The Things That Get Made

On a winter break trip to my LCS I found the following collection:

The artist Carlos Ezquerra was the original artist for Judge Dredd, which was created a few years after this, from 1977.

Yes, that's correct, El Mestizo, a boy born enslaved, one parent black, one Mexican, only to return to the States to play Yojimbo with the Union and the Confederacy, is the creation of a pair of Englishmen.

Reading it is weird as well, since at that time in the UK the dialogue and copy is all printed instead of handwritten.

I'll return to comment more once I've finished it. It's an interesting look at "America and American," and very like the Italian comic Tex in that way.

Ninjak's Second Ongoing Series Finishes

Ninjak's second iteration with the revamped Valiant, Ninja-K, has finished up, as their Livewire title gears up for release.

Here are the four separate ongoing titles that have featured Ninjak over the years, dating back to 1993/4:

The second was conceived after the sell-off to Acclaim, and is actually better than we fans generally give it credit. Maybe it should be called something else entirely and not be considered when speaking about Ninjak (which is how the practice is now).

Anyway, here's one espionage-comic fan pouring out a little for a homey.

UPDATE: Ninjak returns in July 2019 in what appears to be titled "Killers."

Nice

Farel Dalrymple's Prequel Mini-Series Finishes

I picked up in its entirety Farel Dalrymple's prequel to his GN "The Wrenchies" called Proxima Centauri:

Through the six issue mini-series, we follow the main character Sherwood as he tries to escape an inter-dimensional ship and return to his brother and the school/organization that trains these young children/warriors for the fights they'll be engaging in in their future and their world.

To say that this series is cohesive, or makes a ton of sense, or makes sense in some way, would be stretching the definition of the word. The art is interesting if not spectacular, but I could see some fans call it spectacular.

I was sold on the idea that it was "psychedelic," but after reading it I feel like the term has been applied for lack of a better one.

I try to find stories that are weird and out there for their own sake, and this fits, but it also doesn't strike me as one that should be handed over to the fans-of-weird-shit-but-not-always-on-the-lookout-for-comics in my life. I was hoping it would fill that category, but I found it somewhat unfulfilling.

Regular fans of sequential art in the superhero vein certainly won't be interested in the title, and I'm sure Farel and Image know as much. Weirdos like me who are game for weirdness and ideas labeled as "psychedelic" probably either loved it for found it unsatisfying for a litany of reasons. Fans of the art style or of Dalrymple's work itself, would surely be fans of this mini-series.

I didn't dislike it, specifically, but I didn't fully love it either. Just like a weak or mediocre mushroom trip.

Dialogue-less from France

I picked up a discounted graphic novel at my LCS the other day:

It was marked at $4.99, when the cover price was twenty bucks more. It takes place in a dystopian future society in which there are two competing corporate overlord companies that make life rather lame for the denizens. Or so it seems.

On the cover in this preceding picture is a briefcase that, when opens, houses another dimensional realm, like more of the ship of the aliens that crash land in the opening scene. It is decided that it should be used by the blue company/overlord against the red/black company/overlord.

The scenes play out in an episodic form until you can tell that they are all related.

Another very creative element is that there is nor dialogue in this graphic novel: the story unfolds in action only, and that underscores that it was written by Frenchmen Lucas Varela.

It was a gem discovery, for sure.

Seventeen Years On...

I picked this up for a buck a few years back at my local Dollar Bookstore:

The collection has dozens of artists and their reactions to the attacks. All are very somber, as you can imagine. Some are very angry as well, and that also makes sense.

Many of my high school students weren't yet born seventeen years ago, so that kinda ties down the space.

Anyway, it's a timely piece, having been created and released by mid-2002. It's an artifact of a moment, for sure, cultural detritus.

Independent Wednesday, Two Years Later

Two years ago I wrote up a little review of a recent trip to my LCS. It highlighted three independent titles I was then reading.

This summer, between vacation trips and other obligations, a month had passed before I was able to return to my shop. When I did, there were a bevy of books waiting for me (seven), none of which was from the Big Two. I'll be highlighting them here, starting with the three from my favorite company, Valiant:

Ninja-K is the new title starring NInjak, and in this series we get the story of the British Ninja Programme, in which they specially train ninjas and give them sequential names, Ninja-A, Ninja-B, and so on, and that's the origin of Ninjak's name. Anayway, this issue is the culmination of a fight in mexico and features a rather bizarre teamup: Ninjak, Livewire, Punk Mambo, and Dr. Mirage...three ladies and the English spy.

Shadowman #5 sees Jack Boniface still falling through the shadow-time-stream or whatever and we see what he sees: a story of the Shadowman from the Reconstruction era.

The last issue above, the first issue of the third story in the life of Antonio Axius, the first detectioner in Rome, is Britannia: Lost Eagles of Rome #1. I'll pick up Brittania stories until they stop making them.

The next two titles are from Image:

Gideon Falls #5 continues the story as we get deeper into the mystery of the Black Lodge, and I'm starting to believe the first character we met, the young man with the mask, has a stronger connection to the other players in the story. I like this comic more than I expected.

Proxima Centauri drew me in with talk of psychedelic art and weird stories, and that was before I learned the main character's name is Sherwood, which is my last name. Later, after trying to make sense of the first issue, I learned that this six issue miniseries is a prequel of  Farel Dalrymple's "The Wrenchies," a GN I'm curious to find. Dalrymple's art is very cool, but looks to me like an acquired taste. I know some people who hate Jeff Lemire's art, and I'd guess this part comic/part comix/part children's story book art would not appeal to them.

Lastly, I got two final issues to miniseries:

Gravetrancers #4 came out within a year of issue #1, so we consider that a strong victory for Black Mask, one of my favorite publishers. The only thing I don't like about Black Mask is their, eh, aggressive release schedule. Gravetrancers as a story is gleefully fucked up, and while it seems like some characters disappear from the narrative, it doesn't really detract, as long as you're willing to read the entire thing.

I've discussed Frank Miller's Xerxes story at length already, and the ending seemed the logical capstone for the blocky, uneven story.

It was a good Wednesday at the shop.

One Issue to Go, and We're Still Waiting...

Twenty years ago Frank Miller, during the end of his peak years as a comic creator, released the beautiful, sweeping, five issue epic 300, the retelling of King Leonidas of Sparta and his personal entourage of 300 soldiers holding off the Persian king Xerxes at Themopylae:

It was turned into a movie, which has a full circle aspect to it: Millers 300 was partly based on the 1962 film "300 Spartans."

Maybe Miller had always wanted to make this follow-up, prequel/sequel storyline, seeing the other side...is this supposed to end the anti-Iranian controversy?

Having read the first four issues of the full-mouthed titled "Xerxes: the Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander," I can't say for certain that stemming controversy is one of Miller's motivations.

Mainly because there isn't much going on at all in this series. There are some sweeping panels, but what I mean is that nearly a third of each issue are sweeping double-page layouts, like taking one of the novel things about the first miniseries and exploiting it to a ridiculous degree.

I call it exploitation because these sweeping layouts are just not as good, which isn't fair, but while not as good, they're also not very appealing in their own right.

Xerxes plays a small role in issue 1 and appears in issue 2 near the end, while both issues 3 and 4 begins with Xerxes being murdered. Issue 3 backs it up and we see a little before the death, while issue 4 sees more of the start of Alexander's attacks on Xerxes' kid, Darius III.

The name of the series is nominally Xerxes, right?

So I wait...I'll purchase the final issue, of course, and I don't expect to find the artists and tight story from 20 years back, but it is precisely that twenty year old memory that leads fans like me to this nearly incoherent story and mostly unappealing art.

And that says something, right?