Four Color Apocalypse 2019 Year In Review : Top Ten Collected Editions (Vintage)

Another day, another year-end “top ten” list. This time out is the year’s best vintage collected editions, in this case “vintage” meaning that the books in question collect works originally published prior to the year 2000. One of these years I suppose I should push that “cut-off date” up a bit, but for now, we’ll play it as it lays. And so, without further ado —

10. Alay-Oop By William Gropper (New York Review Comics) – Arguably the first graphic novel ever published, Gropper’s 1930 wordless morality play/love triangle drama is a tour de force of fluid visual storytelling, and the fact that it’s now available for contemporary audiences to re-discover is nothing short of a miracle.

9. That Miyoko Asagaya Feeling By Shinichi Abe (Black Hook Press) – A trailblazer in the field of autobio Manga, Abe’s early-1970s GARO strips are a moving testament to the power of inspiration and obsession, an exploration of the fine line between the two, and a fascinating historical record of a Tokyo Bohemian subculture that by and large no longer exists.

8. Ink & Anguish : A Jay Lynch Anthology By Jay Lynch With Ed Piskor And Patrick Rosenkranz (Fantagraphics) – An exhaustive collection of the late, great underground legend’s works that’s as poignant as it is funny, sure — but also eerily prescient in many respects. They don’t make ’em like this anymore, and that’s a damn shame.

7. Return To Romance : The Strange Loves Stories Of Ogden Whitney Edited By Dan Nadel And Frank Santoro (New York Review Comics) – Love is a battlefield, sure, but in Whitney’s 1950s romance comics that battlefield is psychological, with women constantly battling their dueling inclinations toward freedom and domesticity, with the former leading to heartbreak, the latter to happiness. Exploding every one of the genre’s sexist tropes by taking them to their logical extremes, this is visionary stuff cleverly disguised as status quo reinforcement.

6. Tale Of The Beast By Tadao Tsuge (Black Hook Press) – The first English-language edition of Tsuge’s 1987 hard-boiled Manga noir is a visceral revelation that eschews typical “whodunnit?” structuring by showing us the guilty culprit from the outset — yet it never fails to surprise at every turn. A visual and narrative marvel that oozes darkness and menace from every panel.

5. In The Wilderness By Casanova Frankenstein (Fantagraphics Underground) – Before creating his stand-in (okay, sometime stand-in) character of Tad Martin, Frankenstein was churning out these late-1980s/early-1990s autobio strips that are imbued with such direct immediacy that the act of committing them to paper feels and reads more like an exorcism than anything else. DIY comics before the term was known, these stories breathe a kind of fire that time and distance can’t diminish.

4. Absolute Swamp Thing By Alan Moore Volume One By Alan Moore, Stephen R. Bissette, John Totleben, Rick Veitch, Shawn McManus, And Dan Day (DC/Vertigo) – This long-awaited deluxe presentation of one of the transformative works in the history of the medium is every bit as gorgeous as anyone could hope for, but I really wish DC (and some other publishers, to be fair) would get over this whole urge to re-color everything. Granted, if you’re gonna go the computer coloring route, Steve Oliff is the best there is, was, or will ever be — but rich and textured as his work here is, it still buries a lot of the detail in the inks that showed through in Tatjana Wood’s original hand-done colors, and there was absolutely no compelling reason to cast aside her terrific work, which frankly would really shine in this slick, oversized format. That being said — this is still a “must-own” book, and re-visiting this material never fails to yield new surprises and deepen one’s appreciation for its revolutionary approach to mainstream horror comics.

3. Walt And Skeezix : 1933 – 1934 By Frank King (Drawn+Quarterly) – Every volume in this wonderfully-restored chronological reprinting of Gasoline Alley has been sublime, but for my money this eighth installment in the series represents the period when King was absolutely firing on all cylinders. I think a lot of people probably owed their very survival during the Great Depression to this charmingly transcendent comic.

2. Doll By Guy Colwell (Fantagraphics Underground) – One of the overlooked gems in the history of the medium and arguably one of the last true undergrounds, Colwell’s late-1980s series remains perhaps the most smart and sensitive “sex comic” ever produced on this side of the Atlantic, his story not only accurately predicting the arrival of the “Real Doll” (Google it if you must), but addressing issues ranging from toxic masculinity to misogyny to female objectification and dehumanization at a time when many of his peers were still trading in all that crap for cheap laughs. Having this collected between two covers, with its gorgeous art reproduced at a generous size, is cause for genuine celebration.

1. DC Universe : The Bronze Age Omnibus By Jack Kirby (DC) – I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a huge fan of the “omnibus” format, generally finding it to be unwieldy in the extreme, but come on — who are we kidding? When you’ve got all of Kirby’s The Demon, The Losers, and OMAC collected together in one book, plus all kinds of one-offs and collaborations ranging from Dingbats Of Danger Street to Super Powers ? This one’s gonna win the top spot even if the damn thing weighs as much as a small child.

Next up we’ll do the year’s top ten contemporary collections, but until then please do your humble list-maker a favor and consider supporting my ongoing work by subscribing to my Patreon site, where I serve up exclusive thrice-weekly rants and ramblings on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics for as little as a dollar a month. Check it out by directing your kind attention to https://www.patreon.com/fourcolorapocalypse

 

 

 

 

Weekly Reading Round-Up : 05/12/2019 – 05/18/2019, Recent Underground Collections

As fate would have it, four lengthy collections of old-school underground comics that I’d been slowly but surely working my way through all made it from my “to be read” stack to my “finished” stack (okay, my bookcase) this week, and so, while each of these probably deserves a full-length review of its own, I can’t pass up on the opportunity afforded by fate/coincidence to make a Weekly Reading Round-Up column out of ’em. Note that these are all published by Fantagraphics Books, two under the auspices of their standard imprint, hereafter referred to as FB, and two coming our way courtesy of their “micro-press” Fantagraphics Underground label, hereafter referred to as FU.

Ink & Anguish : A Jay Lynch Anthology (FB) is an exhaustive collection of the late, pioneering cartoonist’s work that showcases the more “cartoony” side of underground cartooning, although there’s still plenty on offer here that’s well out of touch with modern sensibilities when it comes to sexism and misogyny. Lynch was far from the worst offender among his ilk in that regard, though, and mostly this is pretty sharp, satirical, and reasonably thought-provoking stuff with a fairly generous dose of metaphysics and spirituality thrown in for, as it turns out, quite good measure. All of Lynch’s popular Nard n’ Pat strips from over the years are presented herein, as well as a number of stories from Bijou Funnies and, more recently, Mineshaft, as well as mind-bogglingly cool art that Lynch produced for Bazooka Joe, Wacky Packages, and Garbage Pail Kids. Some solid collaborations with the likes of Ed Piskor, Art Spiegelman, and Robert Crumb, along with superb and highly-accessible text pieces assembled by underground scholar extraordinaire Patrick Rosenkranz, round out what can only be considered a very impressive package that provides great value for its $34.99 asking price.

Warrior Women : Spain Vol. 2 (FB) continues the Rosenkranz-edited ongoing — and sure to be massive — retrospective series dedicated to the late Spain Rodriguez and, perhaps as an intentional counter-point to the near-rampant misogyny on display in the first volume, the focus this time is on his so-called “strong female protagonists,” from Nasty Elaine to the Leather Nun to Mara Mistress of the Void to Granny McGurk to Rita Velveeta to Sangrella to, of course, the legendary Big Bitch. Not all of these women are the well-rounded figures of female emancipation the collection bills them as, and slapping the title “Spain Loved The Ladies (And They Loved Him)” on the actually-quite-nuanced-and-even-touching text essay that accompanies the strips certainly wasn’t the smartest move — I’d even go so far as to call it “tone-deaf” — but on the whole this is, of course, a breathtakingly well-illustrated volume that showcases its subject at the very height of his considerable creative powers. Yeah, it still betrays some regrettable attitudes that were rampant throughout the underground, but in many ways the majority of these strips really were well ahead of their time. Spain’s body of work is a complex and contradictory one, but one that is compelling as hell and very well worth exploring (or re-exploring) — and you get more than your money’s worth for your $34.99 with this one, as well.

Dave Sheridan : Life With Dealer McDope, The Leather Nun, And The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (FU) is a handsome over-sized hardcover edited  by Mark Burstein that presents not only a generous selection of the gone-too-soon cartoonist’s solo work (mostly featuring the characters referenced in the book’s title), but a number of his collaborations with Fred Schrier and Gilbert Shelton, as well. Sheridan’s illustration work for beer companies, album covers, and sex products is also well-represented, and the biographical text segments are just plain out of this world. Sheridan was one of the best pure artists the underground ever produced, and this book is both long overdue, and a fitting tribute to his life and career. At $35 it’s an absolute steal — something you can’t usually say for the small-print-run FU titles — so if you pass on this, you’re just plain crazy.

Doll (FU) by the great Guy Colwell may have originally seen print in the late-’80s and early-’90s, but Colwell himself was an underground veteran, and it first came out by way of Rip Off Press, so — this is an underground collection, in my book, as well. And it’s an essential one at that, telling a long-form story focused on the basest and sorriest instincts of man (okay, of men, specifically) that are triggered when an artist constructs a realistic animatronic sex doll for a deformed “40 Year-Old Virgin” who serves as a precursor to the pathetic “incel” demographic of today every bit as much as the titular doll accidentally predicts the infamous “Real Doll” that, I believe, is still very much a popular item among the sexually deprived. Colwell’s linework is gorgeous, his writing incisive, and frankly the narrative itself is far more subtle than one would expect given the ease with which it could have become a heavy-handed morality play in less-talented hands. An interview with Colwell conducted by feminist cartoonist Katie Skelly appends the volume and puts a nice finishing touch on what is well and truly a timeless and prescient work. Possibly the best $30 you’ll spend on comics this year.

And that, friends, is another week’s reading in the rear-view mirror — although it took me a lot longer than a week to read ’em, and I fully expect that none of these books are really anything I could truly say I’m “done” with, as they are sure to be re-visited frequently in the years to come. Nothing left to do then but remind you all that I’d sure appreciate your support on my Patreon site, where for as little as a dollar a month you can get thrice-weekly updates from yours truly on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics. There’s a bunch of content up on there already, so you’re sure to get plenty in return for your pledge, and your patronage also ensures a steady supply of free stuff both here and at my trashfilmguru movie site. Please take a moment to have a look and consider joining up by directing your attention to https://www.patreon.com/fourcolorapocalypse

 

Weekly Reading Round-Up : 06/10/2018 – 06/16/2018

If it seems like Image Comics is rolling out a new series (be it limited or ongoing) every week — well, that’s because they are. But even by their standards, four in one week is a lot —

Bloodstrike : Brutalists #0 is the one everyone’s been talking about (although that fact was apparently lost on my LCS owner, who ordered precisely one fucking copy — and it was the godawful Rob Liefeld variant, as opposed to the awesomeness shown above), as it brings the punk ‘zine/”alt” comics sensibilities of the great Michel Fiffe (most notably of Copra fame, although my favorite of his works is unquestionably Zegas) crashing headlong into the mercifully-shuttered world of the aforementioned Mr. Liefeld’s Extreme Studios line-up circa about — I dunno, 1996 or some shit. From the book’s numbering to its purposely-stilted dialogue to its admittedly lame core premise (undead heroes who bear more than a passing resemblance to a bunch of Marvel characters fight equally generic villains for reasons never apparently thought through all that completely) there are any number of deliberate “call-backs” to a late and decidedly un-lamented era of comics history on offer here, but Fiffe isn’t content with some basic-ass exercise in nostalgia, instead allowing his inventive page layouts and inherent sense of visual “flow” to propel the narrative along in a manner that Liefeld (goddamn, there’s that name again!), with his clunky, static, over-rendered-yet-still-hopelessly-sloppy “Hollywood blockbuster on bathtub PCP” imagery never could. This story is apparently a continuation of one left abandoned in the wake of Extreme going belly-up, but it doesn’t matter : no one who was working on the book “back in the day” had any idea what was going with it, either.

Fortunately, Fiffe does, and despite the rather annoying fact that you really do need to read the backmatter here (which comes complete with some hijinks courtesy of Paul Maybury, Benjamin Marra, Charles Forsman, and Ed Piskor, so you won’t regret spending time on it in the least) in order to fully grasp the scope and intentions of the project as a whole, to say nothing of this issue’s narrative specifically, it seems that the characters are given far more meat on their bones in a handful of pages here than they ever were in the sum total of however many issues this series ran for in the past. In short, this is fun stuff with a reasonable amount of thought put into it, especially aesthetically, and since it’s gonna be a brief run (three issues, I thought I heard?), there’s almost no way you won’t get your four bucks’ worth every time. You certainly do here.

Proxima Centauri #1 kicks off a new six-parter appropriate for all ages from the always-interesting Farel Dalrymple, and it’s as utterly charming as it is visually striking. I defy anyone not to take an immediate liking to teen inter-dimensional adventurer Sherwood Breadcoat, and while the “quest across the universe to find our hero’s brother” story is pretty standard as far as plots go, the people, places, and things he encounters along the way are anything but. Rendered with a pleasingly loose line that makes the pages breeze by in something very near to stream-of-consciousness fashion, this is intricately-woven stuff cleverly designed to look and read like it’s literally being made up as Dalrymple goes along. Once in awhile a book hits the stands that is so obviously inventive it literally hurts — this is one, and you don’t want to miss it under any circumstances. Another one well worth forking over $3.99 a pop for.

And while you’ve got four singles out (wait, sorry, that’s eight so far), grab another four and fork ’em on over for The Weather Man #1. Jody LeHeup flexed his comedy “chops” writing Shirtless Bear-Fighter!, and while he’s not toned down the absurdist humor in the least for this one, artist extraordinaire Nathan Fox does his part to ensure that the belly-laughs are matched with an admirably ambitious futurist tour-de-force of, dare I say it, mind-blowing proportions, all colored with uncharacteristically garish aplomb by likely-best-in-the-biz Dave Stewart. Earth has been destroyed in some sort of mass catastrophe, what survivors there are have colonized Mars, and the beleaguered masses are kept entertained by an asshole TV weather guy who seems to have more in common with a morning radio “shock jock” than he does with an actual meteorologist. Except, ya know, there’s a lot more to him that we ever suspected if the implications of the absolutely jaw-dropping cliffhanger are to be believed. I figured I was gonna like this book, probably even like it a lot — turns out I actually freaking loved it.

One that I didn’t expect to care for, though, was The Magic Order #1. Yeah, okay, Olivier Coipel’s art is always lush, evocative, and magnificent, as it is (and then some — I mean it, this is absolutely gorgeous work) here, and Dave Stewart (hi again, Dave!) absolutely kills it with his understated, cinematic (is this guy versatile or what?) color scheme, but let’s be brutally, painfully honest : when was the last time Mark Millar actually wrote a comic that was any fucking good whatsoever?

Well, I’m pleased to report that drought (however long you think it may have lasted) is over. This first Millarworld title to be published since Netflix bought the imprint lock, stock, and barrel is the surprise hit not just of the week, but maybe of the month : a simple premise (family imbued with magic powers going back generations battles otherworldly monsters to keep us mere mortals safe — and we never even know about it!) admittedly ready-made for Hollywood exploitation (hey, Millar is still Millar, right?) needn’t necessarily be a bad thing, and here it’s not : the protagonists are all immediately likable to one degree or another, the story moves along at a solid clip, the “ground rules” are laid out succinctly, and the “fight scenes” are equal parts trippy and fun. Mostly, though, the whole thing is just breathtaking to look at and I’d happily shell out $3.99 for Coipel’s art even if the story sucked — which, in this case, it actually doesn’t. In fact, it’s really damn good — and no, I still can’t believe I’m saying that, either.

So there you go — four great reasons to hit the comic shop in one week. I had a huge smile on my face after reading every single one of these books. Will next week prove as bountiful, dear readers? Only one way to know, of course — join me back here in seven days!

Weekly Reading Round-Up : 04/01/2018 – 04/07/2018

This past week’s reading ranged in quality from the sublime to the dire, so let’s take it all in order, from best to worst:

Yellow Negroes And Other Imaginary Creatures presents a triptych of thematically inter-related stories by Parisian (by way of West Africa) cartoonist Yvan Alagbe focused on issues of race, class, the socio-economic divisions rising from/attendant with each, and the risks inherent in attempting to bridge said divides. Deeply rooted in the immigrant experience and illustrated in a breathtaking mix of styles from the intricately hyper-detailed to the amorphous and abstract, Alagbe is a master of utilizing space and shapes to confound expectation and personalize the political — truth be told, I can’t for the life of me recall ever seeing an artist imbue their drawings with so much charged, even combustible, visual information in such an expressive manner, each line a statement in and of itself yet also a component of something much larger. These works, originally published in Europe between 1996 and 2011 and here presented in English for the first time by New York Review Comics, ultimately explore the paradoxical yet co-dependent relationship that black racial identity and white racial identity have with each other, and what happens when the limits of each are breached and confronted in ways subtle and profound at the same time. What it means to be black is presented as largely a reaction to the expectations and strictures of white society, while what it means to be white is also inextricably linked with how blackness is viewed from the other side of the racial gulf, as well as how it views itself. There’s a longing to express a need for understanding here, a desire to teach and inform without resorting to lecturing, a kind of understated plea not to see the world as another sees it, but to feel it as they feel it. White readers especially should be prepared to be shifted well outside their comfort zones and to confront the realities of lives and voices too often marginalized, if not ignored entirely. This is striking, transformative work that will probably rank among the best releases of the year when all is said and done. The book retails for $22.95 and is worth every penny and then some.

I’ve sung the praises of Ed Piskor’s monumental re-telling of Marvel Mutant history in this column already, but to see the first two issues of his opus presented in glorious oversized format in X-Men : Grand Design Volume One really is downright breathtaking — and there’s a bit of irony here, as well, given that the packaging for this book mimics that of Piskor’s giant Hip Hop Family Tree tomes — which were, in turn, based on the “Marvel Treasury Edition” comics of the 1970s. In any case, I’ve learned one valuable lesson from all this — I’m not going to be buying the four remaining issues of this series in “singles,” and will instead wait for the two subsequent “treasury” collections, as this is undoubtedly the way this work was meant to be seen. Absolutely fucking glorious. Yeah, the $29.99 price tag is steep, but come on — five minutes on the internet and you know you can find it for a good deal less than that .

Back in the land of $3.99 “floppies” we’ve got Isola #1, co-written by Brenden Fletcher and Karl Kerschl, illustrated by Kerschl, and published by Image Comics. High-concept fantasy isn’t usually my bag, I’ll be the first to admit it, but this one grabbed me right out of the gate with its breathtaking art, fluid action, and absolutely lavish coloring courtesy of Msassyk, a name I admit is new to me. The story seems relatively straightforward — a female soldier named Captain Rook, apparently suffering from the effects of some spell, potion, or drug, is escorting a tiger queen named Olwyn to parts unknown for reasons unknown. There’s a lot of what’s generally termed “world-building” to be done here, but Fletcher and Kerschl are wisely choosing to let the stunning visuals do that — dialogue is sparse, caption boxes non-existent. They throw you in at the deep end and trust in the strength of their storytelling ability to entice, rather than overwhelm, readers. The result? Supremely confident comic-booking that is cinematic, thrilling, and captivating from first page to last. This one has “unfolding epic” written all over it.

Goddamn — three books, three winners! But didn’t I say that this week’s offerings “ranged in quality from the sublime to the dire” ? Time for the “dire” part —

Xerxes : The Fall Of The House Of Darius And The Rise Of Alexander #1 is an absolute mess in every respect, and Dark Horse editorial should have done the merciful thing and simply rejected this 300 sequel/tie-in upon delivery. Seriously, you’re better off just burning a five dollar bill than spending it on this garbage. It’s tempting to have no sympathy for Frank Miller given his extreme asshole-ism, but I take no pleasure at all in slagging off his efforts simply because he’s clearly in very poor health and has been for some time —and trust me when I say it shows here. Miller’s figure drawing is sloppy to the point of farce, his compositions make no sense, backgrounds are virtually non-existent, and his use of space haphazard and ill-considered. I was hardly a fan of 300 for any number of reasons, among them its extreme homophobia (which also rears its ugly head here) and romanticized bloodshed, but damn : at least it was exciting to look at. This comic, by contrast, is dull and lifeless at its best moments, downright embarrassing at its worst. The absence of Lynn Varley is felt on every page, it’s true, but let’s not kid ourselves : even she couldn’t save this thing. A flat and uninvolving script doesn’t help matters any, either, it must be said, but that’s the least of the book’s problems — this is just atrocious, ugly, even cringe-worthy stuff to look at. And the saddest part? Given his current physical condition, it’s not hard to imagine that Miller probably worked a lot harder at this than he has on other projects.

Seriously, publishing this is an inherently un-dignified act, and out of respect for what Miller used to mean to comics, the next four issues should just be cancelled. I may not care for the man’s retrograde politics and malignant prejudices, but he certainly doesn’t deserve to go out this way, suffering and straining to produce work that literally has no chance of even being marginally passable. If anyone from Mike Richardson’s company is reading this, I implore you to do the right thing and nip this in the bud.

And on that note — let’s call this column a wrap. I haven’t even looked at next week’s solicits yet, let alone my digital preview “copies” from various publishers, so I have no idea what’s coming out — but chances are we won’t have anything like the yin/yang polarities of this week. Join me back here and seven days and we’ll see how right, or wrong, that prediction turns out to be.

Weekly Reading Round-Up : 12/31/2017 – 01/06/2018

Happy New Year everyone, hope your 2018 got off to a rousing start, certainly the comic-book world seems primed to have a good year if the way things have started off is any indication —

It’s no secret to anyone following my writing, here or elsewhere, that DC’s line of licensed Hanna-Barbera comics has been something I’ve been singing the praises of pretty much since they made their debut nearly two years back, and trust me when I say that no one’s more surprised about that than I am given that most of these cartoons hold precisely zero nostalgic value for me and the overwhelming majority of DC’s publishing output is creatively worthless. Still, the free reign they’ve been giving to some of their best freelancers to “re-imagine” these moribund properties has paid off big time, and to date the absolute cream of the crop has been Mark Russell and Steve Pugh’s The Flintstones, a 12-issue examination of decidedly modern social, economic, and political challenges filtered through a disarmingly charming pre-historic lens that offered some of the most smart, hilarious, and heartwarming stuff we’ve seen in any “Big Two” comic in, quite literally, years. In my “Top 10” ongoing series column of last year (okay, that still only means last month) I said that more than a simple Bedrock redux the book was actually a spiritual heir to Howie Post’s sublime Anthro, and I stand by that claim 100%. I was genuinely sad to see it come to an end. And yet —

Russell quickly transitioned over to another Hanna-Barbera book, and if anything, Exit Stage Left : The Snagglepuss Chronicles #1 is an even stronger debut than The Flintstones #1 was. The set-up here is as obvious as it is genius : Snagglepuss is essentially Tennessee Williams, a celebrated gay playwright in the repressive early 1950s, and draping his exploits against the backdrop of HUAC and the “Red Scare” both grounds events in historical reality (even if a few liberties are taken) and offers the chance for cameos from the likes of Dorothy Parker and Lillian Hellman to actually work within the context of the story rather than being mere attention-grabbers. The scene at the start of a couple out for a big night on the town ends up having a decidedly “gallows humor” punch-line to it at the end when it turns out that they’re dressed to the nines to witness the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, so yeah, as always, Russell is pulling no punches here and wearing his politics right on his sleeve — and I say good for him, and fuck the small handful of square right-wing “critics” who have been trashing this book online. This is a comic with a heart as big as its brain and if you don’t like stories that present an actual point of view, shoot — there are roughly a hundred other DC books for you to choose from this month that are cowed, derivative, completely vapid slug-fests. Go read any of them. Hell, go read all of them. Let those of us who actually value relevance enjoy this rare foray into it from a major publisher. And hey, icing on the cake — the book looks great, too. Penciller Mike Feehan draws with a clean line that’s a nice blend of “cartoony” and realistic, inker Mark Morales does a faithful job on embellishments, and superstar colorist Paul Mounts utilizes a lavish, multi-toned palette that makes every panel look like a million bucks. Not only is it a fairly safe bet that DC won’t put out a better book this year, it’s a fairly safe bet that very few comics, period, will be this good. I’m bummed it’s only scheduled for a six-issue run, but heck — I’m ecstatic that it even exists at all. Proof positive that great things can still emerge from highly unlikely sources, and the best four bucks you’ll spend this week, if not this month. Shit, maybe even this year.

And yeah, it just occurred to me that I may end up eating those words, but you know what? I kind of doubt it. I know I’m probably losing a ton of credibility in the eyes of a lot of people I respect by saying this, but I have to call ’em like I see ’em, and Exit Stage Left : The Snagglepuss Chronicles is straight-up brilliant. And that’s a term I never use lightly.

Keeping our “Big Two” theme going, we also got the second issue of Ed Piskor’s X-Men : Grand Design this past Wednesday, and for my money (specifically, for my $5.99) it’s every bit as good as the first, maybe even moreso, as we dive pretty deeply into the some of the weirdest areas of X-history (Lucifer and all that) this time out. The story here is way more involving than a historical re-hash should be, the art’s terrific, the colors are eye-popping, the book’s production values are first-rate, and it’s more than fair to say this big experiment from Marvel has absolutely paid off. Piskor will be back this summer for his second go-’round (likewise comprised of two over-sized — and no doubt jam-packed — issues), and you’d better believe I’m counting down the days already.

Alright, let’s get to the small press since that’s still, in theory, what this site’s all (okay, mostly) about : I got a copy of Simon Hanselmann’s 16-page newsprint broadsheet Performance this past week, and this thing is absolutely gorgeous. Clocking in at a whopping 15″x 22.75″, this selection of exquisite full-color gallery paintings of Megg, Mogg, Owl, Werewolf Jones, Booger and the gang showcases Hanselmann at his best, and couldn’t come at a better time considering that I number myself among those who think that his shtick has gotten more than a bit stale as the years have gone on. Maybe the fact that this is an “all-art” publication that features none of his repetitious, dead-end “stories” is just what I needed to remind me of why I initially loved his stuff so much seven or eight (or whatever) years ago? I dunno, but whatever the case may be, this is as pleased as I’ve been with a Hanselmann project at any point since Megahex first came out. Yeah, I still think it’s well past time that he tried his hand at something new, but unless and until that day comes, this is $8.00 very well spent. Get it from the publisher, Floating World Comics, at http://floatingworldcomics.com/shop/comic-books/performance-by-simon-hanselmann

I got on the Eric Kostiuk Williams train late, first encountering his work in his late-2016 Retrofit/Big Planet release Babybel Wax Bodysuit, and I’m getting to his newest offering — the Koyama Press-published Condo Heartbreak Disco — late as well, given that I guess it actually came out a few months ago. Well, sorry, but I didn’t buy a copy until the other day — but fortunately, it was worth the wait, even if I didn’t know I was waiting for it. At 48 pages of story and art it’s probably not fair to call this a “graphic novel” per se, but it’s nevertheless a dense (visually and narratively) story, centered around “purveyors of socially-motivated revenge and personal guidance” Komio and The Willendorf’s Braid as they attempt to save Toronto from an onslaught of high-end “luxury” housing that is, quite literally, decimating once-vibrant neighborhoods and communities. A decidedly camp-infused and “snarky” anti-gentrification fable/superhero parody mix, this book is illustrated in Williams’ highly fluid (hell, borderline anarchic), richly-detailed style, and his page layouts are as incredibly inventive and free-flowing as his plot — or, for that matter, his protagonists’ identities. Things happen at full-throttle speed here, but the eye is guided through the pages in such a graceful, naturalistic manner that you won’t even know that you’re not being given time to catch your breath, and for a book centered around buildings and structures, it sure feels — and looks — incredibly organic. Yeah, I lament the fact that Williams is working is black and white here since he’s one of the strongest cartoonists out there when it comes to his use of color, but that’s a small gripe in the scheme of things when art and story both are this unique and confidently-realized. Cover price is ten bucks, but I wouldn’t feel bad about paying twice that, truth be told, and it’s not too hard to find it from unnamed major online retailers for even less.

Okay, that’s the first week of 2018 down! See you all in seven short days as we go over whatever week two has — or, by then, had — in store!

Weekly Reading Round-Up : 12/17/2017 – 12/23/2017

How’s everyone’s holiday season going? Is your schedule brimming over with last-minute shit to get done? Or do you actually have time to do some reading? If so, here’s some new stuff you can find at your local comic shop, or via mail order, all of which (for better, worse, or somewhere in between) drew my attention over the course of the past week —

Assassinistas #1 is the opening salvo of a new six-parter from Shelly Bond’s Black Crown imprint at IDW. Writer Tini Howard’s name is one I confess to being unfamiliar with previously, but a quick glance at her CV shows that  she’s most recently worked on a couple of re-launches for decidedly second-tier Image properties Hack/Slash and The Magdalena — and now she’s jumped right to the head of the class by landing a gig co-creating a series with Gilbert Hernandez. This old/new mix seems to be something Bond is quickly establishing as her label’s MO (veteran writer Peter Milligan, for instance, is teamed with relative newcomer artist Tess Fowler on Kid Lobotomy), and I’m all for it — especially when the results are this good.

Howard’s script could use a bit of fine-tuning, it’s true — it’s equally split between flashback and present-day sequences and the transitions between one and the other aren’t always entirely clear — but on the whole her ensemble cast is well-defined and likable, and the story momentum gets rolling right away as one of her gang of female former assassins, now in the business of selling something called “kidnapping insurance,” is forced back into action after one of her ex- colleagues’ kids is snatched and the suspicion immediately falls on her given her new line of work. And speaking of rushed into action, her college-age son and his boyfriend find themselves conscripted into this impromptu rescue mission largely because, hey, no one else is around to lend a hand, and because I guess there’s nothing like passing on hit-man (or hit-woman) job skills to the next generation.

All in all, then, not a bad set-up, and needless to say Beto’s art is top-notch — and special points to colorist Rob Davis, whose palette would look right at home in the pages of Love And Rockets (if it weren’t, ya know, a black-and-white ‘zine), and letterer Aditya Bidikar, who mimics Gilbert’s own lettering style more or less absolutely perfectly. So far this is easily the best thing to come out of Black Crown, and well worth your $3.99.

X-Men : Grand Design #1 is the first of a two-part comprehensive re-telling/revision of the early years of Marvel’s premier Mutant team courtesy of the great Ed Piskor. If you dug Hip Hop Family Tree, this is very much in that same vein, only this time around the subject of Piskor’s “cartoon documentary” is, ya know, entirely fictional. Apart from that, though, the aesthetics are much the same — pre-yellowed heavy newsprint-style paper stock, muted colors interspersed on occasion with pop-off-the-page bright whites, densely-worded pages (each, in fact, much like a stand-alone Sunday full-page comic strip), and pitch-perfect characterization employed as a counter-balance to the over-arching theme of summarization. I’ll divulge no more at this point since odds are good I’ll do a full review of this series after the second issue comes out (in just two weeks!) — suffice to say you get plenty for your $5.99 from this book, and hey, I think this is the first time a writer/artist has ever been credited as a “cartoonist” in a Marvel comic. Killer stuff that I’d been looking forward to ever since it was first announced, and Piskor has more than lived up to my lofty expectations.

Backways #1 marks the start of another new Aftershock series from perpetually-busy writer Justin Jordan, here joined by promising new talent Eleonora Carlini on art. The titular Backways is a Narnia-esque shadow world of magic and mystery running parallel to our own, and when her best friend/possible lover disappears into it, protagonist Anna Merrick has to cross over herself, aided and abetted by the dimension-jumping Coyote Bones (great name) — who knows her way around, sure, but is also something of a pain in the ass who might be more trouble than she’s worth. Hollywood-ready fantasy usually isn’t my thing, but Jordan, who can be painfully inconsistent, really seems to be on top of his game here, the “world-building” is smart and unfurls at just the right pace, and Carlini’s admittedly populist, fan-friendly art is a fantastic match for the script. Fun, brisk, highly addictive stuff that feels very much like it’ll give readers their $3.99’s worth, month in and month out, for as long as it lasts — which hopefully will be some little while.

Any and every new Dash Shaw project is worth checking out in my opinion, but for some reason I missed out on his latest mini-comic, New Jobs, when it was released by Uncivilized Books earlier this year. Still, better late than never, and in this case the emphasis on that phrase should definitely be on the “better.” Shaw employs a tight, fluid, no-frills style on this comic that’s absolutely perfect for the very human-level story he’s telling about a Bed-Stuy couple that takes on a pair of  — uhhmmm — interesting new gigs in order to support the baby that they’ve just found out they’re about to have. Heartfelt, humorous, and visually interesting (good call on the varying colors of paper stock), this book represents a fine distillation of everything that makes Shaw such a special talent. Five bucks is little steep for a 32-page mini, it’s true, but you’re almost certain to read this twice back-to-back right off the bat, and to find yourself drawn back to it quite frequently in future. Truly a sublime little book that perfectly conveys the realities of being an expectant parent in today’s hyper-expensive Brooklyn. Get it from the publisher at http://www.uncivilizedbooks.com/comics/new_jobs.html

Okay, that’s a wrap for this week, hope you’ve found a couple of things that pique your interest and won’t leave your wallet too empty — have a terrific Christmas (or whatever equivalent holiday you celebrate in your home), and we’ll see you in seven for our final weekly round-up of the year!