Nat Gertler started About Comics to self publish his own underrated observational superhero gem The Factor, but he has since expanded into an area of the market that nobody else is really serving. Reprints of "Bronze Age" material like DNAgents and Crossfire mix with other diamonds in the rough like Charles Schulz's other strip, It's Only A Game. However, while About's comics offerings have been solid, it is their prose books that have really caught my attention. I've previously enjoyed the collection of scripts from top comics writers, and I was very pleased by this, a collection of prose stories by writers who are traditionally found in the panels and word balloons medium instead. DC and Marvel like to tout that they've got novelists writing their comics, from Brad Meltzer to Greg Rucka to Richard Morgan, but with this collection, Gertler proves that the talent train runs both ways, and plenty of comic book writers could be making their living in prose if they so desired.
Of course, there are a couple of cheats in this collection. Max Allan Collins is much more recognizable as a novelist than a comic book writer and Peter David has plenty of novel credits under his belt already as well. However, whether this is a rare venture into prose or a common sideline, the common factor in all of these short stories is that they're all pretty good. Another common factor is that they make use of the short story form, serving as easily digestible bites of ideas and character, reminding me of that feeling I used to get from picking up a random science-fiction or fantasy anthology in a bookstore and discovering some new author I'd never heard of.
Gertler is the editor on this project, but he sneaks in a story that he has written by "editor's prerogative." As it happens, his story is one of my favorites in the book, a nifty little take on a werewolf story with just the right mixture of humor and examination of the pitfalls of lyncanthropy. That same blend of humor and imaginative speculation can be found in Paul Dini's short but charming "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Feldman," Neil Kleid's superheroes on the way up spoof "Open Call" and Jeff Millar's bit of sci-fi strangeness "Toto, I Have A Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore." Of these stories, Millar's is the weakest, showing its age a little bit and coming off as a bit too deliberately wacky, but it's got enough charm that I can see why Gertler fell in love with it at a young age and decided to include it in the collection.
There are a couple more serious science-fiction stories in the offing from longtime comic-book writers, and I enjoyed both of them. I was more fond of Denny O'Neil's "Report on a Broken Bridge," which makes great use of point-of-view and a Citizen Kane-like examination of a fallen great man to build to a great last page reveal, but I also enjoyed Marv Wolfman's contribution, "Celiphyss." Wolfman's tale doesn't really get across the alien, high adventure spirit that it's trying for, nor am I completely convinced of the tragedy of the ending, but the general thrust of what he's going for is there, and it's a decent enough read, if not as engaging on a gut level as many of the other stories in the book. Steve Englehart turns in a wacky prose story based on his original creation Coyote, which is passable but I imagine a great deal more enjoyable if the reader has actually read any Coyote comics, which I haven't.
There's a pretty decent spread of genres in this book as well. In addition to science-fiction and those with a superhero bent, we have a couple crime stories and a couple of what can only be called "rock fiction." Max Allan Collins weaves a tale of Ms. Tree, his hard-boiled female P.I., which is the longest tale in the book and actually one of my least favorites. It's got a decent style and an interesting protagonist, but he telegraphs his ending pretty badly, and so by the time we get to the twist, I was more than ready to move on to the next tale. Kurt Busiek's much shorter affair, "A Personal Touch," is a fantastic bait and switch that's much harder to predict, much more tightly paced and, as a result, one of the more enjoyable reads in the book.
Then there's the "rock fiction." It's not uncommon in comics to see stories based around rock and roll, and Peter David and Bill Mumy and Mike Baron turn in a couple of doozies here. David and Mumy have the stronger story to my mind, about a possessed guitar that falls into the hands of an up-and-coming rocker, but Baron's story, about an outrageous Halloween show as seen through the eyes of a determined (some might say "pushy") promoter, comes pretty close.
All told, Comics Prose offers up almost a dozen stories, without a bomb in the bunch. If you're a fan of any of these writers, I'd definitely recommend picking this one up to see what they can accomplish without the pictures half of the comics equation. 9/10
