Doktor Sleepless Volume 1: Engines of Desire (2008): written by Warren Ellis; illustrated by Ivan Rodriguez: Interesting near-future dystopia from Warren Ellis that gets better and weirder as it goes. 'Doktor Sleepless' (re)names himself and takes up arms against normalcy in a weird, small city somewhere in America. Strange new cults and fads dominate the post-millennial streets.
The Great Old Ones seem to be in play. And an angel seems to have arrived in town on a hallucinatory wind. Ivan Rodriguez seems a bit bland and mainstream to be drawing this book, though that may be the point -- a tension between the art and the story mimicking the tension between consensus reality and le massif. Certainly worth reading. Recommended.
Annihilator (2015): written by Grant Morrison; illustrated by Fraser Irving: A self-reflexive, genre-mashing superhero story written by Grant Morrison? It must be Wednesday. This is another fun Morrison romp in which a writer and his creation hang out together. Well, go on the run together. But the created may have created the story that the creator now tells to save the created. Or something like that.
If you like Morrisson, you'll like this. If you hate Morrison, you'll hate this. If you've never heard of Morrisson, this isn't a bad jumping-on point. It may be a bit wacky, but it's straightforward in its own way and isn't part of any larger superhero universe. Fraser Irving continues to grow as an artist, though his distortions of the human form sometimes make it difficult to recognize specific characters. Recommended.
Larry Marder's Beanworld Volume 1 (1981-1995/ Collected 1995): written and illustrated by Larry Marder: Reprinting stories from the early-to-mid 1980's, this volume has been supplanted by newer, larger reprint volumes. You should buy them. Larry Marder's Beanworld is a fantasy creation almost sui generis. There are a few things -- mostly old comic strips -- that it vaguely resembles in art style or writing, things that include Krazy Kat and the E.C. Segar Popeye from the 1920's and 1930's.
But it's also pretty much its own weird, half-funny, half-serious cartoon about a bunch of sentient, bipedal beans getting up to adventures on, um, Beanworld. A labour of love years in development by Marder when it debuted as an Eclipse Comic in 1981, Beanworld is one of the great comic-book achievements to come out of the 1980's in any genre, on any continent. It's strange, charming, funny, enthralling... and a fine piece of fantasy world-building. Highly recommended.
Madwoman of the Sacred Heart (1992-1998/ English edition 2011): written by Alejandro Jodorowsky; illustrated by Moebius; English translation by Natacha Ruck and Ken Grobe: Deeply odd graphic novel from long-time collaborators Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius. Sometimes stilted, sometimes passionate, sometimes grotesque. Moebius' art moves from realism through to a cartoony style at the end that resembles that of Tintin's Herge.
Jodorowsky's writing rampages around from mysticism to erotica to body horror and shame, from androgynous Messiahs to high-living prophets and back again. A 60-year-old French philosopher-academic turns out to be the destined father of the new John the Baptist. Or that's what a sexy, nubile young female student of his believes.
Indeed, she believes it so much she has sex with him in a confessional booth and then has a tattoo inscribed just above her pubic region indicating that her vagina belongs to the professor. And that's just in the first 20 pages or so of this ~200-page graphic novel. There's a lot more loopy, portentous and sometimes pretentious dialogue and monologue action than there is the sexy sex, though, so don't get too hot and bothered. Not for anyone easily offended, but recommended nonetheless.
John Constantine Hellblazer: The Gift: written by Michael Carey; illustrated by Leonardo Manco, Fraser Irving, Tim Bradstreet, and others (2004-2005; collected 2007): Mike Carey's fine run on what was DC-Vertigo's flagship title for various stretches of its 300-issue run comes to a mournful close. It's a volume that really needs to be read immediately after the previous collection, Reasons to be Cheerful, as the two collect what is really one long arc.
Pissed-off, post-punk, Liverpudlian magician John Constantine finds himself in the crosshairs of an entire demonic family, three of whom are his children by a particularly sinister form of magical rape (!!!). And they're the grandchildren of his longest-running demonic foe, Nergal, who's been messing things up for Constantine since the early 1980's Newcastle incident that sent John to the Ravenscar psychiatric facility for several months.
But Nergal needs help against his daughter and grand-children to regain his kingdom in Hell. And John needs Nergal's help before all of John's remaining friends and relatives end up murdered by John's demonic hellspawn.
The whole thing is marvelously written and illustrated, though I occasionally wish that Leonardo Manco would let go a bit in his visuals, especially in those occasionally photo-referenced urban backgrounds. But his character work is exquisite, and in that 300-issue-run, I'd rank him below only John Ridgway and Steve Dillon as long-time artistic chroniclers of the Hellblazer.
Mike Carey's swan song on the title is as gritty and imaginative as ever, with the politics of Hell never so tellingly and squalidly depicted, nor John's anguish. Really a fine end to a fine run, and hopefully DC will collect this and Reasons to be Cheerful in one volume when they reach that point in the re-reprinting of Constantine. Highly recommended.
The Shade: written by James Robinson; illustrated by Cully Hamner, Jill Thompson, Javier Pulido, Fraser Irving, Tony Harris, and Gene Ha (2011-2012; collected 2013): A 12-issue limited series with five different story artists and Starman artist Tony Harris on covers, The Shade looks to have been in production before DC made the abrupt decision to reboot its superhero line in September 2011.
As there was never a WWII-era Golden Age of Superheroes in the Nu52DCU, the continued existence of Starman supporting character Shade seems pretty doubtful, as Starman (as also written by Shade writer James Robinson) was a reluctant "legacy" hero whose father fought crime in the 1940's and 1950's, also as Starman. So this series may be the last go-round for the pre-Nu52DCU. Until they bring it back, anyway. It's an infinite universe. I'm sure it's still out there somewhere, regardless of what DC editorial tells us.
Shade, a long-lived villain/thief who has gradually become somewhat heroic since he gained his powers in 1838, sets out in this series to find out who's trying to kill him, and why. The series also gives us more history for Shade than ever appeared in Robinson's Starman, including an origin in the final issue of this series.
Shade's an interesting, long-winded fellow with somewhat nebulous powers that involve control of a mystical shadow-force than can do almost anything, but generally functions like an extremely grumpy version of a Green Lantern power beam. Robinson takes the reader on a tour of both Shade's world and of the lower heroic and villainous levels of the DC Universe, as we meet heroes and villains in Spain, England, Australia, and France. It's all a lot of violent fun leading to a city-ravaging climax in London, England.
Robinson has always had a knack for imagining heroes and villains in a world that's a bit more realistic than that found in children's comic books without creating a book that's either too grim or too glib. Shade's more glib than grim, but even he has to get serious when confronted by supervillains and ordinary people with more of a penchant for harming the innocent than the Shade had on his worst days.
The roster of artists is a nice one, and Robinson seems to have structured the story to take advantage of their particular talents. Cully Hamner handles the more traditionally superheroic chapters, Javier Pulido the fantastic action ones, and Fraser Irving the almost psychedelic ones involving alien gods and weird hieroglyphics.
Jill Thompson and Gene Ha do great work on single chapters set entirely in the past -- the Decadent Age aptly for Thompson, and a photo-realistically depicted, gritty 1838 London (complete with Charles Dickens) for Ha on the final chapter. It may be the most interesting assembly of art styles DC has assembled on one 12-issue story since...I don't know. The DC Challenge? Robinson makes sure the story is intelligible to non-Starman readers -- one doesn't have to have read that title to enjoy this one. Recommended.
