Hallelujah, brethren! Have you heard the Good Word? Put on your Sunday meeting best and start evangelising, because May 4th is Free Comic Book Day!

The event is of course being dominated by the Big Four (Dark Horse, DC, Image and Marvel), who have in their wisdom chosen to disseminate, respectively:

STAR WARS TALES: A JEDI'S WEAPON (derived from the movie franchise)
JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES #1 (adapted from the animated TV show)
TOMB RAIDER #1/2 (based on the video game series)
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1 (targeted at fans of the imminent movie)

What more proof do you need that, as Diamond contends, "comics are one of America's most enduring forms of original entertainment"? Go, Team Comics!

Don't mind me, I'm just acting grouchy. In truth, I'm pretty enthused this month. For one thing, almost every noteworthy publisher in the catalogue will be participating in Free Comic Book Day (mostly by giving away overstock), so some truly "original entertainment" will get smuggled through. For another, there is a bank-breaking number of excellent books in this month's catalogue. So many, in fact, that I'm going to make not one, not two, not even three, but three and a half...

PICKS OF THE MONTH

#1: CAGES (FEB02 2562, pg. 312, $50), by Dave McKean, from NBM.

Dave McKean draws great cats. He also portrays music better than I've ever seen done in comics. But it's his faces I like best. Comics is reductive, so when most cartoonists draw people, they caricature them, they try to capture the essence of the person. McKean doesn't do that. Instead, he tries to capture the essence of a moment. Have you ever noticed how most pictures of people don't really look like them, somehow? McKean's people don't really look like themselves, yet from those hundreds of moments a likeness is built up.

He's best known for his hyper-real multimedia extravaganzas, of course, like his SANDMAN covers, but he uses those sparingly here. Mostly it's just pen and ink with a cool blue tone, mostly in his German-expressionism-influenced style, mostly kept to 9-grid layouts. And it's mostly told with faces, in conversation.

People will have told you that talking heads don't work in comics, but these people are blinkered. From the first tentative dances of the lovers discovering each other in chapter 7 to the monologue by the lonely, abandoned wife putting up a brave front that takes up the whole of chapter 4, the talking heads in this book are spellbinding.

As for the story, to give a plot synopsis would miss the point. The book starts with four contradictory but equally valid genesis stories, which set the tone. What the book is really "about" is searching for the role of God and the role of storytelling, or rather of art in general. (Can you tell Gaiman rubbed off on McKean?)

There are, I admit, conceits that are too fanciful, minor characters whose quirkiness is too cute, maybe one too many creation stories. But these are minor. Simply to tackle the cosmic questions and not take a pratfall is more than most of us will ever achieve.

This massive, 500-page book has been out of print for years because it had the misfortune of being published by Tundra. Tundra tanked in part because publisher Kevin Eastman (TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES) gave a lot of cartoonists lots of money to finally realise their long-dreamt-of masterpieces, and most didn't really have any. Dave McKean did. CAGES is indisputably a masterpiece.

Preview here.

#2: SUMMER OF LOVE (resolicited, FEB02 2386, pg. 276, $24.95), by Debbie Drechsler, from Drawn & Quarterly.

Debbie Drechsler wrote one of the best books I can hardly bear to read. Her first book, DADDY'S GIRL, which may or may not have been semi-autobiographical, is the story of young Lily and the molestation she suffered from her father. Reading it feels something like pouring lemon juice on a bad scrape. I had real trouble judging it objectively, and wondered if Drechsler would seem as good to me if the subject matter weren't so extreme.

I was a fool to wonder. SUMMER OF LOVE, her new book, will prove her range to the world, if the world is smart enough to pay attention.

In this story, Lily is a teenager, moving into a new suburban wasteland and entering a new high school, a slightly less treacherous place than an 18th century royal court. Drechsler is often compared to Lynda Barry, but frankly I like her better, because she has better chops.

The body language of Drechsler's characters tells us as much about the power games playing out between them as does the dialogue. Her drawing is more refined here than in the knobbly DADDY'S GIRL, but the line's not quite fluid, the perspective a little off. It captures perfectly the awkwardness of adolescence. The colouring is an acquired taste - it's in two tones, muddy brown and avocado that don't quite harmonise, and the effect is almost like a 3-D comic gone bad. But hey, in the '70s everything was coloured that way.

If you were moved by GHOST WORLD, and are wondering what's next: this is what's next.

Drawn and Quarterly has a page on Drechsler, and Indy Magazine has an excellent interview with her. #3: EILAND #4 (FEB02 2282, pg. 248, $13.95), by Stefan Van Dinther & Tobias Schalken, from Bries.

Back in 1993, a sound like a silo full of popcorn popping resounded throughout comics. That sound was of people reading ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY #1 and having the tops of their heads blown off. With one modestly sized book, Chris Ware dramatically broadened the storytelling language of comics.

Interested in having the top of your head blown off again?

Seek out EILAND, a Dutch anthology from Belgian publisher Bries. Issue #3 incorporated everything from photography to clay figurines, and was so overwhelmingly innovative that I was startled to see it credited to only two cartoonists. Mere words, especially mine, cannot convey the brilliance of this book. Go to their website to see art samples from #3 and a pair of gorgeous animated trailers for #4.

#3 1/2: Phoebe Gloeckner's prose/comic hybrid memoir, DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL was my Pick of the Month for January. That solicitation has been cancelled, as Gloeckner has taken both DIARY (FEB02 2581, pg. 316, $18.95) and her previous collection, A CHILD'S LIFE AND OTHER STORIES (FEB02 2582, pg. 316, $18.95) from Fantagraphics to North Atlantic Books. North Atlantic looks to be a New Age-y publisher with no experience in the direct market, so it's imperative to preorder this.

DARK HORSE COMICS

Dark Horse.leads with the adaptation of the dorkily-titled STAR WARS: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES. The solicitation uses the words "seminal", "mythos", "epic", "must-see", "must-read", and "legendary". Message: attendance is mandatory.

Folks, STAR WARS is crap. In your hearts you know I'm right. Have a cold, hard look at EPISODE I. What've you got?

Primary characters more repressed and submissive than Anthony Hopkins in REMAINS OF THE DAY;

Secondary characters, mostly meant as "comic" relief, that are thinly-disguised ethnic stereotypes (George Lucas may not be racist, but the old pulps he steals from certainly were);

A plot hinging on trade barriers and tariffs, which must be a billionaire's idea of whimsy;

All in the service of a Portrait of Space Hitler as an adorable, towheaded Young Man.

This you call a fun night out at the theatre? STAR WARS is pretentious, joyless junk, and has been ever since Lucas started believing his own press and thinking his clumsy, derivative scripts constituted a "mythos" (Joseph Campbell, your crimes are legion). Stop letting it waste your time.

On a wholly unrelated note: You know how cheesy comedians used to say, after making a joke, "I got a million of 'em"? Sergio Aragones really does. He can bat out pantomime gags like those in ACTIONS SPEAK (FEB02 0037, pg. 37, $13.95) quicker than it takes to say 'Bo!' to a goose; he's peppered the margins of MAD MAGAZINE with such gags for decades and never runs out of ideas.

DC COMICS

Vertigo has had a run of clunkers lately (like the foul AMERICAN CENTURY, for instance, the second trade of which is hyped this month), but every so often it'll do a book that reminds me why I like it. Gilbert Hernandez's GRIP, for instance, or, this month, John Rozum's MIDNIGHT, MASS. #1 of 8 (FEB02 0644, pg. 95, $2.50). I've been sold on this since it was first announced, for three reasons:

1) It's a supernatural book that's not based on the X-FILES. Praise be to God. I liked the X-FILES as much as the next guy with a thing for emotionally repressed redheads in lab coats, but it is not the only template from which to work.

2) It is based, in part, on the THIN MAN books and movies. These starred Nick and Nora Charles, a jet-set husband-and-wife detective team who bantered and tippled their way through murder cases. The leads of MIDNIGHT, MASS. are meant to have a similar rapport.

3) It's set in Massachusetts. I'm a Massachusetts boy born and bred. I am, as I write this, gazing out at my cosy wooded backyard, which has been transformed by an ice storm into something coruscating and alien. It is my fervent hope that artists Jesus Sais and Jimmy Palmiotti can capture something of that.

IMAGE COMICS

Back in July, I predicted that the revived GI JOE comic would tank, because a jingoistic book about terrorist-hunting commandos just wasn't relevant anymore.

I do hope none of you made any wagers based on that. If you did, I'd like to remind you that this column is intended for entertainment purposes only, no guarantees were given or implied, and the management cannot be held responsible for any liabilities incurred.

Considering my only other prediction in this space has been that the abysmal DARK KNIGHT 2 would not "move the needle", I may be a straw one holds up to see which way the wind isn't blowing.

MARVEL COMICS

BLACK WIDOW: PALE LITTLE SPIDER is the new series from Max. The good news: it's an espionage story with a female lead by Greg Rucka (QUEEN AND COUNTRY). The bad news: it's set in "Russia's S&M underground" with "sensual covers by Greg Horn (ELEKTRA)." It's probably safest just to get one of those free QUEEN AND COUNTRY #1s from Oni instead.

Also, HOWARD THE DUCK #1 has come out. When it was solicited, I worried that boy bands seemed too old and tired a target. (If you're shopping for contrived and cynical music to attack, why not try the nu-metal herd for a change? Or the middlebrow pap that boomers lap up during PBS pledge-drives?) I was assured that Steve Gerber had other targets, and he did. They were the dot-com boom and the 2000 presidential election.

Not exactly ripped from today's headlines, is it? The new issue (#4, FEB02 1857, pg. 156, $2.99) is no timelier - almost all the Vertigo books alluded to in the solicitation are over or near-over. Like Peter Milligan's X-FORCE, it's topical but not topical enough. (Also like X-FORCE, it contains the least subtle broadside against the mass media since the movie NETWORK.)

Despite that, it's enjoyable. Gerber said he fell back into the rhythm of it as if he'd never stopped, and that shines through. Phil Winslade evokes Gene Colan nicely. I guffawed at some of the jokes, especially the smutty ones. It's a bit like having the NATIONAL LAMPOON back, which is all to the good.

Over in the regular line, the mainstream raid on indy talent culminates in STARTLING STORIES: THE MEGALOMANIACAL SPIDER-MAN (FEB02 1892, pg. 171, $2.99), drawn and written by Peter Bagge (HATE). This is boggling. I can only imagine they're trying to give Gary Groth a heart attack. This gig was also offered to Dan Clowes, but he turned it down, so at least that much of the world still makes sense. They should've tapped R. Crumb to draw that BLACK WIDOW book. And they may yet try.

ABSENCE OF INK COMIC PRESS

...brings us a new issue of POP GUN WAR (#3, FEB02 2150, pg. 220, $2.50), the strange and probably allegorical tale of a small boy with wings. The book is still inscrutable enough to make summary impossible, so I'll just command you over to PopImage , where you can see sample pages from issue #2 and an interview with Xeric-winning creator Farel Dalrymple.

Dalrymple also edits a small-press anthology called MEATHAUS (#5, FEB02 2548, pg. 306, $6), from Meathaus Studios. For 104 (admittedly undersize) pages, that's a bargain. Fancy website: www.meathaus.com.

AIT/PLANETLAR

TRUE FACTS (FEB02 2176, pg. 226, $10) has publisher Larry Young's face plastered across the front, but you should buy it anyway. This is a collection of Young's columns for activist comics webzine Savant, revised and updated to form a comprehensive DIY guide to self-publishing. Larry isn't quite the zealot about it that Dave Sim was; he's more like the gym teacher you had in fourth grade who wouldn't let you wheedle your way out of rope climbing. There's plenty of inspiration and nuts-and-bolts instruction to be had here. Just avert your eyes indulgently, as I do, when he starts quoting Yoda.

ARCHIE COMICS

Archie has just announced that they've hired Lou Pearlman, the man who invented the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, to create a new real-life Josie and the Pussycats, the property definitive Archie artist Dan DeCarlo just died trying to win back. And Archie is this month soliciting a trade of the BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS VOL. 1.

Archie, remember, is the publisher responsible for the continuing administration of the Comics Code Authority. Because they're so terribly moral.

ATTABOY

The solicitation for I HATE CARTOONS #1 (FEB02 2235, pg. 236, $4.95) squanders the promise of the title. Apparently it's "a brand-new 64-page anthology from Attaboy's Yumfactory featuring everyone's favorite Watchamacallems." What, no Oompa-Loompas? A look at the website reveals one of the 'Watchamacallems' to be unsung comics zany Mark Martin, so this may be worth checking out.

BRIES

In addition to EILAND #4, there's:

The anthology 4EYES (#2, FEB02 2280, pg. 248, $6.95 and #3, FEB02 2281, pg. 248, $12.95), which includes work from Philip Paquet, whose recent book LOUIS ARMSTRONG, was a little gem.

DICKIE VOL. 1 (FEB02 2279, pg. 248, $12.95) may be the first Bries book that doesn't much interest me. Maybe I've been soured on born-loser humour due to its preponderance on the newspaper comics page. The website is in Dutch, unfortunately, but there is a game on it where you can visit Dickie's bucolic farm and shoot everything that moves.

CHAOS! COMICS / MORDAM RECORDS / NBM

On that unthinkable day in September, when horror was at its least comprehensible and civilisation itself seemed to totter, my mind was seized with a single thought: "What would the superheroines of a bunch of lite-horror titty comics make of this?" The answer can at last be found in LADY DEATH/CHASTITY/BAD KITTY: UNITED #1. You'll have to buy this if you're any sort of good American.

But what if you're not? What if you are, instead, one of those treacherous dissenters - a market that, oddly enough, the "politically incorrect, anti-social, anti-authoritarian" folks at Chaos! have overlooked?

WORLD WAR 3 ILLUSTRATED #32 (FEB02 2561, pg. 310, $3.50) will be a yet another comic of firsthand 9/11 accounts, but the leftist slant ensures you won't see this one featured on the Today Show.

The left has not covered itself in glory these past few months, I'm afraid. Many of my comrades, fearless against God-botherers at home, have suffered a shameful failure of nerve in the face of what Christopher Hitchens has termed the "theocratic fascism" of the Taliban. Rather than face up to a new threat, many of them tried to refight Vietnam, arguing primarily that Afghanistan would be a quagmire, which turned out to be utterly mistaken as well as morally irrelevant.

Will there be any of that sort of knee-jerk defeatism in WWIII #32? Probably some. But overall I trust founders Peter Kuper (THE SYSTEM) and Seth Tobocman (WAR IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD) to steer away from that in favour of exploring the ambiguities.

I don't quite trust Ted Rall to do the same. His "instant graphic novel" TO AFGHANISTAN AND BACK (FEB02 2566, pg. 312, $15.95) will chiefly comprise his VILLAGE VOICE columns and a 50-page comics account of his trip. Rall is one of the few modern political cartoonists who deserves the name, but he's also so glibly cynical that he undermines his credibility.

For example: though oil interests are never far from the minds of Bush and Cheney, it's absurd to conclude that "this ersatz war by a phony president is solely about getting the Unocal [Kazakhstan-by-way-of-Afghanistan pipeline] deal done without interference from annoying local middlemen." If you can look past the sky-high rhetoric, there is substance here, particularly in his firsthand reports. If you can't, this book will only give you a migrane.

Preview here.

DERFCITY COMICS

MY FRIEND DAHMER #1 (FEB02 2377, pg. 270, $2.95) sounds like a sick joke, but it's not - alt-weekly strip artist Derf actually did attend high school with serial killer and xtreme-gourmand Jeffrey Dahmer. You can read one of Derf's Dahmer stories here.

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

I had despaired of ever seeing KING VOL. 2 (FEB02 2457, pg. 292, $11.95), the new instalment of Ho Che Anderson's acclaimed biography of Martin Luther King, but here it is, just 10 years after VOL. 1 (FEB02 2458, pg. 292, $8.95). At this rate, it may even be finished in our lifetimes.

In KING Anderson has taken a speculative approach, which has freed him to portray the good Reverend as a flesh and blood man and not merely a plaster saint. Anderson's chiaroscuro-heavy drawing is very effective, especially in those sequences where every moment seems caught in the flashbulb's glare.

Also this month:

A new installment of ARTBABE PRESENTS: LA PERDIDA (#2, FEB02 2460, pg. 292, $4.95), by Jessica Abel. A leap forward for one of the most promising young fiction writers in comics.

THE COMICS JOURNAL #243 (pg. 292, FEB02 2459, $5.95) focuses on Dylan Horrocks, creator of the highly acclaimed, beguiling HICKSVILLE.

Eros books are frequently mortifying (WERESLUT, anyone?), but DIRTY STORIES (VOL. 3, FEB02 2473, pg. 293, $16.95) is a more than just a wank book. The previous two volumes have featured the top talents in comix, (including such unlikely names as Abel and Horrocks), because pornography is too important to be left to the pornographers.

MEANWHILE STUDIOS

Xeric winner Troy Little's self-published book CHIAROSCURO hits issue #3 (FEB02 2547, pg. 306, $2.75). It's a slacker book with hints of weirdness afoot in the shadows, very much influenced by Dave Sim (in a good way). Well worth your attention, and it will need your attention now, since three issues is about all the grace period Diamond gives a small press book. Visit www.meanwhilestudios.com for a preview.

NBM

Despite the awful title, the nicest surprise of the month is ODDBALLZ #1 (FEB02 2565, pg. 312, $2.95). It's an anthology by two French cartoonists, Lewis Trondheim and Manu Larcenet.

Trondheim is both as naturally funny and as prolific a cartoonist as Sergio Aragones, and he's also a talented writer, equally good at Carl Barks-ian adventure farces and quieter character studies of bickering old friends. Of Larcenet I know nothing, except that he's collaborated with and looks similar to Trondheim. The NBM site has about nine pages of previews that don't work at all, but maybe will get fixed someday.

ONI PRESS

It's a little startling how fast Andi Watson has become king of the relationship comic. Granted, that's a bit like being frontrunner for the presidency of Argentina - almost nobody else seems to want the job. But I'm not damning with faint praise; if Watson worked in prose or film, he'd be giving Nora Ephron a run for her money. (I'm glad he doesn't, for I wouldn't want to be deprived of his artwork, which is the last word in clear-line minimalism.) DUMPED (FEB02 2584, pg. 316, pg. $5.95) is a short graphic novel produced, believe it or not, for an arts festival in Turin.

Brian Wood & Steve Rolston's POUNDED #2 (FEB02 2588, pg. 319, $2.95) sees punker-than-thou phoney Heavy Parker fall victim to instant karma. There's also a POUNDED OFFICIAL SOUNDTRACK (FEB02 2589, pg. 319, $7.95), featuring "the top names in punk rock" (I wouldn't know, I'm afraid).

TITAN

Alan Martin & Jamie Hewlett's TANK GIRL (VOL. 1, FEB02 2639, pg. 330, $16.99) is back in print. Highly influential snot-nosed Brit humour.

TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS

STRIPBUREK: COMICS FROM THE OTHER EUROPE (FEB02 2671, pg. 335, $17.95) is a regular anthology of small press cartoonists from the former Eastern bloc. Tends to be ragged, but if nothing else it broadens one's horizons. The "special feature from Kazakhstan" promises to be timely.

VANGUARD PRODUCTIONS

Comics history buffs take note: THE COMIC BOOK MAKERS (FEB02 2680, pg. 336, $39.95) is a memoir about the formative years of comics by Joe Simon, an early partner of Jack Kirby's and the first editor of Timely Comics, the company that eventually became Marvel. And after you've read about that company's birth...

BOOKS

...read about its near-death. Dan Raviv's book of investigative journalism, COMIC WARS (FEB02 2855, pg. 363, $24.95) explains how duelling corporate raiders steered the company into bankruptcy and profited obscenely at the expense of the employees and stockholders.

VIDEOS: ANIMATION

THE CONFESSIONS OF ROBERT CRUMB DVD (FEB02 3805, pg. 478, $19.95) isn't animated at all, no matter what the crackheads at Diamond say. It's a BBC documentary that Crumb himself wrote the script for, including some skits. The next best thing to Terry Zwigoff's infamous documentary.

Chris Ekman is a political cartoonist.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution 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.