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1Elphantmen Vol 1: Wounded Animals (Image)

by Elgin Carver

Those comic fans that are not living out their deeply psychological problems through the fantasy world of comics, have more interest in the potential of comics than the reality we are faced with in the dreck generally fed in the overpriced and undersized floppies we see monthly. There is little wonder that well read individuals make little if any attempt to include comics in their schedules. Usually poorly written, seldom addressing any problem deeply, the contents are often embarrassing, puerile, childish and obvious. Imagine that you wished to impress your boss of the value of your off-the-job interests. What comic would you give him in order to stay on the upward tract of a large corporation? It is such an unlikely situation for a comic fan that it is impossible to imagine any rational person offering any book, or even admitting to the hobby in the first place.

During the past 10 to 20 years some steps have been taken that could move comic books from promise to fruition. Far from unimportant is the agonizingly slow move from those monthly series to the graphic novel. Perception is important in all things. If a book is important it is published in hard back form. It is sold in a book store that carries works of depth and importance. It also address issues of either spiritual, cultural, religious, political, or historical importance. While there may be an overriding theme that is clear and straight forward, it will often carry undercurrents that are subtle and thought provoking. A book of importance need have no specific length. But even short novels such as Slaughterhouse Five must be long enough to have explored the subject effectively. The mind of the reader must have been engaged and the more it is engaged, the greater the cultural impact, the wider the distribution, the deeper the analysis. The struggle toward the graphic novel as the norm for comics advances the perception that they have weight and worth.

The largest impediment to comics making that step from adolescence to maturity is the writing. Less than stellar, most comic book writing is even below that of teen romance novels. Transparent and infantile, many superhero books exist for little more than power projection fantasies. The present World War Hulk stories are a perfect example. Nothing is addressed but physical conflict with only the bases of excuses. Having virtually no other content, these books suck up plenty of resources from the artists, writers, publishers, and consumers that could be better spent at almost any other pursuit. Even when an attempt is made to include some comparative content, as the analogy in the X-Men books of mutant distrust and hatred to racial prejudice, it is done with such a heavy hand and is so overwrought as to be painful to read.

Science fiction and fantasy has long been considered the poor country cousin in the literature family. Again, perception plays a heavy hand here. Early works in this genre were, like comic books, lackluster and even ineptly written. The exceptions are notable but critics and the general reading public often places those authors in a differing category. The exuberance of the fans was often directed at works that excited the imagination but fell short artistically, fueling the perceptions of lowbrow content. Today that perception has altered drastically as authors of much greater talent have taken the genre as a tool for deeper works.

Richard Starkings, the creator of Elephantmen and Hipflask (a companion work), has worked in comics previously with Marvel U.K. on quite forgettable comics. Here he and a large team of other writers and artists has taken a very large step forward in moving comics into the world of literature. Using science fiction/fantasy in comic book form in a wonderfully illustrated way this is as handsome and readable graphic novel as has been seen to date.

Taking a page from Mary Shelly, man challenges the province of God. Like the creation of Doctor Frankenstein, the created personages here bring up questions of how far is too far, and who is the monster. Unlike Shelly’s work in the Victorian Age, Elephantmen resides in a time when the possibility that some nonentity in an unknown and isolated lab could bring forth a horror beyond the imagination of even the most creative writer. This book collects the first seven issues of the title in a nicely hardbound volume, along with some additional material. This is very good stuff. It is not entirely clear that this is the book to give to your CEO. It is the best option to come along so far.

5
FIVE OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

6Incredible Change-Bots (Top Shelf)

by Graig Kent

Back when I was a kid of seven or eight, my pal Kyle and I got it in us the spirit of DIY comics, mostly one-page strips drawn on lined, three-hole binder paper. Oddly enough, these things were centered around very simplistic drawings of mice with different superpowers. Kyle’s was “Blaster Mouse”, a derivative of Inspector Gadget, a little mouse covered in guns and a gadget for every occasion. Mine was “Plastic Mouse” who was basically a complete rip-off of Plastic Man (who I knew more from his cartoon at the time than comics). We made them for ourselves, to amuse each other, but we also made photocopies for our Grade 1 class (at our teacher’s insistence) and even did a mouse-centric spoof of the school newsletter. I still have some of these kicking around in one of my many folders filled with paper, and they’re cute reading, with a child-like nativity at how conflict and resolution form a story, not to mention how there were absolutely no pains taken to dif ferentiate them from their inspirational sources.

I mention all this because Jeffrey Brown’s new graphic novel, Incredible Change-Bots, reminded me so much of these childhood comics. The book is a blatant emulation of the Transformers, from the origin story down to the transforming sound effects and the transport truck and gun as leaders of opposing sides (in fact, almost every Change-Bot has a direct Transformers or Go-Bots counterpart). The story also reads with a child-like simplicity, distilling much of the Transformers canon into something very primary and equally as ridiculous as it is entertaining. It’s no real secret that Brown isn’t the most wow-inducing artist, and his scraggly-lined characters here feel typically unpolished, but a charming marker coloring job affords it more charm and induces even further a sensation of a youth-driven project.

There’s no real point in dissecting the story, as it’s through and through “Transformers Revisited”, with Brown equally trumpeting the franchise’s charms and absurdities. Oddly enough, I was expecting more vitriol from the book, a sharper skewer, more spoof and satire than what Brown actually delivered, and it’s somewhat disappointing in this regard. There’s a palpable sense of affection towards the Transformers, and the author makes fun of some its source’s clichés while embracing others. It’s not a terribly clever or funny book, but it does manage to maintain an enjoyable level of entertainment throughout, even if I kept awaiting a punchline that never came.

It wasn’t until later that I read the solicitation for Incredible Change-Bots that mentions it as being “all-ages friendly” and there’s certainly a youth appeal to it, my five-year-old stepson gravitated to it instantly (and he’s not even a big Transformers fan… as a big Cars fan, he gets upset that the trucks turn into robots and don’t just stay in vehicle form). I’m not certain younger readers would yet understand the spoof elements that weave their way throughout, but earnest eyes will still find it pretty entertaining. I guess, coming from Brown, I wasn’t seriously expecting an actually kid-friendly book that took shape-changing robots (semi-)seriously, but that’s what he delivered, much I’m sure to his core fanbase’s surprise.

3
THREE OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

2Death By Chocolate: Redux (Top Shelf)

by Graig Kent

Death By Chocolate: Redux has its origins in the mid-1990’s, when creator David Yurkovich was still honing his art and his storytelling, putting self-published works together to show off to publishers in hopes of landing some paid assignments. Though not exactly what he intended, the original Death By Chocolate story landed Yurkovich a Xeric grant, which allowed him to continue his story, in a manner of speaking, via the Metabolaters. It’s these two stories which this six-chapter collection center around, and as much as it comes together as an intriguing work of non-linear fiction, it’s also an interesting glimpse at Yurkovich’s growth as an artist.

The six chapters start first with the origin story of the Chocolatier, an amateurishly conceived and yet bizarre and engaging tale in which a chocolatier tours a foreign chocolate factory, only to stumble onto the secret of the company’s success, alien in nature. The chocolatier falls into a vat of chocolate, absorbs the consciousness of the alien and turns into a chocolate man himself with incredible transmogrification powers. His horrific transformation puts him on an unfocused rampage turning an entire town into chocolate. Realizing his horrible deed, he surrenders, but he’s enlisted into working with the FBI when somehow another winds up with his very same powers and must be stopped. Told via overwrought narrative, the first long-form story is a bit of a struggle to start. The conceit of the character’s origin is overblown, and, even by comic book standards, rather difficult to suspend disbelief. But eventually, once exiting narration, Yurkovich settles into his characters and the story takes off.

The second chapter, the Xeric-funded The Metabolaters is not exactly an extension of, or sequel to, the first story but rather a diversion. In the story, we find the only survivor of the transformed small town from the Chocolatier’s rampage in the first story. The survivor, acting as our surrogate, witnesses the governmental/military incursion on the town and the vile creatures, experiments-gone-wrong, that are enlisted to help … cover up the scene, so to speak. A much more confident venture, Yurkovich employs a similar structure as his first tale (a narrative flowing into story), and his prose is much stronger. While more of an expository story rather than the standard setup-conflict-resolution one comes to expect from genre comics, it works in a very Outer Limits or Twilight Zone manner, complete with the punchy twist ending.

Chapters three and four are vignettes, returning the focus back to the Chocolatier, who’s faced with the decision of staying incarcerated or becoming a permanent member of the FBI. The choice is rather clear, and the investment is made into establishing his new identity as Agent Swete and his partnership with Agent Anderson. This segues into the fifth chapter in which Yurkovich, self admittedly, channels Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol (the influence looms over most of the stories of this book, to be sure) and sends Swete and Anderson on a time traveling mission with an alien talking dog, leading to a face-to-face encounter with Hemingway and the “time cops”. While easily the most satisfying of the stories in the compilation, it’s also not until partway into the set-up that the overall structure of the collection coalesced and I began to enjoy it for the avant-garde exploitation of superheroics and paranormal investigations (read: X-Files) that it is. It’s completely atypical, and while moments of intentional goofy origins, hearkening back to Stan Lee’s heyday, are like bitter cooking chocolate, there’s also moments of sheer delight and ingenuity that are like the smoothest of swiss milk chocolate.

It’s interesting watching Yurkovich’s art as this book progresses. While he does admit to retouching the earlier artwork (if not completely redoing aspects), it has a definite growth pattern. Citing Mignola and Ditko as influences, those hints are there, although his character and setting skills aren’t quite as refined. As both a writer and artist, Yurkovich is still growing but the base of talent and the bridge between intention and execution has definitely formed. Chapter six features his first experiment into fully digital production (which isn’t nearly as polished as, say, Rex Libris‘ James Turner) and it’s a noticeable shift from his pen and ink style, but by then end there’s a definite feeling of satisfaction, and a desire for both more of Yurkovich and his bizarre universe.

4
FOUR OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

2Doctor Thirteen: Architecture and Morality TPB (DC)

by Graig Kent

Paranormal investigations, grandiose adventure, metafictional narrative, obscure DC characters, and, well, fun isn’t exactly what one would expect from Brian Azzarello, given his rather hard-boiled track record and his gruff convention persona, but with his Doctor Thirteen story the 100 Bullets writer has crafted one of the most enjoyable reading experiences to come from the mainstream universes in a while. It’s comics at its best, providing not just entertainment, but also some satirical commentary on the industry, and an inside joke-ish, gentle ribbing at his contemporaries.

Pulled from limbo, Doctor Terrance Thirteen is a single father and a paranormal debunker. His daughter Tracy is the Fox Mulder to his Dana Scully, although Terry has to reach much deeper to explain away what he witnesses. Here’s a guy living in a universe where Martians and Kryptonians stop alien invasions while the King of Atlantis and Princess of the Amazons beat up mythical beasts on television, and he explains it all away as mass hallucinations and television trickery. Delusional and blissful in his self-imposed ignorance, Terry, with Tracy in tow, is called to investigate a plane crash site where the survivors tell tales of a Yeti eating the unfortunate. The adventure spirals out from there as Terry discovers Anthro, a caveman frozen in ice, meets a Vampire, and boards a ghost pirate ship to chase after his daughter who was kidnapped by talking Nazi gorillas, all the while, Terry hysterically tries to explain away everything he’s seeing.

Seething in the background of this adventure are the Architects who prove to be an even bigger threat than the Nazi gorillas. The Architects are the shapers (or is that re-shapers) of the universe, more powerful than Parallax and Extant and Darkseid and Neron combined. The Architects decide the fate of every being in the universe and it becomes apparent that Captain Fear, The Haunted Tank, Infectious Lass and the others who joined Doctor Thirteen on his journey are all in a desperate struggle to justify their existence, or they will be blinked out of reality, back to limbo, gone and once again forgotten.

Spoiler Warning

Written as a back-up feature to Tales of the Unexpected, a rather dull Spectre-centric mini-series that ended earlier this year, this story quickly surpassed its lead-in amongst the comics bloggerati, and it’s no doubt the championing from the on-line collective that brought about the trade. The Architects, though never overtly stated, are the quartet of creators who were given the task of developing the latest “New DC” via 52, being Greg Rucka, Geoff Johns, Mark Waid and Grant Morrison. Azzarello both develops them into caricatures - a motley, quibbling quartet - as well as, perhaps enviously, makes light of their role as universe shapers. As time moves on, and there’s distance from 52 with new creators taking a lead role in forging DC’s path, it’s really only in this specific context that the story might lose some longevity (but then the Julius Schwartz jokes in Ambush Bug are still funny over 20 years later so what do I know). Whats more, Azzarello channels each of these creators into Doctor Thirteen, playing with Morrison’s love of metafiction as well as revamping obscure characters, Waid’s heartfelt investment in the oddest corners of DC’s history, John’s continuity obsession, and Rucka’s ability to unfold a mystery, skirting around continuity and history to tell a self-contained story. Doctor Thirteen is at once all these things: a love note to characters lost, a reinventing of them, a probe of the real and surreal “world” in which they exist, and a ties-free tale that can as much adhere to continuity as it can exist outside of it.

If the layers of meaning weren’t enough, Azzarello highly charismatic characters are brilliantly formed under the pen of Cliff Chiang, easily THE talent to watch out for in 2008 (next taking residence on the new Black Canary/Green Arrow series). His clean lines with hints of Anime influences are perfect for this series, where the colors (expertly provided by Trish Mulvihill) really need to pop, giving a highly nostalgic four-color sensibility with a modern, diverse palette. Chiang’s characters are perfectly detailed, never over-rendered, and he draws some of the best faces and reaction shots since Kevin Maguire. Altogether it’s a beautiful and entertaining book from the Alex Toth/Super Friends-inspired cover through to Chiangs’ fantastic sketchbook pages in the back.

5
FIVE OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

3Gutsville #1&2

by Graig Kent

Sometimes a concept can draw you in, utterly stimulate your imagination, and despite the actual quality, the power of the concept alone will form your attraction to it. Other times the story, the writing and/or the art will actually serve the concept, making it something much bigger, an actual work of ingeniousness, of quality that’s worth returning to and telling others about.

I was literally at the half-way mark through the first issue of Gutsville before I understood the concept (not the plot mind you, but the general conceit of the book). The dialogue of the book, you see, is written phonetically in sort of a modified old English/cockney and it takes a while for the brain to adjust, and the introductory text meant to explain away the set-up is similarly written (”Seven and fifty years ago, and one hundred, our forefathers cast off from a dryplace…”) and thus comprehension isn’t so immediate. As I said, it was the half-way point where I started to read and understand the dialogue fluently, and that’s also when I understood the premise.

157 years ago, group of colonials set sail from Britain towards Australia, never to arrive, instead they were swallowed by a great beast, wherein now we join their ancestors who have created a vital, if puritanically ruled, society inside the belly of the beast. Their religion is based on biblical story, but of Jonah, not Jesus, and as to be expected, there’s a class system firmly in place.

Now this is all set-up mind you, and not the story itself, which after two issues is revealing itself to be intriguingly complex, though hardly impenetrable. Albert Olyphant is an artist (in a town where any art is seen as pornography) and the son of the town’s rat catcher who has fallen victim to a serial killer. At his father’s funeral, at which he encountered his old flame, Emelia, who’s marrying into the town’s elite, but there’s an uprising in the works and Emelia will either be enlisted or rolled over. Albert, by birthright, is forced into the rat catcher role, where he discovers a family map that has directions to a previously undiscovered second stomach, and perhaps a way out. All of this is only interrupted by the sudden arrival of the host’s latest meal, a Russian submarine.

Through language alone, writer Si Spurrier demands investment, thankfully he has a wallop of a story and setting as a reward. The various threads weave around each other but don’t necessarily relate directly, except in the sense that it provides a rich view of the Gutsville society, its customs and laws, and the bizarre landscape they inhabit.

I picked primarily because of artist Frazer Irving, whose art has graced the pages of Seven Soldiers: Klarion and Silent War amongst others, wowing me with every single outing. His digitally crafted artwork manages both an airbrushed and watercolor feel simultaneously while not being decidedly either. His pacing and composition are always perfect, his color palette distinctly his own, his style even more so. No doubt the man has influences, but I’ll be damned if I can discern who they are. So distinctive his storytelling and figures are from the bulk of “mainstream” illustrators out there. Here he beautifully realizes the ugly setting of a monster’s innards, making it a vile place to exist, but placing his people at home in it (even if most rarely look completely comfortable in their surroundings). A spot of fantasy and horror illustration mixed with pilgrim-era costuming and aesthetics pulled off panel after panel after panel like I’m sure few artists could.

Easily the most surprising and intriguing book of the year. If you think you’ve seen everything, you honestly haven’t seen this before.

5
FIVE OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS