Archive for May, 2008
May 19, 2008 | Comics
Jessica Farm Vol. 1
John Simmons
Fantagraphics Books
$14.95 US (Paperback)
**** (out of five)
Comic book creators truly are vagabonds nowadays.
More and more in recent years, they work on a series for six or 12 months and then scurry off to the next book. This leaves readers to deal with either the end of a favourite monthly release or a new direction under a different writer and/or artist.
Fewer and fewer creators are willing to spend a few years really developing a book and its characters, like Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso and their 100 issues of 100 Bullets or Brian Bendis and Mark Bagley on Ultimate Spider-Man.
So to hear that Josh Simmons plans to work on his book, Jessica Farm, for the next 50 years is pretty shocking.
Simmons, who enjoyed some critical success with his recent debut graphic novel, House, began Jessica Farm in January 2000 with a single page. Since then he has written and drawn one page a month and he plans to continue this pace for 50 years in total, releasing 96-page volumes every eight years until he completes a 600-page story.
As for the content of this first volume, Jessica Farm is a very nice girl who lives in a very odd place. Her wonderfully quirky house is filled with secret spaces and hidden residents — from a friendly talking monkey to an angry nipple-twisting old man — and this first book follows Jessica’s adventures on a not-so-simple trip downstairs on Christmas morning.
Jessica Farm is ambitious and entertaining and it might just have you thinking ahead to the spring of 2016 for volume 2.
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May 19, 2008 | Trades
The Exterminators Vol. 4: Crossfire And Collateral
Simon Oliver, Darick Robertson, Ty Templeton
Vertigo/DC Comics
$16.99/$14.99 US (Paperback)
**** (out of five)
They’ve beaten an army of skittering cockroaches before, but the exterminators at Bug-Bee-Gone have never faced anything like a legion of Mayan hissers.
One of the nastiest adult-oriented series around turns the action up yet another notch as noted bug killer Henry James and his friends at this L.A.-based pest-control company come face to face with a bug that is rumoured to have brought down an entire ancient civilization.
Worse yet, their old nemesis Kheperon, apparently a reincarnated Egyptian god of bugs, is the one leading the hissers into battle, looking to see to it that the exterminators are the ones about to get gassed.
This series comes to an end with June’s issue #30 and Crossfire And Collateral — featuring fine art by Toronto native Ty Templeton — sets the stage nicely for the ultimate battle between humans and insects.
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May 19, 2008 | Trades
Booster Gold: 52 Pick-Up
Geoff Johns, Jeff Katz, Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund
DC Comics
$27.99/$24.99 US (Hardcover)
*** ½ (out of five)
Booster Gold is a jerk.
At least that’s what he needs people to believe.
The star of the acclaimed weekly series 52 finally gets his own monthly book again — for the first time since the 80s — and he looks like he’s finally got it made. After years of being reduced to being a laughing stock for his unrepentant greed and selfishness, Booster is on the cusp of a dream: Getting invited back to being a member of the Justice League of America.
There’s just one problem: Booster may have to turn down JLA membership in order to fight a more important battle — one against someone set to alter time to eliminate Earth’s greatest heroes. And worse still for the diehard showman, he may have to keep it a secret.
Comic writer extraordinaire Geoff Johns (Green Lantern, Justice Society Of America), newcomer Jeff Katz, Booster’s creator Dan Jurgens and fellow artist Norm Rapmund team up to deliver a solid rebirth for this golden hero with a new series that tiptoes behind the scenes of the DC Universe, delivering action, laughs and much more.
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May 19, 2008 | Trades
Superman/Batman: Torment
Alan Burnett, Dustin Nguyen, Derek Fridolfs
DC Comics
$22.99/$19.99 US (Hardcover)
*** ½ (out of five)
Superman may be brain dead and Batman is so in love that he’s having a tough time caring.
No, it’s not some strange alternate-universe story, it’s just two elements in Torment, the latest team-up adventure between the Man Of Steel and the Dark Knight.
When a strange piece of technology is stolen from one of Lex Luthor’s labs by Batman’s foe, Killer Croc, the heroes’ curiousity is piqued. But when Superman first starts acting erratically, then disappears, the Dark Knight’s investigation leads him someplace he never expected: On the other side of the galaxy and in the arms of a beautiful newfound ally that he quickly starts falling for.
Can Batman retain his infamous self control long enough to rescue his Kryptonian friend from a fate worse than death?
With ties to last year’s action-packed miniseries, The Death Of The New Gods and to this year’s expected blockbuster, Final Crisis, Torment is a big piece of the DC Universe puzzle and well worth checking out.
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May 19, 2008 | Comics
Nixon’s Pals
Joe Casey, Chris Burnham
Image Comics
$12.99 US (Paperback)
*** ½ (out of five)
Parole officer Nixon Cooper has always tried to treat his cases with dignity and humanity — even if some of them may not qualify as human anymore.
Nixon’s job of keeping track of metahuman parolees has always been tough, but things get much tougher when one of them decides to make things personal and sets out to destroy his caseworker’s life.
Meanwhile, Nixon’s also got to try and keep a bunch of would-be reformed crooks from slipping back down a dark path, including an ex-hitman who’s been contracted to kill the man Nixon knows is sleeping with his wife!
Full of bizarre-yet-likable characters and featuring a fast-moving and well-constructed plot by writer Joe Casey (Godland) and impressive art by Chris Burnham, Nixon’s Pals is a very fine example of quality super-hero crime noir.
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May 19, 2008 | Trades
Outsiders: Five Of A Kind
Tony Bedard, Marc Andreyko, Nunzio DeFillipis, Christina Weir, G. Willow Wilson, Mike W. Barr, Josh Middleton, Freddie Williams II, Koi Turnbull, Matthew Clark, Ron Randall, Kevin Sharpe, Cliff Richards
DC Comics
$17.99/$14.99 US (Paperback)
*** (out of five)
Dark times are coming in the DC Universe and Batman has decided to load up for the pending battles.
After his former protégé, Nightwing, decided to relinquish command of the vigilante team, the Outsiders, the Dark Knight steps in and quickly begins the process of figuring out who should stay and who should go.
And some of the decisions may just shock you.
Through a series of team-up missions with current and prospective members, Batman assembles a new squad of heroes — one perfectly suited to his needs and that isn’t afraid to make some tough choices.
An impressive list of creators collaborated to deliver this hit-and-miss six-issue lead in to the all-new Batman And The Outsiders series.
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May 5, 2008 | Trades
Batman: The Killing Joke — The Deluxe Edition
Alan Moore, Brian Bolland
DC Comics
$21.99/$17.99 US (Hardcover)
***** (out of five)
The Killing Joke is one of the most perfect Batman comics ever published.
Really. Ask anybody. Except for its artist.
This stand-alone story, originally published in 1988, beautifully interwove a flashback tale that revealed the origin of the Joker with his current villainous plan to drive one of the noblest men in Gotham City — police commissioner Jim Gordon — insane.
Written by comic book icon Alan Moore (Watchmen, V For Vendetta) and breathtaking illustrated by gifted cover artist Brian Bolland (Camelot 3000), The Killing Joke is utterly chilling in its depiction of the Clown Price of Crime and how one horrible day turned him from a soon-to-be dad and husband into a psychotic killer.
Of course as good as all this sounds, nothing is ever perfect.
Bolland, due to time constraints back in ’88, couldn’t do the colouring himself on the book, resulting in a finished product he was never that happy with.
Now, with this book said to be one of the main inspirations for the pending summer blockbuster, The Dark Knight, starring Christian Bale as Batman and the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, Bolland’s original vision — one far more suited to the material — has finally been delivered in a deluxe hardcover edition befitting this all-time classic.
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May 5, 2008 | Trades
DMZ Vol. 4: Friendly Fire
Brian Wood, Riccardo Burchielli, Nathan Fox, Viktor Kalvachev, Kristian Donaldson
Vertigo/DC Comics
$15.99/$12.99 US (Paperback)
**** (out of five)
The United States of America lost a war on Day 204 and now someone is going to swing for it.
The young-but-increasingly bitter Matty Roth, the only journalist living and working in the DMZ that used to be New York City after the second American civil war, is about to get the story of a lifetime. He gets to interview the lone soldier charged after 198 peace protesters were gunned down on Day 204 of the conflict in what was either a provoked attack or a colossal mistake — depending on who you ask.
Digging deeper, Matty follows up with the families of the victims and others living in the DMZ to discover the lasting effects this massacre had — how it lost the war for America based solely on perception — and he learns that no matter whether the soldier is found guilty of innocent, that old wounds bleed deeply.
Writer Brian Wood, along with regular artist Riccardo Burchielli and guest artists Nathan Fox, Viktor Kalvachev and Kristian Donaldson, continues to deliver a series that always seems far too grounded in reality to be comfortable — one of the most gripping and relevant comics published today.
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May 5, 2008 | Trades
Justice League International Vol. 1
Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, Al Gordon
DC Comics
$29.99/$24.99 US (Hardcover)
**** ½ (out of five)
Rule No. 1 in writing a major, mainstream DC Comics title: Batman isn’t funny.
Of course, that’s not to say you can’t surround him with a bunch of quip-throwing heroes and make him the straight man.
That’s pretty much the formula followed by the writing team of Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis back in 1987 when, along with artists Kevin Maguire, Terry Austin and Al Gordon and editor Andy Helfer, they reinvigorated the Justice League.
Instead of a collection of the world’s greatest heroes dedicated to stopping evil and only talking business, these heroes (granted not necessarily the world’s greatest, either) tended to view the Justice League as more of a superhero club, where they could be themselves (for better or worse) and, oh, also stop evil whenever it reared its ugly head.
The result was an instant classic.
From Captain Marvel’s naïveté to Guy Gardner’s boorishness to Blue Beetle’s wise cracking, the book blended humour and action better than any book before or since.
This new hardcover collection of the first seven issues of the series — which sees the transition from mere superhero team to UN-sanctioned international peacekeeping force — breaks rule No. 1 and a lot more to boot and the result is quite simply extraordinary.
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May 5, 2008 | Trades
Supergirl And The Legion Of Super-Heroes: The Quest For Cosmic Boy
Tony Bedard, Dennis Calero
DC Comics
$16.99/$14.99 US (Paperback)
*** ½ (out of five)
They say all good things must end, so Supergirl couldn’t stay in the 30th century forever.
Could she?
In the wake of the epic Dominator War, which ended when Legion leader Cosmic Boy banished the Dominators and their entire world to the mysterious Phantom Zone, the galaxy’s greatest super-team is faced with looming threats on all sides.
First, Cosmic Boy is missing (he accepted an invitation to join the Legion of the 41st century without telling anyone). Second, Cosmic Boy is being investigated for war crimes for “destroying” the Dominator’s homeworld.
Three Legion strike teams are off to different parts of the galaxy in search of “Cos” and instead they find danger, trouble and chaos in large amounts. Oh, and they just might have found a way to get Supergirl home to the 21st century.
Writer Tony Bedard ties up a lot of loose ends in a nice bow in this latest Legion adventure.
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