This is a wonderfully-told story full of layered, purely visual storytelling sequences. The action revolves around paid odd jobbers, with some very odd jobs, which are delineated visually for the reader to parse (and experience a satisfying sense of surreality). As the story wears on, one starts to get the slightly paranoid feeling that these people are out there, doing and undoing each others’ work all around us.
I have to admit, I never bothered to think very much about what might happen at Boy Scout camp, but there’s something so true and right about the way the boys do and don’t get along in this book. I love the additional level of the adult scoutmaster (or whatever you call them) discussion and the interior dialogue of the lefty, non-joiner-type, middle-class dad (i.e. the guy more like me). It makes what could be a compelling YA book and makes it into much more than that.
I’m going to have a hard time describing Journal properly because, first of all, it’s a very had-to-describe work (Dandro said, “Half of the book documents my exploration of an area in Maine called Ryders Bluff while the other half is more of an exploration of the psyche”), and secondly, the book itself never came back to us from Neil Gaiman. I have no direct evidence of this, but I’d like to think that’s because he enjoyed it so much!
A Circuit Closed is a very well-told, very satisfying story in only 10 pages—not an easy feat. Scratchy pen work and aged-looking coloring, along with the unique Q-and-A method of introducing the scenario (both Q and A written by the main character?) gives the comic an atmosphere of melancholy and isolation. Daniels almost lost me when the main character’s desperate journey to find meaning seems to end with a dog (gag), but the last page holds a wonderful twist.
We called out “Vicissitude,” a story of a working-class couple on the rocks, in this issue for its lovely, subtle delineation of emotion through (minimal) expressions and body language. It’s beautifully drawn in a steady line weight, black, white, and one flat gray, which gives it a stark and clean look, despite its convincingly grubby L.A. setting.
The Hunter is the first of four planned adaptations of Richard Stark’s hard-boiled Parker novels, and it’s a stunner. Anyone who’s seen Cooke’s art will be able to imagine how his trademark 1960’s-influenced style, swoopy brush work, classy color (here just black and a spot), and iconic character design line right up with the cool, murderous Parker.
“This is a Ghost.” is one of Craghead’s best recent comics poems (or so I think of them). He uses a completely original approach to juxtaposition and composition of images, words, and fragments of both, to suggest meaning beyond what you see on the page. Ghost Comics is an anthology of, yes, Ghost comics. See another notable from the same volume: “The Offering,” by John Hankiewicz, below. We would have also mentioned Hob’s lovely “the Witness” in this volume, except he released it in minicomics form first, and it was on the 2009 Notables list.
Sword is a high-concept mini anthology where each artist had a sword “left” for them in the prior comic, and then had to create a comic that somehow “leaves” the sword for the next artist. Taken together with the endpapers, the story actually completes a circle (of death and destruction). Clever and fun.
American Virgin is one of a small group of books Vertigo puts out that really bends genres. It’s about a young charismatic Christian evangelist preacher who swears to remain faithful until he marries his fiancee…but then she’s killed. So he has to track down her killers, deal with a gender-bending pal, escape/reconcile with a nutty family of feuding fame-mad parents and rebellious step-sibs, and resist attraction to the opposite sex (while the ghost of his fiancee hovers overhead). What genre would you call that? I have no idea, but it’s a very entertaining read.
