From the Reading Pile: The Black Diamond Detective Agency

The Black Diamond Detective Agency
By Eddie Campbell (from the screenplay by C. Gaby Mitchell)

When a train explodes at the turn of the century, a devious plot is unearthed and the Black Diamond Detective Agency are the only people who can solve it.

Campbell hits everything perfect here. The story is a hybrid of a Western and a pulp noir. There are twists and turns, deceptions and mob wars. It is a thrilling and gripping read that will keep the reader at the edge of their seat.

As solid as the story is, it is Mr. Campbell’s art that is truly special here. He captures the feel of the time and the chaos of the explosion perfectly. His use of reds to underscore the mayhem without resorting to graphic depictions of the blood shed contained is restrained and genius. He leaves the more gruesome details to the reader. In fact, much of the action happens off the panel, allowing the reader to determine how a gun fight plays out, where a mark is hit, and what a mess must look like.

The painted style gives the book a kinetic flow that feeds in to the cinematographic feel of the piece. His thick chunky lines make it look animated and his detailed backgrounds give it more of a photo realistic feel. Buildings, trains, and other large objects fill up entire pages with great detail and lifelike recreations.

This is an exciting and worthwhile read with stunning graphics that should entertain anyone who likes the Western genre or is looking for a decent mystery yarn.

From the Reading Pile: Flight Volume 6

Flight: Volume Six
By Various
Edited by Kazu Kibuishi

It almost seems moot to try to review this book in light of the ongoing feature here on Understanding Comics. To a certain extant, it seems pointless to be trying to review any comic at this point in time, but I will keep trucking forward.

Flight has long been the acme of the comics anthology. It has soared us to the highest heights the format can possible have us expect of it. While I have not been a fan of every story in the five previous volumes, it is easy to say that the love and creative power on display in this series is a testament to comics as a medium.

That being said. This one is the first to falter. It is not to say that the creative energy and effort was not put into this volume. It is as well crafted, beautifully illustrated and entertaining as any of the previous volumes. No, the problem here is content. With the debut of Flight Explorer a couple of years ago, which was this reader's first foray into the series, Flight became the property of the more mature reader. There have been stories that were not necessarily suited to an all ages audience in past volumes - be it through innuendo, drug use, thematics, or what have you. Explorer opened a division in the franchise, a place for the child to revel in its delights but be shielded from what might be viewed as improper for younger readers. It seems now that maybe that was not the intent. Maybe, Explorer was purely an effort in younger reader fare, not all ages content. The difference between Jeff Smith's Bone and his Little Mouse. This should not be problematic, but then why is so much of what was on display in Explorer present in this volume?

On to the actual stories. The return of Daisy Kutter is welcome here. We also have the best entry thus far in The Saga of Rex. Other returning favorites include Jellaby and Fish N Chips. Some of the best Pantomine comics ever are presented in "Dead at Noon" and "Walters". "Mate" is the most stunningly inventive design work of the year. All in all it is an entertaining volume, it is just curious why this volume seems to be Flight Explorer expanded, instead of Flight proper.

A Reading Pile Special: Understanding Comics Day Two

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
Chapter One - Setting the Record Straight
By Scott McCloud

McCloud begins his journey into the deeper world of comics in a unique way. He starts by poking a bit of fun at them. The writer was not initially enamored with the medium, even though he would grow up to change the face of comics through his work.

In the Eighth Grade, his good friend Kurt Busiek truly introduced him to the world of sequential art. Scott’s world was changed forever. He sensed something deeper in comics, but was met by scoffing of a familiar sort about these feelings. This set his motor running.

Why did people think comics were kid’s stuff, silly superhero books with bad art? So, the first order of business is to define comics. Partly to do away with the stigma, partly to open the discourse of the book.

The simplest definition would be Will Eisner’s. He defined comics as “sequential art.” Unfortunately, McCloud thinks that definition might be a bit too broad. So he comes up with a more detailed definition:

com-ics (kom’iks) n. plural in form, used with a singular verb. 1. Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.

Using this definition, the author proceeds to look at the history of comics. He reaches past Yellow Kid and the onset of modern comics and talks about Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Mixtec Manuscripts, the Bayeux Tapestry and more. He doesn’t attempt to pinpoint the genesis of the medium. History is not his goal here.

His goal is to get the narrow perception of comics recognized as the bunk it is. This is a medium that goes back centuries and has produced a Pulitzer Prize winning tome. It is not Kid’s stuff.

McCloud throws the gauntlet down from the very beginning. He is going to explore the qualities and possibilities of comics in depth. If what you it is all Superman and Spider-Man, he wants your biases out of the way fast. An open mind is going to be needed, cause he intends to expand it.

I hope you will join me tomorrow for day three of this special look at Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.

From the Reading Pile: Pixu - The Mark of Evil

Pixu: The Mark of Evil
By Gabriel Ba, Becky Cloonan, Vasilis Lolos, and Fabio Moon

Four of comics most, for lack of a better word, avant garde artists team up for one creepy story.

When a strange marking appears in their apartment building, five people begin to have their lives changed.

The story here is not the easiest to grasp. The "monster" is not a physical beast but a plague of the mind. The abstraction that crawls from the walls and windows into the characters is a feeling of dread, confusion, chaos, etc. These various dark thoughts creep into each of the tenants and eats away at them.

This is one of the more disturbing reads in quite a while. As the evil is mental, there is no beast to be slain, outside the apartment and its occupants themselves.

What is most astonishing is that the styles of the four artists blend together. They are, of course, complimentary, but there are moments when it is as if one artist did it all, even though you can definitively say it was this one or that in a particular panel. Collectively, they create a new visual vocabulary that is not present when they work individually.

Pixu is a ground breaking work of horror that will set its seed in the reader, much as it has its players.

RIYL: Locke & Key, Sin Titulo, Strange Embrace

From the Reading Pile: Daybreak Episode One

Daybreak Episode One
By Brian Ralph

A zombie book with two very unique qualities - no zombies and it is told in first person. The first person stands out the most. I don't think I have ever seen a comic from that point of view before. As with all first person narratives (especially in a visual medium), it works to a lesser extant than one would hope. While it is on its surface an awesome idea, it becomes contrived as there is no way to truly make it seamless. No matter the conceit, it is impossible for the reader to interact in the environment of the graphic novel.

The lack of zombies is nifty. This isn't a Walking Dead type thing where you see them in the beginning and end or every once in a while, there are NO ZOMBIES in this zombie book. This forces Ralph to make his characters sympathetic and believable. It is just a tad drawn out in this volume, but it works.

Art wise, the book has a Jeffery Brown type feel. It is a cartoon with rough lines that are surprisingly consistent. The designs work and the story telling is as fine as it can be for the concept.

This is an intriguing idea. Only reading further volumes will declare whether or not it is a particularly successful idea. Unfortunately, I don't think I am ready to commit more time to this one as of now.

For anyone interested in the book, it is distributed by Bodega and first appeared as a webcomic at newbodega.blogspot.com.

Worth a Second Look: The Mice Templar, Vol. 1: The Prophecy

The Mice Templar: The Prophecy
By Bryan J.L. Glass & Michael Avon Oeming

The adventures are Karic are a special journey that begin here. Long enthralled by the local Blacksmith's tales of an ancient order of Mice who keep all of mousedom safe, Karic is a boy prone to fantasy day dreams and eager to play swords and sorcery. When a stranger comes to town with a tale no one will hear, a dark destiny is carved out for our young hero.

The Mice Templar is a love letter to fantasy. It throws in a tablespoon of Star Wars, a cup of Redwall, a knob of Nymh, and a dash of The Lord of the Rings, but manages to come off not only as homage, but as a unique entity. This volume deals almost exclusively with how Karic becomes the last hope for an ancient order and a dying religion. He is not the first choice of the masters who need to see the legacy carried on, but he is a choice and that is something that they have long searched for.

Glass and Oeming's story is magnificent in its density and scope. The schedule of these first six issues was a bit of a problem, it seemed to come out almost haphazardly. The amount of story presented in each chapter and the unfortunate, yet incorrect, assumption that all the mice looked the same, made it hard to follow on a bi-monthly or longer schedule. The momentum of the book was lost in between chapters. The new volume which saw its first issue released this past Wednesday promises to be different with a new artist and its next issue shipping in a mere two weeks.

As you can see below, the review for that first issue of Volume Two showed that there was no love lost to this reader during the wait. That love for the story sparked this rereading and short review of the first part of the epic and it was not time wasted. This is a great story that is massively entertaining. Like those Lucas films that it seems to admire, this is one worth enjoying time and time again.

From the Reading Pile: Sin City Vol 2 - A Dame to Kill For

A Dame To Kill For
By Frank Miller

The Hard Goodbye suffered from Miller's penchant for hokey dialogue. Oddly enough it worked well enough for Marv's story.

Here, Miller delves fully into Noir. Dwight's speech is full of the cadence and swagger of Bogart at his finest. The lust between Dwight and Ava is thick, the smell of sweat rises from the page.

What's more, Miller embraces the pulp mechanisms, sprinkling bits from the other volumes here and there. The story becomes a frame and like a Leonard novel, old friends are hiding in corners.

Oh, Ava's monologuing can get overbearing - but it is made up for in spades by the momentum that keeps the pages turning and the story moving.

To this reader, this is a better outing that the first volume. Miller is playing around less and hunkering down to tell a decent story.

From the Reading Pile: From Hell

From Hell
By Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

Masterpiece. Alan Moore has at least three books that qualify. There is Watchmen, Lost Girls, and this one. It is probably the least of the three, but it still rises to the top of the greatest achievements in all of comics.

Moore takes the lore of Jack the Ripper and uses it to mark a clear demarcation between the grime and questionable morality of 19th century London and the free for all that has become the 20th century and beyond. By pointing out the evils of that more "innocent" time, he examines the worst of humanity and the evils of the present become a more potent concern.

Along the way there is the cautionary tale of Gull. He is a doctor who strives to be the best at what he does. Slowly, but surely, his unquenchable drive causes him to lose not only his mind, but everything he worked so hard for.

Campbell's art is an acquired taste. The loose line is overcome by his strong storytelling. One has to wonder what a more capable artist could have brought to the table. Would the loss of the gritty mood have been more harmful than the sketchy nature of the art?

A sublime, dark and incredibly dense epic, From Hell takes historical fiction into the realm of the metaphysical.

From The Reading Pile: Hellboy Vol. 2 - Wake The Devil

Hellboy: Wake the Devil
By Mike Mignola

More from the uncontrollable stack of books I have yet to read. Like Sin City, I am reading this in the big Library Editions from Dark Horse. This first hardcover (of which this is the second half) took me a while, because to be honest, Seed of Destruction didn't exactly set my world on fire. Fortunately, it was not my first experience with Hellboy. I had checked out what ever mini series was being published when I first got back into comics. I dug it, but after a couple of series... I am thinking I made it to The Black Flame... I realized that this world was rich in back story, so I decided to start at the beginning and then these cool hardcovers were solicited.

This is more like it. After the somewhat empty opening of the first series, the whole ball of wax gets rolling here. Rasputin, Vampires, Gods, Nazis, Mad Scientists, Disembodied Heads. That's what our Demon friend should be fighting. However, the emotional connection to his team becomes clearer here. We see him face his destiny and claim his own path. The wry humor is here. Perfect comics from a genius of the medium.

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From the Reading Pile: Sin City Volume 1: The Hard Goodbye

The Hard Goodbye
By Frank Miller

Having seen the movie, I was a big enough fan that I own the entire series in the big over-sized hard covers, but have never actually gotten to reading them - hence the name of this new feature, brought on by my illness this past weekend, where I didn't read anything new to review and pretty much just lied around reading things from the big pile in my comics room.

This was a solid story. It easy to see why they made the movie focus on this story. Marv is a great character and there is a nice balance between the noir darkness and Miller's sense of humor.

The art is amazing. Miller utilizes the black and white to the nth degree. He has a sense of shadowing seldom seen in comics and the simple palate accentuates this. The detail is amazing.

The only thing that holds this book back is the ham-fisted dialogue. Of course, it is perfect coming from Marv, but still unbelievable. What was once kitschy enough to make The Dark Knight Returns a breath of fresh air is over the top here.

Still, all and all, a great read deserving of the accolades and status it has obtained in fandom.