Yet More Graphic Novel Reviews

HEROES COME in all shapes and sizes. Most of them are fictional characters but they can inspire you in real life... Birch's Bark, worse than its bite?

The Speed Abater (NBM Comics Lit)
By Christophe Blain

An award-winning European book and deservedly so.

The exact time is not given but we presume this to be set in the early part of the 20th century, during the first or second world war. There are new recruits to one of the last monster sized vessels that roamed the earth in those days and they prepare to set sail and face the enemy. Who would have thought that getting seasick could cause so much trouble?

The author (and the translator?) have a wonderful ear for dialogue as the very humanity of it all comes across mundanely and joyfully in equal measures. The art, like some weird cross between Harvey Kurtzman and Popeye's Elzie Segar, evokes both easy passion and startling menace. Very readable, an easy read in fact and all the more impressive since it works on multiple levels.

James Bond 007: The Man with the Golden Gun
By Ian Fleming, Jim Lawrence & Yaroslav Horak (Titan Books)

This newspaper strip collection also includes the shorter The Living Daylights story. They are adapted from Ian Fleming's novels by Jim Lawrence who adds his own spin with near-impressionistic art by Yaroslav Horak.

First published in The Daily Express in 1966 they still hold up well being fast-paced but with some surprising cerebral connotations for Bond to figure out about his own character along the way.

Batman: The Collected Adventures: Volume 1
By Various (Titan/DC)

This collects the original Adventures issues. They're well plotted although you wish editor Scott Peterson had been a better proofreader, and some of the dialogue could have been made better in places. Fortunately, it's clearly drawn by, and then charismatically inked, by Rick Burchett.

Okay, there is the feel that we're looking at strips that could have been done in half their page count but the irony there is that you'll have a couple of silent action pages that turn out to be the best in each story. 7/10 for effort and 8/10 for something that entertains all age groups.

Trenches
By Scott Mills (Top Shelf Productions)

Designed so that you view the pages in a landscape format but more oversized than your standard newspaper strip collection. Also the pages in no way conform to that 3-4 panel set-up to punchline format but a general four panel (2 at the top, 2 at the bottom) grid, and that's not rigidly established either, but suits the loose cartooning style presented within the panels.

Set during World War I, two very different brothers from up north, in England, join up to serve king and country. Lloyd Allenby is the more timid brother, David, or Davey, the have-a-go permanently mouth-engaged one. To this set-up add Officer Jonathan Hemmingway, a professional soldier - likewise he leaves his nice home to lead his men. From thereon most of the story takes place down in the trenches of No-Man's Land in France.

Hemmingway and the Allenbys start to integrate, initially arguing, there are possible court-martials, a Queensbury Rules punch up and a poison gas attack. To anyone regularly picking up one of the eight monthly 64 page digest Commando comics, published by Scotland's DC Thomson, they might wonder what any commotion could be about and why the hefty price tag. Well, I guess the fact that it's produced by one of our cousins across the Atlantic makes it all the more intriguing.

Mills has done his research but doesn't bog us down in it. Sure it tends towards whimsy at times, but there are heartfelt moments realistically done. The Germans aren't portrayed as evil, just guys on the other side, the world waited until the second time round for a specific group known as Nazis to fit that bill.

Brotherly love, human understanding battling on in the face of adversity - no different from what your average superhero comic used to be, except in this book they wear mud on their face instead of a mask.

Superman: Adventures of the Man of Steel
By Scott McCloud, Paul Dini, Rick Burchett, Terry Austin & Brett Blevins (DC/Titan)

I guess you could describe the Dini debut story as fast-paced, introducing characters along the way and Lex Luthor as a major villain who is as much a chancer come risk-taker as a mastermind tactician and scientific genius. Truthfully, the cartoon Adventures' story editor gives us the equivalent of the opening establishing scenario before the credits roll up. There's little subplot, no subtext, superficial emotional value and little to make us return for next issue save Burchett's captivating art.

When McLoud takes over scripting it's a completely different story with all the aspects missing in Dini's story standing present and correct with some fun, twists and turns. Villains include Metallo (always naff), Brainiac (super cool design) and Livewire plus the best emotional story going to the one about Krypton.. There is depth to the stories and they are also simple entertaining adventures suitable for kids off all ages. I have to say I preferred this to the Batman one I mentioned.

But, is Luthor meant to be inferred as being gay? He's preoccupied by his appearance, his eyebrows are plucked, and there's a strange dividing line between the macho and the camp with a constant use of female bodyguards that comes across as a poor foil to avoid showing his true self? It's an odd one. Interesting, but unnecessary. Other than that Perry, Lois & Jimmy stay in the classic mould and do well by it.

Isolation And Illusion
By P Craig Russell (Dark Horse)

Subtitled Collected Short Stories 1977-1997, this book has a line somewhere that it's the first such collection of Russell's work. I thought an American book publisher who he had been doing illustration work for on books such as The Arabian Knights had bought an album-sized collection out, possibly in the late 80s, but maybe I'm mistaken. It doesn't claim as such in the list of other books available. I suspect if it did come out any long-term fans of Russell's work will have that in their collection.

Actually, I'd say most long-time admirers of his work have already got most of these strips in the irregularly published Night Cries series of yesteryear (or should that be decade now?) from Eclipse Comics, and a few rarer places. One presumes this collection is for the newer P Craig Russell fans that have come to his work via his contributions to comics like The Sandman but those older ones won't complain at having a nice new compilation.

As those older fans will tell the newer ones, Russell has been doing his fantasy shtick for quite some time, 30 years or more. But aside from that genre there are also literary adaptations and science fiction material. There is also much seriousness and despair but there is also a tip of the hat to comic humour now and again, although it doesn't always work.

Some may say Russell seeks to make comics highbrow art but if so one has to admit that his visual material reaches in that direction well. He is strong on overall page composition and design while his classic approach to figure work is ever present (although photo reference becomes a dominating effect in the more recent stories collected). His penchant for page boy hair-styled angels can begin to grate after a bit and I'm constantly reminded about the Frank Frazetta meets William Blake look that emblazoned the old Swan Song record label.

The texts are frankly too long. This is a man whose original claim to fame was as collaborator to wordy writer Don McGregor on the Killraven series in Marvel's Amazing Adventures back in the 70s, it should be noted. For the most part, that worked because of the emotional context that prevailed in McGregor's work. Here, they largely read as too verbose and do not interact with the pictures to any great capacity, leaving one unfulfilled. Comics is the magic of words and pictures interacting to become something more than either. Too often I found the choices of strips collected here too dull or too lengthy. Some beautiful images and very appealing colour when used make it something I may return to as an art book rather than a comic book.

Witchblade featuring Tomb Raider: Coda
By Various (Top Cow/Titan)

An odd mix this. Not the combination of Witchblade and Lara Croft but that their particular story team-up takes up the first half of the book and ends up abruptly presumably unfinished. The remainder of the book is taken from the regular series of Witchblade, the last page of the book also having a cliffhanger, meaning you don't know the outcome .Two stories without resolutions isn't good.

In the first story, by Charles Holland, Lara finds the Sword of Lucifer for an old wizard called The Master. His apprentice, the well-stacked Daria, gets hold of it, kills him and brings back Sir Lancelot from the dead with the promise that he can kill his old enemy, Merlin. There are some nifty interpretations of the Arthurian legends that pad out the pages, whereas Miss Croft is in and out over fewer pages either doing her Indiana Jones with boobs bit or packing her clothes for a couple of pages, before briefly teaming up with Sara Pezzini (Witchblade) and Jackie Ecatatado (The Darkness) to play cops and robbers chasing after Daria.

There must be at least another issue not collected here. Why? It's madness. It pleases fans of neither character and has got to put off the casual purchaser coming back for more (I'm big on crime fiction).

Dwayne Turner's art is what kept me along for the ride - it's like some hyper-Philippines style with the odd flourish of John Buscema in a WildStorm! mode.This stated there is the odd panel here and there that's below the standard of the others and it gets me begging some uneasy questions about artistic boredom and swiping.

The Witchblade issues have Christina Z and David Wohl nailing the Witchblade scenario in their dialogue to make it both accessible to new readers and at the same time pushes the plot along. It sees one story arc concluding and another's opening chapters begin in Pezzini's life as she is pushed out of the NYPD after defeating demonic forces to take up a position in some Black Ops set-up that in fact sets her up for what looks to be a more science fiction/potentially mainstream superhero styled scenario and ends with her about to be killed.

The Michael Turner/D-Ton art doesn't really keep my attention and dates in style and substance before my eyes.

Overall the collection is fun enough superficial action, but badly mispackaged.

Batman: Castle of the Bat
By Jack C Harris and Bo Hampton (DC/Titan)

Brother Scott and Bo Hampton were promoted as being something rather new and exciting when they first broke onto the American comics' scene. They invested some of the storytelling qualities of Will Eisner (who they had briefly studied under as apprentices) then add the world of painting to their styles. It takes a better man than me to tell the brothers' styles apart I fear.

Harris was a new latter-day editor at DC in the late 70s early 80s and also wrote, doing similar at other companies. He adhered to the regimentation of the old school of DC editing but seemed to look and appreciate new ideas if they worked. He may well have been the man who brought Brian Bolland to US comics and from thereon the whole British invasion.

Here in Castle of the Bat they bring those old traditional values to play and try to incorporate the odd new twist. It's an Elseworlds book and that too often means an imaginary Superman or Batman that goes on for too many pages.

This is a slim volume and a reworking of the story of Frankenstein and his monster with the Batman legend tagged onto it. It is suitably gothic in feel, uses the comics medium's strengths and while in conclusion it isn't the greatest comics story ever (there's tense drama intended rather than slam bang action excitement, kids) it's a well structured one with its short length working to its advantage.

Dr Thomas Wayne as the reborn monster that is Bat-Man is actually off panel more than one would expect allowing character studies to be given more time. Is that what the kids want though?

I would rather that Harris and Hampton had developed something completely of their own but this is a commercial world we live in and at the time of their creating it, the Elseworlds series wasn't quite a flogged dead horse.

Superman Exile
By Various (DC/Titan)

Collecting various Superman titles first published between 1988-89 we're in the second phase of rebirth for the character (after John Byrne had rebooted him).

Blaming himself for the unfortunate death of others Superman goes into self-imposed exile in outer space, and goes through the various points of conflict that make up Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces (you can picture the writers' summit with them ticking off all the relevant sections covered). In brief he becomes a slave, forced into gladiatorial combat but refusing to kill - this all ties in via flashback memories for both himself and an ancient alien called The Cleric who had visited Krypton in its dim distant past.

There are some curious comments upon the subject of (anti) cloning given by The Cleric and you wonder what the thought processes were back then in the 80s while now it's just round the door if not already in proliferation under our noses by the rich and powerful for use as spare body parts. The writers also revisit an old Superman story from the 70s where lack of sleep caused problems - that's what I don't like about reigning characters' histories: once it's done every other writer that comes along feels they have to put back the original idea, but with their own spin.

For me, space opera can be boring, especially in comics and with superheroes shoehorned into them. They used to do this with Green Lantern by sending him out into space for a year but black skies with twinkly star bits get boring after a bit. Fortunately we also intercut with Earthbound tales of Superman's friends and family as they go on about their business doing their best to live up to his credo. Well-drawn characterisations of personality are given to many - standouts being Lois whose few appearances though they are ensure her importance to the legend.

The fact that Mongul's seemingly left to fight someone else while Superman rushes back to Earth leaves an empty unfulfilled feeling - and that he returns to Earth to deal with an even bigger menace, Darkseid's Turmoil robot... only it's secretly Desaad (the real best 4th World creation Jack Kirby came up with).

Superman is Superman - an icon, good guy, symbol of truth, justice and truthfully the humanitarian way. I wish this was available in b/w and sold cheap to kids so they could pick it up but Superman stories don't really date, no matter what editors and publishers think.