Will the Shadow get his body back, 25 years later...

So, Dynamite recently published a reprint of Howie Chaykin's SHADOW series "Blood and Judgment" from DC in the 1980s, and followed up with the subsequent Andy Helfer/Bill Sienkiewicz "Shadows & Light" story that launched the on-going series.  Now it looks like they're going on to "Seven Deadly Finns", where Helfer teamed up with Kyle Baker for what's probably my favourite Shadow story ever.

Which means we might get more Helfer/Baker in the almost as good "Body & Soul" some time after that.  Which is going to beg the question, the last issue of the series, #19, ends (spoiler alert) like this:

With the Shadow in a similar condition. And because I'm a man who owns too much paper, we were promised this for "Nuts And Bolts" in 1989:

Never published, of course, and instead a few months later we got a more traditional take on the character in THE SHADOW STRIKES.  I don't have the early issues of that book, but I've heard that there's some mention of the abandoned storyline there, maybe a promise of a special to wrap it up? Can anyone confirm? Anyway, now 25 years later I doubt we're going to see a continuation of the story by anyone, much less the original creators. But one can dream. Presumably something must have been written and maybe drawn before the plug was pulled.

Remarks on recent comics (2014.02.21)

More recently read comics, or if you prefer, graphic novels.  No, no one prefers that?  Okay, comics. In particular, these:

BATTLING BOY (2013) by Paul Pope
HILDA AND THE MIDNIGHT GIANT (2011) by Luke Pearson
BAD HOUSES (2013) by Sara Ryan & Carla Speed McNeil
PUNK ROCK JESUS (2013) by Sean Murphy
A WRINKLE IN TIME: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL (2012) by Hope Larson, adapting Madeleine L'Engle
STAR WARS. VOLUME ONE, IN THE SHADOW OF YAVIN (2013) by Brian Wood & Carlos D'Anda

And, if you missed them, I recently had slightly longer comments in separate posts on these:

JOE KUBERT PRESENTS (2013) by Joe Kubert (editor)
THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA (2014) by Steve Parkhouse & Alan Moore

Around the web

Evan Dorkin has a two-part one-shot (or something like that) concluding his long-running ELTINGVILLE CLUB series coming out this year.  Cover to #1 and cover to #2.

Jason Shiga has a new webcomic, DEMON.

Neil Gaiman has a book coming out reprinting his short story THE TRUTH IS A CAVE IN THE BLACK MOUNTAINS with illustrations by Eddie Campbell (enough illustrations that Gaiman describes it as "almost a graphic novel".  Time to pull out the old "not a graphic novel, Percy" bit). See the cover here. I've read the original short story, and it's pretty good, not great, and has a couple of visual hooks that Campbell could exploit. While looking for info on that, I found out that Gaiman is apparently also writing HANSEL AND GRETEL with artist Lorenzo Mattotti for editor Françoise Mouly's Toon Books line later this year. That could be interesting.

Brian Hibbs has his annual look at comic sales reported through BookScan.  With the usual caveats about what those numbers actually represent, it's still a fascinating snapshot of a particular market for comics. For direct market figures, John Jackson Miller has your fix.

Todd Klein looks at the connection between a 1942 Stan Kaye Superman drawing and a painting which hung in the DC offices. Part one, part two.

Steve Bissette has a great new colour TYRANT print. Hopefully news on new TYRANT comics soon.

I briefly fell into the rabbit hole of reading about Dave Sim's adventures in trying to get the early editions of his CEREBUS books in print, now that his old printer is gone and his old printing methods are obsolete, over at A Moment of Cerebus. I don't recommend trying to follow the whole discussion, but this post comparing different reproductions of the tonework on one image is kind of fascinating.

JOE KUBERT PRESENTS by Joe Kubert (editor)

JOE KUBERT PRESENTS (2013) is a collection of the six-issue anthology published in 2012-2013, edited by Joe Kubert and almost completed before his death in 2012. Each issue includes work from Kubert (both solo and with various collaborators), Sam Glanzman and Brian Buniak.

Sam Glanzman's contributions are a return to his USS Stevens war stories, a staple of the 1970s DC war comics (also mostly edited by Kubert). Glanzman served aboard the naval destroyer in the Pacific during World War II, and used both his own experiences and those he heard from others in a series of back-up features that primarily ran from 1970 to 1977, plus a few subsequent stories in a pair of graphic novels published as A SAILOR'S STORY and short stories in SAVAGE TALES. For this series he did a series of 10-page stories telling a variety of events, from the oddball to the comedic to the tragic, as well as looking at some of the major events of the war. Beautifully rendered work as always, drawing on memories still vivid after over a half-century, and a nice reminder of a major but mostly unappreciated milestone in comics history. Hopefully someday these pages will serve as the conclusion to a full collection of Glanzman's WWII stories. In addition to the six stories, there's also a feature where Kubert comments on Glanzman and shows a few of the actual illustrations Glanzman drew while serving on the USS Stevens in the 1940s.

Brian Buniak is represented in every issue with a serialized adventure of Angel and The Ape, reviving the short lived 1960s feature. I thought the concept was cute enough for a single story, with a sort of 1980s era MAD/CRACKED look to the work, but it wasn't really strong enough to sustain a six part story. The two-page spread of classic chicken-fat in-jokes, slapstick and non sequiturs is pretty cute, with some interesting cameos (pay close attention if you missed it, Mike Sterling...).

Other than those two features in every issue, Joe Kubert himself provided the rest of the material in each issue.

His first story, as seen on the cover, features Hawkman and is set in Africa. It has some really good artwork, evoking both his earlier work on that character and his well-regarded 1970s work on Tarzan but The story is a little bit preachy and disjointed, though.

The major Kubert work is the long-lost series THE REDEEMER, which was scheduled and widely advertised and previewed back in 1983, but never actually published.  This book has some concept artwork and what would have been the first three issues of that series, as well as some preliminary artwork for the future issues, which is as far as Kubert got before realizing he couldn't fit a monthly book with the other demands of his schedule. The concept is a history spanning story of redemption and reincarnation, giving Kubert a vehicle to draw a variety of settings, a science-fiction future and the American west of the 19th century in the two stories he got to and planned stories of Roman gladiators, cavemen and pirates among those planned. It's all a little strange, but an entertaining concept, and good to finally have some closure three decades after seeing those ads for the book.

The other serialized Kubert contribution to the book is "Spit", a series of vignettes about an orphan boy who ends up aboard a whaling ship around 1850, inspired by, as Kubert explains, his childhood fascination with MOBY DICK.  This is probably my favourite Kubert art of the book, mostly drawn in the pencilled style he used for a few of his later major works like YOSSEL and DONG XOAI. His passion for the subject matter really comes though in the art, and I just wish there was more room to flesh out the story.

Kubert also does a short ghost story "The Biker", which I enjoyed, especially the horror elements drawn in that pencil style. Paul Levitz writes what is sort of a Sgt. Rock story for Kubert to draw, and it was far better than I was expecting, and Kubert co-writes a few short stories for other artists that are an interesting change of pace.

Overall it's a nice thick collection with a wide variety of material at a great price, well worth picking up for a sample of one of the greatest comic book artists.

THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA by Parkhouse & Moore

Just reprinted by Top Shelf and Knockabout in both print and digital formats (this review from the digital version), the classic Alan Moore and Steve Parkhouse creation THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA, featuring the original nine stories, serialized in various publications from 1983 to 1991, and a new 24-page story by The Original Writer and The Original Artist.

The series presents the comic misadventures of the Bojeffries family of the English Midlands, as they try to live a quiet suburban life, despite the fact that the family includes a vampire, a werewolf, an elder god and some other members who are even stranger.

If you don't have all the original stories in one or another of their original printings, this is a must have. Some of the funniest stuff Moore ever wrote, and strong distinctive art by Parkhouse. If only the new 24-page story is new to you, it's still highly recommended. The new story doesn't have any chance of being as dear to me as the originals which I've been living with in my head for over half my life, but it has a lot of funny bits and clever callbacks. Plus you get the classic stories nicely reproduced in the original black&white (with red highlights in the case of one story) instead of the colour of the previous single-volume edition.

The original stories still hold up nicely, even after at least a dozen readings over the years. The highlight, as always, is "Sex, With Ginda Bojeffries", wherein our heroine goes out armed with dating advice from Flirt Magazine to find a man not intimated by her. I won't reveal if she succeeds, but I always enjoy the journey, and can't believe how hard I still laugh at the "premature evacuation" line. Of the rest, I especially liked the vacation special, "Our Factory Fortnight", this time around.

The new story is "After They Were Famous", catches up on the family in the modern day, which finds them estranged from each other in the wake of the unwanted attention from a tell-all biography by son Reth and now dealing, sometimes quite poorly, with 21st century life. Naturally events (in the form of reality TV) conspire to bring the back together.

I was pretty happy with the new story, though I don't expect it'll ever match the original run to me (offhand I can't think of any sort of generation-later follow-up which has). Parkhouse's work hasn't lost a step, although I did find the computer rendered greytone work more than a little distracting at times. It was an odd contrast with the classic linework. Other than that, his faces are expressive and funny, and he does a good job with some of the physical comedy bits. For the script, Moore gets to do some of the playing with language that he's always shown a facility for (though I found a few of his attempts to render accents phonetically a loitile deffacalt to entoiprat). He still shows a good feel for the characters, and gets in a few nice updates to the original stories. I did think the "reality" TV target of some of the parody felt a bit dated (but as I understand, this was scripted a few years ago), but even there he gets off some good gags.

So definitely worth a look.

Remarks on recent comics (2014.02.07)

That's recently read, not recently published.

Time for one of those semi-regular attempts to get back to writing here...

Some things I've read lately a variety pack of comics from the last few decades:

PREACHER by Steve Dillon, Garth Ennis and others
OMAHA by Reed Waller & Kate Worley with James Vance
GODZILLA: THE HALF-CENTURY WAR by James Stokoe
YOU'RE ALL JUST JEALOUS OF MY JETPACK by Tom Gauld


PREACHER (Steve Dillon, Garth Ennis and others)
I began reading PREACHER a few years ago, but didn't get that far. I figured it was a good time to change that with the recent movement on the possibility of a TV series (and it seems the business background of the deal are far more interesting than I thought. It would be fascinating to have some more digging into that. Did DC keep the publishing rights to the book while giving up the media rights?). I read all nine books (collecting 75 comics published between 1995 and 2000) over about a month.

For those unfamiliar, the series is about a preacher named Jesse Custer who finds himself bonded with the offspring of an angel and demon, giving him powers to rival God, leading him to various adventures with his girlfriend Tulip and vampire friend Cassidy. And, by the way, I do love that Ennis goes out of his way never to use the word "vampire" to describe Cassidy, and then DC liberally used the word on the backcovers and other supplemental material.

Overall, I'd say that parts of the book are really good, mostly in the first half, but the whole thing doesn't hang together. There was maybe 25 issues worth of story, and the rest was padding and sidetracks that didn't serve the story (I'm not sure we needed even one full issue of Jesse's father's Vietnam adventures, we definitely didn't need two). All of that stuff really watered down the main story...

And ultimately, that main story doesn't even end well. Maybe it would have been more effective without the meandering path, but I'm not really sure. I don't know if Ennis has ever talked about it, but I'd be fascinated to know if the ending changed a lot from the original conception, since that did not feel like an ending that fit with the first dozen issues of the book (it might have felt differently to people who read it over 5+ years as opposed to 5+ weeks). A lot of times it felt like Ennis fell too much in love with his main characters and spared them a more brutal fate.

In the end, glad enough I read it for the good parts (including Dillon's artwork, which looks so natural that it's easy to underestimate, but was top-notch throughout), really glad I read it from the library, since I doubt I'll want to read it again any time soon (I figure I'd have made it about a third to halfway in before giving up if I was buying them). First book is worth getting (the current version collects the first dozen issues, which are a nice solid run and close to a complete story before most of the drifting begins).

By the way (and more spoilery stuff here), was it just me, or was it kind of odd that they never got around to acknowledging what seemed like the blindingly obvious hinting that Billy Bob and Lorie were part of the bloodline of Christ, perhaps one that the Grail had forgotten about? Am I way off base, or was that just something left for the reader to pick up in an uncharacteristically subtle move by Ennis?

OMAHA (Reed Waller & Kate Worley with James Vance)
Maybe more on this when I get a chance to re-read the whole thing, but I did want to note the recent publication of the long awaited eighth and final volume of the long running erotic underground comic OMAHA THE CAT DANCER, collecting material serialized from 2005-2012. It wasn't quite the wait for me as it was for some (I read a few issues of the book when it was being published in the 1990s, but only read the whole thing a few years back when I got the first seven books), but I'll say it was a very satisfactory wrap-up of the major plot-lines and character arcs, not in any way clean or final (since life isn't). Vance's writing fits pretty seamlessly with Worley's (he scripted the story based on her notes from before her death in 2004). Waller captures most of the old look in the artwork, especially after the first few chapters. The main difference there is that the greytones are now done digitally, which took some getting used to, and was really jarring when some more complicated textures were used. That's a minor quibble, though. The publisher has a set of all eight books for a ridiculously cheap price, and they're also well priced for digital versions.

GODZILLA: THE HALF-CENTURY WAR (James Stokoe)
Though it's probably been over thirty years since I've seen any Godzilla movie other than the 1954 original, I do have a lingering affection for the big guy, and while I didn't get too far into James Stokoe's comic ORC STAIN, he seemed to be a great choice to draw a comic featuring Godzilla and all the associated Toho monsters.

And indeed he was.  Nothing too profound in here, of course, but it's a comic that does what it sets out to do, tell a story about a Japanese soldier who was on-hand for the first attack of Godzilla in 1954 and continues to encounter Godzilla and other monsters in an ever-escalating world-wide conflict over the next fifty years, all as an excuse for some lovingly rendered artwork of the various creatures. Stokoe's art is a nice sort of intersection between underground comics and Japanese comics, not like anything I've seen before, and suiting the subject matter. If I had one quibble, I think the colouring was at times too deep and detailed, obscuring some of the linework. Anyway, makes me want to revisit some of those old multiple monster mid-period Godzilla classics.



YOU'RE ALL JUST JEALOUS OF MY JETPACK (Tom Gauld)
This is a collection of single page gag cartoons done by Gauld for the Guardian newspaper. Some of them also appear on his website if you want a sample. The comics are a typically irreverent and sometimes absurdist takes on literature, culture and history. I generally liked it, although it was the rare one that I actually laughed at (one of them was "Henry David Thoreau and Friends"). The reaction I was mostly likely to get was "oh, that's clever". More than occasionally it was "I don't get it", maybe more often than I should admit, because it likely means I didn't get the literary reference. So maybe not in line to be an all-time favourite of mine, but clever and sometimes challenging is a nice diversion. I probably should have read it in smaller chunks than I did. I read it in two sittings over two days, and I think if I'd have read five or ten at a time over a few weeks the good ones would stand out more.