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Snapshots for 10/19/05
There's no way that Don and I can cover all of the material we have for review in full reviews, so these capsule reviews will offer some brief comments on other recent releases.
DEADWORLD #2
by Gary Reed & Vince Locke (Image Comics/Desperado)
 By starting off in the middle of the story and assuming a certain investment of readers in the characters, Gary Reed has handicapped his relaunch of Deadworld quite a bit. The months long wait between issues doesn't help matters much either, nor does the strong competition from king of zombie comics The Walking Dead. Basically, Deadworld has some elements to recommend it, including strong artwork from Vince Locke, an interesting twist on the usual mindless zombie hordes and a potentially compelling central mystery about magic and dimensional travel bringing the zombies forth, but it just doesn't grab the new reader the way it should. The characters seem remarkably sketchy and uninteresting, and while King Zombie is a flamboyant adversary, he ultimately lacks any depth as well. On the upside, Vince Locke's artwork is like a rougher version of Guy Davis, especially in his creepy-as-hell designs for the Grakken and the expressiveness that he gives the malevolent King Zombie. If you're a zombie fanatic who isn't getting enough of the walking dead in The Walking Dead, or someone who wants zombies of a somewhat different style, Deadworld is worth a look, but unless you're already a fan of the genre of a previous incarnation of the book, Deadworld is unlikely to wow you right off the bat.
DRAGONLANCE CHRONICLES #2
by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Andrew Dabb, Steve Kurth & Djoko Santiko (Devil's Due)
 The Dragonlance Chronicles is the translation of a well-liked D&D novel series from some years ago, so the big question is, will the translation work for fans of the original? As someone with vague memories of the original, I'd say that Dabb and Kurth haven't quite captured the personalities of the characters as well as Weis and Hickman originally did, but they have captured the same sense of destiny and epic story seen through the eyes on the ground that made the Lord of the Rings films successful. Kurth's artwork, as colored by Santiko, is more than a little muddy and unfortunately doesn't pop off the page as it should, but it has a slick and generally likable style that will probably appeal to most fantasy fans. The action is likewise a little too chaotic and not really effective in building tension, but there are great moments of awe, like the arrival of the pegasi, and good character designs, like the skeletal appearance of Raistlin or the noble bearing of Sturm, the paladin of the bunch. It's also fairly accessible, as long as you're not the type of person whose eyes glaze over when you start hitting fantasy names like Xak Tsaroth or fantasy cliches like the staff of fallen gods. Long story short, if you're a fan of epic fantasy along pretty straightforward lines, Dragonlance Chronicles will probably appeal to you, but it's unlikely to reach beyond the genre and grab new readers based solely on the artistic merits of the work.
MALCOLM MAGIC #7
by Robin & Lawrence Etherington (Blink Twice)
 I was a page into Malcolm Magic's vastly overcomplicated "what has gone before" page when I started to get a bad feeling, and it didn't subside as I read further into the book. Malcolm Magic is a crazy comic, full of wild ideas and Tex Avery/Chuck Jones style "everything but the kitchen sink" energy, and that kind of energy is admirable, but it's kind of like trying to get a story from the mouth of a kid with ADD who has just chased down a half-dozen pixie sticks with a gallon of Mountain Dew. The story is all over the place, involving alternate dimensions, anthropomorphic animals, giant beasts, malevolent scientists and more. It's clear that the Etheringtons love their world and have lots of ideas for it, but it's just as clear that they need to pare it down to make it easier to digest. I'd like to believe part of my trouble was coming in late, but the "what has gone before" page gives the impression that it has always been this way.
The saving grace for Malcolm Magic, however, is the artwork. There's a frustrating tendency for it to drop into black and white for no discernible reason, which is a shame since Lawrence Etherington's color work is astoundingly good. In color, Etherington's art looks like the kind of thing that belongs in Flight alongside artists like Kazu Kibuishi and Jake Parker. Even in black and white, however, Etherington's work is pretty impressive, featuring a level of detail comparable to guys like Geoff Darrow but with a slightly cartoonier look that really suits the book. Malcolm Magic is a visually striking book full of amazing ideas, but it desperately needs some focus to bring it down to earth a little.
NODWICK #29
by Aaron Williams (Dork Storm Productions)
 If you ever spent any time in an arcade during the '80s, or if you had a Nintendo or Atari console early on, this issue of Nodwick is for you even if you've never read the book before. It would have been all too easy for Williams to just press the nostalgia button and hold it down, resulting in a gimmick book that wasn't really all that funny, but instead he mixes references from all eras of computer gaming with an actual plot tied into the villain and characters of the book and creates something that is just a whole lot of fun if you have any love for those 8-bit games and the cheesy fun they offered before the days of Halo and Final Fantasy.
PS 238 #12
by Aaron Williams (Dork Storm Productions)
 When it comes to PS 238, I expect occasionally corny but always funny humor, blended with insights into the superhero genre and solid characterization, but I was surprised that this issue, the first part of a time travel story, is actually a compelling superhero story in its own right. Hints of potential alternate fates for Tyler, the unpowered lead character of PS 238, have some surprising poignancy, and the time travel mechanics are enjoyably complex without being too bizarre to really get into. This kind of story really benefits from follow-through somewhere down the line that shows the payoff of these hints in the book, and I'm not sure we'll get that, but it's an interesting glimpse into different flavors of PS 238's future, as well as a pretty nifty use of a time travel hook for another Tyler-focused tale.
STAR WARS: EMPIRE #35
by John Jackson Miller & Brian Ching (Dark Horse Comics)
 This is an interesting issue, a spotlight on the Imperials that plays out like an EC Comics one-shot, delivering a mystery and a surprise ending complete with another twist to give it punch. Even better, it all works within the framework of the Star Wars universe, so that Miller is both playing fair with his license and doing something different at the same time. The story is set up as a verbal and strategic chess match of sorts between a ruthless Imperial commander and Darth Vader, but there's more than that lurking beneath the surface. It really does read and look like what you might get if you filtered Star Wars through EC sensibilities, with the aftermath of an Imperial bombardment brought to vivid life thanks to Ching's artwork and a satisfyingly melodramatic reveal and reaction at the end. An unusual and quite enjoyable Star Wars tale.
ZED #6
by Michel Gagne (Gagne International Press)
 The latest issue of Zed points up the biggest assets and detriments of the series quite well. There's a lot more in the assets column, which includes Gagne's trippy and beautiful art, a strange tone that mixes all-ages and surprisingly dark material and a crazy science-fiction premise that reads like the kind of thing Kirby might have come up with. In this latest issue, Zed awakes from his encounter with God, comes to find that he's been asleep for 10 years, encounters his uncle (it doesn't end well), faces off with his arch-nemesis (that doesn't go so well either) and basically bounces around like a pinball, trapped in a world where evil has seemingly triumphed with his unwitting help. It's a madcap, wide-ranging plot that also includes an intergalactic band as the last rebellion against a cruel tyrant, and while it could easily have been too unfocused, it is actually very easy to keep up and enjoy Gagne's strange flights of fancy. Except... the overall story isn't as easy to keep track of. The roughly annual publication schedule means that by the time the latest issue has come out, I've forgotten what went before, and a recap of some sort would really help the book out. There's also a weird cognitive dissonance between Gagne's wild-eyed wondrous tone and the absolutely bleak darkness and violence that has included the destruction of Zed's home planet and the casual maiming of his only real friend in this issue. Perhaps in the long view he'll look more heroic, but now the poor guy just looks long-suffering.
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