A Few Words About Chew

I'm more or less retired from comic book reviewing, but I felt like Chew, the new Image book from John Layman and Rob Guillory, really should have its own dedicated post.

Remember when you first discovered Transmetropolitan, or Preacher, or The Goon? And you thought, this is so weird, so beautifully illustrated and so great, you were both simultaneously blown away by the book and amazed that it made it through the meat grinder of comics to the shelves where people could buy it?

Chew is like that. It joins Proof and Walking Dead as the cream of the crop of Image's line of comics, and I honestly believe, based on the first two issues, that it's as good as Transmetropolitan and The Goon, despite being quite different.

John Layman has come up with a great premise that combines the Avian Flu scare, governmental over-reaction and bureaucracy, a touch of science-fiction, good old fashioned cop procedural stories and (as almost always with Layman) a bit of black humor. And probably the most unique thing about the book is that it encompasses food and eating along with law enforcement and the Yakuza. I mean, this is the first part of the solicit for the third issue:

"Amelia Mintz is a food critic and a Saboscrivner. That means she can write about food so accurately, so vividly and with such precision, people get the actual sensation of taste when reading her restaurant reviews. Since the government prohibition of poultry, she’s lost her enthusiasm for the culinary world, and only reviews restaurants with a “D” rating or less from the Health Department. Her last review caused half the city to projectile-vomit, and sent hundreds to the hospital with severe food poisoning."

See what I mean? Saboscrivner, a reviewer who can give people the sensation of eating whatever food she's reviewing? That's a cool sci-fi concept. Her act of rebellion against the government's actions is that she used her talent to cause food poisoning, and only reviews bad restaurants? Tell me that doesn't sound like the best kind of wild idea we got from Warren Ellis's vision of the future in Transmetropolitan. Then there's the other half of the solicit:

"Agent Tony Chu has been assigned to arrest Amerlia Mintz, but there’s just one problem with that… he’s madly in love with her!"

Tony Chu, a hapless protagonist with an unusual talent, is a great lead. You sympathize with the guy, because he wants to do the right thing, but at the same time he's got that same "lovable loser" thing that almost makes him the sidekick in the book to the more capable agent who recruited him into the FDA.

Then there's Rob Guillory's artwork, and the best thing I can do here is point you to his blog, where you can see some of his work:.

I truly believe that Chew is a strong contender for best new book of 2009. I'm not the only one, because the first printing of the first issue has been going for crazy money on eBay. But Image is doing things right with reprints, and so the first three issues (new #3, 2nd print of #2, 3rd print of #1) will be available in just a few weeks at your local comics shop. Do yourself a favor and check them out.

Goodreads Review: Starman Omnibus Vol 3

The Starman Omnibus, Vol. 3 by James Robinson

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the volume where original artist Tony Harris left and original (and legendary) editor Archie Goodwin died. I knew that my enjoyment of the series took a hit about this time, but I'd never quite put it together that this was why.

The look of the book became less consistent, and often the art didn't quite fit the tone of the story. There's a lot of good, even great, art here, but there is also some artwork that was on the weak side, especially compared to the visual tone Harris and Von Grawbadger had set. On top of that, some of Robinson's writer's tics, notably his tendency to have the characters go off on esoteric pop culture tangents in the middle of situations in which no human being ever would be thinking about pop culture tangents, became exaggerated. And his tweaking of the Golden Age characters (and even modern age characters) that were the foundation for Starman's world got a touch out of hand.

Examples: The Black Canary/Ted Knight affair which, while handled reasonably well, essentially needlessly tarnished both characters. The slaughter of a few C-list characters to show how deadly the Mist was, which wasn't terribly effective given that Robinson had to cheat how the powers/vulnerabilities of said characters work in order to make her so effective. And the Sadie "reveal" took an already somewhat annoying character and made her situation cartoonish. In fact, that whole "romance" annual is one of the low points of the series, in terms of art and writing.

That said, there's still plenty to like here. While Robinson's Batman is a bit off, the rest of the story featuring Jack and friends going into Solomon Grundy's consciousness ala Moore's Swamp Thing was a great take on the Grundy character and a pretty entertaining read. The Shade miniseries was a lot of fun, even though The Shade tended to be a character where Robinson could really indulge his tendency to overwrite. And the Dr. Pip story, while a bit disjointed thanks to its meanderings into other plots and subplots, is a pretty decent bit of Golden Age style mad bomber story brought into Starman's retro-modern superhero style.

The book regains a bit of its even keel when Peter Snejbjerg steps in as regular artist, but even then Robinson's tendency to meander does damage to both Jack's space odyssey and the Grand Guignol story that closes everything out. In a lot of ways, the first two volumes are Starman at its best. This is the book at its weakest, but even at its weakest, there are spots that really shine. If I could, I'd give it 3 and 1/2 stars, and even knowing every beat of where we're going from here isn't for me, I know that I love so much of it that I'll definitely pick up the final hardcovers.

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Goodreads Review: Love & Capes

Just a reminder for those in the Austin area... Love & Capes creator Thom Zahler will be on-hand at Rogues Gallery tomorrow to sign copies of the Love & Capes trade, or the all-new, all-free Love & Capes #10.

Love and Capes by Thom Zahler

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
It had been a while since I checked back in on Thom Zahler's romantic superhero comedy, but I figured his impending arrival for Free Comic Book Day at my store (as well as the new FCBD issue) was as good a time as any to catch up.

Love and Capes is a sweet, funny take on superhero romance. At first glance, Love & Capes is "Lois & Clark" with a different hero, but it's actually considerably more than that, different enough to be new and fresh while familiar enough to make fans of the superhero genre, and romances within it, nod and grin in recognition.

The book opens with his hero (Crusader/Mark) revealing his secret identity to his girlfriend (Abby), and from there it becomes something much more like Tom Beland's "True Story Swear to God" than a Superman book. This is a relationship book, a rom-com, and the superhero elements are more for setting and flavor in that central premise, rather than an excuse for fights and tights. It's more important that Amazonia the super-woman is Crusader's ex than it is what they do fighting crime together. It's more important so see Crusader sipping coffee on a rooftop with Darkblade than to see them cracking bad guy skulls together. It's more important what the emotional fallout is from Abby's sister dating a supervillain than what plot the supervillain was up to.

Zahler structures the book so that it's an ongoing, developing story, but interestingly, each page is readable on its own as if it were a comic strip. It's a difficult balancing act that Zahler absolutely nails, so that the book is enjoyable both in smaller chunks and larger collections, like this one.

Definitely recommended for fans of relationship sitcoms, as well as those who like to see how the real world impacts superheroes, such as Marvels, Astro City, Powers, etc. Zahler's approach is fairly PG, hemming closer to the G rating, so Powers fans might not find it to have the bite they're looking for, but the books are definitely cousins in terms of their approach to the subject matter.

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Goodreads Review: Peter Parker Spider-Man Volume 4

Peter Parker Spider-Man Vol. 4: Trials and Tribulations by Paul Jenkins

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Honestly, this book would generally rate three stars from me, maybe even four stars for the fun Vulture vs. Spider-Man in the snow outing or the story where Aunt May talks to Peter about his life as Spider-Man, now that she knows the truth.

But what makes this a five-star book is the story "Heroes Don't Cry" about a young boy named LaFronce and his (imaginary) relationship with Spider-Man, which is by turns funny, heart-breaking and uplifting and is probably my favorite thing that Paul Jenkins has ever written. It is also among my top five Spider-Man stories ever.

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My original review of "Heroes Don't Cry" from Fourth Rail

Goodreads Review: Wondermark Clever Tricks to Stave Off Death

Wondermark: Clever Tricks To Stave Off Death by David Malki

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'm tempted to invoke TV critic Alan Sepinall's use of "dayenu" for this book, but as a non-Jew, I don't think I get to do it. So instead I'll go for the gentile version, which is to say that the book is fantastic on many levels, and would have been great even without the extra tidbits.

At it's most basic, Wondermark is a blend of Victorian visual sensibilities and modern-day/postmodern Internet humor, and instead of being jarring, it's hysterical. Malki has a sense of humor that is clever, insightful and just the right amount of bizarre. The strips made me laugh out loud more than once.

And each strip has several layers of gags. In addition to the strip itself, there's a title, an ad-on to the strip's link (rest easy at WONDERMARK!) and a bit of commentary at the bottom from Malki.

Even better, though, is that Malki has carried over this unusual sense of humor to the design of the book. The conceit that it is designed as a Victorian manual of health is evident throughout, from the picture of maladies that opens the thing to the "Malady Matrix" full of hilarious non sequiturs on each page that culminates in a gag explaining them all on the closing pages. Even little details, like the index or the notes explaining context, are done mostly for humorous value.

This is a fun book with an amazing design. I hope Dark Horse and Malki do several more just like it.

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Goodreads Review: Green Lantern Origins HC

Green Lantern, Book 6: Secret Origin by Geoff Johns

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have to admit, I didn't really think Hal Jordan's origin, and his relationships with Abin Sur, Carol Ferris and Sinestro needed revisiting again. Especially with all the momentum Geoff Johns has been building towards "In Blackest Night."

But I was wrong. While re-tracing a few steps of Hal's rise from test pilot to Green Lantern, Johns introduces backstory elements that reinforce his take on Hector Hammond, Sinestro, Black Hand and indeed the Green Lantern mythos as a whole. By going back to Hal's roots, he can plant seeds that will come to fruition in "In Blackest Night," thus looking like it's the culmination of a decades-long plan rather than an invention in the last few years.

Is this "ret-conning?" Well, yes. But it's done fairly artfully, and given that DC's continuity is so open to re-interpretation and even outright erasure, it doesn't particularly bother me. Johns puts some deeper levels of characterization in here, building on what we've known about the characters but tweaking it so that it all feels like one big mythos, rather than what it is, which is the result of dozens if not hundreds of writers introducing their ideas, sometimes clunkily, to form a big tapestry of Green Lantern's mythos.

Ivan Reis's artwork is spectacularly good, reminiscent of Carlos Pacheco and JG Jones, and he does particularly exceptional work on all the spaceships, airplanes, alien landscapes and human hangars that dot the story.

This book also introduces the backstory of Atrocitus, my vote for most on-the-nose-yet-awesomely-named bad guy ever, and it's a nice tie-in to the Guardians' folly with the Manhunters, as well as to Alan Moore's famous Green Lantern story about the planet of demons who wound up putting Abin Sur in a spaceship.

If all retcons were like this, the word wouldn't have such a bad rep.

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Goodreads Review: 20th Century Boys Volume 1

Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys, Volume 1: The Prophet by Naoki Urasawa

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
After loving Monster, I was anxiously awaiting the two new Naoki Urasawa series from Viz. The first volume of 20th Century Boys doesn't disappoint. Like Monster, it's got a slow-burn opener, but it's full of potential, and I can't wait to see where it goes from here.

The easiest comparison is to a Stephen King story, with a tale of young boys having shared secrets and a made-up secret society, only to discover in their adult lives that those childlike playtime behaviors are having more sinister real-world effects. Urasawa builds a compelling cast of characters and really sells the creepiness of "The Friend's" cult.

Kudos also to Viz for giving this the deluxe treatment, with flaps and a slightly oversized printing.

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Goodreads Review: Finder Vol 1

Finder, Vol. 01: Sin-Eater 1 by Carla Speed McNeil

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Finder is an immensely ambitious, occasionally frustrating but mostly thoroughly entertaining read. Carla Speed McNeil has crafted a pretty immense world here, and it's clear from reading the comic pages and the annotations that there's so much more than she's able to get into the book.

That's good in that the world feels fully realized, and bad in that, as others have noted, the story sometimes feels maddeningly vague or incomplete. Without the annotations at the back, some of the story cues in the comic (like when it's a flashback or a dream, or even what a particular character is doing) are unclear or even downright impossible to figure out.

However, even without knowing fully what's going on, there are a lot of neat sci-fi ideas and some amazingly fleshed-out characters. McNeil does fall into the "tell, not show" problem with the characters from time to time, but even without her notes, you can pick up on a lot of inner conflict and flaws in the various characters. These characters feel more real than most fiction can manage, and that goes a long way in terms of making this a favorite.

In addition, McNeil's artwork is beautiful, reminiscent of Terry Moore in its adoration (but not objectification) of the human form, male or female and her mastery of expression, whether it's subtle facial expression or more broad physical movement. And while her panel structure is generally straightforward, she's not afraid to break the pattern in order to show off a chaotic moment, an expansive backdrop or a character experiencing something spiritual.

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GoodReads: RASL

Rasl Volume 1: The Drift by Jeff Smith

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Jeff Smith returns to long-form comics after the success of Scholastic's Color Editions of Bone, with something quite different. It's a sci-fi noir tale, incorporating elements of Meso-American folklore, quantum physics and dimension travel and good old fashioned bad guys with guns. His protagonist is a hard-drinking art thief with a taste for the ladies, and the ability to travel dimensions to steal alternate world art.

With only three issues collected in this first collection, there's still a lot to be explored with RASL, and I suspect that we'll only know the true success/failure when we see the whole story completed. But Smith is clearly showing off his storytelling and art chops here, and if I were a betting man, I'd bet on this being another classic from one of the best cartoonists working in the medium.

The artwork is phenomenal. Smith's Bone was full of fantastic backdrops and characters, but RASL is set (more or less) in the real world, and a sleazy version of it, with back alleys, bars, etc. He's perfect at capturing this run-down world the hero has let himself fall into, and his character expressions and flawless action storytelling, displayed in Bone, are even more honed here.

The collection is oversized, which is great, because it really shows off the art. I continue to live in hope of a super-giant hardcover collection when it's all finished, at the enormous size that Smith printed his test run of the teaser comic in 2007, but if this is the best we get, it's still pretty good.

Fantastic stuff, and I'm completely enthralled and impressed so far.

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GoodReads: Beyond! HC

Beyond! HC by Dwayne McDuffie

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
One of those forgotten gems of recent years, as Dwayne McDuffie takes a crew of B- and C-listers (including newcomers like Gravity and The Hood), drops them onto an alien planet in an updated spin on Secret Wars and serves up plenty of fun character interaction and a twisty, interesting plot.

I wasn't thrilled by what McDuffie did with one of the main characters, but he fixed it in his brief Fantastic Four run (which I'd also buy in hardcover, if Marvel did one), but I loved his use of the '90s Deathlok. I also liked his work on Al Kraven, which is to say I was able to read the book without constantly wishing that the character would be stabbed in the eyes. One up on his original creator, Ron Zimmerman, on that score.

In addition, this was one of my favorite projects by artist Scott Kolins, who had a great take on the science-gadgety Dr. Hank Pym, the Mike Norton-designed Gravity and Deathlok, among others.

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More GoodReads reviews: Avengers Assemble and more

Avengers Assemble, Vol. 1 by Kurt Busiek

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
There are some elements of cheesiness, and a '70s/'80s throwback style, that are occasionally stumbling blocks for the Busiek/Perez (and later Busiek/Davis and Busiek/other artists) new millennial run of Avengers.

However, as someone whose definitive Avengers was the Roger Stern/John Buscema era, who still thinks Mark Gruenwald wrote the definitive Captain America, who would hold up the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition as one of the best comics Marvel ever published? Well, that's me, and that means this stuff was pretty much up my alley. Certainly more than the all-new, all-different (and sadly, all-so-much-better-selling) New Avengers Marvel is currently peddling.

I've got my problems with this run, including the awful new characters of Triathlon and Silverclaw, the obsession with "fixing" Hank Pym and any use of Morgana Le Fay, who was interesting in the Arthurian myths but sucks as a supervillain (no matter what universe she's in). But it's also got gorgeous art, makes use of the classic Avengers while also trying to move things forward a bit (true, Busiek's version of New Warriors' Justice and Firestar is a bit grating to long-time fans, but at least he tried to move them up to the big leagues) and is generally solid slam-bang superhero action.

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GoodReads Review: Warhammer Dark Heresy RPG

Dark Heresy RPG: Core Rulebook by Owen Barnes

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a pretty spectacularly good game. The Warhammer 40K universe has always interested me, spending hundreds of dollars on miniatures I don't have the talent, time or patience to paint... less so. So a role-playing game was perfect for me, and having played it, I can say that the system is pretty clear, perfect for evoking the bordering-on-parody but still effective darkness of the dark future of the Warhammer universe.

The game uses "careers" which are essentially classes, and it's a little more rigid than I like in that respect, more akin to D&D 1.0 and 2.0 than the more current stuff, but it also really helps to establish the flavor of the world, and even a bare-bones, rules-only character is going to have some flavor built in as a result.

The book itself is gorgeous, full-color with terrific artwork and a pretty strong layout. It could have used a better index and a lot better organization, particularly in terms of cross-indexing rules with one another, and it takes a lot of page-flipping during the game and a *lot* of familiarity before it's as comfortable as a game rulebook should be, but it's beautiful to look at and generally well-written, if not terribly well-organized.

There's also a ton of good material about the world here, and it's a must-read for those who are interested in the world, even if you'd never play a single session of the game.

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