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FICTION CLEMENS #1 - Best new comic of the year, hand's down
Original review posted here: http://www.brokenfrontier.com/reviews/details.php?id=1770
Fiction Clemens 1 (ADVANCE)
Words: Josh WagnerPencils: Joiton
Inks: Joiton
Colors: Alejandro Marmontel
Story Title: N/A
Publisher: Ape Entertainment/ Spacedog Entertainment
Price: $5.95
Release Date: May, 2008
Seriously: "Fiction Clemens"?!? What’s in a name? Instant intrigue and impossible to resist allure is what. Not only does the book sport an awesome title, but take a look at the premise: soft-spoken gunslinger Fiction Clemens, on the run from the son of a powerful tycoon, stumbles across a conspiracy to bring the Old West kicking and screaming into the Space Age! Bizarre? You bet. Enthralling? You better believe. Impeccable storytelling and eye-popping art? On every goddamn page.
Ape Entertainment has proven an up-and-coming powerhouse of a small press company, steadily improving and impressing over the years, but nothing has quite nailed their oddball flavor of classic genre fare re-spliced into something wholly else like Fiction Clemens.
The main character himself is unforgettable, a man of few words and always small font-ed ones at that. A dead shot and a quick draw but like the best of anime heroes he’s a lazy bastard until provoked. The villains are marvelously endearing and yet resolutely villainous, the vista of Fiction’s Old West populated by Tim Burton-esque grotesqueries. Michael Avon Oeming is quoted as claiming: "if Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton had a love child, it would be the world of Fiction Clemens", and he’s absolutely right. The humor is black and yet somehow light-hearted and impressively ever-present.
Writer Josh Wagner ("So This Robot Walks Into a Bar..." , from 24Seven Vol. 2) makes his full-length debut with Fiction Clemens 1, though he’s already got one novel (see below) under his belt, a wild book which in fact co-stars his toothpick-gnawing hero of FC. Even beyond the novel, Wagner additionally financed and created a Fiction Clemens movie trailer, a sincerely well-made piece of cinema that can be found at http://www.fictionclemens.org/, which was crafted during a period when FC was originally a screenplay, a thickset manuscript that awaited only a Hollywood-sized budget to topple serendipitously into its writer’s lap. Needless to say, the something-million dollar paycheck didn’t occur, but the concept of turning the film into a comparatively budget-less comic book did.
We get to reap the rewards of Wagner’s brainstorm: under his distinctive voice and unerring sense of pace and plot and personality, Fiction Clemens is hands down the best book Ape has yet released. The comedy is laugh out loud and the characters fascinating. The story itself kicks off with a bang and hardly ever relents. Interestingly, the story isn’t fast-paced, but the sheer wealth of elements introduced and explored keeps the narrative from feeling as though a dawdling or ever stalling thing. The dialogue is natural and rhythmic and dense, every character wielding a unique voice. When the more fantastical moments arise the story takes on a weightier quality, a mystique that should impel readers to return for the following issues two and three.
But Wagner’s inimitable script, being so inimitable, is one hard pressed to partner up with an artist who’s got the chops to showcase all essential elements, without losing the book’s as-a-whole, fine-tuned effectiveness. Yet the one-named "Joiton" is indeed such an artist. To try and compare his style to others would demand a list longer than this entire review and more, so many styles seem to be rolled up and on display within his pages. Surreal, impressionistic, cartoony, animation-like, all are words that work, though even all-together they fail in offering a solid definition that suits.
Joiton’s layouts are superb, his sequential storytelling skills better than most mainstream comic artists, yet his forms and figures are disproportionate and wild, wielding a sensibility on par with popular avant-garde comic artists such as Drew Rausch and Doug TenNapel. Further prettified by Alejandro Marmontel’s colors, Fiction Clemens is a book that—panel for panel—begs to be studied and explored, though Joiton’s dynamic eye for action and expression allows Fiction to be a breezy read besides.
Fiction Clemens is slated to run for three issues, each 52 pages in length, full-color, and sets to tell the entire "origin" of the title character and his partner/sidekick Dune Trixie. Technically, Wagner’s prose novel (again, see below) which boasts Fic’s first appearance is actually, chronologically speaking, an adventure that takes place after the comic series, after Fic and Dune’s pulp adventure status quo is set and they’re blasting across time and space like the best of Burroughs and Moorcock, only in decidedly more whimsical a fashion. Fiction 1 is an exceedingly enjoyable reading experience, one that prompted me to devour the "sequel" novel in two days flat. Look below for links to everything, the comic, the movie trailer, the novel, and then treat yourself to one of the best new concepts to hit comic stands in years.
Fiction Clemens 1 is on page 211 of the March issue of PREVIEWS for national release in May, ORDER CODE "Mar083428"
Check out Fiction Clemens’ official website and Myspace page, and see the utterly awesome trailer for the non-existent Fiction Clemens movie!!! (maybe one day…but the trailer is real!)
Also, be sure to check out Fic’s first appearance in the novel The Adventures of the Imagination of Periphery Stowe which you can find at Lulu.com.
REVIEW: THE GHOST WHISPERER #1
The Ghost Whisperer 1 (ADVANCE)
Review by Dave Baxter, posted March 17, 2008
Words: Becca Smith and Carrie SmithPencils: Elena Casagrande
Inks: Elena Casagrande
Colors: Matteo Gherardi
Story Title: N/A
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 12, 2008
Thanks to a darker edge having emerged within the television show, IDW tackles the Jennifer Love Hewitt hit series armed with regular show-scripter Becca Smith.
Much like the recent IDW Doctor Who series, penned by longtime Who producer/editor/writer Gary Russell, IDW’s The Ghost Whisperer is scripted by show regular Becca Smith, alongside her writing partner Carrie Smith. What they produce then is a comic that’s likely in line with the current trends of the show’s most recent season, a book about a girl who can see and talk to ghosts, now tinted with a slightly occult and horror-laced edge. Melinda Gordon encounters the ghost of a vengeful high school girl while inside a local café, a spirit with an unhealthy fixation on three still-living girls. Melinda soon discovers that the ghost believes itself to be empowered by the Egyptian god Osiris, and therefore unstoppable. And she plans a murderous revenge. But Melinda knows such pantheistic gods don’t actually exist…do they?
Being a comic, The Ghost Whisperer 1 gets to kick-start some things the TV show wouldn’t have the budget to manage, like towering dark gods and the special effects they accrue. The story still sticks to the show’s guns, nothing too overt or horrific, nothing action-oriented. The story is largely a parable, about
kindness to others, the unforeseen consequences of actions, and the value of revenge, though while the supernatural elements are heavy, they never really move the story into high-thrills territory. Becca and Carrie Smith have chosen a clever ongoing thread for the comic—that of a possible dark god having descended and taken note of Melinda—but this is no Supernatural. Don’t expect demons and monstrosities and the undead to be unleashed.
Ghost Whisperer keeps things light, in tone if not in theme, and should prove a marvelous all-ages read, but for the more hardcore amongst us it may be a bit of a let down, at least in the frills department. The characters are generally flat, though purposefully so, more cliché than complete personalities. Again, this tends to fit the show’s flavor, having adults that banter like teenagers and ghost-story adventures that are confronted like everyday teen melodrama. The dialogue is well handled and the pacing keeps things chugging alone, if occasionally awkward and too sudden in its transitions.
Hot off her one-shot solo debut in Star Trek Alien Spotlight: Orions, Elena Casagrande handles the art with colorist Matteo Gherardi. In compliment to the story, Casagrande’s art is dynamic, and leans toward the hyper-realized, a providential pairing with the Smiths’ low-key script. It doesn’t help breathe any kind of reality into the characters, but Casagrande’s work does give it a sense of much-needed urgency. Her layouts are intuitive, her figures expressive: all around a very good choice, a strong book visually.
The Ghost Whisperer, the television show, is not my cup o’ joe, and neither ultimately is the comic, but the comic does remain faithful to the intent of the show, and the one ongoing element I did very much dig (Osiris! Is he real?) is a damn good one. The Smiths will hopefully offer up a bit more character to the main character in future issues, and not assume everyone reading the comic will require or even desire nothing from them in that corner, but outside of this, there’s little to dislike. A quality comic, but so far only for the fans.
REVIEW - POGROM #1 (of 7), time to catch up!
As many will note, it's been a while, but I'm back and ready to tackle this blog again. I've actually been a busy bee and been posting regularly over at my Myspace Blog, and now I'll be posting everything I've been putting over there, over here. In about a week we should be caught up and moving on to more original things.
Now on with the show!
Pogrom 1
Review by Dave Baxter, posted March 12, 2008
Words: Matthew Tomao
Pencils: Josh Medors
Inks:Josh Medors
Colors: Robbie Ruffolo
Story Title: Visions of Vice
Publisher: Devil's Due Publishing/Hypergraphia
Price: $5.99
Release Date: March 12, 2008
One of the trickiest reviews I've had to write in quite a while, Pogrom is a difficult book to define. It's daringly different, but does it succeed?
In writer Matthew Tomao's own words, Pogrom is his response to the hypocrisy of organized religion (note: organized religion, not spirituality in general). Pogrom is a story set inside a dystopian future, one ruled by "The Watican" and its figurehead, the Presipope. The series follows the resurrection of Grand Inquisitor Sabbath, a violent military figure who dies shortly after the Watican begins a year-long siege on Pax Africana. But the Seven Sins—seven demonic figures that embody their own personal weakness— plot to resurrect the Inquisitor, thinking to use his state of in-between being as a gateway to Earth from its toxic mirror-counterpart, that lies on the other dimensional side of things. But Sabbath proves more powerful than the Sins presupposed, and so instead of being a pawn he begins a slow rise back to power, hunting down those who gave him life, and reconstituting himself into a being far greater than he ever was before.
Now, here's the thing: that above summation…was extremely difficult to write. I'm not even certain I didn't lie, somewhere, up there, as I'm not at all convinced I followed the issue's happenings. Tomao unwraps an alien world without, sadly, much detail. A few nations are referenced, and the primary religious nation of the Watican is unveiled, but beyond that, this first issue, even at a whopping 48 pages, sticks to only a few central characters, locations, and events, and even those seem difficult to assimilate.
Let me mention the good things (there are quite a few): no one wh
o's seen the website or viewed the preview or peeked in on the advance press for this book is going to be able to resist. The cover by Ben Templesmith is extraordinary, and the interior art by Josh Medors is utterly appealing as a horror comic aesthetic. The story is undeniably stacked with exotic and heavily mythological ideas, characters and sequences that can't help but enthrall with their majesty and eerie grandeur. Pogrom delivers on its promised elements and thematic impact. At least in general.
But (and this is a big but) the story, as a story, is off to a shaky start. The dialogue is purposefully obtuse. The demon or "Sin" named Gluttony acts as narrator for the better part of the issue and his wordplay is nearly as indecipherable as Beat poetry. Military figures come and go from the scene, the resurrection of Sabbath occurs in multiple stages, and the Sins, coming and going without rhyme or reason, come and go without rhyme or reason (that sounds redundant, but it's not, it's the actual reading experience, a kind of two-fold confusion at all times, at least where the Sins are concerned).
There's definitely the sense that a good chunk of all this will be revealed over time, but it's no less confusing as to why Tomao chooses to approach an introduction to such complicated material in so head-scratching a way. I'm all for fiction that engages a reader and makes him work, but Tomao seems a too inside his own head, which understands the significance of every line and drawn thing, and not enough in ours, which understands none of the above.
Medors' wonderfully Kevin O'Neil style hyper-dynamic scrawl keeps the eyes moving and glued, wondering what the next page will bring, though his art does nothing to illuminate the overly-challenging script. Often Tomao's dialogue attempts to offer details that seem oddly removed from the art, and especially since (as I mentioned above) Tomao's chosen narrator Gluttony speaks in a rhythm and syntax demanding to grasp, when the art additionally keeps things murky, the story suffers to a greater degree than it should.
That said, Pogrom is a comic everyone should experience, if only to say "what the *&^ was that!??" out loud, in high shrill tones while loitering at the racks of their local comic shop. It's unforgettable, and leaves a mark, two things that I absolutely must give as merits. I applaud Devil's Due and Tomao for pursuing so unique a thing as Pogrom, but for a book that holds a message, and a book that's multifaceted by default, without the creators having to even try, I hope the story and the backdrop both come clearer, and soon. Innovation is praiseworthy, but innovation for innovation's sake without a solid grip on originality's natural unwieldiness is simply a failed experiment. If Pogrom pays off, it'll do so in a big way, and make one killer graphic novel. I'm hoping it falls into that category—there're still six issues to go plus a sequel already in the works, so plenty of time.
For some tantalizing sneak peeks, check out Pogrom's website: http://www.pogromthecomic.com/
LEARNING TO WRITE IS LIKE...
Learning to write is like trying to become fluent in Japanese solely by reading untranslated manga. You have no idea whether you're learning Japanese or making up your own language entirely. Ultimately, it's a little of both.
REVIEW - ALIMIGHTY Original Graphic Novel ( OGN )
Almighty OGN
Review by Dave Baxter, posted February 25, 2008
Pencils: Edward Laroche
Inks: Edward Laroche
Price: $10.00
Publisher: Edward Laroche
David Lapham and Eduardo Risso team up for a gorgeous new OGN, a fast-paced, action-oriented, sci-fi chase across a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Oh…wait…no they don’t.
So…who made this thing? Edward…Laroche? Okay, well, what publisher? Edward…Laroche ?!? So, no company, just him, all on his own, a full 180-page OGN, stylish, slick, pro production values indistinguishable from any Oni or Viper Comics collection, but he just…made it? And…uh…printed it?
Yup: and he doesn’t even pretend he’s a “company”, but instead just puts out his first published work, Almighty, a book that follows a hired killer and the young girl she’s hired to save, and protect from an onslaught of other killers. “Fale” is this savior-warrior-woman’s name, a person of questionable origins, apparently having been raised inside “Zone 1”, a place where only the most impossible mutations of post-nuclear holocaust reside. Armed with abilities perhaps biological, perhaps cybernetic, she carries her young charge across miles of dangerous road, an ensemble of mad kidnappers at their heels, mercenaries, mutants, and more at their toes.
Almighty is a sweetly conceived first offering from Laroche, self-contained and wholly its own, yet set in a fully-realized future world, one that looks to be revisited and fleshed-out in upcoming sequels, starting with Remember Amphion (for which there’s a one-page preview ad in the back). Even better, Fale (the killer-for-hire) seems to be Laroche’s “heroine”, his protagonist, Remember Amphion being a book that appears to peer into her past, and so I’m assuming she’ll likely continue as the focus for the many books to come. Which is a good thing: Fale rocks ass.
Comics could use a few more strong, well-established female heroes, even if they are, more often than not, anti-heroes or femme fatales, and Fale, while not really much of a pure-bred heroine, swiftly proves a fascinating lead, complicated and yet simple-minded and therefore focused in her own way. Her past is tied to the unique aspects that make Laroche’s post-apocalyptic world worthwhile, and not just a rehash of a zillion other similar After-the-Fall clichés, but rather its own distinctive setting. She’s a matchless foil to the world’s amoral side, and a character whose dichotomies allow her to become more than just a hero in an otherwise self-serving future. Instead, she’s one of them, through-and-through, and yet she’s more, but only just, which is where the entertainment comes in.
Fale is good at what she does, but not unconquerable, and there’s plenty of others with the exact same qualifications as she, superior beings all. In Laroche’s world, Fale is literally one of the best, but the total number of “bests” is pretty damn high. So the action is breakneck, the threat level extremely elevated, and the cool factor through the roof, and despite it all, Laroche never loses the thread of the story or the characters’ own arcs in favor of simple eye-candy. The story of Almighty is a straight-forward thing, and kicks right off with action and ends with the same, but there’s a lot of nuance packed in-between, and even during, marking the book a complete and total package.
Laroche’s art is, as I sort-of joked about up at the beginning there, very similar to Eduardo Risso’s, fluid and dynamic and utterly appealing. There’s traces of Jason Pearson, Brian Stelfreeze, and Phil Hester as well, though any which way you cut it what it equals is an extremely beautiful and high-quality graphic novel. The action is glorious and perfectly rendered, the quieter moments suffering not a jot in comparison to the fight scenes, and the presentation is obviously one schooled on the best that modern comics has to offer, as it manages to match them, panel for panel.
With writing somewhere between Lapham and Brian K. Vaughn (the cross country chase scenes and the talking-head scenes interspersed reminds me, in their execution and quality, entirely of Y: The Last Man) and art straight from popular Image or Vertigo books, Almighty becomes both the title and description of this thickset gem. Affordable, with a higher page count, and frankly better than most $20 GN’s popping up out of the mainstream and even the small presses, I really can’t recommend you spend your money on anything else. Laroche may not be a name, as this is his first, and it doesn’t yet have penny one behind it for marketing purposes, but there’s no possible way talent of this nature can go on in this secluded vein for long. I’ve rarely read anything so good from a purely self-published source before, and the last time I did, the book was picked up by Slave Labor Graphics within the year. So mark my words, and think of this as an advanced limited edition.
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The only place to order Almighty for a meager $10 US is at Edward’s MySpace site: http://www.myspace.com/blackhalo51 Drop him a message and he’ll be sure to get a copy out to you. Preview pages are also available at the MySpace site.
REVIEW - LOCKE & KEY #1 (the son of Stephen King comes to comics!)
Locke & Key #1
Review by Dave Baxter, posted February 23, 2008
Pencils: Gabriel Rodriguez
Inks: Gabriel Rodriguez
Colors: Jay Fotos
Price: $3.99
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Novelist Joe Hill was born Joseph Hillstrom King, the second child to world-renowned
authors Stephen and Tabitha King, and now, a mere year after the king of Kings brought his own property, The Dark Tower, over to mainstream comics to the praise of critics everywhere (well, except from me, but I digress…), his son joins IDW to produce Locke & Key, and this time, the “King” involved is operating as creator and full-on scripter. Following the success of his first horror novel, Heart-Shaped Box (named after the Nirvana song), Hill collaborates with co-creator and artist for the series, Gabriel Rodriguez, and what the duo put out is—come what may in later installments—the best first issue to a horror comic I have ever read.
What makes it so good? The story begins during a day in the life of the eponymous Locke family, on vacation in West Coast Country, USA, renovating their small rural estate. The comic itself opens with a serene full-page splash, depicting the front door to said estate, a large “Welcome” mat laid before it. A butterfly hovers beatifically over a small patch of wildflowers, the scene otherwise empty, a small brass knocker resting lifeless against the plain wood of the door. And then the horror begins.
Quietly, surreally, appearing as though a part of some other introductory scene, a thing made for some far less dreadful tale, Hill and Rodriguez masterfully hook readers through both cheeks with the gentlest of care. You hardly feel the pain. Moving between past and present then, a trick as old as time and yet utilized to awesome effect here, the creators give an eerie authenticity to the proceeding events. Whether sudden violence, heart-thumping tension, maudlin self-discovery, true mourning, offhand banter, or the beginnings of the epic side of the story, it all feels casual, everyday and genuine. Which makes it, frankly, all the more terrifying.
Hill seems a natural at visual storytelling, not just managing a fabulous flow but also using the very tricks allowed by comics to enhance his overall plot. The revelation of what’s shown versus what isn’t, and when, and even in what way—it’s all here. Nothing complicated, but very, very clever. And effective. Moreover, Hill manages to use visual cues to put honest personality into his characters, even within the course of a single introductory issue. The book focuses primarily on a singular and terrible event, and then its aftermath and the way in which the characters are moved into the positions the book needs them to be moved into. And yet it all seems natural, and without ever becoming dense or burdensome, packing a precise ratio of character, plot, and ingenuity into an unbelievably cohesive whole. The issue is so good, in fact, I’m nervous the follow-up can’t possibly match it.
Gabriel Rodriguez may be as much to blame for this expectation-raising beginning, and I’m inclined to believe he is. His layouts are superb, his composition pitch-perfect for every moment. There’s something inordinately appealing to Rodriguez’s character expressions, their postures, his take on action and scenes of dramatic impact. He never comes across as kitschy, though his style is indelibly that of a comic book: a rare nuance to achieve. The horror is gripping, the quieter scenes engrossing.
As I described the opening page in detail earlier, so now I’ll mention the book’s final page: it’s a mirror image, or rather, a through-the-looking-glass dark cousin thereof. And the point: the entire book is this carefully laid out. Every moment made just so, to correspond and fit with the moment that came before and the moment to come after, often panel-to-panel. Locke & Key #1 is one the most detailed and skillfully constructed—literally constructed—non-art-house comic books I’ve ever seen, and it should make everyone realize just what a horror comic can be, as opposed to a horror anything else. The best of the best, and practically a manual on how to write a good first issue to an ongoing series.
REVIEW - CEMETERY BLUES #2
Cemetery Blues #2 (ADVANCE)
Review by Dave Baxter, posted February 19, 2008
Pencils: Thomas Boatwright
Inks: Thomas Boatwright
Price: $3.50
Publisher: Image Comics/Shadowline Studios
Following an outbreak of vampirism, our not-at-all stalwart duo of Ridley and Falstaff stumble upon a funeral in the town of Hernesburg (mistaking the coffin’s occupant for an undead sort). Though while vampires seem in short supply, something else haunts the woods within the town’s surrounding hills, and before anyone can stick a cork into Ridley’s mouth, our heroes are recruited to lead the town’s menfolk on an ill-fated monster-hunting expedition. So into the woods they go, they go. A very powerful spirit attacks, many die, our heroes run and live to drink another pint, the origins of the enemy are divulged, and the duo’s arch-nemesis, the warlock Orlok, makes his move.
Whew! To say issue #2 of this wild-child story is cover-to-cover excitement would be an understatement. The humor by Ryan Rubio remains a naturally woven-in thing, the characters and events stitched into a smooth-textured whole. This book has been compared to Cemetery Man, and via that, that movie’s own influence: the Italian comic book Dylan Dog, though while the structure is undoubtedly the same (a slender rakish fellow with a stunted ugly fellow solving supernatural cases) the flavor and, most especially, its aftertaste, is due to a preparation all the creators’ own.
Cemetery Blues is far more coherent than any of its influences, and it also sticks to an unexpectedly epic underlying backstory. Like all great cartoons, there’s a core villain, the wicked and seemingly immortal Orlok, who is the architect behind all of Ridley and Falstaff’s woes. Each story is self-contained, and Haunting of Hernesburg is no exception, though little by little a grander scheme looks to unfold. Such centralized, classic high-drama is a fresh take on this type of quirky horror-humor varietal, and Rubio and artist Thomas Boatwright manage to plunge it smack into the center of their creative pool without losing a drop of water. All the humor remains, the eccentric movement to the scenes, the dry-wit dialogue, the situational farce, the actual, chilling and dangerous side to the horror itself. Everything’s here and looking better than it ever looked in either Cemetery Man or Dylan Dog.
With the introduction of the central threat to the Hernesburg story in this issue, everything 
gets kicked up a notch, the action and the actual menace of the story superseding the humor to a degree (though it’s still here, and in spades). For anyone unconvinced by the first issue, it’ll be near impossible not to return for the third and final after this second act.
Boatwright continues to dazzle eyes everywhere with his magnificent, thickly realized black-and-white pages, all awash in the non-colored equivalent of actual watercolor. His abilities as a sequential storyteller are also equally superb, the characters and the moments never seeming rushed or slow and the timing of the humor never falling short, the body language and expression detailed and nuanced and pitch-perfect. This issue also sports Boatwright’s unquestionably best cover to date: I want this thing mural-ized on a wall. It’s frickin’ gorgeous.
So another awesome Cemetery Blues issue, go figure. Probably the most surprising thing that Shodowline’s yet picked up and produced, though no one who peeks inside and notes the quality of it will ever wonder why. One more issue to go in this current series, and I’m chomping at the bit to find out how it ends! A truly thrilling horror story, and an honestly funny comedy adventure. John Landis couldn’t have managed it better.
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If you’d like to give the original self-published mini a shot, contact the creators via their website: http://www.sequentialmatinee.com/.
Issues #1 and #2 are available at ComiXpress, though the third and final has never officially been published, so drop Ryan and Thomas a line and they’ll be happy to get a copy of those out to you.
“The Haunting of Hernesburg” Issue #1 is available through Shadowline/Image, at all major comic shops nationwide. And check out the book’s preview at newsarama.