Bodies #2 – Review

By: Si Spencer (story), Meghan Hetrick, Dean Ornston, Tula Lotay, Phil Winslade (art), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Four detectives are better than one.

The Review: I speak from some experience when I say that when you have a lot of people working on the same project, no matter how different they may be from each other, there has to be some common ground for them to stand on or the project fails. In Bodies, the differences between our four detectives are even greater from the spans of time that lies between them, but there has to be some reason why these four were chosen, and the best way to discover it is to see what they have in common.

This issue makes that task easy by calling attention to something the last issue downplayed: each of our detectives live under the pressure of discrimination. Edmond muses how his closeted homosexuality may result in his imprisonment; Charles Whiteman changed his name (Karl Weissman) to escape from anti-Semitic barbs like the one thrown by Sean Mahoney, uncle of the man he interrogated; Shahara can’t freely discuss her Muslim faith with comrade/romantic interest Barber, much less the racist protestors bashing her car.

Bodies #1 – Review

By: Si Spencer (story), Meghan Hetrick, Dean Ornston, Tula Lotay, Phil Winslade (art), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Murder is the kind of history that tends to repeat itself.

The Review: Done with the Bar, finally—at least for the next few months. And yet, in the world of comics, life goes on as usual. It’s kind of comforting actually, to think that whether I pass or fail, there will always be comics. But enough with sentimentality; let’s talk about Bodies. One of the reasons why I loved Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers was for the narrative craft it took to use seven disparate stories to push each other forward as well as an overarching plot.

Bodies very much lands in the same mold, except you can see more clearly see the cooperation among the four storylines and their featured investigators: D.S. Shahara Hasan of 2014, Inspector Edmond Hillinghead of 1890, Detective Maplewood of 2050, and Inspector Charles Whiteman of 1940. Remarkably enough, Spencer is able to take each era in that order and still render a fairly smooth narrative.

The Witching Hour #1 – Review

By: Too many to list—or even to review.  Just check out the issue.

The Story: Will you catch any of these folks speaking with the devil?

The Review: These Vertigo showcases are proof positive that there really are an endless number of ways to look at the world, or even just one thing in it.  Both Ghosts and Time Warp offered stories that dealt with actual spirits and time-travel, but just as many stories that explored spirits and time as concepts, and a few that struck at the subjects on both a literal and figurative level.  It’s pretty amazing to see what the imagination will dream up when prompted.

Take Brett Lewis’ “Mars to Stay,” which in both substance and form resembles less like anything having to do with witches and more like a hard piece of science-fiction—the hardest kind, given how Lewis doesn’t take too many liberties with the fiction to deliver science that actually falls within the realm of possibility, if you have a cynical view of the way people work.  Maybe that’s where the witchcraft lies, in the slow, creeping way that the stranded crew’s psyches break down, as if infected with a curse.  Either way, it’s an impactful, haunting tale, despite having no clear connection to magical women whatsoever (and it doesn’t hurt that you get Cliff Chiang’s starkly sharp art illustrating the whole thing).

American Vampire: Anthology #1 – Review

By: Scott Snyder, Jason Aaron, Rafael Albuquerque, Jeff Lemire, Becky Cloonan, Francesco Francavilla, Gail Simone, Gabriel Ba, Fabio Moon, Declan Shalvey, Ivo Milazzo, Ray Fawkes, Tula Lotay, Greg Rucka, JP Leon, Dave McCaig, Jordie Bellaire, Jared K. Fletcher, Steve Wands, Travis Lanham, Dezi Sienty

The Story: A group of super-creators gathers to tell short stories set in the American Vampire universe.

Review (with very minor SPOILERS): Whoa! This was really incredible.  I knew I wanted to read this issue because I’ve read and loved every issue of American Vampire.  It wasn’t even a question for me, despite the $7.99 price tag.  I love AV and this was a MUST READ.  Even if it costs as much as two other comics, it was twice as long and probably ten times as good.

Even though I expected quality, I was still surprised by the excellence of the content.  I really didn’t know what to expect from the stories within.  I’m sure there have been interviews out there that detailed the content of assembled stories, but I quit reading such interviews a long time ago.  So, I went into this cold and couldn’t be more pleased.

The issue features a framing sequence by Snyder and Albuquerque (the regular creators on AV), set in 1967 New Mexico featuring everyone’s favorite American vampire: Skinner Sweet.  There isn’t a ton of content here.  Just a few little pages showing Skinner getting into a messy fracas that is surely a tease for when the ongoing series returns from hiatus.  I can’t wait to see more of this story.  Why did those bikers want to kill Skinner?  Skinner versus Hell’s Angels?  That sounds nifty.  I’ll read that.  Please hurry up and create those comics for me, sirs.  It also raised an interesting thought in my mind: Skinner sure hasn’t gone very far from home.  Except for his World War II excursion, he has never left the American Southwest and southern California.  I’m not really sure if that means anything except that Skinner was probably a lot like other Americans of that era: He mostly stayed around his home area except for war.  I mean, we haven’t seen Skinner in New York or South Beach.  Kinda interesting…