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Breakdowns -- Triple-Secular

October 2, 2003

We’ve got a big, big show tonight, folks. Several reviews, including a book that would appeal to fans of LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, the HUMAN TARGET: FINAL CUT softcover, a gripping lesbian thriller (got your attention yet?) from Humanoids, and we’ll even start with a CD review, for a change.

I also wanted to personally thank Adam Philips of DC’s Marketing department, for hooking me up with the new SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS hardcover. Plenty of publishers send me things, and it doesn’t guarantee a good review or anything (I haven’t read it yet—check next week to see if me likey), but I’m singling out Adam this once for the personal touch, and having read my column and seeing how my comic shop screwed me on a copy I was perfectly willing to pay for if it was there. So, thanks, Adam. I’ll get to that hack Gaiman’s book when I’m damned good and—I mean, next week.

And lest I forget the other several thousand words this week, there’s a look at December’s PREVIEWS, and the second of my “reviewer interviews,” this time with one Hannibal Tabu.

JUNG ROBOT: GRAPHIC MUSIC. Jung Robot. $10
This is a new CD subtitled “Songs Inspired By Comics,” and this is more or less true. But despite titles like “Ape Sex Theme Song” and “Phantom Lady Bondage,” this is a straightforward, mostly serious effort. I say mostly serious because the music is hard-edged electronica along the lines of Nine Inch Nails, though the lyrics are often corny. It’s fun to hear JR work X-Men lore into verses on “It Is Uncanny” but it, and the other tracks, don’t bear up to repeated listens. As a novelty record, it doesn’t really work because songs like “Uncle Sam,” “Phantom Lady Bondage,” “Splash Page/Wakanda,” and “Wordless Comic” don’t seem to have much at all to do with comics, especially since the latter two are instrumentals. As a serious electronic effort, it’s more successful, but without the money and technical savvy of a Trent Reznor or Chemical Brothers, many of the tracks start off promisingly and then become monotonous, while the vocals are amateurish and really need a lot of processing to make them work. There’s a genuinely good song in “Mister Miracle” and a couple others, though, enough to make me want to check out some more Jung Robot down the road.

SCARLET TRACES by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli.Dark Horse Comics. $14.95
It’s been ten years after The War of the Worlds, and the people have used Martian technology for their own purposes. There have been no world wars and the Martian heat ray and other spoils of war have assured the dominance of the British Empire, though the increase in automation comes at the price of crushing poverty and unemployment, forcing many young women into prostitution. Meanwhile, the police are baffled by the discoveries of women’s bodies drained of blood, but they’re not doing too much about it.

Two retired Navy men, Robert Autumn and his manservant and former gunnery sergeant Archie Currie start investigating when Archie’s niece goes missing, and they uncover a sickening abuse of power that could spell doom for the entire planet. Edginton is in excellent form here, with as sure-handed a Victorian-era tale as Alan Moore’s LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, though without that story’s sex and humor and having a less resounding conclusion. D’Israeli, for his part, does the best work of his career to date, beautifully drawn and vividly colored. This is a project I’ve experienced as a webcomic first, then serialized in JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE, but this Dark Horse hardcover is truly the best way to experience it, on fine paper and with a wonderful bonus section where D’Israeli discusses the art and presents some unused material. This seems to have slipped under many people’s radar, which is a shame, as it’s a real winner, and the art is really Eisner-worthy.

COLERE NOIRE by Philippe Marcele’ and Thierry Smolderen. Humanoids Publishing. $14.95
Starting off with a literal “bang,” and several more following, this graphic novel depicts a gang of masked men shooting up a grocery store, apparently at random. Two women, Marielle and Stella lose their children, Stella’s not even born yet. Marielle is in a kind of shock, and becomes further distanced from her husband because he does not feel the loss of their son as deeply as she does. She reaches out to Stella in the hospital, and while initially rebuffed by the grief-stricken woman, they come to be friends.

The two spend more and more time together, and soon Marielle has the idea that they need to find the killers, who have struck again and still haven’t been caught. They follow a lead and stake out the main suspect, even capturing and threatening him. Though he ends up not being the killer, they’re on the right track, even if they don’t know it yet. Smolderen keeps things interesting, even titillating, as the two woman begin an affair, and it is revealed that Stella has a secret past that ties into the supposedly random shooting.

The twists are dramatic, but Marcele’ is a tasteful artist and keeps the story and the relationships grounded and realistic. In fact, the panels are a little small at times, and the graytones not that exciting. Smolderen does well with the characterization, which is thoughtful and believable. A short scene with Marielle’s therapist early in the book is a great example of revealing character through action, and his deft touch and surprising twists elevate the tale above the average revenge story.

HUMAN TARGET: FINAL CUT by Peter Milligan and Javier Pulido. Vertigo/DC Comics. $19.95
I’m retreating.

That is, my first exposure to Christopher Chance was with the new Milligan/Pulido ongoing series, the second issue of which came out last week. I thought I’d preordered the first trade as well, but I guess not, so retreating it is.

Chance is retreating, too. Or is that sinking?

We find him here impersonating a famous, now-middle-aged, male actor who has received some death threats. Chance manages to kill the killer, but while the actor reaps the benefit of this—his tough guy status reaffirmed—Chance finds he is diminished in spirit every time he steps out of a role. So when the actor recommends him to another Hollywood couple, who are desperate to find their missing twelve-year-old Son Ronan, it’s a chance (no pun intended) for our hero to redeem himself, get his groove back, etc. But our human target—the ultimate fake—finds that even he can be fooled when it comes to Hollywood people, and finding the boy will be tougher than he expected, nor will the fee he’s charging be the cleanest money he every made. Pulido is a fine choice for the material, slick and strong and minimalist, with hip attitude to spare, and Milligan keeps the story moving while still giving us frequent access to the bleakness and haunting despair found in Chance’s head. He’s a remarkable character, almost a postmodern saint, sacrificing pieces of himself every time he plays a role.

THE MAXX VOL. ONE by Sam Kieth and Bill Messner-Loebs. Cliffhanger!/DC Comics. $17.95
When Image Comics came into being on the early 90s, I have to admit that this was one of the few books of theirs that I didn’t buy. CODENAME: STRYKE FORCE got my money instead, I’m sorry to say. And it’s funny, because if I had given THE MAXX a chance back then—and somehow acquired a taste for Kieth’s art—then I think this would have been a beloved series for me at this point. As it is, I’m not quite sure if I’m too late for the party.

The six issues collected here introduce us to The Maxx, a big-toothed, purple-and-orange creature with a huge claw/spike on each hand, who otherwise sounds like the rest of us, but has dreams where he’s some noble warrior in a strange, primitive land called “the Outback.” It’s here that he’s rescued Julie, who in this world is the social worker who helps bail him out whenever he gets in a fight.

Contrasting these aspects, which are kind of a cross between The Hulk and Howard the Duck, is the ongoing story of Mr. Gone, Maxx’s nemesis, who looks and talks like many other supervillains but who is also raping a number of women in the city. These elements don’t fit together that well yet, though Messner-Loebs for the most part keeps a consistent tone in his dialogue. Kieth’s art is exuberant and unrestrained, with a dark and mad layout sense that has clearly influenced a great many artists working in comics today. There is a sense that he exaggerates form so mightily to cover up some fundamental flaws, but for the most part he’s convincing, though he’s improved much since then. I’m not quite decided if I’ll go on with future volumes (there are plans to collect the entire series) but I’m leaning in that direction.

HONOUR AMONG PUNKS: THE COMPLETE BAKER STREET GRAPHIC NOVEL by Guy Davis and Gary Reed. iBooks. $19.95
With acclaimed creator-owned titles like THE MARQUIS and THE NEVERMEN and art for one of the best miniseries Marvel’s ever done, UNSTABLE MOLECULES, Guy Davis has really come into his own, and so it was a good time to revisit his best-loved early work, BAKER STREET, which has been out of print for years. Both story arcs (and a couple shorts) have been collected here, beginning with “Honour Among Punks,” which finds American student Sue taking a position as a maid for a couple of punk women to make ends meet in a slightly “off” version of London. It’s off because it’s the Victorian era, but the dress and speech are the same, and there seems to be a large section of the city given over to those in punk attire.

Sue gets to know the snarly Sam and her girlfriend Sharon, also known as Harlequin, a former police detective now solving crimes herself, sometimes with the help of old friend and former colleague Pinner. The mystery involves punks from the “Gothic” gang being murdered and how it somehow ties into a counterfeit jade operation. Much of the five issues are given to background on Sharon and the slow assimilation of straight-laced Sue into their mohawked, gender-confused world. This is just as well, because the mystery is rather poorly developed, Sharon exposing the murderer because of details she noticed that the reader couldn’t possibly. Crime stories needn’t be mysteries, of course, but as the series refers to Sherlock Holmes in its location, one can’t help making comparisons to the master sleuth. And it should be said that Sharon’s “honour among punks” credo is never really shown in action or explained. Other characters only mention it to mock it, but it’s never clear just what she means by it. The characterization and dialogue are strong, however, and after a couple slick, cartoony issues, Davis improves rapidly, adding much more mood and detail and even trying some complicated effects such as sun shining through a window onto a character’s shoulder, the fabric showing up on the page just a little lighter.

By the time of the next storyline, “Children of the Night,” Reed, though still overseeing the book in some capacity, as publisher of Caliber Comics, is no longer credited as writer, Davis running the show on his own. The story is, not surprisingly, given the era, about a new rash of Jack the Ripper-like killings, these perpetrated on men only, resulting in a good deal of Bobbett-type severance. Davis starts this story line with full command of his powers, moving from a tense, rainy murder sequence in an alley to a breathtaking wide shot of this alternate London. He also efficiently introduces a supporting cast to the book, and even plants a red herring or two as to the murderer’s identity. Most readers will have caught on to his game by the time of the big reveal—involving a major character in the series—but this won’t decrease the dramatic impact one bit. The only part where Davis doesn’t outdo Reed is that the ending to this one is also a bit unsatisfying, though mainly because it sets up future conflicts we now know will never be explored. It remains a compelling read, well-characterized and well-drawn.

Rapid Eye Movement
Wherein I comment on other comics I read for which I don’t feel like giving a full review. The finale of the “Hush” story in BATMAN #619 was anticlimactic, which I can partially excuse due to the necessary exposition for how the pieces fit together, but it was also a big cheat and the third time Loeb’s used the same device, which is far less excusable. As a relatively involving tale to get Jim Lee to draw a lot of characters, it worked, but Loeb did drop the ball by the end. JLA-Z #1 doesn’t even seem like something I would buy, but I figured it would be a somewhat cheap way to make sure I knew about everyone who has served time on the team, and to see some nice art. But the art is boring and the entries are just a couple sentences for each character. Big rip-off all around. CATWOMAN continues the road story and it’s added a fresh feeling to the series (not that I was complaining), but probably too much time spent on little-known STARMAN supporting character Bobo Benetti.

By the way, one big reason I didn’t write more on BATMAN is because Sean Collins got there first, and better.

December Previews – Escapist Fiction and Futuredrama
I don’t do this much, but sometimes I’m moved to talk about all the interesting (and embarrassing) comics coming up in a given month. In this case, let’s look at Diamond PREVIEWS to see what’s shaking in December, so that you can preorder or make sure to avoid…

Dark Horse
MICHAEL CHABON PRESENTS…THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF THE ESCAPIST #1 - Oy, what a title, but the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY writing a comic book is an event more significant to me than Jim Lee doing SUPERMAN, you know? This is an 80-pager with one new story by Chabon, the first new written-and-drawn work by Howard Chaykin in seven years, and some others chipping in. It’s vague, but I presume they’re still lining up the talent to do short, pulpy stories, and they’ll probably go, in part, to regular Dark Horse talent. Could be P. Craig Russell; Eric Powell, who knows? But I’m interested just for Chabon.

FUSED: THINK LIKE A MACHINE #1 - There isn’t a trade collecting the first miniseries yet, is there? I know this has moved to Dark Horse from Image, but DH is usually quick to get collections out, especially when there’s new related product. So if this is a one-shot, I’m guessing it will go in that same collection. But who knows, as the solicitation doesn’t say if it’s a one-shot or the start of a miniseries. If this is a new Dark Horse practice (to go along with labeling every stand-alone BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL issue a one-shot), I don’t like it, and I bet retailers don’t, either. I like Niles’ stuff; I’m just saying this is solicited poorly.

HELLBOY JUNIOR TPB might be the least essential Hellboy collection, continuity-wise, but with creators like Bill Wray, Dave Cooper, Pat McEown and Kevin Nowlan lending their talents, it should be worth it. Mignola does a wackly story, too.

CHOSEN #1 (OF 3) - Mark Millar seems to be taking a page from Warren Ellis’ book in doing a bunch of short, creator-owned books this month. But he goes Ellis one better in releasing them with three different publishers, and not constraining himself to the three-issue format. Peter Gross isn’t an artist who’s going to knock you out, but the story of a twelve-year-old discovering he’s the Second Coming could be good if Millar finds the right note.

DC/Wildstorm/ABC
PLASTIC MAN - A Kyle Baker monthly? I’m all over it. It’s not like there’s much continuity or anything for the guy to worry about—just bring the funny. I’ve no doubt he’ll do that. Also, I’m even more excited by KYLE BAKER – CARTOONIST, his self-published trade paperback of strips and gags. It’s only $14.95 for what should be a lot of laffs.

VERTICAL - Steven T. Seagle is mostly miss for me, but I’m a big Mike Allred fan, and this sounds like a fun romance in a cool, vertically-arranged storytelling format.

MASKS: TOO HOT FOR T.V. - This is a Wildstorm special featuring Brubaker, Andreyko, Winick and others doing naughty stories featuring their characters who already fuck and swear anyway. I’ll take a look at it.

THE AUTHORITY/LOBO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL - To some extent, I guess Giffen’s (and Grant’s) Lobo of the 80s helped open the door for a book like THE AUTHORITY to happen, and I fully expect this to have some good lines in it and appropriately over-the-top destruction from Simon Bisley. But I just don’t give a shit.

On a more upbeat Wildstorm note, though, those who haven’t checked out SLEEPER yet should pick up the first trade paperback, OUT OF THE COLD, collecting the first six issues of the book’s “first season,” while there’s a second trade of STORMWATCH: TEAM ACHILLES, which is not quite to the point where the art gets good, but the stories are fine. Also, various ABC-related one-shots are collected in an AMERICA’S BEST COMICS trade, including the enjoyable Peter Hogan-scripted TESLA STRONG one-shot. A little steep at $17.95, especially since a big chunk of it is just sketchbook stuff, but might be worth it to have all this in under one cover. Finally, DC continues slowly winding down the entirety of James Robinson’s STARMAN in trade format, with the rambling and uneven, but mostly pleasing THE STARS MY DESTINATION.

If there’s any benefit to Marvel’s stupid decision to do their own edition of PREVIEWS, it’s that DC can now offer multi-page previews of upcoming books in the real edition, which leads me to even consider buying the new Willingham/Mays run of ROBIN. You’ll note I’m not covering any Marvel product, though I’ve seen the solicitations online like everybody else. It’s not so much spite as that there doesn’t seem to be much of interest. ULTIMATE F.F., despite the talents of Bendis and Millar tag-teaming the scripting, doesn’t sound so great. I like the Waid version just fine and don’t really need a hipper version of the team, Kubert is a dull artist, and even Bryan Hitch provides a rare bad cover, Reed Richards having the pointy, sinister face of Loki for some reason. Bleh.

Image
JACK STAFF TP VOL. 1: EVERYTHING USED TO BE BLACK AND WHITE - I love Paul Grist and this has been a great series, owing a good deal to Captain America and actually evolving from a failed Union Jack pitch, but really shining on its own due to Grist’s storytelling mastery and innocent tone. I’m mildly annoyed that I just bought the original six-issue trade that’s being replaced by this twelve-issue, 352 page, $19.95 monster, but I’ll get it, anyway. And if you like superheroes done straight, with open, appealing art and large doses of British wit, you should get it, too.

RUN and WANTED are Millar’s two Image releases, the latter specifically from the Top Cow studio. It’s a six-issue action serial that sources tell me is one of the strongest pieces he’s written in years, while the former should be a fun Ashley Wood romp about super-powered speedsters.

Wizard
BEST OF X-MEN LIMITED DELUXE HC -- I so regularly skip through this section that I wouldn’t have known of this book without a friend’s mention. What it is is the most famous Claremont/Byrne stories—“the Dark Phoenix Saga” (with the bonus alternate ending) and “Days of Future Past,” with that solo Kitty Pryde/Alien story and X-MEN #150, a Magneto issue by Claremont/Cockrum. All in all, a nice collection of stories, given the nice hardcover, good-paper treatment by Wizard. I’d rather have the whole Claremont/Byrne run in hardcovers, but this is great until that day comes along.

Future Comics
I don’t mean to pick on a company that has less chance to make it than CrossGen, but I can’t believe some of the stupid moves this company makes. Content aside, is it smart for them to release three trade paperbacks in December, competing not just with every other publisher’s expensive holiday gift books but with each other? And let’s look at these books, which collect just three issues each of PEAKEKEEPER, DEATHMASK and METALLIX and call them graphic novels. They’re charging $14.95 to $15.95 for these thin volumes! What are they thinking?! If I’m going to pay that price for 72 pages or so, it better be hardcover, with art by Hermann or Moebius or someone of that caliber. Pat Broderick or Ron Lim just don’t merit it, no offense. Some have speculated that the preorders on these books will be so disastrously low that they won’t even be printed at all.

Top Shelf
THE MIRROR OF LOVE - Finally, we have from Alan Moore and Jose Villarrubia a beautiful hardcover detailing the history of what my buddies at the VFW hall call “same-sex love.” Was this the Moore book I was asking for? No, but he’s a wonderful writer and I have every confidence this will be superb, and will probably convert me.

Full Bleed: The Reviewer Interviews Part Two: Hannibal Tabu
Hannibal Tabu describes himself as a writer, a brother, a misanthrope, a son, an emcee, an uncle, a designer, a nephew, a romantic, and by god, a fan. He’s written for Vibe, Slave Trade, MTV Online, Rap Pages, America Online, the Los Angeles Sentinel, Spinnerrack.com, Speak and The Source, and worked as a web designer/producer and graphic artist for American Honda, eHobbies.com, Quicken.com, Express.com, the California Association of REALTORS, Disney Channel, NextPlanetOver.com, Toyota Motor Sales, California Bank & Trust and many more. He’s a published poet and author, as well as editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch group of newspapers. For our purposes, we’ll focus mainly on what brought me to him, his comics reviews on his Operative Network website, where he practices a novel approach to reviewing: reading comics in the store without buying them. You’re going to be seeing a lot more of Hannibal in a week or so, with his new column on a very popular comics-related website, but I’m under a gag order to reveal more than that now, so let’s get to the interview.

CA: How long have you been writing comics reviews? What prompted it?

HT: I started writing comic book reviews for NextPlanetOver.com when I was senior producer there. The managing editor Eric Stephenson (now director of marketing for Image Comics) was short on content and didn't want to have to write everything himself. He knew I'd done movie, music and book reviews in the past, so he drafted me. I've been professionally reviewing entertainment product since 1993, and comics just ended up being the most recent (and really most numerous) sort of reviews I've done. Pay's crappy though!

Eric also suggested that I continue doing this sort of thing to keep a public profile, as I am doing a number of fiction and comic writing things (nothing that's hit the stands yet, alas) and that it can't hurt to have people know my name. Even if they think I'm a jackass...part of that logic goes into the somewhat masochistic endeavor I'm doing at [XXX–ed.].

CA: Before you started, did you look around online, or in magazines, and decide how you did or didn't want to write the reviews, or did you just jump into it?

HT: Well, as I said, I've been doing reviews (and getting paid for it) for years, so I just kind of stuck to the basics I learned in doing a book review -- don't spoil too much of what happens, recommend what you like and recognize what someone who's a fan of this might appreciate, even if I loathe what's going on. A review should be a sort of buyer's guide, a means of judging whether or not somebody wants to spend their hard earned money on a piece of work. In the interests of my own time (as in I like to have a life), I've been abbreviating my "read pile" reviews a great deal lately, and they're snarkier than they used to be, but where's the harm?

To be more accurate, I was aware of your Don and Randy types, or Johanna Draper Carlson, but I was too busy writing and making money hand over fist to look at what they were doing, when I started anyway.

CA: So for you, the column is almost purely service-oriented, with attempts at creativity and intimacy reserved for other pieces on your site?

HT: As of now, the column is almost purely rant-oriented. I talk about what I want to. I used to be a lot touchier about these things, with the canons of the fourth estate looming over my head like the sword of Damocles. Were I to go back to reviewing for money, I'd probably be a lot less snarky, a lot less personal, would never use the word "I" (a cardinal sin in journalism) and would incorporate tons of other stylistic differences. As another comet in the "blogosphere," though, I'm pretty OK with what I'm doing.

Which is not to say I'm not creative in my reviews. Calling JLA-Z "a veritable Tiger Beat for DC fans" took me about four minutes to come up with (couldn't settle on Tiger Beat or Right On, but figured Tiger Beat sounded funnier) [it is—ed.]. I believe I'm a fairly creative person, but anyone who would read my reviews probably doesn't care about my divorce or the storylines in my serial fiction. Or would they?

CA: Myself, sure. I like when reviewers bring some personality and whatever might be affecting their lives into the review; it’s honest.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the sense The Buy Pile is written pretty much in one sitting. Is this true, and if so, why? Is it an aesthetic choice, or one of expediency?

HT: You're completely right, Chris, but there's a good amount of prep work that goes into it. I edit a newspaper and do a ton of my own writing, plus a busy social life, so I basically budget a set amount of time per week to do the reviews. While I lay my newspaper out on Tuesdays, I get the images from the company sites (and one day I hope my homeboy Allen at Image will get appropriately large cover images on that Image site, but they'll need to pay him more, I think), Photoshop them into my own specific format (180 pixels square, two pixel black border), and upload 'em to my site. I also pre-format the review page so all I have to do is do the literal typing the next day. I also go to Golden Apple Comics' site and write down all the books of note that will be out the next day (I used to go to Golden Apple, but they're too far north and the customer service was somewhat scattershot, especially with that stupid UPN 13 sting on "selling porn to kids"), and upload that to my PDA (Palm M125). That takes me about an hour.

On Wednesday I go to Comics Ink (Overland and Braddock in Culver City, hi Steve and Jason) and stake out a corner of the store. In between trading insults with the staff and the regulars, I read a huge stack of books and set aside some that I know I want to own. Sometimes books that get read make "the jump," but mostly they don't. While there I take notes on my PDA and make sure I have enough details to remember the books when I get home. This process takes about two hours, and I read as many books as my brain can tolerate.

I drive home, grabbing food on the way most of the time, and get to it, reading the purchased titles twice each (I read fast). I review it all, do as much copy editing as I can tolerate (and always miss stuff, argh), "blurb" it a little bit for my site's "here's what's new" page, send out an email to some people who have requested note when I update the reviews and then post the link to Usenet. That takes another two hours or so.

Now that I say that in type, what the hell am I doing?

So to sum up, it's an expediency thing, because I figger if I get the reviews up much later than Thursday night, who'll care? I might have different opinions about it if money were involved. I debated concentrating on one thing I bought, writing a really good review of it, and two things I read, just listing kinds of "thumbs-up-thumbs-down" looks at everything else, sort of like what LA Weekly does, but I never get around to it.

CA: I've written previously about my favorite reviewers writing so well that the reviews are entertaining if you have no interest in the books reviewed, and that's again true in your case (MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: TRI-KLOPS, anyone?), but it must be said that your reviews are not written to bring anyone in that doesn't already know the books. Are you concerned at all with bringing readers up to speed?

HT: Not really. When I was at NPO (and its mutant love child SpinnerRack.com Version 1, they're on at least version 3 now) I was a lot more concerned with that. I worked hard to be "new reader friendly" and tell everybody as much as they needed to make an informed decision. However, in this age of blogs and random rants, I am less constrained to journalistic rules (especially since I'm doing this for free, or for masochism, or whatever you'd like to call it). If people like what they see, great, if not, hey, ya get what you paid for. But thanks for the kudo -- my inner fanboy wants that MOTU stuff to be just a little better than it is, so I could justify buying it.

Plus, it's not like I can't read my own traffic -- the number of people checking the reviews is not large, and probably are fans. No complaints yet!

CA: One thing that's fairly unique in The Buy Pile is that you're quite clear about which comics reviewed are ones you felt were worth purchasing, and which you merely read in the shop. With the price of comics these days, I'm sure readers can appreciate this. You’ve said you take notes—what does this entail?

HT: In a pinch, I'll call the shop and ask them to remind me of specific things, but for the most part my photographic memory is fairly reliable and the notes do the rest. As noted previously, I get to the store in the early afternoon, and I've already copied down what I need to look at, so I rush through and grab copies of all those books. I separate 'em into a read pile stack, a buy pile stack, and I start reading from the whatever's on top of the former. Often -- like when Captain America said "Why can't I just hit something and be right?" or during that embarrassing Muhammad X issue of Superman, I end up showing the work to the staff or any nearby sucker and doing some pre-rant. I often take notes of anything particularly zany I may come up with there as well.

CA: I note from the books reviewed that there never seems to be anything besides monthly superhero/fantasy/science fiction, with the occasional mystery or pirate book. In other words, all adventure books, and no graphic novels or trades. A cursory look at your site reveals you're intelligent and cultured-hell, you even write poetry! So what's the story? Don't other comics genres speak to you in any way?

HT: They sure do. However, I've noticed that reviewing trades in any format that's not purely journalistic seems unfair. The only trade I've reviewed of late was WAY OF THE RAT, which CrossGen very nicely sent me (although with what I read recently, I may be off the comp list, argh), and I'd already reviewed all the individual issues (I think ... I'm senile at 30, it's hard to remember).

That said, I've often criticized myself privately for not being better exposed to "art" or "alternative" comics -- about as far afield as I've gone is REX MUNDI or PUFFED, and that's in part because I have met and had yuks with the creators. Then again, life is short and I am doing this stuff for free. I can rattle off decades of Superman continuity from memory, but I'd be ska-rewed if I had to tell you most of what happened in a lot of "alt-press" books last month, let alone last year. I like "adventure" books and I'm fairly well qualified to say what's good and what's not. I am slowly expanding my horizons, but I'm probably not the place to go for much more than the basics. I like science fiction, and liking that gives me a great deal of tolerance for spandex heroics. I'm not terribly well exposed to other genres in sequential art, but I could go into a score of genres in fiction and be right at home. I don't want an opera critic reviewing hip-hop records, and in the same vein I would be pretty poorly equipped to review STRANGERS IN PARADISE or most of the Tokyopop output, so I don't.

Another part if my adherence to what I review has to do with my experience in print publishing, and when I see a piece of work with less-than-stellar production values (printing techniques inappropriate for the paper stock, pixellation, et cetera) my brain starts to fuzz over. I know that lots of really amazing work -- INTERMAN leaps to mind as something I've been very surprised at after Steve (who owns Comics Ink, a man I call my "comics pusher") practically browbeat me into buying it -- exists outside of what I know that looks crisp and is well done, but my exposure (and my economics) have been limited.

In the spirit of Steven Grant, send me something and I promise I'll mention it. Honest! I want to be more well-rounded, but I barely have the time to be a square!

CA: Rimshot! It should be noted that besides the reviews, your site is a wealth of material, from the seemingly endless (in a good way) series of essays on the blooming and eventual decay of a romantic relationship, to an impressive resume of your print and web writing and design work. It's certainly more professional and well-rounded than most reviewers and columnists. Add to that that you're a tall, dynamic black man who can wear a fedora with confidence and panache, and I'm wondering why you're not more well known. Are you not interested in self-promotion for the comics stuff?

HT: Well, thank you for the compliment. A book agent is talking to me about the aforementioned series of essays, tentatively called Dancing in the Dark, for publication (but again, nothing's signed and I've cashed no checks, so it's all vaporware to me right now).

I'll start by saying my site, the third iteration of the Operative Network, is really kind of my personalized treatise on web design and self-presentation. It's open, honest, comprehensive, yet lacks any number of details I could think of -- my address, as I don't want people wandering through LA gang territory looking for me, for example. Part of that is on purpose, a strange dichotomy in my own personality, which I'll address in a moment. More than comics fans come visit my site -- it's checked out by potential employers, graphic design clients, family members, people I date, and so on. I did my best to serve all those demographics while not doing anything that actually irritated me.

Many people, my therapist among them (god I moved to LA, stopped eating red meat and got a therapist, I'm a walking freaking cliche), note that I want to say things and shout into the void, yet have a desire to remain a private person. I've been writing since I was eight -- I wrote a 220-page novel at that age that's so bad I can't even look at it -- and consider the written word my strongest means of expression. On the other hand, I'm anti-social and misanthropic. If you get me into a crowd, I smile and make nice and can quip with the best of them, but I prefer the solitary sound of my keyboard clacking away as my iPod churns out dancehall and alt-rock in the background. I've been trying to overcome that, which is part of why I do reviews and post on message boards, with mixed results. Ultimately I'd love it if the work I do spoke for me, but I've done enough reporting to know talent doesn't matter, marketing does. I don't really have anything I'm super enthusiastic about selling to consumers right now.

Then again, with the encouragement of a few books on the stands, or maybe even the new column, I'd probably turn into a drug-free Grant Morrison, and you'd never get me to shut up!

CA: Who would want to? Hannibal, you probably wouldn't argue that minorities are under-represented in comics -- mainstream or otherwise -- but I don't really see your reviews expressing much frustration about it. Is it just old news, nothing you can do about it, or perhaps because you obviously find the comics accessible, it doesn't concern you that others may feel shut out? Or something else?

HT: Well, Chris, one of my greatest role models as a writer and a professional is Christopher J. Priest. Smart, talented, and has pretty much worked steadily for two decades. He does the work, no matter what the property, and almost always nails it (art choices notwithstanding, i.e. BATMAN: THE HILL, nothing he could have done about that). Yes, he's a (somewhat) successful Black writer. But more than that, he's a (somewhat) successful and experienced writer, who leads a full life outside of comics and writing, struggling with his demons and being a real person. That's a solid way of looking at things for me.

Another one of the gold standards in my life is my great uncle who raised me, and I always call him my dad. He often said, "Do you know why you got no say around here, boy? Because you don't own shit! If you don't own shit, you can't say shit!" So until I'm in an economic and/or political place to enforce my will, why would I complain about somebody not letting me into their house to play with their toys? I'm about creating things, doing the work, and every minute I'm tilting at windmills is a minute I'm not, in the words of Mos Def, "building the now for the promise of the infinite."

Am I concerned at the lily-white state of comics? Sure. Am I more concerned about it than I am at Haliburton and Bechtel getting rich over Iraqi corpses, or more concerned than I am over the alarming levels of police brutality towards people of color (I can drive to Inglewood, where the Donovan Jackson beating happened, in less than six minutes from my front door)? Nah. Am I gonna sit here whining or shaking my fist at the sky about it? Where's the profit in that? I try to make my point by being professional and doing the work. Whatever marginal profits have been achieved by complaints are not worth the effort in my mind, and I'm not that sort of person (which is not to say I don't respect people who approach things that way -- I know Alonzo Washington has something to say about everything, but some of us must talk and some of us must do other things).

CA: That’s why I offered at the start that the fact you couldn’t improve the situation in your current position might be a perfectly valid reason why you don’t address it in your reviews. In fact, it’s a thorny topic for an interviewer, I think, because by and large I’m going to focus on the subject and not his or her race, but frankly, being a black comics fan or creator is such a rarity that to not ask about it seems almost irresponsible. Anyway, soldiering on, and it's not a new question by any means, but Why Don't Black Comics Sell? Or maybe we should first narrow the question down to Why Don't Black Superhero Comics Sell, since Kyle Baker is pretty popular and Ho Che Anderson has done well with his KING biography series?

HT: First of all, I'm not sure why it'd be "irresponsible" not to discuss race with a Black creator -- that Sharieff cat who did BATTLE OF THE PLANETS was two interviews in before I found out he was "one of the tribe," as our Israeli friends would say of their kinsmen. If you're a smart Black person who's had any education in the "mainstream" world, you've been called on as a "race spokesman" so many times it drives you nuts. Black people, like white people, like "American comics" don't stand as a monolithic concept that one person can represent. The breadth of the Black experience in the US alone goes all the way from thugs to billionaires, from whores to scientists. The older I get, the more I understand the kind of exhaustion a lot of elder Black people seemed to have over being asked "race questions" for a larger audience, because the talk never seems to get anywhere. People get tired of banging their heads against walls or glass ceilings. But enough of my grousing...

According to Joe Quesada's inaugural conference call as EIC, the Direct Market went from 75,000 retailers in "the boom" to 15,000 at the time of "Nu Marvel's" inception (I was on the conference call, I took voluminous notes). Who are the predominant readers of comics, Chris? White males, aged teen to mid thirties. Why? They have cars to get to the product, they likely have been indoctrinated as "outcast" types (check a lot of how Grant Morrison characterized his NEW X-MEN run and its success), they have disposable income, and they are catered to by the bulk of the product in the marketplace. That's clearly not a universal -- nobody in the comics market, even my favorites, cater to my Black early-thirties sensibilities -- but it's very clearly the a picture of the largest part of that bell curve, and chatting with any retailer will tell you the same. Those guys built this house, they have the deed, and it's theirs, despite some darker-skinned and or estrogen-powered visitors that may wander through.

Retailers drive sales far more than consumers. Many retailers are fans like their consumers, or at least willing to get into that mindstate and buy to make those consumers happy. A "Black superhero" book will not interest most of the demographic, and the retailers mostly live so close to the edge, they're certainly not interested in expanding their clientele by marketing to "underserved" populations. Unless it's something like CAGE, which was marketed as all the Blaxploitation garbage that Tarantino wanted to be, and even that didn't burn down any sales charts. The kind of ordering I'm talking about here is a business decision. I can't be mad at that. For all Anderson and Baker's "popularity," they'll never be "A List" creators on the scale of a Millar or a Quitely (hell, or even a Byrne -- who buys GENERATIONS anyway? I can't make heads or tails of that...).

The Direct Market is a rapidly shrinking pie with only so many pieces to go around. Pieces that get smaller and smaller as time goes by. For a variety of reasons -- some which are bad and some which just freakin' happened -- Black creators and stories are johnny-come-latelies to that party. Getting a piece of that diminishing pie becomes triply hard. When the new Image mini BLOKHEDZ was discussed on Newsarama, many posters ignored the content of the piece, saw a Tupac poster on one panel and declared it was "negative stereotypes" and "gangsta" -- of course, none of them read about the magical realism (am I the only one who paid attention in comparative lit class?) or the complex characterization that the reporter clearly understood.

As an old southern boy, that's nothing new to me -- I grew up being told I had to be three times better than the white kids in order to get half the credit. I've been working at that kind of pace for my whole life. How much of it's real and how much of it's perceived is largely irrelevant. The facts are that the number one selling book today would be below cancellation numbers ten years ago, and while things may have stabilized and taken a slight increase, nobody -- not Nick Barucci, not Bill Jemas, not Marc Alessi, not anybody -- has a plan to make a real grand scale comeback. Dirk Deppey goes on about this stuff all the time...

I say all that to say that Black Comics don't sell for the same reason Black Fiction and Black Movies and Black Music and so on all sell a great deal less than their caucasian counterparts, even when a Black influence is so clear it's insane (Justin Timberlake, Eminem, et cetera ad nauseum). BLACK PANTHER did as well, proportionately, as BROWN SUGAR did at the box office, as Mos Def does in the Billboard charts. The question is more why are we (as a human race) still in this handbasket, knowing where we're headed and how fast?

Another reason I avoid self-publicity is because I don't wanna answer this question, over and over, for the rest of my life. Now I see what Priest meant, when he said as much in my interview of him back in 2000...

CA: Point taken about the “irresponsible” comment, but my point was that it’s my job in this interview to present as unique and interesting a representation of the subject, you, as possible, and as unfortunate and burdensome as that may be, being a Black comics fan or creator is a rarity, ergo, interesting. As you say, every Black creator gets asked these questions, which would, to my mind, refute your argument that anyone finds their answers absolutely representative of the race. Or in other words, I’m asking for Hannibal’s opinion, not the Black consensus. Anyway, to echo your own credo, it might be said that comics with minority leads have to three times better than their white (or sorta white, like Silver Surfer) counterparts. I would agree that Priest’s BLACK PANTHER was much better than the majority of superhero comics, but if we’re going to accept this “3x better” premise, is it realistic to ask readers to follow lengthy, complex storylines such as that title had? Would four issue arcs have been a smarter move?

HT: Well, that's a question I can't answer because Priest got his marching orders from above, who got their marching orders from somewhere even higher and so on. Priest did his job. He doesn't appear to be a real firebrand in terms of demanding things from his employers. Under the constraints -- the DEADPOOL crossover was supposed to be months later, the “Maximum Security” crossover was tossed in at an inopportune time, the start of year two was a complete surprise to Priest, who thought the book was already dead, art changes were done that negatively affected the presentation of the work, yadda yadda yadda. These things don't happen to Mark Millar, because he'd walk and that would be bad. Nobody's worried if Priest walks. Even being three times better doesn't mean you're not easily replaced.

Would readers like METABARONS, or TRANSMETROPOLITAN or or PREACHER or SANDMAN? Would they like things as complex as The X-Files or the universe-spanning back story of the CrossGen Universe? You tell me, Chris. If smart white books are OK and smart Black books are not, what are we really saying?

I have a proposal at Image right now. To make sure it would be OK, I loosely sketched out the first two years worth of stories. Mostly three and four issue storylines (with one thing that's threaded throughout, a subtle subplot involving the main villain, who's really my favorite character because of his complexity). Because, as my father was so happy to tell me, as a whole people are stupid and don't pay attention (even me, on occasion). Could I have made it more intricate? Sure. But it's a "superhero" book, and understanding the genre conventions means don't get too crazy with it. I'm not writing WATCHMEN, and neither was Priest, for a variety of reasons.

It's the same reason I bought the recent Rucka issue of WONDER WOMAN -- sure, nothing really happened, but when in doubt, I vote for smart storytelling. If that's too much to ask, well, save me a seat in the back of the stretch handbasket. It's easy to second guess from a homicide scene, but harder to do so before the bullets are fired. I can't say one way or another.

CA: Honestly, I’m not sure what we’re saying about the audience being able, or not being able, to handle smart Black stories. Some of your examples don’t sell any better than THE CREW and some are wildly successful. Racism pervades all culture, of course. I would suggest that perhaps SANDMAN was not only of a high quality, but also didn’t come with the baggage of 50-some years of superhero comics, which gives it an advantage over a book like THE CREW trying to convince readers of all races that “hey, this one’s for everybody, really.” And wrapping up the thought, what can or should be done, with consideration given to financial concerns, to grow the minority comics readership?

HT: Oh, Chris, you amuse me so. You do know anybody reading has completely tuned out by now. I hope you reformat the interview and put this stuff at the end...

Nevertheless, let's forge ahead. If you haven't checked out the aforementioned Christopher Priest's weblog, check out the bits from September 17-19 about the Official Soundtrack they proposed for THE CREW. They were gonna market it through venues like Vibe and the Source, get it into record stores and so on. Of course, without an online fulfillment side, they were still stuck with the old "good luck finding a comic book store, pal" argument, but it was a new idea with some real spirit behind it. That could be done. It won't.

Diamond has a minimum order requirement that has kept the very successful Black bookstore near my house (Eso Won Books in LA) from ordering comics, particularly during the good old Milestone days. All they wanted was some Milestone books, but because their proposed levels were "too low" (they wanted to try the books out and see how they did before investing a lot), Diamond basically told 'em to buy retail. I know the Shrine of the Black Madonna in Houston was willing to do that -- in limited numbers -- but again it becomes a business decision. Given Diamond's Microsoft-like stranglehold on the industry, would it kill 'em to give specialty bookstores a break on ordering, to help us all out?

I've worked in marketing and the corporate world long enough to recognize that there's tons of ideas on what to do here and no greenlights nor budgets to get 'em done. That said, my father's words come back to me, and it teaches me to do what I can (most of the things I write these days are not predominately "Black" stories because I know very few publishers would be interested in them) to better my position and then get all funky and radical.

CA: Speaking of this, tell us if you would about some of your comics projects you’ve mentioned, if it’s not too premature.

HT: I have had a proposal at Image since February. I have no idea what the status of it is, but the day I get a "yes" I'll throw my full marketing experience behind it, or conversely the day I get a "no" I'll post the whole proposal on my website and call it a day. I have a 22-page script for an issue of a new idea at Epic, and they're running it up the flagpole to see who'll salute it. Given how much hell I used to give Marvel as a SpinnerRack.com columnist, I'm less than enthused at my chances, but I gotta pay dues, you know? Lessee... I have a pitch I'm talking to Platinum Studios about, but that's totally vaporware right now. I've back burnered a ton of stuff once I got tired of the whole "Black stories don't sell" concept kicking me in the face, and brought up my "multiculti" stories -- about seven or eight concepts that maybe have one Black face featured in each of 'em -- which are actually overdue for pitching. I'm still doing my online sci-fi serial novella The Crown on my site, but that's just my own madness. Basically, I got a big steaming bowl of dreams held in a cup of nothing, like scores of wannabes. But I am available for assignments...

CA: With the high percentage of your reviews given to ‘80s nostalgia product like comics about the Transformers, G.I. Joe, etc., is it safe to say the ‘80s were your sweet spot, culturally? What, if anything, do you get out of these books besides light entertainment?

HT: My sweet spot? Mmm ... well, G.I. Joe spoke to me largely because it featured smart Black characters on equal footing with the finest and most elite professional killers the US military could create. Something deep in my psyche likes large robots beating the hell out of one another (yet TOKYO STORM WARNING left me cold somehow), so that's why I like VOLTRON, TRANSFORMERS, MAZINGER Z and to an extent ROBOTECH (which is a much more involved story, but I digress). But MOTU, BOTP, THUNDERCATS...I review that stuff because, again, I have a grounding in it, and a knowledge of literature, so I can review it and not feel out of my depth.

Personally, I've always thought Lion-O and He-Man were cretins, I wanted Spectra to win most of the time, and Evil-Lyn to rule all of Eternia. I dunno.

I have remarked about my Star Wars fixation that it was the first time I, in my very limited reality of drunken relatives and shootouts at family reunions, saw the possibility for a grander world. I really believe in the promise of sci-fi, the idea of something bigger and more amazing than this, and a lot of the so-called 80s properties hook into that still-won't-die dream for me. Even when I don't like what's happening, I read 'em. Same for Superman -- I've loathed almost everything coming out of Berganza's office for at least the last two years, but I keep reading, hoping for that spark of inspiration and glorious belief I once knew. I'm a fanboy whore...

My sweet spot, culturally, is inhabited by Sanaa Lathan and N'bushe Wright, both waiting to massage me with warm oils and big smiles…

CA: You too?! So what's your favorite comics series and/or character, and why?

HT: Series? That used to be a dead heat between BLACK PANTHER -- which accomplished, for most of its run, many of the things I would want a character to accomplish, even as I felt T'Challa was a wussy -- and TRANSMETROPOLITAN. With the editorial smacking and retrospective examiniation of the Maximum Security crossover and things like that, I'd have to say TRANSMET in the final analysis. It formed a real emotional connection with me while delighting my need for catchphrases and funny minutiae -- I can't say "rectal volcano" or "shat into unconsciousness" aloud without giggling. It's a masterpiece of characterization and form, a complete story told in sixty parts, and at some points you can almost miss the subtlety of it, but it's all there. I can't say enough good about that series.

My favorite character is harder, because it crosses over into Star Wars (my lifelong addiction -- I've probably put two Lucas grandkids through college all by myself) and so on. Hunter Rose is definitely in the running, as is Black Adam. I feel great personal love for Darth Vader (not Anakin, who I believe showed up on the set of ROTJ, but choke-your-ass-for-not-passing-the-salt Vader) and his predecessor Darth Maul ("a perfect engine of hatred," which I once wanted to be). Of course Spider Jerusalem is in there. The Gaiman/Carey Lucifer Morningstar would get a wild card spot. A lot of my old "favorites" -- Thanos, Superman, Thor, Duplicate Boy, Dr. Doom, and so on -- are tarnished by my present-day politics and evaluations of their failures. I basically like characters that mix power with possibility, that every moment you see them there's an electricity to it, and they eschew the wussy, easy response to anything.

I will say I can't stop reading WILDCATS 3.0 right now, my present crush as far as comics go, and that if I was given Black Adam to write and go crazy with, DC could rule the world.

CA: By and large, your favorites seem to be ass-kickers or Machiavellian schemers. How come, and what does Superman mean to you in an age of continually darkening characters?

HT: Hm.

Well, schemers appeal to me because they rarely have the raw power to accomplish their goals and must do so through outwitting the status quo, the powerful, the strong. Given my life, that's a very attractive concept. One I can aspire to and relate to. I sit here and outwit the phone company, my landlord, the gang bangers on my street, the police who prowl the borders. Schemers are instructive.

On the other hand, someone willing to just (as they said in New Jack City) roll up on somebody and smoke their ass in broad daylight has a brazen, powerful appeal to me as well. I'd much rather walk up and punch somebody than sit in a backroom and scheme their downfall, but one must do what is appropriate for the situation. Ass kickers are inspirational.

Superman...I've actually been thinking about that a lot. Superman represents raw power to me more than anything else. I grew up on the planet juggling, insanely powerful, time travel when he's bored, do virtually anything Superman. All the efforts to "humanize" him have turned me off because they walk away from his real appeal -- power. He was a power fantasy for Siegel and Shuster, who turned him on the mob and corrupt government officials. Now he's a castrated agent of the status quo, a whiny anachronism wishing for days that can never exist again, in part because of the status quo he so ridiculously protects. People who say that a super-powerful character is hard to come up with ideas for lack creativity, in my not so humble opinion. Siegel and Shuster's Superman would have rocketed President Lex into orbit and left him there, without anyone even seeing the "crime." Superman is a dark concept, power with few limits, and ignoring that makes him a sissy, a boy scout, a wuss, a cream puff, and the laughingstock of the real world. He's better than that. Superman is everybody's wildest dream.

I wonder if Bob Shreck would take my call with that approach...

CA: I would. What creators today are doing the work that speaks most to you, that you most look forward to?

HT: Christopher Priest. Warren Ellis. Jim Lee. ChrisCross. Dwayne McDuffie. Jay Faerber (although I'm terribly bored by his Robotech work). Mike Carey. Peter David. The Love Brothers. That Blaylock kid, he's got an amazing grasp on those characters. MD Bright. Ed McGuinness. Busiek's pretty solid. Jamal Igle. I used to be all ga ga over Geoff Johns, but he jumped the shark in the last few months. George Perez. Greg Land. Garth Ennis still gets me most of the time. Ditto Gaiman. Greg Rucka. Ed Benes. I have a deep affection for Keith Giffen's work based on my insane and recently unrequited love for the LSH. Gary Phillips. Millar is terribly consistent, and I like a lot of Bendis' dialogue. Probably a few more that I'm forgetting.

CA: Wow, that’s a pretty big tent. So let me ask, what appeals to you about Faerber’s work? Carey’s? Is Perez as good as ever? Better? Declining? What, in your opinion, raises Benes above “workmanlike?”

HT: Faerber, at his roots, has a delicate ability to balance levity with seriousness. He makes involving, complicated characters with back stories he need never reveal, because his knowledge of them informs his working with them in any circumstance. Wildly creative.

Carey...Carey's Lucifer is one of my favorite tricksters, one of the smartest schemers. Filled with a cultured charm which serves as the velvet glove for the raw power of the Presence's brightest light, it's again an amazing balancing act. I'm not as enamored with his Hellblazer, but his Lucifer is always in my first reads when I get it home.

Perez...well, his faces are not what they were, I looked at the JLA/AVENGERS cover and cringed a little at his Superman and Wonder Woman. But on a group scene, or given time (I thought his work on CRIMSON PLAGUE was amazing, despite how the story creeped me out), he can still do the damned thing.

Benes...man, Benes makes things that just leap off the page. Sure, he's heavy on cheesecake, and he's much better in "grounded" situations (his Supergirl had great backgrounds, whereas his Thundercats was often on black backdrops), but overall he has a command of perspective and anatomy that's really remarkable.

CA: Who's the most overrated, least talented?

HT: Well, I used to have a real axe to grind against Frank Tieri's writing, since I thought he was really bad. I still think he's really bad, I just don't talk about it much, since I can safely ignore WEAPON X. As much as I loved Kelly's DEADPOOL, his JLA has been hit and miss (Axis Amerika, oooh, creative). I thought Zimmerman was staggeringly cliche in virtually everything he did, even though I enjoyed maybe six or seven panels of RAWHIDE KID. I hear people praising Bruce Jones on HULK, and it's okay, but much of his early run was pure Bill Bixby. I told you Johns has refused to pass the dutchie on the left hand side, and clearly has a batch of bad weed. JMS seems to be more sizzle than steak, and so does Kevin Smith (until he gets a schedule). Uh ... it's funny, I spend so much time ragging on stuff, and I can't even remember it. Damned youth-onset senility!

CA: Has a comic ever made you cry? If so, what?

HT: That Alan Moore MR. MAJESTIC one made me well up the first time I read it, "there really should be light." No actual tears, but close. Ditto for the Ross closing argument and the bit with Cap's shield in BLACK PANTHER when he was on trial. That's about it that leaps to mind, although there may be one or two others that slip my mind.

CA: Turned you on? If so, what?

HT: Turned me on? Hm. I think I was actually surprised close to arousal when reading some XXXENOPHILE or CHERRY POPTART. It's hard to remember, it was some time ago.

CA: Any interest in webcomics?

HT: Tons. Lots more interest than I have time to learn and get exposed. That said, I read all of the Brother Matthew story from those REX MUNDI kids, all of MAN-MAN (bitten by a radioactive man, that still kills me), and most of JAXXON’S 11 (I dunno if that counts).

CA: Do you think the increasing success and influence of manga is a good or bad thing for American comics?

HT: I don't know. I mean, "American comics" is kind of a monolithic way of looking at things, doncha think? It's shown people the value of bookstore sales, that's one thing. It hasn't driven people into the direct market retailers, though. I'd have to plead ignorance on this one.

CA: I didn’t see any point, in this case, for being more specific about essentially the entire North American comics industry. It’s all affected to some extent by manga breaking into bookstores and other markets.

Finally, as a TRANSFORMERS fan, you were exposed early on to anime, or an Americanized version of it. Has this at all translated to an interest in current anime and manga? Why or why not?

HT: To an extent. The "kiddie" anime and manga of the sort characterized by Yu-Gi-Yoh (sp?) and its ilk do nothing for me. Superdeformed always turned me off. Most of what I enjoy has a sci-fi slant to it. I will admit I laughed my ass off watching UROTSUKIDOJI. That stuff was funny. It's a vague interest, another one of the "things I'll get around to" that never seem to make it to the top of the list.

CA: Thank you, Hannibal, for sharing of yourself and going a little farther afield from funnybook reviewing protocol than, admittedly, I would have gone if you were just another pasty White guy like me and everyone else. And for those interested to learn about this new column he’s got in the pipeline, the announcement should be made next week, and I’ll be sure to link to it in my next column as well.

Next Week: Well, goddammit, isn’t it time I reviewed Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS already? And maybe Neil Diamond’s HOT AUGUST NIGHT as well? Maybe not. But I’ll try to cover some other books not everyone’s talking about, like STYX TAXI and others.

Chris Allen

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