Death, Cold as Steel #2 & 3

Posted: Tuesday, October 9
By: Darren Schroeder
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Creators: Bram Meehan [Writer], Jamie Chase [Artist].
Publishers: Panel Press.
Address: 137 Solana Drive Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
Price: US $2.99 each.

Norris is investigating the death of the indestructible man. There aren’t many leads, but even so the G-Men are worried that he might stumble onto the truth and have warned him off. It’s a shame for them and a pleasure for the reader that Norris isn’t one to take uninvited advice.

This book is hardboiled through and through. Norris takes the bruises but keeps looking, all the dames look slightly devious, and two-bit thugs lurk in every dark alleyway.

The core plot here owes much to Alan Moore’s Watchman series so those of you looking for truly original storytelling will be disappointed. But the style in which this series tells its tale makes it a satisfying read. Jamie’s art work is a real pleasure to look at. It drives the story along with a series of striking images that invite careful examination. The simple line work achieves a photographic quality, enhanced by some distortion that occurs where individual panels seem to have been resized to fit the page layout. I know that sounds like it might look rubbish, but here it gave the images an emphasis that I enjoyed.

Monica Meehan is credited here with letters and production, and she deserves attention for her work because these comics look great. This and her art work in the sister title Raised by Squirrels are some of the best produced comic books I’ve seen for a while. Panel Press have a real creative asset here.

While this series isn’t an epic blockbuster of a comic, it’s memorable both in narrative and visuals. It’s certainly worth tracking down.

In a word: Impact.

Raised by Squirrels: Los Alamos

Posted: Tuesday, October 9
By: Darren Schroeder
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Creators: Bram Meehan [Writer], Monica Meehan [Artist] for main story, with some guest artists on shorter pieces.
Publishers: Panel Press.
Address: 825 Calle Mejia, 1132, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
Price: US $5.95.

Tyler and Rose continue their hunt for clues but there are other forces in the field of play and the time for defensive strategies may be just about to end.

For a comic that is so nicely presented I was disappointed by the lack of narrative drive in this issue. Our two main characters look around a deserted scientific base, experience nasty flashbacks to the origins of Wolverine, and have a chat with an old guy... plus there’s a fight scene.

The publishers try to make up for this lack of fibre by the inclusion of several short origin pieces in the back of the comic with a host of secondary characters delivering exposition on how they ended up where they are today. While interesting in relation to the saga the book is part of, these pieces are not entertaining in their own right. Some of the art work is quite nice; Bram and Jeff Berhams piece has some great textures used in the illustrations, and Jeff Kilburn’s style has a crispness that is appealing.

Monica’s work on the main story is hugely engaging with dramatic layouts and bold use of gloomy compositions. She’s let down by plotting that makes this feel like a bridging issue as we wait for the plot to develop, but it's still a series I recommend.

In a word: Thin.

Freak Show Book 2

Posted: Tuesday, October 9
By: Darren Schroeder
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Creators: Robert Curley [Writer], Declan Shalvau [Artist], and Sean Phillips [Cover art]
Publishers: Self Published.
Address: 2 Exchequer St, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Price: US $9.95.

1624 New Amsterdam. A woman dies demanding vengeance on the employers of her husband who killed him because he spoke out about their cruel treatment of slaves.

1958 Her spirit is disturbed and she ventures forth to sate her vengeance. The Freak Show team of psychic investigators is hired to put a stop to a string of bizarre deaths.

Coming to this series without having read the earlier issues, I found myself all at sea with this issue. The prologue set in 1624 is a moving introduction with emotional impact as it depicts the cruelty and violence of slavery. Once we jumped to the 1950s I felt the book lost its drive. The investigation team are not that interesting in and of themselves. There was a lot of interplay that hinted of a back story, but it was never recapped to any degree that the casual reader such as myself could work out why a group who bicker all the time would work together as a team.

The investigation itself didn’t lead to much excitement. Declan does his best with some interesting art work full of expressive faces and bold black and white contrasts, but on the whole the plot involves too many people who have agendas that are never made clear. Behind the scenes is some shadowy organisation out to do harm to our
investigators. But we don’t get any real information about them over the course of the 60 pages. The only real interest developed in the characters was in the way Declan illustrated their actions with the Anna May Wong inspired Piccadilly characters possessing an impressive series of transformations, stylishly dispensing vengeance.

Another problem I found was that the dialogue wasn’t believable for the period it was set in. 1950s children going “f**king this” and “f**king that”. Maybe that’s bit picky, but on the whole the book just didn’t create a sense of place in either its visual style or dialogue. A rather unsatisfactory read all round.

In a word: Rambling

The Legend of Joe Moon

Posted: Tuesday, October 9
By: Steve Saville
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Creators: Gonzalo Ventura [Writer], Manuel and Leonardo Silva [Artists]
Publishers: Pitbros Productions.
Address: 9402 Dallum Drive, Austin, Texas 78753, USA.
Price: US $2.

This comic is set in the wild west and I mean the wild west. This first edition is a raw and violent introduction to a bounty hunter main character who is only marginally higher on the evolutionary ladder than the low lives he hunts down.

I need to point out that this 16 page black and white comic was reviewed electronically and is available for purchase on line from the link listed above on a print per order basis.

I always struggle to review a comic in this format because I lose the ability to physically flick from page to page, for me some of the energy is lost when I can’t actually hold the comic, I am somehow distanced. This is a shame because if this comic has one thing it certainly has energy. Not all of this is a pleasant type of energy [in fact almost none of it is] but despite the electronic format there is no avoiding the fact that this comic explodes such is the intensity of the action.

Essentially Joe Moon [the name is an important hint to the ‘other’ side of his personality] is a hard drinking, violent and cold bounty hunter, haunted by nightmares of a traumatic childhood and dealing with his own devils [ and he has a few] through heavy drinking and by hunting down and killing the wilder deviants that inhabit his part of the wild west.

In 16 pages we get murder, violence and sex in liberal doses. Be warned this is not for the squeamish, the rape scene is an extended one and is one of the two main ‘actions’ presented here.

Everything about this comic is wild and untamed from the Clint Eastwood/ Fistful of Dollars appearance of Joe Moon through to the language of the two scum bags he is on the trail of.

Put simply he is out to save a damsel in distress but somehow as this first chapter closes we are far from convinced that she has actually been saved because Joe’s dark side, heavy drinking and bleak outlook indicates that it is more of a frying pan into the fire scenario for the already brutalised lady in question.

The presentation of the 16 pages has a good deal to commend it. The considered layout adds to the explosive energy and creates a feeling of the action leaping off of the page [or screen] The range of angle, frame size and page layout is a real highpoint. The fact that the pages are uncluttered with a minimal number of individual frames enhances the action and really throws it in your face, Subtle it ain’t.

The characters presented are damaged or being damaged, the intention is to create a raw world and build on that in future editions. It must be said that this creation of a savage base has been effectively and irrevocably laid. I feel certain that things are going to get a whole lot worse for all involved before they improve.

In a word Eastwoodesque

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