It's the longest-ever issue of Previews - again. I assure you, though, hidden under a mortifying Todd McFarlane toy cover and buried in mounds of corporate product set to debut in San Diego are a remarkable number of gems, mostly single issues coming from self-publishers and the small press. So let's to it, starting with the...

PICK OF THE MONTH

BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS (MAY02 2513, pg. 372, $21), by Kim Deitch, from Pantheon

It's taken over 30 years, but Kim Deitch is finally getting his moment in the spotlight. He was part of the original '60s underground, but he never did get as much attention as, say, the ZAP crew - perhaps because he wasn't as interested in busting taboos. Now, the core of his life's work is being given the Pantheon deluxe hardcover treatment that recently made sensations out of Chris Ware's JIMMY CORRIGAN and Dan Clowes' DAVID BORING.

BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS, written with his brother Simon, is about the animation business. It started with a handful of geniuses (and I don't use the word lightly - see the biography of Ub Iwerks, the man behind Disney, listed right after this book), inventing a new artform from scratch. It ended with the factory system and institutionalised blandness.

Deitch has his Windsor McCay stand-in dream of a movie that would elevate animation to the level of the fine arts, in which "when we become mere ashes and dust, mere mortality will have been vanquished by art triumphant!" It's a stirring vision. He's in a sanatorium when he limns it to poor, broken Ted Mishkin.

Mishkin, the book's main character, is the creator of the popular character Waldo the Cat. Or so the world thinks. In fact, Waldo is real. He's some sort of demon or imp, he's been Mishkin's constant companion since childhood, and only Mishkin can see him. This is the conceit of the book, and it's a brilliant stroke.

Deitch's art is, admittedly, an acquired taste. What makes it work is his total immersion in the period. Fleisher and Terrytoons phantasmagoria.

There ought to be information on the book up sometime soon at Pantheon's graphic novel website.

DARK HORSE COMICS

You wanted the best, but what you're getting instead is a new KISS miniseries, written by Joe Casey, who is billed as "the most rockin' of young comics writers". Maybe it's just because I largely missed the '70s, but I don't understand how anybody human could feel nostalgia for that decade. DAZED AND CONFUSED is, to me, a horror film.

What interests me about KISS is the way their fans abominate bubblegum pop. It's the disco backlash that made them stars, and it must be the boyband/girlband backlash that's brought them back again. In fact, Casey, that most rockin' of young comics writers, just got done with a grouchy and overbroad lampoon of Britney Spears in his mediocre UNCANNY X-MEN run. His bill against pop is that it's contrived, cynically manufactured, insincere, and more about spectacle than music. Millions of young men believe the same. And so they turn to KISS. Is it wrong that this amuses me?

Also this month: The most recent HELLBOY book, CONQUERER WORM, was the retirement party for many of the series' staples: Nazis, Rasputin, elder gods, etc. And not a moment too soon, to be honest. In HELLBOY: THE THIRD WISH #1 (of 2, MAY02 0020, pg. 33, $2.99), creator Mike Mignola goes back to his first love, folklore.

DC COMICS

It now seems to be DC policy to do feature articles on fully half their line. Most of it we'll disregard.

The big news is in Alan Moore's ABC imprint, as he and Kevin O'Neill debut a new LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN miniseries (VOL. II, #1 of 6, MAY02 0256, pg. 93, $3.50). Moore clearly has a blast appropriating the heroes of Victorian pulp fiction.

Also from ABC, there's a new PROMETHEA hardcover (VOL. 3, etc), but it's been shunted into a little box towards the end of the section. I think I know why: to forestall the howls of outrage from readers like me, who have been waiting nearly a year for the second softcover, which has not yet been announced.

Meanwhile, at Vertigo, there's a second collection of Grant Morrison's ANIMAL MAN, called ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES (MAY02 0262, pg. 94, $19.95). Finally DC is capitalising on its voluminous backlist from one of the hottest writers in comics.

Brian Vaughn's Y - THE LAST MAN is one of those Vertigo high-concept books (all men on earth die suddenly, except one) that is near impossible to prejudge. There's an extensive feature on it at Newsarama.

Among Wildstorm's new mature-readers superhero titles is a revivified STORMWATCH, done military style. Apparently they're trying to make people forget Warren Ellis' STORMWATCH and AUTHORITY, and the turmoil associated therewith. It might have worked, if they hadn't botched the second AUTHORITY hardcover - they'd promised to print Mark Millar's butchered run in one book, but now won't. Bad form.

If you must buy a pricey oversized deluxe hardcover, you ought to get the MAD ARCHIVES VOL. 1 (MAY02 0279, pg. 97, $49.95) instead. I have the old Russ Cochran hardcover set, and so far as I'm concerned this is the only way to savour the genius of Harvey Kurtzman and his legendary stable of artists. Any other format - especially those dopey little paperbacks they're reprinting for the bookstore market - is like trying to watch a Buster Keaton movie on a 6-inch TV.

IMAGE COMICS

What's new at Image? Better you shouldn't ask.

This month's big nostalgia revival is of the dippy '70s anime show BATTLE OF THE PLANETS. We have Alex Ross to thank for this, and he helps buff the turd by providing covers, plots and layouts. What's next, HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE? It probably is, at that. Forget I said anything.

LIBERTY MEADOWS, before it switched to comic book format, was heralded as the Last Best Hope of newspaper strips. Which just goes to show the dismal state of newspaper strips. Frank Cho is a skilled illustrator and he's pretty good at slapstick, but even many of his admirers concede that he can't write. He steals even more schtick from BLOOM COUNTY than Berke Breathed did from DOONESBURY, and when he isn't doing that he usually falls back on badly played-out pop culture references.

Worse, he's a frat boy at heart, and never more so when he indulges in sentimentality, which is more often than you'd think. Reading about nerdboy Frank's less-unrequited-than-he-thinks love for knockout Brandy is as emetic as listening to the lead of Hootie and the Blowfish warble about how the dolphins make him cry. I had better stop myself here, before I get wound up...

PRO is the story of a superpowered prostitute. Is this something for which readers had been clamouring? They're clamouring for it now, in any event. This is Garth Ennis in sniggering schoolboy mode, and, like most of the stuff he's written since the end of PREACHER, one suspects it exercised very little of his brain. And is it not time for a moratorium on parodies, pastiches and perversions of the Justice League? Oh, well, at least it's blatantly crass, which makes it more honest than much of Marvel's MAX line. And it did send pompous old Jim Steranko into an apoplectic rage before it was even written.

SUPERPATRIOT: AMERICA'S FIGHTING FORCE #1 resurrects a jingoistic character from the early, moronic days of Image. Basically a cyborg Captain America, except even Captain America doesn't fight Nazis anymore. Promises "pulse pounding patriotic pandemonium just in time for INDEPENDENCE DAY!" Books like this help me understand why Gore Vidal lives in Italy.

Side note: in SPAWN #124, the book's namesake learns that "some ghosts are best left buried". How does one bury a ghost to begin with?

ABSENCE OF INK COMIC PRESS

New issue of Xeric winner Farel Dalrymple's dreamlike POP GUN WAR (#4, MAY02 1729, pg. 212, $2.50). I can't claim to understand it, but I certainly do enjoy it. Details at www.absenceofink.com.

AIT/PLANETLAR

Steven Grant's Kennedy-assassination thriller BADLANDS (MAY02 1757, pg. 218, $12.95) gets a second life thanks to Larry Young. The few people who read it when it was first printed esteem it highly; now we find out whether it lives up to its reputation.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS

The gimmick of TRIPLE DARE (#2, MAY02 1769, pg. 218, $2.95) is simple: three cartoonists do variations on a theme to which you, the reader, are not privy. The first one (#1, MAY02 1761, pg. 218, $2.95) featured the brilliant Tom Hart (HUTCH OWEN), cloying 'superstar' James Kochalka, and the too-little-known Jon Lewis (TRUE SWAMP), and got excellent reviews. Issue two drops Lewis and adds Nick Bertozzi, whose work leaves me utterly cold. Despite that, I'll have to have a look at this, since Alternative Comics is taking particular pride in it.

AMAZE INK (SLAVE LABOR GRAPHICS)

SLOW NEWS DAY (MAY02 1770, pg. 222, $16.95) is the collection of one of Andi Watson's romances. My calling it a romance probably conjures up visions of those trashy novels with Fabio on the cover. But Watson doesn't write bodice rippers. The sin with which he's concerned is not lust, but pride; only once it's been ground out of them do his characters learn to get on.

In SLOW NEWS DAY this leads to some sharp dialogue, as Kate, a young American hack-on-the-make, butts heads with Toby, her jaded boss at the small, provincial English newspaper at which she is marooned. It's a bit like HIS GIRL FRIDAY without the frenzy, which to my taste is a great improvement.

As always, Watson's drawing is the last word in minimalist elegance. You can see a preview of SLOW NEWS DAY at www.andiwatson.com, or read a full Watson short story called SUNBLOCK at at www.artbomb.net.

CHAOS! COMICS

Marvel, this month, is re-launching three of its X-books with new titles. One of these is the hit X-FORCE, which is being re-christened (gag) X-STATIX. Is it a coincidence, I wonder, that this month Chaos! is launching a series based on surly industrial stars STATIC-X? I hope it's deliberate. The two books should do a crossover. Or rather, an X-over.

The actual comic, which at least looks incalculably less embarrassing than KISS #1, is about a "techno-doom-laden future" in which "corporations and commercialism have been abolished," but "workers lead insignificant lives as slaves to The State". Is the Ayn Rand Institute underwriting this?

CLIB'S BOY COMICS

Tom Beland continues to recount how he courted his wife in TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD #3: MOMENTS (MAY02 1922, pg. 254, $2.95). This is a book of modest but rare virtues: honest sentiment, a graceful line, guilelessness. Reading this is as refreshing as hearing a Tommy Dorsey song come on the radio.

Bargain hunters take note: this issue turned out longer than Beland planned, but because he's a mensch he didn't hike the price, so you get about 44 pages for about 3 bucks. There's a substantial preview at Comic Book Resources.

DRAWN AND QUARTERLY

Adrian Tomine is an impeccable cartoonist whose work does nothing but irk me, these days. My problem with SUMMER BLONDE (hardcover: MAY02 1982, pg. 270, $24.95), the collection of OPTIC NERVE #5-8, is that all Tomine's protagonists are so painfully shy that even Garrison Keillor would order them to get out more.

Issue #5 was very promising. It starred an introverted young writer suffering a block after the runaway success of his first novel. He becomes obsessed with an old high school crush: "It was during those years that Martin began writing stories, mainly as a distraction from loneliness. Now he wondered what course his life might've taken if things had gone differently with Samantha... if he'd even be a writer at all." Tomine played cleverly off his own wunderkind public image, and it suggested the sort of heightened self-awareness that precedes an artistic leap forward.

But instead we got two stories about shut-ins in #6 and #7, and then the drift towards cliché culminated in #8, the "early '90s period piece". This starred Scotty, a buttoned-down high schooler whose best - or rather, only - friend is a slightly effeminate, slightly goth chap who works too hard at being interesting.

Fate throws him together with the school party girl. Does he betray his friend in order to pass for normal and thereby earn a shot at the girl? What a stupid question! And unlike Samantha in #5, she accepts. Which means that, unlike Martin, Scotty doesn't become lonely, doesn't become interesting, and presumably doesn't become a writer. The last story in the book is the utter negation of the first. I have the uneasy feeling that this was supposed to be a happy ending.

Also, Tomine has got to get out of the shadow of Dan Clowes. He's by now stuck with his Clowesian drawing style, and that by itself is no handicap. But his pacing, his jump-cuts, even his minor touches like the greeting card in #7, all recall Clowes far too closely.

As I said, Tomine is an impeccable cartoonist, head and shoulders above 90% of the pack. But until he can overcome his influences and until he can conceive of a main character who's at least a little robust, I'm going to have to give him a miss.

There are previews at at www.drawnandquarterly.com.

EDDIE CAMPBELL COMICS

The problem with BACCHUS MAGAZINE was that it had too little of Campbell in it. There will be no such problem, as you might guess from the title, with Campbell's replacement magazine, EGOMANIA (#1, MAY02 2065, pg. 292, $4.95). Most important in this is the start of a new ALEC strip, detailing "The History of Humour" - a project that Campbell himself suggested back in HOW TO BE AN ARTIST was probably impossible.

As a scholar, Campbell is an amateur, not in the modern, pejorative sense, but in the original, best sense - a wide-ranging enthusiast, not hobbled by an institution or by specialisation. Only someone with that temperament could write such a history, and I can't wait to see what he comes up with. More info at at www.eddiecampbellcomics.com.

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

SSHHHH! (MAY02 2073, pg. 294, $14.95) is a new graphic novella by Norwegian cartoonist Jason, whose American debut HEY, WAIT was one of the surprise hits of last year. HEY, WAIT was slim and spare, yet, as Dylan Horrocks said, utterly heartbreaking; and people who know Jason's work say SSHHHH! is even better.

Chris Ware's QUIMBY THE MOUSE collection (hardcover: MAY02 2076, pg. 294, $24.95; softcover: MAY02 2075, pg. 294, $14.95) is resolicited. This is, of course, essential, and I stand by everything I said of it back in September.

Richard Sala has a weakness for girl adventurers, like his Nancy Drew-knockoff Judy Drood, and like PECULIA (MAY02 2074, pg. 294, $12.95). No deeper meaning here, folks - just one zestful little breastful vs. all the things what go bump in the night. If you can imagine an Edward Gorey book with sex appeal, this would be it.

I'm chagrined to admit that Dave Cooper is one of the few critical darlings whose work I've not yet investigated - the Crumb-ish treatment of women has been putting me off. For what it's worth, WEASEL #5 (MAY02 2077, pg. 294, $4.95) wraps up the 'Ripple' storyline.

FOOD CHAIN PRODUCTIONS

It's a minor miracle that Diamond even carries WALKIE TALKIE (#4, MAY02 2122, pg. 297, $2.95). Usually it won't touch anything remotely zine-like. I'm glad to report that issue #3, the first part of 'Satellite Worlds,' surpassed my expectations. I can't begin to do justice to Powell's comics just now, but imagine Dave Choe with some discipline and you're partway there. Issue four concludes the story.

FUNK-O-TRON

Funk-O-Tron offers REX MANTOOTH MENAGE A TOOTH 3 PACK (MAY02 2126, pg. 298, $7.95), which is a bundle of the three DOUBLE TAKE issues in which Matt Fraction's kung-fu gorilla appeared. This is a very goofy strip - the "Mature Readers" tag couldn't be less apt - and a very funny one, but you may want to wait for the trade, coming from AIT/PLANETLAR later this year, which, Fraction revealed in a recent Poplife column, will be expanded in mysterious ways.

HEAVY METAL MAGAZINE

Kevin Eastman, who has more money than sense and more sense than taste, turns Heavy Metal into his own personal vanity press with the KEVIN EASTMAN TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ARTOBIOGRAPHY. This does not exactly rise to the challenge of the newly-revived METAL HURLANT, gang.

HIPPY COMIX

I have no idea what to make of this. FINK #1 (MAY02 2150, pg. 308, $5.95) is by popular Israeli satirical cartoonist Uri Fink, and consists of "explosively hilarious tales from the Middle East - the world's wackiest region", including a group of religious fanatic superheroes called 'The Fundementalists' [sic], and a Judge Dredd-ish sounding character called 'Rabbi Ben Death'. Is he lampooning Zionism or just wallowing in sick humour? I wish I knew...

INSIGHT STUDIOS GROUP

One of the comics I most miss is TUG & BUSTER, a hilarious dissection of manliness. Tug, a greaser hunk, was strong and silent to the point of dumbness; Buster, a libidinous first grader, devoted every waking hour to idolising and emulating him. I'm jazzed that the characters reappear in their creator's new solo book, MARC HEMPEL'S NAKED BRAIN #1 (of 3, MAY02 2160, pg. 312, $2.95).

Not only does Hempel have a brain worth ogling, but he's a master cartoonist- you may remember his pared-down, expertly-composed work from SANDMAN: THE KINDLY ONES. Snap this up. You can read some of these strips at Insight's 'Sunny Fundays' site.

LIGHTSPEED PRESS

A new issue of Carla Speed McNeil's frighteningly good FINDER (#27, MAY02 2186, pg. 318, $2.95) continues the Magri White storyline, the first issue of which is available at McNeil's website.

NBM

NBM is working hard to sell Lewis Trondheim to America. I hope it knows what it's doing, since Fantagraphics lost a bundle doing the same thing, but since I adore Trondheim I wouldn't dare argue. DUNGEON (#1, MAY02 2200, pg. 322, $2.95) is, judging from the many sample pages on NBM's website, something like what you'd get if the early, funny Woody Allen had made LORD OF THE RINGS.

Actually, this may be more epic than even LORD OF THE RINGS - the 10 or so albums that have been published so far in France have introduced three separate strands of the larger story, which are to converge in the hundreds - yes, hundreds - of albums that are to follow. Are Trondheim and Joann Sfar, his collaborator, trying to make Dave Sim look like a piker? Again, I'm not arguing, and I'm grateful to NBM for taking on something so mammoth.

ONI PRESS

The ONI PRESS COLOR SPECIAL 2002 (MAY02 2219, pg. 323, $5.95) previews a clutch of upcoming books, including Warren Ellis's THE OPERATION. These specials are a great way to sample Oni's line, old and new, and it's a line well worth sampling. It's remarkable how little time it's taken Oni to become one of the most entertaining and likeable publishers in comics. More info, as ever, at at www.onipress.com.

SHUCK COMICS

SHUCK #2: IN PURGATORY (MAY02 2273, pg. 334, $2.95) finds the goat-headed pagan god brought out of retirement for a bit, as he is charged with rounding up some souls escaped from Purgatory. Having read #1, I can join the chorus and affirm that this is a bittersweet charmer of a book. Imagine Seth (IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN) doing SCARY GODMOTHER and you'll have some idea, but you'd be better off reading the extensive previews at at www.sulfurstar.com.

TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS

Top Shelf leads off with Josh Simmons' HAPPY #2: ELEPHANT, BUNNY & CHICKEN (MAY02 2326, pg. 343, $3.50). In HAPPY #1, Simmons satirised CARE BEARS-style cuteness, the conformity of high school, and the idea of "the power of love".

Like fellow Top Shelfer Pete Sickman-Garner (HEY, MISTER) he's an enemy of all things bright and beautiful. The difference is that Sickman-Garner torments his anti-heroes with glimmers of hope, while Simmons doesn't bother. In HAPPY, the outcasts and nasties are vanquished by sweetness and light the second they show up. I think Sickman-Garner's approach is superior because it generates stories, whereas Simmons' approach leaves him no room to do anything but belabour his point.

It almost works anyway, but for the art. What's called for, to balance the indignation of the writing, is deadpan drawing. Simmons was on the right track with the HAPPY #1 cover, which was almost superflat (for an example of the superflat style, see Junko Mizuno's CINDERALLA over in the Viz section). But he didn't quite have the restraint to pull it off. Reading it, I kept wondering what Paul Mavrides or Al Columbia might have accomplished, given the same material.

Despite this, Simmons is a promising talent, and he'll be well worth reading when he starts picking less obvious targets. (I doubt it will prove necessary, for example, to have devoted 17 pages of issue #2 to a parody of autobio comics, the vogue for which peaked almost a decade ago.)

Also this month: a new collection of Keith Knight's alt-weekly strip THE K CHRONICLES, called WHAT A LONG STRANGE STRIP IT'S BEEN (MAY02 2327, pg. 343, $12.95). Like Tom Beland's TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD, which it is often compared to, it's a somewhat slight strip, mostly observational and semi-autobiographical, but a funny one. Knight doodles with great exuberance, and seems like he'd be a fun guy to have a beer or six with. Many, many strips can be found on his website, at www.kchronicles.com.

TWO IRISH GUYS PRESS

Everybody who's read PARADIGM #1 says the same thing, and I can only agree: it's the most assured debut in recent memory. Unknowns Matthew Cashel and Jeremy Haun have created a book that plays like a cross between STRANGEHAVEN (not by coincidence does Gary Spencer Millidge contribute a back cover blurb) and one of Brian Michael Bendis' black-and-white crime comics.

And this is only the beginning, they inform us in the editorials, of a multi-layered story that has been tightly plotted dozens of issues in advance. They're in it for the long haul, and in fact have already been working on it for two years. Rarely does one see such audacity joined with such professionalism. You can find extensive previews of PARADIGM at its website.

Chris Ekman is a political cartoonist.

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