DESOLATION JONES #1
Written by Warren Ellis
Published by DC/Wildstorm

This was both entertaining and instructive. Ellis offered issue one in raw script form to columnists and other felons a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see how his mind worked in putting together a book.

When you take the time to look at scripts from various writers, you’ll see a basically similar format from most of them, with some variance in what’s capitalized, italicized, and that sort of thing, but where you can tell the biggest difference is in their page and panel descriptions. Ellis’ pages are very open; unless my brain has failed me, I don’t recall a page in this story that has more than six panels. To go with that, his descriptions for the action and sets in the panels are described very tightly, and yet there’s a lot of room to play for artist J.H. Williams (who’ll be illustrating the book). Take this passage for example:

”Cut To: The frontage of a porn store in a shitty part of town. The signage proclaims it to be FILTHY SANCHEZ ADULT SUPPLIES, and the logo is of a girl in black leather riding a horse wearing blinkers. Robina and Jones stand outside looking up.”

Picture that in your head. Easy enough, yes? Yet Williams has an enormous amount of latitude in figure placement, body language, and in fully designing the look of the store. It should make for a fascinating panel, just on its own. Yet if I hadn’t read the script, it might have passed me by as just another panel setting the start of a new scene. Reading a script in this fashion, you can begin to understand more about storytelling.

As far as the actual content goes, JONES is pretty funny stuff. Desolation shares some characteristics with Ellis’ traditional badass loner heroes, but he’s much funnier, and the macguffin of the story is so ludicrous that I couldn’t stop shaking my head. I’m sure it’ll cause a stir when the book hits, though.

I don’t imagine that this book will be a huge commercial success in comics shops; too many halfwits will never ignore the latest SUPERMAN/BATMAN to get behind a book wherein a madman takes on a job from an old man dying of seventy different venereal diseases. Fuck ‘em. That’s their loss. Life’s too short not to read books this fun. Grade: A

TOTALLY OBVIOUS: THE COMPLETE M.O.T.O. COLLECTION
Written by Steven Grant
Published by Paper Movies Press

Steven Grant has probably forgotten more about comics that you and I will ever know. It’s just a sad fact. Grant, who currently writes the column “Permanent Damage” at Comic Book Resources, has collected his first (and completed) column from that site in this book. “Master Of The Obvious” was the name of this weekly happening, and the columns are a mixed bag of remembrance, behind the scenes doings, memoir, and venting on the industry. Having come into comics over twenty-five years ago, Grant’s seen the rise and fall of publishers, editors, trends, and the market itself, and he never steps lightly in bringing some harsh and truthful light to the proceedings. I’ve had the pleasure to get to know Steven a bit, and let me tell you: there are few things more interesting or rewarding that sitting and listen to him talk, because he always has something intriguing to say, even if you don’t agree with him or understand where he’s coming from. My only beef with this book is that it’s only available online, making finding a place of honor for it on the bookcase a bit difficult. Grade: A-

HANGING OUT WITH THE DREAM KING
Interviews by Joseph McCabe
Published by Fantagraphics

Reading this book can only leave you with a strange, unsettling feeling. In interviewing twenty-seven different people who have collaborated with Neil Gaiman in comics, film, fiction, and music, McCabe presents an almost too intimate portrait of the legendary scribe. In fact, it’s as if you slept with Neil, and by the end of reading the book, you realized you never called and you feel like a complete shit for it. But if you can put the near-stalker sensation behind you, what emerges is a fascinating tome that does a terrific job of introducing both Gaiman’s works and his creative process to the reader. For many, including myself, the best material details some of the deeper details about the first year of SANDMAN and the artistic struggles it went through. Other highlights include a terrific piece with Jill Thompson, who illustrated what has grown to be my favorite portion of the SANDMAN saga. I’m curious what possessed McCabe to undertake this type of book, though I suppose it’s a bit of irony that Neil finds himself the subject of one, considering his first work was a fannish book on Duran Duran. Still, a worthy effort indeed, and Fantagraphics’ production quality is as lovely as ever. Grade: A-

QUIXOTE
Written by Bryan J.L. Glass, With Illustrations by Michael Avon Oeming
Published by Image Comics

This is the closest thing to a comic in this week’s haul. QUIXOTE is an illustrated novel, with pages and panels from Oeming sliding effortlessly into the text, albeit in much different fashion than RENT GIRL. This is a modern day update/retelling of Cervantes’ classic hero. Bringing the character to present day certainly makes it a more cinematic affair, and much about it works, but it has troubles getting the reader involved.

The first half of this novel starts very slowly, though it gives you one solid moment of action. We meet our Quixote at the start, as he’s now a rundown homeless man, but he springs back to the battle when some thugs try to set a homeless youth on fire. The tale’s Dulcinea, TV reporter Dominique Angel arrives on the scene and documents the old man’s “heroics.” Then the book began to lose me. A good chunk of pages pass that introduce more characters and try and deepen the mystery about who the old man is and why some people perceive him to look like a younger (and much more dashing) man. “Exposition heavy” would be an excellent description. We also find out more about Dominique in those pages, and she’s drawn in such a way as to be so unsympathetic that it’s difficult to care about her. Yes, the tale is in good measure about her redemption, but you have to want her to redeem herself, and that’s difficult at more than one juncture.

Still, as the book gets to the halfway point, it finds itself. The pace quickens, the characters begin to deepen and become more interesting, the mystery is mostly out of the way, and it becomes a much more rollicking adventure tale. The last half of the book is terrific fun, grabbing you by the collar and making it difficult to find a bookmark and put it down. Glass finds a way to redeem Dominique (though she’s still completely annoying ‘til it’s nearly too late), finds a pace that works, and allows Oeming plenty of room for his terrific illustrations. Glass also has a terrific passage between two characters that describes the history of the Quixote character in both literature and stage that is enormously useful as well. Honestly, I wanted to like QUIXOTE much more than I did; that first half was a killer, and twice I nearly closed the cover and put it away. But the second half was strong enough, and Oeming’s art is lovely enough, to still recommend it without reservation. Grade: B

Sequential art returns next week.

Review materials may be sent to: Marc Mason, P.O. Box 26732, Tempe, AZ 85285. You can also find me at Happy Nonsense and The Comics Waiting Room

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