PICK OF THE MONTH

FINDER VOL. 4: TALISMAN (MAR02 2310, pg. 308, $13.95), by Carla Speed McNeil, from Lightspeed Press

I always hate having to say that FINDER is a science fiction book, because the term has been so debased. It is set in the future, yes, but the scale is not cosmic and there is no whiz-bang gadget-fetishism. Carla Speed McNeil has a powerful imagination, but it would mean nothing if it were not in the service of such a profound insight into people we all recognise.

TALISMAN perfectly evokes what it's like to get lost in a story, and what it's like to lose a story. It's in trying to recapture a lost story that young Marcie Grosvenor teaches herself how to write. That's the plot, but the story, of course, goes deeper. (Some of it relates to the first three volumes, but you'll have no trouble understanding it without having read them.)

It has been a pleasure to track the progress of McNeil's art through FINDER, and by this point it is perfectly assured. At a guess, it's strongly influenced by the Hernandez brothers, with some of Jaime's refinement on its surface and some of Gilbert's madness at its heart. And the storytelling is no less assured - rich in symbols, wildly inventive, perfectly modulated, FINDER is immersive in a way too few comics are.

And here's the beauty part: you don't have to take my lamentably inadequate word for it. You can go read the first third of TALISMAN for free at McNeil's website.

PICK OF SIX MONTHS AGO

ABE VOLUME 1: WRONG FOR THE RIGHT REASONS (MAR02 2441, STAR14840, pg. 328, $14.95), by Glenn Dakin, from Top Shelf Productions

If I'd been making Picks of the Month at the time, and if I'd known the work of Glenn Dakin, I'd have been shouting about this in September. Better late than never. This was indisputably one of the best books of 2001, to my mind rivalled only by the books of Eddie Campbell, who's been a comrade of Dakin's since the nascence of the British small press movement in the '80s, and who wrote the introduction for ABE.

Abraham Rat is Dakin's alter ego, or one of them, anyway. In the early stories he is also secretly a superhero, Captain Oblivion, but he so opposes quick fixes that he rarely does anything. The superhero angle fades out early on, but not because Dakin is embarrassed by it - he's too unpretentious for that. No, the real reason can perhaps be found at the end of the book, when Abe says, "I don't like romantic adventure stories... they have a beginning, a middle and an end... I like it to be all beginning."

Many of the pieces in the book are all beginning; rather than stories, they are, as Campbell says, "visual poetry, with the pictures distilled to deft strokes, playing the role of calligraphy." They feel as spontaneous as Abe wishes life could be, as spontaneous as he struggles to remain while all around him his friends succumb to routine and compromise in their maturity. I'd call ABE one of the world's few Transcendentalist comics, if Abe himself hadn't cautioned "transcend - but for God's sake don't use the word 'transcend'."

And the irresponsible bastard's right, as usual. There's no sense mystifying a comic this whimsical, funny, and useful. ABE is a tonic.

DARK HORSE COMICS

I hadn't been paying attention to Dark Horse's new Eurocomics imprint, Venture, because it seemed mostly to be mainstream genre work, rendered more slickly than our homegrown mainstream genre work but no better plotted. But now they're reprinting the THE TOWERS OF BOIS-MAURY (VOL. 1: BABETTE, MAR02 0057, pg. 38, $14.95; VOL. 2: ELOISE DE MONTGRI, MAR02 0058, pg. 38, $14.95), which is considered the masterpiece of celebrated artist Hermann Huppen.

Set in feudal France, TOWERS is the story of knight Sir Aymar, dispossessed and less arrogant than most of his fellows - certainly less arrogant than Sir Geoffroy, the knight that Aymar, in his travels, discovers raping a peasant girl and kills. The murder is blamed on the girl's illicit lover, and the seeds of tragedy are sown...

Moebius calls Huppen, "one of the finest and most daring artists in European comics," and you won't catch me arguing with Moebius. His art reminds me of Frank Quitely's, actually, only without the bee-sting puffiness. There's nothing stilted in it, as is the danger with historical comics - it draws the reader into the period effortlessly. I hope Dark Horse will be publishing all ten volumes, because this is top-rank work.

Also this month: In Mike "HELLBOY" Mignola's THE AMAZING SCREW-ON HEAD (MAR02 0030, pg. 34, $2.99), the eponymous hero teams up with Mr. Groin to thwart the nefarious Emperor Zombie. Mr Mignola has apparently broken into the secret Dark Horse stores of nitrous oxide and Kickapoo Joy Juice. (This is an endorsement.)

MURDER MYSTERIES (MAR02 0029, pg. 33, $13.95), a "passion play" by Neil Gaiman, is, like his HARLEQUIN VALENTINE, a small and expensive but attractive hardcover. This reunites Neil with one of his most propitious collaborators, P Craig Russell.

DC COMICS

First off, I'd like to apologise for even having mentioned S.C.I.-SPY back in February. My reasoning was that, coming from Vertigo, it couldn't possibly be as whisper-thin as it sounded. More fool, I. As it did for fellow columnist Paul O'Brien, this book shook my faith in the imprint.

My faith is somewhat restored by the article on Vertigo's future line-up. I could likely do without "X-Files meets James Bond", or vampires of any kind, but the new projects by Paul Pope, Brian Wood, and Grant Morrison and Chris Weston should, if nothing else, restore some much-needed vigour and panache to the imprint. Also heartening is the commitment to original graphic novels.

As for the present line-up... Peter Milligan's original HUMAN TARGET (MAR02 0435, pg. 88, $12.95) was very fine, but HUMAN TARGET: FINAL CUT (MAR02 0436, pg. 88, $29.95) sounds like it might just be more of the same, what with the 'fragility of the ego' theme and all, only this time without benefit of the flawlessly composed art of the late and lamented Edvin Biukovic. I'll wait for the softcover.

Bill Willingham's FABLES (MAR02 0432, pg. 87, $2.50), is one of those fractured-fairy-tales deals that will "hearken back to the dark roots of our folklore". I doubt any publisher this side of Boneyard could do justice to the original Brothers Grimm, though. And though THE NAMES OF MAGIC (MAR02 0440, pg. 89, $14.95) has a good reputation, and I'm fond of writer Dylan Horrocks (HICKSVILLE), I have an aversion to SANDMAN-spin-offs. I am chuffed for MIDNIGHT, MASS. #2 (MAR02 0439, pg. 88, $2.50), though.

Vertigo certainly has a far better line-up this month than the DCU, for which the projects touted are the trainspotter's delight DC FIRSTS; AZRAEL, by far the worst-selling Bat-book; one of Stan Lee's increasingly senile re-imaginings; and "Green Lantern Month." Lame.

Warren Ellis' run on THE AUTHORITY gets the deluxe treatment in THE ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY VOL. 1 (MAR02 0415, pg. 85, $49.95), an oversized slipcase hardcover with some bonus material. It's a good time to reassess the book. It was hardly revolutionary, as Ellis is the first to admit, but it did make two important changes to the superhero formula.

First, it subtracted soap opera to make room for spectacle, and in so doing pointed up just how dull and staid its rivals had become. And second, it dropped superheroes into the 'real world' to show how they'd inevitably remake it, as the mid-'80s vanguard of WATCHMEN, DARK KNIGHT and SQUADRON SUPREME did - but unlike those books, it showed no qualms.

The Authority were monstrously powerful and proud of it. The result was a viscerally exciting book that in no time half the superhero writers were copying or homaging, and the other half were spoofing or savaging. Now the series is suffering a slow death by a thousand editorial cuts, and the rumours are that it's because of all the property damage, or the homosexual relationship between two of the principals. But one wonders whether it didn't offend DCU editorial simply by being too much fun.

IMAGE COMICS

See how the meticulous Eric Shanower crafts his complete history of the Trojan War in AGE OF BRONZE: BEHIND THE SCENES (MAR02 1346, pg. 110, $3.50).

SPAWN: BOOK OF THE DEAD is the definitive history of the Spawn 'mythos'. "Abandon hope all ye who purchase this volume", says the solicitation copy, up to its old trick of stealing the words from my mouth.

MARVEL COMICS

Marvel rolls out the Spider-movie juggernaut. The hell of it is, they're doing most everything right for once. Bastards. Notable misstep: SPIDER-MAN: QUALITY OF LIFE #1, with wholly computer-generated 3-D art. Did we learn nothing from BATMAN: DIGITAL JUSTICE?

WIZARD/BLACK BULL ENTERTAINMENT

Black Bull's latest groundbreaking concept is BEAUTIFUL KILLER, being previewed this month, which is about a sexy assassin. Certainly we've not seen that a million times before and twice since Tuesday. Extra stupid points to the copywriter for misspelling 'assassin'. And by the way, doesn't the premise of MISSIONARY MAN, the latest 2000AD strip reprint from Titan, sound awfully close to Garth Ennis' JUST A PILGRIM?

ALTERNATIVE COMICS

RUBBER NECKER (#1, MAR02 1923, pg. 219, $3.50) is a new series from Nick Bertozzi. I hesitate to say this about an up-and-comer, but Bertozzi's work annoys me, and has ever since the last SPX (in 2000). He'd previously been best known for his mediocre sooperdooper parody THE INCREDIBLE DRINKIN' BUDDIES, but he managed to bag an Ignatz Award for Best Promising New Talent on the strength of the Xeric-powered BOSWASH, a comic about a mapmaker that was folded like a map. Voters must have been so impressed by the format gimmick that they didn't notice how the story barely began to exist. Presumably Stephen Notley would've won if he'd done a BOB THE ANGRY FLOWER strip as origami.

With that, Bertozzi got bit by a radioactive David Mamet and became really, really pretentious. For evidence, see THE MASOCHISTS (MAR02 1924, pg. 220, $14.95), also from Alternative Press, or from New Suit the anthology NEW THING: IDENTITY (MAR02 2344, STAR14880, pg. 311, $9.95), which has one of Bertozzi's short stories on the pursuit of art, this one called "The Loneliest Supermodel" and sporting the sort of tricksy anti-narrative that used to be all the rage in French art films. Bertozzi strains for Significance, but these stories are no more satisfying than BOSWASH. They're precisely what people who hate alternative comics think alternative comics are like.

RUBBER NECKER leans more toward comedy, so it's possible Bertozzi's gotten over himself. I hope so, because he's clearly talented, his craft is visibly improving, and though I think his line is graceless, his composition and storytelling ideas are strong. And I am distinctly in the critical minority on his recent work (see this iComics review for an example), so take my appraisal with a grain of salt.

AVATAR PRESS

ATMOSPHERICS (MAR02 1989, pg. 233, $5.95) is an old Warren Ellis story from the mid-'90s era of paranoia chic, collected for the first time. The first several pages of script are available from Ellis's site. Consumer note #1: This is a painted comic, and while Ken Meyer's cover looks nice, I have no idea how he is at sequential art. Consumer note #2: The story itself is only 30 pages long, so the other 18 pages must all be supplemental material.

Also from Ellis: the first six pages of a book that won't be out for half a year. This'll test the "Ellis zombie" theory, if nothing else. SCARS SAMPLER (MAR02 1991, pg. 234, $.75) is drawn by Jacen Burrows and includes a 4-page essay by Ellis.

BONEYARD PRESS

Hart Fisher, "most dangerous man in comics" and guiding genius of Boneyard Press, has, after a two-year hiatus, come back to restore colour to our lives. This would be the same Hart Fisher who faked his own death in 1998 in order to promote his book of poetry.

Most of Fisher's output is horrid, and the rest is worse, but even though I would never be seen in public with one of his books, I'm glad he's around. Why? Well, reading Previews every month, especially the Top Cow, Chaos! and Sirius sections, it sometimes seems like comics has been overrun by lapsed Catholic boys with issues. For instance, last month, Sirius debuted some wanker who bills himself as "New York's Satanic Porno Punk Art Superstar". As if there were any safer ticket to notoriety than anti-Catholic blasphemy in the New York art scene. But the self-regard is typical.

Most of these guys pale next to Fisher. He genuinely goes too far, and he does it over and over again. There's something perversely admirable about that. So welcome back, Hart, and thanks for bringing the ZOMBIE COMMANDOS FROM HELL. Comics was a duller place without you.

BRIES

Offered again: Philip Paquet's light-as-smoke adapation of the autobiography of jazz legend LOUIS ARMSTRONG (MAR02 2033, STAR14756, pg. 247, $12.95), and artist Anke Feuchtenberger & poet Katrin de Vries's strange feminist parable W THE WHORE (MAR02 2032, STAR14756, pg. 247, $12.95).

DARKCHYLDE ENERTAINMENT

Darkchylde must be targeting very dim speculators by billing the last issue of DARKCHYLDE in a double-page ad as the LAST ISSUE SPECIAL #1.

DEATH RAY GRAPHICS

DEEP FRIED VALUE MEAL (MAR02 2128, pg. 271, $8.00) collects issues #1-4 of Jason Yungbluth's truly tasteless satirical book. Yungbluth's a good meat-and-potatoes humour cartoonist (he can do adventure too, as evidenced by his clever-but-overlong feature Weapon Brown, which crossbreeds Peanuts and Mad Max), and overall his stuff reminds me of Terry LaBan's old anthology CUD.

The only problem is that, like CUD, it's trying too hard to find an intact taboo to break. (Hence one of Yungbluth's other features, Clarissa the world's most loveable incest victim, which is the reason I'd initially avoided the book - it sounded only one step removed from Chester the Molester.) LaBan is now stuck in the suburban wasteland of newspaper strips. There may be something cautionary in that. His website is at whatisdeepfried.com.

DRAWN AND QUARTERLY

BERLIN # 9 (MAR02 2134, pg. 275, $3.50) by Jason Lutes "begins serializing Book Two of this epic story set in the twilight years of Germany's Weimar Republic." Resolicited from October, which should indicate to you why in this case it won't pay to wait for the trades. One of the Best Comics You're Not Reading.

HAMILTON SKETCHBOOK (MAR02 2137, pg. 275, $14.95) is an illustrated journal by David Collier. Collier's interests are pleasingly eclectic, and while he's nowhere as strong a draughtsman a R Crumb, the cartoonist he's patterned his style on, he does have a comparable observational eye.

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

20TH CENTURY EIGHTBALL (MAR02 2213, pg. 290, $18.95) collects the best short pieces from Dan Clowes' much-acclaimed EIGHTBALL. Be the first on your block to proclaim that you liked his earlier, funnier stuff better. And it's very funny indeed: "Art School Confidential" (soon to be a motion picture, believe it or not) is worth the price all by itself. Consumer note: This book supplants the two earlier, unabridged collections LOUT RAMPAGE and ORGY BOUND, which are now permanently out of print at Clowes' request and near impossible to find.

GREETINGS FROM HELLVILLE (MAR02 2218, pg. 292, $13.95) is Swiss cartoonist Thomas Ott's solo American debut, and it's about damn time. Ott's story "The Millionairs" [sic] from the 2001 SPX anthology, rendered in his signature scratchboard style, is the best noir cartooning I've seen this side of THE SPIRIT. Beautiful and pitiless.

Also pitiless, though comic rather than tragic, is Swedish cartoonist Max Andersson's DEATH & CANDY #3 (MAR02 2214, pg. 292, $4.95). It has a couple of continued stories in it, so it might not be the best introduction to his work, but you could always catch up with the DEATH & CANDY #1-2 & ZERO ZERO #12 SET (MAR02 2217, pg. 292, $11.95). Features carnivorous meat trees, Marshall Tito in an old refrigerator, and the murder of Santa.

THE COMICS JOURNAL #244 (MAR02 2212, pg. 290, $5.95) features Jill Thompson, creator of the effervescent SCARY GODMOTHER.

THE COMICS JOURNAL has long been famous for its definitive interviews and in-depth essays; THE COMICS JOURNAL LIBRARY series is designed to rescue some of that material from the back-issue bins, starting with VOL. 1: JACK KIRBY (MAR02 2210, pg. 290, $18.95). It's an ace idea, and I hope it's successful. There should be quite a bit on creators' rights in this, since the JOURNAL's biggest advocacy journalism campaign was on Kirby's behalf. (Marvel was holding Kirby's original artwork hostage until he legally disavowed his role in the creation of the Marvel Universe.)

I don't have space this month to explain the work of influential underground veteran Kim Deitch. I'll just note that Deitch is next in line to get the deluxe Pantheon bookstore-market treatment, the sort that made phenomena out of DAVID BORING and JIMMY CORRIGAN. THE STUFF OF DREAMS (MAR02 2219, pg. 292, $3.95) features more fun with Waldo the Cat, everybody's favourite animated cartoon star/alcohol-induced demon imp. Says the solicitation, "lots of sex, exploitation, violence and a few other surprises along the way including a big cash offer!" Consumer note: At Fantagraphics, "big cash" could mean "the change we scrounged from between the sofa cushions."

NBM BOOKS

Comics' least likely literary adaptation continues apace with Stephane Heuet's REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, VOL. 2. (hardcover, MAR02 2326, pg. pg. 311, $16.95). In this chapter: class warfare. Yay, class warfare! See also VOL. 1 (softcover, MAR02 2327, STAR13826, pg. 311, $13.95). Consumer note: Not a valid substitute for actually reading Proust. Click here for a preview.

NEW ENGLAND COMICS

Steven Grant issued an imperative last week: "NO MORE SUPERHERO PARODIES". Wise words. My corollary: absolutely no parodies of superhero parodies, particularly if they originated on the web. There's no such animal, you say? Oh yes there is - it's TICK & ARTIE #1, "by Anonymous" - always a stamp of quality. Can we please get this poor wounded franchise a bullet?

ONI PRESS

Oni debuts a couple of thriller series this month, but I have to admit that I don't read Oni's thrillers, except QUEEN & COUNTRY - which is going monthly with issue #8 (MAR02 2352, pg. 314, $2.95), by the way. Among the comedies are a new collection of Judd Winick's popular ADVENTURES OF BARRY WEEN, BOY GENIUS (VOL. 4: GORILLA WARFARE, MAR02 2348, pg. 312, $8.95) and the finale of Brian Wood's POUNDED (#3, MAR02 2351, pg. 314, $2.95).

SHUCK COMICS

Shuck presents SHUCK #1: HALLOWED SEASONINGS (MAR02 2390, pg. 320, $2.95), by newcomers Rick Smith & Tania Menesse. The premise: Shuck is a pagan horned god who retires from his job in hell to a quiet life in the suburbs, where he befriends a little girl named Thursday Friday. Sounds reminiscent of SCARY GODMOTHER, but instead of being bubbly it's quiet and wistful. It could almost pass for a Drawn & Quarterly book.

"Charming" is the word all the reviewers have thus far have seized on, and after seeing the sample pages at the website I can only echo them. My only cavil: the characters speak in a dialect that's part phonetic (like KRAZY KAT) and part punning (like POGO). I understand that Smith wants to set his world apart, but I think he could get the same effect with less, as Larry Marder did in TALES FROM THE BEANWORLD.

Because we are attuned to The Future, Ninth Art ran an interview with Rick Smith in August of last year, to do with his earlier web comics. At what point in the road does tomorrow become yesterday? At Ninth Art, we'll never find out.

SIRIUS ENTERTAINMENT

AKIKO: FLIGHTS OF FANCY VOL. 1 (MAR02 2392, pg. 320, $14.95) collects the short subjects and errata from Mark Crilley's fine kids' adventure series.

TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS

Top Shelf presents a new book by Scott Mills, TRENCHES, about two brothers in World War I. I have to admit that Mills' last book, BIG CLAY POT, was way too minimalist for my taste. (It's 144 pages, but it's a 10-minute read.) The setup - weary old mentor is saddled with a clumsy-but-spunky apprentice - was cute, but kind of generic. The setting in ancient Japan might have helped distinguish it, but I don't think the research Mills did much manifested in the story, especially since the dialogue was in a casual modern vernacular. I'm distinctly in the critical minority on this, too, though.

BOOKS: SUPERHEROES

ANARCHY FOR THE MASSES (MAR02 2689, pg. 364, $19.95) is an exhaustive-looking reader's guide to Grant Morrison's THE INVISIBLES, and brother, you're going to need it. There's hardly a bit of countercultural arcana that Morrison doesn't namecheck. Unauthorised, but Grant and most of his collaborators contribute to it.

Chris Ekman is a political cartoonist.

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