Reviews - Review - FA Online

My New York Diary

It’s easy to not notice just how superb an artist Doucet is. The autobiographical confessional form, pretty common these days, has appealed to a lot of limited artists – often to good effect, nonetheless – as well as some all-time comics greats, most obviously Robert Crumb. Doucet’s rather cramped drawings with figures with huge heads can look simple or even awkward, until you pay some attention.

Captain America 615.1

This is certainly the best of the .1 issues I’ve seen so far, which actually isn’t saying much. It tells a story, complete in one issue, which along the way tells us where Steve Rogers is right now, and sets up a key emotional theme for the immediate future.

Xombi 1 vs. Xombi 1

Xombi, in its original incarnation (1994-96, 22 issues), was a title in the Milestone line, that grand mid-nineties experiment presided over by the recently deceased Dwayne McDuffie in tweaking mainstream comic archetypes via a more pronounced multicultural presence sans qualifiers. The series’ spotlight was placed upon David Kim, a research scientist endowed with nigh-immortality, an optimum body (always at its peak performance and never subject to aging), and the quirk of minor matter transmutation, all courtesy of that break-glass-here element of superhero comics, nanotechnology.

Showcase Presents The Witching Hour 1

Who writes the blurbs for these things? This features art “from a host of comics legends including Alex Toth, Bernie Wrightson, Jack Sparling, Pat Boyette and George Tuska,” a selection that slips steeply away from the legendary. In case you think that really is the best list they could pull, here are a few more artists featured inside: Kirby, Adams, Infantino, Gil Kane, Cardy, Morrow, Williamson, Sekowsky, Wood, Grandenetti, Aparo. I think I’d have mentioned one or two of those ahead of, for instance, George Tuska.

FF 1

I buy a lot of things just to review, including lots of first issues. It’s a while since I’ve enjoyed any of them as much as this.

Hellraiser 1

You would think publishers would learn by now. Every so often they get the bright idea of commissioning a well-known author to write a comic, under the misapprehension that the ability to write a novel automatically results in the ability to write a good comic. You can count the numerous casualties who have attempted this in the past, and you’ll find their efforts lying in many a book store bargain bin. Will Clive Barker’s Hellraiser change that trend?

Thor 620.1

I’ve seen various approaches to the .1 jumping-on-point issues so far: just exposition to bring readers up to date; leaving the main character out of it completely; and a comedy single-issue story. This is closest to that final approach, except there is minimal attempt at comedy here, as far as I can tell.

Captain America & Crossbones 1

I am thoroughly sick of these pointless one-shot comics from Marvel – though despite saying ‘ONE-SHOT’ on the cover, there is a ‘next issue’ ad at the end, that being for Cap & Batrock, who apparently has a ‘k’ now. I know there’s a Cap movie this summer, so I figured that that must feature Crossbones, but not according to the IMDB cast list, so I’m at a loss to know why this comic exists.

Sigil 1

Everything about this feels far too glib. We have a schoolgirl who might as well be Buffy mark II, struggling at school, traumatised by her mother having recently died. She has strange dreams, and when attacked by some bullies at school, demonstrates superpowers then finds herself time-travelling to some pirate ship, under attack by some superpowered evil pirates.

Stigmata

When Lorenzo Matotti’s Fires appeared 25 years ago, it was one those unexpected works that redefined what comics are capable of. It brought a painter’s sensibility to comics, and a sense of ambiguity that was rare in the medium. If I had to compile some sort of imaginary list of comics to take with me to a desert island, I’d still number it among my top ten. Since then, translations of his comics have been rare and, perhaps inevitably, none have recaptured Fires’ impact and unreal quality. Stigmata comes close to equalling that work though, and in some ways perhaps surpasses it.