Young Terrorists #1

Written by Matt Pizzolo
Art by Amancay Nahuelpan

Black Mask Comics have been getting a lot of attention in the last year, as they've seen a number of their new series become very desirable, and enjoy sustained attention on the after-market.  I feel like I've been sleeping on their stuff for too long, having missed a few titles that I would have been interested in, had I been paying more attention to their solicitations in Previews.

I don't know how Young Terrorists slipped past me, as it looked very much like the type of book I'd be interested in reading.  I guess a lot of people felt the same way, because the store where I shop was sold out of a decent number of orders in a couple of hours.  Luckily, I was travelling this week, and found a copy.

I think the thing I like most about the amount of attention that Black Mask is getting is the way in which it pushed this series (which is, I think, an on-going) and this issue (which will be released in second print soon) into the hands of a lot of people who would otherwise not buy something with this kind of material.  I do hope that most of these people decide to read it though, and not just keep it as an investment, as this is a very good comic.

This first issue is 80 pages long, which is always welcome, and it takes it time to introduce the main characters.  We meet Serah, the daughter of an extremely wealthy businessman, who controls one of three groups that more or less control the world, or at least its finances.  He is killed in a suicide bombing at the beginning of the book, and his daughter is framed as a terrorist.  She ends up escaping the CIA black site where she's been interrogated, and has been the star of an illegal fight scene.

She continues that work, broadcasting her fights on the Internet, and gathering an interesting group of misfits around her.  The comic is split between Serah's story and that of Cesar, a young man who is on the run after an act of resistance against industrial farming goes wrong.  Cesar is brutally abused throughout this book, beaten and left naked in a truckstop parking lot, before he is found by Baby, one of Serah's people.

As much as writer Matt Pizzolo takes this issue to set up his world, he also leaves a lot to be explained later.  We know that there is some intrigue surrounding Serah's brother, and we see that she has effectively taken over a section of Detroit that had been abandoned, and is now providing the residents with food and electricity.

Artist Amancay Nahuelpan is new to me, and I'm impressed by what I see.  He has a way with the characters that sometimes reminds me of Tony Harris, and which works well with a book that is so tied into the motives of the people that populate it.

This book is rough and unapologetic, and very open about its political and economic beliefs.  I see antecedents in Jonathan Hickman's phenomenal The Nightly News, and wonder if this is perhaps the book that Gail Simone set out to write when she started The Movement at DC.  It makes sense that Black Mask is publishing this book, since they launched their business with Occupy Comics.

Boxers

by Gene Luen Yang

I've been a fan of Gene Luen Yang's work since I read American Born Chinese a few years ago.  He has a simplistic approach that gives way to intelligent storytelling with great depth.  Boxers is one half of a two-book set (with Saints, which is on my to-read pile) that examines the Boxer Rebellion in China at the turn of the 20th Century.

Boxers focuses on Little Bao, an illiterate youth growing up in a small village in a remote province of China.  His area is isolated, and while the people are poor, they are able to eke out a decent living.  One day, during a spring festival, they are visited by a boorish lout who rightly gets his ass handed to him by Bao's father.  It turns out that this man is a Christian convert, and like good Christians everywhere, returns to exact revenge, bringing a white man with him.  This man smashes the statue of a much-loved god, and steals food from the village that he believes is rightful restitution.

As time goes on, we see how the influence of the missionaries and European governments are damaging traditional Chinese social structures.  When Bao's father goes to complain to a local government leader about how the village is being treated, he is set upon by foreign soldiers and beaten so badly he never recovers his faculties.

Into this tense setting comes Red Lantern Chu, a brother of the Big Sword Society.  He begins to help the locals to resist the foreigners and the secondary devils (what they call the converts).  He does not allow Bao to participate in his kung fu training, but then begins to teach the youth in secret.

Eventually, Red Lantern is killed, and Bao continues training under a different master.  Here the story veers towards magical realism, as Bao begins to channel a Chinese god when he fights, rescuing his older brothers from certain death.  From here, Bao begins to gather supporters for his fight against the foreigners, leading an ever-growing army towards Peking.

Along the way, Bao meets Mei-Wen, who herself begins to lead a group of female warriors.  We follow Bao and his people through the end of the Boxer Rebellion.

This is a very interesting book.  I don't know very much about this time period, and so don't know where Yang has diverted from established fact (somewhere before all the Gods show up, I imagine).  I do get the feeling that this book has been meticulously researched and is more accurate, in it's unique way, than it isn't.  I know that Saints tells a similar story, but from the perspective of a 'secondary devil', and I'm curious to know that interpretation, especially since my own inclinations lean towards seeing things through Bao's eyes, in a post-colonial perspective.

Yang builds his story very nicely.  He invests a lot of time in developing Bao, who is bullied by his older brothers and then ends up leading them.  He makes Bao's relationship with Mei-Wen believable, as are the internal conflicts Bao needs to resolve to be a strong leader.

There is a sense of misogyny in this work that doesn't sit well with me, as male characters discuss how contact with females can dilute their concentration and power.  There is an attempt to balance this through Mei-Wen, but it's often not enough.  At the same time, this is a work of historical fiction, and I imagine that Yang is being accurate in his portrayal of how women were treated.

Yang's artwork is straight-forward, but very effective in portraying emotion and thought.  He uses a slightly drab colour palette throughout most scenes, but when the gods enter the story, things become brighter and a little garish.

This book is a remarkable piece of work, and I look forward to reading its companion.

Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland

Written by Bill Willingham
Art by Jim Fern, Craig Hamilton, Ray Snyder, and Mark Farmer

As Fables came closer and closer to its conclusion, I began to get interested in the series again (although, interested does not always mean invested in or entertained by), and picked up Werewolves of the Heartland, the standalone OGN that spotlights Bigby Wolf that came out in 2012.

Bigby is out searching for a new possible location for Fabletown (this is in the era when Mister Dark had taken their home from them), and stumbles across Story City.  The name intrigues him, but he is even more interested to learn that the entire town is populated by werewolves that view him as their god (although that doesn't put them above wanting to kill him).  Even more surprising is the appearance of an old war companion of Bigby's, and an ex-Nazi villainess.

There is a lengthy flashback to Bigby's WWII days, and his mission in Castle Frankenstein, which actually takes me back to the earliest issues of Fables that I read, around about the mid-thirties.

As the story progresses, Bigby comes to realize that there is a lot going wrong in Story City.  A cabal has been plotting to overthrow their leaders (who happen to also be their parents, for most of them) and see Bigby's arrival as a good chance to do that.  This leads to a big battle, and lots of killing, as none of these werewolves have any clue just how powerful Bigby really is.

This book really eschewed the 'Fables' aspect of Fables, not taking any cues from folklore.  It also read as more mature than the parent Fables series has for years, although that is mostly due to copious amounts of non-sexual nudity (and a bit of sexual nudity, as a young woman tries to seduce Bigby).

The art in this book is nice, but the combination of Craig Hamilton and Jim Fern is an odd one.  They are both fine artists, but they have very different styles (even though Fern handled layouts for the whole book).  Hamilton's pencils, especially when he is the one inking them, are very detailed and realistic, while Fern tends towards the slightly more abstract.  I found the switch from one to the other to be jarring at times.

The Disappearance of Charley Butters

by Zach Worton

Zach Worton's The Klondike was an excellent collection of stories and vignettes about the famous gold rush that impressed me a great deal.  When I saw that he had a new book out at TCAF this year, I couldn't resist grabbing it, although at the time, I did not know that it was the beginning of a series of graphic novels, and not a self-contained story.

The Disappearance of Charley Butters starts with a death metal trio heading into some remote woods with a camera man to film a video.  We quickly see that the band doesn't really get along with one another, mostly because the band's leader, Mike, and his contrary nature.

While filming, the band stumbles across a long-abandoned cabin, filled with hundreds of paintings all showing the same image, and a collection of diaries.  All of this belongs to Charley Butters, an artist who ran away from the world to this cabin back in the late 50s, and was apparently never heard from again.

As the book progresses, Travis, the main character, can't stop thinking about Butters.  He returns to the cabin to pick up the journals, and begins obsessing over the artist, who was clearly mentally ill (he claimed to hear voices).

Travis ends up quitting the band over Mike's behaviour, and he and Stuart, the filmmaker, decide to collaborate on a documentary about Butters's life and disappearance.

This book was really gathering steam when it ended kind of abruptly, with notification that 'The Search For Charley Butters' will be coming along soon.  This was a disappointment, as I was enjoying the story, especially the way that Butters's influence was changing Travis, who cuts his hair and begins to behave more like an adult.

Worton does a great job of developing these characters in a short amount of space, and he provides just enough information to make Butters's story intriguing.  His art is nice and clear, and he's guaranteed himself a sale whenever the next book comes out.  I hope it doesn't take too long...

Okko: The Cycle of Water

by Hub

I'd read the second and third Okko miniseries when they were published by Archaia in the 00's, but never saw the first volume, The Cycle Of Water until recently, and was happy to get the chance to read it.

Okko is a French comic set in an imagined Medieval Japan, where magic, spirits, demons, and combat puppet suits are common.  Okko the character is a ronin and demon-hunter for hire.  He travels with a large, demon-masked man and a drunken monk.  At the beginning of this series, they are hired by the younger brother of a geisha who has been abducted by strange people, in exchange for his service.

Their journey to rescue the young woman is fraught with danger, and when they find the floating fortress to which she has been taken, they discover some very disturbing things.

Hub's art is fantastically detailed and impressive.  The smaller scale of the North American comics page does not fully do it justice, as it feels a little cramped and hard to read at times.  Still, this is a very good read, and now I need to try to track down the fourth volume, The Cycle of Fire.