Reviews - Review - FA Online

Barney Google: Gambling, Horse Races, and High-Toned Women!

Barney Google was the great picaresque comic strip of the 1920s and 30s. Billy DeBeck’s artwork, more notable for its energy more than for its draftsmanship, was unique on the comics page, a scribbly, gestural line supported by shrewd shading and opulent backgrounds that were more suggested than drawn.

Jonah Hex 61

Do not start reading Jonah Hex with this issue. It’s one of the best issues of the series.

Showcase Presents Sgt Rock 3

Getting a collection that is nearly 90% Kubert is a major treat, especially with one of comics’ stronger writers and a good character.

X-Women 1

Even the people who thought that dedicating a year to ‘The Ladies’ wasn’t sexist, with the implicit subtext that said ‘Ladies’ should bugger off to the kitchen or the bedroom every other year…Even they were smart enough to steer clear of this’n!

The Unwritten 17

The Unwritten is a Vertigo title that looks at how the world of fiction interacts with the real world. As the narrative unfolds, we are presented with the possibility that characters from stories can become real and manifest in the physical world, though of course that physical world is itself only a comic strip representation.

Superior 1

I suppose after the fresh take on the basics of Batman that Nemesis offered us, we were always likely to get an alternative Superman too.

Alec: The Years Have Pants

Alec: The Years Have Pants collects virtually all of Eddie Campbell’s autobiographical Alec MacGarry strips in a single volume (the most recent, ‘The Fate of the Artist’ is the only one excluded).

Honey West 1

A sparky, glossy thriller that’s engaging and eye-catching.

Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 16

An artistic generation was long past by 15 years into 2000AD’s history, but even when the art wasn’t great Dredd was generally good entertainment: the main trouble is here that most of it is by Garth Ennis, who was pretty dull at this stage of his career.

Captain America: Patriot 1 & 2

At last, a ‘retcon’ that gets it right, not in the tired, “Everything you knew is a lie!” sense, nor the painfully Roy-Thomas “Why did Captain Turnip’s mask switch from full-face to half-face in 1943?” sense (Some people just own more than one hat, Roy…), but in a way that puts heart, rather than obsessive history or hollow spectacle, at the core of the narrative.