By Zack Quaintance — Through two issues, Black Stars Above has quickly established itself as a comic unlike any other. Admittedly, this sounds cliche — and, to be sure, a case can be made that the vast majority of creator-owned comics are wholly unique — but Black Stars Above is singular to the extent that I struggle to find even a vague point of comparison with any comic that has come before.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — Mystery is an element that comics of all genres tend to lean on to grab and hold reader interest. It makes sense. This is an easy medium to do that. The mix of words and pictures allows storytellers to orient the reader with visuals, while at the same time raising engaging questions with the words and actions of the script.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — As those who follow me on Twitter have surely realized at this point, for more than a year now I’ve been slowly reading every single Hellboy and Hellboy-adjacent comic at a pace of one chapter (or issue, rather) per day in the order of original publication (catalog them all via #RaisingHellboy). Through this, I’ve also read all the Lobster Johnson volumes. Lobster Johnson is a pulp hero that has larger-than-life adventures in early part of the 20th Century.
Read MoreBy J. Paul Schiek — Adulting is hard. Bills, mortgages, insurance, mortgage insurance bills? But adulting also has a way of making one forget how hard it is to be a teenager. It’s a whole other framework of concerns, much of it centered around a rapidly expanding worldview, and the dissolution of that chrysalis of childhood illusions that diminishes with equal quickness. Then adulthood sweeps in like a giant chalkboard eraser and leaves just a faint pressure outline of all that poetry journal worthy heartache and pain and throws up a new equation, just as unsolvable as the last.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — It is one of my deeply-held beliefs that the vast majority of serious music geeks have an origin story with David Bowie. That is, we remember how we first got into Bowie’s music — really got into it, going from casually aware to full-on obsessed, or at least technically appreciative on some meaningful level — and that many of us can trace our subsequent thoughts and interactions with music to that day. I know I certainly can.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — When I wrote about the first issue of Heist, or How to Steal a Planet, I was most impressed with the balance the book struck between pacing and exposition, possessing as it did ample world-building intermingled with big ideas. That’s all still in this second issue, sort of underlying a sophomore chapter that makes it clearer what this book aims to do — which from my perspective seems to be mash-up classic heist stories with the type of high-concept, deeply philosophical science fiction that Vault Comics does better than any other publisher in the industry.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — The Butcher of Paris is one of those comics that is so in line with my personal tastes, that I can’t help but wonder if I conjured it. Okay, that’s maybe a little solipsistic (maybe!?!), but I did like quite a bit about this book before I’d even read the first page. What hooked me first was the concept. This is a rare monthly comic based on a true story (more of those, please!), and not just any true story, but one from a key moment in world history.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — 20XX #1 is yet another comic book that has a new take on the end of the world. And you know what? I like it, which is a sign of high quality at this point because dystopia is essentially the genre du jour and has been for many months now (although horror of any and all kinds might have a thing to say about me anointing it that).
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — Well, I just said this in the headline but hey — more than anything, Resonant #5 serves as a major showcase for the mightily-talented artist Alejandro Aragon, who is colored here expertly by Jason Wordie. In fact, the first six pages of this fifth issue are almost entirely silent, with the loan sound effect being a dog’s howl. And, make no mistake, these pages are a kinetic bit of expert visual storytelling.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — Ogres #1 hit this week, launching the second volume of writer Bob Salley and artist Shawn Daley’s ongoing fantasy comic with Source Point Press. The first volume spanned three issues, telling a largely complete and well-done story that was rich with themes relating to having no true winners in war, violence only begetting more violence, and the power of us vs. them pathologies. The second volume seems to pick up right where the first left off, at least thematically anyway.
Read MoreBy Alex Batts — Machine Gun Wizards #4 (formerly Tommy Gun Wizards until a title after issue #3) is the bombastic conclusion to a new genre-melding comic series from the mind of writer/artist Christian Ward. This series marks Ward’s first foray into the writing side of comics, and my oh my what a wonderful debut it’s been.
Read More
Jeff Lemire has long been a master of tone and mood in comics, often creating a unique sort of mysterious desperation within his work. It’s tough to articulate how he does this, but I think it has do with the way his dialogue and action are at times kept sparse, leaving more than enough material to intrigue while also trusting readers to make necessary connections. Lemire has recently used this to great effect in a pair of excellent creator-owned titles, Royal City — an introspective series heavy with family, grunge, and what ifs — and Black Hammer — a curious meditation on superheroes and aging.
In those books, as well as in much of Lemire’s earlier work, there are hints of horror on the fringes, more of a garnish than an actual component to the meal (terrible analogy, someday I’ll do better, I swear). But in the first issue of Lemire’s Gideon Falls (due March 7, available for pre-order now at your local comic shop), he has planted seeds for a story poised to have dread at its very core, and the result is one of his best first issues yet.
This is a spoiler free review, so I won’t go into the plot much, not past what Lemire has revealed elsewhere or what's in the book’s solicitation, but Gideon Falls is psychological storytelling grown from some of the first characters Lemire ever invented. These characters, he's told interviewers, were created years ago before he started getting his work published. They're intriguing figures to be sure, and I'm excited for Lemire to fill in the details of their lives. The story here (and I suspect moving forward) is split between two main protagonists, as well as between a rural and an urban setting. This is all available in the solicits, though, and I can't tell you much more without risking spoiler territory.
What I can tell you about, however, is this book’s aesthetic. Gideon Falls is another series in which Lemire teams with frequent collaborator Andrea Sorrentino, the artist from his runs on Green Arrow and Old Man Logan. This is the duo's first time working on a creator-owned series at Image, and, as usual, Sorrentino’s artwork here is intricate and precise, gorgeous throughout, but especially impressive whenever it takes a step back to give us some truly fascinating wide layouts. The art here is also straight up terrifying when it needs to be.
For the most part, I’ve never been a big horror fan, at least not as it pertains to certain corners of the genre, like the teen hack and slash and gore stuff, the Freddys and the Jasons and the Michael Myers, etc. The aesthetic of this book, however, isn't even in the same neighborhood as all that. There is attention paid to evil and religion, but it doesn’t seem to be overly concerned with God or the devil. I will say that I was raised Catholic, which will likely lead to greater understanding of at least one of the characters as the plot moves forward.
Gideon Falls comes off in its first issue as David Lynchian, boasting shades of the sort of dark mythology that underlaid Twin Peaks while some of Sorrentino’s dystopian urbanscapes evoke sets from Lynch’s first film, Eraserhead. It’s foolhardy to predict what is to come in an ongoing Lemire book (anybody have a read yet on where he’s going with Descender?), but my early impression is that Gideon Falls is concerned with a certain type of existential horror, and that it aims to disturb readers on a deep and personal level rather than to settle for quick or gory scares.
I should also note that colorist Dave Stewart’s contribution is invaluable here, that the palette in each scene really layers and intensifies the tones and moods established by Lemire’s script and Sorrentino’s artwork.
Overall: this is a first issue deserving of a large and devoted audience, and given the star power of its creators, it will likely find it. I think the intrigue and the high quality of the storytelling will ultimately make this a book we'll be following for the long haul. 9.6/10
(W) Jeff Lemire (A/CA) Andrea Sorrentino
A brand-new ongoing series from the acclaimed bestselling creative team of Old Man Logan and Green Arrow! The lives of a reclusive young man obsessed with a conspiracy in the city's trash, and a washed-up Catholic priest arriving in a small town full of dark secrets, become intertwined around the mysterious legend of The Black Barn, an otherworldly building that is alleged to have appeared in both the city and the small town, throughout history, bringing death and madness in its wake.
Rural mystery and urban horror collide in this character-driven meditation on obsession, mental illness, and faith.
In Shops: Mar 07, 2018
SRP: $3.99
SPECIAL NOTE: Gideon Falls was one of our most anticipated comics of 2018. Be sure to check out the rest! Also, Jeff Lemire had the unique distinction of landing a book in both our top 5 AND our Top 6 - 15 Comics of 2017!
Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.