From the Trenches to a Hollow Earth

ENTERTAINING READS and sometimes thought-provoking reads...

Mike Mignola's B.P.R.D Hollow Earth & Other Stories
By Mike Mignola & Various
(Dark Horse/Titan)

Those looking for Hellboy will only find him hanging on a picture somewhere in the background of a panel or cameod in flashback. This collection features his sidekicks in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (American spelling),

They are stories of varying lengths from assorted publications. They flesh out the characterisations of Abe, Rober, a returning Liz, and new monster on the block, as freshly recruited within the Hollow Earth story, Johann Kraus - giving some of his background but not all to keep this mystery feel going.

They are tales of friendship. Despite the fact that they are also tales of adversity but the friendship is not forged in that manner; those problems simply reinforces their devotion towards each other. The BPRD are actually more like the Fantastic Four than once self-titled World's Greatest Comics' cast are themselves these days.

Jack Kirby's artwork holds a definite influence on the Hellboy saga as a whole, but there's also rather a lot of Wally Wood too, in the use of space through perspective and the eerie quietness of certain situations.

Mignola's collaborators, writers and artists, follow on in his own creative footsteps without aping his style, difficult enough tasks to attempt to do, even harder to pull off. They have more of his attitude towards crafting quality action-horror suspense.
While not a great book due to its collective short story format it's a good and valid collection worth reading for its own sake rather than just as back story to the big guy himself.

Summer Blonde
By Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterley)

City people, town and suburb folk, young losers, old whiners and liars, and indifferent types alike find themselves - along with some rather unlikely suspects - in these stories collected from the Optic Nerve comic.

Much is made of Tomine as a writer - he writes good, engrossing short stories of a mainstream fiction sort. His use of the caption box is welcomed - too often dismantled, or thrown away completely as a narrative tool in comics the past 15 years, or inner turmoil diary styled drivel. Tomine gives it back to the author - giving him the authoritative edge over the way the reader is directed to the themes of the particular storyline. More power to him for it being so.

They're long stand alone comic stories averaging 30 pages each but short as fiction.
The art is alternative/independent Daniel Clowes without the cartooning characteristics and more graphic illustration in that it's straight folks (only revealing their underwear when they've little else on instead of over their trousers!) but there seems to be appreciative use of tone and emotional reaction that reminds me more of Canadian artist Peter Hsu. There's also this underlying horror in the book that curiously never rises to the surface least it become labelled genre material?

Charley's War by Pat Mills & Joe Colquhoun (Titan)

Forget Dan Dare or Judge Dredd, this is possibly the British adventure comic strip more worthy of celebration, that debuted in the pages of Battle (and was later to become Battle Action) on a weekly basis from 6 Jan 1979 on. It was in black and white, had only four pages, sometimes went down to three and a half to allow for adverts, then settled at three. It featured the singular artistic vision of Joe Colquhoun who had visualised the popular Johnny Red for Battle, but had done countless other series that so many grownups once grew up on; Roy of the Rovers for Tiger being one. Myself I recall fondly his Football Family Robinson in, I think, the short-lived Scorcher & Score, and I hated football.

Colquhoun brought detailed drama and human pathos in equal measures to Charley's War. He also brought a hard fought for pinch of humour to what could have been an all too bleak tale. And that despite the remarkablle efforts of writer Pat Mills. Mills, who came armed with a truckload of research, and delivered with passion a crackling good read based on reality.

War has always proved popular in British boys' comics and papers but World War I with its trench bound scenario had a static talking heads type problem since characters could be stuck in trenches for an age. Mills got over this with a number of storytelling techniques including flashbacks, divergent narrative caption viewpoints in the form of postcards to and from Blighty, and more besides; mainly trying not to hold back from the horrific truth of war. What most historians, socialists, comic bods forget is that this was written for little boys! The only other similar thing was Cadman, the coward in DC Thomson's comics. Black Adder owes a lot to both.

Charlie's War features Charlie Bourne who joined the army, like so many other lads, underage, wanting to do his bit for king and country. The war we witness shows the futility of such naivety. It does that with the benefit of hindsight. The higher echelons that are the generals et al pontificate, put privates on charges, and generally wine and dine themselves to the point of gluttony from afar as the poor old Tommies wallow in mud, waiting ear -racking guns and bombs, silent mustard gas and losing friends only briefly met and made, wandering if the rats will eat their own corpse or someone get to bury them. It 's not all that black and white. There are good leaders and bad foot soldiers shown, and this goes for the German enemy as it does the British. That doesn't ignore the great and shameful folly that was the battle of the Somme. The pacing of this book takes us from Charley's landing in France to that terrible battle (that's from June to August 1916 for those no longer taught proper history in schools).

Mills' tale was monumental, and with Colquhoun he largely succeeded, and this despite the majority of their readers would most likely have been ten year old tearaways. How many of the men grew up and joined the British army? Did they find things had changed by the time of the Falklands or Iraq? Alas, probably not enough.

This hardback edition is well deserved. The paperback from Titan had been decades out of print. Further volumes are imminent. They're in libraries they ought to be in schools too.

Rumours floated about this collection before it came out. Guest writers doing introductions, with egos at large on both sides of a camp, some apparently finding Mills' research borrowed too heavily from one book - if so it doesn't matter, all British kids comics owed heavily to other mediums back then, it was the fact that they devoured their source material and spat it out into something new, unique, or at the very least palatable for a different audience than its original one, for the kids of that time. It was what the Norse Gods did to create Kvasir, that is how magic truly happens.

The book is supplemented with some thoughtful articles and background information on both the war and the comic strip series. Buy this book. Buy it now.

In brief: Birds of Prey: Sensei & Student by Gail Simone & Artists (DC/Titan) a good mainstream superhero read with a slightly different feel, Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia - Greg Rucka, JG Jones, Wade Von Grawbadger (DC) has generally eye-catching art, Conan: Both of Thoth by Kurt Busiek, Len Wein & Kelley Jones (Dark Horse) features some of Jones' best art in ages, The Authority: Fractured Worlds by Robbie Morrison, Dwayne Turner, Whilce Portacio & Sal Regla (WildStorm/DC/Titan) reads better than critics said at the time, Justice League Elite: Volume One by Joe Kelly & Artists (DC/Titan) okay stuff, Global Frequency: Planet Ablaze by Warren Ellis & Artists (WildStorm/DC/Titan) stylish art and while not as impressive a tale as one hoped for, better than the last two books mentioned, Superman: For Tomorrow: Volume 1 & 2 by Brian Azzarello, Jim Lee, Scott Williams + (DC/Titan) flashy but little substance, Wolverine: Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith (Marvel) now classic and still classy, The Avengers: The Kree-Skrull War by Roy Thomas, Sal & John Buscema, Neal Adams (Marvel) still holds up well, and finally Teen Titans Go!: Truth, Justic, Pizza! T Torres & artists (DC) a Cartoon Network manga-derived digest that proved fun reading!