Bad Man: We're not talking about Shaft

Bad Man
By Dathan Auerbach
Published by Blumhouse Books



I don't read a lot of horror fiction, but I do occasionally check out the "creepypasta" stories that people publish online, some of which are very effective with the scares. So I was glad to get the chance to read this upcoming horror novel by an author who gained his fame through the online horror story Penpal.

However, I ended up being not especially satisfied with the actual book (I didn't like Penpal very much either, for that matter). Perhaps it's just my own tastes, but I felt like this one took much too long to get to where it was going, focusing more on the main character's turbulent emotions than on any spookiness that was going on around him.

The problem might be my own expectations; I thought this might be something of a supernatural story, but it turns out to be fairly grounded, although I wouldn't exactly call it realistic. The plot involves a young man named Ben whose three-year-old brother disappeared without a trace while the two of them were at a neighborhood grocery store. In the five years since the incident, he has been wracked with guilt and searched everywhere in town to find his brother, to no avail. After he graduates from high school, he looks for work to help his family make ends meet, but the only place in his small town that is hiring is the store where his brother disappeared.

So, he ends up working the night shift, and some strange stuff seems to be going on around the store, although less than one would expect in a book that's supposed to be scary. Instead, the focus is mostly on Ben's emotional state, including his continuing guilt, anger, and desperation, as well as his inability to trust anyone else. He's a complicated character, and not especially likable, prone to lashing out at people who care about him, obsessing about whether others are lying to him, and suspecting that nearly everyone around him is either involved in his brother's disappearance or just doesn't care enough to help find him.

I think that's the real focus of the book, and rather than going for scares, the kind of horror the author seems to be attempting is placing the reader in an unpleasant headspace. I wouldn't exactly call Ben an unreliable narrator, but you do get the idea that his internal sense of himself is different from what others see. He seems to think he's on a heroic crusade to find his lost brother, while he's actually causing a lot of pain to those around him and generally making things worse. And that makes what ultimately happens to him kind of fitting, if still pretty disturbing.

All in all, it's an interesting book that's fairly effective in placing the reader someplace they don't really want to be. It does take a long time for things to happen, but maybe that's by design too; Ben has been waiting for answers for five years, and he's stuck eking out a grim existence, with little hope for the future. Things are already sad enough at the start, and they just get worse, no matter how hard the characters try to make things better. In that way, it's kind of a fitting book for modern times. That doesn't make it especially satisfying or enjoyable to read though.

Pim & Francie: Great, now I'll never sleep again

Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days (Artifacts and Bone Fragments)
By Al Columbia

What the hell is going on here?  What is this book, anyway?  As presented, with nothing in the way of explanation (there's only a table of contents, or rather a list of "stories" without any page numbers, and the title page doesn't show up until 24 pages into the book), it's like the inexplicable artifact of a deranged mind, seeming to be the remnants of a destroyed sketchbook and half-finished art pages and animation cels, pieced together with tape, pencil marks and correction fluid often still visible.  Much of the content is just imagery, with the occasional series of pictures containing some sort of narrative, but mostly just presenting one disturbing scene after another.  And that's pretty much the entire book, just a non-stop barrage of weird, creepy, strange things happening to the titular pair of cartoony children.



If you delve into Al Columbia's career, you'll find that he's done stories featuring these characters in various places, so some of the content here could be from those stories, or it could all be previously unseen material.  Taken on its own though, it's not completely satisfying; the barrage of weirdness is interesting, but there's little in the way of connective tissue.  It does, however, do a great job of presenting a disturbing mood of dread and decay, seeing the cute little waifs stumble into one horrifying situation after another, often dying gruesomely only to show up again a few pages later to repeat the process.  Columbia has a flair for the grotesque, which, when mixed with such cute cartooniness reminiscent of old-school Disney, makes for an especially creepy juxtaposition.

One can only imagine the actual stories surrounding the glimpses we see here: a multi-limbed man wielding a bunch of knives chases the pair; a rotund, bald man named Cinnamon Jack whose tongue hangs lasciviously out of his mouth collects children's heads from a tree or butchers and cooks kids for dinner; Francie apparently births a horrible, bloody monster of a baby; the kids come across a killer who looks like a mixture of Disney's Goofy and Basil Wolverton's Lena Hyena; a forest of cheery anthropomorphic trees decays into a group of trunks bearing bloody eye sockets and screaming mouths; the pair's benevolent grandparents rise from the dead and join a horde of shambling zombies.  And much, much more, some of which seems to make sense and some of which is just incomprehensible, creepy imagery.  It's a cascade of horror, page after page of mostly-unfinished nastiness, enough to stick in the mind and cause nightmares for weeks.



As an art book or collection of fragments from Columbia's career, it certainly shows what a good designer and cartoonist he is, and how effectively he can create disturbing imagery.  Those knobby-kneed, big-footed cartoons mix with the creepiness and gore well, suggesting a horrible perversion of innocence. The facial expressions are effective as well, with Pim and Francie often looking like inbred dimwits or aloof, disinterested spoiled brats, and the various antagonists bearing evil grins and mutilated, disjointed visages that are recognizable as "human" but altered enough to look wrong.

However, being devoid of any context, the book becomes little more than an accumulation of work, rather than a complete object.  Columbia has the artistic chops to craft some incredibly effective horror, but it loses some of that effectiveness when stripped of narrative.  Hopefully, he'll follow this up with something with an actual plot (or put together another collection of his previously-published stories), and we can see what he's really capable of.

Aqua Leung: Would it have hurt to include a character named Jethro?

Before I start with the blathering about comics, I want to give a quick recommendation to the movie Bug, which came out last year. It's sort of a horror movie, but it's more of an exercise in paranoid delusion, starting slowly as a broken-down, redneck-ish Ashley Judd takes in a drifter (Michael Shannon, who seemed really familiar, but probably because he had a small role in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which I recently watched) and becomes involved in his beliefs that he's infested with microscopic bugs as part of a government experiment on soldiers. It eventually builds into a disturbing, nasty, violent climax, with plenty of nudity, freaky shit, and ambiguity about whether or not any of it is real. Recommended, if that sounds like your sort of thing. It's definitely mine.

Now on to the comics talk, in what, by the way, is my 500th post on this blog. Wow, I'm prolific!

Aqua Leung, volume 1
Written by Mark Andrew Smith
Art by Paul Maybury



As a fan of The Amazing Joy Buzzards, which writer Mark Andrew Smith co-created (along with Gyakushu's Dan Hipp), I was looking forward to this exercise in undersea fantasy. The preview art certainly looked pretty neat, and the idea of epic ocean-floor battles seemed unique enough to be pretty cool. Unfortunately, I was fairly disappointed by the final result, and in an area I didn't expect: the overly-serious writing. Smith brought a light, fun touch to AJB, so it's really surprising to see him take such a ponderous tone here, with plenty of lengthy speeches about honor, destiny, and other such weighty matters. While that might work for some, I found it quite tiresome after a while, especially when I came across a page that was covered in word balloons which would surely be bogged down in long speeches.

But anyway, the story seems to be a fairly generic fantasy riff, following the eponymous young man who was orphaned at a young age but turns out to be the son of the Octopus King, who once united all the undersea kingdoms, but fell to treachery. After discovering his true heritage, Aqua is spirited away to the ocean to undergo training and learn about the ways of the sea, eventually leading an army to recover his father's kingdom. It's not a bad idea or anything, but the plot and script just feel so generic, with little to distinguish it from any other Lord of the Rings knockoff other than the undersea setting. And while the oceanic stuff is a unique idea, the presentation is fairly standard; rather than swimming or making use of the watery environment, characters simply march along the ocean floor. Actually, the main purpose of the setting seems to be to provide the various races that populate the story, like fish, crabs, lobsters, and octopi.

The plot isn't any great shakes either; as mentioned before, it's a standard fantasy "regain the lost kingdom" deal. I even found the subplots somewhat hard to follow; a mission in which Aqua and some pals infiltrate an evil kingdom to steal a fire-based weapon included an unexplained scene in which they stop off to assassinate a previously-unmentioned character (unless that was supposed to be the evil king, but like I said, it wasn't explained). And then, after a big deal was made about the powerful fire they stole, they fall asleep around a campfire made from that fire and allow it to be stolen by sea monkeys (which, charmingly, are depicted as looking just like baboons). Then they find the sea monkey kingdom on fire and just light a stick with that fire, apparently recovering enough of the weapon to complete the mission. Why weren't they more protective of their "quest item"? And couldn't anybody now come and light a stick from the burning monkey kingdom and have their own weapon? I dunno, it just seems like much of the story was poorly thought out.

The characters don't really inspire much interest either. Take Tiberius, a lobster with one eye and a tragic backstory involving the slaughter and rape of his family that's so generic it's almost laughable. No points for guessing whether he gets revenge while dying heroically. Some of the others are a bit better, like Sonny, Aqua's fishy mentor who looks like a character out of a Spongebob cartoon:



Or a tiny octopus named Ringo (son of George, who, along with John and Paul, acted as advisors to Aqua's father) who never speaks but sure looks cute:



There are a few others, like the gigantic octopus king that enslaves Aqua as a means of training him, or an enigmatic archer that joins the crew late in the game in order to have some badass moments during the climactic battle. But none of them really seem worth dwelling on too much; as a whole, the plot and characters just aren't very interesting.

But it's not like the whole thing is a wash. No, Paul Maybury pretty much saves the book by himself (along with Russ Lowery, who provided the incredible colors), providing some amazing visuals and doing some really unique, standout stuff that makes the book really stand out visually from anything else on the stands. While he starts out a little rough, and even in the later parts of the book seems to have some trouble with varying line thickness, he really comes up with some cool stuff, like the character designs that vary from Aqua's Scott Pilgrim-like simplicity to some of the grotesque, wrinkled creatures that they confront (or team up with), like the, um, Freudian things guarding the flame weapon:



Or the nasty-looking crabs, the evil opponents that Aqua's army faces in the volume-ending battle:



Or even the weird, half-human, half-octopus nature of Aqua's father, who looks like a man with tentacles protruding from his back:



And then there are the crazy visual tricks that Maybury throws at the reader. In one scene, Aqua alights on the lower lip of a giant sea beast whose long rows of teeth continue all the way to the edge of the page; upon turning the page, the reader sees that the jaw of the creature, which already seemed gigantic, continues across a double page spread and onto the next page following. It makes for an awe-inspiring sense of scale (even though I don't really know what's going on in the scene). At another point, when Aqua first enters the ocean, he is hit with a barrage of sensation, which Maybury (or possibly just Lowery) depicts as a psychedelic mass of colors. During the final battle, the initial fighting is represented as a hail of arrows coming from both sides, covering a double-page spread to the point that it looks like a black cloud. It's effective stuff.

And while I'll leave those scenes to the imagination, I had to highlight my favorite page of the book, from the aforementioned scene with the giant monster, which reminded me of the "cave on Dagobah" scene from The Empire Strikes Back. On this page, Aqua has a vision of a giant electric eel (I think):



I love the lightning bolts, and the brightness of the scene. It's very striking. In fact, I should compliment the colors in general, which really bring a whole new dimension to the book. I read an interview where Maybury stated that he wanted to avoid the typical blues and greens of undersea stories, so he went the opposite direction, using a lot of bright reds and yellows. He certainly succeeded; many of the pages are eye-searingly striking, looking like nothing else out there. And Lowery pulls off some cool computery effects too, like this scene of the monkey kingdom on fire:



It's a beautiful-looking book at least, and whether that's enough for you will let you know if you want to read it. I certainly wouldn't recommend it for the plot, and I don't know if I'll even be that interested in the second volume, but I will definitely be keeping my eye on Maybury; he's a talent to watch, since he can only improve.

Drifting Classroom: Children are evil

Before I start, I have to link to Jog's latest column on the Savage Critics, in which he discusses the work of horror mangaka Hideshi Hino. After reading that, I feel that my latest mission in life is to track down and read Hino's Panorama of Hell. Wow, it looks fucking insane, in all the best ways.

In other news, I see that Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan will be doing a new six-issue Demo series for Vertigo. Awesome. I loved the first series (even if I was a couple years late getting to it), so I'm all for more of it. Wood is one of my current favorite writers, and Cloonan is a current favorite artist, so I'm stoked to see them do more work together.

Okay, on with the show:

The Drifting Classroom, volume 6
By Kazuo Umezu



Behold, the face of childhood evil:



Man, that is one creepy-looking kid. That's right there on the first few pages of this volume, and it makes me sorry I had gone so long without reading this series. At first, I had forgotten what was going on at the end of the last volume, but I got right back into the swing of things; the kids stuck in their horrible future wasteland were all dying of bubonic plague, and that mean kid had led a group of troublemakers and trapped our heroes in a building with a plan to burn them to death. Good times.

Man, every volume of the series is full of that sort of delightful awfulness, with kids exhibiting the worst humanity has to offer in terms of distrust and murderous impulses. This volume veers a bit from the formula though, spending over half its length in the present day, following protagonist Sho's mother as she tries to figure out how to send a cure for the plague to him in the future. It's as crazy as everything else in the book, as we see her pursue her goal of helping Sho, shoving aside anyone in her way, to the point where people think she's gone nuts:



Interestingly, there are a few scenes where she is confronted by the mother of another of the missing children, who blames Sho for her son's disappearance. But Sho's mother shoves her aside and refuses to listen to her, giving her the same treatment she has been getting from everyone else. I'm not sure if this is supposed to represent anything, but it stuck with me. Is it a comment on how even those with noble goals can be single-minded, ignoring the plight of others? Maybe Umezu will do more with these characters in future volumes.

Also of note in the "Sho's mother" chapter is a harrowing scene in which Umezu shows that the ruthless, violent attitudes and actions of the kids aren't exactly a deviation from the norm. While she is at a baseball game planning to confront a famous player (it's a long story), her actions cause a giant brawl to break out, with fans and players rushing the field in a near-riot:



Key dialogue: "Kick the shit out of her!" Oh, Umezu, how you give me pleasure.

I know Matt Thorn said I was trying too hard to find metaphors in this series, but I've got another one that hopefully isn't too far off base. We learn that the plague was caused by a couple of diseased pet squirrels that a diplomat brought back from the United States. It sounds to me like a representation of fear that the influence of foreign cultures is corrupting the younger generation. Or maybe Umezu just hates squirrels.

In addition to the myriad deaths by plague here, we also get to see some drownings, accidental decapitation, and quicksand-related tragedies. That Umezu gets pretty innovative with the means of juvenile death. I don't know how he's going to keep up this carnage for another five volumes, but I can't wait to find out.

Reptilia: Suggested alternate title: "The Snake Lady Annoys Everyone To Death"

Ah, the weekend. Time for me to slack off not do much of anything, especially blogging. But I've gotta get back into things, so here's another review. And I'll plug the contest again, although I'm despairing of getting any more entries. I had originally given December 10 as the deadline, so if I don't get anything else by the end of the day tomorrow, I'll declare a winner. Anyway, here's a weird book:

Reptilia
By Kazuo Umezu



I love Kazuo Umezu's insane Drifting Classroom (here's my review of the most recent volume that I've read), so I was excited to check out another manga of his. This one is a bit older, originally published in 1965, and it seems a bit less polished than his later work. While it has a lot of weirdness and ostensibly scary stuff, it's not nearly as disturbing; it seems more like a corny monster movie.

The book has three stories, with the first two linked and the third acting as something of a prequel. They all involve young girls being menaced by a "snake lady", a beautiful woman who turns into a snakelike creature and tries to eat them. In the first story, young Yumiko is visiting her mother in the hospital when she learns that there is a snake lady being kept somewhere in the facilities. Curiosity getting the better of her, Yumiko wanders around the hospital and stumbles across the snake lady's room, which isn't very secure, since the lady escapes that night and takes the place of Yumiko's mother (she can look like a normal woman when she wants to). She then comes home, and only Yumiko knows she is an impostor, so there are plenty of tense scenes with the snake lady menacing Yumiko and nobody believing her. It's pretty amusing stuff, and Umezu is always there with the bizarre details, like the snake lady being obsessed with eating frogs:



This chapter sets up a trend that will last throughout the book, in which the snake lady repeatedly menaces and threatens the main character, but doesn't actually kill her. She'll stand in front of her saying, "I'm going to eat you now!" but she won't actually do anything. It's like one of those corny old monster movies where the monster chases people around without ever catching or hurting anybody. It gets pretty silly.

After the snake lady is dispatched (sorry, spoiler, but really, did you expect anything else?), the second story sees Yumiko going to visit her relatives in the country. Little does she know, the snake lady escaped her captivity and stowed away for the journey. She's really obsessed with Yumiko for some reason. The people in the village are superstitious and think Yumiko is a snake lady, somehow related to another snake lady that lived in the village. The villagers avoid the "snake house" where the old snake lady lived, so Yumiko and her cousin Kyoko naturally go check it out and get into trouble:



Kyoko gets bit by a snake there, and the snake lady that came along with Yumiko messes with her medicine in the hospital (or something like that), so Kyoko ends up turning into a snake lady herself, converting the rest of the members of her family, and trapping and menacing Yumiko. It's pretty ridiculous; they trap her in the house and say they're going to kill her, but they never actually do anything. Eventually, they all get defeated, and Yumiko gets to go home. The end.

Oh, but wait, there's another chapter! This one goes back into the past, and we learn the origins of the snake lady, or something. There was this guy who got attacked by a snake monster in a swamp, and he shot it but died of fright:



Years later, his granddaughter Yoko's parents are killed by a familiar reptilian female, and then she gets adopted by this weird rich woman. As you might guess, it turns out the woman is a snake lady, and she's been cursed by the snake monster in the swamp and is carrying out its revenge on the family of the hunter that shot her. So she menaces Yoko for a while, doing the old "stand there and threaten to kill her" routine, before finally cursing her as well and turning her into a snake lady. Then Yoko goes and threatens her friends for a bit before everybody goes and has a final showdown at the swamp. And does one of the characters end up in a room in the hospital, destined to become the snake lady of the first two chapters? I'll leave that one up in the air, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

So it's all pretty damn weird, and really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's not all that scary, but Umezu does a pretty good job of establishing a creepy mood, and seeing kids wide-eyed with horror never gets old:



He also does some stuff that's just genuinely weird and freaky, like the way the snake lady slithers along the ground:



Or this inexplicable little bit:



By this point, I was just left shrugging my shoulders and saying "what the hell, why not?" You just gotta go with it and sacrifice any understanding, I guess. Then you can just admire the art and not worry whether it makes any sense. You still get some cool panels like this one:



So overall, it's enjoyable enough if you sacrifice any sense of understanding and just marvel at Umezu's batshit insanity. It's definitely worth reading for Umezu fans, but I don't know what anybody else will make of it. Read at your own risk.

Strange Detective Tales: Dead Love: That's "tales" as in stories, not rear end appendages. That would just be weird

Hey, it's not too late to enter my contest! Design me a logo/banner, and win a copy of Unbeatable. Easy rewards! Okay, here's a book I haven't heard much about, but think I should have:

Strange Detective Tales: Dead Love #1-3
Written by Jesse Bausch
Art by James Callahan



I had heard little to nothing about this book until recently, and that's a shame. This is one of those high-concept books with a compelling hook: noir detective stories meet goofy old science fiction creatures. The 50s-era Los Angeles where this story takes place is filled with all the real old monsters that appeared in the horror and sci-fi B-movies of the period, from werewolves and Frankensteinian creatures to zombies and green, big-headed aliens. The main characters are a pair of private detectives: Renfield (of Dracula fame) and "Dr." Vorlic, a Peter Lorre-esque mad scientist. Bausch and Callahan manage to blend the two styles perfectly, with lots of shadowy skulking, interrogations, violence, betrayals, and lost loves to pad out the noir side of the equation, and tons of nasty creatures to give the story the "strange" aspect. It's a weird combination, but they make it work; in fact, they make them fit together like it's totally natural, which is probably harder than it might seem.

Much of the seamlessness of the combination comes from Callahan's excellent art. It seems simple at first glance, with thin lines and stark backgrounds, but the level of detail soon becomes apparent. The intricate monster designs are pretty amazing, and the action is clearly rendered and easy to follow. I love the way Renfield casually distracts a bouncer in this scene:



As nice as the art is at first, by the second and third issues, Callahan is really doing some beautiful stuff, with lots mood-enhancing shading and dynamic viewing angles:



It's a fun read, just seeing what crazy visual will be coming up next, but the writing is also really good, with an interesting, twisty structure and plenty of noirish characters. The story involves Renfield investigating the disappearance of an old girlfriend, and his emotions definitely affect his professionalism. It makes for good reading, and some excellent worldbuilding for any future tales. Hell, I just like being surprised by the stuff they keep throwing at the reader, like porn producers making use of shapeshifters, or nightclubs where giant blobby monsters dance on stage. At one point, some tough guys leave Renfield out in the middle of a field just before sunrise, knowing that, since he's a vampire, he'll get burned up just trying to get home. The result is pretty gruesome:



At another point, he is asking around for information, and he gets stuck buying drinks for three disgusting harpies who just want to get him in bed (although I'm not sure that would be for sexual purposes):



And I won't spoil some of the excellent surprises, like the livestock kept in the farm where Renfield and Vorlic hide out, or the identity of the real-world freak who gets caught up in the matter. That's stuff you have to see for yourself.

Each issue is a pretty good value, with backup stories and pin-ups by the likes of Joel Priddy, Becky Cloonan, Ian Sampson, and Shane McDermott, among others. There seem to have been some scheduling delays, since the first two issues have a 2005 date on the cover, and the third only just came out in November 2007. I hope they've managed to clear things up; I would love to see more stories in this vein. It's a fun little universe these guys are building here, and I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

If you're interested, you should be able to order copies of the issues from your local comics shop, or you could try Oddgod Press's website, although I find it kind of hard to navigate. But it's definitely worth hunting down, so good luck!

Thanks to Jesse Bausch for the review copies.

MPD Psycho: A world like this would make anyone psychotic

Quickly: Over at IndiePulp, I've got a review of Jeremy Tinder's Black Ghost Apple Factory. Also, a repost of my look at Good As Lily. But for now, let's look at some good old Japanese weirdness:

MPD Psycho, volume 1
Written by Eiji Otsuka
Art by Shou-U Tajima



Does anyone outside of Japan come up with material this twisted and fucked-up? Not in comics, certainly. I can't think of any American comic (outside of some fetish porn, maybe) that made me look away in revulsion or inadvertently utter an "ugh!" like this one did. I've seen some others that are pretty nasty, and I'm sure what's been translated into English is only the tip of the iceberg. That country is crazy, man.

Maybe writer Eiji Otsuka just has a twisted mind and a flair for pushing my buttons. He also wrote Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, another series featuring plenty of dismembered naked women. That sort of gory detail, combining the erotic with the grotesque (which comprises an entire genre of manga) really leaves an impression on me.

Of course, all the nasty imagery in the world amounts to nothing if there isn't a story to string it together, so how well does MPD Psycho accomplish that? I would say pretty well, although it takes a while to get started. In the first few chronologically fractured chapters, we are introduced to our protagonist, Yosuke Kobayashi. He is a violent crimes investigator, and seemingly very good at profiling criminals. However, he also suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (also known as Multiple Personality Disorder, the "MPD" of the title), and at least one of his personalities has a murderous attitude. This affliction leads to him being thrown in jail, and after he gets out, a former police detective recruits him to work in a private crime lab, solving the violent murders that continue to plague the city. Oh, and his previous identity has been suppressed, so now he's going by the name Kazuhiko Amamiya.

It's an interesting setup, and it leads to some pretty arresting stories, with Amamiya and his crew (which includes the woman who bailed him out, and eyepatch-wearing reporter, and an incompetent, comic-relief-providing police detective) getting involved in investigations of disgusting murders and him using his skills to find the culprits. There are also some hints at a conspiracy of some sort, since all the killers are discovered to be clients of an eye bank, and they all have a barcode somehow printed on their left eyeball. And we get some tension about Amamiya; how stable is he, and what happens if (when?) a murderous personality takes over? These questions are left for future volumes to answer, a good reason to keep reading the series.

Shou-U Tajima's artwork does a great job of delivering the gory details of Otsuka's script; every severed limb or arterial spray is rendered in horrific detail:



But he also captures some good nuances of facial details, making obvious the shifts in personality that Kobayashi/Amamiya/? experiences. It's some nice work, although his mind is probably permanently warped after slaving over these gruesome images for so long.

So, it's a good book, if you've got the stomach for it. I'll be ready to see what horrors Otsuka and Tajima can deliver in future volumes. I just hope I don't end up ruining any books with projectile vomit.

Drifting Classroom: The insanity does not cease, and neither does the screaming

Drifting Classroom, volume 5
By Kazuo Umezu



So, to start off the look at this volume, how about some of the "Oh shit!" moments contained within?



Oh, shit!



Oh, shit!!



OH SHIT!!

Each volume of the series is full of stuff like that, with young kids committing horrific acts of violence on each other. And then there's the external stuff, like kids being devoured by swarms of insects, or the gruesome demise of others from the bubonic plague. It's freaky stuff, and it's all delivered in the series' signature feverish, high-volume style, with characters seemingly screaming every line with their mouths wide open.

The metaphorical content in this issue (which I've been keeping an eye out for ever since manga scholar Matt Thorn left this comment on my review of the second volume) seems lighter than normal this issue, at least to my Japanese-history-ignorant eye. Other than the usual theme of competition taken to its extreme, we have a look at whether it's worth it to care for a sick child, which I take as representative of a kid who is struggling in his education. Should the school exhaust resources to keep the kid from dying (flunking out), or is there a point when they should give up on him? I suppose the spreading disease could also be a metaphor for delinquent children having a bad influence on others. It's always something to think about when I'm reading this series, although one could certainly choose to ignore it and just focus on the general insanity.

I notice I don't talk about the art too much, but it's pretty damn good. Umezu has such a unique style, full of motion lines and characters seemingly frozen in mid-action. He draws running characters almost like they're floating over the ground in a running position; it really adds to the surreality of the situation. He also uses a lot of black humor, which is necessary to keep this from being the most depressing story ever written. I love wacky moments like this one:



And he obviously goes for exaggeration, nearly always drawing characters at the extremes of emotion. So when a moment comes that makes the kids even more terrified than usual, he somehow exaggerates their expressions even more:



Beautiful stuff.

I guess by this point, if you're not on board with the series, there's no point in going any further. But if you're as enraptured as I am, the crazy story just keeps getting better. I've got to hunt down the next volume stat.

Drifting Classroom and Parasyte: Two horror tastes that taste horrific together

Actually, they're fine together, but I thought it was funny. And really, Parasyte is probably more science fiction than horror, but whatever.

Drifting Classroom volume 4
By Kazuo Umezu



Man, the metaphors are going crazy in this volume, spreading beyond the school system and commenting on government and society. At the beginning of the book, the students decide to hold an election to determine who will be leader, Sho (our protagonist) or Princess (the leader of a bullying girl-gang). Princess and her cohorts try to bully students into voting for them, threatening violence to any Sho voters. And then [oh, spoiler] it ends up as a tie, with only a young child to cast the deciding vote [end spoiler]. Later, the students set up a huge, spiked booby trap to stop the monster that's roaming the desert in case it comes to attack the school:



As soon as I saw the trap, I knew it would be tripped by a student, symbolizing the way defense against "outside threats" can often be more dangerous to a nation's citizens than the "invaders" they're trying to stop.

Later, the monster does attack, leading to the use of another awesome trap:



And plenty of gruesome deaths:



Then the kids track the monster back into the desert, hoping to kill it once and for all. But then they discover that it's actually being manifested from a kid's imagination, so the dilemma of whether to kill the kid or not arises. It's pretty interesting, since in the last volume, a group of kids tried to crucify another kid that they believed was somehow the cause of the situation. In this volume, the main characters are faced with the decision of whether to do the same thing, since they know that this kid is responsible (whether consciously or not). I could probably come up with some sort of symbolism for this dilemma (punishing problem/underperforming students?), but I might be stretching the metaphors a bit too far already.

In fact, I'm not sure that the metaphors are holding up that well at this point (my limited knowledge of Japanese society at the time doesn't help). It seems that satires and allegories eventually run into a problem (if you want to call it that) in which following the story and characters become more interesting than trying to discern the author's symbolism. It's an interesting conflict, but if the characters are well-drawn and the plot is interesting and well-constructed, it doesn't make too big of a difference in the long run. And fortunately, Umezu is a hell of a storyteller, drawing us right in to this crazy situation and getting us to root for or against his excitable characters. I certainly can't wait to follow their further adventures and see what sort of insanity he has in store.
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Parasyte volume 1
By Hitoshi Iwaaki



I picked this one up after reading good reviews by the likes of Shaenon Garrity and Mike Sterling. And it's pretty damn enjoyable, with some crazy monster designs and wacky comedy. The premise has to do with a bunch of alien spores that invade the earth and take over the bodies of the humans they come in contact with, replacing the head with their own morphing biology, then regularly gruesomely murdering and eating normal humans. The main character, Shin, is infected, but the alien fails to reach his head, instead taking over his right arm. He names the alien Migi (which is Japanese for "right"), and tries to go about his life, which is constantly being interrupted by encounters with other aliens or Migi doing inappropriate things with his hand.

Artwise, the depiction of humans is nothing to write home about, with the shots of expressions of surprise or anger being especially poor:



But the scenes of humans (or other animals) morphing into freaky weapons are where the artwork shines, like in this scene of a guy's head turning into a bladed weapon:



And the portrayal of Migi is pretty charming, while still being offputting and weird. He's usually depicted as a mouth on Shin's hand, with the fingers turning into eyestalks:



But we also regularly see him roaming around Shin's room, studying books and learning as much as he can about Earth:



Migi's really a pretty interesting character. He failed in his mission since he didn't take over Shin's head, so he seems at odds with other aliens that they encounter. But he professes to have no human emotions, claiming that he is only using Shin as a host. They fight several other aliens, but Migi claims that it's just for survival; he's afraid the aliens will kill him for failing his mission. I'm pretty curious to see how he develops in future volumes.

Iwaaki also makes this an environmental issue, implying that the aliens might be a defense against the damage that humans are causing to the Earth. He also raises some interesting questions about the aliens, like when a pair of them that have inhabited male and female bodies conceive a child; what will be the result, and should these aliens be allowed to live after killing two (or possibly more) humans?

And then there's the cool action, with Shin and Migi getting in several fights that consist of freaky blades whizzing through the air like a morphing swordfight. And the silly comedy, like Migi constantly bugging Shin about having sex with the girl he likes because he can tell from his hormones that that's what he wants to do. It all makes for a very enjoyable book, and while I don't think I'll be rushing to the bookstore to pick up every new volume, I'll certainly try to keep following the series.
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Okay, I'm starting to get caught up. We'll see how much more I can continue to write over the next few days...

New comics, and ponderings about my buying habits

I think I'm getting to the point where I wonder if many of the comics I buy are worth the money I spend on them. Sure, there are some that are totally worth every penny, but there are plenty that leave me wondering why I bothered. I think I've reached the point where I'm going to attempt to dial back my weekly spending and focus on trades, collections, graphic novels, manga, etc. So I think I'll look at each book this week and decide if I want to keep buying the series, or if I want to wait for the trade (or drop it altogether). Off we go:

The Boys #8
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Darick Robertson



This series seems to be plugging along regularly, making fun of superheroes and throwing in lots of gross-out humor and profanities. This story arc seems to be slightly different than the previous one (at least so far), as Hughie and Butcher investigate the death of a young gay man with links to the superhero Swingwing, a parallel to Nightwing. Meanwhile, Tek Knight, the Batman analogue, is having more sexual problems. Maybe this will lead to another big brawl, but for right now the story is focusing on exploring the sexual issues of this world and developing the characters. There's an amusing bit where Hughie objects to Butcher using terms like "poof", but then he is afraid to go into a gay bar and interact with actual homosexuals. It's enjoyable enough, and I'm sure hilarity will ensue in the future. (EDIT: After reading Alan David Doane's comment on this review, I realize that my wording makes it sound like the little character bit between Butcher and Hughie is amusing and a setup for future hilarity. I actually was referring to the issue as a whole with the last sentence there, and I agree with Alan that it was a good character moment that brought some unexpected depth to the characters in a book that seems to be mostly focused on superhero satire. That's what I get for rushing through this without thinking it over or proofreading).

Should I keep buying it? Certainly.
Monthly issues or trades? I'll have to decide after this arc is over.
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Criminal #7
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Sean Phillips



The arc continues to plug along, with exciting developments for Tracy Lawless as he infiltrates his brother's former gang in an attempt to find his killer while they perform a heist. Brubaker writes some great crime fiction, and this chapter is excellent, as the gang performs the first part of the job, which involves breaking a guy out of prison who has the plans for the second part of the job. Very exciting. Plus, we learn how this story is connected to the first story arc when Tracy visits Leo in prison in order to get a reference on his criminal resume. I can't wait to see where this goes.

As for Phillips' art, I've said before that I wish he would stick to this sort of thing and stay away from the superhero/zombie stuff that he sometimes does. His style suits this sort of story perfectly, with lots of moody shadows and atmospheric details (although he hates drawing buildings and cars, according to Brubaker's afterword; that was amusing, because this issue contains a lot of those). One thing I noticed in this issue was how well he draws women's faces, differentiating them from his men's faces, which usually have sharp corners and rough lines:



Instead, the women's faces have smooth curves and sharp lines:



Nicely done.

Should I keep buying it? Definitely.
Monthly issues or trades? I like the "backmatter" text pieces that various authors contribute about noir films, and I don't think those are included in the trades, so I'll stay with the monthly issues.
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Hellboy: Darkness Calls #3 (of 6)
Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Duncan Fegredo



This series is tons of fun, even if I'm still having trouble following the plot. Not that it's too convoluted or anything, but I'm just not familiar enough with Hellboy's history. This issue, he fights an army of corpses mustered by his old enemy (I think) Baba Yaga:



He even gets to do the old gag where a bunch of bad guys pile on top of him and he crawls out from under the pile and runs away. That's a classic. He also gets some help from giant wolves:



Man, Fegredo is really knocking the art out of the park here, cramming an insane level of detail into the panels while still keeping close to Mignola's signature style. Wow. In future issues, it looks like Hellboy will have to face a creepy guy named Koshchei the Deathless, along with Baba Yaga herself, I assume. Lots of crazy stuff is going on here, and I can't wait to see what's coming next. Here's my pull quote:

"Hellboy: it's the book to read if you want corpse-kicking action!"



Should I keep buying it? Yes!
Monthly issues or trades? I'll finish out this miniseries in monthly format, but I figure I'll buy trades for any future (or past) stories.
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The Immortal Iron Fist #6
Written by Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker
Art by David Aja and Russ Heath



Holy crap, this is an awesome book. We get the big showdown between Iron Fist(s) and Steel Serpent, along with Hydra's armies and the Heroes for Hire gang (that is, Luke Cage, Misty Knight, and Colleen Wing). Sweet! Tons of cool stuff, like Luke celebrating the team-up:



Colleen cracking wise while diving down an elevator shaft:



Misty yelling "Aww, yeah!" while blowing away Hydra agents (no picture for that one, but just imagine it), and some kick-ass kung-fu poses:



And lots more! Next storyline, Danny travels to some mystic dimension to represent K'un L'un in the tournament of the Seven Cities of Heaven. Sweet. It's an awesome, awesome book, and I can't get enough of it.

Should I keep buying it? Of course!
Monthly issues or trades? I'm thinking I'll switch to trades, although I'm going to have to figure out if next month's issue spotlighting the story of a past Iron Fist, the Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay, is going to be included in the first trade or the second. Okay, I looked it up on Marvel's site, and it says volume 1 contains issues #1-6, so I think I'll be dropping this one to wait for future collections.
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Jack of Fables #12
Written by Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges
Art by Tony Akins and Andrew Pepoy



As somebody who is intimately acquainted with the creators of this book, I think my opinion has a lot of weight when I say it is awesome. The current storyline is called "The Bad Prince", which is a good counterpoint to the storyline running in the sister book Fables, called "The Good Prince". I'm not sure what poor nobility has to do with the story so far though, other than Jack stating that he was once a prince for two days. The rest of the issue deals with his recapture by Priscilla Page and the circumstances of his (probable) escape. I won't spoil them, but I will say that there is a hilarious running gag in which Jack alternates between telling us via caption the good news and the bad news of his circumstances. We also get some hints about the larger running storyline, such as Jack's connection to Wicked John and what's going on back at Golden Boughs. And one crazy-ass final page. I don't know what's going to happen next, but I'll be reading it.

Should I keep buying it? Yes. This is getting monotonous, isn't it?
Monthly issues or trades? Hmmmm. I'll have to decide as I read this storyline. I'm enjoying it monthly, but there's really no reason not to wait and read stories all in one chunk.
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Marvel Adventures: Avengers #14
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Leonard Kirk



Well, this book is pretty fun, but I'm starting to wonder if it's worth my money. This issue, the team gets pulled back in time (or to an alternate universe, maybe) to help some villagers that are regularly robbed by bandits. If the story seems familiar, you might have watched The Seven Samurai at some point. Or The Magnificent Seven. Or some other variation on the tale.
It's still a pretty fun take on it though, with the team changing their uniforms to fit the period, training the villagers in ways to fight (Hulk's training is the best):



And appointing Wolverine as leader for the mission:



It's very enjoyable, but it's just so lightweight, I don't think I can justify spending three dollars a month on it. Especially since I'm getting more and more sick of superheroes lately; I'm figuring I'll drop pretty much anything that I don't really like.

Should I keep buying it? Unfortunately, no.
Monthly issues or trades? Since it is a fun book, and I do like Jeff Parker, I suppose I could pick up one or more of the digest collections sometime.
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The Nightly News #6 (of 6)
By Jonathan Hickman



Well, the series wraps up in explosive fashion, with some change apparently being effected. Was all the violence worth it? Surprisingly, Hickman seems to be saying it was, but I'm not sure. It's been a subversive series all along, with readers seemingly encouraged to cheer as the evil media spokesmen were being murdered, but there were also some hints that the group behind the murders were an unthinking cult just following orders, and that's not any better than listening to a profit-obsessed media. But with the revelation of the cult's mastermind, Hickman seems to be celebrating the murder spree they went on, even hinting at a sequel aimed at another evil group of people. I'm not sure what to make of it, but I did find the story quite enjoyable.

And the art was also pretty damn cool, revealing an incredible design sense and an intention to push the limits of what comics can look like. Great stuff, and I think Hickman will be a major talent. At the end of the book, he announces two upcoming miniseries that will be appearing soon: Pax Romana (written and illustrated by Hickman) and Red Mass For Mars (written by Hickman, illustrated by Ryan Bodenheim). Plus, two more coming in 2008: Transhuman (written by Hickman, art by J.M. Ringuet) and The Return (written and illustrated by Hickman). Unless Hickman does something to really turn me off, I'm sure I'll be reading all of those.

Should I keep buying it? Um, the series is over.
Monthly issues or trades? Well, for future miniseries, I might consider waiting for the trades, but I might want to buy the monthly issues to support Hickman. We'll see.
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White Picket Fences #2 (of 3)
Written by Matt Anderson and Eric Hutchins
Art by Micah Farritor



I kind of liked the first issue of this miniseries, but this one doesn't really do anything interesting. We get some more scenes of the kids and their antics, more scenes of neighborly competition, and some backstory that was probably already obvious. There's a decent scene in which the general negotiates with a Martian ambassador, but it's nothing amazing. And it seems the whole thing can be resolved if Charlie (the kid) returns the laser trigger to the army, and even though he knows this, he can't figure out what to do. I'm sure there will be some exciting stuff of some sort in the final issue, but I'm not really stoked about it.

And the art started really bugging me, with characters' heads often seeming too large for their bodies, the kids looking like adults in some panels, and a freaky shot of Charlie's mom in which she seems to be related to Plastic Man:



So, I don't think I'll bother getting the final issue of this. Too bad; it had potential.

Should I keep buying it? Nope!
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X-Men: First Class #1
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Roger Cruz



I figured I would give this a shot after enjoying the recent special, and it's really pretty good. I've never really liked Roger Cruz's art since I first encountered him as a fill-in artist for Chris Bachalo on Generation X, but he's really improved; his art is actually quite good and suits the style of this book excellently. This issue is about Jean Grey spending some time with the Invisible Woman in order to see a fellow female superhero at work and get some motherly advice and stuff. It's a lot of fun, with lots of hugs and hero worship, amid fights with the likes of the Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android. But then the rest of the X-Men freak out and think she's leaving the team to join the Fantastic Four, so they go to beg her to come back, just in time to join her for the fight. It's a really fun book, with lots of good details, like Jean using hairbrushes telekinetically while putting on makeup, or Johnny Storm putting the moves on Jean, much to Scott's chagrin. This is the kind of book that Jeff Parker is great at writing, filling the issue with character details while still throwing in lots of action. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be following it. It's a good book, probably one of the best things Marvel is publishing right now, but like MA: Avengers, it's just kind of lightweight, and I don't think I want to spend three dollars a month to read it. I'll still recommend it to anybody looking for a good superhero comic though.

Should I keep buying it? Unfortunately, no. Sorry, Parker!
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So that's it for this week. I'll have to continue this examination of what to continue buying and what to drop or wait for the trade. Just for fun, I'll try to list off the top of my head what I should keep reading in single issues and what to switch to trades for.

Read monthly:

All-Star Superman
Batman (if I keep reading it)
Y: The Last Man (It's almost finished)
Local
Madman Atomic Comics
Criminal
Casanova
Runaways (for now)
Astonishing X-Men (it's almost over)
Fell (for the backmatter)
The Goon

Wait for the trade:

Powers
Fables
100 Bullets
Jack of Fables (maybe)
The Boys (maybe)
Immortal Iron Fist
Newuniversal
Desolation Jones (after the current arc, if it ever continues to come out)

Not sure:

DMZ
Ex Machina
Godland
The Spirit

Okay, that's enough for now. I might update this list if I think of other series.