Dark Horse Presents #21

Written by Caitlin R. Kiernan, Michael Avon Oeming, Geoffrey Thorne, Neil Gaiman, Shaun Manning, Denis Medri, Corinna Bechko, Gabriel Hardman, Simon Roy, Duane Swierczynski, Shannon Wheeler, and Carla Speed McNeil
Art by Steve Lieber, Michael Avon Oeming, Todd Harris, Paul Chadwick, Andrew Drilon, Denis Medri, Gabriel Hardman, Simon Roy, Eric Nguyen, Shannon Wheeler, and Carla Speed McNeil

I really don't understand the thinking here.  This issue of Dark Horse Presents has a story written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Paul Chadwick, and yet the cover is given over to Caitlin Kiernan's middling Alabaster series, which has been running for a while, and is not all that interesting.  Sure Gaiman and Chadwick get their names on the cover, in rather small print, but I would think that picking any of Chadwick's beautiful splash pages, and putting Gaiman's name in larger print under the comic's title, would have grabbed a lot more new readers at the comics store.  Their story is quite wonderful - a bit of a prose poem about the different ways the world can end, with a last one that is most devastating, and most personal.

Other than that, this is again a pretty mixed-bag issue of DHP.  There's a new chapter of Finder, by Carla Speed McNeil, which is the main reason why I buy this book.  I was disappointed to see that the story ends with the words "The End", and I'm hoping that refers to this 'Third World' storyline, and not the end of McNeil's regular contributions to this book.

Simon Roy, the brilliant semi-regular artist of Image's Prophet, and Jan's Atomic Heart, debuts his new story, Tiger Lung, here.  We don't know a lot from this first chapter, except that the story involves a young man journeying deep into an ice cave or glacier, despite the protestations of his people.  I love Roy's work, and can't wait to see where this leads.

Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman's Station to Station ends this issue.  It's been a good story, with a real BPRD feel to it, but I think it didn't really get enough space to breathe in these few chapters.  I just like looking at Hardman's art though.

Denis Medri starts off his Arcade Boy story here, and it's a fun look at teenager-dom and video games, set in a near-future that has hoverboards!  It's kind of derivative, but enjoyable.  I've never read work by Shannon Wheeler before, and I enjoyed the first chapter of Villain House, which has a pair of supervillains breaking out of jail.

Beyond that, there's not much to say.  Journeyman continues, and grabs my attention a little more than the first chapter did.  X is finally over, and Michael Avon Oeming's The Victories continues to do absolutely nothing for me.

Dark Horse Presents #20

Written by Michael Avon Oeming, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Geoffrey Thorne, Ulises Farinas, Erick Freitas, Frank J. Barbiere, Corinna Bechko, Gabriel Hardman, Joshua Williamson, Peter Hogan, Duane Swierczynski, and Carla Speed McNeil
Art by Michael Avon Oeming, Steve Lieber, Todd Harris, Ulises Farinas, Toby Cypress, Gabriel Hardman, Pere Perez, Steve Parkhouse, Eric Nguyen, and Carla Speed McNeil

More and more, I feel like the lustre is coming off this title, as the serials are increasingly being produced in service of introducing upcoming mini-series, and the sense of getting a complete story out of this rather expensive monthly book is drastically diminished.  In addition, I'm not sure I'm happy about the increased presence of superhero-style stories.  That has never been a particular strength of Dark Horse, yet there seems to be a drive to compete in that area again.

This issue features a Victories story by Michael Avon Oeming.  The Victories is either currently running, or just finished running as a mini-series as well, so this story doesn't feel the need to introduce the characters.  When Oeming writes his own superhero stories, they tend to be pretty bleak (check out his Rapture title of a couple of years ago), and this is no different, with a scene where a father cuts off the head of a dog, and forces it over his own son's head.  This doesn't work for me.

I was enjoying the Captain Midnight story, which ends here without an ending, but instead an ad for an upcoming mini-series.  Both Joshua Williamson and Pere Perez have done nice work on this, but I don't know if it's going to be enough to get me to buy the book when it comes out.

I do know that I don't like X, Dark Horse's answer to the Punisher.  I didn't like the character in the 90s, and I'm not feeling him here under Duane Swierczynski and Eric Nguyen.

In the non-super hero category, the charm of Caitlin R. Kiernan's Alabaster continues to escape me, although I did like this chapter better than the previous ones.

Journeymen is a new series by Geoffrey Thorne and Todd Harris, and I don't really have an opinion of it.  I think it needed more space to grow, as it didn't leave much of an impression either way.

Gamma, the strange story about monsters and cowardice, by Ulises Farinas and Erick Freitas, ends on a very good note, as the story becomes one of redemption.  I feel that Farinas is a creator to watch.

Frank Barbiere's occasional series 'The White Suits' takes a very positive turn with this instalment, which is drawn by the fantastic Toby Cypress.  This time, we get a story about an FBI agent who has dedicated her life to finding her missing father, who she now believes is somehow involved with the White Suits - Russian mobsters of great mystery.  I like how Barbiere has been building the mythology of this group without really telling us anything about them, and I like how he's been working with a variety of artists.

Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman's 'Station to Station' feels like it could easily fit into the BPRD world, and it continues to work well.

Resident Alien is one of my favourite serials in this series, and while it annoys me that the last three chapters haven't even told a story, but just follow our good alien doctor through his recovery from his first mini-series, I do enjoy Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse's work on this story, and will definitely be there for the next mini-series.

Of course, the best part of this comic is Carla Speed McNeil's 'Finder', which finds Jaeger in a bad place, as he discovers that he's in a city where everyone is terminally ill, and that they are able to pass their ailments on to another person, namely him.  This is a new type of sin-eating for Jaeger to perform, and I can't wait to see what McNeil does with it.

I think I would continue to buy this book if Finder is the only story in it I want to read.  Luckily, next month we get Neil Gaiman and Paul Chadwick working together, which should be exciting.

Shooters

Written by Eric Trautmann and Brandon Jerwa
Art by Steve Lieber

America's involvement in Iraq is starting to provide as rich a literary and filmic tradition as the Vietnam War did, as Americans come to grips with the extent of the damage their actions in that far-off country caused both places.  Among the more worthy of the explorations I've enjoyed of that war is Shooters, a graphic novel that explores the effects Iraq had on one soldier.

Terry Glass was a Chief Warrant Officer until the day that a friendly fire incident wiped out most of his troops and ended his war.  Back home, he had great difficulty adjusting to life with his wife and daughter, especially given that the military was hiding the truth about the incident, and that his soldiers were not being formally recognized for their sacrifice.

The book is a solid study of the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on soldiers who never quite manage to reconcile their military life with their civilian one.  Eric Trautmann and Brandon Jerwa capture the irrational rages that grip Terry, and the crushing apathy that keeps him from holding down a successful job, or keeping his marriage together.  Eventually, Terry returns to the only world he feels comfortable in, but as a private contractor.  Now he's still an outsider, despite being involved in military operations.

This book is pretty gripping.  The reader feels for Terry and his situation; his desire to make things right is palpable, but he's just not capable of pulling it off in a meaningful way.  I felt that the writers really captured the dilemma that a lot of former soldiers go through, and that they didn't need to sensationalize things to make it feel dramatic.  I'm not sure how I feel about the confrontation that ends the book though; it feels a little too neat and predictable.

Steve Lieber is just the right kind of artist for this kind of thing.  He's proven himself a capable artist for military-based action, but he also excels at portraying quiet human moments.  It's rare these days for Vertigo to produce original graphic novels (or, increasingly, much of anything else), and I really wish they would create more work of this caliber.

The Hellboy Project: Hellboy Weird Tales Vol. 1

by too many people to list here

I've been reading a lot of Hellboy (and Hellboy-related) comics lately.  I'm trying to get caught up with the current issues now coming out, and so I've accelerated my 'Hellboy Project' a little.  Reading this was a nice way to recharge a little.

The Weird Tales books collect the mini-series of the same name.  It features stories starring Hellboy and his BPRD friends, but Mike Mignola's name is nowhere near this project (except on the logo - I just noticed that).  Instead, the stories are done by a number of different people from the comics and animation industries, and while the results are a little mixed, the book is never boring.

The highlights are stories by John Cassaday, Alex Maleev, Jason Pearson, Eric Powell (young Hellboy!), Steve Lieber, and Steve Parkhouse (w/ Joe Casey).

Perhaps the most impressive story is the one that involves Hellboy dealing with a haunted hot spring in Japan.  It is written by Randy Stradley, and features the first published work of artist Seung Kim, whose black and white pencils are gorgeous.

I'm not one for cutesy comics, so the contributions by Bob Fingerman, Roger Langridge, and Ovi Nedelcu did nothing for me, although I kind of liked Eric Wight and Andi Watsons' stories.

In all, it's always fun to see different takes on a favourite character, and the editors of this book did not disappoint.

Underground #5

Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Steve Lieber
Underground has been one of the better mini-series I've read in the last couple of years, and the ending is just about perfect. As the two rangers are chased through the cave system, the rescue effort starts to discover the bodies of the men who had been chasing them and perished in earlier issues. This lends an urgency to the scenes, as Wes and Seth take some extreme steps to find the way out of the caves (and discover some really old moonshine in the process).

Parker has graced this story with a lot of strong character development, and has a feel for how people would react in and to these types of situations. Lieber's art is fantastic throughout.

I've praised this book enough that it's difficult to find new things to say, but perhaps the highest form of praise I have is that this issue reminded me of some of the earlier issues of Concrete, in its ability to marry a compelling and exciting story with a non-preachy message of ecological awareness. This is a title that seriously deserves some awards.

Underground #4

Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Steve Lieber

Parker's Underground continues to be a very exciting and rewarding title. His story of park rangers being chased through a massive cave by employees of a local businessman who wants to open the cave for tourism deftly balances strong characterization, ecological sensibilities, and a suspenseful rhythm.

Lieber's work is great throughout. As Wes and Seth have to travel through deep water, with only a narrow pocket of air along the roof of the cave available for breathing, his art becomes very claustrophobic, helping the reader feel the tension of the moment.

Ron Chan's colours work exceptionally well - the underground scenes are monochromatic, but the establishing shots and scenes involving the people outside the cave are so brightly coloured that the reader feels as if he has just come out of a dark cave himself.

Underground #3

Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Steve Lieber

This issue of Underground is just about perfect. The two rangers are being chased through the cave by the bad guys, and most of the issue has them fighting while tied to ropes and descending into a giant cavern. The scene is a technically difficult one to show in a comic, and Lieber manages in such a way that the action is not only clear, it is palpably exciting. Were this a made into a movie, I doubt the director would be able to create the same sense of tension and suspense.

The choice of printing a comic that is mostly set underground in the dark is a wise, if at first less than obvious one. The few pages set above ground are a sharp contrast to the monochromatic cave scenes, giving the reader the effect of having to wait for his eyes to adjust.

This is now my favourite comic being published.

Underground #2

Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Steve Lieber

Parker and Lieber are basically conducting a master class in independent, non-super hero comics with this title. Their story of a crooked store owner's illegal attempts to open up a cave for tourism, and the park rangers who expose him, has all the best qualities of a good movie. The heroes are likable, the plot moves quickly, and things stay grounded in the realm of the plausible.

This is a great comic. It seems to be compared most frequently with Whiteout, which makes sense, as these two comics share an artist and have an exotic locale in common. However, this is a very different creature. It's a much smaller story, in terms of stakes and scale, and therein lies its strengths.

I'm loving this book. I already can't wait for the next issue.

Underground #1

Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Steve Lieber
This is shaping up to be one of the best new series of the year. This is everything a first issue should be - strong character development, a good sense of place, and a suspenseful and interesting hook.

Wesley Fischer is a park ranger opposed to a local business man's plans to 'renovate' a cave system to make it suitable for tourism. The town of Marion has been depressed for years (apparently suffering from a "long economic draught" - you have to love Image's lack of editors), and the people are behind the businessman, Winston Barefoot (played, apparently, by Lincoln Red Crow, on lone from Scalped).

Wesley, and her fellow ranger Seth, having just spent the night together, run into Barefoot at the local diner, before heading off to work. Seth discovers a pair of locals dynamiting the same cave that is at the centre of so much controversy, and this book is off to the races.

Parker has been commanding a lot of acclaim for his work at Marvel on titles like 'Agents of Atlas', but it is here that he really shows that he is an amazing writer. Lieber's work here is excellent as usual. This is a title that deserves a lot of attention.