Month: September 2007

By Donald Rooum (Freedom Press)
ISBN: 0-900384-60-3

Cartooning legend and man of letters Donald Rooum turns his savagely gentle eye and softly brutal pens and brushes to an examination of the work ethic (or lack of same) in this collection of strips featuring his frenetic feline activist Wildcat – and her minders and entourage, of course, – in a discourse and primer on the true meaning and terminology of the work and society as viewed from a truly Anarchist perspective.

Just for the record: since the strips have to spend so much time clarifying this point, I will too. Suspend the preconceptions you’ve grown up with. Actual Anarchism is the belief and aspiration that, “Society should be a system where there is no Government and Social Relationships are all voluntary.” And while I’ve got the Quotation marks key under my thumb, here’s a couple from the book itself…

“Boss: one who directs, controls or dominates others”

“Government: body of persons who direct, control or dominate a state or other organisation”

Under the guise of a slide show lecture in a church hall, we get to see some funny and thought-provoking alternatives to commercialism and globalism, and the discussion portion after continues the mirth with worth.

Clever, challenging, and potentially life-changing: Surely this is what all art dreams of being? And when it makes you laugh too? This is a must have item for any child of the twenty-first century.

© 1991, 2007 Donald Rooum. All Rights Reserved.

 

Adapted by Ah Xiu & Ah Nan, illustrated by Yan Meihua
(Zhaohua Publishing House, Beijing) No ISBN

Older readers might remember the distinctly odd TV series The Water Margin which followed the adventures of a band of heroic outlaws who fought for justice against an unjust, oppressive and corrupt Government. You might even remember that the tales were based on the classic novel “Outlaws of the Marsh” by Shi Nai’an of the Ming Dynasty. (Early Ming actually; the author wrote most of the thing in the extremely late Yuan Dynasty – it’s easy to show off when the book being reviewed has extensive sleeve notes.)

First published in China in the mid fourteenth century, the story is actually set in the early twelfth century, in the Northern Song area, centred around Mount Liangshan where 108 leaders and heroes gather together to overthrow the decadent tyranny of the ruling class. By all accounts Mao Tse Tung was a great admirer of these tales.

Adapted in this book with great economy and beautifully stylistic art of an almost balletic grace is the first tale of the saga. Imperial Arms Instructor Lin Chong is framed for attempting to assassinate his overlord, Marshall Gao, but in actuality Gao has conspired to disgrace and remove Lin Chong because his wastrel nephew wants the Arms Instructor’s wife. In a culture strictly bound by convention and class it is no easy thing to get rid of somebody and the convoluted plan goes awry.

Lin Chong, although disgraced and tattooed with the mark of a criminal, is not executed. Due to the efforts of true friends such as the warrior monk Sagacious Lu, and the uniquely honest judge Prefect Teng, he is convicted of the lesser crime of improperly carrying a weapon within the confines of the inner Sanctum, and exiled to the remote Canzhou. To safeguard his family he publicly divorces his beloved wife, giving her back to her father to protect, and then departs for the long walk to his destiny.

To western sensitivities, this might seem an oddly downbeat place to close, but in setting up the narrative engine for the epic to come, it works, especially with the masterful black and white pictures imparting a rising sense of hope to counterpoint the injustice of the plot. And while I’m being technical, this is one of those rare examples of Chinese Picture Stories (that’s the term for them, and artist Yan Meihua was an award winner at the 1980 National Prize-awarding Ceremony) that includes word balloons on the artwork to supplement the traditional picture and text block format.

In a world full of comics and strips, quality art will always please the eye, and a great story can never be beaten, so why not try something a little more exotic the next time you need a hit of something graphical?

© 1982 Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House.

 

By Jason Aaron & Cameron Stewart (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-561-3

Viet Nam scarred the American psyche the way the current Gulf War will. Depending on your politics you will either agree or disagree with that statement. What is indisputable is the effect Viet Nam still has on the American consumer. So it is intriguing to see an attempt to portray that earlier conflict less in term of “Us and Them” and more as “You and Me”.

This superb tale contrasts the journey from happy home to bloody combat of surly average teen Billy Everette, his counterpart, farmer’s son Vo Binh Dai, and their predestined clash at the Battle of Khe Sanh.

Drafted from his Alabama home, Everette is a reluctant screw-up turned into an average Marine by the sheer hell of Boot Camp, where even the terrifying and very real hallucinations and delusions he suffers from can’t keep him from that dreaded Tour of Duty. In contrast, the patriotic and dutiful Vo Dai enlists in the People’s Army of Vietnam, endures starvation and disease on this long march south, determined to sell his life dearly to free his country from oppression. He too is plagued both by doubts of his worth, and terrifying hallucinations.

This simple tale, powerfully told and subversively drawn is a sensitive, darkly magical, horrific parable about war, politics and insanity, if indeed, they aren’t all the same thing in the end.

This volume also contains sketches and artist Cameron Stewart’s photo diary of his research trip to modern Viet Nam, and hopefully that gentle counterpoint to history’s blunders can offer a shred of hope to soldiers and families currently reliving the traumas of another age.

© 2007 Jason Aaron & Cameron Stewart. All Rights Reserved.

 

By various (Marvel Comics)
ISBN 0-7851-0749-5

Extraordinarily poor example of how to cash in on a Big Budget Blockbuster, this slim adaptation of the first X-Men movie (47 pages), scripted by Ralph Macchio and illustrated by Anthony Williams and Andy Lanning, is augmented by trio of past tales to flesh out the characters and fill up the extra pages.

The adaptation itself is sound, if a little poorly paced, but the art is muddied by a presumed attempt to mirror the muted darkness of the film. If you don’t know the plot some humans are mutating to the next stage of evolution, the humans are frightened and the mutants themselves are splintering into two factions, one for co-existence the other for separation and/or conquest.

My major problem with this is confusion. If the reader is a newcomer fresh from the film, the radically different characters in the rest of the book – but with the same names – must be baffling. The costumes are different, the powers and histories don’t match, and even the four colour palette of ‘proper comic art’ is totally unlike the initial story.

Also included are the two-part ‘Magneto Triumphant’ story from Uncanny X-Men #112 and 113, by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, the story of Rogue’s joining the X-Men from #171 (by Claremont and Walt Simonson) and the first four chapters of the ‘Weapon X’ semi-origin of Wolverine from Marvel Comics Presents #72-75.

Irrespective of the quality of the reprints selected, these are not the same X-Men as the film features and not even the same kind of story. To leap from the stripped down film script where almost all the players are ciphers to Chris Claremont at the peak of his hidden history and extended sub-plotting phase of writing is cruel and self-defeating.

Surely The House of Ideas could do better than this?

© 1977, 1983, 1990, 1991, 2000 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

By Jack Jackson (Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN 0-87816-081-7

Comix legend Jack Jackson combined his love of historical documentary with the Lovecraftian horrors of the cosmic void for this wonderful period supernatural thriller, skilfully woven into the fabric and lore of the Southwest desert lands that we now know as Texas.

When a silvery entity crashes to Earth in a blazing fireball, it galvanises the fading dreams of Xotl, a young Faraone warrior who had lost faith in his gods. As the years pass, the natives worship the power of the thing, and when the mighty Apaches conquer them they turn to the newly arrived Europeans for help. This tragic mistake is revealed too late when the tribe finds that Priests and colonist might speak of God but only truly worship wealth. When they learn of the Cosmic Slug that fell from the stars, all they can see is the overwhelming wealth its silver mantle represents.

The decades long battle between the Apaches and the Missionaries to control the silver makes for a powerful if cynical tale, full of the superb artistry, spellbinding storytelling, and the powerful aura of authenticity that is Jackson’s most telling narrative tool. Based on the ancient Texas stories and legends of ‘Blanco’ and ‘Negro Bultos ‘(supernatural treasure mounds), this most fantastic story should be, has to be true, if only because he has drawn it.

Superb and compelling, this is a must-read item for any serious fan of both comics and horror fiction.

© 1986, 1987, 1989 Jack Jackson. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Geoff Johns, Amanda Conner, Paul Levitz & Joe Staton (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-280-0

Back when DC’s continuity had multiple – one could almost say infinite – Earths, there were different versions of the same character. Before Crisis on Infinite Earths rationalised all that, and long before they changed it all back again, younger writers like Gerry Conway and Paul Levitz chose to emphasise the differences between versions. So if Superman of Earth 1 (“our Earth”) had a cute cousin called Supergirl, the Earth 2 Man of Steel would have a raunchier (at least eventually – in her initial appearance she was just plain jailbait) more aggressive counterpart, and with her own name.

Power Girl debuted as part of the ‘All Star Squadron’ in 1975, designed by Ric Estrada and Wally Wood, and promptly became one of the most prominent members of the team, literally burgeoning into a implausibly pneumatic Amazon, consequently becoming a huge favourite with the fans, editorially assessed as being primarily male, and mostly young teens.

The first tale in this volume is from her three issue run in DC try-out comic Showcase (#97-97) in 1978. This good old-fashioned super-hero yarn featured many Justice Society guest-stars and established a new secret identity, whilst clarifying her origins. Written by Levitz, the art was by the acquired-taste art team of Joe Staton and Joe Orlando, with Dick Giordano providing a more tradition inking style for the latter parts of the tale.

After Crisis on Infinite Earths, a new origin had to be constructed for her as the multiverse became one single cosmos, where popular properties were shoe-horned into one continuity. Secret Origins #11 (1987) featured Paul Kupperberg and Mary Wilshire retooled her into a magical refugee from ancient Atlantis, and left it at that, but the illusion of change is everything in comics and as she appeared in another miniseries (not collected here), the very popular Justice League and Justice League: Europe comics and ultimately in JSA her back story grew and fluctuated. By 2006 all the inconsistencies and contradictions meant that another overhaul was on the cards.

With Infinite Crisis looming large on the DC agenda Power Girl became a major factor purely because of her continuity flaws. Reprinting relevant extracts from JSA #32 and #39, the convoluted trail leads us into her starring role in JSA Classified #1-4 (which comprises the remainder of this trade paperback).

The stage is set for a delightful adventure that combines wit and humour with an obvious love of all the minutiae of this character when writer Geoff Johns and artists Amanda Conner, Peter Snejbjerg, Patrick Gleason, Jimmy Palmiotti and Christian Alamy employ the table-turning tactic of embracing all Power Girl’s multiple identities and origin’s in a bravura piece of creative showmanship that is a guilty joy for any super hero fan. But be warned, this doesn’t resolve much: the entire show is a prelude to Infinite Crisis (which I will deal with in due course).

On its own terms this is a passable piece of eye-candy for the faithful, but might be a little daunting for new readers. If that not a problem, the stories and especially the art has a lot to offer. And of course she does have really, really large breasts.

There, that’s much clearer now isn’t it?

© 1978, 1987, 2002, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.