parter is supposed to tell the story of Liz Sherman and her early days as a ward of the Bureau. Its never been the subject of a story in itself, but it has actually been touched on more than once and I don't know what more they can bring to it.

Casanova: Gula #4: Fraction and Co. finishes up the old business and are already at work on new business, Casanova: Avaritia. Having read the original run of this series, there weren’t any surprises for me, but it held up well and I am eager for more.

Dark Horse Presents #1: Dark Horse’s anthology’s first issue and… its looking pretty good. With any anthology there are bound to be winners and losers and this issue had one of each. The rest were fine, but so many were only the first chapter of longer stories that I am withholding judgement at this point. The winner and loser? The loser was the short story by Ellison. A pot shot at Ann Coulter? Who cares? The best was McNeil’s “Finder: Third World.” Finder in colour! I’d like to see more.

Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish: Hellboy + cattle mutilation + aliens + teen devil worshippers. We’ve had aliens in the earlier Hellboy comics, so they are a part of the broader Mignola-verse, but it didn’t really come together for me.

Infinite Vacation #2: Issue one set up the concept and issue two sets up the problem and cast of characters. Hopefully issue three won’t be delayed and the story will be off and running. Still very interesting.

Rasl #10: Doors are opening and closing for Robert/Rasl. A solid chapter in a larger arc, but series’ many delays are costing this title. This chapter would have been a much better read if the flow of issues were smoother. Also, I seem to be one of the few readers still bothering with the single issues. Smith is a huge success. If he spent more time getter this one out, it would be as big as anything Kirkman puts out.

Who Is Jake Ellis? #3: A good issue. Things are turning around and it looks like Jon is going to become more pro-active. We still don’t have a lot of answers, but this issue left me expecting a lot from issue four.

Sometimes You Just Know What You Want

2011-04-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

This show went a little off script when a little girl decided she liked red more than blue or green.

The Bears Of Idun

2011-04-14T18:09:00.000-07:00

This is a short story I wrote last year. Well, finished last year. I hope you it enjoy it. (It goes without saying--or it should go without saying--that its mine. I own it and all the rights to it are mine.)

Andre Lumin and Tom Novak sat at the controls of their Mercurian rover and watched the lander’s ascent. It rose up like a lost balloon, becoming a barely discernable speck, before its drive roared into life and it burned a bright arc across the evening sky. Seconds later it would be back in space.

Tom looked out on the planet’s surface. The windshield’s optics created a false day, but the Brisingamen cluster still dominated Idun’s sky. Their landing site was a barren, level field in an area of low hills. It was covered in loose stone and bare rock and located a couple of hours north of the shore that was their first destination.

They were here to study the tardigrade-like creatures that had been detected by orbital probes. On Earth 'water bears' were microscopic animals capable of living in the harshest environments. Morphologically the bears of Idun seemed to differ only in size, but that difference was astonishing. Those spotted averaged six meters in length and stood over two meters in height. They represented evidence of complex life, and they were coming to represent something more: the giant tardigrades had since been detected on a dozen more planets in this area of space. A mission to Idun was quickly put together from available resources. Two ships were already scheduled to be in the area, six months apart. The first would drop off the two man crew and the second would pick it up. Simple. Expedient. No one knew what could be learned in that time--planets are huge once you set down on them--but they had the personnel, the equipment, and the opportunity to make what many saw as an important first contact mission.

The rover was painted a bright yellow, a nod to an earlier generation of heavy equipment, sat on eight wheels and was heavily shielded. It would serve as their home, lab, and transportation. The labs were built along the right side exterior, hidden behind a large panel, which lowered to serve as an access platform. Robotics allowed them to work the labs from within. Andre eased it off the gravel and onto a slope covered in lichen. Ahead lay fields of blue, purple, red, and white. They saw no flowering plants. He proceeded cautiously. He had studied out the terrain carefully, but the charts showed only the vegetation and not the ground beneath.

Looking through a monitor, set to natural optics, Tom saw everything fade to a pale indigo. He was enjoying the ride. It wasn’t often that he found himself in a vehicle fixed to the surface by local gravity. He had been an astronaut for ten years. Andre, the mission commander, had twenty-five years seniority.

The two didn’t talk. They liked each other well enough, but they had spent their journey to Idun debating the implications of the bears and now were determined not to let their differences define their relationship. Tom wondered if there was any connection between these tardigrades and the tardigrades of Earth. Andre was skeptical.

"If there was a connection, why haven't we found any in the vast area between here and Earth? No. It's better not to draw such fantastic analogies. The size alone implies a very different physiology.”

Tom hadn’t been willing to let the matter go so easily. “True, but Terran species are also known to have giant antecedents. The sloth and the…”

“No, no. Nothing on this scale. Calling them tardigrades, or bears, it only sets up biases in our observations. Whatever these creatures are should be taken on its merits. The fact that they are on so many planets, that's much more important, much more wonderful, than having microscopic look-alikes on Earth. I don't mind telling you, I've spent my whole career dreaming of meeting another spacefaring species and now, after all the time we've spent exploring our universe, we finally discover a real indicator. Now that's exciting!”

His whole career was something Andre was quick to raise in any conversation. Not only was he more experienced, but his whole family was deeply involved in astronautics and had been since the beginnings of human space exploration. Tom was the only member of his family to leave Earth and he couldn’t trace its involvement past his own interest, which grew out of summers at the lake. There he would float on the surface of the water, staring up at the night sky, and imagine himself among the stars. He couldn’t really fault Andre’s reasoning, but even if they limited the bears to this area of space, how was it possible that they were on so many different planets? They saw no signs of civilization, or of the material culture associated with civilization. Tom began to advocate a wait and see policy.

They drove through round hills, following a course Tom had predicted would lead them to the tardigrades. Some hills were barren, but others were covered in leafy plants, many of which grew as high as trees, their stems twisting together to form a supporting trunk. In one place enough of these plants grew together to form a small grove. A forest primeval.

Circumventing a small hill, they found themselves at the top of a cliff overlooking the sea. Andre drew the vehicle as close to the edge as he dared and the two suited up. There was a loud, rolling, droning noise, punctuated with pips and whistles. They walked to the edge and found themselves near the center of a wide, round bay. Fifteen meters below beneath them stretched a broad, gravel beach crowded with bears. Andre stretched out his arms, delighted at such early success, “There are hundreds of them! Congratulations!”

Tom’s first response was to modestly wave off Andre’s praise, but he was also excited. Hundreds. The huge tardigrades covered the beach. He used his suit's vocal commands, “Adjust visuals. Increase magnification. Stop. Camera record.”

The tardigrades were uniform in size, though their coloration varied from red, purple, blue, and gray. Roughly matching the vegetation. There were no youth or eggs anywhere. Watching them Tom thought of seals gathered together to find mates and breed. But they weren’t seals. He reminded himself of Andre’s earlier point: don’t let analogies color your judgment.

Each bear had four pairs of legs and above each pair ran a hardened plate, dividing the bears’ torsos into four segments. The front and side borders of their scapular plates were smooth, but along the rear edge of these frontal plates grew a series of triangular points, with those on each side growing out to form much longer horns. Some Terran water bears had corresponding filaments growing from their plates. Each of their eight legs ended in four claws. They movements were supple, deliberate. Those in the water bore their weight so evenly that they seemed to be floating. On various parts of their bodies, though mainly on their heads and backs, were growths that reminded him of digitate corals. They shone with a pale bioluminescence. Were they parasites?

At the water line was a pool shaped like an enormous tardigrade print. Time and water had eroded it and Tom suspected it was simply a depression in the ground. It looked about three meters across. How big would a water bear have had to have been to make that?

Tom was about to raise the question with Andre when his visor lit up green and his suit's alarm system began an insistent warning: “Caution! Caution…”

His feet seemed to give out from under him and for a moment he was unsure of what was happening. He leapt back as the edge of the cliff collapsed, taking Andre with it.

“Andre!” There was no answer. “Andre!”

He stepped towards to edge, then stopped. He could feel the ground shift beneath his feet. Was Andre dead or injured? The fall was high enough to kill a man, but Tom couldn’t assume his teammate was lost. He would have to get down there.

Tom ran back to the rover. He knew the quickest way to get to Andre. He moved the vehicle up parallel to the cliff edge. It came equipped with a small service crane, intended to load heavy samples. Tom fastened himself into a harness and, using a remote, lifted himself over the broken edge. The cliff was a sandy grey, the areas exposed by the collapse a dull white. With the top missing, the remaining cliff face jutted forward, preventing him from a smooth descent. He jerked to a stop only a third of the way down. He couldn’t climb over it. Wherever he touched the cliff more dirt and rock was loosened and fell down towards Andre. This wasn’t going to work.

Turning himself around, Tom looked down. He couldn’t see Andre, but he could see the bears. On the beach. In the water. They weren’t eating. They weren’t doing anything. They just seemed to be waiting. How were they going to respond when he drove the rover down to the bottom of this cliff?

Tom quickly returned to the rover. It would take more than an hour to reach Andre. Even if he did survive the fall, would he survive long enough for Tom to reach him? It was too long for Tom’s peace of mind. He felt the tension growing down his shoulders and back. In his hands as they gripped the controls. He was angered at the senselessness of it all. They plan for every contingency so when accidents did happen it’s always seemed to be something unexpected, trivial. Something stupid. If Andre wasn’t dead, would Tom spend the rest of the mission caring for a wounded man? He tried to distract himself from these worries by concentrating on practical considerations. He did a mental review of the mission plans and tried to figure out how much could be accomplished alone, but that only brought back to his current situation. He saw a lot of tracks heading toward the shore, but he didn’t see any bears. He didn’t know why they were gathered, but it seemed they were all there.

Tom moved the rover down onto the gravel beach. At first he didn’t seem to draw any attention, he planned to stay on the periphery, but he hadn’t gotten far before individual tardigrades began to separate themselves out from the larger group. They seemed to position themselves between him and those nearest to themselves. They would rear up on their four hind legs and arch their heads down, emphasizing the horns that grew out from their frontal plates. He slowed and watched them. Each was protecting a smaller group within the larger herd, but none were moving towards him.

Unfortunately, the terrain of the beach drew him in closer to the bears. One of the bears stepped out and moved along side the rover. It reared up, placing its forelegs on the vehicle, like a dog trying to see over a fence. Tom watched it move around him on the external feeds. It seemed to be trying to look at the top. It came down and walked around the vehicle. It moved to the front and climbed up again. It ignored Tom, who sat only centimeters away on the other side of the windshield. Its underside did not have any plating, though there were skin folds around the legs. It climbed down, seemed satisfied and turned away. He was able to drive for several minutes before a second leader investigated him, this time without actually touching the rover. It walked in a semi-circle around the front and right side, pausing to rear up in a dominance display, and then turned its attention back to the water. They were all turning their attention to the water. That was just as well. Tom had driven as far as he could. If he was to get any further, he would have to do it on foot.

He stepped cautiously from the vehicle. He wasn’t far from the cliff face that Andre had fallen down, but there was a lot of rocky ground to cover. He watched the herd. They were quieting down considerably. A dull drone was all that was left of the earlier clamor. They were anticipating something. But what? He would worry about that once he had his crewmate.

The rocks were dry and bare. If he wasn’t in his suit, they would have been no impediment at all. Still, they didn’t slow him much. He could see Andre, face down amidst rock and rubble. Tom wanted to call out, but considered the silence. He didn’t want any attention now that he was outside the safety of the rover. From atop a rocky outcrop he could see the water stretched out before the bears. The surface glowed. It reminded him of the moon reflecting off the lake of his childhood. Tom hopped down and ran to the body. Whatever other injuries Andre had sustained during the fall, he had landed on his head. The visor plate was cracked and the connective brace between the neck and shoulders was buckled.

Tom knelt beside the body. Confirming what was already obvious, he accessed the data port on Andre’s left forearm. “Health status?”

There was no status to report.

He ran a check on the suit’s diagnostics. They were fine. Undamaged by the fall. Andre Lumin was dead. He reached down, intending to turn the body over, but stopped. Andre deserved better. Not some stupid accident. Tom stood and began to consider the situation.

He climbed back atop the outcrop. The water shone. “Natural optics.”

The Brisingamen lit up the night sky and the bears’ skin tones shone with a spectral glow in the light of their coral-like growths. The light in the water was not a reflection. Something under the water was moving closer to the shore. The bears began to push forward. The ones in the back now crowded in with the others and the ones in the front hurried into the water. He could hear their footsteps and the splashing of the water, but they had stopped making any noise at all.

Suddenly the source of the light emerged from the water. It swayed a bit as it climbed higher above the waves and was still some distance from shore. Only as a second one began to emerge did Tom realize what the first one was: a truly colossal tardigrade, at least thirty meters long. Nothing this big had walked on Earth for millions of years.

It upper body was a city of light. It seemed completely covered in the cones. A luminous reef, walking in from the sea. As the first approached the shore a third began to emerge. The bears on the shore rushed towards them, crowding their feet without fear. The second and the third also climbed up out of the water and were approaching the shore. They moved slowly. Tom wondered if it was because of their great size--did they require water for mobility?--or were they just being careful not to step on anyone?

With the first two were on the shore and the third close behind them, Tom stepped down from the rocks and began to make his way to the rover. One of the giants stopped. The other two looked to it. The hundreds of waiting bears stopped pushing forward. Tom was still. He watched the giant. The brightness of the cones on its head obscured its eyes. “It’s me,” he realized, “I’ve interrupted something.”

The giant began moving in his direction. Tom stood there and watched it approach. The bears made a path for it. Its size compensated for its seemingly slow movement, and it quickly covered the ground between them. A small group of bears came forward with it. They too were covered in the glowing pillars. Intuitively, Tom understood that they were herd leaders.

The group encircled him, standing shoulder to shoulder, as the giant stood over him. Looking up he could see the face and mouth of the giant. It reached out to him. His mind filled with images of suns and charts, routes and summers at the lake. He didn't know what to make of it. It was as though he had been asked a question he hadn't heard and was giving up answers he didn't understand. The journey to Idun. The landing. The arrival at the shore. Andre’s fall and his attempt to rescue him. The group now crowded in and he could see nothing but their faces pressed together and against him. He felt his heart beating, but he wasn’t afraid of them. A chorus of sound erupted. Things seemed to fold into themselves. For a moment everything went white, then black.

He woke up feeling the wind on his skin. He was lying in grass, unsure of what had happened. His suit was gone. So was Andre’s body. He sat naked in a field of grass.

The herd leaders gathered a few yards away. Stomping and murmuring, they were positioning themselves around a point he couldn't see. Their voices began to sing back and forth to one another. The pitch grew and modulated until it became the same sound he had heard while standing at the center. They bent space around themselves and blinked away. Again, it was as though his vision folded in on itself. A wave of vertigo washed over him. He held his eyes shut and buried his face in the grass.

The disorientation passed and he stood. He was at the lake of his childhood summers. What had just happened? Andre had met his spacefarers and Tom had been brought back to the place where he had first dreamed of space. Dreams, memories, aspirations. If the bears of Idun had no connection to Earth before, they certainly had one now. He felt the grass on his feet, the coolness of the early morning, and began to make his way towards the water.

World At Large: Kids These Days!

2011-04-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

I overheard someone complaining about the behaviour of teens. I live in a community where almost a fifth of the population is of retirement age, so that‘s hardly news. This time, however, the complaints were coming from someone who couldn’t have been much older than twenty. Still, not that surprising. As soon as children can talk, they start differentiating themselves from those younger than themselves. “I am not a baby!” is a complaint that starts with toddlers and seems to continue far into adulthood.

This month, to broaden the World At Large’s subject matter, I thought I’d look at something other than politics and consider this perennial complaint. Are kids ruder, more out of control, than they were when “we” were kids? The answer is no, but quoting statistics and studies never seems to quiet the critics, so instead I thought I’d look at a few of the reasons why we, young and old alike, are not like the polite, well mannered people of generations past.

Two of the most important reasons are wealth and democracy. They may seem like unlikely culprits, but manners were strongly connected to class and deference. The complex ordering of table utensils is a hold over from a time when good manners were a complicated part of everyday life. Well, complicated to us. The underlying principle was quite simple. Defer to the rich and powerful. Ignore the poor and minorities. As long as everyone knew who everyone else was, it wasn’t complicated at all. Would they really give up their seats to a lady? Sure, but they didn’t confuse ‘woman’ with ‘lady.’ They are not synonyms. A lady was a woman of property. The wife or daughter of a gentleman. A gentleman would not give his seat to the cleaning woman. He wouldn’t share a table with her in the first place. At one time not showing the proper deference had real consequences. Your ‘betters’ actually controlled your jobs, owned the land you lived on, and so forth, but as democracy spread, power shifted to the middle class and, nominally, at least, to everyone else. If we are all supposed to be equal, why would one person be privileged over another? Once the costs of poor manners disappeared, we lost a major incentive to exercise good manners.

Wealth is connected to class, but its also connected to privacy and personal space. Today, ideally at least, the parents are the only members of the family who share a room. Each kid has his own. In many families there is also more than one television and computer. And this has an important impact on good manners. In 1800 the average family had seven kids. By 1900 the average had dropped to four. Today the number of children per family averages out to one. When you had nine people, seven kids and two parents, living in a small, often one or two room, home, manners provided a formalized code of conduct that created a psychological space around each member. We don’t have those spaces now. We don’t need to create a space within ourselves, because we have it outside ourselves. If you want to get away and have some privacy, go to your room and close the door. Its right there. Only a century ago, only the wealthy could do that. Now it’s the norm. A well mannered life used to be a necessary part of our external and internal conduct. We needed it to get through our day. We don’t anymore.

Of course, beyond broad socio-political matters, if people were going to learn manners, they would have to be taught To be seen role modeled in our daily lives. And who is going to do that? The old couple down the street? When today’s seniors were kids, they weren’t running home to help mom and pop bring in the crops. No, they’d watch TV and listen to rock and roll. The teen as the suburban-television-watching-rock-and-roll-listening-juvenile-delinquent is a cliché that goes back over sixty years. Back then people were making the same complaints about kids we hear today, but kids then did have one advantage: the adults in their lives were willing to grow up and be adults. The Boomer generation is unique in wanting to celebrate and cling to its youth, but if Boomers are still young and hip, where does that leave their children--and, given how old many Boomers really are, their children’s children? Why they’re just babies. And you love babies, but treat them like equals? I don’t think so. And this brings us right back to the twenty year old complaining about teens. If we infantilize everyone under forty (or fifty, or sixty), we can hardly expect them to act like adults.

Donald On Marriage

2011-04-11T12:06:00.001-07:00

Hellboy Volume 7: The Troll Witch and Others (October 2007)

2011-04-01T06:21:00.001-07:00

Volume seven is a real boon to Hellboy fans, because it collects together a half dozen stories published outside the comic’s normal run. Four were published in a Dark Horse anthology series put out between 2003 and 2006. These were, in chronological order, The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings, of Witchcraft, of the Dead, and of Monsters. I’d read a couple of these in borrowed copies, but as big a fan as I am, I didn’t feel compelled to buy whole volumes for one story each. The three other stories include one published in Wizard, an original tale done specifically for this collection, and one two parter that actually was published in comic’s regular run.

Of the four gathered from the Dark Horse anthologies, “The Ghoul” and “Dr. Carp’s Experiment” are solid, if unremarkable, stories of Hellboy on assignment for the Bureau. All seven stories take place in the past, before our hero struck out on his own. ‘The Troll Witch” is easily the strongest and most effecting in the collection. Based on a Norwegian folktale, it tells the story of two sisters, one beautiful and one ugly. Or trollish. Hellboy is as much an audience member as the reader, but the story loses nothing for that. My favourite, however, is “The Hydra and the Lion,” which tells us the true story of one of the great figures of mythology. This story was done by both Mike Mignola and his daughter Katie. As far as I know, this story is their second collaboration. The other was “The Magician and the Snake” which won them an Eisner, making Katie, at age seven, the youngest person to win the award, and is collected in The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects. I enjoyed both stories enough to believe she could have a future following in her dad’s footsteps.

Two of the remaining stories are unconventional vampire tales. The first, “The Penanggalan,” is drawn from Malaysian folklore and tells the story of an old woman who accidentally kicked her own head off and now it leaves her body, with internal organs still attached, and goes out to suck the blood of the living. Another solid story, first published in Wizard, I think its principal strength is that is shows up a pre-modern revenant. The second is “The Vampire of Prague,” illustrated by P. Craig Russell and written for this collection. (The P stands for Philip, by the way.) It tells of a man who is cursed to feast on the living until he can be beaten at cards. Russell was a good choice for a story that takes place in Prague. Its architecture and his art both invoke a fairy tale atmosphere. The story is a humorous one. Its moral: don’t give weapons of mass destruction to Hellboy.

The last story is “Makoma.” Other than a few introductory and concluding pages, which were done by Mignola, it is illustrated by Richard Corben. Mignola says that he found this story in an Andrew Lang Fairy Tale book, but couldn’t remember which one. Luckily, I own all the Lang books and can tell you that it’s the first story in The Orange Fairy Tale Book, 1906, “The Story of the Hero Makoma.” He’s a Zimbabwean fold hero. The comic book version was published in two issues in 2006. The first half follows the original tale fairly closely, though in it the hero gained the powers of each giant he defeated, but the second half is all Mignola. This marks the first Hellboy story from Corben, he’s done a few since, and a move by Mignola away from illustrating. His return has been announce, but in the five years since this story, he has not been the principle artist of his creation.

Yes, People Are Strange

2011-03-30T21:19:00.001-07:00

Godzilla: King Of Monsters #1

2011-03-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

Oops! When I did my March round up, I missed one. I was looking at my pull list and forgot all about a special new issue, Godzilla: King of Monsters. My local, Curious Books and Comics, was one of many shops who chose to get stepped on by Godzilla in an effort to boost sales. It certainly boosted the store's profile. More than one person, with zero interest in comics, but aware that I am a customer, had heard about the issue and asked me if I knew about it. And when I brought my copy back to work--I picked it up on my coffee break--a lot of people were checking it out and saying that it was a great idea.

Now, personally I am no fan of the giant rubber dinosaur, so I won't be buying more issues, but the first one was good. He shows up and immediately sets to tearing Tokyo apart. The only head scratcher for me was seeing the Japanese use nukes, but I guess that's only slightly less likely than a giant fire-breathing dino. If you do like Godzilla, he is off to a solid start.

March’s Comics

2011-03-24T22:11:00.000-07:00

Good news! I’ve come up with a great get-rich-quick scheme: pay me not to read your favourite comic! That’s right. Give me money or you’ll never see it again! Pretty much every comic I on my pull list gets delayed and delayed and delayed. This month I was supposed to get Infinite Vacation #2. Ha! B.P.R.D. is the only one that comes out on anything like a monthly schedule. Sure I want to move away from monthlies and towards trades, but if I hadn’t added a couple things this month I would have bought a grand total of two comics this past month. Two. I am not ready for that yet.

B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth: Gods #3: Wow! This arc may have only been three issues long, but its been a great arc. A lot of people complained that the last one, King of Fear, which was meant to complete a much longer arc, was a bit of a let down. It certainly made for a dull finish. This one should have been the official end. Great cliff hanger and a huge question mark over the actions of Fenix and Devon. Were they right? What do they know?

Batgirl 18 & 19: I had dropped Batgirl and all my other Bat-titles over the last two months, but since I was looking for something to beef up my comics reading I put Steph back on the list. Batgirl may not pull a lot of weight in the DCU. Its actions won’t see any consequences outside its own covers, but if you’re looking for a monthly comics fix this is a reliable, upbeat place to go.

They were both solid issues, but I enjoyed issue 18 more. Klarion and Batgirl made for a delightfully funny duo. I particularly like Steph’s little confrontation in Limbo Town. Actually, I liked a lot of things in this issue and laughed out loud more than once. Steph’s quips are starting to remind me of a well written Peter Parker. (Come to think of it, if you throw in her time management problems…) Issue 19 strikes a more serious tone and seems to be bringing elements from earlier issues to a head. it’s the first of a two part-er. For those who’ve read it, please tell that’s meant to be a Bat-Mini Coop and not a Bat-SUV!

Casanova Gula #3: Two very strong issues--and that's in spite of the first half being too quick a read. In a nutshell, we get an attack on E.M.P.I.R.E.'s lunar base in the first half and the aftermath in the second. We also lay the seeds for some serious debate/dissension about what it means to be human. Something I hope to see explored in future arcs.

Each of these reprints has included an interview and this issue's is with Brendan McCarthy, who has returned to comics after twenty years in film and television. Very interesting.

Who Is Jake Ellis? #1 & 2: I also picked up the first two issues of Who Is Jake Ellis?, a new title about a former CIA analyst, Jon Moore, who was detained by persons unknown and escaped due to the mysterious Mr Ellis. That makes it sound a lot more conventional than it is. Ellis is a shadow-like figure than only Moore can see or hear. Moore has been successfully hiding for a few years now, but as our adventure begins his covers blown and everyone is after him.

So that’s March. A good month, all-in-all, even if I did have to bulk up my pull list.

Brendan Mccarthy On Hipsterism

2011-03-16T17:30:00.000-07:00

These days Hipsterism is a totally safe position, it's just a commodified critique designed to bestow a neutered cultural superiority on some "ironic" smart-asses. It's become a "savvy understanding" of no consequence.

Interview with Matt Fraction, Casanova: Gula (2011) #3

Simon Pegg And Nick Frost As C-3P0 and R2-D2

2011-03-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

The Real Heroes Of The Japanese Quake

2011-03-15T19:27:00.001-07:00

Of course, there are many, many heroes, but these 50 guys are the top of my list. They are the workers inside the burning reactors. The ones trying to bring it under control. They know what they're doing, so they know they're going die. Some right away, others in a few months, but for the ones actually inside the nuclear plant cancer and radiation poisoning are all but certain.

B.P.R.D. Volume 6: The Universal Machine (January 2007)

2011-03-13T22:12:00.001-07:00

Its been more than a month since I posted the last volume. I wrote up a synopsis for this one, 1200 words and counting, and then decided to scrap it. That’s way too much synopsis. This project started as a reading group. That group eventually dwindled down to yours truly. I don’t intend to stop, I still enjoy it as a writing project, but I’ve got to work on its direction and find a new balance regarding synopsis, review, and discussion points--which hardly seem necessary if I’m the only one talking.

The Universal Machine provides the respite the series needed after two very intense volumes. There are two plot lines: Kate and Devon travel to France in a last bid effort to save Roger, while Ben, Liz, Abe, and Johann sit around and tell “sad ghost stories.” Liz tells one about the death of her family. Its touching, but it doesn’t break any new ground. The other three introduce characters and ideas we will see again, but the story most likely to grab the reader’s attention is Ben’s. He finally gets around to telling them about how he came to spend three days in a body bag. In involves a botched rescue mission in Bolivia, in which his team was killed and half his face was bitten off. Lying there dying he sees a monkey-like creature with the face of a Japanese doll. We’ve seen this creature twice before. The first time was in that same photo album where we met the Black Flame. It was with a woman (whom I assume to have been a Japanese Axis agent) called the Crimson Lotus. The second time was during the Gunter Eiss story. Ben found the creature in a formaldehyde jar and secretly took it. The monkey doll contacts headquarters and apprises them of the team’s situation. Then Ben sees something completely different: a jaguar spirit, with its heart bared like a sacred heart Jesus statuette, reveals himself to Ben and tells him, “The old world is your soul. Leave it there. It is old. The new world is life. Take your life.” That’s when he cuts himself out of the body bag.

In France Kate and Devon--this is the first time we meet Andrew Devon, but he becomes a regular member of the team--travel to a village where they hope to purchase a rare alchemic text that they hope will to tell how to resurrect Roger. Of course it isn’t that simple. These things never are. They don’t get the book and everyone is forced to face the reality of Roger’s death. This comes with a five page epilogue drawn by Mignola himself. Johann finally reaches Roger and realizes that he is in a better place. A happier, more peaceful one. His only request is that he gets a funeral. A proper one, befitting the man he never really was. Each of these stories deals with death. Its finality and its enigmatic nature. Roger, who was never a living creature, is truly dead. Sometimes, even in comic books, dead is dead.

There were things that didn’t really work for me. When we first see Abe he’s in his room, moping at an old desk, and wearing a red velvet smoking jacket. I know its meant to invoke his 19th century origins, but I kept thinking ‘Abe Hefner?’ But that’s at the beginning of the book. By the time we reach the end Mignola and Arcudi have successfully woven together the many stories into a poignant look at loss.

World At Large: 2011: The Arab 1848

2011-03-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

The power of ideas is a cliché we have all grown accustom to, but rarely has the reality been more evident than in the last two months. Throughout the Arab world, from country to country to country, people have rallied and governments have fallen. Over the last decade there has been a lot of focus on the Arab-Islamic world. Much of it, spinning out of 9-11, has been negative, but whatever the talking heads might have said about them, these protests have made clear what the Arab peoples really want: freedom and democracy.

Protests like this have happened before. In 1848 an eerily similar wave of popular uprisings swept Europe. Through France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Denmark, and central Europe, people rose up against their monarchies and demanded their liberty. There were no parties or individuals behind it, but in each country the solution to the day’s problems seemed to have one answer: freedom. In France protests and political gatherings were forbidden, but when soldiers fired on a group that refused to disperse, the rioting which followed brought down a king and ushered in a new republic. In Italy the Sicilians freed themselves of the King of Naples and
instituted representative democracy, in central Italy a new Pope, Pius IX, began to free political prisoners and reform the local government, and in the north the Italians rose up against their Austrian master’s repressive rule. The Hungarians demanded autonomy from Vienna. The Germans demanded an end to their petty kingdoms and a unified government. The Poles, the Romanians, everyone wanted reform, and while the various movements were not connected to one another, the idea that they deserved better than the authoritarian traditions that went back centuries caught fire and spread across the continent.

This time it began in Tunisia, when a street vendor was denied the right to sell his vegetables. Without any hope for feeding himself or his family, he set himself on fire. Anger at the pettiness of officials exploded everywhere and the unimaginable happened: the government fell. If it could happen in a backwater like Tunisia, why not here? Demonstrations swept across North Africa and the Arab world. In Egypt a strong man of thirty years was forced out and, as I write this, Libya’s protests have ratcheted up to a civil war. There are no opposition leaders. No heir apparent. The people want change and they are fighting, and dying, to get it.

Will they get it? Within three years of the Europe’s “Springtime of the Peoples” the counter revolutionaries had overturned all of the gains made in 1848. The French had a new monarchy. The King of Naples retook Sicily. Sometimes the old warhorse of international relations, Stability, was brought back from the outside. The French, even while celebrating their own spring, aided the Austrians in putting down the revolutions in northern Italy. The Russians ended Hungary’s revolution. The Ottomans Romania’s. Many activists and intellectuals fled Europe, but there was something the reactionaries could not restore. Tradition and Divine Right were no longer strong enough platforms on which to support the state, and as the years passed more and more rights were ceded to the people. Not everywhere and not evenly, but freedom and democracy were now the norm and anything else the exception that had to be rationalized and explained.

It was less than twelve weeks ago that many intellectuals and foreign policy makers took for granted that Clash of Civilizations view of Western-Islamic relations. Two worlds, one of which valued individualism and personal freedoms, another that was tribal, religious and violent. The strong men who dominated the last fifty years were often horrible and violent despots, but that was what cost of Stability. We want the oil kept flowing. We want peace and security. It was either the Ben Alis, Mubaraks, and Gaddafis, or the Khomeinis and Muslim Brotherhoods. A choice of despots, but despots nevertheless. Those rationalizations have been swept away these past three months. Even if the Arab world’s springtime is pushed back as quickly as Europe’s, we have been shown that the values we have always told ourselves were universal are indeed universal. People want to determine the course of their own lives, whatever their culture or religion, and we can either support that or be as culpable as their past leaders for the harm that follows.

Is Christian Bale's Batman A Prequel To Adam West's?

2011-03-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

Over at CBR Bill Reed makes an argument that's just so crazy... it might be true!

Thanks to The Hub, I’ve been treated to an episode of the brilliant 1960s Batman TV show just about every night of the week. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen many of these stories, and I’m positively delighted to experience them once again. Being a tenth-level geek, however, has the back of my mind spinning, weaving together connections between the campy pop series and later Bat-lore. The inspiration it provided the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher films seems readily apparent– Batman Returns borrows a plot from a Penguin episode, Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze may as well be Otto Preminger’s, etc– but what could 60s Batman possibly have in common with the grim avenger from the current Bat-flicks? Why, quite a bit, actually.

You see, I’ve determined that Christopher Nolan’s Bat-films take place in the same continuity as the Adam West-led series. Yes– they are prequels, and I can prove it!

And does he? Read the rest of the article here and decide for yourself!

February’s Comics

2011-02-26T19:17:00.000-08:00

DC Comics Presents: Batman : Conspiracy #1: This is the second DC Comics Presents special I’ve picked up featuring the art of J. H. Williams III. Gotta wonder if they’re trying to raise interest in his upcoming Batwoman comic. This one features two stories. The first is a three issue tale from the now defunct Legends of the Dark Knight, written by Doug Moench. Bats is on the trail of cultic serial killers with mob connections. The case takes him to L.A., which is unusual. All-in-all a good story, but Batman is a little out of character at times. He trusts someone too much, and he almost seems to doubt himself at times. I can believe him utterly failing before I can believe him doubting himself. The art here is inked by Mick Gray and consequently doesn’t look like the Williams we’ve come to know. Its still strong. I don’t mean to imply Gray ruins it in any way. Its just different. The second tale, taken from Detective Comics, is one I’ve read before. Written by Dini, its just okay. Very pretty, but just okay. A strength of both stories is that Batman, the world’s greatest detective, does lots of detecting.

B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth Gods #2: A very good issue. It ends at the same point as the last issue, telling the same story from the Bureau's perspective, and then takes us just one more panel further. Can’t wait to see what happens next!

Bonus points for giving Prof. O'Donnell time to actually say something.

Casanova Gula #2: Lots of sex and violence and sex. The sceptic in me wonders if this was to distract from Fraction's move away from the original Fell format (a highly condensed story, told in fewer pages, and sold for less money). By the end of this arc his pacing will be pretty normal.

Hellboy: Sleeping & Dead #2: Our hero doesn't do much besides hit things and nothing happens that you don't see coming a mile off, but still an enjoyable conclusion to the last issue's story. I particularly liked the running gag about getting out of the car.

Red Robin #20 & Teen Titans #92: Meh. I think they've taken the post-Identity Crisis Calculator a bit too far. First the techno-zombies in Batgirl, now robot duplicates all over the world. His IQ seems to rise as the story demands and its getting a little thin. He’s not Lex Luthor people! Also, Krul doesn’t make the best use of Damien. When written correctly, he’s great at taking the air out of Gotham’s too tightly wound Dark Knight(s). When he isn’t, he just comes across as a whiny brat.

Question: When you remove a band-aid, do you do it slowly, hoping to minimize the pain, or do you just yank it off? This week I did a lot of yanking. I dropped four titles. Not a lot for many of you, but a third of my entire pull list. Gone are Batman Inc, Batman: The Dark Knight, Streets of Gotham, and Red Robin. I know there’s only been one issue of Dark Knight. I had intended to get the first arc, but there was nothing in issue one that said ‘You need this book!’ There’s only one issue of Streets to go, but I’d really lost interest a long time ago and I don’t think I need to waste another $2.99 just to have a complete run. Inc and Red Robin were both fine, but neither were gripping me. I may check out the trades later. We’ll see.

That only leaves eight titles on my pull list and two of them, Batwoman and Dark Horse Presents, aren’t even out yet: The others are B.P.R.D., Casanova, Hellboy, Infinite Vacation, Mouse Guard and Rasl. Only two of those are published by the Big Two, Batwoman and Casanova, which is put out by a Marvel imprint. That my lowest level since 2004, when I started reading Identity Crisis and then expanded my reading into the greater DCU. I’ve been on capes binges before, often Gotham-centric, but never for this long. I don’t mind getting off that train. What I do mind is not getting out to my local. Its ingrained: Wednesday is comic book day. But for the last two months I’ve only had stuff to pick up every other week. One look at my pull list will tell you it’s not going to get better. B.P.R.D. is the only title that has anything like a monthly schedule. I keep telling myself that I want to switch to trades, and the number of series I follow in trade format is twice as long, but I just can’t seem to break the weekly habit. In fact, I no sooner cancelled the four above than I asked my local to get me issue one of Who Is Jake Ellis? Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

Comics Archive Video

2011-02-23T18:16:00.000-08:00

What have I been doing with myself (given that I haven't been blogging)? One thing I've been doing is watching the growing number of very interesting video interviews at Comics Archive. Here's Denny O'Neil comparing writing on computers versus writing on typrwriters:

Denny O'Neil Compares Writing on Typewriters and Computers from The Comic Archive on Vimeo.

Godzilla Destroys My Local Comics Shop

2011-02-11T18:14:00.001-08:00

How's that for a promotional idea!

Bias

2011-02-10T11:54:00.000-08:00

Apparently there is a liberal bias in the social sciences. No. Really. I read it in the New York Times. According to Dr. Jonathan Haidt, University of Virginia, liberals not only make up a very large majority, eighty percent, but form a tribal-moral community that effectively excludes outsiders. Being a liberal he calls for inclusion, even of conservatives.

B.P.R.D. Volume 5: The Black Flame (July 2006)

2011-02-10T11:43:00.001-08:00

The last B.P.R.D. volume saw some big changes within the group and nothing slows down in this one. In spite of the Bureau’s plan to get ahead of the frogs by taking up a new, western stronghold, the frog invasion continues and continues to ramp up on a greater and greater scale, aided by a new ally.

Roger enters a new phase in this book. Daimio has really imprinted on him. Almost overnight he becomes a cigar chewing hardcase and a leader of men. We’re introduced to the new Roger right away, when he and Daimio lead a Liz and a group of Bureau security operatives (I don’t think I’ve ever seen an official term for their foot soldiers) into a sewer to take out a nest. They discover some frogs who have become little more than giant, swollen egg sacs, filled with tadpoles. This is interesting. Up to this point the only time we’ve seen new frogs is when someone has been transformed. Now we see that the frogs themselves reproduce and, given the size of the egg sacs, it is possible that few of the frog men the Bureau are fighting were ever anything but frogs. A few of the tadpoles survive. They fall through a grate, where they are scooped up by a man in a hazmat suit and put into a medical samples case. The case is labelled ‘Zinco.’

Roderick Zinco may be gone, but his company is back in the game. Once again it is playing Hydra to the Bureau’s S.H.I.E.L.D. (though the Bureau itself seems blissfully unaware of its supplier’s hidden agenda). Zinco is now headed by a man named Pope, who is burning through company resources in an effort to become the leader of the frog men. To that end he has gone to considerable lengths to study them. Capturing and observing live specimens. Working to understand and communicate with them. Reading these pages I was struck by an obvious question: why isn’t the Bureau doing this? Perhaps its an organizational culture inherited from Bruttenholm, one of dusty libraries and séances. Or maybe they have so many humanized ‘monsters’ working with them that they feel that fighting and killing is one thing, but treating them like lab rats is just too inhumane. Interestingly, the head of Zinco’s research is named Marsten. I don’t know why they’d name a character after Wonder Woman’s creator. It could be a coincidence, or there could be a backstory we haven’t heard yet.

Another backstory we haven’t heard is the Black Flame’s. In the previous trade, Johann is seen flipping through a photo album of World War Two era occult villains. One is labelled ‘The Black Flame.’ Maybe Pope has some connection. Maybe the frogs do. Whatever the case is, Pope re-creates this persona in his plan to take over the leadership of the frogs. In the meantime, he isn’t ignoring the Bureau. One of his first acts as the Black Flame is to lead the frogs in a battle against Roger and a group of security men. Its a trap with no survivors. Even Roger is left looking like a piece of broken statuary.

If Roger’s storyline is ending, Liz is beginning a new one. It begins in Montana, where an old woman hands her a lotus blossum. She passes out. Swoons, really. And for the first time enters a waking dream state where she meets a, as yet unidentified, man dressed as a Chinese Mandarin. At least as imagined by Sax Rohmer. These visions become increasingly important. In this trade alone she learns several important things during them. After one she wakes in a coughing fit and brings up a scroll one which is written the name of a huge beast ravaging the American west. So huge is dwarfs traditional giant monsters like Godzilla or King Kong. Katha-Hem. The scroll isn’t in English and the name is recognized by Professor O’Donnell. O’Donnell seems to know a lot more than he’s ever given the opportunity to tell us. He needs to be sedated and questioned thoroughly. The doctor’s response to the coughed up scroll? “That’s unusual.” That’s unusual?! Another vision shows Liz the tool needed to destroy Katha-Hem. Its something Roger picked up in a previous story, but was never remarked on. Roger was always picking things up. A little Palaeolithic tool that Liz sees used in a vision. Using it she unleashes a force that saves the day, and destroys the dreams of the Black Flame.

Whatever Pope thought would happen once he became the Black Flame, he soon understands that he is only a pawn. He thought the power of Katha-Hem would be his to wield, but really his flame was meant to be a beacon for Katha-Hem. He thought he was using the frogs, but the frogs were using him. Once this revelation hits him, he is reduced to a pathetic child and carried off by the frogs.

Despite their great victory, things at the Bureau aren’t any happier. A lot of people blame themselves for Roger’s death. Abe thinks the funk he’s been in since learning of his wife put Roger out in the field more often than he was ready for. Daimio thinks his example was the problem. Johann is incensed at what he sees as the lack of respect given Roger’s remains by the lab boys. Johann refuses to see his friend as dead. Unfortunately, that says more of his ectoplasmic state than it does Roger’s.

The Black Flame is an interesting book, and so much happens so quickly you have to wonder if Mignola and Arcudi are trying to see just how far they push things with each issue. Will the pace continue? How far can they push it? The Bureau isn’t a secretive organization, as it is in the movies, but it had operated in the shadows until now. It was the thing that bumped back at the things that bumped in the night. With the scope taken in this volume, that’s not really going to be possible any more and I think there’s going to be a steep learning curve ahead. As this book closes, however, I think everyone is just trying to catch their breath.

World At Large: The Silent Majority

2011-02-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

One month ago Representative Gabrielle Giffords was meeting constituents in a supermarket in Tucson when a gun man walked up and shot her in the head. He shot nineteen people in all, killing six, including a young child and a federal judge.

Like most people I was appalled. I was angered at the disingenuity of the right wing media, who have long made the baneful influence of media a central plank in their promotion of family values, but seem incapable of weighing the influence of their own behaviour. I also wondered about the apparent collapse of American civil society, the shared values that allow people with widely differing views to live peaceably together.

And like most people I moved on. Right now Middle East unrest has everyone’s attention. Will Mubarak fall? How violent will it get? How much further will this unrest spread? And why not? After all, violence isn’t anything new in America. Much of its nation building was been at the barrel of a gun: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the many Indian Wars. Four of its presidents have been murdered. One senator was beaten almost to death on the floor of the Senate chambers itself. But I wouldn’t be writing about it now if it didn’t still bother me. How could things come to this? Is it an isolated incident? Given the four dead presidents and the many threats US politicos face, it obviously isn’t. Is it the Right’s fault? The Lefts? Personally, I think its time we placed the blame squarely where it belongs, with the great silent majority.

Remember the silent majority? It’s a phrase Nixon coined in 1968. He wasn’t courting the support of the protestors in the streets, no, he was relying of the great number of Americans who didn’t like the way things were going and felt ignored by the media. It was a winning strategy, and in the decade to follow the right worked hard to capitalize on it, but the truth is the majority has remained largely silent. In a country that teaches its citizenry that they live in the greatest democracy in the world, most people don’t care. If a president isn’t on the ballot fewer than half even bother to turn up. And no one cares that no one cares. People’s eyes glaze over then you start talking about voter turn out. Those in power are happy about the situation. They’d never say it, but they consistently block any attempt to widen participation.

You have to wonder at the health of a system when most people feel so alienated from their representatives--and that’s who your politicians are, your representatives--that they look on government as something totally divorced from their reality. But it isn’t hard to see where the hate comes from when you consider the long tradition of distrust Americans have towards government. Thomas Paine called it a necessary evil and for two hundred years Americans haven’t been debating whether he was right or wrong, but how much of this evil is really necessary. Disenfranchisement, real or imagined, is a part of American civil society.

Now America isn’t Egypt, or China, or any one of a number of countries in which change isn’t going to happen from within the system. If you think the country’s in the proverbial hand basket, you can do something about it. Mark Twain once said, “A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.” Likewise, a person who won’t vote has no advantage over one who can’t vote and a person who won’t act has no advantage over someone who can’t. Politicians, with very few exceptions, are not known for their moral courage. If enough people make up their minds to support something, government leaders will rush to the head of the crowd and gleefully announce that they were on our side all the time. But if people keep their collective mouths shut, they are ignored. And that’s the problem. Indifference, apathy, disillusionment, whatever you want to call it, the fact is most American’s are most content to complain than act. Even if acting means little more than casting a vote. US economic growth is anemic. Its international influence is waning. A prosperous, well educated nation is spinning its wheels. And a huge number of its citizens are silent. If you think right, of left, wing-nuts are in charge of the asylum, take a moment and consider if you’re one of the people who gave them the key.

Canada Reads

2011-02-06T12:51:00.000-08:00

Its time! Canada Reads starts tomorrow.

I've blogged about this before, but once a year CBC radio invites five well known Canadians to defend the book they think every one should read. Things were a little different this year, its the tenth anniversary, and the most important difference was that the show broke out of its typical Can Lit rut and nominated a graphic novel. Sara Quin, of Tegan and Sara, will be defending Jeff Lemire's Essex County.

Now Can Lit (that's Canadian Literature) is one of the most hide-bound and parochial genres out there. I know this. I have been a Canadian bookseller for more than ten years. If there is one book listeners to this program are going to resist, its this one. I would be very disappointed, but not at all surprised, if this one the first voted off the show. So say a prayer, spin your prayer wheel, think happy thoughts, do whatever you can and give some support for Quin and Lemire.

UPDATE: Essex was the first one voted off. Why? Because its a graphic novel. Full points to Quin for trying, but if you listen to the comments of the other panel members, its obvious they were never going to give it a fair shot.

Godland Celestial Edition Two

2011-01-31T10:48:00.001-08:00

Writer: Joe Casey, Artist: Tom Scioli
Published by Image, 2010

I can’t believe its only been three years since the last Celestial Edition. It feels like so much longer. For those few who don’t know the series, Godland is Casey and Scioli’s cosmic space adventure and the story of Adam Archer. Archer was the only survivor of our disastrous first manned mission to Mars. He survived only because of an encounter that transformed him into a cosmic superhero. Returned to Earth, the Pentagon has put him, and his sisters, up in the Infinity Tower. While publicly hailing him as a hero, the military, and much of the public, fear and distrust Archer and he knows it. The cast is rounded out with Archer’s sisters, a very entertaining Rogue’s gallery, and the expected alien visitors.

Volume two focuses on the dynamics within the Archer family. Adam’s sister Neela was an astronaut herself, picked for the next Mars mission, only to see it and her career sidelined after the failure of Adam’s mission. She spent the first Edition resenting having to live in her brother’s shadow and took a radical step towards regaining control of her own life. The consequence of that decision plays out here, aliens try to destroy the Earth, and his Rogues… well, they seem lost in a sub-plot and don’t really bring as much to this volume as they did to the first. There is certainly no ‘Violence is the new black.’ I missed that, but you shouldn’t take it as a criticism of the book. Casey does a great job of keeping us entertained, engrossed, and turning pages. My only real problem with it was the cover art. I mean, why Lucky? He’s a C list character at best. Artistically we do see Scioli making some big changes. Kirby’s influence character design is toned down and a much more delicate line is adopted. The characters stop being blocky and become… willowy is the word that comes to mind. It took me a couple of issues to get used to it, but the people certainly look a lot better.

In a market flooded with oversized, hardcover editions, this book is a high water mark. Beyond the twelve issues, for much less than the Big Two charge for these collections, we get a lot of extras; including an extended essay on the series, individual interviews with the creators, an issue by issue commentary by Casey and Scioli, and more! The commentary is especially interesting. They steer away from just trying to sell you a book you’ve already bought and discuss real problems and changes in the series.

I have always enjoyed cosmic adventures myself. When I was a kid, way back in the 70s, Starlin’s runs on Captain Marvel and Warlock were two of my three favourites. In fact, The night I first started reading it I had a dream that was obviously inspired by this comic. That’s not something that happens to me--I can’t think of another comics inspired dream--but that’s Godland. It gets in your head. Its just the sort of ambitious, joyous, mad adventure you want to read when you open a comic.

Hellboy Volume 6: Strange Places (April 2006)

2011-01-24T10:13:00.001-08:00

Its been four years since the last Hellboy trade. There have been four B.P.R.D. trades, but what people really want to know is, Where is Big Red?

Last time we saw him he was headed to Africa and that’s where we find him, but rather than take us on that journey we join him right at the end. The first of the two stories that make up this volume, ‘The Third Wish,’ begins there, but almost immediately it wipes him from African soil. Pretty much literally. The second, ‘The Island,’ continues where the first left off, albeit an unspecified time later.

‘The Island’ tells a fascinating story, but isn’t really a story in itself. In the intro Mignola writes that he put this story together because he wanted to tell the true origin of the Ogdru Jahad. We’d seen a version in the movie. Now he wanted to give us the real thing. He had long sorted it out for himself, but he had consistently been teasing readers with little bits of information. In volume one we see Hellboy’s birth and learn of the Ogdru Jahad. In volume two we meet Hecate and learn more of Hellboy’s nature and destiny, but everything is eluded to. Nothing’s explicit. In the third volume the story ‘The Chained Coffin’ introduces his parents. In the next trade we got ‘The Nature of the Beast’ and ‘Box Full of Evil,’ which are, again, full of implications and ‘The Right Hand of Doom’ reprises much of what we’ve learned and points our attention to his stone hand. Finally volume five adds the idea that the frogs represent a new race of man. In ‘The Island’ Hellboy meets the spirit of a centuries old priest, who once marched along side Spain’s Conquistadors. In the New World he came upon an ancient temple and learned the true story of the creation of the world, man’s origin, and pretty much everything. Naturally the Inquisition was having none of it.

Here he relates that story to Hellboy. As I mentioned in my first entry, Mignola draws on a diversity of sources, including I Enoch and Theosophy. Those influences are at the forefront here. How God set the Watchers over His creation and how one of them reached out with his hand, took the fire of creation and, with the others, created the Ogdru Jahad. They, in turn, created the Ogdru Hem. Horrified, the Watchers first warred against their creation and then turned against the Watcher who had started it all, cutting him up and destroying everything but his hand. The hand that had taken the fire, first created the Ogdru Jahad and then imprisoned it. The priest then tells Hellboy the bloody history of what is now his right hand. Naturally Hellboy is having none of it.

‘The Third Wish’ is Mignola’s take on ‘The Little Mermaid.’ Interestingly the genesis of the story began with a Sub-mariner story idea he had when working for Marvel in the early 80s. It starts with Hellboy in Africa, visiting the witch doctor Mohlomi. The night of the visit he dreams of three lion spirits who warn him to leave the continent at once. In the morning he finds himself somehow transported to the sea coast, where a giant wave sweeps him out to sea. This is the work of the Bog Roosh, a sea hag with magical powers. There are mermaids and wishes in the story, but the Bog Roosh’s main goal is capturing Hellboy and the destruction of that right hand of his before it brings about the end of the world. You guessed it, he’s having none of it.

This is a great story, and it immediately brings to mind the many shorter stories in which Mignola has successfully invoked the feeling of a traditional fairy tale, rather than a comic book adventure. And he’s done it as a longer, two issue piece. It would be great to see him do more like it, but, unfortunately, this book also marks the end of Mignola’s run as his own series’ primary artist. He has continued to do shorter pieces and remains the cover artist, but from this point on a variety of other artists would begin to illustrate the stories. None of them would earn a place akin to Davis’ on B.P.R.D., though many of them have something interesting to bring to the table.

January’s Comics

2011-01-22T19:57:00.000-08:00

Shape of things to come. Although there were four Wednesdays in January, I only had comics to pick up on two of those days. I’ve got nothing coming this week; which is why I can review the whole month now. As I shift towards trades, there will, theoretically, at least, be more and more Wednesdays when I have no reason to go to the shop. I have a dozen monthlies on my pull list, but only six came out in January.

B.P.R.D.: Hell On Earth: Gods #1: Solid beginning to a new arc. It introduces a new female character, who'll no doubt be replacing Liz. The only time a regular character turns up is for the final panel. My one complaint: titles should never have more than one colon.

Batgirl #17: A fun issue in which nothing important happens. Its just Stephanie and Damien interacting and getting in trouble (and saving the day). It doesn't feel like money wasted, but its totally disposable fun. In fact, after reading it I decided to put this one on the trade only list. Hopefully they will make more of an effort to put them into trade than they did Cassandra’s run.

Batman Streets of Gotham #19: Not bad. In fact, it is better than most issues lately. But this story arc wraps up with the next issue and then I am dropping it too. I picked this one up during the whole Batman Reborn run and never really intended to read it this long.

Casanova: Gula #1: Reprints the first two issues of the Image run and adds an interview with Bryan Lee O'Malley. It's interesting to re-read this knowing the answer to the question everyone is asking, "When is Casanova Quinn?" The story practically screams the answer on every page, but I’m not going to spoil anything for you here.

Infinite Vacation #1: Very good and an interesting idea. If there exists a multitude of alternative dimensions, each determined by the choices you’ve made, or could have made, what if you could buy the experience of living one of those other lives? And what if they had an app for that?

Red Robin #19: Like Batgirl this is also disposable fun. But it is fun. Comics like this have me wondering if my superhero phase, which has pretty much dried up over the years, is completely over. I mean, I liked it, but I don't need it. One more issue and its done. That’s three series drawing to rapid ends. Soon the upcoming Batwoman will be my only superhero comic (and I am getting that one for the art’s sake). Also: for those who like to follow DC's proofing mishaps, this comic refers to the next issue as #21. As in "Next: The Teen Titans Crossover Begins In Red Robin #21! Red Robin Vs. Catman!" Guys, even in the DCU its 19, 20, 21.

The Hunger Games

2011-01-21T19:18:00.000-08:00

by Suzanne Collins
Published by Scholastic, 2010

The latest “next big thing” in young adult fiction, following Harry Potter and Twilight, has been Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, a solid and enjoyable adventure story.

It is set in a post-apocalyptic America, ruled by an advanced city located in the Rocky Mountains, which has divided the rest of the country into twelve regions and dominates them through the distribution of food stuffs and the Hunger Games. One boy and one girl from each region is drawn by lot and flown to a designated location where they are required to fight to the death. There can only be one survivor. The Games are nationally televised and viewing is compulsory.

This sounds a lot like Koshun Takami’s Battle Royale, in which a repressive regime rounds up a classroom of kids each year and subjects them to a nationally televised fight to the death, but Collins’ inspiration is the story of the Minotaur. Many have heard of the maze and the monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man, but not many know that its story included a debt by the city of Athens. Athens had to pay Minos a tribute of seven boys and seven girls, drawn by lot. Upon their arrival the children were led to the maze and fed to the monster. This happened every year, or every nine years (depending on which version of the story you’re reading) until Theseus volunteered to kill the beast. I’ve only read the first book and don’t know how much further Collins has gone in integrating her source material into the trilogy, but she has introduced the concept of human-animal mutations and our hero is a volunteer.

That hero, Katniss Everdeen, is the weakest part of the story. Katniss is a poor girl from the poorest region and she spends a great deal of time telling us of her daily hardships. Following her father’s death the family was pushed to the brink of starvation, but apart from that one, admittedly traumatic, event her family has actually done quite well for itself. She is a successful hunter (well, poacher), her sister has a goat, that provides milk and cheese, and her mother has an apothecary business. She’s gifted, well liked, and beautiful, but you’d never know that to listen to her. One character describes her as “sullen”--resentful, sulking--and she certainly is that. She’s a teen, of course, but still.

Another problem is her unwillingness to kill. When she does it is only under the greatest duress. Outside the context of a battle to the death, this would be admirable, but she is in a battle to the death. This is pretty standard in comic book adventures. The protagonist isn’t simply the main character, he’s the hero. To save her heroine from getting her hands unnecessarily bloodied Collins has to put clever plotting ahead of character development, but that’s pretty standard in genre writing and I doubt many who pick up this book are going to mind.

Blog Revision #1,248

2011-01-21T19:09:00.000-08:00

I don't know how many times I've fidgeted with things here. Today I condensed three lists of links (links, blogs, and webcomics) into one, Quick Links. Some of the links were old (Journalista is no more), some webcomics were never updated (you know who you are), and I thought I'd switch around some of the blogs I follow. I haven't stopped following the ones that aren't listed. I just thought I'd mix'em up a bit. I also added a couple of links to blogs featuring interesting artists, JH Williams and Moebius (Quenched Consciousness).

I am also in the process of deleting many of the labels I have been using. I want to simplify things.

Advances In Robot Fish

2011-01-19T21:00:00.000-08:00

Seriously. Robot fish.

The Incredible Robot Fish from Northwestern News on Vimeo.

The World At Large To Return

2011-01-14T11:54:00.000-08:00

For 14 months, ending in December 2007, I contributed articles to a webzine called subter. For the last three months I wrote a column called The World At Large, which addressed current events. It only went for three months because the 'zine folded. That's was okay. While the column was just warming up, I think everyone involved agreed subter had run its course.

But I have often thought of going back and re-introducing the column to this blog and this year I am going to do just that. On the first Monday of each month, you can expect a new The World At Large column right here at David Bird. The three I wrote for subter addressed Central Europe and the rise of Russian nationalism, the Blackwater massacre in Iraq, and whether the Iraq invasion marked the end of American dominance. Of the three, the only one I would change is the latter. I think I was far, far too optimistic about America's abilities to recover. This upcoming one will also focus on the US. It will look at the recent shooting in Tuscon and what it means for American civil society. See you February 7th.

B.P.R.D. Volume 4: The Dead (September 2005)

2011-01-08T21:14:00.001-08:00

It’s a new year and time to settle back into this project. Volume four marks a new beginning for the Bureau and sees a lot of changes.

John Arcudi joins the comic, completing the creative team of Mignola, Arcudi, and Davis. It’s my understanding that he and Mignola fresh out the stories and then Arcudi writes them.

Ben Daimio joins the team. Daimo is both a former Marine Captain and a former Green Beret, which I didn’t think was possible. Aren’t the Green Berets Army? He represents a new direction for the Bureau. They are now on a war footing. While human, he is the most disturbing looking member of the team, thanks to a horrifying gash from his chin to his left ear. It leaves the teeth in the left side of his jaw completely exposed and evokes both the Joker and Two Face. He’s tough guy. After the incident that ruined his face he was assumed dead and his body was bagged. Three days later he cut his way out. He is brought on as the new Team Field Commander, an appointment that doesn’t go down to well with Liz. For his part, Daimo isn’t too concerned with making a good first impression. The first thing he says on meeting Liz, Roger, and Johann is, “I’m Ben Daimio. Not as pretty as I used to be, but looking around this room, I don’t see how that’s really gonna be a problem.”

The first thing Daimo does is help the Bureau relocate. The frogs are moving west and the Bureau wants to stay ahead of them. The solution: a high tech (circa 1950s) Rocky mountain fortress originally built as the Center for Defence Research and Development and abandoned for some time. It’s quite a switch. From an academic-bureaucratic setting in New England to a vast mountain stronghold. I’ve drawn comparisons to the Bureau and the Fantastic Four before, but this brings to mind a forerunner of the FF, the Challengers of the Unknown and their base in Challenger Mountain. I love the place’s design and decor. The clunky old-school computers make it look just what a SF mountain fortress is supposed to look like. Once at their new home Daimo seems to have a secret, his actions sometimes suspicious, but explanations will have to wait. No sooner are they there than their new home reveals some secrets of its own.

Johann, who is naturally more sensitive to psychic influences than the rest of the team, is suddenly chattering away in German and insisting that they open up the sealed fourth sub-basement. It takes some convincing, but they do it. I had a German speaking friend of mine translate the German text for me, but that was over five years ago and I’ve no idea what any of it says now. In the sub-basement they find Dr. Gunter Eiss, who has been trapped there, living off mushrooms and spiders, since 1958. Eiss was a Nazi scientist brought to the U.S. with the close of the Second World War. That happened a lot. The U.S. used to brag that their Germans were better than the Soviets’ Germans. The difference between his explanation of how he came to be trapped there and the reality of the situation is substantial, as the team discovers.

While this is going on Abe is away on his own journey of self-discovery. He may be following in Hellboy’s footsteps thematically, but his own story is less full of portents than it is of pain. It’s neither creepy nor scary. It’s just sad. He and Kate travel to Littleport, Rhode Island, where Langdon Everett Caul once lived with his wife Edith. Caul was often away, much of the time with his friend Elihu Cavendish. On February 22, 1865 he left home and never returned.

This is a good book. The story is interesting and well told, both as a whole and all in all its particulars, but it is also a jarring reboot for the series. On her arrival in Colorado Liz is complaining about how fast it’s all happening. It seems to suggest there are forces at play that we aren’t being shown. How was it that Daimo was chosen? How did they come to have this new base of operations? Liz raises these questions, but it almost seems like lampshading. Whatever the answers are things are definitely ratcheting up, both for the Bureau and the coming war.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T18:47:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Christmas day and I hope you're having a great time!

A big part of Christmas is the giving and there's no bigger reminder of that than that Christmas classic, the Twelve Days of Christmas. You know, "On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree!..."

It goes on for twelve days, obviously, and each day the recipient is given a new gift and number of gifts equals the number of the day of Christmas. For example, on day one its a (single) partridge in a pear tree. On day four its four colly birds--colly, not calling (it means black)--on day twelve its twelve drummers drumming.

And on each day you get the gift for each previous day again. One day one its that partridge in a pear tree. One day two its two turtle doves and another partridge in a pear tree. On day three its three french hens, two more turtle doves and another partridge in a pear tree. And on and on, all the way to day twelve.

In the end you get:

Twelve partridges in twelve pear trees.
Twenty-two turtle doves.
Thirty french hens.
Thirty-six colly birds.
Forty golden rings.
Forty-two geese a laying.
Forty-two swans a swimming.
Forty maids a milking.
Thirty-six ladies dancing.
Thirty lords a leaping.
Twenty-two pipers piping.
Twelve drummers drumming.

That's 12, 22, 30, 36, 40, 42 on days one through six. And then the reverse for days seven through twelve: 42, 40, 36, 30, 22, 12. You get the same number of partridges in pear trees as you do drummers, because 1x12=12x1. The same number of turtle doves as pipers, because 2x11=11x2. The pattern is consistent throughout the song:

1x12=12x1 (12)
2x11=11x2 (22)
3x10=10x3 (30)
4x9 = 9x4 (36)
5x8 = 8x5 (40)
6x7 = 7x6 (42)

That's 364 gifts altogether!

Not the most traditional Christmas blog, but I thought it was interesting. Hope you're enjoying your holiday season!

Charley's War: The Great Mutiny

2010-12-18T07:33:00.000-08:00

Writer: Pat Mills, Artist: Joe Colquhoun
Published by Titan Books, 2010

I have to admit, I was a bit apprehensive starting this book--I don’t usually read the seventh book of a series, if I haven’t read the first six--but I quickly found it accessible, engaging, and informative.

Charley’s War was a serial printed in Battle Picture Weekly for almost seven years, starting in 1979. It told the story of Charley Bourne, a British teen who lied about his age to get into the army during the First World War, and then followed him through to its end and the 1919 Allied Intervention, or Invasion (depending on who you’re asking), during the Russian Civil War. Titan Books has been publishing it as a series of hard cover books since 2005.

This volume follows a busy four months for Bourne, beginning in September 1917 with the mutiny at Etaples, on through his time as a stretcher bearer during the Second Battle of Passchendale, and ending with the Battle of Cambrai. The mutiny--a real event during which British troops fought back against abuse by their own officers and military police (red caps)--has been the subject of a great deal of debate and denial in the UK. I wasn’t surprised to learn its been swept under the rug. I only recently learned of a mutiny by Canadian troops that happened here in the streets of Victoria in 1919. I’ve been living here for 25 years and know a lot about the place, but if it wasn’t for the release of a new book on Canada’s role in the Allied Intervention/Invasion of Russia I’d have never heard of it. When it comes to the military we’re very fast to forget that we’re democracies and the our armies are citizen armies. Men and women don’t cease to be citizens when they put on uniforms, but we are quick to treat them like so much fodder.

Writer Pat Mills, creator 2000 AD, and artist Joe Colquhoun have together created a meticulously researched story, but it’s a story that never loses itself in the minutia of its own research or in glorifying one of the stupidest chapters in human history. Really, anyone who associates anything positive with this conflict does so because they’re confusing it with aspects of the Second World War or because they are focussing too narrowly on the bravery of the young men who were bogged down in these killing fields for four years. Instead we see the war from young Charley’s perspective: the privations and abuse that led to the mutiny, the deserters who lived on the outskirts of the battlefields, having no where else to go, life as a stretcher bearer, one of the more grisly jobs a soldier can take up. This volume ends with Bourne, no longer a medic, being assigned to sniper training.

Finishing the book I was left with two problems: How am I going to get my hands on the first six volumes, given my current budgetary restraints? And, what other great comics am I missing? Britain obviously has a huge reservoir of talent in this medium, but unless they’ve worked for an American publisher you never see them over here. Mills has done some work here, primarily in the 80s and 90s, but I think this is the first time I’ve read him. Obviously my loss.

B.P.R.D. Volume 3: Plague of Frogs (February 2005)

2010-12-06T18:36:00.000-08:00

The third B.P.R.D. trade is the first one to tell a single story. Its starts with a professor Derby, Cornell, dropping by a Bureau facility in New Jersey. Recently the Bureau had recovered a mould sample from Cavendish Hall, and, under observation in this New Jersey lab, it has suddenly begun growing at an alarming rate. Its not long before a connection is made to Sadu-Hem and The Temple of New Mysteries, Crab Point, Michigan.

New Mysteries is an interesting name, but only half true. Actually, a lot of it is a re-introduction of ground already covered in the Hellboy trades. Why? Because this volume effectively marks the relaunch of the series. From this point on, while Hellboy is on a journey of self-discovery, B.P.R.D. becomes to engine that drives the Mignola-verse forward. We get a lot of things from Hellboy’s Seed of Destruction: Cavendish Hall, frog men, Sadu-Hem, and even an appearance by Rasputin.

We also get some important new things. Guy Davis is doing the art. From this point on, he will be to the Bureau what Mignola has been to Hellboy. Seriously, if Mignola himself announced he’d be taken over for Davis, the title would risk losing at least as many readers as it stood to gain. This volume is a great showcase for his talent and versatility. We have monsters, including malevolent fungi (who else could draw malevolent fungi?), a variety of cityscapes, from New Jersey to New England, technology, ranging from Victorian to the present, and locations that bring us to the ocean depths. He excels at all of them.

We meet Langdon Everett Caul, the Victorian scientist and occultist who would eventually become known as Abe Sapien. That’s right. Abe is getting his own origin story. It’s complicated, and it’s still hasn’t finished unfolding, but we get to see its start during the American Civil War. In this volume we get the events that led to his abandonment in the basement vault, but we don’t get much in the way of straight answers. For example, as life seems to fade for Caul, he (and we) overhear comments made by his friends. Lincoln has been assassinated. They are all afraid. They mention Booth and Herold, the killer and one of his co-conspirators, and wonder what they’ll say if caught. They also mention Corbett, the man who killed Booth. Either this is all one huge, and somewhat implausible conspiracy, or Abe was there for at least a week and a half before they finally left him.

Caul is an interesting name choice, given that cauls are associated with birth. It’s a part of the placenta that forms over the face. If you’ve read Moore’s A Disease of Language you’ll know that in some areas of Victorian England people who worked on the sea would keep theirs preserved as a talisman to protect them from a watery death.

Re-reading this I know I am seriously underselling this volume. In part its because this is a busy time for me and my head is elsewhere. In part its because I don’t want to give too much of a synopsis, the bane of comics reviewing, and so the details are light. The is a great story in its own right and an important volume in the overall development of B.P.R.D.
Some final observations:

There are a lot of references to earlier Hellboy books. Two I haven’t mentioned are the frogs and Father Nicolas. In the first Hellboy trade a frog appears before the first frog man appears. In this story we also see a lot of frogs along side the frog men. I am not sure why. The ‘frog’ men aren’t actually frogs and other than to serve as a tie back to the previous book, there isn’t any reason for them here. Frogs and frog men don’t, outside of these incidents, usually appear together. Father Nicolas appeared in the second Hellboy trade. He was the priest in the small town that was killed, but later spoke to Abe, giving him a line of poetry that would haunt his dreams and set him off to discover his origins.

For all the well deserved praise I’ve given Davis, I do have one complaint about his work here. Two characters, Professor O’Donnell and Humbert T. Jones, look too much alike. Its confusing on first read.

It was touching to see Roger reading up about Cloacina, given the previous volume.

Circumstances force Johann to find a temporary vessel. Gross, yet very funny. Equally funny to see his Bureau cohorts take it in stride.

The Windup Girl

2010-11-30T19:22:00.000-08:00

The Windup Girl
By Paolo Bacigalupi
Published by Nightshade Books 2010

Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl has been the SF success of 2010. A bestseller, it has won many awards, including the Locas, Nebula, and Hugo (where it tied for Best Novel with China Miévilles’ The City & the City).

The story follows the classic SF tradition of extrapolating from current science and technology and creating a world in which the results are laid out for readers to examine. Foremost in this story are global warming, and the rise of ocean levels, the exhaustion of fossil fuels and the search for alternative energy sources, genetic manipulation, both to create new life forms and to create sterile seeds, the latter to force a dependency on corporations (already a reality), the vulnerability of crops, via global agro-business, and the ethics of creating human, or human-like, life forms.

The story takes place in a Thailand that has managed to stand up against the world’s many pressures and the maintain a hard fought independence. The principle characters are Anderson Lake, a “gene-ripper,” he poses as a businessman attempting to produce a source of alternative energy, kink springs, but is in fact an agent for an agro-business concern trying to breach the nation’s borders. His factory manager Hock Seng, a Chinese refugee from Malaysia, where he barely escaped a genocidal uprising and lives in constant fear of another one. Jaidee, and his lieutenant Kanya, who represent the country’s fiercely protective Environment Ministry. Jaidee is famous for his zeal and his conscientiousness, though those very things prove to be not only his undoing, but the fulcrum on which everything turns.

Lastly, there is the windup girl herself, Emiko. In spite of being called a windup, and in spite of her sometimes mechanical looking movement, Emiko is a genetically designed, humanoid-like, tool. She was originally brought to the country from Japan to work as a secretary and translator. When her owner decided it would be cheaper to replace her than to transport her home, he abandoned her in a country that hates windups, viewing them as deviant and unnatural, and left her to her own devices. Ultimately she finds herself working in a sex club, where she is constantly humiliated and abused.

That’s quite a lot for a novel of barely 360 pages. Bacigalupi tells his story in a straight forward, chronological manner, only looking back to explain things when absolutely necessary. In theory its exactly the way I like my stories, but this book has so much happening that the reader barely gets a moment to absorb it all. I was almost a quarter of the way through before things really started to come together for me. Moreover, none of the characters are particularly engaging. Anderson, Hock Seng, and Kanya are all compromised, Jaidee is a zealot, though his heart is in the right place, and Emiko is all too passive. As the story progresses, characters and plot points do come together and the reader is given a lot to consider. Bacigalupi brings addresses a lot of things we see developing all around us, even if he seldom takes the time to let them breathe. I can see his novel casting a large shadow over the genre in the next decade.

A rewarding, if not always engrossing, read.

B.P.R.D. Volume 2: The Soul of Venice and Other Stories (August 2004)

2010-11-23T19:07:00.000-08:00

The second volume of Bureau tales offers us five stand alone tales and a variety of creators.

“The Soul of Venice” Story by Miles Gunthier, Michael Avon Oeming, and Mike Mignola. Art by Michael Avon Oeming.

Something strange is going on in Venice and a team, Abe, Liz, Roger, and Johann, are sent to find out what. Using Johann as something of a paranormal Geiger counter, they track the problem down to its source, but from there on things take an unexpected turn.

A solid adventure, it’s the ending that really makes this story. I was surprised to see a sorcerer invoke the Tetragrammaton, the name Jehovah, actually, but I realize that it has been used in occult practices. At first brush I found Oeming’s art a little cartoonish, but I like it. A good story will do that.

“Dark Waters” Story by Brian Augustyn. Art by Guy Davis.

A small Massachusetts fishing town is attempting a little gentrification when a buried piece of its history is brought to light.

This is a very important story in the development of the series, because it was Davis’ first crack at it. The story itself, though, isn’t much. Salem rip off meets crazed, judgemental minister. Ghosts of the dead seek vengeance. It’s a bland retread. When I picked up this trade, I remembered it as being something of a let down. It was this story in particular that I was thinking of.

“Night Train” Story Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins. Art by Scott Kolins and Dave Stewart.

Another ghost of Lobster Johnston story! Another messed up World War II chronology! (Okay. Fine. No time for that in these short synopses.) Johnston faces off with a German saboteur and a train load of G.I.s and scientists plummets off a bridge. Years later Liz and Roger go to investigate the train’s re-appearance.

This story didn’t click for me either. The basic ideas are fine, but it moves alone without ever getting any emotional traction. Kolins’ art doesn’t help either. Roger looks angry all the time, which couldn’t be more at odds with his personality, and Liz is drawn at her most comics-babe-like. It doesn’t really fit her at all.

“There’s Something Under My Bed” Story by Joe Harris. Art by Adam Pollina.

Toys-coming-alive at night has been a staple since, at least, Hans Christian Andersen. Now it’s the Bureau’s turn.

Unlike the previous story, this one was able to pick up on a theme, one that complements both the regular cast and this familiar story idea, and makes it work. It’s the good monsters versus the bad monsters and can the children tell the difference? Pollina’s art is very loose, but it fit’s the story well.

“Another Day At The Office” Story by Mike Mignola. Art by Cameron Stewart.

Abe and Johann lead a team to fight zombies in Moldavia. It’s a short, fun take on a type of monster I personally have never really gotten. The story manages to be both clever and pretty straight forward, hence the title. In hindsight I particularly liked that none of the supporting cast were used as red shirts (no I haven’t spoil anything) and that the locals had polished off most the zombies before the Bureau even got there. If villagers from Eastern Europe don’t know how to deal with monsters, who does?

Mignola wrote this one himself--though he does get a shared credit on the first story. Stewart does a good job, as you’d expect, but I don’t know if he was really challenged by this story.

A few observations:

This book starts with a cast list: Johann, Liz, Abe, Roger, and Kate (in that order). It’s an attempt, I think, to affirm that this is the team. These are our stars, and not that guy from the other book! Kate, interestingly, is described as the Bureau’s “special liaison to the enhanced talents task force.” So the team has a name, sort of, even if it’s a somewhat bureaucratic one. Enhanced talents. It’s odd that the Bureau would have a liaison to members of their own organization. That may reflect the attitudes of un-enhanced members to their own monster squad.

Roger seems singled out for special attention in the first three stories. He’s been the big guy with the big heart and now he’s shown to be a little more rounded as a character. A little more proactive, too.

Finally, there aren’t any introductory comments with the stories, but there is solid sketch book, often, as editor Scott Allie points out, featuring Hellboy. Oeming admits membership in the I-used-to-think-they-were-goggles club. Good for him. It occurs to me that Lobster Johnson does wear goggles. I guess, at this point, someone needed to.

Hellboy: Double Feature of Evil

2010-11-21T19:35:00.000-08:00

I haven't reviewed an individual comic in a while, but I was discussing this one in a review group and one thing led to another...

Writer: Mike Mignola; Art: Richard Corben; Color: Dave Stewart; Letters: Clem Robins

Published by Dark Horse, 2010

Sullivan ruined his life with alcohol. He lost everything. Then one day, sitting in a drunken stupor, a strange man approached him. He offered him a gift: a small amount of cash and house in Kansas. From the moment Sullivan accepted the gift, his cravings for alcohol disappeared. The house was old. The body he found inside… not quite so old. Sullivan buried it in the backyard and magically three gold coins appeared. That night he had strange dreams. In the morning his cravings had re-appeared, but he knew what to do. He lured an old woman into the house and shut her in the same room in which he’d found the body. He got three more coins and he buried her in the yard. He called the Bureau and they sent Hellboy. This is the first, and longer, of the two stories in our Double Feature of Evil, a comic very much modeled after the sort of B-movies and Warren comics I enjoyed in the 70s.

Another memory of my 70s childhood was reading Richard Corben in Heavy Metal magazine. I hadn’t come across him too often between and Makoma, his first Hellboy story, and I’ll be honest and admit that it wasn’t until he nailed Asmodeus in The Bride of Hell that I really began to get excited about their collaborations. In my write up of the first B.P.R.D. trade I mentioned how the stories were inked to match Mignola’s work. This is something you see in the more recent Hellboy comics as well. Its not something you’ll see with Corben. He comes to the character with his own well established style. One famous for its larger-than-life, well muscled heroes and its monsters, making him both a distinctive voice and a good fit.

I enjoyed the two stories very much (the second involves a man who draws of ancient magics to get his revenge, but doesn’t take the time to really learn all he should), but having read some online discussion of it, I suspect a part of my enjoyment may stem from being able to draw on, as a reader, the same pop cultural wellsprings I think Mignola did as a writer. These are good stories. Fun stories. Greed, lust, and anger are met with well deserved, but surprising endings. People get what they deserve--eventually--and isn’t that what we all want?

B.P.R.D. Volume 1: Hollow Earth and Other Stories (January 2003)

2010-11-15T15:59:00.001-08:00

Hellboy goes on hiatus, only to be replaced with B.P.R.D., a series concentrating on the rest of the cast. The first trade collects four short stories and a bonus feature detailing the origins of Johann Klaus.

The stories “Hollow Earth,” “Abe Sapien Versus Science,” and the bonus feature are inter-related and I’ll discuss them together. “Hollow Earth” begins with an organization that is still reeling from the departure of Hellboy. Kate Corrigan is struggling to hold it all together. Her boss, Director Thomas Manning, is concerned Hellboy’s resignation will hurt the Bureau’s creditability (remember, unlike the movies, the Bureau and its agents are all in the public eye). Abe Sapien is angry about the circumstances of Hellboy’s resignation, particularly the fact that the Bureau planted a bomb in Roger. He also misses Liz, who, since the incident at Czege Castle, has been in a monastery in the Russian arctic. On top of everything else, Kate has to orientate a new member, Johann Klaus.

Johann was a gifted medium, whose spirit would take an ectoplasmic form during his séances. He was in the midst of a séance in February of 2002, when the Chengdu incident occurred. The Chinese government has kept the details of the incident classified, but it is known that an occult artefact, a jar or container, was opened and, at that moment, the souls of everyone within a radius of one hundred miles, was “seared.” On the ethereal plain the extent of the damage was much greater. The bodies of everyone at Johann’s séance were destroyed, leaving his spirit with no where to go. The Bureau fashioned him a containment suit. As Corrigan puts it, “He’s not dead. He just doesn’t have a body anymore.”

He no sooner arrives than Abe has a vision of Liz pleading for his help. Soon he’s off, with Johann and Roger in tow. They arrive at the monastery to discover it has been attacked from beneath by subterranean creatures. In the previous Hellboy volume we were introduced to the idea of the various ages of man. This book pushes things further. The creatures, led by the King of Fear, were slaves of a previous generation of man. They overthrew their masters, only to find themselves trapped, without the energy to power the remaining war machines. They kidnapped Liz to be their power source.

The whole thing has a very Fantastic Four feel about it. Liz is fire, Johann invisible, Roger is a thing, and Abe… well, he can’t stretch, but he is water related and water is flexible and… well, that may be pushing things a bit far, but not too far. Their first mission is to save the world from a Mole Man stand in, after all.

Leadership within the group is interesting. The normal humans in the Bureau seem to think of the gifted ones as an asset, but also as something less than human. We’re given flashbacks to Liz and Abe’s first days with the Bureau and see the scientists treating them as specimens and as threats. It takes Hellboy’s personal intervention to get them treated with dignity and humanity. Yet, the humans always seem to defer to them when on missions. In “Abe Sapien Versus Science” we see Abe play the same role with Roger that Hellboy had played for him, suggesting, perhaps that Abe is meant to be the group’s new leader, but I don’t think he has it in him. In “Hollow Earth” Johann quickly goes from being very deferential, it is his first mission, to asserting himself more and more. Abe is the Scott Summers of the group: a gifted lieutenant, but not a commander. I think that’s one reason Benjamin Daimo was later brought into the group.

That leaves two stories not connected to the overall arc. The first is “The Killer In My Skull.” This is Lobster Johnston’s very first appearance, though his second appearance was collected into the previous trade. It is pure pulp, and I mean that in the best way. I can hear the lines being shouted out as though narrated by William Shatner: “The BODY never killed anyone! It is the MIND!” Interestingly, there is a character here named Zinco. I can’t believe that’s a co-incidence.

Lastly, we have “Drums Of The Dead,” an Abe Sapien tale. The plot is very similar to “The Abyssal Plain.” Very similar. In this case its about the ghosts of lost slaves. Now I love Abe. Really. I mean, who doesn’t love Abe? But this is a poor story. So poor it got me wondering whether he could carry his own title, which is odd because the Langdon Everett Caul stories are great. Of course those stories don’t require him to be the hero, as such. They’re about self-discovery. It doesn’t help that the artist for the story, Derek Thompson, makes him look too much like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. (There is one Abe story between “Drums of the Dead” and “The Abyssal Plain,” “The Drowning.” It’s much better, but we’ll get to it in turn.)

In this volume Mignola hands over pretty much all of the art chores to others. He does the cover work, the Kraus bonus feature and inks one story. All of the stories are heavily inked, with lots of solid black, to give everything that Mike Mignola feel.

Red Robin #17

2010-11-12T18:25:00.001-08:00

"My heart says I don't need a lifelong Catwoman, but my gut tells me I'm going to get one anyway."

Real men listen to their gut, Tim.

The Wisdom of Kung Fu Monkey

2010-11-11T15:05:00.001-08:00

I found this great quote and traced it all the way back to its source, a blog called Kung Fu Monkey. I don't know much about the blog, but I loved this:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue (2010)

2010-11-08T10:35:00.001-08:00

One thing about starting a new family is getting exposed to a new generation of children’s entertainment. Or, sometimes, the re-packaging of the previous generation's. I have two daughters in their twenties and of course they saw all the Disney movies, including those centering on traditional fairy tale princesses, but they misses out on the whole Disney Princess phenomenon. Thankfully!

Not so, Makayla. Even before she saw any of the films she was calling gowns ‘princess dresses.’ It’s strange to think of toddlers and pre-schoolers having their own pop sub-culture, but they do and, if they’re girls, Disney Princesses are their icons. And she picked up on what the movies are telling her too: the goal is to find a prince. If you asked her what she wants to be when she grows up, she’ll tell you she wants to get married. (Actually, nowadays she’s likely to tell you to become a doctor and get married, but that’s her mother’s influence.)

But if Disney has created a problem--and, yes, it would be silly to lay the whole thing at Disney’s feet--they are also providing a solution in a new series of movies starring Tinker Bell and the fairies of Pixie Hollow. I saw the first two of these movies before our trip to Disney World, but didn’t recognize their potential until we were there. The nice thing about going there at the end of September is how much the crowds have thinned. We rarely waited more than ten minutes for anything. We may have waited fifteen to meet actresses dressed as Princess characters, and I did see a sign saying that the wait to go on the Peter Pan ride was then thirty five minutes, but we had gone earlier and been on the ride in less than ten minutes. No, if line ups are any measure of demand the biggest thing at Disney World was Pixie Hollow. We actually stood in line an hour so the girls (we also took our granddaughter Talia) could meet three actresses dressed as the fairies Fawn, Tinker Bell, and Vidia. I heard a lot of parents muttering about how they couldn’t believe how long it was taking, but I didn’t hear a single complaint from the kids; ours or anyone else’s.

(Makayla is dressed like Belle. Talia like Aurora.)

The first film, Tinker Bell (2008), tells the
origins of Tinker Bell, her birth and how she became a tinker. In the world of Pixie Hollow, where the fairies are hard at work bringing about the changes of the seasons (painting the leaves for autumn, teaching the baby birds to fly in the spring, etc) newborn fairies are presented with the sigils of each fairy guild. The one that reacts most strongly to the fairy’s presence defines that fairy’s role. There are animal fairies, light fairies, water fairies, garden fairies, fast flying (air/wind) fairies, and there are tinker fairies. While the other fairies take what they have prepared out of Pixie Hollow and over to the mainland, the tinkers stay home and help prepare. They provide what the military would call logistical support. When Tinker Bell learns that she can’t go to the mainland, she is determined to develop a new skill, to become another kind of fairy, so that she can. After a great many comic misadventures, she learns to appreciate herself and her own gifts.

The second movie, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (2009), sees her happily applying her considerable problem-solving skills and being given the privilege of creating the sceptre for the Blue Harvest Moon ceremony. Every eight years a blue harvest moon shines through the moonstone and creates blue pixie dust, which the pixie dust tree needs if it’s going to keep producing their supply of pixie dust. This dust is a valuable resource for the community, providing them with many of their powers. Without it, for example, a fairy can’t really fly. They just sort of hop about. Tinker Bell feels genuinely honoured to be given the task, but anyone who remembers the original Peter Pan will know that she has a notorious temper and when a friend of hers, the pixie dust keeper Terence (dust keepers seem to be a sub-group of the tinkers), tries to help, he ends up setting off that temper to ruinous results. If Tink is going to save the day, she’s going to have to start valuing her friends.

Parents appreciate quality children’s entertainment. Kids really will watch the same thing over and over and over and… anyway, if you’re watching the same show on a regular basis, good writing and production values begin to count for a lot. And the Tinker Bell movies have been very good. They don’t make an effort to reach out to older viewers with pop culture references that will go over the kids head. Instead they trust in the story. A good story is a good story and while an adult is unlikely to pick up one of these films for him or herself, I think the kids who are watching them now will still have fond memories of them ten, twenty years from now. (For cinemaphiles who want some frame of reference, John Lasseter, the driving force behind Pixar, is also the Executive Producer of this series.)

What I like about these films is that the fairies, and the focus is on the female cast, are focused on their work and helping their friends and community. Tinker Bell is never going to marry Terence. It’s why I think they are an antidote to the Princesses and not just the Next Big Thing. They are characters who take pride in take pride in their accomplishments, in problem solving, and in helping one another. And they don’t waste time with all the girl power tag lines we’ve all grown so weary of. They simply do the job in front of them.

As for the third movie, The Great Fairy Rescue, my wife and I sat down to watch it with Makayla and found ourselves laughing out loud more than once. It was fun. I am sure we’ll be watching it again (and again), but the story wasn’t as strong as the first two. The main plot involves Tinker Bell being captured by a little girl named Lizzy. I am not sure what Tink is doing on the mainland. The whole point of the first movie was that she wasn’t able to go there. Lizzy is a girl that loves fairies and spends all her time fantasizing about them. Her father is the always busy, always preoccupied Dr. Griffins, who doesn’t believe in fairies or anything else without proof. Yes, it’s another little girl who just needs a little attention and another parent who just needs to believe.

The motive of this movie, however, has nothing to do with the Griffins. It has to do with Vidia and Tinker Bell. As you might have noticed from the video above, these two characters aren’t exactly friends. Vidia is a fast flying fairy. She’s important, she knows it, and she finds Tinker Bell extremely annoying. If these stories were set in a high school, Vidia would be the Queen Bee. She is not a villain. She is not a bad person--fairy--but she is obviously intended to be Tink’s antagonist. There are two problems with this. First, because Disney had the courage to play her character straight. Kids know she isn’t a villain. She’s the best and she knows it, and that comes off as snobbish, but little children have a strong sense of pecking order. They seem hard wired to defer to the oldest, the strongest, the ‘best’, even if they don’t want to, or don’t like the other kid. They may not like the trouble she causes Tink and they may be glad when she gets in trouble, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t attracted to her in much the same way school children will seek the approval of the class Queen. Second, of all the fairies Vidia and Tinker Bell have the strongest personalities. Tink has four other friends. Rosetta, a flower fairy, has a Southern accent and Iridessa, a light fairy, is black, but accents and skin colouring don’t really add much personality-wise. Both Fawn, an animal fairy, and Silvermist, a water fairy, seem more nurturing, but I could well be reading that into them, given the nature of their work. The truth Tink’s friends exists largely just to be friends and to encourage her when things aren’t going well. Tink and Vidia are the ones that make an impression and the point of this movie seems to be to create a détente between them. Even if Vidia isn’t going to become anther one of Tinker Bell’s BFFs, most mothers don’t want their daughters trying to emulate a snob. (Trust me.) The next movie is due out in February and I am sure we’ll be watching it. I personally hope Vidia’s character remains unchanged. That she remains the oil to Tinker Bell’s vinegar. It adds a nice mix and one we often don’t see in the dumbed down world of children’s entertainment.

Film Review: The Prisoner (2009)

2010-11-04T06:32:00.001-07:00

I rented this six episode mini-series over the past couple of weeks. A long time Prisoner fan, my scepticism had been wrestling with my curiosity for some time. It was “Why would they re-make a perfect show? Can’t Hollywood do anything original any more?” versus “I wonder how it turned out?” Eventually my curiosity won out.

How did it turn out? The story is in some ways very different than the original. They’ve moved the Village to the desert for one thing, and made it more of a living community, complete with children, but the real changes were of tone and focus. They took the concept of The Prisoner and moved in another direction altogether. Unfortunately, it’s a move that lacks the clarity and focus of the original. The chief problem of this remake is that it meanders along, never quite taking hold of its own plot, themes, or the viewer’s attention. In fact, the only thing that salvages the series at all is the acting. Jim Caviezel’s ability to convey subtleties saves this version of 6/Michael (yes, we’re given a name this time) from coming off as whiney and self-absorbed. Ian McKellen plays 2/Mr. Curtis throughout. His character is often creepily intimidating, an avuncular Kim Jong-il. His suffers most from the lack of focus. This number 2 has a wife, kept in a drug induced coma-like condition, and a teenage son. They turn out to be very important, but why isn’t explained until the final episode and that explanation, like so much of his story, comes across as undeveloped and poorly thought out.

If they took the first and sixth episodes and bits of the other four, I think this could be re-edited into a much better, much tighter two hour movie, one I’d like to see, but after watching the first disc I put on the first episode of the original series. I was immediately struck by its clarity and focus. However convoluted the machinations of the Village and the various 2’s, the show, and Number 6 (Patrick McGoohan), always conveyed a razor sharp focus. Something sadly missing here.

Hellboy Volume 5: Conqueror Worm (February 2002)

2010-11-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

Guillermo Del Toro writes the introduction to this volume. Other than admitting that he too thought the shorn horns were goggles, its not really much on an intro. What it really drew my attention to it, and the reason I am drawing your attention to it, is that both Del Toro and this volume mark a break in Mignola’s work schedule. Over the next few years, his focus will be on movies: the Hellboy movies with Del Toro, the cartoons, and even Disney’s Atlantis (on which Mignola did production design). And when he does return to Hellboy, his primary focus will be writing. The art chores will be largely given over to others. Realizing that as I did, I couldn’t help but read into this book a certain amount of finality, of the wrapping of many points. Some of them are definitely there, but I am ready to admit that others may just be my imagination.

Our story starts with the discovery of a space capsule plummeting to Earth. A space capsule with a swastika prominently painted on its side. Yes, it’s the Nazi space program. Hellboy and Roger are sent to investigate its intended landing site. Roger is the homunculus discovered in Volume 2 and last seen in “Almost Colossus.” In short order it is discovered that Von Klempt, the Nazi head in a jar, is bringing back the capsule in a bid to destroy the world. What follows is a fast paced action story, that includes the ghost of Lobster Johnson and skilfully hit’s a number of emotional and, remembering the comic’s horror/pulp basis, creepy high points.

Given what has recently learned of Hellboy’s origins, this story addresses an important question: why he is still counted amongst the good guys. The answer is free will. Hellboy is not defined by his origins, but by the choices he’s made. We first learned this, explicitly, when he stumbles on the body of a wounded alien. This would be one of the aliens from volume one. We don’t really learn much more about them. They have been watching the monsters that live in the depths of space and have been less than thrilled at humanity’s continued attempts to reach out and empower those monsters. This one was sent to Earth in the guise of a US service man and a mission to kill the baby Hellboy. But looking at him he say something unexpected: free will. Hellboy’s origins need not define him. We later see this in Roger. Roger is put in a place where death seems to only solution. He has taken in all the evil of the story’s big bad and believes the only way to rid the world of it is to die himself. But Hellboy believes in Roger, that he still has the power of choice and that he can choose the good and win.

This book is also the first time we see Lobster Johnson. Kind of, sort of. His first appearance in print would be collected into the first B.P.R.D. trade and this is actually his second appearance. But we’re reading the trades in their chronological order, so Johnson’s first two stories are told in reverse order. Johnson is the truest pulp hero in the Mignola-verse. With so much pulling the story towards the supernatural, he remains an anchor to this important aspect of the stories.

One thing that I didn’t like was the time line. What would American troops be doing attacking an Austrian castle in 1939? America wasn’t even in the war until the end of 1941. Almost the very end. Moreover, the strict isolation policies trumpeted by the political right of the day kept the US military from developing the logistical capacities needed to launch such a mission. Moreover, the helmets they were using weren’t adopted until 1942. I’m going to stop now, but I will say that all these problems could have been solved if the date used was 1943 or 1944.

One of the cool/gruesome things I did like in the story, one of those creepy high points, were the spirit transistors. I don’t know what else to call them. The alien told Hellboy that in the past humans could communicate with the creatures, but only those with “a rare sensitivity of mind. How the dull, evil men of this place managed to do the same I don’t know…” Well, when we get to the communications room we see that, in place of transistors, are the heads of persons with those rare, sensitive minds.

In the previous volume Hellboy confessed to Kate that he’s tired of it all. I had misremembered and put that conversation into this book. Its in this book that he quits the Bureau. It makes sense. He’s only recently lost the only father he’s known. He’s discovered some disturbing things about himself. He’s angered about the Bureau treatment of Roger, who is treated as less than human. He needs time to sort it all out and he takes it, walking out of this story, the Bureau and any further trades for four years. I don’t know how much forethought went into that. I’ve always had the impression that other projects kept Mignola away, but this book also re-introduces the frog men and gives them a new twist. One that will grow in importance as we concentrate of the B.P.R.D. trades. And the next books do exactly that!

Vote Now!

2010-10-28T19:59:00.001-07:00

Canada Reads is a very popular literary contest on CBC radio. Each year five panel member pick the book they think the nation should be reading and, over the course of a week, the members vote each others' titles off. Those whose books aren't chosen continue to vote for/against other titles. I work in a book store, trust me: whoever gets wins gets a big boost in sales. In fact, all the books get a boost.

This is the 10th anniversary so, to mix things up a bit, the CBC is letting listeners come up with the list. The first round is over and they have a top 40. On that list is two graphic novels! Essex County and Skim. I haven't read Skim, but I think Essex County is great (read my review here). This program appeals to the literary minded. The kind who will read Maus and Persepolis, but look down their noses at other graphic novels as sub-literate. Yet there they are, not one, but two graphic novels. Follow the link and vote for one of them. I am not kidding about the sales boost. You'll be doing either author a big favour.

Oh, and by the way, once you've voted, let others know. Get them to support one of these great titles!

And Who Doesn't Want To Be The Next Felicia Day?

2010-10-17T18:49:00.000-07:00

My daughter Lan has been recruited to help with the editing of an online project called For Villains By Villains, created by Jeff Saamanen and Devan Douglas. Its (very) early days, but they've posted a couple of trailers and will post a couple more soon. In an effort to generate fans--and investors so they can do much, much more--they are asking that people not only log on and watch, but that they create their own supervillain as well. As the site develops the plan is that you will use these personae to interact with one another and some lucky fans will even be included in future webisodes.

Personally I thought the two trailers that are now up were fun and had an obvious Whedon influence and because my kid is involved I've posted about it on a few forums and now here. Go. Enjoy.

If anyone wants more info, you can contact Jeff at info@4villains.org

Hellboy Volume 4: The Right Hand of Doom (April 2000)

2010-10-14T06:25:00.001-07:00

Another collections of short stories, but this time with a difference. Or two. The first is organization. Stories are divided up into The Early Years, The Middle Years, and The Right Hand of Doom, which are contemporary stories. I was encouraged by this to considered both their chronology and, for no real reason, really, Hellboy’s age at the time each story took place. I also looked back to the previous volume.

I’ve listed them all below (the ones from the previous volume are in bold). Interestingly, they are all in chronological order and the stories of the two volumes don’t really mix much at all. The Early Years, the first three stories from volume 3, The Middle Years, then the rest of volume 3. Note that the Wolves of Saint August is the only contemporary story that is dated. We know it’s a contemporary story because of the date given and the publication dates of the stories generally, but it’s not a part of the larger story arc unfolding in the first two volumes and the other contemporary stories. According to the Hellboy Companion it happens between events in volumes 1 and 2 and after ‘The Chained Coffin.’

Pancakes 1947 (2)
The Nature of the Beast 1954 (9)
King Vold 1956(11)
The Corpse 1959 (14)
Iron Shoes 1961 (16)
The Baba Yaga 1964 (19)
Heads 1967 (22)
Goodbye Mr Tod 1979 (34)
The Varcolac 1982 (37)
A Christmas Underground 1989 (44)
The Chained Coffin - contemporary
The Wolves of Saint August 1994 (49)
Almost Colossus - contemporary
The Right Hand of Doom - contemporary
Box Full of Evil - contemporary

The other difference is a connecting theme: who is Hellboy?

‘The Early Years’ gives us three stories of Hellboy, aged 2 to 11. The first one is ‘Pancakes.’ Who doesn’t like ‘Pancakes?’ Its only two pages, so there’s not a lot I can say without recounting it, but it says a lot for the series that it can so seamlessly integrate such a silly story into its greater narrative. The second is ‘The Nature of the Beast,’ one of Mignola’s first story ideas. Bruttenholm loans Hellboy out to an occult group called the Osiris Club. This story is based on an English folk tale, St Leonard and the Dragon. Leonard is wounded fighting the dragon and where ever his blood fell lilies bloomed. Hellboy fights the dragon, which looks like a crocodile with an elongated, serpentine body. He’s wounded and where his blood falls lilies bloom. The third story, ‘King Vold,’ is the strongest of the three, in spite of Hellboy doing little more than he’s told. That is what I think really sums up The Early Years. Hellboy is naive. Like a child, he does what he’s told. Like a good child, anyway. He’s trusting.

The connection between these stories and our hero’s identity is some what tenuous. The first story is about him severing ties to Hell, though he doesn’t realize it. I’m probably reading too much into it, but pancakes do have a place in Christian symbolism. On Shrove, or Pancake, Tuesday people ate them in order to use up things they would not be eating during Lent. It was a way to, quite literally, ‘put away’ earthly things. In Hellboy’s case, to put away Hellish things. The second story is all about who he is, but there is no real answer--though the blood-lily thing seems to put him on the side of the angels. In the final story he is addressed by his real name, but that seems to be about it.

The Middle Years don’t really say much about who he is, but they show him as a mature, independent agent of the Bureau. The three stories are all solid adventures, though ‘Goodbye Mr Tod’ is a bit weak. The first, ‘Heads,’ is the most widely known of the three and has been turned into an animated short. Reading ‘Tod’ I couldn’t help but wonder if it played any role in inspiring Johann’s character. I read Mary Roach’s book Spook a couple of years ago. She has a chapter on ectoplasm. Apparently is was cheesecloth, usually secreted in the psychic’s person. When I say ‘in’ I mean they either regurgitated it up at will, or, in the case of some women, hid in their… well, some where gentlemen wouldn’t look. There isn’t much of a story to ‘The Varcolac,’ but I love the concept of a vampire god. If I were to write a vampire story, I would certainly incorporate it.

That brings us to the contemporary stories, in the third part, ‘The Right Hand of Doom,’ which are two interrelated stories. The first, the title story, is little more than a summing up of what we know about Hellboy, plus a little extra about his hand. It all comes out in a conversation with a priest. Again I was struck by how accepting they are of Hellboy. The last story introduces Igor Bromhead. Bromhead is a great character, greasy little spot of a man that he is, and Mignola really captures the character from his first appearance. In a nutshell, this story puts Hellboy into contact with a couple of demons for an extended discourse and through it gives us some sense of who Hellboy was meant to be and the choices that hang over him. In re-reading this I was a bit surprised by Hellboy’s speech at the end. For some reason I had remembered it as being in the next volume. Also, and finally, I wonder if the demon at the end is the same one from ‘Pancakes,’ Astraroth?

As a collected volume, this one is stronger than the previous one, but that’s more a reflection of its organization. Looking at the stories individually, I like them about the same. The last two stories are the most important, but my favourites are ‘Pancakes,’ ‘King Vold,’ and ‘The Varcolac.’

Hellboy Volume 3: The Chained Coffin and Others (August 1998)

2010-10-14T06:20:00.001-07:00

The third Hellboy collection is one of the favourites in the series and introduces a format Mignola seems to excel at, the short story. There are seven stories ranging from six to forty four pages (so I guess they’re not all that short, really).

The last two stories are the longest, “The Wolves of St August” and “Almost Colossus.” “Wolves” is actually the second Hellboy story published and “Colossus” is the epilogue to Wake the Devil. “Wolves” doesn’t really add anything to the Mignola-verse, but it’s a solid bit of storytelling. We get to see Hellboy and Kate’s friendship and we get to see Hellboy’s relationship to organized religion. He’s not a follower, but he is both friendly and respectful, which is interesting and pretty much unique in modern media. (It’s also interesting that whenever Hellboy runs into civilians they tend to look past his devilish appearance altogether. Maybe they think he wearing goggles too.)

“Colossus” is a much better story. It introduces a major character, Roger, but it also raises perplexing questions about Liz’s fire powers and recent events in B.P.R.D. I don’t know how far to go in talking about those here. When we started I assumed that those interested would be people who had already read the series, but some of you are just reading things now, so maybe I should leave it at that.

Now for the actual short, short stories. The first is “The Corpse.” “Corpse” has long been a fan favourite. Many people’s number one Hellboy story. Its so popular that they even made a clumsy attempt to include it in the first movie. Hellboy is brought in to save a baby, who has been replaced by a changling. In medieval times the birth of a deformed or otherwise handicapped child was explained by the belief that goblins had replaced the baby with a fake, a changling. Much crueller things than touching the child with iron were done in real life in order to verify whether of not the baby was real. But not all the tests were cruel. One was to fill broken egg shells with water and boil them on a fire (as though the shells were pots). The changling, if indeed it was a changling, would be mystified and say, “I’ve lived a long time, but I’ve never seen anything as strange as that!” Hellboy finds the culprits and agrees to a bargain to get the baby from them. He has to bury a corpse by dawn. Of course, there are complications. Two important characters are introduced here: The changling, Gruagach, who’s hatred for Hellboy starts here and leads to some pretty cataclysmic consequences in later issues, and the baby, Alice Monaghan, who grows up to be a love interest for our star. She certainly doesn’t look fifty!

The second story, “Iron Shoes,” and the fourth, “A Christmas Underground,” are both solidly written pieces. I liked them--what’s not to like?--but I don’t really have anything to say on either. Perhaps I’ll leave them up to others. The third story, “Baba Yaga,” was written specifically for this collection. Baba Yaga is an important part of Slavic folklore, and was first brought into the Mignola-verse in Wake the Devil, when we were told Hellboy had shot out one of her eyes. The fifth and remaining story, “The Chained Coffin,” brings Hellboy back to his birth place, where he meets his parents. Seriously.

What I like most about these stories is the writing. Mignola writes as though he were relating a folktale and not an action story. He creates a series of vignettes that bring us into the life and world of his star and makes it seem real.

A couple of final thoughts:

Back to the changlings. There was a group in French speaking Switzerland that wanted to save babies from the mistreatment the accusation of changling inevitably brought. They made sure the child was baptised and made it a point of calling it a Christian, or Chrétien in the local dialect. Just as special has developed negative connotations after being applied to people with disabilities, Chrétien gave rise to the word cretin.

Alice isn’t Hellboy’s first love interest. That would be Anastasia Bransfield, a character in the Christopher Golden novel Hellboy: The Lost Army. She’s never been in the comics, but I remember Mignola liking the idea and I do believe their relationship is considered canonical. Both Anastasia and Alice and completely normal humans.

In his introduction to “Colossus” Mignola admits Liz wasn’t supposed to survive the second trade. I’m glad he was talked out of that!

And, finally, for the record, while “the Corpse” was my favourite Hellboy short story for some time, it was eventually replaced by “The Hydra and the Lion.”

Hellboy Volume 2: Wake The Devil (June 1997)

2010-10-14T06:18:00.001-07:00

Hellboy meets Dracula! Well, not Dracula per se, but Vladimir Giurescu is Mignola’s attempt to integrate him into the Mignola-verse. It’s even dedicated to Dracula. And while Giurescu himself isn’t destined to become a major player, a huge number of players are introduced, including Baba Yaga, Kate Corrigan, Hecate, the Fairy kingdom, Roderick Zinco, Roger, and Sir Edward Grey.

Rasputin reaches out to an industrialist named Zinco, who goes north to another Arctic fortress and meets Rasputin’s Nazi cohorts, Ilsa and the Three Stooges. She goes to recover the remains of Giurescu, her former lover, and in so doing alerts the Bureau to his possible return. They don’t know how, but he has been brought back many times before through a ceremony that has to happen at his castle. The Bureau sends people to three possible locations, and, of course, its Hellboy who hit’s the jackpot.

Mignola does a great job of setting things up. A briefing full of exposition is one of the worst ways--possibly the worst (remember Batgirl: Redemption Road #1?) and the laziest--to gets things rolling, but Mignola carries it off with aplomb. The breadth of this story is amazing: Classical mythology, Celtic and Russian folklore, alchemy and Bram Stoker. Mignola pens the story himself this time, writing Hellboy as the taciturn character we’ve come to expect, and nicely balancing the adventure, the mythmaking, and the comedy. And there is a lot of comedy. Apart from Ilsa, the Nazis in this book really are the Three Stooges. I mean a big, red shiny button? Really?!

Miscellany:

Alan Moore wrote a great intro. I especially liked his point about Mignola not only evoking stories we’ve read before, but making them as good as we remember them being (as opposed to as bad as they often were).

Jet packs! The B.P.R.D. has jet packs -- but only for this arc. They even have a red shirt with an eye patch. Did any of you not think of Nick Fury?

The first red shirt to get it? The black guy.

Did you notice that communication problems they we’re having with their phones? Their Zinco phones? I can’t help wondering what his role was in the plane explosion.

This story also gave us our first look at Liz’s self-destructive side.

I once read a book on Elizabeth Bathory. A 16th century Transylvanian noblewomen, she bathed in the blood of young women in order to preserve her beauty. In spite of her cruelty she was adamant that each girl get a proper Christian burial. That was fine until they got a new priest. Horrified, he did a little research and then turned the names of hundreds of girls over to the authorities. Because she was nobility they refused to execute her and instead walled her up in a room. Four years later she stopped taking the food that was slid in through a slot, and they realized she was dead.

I said that Giurescu isn’t destined to become a major player, but the Nazi program he was a part of, Vampir Sturm, will play a part in the late B.P.R.D. trades 1946 and 1947.

Hellboy Volume 1: Seed of Destruction (October 1994)

2010-10-14T06:16:00.001-07:00

This volume starts with the Hellboy’s origins, not that different from the movie, and then quickly jumps to the death of Trevor Bruttenholm. You got to wonder how soon it was before Mignola realized he shouldn’t have killed one of his best characters in the first issue. Hellboy, Abe, and Liz spend the rest of the issue solving the mystery of Bruttenholm’s death and confronting the man who brought Hellboy to earth. Having just said not to worry about spoilers, I think that was a pretty clean synopsis. Feel free to provide your own.

The first thing I noticed on re-reading was that Hellboy is far more talkative than he would become. Of course, it isn’t scripted by Mignola, but by John Byrne, who also scripted Hellboy’s first two appearances (included as extras). Still, its strange to hear him describe himself as the “world’s greatest paranormal investigator.” Its also strange to see Abe in disguise. I don’t remember him doing that elsewhere.

The roots of everything can be seen here: Ogdru Jahad, Nazis, Hyperborea, the frog men(!) who would grow to become extremely important. You name it. Mignola is drawing on Lovecraft, Theosophy, and Old Testament pseudepigraphy (as the story of Ogdru Jahad develops it is obvious that he is using the story of the Watchers in I Enoch). He obviously had a strong sense of where he wanted to go, or at least the ground he wanted to cover.

Other thoughts and observances:

Liked the intro by Robert Bloch. Bloch is best known today as the author of Psycho, but he was a friend and protégé of Lovecraft and one of the first people, aside from Lovecraft himself to develop Lovecraft’s mythos.

Our hero spends the climatic final scenes getting smacked down, while Abe and Liz save the day. And him.

The space men are a great Kirby-esque/New Gods moment, but just who are they?!

My favourite thing in the book: that Mrs. Cavendish refers to our hero as “Mr. Boy.”

And, lastly, a confession. Before I started reading the series, and I can’t honestly remember when I first jumped in, or even which was the first story I read, I was one of those who just assumed Hellboy was wearing goggles. I didn’t know why, but that’s okay. I like goggles.

Hellboy/B.P.R.D. Reading Club

2010-10-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

While my writing here may have trailed off a bit, actually I have been doing a lot of writing lately for a comic forum reading club, specifically the Outhousers Hellboy/B.P.R.D. Reading Club. We are going over each Hellboy and B.P.R.D. in order of publication. Ideally we are doing a new volume every two weeks, though the short story collections tend to weigh down the schedule as people want to discussion each story in turn, rather than the whole volume in a post.

We've just gotten up to volume four and I thought it was high time I started sharing them here. I am going to post each of my reviews on the blog and then edit this post, adding a link to each new review. I will also create a link to this post in the left column, under Writing Projects.

As always, I welcome your comments. I also welcome you to join in on our discussion at the forum.

Hellboy Volume 1: Seed of Destruction (October 1994)
Hellboy Volume 2: Wake The Devil (June 1997)
Hellboy Volume 3: The Chained Coffin and Others (August 1998)
Hellboy Volume 4: The Right Hand of Doom (April 2000)
Hellboy Volume 5: Conqueror Worm (February 2002)
B.P.R.D. Volume 1: Hollow Earth & Other Stories (January 2003)
B.P.R.D. Volume 2: The Soul of Venice and Other Stories (August 2004)
B.P.R.D. Volume 3: Plague of Frogs (February 2005)
B.P.R.D. Volume 4: The Dead (September 2005)
Hellboy Volume 6: Strange Places (April 2006)
B.P.R.D. Volume 5: The Black Flame (July 2006)
B.P.R.D. Volume 6: The Universal Machine (January 2007)
Hellboy Volume 7: The Troll Witch and Others (October 2007)
B.P.R.D. Volume 7: Garden of Souls (January 2008)
Hellboy Volumes 8-10
Johnson, Abe, and Sir Edward

A Few Words About Stan Lee

2010-10-09T19:23:00.000-07:00

I'm been meaning to write more for the blog, and more on comics, than I have been, so, to get things back on track, I am going to write something that's been on my mind for sometime: fanboys really need to reel back on their Stan Lee hatred and start giving the man his due. Lee is one of the most important men in history of the comic industry and its most influential writer. You read that last bit correctly: Stan Lee is the most influential writer in the history of comics.

Lee, born Stanley Lieber, got into comics straight out of high school, when his uncle got him a job working for his cousin's husband's company, Timely Comics. It was the sort of menial work you'd expect a kid to given, getting people's lunch, erasing pencil marks, whatever needed doing. Except for a stint in the Army Signal Corps, Lee stayed at Timely, aka Atlas, aka Marvel, growing up, starting a family, and getting tired of it all. Legend has it he told his wife he wanted to quit, to write something else, something better, to experiment. His wife told him that, if he's going to quit anyway, why not start experimenting now, with the comics you're already writing? Its funny that, with all the debates about who deserves credit for what, nobody mentions Joan Lee's advice, without which Lee would never have re-invented comics--because re-invent comics is exactly what he proceeded to do.

I know there is a long history of complaints about Lee's artistic collaborators being unfairly treated by Marvel, and I don't mean to dredge that all up again, but as long fanboys center their discussions on glorifying Kirby or Ditko, they overlook what Lee contributed altogether. Before Lee if a good guy got superpowers, he became a superhero. If a bad got superpowers, he became a supervillain. That's all there was to it. It was a black and white world, without characterization or complexity. But when Reed Richards, Sue and Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm got superpowers, it became as much a burden as a blessing. When teen Peter Parker got them, he saw a pathway to fame and fortune. They, and the hundreds of other characters Lee would write, reacted and behaved just like real people would. It was an important step in the maturity of the medium.

One that would take a couple of decades to really reach fruition. We look at works like Watchmen and writers like Alan Moore when we want to talk about how comics have grown, but works like Moore's are a part of the larger legacy of Stan Lee. One of the things that work against the recognition of Lee's influence, ironically, is its own pervasiveness. Today every character has problems, has a real life to balance with their heroics. If his contributions seem ordinary, commonplace, its because everyone is copying them and have been copying them for almost fifty years. Before Lee comics were written for children. Because of Lee comics were able to grow and mature and hold onto their readership. So step back and recognize the man for what he is and for what he's done. Because without Lee the chances are neither of us would be reading comics now!

Wildstorm RIP

2010-09-23T19:15:00.001-07:00

By now comic fans will know that DC has shut down its Wildstorm imprint and will be importing its characters into the DCU. I don't know what that means yet. Neither does anyone else.

Yesterday the BEAT had a long piece--read the comments too--on the Wildstorm Legacy. Its long and impressive. So much so that I was left wondering which imprint will have the greatest legacy, Wildstorm or Vertigo. Vertigo has had a great run and has enough juice in it to avoid the same fate, for now away, but its legacy of "mature" comics has been pretty much reduced to four letter words and nudity.

Wildstorm's legacy, on the other hand, is being felt in so many ways. For example, Dark Horse just announced a BPRD Omnibus. A concept Wildstorm, through the Absolute format, introduced.

Never Wash 'Em!

2010-09-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting piece. The WSJ interviewed Carl Chiara, director of brand concepts and special projects for Levi Strauss & Co, and asked him the best way to care for your beloved jeans. The key is in the cleaning.

New Blog: Twittofiction

2010-09-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

I've created a third blog! Not that I'm posting enough on the two I have, I know.

I've opened a Twitter account called Twittofiction and am going to start a project in short, short, story writing.

I have opened up a blog by the same name in order to discuss the project. I could do that on Twitter, I know, but decided not to for two reasons. First, I don't want to interrupt the flow of the story with other tweets and, second, Twitter's 140 character rule doesn't really allow for much discussion.

Twittofiction itself can be found here. Twittofiction the blog, here. You don't need a Twitter account to read Twittofiction.

NOTE: The link to the Twitter account wasn't working, but its fixed now.

Small Change

2010-08-15T20:52:00.000-07:00

I've found that, while I follow more than one blog--individual's blog, not comic sites like the Beat and Robot 6--I look at one of those blogs far more than the others. The reason is pretty clear. Carl's blog, Ramblings of a Geek, is listed on my blog page. I don't have to go to the dashboard to see updates. So I've edited things to add a new list, in the left margin, of three blogs I follow. Blogger has a gadget designed for this purpose, but I couldn't get Guns And/Or Roses to work using it, so I went back to a simple link list.

Check them out!

Chinese Red Army: Beat It!

2010-08-13T21:45:00.001-07:00

I'm not dying!

2010-08-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I had some blood tests done. My wife and I had decided to switch our life insurance policies and the new insurer wouldn't sign us up without tests. She passed her tests. I did not. Why I didn't wasn't clear. There were some reading, chemical balances, that weren't what they could be. So I went to my doctor and had more tests. And more. And then an ultra-sound. That was last Friday. When I was there the tech mentioned that I had Courvoisier's sign, an inflammation of the gall bladder.

But its not just any inflammation. Courvoisier is often indicative of pancreatic cancer, a form of cancer with a miserable survival rate. Less than one in twenty. I don't know what the grieving stages are but I started with denial and what just coming to terms with the possibilities when I went in today to see my doctor about the ultra-sound. Neither the doctor, the actual doctor, at the clinic where it was done, nor my own doctor, saw anything wrong with me. Nothing. My doctor is going to order one more series of blood tests, and then call it a day. 'Normal' health is defined by averages and even if my blood work is a little unusual, everything points to me being a very healthy 47 year old.

Stupid tech.

Temperance

2010-08-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

Writer: Cathy Malkasian, Artist: Cathy Malkasian
Published by Fantagraphics, 2010

Temperance is an unusual book, but easiest enough to describe. Pa is the leader of a group of refugees, and he organizes them to build a walled community called Blessedbowl, in order to save them from the enemy. From the beginning we know this isn’t true. “Pa” is no ones father and there is no enemy. He is an abusive, angry, selfish man, who exploits his followers, isolating and abandoning them in the walls of Blessedbowl, which they are taught is a great ship floating on a sea of fire. This illusion is kept alive by a follower named Minerva, who feeds them stories of Pa’s great battles and of his need for them to keep ready for the great final battle. She keeps this story and community going for thirty long years.

But what Temperance is about is a far more difficult and interesting question. Malkansian was a successful animator before turning her hand to graphic novels and her first book, Percy Gloom, was nominated for an Eisner and won her the Russ Manning Award (the Eisner award for best newcomer). Her visual storytelling is very strong, unquestionably, but it was how she chose to tell her story that I found most interesting. Once walled in the city Minerva struggles to keep her husband Lester together, a hero to all, the reality of his past forgotten. Except when he drinks. Then half remembered events come back to haunt him. Temperance is the story of fear, the unity it fosters, the exploitation it can lead to, and what we will do to protect ourselves. How Pa came to be what he is, and exactly what he is, is left unsaid. Why people followed him is only implied. Rather than proscribe how we should react, Malkansian is confident enough to leave us enough space to interpret what we see ourselves, even if it doesn’t bring us to a pat conclusion. I myself am still wondering, for example, whether Penny and Minerva are meant to be the same person.

A remarkable book.

David O'Reilly

2010-08-07T19:04:00.000-07:00

????? from David OReilly on Vimeo.

I found this on Warren Ellis' site. Interesting stuff, and there's more on O'Reilly's site.

Honour Where Its Due

2010-07-30T06:36:00.000-07:00

When Stve Gerber died a couple of years ago, the Eisners were on the horizon and I wondered why he wasn't in the Hall of Fame. I made a few inquiries, but eventually decided to file the whole thing away for next year. Well, a couple of years pass, my comics blogging has been in decline, but sometimes good things happen to good people and this year Gerber was inducted. The event, as live blogged by the Beat:

The first winner is Steve Gerber, his daughter Samantha and writing partner Mary Skrenes accept. Steve was a wonderfully witty and intelligent guy who was interested in everything from ancient history to politics, says Skrenes,. “He read constantly blog and news feeds and comic books and watched the news. The only person he could have a real conversation with was Mark Evanier. Mark was a really good friend to Steve and now keeps Steve’s blog alive. Also, Billingham gave Steve a van when his beloved Subaru couldn’t be repaired any more.” She also thanks the Hero Initiative, which was a big help to Gerber in his last days. Samantha Gerber mentions that Mary has been there for her and she calls her all the time. Very touching. “My dad was a fabulous writer and what a genius he was and what he created. To me, he was just my dad, and that’s what I miss.”

In--perhaps only marginaly--related news, Gil Kane's work is being celebrated in a new blog, Kingdom Kane. Well worth checking out. Kane himself was inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame in 1997, three years before he died. I don't know why he isn't better known, or perhaps more widely celebrated. He was an incredibly influencial artist and was promoting the graphic novel concept as early as 1968.

Absolute Planetary Vol. 1 & 2

2010-07-29T18:06:00.001-07:00

Writer: Warren Ellis, Art: John Cassaday
Published by DC/Wildstorm, 2011

I don’t know how many times I’ve read through Planetary. As the later issues were delayed, every time a new one was imminent, it was time to read them all through again. This week I read it through again. The occasion? The release of the new Absolute editions. The first volume was originally released five and a half years ago and was going for three hundred dollars or more. It was reprinted this month, thankfully, for the release of the second volume.

Self-described archeologists, the Planetary group, led by Elijah Snow and his field team, Jakita Wagner, the Drummer, and Ambrose Chase, scours the world, searching for and saving its lost history. They’re not looking for Roman coliseums. They’re looking for secret cities in Africa, monster islands, Chinese ghosts, 19th century moon launches. A secret history of the world. Their enemy is the Four, a group led by Randall Dowling. The Four of made a Faustian bargain for control of this world and are closely following Snow, trying to steal away not only his finds, but all of humanity’s potential.

Planetary is two things. First, it is a survey the twentieth century’s popular culture. Comic books, pulps, B movies, radio dramas, genre novels are all seamlessly integrated into one complete story. In that sense Ellis and Cassaday are engaged in their own archeological adventure, digging through our heroes and archetypes. Second, it is a Wold Newton-like attempt to tie all these various stories into one broader story. The Wold Newton family was a creation of SF writer Philip Jose Farmer, tying together various popular and pulp characters together into a shared universe. Farmer did this by writing fictional biographies. Ellis does this by creating stand ins. He can’t use trademarked characters so instead of Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze, for example, we get Alex Brass, who looks exactly like his pulp antecedent. I know these two things sound pretty much like the same thing, and they are closely related, but one speaks to intent and the other method.

As a series Planetary has been almost universally praised. There are some who think that the second half isn’t as good as the first, but I don’t think that’s true. There is a shift in tone, certainly. The first half sets everything up in a series of stand alone stories. In the second the stand alone stories are pushed back as the main story arc drives the series. It does have a different feel to it, but it’s not a drop in quality. Others have complained that the series epilogue was something of a let down. A techno-talkfest in which very little happens. Well… it was. But it was also written to clear up a plot point for the fans. Fans who would have complained if it hadn’t been written. The only problem that stood out to me was a trivia detail--Drummer refers to something that happened in the Adirondacks as having happened in the Rockies (these two mountain ranges are as far from one another as Southend-On-Sea is from Odessa)--but even I’m not that pedantic. Well, I guess I am, but I admit it’s trivial. Points for that, right?

The Absolute editions themselves are beautiful. DC targets the collectors market with high quality, oversized hardcovers, with dust jackets and slipcases. Both volumes are a little light when it comes to extras, and the crossover stories are not included, but the principle story is here in its entirety and Cassaday’s art, coloured by Martin, is really enhanced by this treatment. Absolute editions are not cheap. After taxes these go for about a hundred each in Canada, but I paid half that by going online and looking for a good deal. If you have any interest, look for them now before someone is asking three times as much.

A Picture Worth A Hundred Thousand Words

2010-07-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

Stan Lee sits on Odin's throne. A prop from the upcoming Thor movie, brought to this year's comic-con.

Out Of The Frying Pan...

2010-07-11T21:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I deactivated my Facebook account. I'd been thinking about it for a while and finally made the decision a couple of weeks ago. My FB friends could be divided into two groups: people I never talked to and people I talked to without Facebook. So good-bye Facebook.

But no sooner had I made this decision than Bree got a Twitter account. I had once told her that if she got one, I'd get one, and so I leave yesterday's most exciting site for today's. Not exactly a step forward, I know. We'll see how long this lasts. One interesting thing. For reasons that are more complicated than they are interesting I am 'tweeting' under a pseudonym, something I haven't done in about fifteen years.