New This Week: April 20, 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 another anthology from Image, Four Letter Worlds. For just 13 bucks you get a truckload of comics from folks like Amber Benson, Joe Casey, Chynna Clugston-Major, Kieron Dwyer, Jay Faerber, Matt Fraction, Steven Griffin, Mike Hawthorne, Mike Huddleston, Phil Hester, Antony Johnston, Robert Kirkman, Steve Lieber, Jim Mahfood, B. Clay Moore, Scott Morse, Mike Norton, Jeff Parker, Jamie S. Rich, Mark Ricketts, Matt Roberts, Steve Rolston, Eric Stephenson, J. Torres, Andi Watson, and many more.


In other comics:

Antarctic have a new issue of Gold Digger (#63) and the Gold Digger Pocket Manga, vol. 5.

DC have the trade collection of Bite Club for just $10, the debut of the final Seven Soliders mini (for the first round, that is--more coming later in the year), Klarion the Witch Boy, plus new issues of 100 Bullets (#60), Birds of Prey (#81), Ex Machina (#10), JLA (#113), JLA Classified (#6), Lucifer (#61); the final issue of Azzarello & Lee's Superman (#215), the final issue of the Question mini (#6), and the first issue of an obscure miniseries called The OMAC Project for which I don't think there's been much publicity at all.

Fantagraphics have the fifth Hate Annual.

IDW have the second Legend of Grimjack trade collection.

Image have new issues of Invincible (#22) & The Walking Dead (#18).

I'm still working my way through issue #100, yet here Kenzer & Co. are with the 102st issue of Knights of the Dinner Table...

Marvel have Runaways #3, and Karl Kesel writing Fantastic Four (#525).

NBM have a fourth collection of Boneyard.

Oni have the second edition of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Lost at Sea.

TokyoPop have the first volume of 'Amerimanga' Van Von Hunter, plus a butt-load of other manga volumes which don't interest me, but may be of interest to you...


And finally, I have no idea what the Incredibles Strong Relations Unframed Canvas Giclee Print is, but it can't possibly be worth $600...

Quick War GN Reviews

The Punisher: Born
by Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson & Tom Palmer
In the midst of the Vietnam War, Captain Frank Castle is the savior, protector and conscience of Firebase Valley Forge. This is Frank's third tour of duty; he knows that he should be home with his wife and kids, but he loves to fight, and the dark voice in his soul tells him as much. Ennis maintains that The Punisher was born long before his family was killed; that was just the inciting event--the real Punisher was forged in the fires of Vietnam. There are two POV characters here: Frank, and a young Marine named Stevie Goodwin, thirty-nine days short of ending his tour and returning to America's heartland. Ennis does a good job at portraying the unit and the action, though it suffers a bit like many war stories in trying to represent as many different war experinces and types of soldiers in just one unit. The art by Robertson & Palmer is very good and appropriate to the story; Palmer's inks lens Robertson's pencils a good rough edge, and Robertson renders the action quite well. It's another good solid war comic from Ennis.
Rating: 3 (of 5)


Sgt. Rock: Between Hell & A Hard Place
by Brian Azzarello & Joe Kubert
During the Battle of Hürtgen Forest in late 1944, Rock and the rest of Easy Company have a gaggle of new soldier added to their unit and a quartet of captured German officers in tow. But when three of the German prisoners are murdered and the fourth goes missing, Rock must determine what exactly happened, and whether or not one of the men in his unit is a murder--if murder under such circumstances as war is possible. Azzarello grafts a mystery onto a war story, and while it doesn't really gel into something more than the sum of its parts, it isn't really less either, and provides for an intriguing look back at WWII. The main attraction here is seeing Kubert illustrate a modern war comic, the pace and style of storytelling giving his artwork plenty of room to breathe. The story could have easily have been a good thirty pages shorter, but with the nice art to look it it's hard to complain too much.
Rating: 3 (of 5)

Ranganathan & Comics

As part of our salute to National Library Week, I've written up a little essay about Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science and how they might apply to comics:

In 1931 S. R. Ranganathan, the Indian librarian who is considered to be one of the fathers of modern library science, developed his Five Laws of Library Science. Those laws are:

1. Books are for use.
2. Every reader his or her book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. The Library is a growing organism.

With some reworking, these laws can be applied to comics as well:

1. Comics are for use

The purpose of a comic is to be read. That seems self evident, but so many people who consume comics are locked into a collector mentality. There is nothing worse for the soul of comics than for a comic to be locked away inside hermetically sealed plastic and treated as an item. The collector mentallity is something that I myself am trying to shake: I'm loaning out more comics, donating graphic novels to the library, etc. If I have 25,000 comics, it does no good to anyone to leave them locked up in my closet--they need to be set free! (Like I said, I'm working on it...)

2. Every reader his or her comic
3. Every Comic its reader

These should be pretty self-explanatory. Remember, every comic is someone's favorite (even if it's just the creator's mother), and there is a comic to fit every taste. I know the medium is supposedly dominated by super-heroes, but flip through Previews and you'll see instances of comics on just about every subject, from westerns to romance to biography to fantasy to chick lit to horror etc. There are comics that can stand alongside 'literature' and comics that are the equivalent of dime novels. There are comics written for kids and comics written for adults (and comics written for adults who act like kids!) And just because you personally don't like a particular comic, that doesn't mean that no one should. There's variety, and variety is good.


4. Save the time of the comic reader

This one is the hardest to directly translate, but in practice it reflects the aim to provide service to the customer. This means service on all levels, from publisher to distributor to store. The easier it is for people to get comics, the more comics they'll have. Bookstores, 7-11s, online merchants, it's all good, provided the service is good. And everyone is responsible for the good of the comics medium; we are all stewards of comics, whether we be creators, redears or retailers. We may disagree as to what is 'good' for comics, or even what 'good' comics are, but we all want to see good comics succeed.


5. Comics are a growing organism

The field of comics is always growing and changing. There have been a lot of changes and challenges to comics in the past few years, from a shrinking number of stores to the manga 'invasion' to the gradual switchover from pamphlets to trade editions to the emergence of the Web. But change is part of everything, and comics will, in some form or another, always endure.

Quick GN Reviews

Dead End, vol. 1
by Shohei Manabe
A mysterious beautiful naked girl falls out of the sky and into Shirou's life. In most manga this would set the stage for wacky hijinks, but in Dead End it leads Shirou into a world of actual and existential horror. He soon find his neighbors in his apartment building brutally murdered, and learns that this life and memories have all been a lie. As he attempts to piece together his real life, Shirou finds himself on the run from mysterious pursuers and sinking into a dark world of violence and paranoia. Manabe has an interesting visual style that reminds me more of Paul Pope than typical manga. it's not always exactly clear what is going on in Dead End, but that may be by design and reflective of Shirou's own confusion. The violence can be graphic and brutal at times, although not in an over-the-top splatter movie way. An interesting read.
Rating: 3.5 (of 5)


The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings
edited by Scott Allie
P. Craig Russell, Mike Mignola, Paul Chadwick, and a host of other talented comics creators get together to present a collection of ghost stories. The quality of the offerings that Allie has assembled is quite high, with lush art on glossy paper ina sturdy hardcover volume. The best is saved for last, as Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson tell a story of neighborhood pets attempting to exorcise a haunted doghouse. The only misstep in this collection is a text interview with a supposed 'séance medium,' ten pages of bullhockey that is easily skipped over. But the rest of the package makes for fine reading, and shows how good anthologies can be .
Rating: 4 (of 5)

New This Week: April 13, 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:

Pick of the Week? Well, it's probably Flight, vol. 2 from Image--the first volume was full of gorgeous artwork from a variety of artists. But that's pretty expensive at $25, so if you're looking for something a bit less costly, I'd go with Marvel's She-Hulk, vol. 2: Superhuman Law; the first volume was much fun, and I've heard good things about the stories collected in this second volume.


In other comics:

Dark Horse has the first issue of P. Craig Russell's Conan & The Jewels of Gwahlur.

DC has the penultimate issue of Adam Strange (#7), and new issues of Fables (#36), Gotham Central (#30), Green Arrow (#49), JSA (#72), Majestic (#4), and Tom Strong (#32).

El Capitan has a new issue of Stray Bullets (#37).

Image has the second issues of Beyond Avalon, Flaming Carrot Comics and Mora, plus a new issue of Noble Causes (#9).

Marvel has new issues of Black Panther (#3), Mary Jane: Homecoming (#2), New Thunderbolts (#7), Powers (#10), and Ultimates 2 (#5).


Small week, actually, so maybe you can afford that Flight, vol. 2 after all...

Crisis on Infinite Crises

I had been contemplating writing something about the whole DC Countdown and Infinite Crisis and whatnot, not because I have any desire to continue to beat a dead horse, but because there was something I thought was blindingly obvious about the whole thing that I hadn't seen anybody else comment on.

Then comes today's Basement Tapes from Matt Fraction & Joe Casey, and now I'm off the hook.

Sayeth Fraction:

...isn't all of this prelude, and isn't the titular Infinite Crisis itself a move towards DC hitting some kind of candy colored reset button to set the wayback machine a little bit? Isn't this whole exercise in bleak and brain matter a journey back to The Way We Were?

They say a lot of what I wanted to say, except that they say it with more (and undoubtedly better) words than I would have. And more profanity. And more blue text. But they make the most reasoned analysis that I've yet read, so go take a look.

Favorite Fictional Librarians

Continuing our series of posts relating to National Library Week, today we look at my favorite fictional librarians:

Batgirl/Oracle: Yes, young Barbara Gordon somehow found the time to squeeze in a masters degree in library science in between being a super-heroine and being a state congresswoman. A literal Super-Librarian! Whoever's decision it was to make her an information broker to the super-heroes had one of the best ideas in super-hero comics in the past 20 years.



Rupert Giles: Father-figure and confidant to the Scooby Gang on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, here was a seemingly mild-mannered high school librarian who got to sing, kick a little ass and even get the girl once or twice. Also the source of some great library-related humor on the show.



Bunny Watson: Katherine Hepburn's character in Desk Set, the best-ever romantic comedy about library automation. She and her colleagues in the network's research library proved that they could out-think any computer when it came to meeting their patrons' information needs.