Quick Indy Comic Reviews

Citymouth

by Hunt Emerson

This has got to be one of the strangest comics I've ever read. Citymouthes--'Bouchevilles' in French--are giant mouthes, each with a city inside. In the many one to four page comics that appear in this collection, Emerson uses the Citymouthes to make humorous and oftimes insightful comments about urban settlements. All of the cartoons are wordless, so Emerson's cartooning has to carry the whole weight of the narrative, which it does with seeming ease. It's the wildest, wackiest comic about urban planning that you'll come across.

Rating: 4 (of 5)




A Fine Mess #2

by Matt Madden

This 32-page comic contains several stories by Madden, each of which is an experiment in comics narrative. The opening story, "Prisoner of Zembla," is structured around the roman alphabet, while another, "The Six Treasures of the Spiral," makes use of artistic and dialogue repetition in adopting the style of a sestina poem. Each of the stories employs a different artistic style as well, giving this comic much visual variety, and Madden shows that he is skilled in all of them. A good comic to entertain and stretch your comic-reading mental muscles at the same time.

Rating: 3.5 (of 5)




Or Else #1

by Kevin Huizenga

Another collection of short stories done in a variety of styles by a single artist, Or Else, for me at least, is not quite as successful. "NST 04," is a purposely disjointed story, with events from panel to panel being seemingly unrelated. "Chan Woo Kim" juxtaposes text from adoption papers with serene nature scenes done in a classical Japanese style, but to what end I'm not sure. The best story of the bunch is the conclusing story, "Jeezoh," which supposedly draws on a legend from the midwest regarding the fate of the souls of aborted, stillborn and miscarried babies (though having lived in the midwest all my life, I have to admit that I've never heard of the legend before this. Huizenga has a lot of talent, and in a book like this there's bound to be stuff that works and stuff that doesn't, and reactions will vary from reader to reader. So give it a look.

Rating: 3 (of 5)




Titus von Götheborg

by Ulf K.

In this collection of one-page strips, Titus von Götheborg is a German composer whose cleverly humorous adventures center around the physical manifestation of music. Though wordless, there is dialog of sorts in the form of musical notes and images in thought and word balloons. Ulf K. has an enjoyable cartoony style that is easy to follow, and he packs a great deal of story into each four or eight panel strip. It makes for a quick but enjoyable read.

Rating: 3.5 (of 5)

Cheap Manga

Thanks to Shawn Fumo, I've learned of a Webstore called DollarManga.com, which appears to be where ComicsOne is getting rid of their excess inventory.



True to its name, DollarManga.com has many of ComicsOne's older series for $1 each, not-so-old series for $3 each, and relatively recent items for 25%-50% off.



I ordered the following at $1 a piece: Joan vols 2 & 3; Goku: Midnight Eye vols. 1-3; Tomie vols. 1 & 2; Weed vols. 1-3; Crayon ShinChan vol. 1; and Sarai vol. 1.



The catch is that the shipping is somewhat expensive. For the twelve books above, the shipping was $19. That works out to a total of $31 for 12 volumes of manga, which is still a good deal.

New This Week: November 17, 2004

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop tomorrow:



The Pick of the Week is Plastic Man: On the Lam, the trade collection of the first six issues of Kyle Baker's Plastic Man. It's got super-heroes, and it's got the funny. You've been good this past week: you deserve to read a good comic and laugh.



Also from DC this week are the fourth Y: The Last Man collection; the second The Losers collection; Ed Brubaker's last issue of Catwoman (#37); the start of a new arc in Ex Machina (#6); the final issue of H-E-R-O; and the second part (though actually the first real part) of the CSA story in JLA (#108).



Marvel have Brubaker's first issue of Captain America; the start of a new arc in The Pulse (#6); a new Daredevil collection (vol. 10); the last X-Statix collection (vol. 4); the hump issue of Madrox (#3); and Chuck Austen's final issue of X-Men (#164).



NBM have a third Boneyard collection and the first issue of the mangafied Hardy Boys; Antarctic have a new Gold Digger (#57), a new Quagmire USA (#5), and an I Hunt Monsters pocket manga. El Capitan have a new Stray Bullets collection (vol. 8); Image have the third Invincible collection; and Penny Farthing have the penultimate issue of Para (#5).



Still have some change left in your pocket after all of that, then pick up last week's pick, Bugtown #1. Even if you haven't been following the Bugtown comics for the past 25 years, it's still new reader friendly.

'Real' Comics

Some of my favorite parts of (postmodernbarney.com) are the times when Dorian shares anecdotes about his comics retail business. They are generally amusing in pointing out the insanity that comics retails must face on a daily business.



In his latest installment, this exchange jumped out at me:



"Do you have any real comics?"

Uhm...as opposed to the millions of "fake" comics that currently surround us?

"No, real comics, like The Far Side!"



Now, aside from the silliness of thinking that newspaper strips are the only 'real' comics, it does point out something that I have always thought to be curious: Why don't comics shops stock collections of comic strips?



A look at the Bookscan top 'graphic novels' of 2003 seven strip collections in the Top 25, including collections of Get Fuzzy, Calvin and Hobbes, The Boondocks and Foxtrot. After manga, they're the next largest category in the list. Yet the typical comic store has none of these.



If comic shops are trying to appeal to an audience wider than comic book geeks, shouldn't they have in stock what a majority of the people think comics are; what they are exposed to on a daily basis? There should be collections of The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, Dilbert, Mutts, Foxtrot, For Better or For Worse, and others. If anything else, they would bring people in off the street and into the store, where they could even be enticed to buy 'real' comics.



Oh sure, there are a few, like Liberty Meadows, Jane's World, and The Norm, which get collected into comic book form, but aside from the recent Fantagraphic Peanuts collections (and maybe some of the other Fantasgraphics offerings) how often do you see any mainstream strip collections in a comic store?



A good portion of the blame can be laid at the feet of Diamond, who don't offer these books in Previews for the retailers to order, but surely there are other distributors for books, yes? And if there was enough presure from retailers, one would think that Diamond would make an effort to start making them available.



I'm sure that retails have their reasons for not stocking strip collections. Heck, some of them may even be valid. But wouldn't it be great if, in the situation that Dorian cites, a retailer could point the customer to a rack of strip collections and say: "Here they are. Not only do we have The Far Side, but we have others as well. Please let me know if I can help you with anything else."

Ringo's Sketches

As most probably know by now, it was recently announced that Mark Waid & Mike Wieringo are leaving Fantastic Four for another yet-to-be-determined project. It'll probably involve super-heroes.



However, as anyone who has visited Mike's Sketch Blog knows, Wieringo has talents far beyond being a super-hero artist. Judging by the many sketches that involve kids and animals, he would make a great artist of kids comics. Of course, there isn't much money in kids comics these days, but it would seem that he would also make for an excellent illustrator of children's books. Maybe he and Mark could collaborate on something along the lines of the combination kids books/comics that Gaiman and McKean do (e.g. The Wolves in the Walls).



Just thinking out loud here (okay, not actually 'out loud'...); but I'd love to get a chance to see Wieringo stretch beyond super-heroes.

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

From 1960's Blackhawk #152, an eight-limbed Octi-Ape from space terrorizes the Blackhawks. It appears that in the 60s, even war comics were invaded by silly sci-fi. Still, how could anyone pass on a comic with an Octi-Ape on the cover?

This week's Monkey Cover was suggested by Mike Sterling, who's enjoyable Progressive Ruin is one of my daily stops in my comic blog-reading. Thanks Mike!

If you'd like to suggest a monkey cover to be featured here, please drop me as email.

(Standard disclaimer about apes not really being monkeys applies.)

Image is courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a full-sized version.

Quick Comic Reviews

Firebirds; Plastic Man; Gotham Central; Firestorm

Firebirds #1
by Jay Faerber & Andres Ponce
The Firebirds of the title are Rebecca, a long-time super-heroine, and her daughter Emily, who Rebecca sent off to boarding school so as to protect her from her enemies. But after Rebecca suffers a near-fatal defeat and Emily starts to develop super powers of her own, Rebecca has to become both a real mother and a trainer to her daughter. It's a great concept for a series, but alas all it really remains is a concept, a premise on which to hang not not an emotional examination of a mother-daughter relationship, but some standard issue super-heorics. It's not a bad comic, and the art by Ponce (and colorist Nestor Pereyra) is pretty good, but the disappointment lies in the opportunities lost in not mining better the emotional and family dynamics inherent in the premise.
Rating: 2.5 (of 5)


Plastic Man #12
by Scott Morse
It's an unscheduled fill-in by Morse, which immediately gives this book a strike againts it by those looking ofrward to more Kyle Baker goodness. The art here is lovely, some of the best of Morse's career in fact, but the story--Plas facing off against a villain who shoots glue from his fingers--is so slight as to be non-existant. It's a visual feast, but a textual diet.
Rating: 2.5 (of 5)


Gotham Central #25
by Greg Rucka, Michael Lark & Stefano Gaudiano
In the aftermath of "War Games," Commissioner Akins has decided to sever the police department's unofficial ties to Batman, including permanently dismantling the Bat Signal. This issue considers the ramifications and reactions to this decision by the various cast members, and ends with a parking garage confrontation between Akins and Batman (though thankfully not the sort of violent confrontation idicated by teh misleading cover). Despite being one of the weaker issues of Gotham Central, it's still at least ten times better than any of the official installments of "War Games," and Rucka deals with this editorially mandataed shift in the series' premise well. Lark continues to show why he is one of the best artists for moody crime drama; it will be quite a shame to see him leave for an exclusive Marvel contract, where his talents are sure to be wasted.
Rating: 3.5 (of 5)


Firestorm #7
by Dan Jolley, Liam Sharp & Andy Lanning
In this first part of a crossover with Bloodhound (a title I don't read and have no desire to), Jason and his father are kidnapped and tortured by some bad-ass who believe that they know something about the super-hero who has interfered with his drug shipments. Jason transforms into Firestorm by merging with the bad-ass, but then the bad-ass takes control and goes on a nuclear rampage. At some point they run into a character I take to be Bloodhound, although no introduction is given as to who he is or why we should care. As a cross-over then it fails miserably; I have no reason to follow to the second part of the story, as I just don't care. Sharp's art isn't great and the murky coloring does not make it any easier to follow; however, I do like the nifty redesign for the bad-ass-controlled Firestorm.
Rating: 2 (of 5)