Quarter Bin 105 "Bone"

Bone #20, 22 (Cartoon, Image)
from October 1995, February 1996

I'm an avowed fan of Jeff Smith's Bone (and Jeff Smith in general), so I read the complete Bone saga some time ago, finally, in the handy One Volume Edition.  I have a friend to thank for turning me on to Bone in the first place, because otherwise such a comic would never have been on my radar, but I started reading around the time Smith ceded publishing to Image, for a time.  These issues actually catch the series in transition, and that's pretty fascinating in and of itself.  Smith finds himself justifying the business decision in the letters column.  History shows he later brought Bone back to its self-publishing roots at Cartoon Books, and later still reprint rights at Scholastic, where it found a whole new audience.

I stopped reading Bone regularly well before the end of the series, so reading the One Volume Edition was a way for me to find out just how much the story evolved, over time, how it became truly epic fantasy.  That's still developing in these issues, but in hindsight it's already apparent, although there's still plenty of the Bone cousins being the Bone cousins, more Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring than his Return of the King, in terms of the hobbits. 

This is a series always worth revisiting.

Reading Comics 187 "Catching up on Atomic Robo, Batman & Robin Eternal, Empress, Huck, Klaus, Nameless, Star Trek, and Tuki"

Free Comic Book Day this year was pretty good for me, and not just for the reasons I've already discussed, but because of the way I justified loitering to see how others were enjoying it at my local haunt: namely, by shopping.

There's a whole bookshelf of titles not published by DC or Marvel, or classified as mature reader material (in this place, that stuff is kept in glass cases by the register), which I haven't really explored before as it's chaotically managed.  I spent half the time I browsed it trying to help bring about some order (yeah, I'm that kind of shopper).  It was cool, too, because spending that time helped me think up stuff I should be thinking about.  There were a couple of people there who stumbled on Chris Burnham's E for Extinction mini-series from Secret Wars, and they mistakenly identified Burnham as Frank Quitely.  I corrected them, but it's an easy mistake to make.  I mean, Grant Morrison worked with Burnham because he evokes Quitely.  Eventually, this made me remember Nameless, and the fact that I never read its final issue, which was released late last year.  But more on that later.  Here's the stuff I found:

Atomic Robo and the Ring of Fire #5 (IDW)
The conclusion of IDW's first Atomic Robo mini-series (the character was previously published by Red 5, who used to feature him in all its FCBD releases) features his gang of action scientists confronting the notion of science becoming too big for its britches, working for the greater good at the expense of good public relations.  You know, the classic Bond Villain dilemma.  I love that IDW allows the comic a letters page, in which I am constantly humbled by how much better other fans keep track of Atomic Robo's adventures.

Batman & Robin Eternal #26 (DC)
The conclusion of this half-year weekly was something I wanted to read despite not having read any issue of it since, ah, the first one.  The late 2015 attempt at emphasizing the Robin legacy was a welcome one in my books, what with "Robin War" and this series that featured basically every Batman sidekick ever, including most of the ones from the New 52 (Duke Thomas is featured on the cover but absent from the interior, although he ended up playing a key role in Scott Snyder's final Batman arc).  Harper Row/Bluebird seemed to be the biggest beneficiary of this story, even as she was easily, otherwise, Snyder's least-utilized creation except in the alternate Eternal adventures.  Also featured are Stephanie Brown/Spoiler and Cassandra Cain, a much-loved one-time Batgirl who assumes the identity of the Orphan and thusly becoming the other big beneficiary of the series.  Also in the spotlight: Dick Grayson, the first Robin, who also receives some nifty character work.  It was nice seeing him, Jason, Tim, and Damian getting along, too, and the whole concept of what brings all of them together, the character of Mother, who provides an alternative to Batman, was a good one, too.  So I can say this was a pretty worthwhile affair.

Empress #2 (Icon)
Mark Millar and Stuart Immonen's space opera of a distant past (kind of like Star Wars, or the reimagining of Battlestar Galactica) ramps up.  It's hard not to find comparisons with Saga, but I can't help gush over Immonen's return to his more simplistic, evocative style, which for me is the obvious, easy draw of the series.

Huck #6 (Image)
The conclusion of Millar and Rafael Albuquerque's Superman analogy (akin to Tom de Haven's It's Superman! novel featuring a simple-minded Midwesterner) has his mother save the day, but Huck proving to be the kind of hero everyone wants Superman to be in the movies.  (Although, folks, we did see that Superman, as portrayed by Christopher Reeve.  Four times.)

Klaus #2, 3, 4 (Boom!)
I bugged the owner of the shop I was frequenting in Maine about this title, pronouncing it like "mouse" instead of "claws," Grant Morrison's Santa origin, but kind of drifted away from it after the break I took from being a full-time reader.  (And by the way, I'm still on that break, and things may grow sparse here to reflect that, in the coming months.)  Yet coming across the second, third, and fourth issues (the covers reflect that the mini-series expanded from six to seven issues somewhere along the line) had me back in the mood.  This is very much a fairy tale, or even a superhero kind of story.  You can be a fan of Frozen and find much to love about it.  Morrison has written few romances, but this is one of them.  More and more, I like it a lot.

Nameless #6 (Image)
Morrison's reunion with Burnham (after Batman Incorporated) baffled me as a kind of regression on Morrison's part, horror kind of for the sake of horror.  He's not normally so one-dimensional.  But I guess that was kind of the point, tapping back into his black magic bag to present a portrait of true human depravity.  This will never be one of my favorite Morrison works, but at least I understand it a little better now.

Star Trek/Green Lantern: The Spectrum War #6 (IDW)
The conclusion of this crossover proves once again that it was basically a love letter to the Geoff Johns era in the Green Lantern franchise, which is something I could totally embrace.  It's also one of the more readable Star Trek comics I've read from IDW in recent years.  After a spectacular start when it acquired the rights, IDW's efforts started to slide.  This was set in the 2009 continuity, which worked well for the concept, including its use of Chang (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country), who was unlikely to show up in this continuity otherwise.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy #2 (IDW)
Taking a chance, I also snapped this up.  Like a lot of IDW's Star Trek comics (including the above), it's written by Mike Johnson, but it's Johnson in excellent mode.  While the parts largely borrowing directly from the 2009 film are fairly routine, the ones featuring new cadets are lively, showing what it's like to live in Star Trek, filled with insightful and amusing culture clash material.  Honestly, I don't know why there hasn't been more stuff like this, whether from IDW, other comics publishers, or the ongoing series of Pocket Books novels.  Also of note is artist Derek Charm, whose blog I have technically been following for years, and although I don't remember now how that started, it's nice to be able to say that I've now bought some of his work.

Tuki #4 (Cartoon)
This latest collection of material Jeff Smith previously serialized on the Internet features the main character and his quirky companions coming closer to facing their destiny: being the first humanoid to leave Africa.  The weird ways the group interacts with one another, and Smith's vision of the world at that time continues to be fascinating.  I was glad the shop had this.  I'd caught another printed issue there, but didn't know if I'd ever see another.  Well, now I know.

Digitally Speaking...#14 "Tuki Season One"

Tuki Season One (Cartoon)

Via Boneville.com

This is Jeff Smith's third comics project, following his iconic Bone and the more recent RASL.  Unlike his other works, Smith has decided to release Tuki directly on his website, in page-length installments, which basically means it's a web comic.  He began publishing it last fall and wrapped up the "first season" (which amounts to twenty-six pages and therefore first issue by conventional standards) earlier this year.  As a big fan, I've been keeping tabs on it, and I've enjoyed the results quite a bit.  Among many other things, Tuki is a good mix between Smith's earlier efforts.

The story, if you must know, is about an African from 2,000,000 years ago who becomes the first person to leave the mother continent.  It is an epic heroic journey (again, much like Bone and RASL before it), distilled to perhaps its most simplistic form, not simplistic as in childish or unsophisticated, but shorn of nearly all cultural trappings from, well, the last thousand if not million years.  But of course there are callbacks all over the place.  It's familiar and strikingly so to our own time.  It takes a creative genius like Smith to make the distant past read like our own times, not because he's transposed our world to that time, but because he sees the vivid links that make the past come alive.

To Smith, the past doesn't mean that his star is merely a primitive man.  I mean, he is, but that's not to say he's some stupid brute, which is what a lot of people might imagine.  He's no caveman.  His urges are our urges.  Mostly, he's just looking for some grub.  He's thirsty, and he's got these things called monkey oranges that keep popping up.  And he looks hungrily after carrion feasts, or living beasts he can hunt.

It's fun, because the initial pages see our host, whom I assume is the eponymous Tuki, in wordless adventure.  Smith's art ends up looking a lot like the work of Sergio Aragones, best known from Mad Magazine and Groo, the comic version of Conan.  Much of RASL was communicated visually, almost impressionistically, with Rob's adventures across multiple realities something he observes grimly (it's basically a tragic love story), and of course there was a lot of visual emphasis in Bone, often to comic effect, but also to the fantasy and horror elements (and whatever the stupid, stupid rat creatures represent).

Tuki eventually comes across the classic wise old wizard character (think Obi-Wan Kenobi or Gandalf) who helps explain what exactly his heroic journey is going to be and why it's so significant.  What's neat about this particular character is that he represents Smith's vision of this earlier world, when many stages of human development were present simultaneously.  The wizard is more primitive than Tuki, but more in connection with the lore of the world (hence, a wizard), so in some ways he's more sophisticated.  But it's Tuki who is the bold figure who defies everything, not so much because (to this point, by the end of the season) he's trying to, but because that's where his life is leading him.

The wizard mentions a few great tasks Tuki has already accomplished, but these are incidental comments.  Big things normally just happen to Smith's characters, certainly in Bone, where the cartoonish cousins enter into a much wider world in the Valley after being banished from their homeland.  Otherwise they would never have met Rose, or any of the other things they experience.  (Rob, it must be acknowledged, deliberately seeks out his particular form of adventure, but can't know how far down the rabbit hole, as it were, that he ultimately travels.)

As always, Smith has weaved an intricate tapestry with its own mythology.  Each time, even if they can seem like variations, his stories are entirely unique from each other.  Tuki is no different.  The more I read it, the more I love it.  Again, typical for Smith.  I hope he picks up the story again soon, but there's no rush.  This is one creator who has absolutely earned the right to do it his way, and he's chosen to do so in a way that seems familiar but once again feels specifically his own.  That's Jeff Smith's magic.

Just when you think the translation's gone and you won't hear from him again, he comes back.  And, just perhaps, better than ever.

Digitally Speaking... #6 "How (and How Not) to Make Your Own Comics"

Black Powder #1 (Asylum)
From 2011.  Aside from the fact that it seems to be a far less inspired version of Pirates of the Caribbean (meaning, alas, no Jack Sparrow), the art becomes incredibly distracting.  At first I thought it was because writer/artist Dwayne Harris digitally created it.  But then at the back of the issue his process is revealed, and it's bad pencils at the start and then bad digital coloring on top.  The result is a mess.  Not a terrible mess, just not one that inspires a great deal of confidence, much like how Harris assumes the reader will be interested in a story that takes its time getting to the pirates, and then just keeps yacking yacking yacking except for a few stabby pages (stabby pages are good, but they are not a replacement for swashbuckling, which is half the reason to ever tell a pirate story to begin with).  That's really all there is to know about this comic, which you will never have heard of to begin with, and judging on this sample there's absolutely no reason why you should be concerned about that.  Classic case of a really good cover distracting from a hot mess that follows.  Move along.

Bone #1 (Cartoon)
From 1991.  In strict contrast is Jeff Smith's classic Bone debut.  I've read it a number of times at this point, but it never gets old.  Smith is a bona fide comics genius.  This issue introduces the Bone cousins, who look like a trio of classic comic strip characters, and yet are so basic in design it's a marvel to hear them speak, because they at once do and absolutely do not talk like any other comic strip character you've ever seen (except maybe Rat and Pig from Pearls Before Swine).  And the issue starts in the middle of the story, and that middle is really only the start of something far, far greater.  There are a number of teases as to that much bigger story, and great humor besides.  It's Smith's absolute mastery of his craft that strikes you, again and again. It's the polar opposite of a Black Powder, in every way possible.  Both are about as far away from the comics mainstream as you can get, indy productions through and through.  Except in Black Powder it's blatantly obvious how that's usually not a good thing, whereas in Bone it's so impressively professional, no wonder Smith has been lured to the mainstream in the past, both with Bone itself temporarily to the indy professionals at Image, and with Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil at DC.

So, right there in a nutshell, if you ever had dreams of launching your own indy comic, two examples of the probable fate that awaits you.  Hopefully it's clear enough which one you ought to shoot for.

My All-time Favorite Comic Books, 10-1

The final countdown...!

#10. Geoff Johns's Green Lantern

Creators: Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, various
Publication dates: 2004-2013
Issues: Green Lantern: Rebirth 1-6, Green Lantern 1-67, 0-20, Blackest Night 1-8

Green Lantern was already my favorite comic book franchise when Johns strolled into the story in 2004.  I thought I already had my definitive era in Ron Marz's Kyle Rayner.  Then Johns brought Hal Jordan back, and exploded the whole mythology.  I mean, literally, he took the basic building blocks and figured out the best possible expansion, and led the whole thing to its greatest heights.  It's the epitome of creative storytelling, the single best innovative run in superhero comic book history, one that will continue to be felt for years. I mean, even Larfleeze has gotten his own ongoing series now.  Larfleeze!  How awesome is that?  Saint Walker made it into the pre-New 52 Justice League, the Red Lanterns have had their own series since the DC relaunch, and Johns has made a strong case for a Sinestro series.  No one would have ever thought that possible before 2004.  That's the definition of a substantial legacy.

#9. Air

Creators: G. Willow Wilson, M.K. Perker
Publication dates: 2008-2010
Issues: 1-24

Along with 52 part of a very select group to top my annual QB50 list twice, Air was an unabashed obsession of mine throughout its publication, even though it struggled to find an audience that did not have the name "Tony Laplume."  But it was brilliant, typical of the Vertigo breed in having a distinct and imaginative mythology, but atypical in its intimate approach, like Sandman without all the Goth touches.  G. Willow Wilson managed to spin a conspiracy and hero journey into one yarn.  The closest proximity I've found since was the similarly short-lived Saucer Country.  As with most of my selections, widely deserves a much larger audience.

#8. Cobra

Creators: Mike Costa, Antonio Fuso, Christos Gage
Publication dates: 2009-2013
Issues: 1-4, Special 1-2, 1-13, 1-21, The Cobra Files 1-9

This is basically everything I loved about Superboy and the Ravers, The Great Ten, Seven Soldiers of Victory, and Young Avengers in a nonsuperhero title, and surprisingly with another famous franchise it managed to totally reinvent from the outset, featuring an obscure Joe named Chuckles in the mission of his life, a reboot timeline where Cobra is just being discovered.  And from there, it's basically the Assange/Snowden/NSA era well before any of those scandals broke, one brilliant bit of character exploration after another in a world of paranoia and secrets, an unexpected phenomenon publisher IDW never expected, assuming it had merely a good mini-series when it acquired G.I. Joe in 2008, leading to a series of extensions that eventually transformed the whole line with the sensational death of Cobra Commander.  You don't need to know or care about the franchise to love this saga.  You just need to love great comics.

#7. Sandman

Creators: Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, various
Publication dates: 1989-1996
Issues: 1-75

For simplicity's sake I'm sticking to the original series rather than also include subsequent additional materials, such as the recently-launched Sandman Overture mini-series.  Simply put, this one needs no introduction.  It's perhaps the most literary comic book ever published, filled with classical elements and one of the best-known mythologies outside of superheroes ever created.  It's a masterpiece.  Move along, move along.

#6. Bone

Creators: Jeff Smith
Publication dates: 1991-2004
Issues: 1-55

This one I owe entirely to a friend who was obsessed with it.  For a while, there was a very small cult audience obsessed with it.  And it expanded, thanks to word of mouth.  It started making in-roads to full-blown mainstream awareness.  There was talk of a movie.  All of this is for good reason.  Like a cartoon strip wedded perfectly to epic fantasy (such as you would never have believed possible until Bone), Jeff Smith's vision was a dream come to life, so popular Image for a while took over publication, until it went back to Smith's own company, where it completed its epic journey, only to be reborn in a series of reprints, where its legacy (as I've been hoping throughout this list for many other series) has grown.  Oh, and because it's my favorite phrase from Bone: stupid, stupid rat creatures...

#5. Wasteland

Creators: Antony Johnston, Christopher Mitten, Justin Greenwood
Publication dates: 2006-2014
Issues: 1-60

I've attempted for years to be an ambassador to this series, a classic post-apocalyptic yarn that explodes the genre into a startlingly rich landscape filled with intricate relationships between isolated figures.  Unlike The Walking Dead, Wasteland has made the riddle of what created the world after the Big Wet the whole point, except it's taken the whole journey to reach it.  In the meantime social politics have defined the story, especially the betrayals at the heart of life in Newbegin, the perfect representation of civilization after civilization's end.  My favorite character remains Michael, a sort of Wolverine if Wolverine had never joined the X-Men.

#4. 52

Creators: Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid, Keith Giffen, various
Publication dates: 2006-2007
Issues: 1-52

DC's first weekly series in years, an ambitious effort to put out a new issue every week for a year, could have been its riskiest gamble ever.  Instead it turned out to be a stroke of genius, one of the best single comics it ever put out, following a hodgepodge of characters who could never have been mistaken for the mainstream (although some of them, including Booster Gold and the new Batwoman, received their own ongoing series as a result) as they embark on the greatest stories of their careers, including the Elongated Man's long-awaited response to Identity Crisis and Black Adam's shot at redemption.  The league of creators who wrote it remains a who's who, and to my mind in no small part to their participation in this book.  The company's later attempts to duplicate this remarkable accomplishment never seemed to capture the same interest from the fans, but that's to be expected, although I would highly recommend Countdown, while the bi-weekly Brightest Day is another winner.

#3. The Death of Captain Marvel

Creators: Jim Starlin
Publication date: 1982
Issues: [graphic novel]

This is the comic book that made me a fan of comic books, and it is also among the first I ever read, and completely by accident, something my sister had randomly come across and I stole a look, and no joking, I was changed forever.  The death of any comic book character wasn't as common in 1982 as it is today, and the true testament of this event is that Captain Marvel remains respectfully deceased.  It's a surreal, literary exploration and epitaph for a character who was never really that popular but whose legacy was instantly cemented by this effort.  What more could you ask for?

#2. Kingdom Come

Creators: Mark Waid, Alex Ross
Publication dates: 1996
Issues: 1-4

You might notice that I love my comics to be literary, and no superhero comic was ever more literary, not to mention seminal in my own creative development, than this landmark event that peered into the future of DC's icons and saw nothing good.  Lois Lane dead.  Superman forced into retirement.  The next generation, led by Magog, the reverse of everything that had come before them.  Narrated by a simple preacher and steeped in religious imagery (this is the secret origin of my obsession with the number 7, and why I subsequently adopted the term "seven thunders" from the Book of Revelations for what I always assumed must be my own magnum opus, because it was used in the previews for Kingdom Come), this was both creators at their absolute finest.  One of them ended up chasing this achievement for years (Ross) while the other only occasionally revisited it (Waid, in The Kingdom event that was as close to Seven Soldiers of Victory as DC ever got before Grant Morrison), while Geoff Johns famously brought it all back in the pages of his Justice Society of America.  Even Magog eventually entered the regular canon and had an ongoing series.  Often seen as DC's response to Marvels, it is more accurately seen in its own distinctive light, which is ultimately a more hopeful version of The Dark Knight Returns, taken on the grand scale.

#1. "The Return of Barry Allen"

Creators: Mark Waid, Greg LaRocque
Publication dates: 1993
Issues: The Flash 74-79

I choose to include only one storyline from Mark Waid's extended run on The Flash for a specific reason, because it was the earliest and best example of the whole thing, which often lived up to its potential and sometimes didn't (and the best of it wasn't even in the pages of The Flash but rather Impulse), so it's better to remember what remains the most memorable than complicate matters.  Because "The Return of Barry Allen" is most certainly the best of it.  And for the record, it doesn't even feature Barry Allen.  This was years before Barry came back.  The Flash throughout Waid's run was Wally West ("and I'm the Fastest Man Alive"), the third speedster to carry the name, and he was keenly aware of the whole mythology, which before Geoff Johns on Green Lantern, Waid was the first to attempt a wholesale expansion, introducing the concept of the Speed Force and old as well as new faces to the family, including my personal favorite, Max Mercury, the Zen Master of Speed.  If there is any weakening to this legacy, it's perhaps that even Waid seemed to let it slip by the wayside after a while, perhaps after "Dead Heat" (acknowledged within the pages of Johns's The Flash: Rebirth with a cameo by the villain Savitar), while Johns himself in two separate runs (with Wally and Barry) went in different directions.  Better, again, to remember it at its most pure, most perfect, most serene, most effective, when it's Wally struggling with his role in the grand scheme of things.  James Robinson would later take the same basic concept to similar heights in the pages of Starman, but has no comparable single storyline to this one.  This is the one, if you love superheroes and their legacies, that you have to read.  This is the love letter of all love letters to the whole phenomenon.

(All covers via Comic Book Database.)

The 10 Best Comics of 2012 (So Far)

The following are my favorite comic books from January through June.  They are not necessarily my favorite comic books being published in 2012, but the ones that have done the best work so far.

In no particular order:

Action Comics (DC)
Grant Morrison became my favorite comic book writer a little over five years ago.  Before that time I tended to take him for granted, except in cases like his hypermainstream JLA, and have been trying to play catch-up ever since.  Action Comics has since the New 52 launch last September been a fine example of Morrison's best instincts, presenting an iconic character in an iconic way that nonetheless presents an entirely new way to view him.  No other issue besides #9 presents this so well.  Outside of the regular continuity in the series to date, this issue presents an alternate reality Superman who just happens to be black, who ends up being confronted by a Clark Kent (along with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen) from yet another alternate reality, and forced together they challenge just about every preconceived notion of the Superman mythos, and is essential reading even if you've never cared for this character a day in your life.  I promise you that you'll know about to understand what's going on, and Morrison will blow your mind.

Batman and Robin (DC)
Pete Tomasi started out as an editor at DC (so did Mark Waid) but has transitioned into one of its most crucial writers, and I think this current stint on Batman and Robin may be the point where readers really start to notice.  While there's a lot of Batman comics out there, and Scott Snyder's dominates all the press, this is the one fans who care about the Dark Knight's continuing legacy really ought to be reading.  I wasn't reading this one at the start of the New 52, and only stumbled into it basically by accident, even though I've loved Tomasi and Patrick Gleason since Green Lantern Corps, and once I started I had to read everything I could get my hands on.  This doesn't happen to me all that often, so I knew I had found something special.  Basically this is the Damian we've all been waiting for, the one who is stubbornly claiming the story as all his own, a Robin with teeth, more controversial and more essential in the role than Jason Todd could ever hope to be, and in the signature story of the year, falling into a trap set by the son of Henri Ducard, famously depicted in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins as Bruce Wayne's original mentor (and real Ra's al Ghul, lest you forget), and clawing his way out, and even Batman doesn't quite know how to react, a story that's still unfolding.

Green Lantern (DC)
The unlikely redemption of Sinestro hit its stride in 2012 as he set about trying clean up the messes that still remained from his time leading the Yellow Corps, especially on his home planet of Korugar, and then dragging the reluctant Hal Jordan along to confront the Indigo Tribe, whose origin holds the key to unraveling  the Guardians' plans for an impending Third Army.  Originally I didn't understand how Geoff Johns intended to integrate Hal Jordan into his approach to Green Lantern, and this is a statement I make going all the way back to the launch of the 2006 series after Rebirth, but over time I've come to appreciate his vision as starting with a frequently rebellious and controversial member of the Corps to an expansion of the whole mythology that has developed the concept to a greater extent than any other writer in the history of the franchise.  His handling of Sinestro is emblematic of this approach, rehabilitating a character who had long been dismissed as a cautionary tale turned into a generic villain, but now one of the most nuanced figures in comics.  Hal becomes relevant as the one person who has the most to resent in Sinestro's new life, but also the one most likely to give him a fair shot, because he knows better than anyone that a fall from grace leads to a giant leap of faith in accepting a second chance to get it right.  I've been so surprised that Johns has actually lost a lot of the momentum he had earlier in his career, in terms of critical and fan support, that perhaps the more mainstream he's become, the easier it's become to underestimate his talent.  Any other writer might have stumbled in trying to figure out what his story for a franchise he's been writing for seven years will be in 2012, but Johns is still finding new ways to explore that same territory, and keep it interesting without even needing to reinvent the wheel every few years.

Justice League (DC)
The more remarkable thing about Johns is that he's not just writing Green Lantern, or even this book, or Aquaman, but has an official post in the DC front office, too, and he's not wasting his time in any of his commitments.  Justice League has failed to capture the popular fanboy imagination, and like Green Lantern isn't particularly a critical darling, either, but it remains one of the best things to come out of the New 52.  The truly remarkable thing is that as the series has aged since its launch last fall, it still retains an almost mythic appreciation of its central heroes, and has increasingly turned its focus to more earthbound concerns, including a villain Johns has been setting up since the beginning, who finally lost his faith in them when these superheroes couldn't, ultimately, solve every evil in the world, including those that struck his own family.  There's also liaison Steve Trevor, whose growing disillusionment concerning his relationship with Wonder Woman (a classic romance most modern writers have completely forgotten about) is proving to be the true star of the book, and a guest appearance from Green Arrow that challenges our conceptions of both the original and current incarnations of the character.  This is the first Justice League since Grant Morrison's that truly has legs, and if history (and more specifically his tenure with the Justice Society) is any indication, Johns is just getting started.  Equally noteworthy is the Shazam backup feature, in which Johns and Gary Frank update Billy Batson as a cynical orphan struggling to accept life with a new adoptive family, including the kids who are trying to make him feel at home.

Nightwing (DC)
There've been some great runs for Nightwing since he gained his first ongoing series in 1996, but Kyle Higgins is threatening to eclipse them.  He's been busy establishing himself on this book since last fall, introducing a more centralized version of Dick Grayson, grounded in his own story for perhaps the first time ever, revisiting Haly's Circus and discovering unexpected inheritance and corruption, no longer hiding from his roots in Gotham but actually embracing them, even during the midst of a nightmarish revelation that pits him at the heart of the Court of Owls, a fact Higgins and Scott Snyder might have talked a little more about, with perhaps greater results than we actually got.  Still, this is the most fun I've had reading the character in years, and considering he's long been one of my favorites, I hope that's saying something.

RASL (Cartoon)
Jeff Smith's underrated (or at least, underhyped) creative followup to Bone reached its final issues this year, and there's still no telling what the conclusion this month will actually reveal about the story of Rob Johnson, a scientist who saw his life's work turn into a nightmare he decided he had to stop personally, but that ended up proving far more difficult than he imagined.  There's the hopping behind parallel worlds, the girlfriend he thought he lost forever, the affair that he's been finding solace in throughout several alternate realities, and the former colleagues who will stop at nothing to thwart his efforts, believing as he can't that there's no harm in seeing his work through.  For Smith, I can only say that I wish this story could last longer, that we could soak in this world(s) for many more years, but he's reached the end and if RASL is an argument for anything, it's for creative freedom, knowing how far to go, and being allowed to finish the job under the right terms.

Saucer Country (Vertigo)
Paul Cornell has been growing into one of my favorite writers for years now, and I've been waiting for him to work on a book that could truly be considered his.  Saucer Country is that book.  Courting the familiar tales of alien abduction, Cornell subverts expectations by not only blurring the line between perception and reality, but thrusting it into a far bigger story about politics and image, and although the book is only a few months old, it already feels like the next great Vertigo series I hoped it could be, following in the tradition of Sandman and Y: The Last Man.  A lesser writer might have ended up writing X-Files stories already, but this is something Cornell has been thinking about for a long time, and it already shows, in his devotion to a linear structure that can already be considered byzantine, working on characters we're only just meeting as if they already have a rich and distinct history, leaving some critics utterly baffled, but some of us utterly enthralled.

The Secret History of D.B. Cooper (Oni)
Brian Churilla first came to my attention as an artist, but on this book he tackles writing duties as well, and taking readers on a huge leap of faith as he blends the mysterious figure of hijacker D.B. Cooper with an unlikely government assassin who travels into an alternate dimension in order to reach his targets, depicted as gruesome monsters he nonchalantly dispatches in between conversations with a talking teddy bear, all while in the real world dealing with very harsh realities he probably prefers to avoid.  Given that so little is known about Cooper, any legend, no matter how outlandish, can be considered the truth, and over the years a lot of people have been fingered to be the culprit, and Churilla happens to have taken that to the extreme, using fiction at its highest potential to embrace an elusive icon who's already at the fringe of the popular imagination to hopefully elevate him still higher.

The Shade (DC)
The long-awaited followup to Starman sees James Robinson exploring the life of a reformed villain, now so thoroughly engrossed in his own narrative that it seems scarcely credible that he was ever considered anything but what he essentially is, a rogue who plays by his own rules because hardly any others apply to him.  The best issues this year, #s 5-7, involve his relationship with a French vampire, La Sangre, and her own battles, a sidestep from the Shade's investigation into an attempt on his life, which has led him into the darkest secrets of his family line.  This is another book I am incredulous to see get so little critical or popular attention, not the least for its pedigree or its own worth.

Wasteland (Oni)
I've only just been able to read this series again after several years of its scarce availability and inconsistent publishing schedule, but a new artist has not dulled the impact of Antony Johnston's epic vision of an apocalyptic future where the past has become both a mystery and legend and the present is dominated by religious beliefs that don't much ken to outsiders, especially when those outsiders happen to be Michael and Abi, who hold many secrets, not to mention the key to explaining everything.  The story is rapidly bringing them closer to the fabled city of A-Ree-Yass-I, a destination readers have known about from the beginning, making this book that is in so many ways so similar to The Walking Dead, and in more important ways, besides far fewer readers, so different, and better, focused in a way that allows for a heartbreaking world where power rarely saves you from misery, but merely provides a temporary delusion, as the assassin Gerr discovered in #38.

It All Comes To This!

THE MAGDALENA #12 (Top Cow)

I’ve been visiting Comic Book Resources for a couple years now, as it’s become my major touchstone to the major goings-on of the comic book world, and every now again it’ll motivate me to read something I hadn’t previously planned on checking out.  It happened recently with HITMAN, and now again with Ron Marz, who has a regular column there.  When talking about THE MAGDALENA, a series I had no intention of reading (and only had experience with via a one-shot crossover with Daredevil a few years back), he made it just compelling enough to rouse my interest.  I’d previously assumed that it, along with every other Top Cow character, was still basically the flimsy pinup book the whole line was originally conceived as.  Marz has been writing for the company for several years now, but I assumed he was basically slumming it (I retain a great amount of respect for his Green Lantern work).  Also, it was just plain easier to keep on assuming that, as it allowed me to limit my reading pool.  Then he talked about the project like it really meant something to him, and so it seemed like it might mean something to me, too (this is sometimes, but always, the case with passion projects).  Magdalena is a DA VINCI CODE kind of gal, the descendent of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, now a protector of the Church.  Well, it turns out she also fights dragons.  I never really believed that the character’s adventures could be all that religious, because she’s still mainstream.  The art is surprisingly standard (something Top Cow probably switched to years ago).  If this were published by DC, no one would really consider it out of place.  Marz doesn’t really dig very deep into his story, and I don’t say that as someone who couldn’t figure out what was going on having only read the one issue, but rather as someone who read it and figured it to be fairly light storytelling.  One of those not-bad-could-have-been-better sort of deals.  I have no particular regrets, though.  Still worth a look, and I can see where it was probably a tad more interesting for those who read the rest of the series, cancelled after poor readership and many creative delays, unfortunately.  In another reality, I bet I was a fan.

PETER PANZERFAUST #4 (Image)

The latest issue of Peter Pan in WWII sees the erstwhile lost boys laying low with the Darlings and has a great deal of depth to it, a gratifying issue for someone who still wasn’t sure if their faith in the series was unfounded.  Almost every Image book is touted as a creative triumph only Image would have published (the reality is that Image publishes just about anything, and rarely makes sure it’s really going to stand out or amount to something), so there was no guarantee that something that sounded intriguing was actually going to be.  This book is.  I like Peter Pan, yes, and would’ve been interested one way or another, at least to sample, but this is the kind of issue that proves that there was no mistake, that this series really does have something to say, not just about Peter Pan in a different context, or about war, but both, and beyond even that, and that’s what really makes this book work.  This is the issue to persuade anyone to read it, for any reason they like.

RASL #14 (Cartoon)

Hard to believe there’s only one issue left of this Jeff Smith series.  Smith is best known for BONE, the novelty that turned into epic fiction and one of the biggest cult hits in comic book history.  I tried to argue with Tim at Heroes & Dragons my disappointment that RASL hasn’t gotten anywhere near the kind of interest BONE garnered.  He didn’t really seem to understand what I meant, but I can be a little obsessive about quality projects getting their due (which may be why I can never seem to focus on any one quality project, because I identify too many of them for my own good).  I originally believed that fans who loved BONE loved Smith enough to embrace, even at a diminished capacity, his next project, but that simply hasn’t been the case.  Perhaps RASL is a little too different, a little more ambitious than those fans were anticipating.  Then again, who seriously believed that someone like Smith had another great big idea in him?  It’s not uncommon for creators to have only one sure thing in their arsenal, and it’s just as easy to assume that this really is all there is to believe.  And maybe that’s something of what’s happened to RASL (or maybe I’m simply jumping the gun, and its popularity will rise in the collected edition, much as what happened with BONE).  Anyway, it’s a tale of science gone amok, parallel worlds, Nikola Tesla, and a guy’s enduring love for the woman he lost, and found again.  All that’s coming to a close, and this issue sort of suggests how.  I will leave concluding thoughts for the final issue.  

RASL #13

writer & artist: Jeff Smith

This is a key issue in the series, probably ties every existing element together in a way that will help readers understand what exactly Jeff Smith has been trying to do with the follow-up to his acclaimed Bone.

Lead character Rob Johnson has been a mysterious since the first issue, the strange man who's been running around the entire series, whether across desert landscapes or jumping to alternate realities, and we've gotten snatches about his motivations and who exactly he's running from, or running toward, partners and opponents that help explain but don't exactly spell out his story. Sporadically, Smith spends time on Nikola Tesla, the genius inventor whose legacy would have been bigger if not for the more accommodating Thomas Edison working at the same time.

This issue we learn that Rob began his own troubles by agreeing to share with the U.S. military his theories about new practical applications for Tesla's old ideas, apparently without himself considering the unfortunate results if miscalculated, as Smith himself had already suggested in earlier issues happening to Tesla back in the day, under exactly the same circumstances. Rob has been frantically trying to undo his own mess, which includes his relationship with Maya, the name that has been tattooed on his arm all this time, but a girl who's been as elusive as just about everything else about this book.

Smith has been minimalist the whole time, purposefully, as if the reader, too, is locked up in Rob's guilt, and his need for redemption, however unlikely and improbable, as if we've been trying to make peace with Tesla, who still, incredibly, has never been publicly redeemed. RASL is a reclamation project, and proof positive of just how complicated it can be.

A book like this doesn't become my favorite because it's easy, but because it's a rewarding challenge, a virtue I value above all.

RASL #12

written and illustrated by Jeff Smith

Alongside Grant Morrison's Batman, Inc., his "New 52" Action Comics, and Geoff Johns' Green Lantern, this is the book I've continually felt compelled to read following the 2011 decision to give up reading new comics (for financial reasons).

I've been a fan of Smith since Bone, one of the great fantasy epics of our time, and so when RASL launched a few years ago, I thought it was a great idea to give Smith's new baby a try, and I was immediately struck by how different it was from Bone, not that the art was much different, but that the tone was so much more demanding. It hasn't always been easy to see just where Jeff was going with this one, why it should be worth reading individual issues, since he's taken a very deliberate pace in his storytelling this time around. It's a mystery series at heart, trying to figure out just why Rob is jumping between realities, why he's on the run, and what it has to do with Nikola Tesla.

The Tesla link, once it was revealed, once the series really started to explore it, became my favorite element. Tesla is one of the great scientific geniuses, but he's sunk into relative obscurity since his death, eclipsed by his rival, Thomas Edison, and certainly Einstein, even though it could be argued that he accomplished a lot more than either of them, and could've done so much more had he not run aground of resistance. This particular issue expands on his troubles, and actually helps to explain the benefit of an episodic approach, cliffhangers that make the reader ever more curious about where exactly everything's headed.

In a lot of way, RASL is very similar to Fringe, and that's something I didn't really think about until now. I believe that I will have further occasion to meditate on that connection in the future.

By the end of the month, you'll see where the series ranks on my annual QB50 ranking. But you can bet it'll be among my favorites, regardless of how many comics I've read in 2011.

Heroes and Dragons and Vampires

Last week I had my first opportunity to visit Heroes and Dragons in probably two years. This particular comics shop used to have two locations in Colorado Springs, both sides of town. I was a regular from practically the moment I moved into town, having quickly determined that it was the most convenient store in town (I had two other options; Bargain Comics, which later became Escape Velocity, was always close second). When the recession forced it to consolidate and basically stay on the other end of town, I sniffed back a few tears, said goodbye to another great era of my comics experience (did I ever mention the horrible irony of three different stores either moving or closing during my original period reading comics? I miss thee, Zimmies and Ray’s 3Cs, and still wish All About Comics and Hobbies had stayed put, and probably not renamed itself The Keep, which was another horrible irony), but was prepared to move on. Not in the way that I “have” moved on this year, “quitting” reading comics for the second time, but onto Escape Velocity and Midtown Comics.com.

I don’t want to sound too flippant, because I really did miss Heroes and Dragons, was sad to see it go, and kept obsessing on a way to visit its new location, no matter how impractical it seemed. (Should I mention here that I am differently-mobile, in that I don’t drive, and rarely take the bus?) I had some personal time to eat up thanks to Borders going out of business, so I took a vacation last week, stayed with my sister, and that happens to be on that end of town. I timed my visit for Wednesday. As if you have to ask why.

I’ve got to say, I don’t think the move was as terrifically beneficial as the owners thought it would be (not that, in some ways, it wasn’t necessary, thanks to draconian and increasingly elitist mall financial practices). It may be actually, that business is actually quite good, but I arrived only a few hours after the store had opened, timed so that the new product should have been put out already. (Okay, so the clerk had lots of boxes clearly sitting out in the open, and seemed to think his time was better spent with aerobics; I’m being literal here.) Still, I wasn’t greeted with great comparisons considering my recent experience with Escape Velocity. I was generally appalled. The store seemed only tangentially interested in new releases. I don’t know if it reorders more furiously than it initially orders, or if “Richard Simmons” was even lazier, relatively speaking, than he seemed, but suffice to say, I was disappointed. The trade collection, meanwhile, was basically exactly the same as it had been two years ago. Yay for consistency! Boo for complacency! That’s a matter of business, too, but come on! Anyway, I did end up with several great back issues, though, which I will write about in a future Quarter Bin, and the new RASL, which brings me to the concluding portion of this latest post. You know the drill.

DC COMICS: THE NEW 52 (DC)
This is the official preview of the September relaunch (next month!), complete with the JUSTICE LEAGUE excerpt from Geoff Johns and Jim Lee that leads me more and more to consider it a de facto ALL STAR JUSTICE LEAGUE, which only makes me feel better about it. Anyway, aside from the fact that the giant stack of these freebies was sitting away from customer reach on the counter, I was very happy to find it available.

GREEN LANTERN #67 (DC)
The concluding chapter to “War of the Green Lanterns.” I know I’ve previously stated that, aside from the other exception I’ve talked about elsewhere, I decided I could wait for the collection to finally read this arc, but c’mon! It was there! In so many ways, stripping Hal of the ring is absolutely the smartest thing Geoff could have done. Next to giving it back to Sinestro. Suffice to say, I’m a happy Emerald Reader.

RASL #11 (Cartoon)
Along with BATMAN, INC. this is the book I’ve deliberately continued to read in 2011, and I’ve been darn lucky to find each new issue of both. This one was particularly serendipitous, since I’d overlooked the particular shelves it was located on, even though I’d tried to be as thorough as possible, trying to find the magic I ultimately decided simply wasn’t there anymore (then again, maybe a store like Escape Velocity can give me that magic on a sporadic basis, and Heroes simply can’t). Jeff Smith’s follow-up to BONE continues to dazzle at least this reader. To October!

SUPREME POWER #1 of 4 (Marvel MAX)
Kyle Higgins, writer of the forthcoming new NIGHTWING series, came to my attention during a recent visit to the Comic Book Resources message board as someone far more worthy of my attention than I’d previously considered. I was able to find this particular example of his recent efforts to confirm this newfound faith.

FLASHPOINT #4 (DC)
I love how the “Captain Thunder” family is used this issue. I’m also glad that I’ve managed to read every issue so far of this event book. One more to go!

MYSTIC #1 (CrossGen/Marvel)
Surprisingly or not, I never got into the original CrossGen experiment. Most attempts to build an entire comics line at the drop of a hat usually tend to create a bunch of comics that are patently ripping off something else, or otherwise trying too hard to duplicate, well, something else, all with the guise of “being something different.” I’ll admit CrossGen had art that was basically the complete opposite of what originally put Image on the map (which has now been converted to Comics Characters Welcomed), but in my experience, when writers try to write new stories with an artificial impetus like “create new comics line,” the results aren’t pretty. Dark Horse (and many other companies) has discovered that the more times you, say, recreate Doctor Solar, the more likely you’ll actually create something perhaps worth looking at. That may be the case here, too. Besides, the real reason I bought this one was AIR writer G. Willow Wilson. Maybe the original MYSTIC actually was awesome, or even comparable to this experience. Maybe my sister has been having me watch too much CHARMED lately (very disappointed Heroes didn’t have that comic, or IDW’s G.I. Joe, which Escape Velocity doesn’t carry, even though the COBRA books are some of the best comics I’ve ever read; which is another irony, because the IDW preview for its acquisition from DDP was among the last comics I bought at the old location; please stop me if I’m referencing far too much to keep up with). Anyway, Wilson does not disappoint. The one thing I will absolutely say positive about Marvel in 2011 is that it is giving G. Willow Wilson money to write comics. Thank you, Marvel.

SUPERMAN #714 (DC)
The final issue before Reboot City concludes “Grounded” and is basically J. Michael Straczynski and/or Chris Roberson’s answer to “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” I thought that was a nice touch.

WAR OF THE GREEN LANTERNS AFTERMATH #1 OF 2 (DC)
Please, as if I was going to pass up this opportunity. Written by Tony Bedard, too, who will have my everlasting gratitude for penning the classic GREAT TEN, hopefully one day to receive its proper appreciation as a masterpiece. Need I go on?

Which brings us to one final note, something I bought at Wal-mart:

GREEN LANTERN SUPER SPECTACULAR
This is a magazine-format collection of several issues from the would-be movie icon’s past, the second edition (I skipped the previous one I’d found at Escape Velocity), including “Nor Fear” from GREEN LANTERN #s 1-3 (the first time I’ve read the whole story, since for some reason back in 2005 I wasn’t prepared to read Geoff Johns doing GL on a monthly basis, something that didn’t last even a year), plus an Alan Moore story from GREEN LANTERN CORPS ANNUAL #2 featuring a previous version of Abin Sur’s grand undoing, and the same (ALL STAR) JUSTICE LEAGUE preview I talked about earlier. I like something like this being available for wide consumption. The comics industry will never recover in my eyes until you can find issues of the books you’ll actually want to read at places like Wal-mart and Toys R Us. I won’t hold Sam’s Club to the kinds of packs they used to have. I will one day blackmail them.

Whatever Happened to the Lex Luthor of Tomorrow?

I would call it something of an irony. No, not that I will be talking about yet another trip to Escape Velocity after I’ve “quit reading comics.” When DC unleashed INFINITE CRISIS some five years ago, it accompanied the event with a “One Year Later” gimmick across its line of titles, a chance for every character to reboot with a new starting point in the near future. I mention this in relation with the “Up, Up, and Away” arc that Geoff Johns and Kurt Busiek wrote for ACTION COMICS, a story that pitted Superman once again with his archnemesis Lex Luthor. Recently, within the pages of the same series, Paul Cornell brought Luthor through “The Black Ring” arc, and once again a defining showdown with the Man of Steel, culminating in ACTION COMICS #900. And then DC announced that it would be rebooting its entire line, this time from a newer, earlier starting point, in conjunction with another Geoff Johns event, FLASHPOINT.

Anyway, that’s the irony. Don’t know how many others have made that connection. Last time DC rebooted, it was Superman everyone wondered about. You know, Alan Moore’s classic “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” It’s nice to see Luthor at the center, since in many ways, he’s never seen better character work than in the past fives years, notably “Up, Up, and Away” and “The Black Ring,” of course, stories that not only justified his legendary rivalry with Superman, but pushed it to cosmic proportions, yet never forgetting that unlike his enemy, Luthor is just a man, someone driven so insane with jealousy that he can ignore a great deal, even a scenario that gives him all the power in the world, quite literally. That’s what you call understanding character. And where does he go from there, anyway? Where else but a reboot, so he can start all over again?

Only DC knows the specific details about what will actually happen at the end of the summer, so I won’t spend a lot of time speculating, and yes, I’m not technically, actively reading comics anymore, so why should it matter to me? Because I still like to consider myself as a champion of the medium. Comics have only gotten better, off the backs of WATCHMEN, THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, James Robinson’s STARMAN, Mark Waid’s THE FLASH, Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN, Y: THE LAST MAN, Geoff Johns and Green Lantern, Grant Morrison and Batman. If you still choose to consider them as juvenile, then that’s your choice. That’s your loss. It’s the whole reason I can’t take manga seriously. Those are comics which are hopelessly lost in juvenile ideas. That’s their whole point. That’s why they’re synonymous with their animated counterparts, anime, and why American comics are better translated into live-action film, like THE DARK KNIGHT. Christopher Nolan can do Batman. I don’t think anyone would care to see him do NARUTO.

The unabashed excuse for this most recent trip to Escape Velocity was the second chance to read ACTION COMICS #900, both for the “Black Ring” conclusion and the already-controversial Superman-renounces-American-citizenship story, which as it turns out isn’t in Paul Cornell’s main story but one of a few celebratory shorts, and is from the hand of screenwriter David S. Goyer. The whole comic is exceptional, from Cornell and Pete Woods (on his final work with Superman, at least for a while), which both concludes their own story and segues into “Reign of the Doomsdays” (the eventual trades will probably help distinguish them) to the Goyer piece that is eerily prescient for the wave of revolution in the Middle East he couldn’t have fully appreciated when he was writing it, to a Geoff Johns and Gary Frank personal interlude (something they rarely had a chance to do when they were on the book) to excellent additional contributions from Damon Lindelof (exploring a little-considered moment in Jor-El’s famous story with Ryan Sook), Paul Dini (with an instant-classic that takes a far wider examination of Superman than almost anyone else has ever considered), and finally, Richard Donner, who proves he still has a keen understanding of the character he once emblazoned onto the big screen. I knew I wanted to read two of these stories, but all of them are better than anyone had a reasonable ability to anticipate. A strong contender for best single issue of the year.

Do I feel ashamed to have once again broken my vow? Well, considering that I successfully broke the regular habit, not at all. Even if I’ve read perhaps more comics this year than I technically should have, I figure it’s worth it, especially when something like ACTION COMICS #900 comes together. The rest is icing:

FLASHPOINT #1 (DC)
I’ve already mentioned my extreme interest in this one, my enthusiasm for clever alternate versions of familiar characters and situations. But reading this, which many readers and critics seem to have found very easy to either downplay or outright dismiss, is far, far better than I might have expected, too. The narrator comes out of leftfield, and makes the whole issue read even better than it does initially. Geoff Johns is becoming a true master, and this one may actually be his masterpiece.

RASL #10 (Cartoon)
Jeff Smith, meanwhile, continues his subtle storytelling in RASL, not a marked contrast from BONE so much as a welcome evolution of it, with most of the fuzzy layers entirely removed, but not the intrigue. In fact, that’s what this book is all about, a heady trip that proves endlessly fascinating, even though it’s a long wait between issues, especially for something this fascinating. I hate to keep using the same terms with completely different books, because it begins to seem as if I view everything the same way, and therefore diminishes the impact of all my opinions. But I like to read what I like, and if what I like doesn’t compel me to similar observations, then I’m just wasting my time, aren’t I?

KIRBY: GENESIS #0 (Dynamite)
Alex Ross has finally hit on his next great comic, and it’s been a long time coming. To my mind, he has only two great titles in his career, the big ones, MARVELS and KINGDOM COME, and everything else has simply been him attempting to milk the reputation he gained on those books, any way possible, any way necessary, and that was never more evident than with the generic material he worked on with PROJECT SUPERPOWERS. The problem was that he began believing that he was as much a part of the creative force that resulted in his two great works as all his supporters kept saying. That simply wasn’t the case. He needed substantial help to reach those levels, and he had it in Mark Waid and Kurt Busiek, the latter of which is back to help bring this ode to Jack Kirby’s legacy into reality. It also doesn’t hurt that, once again, though Ross isn’t providing the regular interior art on his own, he finally has someone worthy of making it look respectable, even sensational, in Jack Herbert. That was another failing of PROJECT SUPERPOWERS. In short, everything comes together nicely in this book. Should definitely be worth reading.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #22 (DC)
Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason worked magic in the pages of GREEN LANTERN CORPS, and were rewarded with another tandem assignment. Even though few readers were ever to likely care as much about this title upon Grant Morrison’s departure, Tomasi and Gleason are reason enough to justify keeping it around, no matter how much longer that actually is. The biggest question of the post-reboot DC line is what will become of everything that has developed with the Batman titles in recent years. Will Morrison get to finish his epic in a kind of pocket universe? I certainly hope so…

THE L’IL DEPRESSED BOY #4 (Image)
One of those indy books with a great level of buzz to it, and certainly enjoyable. But really, I can’t help but think of Image as a whole as something of a USA Network of the comics medium, where quirky diversions come to stay.

DC COMICS PRESENTS: SON OF SUPERMAN (DC)
One of the deluxe reprints DC has been doing recently, in one-shot form, when the possibility of a standard trade isn’t particularly relevant. This one’s a real find, an alternate version of Superman from the mind of Howard Chaykin (but probably owes its return to the art of J.H. Williams III). Wondering what would become of Superman if he were to actually produce an offspring, this is truly fascinating, landmark material, almost a DARK KNIGHT RETURNS for the Man of Steel.

From here, a couple of not-necessary recent dollar reprints I decided to pick up:

HELLBLAZER #1 (Vertigo)
Circa the “What’s Next?” campaign inspired by the WATCHMEN film, a reprint that conveniently now allows me to sample John Constantine upon his recent return to the DC mainstream.

I KILL GIANTS #1 (Image)
Like L’IL DEPRESSED BOY, quirky material, satisfying and enjoyable, but still begs the question, if Image allows its creators complete freedom and this is the material they produce, doesn’t the company ever bang its head against the wall and wonder where all the truly epic, literary stuff might be? Sure, you can have your SPAWN, your WALKING DEAD, and all the fun comics you can shake a stick at, all the stuff fanboys say is “missing,” or simply isn’t superhero material, but I figure there should at least be some part that yearns for real posterity.

SERENITY #1 (Dark Horse)
For some reason, I’ve found it easier in recent years to support Joss Whedon’s FIREFLY franchise than when it was actually on TV, or the big screen, possibly because, in many ways, this is, well, Image material at heart. If Joss ever got out of his own way, he could produce truly great stories. But he still seems perfectly happy to be shackled by his own irony. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

A Bone to Pick!

Having previously explored the new Jeff Smith material found in BONE: TALL TALES, now’s the time to have a look at QUEST FOR THE SPARK, the recently released novel from Tom Sniegoski and Scholastic.

This is a pretty huge development for the BONE franchise, the first tangible results from the Scholastic initiative to broaden its fanbase. While many have anticipated some kind of animated movie over the years, it probably never even occurred to anyone that prose fiction would eventually turn up. For one thing, BONE is a uniquely visual experience, drawing on the combined comic book and cartoon strip heritage and combining it with epic fantasy to create something that has transcended both. While Smith has over the years allowed other to play in his sandbox, there has been little doubt that BONE and Jeff Smith are synonymous. There are already a number of contradictions that seem to surround QUEST FOR THE SPARK.

There’s little doubt that Scholastic, the childrens publisher who has just finished publishing in color the complete BONE catalog, plus a few additional volumes, including TALL TALES, is the primary motivator in this development, bringing the franchise more in line with the more traditional concepts of literature. QUEST FOR THE SPARK happens to represent the first material Scholastic can claim as its own as well. With the success of Harry Potter (for which the publisher serves as the US distributor), there was a flood of similarly ambitious properties to serve the young readers market that a wizard awakened, and BONE now officially joins this trend. Sniegoski crafts his tale more out of this tradition than from what Smith established in the graphic novels. This in itself is not a bad thing, and is in fact very much a good thing, further broadening the appeal and possibilities of BONE, though it does serve new readers more than it does older ones (in any number of senses).

I came to TALL TALES and its promise of this book late, but still early enough to join in the anticipation, since this was still very much an event for me. Smith provides sporadic illustrations for QUEST, to which his new drawings in the revised STUPID, STUPID RAT TAILS now seems like a prologue, though when I say “sporadic,” I really do mean it, and sometimes, it seems as if they were done without a lot of consulting with Sniegoski’s manuscript. But more than TALL TALES, Smith has a chance to create new characters, even just in visualization, representation. There are Bones here, an older explorer and his two young companions, a nephew and niece, but they’re more like the hobbits of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, supporting a human lead, a boy thrust into unexpected adventure. There’s also a disgraced Veni Yan warrior, and a pair of Rat Creatures, used to typical comic effect.

How all of it reads leads to some interesting comparisons, and I’m glad I’ve already referenced Jackson’s Tolkien adaptations, and Harry Potter, because they have further relevance. I don’t claim to be a Tolkien scholar (because that’s the best term at this point), but I’m familiar enough with his Rings trilogy that I could make a few observations on Jackson’s versions, which have a greater divergence than most fans of either version often admit. Jackson clearly has a visual feast to present, and he cast the parts perfectly, though he alters enough material that it ultimately throws the whole balance of the protect off, from a strong and confident beginning to further developments that seem to miss the point, until he finally realizes he has to end strongly on Frodo’s triumph (though the glory really falls on Sam). He spends so much time with Aragorn, the strapping human destined to be king, and muddled in the novelty of Gollum, that he loses the magic he began with (it’s perhaps no surprise that Gandalf is the clear distinguishing mark of these transitions, beginning with Frodo and ending with Aragorn).

In contrast, the Harry Potter adaptations seemed to grow into their strengths, recognizing the important elements, and better utilizing all the things that were put in place at the beginning. That seems to be the way Sniegoski warmed into his role as caretaker of the BONE franchise. QUEST begins awkwardly, even clumsily, slipping from one cliché to another, so that the author seems to have assembled something reader will already be familiar with, and it isn’t necessarily BONE, but as the story builds, so does Sniegoski’s confidence. I realize there’s a world of difference from the way the Potter films, Jackson, and Sniegoski have worked. A succession of directors have worked closely with J.K. Rowling and in the warmth of blockbuster sales to get Harry right, while Jackson worked decades after Tolkien’s death, and only in the midst of a cult following, and shot his three films virtually simultaneously. Sniegoski himself has enjoyed working on his own projects, and a miniaturized version of the fallow period the Lord of the Rings books enjoyed, building and maintaining fan interest, but not a lot of pressure, and he ahs worked with Jeff Smith himself. There’s a mingling of experiences, from just the examples given, that has allowed QUEST FOR THE SPARK to be more of a success than it really had to be. BONE is not primarily a prose experience, but it can apparently work that way, too, with a few modifications.

There’s always going to be something changed in the translation from one medium to another, and that doesn’t necessarily mean one will be better than another, whether you’re talking the original material or the new incarnation. In most instances, bringing new voices to talk the same language but in different words only helps to strengthen the material, proves its enduring appeal. Scholastic has helped make that happen with BONE, and Sniegoski proves that he’s capable of being that new voice with QUEST FOR THE SPARK, which is itself only the beginning of a whole new epic tale. If Scholastic had commissioned someone to adapt the original stories themselves, who knows what I’d be writing right now? If that movie had ever happened (or will happen in the future), many things fans now cherish will not make it into that new version of what they already know. But what remains when you strip those things away? One would hope, something you may still enjoy.

We’re at the point where we’re beginning to find out.

Stupid, Stupid Rat Creatures...!

If you can believe it, Jeff Smith started publishing BONE back in 1991. For some modern readers, that history only stretches back to 2005, when Scholastic started reprinting, in color, the original collections for a more general audience, where emerging readers who otherwise would never have known about Phone Bone and his cousins and their adventures in the Valley, since Smith really only had access to regular visitors to comic book shops originally. BONE did develop a considerable following that way, but so much has happened since then.

Scholastic continued printing the original volumes, and finally reached CROWN OF HORNS in 2009 (a virtual eternity for something that already existed, when fans of Harry Potter would become antsy for J.K. Rowling to bridge a gap of only a few years while writing epics that in total length eclipse even the famed ONE VOLUME EDITION of Smith’s opus), and eventually went after the rest of the material, the ROSE companion book illustrated by Charles Vess, and then last year TALL TALES.

Here’s where I should attempt another introduction, because I may be in danger of “burying the lead.” What truly makes TALL TALES special is that it features some actual new material. This would have been huge news I couldn’t possibly have avoided a few years ago. To be precise, maybe 2004, the year Smith concluded the original BONE series, or 2005, when it seemed perfectly reasonable to assume that the ride really had ended. BONE was one of the darlings of comics fans for years (you might say, specifically, 1991-2004), a book Smith put out under his Cartoon Books imprint, until its popularity peaked and Image wanted a slice of it (though the series subsequently reverted back to Cartoon), and this was long before TIME called it one of the all-time greatest graphic novels. I must confess to not having been a reader, even when I began to frequent comic book stores, until a friend of mine kept insisting I try it, and even then, I didn’t keep reading it for long (idiot!!!). This was during the period before the full breadth of Smith’s vision truly became apparent, when I might be forgiven in mistaking its appeal to lie mostly in the silly antics of the Bone cousins, who all my experience reminded me of comic strip characters inhabiting a more continuing world than usual. (It reminded me best of CALVIN + HOBBES, and to Bill Watterson, it would have looked almost exactly like POGO.)

Still, as I’ve detailed elsewhere, it can sometimes be difficult for me to be a regular comics reader. Even when I tentatively dipped my toes back into the comics waters in 2004, when I was aware that BONE was coming to an end, I decided to skip it. It wasn’t until the ONE VOLUME EDITION was first published that I began to consider that I might get back into this BONE thing. I was thrilled to see OUT FROM BONEVILLE at a Wal-mart one day, when Scholastic began its efforts. I had remembered vividly when Smith used to talk about plans to make BONE into an animated feature, and this new exposure made me think of that first. It was finally going to happen! But Scholastic didn’t continue very speedily (as if making absolutely sure they weren’t making some gigantic mistake, counting and analyzing all the numbers from the initial sales), and the more Pixar and its ilk broke into the movies and transformed expectations , a BONE animated feature seemed less likely. It seemed to fit the pattern less and less. It would be like asking Mickey Mouse, a respected and admired and versatile star, but still almost completely irrelevant to today’s audiences, to star in a new movie.

I don’t care to admit how long it actually took for me to finally buy and read the complete story, via the ONE VOLUME EDITION, but the more I read it, the more I sat in awe of Smith’s vision. When I started working in bookstores, I was able to track Scholastic’s progress more closely (though I refrained from buying the same material that I already had, even though that initial collection looked lonely), and it quickly faded into a favorite aspect of my everyday experience, with a little thrill every time someone asked to find them.

What ended up happening, of course, was that I ended up buying the companion volumes, ROSE and the somewhat superfluous HANDBOOK, which seemed to be intended for exactly those young readers Scholastic had originally envisioned. At some point, I had bought a copy of STUPID, STUPID RAT TAILS, a Cartoon collection that featured Smith collaborating with or completely ceding control to other creators: Tom Sniegoski and Stan Sakai (who has his own legend to maintain with USAGI YOJIMBO), and when I first heard of TALL TALES, I couldn’t figure out how much of the material was reprinted from RAT TAILS, and how much of it, as promised, was supposed to be new. TALL TALES was originally released in 2010, but I didn’t get it until this year, thanks to an ambiguity that still baffles me. If I’d known exactly what it was, I probably wouldn’t have waited so long.

The first entry in this Comics Reader blog was the annual QB50, a list of my favorite comics from the preceding year. It’s likely I would have found a place for something as exceptional as new BONE if I’d known. The list didn’t entirely suffer from lack of Jeff Smith, though, since I’ve been following his newest project, RASL, which I term as Smith’s adult imagination, versus ideas that had obviously interested him since childhood, in BONE, when creatures who look like bones are actually called Bones, and who otherwise don’t really fit into the rest of even their own world.

When I finally had to guts to push past the confusion and simply buy TALL TALES, I discovered that it did indeed contain substantially new material, with only half reprinted from RAT TAILS, featuring Big Johnson Bone’s adventures in the Valley long before the Bone cousins ever landed there. Sniegoski is Smith’s main collaboration in that half as well as the rest of it, which includes most of the new material. Smiley Bone takes a group of Bone scouts camping, and spins several, well, tall tales for them, and these episodes are written by Sniegoski. The whole book features art by Smith, whether reprinted from RAT TAILS or completely new. Clearly he hasn’t missed a beat since 2004, and no doubt thanks to the fact that he has never been able to leave BONE entirely behind. While none of it is essential material for those who grew enchanted with the original series, it does serve to remind the reader that this is still wildly appealing stuff, that doesn’t really have a clear parallel with other things they may be reading. It’s almost as if, stripped of the fantasy elements, you can still think of BONE as that perfect blend of your childhood memories, when you would never have questioned the rather featureless appearance of the main stars. (Rereading the Big Johnson Bone adventures, it’s almost fair to say that, like Goofy, the Bones are probably most analogous to dogs, even though they have no clear species of their own.)

I would be a tad remiss if I didn’t mention another draw of TALL TALES is the promise is still more new material, which takes on a completely different form. The book concludes with a prose excerpt from QUEST FOR THE SPARK, which itself has now been released. Written by Sniegoski with sporadic illustrations from Smith, it will be the subject of an entirely separate essay in two weeks, so I won’t talk too much about it here. Suffice it to say, but Scholastic eventually decided this BONE thing really did have legs.

BONE has become an integral part of my comics experience, and this serves as the tiniest of introductions to it. Please, by all means, if you haven’t read any of it yourself, like my friend all those years ago, I heartily encourage you to give it a try. You’ll be entering a whole new world.