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You look like you need cheering up. You must have been reading the online comics press. There's a malaise settling in, particularly among the pundit class. Presumably you've come to me to be talked in off the ledge.

You would have to pick the worst possible month for it, wouldn't you? Frankly, I'd almost rather join you. January is traditionally barren in the direct market, and precious little in the current catalogue fires my blood.

If it's any consolation, the direct market didn't just suddenly become awful. It's always been this awful. If it could be changed, it would have been in the year 2000. But hitting the bottom of a 7-year-long sales plummet didn't change it; the activist movement didn't change it; the extraordinary critical and financial success of arts comics like JIMMY CORRIGAN, DAVID BORING and SAFE AREA GORAZDE outside the comics culture didn't change it; the proven superiority of the bookstore model over the periodical model didn't change it. Still only about 10% of comics stores are enlightened. The rest are just delighted that Marvel got its act together and that MICRONAUTS came back. Fantagraphics has sold over 50,000 copies of GHOST WORLD, many of them due to the 2001 film adaptation; fewer than 10,000 were sold by comics shops. Larry Gonick sold hundreds of thousands of trade paperbacks in bookstores, but his publishers didn't even bother soliciting his latest (excellent) book, THE CARTOON HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE VOL. 3, through Diamond, because his stuff no longer sells in comic shops. Et cetera.

If the direct market seems more awful just now, it's only because of where we are in the growth cycle. Memories of previous gluts have made the major publishers a little more cautious, but nevertheless they're ramping up production.

CrossGen adds new titles monthly, manufacturing 'heroic fantasy' by the yard in order to grab 5% market share and vault from the indy ghetto into the privileged front section of PREVIEWS. Image is just this month unveiling a new superhero line. Dark Horse is rumoured to have a 'mainstream' line in the works, and will do licensed comics based on just about anything, from movies to Playstation games to over-the-hill arena-rockers. DC and Marvel are bulking up their franchises, brewing up ever more crossovers, and commissioning endless revamps in order to make their vast libraries of (other people's) characters more attractive to other media.

I have seen the future. And it's just like the present, only more so. 2003 will be The Year of Status Quo Plus.

This is why it's more important than ever to pre-order. All that mainstream product is going to push economically marginal work off the shelves. If you want comics that express a personal vision, rather than recycling the past, you're going to have to look for them. Fortunately, you can always find some, even in a month like this...

PICK OF THE MONTH (with qualifiers)

CHANNEL ZERO: JENNIE ONE, by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan, from AiT/PlanetLar
NOV02 2287, pg. 210, $9.95

This is a sequel to CHANNEL ZERO, the book that made Brian Wood's reputation. It's a polarising book, which makes it tricky to write about. Wood's publisher and most ardent fans call him a genius because of it, which I think does him no favours. (I'm reminded of Lionel Trilling's famous judgement on Orwell, that he's more inspiring for not being a genius - it means any of us could accomplish what he did, given courage and clear vision.) CHANNEL ZERO is very much a First Major Work, and as such it's inevitably got some flaws.

CHANNEL ZERO is about an America in which the Christian right has taken control of the government and, thanks to a new law called the Clean Act, is sanitising and rigorously censoring the media. The lead character, New Yorker Jennie 2.5, becomes a guerrilla broadcaster to try to rouse to action a populace that is all too eager to trade freedoms for security.

This isn't mere propaganda. Jennie 2.5 cuts a romantic figure, but Wood is too smart to pin his hopes on the lone rebel on the barricades. Serious questions about Jennie's motivations are raised from the very beginning, and even she worries about whether she'll get co-opted, reduced to just another part of the spectacle. Which is precisely what happens. The only problem is, because Wood didn't know how big CHANNEL ZERO was going to get when he started, it happens too soon in the book. Most of its last two thirds are anticlimax.

The other problem is that the book takes a while to find its feet. Near the beginning, there's a bravura sequence in which Wood contrasts the censored American news with the unrestricted news broadcasts of other countries. It reveals that Wood has thought hard about the ways in which the news can be managed.

Unfortunately, it gets overshadowed by the subsequent extended chase sequence, which comes straight from Hollywood, replete with technobabble, black helicopters, and a silhouetted ageing white male authority figure directing the action from behind his desk and smoking up a storm. It suggests that Wood didn't yet quite have confidence in his material or his audience.

n later chapters, he dispenses with action - hell, he even dispenses with panel-to-panel storytelling in large part - and the book is stronger for it. (One chapter consists of little more than Jennie giving a radio interview. It reveals quite a lot about her, including, interestingly, a weakness for dictatorships so long as they're left-wing.)

Nevertheless, despite these structural flaws, it's an undeniably powerful book. Wood's stark, expertly composed, defiantly lo-fi artwork puts over the grittiness of New York in a way nothing else could. The 'subliminal' slogans and catchphrases that Wood hides in the margins cleverly suggest information overload. (They may not stand up to close scrutiny, but then that's not the point.) If Wood goes overboard with the sloganeering and posturing ("Put the motherfucking boot in"), it's only because he's passionate.

And passion is in terribly short supply in both political discourse and comic books, these days. CHANNEL ZERO is a call to, as Jello Biafra would say, "don't hate the media, become the media"; it's also an object lesson in how to do it.

JENNIE ONE will tell the story of the passage of the Clean Act and the transformation of Jennie into an 'info-terrorist'. It will be interesting to see how Wood explains the general public's acquiescence to the Act. I also hope we get to see Jennie put in context a bit more. CHANNEL ZERO was mostly told through her public statements or interior monologues, or those of people who agreed with her.

New artist Becky Cloonan, best known before this for her work in 'zines, is a real find. From the samples I've seen, she perfectly mimics his design sense and style while improving on his draughtsmanship. She seems to be remarkably versatile, and after this she ought to be in high demand.

There's still no shortage of dissent here in America. The recent massive anti-war rallies proved that. It's just that it's rarely reported on in the mainstream press, and rarely represented by the party supposedly in opposition. It's been written out of the official discourse, made not to matter. Brian Wood reminds us what it might feel like to matter again.

DARK HORSE COMICS

PUBO #2 (of 3), by Leland Purvis
NOV02 0020, pg. 31, $3.50

The further adventures of the horribly deformed escaped lab test subject, from the creator behind the obscure but highly acclaimed anthology VOX. This is one of the books I'm most looking forward to, as I wrote here back in September. For more information, there's an interview with Purvis at Pulse.

DC COMICS

On autopilot. Even Vertigo, which is offering a Warren Ellis HELLBLAZER collection, a new SANDMAN spin-off miniseries by career SANDMAN-spinner-offer Caitlin Kiernan, another of Garth Ennis WAR STORYs, and a collection of something by Jeph Loeb called THE WITCHING HOUR. Actual merits of the books aside, that's a very traditional line-up.

While we're talking Vertigo: why is everyone having orgasms over Brian Vaughn's Y: THE LAST MAN? It's a good book, granted. Clearly, lots of thought has gone into its premise and its structure. But nobody in it has a personality yet, except our hero Yorick, and his so far consists mainly of 1) nerdboy pop-cult references and 2) cocky stupidity.

The same goes for Pia Guerra's art; well constructed, well researched, next to no personality. It wouldn't look out of place next to REX MORGAN M.D. and MARY WORTH. What's more, the most recent issue, #4, ends with a contrived plot twist that Dickens would have thought twice before using. It may be the best new Vertigo series of the last couple years, but how big a compliment is that, really?

Meanwhile, in the DC Universe, the 10-CENT ADVENTURE stunt that boosted the BATMAN franchise is now being tried on the SUPERMAN franchise. Fair enough, but: from what I hear, the long-standing rap on the SUPER-books is that they lack grandeur. The supervillains get ever stronger, the threat level is relentlessly jacked up, but things always end with Big Fisticuffs and a return to the status quo. So does SUPERMAN: THE 10-CENT ADVENTURE do something more imaginative? Does it have a sexy pop hook befitting its role as an outreach tool?

Naw. From the looks of things, it just introduces a new supervillain who punches Superman to the moon. Literally. (Why am I picturing Ralph Kramden here?) And if that's not enough Big Fisticuffs for you, there's even more in the one-shot SUPERMAN/DARKSEID: APOKOLIPS NOW. Sigh...

ABOUT COMICS, LLC

STEWART THE RAT #1, by Steve Gerber, Gene Colan and Tom Palmer
NOV02 2265, pg. 2267, $3.95

Back in 1980, Steve Gerber, not long after having been kicked off HOWARD THE DUCK by Marvel (despite having created Howard the Duck - ah, the joys of work-for-hire), got a bit of his own back by teaming up again with longtime HOWARD penciller Gene Colan and doing this somewhat HOWARD-ish book. It was a 48-page original graphic novel, expensive for its time, done for an independent publisher. You can imagine how well this went over, in 1980.

But will it go over now? Seems doubtful. The flaky Southern California it satirises, the mecca of the New Age and self-help movements, is a distant memory. More dated still are the secondary targets, which include the Dope Fairy, the Disco Zombie (which was dated even at the time), and, oh dear, the radical lesbian Feminox. (You can take the writer out of Marvel Comics, but you can't take Marvel Comics out of the writer...)

These and other villainous agents of decadence end up being dispatched with gleeful violence by Stewart. Now, granted, I'm getting my information from a critical review in an old COMICS JOURNAL. But I have no trouble believing that Gerber would pick his targets poorly, or that his satire of them would be heavy-handed and gratuitously vicious, after reading his recent return to HOWARD for Marvel's mature Max imprint.

(Apparently that HOWARD miniseries sold poorly enough that Marvel won't be inviting Gerber to do it again. Which is a shame, as he was just getting his focus back with the last issue of it, for reasons I wish I had space to go into here. Suffice it to say that Gerber's very much in love with his own indignation, which can be good for satire but is death to parody...)

AIT/PLANETLAR

THE COURIERS, by Brian Wood & Rob G.
NOV02 2291, pg. 210, $12.95

JENNIE ONE isn't the only sequel graphic novel by Brian Wood this month. The book to which THE COURIERS is a sequel is COUSCOUS EXPRESS, a straightforward, zippy little actioner about mercenary couriers defending a Middle Eastern restaurant in Brooklyn from the Turkish Mafia. Unfortunately, it was oversold as being "about life and community" and burdened with an obvious moral (which turned out to be, of all things, Honour Thy Father and Mother. Punk fuckin' rock!).

I kind of hope THE COURIERS sticks to the mayhem and foregoes the moral entirely. Art is by young comics newcomer Rob G [TEENAGERS FROM MARS], whose manga influences and thin pen line will certainly make a change from COUSCOUS artist Brett Weldele's loose brushstrokes and zipatone abuse.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS

CUSP, by Thomas Herpich
NOV02 2296, pg. 213, $3.95

First off: look at that cover! It's enchanted - first light on an autumn morning, pure molten gold.

This is a one-shot by Thomas Herpich, whose only other published comics, so far as I know, have been in the anthology MEATHAUS. His short story in #6, which wordlessly showed the fantasy life of a weary mom, was distinguished by clever scene transitions between similarly composed images. Comics writers do the verbal equivalent of that kind of transition all the time, mostly thanks to Alan Moore, but you don't see artists do it too often - it occurs to me that Scott McCloud didn't even include it in his UNDERSTANDING COMICS taxonomy of transitions.

Before I drive you all away with technical talk, let me quote the solicitation copy:

"Exotic and lyrical, [Herpich's] work is populated by flustered astronauts, disheveled pilgrims, carefree fugitives, rainbow werewolves, crass donkey people, and gold-suited ex-misogynists, all careening past an increasingly blurred landscape towards what they hope is some sort of enlightenment or maturity..."

I think this is worth taking a chance on.

AVATAR PRESS

THE COURTYARD #1 (of 2), by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows
Regular cover: NOV02 2368, pg. 223, $3.50
Wraparound cover: NOV02 2369, pg. 223, $3.95

Nice, restrained covers, those- how very unlike Avatar. This is a short Lovecraftian prose story of Alan Moore's, adapted to comics with his blessing by Ninth Art's own Antony Johnston (uncredited here, strangely) and drawn by the proficient Jacen Burrows. I wish they'd have published it as a graphic novel right off instead of splitting it up into two issues, but this looks promising.

CG ENTERTAINMENT

THE CROSSOVERS #1, by Robert Rodi, Mauricet & Ernie Colon
NOV02 2415, pg. 238, $2.95

I like Rob Rodi. I always thought he was one of the sharpest reviewers THE COMICS JOURNAL ever had, and I am apparently one of maybe five people on the planet who bought and enjoyed his mordant Vertigo2K miniseries FOUR HORSEMEN.

But I'm disheartened to see that for now he's struggling to make a name in comics by pandering to the sort of fanboy he so expertly skewered in WHAT THEY DID TO PRINCESS PARAGON. CODENAME: KNOCKOUT, the Vertigo bad girl spoof that belonged at Wildstorm, was sold as something subversive, but it never became so - or, at least, not before everyone I know lost patience and dropped it.

Now comes THE CROSSOVERS, which Rodi makes a point of promising isn't subversive: "more Frank Capra than Harvey Kurtzman." It's about a family whose members are all, unbeknownst to each other, stock fantasy types: a superhero, a warrior princess, a vampire slayer and an alien abductee. It sounds like he'll have fun, poking at the foibles of clapped-out funnybook genres, but for my own selfish sake I hope he finds time for a project that's more Kurtzman than Capra.

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

THE GREAT COMIC BOOK HEROES, by Jules Feiffer
NOV02 2527, pg. 285, $8.95

In 1965, Jules Feiffer compiled a book of the seminal stories of what I refuse to call comics' "Golden Age" - the first appearances of Superman, Batman, all the iconic superheroes. He also wrote a lengthy introductory essay, bringing to it all the incisive brilliance of his famous Village Voice weekly strip, and paying comic books the compliment of a close reading for what may have been the first time. (Feiffer knew whereof he spoke: he had read the comic books practically since their inception, and as soon as he was old enough he went to work on them himself, most notably assisting Will Eisner on THE SPIRIT.)

This digest-sized book reprints the essay (which was also reprinted in THE COMICS JOURNAL #200, but that issue is now very difficult to find). It's kind of a shame that it doesn't also reprint the comics, but I imagine Fantagraphics couldn't get permission. Still, it's enough that this essential document of American comics history is available again.

NIGHTMARE ALLEY, by Spain Rodriguez & William Lindsay Gresham
NOV02 2529, pg. 286, $14.95

Venerable undergrounder Rodriguez adapts for comics the '40s pulp novel that brought the word 'geek' into the vernacular. (And where would comics be today without the word 'geek'?) You can't beat those old pulp blurbs, so here's the text from the back of the original paperback:

"I'm a hustler, damn it!

"I'm on the make. Nothing matters in this damned lunatic asylum of a world but dough. When you get that you're the boss. If you don't have it you're the end man on the daisy chain."

That was Stan Carlisle, carnival spieler; The Great Stanton, nightclub mentalist; Reverend Stanton Carlisle, spiritualist advisor to wealthy widows and lecherous businessmen. From warm-bodied Zeena he took the tricks of his trade. From lovely Molly he took virginity and desperate love. From Dr. Lilith Ritter he sought salvation and crowning success, but got neither. Instead there was sudden downfall, and an ugly finish to a career of deceit and evil.

They don't write 'em like that anymore. This was Gresham's first novel, and ultimately his best-known one. Purportedly he spent years researching carnivals and sideshows so he could get the milieu right. It became a cult classic, but not before Gresham's suicide in 1962.

Spain was commissioned to adapt the novel by Art Spiegelman as part of his Neon Lit imprint at Avon Books, but unfortunately the plug was pulled on Spiegelman after only two books, CITY OF GLASS and PERDITA DURANGO. It's taken a few years for it to find a new home. At 128 pages, it's by far Spain's longest single work, and judging from the published samples, it's also his best. His art is street-level, hard-edged, and muscular, and his sympathies are perfectly in tune with the book. Check this out.

STORYLINES #1, by various
NOV02 2531, pg. 286, $4.95

For all you indy purists who feel betrayed by James Sturm for doing a FANTASTIC FOUR book this month: tell yourself the Marvel gig is enabling him to edit this, a new talent showcase produced in conjunction with the National Association of Comic Art Educators. Headlined by Xeric Award-winner Robyn Chapman [THEATER OF THE MEEK].

WEASEL #6: OVERBITE, by Dave Cooper
Hardcover: NOV02 2533, pg. 286, $12.95
Signed hardcover: NOV02 2534, pg. 286, $19.95

Not actually a comic, this issue. Instead, it's a hardcover "luxurious full-color coffee table/art book [that] doubles as a catalog for a series of high profile gallery shows that Dave will be hosting". The paintings and drawings are, predictably, of naked or near-naked gurls with plenty of cellulite and frightening dentition. If that sort of thing turns you on, you get 36 pages (minus an introduction by MR. SHOW's David Cross) of it here.

GIRL TWIRL COMICS

JANE'S WORLD #1, by Paige Braddock
NOV02 2569, pg. 291, $2.95

Alison Bechdel, who does the biweekly strip DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR, was once asked by a major syndicate to do a daily newspaper strip, something less dense than DTWOF and without the sex and politics. She turned them down, of course, but if she hadn't, the result might have been something like JANE'S WORLD, a web-based strip by Paige Braddock. Like Mo, the lead of DTWOF, Jane is a neurotic, underemployed lesbian with glasses, a long-on-top/short-in-the-back haircut and an endless wardrobe of turtlenecks.

Most web-based comic strips are, to put it kindly, not ready for prime time. (cough cough keenspot cough.) JANE'S WORLD, I'm happy to report, is funnier than anything running in my newspaper. What's refreshing about it is that it's not just a thin vehicle for corny one-liners, like so many strips these days - much of the humour arises from how the characters interact. It's not afraid to get silly on occasion, and it's not afraid to go zen for a sequence either.

Note, by the way, that this isn't simply a collection of comic strips. Braddock has edited strips and added new transitional material, so that the whole thing flows together as a single story. "After working in the short groups of panels of the daily strip for so long, the ample space of a comic book freed me to take the work so much further," she's said. "By the second issue, half the book was new material."

Braddock's syndicate keeps a month's worth of the strip on the web.

LIGHTSPEED PRESS

FINDER #30, by Carla Speed McNeil
NOV02 2637, pg. 302, $2.95

McNeil takes a breather between story arcs with another stand-alone issue revealing the past of Jaeger, the book's hero (even though he's been more absent than present of late) and about the only tough guy in comics worth the oil it will take to fry him in hell.

The last such issue, titled Fight Scene (#22), was all about brawlin', but more importantly it told us more about Jaeger than we'd ever learned in one go before. This one, titled Beware of the Dog, ought to be even juicier, promising as it does "a whole gallery of sexual catastrophe."

TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS

JENNIFER DAYDREAMER #1: OLIVER, by Jennifer Daydreamer
NOV02 2770, pg. 322, $4.95

I usually keep my distance from any comic set in a "complete fantasy universe", but let me hasten to assure you, this ain't CrossGen. Jennifer Daydreamer, the latest minicomics artist to be poached by Top Shelf, had a mother who was schizophrenic, and over years of researching the condition, she concluded that it wasn't a disease or a disorder but something closer to a shamanic altered state. (Chester Brown did the same, in researching his mother's schizophrenia.) From there Daydreamer became a Jung junkie, and eventually applied what she had learned to the telling of stories.

As Tom Hart admits in introducing a preview of OLIVER, "Jennifer Daydreamer's comics will not bowl you over with technique - she's no master craftsperson. But what she does is something almost wholly unique this side of Jim Woodring."

He goes on to tell you what you can expect from this new phase of Daydreamer's comics, over two years in the planning: "circuses, thoughts in the form of flower people, imaginary friends, prayer beings and Jennifer's unique - and often overlooked - sense of humor."

This looks to be something truly singular. It deserves your attention.

NBM PUBLISHING

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST VOL. 3: WITHIN A BUDDING GROVE PART 2, by Marcel Proust, adapted by Stephane Heuet
Hardcover: NOV02 2645, pg. 305, $16.95

More of the classic illustrated, for those of you indisposed to read a novel/memoir that's nearly 10 million words long.

DUNGEON #4, by Lewis Trondheim & Joann Sfar
NOV02 2655, pg. 305, $2.95

This and ODDBALLZ have both been a little murky, as the original colours have been turned to shades of grey for affordability's sake. Fortunately, NBM now says they're using "a completely new method for reproducing grey tones, serving up a lighter and much better contrasted look." Yay! Ideally there will be album collections in colour down the road...

ONI PRESS

QUEEN & COUNTRY VOL. 3: CRYSTAL BALL, by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez
Softcover: NOV02 2668, pg. 307, $14.95
Hardcover: NOV02 2669, pg. 307, $30

Fans of Greg Rucka's realistic, de-glamorised spy series did not initially take well to the caricatured and sometimes sexed-up artwork of Leandro Fernandez, but those complaints seem to have died away. Best to have a look for yourself.

LUMAKICK STUDIO

LUMAKICK #1, by Richard Hahn
NOV02 2639, pg. 304, $2.95

A Xeric Award-winning debut. You know immediately from the misty watercoloured cover that we're in the realm of the intangible, which makes these snappy little encapsulations difficult to write. But apparently what we've got here are oblique short stories about "Professor Lee, a new kind of silent comedian... a cross between Charlie Chaplin and Alice in Wonderland," who wanders around in dreams that might be his or might be Hahn's, leavened with one-page gag strips.

This helps you make a purchasing decision not at all, I realise. In cases like this one has to rely chiefly on buzz - and the initial buzz has been extremely good. Comics great Eddie Campbell is quoted in the ad as calling it "the best comic book debut I've seen for quite some time." My fellow Previews reviewer Christopher Butcher plugged it in his Small Press Expo report, saying, "I'm very impressed with it... the entire package is very, very solid." And Alan David Doane called it "a literate, self-aware and delightful first attempt that knocked me out."

Go have a look at the sample pages on Hahn's website. I have a feeling you'll want to be on top of this one.

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.

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