November 23, 2004
HAPPY TURKEY DAY
Try not to rip your pants. Some people consider it bad form.
BONEYARD V.3
Written and Drawn by Richard Moore
Published by NBM Publishing
Michael Paris has received one of the more… unusual inheritances that a person could be willed. Rather than a large sum of cash or a treasured family heirloom, Michael has instead received ownership of a cemetery. A cemetery that is inhabited by a menagerie of strange, but personable, monsters, including the very fetching vampire, Abbey. This, of course, is going to lead to loads of fun… and more than a bit of trouble.
In volume three, we find Michael’s ownership threatened by tax liens from the IRS, so he’s faced with two options: sell the cemetery and betray his new friends OR agree to a far fetched plan by one of the sneakier creatures: create a swimsuit calendar starring the denizens of the cemetery, particularly Abbey and the voluptuous fish-woman Nessie. And if that sounds like a plot rife for spoofing plenty of amusing horror genre clichés, you’re right on target. Of course, the prospective buyer, a mysterious woman named Roxanne, might just screw up the works, no matter how good the calendar looks anyway.
This is my first experience with BONEYARD, and I have to say that I was very charmed by it. There’s a joy and spirit to the book that caught me off guard; yes, there are multiple monsters, a brutal battle between two powerful creatures, and the swimsuit issue, but there isn’t really any sense of malice or wrongness about it. In fact, it has an innocent quality that’s difficult to quantify. I’m not entirely sure how Moore pulls it off.
The storyline is, after all, adult. The characters are attractively drawn and their sexuality isn’t ignored or turned away from. There’s some graphic violence that’s almost incongruous in how disturbing it looks. But there’s also a sense of humor that plays at a lower level, as well, and maybe that’s where the book gets its childlike qualities from.
What I do know is that Moore’s creation is one of the more entertaining things to cross my desk recently, and that I wish NBM had sent the first two volumes in the package as well. There’s a wealth of potential here, and BONEYARD is a book I’ll be keeping an eye on. Grade: B+
SIBAM?
According to NBM, BONEYARD is being shopped around Tinseltown right now, and I think it’s a good bet for someone to pick it up. I think it would actually be better as a television show than a film; with the setting and cast of characters, there’re seasons worth of potential programming to play with. Plus, there’s a strong central romance to follow as it develops. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
MASHED POTATOES AND GRAVY, STUFFING, MACARONI AND CHEESE, ROLLS, CRANBERRY SAUCE, AND A SLICE OF PIE
THE FALLEN 2: COLD RELIGION
Written by David Aaron Clark and Art by David Rankin
Published by NBM Publishing
Don’t get me wrong: I’m all about gothic horror. I can enjoy a good S&M tale as much as the next guy. Lurid stories of depravity and violence don’t make me turn away from the page in disgust. I also love vampire stories. But even though all those elements are present in this book, it still falls flat for me in the final analysis.
This occurs for two reasons: one, the story continues from a previous volume that was published a few years ago, and there is no recap or any other type of attempt to assist a new reader. So you walk in feeling lost, and never get handed a map. The second reason is really the biggest one, though, and that’s the art. I generally have no problem with abstract work in the sequential form; Sienkiewicz, Ashley Wood, Kieth, and McKean are all folks I admire tremendously. But Rankin’s art is, at far too many turns, impenetrable. The deliberate blurring and shading used turn out to be artistic choices that don’t work on the printed page, even at the larger-sized format this book is printed in. That isn’t to say that some of the pages aren’t quite striking; just not enough of them. Grade: C-
THE JUNGLE
Adapted by Upton Sinclair’s Novel by Peter Kuper
Published by NBM Publishing
Like many of you, I had to read Sinclair’s novel for a class as I rose through the academic ranks. Personally, I hated it. It felt overly self-important and it bored me. So that left Kuper a health hole to dig his way out of. Yet somehow he pulls it off. The reprint of a CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED take that Kuper did many years ago is a solid winner. Kuper manages to distill Sinclair’s heavy handed messages into a simpler and less heavy-handed form, tightening up the plot’s construction and bringing to life a more elemental version of the tale. Kuper also sharply uses his talent for color to establish a strong sense of mood that propels the story along in an emotionally brisk fashion. I can appreciate what Sinclair’s novel did when it came out, and the changes it helped stir in our nation’s industries were vital to millions, but the actual story, the story of am immigrant, his family, and their struggle to survive in their new world never sang to me until now. Grade: A-
SHE-HULK V1: SINGLE GREEN FEMALE
Written by Dan Slott and Drawn by Juan Bobillo and Paul Pelletier
Published by Marvel Comics
If you took a poll and asked comics fans what Marvel’s best project was in 2004, you’d likely get an overwhelming response for ASTONISHING X-MEN. But after that, the votes would likely go to MADROX and this book. In fact, SHE-HULK has proven to be such a surprisingly high-quality product that it is being re-launched in 2005 with a new issue one and the attending publicity that it didn’t get the first time around. I’m here to tell you that those accolades are well-deserved.
This volume finds She-Hulk in trouble for her partying ways, which get her tossed from living in Avengers mansion. Then she gets booted from her job in the D.A.’s office as well. In need of a new job and new digs, she lucks out and finds a job with one of the biggest law firms in New York City… with the caveat that they want her as Jennifer Walters, her human alter-ego, and they want her to practice in the new field of “Superhuman Law.” That sets her up as sort of comic book version of ALLY MCBEAL who occasionally puts on weight and turns green.
Slott has done an excellent job of making Jennifer and She-Hulk their own individual and unique characters, each possessing their own attitude and voice, and in developing a fantastic supporting cast and milieu for her to play in. Spiking the stories with a liberal dose of humor (Spider-Man finally sues Jonah for libel and offers up a sidesplitting reason for why Jonah hates him) and a wicked take on the law (comics are officially licensed products from superheroes and therefore admissible as evidence in court) this book fires on all cylinders right out of the gate. Add terrific art from Bobillo and Pelletier, and this is a book not to be missed. Grade: A
SYPHONS
Written by Allen Curtis and Drawn by Mark Beachum
Published by Image Comics
I have a confession to make. When comic fans get together and start having geek discussions, they debate stories, or talk trash about personalities, or they start talking about who drew which characters the best. And when that happens, and the talk turns to Spider-Man, the favorite artist debate always revolves around Steve Ditko, John Romita Sr. and Jr., and Todd McFarlane. And when I offer my opinion, I just get weird looks. Because my favorite Spidey artist has always been Mark Beachum.
Beachum was a guy who could have stayed in mainstream comics and made a fortune. Blessed with a stunning amount of talent and a hyper-realistic art style, he instead moved towards the fringes of the industry, and now focuses on more fetish-driven projects, erotica, and non-sequential art. But I’ve never forgotten. So when I saw that SYPHONS was getting the reprint treatment, I was pretty stoked.
The story is barely comprehensible, even with a healthy introduction and history of the material in the front of the book, but the Beachum artwork, its melting pot of sharp lines and dark shadings, is still quite lovely. There could be some criticism of his overly fetished female characters, and it could be warranted. But at least they look human. In fact, they probably were. Years ago I spoke with someone who had worked with Beachum and they told me that most of the women he drew were actually real women who modeled for him, and they’d seen it first hand. SYPHONS might not be a world-beater of a story, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the read… or keep Beachum from being one of the luckiest bastards on the planet. Grade: B-
BIGHEAD
Written and Drawn by Jeffrey Brown
Published by Top Shelf
Bighead is a superhero with undefined powers, an undefined world, and an undefined purpose. I’d expect no less from Jeffrey Brown. Collecting all of Brown’s mini-comics featuring the titular character and a bunch of other material that had and had not been published, this volume, and Bighead himself, seems to exist for one singular purpose: to be silly.
To be sure, it’s an inconsistent silliness, and Brown’s targets for parodying vary wildly. In most books, that would hamper the book badly, but in an exercise in silliness like this one, it’s much more difficult to measure the impact of stories that fall flat. After all, that may have been the intention to begin with.
That even plays into the art. Is it amateurish at many turns, or is that a deliberate attempt to piss on the superhero genre by Brown? In the end, it leaves me writing a somewhat ambivalent review, because I’m not given a reason to really hate or love BIGHEAD. Who knows… maybe that was Brown’s intent as well? Now this entire review is silly, too. Grade: C+
CROSSFIRE V1: HOLLYWOOD HERO
Written by Mark Evanier and Drawn by Dan Spiegle
Published by About Comics
This volume continues Nat Gertler and About Comics’ program of getting Evanier’s body of work from the 1980s back into permanent print, and in a pleasant reminder, CROSSFIRE was without a doubt his best work.
While DNAGENTS was entertaining, CROSSFIRE was a perfect melding of Evanier’s comic book gifts and his real world personality. Far better known as a writer and Hollywood insider, Evanier’s CROSSFIRE allowed him to use his daily experiences and encyclopedic knowledge of Tinseltown history in the sequential form. When an honorable and decent bail bondsman winds up with the costume and equipment of the assassin named Crossfire, he decides to use the identity for good, while keeping Crossfire’s reputation as a bad guy intact. That gives him access to the bowels of Los Angeles in ways his civilian identity never could.
This volume follows him as he investigates murders, creative mob financing of films, and Las Vegas lounge acts gone to seed. Theirs an air of authenticity here that would be lacking from other writers, and you know deep in your gut that Evanier has created more than one of these characters as a pastiche of a real person as well. Plus, these stories were created in the era before “decompression” became a force in the comics industry, meaning that a twenty-four-page story then was about the equivalent of three issues of a modern comic. The legendary Spiegle’s art perfectly complements Evanier’s dense plotting, making CROSSFIRE as satisfying now as it was when it first appeared twenty years ago. Grade: A-
I’ll see you all again in seven days. Peace out.
E-mail me from the link provided. Review materials may be sent to: Marc Mason, P.O. Box 26732, Tempe, AZ, 85285. You can also find me at Happy Nonsense and The Comics Waiting Room
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