Palefire

Written by MK Reed
Art by Farel Dalrymple

Palefire is a very attractive graphic novel that makes for a quick read.  The artist, Farel Dalrymple, is someone I have a lot of respect for, both for his solo work like Pop Gun War and The Wrenchies, and for his collaborations on Omega: The Unknown and Prophet.  I'm not used to seeing him draw such a straight-forward drama story, so I was curious to check this out.

Alison is a pretty typical small-town teenager, who finds herself drawn to Darren, a kid with a reputation for starting fires.  When they attend a party together, Darren gets singled out and angry, and so they end off going into the night together, and Alison gets to discover the truth behind what everyone says about him.

The story is charming, but ultimately kind of slight.  The thing about realistic stories about teenagers is that teenagers are a little boring - especially the ones who just want to party and complain.  I'm not saying that this book is boring, just that the characters are pretty typical, and not all that compelling.

Dalrymple's black and white drawings, however, are lovely, and he brings a lot to the project.

Guerillas Vol. 3

by Brahm Revel

Guerillas started life, at Image, as a semi-regular comic, before it shifted to a graphic novel format at Oni.  The delays between volumes are long, and this Volume three, which came out last May, is the first to contain all-new material.  It took me a while to get around to reading it, but now I remember why I was so enamoured with this project in the first place.

Guerillas is a story set during the Vietnam War, and concerns itself with a platoon of chimpanzees trained to be soldiers in the United States Army.  They've gone rogue, and are continuing the fight on their own, without direction.  Back in the first volume, they rescued a hapless private, Clayton, and taken him under their wing (mostly because he can light their cigarettes).  At the same time, a group of human soldiers, along with the German scientist that trained the chimps, and his trained baboon Adolf, are out in the jungle looking for them.

Where this kind of set-up could easily lead towards a solid comedic series, or feature just a ton of extreme style violence, Revel is approaching the concept directly, and with seriousness.  The chimpanzees, especially the leader, Goliath, have very distinct personalities that come across strongly in Revel's storytelling and drawing.  Revel digs into Goliath's past, and that of another of the squad.  Clayton is also a more multi-faceted character with this volume, as he reflects on his childhood and relationship with his grandfather (who died when he was quite young).  We also get a better look at Dr. Heisler, who started this program with his twin brother.

There is a very Apocalypse Now scene in an old temple to Shiva that really helped demonstrate some of the themes of this series.  I feel that, as Revel works so slowly on this book (mostly, I believe because he has other projects and film work), he really spends a lot of time making it more rich and complex, to the readers' benefit.

I don't know when Revel is going to complete this series, but I do know that it's a title that deserves a lot more recognition.

Atmospherics

Written by Warren Ellis
Painted by Ken Meyer Jr.

I recently came across this limited edition sketch hardcover version of a slim graphic novel by Warren Ellis that was published by Avatar in 2011.  It was pretty inexpensive, and I usually love Ellis's more self-contained work, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Atmospherics is a strange story.  A woman, Bridget, is the only survivor from the small town of Helen, where everyone else has been horribly mutilated.  The entire story is told from the perspective of a man who is interrogating her in a room somewhere after the events have played out.

The reader learns very early on that nothing is right with the scenario we are seeing.  Bridget claims that aliens cut up the entire town, except for her, but she does not agree with her interrogator around simple issues such as whether she walked or drove out of the town.

As the story unfolds, Bridget is accused of driving over some FBI agents, possibly having a rare, homicidal sensitivity to heroin, and questions arise over whether she is being interviewed in a hospital or police station.

Ellis does his usual thing, shifting the reader's understanding of just what is going on nicely.  The truth, of course, is stranger than anything presented so far.

This is a very quick read, and it works.  Meyer's paintings tell the story nicely, without being too flashy.  I liked it when Avatar used to come out with stuff like this more often.

A Sailor's Story Book Two: Winds, Dreams, and Dragons

by Sam Glanzman

I read the first of Sam Glanzman's A Sailor's Story a while ago, and wanted to see how the second volume compared.

Glanzman served on the USS Stevens during the Second World War, and as such, saw a fair amount of action on the Pacific, including surviving kamikaze attacks.

Like with the first book, Glanzman takes an episodic approach to the war, sharing anecdotes and taking time to teach the reader about the ship's various weaponry.  There aren't really any themes that he explores, and aside from a recurring bit about his difficulty finding a quiet place to sleep under the stars, no real narrative progression.

What the reader does get is a good sense of both the monotony and terror of life on a Destroyer while the War was going on.  Glanzman's art is capable without ever being flashy, and holds the reader's attention.

There are some strange end pages where black and white battle scenes are liberally splashed with flat red ink, that look pretty dated now.  Aside from that, this is a great document.

I know that there is a new publication of both of Glanzman's graphic novels, and I would be curious to see if they have updated the colouring or left the book as it was originally published.

Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash

by Dave McKean

I've long held an interest in the First World War, and spent a lot of time studying the ways in which it was portrayed in, and shaped, art while I was in university.  I'm not all that familiar with the British artist Paul Nash, however.  Still, the news that Dave McKean, of Sandman, Signal to Noise, Violent Cases, and Cages fame (also he did this book called Arkham Asylum you might have heard of), got me pretty excited.

Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash is, first and foremost, an absolutely beautiful book.  McKean takes his usual multi-faceted approach to it, employing a variety of painting and drawing techniques to tell his equally multi-faceted story.

McKean explores Nash's war experiences and mind-state through his dreams, which tend to feature a black dog.  The story jumps around in time and location, leaving the reader to piece together much of it for him or herself.

McKean does a terrific job of capturing the strangeness of the first industrial-scale war.  Nash narrowly avoids sniper bullets in one instance, and in another, is able to have a calm conversation with his brother in a underground bunker while a barrage falls outside them.

Coming away from this book, I'm not sure that I learned a whole lot more about Nash, but my esteem for McKean's art has grown.  This oversized volume is really lovely, and well worth owning.

Blacksad: Amarillo

Written by Juan Díaz Canales
Art by Juanjo Guarnido

The Spanish Blacksadcomics are a real visual treat.  Artist Juanjo Guarnido is absolutely incredible, in the way that he combines a nostalgic eye for mid-twentieth century architecture with incredibly realistic anthropomorphized people.  Each page is a wonder to behold.

In this third Blacksad story, our hero finds himself broke in New Orleans, without enough money to get home.  He refuses a loan from Weekly, who is flying back to New York, and instead lucks into a job driving a car to Texas for a wealthy man.

As Blacksad's story begins to unfold, it crosses paths with that of two beatnik writers, stand-ins for Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, who steal the car, setting John on their path.

This story is highly dependent on coincidence, as the FBI agents from the first Blacksad story get in on the chase after Lowell (the Kerouac stand-in) busts up a mailbox, a federal crime.  This tale involves a game of William Tell that leads to actual murder (I love seeing William Burroughs portrayed as a genteel flamingo), another murder at a circus, a laughing hyena lawyer, hidden identities, car chases, and a train scene.

This is a very entertaining read, which is elevated by the power of its art.  I'm not sure if any other Blacksad books have been published in Spain, but if there are more, I hope Dark Horse translates them soon.

Odd note:  I was surprised to see that legendary comics artist Neal Adams is one of the translators for this book.