I Watch TV Too: I need more time

I got behind on Timeless, but I'm all caught up before new episodes start again, so here's a quick review dump:

Timeless
Season 1, Episode 8-10: "Space Race," "Last Ride of Bonnie & Clyde," and "The Capture of Benedict Arnold"
NBC, 2016

Welp, Timeless is still rolling along, and I'm still enjoying it. Of the three episodes that closed out 2016, we've got one that's an "adventure of the week," one that's sort of a character piece, and one that furthers the show's overarching plot in kind of interesting ways.



First up is "Space Race," in which the team heads back to 1969 to save the moon landing, which bad guy Garcia Flynn and his kidnapee/accomplice, the lead time machine scientist played by Matt Frewer (who I hope gets to travel to the 80s at some point and note his similarity to Max Headroom) have decided to sabotage for some reason. It gives our heroes their usual chance to geek out over being witness to a famous historical moment, and it also leads to some pretty amusing technobabble in which Rufus has to figure out how to fix a virus that Frewer infected NASA's computers with (he supposedly used a DDoS attack, which doesn't make any sense). Interestingly, he does so by recruiting Katherine Johnson, the real-life woman who was an unsung hero of the space program due to her race (she's played by Taraji P. Henson in the recent movie Hidden Figures). I do like that this show manages to work in historical figures like this and point out bits of less-remembered history.

As amusing as all of this is, with jokes about how the giant computers running the space program can hold 10 whole megabytes of data, it definitely strains credulity, with mission control spending most of the episode sitting around with their thumbs up their asses while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin sit there on the moon waiting for the guys on the ground to fix the computers. The episode also suffers from its other plot, in which it turns out that the NASA stuff is mostly misdirection so Flynn can go meet his mother and try to change his family's history for the better. I think the show is trying to humanize him, making him into a conflicted villain who does evil for what he thinks is the greater good, but it ends up being kind of a muddle, with the audience not sure who to root for or how much they should care. Oh well, it's off to the Depression for the next episode!



You can guess the setting of this episode from its title, "The Last Ride of Bonnie and Clyde." Unfortunately, it's not especially interesting, maybe because the actors playing the eponymous bank robbers are no Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Our heroes head into the past to meet up with them when they find out that Flynn is after a key that Bonnie wears around her neck, which he has helpfully labeled as the "Rittenhouse Key" in some documents that the government recovered, so everyone knows it's important to the series' conspiracy plot.

Aside from a shootout that happens when Bonnie and Clyde rob a bank that Lucy and Wyatt have wandered into, the episode kind of drags, spending a lot of time with the characters hanging out with the historical figures and quizzing them about where they got the key (turns out Clyde stole it from Henry Ford and gave it to Bonnie in lieu of a wedding ring, since she was already married to someone else). I think we're supposed to wonder if Lucy and Wyatt are also forming a budding romance and maybe see some inspiration in these historical examples, but they don't have much in the way of chemistry, so I hope not.

Anyway, aside from an interesting scene between Rufus, Flynn (who is posing as a bounty hunter chasing the Barrow Gang), and Frank Hamer, the Texas Ranger who led the ambush that killed Bonnie and Clyde, there's not a whole lot of interest here. Flynn ends up getting the key he was looking for, and the episode ends with him using it to open a steampunk mechanism in some old-timey clock and retrieve a mysterious scroll, which we're supposed to find exciting, if the dramatic music is any indication. What does the scroll contain? Find out next episode:



"The Capture of Benedict Arnold" functions as a Fall finale for this season, and it's back to exciting territory for the series as the cast faces their own "would you kill baby Hitler?" dilemma. This time, the gang heads back to find out what Flynn wants with, yes, Benedict Arnold; turns out he's a founding member of the evil Rittenhouse conspiracy, which is what that mysterious scroll told Flynn. We learn his plan when the team runs into George Washington and he introduces them to a familiar spy from the Culper Ring (a reference that I knew, having read Y: The Last Man) and asks them all to go on a mission to kill the traitor who recently defected to the British.

So that's their first big decision: should they trust Flynn and work with him to try to destroy Rittenhouse at its inception? Flynn tries to get them to agree by showing them that Rittenhouse is behind every travesty in American history (Lucy cites the Trail of Tears and the Waco Massacre), which is enough evidence for them to agree, I guess. When they do catch up with Benedict Arnold, the plot thickens even further when he reveals that Rittenhouse is just one man at this point in history, so if they can kill him, maybe they'll change history for the better?

This is all pretty dubious stuff, and it's the kind of thing that annoys me about not just this type of science fiction, but conspiracy stories in general. Trying to pass of centuries of horrible acts that real people carried out as a sinister plot by some evil overlords cheapens the real human cost that everyone should reckon with. Plus, it's less dramatically interesting, in my opinion. The banality of evil, the fact the real, regular people are capable of the horrors that we've witnessed throughout history is much more interesting than the idea that there is a cabal of moustache-twirling bad guys pulling everyone's strings.

But that's what you get in shows like this, so at least they make it fun by having the evil progenitor of the show's conspiracy be played by Armin Shimerman (Quark from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). He almost immediately sees through our band of misfits' assassination plot and captures them, smirking the whole time at his superiority over them. The good guys still win, of course, but mostly out of luck and dramatic necessity, and they end up killing not only Rittenhouse, but Benedict Arnold, and the British General Cornwallis, and who knows what changes that will have on history.

But Rittenhouse's young son gets away, providing the big dramatic climax of the episode, since Flynn wants to kill him, but Lucy won't allow it, even though we got a scene in which the kid told them all about how his dad thinks that the powerful people are destined to rule over the peasants, preferably from the shadows while mollifying them with the appearance of democracy. The kid is definitely shaping up to be an evil mastermind, but now that his dad is dead, maybe he'll change? That's the argument anyway, which plays out to tiresome extent in the episode's climax, even though it seems obvious that even though the show regularly changes history, it won't actually sign off on child murder. And sure enough, the kid gets away, which enrages Flynn enough to kidnap Lucy and take her with him in his time machine, leaving us on a cliffhanger until next time.

So sure, the show is still fun, although I'm finding the conspiracy plot to be increasingly tiresome, for reasons stated above. Of the three leads, Rufus is the only one who seems to have much personality; Lucy and Wyatt are bland and boring, no matter how many times they reiterate what they're fighting for (for the former, it's to try to fix things to bring back her sister, who was accidentally erased from history; for the latter, it's to maybe try to do likewise with his wife, who died in a car accident that might have been masterminded by Rittenhouse for some reason).

Interestingly, one of the series' minor players, the Homeland Security lady who sends the team on their missions, gets one of the more affecting scenes of the entire series in this episode when she has Lucy over for dinner to meet her family, confides in her that she's horrified at the possibility that they might change history in a way that makes her wife and kids disappear without her even knowing that they existed, and asks her to carry a thumb drive full of photos and videos of them with her on her missions in case that ever happens. It's a kind of goofy idea, but it fits into what the show has been doing, and actress Sakina Jaffrey totally kills the scene, demonstrating that with a decent performance, real emotion can be wrung out of these situations.

If the show has to shoot for emotion and drama in future episodes, it would be great if it's more like this than the overwrought angst the series' leads usually engage in, but I'm not especially hopeful. Instead, I'll just be glad whenever we get to see some fun time travel shenanigans, meet historical figures both well-known and less so, and recreate various settings on whatever backlot the show shoots on. That will probably be enough for me to keep watching.

I Watch TV Too: Out of time

Timeless
Season 1, Episode 7: "Stranded"
NBC, 2016



As I've stated, I enjoy this show, but it's not exactly good. That is, it's fun when it gets into rollicking time-travel adventures, but it's at its weakest when focusing on interpersonal drama between its characters. But while this episode does feature some of the latter, it balances it out with a decent amount of the former, enough so that I'll call it a win.

I suppose some focus on the characters was necessary after the big revelations in the previous episode, which set the main trio of the show at odds with each other as they all found reasons to be distrustful of one another. So, this episode sticks them in multiple situations in which they have to figure out how to work out their differences, which is fine, but neither the writing nor the acting is strong enough to justify the time spent. This means that we have to suffer through some interminable conversations about how they have to learn to work together and all that jazz.

But luckily, the rest of the episode has some fun stuff. The team pursues their nemesis, Flynn, to Pennsylvania in 1754, thinking he's going to try to change the outcome of the French and Indian War or something. But it turns out he has something more dastardly in mind: sabotage of their time machine in hopes of causing them to get stuck in the past with no way to get home. Oh no!

Luckily, our heroes are resourceful, so they come up with a ridiculous plan to sneak into a French fort and steal some supplies so Rufus, the team nerd, can cobble together a capacitor and get the ship working well enough to jump back to the present. This is pretty ridiculous (not that I've looked into the science or anything, but replacing circuitry with some bottles and flattened tin seems suspect), but it's one of those things that sciencey guys can do on shows like this, so we'll go with it.

And they also end up having a series of adventures on the way to their destination, including being captured by both French troops and Native Americans, with the latter providing one of the more dramatically ridiculous moments of the episode when Rufus somehow convinces them that he's not a slave and he'll put his life on the line to free his friends. This scene also gives us the requisite brush with history, as Lucy gets excited to meet their chieftess, Nonhelema (who has a surprisingly good grasp of modern English slang), but doesn't get the chance to explain who she is. Maybe they just didn't have time for the exposition, but it was kind of nice to have a character acknowledge that this is somebody notable without giving us a synopsis of their term paper about them.

And along with the historical shenanigans, there's also some drama in the present as the team of time-travelers try to send a message to the future through a time capsule, which gives Gia, the mousy (in Hollywood terms) technician who Rufus has a crush on, the chance to angst about her relationship with Rufus and eventually use their shared history of incredibly obvious sci-fi fandom references to interpret the message he left that will help them get back to the future. It's an example of a bit of writing that doesn't make sense (why would he leave such a cryptic message?), but as a way to develop character relationships, it works much better than the dramatic scenes between the three leads.

So, sure, the show is still fun. It's got time travel adventure, action, technobabble, and lots of ridiculousness (my favorite thing this episode was when our heroes were trying to hide from French soldiers and they just kind of wandered around in the forest without checking to see if they could be spotted). I'm still on board, although this focus on interpersonal drama might wear me down at some point. But as long as there's stuff like people dressed up in tri-corner hats and breeches and guys using blacksmith equipment to fix a time machine, I expect I'll be enjoying what they've got to offer.

I Watch TV Too: I want MORE of Timeless (I suppose)

It's been several years since I wrote about a TV show on an ongoing basis, so here's the first installment of what will hopefully be a recurring feature in which I discuss at least one show that I watch:

Timeless
Season 1, Episode 6: "The Watergate Tape"
NBC, 2016



It's been a while since I've had a show that I enjoyed as something fun and kind of silly, without much in the way of importance on any real artistic level. Luckily, I'm kind of a sucker for time travel stories, and this show, which began airing on NBC this fall, pushes all the right buttons for that genre: recreations of the past that mostly focus on recognizable signifiers, people gawking at famous historical figures, characters recalling important details that help them in their adventures to the past, lots of hand-wringing about maintaining the sanctity of history, that sort of thing. And it's all wrapped up in a goofy ongoing plot about some sort of Illuminati-based conspiracy too!

So, the story goes as follows: some corporation invented time travel and immediately had their time machine stolen by some sort of evil mastermind who is out to destroy the United States by wrecking important historical moments. Luckily, they have a backup time machine on hand, so they recruit a young lady who is an expert in American history and a rakishly handsome special forces soldier, and along with one of the scientists who acts as their pilot, they get sent back to the past to foil the evil plots. That's your basic structure for every episode: the scientists track the bad guy's time machine, figure out what event they're going to screw with, and send our heroes to stop them. Rinse, repeat, enjoy.

And it has been pretty enjoyable, with the characters getting involved in events like the crash of the Hindenburg, Abraham Lincoln's assassination, and the Alamo, and interestingly, they've often ended up changing history, resulting in significant alterations when they return to the present. There's plenty of angst about whether or not they should try to change the past, but much of this is just a dramatic hook to hang the next action sequence on. They do at least try to make it compelling; the episode about Lincoln had some real emotional moments built around whether to let a great man die just because it's supposed to happen, along with a nice look at the plight of black soldiers who fought in the Civil War. It's all generally fun times, but the show does seem to want to struggle a bit with its themes, and maybe with American history as well (there's a nice moment in the pilot episode when Rufus, the time machine's pilot, says that as a black man, pretty much any moment in the past would be a bad one for him to visit).

But, since this is a TV show in the 2010s, there has to be an ongoing plot and some sort of shadowy conspiracy pulling the strings, and many of the early episodes have seen some menacing stuff going on around the fringes. The pilot, Rufus, had been tasked with providing intelligence on his fellow time travelers by secretly recording them and providing said recordings to his boss (British actor Paterson Joseph, who retains the aura of creepiness that he brought to his role as a cult leader on The Leftovers), and he's only doing so because some organization called Rittenhouse is threatening his family. In the first episode, Lucy, the historian, ran into the bad guy, Flynn (played by ER's Goran Visnjic), and he claimed that he's actually carrying out a campaign to bring down these same Rittenhouse people, and he's helped in his task by a journal that he received from Lucy's future self. So many secrets; when will our heroes ever find out about them?

Well, this week's episode answered that, as most everything was brought to light. During a trip to 1972 to recover the missing 18 minutes of Nixon's recordings (it turns out he's also afraid of Rittenhouse), all three main characters have their secrets revealed to each other, and now they're all rather mistrustful. But they also discover more about the Rittenhouse conspiracy, which seems to involve some sort of secret society that is so intertwined with American history that it's basically inextricable from the United States itself. Which may provide some interesting plots going forward; should they continue trying to stop Flynn each time he tries to ruin history, or should they team up with him? How can they use their exploits in the past to give them more power in the present? Will they ever stop whining about how they can't trust each other? We'll have to see, I guess.

But in the meantime, I'm sure there will be many more time travel adventures to go on. This episode had some enjoyable moments, like Lucy and Rufus getting in touch with Deep Throat (since we actually know who he was now) to try to extract some information about the Watergate burglary, or Rufus happening to know all about the relationships between the leaders of the Black Liberation Army so that he can convince them he's a member in order to recover something they were hiding from the Nixon administration (it turns out to be a person who knows a bunch of secrets about Rittenhouse, but for some reason nobody asks her to share any of that information with them, even though it would probably help them fight this evil conspiracy).

This show isn't exactly high art, but it's a pretty good time, with lots of action and at least some attempts to pay attention to historical details, even if those often take the form of interesting factoids that somebody can note on their current trip to the past. It's fast moving and goofy enough that you can usually just roll with it, even when some things don't make sense (where did Flynn get his army of thugs who are all too willing to accompany him to the past and get killed in the many shootouts that he has with the heroes?). Because why worry about the boring stuff when you can go on an adventure where you get to shoot a bunch of Nazis? That's what I'll be tuning in for each week; more of that sort of thing, please.

The Cardboard Valise: Like its namesake, the book contains multitudes

Elsewhere, from a while back: I wrote a bunch about the recently-ended season of Fringe over at The Factual Opinion.

Links: Hey, look, a huge chunk of Kagan McLeod's Infinite Kung-Fu is available to read for free on Top Shelf 2.0! I'm looking forward to this book, yes I am.

I really liked this webcomic, "Our Blood Stained Roof", by Ryan Andrews. He's a talent to watch, that's for sure.

Interesting Kickstarters: This project by Molly Crabapple looks really neat, and while it's fully funded and then some, you can watch it on a livestream if you donate.

And Box Brown's Retrofit Comics publishing effort is raising money; donating will get you all sorts of neat stuff, with comics by creators known and unknown and related merchandise, along with a sense of accomplishment for supporting indie comics.

This is late (well past its imaginary deadline), due to circumstances beyond my control, and also general laziness:

The Cardboard Valise
By Ben Katchor

What to make of Ben Katchor and his somewhat goofy sensibility that still makes you think, or maybe just think you're not smart enough to keep up with all the activity that goes on in his comics? There's really nobody out there like him, with his scratchy artwork and squat, kneeless characters, his wordiness and just-left-of-reality mundanely-magical realism, his weird concepts and oddly poignant social commentary. His brain seems to work differently from everyone else's, but he's still close enough to "normal" to present his ideas in a recognizable manner which allows readers to recognize themselves and their world from a slightly different angle than what they are used to. It's a unique experience.

 

This book is an excellent collection of Katchor's work, compiling strips originally published in various alternative weekly newspapers and filling the gaps between them with something of a throughline, although calling it a "plot" would probably be a bit strong. The strips follow some common themes, at first focusing on tourism and the effect that first-world countries have on the rest of the world, with a character visiting a small country called Tensint Island, which is famed for its public restroom ruins, has a native language that is composed of traveling salesmen's slang, and subsists entirely on canned food. But Katchor soon gets bored with or runs out of material related to that locale, so a strip sees it destroyed in ridiculous fashion so he can move on to matters back home, mostly in Fluxion city in a country called Outer Canthus, with occasional mentions of another, two-dimensional country nearby. The book kind of just wanders around in whatever direction Katchor pleases from here on out, which can get a bit tedious (it probably reads best in small doses), but there are bits of genius on each page, with extended series of strips following some eccentric characters, interspersed with one-off bits describing odd customs or industries. We see a tourist who has returned home but keeps acting as if he is on vacation, wearing shorts and t-shirts or sunbathing in wintry weather and expecting his apartment to be maid up by a hotel maid. There's a man who refuses to recognize any nationalistic customs, including answering doorbells, and tries to spread a universal language called Puncto that has come up with words for everything possible (example: "orifulage": a half-empty tube of toothpaste). A religious leader preaches about the hungers and materialistic desires that persist after death. It's all weird, goofy stuff, but it's full of intelligence about society, pointing out the absurdities and oddities of modern life by emphasizing and exaggerating them or having someone react in ways that are just enough outside of the acceptable norm to stand out.



It's hard to describe what it is exactly that makes this material so compelling, especially since it seems like it shouldn't work. Katchor fills pages with text, often having characters speak directly to the reader, sporting freakish, crazed expressions, but still seeming relatable. He manages to make their odd activities and pastimes understood without seeming tedious, and he introduces and abandons outrageous concepts quickly, yet weaves them all together into something resembling a whole, even if we feel that we can never quite grasp it in its entirety. There's something fascinatingly human about that, a reflection of how nobody can never really understand everything, no matter how hard we try. Maybe everything is all surface, but we try to dig below, to relate to people who are impossible to figure out. Are any of us, with our particular obsessions and habits, that different from Katchor's parade of goofballs? Not really, and this book has a strange, but fascinating, way of pointing that out, of illustrating the varied beauty of existence. That's something special.

Koko Be Good: No, not the gorilla

Elsewhere:  I wrote about this season's first two episodes of Fringe over at The Factual Opinion.  It looks like that show and I are stuck with each other.

Links:  Chris Burnham's 24 hour comic, Snake Punch, is pretty fuckin' awesome.

It looks like Lucy Knisley is doing a series of prints that sum up the Harry Potter movies in comics format.  I love her work; this is really cute stuff.

And hey, USA Today has a new Hellboy comic written and drawn by Mike Mignola; how about that?

Koko Be Good

By Jen Wang

It’s about time comics had its own Manic Pixie Dream Girl, isn’t it?  For those who don’t know, that term was invented by the film critic Nathan Rabin to describe the sort of flighty, irresistible romantic interest, such as Natalie Portman’s character in Garden State, a person who might seem to be a lot of fun in a fictional context, but would probably become insufferable in real life.  That certainly seems to describe the titular character that Jen Wang has created here (with the romantic angle deemphasized, however), although she comes at it with a knowing eye, with the character being enjoyable to watch as she bounces from scene to scene with lively energy, but actually alienating everyone around her with her antics.  It ends up being an interesting examination of the character, what makes her tick, and how she relates to others, placing her in a realistic world and allowing her exaggerated nature to push against its boundaries.

Wang’s take on Koko is enticing, detailing just enough background detail to hint at what might have made her the way she is: she’s near-homeless, so she often gets by through mooching and stealing, and then covers up for her behavior through being entertainingly loud and obnoxious.  A meeting with the book’s other lead, a young man named Jon who is pining after his older girlfriend and planning to move with her to Peru, inspires her to change her ways and, as the title indicates, “be good”.  What that means exactly is something she spends the book working out, and it’s fascinating to see how she approaches it, attempting approaches as varied as donating to charity, volunteering, and even selling all her possessions, often unsure whether she is doing the right thing, making any difference, or just fooling herself.  It’s a mature bit of storytelling on Wang’s part, refusing to supply easy answers or cheap sentiment, and building to an emotional crescendo that, even though it is cribbed from the Jack Nicholson movie About Schmidt, is no less effective in its punch to the gut.

It’s a lively tale, full of antics and personality, and some lovely artwork.  Wang’s fluid style is gorgeous to behold, grounding cartoony characters in a realistic environment, which, while it is never named, appears to be San Francisco.  Watercolored browns and greens give everything an earthy tone, situating the story squarely in the real world and keeping the goofy antics from getting too bright and cheery; there’s a somber tone underlying the comedy, a sad disconnectedness that makes the not-exactly-worldshaking conflict about finding oneself some weight. 

As for those characters, they’re a marvel of design, especially Koko herself, who, with her round face, big eyes, high forehead, and wide mouth, wears a succession of exaggerated expressions that make her immediately endearing, the kind of person who has no filter for their entertainingly frank thoughts, yet is charming enough to make that obnoxiousness funny rather than mean (at least at first).  There’s a brightness and excitement to her face, but also an edge, a sense that she can turn at a moment’s notice toward spite, anger, and derision.  But, since she’s trying to change her ways and be a good person, Wang ably depicts her struggling with herself, warring against her nature and trying to act differently from the person she has trained herself to be.  It’s a complex characterization, and fascinating to watch.

The book as a whole is not quite perfect, with a subplot involving Koko’s teenage acquaintance (and sometimes accomplice) Faron never really given the space it deserves; his home life, with his activist sister, her derisive boyfriend, and his hidden love of musical theater, suggests an interesting story in itself, but it doesn’t get enough space, and it doesn’t seem to fit in with the A-plot’s theme of self-betterment.  It’s still a nice bit of writing and characterization on Wang’s part, as is Jon’s enthusiasm about his girlfriend and their upcoming adventure, which seems to be slowly and sadly crowding out the hopes and dreams he had before he met her.  Wang’s characters are full and rounded, and if anything, we want to spend more time with them than the meager moments the book gives us.

This is a hell of a debut, an excellent work by an artist who, with her first full-length story, announces herself as a major talent and a huge rising star.  This doesn’t seem like the work of a beginner; its solidity and dimensionality, in both its art and storytelling, is impressively mature.  Hopefully, Wang will have a long and fruitful career, gifting readers with characters like this, that we want to spend as much time with as possible.

Dong Xoai, Vietnam 1965: If that's pronounced "Zowie!", I'll agree

Elsewhere: I don't think I've linked to this yet: I reacted with revulsion to the season premiere of True Beauty, which means I might or might not keep watching. That's summer TV for you.

Links:  Ed Piskor is posting the entirety of his Wizzywig series of graphic novels webcomic-style, with a page every few days.  I've been wanting to read this one.

This series of autobiographical 3-D comic strips (sort of) by Warren Craghead looks really cool.  I see another "look what Matt made!" post in the future.

Dong Xoai, Vietnam 1965
By Joe Kubert

Since Joe Kubert has been making comics longer than most of his readers have probably been alive, he gets a bit of leeway when considering the quality of his work.  Not to say that outright badness is excused, but some general clunkiness can go ignored, especially when there are so many frankly incredible examples of excellent artwork and storytelling on display.  The fact that he's working at all in his mid-eighties is already astonishing, and the level of craft in his art and dedication he shows in continuing to crank it out regularly is pretty amazing.

That said, this book is kind of an odd one, presenting a fictionalized account of an early battle in the Vietnam War that is nevertheless based closely on fact, which we know because a sort of reference dossier is included in the back of the book relating the real-life incidents as described by the men who experienced them.  But while Kubert changes names and probably fudges some details, he doesn't really make a great deal of effort to restructure things into a plot; instead, the whole story is little more than a series of events, described via narration and captioned dialogue.  The characters don't get reshaped into anything more than a series of interchangeable grunts either; they simply go through their paces like action figures, only slightly more momorable than the near-faceless hordes of Vietcong they end up battling.

But while that description sounds like a tedious exercise in fact-relation, the book is anything but, due to the fascinating things Kubert does with the art.  As mentioned, he foregoes the use of word balloons, relating everything via captions, which sets the art apart from the words, making for more of a free-flowing series of images, a feeling which is only bolstered by the lack of panel borders, which allows Kubert to spread the art organically across the page, one scene flowing into the next, the reader's eye swooping in elegant curves to match the lush greenery on display throughout.  One could conceivably ignore the captions altogether and manage to piece together the plot using only the images, and still end up pretty satisfied.

And to increase the difficulty level, Kubert's art is presented in "unfinished" form.  Actually, that's not completely true, since this is meant to be the final product, but the art remains uninked, raw pencils sitting naked and exposed, with "underdrawing" and guide marks still visible, allowing the viewer to see the process underlying the making of the images.  And yet, this doesn't seem amateurish or unfinished, but simply an expression that this is enough, no further embellishment is needed to get the idea across.  If anything, the elegant pencilwork communicates a down-to-earth roughness, befitting the dirty, bloody nature of the story's violent battle.  It's harsh and unforgiving, such that any mistakes would be even more obvious; luckily, Kubert doesn't make any.

No, he manages to take a bare-bones script and infuse it with life, making the jungle seem oppressive and full of secrets, giving characters emotion and expression, and filling action with motion and violence.  It's amazing, and it pulls the reader right into its struggle.  But while it might be difficult to do so, if one can take a step back and examine the art, it's like a miniature symposium on comics storytelling, full of near-invisible techniques for communicating information simply and succinctly, like the way depth can be shown by giving characters in the foreground more detail while simplifying them as they recede into the background:

Using contrast to guide the eye to the most important part of a scene:

Or the way looser shading can portray light, shadow, and definition, while denser scribbles of lines can represent smoke or darkness:

Of course, that sort of thing might seem obvious, but Kubert makes difficult-to-master techniques look easy, which is what comes from a lifetime of practice.  The fluid motion he manages to convey even in the midst of crowded scenes of rushing figures is something that seems a bit tougher to grasp:

As is his ease with facial expressions, which manages to differentiate characters excellently, while convincingly conveying a full range soldierly qualities like determination and righteous anger:

It's a master class in comics art, but one could be forgiven for not even noticing and just being pulled along by the velocity of the storytelling.  Kubert has put together a signature work here, one that should be studied for years to come.

If there's anything to wonder about, it's the lack of political comment, which here is mostly limited to American troops being limited to acting in an advisory capacity.  Perhaps enough time has elapsed that that pointless quagmire of an exercise can be another setting for tales of heroic derring-do, especially when placed at this early date, before things got really ugly.  No, the real complaint would probably be the glorification of war; while Kubert doesn't pull any punches when depicting death, the whole affair does have a heroic feel, with soldiers rescuing each other with exemplary marksmanship, or going out in a blaze of glory in defense of their fellow men.  It's kind of old fashioned in the way it seems uncritical of war itself, even while depicting its horrors.

But whatever your feelings about the book's ultimate message, you can't deny that it's a gorgeous piece of artwork, a great example of the talent that Kubert has honed over decades of work and now wields as an instrument of comics-making excellence.  He sets a hell of an example for the generations of artists that have followed him, and if there's anything right in the world, he will continue to do so for many more.

Young Lions: If I said I hated it, I'd be lyin'

Elsewhere: I wrote about the first part of the Fringe season finale over at The Factual Opinion.  Part two, coming up next.

Webcomics links: I thought the latest installment of Gabrielle Bell's Lucky was especially good. I particularly liked this panel,with its dripping shadows of anxiety:

I also thought this strip by Daryl Cunningham about Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the guy behind the anti-vaccination scam of recent years.  His non-fiction, medical-themed comics are always good.

And in a somewhat webcomic-related link, here's the site for Regular People, an animated short film that Colleen Frakes (Woman King, Tragic Relief, etc.) worked on, which you can donate to and receive fabulous rewards, if you like.

Young Lions
By Blaise Larmee

I'm not sure what to make of this book, but I do find it kind of fascinating, and interesting to try to figure out what creator Blaise Larmee is going for.  He seems to be an emerging comics talent, having been awarded the Xeric Grant for this book and maintaining a presence online, but his style is like nothing I've ever seen before, a sort of dreamlike, minimalistic look that doesn't seem to have much of a plot, seeming instead to be an attempt to capture a certain youthful feeling of ennui, a sense of being ready to take over the world, but not knowing what to do with that energy.  It's strange and unintuitive, but certainly pretty to look at.

What plot there is in the book follows a trio of kids who are members of a "conceptual art group", although what this means is never really explained.  One of them idolizes Yoko Ono, and another seems to be the leader, performing seance-like rituals at parties, but they don't seem to be out to accomplish much of anything or gain any recognition.  In fact, the main portion of the book sees them hook up with a fourth "member" and travel with her to spend time in a remote house in a secluded forest, and much of the time they just sit around, wandering through the trees and swimming in a lake.  And that's about all there is to it, with little in the way of development or conflict, but a sense of boredom and uncertainty about the future pervading.

So if plot isn't the draw, it must be the art, right?  That does seem to be the case, although Larmee has a non-showy style that seems to be trying to appear amateurish and half-finished.  It's a deliberately lo-fi approach, with every page looking like it has been photocopied multiple times, erased lines often visible, and the actual linework seeming like incomplete pencil drawings from a sketchbook:

Backgrounds are often nonexistent, leaving the characters stranded in an empty white void, and word balloons, which sometimes indicate a speaker but usually just hang in the air unattributed, fill with hand-lettered words that often flow in strange rhythms that don't always sync up from panel to panel, or just feature the lyrics of music that the characters are listening to/singing along with.  It all seems like a purposeful attempt to look unfinished, reflecting the characters' state of mind, but there's more to it than a bunch of scrawled sketches; the moments of beauty that come through are all the more powerful because of this approach.

That's what's really impressive here; Larmee fills pages with little more than characters lounging around contemplating life, and while most of these images aren't fully rendered, the occasional moment in which a true-to-life gesture or a wisp of tossed hair seems captured from life is breathtaking:

As is the rare panel in which background details get filled in, making for an eye-catching contrast to the minimalistic blankness of the rest of the book:

The characters themselves even seem to be the embodiments of this approach; Larmee stylizes them to an extent, giving them heads a bit too large for their bodies, making them look like children even younger than they actually are supposed to be, even drawing "blush" circles on one boy's cheeks like he's a Taiyo Matsumoto character, possibly intending to emphasize the fragility of youth, or maybe just ensuring readers see the characters as younger than themselves, no matter their age.  They don't quite seem real, except for when they suddenly do, making those moments all the more affecting.

In the end, I'm still not sure about this book, but I'll admit that it is a fascinating one, taking an unusual approach to storytelling (if you can call it that) and art, ending up being something that, if one is in the right frame of mind, can wash over you and leave a certain emotional stamp, a dredged up memory of a feeling of a moment that might or might not have actually taken place.  It's an ethereal experience, but one that doesn't immediately dissipate.  Larmee definitely has something to him, so hopefully this is just the beginning of what he has to offer.

Bodyworld: It's a wonderlaaaand...

Since it's bee a little while since I've done a straight review post, there's lots of links to clear out of the queue:

Elsewhere: At Comics Bulletin, I reviewed World War Hulks: Hulked-Out Heroes #1 and  Firestar #1. Since then, Marvel has decided to no longer send pre-release PDFs of their comics to review sites (it's a long story, which I'm sure Bleeding Cool or somebody has already covered), so that may well be the end of my writing for that site.  Probably not a big loss for them, but now I can concentrate on not writing for my own blog instead.

I also wrote about some episodes of Fringe and the movie Black Dynamite at The Factual Opinion, so I guess I won't be limited to this corner of the internet.

Webcomics links: Hey, the latest installment of MySpace Dark Horse Presents has a pretty great little superheroine story by Jaime Hernandez, along the lines of his recent stuff in Love and Rockets.  There's also a creepy body horror story by Simon Spurrier and Christopher Mitten, and "Englourioues Mask-Tards!!!" by Evan Dorkin and Hilary Barta, which is quite hilarious.  Good times.

In other Xaime news, What Things Do (which is turning into a pretty great repository for previously hard to find short comics by a variety of alt-comix creators) has a 2002 short story of his called "The Ghoul Man", and it's awesome.  I'm also digging Dan Zettwoch's "The Ghost of Dragon Canoe".  Comics!  On the internet!

Other miscellaneous links: Here's what looks like a pretty good comics blog: My Comic Book Crisis, written by a 47-year-old woman who recently discovered comics and dove right in, finding tons of great stuff to read and talking about it entertainingly.  Go, read.

Finally:

Bodyworld
By Dash Shaw

Any review of a Dash Shaw comic probably has to begin by mentioning that he's one of the most exciting talents of his generation of cartoonists, his relentless creativity, his drive to keep making and releasing new work, and any number of other plaudits.  But by this point, he has established himself well enough that reading his name on the cover of a book is enough to evoke all those reactions, allowing one to get down to appreciating the work itself apart from the whole cult of personality.  This is a good thing, because there is always a lot to process and consider in Shaw's comics; he's a fascinating creator, coming up with idea after idea, whether they're plot concepts to hang stories on, or formalistic ways of illustrating those stories through his artwork.   It's exciting to see what he does, and he has such an idiosyncratic touch that one never knows what's coming next.

This latest graphic novel is a collection of a comic that Shaw originally serialized online, and the volume itself is structured to reflect that, with pages oriented vertically and the spine at the top of the page rather than the side, making each double-page spread one long series of panels, as if the reader is scrolling down through the images in a web browser.  There are also fold-out maps in the inside front and back covers, allowing readers to use them like separate windows or tabs to check when necessary.  This is somewhat innovative, but also unnecessary, since it is certainly not essential to know exactly where in the setting of the story the various events are taking place.  Perhaps Shaw felt that he had to keep the geography straight and thought readers would share this feeling, but the regular images indicating map location do little more than distract from the story itself.  It is a bit of a window into Shaw's head though, showing what information takes primacy at certain points as he is relating a tale.

And that tale is an interesting one, following a quartet of characters as they experience a drug that provides empathetically telepathic abilities to its users.  In a near future that is hinted to be somewhat apocalyptic, or at least ravaged and ugly, one Professor Paulie Panther visits the bucolic town of Boney Borough, a sheltered villa free from the depravities of the rest of the world.  He's a researcher into various hallucinogens, and he's there to try smoking a newly-discovered bit of plant life.  His sojourn ends up affecting the lives of two students, dumb jock Billy Bob Borg and big-city dreamer Pearl Peach, and their teacher, Jem Jewel (Shaw certainly has a knack for coming up with goofy names.  Hey, it's the future!).  While there are interesting wrinkles in the story, that's about it; the whole thing mostly involves these four characters bouncing off each other.  As much as Shaw likes to play with neat ideas, he's also good at limiting his stories to small casts, defining his characters well, and exploring their emotional reactions to events as much as the events themselves.

So, it turns out that this plant has the effect of mentally connecting the smoker with whoever is nearby, such that they their thoughts, sensations, memories, emotions, and actions become intertwined.  Paul discovers this slowly, allowing Shaw to come up with some lowbrow comedy as he's figuring it out (the breasts he grows after being near Jewel are one particularly funny touch), as well as spend some time getting to know the other characters.  The whole drug concept gives him plenty of opportunities to experiment, and it's fascinating to see the different ways he depicts the characters getting inside each other's heads and experiencing memories that aren't their own.  He goes all out, superimposing images, swapping characters' positions to indicate how one is feeling another's sensations, mixing up distinctive facial features, overlapping descriptive words in remembered dialogue, and other new ideas on every page.

It's impressive work, but what's even more fascinating than the ideas of how to communicate this sort of information through comics is that the emotions underlying everything feel real, and one can relate to the characters and their lives even as they are going through such fantastical experiences.  The way Pearl sees Paul as an exciting rebel who can take her away from her small-town drudgery, or how she symbolizes a lost love for him are familiar and understandable, a wonderful way to make the crazy drug concepts fit in with everything else.

It's a great combination of emotional realism, science fiction concepts, and experimentation with the language of comics. Shaw is sure to cover all three areas, with new plot and setting ideas popping up regularly, like a game called "Dieball" that combines full-contact athletics with concepts from role-playing games like grid-based movement and a ten-sided die, or making the drug be a plot by aliens to make Earth easier to conquer by erasing humanity's individuality.  And the formal play is fascinating, both in the aforementioned inter-identity hallucinations, but also in ways of depicting emotion and memory.  The use of color is especially noteworthy, with Shaw alternating between flat, solid hues and then bursting into expressive flourishes, with paint splattered and swirled across pages in bold strokes.  It's gorgeous, exciting work that's full of life and energy, tons of fun to read and contemplate.

While Shaw had previously made his name with The Bottomless Belly Button and various short stories, this seems like a real defining work for his career.  He's full of ideas, and he has a drive to create, but he's also fascinated with the way people interact and emote, and he's constantly striving to come up with new ways to depict that part of humanity.  There might be some complaints, such as occasionally shaky figure work, but seeing the way he keeps energetically moving forward, pushing himself to create and get his ideas down on paper, small deficiencies are forgivable, the mark of a bright mind at work, one barely able to contain its contents.  It's a glorious thing to see develop, and with each new work, Shaw makes it clear that he's going to be one of the defining talents of this current golden age of comics.  Whatever is in the pipeline will be exciting to see, but the complexity and richness of his current work will be enough to keep readers occupied until the next career highlight comes along.

Manga Mania Month: Black Jack provides more expertise and cynicism

Elsewhere: I reviewed the final episode of Dollhouse over at The Factual Opinion.  I'll miss that show, as flawed as it was.

Link: Graphic NYC is doing a Kirby-themed week this week, and so far, Mike Cavallaro has a nice post about they way his style basically became subconscious.  Nice.

On a personal note, I would have had this up this past weekend, but my scanner died.  I'll hopefully have a solution soon, but this goes up now thanks to the help of Tucker Stone, who generously offered to do the work for me.  What a stand-up guy.


Black Jack, volume 2
By Osamu Tezuka

With this second volume of the series-spanning collection of one of Osamu Tezuka's most famous works, it becomes obvious that it's going to be a bit spotty, sometimes brilliant and sometimes kind of rote.  With chapters that jump around in the series chronology (as it were), it's not really possible to witness any sort of thematic development, but one can tease out ideas that Tezuka would return to, such as the need for human interaction and empathy when treating patients, and Black Jack's code of honor that compels him to do everything he can to save a patient once he's started treating them, or keep his word no matter the cost.  There's a bit of loneliness caused by lack of human interaction as well, along with a forced misanthropy that comes with it.  He's certainly an interesting character, and while Tezuka doesn't really develop him as the series progresses, he does reveal depths and layers, allowing us to see the man underneath the scarred surface.

Those character pieces are probably when the series is at its best, with a pair of chapters standing out here in the way they demonstrate an aspect of Mr. Jack's personality.  The loneliness and longing for understanding come to the fore in a flashback story that sees him befriending a killer whale that keeps showing up in a cove near his seaside house.  It always seems to get injured, so Black Jack nurses it back to health, sometimes performing surgery, accepting pearls as payment.  But it turns out that the whale is a menace to the local fishermen, always disrupting their business, and eventually overturning a boat and killing somebody, so even though it comes to him and begs, Black Jack is forced to refuse to treat it, making for a surprisingly emotional scene:

It's a good look at the nicer aspects of Black Jack's character, the softness that hides underneath the tough exterior.  But he can still reveal depth through his scary facade, as in a story that sees him chance upon a family on the road and give them a ride, then meet the man's mother, an old woman who compares him to another famous talented (and high-priced) surgeon.  The mother constantly badgers her son and his wife for money, and it turns out that she was paying off a lifelong debt to that other doctor, who saved her son as a child and charged her an exorbitant fee.  In a tidy bit of dramatic irony, right after finally paying off the debt, she suffers a stroke, and the son begs Black Jack to save her.  He agrees to do so, although the son will end up with a similarly hefty debt.  Or will he?  Maybe Black Jack was just testing him to make sure he loved and cherished his mother as much as she did him.  The chapter ends without revealing whether Black Jack will hold him to his debt; our hero might actually be as mean as he seems, you never know.

This chapter also sees a nice bit of artistic work on Tezuka's part, as he originally depicts the old woman as cranky and cantankerous, with a hunched demeanor and pinched face, not a very likeable person:

But when the reasons behind her money-grubbing are revealed, we see a series of flashbacks that suddenly soften her, depicting her at earlier points in her life in which she is obviously the same person, but younger and more sympathetic:

It's a nice reversal, perfectly executed by Tezuka.  He does a nice job on the layout too, with the panels looking like memories splashing and dripping across the page.  That's the kind of thing he seems to toss out effortlessly; it's as though had an almost instinctive flair for storytelling.

Some other regular themes pop up here: the mysteries and wonder of the human body (Black Jack is unable to retrieve a broken needle from a patient's body, but it flows through his veins and miraculously comes back out the original injection point), the need for human caring in medical care (a hospital which operates on an assembly-line-like system nearly breaks down when the head doctor's daughter needs treatment and he tries to give her priority), Black Jack's sense of honor (he goes to great lengths and spends ridiculous amounts of money to save the life of a man who saved his own life), his combative nature when it comes to rivals who seek glory (a skilled acupuncturist who roams the countryside treating patients for free gets brushed off with "I can't abide showy do-gooders!"), and, of course, his general awesomeness (he performs dozens of surgeries at the same time in order to relieve the burden of the aforementioned assembly line hospital, he memorizes the layout of a boy's intestines while being held hostage so he can operate on him in the dark).

There's plenty of other good material here, as in the story in which we see the origin of the patch of differently-colored skin on Black Jack's face.  It came from a fellow student of his who was of mixed race, and the story sees Doc Jack try to locate him as an adult, following clues across the globe before coming up short, although Tezuka does get to work in an environmental message.  It's always interesting to see our hero fail, which happens in this story (although it's not a surgical failure) and other places, or get shown up, which happens in the story with the acupuncturist (who is blind, by the way, making for a cute reference).  And another striking thing Tezuka does is unflinchingly depict the injury and even deaths of children:

Threats to children can be notoriously empty in fiction, but when it comes to medicine, it's a fact that not everybody can be saved, and what better way to make that hit home than to depict it happening to the most innocent?  It certainly works, in a way that leaves the images lingering in the mind.

That's a testament to Tezuka's artistic skill, as are the dynamic bit of action that he throws in.  Most arresting might be this two-page spread of a tunnel collapsing on top of a school bus:

I love the plunging speed lines, falling rocks, and chunky sound effects crashing across the page.  It's a pretty incredible image, and only one of the many that Tezuka pulls off with aplomb.  I'm still finding this to be a lesser example of his work, but it's sure enjoyable, full of interesting ideas and weird Tezuka flourishes.  Maybe my opinion will change upon experiencing more of this series, but at the moment, it's simply quite good, rather than great.
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Recurring character watch:

More of the regulars show up here, but putting aside the ones already spotlighted in the first volume, we also see Dr. Tenma:

Astro Boy's Inspector Tawashi:

Melmo (as both an adult and a child):

And Hyoutan-Tsugi is always worth pointing out, as in this whack-a-mole bit:

Or when he plays a newscaster:

That Tezuka, he rarely passed up a joke, did he?

The Squirrel Machine: It should be the girl machine, due to all the ladyparts

Elsewhere: I did what was probably an overly laudatory review of Avengers Vs. Atlas #1 over at Comics Bulletin, and nitpicked last week's Dollhouse at The Factual Opinion.

Link: I liked this look at all of Takehiko Inoue's covers to the collected volumes of Vagabond.  That's some nice art there.

And, if you're curious, I decided to forego the weekly preview thing, since I didn't feel like talking about whatever was on there.  I've been strapped for time lately, so we'll see if I keep it up or give it up entirely.  Sorry, any fans of my oft-tiresome blathering.  You'll have to settle for Jog, I guess.  Or Caleb.  Or somebody else, I'm sure.

The Squirrel Machine
By Hans Rickheit

Some comics (along with works in other mediums, of course) are near-impossible to describe, or even understand, really.  Or maybe that's just an easy way out: "I don't get it, so I'll just say it's too weird to understand!"  Hans Rickheit's The Squirrel Machine seems to lean in that direction, but as strange as it is, it's interesting and seemingly substantial enough to make examination worthwhile, even if a final summation will probably come up lacking.  The story, such as it is, involves two brothers who pursue weird experiments with technology and organic objects, mostly animal corpses, although to what end, or even what result, is mostly left up to readers to discern.  One could accuse it of being willfully obscure and an excuse to present an array of grotesquerie without much in the way of explanation, but there's more to it than that, and while a final answer is difficult to discern, it's a book that compels re-reading and attempts at interpretation.

One thing Rickheit does here to make the work so compelling is to present everything in a realistic style, full of minute, exhaustive detail:

His settings seem fully realized, packed with grittiness and dirt, decay and collapse. The people move through it believably, fitting into what seems like a normal Victorian-era town on first glance, until more and more strange imagery is floated before our eyes and we get creeped out at the entire thing.  The two brothers, Edmund and William, don't present very good reader-identification figures, mostly approaching their world inexpressively, committing weird acts without much of a show of emotion at all.  But that in itself is a bit of a damper for all the weirdness; if they go about their actions without any indication that it is extraordinary, then one almost thinks of it as normal, to some extent.  But their creations are so inhumanly inexplicable, with intricate machinery (clockwork gears, pipes, tubes, tanks, light bulbs, and so on) connecting to bloated carcasses, aquariums full of dead things, or cages enclosing skeletal fauna.  And their laboratories themselves become increasingly impossible, cavernous rooms and tunnels whose walls are bursting with arcane mechanisms that stretch below their house that seem to connect to exits all over the town:



There's also a semi-feral young woman who raises pigs, a town populace increasingly hostile to the boys' creations, a mother who disapproves of their actions but can't seem to bring herself to do anything about it, and another young woman who takes up with Edmund without much of a reason outside of animalistic attraction.  And that's not even getting into the odd visions that periodically appear, the young girl who haunts the caverns, the rampant vaginal imagery, and the strange creatures that present themselves:

One could come up with any number of explanations for the imagery here, from the encroachment of technology on the 20th century and the perversions of nature that followed, to the awakening of sexuality in the adolescent and the fascination with organic processes like reproduction, birth, and death that can dwell in the mind.  Or maybe it's all a trip into Rickheit's subconscious, a slaved-over jaunt through the nightmares that haunt his waking mind.  Whatever the case, it's a compelling, fascinating journey through an often creepy and always striking world, one that's regularly quite hilarious, as when Edmund, having a sexual tryst with a young woman who willfully accompanied him back to his mad scientist's lair, turns a spigot to release hundreds of snails upon their contorting, commingling bodies.  What can one make of that sort of thing?  You might be able to attempt an interpretation, one that will be just as valid as any, but it's just as legitimate to go along for the ride and see where Rickheit takes you.  It won't be where you expect, that's for sure.

This week, we all get excited about new Morrison

Elsewhere: I talked about last week's episode of Dollhouse over at The Factual Opinion.

One link:  This Darryl Cunningham strip amused me.

New comics this week (Wednesday, 1/20/10):

Avengers vs Atlas #1

Your Marvel book of interest for the week is by Jeff Parker, which is no surprise.  I'm kind of a whore for him, and this one sees his pet team go up against some version of the Avengers (the original lineup?) in an adventure having to do with the collapse of spacetime and that sort of craziness.  Sounds like fun, and it should look pretty damn nice, what with Gabriel Hardman on art.  Look for a full review tomorrow on Comics Bulletin.  Yep.

Cowboy Ninja Viking #3

I liked the first two issues of this oddball series about a crazy hitman with at least three different deadly personalities, so here's part three.  It looks like he's going up against a bunch of other similar "triplets", like the gladiator/pirate/deep sea diver he fought in #2.  Fun times; check it out.

Fables #92

I never have anything to say about new issues of this series, except that I can't wait to read them.  I should be getting to the most recent Jack of Fables collection soon, so then I'll be all ready for the next collection, "The Great Fables Crossover".  Bring it on, Willingham!

Garth Ennis Battlefields Happy Valley #2

Garth Ennis war comics, you can't beat them.  The first issue: good, the kind of matter-of-fact story about soldiers doing their jobs that Ennis does so well.  Of course, it's all going to go to hell at some point, probably mid-way through this issue.  Rock it, Ennis!

Glamourpuss #11

Dave Sim doesn't quit.  He's still at it with this bizarre comic, and this issue is about Stan Drake and possibly drawing cars, with a cover and backup feature by Russ Heath.  I may just read it someday.

Joe The Barbarian #1

Here's the exciting release of the week, the one the internet won't be able to shut up about for the next week or so.  It's the new Grant Morrison series from Vertigo, about a kid who either has an overactive imagination or actually gets transported to some sort of fantasy realm where he is joined by all his toys and action figures in a fight against evil.  Looks pretty cool, with some nice art by Sean Murphy.  I thought about waiting for the collection on this one, but I don't think I can avoid the discussion for that long, so I'll go ahead and buy it, dammit.  Don't let me down, Morrison!  Yeah, I doubt he will.

Kids Of Widney High One Shot

Apparently, the titular kids of this comic are a real-life band composed of special-ed students who attend the (also titular) high school, and they've gained a low level of fame by appearing on Howard Stern and in movies like The Ringer.  I'm not sure if this thing is supposed to be autobiographical, but it's written by the actual kids, with art by talents like Chuck BB, Robbi Rodriguez, Jim Mahfood, and others.  Those guys make it notable, but I'm sure it's also quite inspirational and shit, so it's got that going for it too.

Rasl #6

I believe this ends the second arc of Jeff Smith's dimension-hopping series, which has been quite enjoyable so far, if it is sometimes a bit hard to remember what is going on from issue to issue.  I think the format is switching to shorter, more frequent releases after this issue, so hopefully that won't be a problem any longer.  Whatever; I'll dig it either way, I'm sure.

Zombies That Ate The World #8

Here's the final issue of this reprint of the Euro-satire by Jerry Frissen and Guy Davis, which hopefully means a collection is coming soon.  I'm looking forward to finally reading the damn thing.  Took long enough.

Cleaners Vol 1 Absent Bodies TP

I haven't heard much of anything about this crime(/supernatural?) series from Dark Horse, about a team of crime-scene cleaners who also debunk occult superstitions and maybe also battle actual occult threats.  Or something like that.  It does sound interesting, but not enough to get much attention, at least in the circles I frequent.  Has anybody read it?  Anyone?  Hello?

Goon Vol. 0 Rough Stuff Revised Edition TPB

A new version of the first volume of Eric Powell's signature series, which he originally self-published in black and white.  There's some really funny stuff here, so be sure to give it a look if you haven't delved into the earliest parts of the series.  This edition adds color to the art and includes a bunch of sketches and concept designs; sounds like something to add to the bookshelf.

King Of RPGs Vol 1 GN

Maybe this should go in the manga section? Why do I separate out the manga anyway?  Um, yeah, this originates in the West, but it has a very strong Japanese influence, being Manga: The Complete Guide author Jason Thompson's version of a shonen series, following a college student who rolls lots of those multi-sided dice.  It looks quite enjoyable; I should get around to reading it soon.  Maybe.

Loverboy Irwin Hasen Story TPB

Here's an interesting book: a new graphic novel by classic cartoonist Irwin Hasen, about a short guy who likes tall women, which sounds like a Woody Allen sort of concept.  It might well be something to be aware of this year.  Yes, there's a hell of a nonsensical recommendation.  Oy.

Troublemakers HC

Ooh, here's a notable one, which may have already been available, but I haven't seen it.  It's the latest of Gilbert Hernandez's graphic novels which are movies that one of his Love and Rockets characters starred in. This one appears to be a sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll type story, and I bet it's awesome.  I can't wait to read it.  Here's the usual Fantagraphics slideshow/preview.

Veil TP

How about this one?  Has anybody read this series from IDW, about a private eye who can communicate with the dead?  I didn't hear anything about it, so it could be noteworthy, or it could be not.  Let me know, people who read anything and everything.

Young Liars TP Vol 03 Rock Life

I never did read any of this Vertigo series, so I'm one of those to blame for it getting cancelled, I guess.  I heard it was totally nuts, which might or might not be something I would like.  I have heard many people singing its praises though, so I figure I should at least give it a try, even if I'm not the biggest fan of David Lapham.  To the library!

All My Darling Daughters TP

Manga section!  This is the latest (translated) release by Fumi Yoshinaga, about a salarywoman and her romantic travails.  I've heard tons of praise for Yoshinaga, but I still have yet to read any of her manga.  I don't know if this will be my chance, but I'm eager to give her a try.

Black Butler Vol 1 GN

Yen Press has this goofy-sounding series about a super-competent Victorian-era butler who might not be human.  Kind of a wacky manga version of Jeeves and Wooster?  Or maybe more serious?  I dunno, it could be worth a look, right?

Moyasimon Vol 1 Tales Of Agriculture GN Corrected Edition

I think this volume has shown up in bookstores, but I guess this is its entry in the direct market.  I certainly enjoyed it, so if it sounds like something you would like, or if you're just curious about the bizarreness of a manga about a kid who can communicate with microbes, give it a look.  It's certainly pretty crazy.

Not Simple GN

Another interesting release from one of those more artsy manga creators, Nastume Ono, about a guy traveling across the world in search of his missing sister, told backwards as it is related by a reporter writing a book about the story.  Or something like that.  It's always good to see manga releases that are more in the "indie" genre rather than the usual shonen/shojo axis.  I'll have to try to get my hands on this one.

Pluto Urasawa x Tezuka Vol 7 TP

It's the second-to-last volume of Naoki Urasawa's Tezuka-interpretation tour de force, and I'm on the edge of my chair to see how it wraps up.  This is one of my favorite current comics, and as sad as I'll be to see it end, I can't wait to see how it does.

Real Vol 7 GN

I've gotten behind on this wheelchair basketball series from Takehiko Inoue, but I do want to catch up pretty badly; it's a damn good character piece, full of subtlety and emotion.  Seven volumes, so far; I've got some reading to do.

RIN-NE Vol 2 TP

The second installment of Rumiko Takahashi's current series, which I think is a hoot, even if some don't find it all that great.  Maybe that was due to the first volume, which focused mostly on introducing the concept and doing fairly simple one-off stories.  Since then, it's gone more toward multi-chapter arcs and fun, goofy adventures, some of which must be included here.  So, yes, I give it my recommendation, if that means anything.

Tezukas Black Jack TP Vol 09

Vertical is still pumping out the Tezuka awesomeness, with the continuing adventures of the rogue surgeon coming at a steady clip.  I need to get caught up on these too...

Vagabond Vizbig ED GN Vol 06
Vagabond Vol 31 TP

And to close out the weekly roundup, it's another great Takehiko Inoue series, in two different formats.  The VIZBIG version collects three regular volumes at a time, so this one would include book 16-18.  And there's also the latest collection of the series, which I believe is getting close to wrapping up, so there's probably some great excitement and dramatics in there.  Inoue is pretty great; I've gotta catch up on this one too, someday.

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So, yeah, that's the week.  Yup, comics.  Hey, maybe I can get some blogging done sometime too.  Yeah, we'll see how that goes.