E-MAIL THE AUTHOR

Breakdowns - Country Feedback

March 13, 2003

Very ragged column this week, as I’d planned a change in format that was abandoned. Basically, I was going to write the column somewhat drunk, and I sobered up. So no commentary about the comics columnist who had to argue with me that AGENT-X was somehow a hit by losing readers less quickly than SOLDIER-X or X-STATIX. This would not be considered acceptable criteria for a “hit” with movie sequels or episodic television, or books, or sophomore CD releases, or…It’s this kind of small-minded, rah-rah comics thinking that leads Warren Ellis to proud announcements (with major qualifications—can you name any other creator-owned Vertigo hardcover graphic novels?) that his topical, should-be-mass-appeal hardcover graphic novel got a whole 7,200 preorders. This means that there are more people willing to buy a year’s worth of cellar-dwelling, poised for cancellation monthly books than one $25 book by one of the most acclaimed comics writers of the past ten years. I’m not trying to hurt Ellis’ feelings at all; I’m one of those 7,200. But it leads me to think the industry’s straits are more dire than I expected. Anyway, on with the reviews.

THE WAY OF THE WOLF #1 (OF 6) by Michael R. Barklage and Robert Graham. Blueshift Studios. $2.95
You know, I think Jack London would’ve been proud of this. It’s a tale set in 2500 B.C., a time when humans and wolves hunted together as equals, respecting each other and sharing their meat. A boy has become the provider for the family, his father dead, and because of the family’s need and his own ignorance he gives the wolf far less than his share. The wolf growls at him and runs off, commiserating with a packmate about how no Men speak the wolf language anymore, nor know their ways.

Soon, the boy’s sister is kidnapped and taken to the forest, where he finds her dead, a wolf standing over her. He reacts instinctively, mortally wounding the animal before a stranger shows him the wolf was innocent, and had actually killed the man who kidnapper the sister. It’s too late for the wolf, and the grief-stricken young man takes her home without expressing any remorse for his injustice.

I just picked this up and started reading while my computer was turning on and e-mails were coming in, so I didn’t notice it was the first of a six-issue series. And yet, when I got to the end, even though it’s suitable as a stand-alone story, I knew just what needed to happen, that there needed to be more issues to chart how this event lead to a Man / Wolf war. Barklage is smart enough to realize that too much dialogue between the wolves or the primitive humans might drag this story down into corniness. He uses it sparingly and the somewhat contemporary feel of the words knock down any barriers that may have been created by the premise or setting. Graham needs some work on faces, but he’s great on the wolves, and his tones create a misty, glowing atmosphere that is haunting. I recommend you give this one a try.

THE WIPEOUT by Francesca Ghermandi. Fantagraphics Books. $19.95
When I first read about this book, a noir tale populated with pastel-colored characters resembling beach balls and cut-out sugar cookies, I asked myself, Why? But after actually reading the thing, I have to ask, No, really…WHY?.

It’s not a bad book, actually. The story involves a meek scientist who develops a substance that, when combined with milk, destroys every cell of the person who drinks or touches it. Married to a shrewish, hair-obsessed woman who can only be called well-rounded in the most literal sense, he falls for the femme fatale neighbor, who is being blackmailed into sexual surrender by a big thug. The two of them hatch a murder plot and then his mind begins to crack, not sure if he actually committed the crime or was framed for it, and we see he’s been a pawn all along. So in terms of plot, it follows all the rules of noir and merely substitutes weird, candy-colored visuals for the Expressionistic shadows, and I’m not sure that’s enough. Ghermandi is good with color, but this world she creates is not all that imaginative. Aside from the character designs, everything works like real life, so I’m left with the impression that, as in the PISTOLWHIP books, the atypical art is a smokescreen for a rather ordinary story.

QUEEN AND COUNTRY VOLS. 1-3 by Greg Rucka and Various. Oni Press.
Having read all three of these hardcovers at once (I’ve read a few issues here and there as review copies and knew I liked the book but would like it better collected), I could go on and on about them, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Here’s the thing: Greg Rucka is an accomplished mystery novelist and his comics credits include his own (with Steve Lieber) WHITEOUT graphic novels, DETECTIVE COMICS and the current Bat-family police procedural GOTHAM CENTRAL with Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark. His best work is characterized by an awareness of how Life works, for better or worse, and characters, often female, with clear motivations and believable vulnerabilities. He’s never uninteresting, even on work that seems more a job or experiment than a labor of love (ELEKTRA, SPIDER-MAN: QUALITY OF LIFE), but it is QUEEN AND COUNTRY that is his best, most sustained effort.

OPERATION: BROKEN GROUND begins the adventure with a literal bang, as Minder #2 Tara Chace, the star of our show, performs a hit in Kosovo on a member of the Russian Mafia buying guns from the K.L.A. to sell to the Chechens. Rucka quickly establishes that not only is this going to be a book that addresses real world concerns without softening them--or darkening or whitening the gray areas—but that Director Operations Paul Crocker is equally important to the book. Tara makes it out of Kosovo alive, but there is a reprisal: a rocket fired into the building where the Special Section is housed. Crocker works in and out of his realm of authority to make sure the culprits are paid back, but the cold nature of the assassination causes a conflict Tar will have to start dealing with in the next book.

The Special Section is a small, secret unit in Britain’s S.I.S., and Rucka’s conception is nearly flawless. These are people with a passion for their work; imperfect, emotional people who are affected in different ways by what they do, but who nonetheless manage to get the dirty job done. Tara is tough and capable, but human, though Rucka wisely leaves out any weeping, or obvious father figure drama with Crocker. For his part, Crocker is parental, putting his people ahead of his own career, and it’s hard not to admire that. And frankly, it’s just cooler to make them British and not American. The characters can be tough and occasionally brutal without saying “fuck.” If there are any flaws in this tight four-parter (with a bonus interlude drawn by Stan Sakai for an Oni anthology special), they are that there aren’t enough Minders to really justify having this Section—just three. I imagine this will eventually change, though. Also, Crocker sure gets away with a lot without much of a reprimand, but I imagine this, too, will come to a head down the line. Rolston was a somewhat controversial choice, as his work is unglamorous, but his storytelling is perfectly fine, and everyone has a distinctive facial design. Also, this is often a talking heads kind of book, but he usually does something interesting on every page to keep it lively. The limited edition hardcover is $25; softcovers also available for all books

OPERATION: MORNINGSTAR was a rather startling arc when it debuted, as it involved a mission in Afghanistan to remove a list of United Front contacts without being captured and killed by the Taleban (or Taliban). Readers learned of the upcoming story just after 9/11, and Oni took pains to explain that Rucka was not capitalizing on a tragedy, but was in fact more attuned to world events than the rest of us were prior to that day.

The two male Minders, Wallace and Kittering, are sent to retrieve the document if they can find it, and Tara is left behind. As a blonde woman, it’s too dangerous for her to be in Afghanistan, but she feels useless not being in the field. And this period of relative inactivity only makes her focus more on her feelings of guilt about the assassination she carried out. She drinks more, has a loveless and self-punishing one night stand, and finally starts to take seriously the therapy sessions Crocker forced her to undergo. The therapist, Dr. Callard, emerges as another strong character, the mind mechanic who tunes these operatives up for field readiness again and again.

It’s a simple plot, that Tara has to be the key to finding the document, saving the day and her own self-esteem, but it works, and works dramatically. The flow suffers a little in this three issue story arc by having the first issue’s inker, Bryan O’Malley replaced for the rest with the different style of Christine Norrie, but with Bryan Hurtt’s pencils throughout, it’s a small concern.

There’s also a startling plot point in here, tying Saddam to al-Qaeda, and it makes you wonder just how much is real and how much is fictional here. This is not James Bond against the singular evil of SPECTRE but a number of evil men, working together and separately, with common goals. I appreciate that Rucka got this one done in three issues, not feeling like he had to pad it out to four, though that makes for a rather expensive hardcover at $20.

OPERATION: CRYSTAL BALL is the latest collection, and the longest, drawn entirely by Argentinean find Leandro Fernandez. His style is the most radical departure, with high contrast and a more glamorous, sexy look for Tara and her fellow Minder Ed Kittering, with whom she has a fling. Fernandez shares some similarities with mentor Eduardo (100 BULLETS) Risso, but adds more caricature to faces, particularly Crocker’s, who looks like a few root vegetables held together by toothpicks. It takes some getting used to, as does Tara’s chest getting larger while defying gravity, but good art is good art. Yes, some may argue that the style is inappropriate for the realistic, unglamorous world Rucka and the previous artists have created. I haven’t quite decided one way or the other, but know that I like Fernandez’ work, and hey, it’s just one arc. It just happens to be the best arc of the three.

In this story, a Lebanese citizen walks into a British Embassy in Cairo and reveals information about a plot by the Islamic Jihad to launch a Sarin gas attack on British citizens. The man, Mahmoud Youseff, won’t give up all the info, and so the Minders must frantically search for the gas and where it’s going to be unleashed. Think of a European-flavored update of the film BLACK SUNDAY. It’s a tautly paced thriller with just enough emotional resonance in the scenes between Tara and Kittering to elevate it above just high-quality entertainment.

Greg Rucka is a highly-sought-after, well-regarded writer for good reasons, and these are three of them. Unlike his work-for-hire efforts, however, Q&C is adult and unadulterated, free of gimmicks, high concepts and crossovers. Just good stories, well told.

FANTASTIC FOUR #66 by Mark Waid, Mark Buckingham and Danny Miki. Marvel Comics. $2.25
I’ve only read this issue, the conclusion of the two-part “Big Stuff” arc, to my son as a bedtime story, so I don’t know how it really goes. Trevor, who is three, liked the look of the cover, so we took a break from the Thomas the Tank Engine, Dr. Seuss and Jamie Lee Curtis books to go through it one night. Reading for this age, you have to keep things simple and light, so this is the gist of it, going mainly by Buckingham’s clean, charming visuals. I’ll exclude my son’s dialogue, which consists mostly of, “What’s he doing?”

“There’s some green slime in the building, so Human Torch has to turn on his fire and rescue the lady. He’s the only one who can do that without burning himself, because he’s a superhero.”

“He’s Mr. Fantastic. He can stretch really far. That’s The Thing. He’s got orange rocks on his body and is almost as strong as Hulk. Mr. Fantastic is his friend and is holding him so he doesn’t run away and hurt someone while he’s mad.”

“Those are aliens they’re fighting. That’s not a gun; it’s to help the aliens go back home. Mr. Fantastic wants to help them.”

“That’s Invisible Woman. She turns invisible. She’s Human Torch’s sister. The Fantastic Four are all a family.”

“They’re helping the aliens. Human Torch is stopping the slime. He turned off his fire. He turned it back on.”

“That’s a big bubble to stop the slime. The aliens went home.”

I also excluded the ads, which Trevor quite understandably thinks are part of the story.

BOUNCER VOLS. 1 & 2 by Alexandro Jodorowsky and Francois Boucq. Humanoids Publishing. $15.95 ea.
Jodorowsky is a writer whom I believe is a bit misunderstood in this country, or at least the online comic-reviewing community. I think part of it is the Warren Ellis METABARONS that is still in use, the one about “a new and mad idea on every page.” Well, yeah, he’s got a lot of ideas, more than Ellis and probably more than even Morrison, and some are quite mad. Jodo himself had a great quote about the Fantastic Four a year or two ago, something to the effect of if he wrote them, Mr. Fantastic would use his pliability to ejaculate into Sue’s heart. That’s pretty mad, or just gross.

But all this mad idea stuff tends to obscure what a solid storyteller the man is. His ideas, wild as they may get, serve an understandable, entertaining story, and there is more often than not an accessible, sincere emotional element. This is quite apparent in the two-volume BOUNCER, especially because as a Western, Jodorowsky cannot fall back on the cool sci-fi ideas.

As with METABARONS or to a lesser extent, THE INCAL, the theme is one of painful legacies passed down by parents. Seth is a boy just starting to become a man, and he finds that his peaceful father Blake, a priest, had a past as a gunslinger. No sooner does he learn this than this past comes back to haunt the family in the guise of the one-eyed Ralton, Blake’s brother. Ralton leads a band of Confederates, but they don’t seem to have any interest in the War, just Ralton’s whims. In this case, his whim is to exact revenge upon his brother, who was the one to put out his eye. Blake is murdered, his wife as well…eventually. Seth sees it all and runs away, and you know revenge will drive him for the rest of the tale.

Soon, he meets the Bouncer, a one-armed man whose occupation has replaced the name he left behind. Bouncer is Seth’s uncle, the other brother of Ralton, and he tells Seth about his grandma, the whore “Aunty Lola”, who ruled her sons with an iron hand and a steel heart, and tried to instill in them everything avaricious, cruel and loathsome about humanity. Somehow, Bouncer and Blake emerged as people of conscience, but not Ralton. CAIN’S EYE is the first volume, providing this background, the motive for revenge, and the seeds of a quest, since Lola left behind an enormous diamond before she hung herself.

THE EXECUTIONER’S MERCY is the second and last volume, building to the expected rousing climax, and a rather twisted revelation about the location of the diamond. It’s not hard to figure out, as it’s telegraphed in the first book, but there is still a delicious discomfort to it when it happens. Jodorowsky falters a bit with the introduction of a plucky schoolmarm whom Seth falls for immediately. This subplot, which sets up the melodramatic showdown at the end with the teacher’s connection to Ralton revealed, is fine as far as plotting is concerned, but doesn’t give enough space to make the romance between her and Seth feel real and earned. The writer is stronger dealing with Seth’s coming of age through violence and the harsh lessons of a father figure, including a fascinating departure from the conventional Western in which Seth becomes a great shootist under the influence of peyote. Hey, I didn’t say the book was endorsed by the NRA or anything. Boucq is yet another masterful collaborator for Jodorowsky, depicting the weather-beaten faces and scenery with the gritty storytelling of a Joe Kubert, but adding more expansive vistas, a more intense feeling of movement, and benefiting from the lush coloring and glossy pages Kubert wouldn’t receive until late in his career.

Full Bleed – Quick & Unbidden

I seem to be a bit bottled up with brief thoughts and books I don’t have time to review at length, so allow me to clear the pipes.

POWERS is my favorite monthly, and though the endings to story arcs are sometimes a little anticlimactic, I don’t think that will be the case here. In the penultimate issue of “The Sellouts,” Bendis makes some devastating changes to the world he and Oeming have created, and while big ‘splosions and superpowered threats to Earth are something I probably read about every month in comics, it’s honestly startling and captivating here.

Tony Isabella, as I’ve written before, is a columnist who has had an influence on the way I go about writing my own comics review column, whether that is obvious or not. Tony is a passionate guy, but one thing I respect about him is that he keeps that passion mostly controlled. This was never more evident than when, in the online presentation of his weekly column for Comics Buyer’s Guide, he wrote about learning that the original column had had negative comments about President Bush edited out without his knowledge. After such a long association with CBG, the act had to wrankle, but he took it mainly in stride and recognized the value of being able to present the columns online with no interference and even additional commentary. You can read Tony’s comics column for grown-ups here and here.

THE TRUTH may be a book Tony (and a lot of other Captain America fans) dislike, but I find it compelling even with its hysteria and utter lack of heroic or even decent White characters. I also find the idea that Cap was created as a reaction to the comic book—like it was a good idea the government appropriated—does, in fact, detract from Cap rather than enhance, but it’s still an interesting idea. I also disagree with the reviews saying Kyle Baker’s art looks like his heart’s not in the project. To me, the rough, caricaturistic style suits the rawness of the story. You don’t want make-up on an open wound.

A couple months ago, I started a running feature called The Pornhound, wherein I reviewed graphic novels and comics from Eros Comix, an imprint of Fantagraphics. I figured every genre had some good work to recommend, whether the straight porn of BLOWJOB or the veiled gay porn of JSA. It’s been hard to find time for the long, slow, fully engorged reviews, so here are just a few quick spurts:

THE TIJUANA BIBLES: AMERICA’S FORGOTTEN COMIC STRIPS VOL. 4 is more novelty item than erotica, though some of the smutty strips are well-drawn. Most, however, are very crude parodies of old strips like MAGGIE & JIGGS and WINNIE WINKLE. The conundrum is that those who remember these strips probably are, well, post-sexual at this point. It has some historical value, a few laughs, and a few sexy dames.

Next week: FADE FROM BLUE; EXCELSIOR!; TAPPING THE VEIN, and without question, THE COURIERS…

Chris Allen

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVES