Hark! A Vagrant
Kate Beaton. Drawn & Quarterly, $19.95 (168p) ISBN 978-1-77046-060-7
Recent comics sensation Beaton probably, definitely, knows more about history and literature than the average reader, and this collection of her webcomic—mostly collections of three-panel gag—shows it. But while her comics are pungent with the aroma of authentic knowledge, they wear it lightly, with a jittery humor that’s surprisingly effective given the lashings of irony that Beaton layers on top. While she’s perfectly content to base her cartoon strips around lesser-known figures (criminal “masterminds” Burke and Hare, anyone?), most of her cartoons put people like the Brontë sisters or Jules Verne out there and wryly undercut them with mock pulp headlines and dishy asides. While the focus in Beaton’s rip-quick and squiggly drawings is getting a good joke out of, say, the death of French general Montcalm or playing to the world’s ignorance of even the most basic facets of Canadian history and culture, she also drops in some sharp literary criticism. If she had pushed her faux naïf outrageousness any further, Beaton might have ventured too far into Sarah Vowellesque flipness. But this is that rarest combination of literate irony and devastatingly funny humor—when was the last time you read a comic strip collection that not only has but needs an index? (Nov.)
The Brick Bible: A New Spin on the Old Testament
Brendan Powell Smith. Skyhorse, $19.95 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-61608-421-9
The subtitle for Smith’s curious and curiously powerful graphic novel, which recreates scenes from the Old Testament using Lego bricks and photographing them, is something of a misnomer. As Smith points out in his introduction, part of the reason he took on this project was because of his surprise over how few people have actually read the Bible. Although there is certainly humor in seeing this treatment (the circumcision scene in Genesis is painfully funny), in the main Smith plays it straight. In that sense, it really isn’t a “new spin” but an off-kilter way of retelling it. Picking up some of the world-weary humor that Larry Gonick perfected for his Cartoon History series, Smith relates one degrading spectacle after another. God is a vengeful and cruel being, forever disappointed in and savagely punishing his chosen people when not demanding that they invade neighboring cities and slaughter every last one of its inhabitants. Funny or not, there is a grindhouse flick’s worth of blood, corpses, enslavement, rapine, and decapitations, all of it cribbed straight from the good book itself. It’s an eye-opener. The Old Testament took 10 years to pose; hopefully it won’t take another decade for the New Testament. (Oct.)
Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land
Harvey Pekar, Paul Buhle, and various. Abrams ComicArts, $29.95 (240p) ISBN 978-0-8109-9749-3
The term “Yiddishkeit” is open to several interpretations, including “Yiddish culture” and “Yiddish sensibility,” but the concept is too expansive to be fully conveyed with a mere word. The same can be said of this book itself, which is a fascinating and dense examination—mostly in comics format—of Yiddish as a language and culture and how it became inextricably woven into the tapestry of America when it arrived with Jewish immigrants. While it’s impossible to fully explore the breadth and depth of Yiddish literature, performing arts, humor, and its key creators within the confines of a 240-page book, the contributors succeed in providing the very detailed basics in a visually engaging manner, with much of its written content being the final work of the late indie comics scribe Pekar, himself the scion of a Yiddish-speaking household. The art is provided by a number of notables, including Spain Rodriguez, Peter Kuper, and Sharon Rudahl, every bit of it brimming with the charm and flavor of its subject and seamlessly meshing with the text to create a genuinely compelling, scholarly comics experience. (Sept.)
Mardock Scramble 1
Tow Ubukata, Adria Cheng, and Yoshitoki Aima. Kodansha, $10.99 trade paper (208p) ISBN 978-1-93-542953-1
In the aftermath of her near death at the hands of corrupt businessman Shell Septinos, underage prostitute Balot is rescued, repaired, and enhanced by Doctor Easter, who proposes to use her in his investigation of Shell and the interests Shell works for. A victim her whole life, unsure and diffident, Balot takes time to come to grips with her new abilities and with the task ahead of her; whether she will succeed remains to be seen, as her survival has made her a target for Boiled, a cyborg as enhanced and more deadly than the innocent Balot. Cheng’s adaptation of Tow’s lengthy novel has streamlined the original work considerably; the moral shades of gray in Tow’s version are sharply bordered black and white here. As well, the grotesque violence in the original appears to have been toned down considerably in Aima’s art while the unsavory elements of Balot’s past are acknowledged but not dwelt upon. The result is a leaner work; the reader is confronted by fewer problematic images at the cost of a manga less challenging than the original novel. (Sept.)
Until the Full Moon
Sanami Matoh. Kodansha, $10.99 trade paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-935429-89-0
Matoh, perhaps better known for her “boys love” police procedural Fake, ventures into gender-swapping fantasy. Marlo, product of a mixed vampire/werewolf marriage, transforms at the full moon; rather inconveniently for Marlo and alarmingly for his parents, his transformation is not from man to wolf but male to female. Faced with dismal prospects for a cure for a condition more unconventional than harmful, Marlo’s parents hit on what seems to them a suitable solution: engage Marlo to his old childhood chum, the womanizing David. David, indifferent to gender and smitten with Marlo, is enthusiastic about the idea. He takes female Marlo’s reluctance as evidence Marlo is equally infatuated. Matoh’s art is slick but uneven, particularly in the beginning; her writing is painfully derivative, both of overwrought romance stories and more famous gender-swapping comedies, and excessively repetitive, with loud pronouncements of love gaining nothing from their frequency. (Aug.)
DC Universe: Legacies
Len Wein, Andy Kubert, Joe Kubert, et al. DC, $34.99 (328p) ISBN 978-1-4012-3133-0
For any comics fan who ever wanted an eyewitness account of the history of the DC Universe’s greatest heroes, this collection is where it begins and ends. Wein (Legends) tells the rather incredible story of Paul Lincoln, a Metropolis cop who grew up on the mean streets of Suicide Slum and whose early encounter with the Crimson Avenger was the first of many with DC’s legendary superheroes. Paul initially runs errands with his friend Jimmy for the wrong crowd, but is inspired to better himself by the new breed of heroes bent on ridding the streets of crime. He eventually becomes a street cop and battles crime in the shadows of just about every superhero you can imagine, all while marrying his childhood sweetheart, raising a daughter, and trying to get his old friend Jimmy out of a life of crime and into an honest living. As we watch the major stories of the DC universe play out, we are spoiled by the brilliant artwork of so many of the industry’s best artists, including both Kuberts and Dave Gibbons (Watchmen). The extended flashback used as the narrative framework nicely holds together decades of costumed crime fighting, including both its greatest moments and darkest hours. (Sept.)
Infinite Kung Fu
Kagan McLeod, intro. by Gordon Liu, foreword by Colin Geddes. Top Shelf, $24.95 trade paper (464p) ISBN 978-1-891830-83-9
Begun as a self-published series more than a decade ago, the comics series Infinite Kung Fuhas now been put together in a collected edition with 200 pages of new material, and the results are remarkable. The story centers on Lei Kung, a martial arts expert and former soldier who must infiltrate the five kung fu armies of an evil emperor in order to bring him down. With characters like Moog Joogular, Thursday Thoroughgood, and the Eight Immortals to help guide him along the way, Lei Kung constantly works to perfect his art and learn the secrets that will allow him to defeat a host of nefarious characters. In the story, the world as we know it has regressed to a time when technology is all but gone. Lei Kung must rely on his martial skill against the hordes of reanimated corpses that are slowly destroying the planet. The great strength of this graphic novel is its originality, but equally impressive are McLeod’s extraordinary illustrations and compelling narrative. (Sept.)
Kinky & Cosy
Nix. NBM (www.nbmpub.com), $15.99 (96p) ISBN 978-1-56163-604-4
Part South Park, part Flight of the Concords, Kinky and Cosy offers a series of comic strips about “the most dangerous twin girls in the universe” by the Belgian artist Nix. The surreal, darkly funny strips, each three panels, follow the girls through their antics at grade school and home, as they torture their parents, teacher, and strangers with equal skill. Nix’s candy-colored palette and charming illustrations have the look of a children’s book, but the subject matter is definitely adult only. The twins’ mother’s love of vibrators is a recurring theme; a neo-Nazi makes an appearance; and the girls joke about fisting in their language arts class. There are 16 brain teasers at the end of the book, including visual puzzles and mazes; an answer key helps readers out with all but two. There are also photographs interspersed among the strips, featuring adult men made up to look like the girls and their father. The book is beautifully designed, with a foil cover that also includes cutouts to make room for the “googly eyes” of the girls. (Sept.)
Justice
Jim Krueger, Alex Ross, and Doug Braithwaite. DC, $39.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4012-3185-9
Buried in the frenzied action of DC’s latest all-star extravaganza is an interesting question: the members of the Justice League of America may be sworn to do good, but what good have they done for the suffering masses of humanity? At the beginning of this collected maxi-series, while the DC heroes are defeated or on the run, it’s their enemies who are doing good works. Captain Cold brings a mountain of ice to the African desert; the Toyman creates perfect prosthetic limbs for the maimed, etc. All this is part of an evil plot by Luthor and Brainiac that will take the efforts of all available heroes to thwart. Ross’s virtuoso painted art is as impeccable as ever, even if penciler Braithwaite’s layout is crowded by the need to squeeze in the huge cast—both the Elongated Man and Plastic Man, for instance. Meanwhile, Krueger’s script juggles characters and comics lore nimbly to answer that underlying question: by showing how they depend on each other, members of the Justice League offer hope to the rest of us. It adds up to an especially satisfying epic. (Aug.)
Bleedout
Mike Kennedy and various. Archaia/Black Label (www.aspcomics.com), $14.95 (104p) ISBN 978-1-936393-18-3
Based on an expansion of the MMO game Crimecraft, this graphic novel spinoff paints a world where thanks to peak oil and an unfortunately timed act of biowarfare, the world’s fuel supplies have collapsed suddenly and universally. Criminals, psychotics, and their ilk were best prepared to exploit the bloody chaos; Sunset City soon finds itself ruled by a brutal cabal of gangsters, crooked politicians, and corrupt businessmen. Even this doleful stability is as doomed as global civilization is; each cabal member has his or her own agenda, and the moment when secret conflicts come into the open is looming. Lurid and violent, Bleedout tries to cloak itself in grim inevitability from the moment the author begins his angry, despairing foreword. The specific scenario relies on an implausibly synchronized decline in oil fields around the world and the apparent total absence of mundane alternatives like coal; the story soon abandons its patina of plausibility in favor of conspiracies and forbidden experiments in super-science. While some characters are marred by racial or sexual stereotypes, the diverse cast of artists is otherwise competent. (Aug.)
Everybody Dies: A Children’s Book for Grownups
Ken Tanaka. Maximum Pleasant, $10 trade paper (32p) ISBN 978-0-615-46493-0
A parody in the vein of the classic Japanese children’s book Everyone Poops, this slender volume addresses matters mortal as opposed to those fecal, and the result is a curious work that straddles the line between the flat-out morbid and the darkly humorous. International YouTube personality Tanaka approaches the material from the perspective of a book intended for reading to frightened adults by their children in an attempt to help them understand the various ways in which we can meet our fate. The author achieves this via page after page of images depicting many possible demise scenarios with images rendered in a childlike style evoking art generated by and for elementary schoolers as posters. The faux “kiddie” aesthetic merrily portrays surfing tragedy, being devoured by wild animals, war, armed robbery, and overdose as just some of the lethal possibilities, content that is simultaneously amusing and quite grim. (Oct.)
The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt
Caroline Preston. HarperCollins/Ecco, $25.99 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-06-196690-3
The origin story behind this graphic novel–cum–scrapbook, the first illustrated work by Jackie by Josie novelist Preston, might be more interesting than the by-the-numbers tale of flappers and expatriates inside. Preston, once an archivist at Harvard’s Houghton Library, collected more than 600 pieces of original 1920s materiel from antique stores and eBay sellers—Sears catalogues, amusement park tickets, commemorative badges, even a box of seasickness pills. In handsome, full-color pages, the memorabilia tell the story of Frankie, an aspiring writer who leaves her poor New England family to travel to Vassar, then to New York, then to Paris, where she becomes tangled in a romance with an older publisher with ties to her past. Frankie’s Zelig-like ubiquity—of course she dates a man who works for the New Yorker at its launch, and of course in Paris she winds up editing James Joyce—makes for a nifty armchair tour of postwar literary culture, but the love stories at the book’s center remain unsurprising and unmoving. In the end, this “novel in pictures” is best appreciated for its fetishistic attention to period detail; even the captions were typed on a vintage 1915 Corona portable typewriter. (Nov.)
The Best American Comics 2011
Edited by Alison Bechdel; Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, Series Editors. Mariner, $25 (322p) ISBN 978-0-547-33362-5
Fun Home creator Bechdel selects 27 pieces for this year's Best American anthology, and though a reader can trace her sensibility in some of the entries--Eric Orner's funny and explicit "Weekends Abroad" might as well be called "Israeli Gays to Watch Out For"--it's a pleasure to see many odd, gritty selection. Michael DeForge's "Queen" and Angie Wang's "Flower Mecha" both temper dysmorphia with welcome silliness; John Pham's "St. Ambrose" and Noah Van Sciver's "Abby's Road" treat underexplored subcultures (Vietnamese-American Catholics and Juggalos) with thoughtfulness and care. No serious comics fan won't already have read the pieces from Chris Ware, Joe Sacco, or Jaime Hernandez chosen for this anthology; however, excerpts from masterful longer works rarely stand well on their own. And while Bechdel owns up in her witty introduction to the collection's poor representation of women and cartoonists of color, it's a little bizarre that the series' editors spend their intro bragging about Best American's first-ever inclusion of a webcomic (Kate Beaton's terrific "Hark! A Vagrant!") as if they're brave pioneers, rather than years behind the curve. Overall, though, this year's Best American is a handsome anthology with more than a few welcome surprises. (Oct.)
Reviewed on: 08/19/2011
Permalink: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-547-33362-5 (978-0-547-33362-5 )
Comics
Tantalize
Cynthia Leitich Smith and Ming Doyle. Candlewick, $19.99 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-7636-4414-6
Kieran is an Irish-Mexican–American honors student at an Austin, Tex., high school who also happens to be half werewolf in this graphic novel addition to the teen supernatural romance genre. If his affliction were not enough to grapple with, the time is growing nigh that he will need to leave home to join a wolf pack, and he is in love with his human best friend Quincie. A crime at Quincie’s family restaurant sets the story in motion, as Kieran dodges vampires and fights for his true love’s soul, all while defending his own name and keeping his grades up. While supernatural metaphors for the transformations and horrors of adolescence are well-worn territory, Leitich Smith, who first published Tantalize as a young adult novel, provides a face-paced, twisty, enjoyable ride and compelling characters who develop as the story unfolds. Kieran’s sidekicks, a were-armadillo and a were-possum, provide some welcome perspective on the hero’s obsession, keeping the story from getting dragged down into too much teen angst. Doyle’s illustrations, while slightly static, capture the intensity of the emotions between the star-crossed couple. (Aug.)
Reviewed on: 08/19/2011
Permalink: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7636-4414-6 (978-0-7636-4414-6)
Comics
Sibyl-Anne vs. Ratticus
R. Macherot, trans. from the French by Kim Thompson. Fantagraphics, $16.99 (64p) ISBN 978-1-60699-452-8
A charming but slight entry from the field of post-Tintin Franco-Belgian all-ages comics. Field mouse Sibyl-Anne (Sibylline in the original bandes desinées, published in Spirou magazine in 1966 and 1967) lives a quiet life in the French countryside, alongside her friends Sergeant Verboten (a porcupine), Floozemaker (a crow), and fellow mouse Boomer. When the greedy, power-hungry rat Ratticus shows up, his destructive ways turn the animal community upside down. Ratticus’s nefarious plots, at first harmless, evolve into full-fledged war, with an army of city rats storming the village and setting fire to Floozemaker’s shop. Sibyl-Anne and her friends, of course, organize la resistance. (Imagine how this played in a France just 20 years removed from Vichy.) Macherot’s plotting is lively and unexpected; his drawing style is an acquired taste, overly busy at times and lacking the elegance of line that you might expect. (That is to say, his rambunctious panels owe more to Albert Uderzo’s Astérix than to Hergé’s Tintin.) Thompson’s translation is colloquial and funny and, one can assume, smooths out some of the original’s mid-century social attitudes.(Aug.)
Reviewed on: 08/19/2011
Permalink: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-60699-452-8 (978-1-60699-452-8)
Comics
Big Questions
Anders Nilsen. Drawn & Quarterly, $69.95 (658p) ISBN 978-1-77046-047-8
Epic in its scale and circumscribed in focus, Nilsen’s incisive Big Questions is a philosophical novel that uses the techniques of fable to investigate faith, society, disillusionment, and catastrophe. A dozen years in the making, Nilsen’s 600+-page story depicts the lives, bonds, and quarrels of a group of quizzical birds whose ontology is challenged by the appearance of a bomb, a crashed airplane, and a narcoleptic human pilot. At first these talkative avians resemble Charles Schulz’s Linus with their naïve philosophizing. But as the situation escalates, the book demonstrates how, in the absence of knowledge, germinal philosophy and early religion can be much the same thing. Competing mythologies, ideologies, and messianic fervor cause rifts within a community that otherwise unites as part of nature’s predatory food chain. Nilsen outlines his figures with a thin but commanding line, and builds texture and atmosphere with dense stippling and hatching, creating a lush, verdant landscape. His breathtaking vistas resonate with his characters’ struggle to assemble meaning from incomprehensible events—and to rebuild their world from the pieces left over. (Aug.)
Feeding Ground
Swifty Lang, Michael Lapinski, and Chris Mangun. Archaia (www.aspcomics.com), $24.95 (184p) ISBN 978-1-936393-02-2
One small, powerless but stubborn Mexican family is pitted against the agro-industrial juggernaut Blackwell and all of its enablers in Mexico in this passionate, political graphic novel. While Diego Busqueda seeks relief in America from the deprivations inflicted on his Mexican hometown by the rapacious Blackwell, his family struggles to withstand poverty and harassment from local authority figures. When oppression erupts into violent conflict, Diego’s family is forced to flee. Unfortunately for the Busquedas, young daughter Flaca already carries within her the seeds of a terrible transformation, the legacy of Blackwell’s true purpose. Often gory and eschewing an easy happy ending, Lang and Lapinski have created an allegory for the sometimes predatory relationship American companies have with Mexico. While Diego and the rest of his family are portrayed sympathetically, even when committing terrible acts in their desperation, the corporate antagonists are motivated by simple greed and unbound lust for power; no plea of necessity excuses their actions. Lapinski’s art does a fine job capturing the emotions of the story without getting melodramatic. (Sept.)
Dear Creature
Jonathan Case. Tor, $15.99 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-7653-3111-3
This exuberantly weird comic novel succeeds in fusing ’50s monster movies and the works of William Shakespeare. Grue, the atomic-mutant protagonist, has the body of the Creature from the Black Lagoon and the face of a Smiley button. He and his little crab buddies live by the beach, where they feed on hormone-saturated teenagers until the discovery of pages from the Bard’s work, sealed in floating cola bottles, awakens Grue’s dreams of poetic romance along with a knack for speaking in iambic pentameter. The woman willing to play Juliet to his Romeo is a middle-aged agoraphobe whose nephew is accused of murdering the missing teenagers. Case’s b&w art sometimes stretches reality for humorous effect, but keeps even the strangest scenes from feeling merely grotesque. The script also generates a surprising amount of pathos for the lovers’ doomed passion. Startlingly assured for a debut effort, the book is like Grue himself—unclassifiable but oddly charming. (Oct.)
Superman: Grounded
J. Michael Straczynski and Eddy Barrows. DC, $22.99 (168p) ISBN 978-1-4012-3075-3
Humanizing Superman can be a difficult proposition, given the scope of his powers. In the “Grounded” story arc, the first six issues of which are included in this graphic novel, Straczynski and Barrows bring Superman to the ground, facing everyday problems and reminding himself that the big issues that face the world aren’t the only problems that are important. The effect is a Superman that is approachable, not only to readers but to the Americans in the comics. What could come off as a condescending call to community involvement instead reads as Superman’s earnest nature: he really believes that everyone—including himself—should try to make the world a better place. The artwork echoes the earnest tone with typically bright colors and as much focus on facial expressions as dramatic action. Exchanges between Superman and Batman or Superman and Lois provide laughs in an otherwise serious story. The biggest flaw with this compilation is that it contains only part of the story; a new enemy will presumably take Superman back to loftier concerns in future installments. The spin on Superman will intrigue some fans while others wait to return to the status quo. (Aug.)
The Many Adventures of Miranda Mercury: Time Runs Out
Brandon Thomas and Lee Ferguson. Archaia (www.aspcomics.com), $24.95 (176p) ISBN 978-1-936393-15-2
Miranda Mercury, youthful scion of a family of world-saving adventurers, perhaps its greatest member, struggles against a colorful assortment of enemies ranging from the bombastic Synn Family to the malevolent supervillain, Vega. Trained by her family, defined by her heritage, stubborn and incorruptible, Miranda is willing to spend her life protecting the weak and opposing their exploiters; unfortunately for Miranda, her remaining lifespan is likely to be measured not in decades but mere months. Thomas brings a sincere enthusiasm to his story, which is cleanly if unimaginatively illustrated by Ferguson. The setting does not get the attention it perhaps deserves; the effect is of a galaxy even more generic than the silver age science fiction comics Thomas and Ferguson clearly want to emulate. As well, the heroics of the young hero are undermined by the apparent incompetence of the common people; competent societies should not be vulnerable to buffoons like the Synn Family. Straightforward with clear-cut moral lines, this graphic novel should please nostalgic fans of a simpler era’s adventure comics. (Sept.)
Dawn of the Bunny Suicides
Andy Riley. Chronicle, $12.95 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-1-4521-0498-0
This popular comic strip collection features rabbits who apparently don’t want to live, and each page features black and white (read: bloodless) illustrations of bunnies on their merry way to pushing up the daisies. Riley’s rabbits are endlessly inventive; some of their suicide machines are almost Rube Goldberg devices of death. Other suicides involve pop culture references (balancing on the oxygen tank at the end of Jaws, or speared by Harry Potter’s broomstick). All this sick humor is reminiscent of Gary Larson’s The Far Side, but Riley falls far short of Larson, since Riley employs but one punch line over and over again. Nevertheless, this is exactly the sort of book you don’t want a third-grade class getting hold of, because it is a deadly combination of funny and just naughty enough to loudly disrupt a classroom for days. (Oct.)
