Radio Music Society

by Esperanza Spalding

I'm not quite sure where I stand on the topic of Esperanza Spalding.  I think she is one of the most beautiful women on the planet, and I absolutely love her voice and admire her musical skill, but it doesn't somehow all add up to my loving her music.

I was excited to listen to Chamber Music Society, her last album, but was ultimately disappointed with it.  I approached Radio Music Society, her newest offering, with a great deal of optimism, and again, it's taken me a while to develop an appreciation for it.

I think the problem is that much of the music, while technically very well put-together and lovely, lacks something.  The tracks here often feels more academic than heart-felt.

I don't want to sound like I'm bashing things too much though - this is a very pretty album.  Songs like 'Black Gold' and 'City of Roses' are among the best I've heard all year.  I got the Deluxe Edition album, which includes videos for each of the songs on this album, some of which are bland, as most music videos are, except for Spalding's lovely image.

I would love to see Spalding collaborate with artists like Georgia Anne Muldrow or Madlib.  Perhaps that's just my musical biases speaking, but I feel like they could supply some of the soul or funk that would strengthen her sound.

Daytripper

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

I'm not the type of comics collector who buys multiple copies or editions of books I already own.  There are too many great comics out there that I don't own a single copy of, and there is only so much space one can devote to the collection.

Daytripper is one of those rare books that I felt the need to make an exception for, especially when I realized I could buy a copy at get it signed at TCAF.  Before opening this trade, I wondered how the experience of reading Daytripper without a month's wait between each chapter would differ from reading it in a serialized format.

Each chapter of Daytripper tells a story from a different year in the life of Brás de Oliva Domingos, the son of a celebrated Brazilian writer.  Each chapter has a similar ending, which I don't want to discuss, as I would prefer it be a surprise if you haven't read the comic before, and each chapter focuses on Brás's relationships in life, with friends, family, lovers, and his child.

Reading the whole book creates a full understanding of Brás's life, as his youthful ambitions and dreams become compromised reality, and as he struggles through difficulty relating to his father, and the myriad other problems most people deal with as they move through life.  There's a poetic quality to this work though that makes it so transcendent.

Bá and Moon's art is beautiful throughout, and that adds much to the beauty of the story.  Brás is an easy person to relate to, and I as a reader keep hoping that each chapter's end would be different.  Taken as a whole piece, the book forces the reader to look for more common themes and structures in each chapter.  The non-linear format of the book highlights connections and changes in Brás, and I found myself meditating on some of the relationships in my own life as I read this.

Daytripper is a beautiful piece of work, which comes from a South American tradition that involves such legendary writers as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Roberto Bolano.  This is still one of my favourite comics of the last ten years, and I'm very glad that I took the opportunity to read it again, and can see this being a book that I return to time and again over the coming years.

Sweet Tooth #34

Written by Jeff Lemire
Art by Jeff Lemire and Nate Powell

According to Jeff Lemire, being a nice person after the Apocalypse happens is just not feasible.  This issue shows us the full history of Doug and Johnny Abbot, two characters who have been with this series for quite a long time.

Doug Abbot, usually just called Abbot, has been the closest thing this series has had to a main villain.  He's the one who was capturing hybrid children and having them studied.  He's the one who killed Jeppard's wife, and who has been tracking down Gus, Jeppard, and Dr. Singh for the last little while.  Johnny is his younger brother, and the guy who let everyone escape (twice in Jeppard's case).

In this issue, the two brothers are face to face again, Abbot having found the Evergreen Dam where Johnny had decided to stay.  At that point, the story flips to a flashback (drawn by Nate Powell, whose name is not on the cover), and we see just how their relationship has always been, and we learn how Abbot came to be running the militia camp we first met him in.

This is a very good comic.  Powell's art fits well with Lemire's usual house style for this comic, and I enjoyed seeing him draw the scenes set around the time that people started dying all over the place.  Lemire's not shown us a lot of this transitional period, which is the type of thing I always find interesting.

Like many other Vertigo books that I read, Sweet Tooth is moving towards its finish, but it is doing so very well.

Wasteland #38

Written by Antony Johnston
Art by Justin Greenwood

The main appeal of Wasteland is the totality of Antony Johnston's vision of the future.  He's built a fully-realized world in this comic, and that often comes through in small moments that fill his stories.  I often feel like he knows every character's entire life story, and only shares some of it as he works his way through his long-running series. 

Gerr has been traveling alongside our heroes Michael and Abi for some time now, and we as readers have known all along that his purpose in being with them is to betray them and kill them for Marcus, if they find the mysterious A-Ree-Yass-I, a fabled place where the three have a shared history or origin.  Last issue, Michael and Abi both figured out that Gerr worked for Marcus, and now it's time for him to tell his story.

Gerr has worked for Marcus since he was a boy, and he goes through his history in Newbegin for most of this issue.  The ending came as a surprise to me, but I shouldn't discuss that here, except to say that one of the most interesting things in this comic has been the way in which Abi has changed and darkened as a character from being the optimistic healer we first me years ago.

Justin Greenwood does better with quieter issues like this one, and his cleaner vision of Wasteland is growing on me.  I still miss Christopher Mitten's art on this book, but I'm very happy with the monthly schedule, so it's a fair trade.

iZombie #26

Written by Chris Roberson
Art by Michael Allred

After this there are only two issues of iZombie left, and it shows, as Roberson moves all of his chess pieces closer to a big final confrontation. 

This comic has always had a particularly large cast, so it makes sense that checking in with every one of them would take up pretty much an entire issue.  Gwen is getting ready to kill every person in Eugene as part of some sort of ritual that will stop the elder god Xitulu from coming and ushering the Apocalypse.  She has some time to kill before the big event, so she goes looking for her friends, to say good-bye and perhaps get them out of town.  she can't find them though, although we see what they are up to, and what every other member of the cast is doing.

Roberson's plotting on this title has been excellent.  Things that I had forgotten, such as the relationship between Ellie's friend Francisco (the Frankenteen) and the newest of the Paintball Vampires, come back up here as plotlines converge.  Basically, a new reader would be totally lost, but there are lots of rewards for people who have been with the book since the beginning, including the last page meeting between Gwen and Gavin.

Allred's art is always fantastic, and this issue is no exception.

Thief of Thieves #5

Written by Robert Kirkman and Nick Spencer
Art by Shawn Martinbrough

It's taken five issues, but now Kirkman and Spencer have made clear what they are doing with this comic, and have more or less set out a path for the plot to follow (not that we know the significance of the empty painting at the beginning of issue one and the end of issue four yet).  Prior to this, we've been spending a lot of time just getting to know Redmond and his family.

This issue shows us what ever happened to Redmond's brother-in-law, who was in the flashbacks for issue two, but hasn't been seen since.  It also introduces all of the remaining members of Redmond's crew, who are each given one page.

This results in a quick read, but still, this issue is very enjoyable.  Kirkman and Spencer are putting an interesting twist on the standard heist drama, and having established the characters so well prior to the crime actually beginning, they've made me actually care about what happens to Redmond and his son.

Great work all around on this comic, but Shawn Martinbrough deserves some special recognition for his astounding art.

Fairest #4

Written by Bill Willingham
Art by Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning, and Steve Sadowski

Having recently come to the decision to let Fables go, I find that I'm predisposed to find Fairest, it's spin-off title, a little tedious. 

Ali Baba's attempt to escape the Snow Queen's clutches doesn't go well for him, and it results in his bottle imp now becoming the Queen's servant.  The Queen is addicted to stories, and so the imp, Jonah, has to keep providing her with these.  This leads to Ali Baba's origin, and the final conclusion to the Sleeping Beauty story started a couple of months ago.

In a scene that reminds me of the old, better days of Fables, we also learn about how Gepetto had been drugging her for all the years that she thought she was his ally, as Jonah tries to help her recover her former self.  This scene works very well, until the sudden and unexplained appearance of one character who has been mentioned often in this series, but not previously seen. 

In that scene, I couldn't help but hear the thoughts of some of the classic comics editors, who would point out that you can't have a character suddenly appear within a scene without showing them come in.  This bad guy is just there, with no teleportation effect, or walls breaking, or anything.  I thought I'd missed a page.  I don't know if the fault for this lies with Willingham or Jimenez, but I guess we can blame it on the editor.  It's just one more example of how 'phoned-in' the entire Fables line has felt over the last year or so.

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.

Secret #2

Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Ryan Bodenheim

Jonathan Hickman's new series, Secret, is kind of the 'other' Hickman book.  His Manhattan Projects has been garnering more attention, and while that book, about the variety of secret science projects rolled into the development of the atom bomb, is a lot of fun and generally pretty nuts, Secret feels to be its opposite.

The first issue established that this series was about espionage in the business world, and it introduced a number of characters, but Hickman kept most of the comic's goals and purpose quiet.  I thought this new issue would clarify what's going on, and it did to a certain degree, but it also just piled on a number of new questions.

The comic opens on two boys who are waiting for their father to mete out punishment for something they did.  We are given enough to know that the father is involved in organized crime, and that his punishment is pretty harsh (I'm not going to spoil it, but the cover kind of does).

From there, we move to today, where Grant Miller is target shooting with a woman.  She gives him a letter, and they both realize that this particular day has significance to Grant.  Later, he's called into his boss's office, where he learns that his friend was killed last issue, and that the company's 'fixer', who he doesn't like, will be handling that problem.

Hickman takes his time establishing Miller's past and relationships, without really getting into the nuts and bolts of what he, or Steadfast Security Solutions is really up to.  The mystery works very well though, as I find I'm completely invested in finding out what's going to happen moving forward.

Ryan Bodenheim's doing some very good work with this comic.  His previous books, A Red Mass For Mars (with Hickman), and Halcyon, have both been much more over the top.  I like how he handles normal everyday situations, and Michael Garland's colours, which fit with Hickman's usual monochromatic palette, work very well here.

This title deserves at least as much attention as The Manhattan Projects is getting, and is perfect for anyone who enjoys Thief of Thieves or Criminal.

Morning Glories #19

Written by Nick Spencer
Art by Joe Eisma

I don't understand why I don't hear a lot more buzz for this comic.  Nick Spencer's story, complex and secretive as it is, is very exciting.  This issue picks up on the events of a few months back.  The students of Morning Glory Academy have been participating in Woodrun, a kind of cross between a scavenger hunt and Capture the Flag. 

Hunter, the nice kid and sort of secondary point-of-view character for this series has been partnered with Zoe.  They were actually talking to each other a little, but then Zoe suddenly killed a girl that had been talking to Hunter.  Now she's chasing him, and he doesn't really know what's going on.

While he's running, the audience is given a series of flashbacks to Hunter's life before coming to the school.  We learn that his mother is in the hospital with a terminal illness, and that she is pressuring him to apply to MGA.  The scenes between them are touching, and also suggestive of the idea that Hunter's mom knows something about how the school operates, since she is certain that he'd be accepted, despite his average grades and test scores.

The story notes of this issue are all a little predictable (except for Hunter's weird inability to tell time - that's just odd), but Spencer and Eisma handle them with enough sensitivity to make them work very well.  The last couple of pages, once again, raise a bunch of questions, but that's just become par for the course with this series.  That's a big part of the draw for me, really.

Achewood Vol. 3: A Home for Scared People

by Chris Onstad

I love Achewood, Chris Onstad's long-running web comic.  I came to the series rather late, starting to read it around the time that Onstad pulled the plug for a long time, although it is currently running again, albeit sporadically.

In the beginning, Achewood was just a funny animal strip, but with time, it developed into something much more profound, while always being very funny.

This third volume of Dark Horse's run of durable hardcover editions of the series collects many of the early strips, running up to October of 2002.  It's an immediate follow-up to the second volume, in terms of presenting the strips chronologically.  The first volume, The Great Outdoor Fight, printed a later storyline, which is one of the most memorable of the series.

I'm not sure why Dark Horse didn't do more to cherry-pick longer stories, than print this melange of one-off strips and short story lines, such as the one that has Roast Beef fly to the moon and refuse to come back.  A recurring theme in this volume is the attempts by Ray Smuckles to initiate tech start-ups based on antiquated computer applications, such as a spreadsheet that tells you when you need to buy milk and eggs, or a logo company that uses crazy computer fonts.

The characters are what makes Achewood work so well.  We have the odd friendship between Ray and Roast Beef as the tentpole of this series, but other characters, such as the young seal Phillipe get their moments in the sun.  It's incredibly hard to describe Achewood in any way that makes it sound different from any other ensemble newspaper strip, so you'll have to take my word that Achewood transcends that genre by an order of magnitude.

As it's been a while since any of these books have been published, I think it's time to systematically work my way through the last ten year's worth of the on-line strips.  This could be a problem though, because these things are pretty addictive...

The Walking Dead #98

Written by Robert Kirkman
Art by Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn

I rather expected that the upcoming 100th issue would feature the death of a major character in this series - past experience has shown that anniversary issues are used to pare down the cast a little, often with shocking results, but it seems that Robert Kirkman has jumped the gun a little, having a character who has been with the series for a while now take a crossbow bolt to the head two pages into this most recent issue.

Negan's people have followed Rick and his friends back to the Community, and they aren't wasting any time in attacking.  When two characters (I'm keeping names out of this to avoid spoiling the issue for anyone) go for a walk outside the gate, the apparent leader of Negan's crew, a guy who looks like he's had half his face burned off, take the opportunity to attack them, and use the living one as a hostage to gain entry into the Community.  Rick's not about to let that happen though, and a fierce battle ensues.

Kirkman is ramping up the tension and anticipation before the big number 100, and this is easily the most exciting issue we've seen in some time.  While most of this book is all action, there is a significant scene where Carl bursts in on the sleeping Rick to find that he has some company.  The scene isn't given much space to sink in, but I think this is a pretty big deal, and I hope that it doesn't make the female in that scene a target for Kirkman's bloodthirsty writing, as I like her a lot, and Rick's women don't tend to have a lot of luck...

As always, The Walking Dead is one of the best comics on the stands, and this issue works as a good example of why.

The New Deadwardians #3

Written by Dan Abnett
Art by INJ Culbard

Dan Abnett's historical fantasy murder mystery series is very interesting.  He spent the first two issues of this eight-issue mini-series establishing the rules for his society.  Britain is divided between zones, with the posh Zone A reserved for the Young - the upper-class, who have taken 'the cure' and become vampires, and Zone B, where the Bright, the everyday humans who make up the toiling class live.  There is constant threat of attack by the Restless - zombies - who shuffle around the edges of the zones.

Until I wrote that paragraph, I hadn't noticed that this is a comic about the Young and the Restless.  Sometimes it takes me a little while...

Anyway, in this issue, our Chief Inspector protagonist, on the case of the first actual murder Zone A has seen in decades, travels into Zone B, searching for a particular Young.  He is escorted by an officer who clearly has some thoughts about the class system, but doesn't say much.  He is taken to a brothel that the suspect has been known to frequent, where he engages in an interesting conversation with one of the girls.

This series is on a bit of a slow boil, but Abnett keeps the dialogue sharp and the world-building compelling enough to hold up entire issues on its own.  I find myself increasingly curious about this world he's created, and I'm enjoying Culbard's artwork a great deal.  This is a good series.

BPRD Hell on Earth: The Transformation of JH O'Donnell

Written by Mike Mignola and Scott Allie
Art by Max Fiumara

The character of Dr. O'Donnell has been lurking around the pages of BPRD for a very long time now - he's the wild-haired stooped over old guy who usually shows up making pronouncements of doom.  Very little has been told about him, and so he's been given his own one-shot as part of Mike Mignola's plans to push his Mignola-verse as close to the point of market saturation as is possible for a group of titles with one common writer.

O'Donnell's story is told as a flashback to a time in the late 80s when Professor Bruttenholm sent O'Donnell and Hellboy to investigate the library of a recently deceased necromancer.  Hellboy ended up getting into a fight with some kind of monster (I love how the narrator dismisses this part of the story so casually, since it does happen in every single Hellboy story), while O'Donnell ended up deep beneath the house, part of a ritual that involved just about every famous dead occultist you can think of, changing him forever.

The art for this issue is provided by Max Fiumara, an artist who has caught my eye on his Four Eyes series with Joe Kelly, and also impressed me with some issues of Amazing Spider-Man.  His odd figures look right at home in the BPRD world, and Dave Stewart's colours burnish his art perfectly.

There really has been too many BPRD-related comics coming out lately, but when they're all this good, it's hard to complain...

American Vampire #27

Written by Scott Snyder
Art by Riccardo Burchielli

This is a strange issue of American Vampire.  Don't get me wrong - it's still very well-written, but I just found that the parts didn't add up the way they usually do.

To begin with, the cover does not, on any level, have anything to do with what happens in the comic.  This issue finishes off the two-part story featuring Calvin Hobbes, in conflict with a small group of werewolves in Alabama.  Pearl, the comic's usual main character only appears at the very end of the issue, and she's neither in the rain nor standing near someone with a gun.

Another thing that threw me is Riccardo Burchielli's artwork.  I've enjoyed his work on DMZ and Northlanders, but with this issue, his style has changed quite a bit, and I don't really like it.  It felt like he was trying to fit his approach with the usual look that Rafael Albuquerque has established for this series, and then mix it with the way that Roger Cruz drew the last issue.  It didn't really work.

The other thing that threw me is a rather random and unexplained flashback where Calvin discovers his wife (I assume) naked in his backyard hanging laundry and covered in vampire bites.  I vaguely remember that vamps had killed his family (I think his backstory was explained in the WWII arc where he debuted), but this scene is not given enough context for it to be very effective.

What I did like about this comic was the way in which Snyder examines other manifestations of 'vampires', which include the aforementioned werewolves and zombies.  Much like Chris Roberson has in his iZombie, Snyder attempts to work a more unified theory for monsters into his writing, and while it's still 'comic book science', I appreciate the consistency.

I am very much looking forward to the next issue, which promises the return of Pearl, Henry, and most importantly, Rafael Albuquerque.