Tom King’s and Rafael De LaTorre’s Penguin: The Prodigal Bird (2024) is not your father’s silly Danny DeVito cartoonish Penguin. I have not seen the CTom King’s and Rafael De LaTorre’s Penguin: The Prodigal Bird (2024) is not your father’s silly Danny DeVito cartoonish Penguin. I have not seen the Colin Farrell version, but that darker look seems more consistent with this volume. And King is not the only guy making these Gotham City villains truly villains, but I appreciate it. Or maybe, I appreciate most the artwork from De Latorres depicting the dark, increasingly grotesque and violent gangster Penguin becomes here. With his cute equally sociopathic wife Lisa!
The premise sorta kills this, in assuming the government hires/forces the Penguin to work undercover for them, eh. I didn’t love this but it is worth looking at visually, and while this is not close to his best work, this is still King reinventing, and that is usually a good thing. And this is the first volume, still mostly set-up for what could get much uglier, so yippie (says the guy finally reading Walking Dead). This is still a three-star comic, and could be the foundation for something better. ...more
I have read most of Paco Roca’s graphic novels so far (Wrinkles, Twists of Fate, The House, The Winter of the Cartoonist) and have been impressed withI have read most of Paco Roca’s graphic novels so far (Wrinkles, Twists of Fate, The House, The Winter of the Cartoonist) and have been impressed with the quality of the artwork and the array of storytelling, so I was not surprised that Roca would now turn to a kind of adventure story based on true events. I say “a kind of adventure story” because most of what we associate with “adventure” takes place off-page. Yes, it’s a “treasure” story, complete with maps, but the “black swan,” sunken ship is found early on. Most of the remaining tension is about legal and political wrangling between Spain and a US-based treasure-hunting company (Greedy Americans! Pirates!).
In 2007, an actual treasure-hunting company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, finds what the publisher calls “the greatest underwater trove ever found,” something more than half a billion dollars of coins, and I did recall something about it as I read. This is potentially Indiana Jones and To=inTin territory, but this story occurs without swords and explosions. It mainly takes place on phones and in closed door meetings and courtrooms. Two younger Spanish professionals help confirm the booty (I mean pirate booty!) was found on a Spanish vessel.
It’s a story of archaelogy, so it’s necessarily all about sovereignty and that kind of stuff, which is not uninteresting, of course. And it’s a good story! Oh, and those two young archaeological “detectives”? Yeah, you can check the requisite box as one requirement for adventures/thrillers. There’s just not much swashbuckling in it.
The third in a series by Mikael about Harlem, this one focusing on Stephanie Saint-Clair, aka Queenie—the infamous criminal who made herself a legend The third in a series by Mikael about Harlem, this one focusing on Stephanie Saint-Clair, aka Queenie—the infamous criminal who made herself a legend in Harlem in the 1930s. Born on a plantation in the French colony of Martinique, she rose to power as a bootlegger and racketeer, mainly known for her control of the numbers racket. Like her better known NYC Godfathers, Queenie became rich and powerful but also supported her community, supporting people in need, giving loans, and so on. Dutch Schulz saw the kind of money she was making and wanted to strong arm her into turning over her operation--I mean, come on, she was a woman, and black! what can she do against the mob?!--to him, which set off a war.
I just read another book about Queenie: Godmother of Harlem by Elizabeth Colomba, which is more factual and less of an engaging story, so it would be good to look at them together if you want some background on this fascinating history. That one is black and white and more intentionally journalistic in illustration style.
Why did you know about the Five Families, and not Queenie? Well, you tell me but at one point she was among the richest women in the country. Some of this story deals with romance, and gets more deeply into her independent and fiercely committed character. Who wins in the fight between Schulz and Queenie? Read to find out, and you'll find some terrifically romantic thriller artwork, sepia-washed and beautiful....more
An introduction to an acclaimed and controversial figure, Stephanie Saint-Clair, aka Queenie—the infamous criminal who made herself a legend in HarlemAn introduction to an acclaimed and controversial figure, Stephanie Saint-Clair, aka Queenie—the infamous criminal who made herself a legend in Harlem in the 1930s. Born on a plantation in the French colony of Martinique, she rose to power as a bootlegger and racketeer, mainly known for her control of the numbers racket. Like her better known NYC Godfathers, Queenie became rich and powerful but also supported her community, supporting people in need, giving loans, and so on. Dutch Schulz saw the kind of money she was making and wanted to strong arm her into turning over her operation--I mean, come on, she was a woman, and black! what can she do against the mob?!--to him, which set off a war.
There's a lot of historical research that went into this black and white graphic novel, but it privileges information over story, unlike Mikael's Harlem, which is also a graphic biography of Queenie. I think if you wanted to know about a black woman crime magnate in NYC, I would read both of these graphic novels. You get a better sense of Queenie as person (and others as persons) in Mikael's book, but this is good!...more
So, Batman The Brave and the Bold: The Winning Card (April 2024) is Tom King and Mitch Gerrad’s contribution to the Batman-Joker “origin” story, and wSo, Batman The Brave and the Bold: The Winning Card (April 2024) is Tom King and Mitch Gerrad’s contribution to the Batman-Joker “origin” story, and while it is a well-told and scarily well-illustrated straight-up horror story, it doesn’t add much new to our understanding of these two beyond what we already know. Not that I’m complaining; what is here is still very good, if you think of itt as a stand-alone, an introduction to the beginning of their relationship.
What do we know already? Well, just to name a few things, just for some context, King and Gerrad's work here is in conversation with Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke’s excellent (and better) The Man Who Laughs; Frank Miller and David Mazzuccheli’s Batman: Year One; Miller’s Dark Knight; Scott Snyder’s The Batman Who Laughs, and Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke, of course.
But then you gotta go back to the guys that created The Joker, Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson. But they didn’t create that out of thin air. In their creepy creation, they drew on a short 1928 film featuring Conrad Veidt, The Man Who Laughs:
Just look at 5 minutes of it, at least, to get the chilling effects, and to see The origins of The Joker face, but not before you go to bed, or he will rob you of some sleep.
But even before that there was a 1909 film, no copies still existing, but even before that there was Victor Hugo’s novel The Man Who Laughs (1869), about a man with a disfigured slash across his mouth that looks like a macabre smile.
Cool, eh? Now, comics historians; write your books! Enough for a dissertation here, surely!
What do King and Gerard add to the mythos? Maybe this two-sides-of-the-same-coin-they’re-both- insane approach is a little darker than most: Real terror, real horror, real dark humor. Four central characters: Jim Gordon, Joker, Batman, and Alfred. The homage to the original silent film is that the Joker’s words are framed by cards in the manner of silent film “dialogue;” that’s very cool, right?
A nit about this and many of these PG-13 super hero series, especially given the changing nature of profanity in all social media, tv, film, comics, is the $%^& dialogue in this &$%^ thing. By that I mean there’s a lot of replacements for swear words in it, and it is completely getting very annoying. Can we just get beyond this? But it’s a nit, ultimately, a plea to the industry to stop appearing to keep swear words form the potentially virginal ears of potential teen readers. This ain't the fifties. The code ain't comin' back.
But even if you do know a lot about the Joker-Batman history, this volume is still good, I say. ...more
I just reread this impressive collection of the three Richard Stark Parker novels Darwyn Cooke adapted for comics ebfore his untimely death. Ed BrubakI just reread this impressive collection of the three Richard Stark Parker novels Darwyn Cooke adapted for comics ebfore his untimely death. Ed Brubaker takes the lead in this tribute, a slipcased collection with lots of new pages and covers and a story and panel discussion on Cooke. It's a tribute and mazing collection. I read and reviewed all the Parker novels and each of the the adaptations. I highly recommend you get it from your library! Amazing artifact!...more
Gotham City: Year One (a volume of collected issues released in September 2023) by Tom King, illustrated by Phil Hester and colored by Jordie BellaireGotham City: Year One (a volume of collected issues released in September 2023) by Tom King, illustrated by Phil Hester and colored by Jordie Bellaire, is terrific. The story is a gritty noir throwback to Bruce Wayne family origins, and does not really feature Batman at all, except that 96-year-old Sam (Slam) Bradley, on his deathbed, tells the story to Batman. Hester’s artwork, more than bolstered by the colorist Jordie Bellaire, is distinctive. I see sixties funky expressionist notes in here echoing Frank Miller’s Sin City, Eduardo Risso’s 100 Bullets, and the stylized work of Darwyn Cooke in his adaptations of Richard Stark’s Parker novels. Stylized sixties and not pulpy fifties style.
So Slam gets hired to deliver a letter to Bruce Wayne’s grandfather, and he gets involved in a kidnapping/murder plot that would seem to echo the Charles Lindberg story. Both Wayne and Lindberg were racist, and both were rich. We find Wayne is adulterous and wants to build a chemical plant in Gotham at the expense of the health of the economically disadvantaged Gothamites. So you pine to MGGA (make Gotham Great Again)? Return to that glorious past? Well, it was corrupt and seedy back then, same as now.
In the process, Slam gets beat up a lot. We alsofind he is bi-racial, with a black Tarot-card reading mother who figures in the plot interestingly. We’ll see if there is a second volume, but I like all the grimy slimy backstory vs the romanticized versions we may have been led to believe about the Wayne heritage.
PS: Kudos to Rod Brown, comics sleuth and historian extraordinaire, whose review I read before mine goes to press, who reveals to us: "Bradley is a nifty choice to lead the series since he is already a forerunner of Batman, having debuted in Detective Comics #1 in 1937, a couple of years before Bruce first dons the cowl in #27." Cool! gGreat Batman origin comics that do not in the least romanticize his family history. ...more
Original review 5/12/24: I love it that the veteran Deans, the veritable GOATS, of Crime Comics, Ed Brubaker and Sean PhillReleased officially 8/13/24
Original review 5/12/24: I love it that the veteran Deans, the veritable GOATS, of Crime Comics, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, with colorist Jacob Phillips, having established their niche in comics history, have decided to try something different, eighties horror, in their stand-alone graphic novel, Houses of the Unholy. Okay, their Fatale can be characterized as horror, with its femme fatale and monsters and mystery, and one volume of that series, subtitled The Devil’s Business, actually deals in part with Satanic Cults. And their series, To Kill or Be Killed, just may feature a demon, depending on your reading of the story. But Houses is a full frontal dark (to match our even darker times?) foray into the world of Satanic Cults, and a departure from their ongoing Criminal series.
The work is still recognizably Brubaker and Phillips x2: The writing is terrific, with twists and turns, the story proceeding out of text boxes (and illustration) throughout. And it does still involve crime. The art is obviously the father-son Phillips team, and yet they are trying a different tone, a different style, different colors, to fit the different genre, and the crazier story.
Natalie Burns was one of six kids in her community accusing adults of satanic rituals and abuse--there were actually something like 12,000 cases against adults, ruining many lives, so it really was a kind of panic--when she was little. Now she makes up for it by working as a PI rescuing kids from cults. But an ex-FBI agent comes to her to tell her that of the 6 original accusers, two are dead, and she is in now in danger. The plot involves her brother, too, and it all goes crazy, turning in on itself. Maybe a little too crazy for me, but hey, this is the genre, too! Eighties horror was always as crazy/silly as it was jump scary.
This book looks to the past with reference to The Salem Witch Trials with its focus on the conspiracy theory of 1692-3 that led to the murder of many good people in a small community. All dismissed as lies afterwards. See, too, Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, for a story of the trials, written as an analogy to the early 1950’s commie “witch hunt” led in part by Senator Joseph McCarthy. It also makes reference to eighties and nineties cults and their insane leaders drawing victims into their hysterical muck and mire.
It also looks to the present, as all good horror does, in referencing the damaging effects of conspiracy theories in 2024 society.
Of course the Satanic Panic is not an original theme, with lots of folks writing about it, from Grady Hendrix to Stranger Things to you name it. But this is a fine addition to the bunch, so no big complaint here. It has a kind of hysterical over-the-top-ness to the conclusion that is both dark and a tribute to the horror genre, so it was both scary and fun. I get it that tastes will differ.
*The title, kids, is a reference to Led Zeppelin’s 1973 album, Houses of the Holy. You're welcome.
Thank you to NetGalley and Image Comics and the authors (who are not actually my personal friends though I nevertheless want to have a beer with them; sure, I’ll buy!) for an advanced copy of Houses of the Unholy in exchange for an honest review....more
Ghost Writer by Rayco Pulido comes to us in English in 2020 thanks to Fantagraphics. The story is set in Franco-era Barcelona in 1943. Murder abounds,Ghost Writer by Rayco Pulido comes to us in English in 2020 thanks to Fantagraphics. The story is set in Franco-era Barcelona in 1943. Murder abounds, natch, because, you know, Franco. And apparently other reasons. The story is about a woman radio advice “columnist” that always advises women that marriage is a sacred vow and that women must be obedient and subservient to their husbands, even when the husbands beat them or are unfaithful.
But then there is a serial killer loose, killing all these men. Huh?! Who might the killer be? Hmm. And who might be ghost writing those (misogynist) scripts for her radio show?
I read that the graphic novel--black and white with splashes of, ahem, red--was inspired by a very popular advice radio show that ran from 1947-1982. A strange and somewhat amusing noir-ish story that reminded me of Joelle Jones’s Lady Killer. ...more
“I like tough guys. You want to kiss?” [A captive woman says to a thug watching over her.] “Yes.” [He closes his eyes and leans in.] “I don’t.” [She say“I like tough guys. You want to kiss?” [A captive woman says to a thug watching over her.] “Yes.” [He closes his eyes and leans in.] “I don’t.” [She says, as she produces a gun and kills him.]
Noir Burlesque by Enrico Marini is a perfect title in that it describes the genre, instead of a title that describes the particular action or theme. It hits all the cliches of a fifties Hollywood (I mean film, but it’s actually set in New York) caper (though it’s not dark enough for me to be called noir, really): femme fatales principally. Lots of people get shot up, si it delivers on that noir category.
So it’s a slick and very polished tale featuring a guy named Slick, who owes some money so does a job for his employer, Rex, who stole his girl, the capricious Caprice, when he was in the military overseas. Caprice is an ex-call girl, a burlesque dancer, very curvy (of course), the main visual attraction in the book as Marini does the art in black and white, except her red dresses, lips, cars, shoes, and so on. Slick reveals some depth when he (kinda) surprises us in the end and pulls a switcheroo and becomes an old softie. Overall it is predictable, hitting all the genre notes, but what the hell, I liked it a lot, anyway. Hey, sex sells, and I guess I was buying! So sue me!...more
Mister Mammoth is the greatest living detective but no one knows it. This is a book in a new imprint written by Matt Kindt and illustrated in the FrenMister Mammoth is the greatest living detective but no one knows it. This is a book in a new imprint written by Matt Kindt and illustrated in the French bande dessinée style, very European feel, by Jean-Denis Pendanx. Mr. Mammoth is not surprisingly mammoth, a pacifist, with scars to prove he won’t fight back. He looks a bit like the mc from Barry Windsor-Smith’s Monster, who is himself a reference to the Incredible Hulk. Maybe also The Beauty and the Beast.
The novel is focused on uncovering the childhood trauma o Mr. Mammoth, but he is also distracted in his pursuit of a pretty soap opera actress (thin and willowy, like Beauty and the Beast’s Belle)
PS--There’s a reference here through a character name Weezee to the sensationalist fifties photojournalist WeeGee. Just sayin' I noticed it, good for me. ...more
Thanks to Net Galley and Image and Phillips and Brubaker for an early look at this graphic novel, a stand alone as we await the return of the RecklessThanks to Net Galley and Image and Phillips and Brubaker for an early look at this graphic novel, a stand alone as we await the return of the Reckless series. This story, we learn in an afterword, was an attempt at answering Sean’s request to Ed that he write a romance, but, well, it doesn’t quite work out, too sad for that, but it’s superbly crafted, nevertheless. I’d say it was sort of an average story for this team, maybe 3.5 for them, but in the larger world of comics, it's 5 stars, it’s that good.
Everything takes place on one suburban street. A girl who reads comics (a theme in Brubaker) plays teen sleuth in a superhero costume, with a homeless guy who is also in disguise. A neighborhood guy bullies people with his dead father’s cop badge (disguise) and is having an affair with a therapist’s wife (yeah, everybody’s got a secret, and they are all entwined in one block, all of the pretending to be someone else).
Superhero girl has a crush on a guy who is doing drugs with an unfaithful woman; they burgle houses to get cash for their fixes. And threatens him with going to the cops if he doesn’t stop…. But she’s not the only one who knows stuff. . .
We don’t learn of the murder plot til way late, and we’re in the future with a lot of these people having gone their separate ways and looking back as if it were some true crime blog. The opening frame is a map of the neighborhood to reference. And at the end a panel suggests: If you want to know what happened, turn the page. . .
Maybe the unique thing here is the interconnections on one street, and the fact that everyone is pretending. Original idea? That’s not the point. It’s a kind of story Brubaker loves, and he’s the master....more
The greatest ever crime comics team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips take a break from their Reckless series to--at the request of PhSpoilers in here.
The greatest ever crime comics team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips take a break from their Reckless series to--at the request of Phillips--in Night Fever, leave the seedy world of LA to go to Europe, and specifically Paris, for a darker tale than most of their work, ironically set in the City of Light. I just read Georges Simenon’s The Man Who Watched Trains Go By (1938). Simeon’s work is set in Paris, and involves a man in his forties, husband, father of two, regular wage earner, who suddenly seems to lose his mind, spinning into darkness, becoming a killer for reasons that don’t seem to lead to the gravity of his crimes.
In Night Fever we have a similar kind of fever dream, as Jonathan Webb travels from LA to peddle book manuscripts in Paris--a man in his forties, husband, father of two, regular wage earner, suddenly seeming to lose his mind, spinning into darkness. I am not saying Brubaker necessarily has Simenon’s book in mind here. But still. There are plenty of noirish tales--Strangers on a Train comes to mind, and others from Hitchcock, that feature “nice enough guys” whose lives suddenly spin out of control. They meet a guy, go to party, and boom, they are in the gutter. Life changes irrevocably.
The story begins as a series of nested dolls--Jonathan Webb (oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. . .) on a plane reads a manuscript about a guy who has a recurring dream, who wonders if he has some kind of Jungian shadow-self inhabiting him. Story within story within story and they involve the reader in the nesting. A dream of Stone Age savagery. . . a murder dream. . . but hey, it is basically the same recurring dream Jonathan has had! What is going on? Does he, too, have a dark shadow-self? He needs to talk to the author.
Jonathan shows up at a high-end masked ball party and fakes his way in, taking the identity of a name he sees on the guest table, Griffin. Soon, it’s all decadence--drugs, “painted [and naked] women”. . . but hey, I’m married! And then suddenly Jonathan is given (as Griffin) ten thousand dollars in chips, wins at cards, is robbed, but in the aftermath seems to have an advocate, a guy named Rainer. . . which at first seems exciting, not boring like his staid life, until people begin dying, including the author who wrote the manuscript with the dream in it. It’s a life Jonathan doesn’t know, except through reading. Oh, it’s a Jekyll and Hyde story!
Well, so it is also a nightmare (Kafka is the usual reference here), a fever (night) dream, a descent into the abyss, though in an afterword Brubaker prefers not to tell you where it came from, exactly, except to say the pandemic, these dark times. . . maybe Eddy fell off the wagon? I dunno. Maybe he went to bad places, on the road all the time, wife and loving fam at home? He writes that writing can be therapy for him, hmm. He says writing this felt like primal scream therapy for him. Therapists, I invite you to shrink Brubaker’s head here. With me, preferably. But usually in such stories, the guy swirling down the drain arises out of the darkness into the light, and goodness is restored, back home to wife and kids and job. Not in the Simenon novel; in Night Fever the future is ambiguous.
Sean Phillips’s artwork is as usual stellar, enhanced by his son Jacob’s bright and garish coloring. It’s nice to see a different locale for the artwork, which makes the tone different, of course.
Loose ends for me after first reading (and the strength of Brubaker's writing is that you have to reread them to appreciate the subtlety, the layered storytelling):
*There are many mostly black pages that separate sections of the story. Night images. Nightmare images? And all black pages at the end. Dark tale. Night images from Paris? Probably. What do they add up to? Reread. *Drinking--sometimes spiked--figures in this story. Need to reread it for that. *He stays at Hotel Terminus (the end of the road?) *The novel manuscript is titled And Then the Fire--ominous prophecy? *"You can be a success and a failure at the same time”--Jonathan *This one has a bit of pulpy Fatale about it, in that a woman seem like a horror character--she has four arms, so is it Lovecraft, Chthulu? That nineteenth century occult experience? Robert Chambers The King in Yellow, lost innocence, forbidden knowledge. Drugs--accidentally ingested, spiked drinks, pills--are part of this madness, too. *Names are never random for Brubaker: Griffin? Rainer (as in Rilke?)? We already have Webb as in caught in the spider's web.
I love getting into the weeds of Brubaker's stories/mind....more
“You know we need it; the world went to Hell since the original Mind Mgmt folded”--a character in the new mini-series
When Saga volume ten by Brian Vau“You know we need it; the world went to Hell since the original Mind Mgmt folded”--a character in the new mini-series
When Saga volume ten by Brian Vaughn and Fiona Staples began, some people bailed, feeling a different vibe, less positive and fun as things in the world turned less positive and fun. I thought it was like anything--say, when Dylan went electric--that you have to give artists the chance to lead you into new territory. And while I missed Marko, I got on board fairly quickly.
I expect a similar general response to the transition to the new run of Mind Mgmt and early reviews are muted at best. What’s going on? It’s a new four issue miniseries, MIND MGMT: Bootleg, released through October 2022, each issue drawn by a different artist, including Farel Dalrymple, Matt Lesniewski, David Rubin and Jill Thompson. Yeah, it’s different, now not drawn by Matt Kindt (whose artwork I have always liked but is consistently seen as the weakness of Mind Mgmt and likely most of the comics he does) though it retains Kindt’s fun and sort of weird storytelling approach and his typical marginalia and goofy fake ads run that remind you of what you liked in the sixties about buying single issues (Kindt has released a read-along vinyl record connected to the series, and a board game, so expect more of that. Collector’s items! Swag!
But hold up, let’s go back to the origin of the series, in 2012. MIND MGMT is a government agency of spies, formed during or after World War I, who have psychic abilities. The story is about Meru, a true crime writer who searches for the truth behind a mysterious airline flight and discovers a secret government agency of super spies, espionage, and psychic abilities. Henry Lyme, (close to Harry Lime, from the Graham Green novel and Orson Welles film The Third Man) the former top agent, has gone rogue and is working to dismantle the organization. The run was 36 issues, ending in 2015.
So, previously in Mind Mgmt: a covert government agency of psychic super spies falls into oblivion after one of their top agents went rogue. Almost seven years later, a new Mind Mgmt is in the works. In the first issue we find a kid surviving the major destruction of a city. It’s post-apocalyptic, which is to say current California. So I like that, it’s a gutsy move, as with Vaughn and Staples; we are in deep trouble politically, socially, and we have to figure out how to navigate these murky, shark-invested waters.
The point here in this mini-series (volume released in March 2023) is to transition to the new series, and what takes place is recruiting a number of young people with various psychic abilities to populate the new Mind Mgmt espionage org. The ideas are consistent with Kindt’s earlier work, though the story here seems more straightforward so far. The art is very different, with four different artists. Maybe I'l come around to liking it, but I view it cooly so far. I hate the cover, seems Farel Darymple-goofy. This is just a set up for the stories to come, but I’m basically in. ...more
You may know that Batman was in part inspired by both Zorro and a 1931 creation, The Shadow, who persists to this day. Young Shadow is beautifully draYou may know that Batman was in part inspired by both Zorro and a 1931 creation, The Shadow, who persists to this day. Young Shadow is beautifully drawn and illustrated by Ben Sears, a kid version of a night-time crime fighter. The art is the real appeal; the story not all that engaging to this reader....more
As the story opens, we meet a possibly mute little boy boy drawing monsters, talked to by a therapist. T"I've already told you, monsters don't exist."
As the story opens, we meet a possibly mute little boy boy drawing monsters, talked to by a therapist. Then we learn this exchange is being watched by detectives, who need the boy to talk so they can solve the murder. Then we go back in time a bit to discover why they are all there, to a place a little earlier where a crime has been committed.
The boy will not go to sleep, reading a book he got out of the library about "boogymen." Oh, we know about them. Mine was under the bed, or in the back of the closet that led to another door to the attic. I used to have nightmares--in part fueled by late night horror movies, in part?--about a "Chucky" style baby with a knife, but in my generation it was Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, another killer baby movie. My son sees ghosts, always has, and sometimes worries they threaten his brother.
Chicken or egg questions for you: Do classic fairy tales create monsters or do they just reflect them? In other words, do monsters actually exist? Or are their representations allegories for evil people in the world? Only the truly "educated" in the world deny ghosts and prescience and such things exist, as whole mythologies in every culture describe entities in finely-grained details.
The boy consistently tells his father and mother that there are monsters in the basement, that there is a dog in the walls that needs to get out, and so on. The parents consider whether their son needs help or is just going through an "imaginary friend" (enemy!?) stage? The boy seems to be protected by (another boogyman?) Father Death. But could it be that the Boogyman is not what we all assume him to be?
One issue of Mathieu Salvia and artist Djet's pretty inventive horror and actual crime story about how we cope with fear and actual evil in the world. This might be better than the three stars (maybe 3.5?) I gave it, so I will read another issue and see....more
I liked the first volume of this series best, and I sort of hate the cliched Halloween serial killer kinda stories, but it would appear I like this beI liked the first volume of this series best, and I sort of hate the cliched Halloween serial killer kinda stories, but it would appear I like this better than my two-star of the second volume. I guess I rate this 2.5 stars, 2 stars for the standard story, nothing surprising, with lotsa Texas blood especially for this small town. But I like the developing artwork of Jacob Phillips, which is why I picked this up. And why I bump this from 2 to 3 stars, I guess. And I see it is at an early release time pretty popular, good for them.
In the first volume the awshucks local yokels seem kinda funny--these Texas folks talk with such a strange accent, and so on--as stereotyped as they are, but there's not much in real character development here. ...more
I am a long time fan of both Jeff Lemire and Matt Kindt, who both turned to artist David Rubin in separate projects, Kindt for Ether, and Lemire for SI am a long time fan of both Jeff Lemire and Matt Kindt, who both turned to artist David Rubin in separate projects, Kindt for Ether, and Lemire for Sherlock Frankenstein and the Legion of Evil (and other Black Hammer world stuff). The three attest this is a three-way collab, so they invented it together. Okay, but the best thing about this one is the art, as the story feels kind of standard tec story with "cosmic" dimensions. Find the missing girl! Run frantically though Rubin's wildly inventive world, and add chase scenes! Cosmic noir, they call it, ok, sure, with plenty wildly colorful Rubinesque psychedelia, but there's a lot of back story and plot holes to fill here, boys. Or was I just distracted by the optical effects and lost my way on some strange trip of my own? Guess we will be slowing down in that second volume, huh?...more
I wanted to like this overly ambitious volume. Listen to this and see if you don't think it sounds promising: Mark Sable posits that two characters whI wanted to like this overly ambitious volume. Listen to this and see if you don't think it sounds promising: Mark Sable posits that two characters who were very important for understanding American culture were horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and long-time FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Both were racist, misogynist, paranoid, so Sable links the two genres of horror and crime to see if he can get them to speak together. Sounds promising? I thought so, too! But it's a lot!
Then Sable says in an afterword that even that was not enough, that he would (improbably, given Hoover's views) feature a woman FBI detective. Oh and let's make her a lesbian to help us see how glbtq issues are part of all of this. And leave a dozen Easter Eggs from the collected Lovecraft stories that he tells you all about in an afterword, showing every one.
So it's ONE volume for all these related purposes??!! The writing as it turns out to be flat, but not as flat as the mundane artwork....more
A rare (for me, at least) dramatic fall from four stars for the first volume to two stars for the second volume. Maybe I was feeling generous and hopeA rare (for me, at least) dramatic fall from four stars for the first volume to two stars for the second volume. Maybe I was feeling generous and hopeful, but the writing in the first volume, with some refs to Shakespeare, some clever humor, seems to fall apart here. I liked the first volume story, but here we have a central story about a Satanist Cult, ooh! Not interested or persuasive or engaging premise.
I note that Newburn, one of the other (crime) comics (true to his Dad, crime comics artist Sean) Jacob Phillips is illustrating, features an older straight white dude with a young black girl sidekick, and sure enough ol' Joe Bob has a . . . wait for it. . . black girl sidekick! Everything feels suddenly cliched, and tired, and even ol' Joe Bob begins (already! I feel so fickle!) to sound cliched, and I seemed to like him so much in the first volume!
This is Condon's first comic, so I'll read the third volume, at least to look at the development of Jacob Phillips's art....more
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