Comics

Thought Bubble 2017

Thought Bubble 2017

Oh, Thought Bubble.

Highlight of my social calendar, pinnacle of the annual comic world. It’s gotten bigger each year but managed to maintain its charm. Despite only managing a day of this year’s convention, I had an incredible time and met so many wonderful creators.

This year was the first Thought Bubble not to take place at the Royal Armouries Hall and surrounding areas, and there was some concern that some of the atmosphere might have been diluted by the presence of the “normal” people going about their business in Leeds city centre. But aside from the few weddings trying to take place amidst a swarm of cosplayers (sorry, guys) it didn’t feel diminished.

One of my favourite things about this year were the huge number of LGBT stalls – so many in fact that some enterprising person made their own “rainbow road” map of the convention, the easiest way to take in all of the fantastic LGBT comics, art and merch on display. Falling as it did on Bi Visibility Day, it felt especially poignant to pick up this excellent pin.

My personal mission for the day was to get my Saga Vol 1 signed by Brian K Vaughan, and to get my email address into his hands, and it was certainly worth getting in early to get that accomplished in the first hour. As out of touch as I’ve been with comics this last year, I wasn’t sure who was worth looking out for – except for Gillen and McKelvie, creators of The Wicked and The Divine (among others), whose signatures I’ve sought out for the last few years to no avail. Obviously the first year that I didn’t bring anything for them to sign, their queues were accessible!

There was a divide at the weekend between those excited about Gerard Way’s appearance, and people like me who wondered why anyone cared. Admittedly I’ve never read any of his comics, and I have been told by reputable sources that they’re good, but I find it hard to shake off the anti-emo sentiment of my metalhead teens. Clearly I was in the minority though, as Way’s queue would suggest (Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool got it on video) and tales circulated of fans crying as they came away from his table. I was marginally worried that the grown-up-emo contingency might ruin the vibes, but they were generally occupied in his very long queue all day, so it certainly could have been worse.

Without further ado, this year’s haul!

From top left going anticlockwise:

Time and Space – An H.G. Wells Comic Anthology from Dundee University

The Skillamalink Chuckaboos (illustrated limericks) by Stish

Death Sentence #1 by Montynero and Martin Simmonds

D & Doodles, an artbook anthology by various artists

A drawing of my head on a snake warrior’s body by Awesome Comics

Into The Black by Benji Goldsmith & CJ Reay of Black Lodge Press

Freebies: The Graverobber by Tom Burleigh, Dr Geof‘s Colouring Book of Cats With Their Tanks preview, and The Song Collector preview

Video Games For Good, an anthology curated by Claire Hubbard

Flirting With Death by Rudra Purkayastha, Lyndon White and Paulina Vassileva

 

I also picked up this beautiful necklace from Birch, Please (whose designs I’ve been painfully resisting for years)

And this amazing Divine patch from Black Lodge Press

So long, my comics family – see you next year at Thought Bubble!

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Posted by jenny in Comics, 1 comment
Junji Ito’s Cat Diary

Junji Ito’s Cat Diary

Junji Ito, master of horror manga, has a clear whimsical side. It comes through in everything he does, no matter how horrific the subject matter – the hideous hopping of Jack’s corpse in Uzumaki is the epitome of the man’s ability to balance fear and hilarity. This particular talent of his is more evident than ever in his short manga story, Junji Ito’s Cat Diary.

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An autobiographical account of his coming to terms with cat ownership, there’s something familiar in there for anyone familiar with cats – especially the reluctant cat owners, those poor souls who don’t understand the peculiar joys and heartaches of owning a cat until they’re forced into the situation.

When Junji moves in with his fiancée, he forgets that her cat Yon is coming with them. Affectionately known as the “cat with a cursed face”, Junji is certain that the cat’s influence will curse the house, and things get even worse when A-Ko decides to adopt another cat to keep Yon company. Suddenly Junji’s life is about cat-proofing the walls, hauling in cat toys and surrendering space to these new fluffy creatures.

But no matter how much you may resist, the cuteness of cats will get you.

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As adamant as he is that he won’t allow the cats to change his life, he grows monstrous as he tries and fails to resist his temptation to virtually devour the cat whole.  Much of his anxiety is based around Yon, while he becomes more easily attached to Muu, but – as any cat owner will understand – domestic life quickly becomes a battle of dominion over each of the cats.

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Junji has a lot to learn about cat ownership. They won’t snuggle when you want them to; they won’t play unless you wave the toy the right way; and sometimes when you’re deliriously tired they will look like giant slugs or snakes (at least now they will – thanks Junji!)

But there are also the victories, and they’re all the more precious for being hard won. The first time Muu collapses purring in his arms – driving his fiancée crazy – he looks incredibly happy. Whenever a character gives into their insatiable lust for kitty snuggles their eyes become glazed with joy, and Junji himself experiences that magnetic need to make friends with all cats he meets.

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Some of it is whimsical, some disturbing – mostly it consists of the everyday occurrences in the life of a cat owner, but showcased in that distinctive Junji Ito way.

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It’s not very long, and available here – it gets my hearty recommendation if you are, at the very least, cat sympathetic.

Plus, photos of the starring kitties!

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Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments
Afro Supa Heroes

Afro Supa Heroes

I wrote a review of the Afro Supa Hero exhibit which is on in Liverpool right now – well really it’s part review, part exploration of the history of black heroes. Jon Daniels’ collection of African American superheroes was a real treat to see, and very illuminating – once I started digging into the complicated and often prejudiced past I realised I couldn’t stop.

So go and read my piece on the Liverpool Girl Geeks blog, and if you’re in Liverpool before the 18th December make sure to check out the Afro Supa Hero exhibit in the International Slavery Museum.

However…

I keep hearing that “people don’t like reading any more”, so if you’re one of those people (first, you might generally be in the wrong place) – here is the visual guide…

Presenting:

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Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments
Meeting Darryl DMC McDaniels

Meeting Darryl DMC McDaniels

It’s hard to know where to start when you’re going to interiview Darryl McDaniels. I mean, it’s Darryl DMC McDaniels! The Devastating Mic Controller! One third of the first commercially successful hip-hop band in history. It doesn’t matter that I’m not personally a huge Run DMC; their music is so ingrained within popular culture that it’d be a struggle to find someone unable to name a single song they’re involved in.

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The funny thing, though, is that he doesn’t act like he’s a big deal. Despite the stern manager Darryl was a consistently honest, eloquent, humorous human being, one you wouldn’t expect to be famous on such a level as he is. The key to which is, I think, the fact that he’s a comic book lover before a music lover, and in this world he still has some way to go.

He’s ambitious, to say the least. Thought Bubble was the debut for both DMC #2 and #1.5, created with the fantastic Tuta Lotay, but he dreams of the status of DMC comics decades from now, when he hopes their universe will be as well-known as Disney or Marvel. Although he could easily have worked with Marvel, he followed sound advice and went it alone instead, in order to maintain full control (and for the record, Marvel are huge supporters of his work).

It was Marvel comics that he loved as a kid. Unlike in the DC Universe with Gotham and Metropolis, the stories of Marvel were set in real places in New York; places the young Darryl couldn’t afford to see for himself. He spent his childhood drawing and writing, and excelled at English, although it was eventually Business Management that he studied at college, at the advice of his friend. “Listen to your friends’ advice,” he told me, “just don’t follow it.”

He thinks that teaching could have been his forte if he hadn’t had his rise to fame with Run DMC. That’s why the hero of DMC #1 is himself as a teacher – it’s a sort of alternate world where Darryl didn’t become a hip hop legend and instead became a junior high teacher (and night-time ADIDAS-class vigilante). Even within the graphic novel you can feel the respect he has for teachers, those rarely thanked everyday heroes of society.

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The DMC comics are beautifully diverse, but as Darryl stressed it’s not for marketing reasons: he simply wants everybody to feel that they can relate to at least some aspect of a character. The diversity isn’t limited to skin colour either, and the hero of DMC #2 isn’t only Puerto Rican, but female and adopted. Her femininity is natural, and her fostering home environment is one of warmth and love – no tortured orphans in abusive homes here.

And because of Darryl’s life experiences he’s very keen to make the poor as important as the rich in his comics. One of the major things that he told me he wanted readers to take away from his comics is that no matter how bad your situation, or where you are in life, you are still important. Every life and every story is important, not just the wealthy and well-publicised ones.

He’s got a lot of ideas for the future of DMC comics. By the time his world has been built, the character DMC may be the least interesting of them! He dropped some hints that an aging superhero may be making an appearance, asking me what would happen to someone with super powers as they aged? Wouldn’t they still be comparatively stronger?

12249599_10153804544724040_5555088384689240816_nThere have been talks about turning DMC into a film but Darryl wants to hold off for now. His reason? When it’s done, it has to be done BIG. Settling for anything less than a blockbuster would be a failure. For now, the comic needs to continue, preferably with the current mix of artists doing single issues each – the idea for which, by the way, being that if five people told the story of this event they would all tell it a little differently, which is wonderfully well thought-out.

And if he could have anyone illustrate an issue of DMC, he’s claimed it would be one of the artists on The Walking Dead because, in another great shocker, he’s a massive zombie nut! His prize possession, he told me, is an illustration of himself as a zombie.

So despite the interview not recording, I felt that I got a lot out of it – and I don’t just mean this awkward photo of us together. What was I supposed to do with my arms?!

Keep an eye out for DMC comics. If he can work some of the same magic with them as he did in DMC, we might well see his ambitions come true, and in twenty years we’ll be queuing up for the summer blockbuster release of DMC: The Movie.

Posted by jenny in Comics, Music, 0 comments
The Wicked and The Divine

The Wicked and The Divine

The Wicked and the Divine is a graphic novel of a new, wonderful breed that is thankfully receiving its dues in the world of comics right now. These include Saga, Sex Criminals, Rat Queens and many more, but what they all have in common is this fantastic ability to get right to the heart of a very strange scenario, quickly. They all have a mythology of one form of another, a language through which the story is told, and for The Wicked and The Divine McKelvie and Gillen have picked a classic idea – rockstars as gods, or gods as rockstars – and made it completely their own.

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For those who haven’t read any yet, the premise is a simple one. Every ninety years, twelve gods and goddesses, known as The Pantheon, are reincarnated in ordinary people. They become the idols of that time – it just so happens that this time around, pop and rock stars are the closest thing we have to gods among us.

When they perform it’s like a spiritual experience, complete with fans – worshippers – fainting in the crowd. But the price of being famous and being loved is that they have only two years to live. As you can imagine, this is quite difficult for the teenagers in question – especially the youngest, Minerva, who knows she’s going to die before she turns fourteen.

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Every page is beautiful, and carefully thought out. The space is used artfully, with entire pages devoted to portraying blackest depths. Form and frame are shifted to create an effect that draws your eye across the page, making it impossible to put down, and the way it can illicit feelings, moods and experiences is truly masterful. One rave scene in the second trade paperback is particularly evocative; a calculated assembly of lights, colours, and variation in form that TV and film couldn’t even begin to emulate.

In the trade paperbacks The Faust Act and Fandemonium, chapters are interspersed with portrait images of the gods we meet. All of the characters are so carefully thought out that you can tell a huge amount about their personalities just by seeing these portraits, so exquisitely crafted by McKelvie. An important shout-out also goes to Matthew Wilson for the sumptuous colouring, and Clayton Cowles for the lettering which has all the inventiveness of The Sandman in its assigning of fonts to a character. In short, it looks incredible.

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But it isn’t just a pretty face. The amount of effort that must have gone into creating the mythology and back story, the choices of Gods from various religions and the anachronistic nature of true belief in the twenty-first century all show how perfectly sculpted these books are. The telling of the story flows naturally in the voice of our seventeen year old protagonist, as she bears witness to the Recurrence and becomes haplessly involved in it.

In fact, all of the voices sound authentic, even coming as they do from such a diverse cast of characters, but especially from Laura. Gillen manages to capture the fiery defiance of a teenager, complete with the new and exciting stresses that have come with the social media age, without being at all patronising. Laura’s flawed, to the point where you want to grab her by the arms and shake her out of her misguided fantasies, but as an audience we can understand her desire to be as special as the Gods she admires.

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I hesitate to say much because there is so much joy to be had from reading The Wicked and The Divine. The story takes such unexpected turns that by the time you’ve finished reading you realise you can’t go any longer without knowing what horrible, magical thing is going to happen next! So far the first two volumes have been released in Image’s wonderful little volumes, and while it’s killing me not to talk about the huge cliffhanger that the second left on, it’s well worth discovering for yourself.

So please do, then we can get excited about it together!

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Thought Bubble 2014 Review

Thought Bubble 2014 Review

It’s the end of November and, once again, Thought Bubble was a roaring success. Perhaps no bigger than last year, it had some noticeable differences in organisation that went down both positively and negatively, depending on who you’d talk to.

The most obvious change was the introduction of the marquee in the centre of the convention space. Immediately, you’d think that this had increased the size of the convention, although comparatively it was probably about the same size as last year’s extra room. The advantages, however, were that a marquee is a lot easier to keep warm than the hollow bare-brick wall. Also using the central space for the major signings (people you knew would be busy, like Scott Snyder and Jock) meant that the New Dock Hall wasn’t completely full of seemingly endless queues. The downside to that was having to queue outside, in November. Still, you can’t have it all.

Fortunately the weather held and we barely saw a drizzle of rain – I expect there was great thanks from the cosplay crowd, of whom there were an incredible amount this year. I’m not sure how but it seems that every year I think I must have seen all of the costumes, until I see the post-con pictures and wonder how I could possibly have missed the adorable child in the jumpsuit with a Portal gun.

Post-Con Swag

Post-Con Swag

Other than that, it seemed like business as usual at the convention, which was great. There seemed to be a few things that fell through – the Diversity in Comics panel wasn’t racially diverse, for instance, but more on that later – although nothing ground to a halt. When you’ve been to Thought Bubble a few times you begin to see the patterns of exhibitors – you always know Dr Geoff is going to be there, and the Romantically Apocalyptic crew.

As a socially awkward person, I don’t always revel in being brought into conversations at exhibitor stalls, but I did have a few wonderful chats this year with independent artists. While not independent, my favourite talk was probably with David Hine, whom I queued for patiently to have Storm Dogs signed last year, but whose desk was virtually empty this year. We had a fantastic discussion about his book The Man Who Laughs, the origins of the Joker and the private life of Victor Hugo. These are some of my most treasured moments of Thought Bubble, when I can geek out on something that excites me with someone who’s managed to make something awesome.

The talks seemed hugely popular this year – several that I tried to attend in the Bury Theatre had snaked back to the door and then doubled in length again, and the line for the Gotham talk had been hopelessly long, which was a shame. The ones I did attend were pretty great though; the first of which was one of my favourites, The Best Thing I’ve Read All Year, which was alternatively dubbed “The White Bearded Man Panel” thanks to a few guests falling through. At least they were aware of it!

This is the best place to get recommendations, and I walked away with a whole bunch. Huge thanks go to Tom from Gosh Comics for recommending the Comic Book Slumber Party table, and specifically the Fairytales for Bad Bitches anthology which was read on the Saturday night and gratefully enjoyed. Supreme Blue Rose was another big push, and of course The Wicked and The Divine, which just won the British Comic Awards prestigious Best Comic award.

Other potential highlights – which have either been positioned on my radar or gone onto my Christmas list – included The Salt Lakes by Matt Taylor, a translation of three Japanese history comics for which I can’t remember the name, Beautiful Darkness, a new Stray Bullets, The Wrenchies and the upcoming Ody-C, z gender-swapped sci-fi version of the Odyssey which I cannot wait to get my grubby mitts on. I’m going to be poor for quite some time.

It was a good laugh of a talk though, and the suggestions were great. I was particularly pleased that riot grrrl comics were being actively promoted! The riot grrrl anthology is now sat on my bookshelf, screaming to be read. In time, my beauty!

For the second year of Diversity in Comics, there maybe could have been a bit more diversity – both from last year as well as in general. Howard Hardiman was in attendance again, the self-professed “gay cripple” who penned the excellent The Lengths which I snatched up last year after hearing him talk. I also noticed for the first time this year that he has a fantastic puzzle piece tattoo all over his lower arm – love it. He also showed a segment from one of his new books about a sleepy badger, where the titular badger comes across a black, disabled lesbian, which was a fantastic nod.

Unfortunately the panel was overwhelmingly white this year, largely because Barry Nugent hadn’t been able to come. He was fantastic at the talk last year but I couldn’t help thinking, with the increased amount of non-white exhibitors I’m beginning to see in the halls, they might have been able to get someone else. Donya Todd was charming though, and from my South-West neck of the woods, so I was pleased to find that I had already picked up her work in the riot grrrl anthology.

There were some great recommendations, including a seventies feminist publication called Spare Rib, and great women in comics like Suzy Varty, Trina Robbins and Eileen Crumb. We also discussed the problems when it comes to complaining about events like Thought Bubble and making them more accessible – I’d be curious to see if there are many negative reactions and how they are dealt with.

The Self Made Hero British graphic novelists talk was another great one, with the master of Cthulionic adaptations INJ Culbard joined by the creators of Ricky Rouse Has A Gun, which is another on my ever-growing Christmas list. I had already bought a series of grotesque cyberpunk postcards from John Aggs who describes Ricky Rouse as a “dumb book”, so was quite excited to see them talk about this piece that had been making waves for some time.

Finally, the only other panel I was able to make it to was the Journalism in Comics talk. The biggest topic of conversation was that of criticism, which was very interesting – we heard from Douglas Wolk, who prides himself on critical journalism, and Zainab who, like me, would rather be positive. Like her, I also shy away from giving negative reviews, being too aware that the subject could be reading it, although for someone in Douglas’s position this isn’t a luxury he can afford. I suppose it’s also about where you feel your responsibility lies – with the consumer, or with the creator of the work.

Again, the panel might have been a little better chosen. With only four panelists (including the moderator) it seemed out of place for one of them to barely do any comics journalism. Unfortunately music journalism doesn’t really translate as easily, and her comments – while insightful – felt out of context.

All in all, Thought Bubble still reigns supreme in the comic book festival circuit, especially as more and more conventions are going toward more mainstream media forms. Yes, Jason Momoa is very attractive, but comic book icon he is not – give me Tim Sale any day!

Finally, my weekend was made by meeting one of my personal heroes, Danielle Corsetto, and having her doodle in the copies of Adventure Time that I reviewed here and here.

So thank you once again Thought Bubble for the laughs, the inspiration, and the severely depleted bank account funds. I’m looking forward to next year already!

 

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Seconds – Bryan Lee O’Malley

Seconds – Bryan Lee O’Malley

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s first collection of graphic novels, the Scott Pilgrim series, took off to incredible heights of success, especially when you consider that they are manga sized and black and white, two features which are only now becoming more popular in the West. Scott Pilgrim became a cult hit because of its combination relatable, heavily flawed characters with video game inspired settings which made every geek reading squeal with pleasure. In his new book Seconds, O’Malley once again presents the reader with relatable characters, albeit this time they are in a fantasy/fairy tale setting.

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The story focuses on Katie, a 29 year old chef for whom things are going…okay. It can’t be said that she’s having a hard life – she’s a well-appreciated cook at Seconds, opening a new restaurant all of her own, and she has a little work fling to keep her going in the bedroom department. But there are things she wishes she could change – she could have her long-term boyfriend back instead of losing him to her own secrecy, and the refurbishment of her new restaurant’s building could certainly be going smoother. It’s an entirely understandable state of being.

One night, she wakes in her bedroom above Seconds and sees a ghostly woman with red eyes hunched on her chest of drawers. The cryptic, squirrely girl scratches at her drawers and disappears, but when she checks the drawer later, nothing is in there, not even socks. But later on, while hooking up with her protégé in the larder, an accident causes the quiet new girl Hazel to be burned horribly along her arms. Wracked with guilt and having to sever her relationship with her boy toy, she falls asleep lonely and wakes up to the small blonde girl once again scratching at her drawers. This time when she looks, she finds a small notebook, a red mushroom and a card with printed instructions:

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She hurriedly scribbles that she shouldn’t have been with Andrew when Hazel was hurt, consumes the mushroom and goes to sleep.

Armed with foreknowledge, she is able to not just prevent the accident from happening but also endears herself to Hazel by showing she knows that Hazel exists, when otherwise she was universally disliked and ignored for being too attractive and tall. The two of them form a fast bond when Katie discovers that Hazel has been drawing pictures of the ghostly woman from her room, and learns what a “house spirit” is. Hazel’s role as Katie’s guide to the folk tales of house spirits is charming and cute, perhaps because Hazel is an immediately sympathetic character, much more so than the protagonist Katie.

In the grand tradition of fairy tales, Katie is granted this brief power and then takes advantage of the situation. If she could change that event, what else could she change? As most people would agree, once you start righting wrongs it can be difficult to know where to stop, and the noble spirit in which she wrote her first mistake soon gives way to self-indulgent wishes, allowing her to erase hangovers and petty arguments at will. And, like all good fairy tales (in my opinion, of course) it delves easily into horror.

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As well as being a morality tale which shows the importance of being careful what you wish for, and the need to consider how your actions affect others, it also has sci-fi elements of alternative timelines. These are represented in the form of a many-branched tree, each with separate twinkling lights in every fork, throughout which reality moves depending on which direction Katie pushes it. As most people find in alternative timelines, even the things that were awful and heartbreaking – in fact, especially those things – are what make us who we are, and by erasing the mistake entirely you could find yourself in an even worse place. Besides, if you change something that defined you, are you the same person? It tows the line beautifully between science fiction and philosophy.

The way O’Malley shows the course of Katie’s life spinning out of control is surreal and disconcerting – what happens when you’ve changed your life so many times is that is begins to unravel around you. Humans aren’t meant to have this power for exactly the reason that abusing it can cause catastrophic consequences, and what’s more the mistakes are where we learn about life.

Bryan Lee O’Malley doesn’t do pin-ups or bizarre artistic effects in his work, but what he is excellent at is portraying real people with real issues and faults. Katie’s self-absorbed, impetuous and sometimes kind of mean, but I get her. Combine this with his excellent sense of humour – Katie’s arguments with the narration which may or may not be in her head – and some well-timed Scott Pilgrim references, and you’ve got a story that’s compelling, thoughtful, sweet, sad and funny all at the same time. As an added bonus, the hardcover book is absolutely beautiful and every page is dripping with the most vibrant of colours and star-scapes.

You can also read the post on the Travelling Man blog if you want a change of scenery!

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The Strange Tale of Panorama Island

The Strange Tale of Panorama Island

It’s not often that I get to review manga, and when I do it’s almost certainly not based on a story nearly ninety years old. But when I saw the beautiful coloured covers for The Strange Tale of Panorama Island, showcasing rich flowers, beautiful women and exotic birds all lovingly represented in an art deco style with gold lettering, I couldn’t help but look inside.

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Suehiro Maruo isn’t an artist I have encountered before, and with good reason – only two of his previous works have been released in English, both of which come under the style of “ero guro”, or erotic grotesque. In comparison with his other work, it’s pretty apparent that Panorama Island is a toned-down version of his usual themes, but contains them nonetheless – the kind of gory, intestinal horror you can see in Akira, furtive sexuality, and the threat of eyes constantly observing. By the standards of 1926 Japan, this novella from Edogawa Rampo (a pen name homage to Edgar Allen Poe) would have been explicit, gory and modern, although now it seems positively tame in comparison with other works Maruo has illustrated, which include a contemporary version of the Muzan-e, arguably the very first popular example of ero guro.

The story follows Hitomi, a failing writer struggling with malaise. In 1926, the Taisho Emperor dies and as the mass media culture begins to permeate Japan, Hitomi fears being left behind. All he wants to write are fantastical stories, but his publisher is more concerned with the realities of contemporary Japanese life, knowing these themes will sell better. He then hears of the death of an old friend of his, the son of a wealthy industrialist for whom he is the splitting image, and a plan begins to form.

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Immersing himself in horror fantasy, he digs up the rotting corpse of his old friend, removing his wedding ring – along with the finger – and his false tooth, ripping out his own tooth as part of the masquerade. As he assumes the life of the wealthy Komoda, he realises that his biggest obstacle will be convincing his friend’s beautiful wife Chiyoko of his seemingly miraculous return from the dead. Knowing that she will know her husband’s body better than anyone else, he fears becoming intimate with her – only leading to more suspicion on her part. His evident lust for young women makes this act even harder to sustain.

Using the wealth of the man whose life he has stolen, he begins to build the dreamworld he always wanted as an impoverished writer on a nearby island, claiming at first to turn it into an amusement park. But it becomes apparent before long that this island is not for others – and especially not children – to visit. He essentially builds himself a hedonistic paradise filled with exotic flowers, naked nymphettes and optical illusions. The island resort is based on and named after the late nineteenth century panoramas, indoor buildings which used painted canvases and clever positioning of objects and actors to create the illusion of a much larger landscape. They were used as an escape from the ever-growing population of Japan, and it’s clear that Hitomi needs this fantasy world to live in.

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An ongoing visual theme in the artwork is of eyes watching. In the first instances of seeing Hitomi, he almost always has one eye hidden behind the lense of his glasses; Chiyoko’s bedroom is filled with decorative masks and dolls, with eyes that seem to stare all the time, perhaps representing the scrutiny she would feel as a wife to this rich man. When Hitomi takes her to the semi-completed island, she becomes horrified by the eyes that appear everywhere, in the feathers of a peacocks tail or in the glimmering specs of the exotic fish they see while walking through an underwater tunnel. In this panorama, Chiyoko is part of the landscape, a beautiful figure to be observed in the same way that the circus performers and naked frolicking women, just part of the scenery.  The scale of the island only serves to enforce her suspicions that this man isn’t her husband but her imposter – but in the way of a classic horror her revelation comes too late to save her, and he makes her the eternal Queen of Panorama Island.

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The artwork is something really quite special, at times an ero guro horror masterpiece and at others an art deco work complete with scrolling patterns and perfect, curvaceous women. The cultural influences for the island come from many places; sometimes he is watching Salome as she bears a copy his head aloft, and at others he seems like the sultan of his own kingdom, complete with turban. The intricacy of the background work is astounding, and while it’s difficult to imagine the optical illusions in real life they are awe-inspiring to see even on this scale.

It’s difficult to judge the writing, as it is the translation of a dead writers work, but as with most manga and comics the words are often secondary to the illustrations. What occurred to me more about the piece however were its references to other art, including Poe’s literature, Shakespearean images of Ophelia floating as the most beautiful corpse in all the world, and Arnold Böcklin’s famous painting of the Isle of the Dead.

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Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead

Some critics have taken issue with the deus ex machina style of the story, but I felt that it worked perfectly with the idea of dreamscapes as intangible, only worth something because they are so temporary in nature. When his plan is exposed he is able to let go of the fantasy with ease, even though – or perhaps especially because – this fantasy has become his life. This serves to show that dreams are only worth something as long as they remain just that, and that the human condition is to become complacent even when faced with our desires come true.

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Hitomi’s reproduction

The Strange Tale of Panorama Island is most definitely an adult book; while the eroticism is tastefully done in the first few sections, it becomes more graphic and explicit as the manga goes on. Themes of grave robbing and necrophilia, as well as images of deformities and “circus freaks” make this artwork at times repulsive and at other times emblematic of 1920s aesthetic perfection. The book is a conventional graphic novel size in hardback, with a cover worthy of a position on your living room table – just make sure no kids get their hands on it!

Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments
Serenity: Leaves on the Wind #1-3

Serenity: Leaves on the Wind #1-3

Fans of the famously cancelled series Firefly have reason to rejoice, as it’s back with a vengeance in comic book form.

If you’re unfamiliar with Firefly and Serenity then honestly, where have you been? When the series aired on Fox in 2002, sci-fi geeks found a new show to get passionate about, but as so frequently happens the network wasn’t nearly as interested. Its first airing had its time slot changed numerous times with the episodes not even shown in the right order, so it’s unsurprising that on-paper ratings made it look unpopular. Before all thirteen of the season’s episodes were released it was cancelled.

 

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After a huge petition including letters, adverts and conventions, Firefly was released on DVD and a few years later the film Serenity was made in an attempt to give the show’s fans a sense of closure. Today, both DVDs are a permanent fixture on the International Space Station, and despite nearly ten years without any chance of a film revival, the fandom is still going strong.

 

There have been other additions to the franchise, most notably in the comic book world where just recently the story has been added to again. Zack Whedon, brother of Joss and Jed, has taken control of the first canon Firefly story in some years, using the tried and tested technique that was used in the continuation of Buffy The Vampire Slayer through comic books, and the book is being illustrated by Georges Jeanty who became well known for working on the aforementioned Buffy comics. Joss Whedon has kindly offered his name as executive producer, although by all accounts he has mostly trusted his brother with running the show.

 

The comic begins eight months after the end of Serenity, and does an excellent job of skipping over what could be quite a lot of action in between. At the end of the film Wash was killed, Mal exposed The Alliance’s evil scheme, and River began to work out who she was, but as we all know a good story exists outside of the physical media, in the hearts of its fans. The intense fanbase of the show is a double-edged sword for the comic, as it comes with not just love but expectations, and a knowledge of the show which means if Whedon or Jeanty get even the slightest thing wrong, there will be some serious backlash.

 

Luckily, Serenity: Leaves On The Wind hasn’t failed to impress. The name is, of course, a tribute to Wash’s dying words in the movie but they end up meaning much more as the crew are now flying without aim, just trying not to get caught. Eight months after their world-shattering announcement, Jayne has left the crew of Serenity, a widowed Zoe is pregnant and Inara is finally in a relationship with Mal after being blacklisted by the Companion’s Guild. River has picked up the co-pilot’s controls and loves the ship as completely as Wash ever did. It feels seamless, like we haven’t left the show at all – nothing about the characters’ actions, words, circumstances and feelings has been altered, and it’s exquisite. By the third issue however, we start to see that constant peril is beginning to have an effect on the crew, especially the once innocent Kaylee.

 

Kaylee may have found her dark side.

Kaylee may have found her dark side.

 

After illustrating for the Buffy series, I’m impressed that Georges Jeanty went for another comic book based on a TV show, which comes with great expectations for how the characters appear. It isn’t always spot on and at a few moments in the first three issues I wasn’t sure who a character was meant to be, but the giveaways are the facial expressions, which are surprisingly close to the actors’. If you look at Jeanty’s influences – Mobius, Geof Darrow, Walt Simonson – you can see that he is inclined toward a folksy style of art which works beautifully with the rustic space-opera of Firefly. If anything, the ship itself was probably more difficult to render as it is a character in its own right with a very distinctive style.

 

Like any large governmental organisation, The Alliance aren’t about to just give up because they’ve been exposed, and as River comes to believe that there may be more like her the story continues in a believable way. But rather than just extending the chase, Zack Whedon has introduced a new character to the team: Bea, the idealist current leader of “the New Resistance” who views Mal as nothing short of a hero, should provide a much needed dose of youth, optimism and political passion. While we’ll almost certainly see these traits beaten out of her – the ‘Verse is not a kind place – she may be just what the team needs.

 

Did I mention Jubal Early's back?

Did I mention Jubal Early’s back?

 

Beginning in January, three issues of Leaves on the Wind have been released so far and are everything a Firefly fan might want from the series; namely a continuation of the story. While other Firefly comic book series have aimed to provide back stories, Leaves on the Wind looks to the complex future of Serenity’s crew in a world where they aren’t just outlaws, but both revolutionary heroes and wanted terrorists at one time. For fans of Firefly, reading this comic series is a necessity.

Originally posted on the Travelling Man blog where I and others write reviews!

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Junji Ito’s Uzumaki

Junji Ito’s Uzumaki

Some horror stories stick with you for days; while reading you can’t tear your eyes away and later on images persist when you’re trying to get to sleep. When I was six or so, I remember being so terrified of the Goosebumps book The Haunted Mask that I put it on the floor of my room with a plastic table turned upside down on it. When I read Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis as a teenager, I reached a terrifying point and knew I had to keep reading or I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I ended up finishing it at 5am without experiencing a moment when I wasn’t afraid.

This book was the subject of many nightmares for me.

So when I took Uzumaki to read on the train, I was pleasantly surprised to find I couldn’t stop staring in horror at the pages. The most direct translation of the word “Uzumaki” is “Spiral”, although it refers more to a three-dimensional spiral, like a vortex or a whirlpool and just like the secret shape of the universe, Uzumaki draws the reader helplessly in. The deluxe edition was printed in 2013, and stands out on the Travelling Man shelves as a rather imposing beast – matte black on the front and back with faint images from the story while the two inch thick spine shows a wide-eyed and stitched together corpse.

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The horror manga, written and illustrated by Junji Ito, was first serialised in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Spirits in the late nineties, a magazine designed for young adult men. It was later published in Viz in England, re-released in 2007 and last year had its omnibus hardcover deluxe edition. Ito is most famous for his manga Tomie, about an immortal girl who drives the people around her into an obsession so fierce they end up killing her, but also wrote Gyo, the story of mechanical sea-life carcasses controlled by a “death stench”. Some popular themes in his work include body horror, breakdowns of society and the inability to escape one’s fate.

The horror builds up slowly and insidiously in the isolated coastal town of Kurôzu-cho. Most of the stories are focussed around a young girl Kirie and her boyfriend Shuichi, who goes to school in another town. When Shuichi’s father first becomes obsessed with the spiral, it’s destructive but it’s all in his mind. He begins seeing them everywhere, in many patterns, but it’s much more terrifying when his wife starts to notice spirals on her own body and on others; determined to eradicate the pattern which haunts her, she cuts the tips from her fingers, shaves her hair off, and eventually becomes her own undoing when the image of her dead husband as a millipede tells her about the spiral in her ear. The moment Shuichi sees the organ of Corti on a medical poster this feeling of intense dread descends and we know it’s only a matter of time. The ironic tragedy of it? That by damaging her inner-ears, she is trapped forever in the spiral of vertigo.

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Moments in this book go from genuinely tragic, to hilarious, to disgusting almost instantly. As the town begins to succumb to the spirals, so to do the residents, some of whom begin to transform into gigantic snails and lose their humanity – it’s a Kafka-inspired piece of body horror which is absolute perfection down to the way he draws the skeletal snail-humans’ faces. When the townspeople become trapped and begin to run out of food, they see the snails as a preferable alternative to outright cannibalism.


The spiral is impressively doled out throughout the story – it begins to appear more and more in the background, not just in spiraling clouds but in wood patterns, hair styles, umbilical cords, sirens and whirlwinds. The way the stories build up slowly gives it the same kind of feeling as MPD Psycho or the X-Files TV series, starting as monster-of-the-week style storyline which evolve into a huge story. It gives the reader a sense of inescapable horror; we keep falling deeper and deeper into the spiral, unable to look away and unable to change the end of the nightmare.

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The actual town of Kurôzu-cho is comparable to Buffy’s Sunnydale, where so much of the supernatural is able to happen before people will believe something mysterious is going on. Kirie and Shuichi are in the privileged position of knowing what’s going on before anyone else, but are still unable to escape in time because of the pull of their friends and family, so we watch them fight off the terror with knowledge for a while. Kirie and Shuchi’s relationship is one of those pure manga loves, like that seen among the young couples in Battle Royale; that kind of unquestionable love and commitment that keeps them together until the end.

I could go on for hours about the various horror elements – it’s a big manga, with a lot of dark stories packed in. It’s sometimes ridiculous, usually surreal and in terms of artistic style it’s like a combination between Akira, Pet Shop of Horrors and an M.C. Escher piece, with a really astounding amount of detail and texture. The first few pages of most chapters are coloured in a simplistic watercolour style of paint which is incongruous with the charcoal blacks of the rest of the book; it’s kind of pleasantly jarring, if such a thing exists, and the girls have this wonderful Mark Ryden doe-eyed appearance.

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I would recommend Uzumaki to lovers of body-horror, chilling manga, Lovecraftian and Kaska-esque stories, and a slow-burning apocalypse. If you haven’t explored much manga this is a great place to start, but otherwise there is a very decent film version – albeit with a much shorter storyline and drastically different ending.

Pleasant dreams!

Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments
Adventure Time: Pixel Princesses

Adventure Time: Pixel Princesses

Danielle Corsetto and Zack Sterling reunite under the Adventure Time franchise to bring us back into the world of Oo in a new cyber-fantasy tale. In the same large manga sized format as its predecessor Playing With Fire, Pixel Princesses follow some of the best and most under-appreciated Princess of Oo as they kick some ass and learn about friendship.

Lumpy Space Princess is running through the woods, panting away – she’s late for something. Stumbling across an abandoned barbershop, she bursts in to a surprise party, but not the one she wanted. The hot wings are absent, there isn’t a big showing of Royalty and worst of all Breakfast Princess just has to criticise the fact that LSP threw herself a “surprise” birthday party. The Princesses in attendance are Muscle Princess, the older of the Breakfast Princesses who happened to draw the short straw, Embryo Princess – at the Tarot cards suggestion – Skeleton Princess, and of course LSP’s bestie, Turtle Princess. Turns out Bubblegum has her hands full with changing the molecular structure of the universe.

All that Lumpy Space Princess wanted was to have some fun Princess time, but instead begins to question why she would want to be a Princess anyway. One of the greatest visual jokes of LSP is in her disgustingly deep Princess Gem – in a panel here it slowly “shhlpp”s out of her forehead while the others look on in horror. Meanwhile outside our favourite androgynous robot BMO is sad that he wasn’t invited to the surprise party, and upon seeing the star Gem as it flies out of the window makes a wish: “Whatever it takes to be a princess, I wish I had it inside of me.”

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The problem with making wishes in the Land of Oo, is that you never know where a mischievous wizard may be lurking, and unfortunately for the girls Magic Man is listening. In a flash, the Princesses are transported into a cyber world where they fall under attack.

The choice of Princesses is fantastic. Although LSP is a fairly common character, she’s complex like the Ice King; you have to feel a certain amount of pity for her despite her annoying tendencies. She is homeless after all! And while Turtle Princess has never captured my emotions, LSP needs a friend. Embryo Princess has haunted my dreams for some time now, and never said a word in the TV series – in fact they hardly refer to her at all, while Breakfast Princess has made very few appearances. And as for Skeleton Princess, I’m not sure she’s ever been named in the series; Finn once greets her with a vague “Hey…you”, but luckily Danielle Corsetto was a fan so she is finally getting some attention.

The rest of the graphic novel is set like an old arcade-style video game. Corsetto was inspired by the recent film Wreck-It Ralph and experiences as a child playing on her Nintendo, and Sterling includes some of the ridiculous elements from traditional girlie manga for fantastic comedic effect. The Princesses must go through different simulated levels in BMO with his aim being to find out what it takes to be a Princess, although he seems to have lost the user manual and isn’t in any mood to help after being shouted at by the Breakfast Princess.
In the classic tradition of these capers where misfits are thrown together against their will, each of the girls has something unique to bring to the table. They each learn what it means to be not just a Princess, but also a good friend. It also gets rather existential at points – when the Princesses complete a level they are reward with the sign “Congratulations! You’ve saved the princess” and an image of themselves in pixel form. These sections are particularly great to get more of a feel of some of the lesser-known Princesses – for example, Embryo Princess not only outsmarts but manages to guilt-trip the cheat code out of a frog who was deliberately misleading her, and in the process defends Lumpy Space Princess. When she sees the pixelated Embryo Princess blowing a raspberry at her, she calmly meditates “Oh, that was deep”.

In the following round the girls find a fruit tree surrounded by cute fluffy animals, who will turn into monsters and attack unless someone is eating the fruit. While LSP eats, Muscle Princess the obvious warrior takes up a sword to the bunnies, but just can’t bring herself to destroy such adorable creatures. Luckily Skeleton Princess steps in; as she says, “I’m literally dead inside”. She slaughters every last fuzzy animal brutally while the other Princesses look on in horror (don’t worry, it isn’t shown!) and when confronted with her pixel doppelgänger simply shrugs and walks away.

Every now and then BMO appears as a “helping hand” for the Princesses, most notably in Turtle Princesses’ Star Fox-inspired level where he acts as her co-pilot Danger Mommy. Wearing a wig and sunglasses he shouts encouragement in the form of “Go to you room!”, “Pick up your toys!” and “Eat your potatoes”. Upon winning, he dubs her “mommy’s favourite” and promises her dessert. Star Fox isn’t the only video game homage however, as one of the levels includes plants falling from the sky and enemies which shrink the players (à la Mario), and the last level is inspired by Tetris.

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In case you were wondering, Breakfast Princess’s power was to make pancakes with Canadian maple syrup. Where does she get it from? “You don’t wanna know.”

LSP eventually learns to stand up for herself and use her own unique talent – puzzle solving – to save her other Princesses, but not before giving Breakfast Princess a good talking to for always putting her down. Go LSP! She doesn’t just save herself however, as next to her pixel copy is a tiny BMO. He ejects them from his game and they make him a Princess crown from what appears to be nachos and doilies, held together with cheese. He’s so happy he wishes he could wet himself.

The comic is more chaotic than the emotional Playing With Fire, and quite similar in arcade tropes to the new Adventure Time video game Explore The Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW. The Princesses are dropped into these levels which can begin immediately and without any indication of how to play the game or what their end goal is for some time. It’s manic but it has a kind of order to it. BMO works as an excellent framing device, as BMO’s gender has never been defined making the wish to be a Princess all the more fun; one of the best things about Adventure Time is the show’s ability to stay above gender stereotyping, and BMO simply shouldn’t need one.

While the next of this series of Adventure Time manga-sized comics is not going to be written by Danielle Corsetto, an equally competent writer in the form of Kate Leth will be running the show. She’s worked before on the Adventure Time comic spin-offs Marceline and the Scream Queens and Fiona and Cake, as well as contributing to Locke & Key and Womanthology. Basically, when you’ve finished Danielle Corsetto’s Girls With Slingshots, please go ahead and check out Kate or Die.

 

For more excellent comic reviews, head to travellingman.wordpress.com

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Words With Sean Gordon Murphy

Words With Sean Gordon Murphy

I was lucky enough to steal some time with the much sought-after creator of Punk Rock Jesus Sean Murphy at the 2013 Thought Bubble convention – anyone attending will have seen how long and constant his queue was! We talked about his art inspirations, the messages behind Punk Rock Jesus and the benefits of creator-owned work.

PRJprint color by seangordonmurphy

JM: How would you describe your style of art, the themes that have influenced the way you work?

SGM: I’ve pretty much taken what I like about manga and about European illustration artists and mixed them together. I think when Americans see my stuff they think “Oh, where did this come from?” Really I’m just delivering my favourite styles that I’ve seen, in South America, Japan and Europe.

JM: What were your influences for Punk Rock Jesus? I’ve read that you were inspired by the 2008 elections, and the worry about Sarah Palin getting into office.

SGM: Yeah, that’s pretty scary! And how it looks to the outside world, I can’t imagine. Gun control…she’s really scary. A lot of comics don’t really tread on that ground, and I think it’s a shame that they don’t push the boundaries more. The superhero stuff is great, you know it holds up 80% of our industry, but that’s not the stuff that I always wanted to draw, so I thought that Punk Rock would be a way to address some of the political issues, but also be a good excuse to do a sci-fi story with some action. I think the trick was to give people enough medicine with enough entertainment as well.

JM: Most writers will agree that it’s preferable to create their own work rather than work on existing superheroes, but do you prefer working with someone like on Punk Rock Jesus or collaboratively with someone like Scott Snyder on The Wake?

SGM:I like to do both. Doing Punk Rock was great, but it was very exhausting because I had to do everything myself. It’s nice to switch off, just get a script and not have to think about where the story’s going and just be in charge of art duties. So I imagine I’ll be going back and forth through my career.

JM: Is there a classic figure you’d like to put your own spin on though?

SGM: I like doing my own stuff, the way Image is going right now and the way Kickstarter’s working…there isn’t money if I did Batman or Punisher or something cause Marvel can’t pay what Fiona Staples makes working on Saga for example, or what East and West is making. It would be nice to step in and do Punisher or Wolverine or something one day. I’m not sure; I’m sure there will be excuses to do that in the future, but right now probably not.

JM: There was talk a while ago of a movie of your comic Off Road, do you think that’s something that might still happen?

SGM: I don’t know, I don’t think so. I heard that Mandalay were looking at it. But sometimes movie companies look at books and they don’t tell you if they’ve passed on it, you just never hear about it, so it is what it is.

JM: There were also rumours about you doing a sequel to Outer Orbit, something a bit more silly.

SGM: No, I wouldn’t do a sequel. That was one of the books that was fun to do, me and my partner at the time had a great time – Zach Howard – but I don’t think it’s in the future any more. It was a fun little space romp but nobody really needs it, I get very few copies to sign and I don’t hear about it very much. Zach seemed to think that people were very interested in it but I never really got that impression.

JM: You’ve done some work for Nike and Land Rover – are those jobs you took just for the money, or because you really wanted to do it?

SGM: Oh, the money.

JM: So you wouldn’t want to do it again?

SGM: I would. I mean, I didn’t go after those jobs, they just rang me up and said “would you like to do it?” and I said sure, it paid the bills. I’m sure I was pretty desperate for money at the time, but…the Land Rover one was fairly hassle free, the Nike one as well. Not all those jobs are like that, sometimes there’s a lot of overbearing people that you have to please. I had to do a job for Activision once, it was a nightmare. If I ever do video game stuff again, I want to make sure that I won’t have that kind of interference. I actually got offered to design characters for Assassin’s Creed III, and it was one of those jobs that I was so disappointed I couldn’t take it, because I was doing Punk Rock Jesus and had made other commitments. Still, whenever I see a poster or advertisement for Assassin’s Creed I’m like “aagh!”, like you’ve fallen on your keys, like I wish I could have done that!

JM: If you could do anything, what would you do?

SGM: There’s a point where I’d like to step out of comics and develop an indie game, I don’t know how. If I had proper capital, if I can Kickstart it, bring my name to the project and get it moving and do like a 16 bit retro style game you could download, I think I’d do that.

JM: You’re a little over half way through The Wake now in terms of release. Are you happy with how that’s going? Do you have plans for any other projects coming up?

SGM: Yeah I’m thrilled, I’ve never been on a book that has killer sales like this. I’ve had stuff that’s sold okay, and stuff that’s got reviewed well, but never really brought in the dollars. I’ve just finished twelve pages of Batman with Scott, which will be out on the 27th January, and I should be finished with The Wake in nearly April. After that I might think about going to Image for some creator-own work, maybe work with Mark Millar or something like that.

Check out my review of Punk Rock Jesus, and Alasdair’s review of The Wake, and of course Sean Gordon Murphy’s website.

For more comic book reviews go straight to travellingman.wordpress.com

As an added bonus, here’s a picture of my cat sleeping on Sean Gordon Murphy and Scott Snyder’s The Wake. Aaw.

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Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments
A Thought Bubble Convention Review

A Thought Bubble Convention Review

Thought Bubble’s comic convention just keeps getting bigger and better every year. Not that I haven’t enjoyed every year I’ve been to the convention, which is four now, but this year’s convention was well-run, easy to navigate and seemed to grow and adapt to the needs of its visitors.

On the Saturday, I was lucky enough to get a few signatures from some of my favourite artists and writers. First of all, Cameron Stewart signed my copy of Sin Titulo (which I reviewed a while ago for Travelling Man) which was lovely; then a half hour queue lead me to Matt Fraction who signed my Hawkeye graphic novel (review) and first issue of Sex Criminals (just you wait until my review of this!). When I told Matt that I thought Sex Criminals was important, and would go down in history he sniggered at “go down”. Wonderful. I also had The Wake issue 1 signed by Sean Gordon Murphy who was kind enough to talk to me for a while on the Sunday: that interview will be up soon.

Then came the panels. First up was Image Comic’s Independence in the UK panel, which actually only had one third British panelists, but ah well. I always like the independence talk, it’s exciting to hear creators talking about being given the freedom to do their own work, which invariably ends up criticising Marvel and DC’s attitude toward the artists and writers. This made it much more strange when the next panel came out – the Marvel talk, which was obviously designed to big up the publishing house. It was absolutely hilarious though – the constant abuse of Jamie McKelvie from Kieron Gillen, David Aja finding it near impossible not to swear, and the dynamic married duo of Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue Deconnick. If comic conventions had Kings and Queens like proms, it would definitely have been them this year.

For Sunday, I kicked off the convention with the Diversity in Comics panel which was incredibly inspiring. One of my favourite speakers was Howard Hardiman, a self-proclaimed “queer cripple” with a fantastic sense of humour; after the panel I went to find his table, had a really interesting conversation with him about gender in Greek and Roman times and he signed a copy of The Lengths for me. I read the book on the train home and absolutely loved it; really brutal but touching. A review may come. I also really enjoyed hearing from Fiona Stephenson who has a very unique perspective, being a feminist comic veteran who now deals in stereotypical aesthetics of female beauty. Everyone else was fantastic too, of course.

The biggest change for me going into the weekend was the conversion of Women in Comics to Diversity in Comics. Traditionally, Women in Comics was my highlight of the weekend – a group of intelligent and inspirational women discussing one of my favourite topics – so I wasn’t sure how this change would go. But I have to say that it was a massive improvement. While I loved the old panel, after three visits it was beginning to feel like it maybe wasn’t making any forward progress; and to be perfectly honest, it’s become so much more even in terms of gender at cons. That’s why it was great to open the debate to other issues like sexuality, disabilities and race, because these are the areas which are truly still minorities in the mainstream comics fan world. When an issue is personal to you as feminism is to me, it’s easy to care about it but it’s important to care about other people who have problems you don’t know and don’t understand, and I walked out of the Diversity in Comics panel feeling hopeful for the future.

The other significant improvement that I appreciated was the streamlining of the buildings. The addition of the Allied London Hall meant that a proper exploration of the festival took two days, and it was nice to have an unfamiliar spot to wander around in. Although I didn’t go into Bub’s Lounge, I heard it was lovely and chilled out in there, and the temporary Cafe solved delicious pastries and coffee! Which was good because Tesco had run out of sandwiches by 2pm on the Saturday. And while the extra panel area was a little cold, it was nicer than having to go to the top floor of the casino (however lovely those rooms were) and helped the whole event feel much more seamless.

And finally, some of the best goodies I picked up over the weekend (on my severely limited budget).

  1. The Lengths. As I said, it’s a great book and meeting Howard was lovely
  2. Briar, a free comic being handed out from the same team as Porcelain: A Gothic Fairytale (my review here)
  3. A beautiful sterling silver clockwork earring with its own origin story in comic form!
  4. A lovely brown card A3 print, I believe the artist is Kate Mia White although I may be wrong. Incredibly intricate pen work.

And more…I’m sure! I haven’t made it through all of my finds from the weekend yet.

Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments
Asterios Polyp

Asterios Polyp

So, I realise I’m a little late to the game on this one. Asterios Polyp, written and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli was first released in 2009, and it’s a comic book that defies that very name. Paging through the book the first time, a realisation began to come over me: that I’m not well-equipped for reviewing a graphic novel quite so full of design, architecture and unfamiliar literature as this one, but I shall have to do my best.

We begin with a miserable man in his miserable house, ambivalently watching porn and flicking his lighter. The flat is washed in grey and blue colours, as is this dishevelled man, when a fork of lightning cracks across the page and casts everything in a murky purple light. Our stubbly hero grabs his shoes and three items from his flat – his lighter (a metal Zippo type affair), a wristwatch and a Swiss Army Knife – and leaves before his home bursts into flames, obliterating everything. One of the creepy things about this opening is seeing the flames lick up hundreds and hundreds of videos with dates on them, just like the one he was watching in bed.

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The story is divided into multiple narratives from here on out. We have the story of Asterios, the young “paper architect” so named because none of his designs, however award-winning, have never been built. He meets and falls in love with a vulnerable, hopeful girl named Hana, whom he marries. But we also have the “present” of the comic, Asterios aiming to rebuild his life away from everything he’s know, and maybe try to learn something. Additionally there are minor storylines based around Asterios’ twin brother who died in the uterus, Ignazio, who lives on as a manifestation of Asterios’ guilt and fear and is the occasional narrator of his other stories.

Asterios himself is an impressively dislikeable person; he’s smart and inventive but he’s also hugely egotistical, self-confident and stubborn. It’s obvious that Asterios is of higher than usual intelligence, as evidenced through his childhood love of reading and curiosity about the way things work. Entire pages follow Asterios and his shadow of a twin brother with barely any words spoken and hauntingly horrible panels show women vomiting over themselves, and crazy men living in boxes. As a young man, he was clearly not a nice guy.

What if reality (as perceived) were simply an extension of the self? Wouldn’t that colour the way each individual experiences the world?”. This beautifully designed few pages of speech talks about the ways people complement or conflict with each other and show elegantly how people can differ by taking on different artistic styles; some scruffy and loose, some carefully shaded, some abstract. Some people look more similar than others, and they have matching attitudes; we see this plenty throughout the book, most obviously in scenes between Asterios and his wife Hana where we see their styles begin to emerge. It’s as though we all see life through a different lens; you can either find someone with the same reality as yours, or find someone different and over time merge your views together.

A well-discussed element of the graphic novel is its duality. Whether it’s because of the slicing in half of his father’s surname on emigrating to America or his being the only one of a pair of children to be born, Asterios is obsessed with opposites and frequently undermines others with reductive reasoning; for example, “I have two kinds of students: those who can’t draw and those who can’t think.” The journey of the graphic novel sees Asterios learnt to see things as spheres, or continuums, as opposed to equals and opposites, which allows him a more “rounded” view of life (unintentional pun!). And there’s no better representation of this than in Asterios and his wife Hana.

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When Asterios is drawn he is like a technical base on which to build later, and his life is full of straight lines, whereas Hana’s is hatched and more freeflowing, tending to move with her mood, making it obvious that she’s an emotional and artistic person. In many ways, their differences compliment each other, as the harsh cynical Asterios needs a calming influence while Hana’s vulnerability means she feels secure around an intelligent, self-assured person. Unfortunately, as in most relationships like this, Asterios begins to overshadow her and his colours drown out hers; you get the feeling she doesn’t always mind, but it means he has a tendency to think he’s better than her. His cockiness becomes worse and worse as Hana takes a job with an obnoxious director who sexually objectifies her nearly constantly while Asterios just looks on, and when the director (a vile little man mockingly dubbed Willy Chimera by Asterios, for giving so many versions of his last name) brazenly asks Hana if she was abused as a young girl, Asterios dismisses the question out of hand. It’s painfully obvious that she didn’t answer no, and that her love for her husband was, at least in part, about protection.

The present day storyline is slightly cheerier, often bathed in yellows. Asterios meets Stiff, a mechanic, and secures a job and accommodation with him and his family; a young boy and a fantastically crazy hippy who insists on arranging his room dependant on his star sign. One of her pages in which she outlines her philosophies is unlike any other I’ve read in a comic before as you have to turn the book full circle to read the different sections of text. She’s a great antithesis to the atheist Asterios who has been so rigid and stubborn before but begins to accept that just because he doesn’t believe something, doesn’t mean he needs to be rude. He meets a group of people he might never have in New York for thinking he was better than them, and puts his intelligence to practical and menial use.

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As I said before, I doubt that I’m capable of doing this graphic novel justice. It’s clever in so many ways, taking inspiration from Homer’s Odyssey, Orpheus’ decent into Hades, Apollo and Dionysus of Greek myth and with every page dripping in symbolism…I could have written my dissertation on the colour, semiotics, poetry and references in this book. It’s not an easy graphic novel by any means, but that’s why it’s so rewarding – like an exquisitely made film or a textured piece of art which appears to show new and beautiful aspects every time. Its sad and romantic story of hubris is exceeded in quality only by its flawless design.

If you’re interested in a much more detailed explanation of the symbolism at work, you ought to go right here. For more Travelling Man reviews from myself and Alasdair, click thusly.

Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments
Sin Titulo

Sin Titulo

Sin Titulo is a rare kind of graphic novel, a mad combination of noir thriller, Lovecraftian myth and Matrix-style philosophy. Released over a period of five years before finishing in 2012, the graphic novel brings the entire story together in 166 good quality pages of mood-infusing content. Cameron Stewart has worked on Batman & Robin, The Other Side and Assassin’s Creed as a very talented artist, but used Sin Titulo (which literally translates to “no title”) to become more comfortable with the process of writing – and to satisfy the creative urge to make a story of one’s own.

An under-appreciated but complacent proof reader is shocked out of monotony by finding that his grandfather had passed away a month ago and he hadn’t been told – it makes him sickeningly aware that he had neglected visiting his grandfather. When he finds a photograph of his grandfather smiling with a young and beautiful woman, he becomes obsessed with figuring out this mystery, at the expense of his safety and sanity.

The initial set-up of the grandfather passing is something that happened to Cameron Stewart, and the graphic novel’s central image of the figure sat underneath a tree is something Stewart dreamt one night, and hastily drew the next day. When he started writing Sin Titulo, he had no idea where it would go, relying on instinct only as a kind of improvisation exercise – it was his unbridled creative outlet, with no plan but ideas for for future scenes until the last twenty or so pages that aimed to wrap the story up.

When you first open the cover of Sin Titulo, you find yourself being glared at by a sequence of disappointed and angry faces – it gets the reader into a great mindset and I think helps to understand the kind of guilt Alex is feeling. It begins with “I’ve been having a dream…” and Alex walking along the dreamworld of the beach and tree – I love the detail he remembers, his bare feet sinking into the coarse sand, just as dreams can still feel real when you have woken up.

The residential care home where his grandfather lived is like a paranoid dream – no one is giving him any answers, the receptionist talks like Alex isn’t even there, and a sexually aggressive orderly seems to haunt every corner. Seeing the image of his grandfather and the young woman, he realises that never saw his grandfather happy, only ever crying and wishing he was dead, and the realisation makes him feel even worse about not visiting. He dreams the night of that same beach with the dead tree, but now the figure under the tree is the woman from the photo, and when she lowers her sunglasses there are maggots rotting where her eyes should be – it’s such a visceral image and the “plep”, “chlop” and “slup” noises only add to the horror.

Everything’s starting to fall apart for Alex. As his obsession grows and centres around the violent orderly, Wesley, he follows the man at the end of his night shift, ignoring the pleading of his girlfriend. The radio is talking about the end of the world and callers are making discriminatory remarks, a homeless man propositions Alex and rapidly becomes violent, and the receptionist in the building he has found appears to be discussing having an abortion on the phone while dealing with him. It’s all just ever so slightly unnerving.

Remembering the inscription on the back of the photo, Alex thinks quickly and acquires the key to a room containing only a television, phone and chair. The phone rings and he picks it up only to see himself, sat in that room, on the TV and looking up sees there is no security camera – at least none that he can see. When the woman from the photo appears on the screen, she asks him to recall a memory. This is the first of the flashbacks which add up to this person Alex has become, and the first time we see the hideous creature which scared him as a child, leading to an argument between his father and grandfather. I would assume that this was a vital part in the separation of Alex from his grandfather. When Wesley finds him in the room, he beats him mercilessly, takes his keys and pulls out a syringe; next thing Alex is waking up at the side of the road with blood streaming from his nostrils.

Things just keep getting worse for Alex: the harder he tries to get out of his situation the worse he makes it, and it’s not long before he’s lost his girlfriend, his job, and an angry outburst against Wesley with a fire extinguisher escalates rapidly into the murder of two police offers who have been “torn apart”. There’s something seriously wrong about Wesley, and Alex seems sure that he is the key to this mystery which is really all he has left in his life.

Things get progressively more surreal at the story goes on; one of the particularly horrible pages features a dream in which a freakish lobster-type creature sprays burning ink into his face. The “skltch” sound effect really drives it home. In the real world (is it?) he meets a man who knows the image of the dream, who dreams it too and obsessively paints it.

 

The flashbacks are probably my favourite part of Sin Titulo because of their detail. Together they add up to this dysfunctional person – his aggressive father drunkenly punishing him for nothing, for being a child, his sexual and emotional inadequacies, his own selfishness. A dreamlike summer in Paris in which he falls in love with a beautiful young woman is spoiled when she visits him in America and they end up sleeping as far apart as they can, barely talking – it was only a simulation of happiness. He remembers his boss drunkenly seducing him at a party, and he turns her down for all the right reasons but she’s hurt, and he feels emasculated and guilty. When he finds out that Carrie hadn’t been happy for a while in the relationship it’s just one more blow to deal with.

The downward spiral that Alex falls into, the paranoid delusions and terrifying are dreams are pure Lynch; or Daniel Clowes if you’d prefer a literary reference. It deals with masculinity in a similar way to Fight Club, where expectations of “what a man should be”, instilled by an abusive and emotionally absent father lead to an advanced state of adolescence. His admission that he began looking into the photo and following Wesley because it would make a good story is a hard moment – he’s not a bad person, but maybe he’s not as good as he thought either. This is all reinforced by those images of the disappointed and angry faces in the front and back of the book.

 

It becomes a lot more philosophical toward the end of the book with questions about the nature of reality. The dream space of that beach with the figure under the tree changes and evolves and becomes more real – it lives in the space between the number, where “clarity breaks through the noise”. Alex becomes the monster in his own dream, the bad influence of his childhood, a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s sad, and scary.

There are so many parts of the book that I could talk about, from tiny details in the lettering and gruesome “sound effects” to the textures of the dream which, like the Black Lodge of Twin Peaks, is there and not there. Reflections of Alex are used several times, in television screens and sunglasses, suggesting self-examination on his part. We see this man pushed to the limits of sanity and over, and it’s thrilling. A fantastic piece of work collected into a beautiful hardback book.

Cameron Stewart will be appearing at this year’s Thought Bubble, so grab your copy and get it signed. That’s what I’ll be doing!

Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments
Lazarus issues #1 and #2

Lazarus issues #1 and #2

My first introduction to Greg Rucka’s writing was in the Batwoman reboot. I lapped it up, being a huge fan of the Batman mythology and also a big fan of strong women. I looked more and more into Rucka, and found that this was a common theme of his. So of course when I saw the cover of Lazarus issue one – the dark, furious woman with a bullethole in her head, I was intrigued. The second issue drew me in further, showing Forever strolling down a desert highway toward the viewer with gun raised and sword drawn behind her. She looks like a less-sexualised Lara Croft: wearing sensible black military clothes, utility belt and pony tail flying in the wind, she’s certainly attractive but more importantly she’s athletic. Going through the pages, it’s clear that Forever has been modelled after athletes, with an appropriate body to match. But we’ll get to that later.

The first issue has just a few words which explain the state of the world. In the future, all power is related to wealth and the few “Families” who own that wealth rule the citizens they deem useful to them; anyone without a registered allegiance is considered Waste, and left to fend for themselves. Each family has a Lazarus, a member of the Family who has been given all the scientific and medical advances possible in order to protect the interests of that Family. In an interview, Rucka described the Lazarus as the “bloody sword and iron shield of the Family”, and explained that the Lazarus is not immortal, just capable of recovering from injuries no ordinary human could thanks to a level of science nearly indistinguishable from magic. This isn’t a spoiler by the way, as the first few pages show a clinical examination of Forever dying from serious wounds.

The attack is narrated in a medical and forensic way, detailing each wound and its effect. It becomes apparent when her eyes open and she goes after the men; this whole scene has a cold blue feel but when she finds the men and uses her superior fighting skills and strength, their deaths are highlighted in a backgroundless pink/purple hue that feels something like a film effect where a person’s life is drained out of them. Back in the sterile green doctor’s office, she confides in him that she feels bad about killing the men as they only wanted food. Already we get into the class issues of the comic, and Forever’s internal struggle to be okay with what everyone else in her Family believes it right. The doctor betrays her confidence immediately, contacting her brother Jonah and warning him that she needs to feel some positive reinforcement – that somebody loves her. He unwillingly agrees.

The concept is interesting already. Unlike many dystopian futures told by the rebel or the underdog, Forever is one of the elite. More than that, she’s a product of the elite, charged with protecting everything her Family deem important but in some ways more human than them. There are clear differences between Forever and Jonah. She’s dressed entirely in military gear, he’s in a dark suit with his hair slicked back. She looks positively confused that he hugs her. He explains that there was a raid on the compound by one of the other families, the Morrays, and that it must have been an inside job. When Jonah calls in all of the staff who could have done it, he threatens to kill them all and their families if no one confesses; when someone does, she’s almost certain he isn’t guilty, but has to kill him anyway. Before she kills him, she tells him she’ll tell his daughter he loves her – he says that she knows, a little kicker about what love and family really are.

At the end of the first issue, she’s telling the doctor she feels fine. The father of the Carlyle Family, Malcom, has brought his children together to discuss the Morray matter. This is a great way to see the different elements of the Family: the coniving Jonah, who appears to be having an affair with his twin sister Joannah (very Game of Thrones), who is absent from the meeting, the calmer but more timid Stephen, and the older sister Beth who treats Forever like a test subject. The Father dismisses Forever as “The Lazarus” behind her back, but treats her like his favourite daughter when with her; it’s obvious he is manipulating her using affection.

While Malcom speaks to Forever, the rest of the siblings fight about her in the kitchen. It becomes obvious that she’s not Malcom’s real daughter, suggesting that she was created specially for the family, but Beth goes wild at the suggestion of Forever finding out, knowing that they might lose control of her. Malcom’s splitting the kids up again, and Forever is to accompany Jonah back to Los Angeles, his own domain. The scenes of them travelling to the city which has been wrecked by earthquake show the distinct contrast between these elites in their armoured car escort drinking champagne while some kind of slum unveils behind them. “No point wasting resources on Waste who can’t appreciate it”, comments her brother.

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 As she walks through the dystopian city, Jonah’s tail Mason stalks behind her, seemingly hidden. She approaches some playing children, hands them a note and walks around the corner; of course he runs after her, taking the note from the children but rounding the corner to find a dead end. He opens the paper: “If you keep following me, I’m going to kill you.” I certainly wouldn’t mess with her. The last we see of Forever is out in the desert preparing to talk to the Morray Family, but they surround her and take her prisoner. I absolutely cannot wait to see what happens next – Rucka’s commented that she and the Morray Lazarus will get on much better than you might think, and (this is just my speculation) maybe she’ll learn something about another Family’s ways which will help her to answer some of the questions her own aren’t prepared to deal with.

The character design of Forever is clearly detailed; she looks consistent panel to panel, and I don’t think we’ve seen her crack a smile once. As I mentioned earlier, they clearly put a lot of thought into how a woman would be created for such a purpose; very tall, muscular, a large ribcage to support athletic levels of breathing. And yeah, she is good-looking, but such a vain family wouldn’t have created an ugly member, and at least she’s not a cartwheeling blonde schoolgirl. When the project was first announced, she was named Endeavour, but while Forever has a similar meaning it can also be shortened to Eve, perhaps suggesting that she has the capability to change the world.

The dystopian future that Lazarus is set in was inspired by the economic environment of the world today and the Occupy movement, with the central concern being, what if things don’t get better? Like most good science fiction, it’s a social allegory, and Forever seems to represent the conflicting values of family pride/nationalism with genuine concern for other human beings. The colouring is subtle, usually consisting of pages bathed in a certain shade for different areas, and the facial expressions are exquisite, courtesy of Michael Lark. Interestingly, the mother of the Family is being kept back for now, and it really feels like Rucka and Lark are after a long run with Terminator Forever; their previous collaboration Gotham Central was a huge success for them both and they were critically acclaimed as a great partnership; with the relative freedom of Image Comics, I hope this partnership endures and we learn more about this horrible world and the heroine that you’re sure to care for by the end of the second issues.

Originally posted on the Travelling Man blog

Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments
Pacific Rim: Tales From Year Zero

Pacific Rim: Tales From Year Zero

The first trailer I saw for Pacific Rim had me hooked. Amazing director? Check. Geek/pop-culture cast? Check. Giant mechs fighting giant monster aliens? Check check check! So when I discovered there was a graphic novel accompaniment to the spectacular, of course it went straight on my list. Even better, this is no loose tie-in comic but comes from the writer of the film Travis Beacham, with direct supervision from Guillermo del Toro himself, and is released by Legendary and Warner Bros, the team that brought us the Nolan Batman trilogy, Inception and Watchmen films. The cover by Adam Ross looks like an image from a D&D manual, and the inside artwork is smooth, expressive and compliments the speech as well as the film does.

 

 

Pacific Rim might not be the deepest, smartest or most original story, but that’s okay. It has elements of Lovecraftian mythology, inspiration from old school Kaiju films like Godzilla, and exoskeleton anime themes from Neon Genesis Evangelion; it’s basically one big love letter to sci-fi, fantasy and monster flicks, produced on an epic scale. Like any good sci-fi and fantasy story, the plot takes place within a huge world which sprawls off the edge of what we see – whether it’s understanding the political history of the families in Game of Thrones, the slang used in Battlestar Galactica or the political and economic status of a world ravaged by monsters. It’s something del Toro is great at discussing, knowing as he does that no story stands alone. The graphic novel Tales From Year Zero takes place over ten years, from the first Kaiju attack to a time just before the film’s story begins and gives us a little more insight into the characters, and how the Jaeger programme was formed.

A reporter in 2024 is writing a fluff piece entitled “Why we fight..” about the Kaiju war. Wanting to talk to Stacker Pentecost, journalist Naomi instead ends up talking to Tendo Choi, the J-tech chief behind the desk played by Clifton Craig Collins Jr, who was there on K-Day. The great thing about this was seeing that attack again – that one from the trailer where the Kaiju Trespasser crashes through the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It’s huge, and awesome – the rich colours on the page coupled with the truly cinematic tremors and onomatopoeic “noises” evoke that same colossal feeling that the film had. Around the world, the attack is being broadcast – the teenage Raleigh and Yancy are watching on TV, a tiny Mako listens on her portable radio, and a young Stacker Pentecost receives a call from his sister Luna, who’s flying out to fight Trespasser.

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Both Stacker and Tendo both lose a loved one that day – Stacker’s heroic sister in an attempt to destroy the Kaiju, and Tendo’s grandfather, who dies from the toxic Kaiju blood at the moment the nuclear bomb destroys it. The loss encourages them to take up arms, to find a way to fight back; just these normal people (that’s another great thing about Pacific Rim, by the way – none of this “chosen one” nonsense, just regular people stepping up to the challenge). For her research, Naomi talks to a not-so-normal Dr Jasper Shoenfeld, the genius behind the Jaegers, who was inspired by the sight of his son playing with toys. Jasper collaborates with an old girlfriend of his, an expert in brain-machine interfaces, and they are given a small grant; thanks to the in-depth involvement of Pentecost – detailed in some great panels of a badass, determined Stacker – they are able to build the first prototype and begin looking for test pilots.

Although Caitlin and Jasper slip into old habits with each other, Caitlin also falls for one of the test pilots. Having held him back from the first, fatally disastrous test, she has no choice but to put him in for the second but when he begins seizing she sees no other option but to bridge in with him. In this pale, fantasy style dream sequence they’re literally naked and vulnerable to each other, and they carry the load together. Finding that two pilots could support the neural load, Caitlin continues to work with Sergio and grows more confident by the day, but begins to betray Jasper in the drift. They experience intimacy in a way neither could have predicted, and the love heals them and makes them better fighters – “Love is why we fight” says Jasper, but it’s not just why – it’s how.

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For an epic monster story, it rests entirely on humanity. These aren’t robots after all, but human exoskeletons; the neural linking is a great way to prove that working together is more important than working alone. Neither del Toro or Beacham wanted the story to be jingoistic, or inspire war-like thoughts – it’s about how we can transcend race, gender, sexuality and background with love. Jaegers have come from China, Russia, Australia and the USA, the whole world working together for the good of humanity. When Pentecost asks why his sister volunteered to fight the first Kaiju, she claims that it’s because when the Nazis attacked her hometown, the Americans came to help; now she wants to return the favour. Of course she also wants to slay the dragon, but who wouldn’t?

Talking to Pentecost in Hawaii, Naomi asks if he misses piloting the Jaeger. Flash back to the mighty man stood atop the near-destroyed Coyote Tango, towering above Mako amongst the rubble, the saviour of this vulnerable little girl. This would be his last mission; they pull the team out after his co-pilot Tamsin, who fought alongside his sister Luna, is diagnosed with cancer after blacking out in the Jaeger. As he loses one more piece of his family, he gains an adoptive daughter in Mako who wants to learn to fight one day. At the enlistment , Pentecost takes inspiration from his sister Luna and gives a rousing speech to potential pilots, among them Raleigh and Yancy. They are “to be the knights of our time, standing watch at the edge of our world – ready for the dragons beyond” (is this guy great at motivational speeches or what?)

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As we know, Yancy and Raleigh make it, although things very nearly go sour when a girl (the reporter Naomi, actually, who used to be a Jaeger pilot groupie) gets between them. The simulation goes wrong, they fail and they end up in a fist fight in a bar, prompting Pentecost to teach them about togetherness. “The Jaeger isn’t what makes you feel three hundred feet tall. It’s in the bond.” Love is kind of the key here, love that surpasses all, whether it’s the Australian father and son team of the film who express their love for each other through their bulldog, the love of Pentecost for his biological and adoptive family and the love between two broken people, Raleigh and Mako. The last image of the book is a great statue of George slaying the dragon at the Pan-Pacific Memorial Cemetery at the edge of the Wall of Life, and ends “The beginning…” a hopeful lead into the film.

Did you know that Guillermo del Toro took inspiration from Francisco Goya’s The Colossus? He aimed to evoke the same sense of awe in the film battles, and managed to do the same in the graphic novel. It’s packed with mythology, hope and a genuine love for the subject matter, as well as a fresh take on film-making; the film’s fight scene between Mako and Raleigh was filmed like a sex scene, showcasing the intimacy of their connection. Pacific Rim, the film and the graphic novel, were both big winners for me, and considering how ripe the mythology is for expansion I hope to see more of this world soon.

From the Travelling Man blog

Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments
Adventure Time: Playing With Fire

Adventure Time: Playing With Fire

I freaking love Adventure Time.

I feel like I need to begin with this, so you know that this isn’t a comic book I just picked from the shelf knowing nothing about it but one I anxiously waited to appear in Travelling Man. Adventure Time is one of my favourite cartoons, not just because it reminds me of the terrifying and hilarious shows I was brought up on (Invader Zim, Ren and Stimpy etc), but because it has an insane amount of depth to it that is frequently overlooked in shows aimed at children. I am completely unsurprised that it has become so popular with adults, especially adult geeks, as it features many influences and themes from video game and comic book cultures.

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The monthly Adventure Time comic from BOOM! Studios started in February 2012 and has already expanded to include a Marceline and the Scream Queens miniseries and another six-part series based on the gender-swapped reality of Adventure Time, featuring Fiona the Human and Cake the Cat. The comics have been nominated for several Eisner awards this year and as the latest edition we have the half-size graphic novel Adventure Time: Playing With Fire.

Somewhere between manga and a regular weekly comic, this piece is bigger than manga but drawn black and white (although many have noted how odd it feels to read manga from glossy pages) and is frequently compared to the Scott Pilgrim series in format. The illustrations come from Zack Sterling, illustrator for the TV series, so you know it’s going to be good, and as an interesting choice of writer we get Danielle Corsetto, author/artist of the daily webcomic Girls with Slingshots, of which I am also a huge fan. So I don’t mean bad interesting; she has a childish sense of humour but an adult approach to serious subjects that works fantastically with the tone of Adventure Time, but Corsetto was brought up preferring strips to books and has traditionally worked within the tight confines of a few panels.

Flame Princess, the star of Playing With Fire, is a relatively recent addition to the Adventure Time cast and is seldom seen without Finn. Until Jake’s arrival in the Fire Kingdom, she had been kept in a giant lantern on the advice of Princess Bubblegum and has since fought a battle to reign in her fiery (sorry) side and learn to be good, no matter what her father expects of her. Corsetto describes her as impatient and destructive, but a sweetheart really, and this comic is her first proper outing.

Flame Princess is one of the more conflicted characters of Adventure Time, constantly torn between her father’s wishes and what she wants, and her childish innocence makes it seems that her violence is just a defense mechanism. She’s made of fire and has its destructive powers, but is determined to be what she wants to be, not just the evil Fire Elemental her father, Flame King, wants her to be. In the TV series he has been seen subliminally whispering the word “evil” into her ear when he thinks no one else is around, and in an attempt to escape him and the destiny he has laid out for her she has developed an unlikely relationship with Finn – unlikely not just because she burns his skin, but because his tears hurt her and she considers him a Water Elemental.

There are some fantastic moments of character progression in Playing With Fire: Finn shows his caring, adult side when he defends FP’s irrationality and his teenage-boy side when he blushes over being called her boyfriend, although Finn’s soul is stolen shortly after, leaving Flame Princess and Jake with a miniature apathetic Finn. Jake takes rather a back seat, and that’s okay – this is about FP’s journey to become her own kind of hero, starting with rescuing her boyfriend from a series of puzzle dungeons. Deep within the caves, Jake tries to help but ends up mocking her aversion to water with his usual flippancy. With rebellious fury she goes against what Jake tells her and seriously hurts herself in her own stubbornness.

When she wakes up in the Fire Kingdom, her father gives her the Lion King “this is all yours…” speech for dramatic effect, telling her to embrace her evil side, before going on a rampage of popcorn and fire. Not knowing before that she could will herself anywhere, she wishes to get away, and finds herself back in the dungeons, headed toward the soul room. She tries to melt Finn out of his terrifying alien soul pod, but it doesn’t work – in frustration she cries, hurting herself as she does, and confesses that she thinks she loves Finn. The dragon who kidnapped him lets them free now that he has experienced real love, and Flame Princess works on cooling her skin so she is able to kiss Finn without burning him – something that is both clever and a good solution to potential logistical problems between the couple. Things seem to be looking up a bit now that they have both admitted to their feelings, but it’s obvious that FP’s destiny will continue to haunt her; she’s still unsure she has what it takes to be a hero, and the book ends with a dream in which she turns into her father. Well actually, the book ends with a delightful dialogue-free classic B-mo adventure about the house.

This comic had all of the mad greatness of Adventure Time with cute artwork details (including a cameo of the Snail!), some character development which would be near-impossible to put into the children’s TV show, and a series of puzzle dungeons that would have been great on The Crystal Maze, although the main draw has to be the compelling characters that work perfectly in the Adventure Time world. Luckily for us, Danielle Corsetto is also writing the second volume, which comes out in September 2013, so hopefully this will pan out to be THE Adventure Time comic for those – like me – who are probably far too invested in the show.

Originally posted on the Travelling Man blog.

Also, THIS:

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Solid State Tank Girl

Solid State Tank Girl

If what you want from a comic is a logical, heartfelt story with meaning and depth…then probably don’t read Tank Girl. That’s not unreasonable; it’s a comic born out of punk and street art cultures and has always been faintly ridiculous. The newest incarnation is no different, with writer Alan Martin back at the steering wheel and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell’s childishly simplistic artwork adding to the general juvenile feel of the comic (and that is not an insult – Tank Girl should be juvenile). So we start in a pretty normal setting, with a depressed Tank Girl accompanying Booga to get his ham radio fixed; it’s kind of unusual to see TG so glum as she says she just wants to sit around and feel sorry for herself, and her sentences trail off into “blah blah blah” when she begins to reminisce.

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She soon cheers up though when she bumps into Crofty, an old friend who was expelled from school for setting fire to the principal. The Britishisms are great in their dialogue, with phrases like “Blow me, it’s Crofty, my old mate!” and Crofty’s over-the-top polite responses (calling Booga his strange, furry, marsupial friend is polite, right?). The problem with the radio: someone’s been taking things a little too literally, and put a piece of ham in the back of the machine. Of course. Booga rightly assumes that it is the work of Miss Barney Farnsbarns, their live-in nutjob and summons her. The text has already been littered with swear words by the way, dropped into the most seemingly innocent of places, and there’s no sign of it ending. As they wait for Barney to come down with Jet Girl, Booga peruses the back of the store and electrocutes himself on 1920s radio.

As he lies unconscious in the back room, Tank Girl greets Barney and Jet Girl out front and sends Barney to find Booga. Coming across his lifeless body, the store owner Crofty diagnoses a neurological embolism brought on by the waves from radio equipment. They hurry him out of the room, and now is where it gets really strange. A la Inner Space, Crofty wants to shrink the girls down to enter Booga’s bloodstream and fix his brain, in a contraption called The Significant Triode (or The Sausage, as the girls call it). He plans on shrinking the Triode with the use of what he refers to as V.O.M.I.T. – Volume Organising Mutationally Integreated Technology. The ladies step on board and VOM down to the size of an amoeba, when Crofty injects them into Booga’s blood stream. The inside of Booga is totally psychedelic, pink and purple squiggly organs floating around and the girls get changed into the only clothes they can find – sixties swimwear!

Looking much more Charlie’s Angels now, the girls narrowly avoid some of Booga’s internal “soft furnishings” but end up veering in the wrong direction, toward Booga’s nether regions. It’s not long before they come across a hovering orb that they assume at first to be a moon but is, of course, a testicle. Too distracted by the irresistable force of Booga’s bollock, the girls forget to look out for the other one and end up crashing right into the big, fancy ball which shuts itself behind them. So I know I said that the things get strange with the Significant Triode – now they get kind of disturbing.

On exploring the gonad, they discovered a microscopic foetus hanging from threads. Deciding that they can’t leave it and that it’ll be funny, they sever the cords holding the baby in place, triggering the knacker to implode – although it takes them a while to notice as they crowd around the baby and plan on getting it booties and a hat knitted by a granny. It’s really surreal but kind of sweet when TG announces “We are now its mothers” but soon they must return to the Sausage and shoot toward Booga’s head. What appears to Barney to be a black hole is actually…Booga’s brain! The battle has only just begun.

The last few pages are an adorably simple story of a big fight between TG and her crew and Dick Strangeballs and his army of mutants. The funniest part for me was the excessive using of swearwords and the wonderful sound effects of “Gatly-Gatly-Gatly” on the Gatling gun. They take most of the mutants out, and Dick runs off to watch You’ve Been Framed. Don’t try to look for sense, you shall find none here.

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Solid State Tank Girl has been criticised by many people largely for its very different artwork. WJC doesn’t seem to try to make his characters look attractive or appealing, and I think that’s really refreshing to see. Everyone has this childish roughness about them, with weird shaped heads and almost cubist clothing. The feel of the writing is the same as ever but this artwork heralds a decidely different style for the comics, moving more from the graffiti look of Jamie Hewlett to what I see as a more anarchistic and absurdist form. It’s only going to be a four part run, so it’s probably worth keeping an eye on, especially if you love the spirit of punk in Tank Girl comics.

 

First published on the Travelling Man blog

Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments
Chin Music #1

Chin Music #1

Steve Niles has built a solid name for himself in horror for his works 30 Days of Night, Criminal Macabre and Transfusion among many others in which he deals with zombies, vampires, Lovecraftian monsters and the occult. Tony Harris is an artist whose primary comic experience is working with DC and Marvel, but is stylistically much more complex, also working on commercials, films and television, and this book is a fantastic example of his extraordinary attention to detail. Set primarily in two locations – Egypt and Chicago – Chin Music requires some concentration but is definitely worth the effort.

 

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The first five pages are completely devoid of narrative or dialogue, the only words the onomatopoeic scritches and scratches of Bill Tortolini’s careful lettering which gives each sound a specific font (really, it’s beautiful). Harris’s artwork feels so strange and surreal, mixing as it does photorealistic elements such as focus and reflecting dust particles with the heavily stylised and therefore cartoonish art deco elements of the room. The framing is subtle but effective at first, leading the eye down the page and through the story, and every panel has such exquisite detail (I will talk about this a lot). Over the next few pages we watch this detective at his desk, scratching occult symbols into the tip of a bullet, and his table. Any part of the page that isn’t filled with sequential imagery is filled up with floating symbols which work to frame the narrative, and these symbols seep into the framework. By having separate panels showing lifting the match, scratching it against the table, lifting the candle and then a combined but fragmented panel showing his lighting the cigarette and then lighting the candle, the action is given this slow, precise feel. Reddish eyes glow out from beneath his fedora and he stands slowly, raises the gun out of the door and shoots. The lasting focus of this scene is in his eyes, which are bulbous and a vibrant orange surrounded by a thin ring of purple.

Suddenly, we’re in Egypt. You can tell not just because of the setting and people, but because the panels change from art deco to an Ancient Egyptian style complete with snakes and symbols. A nice three-panel sequence shows a cloaked man, who appears to have helped someone, seeming melancholy. His eyes are that bulbous, wide orange and his nose is broad and mishapen as though broken. When a stranger walks into the tent, Harris includes again that slither of realism in streaks of light breaking through the curtains, but the slightly thicker-than-life features of the characters as well as the newcomer’s glowing red eyes keep the scene from drifting into illustration. The fight and chase scene which occurs next runs through colours, oranges and reds, and the artwork feels like classic Arabian Nights comics. It can be a little tricky to tell who is who, but the key is in the eyes. They dash through fragments of panels before the pursued attempts to fly upwards into the sky, although his chasers follow him up and tear the flesh from his bones with their bar hands before crashing past the face of a sphinx. Harris’ amazing attention to texture his shown wonderfully in the sequence above Egypt – the dessert is made up of so many tiny, detailed squiggles so as to create the grainy look of sand from a distance. They scratch patterns into the bones of what is now just a skeleton, calling him “Meddler”; covered still in blood mist they kick him into the dirt of the pyramids and leave him.

As the charred skeleton crawls across the dessert, the colour tone shifts slowly and subtle from the oranges and reds of Egypt to the purples and blues we saw so much of at the beginning of the book. A vehicle approaches and hits the skeleton; we can see that the driver is a kind person by his large, open eyes and his willingness to leap out to help. The bloody skeleton is speaking Egyptian, he doesn’t understand but he wants to help. I have to say that if I ran over a skeleton which was somehow still alive, I would not get out to investigate, but then I am not a woman of the law. He reaches out but the skeleton grabs his wrist hard, shouting in a language Officer Ness can’t understand. The framework leads the panel down as Ness spits out his cigarette, reaches into his pocket and brings out his badge which is highlighted in its own circular panel at the bottom. The only thing wrong with this follow-through is that you may miss that where the skeleton grabbed Ness’ arm is now bright orange/red. That can’t be good.

Ness calls for backup and follows the ambulance carrying the skeleton back to Chicago. None of them think he will make it (how could he?) but Ness wants to help the family, if he can’t help the victim. In a page we go from outside the city to the hospital, where they open the ambulance only to find it empty except for blood, everywhere.

 

The last section of the comic book takes a different tone, switching to a group of gangsters in a nice restaurant. The main man who appears to be talking is podgy and stout, with this shiny rose-cheeked look which reminds me of paintings of children. That odd touch of cartoonism works beautifully with a panel which moves in and out of focus; the people in the background are just grey ghost-like shapes and it’s easy to tell who is important. The gangster who is speaking, let’s assume he is the boss, has this incredibly contoured chubby face and the close up of a stubby cigar sticking out from his fat, soft lips make him seem completely unappealing. And the last page? Well obviously I won’t ruin it for you, but it’s a piece of art in and of itself.

It’s very unusual to begin a run of comic books with absolutely no narration; it’s not necessarily easy to tell what’s going on but since when has difficult meant bad? The only name we know so far is Ness the detective, but most other facts have been gained through the artwork which tells the story. It was a risky move definitely, but it seems as though Niles, who has proven himself as a writer, is allowing Tony Harris to take control of the direction and it seems to work. Sometimes it’s pleasant to read a comic which isn’t spoon-fed to you, and when you’re in the mood to linger over panels and appreciate detail, this is a great one to pick up. I definitely want to see what happens next.

 

Originally posted on the Travelling Man blog

Posted by jenny in Comics, 0 comments