Simpsons Comics Colossal Compendium: Volume One

I do like the Simpsons’ comics, a lot, and these Colossal Compendiums offer a selection of their best stories so they’re usually quite enjoyable. That said, I didn’t think this volume was all that great. None of the stories were particularly funny and the weird ones were only slightly off-kilter, unlike the really creative (and demented) stuff in the Treehouse of Horrors collections. There are a lot of good ideas here, like the characters transformed into different digital avatars in MMORPGs, a full-length “official movie adaptation” of the Radioactive Man movie, and a trip to a Simpsons Museum in the future that explains how they saved (and then doomed) humanity. But there aren’t a lot of good gags and I didn’t feel the writing was as sharp or as smart as it usually is.

There’s lots of Professor Frink though, if that’s your jam. And only a brief appearance by Ned Flanders, if he isn’t.

As a bonus, each Colossal Compendium comes with a little cut-paper project of a Springfield building that you can fold together. Volume One has The Android’s Dungeon comic and baseball card shop.

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Chew Volume Two: International Flavor

Great stuff. I had my hopes up high after Chew Volume One: Taster’s Choice and International Flavor exceeded all expectations.

There is a self-contained story here sending F.D.A. agent Tony Chu to an island in the Pacific called Yamapalu that grows a kind of fruit (it’s called a gallsaberry, or gallus sapadillo) that tastes like chicken. This is important because, as you’ll remember, chicken is now a black market delicacy after an outbreak of bird flu. While on Yamapalu there is a sort of revolution or civil war that Tony gets caught in the middle of, alongside his partner John Colby (now out of the hospital with his face rebuilt after half of it got hacked off with a cleaver), his brother (invited to the island as a celebrity chef), and his sort-of girlfriend, the food columnist Amelia Mintz.

It’s zany action from start to finish, and introduces a number of new plot points (like an ersatz vampire who’s really an evil cibopath), while dropping hints to storylines that are still being developed (the massacre at the Russian observatory, the missing Mason Savoy, the crime boss Montero and his horny frogs). Meanwhile, Tony’s boss Applebee is still being a jerk and Amelia remains just out of reach.

It’s fun keeping track of all these different threads and characters because nothing is random. Even Yamapalu’s governor had a cameo appearance in Taster’s Choice that you’ll likely remember. Which makes you figure that we probably haven’t seen the last of the corrupt police chief Raymond Kulolo, though I’m afraid the super-sexy U.S.D.A. agent is good and dead.

More good writing from John Layman and great art from Rob Guillory, who delivers “pure aesthetic zing.” I really love what they’ve built here and can’t wait for the next course.

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Titans Vol. 3: A Judas Among Us

The title of this Titans story arc refers to an insight that Omen gets while interrogating Psimon, who is being held in prison on Rikers Island. It seems one member of the Titans is going to betray the team. So who, we’re left to wonder when this information gets out, is the Judas?

Such a plot hook lets the series once again dwell on how important it is that the Titans are a team of superfriends, whose loyalty to each other is a special bond. Though some of the them are more than ready to take things from being friends to the next level. Garth/Tempest is in love with Lilith/Omen. Roy/Arsenal is in love with Donna Troy, but she may have a crush on Wally/Flash. Karen/Bumblebee needs to get her memory back (it’s been stolen by H.I.V.E. but luckily downloaded onto a flash drive) so that she can remember that she’s in love with Mal/Vox. “My, it’s like a soap opera,” Psimon says to Omen. “You’re not a hero, Lilith. You’re a counselor for a group of maladjusted young adults.” And he’s not wrong.

Anyway, they string things along for a few issues and several possible Judas scenarios, before (spoiler alert) it turns out Donna is the enemy within. But it’s not really Donna, but Donna-from-the-future, where she’s adopted the name Troia and has taken a heel turn. This Troia enters our world through a dimensional portal (yawn) and transforms Psimon, Vox, Gnarrk, the Key, and Mr. Twister into ramped-up villain avatars before taking on the Titans in a battle royale.

I didn’t get into any of this. Perhaps because there were so many different characters. Perhaps because the fighting was so generic, with no interesting strategies or twists. Wally West dies (because of the damage to his heart that he got in the fight against Deathstroke), but is then brought back to life because it turns out he was just frozen in the speed force. Happens to superheroes all the time. And Donna defeats Troia with a double-page punch that launches her right back to whatever dimension she broke out of. No messy clean up! We’re left with the certainty that everybody’s going to be enjoying pizza and pop back at Titans Tower, while holding hands with their new sweethearts and stealing kisses when they’re alone with their crushes.

A pull quote on the cover announces this is “Everything a Titans fan wants and more.” And that may be right. But for a non-fan like me it was less, and I don’t imagine I’ll be coming back this way again.

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Saga of the Swamp Thing Book Two

Love him or hate him, and over the years I’ve done a bit of both, you can’t deny Alan Moore always does his own thing. And he was doing it again as he took over Saga of the Swamp Thing and made the title his own. In this one volume there’s a journey to hell that mixes Dante with Dr. Strange, a tribute to Walt Kelly’s Pogo stuffed with wordplay that’s sounds more like James Joyce than swamp-speak, and a full issue that’s nothing but psychedelic sex between Swampy and Abigail Arcane. Or, as Neil Gaiman puts it in his Foreword, “an hallucinogenic consummation between a seven-foot-high mound of vegetation and an expatriate Balkan.” For some fans this issue has always been a favourite but I just give them credit for pulling it off. I can’t say I really enjoy it.

As always, Moore is guilty of sins of excess. He gets out over his skis and takes a tumble. I liked the return of Arcane in the form of Matt Cable, but all the stuff about a great uprising of evil centered on the bayou that’s even visible from space was too much. Rebranding the comic (however temporarily) as “Sophisticated Suspense” was spot on, but the sophistication only works as long as it doesn’t get pretentious. If there was another hint of foreboding here I’d flag the character of Swamp Thing himself, who is just passive and glum most of the time. His rage at Arcane, which even pushes him into red speech bubbles, is the sole exception. The rest of the time he seems mostly content to sink back into the swamp and vegetate, making the drama dependent on supporting players, and of course Moore’s poetic flights of fancy.

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The Raven

Who doesn’t love pop-up books? I always got a kick out of them as a kid, and today, while I don’t have the same sense of wonder I had back then, I think I appreciate the skill and imagination that goes into their design even more.

And who doesn’t love Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven”? Well, maybe not as many people as love pop-up books. But as I noted in an earlier review, it’s a poem I grew up with. So two childhood favourites came together for me here.

I wasn’t disappointed! There are seven spreads in total here, with the text of the poem concealed behind flaps. I actually took some pictures but when I looked at them they didn’t do the 3-D effect of the designs jumping out from the page justice. They looked flattened.

The art is by David Pelham (the design of the paper work) and Christopher Wormell (the drawing). They work really well together and they’ve chosen moments from the poem that rhyme with the action of the paper models popping up at you. So there’s the opening of a door, or a window, or a hand (to reveal a cameo of that rare and radiant maiden named Lenore). The wings of the raven also open up in a way that in a couple of spreads mimics the action in a sort of visual onomatopoeia.

Another thing I really liked about the art is its range. It goes from the close-up, like the aforementioned cameo, to the super-sized in the book’s final spread of the narrator’s castle. And actually that final spread mixes both, as you’re drawn into the model of the castle to peer deeper into the one room that’s lit, which you can (if you squint hard) peek inside to see the narrator lying on the floor with the shadow of the raven falling over him. Great stuff!

I don’t know how popular pop-up books are these days, or how many are being produced, but if there’s work of this quality being done I hope it’s a form we don’t lose.  You can’t put something like this on an e-reader, that’s for sure.

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Kill or Be Killed: Volume Four

A better end to this series than I was expecting. Not because it wraps everything up and answers all my questions, because it doesn’t, but because it went places I didn’t think it would go. I like surprises, especially when I’m not sold in the first place on a story’s trajectory.

As things kick off here Dylan, the red-masked avenger, is cooling his heels in a mental hospital. He seems to have escaped his demon, whatever the hell it was, and as things progress he’s come to accept the fact that he’s just a violent vigilante. Now where all that came from is anyone’s guess, because it doesn’t appear to be part of any family history. He does have family mental health issues but they seem mostly to be associated with depression. My own expert analysis is that he’s just a young man who’s angry at all the exploitation and injustice in the world. That gives him enough of a reason to raise hell.

Anyway, his murderous proclivities don’t go into abeyance in the hospital and soon he’s plotting the murder of a staffer who is sexually assaulting the patients. Meanwhile, on the outside, a copycat killer is at work, Dylan’s girlfriend Kira is still pining over him, and both the detective who has been hunting him and the Russian mob who want revenge are closing in.

There’s a bloody climax and then a bit of a twist at the end that provides a whimsical and not very satisfying answer as to how Dylan has been functioning as a narrator the way he has throughout the series. But by this point I don’t think a satisfying answer on that count was possible. Still, I thought Brubaker did his best, and Phillips came through with some nice snowy effects that give the mental hospital scenes a suitably muffled and wintery feel, a correlative to Dylan’s confused mental state. Another plus was the fact that Kira doesn’t feature as much in this volume except at the end, where she’s made to carry too much weight with regard to the vigilante theme. This seems to arise naturally from a decayed urban environment that summons and I guess empowers what are personal demons.

An interesting series then, but one I didn’t love because of the unbelievable and unlikeable main character, the just as unbelievable love interest, and the strained plot machinery, which really creaks throughout. It’s quite readable though and the action is well handled in all regards. I’ve heard rumours it may be made into a cable series, which sounds about right. It might even work better that way.

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MAD Book of Almost Superheroes

MAD Magazine specialized in satire, or sending up established material. So movies and TV shows. The media, mainly because they loved doing ad parodies. Political figures. That sort of thing.

I’ve previously looked at their take-offs of famous detectives. This book, written and illustrated by Don “Duck” Edwing, does something similar with superheroes. Some of these also-rans are parodies of recognizable heroes – Ms. Wonder Blunder, Fat Bat, The Macho Hunk, Superdud – while others are new inventions. Or at least they seemed like new inventions to me as I couldn’t identify any originals. In this latter camp we get Captain Trivial (“The superhero for the minor annoyances!”), Ragoo of the Jungle (“The gourmet of all comicdom!”), and The Masked Bernard (“Follow the adventures of this wonder dog of the mountain tops in his never-ending search for a fire hydrant!”).

The humour is that of the gag, running for three or four pages with a quick set-up and then a punchline. Aside from the long Ms. Wonder Blunder story, which is also the weakest piece in the book, that’s how everything is presented here. There’s a breathless structure to it, with each new gag being introduced by a quick bit of table-setting: “Meanwhile . . .” “As you remember . . .” “Suddenly . . .” “Later . . .” Different plot lines are adverted to, but they’re left unexplained. The Blue Blowfish is trying to save Buddy and Sue from being turned into jumbo shrimp, or anchovies, or French fries by Doctor Froglips, and I guess he’s successful some of the time, though we never see any of these other characters. It’s always just on to the next gag. You flip through a book like this in a single sitting, and I mean that in a good way. I don’t think I laughed out loud, but I had a goofy smile on my face through all of it.

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Kill or Be Killed: Volume Three

There’s not much new to report in this review. We begin with our anti-hero Dylan shooting up the brothel run by the Russian mob, which is exactly how Volume One kicked off. And again our narrator is aware of how roundabout he’s been in his duties, leading us to think that “this entire story has been the longest flashback in history.” Some readers, he says, may have “been thinking about that the whole time.” Guilty as charged!

Even so, it’s going to take us nearly another hundred pages before we come back to the brothel and are finally “caught up.” “I know, I know,” he’ll say then, “I’m the worst narrator in history for actually getting to the point” (in history again!) But “it can’t all be action . . . right?” Sometimes there’s a need to fill us in with “some stuff you have to know before the action gets going again.”

So when I say there’s not much new to report here, that’s really a comment on the fact that this story has been spending most of its time running in place and not going anywhere. Which means the things I like are all the things I’ve liked so far, and the things I don’t like are the same as well.

Unfortunately, I wish things had been all action, or at least more action, because Brubaker and Phillips do that well. I really love those star-shaped gun blasts and the way the outbreaks of violence are set up and choreographed. The filler is either dull (Dylan’s love life with Kira) or confusing (the business with the demon).

Still, with only one volume left to go some resolution beckons. Dylan has, singlehandedly, taken out the boss of the Russian mob, an improbability that’s credited to his belief in some wisdom he picked up from the movie The Edge: “What one man can do, another man can do.” Which is absolute bullshit and made me think that getting rid of the demon was actually making the rest of the story even more unlikely. But we shall see how things wrap up before delivering a final judgment.

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Druuna: Morbus Gravis II

In my review of Morbus Gravis I I noted parenthetically how Heavy Metal magazine had just recently ceased print publication. This is a real shame, as it was a terrific mag with high standards for art and storytelling throughout most of its history. What it also means though is that these Druuna books have become collector’s items. For a cover image I actually had to take a snap of my own copy of Morbus Gravis II as I couldn’t find one online (sorry for the glare!). On Amazon a copy in the same condition as mine would set you back at least $250.

So everybody’s favourite (well, at least my favourite) post-apocalyptic babe is back, with her boobs out and her red thong only being replaced, as occasion demands, by some vintage lingerie, or nothing at all. Things begin with romantic sex on the beach, followed by some post-coital posing (“I want to admire your body for one last time . . .”), before our hero wakes up and it’s revealed she’s been having some kind of mind-sex with Lewis, the guy who was running the ship before Delta (the computer system) took over. Now he’s just a head floating in a tank, sharing a telepathic link with Druuna, falling in love with her but also dreaming of finally being allowed to die. The story, such as it is, has Lewis sending Druuna on a mission to destroy the “tower of power” that keeps Delta running.

There’s nothing remotely politically correct about any of this. Not only is Druuna raped, but she likes it. Ditto for the bald-and-busty friend she picks up. Which may be meant as empowering but I doubt it. Not when a dominatrix in a leather skirt, wielding a riding crop, shows up and we’re told her name is Seka (the screen name of an actress known in the 1980s as the Platinum Princess of Porn). We know where Serpieri is coming from, and where he’s going to.

But it’s not just sex and violence that are near allied but love and death, Eros and Thanatos still going at it. I do think this is a comic with something to say. And Druuna isn’t just suffering the misfortunes of virtue in this world. She’s a true goddess. “In these times of hunger and death,” one brutal lover says, “the fact that you exist defies reality.” Only in a comic book I guess.

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Kill or Be Killed: Volume Two

A mixed bag.

I like how the story is getting thicker, even as I hate all the stuff having to do with Dylan’s improbable love life and I couldn’t understand the way things kept jumping around. Ed Brubaker has to work hard to justify the different points of view while explaining how Dylan, our narrator, knows everything he’s talking about. Dylan’s also still doing that thing where he jumps ahead and then spends the rest of an issue telling us how we got there. And sometimes he’s more than just an issue ahead. At the end of this volume we still aren’t caught up to the gunfight in the brothel where the series began.

Now to be sure a lot of writers do this, and one thing to be said for it is that it shows how much planning went into things. The Chew comics do a lot of this too, for example, and they go even further with the breaking of the fourth wall, albeit with comic intent. But Dylan’s “artistic license” with the storytelling here just confused me. There were more hints dropped in this volume about the demon being Dylan’s imaginary frenemy, his appearance perhaps the result of Dylan going off his meds. But then the demon also seems to know things Dylan can’t, which may be its own version of artistic license.

Otherwise things are escalating nicely, with Dylan’s vigilantism having predictably messy side effects as he keeps skating out onto thinner ice. He’s been lucky so far but the cops and the Russian mafia are closing in, as is the demon. And to be honest, I hope things get worse for him, as I can’t say I like the character at all.

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