Creator-Owned Comics #8

Written by Steve Niles, Darwyn Cooke, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Justin Gray
Art by Scott Morse, Darwyn Cooke, and Jerry Lando

I would have thought that perhaps the time had come for a book like Creator-Owned Heroes, but seeing as this is the series's last issue, I guess it hadn't.  It's easy, and very tempting, to play armchair quarterback and talk about why this book didn't last (in fact, Jimmy Pamiotti mentions how many websites seemed to revel in doing that when the news of the cancellation was announced), so I'm going to refrain from that sort of thing.

Instead, I'd like to focus on how much this book was starting to do correctly.  Each issue was anchored by two serials, one written by Steve Niles and the other by Palmiotti and Justin Gray.  These varied in quality (something's never really clicked for me in Niles's writing), but they were consistently non-traditional.  Recently, Darwyn Cooke was added to the mix, and given space for his own stories month after month, which really raised my interest in the book.  As well, the magazine-content had become much more focused on independent and creator-owned comics, which was a much better fit for the title than say, another interview with Jimmy Palmiotti's personal trainer (which really did appear in an early issue).

As for this list issue, it closes out the series in style.  Steve Niles finishes off his 'Meatbag' story in a completely unexpected way.  The first chapter, drawn by the incredible Scott Morse, was a pretty standard-seeming gumshoe kind of thing, but this chapter takes the story into some otherworldly territory, and that genuinely surprised me.

Darwyn Cooke had to abandon a three-part story because of the cancellation (although I hope we get to see it as a one-shot some day soon), and so instead included a very personal little story he'd made for the woman he recently married.  It's sweet.

Palmiotti and Gray closed off their 'Killswitch' story in a way I wouldn't have expected, as Brandon tracks down the person who tried to kill him, only to trick her into falling in love with him and marrying him (which I'm sure many would say is greater revenge than murder).  There's a lot of nudity in this chapter, as if the writers were enjoying the freedom cancellation brings.

In closing, I think I'm going to miss this book more for the potential that it had than what it ever actually was.  I was really looking forward to new monthly work by Cooke that didn't feel amoral (like his Before Watchmen work that I've avoided), and with artists like Morse joining the stable, to see who else may have been published here.  Palmiotti and Gray are always entertaining writers, and I wanted to see where they would have journeyed on a book that allowed this much freedom.  I do want to say that I admire all of these creators for trying something new.

Creator-Owned Heroes #7

Written by Darwyn Cooke, Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, Steve Niles, Jeffrey Burandt, Seth Kushner, Chris Miskiewicz, and Dean Haspiel
Art by Darwyn Cooke, Jerry Lando, Scott Morse, Dean Haspiel, and Seth Kushner

With the news breaking this week that Creator-Owned Heroes, the comics anthology/self-publishing 'zine being produced by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, Steve Niles, and a group of other people being canceled next month despite the ninth issue already being solicited, it's hard not to read this new (now penultimate) issue without a tinge of sadness.

I've been a little critical of this title in the past, finding its non-comics content amateurish, self-serving, and ultimately uninteresting, but I have been supportive of the goal of the book - to champion creator-owned work.

The saddest part of the cancellation is that the folks involved in this book have really begun to fine-tune what this book does.  They've added more creators (most notably Darwyn Cooke), and have given over more of the book's space to comics pages.  Also, instead of interviewing people like Jimmy Palmiotti's personal trainer, or cosplayers, they've focused the editorial content on creating creator-owned comics, offering advice to those starting out, and interviewing independent legends like Evan Dorkin.  Still, I buy this for the comics, so let's talk about those.

Darwyn Cooke's 'The Deadly Book' is a terrific tale, about a book that kills anyone who reads it, and thief who tries to steal it from his collector grandfather.  The story combines Borgesian conceits with the type of crime comic that Cooke does so well, and it tells a complete story in a short number of pages.  It's great.

Palmiotti, Gray, and Jerry Lando's 'Killswitch' story continues in fine form, as we learn a lot more about the title character and his upbringing, just as the collected mass of the world's assassin community come gunning for him.  I like Palmiotti and Gray on these types of stories best.

I don't always care for Steve Niles's writing, but when you pair him with artist Scott Morse, I'm going to be there for it.  Their new story, 'Meatbag' is about a private investigator who finds his contracted help ripped to ribbons (although his clothes are perfectly intact) on what was supposed to be a routine cheating wife case.  Morse paints this book in full-page panels that are gorgeous.

This issue also has a couple of shorter pieces.  'Blood and Brains', written by newcomer Jeffrey Burandt and pencilled by Dean Haspiel, shows us what happens when two fan-favourite horror concepts collides.  'The Complex' is a fumetti-style story about a video jockey who uses holograms and drugs to seduce women; I think it's a preview of a longer piece, but there is no explanation provided.

It is sad that as the quality of this book increases, it's publication is set to finish.  I believe there is a place for a book like this, and hope that something else will come along.

Creator-Owned Heroes #6

Written by Darwyn Cooke, Steve Niles, Jay Russell, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Justin Gray
Art by Darwyn Cooke, Andrew Ritchie, and Jerry Lando

I've complained a few times that Creator-Owned Heroes, the comics 'magazine' put out by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Steve Niles, which is designed to showcase and promote the creator-owned cause, needed more comics and less second-rate editorial content.  Perhaps someone was listening...

This issue debuts a new section, which will feature the work of Darwyn Cooke.  Cooke is best known for work like The New Frontier, and now Before Watchmen, as well as his excellent adaptations of the Parker novels.  Now, Cooke is going to begin offering up some of his own, new creations in this space.  That is something to be excited about.  For this issue, he reprints a piece he did a few years ago (published in the Free Comic Book Day book put together at The Beguiling, the incredible comics store where I shop).  The piece is a tribute to Alex Toth, although, with its architectural theme, it could almost be read as being about Gaudi.

The rest of this issue is pretty decent.  Palmiotti and Gray's new serial, 'Killswitch', is an engaging read about a hitman who is now himself being chased.  It's rather standard, but the writers toss in a few interesting twists, and lots of violence, to keep things moving.

Steve Niles, Jay Russell, and Andrew Ritchie's 'Black Sparrow', which concludes here, ends with a nice little twist that almost redeems what has been a clumsy attempt at American Gothic horror.

In the backmatter, there is some improvement, as there is a nice interview with Bernie Wrightson about his Frankenstein work, as well as a page wherein the various creators recommend some good comics.  The rest of the material, save for a couple of pages by or about Cooke, still are pretty skippable.

To end on a positive note, though, Darwyn Cooke!  And next month, Scott Morse!

Creator-Owned Heroes #1

Written by Steve Niles, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Justin Gray
Art by Kevin Mellon and Phil Noto

Before even discussing this book, I think we should take a moment to absorb the notion that this new series, so dedicated to creators' rights to own their own comics that they gave it the clunky name Creator-Owned Heroes, debuted on the same day as the first of DC's Before Watchmen comics.  Intentional?  Coincidentally awesome?  It's all good.

This is perhaps an example of the concept being better than the product, but I'm still relatively happy to plunk down $4 for something like this.  This is a thick issue, which opens with two 11-page comics, and is followed by some magazine-style backmatter.

The first series is American Muscle, by Niles and Mellon.  I'm not usually a big Steve Niles fan, but I have liked some of his books, and I enjoyed Mellon's recent work on Heart.  This series is about a group of friends crossing a post-Apocalyptic America in classic cars, aiming for the West Coast.  Niles explains that the catastrophe that finally more or less wiped out humanity was internal, involving the failure of our immune systems.  It's a bleak little tale that reads like an homage to B-movies about cars.  It's cool.

The second comic is by Palmiotti, Gray, and Noto, and involves some sort of assassin called a Trigger Girl.  We follow this one as she is awoken from some sort of pod, and sent on a mission that involves a US senator on an airplane, and two fighter jets.  It's good, but it doesn't do much more than set the tone for what is to follow.

The backmatter, which includes an interview with Neil Gaiman, is pretty much all forgettable.  Its clear that Palmiotti and company haven't fully decided where they're going with this title, and that's fine, but everything in the back half of this book felt very self-serving.  I like to support creator-owned work, but the concept is not all that new or groundbreaking, and probably shouldn't be discussed as such.

Anyway, this is a book worth supporting.  The two strips are not bad, and together they still make up more content than you would get from a $4 Marvel comic, even if you don't read the stuff at the back.

Mystery Society #1-5

Written by Steve Niles
Art by Fiona Staples

I picked up the five issues that made up this 2010 mini-series for a good price, mostly because I like Fiona Staples's artwork.  It's a fun series, if not particularly original or memorable.

Mystery Society of the title is being operated by Nick and Anastasia Mystery, former independent bookstore owners who won big in the lottery, and decided to begin to investigate government cover-ups and occult happenings.  When the series opens, Nick is in the process of breaking in to Area 51 in the hopes of rescuing a pair of twin African American girls with mental abilities who have been held captive in suspended animation since the 1960s.  This involves fighting an aging general in a giant battlesuit, and that in turn leads to some problems for the fledgling society.

Over the course of the five issues, they gain two more members - the brain of Jules Verne now inhabiting a robot, and the Secret Skull, a masked undead woman.  I feel like the format for this team book was heavily influenced by The Umbrella Academy, only without the madcap unpredictability of that title.

As I've said, this is an enjoyable series, made all the more so because of Staples's very nice art, but it never really moves beyond the limitations of the genre.  The B-plot concerns the Skull and Verne searching for the missing skull of Edgar Allan Poe, and their prime suspect in its theft's name is Culprit, and it turns out that he is the thief.  I never quite got the sense that this is to be read as a complete comedy, but then there were these moments that are more suitable for a Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League reunion.  I can see why there hasn't been a sequel...

Case Files: Sam & Twitch #13: Cops & Robbers

Written by Steve Niles and Todd McFarlane
Art by Paul Lee

This issue had a nice little done-in-one inventory story written by Steve Niles and series creator Todd McFarlane.  Neither of these writers are people I'm usually too fond of (I have given Niles a ton of chances, but he always seems to come up short on executing some truly excellent concepts), but this story worked quite well.

Sam gets a mysterious phone call one day, and has to go to prison to see his brother, who we never knew he had.  It seems that, while Sam took the right path in life, his brother always ended up making the wrong choices, and landed himself in a lifetime of incarceration and trouble with the law.

This story, about the relationship of brothers and the guilt they carry for each other's failings has a number of flashbacks to childhood, and helps to develop Sam's character even further.  It's a good story, and it has the same terrific artwork as the last arc.

30 Days of Night: Beyond Barrow

Written by Steve Niles
Art by Bill Sienkiewicz

It's weird how I keep getting more 30 Days of Night collections, even though I'm generally unhappy with the series.  I know that the different series were really popular, and so I always assume that if I give the title another try, I'll be happy with it.  And I'm almost always proven wrong.

Here's what I've learned:  If it's a 30 Days of Night written by series creator Steve Niles, don't bother.  His writing is rushed and undeveloped, and he's really only capable of a couple of tricks, which get used over and over again.  If the book is written by someone else, like say Ben Templesmith or David Lapham, it's safe to buy.

So, knowing this, why did I buy this book?  Two reasons.  The first is that the art is by Bill Sienkiewicz.  I've been a Sienkiewicz fan since his run on New Mutants when I was a kid, and while his craft hasn't improved much since the Elektra: Assassin days, it's nice to see something new from him.  He has a few totally unreadable pages here, which is to be expected, but also some very cool images.

The second reason why I bought the book was because it was 75% off.  Good thing too, as it only contains three comics, and retails for $18.  That's $6 an issue, for anyone calculating.  Sure, there's a few pages of scripts, and some sketches, but really, what are they thinking at IDW?  I'm sure you can, with some hunting, get the original comics for a total of $3 on ebay.

As to the story?  It has a couple of nice moments, but it doesn't make sense.  Night has fallen in Barrow Alaska again, and some rich Hollywood types decide to fly in and see some vampires.  They piss off some townspeople, and then inexplicably drive off into the middle of nowhere to set up camp.  Then they get attacked by something other than vampires.  Then the book ends.  Blah blah blah.

That's it.  I swear I'm not going to buy any more of these - at least no more with Steve Niles's name attached.

30 Days of Night: Dead Space #1-3

Written by Steve Niles and Dan Wickline
Art by Milx
I've dabbled a couple of times now into the 30 Days of Night pool, and in each case I've come back with mixed feelings, except for David Lapham's awesome contribution to the line. They consistently seem to fall short of their potential, which I find frustrating.

This series is no different. The concept hooked me right away - a space shuttle mission with a vampire on board. It's a little like Aliens, except the creature can be a real character. What happens though, is that the entire crew of the shuttle is dispatched with off-camera, and the next two issues of the comic are all about the 'rescue mission' coming up to see what was going on, before they too get attacked.

It's a quickly-paced story that depends on a couple of things happening that are rather ridiculous. I'm willing to accept that vampires can survive in outer space, since I assume they don't breathe. What I can't handle is that vampires that burn up if they are exposed to sunlight on Earth would be able to happily float in orbit around the planet for a month, and never once catch a glimpse of the sun. This is never discussed in the story, and I found it made it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief (being fully aware that I'm reading a comic about vampires in space).

The characterizations in this book are handled very quickly and with little development. The one person that the authors take the time to flesh out is the astronaut that becomes a vampire, but I'm not clear how he became infected.

The art is different - it looks like it's all watercolours - but it works quite well for this type of story. I get the feeling like it might be time to abandon hope for this line, but I did pick up Templesmith's Red Snow at the same Comic-con, so I guess it gets one more chance.

30 Days of Night

Written by Steve Niles
Art by Ben Templesmith

I've come at this series rather backwards, having previously read David Lapham's wonderful mini-series, and the trade with the only so-so Matt Fraction story. I figured it was time to check this out from the beginning, and see what the original premise is.

It's a good idea. A group of vampires decide that a town in Alaska that doesn't receive sunlight for one month of the year would be a good place to be able to eat and rampage in the open, and so they go there. The local sheriff and his wife offer up the only resistance available. That's basically it.

What I've noticed about my few forays into this series, is that there is a lot of politics involved in being a vampire, and the older, more established ones will always tell the younger ones what to do. This leads to fighting, which seems to be the core of the drama for this series.

Templesmith's art is at it's messiest best, and while some pages are not particularly clear, they all carry his unique, yet Ted McKeever inspired, approach. This is a decent comic, although I'm not sure I'm in a huge rush to pick up the rest of the volumes. They'd have to be pretty inexpensive, as I don't feel like there's much here that's new.

30 Days of Night: Bloodsucker Tales

Written by Steve Niles and Matt Fraction
Art by Kody Chamberlain and Ben Templesmith

As I've said on here before, I've never really bothered with the 30 Days of Night series, and only ever bought the mini-series done by David Lapham because he's on my 'buy everything you can' list.

Well, parts of the concept interested me, so I decided to poke around through what was out there. Around the same time, I saw the solicitation for the tpb of Juarez, written by Matt Fraction (another person on my 'buy everything (non-Marvel)' list). Then, I found this on ebay, collecting both the Juarez story, and one other. Seeing as they are vastly different, I'll review them separately.

'Dead Billy Dead' is written by the series creator, and I suppose there's nothing wrong with it. It's about some guy who gets turned into a vampire, and basically falls afoul of some creepy professor. It's a good enough story I suppose, but it's not the type of thing that would ever get me into this franchise. The art is sketchy and a little hard to follow in places, but is generally serviceable.

'Juarez', on the other hand, is a mess, but a glorious mess. This is the type of Matt Fraction that I like best - where the ideas are flowing quicker than the story can handle. It's mostly about the missing girls in Juarez, and how one investigator - Lex Nova - thinks it is the work of vampires, as does the Zero Family Circus - a group of deranged vampires, looking for their lost Uncle Zero. Their stories collide, along with a faithless priest, and some Mexican whores. Again, all the elements needed for a great story.

Things don't really coalesce until the last chapter, which is really a prologue to the story. Lots of things don't make sense right until the very end, prompting the reader to turn back to the first page and start again. Things are further confused by Templesmith's art, which I always enjoy, but can't always follow.

'Juarez' made this a worthwhile purchase, and now has me interested in other writers who have dabbled in Nile's universe. 'Red Snow' is next on my to-buy list, if it's any good.

Bad Planet #6

Written by Steve Niles and Thomas Jane
Art by James Daly III and Tim Bradstreet

Well, this was a bit of a surprise. This book was solicited for last November, and I'd kind of forgotten about it. It's not the oldest thing on my pull-list (Pirates of Coney Island and Gutsville - where are you???), but the fact that the cover is by Dave Stevens gives you an idea of how long ago this series began. (This cover is more than enough reason to buy the book though - he really was a great artist).

The story has always been a weird mix between a celebrity vanity project and a straight-up B-movie with some great concepts working in the background. This issue features killer alien spider-hordes, a gigantic ax-wielding alien, a beautiful scientist in ripped clothes, a barefoot African computer genius who grew up in a slum but knows about the Smithsonian, and the science of Nikola Tesla. It's hard to balance a list of plot elements like that, and this issue feels a little rushed towards the end.

This is a fun comic. I wonder how it will read in trade form, without the 12 month lag between issues.