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.

The Wrenchies

by Farel Dalrymple

Farel Dalrymple's work can be a little inaccessible at times.  I enjoyed his Pop Gun War, but by the end of it, wasn't really sure of what it was that I had read.  His Omega: The Unknown is universally adored, but he didn't write that.

I went in to The Wrenchies a little unsure of what to expect, but came out of it with a massive appreciation of Dalyrmple's plotting and story construction, to go along with my usual enjoyment of his art and sense of design.

The Wrenchies is a multi-layered book, basically about a future where only the young are able to survive, and even they are in a constant battle with the Shadowsmen, as well as with the hostile environment the Earth has become.  The gang of kids who have built a reputation as being able to best fight off the Shadowsmen are The Wrenchies, who have named themselves after an old comic book.

This comic was written and drawn by Sherwood Presley Breadcoat, who as a young child entered a cave with his brother, did battle with demons, and then embarked on a long adolescence of being a hero, then an art student, and eventually an unhappy comics artist.  He embedded The Wrenchies #1 with a number of puzzles, to draw mystics to him.  Next door to adult Sherwood lives young Hollis, a misfit child in a bad homemade superhero costume, who has a ghost as a best friend, and who believes that his Wrenchies comic may be making him do bad things.

The narrative shifts between these different groups of characters as the book unfolds, and as we learn just how connected all of these different plotlines are.  Dalrymple blends, very successfully, a variety of genres in this graphic novel.  We get some pretty cool post-Apocalyptic action, a coming-of-age story that I'm sure a number of comics fans can relate to parts of, and some pointed commentary on the nature of the comics industry, and its influence in the world.

I found the book's shifting narrative structure, and embedded connections to different layers of the story, to be reminiscent of novels like David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.  Dalrymple's art is terrific, and I especially liked the pages where he laid out the floor plans to secret underground lairs or scientific laboratories.  There were some pages where the colouring process rendered things a little too dark or muddy, but overall, this was a beautiful and rewarding book that screams out for second and third readings so that its nuances can be completely understood.  Highly recommended.

Prophet #29

Written by Brandon Graham, Farel Dalrymple, and Andy Ristaino
Art by Farel Dalrymple and Andy Ristaino

It must be a lot of fun to write this comic.  Since Brandon Graham resurrected Rob Liefeld's god-awful comic from the 90s, each new issue has been a bit of an adventure, as Graham has introduced a wide variety of characters, settings, and strange situations.

For this issue, Graham returns to the John Prophet clone we last saw in the other issue illustrated by Farel Dalrymple.  Prophet is with a group of his clone brothers, escorting an Earth Empire Mother through space towards her home.  These Earth Mother's are powerful psychics, who control the clones.

Their route takes them through a centuries-old battlefield, and our tailed Prophet ends up being captured on a ship, where creatures control their prisoners and force them to work as slaves.  Prophet becomes involved with a group of rebels, and fights for his freedom.

Each and every page drips with creativity, as Graham and Dalrymple create a variety of races and strange creatures.  None of these are throw-aways for Graham; there's a sense that a lot of thought went into each and every story element, no matter how briefly they grace the pages of the book.

Dalrymple's work is always lovely, but I particularly like the way that colourist Joseph Bergin III's limited palette on the pages where Prophet is under mind control really accentuate Dalrymple's skills.

The back-up, by Andy Ristaino, features similar themes to the main book.  It's about a man who is the caretaker of a large colonist spaceship filled with people in suspended animation.  The ship is badly damaged, and the man has to decide what to do with his brethren.  It's a powerful little story.

Prophet #24

Written by Brandon Graham, Farel Dalrymple, and Matt Sheean
Art by Farel Dalrymple and Malachi Ward

How wonderful is this comic?  I feel like, between the last issue and this one, I have a better handle on what Brandon Graham and his collaborators intend to do with this comic.  Last month, John Prophet sent some sort of signal out across the universe to wake up the Earth Empire pod ships, and so when this comic begins, another version of John Prophet (this one has a tail!) comes out of a pod to find that the ship he's been sleeping on for who knows how long has crashed into some other ships.

For some reason, he has to cross the amalgamated vessels to the other side, spurred on by a ghostly young girl.  The rest of this issue is just like the other ones, as John goes about his journey, facing environmental threats, and needing to rely on some odd science fiction stuff, like a 'star skin' that makes him look like the X-Man Armor.  Also, there's a MODOK version of the original Prophet, who is just awesome.

What makes this comic work so well is Graham's ease with such strange situations, as he describes and explains things, but without getting into too much detail.  You know he has an explanation ready for any plot point, but doesn't feel the need to hammer that information into our heads the way many lesser writers would.

The art this month is by Farel Dalrymple, of the brilliant and surrealistic Pop Gun War and the remake of Omega: The Unknown.  Dalrymple is a gifted artist, and he makes his usual style fit more in the aesthetic that regular artist Simon Roy has established for this book.  It's a very beautiful comic.

The back-up this month does not continue the one started previously, but instead is a done-in-one European-style science fiction story by Matt Sheean and Malachi Ward.  I liked it - it would have fit nicely in a Popgun anthology.  In a lot of ways, Graham is using this book to bring back Heavy Metal, which is very cool.  This series continues to be the most exciting thing on the stands each month.

The Unexpected #1

Written by Dave Gibbons, G. Willow Wilson, Alex Grecian, Josh Dysart, Jeffrey Rotter, Mat Johnson, Joshua Hale Fialkov, Brian Wood, and Selwyn Seyfu Hinds
Art by Dave Gibbons, Robbi Rodgriguez, Jill Thompson, Farel Dalrymple, Lelio Bonaccorso, David Lapham, Rahsan Ekedal, Emily Carroll, and Denys Cowan

I really like that Vertigo has started putting out these random, slightly thematically-linked anthology books every few months, even if they are pretty expensive.  Like the last one, Strange Adventures, The Unexpected is a nice mix of stories by established Vertigo stars, and some up-and-comers.  This collection has a supernatural theme, but it's not one that is used in every story.

There is a lot to like in this book, but my favourite story is the one by Joshua Dysart and Farel Dalrymple, which tells the story of a Mexican laborer in 1950s or 60s Texas, who is accused of murdering the grandchild of his employer, although he knows the boy was killed by an ancient Aztec monster.  As with his Unknown Soldier series, Dysart makes good use of a particular culture's fears and legends, and Dalrymple's art is perfect.

I also quite enjoyed Alex Grecian (from Proof fame) and Jill Thompson's story about a female zombie who has retained enough of her faculties to use her feminine wiles as a way of attracting prey.  Dave Gibbons tells a great story of an escape artist who cheats on his wife, and Mat Johnson and David Lapham give us a deliciously twisted tale of a brother and sister trying to survive in post-apocalyptic America.

Joshua Hale Fialkov reunites with his Echoes collaborator Rahsan Ekedal for a story about a man who is recently deceased and finds himself haunting his wife.  Ekedal makes good use of layout in this story, and uses a pixelated approach to imply ghostliness.

Brian Wood and newcomer (to me) artist Emily Carrol contribute a nice short story about a woman who is raised in a post-governmental United States.  It's a similar vision to the one we've seen in Wood's DMZ, but this time he takes a nicer, gentler approach to the disintegration of a country.  It's pretty interesting, even if it ends a little abruptly.

I wanted to like G. Willow Wilson's story about dogs taking over a town, but Robbi Rodriguez's dogs were just a little too creepy and odd-looking for me.  To be fair, I think that dogs are among the hardest things to draw (check out how Dan Jurgens draws them if you need a laugh), which is why I have so much respect for Beasts of Burden.  The story 'A Most Delicate Monster' by Jeffrey Rotter and Lelio Bonaccorso (neither of whom I'm familiar with) was just a little too obvious to be successful.

Finally, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds and Denys Cowan provide a prelude to the upcoming Voodoo Child series, which really didn't work for me.  I'm not sure what it is, but I feel like they were trying to cram too much into too few pages, with the effect that I wasn't drawn into the story at all.  I'll probably give the new series a try still, because I like reading about New Orleans.

Smith's Adventures in the Supermundane

by Farel Dalrymple

Dalrymple can be an acquired taste.  He is a great artist, best known for his work on Omega the Unknown with Jonathan Lethem, but his stories, like Pop Gun War, have a tendency towards the opaque and obscure. 

Smith's Adventures in the Supermundane is an early piece of work, completed and published in 1999.  It plays with familiar themes from Dalrymple's later work, as we meet Smith, a young boy who is living in some sort of institution that requires he attend regular meetings with someone we assume is a psychoanalyst, and remain under the close observation of nurses and other staff.  Smith appears to be growing eyeballs in the back of his head, and has difficulty making positive relationships with the other kids in the building.

Of course, I'm not too sure what all was going on in some places, but found myself easily swept up in the art and the story.  It's always cool to look an artist's earlier work and see the kernels of what their style will become later on.

Superior Showcase #1-3

by Nick Bertozzi, Mike Dawson, Dean Trippe, John Campbell, Maris Wicks, Joey Weiser, Farel Dalrymple, Jim Rugg, Brian Maruca, Laura Park, and Dustin Harbin

So, here's the thing with a lot of independent cartoonists who have 'indy cred' in certain circles:  they just want to write regular superhero comics.  With a couple exceptions, these are pretty much just normal superhero stories, and don't do much to say anything new or unique about the genre.

The perfect example is the brilliant Farel Dalrymple's story about Hollis, an overweight Batman-type.  If you read this as a Batman story, it would not be even the slightest bit different from how it appears here.  I'm not sure what, aside from Dalrymple's wonderful art, makes things indy.  I'm also not sure why I'm bothered by this, though.  I think I just feel like complaining a little today.

So, to focus on what I liked in this three-issue mini-series.  In the first issue, there is an Ace-Face story that I'd already read by Dawson, and a cute enough Robin-esque story by Trippe.  The second issue had that Dalrymple story, and really, that was about it.

The third issue is by far the stand-out, starting with a cool Street Angel story by Rugg and Maruca.  Street Angel is a cool comic general.  This story has her dealing with a Japanese monster movie creature in a ninja hospital.  It's always fun when she's around...

The best story in this whole series though comes from Laura Park, an artist I am completely unfamiliar with.  Her quiet little piece about young siblings who appear to be raising themselves is understated, evocative, and just about perfect.  It is a very sweet story, and it makes me want to learn more about Park and see more of her work.

Myspace Dark Horse Presents Vol. 4

by a lot of people

My thoughts on this volume of Dark Horse's on-line comic collection are basically no different from my thoughts on the previous three.  Dark Horse is putting together a very mixed bag with this series, and while I appreciate diversity in story content and art, I don't like it when there is a lot of diversity in quality.

There are some very good short comics in this book, but there are a lot of plain old mediocre ones too.  The mix is about 50/50.  As I prefer to accentuate the positive, I should talk about what I like.

I think my favourite story in this book David Malki's 'The Catch!: A Wondermark Tale.'  I think there may have been a Wondermark story or two in previous volumes, but they didn't catch my notice the way this very funny story about a Victorian man who brings home an early computer to helps him find things, only to discover that it's part of an ingenious marketing ploy.  The story is funny enough on its own, but when you start to accept the weirdness of people dressed in Victorian clothing talking about their TV remote, the story takes on a new level of enjoyment.  Very cool stuff.

I also loved the Achewood story, and really liked Matt Kindt's Giant Man piece.  There are stories that didn't do much for me but that had some very pretty art, contributed by people like Farel Dalrymple, Jim Rugg, and Kristian Donaldson.

As usual, most of the licensed stories (Star Wars, Buffy) were weak, and the stories that were effectively trailers for minis (like The Rapture) were pretty ineffective.  I keep holding out hope for more, but am increasingly disappointed.  I am now in the market for some of the Wondermark books though...

Pop Gun War

by Farel Dalrymple

I feel like I would need to read through this one or two more times in order to give an intelligent analysis of this comic, but time (and perhaps intelligence) limit this.

Dalrymple's comic made me think of the Dadaist and Surrealist poetry and literature I read in university, but on a much more enjoyable level, because of the high quality of Dalrymple's art. The book is a highly impressionistic affair, dipping into the varied and unique lives of a group of New Yorkers.

The book opens with an angel crashing to Earth, and having his wings cut off by some guy with a chainsaw. He dumps the wings in the garbage, where they are recovered by Sinclair, a young boy with a penchant for wearing bow ties. Eventually, his own wings start growing.

Sinclair's sister, who looks to be about seven, is a singer in a band, and wise beyond her ears. Some of the other characters in this book are Addison, a homeless man who seems powerless to the machinations of others; Sunshine, a dwarf who is growing into a giant and whose companion is a flying talking fish ('Da Fug?'); Mr. Grimshaw, who works for an important corporation and carries around a severed, talking head in a bag; among others.

One of the most interesting characters is Harold Dollpimple, who appears towards the end of the book, and is revealed to have been manipulating some events. That his name has such a strong similarity to the author's can not be a mistake.

Pop Gun War has a lot of similarities to the work that Dalrymple did in his recent Omega the Unknown series for Marvel, picking up on the same themes of urban alienation and strangeness, and being even more surreal. There may not be a ton of plot in this book, but it is an interesting and thought-provoking piece of work.

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.