July 17, 2003
“She’ll be up on a bar soon
With a fish head and a harpoon
And a fake beard plastered to her brow
You talk to her
She’s your lover now”
--Bob Dylan, “She’s Your Lover Now”
The usual method I’ve settled into for writing the column has been to write maybe two reviews at a sitting, the column intro either early in the game or very late. I don’t massage the reviews much after writing; it’s usually the way I want it. At worst, it’s a little harsher than intended, and I’m sorry, Katie Mignola, but it’s about time you learned some tough lessons about life. Look at Kal-El Bogdanove!
Anyway, partly out of necessity—late start and my editor is feverishly getting ready for Comic-Con International San Diego (called SDCC from this point forward)—and partly for drill, I’m writing this one quick, sequential, and off-the-cuff. I’ll get to the reviews quickly, after mentioning that a recently reviewed creator wrote to me and really took my criticisms of his book in the most constructive ways, which speaks highly of him. Ultimately, one has to just do the work the best way they know how, but I don’t think there should ever be a point where someone stops listening, at least taking suggestions under consideration.
Last thing before the reviews: Oni editor James Lucas Jones says that Dixon’s recent claim that Greg Rucka’s work shows a “distinct lack of regard for his fans” is really Rucka showing a distinct lack of regard for Chuck Dixon. It’s a good line, but it makes me wonder why Jones felt the need to butt in? Is Rucka speaking through him? If not, what business is it of Jones what Dixon thinks? Fight your own battles.
Okay, really the last thing(s), just some irritants from fellow columnists:
If you’re going to review the new COMIC BOOK ARTIST, which is an Alan Moore / America’s Best Comics tribute, could you maybe say more about Moore than that his interview is “lengthy”? Christ, there’s more written in this review about Todd Klein’s two-page piece than the 50 or so pages of prime Moore. What I liked about the interview was that it painted a good picture of Moore’s early years of doubt and hunger, a struggling cartoonist who developed his writing abilities out of a need to support his family as much as anything. I guess this columnist really needed the space for his massive review of NINJA BOY, though, so all is forgiven.
Anyone who’s read this column in the past year knows I liked and supported the Casey/Wood AUTOMATIC KAFKA series, but did we need a dissection of it in The Pulse? A dissection might have been good, actually, but this was instead just one more chance for Joe Casey to stroke himself over a book that, let’s face it, dared people to stick with it. There was nothing deep going on, just sporadic cleverness with handsome and bountiful depictions of vagina. That works for me, I admit without shame, but I’m not going to kid myself the book was anything but a rude laugh.
Okay, now for the reviews, let’s go, stop gawking, and in the immortal words of Buddy Love, “Shut up and pay atTENNNshun.” By the way, next time you watch that movie, notice how much eye makeup he has on, and how girlish he hits. Come on, Jerry. Mood is wrong.
THE SPIRAL CAGE by Al Davison. Active Images. $12.95
Al Davison has spina bifida, but while this is the constant in his life and in this book, he doesn’t want you to feel sorry for him. Quite the opposite. All Davison wants in this autobiographical work is to be able to get around, create his art, and maybe someday find love. In a pleasantly non-linear mode of storytelling, he does all these things and more, even kicking out one of his spindly legs to kick a threatening motorcyclist right off his bike in an honest-to-God action sequence.
The obvious pride with which Davison recounts this event, and a couple others in which he faces down the threatening hordes of ignorant thugs spitting the pejorative “Spacka!” at him and hoping to do violence to him, is somewhat at odds with the otherwise deeply held tenets of Buddhism discussed elsewhere in the book. But Davison does explain that, as he has been taught, Buddhism is not about denying things from oneself but about using everything one has, even flaws, to achieve one’s goals. The Buddhism and meditation seem to keep Davison focused and not liable to give in to despair.
Davison bounces between childhood and adult moments and some dreams with a range of art styles recalling such disparate talents as Howard Chaykin, Charles Vess and Neal Adams, the huge, innocent eyes of young Alan even a bit mangaesque, perhaps like Junji Ito with the meticulous rendering. He refrains from getting too maudlin about the challenges in his life, which is commendable, but he also zips around a little too much to effectively build to a dramatic triumph. One’s eyes will be dry by the time they’re through, but there should be an appreciation for Davison’s accomplishments, I’m sure. Apparently, this is the longest version of this book yet printed, with material created after previous printings now incorporated at various points. As his girlfriend is obviously a key element in his life, I would have liked to have seen more of her, more reason for the reader to understand Davison’s love for her aside from the fact she meditates with him and likes his body. What is there regarding the two is very natural and loving; I just wanted more dimension for her. It holds up well as an unconventional autobiography.
DON’T EAT THE ELECTRIC SHEEP #1 & 2 by Joe Flood. Knee Deep Press. $2.50 and $3.95
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The problem with most earnest young cartoonist auteurs is that they just can’t draw that well. Self-published and small press comics suffer also from a paucity of ideas in many cases, but sometimes the ideas are there but don’t come across because of the bad art. That’s not so with this book, as Flood can draw. It’s not flashy but looks real and functional, even the made-up lab equipment and android parts. Yes, the main story in these issues is about a synthetic man who looks the same as you or I but has some enhanced memory and deductive skills, though much of the time he is kept sedated with drugs in an asylum. Why such an expensive experiment is kept almost catatonic isn’t explained, and in fact very little is.
Most android stories are of course about the subject finding the humanity within themselves, evolving beyond the metal and plastic and microchips to having a loving, compassionate soul. That may very well be where Flood is going but we’re a long way away, as the two issues have shown the “man” making no progress and learning nothing about himself, not even that he’s not human. The surreal sequences with the leering, cruel nurses and lunatic doctors are too easy a route, while much space is given to lovely close-ups of barbed wire and chain link fences and the like, rather than advancing the story. It’s a tough call, as so many indie books really forget to include dynamic visuals, but the drawback is that with self-published material one has no idea how long a wait it will be until the next chapter, and there’s not a lot here I can remember that long. In the art and the predicament I’m reminded a bit of Farel Dalrymple’s POP GUN WAR, but at least that managed five issues in a year-and-a-half. One thing that book has over this one, though, is a singular focus. Flood offers some backup stories starring an apoplectic duck-man (sound familiar) battling alligators in the sewer, and it’s uninvolving nonsense. It’s crucial that the reader feel the author knows where he’s going in the main story, so as to engender the necessary faith to keep buying the series, but when the backups are such a mess it creates doubt. My suggestion would be to spend more pages on the big story—and pick up the pace—the second chapter was mostly about this low-yield guy taking some pills—and confine the backups to a couple single-page strips or something.
SWITCHBLADE HONEY by Warren Ellis and Brandon McKinney. AiT/PlanetLar. $9.95
I have a theory that some people do their most entertaining work when it’s their least ambitious. Ellis’ work for Avatar, like STRANGE KISSES and SCARS are good examples, as is the recent RELOAD for Wildstorm/DC. This book apparently started off as something of a private joke that ate at Ellis until he hammered out a story to scratch the itch and amuse himself in the bargain.
The joke is to essentially fill the Starship Enterprise with the Magnificent Seven, earnest explorers replaced with hardhearted convicts with nothing left to lose, assigned to take on a relentless alien armada through guerilla warfare, with no one to help them if they get in a jam.
The premise has a big hole in it, to my mind—why the deniability? If things are going so poorly, why isn’t every ship in the fleet adopting these tactics? Nonetheless, it’s a workable engine to get the collection of rogues together, the captain refreshingly informal, even profane. What’s better—he doesn’t want to do the regular captain stuff, and is eager to share command, and plans of action, with the female lead. Throw in a running gag or two, some sci-fi warfare, and an amusingly malevolent enemy who likes to use psychological taunts based on dead Earth pop culture (“Earth actors like Bart Simpson are fucking your wives right now” or whatever it was), and you’ve got a fun adventure. And surprisingly enough, there’s some actual moral center to the whole thing, resulting in one of those inspirational speeches from the captain that must be pretty damn hard to write without getting schmaltzy, but Ellis gets it done. It has to be said that the very end—the climactic gambit, mind you—is incomprehensible, which is annoying, doubly so if I have to hear that it was just the creators “taking the piss” or something, but even this finish line fumble doesn’t blunt the overall the enjoyment.
NIGHTMARE WORLD by Aaron Weisbrod and Various. Golden Goat Studios.
Golden Goat describes itself as a complete entertainment package, with studio members now getting lettering, coloring and penciling work with Marvel, Image and elsewhere, but rather than immersing ourselves in the cluttered main site, we’ll just look at the project in question, a webcomic horror anthology. Weisbrod writes four eight-pagers (a fifth is unwinding at a rate of two pages a day this week), each illustrated by a different artist or team, all with titles taken from songs, for whatever reason.
“Momma’s Boy” features some good Byrne-like artwork, with a nice establishing shot, and is an intense, Oedipal tale of a son defending Mom from abusive Dad, with a good EC Comics twist ending. It made me want to see if Weisbrod could write himself into even more interesting territory from this point, but alas, that’s it for this story. “You Oughta Know” is described as “the sexiest Lovecraft-based story you’ll ever read”, but while that may be true, it doesn’t make it good. Guy cheats on his gal, gets eaten by the femme fatale-turned-Cthulu, and so what?
“Run Like Hell” at least tries to surprise, the expected horror turning out to be humor, but there’s not much point to it, while “How Do You Sleep?” is not really a story but rather a bad comedy riff on how The Smurfs cartoon apparently espoused Communist propaganda.
My overall impression is consistent with my view of a lot of young comics creators who want to have done a lot of work without giving the proper time and attention to the work they’re doing. There are no ideas here, no stories that had to be told, but rather a couple awkward experiments and a couple formulaic genre pieces. A new story with generally above-average artwork every week is a great goal but shouldn’t get in the way of quality, and it appears that in the interests of filling the space any and every notion is being pressed into eight-page service here. Also, it must be said that the website’s clumsiness of use makes it hard to enjoy any of the stories, as it requires you to back up to the home page after viewing each story page, which really annoys after a while. I’m not sure why each story needs a new “cover”, either, especially for a webcomic. I’d recommend an overhaul of the presentation, but it’s even more important that the writer focuses on telling stories that are more than diversions and actually say something about how he views the world.
NERVE BOMB #0 by James S. Baker. Nerve Bomb Comics. $3.50
I’m all for a comics creator following his muse and telling whatever kind of story he wants to, but it has to be said that the superhero parody has been mined nearly as much as the straight superhero story, and one should enter this subgenre with caution and a helluva lot of talent and ideas. There’s some drawing ability here, a style that would fit in a MAD MAGAZINE piece, reminding me a little of Al Jaffee with a lot more shadows. But there’s little here in terms of story or characterization to make me want to continue.
Simply put, Rocket Rabbit, a childish robot whose thrust jets look a bit like floppy rabbit ears, and The Professor, the black leather-clad sidekick/mentor, work for a conglomeration of superheroes, but have only been getting the least desirable assignments, giant robots and the like. There’s a corresponding consortium of supervillains planning some big power play as well. I’m not sure what Baker’s vision is for the book, but at best it’s cute, forgettable superhero fare, pretty much all-ages but for the oppressive dark tones. If it was funnier, I might want to stick around a while, but as it is I’d just suggest the author figure out how to make the book a more unique and entertaining experience.
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: THE DC UNIVERSE STORIES OF ALAN MOORE with Dave Gibbons, Kevin O’Neil, Rick Veitch, Klaus Janson and Others. DC Comics. $19.95
As Alan Moore completes his current assignments and faces life as a comics retiree, it’s a good time to catch up with some early works that formed a part of the foundation of his reputation as arguably the best writer the medium has seen. This new collection presents I believe all the Moore-written stories set in the DC Universe of the 80s, as he was the regular writer of SWAMP THING but before WATCHMEN and BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE would catapult him to superstardom.
Not every tale is a winner, the “Vega” stories interesting ideas not given much room to breathe, and very much in the vein of the couple dozen “Future Shocks” Moore wrote for 2000 A.D. before landing at DC. The two-part Green Arrow adventure, though boasting fine art from Janson, is one of Moore’s most run-of-the-mill tales, and the over-the-top pursuit of a murderous child molesting father, originally two issues of the now-defunct Punisher rip-off VIGILANTE, has little to recommend it other than a moderate amount of suspense. The dialogue is especially brittle for both the adult women in the story, but it can be argued these are their ways of coping with a world that hasn’t treated them kindly.
A secret origin for The Phantom Stranger, drawn by a Joe Orlando well past his prime, is not a great story but an interesting experiment for Moore, drawing parallels between two lead characters from different worlds, both facing very similar challenges, while a trio of tales of less-famous Green Lanterns, drawn respectively by Gibbons, O’Neil and Bill Willingham, almost effortlessly add depth and richer history to these characters.
The three stories here that are the most well-known, however, are not necessarily the best of the bunch. “Of Mortal Clay”, in which Clayface III goes completely mad over a store mannequin he thinks is his wife, aims for both horror and pathos but ends up a bit humdrum and pathetic. It also seems to be part of the unfortunate trend Moore (with Frank Miller and others) would create, in KILLING JOKE and elsewhere, where the colorful supervillains of youth are deconstructed to be as perverse and deranged as possible. I don’t really remember what happened to this Clayface after this story, but he’s such a sad case here I can see why he wasn’t used that often. And while George Freeman’s art is mostly quite moody and effective, he blows the surprise about the wife being a mannequin pretty early on, if indeed surprise was the intent.
“The Jungle Line”, drawn by Veitch, is good-looking and readable, but has little in the way of plot. Superman is affected by a Kryptonian spore that alters his mind and makes him run himself ragged, making his hallucinating way to Swamp Thing Territory to die away from other heroes’ towns. Swampy gets him to cool down and rest, and he’s fine. The story is notable mainly for Moore’s overheated narration, perfect for Swamp Thing and the setting, and the fact that Superman didn’t team up with Swamp Thing much, nor did he so desperately need another’s help very often.
The final story discussed is the best, and the first in the collection, “For the Man Who Has Everything”, which finds a malicious birthday present from Mongul causing Superman to hallucinate that he is a citizen of Krypton as its people experience social upheaval. It’s a dark but convincing vision, meant to torture a powerless Kal-El, and it’s up to Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman to save Superman, who will then have to defeat Mongul. Gibbons’ work is timeless—even the Zipatone holds up well—and Moore treats the heroes with respect and understanding but just enough irreverence in the dialogue to make them fresh.
VIC AND BLOOD by Harlan Ellison and Richard Corben. I-Comics/Byron Preiss. $17.95
One of Ellison’s great unfinished works, readers can now experience as much of this novel-in-progress as is available, with this collection of three short stories/novel chapters and the corresponding graphic adaptations created by Corben in the late 70s.
A dystopian future tale with a good deal more wit and humor than most, this shaggy dog story with a difference concerns Vic, a horny and impetuous adolescent, and his dog, Blood, a telepath who has taught Vic all he knows. In this future, such dogs often bond with humans, their telepathy having largely replaced natural hunting instincts. Blood, in a neat role reversal, is the master and mentor of Vic, trying to educate the lad and curb his worst instincts.
The trouble, other than the usual trouble of roving gangs and irradiated mutants, is when Vic, like the human dog he represents, goes essentially into heat, falling for the lure of a pretty girl who leads him down to an underground city that needs Vic’s sperm to produce male babies. For the first time, Vic abandons Blood on the surface, promising to return.
Whether a boy’s love for his dog wins out over the lust for a girl is something I’ll leave to readers, but the ending of the second story, “A Boy and His Dog”, written first but the second chapter of the novel, is legendary for being disturbing but completely logical, and with a real emotional consequence. Not that Ellison isn’t a guy confident in his own powers, but one wonders if the hesitance in completing the novel has anything to do with the daunting task of topping this chapter. The third chapter is good, setting up future gang conflict, but the heart of the collection is really this story of loyalty, cutting through all the science fiction details. Corben provides excellent artwork, sensual even through the muted earthtones. The package itself is well-designed, with Ellison providing humorous sidebar wisdom from Blood, as well as writing a new introduction. Some of the dialogue has also been changed to reflect events that took place after the original writing, which is appreciated, though the paste-up on the word balloons is quite visible. Otherwise a good-looking and fully engrossing book.
Previews Comments From A Guy Who Doesn’t Suck
Something I wish I had more time to do is a solid, fairly comprehensive look at upcoming books of note from Diamond’s PREVIEWS. You know, something with commentary along the lines of my usual Breakdowns mix of the earnest and sarcastic. Fortunately, my friend Derek Martinez handles this just fine with no help or effort from me. Go here for the latest entry; more can be found in the two archive entries preceding it.
Hey, that will do it for this week. Anyone attending SDCC is cordially invited to stop by the ViewAskew/Graffitti Designs/Movie Poop Shoot booth and say hello, though I will only be on-site Friday and part of Saturday. Stop by, pick up our cool site program for a buck, and then away with ye.
Oh, and if you didn’t get a chance, read my interview with T3 comics writer Ivan Brandon right here.
Have fun.
Chris Allen
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