Archive for April, 2009
April 6, 2009 | Trades
As riot cops bash in the skulls of innocent people on the streets below, Spider Jerusalem huddles on a strip club roof pouring rage through his fingertips into his laptop and out into the world.
The most over-the-top journalist in the world has come down from his mountain after five years of peace — and he's not happy. Only the threat of a crippling lawsuit over two books owed to his publisher could get him to come back to this place. But once the putrid smells and deafening sounds of the city soak in, the old Spider's is ready to get back to work. And his first story looks to be a doozy.
Transmetropolitan Vol. 1 — Back on the Street (Vertigo, $16.99, 144 pages), a frenetic, futuristic masterpiece meshing the wonderfully warped mind of writer Warren Ellis (Planetary, Authority), with the staggeringly filthy and breathtakingly detailed work of artist Darick Roberson (The Boys), sets the tone perfectly for what became one of the best mature-readers series of all time.
To help dig up material for his books, Spider takes a job as a columnist with The Word, a newsfeed site, and quickly sets his attention on the transience movement — people who are changing themselves from human to alien — and their recent bid for autonomy within a city neighbourhood.
After interviewing the leader of the cause, Spider is ready to write his piece and wash his hands of the situation, but when the standoff escalates into full blown war with the cops, the writer wades right into the heart of the action to get to the truth — with a scoop that shocks the public and puts the city's ne’er-do-wells on high alert: He's baaaaack!
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April 6, 2009 | Trades
Sergio Aragones' Groo: Hell on Earth
Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier
Dark Horse Books
$17.95 US (Paperback)
*** 1/2 (out of five)
All around the medieval world, people wise and foolhardy, rich and poor, young and old know that when Groo comes to town, death and disaster are soon to follow.
It can be argued that this bumbling, dimwitted, wandering swordsman - one of the most enduring and amusing comic characters of the past 25 years — is a force of nature given the number of disasters he's caused and people, ally and foe alike, he's done in.
When Groo wanders into the domain of King Buco looking for a means to earn some food for himself and his beloved dog, Rufferto, he quickly finds himself exascerbating some very unnatural disasters.
With wit and nuance aplenty, master cartoonist Sergio Aragones and his faithful writer sidekick Mark Evanier marches Groo to the east, to the west, to the north and south, showing the dramatic effects that people are having on the environment. The allegory is a bit transparent at times, but blended pretty well with that typical Groo humour making for both an amusing and thoughtful read.
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April 6, 2009 | Comics
A Treasury of 20th Century Murder: The Lindbergh Child
Rick Geary
NBM ComicsLit
$15.95 US (Hardcover)
*** (out of five)
It was a crime that shocked the world.
The kidnapping of 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh Jr. on March 1, 1932 made headlines around the world, while the subsequent investigation, and eventual arrest, trial and execution of the man found guilty of the crime held the attention of the globe years after that fateful night in rural New Jersey.
Writer/artist Rick Geary delves deeply into all the facts of the case from Day 1 through to the decades-later after-effects, using clean pages of black-and-white art, and presents a fairly clear argument for the guilt of Bruno Hauptmann, the man who was eventually sent to the electric chair for taking, and killing, the child of the most famous man in the world.
Geary also infuses a little twinge of black humour into the case as he highlights the numerous quirky personalities who gained their 10 minutes of fame in association with the crime, including several spectacular liars and scam artists, adding a nice layer of depth and preventing the book from decending into a simple blow-by-blow account.
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