Omnivoracious

Kim Thompson (1956-2013)

Today, publisher Fantagraphics confirmed the very sad news that co-publisher, editor, and translator Kim Thompson passed away at the age of 56. In 1977, the influential Thompson first arrived in America, having long been a fan of comics when he lived in Denmark (on their blog, Fantagraphics notes that Marvel Comics published his teen fan mail in the 1970s). Soon, Thompson partnered with Gary Groth, Fantagraphics’ much more outspoken co-founder, to bring independent comics like Love & Rockets by Los Bros Hernandez to a fanbase who craved literary-leaning, sequential storytelling over capes and muscles.

Thompson never lost his love for uncovering international talent, seeking to recreate that first step onto American soil by spotlighting creative minds no matter the native language, including the European artist Jason, whose iconic, anthropomorphic comics reached US audiences thanks to Thompson’s personal devotion, acumen, and eye for prowess. Recently, Thompson sought to darken the doorways of indie comics fans by editing the King of the Flies trilogy by French storytellers Mezzo and Pirus. His efforts were not in vain, as Volumes 1 and 2 (where Thompson is also credited as translator) were both selected as Amazon’s Best of the Year in Comics in 2010 and 2011, respectively. (Volume 3 is forthcoming.) Juggling many hats at Fantagraphics wasn’t enough, however, as Thompson partnered with Dark Horse Comics to translate the Milo Manara Library, an as yet unfinished, multi-volume project that spans the vast career of one of the most versatile European artists in comics.

On a personal note, I had the all-too-brief opportunity to meet Kim Thompson at a Fanatgraphics event in Seattle, WA (where the publisher is based), three years ago, and I witnessed firsthand his intelligence and humility. His loss will long be felt by those that Thompson inspired, helped, and touched in the industry, but there’s comfort in a legacy that flourishes at every turn of an atypical, gorgeous comics page.

--Alex

Photo credit: Lynn Emmert via Fantagraphics

Graphic Novel Friday: The Man of Steel

Look, up on the screen! It’s a film. It’s a well-coifed hero. It’s Man of Steel! In his 75th anniversary (Great Scott!), Superman returns to the movies via producer Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight trilogy), director Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen, and more), writer David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight trilogy), and DC Comics. What follows below is a snapshot of contemporary Superman comics that capture the essence of the hero while also exploring fresh territory—perfect for before or after the new film that leaps into theaters today.

• All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely: If you read one book off this list, please make it this one (UPDATE: the first digital issue is available for $.99). Morrison distills the Superman mythos while still playing with the goofier aspects, and Quitely beautifully renders the widescreen super-action and the humdrum Clark Kent lifestyle. The twelve chapter series is available in one paperback and in DC’s deluxe Absolute format (recommended).
• Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu: Writer Waid updates the classic origin and characters for a Smallville-esque audience, and it works. Readers see more of Clark’s life as a reporter, his teenage encounters with Lex Luthor, and where the Superman suit fits into a modern world.
• Superman for All Seasons by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale: Told over four seasons, here are comic veterans Loeb and Sale as they capture the core of Superman in this coming-of-age story. Sale’s artwork is all broad shoulders and strong jaws while Loeb writes in the sweet spot of his career, focusing on familial relationships and responsibility.
• “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” and “For the Man Who Has Everything” by Alan Moore, Curt Swan, and Dave Gibbons: These two definitive stories capture the nostalgic essence of Superman—both the mortal and the hero, the alien and the man—as only master storyteller Alan Moore can write him. In the former, Superman bids farewell to his Silver Age roots, while the latter explores Superman’s greatest wish. These are both collected (along with other Moore stories) in a single paperback, or the first story can be purchased as its own book.
• Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen: Set in the “real world,” a man in Kansas must live with the name Clark Kent and suffer all the “Hey, Superman!” jokes that come along with such a moniker. Kent examines what Superman means to a populace, and then…well, to say more would be to spoil it. Immonen turns in the dynamic but grounded artwork that would later lead him to be one of the top artists in mainstream comics.
• Honorable mention: Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar and Dave Johnson: This is an alternate reality Superman story—what if Superman crash-landed in Russia instead of America? It’s an entertaining concept that lives up to its premise, with plenty of twists and surprises for longtime fans.

And if you’re looking for more on Superman and comics, please see the new and free Amazon Comics Newsletter, delivered to your inbox faster than a speeding bullet! Subscribers will receive a digital copy of the new Superman #1 (free until midnight Pacific Time on July 21, 2013), courtesy of DC Comics and George Perez.

--Alex (who has tickets for tonight!)

Graphic Novel Friday: The Mystery and the Creep

Any great detective needs a flaw, and Oxel Karnhus, a private detective afflicted with Acromegaly and, well, his name, fits the bill in The Creep. The disease takes its toll on the once-handsome man--his face is exaggerated, grotesque--and Oxel is all too aware of his affliction. The neighboring teens make fun of him as he exits his apartment; a former flame attempts to hide shock at his appearance; and he breaks out in sweats and headaches due to the agony. The deformity is what gives the recently published compact hardcover its title--Oxel, no matter his good intentions, is an abnormality to everyone upon first glance. He is “the Other,” a creep.

In The Creep, a young boy commits suicide following the death of his friend. The former’s mother is convinced that there is more to her son’s death than depression. Oxel takes the case and it leads him to a secret so shocking that the final revelation left me stunned, even when I was sure I’d correctly read all the dreams and symbols that writer John Arcudi leaves along the book’s path. It’s to Arcudi’s credit that The Creep does not rely on the big secret to drive the story. Instead, it’s Oxel who carries the book. He’s sympathetic--falling in front of the cruel boys who lurk at his stoop, to their laughter and his nosebleed; he makes poor decisions and fumbles toward a resolution without a grand redemption.

And it’s artist Jonathan Case whose beautiful line work takes this story and makes it all the more memorable. Case previously worked on another Dark Horse title, Green River Killer, which was one of Amazon’s Best of the Year picks in 2011. Here he works in color, adding that extra vigor to psychotic hallucinations and Oxel’s fever dreams throughout the book. His Oxel is not a monster--the deformity is prominently displayed without gothic shadows or familiar visual tricks. It’s a frank look at an uncomfortable visage, and Oxel is not alone in Case’s expert portrayal. Characters emote without exaggeration. Readers witness shame, grief, and horror in genuine display, all of which makes the final chapter so vivid. In one flashback panel, the colors appear scratched out of a section, the memory too real to witness in full.

Despite Dark Horse and John Arcudi’s history with supernatural tales (see Arcudi's B.P.R.D., a paranormal investiagtion series), The Creep is a story full of whispers depicted at great volume. The mystery that unfurls is all too human.

--Alex

 

Graphic Novel Friday: the Old Weird

A few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to hear from China Mieville, the award-winning fantastical fiction author who currently writes an offbeat series for DC Comics, Dial H. Mr. Mieville’s writing can be difficult to pin down, but he is often classified under the genre of “New Weird,” and Dial H fits neatly into that realm. But DC isn’t only looking forward, as two recently published, significantly sized collections prove. These two works highlight the dark, charmingly awkward, and literary publishing that DC and its Vertigo imprint allowed to flourish in the 1990s. Like Mr. Mieville’s oeuvre, they defy easy categorization, so we’ll call them “Old Weird” for now.

Writer Pat Mills and illustrator Kevin O’Neill chose to follow the Watchmen/Dark Knight heyday with a bizarre, outright shocking superhero-hunting-superheroes story, entitled Marshal Law. As The Comics Journal recently noted, the whole thing eventually devolves into a Judge Dredd-esque tale of “Who polices the superhero police?” but for much of the new Marshal Law: The Deluxe Edition’s 480 pages, it’s a fascinating snapshot of where comics were after a sea change in the 1980s. O’Neill’s sharp-edged designs are housed in panels that feel more like frames to accentuate Mills’ wry, anti-superhero sentiments, but they cannot shake the “across the pond” nature of its storytellers. Unlike American comics, a significant amount of action takes place between the panels, leaving the reader to piece together the transitions. It makes for a read punctuated by staccato jumps, and O’Neill populates the pages with jokes, puns, and mildly offensive winks to anchor readers to the page. This is not a breezy read, but it’s a historically unsung one, especially for fans of O’Neill’s later collaboration with Alan Moore, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Graphic Novel Friday: Celebrating Iron Man

Summer is almost here, and that means one thing: roll out the superhero blockbusters. Last year, the buzz surrounded the mega-successful Avengers film and the finale to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, and this weekend kicks off with its own Avengers tie-in, Iron Man 3. Once again, Robert Downey Jr. dons the suit of space-age armor as Tony Stark, the billionaire alter ego of Iron Man, and this time he battles the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) with the aid of War Machine (Don Cheadle) and the World’s Most Beautiful Woman (Gwyneth Paltrow, as recently crowned by People magazine). Outside cinemas, Iron Man has a vast career in comics, and the below five stories mark significant moments in his life as a crime-fighter:

• Iron Man: Extremis by Warren Ellis and Adi Garnov: This redefinition of Iron Man influenced the films, from the look of the suit to Stark’s origin. Ellis is a writer skilled with bringing even the most outlandish superheroes to Earth, and Extremis sheds a more human light on the character of Tony Stark as he battles a nanotech virus. This is a great start for new readers.

• Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle by David Michelinie, Bob Layton, John Romita, Jr., and Carmine Infantino: As if that creator lineup isn’t enough, this is probably Iron Man’s most famous storyline. In it, Tony Stark not only battles evil and Nick Fury’s ever-increasing involvement with SHIELD, but it’s where the very human Stark faces his troubles with alcoholism. Iron Man 2 touched on this storyline, and no matter its compressed storytelling and sign-of-the-times narration and dialogue, it’s still the most influential arc in Tony’s career.
• Iron Man vs. Doctor Doom: Doomquest by David Michelinie, Bob Layton, John Romita, Jr.: Here, the aforementioned creative team pits Marvel’s two most famous armor-clad characters against one another. It’s surprising that this idea took even so long to reach publication, and this collection is strangely out of print (although copies are available in the third-party marketplace). Never fear, true believers, for the Doomquest and Demon in a Bottle arcs are both collected in this 900+ page omnibus.

Omni Exclusive: China Miéville on Dial H and the Superhero B-List

A winner of the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Arthur C. Clarke awards (to name a few), China Miéville specializes in the fantastical and the weird. His literary approach to genre themes earned him a legion of fans (most recently with his novel Railsea in 2012), but Miéville remains a fan as well--of comics. The personal and professional interests collided in the best of ways during DC’s New 52 initiative, when the publisher announced a new Dial H series with Miéville at the helm with artist Mateus Santolouco. In the following exclusive essay, Miéville reveals his long history with the series and how that history led to a fresh, successful start for the book while remaining true to its core weirdness.

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I wasn't very good at canon. Oh, I got better as I got older, but as a kid, I pieced together my comics knowledge like a mudlark, scobbing together whatever titles I could find in local shops and libraries – new copies, second-hand ones, beaten-up and ripped-to-shreds remnants - without any understanding of publisher or continuity. I’d cross-fertilize them with the various exciting bits and pieces I'd picked up, all the rumours and half-truths regarding superheroes.

This led to an idiosyncratic version of the DCU. Once, many years ago, as a very young child, I was delighted to discover a pile of comics in an attic. They featured a blond, orange-shirted superhero who could speak to fish. “Ah,” I thought, settling down to read. “This must be this ‘Superman’ of whom I've heard so much.” I was intrigued that so many of his adventures were maritime.

As the years passed, I got a bit more systematic, but I never lost the excitement at the sheer chaotic variety of costumes, monikers and powers I might find fighting for justice, every time I opened a comic. It was always a surprise. This addiction to the proliferation of the superheroic is something many of us never grow out of.

In fact, inventing superheroes is one of the basic games of childhood. Tie a towel around your neck and come up with a powerset, all the abilities you think you’ll need. Justify that hot mess as coherent by some ingenious, tendentious argument. Finally, give your wonder a name. (Electrical blast and tiger stripes? Electrotiger!) This is what we do. Like countless kids around the world, I was a martyr to superherogenesis.

Graphic Novel Friday: All Now! and All-New X-Men

As part of Marvel Comics’ new Marvel Now! initiative, long-running superhero teams sport new rosters, costumes, and motives. After the events of Avengers vs. X-Men, both teams were left reeling, but it was the X-Men who suffered the biggest loss: Professor X at the hands of team leader Cyclops. No one felt this loss more than Henry McCoy (a.k.a. “Beast”), who was also a founding member with Scott Summers.

Additionally, Beast keeps a secret close to his furry blue chest: he is dying. And as a super-scientist, if he cannot find a cure no one can. Except. What if there was a way for Henry McCoy to consult with the only person who could match his brains? What if Henry McCoy were to enlist the help of Henry McCoy, and what if the only person who could talk Scott Summers out of his murderous funk is Scott Summers? This mind-bending hypothetical kicks of All-New X-Men Vol. 1 (subtitled Yesterday’s X-Men—everything old is all-new again),written by superstar hit-maker Brian Michael Bendis, who left a mountain of Avengers stories and influence to freshen up Marvel’s mighty mutants. With this first volume, Bendis has already crafted what feels like a classic run, where the pages cannot turn quickly enough and the revelations compound.

In order to consult with himself, Beast does what X-Men do: he time travels. In the past, Beast finds the original X-Men and pleads with them to travel to their future to help the X-Men of present day. Plus, two Henry McCoys have a better chance at saving his/their life/lives than one. It’s heady stuff and Bendis wisely skips over the finer details of paradoxes in favor of character moments, where he excels. Beast sees a young Jean Grey, as yet untouched by the Dark Phoenix and her ultimate fate, and marvels at her youth, attitude, and beauty. Of course, yesterday’s X-Men hop aboard with Beast to the present day, where they encounter the all-new X-Men, a team weary from decades of inner mutant battles and a public who hates and fears them now more than ever.

Graphic Novel Friday: Iron: or, the War After

I fell in love with Iron: or, the War After immediately upon holding it. The compact hardcover sports a red, textured cover with an embossed golden-colored rabbit and tree. Snowflakes drift from the limbs. It’s a package unlike most—and then I opened it.

Artist and writer S.M. Vidaurri’s watercolor treatment features predominant greys and blues with occasional splashes of red (a recurring robin, for example). The word he crafts is one of “constant winter,” and it’s populated by anthropomorphic animals. These creatures live in an age of quiet rebellion, post-wartime, where a faction of animals plan a revolution while those in power seek their hideouts. The story is rife with paranoia, threats of betrayal lurk in the wintry corners of dialogue balloons. A rabbit, Hardin, is the focus of the first chapter as he escapes an enemy’s clutches with stolen documents. All of this—the war, the rebellion, what lies within the documents--unfolds at a measured pace, and it keeps the reader at a crossroad: quickly turn the pages to uncover the mystery, or linger to appreciate the stark, absorbing artwork.

As future chapters develop, Hardin’s children become the focus while the threatening forces grow closer to their targets. There’s a train sequence that is heightened by its chugging course through the snow; plot points slowly collide, upsetting the quiet nature of the book with an explosive reveal. If all the heartbreak of the finale weren’t enough, Iron ends with a letter from a son to his father. It casts one last ray of wintertime light onto a character, opening his motivations long after it is too late.

Publisher Archaia continues to produce these under-the-radar gems—see also our spotlight on their much louder and fast-paced Tale of Sand—that reward any reader lucky enough to happen upon them.

--Alex

Archer & Armstrong: Heroes, Humor, and History

As part of its relaunch, Valiant Comics is making a bid for “Call It a Comeback” publisher. In the 1990s, Valiant was very much a part of the comics boom, launching independent characters in the marketplace to great fan adoption. Like many of its contemporaries, however, Valiant suffered once the initial superhero bubble burst. But that was 20 years ago, and the market is a much different place, rife with opportunity and nostalgia. Enter Valiant Comics, again, with several throwback titles reborn into sophisticated packages.

One such title is the winning Archer & Armstrong, by writer Fred Van Lente and artist Clayton Henry. Fans of historical conspiracies and buddy-cop stories will love this one. Young Obadiah Archer is in search of his possibly immortal enemy, Armstrong, an ancient Mesopotamian who tried in vain to stop a prophetic Armageddon. The comic jumps from historical flashbacks to contemporary chase scenes. Archer’s duties stem from a Biblically focused upbringing, and he leaves his tutors (all creepy eyes and smiles) with a singular purpose: destroy Armstrong. When he finds his archenemy, however, he sees an intoxicated cad, and before Archer can fulfill his purpose the two of them are captured by an order of nefarious zealots. Their true schemes shake Archer’s resolve, and—naturally—Armstrong helps him escape. Readers can see where this is going: the two grudgingly band together to thwart the true evil, but it’s the journey that makes the book so rewarding.

Van Lente writes punchy, ever-quipping dialogue as Archer and Armstrong banter between fisticuffs. Yes, there are a few anachronistic moments, where contemporary phrasing pops up in the historical flashbacks, but the book is full of punchy jokes and clever twists. Look for Van Lente’s narrative boxes whenever Archer uses a new martial art or technique, or when Archer focuses on a particular weak point of his assailants—both informative and funny. Henry’s artwork is the book’s highpoint—his sharp lines, wide-open faces, and expertly choreographed fight scenes turn this story into one that is beautifully told. I’ve been following his work since Exiles, and he’s at his best in Archer & Armstrong.

After this arc, Henry departs the book, but fans need not fear: Emanuela Lupacchino will handle pencils in the second volume (due in August), and she brings beautiful character designs, fluid action, and amusing facial expressions to her projects (see also Castle and X-Factor). 

You can’t go home again? Nonsense. Archer & Armstrong revisits a fan-favorite duo and gives them new life.

--Alex

Graphic Novel Friday: This is Hawkeye, Bro.

This is not the book you think it is. When you see a new comic with the name “Hawkeye” in the title, you may recall the film Avengers, where Hawkeye is somehow on a team with a god, a hulking monster, and a super soldier when he possesses all the power of a bow and arrow. It’s a bit ridiculous, even in a world where ridiculous things happen every day. But the new Hawkeye Vol 1: My Life as a Weapon embraces this ridiculousness before stripping it all away.

Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, became the greatest sharpshooter known to man. He then joined the Avengers. This is what he does when he’s not being an Avenger. That’s all you need to know.

Ha! Writer Matt Fraction knows the character Hawkeye very well, and he knows that readers may not—and such a blend of awareness and execution makes this book the perfect jumping-on point for new fans. Hawkeye’s lack of powers and marquee villains means he has more time to do laundry, set up his stereo system, self-deprecate, and attend rooftop barbeques at his shoddy apartment complex. It’s at one such barbeque where Hawkeye—mistakenly referred to as “Hawkguy” by his neighbors—learns that the rent will be unreasonably escalated, thanks to the shady dealings of the landlord. This sets in motion a loose thread that connects the five chapters in this first volume, where Hawkeye discovers a network of tracksuit-wearing Russian mobsters with a penchant for referring to themselves and pretty much everything else as “Bro” (as Hawkeye escapes, one of the Russians yells to another: “Bro, get that bro!”).