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Reviews for 6/15/05
While regular Snap Judgments are on hiatus, I'll be doing these "spotlight" columns on indy books and graphic novels in my review pile. This time out: Two graphic novels and superhero-themed indies!
GRAPHIC NOVEL SPOTLIGHT:
IT DISAPPEARS GN
by Nate Powell (Soft Skull Press)
Format: Graphic novel
Price: $9.95
Website: www.softskull.com
 As a graphic novel, It Disappears runs both extremely hot and extremely cold for me. From an art standpoint, the book is a triumph, as Nate Powell serves up delicate, beautiful linework that is reminiscent in all the right ways of Paul Pope and Craig Thompson. From a story standpoint, It Disappears is a bit too abstract for me, a meandering, hallucinatory journey that includes talking animals, a fictional philosopher counterpart and poetic language that never quite solidifies into a plot. Powell is presenting the equivalent of impressionistic art in graphic novel form. That kind of thing generally isn't my cup of tea, but if you like that sort of thing, or if you're just a fan of beautiful comic book art, It Disappears is certainly worth a look.
URBAN DREAMS
by Patricia Betteo, Daniel Cosio, Rogelio Lopez, Santiago Casares, Luis Sopelana, Ricardo Reyes, Felipe Sobreiro, Tony Sandoval & Beto Calvo (Tekila Penguin)
Format: Graphic novel
Price: $5.00
Website: www.urbandreams.info
 Urban Dreams is a showcase for Latin American artists, and at five dollars for a digest-sized 64-page graphic novel, it's a pretty economical sampler of new talent. I knew only one of these names going in (Luis Sopelana, from his work on Andrew Dabb's Slices), but going out, I suddenly had a few more artists to look for in the future. Urban Dreams is an anthology, which almost inevitably means that there are some stories that won't click for everyone, but I enjoyed most of the stories here quite a bit, and even the ones that didn't quite work for me had something to offer, whether it was a neat idea, a memorable moment or spot of dialogue or just some terrific artwork.
The gem of the bunch for me is "The Wardrobe," a tale of a coastal city haunted by strange ghosts and two young people who are trying to exorcise it with attractive art by Tony Sandoval that reminds me of both Alex (Box Office Poison) Robinson and Sonny (My Faith in Frankie) Liew. Sandoval builds a realistic relationship between friends amidst an almost surreal backdrop of urban decay and spooky hauntings, and tells a satisfying tale in a short amount of space. "The Shadows in the Walls" is another horror-tinged tale, as Casares and Sopelana tell the brief but chilling tale of a boy who can see the future with a gut-puncher of an ending, and "Oh, Jesus!" is a hilarious two-pager by Reyes and Sobreiro that plays nicely off of the annoyance of door-to-door evangelicals in a way that is a little thought-provoking as well as providing a quick laugh. Casares scores again at the end with "Angels in the Closet," a brief tale that boasts a strange mix of melancholy and hope for its ending, and makes a perfect send-off for an anthology in which a number of new talents hope to take flight.
While I liked the other stories, they all seemed less comfortable with the format than the ones I just named. "The Irish Separatist" by Cosio and Lopez is a great idea, but they don't really have enough space to fully explore its ramifications, and they telegraphs the reveal so that the punch of this short story is lost to some degree. Sopelana builds an effective and intriguing world in a limited space with "The Problem With Mermaids," but I confess that the conclusion was hard to read from an art standpoint, and so I didn't quite get the full effect until I stepped back and really analyzed, which took me out of the story a bit too much. Overall, though, the craft here is high and this is an intriguing introduction to a number of promising artists.
Understand, when I talk about "indies" here I mean mostly those who are self-publishing. While DC and Marvel definitely control the lions' share of the superhero market, there can be no denying that Image broke that stranglehold in the '90s and continues to put out top-notch alternative superheroes like Invincible and Noble Causes, to name only two off the top of my head.
I have to admit, I'm always a little disappointed when a self-publisher decides to offer up a superhero book. While the superhero genre blend (usually mixed with crime or comedy) can work well for smaller black and white books, working in the superhero genre instantly puts the creators right up against the top guns of the industry and their excellent production values, and its rare to find untapped indy creators who are ready for that comparison. That was the case with many of the offerings here, although some of them rise above the rest by way of an interesting twist or just by being so weird that they almost can't be categorized as superheroes at all.
CADRE #1
by Mat Nastos (Nifty Comics)
Format: Comic book
Price: $4.95
Website: www.niftycomics.com
 Cadre is, in many ways, a by the numbers superhero comic, drawing on the formula as modified by Chris Claremont and Marv Wolfman, which stipulates that for every action sequence, there must be some kind of soap operatic characterization story as well. Nastos mentions in his editorial that the characters are based off an old Champions roleplaying campaign, and Cadre #1 does indeed feel like the first session of a new superhero game. The characters are introduced, given brief backstories and then faced with a supervillain plot that calls upon them to band together. Like I said, a bit by the numbers, but perfectly well-executed along those lines, and surprisingly old school. I say surprisingly because the art style more closely resembles the Image look popularized in the mid-'90s, with a few panels that look like they could have come out of the '90s Jim Lee's sketchbook. It's more than a little uneven and sketchy at times, and certainly the amount of cross-hatching and detail would be better served in color, but it's attractive for those with a fondness for '90s-era Lee, Whilce Portacio, Art Thibert or others with that general style.
The biggest problem it faces is the one that I mentioned above, and that's the level of competition it's playing against. Cadre is solid enough, but a black and white by the numbers superhero comic along the lines of Claremont and Wolfman gets stacked against not only full-color trade paperback editions of the classics themselves but against the new work being done by both creators on superhero titles at present. Cadre offers up a superhero comic that plays by the familiar genre rules and offers up nothing in the way of surprises or anything that superhero fans haven't seen before. The mixture of an old school writing vibe with a mid-'90s art style is also a little bit jarring, and ultimately leaves the book with an extremely narrow fanbase, consisting of those with more broadly mixed tastes than most superhero fans have.
THE ROACH #1
by Robert Roach (Hometown Productions)
Format: Comic book
Price: $5.00
Website: www.hometownprods.com
 Technically, The Roach is less about a superhero and more about a crimefighter in the pulp vein, a gunfighter in the prohibition era like the Green Hornet or the Spirit. Roach's story pits his gruff character against a consortium of crime lords posing as a cult of do-gooders, and in the midst of all of this we get sex, violence and plenty of attitude. Roach's artwork is in a generally likeable style, and if he could use some more consistency in his faces (especially in extreme close-ups, where women often look just like the men they're with), at least his general storytelling is pretty solid. The story crosses mostly heavily explored territory, from the tough guy intimidating the hood on the street to the overconfident sleazy criminals manipulating wide-eyed innocents, but I like the twist of the Roach's foe being little more than a deluded kid who doesn't get a pass for his weakness. The dialogue is a little corny, but it falls in line with the pulp sensibilities that Roach is using, and most of the flaws in the work can be written off with a similar justification. The Roach is essentially just another pulp comic, but it captures the genre it's working in perfectly and tells the story clearly.
SUPER F*CKERS #271
by James Kochalka (Top Shelf Productions)
Format: Comic book
Price: $7.00
Website: www.topshelfcomix.com
 Those who know James Kochalka know that his take on superheroes is bound to be at least a little bit, well, f*cked up. Super F*ckers #271 definitely fits that description, as it takes the reader on a brief, issue-long journey into the lives, loves, fights and drug habits of a hedonistic superteam and those who wish to join it. The superhero as celebrity has become an interesting element of some books, but Kochalka takes it just that step further and shows us the kind of celebrity that leads to things like The Simple Life, the antics on HBO's Entourage and other types of stories that make for excellent tabloid fodder. Over the course of this book, one potential team member slaughters most of the other contenders in a drug-fueled rage, a cancerous mutant tries to declare his love for a member of the team using his sentient tumor (by way of the headquarters sewer system) and several of the teammates get completely high by smoking their teammate's slime drippings. The Super F*ckers make the Ultimates and The Authority look like clean-cut choir boys, both in terms of their behavior and their unbelievably foul language.
Super F*ckers is absolutely what you'd expect if you know Kochalka's work and yet still completely jaw-dropping in its audacity. In an industry where rape and murder of superheroes and supervillains has become a staple, Super F*ckers still manages to raise the bar on atrocities, and in so doing, provides a terrific parody of the extremes of "adult" superheroes. The bright colors and simple artwork are a perfect complement to the story here, toning down what otherwise might be too extreme to be funny and capturing the exaggerated nature of some of the gags in a way that a more realistic style just couldn't. It's reminiscent of the effect that Mike Allred got from X-Force and X-Statix, and in fact I would highly recommend Super F*ckers to fans of those books.
 While I experienced no small amount of disappointment reading most of this week's crop of indy superheroes, Super Real #1 was an unexpected bright spot. The reality superhero team has been done almost to perfection in Todd Nauck's Wildguard, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for an alternate take, as Jason Martin proves with his story, which crosses clueless network executives, familiar-looking evil corporate types and a variety of young people physically perfect enough for MTV into a solid first issue. Super Real sometimes falters in its humor (I think the lookalike stand-ins for Bush, Cheney, Bendis and Larry David are super-cheesy and unnecessary), but it does deliver an interesting cast of characters, a fun premise and certainly a few laughs in the course of its 44 pages.
What will probably make most sit up and notice Super Real, though (aside from Martin's graphic .sig, often on display in Newsarama's message boards), is the artwork. If there's one common element found in self-published work, it's that ready for primetime artwork is a rarity, but Martin springs onto the scene almost fully formed, with an art style that will find a lot of favor with those who dig on guest cover artist Josh Howard. In fact, Martin's work has a lot in common with Howard's work, a stripped-down, colorful approach that features clean and simple lines and yet has plenty of detail. Martin's buxom women and buff guys make the superficial beauty of the Super Real stars perfectly believable, and his overall style calls to mind not only Josh Howard but some of the work done by Keith Giffen at his peak. It's a nice-looking book, one with plenty of potential, and the story is off the beaten path followed by most superhero books.
UNDERLORDS: TRENDALS'S LEGACY #1
by Rick Beckley, Abdul Rashid & Greg Robinson (Eidolon Studios)
Format: Comic book
Price: $2.95
Website: www.underlords.com
 Underlords is a superhero/science-fiction comic that reads like a cross between Jim Starlin and Rob Liefeld. Certainly the look of the book has an early Image quality, with overly rippling muscles and somewhat generic costumes, but the imaginative story work by Beckley and Robinson has much more of a '70s space opera feel. Imaginative story ideas aside, however, Underlords does have a number of problems in the actual storytelling, including a failure to really distinguish its lead characters and to explain the way its world works. Beckley's story opens with a far-flung tale of renegade gods and powerful beings, explaining the origin of superpowers and the role the superpowered beings play in the universe, but the actual plot then involves some of these super-cops pitted against a renegade member of their order in a conflict that isn't even remotely clear. It's either an overcomplication of a simple hero vs. villain fight or too much backstory for one issue, but either way, Underlords basically drops the reader into the middle of a world fully formed in the writers' heads and doesn't really give all the explanation necessary for the reader to feel comfortable there. Underlords scores big on enthusiasm, but I found the actual execution to be somewhat garish and loud, when a bit more subtlety and character was really required.
WANTED: HERO #1-2
by Jaime D. Buckley (Wanted Hero Studios, LLC)
Format: Comic book
Price: $3.25
Website: www.wantedhero.com
 Jaime Buckley's Wanted: Hero is an unusual comic, in that it's not quite a full-fledged comic in format but doesn't really fit the mini-comic designation either. What I have in hand are stapled copies that are essentially black and white comics, but they were produced on a laser printer, and that's what Buckley offers at this point, although you can also get a free look by downloading a PDF of issue one at his website. His goals are to eventually offer a more traditional collected edition of the story, but that is a bit down the road.
While I applaud Buckley's ingenuity in putting his comic out there, I'm afraid that I don't have much applause to share with the comic itself. Wanted: Hero is aiming for the same general territory as Formerly Known as the Justice League, examining superheroes from the point-of-view of characters who are the last people on Earth you'd want as superheroes, but he goes wide of the mark in a couple of important ways. The first, and most crucial, is that Wanted: Hero just isn't very funny. The notion of hapless Wendell, slacker at large, getting the powers of the chosen one by mistake is one that seems rife with comic potential, but Buckley never really gets past the overly familiar gags. The obnoxious sidekick Dax is another cliche, one that goes back to the '70s era Pip the Troll in Warlock and probably further than that. In order to work, Wanted: Hero needs to take this familiar concept into uncharted territory or provide a lot of laughs, and Buckley doesn't really do either one so far.
THE WRAITH #0
by Frank Dirscherl, Jim Taylor, Jeff Austin, Joe Martino, Dave Rothe, Mitchell Breitweiser, Steven Preston & Phillip Greene (Trinity Comics)
Format: Comic book
Price: $2.25
Website: www.the-wraith.com
 The Wraith is professionally executed for the most part, save a mismash of guest art near the end, but it doesn't really get into unexplored territory, and when you compare it with similar offerings from the larger publishers, it just can't compete. Dirscherl names in his intro creators like Gerry Conway and Steve Englehart and pulp characters like The Shadow and The Spider, and The Wraith is definitely a book that wears those influences on its sleeve. Unfortunately, there's a difference between homage and inspiration, and The Wraith reads like the former, like a lost black and white product of one of those creators featuring one of those characters. The Wraith is an archetype, and his story, about taking down the one untouchable crimelord and choosing a successor, is likewise archetypal.
While the story didn't really spark for me, there's nothing wrong with the general professionalism at work here. Dirscherl introduces his cast effectively and cleanly, like a "done in one" comic of old, and the artwork by Taylor and Austin is clean and effective, with some especially nice work on backdrop details like The Wraith's car, landmarks from his world tour or the impressive "Wraith-cave" set. It is unfortunate that the "art cavalry" was called in to help finish the book, because the change in styles is jarring, and while Breitweiser's photo-real work slides relatively smoothly in with Taylor's work, it's only one page, while the rest is given over to much more amateurish (and thickly inked) work that kills the storytelling momentum. Given my distaste for much of the current superhero offerings from DC and Marvel, you'd think I would appreciate a comic this "old school," but The Wraith veers a little too closely to pure nostalgia for me, and in the end is no more rewarding than rereading an old back issue from the '70s.
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