Queen & Country by Greg Rucka

Tags

collection, Greg Rucka, Indie Comics, Oni Press, Queen and Country

 
We discovered Queen & Country on the Totally Top Secret Fifty Cent Rack last year. Someone blessed us by leaving about 2/3 of the series there, and it was easy enough to fill in the rest with VF/NM copies at about a buck a piece.

We have read many of Greg Rucka’s crime and detective stories before, but this is our favorite. Rucka made his mark at DC with his work on Batman in Detective Comics, among others. We prefer his indie short stories like Felon for Image/Top Cow, and Oni Press titles Whiteout and Stumptown. Queen & Country, also from Oni Press, proved as enjoyable as any of these, if not more.

 

 
It takes a while to get into the series if you read it like a novel, due to Rucka’s insistence on action above introspection. We get right into the thick of things with the characters without much context as to who they are. Only as they begin to deal with the consequences of their spy operations do we begin to bond with them and see what they are made of.

 

 
Told in chapters over five or six issues at a time, Queen & Country brings in a different art team for each chapter. Each dynamically different style gives us a new sense of the characters, too. We see them conceptualized anew with each new story arc. You might expect that to throw off the flow of the title, but it only deepened our enjoyment. Rucka’s scripts show us his characters more than tell us about them in exposition. Each art team shows in a unique way.

 

 
We sold a nice collection of the series in single issues on eBay recently. You can find most of the series in stock as single issues and trade paperbacks. The Definitive Edition also collects these plus all the Queen & Country: Declassified spin-offs that delve into our secret agents’ past. It’s a great action/spy/adventure series we hope to read again!

 

 

Lili by Scooter Harris

Tags

art, Lili, painting, Scooter Harris, Studio Hadra

Original art by Scooter Harris of Studio Hadra, author of True Crime Theater.

Jack Kirby Crime: Tomorrow’s Murder!

Tags

crime, golden age, Jack Kirby, Prize

Prize published Treasure Comics from 1943-1947. It had all kinds of stories, from humor to adventure to fantasy. Lurking in the pages of the tenth issue you will find a crime story by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon: Tomorrow’s Murder! Kirby and Simon did not stay on the title for long but other greats like Frank Frazetta were also featured in it before its demise.

Collector’s Guide:
– From Treasure Comics #10; 1946

Strange Tales 71

Tags

Joe Sinnot, Paul Reinman, Steve Ditko, Strange Tales

Let’s set the time machine for 1959! Take a look this week at a stack of Marvel’s Strange Tales. You’ll find fast-paced science fiction stories with an occasional occult theme thrown in for good measure. (Strange Tales ran more horror in the early 1950’s, before the Comics Code Authority nonsense began.) Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby feature prominently alongside other masters of these classic short-form comics.

Collector’s Guide:
– From Strange Tales #71; Marvel, 1959.

“I Dared to Defy Merlin’s Black Magic!” with art by Steve Ditko; “I am the Man Who Will Destroy Your World!”; “When the Saucer Strikes!” with art by Paul Reinman; “I Fought the Man Who Couldn’t Be Killed!”; “I Am the Man Without a Face!” with art by Joe Sinnott.

Jack Kirby Crime: The Money-Making Machine Swindlers!

Tags

crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!
– From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline.

Jack Kirby Crime: The Capture of “One-Eye”!

Tags

Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!
– From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline.

Your Move, Creep!

Tags

action figure, light up visor, machine gun, robocop, weapon arm

 
Once upon a time, I had a job at a Title company with a system that gave intercom access to the whole place via your desktop phone. When things got tense, depressing, or just plain boring, I put RoboCop on the loudspeakers. Held him up to the phone, pressed the button on his chest, and thrilled the entire staff with his “realistic machine gun sounds.”
Ratta-tat-tat, motherfuckers!

Of course, this was 1997. Getting your ass shot off by your coworkers hadn’t become a national hobby yet. Back in the 20th century, a little RoboCop in the office made people laugh. Tension breaker. Stress reliever. Nothing but Good Clean Fun with a weapon arm, M-16, and an assault rifle.

In the real world, you have a lot more to worry about than the choking hazard of small plastic parts. One of the first times Dad was on TV, he was the first officer to approach the parked vehicle of a very disturbed man. The man had gone into his office and shot a bunch of people, did the high speed chase thing, then blew his brains out in a parking lot. The only upside of making a to-do list like that for your day is that you won’t have to make any more to-do lists.

Well, this is what happens when people keep things bottled up day after day, year after year. Instead, they should stop once a day to let RoboCop do the machine gunning. Let RoboCop handle the assault rifle. His visor lights up when he rat-a-tats. It looks cool as hell, and no one gets hurt.

Jack Kirby Crime: The Phony Check Racketeers!

Tags

crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!
– From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline.

Jack Kirby Crime: Underworld Snob!

Tags

crime, Eddie Bentz, golden age, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!
– From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline.

Jack Kirby Crime: The Masked Killer!

Tags

crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!
– From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline.

Jack Kirby Crime: Gun Moll!

Tags

crime, golden age, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!
– From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline.

Jack Kirby Crime: The True Life Story of Alvin Karpis!

Tags

Alvin Karpis, crime, golden age, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!
– From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline.

Jack Kirby Crime: Alibi?

Tags

Charlton comics, crime, golden age, Jack Kirby, Jack Kirby Museum, Police Trap

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s work on Police Trap has been well-documented at The Jack Kirby Museum. The collaborators watched their publisher fall to pieces, and they found Charlton was willing to help continue the title. Police Trap #5 was the first Charlton issue, but it would only last through #6.

Collector’s Guide:
– From Police Trap #5; 1955, Charlton

Jack Kirby Crime: Fight Fix!

Tags

boxing, crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!
– From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline.

100 Bullets: The Zen Guerilla Poster

Tags

100 Bullets, Eduardo Risso, Green Room, Ypsilanti, Zen Guerilla

One of these days we’ll tell you how much Azzarello & Risso’s 100 Bullets rocked our world. But today we remember something else that rocked our world: Zen Guerilla. What’s the connection? Check out this page from 100 Bullets. Right in the middle, on the wall outside the bar where this scene takes place, Risso includes a concert poster for the band Zen Guerilla.

That’s not just a clever name Eduardo Risso came up with. It’s a real band we had the pleasure of seeing several years ago in downtown Ypsilanti, Michigan.

The venue was a now-defunct coffee shop/concert venue called The Green Room. The Green Room was one of our favorite places. Most of our favorite local bands played there from time to time, and occasionally we would get avant garde visitors like Eugene Chadbourne. We also discovered the Northwoods Improvisers there, a fascinating acoustic modern jazz trio from Mount Pleasant.

The Green Room also hosted poetry readings, a scene we avidly took part in for many years. We met some really interesting cats there and made a few friends we still keep in touch with. The Green Room sat just across the street from The Elbow Room, a cool dive bar that featured local and touring hard rock bands, and which outlived the Green Room by several years.

One summer, circa 1998, we made one of many trips to the Green Room to check out a local band. It might have been Morsel, an Ann Arbor favorite with a dense, heavy, trippy sound that defied classification in just about any genre of rock.

Regardless, Zen Guerilla came as a surprise to us that evening. They unleashed a brain-smashing onslaught of super-heavy blues riffs at top volume. The singer – who, if we recall correctly, doubled on harmonica – rocked like a man possessed by atomic blues demons.

Don’t get us wrong. These guys didn’t play blues like Lightning Hopkins or B.B. King. The chords and song structures may have been similar, but the delivery was pure hard rock. We just kind of stood there with our mouths open for a few songs, dumbfounded by rock power. Eventually we made out way to the stage to whip our long hair back and forth in heavy metal tribute.

Afterwards, we bought their album. In fact, it was a cassette tape. It was lost many years ago, and the internet isn’t helping us identify it for you. But, you can jump to Amazon and see the Zen Guerilla Artist Page for a brief bio and some cool samples. Our tape never came close to matching the raw power of what we saw and heard on stage that night, but it was a performance we will never forget.

Thanks to the creators of 100 Bullets for slipping in this Zen Guerilla poster. It brought back some very fond memories of our years in Michigan, and reminded us how awesome it is to show up somewhere and have your mind blown by a band you never heard of before. Rock on!

Jack Kirby Crime: Counterfeit Cash!

Tags

counterfeit money, crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!
– From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline.

Jim Lee: Lono from 100 Bullets!

Tags

100 Bullets, Jim Lee, Lono, Vertigo Comics

Collector’s Guide:
– From 100 Bullets #26
– Reprinted in 100 Bullets TPB #4
– Reprinted in 100 Bullets Deluxe Hardcover #2

Jack Kirby Crime: Queen of the Speed-ball Mob!

Tags

crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!
– From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline.

Dead Man’s Escape!

Tags

Adventure into Terror, Dead Man's Escape, Dry Tortugas, Fear, Gil Kane, Joe Maneely, octopus

Dude, there is no escape from this island!
“Oh yes there is.”
No, there isn’t!
“Yes there is.”
NO! There is NO Escape from Dry Tortugas Island!

Not even for a dead man…

Collector’s Guide:
– From Fear #9; Marvel. 1972. Art by Joe Maneely; Cover by Gil Kane.
– Reprinted from Adventures into Terror #11; 1952, Marvel/Atlas.

Dig this handy guide to the work of Joe Maneely at Atlas Comics and the subsequent posthumous reprints by Marvel.

Losers – First Issue!

Tags

Andy Diggle, first issue, Jock, Losers, Vertigo Comics, war, war comics

The modern incarnation of The Losers is our favorite action series of all time. If you saw the movie and think you know this comic book, then think again. If you like crime comics, this will be at the top of your list, too. We’re big fans of Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips’ Criminal, too, if that gives you any idea of our taste in crime comics!

When the Losers, once an elite U.S. Special Forces Unit, stumbled onto the C.I.A.’s dirty little secret, their refusal to play along got them murdered…or so the C.I.A. thought. Now the Losers are back, and out for payback against the organization that stabbed them in the back.

Let’s enjoy the first two scenes introducing our cast of Losers!

Collector’s Guide:
– From Losers #1; DC/Vertigo, 2003. Story by Andy Diggle; art by Jock.
– Reprinted in Losers TPB #1, 2004 and a double-sized Losers TPB, collecting issues 1-12 in 2010.

Looking for the Jack Kirby version?
Click Jack Kirby Losers to dig Our Fighting Forces #152!