The Journey Saga Bk. 2: Bad Weather

This delightful tale is the second volume in the Journey Saga (the first was called Tall Tales ). The stories center on Joshua ``Wolverine'' MacAlistaire, a trapper in early 19th-century Michigan. Old Josh's frontier travels provide encounters with all manner of bizarre individuals, from Indians to a trio of not-too-bright Tories to the spirit of a long-dead Spaniard. Messner-Loebs's laid-back prose style, which sounds like a yarn told 'round the campfire, echoes aspects of American literature from the era he's portraying (more akin to Caroline Kirkland's eccentric frontierspeople than James Fenimore Cooper's high adventure, though the latter is in evidence). The humor is dry, and the artwork is evocative of Will Eisner in use of facial expression and of backgrounds that are at once stark and detailed. Messner-Loebs neither romanticizes nor disparages the frontier, he simply presents it, which is the source of the book's charm. Halfway through is a prose story, ``The Yarn of the Walking Dead,'' which uses campfire tales to make some interesting observations about oral storytelling--appropriate, given the narrative style. (May)