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Breakdowns -- All to Hell and Gone

[MARCH 4 -- Chris Allen's BREAKDOWNS will be back live on March 11]

February 19, 2004

“God loves everyone
Like a mother loves a son
Queer or straight
Souls of every faith
Never one to judge
Would never hold a grudge
‘Cause when it’s done
God takes everyone”

Ron Sexsmith – “God Loves Everyone” from COBBLESTONE RUNWAY

“I’m almost certain
He’s trying to increase his burden
He said, ‘That’s how the child in me planned it
‘A woman wouldn’t understand it’”

Elvis Costello – “Poor Fractured Atlas” from ALL THIS USELESS BEAUTY

As the deadline for this column got closer, I realized that to achieve my goal of finishing off the “Publisher Report Cards for 2003” would have meant really cramming them in and probably being less than satisfied with the result. After my first installment, I realized that it would be better and fairer to talk to some of the publishers and editors and publicity directors themselves, to get some information to better inform my opinion. This extra work caused some delays, and while I must admit this has been one of least enjoyable features I’ve ever given myself to write, at least I can be happy I did the work I thought was required of it. However, all this means that I’ll have to really finish it off with about four remaining publishers next column. Besides, I really want to get to more reviews this time, some of them fairly lengthy. Also, I want to think about the thing as a whole and draw some conclusions as to what I think are some essentials of being a successful comics publisher in 2004. It might also be interesting to give myself a little report card as a reviewer and columnist.

Miscellany
Before we get to that, and the reviews, here’s one of the funniest reviews I’ve ever read, from Paul (The X-Axis) O’Brien, about Chuck Austen’s unsurprisingly disastrous ROMEO & JULIET homage in UNCANNY X-MEN #439.

Former DC editor Julius “Julie” Schwartz passed away last week. He’s probably the most important editor DC ever had, and certainly is responsible for a lot of what you may love about DC’s Silver Age comics. Mark Evanier has several weblog entries about the man, as well as links to obituaries and remembrances.

The other big story in the past week, for me, has been the termination of Milo George as Editor-in-Chief of THE COMICS JOURNAL. In his brief tenure, George did a great job righting what had become a listless and water-logged ship, and it’s too bad he didn’t get the chance to leave under his own steam and with all his plans realized. The only potentially good news to come of this is that as frustrating as Publisher Gary Groth’s dismissal of George is, at least he had the good sense to replace him with the shrewd and very plugged-in Dirk Deppey, who has done such a bang-up job on TCJ’s Journalista! weblog. Best wishes to both, and I understand it will be a few months before we really start to feel Deppey’s impact, so let’s give him a chance to get comfortable. Also, many thanks to Milo for allowing TCJ to be my print debut as a reviewer. In the issue out this week, which features a career retrospective of Steve Ditko, there’s a short review of the Oni graphic novel ONE PLUS ONE in the Bullets section.

The Reviews

KRAMERS ERGOT #4 Edited by Sammy Harkham. Highwater Books. $24.95
With the fifth volume just being solicited, I figured it was about time to finally check this out, see if one more anthology was full of self-indulgent nonsense and filler.

Well, I’m oddly happy to report that KE4 fits the bill, but it’s so full of nonsense, so self-indulgent and willfully obscure, that you almost have to love it for pushing that envelope.

Under a childish but compelling Mat Brinkman cover that defies you to buy it (there’s no title or publisher info anywhere), Harkham takes his sweet time even giving the creator credits and contents, and rarely allows these credits in the actual comics work, forcing the reader to keep going back to figure out who did what. It may not be coincidental that the book properly begins with an Anders Nilson strip about Sisyphus, that mythical character forever pushing that boulder up the hill until it rolls back and over him. Harkham’s editing and design is like that here, making things hard on himself with the purpose of the difficulty not being clear. David Lasky draws a decent bio-comic about the early days of The Carter Family of roots music singers, in a style reminiscent of David Collier’s. Unfortunately, it’s an unfortunate comparison, as he’s not as accomplished in this particular style as Collier is, and Collier himself pales next to R. Crumb, who’s already done work about blues singers that is far earthier and graphically more interesting.

Renee French has grown artistically in her work as a creator of children’s books, where she is forced to engage more directly with the reader, but her short piece here is familiar, orifice-obsessed shtick, probably worth bringing to therapy rather than publishing. Lauren Weinstein’s brief observation of a horrifying scene in nature is well done and made me want to see more. Marc Bell provides both stories and graphic art and the simplicity and confident line of the latter is preferable to the calculated weirdness of the story, with it’s “bricksnakes,” “ON/OFF Schnauzers” and intentional bad spelling and grammar.

John Hankiewicz’s art leaves me cold, but the writing is good, about a disturbed guy trying to hook up with a woman who loathes him. Brinkman’s sketchbooks are wonderfully primitive. On one level, I’m appalled that with the prospect of appearing in a primo anthology, he chose to offer these loose-leaf pages of Magic Marker-drawn monsters in a style straight outta Junior High. On another level, it’s just fun to look at, full of a strange, raw energy, sinister but almost cuddly.

Ron Rege’ continues to baffle.

Harkham delivers an actual story, and it's a good one, a series of physically and/or emotionally brutal incidents that add up to a life lived, and eventually triumphed over. His blank faced characters and cool green palette force the reader to find the emotion beneath the placid surfaces, but it's there, and it's strong.

After this high point, the book takes a nosedive with uninvolving art and stories from Dave Kiersch, C.F. and Stefan Gruber, culminating in a long cry for help from Josh Simmons that’s so awful it begs description, and calls into question whether Harkham had any editorial vision other than taking what showed up in the mail. David Heatley’s dream comic is inconsequential, as are Souther Salazar’s full pagers, though at least those have a semi-poetic lilt to the text, and more accomplished artwork. Still, covering much the same ground—full-pagers with enigmatic one-liners and bizarre juxtaposition of images—Genevieve Castree outdoes him, and it was rather a bad idea to put them next to each other in the book.

It’s hard to figure out who did what in the next section, but while the collage work is unmemorable, “I Dream of Pirates” has a great, simple style to it, and good, unforced humor. Before a fizzling last few pieces of art, collage and the second, already tiresome Nilson Minotaur story, there is a big chunk of humor and humanity by Jeffrey Brown called “Don’t Look Them in the Eye,” which alternate’s more of Brown’s troubles with girls with several disquieting encounters with the homeless and other passersby. Brown observes, for the most part, offering little and keeping his judgments about this or that character oblique. His work is reminiscent of James Kochalka’s in that both depict versions of themselves as compassionate, soft-edged innocents, but both also are quick to have their characters exerting their will and making their needs and boundaries known.

There is a disturbing theme running through much of this book, and that is a fear of, and refusal to, grow up. Even though much of the art is attractive and interesting, it often reflects an affectation of childishness, warped but still naïve and perhaps happy to remain so. Aside from Harkham and Brown, there is little to suggest an engagement with the world and its people, a sense of mortality and concern for one’s future. With these two, they are still in the early stages of their careers and don’t show any great maturity, but there is at least the sense that (for Harkham as a writer, at least, perhaps not as an editor) the two will not go out of their way to avoid it, and that even better and more significant works are ahead.

THE CUTE MANIFESTO and REINVENTING EVERYTHING #1 & 2 by James Kochalka. Self-published. $3.00 each.
Even as someone who likes much of Kochalka’s work a great deal, I was rather shocked to find that in any one of these three mini-comics there is more thought than in all of the book reviewed above, or in much of his own output to date. THE CUTE MANIFESTO is a mere eight pages of one-to-four panels each, but calling it a manifesto is totally fitting, and not so “cute” after all. It’s Kochalka’s philosophy boiled down to its essence—to embrace life in all its beauty and retain his innocence in spite of everything. Kochalka’s recent fatherhood has given strength and resolve to sentiments sometimes cloyingly presented in his previous fictions.

REINVENTING EVERYTHING #1 finds Kochalka despairing at the way our fast-paced, digital world creates so much noise and distance between us, throwing us off the natural rhythms of life. But he finds hope in the despair, realizing that technology is not in fact in opposition to nature’s rhythms at all. As in THE CUTE MANIFESTO, he advises one to accept the beauty in life, even the beauty in things with more sinister meanings, like exploding buildings and factory smokestacks. It’s here that, at his most provocative, fragile moment, Kochalka loses his nerve and finishes with an innocuous, though related, gag, but there is still plenty to value and ponder in what preceded it.

REINVENTING EVERYTHING #2 is the final and most poignant exploration of the theme of choosing beauty in life, as Kochalka and his wife, Amy, choose to create beauty out of the emptiness and ugliness left in their hearts after 9/11. They choose to create a baby. They talk over the pros and cons, but with Kochalka’s rousing, “Fuck it! The last ten years have been awesome…but do I want the next ten years to be the exact same thing? No way!”, the idea takes hold. The choice of ocean waves rocking James and Amy as a visual metaphor for the unrelenting buffeting of Life is not a sophisticated one, but it works, and makes for a nice transition for the tidal experience of childbirth, and the waves becoming, at the end, a tree-lined street—stability, family and growth. Beauty, harmony, Life.

Here’s hoping these, SUNBURN, THE TRUTH ABOUT COMICS and other of his more serious works are collected soon.

STRANGE EMBRACE by David Hine. Active Images. $14.95
As gripping and as inescapable as quicksand, Hine’s graphic novel concerns a blackhearted clairvoyant boarder battering at another boarder’s mental defenses to get at the truth of the man’s life. And the truth not only isn’t pretty, it’s more horrific than anything even this wicked seer could have imagined, a family history teeming with perversion, cruelty and betrayal. With a high-contrast art style in the dissociative neighborhood of Charles Burns or Jose Munoz, Hine unfolds his powerful tale with the precision of an airtight thriller and the mad, terrifying rush of a fever dream. This is a tale that will linger on in the reader’s mind, like it or not.

GRAPHIC CLASSICS: MARK TWAIN Edited by Tom Pomplun. Graphic Classics. $9.95
As with the various incarnations of CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED, these volumes tend to succeed based on the enduring value of the author’s work, though often the CI volumes failed because the novel being adapted was too large to condense without releasing its energy into the ether. Pomplun has a somewhat easier task here in that the author’s he’s chosen, such as Poe and London, have large bodies of short work from which to choose.

The largest story, Rick Geary’s adaptation of “The Mysterious Stranger,” is also the first and best, a beautifully drawn version of a tale that still manages to delight and provoke in its portrayal of a Satan without malice, and Mankind doing far more ill to each other out of ignorance, cruelty and eagerness to impress others. Nick Miller’s and Antonella Caputo’s take on “The Carnival of Crime in Connecticut” also conveys the power of Twain’s sharply satirical jabs at morality and hypocrisy, with some self-deprecation deflecting holier-than-thou claims. The art isn’t exceptional, but these two cartoonists, and several others in the book, get good mileage out of Twain’s oversized personality and bushy moustache and eyebrows.

There are some dull moments in the book, such as a couple text stories with illustrations (what’s so graphic about that?) and two pieces on the legend of the Cardiff Giant, but the unsatisfying pieces (and the overrated, poorly plotted “Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” seems to be Twain’s own fault) are usually followed by something strong, such as the touching “A Dog’s Tale”, illustrated in idiosyncratic but fitting fashion by Lance Tooks, or Simon Gane’s thoroughly engaging adaptation of “Is He Living Or Is He Dead?”. It’s not an unqualified success, but at $9.95 it’s well worth picking up for admirers of Twain’s enduring, forward-thinking work, or those looking for a lively, wide-ranging introduction to it.

CATWOMAN: SELINA’S BIG SCORE by Darwyn Cooke. DC Comics. $24.95
When this came out last year, I was already a fan of Cooke’s work, but just couldn’t justify spending $25 on a hardcover Catwoman graphic novel, much as I loved his work on the first four issues of the series. It seemed like an expensive prequel story that didn’t really need to be told. But recently I read the first issue of Cooke’s DC: THE NEW FRONTIER, loved it, and picked this up just as soon as I could, and I’m happy I did.

There are very few comics creators working today whose work excites me enough to natter away like a fanboy, as I just have, and as I did in my review of NEW FRONTIER. And really, isn’t that part of what comics is about?

There haven’t been that many successful instances of supervillains going good and making it stick, but Brubaker’s take on Catwoman has been one of the best, picking up the tasty morsels left by Frank Miller in BATMAN: YEAR ONE and expanding on them to make Selina Kyle a rich character, dangerous but good-hearted and loyal, and with her own peculiar criminal code. Here, Cooke provides not just a meaningless last heist romp for Selina before she settles down, but adds a lot to her motivations for turning her life around. He gives her change a real purpose and gravitas, as the heist ends in some tragedy and heartbreak.

That’s not to say the book’s a downer, as it’s a kick just to watch Cooke work, with pages crammed with panels, but all clear storytelling, even with the juicy brush he uses. His Selina alternates between kohl-eyed seductress and Hepburnesque gamine, and it’s nice to see her in garb other than the fetishistic leather costume for a change. Her partner on the heist, the double-crossed ex-paramour Stark, lends the story some 60s hipness, as the white-haired hard guy looks a bit like Lee Marvin in POINT BLANK, with goofball other partner Jeff some 70s funk and Slam Bradley the old noir vibe. Matt Hollingsworth mixes it up into a cocktail of moody earthtones setting up the occasional Technicolor explosions. The heist itself—robbing a train full of Mob money—is more clever and exhilarating that most heist films these days, and with Cooke hitting the right emotional notes for Selina, it’s a winner all around.

The Comics Publisher Report Cards for 2003, Part 3

The penultimate chapter of this wearisome feature. As mentioned last time, any editors or publishers feeling I’m missing some essential aspect of your company—or I’m just flat-out wrong—are welcome to write.

IDW – I really admire the way these guys have grown and how they have created a brand for themselves. It seems to me that for a publisher to be successful, the mere mention of their name should call to mind some feeling, some image, some flavor. And actually, it’s better if there are more than one flavor. With IDW, there’s a stylish modern horror from Steve Niles & Co., and TV crime properties CSI; CSI: MIAMI and THE SHIELD, with the work of Ash Wood and Ben Templesmith providing a visual continuity across them. Stuff like WYNONNA EARP or that Wein/Wolfman sooperteam book just don’t register as IDW books, you know? But the majority of what they put out is consistently pretty good, with good production, and it’s on time. Readers know what they’re getting, and it’s there when they want it, and with both those items checked off, IDW is a good way along to winning the battle.

• Public Face - IDW has grown quite a bit in the past year, adding lots more books, adding staff, but always staying on-message and with no public gaffes that I can think of, and the books seem to pretty much always be on time. It is true that they don’t seem to have figured out how to get the massive TV audience to read the licensed comics, or maybe if they’ve figured it out, they still can’t afford to put it in motion.
• Web Presence - The site has improved over a pretty crummy version when they started, but is still pretty spare and not very illuminating. Their books have great design and some fun themes to exploit, and that should translate to their site, which it currently doesn’t.
• Review Copy Policy - No problems so far about requesting things, though I think at a certain point—after a few good reviews—you just add someone to a comp list and be done with it. Citing a specific example risks making this look like a big deal, which it isn’t at all, but I’ve been really enthusiastic about stuff that doesn’t sell that well, like their expensive Ash Wood books, and you don’t send the new LORE as a matter of course? Doesn’t make much sense, unless a good review read by thousands doesn’t translate to a few books sold, which I guess is entirely possible.
• IDW in 2004 - Probably onward and upward. Keep the Niles train rollin’ and keep solid genre writers like Max Allan Collins on the licensed stuff. It will be interesting to see how Ben Templesmith develops as a writer and artist. I wouldn’t put much faith in the superhero and all-ages books, but as long as they keep their successful franchises working they can continue to take flyers on this stuff with little harm.

ComicsOne - Hmm, MEGA DRAGON & TIGER…who will win? WHO WILL WIN?!. My guess is that Dragon and Tiger will make it to the next round, what do you think?

I actually like ComicsOne pretty well but can’t say I’ve read one book of theirs in 2003. Kung Fu comics make up a big chunk of their lineup, and many of them are gorgeous, if over-the-top, but the problem is where to start, and how to keep up, as many of their series run multiple volumes. It’s not that this is a criticism of them—and all the manga/manhua publishers do the same thing—it’s that when dealing with a sizeable portion of the audience who have grown up liking Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men, etc., it’s tough to fit in a group of books of comparable breadth and frequency of publishing. Essentially, the failure of U.S. comics publishers to reach teens and children has left a door wide open for someone else with analogous types of genre comics to step in and take the money, and more power to them. For me, as attractive as the art of an Andy Seto is, I just don’t have enough time to get into a whole saga about battling brothers and their enchanted swords and whatever. But although ComicsOne hasn’t had the same success as Viz, Tokyopop or Dark Horse in capturing market share, they seem to be on a pretty good course. It seems that though they’re the premier U.S. publisher of kung-fu comics, that genre hasn’t exploded yet. One thing that sets them apart is their willingness to publish—albeit in somewhat altered form—more lurid and erotic material than the other manga publisher’s, stuff like Kazuo (LONE WOLF & CUB) Koike’s bizarre classics OFFERED and WOUNDED MAN

• Public Face - They’re good about email press releases, though I think the message is diluted somewhat when they announce something like six new kung-fu releases at once, rather than individually. It’s hard for a journalist or critic to latch onto what might be special or inviting about a particular work. It would probably be effective to follow up such an announcement with separate emails that link to short previews, and individualize the message.
• Web Presence - Although the site is a little lacking in style, it’s effective at covering many aspects of their titles, with extra touches like “character maps” charting the huge casts of some of the kung-fu properties, as well as some Flash animation and creator bios. What really sets ComicsOne apart is their willingness to give readers more than just a free taste, but actual free graphic novels, downloadable here. You can’t ask for better than that when faced with so many choices in manga.
• Review Copy Policy - They’ve always been pleasant to deal with.

Active Images - This is a really interesting publisher in the sense that the principles—Richard Starkings and JG Roshell—are hugely important to comics today for their lettering, fonts, and design, and the publishing arm has put out some good books, but hardly anybody really talks about them. The elaborate joke of HIP FLASK ended up as some really beautiful comics illustrated by Ladronn and written with conviction by Joe Casey, not the easiest writer to get sincerity from. But in the past year or so, AI has expanded into their Gold line of re-presentations of sleeper graphic novels like Al Davison’s THE SPIRAL CAGE and David Hine’s STRANGE EMBRACE, and so far their taste has been near-impeccable.

• Public Face - Even if I’m not interested in, say, a series of eight or ten e-mails with quotes telling me how good HIP FLASK is, I applaud them for it, because when you only put out a few books a year, you have to do everything you can to get people interested. AI has done a good job promoting tough-to-describe books like STRANGE EMBRACE and getting creator David Hine interviewed. It’s no surprise that a CWN would interview him, as the site is sponsored by AI, but I can’t blame them for steering the editorial content of that site if the owners are willing to be steered.
• Web Presence - Besides this site, there are numerous sister sites devote to their business of creating fonts and other things, but this is a pretty effective, attractive site. It could use some previews and perhaps some essays from creators about their books as well, but it gets the job done.
• Review Copy Policy - Good. In fact, it was sort of funny the first book I received, which was the first HIP FLASK. Not only did I receive that but I received every cover variant, nice but kind of an unnecessary gesture to a reviewer. I’m not complaining, but maybe the more cost-effective approach would have been to send those variants out unsolicited to other reviewers and bloggers who hadn’t asked for it but seemed to know what they were doing.
• AI in 2004 - I don’t expect SKIDMARKS will spark a great deal of interest, but I’m looking forward to it. Haven’t seen anything else announced, but I do think their GOLD line of graphic novels has been strong so far and hope they continue.

Slave Labor Graphics - SLG is a funky outfit that has found continued success with an offbeat subgenre (Goth Humor?), and their work in other areas is usually unique and often of high quality, such as stalwarts like Evan Dorkin’s DORK and the various Andi Watson books. They occasionally flirt with superheroes, but when they do it’s something with an offbeat sensibility like TUPELO, one of my favorite new series last year, or STREET ANGEL, another good offering that just came out. BOMBABY found them making what I believe is the first foray into Indian culture in American comics, to a good deal of acclaim.

• Public Face - Very good this year. They’ve always been able to put across an image of SLG as a fun bunch of people who love comics and love their fans, and this year a good deal of their quirky output has gotten good reviews and attention.
• Web Presence - Excellent. Somewhat stylish, but more importantly, their site does a great job of communicating SLG’s sense of fun, as well as providing lots of updates to news and reviews of their books, keeping visitors excited and/or hammering the point home forcefully but painlessly that they put out a lot of books people like.
• Review Copy Policy - Friendly, personable. Probably could do a little better at automatically sending books similar to ones that have been positively reviewed.
• SLG in 2004 - Stay the course with the goth stuff, as long as it sells, and continue trying the other offbeat material. Also, increase the hype on trade paperback collections and perhaps look to a more unified and stylish design sense for them, as they’re all over the map and sometimes look boring and/or cheap.

Highwater - This is really the quintessential artcomix publisher because Tom Devlin is an actual artist, producing his own work, lending his own taste and sensibility to the website rather than subcontracting the task to a webgeek. And that’s great creatively, as Highwater’s output and overall design sense clearly reflects his taste. I always find a sense of “publisher personality” tends to put me on the side of the publisher and want them to succeed over the big corporate comics. The problems with being so artistically driven here, though, are that a lot of Highwater books seem to value the style and design quirks of the creators over having much to say. I think Jordan Crane, Matt Madden and a couple others in the Highwater roster are very talented, and have done good work, but seem to be growing somewhat slowly. I don’t get a feeling of editorial vision or guidance. However, my sampling of Highwater’s output is relatively small—maybe four or five books—so I want to hold off on any definite opinion for now. One thing that is clear, however, is the lack of effort put into their…

• Public Face - People I respect have said that Mat Brinkman’s TERATOID HEIGHTS was one of the best graphic novels of last year, and that Marc Bell’s SHRIMPY & PAUL was hilarious, but how many of you have ever seen them in a shop? Seen them reviewed? Seen the creators interviewed? Artcomix are kind of like documentary films—if they’re not about Nazis or some form of injustice, it’s hard to get people’s attention. Whatever their merits as art, it’s simply going to be more difficult for the books above to make a Time.com Best Of list than it would be for something more novelistic, linear and easier to describe like PALOMAR or BUDDHA or PERSEPOLIS, and as a publisher, you have to know that and try harder. Highwater puts a lot of money into the production of the books, but little into advertising or promotion, and it’s a shame.
• Web Presence - Extremely attractive site that’s actually worth visiting often, as they constantly update comic strips, including a long-running, interesting, full-color strip from Jordan Crane. They could use more quotes and reviews about their books, though.
• Review Copy Policy - So far, nuttin’. This is my second request, and I’ll give them a couple weeks before judgment. You won’t hear from me either way, most likely—just see what I review or don’t review.
• Highwater in 2004 - KRAMERS ERGOT #5 should be out in a month or so, but other than that and Dupuy & Berberian’s I PITY YOU later this year, I don’t see anything too significant. Regardless, they really need to work harder at getting the word out about their books.

Cyberosia Publishing - They have taken an interesting route in the few years they’ve been publishing, producing a few new graphic novels a year and collecting good—even seminal—mini-series from the late 80s and early 90s, like JONNY NEMO, DAMNED and now Jamie Delano’s 2020 VISIONS, which was originally from Vertigo/DC and is now to be presented in a $30 hardcover DC would never risk publishing at this point. There were some clunkers in their original material early on, but they seem to be improving in taste, and the presentation is first-rate, as good as much of what the big publishers put out.

• Public Face - This is their area of weakness. With the original and re-presented material, they face two different uphill battles: “never heard of ‘em” and “if it’s so good, why was it never collected before/why’d it go out of print?”, and CP does little to break down those barriers in a potential customer’s mind. Almost nothing in the way of press for these books, which is really too bad, since some of them are from creators like Steven Grant, Jamie Delano and Peter Milligan who are a guarantee of at least a few sales, provided someone knows the books are out.
• Web Presence - A simple and elegant design, and extensive (usually around ten pages) previews for most of their books, but in what I presume is an attempt to look as professional as longer-lived publishers, Cyberosia leaves out the personality. And, as I’ve maintained, personality is part and parcel of whatever successes publishers like Oni Press, Top Shelf and Fantagraphics have had. Also, while there are some high-powered book blurbs here from people like Grant Morrison and Douglas Rushkoff, both those quotes have typos.
• Review Copy Policy - Cold but effective. No feedback of any kind on reviews, but that’s not a big deal, and the fact my copy of DAMNED looked like it had been kicked across a patio didn’t diminish my enjoyment of it.
• CP in 2004 - 2020 is their biggest, most expensive book yet, so a lot is probably riding on it. I haven’t seen any announcements of what else is coming in ’04.

Next Time: I mean it, I’ll finish this Publisher Report Card feature, with AiT/PlanetLar, Harris, I-Books, Pantheon, VIZ and Penny-Farthing. I’ll also review some not-all-that-new stuff (hey, it’s my show) like Alex Robinson’s BOP (MORE BOX OFFICE POISON); Junji Ito’s GYO VOL. 1; VAMPIRELLA MAGAZINE #1 & 2; and JUDGE DREDD/ALIENS: INCUBUS. Wow, that’s-a some-a variety. I may get to one or two more as well.

Chris Allen Chris has also written for NINTH ART, POPIMAGE, COMIC BOOK GALAXY and now, THE COMICS JOURNAL.

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