Black Metal

Written by Rick Spears
Art by Chuck BB

I had a feeling when this graphic novel came out back in 2007 that it wasn't really my thing, but I usually like Rick Spears's work, and I'm tired of waiting for Pirates of Coney Island to end (if it ever will - any news on this?), so I thought I'd give it a chance.

Black Metal is about the Stronghand twins - Shawn and Sam - a pair of orphaned junior high misfits who speak in long, faux-Elizabethan sentences and listen to black metal music.

After getting expelled from yet another school, they listen to a record by a band named Frost Axe, and learn that they are the resurrected spirit of a demon named the Roth, yet split into two bodies.  This means that they have to fight their enemy Von Char, another demon.  To do this, they have a giant sword called the Sword of Atoll.  So they fight.

That's about all there is to this story.  It approaches funny in places, but it just feels like stuff we've read before.  BB's art is suited to this type of story - his goth manga approach works for this kind of thing.  I see that there is supposed to be a second volume, but I guess it's in the same place that the final issues of Pirates of Coney Island (which is worth picking up even though it's not finished) are.

Filler

Written by Rick Spears
Art by Rob G

This quick little graphic novel is basically Spears and G doing Sin City.  The book is in black, white and lurid red, and tells a noiresque story of a man who doesn't really matter (in his own estimation) who lets himself get sucked into some major drama involving a prostitute and her pimp.

John Dough (ok - that's a little heavy-handed) makes his money by being a police line-up filler - one of the guys that fill in the other four spots on the line-up - and by selling his blood.  He's about as anonymous as you can get.  One day, while having a smoke outside the station, he meets a prostitute that has been getting smacked around by her pimp.  She seduces him, and he decides to argue her case with the pimp.  Predictably, things start to go seriously wrong at this point, and Dough finds himself in the middle of a pretty sticky situation.

As is frequent in Spears's work, the writing is quite intelligent.  He's playing in a well-established genre, but he manages to do something pretty unique on the last page.  Much of the story is told in large silent panels that help to establish Dough as a quiet everyman and nobody at the same time.

Rob G is a good artist.  This is a pretty minimalist book, and his style serves that aesthetic quite well.  It's much more stripped down than his more recent work, like on the duo's wonderful Repo.  These two work very well together.  I liked Repo a great deal, and see their Teenagers from Mars as a masterpiece.  It's true that Dead West didn't work for me, but that is their only misstep in my eyes.

Dead West

Written by Rick Spears
Art by Rob G

I've looked forward to reading this graphic novel for quite some time, especially after reading the pair's Repo and Teenagers From Mars, both of which are frenetic and exciting comics. This came as more of a disappointment, I think, because of my level of expectation. I'm not saying it's a bad comic, just that the individual elements do not coalesce into a particularly good comic.

The set-up is a cool one. The survivor of an American massacre of an Aboriginal tribe brings his people back as zombies to attack the town that was built on their ancestral land in 'The Old West'. To my knowledge, this was the first Western zombie comic.

For zombie comics to work though, you have to care about the people that are trying to survive, and that's where this book falls down. My sympathy was more with the Aboriginals than any other character in the book. I felt that the survivor was the most developed character here. The others were either slapped together stereotypes (the likable whore, the town sheriff, the Clint Eastwood/Jonah Hex figure) or were complete ciphers (the military men, the guy being chased by Jonah Hexwood). It was very difficult to care about anything that was happening.

Also confusing matters was G's artwork. While some pages look fantastic, often the action is confusing, and it was hard to tell one character from another. The creative pair get marks for trying, but this whole book came off as kind of amateurish. I much preferred Teenagers From Mars.

Immortal Weapons #3

Written by Rick Spears
Art by Tim Green II

When Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction introduced the various Immortal Weapons of the different Capital Cities of Heaven in their excellent run on The Immortal Iron Fist, I remember thinking that there was a lot of story potential there. I'm really glad to see that Marvel is taking the time to mine some of that potential, and that they are using such a wide variety of creators to do it with.

The previous issues of this title have been good and okay respectively, but this month's issue is excellent. Rick Spears has a talent for writing about lost, waify kids. His amazing (and sadly unfinished) Pirates of Coney Island is a good example, as is Teenagers From Mars. Tim Green is an excellent artist - his work on Marvel's Star-Lord mini-series a couple of years ago was a nice surprise, and I've been trying to follow his work ever since.

These two creators work well together. This issue of Immortal Weapons focuses on Dog Brother #1, a swordsman who travels with a pack of dogs, rescuing children from slavery or dangerous lives. The story is set in Hong Kong in 1841, where Sihing and Sidai are living on the streets, trying to avoid beatings and scrounge enough food to get by. Sihing is schooling Sidai, and attempting to protect him. This part of the story reminded me of Tekkonkinkreet (also reminding me that I need to read that some day). Later, the friends get caught up in the opium trade, and have still farther to fall before Dog Brother #1 will come for them.

Spears does a great job of building up these characters in a short span of time, and uses almost every scene to underscore Sihing's strength and faith. While this comic has its share of novel and gory kung-fu moves ("The Judgement of Solomon (With Assistance)" is brilliant), it has a lot of heart too.

24 Seven

This anthology has a lot of my favourite creators as contributors: Spears, Lolos, Moon, Ba, Remender, Azaceta, Dalrymple, Maleev, Moore, Graham, Stokoe, Zezelj, Oeming, Cloonan, Canete, Fraction, and Irving are the ones that I admire the most.

That said, I'm not sure how well this anthology worked for me. The problem is with the central conceit of the NYC Mech series: that New York is populated by robots, and that their lives are the same as regular peoples'. This opens the door to regular stories being told, just some of the people look like robots, and others look like big action figures.

It seems like very few of the creators used the opportunity to make the stories more visually interesting because of the robot angle. Maleev's story about a blind robot comes to mind.

Even still, there are some nice stories here, and this is an entertaining book.