Omnivoracious

Graphic Novel Friday: Days Missing

Archaia has long been a favorite graphic novel publisher. Now they've come out with Days Missing, based on an idea by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and fleshed out by the likes of Ian Edginton. The idea, that a mysterious entity has been interfering with history at various points, usually to save humankind's collective ass, is presented in a series of short pieces, each in a different style and different era. Highlights include the opening piece about a plague in the present-day, written by Phil Hester and drawn by Frazer Irving, David Hine and Chris Burnham's incorporation of the Frankenstein mythos into Roddenberry's idea, and chapter five, by Hester and Irving again, which features a "growing lump." It's really hard to go wrong with a growing lump in a fantasy/SF/horror comic, in my humble opinion. The art throughout ranges from the bold to the merely competent, but the combination of genres, and the central mystery, are very compelling. Don't be put off--or turned on--by a cover that seems to evoke the Star Trek movie The Wrath of Khan. This is an entirely different beast.

 

Graphic Novel Friday: "Hellboy: The Wild Hunt"

Rejoice, Hellboy fans: On March 17, Mike Mignola will finally provide the truth behind his titular character's heritage with Hellboy: The Wild Hunt. It's a storyline that's been cryptically brewing for years, and it must be terrifying and liberating for Mr. Mignola to finally reveal his grand scheme. I started Dark Horse's latest collection without any knowledge of the answers laid bare within its fiery-tinged pages, but then pieces began to fall into place--bits of Hellboy esoterica that I hadn't thought about in years started to become increasingly relevant to the story.

Readers would do well to bone up on Darkness Calls and, shockingly--at least to me--Strange Places. I thought the latter to be more of a cast-off story in the Hellboy mythos; one to read and enjoy without having to dwell too long on the possibility of its effect on greater continuity. But it's testament to Mignola's planning and patience that such stories would eventually flourish as part of the whole. Strange Places is one of my favorite collections (and the third "Library Edition" hardcover more than does it justice), and when its plot points were referenced in The Wild Hunt, I knew something was up Hellboy's duster sleeves.

Artist Duncan Fegredo, who partnered with Mignola on Darkness Calls, returns here with the unenviable task of drawing Hellboy. I'm pleased to note that there is no disappointment in The Wild Hunt. Fegredo stays close to what made the series such a success: the chiseled, jagged details are here, as are the stark panels with shadowed images nearly indecipherable upon first glance. But, as noted in Mark Chadbourn's introduction, there are moments where the body language of a much-maligned villain gives the reader reason to linger. As apparent in the bonus features section, Mignola is still very hands-on when it comes to visuals, but it's in these quiet panels where Fegredo's work lends emotional weight. And where Mignola's female characters tend to haunt and lurk, Fegredo adds a tenderness to Hellboy's partner in the later half--but not to worry, fans need look no further than the principle villainess, The Queen of Blood, for their fix of femme fatales.

When a writer builds his fiction on a foundation of mystery, it's rare for the answers to be as interesting as the questions (see how Lost's sixth season has floundered thus far--sorry, fans, I'm right there with you, but it's been a snooze-y first few episodes), yet The Wild Hunt delivers. This is a must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in the series. I wish I could say more, but I do not want to be the guy to let slip one of the most surprising, satisfying, and well-played revelations in popular fiction. At the book's close, my own imagination bested, I realized that no matter how obscure or how deeply Mike Mignola selects the folklore with which to tell his stories, there are universal legends at work that never rest.

The Wild Hunt releases in March, and readers left reeling can steady themselves with the promise of more Hellboy-inspired titles in 2010: May sees the publication of B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs and Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels, and then B.P.R.D.: 1947 is rumored to release later this summer.

Graphic Novel Friday: Scott Musgrove's The Late Fauna of Early North America

One amazing title I picked up while on the road for my book tour I haven't yet had a chance to blog about: Scott Musgrove's The Late Fauna of Early North America. It's a radical expansion of a little chapbook I bought awhile back, and works equally well for the graphic novel enthusiast and the art book collector. Musgrove's style is a bit like if Mark Ryden had decided to focus on chronicling imaginary animals. He's also clearly influenced by the Grotesques of masters like Bruegel and Bosch. At first glance, these are kinder and gentler grotesques, but the longer you look at them, the more you realize the deeply, deeply strange nature of these creations.

A highlight of The Late Fauna, besides the amazing art, is an introductory section that provides a cryptozoology context for the beasties, along with faked images and a very clever full-page photo of the artist supposedly painting one of the imaginary animals, with the critter sitting for the portrait, but just hidden by the angle of the photo. Another highlight are the sculptures and other types of representations.

With names like the Long Necked Lotus Loris, Northern BaronBeest, and Spangled Swamp Horse we should be well into dangerous "whiimsy" territory, but somehow even the floating creatures seem fully grounded in something real. Seeming to burst forth from the page, this effect aided by the paintings included in the book in their actual frames, these monsters are a wonderful and exotic part of the glorious history of the made-up bestiary. Other extras include a Fauna Viability Timeline and a color-in page. Highly recommended.

    

Graphic Novel Friday: Spotlight on Rick Remender

Creator, writer, and sometimes artist Rick Remender has been on a tear lately, piling heaps of mainstream and indie projects onto his plate. He’s already wrapped up his supersized battlebot series Gigantic (Spring 2010), closed the book on his superhero deconstruction in The End League (also Spring 2010), and penned what I've been dreading the most: the end of Fear Agent. For fans, it is bittersweet that Dark Horse recently published the penultimate chapter, Fear Agent Vol. 5: I Against I, indicating that the end is nigh.

I Against I opens with the aftermath of a bang heard at the close of Vol. 4: Hatchet Job. Perennial anti-hero and space cowboy Heath Huston crash-lands on a desert planet with a pack of stowaway poltergeists. He narrowly escapes, but runs smack-dab into a herd of carnivorous insects and their venom-filled pincers. After that, things really start to get weird.

Heath awakens under the careful watch of a woman who resembles his ex-wife, Charlotte--the same woman he left light years behind in a distant galaxy. This is but one of the mounting mysteries in the dusty outpost of "Heaven," where snarling, drippy aliens dress as outlaws, and mum's the word on why the citizens cower at the sight of the town heavy. Spiraling down the rabbit hole, Heath's inevitable confrontation with the local man in black gives new meaning to the term "dead ringer."

Back from hiatus, original series artist Tony Moore matches Remender's Space Western narrative with stylized, frenetic artwork and high expression. The ending arrives only too quickly, and is naturally an inexplicable cliffhanger--especially cruel given that details on the final volume's release date have been slim.

Graphic Novel Friday: Copper by Kazu Kibuishi

 
Kazu Kibuishi is the mastermind behind the Flight fantasy comics series and his own great fantasy adventure series, Amulet. Copper is less ambitious, even more oriented toward kids, and quite lovely all on its own. Basically, the comics contained herein are vignettes following the exploits of Copper and his dog Fred. Copper's always plunging into new experiences without a care while Fred's there to anchor him in reality. Sometimes they're jumping through a waterfall. Other times they're just trying to make a purchase at the local grocery store.

It's hard not to like Kibuishi's creations, even those in a minor key. Kids will love the visuals--from blimps with eyes to incredible clocks--and they'll also love Kibuishi's never cynical but also never sentimental approach to his two main characters. Personally, I love the way he draws mushrooms, rabbits, and frogs, so I had a great time reading this book on a rainy afternoon, curled up on the couch.

The book includes a short but interesting section on Kibuishi's process in creating Copper, including panels in various stages of completion. He also explains the differences between working on a longer storyline (Amulet) and a shorter one, Copper typically being no more than two or three pages.

Here are a few samples from the comic, which is also available online. The book's a great gift for any kid.

Graphic Novel Friday: Weekend Grab Bag

The new year is barely a month old, and my reading journal is already teeming with more graphic novels than I can handle. So as a service to those with similar problems, I'm devoting this week's post to two new releases that shouldn't be missed and one last-minute favorite from 2009.

The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross: Here is a simple way to rope readers into a new series: tell a great story. Carey poses the question of "What if the Harry Potter series were based on a real boy, and that boy grew up to be a convention circuit-hungry C-list celebrity?" Protagonist Tommy Taylor's father wrote a 13-book series-turned-beloved-cultural-phenomenon with his son as the inspiration, providing now-adult Tommy with a day job of making "Tommy Con" appearances and answering hapless, obsessed fans' questions. But with his father missing and rabid speculation about his true identity on the Internet, Tommy finds himself wrapped up in a real-life mystery--and one with magical properties. This first volume sets the stage almost too well, leaving readers with many questions and just a hint of what's to come. It certainly kept me guessing and cursing at its cliffhanger ending. I loved all the literary references and not-so-gentle poking at YA fandom. This is one to watch from Vertigo, and it deserves all the support it can get to keep those cryptic answers coming. Fans of Neil Gaiman's Books of Magic should definitely take notice.

Irredeemable by Mark Waid and Peter Krause: I have an embarrassing confession to make. When I heard all the buzz about a comics title called Irredeemable, I thought readers were talking about Robert Kirkman's Irredeemable Ant-Man. While that series certainly has its fans, I finally came across Mark Waid's Irredeemable, which at first glance appears to be yet another superhero-gone-bad deconstruction. Not so. This one has real bite, tracking the "world's greatest hero," The Plutonian, as he decimates the superhero and supervillain population, along with the rest of the inhabitants of planet Earth. The answers come very slowly across the first two paperback collections, as Waid teases revelations just before delivering explosive plot twists. Vol. 1 begins mis en scene and introduces plenty of characters in the first chapter to keep even the speediest of readers from rushing through the pages. Peter Krause's art improves in the forthcoming Vol. 2, losing some of the early stiffness and opening up a wider palette of faces, particularly the female characters. Vol. 3 doesn't release until July, but Waid has another surprise planned for fans: Incorruptible, the flip-side to Irredeemable and centered around a supervillain-turned-hero, publishes in June.

In 2003, I remember reading Blood and Water by Judd Winick and Tomm Coker in single issues and being fairly impressed at its shocking look at vampirism. Today, of course, new takes on the vampire genre are as common as Hot Topic mall stores, but this under-read five-issue miniseries is still worthwhile, particularly the first three chapters. Protagonist Adam Heller is terminally ill, and--wouldn't you know it?--his two best friends are vampires who have just the answer to his ailment. The early fun is in watching Adam and his cohorts basking in the newfound nightlife while Winick experiments with a time-honored mythos in a contemporary setting. Tomm Coker's artwork is full of emotion and shadows (much moreso than Brian Bolland's surprisingly goofy covers), and I wish I could find more work from him (Wikipedia claims he's moved on to film direction). Winick would later graduate to high-profile characters like Superman, the Titans, and Batman, which, while good for his career, meant that Blood and Water met an early grave. The soil is prime for a resurrection, however, should Winick ever want to give the capes and tights a rest. [Note: Vertigo Comics actually published Blood and Water in October 2009, but I re-read it this month.]

So far, my new year has been full of excellent reads.  How about you: which graphic novels have you been recommending in 2010?  

Graphic Novel Friday: Grimmer Tales by Erik Bergstrom

Grimmer Tales by Erik Bergstrom isn't for kids, although I think most teens would find it hilarious. In a series of devilishly clever sequences, using a colorful faux primitive style, Bergstrom's dark sense of humor brings forth chuckles and full-on belly laughs. In part, it's because he gets beneath the stylized surface of the stories. Certain fairy tales when re-created in live-action movies or animation retain the power of the originals. Others seem silly literalized in that way. What Bergstrom has done is use the comics format to literalize in a surreal sense.

For example, there's a running gag about Rapunzel's long hair leading to her death; when a suitor who asked her to let down her hair starts climbing up the side of the tower toward her...her head falls off. Because, of course, her neck can't take that kind of pressure. Rapunzel's misadventures with the garbage disposal and other hazards are variations on that idea. Another running gag concerns Pinocchio, whose penchant for lying winds up killing people or maiming them, his nose more like a spike that, swift growing, punctures eyes and chests. Yeah, these are the day-to-day hazards the folk of fairy tales endure.

A strong sense of the grotesque runs through the book. Mary-had-a-little-lamb winds up in Vietnam. The rabbit from the Tortoise and the Hare is a terrible surgeon. Humpty-Dumpty cracks open his own head and fries the egg inside for his breakfast. In one of my favorite sequences, titled "After Snow White," Bergstrom shows what happened to the Seven Dwarfs post-tale. Bashful, for example, is "bunkered away in Montana," Grumpy is a "renowned Brazilian cage fighter", and Sleepy is "with the fishes."

I loved this book for its strangeness and its ability, even when showing something horrific, to make me laugh. In this sense, Bergstrom, even as he pokes (affectionate) fun at fairy tales, comes closer to the effect of the originals before their Disney-fication. Highly recommended.

 

"Twilight: The Graphic Novel"--Coming March 16

Twihards across America woke up to some exciting Stephenie Meyer news this morning when Entertainment Weeky revealed that Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1 will be coming out on March 16. Illustrated by Young Kim and including a brief introduction from Meyer, the adaptation will be split into two parts to keep as much of the source material intact. It's already cracked our Top 50 in just a matter of hours of being available for pre-order.

EW teased their interview with Meyer, which will appear in this Friday's magazine. Here's a sample question:

How does the feeling of reading the graphic novel compare to that of reading the original? Does it bring something new to the experience for you?

For me, it takes me back to the days when I was writing Twilight. It’s been a while since I was really able to read Twilight; there is so much baggage attached to that book for me now. It seems like all I can see are the mistakes in the writing. Reading Young’s version brought me back to the feeling I had when I was writing and it was just me and the characters again. I love that. I thank her for it.

--BTP

Graphic Novel Friday: Comics of the Decade

After a few years on the wagon during school, I came back to comics in 2000 and returned to my long-boxes just in time to witness a tipping point in the industry. In the 1990s, the top billing generally went to artists working with mainstream superheroes (and occasionally moonlighting as spokesmen for button-fly jeans), but in the past ten years, the industry made a marked shift in its spotlight on talent. This isn't to say that comics artistry has declined in importance--of course, where would comics be without pencils and inks?--but a balance has returned, and writers are once again held in as high of esteem. And this leveling of talent and emphasis allowed for the advancement of more personal storytelling both in and outside of DC and Marvel, producing some of the most literary projects yet in the medium. Add to these works the box office domination of capes and cowls, and all of sudden comics are reviewed on NPR, and no one bats an eye when the medium has a New York Times Bestseller List devoted to it.

For our picks for Comics of the Decade, we tried to find a similar balance between indie and mainstream, superheroes and comics lit--and a few cases where it all blended together. We narrowed this list by naming titles that set the bar for the next decade.

• Black Hole by Charles Burns
• Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware
• Promethea by Alan Moore and J.H. Williams III
• David Boring by Daniel Clowes
• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
• Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday
• Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw
• Y: the Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan, et al.
• New X-Men by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, et al.
• What It Is by Lynda Barry

But not all that is great about comics is necessarily new, and there's no doubt that this decade saw a vast improvement in archival and collected editions. There was so much material that we had to break these objets d'art into their own separate category. Below are our picks for Comics Archives and Anthologies of the Decade:

• Complete Peanuts (Fantagraphics)
• Love and Rockets Library (Fantagraphics)
• DC Comics's Absolute Editions (Sandman, Watchmen, Crisis on Infinite Earths)
• The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Andrews McMeel)
• An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. (Yale University Press)
• Creepy and Eerie Archives (Dark Horse)
• The Best American Comics (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic in One Volume (Cartoon Books)
• McSweeney's Issue 13 (McSweeney's)
• MOME (Fantagraphics)

And just so I can sleep tonight, here's what the rest of the comics list would have looked like if this were a Top 25:

• All Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
• Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
• Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday
• Blankets by Craig Thompson
• Clumsy by Jeffrey Brown
• Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
• Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev
• Eightball #23 by Daniel Clowes
• Fables by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Lan Medina, et al.
• George Sprott: (1894-1975) by Seth
• Hellboy by Mike Mignola, et al.
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
• Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O'Malley
• Stitches: A Memoir by David Small
• The Ultimates by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch
• The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá

Ok, that's more like a Top 26, but we had to cut the list somewhere.  Here's to another ten years of remarkable comics.  Up, up, and away.

--Alex

P.S. You can find many more favorites in our Books of the Decade store.

Graphic Novel Friday: Greg Broadmore's Victory (and Raygun!)

(Interior page from Greg Broadmore's Victory)

WETA Workshop's Greg Broadmore has published a follow-up to his Doctor Grordbort's Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory entitled Victory: Scientific Adventure Violence for Young Men & Literate Women. If anything, the satire of "Empire" and "Victoriana" have been ramped up in Victory. The stunning artwork, often including full-page panels, centers around the adventures of Lord Cockswain as he blunders and blusters through various alien landscapes, such as Venus, devastating the locals with his weapons and his ignorance.

 

At times, Cockswain may be too much of an idiot, but in general he's a useful device whose presence allows Broadmore to create some amazing neo-retro pulp art and show off a wide array of alien critters and alt-history weapons. Readers will be able to sense just how much fun Broadmore had rendering creations such as "Felch's Spring-Necked Oik," "The Shallow-Beaked Grogan," and "Unwin's Double-Backed Shrovel." A "Hall of Gits" provides a fun gallery of rogues and weirdoes, while pages of "Old Timey Compartmentalized Picture Essays" display Broadmore's skill working in a confined space. Whether you like ray guns, send-ups of imperialism, or just some bloody good art, Victory should hit the spot.

 
  
Did I happen to mention that Broadmore and WETA also have a raygun out, The Righteous Bison, and that they sent me one?! It's a little hard to deny the reality of an alternate history when you've got a raygun from that reality. (Photos below the cut.)