Best of August

In this post I'm reprinting reviews of items for which I gave a rating of 4 or better in the month of August:


Sleeper, book 3: A Crooked Line
by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips

Reprinting the first half of the second 'season,' this collection finds the title character Holden Carver caught between the machinations of his boss, the international criminal TAO, and his former boss, the newly revived John Lynch. Realizing that he's but a pawn in whatever twisted machinations these two are pulling, Holden is looking to make sense of his place in this grey world, and somehow to find his way out. Brubaker has specialized of late in writing about the gritty side of super-powered worlds, and Sleeper ranks up there with Gotham Central in playing to his strengths as a writer. Phillips is the perfect artist for this type of book. His inky, hard-edged realism fits the main thrust of the story to a tee, but when a banana-headed alien needs to make an appearance, he can handle that just as well. Book four is due out in September, and I'm looking forward to reading the endgame of this highly entertaining series.
Rating: 4 (of 5)



Top Ten: The Forty-Niners
by Alan Moore & Gene Ha

Journey with us now back to 1949, when Neopolis was still young and being populated by science heroes, now that the world had no real use for them after the war. Moore tells several interweaving narratives about the early days of the city, from the struggles of a young police department against organized vampire crime to the struggles of the new immigrants trying to adjust to life after war. The art by Ha and colorist Art Lyon is wonderful, fully evoking the feel of the past butting up against a gleeming future. Each page is packed not only with mood but also with small details that really make this book come alive. It's a story both epic in scope and human in its details, and along with the art is well worth the deluxe hardcover treatment.
Rating: 4 (of 5)



Para Para
by Andy Seto
ComicsOne, $13.95


With Para Para, crator Andy Seto has now firmly established himself on my list of favorite artists.

I have previously praised Seto's abilities to represent the furious motion of cinematic martial arts on the static printed page in his adaptation of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In Para Para, he goes one step further by representing a singing and dancing movie musical so effectvely you can practically hear the music swelling and see the characters dancing.

The story in Para Para is a variation on the classic Romeo and Juliet story (in fact, several of the secondary characters in the comic comment on the resemblance), as rich girl Yuki falls for gangster Dennis. their romance swirls around Para Para, a dance craze that is also one of those electronic dancing arcade games. It's a story that's complete in this one volume, which doesn't give a lot of time to explore the characters in depth. But that's fine, as the real purpose of the plot is to give the characters an excuse to break out in song and/or dance at various opportunities.

It's the song and dance sections that give Para Para its strength. Seto is at the very top of his game here. Witness the opening scene: as autumn leaves fall, we see various young people milling about, with close-ups of the Para Para logo on their clothing. The word 'Dance' appears as a bright red sound effect. There's a voice-over going on, which we realize is probably meant to be song lyrics, and the 'camera' focuses on one of these young people, identified as Dennnis Lingmu, obviously caught up in the music and dancing. The camera then pulls back, and we see a chorus of dancers has formed behind Dennis ina two-page spread. Turn the page, and in another two-page spread the camera has pulled back further: we see that the dancers are in a large courtyard, with a large office building on one sid, an elevated train track on the other, a city and mountains in the background, and a large clocktower in the the foreground on the right chiming away. Turn the page again and Dennis's song concludes over the image of orange leaves falling against a stark white background. The title Para Para floats over the leaves, while a giant leaf in the bottom right is superimposed with the face of Yuki, her eyes pensively looking to the right and up, leading us visually to the top of the next page, where the next scene fades in with Yuki at swimming practice.

It's a stunning scene, expertly rendered. And there are several more just like it throughout. The scene where Yuki and Dennis first meet is on a rainy Hong Kong street: the color has been completely leached out of the background, leaving it in stark black and white, while Yuki and Dennis appear in color, and Yuiki has one of those soul-bearing songs that seem to happen frequently in musicals. Of course, this being a dance musical, there are a couple of dance contests, which Seto depicts such that you can practically feel the rhythm of the music as you watch the characters move across the pages.

Yes, the plot isn't terribly deep and the emotion sometimes runs to hysteric heights, but this is a musical created for the comics page. Para Para wins in presenting a dynamic example of comics artistry and, despite the tragic ending (it is loosely based on Romeo & Juliet after all) is still a joyful comics experience.

Rating: 4 (of 5)

Black Super-Heroes on NPR

Yesterday on NPR's News & Notes with Ed Gordon, Allison Keyes had a report on "Black Comic Book Superheroes," which discussed the past and present states of African-American super-heroes in comics and film. Considering that it was only an eight minute report, I thought that she did a pretty good job of covering the basics. You can listen to it in RealPlayer here.

Embarrassingly Late Review of DirtBoy #1

When I saw that DirtBoy #1 was on the Diamond shipping list for this week, I remembered that the fine folks at Moronik Comics had sent me a review copy several weeks ago. I read it at the time and intended on writing a short review, but it somehow slipped off the to-do list and I neglected to do so. To make matters worse, I went looking for the comic last night and I can't seem to find it (I have over 25,000 comics--these things happen some times!) I'm sure that it'll show up again at some point, but for now I'll try to do this from memory:

DirtBoy is one of the 'bad kids'--you know, the kids that your mother didn't want you associating with when you were young. As his name implies, DirtBoy is a little, um, lacking in the personal hygeine department. He also has violent tendencies, which come in handy when he's attacked by a patchwork zombie dog. The art is appropriately scruffy for this comic and tells the story fairly clearly. It was a bit too decompressed for my tastes, as I felt that at the end of the first issue I didn't really get much of what was going on. It's all done well enough, but I expected to like it more than I actually did.

Rating: 2.5 (of 5)

PSA: Hurricane Disaster Relief

By now it's apparent that Hurricane Katrina is one of the biggest natural disasters to ever hit the U.S.

In the comic books, when a disaster hits Superman and the rest of the Justice League can move quickly into action to save lives and help to rebuild from the devastation. But in the real world we must rely on the heroic efforts of the Red Cross and other relief agencies.

For help with immediate disaster relief, The American Red Cross should be your agency of choice. As always, the Red Cross is on the scene providing relief and aid in this disaster, and they need your monetary donations. You can donate to the Red Cross online. (And hey, the Red Cross can always use your blood too!)



For longer-term relief efforts, my organization of choice is UMCOR, the not-for-profit international humanitarian aid organization of The United Methodist Church. UMCOR works in conjunction with relief agencies and local congregations to provide disaster relief, and is especially active in later phases of the process and long-term recovery as people work to reassemble their lives. Relief is provided by volunteers and the agency, and is done without proselytizing. Because administrative costs for UMCOR are paid out of other sources from within the church, 100% of your donation to UMCOR will go directly to disaster relief. You can donate to UMCOR online--they are a 501(c)(3) organization.

As good as many of the comics are that are coming out today, consider redirecting some of that money to disaster relief. Even a small donation can help--if every person who bought All-Star Batman and Robin gave just $5, that would be over a million dollars contributed to disaster relief. You may not be able to change the course of mighty rivers with your bare hands, but you can help people affected by the disaster by donating today.

New This Week: August 31, 2005

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 AiT/PlanetLAR's Smoke & Guns by Kirsten Baldock & Fabio Moon. I've been in love with Moon's art ever since I read Rock 'n' Roll, and it will be great to see that art for a full 100 pages of action-packed fun!


In other comics:

Amazing Aaron Productions debut the first volume of A College Girl Named Joe (I hope it's good, because I've already pre-ordered vol. 2...)

Antarctic have a new issue of the Ben-Dunn-ified Ninja High School (#131) and the 2005 Gold Digger Annual.

Dark Horse have the debuts of the latest BPRD series, THe Black Flame, and Humberto Ramos's Revelations.

DC have new issues of Astro City: The Dark Age (#3), Ex Machina (#14), Flash (#225), Green Lantern (#4), JLA: Classified (#11), The Losers (#27), Solo (#6), Tom Strong (#34), Wonder Woman (#220), and the final issue of Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight (#4).

Drawn & Quarterly have the third issue of Kevin Huizenga's sublime Or Else.

GT Labs have the autobiography of Charles R. Knight--not a comic book, but it does have lovely illustrations by Mark Schultz.

IDW have collections of 30 Days of Night: Bloodsuckers Tales and Desperadoes: Banners of Gold.

Image have new issues of The Expatriate (#3) and Freshmen (#2), and the long, long delayed final issue of Dawn: Three Tiers (#6).

Jetpack Press have a new issue of Johnny Raygun Quarterly (#6).

Marvel have new issues of Captain America (#9), Powers (#12), Runaways (#7), and X-Men: Kitty Pryde--Shadow & Flame (#3); the final issue of Supreme Power (#18); and in the long delayed camp there's the final (for now) issue of Astonishing X-Men (#12), Wha Huh?, and Daredevil: Father #2!

(Good golly, next thing you know a new issue of Miracleman will be coming out... :) )

Moronik Comics debut both Bug Girl and Dirtboy.

Oni press have a new volume of Love As a Foreign Language (#3).

Pantheon have a paperback edition of Persepolis 2.

Renaissance Press have a new issue of Amelia Rules (#14).

Speakeasy have a trade collection of Jamie Delano's old Vertigo series 2020 Visions.

TokyoPop debuts Girl Got Game.

Wilson Place have a second volume of WJHC: Hold Tight.


Gee, that's a lot of comics--must be the end of the month or something...

My Latest Time-Sink

I spent waaay too much time over the weekend contributing to Tegan's new Comic Book Series Wiki. The goal of the Wiki is to provide people with an introduction to various on-going comic series. (She explains her whole rationale here. It's a worthwhile project, and I have that obsessive librarian personality combined with too many damn comics, so this helps me channel my geekdom constructively.

I started with just the intention of maintaining a couple of pages, but soon got really obsessed and now my fingerprints are all over the place on it. There's still plenty of information that could be filled-in, so if there's a comic series or two that you like/are obsessive about, please come on in and contribute!

(Of course, I *should* have spent my time more constructively by writing either the comics & libraries areticle that's due tomorrow, or the blogs in libraries article that's due next month. At least I can justify this time as learning more about Wikis...)

Infinite Crisis?

So last night I dreamed about Infinite Crisis. I don't normally dream about comics books, but it happens sometimes. It was one of those dreams where soemtimes I was reading a comic, sometimes I was watching it unfold like a movie, and sometimes I was actually in it. And since this was a dream, it followed dream logic. And I don't remember it all. But here's what happened:

'Issue #1': Superman decides that he's sick and tired of all the negativity happening around him--the killing and the secrets and the lies and the mind control and the whatnot--when it used to be that his adventures, while exciting, always ended well. So he rounds up a bunch of other heroes who feel the same way, and they 'pierce the veil' into the 'real world' and into the offices of DC Comics (really cool special effect of space-time ripping up like turning the corner of the page of a comic book, and Superman stepping through!) The heroes then confront Paul Levitz about the dire state of all the negativity. Levitz agrees that things need to change, so he calls an emergency story summit of DC's writers & editors; they meet with the heroes and plot out a massive cross-over series called Infinite Crisis which will return brightness and adventure to the DCU.

'Issue #2': The heroes return to the DCU and start to enact the plan/plot to restore the DCU to its glory days. Realizing that a bunch of heroes are of fighting in the Rann-Thanagar War and unaware of the plan, a team of heroes is dispatched to outer space to inform them. Meanwhile a couple of heroes (one of whom is me in the dream--know, I don't know which one) return to the 'real world' to ask Levitz to clarify a couple of unclear plot points in the story. But instead of a bustling workplace, we find the offices of DC Comics to be completely deserted. We soon learn that this is not the 'real world' at all, but rather a simulacrum designed to fool us and the other heroes. We deduce that this is really a pocket universe created by... The Time Trapper! The Time Trapper was posing as Paul Levitz and his true plan for 'saving' the DCU is not to return it to the old happy days, but rather destroy it and create a new universe that will play according to his rules. We want to return to the DCU and warn the others, but the Trapper is preventing us.

At this point I woke up. Which is a shame, because I really wanted to see where this was all going.

OF course, I'm sure the real Infinite Crisis won't resemble this at all. But I will be tickled pink if The Time Trapper ends up being the one behind it all...