By the non-conformist team at Rack Raids. Join us at our sister location for regular updates and more mainstream (that'd be DC and Marvel books, kids) fare.

Advance Review: Glamourpuss #1 (Aardvark-Vanaheim)
by Adam Prosser

(Note: my local comic book store, Worlds Collide in Oshawa, Ontario, allowed me to review a preview copy of this comic, but as I was unable to take it from the store, I’m working primarily from memory here. Please bear this in mind, though due to the nature of the material I’m not sure it makes a big difference…)

It may not be the most polite thing to point out, but does it seem to anyone else that comics may not be conducive to your mental health? I’m not even talking about the usual litany of complaint about people who read them; I’m talking about people who create them. Any art form seems to produce kooks or even outright madmen, but comics often seem to have more than their fair share. Look at two of the people regularly held up as the greatest writers the medium has ever known: Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. One of them worships a snake puppet, and the other claims to have had regular encounters with machine elves from another dimension. Or take the undeniably talented Frank Miller, whose work is filled with craziness of a less whimsical sort—though I’ve often wondered exactly how much of Miller’s seeming kookiness is tongue-in-cheek and how much is cynical exploitation of his name brand. From recently-rediscovered Golden Age creator Fletcher Hanks to troubled EC artist Wally Wood, comics has produced a plethora of people with decidedly offbeat and atypical worldviews.

And then there’s Dave Sim.

Perhaps no other comic book author has invited more speculation about his mental health than Sim, the ten-ton giant of comic book self-publishing. His role as a self-publisher with absolute autonomy and a devoted fanbase means that he’s in a position to indulge any and all of his artistic impulses, leading to eccentricities both astonishing (his uninterrupted 300-issue run of Cerebus, an undeniably vast accomplishment) and discomfiting (his extremely controversial remarks about feminism, which have largely overshadowed his work). Now, after working on the same comic for almost 30 years, Sim has finally begun a new project, Glamourpuss, and once again the result is both fascinating and perplexing.

Sim has once again taken a bold step as a self-publisher by sending out preview copies to retailers, in order to help them decide how many copies to pre-order—a pretty straightforward idea, but one that’s oddly rare these days. The book is black and white, beautifully drawn-

–and weird as hell. In many ways, it’s not really a comic book; Sim even acknowledges as much. His only real goal here, he says, was to refine his art by producing ultra-detailed ink drawings of (for the most part) pretty girls in fashionable clothing, in a variety of styles that attempt to ape various masters of the comic book and comic strip form: Williamson, Caniff, Adams, and Raymond among them. He’s strung it together as a de facto comic by inserting stream-of-consciousness commentary into the speech bubbles, alternating between observations about the great artists he’s imitating, the basics of comics craftsmanship, the shoddy way the syndicates and publishers have treated classic comic art, and his goals for the project, emphasizing his disinterest in producing a traditional comic. And, every so often, he slips into a writing style that parodizes fashion-magazine prose (I couldn’t help thinking of Seinfeld’s take on the J. Peterman catalogue) and that seems to be hinting at an actual story about a spoiled supermodel and her evil twin, before slipping back out to meta-commentary on what he just wrote.

To say this is perplexing is an understatement, and there is an unfortunate vibe of self-indulgence here—Sim seems to be saying, “Here’s what I felt like doing, and I’ll make it vaguely comic-like so that my loyal fans will buy it, just like they buy everything I do.” And yet…I don’t regret reading it. Sim’s ramblings are oddly compelling—there’s little or no trace here of the famed misogynist—and the fashion boilerplate is catchy in a Jack Kerouac kind of way. Sim seems to be trying to take the detritus of the most shallow aspects of consumerist culture, and shape them into a weird kind of poetry. And then there’s the art, which is lavishly drawn and, combined with Sim’s musings on inking, almost make the book worth buying just as an art lesson. Is Sim trying to send up comics with fractured or redundant narratives but which sell due to lavish, pin-up artwork? Or is he actually trying to produce a comic of this kind, distilled to its purest form?

Whichever it is, there’s certainly food for thought here, and Sim’s maverick self-publishing style is always worth applauding. Now, would I actually buy issue #2 of Glamourpuss? I really don’t think so, unless Sim has some new trick up his sleeve and plans to introduce a real story. This comic is more interesting as an artifact than it is as a piece of art or entertainment. But it may well be worth contemplating for people who are interested in self-publishing…not to mention amateur psychologists.


“What the hell?” OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

Dan Dare #1-2 (Virgin Comics)
by Adam Prosser

One of the comics medium’s most interesting and mysterious aspects is its power to create icons. Somehow, people seem to connect to comic book characters even more strongly than they do to celebrities or sports figures, or even literary or movie characters (though most enduring fictional characters worth their salt have made appearances in comics as well). This in turn means that comics have an unusually powerful potential to create characters who function as symbols, embodiments of ideas, handy cultural touchstones that make up part of the common discourse. The very concept of a superhero - Superman or Captain America in particular-has become shorthand for the American spirit, whether for good or ill. Every time period gets the comic book hero it wants, or needs, or deserves.

But it’s not restricted to America, of course. If anything, international audiences are even more attached to their cultural emblems. Tintin and Astro Boy, to name two, are deeply embedded in the national consciousness of the countries from whence they came (Belgium and Japan, respectively). And then there’s Dan Dare.

You couldn’t ask for a better example of a comics character as the representative of a specific time and place. Created by British illustrator Frank Hampson in 1950 for The Eagle comic magazine, Dare was a square-jawed space pilot in the far-flung future of 1999, working for a space force under the command of the United Nations. Despite the future setting, the costumes, slang, and dialogue evoked the British Air Force of the first and second world wars, and Dare himself was unmistakably a British hero in a genre more usually associated with American comics. As such, the strip is a nearly perfect summation of Britain’s national zeitgeist at the time: like most of the western world, looking optimistically towards a techno-utopian future, but also starting to realize that its once-proud empire was gone, and thus retreating into nostalgia. Even more so than America, Britain of the 1950s foresaw a rosy future that was essentially the present, but with rocket ships.

Like most comic heroes (super - or otherwise) Dan Dare’s been back in and out of the comics many time over the years, and his world has changed along with ours, predictably growing darker and more cynical with each relaunch. So with Garth Ennis, a man for whom iconoclasm is second nature, in charge of the latest version, you’d think that trend would continue, wouldn’t you? Yet, the new Dan Dare is something far smarter, mature, and, yes, respectful than you’d have reason to expect. In fact, it might be the first reimagining of the character that actually tries to acknowledge the spirit of the original strip, even as it filters that sensibility through a modern lens.

The first issue finds Dan enjoying his retirement in a quaint British village that seems frozen in, yes, 1950. But no, actually it’s a holographic illusion - Dan’s actually living in solitude on a remote asteroid, as far from England as he can reasonably get. It seems that, in this iteration of the strip’ future history, England took over the UN after a brutal war between China and America, followed by a bombardment from space from some alien attacker that left Old Blighty the only functioning world power. Despite its current stature, Dan’s become disenchanted with the current state of his home country and has retreated into a nostalgic reverie for, as he puts it, “everything England has lost”.

Inevitably, the reverie is shattered by the arrival of the Prime Minister, desperately seeking his help. It seems the alien Treen, who may have been behind the attack on Earth, split into factions, some of whom made a truce with humans, others remaining loyal to Dare’s archnemesis the Mekon. The latter seem to have re-emerged and destroyed a human fleet, and are headed towards Earth, dragging a black hole behind them. Dare re-assembles his old crew and heads out to stop them, but is sidetracked, rather unexpectedly, by an SOS from a remote mining colony, where people are apparently being killed by a monster from Treen mythology.

In two issues, this new Dan Dare has gone from epic Space Opera to a more classic, Star Trek-style “visit a planet and solve its problems” feel, which I found rather charming. Ennis shows he has a remarkable knack for making a sci-fi epic with a realistic feel, but which has started to incorporate the classic “boy’s own” adventure influences in an elegant fashion. I have to admit, I’m a sucker for a good space adventure, and so far, Dan Dare scratches that itch very effectively. What’ll keep me reading, though, is the solid world-building and the strong characterizations. Ennis has managed to take the tension between past and present that marked the original Dan Dare strip and transformed it into something that seems perfectly of the moment. Good writing never goes out of style.


FOUR OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

Raided: The Engineer #1 (Archaia Studios Press)
by Adam Prosser

The Engineer is a small-press book that snuck in under the radar in the final weeks of 2007. Like another indie book launched this year, Warren Ellis’s Doktor Sleepless, it’s about the wild adventures of a hip mad scientist, who epitomizes the forces of progress and invention in a world gone mad. Hmm…and Ellis created a character called The Engineer, too. And the title character bears more than a passing resemblance to Spider Jerusalem. But in spite of all these coincidences, The Engineer has less in common with Warren Ellis and more with Jack Kirby, with perhaps a sprinkling of Mike Mignola.

It’s a propulsive story about a universe-devouring entity, the “Konstrukt” built to stop it, and the titular Engineer, tasked with reassembling said Konstrukt. Lots of action-packed strangeness ensues, from The Engineer’s bosses, a trio of weird breast-faced female entities, to his assistant, who wears steampunk clothing and has apparent fetish for chickens, to gigantic clockwork-powered stone beetles, to Soviet space cruisers, to the gigantic pipe organ the Engineer uses to travel through alternate dimensions. Like I say, it’s very much in the “Neo-Kirby” tradition, with one bizarre idea after another, and little or no slackening of the pace. We shoot from infodump to action sequence to comedic setpiece and back again in as economic a fashion as possible. With the major superhero publishers becoming bloated and paralyzed by their own continuity, this kind of lean fantasy/action epic is becoming a bit of a staple of the little guys, most of them taking their cue from Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. If you enjoy the Hellboyverse, you’ll probably be happy to add The Engineer to your pull list. It’s slick, exciting comic book action with enough smarts to lend it substance, but without feeling the need to show off.


FOUR AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

Raided: Fell #9 and The Goon #20 (Image/Dark Horse)
by Jeb D.

Yeah, I wasn’t sure it was ever coming back, either, but this week marks the long-awaited return of Fell, Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith’s sharp and slightly supernatural police procedural comic. Once more, detective Richard Fell manages to buck his superiors in Snowtown, and handle a macabre situation on his own. This time, he faces a deadly hostage crisis, one that reaches a conclusion that feels surprising at first, but upon reflection is sadly inevitable. The highlight of this issue (and one nicely detailed in Ellis’ notes at the back) is the portrayal of Fell’s mental analysis of the situation. It’s a visual trick that would wear out its welcome quickly if overused, but as a representation of the reasoning process, it beats the “thought balloon” by a mile. Now that Ellis and Templesmith have some other commitments behind them, they’re promising us a much more regular dosage of Fell, and that’s cause for celebration: sixteen densely-packed pages of done-in-one storytelling for two bucks. It’s also going to be interesting to see if they can maintain that structure when they begin to open up the storytelling, filling in blanks and backstory, as Ellis has promised.

Also back from an extended hiatus is Eric Powell’s The Goon. Last year, Powell focused his time on the self-contained Goon graphic novel, Chinatown, a tough and heartbreaking noir story, with none of the Mad Magazine grossout touches that have won The Goon so much of its popularity. In its wake, it was reasonable to wonder if Powell had decided to take his creation in a more “serious” direction. That question is quickly answered, as the story begins with an Eisner-type prologue, introducing a secondary character… and it’s among the most disgusting things Powell has yet put on paper. With that reassurance out of the way, he moves forward with another tale of murder, mayhem, and monsters as The Goon and Frankie take on a mutant gorilla in a derby, harpies, zombies, and the personnel of Madame Elsa’s Burlesque show. Not only is the art as stellar as ever, but the brilliant Dave Stewart has been recruited to color the book. That’s a great thing… not that Powell doesn’t do a great job coloring the book on his own, but because turning over that task to Stewart is freeing up Powell’s time to start putting out The Goon monthly!

More Fell and more Goon? Keep this up and 2008’s gonna be great.


Both books: FOUR OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

Grendel: Behold the Devil #1 (of 8) (Dark Horse)
by Max  Patterson

I’d like to preface this review by saying that I was in no way a Grendel fan, and the only reason I decided to review Behold the Devil was a lack of other, more interesting material. Although I had always respected Matt Wagner and his dedication to his character, it was an idea I admired but never enjoyed. The original stories never held my interest, and the few issues of Grendel Tales that I picked up only lowered my opinion both of the character and the universe he inhabited. I’m explaining this so that when you see the score at the bottom of this page, you’ll know there’s no favoritism or fan-boy love at play here. Grendel: Behold the Devil is quite simply one of the best comics I’ve ever read.

First, the artwork; it’s gorgeous. My sister’s the artist in the family, but even a layman like myself can appreciate just how good this book looks. There’s an energy, a vitality in Wagner’s style which gives his characters incredible weight and substance. It’s not a matter of realism or detail; there are numerous artists out there who I would consider superior to Wagner in terms of technique. Rather, Wagner’s work is visceral, appealing to the senses on a much deeper level. The opening scene, with Grendel standing over the remains of over a dozen mobsters, is one of the most powerful and gloriously brutal scenes I’ve ever seen. The rough, sketchy quality of the book harkens back to the days of the early pulps, while its black and white color-scheme (with the occasional red-highlight) evokes a powerful sense of noir. Ultimately, It’s hard to really do Wagner’s work justice, as there’s an appeal to his art which defies description (or at least any description I can think of). Suffice to say this is the best Wagner art I’ve seen yet.

As to the writing, it too is top notch. Many 1st issues suffer because the writers try to cram in too much back-story, sacrificing pacing and flow for the sake of information. Wagner neatly side-steps this problem, using excerpts from Devil by the Deed (an in fiction book detailing the life of Hunter Rose, aka Grendel) to bring the reader up to speed on the character’s background and motivations. The rest of the story is then free to proceed at a normal pace, and while there is obviously plenty of set-up for the rest of the series, none of it feels forced. As to the actual dialogue, Wagner does an excellent job of giving each character a distinct voice and personality without resorting to cliché. These are characters with a real voice and attitude, not just exposition machines designed to advance the plot. Grendel is by far the best of the lot, which is not surprising considering Wagner’s been working on him for over 20 years. I tend to enjoy plenty of action in my comics, but while we only see the aftermath of Grendel’s brutal attack on the mafia, his description of the fight (or more accurately, slaughter) gave me goosebumps. You don’t need to know anything about Grendel’s history to know Hunter Rose is a serious badass. To be fair, not all of the dialogue is perfect; investigative reporter Lucas Ottoman may have my favorite line in the book, but others seem clunky at best. These missteps are few and far between however, and the vast majority of the writing is top notch.

I really don’t know what else to say at this point. My only real complaint with the series is that I have to wait for the next seven issues. I’m aware that I don’t have much of a track record, but I can tell you this; of all the comics I’ve read, I can think of only a few series I consider to be worthy of the much-coveted Five Vikings, and only a handful of single issues. The fact that this one issue has totally reversed my opinion not just on this title, but the entire character of Grendel, should tell you how good this comic really is. By returning to the roots of Grendel, Wagner has allowed the real appeal of the character to shine through. This is the Grendel series I had always hoped for, one which focuses not on the myth, but the man himself. This is the comic book at its best, and I can’t recommend it enough.


FIVE OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

Cemetery Blues #1 (of 3) (Image)
by Graig Kent

It’s odd to say but one of the most difficult things to convey in comics is comedy. By their very name comics are a humor venue, and it’s true that the gag strip or punchline is the foundation of the medium, and sequential narratives do have some advantages over most other avenues of storytelling mostly in the realm of defying both laws of physics and physical limitations. Woodstock can kick Snoopy out of frustration, impossibly punting him comically askew in the air. Milk and Cheese can wreak a tornado of chaos screaming “Merv Griffin!”, each panel more wildly illustrated than the next without necessarily needing direct linear flow. But what comics lack that television, movies, cartoons or radio have is performance. A really good graphic artist can convey a lot of comedy through their character illustrations - like Kyle Baker’s Cowboy Wally mugging for the “camera”, Jhonen Vasquez’s wide-eyed Squee, or even Kevin Maguire’s Justice League (who can forget Batman’s one-punch knockout of Guy Gardner) - but something even the best artists and letterers can’t do is project the intended comedic inflection on all the audience.

Cemetery Blues is a comedy, but a subdued one. Set in a non-specific era (the 1930’s would be my guess), the cast starts with a Vaudevillian-esque British duo of paranormal hunters who are equal parts professional and inept buffoons. Ridley (who looks like a cross between Ian Curtis and Jughead) and Falstaff (a character of the Peter Lorre persuasion) are agents of Mr. Lear, a ghost who has charged them with taking down his arch-nemesis, although what Lear knows about the paranormal world and his men understand seem to be two completely different things.

Ridley and Falstaff happen upon a funeral scene in Hernesburg, which they disrupt to ensure the deceased is, in fact, what he appears to be (dead, that is). Satisfied that he’s not a vampire and horrifying the attendees, the duo are greeted by another eccentric pair: the presiding minister and an obviously daft fellow, Father Morell, and his sidekick Father Roddy (Roderick), who appears to be the competent one of the lot. The fathers explain of the upcoming hunt to rid the town of it’s ghosts and/or demons and wishes the perceived experts to assist in leading them on their crusade. The daughter of the now desecrated corpse, Ingrid, had her last straw broken and is bailing on the village, while her nebbish admirer Peter hopes to curry her favor by joining the paranormal hunters and proving himself a man.

The situations crafted and dialogue written by Ryan Rubio are humorous, starting off strong and tapering somewhat towards the end of this first chapter as the plot is established. What is missing and what keeps the book from being even more amusing all the way through, is performance. The characters of Falstaff, Ridley, Mr. Lear and Father Morell need punch-up through physical, but moreover, verbal inflection. Artist Thomas Boatwright does a great job in pushing the physical elements, including facial expressions through his simplistic character line, but there’s only so much he can do towards delivering dialogue. The dialogue seems written for delivery and not so much for comics, that or else it just loses something slightly on the page.

Boatwright’s illustrations are an interesting dichotomy on the page. His characters are simply structured, similar to what you’d find in daily syndicate comic strips from the masters in the field, conveying all it needs in but a few loose strokes, but at the same time his settings and backgrounds - trees, skies, buildings, cemeteries, etc - are lavishly illustrated with an incredible depth of field. I have never seen cloudy skies rendered in ink washes so beautifully. Although a black-and-white book there are some absolutely astounding textures and visual flourishes that I have never seen achieved without color before, including flame and smoke.

Though the comedy isn’t as punchy as it might intend, the story and characters are still more than enjoyable enough to bring you back for more, and Boatwright’s straddling-Gothic art just adds a pop of visual flavor to hook you. This first issue works well as a lead in to something that might push further either the comedy or its horror aspects… or perhaps both.


THREE AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

The Foundation #1 (of 5) (Boom)
by Graig Kent

It’s been a while since I last saw writer John Rozum’s name on a comic. If you know his name at all, you probably know him from his work on the X-Files comic in the 1990s or his paranormal investigation series for Vertigo, Midnight Mass. But to me, and the reason why I remember his name is because of his brilliantly bizarre work on Xombi from the defunct Milestone line. He’s done fill-in and one-off work with mainstream superheroes like Batman, Flash and Daredevil, but it’s really his work on the paranormal, the oddball (even evidnt with his kid’s comics work on Dexter’s Lab and Scooby-Doo) that Rozum excels.

The Foundation is Rozum’s return to more mature comics, and a return to what he does so well. This first issue, a done-in-one introduction, is mysterious, intriguing and a little weird. Through a first-person narrative we’re let in on the fact that someone, somehow, knows something about the future. Set in an airport, we find out that a flight is destined to crash, but the objective is not to stop the flight, but to save one man from certain death. Methodically, the story breaks down the process through which the narrator and his accomplices stop the man from making his flight.

We’re not yet let in on how these people know the future, or why one man must be saved. Whether either mystery is explained, only picking up subsequent issues will tell, and either way it works. If it’s all left mysterious, it keeps the reader intrigued, and the procedural aspect of these agents’ work is interesting enough to keep following along. However, if the mysteries are revealed, there’s also greater depths to explore beyond just character procedural, and Rozum hints at that through the narrative. Philosophical ponderings must be commonplace for these people who are instructed to save one person rather than one hundred. Why only that one, why not someone else? Is the future really told or is there some flexibility? What if they didn’t do their job, then what? So many questions, no answers, and for every agent, how they mentally resolve these issues is key to their sanity.

Rozum is accompanied by artist Chee, best known from Keith Giffen’s Tag series. Chee’s work isn’t something that will be putting him any hot artists lists in the near future, his tendency towards heavy ink lines leave his characters looking quite unattractive, while his overall page looks muddy and bland. His design sense leans heavily towards simplistic and clutter free, but his brush strokes weigh everything down. That said, his storytelling sensibility broaches impeccable. He understands movement and pacing, and is able to effectively manage numerous scene jumps even on the same page while maintaining a natural sense of flow. Whatever shortcoming he may have in aesthetic appeal, he more than makes up for it with story structure.

The second issue will be the real test of how exciting this series, is, as it should provide more direction and characterization, but on a conceptual and execution basis, this has me more than interested already.


FOUR OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

Northlanders #1 & 2 (Vertigo)
by Graig Kent

You may have noticed a kind of theme we have here, a bit Scandanavian in flavor, and, perhaps a little obsessive. Vikings, dude, we like vikings. At least in theory. Our founder, Sean Fahey, started this whole “Thor’s Comic Column” review thing years ago , and the whole Norse influence only spiralled out from there. Vikings are more Sean’s thing than any of us, and I bet a Brian Wood-scripted series about Vikings makes him very happy, but Sean, now a very busy family man, legal eagle and poi eater, has less time for comic book musings than ever and thus his longship of reviewers remain to cull the longboxes and keep an eye out for Viking-themed materials, like Northlanders here. I think it’s safe to say, though, that we all have a little affinity for Vikings, even if it’s somewhat ironic, in us.

I must profess right away to being a horrible history student. It stems from the fact that as a kid I was much more interested in DC Universe chronology than the real world’s past. So a series like Northlanders which takes place in a historical time period under a certain civil and social climate can do either one of three things: intrigue me to learn more; educate me on the setting; or keep me at a distance, disinterested.

It’s unfortunate to say, but this book is a little of column A, and a little of column C, with none of column B. Wood has crafted a tale of a young Norseman, Sven, whose left behind his people as they expand east, joining the Varangians as they move west, living a different culture in Constantinople. During a conflict, he’s given word his father, a noted King, has died and that his Uncle Gorm has taken to tyrannical rule. He returns home, but his objective is not to dethrone his uncle and liberate his people, but instead to liberate his father’s wealth from the lands and return back to “civilization” with it. To put it in a modern analogy, Sven is the small town boy who goes away to the big city for higher education, eventually coming to see the world in a much different light and thinking himself superior for it. Sven, bluntly, is a pretentious, arrogant, selfish asshole, and the obvious story is his journey of change.

For all his exploits away from his homeland, Sven has learned to be a cunning strategist and warrior, and change might not be so quickly in the cards for him. He’s small and wiry compared to most Viking warriors, but what he lacks in brute strenght he makes up for with speed, skill and smarts. He confronts his uncle and reveals his desire, and Gorm is not certain whether to take him at face value or not. Rather than kill him quickly, Gorm’s men decide to test his mettle, but Sven has already prepared. He forges out into the land, to assemble a group of men oppressed by Gorm under the guise of being the true and rightful heir and ruler, but for all his gusto, he finds himself still a one man army… which is to say, he shouldn’t dismiss the women.

The book is in its building stages, and it’s Shakespearian-style intrigue is the real hook, but the pace is somewhat slow. The key focal points of the book’s story are laid, but they don’t register as sharply as I think the writer indended. In an editorial, Wood explains that the story takes place in the 980’s, when pre-millenium tension is starting to build, and while it’s something that might be part of the overall sensibility it as yet doesn’t show. Wood also seeks to examine the fading influence of Paganism, and there are elements subtly seeded in the opening chapter (analogous to the fading influence of Christianity in the North American culture), only perhaps too subtly. I don’t think the Pagan way of life is really brought out in the first two issues… superstition is noted, but there’s not enough sense yet as to the difference between the life Sven had in Constantinople versus how the people of Grimness are living. The final point is setting, and unless versed in the spread of the Vikings from Scandinavian regions and their impact on the world, much of the book’s atmosphere is lost. Sure, it’s nothing a pop over to Wikipedia can’t solve, but seeing as Wood has his characters speaking in modern tongue, there wouldn’t be much harm in contextualizing the setting to modern day to understand exactly how far the reaches of the Viking expansion went. Maybe I’m just naive, but are there many people who know where Orkney is without consulting a map?

Any book, comic or otherwise, asking you to educate yourself while reading assumes much of the reader (primarily initiative), and it’s a risky proposition to not provide them all they need to know to follow along, assuming that the story is strong enough for the reader to seek out answers on their own. Wood, I have to say, tends to know what he’s doing, and I would also assume that, being a big Viking buff, he wants to extend that passion out to the reader. Is the book strong enough to do that? For some yes, but not for everyone.

If Wood has a helping hand in drawing in the readers, it’s from artist Davide Gianfelice and colorist Dave McCaig. Together they make the book hum with a sense of equal parts accuracy and ferocity. There’s a palpable feel to the climate in the illustrations, the damp winds of northern Scotland, the grey skies leading to pale skin, the beauty of the northern lights… McCaig’s washed colors allow blood reds to pop when he needs them, and his attention to the sky makes it really like another character. Gianfelice’s characters move with a natural fluidity, a sensuality or stiffness depending on the necessities of the scene. His pages are full of motion, and he’s not shy to add panels to ratchet up momentum or equally slow down the pace. His attention to detail really builds the crudeness of the era without handily falling into stereotype.

There’s a sense of something building, and if Wood is true to form, it’s not going to be as obvious as it looks. While the story at this point is off to a slow start, I’m quite certain the trade of the first arc will be well recommended.


THREE OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

Resurrection #1 (Oni Press)
by Graig Kent

Mark Guggenheim is a man after my own heart… my big geeky heart. Like me, Guggenheim will watch a summer genre blockbuster and ask “What happens next?” - after characters survive the zombie apocalypse/vampire attack/alien invasion, the big question is “what happens next in a world where the unbelievable is suddenly revealed to be real…?” - and from that question allow his mind to wander and fill out the details for hours, days or more to come.

With Resurrection, Guggenheim picks his story up just after the end of an alien occupancy on Earth, driven out by unknown measures, allowing humanity its freedom for the first time in a decade. They emerge from underground bunkers to see their towns and cities decimated, and yet still feel only relief. The President was kept safe (and I guess technically in charge) inside his mountain dugout with luxuries very few others would have known. An alien captive, one of few, is informed of his race’s evacuation and left to contemplate his future with his captor. Now that we know we’re not alone, now that our population on a global basis has experienced war and terror, now that some humans have been experimented on and left to live disfigured, now that everything has changed… what happens next?

Unlike, say, The Walking Dead where the characters still have the threat of their attackers looming at every turn, in Resurrection the threat has left, but everything the threat represents is not gone. Will the populace look towards old-style leadership or will they turn to something new and untested? Will they succumb to a post-911-style paranoia, segregating and tearing themselves apart to try and be more secure, or will they unify and grow as a culture?

When people first emerge from underground and two different groups meet for the first time, they point guns in each others’ faces, and one of our protagonists, Sara, states, “How comforting it is to know some things never fucking change.” Though I think Guggenheim is taking the opportunity with this series to go big rather than deep, he still finds ways to unobtrusively make statements on our culture, and really, any sci-fi worth its salt endeavors to do at least a little of that.

In artist David Dumeer, Guggenheim has found a partner that will fulfill his every vision: drawing a decimated cityscape, showing an underground bunker, detailing the comforts of the Presidency, designing a cell where we’d keep an alien (surprisingly nothing fancy), and capturing characters with worry-worn faces finally getting some relief… he does it all, and in a manner that is anything but showy. I think it’s that last part which Dumeer sells the best, he knows the people are the focus here, not the scenery. But he also knows that the details are what the geeks will want, little nuances that will make the eye tour around the panel. In a style similar to The Walking Dead artist Charlie Adlard, he uses a thin line with clustered inks, his shadow sense is accentuated by some excellent digital shading. Though his figures are occasionally stiff, his faces are solid, capturing emotion perfectly.

Unlike a post-apocalyptic story, Resurrection is about picking up the pieces, rather than finding out the pieces have been left behind long ago (but I think Guggenheim also understands the excitement of slowly unveiling the action-packed back-story this allows as well). There will be a sense of discovery, but not of a world forgotten, but of a world remembered, and changed.


FOUR AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

Pax Romana #1 (of 4) (Image)
by Graig Kent

With his first comic book series, The Nightly News, Jonathan Hickman redefined the limitations of comic book storytelling by incorporating heavy elements of glyphic design, magazine-style info-box asides, and generally turning away from conventional panel and coloring structures in favor of something more free-flowing. With Hickman setting and story flow are much more a product of words and aesthetic rather than specific illustrations of backgrounds and establishing shots. It’s a definite shift in reading logic but for The Nightly News - as much or more a polemic on American news organizations as it was a story following a specific individual or group - it worked. With Pax Romana, for some reason, I was expecting Hickman to venture into more conventional storytelling territory, and to be honest was a little disappointed when first flipping through the new book to find it very much in the same structural vein as his previous work: text heavy with little obvious structure.

But, a day or two later, I started reading it, and by the eighth page, I was completely enveloped into the new world of a hypothetical future and an alternative past (it’ll make sense in a minute). Though not as immediately sociopolitically relevant as The Nightly News, this book is much more story focussed, its asides actually character-specific information dumps which feed into the immediate story at hand… and that story is both exciting and unnerving.

The framework of the story begins in the past, a past much different than ours, where the aging, withered Pope and the barely-a-toddler Emperor sit down to a first meeting. The old pontiff relays to the young ruler how their past and present came to be, in a future that will now never exist. The story then jumps to the year 2052, a theoretical future where Islam and atheism have claimed more and more of society to their ranks, leaving the Catholic Church desolate and withered. Amidst their remaining numbers are a pair of scientists funded by the Vatican’s wealth, who have discovered the means to transport objects, people included, into the past. The reigning Pope and his Cardinals decide upon a course of action to save the Church by making use of the technology, which involves organizing a squad of diverse expert military minds to follow under the rule of a volunteer Cardinal.

The first issue tackles questions of morality and justification for what is planned, it looks at what can be done, and when, and why, if not fully establishing the how. The people recruited for the mission are somehow justified by the Church, but their character histories (as provided in the asides) put their motivations and alleigence in question. Though the Catholic Church isn’t exactly made out to be the bad guy (in fact, there’s a sense of withering sympathy towards them), at the same time there’s a foreboding sense of “atrocity in the name of God” that looms over their plan, despite the various implorings to the contrary. A world constructed and orchestrated by the Church, well, we’ve already got that, but with the benefit of hindsight, it’s an upsetting prospect.

But, as Hickman notes in the back cover (the issue runs a full 28 pages), this isn’t a story about religion, but instead sociology. Hickman makes pains not to overwhelmingly support or damn the Church, but instead presents the religion in a fairly balanced manner, as followers of a higher order as well as an organization that can influence the shape of the world (sci-fi story or not). By the end of the first issue we get a sense that things aren’t going to play out as planned, but the possibilites are certainly inviting.

Hickman apoligizes in the backmatter for the delay of the book, having run through two previous drafts before solidifying the third. It was certainly worth the wait. This book’s story and environment is polished, the information dispensed absolute perfection… everything the reader needs to know at this time is in the pages. The only real question left by page 28 is “what happens next?” As I said, Hickman’s visual structure is atypical but through design and dialogue flow, it’s all quite easy to follow, and quite stimulating to look at. I may not be as in awe of Pax Romana as I was with The Nightly News but I’m even more impressed at how tightly Hickman can work a story with his unique visual flavor. Comics don’t get much more exciting than this.


FIVE OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS