People are going to start thinking this is a comics blog. I need to start mixing things up. Maybe I should write about my recent discovery of illegal poker halls... or how I convinced everyone at a party where I didn't know anyone to get in a circle and have someone dance in the middle while we chanted their names... or about going to see John Ford's 'Young Mr. Lincoln' yesterday... or about how it snows all the time here without you... or how the fifth cylon was not that Col. Tye's wife but was in fact the Raptor Fighter Plane with a Cylon Fighter Plane inside of it! Yeah it was... or... I could recommend comics...
I picked up this new release of Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson's Supermarket. Let's face it, Brian Wood is really good at writing near-future sci-fi and the color work in this is amazing, so I bit the bullet and threw down for it. Long story short, it's a beautiful trade, check it out.
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These are some comics I enjoyed that were released in some form in 2008:
Locke and Key
Joe Hill/Gabriel Rodriguez
(IDW)
First, no it’s not the folk singer Joe Hill, but maybe Joe Hill should write a comic about him. This series is partly about a haunted mansion and partly about a violently insane, alienated teen. It sounds bad, right? But Hill pulls it off really well. He weaves the stories together over the first six issues, telling you just enough about the history of it all to let you know there is a lot more going on beneath the surface. There is a line in the last issue that says something to the effect of, that’s the problem with youth, they always think they are seeing things at the beginning, but really they just stepped in to see the end. That’s how he builds the story, and it was a really impressive work to pull off and pace so perfectly for six issues. He draws out the character’s discoveries of the magical elements of the house in such a great way. I’m psyched about the new issues coming out this year. I think the trade is already out.
Life Sucks
Jessica Abel, Gabriel Soria and Warren Pleece
(First Second)
There is this ‘famous’ quote from Marx that equates business owners with vampires sucking the wages from workers: “Capital is dead labor, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives more, the more labor it sucks.” I always thought this metaphor would make a good premise for a horror story. Evidently, I wasn’t the only one. Life Sucks is like those teen vampire romance movies from the 80s, but updated for the newer millennium and with that vampire/vampire slave interaction to complicate the humor a bit. The sidekick friend in the book reminds me of Styles, the one from ‘Teenwolf Too!’ If you liked those movies when you were a kid, you will probably like this.
Hack/Slash
Tim Seeley/Emily Stone
(DDP)
My sister recommended this to me and though I’m not completely caught up, I did start reading it in 2008…. Anyway, it tells the story of Cassie Hack, the daughter of a serial killer, and her monstrous friend hunting slashers. Someone took it upon themselves to buy the rights to the Herbert West character from Re-animator and so somehow we got a crossover in the 2008 series, which worked a lot better than I thought it might. Part detective story, part slasher story, a fine read.
Wormwood Gentleman Corpse
Ben Templesmith
(IDW)
A demonic worm wears corpses as suits, hangs out with a eunuch robot toting a shotgun and a woman who can make her tattoos kill monsters. Amazing. The art is, of course, superb, and the writing fantastic. The third trade came out last year and is highly recommended.
Walking Dead
Robert Kirkman/Charlie Adlard
(Image)
You probably know this series, so I don’t have to say too much, but having past its fiftieth issue this year and staying quality is undoubtedly a difficult task for one writer to keep up, so hat’s off to Mr. Kirkman, a scholar and a gentleman. It’s a story about zompocalypse survivors and stressful relationships. If you have never read it, the first trade is really scary.
Zombies vs. Robots
Chris Ryall/Ashley Wood
(IDW)
The title is pretty self-explanatory, but words cannot compare to a robot smashing a zombie in attempt to save the human race. It’s a book with a lot of beginnings, which fortunately leads to a robot and ‘amazon’ women team-up. Beautiful.
Buffy, Season 8
(Darkhorse)
Again, I don’t have to say too much about this, but, the second and third trades came out last year, Buffy dates women, and Brea and I had the same idea for Season 8 as soon as season 7 ended, but we thought it would be a T.V. show about vampire slayer cells in different countries, of course, without Gellar (because she didn’t want to do it any more, if I remember correctly). Whedon put together solid teams of writers (sometimes himself) and artists, and I am continually surprised at how well the characters carry over from T.V. to the page.
Crossed
Garth Ennis/Jacen Burrows
(Avatar)
Forget ‘The Boys,’ this is better. I haven’t been able to track down all the issues, but I checked it out after my friend Brazos recommended it. Basically, more cogniscent 28 Days Later, masses of people infected with rage and a group of survivors. The art is the grotesque stuff Avatar is known for. I am intrigued to see where it goes. So what if it’s not Preacher, and, okay, it’s difficult to surpass the complexities he wove with his early Hellblazer run, but so far I like this enough to recommend it. (Really first, you should read the not from 2008, Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits trade if you never have.) How many masterworks does the guy have to write?
Pigeons from Hell
Howard/Lansdale/Fox
(Darkhorse)
Taken from a short story that was written by Robert E. Howard (who also, created Conan), it throws a group of 20-somethings into a haunted Louisiana swamp. As an aside, Joe Lansdale lives really close to my hometown, which is scary!
Simon Dark
Steve Niles/Scott Hampton
(DC)
It’s like The Crow set in Gotham City, and the weird anti-hero kills people who hurt his neighborhood’s children. That almost sounds like a critique, because maybe it will always be too soon to bring back The Crow, but it is well-written, has creepily layered art, and there is a battle against a secret society. Cults are scary.
Ten-Cent Plague
David Hajdu
Not a comic, but a political history of horror comics and censorship in the U.S. that was released this year. The chapters on the history of EC Comics alone make this book worthwhile. Like after Bill Gaines, the head of EC at the time, said he only released books he found to be in good taste, his inquisitor said, “Here is your May 22 issue. This seems to be a man with a bloody ax holding a woman’s head up, which has been severed from her body. Do you think that is in good taste?” Gaines replied, “Yes, sir, I do, for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody.” “You have blood coming out of her mouth,” the inquisitor noted.
You can also pick up random facts like: the guy who directed Empire Strikes Back once made a sensationalist anti-comic documentary for television.
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Last night, Liz and I went to the James Jean: opening. It was hard to find the free booze, but from the looks of the gallery page today, I guess comics kids do buy art. His pieces were nice.
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