Wednesday, April 03, 2024
Mark D. Bright, R.I.P.
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Dave Darrigo, R.I.P.
It was an excellent series, with a lot of small stories evoking the feel of life in the era and how all of it becomes fodder for Clay's writing.
Darrigo was also a fixture of the Toronto comics scene as the original manager of the Dragon Lady comic book store in downtown Toronto. I only knew him casually through that, enough to say hi to, but enjoyed the times I got to talk to him. He was inducted into the Joe Shuster Awards Hall of Fame in 2010.
Darrigo and Taylor, as drawn by Taylor.Saturday, March 23, 2024
Hard Time #6 [2004] (Random Comics Theatre)
Random Comics Theatre
Hard Time #6 [2004]
HARD TIME was a series created and written by Steve Gerber and drawn by Brian Hurtt (with some additional writing in later issues by Mary Skrenes and inking by Steve Bird and Rick Burchett), published by DC under one of their shortest-lived imprints, Focus, for twelve issues in 2004, followed a year later by a second series, HARD TIME SEASON TWO, without the Focus branding and lasting seven issues.
The Focus line seemed to try to try to try to target somewhere between DC's then-still Comics Code approved main line and the "mature readers" labelled Vertigo line. There were three other books in the line, KINETIC, TOUCH and FRACTION, none of which lasted more than eight issues. Among other things they all seemed to have a muted colouring style with a limited palatte (which ended up being less used in the second series).
I kind of think this might have worked better as a Vertigo book, with a lot of sometimes awkward, sometimes ridiculous attempts to avoid "adult" language.
Anyway, the series is about Ethan Harrow, who starts the story as a 15-year-old who gets involved in a school shooting (which he thought was a prank, not knowing his partner-in-crime brought real bullets) and sentenced as an adult to 50 years of hard time (hey, that's the name of the book). At the time of the shooting Ethan also started to exhibit a power, an invisible entity that can leave his body and wreak havoc while he's unconscious. Initially completely oblivious to that entity, he gradually becomes more aware of it.
By this issue Ethan is already in trouble with several groups in the prison, in particular the homicidal religious fanatic Gantry, who can sense something about Ethan's entity and thinks it's demonic. For most of this issue Ethan is trying to race back to his cell ahead of Gantry to put some plans in place, but gets distracted by various things, like a visit by his lawyer. He makes it back just in time, managing to save his own life, but ending up sent to a month in solitary. There he finds himself increasingly in control of his entity, moving beyond the bars of the prison.Monday, March 18, 2024
Scooby-Doo #14 [1996] (Random Comics Theatre)
Random Comics Theatre