Bad Medicine #5

Written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir
Art by Christopher Mitten

I'm not sure what's going on with this series.  It was launched as an on-going, and the second issue ended with a scene in South America that was used to set up an upcoming story, but which has not been addressed yet.  The thing is, there haven't been any new issues solicited past this one, and I'm not sure if the book is taking a hiatus, or if this is the end of it.

Bad Medicine is a good comic.  It chronicles the adventures of a loosely-organized group of scientists, doctors, and a police officer, who are being sent by the CDC to investigate occurrences of 'bad medicine'.  This arc involves a werewolf outbreak in a remote Maine town.

This issue finishes that arc, and does it quite well.  Dr. Horne has been the most interesting character in this series, and he arrives at a new point in his character arc this issue as he addresses some of his personal weaknesses in order to solve the current problem.

DeFilippis and Weir are strong writers of character, and they continue to put those strengths to good use with this series.  I would like to read more Bad Medicine, and so hope that the series is continuing.

Bad Medicine #4

Written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir
Art by Christopher Mitten

Increasingly we hear the phrase 'TV good' being used to describe some comics.  It's sometimes hard to know how to take that - is a book that is 'TV good' good, or is there something a little more backhanded about the compliment?  TV is rarely good, we know that.  Most shows simply grab our attention for a short while, providing diversion and entertainment.  Good shows are the ones you set your PVR for, and the great ones are so rare, you end up talking about them a lot with friends and/or co-workers.

'TV good' comics though?  They are decent, solid reads that can easily be imagined as a TV series.  Bad Medicine falls squarely into that category, being a little bit X-Files, a little bit House, and showing strong, character-based writing, but doesn't quite nail it the way you would hope.

This issue continues the new CDC's extranormal investigative divisions investigation into a werewolf incident in Maine.  The group has concentrated its attention on an odd small town that the werewolf is thought to come from, while the original police officer who dealt with the attack, and the doctor that examined the victim, continue to search for the missing young girl.  Stuff happens, making us think that they lycanthropy is spreading, and that this little town holds the kind of secrets that we, as experienced TV watchers, figured out ages ago.

I do like the characters in this book, especially the combative and prickly doctors.  Christopher Mitten's art is unfortunately difficult to follow in places, but that has always been my complaint about his work - I thought the fact that this series was in colour would make it easier to understand, but that's not always the case.  Still, I'm enjoying Bad Medicine, and were it a show on TV, I would be setting my PVR to make sure I didn't miss an episode.

Bad Medicine #3

Written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir
Art by Christopher Mitten

Bad Medicine uses this issue to establish the future and direction of this new series.  The first two issues introduced a number of characters with varying backgrounds - a New York detective, a disgraced doctor who has travelled the world learning about alternative healing, and two CDC doctors, one nice and enthusiastic, the other crusty - and had them work together on a case involving an invisible man.

With this issue, a reason is given for this group to get back together when a werewolf is shot and killed in Maine, before turning into a young man who appears normal.  There is evidence of some sort of virus in the man's system, and so this group, more or less under the control of Dr. Horne, is dispatched to investigate.

They are led to a very small town, which seems like a very strange place, in that way that small towns are always strange places in these types of comics.  The plot might be a little predictable in this comic, but the writers excel at strong character work, and that's what makes this a successful comic.  Dr. Horne is a difficult character to pull off - his guilt at having caused a patient's death has led to him spending six years talking to her, and she has taught him about his weaknesses and limitations.  Dr. Teague, the crusty CDC doctor, is very similar to him, and for that reason, he seems to dislike him the most.

I think it's interesting that the last issue ended with scenes set somewhere in Brazil (I believe - I don't have the book in front of me), and I thought they were setting up the next storyline.  I guess that story will be addressed after this werewolf one.  This book is following a very TV-friendly pattern, but it's working for me.

Bad Medicine #2

Written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir
Art by Christopher Mitten

When this new series began (as part of Free Comic Book Day), I thought it was going to be a mini-series dealing with the investigation into a crazed doctor who has made himself invisible.  I was more than a little surprised when that story resolved itself in this issue, followed by an epilogue that set up some sort of story involving a group of people turned cannibal in Brazil, presumably by a disease.

I guess that the rather rag-tag group assembled in this series so far - a pair of doctors from the CDC, a disgraced doctor turned student of alternative medicines, and a New York detective - are somehow going to start solving medical mysteries together.  It's not a bad premise for a television show, so it will be interesting to see how it works in comics.

So far, this series is working, based on DeFilippis and Weir's ability to craft strong characters.  I particularly like the rather odd Doctor Horne, who is constantly sneaking off to talk to the ghost of the patient he killed. 

This creative team works very well together, so I will stay on board this title simply out of my faith in them, but I do question how this concept will hold up over a long stretch of time, if this is indeed an ongoing series. 

Bad Medicine #1

Written by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir and Antony Johnston
Art by Christopher Mitten

Of all the publishers that participate in Free Comic Book Day, I think it's Oni Press that has best figured out how to make the day a viable one.  Two years ago, they used FCBD to debut their series The Sixth Gun, guaranteeing that unique and wonderful series a much wider audience than it would have gotten otherwise.  Last year, they did the same thing for Spontaneous, a terrific mini-series about spontaneous human combustion.  I probably would have picked up both of these comics anyway, but I appreciated being given the opportunity to sample the series for free in a meaningful way (instead of just being given a couple of story pages and some character sketches).

This year, they've done the same thing, with the first issue of Bad Medicine, a new mini-series by the team of Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, and Christopher Mitten.  DeFilippis and Weir have written a few graphic novels together, and are probably still best known for their very good revitalization of the New Mutants a ways back.  Christopher Mitten has worked with them before on Past Lies and The Tomb, as well as on the long-running Oni series Wasteland with Antony Johnston.

Bad Medicine is a medical thriller.  A corpse is discovered in a scientific laboratory, and it appears to have been decapitated.  Soon though, it is discovered that the victim's head is intact and attached to the body, it's just invisible. As you can imagine, this leads to all sorts of problems for the detective on the case, Joely Huffman.  She has few leads, except for the name of a doctor who left the profession five years ago, after causing the death of one of his patients.  He has spent these five years on a 'walkabout', researching alternative and bizarre approaches to healing.  He has something to do with all of this, and is eager to help.  As well, there is an pair of CDC scientists involved, who have a bit of a love/hate relationship going on.

There is plenty to like here, as DeFilippis and Weir lay down the groundwork for their series.  Mitten's art is always nice, and is always much easier to follow in colour.  Wisely, Oni have solicited the next issue of this series for next month (previously, they waited until after FCBD to continue their series, leaving a large gap between issues that may not have capitalized on their wider audiences).

This issue also has a Wasteland short by Antony Johnston and Mitten.  It appears to be set either just after the current storyline, or before Micheal and Abi ran in to the Dog Tribe a ways back, as it has the two of them traveling together and finding an injured man in a ravine.  It's a bleak story, but it helps to demonstrate the aesthetic of this wonderful series.

Maria's Wedding

Written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir
Art by Jose Garibaldi

This is a charming little read that nicely showcases the characterization talents of DeFilippis and Weir.

Frankie Pirelli Jr is in town for one day, to attend his cousin Maria's wedding. Frankie and Maria are both Pirellis, a huge Italian family that is like huge Italian families everywhere. They love their celebrations, are centred around an aging matriarch, and have their fair share of points of contention and rivalries.

Much of the drama in this book comes not from Maria's wedding, but from Frankie's brother's wedding to another man a year previous. This union split the family, and now at Maria's wedding, expectations are high that Frankie, who is known for speaking his mind, is likely to make a scene.

The writers fit a lot of characters into this story, and they mostly all read as individuals. They are aided in this by Garibaldi, who has the difficult task of drawing a bunch of people who have to look like they are all related, and still be recognizable. It is a task he pulls of quite well.

This story reads like it might have been produced as a treatment for a film, and a fine film it would be. It's a light, quick read, but I enjoyed it. It's quite different from the type of stories that usually get told, even in indie comics.

Past Lies

Written by Christina Weir and Nunzio DeFilippis
Art by Christopher Mitten

This is another one of my $1.99 finds at a terrific used bookstore, which lately seems to be the place to go for inexpensive Oni books of a few years ago.

The story is mostly a conventional PI/murder mystery type of thing, with a couple of twists. One twist is that the Investigator, Amy Devlin, is a young girl straight out of college and very new at the business. The other twist is that her client has hired her to solve the murder of his past life. Tim Gilbraight is the reincarnation of Trevor Schalk, a Howard Hughes type who was murdered twenty-five years prior, and whose murder remains unsolved.

It's an interesting concept, and Weir and DeFilippis dive right into it. It does elevate the material, and makes for interesting reading as Devlin works this very very cold case. The cast of characters that make up the Schalk family and their friends is an interesting one, and the book contains a lot of nice character work.

The art by Christopher Mitten is a lot cleaner than his more recent Wasteland work, but also is lacking the dynamics of that series.

This is a very decent read. With the exception of the porn-obsessed brother and a few objectionable phrases, this would have made a good all-ages book, which I think is a market that Oni could easily tap into with this type of work. I've mentioned this before, but I really would like to see Oni publish more books like this.

The Tomb

Written by Christina Weir and Nunzio DeFilippis
Art by Christopher Mitten

This is an exciting story about love, greed, and the infamous 'curse' Howard Carter discovered in opening King Tut's tomb.

Weir and DeFilippis write this story about Jessica Parrish, an archeologist in the Indiana Jones/Lara Croft vein, who has been discredited after her efforts to stop looters in Iraq backfire. She is contacted by a senator to explore a mysterious house that had belonged to Mathias Fowler, another archeologist who had been present at Carter's dig and who looted that tomb of powerful mystical objects. Along with Parrish is a rather large group of people (in true horror story fashion, the group starts shrinking pretty quickly), including a reporter who has fallen from grace and now writes for a tabloid.

The story quickly falls into conventional haunted-house tropes, but is rescued from total cliche by the strength of the characters involved. Both Parrish and Kelleher, the reporter, are joined by former lovers, adding a more adult dimension to the story, as they are forced to face their own obstinancy and obsession with their jobs.

Mitten's art here is quite different from his work on Wasteland. It's much cleaner, and the action is easier to follow, but his characters tend to all look the same, but for their clothing and hair. At times, I had to check to figure out who was speaking.

This is a good read, but I feel that Oni missed its target audience by including some swearing and rating it 16+ - I think this book would appeal much more to younger teens.

Three Strikes

Written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir
Art by Brian Hurtt
I wish Oni made more titles like this. This is a deceptively straight-forward story about a college kid named Rey who gets picked up for shop-lifting a birthday present for his girlfriend, and who, because he has two comparatively minor priors from when he was younger, is now looking at twenty-two years in prison, under California's 'three strikes' rules. That he is a decent kid from a good home is never taken into consideration.

Three Strikes is also about Noah, a bail enforcement officer (never bounty hunter) and ex-cop who has difficulty relating to people, especially his teenage daughter, who is staying with him while his ex-wife is on a cruise.

Rey skips town, not knowing what else to do, and Noah pursues him. What follows is a rare story where the reader can't decide who he's rooting for, and both protagonists become fully-fleshed characters that the reader begins to care for, especially as circumstances push Rey into becoming increasingly desperate as he perception of his options narrow.

DeFilippis and Weir did a fantastic job developing their new-generation New Mutants characters at Marvel (until they were replaced on the book), and their skills at characterization are evident here as well. I don't understand why these two don't have a higher profile in the comics industry. Hurtt's art is expressive and perfectly matched to the story, much like his work in Queen and Country.

What really makes this graphic novel stand out is the way in which it criticizes the justice system without being preachy or heavy-handed. The creators simply present their tale, and leave it to the reader to come to their own conclusions. This story would make an excellent movie.