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Breakdowns -- Pulling for You

January 22, 2004

“An artist never averts his eyes”—Akira Kurosawa

“To do a conscientious job takes so much time, dedication, concentration, and the financial return is such that you have to turn out a lot of comics in order to make a living, that very few artists can keep it up for very long. I maintain that it is a young man’s game (and now, to some extent, a young woman’s game). No one who hasn’t drawn comics themselves can possibly know how much work is involved if you do everything yourself…it’s an occupation for young, energetic, devoted, unbalanced nerds who have no other life.”

Okay, so I lied. Again.

I really intended to get back to doing this column on a weekly basis, but I guess it’s not meant to be for the foreseeable future. Part of this is just technical difficulties—my wife is an accountant and this is her busiest time of the year, so she’s on the computer a lot more—and the rest is a combination of making more time for my own writing, for catching up on the piles of books I have to review, and for trying to take care of myself a little better and get some more sleep. So, until further notice, the column will be every other week. Those of you who like it, well, just remember to keep coming back, just less frequently. And really, it’s not like you’re going to be cheated, as I’ll make sure the column is longer than the weekly. One thing I found when taking the extra time to do the “Good Comics of 2003” two-parter is that I finally had time to tinker with the reviews and commentary and make both better, at least as far as I’m concerned. And I still found things I would change, but I was satisfied with the improvement and don’t really want to go back to pounding it out quite so fast.

And to continue trying to sell you on the benefits of my laziness, I think the extra week will translate to review feature that have been almost impossible to do before. For instance, rather than parsing them out over a period of months, as I did with my “HELLBOY SAGA,” wouldn’t it be nice to have a complete, one-column look at, say, STRAY BULLETS or ASTRO BOY or METABARONS, along with other, more topical reviews? I mean, I recently received a few pounds of work by Donna Barr, and I’d rather really dig into it, instead of plucking a couple books from the pile, you know? Going biweekly will also, I think, further free me to mix things up, unleashing a bunch of short reviews or just a few long ones, more essays, more critical analysis. I think this will be a good thing, and I’m encouraged by some comments received from comics industry professionals these past two weeks, like “I laughed and laughed…skewer those fuckers!” and “You gave the most succinct and (I believe) accurate description of the BLANKETS phenomenon that I've read yet, too, very well put.” So I guess that’s my resolution for 2004—“Smarter, Snarkier, and SLOWER.” It could be worse.

One mild correction/apology before the reviews:

I gave SUPERMAN: SECRET IDENTITY #1 a good review last column, but took issue with the “dated” teen dialogue—citing “dweeb” as an example of obsolete slang. Writer Kurt Busiek politely reminds me this issue is set in 1990, so the datedness is entirely intentional. So, a good issue is better than I initially thought. Sorry, Kurt.

A Handful of Dust and Reviews

SOAP OPERA by Emily Blair. Scenery Chewer. $2.95
This is how Blair describes the book:

“Soap Opera has a young fan of daytime drama as its protagonist. As the tale progresses, the heightened emotions of soap opera permeate the more subdued story of a real life friendship in danger of dissolution.”

And that is true enough, but I found the dissolution of the friendship to be merely a byproduct of the lead character’s advancing depression, or perhaps both byproduct and catalyst. She, Megan, becomes obsessed with an actress on a soap opera, becoming upset as the talented woman’s character is forced into disappointing scenarios and often pushed to the sidelines as less talented actors and actresses command the juicier plotlines. Talent being in the eye of this particular observer, of course, who clearly sees in the actress some of her own frustrations in life, not getting the success and attention one deserves. Her dearest friend has moved onward and upward in her career and gained many interesting, creative friends, while Megan is going nowhere, adrift and addicted to that most pathetic of entertainments, daytime television.

Blair uses scratchboard and a lot of photo reference, seemingly, and it adds the right note of grainy realism to this sad character study. It might have been effective to use a softer, more glamorous style for the soap opera shots as viewed through the lead character’s eyes, but there’s nothing wrong with what Blair has done here. It’s an extremely assured, poignant debut for a creator well worth investigating further.

NECRONAUTS by Gordon Rennie and Frazer Irving. Rebellion. $13.95
Harry Houdini, Charles Fort, H.P. Lovecraft and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle team up to battle an other dimensional evil that threatens our world in this trade collection of a popular 2000 AD serial of a few years back. While it can’t be accused of aping the more popular Alan Moore / Kevin O’Neill THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN series that debuted around the same time, it also can’t be said to approach that book’s level of skills and thrills.

Rennie spends a good deal of time getting the players together in decent, cinematic scenes, but there are few twists and little of interest in the enemy. While well researched, these famous men don’t breathe as characters, their dialogue and interactions dry, rote, and merely there to set up the next sequence of the many-tentacled menace. Irving fares much better, expending every effort to bring varying textures to each panel. But while this results in some very good effects, and his storytelling is sound, he just doesn’t draw faces particularly well, often covering up the basic, flawed shape with too much shadow or feathering. The ending is cute, tying in Houdini’s mysterious death and the writings of Lovecraft, but most of the book will be forgotten almost immediately after reading.

SLEEPER: OUT IN THE COLD by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Wildstorm/DC Comics. $17.95.
Both Brubaker and Phillips do their best work in the shadows—Phillips when he can draw in a moody, grimier setting than most superhero comics offer, and Brubaker when he deals with the shadows of moral ambiguity. SLEEPER is arguably their best collaboration to date, and a significant step forward in storytelling for both of them.

Holden Carver (great name, calling to mind every young man’s favorite model of confusion and misanthropy, Holden Caufield from THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, as well as “Carver”, suggesting a rather deadly implement) is a former International Operations agent who defected a couple years ago to the bad guys, as led by criminal mastermind Tao. Holden’s not really bad, and is in fact a sleeper agent, working towards the eventual destruction of Tao and his organization. There are two problems with this, however. One, the only man who knows Holden really isn’t a turncoat is John Lynch, who is currently in a coma (see the Brubaker/Wilson POINT BLANK trade). Two, Holden has been undercover so long that he can barely tell right from wrong anymore, and has formed relationships with some of his associates.

Brubaker gets this intriguing set-up out of the way pretty quickly, and then proceeds, throughout the six issues collected here, to find ever more devious ways to torture Holden, as every mission is a grueling test of his shaky morality, as well as a test of how well Tao trusts him. He’ll have to lie. He’ll have to kill. He’ll fall for a blackhearted beauty. He’ll meet the love he abandoned. While it’s a superhero book of sorts—Holden’s power as “The Conductor” being that he can absorb pain and transfer it to a victim, a neat metaphor for a man finding it increasingly difficult to feel anything—it’s set up without a lot of big events and good guy vs. bad guy action. Tao’s schemes are insidious and wide-ranging, but the reader is kept at a distance from their larger implications, mirroring Holden’s own confusion as to Tao’s big picture. The focus instead is really on piling on one tense, soul-destroying challenge after another on Holden and seeing him deal with it. It’s a deliciously bleak and utterly involving vision Brubaker pursues here, each chapter fully realized but even deeper as a collection.

POCKET ESSENTIALS: ROBERT CRUMB by D. K. Holm. Pocket Essentials. ₤3.99 (roughly $3.15 U.S.)
I’ve never seen these before, but there are several such volumes in print, little primers on various artists, examining the highlights of their careers without the room for examples of the work in question. Holm (who writes the excellent DVD Diatribe), charts Crumb’s life and art with a necessary brevity, but is often able to provide good insights. For example, he draws a surprising but apt comparison between Crumb’s warts-and-all comics and the “confessions” of St. Augustine, the connecting thread naturally being lust. He does go too far out on a limb with some of these comparisons, such as noting that both Crumb and Woody Allen play jazz and collect old records. It’s not a big deal, but in such a short book, the prose must be razor-sharp, and occasionally Holm does go astray, or repeats details from chapter to chapter.

Every major story is explored here, and Holm seeks to show areas of personal or creative evolution by dividing them into talking points like “The Crumb Woman,” where he describes how women are treated in the story in question. It’s interesting, and reveals a certain agenda on Holm’s part to address the long-running charge of misogyny in Crumb’s work.

Holm doesn’t confine his study to just Crumb’s comics, however, and is equally adept at encapsulating the salient qualities of Crumb’s youthful letters and the two revealing documentaries on Crumb, particular the Terry Zwigoff-directed one that revealed Robert as the most normal Crumb in the family and also made him famous all over again. He also touches on ephemera such as Crumb’s musical output and the figurines, candy and other items offered through son Jesse’s Crumb Products company. The book closes with a brief but surprisingly charming, easygoing interview Holm conducted with Crumb, in which the man seems pretty happy, though as observant and funny as ever. The goal of these volumes is not to be the complete picture of their subjects, or the last word. But as a first word, a lively and concise summary of what is appealing, interesting and significant about Robert Crumb and his work, Holm has done a commendable job.

Publisher Year-End Report Cards
I’ve been doing these ever since I had a column, and they keep getting longer. I think the first year, when I was writing for Comic Bukkake (savor that joke, it’s a long way down), I covered only Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse and a couple others. But of course, that's not only a skewed look at the industry, those aren't even the biggest publishers anymore, once Viz and Tokyopop broke out big in the U.S. So this has gotten big--so big it will have to stretch across at least one more column, probably two, and we'll probably find by the end I'm completely numb and averse to ever doing it again.

So what am I doing, exactly?

Well, I'm looking at all the comics publishers I can think of: their developments and news in 2003; creative triumphs and hurdles; how they interacted with the public and the press; their websites and how they get their message out there, and even what kind of review copy policy they have, based of course just on my own personal experience as a pretty popular reviewer on a pop culture site, someone with the potential to get the word out about a good book to more than the existing comics audience. I didn't pretty this up with a lot of art--didn't have time, even at two weeks. I just slung my words and did my best, and I'm sure amid the occasional insight there will be some odd tangents and pettiness. In fact, I'll be honest--the categories I created were sort of hard to work with--some things seemed to overlap. But it came out all right. Print it out, take a coffee break, and revel in my delusions of grandeur.

Marvel Comics - Marvel experienced the most ups and downs, I would say, with only Bendis, Millar, Romita, Jr., Waid and Straczynski remaining as A-list talents (your mileage may vary), and JMS would seem to have peaked on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, with many of those on the fence about the book now more actively negative towards it. These are talented people, but at best can offer a fresh approach as opposed to new ideas, and Marvel doesn’t encourage new ideas anyway, as the lackluster list of upcoming books indicates. Go here for (now-sadly-on-indefinite-hiatus) Derek Martinez’s funny and patently obvious takedown. Christopher Priest is always interesting, though, so it’s not completely hopeless. Marvel also blew it with the Marvel Mangaverse, Tsunami, and Epic, the first two due to plain ol’ crappiness, the second due to being dumped on the market all at once with no real unifying thread and a misguided, superficial manga influence seen mainly in the artwork and draggy plots; and the latter submarined due to Bill Jemas’ departure as Prez, though not before Epic books TROUBLE and CRIMSON DYNAMO failed to have the intended impact. It’s all cyclical, and it won’t be long before some of the usual suspects now at DC will come back to Marvel. And though DAREDEVIL and HULK were disappointing films, it hasn’t killed their opportunities in Hollywood yet.

Marvel’s Public Face - Misfiring all over the place. Abdicating from Diamond’s main PREVIEWS magalog is an arrogant rookie blunder: why put one more barrier between the fans and your products? It’s good that Jemas is gone, but Joe Quesada is involved with most of the bad decisions and dumb comments as well. After Brian Wood left the NYX project, it was pretty ballsy for Quesada to finally step up and write it himself. It’s not a bad book, but there’s inevitably a weird vibe attached when the boss decides to do the job himself. If Quesada wants to keep his hand in, creatively, that’s fine, but he should probably have picked a project without the negative connotations. And stupid contests like U-Decide, or Quesada’s nasty cracks about John Byrne and spiteful refusal to continue with the F.F. VISIONARIES: JOHN BYRNE series (almost as acclaimed as the completed DAREDEVIL VISIONARIES: FRANK MILLER and definitely more highly regarded than the announced completion of THOR VISIONARIES: WALT SIMONSON manage to make joiks like Byrne and Peter David (who had to compete with his bosses to keep his job on CAPTAIN MARVEL) sympathetic. Aside from getting trade paperbacks out quickly, and finally collecting some beloved archive material like ESSENTIAL TOMB OF DRACULA, Marvel didn’t make a lot of friends in 2003. A recent Newsarama interview with Quesada and new Publisher Dan Buckley left them looking like unfunny bullies, and interviewer Matt Brady like one of those inflatable kid’s punching bags, the kind with sand in the bottom that keep bouncing right back up for another hit in the kisser.
• Web Presence is fairly slick and not bad when it comes to promoting Marvel to advertisers in its “Media Kit” section. However, it’s awfully antiseptic and totally fails to put across the personality of the company or its characters. And looking at the list of graphic novels out this month, they didn’t even have cover images for many of them, which is called not getting it done.
• Review Copy Policy - Marvel is alone among publishers in not providing comps for review. And the thing is, I understand this. When it comes to online coverage, they don’t need to drum up interest, because there are tons of people who, like me, will review and discuss Marvel product without getting it for free. On the other hand, while I have no idea if PR guy Mike Doran’s recent termination was justified, but there sure didn’t seem to be a whole lot of press about Marvel’s books last year, and very few of the comics discussed in a popular magazine like ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY are Marvel’s.
• Marvel in 2004 - Despite the talents and/or saleability of Messrs. Bendis, Millar and Straczynski, it would be a bad sign if Marvel didn’t add another big name, and they may have found that in Joss (BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) Whedon, new scribe for NEW X-MEN. That should be a nice hit, but perhaps not as big as predicted (are there 300,000 people reading superhero comics at all?), and it’s doubtful Whedon will match the 18 issues a year Morrison did, nor is it likely he’ll have time for other projects. So you’ve got unreliable subcontractors like Chuck Austen, and Bendis and Millar spread a little thinner.

  DC Comics (including Wildstorm and Vertigo) - Despite the Tony Isabella complaint and the continually dismal SUPERMAN titles, still put out quite a few good books, due in part to the law of averages but also the novelty and enthusiasm that comes from creator-owned books. FABLES and THE LOSERS are hits, picking up the momentum that surprisingly seems to have been lost from Y: THE LAST MAN, and HUMAN TARGET and WILDCATS 3.0 have been good, intelligent reads every month. Well, Milligan is far wittier and more insightful than Casey, but Casey is doing good work. Mike (HELLBLAZER, LUCIFER, MY FAITH IN FRANKIE) Carey looks to be the guy to contribute a lot of good work to DC and Vertigo in the “ought” years, as the likes of Morrison, Ennis, Milligan and Delano did in the 90s. Ed Brubaker wrote twelve great issues of SLEEPER and did some very good work on CATWOMAN and GOTHAM CENTRAL as well. The Loeb/Lee BATMAN was a smash, and despite flaws SUPERMAN/BATMAN is the only Superman title worth reading. Neil Gaiman was enticed to return to the characters that made him famous with the hardcover graphic anthology SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS, which hit the New York Times Bestseller list. DC also began exploring manga-style formats with DEATH: AT DEATH’S DOOR and the reprinting of Wendy and Richard Pini’s ELFQUEST. Warren Ellis used his exclusive deal to do one good graphic novel, ORBITER, and a raft of okay-to-dreadful miniseries and a really attractive but one-note maxiseries, GLOBAL FREQUENCY. DC signed a lot of exclusive contractsAnd I’m sure I’ve missed some commercial and creative highlights. All in all, pretty status quo for the company, keeping the franchises more or less alive and having a decent percentage of success on edgier fare.

  • Public Face - DC’s best move is to keep quiet about anything negative. A Tony Isabella or Mark Millar bitching about them gets no reaction, and whatever one’s opinion of the ethics behind their stoicism, it certainly works. It will be interesting to see if Jim Lee remains as hot on the Azzarello-scripted SUPERMAN (what’s the next inappropriate project for Azz--GROO?), since he’s already said to be way behind on the art.
  • Web Presence - DC has a very good site, with minisites for many of their books, lots of previews, and lists of the next couple months of releases, as well as some Flash animation, extensive message boards and other special features to keep fans interested. It would be nice if some of the creators got involved in their minisites and message boards, and if reviews and essays appeared (hey, they’re the most popular superheroes in the world), which would add more personality.
  • Review Copy Policy - Other than a gentleman there being kind enough to send me a graphic novel when my shop was out of it, DC doesn’t send comps to reviewers. However, they do send photocopies of significant upcoming releases, usually at least a couple weeks to a month before the shipping date, so that’s usually sufficient. They don’t really have to do that, as they are in the same boat with Marvel in that fans will discuss their books with or without reviews.
  • DC in 2004 - Matching the still-hot Jim Lee with Brubaker is a good idea, Azzarello with Lee not so good creatively but possibly commercial, and there’s an undisclosed project or two from Grant Morrison yet to come. Alan Moore’s retirement means a bit of a drop in prestige, but I’d say the year looks fine for the company from here. They’re turning out trade paperbacks at a more rapid rate than before, which is good.

  Image Comics is so scattershot and divided in its management and public face that I wouldn’t be surprised if they go under in a couple years. JACK STAFF is sensational, and POWERS is still a strong title for them, and Robert Kirkman is a crowd-pleasing writer who is bound to start pleasing bigger crowds soon. Under Jim Valentino, Image Central has a diverse line-up of titles, including the occasional classy one like Eric Shanower’s AGE OF BRONZE. These are all good things. But Image also has the lifeless SPAWN and Todd MacFarlane’s firm commitment to do his best to fuck up whatever good title he’s involved in, from holding onto to completed issues of HELLSPAWN so long Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith were able to capitalize on their hit 30 DAYS OF NIGHT for IDW with endless one-shots, miniseries and novels featuring those characters or Cal McDonald. And now, I have no doubt pros like Marc Andreyko and Scott Morse are long, long done with their CASE FILES: SAM AND TWITCH work, but for some reason, and I’m guessing that reason is Todd, the book slips further off the schedule and people’s radar. One very nice sign near the end of the year is that the Mark Millar/J.G. Jones miniseries WANTED is very good and could just be a hit for the company, as well as being a project with a good chance of being a movie.

  • Public Face - Their solicitations are strewn with errors and plain bad writing. Even decent pages for good books are brought down by the shlocky feel and poor design of pages for the Top Cow stuff, and the SPAWN franchise is in desperate need of a new look. It’s like if Dave McKean was still doing covers like he did on the first year of SANDMAN, with the wooden frames and bric-a-brac. Get new. And Top Cow’s recent second fucking of Steve Niles—prematurely announcing him as the writer of a story arc of one of their moribund series—is really tacky and inexcusable. I can’t really think of any positive developments for Image this year other than a handful of honestly good books, and negatives include how some books went from color to black-and-white (sometimes just pencils!), which only gives fans the impression that the company is burning up more money than they’ve got coming in.
  • Web Presence - Not bad. Simple but clear, and they have previews of selected releases—mainly debuts—and an easy to find schedule of new and recent books, as well as links to good press they’ve received. It does the job. They’ve recently downgraded the message boards to save server space.
  • Review Copy Policy - Horrendous. Two months after sending a request, I got on their comp list, received one envelope of garbage like WITCHBLADE, and didn’t get anything again, despite numerous requests to find out what was going on. Now, that last part won’t mean much to you, but here’s where I’m coming from: If I actually show interest in a publisher’s wares, and do my part in reviewing it, and then nothing follows, and the PR guy is unreachable, I have grave doubts about the publisher being a professional outfit with a future, you know? This is not sour grapes because I don’t get MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE for free, I assure you. See the comments above regarding Marvel. But Image is throwing almost as many titles out there as Marvel does, except they’re mostly from unknown creators and it’s incumbent on Image, or the creators, to get the word out about their books. And they’re not.
  • Image in 2004 - Who knows? There is no indication as of yet of any major changes to the way this loosely-connected string of self-publishers does business, nor any major projects of interest to reverse their fortunes. They’ll probably keep throwing shit at the wall.

  Top Shelf Productions rebounded well after a pretty weak—and financially hazardous--2002 and early 2003, with their most successful book ever, Craig Thompson’s BLANKETS, as well as other good books like TOP SHELF ASKS THE BIG QUESTIONS, SHUCK UNMASKED, the Alan Moore tribute PORTRAIT OF AN EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN and the SLINGS & ARROWS COMICS GUIDE. There’s still a feeling of lackadaisical editing, with James Kochalka able to drop an awful sequel to his biggest hit, MONKEY VS. ROBOT, as well as an interesting talent like Josh Simmons heading alone down a very self-indulgent road with HAPPY. The addition of Jon B. Cooke’s COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine to their stable is an odd fit, but it seems to work all right so far.

  • Public Face - Hit and miss. Top Shelf has pretty good, stylish PREVIEWS solicitations, but it’s often hard to tell the good books from the inconsequential or incomprehensible ones (JENNIFER DAYDREAMER, anyone?). And for a book as big as BLANKETS was this year, I think co-publishers Chris Staros and Brett Warnock should have been unrelenting in their press attack, and perhaps also to counter the second semester backlash against the book.
  • Web Presence - They redesigned the site this year, though it took some time before there was much to see. It’s pretty good now, and they are consistent with e-mail press releases of the month’s new releases.
  • Review Copy Policy - Very good. They’re interested in online reviews and getting early feedback on their books. Minor complaints are that they tend to just send recent releases in a big, seasonal box, causing a backlog, rather than a steady stream throughout the year. Also, a simple Excel file would save them money wasted sending, say, three copies of the same bad PISTOLWHIP book to the same person, even after that person reviewed the book unfavorably. I know, it sounds like a really shitty thing to complain about—multiple copies of free books—but think of Mother Earth having to digest all that PISTOLWHIP, CICADA and BUGHOUSE.
  • Top Shelf in 2004 - Should be a big year for them, with Alan Moore’s novel VOICE OF THE FIRE, which I’m reading right now, as well as Moore’s and Melinda Gebbie’s LOST GIRLS collection of tasty smut, a collection of the rest of the stories not seen in the well-received BOX OFFICE POISON, and more from the usual suspects like James Kochalka.

  Tokyopop - I’ll tell you, I just don’t follow a lot of manga, so I don’t keep track of everything this company is doing. PLANETES is something I want to check out, and the adaptation of BATTLE ROYALE is good. I’ve slowly been catching up on GTO by way of anime dvds rather than the manga. And contrary to an online jackass recently dismissing their products as being only for girls or kids, there really is a broad range, with lots of action, sci-fi and horror that should appeal to many U.S. readers stuck in the groove of superhero comics. To some extent, I’m the same way, or rather, it’s easier to stick with an okay superhero book than take the chance on a manga series that might run a dozen volumes. I really don’t have any criticism of the books or how they run their business, which is obviously successful enough to support such a huge catalog, and they are a definite presence in bookstores, often with their own stands or carousels.

  • Public Face: Very good.
  • Web Presence: - While my comics-related internet travels don’t come across a lot of banner ads for Tokyopop, it should be said that they probably don’t really need to advertise where a lot of direct market folks visit. They do send fairly frequent email press releases regarding new books. Their site is excellent, with good descriptions and art samples of all their products, grouped both alphabetically and by genre.
  • Review Policy: - Nice folks, cooperative. Not sure if I’ve ever seen them use review quotes anywhere, either on their books or site.
  • Tokyopop in 2004 - Will continue to dazzle kids and teens of both genders, causing the big superhero publishers to even more shamelessly steal from their playbook.

  Drawn & Quarterly - Don’t get me wrong, D&Q is a valuable artcomix publisher with mostly excellent taste, and the books themselves are the pinnacle of intelligent design and high class production. THE FIXER, LOUIS RIEL, PAUL HAS A SUMMER JOB and THE ACME NOVELTY DATEBOOK represent twice as many important books as any publisher released in 2003 besides Fantagraphics and Pantheon. I wish them well and am glad they survived the debacle of 2002, when their distributor, LPC, went bankrupt, owing them lots of money and holding onto their books. The same problem hit Top Shelf and Fantagraphics, if you remember. However, all that aside, D&Q got some traction in the bookstores and wider media world at the expense of the direct market and existing comics fanbase. I mean, do you know anyone who’s reviewed or read all those books above? Half of them? How many interviews with any of the creators have you seen? With publisher Chris Oliveros, or new PR flack Peggy Burns? Seems weird to put so much work into something like DRAWN & QUARTERLY 5 or the new SHOWCASE title just to drop them silently and invisibly into an uncaring market.

  • Public Face - Again, there have been some very positive reviews from newspaper and magazine critics, and they deserve whatever attention they get there. Since I’m writing this from the perspective of the U.S. comics market, I have to say their public face is almost non-existent.
  • Web Presence - On the face of it, it’s an attractive site, even clever. But you know what? Clever is a pain in the ass the next time you want to find something. But these unlinkable pop-up rooms with the hidden information really does tie into D&Q’s philosophy of defying a potential reader to find and read their books. Still, if you find the “News” section, you will see that they are very active in putting up reviews and articles.
  • Review Copy Policy - Used to be good, pre-Peggy Burns. Here’s the thing: I may have a mean streak, I may carry grudges—I recognize that. I almost never catch any flak for it here because I’m usually right, or entertaining enough when I’m wrong that people let it go, maybe. So I’ll be honest that the whole idea to cover the Review Copy Policy may stem from one little email exchange with Chris Oliveros, wherein he said that no, he wouldn’t be sending me any comps, as they had to limit their list and my site really didn’t fit with their readership or potential readership. In other words, people who visit Movie Poop Shoot wouldn’t have any interest in something like, say, Joe Matt’s porn obsessed PEEPSHOW. I admit, that has ground on me most of the year, but I figured I would just wait a while and approach Peggy. Which brings up the second gripe, that she can’t be bothered to even respond to an email. You’re only promoting six books a year, ma’am.
  • D&Q in 2004 - I have no idea what’s coming out, but I’m sure there will be a few must-haves for the discriminating comics reader. SHOWCASE is a good idea not yet nailed, but it would be nice if they offered a few more entry-level-priced products like they used to. There can’t be many readers ready to drop $50 for a couple new graphic novels in the span of a month and a half.

• Rebellion - It's very hard for me to gauge what kind of impact Rebellion, publishers of 2000 AD and JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE, have on the U.S. comics market. I mean, I could look at their sales throughout the year, but that's work! I mean, I know they're low; I just wonder if there are any of you reading my column who read these books, or even see them in your shops. And that's kind of a shame, as these are pretty good anthology mags with some nice work from lots of creators U.S. audiences would know, especially if they read DC/Vertigo stuff: Andy Diggle; Jock; Carlos Ezquerra; John Wagner; Frazer Irving; Peter Milligan; Dan Abnett; Steve Yeowell; D'Israeli. The two big problems are that it's a weekly anthology costing upwards of $3.00 U.S. (not sure of the conversion rate), and in a given issue only maybe half of the serials are good. But the good ones are worth following--Wagner's written (and he co-created) Judd Dredd stories for 30 years, and week after week they're always sharp, funny and very entertaining. Anyway, the big developments for Rebellion this year, aside from a videogame tie-in, were the start of a third series, 2000 AD EXTREME I think it's called, which collects serials previously published in 2000 AD all in one mag, with other features. JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE was already sort of doing this, but this one is more recent stuff, serials that are good but perhaps not likely to be made into trade paperbacks. That stuff is the second big development, as Rebellion now publishes trade paperbacks and hardcovers such as NECRONAUTS, BUTTON MAN and HEWLIGAN'S HAIRCUT. The hardcover is a little pricey at $23.95, but the paperbacks are reasonable and oversized, a good way to catch up on some nice work from significant British creators. The Dredd stuff, and other franchise characters, continue to be published in collected form by another company, Titan Books.
  • Public Face - Here, at least, they are almost never mentioned. EXTREME would seem to be something that could get more traction here, being a monthly of just the good stuff (maybe it's bimonthly? I've only received one so far), but they need to promote it better. The PR guy just left, so we'll see what his replacement does.
  • Web Presence - The site's okay, though a little silly, since you have to accept the premise that the magazine is edited by a green, mohawked alien named Tharg.
  • Review Copy Policy - Things could always change, but they've been quite nice so far, especially considering the shipping from England to here.
  • Rebellion in 2004 - I think the potential is here to grab a few crumbs more of the direct market pie, but they need to be more aggressive.

  Absence of Ink - Despite some Eisner Awards nominations for some of their books, and acclaim for creators like Farel (POP GUN WAR) Dalrymple, Paul (FORLORN FUNNIES) Hornschemeier and THE CASTAWAYS creators Rob Vollmar and Pablo Callejo, you may not have heard of this publisher. Essentially, they’re able to find some astonishing new talents, publish some fine books with good production, and make no effort to promote their brand. And thus, it’s no wonder all the talents above have moved, or are moving, to greener pastures, with Dalrymple and Hornschemeier publishing trade collections of their series at Dark Horse, and Vollmar and Callejo likely to shop their next project as well.

  • Public Face - Non-existent. For talent of this stripe, that’s almost criminal. I remember when CASTAWAYS was nominated, there was nary a press release congratulating them or reminding people where to order the book. A shame, to assemble such a lineup and then shoot oneself in the foot.
  • Web Presence - The site was last updated on 10/26/03, hyping the “Black Label” line of minicomics AoI failed to even send press releases on, or review copies. And just looking at the CASTAWAYS page, there’s no review quotes or even a mention that this book was Eisner-nominated. Nothing against publisher Ed Irvin, who really is a nice guy and superlative talent scout, but it’s no wonder everyone’s leaving. This is just a total breakdown in basic promotion and common courtesy.
  • Review Copy Policy - I guess they would send stuff if asked; at least they did before. It’s a little different with me in that I was a supporter of AoI from their very first comic, so it’s odd that they wouldn’t automatically keep me apprised of developments when I’m already in their camp.
  • Absence of Ink in 2004 - Absent.

  Humanoids - They had a pretty interesting year, balancing their own artistic vision with the needs of the U.S. market. This was most noticeable in the increase in more creators already known in the U.S. like Guy Davis in the METAL HURLANT anthology series, or just creators who are actually from the U.S., giving the book a lighter, more genre-dominated (a recent issue had several zombie stories) tone, with less of the bizarre feel when the book was dominated by Alejandro Jodorowsky stories. And graphic albums like SANCTUM, though in the European album format, were simple and action-oriented enough to be more easily accessible to the U.S. audience than something like, say, TECHNOPRIESTS. That said, these moves haven’t worked all that well, so it’s a great bit of news that DC Comics will now be the English language publisher for Humanoids, which will theoretically bring their books to the attention of the DC/Wildstorm/Vertigo audience. Humanoids U.S.A. will still very much exist, choosing the material and packaging it for DC’s yea or nay, with DC apparently having no input into the origination of the material. I think the album format will probably discontinue in favor of comics-sized graphic novels, but other than that this is very good news for 2004.

  • Public Face - Low-key, but nothing to complain about. Humanoids puts out an attractive product--METAL HURLANT has the heaviest paper stock of any saddle-stitched book I’ve seen—but the problem is getting more folks interested. The DC news was handled smoothly between both companies.
  • Web Presence - It’s a decent site, not bad at all. Could use a bit more personality, some more previews of books and samples of the eye-popping art.
  • Review Copy Policy - Excellent. Always pleasant and helpful.
  • Humanoids in 2004 - Things are looking rosy. Better distribution, and more books—about 36 this year are planned. Of course, it remains to be seen who bites, but the deal will at the very least get these books into bookstores where non-superhero readers can find them, and at least DC has enough money to nurse the venture along for a while as it grows.

  Future Comics - I haven’t heard much of anything about this outfit for months. Unlike CrossGen, Future didn’t even really make a big splash when they debuted, they just kind of appeared on the stands and set right to the business of floundering. The books I’ve read haven’t been awful, but they have been retrograde in art and design, and pretty poorly written. The talent involved, Bob Layton, Dick Giordano, and David Michelinie, have brought me quite a bit of pleasure over the years, but it’s just not working for me anymore. Future needed fresher concepts and some young blood, and it may be too late. Also, they may have had a good idea to go from publishing monthly pamphlets to going straight to trades, but they really blew it with the price, the first ones collecting only three or four issues for a whopping $17 or $18. Ridiculous and insulting.

  • Public Face - Other than a former employee or something posting some nastiness about Bob Layton early in the year, or late in 2002(?), there hasn’t been anything bad about the company, nor good, for that matter. It’s kind of hard to hear a full-of-himself Layton talking about the decline of the monthly comic as the reason for the move to trades-only, when you know he’d be singing a different tune if any of their titles had Batman Hush numbers, or an eighth of them.
  • Web Presence - This is their message board, which I found on the third Google page after entering a search for “future comics Layton”, and this is their under-construction site—not sure how long it’s been like that. Not a good sign, but at least existing fans are being served on the board.
  • Review Copy Policy - I think they might provide them, who knows? Never asked. They did participate in Free Comic Day, so at least there’s a mindset to give that first taste for free.
  • Future in 2004 - Not bright.

  Alternative Comics - It seemed like a pretty typical year of good, near-good, and occasionally bad or self-indulgent comics. Nick Bertozzi’s RUBBER NECKER is one of the most interesting comics of the past several years, and AC publishes many talented creators with a wide range of styles, including Dave Lasky & Greg Stump, Robert Ullman, Leela Corman, SamHenderson, Rick Smith. But the publisher was faced with a disaster near the end of the year, as the printer messed up all the covers of one of their biggest books, PEANUT BUTTER & JEREMY’S BEST BOOK EVER. I believe you can get it now and they’ll send you a special jacket created by Kochalka to make up for the problem, which is a good gesture, but the error hit Alternative hard. While I think their editing and publishing strategy is as variable and goofy as Top Shelf’s, I do like them, and see this as kind of a training ground for several significant, or potentially significant creators.

  • Public Face - I think the company suffers by mostly publishing just pamphlets, especially pamphlets from very slow creators unlikely to collect their material for years to come. Because of this, there’s little to get reviewers outside the regular comics world interested in covering their products. And they don’t publish regularly enough, or high concept enough, material that they can quickly and easily promote across fanboy venues like The Pulse. Despite the dearth of reviews, publisher Jeff Mason regularly—almost daily—sends e-mails about comics.

  • Web Presence - Perfectly functional site, clearly showing almost every creator they publish right on the home page. However, while “News” is easily found, I tend to think the most recent couple of items should appear right on the home page, instantly letting a visitor know what’s, well, news. Also, while it’s nice that publisher Jeff Mason sends emails about everything his artists are up to, and who’s reviewing what book where, and how comics—his own and others—are being perceived outside of the industry, it gets to be a bit hard to parse the important stuff. There’s just too much being sent, and nine times out of ten, he sends a follow-up with a correction.
  • Review Copy Policy - Pretty good. My thinking is that if a reviewer expresses interest and you agree to give him books, you then keep that person on a mailing list and send stuff regularly, or at least ask if he’d like to receive this or that. You don’t just make the reviewer always have to come to you and ask three times to get something, having to provide your address every time.
  • Alternative in 2004 - Probably little different, as they continue to publish a lot of the same people in slowly advancing series, but when Mason adds a new creator, at least half the time they’re worth a look.

  Beckett - They're a trading card company who've done well enough with that, and other YU-GI-OH magazines and merchandise, that they've branched into comics. This is not a new development, but it was in 2003 that they really went about it in earnest, Jeff Amano overseeing some youngish writers and artists on existing property GENE-FUSION, licensed properties YU-GI-OH and DRAGONBALL Z, and the new license TERMINATOR 3, an ongoing series of "two-shots" with a revolving cast of creators, set in the world of the T3 film. David Mack has provided some stylish covers, and the one-shots are a rather amazing $2.99 for 48 perfect-bound, glossy pages. I admire them spending money to (hopefully) make money. The books look good...on the outside. The contents are variable, sometimes good but often feeling a little stretched out in order to be cinematic. I do think they're worth watching; it just hasn't all come together yet with a really good book.

  Public Face - They're pretty active. I liked that the T3 movie magazines had previews of the comics tie-ins, as these mags were available everywhere, including grocery stores. That's some good exposure for genre comics. Through no fault of theirs, the license is probably pretty much past its expiration date, so hopefully they can turn company-owned titles like RUULE or something new into worthwhile books.
  • Web Presence - An attractive site, but hard to navigate, and the Flash previews are slow to load for not much of a payoff.
  • Review Copy Policy - Very reliable, somewhat personalized and very professional.
  • Beckett in 2004 - I think they have the machinery in place to have a hit--promotion and good production. They may even have the talent, though some artists like Mike Hawthorne have been inappropriate for something like Terminator. But this all has to come together in a really satisfying, unique book.

  CrossGen Entertainment is over. I’m not trying to throw another spadeful of dirt on the creators, Mark Alessi, or anyone else involved. It just didn’t work out. A couple months ago I read some online tool talking about “the dream” being over, but not dead…or something. What dream? I wouldn’t call the books soulless (actually, maybe I did once, but hey, they had a book called SOLUS, so who could resist?), but aside from a couple good books like the Waid/Guice RUSE and the Bedard/Moline ROUTE 666 they were merely pretty sci-fi/fantasy books stretched out like manga but without the verve, the humor, the lyrical violence, or any other qualities of the best and most successful manga. They were superhero comics in other clothes, and now they’re the latest example of how hard it is for a superhero comic to make it without established characters. Their public face was bad and now is invisible, but they were always good about review copies and keeping up their website. Best of luck to all those still toiling in Tampa.

  Next Week: I’ll wrap up this report card business with Viz, Fantagraphics, Highwater, Oni, IDW, AiT/PlanetLar, Pantheon, Slave Labor, Dark Horse Comics, Cyberosia, I-Books, Harris and NBM. And hey, if I’m forgetting anyone, let me know in time! And please, I’m not talking about self-publishers, or companies that just publish one or two titles, like Astonish, Arcade or Cartoon Books. Nor am I talking about comics-related publishers like Vanguard or TwoMorrows. Also, I will finally present my interview with the above-mentioned Mr. Tony Isabella, as we discuss comics reviewing and a few other things. And as always, my own reviews, because that’s kinda the point of this thing. Speaking of which, I’ve been getting a lot of nice looking indie books and minicomics, and will try to get into most of them over the next couple columns.

  Chris Allen

  If you would like a comic or graphic novel reviewed, send to:

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  Chris Allen has written for Comic Book Galaxy, NinthArt and PopImage.

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