The Waterboy

Creatures of the Pool by Ramsey Campbell (2009): Gavin Meadows, self-employed as a walking-tour guide of historic Liverpool, finds out more about the city's long (founded in the 13th century) and somewhat bizarre (even in non-fiction) history as he searches for his missing father. Campbell grew up in LIverpool, and a number of his previous novels have been set either there or in his early-career Liverpool stand-in, Brichester. Here, he visits all-out historical horror on his home, blending real and fictional in an unnerving, escalating fashion that builds upon the quasi-documentary accumulation of detail so central to H.P. Lovecraft's best work.

Campbell uses first-person narration here as he did in his previous novel, The Grin of the Dark. As first-person narration had previously been rare in Campbell's long-form output, I wonder if he had more ideas related to unreliable narration than The Grin of the Dark could profitably address. Gavin Meadows is much more reliable than the narrator of the previous novel, but we do get some (self-doubting) moments as Meadows tries to wrestle with whether or not what he's glimpsing is real or somehow an ongoing hallucination brought on by stress.

See, Liverpool was built partially on reclaimed marshland and, indeed, a reclaimed pool. Beneath the ground, ancient tunnels proliferate, some now being rediscovered, some still hidden. Above the ground, the rain seems to fall incessantly. And everywhere and increasingly, Gavin starts to see things that don't appear to be quite human, even as the police seem to take his father's disappearance lightly. And as Liverpool gradually succumbs to a rising damp, Meadows struggles to keep his own thoughts straight against the onslaught of historical facts that sometimes threaten to overwhelm his reason.

Long-time horror readers will recognize Campbell's nods to Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "The Festival", though this is in its own odd way a much 'gentler' story, or at least a more ambiguous one related to the malignity of Liverpool's 'other' residents. Still, if you're ever in Liverpool, you may want to avoid drinking the water. Or bathing in it. Highly recommended.

Woe!

Best American Comics 2007 (collected from mid-2005 to mid-2006), edited by Chris Ware and Anne Elizabeth Moore:

Contents:

Jerry Moriarty. Dad Watches (Endpapers) from Kramer’s Ergot

ii : Ivan Brunetti. The Horror of Simply Being Alive from Schizo

* iv : Art Spiegelman. Portrait of the Artist As a Young %@#*! from Virginia Quarterly Review and The New Yorker

xii : Anne Elizabeth Moore. Foreword

xvi : Chris Ware. Introduction

* 1 : R. and Aline Crumb. Winta Wundaland from The New Yorker

4 : Sophie Crumb. “Hey, Soph, Whazzup?” from Mome

* 5 : Alison Bechdel. The Canary-Colored Caravan of Death from Fun Home

33 : C. Tyler. Just A Bad Seed and Once, We Ran from Late Bloomer

* 40 : Lynda Barry. Ernie Pook’s Comeek (Excerpt) from Ernie Pook

44 : Lauren Weinstein. Skate Date, Waiting, and John and I Go to the Movies from Girl Stories ix

49 : Vanessa Davis. Untitled Diary Strips from Kramer’s Ergot

* 53 : Gabrielle Bell. California Journal from Mome

65 : Ivan Brunetti. Six Things I Like About My Girlfriend from Schiz0

66 : Jeffrey Brown. These Things, These Things from Little Things

75 : Ron Regé Jr. fuc 1997: We Share a Happy Secret, But Beware, Because the Modern World Emerges from Kramer’s Ergot

91 : John Porcellino. Country Roads—Brighton from King-Cat Comics and Stories

95 : Jonathan Bennett. Needles and Pins from Mome

* 106 : Kevin Huizenga. Glenn in Bed from Ganges

118 : David Heatley. Sambo from Mome

* 121 : Sammy Harkham. Lubavitch, Ukraine, 1876 from Kramer’s Ergot

* 132 : Miriam Katin. Untitled (The List) from We Are on Our Own

144 : Ben Katchor. Shoehorn Technique from Chicago Reader

* 156 : Adrian Tomine. Shortcomings (Excerpt) from Optic Nerve

175 : David Heatley. Cut Thru and Laundry Room from Mome

* 177 : Gilbert Hernandez. Fritz After Dark from Luba’s Comics and Stories

* 201 : Kim Deitch. No Midgets in Midgetville from The Stuff of Dreams

219 : Anders Nilsen. Dinner and a Walk from Big Questions #7: Dinner and a Nap

* 230 : Charles Burns. Black Hole (Excerpt) from Black Hole

240 : Gary Panter. Untitled (Discrete Operations Vehicle—Burning Gall) from Jimbo’s Inferno

251 : C.F. Blond Atchen and the Bumble Boys from The Ganzfeld

263 : Ivan Brunetti. My Bumbling, Corpulent Mass from Schizo

264 : Tim Hensley. Meet the Dropouts from Mome

267 : Paper Rad. Kramer’s Ergot from Kramer’s Ergot

280 : David Heatley. Walnut Creek from Mome

* 285 : Dan Zettwoch. Won’t Be Licked! The Great ’37 Flood in Louisville from Drawn & Quarterly Showcase

315 Contributors’ Notes

326 100 Distinguished Comics from August 31, 2005 to September 1, 2006

Endpages Seth, Wimbledon Green

Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan, Acme Comics Novelty Library) may need to be kept away from the editing desk. He's a brilliant writer/artist, but his writerly tendency towards tales of woe pretty much informs this entire collection. So too does an overemphasis on autobiographical comics -- and autobiographical comics dominate the Indy comix scene in much the same way that superheroes dominate the mainstream. Fine, non-autobiographical stories by Kim Deitch and Gilbert Hernandez surface towards the middle of this collection like welcome oasises of comedy and sorrow.

There's other good work here, though I'm not a fan of excerpting longer works to shoehorn them into a collection like this. There's also some truly godawful experimental comics work included, Kramer's Ergot being the worst offender -- it's like a Victor Moscoso piece as translated by an unartistic child. I'd forgotten that Gary Panter had disappeared for awhile. The piece here reminds me why this was a good thing. I've starred the stuff I liked. For the most part, the best pieces avoid the obsessive and often humourless navel-gazing of a lot of autobiographical comics, through talent or subject matter or both. Lightly recommended.

Horrors

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 21 (2009), edited by Stephen Jones (2010):

Contents:

Stephen Jones – Introduction: Horror in 2009

Michael Kelly – The Woods
Joe Hill & Stephen King – Throttle
Barbara Roden – Out And Back
Ramsey Campbell – Respects
Simon Stranzas – Cold To The Touch
M. R. James & Reggie Oliver – The Game Of Bear
Chris Bell - Shem-El-Nesime: An Inspiration In Perfume
Michael Marshall Smith – What Happens When You Wake Up In The Night
Nicholas Royle – The Reunion
Simon Kurt Unsworth – Mami Wata
Richard Christian Matheson – Venturi
John Gaskin – Party Talk
Terry Dowling – Two Steps Along The Road
Mark Valentine – The Axholme Toll
Robert Shearman – Granny’s Grinning
Rosalie Parker – In The Garden
Stephen Volk – After The Ape
Brian Lumley – The Nonesuch
Michael Kelly – Princess Of The Night
Stephen Jones & Kim Newman – Necrology: 2009


Another fine 'Best of Year' collection from uber-editor Jones. The page count seems to have been clawed back by about 100 pages, though Jones seems to have compensated by choosing fewer novellas and more short stories. The Necrology and Year in Horror sections are exhaustive and invaluable as always, while I can't fault the wide-ranging selection of horror and dark fantasy contained herein. I actually liked all of these stories; the selection seemed more influenced by M.R. James than usual, perhaps fitting for a collection that includes a posthumous (for James) M.R. James collaboration.

The first team-up between Stephen King and his son, Joe Hill (that's Joe King's nom de plume) is a hoot, an homage to Richard Matheson's "Duel" (adapted into an excellent movie directed by Stephen Spielberg). Canadian Michael Kelly gets two (!) short entries; Ramsey Campbell offers a thematic sequel to his much earlier short story "The Sneering"; creepy goings-on occur at university reunions ("The Reunion"), the Canadian North ("The Woods"); Cairo ("Shem-El-Nesime: An Inspiration In Perfume"); Africa ("Mami Wata"); Viet Nam ("Two Steps Along The Road"); and in New York after the death of King Kong ("After the Ape"). Highly recommended.

Endgame

Batman and Robin: Batman vs. Robin, written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Cameron Stewart, Andy Clarke and Scott Hanna (2010): Morrison keeps tying together plot threads while managing entertaining mini-arcs within the overall 'Return of Bruce Wayne' storyline. We also get more of England's Batman and Robin, the Knight and the Squire, along with the relatively new Batwoman, British crimefighter The Gravedigger, more shenanigans from Batman baby-mama Talia Al Ghul, and the evolving relationship between Batman's son Damian Al Ghul (the new Robin) and Dick Grayson (the new Batman).

Grayson's insecurity about taking over as Batman leads him to attempt to revive what everyone believes to be Batman's beat-up corpse, recovered and identified by Superman towards the end of the events of Final Crisis. Luckily (or unluckily) there's an undestroyed Lazarus Pit in the coal country of England. As a Lazarus Pit can bring just about anything back to life, off the new Batman goes.

And once that adventure's over, it's time to descend into the weird labyrinth that is stately Wayne Manor in order to finally figure out why it seems like someone's been sending message from various points in the past, hidden in various places throughout and beneath the ancestral Wayne family home.

Meanwhile, Mexico-based super-crime-boss El Penitente is on his way to take over Gotham City's crime; a mysterious man claiming to be Bruce Wayne's not-really-dead father Thomas arrives in Gotham; rumours swirl that Wayne's father was a Satanist and his mother a drug addict; and Damian has to fight off a hostile takeover of his own body. Whee! And what the hell is in that mysterious wooden box from the secret rooms of Wayne Manor? Wouldn't you like to know. But not yet. Cameron Stewart's art is excellent, hyper-real in the Neal Adams mould with just enough drollness to make everything fun among the weirdness. Highly recommended.

Batman and Robin: The Return of Batman, written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Frazer Irving, Cameron Stewart, Chris Burnham, Alex Sinclair and David Finch (2010): And...he's back. Or is he? Yes he is. Or is he? As El Penitente's evil masterplan plunges all of Gotham City into chaos, even Batman and Robin may fail to pull out the win at the last second. But who's that riding to the rescue? Oops, it's one of Batman's greatest villains, so pissed off by the absence of the 'real' Batman and the spotlight-stealing perversities of El Penitente and crime super-group The Black Glove that he (or she) has temporarily switched sides.

And when it's all over, Bruce Wayne will reveal a shocking secret to the whole world.

Yes, he's Iron Man!

Wait, no he isn't.

Pretty much everything left unanswered in The Return of Bruce Wayne gets answered here, including the identity of El Penitente, the importance of Damian Al Ghul's ability to read a ledger, what's in the 'ancestor box' and why, and the final mystery of the life story of that bat that flew threw the window of Bruce Wayne's living-room all those years ago to give him a good idea for a crime-fighting costume when he was a "hero without a totem." The various Bat-artists do fine work here as well. Highly recommended.

Infinite Regress

Superman and the Legion of Superheroes, written by Geoff Johns, illustrated by Gary Frank and Jon Sibal (2007-2008): The pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Legion of Superheroes (LSH) (from the 31st century!) gets reinserted into official DC continuity by Johns and Frank in a pretty enjoyable reunion adventure with Superman, who now remembers being a member of the Legion as a teenager because he actually (again) was a member as a teenager. Several 31st-century years after Superman/boy last visited the Legion, they send a Time-Bubble to get him (though first they have to telepathically unlock his hidden memories of being in the Legion).

Hilarity ensues in a 31st century gone boopy, where a xenophobic Earth has banished aliens and a human-only new Justice League are acting like a bunch of dinks. Superman comes through, and various threads are introduced that lead directly to the subsequent Superman/LSH miniseries Superman: Legion of Three Worlds, and then to the current new Legion stories in the relaunched LSH and Adventure Comics. Fun space-opera action with a lot of old 'friends' from my youth, though I can't believe the evil Justice League killed Legion of Substitute Heroes member Doubleheader. That's just wrong. Recommended.

Day of Vengeance, written by Judd Winick and Bill Willingham, illustrated by Ian Churchill, Justinano and Walden Wong (2005): One of several lead-ins to 2005-2006's DC megacrossover/reboot Infinite Crisis, Day of Vengeance tells the tale of a war among DC's supernatural heroes. The Spectre, the most annoying and powerful magical being in the DC universe, has gone crazy again after being stripped of his latest human host, once-and-future Green Lantern Hal Jordan.

Seduced by dark 'god' Eclipso, the Spectre sets out to destroy ever other magic-user on Earth. Only a ragtag group of C-list magic heroes (The Enchantress, Nightshade, Detective Chimp, Blue Devil, Ragman and that guy whose name I always forget) can stop him, or at least help Captain Marvel stop him. Fun but inconclusive -- the actual climax to this would appear months later in its own special after Infinite Crisis, and lead into the short-lived and much-missed (by me) magical team series Shadowpact. Recommended.

Growing Pains

Batman and Robin: Batman Reborn, written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Frank Quitely, Philip Tan and Jonathan Glapion (2009): Having Bruce Wayne out of the picture for two years turned out to be a godsend, primarily in the form of the Batman and Robin title. First-Robin Dick Grayson (aka Nightwing) reluctantly gives up his own superhero identity (Nightwing, natch) to give Gotham City its hero back, with the genetically modified, League-of-Assassins-trained, 10-year-old Damian as the new Robin.

Both experience job-related growing pains both existential (Dick doubts himself; Damian is a spoiled, potentially homicidal brat) and mundane (people keep noticing that the new Batman, who's supposed to be the old Batman after a temporary layoff, is a good six inches shorter now). Much zippy, occasionally macabre fun is had by all: the Batman R.I.P. storyline has left a number of new villains roaming the streets of Gotham, including Le Bossu and Professor Pyg, and Batman and Robin have to hit the ground running in order to deal with them. Luckily, Damian has got the new flying Batmobile working.

A confrontation with cuckoo-banana second-Robin Jason Todd, now the Red Hood, also looms. Todd wants to replace the new Batman with himself, a Batman-surrogate who kills. Ultimately, this doesn't sit well with anybody, least of all Gotham's mob leaders, who up their violence levels to respond to this new crime-fighting threat. And they call in super-assassin The Flamingo. Seriously. He wears a lot of pink and he likes to eat people's faces, or watch them eat their own faces. He's ten tons of fun, in other words.

Frank Quitely'a art on the covers and the initial three issues is splendid as always, and Philip Tan is no slouch either -- though the book purposefully ran a relay-race of artist-exchanges every three issues, the result was pretty much always good. Highly recommended.

Batman Beyond Forever

Batman R.I.P., written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Tony Daniel and Lee Garbett (2008): Batman finally faces the Ultimate Enemy he never knew he had...and then, as the last two issues tie into megacrossover event Final Crisis (also scripted by Morrison), he also has to face Darkseid, the DC Universe's amalgam of Satan and Dick Cheney. Seriously, though Darkseid was created in the early 1970's. Tony Daniel and Garbett provide some dandy artwork in the hyperrealistic tradition of great Batman artists that include Neal Adams and Jim Aparo.

But it's the story, bringing to at least partial fruition Morrison's first two years on Batman, that shines -- though it shines a lot more if you read everything over again. Morrison's made himself into the master of zippy high-density superhero comics. Almost everything he does rewards a second reading, indeed, almost demands it at points.

Old Batman stories and characters once cast out of continuity are hereby returned to continuity, often with odd spins. Fifth-dimensional prankster Bat-Mite returns as what appears to be a figment of Batman's imagination, there to warn him about what's coming -- but as Bat-Mite notes when Batman asks him if he really comes from the Fifth Dimension or if he's imaginary, "Imagination is the Fifth Dimension! Geez, some world's greatest detective you turned out to be!"

A bizarre old Batman story about an extraterrestrial Batman holds part of the key to Batman winning now against The Black Glove and its malign, possibly immortal leader Dr. Hurt. So does the Joker. And the Club of Heroes. And Batman's son, Damian. And Nightwing, the original Robin, and the current Robin. But Batman, poisoned, buried, mind under attack, has to carry a lot of the weight himself. And then, if he succeeds, he has to face the origin of all evil -- Darkseid himself -- with the fate of all universes depending on the outcome. And there this story ends, at the moment before Batman faces Darkseid, though later revelations would allow for Batman R.I.P.: The Missing Chapter about two years later, also by Morrison and Daniel, once certain things had been revealed in the due course of other stories. Highly recommended.