indie box: Next Men TPB

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2112, big box of comics, collection, comic books, Dark Horse, indie box, John Byrne, M4, Next Men, Next Men TPB

Once upon a time, I had the complete Next Men series, except for the Hellboy issue. Though I read the series three or four times, I’ve missed having it around ever since I sold it. This month, thanks to this blog’s readers who use my affiliate links to find books, I earned enough store credit to get all six of the 1993 trade paperback collections. Reading the series again reminds how much the series blew my mind the first time through, and as a bonus, it includes the Hellboy issue with pages drawn by Mike Mignola.

Hellboy’s appearance in issue #17 makes it the most expensive one to collect. It’s easy to collect all the other original, single issues for less than $3 each, but #17 will cost as much or more than all the other thirty issues combined. That’s not a problem with the collected paperback.

Hellboy might be part demon, but he is a far cry from the absolute evil of the series’ main villain. Sathanas is the remnants of a mutated energy vampire who kills people by draining their lifeforce, and since so much of him got blown up, he survives in a mechanical suit. Despite his silly name, he’s among my favorite John Byrne villains.

Despite the fun of the paperbacks, they have three disappointments, possibly because they were made more than a quarter-century ago before TPBs became so popular. These days, we expect the TPB to include all the original covers and, if any, all the variant covers. But the Next Men covers get treated terribly, reduced to about 1/6 of the page size and combined in a “gallery”. It’s an odd design choice, considering that there’s a useless page between each “issue” that just splits the words “Next Men” across its front and back. That would be a lovely place for a cover!

Second, the story is so intertwined with the short graphic novel 2112 that the original Next Men series isn’t complete without it. This oversight is forgivable, since the events of 2112 get summarized by one of the characters.

What’s unforgivable is the omission of the entire series of “back-up” stories, M4. These were short episodes with characters who, at first, seemed only tangentially related to the main series. But the stories intersected eventually, and the M4 characters were essential to the finale and resolution. Leaving out the M4 pages makes these characters appear to pop out of nowhere in the main storyline, which makes for utterly confusing plot developments for unfamiliar readers. Plus, M4 had its own covers, featured on the back of the single issues where it ran, and the TPBs have none of them.

For the completists: When IDW reprinted the series in color in 2009, they included M4 but not 2112. IDW’s 2011 reprint series (“Classic Next Men”, in three TPBs) includes both M4 and 2112, and it’s also in full color. I’ve only ever seen it in stock on Amazon for around $40 per volume in paperback, but you can get them for $10.99 each for Kindle and Comixology, and as a set with the sequel for a total of $43.

Even with these omissions, I loved re-reading this imaginative and intricately plotted series that features some of Byrne’s most humanized and fully realized characters. Consider what he does with three wordless pages to show Jasmine’s emotional state as she flees from an attack in underground tunnels. Her old, perfect life was taken from her, and she’s not adjusting well to reality, where trauma awaits her at every turn. Without a single line of expositional captions or thought balloons, Byrne portrays her fragile condition in these pages.

love and rockets tpb set

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black and white, collection, Fantagraphics, Gilbert Hernandez, Hernandez Brothers, Indie Comics, Jaime Hernandez, Love and Rockets

Before packing up our modest collection of Love & Rockets paperbacks, we snapped a few examples of the dramatic and personal artwork inside. Let’s just admit the photos aren’t the greatest, and offer this as merely a peek — a glimpse — of greatness. The Hernandez Brothers treat their cartoons with love. Though many of these stories resonate with us more than others, you won’t find any poorly done stories.

Highlights include the book Love & Rockets X, a riotous melting pot of ethnic, generational, and gender identity conflicts rendered with humor – but not so much sensitivity it doesn’t sting. The stories of female wrestlers remain our favorites, with loveable and pleasingly plump heroines rendered in black-and-white perfection. Our collection held a large chunk of the critically-acclaimed Palomar stories and the earliest Mechanics stories. If you haven’t read any of this historic series before, see if these pages catch your eyes.

Fantagraphics continues to publish new printings every few years. You can browse the Fantagraphics Love & Rockets selection to see what they currently have in print and in stock. Happy Reading!

Astonishing X-Men by Warren Ellis: Series Review

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Astonishing X-Men, collection, ghost boxes, Marvel Comics, Phil Jimenez, simone bianchi, Warren Ellis, X-men, Xenogenesis

 
After 24 issues plus a Giant Size final issue, fan-favorites Joss Whedon and John Cassaday left some big shoes to fill on Marvel’s Astonishing X-men. This wasn’t the first time Marvel published an Astonishing X-men title, but it was much more artistically and critically successful than the one in 1995 or the one in 1999. To keep the momentum going after Whedon and Cassaday, Warren Ellis stepped up to bat, along with Simone Bianchi. Bianchi’s artwork on Wolverine’s solo title provided some glorious visual moments, including an eye-popping drama in Wakanda with the Black Panther, Storm, and Sabertooth. Ellis and Bianchi’s collaboration on X-men gives us some stunning wraparound covers and a convoluted but visually interesting story.

 

 

 
In a move that made sense to perhaps no one outside the marketing department, the first storyline spins off right in the middle to a two-issue title called Ghost Boxes. These boxes play an important role in the main title, and if you only read the main title it feels like you missed part of the story. Basically, they take the X-men on some ‘alternate reality’ adventures which give Ellis a chance to tell “What If?” stories with the characters. Also, each vignette features a different artist, including a return to the X-men by Alan Davis. Despite the fumbling and fussing with a separate title, they do make for an engaging and sometimes chilling read.

Back in the main title, Bianchi keeps hitting home runs with creative layouts and gorgeous renditions of our favorite mutants.

 

 

 
After the first storyline concludes, Phil Jimenez returns to the X-men. And wow, what a return it is! Jimenez worked with Grant Morrison for a while on the series simply titled “X-men,” when it was being published as “New X-men.” While we didn’t care for Morrison’s characterization of Magneto as a cruel, utterly immoral jerkwad, the Jimenez artwork is worth the price of admission. On Astonishing, Jimenez makes his previous work look like a simple warm-up. Just look at what he does with the Brood and the Sentinels, among other things.

 

 

 
If these stories suffer anywhere, it’s in the rushed tone of the dialogue and plots. The X-men’s dialogue suffers as Ellis fills their mouths with uncharacteristically snappy patter. Their adventures, while admirably action-packed and fast-paced, also lose a little something, as if driven more by Ellis’ latest sci-fi concept than a gripping plot. In other words, they give the artist plenty of room to draw amazing things, but don’t give the reader much incentive to care. Having read about a million Ellis stories, this feels more like one of several limited series he pounded out in a hurry than it does an X-title. But hey, even an Ellis “popcorn movie” script makes for entertaining reading.

 

 
A complete collection of this run will also include two free “sketchbooks” Marvel published – one for the Bianchi run and one for the Jimenez run. The interview with Jimenez and the black and white artwork are real treats, the latter calling attention to just how large a role the colorist played in creating the look of the second storyline. Color credits belong to the amazing Frank D’Armata, who also played a huge role in the splendor of Ed Brubaker’s Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire, another one of our favorite recent X-epics.

 

 
The final Ellis story takes place again outside the normal title, as Astonishing X-men: Xenogenesis. Kaare Andrews rocks this story out on the artistic front.

 

 

 
All in all, it’s a good read combining action with moral tension and futuristic concepts. The entire opus could have been improved by giving Ellis time to simply write these stories for the regular title, instead of squeezing blood from a stone by putting out as many X-titles as possible each month. But that is not exactly a new problem at the House of Ideas, is it?

 

A Look inside Bruce Jones’ Run on the Incredible Hulk

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Abomination, Bruce Banner, Bruce Jones, collection, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, John Romita jr, Kaare Andrews, Leandro Fernandez, Lee Weeks, Mike Deodato

Even after repeated readings of Bruce Jones’ run on The Incredible Hulk, we get a visceral thrill from turning the page to find this portrait of Hulk grimacing, with a bullet firmly gripped in his teeth.

Marvel gave Hulk a new #1 issue in 1999, in the first renumbering of his series since Tales to Astonish became the Hulk’s own series at #102 back in 1968. John Romita, Jr. jumped on board with issue #24 of this series for an Abomination story, left, and came back with #34 to team up with Jones for Return of the Monster. The Jones/Romita collaboration gives us a brilliantly executed silent story where Banner’s meditation practices and an autistic child make a deep connection.

We also get something often attempted but rarely achieved: Banner Hulks out at the most dramatic moment for maximum effect.

Jones implicates Hulk in the murder of a young boy, which steers the plot towards crime or spy fiction interspersed with ‘day in the life’ stories where Hulk confronts normal people in troubled times. Lee Weeks joins in the artistic foray as the insidious plot thickens — and let’s not forget the stunning covers by Kaare Andrews!

Mike Deodato draws the next Abomination story. One can scarcely imagine a better choice of artist for what follows: the dark underground recesses where a captured Abomination seethes, the stark desert landscapes where Banner finds love that threatens to destroy him, the savagery of rage and passion consuming the minds of monsters in combat.

We are fans of the Abomination from way back in the 1970s — probably thanks to reading his sick origin from 1967’s Tales to Astonish #90 as reprinted in 1976’s Bring on the Bad Guys — but this story beats them all. He is so remorselesly evil, and the role of his wife in all this is a brilliant way to inject new life into the old monster!

With all the grim, teeth-gritting, monster muscle-flexing freakouts, Jones and Deodato take a quiet two-page sequence that more subtly captures the evil of the Abomination. What kind of sick, twisted bastard does what happened to the Hulk to himself, on purpose, just so he can be bigger and meaner to everyone else on the planet? Emil Blonsky, scumbag scientist — that’s what kind! Let’s join him for this brief journey of malevolence across the plains.

Deodato doesn’t finish the entire run with Jones, but he does stick around to draw hordes of nasty little beasties in the Split Decisions chapter and continues to provide stellar covers for most of the run.

Crusher Creel: the Absorbing Man. He can absorb the properties of anything he touches. Since it’s a divine power, he can still function rather than turn into — for example — a brainless carrot or a lump of steel. Instead, he gets their properties like strength, resistance to damage, and… lots of Vitamin A?

Jones and Leandro Fernandez take us on a ride with this big, mean creep, and it has its moments, but not quite as grand as what came before. Toward the end of Jones’ run, the series exhausts its awesomeness. Iron Man and Hulk stories usually turn out well, but the crime/spy feeling of the book gives way to more “superhero” style stories.

Perhaps Hulk got smashed by editorial decisions as Marvel rolled out their Marvel Knights imprint in 2004, or maybe Jones merely paved the way for Peter David to return to scripting Hulk. We don’t know! But we do get a resolution as to how the Hulk became a fugitive at the beginning, and Jones nicely wraps up all the plot threads. Great run!

Collectors Guide: Find it as issues #34-76 of The Incredible Hulk (1999 Series) or as the eight-volume Incredible Hulk trade paperbacks (2002-2004).

Queen & Country by Greg Rucka

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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.

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!

Insanity in Black and White: Borderline by Trillo & Risso

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Borderline, Carlos Trillo, collection, Dynamite Entertainment, Eduardo Risso, first issue, indie box, Indie Comics

Four paperback volumes collect Borderline by Eduardo Risso and Carlos Trillo, the artist/writer team of Chicanos. Many fans know Risso from 100 Bullets. This science fiction serial overflows with weirdness, mental instability, assassination, and spying, rendered in Risso’s incredible high-contrast black and white style.

Not for the little tykes, Borderline graphically depicts sex and violence in the course of twisted psychological and combat games the characters play. Trillo and Risso grind out a super-gritty, futuristic drama for publishers Dynamite Entertainment.

Reading Borderline in collected form like a novel can be frustrating, as each snippet is more of an individual work of art than a device for advancing the plot. Yes, a kind of over-arching plot unifies the stories, and the set does have a final resolution to its story. But the storytellers seem more concerned with immersing the reader in the madness of the drama than moving it forward. If anything, it reminds us of Spy Vs. Spy cartoons by Antonio Prohías — except deadly, horrifyingly serious.

You can usually pick up the four Borderline Trade Paperbacks for about $10-$15 a piece.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Graphic Novel Collection by First

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collection, color reprints, first issue, First Publishing, graphic novel, Indie Comics, Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT

IDW has lately been reprinting the earliest and original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics from the 1980s. Back in the 80s, prices of first prints of the original comics skyrocketed, and they still retain a fairly high collector’s value. In response to their limited availability to all but the wealthiest collectors, First Publishing produced four, full-color, oversized graphic novels from the original black-and-white stories.

The unique and gritty visual style of Eastman and Laird’s reptilian martial artists comes through even in color. First did a wonderfully professional job on this production. They wisely included the Leonardo one-shot, since its story leads right up to the events of issue #10. And, First thoughtfully preserved the dramatic three-page fold out from issue #10. We have scans of the original black and white pages in our archives for comparison.

All of the splash pages look great, and the binding and paper quality of these turtle tomes remains evident decades later. From the first issue to the battle with Triceratons in space to the hilarious Cerebus crossover, all of the Turtles earliest adventures rock hard in this graphic novel format.

Let us offer a few suggestions for those seeking some high-quality Turtles reprints. You can still find copies of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TPB by First in stock at reasonable prices ($10-$15 for a Fine copy,) though you may need to go to eBay to get a complete set all at once! IDW printed the stories in single issues in full color as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Color Classics, but it seems they left out the Leonardo one-shot to include issue #11 which more or less wraps up Eastman & Laird’s original plot line.

A second volume of color classics reprints some excellent adventures from the subsequent stories, including a reprint of the glorious Return to New York storyline this spring. Those who want these stories in black and white should get the excellent seven-volume Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Collected Book produced by Mirage in the 1990s. IDW more recently gave us The Ultimate Collection in hardcover which wisely includes the one-shots from the 80s as well as the original title.

Despite the availability of recent reprints, the old ones have held onto their collector’s value due to their limited runs and high production values. The First Publishing collection also gives you a much larger page size than, say, Mirage’s normal-zized Collected Book reprints.

IDW has much to gain by reprinting these collectible issues, but they also do readers a great service by keeping these classics in print. We sold both the First TPB set and the Collected Book set on eBay last year, but you can bet we would like another copy of Return to New York in our hands before all this is over!

An Inhuman Retrospective

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Amazing Adventures, collection, Doug Moench, first issue, George Perez, Gil Kane, Inhumans, Jack Kirby, Jae Lee, Marvel Comics, Paul Jenkins

We’ve always had a fondness for the Inhumans as characters and concepts despite the lackluster treatment they often receive in print. The Inhumans first appeared as supporting characters in the Fantastic Four when creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby still masterminded that title together. In 1970, Kirby launched Inhumans on their own adventures in Marvel’s second attempt at an Amazing Adventures title.

Marvel ran the 1961 Amazing Adventures for just half a year, its first six issues collecting some entertainingly vintage stories by Kirby and Steve Ditko, Dick Ayres, Paul Reinman, Don Heck, and Larry Leiber. You can preview many of these golden-age sci-fi and monster stories in our archives.

Beginning with a new #1 issue — something that seems a monthly event at Marvel these days — the 1970 Amazing Adventures put both the Inhumans and the Black Widow on the cover. The Black Widow stories have some wonderful John Buscema and Gene Colan artwork you can preview at Diversions of the Groovy Kind.

The Inhumans get the full Jack Kirby treatment for three issues. He writes and draws them in pretty straight-forward superhero adventures. We have the first story in our archives. Like Kirby’s Black Panther, they lack  depth but make fast-paced action stories for young readers. 1970 also gave Inhumans fans another Jack Kirby treatment of his genetically-modified heroes: the final issue of the first Silver Surfer series.

Even the Mandarin appears in these Amazing Adventures, in his utterly ridiculous “Asian Villain” outfit! The Inhumans made it about sixteen issues in this format, with Roy Thomas and Neal Adams stepping up to create new stories after Kirby left. But like Thomas & Adams’ X-men, the Inhumans were doomed as a publication.

Okay. Not exactly doomed. They got their own title after that! Leaving behind the anthology comic format, the Inhumans had earned their own shot as title characters. Doug Moench and George Perez launched them with Inhumans #1 in 1975. We have that first issue in our archives, too: Spawn of Alien Heat!

That series showed a lot of potential, but its struggle to find its feet is almost palpable. You can find it reprinted in a hardcover format as Marvel Masterworks: Inhumans #2 from 2010, the first volume of which covers all those Amazing Adventures stories plus their origin story from Thor.

Marvel billed the Inhumans as “uncanny” in this series, a word they would later apply to the X-men. The “Uncanny X-men” stuck, and few readers of bronze-age Marvel recall anyone but the X-men ever being uncanny! Gil Kane moved from cover art to interior art in this series. Although his style seems rough after Perez’s smooth work, Kane delivers some truly classic 70s work in stories like “A Trip to the Doom” in issue #7.

In what now feels like a desperate ploy to boost sales, the Inhumans fight Hulk in their final issue. The same thing happened to Kirby’s Eternals in the mid-70s. Bad sales figures? Hulk Smash! “Let Fall the Final Fury” turns out to be the last appearance of the Inhumans in their own title for about 25 years.

Despite some great guest appearances in John Byrne’s Fantastic Four in the 1980s, the Inhumans never really got a stellar treatment until Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee crafted a twelve-issue limited series for them in the 21st century. We have some of that artwork in our archives. The Inhumans live up to their potential in this compelling story, despite its reliance on the same old struggle with Maximus the Mad.

The four-issue Inhumans series by Carlos Pacheco earlier that summer had some stunning art by Ladronn. It attempted to free the Inhumans from the only two stories they ever seemed to get: the fight with Black Bolt’s mad brother, and their thing about needing to live on the moon. Pacheco stepped in and said, “Let’s shake this up a bit,” taking their conceptual struggles in the next logical plot direction.

But, in the wake of the Jenkins/Lee story, Marvel decided on a “next generation” approach to the Inhumans. The book became more teen-friendly and introduced a new, younger set of Inhumans characters, some of whom we met in Jenkin’s story. This 2003 Inhumans series ran for twelve issues. It has its merits and perhaps competed at the time with Marvel’s Runaways and Exiles for a teen audience wanting teen characters. Of those three, only Runaways kept our attention, proving to be a book about teens that older audiences could appreciate, too.

And that, dear Martians, is why some lucky buyer overseas ended up with a stack of Inhumans comics from us! We collected those first Kirby issues, the run of their 1970s title, and the Jenkins/Lee paperback, along with some other minor Inhumans goodies from over the years. It was fun to have them all close at hand for a few years, and we did hold on to our single-issue copies of the Jenkins stories.

The Day the Nazis Ruled Latveria, and Other Astonishing Tales!

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Astonishing Tales, Barry Smith, Black Panther, collection, Dr. Doom, Gene Colan, Gerry Conway, Herb Trimpe, Jack Kirby, Ka-zar, Kraven, Larry Lieber, Marvel Comics, Red Skull, Roy Thomas, Stan Lee, Wally Wood

Of all the glorious splash pages in Astonishing Tales #1-8, this one of the Red Skull turning Latveria into Nazi Nation cracks us up the most. It’s so wrong in so many ways. Red Skull, what were you thinking? Do you have ANY idea what Dr. Doom is going to do to you when he gets home? And why does the decor look like a high-school assembly?

But let’s start at the beginning. Long before we used the controversial picture above to sell the set on eBay, Jack Kirby kicked off Astonishing Tales #1 in 1970 with a Ka-Zar story.

Ka-zar versus Kraven sounds like a manly jungle free-for-all, but the tale lacks substance. Each issue, however, provided two stories, and the second one features Dr. Doom. Roy Thomas teams up with artist Wally Wood for several issues of unique stories in the Dr. Doom archives.

After Stan & Jack wrap up the Kraven story, Gerry Conway and Barry Smith tell what may be the greatest Ka-zar story of all time. X-men fans may recall Garokk the Sun God from the days of Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s run. Byrne & Claremont’s tale, one of our favorites, has its roots in the pages of Astonishing Tales. Barry Smith renders the Savage Land and its inhabitants like never before or since. Conway’s tale is so awesome we could almost forgive him for killing Gwen Stacy — but we won’t.

Stan’s brother Larry Lieber takes the reins from Roy Thomas to continue Doom’s adventures, which include revolution, androids, and bringing a mummy back to life. It’s a whacky mix of themes that Wally Wood renders like it’s still the golden age at EC Comics. And did we mention the Red Skull shows up while Doom is on vacation? Guess what — he turns Latveria into Nazi Nation! What an idiot.

Just when you are thinking that you might subscribe to a monthly title featuring Dr. Doom drawn by Wally Wood, the creative team begins changing. Gene Colan joins Gerry Conway for a pretty awesome Black Panther story, the goofy gimmick of drilling underground in Wakanda serving as an excuse for a fine character study of the opposing monarchs, Doom and T’Challa.

Colan’s pencils seem to become more flowing and abstract in his next few issues of Doom. Inker Tom Palmer certainly deserves some credit for that effect, and if you’d like to see how different inkers have interpreted Colan, Comic Tropes has a great short video that will show you.

Doom’s mystic battle is one of our favorite examples of Colan’s style, rendered in bold flowing areas of black ink.

Herb Trimpe steps in with what seems a Frazetta-inspired pose for Ka-zar.

But despite these creative high points in these little-known and certainly underrated stories, they might have been too odd for the market at that time. Doom got the axe, and the book became Ka-zar’s title for more than a year beginning with the ninth issue.

Later, it would become a sort of proving ground for potential characters. Tony Isabella and Dick Ayers would give us “It!” for a few issues, and then Deathlok by Rich Buckler and Doug Moench. The Guardians of the Galaxy also make an appearance, but Marvel axed the whole title after issue #36, six years after it began.

We recently sold our ‘reader’s copies’ set of the first eight issues, but you can usually find Astonishing Tales (Marvel, 1970) in stock. Many well-worn copies exist, so prices on VG+ Marvels from this era remain relatively cheap. Just try finding VF/NM copies, though, and you will have yourself a collecting challenge!

Adventures of Tintin Collector’s Gift Set

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Adventures of Tintin, Adventures of Tintin Collectors Gift Set, collection, Herge, Tintin, Tintin Boxed Set

This is every single Tintin book ever printed, with one exception owing to what the editors perceived as racially demeaning characterizations. If you ever read the original printings in jumbo format, do not expect jumbo size. This is a smaller printing, and the type face in the dialogue is pretty small. Some readers have complained it was too small in this edition. But, what it lacks in size, this set more than makes up for in completeness. This archival collection preserves Herge’s classic Tintin in a compact, handy format at an unbeatable price for readers.

 
I sold my set on eBay to a lucky Tintin fan last year, but you can easily find the Adventures of Tintin Collector’s Gift Set in stock at the time of this writing. Blistering Blue Barnacles!!! That’s a lot of Tintin!

I read these books in jumbo-sized English translations in my public school library as a young Martian. The characters have held up well, and Hergé’s knack for goofy slapstick still makes me smile. Subjected to a breakneck pace of twists and turns and reversals of fortune, Tintin and his colleagues somehow survive the hilarious chaos to do it all again a few pages later!

Optic Nerve by Adrian Tomine

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Adrian Tomine, collection, Drawn and Quarterly, Indie Comics, Optic Nerve

Artist Adrian Tomine, perhaps more widely known for his covers on New Yorker magazine, produced the first twelve issues of Optic Nerve over a period of many years. Early issues present many self-contained short stories, while the middle batch expands into single, full-issue stories. Tomine’s “real life” dramas of adolescents and young adults portray deeply flawed characters awkwardly trying to get their emotional needs fulfilled, with results that are at least poignant if not tragic.

Tomine takes a story to a full three issues in #9-11. That tale of doomed romance explores ethnicity and gender identity as two college-age Japanese lovers drift apart. Tomine wraps up the first dozen issues with a story about an artist making downright terrible art. Middle-aged characters take the lead as Optic Nerve pays tribute to newspaper comic strips. The story of the sensitive but incredibly inept artist and his wife takes place in a series of “strips” complete with a full-color “Sunday” strip of extended length.

Many of the stories end on a real downer, in a quiet moment that makes one feel not that the story is over, but that we are now simply abandoning these poor souls to their fates. Tomine makes us into voyeurs, privy to the most intimate and personal moments of his characters’ lives. But, the window only opens for so long before we find ourselves shut out again. These fascinating little character studies compelled us to read and re-read them many times.

Crisp, clean artwork defines this series. It draws the reader’s focus to the incredibly expressive but realistic gestures and faces. One could learn a lot about depicting the human hand and head from Optic Nerve. As a result, the eye lingers on each perfectly constructed panel, completely drawn into the conversations between characters.

We assembled our collection over time from a number of 2nd and later printings, as finding affordable first prints of these very limited editions proves challenging. Some lucky person in a far away country picked up our collection on eBay recently, but you can find many of them as single issues or paperback collection from Drawn & Quarterly.

Overall, this was one of our favorite indie comics to discover throughout the last few years. Even the quality of the paper and printing stands out. Clearly thought and attention to detail went into every stage of making these excellent little books. Let’s have a look at more of the covers and interior art from Optic Nerve!

Rick Veitch Swamp Thing Collection

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Abigail Cable, collection, DC Comics, Rick Veitch, Saga of the Swamp Thing, Swamp Thing

Rick Veitch took over the creative helm of Swamp Thing after having worked on it as artist for Alan Moore’s stories of Gotham City and Swamp Thing’s space travel, among others. Let’s have a look inside his memorable contributions.

But first, let us mention that a full Veitch collection is nicely rounded out by two Annuals (one with work by Steve Bissette), an odd issue of Secret Origins that covers the Floronic Man (revisited by Veitch in his S.T. run), and a couple issues that complete Veitch’s unfinished cliff hanger.

Recall that Veitch had wanted an issue where Swamp Thing met Jesus, but DC would not publish it. Frustrated, he left, but the resolution by the next creative team works well. With brilliant Totleben covers and the return of Tom Yeates’s art to these pages, Veitch’s long saga of the unborn child of the Swamp Thing comes to a satisfying conclusion.

Veitch maintains several strong motifs from the Moore saga. Swamp Thing’s travels through the surreal sentient plant dimensions of the Green take on new life with the Parliament of Trees. The Parliament reveals Swampy is one of a number of plant-like avatars of the Green. Meanwhile, Abigail Cable, now Mrs. Swamp Thing, starts taking more psychedelic trips by eating the tubers of the Swamp Thing. Whoa, dude.

We made some scans of one of our favorite Veitch issues where Swamp Thing thinks deep thoughts by growing a giant plant brain. Veitch seems to have fun revisiting the drug-fueled aesthetics of underground comix of the 1970s, and the reader gets many a lavish visual treat.

Some lucky Swamp Fan picked up this collection from us on eBay, but you can usually find Rick Veitch issues of Swamp Thing in stock. You want issues #65-87, and go all the way to #91 if you want the concluding story arc. It resolves Veitch’s two main plot lines: Swampy & Abby’s attempt to conceive a child, and a time-travel saga through the history of the DC Universe.

Marshal Law TPB Set

Tags

Blood Sweat and Fears, collection, Crime and Punishment, Hateful Dead, Indie Comics, Kingdom of the Blind, Marshal Law, Marshal Law Takes Manhattan, Marshal Law tpb, Secret Tribunal, Super Babylon

 
“I don’t like being a bastard, but they leave me no choice.” The quote above and its stark iconic portrait distills the grim atmosphere of Marshal Law, but only hints at the humor. After his initial appearance in an Epic Comics 6-issue series, the leather-clad Marshal went on to even more nefarious adventures. Ludicrously graphic violence, repulsive sex, and the slaughter of every shred of superhero decency you had left – all this and more awaits you in the pages of Marshal Law!

 
Marshal Law lays waste to super scumbags who parody the All Star Squadron and the Legion of Superheroes, tries to love his girlfriend even after she gets turned into a disgusting zombie, and discovers Batman is a child-mutilating psycho-freak. All in a day’s work for the biggest bastard of them all!

 
Let’s have a look inside a couple of paperbacks. We have Crime & Punishment: Marshal Law Takes Manhattan, and the Blood, Sweat, and Fears book. The latter reprints Kingdom of the Blind, The Hateful Dead, and Super Babylon. Also included here is the Secret Tribunal 2-issue series.

 

Incredible Hulk Pocket Book 1978

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1978, collection, Herb Trimpe, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Incredible Hulk Pocket Book, Jack Kirby, paperback, Pocket Book, Pocket Books, reprint, Stan Lee

This handy paperback has most recently proven useful in settling questions about Hulk history. Often these stories get forgotten in the vast expanses of Hulk lore, with his origin retold so many times that any two people probably have a different version in their heads. Here, Hulk remains more a man than a monster — a sullen and irritable man with a limited vocabulary, but far from the dim-witted “Hulk Smash” of the 1970s. In these stories, Banner hulks out at night, not simply from rage.

Stan Lee provides a brief but entertaining introduction as he did with all the Pocket Books we’ve seen from the 1970s. These books were great fun to own then, and we read these stories until we had them memorized. Ditko’s artwork — featured in one story here and in the similar Spider-man paperback — and Kirby’s artwork entertained us to no end.

These days, they seem a bit dated. Hulk is always fighting Commies, the art is far more simplistic than Kirby’s later style, and the plots seem kind of goofy. Stan and Jack probably hit the nail right on the head for their audience: boys and young men who enjoy action stories full of conflict and gadgets, at a particular time in history. Today they are curious beasts, an odd lot from a simpler time of comics where pulp horror and science fiction met in the mainstream to create superheroes.

Stan and Jack had no idea how big this thing would blow up, and readers fifty years later would seek out these stories for reference and entertainment. The charm in these first six Hulk tales lies in that very lack of self-consciousness, innocently dashed out in a few days or weeks. Just look at the utter disregard for backgrounds and ornamentation on these pages: direct, economical, focused entirely on figures and dialogue.

This little volume from Pocket Books in 1978 held up remarkably well. Even as a mass-market paperback, it enjoys very solid production: durable pages with clear art and color, a firm binding more than thirty-five years later, and a tight, glossy cover.

It even comes with a bonus two-page spread of “Hulk’s life in a single image” by Herb Trimpe. Trimpe had put his unmistakable stamp on the Hulk by the time this reprint book arrived in 1978, visually defining the Hulk for a generation of fans.

Marvel Tales Collection: John Romita’s Spider-man

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Amazing Spider-man, collection, John Romita, Marvel Comics, Marvel Tales, Peter Parker, Spider-man, Spidey, Stan Lee

John Romita’s run on Amazing Spider-man brought a whole new energy to a book once defined by Steve Ditko’s unique illustration style. Peter Parker remains beset by all sorts of problems, but being treated like a wimp is no longer one of them. He has both Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy competing for his attentions, and he doesn’t mind telling his rival Flash Thompson to go take a flying leap. But between his aunt’s failing health and a slew of supervillains that beat him down repeatedly, Spider-man exemplifies the underdog appeal of many Marvel from the 1960s. Though these books cost quite a bit of money, many Marvel Tales reprints from the early 1970s cost substantially less.

Spidey’s classic A-list foes — Dr. Octopus, the Vulture, the Lizard, Mysterio, Electro, the Rhino, Kraven, and the Chameleon — all take turns clashing with the web head. New villains like the enduring Prowler stake early claims to Spidey’s rogues gallery, and Captain Stacy’s investigation into Spidey’s identity meets an unexpectedly tragic end.

Along the way, Stan Lee adopts a groovy-man-groovy tone to some of his dialogue, and even places Spidey on campus for a student protest. While it might seem dated to some readers, it shows Lee’s constant aspiration to make his heroes more relevant and relatable to his audience. It blends well with his tendency to address readers directly and the melodramatic voices of the villains, giving these stories a unique voice.

While Peter enjoys unprecedented romantic success, Lee takes an issue to hand Spidey a lesson in humility from a strong woman: Medusa of the Inhumans. Despite the hand-to-hand combat (or hand-to-hair, in this case) Lee keeps a comedic tone about greed, advertising, and misunderstandings.

But things turn more grim near the end of Romita’s tenure, where a fatal confrontation with Dr. Octopus sets the tone for the subsequent tragedy-ridden days of Gerry Conway and Gil Kane’s run.

Still, the majority of the run dishes out personal tragedy, epic struggles, heroic triumphs, and comedic banter in equal parts for our hero. Artists John Buscema and Jim Mooney, among others, fill in a few issues but maintain Romita’s overall tone and style.

Let’s see some more of the interior artwork, below!

The Avengers by Stern, Buscema, & Palmer

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Avengers, collection, John Buscema, Marvel Comics, Roger Stern, Tom Palmer

Tom Palmer’s painted cover kicks off our favorite years of the Avengers. Roger Stern, John Buscema, and Tom Palmer would collaborate from #255 through #285 in a number of powerful story arcs and historical events. Stern would hand over the writing reigns to Ralph Macchio and subsequently Walter Simonson while Buscema and Palmer stayed on through #300.

The creative team begins with a brutal destruction of the primitive but beautiful Savage Land, a hidden ecosystem in the Antarctic regions where dinosaurs still roam tropical jungles. While the Avengers take down the bad guy, it comes at a heavy cost, and Stern makes no effort to put a silver lining on the tragedy.

The storytelling in the next arc of deep-space intrigue continues to fire on all cylinders for several issues. Then we get derailed by the hokiest ending possible. Why? All I can type without raising my blood pressure is “Secret Wars II.”

The stories bounce back quickly when Sub-mariner comes on stage. The X-Factor tie in of #263 makes a much better read than the Secret Wars II debacle. Some may revile this issue for cheapening the death of Jean Grey by bringing her back, and they’ve got a point.

After the last unsavory Secret Wars II tie-in, #266 comes as a surprise: one of the highlights of this run.

Maybe it’s that opening splash page of the Silver Surfer zooming through a seething gouge in the earth’s crust, magma and stone implacably raging all around him. Buscema draws the Surfer like no one before or since, and it’s a treat to see him in these pages. Stern gives us an intimate character study of the Surfer and the Molecule Man against a background of geologic ferocity.

The stories kick back into high gear with a totally off-beat Kang story. Stern takes us wandering with lost Avengers in a misty maze of limbo as a madman with a time machine tries to kill off every version of himself except the one living now. This was the story that originally got us into the Avengers, and we may show it some undue favoritism. It still kicks ass.

Just seeing this opening splash panel where Storm joins the Avengers brings a smile to my face. Oh, this is going to be good!

The Sub-mariner gets a very sympathetic treatment in these tales. Stern portrays him as arrogant and hot-headed, yes, but he’s also grown up a lot. Public outcry about crimes he has committed in the past saddens him. He knows he has acted rashly and been in the wrong. Captain America and Hercules know what the score is with Prince Namor, though, and they stand by him. The entire team has his back when he needs to set things right in Atlantis, and many readers recall this as a highlight of the series.

The brutality of the next big story arc is all the more disturbing in light of how unflinchingly the team handled the devastation of the Savage Land twenty issues earlier! The Avengers get beat down, and we mean beat down. They suffer.

Since the writing of this arc, many mainstream comics have topped it for sheer shocking brutality. But you would be hard pressed to find an Avengers fan that wasn’t blown away at this particular point in the series. It has a certain subtlety to it, like when we see a character’s face reacting to the horrors we never see.

In the aftermath of this battle, we get a few issues of character studies, shake up the membership roster, and have a quiet moment with Jarvis the Butler in the hospital after his terrible beating. Stern ends this run by pitting the Avengers against the Gods of Olympus in another action-packed confrontation.

John Byrne Fantastic Four Collection

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collection, Fantastic Four, John Byrne, Marvel Comics, omnibus

Although he had drawn a few issues of Marvel’s Fantastic Four for other writers, John Byrne made his mark on the title by writing and drawing more than sixty issues in the 1980s. In addition to the regular series, he also worked on several Annuals, including an Avengers Annual that forms a two-part story about the Skrulls.

Byrne also contributed a story to What If, exploring a version of the FF that never got superpowers. With its tribute cover to FF #1 and conceptual similarity to Challengers of the Unknown, What If #36 demonstrates Byrne’s Kirby influence almost as much as his OMAC story.

True completists should note that Byrne stuck around for a few issues longer than what we now consider his run on the title. He earned credits for plot while the next creative team got started – a team including his collaborator on several other Marvel projects, writer Roger Stern. Although this smoothed the transition for monthly readers at the time, it definitely isn’t Byrne’s title at that point.

But a comic book like this takes a team. The lettering, coloring, and inking on this run remain consistently excellent. Drawn to this book by Byrne’s contributions, I soon realized it worked so well because of other subtle superiorities: the flow of word balloons made more sense on the page, the colors complemented and amplified the artwork instead of obscuring it, and the rendering of Byrne’s pencils seemed better than some other places. As a young reader, it made me start paying more attention to who was doing what in comics.

That’s not to say such a landmark collaborative team had never come together before. Just that as a reader, I started to notice it then. And give me a break – I was only about 12 or 13! About the time the Hate Monger comes along and makes Sue chop off her hair, I was old enough to have a small allowance and a bicycle. That meant I could get to the local Walgreens, which had a great selection of Marvel and DC for a drug store, and buy a few titles every month.

In those days, comic specialty shops and mail order offered opportunities to collect back issues. But I wouldn’t be able to go that route until a few years after Byrne wrapped up his run and I had my first summer job as a golf caddy. Even then, armed with dozens of dollars that felt like hundreds at the time and storming the local comic shop weekly, I never did get to collect the entire run.

Only years later, thanks to a great deal on eBay, did I get a chance to sit down for a weekend or two and read the entire thing start to finish. As far as superhero comics go, it is awesome. It earns its legendary status!

Fans agree, and just a couple years ago Marvel published the run in omnibus format, as two big books. I will be keeping my eyes peeled for a deal on those. Why? After patching up a few holes in the collection for completeness and enjoying owning this run, I sold it on eBay. I got a little less cash out of it than I put it in, but that’s a small price to pay for knowing the pleasure of this truly fantastic series. When things turn around here, I will be looking for a used copy of that Omnibus. You can bet your cosmic rays on that!

If you want to see some great scenes from this run, just wander into my archives for a while and start scrolling!

Collector’s Guide:
The Fantastic Four by John Byrne Omnibus comes in two volumes:
Fantastic Four by John Byrne Omnibus Volume One
Fantastic Four by John Byrne Omnibus Volume Two

The Omnibuses include some other extras, such as The Last Galactus Story from Epic Illustrated #26-34.

If you want to collect the single issues: Fantastic Four #232-293. You might want to include Fantastic Four Annual #17-19, Avengers Annual #14, and What If #36.