American Splendor: Another Day

Written by Harvey Pekar
Art by Ho Che Anderson, Zachary Baldus, Hilary Barta, Greg Budgett, Gary Dumm, Eddie Campbell, Richard Corben, Hunt Emerson, Bob Fingerman, Rick Geary, Dean Haspiel, Gibert Hernandez, Leonardo Manco, Josh Neufeld, Chris Samnee, Ty Templeton, Steve Vance, Chris Weston, and Chandler Wood

This is the first that I've read any of the late Harvey Pekar's autobiographical comics series American Splendor, and I was surprised by two things.  The first is the caliber of artist involved in this anthology project.  Look over the list above - there are some incredible artists contributing here.  What I enjoyed most about that is seeing the different ways in which they draw Harvey.  He's always recognizable, but each artist plays with his image subtly, emphasizing different aspects of his personality or appearance.  I think Richard Corben's take on him was the furthest from the mark, but it was still very cool to see how he went about it.  I love Chris Weston's contribution, and am always up for some Ty Templeton.

The second thing that surprised me was the utter aimlessness of the writing.  I expected that Pekar's stories would be small, slice of life things, built around the struggles of everyday life.  What I didn't expect was that they would be so dull in their depiction of the quotidian.  A typical story in this collection has Harvey get up in the morning, go to the bank, and then go to the pharmacy to get his prescription filled.  When it isn't ready, he has to go to the HMO.  End of story.  There is no observation about life, or lesson learned; that's just it.

Another good example has him call over the neighbour to help him fix the toilet.  Then he feels gratitude.  That's it.  There's another toilet-fixing story earlier in the book, but at least in that one, we can revel in Harvey's victory.  Better stories involve conflict with his foster daughter, and there is one in which he remembers hurting a friend as a child.  These fit better into the autobiographical mode.  I know that the minute attention to boring detail was Pekar's thing; it just doesn't make for compelling reading.  Thankfully, the art is really good.

Enemy Ace: War in Heaven

Written by Garth Ennis and Robert Kanighar
Art by Chris Weston, Christian Alamy, Russ Heath, and Joe Kubert

This is pretty much exactly what you would expect from a Garth Ennis-written update of a classic DC war hero.  As the Second World War continues, and as Germany starts losing skilled pilots, an old friend brings WWI vet Hans von Hammer, the Enemy Ace, out of retirement and into the cockpit of modern fighter planes.

What makes this story work is the tension between von Hammer and his fellow officer, a Nazi functionary.  Von Hammer is an aristocratic German who is fighting out of a sense of duty to his country, but he has no patience for or interest in Nazi ideology.  There are some very funny scenes as the two square off, but since von Hammer is such an asset to his forces, there is little that can be done about him.

The artists, Weston and Alamy on the first half of the story, and Heath on the second, do an excellent job of conveying the excitement and drama of high altitude dog fighting, and you can tell they had a great time drawing all of these old planes.

Included in this book is a reprint of a classic Kanigher and Kubert Enemy Ace story from the 50s.  It's interesting to look back at the character's roots, and Kubert's work is always a treat.

War Story: Johann's Tiger

Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Chris Weston and Gary Erskine
As much as I've enjoyed a lot of Garth Ennis's work, especially his war comics, I haven't read most of his War Story comics for Vertigo. When the chance to grab a few of them for a ridiculously low price came along, I figured it was time to fix that.

This volume is all about a German Oberstleutnant and his Tiger crew, who have abandoned their posts during the tail end of the Russian campaign, with the intention of avoiding Russian forces and surrendering to the Germans.

Johann Kliest, the title German, was a real bastard in the early days of the war, before having an epiphany and realizing how wrong he was to mistreat people as he did. Now, in a quest for redemption, he hopes to rescue his tank crew, who he frequently refers to as 'orphans' that have been left in his care.

Of course, this is a Garth Ennis story, so such sentimentality has no hope of finding success. The art by Weston and Erskine is suitably gritty and grim, and the comic reads beautifully. It's hard to make tank battles seem suspenseful in the comics medium, but they succeed here.

Lucifer Volume 1: Devil in the Gateway

Written by Mike Carey
Art by Scott Hampton, Chris Weston, James Hodgkins, Warren Pleece and Dean Ormston

When "Lucifer" began, I remember thinking to myself that it was just an attempt to cash in on The Sandman, and having not been familiar with Mike Carey, I never even gave it a look. More recently, having enjoyed "Crossing Midnight", "Unwritten", and some of Carey's other work, I decided it was time to go back and give this title a shot.

The first volume is made up of the original three-issue mini-series, the first three-issue arc of the main title, and a one-off story. Each tale has different artists, although all three stories fit nicely into the usual styles one sees with Vertigo books.

In the first arc, Lucifer is pressed into the service of Heaven, to track down and deal with an 'old' god, who is granting wishes of a dangerous nature. This causes him to make a trip back to Hell, more to establish the series than for any real story purpose, before he goes on a pilgrimage of sorts with a half-Indian girl. The story reads well, and definitely does its job of establishing Lucifer as a right bastard.

In the second arc, he goes to Germany to consult with a living deck of Tarot cards kept under lock and key by a fellow angel, who also collects books. He keeps a shabby used bookstore, which is really a library of Borgesian proportions. This arc also features (because it's set in Germany) a gay Pakistani, neo-Nazis, and cabaret performers. I'm not sure where the beer wenches were - maybe they'll be in the sequel. This was a good story too, and Carey uses it to preview, by way of talking Tarot divination, much of what I assume will come in future volumes.

The final story is the best in the book. In it, a young girl with various mystical abilities attempts to solve the mystery of her friend's murder, accompanied by the spirit of that friend. That the girl meets with Lucifer is not much of a surprise. This story, more than any other, reminded me of those odd moments in Gaiman's "Sandman" where some character would end up meeting Morpheus only towards the end of their story, thereby explaining why the story was in the book in the first place.

I am intrigued by Carey's take on this character, and will continue to work through the series.