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Things To Come: Previews August for comics shipping October 2001
Note: You can now bookmark Things To Come, or link to it directly, by clicking on www.ninthart.org/tocome. DARK HORSE COMICS/HARPER COLLINS/FRIENDS OF LULU The Maverick imprint makes a strong showing this month, with Neil Gaiman's graphic novel HARLEQUIN VALENTINE (AUG010018, pg. 31, $10.95), a book-length episode of Tony Millionaire's SOCK MONKEY (AUG010019, pg. 32, $9.95), the first issue of Scott Morse's ANCIENT JOE (AUG010020, pg. 33, $2.99), and the collected SCATTERBRAIN (AUG010021, pg. 34, $19.95). That last one interests me most. It's a hardcover kid's anthology with a dazzling slate of indy talent - a slightly less stuffy version of LITTLE LIT. Since it didn't set any sales records in its comic book incarnation, it's safe to presume the collection was made possible by LITTLE LIT's penetration of the bookstore market. Meanwhile, LITTLE LIT has a sequel out this month, called STRANGE STORIES FOR STRANGE KIDS (AUG012367, pg. 343, $19.95), and a third one is already in the works. STRANGE STORIES ought to attract even more media attention than the original, as it features such prestigious authors as Paul Auster (CITY OF GLASS) and critical darling David Sedaris. It's not a trend until you've seen it three times, but if you add in STORYTIME (AUG012007, pg. 284, $9.95), a softcover kid's anthology with a lesser-known slate of indy talent, that's two and a half. DC COMICS DOOM PATROL (AUG010228, pg. 86, $2.50) is back! Unfortunately, Grant Morrison, the only writer to make the book popular, isn't! Maybe since DC put it on the cover, that'll put some heat on it? No? Crud. Go to the usual back-up plan... Mega-crossovers! Hot on the heels of OUR WORLDS AT WAR, the DCU presents THE JOKER: LAST LAUGH! The premise is that the Joker is dying, which everyone knows must be bogus, but they thought that about the "deaths" in OWAW and bought it anyway. Good move, DC! Remember, if your readers don't feel bewildered, exhausted and vaguely cheated all the time, you're going too easy on them! I've gotten used to DC raping the corpse of SANDMAN, but it's going to take a while to get used to them raping the corpse of my childhood love, MAD MAGAZINE. (And yes, MAD is dead. It died a few months back, when it started accepting advertising.) Rather like the Indians who used every part of the buffalo they slew, DC presents MAD: NEUMANISMS - a collection of the mottoes that run every month on the contents page right above the masthead, which you never noticed before because normal people don't read the indicia. And this is the second collection, no less! In hardcover! What's next, a leather-bound volume of their copyright notices? Last month, the speedy collection of Howard Chaykin's AMERICAN CENTURY (JUL010384, $8.95) was one of the few signs that DC is awake. Now that I've read it, I can say few writers could make a book about defection, geopolitical intrigue and revolution this unengaging. The problem isn't that the characters are degenerates, it's that there's nothing to them other than degeneracy. You can't sympathize with them, and worse, you can't sympathize with their causes, because they aren't expounded upon. The closest Chaykin gets to actual political content is profaning the '50s, a safe and smug gesture that's practically ritual nowadays. It's been said that in a depressed market, a new book has to hit the ground running, but AMERICAN CENTURY moves far too fast and forgets to give us any reason to care. IMAGE COMICS It seems Top Cow is becoming as preoccupied with hell as TMP. MIDNIGHT NATION's slogan is "The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions... but it's still the road to hell." OBERGEIST's slogan is "For Jürgen Steinholtz, the road to Hell is paved with memory." Top Cow goes even further this month in its description of new keystone title UNIVERSE. The protagonist has discovered that "Hell's not some myth to scare believers into proper behavior... it's REAL and it's taking over our world." That's an extraordinary theme to dominate a major comic book company. Top Cow's heroes are people who realise that an apocalyptic war is imminent and take Heaven's side, though it brings them nothing but torment in this life. Despite the imprint's rebellious posturing, that philosophy bears a striking resemblance to the theology of a certain other comics publisher: Jack T. Chick. MARVEL COMICS New books and new characters from what I refuse to call "The House." Not from MAX, of course - let's not get radical - but from that "Bad Girls for Fanboys" project made so notorious by Bill "Pimpmaster" Jemas. BLOODSTONE is a mix of Lara Croft and Buffy, and NIGHTSIDE stars a heroine in a black leather bodysuit and repeatedly mentions the word "darkness". In other words, they're doing Top Cow. Robert Weinberg's NIGHTSIDE, by the way, is a creator-owned book, the first from Marvel in ages. This explains why it's buried 25 pages in, just before the latest THOR, but well behind the latest painting of a spread-eagled Elektra. AIT/PLANETLAR COUSCOUS EXPRESS (AUG011708, pg. 218, $12.95), the new graphic novel from Brian Wood, will be a major departure from the bleak CHANNEL ZERO. It sounds essentially like a big chase, but one that captures something of the multicultural funkiness of New York. Sounds like a lark, and I want one. Check out www.brianwood.com/ccx. ALTERNATIVE COMICS Alternative is sub-distributing a bunch of Xeric Award winners, all collections of short stories. Frederick Noland's SHPILKES (AUG011710, pg. 218, $3.50, www.altgeek.net) is twisted, underground-ish humour; Ben Catmull's PAPER THEATER (AUG011711, pg. 218, $5, www.papertheater.com) deals in Chris Ware-ian melancholia; and Jacob Weinstein's DIRTY BOXES (AUG011712, pg. 218, $6.95) is pitched somewhere inbetween, judging by the solicitation text, which includes the words "gallinaceous" and "slumgullion." One rarely goes wrong with a Xeric winner. BRIES Hurrah for Bries! Bries is a Belgian small-press publisher that came to Anglophone attention last year with five excellent books. This month they maintain their high standards with a slate of three graphic novels. LOUIS ARMSTRONG (AUG011803, pg. 239, $12.95) is by Philip Paquet, who specializes in jazz. He's an artist of remarkable economy, with a clean, light, pleasing line. TANGO WITH DEATH (AUG011804, pg. 239, $14.95) is by Ulf K., whose other book for Bries, THE MAN ON THE MOON AND OTHER STORIES, was a simple, poetic book a little reminiscent of The Little Prince. Click here for a sample of his work. W. THE WHORE (AUG011805, pg. 239, $12.95), which is unfortunately not about George Bush, is drawn by Anke Feuchtenberger and written by poet Katrin de Vries. In three somewhat feminist stories, W. tries to find fulfilment but gets beaten down by the world. This is not a dense book - about 100 panels, few words - but those who have been beguiled by Feuchtenberger's delicate, alien drawings say they speak volumes. www.feuchtenbergerowa.de. BROADSWORD COMICS And right after that, we get panties and g-strings from the class acts at Broadsword. No actual comics from Broadsword this month, though, which is a step in the right direction. CHAOS! COMICS Brian Pulido had said he was retiring his signature character Evil Ernie, but is now reviving him with EVIL ERNIE RETURNS #1 ($4) "because the fans demanded it." Apparently the fans also demanded a premium edition ($13), a super-premium edition ($20), a script book ($5), a premium edition script book ($20), a premium edition reprint ($13), a couple of TPB reprints ($10, $13), a lithograph ($25), a Christmas tree ornament ($15), a bust ($45), a bloodier 'special edition' bust ($65), and a commemorative plate ($50). Total bill: $298. That'll teach you to demand anything ever again. CLIB'S BOY COMICS Tom Beland makes the leap from mini-comics to Diamond-sanctified self-publishing with TRUE STORY, SWEAR TO GOD: MAGIC (AUG011874, pg. 252, $2.95). TRUE STORY is a strip usually seen in free weeklies, and has been described as a gentler version of Keith Knight's DANCES WITH SHEEP. The story 'MAGIC' is his first long-form work. Beland's work is unabashedly sentimental, and this, the story of how he met his wife, will be no exception. But he pulls it off well - he's funny, he draws with an appealing, Hirschfeld-influenced brush line, and his undimmed ardor is winning. www.yunque.net/tom CYBEROSIA PUBLISHING/PACKRABBIT PRESS/SEQUENTIAL PUBLICATIONS This month is sure to tickle the cerebral cortexes of formalists everywhere, as there's a bounty of experimental comics. APORIATICA (AUG011925, pg. 267, $12.95) collects works by Marcel Guldemond, including his Xeric-winning UNDER A SLOWLY SPINNING SUN, which wasn't a story so much as an oblique portrait of a point in time, where time has stopped moving, or stopped mattering, to our narrator. You've seen nothing like it in comics. aporia.brainmade.com Leland Purvis' self-published comic - sorry, "narrative image quarterly" - VOX #4 (AUG012118, pg. 304, $4.95) very nearly didn't make it into the catalogue. It didn't quite meet Diamond's minimum orders, but it did show a sharp, quick increase thanks to some timely activism. A good thing, too - the cognoscenti have been buzzing about this book, and there's every reason to think Purvis will make a big splash if he can persevere. www.packrabbitpress.com Winner of the competition for most unwieldy title is SEQUENTIAL INTERLUDE: I KNOW GOD SMILES ON THESE GOOD TIMES #1 (AUG012138, pg. 306, $2.50), by Paul Hornschemeier. The book is in illustrated story format, but the illustrations, which show "the desperate future and an ageing man's struggle within it," are unrelated to the text story, of "an adolescent romantic memory gone wrong." The two dissonant stories are supposed to give rise in the reader's mind to a third, partially synthesised story, the way abutting dissonant colours do. Lord only knows if it will work that way, but judging from the many strips available on Hornschemeier's fancy website, www.sequentialcomics.com, it should be skilfully executed. FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS Previews manages to crystallise the moral imbecility of the comics world with its Splash Page claim: "Wizard Entertainment turns up the investigative journalism with the Wizard Top Cow Universe Spectacular." Outside of the Bizarro World, there is nothing 'investigative' about letting one of your most powerful advertisers spoon-feed you hype and turning it into an infomercial. Thank God, then, for The Comics Journal, one of our few sources of actual investigative journalism. They're doing two specials on creators' rights this year - #236 and this one, #239 (AUG011989, pg. 280, $5.95). Both promise to give Marv Wolfman's failed lawsuit against Marvel over BLADE the sort of comprehensive, in-depth coverage that the Journal still does better than anyone else. But if you're convinced they're too 'negative,' there's always the Top Cow Spectacular. BLAB VOL. 12 (AUG011991, pg. 282, $19.95) is arriving just in time to slug it out with DRAWN & QUARTERLY VOL. 4 over the mantle of heir to RAW. There are an awful lot of anthologies these days, aren't there? These, MONKEYSUIT, SPX, the aforementioned kid's anthologies, NEW SUIT, MEANWHILE, etc. And yet ZERO ZERO, Fantagraphics' other anthology, which I always slightly preferred to the too-fancy BLAB, tanked not long ago. Why? I suspect because, unlike the others, it was a pamphlet rather than a square-bound book, and it had continuing stories. Just another casualty of the shift from a periodical-based to a book-based economy. SAFE AREA GORAZDE (AUG011995, pg. 282, $19.95) is now out in softcover. This means you have no excuse for not owning it. It's not only a landmark work of cartooning, but also of war reporting. Sacco avoids all those dreadful clichés associated with war reporting by focusing primarily on the people, not the war (although he does also explain the war, more concisely than you'll find elsewhere). What this approach helps show is the way a perfectly peaceful multiethnic society was rent apart by cynical politicians exploiting ancient ethnic grudges. The people the Chetniks massacred and besieged had quite literally been their neighbours. Sacco has the integrity to include himself in the story, knowing that the observer invariably affects what is observed - he practically deconstructs himself before our eyes. Sacco is also as observant an artist as he is a writer. You must buy this book. The best thing about ZIPPY is how it throws into sharp relief the bland, inoffensive, suburban, family-friendly, factory-produced, interchangeable cookie-cutter conformity of practically every other strip on the page. Which is why it probably isn't on your comics page to begin with. If it isn't, you need the ZIPPY ANNUAL #2 (AUG011997, pg. 284, $19.95). You don't get the thrill of seeing a bit of dada smuggled into your newspaper, and it is admittedly a lot of ZIPPY for one sitting, but it deserves support, since it's very nearly the last bastion of individual expression in daily strips, especially since PEANUTS ended. www.zippythepinhead.com G.T. LABS You like big explosions? Have we got the book for you! Jim Ottaviani's G.T. Labs specialises in the unlikely field of comics about real-life scientists, and its new anthology, FALLOUT (AUG012010, pg. 284, $19.95), is about the development of the atomic bomb. It features an impressive-looking list of artists, including Bernie Mireault (THE JAM) and Steve Lieber (WHITEOUT). Stuff blows up, and you learn something - what could be better? www.gt-labs.com NINTH CIRCLE STUDIOS Ninth Circle presents SONAMBULO VOL.1: SLEEP OF THE JUST (AUG012099, pg. 301, $15), about "masked wrestler-turned-detective Sonambulo". It's a Xeric winner, and the art is keen, but aren't masked Mexican wrestlers-turned-detectives the turf of Charles "EL BORBAH" Burns? Oh, well, I suppose in the copyright violation sweepstakes, he's got nothing on this next outfit... OFF PANEL COMICS New publisher, new book: S.W.I.P.E.R. #1. The cover is modelled on a Jim Lee X-MEN cover, and the plot seems to be a Fantastic Four vs. Galactus pastiche. It carries this interesting disclaimer: "NOTE: Though the art and story are original, the point of the series is to parody the super hero clichés, yet offer a compelling tale." They're kidding themselves, obviously. Or are they? Look at the Alan Moore books spotlighted this month. GLORY, a long-delayed project emerging from Avatar, stars a Rob Liefeld "creation," a Wonder Woman knockoff. THE COMPLETE D.R. & QUINCH (AUG012167, pg. 314, $14.99) from Titan Books, a collection of some of Alan's old 2000 A.D. strips, is reputedly very funny, but is nevertheless is an acknowledged rip-off of the National Lampoon strip O.G. & STIGGS, right down to some of the routines. And finally, from ABC, a line that consists of pastiche and nothing but, there's GREYSHIRT: INDIGO SUNSET #1 (AUG010254, pg. 92, $3.50), a spin-off from TOMORROW STORIES that Rick Veitch is writing and drawing, which skilfully mimics THE SPIRIT. They should all be clever and well crafted, but they don't deserve to outsell Moore's more personal work, like last month's SNAKES AND LADDERS (JUL012057, $5.95). And they almost certainly will. Pastiche pays, and it's one of the few ways for an author smarter than the genres they're forced to work in to keep their sanity. Off Panel Comics' rather confused notion of originality may be one of the few working strategies for surviving in the current comics market. And that's a conclusion gloomy enough to end this month's column. Chris Ekman is a political cartoonist. Ninth Art endorses the principle of Ideological Freeware. The author permits distribution of this article by private individuals, on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice. Back. |