Listen to Hibbs Babble!

On Monday I did another podcast interview with the Comic Geek Speak guys.

You can hear it right here.

-B

Abhay: GUS AND HIS GANG by Chris Blain

On account of the whole “busy” thing, I’ve missed out on most of the Big Books of the Year so far. And on account of the whole “$4! For what???” thing, I’ve missed out on most of the mainstream, too. Halfway into the year, I think my favorite book so far is probably GUS AND HIS GANG by Chris Blain, published by First Second. Hell, not even a 2009 book, released in 2008, already definitively and thoroughly reviewed by my betters, placing the following somewhere between drastically unnecessary and deeply embarrassing, really. Now up for an Eisner Award in the category of Best Book No One Cares Won an Eisner. The nomination is well deserved for the art alone; perfectly paced, expressive, *funny*, fast-moving. Enormously pleasurable. But: I liked the story, too, I think, in case that matters especially (it doesn’t).

The premise: three cowboys, robbing banks, getting into adventures, violently dealing with a variety of enemies. None of which ends up mattering very much, none of which the book is particularly about. The cowboys don’t really care about being cowboys; it’s a French comic— the cowboys are just interested in girls.

Westerns. Why do you think “the Western is dead”? The chattering class says that every so often, when some minor movie like Russell Crowe’s dopey 3:10 TO YUMA remake fails at the box office. “The Western is dead.”

A common sub-species is to claim some great movie ended it, usually Clint Eastwood’s UNFORGIVEN. “UNFORGIVEN ended the Western, and now the Western is dead.” I don’t know that I understand that. UNFORGIVEN might say “the traditional Western story was all lies.” But why would that matter commercially? What genre fiction doesn’t rely on a little lying? They made four DIE HARD movies regardless, and even the fourth one is pretty rad. Die Hard fights evil computers in it, but he refuses to die thereby making him hard to die a death caused by computers, skyscrapers, airplanes, or terrible Samuel L. Jackson movies. Why not cowboys?

Actually, snobbier types usually blame everything on the same two movies: “STAR WARS and JAWS ended the Western. They ended the 1970’s. They ended actors, writers, directors, and parents mattering. They ended Robert Kennedy’s bid for the Presidency, cookies tasting good to children, and the myth of the vaginal orgasm.”

But I don’t know that I disagree with the premise that the Western is dead, particularly. Genres do sort of diminish in popularity over time. Screwball comedies. Point & Click adventure games. Sitcoms with super-bizarre premises. Steve Guttenberg, in toto. People used to love the Goot; I still think he’s hilarious. Go figure.

I’m inclined to say there’s no ailment on earth that swearing and hookers can’t fix, but there’s a non-existent fourth season of DEADWOOD saying I might be wrong about that.

My guess: I think people’s tolerance for looking at dirty people has gone down over the years. Cowboys, all covered with dust and dirt, with deodorant nowhere to be seen? Maybe that’s all too gross for our sissified age. I remember that was a reaction I heard a couple times over to a non-Western, Kevin Costner’s box-office disaster WATERWORLD: “Why is he so dirty the entire movie if he’s living on the Waterworld? Why can’t he just go bathe in the Waterworld? He’s surrounded by water!” The Western dies around the same time as the rise of metrosexuality and lady-boy action stars— coincidence? Or just one more thing Orlando Bloom needs to answer for, besides fucking ELIZABETHTOWN.

Some day we all must answer for fucking ELIZABETHTOWN, as a species, and there will be no cowboys there to save us.

The Western comes up among comic fans on occasion, strangely prominent on the cliché list of What’s Missing from Comics: “Where are the mystery comics, the romance comics, the Western comics?” But mysteries happen, in life. Romances happen, in life. Walk down the wrong alley at night with money hanging out of your pants, and either and/or both of those things could happen to you.

But when do Westerns happen, in daily life…?

“This is Hi-Fi... high fidelity. What that means is that it's the highest quality fidelity.”

The thing GUS AND HIS GANG most reminded me of wasn’t a Western anyways. It was SEINFELD. SEINFELD, Season 8, Episode 143, entitled “The Abstinence.” That’s the episode where Jerry Seinfeld’s sidekick George has a girlfriend (Louise) who gets sick. As a result, George has to give up sex for six weeks.

When George gives up sex? He becomes a genius.

Jerry, from that episode: “Yeah. I mean, let's say this is your brain. (Holds lettuce head) Okay, from what I know about you, your brain consists of two parts: the intellect, represented here (Pulls off tiny piece of lettuce), and the part obsessed with sex. (Shows large piece) Now granted, you have extracted an astonishing amount from this little scrap. But with no-sex-Louise, this previously useless lump, is now functioning for the first time in its existence. (Eats tiny piece of lettuce).”

I think about that episode basically all the time. And by all the time, I mean the time I spend looking at internet pornography. I could have been a genius, cam whores! All that time, lost! To the internet, magazines, flipbooks. On one confusing yet magical night, a rerun of BARNEY MILLER. Lost, so much time lost! There are entire advanced degrees I could have earned. If I had that time back? I could have easily earned a Ph.D. You would have to call me DOCTOR SHITHEAD in the comments section of this post.

The best way to look at it is, “These things aren’t distractions from work. We work so that we can afford time to spend trolling for creepy thrills in DAWSON’S CREEK chatrooms.” But I’m just not that care-free. It’s just too difficult to spend time guilt-free watching something called PIRATES 2: STAGNETTI’S REVENGE. Because I’m really not sure how Stagnetti got any sort of revenge in that movie whatsoever. Herpes, maybe, but revenge? Aah, sweet mystery of life.

Of course, a more puritanical sort would say the ability to say no, to refrain, is what separates Man from the apes. Guy on the public radio the other day, though, was saying what actually separated man from the apes is that man cooks his food. I prefer that. If we’re lowering the bar to mankind to the ability to sauté, I feel like my cause in this world has been advanced, however slightly. I can cook up all sorts of shit; suck on that, you damn dirty apes.

Success, education, upbringing— none of that might keep a person from unraveling completely, if certain launch codes are pushed in the correct order. People I've known? Lawyers, architects, engineers, all equally screwed up once they're off the clock. Rich, powerful business executives with elaborate “understandings” and "loopholes" in their relationships more sophisticated than a damn WTO treaty. Even in comics: as soon as Spider-man learns to take off his glasses and comb his hair, and he’s 5% less of a nerd socially, he’s out trying to get revenge for his high school years by hate-fucking a model?

(Rhino on the Rampage...)

The characters in GUS AND HIS GANG are similarly distracted. Blain draws what they’re thinking right onto their face: “This could all be so much easier if I could just keep my mind on what I’m supposed to be doing. Robbing banks. Shooting guns. Riding horses. Running from the law. Living a proper, cowboy life.”

But, yeah: no. Not meant to be. Blain takes the most macho of genres, and uses it to wallow in male self-pity. Blain’s cowboys are completely awesome at being cowboys; macho’s easy. But past that, they’re stumbling around in the dark, like the rest of us. I like that; that’s clever.

And I suppose that’s not a lovable comedic topic for everybody, male self-pity. I’m amused by it, but I’ll acknowledge it can be kissing cousins to a very tiresome “men are all dogs, am I right, ladies?” type of humor. Or Benny Hill comes to mind, say— not a lot of people defending Benny Hill in the world. On the other hand, they say Benny Hill was a workaholic who died a lonely, mean virgin, surrounded by cash and un-deposited checks— which, you know, there’s probably a metaphor there somewhere. At least, if you want to listen to what They say. They say the “Western is Dead” and they say “Bennie Hill died a workaholic virgin” and they say “Aliens did not insert a probe into your anus.” Well, how come my rectum is sore, you government sons of bitches? Oh, right: I was fingering my ass while watching reruns of THE BENNY HILL SHOW. That’s what I’m into now. The nervous system gets desensitized to stimuli over time, so you’ve got to up the ante now and then. I upped it to stimulating my prostate to the soulful sound of Yakety Sax. Right… I forgot…

But the older I get and the worse I get, I basically find stories about failure comforting. Blain’s cowboys struggle to interpret a lady’s conflicting signals properly. They struggle to work the bar scene properly. They struggle to keep from cheating. Fail, fail, fail.

So, I relate to that. And yes: I also relate to crying. Why do people keep asking me that?

Stories about characters deciding this or deciding that-- those are fun. When you read them, you get to pretend to believe fun things like “You create who you are. You’re in charge of how you respond to conflicts. You decide your destiny.” But it’s pretty relieving, something like GUS AND HIS GANG. Sometimes, you don't get to decide how your brain works, or control every last thought; sometimes, you just enjoy the ride. That doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to me for a comic book to be about.

Did I ever pitch you my idea for a yaoi Western called WOWBOYS?

GUS AND HIS GANG is divided into a series of shorter comics of varying length. I hope against hope that this is the sort of comic that’s featured by MAD MAGAZINE in France. You know how they have international editions of magazines like TIME? Is that true of MAD? Oh, how I wish MAD FRANCE were true.

American 4th grader, talking about latest issue of MAD: "The new issue, it’s like STAR WARS except Luke Skywalker is called Leaky Aircrutch. They really take the piss out of STAR WARS, man."

French 4th grader, talking about latest issue of MAD FRANCE: "Ahh, yes, the new issue is about a sexual cowboy. Sometimes, there is carnality, and yet sometimes, he is frustrated by his inability to understand women. But alas, life is sometimes like that. Let us smoke and think upon these things, then laugh as we must at the futility of trying to control our manhood. My greatest ambition in life is to become immortal, and then die."

Woman: "You have no values. With you, it’s all nihilism, cynicism, sarcasm, and orgasm."

Woody: "Hey, in France, I could run for office with that slogan, and win!"

On REBORN (update 2)

Happy birthday to me! (No, really, it is my birthday -- and yet I'm working. What's up with that?)

Just for a quick follow up: The New York Daily News has now run the story that REBORN #1 is, in fact, the return of Steve Rogers. (It also doesn't say anything about CAPTAIN AMERICA #600, out this week, ah well)

...

...

...

That's me waiting for the phone to ring.

Yeah, not going to happen -- resurrections just don't pack the same punch that deaths do.

At the end of the day, Marvel decided to fuck with retailers in the hope that news would break big. That doesn't seem to have happened.

The shame of it is that if they had told us this at point of initial solicitation I could have played it up in store, I could have gathered subs and interest and preorders, and I would have had a stronger order placed because there would have been excitement about the "how" of it.

Now, not so much.

I'll sell plenty of copies, I'm sure -- but not "Civil War" plenty or "Secret Invasion" plenty, or, most certainly, not "Spider-Man and Obama big". Or even "Death of Captain America" big.

I feel bad for those retailers who bought/are buying the book at any of those kinds of "big" levels, BUT THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LET A PUBLISHER "GAME" THE SYSTEM.

At the end of the day YOUR orders determine what publishers do. If you automagically buy 10% more copies of a book to get that 1:10 variant cover, you're guaranteed they will do more and more variant covers. If you order blindly on the HOPE that there's a story published in the news, AND that that story will have meaning and resonance with the general public, then they're going to continue to do that, as well.

Just something to think about.

-B

(Oooh, seconds before I was about to hit "post" I got a call asking for CAP #600. As near as I can tell, no one in town bit on the early shipping thing? Anyway, he didn't sound like a civ, though I didn't interrogate him or anything)

Arriving 6/17/2009

Here's what is coming this week....

ACTION COMICS ANNUAL #12
ACTRESS AND THE BISHOP #1
AIR #10
ALL NEW SAVAGE SHE-HULK #3 (OF 4) DKR
ANGEL #22
BARACK OBAMA THE ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE #1
BATMAN STREETS OF GOTHAM #1
BETTY & VERONICA #242
BETTY & VERONICA DIGEST #195
BOMB QUEEN PRESENTS ALL GIRL COMICS (ONE SHOT)
BOYS HEROGASM #2 (OF 6)
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #24
CABLE #15 XMW
CAPTAIN AMERICA #600
CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI 13 #14
CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #58
DARK REIGN FANTASTIC FOUR #4 (OF 5) DKR
DARK REIGN HAWKEYE #3 (OF 5) DKR
DARK REIGN MISTER NEGATIVE #1 (OF 3) DKR
DARK REIGN YOUNG AVENGERS #2 (OF 5) DKR
DARK TOWER THE FALL OF GILEAD #2 (OF 6)
DEAD AT 17 AFTERBIRTH #1 (OF 4)
DESTROYER #3 (OF 5)
ELEPHANTMEN #20 (RES)
EX MACHINA #43
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT IRIS #1 BENITEZ CVR
FALL OF CTHULHU NEMESIS #3 (OF 4)
FANTASTIC FORCE #3 (OF 5)
FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH DANCE #2 (OF 6)
GENEXT UNITED #2 OF(5)
GREEN ARROW BLACK CANARY #21
GROOM LAKE #3
HELLBLAZER #256
INCOGNITO #4
INVINCIBLE #63
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #14 DKR
JACK OF FABLES #35
JUGHEADS DOUBLE DIGEST #151
MADMAN ATOMIC COMICS #16 (RES)
MAN WITH NO NAME #11
MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS #37
MARVEL PETS HANDBOOK
MARVEL ZOMBIES 4 #3 (OF 4)
MASQUERADE #4
MIGHTY AVENGERS #26 DKR
MYSTERIUS THE UNFATHOMABLE #6 (OF 6)
OUTSIDERS #19
PHONOGRAM 2 #3 (OF 7) SINGLES CLUB
POWER GIRL #2
PROJECT SUPERPOWERS CHAPTER TWO #0
PUNISHER #6 DKR
RED MASS FOR MARS #3 (OF 4) (RES)
REX MUNDI DH ED #18
SIMPSONS COMICS #155
STAR TREK WRATH OF KHAN #2
STAR WARS KNIGHTS OLD REPUBLIC #42 MASKS PT 1 ( OF 3) (C: 1-
SUPERGIRL #42
SUPERMAN BATMAN #61
TALES FROM WONDERLAND CHESHIRE CAT ONE-SHOT
THOR TRIAL OF THOR
TINY TITANS #17
ULTIMATUM SPIDER-MAN REQUIEM #1 (OF 2)
VIGILANTE #7
WAR MACHINE #7
WAR OF KINGS ASCENSION #3 (OF 4)
WOLVERINE ORIGINS #37 DKR
WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ #7 (OF 8)
WORLD OF WARCRAFT #20
X-MEN LEGACY #225
X-MEN ORIGINS GAMBIT #1
YOUNG ALLIES COMICS #1 70TH ANNIV SPECIAL
YOUNG LIARS #16

Books / Mags / Stuff
BATMAN THE BLACK CASEBOOK TP
BODY BAGS TP VOL 01 FATHERS DAY
BORIS VALLEJO & JULIE BELL ULTIMATE ILLUSTRATIONS SC
CINEFEX #118 JUL 2009
CLASSIC MARVEL FIGURINE COLL MAG #50 HAWKEYE
COMPLETE JUST A PILGRIM TP
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG #10 RAS AL GHUL
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG #11 LEX LUTHOR
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG #28 SINESTRO
FAT CHUNK GN VOL 02 ZOMBIE
GREEN LANTERN SINESTRO CORPS WAR TP VOL 02
HITMAN TP VOL 01 A RAGE IN ARKHAM TP NEW PTG
LOST OFFICIAL MAGAZINE #23 PX ED
LOW MOON
MAGIC TRIXIE GN VOL 03 MAGIC TRIXIE & THE DRAGON
MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS TP VOL 09 DIGEST
MICE TEMPLAR TP VOL 01
NAOKI URASAWA 20TH CENTURY BOYS GN VOL 03
NEXUS AS IT HAPPENED TP VOL 01
POWER PACK CLASSIC TP VOL 01
PUNISHER YEAR ONE TP
QUESTION THE FIVE BOOKS OF BLOOD TP
RED SONJA HC VOL 06
REQUIEM LE CHEVALIER VAMPIRE COLLECTION TP
REX LIBRIS TP VOL 02 BOOK OF MONSTERS
SEX LIES AND PRIVATE EYES (RES)
SIZZLE #42 (A)
SLEEPER SEASON 1 TP
SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE SEASON 2 TP SOPHOMORE JINX
SPIDER-MAN NEW WAYS TO DIE TP
STARMAN OMNIBUS HC VOL 03
T RUNT HC
THE IRREDEEMABLE ANT-MAN TP
ULTIMATE ORIGINS TP
WASTELAND TP VOL 04 DOG TRIBE
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO WORLD OF TOMORROW HC
WILL EISNERS SPIRIT ARCHIVES HC VOL 26 (RES)
WONTON SOUP GN VOL 02
X-INFERNUS HC
YTHAQ PREM HC FORSAKEN WORLD
ZORRO YEAR ONE TP VOL 01 TRAIL O/T FOX PX ED

Arriving 6/10/2009

So. Very. Tired...

2000 AD #1635
2000 AD #1636
ABSOLUTION #0 (OF 6)
ACTION COMICS #878
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #597 DKR
ANGEL BLOOD AND TRENCHES #4
ANNA MERCURY 2 #1 (OF 5)
ARCHIE & FRIENDS #132
BATMAN #687
BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #30
BETA RAY BILL GODHUNTER #1 (OF 3)
BILLY BATSON AND THE MAGIC OF SHAZAM #5
BOOSTER GOLD #21
BPRD WAR ON FROGS #3 (OF 4)
BUCK ROGERS #1
CHANNEL EVIL #1
DEADPOOL #11 DKR
DMZ #42
DOCTOR WHO AUTOPIA (ONE SHOT)
ENDERS GAME RECRUITING VALENTINE
FABLES #85
FANTASTIC FOUR #567
FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH ESCAPE #2 (OF 6)
FLASH REBIRTH #3 (OF 6)
GEN 13 #30
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #37
JSA VS KOBRA ENGINES OF FAITH #1 (OF 6)
LIFE AND TIMES OF SAVIOR 28 #3
LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS #2 (OF 4)
MARVEL ADVENTURES SUPER HEROES #12
MISS AMERICA COMICS #1 70TH ANNIV SPECIAL
PALS N GALS DOUBLE DIGEST #132
PHANTOM GHOST WHO WALKS #3 CVR A
PRIDE & PREJUDICE #3 (OF 5)
PUNISHER FRANK CASTLE MAX #71
REBELS #5
RED ROBIN #1
RESURRECTION VOL 2 #1
SAVAGE DRAGON #149
SCOOBY DOO #145
SHERLOCK HOLMES #2 (OF 5)
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #201
SOUL KISS #5 (OF 5)
SPIRIT #29
STAR TREK WRATH OF KHAN #1
STORMING PARADISE #6 (OF 6) (RES)
STRANGE ADVENTURES OF HP LOVECRAFT #2 (OF 4)
STREET FIGHTER LEGENDS CHUN LI #3 (OF 4) A CVR DOGAN
SUPER FRIENDS #16
TERMINATOR REVOLUTION #5 (OF 5)
THOR TALES OF ASGARD BY LEE & KIRBY #2 (OF 6)
TITANS #14
TOY STORY MYSTERIOUS STRANGER #1 (OF 4)
UNCANNY X-MEN #511
UNCANNY X-MEN FIRST CLASS GIANT-SIZE SPECIAL #1
UNKNOWN #2 (OF 4)
UNTHINKABLE #2 (OF 4)
UNWRITTEN #2
VEIL #1
WALKING DEAD #62
WAR OF KINGS SAVAGE WORLD OF SKAAR
WITCHBLADE DARKNESS ANGELUS BLOOD ON SANDS (ONE SHOT)
WOLVERINE #74
X-FACTOR #44
X-MEN FOREVER #1

Books / Mags / Stuff
30 DAYS OF NIGHT 30 DAYS TIL DEATH TP
ART OF HARVEY KURTZMAN HC
BLEACH TP VOL 27
CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI 13 TP VOL 02 HELL COMES TO BIRMINGHAM
COLOR OF WATER GN
CONAN HC VOL 07 CIMMERIA
DARE GN
DARK REIGN DEADPOOL THUNDERBOLTS TP
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG SPEC ANTI MONITOR
DOUGLAS FREDERICKS & HOUSE OF THEY TP (RES)
DRAGONERO TP
ESSENTIAL THOR TP VOL 04
EXCALIBUR VISIONARIES ALAN DAVIS TP VOL 01
FINAL CRISIS COMPANION TP
FINAL CRISIS HC
FLASH THE HUMAN RACE TP
FOUR FRIGHTENED WOMEN (RES)
HEAVY METAL JULY 2009
JSA SERIES 1 BALANCED ONE THIRD CASE ASST
JUXTAPOZ VOL 16 #6 JUN 2009
LEES TOY REVIEW #199 JUN 2009
PIXIE GN VOL 02 (OF 4)
RED TP NEW EDITION
RUNAWAYS TP DEAD WRONG
RUNAWAYS TP VOL 08 DEAD END KIDS DIGEST
SHOWCASE PRESENTS GREEN LANTERN TP VOL 04
STAR TREK MAGAZINE #18 SPECIAL NEWSSTAND ED
SUPERMAN LAST SON TP
SUPREME POWER HIGH COMMAND PREM HC
TOYFARE #144 MATTEL GHOSTBUSTERS CVR
WITCHBLADE ORIGINS TP VOL 02 REVELATIONS
X-MEN THE END TRILOGY TP
YOUNG LIARS TP VOL 02 MAESTRO
ZOMBIE TALES VOL 04 (OF 4) THIS BITES

What looks good to YOU?

-B

Croonin' into the beer of a drunk man: Douglas vs. 6/3

BATMAN AND ROBIN #1: I love just looking at Frank Quitely's art for this comic. The little details are the most immediate pleasure: the evenly spaced blobby teeth in Toad's mouth, the cutaway diagram of Wayne Tower, and most of all the utterly indignant, entitled expressions on every single iteration of Damian's face. And the in-art sound effects are a particularly nice touch, a subtle riff on the '60s Batman TV show that Morrison and Quitely are rehabilitating here. Going back to re-read it, I'm noticing more of Quitely's layout tricks, especially the preponderance of extreme closeups and long-shots; almost every page is composed as a cascade of pagewide panels, with the prominent exception of a couple of sequences that are all about vertical motion. (There are also not one but two scenes in which characters are climbing vertical ladders while holding something away from the ladder in one hand.) I don't know about the weird pixelated colors Alex Sinclair is using for a lot of the backgrounds, although I like the dominant-color-in-each-panel scheme he uses for that Geoff Johns-style "preview of coming attractions" page--yes, okay, these are all going to be different storylines! A VERY GOOD start. SEAGUY: SLAVES OF MICKEY EYE #3: Yes, I am a Morrison stan. But this is one of the most purely delightful comics I've read this year, from Chubby da Ché on the cover to the Silver Age-y expository dialogue ("If he's Doc Hero, let's see him prove it by picking up those ten-ton chains"). I think I laughed aloud at almost every page, sometimes at particular gags but more often from how dead-on the whole thing is and how neatly it milks whimsy out of bubbling existential discomfort. Cameron Stewart seems to have drawn this issue in bolder strokes than he has before (literally--I can't remember the last non-kids' comic with contour lines this thick), and it's appropriate for the fabulistic tone of the story. Also, the conclusion to the big revolutionary showdown, in which everything is Disneyfied right back to old-fashioned consensus reality, and our hero gets offered the chance to serve the game now that he's beaten it--"S.O.S. the status quo!"--is a nice corrective to the excesses of Morrison's familiar "why destroy your corporate masters when you can become them?" rhetoric. The X that Jog pointed out on the last page also stands for EXCELLENT.

CHEW #1: First issue of what is apparently an ongoing Image title by John Layman and Rob Guillory, and I can scarcely think of a concept that's seemed less likely to sustain an ongoing series since The Mundane Adventures of Dishman (where the narrowness of the joke was kind of the point). Our hero, Tony Chu, is a "cibopathic" detective--he can eat anything (except beets) and get psychic images of its entire history. (He's kind of a cross between Matter-Eater Lad and Josie Mac, if anyone remembers her.) On top of that, the series is set in a near-future scenario in which bird flu has caused the U.S. government to pass an amendment outlawing chicken, which is only available in "chicken speakeasies"... and so on. This is a premise for a one-off comedy sketch, not an open-ended epic. So there's an odd dissonance between the ways in which Layman and Guillory are taking it seriously (the book's tone and, in some ways, its color schemes have a lot in common with Fell, and there are some impressive bits of storytelling, like a two-page spread in which Chu is overwhelmed by hundreds of tiny panels' worth of psychic impressions of a spoonful of soup) and the ways in which they're playing it off as a goof ("nutty" dialogue, the super-broad caricatures of Guillory's character design). It's highly OKAY--at the moment, I find it promising much more for Layman and Guillory as creators to keep an eye on than for itself as a series, but I'm prepared for it to surprise me.

Hibbsian Capsules for June 4

I'm not going to speak for anyone else here, but there are weeks at a time where I just really don't have anything meaningful to say about that week's books, and I don't just want to post in order to post, y'know?

But I thought this was a nice week o' comics. Let's go!

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #596 DKR: Man, Phil Jimemez was only on for one issue of this storyline? Foul! Say what you will, Spidey is more readable than it has been in a long-ass time. I'm still frustrated by the "DKR" intruding on each and every thing in the Marvel U (especially because it feels like we got at least another year of this to go), but this is still basically OK stuff.

BANG TANGO #5 (OF 6): I can't review this -- I haven't read past issue #1, but I do want to note that this is the first Vertigo comic ever where I've reduced my rack copy orders down to a single copy at FOC. I actually don't think that Vertigo is capable of selling a periodical mini-series any longer because of their trade policies. Here's the thing though: one subber, one rack copy sold -- why would I order any copy of a theoretical trade paperback of this story? Discuss.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #1: Pretty, fun, but probably a little thin -- this was more of a vignette than a story, wasn't it? An extremely high GOOD, but it wasn't meaty enough to push it up much higher.

BOYS #31: I'm much less interested in this book when Robertson isn't drawing it. I really LIKE Ezquerra (or McCrea on HEROGASM), but when your name is above the title, then you should be drawing the book. Ennis very surprisingly kills a major character -- even if that character kind of doesn't HAVE a character yet. I would have thought we would have learned more before he got to that stage. I thought this one was oddly EH.

BTVS TALES OF THE VAMPIRES ONE SHOT: OK, this is goofy continuity point, but my understanding of the mythology of the Buffyverse was that when you became a vampire, "you" were effectively possessed by a demon who essentially took over your body and your memories (That's one of the reasons that all Vampires know "kung fu" the moment they rise, yeah?) -- and this would seem to completely ignore that concept altogether. It wasn't bad or anything, but shouldn't one follow the "rules" of the world you're in? Kinda EH.

CHEW #1: I think John Layman might have finally hit on the right concept for him. More darkly humorous than humorously dark, this concept seems fairly sustainable, and I enjoyed it quite a bit: GOOD.

FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH RUN #2 (OF 6): I don't know about anyone else, but these FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH books have been utter retail death for us -- single copy preorders, under-one-hand rack sales, I've NEVER seen follow-up series sell this far below the series they have spun from. A teeny part of it was leading with the wrong books -- RUN is the adventures of Captain Loathsome, after all -- but even DANCE with a solid author, and the I-thought-people-liked-them-at-least-ironically Super Young Team sold less than 3 rack copies for me. And the best of the bunch -- last week's INK (a solid GOOD), was down to a single rack sale. Sheesh. And there's five more months of these things scheduled. I nearly doubt that I'll be carrying rack copies of ANY of them by the time we get to the end... Anyway, RUN #2 is slightly AWFUL.

IRREDEEMABLE #3: I really really want to like this, but even the creepy sexual thing at the beginning didn't work because there isn't any context for anything that is happening. I don't think that it's enough to have a hooky premise -- "what if Superman suddenly turned evil" -- what matters is what you DO with it. I can't get into the premise because I never "saw" him be good, nor do we know why any of this happened. I guess Waid thinks the "why" is the story? It really isn't -- it's the ignition. I guess we're supposed to feel for Scylla and Charybdis here? But why? They're absolute ciphers -- there's no real reason for us to care other than "look, a few more of the character boxes now will have an X through them!". Sorry, this is EH.

KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #151: Other than SAVAGE DRAGON and NINJA HIGH SCHOOL, are there any other independently produced comics that are currently being published, that have crossed the 150 bar? (if I was at the store, I could answer that easily with the POS, couldn't I?) And, y'know, support a whole writing staff? This is a really amazing accomplishment, ESPECIALLY because no one in the comics field other than me ever even mentions this book. You'd think Spurge or Ace or maybe even Deppey would at least mention KoDT every once in a while. (Or NHS for that matter)

The best part is it really is funny -- albeit it aimed very sharply at a specific niche audience (gamers). If I have complaints (and I have two), they are these: A) I just don't think the World of Hackcraft stuff (obviously parodying WoWarcraft) is even a third as funny as the tabletop stuff. "Table chatter" is what MAKES KoDT, in a lot of ways, and they just can't pull that off in the WoH sections; B) they're often juggling too many storylines at once, stripping some of them of their inherent drama. As an example: this month's chapter of "Gary Returns" basically just restated what we learned in part 1, with virtually no new information.

What KoDT really REALLY needs, though, is their own version of Essential or Showcase volumes -- 20-25 issues worth for $20 (or less); preferably parsed in storyline order so the reading experience is worth it. The most recent "Bundle of Trouble" (their version of TPs -- they're at.. um, 23? 24?) was really essentially "all middle" because of the choice of material that was in there, and was less than a good read for it.

I wouldn't recommend you start here with 151, (150 was a much better jumping on point), but I'd VERY much recommend buying a Bundle of Trouble and going from there. 151 was GOOD.

MUPPET SHOW #3 (OF 4): I was reading the comics at home and both Ben and Tzipora asked me "Why are you reading a Muppet comic, isn't that for little kids?" Cracked me up. Then Tzipora asked "And just what is Gonzo anyway?" (Well, I think she said "that creature" because she doesn't have them memorized, BUT THE POINT REMAINS), which was funny because that's the very plot of this issue. This is solidly GOOD stuff.

SOLOMON GRUNDY #4 (OF 7) STRANGE ADVENTURES #4 (OF 8): I just want to observe that these are two DCU comics that I had to stop racking because I wasn't selling a single rack copy in the first few weeks. They both come out the same week, too, which is weird. Oddly, SOLOMON GRUNDY sells better than 2 or 3 other DCU books that I DO rack, because of sub requests from pre-#1's release. I was talking with Jeff Lester today about the shape of the business, and I think it is literally astonishing that there is a Jim Starlin comic I can't sell ANY rack copies of. I would not have pictured that as actually possible.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #133: Fuck. Seriously, you can't do a wordless comic for $4. FUCK, and no, you can't end your run on the book on such a downer note. Especially not a book like this. It is betraying the very thematic underpinnings of the book to do so. Completely ASS.

ULTIMATUM #4 (OF 5): plus, if you're going to do the Big Event, then you have to fucking get it out on time. AND have it be something more than just "Lots of people die, the end". This is really starting to smell like the last Wildstorm reboot to me, in terms of audience interest. EH.

As always, what did YOU think?

-B

REBORN #1 follow-up

As hoped, Marvel has officially extended the FOC date for REBORN #1 to Tuesday June 16th, so we should have basic information about REBORN in place before our orders are due.

"REBORN FOC MOVED TO TUESDAY 6/16 TO ALLOW MORE TIME FOR ORDERS!
Reborn #1 (MAY090412D, $3.99) is expected to receive nationwide mass media coverage on June 15, and in an effort to give retailers more time to adjust orders, the issue’s FOC date will be moved from Thursday, June 11 to Tuesday, June 16. The on sale date of July 1 is unaffected by the FOC adjustment."

Therefore, Comix Experience WILL now be able to rack the book.

See, complaining in public does occasionally do some minor amount of good.

However, everything about this sort of hinges on trust: how much does one trust Marvel to be able to "deliver" "nationwide mass media coverage". Clearly a news story has been brokered, but it is utterly an open question whether or not it will actually RUN (Any number of stories could very easily push it out of the "news cycle"), and, much MUCH more importantly, whether any one or not will CARE about whatever the revelation is.

There are several possibilities of what "Reborn" might be referring to, of course -- some suggest it might be the return of the Cap from "Truth: Red, White and Black", or, it could be the "Heroes Return" Cap (Since that version of Bucky is evidently in CAPTAIN AMERICA #600), or it could just be "our" Steve Rogers coming back from the dead. Or it could be something else. We won't know until 6/15. Happy birthday to me!

One of those stories might entice the general public (and the "Obama Grandmothers"), one won't even create a ripple within the Direct Market, and the last is likely to create a collective "So?"

(People seem to like Bucky-Cap just fine, after all)

If it IS the most obvious result (The return of Steve Rogers), then I'm willing to predict a still birth on this -- Brubaker's CAPTAIN AMERICA is a fine comic book, indeed, but rebirths almost never generate any real market heat, with the possibly notable exception of GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH which had on its side the fact that probably half (?) of GL readers actively disdained Kyle Rayner (the other half LOVED him), as well, to my mind, the idea that that would usher the return of the GL CORPS (Probably the best idea that comics, up to that point, had ever "thrown away")

It is worth mentioning (largely because this is getting fairly confusing) that CAPTAIN AMERICA #600, the putative lead-in to REBORN #1, will be "early released" on the Monday the news is meant to hit. For those who wish to pay for it, natch. That kind of direct shipping cost is fairly likely to run at about 5% of retail on the book, completely wiping out the benefit from the order incentive that Marvel ran.

But if the news DOES hit, there will be a bifurcation in the market -- because retailers have to pay the incoming shipping, additional staff and labor, etc etc, I'm not going to expect that a majority of retailers will actually pull that particular trigger. Which means the stores that DO will have a fairly hefty advantage. On the other hands if it is "just" "the return of Steve Rogers", I don't see a lot of civilian consumers biting -- people like death, they're less excited about returns.

(And, if you don't believe that, I'm sure I could act as a broker on AS MANY CASES of ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #500 as you might possibly want)

Comix Experience will not be one of those stores -- partly because we have Tuesday delivery, so paying 5% of retail for a (maybe) 24 hours advantage doesn't seem sensible to me; and partly because I'm not *expecting* any revelation other than "Steve Rogers returns" at this time.

What's horrifically fucked up about the CAPTAIN AMERICA #600 portion of this game is that that, effectively, most retailers had about a 3 hour window (on a Wednesday, fercryinoutloud -- when most retailers are frantically trying to help customers and don't have time to be obsessively checking email every 3 minutes) to make the decision whether to bring in those Monday CAPs or not. If you waited until Thursday it was too late to place order increases. Too bad, so sad.

Whatever these books end up being, however they end up selling, Marvel in my opinion handled this very poorly -- not giving retailers enough information OR time to make a properly formed decision. It was all "trust us".

And so far in this case, I'd argue they haven't given us enough reason to do so for these specific books.

On the other hand, they've generated a LOT of conversation, and way more "free press" then they would have otherwise, and I'm sure there are PLENTY of stores out there spiking their numbers up over all of these books. MARVEL is going to sell a whole lot more of these comics then they would have otherwise.

I just hope they sell THROUGH at retail.

-B

Arriving 6/3/2009

Man, June already? Well, at least here's a great week of comics for that!

A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #105 (A)
AGENTS OF ATLAS #6 DKR
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #596 DKR
ANGEL NOT FADE AWAY #2
ANITA BLAKE LC NECROMANCER #2 (OF 5)
ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #199
ASTONISHING TALES #5
ASTRO CITY THE DARK AGE BOOK THREE #2 (OF 4)
ATOMIC ROBO SHADOW FROM BEYOND TIME #2 (OF 5)
AUTHORITY #11
BANG TANGO #5 (OF 6)
BATMAN AND ROBIN #1
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA FINAL FIVE #3 (OF 4)
BETTY #180
BLACK PANTHER 2 #5 DKR
BOYS #31
BTVS TALES OF THE VAMPIRES ONE SHOT
CAPTAIN BLOOD ODYSSEY #1 (OF 5)
CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI13 ANNUAL #1
CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #38
CHEW #1
CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #11
DAREDEVIL NOIR #3 (OF 4)
DARK AVENGERS #5 DKR
DEAD IRONS #4 (OF 4)
DEAD RUN #1
DEADPOOL SUICIDE KINGS #3 (OF 5)
DOCTOR WHO CLASSICS SERIES 2 #7
EXILES #3
FARSCAPE STRANGE DETRACTORS #3 (OF 4)
FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH RUN #2 (OF 6)
FLASH GORDON #5
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #14
IRREDEEMABLE #3
JERSEY GODS #5
JONAH HEX #44
KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #151
LOONEY TUNES #175
MIGHTY #5
MIGHTY AVENGERS #25 DKR
MUPPET SHOW #3 (OF 4)
NEW AVENGERS REUNION #4 (OF 4) DKR
NEW MUTANTS #2
OFFICIAL INDEX TO MARVEL UNIVERSE #6
PHANTOM GENERATIONS #2
PS238 #39
PUNISHER MAX NAKED KILL #1
ROTTEN #1
SCALPED #29
SEAGUY THE SLAVES OF MICKEY EYE #3 (OF 3)
SECRET SIX #10
SKAAR #11
SOLOMON GRUNDY #4 (OF 7)
SPAWN #192
STAR TREK CREW #4
STRANGE ADVENTURES #4 (OF 8)
SUPERMAN WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON #4 (OF 12)
TIMESTORM 2009/2099 SPIDER-MAN
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #133
ULTIMATUM #4 (OF 5)
UNIVERSAL WAR ONE REVELATIONS #3 (OF 3)
UPTIGHT #3 (RES)
WAR OF KINGS #4 (OF 6)
WARLORD #3
WEREWOLVES ON THE MOON VERSUS VAMPIRES #1 (OF 3)
WOLVERINE REVOLVER #1

Books / Mags / Stuff
4 GIRLFRIENDS GN VOL 02 (A)
ALTER EGO #86
BATGIRL REDEMPTION TP
BIOGRAPHIC NOVEL 14TH DALAI LAMA GN
DEADPOOL TP VOL 01 SECRET INVASION
EUREKA TP VOL 01 (OF 4)
FARSCAPE HC VOL 01
GREEN LANTERN CORPS SINS OF THE STAR SAPPHIRE TP
HALO UPRISING PREM HC (RES)
HOUSE OF MYSTERY TP VOL 02 LOVE STORIES FOR DEAD PEOPLE
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA TP VOL 03 INJUSTICE LEAGUE
LOVE IS A PECULIAR TYPE OF THING GN
MIJEONG GN
OCEAN TP NEW EDITION
PUNISHER MAX HC VOL 05
SENTRY TP AGE OF SENTRY DM ED
SUPERMAN BATMAN FINEST WORLDS HC
TERRY MOORES ECHO TP VOL 02 ATOMIC DREAMS
TINY TYRANT GN ETHELBERTOSAURUS
TOMARTS ACTION FIGURE DIGEST #178
TORCHWOOD GN RIFT WAR
UNCANNY X-MEN LOVELORN TP

What looks good to YOU?

-B

Diana Goes Digital #601: Capsule Edition

Back with more webcomics... * ERFWORLD recently wrapped up its first book, "The Battle of Gobwin Knob", and I have to admit that Rob Balder and Jamie Noguchi had me fooled. I'd pegged this series as a cute, light-hearted parody of D&D, mainly because that's what you see for the first thirty pages or so: you've got an Evil Overlord besieged by an Alliance of Noble Men and Elves, armies moving and fighting in "turns", all profanity being replaced with the word "boop" (it's much funnier than it sounds)... and there's no shortage of amusing moments scattered about. But once the titular battle actually gets underway, ERFWORLD turns into a tightly-plotted war story that reads like an exercise in strategic thinking: we get to see Parson's tactical plans both before and during the siege, and Balder and Noguchi have a great knack for setting up the dominoes and tilting them over at precisely the right moment. An EXCELLENT start to what I'm sure will be an epic series.

* Ursula Vernon's DIGGER used to be restricted to paying subscribers over at Graphic Smash, but it went "public" a while back and I figure I'd give it a try. The art's lovely, but I thought the story was a bit too formulaic: to wit, a wombat named Digger accidentally tunnels into a distant, magical landscape and has to find her way home. It's done competently enough, I suppose, but this sort of story tends to hinge on an attachment to the characters, and I never warmed up to Vernon's cast. OKAY.

* The opposite is true of BOBWHITE: Magnolia Porter's characters are instantly likeable, though admittedly they're based on some very familiar archetypes (Marlene's the eccentric film student, Ivy's the disinterested artist with no ambition, and Cleo... Cleo needs Ritalin. Lots of Ritalin). So why is this VERY GOOD where DIGGER isn't? I think part of it has to do with the genre: you have to work a lot harder to make the inhabitants of a fantastic/magical world accessible to readers (especially if they're non-human characters), but "slice of life" comics like BOBWHITE and OCTOPUS PIE derive their strength from verisimilitude. I've had conversations with my friends that were a lot like this one. And that's probably why I've enjoyed what Porter's been doing so far.

* DUBIOUS TALES has been over for almost two years now, but it's still worth flagging, because Andrew James does some pretty interesting things in the space of five "books" (one of which is a text-only piece). At first glance, DUBIOUS TALES is a soap opera about a bunch of quirky college students living together somewhere in England. Darren's got a Greek tragedy mask stuck to his face, Caitlin claims to be a demon hunter, Gwilym has some pretty unorthodox ideas about theatre... they're all unusual, and James develops the complicated web of relationships even as he keeps the plot moving at a fairly rapid pace. What I enjoyed most about this series was that you never quite knew what to expect: the gang could be dealing with a perverted landlord one second and fleeing two-dimensional tin-foil demons the next, followed by brainwashing hypnotists from the Soviet Union. And while I would've loved to see more, at least James ended the story on a high note. VERY GOOD.

* It says a lot that even after nearly 150 strips, THE NON-ADVENTURES OF WONDERELLA still makes me laugh on a weekly basis. Whether it's guest-starring Patrick Stewart or Morgan Freeman, or exploring the profound question of what makes mankind unique or showing us the many, MANY flaws of time-travel, Justin Pierce keeps the funny coming. EXCELLENT.

Old English #2

Ashen Victor

Here's a question that comes up every so often: we hear plenty about North American cartoonists inspired by the energy and style of manga, but are there any mangaka crazy about cartoonists from the West?

To my knowledge, the answer is "not a ton." It seems there's some pretty specific, dominant ideas in Japan about how comics are supposed to 'work,' with a strong emphasis placed on visual mechanics. Put simply, Western comics just don't look right, and to the extent there's much of a Western comics presence in Japan at all, it tends to dwell on highly individual stylists as self-contained aesthetic forces. Yet some manga artists draw fabulous inspiration from that area.

This book is one result of that inspiration. I may have obtained it at tremendous monetary cost, but it's no big deal - I do it all for you.

And Yukito Kishiro? Looks like he did it for Frank Miller; I have no evidence, but it could be he devoured every volume of Sin City and still wasn't satisfied.

So he made his own.

Ah, never mind my melodrama. VIZ may not exactly have shied away from Miller comparisons when it published Ashen Victor -- first in 1997 as a four-issue pamphlet miniseries, then in 1999 as a collected book -- but the work itself is thoroughly Kishiro's. Indeed, it's actually a short prequel work to his expansive Battle Angel Alita (aka: Gunnm) saga, a massive sci-fi series that initially ran for nine volumes, 1990-95, and then saw its artist discard the original ending in 2001 and revive the series as a still-ongoing concern (Battle Angel Alita: Last Order) current up to vol. 13 in Japan and vol. 11 via VIZ's English translation.

Ashen Victor appeared between the two major Alita series in Japan, in late 1995; it was definitely not a sprawling opus, in that it consisted of only one volume and focused on the noir-like goings on in the violent armored racing sport of Motorball. It's also conspicuously the only piece of VIZ's Kishiro catalog not currently in print. Maybe some licensing trouble got in the way. Maybe the story seemed too odd for the bookstore-friendly Alita reprint push. Hell, maybe the damned thing looks too American for the market these days. That'd be a laugh.

But truthfully, Kishiro doesn't venture too far out into foreign waters. He certainly ramps up the high-contrast in good Sin City style, and deliberately avoids typical character stylization for a Japanese comic of this sort, yet there remains a suppleness to his backgrounds, a traditional scenery that Miller would strive to dissolve into a thousand scratches surrounding inky gobs. In other words, Alita fans might still admire their familiar world as recognizable, despite the curious perspective imposed on them. It's possibly as much a franchise concern as stylistic one; two reasons for not going too far over the top.

Why, Kishiro even has a spiky-haired hero we all can root for. God, he looks a little familiar, though...

That's right, sports fans: not only is this a Japanese Sin City homage set in the world of ultraviolent cybernetic racing, but one that features a lead gore-spattered cyborg racer modeled after Dream of the Endless. That is brilliant.

Or, at least that's what it looks like; I mean, he does draw in the eyes in a bunch of panels, and hair like that isn't exactly unknown as a boilerplate manga design trope, and I certainly don't have an interview or anything in which Kishiro states "oh, Morpheus, right; great guy, lovely eyes," but the resemblance is simply uncanny.

And it makes perfect sense too, well beyond the Sin City's an American comic, Dream's an American comics character, why not level. I can hardly think of a more perfect example of a writer-driven book than The Sandman; it had some consistent art toward the end of its run, sure, but it largely built its reputation in spite of its irregular visual quality. In the midst of the Image Revolution, it was a beacon of the scribe's victory over fulsome splash page aplomb, and, to my circle of 13-year olds, evidence of trust in the writer over the artist as the true mark of the connoisseur. It was the American way!

Call it projecting (because you could be right), but that's why the Dreamy protagonist of Ashen Victor seems so awesome to me - it's dealing with Sandman on a strictly visual level, ripping out that excellent character design and working the pale flesh and black hair and sunken eyes into the especially black & white contours of Kishiro's pseudo-Sin City, a clever application of visual elements that's indicative of the manga emphasis on the art as the storytelling base. That doomed complexion, that spur of danger... Dream can be noir as fuck!

The plot of Ashen Victor, meanwhile, is a gurgling broth of Miller-approved tactics and general noir notions, like 'fixing the races' and 'fighter bound to throw the match.' Snev (our Dream King) used to be a Motorball prodigy, able to glide between opponents on the track with ease to deliver the ball to the goal. But 17 matches into his pro career and he's best known as the Crash King, the "storm of self-destruction," famous for wiping out in violent, dismembering style in literally every match, to the point where his not inconsiderable fanbase adores him strictly for the spectacular show his body provides while ripping itself to shreds.

It's ok: Snev kinda likes it too, that weird pleasure of his artificial body falling to pieces; it's the fatalism of these stories literalized into an in-action motive. His teammates hate how he cheapens the sport with such circus hi-jinx, even though the best of them, Dolagunov (the semi-Marv design, here a villain) is doped to shit on designer sensory boost Accel, which a pharmaceutical corporation is trying to promote via racing victory. Granted, Snev used to believe in victory too, until the urge to self-destruct rose in his very first pro match, when some guy ran onto the track, and Snev was too far into winning velocity to move away, and:

I think that was a deleted scene from A Game of You.

Anyway, Snev is also good friends with Beretta, one of the city's various angelic-yet tough prostitutes (oh yes), who winds up getting him into a heap of trouble when she swipes a Very Important Briefcase off of Snev's team manager, resulting in her murder and a violent race to discover the dirty secrets behind tomorrow's sports entertainment. And a scene in which a dude who looks like a boyish manga version of Dream of the Endless punches a cyborg until his brain squirts out the back of his head. Comics!

It's a fast-paced thing, probably not as tightly plotted as it could be, but consistently diverting. The real fun, though, is seeing Kishiro cook up increasingly showy visual tricks, balancing the obvious Miller influence with alternate approaches. You'll note, for instance, that all of the book's female characters are drawn in a more classically big-eyed style; this becomes a means of asserting their otherworldly beauty in the city without pity; talk about on a pedestal.

Other moments see the artist break his pages apart, glorying in the arrangement of panels for purely emotional effect.

And occasionally the art simply erupts into slashes of pain, obliterating fixed representation entirely in favor of the sensation of Snev's total immersion in the ecstasy of racing.

It all comes down to a final showdown on the track, naturally, where Our Hero must either live up to his self-made expectations or ruin everything that makes him a viable talent by succeeding for once; more complex than the average Sin City yarn, probably, but appropriate for a book in which an artist fresh off a big, successful series wanders around some striking, hopefully personally satisfying territory at some risk of alienating readers. He's made it his own.

You can probably see it for yourself, even if VIZ isn't keeping it in print. Online used bookstores tend to reward searches for lost manga nuggets like this one, and the rewards won't stop with finding a $1.30 library copy. This is eager, restless stuff, international yet so much of its birthplace. The kind of manga publishers used to hope for, an East-West 'bridge' to ease readers in. Those aren't common anymore; in time, you can't win for losing.

Old English #1

Perramus: Escape From the Past #1-2 (of 4)

Q: God, what the hell am I going to do with all these old foreign comics I bought in that April research binge? That was addressed to you, God.

A: This is a new series of short posts about old English translations of foreign language comics, probably still obtainable through back-issue and/or used book resources. There will be lots of pictures, as per God's advice.

And we might as well start with a veritable legend of sinking into oblivion, Fantagraphics' late '80s/early '90s magazine-sized pamphlet translations of Euro-by-way-of-South-Americomics. The publisher's five-issue, 1987-90 take on Carlos Sampayo's & José Muñoz's Sinner is probably the most prominent of the bunch, but there was a later, odder release in the same format: Perramus: Escape From the Past, a four-issue, 1991-92 release of work by writer Juan Sasturain and artist Alberto Breccia.

It was a curious release, not least of all for being a formidable bait-and-switch; all cover-sourced close-up skull imagery and "the horror is real" and POLITICAL HORROR CLASSIC notwithstanding, Perramus actually isn't a horror comic by most standards. There's horrific sequences, in which the art gleefully trades in terror comic visual tropes, but this is mainly in the service of genre-comprehensive allegorical adventure serial, prone to marshaling all manner of cultural stimuli in the service of confronting recent, awful political history.

Perramus was first published in 1984, serialized in the Italian anthology series Orient Express. Its first collected edition appeared in Europe in 1985, and subsequent editions continued along until 1991. It's a four-volume series, although most European editions compile vols. 1-2 in a single album, resulting in three books. Fantagraphics' four-issue English-language release, despite kicking off the year the work was completed, does not correspond to the four volumes of the original work; rather, every two or so issues collects one volume, which means the series halted around the end of vol. 2 (or, the first of the common European albums). I'm equivocating since I only have the first two issues, which definitely cover the first original volume, since they end on an Epilogue at a natural stopping point.

But maybe it's fitting that such a work stretches across so many odd, international forms; perhaps it could only really be at home in Argentina. Breccia (who died in 1993) was a giant of Argentine comics, who specialized in fantastical horror comics of a more traditional sort. Indeed, English edition editor Robert Boyd suggests in a much-needed back-of-issue #1 biographical essay that Breccia gradually moved deeper (if never completely) into a literary horror emphasis -- Poe, Lovecraft adaptations -- as a means of evading the hazards of Argentina's increasingly brutal political situation in the 1970s. His frequent writer, Héctor Germán Oesterheld, "disappeared" in 1976 as the duo prepared a comics biography of Che Guevara; is there any more appropriate response than horror?

Argentina's military junta relinquished power in 1983, and Perramus began almost immediately thereafter from a script by Sasturain, a novelist and poet. The story begins with an unnamed man fleeing the dead-of-night approach by a (literally) skull-faced death squad, dooming his revolutionary compatriots left behind, still asleep. In a daze, the man wanders into a teeming nightclub where he's offered his choice of three prostitutes: Rosa, for luck; Maria, for pleasure; or Margarita, for forgetting.

The man opts for Margarita, and surely does awake a while later without the slightest idea of who he is, or what he's done. Dressed in a patchwork uniform left from johns of many nations, he derives his identity from what's closest to his heart.

What follows is a freewheeling series of events, chopped up into 2000 AD-sized chapters, seeing Perramus and a growing band of companions through various satirical encounters. Conscripted by the death squads to body-dumping detail aboard a ship, Our Man and one Washington Sosa -- possibly an allusion to a sidekick character from one of Breccia's earliest adventure comics -- escape to an island where a local dictator justifies his existence with an annual trotting out of society's Enemy (a downed foreign airman), who's recently begun a campaign of civil disobedience by refusing to escape.

Then there's a run-in with an equally dictatorial film company that only makes trailers, although their enforcers are fortunately well-trained enough to fall down and play dead when you pretend to shoot at them. Less playful are Perramus' old cohorts at the Volunteer Vanguard for Victory -- not the ones he got killed, mind you -- who don't recognize him personally but do understand the revolutionary potential he carries. History seems to be repeating, along with visions of Margarita, who appears to be somehow present in every escapade in the form of a different woman; and she's not the only one he'll be seeing again.

Recurrence is an important theme in this work, along with development. Surely the visuals seem to be redolent with Breccia's own evolution; any given panel seems hell-bent on packing in as many mixed-media flourishes as possible without sabotaging readability, although the sheer richness of these images can nonetheless seem overwhelming. Lavishly caricatured figures share space with environments ranging from suggestive swirls and dashes of ink to photographic collage. Supine corpses are covered with a gauze of light against deep shadow -- respect for the dead -- while death squad skulls hide additional skulls in their hats, symbolizing the authoritative facet of their personal killings. Often the human figures will recede into silhouettes, left small and alone against the mayhem of clashing textures that is Breccia's South America, a world of sufficient unreality arranged to register as nature, and sometimes be beautiful.

Yet persona and politics is fundamentally a construct, as the titular runaway learns late in issue #2 as part of a titanic team-up with Argentine literary lion and in-story secret agent Jorge Luis Borges, ready to encode messages in the poetry of 15th century Spanish satirist Francisco de Quevedo (and still alive at the time of the material's early publication). Sasturain & Breccia make mention of Borges' 1942 story Funes the Memorious as a sort of mirror to their own story; Funes also met Borges, but his talent was to remember everything, to the point where his command of detail undercut his capacity for abstract thought. In contrast, Perramus meets Borges unable to recall a thing about his past life, which renders him sheer abstraction, fortuitously wandering a continent of abstracted political and societal ideas, fastidiously rendered by Breccia in multimedia splendor.

Does it go deeper? Down to the literary Funes' Uruguayan heritage, same as Breccia's?

Ah, but even Borges himself is part of the plan, recontextualized like a good frequent literary character into an avatar for sheer artistic skepticism. In this world, the real Borges' politics needn't matter so much as his art's capacity for inspiration. This mixes well with Breccia's self-reference, his horror images positioned in society now explicitly in the form of repression, rather than as a response to such. There's plenty more where that came from - I sincerely doubt you can grasp the totality of this work without a serious command of Argentinian politics and culture, which I don't have. Still, as the might of Breccia's art is obvious, so is the broadest contours of his and Sasturain's story, looping Perramus back to the mystic nightclub for the volume's end, where the prostitute again offers what's expected: his desire. Will he have learned for next time? Will his country?

There's a little bit of an answer in these two Fantagraphics issues I have, and obviously more in the other two, although the other half remains obscure. I can't imagine a comic of this sort did gangbuster business in the US in '91, to the point where I'm mildly surprised that the issues we've got exist. Maybe the future holds something more for Breccia, but until then it's another story from another longbox, undeniably out there.

In Which Graeme Attempts To Catch Up...

It's been a long time since I've done one of these, so be prepared for a capsules review of a lot of books, many of which you may have forgotten reading already.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #592 - 594: Part of me is tempted to point to this arc and say "Hey, haters, here's a story that couldn't be done with a married Peter, because there's no way that Mary Jane would be cool with him only being Spider-Man for days on end just to piss off Jonah," but that would be both pointless and raising old ghosts. As much as I love the idea behind this story, and as much as I love Mark Waid's take on the characters, this is just Okay; I could've done without the "You see? He's really mad at Norman" bit, and Mike McKone's art has never done it for me. But it was nice to see the Peter I know and love back when giving his blessing to Aunt May's latest fling.

(Appropos of nothing much, but does anyone still really hold a grudge about Brand New Day and the Spider-Man reboot? There's a post to be written about how weirdly the new status quo seems to aim for - and reach - a constant level of late-70s fill-in quality, sure, but by this point, surely most people have come 'round to the fact that the reboot has brought back necessary things like "a supporting cast" and "some semblance of fun" to the character, after years of JMS. Or are those merely my biases showing?)

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #23 - 25: I don't know if the spell got broken when the scheduling slipped for awhile or what, but I just don't find this book even half as compelling as it once seemed, and haven't done since the middle of the Fray arc. I'm sure that it's still heading towards something, but the spark seems to be gone, and the current run of done-in-ones (even though they're heading towards the common goal of flipping the dynamic so vampires are loved and slayers are feared, ooh, just like the X-Men) has left the book feeling more disjointed and cold than it should. I'm hoping that they get things back on track soon, but right now, this is a sad Eh.

DARK AVENGERS #1 - 4: Four issues in, and I'm throwing up my hands and wondering why this isn't working for me. It's not that it seems overly busy - although it does - or that I don't care about any of the characters - although I don't; it's that I can't help but feel that the creators don't really care about this book that much. There's something uneven and hollow about it, a feeling of it being entirely cynical and insincere that just keeps me from feeling involved with anything happening inside the covers at all. Awful, but perhaps it's just me.

FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH: DANCE #1: Joe Casey is, I'm beginning to think, my anti-matter duplicate; more often than not, I can appreciate his books more than actually enjoy them. This is just like Godland and The Intimates in that respect; I know that it's smart and funny and contemporary (Even the use of Twitter, which I'm sure would piss me off in other books, feels like it works), but I can't feel that it's anything more than Okay, for some reason, and I really don't know why.

FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH: RUN! #1: Beginning DC's new habit of naming books after songs produced by Danger Mouse - I'll be writing Blackest Night Aftermath: Sofa King at the end of the year, I'm happy to announce - this book is, sadly, completely Eh. I don't care about the Human Flame, and this is too busy trying to make a grumpy face to give me a reason to.

THE FLASH: REBIRTH #1 - 2: Wait, what? Barry is the who whatcha now? I can't quite work out if the reveal at the end of the second issue is genius or insane, but I am enjoying the whole "Barry Allen is back, and that's really not a good thing for anyone" thing this series has going on. It won't last, of course, but I'm thinking it's Good while it does.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #31 - 32: Sad but true: Dwayne McDuffie's trying to write a really good book, in between the crossovers and the editorially-mandated character shuffles and art that's almost never appropriate. The (temporary?) addition of Rags Morales in the latest issue coincides with the JLA becoming the Defenders of the DCU, and it... kind of works? A high Okay, but I just wish that Dwayne would get free rein and a good artist so we could see what he's really capable of.

MIGHTY AVENGERS #21-24: I've heard a rumor that this title was nearly renamed Dan Slott Wants You To Know His Avengers Are Awesome, a title that would be more honest, if not quite as catchy. The problem with this revamp for this book is that, while the concept is ideal - "It's the old-school Avengers book full of big ideas!" - the execution... isn't. There's lots of telling instead of showing, and none of the telling seems particularly convincing, especially the "Isn't Hank Pym clever? No, really, he's really smart" talk that began to feel really desperate somewhere around Slott's second issue. There's a lot of interesting ideas here, but none of them really come together, and the result is something that you end up thinking "Well, I can kind of see what he's trying to do here..." more than actually digging what you're reading. Eh, if you squint in the right way.

NEW AVENGERS #50-52: Whereas this is a really good Defenders book. Unlike Dark Avengers, Bendis' affection for the characters comes through here easily, and if his storylines feel choppy and forced, the dialogue and character interaction feels true (In particular, Luke telling Doctor Strange that he has friends made the sap in me go "Awwww" inside). With Dark Reign seeming very hit and miss, this is one of the bright spots in the middle of all the enforced gloom.

PHONOGRAM: THE SINGLES CLUB #2: A nice idea, but the I'm not convinced by the way it all plays out, somehow. I can't really put my finger on why, though; maybe it suffers from the weight of expectations coming (so long) after the amazing first issue? It feels unfinished in the same way that the first series did, where the theory and thinking behind it is there, but there's not the emotional connection that you want. It's still Good, mind you, and Jamie McKelvie's art continues to improve; I selfishly want them to release a colored collection of the first series, now, I've become so convinced that his work needs color to truly sing.

WONDER WOMAN #29 - 31: Potentially the most puzzling superhero book around right now, Gail Simone's current epic storyline seems stunningly misjudged. I'm not sure whether it's the choice of villain, the lack of forward momentum in the plot or the overwhelming (and uncomfortable, unconvincing and self-conscious) grimness, but the whole "Rise Of The Olympian" arc has almost entirely killed my interest in the series. I don't just mean that I don't like it; I tend to forget whether I've read issues, and when I pick up new issues, I've entirely forgotten what happened last time (Not helped by the fact that it feels like we've had "Diana has to screw her courage to the sticking post and compromise her morals to try and defeat this mysterious, surprisingly dull villain" as a theme for the last few issues in a row). In a strange way, it kind of pisses me off; I liked Simone's run up until this storyline, and almost resent the current arc for making me feel bored and disinterested in the book. Awful, as much as I hate to say it. Come back, interesting, suspenseful and fun book. I miss you.

But what, as Mr. Hibbs says, did you think?

A Last Second Memorial Day Tribute To G.I. Joe

My relationship with G.I. Joe as a toy, cartoon, enterprise, as an anything extends to one anecdote, which always gets the same reaction, in that the bored listener doesn't believe it and thinks it is a bad attempt at a tasteless joke. My brother and I had a couple of them until he took a hacksaw and sawed off Scarlet's breasts while holding the figure in a vice, which is harder than it sounds. Then he tried to flush the remaining carcass and limbs down the toilet. Even my dad, whose interest in children extended to attempting to learn some of our names, felt the need to tell my mother "There's something wrong with that one." From then on, we were a He-Man only household. Go figure.

Did you know that IDW was publishing trade collections of Marvel's old G.I. Joe series? Or that Marshall Rogers eventually contributed art to the series at some point?

Oh.

Well, I didn't, because I don't keep up with that kind of stuff. After a resident Savage said that the Warren Ellis written G.I. Joe Resolute cartoon wasn't totally awful, I thought I'd check it out and see if that were true. And no, it wasn't completely awful, but it didn't really change my Joe-opinions. Based off limited experience with the franchise, these are the Daves I Know: Snake Eyes is a mute ninja and is more interesting than everyone else by default, on occasion, "other stuff happens". I'd call what I saw of the Resolute series pretty CRAP, but I'm not a big give-a-shit about cartoons type anyway. It did lead me to poke around online, which is how I found out about these GI Joe reprints of the Marvel series by a non-Marvel company, and because it was late, I bought one of them for nothing, and then it showed up I had no idea what to do with it, it's not like I don't have actual comics that excite me sitting around waiting for me to be an elitist prick about. But hey, Savage Critics, I haven't been there in a while, let's take off our pants and have reading sex with the Brothers Joe! It will be righteous! We can even do it in a sort of capsule fashion, as is reader preference!

GI Joseph, Numero Uno This is the story of how the team has to save a woman who has decided to blow the whistle on a world-annihilation project run by the US government, the Cobra team that kidnaps her, and the squadron sent in to rescue her. If "Dr. Adele Burkhart" is to be believed, the US government is hard at work on a secret weapon that, if set off, will destroy the entire population of the world. Which is...really? That's the US that G.I. Joe serves and protects? Now, let's not mince words: the Joe's don't just fully support the US in wanting to build that Apocalypse Bomb, they're totally disgusted that they have to go and rescue this weak-willed traitor--Snake Eyes even suggests that, in lieu of rescue attempt, they just bomb the shit out of the island they all know she's on, silencing her traitorous mouth while killing the Cobra Commander and the Baroness to boot. Mission? Successful.

Unfortunately for Snake Eyes and the Joes, that's not the way it plays out. No, it's all about following orders, and the Joes don't have a lot of time: if Cobra's experimental lady torture works, they'll suck national secrets right out of Burkhart's head, milkshake style, and end up in possession of the "Doomsday Project." What follows is, I guess, something a lot more hardcore than the G.I. Joe cartoon--I don't know the show that well, but I doubt that it included a lot of Secret Service agents getting shot in the face at point blank range while laying on the ground. Either way, it's relatively solid action, not too dissimilar from an 80's Chuck Norris movie with more explicit patriotism. I'd give this one an OKAY, mostly because of the portion where the Joes plan their attack by looking at what appears to be a model train set, complete with fake fences. It might need to get knocked back a bit because of Herb Trimpe's drawing of Scarlet's hand, which is apparently attached to an arm six feet long. (But it earns it back by having Cobra Commander ride around on a white horse inside a small compound for the purposes of delivering his Bond-villain threats.) All in all, it's neither an introduction to the team nor an introduction to their villains--which is actually an approach I sort of prefer, my wife's "I DON'T GET IT, WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE" refrain and all. After all, does anybody really care how Cobra came about? Does anybody (besides Daniel Way) read Daredevil and get pissy when nobody tells the origin of The Hand? I don't want to know where Evil Terrorist Organizations Bent On Destruction come from. I want to see them ride a pony inside a building, because I like the idea that low-grade Cobra operatives--the kinds that never get a cool name--are enlisted in horse cookie detail. Besides, if I wanted to get to know the hilarious ins and outs of terrorist organizations, I'd watch the Venture Brothers. On the Joe front, it's a similar thing--Larry Hama knows he's writing the four color adventure of toys, why would he waste his time giving the toys some kind of wrought-in-realism back story? It's G.I. Joe. They need to kill some Cobra. Cobra needs to kill some anything.

As an aside, it's particularly brutal that the method in which Cobra uses to circumvent the Secret Service defenses and kidnap Dr. Burkhart is so similar to the method which al-Qaeda operatives utilized when assassinating a particularly hardcore anti-Taliban warlord in Afghanistan on September 10th, 2001. Disguised as reporters, cameras as weapon--Larry Hama's work on this series is reportedly full of this kind of unsettlingly "real" stuff, but I was quite surprised to see it pop up in the first two pages. Here's another example.

That's some pretty heartless shit. Good military tactics, sure--but hey. Leaving the bodies to rot? The first issue? Nasty business. Mommy like. 

John Carpenter's G.I.J.O.E. # 2 After a straight up Cobra v. Joe issue, this one is all about that cold day on the set of The Thing, when Snake Eyes, Scarlet, Stalker and Breaker went into the snow to get their asses handed to them--twice--by a guy named Kwinn, who has some weird religious beliefs and has worked as a Freelance Special Ops Enforcer for the secret service of every major country on the planet, except the Joe's, who have never heard of him. This story doesn't totally work, mostly because it's one of those tales where the most interesting thing is Snake Eyes, who spends all his R & R time in a fucking sensory deprivation tank while everybody else does crap on a varying level of nerdy lameness. (Scarlett is in a karate tournament! Breaker plays with computers!) It is kind of interesting that Hama uses the second issue of the series to do a completely Cobra-free story--Kwinn's employers are some random Russians--but maybe that was a regular thing with these characters, again, I wouldn't know. But mostly it's a story that doesn't work because Herb Trimpe's art isn't as intimidating as the Hama script reads, like when the comic ends with what is supposed to be a "oh shit, bad asses coming" drawing that's far too static and boring in the layout to read as anything other than a deadline delivery. It ain't AWFUL or anything--oh, you know what? It's definitely EH that I'm feeling here.

Bubblegum? Really. I don't think Snake Eyes, a guy who prides himself on getting places quietly, is going to allow this doucebag to smack on some bubble gum. Also, wouldn't the bubble gum be hard to chew in the Arctic cold?

Let's move onto the day when Kirby robots arrived.

G.I. Joe's OMAC Project # 3

The splash page that opens this story is of a destroyed Cobra base, in the background hangs an Uncle Sam by way of Cobra Commander recruitment poster with the line "Peace Through WAR", which is just incredible, anyway you slice it, that's some silly crazy I can totally vote for. Seriously, I don't care if they want to eat human placentas on inauguration day while making it illegal to wear Kansas City Royal's hats, I'd vote for any politician whose campaign regularly included the phrase "Peace Through WAR".

Damn it Scarlett! Have you no class?! We'll deal with the explosions after we deal with TEA.

This is a Giffen Justice League kind of story--a bunch of random Joes deal with a Trojan Robot (yes, like the horse) that they unwittingly set loose in the bowls of their compound while Hawk and Scarlett try to play off the noises of explosions and gunfire that keep interrupting the "Chaplain's Assistant Social Tea", since they don't want the chaplain's assistants to know that the Joes have a compound in the basement of the facility. It's not terribly funny, and it's sort of predictable, but it's again interesting to me how this series is both deadly serious--it opens with an explanation that the lower decks of the underground bunker could survive nuclear attack, but that the upper decks, which are where all the new recruits train and sleep, would be completely destroyed, killing everyone in them--and sitcom silly, with the Joes spending a decent portion of the book's climax chasing around tiny little robot bugs, complete with tone-deaf pun for the closer. Still, Trimpe steps it up here, in no small part because he gets to draw some Kirby style robots and machines, and with that, we've made it back to OKAY! I think I might be judging Trimpe harshly, but I was just blown away by his B.P.R.D. one-shot, and I was really hoping for some more of that. A lot of the non-machine stuff he's doing here is just empty and dull. His layouts seem pretty strong, there's nothing confusing or obtuse about them, but his figure drawings are achingly repetitive. Credit though--he really works on setting the scene--trees, lamposts, all the background stuff is pretty good. Maybe he just got tired of drawing white guys who have crew cuts.

G.I. Joe's Uncomfortable Version of Waco & Ruby Ridge # 4 Well, that's certainly some unsettling stuff to read about, thank you very much. Hawk & Grunt go undercover in a homegrown Montana based militia group, Snake-Eyes skulks in the forests and shawdows, and the bad guys turn out to be some serious nut jobs. Their plan? Start World War 3 with the cunning use of Cobra-provided nuclear warheads, and if they fail on that end--which they do--initiate "Plan Alpha", which is when they forcibly arm the women and children who have been strong-armed onto the base, set off a nuke in the heart of the compound, and hope America blames Russia. 

There's something about the way Larry Hama writes this stuff that's pretty incredible. (Yes, that's completely over the top, go with me for a second though.) Does any merchandising tie-in stuff work this well? I've never read a single video game comic that I thought was anything beyond adequate, although I still haven't seen the Moebius Halo. I remember liking a Transformers comic, the only one I read, where a kid found Optimus Prime's still-talking head in an empty warehouse, but I imagine a lot of my awe would fade if I read it now. These are just crap jobs for a writer, long-form toy commercials designed to run as long as the toy is profitable. That's a claim that can sometimes be laid at the altar of super-hero comics too, I'm sure, although at least super-heroes didn't start from that toy place. But Hama just doesn't seem to care about any of that, and there's no way to shove this particular story into a snide category. It's just a brutal issue about a bunch of Timothy McVeigh types, all white, living in a David Koresh/Jim Jones style compound where children and women are considered excellent cannon fodder at best, human shields at worst. It's a small covert team of guys trying to shut them down without giving cause to their superiors to blow the whole place into oblivion, knowing full well that rescuing these people will do nothing to change their anger with the US Government. There's something to be said for "doing your research" when you're reading comics--at the same time, I'm not going to plow through the monstrous history of a television cartoon just to confirm what I'm feeling here, which is that there's no way in hell that this is the kind of story they were doing in 22 minutes. Angry mustachioed bad guys in Montana and last minute bomb defusal? I'll buy that. But forcing guns on women and children? Mass suicide looked to as the most probable "escape"? Success only coming at the last minute because the bad guy's wife decides she'd rather shoot him in the back then go through with the apocalypse?

I don't believe that was on television. And while I still think that Herb Trimpe has a ways to go before his faces and action sequences catch up with his crazy tanks and industrial cross-sections, I'm not going to pretend this wasn't a thoroughly enjoyable issue. Definitely GOOD, and I could see stronger art--maybe the still-to-come Marshall Rogers--pushing that higher.

Surprised as you.

G.I. Joe # 5, no joke, it's called "TANKS for the Memories" This issue of G.I. Joe is another humor heavy issue that has a nasty Girl Scout hostage-taking turn, which is so far up my alley that it just built a house. I'll admit that I can be a soft touch when it comes to that sort of thing, that kind of joking sarcastic horror that makes some people go "oh tsk tsk, that's just TOO MUCH"--sorry, but I love it. Random ridiculous dialog, a GI Joe soldier using his lazer guided tank scope to stare at the rear end of a marching majorette, followed closely by one of those "He's calling from INSIDE THE HOUSE" gags, all leading to a climax where Cobra Commander straight up hides amongst a bunch of Girl Scouts--no shame, this is great stuff. Again, I just can't believe this was on television. The jokes, maybe. (Not the ass peeping, obviously.) But was Cobra Commander really grabbing little girls to use as human shields, Stephen Dorff style? Really? That happened?

I love this joke, it's like Beetle Bailey by way of Sealab 2021.

I like that there's some random guy who follows around the various generals--on fleet week--and keeps whipping out the old "did I ever tell you about that time at the Chinese restaurant? Oh God, we just laughed and laughed!" 

That joke is followed up by the ass jokes, because that is the Joe way, and while I'm fully aware that any and all objectification of women in comics should be immediately followed up by blood curdling screams for heads-on-pikes, it doesn't seem completely out of character for a bored soldier being forced to participate in a parade wherein he has to drive his Totally Incredible Tank Of Death around Times Square like it's a shitty parade float while the marching band plays "Dancing In September" to immediately grasp on the opportunity to use his laser guided targeting system to stare at some spandex covered lady ass. Of course, the military's decision to PARADE a SECRET WEAPON in BROAD DAYLIGHT goes wrong, and it turns out that the ass he's staring at is the ass of Cobra herself. (Although when things get cooking, it's highly plausible that he was actually ogling man-ass, since the only foot soldiers are packing danglers. Twist-y!) So on, so forth--right before we get to the Girl Scout moment, Cobra Commander whips out what might be my favorite line of his thus far: "How long do you think you can run around the streets of mid-town Manhattan with machine guns and rocket launchers--before the authorites start reacting?!"

There's something really refreshing about that line: due to my own "lack of research" (read: disinterest) into the history of the Brothers Joe and their nemesis, I was operating under the assumption that Cobra Commander was just another Hank Scorpio. He's actually quite sensible. (That being said, this was his plan, broad daylight and all.) It's just too bad he can't hire better employees--an entire Cobra battalion doesn't think to check an abandoned construction site for the tank after they lose the trail, despite it being a slow-ass tank driving around in a city where the only area large enough to hide in happens to be the abandoned construction site. Which they run right by.

Here's an aside, although this whole post is sort of an aside: I wonder how many band members were reading issue 5 and took it personally that Larry Hama wrote that the marching band was for nerds. Marching band is universally considered by high schoolers to be a long-form version of the word "nerd", and it's hilarious to imagine a band kid reading a comic book based on a cartoon designed to sell toys--which is another 10 letter description of "geeky"--only to have the nerdy comic book call the marching band nerdy. That's an ouroboros right there.

Anyways, let's look at girl scouts and crazy assholes. And like that, I'm sold. Especially because it's followed up by Cobra Commander getting away after shooting the Joe guy in the temple. Then the little girl tells him not to feel bad, because he'll catch the bad guy in the end. And what does he say to that?

"I wish that were true, little girl..."

Because Ha Ha, little girl, the good guys don't always win, and sometimes the bad guys do get away, and HA HA HA NOBODY LOVES YOU. Now, there's a little aside where somebody questions whether General Flagg could have made the shot and taken out Cobra Commander, so maybe his failure is part of a larger story. I hope not. Because as it stands here, all by its lonesome?

Larry Hama wrote a comic book where an American soldier told a Girl Scout that he was a failure.

That's some VERY GOOD shit right there. I think I wet my pants, and I'm not even sure I care what kind of wet it is. 

Your Father's Joe # 6: "Actual Afghan Proverb"

The idea for these three panels? Not bad. The amount of dialog in these three panels, thus rendering it a tad ridiculous? Kinda bad.

At what rate is he walking up those stairs? Are his legs broken?

This is the first two-part story, and being as it's a pre 9/11 comic, you get a chance to go all Rambo III, when America couldn't hand out weapons to the warlords of Afghanistan fast enough. There's even a moment in-story where the Joes make a backroom agreement to hand some fancy wargear over to the local fighters. Hey, they were killing Russians. It was the Cold War. If you're willing to accept Ebony White, why not this? Besides, it gives Hama a chance to introduce the Russian version of G.I. Joe, and while I have about as much interest in the answer as I do a bowl of my own feces, I gotta ask: did Hasbro make toys based on Colonel Brekhov and his October Guards, who have names like "Horror Show", "Stormavik" and "Daina?" I'm kind of assuming the answer is yes, since they have a fancy car--with "balloon tires"--and fancy cars are high-ticket items in the old toy shop. You can tell they aren't as awesome as our American Joes--they smoke, some of them are a bit doughy in the middle, and Herb Trimpe keeps drawing the Russian version of Scarlett by having her face the reader directly, Animal Man style. That's a sure sign she's useless when clearing a room.

As the issue reaches it's somewhat surprising Joe/October team-up conclusion--the Soviets didn't actually get out of Afghanistan until 1989, and this issue was originally published in 1982, which means Larry Hama was essentially writing a story where American/Soviet relations were more mature in a GI Joe comic book than they were in the real world--the real enemy arrives. It's Cobra, of course. All the big awesome car toys can't save you know, GI Joe.

I gotta say, this little image right here, along with the Girl Scout Failure Complex? That's got me sold on this series. From what I remember of GI Joe, there's eventually some warped thing involving a guy who is some kind of snake god, and I'm sure I'll hate that if I read it. But this is pretty solid comics--it's aggressive, it's far more cynical and hard boiled than I'd imagine a comic based off a toy empire to be, and as long as I'm not having to listen to him screech, Cobra Commander is a great heavy. There's no "here's my plan" moment. He's not wearing a cape, or playing with a sword. His plan--to use the accurate-to-the-time hatred between the US and the USSR as a distraction--has worked perfectly. All that's left now?

Take these jokers out and shoot them in the head.

I'd give that a VERY GOOD.

Arriving THURSDAY 5/28/2009

Remember (because I DID forget until today) that new comics are on THURSDAY in the US this week, due to the Memorial Day holiday.

ALIENS #1 (OF 4)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #595 DKR
ARCHIE #597
ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN #16
AVENGERS INITIATIVE #24 DKR
AVENGERS INVADERS #11 (OF 12)
BACK TO BROOKLYN #5 (OF 5)
BATMAN IN BARCELONA DRAGONS KNIGHT
BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #5
BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #171
CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #57
CROSSED #5 (OF 9)
CURSED PIRATE GIRL #1 (OF 3)
DARK REIGN ELEKTRA #3 (OF 5) DKR
DARK REIGN HOOD #1 (OF 5) DKR
DARKNESS #77
ENDERS SHADOW BATTLE SCHOOL #5 (OF 5)
FALL OF CTHULHU NEMESIS #2 (OF 4)
FARSCAPE DARGOS LAMENT #2 (OF 4)
FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH INK #1 (OF 6)
FUTURAMA COMICS #43
GARTH ENNIS BATTLEFIELDS TANKIES #2
GHOST RIDER #35
GLAMOURPUSS #7
GODLAND #28 (RES)
GOTHAM GAZETTE #1 BATMAN ALIVE
GREEN LANTERN #41
GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #14
HERO SQUARED LOVE & DEATH #3 (OF 3)
IGNITION CITY #3 (OF 5)
IMMORTAL IRON FIST #26
INCREDIBLE HERCULES #129
JANS ATOMIC HEART
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #33
JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #27
LAST DAYS OF ANIMAL MAN #1 (OF 6)
LITERALS #2 (OF 3)
LORDS OF AVALON KNIGHTS OF DARKNESS #6 (OF 6)
MAD MAGAZINE #500
MADAME XANADU #11
MARVEL ADVENTURES FANTASTIC FOUR #48
MOON KNIGHT #30
MOUSE GUARD WINTER 1152 #6 (OF 6)
MS MARVEL #39 DKR
MUPPET ROBIN HOOD #1 (OF 4)
NEW AVENGERS #53 DKR
NORTHLANDERS #17
NOVA #25
RAPTURE #1 OEMING CVR
RED SONJA #44
ROBERT JORDANS NEW SPRING #6 (RES)
RUNAWAYS 3 #10
SONIC UNIVERSE #4
SPIDER-MAN SHORT HALLOWEEN
SPIRIT #28
SQUADRON SUPREME 2 #11
STAND AMERICAN NIGHTMARES #3 (OF 5)
STAR WARS LEGACY #36 RENEGADE
STARCRAFT #1
SUPERMAN #688
SWORD #17
TALES FROM RIVERDALE DIGEST #33
TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #56
TEEN TITANS #71
TRINITY #52
ULTIMATE WOLVERINE VS HULK #6 (OF 6)
UNKNOWN SOLDIER #8
USAGI YOJIMBO #120
WAR MACHINE #6
WILDCATS #11
WOLVERINE #72
WOLVERINE FIRST CLASS #15
WOLVERINE ORIGINS #36 DKR
WONDER WOMAN #32
X-FORCE #15 XMW
X-MEN FUTURE HISTORY MESSIAH WAR SOURCEBOOK
X-MEN LEGACY #224

Books / Mags / Stuff
BART SIMPSON SON OF HOMER TP
BAYOU TP VOL 01
BERSERK TP VOL 29
CHICKEN WITH PLUMS SC
CONAN TP VOL 07 CIMMERIA
DAMES DOLL AND GUN MOLLS SC
DC LIBRARY ROOTS OF THE SWAMP THING HC
DEAD AT 17 ULTIMATE ED TP
DEATH DEFYING DEVIL TP VOL 01
ELEPHANTMEN HC VOL 02 FATAL DISEASES
ESSENTIAL X-MEN TP VOL 09
FLOWER OF LIFE GN VOL 04 (OF 4)
GALVESTON TP
GARTH ENNIS BATTLEFIELDS TP VOL 02 DEAR BILLY
GEEK MONTHLY JUN 2009
GHOST RIDER DANNY KETCH TP ADDICT
INCOGNEGRO SC
INCREDIBLE HERCULES TP LOVE AND WAR
JOHN STANLEY LIBRARY MELVIN MONSTER HC VOL 01
JUDGE DREDD COMPLETE HEAVY METAL DREDD GN
JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #284
JUXTAPOZ VOL 16 #5 MAY 2009
KODT BUNDLE OF TROUBLE TP VOL 26
LOST OFFICIAL MAGAZINE #22 SPECIAL PX ED
MARVEL ADVENTURES TP THOR DIGEST
MY INNER BIMBO TP
NAOKI URASAWA 20TH CENTURY BOYS GN VOL 02
POWER UP GN
PREVIEWS #249 JUNE 2009 (NET)
SHAKARA THE AVENGER TP
SIDE B GN
SINISTER DEXTER GN VOL 01 EUROCRASH
SPARROW JOHN WATKISS HC
SPECIAL FORCES TP VOL 01
SPIDER-MAN NOIR PREM HC
STAR TREK OMNIBUS TP VOL 01
STAR WARS CLONE WARS TP VOL 03 WIND RAIDERS TALORAAN
STAR WARS VECTOR TP VOL 02 CHAPTERS 3 AND 4
STATIC SHOCK REBIRTH OF THE COOL TP
THIS IS A SOUVENIR SONGS OF SPEARMINT & SHIRLEY LEE GN
TRINITY TP VOL 01
TRUE LOVES GN VOL 02
WIZARD MAG #213 PACHECO ULTIMATE AVENGERS CVR
WORLD OF WARCRAFT ASHBRINGER HC
X-MEN MAGNETO TESTAMENT PREM HC
X-MEN WORLDS APART HC

What looks good to YOU?

-B

On Marvel's REBORN #1

The Direct Market is sometimes an awkward beast: publishers solicit books roughly 3 months before publication, which can lead to problems in releasing information in such a way that can spoil those upcoming titles. I am very sympathetic to these concerns.

Direct Market retailers, of course, buy comics non-returnable -- if we order too many copies, we simply eat them. This means we need as much information as we can possibly get at the time of solicitation so we can make proper, informed judgments of the saleability of a specific work.

There's no doubt this is a substantial conundrum -- in this particular aspect the publisher's best interests are diametrically opposed to the retailer's. They want to preserve suspense, we want as much information as is possible (in fact, the best possible world would be to be able to read every comic before we had to finalize our orders)

Marvel, over the last few years, has taken to making certain high-profile title's solicitations "Classified" where they provide retailers NO solicitation information at first, instead releasing it, typically, the final day that Final Orders are due. This is extremely annoying (I can't help build interest in a work via pre-orders if the first piece of hard information I receive is 3 weeks before a title ships), but we've been able to work with it fairly adequately to date because, generally, we were talking about essentially "just another issue of IRON MAN", and the trade off was "spoiling the end of SECRET INVASION", y'know? I have cycle sheet data for IRON MAN, I know the general range it is going to sell, I can work around it. As long as they finally give me the solicit by the time of Final Order Cutoff (FOC).

Which brings us to REBORN #1.

REBORN is a 5-issue mini-series. It is by Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch. It is 32 pages long, in color, and retails for $3.99. That's every piece of information that we have. We don't know who or what is "reborn", and, really, we aren't precisely sure if that's the exact title of the final comic book. It certainly could be the return of the Steve Rogers Captain America, but it could just as easily be something to do with "Heroes Reborn", or even some version of Captain America that has nothing to do with Steve Rogers. It could also have nothing whatsoever to do with Captain America, regardless of what Rich Johnston is reporting. My point is we simply don't know.

Unlike previous situations with "classified" solicitations, this does not appear to be done to protect the conclusion of a line-wide crossover like CIVIL WAR or SECRET INVASION. As near as I can tell, no other comic is being impacted by this book in the short term. There's a possibility that this spins out of CAPTAIN AMERICA #600, I suppose? But that would be the absolute limit.

No, this is Marvel trying to "game" the system, as far as I am concerned -- trying to create interest in something in what I consider to be an underhanded way, and completely against the moral intent of the processes of the Direct Market.

And now we come to what I consider to be the real problem: Marvel has apparently pre-arranged press coverage with a tame journalist with embargoed exclusivity with one media outlet with a promise to go wide on it. This week's Marvel Mailer (a retailer-only mailing with Marvel news in it) they say the following:

"REBORN #1’s solicit and cover will not be revealed before its FOC date due to upcoming mainstream press regarding the series. Please see the Marvel page of Diamond’s Retailer Service Area for more information"

Going to that page, we get this detail (I'm not printing the details of the incentive deals):

"REBORN #1, by Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch, will be receiving nationwide press on 6/15, possibly on par with the media coverage we received during Civil War.

However, this means that the solicit and covers for Reborn #1 cannot be shown before the FOC of 6/11. Marvel will do everything possible to ensure an overprint is on hand to counter huge anticipated demand, but the incentives below and qualifying for free variants will only be available for orders placed before FOC"

So, basically, Marvel is cutting the retailers out of the information loop in order to hopefully make a splash in the wider media. There are two problems I see with this strategy. One: depending on news going wide is a dangerous and risky move. What if 6/15 is the day that the President is assassinated, or we declare war on North Korea, or we find out a planet-killer asteroid is on its way, or whatever else of a billion things that could knock any media interest in ANY comics project into the garbage?

Two: like we saw with CAPTAIN AMERICA #25, if there IS press coverage, and we don't have the information to even attempt to order properly, then we can't capitalize on it.

As a retailer, I object to these actions. I find these tactics ethically abhorrent and morally repugnant, and flatly against the best interests of the Direct Market and it's constituent retailers.

If we let this pass silently, then we're telling them to do it again and again and again -- hell, why even actually solicit ANYthing? We'll accept that, right?

So, there's really only one thing I can do at this point to protest these tactics, and that's to decline to carry the book. Assuming that Marvel doesn't change their mind on this, before FOC time, I'm going to cut my rack copy orders to zero.

Obviously I will stock the book for any customer who is interested in preordering the title, but I can not, in good conscience, spend my own discretionary money on something that is against my best interests. To do otherwise would be to condone what Marvel is doing here. I have no other way to express my displeasure than voting with my dollars.

Marvel won't care, I'm sure. The thirty to, say, one hundred and fifty copies I might have sold (Depending on what the comic really is) won't make or break them. It probably won't hurt Ed or Bryan either, but I have to make a public stand in the only way I can.

But what else can I do? To participate is to say that what Marvel is doing is acceptable business. And it just isn't. Some times you have to stand on your principles, even if it costs you a little bit of money.

-B

Arriving 5/20/2009

Hey look, Kids, Comics!

AGENTS OF ATLAS #5 DKR
AIR #9
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #594
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN FAMILY #6
ANGEL #21
ARCHIE DIGEST #254
BATMAN BATTLE FOR THE COWL #3 (OF 3)
BLACK TERROR #4
BOYS HEROGASM #1
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #23
CAPTAIN AMERICA #50
CARS ROOKIE #2 (OF 4)
COMPLETE DRACULA #1 (OF 5)
CRIMINAL MACABRE CELL BLOCK 666 #4 (OF 4)
DARK REIGN FANTASTIC FOUR #3 (OF 5) DKR
DOCTOR WHO TIME MACHINATION
EX MACHINA #42
FANTASTIC FORCE #2 (OF 5)
FANTASTIC FOUR #566
FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH DANCE #1 (OF 6)
GEARS OF WAR #7
GI JOE #5
GIGANTIC #4 (OF 5)
G-MAN TP VOL 01 LEARNING TO FLY
GREAT UNKNOWN #2 (OF 5)
GREATEST AMERICAN HERO #3 (OF 3)
GREEN ARROW BLACK CANARY #20
GRIMM FAIRY TALES #38
HELLBLAZER #255
HOTWIRE #3 (OF 5) PUGH CVR A
HULK #12
INCREDIBLES FAMILY MATTERS #2 (OF 4)
INVINCIBLE #62
JACK OF FABLES #34
JIM BUTCHERS DRESDEN FILES STORM FRONT #4 (OF 4)
JUGHEAD #195
KILLAPALOOZA #1 (OF 6)
LOCKE & KEY HEAD GAMES #5
MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS #35
MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS #36
MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #1 70TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
MYSTERIUS THE UNFATHOMABLE #5 (OF 6)
NINJA HIGH SCHOOL #170
OUTSIDERS #18
PATRICIA BRIGGS MERCY THOMPSON HOMECOMING #3 (OF 4)
PLANET SKAAR PROLOGUE ONE-SHOT
PUNISHER #5 DKR
RESIDENT EVIL #2 (OF 6)
ROBERT JORDANS WHEEL OF TIME EYE O/T WORLD #0 REG CVR
SCOOBY DOO #144
SIMPSONS COMICS #154
SKRULL KILL KREW #2 (OF 5) DKR
STAR TREK ALIENS SPOTLIGHT ROMULANS
STAR WARS KNIGHTS OLD REPUBLIC #41 DUELING AMBITIONS PT 3 (
STEPHEN COLBERTS TEK JANSEN #5 (OF 5) (RES)
SUPERGIRL #41
SUPERMAN BATMAN #60
TERROR INC APOCALYPSE SOON #2 (OF 4)
THUNDERBOLTS #132
TIMESTORM 2009 2099 #2 (OF 4)
TINY TITANS #16
TRINITY #51
UNCANNY X-MEN #510
VIGILANTE #6
WARRIORS OFFICIAL MOVIE ADAPTATION #2 (OF 5)
WITCHBLADE #127 SEJIC CVR A
WOLVERINE NOIR #2 (OF 4)
WOLVERINE WEAPON X #2
WORLD OF WARCRAFT #19
X-MEN FOREVER ALPHA
YTHAQ NO ESCAPE #2 (OF 3)

Books / Mags / Stuff
ARLENES HEART HC
BATMAN MAD LOVE AND OTHER STORIES HC
BEN TEMPLESMITHS DRACULA GN
BIG BOOK OF BARRY WEEN BOY GENIUS TP (RES)
BOOSTER GOLD 52 PICK UP TP
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER OMNIBUS TP VOL 07
CLASSIC MARVEL FIGURINE COLL MAG #90 WARLOCK
CLASSIC MARVEL FIGURINE COLL MAG SPECIAL MAN THING
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG #07 GREEN ARROW
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG #08 WONDER WOMAN
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG #25 DEADSHOT
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG #26 PENGUIN
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG SPECIAL DOOMSDAY
GOON TP VOL 07 PLACE OF HEARTACHE & GRIEF
HEAVY METAL JULY 2009
HEROES TP VOL 02
INVINCIBLE TP VOL 10 WHOS THE BOSS
JOHNNY HIRO TP VOL 01
KODT BUNDLE OF TROUBLE TP VOL 25
KUROSAGI CORPSE DELIVERY SERVICE TP VOL 09
LEES TOY REVIEW #198 MAY 2009
MODESTY BLAISE TP VOL 15 LADY KILLERS
MOON KNIGHT TP VOL 04 DEATH OF MARC SPECTOR
PLUTO URASAWA X TEZUKA GN VOL 03 (C: 1-0-1)
PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL TP VOL 05 SECRET INVASION
RANN THANAGAR HOLY WAR TP VOL 01
STAR TREK MAGAZINE #18 SPECIAL NEWSSTAND ED
SUPERMAN ENDING BATTLE TP
THOR BY J MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI PREM HC VOL 02
THOR VISIONARIES WALT SIMONSON TP VOL 02 NEW PTG
TINY TITANS TP VOL 02 ADVENTURES IN AWESOMENESS
TRANSMETROPOLITAN TP VOL 02 LUST FOR LIFE NEW ED
ULTIMATE GALACTUS TRILOGY TP
WAR OF KINGS ROAD TO WAR OF KINGS TP
YOUNG X-MEN TP VOL 02 BOOK OF REVELATIONS

What looks good to YOU?

-B

May's Tilting up!

Whoops, forgot to mention it earlier in the day: you can find May's TILTING AT WINDMILLS right here

-B

Arriving 5/13/2009

Fairly big, if uninspiring, week:

A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #104 (A)
ACTION COMICS #877
ALL NEW SAVAGE SHE-HULK #2 (OF 4) DKR
AMAZON #3 (OF 3)
ANGEL NOT FADE AWAY #1
AZRAEL DEATHS DARK KNIGHT #3 (OF 3)
BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #29
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA FINAL FIVE #2 (OF 4)
BETTY & VERONICA DIGEST #194
BETTY & VERONICA SPECTACULAR #89
BLACK PANTHER 2 #4 DKR
BOOSTER GOLD #20
BPRD BLACK GODDESS #5 (OF 5)
CAPTAIN ACTION COMICS #4 GIORDANO MODERN CVR
CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI 13 #13
CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #37
CASTLE WAITING VOL II #15
DARK REIGN HAWKEYE #2 (OF 5) DKR
DARK REIGN YOUNG AVENGERS #1 (OF 5) DKR
DARK TOWER THE FALL OF GILEAD #1 (OF 6)
DEADPOOL SUICIDE KINGS #2 (OF 5)
DOCTOR WHO CLASSICS SERIES 2 #6
ELEPHANTMEN #19 (RES)
FABLES #84
FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH ESCAPE #1 (OF 6)
FROM THE ASHES #1
FUSION #1 (OF 3)
GENEXT UNITED #1 (OF 5)
GRAVEL #11
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #36
GUERILLAS #4 (OF 8)
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #13
HOWLING COMMANDOS #1
JACK STAFF #20 (RES)
JUGHEADS DOUBLE DIGEST #150
KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #150
LILLIM #3 (OF 5)
LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS #1 (OF 4)
MAN WITH NO NAME #10
MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #51
MARVEL ADVENTURES SUPER HEROES #11
NEXUS ORIGIN REMASTERED
ORACLE #3 (OF 3)
PHANTOM GHOST WHO WALKS #2 JOE CORRONEY CVR
PRIDE & PREJUDICE #2 (OF 5)
PUNISHER FRANK CASTLE MAX #70
RAWBONE #2 (OF 4)
REBELS #4
SAVAGE DRAGON #148
SECRET SIX #9
SECRET WARRIORS #4 DKR
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #200
SOUL KISS #4 (OF 5)
STAR TREK MISSIONS END #3
STAR WARS CLONE WARS #6 (OF 6)
STORMING PARADISE #5 (OF 6) (RES)
STORMWATCH PHD #21
STREET FIGHTER II TURBO #6 CRUZ CVR A
STREET FIGHTER II TURBO #6 WANG CVR B
SUPER FRIENDS #15
SUPER HUMAN RESOURCES #4 (OF 4)
TERRY MOORES ECHO #12
THOR TALES OF ASGARD BY LEE & KIRBY #1 (OF 6)
TITANS #13
TRINITY #50
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #132
UMBRELLA ACADEMY DALLAS #6 (OF 6)
UNKNOWN #1 (OF 4)
UNTHINKABLE #1 (OF 4)
UNWRITTEN #1
VIKING #1 2ND PTG (PP #862)
VOYAGES O/T SHEBUCCANEER #2 (OF 3) EYE O/T JADE DRAGON
WALKING DEAD #61
WAR OF KINGS ASCENSION #2 (OF 4)
WOLVERINE #73
WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ #6 (OF 8)
X-FACTOR #43
YOUNG LIARS #15
ZORRO #13

Books / Mags / Stuff
ALTER EGO #85
AVENGERS INITIATIVE TP VOL 03 SECRET INVASION
BACK ISSUE #34
BATMAN SCARECROW AND TWO FACE YEAR ONE TP
BRINKLEY GIRLS BEST OF 1913-1940 HC GN
CLOAK & DAGGER PREM HC CHILD OF DARKNESS
COMPLETE DICK TRACY HC VOL 07
ESSENTIAL SPIDER-MAN TP VOL 09
FLINCH GN VOL 01
FUTURE DIARY GN VOL 01 (OF 6)
GIANT ROBOT #59
HELLBLAZER ROOTS OF COINCIDENCE TP
I KILL GIANTS TP
ILLUSTRATION MAGAZINE #26
MARVEL ILLUSTRATED ILIAD TP
POTTERS FIELD HC
RETURN TO LABYRINTH GN VOL 03 (OF 4) (RES)
ROBINSON CRUSOE HC
SHOWCASE PRESENTS MARTIAN MANHUNTER TP VOL 02
SUPERMAN NEW KRYPTON HC VOL 01
TOYFARE #143 TWISTED TOYFARE OBAMA OBI WAN CVR
X-FACTOR TP VOL 06 SECRET INVASION
X-MEN MANIFEST DESTINY HC
YOULL NEVER KNOW HC VOL 01 A GOOD AND DECENT MAN

What looks good to YOU?

-B

Désastre Hurlant (T18): À Suivre

(being the final installment of an 18-part series of posts concerning each and every book released as part of the DC/Humanoids publishing alliance, 2004-05; index of posts here and here) JM: Hello all! This is Jog, speaking in the exotic dialect of italics.

TS: I'm Tucker, I roll with No Formatting. This is where Jog and I will talk about the Chaland anthologies, the school of the clean line, diacritical markings, and how it's fun to google By The Numbers and find out the only other person who talked about online happens to be Evan Dorkin.

JM: All right, I'm getting the hang of it. Talking to other people, I mean.

TS: Portions of this were written while I was waiting to download a pornographic version of Silence of the Lambs. If I seem unduly excited about Yves Chaland, that's why.

I. Associated Humanoids

TS: My first question is "Why do all these books, Jog?" You were the one who came up with the idea, although there was a sort of weird coincidence in that Matthew Brady (not the Matthew Brady Jodorowsky yelled at, the Warren Peace one) and I were having a little debate about whether or not it mattered if comics companies make good business decisions, and DC/Humanoids was stuck in my head as proof positive of what can happen to good material when it's horribly mismanaged. But yeah: all of them? What's up with that?

JM: Two reasons spring to mind right away:

1. I love starting big projects and only finishing after extravagant delays. It's a fetish, a physical thing, and for that I thank you.

2. It's a strange window, this Humanoids thing. You know? Like, the publisher's status these days; it's mainstream, mostly. It's a mainline publisher, putting out populist books, and we don't see all that many of those in North America. Not from France; manga, sure, but that's tapped into a desire for popular entertainment of a different stripe than what was readily available before. French-language comics haven't done that, but there's obviously interest in the 'art' comics world, so I think there's a hovering notion of French-reading Europe as a haven for arts-first comics, but some of that's just what we can see through the framing of language, of publishing activity.

I mean, obviously you can argue the French-reading environment is more amenable to certain genuses of sophistication, sure, but then you've got the Heavy Metal problem. That was the first germ of this idea for me. Christ, germs and problems - I'm a psychological ruin, Tucker. What's it like watching a man come apart via Google Docs, by which I mean face-to-face communication that's totally real?

(From The Metabarons: Alpha/Omega) But yeah, Heavy Metal. It's around every month, on your friendly local chain bookstore newsstand, right next to Classic Rock Presents: Prog or The Best American Penthouse Letters 2008, and you look inside and *holy shit* it's French comics! Album-length French comics, most months, sometimes twice in a month if it's a special, and a lot of them aren't art comics, you know? But there present all the time, and obviously they're coming from somewhere; it's a somewhere we don't see, but it's not inconsiderable.

And Les Humanoïdes is special in that regard; that's the place Heavy Metal came from -- in that Métal Hurlant was the inspiration -- which also served as a focal point for the French mainstream. Moebius, Druillet - those guys were actually interested in pushing boundaries in more than just the "extra blood; naked" sense. There was more violence and nudity, yeah, but there were metaphorical, philosophical, improvisational aspects too; I really really don't want to oversell their influence, but they were part of something, which was on the a cutting edge of the form for a while, visually, literarily, etc. There were ideals and longings.

Time passes, then - the publisher survives, changes hands, the scene changes, everything changes. Humanoïdes is part of the mainstream. Heavy Metal is part of the mainstream (they were always owned by different people, the National Lampoon people at first, but bear with me), a North American mainstream that it played a part in too, since it arrived right in the bridge period between underground comics and 'alternative'-comics-as-a-force, in the young Direct Market. Come 1999, and Humanoids is founded as a North American concern. The environment is totally fucking different, nobody is fucking involved in comics in 1999 that doesn't want to be there because it's a complete mess, it's hard to get a foothold; it's totally new, but new in a way that Humanoids' French counterpart had a tiny hand in. And the French stuff is different too; like, The Metabarons isn't The Airtight Garage, you know?

So there we have history looking to repeat itself, but it's really two brands of mainstream that don't match. It's pamphlets vs. albums, and a hundred other things. Humanoids goes through all these ideas to fit in (when less than a quarter of a century prior they just waltzed in and picked partners) - releasing pamphlets, breaking storylines up, carrying some albums over wholesale, multi-album trade paperbacks, new 'modern' coloring, hiding all the dangerous bits of the body that take me to Bad Time, reviving a magazine in comic book form and calling in people from around the world... they tried everything!

Suddenly, 2004: oh my god, it's DC! And Mainstream A tries to partner up with Mainstream B, and suddenly the window breaks open, and we can see a huge glob of what Humanoids became. Or, it was possible to see, at least, since there wasn't a ton of press and they put out a shitload of stuff, more than anyone could probably keep up with, so the bigness of it ironically wound up hurting its visibility. Some people were talking -- Warren Ellis and Matt Fraction (I'd link but artbomb seems to be dangerous these days, per Google) were on top of the Metabarons, the Bilal stuff -- but despite the internet being around there wasn't a lot of comprehensive coverage, not like you'd find for every DCU title. I'm counting myself in with that, by the way - I was blogging, writing about comics, and I covered exactly one of those books (François & Luc Schuiten's The Hollow Grounds).

(From The Hollow Grounds)

By 2005 it was gone; the deal was sunk. Humanoids vanished until this year, teamed up with DDP. That's five years, and I was looking around, you and me were talking, we'd wanted to work together on something. I think our second best option was doing the first 20 issues of The Savage Dragon, using Olav Beemer's letters to Erik Larsen as holy writ, an involuntary third critic reporting from 1993, for our reaction - time-travel criticism!

Then you started mentioning Yves Chaland; I'd looked at some of his stuff, Humanoids had released some, then DC/Humanoids reprinted it and put out more, and I'd written him off totally as a nostalgist bore, and you got me to actually read further than the first one and a half stories, and whoops - he's kind of a genius! And the type of genius with one foot in the early days of Franco-Belgian comics, and the other in the early Humanoïdes days; it was perfect, and it really provoked me, and I wanted to see what else was hiding away in the DC/Humanoids catalog.

There was something going on about criticism too. I don't think it's unfair to say a lot of online comics criticism is devoted to pamphlet-format serials/ongoing series, which isn't illogical, since the steady output of stuff facilitates discussion and commentary, new topics, new questions. But I think that also marks the conversation as perpetually current, which spills over to talk about standalone books and things. And the internet doesn't have to do that, in my opinion, because it doesn't have to answer to investors or subscribers or sponsors, and there's no risk of someone picking you up off the stand and going "holy hell, these Penthouse letters are all from 2004, I'm not turned on by John Ashcroft anymore, sheesh," which I think is maybe the expectation of a print publication, unless it's specifically dubbed a forum for reflection or whatnot. Or, you know, maybe there's a 'old times' slot, but even then you've got space to worry about; if you're running a zine, there's spatial concerns, getting it out to people.

On the internet, there's none of that. Ideally, people can easily access a huge amount of content, which there's space for. Yet I couldn't find a lot of work related to even something sorta-mainstream like DC/Humanoids (maybe more hybrid-mainstream, which arguably defeats the whole 'mainstream' idea) and I thought: hey! Times have changed! These books are pretty cheap, used, so they're untethered from the financial constrainst of new releases (which is another topic entirely), and there ought to be something going on with the whole sick crew. There's stuff here. Interesting stuff.

And since you'd gotten my mind on the topic, I realized it was the perfect idea for our collaboration. I know you have a history with these books too.

TS: I would hate to read blogs if it was all just up-to-the-minute "this just happened" kind of coverage. The internet provides this forum where there's a mentality that everything needs to be talked about by everybody, and I just can't be bothered. Sure, it might give me the opportunity to write about The Bad Girls Club, which I really enjoy doing, but the idea that everybody needs a Flash: Rebirth review within a week of it coming out--really? Why? You can taste it when somebody is online and feeling like they "have" to have an opinion because all the big sites/bloggers are expressing one. Like that Marvel Divas cover thing, or whether or not the single issue sales for DMZ are accurate: I don't have an opinion, and just because there's a forum to put one out there doesn't mean I need to take part. I don't walk down the street and jump into every fucking conversation I see strangers having, and I don't talk about the movies I like with the people in my office who won't shut up about Hotel For Dogs. There's got to be a reason to talk about something, or else it's just not going to be interesting to read about.

(From The Nikopol Trilogy)

Doing something like this--a silly, labor intensive slog through a bunch of great-to-awful comics, all of which aren't quick throwaways--there's got to be a real desire to do it. Otherwise you're not going to finish it, and if you do, it's going to be unreadable. When you brought it up, my first thought was "That's going to be difficult", not just because the style, story and quality had quite a range even in the portion I'd already read, but also because there's this mystique (that I subscribed too, although I'm not so sure I believe it anymore) that European comics were just categorically "deeper" than the stuff I normally write about. I think that stems a bit from the way they get treated in America, that they're first and foremost foreign material, material that comes from a different type of publisher and artist relationship than the one I've spent years immersed in.

At the same time, I don't think I came to this with the sort of background you have--I don't know that I've ever really paid much attention to Heavy Metal, my initial experience with Moebius probably was that scene in Crimson Tide, and I'd always thought of Jodorowsky as a filmmaker, first and foremost. But as when we got into it, I realized that was sort of an interesting point: most of the people coming at this work, or at least a good portion of them, would have explored the Humanoids line the same way when DC started releasing the books. They probably knew more than I did, most people do, but it wasn't like these reprints were showing up because of reader demand. Also, I knew in advance you were going to handle The Incal, and I found that book particularly intimidating to talk about.

My history with these books, which I touched on a little bit when I reviewed Bilal, was pretty simple: I saw The Horde and Hollow Grounds, and I liked the idea that I was finally going to get to see some non-Tintin/Asterix European stuff. I wasn't a blogger person then, so I had more free time to jack off to weird shit. I just signed up for the series on a whim, and I stuck with that for a good six months at least, maybe longer. I'd go into the comics shop, they'd have a Humanoids trade pulled for me, I'd take it home and read it or not. Some of these--the conclusion of Son of the Gun for one--I had never made the time for, and the only ones I'd ever even played at writing about was a sarcastic "go fuck yourself" with The Technopriests. At the time, and even more so now, I was struck by how out of touch it was to label all of these under one tent. Even with the scattered selection DC made, there was such a wide ranging variety of books, books like The White Lama that were really smart boy's adventure pulp stories (with tits, gore and Buddhism), books like The Hunting Party or The Nikopol Trilogy that stretched my own perception of what kind of comics I liked (I never expected to read a political dialog comic that I'd enjoy as much as Hunting), and of course, the doldrums of terrible that I put Sanctum and Transgenesis in. Comics--Europeans can put sand in my panties as easily as Americans!

What are your favorites of the Humanoids stuff you read? I'm firmly in the camp of hating-on-some-new-coloring for the Incal, although I do quite like it in the original version.

JM: Jeez, that takes me back to the avant-garde-gone-mainstream idea. Like you mentioned about Jodorowsky, you probably think of his movies first, and the prevailing opinion on that seems to be 'weird.' That's not set in stone, of course, but anyway - then you look at The Incal, his big splash, his big first long Moebius thing, and wow, it's pretty subdued. It's got a point of view, themes, right - it's not a three-act structure sort of comic. But it's way more of a straight-up adventure than anything Moebius was doing on his own at the time! It's one of the biggest projects the artist had done under the 'Moebius' name, but it's also pretty... normal. In comparison.

And I think there's something to that, the guiding of Moebius back into a more traditional style. It's funny, when you get the real AA+ level guys with Jodorowsky, the Girauds and the François Boucqs, he cools them down. They collect themselves into serving the story. While with, say, Georges Bess or Juan Giménez, he pushes them past where they'd been. He's like a star. Not a star writer (that too, though), but something that inspires orbit - quite a personality! All the odder that he writes these comics by meeting with the artists and basically relating the story to them rather than providing a script. Matthew Craig mentioned that he's got a little Stan Lee in him, and I agree.

TS: One of the things I didn't really grab about Jodorowsky's work until after doing this back and forth was how good the guy is at working with his artists. I'm so used to the serialized American comic, where the actual cohesion of give-and-take is completely random, that it was really striking to see him work with these guys in such different fashion. It's still fun to point out the rampant incest in the Jodorowsky books, regardless of what the plot is about, but I love how the dialog and pacing doesn't apply across the board. The bad guys in White Lama don't sound or act like the bad guys in Son of the Gun, and the Incal reads like neither. It's not that Jodorowsky doesn't take the reins, I almost wonder how much MORE involved he really is--it's that there's a true relationship between the story and the creative team. My top shelf out of the one's we read would be the Metabarons for pure raw entertainment, the Woman Trap portion of Nikopol for the "holy shit, this is big deal art" value, and the Chaland anthologies. Throw Hunting Party in there too, no matter how bad our US coloring might be, and you've got my favorites.

JM: I really fucking liked the Chaland stuff. Which we'll get to in a minute. I thought the Metabarons was the most perfect expression of Jodorowsky's worldview I've encountered, and enthralling for that. And the NogegoN portion of The Hollow Grounds, for being sad and strange and show-offy in all the best ways, love and humanity down before the eyes of god, but even god can't see everywhere. Rats live on no evil stars.

(From Different Ugliness, Different Madness)

TS: I think my least favorites are probably obvious--I thought Olympus was just terrible, whereas I found that Transgenesis thing to be as near to unreadable as anything could be possible. That's to be expected though-I can't imagine anybody looking at the entirety of the Humanoids/DC line and loving everything in it--but those two just stood out in their complete lack of purpose or passion.

JM: We had different Transgeneses, and I didn't read yours - oddly, your review didn't prompt a burning desire for purchase! No, mine was just dull and obvious. El Niño all but put me to sleep too. But really, I didn't think any of these books were straight-up horrible. I didn't read all the books you did, so maybe I'd dislike those as much as you, but there's a real lack of total incompetence here, although I suppose Humanoids maybe knew not to let the really bad stuff get out. On the flip side, I should also say that I totally appreciate the efforts of 'literary' comics publishers in getting the presumed cream of the crop out there, and yeah, I don't think the DC/Humanoids line had its own David B.'s Epileptic, like a serious best-of-decade contender in terms of North American releases. Although I know some might slip the Nikopol Trilogy in there, actually.

But hey, let's not get too conclusive; we've got two guys left to read.

TS: I feel confident in my belief that Olympus was the worst piece of shit in the bunch. Prove me wrong, ligne claire!

II. Yves Chaland is Dead

TS: Ah, the clean line, the "ligne claire"...how I recall the nights resting at my father's knee, "Tucker," he said to me, "Never forget the ligne claire, pioneered by Hergé in his many Tintin adventures."

JM: 'Ligne' and 'claire' were my third and fourth words as a child. 'Mama' placed tenth.

TS: So what were the first two? Miller and Mazzucchelli?

JM: Anyhow, Yves Chaland got a meaty two books dedicated to him in the DC/Humanoids adventure, the Chaland Anthology vols. 1 and 2. Book 1 covered three albums, 1981's The Will of Godfrey of Bouillon, 1984's The Elephant Graveyard and 1986's The Comet of Carthage. Book 2 sported two albums, 1988's Holiday in Budapest and 1990's F.52, the latter of which was published the year Chaland died in a vehicular accident. He was 33 years old.

TS: Why did you think Chaland was a "nostalgist bore"? I'll admit that I was mostly into him for the comedic value at first, although I was pretty sold on the look immediately. Correct me if I'm wrong: it was the comet story, right?

JM: The comet story (the third one) was what turned me around. It was the very first story, The Will of Godfrey of Bouillion, that put me off, in that I put the book away after reading it and didn't go back until you advised me to do so.

TS: Huh. I liked them both at first blush, but I'm a sucker for funny shit sometimes, and my relationship with the clean line was so limited at the time--they both worked for me pretty quickly. I don't know when else I'll get the chance to bring it up, so here's my favorite gags from The Will of Godfrey of Bouillion:

1: Freddy's Constant Scowling. Chaland always makes the guy go straight from normal to seething rage filled hate. He rarely follows through by vomiting acidic blood, but he always looks like he's on the verge.

2. The dream sequence reminded me of when Moonlighting would do dream sequences, where all the actors would show up as various 20's era gangsters and what not. Best joke would be "Stop groaning Freddy! It's annoying!" coming from Sweep the bowman to Freddy's "I'm not groaning! Who are you, anyway?"

3. Drunk Freddy arguing with a statue about the weather. Kills me. Kills me stone dead.

JM: Ah, I probably should have been more open-minded. Background, maybe? With me, the answer's always yes.

You see (you, reading this, not Tucker), the Chaland Anthology books were unique among DC/Humanoids projects in that they specifically set out to collect various and sundry short works by a single artist - one of the Bilal books, Memories, did that also, but that was only one book among various themed collections. Like I mentioned above, Humanoids put out a big oversized hardcover of the first volume in 2003, and then the DC deal had it reprinted as a standard-sized softcover, with a second volume following. Those two books were the only ones released before the DC deal fell through, and they happened to collect all of Chaland's work with this character called Freddy Lombard, who was named for the old Belgian publisher Le Lombard, which published Tintin and The Smurfs and a lot of classic series; it was a statement of intent. There were two other Chaland Anthology books in France, and our most valued commentator Pedro Bouca -- and seriously, we've got to thank Pedro right now for giving us great feedback on every portion of this series -- tells us they contained some very strong material, really sharply satiric work criticizing the racist, paternalistic aspects of early Franco-Belgian comics by adopting their visual style and cranking up the ugly themes 1000x.

Which is something latent to Chaland's style, I've since come to realize. He'd been a cartoonist since 1978, with a lot of earlier fanzine work behind him, and he'd done some 'realistic' work, but he became famous as one of the guys who brought the ligne claire back into the public eye. Joost Swarte was also on that; he actually coined the term "ligne claire." But Chaland's take wasn't just emulation; it was called the "Atomic" style, a meaningful appropriation of an aesthetic charged with a specific social quality of its time, an idealism and sense of boyish adventure, which Chaland contrasted with particular, difficult subject matter to bring out some criticism or special evocation. Like, using the look of Tintin to poke at what went down when he visited the Congo.

TS: Oh, I love what I've seen of Joost Swarte. Is that cool? Does that make me lame? I don't care. Please continue.

JM: One day that big Swarte collection really will be released by Fantagraphics, and oh the birds will sing.

There's a lot of sheer visual pleasure to the stuff. Chaland became really popular, for illustrations as well as comics, if I recall correctly. But I wasn't so sure of that back when I read the first Freddy Lombard story in the first Chaland Anthology, which didn't contain any context or historical info or anything. It's just adventure guy Freddy Lombard and his crew -- bald, irritated Sweep and headstrong Dina -- getting mixed up in a search for treasure in the mountains, and then there's a really fucking long dream sequence set in a Peyo-like Dark Ages slapstick palace, and then the story kind of runs around.

TS: Goddamnit Joe, the guy gets drunk and argues with a statue about the weather. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. The water tastes of baby. That shit ain't freely available.

JM: The trick is, we're not told right away it was an experiment. It was like 'automatic drawing' for Chaland, a whole album he finished in 30 days, just blowing through a page a day until the story looked done, which naturally accounts for the extra-long dream. His head was full of old-timey comics! It just came out! But I didn't know that until the historical stuff included in the back of the Chaland Anthologies vol. 2; it just seemed misshapen as a story, really old-fashioned, almost winking slapstick. I didn't see any point, given the man's reputation, which I did know about, at least!

Here's something: do you think not having immediate context really hurts this stuff?

TS: I definitely came back to the story with a different mindset after reading about the "automatic drawing" stuff, but I wouldn't say it changed my initial enjoyment of the comics themselves. The backmatter, where Chaland describes the "automatic" proces made me respect the stories more from an experimentation aspect, if you know what I mean. I definitely responded to the artist behind the comics differently after I read that stuff though. Chaland... man, I really wish there was more of his stuff out there. Here he was, from his own notes: "I believe in treating the reader badly..." I wish that kind of honesty was more widely available. All the constant "let's talk to our fans" "I'm so glad you liked it" "I wish i could win an Eisner, aw shucks." Fucking Chaland had gigantic testes, full of man milk. They totally should have put that quote on the cover.

JM: DDP, are you reading? There's two of these things left! No pun intended.

TS: That kind of frank, open behavior--I don't know, maybe it's just me, but every time I ever read cartoonists mentioning the "lack of respect" comics get from high art types, I just wish they'd shut the fuck up. Chaland knew he was an artist, he didn't need somebody to argue it for him, or write a book about why it was true. He was an artist, he made art, and fuck you if you thought comics were for kids. It hurts that there's not more of him to read. Died too young, too soon.

JM: Right. I'd have probably had a different reaction myself if I'd actually read deeper into the first anthology. The second album in there, the Elephant Graveyard - that's a diptych of stories, one of which sees Freddy & co. (and one of the things I like is that they're total mooches, just hanging around wherever until adventure beckons) ship off to Africa at the behest of a wacky collector who really wants a rare photographic plate for his horde. Conflict against natives results, and we're assured that Our Heroes have brought utter chaos to a region that's been peaceful for a quarter of a century. The second story is much darker, concerning murders among white African explorers at home in Paris, with a connection to poaching and violence on the continent years back. You've mentioned having some problems with the material on first blush?

TS: Yes, his depiction of black people in the Elephant Graveyard story threw me off. It did then, and I had always skipped that stuff on the re-read until the team-up. So yes, Pedro Bouca, our comment resident expert on Humanoids: I will freely admit that I was one of those overly-sensitive American readers offended by the garish stereotype, because I didn't do any research. After finishing this re-read, talking a little bit with you, reading the back-matter and, for the first time, looking into the guys work, I found out that it was purposely done that way as satire.

JM: Uh huh; the two stories in the album sort of compliment one another, although they're both pretty critical; the first one casts all of this violence as a goofy, repugnant game between these dumb arch-collectors of nonsense, while the second refuses to even leave Paris while all these muscular French he-man explorers are murdered, despite that jaunty title: The Elephant Graveyard! Plus, Chaland wants the book to feel like an old Lombard production, so there's sincere laffs and shit, which probably jars even worse.

TS: The thing that I think hurts this a bit is that I came at this first volume--which doesn't have any backmatter, and the blurb description on the back doesn't indicate any of Chaland's intentions--as a non-blogging, non-wikipedia reading, non-googling type. I just bought this at a comic store and read it, and if I'd never joined the dark forces of "write shit on the Internet" club, I don't know when that feeling would have changed. One of the things I see as a consistent complaint online is that attitude that people shouldn't dislike something, or be offended by something, without getting the context. In some cases, I can agree with that--David Brothers put up a couple of panels from a Garth Ennis Hellblazer story once, the "Don't call me whitey, nigger" panels--and some people pointed to that as racist despite not knowing anything about the comic that surrounded that panel. There, I'm on the side of the publisher, the writer: read the comic first, don't make this into some Aryan maternity test. But in the case of Elephant Graveyard, I think that it's a strange choice to have a 134 page trade collection without any acknowledgement or mention that the reason the natives are big-lipped Booga Booga types is because Chaland was being ironic on purpose.

You mentioned the possibility that putting this alongside the first story was the "tell" that Elephant Graveyard wasn't supposed to be standard racist depiction done for racist reasons. And while yes, I'm more inclined to agree with you now, that isn't something that I think is explicit enough to be clear to the majority of the American audiences. If we were dealing with something like Tintin in the Congo or Robert Crumb's "Nigger Hearts," a comic that is easily surrounded by an existent discussion of the imagery, if we're talking about the Mamie character in the Walt & Skeezix reprints, were Chris Ware says "Look, we know how bad this looks, and we agree, it's kind of fucked up," that's one thing.

But these Yves Chaland reprints from DC/Humanoids? This isn't something that has a lot of peers for American readers, they barely got this stuff into bookstores, which means you're stuck with one potential audience: the direct market reader. I don't think it was the right choice to put this out there and just optimistically expect everybody would get it. A change in the back cover text--just the addition of the word "satire," maybe the type of disclaimer that Chris Ware puts in the front of those Walt & Skeezix books... shit, I don't like this anymore than anybody else does. It's veering pretty close to hand-holding, I know. But these aren't huge selling comics where they can just cockily write off the portion of the audience that would see those Booga Booga types and get upset. When you're dealing with these things, which I think Brian Hibbs once said got pre-orders of less than 5000, every potential buyer matters.

I don't know, I feel bad about making a big deal out of this, I didn't intend to. I love these two collections of Chaland's stuff, I really do. I don't have any evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that American readers were upset by the drawings. I just want more of this stuff available, and I really hope the reason that there isn't is just because American readers suck at buying good comics, and not that some American readers were offended by what they saw here. Because this is one of the times when I think there wasn't enough context freely available for them to make an argument otherwise.

JM: Sure, I totally understand.

And then, after that - oh man, the comet one. The Comet of Carthage. That's the big leap, right there; it's where I should have kept reading until, because I know it would have knocked me on my ass.

TS: The Comet of Carthage--and I'll admit, I'm counting a bit on you to explicate this--it's just about a perfect comic. I have a lot of affection for all of the stories contained here, despite my P.C. concerns as well as finding the first story in the second collection, Holiday In Budapest, to be a bit long-winded. But I've got zero complaints with Comet Of Carthage, and when it comes to being disappointed at the loss of a guy who wasn't even 33 when he died, it's the fantasy of more stories like Comet that motivates that feeling.

JM: How to describe it? I'm sure some of the shift in style comes from Chaland picking up a co-writer, Yann Lepennetier, who'd go on to work on every freddy Lombard story (so, three in total), but... it's like being slapped in the face. It's like Gilbert Hernandez stumbling on a lost Eddie Campbell Deadface script circa Doing the Islands With Bacchus -- I should mention right now that The Last of the Summer Wine, from the 1988 Harrier Bacchus series issue #2 is one of my favorite comic stories of all time -- and editing it in the smash-cut style of Love and Rockets at its most fevered. And, you know - Tintin references! Freddy Lombard 'n pals wandering around this unstuck-in-time place, a comet bearing down, scenes just barely connecting, mythological allusions everywhere, a mad professor in a submarine, a strange women in sunglasses - probably Nouvelle Vague too, actually. I loved this. LOVED it. The last page destroyed me.

It's funny, because none of it's 'realistic,' like even in the sense of evoking a '50s comic or anything. There's huge, huge word balloons and just... it somehow works? It's like an organic evolution of these comics into something that interacted with developments in French popular culture without shifting in pure surface aesthetic, like a crazy superfan's dream... does that make sense?

TS: Oh, I think I see where you're going with this. The timing of the whole thing, the way it delivers all the necessary tropes--the greasy scary guy with his mustache, the coming crisis of environmental destruction, the sultry seductress of mystery, the May-December romance--how it's all mashed up into one concise story? I'm terrible with France, my knowledge begins and ends with Godard and Ionesco. I think I have maybe two albums of popular French music, and both of them are terrible.

Those pages where "A princess" falls into the sea for Freddy to find her--I was knocked out by every little thing about it. The crash of the suitcase, the initial desperate grab for the picture of her and her sister, the why Chaland changed the direction of the rain to show how much worse the storm was getting, her scream of "NO" when the rocks started to fall...jesus, I'm not even looking at the comic, it's just nailed to my brain.

And yes, of course--the final pages of the comet coming down, even though we know it's not going to hit the Earth or something, the way it just punctuates this massive collapse, a tidal wave, an octopus...and then the sun comes up, and all that's left is wreckage.

JM: Then we get to Holiday in Budapest (the start of the DC/Humanoids vol. 2), and, naturally, it's different once again. I think more than anything else in the series it fulfills maybe the 'expectations' for a project like this, in that it's a logical, 'mature' version of a 1950s Franco-Belgian comic, which Chaland mentions as his intent in the back - it's like a comic of the period, but tackling unrest in that part of the world, with the goofy heroes agreeing to take some kid back home to the city to be a man and fight the Russians, and antics totally goddamned ensue. It's not quite on-the-level, I don't think, in that I haven't read a ton of comics from that period (like most English-only Americans; my French is seriously as good as that of mold in an apartment in Paris), and there's some 'spicy' stuff I suppose, but I don't see a lot of irony to it. It's 'mature Tintin,' basically.

TS: Not to be too sarcastic, but I'd say you're right, and that's probably why I preferred F.52, no matter that it had a little mentally handicapped girl that everybody calls retarded. My favorite thing about Holiday In Budapest was watching Sweep get laid--the cutesy whining socialist and his misadventures wore me out. I just kept hoping somebody would stick a grenade in that kid's mouth. What an irritating little twat.

JM: Oh, the sex scene is totally the best part. I really dug how it's mostly this increasingly improbably series of slapstick antics that Sweep gets into, but you know, the essence of slapstick is physicality, and she just keeps watching his body going through these absurd routines and getting more and more excited - it's great.

TS: Definitely! If you read Holiday In Budapest and just skip anything with or about the kid, you end up reading this really great comic about Sweep and his asshole pal, Freddy Lombard.

JM: So what about F.52? It's a 'chaos on a plane' children in peril special, terror at however many thousands of feet, little girl running from crazy people in an enclosed space, with a tear-off-the-roof ending (not literally). I liked it when Freddy murders a woman and starts screaming NO! I DIDN'T MEAN TO DO THAT! or something, 'cause that's not supposed to happen! Much!

TS: F.52 doesn't have the same emotional punch to it that Comet did, but it's still pretty fucked up and insane. The violence in it is so brilliant--when the female part of the crazy couple beats the shit out of Dina, and the next time you see her there's just all kinds of gore hanging off her face--so amazing, and so out of nowhere. Or when the cabin crew brings the mentally handicapped girl back to the Jodie Foster stand-in (what was that movie called? Flightplan? Not Without My Daughter?) and she starts saying "This isn't my daughter" and then she fucking SHOVES the kid about 10 feet into a bunch of people? That's some pull-no-punches cruel comedy, it's like the Eastbound & Down of the ligne claire.

In some ways, I think F.52 wraps up Yves Chaland's Freddy work even better than Comet of Carthage. Now, I don't mean I like F.52 more, but I think this might be more of what he was going for with these Lombard adventures--clear antecedents in the "throw my characters in crazy circumstances to showcase what they do best" kind of plotting, the over-the-top, borderline juvenile humor, the somewhat obtuse addition of characters with weird motives and proclivities, and an overall tempo that just forces you to pump through the comic at whatever speed he dictates. On the other hand, Comet is a story that seems more direct and mature, a story that almost seems a little beyond the type of involvement Freddy and his pals provide. They seem--and this isn't so much a complaint or criticism--outclassed by the story surrounding them. In F.52, they couldn't be more at home: this is what they should be doing. Getting the holy fuck kicked out of them and accidently murdering people, all while wearing funny outfits.

JM: You've gotta wonder where he was going to take it from there. With this one he's adding graphic violence -- it's far and away the bloodiest of the Lombard stories -- to a sort of typical adventure setup. He mentions in the back that he liked the look of the aircraft. Very 'atomic,' which I'm sure sparked a lot of interest, although there was also a Tintin story set around a plane - Flight 714. They don't get on it until the end, though.

You're right; it's a good ending. The iconography of the final bit is powerful, and not just because of the circumstances surrounding Chaland's death that year (sadly, you can't escape that): nice vintage automobile, speeding into the air and falling gracefully into the sun. There goes the old style. There goes Yves Chaland.

III. Stanislas (Or the Decline and Fall of the '70s Avant-Garde)

TS: I'm really curious to what you have to say about Stanislas & Rullier's By The Numbers, since I don't think that's one you and I have talked about at all the way we did about Chaland, Bilal, Jodorowsky. Without knowing in advance, i'll take a plunge and say that I liked this one as well, although I think it goes into different territory completely than Chaland does, despite it sharing a similar "look". For one, it's more direct in its ambition to be a comic about French people in Vietnam--I think there's even something in the end notes where the writer talks about how he wished there were more comics out there about the subject, but I didn't get a specific reason beyond that. He just wanted there to be comics set in that time period.

JM: It is a very straightforward historical adventure piece, isn't it?

For all you who may not know -- which is to say, possibly everyone besides Evan Dorkin -- By the Numbers is a series of books released between 1990 and 2004 by writer Laurent Rullier and artist 'Stanislas' (Barthélemy). There's actually only four of them, the first two of which were collected into the DC/Humanoids edition, although the supplements suggest there's probably been a number of revisions made to the material across various printings. As it is, the DC/Humanoids edition ends on a logical stopping point, although it's obvious the story isn't entirely over.

The books focus on this guy, Victor Levallois, who narrates the various stories from 1968, where he's a middle-aged balding guy with a lot of experience behind him. Most of the books are actually flashbacks that follow his life's path, from being a mild-mannered accountant in the late '40s to finding himself mixed up in money-making schemes in Saigon, and eventually falling in with a mixed crew of revolutionary opium smokers, not entirely ex-Nazis, action-starved volunteer French soldiers and a whole lot of grifters and rich kids who enjoy the notion of sex with 14-year old prostitutes. There's an apparently popular scheme going on at the time, exploiting legally-controlled exchange rates of currency, allowing for francs and dollars and piastre to get passed around for big French profits. Most of the dollars wind up going to anti-French forces in the area, but not a lot of folks seem to care - they're totally amoral in that regard, and Victor (an accountant!) comes to profit as well as the years go by. And he falls in 'love' with a young woman, of course, who's got a thing for gambling, and then the tides of history come in to wash it all away, etc. etc.

I was pretty startled by the depictions of morality in the book - I think that sets it apart as more 'novelistic' (oh god, there's a trap I've stepped into) than comics or movies or whatnot often art, in that there's a lot of nuance going on. Like, 14-year old prostitutes... that's fucking awful, there's all these terrible conclusions to draw from that, yet otherwise sympathetic characters are depicted as taking part of this type of vacation from morality. It's a real playground of paternal profit, as depicted, and the book really does an effective job of showing Victor's sort of conflicted delight in that world... he enjoys making money, Stanislas always draws him smoking that smart cigarette - what an ass!

TS: Yes, there's a definite paternalistic quality to this whole thing--while Victor doesn't behave atrociously or anything, and I'd imagine he's probably depicted a bit nicer than your standard "emigre with superiority complex," the entire relationship between him and his Vietnamese lover comes across as being a sort of "I look after you and your gambling problems, you dumb native chick, you'll love me whether you want to or not" kind of attitude. I'd bet there's some accuracy to that, romanticized as it might be.

JM: What did you make of Stanislas? His art? I think he added an extra layer of depth, in that he drafts all these rather unadorned 'just living' scenes without a lot of judgment as to the moral situation. There's the great bit early on with Victor carrying a little kid through a yard and into a house; it's not detailed art, but it's so lived-in, really evocative stuff without resorting to 'show your work' type of historical detail overload. It's really nice.

TS: It's interesting how the entire "feel" of the story's time and place were defined (to me at least) by those party sequences. Just a bunch of lazy French-types hanging around and drinking too much in some really precious attempts at beatnik lifestyle. It worked well when things start to get nasty, when they run out of money and the Vietnamese gangster types start turning against them. The portions on the ship, the shoot out at the dump--that stuff is all well and good, but I didn't get a sense that was specific to Vietnam or France. It was just a shoot out at a dump. But when you see those cocky pricks and their hammocks, with their stilted arguments about politics and their gross behavior towards the locals--that locked it into something out of The Quiet American.

Stanislas doesn't seem to have the same blowing-up-the-spot kind of art that some of these cats do, although I think there's some moments of real excitement in By The Numbers. When I think about the collection--of which DC/Humanoids only released one, although the title "Volume 1" makes it seem like more was coming--the stuff that stood out the most for me was that war page in the second story, where most of the violence is shown through all red panels with the word "Bom" while black shadows shoot guns. Except for the "oops! sorry." dialog, there's just that one line at the end, "It lasted all night". That was a pretty tasty page.

JM: He also manages to put together the occasional 'awesome' bit - the part at the end of chapter 1 with the fellow who's been sitting around (possibly all night!) with a gun trained on a guy's head - I liked the meshing of the story and art there, in that there's a sort of unassuming (and thus awful; frightening) 'no big deal' quality to guys getting shot.

TS: Oh, yeah, that part also had my favorite piece of dialog in the whole comic. Right before he shoots that guy, Mr. All Nighter says "I used to know an oberleutenant who got his throat slit by a 13-year-old girl!" That's the way he distracts him? It's such a random interjection. And then he shoots him from a seated position with a machine gun. Like you said, it's totally unassuming and awful--the guy just blows the dude to pieces from point blank range in the middle of the day. While sitting down. No negotiation, no "is there another way", he just kills him and leaves, so he can go to bed.

JM: Here's something - I tend to associate Stanislas' art more with, say, Dupuy and Berbérian and that kind of latter-day cartooning look, even though I suspect that the period setting of the series associates it with the clear line. What do you make of that?

TS: Oh, I'd definitely agree with the Dupuy/Berbérian connection. By The Numbers may be clear line, but it's a contemporary clear line. It's also almost universally a thinly lined comic, everything in here looks like it's not far removed from the type of layouts you see whenever a company publishes a cartoonists style. There's none of the type of brushed in depth you see in Chaland, where thick lines are added to Freddy's face to define his mood. By The Numbers is a really tightly boxed comic too, sort of the way Moebius laid out the Blueberry stuff I just read. Some of these pages have 20 panels, the only reason it doesn't smother the story is because they're all so clean to look at.

JM: Yeah. There's probably a bit less to talk about with a story like this in that it just sort of darts forward - I did think it kind of starts to lose impact once the shit really hits the fan by the end and Victor goes bananas trying to find his lover -- and period-psychological accuracy or not, I'll cop to never, ever being much of a fan of the old-school 'headstrong woman who dooms her man through his intense love and winds up a whore dying in agony, one presumes for her sins' character type; I do think the work buys into those genre (historical fiction genre) elements a bit -- where he's falling in and out of occasion in various locations, dodging death. I think the observational qualities got a bit lost there, even though there's still some skillful character bits. It's a very neatly composed work. Sure do wish we'd get the second half.

TS: The thing that I found interesting about his pursuit of the girl was that, whether it was intended or not, I never got the sense he loved her. Victor treated that girl like property, and his pursuit of her read like another version of Victor pursuing something that doesn't belong to him, but that he's laid claim too, the same way France treated Vietnam: we give a shit because we've decided we know better. Victor spends a good portion of the first volume chasing some money that doesn't belong to him so he can pretty much steal it himself, and then he spends the second half chasing a woman who he doesn't love so much as he believes she belongs to him. France in Indochina--they screwed around for a while and then America turned it into a blood-soaked debate on communism. Either way, it was white people just saying "We know better" to a bunch of natives. Victor, for all his qualities, isn't much different.

JM: There's more than one type of historical quality present too. The first of these books came out in 1990 - exactly the same year Stanislas co-founded the famous French alternative publisher L'Association with Jean-Christophe Menu, David B., Killoffer, Lewis Trondheim and Todd McFarlane. No, wait... Mattt Konture. And Mokeït, who stopped releasing work almost right after he started, thus forever branding him the Whilce Portacio of French comics. For me.

TS: Somebody should review every Wetworks related comic at some point. That would make for prime time reading.

JM: And it's funny, because L'Association wound up raising the banner of the avant-garde that Les Humanoïdes used to wave. That's totally a rough statement, granted - if anyone wants to learn more, I 100% recommend Bart Beaty's very fine book Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s, which should fill you in on a lot of the stuff going on. But there's... I think Jodorowsky ruined my brain, because I'm thinking in such odd ways, but there's an odd symbolism to Humanoids releasing this work from the year L'Association opened, out into the midst of this broken effort to re-introduce the publisher's material to a North American audience, doomed to failure while it's the children of L'Association itself that finds such purchase, as far as the cultural perception of 'Eurocomics' goes. It's like their world, even though they're not 'mainstream' at all - the cultural capital is great, though. Maybe the exchange rate it better, like back in Indochina in the '40s.

IV. Howling Disaster

JM: Tucker, why do you think DC/Humanoids failed?

TS: Here's the thing: it isn't that the Humanoids Publishing empire is somehow better as a whole than any other publishing company.

JM: Gosh no; this is some alternate dimension shit, a 'real mainstream' apart from our reality.

TS: They put out crap, so does everybody else, and the lens for that crap is going to get focused even tighter by the basic stumbling block that the DC/Humanoids deal wasn't designed with any real aesthetic methodology behind it. DC picked the books they thought they could sell, they shoved them out on a ridiculous publishing schedule that was, regardless of who came up with it, indefensibly stupid, and they didn't back them up with any real marketing or ambition beyond turning to the internet for some token press releases--which the internet is already drowning in. They picked books that were demonstrably successful in other markets, including some that Humanoids had already brought to American market, they picked ones that were new and vaguely relatable to bookstore friendly graphic novels, but they did it in a haphazard, stupid fashion. What was Different Ugliness, Different Madness supposed to compete with in a comic book store? The Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics books that those stores didn't carry or have an audience for? What was the point of re-releasing the Metabarons, the Nikopol Trilogy, White Lama, Sanctum and the Technopriests when the Humanoids versions of those titles had been released just a few years earlier and failed to crack the market? What was the point of a unified production design, one that matched the also-botched 2000 AD reprints, if the books were going to lack a unified content as well?

JM: Ha, the unified book design was almost all DC did in that regard; it took the million formats of the old Humanoids's Direct Market efforts and ordered them into a standard line. God rid of the blankets over the nudity too. And yeah, they had the Rebellion deal going on at the same time (somebody take this excessive reviewing baton and run!) - interesting on the similar format. Like all the foreign stuff goes in the same place, except for manga. Ah, but I'm sure they only wanted to make them easier to sort, or sell.

TS: Oh, I'd agree that it was a good bookstore choice, but it's also not something that can make magic happen. I like that MOME and the new Love and Rockets, House, Jessica Farm are all the same size, and I like that all my Humanoids are the same size, but come the fuck on: you can't just do that and some email bombing and call it a day. Grow the fuck up.

JM: I agree, I agree.

TS: It's one thing to publish a bunch of Humanoids reprints that focus on science fiction, which was the rough majority of DC's choices, and it's another to split the difference and throw in a black & white 30's 'feelings' comic, a short throwaway script Geoff Johns came up with in the weeks prior to when his DC-exclusive contract took effect, and a couple of compilation albums of satirical ligne claire work that looks like Tintin by way of chain smoking sarcasm. That's not a publishing imprint. That's vomiting books out, and it's no surprise at all that it couldn't crack a direct market--the store where I picked up many of these books on the release dates had no idea what or how many to order, they were completely dependent on the sort of people who read the monstrous Previews catalog, and while it's a debate I'm not wholly invested in, I do think the idea that the consumer should read through fucking Previews to find comics is completely fucking ridiculous.

DC/Humanoids, like DC and Marvel always seem to do, expected stores and consumers to trust them, to just order and order and order away, to just suck it up and build a new shelf for a bunch of comics a bare minimum of customers realistically knew existed. The intent was obvious enough--if DC could get the Tintin audience with Chaland, Rulliers & Stanisals, they'd have a foot in the door in a way that the adventures of Supergirl couldn't crack, if they could get the Palookaville and Alex Toth sketchbook audience with Different Madness, if their stand-alone science fiction sagas and epic Jodorwosky tales could do this, so on, so forth...the mentality was solid, that makes sense. The Humanoids books offered something that Vertigo and DC Universe titles didn't, still don't, and probably never will. (Unless something changes, I can't see Vertigo publishing stuff like Different Ugliness while Marvel MAX puts out the Metabarons, Soliel reprints notwithstanding.)

I think these things had a chance, and while I don't know if Devil's Due is the right home for them--I never know how much one should rely on that crazy Lying In The Gutters guy, but he's nailed that company for non-payment a few times--it's just ridiculous to me that something like Bilal, or Jodorowsky, comics that have huge exposure and name recognition amongst a swath of non-American readers besides Pedro Bouca. Tintin sells here: so could Chaland. Bad science fiction comics sell here: so could good science fiction comics. Huge epic kill-fest comics sell here: so could Metabarons.

I work in advertising, and I hate it when idiots just say that the solution is "marketing," so I won't just say that. But NOBODY EVEN TRIED with the DC run. They just chucked them out non-stop! It's not like there's a business decision that I can pick apart here, because DC didn't even come up with a business decision, beyond the actual format, which is honestly the only thing I think they got right. I can understand the criticisms against it from a purely comics-as-art standpoint, nobody wants to be forced into a specific size. But the Humanoids/DC line wasn't showing up with a huge amount of fanfare, and making some kind of "however the artists wants it" decision probably wouldn't have been the right call. (Bill Watterston didn't demand control over his Sunday pages in the first year of Calvin and Hobbes, he did that when he had the clout to pull it off.) Unified production design isn't the most attractive thing in the world, but if these books had made it to bookstores in a more expansive way, it would have made them more attractive.

But really, I'm just spitballing random opinionated specifics. If there was a business plan in place for DC/Humanoids, it was a completely mysterious "hope for osmosis and cold fusion" one. I can criticize what I think it was and brainstorm rough drafts of what I think it should have been, but the simple truth is that they didn't try anything at all beyond the physical printing of material. So here's the simple answer, which I should have put before all these paragraphs: They didn't do anything. They should have tried something.

JM: That's very well put. When I look at these things, I'm really taken with the futility of struggling against history. Because the last time Humanoïdes found themselves introduced to the North American comics audience, there also didn't seem to be much of a plan besides trusting the National Lampoon people with making a nice magazine -- and if you look at some of Jean-Pierre Dionnet's comments, some of them felt their trust was misplaced, in an aesthetic sense -- which, if you really look at those early issues, turned out to be some ferociously newcomer-unfriendly shit! There'd be whole issues composed of nothing but middle chapters of serials and pin-ups, there was no fucking context or artists' statements or recaps or anything, just 'look at all this cool shit, it's great!' and there really was a positive reaction. Yeah! That is great!

It was a different time. Print magazines were still a solid concern; National Lampoon was very popular. American comics and comics readers were really hospitable to that kind of work. The maturation of the form seemed to match up at that moment, in the US and France, which is funny, since France & Belgium used to lag behind a bit in the '50s compared to the US and Japan - I bet if we ever see a lot of examples of the gekiga Yoshihiro Tatsumi works on in A Drifting Life, it wouldn't be a thousand miles off from the baby steps taken by Charles Biro's crime comics. But Japan made a choice to keep going forward, and the US found itself acting differently, from political, social pressure - many factors. Heavy Metal was witness to a new instant of international union, dramatic as that sounds. Odd things came in; they always do at those times.

There'll be more times like that, although who knows what it'll involve. Certainly that wasn't the case with Humanoids, with or without DC. They contorted, cut, capered and cried for access, and they got it - too much. What barking madness, eh?

TS: The best thing that can be said about DC's failure, the way I see it, is that I don't think anybody with any sense would see what they did and use that as evidence that there's no audience for what guys like Bilal, Yves Chaland or Alejandro Jodorowsky have to offer. These things may have sold miserably--by all accounts, that seems to be true--but it seems just as obvious that was more because anything would fail when presented with this little intent and design. One of the things you touched on in your own review of Bilal's The Beast Trilogy was that he was an artist who regularly sees another "push" to get him over here. You go on Amazon right now, or eBay, you find people offering and selling copies of his work for insane prices--these guys aren't going anywhere.

And the thing is, as much as I want the artists I like to succeed while still alive enough to enjoy it, some of these guys won't feel it until they, like Tatsumi, hit 70, and some of them won't hit it until after they're dead. They didn't all make books that have those kind of legs, but some of them did, and I want to believe that the good will out, and that someday down the line you won't have to bust your ass and break into your savings just to find out how great The Woman Trap is.

JM: These artists, though - maybe their fame right now is all they want. The North American comics industry can pretend that where it goes follows the world, but honestly? I don't think many people do that anymore. I think most of us that know these names know of the respect that a lot of them already have; what's ours but icing? Gravy? Brown icing? Another revenue stream? Another 10,000 copies sold, atop Bilal's 400,000? Jodorowsky didn't sound like he needed sound like he needed attention from our neck of the woods on Newsarama.

But yeah, what about the discovery? For North American readers, English-only? It's hard to even talk about some of these books, given that some of them have already become so rare and costly; speaking of lessons learned on this trip!

It's not over. Humanoids is still around. Cracks are still visible in the taped-over window. Comics are better and worse than they were half a decade ago. And something's gonna happen again. We don't need another five years to tell you that.