Doktor Sleepless #1

Written by Warren Ellis

Art by Ivan Rodriguez

Avatar Press $2.99

  I think science fiction is most effective when it creates paranoia about the present with presentations of the near future.  Doktor Sleepless does this rather well.  Although no real year is given, or I totally missed it, everything to appear to be slightly in the future, but things haven’t much changed.  Graffiti is all over the city with bitter slogans like, “not my future”, or “where’s my flying car”, indicating that technology hasn’t progressed in the way that people want, but Doktor Sleepless, a mysterious, yet famous figure, has reemerged onto the scene and has shown up to yell at everyone over their apathy and discontent.  Though there are no flying cars, there are wireless instant messaging systems programmed into contact lenses that allow everyone to know where their friends are and what they’re up to at all times.  This system is called clatter.

In addition to his anger over the unappreciated technology that virtually no one has worked for, Doktor Sleepless is also annoyed that youth culture, Grinders, have taken to modifying their bodies with no concern over what the effects will be and what that means when it comes to science.  This seems to be a direct commentary on current body modification, like tattoos, piercings, scarification and the like.  I haven’t entirely figured out what Ellis is trying to say about this current trends and what they will ultimately lead to when trendiness grows more and more extreme when it lends mass “individuality” an easy way to feel(although it’s an artificial feeling) different.

So for a first issue you get some commentary about a modern phenomenon(body mods) and how we are unappreciative towards technology and demand much while inputting virtually nothing(which I essentially wholly agree with).   The art is really great, especially the busy ass covers, but I’m really intrigued by the writing.  It has the makings of a very thought-provoking science fiction dystopia mixed up in a rather interesting universe with some diverse and twisted ass characters.  Couple all of this with the knowledge that this isn’t a miniseries, but an ongoing series that will hopefully see at least fifty issues, and this could turn out to be a really great thing.

I’m just happy I have an awesome comic shop that was willing me to order a copy because they sold out and I didn’t even realize this was coming out.  READ THIS BOOK

Fallen Angel #19

Written by Peter David

Art by J.K. Woodward

Cover by Billy Tucci

IDW Publishing $3.99 

Well, I’m glad that’s over.  These last three issues that have comprised the Shi crossover have been the worst three issues of Fallen Angel and I have read every single issue, both DC and IDW, ever published.  Overall, this issue has been the best out of the three issue arc and this arc has meant the return of Woodward to handling the art, so that’s good as well.  Up until this issue I haven’t really been able to say anything good, but now I can say this:

In this issue Peter David gets back to fucking around with mythology and religion(which is really just mythology, after all) in modern society, which was a relief.  He toys with the issue of multiple gods and who is really in charge, the answer is generally no one.  I liked the concept that, as people move on from the old gods and worship the new, exciting and more relevant ones, the old gods are forgotten and their power fades.  Thus, the power of gods lies only in the belief of their followers, which is true in our society; the insanity of the Christians rules society because they believe, they accept their mythology as truth, live it, and it becomes the truth to them.  An interesting and pretty relevant concept because we live at a time where Christians, Muslims and Jews are all scrambling to stop social progress from happening because the further along we come along, the more irrelevant the old mythology becomes.

As Bill Hicks said, it’s time we evolve our ideas.

Walking Dead #41

Written by Robert Kirkman

Art and cover by Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn

Image Comics $2.99 

After a mild and pretty much peaceful(if you don’t count the amputation) issue last month, Walking Dead comes out early this month and arrives with quite a bite.  By reading this issue you get the strong impression that, when the crew at the prison aren’t practicing shooting, they’re essentially waiting around for the war with Woodbury to start.  Though there isn’t much dialog devoted to the subject, Kirkman devotes a bit of his time to showing the tense mood building, which just might erupt next month maybe kind of sort of.  I actually have come to really have a fondness for not knowing when the shit is going to hit the fan, but knowing that, at some point, there’s going to be this kind of gang war in the post apocalyptic world full of zombies.

I figured Carol was up to something stupid when she was acting normal and trying to be friends with Lori again.  And I was right as hell, but it was incredibly entertaining to watch her go down via a pair of rotten teeth.  I’m all in favor of killing off the idiotic characters, not because I really hate them or anything, but because I know that eventually they’re going to fuck it up for the group.  Oddly enough, I really care about the group and want them to be okay, so when Carol goes down, it’s for the better and makes me smile.  What is VERY interesting is Alice’s idea to keep a zombie under surveillance and study them.   I think that her desire to understand them or find a cure could prove to continue to conflict with Rick’s personal craziness and controlling attitudes and it could become a lot of fun to unfold.  The idea of science in a new era without electricity or any of the advances our society has enjoyed over the last 100 years.  One of the most interesting concepts about Walking Dead is the idea of rebuilding in a world that isn’t destroyed, but it’s almost devoid of intelligence.  I hope that these concepts will be touched on sometime in the future.

Or maybe just a whole lot of fighting with some murderous strangers.

Black Summer #2 of 7

Written by Warren Ellis

Art by Juan Rose Ryp

Avatar Press $2.99 

Some readers seem to have a problem with Warren Ellis because, like most of the English, he doesn’t particularly abide by the nonsensical adoration and respect toward superheroes and formula storytelling that Americans are used to.  It’s actually because of this that I really enjoy his superhero stories.  Like Garth Ennis or Grant Morrison, you get an outside perspective on an old theme, but getting a superhero story from someone who doesn’t particularly like superheroes is great because you get to witness a writer take something bland and make it stand out.  Not just to the reader, but to the writer as well.

Black Summer is about the most powerful superhero in the world, John Horus, who has just killed the president and endangered the superhero team he’s part of by involving them by association in the event.  This issue mostly focuses on what we do when we’re backed into corners, when we’re scared and when we’re forced to fight.  The outcome is generally bad.

Ryp has seriously cleaned up his art for this issue, which improves the look quite a lot.  Instead of a messy, cluttered panel, you get a neat, clean one like above. This is far less a distraction from the story and more like an additional dialog you get visually, which only aids the story’s progression.

All in all, this was a great issue where Ellis tries to humanize the superhero by showing  them under pressure and terrified, not knowing what to do.  By doing this, showing human beings who happen to be superpowered, he comes very close to what Alan Moore did in Watchmen, making the fact that the main characters are heroes secondary and making the fact that they are people with problems primary.

Star Trek: Klingons Blood Will Tell #4

Written by Scott Tipton & David Tipton

Art by David Messina and Elena Casagrande

IDW $3.99

The miniseries winds down with the apparent conflict or resolution between the Klingons and the Federation quickly approaching. Morglar, an old comrade of Kahnrah’s recounts a tale, for no apparent reason, about his interaction and experience actually murdering human beings, which impresses K’ahlynn to no end. His story is about an encounter with the Enterprise, Kirk and company and a brutal sword fight among dozens of members of both the Federation and the Klingon soldiers who are trying to take it over in retaliation for being attacked by the Enterprise. Of course, the Klingon’s see this as Kirk’s fault and he utterly refuses to back down until a truce is called by both sides.

Again, in the end everyone ends up having drinks and telling jokes. This issue is a retelling of the Original Series episode, day of the dove, but it tries to be more multifaceted in it’s portrayal of the Klingons, showing them as a race trying to secure a military advantage instead of the fascist way that they have often been portrayed in the television series. In the end, Morglar tells them to take up arms with the humans, that they should work together, because his battle on that day showed him that the humans can be trusted, but they are also incredibly strong and deserve the right to be respected.

Without a doubt, this series has been 200% better than the TNG series. I hope Tiptons get another Trek series, because they definitely know what they’re doing.

Fallen Angel #18

Written by Peter David

Art by J.K. Woodward

IDW $3.99

Okay. Last month I became really worried. A lame crossover, more bad art, the single worst issue of the 37 issue series, a story that seemed so bad it must be a joke. But this issue starts off with the most appreciated return of J.K. Woodward and the story turns around. Last months flipbook was a horrible idea and made for a ridiculously bad, short and disorderly introduction to a story and to be honest, I thought using Shi in the book was just a gimmick. This issue didn’t justify the horrible quality of issue 17, but it did restore my faith in the series by introducing a plot that actually makes sense in the long-running continuity of Fallen Angel.

The return of Yurei, Woodward, the concept of tricking Lee into eating some kind of cursed food so that she can never leave Yellow Springs and return to Bette Noir makes perfect sense in the context of Yurei being an evil, power hungry bastard. I have yet to decide where Shi comes into play, why David agreed to write her into the series and why she’s necessary in the story. If Yurei set them up to come to Yellow Springs, Shi fits into the equation somewhere, whether she double crosses Lee or is in league with Yurei himself, something more complex than two incredibly powerful, religiously affected women who have killed lots of people wander into a strange cursed place at the same time has to be happening.

David’s return to form is most evident in his projections of the simplicity of Christianity and how flimsy it’s grounds are. As Shi hears Lee’s experience with God, hearing the revelation that God doesn’t care about humanity, in fact, he is disgusted and bored with us, Shi, the faithful Christian is immediately upset and scared that Lee might be right. Lee asks her, “if he had no mercy for his only son, what chance do we have?”, clearly scaring the shit out of Shi.

Next month will be fun to see where this all goes, if Shi will stick around, what she’s there for, what happens with Yurei and what exactly comes next. And a fight with hundreds of samurai is almost guaranteed, which definitely helps.

Raise the Dead #4 of 4

Written by Leah Moore and John Reppion

Art by Hugo Petrus, Marc Rueda and Ivan Nunes

Cover by Arthur Suydam

Dynamite Entertainment $3.50

Arthur Suydam’s covers have become the types of girls I liked in high school and it’s starting to bother me. On the outside, a wonderful exterior that makes one trust that the contents found within would be equally interesting, intriguing, important and, at the very least, a little friendly towards a nice stranger like myself. But instead you get dumb, dull, mean and boring once you get past the cover. Like a Fallout Boy song, interesting for a second and horrible for three minutes, Raise the Dead has been an arduous chore of a four issue min-series to read. I feel as though I should have received a prize upon finishing the final panel of this pointless comic which had no beginning, certainly no end and really barely had a plot.

A zombie outbreak occurs because of maybe a meteorite or maybe the government or maybe some scientists, it’s never really cleared up. Some people band together to escape, some are jerks and some of the jerks die. And then maybe some people get away. There you go, I saved you fourteen dollars.

I don’t remember actually putting this in my pull list, but at the time issue one came out I was reading some marvel zombies book, walking dead and the second IDW zombies series; Eclipse of the Undead. Dynamite’s hollow, pointless attempt at a zombie book fails hard, not achieving the characters and interesting plots of Kirkman’s zombies, nor the great inside art or human conflict of IDW’s books. It sure as hell wasn’t funny, so it doesn’t compare with Marvel Zombies. Again, Suydam’s covers were the only reason to even think about looking at this book, the writing is terrible, the art isn’t anything spectacular and the concept is old and tired. Go buy Walking Dead.

Grimm Fairy Tales #16

Written by Ralph Tedesco and Joe Tyler

Art by Andrew Magnum and Roland Salvidor

Zenescope Entertainment $2.99

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her,
And frightened Miss Muffet away

Well, that’s how it was when I was a kid. This, of course, is not a story by the Grimm brothers, in fact, no one is sure who wrote the little rhyme that was first published in 1805, in a book titled Songs for the Nursery. Yet, Little Miss Muffet is the title and main focus of this issue of Grimm Fairy Tales.

Sela, the main character of the series, who is given the power to change people’s lives at the beginning of the series(which I missed, this being only the second issue I have read) by telling people who have lost their way and are a danger or annoyance to humanity old stories to fix their lives, has been abusing her power. Giant spiders are sent to chase her down and demand answers, along with zombies, ghosts and other beings you wouldn’t normally see in the comic shop bitching about all those damned World War Hulk tie-ins. We are given a short history of all the people she’s tried to help, but ended up killing, including those nazi pigs(literally) from last month’s issue.

The issue wraps up by showing Sela over a grave, reminiscing about someone she tried to help, but Sela says she couldn’t, in defiance of the cliched old Chinese man who has been reviewing her life for her ever since the spiders tracked her down in the middle of the issue. Over all, not as enjoyable and fun as last month, but it’s trying to add to some larger story(I think/hope). Otherwise, as a new reader, it made no sense to me. In fact, I had to go to Wikipedia -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm_Fairy_Tales_%28comic_series%29 - to get the full story, because I didn’t know there was any continuity to this comic at all. Previous to this issue, I believed the series to be fairy tale themed one shots that use a lot of sex appeal and violence to modernize the old stories. Well, I’m still correct about the latter. This issue stars giant breasts, skimpy clothes, zombies, giant monster-like arachnids and trying-to-be-creepy scenes. It co-stars Sela.

Black Summer #1 of 7

Written by Warren Ellis

Art by Juan Jose Ryp

Avatar Press $2.99

Easily some of the busiest work I’ve seen in a while, his detail has to be respected, it’s great and obviously well thought-out, highly conceptualized, but as sprawling as it can sometimes be, it occasionally feels out of place in this science fiction work. Being an Avatar comic, you get the annoying randomized distribution of several covers, so I couldn’t actually find a scan of the wraparound cover that I have, which is considerably more interesting that the scan above, as well as a good example of his busy style.

That said, I still like the art, I just don’t really know if it is suited for this book. But we’ll see, I anticipate this to be a thoughtful little book, which should wrap up sometime in February with it’s seventh and final issue.

New comics for August 03, 2007

I’m a week and a half behind, so this week I ended up picking up quite the pile. I was glad to see so many great issues in my pile this go around. I was particularly excited about walking dead, which is already reviewed, batman, dark tower and JLA. I’ll be putting up several reviews per day and working my way through my pile over the next several days.

Action Comics #853 - Kurt Busiek(w), Brand Walker, Livesay, Lee Loughridge(a)
Batman #666 - Grant Morrison(w), Andy Kubert, Jesse Delperdang(a)
Black Panther #29 - Reginald Hudlin(w), Francias Portela and Val Staples(a) Arthur Suydam(c)
Black Summer #1 of 7 - Warren Ellis(w), Juan Jose Ryp(a)
Chronicles of Wormwood #6 of 6 - Garth Ennis(w), Jacen Burrows(a)
Countdown #39 & 40 - Paul Dini, McKeever(w), Jim Calafiore and Jay Leigten(a)
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #7 of 7 - Peter David and Robin Furth(w), Jae Lee and Richard Isanove(a)
Deathblow #6 - Brian Azzarello(w), Carlos D’Anda, Henry Flint(a)
Fallen Angel #18 - Peter David(w) and J.K. Woodward(a)
Futurama # 32 - Ian Boothby(w), Mike Kazaleh and Andrew Pepoy(a)
Grimm Fairy Tales #16 - Ralph Tedesco and Joe Tyler(w), Andrew Magnum and Roland Salvidor(a)
Justice Society of America #8 - Geoff Johns(w), Fernando Pasarin and Rodney Ramos(a)
Metal Men #1 of 8 - Duncan Roleau(a & w)
Midnighter #10 - Keith Giffen(w), Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Randy Mayor(a)
Raise the Dead #4 of 4 - Leah Moore and John Reppion(w), Hugo Petrus, Marc Rueda and Ivan Nunes(a)
Speak of the Devil #1 of 6 - Gilbert Hernandez(Spider-Man Fairy Tales #3 of 4 - C.B. Cebulski(w), Kei Kobayashi, Christina Strain(a)
Star Trek: Klingons Blood Will Tell #4 - Scott and David Tipton(w), David Messina and Elaina Casagrande(a)
Star Trek: Year Four #1 - David Tischman(w), Steve Conley, Leonard O’Grady(a)
Uncanny X-Men #489 - Ed Brubaker(w), Mike Perkins and Andrew Hennessey(a)
Unholy Union #1 - Ron Marz(w), Michael Broussard(a)
Walking Dead #39 - Robert Kirkman(w), Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn(a)
Welcome to Tranquility #9 - Gail Simone(w), Neil Googe(a)
Wetworks #11 - J.M. Dematteis(w), Joel Gomez and Trevor Scott(a)
World War Hulk #3 - Greg Pak(w), John Romita Jr, Janson, Strain(a)
World War Hulk: Ironman #20 - Christos Gage(w), Butch Guice, Dean White and Gerald Parel(a)
World War Hulk: The Incredible Hulk #108 - Greg Pak(w), Leonard Kirk, Scott Hanna and Chris Sotomayor(a)
World War Hulk: The Irredeemable Ant-Man #10 - Robert Kirkman(w), Phil Hester, Ande Parks, Bill Crabtree and Val Staples(a)
X-Men #201 - Mike Cary(w), Humberto Ramos, Carlos Cuevas and Edgar Delgado(a)