Punk Rock Jesus #2 – Review

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

The Story: Things get a little claustrophobic on the island where the J2 reality show is being filmed.

Review: This is a hard issue to review.  It’s very good, but reviewing it in exacting detail feels a little like reviewing a TV show between the first and second commercial breaks.  At this point, we’ve met the characters and are just watching them settle into their roles so we can grow to like or loathe them more as the story chugs along.

The Unwritten #39 – Review

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

The Story: Events in Australian finally loop back to the classic Unwritten characters.

A few things (with SPOILERS): 1). Connections! – The Unwritten had suffered for the last several issues because our favorite trio of characters (Tom, Richie & Lizzie) were no longer the center-pieces of the story.  It was just kinda jarring after having ~40 issues of a very focused story to suddenly jump to new characters in a separate (but related) situation.  When you think about how comics are published these days, this current story arc is almost one that would appear in a spin-off 5-issue miniseries (and we’d all complain about having to buy two series).

Well…THIS was the issue that tied things back together.  It doesn’t provide an answer to everything but it definitely heads in that direction.  Just learning that the central protagonist of this arc (Danny) is the same young man that we met at the end of the War of the Words (as a guy hired to be a writing minion for the Cabal) and that this Lucas Filby (the Jesus-looking guy) was not only the same guy who heckled Tom Taylor in the first issue of the series, but a former thug for the Cabal…..this stuff really made a lot of difference.  Maybe those connections were there to see all along, but they went over my head.

Punk Rock Jesus #1 – Review

By: Sean Murphy (writer, artist), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: A corporation clones Jesus so that he can star in a reality television show.

The Review (with minor SPOILERS): 

1. Loaded with cool concepts. – The pitch for this series was cool enough: company clones Jesus, puts him on a reality TV show and J2 rebels and forms a punk rock band.  That and Murphy’s art was enough to make me hooked, but there is a LOT more going on in this first oversized issue.  For starters, we’ve got the security guard for the company who is a former fighter for the Irish Republican Army and he rides a sweet old Indian motorcycle (awesome visual).  He adds this rich element of danger and physical, unshaven menace to what could be a pretty sterile story that takes place in a lab.  Then there are all these other nifty characters: the surrogate mother, the crusading scientist, the wicked company man…..  And it all adds up to a story that could be a LOT more than that initial teaser.  This issue was bristling with things to look at.

2. Ambitious. – We must give Murphy credit for “going for it”.  If you go back and read early works from many writers, you find much less ambitious fare.  Channel Zero (Brian Wood) or Nightly News & Pax Romana (Jonathan Hickman) were pretty straight forward affairs.  CZ had flavors of what Wood did later with DMZ or seems to be doing now with The Massive, but CZ stays in the box and tells a very linear story.  For as cool as Nightly New and Pax Romana are/were, they basically exist to tell a punchline on the final page of the series.  Murphy is eschewing that and has a LOT of cool characters in motion at once… And Jesus (or J2) isn’t really even a character in this issue…  So, he’ll be added to the mix yielding more complexity.  Bravo to Murphy for his ambition!  We’ve all seen complex stories fall on their face and that type of failure is always a risk is trying something bold, but I’ve read so many comics in my life that I have little use for creators who stay safely in the shallow end of the pool.  Go play in the deep end and show us something we haven’t seen before!  Murphy has at least the potential to do that.

The Unwritten #38 – Review

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

The Story: More about the Australian Tommy Taylor cult.

A few things: 1). New colors! – The first thing I noticed when opening this issue is that the colors are completely different.  Everything is darker than the color palates of the past and this coloring is also much more shaded than the flat-ish colors that have pervaded this series.  The difference is striking enough that I wonder if the credits are in error and Chris Chuckry actually didn’t color this issue?  If he did, then he’s really trying out new stuff, which would be odd in the middle of a series and story arc.  I guess I DO like this coloring, but since it is the first thing mentioned in this review, I guess I found it a little distracting too.  Not sure that’s what the creators had in mind.

The Unwritten #37 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (covers), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: How are people reacting to Tommy Taylor down under?

Review (with minor SPOILERS): If you were looking for The Unwritten to return to the regularly scheduled story with a BANG, you might be disappointed with this issue.  That was probably an unrealistic expectation for a methodical and thought provoking book like The Unwritten anyway, but coming off the War of the Words story arc where events happened in rapid-fire (at least rapid-fire for this series), it was a little jarring to go back into slow mode.

There are those who take issues like this one as evidence that The Unwritten “reads better in trade”.  And….it might be more satisfying in some ways.  But, even with the slowness of the story, something is lost when you consume 5 issues in one sitting.  The Unwritten is still a good story to carry in your mind from month-to-month.  What do stories really mean?

The story choice here is interesting.  For one thing, Tom Taylor doesn’t make an appearance.  Except for the “special issues” of The Unwritten, I’m not sure if Tom has ever failed to appear.  But, the other thing is that we bounce the story all the way to Australia where we see the Australian police investigating a cult that is causing people to disappear.  The cult is a pretty interesting place too.  Their leader (who I’m 99% sure has been appearing in the series since early on as a bit character) is upset over the fact that stories are ending.  That concept of the “end of stories” was the big take away from last month’s issue #36 featuring our favorite, foul-mouthed bunny rabbit.

The Unwritten #36 – Review

By: Mike Carey (story/writer), Peter Gross (story/pencils), Rufus Dayglo (finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Tinker and Pauly Bruckner get ringside seats for the end of the world.

Review: This is a tricky issue.  We’ve previously met Brooklyn tough-guy Pauly Bruckner who is trapped in a Velveteen Rabbit-esque body in the ‘land of stories’ in issues #12 and #24.  Both of those issues were Grade A material as we met Pauly and learned that real world people can be ported into “storyland”  (in #12)  and then watched Pauly trying to escape from storyland via a winding staircase (#24).  Even though these issues aren’t the main focus of The Unwritten, they’ve come to add deeper meaning to that concept that stories are alive and an alternate universe that has limited interplay with our world.  The connection seems to be a man like Wilson Taylor who either (a) has some special gift as a storyteller or (b) just understands the relationship of the two worlds.

There was natural desire for this to be another Grade A work, but it just isn’t.  It’s not “bad” in any way, but it suffers by being compared to the first two issues.  The first problem encountered is that for the first time with these storyland issues, one wonders WHEN this issue takes place.  The first two issues have been timeless, but this one, not so much.  Toward the end of the issue, we see a serious threat to the fabric of storyland.  Is this due to the events of the War of the Words story arc?  The implication seems to be “yes”, but it’s hard to see what that really means.  If storyland dies, does that mean that the real world can’t have stories anymore?   Do the people of the Earth forget classics like Cinderella or The Bible?  And if that’s true, how exactly does that happen?  Or if stories must be created by humans first, are humans somehow (HOW?) losing the ability to create new stories to populate storyland?

The Unwritten #35.5 – Quick Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (story), Gabriel Hernandez Walta (art), Lee Loughridge (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover, Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: A Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead version of The Unwritten.

The Review: I tend not to pay very close attention to solicitations for ongoing series that I’m committed to.  So, when I checked the Diamond Comics Distributors website to make my pull list last week, I was surprised to see The Unwritten #35.5.  Huh?  I thought that The Unwritten wrapped up the War of the Words story arc very well with The Unwritten #35.  So, what was this #35.5 issue going to be about?

One of my favorite literary devices is the old trick of showing us a story we already know from another character’s point-of-view.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a classic example, but there are many others: Wicked, Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, etc.  Not only do these stories serve as a nice refresher on key events from the ongoing saga, but they always provide more information.  You know those scenes in the “main story” when you wish the creators would let you stay and linger in a scene for another panel or two?  Well, you always get that extra view in THIS type of story.

In this case, we see The Unwritten saga from the point-of-view of a guy working in The Grid for the Cabal.  We see his recruitment, his odd working conditions and his special missions as he follows events right up until the happenings of issue #35.  What’s great is that he’s just a guy: He was an English Literature major who graduated from college and was just happy to have a job.  He’s not some evil henchman or privy to the Cabal’s plans.  He’s just a dude.  But, in watching him, it added so much more richness to the story we’ve experienced over the last 2.5 years.

Kudos also go to artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta.  I got excited right away when I saw his name on the cover because I’ve seen his work in a few Marvel issues here and there.  His style is more restrained here than it was when he did a few X-Men titles recently, but the cool elements are still there.  What I love about Walta’s work are the almost straight lines he uses throughout.  When you get in close to his panels, you see that it looks like he drew some complex surface like the front of a woman’s blouse with a bunch of straight lines.  And….they are STRAIGHT.  I mean, it looks like he did them with a ruler.  I just love any artist that has such a unique look, especially when it looks like a style that would be a complete pain-in-the-ass to draw.

Dominique Laveau Voodoo Child #1 – Review

By: Selwyn Seyfu Hinds (writer), Denys Cowan (pencils), John Floyd (inks), Dave McCaig (colors), Clem Robbins (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor), Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: A young woman gets involved in some funky voodoo/werewolf action in New Orleans.

Review: It was bound to happen: Vertigo has released a new series where I didn’t enjoy the first issue.  The publisher has been on quite a run recently: Unwritten, Sweet Tooth, American Vampire, I Zombie, Daytripper, Spaceman, New York Five and the recent Saucer Country… all were quite good and some are/were great.  But, Dominique Laveau Voodoo Child #1 left me pretty cold.

Full Disclosure: I’m not a fan of New Orleans-based voodoo stories.  Someone must enjoy them because various writers and publishers are drawn to the material, but I completely don’t care.  I’m just not a fan of weird, pseudo-godlike creatures fighting their battles on Earth or anything like that, so all the scenes of Caribbean immigrants speaking in tongues or scenes in graveyards leave me cold.  Also, I’m bored with every New Orleans story happening around the time of Hurricane Katrina.

And, that’s really my biggest complaint with DLVC #1… The subject matter just didn’t click with me at all.  It does have one positive: A young female protagonist.  That’s often a good start for me and I am willing to give this title a few issues to see if it can get it’s act together.  I never get tired of seeing stories where young women “grow up” and become a powerful force for something. I just don’t like it when their reason for doing so has to do with some unknown destiny they have because they are related to some ancestor they didn’t even know…

The Unwritten #35 – Review

By: Mike Carey and Peter Gross (story and pencils), M.K. Perker (finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: A big finale to the War of the Words storyline as Pullman explains most everything to Tom/Tommy.

A few things: [SPOILERS]

1. So….THAT’s what’s going on! – Presuming that Pullman is telling the truth, this issue makes 90% clear what is going on in world of The Unwritten.  Basically, there is this “leviathan” that is representative of the consciousness of the entire population of the world; remember that wonderful image of the whale as composed of thousands of little stick figures back around issue #22 or so?  And when the leviathan takes a fancy to a particular story the characters from those particular stories become real.  Thus, Pullman as the original Cain is a story that has persisted for thousands of years because the leviathan likes that story a lot and won’t give it up (like a dog with a rag).  Tom/Tommy is just a recent manifestation of that leviathan phenomenon.  So, circling back to the first issues of the series where people criticized The Unwritten for being like Harry Potter…..it is exactly like Harry Potter!  It just isn’t similar to Harry Potter in the way that you thought.  And then the next logical step is that some dastardly humans decided to exploit the leviathan phenomenon for greedy purposes.

There are still a ton of questions though.  Is there a distinction between Tom and Tommy?  Can he be “just Tom”?  Is Leviathan real?  He sure seems real when he smashes through that wall!  And if Cain is around as a story, where are the other figures from religious books: Moses, Jesus, Mohammed?  And what of modern myths with LOTS of books written about them like Abraham Lincoln?  Luke Skywalker?  Spider-Man?  Tarzan?  I just wouldn’t think that of all the stories in the Bible that Cain is what leviathan would like the MOST.   What about John 3:16?

2. Loss of a friend… – I hope this isn’t the last we see of Lizzie….and I’m pretty sure it isn’t.  Tom and Richie will have to try to salvage her, right?  This isn’t just a minor thing either.  I still don’t particularly enjoy reading about Tom.  He’s kind of a dick.  But, I DO enjoy Lizzie and Richie and would be sad if they weren’t around to humanize Tom (which is ironic since they’re literary constructs too).

3. Very solid art. – The art in this series almost never blows my doors off (except for the issues inked by Vince Locke), but it also never has so much as a bad panel.  Every panel is well constructed from a perspective and storytelling standpoint, the characters are clearly drawn and the actions are always clear.  Everything is nicely colored and when you have Todd Klein doing your letters….well….it’s going to be really nice.  It’s just so damn professional looking.

The Unwritten #34.5 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (story), Gary Erskine (art), Lee Loughridge (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Joe Hughes (assistant editor), Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: A kinda origin of Wilson Taylor set in World War I.

Review: This was a very well done comic that left me cold for some reason.  I’m very much an “art first” reader, and this art is lovely, and that makes all the weirder that it didn’t really connect with me.  Gary Erskine has a great style for a WWI comic.  Depicting battles in trenches is hard because you don’t want to see the first hint of anything light-hearted.  Honestly, regular series artist Peter Gross has exactly the type of “almost realistic/slightly cartoony” style that wouldn’t quite work on a WWI comic, so I’m glad the creators brought in Erskine for this story.  You almost wonder if they knew that Gross would need some help during this time of double-shipping and highlighted THIS issue as a good candidate both from a workflow and subject matter standpoint?  Regardless, Erskine has a very straight-forward and direct style that is appealing for the subject matter.  The colors also play a big part and Lee Loughridge shows that there’s a LOT you can do with shades of brown.

So, the art checks out…

But, the story itself just failed to light my socks on fire and certainly didn’t approach the heights of previous .5 issues of The Unwritten: #32.5 [I gave this a B-, which was probably too harsh in hindsight] and #33.5.  Perhaps that is simply because this story focuses on Wilson Taylor and we already know quite a bit about Wilson, whereas the other .5 issues explored new areas of The Unwritten universe.  We also saw a good bit of Wilson’s relationship with The Cabal in the On To Genesis storyline and while that story didn’t show how he first met The Cabal, I’m not sure I was curious about that event.  Hopefully it connected with other readers more.

The Unwritten #34 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), M.K. Perker (finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (covers), Joe Hughes (assistant editor)

The Story: The Cabal has taken Tom Taylor prisoner and neutralized his powers!  Can his friends bail him out?

A Few Things:

1. I should like this more than I do. – There’s nothing wrong with this comic, but I find myself frustrated by the “normal” issues of The Unwritten (as opposed to the .5 issues).  I think the big problem is that they are not moving fast enough for monthly comics.  I’m sure this will read great in trade and, over time, that is how most people will enjoy The Unwritten.  But, I’d like a little more attention paid to making it a snappy monthly package.  I’ve been pounding this drum for a few months now: This is a climax in the story, so let’s move faster!  However, I think there are two other small problems with the story right now.  One is that the .5 issues are infinitely more interesting and enjoyable, so when one of the “regular” issues come out I kinda sigh and think, “Oh, it’s that Tom Taylor guy again.”  The .5 issues have all kinds of clever revelations about The Unwritten universe whereas the regular issues just have a big magical fight.  But, the character of Tom is kinda a problem too.  I just don’t like him enough to get excited when he does something cool.  Which is funny because I like Lizzie and Richie a LOT and do a little cheer when they succeed.  But Tom leaves me cold….

2. More Pullman. – Speaking of cool characters, let’s just make the whole series about Pullman.  Every time he is on the page, I get kinda pissed when we flip back to some other set of characters.  I have a feeling that he is central to everything that is going on in the story.  Clearly, THE CLIMAX of the story will be whenever we learn Pullman’s true nature and Carey and Gross aren’t quite ready to show that to us yet.  But I still enjoy just watching the guy on the page, especially when he is getting the best of these drones from the Cabal.

The Unwritten #33.5 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators, writer & pencils), Vince Locke (inks), Lee Loughridge (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: An origin of the nasty nun with the marionettes.

Four Things: 

1. These .5 issues are seriously good. – The biggest problem with the .5 issues of The Unwritten is how badly they overshadow the regular issues of.  These stories have so much meat on the bone.  You really feel as if you could catch some new filbert of information on the 5th reading.  And, they’re so involved in the background mythos of The Unwritten with how they keep touching on the power of story and “the whale” that is made up of all of us and eats stories.  When you compare to this deep and adult storytelling, it’s really hard for a story about a man with a magic wand (i.e. the regular issues) to not seem a little silly and lightweight.

2. Wonderful, self-contained story. – This was a great story.  We’ve seen bits and pieces of Ms. Toller and her marionettes over the last year or so in the pages of Unwritten, but it wasn’t really clear who she was.  Well, this gives us a great insight into why she’s such a nasty old lady.  Given her dark childhood and the scars visited upon her by her father, it’s no wonder that she has no trouble being a torturer or sorts for the Cabal.  This issue’s story is heartbreaking, violent and thrilling.

The Unwritten #33 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (co-creators, writer & pencils), M.K. Perker (inks), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Tom Taylor goes on the offensive versus the Cabal now that he’s all powered up by the belief of his fans.

Five Things:

1. Finally an action-filled, quickly-paced issue. – Things happened in this issue.  Whether it was Tom/Tommy (the distinction is becoming meaningless) fighting his way through Cabal minions with his spells (which are wonderfully illustrated by Gross) or the revelations coming from inside the Cabal, we were always getting either important bits of new information OR forward action in the series.  I love this series, but it needs more of this, especially as we’re reaching a climax in the action.

2. Pullman remains the most interesting character. – Tom and his buddies aren’t uninteresting, but they’re mostly tools to figure out what the Cabal is all about.  But Pullman is really intriguing.  On one hand, he’s the hired muscle for the Cabal.  But, he’s also really old (as we’re learning from the .5 issues of The Unwritten) and the members of the Cabal seem afraid of him.  He’s kinda third-party in all the action that just happens to be aligned with the Cabal.  Furthermore, he seems like he really understands this whole system whereby reality is warped via the mass belief of the people, and he understands it in a deeper way than the Cabal’s leadership does.  The true nature of Pullman is THE big mystery that I want to know about in the second half of the series.

3. Interesting reversal by the Cabal. – This is slightly SPOILER-y, but it was very interesting how the Cabal defused Tom’s powers.  They just kinda fired up a bullpen of writers to write stories about Tom and then read them aloud.  And….since the readers were in close proximity to Tom (which Pullman had taught us was important), it screwed up the power of the public to feed power into Tom.  Maybe there was some deeper meaning to the passages being written by the bullpen, but it seemed like they were mostly tossing a monkey wrench into the gears.  This power of the people to warp reality via story and the implications it has in the real world for the use of propaganda is fascinating.

The Unwritten #32.5 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (co-creators), Dean Ormston (finishes), Fiona Stephenson (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Another one of the .5 installments that looks at stories through history.

Three Things:

1. Lots of good nuggets in these .5 issues. – It’s funny, but the .5 issues of this stretch of The Unwritten are much more enjoyable than the “normal” issues that are focusing on our “main” characters.  These .5 issues are showing the roots of this Cabal that it trying to rule the world through the power of stories (if that is their goal since it is a little unclear what they’re up to).  30+ issues into this series, we need some answers.  That doesn’t mean that Carey and Gross have to end the series, but they need to give the readers some resolutions to mysteries that have been building since issue #1; these .5 issues are doing MUCH more towards that end than the “normal” issues.  This issue takes place in ancient Egypt and features Pullman (at least I’m pretty sure it is him) guiding an Egyptian king on a hunt for the Leviathan who gains his powers from consuming stories.  Seeing ancient Pullman, the birth of written language, the links between the Leviathan and the WHALE that have appeared throughout this series, the concept that characters can survive their own death via story, etc… It was all very neat.

2. But, kinda slow paced. – This first half of this issue dragged badly to the point where I fell asleep reading it 3 nights in a row before deciding that this was a comic I couldn’t read in my comfy chair in front of the fire at night.  That kinda methodical complexity is both The Unwritten’s biggest strength and its biggest weakness.  There is a LOT of meat on the bone, but the reader MUST bring more mental focus than for an issue of Astonishing X-Men.  All that being said, this issue still had some pacing problems in the first half.  I’m not a writer, so I can’t offer too much in the way of suggestions for improvement, but it seems screwed up to have an issue with  ~5 really cool things in the last 10 pages yet the first 10 pages put you to sleep 3 nights in a row.  And I appreciate that this series is being “written for the trade” but if it’s going to be released in single issues there should be greater effort to make each page of each issue snappier.

American Vampire #22 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (artist), Dave McCaig (colors), Jared Fletcher (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: We jump forward to the 1950’s for another vampire story from Snyder & Albuquerque

Five Things: [SPOILER WARNING]

1. Great to be back into the “ongoing” story” – I saw a few reviewers (not me) who expressed some displeasure with the last story arc featuring Jordi Bernet on art.  That story was a look at Skinner Sweet and John Book in the late 1860’s and it felt a little like a flashback because [SPOILERS] Skinner had died in the preceding arc and also just because it was in the past.  That’s probably not the proper way to look at this story given that the really isn’t a current timeframe to make that story “the past” and that there’s a decent chance that Snyder and Albuquerque are telling one BIG story in semi-non-linear fashion.  Still, this story felt like it had forward momentum and a sense of newness about it.

2. Nice bit of misdirection as to the identity of the vampire(s). – I love how this story opens with it being very unclear who the vampires are.  You start out thinking for SURE that it is the teenage guy driving the muscle car.  He even has a “Skinner Sweet look” about him.  So, you worry about what’s going to happen to this cute girl that he’s dating.  Thus, I loved the plot twist when it became clear that the parents of the girl were the vampires and the kid was a vampire hunter who was just using the girl to get to the parents (who were using the girl to bring them the boy, LOL).  There was just something about the way Albuquerque drew the parents coming out of the house, they kinda stick to the shadows and then McCaig gives the father a dot of a red eye in one panel.  It doesn’t conform that they’re vampires, but it’s enough to start your brain churning before the reveal a few pages later.  And there are lots of subtle clues in the dialog too (“they’ll chew you out.”).  It’s the kind of well-executed reveal that I wish more comics devoted themselves to because it shows that not only do the creators have a cool idea, they also understand the mechanics of a sequential storytelling well enough to pull off the reveal.

3. Neat new characters. – This new teenage, James Dean-esque guy named Travis Kidd sure is nifty.  Love his attitude.  Love that he’s a self-trained vampire hunter.  How’d he learn to do that?  How long has he been on the radar of the Vassals of the Morning Star, yet staying outside of their system?  Questions abound and they’re all juicy.  And the new girl is fun too.  In a way, they remind me of Pearl and Henry from the first few story arcs.  Not sure why that is given that neither of them is a vampire, but they have this same vibe of two people who are both “involved” in the vampire world, but a little outside of the “mainstream” vamp vs. Vassals conflict.

The Unwritten #32 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Peter Gross (pencils), M.K. Perker (inks), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Tom Taylor’s turns to crowd-sourcing his powers.

Five Things: 

1. Interesting new aspect of Tom’s powers. – I guess we always knew or suspected that Tom’s magical powers could be crowd-sourced given the themes of the series.  All along one of the primary angles of the series has been that the Cabal was trying to control the world via stories and propaganda and we’ve recently learned that Tom Taylor is basically an artificial construct sprung from the pages of the Tommy Taylor novels.  So, it kinda makes sense that Tom’s powers would be greater the more Tommy Taylor fanboys are out there jabbering about what happened in Book 3 or doing cosplay at conventions.  This whole relationship between story and fan base is kinda neat and it was fun to see it coming together in this issue.

2. It’s moving way too slowly. – Sure, it’s well written and the art is lovely, but the pacing of this series is glacial.  I’m pretty sure this story-arc is supposed to be a mini-climax in the story, but climaxes shouldn’t take 6 months to happen.  If anything climaxes need to be faster than the rest of the series.  Just for comparison’s sake, I’ve been reading the Jack Kirby Kamandi Omnibus and that‘s how more comics should be paced: something new happening on every single page.  I appreciate that there is depth to a story like Unwritten, but the depth isn’t the point of a climax.  The climax isn’t “about” seeing Lizzie and Richie and the winged-cat hanging out in an Antarctic research station….the climax is about fighting the Cabal and a little too much development is bogging down the main story.

3. Really do enjoy the dynamic that Tom’s gang has. – All that being said, I do enjoy the dynamic that Tom’s gang has.  Watching Lizzie and Richie interact as the “normal” folks who got left behind is interesting because they are fun characters.  But, continuing my point above, watching their experiences is kinda like watching the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead version of the series: It’s great and well done, but it is still the appetizer.

American Vampire #21 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Jordi Bernet (artist), Dave McCaig (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: A finale to the post-Civil War, “Indian War” story featuring a young Skinner Sweet and John Book.

Five Things: 

1. I think I need to buy some Torpedo collected editions. – As I was reading this and approaching the ending, I started to really miss Bernet before he was gone.  Know what I mean?  Kinda like the last 15 minutes of a beloved movie trilogy?  Bernet is such a modern master and it’s nice to see him doing a full-length story arc of something that I actually want to read.  His storytelling and use of perspective are incredibly strong.  Look at all those panels of Book climbing up the cliff: Somehow Bernet makes it obvious that he is crawling up and not just scrambling horizontally along the ground.  That may seem like a small thing, but we’ve all seen artists screw up that type of thing.  And, I’m amazed that he excels at simultaneously drawing rough, craggy, unshaven and dirty men AND that incredibly curvy and sexy vampiress.  Wow!  That’s talent + experience!

2. Nice to get a little more flavor of the Sweet/Book relationship. – I don’t know if Snyder intends to come back to this “origin” setting, but you would kinda think he would, right?  It’s a ripe setting and I’d love to see more of this stuff.  What made this arc so special wasn’t really the vampires, it was the relationship between Sweet and Book and the story of how two childhood friends/brothers went down separate paths and became very different adults.  It’s tragic story in the end.

3. Interesting choices with the Native American vampires. – I originally thought that the vampiress’ cave might be connected to the cave Skinner was lurking in during the first arc of AV, but a quick skim of issues #1-5 seem to indicate that it isn’t.  Oh well….  But beyond that, I loved how these crazy-ass Native American vampires never appeared to the soldiers.  That way they can remain creatures of myth.  It was also great that it was left ambiguous whether Skinner saw the vampires or not.

The Unwritten #31 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (writer & pencils), M.K. Perker (inks), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: The War of the Words begins as Tom Taylor starts to fight back against the Cabal.

Five Things: 

1. Tom Taylor has the power!  After spending 30 issues watching Tom growing in power, it was pretty neat to see him in full-on “beast mode”.  He knows what he is now and has also learned a really interesting method to augment his powers.  Of course, he’s lacking in experience and that might come back to bite him, but talent and power go a LONG way.

2. Tom’s friends make for a pretty good team.  Of course, we’re used to seeing Tom accompanied by his loyal friends, Lizzie and Richie (what a relief that they haven’t become a love triangle, huh?).  So, it’s no surprise that they’re going to be at his side as he begins to take down the Cabal.  But, it was pretty neat to see that he has Frankenstein’s monster helping as well.  That certainly enhances the power of the team.  Frank is also an interesting addition because he’s kinda a literary construct like Tom (although I’m not sure that I’m intelligent enough to figure out if this is what the creators are going for).

3. Kinda slow otherwise.  It may be a personal problem of mine, but I always feel that stories need to speed up as they approach a climax.  The simple fact is that the audience/reader anticipates the climax and doesn’t want to wait very long once it begins.  Even though a story (in its entirety) is about the journey, the climax is very much about reaching the climax.  So, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if these series of issues picked up the pacing a little bit.

American Vampire #21 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Jordi Bernet (artist), Dave McCaig (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: We’ve enjoyed our stories of this new breed of American Vampires, but where did they come from?

Five Things:

1. Origins of American Vampires.  Scott Snyder’s exploration of this new breed of “American Vampires” has had really cool parallels to the growth of the country.  I’m pretty sure that Snyder is a history fan, so this makes sense: The Old World has Old World vampires, but this new and exciting land of possibility called America has new vampires that aren’t bound by the old rules.  Of course, that is the “white man’s view” of America as there were people living in the Americas before Europeans got here.  So seeing an initial experience with vampirism in the New World that is basically as old as the country and involving Native Americans was pretty cool.  My only quibble was that it seemed like the lady vampire met a pretty fast demise after so much build-up and I wasn’t really sure what happened during the sequence where the man tomahawks her (one moment she is serene and the next she’s in a fetal ball getting chopped).  Maybe she isn’t really dead?

2. Wonderful art (again) from Jordi Bernet and McCaig.  There’s so much to love here.  Seeing Bernet draw landscapes is just glorious.  He’s an experienced master of the art form, so it’s no surprise, but the composition of these panels of mountains, waterfalls and canyons is just wonderful.  His characters look great too.  Such wonderful use of shadows!  And I love that McCaig gets to color this with mostly flat colors.  The comics world would be so much better if flat colors predominated.

Unwritten #30 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators, writers & art), Vince Locke (inks on 1930s sequences), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Tom Taylor learns about his half-brother.

Review: This is another of those “hard to review” series because I find myself saying the same stuff every month: Unwritten is very good.  There is momentum from issue-to-issue, but it isn’t the hot new comic anymore (being up to issue #30).  It always irritates me when the comic blogosphere drops its coverage of titles like this that remain excellent, but aren’t new and fresh because Unwritten is precisely the type of title we need more of in comics.  One of the more common threads on comic message boards is “how do I get my girlfriend/wife into comics?”  Well….giving her a pile of Wolverine comics isn’t going to be appreciated, but there are a LOT of folks not reading comics who would find the themes of Unwritten very appealing precisely because it isn’t superheroes.  It expects you to understand a little about literature, it expects you to pay attention from issue to issue, most altercations are solved without muscles coming into play, it doesn’t objectify women and the hero isn’t a dude with bulging pecs.

American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #5 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Sean Murphy (art), Dave Stewart (colors), Pat Brosseau (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: Cash and Felicia try to escape from the Nazi vampires with a “cure” for vampirism.

Review: This was a very satisfying conclusion to this AV miniseries.  It ties up most of the action from this story of American agents working for the Vassals of the Morning Star and their infiltration Nazi-occupied Europe in the late 1930’s, and the unresolved issues will make ample fodder for future AV stories.

This miniseries also really cemented for me what kind of series AV is.  For awhile, I wondered what AV was about in the sense that a series like Transmetropolitan was about Spider Jerusalem’s quest to take down the Smiler or how Planetary was about Elijah Snow’s mission to stop the Four and save Ambrose.  If AV has an over arching story like that, it is slower to develop (think 100 Bullets), but I think it could just be like Y the Last Man where it isn’t so much about the individual missions, but more a study of what happens when you create a certain type of world: What if vampires existed and what if the founding of a new country (the USA) also saw the founding of a new race of vampires?  What would they be like?  How would they interact with humans?  With other vampires?  How does the status quo change with this new race?  I think that’s the kind of ride we’re on.

Getting back to this issue, the opening “escape from the castle” scene is more of a prolonged action scene than I think we’ve ever seen from Snyder and he and Murphy pull it off very nicely even if a motorcycle chase is a waste of Snyder’s writing skill.  [As an aside, comic fandom too often uses the term “good writing” to mean “comes up with neat ideas for a comic book”.  That isn’t writing.  Writing is taking that concept and transforming it into a series of words that are engaging to read and this is an area where Snyder is way ahead of the average comic book writer.  Compare that to a dude like Marv Wolfman who had ideas coming out of his ears, but couldn’t write a lick.]  Still, it’s a fun scene that moves the action along and Murphy draws the hell out of it, even if it doesn’t make Snyder exert himself very much.

American Vampire #19 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Jordi Bernet (artist), Dave McCaig (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: The secret history of Skinner Sweet and John Book.  Who knew?

What’s Good: This is how to do a fill-in artist!  Usually when you substitute someone for regular artist Rafael Albuquerque, it is going to be a step down in class.  But when you’ve got the pull to get a living legend like Jordi Bernet to do a few issues… That is just something special.  Not saying he’s better than Albuquerque, but you usually can’t get someone like this for a fill-in artist.  Anytime you see art by a guy like Bernet (or other living legends like Joe Kubert, Sergio Aragones, Michael Kaluta, etc.) the art has such a surety and confidence.  The art never looks like someone screwed around with it and changed it five times before coming to the finished product.  He just knows what lines he needs on the page to tell the story.

It’s also really cool how Bernet changes up his styles halfway through the issue and both of the styles fit the subject matter so well.  He starts with a very clean and economical style to illustrate two boys fooling around in the fields doing things like catching snakes and playing jokes on each other.  It perfectly illustrates Skinner and John Book as kids.  Then we catch up with the duo again while they’re fighting Apaches along the Mexican border and the style becomes a little darker and rougher.  Makes sense; fighting Apaches in the desert was nasty work.  And then the cherry on top is the final page that shows the topless Native American vampire.  Wow, what a page!  Sexy and scary.  I would LOVE to own a Bernet page.

The Unwritten #29 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (story & art), Vince Locke (inks on 1930’s sequences), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor), Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: We learn more about the events that drove Wilson Taylor away from the mysterious cabal trying to rule the world through stories.

What’s Good: This is a tricky comic to review in single issues.  On one hand, Unwritten is a darn fine comic and I always think it is a shame when a darn fine comic has no trouble getting reviews proclaiming it’s quality after the first 5-6 issues and then no one wants to talk about it anymore.  On the other hand, Unwritten is a story that needs to be really judged on a big scale; even though it has story arcs for the purpose of trade publication, it is just one BIG story.  So, reviewing the single issues is kinda like pausing a movie every fifteen minutes to say what you think.  At this point, Unwritten has established itself as a very well written and well-drawn comic that is pulling at the concepts of what a story really is and whether stories can have a life outside of the written page once enough people read and embrace the story.

Much of the action in this issue is set in the 1930’s as we see a more confident Tom Taylor using his magical powers to summon the images that go along with his father’s diary.  It’s a neat effect and the decision to mix in Vince Locke’s inks is wise because it sets off these sorta-flashbacks and makes them look different than the rest of the issue.  The most interesting thing of this story arc has been seeing Wilson Taylor (Tom’s father) transition from a loyal servant of the cabal to the character we knew from early issues of this series where he was in active resistance (including his creation of Tom as a weapon of that resistance).  This issue shows the events that led to his schism with the cabal.  Even if we don’t know everything yet, this is really filling in the blanks nicely.

Of course, there is a big reveal at the end of the issue too.  SPOILERS…  Tom has a half-brother and this brother seems to have magical abilities to summon literary characters to the real world too.  Thus far, most summoned characters have been on Tom’s side, so this new wrinkle is very interesting.

American Vampire #18 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (artist), Dave McCaig (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: The final issue of the WWII/Pacific-theatre story is here.  Some folks will survive and some won’t.

What’s Good: I’m going to pick at a few things below, but overall….this is another strong entry for the award-winning series.  The big event of this issue is the showdown between Pearl and Skinner.  Not only is this a fight between the two American Vampires (that we know of), but there’s all kinds of residual and complex issues going on between the two: Pearl is defending her human husband and probably has some issues with the fact that Skinner made her a vampire in the first place….Skinner also reveals that he has some issues with Pearl that go beyond him just being a jackass.  So, there is a lot more to this fight than mere fisticuffs.  You’ll just have to read it, but it makes clear why Skinner has been on the lookout for Pearl and Henry for decades and why he has it in for Henry.

We also get a few cool cliffhanger events in this issue.  One major character sure seems dead, but this being comics, you can’t really be sure.  It seems like we have closure on the island of feral Japanese vampires, but since it happens off-panel, we can’t be entirely sure of what happened.  There is a really cool cliffhanger final panel where we might have a new American Vampire, and you have to wonder what that’ll mean for Pearl.  AND, there is even a major character who might be vampirized too.  He did get bitten and nothing is really said about the bite (although a full panel is devoted to it), so I guess we’ll just have to see.

There is even another example of Snyder not taking the easy way out of a scene.  At one point, the protagonists are tossed into the ocean with the feral vampires below them and Snyder comes up with a very cool reason why the vampires can’t just swim up to grab them.  I love the way Snyder takes this neat idea and just tosses it away after a page because it makes me feel confident for the future of the series.  Weaker writers construct 6-issue stories around this sort of idea, but Snyder uses it for a page and then moves on.

The Unwritten #28 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (presumably writing & drawing respectively, but they don’t say), Vince Locke (inks on flashback sequences), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Tom Taylor learns more about his father’s 1930’s relationship with a cartoonist (who also happens to be a very pretty lady).

What’s Good: This is another of those “good but not great” issues of The Unwritten.  Almost the entire issue is consumed with Tom going through his father’s old journals.  We’ve learned that at one point in time, Wilson Taylor worked for this mysterious and ominous organization that was attempting to rule the world through story.  This story arc is detailing Wilson’s dilemma as he has been sent by Pullman (the enemy throughout most of the series) to kill a cartoonist who is upsetting the organization’s plans.

The budding romance between Wilson and this Miriam Walzer is entertaining to read, especially when you know that Wilson either has to shoot her OR alienate the organization.  To the creators’ credit, there is some mystery around this decision, but you get the sense that however it turns out, this will be the event that ruptures Wilson’s relationship with the organization.

It’s also fun watching Wilson have his eyes opened by Miriam as to the power of storytelling.  My ‘history of Unwritten” is a little jumbled, but in this time, Wilson seems to be more of a heavy than a writer and it’s possible that Miriam inspired Wilson to become the writer that he was later in life and helped him to develop the skill that allowed him to create Tom/Tommy.