The Unwritten #46 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators, writer and pencils), Dean Ormston (finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Didge seeks a way to end the zombie killings.

A few things (with SPOILERS): 1) Meta-commentaries continue.  – Last month, there was a lot of meta-commentary in The Unwritten #45.  This issue made it pretty clear that my perception of those meta-commentaries are true and accurate.  This current storyline is ALL about something metaphysical causing our “real world” to have tepid storytelling.  This issue we resolve the zombie issue and learn that people were killed by similar fictional constructs the world over, but that all of these people were left severely brain damaged by their encounters with crappy stories.  I love it!  This is Mike Carey and Peter Gross saying that watching American Idol and reading the National Inquirer makes you stupid.  I can’t quite tell if they’re brave enough to include Big 2 superhero comics in that generalization or not.  Interpret things in your own way.

The Unwritten #45 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Dean Ormston (finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Braaaiiins!!!  The shambling undead make an appearance in The Unwritten.

Review (with SPOILERS): It’s no secret that I really love The Unwritten and this issue exemplifies what I love about the series.  The funny thing is that it is a hard series to review because the good issues (like this one) have multiple interesting things going on and it can be hard to meld my thoughts about everything into a coherent ~700 words.

The best thing about this issue is that the creators laid out why the “death of stories” is such a bad thing.  Ever since the wounding/death of Leviathan in the finale of War of the Words, this series has discussed this concept that stories are somehow dying.  We’ve seen the effects in “storyland” where characters from popular fiction are living in a sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland.  That theme has been interesting, but it was never expressly clear why this should matter to us in the real world (or even the “real world” of the comic).  Sometimes I can be pretty literal and I wondered, “Death of stories?  Huh?  What does that mean?  Does it mean words vanish from the pages of books?”  This issue uses narration from the vampiric Savoy character to establish the consequences of the “death of stories” and show us that we’re living with the consequences right now in the real world.  It isn’t so much that the stories vanish from the page, but that we humans lose the ability to pay attention to a good story and instead focus on less demanding forms of entertainment like reality TV, porn, sports, etc.

Sweet Tooth #40 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (writer & artist), Jose Villarrubia & Lemire (colors), Carlos M. Mangual (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: Jeff Lemire ends his outstanding post-apocalyptic series about a boy with antlers.

Review (with SPOILERS): Endings are hard and Jeff Lemire does a pretty solid job of wrapping up Sweet Tooth in this issue.  It’s impressive how he was able to show us the fate of all the major characters and also flesh out the broader world that we’ve come to enjoy over the last 3-4 years.  For example, I wanted to know what happened to Gus/Sweet Tooth AND whether the world eventually ran out of gasoline.  Lemire was able to scratch both of those itches for me.

Punk Rock Jesus #6 – Review

By: Sean Murphy (story & art), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Sean Murphy’s story about religion, faith and belief comes to a close.

Review (with SPOILERS): This was very nicely done.  Ending a complex story has to be the biggest challenge in creating fiction.  Anyone who consumes much fiction knows that clever ideas are a dime a dozen and that the rare skills are (a) executing on the clever idea to tell a snappy story and (b) conceiving an acceptable ending.

Punk Rock Jesus had already proven that Sean Murphy could execute on his clever idea.  Over the last 5 issues he’s told us a story that was entertaining and thought provoking.  So, the only real question was how would it end.  I think this ending is largely successful.  There might be a few places I would have liked to see a slightly different choices, but even there we’re talking about changing something that is “very, very good” for some unknown avenue – that might have turned out worse.  I doubt that the “perfect ending” exists just because a work of fiction means something different to every reader.

American Vampire #34 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (art), Dave McCaig (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: After the personal loss of The Blacklist, how will American Vampire move forward into its hiatus?

Review (with SPOILERS): I’m so happy with how this issue turned out. Because the “main story” wrapped-up in issue #33, I worried (a little) that this issue could be a maudlin look back at what had transpired: Pearl sitting by Henry’s grave, Skinner getting into some kind of mischief, the Vassals trying to rebuild, etc.  I expected that because that’s typically what comics do in wrap-up issues: some character acts as a tour-guide as we visit the entire cast to see what they’re doing.  It can be well done, but I’m not a huge fan of reflective storytelling when the actual issues/stories we’re reflecting on are sitting right there on the bookshelf to be re-enjoyed again.  It just isn’t necessary and comes off more as the creators taking a victory lap (perhaps deserved, but a victory lap nonetheless).

The Unwritten #44 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Tommy Taylor has a bone to pick with the King of Hades.

A few things (with minor SPOILERS): 

1). Confusing, but enjoyable. – This is probably a series that reads better in collected editions.  I usually hate that phrase – “reads better in collected editions” – because it is often code for “lazy writing where not much happens issue-to-issue.”  But in the case of The Unwritten, the problem is that so much is going on, keeping a handle on the story is like trying to catch a greased pig.  This is a comic that gets special reading treatment and I simply won’t read it if I’m tired or distracted because I know I won’t fully appreciate the story.  It can be a little annoying sometimes when I’m going through a confused phase, but I do appreciate the fact that The Unwritten is always telling an ambitious story.  It is also interesting that I never find The Unwritten to be aggressively opaque the way I find some comics like Change #1 from a week ago.

American Vampire #33 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (art), Dave McCaig (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: A final showdown between Pearl, Hattie, Skinner, Cal and a bunch of normal vampires.

The Review (with SPOILERS): American Vampire can be a complex story and sometimes plays with deeper allegorical themes, but it was nice to see this issue be all about characters.  As we head into this planned hiatus for the series, it was interesting what messages Snyder and Albuquerque wanted to leave us with.  Here’s what it comes down to: Hattie is evil, Pearl/Cal are good and Skinner has his own agenda.  Remember that and you should be fine to pick this series back up when it returns.

That’s really smart storytelling.  I’ve mentioned a lot in these reviews my enjoyment for the way AV has served as an allegory for the growth of the United States, but sometimes that stuff can get heavy.  Likewise, the relationships between this web of characters is also pretty complex between Skinner, these Euro vampires, the Book family, Pearl/Hattie, etc.  It’s very smart to put those issues on the back shelf for now, remember who the vital characters are and let the complexity creep back in once this series gets ramped back up next year.

The major theme for this issue was loss and moving on.  I’ve always wondered WHY Pearl didn’t just turn Henry.  Snyder never really got into that question before this issue.  Traditional vampire-fiction has always prattled on about the “loss of humanity” or the “horrors of being a creature of the night” and that’s always rung so hollow to me: getting to be immortal with someone you love sounds like a pretty good deal.  So, I loved the way that Snyder finally addressed this in Henry’s good-bye letter.  His explanation that he always knew that Pearl had more life in her than could be used in one lifetime but that Henry was already a little tired when he met her was very fitting.  I get it, and, more importantly, I believe that this is something Henry would think given his characterization over the course of the series.

Henry’s passing is obviously going to be a major impact for Pearl and surely that’s what the comic will examine when it returns.  Pearl has always been a vampire in name only.  She basically functions as a human and only vamps out when she needs to kill someone.  For her, it’s always been life as usual (except for sucking blood out of her husband).  Her links with humanity are pretty much broken now and she has some obvious issues with Skinner.  What does she do now?  It’ll be interesting to find out….

As for Skinner, his motives just aren’t clear at all, but that’s how he’s always been.  He’s a very interesting character.  Fiction is FULL of “scoundrels with a heart of gold” (think Han Solo), but Skinner is not that.  He really is a scoundrel and if he does good deeds, it’s because it temporarily suited his needs.  On the other hand, he isn’t an evil mastermind either.  He doesn’t have it in him to “think big” and he isn’t evil; he’s just a guy who used to rob banks and now he’s a vampire.  What does a guy like do now that he’s ~100 years old?

The Unwritten #43 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)’

The Story: Tommy Taylor finds a post-apocalyptic wasteland as he journeys through storyland to find Lizzie.

A few things (with SPOILERS): 1). The story is very locked in right now. – Sometimes The Unwritten makes me feel like I’m not quite smart enough to be reading it.  There have been 4-5 issues runs where “the story” felt like I was trying to grab onto a handful of eels.  That’s somewhat intimidating when you’ve been reviewing the series for a few years and you hope/need to say something intelligent about it every month.  But, right now, the story is very locked in and I know exactly – or at least “mostly” – what is going on.  I think I almost appreciate the story more now because I’ve had to struggle to understand it in the past.

Sweet Tooth #39 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story/art), Jose Villarrubia (colors), Carlos M. Mangual (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: The big showdown between the evil Abbot and Jepperd & Sweet Tooth.

Review (with SPOILERS): This issue was a perfect example of the sadness and melancholy that has set Sweet Tooth apart from pretty much every comic on the market.  There is just something to the way that Jeff Lemire creates and builds his characters and stories that lends itself to sadness and longing.  He certainly doesn’t give a happy feeling, but Sweet Tooth is special and different and that’s something worth celebrating in a comic market that is 95% about people in spandex.

American Vampire #32 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (art), Dave McCaig (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: Hattie is back and takes the fight to Pearl and the VMS.

A few things (with SPOILERS): 1). That dirty bastard! – Of course, nobody is really surprised that Skinner has betrayed the VMS and Pearl.  He’s just a dirty, rotten bastard.  He was a lousy human and he isn’t any better as a vampire.  So, the betrayal itself is obvious.  In fact, it’s so obvious that you wonder why anyone would have trusted Skinner in the first place.  I mean, Pearl has been trusting him on dangerous missions when only ~10 years earlier she had stabbed him with a gold knife and left him for dead on a Pacific island.  I don’t know about you, but I tend to keep one eye on all the people that survive when I stab them and leave them for dead.

The reason this plot twist works and has such resonance is that Snyder and Albuquerque have built up Skinner so well.  It isn’t so much that they convinced us in this story arc that “Skinner is good” or that they made us believe that the VMS’s remote control gizmo could really control him.  It’s that over ~30 issues they made Skinner into a character that we wanted to believe in.  He is/was so cool and charismatic and competent that we readers just wanted him to eventually be a good guy.  We wanted him to be like Han Solo and that’s why it’s easy to understand why the VMS and Pearl trusted him.  Very nice character work!

The Unwritten #42 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: The quest to rescue Lizzie begins.

A few things: 1). Unwritten is less fun when you don’t know the fable. – Over the course of the series, most of the “real world” stories that have appeared in The Unwritten have been stories that I’ve heard of or read:  We had an arc from Moby Dick.  Lizzie is from Dickens.  People are familiar with Nazi propaganda.  There are the obvious parallels between Harry Potter and Tommy Taylor….and I’m sure that if Carey and Gross had the legal right to use the Harry Potter characters, they would have.  It’s a lot of fun to watch these intersections between stories you know and this fictional world.

American Vampire: Lord of Nightmares #5 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Dustin Nguyen (art), John Kalisz (colors), Steve Wands (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: A vampiric battle on the Black Sea.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): One thing I’ve loved about the American Vampire saga of late is how it has been an allegory for the birth and growth of the United States.  I’m a history buff, so that stuff interests me a lot.

But I think it was a good thing for Snyder to put the allegory away for an issue and just tell an exciting vampire story in this finale.  Snyder ultimately has to decide whether he is primarily telling an entertaining vampire story (with allegorical themes) or an allegory for the birth of the United States (with vampires).  Allegories can get SO heavy-handed and predictable that it’s wise to keep the allegory as a flavoring and not the main course.

Punk Rock Jesus #4 – Review

By: Sean Murphy (writer/artist), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Bad things happen and J2 rebels

Review (with minor SPOILERS): One reason I love PRJ is that it is damn hard to review.  There’s a lot of meat on the bone and it challenges you as a commentator to write something that isn’t messy and running all over the place.  I can tell you: Not many comics have this quality.  Even the best issues of a really good superhero comic (like the Snyder/Capullo Batman) have a very defined emphasis to them, and it makes them more orderly to review.  The same thing is true of really good creator-driven series like The Walking Dead or American Vampire or Scalped.  Reviewing PRJ is more like commenting on Charles Burns.

Sweet Tooth #38 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story & art), Jose Villarrubia (colors), Carlos M. Mangual (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: The final battle begins as the bad guys arrive in Alaska.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): By the end of the issue, Lemire has maneuvered things back to a familiar dynamic: Gus/Sweet Tooth is in peril and Jepperd/The-Big-Man must come to his rescue.  We’ve seen that scenario a few times in this series and it always works.  It gives the story a very Taken sensibility where Jepperd plays the bad-ass that totally fits his character.  As he’s said a few times, the only reason Jepperd is still alive in this apocalyptic setting is that he’s shown a talent for killing people.  Furthermore, the presence of Jepperd’s actual son means that he might have to make a choice between his true son and Gus.  Surely Lemire wouldn’t do something THAT evil, right?

The Unwritten #41 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators – writer & artist), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: What became of Tom & Richie after the War of the Words?

A few things (with minor SPOILERS): 1). Bits of answers from puppets. – For me, the most enlightening scene of this issue was the kinda dream sequence where Madam Rausch appears to Tom and Richie in their dreams and explains that all things touched by Pullman’s hand become words.  As a smart reader of this site pointed out a few months ago, much as “the words become flesh” so can the flesh become words.  Those words are then “fed” to Leviathan and Rausch indicates that Lizzie may be alive in the stomach of Leviathan.  Of course, this implies a connection with the story arc from around issue #21 where Tom got stuck in the belly of a whale.  Now….what that really means to me as a reader, I’m not exactly sure.  As I’ve said in these reviews in the past, I’m not clever enough to connect all the dots on the first reading.  But, it illustrates the thing I love best about The Unwritten: this series is attempting to be great.  It’s rare for a comic to have such ambition and while we won’t be able to fully evaluate the greatness of the series until it is finished – and even then we’ll need to reread and allow the story time to breathe – we should applaud the ambition of the creators.

American Vampire: Lord of Nightmares #4 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Dustin Nguyen (art), John Kalisz (colors), Steve Wands (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: A couple of VMS agents & oddball vamps on the run from the minions of Dracula.

A few things (with minor SPOILERS): 1). Snyder making sure you weren’t confused. – It’s been clear for awhile that as the AV stories passed World War II, that one of the central themes was the weakening of western European institutions like the Vassals of the Morning Star.  In the real world, WWII was really the last time traditional European powers like Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany were thought of as “superpowers”.  The next 50 years were marked by the United States and Soviet Union being locked in the Cold War as the two major powers in the world.  American Vampire is mirroring that as we’re seeing the waning influence of the VMS after being on the forefront of the human/vampire battle for a millennia.  Now, an interesting question is whether the VMS will fracture (like Eastern/Western Europe), whether the VMS will become like Great Britain and be a willing ally of whatever the US is up to or will the VMS be more like France and see their role as more of an antagonist for the banner wavers in the US.  Hmmm…..

But this has all been bubbling under the surface of AV for 6 months.  If you’ve been reading my reviews, you know about this, but Snyder is taking zero chances as he moves forward.  The subtlety is gone: Dracula is loose in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and he can use his powers to infect the minds of people and vampires around the globe.  That’s Snyder whacking you over the head with a shovel and saying, “Dracula is communism, you dummy!!”  If you parallel this with what’s going on in the main AV series where the plot mirrors the Red Scare of the 1950s, this use of Dracula makes a lot of sense.

My expectation is that this must be a very important plot point to cause Snyder to be so non-subtle.

2). Very nicely written. – As with everything Snyder writes, this is nicely written.  Flipping through this comic before writing the review, there are a lot of pages that are covered in word balloons.  With a standard comic writer you brace yourself when you see these pages, but Snyder just kinda motors through the heavy parts.  Obviously being a good writer is an advantage for Snyder, but it really serves him when he wants to go into some heavy exposition.  Snyder can do it and the comic still works.  Many writers cannot, so the story has to add issues or the story must sacrifice depth.  Let’s just hope that DC is paying Snyder enough money because he could do a LOT of things for a living besides writing comic books.

3). Excellent art. – Surprise, surprise….a Dustin Nguyen comic is beautiful.  We could stop there and I’ve certainly gushed enough over Nguyen in my reviews of the first comics in this series.  Instead, let’s focus on some under-appreciated things about the art in this issue/series.  We all know that Nguyen is a beast when it comes to drawing emotive faces.  I think he draws a better smile than anyone else in the business.  But, check out that bridge that he draws partway through the issue!  The amazing thing here is how well he captures the scale of the bridge.  It’s easy for massive structures to look small and cartoony on a printed page, but Nguyen makes us believe that this is a massive structure the spans a huge gorge.  It’s really impressive.  The other thing to note in this issue is John Kalisz’s colors.  A lot of these Nguyen pages probably look pretty simple if you viewed the original art.  Much of the mood on the page is coming from Kalisz’s colors and he always seems in tune with the direction that Nguyen plots.

4). Accessible. – Another amazing thing about this issue is how accessible it is.  I mean, this is issue 4/6 of a tie-in miniseries to a story-driven series that is up to issue #30.  If any issue had an excuse to be an impenetrable, “transitional issue” it would be this one.  But, I think a new reader could pick this up and understand basically what is going on.  Sure, they’d have a few questions, but that’s to be expected.  The point is, every issue of AV is inviting to newcomers.

Conclusion: Another great issue.  The AV franchise is not showing any weakness as it chugs towards it’s 3rd anniversary.

Grade: A-

– Dean Stell

Punk Rock Jesus #3 – Review

By: Sean Murphy (story & art), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: It’s hard for mommies when their kids grow up.

A few things: 1). Transitional issue. – When I first heard Murphy talk about this series, it was about how there was this cloned Jesus Christ who was on a reality show and he got sick of it and rebelled.  Until we got to this issue, I kinda wondered if Murphy was pulling my leg because after issue #2 the kid was still a little baby.  How was he going to be a rebellious teenager before issue #6???  This is the issue where we rapidly pivot from the issues around J2’s birth to the issues facing him as a young man.  There is a lot of ground to cover and it does make this feel a little like the dreaded “transitional issue”.  These things are just a fact of comic life and every writer (except for Scott Snyder) seems to have a slightly awkward issue where they must flow from how the story began to how it will climax.

Sweet Tooth #37 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story & art), Jose Villarrubia (colors), Carlos M. Mangual (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: Gus’s group has reached Alaska, but the bad guys are hot on their heels.

A few things: 1). $hit about to hit the fan… – With only 3 issues to go after this, events are going to climax very quickly and that made this the issue where everyone “takes their places” for the finale.  Oh sure….it won’t be quite as simple as Jepperd and his buddy fighting the bad guys while Gus & Co. try to sneak out the back…..clearly other stuff will happen like Gus sneaking back into the fray.  Still, this issue had the effect of bracing all the characters for the finale: they all hug each other, go their separate ways and get ready for the end.

The best moments are the little ones: Gus and Jepperd having a final few moments together, Jepperd’s buddy remarking about their “playoff beards”.

American Vampire #30 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (artist), Dave McCaig (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: Pearl and Skinner continue tracking down vampires in Hollywood while Henry lies old and close to death.

The Review (with SPOILERS): 

1. Pretty big event on final pages! – Is this the first sex we’ve seen in the pages of AV?  Maybe we’ve seen Pearl and Henry together, but this is definitely the first hot and naughty sex.  Remember when AV started, people just rolled their eyes and said they were sick of vampires?  But, this lack of sex is just one of the many ways that AV is so different than other vampires stories.  The creators have never fallen back on love triangles when they’ve gotten bored telling real stories.  And because we haven’t had much sex in the series, it hits that much harder when Pearl and Skinner get it on at the end of this issue.  Not only is it just kinda fun to watch a vamped out sex scene in AV, but it really puts an exclamation point on the problems in Pearl and Henry’s relationships: She can love him all she wants, but the fact is that he’s going to die and leave her alone, and maybe she doesn’t want to be alone.

2. Vulnerabilities make the AVs more interesting. – It was very refreshing seeing Pearl bite off more than she could chew in this issue when she jumps onto the boat and gets attacked by the normal vampires.  So far in the series, the AVs have been kinda portrayed as virtual superheroes without many vulnerabilities.  They’re stronger, faster and can go out in the sun.  Every time they fight regular vampires, they make instant work of them, but seeing Pearl behaving recklessly and almost dying was a nice reminder that the AVs aren’t invincible, and it also made the sex scene with Skinner a little more believable.

3. Still don’t understand the Henry problem. – The Henry situation has always bothered me and I’ve never understood why Pearl wouldn’t just make him a AV.  There’s always this sense that vampirism is a horrible curse once you get past the superpowers and the fact that everyone suddenly finds you super-sexy.  You know….all that “creature of the night” and “loss of humanity” claptrap that you hear about in Twilight or True Blood.  But, here’s the thing….Pearl’s life doesn’t seem so bad and neither does Skinner’s.  Sure, they have people who try to kill them sometimes, but Henry already has endured that risk by association.  Just make the guy a AV already.

The Unwritten #40 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Peter Gross (art), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Tom Taylor returns to the pages of The Unwritten.

Quick review: This series is kinda at a transitional point and it’s affecting the enjoyment of the single issues.  That’s a normal thing in a long running, on-going series that has a defined ending.  Something has to be in the middle after the initial climax and that’s what these issues represent.  It doesn’t make them “bad”, but they won’t have the same issue-to-issue payoff that we were getting during the War of the Words storyline OR the type of payoff that we’ll get in a year or so when this series starts its final story-cycle.

American Vampire: Lord of Nightmares #3 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Dustin Nguyen (art), John Kalisz (colors), Steve Wands (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: The Soviets have a problem with their superweapon!  Go figure….

A few things: 1). This art is just unfair. – Dustin Nguyen and John Kalisz can make a kinda pretty comic book, huh?  The sheer variety of looks in this issue is really something.  On one hand, they can show you all this softness on the face of little Gus or his adoptive mother Felicia….or even the manipulated Mr. Glass.  All three of these characters look smooth and soft….you can almost imagine what their skin would feel like.  Kalisz especially does a wonderful job with putting highlights on the skin in such a way that it looks natural and not like some lousy Photoshop effect.  But, this is a story about vampires and killing, so they also have to show us snarling vampires and grim-faced men….and they excel at that too.  Even the buildings and machines (trains, guns, etc.) look great.  The only negative is that we learn that Nguyen can’t draw a tiger very well, but Snyder probably didn’t know that when he put it in the script.

iZombie #28 – Review

By: Chris Roberson (writer), Michael Allred (artist), Laura Allred (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Will Xitalu eat the world or Gwen find a way to stop him/it?

A few things: 1). A pretty good ending, considering. – I know we should only grade these comics on their actual merits (i.e. what’s on the page) because in time, no one will care that this series probably ended a little prematurely due to Roberson’s (kinda messy) departure from DC and lackluster sales.  If you go back 5-6 issues, there was nothing about the story that screamed, “The end is nigh!”.  So, it was a little worrying to see the end announced so soon and wonder how Roberson and the Allreds would wrap things up neatly.

Given those conditions, this is a pretty solid ending.  Not a “great” ending, but very good.  This story was really about Gwen and she gets to complete her story arc.  The way she ends things makes sense given what we know of her character.  And the people of the universe get to trade that nasty, tentacled Xitalu monster for a hot, naked cosmic being.  That’s an upgrade to any pantheon!

Sweet Tooth #36 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (art/story), Lemire & Jose Villarrubia (colors), Carlos M. Mangual (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: The good guys arrive in Alaska for the final 4 issues of this post-apocalyptic series.

A few things (with minor SPOILERS): 1). Pieces & characters falling into place. – The pieces really seem to be falling into place.  As the gang arrives in Anchor Bay, Alaska, Lemire reveals to us the (probable) source of the hybrid kids and also their purpose (GOOD).  Provided that we can believe Dr. Singh, these hybrid kids are kinda bearers of the disease that has killed humanity as retribution of humans digging up the vault with all the animal-gods coffins (GOOD).  It should really be stressed the Dr. Singh may be crazy and may have some or all of this story incorrect.

American Vampire #29 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (art), Dave McCaig (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: Pearl and Skinner sniffing out vampires in 50’s Hollywood.

A few things (with very minor SPOILERS): 1). The art is great. – It’s easy to carry on about how well Rafael Albuquerque draws his action vampire scenes.  His vampires are so nasty looking and energetic that they really spoil us.  A True Blood vampire – with their wussy fangs snapping into place – just isn’t very scary anymore.  But Albuquerque also is able to ace all the quiet panels where he needs to command the scene through clever use of perspective, framing, level of zooming in, detailed backgrounds, proper looking machines, etc..  Love the difference between his vampires at rest and regular people….the vampires just have this smoldering tension about them whereas the people look kinda dopey.  Dave McCaig is all over the colors in this issue too.  Usually if you actually notice a colorist, it’s because they are doing something great or something terrible and McCaig was definitely adding to the visuals in this issue.

American Vampire: Lord of Nightmares #2 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Dustin Nguyen (artist), John Kalisz (colors), Steve Wands (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: Who stole “Dracula” and why?

The Review: 

1. Interesting co-mingling of classic vampire literature with AV – Okay so the big, bad in this issue isn’t really “Dracula”.  Although I did like the idea of seeing what Scott Snyder would do with the most famous of vampires (as it seemed in last issue), it’s not like Snyder to not follow too much in someone else’s footsteps.  He’s simply too original of a writer for that.  The idea he introduces in this issue that there WAS a big bad vampire and that some dude named Bram Stoker heard about him and composed a fictional story about “Dracula” is very clever.  It’s yet another example of Snyder wedging his AV story into our actual history.  It totally could have happened this way.

2. Arms race! – Enter the Soviet Union.  As the main AV series is telling a story that centers on the Red Scare in the US of the 1950s, it makes sense that in this post-WWII period we’d also start to see the changing perception of the Soviet Union from our “allies” in WWII to our Cold War rival.  AV is gliding through American history and there’s no way to tell that story without bringing in the Soviets.  It’s even a historically interesting concept: If the United States possessed this new power (the American Vampire in this case) that was birthed de novo in the US, the Soviets would have tried to steal one of their own.  And the Soviets always went for BIG and POWERFUL, often at the expense of things that actually worked or were safe to be around.  At least, that was always my historical perspective as a biased American.  I am soooo looking forward to where these AV stories are headed.

3. AV Monster Manual? – Who else would like an American Vampire RPG?  Or at least the supplemental materials that explain the types of vampires and their unique features?  Which are strong?  Which are fast?  Which have telepathy?  True, this diversity in vampires isn’t a Snyder creation – I’m not into vampire literature enough to know added vampires “species” to the lore – but he handles it so well.  The idea that this “Dracula” isn’t so much a physical powerhouse, but a thoroughly evil creature that inspires/forces evil acts in others is pretty cool.  And it ties very neatly to the origin of little Gus’ origin back in the Las Vegas arc.