We’re back, with a renewed emphasis on drawing attention to what is and isn’t worth your hard earned dollars in these lean economic times. Comics have never been more expensive, with cover prices that have far outpaced inflation (despite an increasing number of full page ads). The $3.99 price point is in sight. 

No more B.S. We ‘re committed to a weekly comic book column highlighting some things we think are worth a look, and some that should be overlooked.

Phonogram: The Singles Club #1 (of 7) (Image - $3.50)
by Graig Kent

There’s a lot of talk as of late about the price of comics, and the value delivered for that price.  Is $2.99 too high to pay for 22 pages of story and ten pages of ads?  Most of us still reading comics have come to accept this as standard.  But push it to $3.50 and it becomes a little less reasonable, and at $3.99, practically offensive. Once you push the $3 per book marker, people really start to question their purchasing decisions.  With smaller press or creator owned books there’s more of a willingness to spend that extra bit, because of perceived extra value, if only in the investment of the creative team to making a different product than what’s in the mainstream.  But even so, at those prices there’s a lot of cost:value rationalizing that still happens.

Writer Kieron Gillen and artist Jamie McKelvie get that, and with the second volume of their standout series Phonogram, they aim to get you as much pop for your buck as possible. Putting aside the high quality of the writing and art for a second, the first issue of The Singles Club gives you 17 pages of feature story, a 2-page essay, a 2-page issue-specific glossary, a 4-page back-up story, and another 2-page story, plus a letter column and “playlist” in the inside back cover and a 1-page adverstory on the back cover.  In other words, no filler, no ads, just a fully enriched reading experience.

The Singles Club, unlike the first series, is a mini-series of stand alone stories, each issue holding it’s own, start-to-finish, but read together as a whole it creates a larger piece.  Grant Morrison tried this with Seven Soldiers, as did Brian Wood with Local, the difference here is each issue focuses in on a different character’s perspective of the same night at a club.  It’s not an untested idea, but it’s hardly overused and should prove to be an interesting, if not always entertaining endeavor.

But, given the first issue, there’s no reason to believe that The Singles Club won’t be fully entertaining through and through.  With this issue, Gillen and McKelvie thrust the new and returning reader alike right into the music-is-magic conceit and perfectly exemplify it over the feature story. Taking minor characters from the first series and turning the spotlight on them, the first is Penny, who sources her powers from dancing. Here she breaks the fourth wall, so to speak, by addressing the reader directly, with an awareness that the other characters seem to be only partially cognizant of or else completely oblivious.  It’ll be interesting to see if this direct-address of the audience is character-specific or a storytelling device Gillen is using.

“Pull Shapes” is a character piece, rather than a story-centric tale, establishing scene and setting rather than delivering fight-sequences.  It’s witty, hip and occasionally confounding (that’s what the glossary is for).  But it’s also decidedly different, a unique product meant for music lovers more than for comic lovers (but comic lovers should be enraptured by what’s done here).

Both Gillen and McKelvie broke out with the inaugural series, and with subsequent work between series, both have grown incredibly in their respective chores.  Gillen’s words are tighter, more economical, saying as much without having to say as much, creating magic in a more simplified way. The first series could be a little impenetrable at times to even the indie-scene indoctrinated, but here that’s far less an issue. McKelvie’s art is just as gorgeous as ever, and now in color (like his fab mini from earlier this year, Suburban Glamour) with lavish colors from Matthew Wilson.  McKelvies clean line, exquisitely detailed style stands out on the stands. Most clean line work comes off as either cartoony or photo-traced, but McKelvie gives the book a sense of Bettie and Veronica meet the real world of fashion, culture and style.

The essay is a little thin this issue, when compared to the rolling diatribes Gillen has delivered in the past, mainly detailing why he’s including essays and glossaries and back-up features. Its good to know some creators are looking out for the readers. The back-up stories are brief, but further pad out the world of music-is-magic and provide an alternate setting for some of the book’s characters to appear. 

Altogether, this is the highest value package for the dollar on the stand.  It looks amazing, it’s a fantastic read, and it’s absolutely unique.


FIVE OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS



YTHAQ - THE FORSAKEN WORLD #1 (Marvel)($5.99)
By Adam Prosser

Japanese manga have taken North America by storm, but what about the rest of the world? In particular, Europe has been producing comics almost as long as America itself, and some of these were even in, y’know, English. Yet, except for a couple of British offerings like 2000 AD - and the impact of many of the people who wrote for it emigrating to the US superhero genre - very little about European comics has made an impact on the US audience. Heck, most people don’t even realize that the Smurfs began life as a Belgian comic (which is, needless to say, vastly superior to the cartoon show from which most of us over here know them.)

Obviously calling these comics “European” is to place a vast assortment of different styles under a single umbrella, so let’s narrow it down a bit by focusing on French-language comics. The aforementioned Smurfs are one such, as are Tintin and Asterix, two of the other most well-known French comics here in North America . These books share a pleasantly cartoony, animation-ready style with particularly fine inking, along with many other lesser-known French comics. But then there’s Metal Hurlant and its predecessors, the more fantastical and edgy stuff. Sometimes the line between these two isn’t as sharp as you’d think—the French discovered Japanese cartoons before we did (“anime” is a French word) and there was a certain amount of cross-pollination there. Many French comics share the Japanese stylistic trait of using cartoony, simplified, or even cutesy characters, the kind you would associate more with kids cartoons, in a story that’s supposed to be edgier or more adult. The effect can be striking.

This is certainly the case with Ythdaq: The Forsaken World, written by Christophe Arleston with art by Adrien Floch. Like all of Marvel’s new Soleil line, Ythdaq was originally published in France and is now being reprinted in an English translation and standard American floppy format (French comics tend to be published in hardbound editions with larger dimensions). It’s also 48 pages--dense pages—which even at $5.99 makes it a good value. This comic actually took me two sittings to read! How often does that happen?

Despite its exotic origins, Ythdaq is a fairly familiar pulp SF adventure story that won’t pose many challenges to an American geek audience; in fact, it comes perilously close to being clichéd. The interstellar cruise ship Comet’s Mist is incapacitated near the uncharted planet of the title, and breaks up, sending chunks of it raining down onto the planet’s surface. One segment, the lounge, was occupied by senior astronavigation officer Lt. Granite Welgoat, who had been put on bartending duty as punishment, along with a snobby, gold-digging passenger named Callista (who doesn’t believe Granite is an officer) and lunkheaded technician Narvarth. The three of them immediately find themselves on trial by a gang of walrus-people whose village they destroyed in the crash; from there, John Carter-meets-manga-fantasy-epic shenanigans ensue as they hunt for their ship’s missing distress beacon and other officers, finding themselves unwittingly embroiled in the local politics, and dealing with something that seems suspiciously like magic.

As I say, none of this is blazingly original in and of itself, but at least it’s a fun genre romp, thanks to a lot of nice little touches—like the aforementioned walrus-people, the Banfoo, having fpeech impedimentf fanks to their tufkf, or the clear and well-orchestrated action sequences (particularly a climactic bit of business involving the bronze age equivalent of a ski lift), or the clever twist involving Callista as damsel-in-distress that closes out the issue. On top of that, there’s the lavish artwork that’s a hallmark of the Europeans; the world here feels tactile and real, with the settings always clearly defined and tons of detail to keep your eye occupied. Another hallmark of the Europeans: naked boobies. This comic bears a “mature content” label, needless to say, though it’s really just the kind of “maturity” that your standard 13-year-old would approve of. But it’s good natured and casual rather than the kind of “look at how edgy we are” sex and violence American comics sometimes indulge in.

The Soleil line’s exploiting of European comics is one of those head-smackingly obvious good ideas that you can’t believe haven’t happened before now, and kudos to Marvel for making a bold choice like this rather than simply following a trend. If this keeps up, we’ll have to look to some other uncharted corner of the world comics market to stay hip and edgy. I call South America!


THREE AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS

 

Raided: Punisher War Zone #1 (of 6). Marvel
By Jeb D.

It hasn’t done anything to help the movie’s box office performance, but The Punisher’s a busy guy these days, what with one-shots and annuals, and the continuation of his MAX series in the wake of Garth Ennis’ departure. For all that, the biggest news for many Punisher fans will be the reunion of Ennis with artist Steve Dillon on this new miniseries, which shares a subtitle, but little else, with the new movie. Ennis and Dillon, of course, first took on the character in the initial days of the Marvel Knights line, pushing him beyond the costumed-antihero/generic tough guy he’d been for decades, and making him the star of an over-the-top ultraviolent black comedy. When that ended, Ennis moved on to the more thoughtful, hard-nosed, and even bloodier MAX series, turning out what was arguably Marvel’s best title of the past decade. Now, Ennis and Dillon return to the Marvel Knights imprint, picking up where they left off before, this time for a weekly 6-part miniseries. Where the Marvel MAX series pitted Frank Castle against a variety of foes from Russian mobsters to corrupt government officials to the unforgettable Barracuda, this issue drops us straight back into Frank’s war on the old-school Mafia bosses, following on from the “Welcome Back, Frank” arc of the previous series, as Frank learns that the Gnucci crime family’s Sicilian branch remains in need of pruning. Familiar characters return, as does the familiar manic, sanguinary tone. The final page of the book suggests that Ennis and Dillon might be revisiting ground that’s a bit too familiar, but I have enough faith in them to expect to see a new spin or two. Fans of the earlier Marvel Knights series may buy with confidence, but even those who found it a bit too jokey (particularly compared to the subsequent MAX series) might take a look, too, as there does seem to be a slight sense of growth and maturation, with the dialog a bit sharper, and the characterizations slightly more rounded, than last time. Either way, it’s nice to see that Ennis still has a bit more to say on the subject of Frank Castle and his war on the worst of the world.


FOUR OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS



Raided: Jingle Belle Holiday Special: Santa Claus Versus Frankenstein (Top Cow)
By Jeb D.

Santa Claus versus Frankenstein is an idea that suggests some low-budget victim of Mystery Science Theater 3000, or something dreamed up by a couple of post-modern “ironic” comic geeks over one too many drinks. In fact, it’s pretty easy to make anything with “versus” in the title into something cheesy; it takes a Paul Dini to make it charming. For those who don’t know her, Jingle Belle is Santa’s mischievous teenage elfin daughter.  While out snowboarding, she finds the Frankenstein monster (frozen in the ice at the end of the novel), and brings him back to her dad’s toy factory to meet her family and friends, and to let him discover a world where monsters, instead of beings of terror,  are beloved toys. The monster finds purpose, and helps Santa face down the threat of modern corporate greed, with the titular showdown taking place in a somewhat unexpected way. It’s a typical Jingle Belle adventure, with gentle fun poked at targets both contemporary and traditional. Belly laughs aren’t the order of the day, but Dini’s script, combined with the bright and bouncy artwork of Stephanie Gladden, keeps a smile on the reader’s face the whole time. And it’s always nice to see an author who can take his own slant on holiday tradition, while honoring them at the same time.


THREE OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS