Graffic Traffic
It’s never a bad trip to comicland
by Ryk McIntyre
Well… It Happens. You go and buy “the usual” and sometimes it’s still a letdown. I specifically refer to a comic I normally would include in any top-five title list you could want, Starman (DC/ James Robinson – words/ Abell,Vines & Lee – guest artists). With issue #38, James hit the doldrums that plague lesser writers. This issue features a confrontation between the up-and-coming Mist (daughter of the original Golden Age Mist, I knew you’d wanna know) and the current incarnation of Justice League Europe, and not that I care about these characters, but James seems to reduce them to cyphers and then cinders by Miss Mist in a series of what at best could be called, deus-ex-machinas. Also, he seemed to get the JLE characterizations all wrong (from what I remember about them), and, in the end, he could’ve killed off all those heroes with better death-traps. Oops, guess I gave that one away.
But it’s never a bad trip to comic-land when you find the second collection of Mutts -“Cats And Dogs” (one man show: Patrick McDonnell), one of the best newspaper strips out there. I reviewed the first collection, and there was nothing I said there that I wouldn’t repeat… except louder. In particular, the title blocks for the Sunday reprints are great here, with Mr. McDonnell quoting such diverse sources as The Sex Pistols’ first album cover, Whistler’s Mother, Dr. Seuss, Action Comics #1, and A.A. Milne’s art, among others. This book is a gem de la gem… and not a bad gift idea either.
I know it’s a little after the fact (or maybe a lot before it), but ooohhh! I just gotta tell you about this Halloween book that was sent to me… uh… kinda after the date… but anyway, Scary GodMother (Sirius/ Jill Thompson – words’n’art) is an amazing story that reaches out intergenerationally, with equal parts scary and surprisingly dignified portraits of Bats, Skeletons-in-the-closet, Monsters-under-the-stairs, even the relationship between little kids and the older kids they want to be just like, and why sometimes, it should be the other way around. A great book with full-painted art, no less.
For the Quentin Tarantinophile, how about a new Western (yes, a Western) series. Desperadoes (Image/ Jeff Mariotte – Western words/ John Cassaday, Nick Bell – wide open spaces) has everything you’d need or want from a Western: guns, guns, guns, pretty women, a villain who’s missing one eye, more guns, tragic deaths and gunfights to go with ’em by gum, and last of all, one fiery ethnic wildcat, a two-fisted honey wearing a pro-cleavage shoulderless cotton number, just like all the tough women used to wear back in the good ol’ rape-days. Oh yeah, the first page of the book samples Sin City-era Frank Miller art with all the subtlety of a stagecoach robbery.
Better you should pick up the trade paperback collection of Terminal City (Vertigo/ Dean Motter – words/ Michael Lark – art). Rarely in comics do we get such a self-realized world for the story to grow from, with a landscape that evokes the movie Metropolis, a civilization that embodies Film Noir, and events that grab you like a serial adventure from the ’30s. Given that the man who wrote it was responsible for such works as Mr. X and the DC “sequel” to the immortal BBC production The Prisoner, it’s no surprise that it flows like a story oughta should, and hosts so many recognizable yet wholly original characters that you’re sure there must be more stories about this weird, kooky place, and you want there to be, ’cause you’re hungry for it. Yeah, that’s it. There’s gotta be a thousand stories in this naked city. But you won’t mind settling for this one. (As of this article, a new six-issue mini-series is out. Let’s go find it. Race ya.)
Next, and I have to say, this does support the oft-spoken assumption that a G? column wouldn’t really be fulfilled without a Garth Ennis book of some kind. And that’s true only in that it really is true, and I’m the one spreading the rumor anyway, but listen. Go buy Hitman H21 (DC Comics/ G-Man giving you the word, Steve Pugh on rough sketch), the most horrifying of any story yet crafted by Garth. It’s… God help me, it’s a love story. Poor Tommy Monaghan’s growing love interest (and recent ex-cop) Deborah Tiegel, is…(gasp! choke!) not a mutant, not a demon in disguise, not his time-travelling future descendent… none of that X-Men crap, no, she’s… (whispered) “a virgin.” And other than a few rude jokes, it’s a wonderfully soft story, right up until Tommy accidentally crashes into an apartment where a deal is going down, both sides think Tommy’s entrance is a trick played by the other, a delivery boy enters the room, and when the bullets stop… pretty much only Tommy is aware of it. Oops. But, he gets a second date. “Yyyeeeeeeeehhsssss!!!”.
Lastly, if you haven’t been reading Transmetropolitan (DC-Helix/ Warren Ellis – hard copy, Darick Robinson and Rodney Ramos – visual down-load), then it may be too late for you. The first four issues of this media-unfriendly, socio-pathologically-worse title have, of course, sold out (get it? its a media joke) and you’ll have to wait now for the trade paperback. Nyah-nyah. Still, you could check out issue #5, because it really shows how the intellectual is outclassed by TV, in a knock-down, drag-out; or, as Nietzsche said, “That which we fear, we become,” or was it, “That which we hate, we watch ’cause there’s nothin’ else on”? Oh hell, if we can take the metaphor about cars from Repo Man, and apply it to TV remotes, the quote would remain the same: “The more you watch, the less intelligent you are.” But I gotta go, my favorite show is on, and it’s a new episode!
