Was it me, or did "4 Kids..." end abruptly?

When I first read a write up of Tyler Boss, Thomas Mauer, and Matt Rosenberg's "4 Kids Walk into a Bank" back in April of 2016 (or thereabouts) I thought it sounded fun and different and would be something I wanted to check out. I like the idea of sequential art being used to tell different kinds of stories.

The miniseries covers

My son wasn't even born yet. When the second issue came out, the possibilities, while known mostly from the outset, were going to be teased out with a kind of artistic judiciousness that speaks to great art.

My excitement hadn't cooled exactly by having to wait months for the third issue, and once we readers found out there had been a family health emergency with the writer, Matthew Rosenberg's, father, the delay made sense, but I was left wanting maybe more than could be delivered.

Another few months went by waiting for the fourth issue, and by the time it ended, it seemed like if we ever got to the fifth and final issue, TONS of work would have to be done to wrap up the story.

But that's not to say I wasn't enjoying the hell out of it. Double negatives aside, it was fantastic and exciting and all I wanted from Out There storytelling. The art was beautiful if a touch anachronistic and the colors were that wonderful marriage of dazzling and muted that is almost never even attempted these days.

The last issue arrived a few more months later, much to my surprise at my LCS, and my son is walking and babbling and getting into all sorts of shit. It's only after he goes to bed that I ever get anytime to read anything, colorful comics especially, and I devoured the last issue like a starving person.

Only it came and went quicker than its forty pages of heft would suggest.

The characters all seemed to be older and more mature, but that's probably my own projection of the time between issues, but that alone seems weird. It's not like years passed.

Anyway, the opening scene, instead of the kids' game setting the scene, it's the finale of the robbery. The story backs up and the robbery goes down, and the scene is essentially an action movie montage, but that's all any comic is, right? It goes by, Berg is shot, Paige shoots a cop, and in the last panel years have gone by and she's being released form prison and being greeted by two of her pals and her father. "I'm so sorry, dad." The end.

I guess it couldn't have ended any other way, and I guess I'm really just bummed out by my own reaction. It's silly to be disappointed in the ending, because, really, that's the only way it could have ever ended.

Maybe I just expected more because of the cleverness from earlier in the series, and that would be a me problem.

READ IT if you haven't yet...you won't be disappointed...or maybe you will be, but who's counting?

Hot Jazz: November 2017

Something I'm very excited about come November is a newly translated from the French classic "Niourk":

The sample pages are stunning, and Stefan Wul is a writer I've been interested in since seeing his animated collaboration with Rene Laloux "Fantastic Planet":

Looks like they liked "Fantastic Planet" more than "Savage Planet" for the translation?

Stefan Wul wrote the stories that both of these are based upon, and since he died a while back, I'm not sure he was involved with the graphic novel Niourk.

The last few Hot Jazz posts have been about either ongoing series (Grass Kings) or miniseries (Eleanor and the Egret), but this is a longer and denser offering, and one I'm excited to get into.

Weird side note: I came across Fantastic Planet while researching Rene Laloux, and I learned about Laloux from a short animated piece he made called "Les Escargots (The Snails)", and that short was buried on a DVD of hundreds of animated shorts from the thirties and forties, all of which were public domain and after the government put the kibosh on the racier items in animated shorts (which means they were crushingly boring). It was fully out of place among the dreck; it was in color, and lovingly made, and French, and looked thirty years newer than anything else on the DVD. How I even saw it while cleaning the house or making dinner in between gin and tonics is still a mystery to me...

G.I. Joe Cover Homage?

This is weird. Issue 21 of the early 80's run of Marvel's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero was honored with homage by Valiant with an alternate cover to issue 22, their silent interlude between the "Fist and Steel" storyline and the "Seven Blades of Master Darque" storyline:

I love this kind of thing...

Praising Kurt Busiek's "Astro City"

I was visiting my brother's house and saw a copy of the trade paperback that collects the first go around of Kurt Busiek's "Astro City", the initial six issues from 1995:

I turned 16 that same summer and remember the beautiful covers from Alex Ross and the talk about how awesome this miniseries was, how revolutionary and the like. Not that I didn't believe it, but this was about the time I had moved on from comics and was only really purchasing Frank Miller's work (300 and Sin City books).

I may have been mature enough for Astro City, but by now, twenty-plus years, I'm certainly mature enough for it.

I read the accompanying essays and got a feel for the premise: instead of the grim/gritty '80s, instead of the DADA-esque fracturing of the medium from Grant Morrison, instead of the "this is what the world where superheroes exist looks like" era, Busiek strove to look at the world where superheroes existed, for sure, but at the untold stories.

Not hyper-realism, but more of a tweaking of the metaphor that caped superheroes personify.

When I saw the trade paperback I asked my brother if I could borrow it. I'd been intent on finding it recently, and to see it at my brother's place was a boon. The following exchange took place:

Brother: "Didn't you give me that?"
Me: "I forget plenty of gifts, but this one specifically I know I didn't get you."
Brother: "Really?...Oh you know, yeah...so a few years back I bought a huge collection of Stephen King's 'The Stand' in graphic novels, like a bunch of them, like over a hundred bucks worth. They threw that in for free. You can just have it...I'm not even sure I know where 'The Stand' is."

This copy had a "Used: $3.99" sticker on it, so the store must have felt like they were doing someone a favor, because the collection is that good.

The first issue/chapter follows the exemplar of Superman, here named The Samaritan, for oe complete day. It begins and ends with the Samaritan dreaming. In his dreams he flies.

In reality he flies also, only from one person who needs to be saved to another. The day is presented as a series of flights to save lives, to meet with other heroes, to work to pretend to be getting articles written. Only he doesn't pretend---he actually gets work done. Throughout the day we see his grind.

Eventually the editor comes to him with a super-secret dossier---here's a new juicy article to write. Excitedly the Samaritan scurries to get some privacy and take a closer look at the contents of the file. It turns out to be a list of the contestants of Astro City's newest beauty pageant.

For one, the article is a crock, but for two, here this guy has the names and addresses of Astro City's 100 most beautiful women, 100 women who would likely love to meet and possibly even become romantically entangled with the Samaritan, but when would he ever have time for that? He laments the article on too many levels.

As he heads home to sleep, he's attacked by a a recent iteration of a magical monster that feeds on fear and anxiety and tends to appear right as the Samaritan is about to pass out. During the pummeling he contemplates surviving this time, and if so, then what useful information could he give his super-group at the next meeting. He gets underneath the monster, which is his trap: he then flies straight up into space and throws it in the direction of the sun. Of course since it feeds on bad vibes, it disappears within fifty yards, making for an unsatisfying battle conclusion.

The second chapter is a flashback anecdote about a rookie reporter trying to crack his first big story and working at a newspaper with journalistic integrity. The third chapter is about a two bit hood learning the identity of one of the masked superheroes and then diving himself nuts with the information, eventually leaving town with the secret intact.

Everything is good and deep and real and new, which is the most important part. That it's new twenty-plus years on is a testament to how novel the approach is.

I couldn't recommend this corner of the comic universe more.

Calexit Finally Hits the Shelves

Bursting with extra pages and political essays, Black Mask has finally delivered the first issue of "Calexit", their speculative fiction comic about the secession of California from the United States.

Make that "attempted secession."

When I first heard about it, I thought it was a nice time-capsule that harnessed the anger and frustration of the nation after the election of 2016.

I was excited to check it out, and included it as a Hot Jazz book for May, when it was due out.

Black Mask has, eh, shall we say aggressive deadline claims? It has a difficult time meeting some of those timetables, especially as the Big Two companies snatch up their talent.

Well, here's to hoping the next issue comes out within the next two months. Why two months?

Why not? It seems reasonable and likely, seeing as how it sounds like we'll be waiting until December for the last issue of 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank, only eighteen months after the first issue was released.

Is it "Comix" or a "Sequential Art Project"?

I found some more underground, small print run graphic art comic that could be construed as comix, but that could be a stretch, seeing as how the subject matter isn't exactly comix-themed:

It's a collection of The Cave Man Speaks comics from Guarino and Westerfield, who I believe published originally online.

It also collects a longer form silent piece starring the main caveman from the cover in a bit of a darker role.

All in all, its pretty good, and I like supporting the fringes of the fringe. I am inspired to check out their other, far longer collaborations: "Amboy, Pop. 5" and "Moses", both of which are stationed at a local indie record store.

Free Graphic History Lesson

Recently returning from an adventure to old stomping grounds in New York City, I'm able to sit down and type up about a random free comic I grabbed from the park center at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn:

Daly Clement is credited with the writing duties, with the job being the adaptation of Thomas During's memoir of surviving a British prison ship during the Revolutionary War.

This is an aspect of history I didn't know: the British would imprison their POWs in ships in Brooklyn's harbor where they were mercilessly treated.

James Bentley is the illustrator and while he has talent, is likely his first work that's gone to an outside publisher. The first and last page are digitally colored, while the interior is black and white, and the backgrounds are rather plain, but the story---and the storytelling---is moving.

I love these types of surprises: free comics independently printed and funded by Chase Bank and the Rush Philanthropic Foundation that illuminate a thing I previously knew nothing about.